Welcome to Raising Hustle, the unfiltered podcast for the moms who are building empires with babies on their hips and grits in their hearts. I'm your host, Mariel Fry, bookkeeper by trade, hustler by nature, and mama by choice. Around here we're raising kids, raising hell, and raising the bar. If you're tired of choosing between nap time and next level dreams, this is your space. Let's redefine what it means to have it all on our own damn terms. Hey hustlers and mamas, welcome back to Raising Hustle. Today I am joined by Gervaise Clomos, also known as G, trauma-informed coach, mother of three, and creator of It's All Me Mindset. G began her healing journey at just the age of 18, walking herself into therapy and starting the deep work of unraveling good girl conditioning and learning radical responsibility. Motherhood became a powerful turning point for her, a personal rebirth that led her to burn down a corporate career and step fully into the work she now does with women. Since 2014, she has been guiding modern women back home to themselves through intuitive, somatic, and deeply transformative coaching. Her philosophy is simple but profound. The way we experience our lives starts within us. Through self-awareness, compassion, and courageous choices, she helps women untangle who they've been conditioned to be from who they truly are. This conversation is about identity, motherhood as a portal for growth, and what it means to take ownership of your life, one empowered choice at a time. Welcome, G. Oh, thank you so much for that intro. You're welcome. I'm excited to have you. I think so much of your messaging and what you just talk about is what we want to talk about here on Raising Hustle with being a mom, with being an entrepreneur. And so tell me a little bit about your journey in regards to working in corporate. What was the aha for starting a business? I'd love to hear a little bit more kind of the back end of this. Because I think for a lot of women, they want to start a business or maybe they're itching or they're interested, but they just feel nervous and they're just not even sure what to where to begin or what to do. So the origin stories, if you will, origin story? Yes. Yes, would love the origin story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I was a communications major. So I had been exploring different careers I could do within like marketing, publication, writing, editing, uh, journalism, things like that. And so I was working at a publishing company for a few years, and I had kind of landed what felt like a really good option for me at the time, based on where I was right out of college, to start a family. Like my husband and I like mapped it all out. We were like, okay, here is the plan. So I got pregnant and had my first child in 2013. And from the moment I got pregnant, nothing was how I had anticipated. I just think it was such an initiation for me out of what I thought I was supposed to be, do, feel, what I thought things were supposed to look like, how the plan was supposed to go into what was what it was gonna be like to be me, which I was gonna have to make peace with and accept and kind of come to terms with. And one of the big parts of that was that then when my daughter was born, I just really was not happy at that job. I was not happy working at all, frankly. And I mean, I'm like most women I know my age, uh, we grew up in the like super feminist girl boss, like you're gonna be a working mom, you're gonna do it all, you're gonna juggle, you're gonna like have the career and have the motherhood and sacrifice nothing to get what you need. And I still am a huge advocate for that. I just have to, it would be like remiss of me not to say that this created such a dissonance in my experience of motherhood at the beginning because I felt deep shame that it felt so difficult for me to be a working mom. I felt deep like judgment of myself that like the juggle felt like it was truly soul crushing to me. And I had to really decide is this because I'm not cut out to work, period? Is this because like I'm just like not a hustler or whatever it is, or is this just because this job, like the way that I have planned it all out, was not quite as perfect as I had hoped. And so without knowing the answer to that question, I I did interview at a few jobs that seemed really promising while when my daughter was like, I don't know, four months old, five months old, as I was kind of like navigating this postpartum period of like she was at daycare, I was working, I was miserable, I was trying to figure out the next steps while still at that job. But then through this process, I also became deeply, deeply depressed, which I also always remind women that a lot of depression is environmental, a lot of depression is situational, a lot of depression is like not just like, oh, I have a chemical imbalance. It's like, no, I have like a life imbalance. Like I actually look around my life and there's a great incoherence between who I am and who I want to be and what's right for me. And there's no, there's some things that you really just can't fix unless you just overhaul your life or streamline things or make some big changes. And that's really where I was. And so finally I reached this point where I my husband and I agreed that I would quit my job without having the answers of what was next, without having the answers of like how we were gonna do it, but just to protect my mental health and give me the space and the time to figure out what was next while I just like spent some time with my baby at the time. And I remember, I remember telling my husband, like, it's not that I can't work. It's just that like I can't do this. Like this job and this lifestyle and these hours and just the whole thing was just not it for me. And I kept having this like deep, deep feeling of like not this is how I describe it. And and choosing instead to be like, okay, I will hustle, I will do whatever I need to do. Like I was like, I will waitress at nighttime, like I'll do anything to make money, but not this was a huge uh, I don't know, like it was like my declaration to myself, to the universe. I truly like overturned my life. And I and I also want to say I don't recommend this to everyone. Like, I don't, I don't think it's like I am so strong and brave and you have to do this. But it truly was like I had tried a lot of other avenues and just nothing was quite working because I really just needed to get out of that situation.
SPEAKER_00And so I did. I love all of this, first of all. I just want to stop you for a second because you are bringing in so many nuggets of wisdom just within less than the first 10 minutes of this episode. It's true. I I really think, and I'd love to hear some of your thoughts around this, but it feels like for women, we have to make this choice when it comes to corporate America. And I grew up similar to you with this like boss babe, feminist, independent. I can have it all, I can do it all. But then when it really comes down to it, can you? Is it possible? What are you sacrificing? What are you giving up? But what are you gaining? And it's really hard for women to navigate these waters. And so do you feel being entrepreneur now and doing what you do allows you to be the best version of yourself? Because I find with corporate, you're just not the best version of yourself. I feel for so many women, unfortunately. And maybe some women thrive. I don't want to exclude all women in this, but especially for entrepreneurs like you and I, do you find that it's just not, it's not promised this corporate life? It's not what we deemed or what we thought it would be to have it all. Because I feel this is challenging for so many women. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think I think I I would I would say I meet a lot of women who are deeply dissatisfied with corporate life. I also don't believe in blanket statements. And so I just I always want to caveat by saying, I think there are plenty of women who find great comfort in the structure and the pay of corporate life and the like the defined role of it. And that can feel really grounding within motherhood, whereas like motherhood can be like, oh my God, this is a wild west. I have no idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. And at the same time, I will say for the types of women, especially the ones that end up in my office that are kind of more like having my experience, I just think it feels it can feel a little like it requires them to give too much for too long. And at some point, something's got to give, you know? And I just think like, even like motherhood, it's like the the early years of motherhood are so grueling. I think that's that's where you are right now. I found them to be so physically exhausting. And I just like imagine like if it was like that forever. Like we couldn't like breastfeed for like 20 years straight. Like that would be insane. Like you would die. And so I think there are things that we can do for seasons. We can sprint, our body can push for a really long time. And I think everybody's tolerance for that is different. My tolerance is low. And there's a lot of good reasons for that. And every I don't want to like judge or shame anybody's makeup. But I think historically, or especially in this moment in time, we've really glorified the bodies that can just push forever. The longer you can push, the stronger you are, the better woman you are, the better hustler you are. And I am arguing something to the contrary, which is like those of us who feel like our bodies and our spirits are so weary and so heavy, that's just like, let me just pause here and consider. I wonder if there could be a third way. I wonder if there could be an and way. Like in my work, there's a lot of getting people out of binary thinking, either or this or that, into like, oh, I wonder what the and option is. How do we hold discernment? How do we hold two things at once? How do we feel both like total overwhelm and deep presence and love at the same time? And I think to me, that's the third way that I'm interested in that allows my body to feel supported and not go into overdrive and burnout and pushing for like 30 years. And also that's where you get creative possibilities. And I think for a lot of women, they've just been pushing, pushing, pushing for decades because they just think it's the only option. They just think it's there's there's two ways. And I would just say to those women, like, when you start to feel you're at your max capacity, at your limits, like it's okay. That's normal. It doesn't mean you're not strong, you're not a feminist boss ass. It just means like you have different voices in your ears. And so I just want to be a voice in those women's ears to be like, it's not that you did anything wrong. It's just that we haven't been reminded that there's a third way.
SPEAKER_00I love that. But I I love everything you're saying with this. I really believe there is a gray. And I think with raising hustle, what I'd like to talk about, it's not picking or choosing. It's not like leaving a career or just being stay at home. Like there is this third option. And I love that you are really pushing the boundaries with this with your clients because women don't think outside the box. I think for me, my season of life, I have my son who at the time of recording is almost 17 months and pregnant with my second, where I'm seven months. And this physically is so hard. And everyone says it gets better when they get older. I think, oh my gosh, when he wipes his butt, it'll be better. When he showers, it'll be better. Like I think of all the milestones to look forward to. At the same time, I love them little, but at the same time, definitely want them to be tired at some point. Yeah, you're tired. And so I think when it comes to these women that you're working with, I know we're talking a lot about like jobs and careers. When it comes to motherhood and anything else related to themselves, I think women we pour out of an empty glass constantly. What are some other issues or other trends or things that you're seeing with these women that are, I don't want to say problems, but they're issues that they need to be resolved and they need to be helped in some shape, way, or form. Maybe it's not listening to intuition or they're just not thinking about it. Cause one of the things I love that you mentioned too, especially a postpartum, yes, some of it can be hormonal, but I actually do believe it's lifestyle, circumstantial, and just environment as well. And it is thinking, there's so many w things to think about in all of this. And so I'd love to hear your thoughts. And just like I said, with the women you're working with, what are other trends or things that they're thinking of? So when women are listening to this, they don't feel so alone in the thought process of I'm the only one that feels X-way, or I'm the only one that feels Y way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the question is, just so that I'm making sure I'm hearing you correctly, is like, what are the common trends and symptoms that women experience that make them best?
SPEAKER_00Just upset and make them sad and make them feel like they just not that they don't have anything to live for, but they're just feeling in a rut. They're feeling burnt out. Not only are they burnt out with their jobs and careers and entrepreneurship, but also just being a mom in general. Like, what are trends that you're seeing with some of these women that you feel like they just need the help or they need the push or they need just coaching and help around this? Got it.
SPEAKER_01I am so passionate about this topic. I'm like, okay, just stop me when it's too many. But I would say to begin with, women are groomed their whole lives to be everything to everyone and no one to themselves. Okay. That is first and foremost. We are truly conditioned to believe that to be a good girl, to be a good mom, to be a good entrepreneur, to be a good worker is to make sure that we go above and beyond for everybody in the room at the expense of ourselves. And this is reiterated everywhere. It is reiterated in mother culture. It is reiterated in corporate life. I mean, entrepreneurs, I've seen entrepreneurs that have built their businesses similarly to mine, that work all the time, that put their teams and their clients before everyone. And I am not here to judge that. I just am like, but what about why did you become an entrepreneur? Isn't it for you, for you to get something out of your life that is more in line with what would fill your cup, what would make you happy? And I think there's a lot of other complex layers to this. Obviously, there is a financial component. We live inside a system of capitalism. We must make money to live. And America particularly, it's extremely difficult to do that well. And so everything really supports us living in this way. I always call this, sometimes I'll use the terminology like outside in instead of inside out. So we're looking outside of us to see what will make us feel safe and happy and okay and good inside. So what is the job? What is the dollar amount? What is the friend group? What am I wearing? What is the whatever? Like the label and the goal and the achievement. But I really encourage clients and just every person I meet to go inside out. Start with using your inside eyes, start with noticing like what you feel and what you want and what you know might be the next thing for you. And the bravest thing I think a woman can do is to know who she is and what she wants and choose that first out there in the real world, even though that very well will inconvenience somebody in her life that she has been groomed to believe it is her full-time job to make comfortable, to feel good, to regulate. I mean, I just wrote this piece that was called I'm so tired of regulating everyone else's nervous systems, or something like that. And I got so much feedback about this piece because I was like, this is what we do. We just cut, you know, we enter the room as moms and we're like, I'm the regulating person in my family, or we like, as daughters, we're like, I'm the daughter that like takes care of my parents and I'm the one. I, you know, I went to therapy when I was 18, way before I had a family of my own, to kind of reckon with my family of origin, because I truly was making myself responsible for every single member of my family and really feeling quite justified and pleased with myself for doing so, because of course, like that's a child. An eight-year-old child made that decision and then was operating that way as an 18-year-old and then a 25-year-old and then a 30-year-old. And so to unlearn these patterns of safety and belonging and validation and worthiness that we embody so young, it's really hard. It takes a lot of work and it's really daunting when everything in dominant culture, in mother culture, in capitalist culture, in ever in our families of origin encourages us to go outside in instead of inside out. So that's my super long answer. And that was just one thing. I will pause there.
SPEAKER_00No, I I love that. And and I really look into a lot of like about hormones and the nervous system and just the way even women's bodies work because they really, biology-wise, are so different than males. And so one of the questions I do want to ask you, kind of segueing into this when we think about our nervous system and even just for women, this mental load, it's become more and more of a trend, but a term out there for mental load for women. And I'm gonna even ask specifically for you how do you handle the mental load of running a house, being married, having three children, running a business? I mean, it there's so many segments in between that, of course. But how do you regulate yourself and how do you deal with the mental load of all of this? Because it can feel very daunting and intimidating and hard.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God. Yeah, it's it's insane. I always joke to like clients and friends. I'm like, it's just unreasonable. Like this whole being an adult is absolutely unreasonable. I do not accept this assignment. Um, but then I'm like, wait, but here I am, and I'm like surrounded by children wearing an apron, signing papers, doing homework, cooking dinner, and I'm like, oh, this was my choice. Okay, this was my this is here. I am okay. So what are we gonna do about it? What are we gonna do about it? So the mental load, the main thing that I teach women how to do is to reconnect to themselves, honor themselves. And this is the way that we actually do heal most things. This is the way that we grow capacity for how unreasonable life is. And the more we advance as a civilization, I find that we escape more out of our bodies and into our minds. The mental load is really becomes all we can fixate on, like all we can think about, all we notice. And we forget that we also have bodies. We just think, you know, what's in my mind, the load I carry in my mind, is all that I am and all that there is. And while this is absolutely understandable because of, like I said, aforementioned unreasonableness of being alive, I think what I'm always reminding myself and like practicing for myself is reconnecting back to the rest of me, like to grow my capacity to handle and hold all the things. And so that means that I am pausing more often, I am slowing down more often, I am grounding, I am going out in nature, I am resourcing. I'm what I do with clients is is like a signature process of like resourcing to heal trauma. Like that's like I'm gonna, that's like a snippet, right? Of how I would describe it. And what happens when you when you learn to resource and and like honor not just what's in your mind, but also what your body carries all the time, not just like once a month or like on your calendar, but just the way I say this term of like, where's my water? It's like the way that I drink water all day long. I have my water cup and I'm just like, oh, let me take a sip of water. I'm not like, oh, it's nine o'clock, time to chug eight ounces of water before the next hour. That's not how I do resourcing. That's not how I drink my water. That's how we want to organize our entire womanhood, which is a, which is a huge like reorganization for most of us because we are organizing it around our calendars and our to-do lists and our schedules. And for some of us, that goes better than others. But for especially those of us who are highly intuitive, highly sensitive, empaths, or in like a very vulnerable time of life, pregnant, postpartum, when the hormones are particularly unpredictable, we need more spaciousness and nourishment for our bodies and souls. We need more space to resource and find those pockets and that rhythm for our whole self that will make it sustainable down the line. And so this is a long way of saying that the way that I handle the mental load is by constantly throughout my day asking myself, where's my water? Like, what do I need in this moment? Okay, yes, I need to write an email. I need to answer 10,000 emails, I need to do this podcast, I need to prep dinner. And also, like, what do I gervaise, the human, the woman, the body? What could she use? Oh, maybe she should go pee. Okay, maybe I like make myself a cup of tea. Oh, let me think about my own lunch. Maybe I'm gonna go outside and like put my feet on the grass and like maybe I'll take a 10 minute walk. Like, I treat those things that care for all of me equally to the things on my to do list, which I think is radical in in today's world. Like those things for most people are like an afterthought. Like, I treat Pilates as like that's great that I do Pilates, but it's not like, okay, I did Pilates, that's like my. Self-care time. It's just like it's like, where's my water all day long? What do I need? Do I need a breath? Do I need to walk around the house? And I do that all day long, all the time. And and I triple down, quadruple down when the mental load is heaviest. And then sometimes there's sprints. And so it looks a lot of different ways. And truly, there's like millions of ways that I work with women on resourcing and quote unquote drinking their water. But it's really reorienting your the rhythm of the way that you women to include yourself.
SPEAKER_00I love this. And this is so true because so many women don't even think about this. And hearing you speak, I want to ask you a lot about boundaries. And I think women try to go above and beyond, like you mentioned. And so, how do you help women with kind of navigating boundaries and what that looks like for them? And how do you help them unleash certain boundaries or help them stay grounded to certain boundaries? Because for women, we kind of want to do it all. I think that's just how, again, society deems us with this good girl kind of mentality of I can do this and I can do that and I can say yes to a million things. But really, that doesn't feel healthy. That doesn't feel and so I'd love your perspective on boundaries and how you help these women create boundaries or open up different boundaries.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, such a good question. Yeah, I love boundaries. And I think practicing embodied boundaries is kind of like a missing link here because you can tell a person like you need a boundary with your boss. Don't answer their emails after seven. However, if you haven't practiced embodied boundaries, then that means that, like, fine, maybe you've like, you're forcing yourself not to look at your email after seven. But then what's happening in that space in your body is that you might be feeling wildly dysregulated, wildly uncomfortable, wildly unsafe, unsettled, anxious. You might be like tripling down on the wine or the screaming at your kids or something. Something's got to take the place because that is that like people pleasing or being overly responsible or available for your boss was soothing a part of you that that got the believed the misunderstanding that that's what it takes for you to feel safe. And most of us have those, those patterns, those ways of relating. And so to rewire that, we first want to create my teacher Joe Miller, she calls this creating islands of safety within yourself. And so when I say embodied boundaries, I what I mean by that is like if I'm working with a woman and she's talking about wanting wanting a boundary with her work, we could talk about her boss all day long. But what I'm much more interested in is what her body is holding in regards to disappointing someone or having space for herself and the somatic ways that we experiment with that in a in a closed container. So if that's like a huge edge for you, or pick pick your poison, or like not picking up the phone when your mom calls, or like not spending every second with your kids, or whatever your thing is. We all we all have a thing. So whatever is like your edgiest thing, I would say always, like, if that's your hardest thing, doesn't it deserve like a little bit of time and practice, like in a closed container with a practitioner first, so that you can feel safe and experienced and practice in creating that island of safety within yourself first before you go out and tackle your hardest thing? Does that make sense? And so it's like practice with the small boundaries first. And in the meantime, be growing your capacity to tolerate the discomfort of not being overly available or being overly busy or disappointing others or inconveniencing others. Do that hard, hard, edgy work with somebody who can help you rewire your nervous system. And in the meantime, practice, like I always say, like what's the loose jenga block? Practice the easy stuff, like just like having one cup of coffee instead of four, like when you're by yourself, like a boundary with yourself that's not gonna like make or break you. That's the stuff that's not so edgy that you can practice first on your own, feeling safe and secure and comfortable in that, in those little moves first. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I love that. And I think for me, at least the biggest takeaway listening to that is really just starting small. Yeah. I think at the end of the day, as women, we try to do everything big, 100%. We're all in, we're not quitters, but really we need to just do something like my biggest belief is like being 1% better every day. It's like do one little thing every single day. And it could just even mean like getting up and like putting on makeup, and it could mean just like doing a load of laundry, like whatever that is, that's small thing, that's that win for you. And then you can be gradual and continue to grow that. And with what you do with your alignment and your life coaching, I love that you're helping these women just start really small with tangible goals that feel like they can achieve that without feeling like they need to start really, really big first, and then they feel like failures and they're not getting to that point. And I think for women, we need to just almost slow down a little bit and just take one little goal at a time, one day at a time, and that grows so much more. And so lots, you know, what I also want to touch upon with you is alignment. I know we've kind of talked hints about in this episode here, but when it comes to alignment, I know for myself, I've had to really change my alignment in terms of my business and my life and my family and all of it. And so with alignment, I feel like once you feel aligned with yourself and who you are, you can just skyrocket into doing anything you want to do. But how do you help these women even start to get aligned? Because feeling aligned can feel really overwhelming. And I think women want to regulate their hormone, like their nervous system. They want to regulate their hormones, they want to feel really good in the body and the skin that they're in. So, where do you even start with somebody to help them to get to that point to feeling aligned?
SPEAKER_01Well, when I hear that question, I just want to say that we start in the present moment and we see what's present for you today in this moment. And I would say one of the biggest undercurrents of my work is reminding women that they are different day to day. If you look at hormones, if you look at a woman's hormonal cycle, it aligns more with the moon than the sun. The sun rises and sets every day in the same every 24 hours, same cycle. Women's hormones change every single day for like 28 or 29 days. It's something like very similar to a moon cycle. And so I am always in awe of what opens up for a woman when she gives herself permission to be slightly different day to day and for alignment to be different on a Monday than on a Tuesday. Now, that doesn't mean that like, whatever, you have your response. It's not like, oh, I'm not aligned to pick up my kids from school today, but I am tomorrow. Like there's certain things that are the anchors in your life. And those are the things that you're just gonna do because they make you feel good and you love them and they're they're a priority for you. But I also think giving women permission to be more fluid, to be more connected to their feminine, ever-changing nature day to day is eye-opening in itself, because that means that alignment can be sometimes time with friends and sometimes time alone in nature. Sometimes it can be dancing on tables, and sometimes it can be prayer. And I think that is much more like in alignment with our true feminine nature. And that is much more what I think has been lost for women in the current cultural climate. And so giving a woman permission to just let's just see what's here in this moment. And this moment doesn't mean like anything about tomorrow's moment or yesterday's moment, but let's just be with what's here and see how to create a feeling of safety and regulation and self-trust and all the things that you're looking for care and grounding and acceptance in this moment, that will compound 1% at a time. That will compound over time, but it doesn't have to be the same way every day.
SPEAKER_00I think that's so important for women to understand and listen to this. I feel like I watched some Instagram reel on this, but it really is so true. I didn't realize for women it's really about the moon per se, but it's this idea that men can kind of cycle the same 24 hours. And for women, we're on a 28, 29 day cycle of our hormones, and we really do change. It's why I feel some days I have so much energy and I'm excited and I'm ready to go. And then I have energy like days where my energy is just absolutely depleted. And I think if women really listen to that intuitively, we can be absolute powerhouses. And it doesn't mean we're not ambitious. It doesn't mean we don't work hard, and it doesn't mean we don't want all the things. But there's a time and an energy and a place for that. And so, how do you explain this to women who have grown up like myself, like you, this independent boss babe, feeling like they have to almost be like the patriarchy and go, go, go, go, go. But really, it it shouldn't be that way. Like, how do you even explain this to women who feel one way about it, but really they should be aligned in that way? Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01I love this question so much. So, yes. So basically, this requires a total unlearning of everything that you've been taught about what it means to be a woman and what it means to be successful. I always joke, I'm like, let's, we're gonna go into upside down land now. I have this course called the inner knowing. It's like a digital course that I can like send you a link to. And it, this is how we begin. Because I'm like, where we're going, you everything that you think is normal, I'm going to challenge and I'm going to invite you into what I call the woman way. I'm going to invite you into more of like a phoenix paradigm. My podcast has been rebranded for a while now. It's called the modern phoenix, because this idea that what is actually more in alignment with your nature is the archetype of the phoenix, like constantly evolving, growing, dying, just like nature is always like dying and being reborn, winter, springs. And so it does, I think most women are relieved when they, when they kind of like put down the patriarchal norms and embody nature as the model, like nature as the the life cyclical example, the moon, all these things. This is like what we used to turn to. This is pre-patriarchal times. This was like the lesson book that we were handed. And so it's not so crazy, but it feels like so woo-woo and crazy to just suggest to a woman that she should play the woman game and not the man's game. And I think, I think most women are relieved when they realize that they can actually get as much done as they could before, but like in half the time. Because like most women that I meet, especially the ones in corporate, they'll tell me, like, they'll be like, honestly, I run circles around my male colleagues. And this is not, I do not mean to disrespect men. I just feel like the women need to own this. Like, we don't need to do it in the linear way that the men do it, but we're trying to be a better man than a man. And that is so silly. That is not an effective, efficient way to play this game. We're like pregnant nursing babies running businesses. Like, why would I want advice from a man in a boardroom? Like, you know nothing about my energy. You know nothing about my body. Like you can't, you couldn't even possibly relate to cooking dinner and breastfeeding at the same time, which is like things I have done. And so once you start to kind of realign with the woman way, you start to feel connected to your inner flame, to your power, to your energy source that is not like in your Google Calendar. It's like, oh, I can just trust my natural surges of energy. I can trust that like if I feel like I'm in an inner winter, that's okay because I'm pregnant, let's say. And guess what always comes after winter? Spring. So, so I can like sit in that space and honor it, knowing like I am just cultivating my power and I will be back in the spring and I will be just as efficient. I will be just as powerful, I will get just as much done. But I'm going to align my whole life and mentality with a woman way. I'm going to try to be a woman. I'm going to try to play this game as a woman and optimize the strengths and my feminine nature and my rhythms more than I'm going to try to just like be a better man than a man. And that I think is like a reframe that like is only empowering to most women that I've ever spoken to.
SPEAKER_00This is amazing. I love all of this because I do agree with you. I don't think men truly understand a fraction of what you've just said. I don't think they understand of multitasking and doing million things. And yes, women can run circles around men. And I think it's unfortunate, coming from like a money perspective, that women are not making as much money as men when you think about it. And I don't know what the statistic is now, but it's like 72 cents to the dollar, right? Of what men are making. And women are graduating college more and they're doing so there, they're just leaps and bounds ahead of what men are. And I think it's unfortunate. I hope that men are able to kind of not step up, but I hope they're able to level up again. Not that they didn't, but women just seem to be skyrocketing in incredible ways of just graduating college and taking on these jobs and doing all these things. So advice for younger women, and now we're getting into the Gen Z who are a bit younger and maybe they are thinking about family planning and they're thinking about careers and they're thinking about children. What advice could you give specifically to women, kind of this Gen Z or younger generation now, where again, they didn't necessarily grow up as much, I think, with Boss Babe. Maybe they did. I feel very out of wits with all of this, but I'm curious on the kind of advice you would give to them and what advice do you think would stick to them? Because a lot of these women just are trying to figure it out. Like, do I go the career route? Do I have kids young or do I do a little bit of in-between? It can feel really daunting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's such a good question. I mean, I would say, I guess I'm like thinking about my daughters now, which I I haven't, we're not there yet, you know, but I think give yourself permission for it to unfold. We think we feel this pressure to figure everything out at once. And that's just not how life works. Like that's not how nature grows. It's not like trees don't just go from like a seed to a full-grown oak overnight in a year. And I think sometimes, especially in our urgency culture and instant gratification of technology, which is great in a lot of ways, we expect life to follow suit. And while we might be able to like refresh our feed every second and get something new, life creates at a slower pace and and things unfold. And I think just like like remembering that, that it takes time and that it unfolds and giving yourself permission to A, evolve again, like that Phoenix archetype for me is so settling because I just thought I had to figure it out all at once and I had to figure it out before the kids came, and then I had to stick to that plan. And then that plan had to be perfect, and I had to go really fast. And nothing about my life has felt that way. And the more that I've kind of leaned back and given myself grace and space and permission for some things to just unfold for me and for me to like follow the breadcrumbs of my life instead of just attacking everything all at once and then being disappointed when it didn't go exactly as I planned. I feel like that leaves room for the magic. I became a coach because my first day after my last day at my corporate job, I went to a writing workshop and I sat next to a life coach. And I had no idea that coaching was an industry. I had never heard of a life coach. I didn't, the whole healing industrial complex was like something was not on my radar. All I knew about was therapists. And as soon as she explained to me what she did, I got goosebumps all over my whole body. It was like my whole being and body was like lighting up like a Christmas tree, saying, like, go this way. And it was a way, it was the third way that I had not even, I couldn't have planned for. Like I had to let that like unfold for me as I followed the breadcrumbs and went to that writing workshop because it did spark joy and it did, it made me feel like excited and curious. And so, and so I'm so grateful. And I just think things like that happen all the time when we just like follow the breadcrumbs, like allow our curiosity and our instincts to lead us, even if sometimes we're like, where am I going? Like, you just might be heading down to the third way that is going to be so much more beautiful and magical and aligned than the one you had planned out in your mind.
SPEAKER_00I love that. And I think for so many women, we do have this idea of a quote unquote plan. Like, perfect example. And I think of my sister with this. She had her son, she had a maternity leave. She was planning to quit essentially two weeks after. And long story, went through a volunteer buyout, stayed a few months longer, and now she left, right? Because she just wasn't happy. And I think at the end of the day, we all have this like idea or a plan or something, right, that we're trying to achieve. And I think with kids and going through the hormones, and especially with your first, you really start to question everything. You question, do I want to be in corporate? Do I even want to work? Do I want to do something? Do I want to do nothing? And so, with that and those changes, especially postpartum-wise, why do women go through these changes? Or why do women like we have this plan and then we change? Like, why, why are women going through this and why are women dealing with this? And it does it mean that they're failures, does it mean that they're bad? Of course not. But I'd love to hear some of your thoughts around this plan that women have and haha, you know, we change our mind.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's awesome. I think because we're waking up. I think we have this, this deep inner feminine wisdom that we shut away when we're young. I mean, most of us, I don't know, everybody comes from a different life. And so there are those of us who got to be really self-evolved little beings. But I think as we begin to mature and go through the initiations of life and the maturation process from maiden to mother, um, that little voice begins to wake up. And that is, I like to believe, like the turning point in our lives. I think we've been groomed to believe that questioning is very bad because a woman who doesn't ask questions is a compliant woman. And I'm sorry, but that is not what the world needs. Okay. We don't need more compliant women following the plan because the world really needs us to wake up and question everything and allow that little voice inside that may have been quieted a long time ago for a million very good reasons in a patriarchal world to go like, actually, actually, no, that does not work for me. I do not consent. I dare to hope, dream, believe something is different. I feel called in this direction because the more women that wake up and are not terrified to question the plan, the more we will create a more beautiful world that we want to belong to. Whether it's something as simple as like we get paid as much as men or something wildly more um reinventive. I just think we need to be represented in the world that we see as our true, a true authentic representation. And that can't happen until we begin to wake up and honor ourselves and question everything. So I say, go for it, girls.
SPEAKER_00And I love the questioning aspect of this because I've questioned a lot even before children. I questioned corporate America so much. I questioned the idea of why do I only get 10 paid days off, or why do I only get five, six days, or why am I working so hard and like only getting a 3% raise. And I started to really question this for many, many, many, many years. And so I think for to your point, the more women that start to question and start to wonder and start to poke around a bit to get these answers, the better off we're all going to be. So I I love all of this. And kind of one of my last questions I have for you, talking about success, I think a lot of times for men, women to a point too, of course, but we talk about success in terms of analytics and numbers and data and like being a bookkeeper, of course, I look at success as what you make. But at the end of the day, it's not what you make, it's also what you spend. And when I think about just success as a mom, I look at it as lifestyle. And so I'd love to know from your definition of success, kind of blending entrepreneurship and motherhood, what does success look like for you today? And what's the fire in the belly and what keeps you going?
SPEAKER_01I mean, for me, success has always been about freedom because I think when I had the lack of freedom and the lack of choice, I just felt like I lost everything. You know, like I had that job, I had that safety net, I had the plan, but I felt like I had given up everything that I actually cared about. Time with my kid. Freedom to choose how it looked, whether you're talking about PTO days or lifestyle or just all of it. I just felt like I had to give it everything up that I cared about. And that was that was a real reckoning moment for me where I really unconsciously redefined success for myself. And I've had to, this is always an evolution. Like I'm always in process with this because I do believe that, you know, it, it gets to be success on every level, financially and otherwise. But I would be lying if I said anything other than success for me is freedom. Like freedom to choose, freedom to sit with my own choices, even when, even when they're bad choices, even when the numbers haven't worked, which you're my accountant, you know everything. And so it's like there are moments where you're like, ah, that did not go how I planned financially, but like I am free. I am me. I I have the motherhood that I desired, and I have the, I'm a creative and I identify so much more as a creative than anything else in this season of my life. And so as long as I'm always creating from my heart and from my soul and putting that out into the world, like I will always feel such a deep sense of gratification. And I think truly that I could like wait tables and write and have that freedom in my motherhood and life and feel wildly successful because it just would feel like it's mine and I have the choice. And I get to both create and also not give up the things that I care the most about, which is like my motherhood, that the looking the way I want it to look and the time with my kids that I want and just that flex and also like that space for myself. So yeah, it's like it's in, it's it's a work in progress. It's ever evolving, but I would say that's my kind of sloppy answer.
SPEAKER_00That's beautiful. And I think freedom is everything. Freedom allows you flexibility to spend time with your kids and be intentional, but it's also spending time in your business and being intentional, and also spending time with yourself and doing the things that you want to do. And if you're able to build a life that allows that, why wouldn't we all want to build this beautiful life? And so I just love that. And Derez, I could probably talk to you all day. But this episode has been so enlightening for me. I have learned so much in regards to you and talking about your work a little bit deeper, how you help these women just go through this massive transformation, which feels like that they're going through and rewiring their thoughts, their nervous system, and everything in between. And so I'd love for you to share how people can work with you. I know you offer retreats. I know you offer, you have your podcast, you offer one-on-one coaching. Where can they find you? Where can they work with you? And where can they reach out to you? Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01It's been so fun to have this time with you, not just talking about my money, but just what a nice flip of the script. Yeah, so you can come on over to my website, which is gervaisecolmos.com, or find me on Instagram. I've actually been playing on Substack as well, which has been really fun for me, like a return to my writing, and then the Modern Phoenix podcast as well. So yeah, come on any of those channels. I do one-on-one coaching, group coaching. I think we're gonna do, I don't know when this is gonna air, but next up is the art of we, which is a relationship masterclass and mastermind. And then yeah, we're going to Tulum in next month. Like we got, I'm always doing, I'm always up to something. So just kind of see what's cooking whenever you come this way, and I'm sure we'll have some options.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. This is just the beginning. Subscribe now to Raising Hustle and get ready for raw stories, real talk, and unapologetic ambition. We're showing up messy, loud, and all in because success doesn't wait for quiet. Let's raise our voices, our businesses, and our babies together.