Authenticity in Action with Danielle Riley
In this episode of the Wealth Witches Podcast, Katelyn sits down with Danielle Riley, a brand photographer and business mindset coach for creatives, to explore the art of showing up authentically and navigating the complexities of creative burnout. Danielle shares her personal journey of transitioning from wedding photography to brand photography during the pandemic and the lessons she learned about prioritizing herself and her mental health.
The conversation delves into the unique nature of creative burnout, practical strategies for recognizing and overcoming it, and the importance of hobbies and self-care in sustaining creativity. Katelyn and Danielle also discuss how societal expectations, especially for women, often lead to putting others first at the expense of personal fulfillment. Together, they offer empowering insights on redefining self-care, setting boundaries, and finding joy in small but significant acts of self-prioritization.
Whether you’re a creative, an entrepreneur, or someone seeking inspiration to reconnect with your passions, this episode is packed with relatable moments, practical advice, and plenty of laughs.
Key Takeaways
- Creative burnout arises from misalignment; address it early.
- Small, consistent self-care actions prevent burnout.
- Authenticity fosters meaningful social connections.
- Boundaries and hobbies are essential for mental well-being.
- Self-prioritization strengthens confidence and clarity.
Guest Bio:
Meet Danielle. She is a talented brand photographer and business mindset coach dedicated to helping creatives align with their passions and overcome burnout. With a unique blend of creative expertise and personal development strategies, Danielle empowers her clients to find clarity, break free from limiting beliefs, and thrive in their personal and professional lives.
Her journey from wedding photography to brand photography during the pandemic has inspired countless others to embrace change and prioritize their well-being. Known for her authenticity and relatability, Danielle shares her insights and experiences on TikTok, Instagram, and Threads, where she connects with audiences seeking encouragement and real-world advice.
Connect with Danielle:
Instagram: @daniellerileyy/
Tiktok: @daniellerileyy
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Music credit: Neon Fairies by Wolves
Transcript
Hello, and welcome magical creatures to the Wealth Witches podcast.
Speaker:This is a place where we brew financial empowerment and mix in a little sprinkle
Speaker:of magic. I'm Caitlin Magnuson, your guide on this enchanted
Speaker:journey to financial enlightenment. Here, we honor all identities and
Speaker:invoke our inner witches to create holistic wealth and prosperity. So
Speaker:grab your crystals, open your minds, and let's get ready to conjure some
Speaker:financial clarity clarity.
Speaker:Welcome back to the Wealth Witches podcast. Today, we have Danielle
Speaker:Riley here, who I have been following for a hot second
Speaker:now over on TikTok and Instagram. And you
Speaker:have never failed, I think, to make me think or laugh
Speaker:and feel so relatable, which I think we're gonna be
Speaker:chatting a little bit more about showing up authentically. Right? So, Danielle, thank you so
Speaker:much for being here today. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:I'm very, very excited. I would love to hear a
Speaker:little bit more about, like, you and your journey and how you like, who
Speaker:you are, where you are now, how you ended up there. Because the little
Speaker:bit that I know is really intriguing. I think our audience is gonna find it
Speaker:super intriguing as well. Okay. Well, hi. I'm
Speaker:Danielle. I am a brand photographer
Speaker:and a little bit of I classify myself as, like, a
Speaker:little bit of a business and mindset coach for creatives. I really
Speaker:help them get out of their own way in order to
Speaker:get to the next phase and really help them gain clarity on what that looks
Speaker:like. So whatever that is summed up as, that's what I
Speaker:am. I am oh, I lose track
Speaker:of it, but I'm 32. I love photography.
Speaker:I love all the things I do. My journey to get here
Speaker:was a little, it's a little bumpy, you know. I had
Speaker:a lot of things happen. I was a wedding photographer for
Speaker:about, oh, about 3 years, right, until COVID. Then
Speaker:I switched into branding and everything was just,
Speaker:like, perfect after that. Like, it was
Speaker:good. I thought so. Okay. I love that so much.
Speaker:I god, having worked in the wedding vendor
Speaker:industry or tangentially to the wedding vendor for years prior to COVID,
Speaker:and then still currently, it has, Cohen was really a wild ride, and I feel
Speaker:like it's still providing a little bit of a wild ride for a lot of
Speaker:people. Yes. COVID was turning
Speaker:point for me. A lot of life changes happened during COVID
Speaker:so, you know, I look back on COVID and I'm like, honestly, it
Speaker:was the best thing that could've happened to me at that time in my life
Speaker:because it taught me a lot about decisions, what I wanted, what I
Speaker:didn't want, and it really helped me start putting myself
Speaker:first again. I saw COVID. Yeah. COVID was
Speaker:transformational? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Transformational,
Speaker:big time. I love that. No. I mean, there's many, many things
Speaker:about COVID that I don't love, but the
Speaker:I think the impetus that it gave a lot of us or
Speaker:that, like, hey. I'm done. I'm and, actually, I might reverse what we
Speaker:were going to chat about, because that segues, I think, really
Speaker:well into the creative burnout that we had kind of, like, briefly chatted. I
Speaker:think that so many people, not only during COVID, were
Speaker:kind of coming to this, like, crossroads, but they were also like, we're
Speaker:seeing it now a lot after, like, the wedding boom that we had when everything
Speaker:reopened, and, like, it's been absolutely bananas.
Speaker:I would love for you to chat because you you caught my attention with
Speaker:saying that creative burnout is different than, like, other types
Speaker:of industry burnout, and I would love for you to chat about that.
Speaker:Oh, okay. Well, this is this is fun for me. Burnout is one of my
Speaker:favorite things to talk about, because my
Speaker:burnout and just a little back story on why I love talking about it is
Speaker:my burnout when I was a wedding photographer was so bad
Speaker:that I and I didn't know it that it caused me to
Speaker:ignore signs that my body was giving me and,
Speaker:ultimately, I had a huge health scare happen. And
Speaker:it was because I was so burned out. Mhmm. And I think
Speaker:that our kind of, like, especially for
Speaker:photographers and creatives, it is very normalized
Speaker:to work yourself to a point of burnout in order
Speaker:to survive. There's still so much of this, you know, like,
Speaker:starving artist mentality. Mhmm. And
Speaker:there there's a lot to it, but it's like because that mentality is so ingrained
Speaker:in us subconsciously, we we subconsciously
Speaker:show up to just survive and work in a constant state of
Speaker:burnout and really leaving
Speaker:that fight or flight mode with my business before the
Speaker:pandemic hit because I left the wedding industry in 2019
Speaker:and then I start flowing out of it to be able
Speaker:to completely look back at the end of 2020 and say, I'm no longer in
Speaker:fight or flight. Like, I've learned to put myself first and to show
Speaker:up not just as a photographer, as a creative, but
Speaker:as a business owner, like, as an entrepreneur.
Speaker:When I started to take on that identity, the burnout
Speaker:kind of just fizzled out. I overcame it and you don't ever really
Speaker:overcome it, but you work through that season. But
Speaker:one thing I did realize is that creative burnout is very different than burnout.
Speaker:Burnout is there's a million things online
Speaker:that say burnout is caused by people pleasing. Burnout is caused by a lot of
Speaker:different things. What the first thing it's caused by, like,
Speaker:truly, deeply is that you stop putting your wants and your needs first and
Speaker:you focus on everything else and that turns into people pleasing
Speaker:because you're confused. You don't have clarity. Creative
Speaker:burnout is when a creative is producing
Speaker:what their art, they're showing up, they're doing things that are no longer
Speaker:in alignment with them. They are not fueling
Speaker:themselves mentally and emotionally. And then
Speaker:because they don't they're not able to recognize that,
Speaker:they just keep filling their time and filling it and filling it and
Speaker:filling it. But if we could just recognize from the
Speaker:beginning that it's just like, I'm no longer in alignment with the people that I'm
Speaker:working with, with the art that I'm creating, with what my purpose
Speaker:was what my purpose is now versus what it was when it
Speaker:started. Right? That all leads to creative burnout.
Speaker:And, yeah, I have a whole thing on, like, this
Speaker:is what you gotta do when you feel creative burnout because I think there's so
Speaker:much good that
Speaker:can come when we're able to see the 2 as being
Speaker:different Mhmm. And identify that
Speaker:earlier on and start taking action towards that because there's so many
Speaker:creatives and there's so many entrepreneurs that will walk away from
Speaker:their business because they think they have a problem
Speaker:and they don't have a problem. We just have to give ourselves
Speaker:a little bit more attention creatively to
Speaker:have us show up to be business owners. Mhmm. Do you have
Speaker:so I have my own sort of bumper lanes, I call them, right, For
Speaker:when things start to get off the rails or whatever, you know,
Speaker:comparison or metaphor, whatever we wanna use, because I,
Speaker:being neurodivergent and introverted, and off
Speaker:of these things, it's very easy for me
Speaker:to give too much of myself or to not prioritize myself because I also have
Speaker:a very seasonal business. So get blessed and less seasonal each year, which is lovely,
Speaker:but there's a lot of seasonality to it. And so it's very easy industry wide
Speaker:to see a lot of burnout. So I'm curious what some of
Speaker:your either your bumper lanes are that when you know, like, hey. We need
Speaker:to pull back or, hey. We need to do x y z because I'm struck
Speaker:like, this is not renewable, sustainable, healthy
Speaker:for me. Or if you're not comfortable sharing those, some common ones that you see
Speaker:pop up with clients or in the industry.
Speaker:You know, I think everybody I love that you call them, like,
Speaker:bumper lanes. I've never thought of them as bumper lanes before.
Speaker:To me, it's always I've always just said this is a sign. This is
Speaker:happening again. Like, this is this is a reoccurrence.
Speaker:Mhmm. And I thought of it as a cycle to say that it's like, I'm
Speaker:at the point in the cycle again. I like to think about burnout as a
Speaker:cycle. It will come and it will go. We never truly overcome it.
Speaker:Right? A thing that I see with
Speaker:photographers and with creatives in general is when they start to feel
Speaker:really confused, when they start to get to a point where they're like, what am
Speaker:I doing? What I I don't have any time to do this. I
Speaker:feel stressed out. I'm confused, all this. I'm like, okay.
Speaker:You're at this point in the cycle again, so let's regain some clarity
Speaker:on what's causing you to feel stressed, what's causing you to feel like you
Speaker:have no time, And let's, like, get down to that.
Speaker:For me personally, I am very home
Speaker:focused. Mhmm. I am Cancer sun and, like, the Libra
Speaker:moon, Capricorn rising. So, like, I don't know.
Speaker:Yeah. Mhmm. I so I love to be in my
Speaker:home. I love my home in spaces that feel good to me and I
Speaker:like to put a lot of work into those spaces.
Speaker:So me, personally, I a bumper lane for me is when I
Speaker:see that my house is messy. I like to clean the house.
Speaker:It's my thing. I do it every day. It makes me feel good. If I
Speaker:realize that I am not doing the
Speaker:daily acts that I do, like wiping down my counters
Speaker:and, like, vacuuming our, like, main areas and stuff like
Speaker:that. I'm like, why am I not doing that? What's going on? Mhmm. If it
Speaker:happens a little bit at the beginning, okay. But if it's like a constant thing
Speaker:for about 3 weeks, what's going on? Because I usually will start to
Speaker:notice other things like I'm being a little bit more irritable with my partner.
Speaker:Why am I being irritable? You know? Like, what's going on?
Speaker:And then if I've stopped journaling.
Speaker:That's it. Okay. I love
Speaker:that. No. Those are really good ones. I think for so long, I
Speaker:didn't realize that I was not taking care of
Speaker:myself. I think a lot of us don't realize that we're taking care of
Speaker:ourselves until it hits this, like, critical breaking point.
Speaker:And so the
Speaker:space to sort of step back and, like,
Speaker:okay. What are the things like, what do I do when I feel really
Speaker:good, when I feel like I'm taking care of myself, when I feel like I
Speaker:have space, time, mental bandwidth, etcetera?
Speaker:For me, a lot of them are dysregulated sleep habits.
Speaker:I am a big sleeper. Big sleeper. I'm a
Speaker:great sleeper. And when those sleep habits change or when I'm regularly
Speaker:staying up late and not thinking it's a big deal or for
Speaker:me, I love to read, but I will read to tune out.
Speaker:So where am I reading, especially reading and disrupting
Speaker:my sleep cycle? And there are a lot of other things that'll pop up, like,
Speaker:I'm not taking care of myself or the I too love a clean
Speaker:house and a well nested
Speaker:house, I will say. There's, like, this, like, perfect homey nest
Speaker:vibe. And, yeah, for me, when
Speaker:that disappears, like, couple days, sure. But for me, more than a few days and
Speaker:not not necessarily being clean, but, like, a tidy,
Speaker:cozy, hold together. And there are things that looks like, oh, there's there's
Speaker:too much on my plate right now, or I'm watching great
Speaker:anatomy for the 6th hour in a row on a weekend, which, like, doing
Speaker:consciously, okay with. Doing because I,
Speaker:like, can't find the can't find it
Speaker:in me to get up and do more, be more, work more
Speaker:is really difficult. So with
Speaker:everything that sort of like you've experienced and you help people navigate,
Speaker:What are some of the ways that we
Speaker:can be I hate to say, like, burnout proofing. Right? Because like you said, it's
Speaker:a cycle. They're like, we're constantly and I the the older I
Speaker:get, the more I see seasons and cycles and everything that we do.
Speaker:Energetically, like, outside. Like, there's just cycle on cycle on
Speaker:cycle. But what are some of the ways that
Speaker:you have, like, incorporated sort of your whole self or ways
Speaker:to help mitigate
Speaker:the burnout cycles that you've experienced in the past? Like, how how are you growing
Speaker:moving forward? One thing,
Speaker:that I do that helps me is I got
Speaker:very clear on how and why I make decisions the way that I do
Speaker:in my personal life and in my business. I have a theory that there are
Speaker:2 types of decisions. There are logical decisions and there are
Speaker:passionate decisions. And if I can
Speaker:get very clear on how I am
Speaker:feeling, I'm if I can identify that feeling and get clear on it, I
Speaker:am able to think back to what decisions have I made that got me
Speaker:here, and then I reevaluate those decisions. Was that a logical
Speaker:decision or was it a passionate decision? Did I feel like I needed to do
Speaker:that or did I feel like I had to do it? And if so, what
Speaker:played into that? And I just kind of, like, run through kind of
Speaker:I I identify a point of, like, I think it started here. This is where
Speaker:I'm at now, and I've run through those decisions. So, like, I get very clear
Speaker:on how like, what decisions I made and what prompted me
Speaker:to make them. And if I like the outcome now, I make
Speaker:daily list every day of things that I
Speaker:would like to do and things that I have to do. So I have a
Speaker:have to list and a want to list. And
Speaker:I try to the very first thing that I do is I do
Speaker:something that I want to do before something that I have to do
Speaker:Because I also am like, if we only
Speaker:do the things that we have to, we're not putting ourselves first.
Speaker:Mhmm. So it's kind of like a treat. It's like, okay. I
Speaker:really want to listen to this podcast and go for a walk, but
Speaker:I have to do 7 business tasks today, and I don't know if I'm gonna
Speaker:have time. Right? And it's like, okay. Well, you're definitely not gonna have time if
Speaker:you don't go for that walk right now. Mhmm. And then that fuels
Speaker:me to get the things done that I have to. Another thing
Speaker:is I time block. I time block a lot.
Speaker:I started a routine for myself about a year and a
Speaker:half ago, and instead of trying to do the routine every
Speaker:week, I would try to do the routine. I have Mondays, I do
Speaker:this. Tuesdays, I do this. Wednesday, Thursdays, I do this. I didn't
Speaker:practice doing the full routine. I practice on doing the routine one day a
Speaker:week. If I could show up one day and if I said Mondays are
Speaker:content days and if I showed up and made content this Monday, but I didn't
Speaker:do it next Monday, that's okay because I'm in a learning phase. I'm in a
Speaker:learning cycle. So those are those are all things that I
Speaker:did. I love that. I think that it's
Speaker:really easy sometimes to commit to something. And I see it happen in finance a
Speaker:lot. Right? We're like, oh, I'm gonna I have this really robust saving goal. Like,
Speaker:I'm gonna go ham on $500 a month and, like but have
Speaker:you have you already been saving? Like, we're like, we're we're
Speaker:building routines. We're building, like, for some people, you know, they would look at it
Speaker:as a habit, but I I phrase them as routines. Right? Because there is I
Speaker:didn't realize the difference until, like, 6 months ago.
Speaker:And I think that it's so easy to jump into something and not provide me
Speaker:grace around it or to jump into something. So
Speaker:face first sometimes where you're like, yep. I'm gonna do it. And then you get
Speaker:a month in and you're like, oh shit. I only did half of this or
Speaker:I only x y z or like all the stories that come up. Right? Like,
Speaker:oh, I failed at this financial goal. That means I'm bad with money. That means
Speaker:I'm never gonna x y z versus, like, hey. I'm learning.
Speaker:I'm practicing. I'm trying something new. And that's such a
Speaker:different way to, like, look at something instead of, like, I'm gonna be an expert
Speaker:on this even though I've never done any of it before. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Another thing you said, you said
Speaker:habits earlier, and it for some reason, the word hobbies
Speaker:came to my mind. I was like, oh, yeah. Hobbies. But,
Speaker:one thing that, like, popped out to me when you said that is I read
Speaker:this thing the other day from this book that I'm reading. It's a great book.
Speaker:I think everybody should read it. I don't have it with me or I'd show
Speaker:it to you, but, you know, it said, hobbies are a form of self love.
Speaker:Self love is self care. Right? And as
Speaker:creatives, as business owners, as people that choose to start
Speaker:doing their own thing, even somebody who chooses to invest money and make it
Speaker:their goal to get better at it every month, it starts out as being, a
Speaker:lot of times, something that interests you, that you want to learn more
Speaker:about, that is a hobby. Right? And so when
Speaker:we spend so much time doing our
Speaker:hobby, we lose our hobby and
Speaker:then we're not doing self love. We're not practicing self care. And
Speaker:so that's, like, another thing that feeding back into
Speaker:what you asked, like, what do you do to help, like, with that work cycle?
Speaker:I incorporate hobbies. I incorporate forms of self love and
Speaker:self care, and that's also, like,
Speaker:a trigger when I see that it's like I haven't been doing these things. When
Speaker:is the last time I did something that I wanted to do and not
Speaker:something I had to do? Yeah. Because that feeds into creative
Speaker:burnout and burnout in general. Absolutely.
Speaker:It is I I was talking to someone last week about how I
Speaker:think too that in general, so many women are conditioned
Speaker:to I think the new the newer version
Speaker:of self love or self care in the last, like, I don't know, 8 to
Speaker:10 years. It's been like, oh, you need to make sure that you filled your
Speaker:cup because you can't pour out of an empty cup. And it kind
Speaker:of enrages me a little bit because it's still positioned not a little bit, a
Speaker:lot of it. It still positions women as needing to provide something
Speaker:for others, and you're only needing to take care of yourself in order to be
Speaker:a value to those around you. And that
Speaker:makes me really, really hot because we deserve
Speaker:to have a full cup because we deserve to exist as
Speaker:full complete cared for human beings, and it is
Speaker:a byproduct and added bonus of whatever should we
Speaker:choose to provide for, care for, pour out x y
Speaker:z for those around us. But the whole point is that there should be others
Speaker:also looking to pour out of their filled cups. Like, we
Speaker:are not solely existing to take care of all of those around us and replenish
Speaker:our energy, you know, as afterthoughts.
Speaker:And when I I finally I don't even know
Speaker:what like, when that happened, but it was a couple of years ago, I, like,
Speaker:I snapped when I was thinking about it. And I was like, how
Speaker:awful is that? Like, that sounds horrible that we need to be doing it. And
Speaker:every now and then, there'll be some like, my grandmother years ago had said something
Speaker:to me that had a very similar effect, that I will
Speaker:not get into on this today, But it was that same knee jerk
Speaker:reaction of, like, I know that that wasn't her intention, how it came
Speaker:but, like, you're not thinking through this any deeper than, like, the surface
Speaker:level society that we live in right now, and, like, that's not how
Speaker:I want to be living. Like, that's not how I assess value. That's
Speaker:not how I want to exist in this world. And so,
Speaker:yeah, I think that hobby no. I I know that hobbies,
Speaker:interests, you know, diving down that, like, I work out in my garden
Speaker:or outside a lot. That's something for me that, like and I I have to
Speaker:switch that because there's times during the year where I live in the mountains where,
Speaker:like, it's covered under 8 feet of snow. Like, I'm not doing shit in the
Speaker:garden. But I'm outside snowshoeing, or I'm doing
Speaker:some baking, or I'm doing something inside that I really enjoy,
Speaker:and not because it benefits anyone else in the household
Speaker:except for me. Mhmm. I love that. I love
Speaker:that. Yeah. Just in in rate
Speaker:yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I could talk a lot about that too
Speaker:because I'm with you. It enrages me when I hear, like, you
Speaker:have to fill your cup so you can fill others because what
Speaker:comes to my mind, I work so hard with helping people really
Speaker:understand who they are in this moment, in this season of their life and getting
Speaker:very clear on their identity. And one of the things I say is,
Speaker:like, it is not our purpose as women to live in a constant
Speaker:state of fight or flight. You telling me that I have to fill
Speaker:my cup before I can fill somebody else's is saying that it's like I have
Speaker:to fight to fill my cup with everything else that I have going
Speaker:on, and then I have to keep everything together, which is like
Speaker:flight. Like, I'm either I'm either fighting or I'm doing. Right?
Speaker:And I just don't think that that's our purpose as women. I don't.
Speaker:No. No. I don't subscribe to that in the slightest, and it, like, kills me
Speaker:when I see that being. Would it be in the external factors around you that
Speaker:are encouraging you to
Speaker:take care of yourself? Because it's it's a it's not rooted
Speaker:in, like, authenticity or in, like, a genuine
Speaker:caring. Right? Because if you're doing it so that you can,
Speaker:then it it, like, weakens or cheapens the experience. It just adds, like, one more
Speaker:thing to your never ending to do list. Yeah. Yeah. And,
Speaker:you know, I I would be interested to
Speaker:ask you because I I was just about to say, I was like, I know
Speaker:why I fill my own cup. I know why I fill my own cup. Why
Speaker:I think it's important to do that or to focus on me, practice self
Speaker:love and self care, but it's like I wonder what
Speaker:would be your answer to that where it's like why do you why do you
Speaker:practice it? Like, why is it so important to you? I
Speaker:am on my second marriage. I was married and divorced in my
Speaker:early twenties to someone that, while not a bad person,
Speaker:was absolutely instrumental in showing me what I did
Speaker:and did not want in a long term partnership. And for
Speaker:me, it was very easy through
Speaker:my, we'll say, late twenties, to pour out of the
Speaker:cup no matter what was in it for
Speaker:years because I felt required. Did my partner, now
Speaker:husband, expect that? Absolutely not. It was all of this,
Speaker:like, societal self like, you know, everything that I've been I'd grown up with
Speaker:that I have to actually I have to do this. I have to do that.
Speaker:I have to do all of these things. And I finally hit a breaking point
Speaker:at, like, 27, 28 where I was like, you know what? Fuck all of
Speaker:this. I was I was so angry. I was so
Speaker:tired. And, no, I I was
Speaker:mad at myself because no one except myself at this point in
Speaker:time was requiring this of me. And so I started, like,
Speaker:almost experimenting with it, right, with doing less,
Speaker:allowing people around me, not just my
Speaker:spouse, but people around me to step up and do things. And
Speaker:it was really amazing how much less I
Speaker:needed to do when everyone else was provided the
Speaker:space to step up and how much of that I was controlling
Speaker:by not allowing someone to do something because I had to do it, because it
Speaker:meant x y z about me if I didn't do it.
Speaker:And I got to a point where I actually started to exist as a human
Speaker:being outside of a productivity value, and
Speaker:that was eye opening. I could go to
Speaker:yoga on Saturday mornings and go do when I I can go to the farmer's
Speaker:market afterwards, and, like, I could pop by and do something else in the evenings.
Speaker:And I actually started to have the energy to do these things.
Speaker:I am the only person that's going to be with me my entire life.
Speaker:I need to like who I am, and I need to
Speaker:feel fulfilled, content, inspired,
Speaker:passionate. And so that's why for me, taking the time to
Speaker:prioritize myself is important because at the end of the day this is gonna sound
Speaker:really callous. At the end of the day,
Speaker:my husband could divorce me. He could die something
Speaker:else atrocious. Like, there are all of these unknowns. Right? I could end
Speaker:up without a friend group. I need to be really happy and content
Speaker:with who I am as a person because that is the longest
Speaker:relationship I will ever have in my life.
Speaker:I I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's
Speaker:no good. Yeah. Yeah. It's just
Speaker:there's a lot of rage, a lot of rage in my late
Speaker:twenties at society, at myself.
Speaker:And there still is. Like, it definitely, like, will rear its head.
Speaker:When I see those around me, I'm like, why? Why are you doing or when
Speaker:I see partners that are, like, my my husband now
Speaker:is incredible. And
Speaker:I've finally allowed him the space to be incredible
Speaker:versus putting my own shit on him.
Speaker:And it's amazing to see what a partnership can be like
Speaker:when you have 2 people that, like, actively step up and work towards something
Speaker:instead of existing. And that has
Speaker:been, like, one of the easiest ways to keep going. Like, I've
Speaker:never once in the 11 plus years we've been together. I'm like, oh, yeah. I'm
Speaker:gonna do a yoga class tonight and had any
Speaker:pushback. Hey. Yep. You go do your thing.
Speaker:It's just not like, there's no permission being others. No, like and I
Speaker:didn't realize necessarily that that wasn't like, that's not
Speaker:what we see played out in a lot of relationships, I think, around,
Speaker:or maybe mirrored to us growing up where parents or
Speaker:grandparents or aunts may not have had that sort of
Speaker:a reaction from a partner and that sort of like, hey.
Speaker:You you deserve to exist as a human being. Like, you're not here to serve
Speaker:me hand and foot. And so that like, the
Speaker:reinforcing of the cycle, of taking
Speaker:care of myself, not having negative fallout, and then being able to
Speaker:continue taking care of myself, has been really interesting.
Speaker:I love that. I love that. Oh, Oh. It's so
Speaker:good. Sorry. I asked about actually, I'm not sorry because I I was No. It's
Speaker:fine. I didn't hear you at all. Yeah. So good. Did I, like, hear your
Speaker:answer? I was like Yeah. Yeah. No. I
Speaker:it gets me, like, excited when I see more people. And also on I
Speaker:mean, on the flip side, I struggle sometimes when I have,
Speaker:like, girlfriends or friends that I'm like, you're gonna
Speaker:do what with whom? With okay.
Speaker:That makes me really sad because I want you to be you. I don't want
Speaker:you to be a shell of you. Yeah. I think I think
Speaker:that is very powerful. I think and it's,
Speaker:I can resonate with you. It's hard as a friend, as
Speaker:a friend, a cousin, a sister,
Speaker:whoever to see people that you love
Speaker:diminishing who they are and giving up things that
Speaker:are important to them or kind of, like, pushing their
Speaker:needs and wants to the side. And it's something
Speaker:that I with my husband now, I also
Speaker:am divorced. With my husband now, I meet
Speaker:new women all the time and I hear them a lot of them say I'm
Speaker:moms and I hear them say things like, I
Speaker:don't know who I am. I I worked so hard to
Speaker:get here, and I don't know who I am. I don't know what's going on,
Speaker:but in order for them to ever have that conversation with me and feel
Speaker:comfortable with me, like, sharing that with me,
Speaker:they had to go through I mean, they've been seeing my content for months
Speaker:where I'm talking about burnout. And I remember one of the
Speaker:gals, Stephanie, was like, I'm not a business owner, but I
Speaker:resonate with this so much because you can be burnout in relationships. You
Speaker:can be burnout being by being a mother. You can be
Speaker:burnout by just existing because you're not
Speaker:living. Like, if you are just living to
Speaker:exist and to do for others Mhmm. Burn out. Like, it
Speaker:it and then it starts to affect you mentally and all these things. So, like,
Speaker:your answer is saying it's like, I had to learn how to put myself first
Speaker:so I could stop resenting and I could ask for help.
Speaker:Like, because that when I was like, that was gonna be my answer. I was
Speaker:like, I know why I do it and it is because I don't have resentment
Speaker:towards other people. And when I put myself first, I'm able to ask for
Speaker:help. I'm able to see that I don't have to do it all. Right? Mhmm.
Speaker:I'm able to say this isn't my burden. Like, absolutely not.
Speaker:Like, this is this is a joint household. This is a joint
Speaker:partnership. This is a joint friendship. It's 5050. That's how we're gonna
Speaker:show up. But if you never do the work to put yourself first, you just
Speaker:see how you're doing for everybody else, resentment forms, and then you don't know who
Speaker:you are. You don't know what you're doing. You just lose sight
Speaker:of everything and then one day you look back and you're like,
Speaker:what what is this? Who am I? Mhmm. No. I I watched it happen
Speaker:with my mom, and my my parents, I think, had a pretty or have a
Speaker:pretty nontraditional relationship in terms of, like, you know, my dad was an electrician.
Speaker:My mom was a nurse, and so there would be times when my dad was
Speaker:off work for maybe a year or a year and a half. He would do
Speaker:I have a sister. He'd do our hair. He'd feed us. Like, he'd do the
Speaker:parenting roles of whomever needed to be at home at that time, and they
Speaker:would rotate, like, depending on who was working or what was going on. And so
Speaker:I grew up with a lot of that, but it was so interesting to me
Speaker:to see my dad's relationships
Speaker:with friends that they moved in their early thirties, which was around the same time
Speaker:that I moved. I moved at 29, and it was a big move, you
Speaker:know, to a different state, an area where I didn't know anyone. And
Speaker:I watched my dad be able to maintain
Speaker:and create new friendships, and I watched my mom, who is 2 months younger
Speaker:than him, so there's not, you know, huge differences there, who was also in the
Speaker:workforce. I watched her not.
Speaker:And that, for me, was one of the
Speaker:reasons I one of the many reasons, but I'm child free.
Speaker:Because for me, I watched her take
Speaker:20 years out of her life, and she she did a
Speaker:fantastic job parenting us. But I never wanted
Speaker:her to have lost the friendship the the friendship potential
Speaker:that she lost. Because she basically went from 32 until she's in her late fifties
Speaker:now. In the last 5 or 8 years, she started to be able to prioritize
Speaker:friendships more. And I don't think I'd I'm not privy, you know, to my parents'
Speaker:entire relationship. I don't feel like there was ever my dad being, like, no. You
Speaker:can't go see your friends or no. You because he would just say, like, hey.
Speaker:I'm going to the brew pub with x y z after work, but I'll come
Speaker:home at this time. And I don't think there would have been issue with her
Speaker:doing that, but I think that she felt so much pressure to need to be
Speaker:home with us because she was already a working mom out doing things
Speaker:and then coming home and doing that. And it killed me
Speaker:in my older years to, like, look back and reflect that, like, yeah, she had
Speaker:a couple of friends from California before they moved up to Oregon, but, like,
Speaker:she's just now prioritizing herself again in her fifties.
Speaker:And that kills me because she's not alone. There are so
Speaker:many people around us, mothers especially, that I see that happening
Speaker:to. Yeah. I I I
Speaker:definitely agree and feel like there is a
Speaker:lot of societal pressures for a woman to
Speaker:kinda balance masculine and feminine and to be very good at it. And if you're
Speaker:not good at it, then you don't need to show up to do it at
Speaker:all. If you can't do it perfectly, don't show up and do it right. And
Speaker:there's all this societal pressure to say that it's like, well, you need to
Speaker:work, but you can't be away from your kids. You need to be at home
Speaker:with your kids. And if you go out, like, you can't go out
Speaker:for long or you can't do these certain things that maybe she really would wanna
Speaker:do or really would wanna, like, meet new people. Right? And so I think a
Speaker:lot of women, it's just easier for them to say, okay. Well, then I just
Speaker:won't do it. Mhmm. I'll stay in my comfort
Speaker:zone. And one day, I'll get out of it and one day, I'll take
Speaker:action. But for now, I'm just gonna stay here because this is what I'm supposed
Speaker:to do. But yeah. Sorry. Well, actually,
Speaker:I'm not sorry. I say sorry a lot, but I don't really mean sorry. But
Speaker:another thing that went through my head and sorry. I'm getting actually not sorry.
Speaker:Real quick. Yes. But, I was just thinking
Speaker:back to the title of the podcast, Wealth Witches. And
Speaker:I think a lot of people think about wealth in terms of, like, money,
Speaker:but wealth is in friendships and in relationships and all
Speaker:that. It's like, that's so much wealth. Mhmm. There's
Speaker:And you get more and more wealth when you put
Speaker:yourself first. That you do. Wealth of all
Speaker:types. It's
Speaker:life gets to be, I think, this grand rich adventure if you
Speaker:allow yourself to make it a priority,
Speaker:to step into it. And that doesn't mean it's always great,
Speaker:but it the just existing is no way to be
Speaker:living. And I think it's so easy to default into
Speaker:that for a lot of us when we get busy or stressed or burnt
Speaker:out, and we live in a society that, like, inflation
Speaker:is wild. There's all like, there's so many of these external factors going on
Speaker:that just make living so much more expensive or, you know, anything else.
Speaker:But if you can't,
Speaker:I think that so many of us also, it's an all or nothing. I can
Speaker:either do a self care day. Okay. Well, maybe you don't
Speaker:have a day to give. And, like, we see the same thing in 5 wait.
Speaker:Maybe you can't save $500 a month. Can you save 25? Like, where can
Speaker:you $25 your self care? Like, where can you is
Speaker:it that you do, like, your walk in the morning with a podcast? Maybe you
Speaker:can't do an hour, but maybe you can go do 20 minutes. Like, what what's
Speaker:a little step that you can take that you can fit into where your life
Speaker:is now? Because you might be, like, looking at it going like, I have no
Speaker:idea when I can take a moment for myself or when I can do something
Speaker:that I want to do. And it's like a muscle
Speaker:that needs to be exercised. Right? Because if you haven't been doing it for so
Speaker:long, it's not going to necessarily come naturally. But, like,
Speaker:yep. I'm gonna f off for the whole weekend and go do, like, nothing except
Speaker:what I wanna do, which I literally I did on Saturday. I call it an
Speaker:excellent lady day, and I go do, like, all of my favorite things.
Speaker:Normally, when I find myself getting snippy or cranky,
Speaker:and I took myself to lunch, and I went to the spa, and I got
Speaker:a little body scrub, and I went to a book club thing, and I went
Speaker:to the farmer's market. And then I sat silently and read a book,
Speaker:at a coffee shop, and then I came home. And it was
Speaker:lovely, and I like, I didn't come home to any sort of,
Speaker:like, hey. When's dinner gonna be on the table? Hey. When's, like there
Speaker:was none of that waiting for me when I got home, but that has taken
Speaker:me 11 years to get to the point where I feel good doing that.
Speaker:And I don't feel any sort of, like, weird guilt or anything that
Speaker:pops up. But it started with the little tiny, like, I got a
Speaker:membership at Massage MB. Once a month, I'd go get a massage.
Speaker:And, like, that was it when I first started. Wow.
Speaker:I love it, but, yeah, I think you you
Speaker:mentioned goals earlier about people I have the goal of investing
Speaker:$500 a month. Right? And you just said you're like, okay. Well, what
Speaker:if you don't have $500 a month? Something's better than nothing. Do you have 25?
Speaker:Do you have 50? Do you have that? So I think
Speaker:setting the intention of saying, I'm gonna identify a
Speaker:big goal that I have to do $500 a month, but I'm
Speaker:gonna also be conscious and aware
Speaker:that if I put anything into this, I'm still succeeding at
Speaker:my goal. I think that's so important to identify the little micro
Speaker:goals. Right? Mhmm. To have a big goal of
Speaker:investing in yourself and putting yourself first so you can do all this,
Speaker:well, we don't have a whole day. And even if we did have a whole
Speaker:day mentally, it's so hard to commit to that without
Speaker:shaming ourselves for doing it. So hearing that you say
Speaker:that you're like, I just once a month, I went to massage Emmy. I'm like,
Speaker:yes. That's exactly right. Because it's like, maybe you did that for 6
Speaker:months and then you went to a coffee shop. Then you just
Speaker:build. Building is so important when it comes
Speaker:to these cycles and these seasons in our life, like, building
Speaker:our own process over time to really
Speaker:make it through each cycle on each season. Absolutely.
Speaker:No. I unpacking the we
Speaker:you and I were chatting about this before we started recording, but, like, unpacking
Speaker:those portions of myself, which is the whole like, anyone who's been listening for a
Speaker:bit now knows that, like, that was the whole point of the rebrand, on the
Speaker:podcast was to be able to unpack and show up more
Speaker:authentically as me instead of, like, oh, this box of me gets to live
Speaker:here professionally. Like, this box is here for the company, and
Speaker:there's no wooiness. There's no, like, spirituality. There's no witchy.
Speaker:There's no crystal. Like, it's just we're we're vibing and we're chilling.
Speaker:Whereas, like, in my personal life, yes, I'm that, but I'm also
Speaker:this, and I also have these interests. And, like, where was I not
Speaker:allowing myself to show up and stunting my
Speaker:own growth and my own creative expression by not being
Speaker:okay because there's all of these, like it's
Speaker:it's near and dear to my heart, and it's more personal. And so to
Speaker:pull some of these, like, boxed or
Speaker:closeted versions of myself out and be more comfortable with them being in the public.
Speaker:And, like, hey. The stakes are higher here. Like, it's a little
Speaker:scary, but it also has gotten to a point where it was less
Speaker:scary to start showing those sides of myself than
Speaker:it was stifling to keep them boxed up.
Speaker:And I think that you do such a
Speaker:great job from what I've seen. There's there's a couple of people that I follow
Speaker:on TikTok that just how the fuck up? Like,
Speaker:you're not showing up just for photography stuff, or you're not showing up just for
Speaker:business things. Like, there was one where, like, I think you guys were going to
Speaker:a party a week or 2 ago, and, like, you had the blue eye shadow.
Speaker:Like, just existing as a human being. Right? Because people wanna see
Speaker:the human being behind the brand, not necessarily just to buy from you, but
Speaker:also because of work we crave connection and
Speaker:community. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is
Speaker:this is something that I this is like a like a hill that if I
Speaker:ever died on a hill or a pillar or whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker:this would be it. Because I say I'm like, people
Speaker:come to social media because they want to
Speaker:feel a connection. They want to have a
Speaker:connection, but we're too scared to put ourselves out there
Speaker:because we are told that being vulnerable is not
Speaker:okay. Showing too much of ourself is not okay. So we
Speaker:live in these boxes and we put up these walls and we let people
Speaker:in so far but not far enough. And then at the end of the day,
Speaker:so many people go to bed at night or they don't even go to
Speaker:bed. They stay up playing on their phone because they're lonely and they're searching for
Speaker:a connection. So, like, social media,
Speaker:it's so important and I think especially as business owners. And
Speaker:if business owners and entrepreneurs could see that there's
Speaker:no wrong with being vulnerable, you already did the most vulnerable thing
Speaker:ever. You went against what society tells you you're supposed to do and you
Speaker:made a very courageous decision to start your own business and
Speaker:to do your own thing and to just just go for it. That's
Speaker:one of those vulnerable things you can do. Right? But we don't see it as
Speaker:that. We see it as like, well, I just wanted to do it. And it's
Speaker:like, no. No. No. There's layers to that. You didn't just want to do it.
Speaker:You know? So, like, showing up as your most
Speaker:authentic self on social media is so important, I
Speaker:think, just for, like, humanity. Like, us as
Speaker:people to show people that, like, they're not alone in the things that they
Speaker:think or the things that they feel or the things that they find funny or
Speaker:the things that they take seriously. There's there's so many avenues
Speaker:with it. But yes. Yes. Yes. Like, I'm all for and
Speaker:vulnerability on the Internet. Now you don't have to, like, tell me your deepest darkest
Speaker:secrets or, like, share everything that you do in a day. And I think that's
Speaker:where people there's this this thing where people are
Speaker:like, well, what is okay and what's not okay to
Speaker:share vulnerability or authentically?
Speaker:And I think the truth is that it's just, like, whatever you're
Speaker:comfortable with people knowing about you. Whatever because you can only meet
Speaker:people where you're at. People can only meet you. So
Speaker:get clear on where you feel comfortable with yourself and what you're
Speaker:okay with people knowing about you, and do it.
Speaker:Go for it. Who cares if people judge you? Everybody does.
Speaker:It it always every now and then when I I've gone viral a couple of
Speaker:times on TikTok now. It's been a few years, but,
Speaker:it was overwhelming. And I have a a deep and abiding loathing for
Speaker:Dave Ramsey for a lot of reasons. And
Speaker:anytime I post something anytime I go viral, I would
Speaker:intentionally post something polarizing
Speaker:afterwards to kind of clean house of people that I didn't want to be
Speaker:people that weren't I didn't want to be around. They weren't gonna wanna be around.
Speaker:Like, it was just gonna end up as, like, troll central, potentially, if they were
Speaker:hanging out there. And reading, I I
Speaker:just there's a lot of those times where I don't read the comments, and my
Speaker:sister will look at them, and she's like, hey, man. Like, I wouldn't even look
Speaker:at them. Just skip on by that video. Like, thank you.
Speaker:I appreciate it because, well, it's easier to do it
Speaker:on videos that I'm not, like, I'm not emotionally
Speaker:attached to Dave Ramsey. And so it's a lot easier to be like,
Speaker:yeah. Ask Dave Ramsey. Like, here's why I don't like him and not care
Speaker:so much what people have to say, but there are times where I'll have something
Speaker:go viral that's, like, more personal or, like, I do care
Speaker:or it is about something. Like, I had something that I posted about paying
Speaker:off my car and, you know, should should should I pay off my car? Should
Speaker:I invest it? I knew what I was going to be doing, unless part of
Speaker:what I've gotten comfortable with. I'm not going to TikTok
Speaker:generally with, like, high stakes advice questions that I need from someone.
Speaker:I'm going because I'm like, oh, my God. I always forget to post about x
Speaker:y z. Like, here's how my brain works. I bet you other people are wondering
Speaker:or have thoughts and, like, I but I'm clear on what I want
Speaker:before I go there. And so, I knew what I was doing with the
Speaker:car. But holy shit was it interesting to see what
Speaker:people had to say about it because I think one of the greatest ways sometimes
Speaker:to garner engagement, like, authentic engagement is to ask for advice. People
Speaker:love to give advice, unsolicited or solicited. And And
Speaker:so heaven forbid you ask for something that has to do with money and debt
Speaker:and investing, and it was, like, all of the triggers. But it was just so
Speaker:intriguing to me to pick something that was, like, low stakes for me,
Speaker:but also, like, almost a social experiment. And so I've been toying
Speaker:with, like, what do I like putting out there that runs the balance of, like,
Speaker:I'm comfortable if this were to go out to millions of people. I'm okay,
Speaker:like, weathering this versus, like, no. Probably not gonna post it
Speaker:on there if I'm not okay with it going viral. Yeah. Exactly. And
Speaker:it's like that's such a crazy mindset and, like, a thought to even have
Speaker:where it's like, I'm not okay with this going viral. It's like, if you have
Speaker:told, like, young you that that would be a thought that you have Oh
Speaker:my god. Yeah. It it it it's it's crazy,
Speaker:but yeah. No. I love TikTok. I love the platform.
Speaker:I I tell people all the time. They're like, Danielle, how do you post on
Speaker:TikTok? I'm like, low key, I love TikTok. It's fun. I love it.
Speaker:It there. It's so low stakes. I have
Speaker:nothing attached to that app and the
Speaker:way that it reaches people, it is
Speaker:insane. It's insane. And so if you go into
Speaker:it very low stakes or, like, whatever reason or if you're looking to
Speaker:connect with people or get advice or just say, like,
Speaker:hey. This is something that I'm thinking. I know other people are thinking it. Like,
Speaker:you put it out there, you detach from it, and, like, whatever happens
Speaker:happens with it. And I love TikTok. I love it.
Speaker:I 10 out of 10. Some people are like, no. I'm like, I love it.
Speaker:I love it. I do too. No. I I hopped on it when,
Speaker:I think, late 2020 Mhmm. Early 2021. I I gave
Speaker:it a while, like, end of the pandemic, very millennial of me,
Speaker:to just, like, let it ride. But Instagram was feeling
Speaker:uninspired and like a chore. Yep. And
Speaker:I don't think I'd connected anything to TikTok at first. So now I have, like,
Speaker:my Instagram and other shit all connected to there, which I'm fine with. But at
Speaker:the time, I was thinking, you know what? F it. Like, let's the first video
Speaker:I posted was just to get me posting something was about, like, what my hair
Speaker:routine was to, like, the products I use or whatever has nothing to do with
Speaker:it. And it's still it's still up there, like, way, way back. But
Speaker:it's just so much fun to, like, be not
Speaker:necessarily anonymous. Right? But, like, on a platform where, like, I don't have to
Speaker:give a shit, and this doesn't have to be tied to my business right now.
Speaker:Like, I can choose to do something with it, but I can just play.
Speaker:That that is exactly the same reason why I
Speaker:started, like, posting on TikTok. I got a TikTok very,
Speaker:again, millennial of me. I waited till, like, end of 2020. I'd
Speaker:had the app and I didn't get it. I started, like, watching the videos and
Speaker:blah blah blah and just having fun. And it was actually in a state
Speaker:where I felt very burnt out with my business that I
Speaker:posted on TikTok. Mhmm. The first time so I posted, like,
Speaker:a couple other videos, but this was the first time that I'd ever been,
Speaker:like, this is just kind of how I'm feeling. I don't really care about anything.
Speaker:I'm gonna post this and just, like, roll with it. And,
Speaker:it was this it was a time where I was burnout. It was a time
Speaker:when Instagram felt like a chore. It was a time when I felt like I
Speaker:was like fighting every current in the business world and seeing no
Speaker:results. And so, I knew that I have to break from
Speaker:this. This can't be my only outlet and I wanted to go somewhere where people
Speaker:didn't know me where it didn't matter, you know? And
Speaker:I posted one video and it was about my divorce because I was going through
Speaker:my divorce at a time and I just,
Speaker:like, shared a story and it was just to help me
Speaker:process too how I'm feeling and what's going on.
Speaker:And I posted a video and it went viral
Speaker:and then, like, multiple videos, like, after that and after that and
Speaker:after that. And that's when I really I'd always knew it was important to
Speaker:be authentic and to just share things, but having
Speaker:the the content that I produce on TikTok, like,
Speaker:continuously go I I wish it was about something other, but it
Speaker:Right? But seeing how so
Speaker:many people resonate with that,
Speaker:it's mind blowing to me, you know? Like, seeing how many people had
Speaker:opinions on whether or not you should pay off your car is
Speaker:mind blowing, you know? And it's like, oh, y'all felt comfortable enough to say that.
Speaker:Oh, wow. Okay. Like, that's what I love about TikTok. I love
Speaker:the comfort level of it just knowing that it's like, I don't
Speaker:know you you. You don't know me. So I'm just gonna put it out there.
Speaker:I love it's it's just such
Speaker:a fun like, it really has been a game,
Speaker:and the more that I approach it as a game, the more fun it
Speaker:is because I'm not out here trying to go viral. Like, if I go viral,
Speaker:cool, because it almost broke us. Yeah. We had, like, 2 videos in a month
Speaker:time span. I was out of the country for one of them
Speaker:with poor service, and it was August, and most of our team was
Speaker:out. And we didn't have anything set up, which, like, if anything if anyone's listening
Speaker:to this, not like this entire episode is about going viral, but if anyone that's
Speaker:your goal in life, oh my god. Build the freaking system. Build a funnel.
Speaker:Build something that is attached to your profile because,
Speaker:Danielle, I should shoot out. I think we got, like, 1500 applications
Speaker:sent via email because one of the ones that went viral was about, like, our
Speaker:team and our culture and, like, hiring and all that. And everyone we weren't hiring
Speaker:at the time. I wasn't posting to hire. It was a stitch
Speaker:or do it or do something to another video, and
Speaker:we couldn't get our actual client emails because, like, we were just fifting
Speaker:through, like, thousands of emails
Speaker:and, like, comments and messages. So I think that's when you could DM people and
Speaker:it would go to their inbox, you know, even if you weren't front. And so
Speaker:it was just, like, the deluge, and then it went, like, mini
Speaker:viral for the next you know, like, once a week for, like, next 2 or
Speaker:3 weeks after that. It would, like, resurf, and we just started to get, like,
Speaker:our heads above the water, and then went again to
Speaker:I I think I took, like, 6 months off TikTok after that. It was, like,
Speaker:I can't fucking do this. Yeah. This is this is a lot. So, yeah, if
Speaker:anyone doesn't need to put something in place or but, you know, your own business,
Speaker:like, bumper lanes on that because Yeah.
Speaker:Do not expect that. It's, it's different.
Speaker:It's it's totally it's totally, totally different, and I think it is
Speaker:because, like, there is that level of, I don't know you. You don't
Speaker:know me. I'm still putting it out there, and, like, everybody kind of thinks
Speaker:of it that way or they did for a moment in time. I think now
Speaker:it's getting more business more like Instagram over on TikTok, more business
Speaker:y. But yeah. Like, if you are a
Speaker:business owner and nobody's goal should ever
Speaker:be to go viral. Right? Like, that's not why you should produce content.
Speaker:But if you are going to
Speaker:go to a platform like TikTok or even YouTube, like, YouTube is becoming a thing
Speaker:Mhmm. And going to create any content that could lead back to
Speaker:your business in any way, be delusional, set up the funnel,
Speaker:create a new email, link every like, just go
Speaker:ahead. Be delusional. Just be delusional because
Speaker:delusion is preparation at this point for apps like that.
Speaker:Yes. Scream it from the freaking rooftops because I
Speaker:would have loved like, we now have a little bit in place that should we
Speaker:go viral or mini or whatever we wanna call it, it's
Speaker:fine. It is fine. We have, like, filters in
Speaker:place on our email. Like, every it's just it will not break.
Speaker:I think also, like, that you don't even have to, like, technically, like, go
Speaker:viral to get, like I mean, you may not get, like,
Speaker:1500 people reaching out, but to get the an overwhelm
Speaker:Yes. With Yes. This I have, like, my personal TikTok
Speaker:account where I just kinda share, like, whatever and that's, like, my, like,
Speaker:divorce TikTok is my top. But I made another
Speaker:TikTok where I just gain very generalized
Speaker:business information for creators and for photographers, And I made that
Speaker:one because I just was like, I don't wanna be this
Speaker:person on TikTok anymore. I have so much more to give. Let me try out
Speaker:another account. And, I mean, I have, like, a 100
Speaker:followers on that account, like, nothing crazy. And but my
Speaker:videos, they get a couple 100 views, but I consistently
Speaker:get cold, cold outreach clients that are going, I don't have
Speaker:my Instagram link. I don't have anything. But it's, like, once a
Speaker:week, I'll check, like, I have an email for that. I'll check that email. I've
Speaker:got, like, 5 to 6, like, coaching inquiries in there because
Speaker:I just mentioned that this is what I do. Mhmm. Right? It's like
Speaker:that can still be overwhelming for somebody
Speaker:who isn't ready or, like, didn't think that would
Speaker:happen to say, like, how do I go from having nobody to
Speaker:having, like, 6 new people a week, you know? Right. Which is a lot.
Speaker:Yeah. It's a lot. So Yeah. No. I think that's a
Speaker:really great point. I'm and I'm also always surprised too. Sometimes, like, I'll have videos
Speaker:that don't get a lot of views, but I get a lot of interactions, like,
Speaker:comment. And it's like that. It it can be
Speaker:it can feel more like a job and less like an
Speaker:outlet at times. And I think it can be important to remind
Speaker:ourselves, like, hey. You don't have to reply to every single thing. You don't have
Speaker:to hold yourself to the standard. Like, this is fun. This
Speaker:is why we started I mean, assuming that you started it for fun. But, like,
Speaker:for me, this is fun. If it stops being fun, we
Speaker:need to stop doing something or change something here. And, like, if I'm feeling
Speaker:obligated to sit here and reply or it's, like, impacting my one on one time
Speaker:with my husband or, like, something that I that's not acceptable in my
Speaker:life, then we step back. We're getting a little too invested in this. We're taking
Speaker:a little break. And feel so much better when that happens because it can
Speaker:be really easy to get, like, wrapped up in it. Mhmm. And
Speaker:I think probably that's probably, like, if we're if we talk through that, it's like
Speaker:it's probably part of that cycle of, like, burnout to realize that it's like,
Speaker:oh, I'm doing something that was fun and creative and fueled me and now
Speaker:it feels like a job or I realize I've been doing it nonstop and
Speaker:I didn't start this for that. Right? Like, if you start posting
Speaker:anything to be a creative outlet, you start learning something, if
Speaker:you start doing something, if you start a new fobbie
Speaker:in order for it to be a creative outlet, let it be that.
Speaker:Like, have self discipline enough to say, this is
Speaker:this is what this this purpose is in my life. It is to
Speaker:be this creative outlet. If this is no longer gonna be a creative
Speaker:outlet for me, I need to define a new one right now.
Speaker:I think as business owners and entrepreneurs, it is really,
Speaker:easy to fall into the trap of I have to monetize everything that I do.
Speaker:I have to monetize every hobby. I have to x y z, and I've
Speaker:absolutely fallen to that before. It's a freaking nightmare. So, yes, I think if you
Speaker:do intentionally decide to monetize a
Speaker:hobby or a passion project, that doesn't
Speaker:mean that you now don't have any hobbies or passion projects. That means that we
Speaker:need to be prior like, where are we taking care of ourselves
Speaker:if we're now making everything an effing business venture? Because, yeah, it can
Speaker:it can be fun to do that too, but everything shouldn't be monetized in our
Speaker:lives I agree. Because it gives
Speaker:us no space for ourselves. I
Speaker:agree. I agree.
Speaker:I agree. It's like I love to cook, but, like, I'm not gonna monetize on
Speaker:cooking. And I don't even love to cook. I love to learn how to cook
Speaker:because I'm still learning. But it's like that would be me being like, I'm gonna
Speaker:go make a cookbook tomorrow. Why? Why would you do that?
Speaker:Just enjoy cooking. Just enjoy the learning phase that you're in.
Speaker:Embrace that. Yes. No. Absolutely.
Speaker:I love that. Was there anything else that you wanted to cover that
Speaker:you felt was important for anyone listening today?
Speaker:I mean, like I told you before we started Oh, yeah.
Speaker:I could I could I got lots of things I'd love to tell people,
Speaker:but I really I think maybe, like, ending it on the fact
Speaker:like, kinda, like, self value and, like, self worth and just, like,
Speaker:really prioritizing time for you, not so that you
Speaker:can fill other people's cup, but so you don't have to live in a
Speaker:constant state of firefight. That way you can feel more confident.
Speaker:That way you can stop thinking other people have the right answers
Speaker:for you because nobody's ever gonna know what's best for you except for
Speaker:you. Right? So really just if I could
Speaker:encourage any person, any business owner, any creative,
Speaker:any anybody who's young, you know,
Speaker:always focus on you. Like like,
Speaker:make your plate before you make somebody else's plate. Oh, that's
Speaker:maybe we stop and talk Yeah. You know? Maybe we say put your
Speaker:laundry away before you put their laundry away. Maybe it's
Speaker:no. Like, maybe you take a shower first and have an extra 15
Speaker:minutes to decompress before, you know,
Speaker:letting somebody else get ready first and then having them wait on you and you
Speaker:feeling stressed. Put yourself first. Focus on
Speaker:you. Love that. I was checking those off in my head as
Speaker:he said them. The meals and the plate thing I normally do, the
Speaker:laundry thing I normally do, the shower thing's at 5050. I was
Speaker:like, look at me go. Wow. I love that because
Speaker:it's very it's
Speaker:just so easy to end up taking care of other people instead of taking care
Speaker:of yourself. Yeah. It it's it's my mom friends that I've
Speaker:just met. They're all stay at home moms. Their husbands are in the
Speaker:military, so it's you know, they're like,
Speaker:I have my husband and his job, and I have my kids. And
Speaker:they feel burnout. They feel like they don't know who they are. They feel like
Speaker:they've lost their purpose. And I'm like, okay. So stop eating cold chicken
Speaker:nuggets then. Mhmm. Like, make the kids eat what you wanna eat for dinner. Right?
Speaker:So I'm a little standing up in the kitchen. Exactly. Go sit down,
Speaker:you know, and if the kids don't wanna sit down, then that's fine. Why don't
Speaker:you go sit down? Stop fighting with them. You don't have to fight with them.
Speaker:You don't have to get them to do these things. You know? Like, every time
Speaker:you do that, you you're resenting what's going on here. You're resenting
Speaker:it. You're not putting yourself first. They wanna run around wild? Let them run around
Speaker:wild. Instead of folding your husband's clothes, why don't you fold your clothes
Speaker:and make him fold his own? Instead of putting his away, why don't you make
Speaker:him put his way? Right? Instead of putting the kids' clothes away,
Speaker:why don't you say, hey. You guys need to do this if you wanna do
Speaker:x, y, and z. Right? Like, we get to pick our battles. Right?
Speaker:Don't don't don't battle yourselves. Don't battle yourself.
Speaker:It's not worth it. But that was the Absolutely.
Speaker:I took them. Make your plate put that your clothes
Speaker:away. You shower first. There's such small changes too to have such
Speaker:a big mindset shift, I think, around making your own care
Speaker:and, like, signaling to those around you that, like, you're prioritizing yourself
Speaker:without having to say a word necessarily. Right? Like
Speaker:yep. Because I did that first. Self self care,
Speaker:I think in sorry. I'm not sorry, but
Speaker:we self care has been portrayed to us as being these big
Speaker:acts. I'm gonna care for myself. I'm gonna I deserve a nice
Speaker:expensive bag. I deserve to take a full spa
Speaker:day. I deserve to go get my nails done. What if I just
Speaker:deserve to paint my nails and take 15 minutes for myself? What if I deserve
Speaker:to go sit in my car for 5 minutes and be away from everybody? What
Speaker:if I just deserve a shower and a glass of like, a bath and a
Speaker:glass of wine with nobody bothering me? Right? When we only
Speaker:look at things as these extremes, we can't see how
Speaker:little things can make the change and it is little
Speaker:things that make big things happen. Absolutely.
Speaker:Let's just such a mic drop moment. The the little the the 2
Speaker:millimeter shifts or the 2 millimeter tweaks
Speaker:add up. It's the $25. It's the like, all of these
Speaker:little small things add up over time over consistency. They
Speaker:compound. Yeah. And
Speaker:I've watched it happen in my own life over the last, what, 11 plus years
Speaker:of making these kind of scary but
Speaker:small tweaks. And, like, what does that add up to? That adds up to someone
Speaker:that can go take a day to go take care of themselves and make themselves
Speaker:a priority without feeling literally any guilt,
Speaker:which is just so nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:I have I have this thing. I'm not gonna say sorry
Speaker:again, but you can tell me if I'm going. I have this other
Speaker:theory where I compared I I do this all the time. I make
Speaker:all these things up in my head, and I compared I was, like,
Speaker:listening to music one day and, like, Diamonds by Rihanna came on and I was
Speaker:like, oh, gosh. And I was just, like, letting it play, but I was
Speaker:like they said there's, like, 3 c's when it comes to, like, being a diamond,
Speaker:like, cut, clarity, and color. And I was
Speaker:talking to some of my mom friends and, they they're using words
Speaker:like empowered and blah blah blah and all that, and I'm like, you don't need
Speaker:to be worried about being empowered and courageous and all that. Like, you need to
Speaker:be worried about how to be resilient and because if
Speaker:you can master how to be resilient, all confidence,
Speaker:courageous, like, audacious, all all those empowered all those
Speaker:bluff words come. Right? And so I was
Speaker:like, there's really, like, 3 things that you need to constantly
Speaker:put yourself first. And I always say it's like 3 c's like a diamond.
Speaker:It's like you have clarity, you have consistency, and you have confidence.
Speaker:If you can master understanding the cycle of
Speaker:I need clarity, what's going on here? I've got clarity. I feel really confident
Speaker:now. I know this has worked for me before and it's going to work, so
Speaker:I'm gonna stay consistent with it. It's 3 c's over
Speaker:and over again. Clarity, consistency, confidence. However you
Speaker:wanna interchange them. But it's like those three things
Speaker:are things that, like, I I sift through in my mind and I
Speaker:encourage other women to sift through to say that it's like, if you can do
Speaker:those 3 c's over and over and over again, you will constantly put
Speaker:yourself first. You will know your you will value yourself. You'll know your self
Speaker:worth. You won't seek validation from others. You won't question yourself.
Speaker:You know? So I love that. Okay. Well, that's
Speaker:definitely going in the notes. I mean, all yeah. All of this is going in
Speaker:there, but that'll be a really good little, social
Speaker:media clip for everyone that
Speaker:likes to listen to the audiogram. So I know that's, like, my favorite part about
Speaker:the little podcast teasers or the audiograms. Okay.
Speaker:Danielle, obviously, you're on TikTok. So if
Speaker:anyone wants to go have fun with you, we'll make sure to drop your TikTok
Speaker:profile in the notes. Where else are you
Speaker:showing up? And where else are you wanting people to see you?
Speaker:I'm on TikTok. I love TikTok. Again, like, I would encourage
Speaker:everybody to, like, follow me there. Instagram, I feel like that
Speaker:is, the millennials Facebook now. So Yeah. That's that's
Speaker:the comment. Are we on it? But I do. I love
Speaker:Instagram a lot and I take on 2 different
Speaker:personas on both of them. You know? One is still kind of my
Speaker:business and I'm I'm a little bit softer over there. In TikTok, I'm very
Speaker:in your face and abrasive, but I like that. That's how I that's how I
Speaker:like to do it. And then I have a threads account as
Speaker:well where I just make all of my threads unpopular
Speaker:opinions about business education and photography
Speaker:education. So kind of like that, you know,
Speaker:your Dave Ramsey content. Yeah. You're you're a little polarizing.
Speaker:Yeah. But, yeah, those are my 3 main, TikTok, Instagram,
Speaker:and threads. And I would love for everybody to follow
Speaker:me because I look nifty. Yeah. I've yet to pop into
Speaker:threads, but you might you might convince me
Speaker:because I do love a good unpopular opinion. Yeah. It
Speaker:I'm I'm not super active on threads, but I tell myself, like, if you
Speaker:go to know it once a week, right, and it's a challenge for me. It's
Speaker:like, oh, this this is what the young people are
Speaker:doing. Okay. Let me you know?
Speaker:And Yes. Nice as of now for me
Speaker:because I don't really know who's going to pop up on my feed.
Speaker:I don't know who's going to do that. I was never like a big Twitter
Speaker:person or anything like that, but I
Speaker:also, as a 32 year old woman, like, I'm trying to get back in the
Speaker:habit of reading more and not watching my phone as much, not
Speaker:watching videos, not listening to things, that I'm trying to use my eyes. So
Speaker:I'm like, if I go in there once a week for, like, 10 minutes,
Speaker:that's pretty good. I'm reading. You know? That's how I validated it.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Alan's awesome. No. I felt that way
Speaker:about Snapchat. It's like all the my husband who does not have a
Speaker:TikTok. He watches the compilations on Facebook. He's almost 38,
Speaker:and I give him shit for it all the time because it's just such a,
Speaker:like, generationally, like, older thing to do, and he won't get it and won't get
Speaker:it and won't get it. He has Snapchat to use with our
Speaker:friends that are in their twenties. And I just can't. I have one,
Speaker:and I I feel like it's such a young
Speaker:person. Like, I I feel like I'm thinking, get off my lawn. Every
Speaker:time I, like, think about using Snapchat, I just can't do it. So, yeah, I
Speaker:I love that you're challenging yourself to do as the young people do with threads.
Speaker:I'm trying I'm trying to, like, meet them. I'm trying to meet people. I'm trying
Speaker:to stay hip. I'm trying to stay cool, but, honestly, it's a little overwhelming. You
Speaker:know? Look what happened when I got on TikTok. Now I'm just a girl
Speaker:that posts about her divorce all the time because it went viral. Like, who knows
Speaker:what threads it's gonna be? But, yeah, I like to try to keep up. So
Speaker:Amazing. Well, thank you so much. This was such a
Speaker:robust conversation. It was really lovely. Yeah. No. It
Speaker:is. I had a great had a great time. Thank you so much for giving
Speaker:me my end. Whole space. Yeah. And
Speaker:all of your wonderful places to connect will be down in the comments or notes,
Speaker:not comments. Yeah. Down in the notes. So used to doing lives
Speaker:for things instead of podcast recordings. It's just such a habit.
Speaker:I love it. I love it. I love it. Well,
Speaker:amazing. Everyone, make sure to go follow Danielle and have some fun on TikTok
Speaker:or your place of choosing.
Speaker:Yeah. And and put some content out there. Be
Speaker:authentic. See what happens. Detach from it. Have some fun. Make
Speaker:some magic. Yeah. Yeah. Throw it out there
Speaker:imperfectly amazing. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker:That's a wrap for this episode of the Wealth Witches podcast. I hope
Speaker:our magical money talks have left you feeling empowered and inspired.
Speaker:Remember, wealth isn't just about dollars in the bank. It's about abundance and
Speaker:financial freedom in all aspects of your life. I'm Caitlin Magnuson
Speaker:encouraging you to keep challenging the status quo and embrace your inner witch on
Speaker:this financial journey. Until next time, stay magical.
Speaker:Hey there, magical listener. Are you ready to take your financial journey to the
Speaker:next level? This is Caitlin Magnuson inviting you to join us at the wealth,
Speaker:which is monthly program where we dive even deeper into the cauldron of
Speaker:wealth from live training sessions about money, taxes, retirement, and
Speaker:business support to an inclusive community that's here to support your growth,
Speaker:we've got everything you need to embrace your inner wealth witch. Visit
Speaker:our website at wealthwitchesdot com to join us.
Speaker:Your wealthier self is waiting.