The Brilliance Method - Intuitive and Energetic Entrepreneurship to Expand Your Life Purpose
The Brilliance Method Podcast, hosted by Elysia Skye, is a transformative journey into mindful living, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. This is where spirit meets strategy.
Through vulnerable, engaging, and often hilarious interviews and teachings with thought leaders, creators, and industry trailblazers, this spiritual business podcast dives into themes of resilience, self-discovery, overcoming obstacles, and achieving success with compassion and authenticity.
Each episode inspires listeners to cultivate their unique brilliance, navigate challenges, and pursue happiness and fulfillment on their own terms, creating meaningful change in their lives and communities.
Hosted by Intuitive Business Coach, Transformational Speaker, and Mindfulness Consultant, Elysia Skye.
The Brilliance Method - Intuitive and Energetic Entrepreneurship to Expand Your Life Purpose
Making More Money Won’t Fix Your Life (Here’s Why)
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Making more money should fix everything… right? In this episode, we break down why earning more doesn’t actually solve your money problems, and how your hidden money mindset, money blocks, and subconscious patterns may be keeping you stuck in cycles of stress, inconsistency, and self-sabotage.
If you’re a creative or spiritual entrepreneur struggling with inconsistent income, financial anxiety, overspending, or feeling out of control with money, this conversation will help you understand what’s really going on beneath the surface. You’ll learn how to shift your money story, build self-trust, create healthier money habits, and step into true financial alignment and abundance without relying on hustle or burnout.
Lisa is a Certified Financial Counselor who does Individual and Couples Coaching, Workshops, Small Business Consulting and Financial Interventions. Specializing in working with fluctuating income streams, she expertly blends the best of traditional and long-established money management tools, ideas, and processes for entrepreneurs, business owners, and creative professionals. Lisa revolutionizes her clients' beliefs and behaviors around money, finances, and relationships. She provides a fresh, modern approach to the possibilities of money.
Text Lisa to schedule your 90-minute session in 2026 for $150 (310) 874-5939 or email her at lisa@lisagould.com.
Connect with and Work with Elysia at https://www.elysiaskye.com
Join Elysia’s New and Full Moon Divine Direction Callshttps://www.patreon.com/c/thebrilliancemethod
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@elysiaskye @thebrilliancemethod
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Money has so many layers. You might feel anxious thinking about your bank account, or maybe you're doing great, but money still feels really loud in your nervous system. If so, this episode is for you because people at all levels of wealth have a money story. Today I'm sitting down with my money coach and longtime friend Lisa Gould for real conversations about the part of money that nobody teaches us, because money is not just math or accounting, it's energy, safety, identity, and the beliefs we absorbed when we were too young to understand what was actually happening. If you want to feel calmer, clearer, and more in control about your financial life, then you are in the right place. Let's get into it. Hi, Lisa.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the show. Hi, Lisa. Good to see you.
SPEAKER_01You too. For our audience who's like, why are you already laughing and what did we miss? I was looking at some ideas of questions to ask Lisa, and one of them is, Why are you so stunningly beautiful?
SPEAKER_03I mean, we know that people are gonna be wondering. So we have to answer it. So it's actually a joke with my husband and I because he'll say, like, hey, and I'll be like, What? And he goes, Oh, God, I forgot what I was gonna ask you. And I and I will look at him and go, Is it why am I so stunningly beautiful? And he'll go, Yeah, that's it. That's so good.
SPEAKER_01That's so good. And you know, we have our mutual friend in love, Andrea Quinn. And whenever she makes a mistake, she always says, I'm so pretty. And so I've adopted that. I have too. Yeah. And it's like, what a great way to instead of saying, I'm so stupid or you know, I'm so dumb, to just go, Oh my God, I'm just so gorgeous. Yes. I forgot what I was gonna say, or whatever it might have been. So I was thinking back to sitting in my condo with you. It must have been 2010 or 11, and I just had all my bills all over my West Elm table that I got on that home makeover show. And just like in I think in the midst of planning my wedding, and I was like, how do I life? How do I afford life? No one ever taught me how to be an adult when it came to money. And my audience knows, you know, dad was a criminal, went to prison, then single mom mode for my beautiful mother, and she was a massage therapist. And not that that couldn't be an extremely lucrative uh income, but you know, raising two kids and then like having to suddenly be the one responsible for money. I just always witnessed that money was hard, just go right to the sale rack, you know, all those things imprint us. And uh one of the things we're gonna talk about on the show today is the money story that gets created. Yeah. That we sometimes tell ourselves. So before we get into all of that, I just want to say thank you for being here and I love you.
SPEAKER_03I love you too, mama.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. And you're such a wealth of knowledge. How did you get into this? Even the accountants I know like don't do what you do. How did this happen?
SPEAKER_03So I moved to LA wanting to have an acting career. And I did that for a few years, never made anything close to what I could live off of, but got a few jobs here and there, did some theater, whatever. And I got tired of it. I woke up one morning and I was like, I just don't want to do this anymore. And what I'd been doing to pay the bills instead of what a lot of people in Los Angeles do is they wait tables. But I was able to work in a mortgage company, several of them actually, because I had experience in that from before I moved out to LA.
SPEAKER_01Can I jump in for a quick second? Yes. Because so many creatives watch this show and what an empowered choice to go, I don't want to do this anymore, instead of, no, I am defined by being an actor, and I told everybody I was gonna be a movie star. Yeah. So there's you already have held this power of identity that's not defined by where you are and what you live. I can't even imagine because that was really hard for me. What was that shift when you're like, I can't do this anymore? Can we break down a little bit into that moment?
SPEAKER_03Well, it I think that it had been boiling in the back of my mind for longer than I realized because I would be working in a mortgage company and I had a lot of flexibility. I was in sales, I was a mortgage broker. And so I could go on auditions. And you would think that when I would get a call from my agent, I would be like, oh, yay, I have an audition. And I realized that I was rolling my eyes every time I saw the call come in. And I was like, oh God, okay, I gotta go do this again. And it didn't, it wasn't fun anymore. The few, what in the industry they call legit jobs, which is film and television. When I did them, I kind of walked off the set like, oh, oh, that was it. Now, granted, I was not a series regular, I wasn't the lead in any movies, right? So I I imagine that that would be a different feeling. But I really did not feel fulfilled when I got the jobs, and then I started not feeling fulfilled when I auditioned. And I used to love to audition because if you're an actor, you know that auditioning is acting. So you, even if it's for one minute, you get to act in front of people. And so I loved it. And then slowly it just the the desire just kind of went away. I don't, I don't know if I can explain it any better than that, except that it I I wanted to be more fulfilled. And at that point, I was in the mortgage industry. So I thought, well, let me just go, you know, full on into this because the acting isn't fulfilling. It was the only thing I wanted to do from the time I was about, I don't know, six years old. And so I thought, well, if I make enough money, it won't matter. And so I went full on into the mortgage stuff. And that ended in bankruptcy. So, I mean, that's a big leap. I'm gonna, I'll go a little bit more into detail in that.
SPEAKER_01But um also the moment of if I make enough money, it won't matter.
SPEAKER_03It won't matter, right?
SPEAKER_01That I'm unhappy. That's a trap. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's such a trap. It is such a trap. And you can make a lot of money in Los Angeles being a mortgage broker, you know. I never made that much, but I literally doubled what I'd been making prior to that in the first year. So for me, it was a lot of money. But I have this core belief. And that belief is that if you acquire money in a way that does not feel good to you, you will find a way to separate yourself from that money. And that, I believe, like down to the bottom of my toes. Like it is just a fact. You can look at the statistics on some of the 9-11 widows and widowers who got a, I think it was like$5 million when all was said and done. A lot of them lost it because the money felt dirty. The money felt tainted. Also, lottery winners will very often lose. I think the I think the statistic I read recently is like 75% lose all the money within a few years.
SPEAKER_01You're on my uh top three people I'm calling when I win the lottery jackpot, just so you know. Is there any sharing involved?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, Anne. Yes, and okay. I know I put you on the spot there. It's okay.
SPEAKER_00She's got me on record.
SPEAKER_03I do for the whole world.
SPEAKER_00You're gonna you, Andrea, and my uncle, who's an investment banker, and nobody else, but my husband, nobody else is getting a phone call. Okay, good. Good.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, I have my best friends watching this. Love you. You'll find out when all of a sudden I have a dog rescue. Okay.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Oh my God, that's what I want to do. I want to do the same thing. I don't want to do a dog rescue. I want to do a senior living for dogs. Like take in the old dogs that nobody wants that are just gonna die and just keep them until they pass. I don't care if it's one month or it's three years, but just I want to have like a senior home for dogs. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01Like golden girls, but dog. Yes. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03And I could name them after the golden girls. Here's the Sophia wing, here's the Dorothy wing. Oh my God. Okay. I loved Estelle Getty. Estelle Getty was just, she was my dream. I loved her. Okay, back to you. I got distracted by the lottery. So we do we separate ourselves from our money. Separate ourselves. So when you have a job that you don't enjoy, you're gonna separate yourself. Now, when I say separate yourself from the money, that could be a risky investment. That could be spending it, literally, like just going out shopping and buying things. It could be giving money to family members that maybe aren't as fortunate or as wealthy as you are. And that plays into the money story, which we'll get to a little bit later. But taking care of their bills or helping them out, like somehow, or donating. You could even donate it, right? Because that feels good. But somehow you're gonna find a way to separate yourself from it. And saying, like, get rid of it.
SPEAKER_01Like you're just gonna get rid of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just get rid of it. Yeah, it's not comfortable to keep it. So if you're doing that, then you have to really look at what you're doing to make money. Well, I was not happy. I was not happy. I never wanted to be a mortgage broker. Are you kidding me? Like it was fine when I was working other jobs and mortgages and going on auditions and, you know, that kind of thing. But it was never my jam. It was never like, hey, let me be a finance girly who makes a ton of money and has a really beautiful life. That was never my dream.
SPEAKER_01And it's interesting because you went from I'm not fulfilled as an actor to, okay, now I'm not going to be fulfilled as a mortgage broker in sales. So you're seeking fulfillment. You'd you had given us a little spoiler that you went into bankruptcy. So I can only imagine a mask of that fulfillment had to do with spending. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It did. It did. It had to do with spending, but I'll be honest with you, it mostly had to do with under-earning. Because even though I was making more money than I ever had, it wasn't enough to live as alone in a high cost of living city. Yeah. And now, don't get me wrong, if somebody called me and asked me to go to an expensive dinner, I was there. I was single this whole time. And so I wanted community, I wanted socialization, I love food. Like I went to great dinners. I had great times. If somebody said, let's go to Palm Springs or let's go on a trip somewhere, I went like no hesitation. I wasn't so much a like fancy car, fabulous apartment, or even owning something. I wasn't into the traps of buying name brand things and stuff like that. But I was into like experiences and I did spend too much on that. But I also, well, two things. One is I wasn't earning enough to live as a single person in a high cost of living city, but I also didn't know how to manage what I was earning because I was on 100% commission. And there would be$20,000 a month and there would be$2,000 a month. And I did not know how to make that work. And one of the things I do today in my practice is I help high earners figure out where their money's going because you can make a lot of money, but if you are still spending a lot of money, it doesn't matter. I've seen more people save on, you know, making$60,000 than sometimes they're making$500 and they don't have a penny in the bank. Like literally. I'm not even saying, well, they've got 10,000, but it's not enough. No, like I have seen people without a penny extra and they're living paycheck to paycheck. And it's the trappings of you make more money. All those things that you said, I can't have that now. I can't have that now. You start making more money, you're like, oh, I can have that now. Oh my God, now I can buy this pair of shoes, this designer purse, this car, this apartment, like whatever. And it's really hard not to. It's it's called lifestyle creep. And it's it's sneaky. It's the reason it's called lifestyle creep is because it really does creep up. The first month you're like, no, I'm good. And the second month you're like, oh, that that chair that I wanted for the living room that's, you know, a couple of grand. Oh, I can do it. I got it now. No, I'm good. And it just rolls and snowballs and snowballs until you've got a giant snowball of debt. For me, it was over$210,000. And so I was at the time, it was also combined with some external factors, but I never, never blame the external factors because if we're managing our money well, we're planning for the potential of most external factors. So the external factors were the economy and the business model for the company that I worked for changed and that the commission structure changed in addition to the whole business model. So there were a lot of things that that changed, but I was over$210,000 in debt. I was taking home, I want to say about$35,000 a year.
SPEAKER_00So in LA?
SPEAKER_03Wow. No, that was when I doubled my salary. I had doubled my salary a few years before. I had gone from about 60 to like 120, still not easy to live in the city on that. And then I had the, but by the time I went bankrupt, it was it was that bad.
SPEAKER_01I just want to say thank you for sharing how much debt you had. And, you know, when people work with you, they enter the no-shame zone because you've seen it all, you've been there. And it's it's so healing and helpful to hear your number. They don't teach us how to use credit cards and how to not use credit cards. Like they meaning the world. I remember my first day of college, they were like, hey, sign up for this credit card and you're gonna get this cool umbrella or whatever it was, right? And like, cool, that$3 umbrella that probably maybe cost them eight cents, just cost me tens of thousands of dollars in interest. It's like, oh, you have a credit, oh, great, free money, right? An 18-year-old, free money. Yeah. And that becomes, oh, well, no, it's for emergencies. Oh, but it's for no, I'll use it and then I'll pay it off when the money comes in. Right. No, you won't. There's a certain personality that will, God bless them. And I've talked to some of them and I always ask them, how do you do it? And there's a lot of different answers to that. I'm not that girl. Yeah. I will never again get a credit card for Sky Miles or cash back. And I know that it's you can really benefit from those things. Yeah, I'm not that girl. It's it's not gonna happen right now.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'll tell you, I do have a card that has points. Okay. And let me tell you what I do. I just paid my card this morning. I think the balance was like$127. I pay my card almost every day because I know where I've been and I know that I could get back there in a New York minute. And I'm like you, like suddenly the credit card's bill's$5,000. I'm like, I don't really feel like parting with$5,000. Like I want it in my savings. I don't want to put it on the card. And so I keep it constantly at zero. Like if I wake up and my bill's$800, I pay it. If my bill's$500, I pay it. If my bill's$87, I pay it. Because I just want to make sure that it gets paid. And I wouldn't say every single day, but I would say probably four times a week, I pay it. And that helps. But here's a statistic that I've learned. If you pay for something by debit or cash, you tend to spend 20% less than if you were to put it on a card, even if you pay the card off all the time. Okay. So let's do the math on this. Say you put$2,000 a month on a credit card. And I know it kind of goes backwards, so it doesn't really work perfectly on this example, but let's say 400 of that you might not have spent if you had used a debit card or cash.
SPEAKER_01100%, because that's real money.
SPEAKER_03Right. So 400 times 12 is$4,800 a year. How many plane tickets can you buy with$4,800? A lot more than you're buying with your points.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03It might take you a year to save up for one or two trips on points, but$4,800 could probably get you four tickets, if not six, to anywhere you want to go within reason. But points are kind of a racket. Points are kind of a racket. They're kind of a racket. Now, some people are so thrifty that it doesn't matter if they're spending using a credit card or a debit card. So this is, of course, I I have a phrase that says all statistics are somewhat lies. So that statistic probably works in 30 to 40% for some people and zero for other people. But it's a good reminder, you know, and I try to treat it like cash because I know I'm going to pay that off instantly, like the next day, that minute it hits. So that's kind of like cash. But still, I wonder sometimes like if I were to use my debit card at the grocery store, would I be spending less? If I were to use my debit card if I'm clothes shopping, things that I call halfway discretionary, right? I have to have food, but it's discretionary how much I spend on food. I have to have clothing, but it's discretionary how much I have to spend on clothing. So those types of things are where we tend to spend more. Obviously, your rent's your rent, your mortgage is your mortgage, like your car payments, your car payment. That's not going to change. But everything else, other things are flexible. And you want to be in a place where you're like, okay, I'm very conscious of what I'm spending here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes so much sense. Yeah. Well, okay, where are we now? So now you haven't filed bankruptcy yet in the story. Right.
SPEAKER_03So I I went to our mutual friend Andrea Quinn. She was my life coach. I said, I am in trouble. I have to cancel my sessions. And she's like, Yeah, no, that's that uh I'm gonna see you. I wanna see you. I want to see what's going on. So I went in for one session and she's like, You need to file bankruptcy. And I'm like, I am not that person. We are not those people. Excuse me. Little Miss Snotty nose over here. And I'm like, I can't. And then I literally said this to her at one point, and you'll appreciate this because you know her. But I said, No, I can't file bankruptcy. I have to save that for an emergency. And she does this and like looks at me like, girl, you're in the emergency. You just don't realize it. The emergency is now, the emergency is here. Okay. It's so true. So I go to Consumer Credit Counseling Service, which is a legit program. You go to that and they look at all your bills and they look at all your and they look and see, can you pay off? Like, can we take the debts that you have and pay them off in a period of five years? This is how it was at the time. I can't speak for now. And you can avoid bankruptcy by like, let's say you owe 100,000. Maybe they can bring it down to 50, and maybe you can get that 50 paid off.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So, like a debt resolution program, but the actual legitimate one, not like a commercial one that's gonna cost cost you tens of thousands of extra dollars. Okay. Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And the the guy, I can I'll never forget this. The guy's like, yeah, no, you need to file bankruptcy. Oh no. Oh, honey. Like random numbers. And he's like, No, yeah. How did you feel? I alright. Well, first I was full of shame, which is why I have the no shame zone on my website. It's there and I talk about it in sessions all the time. And then I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off me. Like I felt this immense relief. Like I wanted to tell the cashier at CBS, like I was that excited. I just was like, oh my God, I don't have to carry this weight anymore. And this is consumer debt, mind you. This was not business, this was not like a house, a mortgage or anything. This was consumer debt.
SPEAKER_01Got it.
SPEAKER_03And I felt like, oh my God, oh my God. But I also knew that I was kind of getting a get out of jail free card. And so I thought, I I have to make a promise to myself. And that promise is that I will never allow myself to get back here. I won't. I just won't allow it. And I do remember the day that I went in, and I have to tell you, they were lovely in the court. Nobody tried to shame you, like, but I went in and the guy before me had filed bankruptcy seven years and one day before he was there. Cause like you're all kind of sitting in the courtroom, right? Like, so you're seeing other people going up to the judge and talking. And it had been seven years and one day. So he was doing it again. He was doing it again. And I thought, I'm not gonna be this guy because you can do it every seven years. I'm not gonna be this guy. And I made that commitment to myself, and knockwood. I have kept it. I am actually in a much better place now. But I also thought I need to get out of this business. I need to get out of the mortgage business. I don't like it. It's ruining me, it's just not gonna work. Well, what do I want to do? And what I wanted to do was have some sort of a practice. Now, I tell people this all the time. When you're trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, especially if you're younger, I mean, really anytime, but when you're trying to, when you're really confused and like, I don't know what I want to be and da-da-da. Think about the lifestyle that you want. I wanted a lifestyle where I didn't really have a boss, where I didn't really have to like ask for vacation days, where I could work out of my home, where I could see people, and where I could help people. So for a hot second, I thought about therapist, but I really did not want to do that. And I also did not want to go back to school. And so I thought, well, I could help people not get to where I got to. Oh my God, this is genius. No one's ever done this. Like I thought I was reinventing the wheel. It is so like such a babe. And I was not a babe, I was not. Not young, right? But I was like so naive. I thought, oh, wow. So I'm I go home and I'm like Googling da-da-da. And I'm like, oh, oh, people do this. So this is a thing. Like people are finance coaches, they're money coaches. They're, you know, money therapists. They're all kinds of different names. But people do this. And I came across uh a program that taught me sort of the basics of how to become a financial coach. I got a really good uh part-time job. It was part-time, but it was sometimes it was like 30 hours a week. And I cut back on everything. I moved from where I was living way to the outskirts of Los Angeles. And I had a little studio that was a converted garage. Like I just cut out all my That's when I met you when you were reaching out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, really? She had reached out to me to ask, do you know anybody who's looking? And we posted it or something. Okay. That's like right when I met you. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I I'd like I that cut my rent at the time in half, literally. And I just did all these things to be like to lower my overhead. And I also no longer had to cover$210,000 a month in bills. Remember that. So I I did all that. I got the part part-time job and I started doing seeing clients. And I got a lot of referrals and I started building the business. And slowly but surely I was able to go from this much work and this much private, you know, this much coaching to full-on coaching.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you tip the scales.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I tip the scales. And I love, love what I do. Like I don't know how to explain this, but if I'm having a bad day and I have a session, I do the session and I just feel better. And I don't want to know how to explain it because I don't want it, I don't want the magic of that to go away. Like I just want that magic to be what it is. I will just work with somebody and suddenly I'm like, I I don't know, maybe it's because I'm helping. Like I said, I don't want to know on purpose. I'm on purpose. And I feel so much better. Like I feel like no matter what machinations my career goes through and what I'm doing, and you know, a little extra thing here and a little extra thing there, I will always do them one-on-ones because they feed my soul.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and I think that's important for everyone to know. You know, whether you're dealing with financial struggles or your or grief or any transition in your life, when you can just lean in even for one hour and do something that fills your heart and soul, you will feel better. This is why when I have clients who are just going through a severe bout of depression or they don't know who they are anymore or what they want to do with their life, I say, please go volunteer. What do you love? Who do you love? Dogs, elderly, you want to support the homeless, go spend an hour volunteering. Not like you said, to see that you're better off than them, but just to serve. And it's the foundation of who we are as a tribal animal. We truly are. Like we are meant to be in community. You know, like you were saying, part of the reason you got into debt was because you wanted to go out and be with people and and isolation, we saw it with COVID. Isolation creates so much dis-ease and people feel sad and uh anxious and alone and that loneliness. You know, all this experiments are so sad they've done where like they would hug one animal consistently and not another animal. And then like that animal who wasn't hugged didn't live as long, you know, if they both were deprived of food or whatever it was. So we need love. We need love and we need purpose.
SPEAKER_03So we do it out of our own heads too, you know. Sometimes uh what's the there's a phrase that I love. It's like my my mind is uh is like a bad neighborhood. You don't want to be in there for too long, especially at night.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. What is the feeling? Because I think shame, right? You had said shame. Having to say, no, I'm sorry, I can't go out to eat. No, I can't go to Palm Springs. No, I can't, no, I can't, no, I can't. Because especially um, you know, when it comes to addiction, not that you said that you were addicted to any of it, but when a lot of people are, and I have a a few friends that uh definitely deal with alcohol. And when I have said, What would you think about getting sober? Uh, I'm not ready to not have a social life. Why would you not have a social life? Right. And of course, there's a lot that goes into that. I'm not invalidating that response, but I want them to know that we can hang out and not drink, you know, like I people love you and they will still spend time with you, but I'm not in their head to change that. So can you let us into that beautiful head of yours at the time so people can get through that shame and release it a little bit?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. There are a lot of things. I will ask my people that I work with. I will ask them a lot, what do you think money is? What is money to you? And money is a lot of things, but at its core, money is energy. Okay. I almost wish that I could label myself as an energy coach because nobody would know what that was. And so I don't. But I have to work, I expend energy. If somebody's paying me, they're paying me with energy that they received either from working or an inheritance or, you know, a trust fund or whatever. But they're paying me with energy. So it is tangible energy. So what I did when I came out of that and I wasn't making a ton of money. I had reduced, you know, my friends are pretty cool. Like they're like, hey, let's eat at home or let's go to happy hour, which is cheaper than like a full-on dinner and drinks and whatever. I would give it the thought of, do I want to spend the energy there? Do I want to spend the energy to something that I can't afford right now? And that was kind of how I tackled things where I had to start saying no. It is one of the hardest things that I do in my practice today is teaching people that they are not going to be miserable if they don't have everything they want the minute that they want it. Now that sounds really selfish, I guess. Like I'm not saying that my clients are selfish. I'm saying that they have set up a pattern and pattern recognition is huge. They have set up a pattern because they are higher earners that they make money that so they can spend it. Like, why do I not live in a freaking mansion when I'm making$600,000 a year? Why do I not have money to go on a trip when I'm making$350,000? Like it it feels like it's wrong. It feels like they should be able to do something like that. And so they have, because they haven't looked at the actual numbers of what's coming in and what's going out. And, you know, maybe a$12,000 mortgage payment is part of their, you know. And so you don't have a lot of disposable income if you're bringing home 20 and you're paying$12 on your mortgage. You might have, you know,$8,000 left to live on, which can say yes to a lot of things, but you got to remember food and cars and kids and sometimes private schools, and sometimes, you know, travel and helping out elderly family members or everything. You know, life is more expensive than we think.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's the point. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, it's, you know, I don't make$600,000 a year yet, but it's relatable. And I remember when it was in 2012, I took a job making$25 an hour. And at the time, minimum wage was like eight or nine bucks an hour, you know. So I felt like pretty good. And I was, you know, still, um, I think I maybe was about to turn 30. And I felt like, oh wow, I'm making a thousand dollars a week. I had never made a thousand dollars a week other than being a bartender when it was a really high season, like Christmas. I might maybe I'd make a thousand dollars that week, right? So I felt like I have more money now, which meant, oh, I could spend more now. So I think what you just said is relatable to anyone of uh right that that perspective goes out. I I remember uh I may have told the story before, uh, but I won't say his name again just to protect him. But I'm friends with a celebrity, and he and I were at the um the Beverly Center, and we were we were walking around looking at things, and he was like, You don't have this tooth, you gotta buy this electric toothbrush. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, I can't spend$90 on a toothbrush. I'm 21 years old, right? And I just moved here and you're famous. And and he goes, Yeah, you know, I'm finally spending beyond my means. And I and that stood out to me. And I was like, what do you what what does that mean? And he's like, Well, you know, I have my house in the hills and now this, and this, you know, so many things were happening. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's a thing, spending beyond your means. And that stood out to me that even someone who's making millions of dollars every year can just outspend themselves. But it's but it sneaks up on you, like you said, it sneaks up on you. And then we feel like, well, I deserve it. I deserve to have this thing because I've worked so frigging hard. Yeah, you know, or whatever it is. You know what I bought last night?
SPEAKER_02What?
SPEAKER_01You're gonna slap me because you know I still have debt. I know you're not like Dave Ramsey, who's like, no, I am not buying anything if you have debt, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there are there's an opossum. Do you say opossum or possum? They're two different things. Okay, it's a possum. Okay. There's a possum.
SPEAKER_03The possum is that thing with the pointy, it kind of looks like a version of a rat.
SPEAKER_01And then like a really long, kind of chubby, cute gray rat, right? Yeah. So there's an opossum, a baby that I've been feeding in my backyard. I think it fell off its mom's back too young. So I'd been feeding it. I even put a little ladder out there for it to get onto the thing. I know. So I've been looking after this possum. Yeah. And now possum is like five months old, which is breeding age, and possum has a girlfriend, and girlfriend might be pregnant. So now the two possums are hanging out and they live under my pool deck.
SPEAKER_03So you checked, is what you're what I'm hearing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And now I've I changed that it was a I did not, but now that there's a second one that's pregnant and they're together. Okay. Oh, I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl originally, so I named it Derek Stephanie, just so it could have both, right? So Derek Stephanie now has a wife, and wife is looks very prego. So I've started putting food under the deck for them so they don't have to come out if there's predators. Okay, anyhow, I know I'm crazy. So in a beautiful way. Thank you. So at the time that we're filming this, there's usually one big snow in Nashville once a year. Now, compared to anywhere else in the country, it's not a big snow. It's gonna maybe gonna be three to eight inches. I don't know. But for us, the whole county only has six snow plows. We're not used to snow. This is not a place that snows. There's a lot of TV and film that is shot here because it doesn't, we have really good weather other than some rain. So we're not prepared for snow. So they're calling it Snow Mageddon this weekend and everyone's calling out of work and da-da-da. So last night I asked AI, can possums do well in the snow? And they said no. In fact, they get frostbite on their tails, they are not meant for winter weather. Um, they could, you know, bad things could happen. Okay. So my sweet husband, he heard me ask the AI and he heard what it said. And then he goes, I don't want to know. Whatever you're gonna do, I don't want to know how much it is, and I don't want to know what you're doing. And I said, Okay, but if I need you to help me build something, will you build it? And he's like, of course I will. So tomorrow I am expecting a heated off-the-ground cat house with an insulated mat. And altogether I spent around$55 for the whole thing. That's fine. Okay. Not bad.
SPEAKER_03Not bad, not bad. But look, that is a mindful purchase. And thank you. I am not gonna disparage any other money people out there, but you did mention Dave Ramsey, and I have a very different philosophy from him. I want people to have balance and I want people to be mindful. So if I say you can never eat out again until you pay off$212,000 worth of debt, that is an unreasonable request, in my opinion. And why is that? Why is that an unreasonable request? Because it creates no balance. I mean, this is assuming somebody, maybe there's somebody who doesn't ever want to eat out, you know, go with God, because I that's not me. But if you if you don't want to, that's fine. But you can't live in deprivation for very long. Deprivation can be a month. After that, you can do it, but you're going to be miserable. And if you are miserable, you will find a way to separate yourself from your money. There it is. Um, it's like it's like a crash diet, right? You we've all been there. We did the crash diet, and then on the on the day that it was over, we were face down at a bowl of spaghetti followed by ice cream, right?
SPEAKER_01Such a good analogy.
SPEAKER_03Right. So you have to have balance and be mindful. That's the only requirement. Really. If you are overspending or hoarding money, neither one of those is going to work. You want to be like, okay, I want to go out to dinner. Can we find a place that I can get away with, you know,$30,$40,$50, as opposed to$100? The beauty part of working in Los Angeles and and any other place where there's a lot of creative people is that this is a creative project, right? We've got a creative project here. How can I make this happen without spending that money? If I have a craving for pizza, can I make the pizza or can I make something close to that that will satisfy that craving? The example I always use with my clients is if you're living, if they're local, right? Because I work with people all over really the world, but mostly the US. If you have a desire to lay on the beach, you can go to Bora Bora. And I've been to Bora Bora, and it's, let me tell you, it's freaking amazing. But I could also go to Cabo. And Cabo's significantly cheaper. Lie on the beach, drink pina coladas, eat good food. You can do both of those. So are you going to go to Bora Bora or are you going to go to Cabo? Like you're going to get the same feeling. Now, if the feeling that you want, if you want to feel wealth, you want to feel wealthy, you want to feel abundant, you may choose Bora Bora. And as long as you can afford it, that's fine. But think about, you have to take everything that you want to purchase and think about and how you earn as well. That's also really important. Think about what's it going to make me feel. If I wear, okay, I'm going to do this, right? This is like, I bet I'm the first person to ever do this. So these are my fame, my favorite sneakers in the world. Okay. They're purple. Let's just start there. So cute. Oh my God, I love them. And I will tell you, I spend quite a bit of money on these, although I do wait for them to go on sale. They're Paul Greens. And when they're on sale, I buy them. I still think it's a little bit stupid, but I love them, right? And they make me feel good when I put them on. Now, I don't own any leutons, but if I did own a pair of le boutons, they would make me feel something different when I put them on. And part of the reason that I spend so much money is because I've had, as you know, I have, I like to say I'm structurally unsound. I I have an I have an ankle replacement. I need a knee replacement. Like I'm just, I'm just a mess. So, you know, I will spend money on my sneakers so that, and that's a mindful purchase. I try to wait for them to go on sale and I wear them all the time and I love them. Anything that you do mindfully. So your cat den, I'll call it, has given you a feeling.
SPEAKER_01I'm not gonna worry about the possum now. They have a yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's calming for you. It's calming. It makes you feel good because you're helping animals, and I know how important that is for you. And it's giving you a feeling. And the fact that you got all that for$55, I think is a steal. I thought you were gonna be in the two to three hundreds when you started.
SPEAKER_01Well, there were some really good ones in the two to three hundreds. And, you know, prime getting things here faster was a was a thing, and you're always looking at the more expensive stuff. Yeah, I I spent like 45 minutes finding the best deal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. That's mindfulness. So you did the right thing. You thought about what you wanted to feel. You didn't even consciously know you were doing that, but you knew that you did not want to feel what you were gonna feel if those possums froze to death.
SPEAKER_01On your babies, they're little babies. You can't do that. And she might be pregnant, and so which means I'm gonna be a grandma. So I have to be very responsible.
SPEAKER_03You know you're gonna have a whole possum farm there pretty soon, right?
SPEAKER_01Ring it up. Who was it? Toadie's the possum kingdom. I'm in.
SPEAKER_03I'm free up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, but you know, it is um discretionary. Uh I I spend an absurd amount of money on bird food and squirrel food. But every morning I drink my coffee and I sit at my window, and my husband calls it my menagerie. He's like, you just watch your birds and your squirrel. It just makes me so happy. I actually stopped getting my nails done. And I remember years ago, you did a post. It was like a poll where you asked everybody, what's one luxury you will not give up no matter where you're at financially? And so just recently, I stopped getting my nails done. And it just, I don't know what the shift was, Lisa. It was like, I would say some people love to go get their nails done. It's a social experience. They go with their girlfriends or whatever, and they talk and they love the. I'm like, I always felt like I was getting groomed. It was never fun for me. Okay. Even though I love the way my nails look when they're done. So I started buying the um Dashing Diva nail stickers that actually last for like weeks at a time. And because I go on tour so much, I don't always want to get my nails done in a new city because I have the lymphedema stuff and I don't want to get sick if someone cuts my hand, whatever. Right, right. So I just started buying nail stickers. I'm not wearing any today, but I just look down and I appreciate how clean and beautiful my own natural nails are. And it's just a whole different perspective. So that's saving me over$120 a month. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You're prioritizing. You prioritized. So when I always say that some of the the money struggles that we have sometimes are a gift because we really learn what is truly important to us. Yeah. If somebody, if it's really important for somebody to only buy organic food and only buy grass-fed and wild fish and, you know, whatever, that's their priority. And they get to spend more on groceries than somebody who's like, doesn't really matter to me. I'll I'll eat whatever, right? But that's not their priority. Maybe their priority is sending the kids to private school or their priority is to take a vacation. I always talk about my friend Dave, and he is the type of person that will have uh like ripped towels and you know, ripped sheets, and you know, he'll squeeze the last little bit out of the toothpaste. But every summer he goes to either Europe or New York City for an entire month. And those his priorities, those are his priorities. Now, ripped towels would make me crazy, right? I couldn't do it. I wouldn't be able to do it. But you know, like he knows what he wants. It's not what I want. And so a lot of times we compare each other. Well, how come how come he can go to Europe every year for a month? Or how come he can, you know, we shouldn't be comparing because everybody makes trade-offs. And if you're smart about it, you're getting more of what you want and setting aside things that aren't that important to you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's true. So let's talk about the money story more. I know we've actually touched on it quite a bit throughout this, but I just want to hone in on it. Okay. And because it's it's so critical to what you do and for us to understand our sit. And this is something you know I've worked on for a long time. And I have talked about it on the show a little bit. But if you could break down more of like the framework and how we can approach it and how people can do it with you as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I want to go back for a minute to what I said, money is energy. Okay. So the money story, let's call it the energy story. It is goes beyond your money. Because if money is energy, if you're managing your money in a certain way, that's going to spill out into the other parts of your life. And it's so important to know what that is. So what I ask people to do, and this is going to sound kind of weird, because you would think I would be like, oh, meditate on like what was your first experience with money or it's not that. It's also not the big bad thing that happened, right? The big bad, maybe one of your parents like went bankrupt and you went from living in a mansion to living in a hotel, right?
SPEAKER_01Like, hi, yeah, right here, right here.
SPEAKER_03Bankrupt or federal prison, same thing. Okay. And I and I keep thinking of should creep because you know, that's that's their story. And it, but if you what I want you to think about is the the memory that pops up from time to time. It's not the memory that's like huge, and it's not the memory that you have to like go into deep meditation to discover. It's the memory that you're like, every once, every couple of years, you think about that that moment. That's the one that is playing out in your life.
SPEAKER_01And can you give us an example?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'll tell you mine. When I was, I don't know how old I was, but I'm gonna say probably. Like 10, 12. My parents had me later in life. So they were depression babies, basically. And they were very thrifty. Very thrifty. And I mean good with money. I don't mean cheap. My mother had a saying, she goes, you don't grow up to eat if you can't leave a tip. Like that, she was not a cheap person. But they did not spend a penny over what they needed to, right? And so growing up, a lot of times I heard we can't afford it. I wanted a Barbie doll, we can't afford it. I wanted this, we can't afford it, right? So I really grew up thinking, wow, well, you know, we we don't have any money. Like we can't afford anything. So I, like I said, I'm about 10 years old, and I had these cousins that would come over, and they were older than me. Well, their son wasn't, but the the cousins were like 20 years older than me. They were my cousins. And so they came over one time and they were all part of this like we can't afford it thing, right? Like it was always even in their family, like I overheard and all that. So he comes over, they come over, and the dad says, Yeah, we got a new car. And I'm flabbergasted because I know that cars are expensive at this point in my life. And so they left. And you know, they're showing off the car and yada yada. And so they left. And I looked at my mother and I said, I don't understand. Nobody, we don't, we don't have any money. How did he buy a car? Now, at the time I didn't understand about car loans and I didn't understand, you know, I was too young for that stuff. And I don't remember what she said to me. What I do remember is that I walked away thinking, oh, there's money. It's just not for me. Oh. And when I realized that, it was like I have been separating myself from my money for my whole life because I thought money was not for me. I can't get a Barbie doll, but he can get a car. Like it made no sense. I was 10. Of course it didn't make sense. Now, you know, could have been explained to me a little bit better, car loans and yada yada. I really honestly could not tell you what she said to me. But it was like my head exploded. And I learned this working with a financial coach, working with my financial coach, who has been a mentor to me to this day. So I sat with that for so long. And so I started getting sticky notes and I put them on my mirror. And it said, money is for me. And I had to really shift that thinking. And I still do it to this day so that I'm not spending everything that I make or so that I'm able to like keep money in the bank so that I don't accrue debt. All of that money is for me. Money is for me. And the reason that the money story story is so important is that it's not just about the money. You know, there were so many things at that time in my life that were not for me. I was single. I didn't live in a place that I I really did like the place that I was living in, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't where I wanted to be. And everything in my life started to get better. I got a better place to live. I met my husband a few years later. So all these things that my whole life, that energy was not for me. But I suddenly realized that when I said the money is for me, that everything else changed. It spilled out into my whole life. And I I, you know, today, very happy, very happy with where things are at. I have the most amazing husband, as Alicia knows. She married us, by the way. We did. Yes, we did. And she did a wonderful job, including our Unity cocktail, which was so fun. So brilliant. So fun. Um, and it shifts everything. It doesn't just shift the money, it shifts everything. Once you realize what you have been subconsciously telling yourself for years, and usually these things did happen. They might not have happened when you're young, but usually they did. Because when we're young, we don't have all the facts. I did not have all the facts of how an adult buys a car at that age. I didn't know. All I knew was I didn't like whatever my mother said to me. And I thought, oh, okay, there's money. It's just not for me. And I lived my life like that for way too many years, way more years than I want to admit to. And if you are struggling with what you think your money story is, I would encourage you to start to think about that thing that just pops up every now and then. Like I said, not the big, huge thing and not the thing that you have to meditate for four hours to come to. It's the thing that kind of just, oh, yeah, every now and then I think about that. Like, why does that silly memory come up so often? Because it's playing out in your life. And when it plays out in your life, the memory comes back because it's a cause and effect. You're behaving that way because you have this belief. So what you want to do is you want to change the belief. Change the belief about what happened with the energy slash money and change your literally change your life.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, that's one of the beautiful things that people get to do when they sit with you is that you hold space for that and you can help them uncover what it is and then start to work through it and then start to get more organized. And, you know, I think for so many of us, especially me, just the being willing to look at all of the being willing to look at the money every day or every week and the willingness to look at the story. And even as you're telling the story, and I think everyone listening can relate, like, I have so many stories. There's so many moments in my life connected to money and this and that. And I and I kind of want to ask you more of a personal question about me. Is that okay? Yeah. Absolutely. Do you know me so well? I know this is like a bonus little coaching moment that everyone gets to be witness to. When I think about the first thing that comes to my mind, it was just the idea that we were living in a three-story mansion, and then we were having to stay with my grandparents. And then we were in a house, and then we got evicted, and then we were in another house. And it was like moving, moving, moving. We were rich, then we were poor, right? So, but that feels like a big thing. So when you said, and then there's the whole story of my mother died, this is blood money, and then my mantra became my wealth comes from love, which is what I continually work with. But this the this memory that pops up a lot that I don't think I ever told you. I was even thinking about it this week. I was on a date with a guy who I'd been dating for a little while in LA. We're at the rainbow room, and I was worried, like, if we have to split the check, I don't know if I have enough money. And I think smartphones had just come out. It was like 2007 or I don't know, what whatever. And I opened my phone. I was able to get on the internet on my phone and I checked my bank balance and I was in kind of a crappy mood. And he was like, What's going on? I'm like, Oh, I just honestly, I don't know if I have enough money to eat, and I don't want you to have to pay for me all the time. And I'm just kind of feeling like shit about it. And I opened my bank balance and I saw that I got a$600 deposit. And then I was like, Oh, I have money, I'm good. And he looked at me and he goes, Whoa, you went from stressed and anxious to now all of a sudden you're happy and peaceful because money came in. You need to look at that.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_01Right. And this is like, again, another like, he was younger than me. It was like a 23-year-old man, right? Yeah. Uh, but he came from a very wealthy family. And I was like, what? And he's like, I just want you to notice. And he's like, This isn't the first time this has happened. You get really stressed about money, and then all of a sudden you're fine. So your emotions are so connected to if you have money or not, and that's not okay. Yeah. I was like, fuck, man.
SPEAKER_03Well, given the lifestyle of the three-story home to your grandparents, to an apartment, to being evicted, that stress, it's completely makes sense that when there's money, you're okay. When there's not money, you're not okay. So, what would you consider a mantra for that to be?
SPEAKER_01Well, one thing that I say to myself all the time, no matter what's going on, is in this moment I am safe. Like I think we always have to create our own safety. So that's been a big thing for me in the last few years of just I'm safe. I'm safe whether there's a million dollars flowing or nothing flowing. And I've had both in the last few years. So well, no matter what, I'm safe. I'm safe. Even if it feels like I'm not, I'm safe. And I I don't know if everybody feels that way, you know, but I know that if God forbid we lost everything, my husband and I would have a place to crash. We would between friends and family. We would not be out on the cold. And not that it ever I ever wanted to go to that, but I'm safe. I'm so safe. And I hope that everyone listening or watching knows there is someone who loves them that would give them a couch.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, almost everybody has that. So ultimately we are safe.
SPEAKER_03And even if you don't have that, right? You think about starting in a white room. The white room is if I lost everything today, if I lost everything and I had nothing. Now I'm in a white room with white walls and a white floor. And maybe let's give give me a white chair so I can sit down with my unstructurally unsound legs. And a white fuzzy blanket for a while. And a white fuzzy blanket. Okay. And you get to build from nothing. You get to build whatever you want. You can create anything because you are in this space of nothingness. And you get to start over and build it exactly the way you want it. The I'm safe no matter what is perfect. It's absolutely perfect. You could also add in I'm happy with or without money, or I'm happy even if I don't have money. Because safety is a basic need. We have a basic need of being safe. But to go one step higher, I'm I'm happy. Even when there's nothing, I'm happy. Now it's gonna sound like false, right? As most affirmations do before you start to believe them. They'd sound stupid, right? You just like, I feel like such an idiot saying this thing. But after a while, it starts to manifest. It starts to manifest because guess who makes more money? Happy people. So if you're unhappy when you don't have money, it's gonna be hard to make money. You know, happy people are willing to go out there and either get a job or sell something or, you know, be uh online and make money online or whatever, all the millions of things that you can do today when you're happy. Because if you're not happy, and and happy is really probably not the best word. I'm kind of thinking off the cuff here, but whatever word makes you feel I'm fulfilled, I'm okay, I'm satisfied, I'm thriving. I'm peaceful. I'm peaceful. I'm peaceful. Right. All of those things I I'm I say it all the time. You're not gonna move forward, not you, uh, to a person that I'm working with, you're not gonna move forward if you don't get out of this mindset. This mindset has to shift. And then, and you know, we get a little woo-woo here, which I get, and we're I'm in the perfect place, but what you put out is what you receive. So if somebody really is like to the point where they are sleeping on someone's sofa, then guess what? You've got a phone, you've got a pad of paper, you've got a pen. That person's gonna give you a hot meal and a shower, you go and you build whatever the frick you want. I don't know if I'm supposed to curse on this because whatever you want on the show. Whatever the fuck you want. There we go.
SPEAKER_01I'm a big cursor, so that's why you do well in big cities, my darling. I know, right? Oh, it's so true. Um, I interrupted a homeless guy on his cell phone the other day because he had a sign and then he's like texting on his phone or scrolling or whatever, and he's just sitting there. I'm like, isn't part of being homeless like making eye contact and sending love and like receiving, like, he's just got the sign putting very minimal effort in. I roll down the window, I'm holding the granola bar and he's not noticing me. I'm like, hey, he looks up, I'm like, are you allergic to peanuts? He's like, no. I was like, here. Like, get off your phone. You're at work. You're at work. Um, but that's what I felt like. I'm like, if you're gonna be out of here panhandling, you gotta make eye contact, buddy. Right. You gotta like work at it. Give it to me. Yeah, maybe I caught him on a break. I must have caught it, but then put the sign down. I don't know. Um I love homeless people. I do, I do, I do, and I I talk to them and I volunteer and all sorts of things. That's why I kind of go give this guy shit.
SPEAKER_03Well, I I gotta tell you something. I want to share something with you that uh regarding that, that I think I posted about the other day. Card, yay. Yeah, I'm shuffling cards. I saw a video. Okay, so like our whole lives, especially when you live in a big city, your whole life you're taught, don't give money to people on the street because it just encourages them to not get a job and yada yada yada, right? And then, you know, every now and then someone touches my heart and I give them some money, whatever. So the other day I watched this video and I I gotta find out who the guy, I gotta find out this creator. But I watched this video on I think it was TikTok, and he said, you know what? If you see someone on the street who needs money and you are safe and you can part with the money, give them something. Because sometimes like teaching somebody to fish is great, but sometimes somebody just needs a fucking fish, you know? Like just help them. And I saw a guy right after I watched that. I was walking through, I was just leaving uh a park in West Hollywood, and um, there was a guy, and there's a restaurant right next to where this homeless guy was. And somebody came out of the restaurant, he was like cleaning up and he was handing the guy a can, and you could tell the guy thought that he was giving him a drink. And what he was doing was like, you know, maybe you collect cans and you and there also happens to be a can place, like an aluminum recycling place really close by. So he, I think he thought he was like giving him the can, like, hey, here's something for you to turn in, and it was empty. And I watched this whole thing go down and I saw the man's face just fall. Because all I thought he was getting was a drink. Like it was like a uh liquid death or something. It was like one of those big cans of, you know, water energy drink or something like that. And I turned around and I said to my husband, okay, we need we need to give this guy some money because I can't, I cannot bear that kind of dejection just from not getting a soda or a water or whatever it was. And we did. We gave him something, doesn't matter how much, but enough to get a meal, let's say that. And I I just was like, that guy's right. The guy that did that video on TikTok, he's right. Like, if you're safe, and that's the most important thing, and you can afford it, help out somebody. It's not gonna kill you, it's not gonna change their life, but it's also gonna maybe get them to the next day where something might happen that can change their life. I don't think, I don't think giving people money on the street encourages them to live on the street. I don't think anybody really wants to live on the street. So I'm glad you brought that up because I that was such an important thing. I watched it and I was like, what? I never heard this before. How come no one ever told me this? Like everyone told me don't do it because it encourages that behavior. And I'm like, that's just that's like very 19, you know, 99 or something. Like times are different right now. We gotta help out a little bit where we can.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's so true. In uh Eagle Rock, where I lived before I moved to Nashville, there's a homeless encampment under the bridge on Figaro when you got off the 134. And when we were getting ready to move, I brought a bunch of stuff over there because the cops kept coming and clearing them out. And every time they got cleared out, they would lose their tents, their blankets, all that stuff. So um, as I was moving, I was like, hey, here's a bunch, here's a bunch of stuff. And there was one guy that kind of looked like he was in charge of the whole community, right? And so I I parked the car, I rolled down the window, um, and I said to him, like, Am I safe to get out of the car? And he's like, Yes. And I said, Okay. And again, this is not advice. Do not do this. I listen to my intuition. I see these people every day. I asked. And so I got out of the car and I opened my trunk and you know, the hazards on, and I'm like, here's a bunch of stuff. And I was like, What's what's what's going on here? And he was like, you know, he goes, and he starts telling me his story. And he's like, Look, most of us here are sober and people think homeless people are all on crack and da da da. And he's like, now those people at the end of the sidewalk, those are the people on drugs. Our group doesn't hang out with their group, but sometimes their group steals our shit and they're the ones that gets us in trouble with the cops, and we're just trying to survive, right? And I was like, gosh, like, yeah, it just breaks my heart. And there's and there was an empty parking lot right near that freeway entrance where something had been demolished. And so they started renting the spaces. So the city was providing, and this started popping up all over LA when I was leaving, a security guard overnight, and you could pay, I think it was$10 a night to park your car there. Oh, okay. And you're allowed to sleep in the car. Yeah. Because people, the the homeless epidemic was just getting unreal. And they were building a homeless community somewhere in Eagle Rock, but it hadn't been built yet, um, an actual like apartment building, right? Yeah. So they'd be rent, and I think it's still a thing. You can pay$10 a night, unless it's gone up inflation, to park your car, and you and your kid can have a safe place to sleep. That there's one security guard circling it and it would sell out. It would sell and they left every other space empty because they didn't want people passing drugs through windows and stuff. So every other space is empty and you can pay$10. And it's still$300 through, you know,$300 a month in rent, so to speak. But that was more affordable. That is more affordable for a lot of people who would otherwise be trying to sleep in a Walmart parking lot in Burbank and get kicked out or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_03So I think they still I hope that still exists. I I have noticed a slight improvement. I just said this to my husband the other day. I've noticed a slight improvement in the homeless situation here.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's stuff like that. So, with all of this in mind, as you were speaking, we're playing with the goddess guidance deck today because you are a goddess, Lisa Gould, and there's 44 cards here. And I pulled the goddess Kali, which is not surprising. Also, at the time we're recording this, I just released my episode with Jade Luna, and he worships the goddess Kali. So that's kind of fun that in the timing of this week, I've been talking about Kali a lot. And so this card is endings and beginnings. The old must be released so the new can enter. So this is for you, Lisa, and also for everybody listening and watching. They're going to find this at the perfect time to trust that wherever they are in their life, it is a validation and a confirmation that it's time to wrap things up and release and let go. And oftentimes, releasing, letting go, even just cleaning out a shelf or a room or a closet or your desk makes so much room for abundance. Yeah. And I notice that every time I go on a cleaning spree, I get a new client or someone pays their invoice or something, it's always connected to money. But endings and beginnings. This also means new beginnings are coming for you, which you already know about is happening, right? New projects on the horizon and new opportunities. So it's about transition. Embrace it as evidence that you're alive, that your deepest emotions should be embraced as a signal of your true human essence. And so much that we talked about today is about that true human essence. And so what they're saying is your current changes are for the best. Keep your thoughts positive as they're powerful. What appears to be a loss is actually a beginning of a happy new phase.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Let the past go. It's time to move on.
SPEAKER_03Can you send me that when we're done? Take a snap of shot and send it to me when we're done. I will. So I'm assuming that resonates with you. It does. It does. There are some things on the horizon, and that absolutely resonates with me. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01You're welcome, sweetie. You know, it's it's interesting when we make transitions in life, whether someone is filing bankruptcy or finally taking control of their money and understanding their money story or whatever it is they're doing in their life, marriages, divorces, buying a house, selling a house, I know, all the things. It's like we have identity connected to things, which is why I asked you about the acting stuff, right? Because, you know, that's something that I go through all the time, even though I've still got my foot in there. I have an agent, I have a manager, I do voiceover. I booked a commercial this summer. Oh, good for you. It's fun, but it's very different than going out for series regulars and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So just trusting, right? When you do what you feel motivated and inspired to do, the universe conspires in your favor. Okay. And Kali is going to make you look at the shadow stuff. She's going to make you look at some of the dark stuff and the dark emotions, and it's there in your favor. Favor to release, to let go, and to embrace. Don't resist it. Have a good cry, have a good laugh, throw shit away, be willing to change and move on. And it will be so much easier. That is awesome.
SPEAKER_03That is awesome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01I love that. You're welcome, Angel. So I know that you have a very generous opportunity for our audience to get to work with you. Can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do a 90-minute session. You do not have to be a high earner. You really don't even have to be a high earner to work with me in coaching, but I find that that's like the the area that people tend to find me. So, but this, what what I'm offering is for anybody. It doesn't matter if you're not making any money. It doesn't matter. And that is a money story, a 90-minute money story appointment. And it is private. It's just going to be you and me. And we are going to work for 30 minutes on discovery. So discovering what the story is. And then we work for 30 minutes on the meaning that you have given it. And then we work for 30 minutes on the shift. So bringing it to something more positive. In my case, it went from, oh, there's money. It's just not for me to money is for me. In Elise's case, I'm safe no matter what. So we do that. I normally charge 450 for that process. So for 2026, I will do that for anybody who calls me and mentions this podcast or texts me. Actually, texting is better. Sorry. I'm so bad with the phone. I really am. I'm one of those people. Like, what? Who's calling me? Like, don't call me. Um, you can call me, but who's knocking on the door?
SPEAKER_01Are they insane? Come on.
SPEAKER_03No, but I respond to text so much better. But if you mention this podcast for$150,$150, I will do that 90-minute session for 2026.
SPEAKER_01So wow, that's an amazing deal.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I'm going to do that all through 2026. Now I might still do it in 2027, but in 20, once 2027 comes, you've got to call me for the pricing because it might go up a little bit. But for 2026, feel free to give me a call if you want to do a money story session. And remember, it is individual. It is just you. I'm not doing this, it is not a group thing right now. And I can help you uncover what might be holding you back that will help you not only in your money, but in your whole life.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, sweetheart. I know personally the impact that these sessions have had on my life. And who, that what a generous, generous offer. So thank you. I hope everyone will jump on this. And Lisa's website and information will be below. So you can text her, email her, get on her calendar, ASAP. Let us know in the comments any questions you have and how this resonated for you. And uh thank you, Lisa, for sharing your story, your heart, all the true stories, the transparency. Thank you for providing a no-sham zone and also giving one to yourself because that is really how we have to navigate this life. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for asking me. I'm so happy to be here with you. You're welcome. It's all perfect timing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I know, right? Totally.
SPEAKER_01Connect with me at patreon.com forward slash the brilliance method. The only way I'll know if you're loving the show is if you leave a comment, five stars, and subscribe.