Both: Yay!! We’re so excited.

Makena: We are a mother-daughter coaching team, and we want to share today in our first episode a little bit about why we’re doing this podcast.

So why are we doing this podcast? 

I’ve been saying for years that we need to have a podcast because there’s so much wisdom that you’ve shared with me, Gigi, that has truly changed the trajectory of my life. And that sounds…  It’s a grand statement, but it’s really, really true – whether it’s in my relationship, or hugely in terms of my stepping into my purpose and my career.

And you know, I look back at these moments and think, if someone else could have you in their ears (like our clients do, and it’s really shifted things for them as well)… If we could have a way to get this into the homes of women everywhere, then that would be touching so many more people.

And then they could share it with the women in their lives. 

That’s what all your kids say, “You need to talk to my mother!” And this is my personal “why” for the podcast.

Gigi: “Confident, fully alive women create a ripple effect that changes the world.”

And we’re all out for changing the world. Empowering you to get out there and live full out – with nothing left on the table.

To become that woman that you’re meant to be, so you can confidently create your dreams. 

Makena: You can’t give to others when you’re pouring from an empty cup, right? 

Gigi: You have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. We all know that on the airplane. But how many of us actually do that in our lives? 

Makena: When you are filled up – we see this again and again – that that confidence and that clarity and inspiration, it starts to overflow to the people around you.

So your relationships become stronger and more harmonious. You feel more energized and inspired. You go out and you create more success in your career or business. 

I mean, really, when you’ve had that, when you’ve felt, you know, lit up and inspired and energized, how much easier has your life flowed and how much more have you been able to give to the people around you? 

And when you do this, you also start to see: “What is the impact you’re here to make on the planet?” How do you want to share your gifts in service to others? 

And most of the people out there, the people that are attracted or magnetized to us and their communities, is they want to make a difference in the world. They want to give back and have an impact. 

Often they can’t see how, but as they start to fill their own cup, then clarity starts to dawn. They have more energy and aliveness. 

Gigi: And we know there are challenges too.  It’s to inspire you with some ideas that can add to your day when going through things that aren’t so easy.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely. 

So, who is this show for, Gigi? 

Gigi: The Way of the Muse™, podcast, is for women who are ready for something more. And I like to make the distinction that it’s not doing more or adding more things to your to do list. 

It’s this feeling that I know many of you out there have had…

And I know that. I’ve had it a few times in my life, actually, and it’s this nudge where you feel like, “Hmm, I’m meant for something more,” or “I’m not completely aligned in my life.” 

But we’re hesitant to go out there and make a change – because many of the women that come to us, what they say is, they feel ungrateful if they are looking for something more because they really have amazing lives.

But what’s important here is your gifts and your longing, or the most selfless thing you can do is to get out there and go for them. 

Because like Makena said, when you step into what you’re meant to do, that’s where your contribution comes in life. That’s where you go into the world and share what you naturally came here to do. 

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a career woman, a mother, a philanthropist, or all of the above, we created this show for you. We’re going to be sharing powerful tools, proven strategies for designing a life that is rich in all areas.

Makena: So that means career, business, relationship, family, purpose, lifestyle, leadership, personal growth and fulfillment. 

Gigi has so many things to share. 

We’ll touch on different topics in different episodes. And the idea is this richness in ALL areas of your life. So our goal is that you feel uplifted and inspired after every episode, but most importantly, that you walk away with actionable steps that you can apply to make your life better today.

So this isn’t just, listen and enjoy, but really that there’s a takeaway and hopefully multiple takeaways from each episode. 

We’ll also be coaching some of our listeners on air.

If you’re interested in receiving a free coaching session in exchange for allowing us to share it on a future podcast episode, you can go to www.wayofthemuse.com/onair to apply now. And we’ll put that in the show notes as well. 

This is something I got the idea for many years ago, actually. And then I’ve heard some people do this on their podcasts.And I just think it’s so powerful because we can share stories. 

But when you hear someone being coached live, the things that come out are so different, and we often learn best by hearing other people’s stories. It’s also just an amazing opportunity for you to come in and be coached if that’s something you’re curious about.

And then finally, we’ll have some incredible guest experts to share their wisdom too. 

So next, “Who are we?” 

Gigi: Over the next couple of episodes, we’re going to share our stories so you know who we are – and we feel like it’ll really give you a way that you build a relationship with us, so you know what we’ve gone through as well. 

I’m a pioneer in the coaching industry, author, mother of five amazing kids and a grandmother of four – with another grandbaby on the way, which we’re really excited about. And I began my coaching journey in 1986.

I attended my first seminar, and it changed my life forever. It’s why I do what I do today. And I’ve dedicated almost four decades to changing people’s lives. 

I feel like it’s such an honor and privilege to have this as a job. And it’s super exciting that I get to share this with my daughter, Makena. 

Makena: I am a coach, author, and body positive model. I’m married to the love of my life, Sunny. We just celebrated our eight year anniversary, and I am a mom to a dog. She’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Chloe.

I grew up around coaching and started participating in Gigi’s seminars around the age of seven. So I think a part of me always knew deep down that this is something I wanted to do, but I took a long path to get here.

Like many of you listening, I followed my head over my heart and ended up in a very successful career that was not ultimately, truly aligned for me. 

So with Gigi’s support, I got clear on what I really wanted to do. This was back in 2018. I stepped onto my path and it’s been an incredible journey.

So I too am so grateful to be doing this work and to be doing it with Gigi. 

So let’s hear a little bit about what’s coming in the next few episodes… 

Our stories will be the next couple of episodes. And then, we’re going to go into an episode on “When women relax, we become wise.”

So this is one of Gigi’s famous quotes, shall I say. Our clients love this quote. 

Do you want to just briefly touch on what does that mean? “When women relax, we become wise.” 

Gigi: Well, you know, I witnessed it so many times in women. So, way back in the late 80’s I began doing retreats for women to take them away for their lives and let them have this time to really think about what they want to do with their lives.

And what I noticed is, as the days would go on in the retreat, women would begin to unwind. And when they did, they would see the vision for their life. 

Now, not everybody can go on a retreat all the time, but I’ve learned to really assist women on how to create this in your life as an ongoing thing. And we both do that. 

Makena: This was hugely my turning point as well, which I’ll share in my story episode, was an experience like that. Because I was so at that time in my life, coming from what we call Go Mode – that masculine go, go energy. And I couldn’t see my vision.

I couldn’t see what I wanted, and I kept trying to talk to coaches and get support, but nothing quite felt right. And it wasn’t until I had this experience where Gigi helped me to get out of my head and I really started to unwind – and then the vision started to just kind of flood through and I saw clearly.

She distracted me enough!

So that episode is really about what do we mean by that? How do you start to unwind? 

If you’re busy, how can you start to create this experience – so your wisdom, your vision, your seeing can start to come through?

And then we’ll do an episode around becoming the woman you’re meant to be, and confidently creating your biggest dreams. And it’s really what women say they are able to do when they work with us… stepping into the version of themselves that they only dreamed they could be.

I always say I felt like a completely different person for many years of my life. And I’ve gotten to rediscover myself and become a different version of myself – not from trying to fix or solve something – but from really evolving in the way that I feel I was meant to. 

And in that I stepped out of my smaller self, so to speak, and into a version of me that was more confident, and so much more willing to go out there and do those things that were on my heart and soul to do – but I was scared or I had self doubt before.

So we’re going to start to introduce these topics of how you can begin to do this in your life and share some stories there. That’s what’s coming in our first few episodes. 

Gigi: And you do that for a lot of women. 

Yeah, many women have experienced that. We love this work around the woman you’re stepping into, so we’re excited to share it with you.

Makena: What is The Way of the Muse™ anyway? 

You might be listening and going. What is that? It sounds interesting or intriguing. If you’re listening to this podcast we’re writing a book on this topic right now. We’ll go much deeper there. 

This is Gigi’s big yay. My big yay is the podcast.

We’re here in Costa Rica right now recording this and we were at the beach the other day talking about what we wanted to share in this episode. And so Gigi started describing what she felt like The Way of the Muse™ was all about. 

Gigi: Yeah. And then Makena starts reading to me from the book that she was writing and I was like, “Oh my gosh!” I was like, “Yay, yay, yay, yay!” 

And it’s because I have wanted to share in a bigger way for so long. And everything she wrote was everything… it just touched me. It’s what I feel, I know. It’s what I want to share with women. It’s what I have shared with women – and we have shared with women.

And it just feels amazing to be able to get that out into the world for anyone who can use it. It’s very exciting. 

Makena: So that reminds me of a little story from when I was younger and how Gigi and I really started working and collaborating together… 

I was always a voracious reader. I love to read, especially fiction and fantasy books. And in my teens, I started to discover a love of writing. 

Gigi, you always say that you were Praying for a writer. Why were you praying for a writer? 

Gigi: Because I had so many things I wanted to share and I’m not a writer. I thought it would be wonderful to have someone that could just put on the paper and write what I see – all the things I see in life. 

Makena: Yeah, because you’re really a trainer and a coach and you always did your work by working with people. So put her up in front of a room of people, a workshop or something like that, and she’s completely dynamic and in flow in this way that is far beyond my level of ease in that kind of environment.

But give me a blank page and I’m a happy girl. I love to write things. That’s how we began. 

This is a funny story too, Gigi’s website, this was one of our first website, I think I was 17 years old, sitting around our kitchen table in Austin, Texas, talking about what her branding was going to be.

And you loved the idea of something around the muse. And so we came up with all these fun little muse puns. Among which were “aMuse News,” which was her newsletter, which we’re gonna use again because the muse has found us full circle all over again 15 plus years later. 

That’s where we started and I wrote for her for a long time and that launched my career in copy, then we came into more of a coaching relationship.

So this is me taking Gigi’s wisdom and so much of what she’s learned or shared with me and with other women.

The Way of the Muse™ begins with listening to the longing of your heart, and the call of your soul. Discovering who you really are, and who you were meant to be. Claiming your unique gifts, and stepping into your power. Sharing those gifts in service to the world.

It’s a way of dancing with life… Having clear intent to create what you want, while also listening and responding to what life puts in front of you. Weaving effortlessly between action and allowing. Between desire and surrender. Between the masculine and the feminine, or “go mode” and “flow mode,” both of which are inside of all of us.

It’s a way of navigating through life, love, raising a family, and working in a career or business with more ease, fun and flow.

Sometimes the way seems counterintuitive at first – especially for the modern woman.

It may mean taking a less direct path to get where you want to go. Or slowing down, in order to speed up. Or being receptive in a conflict, before sharing what you see.

Our go-go-go culture has taught us that the way to “get ahead” is to assert yourself and work as hard as you can.

But if hard work alone was the path to success and fulfillment, a lot more people would be successful and truly, deeply fulfilled.

Instead, there are countless people waking up to the fact that, although their lives may look good on paper, something doesn’t feel quite right. Or perhaps they have everything they thought they wanted, and yet they can’t shake the deep down sense that there’s more to life than this.

The Way of the Muse™ is the way of discovering and stepping into your “something more.”

It’s the path of becoming the woman you’re meant to be, so you can confidently create your biggest dreams.

We want to share a takeaway for today, something that you can go out and apply right now. So, I want you to get a journal and when you listen to our podcast, we’ll always give you some kind of exercise or tip that you can apply and implement in your life.

Gigi: And the one today is:

“What are you longing for?” 

Journal on that question. 

“What is your something more?” 

Write at least three unedited pages. Don’t go back and edit yourself. Just let whatever comes, just let it flow. Doing that, especially on a regular basis, you start to get these things that are inside of you that often we cannot connect with when we’re just thinking. 

So pen to paper is powerful. 

Makena: Ideally, you don’t stop writing as much as you can. Don’t overthink it and analyze it. It’s like that exercise of morning pages right from the artist’s way.

Yeah. So you write pen to paper and you don’t stop, even if you feel like you’re kind of rambling or whatever, just write, write, write, write, write. And that helps us tap into a different place instead of going into the mind. 

Gigi: It doesn’t need to make sense in the beginning. So just starting to get those glimpses.

Makena: So that is really our show for today. Thank you for being here if you enjoyed this, please subscribe and share it with the women in your life. Thank you, Makena. Thank you, everyone.