Makena: We’re talking today about this quote, “When Women Relax, We Become Wise.” 

And this is a quote of Gigi’s that she’s been saying for many, many years. And it always is super intriguing for women. We go, “What does that mean?” 

I think we sense in a way that that’s true. True, but maybe don’t really have an understanding of like, how or what, where does that come from?

So I’m curious if you could share where this came from. This idea  – where did you first know that when women relax, we become wise?

Gigi: Well, it really began with a personal experience. 

It was in the late nineties and I had built a very successful international coaching business. I was busy working, had five children, and an incredible amount of roles I played. I traveled a lot. I had a great, great life.

But I noticed that I was wound up all the time. 

My mentor at that time kept telling me there was a different approach to life. Like if I would, almost that counterintuitive, slow down to go faster. 

I was like, “You’re crazy. I can’t slow down. Everything will fall apart if I slow down.”

So I had this opportunity with a student and a friend to go to Singapore and lead a seminar. And so I went there, stayed with her, and then I had some extra time, about five days. So she said, “Why don’t we go over to Thailand, because I have some friends there.” 

It was a German-Canadian man. He was married to a Thai woman. And we could stay with them.

So we flew to Thailand. And first of all, I’d never been to other places in Asia, and it was a culture shock in many ways. So that changed and just kind of woke me up to how many opportunities we have and how my life was just amazing.

They have amazing lives too and such sweet people. 

But what happened is we stayed with these people and they had this very interesting life. They spent a lot of time together, very easy lifestyle, really beautiful lifestyle. They lived in a beautiful home in Bangkok. 

So my friend and I happened to go to Wat Pho. She knew it, which is one of the temples. And it’s where they were teaching Thai massage. I don’t know if they still do that there. But we went in, and my “Love Language” is touch. 

We waited in these long lines. You go into this big room and there’s like 50 people getting massaged all together. You keep your clothes on in Thai Massage. But I got a massage. And as I was getting this massage, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never felt anything like this before in my life.” 

Because when I would get other massages, it just felt like they were kind of pushing my skin or something. Here, they got to the tension. Because they use their bodies, and they move in. And I started to relax from this massage. It was just incredible and they were, I think, three hours long and like $15. 

Makena: We all love that.

Gigi: Yeah, So we were done with that and I told her, “I have to do this every day over the next five days.”

So we decided to go to one of the nicest hotels, the Shangri La. We went to the very beautiful spa one day and we did the three hour massages there, and then we went back to Wat Pho. So we did this over the five days. 

I know it sounds crazy, but I love massage. The other point…

Makena: Three hours a day of massage, you guys!

Gigi: Yeah, it was crazy. I did this again years later.

The other thing it changed is – with my last baby, I had some back problems. I have five kids, and after my last birth I had back problems for years. And after this experience that went away. Occasionally I would have pain, but that went away for the most part altogether. 

So this really, really got to me and opened me up. And I was able to have my senses so open as we moved through this experience with these people. I saw life through a different way.

They had a Thai cook, so every night we would sit on the floor and we’d have these amazing Thai dinners and talk about great things, drink wine, and the woman had these beautiful silk like long dresses, so we’d all put on our long dresses and sit on the floor.

And they had this interesting relationship. They really spent quality time together. They had this big bath tub in their bathroom and every morning they’d get up and they’d go read the paper and drink coffee and talk in their bathtub. And then we had a driver and we would go with them. 

I was so taken out of my reality and the way I lived life, and I walked into this easeful life. And something in me woke up there and cleared – and I got more relaxed than I’d ever been in my whole life. And it had nothing to do with work or anything like that. 

So through this experience, I started to see my life. I saw where I was caught up, how I was distracted, how people pulled me all over the place.

And I was just determined when I walked back into my life to keep some of this. 

Makena: So you had a perspective shift. 

Gigi: Huge. 

Makena: And I think it’s important to note that at this time, how old would you have been? Do you know, approximately? You said like 40. So, 40 years old and you had five kids. 

Because you may or may not have listened to Gigi’s story episode… 

So five kids, pregnant, married at 18, career woman your entire life and then running your business since you were 27, 28, right? 

This was years and years of going, going, going, stress, just being in that mode. So this was a profoundly different kind of experience for you. And so you had this perspective shift and then you said you went back and what happened? 

Gigi: I was in so much ease, and I had my team that worked with me. I remember they started coming to me with a lot of problems immediately. “What are we going to do about this? What are we going to do about that?”

And I would stop and I’d just say, “I don’t know, how are you going to handle that?”

Where before I would go in and try to fix everything. Try to control everything, and make sure it all works perfectly. I just tapped into that… they’d been with me long enough, they could probably figure it out.

And I said, “Let me know how you want to handle that. You can come back and ask me questions, but I really think you can figure that out.”

I quit going and trying to help everybody and make everything work for everyone. I stepped back and stayed really in this easeful energy. And through that things started coming to me. 

Even with my partner… when I would come in and he’d be upset about something. Before, I’d see his face and I’d go, “Oh my gosh, what’s wrong? How do I help him? What do I need to do here?”

I stopped doing that. I was just like, “How can we handle that? Or what do you need to do there?” I didn’t think that I had to go in and basically micromanage everything in the world.

And through this, I just felt in flow and I brought that essence back to my life. 

Makena: And you said that this lasted for a long time. 

Gigi: Yeah, five months it lasted. It was really a special time. 

Now I want to back up. I was teaching women for years about how to step more into their femininity, and how to be more relaxed.

But this was something that was completely different, and it changed the way I approached working with women. I really got it in my body, in every part of myself. 

And so I was able to conduct this to women in the future much more deeply, when they came and worked with me. They started to really have this experience.

Makena: So, you had this peak experience halfway across the world. But I think the important thing about that story is – it was such a deep experience of what you’re talking about here of “when women relax, we become wise.”

And when you say wise, what are you saying there?

Because how does that connect to wisdom? 

Gigi: It connects to your inner wisdom that you begin to know what you want and how you want to navigate your life. 

When I walked back into my life, I was very clear about the way I wanted to move my life forward because I had these visions.

I was relaxed enough to where I could start to see.

Makena: And you weren’t engaged by things the same way, is what you were saying.

You had this perspective where you could step out and go – “I don’t want to engage that way because I see that that’s what actually takes me off track.”

Gigi: It took all of us off track because then I was in everybody’s stuff instead of in my energy and vision. And as a leader, also being able to guide my team and everything is when I stayed out of it, I was able to see how to navigate things.

Makena: Yeah

Gigi: Where before I was caught up in it, and then everybody’s problems became my problems.

Makena: So not every woman can go have an experience like that, right? I mean, we definitely go on our retreats. This is a lot of what we create with women is to take them outside of their lives and really have them unwind.

I think that’s a key distinction, the word unwinding, because we use that a lot. 

You said you were wound up before. 

How is unwinding different from what normally people think of as relaxing or self-care? 

Gigi: Well, that’s how we’ve been able to assist women. You don’t have to go off to some faraway land. It’s great if you can. But it is through finding out what nurtures you. 

So we make the distinction of when I found the Thai massage – because also touch is my Love Language – it was the right kind of massage that deeply nurtured me. 

Nurturing is really about the activities that make you unwind. You feel the energy. Your core starts to relax.

Makena: I mean, I have so many stories around this because I was also very much in go, go, go mode as I shared in my story episode. And one quick story on the nurturing is that I came to Gigi after I went on vacation one time to Mexico, it was actually my honeymoon.

And so my husband and I went and we had this whole week and it was an incredible opportunity and experience. And I came back and I thought, “I’m relaxed in a way,” but I didn’t really feel like I unwound. 

And I went to Gigi and I said, “Why is it that when I travel with you, or we go places – even if we’re working or we’re busy hosting a retreat or whatever – I feel like I unwind so much deeper. When I’m on my own or just with my partner or whoever, I can’t seem to get there.”

And she said, “Well, the first thing I would have told you is to go get a fiction or fantasy book.” 

Because I’m a big reader and I can read for two days. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t even bring a fiction book on this trip. Because I was thinking maybe I would journal and see visions of what I was going to do next. And I’d be dreaming and thinking in my vacation time. Because I’ve had these experiences of having clarity in the past.

So the main thing is for me – what I got there – is that one of my biggest nourishers is reading fiction or fantasy. Because for me, when I do that, my mind is occupied in this way. My body completely relaxes. 

And that’s not true for everyone. 

We help people really see what is that for you that has you unwind in that deep way, and that’s really the doorway for women to their feminine energy or their flow mode, as we tend to call it. Is through their nourishers and through that unwinding.

So I guess that’s really a way for women who are in their day-to-day lives and not able to step out to unwind, is through their nourishers. Is that what you’re saying? 

Gigi: Absolutely. Because think about that. When I told you, since a little girl, since seven, you were reading these big books, and you would spend hours.

And so that’s something, it feeds your soul, and you can incorporate that into your life. And you’ve been doing that for the last few years now. 

Makena: Yeah. Because I’d gone through a phase where I really didn’t read fiction and fantasy. Because I was like “Oh, it’s not productive. I need to be reading nonfiction books and I need to be listening to podcasts.”

And I had this whole list all the time in my head of all the things I should be listening to and doing. But when I started to incorporate them again, reading at night or taking breaks during the day. Sometimes even if it was a really busy day and taking 20 minutes and reading, it really shifts my energy and helps me relax in such a deep way.

I think another story to touch on is – I don’t know if we’ll go into the full story in this episode – but when I had my experience with you that I touched on in my story episode, around finally getting clarity about what I wanted to do and fully seeing that I wanted to step into coaching, that I wanted to do it with you.

And that was in early 2018. And it was a similar kind of experience. 

But what amazes me thinking back on, that it was only two days. And I had been trying for years to get clear. I mean, I had hired the coaches. I had come up with the plans, and in two days, I’m just curious, because I had no idea we were doing anything in those two days.

I was just like, “Okay, we’re in Costa Rica about to lead a retreat.” And I kept trying to get clear on what I wanted to do. 

And Gigi would be like, “Let’s not talk about that right now.”

So I was like, “Okay, well, we’re not gonna look at that.”

So that’s fine. 

And then we would go for a walk on the beach or get a margarita or get a massage. And so I just kind of let it go. And in those two days, I always say clarity dawned. It was this experience of really seeing those visions and those ideas started to flow through.

And I saw what I wanted to do. I saw what wasn’t working in my life that I wanted to shift. But again, she knew exactly what she was doing. I had no idea. 

So, what were you doing? 

Gigi: Well, you have to understand I’ve led retreats for gosh, 30 years.

What I was doing is – I mean this sounds simple – distracting you. But in a way where the distraction was basically pleasure, enjoyment, time to talk, we were able to just talk, talk, talk.

I kept on telling you, “Don’t try to get anywhere, let’s just talk.” Because we have layers and layers inside of us too. 

When we’re trying to see what we want, often we don’t have a place to really talk without somebody trying to give us advice, or guide us, or try to get us to make a decision.

That’s what I do is I allow for the expression of people to be fully, fully able to express. Because through that you start to peel those layers back and you start to see, it starts to dawn, and you know exactly what you want. 

It’s just covered up by a lot of different layers of life, people’s ideas, maybe your fears – and that takes time to get to that.

But for those two days, I was not strategically trying to get you to do something. It’s just something that I know how to do, it’s one of those gifts that I’ve learned through so many years of working with people. 

And it’s a funny thing to have because in almost all situations I can walk in and feel if I could just manage this, it would go into a state of flow, but you can’t do that with people.

So with you, I had that opportunity and we did things that we enjoyed. We both love massage and so we’d walk there. We’ve been walking together since you were how old? 

Makena: Very young. We walked and talked. Always. 

Gigi: Always. That was as a young person, you would walk with me. We’d run in Central Park in New York City, and I always was teaching you because you were curious.

So through that dynamic, that also is part of our dynamic together. And then swimming, which you didn’t really like to do, but I got you in the water.

Makena: I think connecting to the senses was a big part of it because looking back on it, I can see so much clearer now. 

At the time I could not see clearly what was happening but – because you’ve taught me so much about this, and we work with a lot of our clients around this now – this unwinding process, it doesn’t always have to happen in retreats.

We do this with the women in our programs. They go through this unwinding, especially in the first 90 days or so a lot of the time. 

It’s because they’ve been operating their lives in a certain way. And we shift the way that they’re approaching things. 

Here’s how I would put it, which may be different than the way you’d explain it.

I see it as I was coming from my head before and from linear/logical thinking and trying to figure out. And that’s the way we’re trained in our world, through school and tests and linear/logical thinking. 

But the answers weren’t there. I kept just looping and not getting clarity.

And what I see is, through this unwinding and through this relaxation process, we got to a different kind of wisdom. Like you’re saying, a different kind of knowing. 

And that’s the knowing that feels deep. We’ve all had those experiences, I feel like that deep – just some part of me knows.

And in that, that’s what we were finally able to tap into. But you can’t do it through the head. You do it through, the senses a lot for women and maybe for people in general.

Gigi: It is through the senses. It is unwinding to the senses, and it is unwinding in your physical body.

Makena: Yeah. Because there’s like an energy that’s wound up physically.

Gigi: Tension in the body. And like I mentioned even with the layers, if we have heartache or disappointment. All those layers, that stuff is all in us and to unwind that, that takes a little bit more time. 

But that’s what we did basically with you in those two days. You were able to talk and express. This is what happens too when we work with people.

They’re able to share in a very deep way and have that space that things start to release. 

Makena: It was such a relief because I was looking for that. I didn’t know what I was looking for. 

Like I said, hiring coaches and talking to people and they would come up with all kinds of great ideas and strategies, and I would go to start taking action on something. And I would just be like, it doesn’t feel right. 

Or it would lose steam, you know?

Something wasn’t quite aligned. And that’s what was so different when I had that experience. And – it came from me. 

That was the other thing. It didn’t come from you. Telling me anything, coming up with an idea. 

It was through this dialogue and this unwinding that I saw what I wanted, and I saw the direction. I got to fully choose. And that was powerful. 

Gigi: Yeah. The person needs to be ready to do that to some degree.

Sometimes that’s just in enough pain that you feel out of alignment in your life or…

Makena: That was definitely me. 

Gigi: So that was you, and I watched you and it was painful to watch for so many years. 

I watched you over and over until I finally said, “This has to stop.” Because I saw you, so unhappy in what you were doing.

Makena: So for some people, maybe you’re listening to this and you don’t think it’s like a huge life change you need to make. But you may want to take a smaller kind of a microcosm of this – of being able to access that deeper wisdom within you.

I think the doorway is really through the nourishers. Through the things that make you unwind. 

Gigi: Yeah. And if you don’t know what that is, just play around with it. Sometimes that’s reflecting back to your life – to a time where you really felt unwound in your body. A time when you felt physically free and mentally curious. 

You can start to pay attention, write those things down, or just start trying out some things.

We always make the distinction that Nourishers are very different from self-care. Because self care often is what we do that we think we “should” do. It’s on our to-do list. 

Makena: I mean, I don’t know about you, but I get my nails done. I get my hair done, like these are all things. But I’m usually getting my nails done and thinking about work or scrolling on my phone. 

Sometimes, I might take a moment when they’re massaging my feet and enjoy the moment. 

But that’s what we think of as self care. We’re like, “Oh, I need to get my…” But for a lot of women, that’s just the thing that we do. To of course take care of ourselves. But it doesn’t really get to the tension or the unwinding.

And so that was just such a huge distinction for me when I got that. Like, “Oh my gosh, reading fiction books for me is a Nourisher.”

What are some other unusual examples for women? A lot of times it’s like, what, some kind of movement, what else unwinds?

Gigi: I think movement, dance.

Makena: Yoga, sometimes.

Gigi: Yeah, and that’s why retreats are so fun because you’re with other women and it’s that sense of fun and play, that’s awesome.

If you have a group of women that you really like being with and there’s an element of fun, community, and often that will start to do it as well. 

Makena: Definitely. Connection with other women. There’s a study about that, right? About tend and befriend. 

Gigi: Yeah, an old study that many of you probably already know. But there were stress tests that were done on men. All the stress tests were done on men for many, many years. 

Then a couple of women at UCLA started to notice that when women on their team were upset or having issues, they’d all come into the lab and they’d talk to each other, and they’d talk through things, and as they did that, they would start to solve their issues.

They were like, “Wow, this is curious. When women are under stress, we kind of come together.” So they were like, “I think we have to study stress for women.” 

So they did, and that’s what they saw is this tend and befriend – that when women get together and we are able to connect and we’re able to share – oxytocin kicks in.

And that is, like they say, the romance or love or nurturing hormone. And we connect very deeply there. 

It was very different for men because it was the fight or flight, the testosterone kicks in there. 

And so that was so profound because then women are able to see that, that’s the way for us. And as they researched, they saw that having community was as important, or if women didn’t have that community, it was as detrimental as being overweight or smoking. That is extremely important. 

Makena: So there is this aspect of nourishing yourself and what makes you unwind. And then there’s also this aspect of connection to other people.

And it seems particularly, at least in the study of other women, and talking and how that shifts our physiology and really helps us get into these other states. So you can start to glimpse this. 

And I think the last thing I would share on this is that it’s even the way you approach a lot of the things that you’re doing… 

Because walking for me can definitely be a nourisher. But not always. 

I realized a while ago, I was walking my dog every day and I’m walking up these hills and I’m powering up, listening to work things and I’m on an audio book, but I’m in this go energy.

And then I just said, “What if I just slowed it down by like 10 percent and started feeling my body?” And listening to music and looking at the trees. And it was such a different experience. It could become a Nourisher. 

So it’s also the way you approach things.

Gigi: It is the way you approach things.

And of course there are different types of people, different body types. There’s some people that like the intensity and even with those people or those I’ve assisted them to have the intensity. That’s a good workout. 

But you’re right about the enjoyment of an experience. So for me, life is about experiences and if you can make things an experience. 

Remember when I taught you to run and the same thing, you would get stressed, and I said, “No, no, no we slow down. We relax our body first.” And then we slowly start to jog, and then we stop. 

So what you do is you start to go into this kind of flow state instead of this effort.

Or, we’re walking the hills here. When we first started, it was an effort for me, no matter what we’re doing. But, you were tensing up and going up the hills. And I said, “Relax your body, and stand up straight and let it pull you, and let’s talk and be aware.” 

And through that, those experiences become very enlivening. That’s our work, right? It’s the aliveness. 

You feel energy start to move through you when you do things. 

Another way is, you can approach things like, “I’ve got so much to do today.” And go, “Oh my gosh,” and then you start getting stressed and overwhelmed. 

Instead of sitting down going, “Okay, I have a lot to do today, how am I going to approach this to where I put some ease into this?” 

Because the effort does not make it go any faster.

Makena: I just have to say this has been my Achilles heel in this lifetime so far. It is easy to talk about – and I get where a lot of you are sitting because I go back there again and again. 

When you’re in the world and you’re in business or career – and many of you have children and you’re busy – there’s a lot going on, and it’s easy to slip back into that tension and coming from that place.

And again, and again, I’m reminded, it’s just profound that, when I remember to come from this other place and to do the things that nourish me, life opens up in this different way. 

Clarity comes through. I tend to get more done. 

The stress actually adds… it seems it’s going to make things quicker, but it actually adds tension. I don’t know what it is. Things slow down. Time constricts. 

So I think it’s just to open up – it’s just to start to open up your awareness to that this is even possible. 

And for some of you, it may come more naturally than others, but for many women that we work with, it’s not the way they’ve been operating.

Gigi: So maybe you can’t be easeful all day, but a great way to start is with your Nourishers. And try to approach one task each day from ease instead of effort. 

And you’ll start to notice the difference.

How would you approach this if you’re being easeful? 

Because that’s what we find in the women that work with us over time. We tell them, “Start with a little bit.” You’re not going to change your life in a day or a month or whatever. It takes time. 

But that awareness of one activity a day. Approach it from ease instead of effort. 

And you’ll begin to feel that and sense it in your body – and you’re learning something new. You’re learning a new way there. 

Makena: So that’s a lot, but I think it’s just so much of what The Way of the Muse™ is about – coming from this other place. 

Because when you come from this other place, you open up to a different energy, and ideas and visions start to move through you. More creativity comes online. Your senses come online. 

So we’re starting to introduce these ideas. Just play with them. Have fun with them. 

Gigi: Yeah. And this is a broad topic. We could really go much deeper, micro down as we go through the podcast to really give you specifics in a little bit more.

But I think if you’re listening, you can get a sense and a feeling and you can begin to observe. 

Because it really starts with you observing, “When are you getting tensed up?” “When can you go for more ease?”

Just observing that will start to make a change in yourself. 

None of this is for you to go out and work on yourself. It’s more to become aware and through awareness, change begins to happen. 

That’s the beginning. 

Makena: Absolutely. So we hope you enjoyed today’s episode. 

If there’s a woman in your life that you think, they need this, or I would love to share this with them or, your sisters, your girlfriends, mother, coworkers. Please share this episode. It would mean the world to us. 

And subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. 

We’re so thankful to be doing this and be sharing this with you. 

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. I’m Makena Sage, co-host of The Way of the Muse™ podcast, along with my mom, Gigi Sage. 

In today’s episode, I’m going to share a part of my story with you. And as you listen, I really encourage you to reflect on anything that you relate to.

Because as human beings, we learn best through stories. Before we had the written word, information was passed down through the generations by telling stories around the fire.

Personally, I’m a huge fan of fiction and fantasy novels and even memoirs. Where I’ve always had a harder time getting all the way through a nonfiction book, unless it’s a topic that I’m super fascinated by.

My wish for you is that you’ll hear something in my story today that speaks to you. Something that inspires you or gives you that next bit of clarity you’ve been looking for. 

Let’s dive in… 

I grew up in coaching. My mom, Gigi Sage, has been coaching since 1986. I was born in 1988. You would have heard some of her story if you’d listened to it in our previous episode.

And I loved it. From a young age, I was fascinated and was so interested in what she was doing. 

I loved the workshops and the people who would come – everything was done in person back then – and watching their eyes light up in front of the room as they talked about their visions and dreams for the future.

I was able to start sitting in and participating in these seminars. My mom let me start at the age of seven. And so it was amazing! I was in there – I just thought I was an adult like everybody else and soaking it all up.

The other thing I really loved when I was young was self expression and dressing up. I loved twirly skirts and had so much fun with it. Dressing up and crazy outfits. 

Gigi, my mama, was my biggest role model in all of this. She would wear her high heels and her cool outfits as she led the seminars. And I just thought she was the coolest.

And so, there were these years in my childhood of just being fully who I was and fully self-expressed.

I was homeschooled. So I wasn’t around a lot of other kids making fun of me or telling me I should or shouldn’t do something. I was able to really stay in that for a relatively long time. 

Then around 12 years old, my parents divorced and we went through after that many years of what I kind of call “our family’s dark night of the soul.”

Gigi shared a little bit about this in the last episode… Where my dad had stage four cancer and my mom had chronic fatigue and we went through a lot of financial ups and downs. 

And because I was hurting during this time – it was a really challenging time in a lot of ways – I swung the other way. I rejected pretty much everything I loved about our life before and just said “I need to go to a better place. I need to get good grades and go to a business school.” 

I became serious and very structured.

So there were these years where I was listening to my head over my heart.

And many people that I talk to can relate to that. That they navigated through a lot of their life that way, or maybe they still are. 

And even though I’d been raised being told, “You can do what you love and follow your dreams,” I still kind of swung this other direction. All I could think about was making sure I was successful and could have control over my life and make sure that I didn’t have anything bad happen again.

So I studied hard. I got straight A’s. I went to a fancy business school and studied international business and graduated near the top of my class. I got all these awards. I graduated Summa Cum Laude. 

It was everything success might be on paper.

But inside, I felt further and further away from the true me – even though I don’t think I had words for that at the time. 

I was partying too much in college as many people do. I just couldn’t seem to see clearly what I wanted. 

I thought I was going to go the corporate route and decided against that. I took a job for a few months after I graduated. Then after about six months, it wasn’t really working out at that job.

And I thought, “Well, I don’t see anything else that I really want to do. I want to be able to travel and have the flexibility and freedom that we had when we were younger.” 

So I kind of fell into entrepreneurship. It wasn’t even really a conscious choice. It was more that I couldn’t find anything else that I was really happy with. 

And so I just said, “Okay, well, what am I good at that people need? What do I have the best chance of making money with?” Because I had bills to pay and student loans. 

So, it really came again from more of this place in my head. And there was a little bit of heart in there.

I knew I wanted to be able to travel and have flexibility, but mostly I was still operating in the world of my head and what made sense and just surviving.

So, I started doing copywriting – which is writing marketing copy or different kinds of copy for speakers and authors and experts and coaches.

I had started helping Gigi with some of her copy, as we told in one of our earlier episodes, in her business and everything when I was about 17. I’d done it on the side through college. I never really thought anything of it. 

Then it turned out to be my first business. And later I would end up getting into marketing strategy and some other things as well.

This was really what I now refer to as my “shadow career.”

This is a term that I originally heard from Steven Pressfield, who’s a great author. He wrote a book called “The War of Art,” which many people are familiar with. He also wrote a book called “Turning Pro,” and in these books, at least in “Turning Pro,” he talks about something called a “shadow career” – which is something very close to the thing you really want to be doing, but not quite it.

It’s like that thing where you can almost convince yourself that you are happy and fulfilled. But the truth is, it’s not. You don’t quite have your heart and soul on the line. 

So, an example might be someone who really wants to be acting – but they’re a cameraman. Or someone who really wants to be coaching, and instead they’re doing the marketing and the copywriting for coaches.

Now I look back at that and go, “that was absolutely my shadow career.”

In fact, I remember going to this business masterminding event. I think it was 2015 or 2016. So it was a few years into running my business. I was doing great, making six figures plus, and a lot was working. I was living in San Diego and I’d met the love of my life, Sunny. We were dating. I had great friends. 

So again, a lot was going well and I went to this business event. I’m in this room with all these entrepreneurs and I’m looking around me and they’re all so lit up and inspired by what they’re doing and their missions and their visions. 

And I found myself crying in the bathroom, just bawling my eyes out in a stall because I’m realizing – I don’t feel that way. 

I was good at what I did. I felt passionate about it and that I was helping people who were making a difference in the world. But it didn’t have that same feeling that I was longing for – of really feeling on path and on purpose – like I was doing the thing that I was put on this earth to do. 

And that was so hard to look at and to face into. Because something deep inside me knew that there was more I was meant to be doing. But I didn’t know how to make a change. I didn’t know what that change would be.

I’m not going to go into a deep version of the story, but some of you may have heard it. I started having panic attacks and anxiety around this time and other health issues. I really couldn’t find anything, there was nothing wrong with me. I did all the physical checks, and I could not figure out, “What this is about?”

And now I look back and I know this was my soul trying to get my attention and say, “Hey, you gotta listen up here. I’m here. I’m here.”

But at the time it was like – “Why would I make a change? Everything is working. Everything is good. I worked hard to get here. Why would I start all over?” 

And you know, that was my “something more.”

If you’re listening to this, your “something more” may not be a career change. You may not even know what it is. 

But often when people come to us, that’s where they start – with this feeling of, “There’s got to be more than this,” or, “There’s something more and I just don’t know what it is.” 

And I didn’t feel clear at the time either.

I had a sense that it might be a new career, but I wasn’t sure. I tried hiring a bunch of coaches and joining different masterminds and things to get clarity. But the style of coaching, the way they approached it – we came up with lots of good ideas, but it never felt quite right. And I didn’t know why.

Looking back now, I know it’s because we were coming from the head still. They weren’t tapping into and tuning into my deeper desire and aliveness. And that is what I continued and came to clarity. That was what made all the difference. 

But first I tried and failed to start a coaching business on my own.

So in 2017 I was like, “I’m going to do this. I feel like this is what I want to do.” 

I had no real plan and no support. I just went for it, and flopped basically. 

I was super embarrassed and thought, “Well, I tried and it didn’t work. So maybe this isn’t meant for me after all.”

Another year went by of continued anxiety and panic attacks. But just kind of like making do with that. Just saying, “Okay, I’ve got this good life. Things are working. I’m not going to rock the boat.”

And ultimately about a year later, things had gotten so challenging with the burnout and all those other feelings of anxiety.

Then my mom, Gigi, stepped in finally.

It’s not that she hadn’t supported me in those other times. But it’s an interesting thing in a mother-daughter coaching dynamic. If any of you have parents that are therapists or coaches or something like that, they can’t get in there and start therapizing or coaching you because you don’t want that, right? You want to be able to figure it out on your own.

So, she sat and supported me how she could. But mostly stayed out of things for a long time. Then finally she just said, “Oh my gosh! I can’t do this anymore.” 

So we had this experience – we went to Costa Rica. Which, funny enough, is where we are starting to record this podcast now.

We were leading a retreat in Costa Rica. I was coaching part-time in her mastermind at the time. This is early 2018. We got there a couple of days early and I was so into this thing of, “I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do.” “What is this all about?” 

And basically Gigi distracted me for two days. She said, “We’re going to put that all aside and let’s enjoy ourselves.”

We took long walks on the beach. We went and had a margarita. We got massages. We just chilled in this little beach town that we were in, and then we went and we led this retreat.

But something happened over the course of those two days.

I deeply unwound. I didn’t even know. I didn’t have terminology for this at the time. 

But we’re going to talk about this more in our next episode about “When Women Relax, We Become Wise”. 

I stopped coming from my head and trying to figure it out. I got into my experience, and then Gigi would just talk to me and ask me questions and I didn’t even know she was doing anything specific. I’ll share more about it as we go through I’m sure in some of these episodes.

Clarity started to really dawn – and it really felt that way. It was like, wow! I started to see glimpses of what I wanted to do. And I always knew deep down I wanted to coach, but not only that, I really wanted to do it with Gigi.

I really wanted to do it with my mom. It has always been a dream of mine. And I had sort of gotten disconnected from that dream. And this is so often when we work with people that deep down they know what they want, but they don’t think they do. They’ve convinced themselves they don’t. There’s all this kind of confusion on top. And we help them really tap into what that is.

And so through this process, I saw the vision. I saw that if I didn’t go for this, I really think I would probably get sick. My body was giving me signs that it was moving in a not-good direction and I felt like it would keep trying to get my attention louder and louder and louder until I listened.

And so I just said, “This is it.”

I know I failed at this one before, but I didn’t have support. My mom agreed this time to mentor me and coach me and guide me. She guided me in business and mentored me in coaching. 

But most importantly, she believed in me. 

And I remember thinking in those early days, “Wow, there’s no way that I could have done this on my own.” And that’s not true for everyone. That was just true for me. 

But I said, “I want to be a believer for other women who don’t have this kind of support in their lives.” And it was sort of the beginning of my mission and wanting to go out there and make a difference for others.

As I looked to make this shift in my business… She told me, “It’s not a leap.” I had tried to leap before from my previous business into this one. And she said, “It’s not a leap, Makena. It’s a transition. We have to make a plan. It’s step by step. It’s not going to happen overnight.” 

There’s so much I could go into about how I made that transition. But I’ll leave that for future episodes.

The important thing here is I had so much fear and so much self doubt in the beginning, but I kept going. And what kept me going was having a purpose that was bigger than me. That was a huge key distinction that Gigi made for me early on.

I said, “I don’t want to put myself out there and post on social media. I don’t want to get on these calls with people and ask them to work with me. It just feels so self-centered.” I just had all this stuff coming up. And Gigi said, “Makena, where is your attention?”

And I was like, “What does she mean?”

She said, “Is it on yourself or is it on others?” 

I said, “I guess it’s on myself.”

And she said, “Get your attention on the people that you feel you’re here to serve.”

That was like a light bulb moment for me. I shifted to focusing on the lives I wanted to touch and the mission I was about. And that changed everything.

So within eight months – a lot happened in those eight months of learning and putting myself out there. But within eight months, I had replaced my income through coaching and was able to transition fully. So, that was in late 2018, about five years ago at the time of this recording.

I could tell you a million stories, but I want to touch a little bit into The Way of the Muse™.

So what happened next was, I was building this coaching business and I was so much happier because the anxiety got less and less. Eventually the panic attacks stopped completely. 

I finally felt this feeling of, “I’m on path. I’m on purpose. I’m doing what I’m meant to do.”

Even though I was scared out of my mind so much of the time. And I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew that I was on the right track. 

At the same time, I carried all of my patterns with me.

I thought this would be this magic wand moment where everything changed. That I’d step into this business and everything would be working now. 

And a lot was, but I still had my patterns – which for me were things like overwhelm.

I would get overwhelmed all the time and overwork. I just got caught in this go, go, go kind of energy a lot. And I think about this quote now, which people often say, which is “Wherever you go, there you are.” 

And it was a little bit of that experience. Some things really shifted, but these patterns were still there.

In some ways they seemed even bigger and even magnified because I was aware of them now in a different way. There was so much more consciousness in there. And Gigi really helped me learn to navigate through those patterns and things that would come up. And this took years. Through the early years of building the business… 

Maybe it’s a lifelong process. I don’t know. I think there’s always something.  

But I worked on especially the patterns around too much go mode and around burning myself out and overwhelm. Those were the big ones, and it took me a long time to learn a different way of approaching life. 

So, you may have different patterns, and we’ll talk about this in future episodes. But this was for me, and for many of the people we work with, this is one of the big ones that comes up.

So now they pop up from time to time. It’s not that I’m enlightened and have nothing that ever comes up. But now these patterns feel like an old pair of jeans or something that doesn’t fit any longer. And let’s say that they’re too big – or maybe they’re too small. But let’s say that they’re too big and they don’t fit anymore.

I get in them and then I’m floating around in there. I have so much more awareness now. It’s like, “This doesn’t quite fit anymore.” So even when it comes up, I’m able to move through them more quickly and easily. 

Apart from what she taught me about business and coaching, Gigi also really mentored me in every area of my life. She helped me look to see how I could eliminate pressures and breakdowns in my life by putting systems into place, or using communication tools in my relationships. 

Largely in my relationship with my partner, Sunny. But also in my other relationships, as we started to grow our team. And so many different tools. 

These are the pieces that we’re going to start to share with you through this podcast.

We are in the process of writing a book called The Way of the Muse™. It is going much deeper into my story. About how she helped me with these different tools and everything. But through these episodes, we’ll also go into that, and specific questions that you might have on how you can do this in your life.

She taught me about how to follow my aliveness – and what that even meant. Which really resulted in me having so much fun, so much more energy and vitality as I incorporated more of the things that nourished me and brought me alive. And I started to release more of the things that drained my energy, or found a different approach.

I had so much more vitality, clarity, and life started to take on a new kind of depth and meaning. And there was so much more just fulfillment. I often say it was like It switched from like black and white to technicolor. And that was really, that has been my experience of what it has felt like. 

There’ve been so many ups and downs along the way. We call it often like an emotional rollercoaster. It’s called the emotional roller coaster of life. So many lessons along the way. Times when I thought it wasn’t going to work. 

I even got close to burning out again in the summer of 2022. 

This was a few years later now. And we’re building this business and we’ve got clients all over the world. And some old health issues started to pop back up again. I had this kind of breakthrough – a wake up call moment where I said, “Wait a second, something isn’t working here.”

A lot is working – even way more than it was before. And I’m not having the same kind of anxiety and everything else. I do feel like I’m on path and on purpose, but my body’s trying to tell me something. 

That for me has often been what the wake up call has been. It’s been some kind of something going on with my body that makes me go, “Wait a second, what’s the deeper thing that I’m not looking at here?”

So again, Gigi really supported me to see what that was. And this kind of ushered my next big “death and rebirth” cycle, as I call it. 

That first one was that time of stepping into coaching. And then this one. 

At first I was like, “Am I not supposed to be coaching? What is this about?”

It was really devastating and hard to look at. But I dove really deep into it.

I thought, “You know what? The only way out is through. I’m not going to resist this. I’m just going to dive in and see what’s here for me.” And I saw that it had to do with this stress and pressure that I put myself under. 

It was not so much the work I was doing. It was the way I was working, and some of those patterns I had brought into this business.

And so I really had a shift. I totally shifted the way that I approached everything in my life and my work. And that’s when things really started to click on a whole new level. 

So as we started to think about what was the book we wanted to write, I was interviewing clients of my mom’s – who have worked with her for five, ten, some of them 15 years or longer.

I was asking them, “What has Gigi taught you? What changes have happened in your life over the years?” And as they shared, I began to realize… one of my mom’s communications tools that she teaches is called Wending. And Wending is this really powerful, a little bit complex tool.

We’ll share bits of it in the podcast, but it has to do with the way that you approach conflict. In relationships, if there’s this conflict, instead of going up against the other person, how can you sort of be receptive and have this kind of listening aspect to things? 

I’m not going to describe the whole thing right now, but there’s this dynamic that happens there that’s kind of like a dance. And in that dance, in the end, you both get what you want. You get so much more of what you want than if you went directly up against somebody. And so it’s this beautiful tool, and it’s Wending because the word Wending means “to move in a direction, but sometimes by a less direct path.”

So what I realized as I was listening to these women share about the impact she’s had on them, and as I started to reflect on what changed for me, is that Wending wasn’t just a communication skill, it was a way of life. 

And that way of life is The Way of the Muse™. It is this beautiful way, as we talked about in the first episode, of dancing with life. And I see it as this dance between really go mode and flow mode – between the masculine and the feminine, which are inside of all of us. And how we learn to navigate and dance between these energies to move through our lives.

So I knew that we had to share this with women and with people everywhere. And I had been business coaching for years. We had a coaching certification. We already had our “Wealthy World Changers” mastermind, which is our program where we work deeply with women from around the world to help them step into whatever that “something more” is for them.

But an even bigger, deeper mission was calling at this point, which was The Way of the Muse™. That’s our response to that calling. And it’s been woven through everything all along. But now, we’re really stepping into that with the podcast and the book. 

And we have an incredible membership program where women connect with like-minded women who are also on this journey of personal growth and transforming their lives in every area.

The Way of the Muse™ to me is this way of dancing through life. It is opening up to what wants to come through you from God, the universe, source, whatever you call it, from your higher self. And when you have that experience, if you’ve ever had an experience of going into a flow state and feeling like you just forget about time, that is the way of the muse to me.

That’s the definition in some ways of what the muses were said to be all about. It was this creative inspiration that flowed through you. And so that is what brings us here today where we are sharing this with you, creating this podcast for you. 

You can read more about all of this on our website at www.wayofthemuse.com.

But for now, I’ll really close this episode with this: 

If you are feeling burned out or exhausted in your life… if you can relate to that part of my story, then just know that burnout isn’t just physical exhaustion. It’s exhaustion of the soul. And that is what I really learned there is, your soul is speaking to you.

It’s not about how much you’re working. It may be that too, but it’s something that you’re not maybe getting the message, or you can’t figure out what it is. But there’s something there and we’re going to give you ways to start to tap into what that is. 

And if you’re feeling the call to something more, maybe you don’t relate to the burnout piece, but you feel the call to something more – listen.

If you don’t know what that “something more” is or how to get there, get support. There are so many great coaches out there these days. And of course, we’re always honored when you feel the call to come and work with us.

I want you to have a takeaway and something you can apply from the episode today… 

In our first episode, we talked about journaling on the questions of, “What am I longing for? And, What is my ‘something more’?”

If you haven’t done that yet, I would start there. Write three pages without stopping or thinking, just let whatever wants to come through flow through. 

If you have already done that, then the next question I would encourage you to reflect on is, “What’s stopping me?”

Maybe you have fears or doubts. Maybe you feel like you’re too busy. Believe me, I had all of the above. Whatever it is, you want to identify what that is, because that is what’s in between where you are and where you’re longing to be. 

And once you know, here’s the empowering thing about getting clear: Once you know what’s getting in the way, then you can see how to get support or solutions to move through it.

So that is what I would say today is to really look at, “What are you longing for?” “What’s your something more?” And if you’ve looked at that already, then let’s see what is stopping you? What’s getting in the way?

So that’s the episode for today… 

Thank you for listening to my story. It always feels a little vulnerable to share some aspects of it, but I know from experience that it’s just so powerful when we hear each other’s stories. 

And please subscribe if you’re enjoying this podcast. It’s very new still and we are so excited and delighted to share it with you.

Really the part that’s about us and is really in service to you through our stories that’s coming to a close here. Now it’s all about you and about how we can support you with things that are going on in your life.

We want to hear from you. You can reach out to us. If you want to be on a future episode, you can go to www.wayofthemuse.com/onair. And we have an opportunity for you to get coached for free in exchange for having it be aired as an episode here on the show.

So those are going to be really, really powerful, but for now, please subscribe. Please share this with the women in your life and we’ll see you next time.

Hello, everyone. I’m Gigi Sage, co-host of the Way of the Muse podcast, along with my daughter, Makena Sage.

Today, I’m going to share with you a bit of my origin story. My personal transformation and my journey as a coach began over 37 years ago – so I could easily fill a couple of books with my story, as you can imagine.

But today I want to focus on a few parts that I think are the most relevant for you, the listener.

So if you haven’t listened to the first episode, go back and make sure you listen.

First of all, I want to share a disclaimer. I always like to do this because when I talk, I’m going to speak about men and women in binary terms. And I will also make generalizations that are based primarily on my observations of tens of thousands of people over many decades.

And I do understand that there are many shades of gray. So, there are non-binary gender identifications, of course, same-sex relationships, and also just unique qualities to each individual and relationship dynamic.

So if you don’t identify when I use the words “men” and “women,” or if you happen to be in a same-sex relationship, what I want you to do is feel free to substitute the words “masculine” and “feminine” instead.

Okay, so where did all this get started? Let’s begin way back.

The year was 1985. I was a single mom of two. I’d just moved back to Houston, Texas, and had gotten a job in the telecommunications field. And honestly, at that point in my life, I was looking for something… I thought, “there’s got to be something more.”

I was longing for something.

So it just so happens when I started to work for this company, there was this special woman working there. and she was so different from anyone else. When she talked, she talked about living her passion.

She shared with me a story that she was actually leaving the company in about three months. She was living her passion and going to be an actress.

Now you have to understand this is 1985, and I had no idea what she meant by living your passion, but the more she talked about it and how excited she was, I was like, “Wow, you know, I’ve never even thought about, what would I like to do?”

Up until that point, I had just been kind of on autopilot.

The other thing that she shared with me is that she had taken a seminar and she’s actually been working with this “seminar company” and that they came to Houston frequently. and she would love it if I would join her in the seminar, because she said that is where she learned about living your passion.

So I was like, “Oh, okay.” I didn’t really know anything about seminars back at that point, and also, there weren’t a lot of seminars happening.

So I was super curious, and also a little hesitant. When it finally came around and the leader came to town and a seminar was organized in Houston, I tried to back out, but she said, “Nope, you made a commitment.”

And it’s the first time anyone had ever said that to me before. So I ended up showing up, and there’s a much longer story to that, but I’ll keep it brief today and basically share with you that my experience in the seminar was profound.

I went into that seminar and what happened is, people sat up in front of the room and the trainer would ask these questions. Like: “What do you love doing?” “Have you ever had a dream?”

Then people in the audience would give feedback anytime they saw you light up. So this was the beginning of the question you hear everywhere now, which is “What lights you up?”

This particular trainer had actually developed this term. So we did this in the seminar.

First of all, when I sat up in front of the room and people asked me, this amazing curiosity of the people watching and then giving me feedback was so exciting, because I’d never taken the time to stop and really think about, “What did I want?”

I was pregnant and married at 18. Like I said, I had two daughters at this time and I was 27 years old and I was just on autopilot. So getting up there, having people so curious about me, and sharing what was on my heart, it was such an amazing experience.

The other experience was when I sat out in the audience and I watched other people, and we asked them: “What do you want?” “What do you love doing?”

And you would watch them light up. You would feel it. You would sense it.

I was mesmerized when I left that seminar. I was so alive and so curious, and I had this feeling in the class, “I would love to do this. I would love to work with people this way.”

So something sparked in me and I started to follow my curiosity and aliveness. I started assisting in these workshops, helping out with them. Over the years then the man who led them became my mentor, and we worked together for many years.

And so in this, I started to develop my work – and that’s a long story!

I followed my passion and people thought it was crazy. I tried to talk everyone I knew into coming to the seminars… My parents came, all my friends, because I wanted to share this new thing that I had found.

So as we developed and grew, we created a four year training program in the late 1980s. We developed this four year certification program for coaches, if you can believe that. We called them coaches and trainers back then.

So people would come for one month every year for four years – and they’d immerse themselves in 30 day trainings, and they would learn the skills of training and coaching with us. They would learn sales. They would learn how to perform so they could get up and have stage presence.

We had all kinds of doctors, lawyers, people who were curious about being coaches. All of those people came to us. And so this was a very exciting time for me. I listened to things. I went to seminars. And through all these experiences, I started to develop my own work.

I did my first seminar in Maui. It was called “How to Train Your Man,” if you can believe that. And I think I had like five or six women, something like that.

The truth is I had this fascination about communication, and especially the communication between men and women. So in my mentorship, we kind of played around and used the different things that my mentor had been teaching, and then also started to develop our work together.

So he told me at one point, “You know, you need to go out there and just get in a training room, put together a workshop.” And we called it “How to Train Your Man,” and I would teach women how to communicate with men in such a way where it’s collaborative. Instead of the war of the sexes – let’s go to more of the dance of the sexes.

So I had a little bits that I knew or learned, but I just got in there and saw, “What did women want?” And when I stood in my first workshop I have to tell you, I was so scared and I felt like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do this!”

But also seeing the challenges they were going through… this helped me rise above my fears, and go in service to the bigger purpose for myself.

So this was a very exciting time. I would start teaching these seminars. I had the opportunity early on to actually teach these in Europe.

And, really for the next, I would say 17 years, I did workshops on a lot of different topics. “What To Do With The Rest Of Your Life.” I did the “How to Train Your Man,” which eventually became “Power Connections.” And a lot of different seminars over my years.

My work developed by being in the training room.

And when I would get in there and work with people, especially with the women, I saw their pain – like in relationship, and their pain in communicating with men. So I started to develop skills, and then also started to see the breakdowns and help the women see those themselves and work through those.

So my passion from the very beginning was communication between men and women.

And my personal mission is to transform conflict into harmony in businesses, relationships, and families – creating a ripple effect of prosperity and peace on the planet.

I love helping people create harmony in their communication, and through my years of working that has gone into people’s families, into their relationships, and into their businesses.

Often I’ve had clients where I work with them in all of those areas of their lives. They hire me for one area, and then we end up working in many different areas. So a lot of my work also has been with particular clients over many, many, many years.

As I said, I got the opportunity to work in Europe early on. Much of my work was there. And one time I was leading a class – this is when it became “Power Connections” in, I think it was Cologne, Germany.

And a woman was in it and after the workshop she came up to me and she said, “You know, have you ever written a book?” And I said, you know, “I’ve been writing a book for the last 15 years, but I haven’t actually gotten it into print yet.”

And she said, “Well, listen, I would love to write a book with you.” So she brought me a bunch of books the next morning. You know, Mars and Venus and a lot of the very beginning books back at that time. Because this was around the year 2000. And so I said, “Listen, you can fly to New York.”I was living in New York at the time and we could do a shorter book of what I’m writing.

So she flew to New York. We made an outline. She said, “Can I go see if I can get a book deal?” I was like, “Absolutely.” So she went back to Europe and she ended up, I think, getting three different offers.

So we ended up signing in Germany to do a book, and then that book eventually got published in seven countries in Europe. And it’s what I still teach all the time. One of those skills is “Wending.” And we will talk more about that in the podcast.

It’s a very high level communication skill – it is this dance of being able to, in conflict, not come up against each other, but find a way to kind of “wend” through the situation and really get both people what they want.

So what Makena saw later as she started working with me – because we started about five years ago, our business together – she started to see that Wending was not just a communication skill– but it’s really a way of listening and responding to life.

So often when we work with women in our masterminds or in our other classes, we teach them this communication tool so they can use this as a way of life – which is what she says is one of the biggest things I’ve taught her.

And it’s a big part of what we do in The Way of the Muse™ because, as Makena shared her story, she really went into a lot of pressure and really thought she had to work hard. So this tool has really been the opportunity for her to take a whole different approach to business and to the way she manages all of her life.

So, to share with you a little bit also about the lifestyle in my family… Early on, I began designing my life very differently. So like I said, I had the opportunity in an early part of my career to go into Germany, to work in the Netherlands, to work in Switzerland, and that was very exciting as you can imagine.

So early on I had to see how I could develop and grow my life in a different way than most people were doing it, because I eventually had five kids. So if I wanted to travel like this, then I had to design my life differently.

One thing I saw is that I love to travel. I love to travel with my family. So I was running an international coaching and training business where I would go and spend two months in Germany – and then I saw that I really wanted to bring my children.

So early on, I started to homeschool my children. We got a nanny and so that way they could come live with us. They could be immersed in the culture. It was super fun because we were working with people that lived in Germany. So we weren’t like tourists, right? We were there immersed in the culture.

My kids learned so much. Several of them speak German. and they just had this very different lifestyle. They were playing and speaking with the Germans – and then other people from other countries.

So early on, I saw to live life on my own terms – and no longer be directed by society. I created a life outside of what was normal. And we had to set up systems for our life that allowed us to do this. So we had a nanny, and we had to go where our clients were, and we allowed our children to learn from these experiences.

Also through the years, Brianna, my daughter, love to perform and sing. And we did a lot of performing and singing. So at one point we created a family band, and this is where our kids learned music. This is also where my daughter Brianna got the opportunity to really follow her aliveness and passion because we created this band and we sang together as a family band.

We put on shows in Munich. We did shows in Austin, Texas. So through this, this was how I had quality time with my children, because we lived a very, fast-paced, exciting life. So we were always looking to see what would be something that we all love doing, in a way that we could spend our time there.

The other thing is, through doing the band, the kids also learned discipline. We had to rehearse, we had to put on shows and at this time, my youngest daughter, I think she was three or four, and she was in the band with us.

It’s so cute when I watch old videos of us all singing, “It’s My Party” by Lesley Gore, and my daughter has her little pacifier in her mouth.

So we always did these activities or things that were fun, exciting, and that created this connection in our family. Then we would always include our clients in that. This would give the clients a kind of role model of what they could do with their families, to find out what was the system or the way of play with their families.

Now, as you can imagine traveling – at that point it was with four children and then five children – leading seminars all over the world. There was a lot of complexity to all this. So we set up systems to where my children also had responsibility. They were part of the dynamic and system.

They would help set up the workshops and our travels. Everybody had a job that they did and everybody helped plan. And then when we were in other places, everybody helped. And so it was a very fun thing for the kids early on. They felt like part of the system. It wasn’t us just telling them what to do. They got to contribute.

It was funny because our nanny started doing kids camps. So we would be in New York and we’d have a lot of Germans or Americans come. And since they were coming for 30 days, often they would want to bring their kids. So our nanny would develop a kids camp.

All the kids would have responsibilities and then they would have activities. They all got to be leaders. We would have the families actually do shows together where the kids and the parents got together and they performed. So we integrated all the different things we loved doing into our life, our family, and our business – and that’s basically how I’ve grown my life, and what I’ve taught my children to do.

So following our aliveness… and anything that I had an interest in, I would put it on a list, and then at some point I would integrate that into my next evolution in my business.

Because I traveled and I love to travel, I had a workshop that I developed called “Arts of a Woman.” I started leading retreats early in my career. And I would always choose retreats to have women come and experience these different experiences of cultures.

So I did the “Arts of Japanese Woman.” And in that I brought in special guests. We did Ikebana, we did the Japanese tea ceremony, which I love.

So I would teach women in these seminars how to connect more with their feminine side, how to let go and unwind.

I did one in Cape Town in South Africa where I brought an African dance teacher. This retreat was on pleasure and women tapping in more to their sensuality. And so through the years I’ve done these all over the world.

For me, I always tapped into: what was I curious about – and how could I share that with the women that I was working with? So again, this was this natural evolution of what I love doing. And then I would implement this and put it into my work. And that’s how I’ve really grown my career, my life, everything.

In the 2000s, I think it was, I developed a method for women on how to communicate with men – both professionally and personally. And, that’s what my book was about.

Through the book, I got a lot of different opportunities. In the US, I started working in corporations and teaching women how to use skills for advancement. Because what I saw, even back in the 80s, is that women had started to go into business and through going into business, they were taking on more and more masculine qualities.

And they would come to me and they were in so much pain because they’d forgotten how to be a woman. They no longer tapped into their intuition. They just felt more like men. And so I started to show women early on that they could take their feminine qualities, they could keep those, and they could be in business with men.

And actually, the way they communicated with the men would make these relationships more collaborative and harmonious.

So I went into companies like JP Morgan Chase. I worked with about a hundred of the women in the senior VP area. I worked at Duke Energy. I worked with their top 80 executive women and I changed the dynamic on how they were approaching being in business and being leaders – from acting like men, into taking on their feminine qualities and still being extremely professional.

So that was a very exciting time and you can imagine it really made an impact for a lot of women around the world. I also talked about this in Germany too. So, I would show them how to keep their more feminine qualities.

And here’s the thing… You hear so much about femininity these days, but femininity is not one thing. It’s not about wearing flowing dresses, for example. I mean, if that’s what you really like, that’s perfect.

But femininity is a quality that a woman naturally has. It’s in our beauty and our receptivity, and it’s different for everyone. So it’s really about tapping into what that means to you. “What is it for you that has you feel more ease and flow?”

A lot of my programs got developed around that.

So through these programs, the other thing I would do is we did photo shoots. I did this all over the world and at that time, I would even take the photos, which was super fun. It was all about helping women tap into this different side of themselves where they started to feel sensual and playful and beautiful.

We also put on fashion shows. I’d get a store and ask them to let us use their clothes, and all the women in the seminars would wear their clothes. We’d invite people to come watch. We even sold tickets to them.

So again, I love beauty and fashion. So I developed my work around that. Everything I did was around: “What brought me alive?” “What did I enjoy?”

Because whatever that was – especially because I was working with a lot of women around the world – I saw that whatever was a longing in me, normally, it was a longing in other women as well.

We had a training facility in Austin for many years, on 75 Acres there. And we would have people come from all over the world. And in my office, I bought this beautiful white chaise lounge that looked out the window through the land. And that’s where I did my phone calls, and sat and worked on my computer. Because that’s what I love.

I love this way of being relaxed, and not just sitting at a computer and working.

Then there came a point. I had a dark night of the soul. Now, it wasn’t all easy and breezy. Of course, when I talk about this, I’m sharing the highlights, but as you know, having this kind of big life had a lot of complexity to it.

And I went through many challenges in those early years of growing my business and raising my family. But around the year 2000, I parted ways with the father of my younger children and around that same time, I walked away from a business that I had built for 17 years with my business partner.

I walked away from my clients. I walked away from everything. So as you can imagine, that was a very difficult thing to do. I tried to see how to walk away and not destroy everything. It was very difficult, no matter what, because my life, my business, my family, everything was connected.

When I did this, shortly thereafter, I actually got sick with chronic fatigue. Of course, later I saw that me getting sick had a lot to do with the emotional pain I was going through.

But there was much more to this. I’m not going to go deeply into this, just to touch on – it was a very challenging time for many years. We went through a lot of challenges and, like I said, kind of a dark night of a soul. And this was a very difficult time for me with my kids.

I actually had four kids at home at that time, and I let go of my nanny, and I ended up taking on my life – and I went from everything being handled with my teams and support, to handling everything on my own. And I can’t even tell you… Yeah, just that pain, that challenge.

But I felt so strongly about it, and on the other side of it, I knew it was absolutely the right thing.

This was also a time where I really learned humility, and my knowledge and experience and work with people took a new depth, because before I was kind of on this high, and honestly a little arrogant, I have to tell you. So when I had this dramatic change and I had to do everything myself, I had to really sit back and reflect.

So in that, I had a new way of seeing my work and a new way of seeing what people were going through. So this, I always say, made me into a 10 times better coach, and a 10 times better trainer, because I went through this experience. That’s always powerful, when we have challenges and then we can go back and share with other people.

And then I got the great opportunity in mentoring Makena – my daughter that I work with. Makena had a strong curiosity about coaching and she was so interested at an early age. But at one point she wanted to coach and then she tried it – and it didn’t work.

Then I just saw the pain she was going through in her copywriting business. And even though she was doing well, I stepped in and said, “Listen, I think I can really support you.”

So we decided to go into business together, and I decided to mentor her. And, during this time, it was very challenging at first, because as you can imagine, we’re a mother and daughter, and then we were business partners, and then we were a mentor and student.

And so what we did through the first few years was just a matter of her learning. And I have to say, she’s one of the quickest learners and people I’ve ever mentored. And it was very exciting though, too, because we got to work together in this way, where we got to grow together.

I had to grow. She grew. It was amazing to watch, you know, my daughter be able to learn these skills and learn them so fast. Something that took me 37 years and in the last five years, she’s learned so much.

Then for us to combine our love of helping and working with women, to empower women around the world to live these exceptional lives, and to also tap in and build their business from this ease and flow – and to also build incredible relationships, if that’s what they want, and amazing families.

So, that’s just a few highlights from my life – thank you so much for listening.

One thing I hope you take away from this story is that we all have countless ups and downs on our journeys. And if you’re feeling somehow like, “Oh, you know, I’ve made so many mistakes.” Or, “I failed.” Let my story be an inspiration for you, because I’ve had so many ups and downs and through that though, I’ve continued to take one step in front of the other and keep going.

A really powerful exercise we often share with our clients is to make a timeline of your life and write down your key experiences that shaped you into who you are today. “What were those turning point moments for you?”

You really want to go in and see, “What are the times where you had turning points.” Like when I met my mentor was a turning point for me. When I started working in Europe, it was a turning point for me.

Because in those moments you often will get clues about things that you love to do, or ways that you want to approach your life, and often these experiences play a role in what you’re here to do on this planet – and how you’re being called to make a positive difference for others

So thank you so much for listening to my story.

I’m excited to continue getting to know you through this podcast and sharing tools and principles that can help you design a life that’s truly in alignment for you.