Rachel's Redemption: A Story of Resilience and Self Discovery

Would you believe that a single mother of twins, who also happens to be a successful businesswoman in the tech startup scene, lost her home to a wildfire and yet still stands tall, demonstrating resilience and adaptability? Meet our special guest, Rachel, an epitome of strength in face of life's adversities. Her story of self-growth, transformation, and leadership isn't just inspiring but a compelling testament to the power of visualization and manifestation techniques.

Rachel's journey reveals her unique approach to life, emphasizing the importance of understanding personal energy cycles and patterns, especially for women. Her insights on achieving productivity through focused, intentional living are bound to alter the way you perceive success. Rachel elucidates on the significant role her children played in her journey of self-discovery, moulding her into a transformational and servant leader. She sheds light on her experiences in the hierarchical corporate world and the significance of recognizing one's zone of genius.

Brace yourselves for an enlightening conversation as we explore the intriguing theme of embracing failure and building abundance - a concept Rachel exemplifies in her personal and professional life. Through her experiences as a single mother, she underlines the transformative power of self-validation, resilience, and relentless pursuit of dreams. Rachel envisions fostering a stronger sense of community and collaboration in the world, and harbors a dream of travelling the world with her children. Tune in for an episode filled with inspiring anecdotes, practical advice, and lessons surrounding self-care, failure, and abundance.

Transcript

Baz: 0:02

Good day everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Rise on the Ashes. I have a special guest with me today who his story is really inspiring. Her name is Rachel. I'm going to let her introduce herself. Please engage, take notes and get locked in. This is going to be good, rachel. Please tell her to the world.

Rachel: 0:25

Hello world, so good to be here, thank you guys. My name is Rachel, I live in Oregon and, gosh, there's so much I could say, but I'm going to start with that. I began a personal development journey at a very young age. I was very encouraged by my parents and I remember listening to, you know, my dad would take me to school in the mornings and we would be listening to Wayne Dyer or Eckhart Tolle or Steve Covey in the car, and so I just kind of grew up hearing that and that really got into me subliminally. So I started going after personal development at a young age and that's been a common thread in my life. The road took me to being a massage therapist, actually for 25 years, and really getting to serve and heal people through, you know, through touch, but also to help them take away their stress and help them relax, and that was so rewarding for me and that actually led me on a whole different path.

Rachel: 1:37

Life kind of took me in a different direction and I really realized that I'm good at marketing, I'm creative, I love coming up with ideas, I take inspired action, a lot of fire in me, and so that actually translated into going on to getting my degree in business and working in the digital tech startup space for the past nine years, which I thought was a path I wanted to be on. It started with wellness, where I was actually supporting wellness organizations in their wellness programs and then working for a very large venture backed app and wellness. But I got really burnt out with that and realized I was doing way too much and it was taking me away from that core value of personal development, personal growth and really wanting to heal people and serve people and help, and so in the last year I actually started my own consulting business where I got very clear that I work with entrepreneurs, coaches, startups, small businesses that are very purpose driven and mission aligned and just really help them grow their business. I could go on and on about that and, aside from the business aspects, I love to travel the world. I lived in Bali for a while, a while, lots of world travel.

Rachel: 3:01

I have twins. They're nine. I am a single mama. I've been a single mama since they were born and that's been an incredible journey of love, of surrender, of giving challenges, but it's ultimately fueled me to just continue to rise higher and higher and rise from the ashes, which there have been some. For sure, I love to hike, I love to get out in nature and really I just love connecting with people on a one-on-one personal level and getting to know people. So that's a long-winded answer. No, not at all.

Baz: 3:41

I love the fact that you were very detailed with it. You said that you had some challenges and growth in the last nine years since your twins were born. What have them challenges been like? Because people love to hear adversity and overcoming that. People focus a lot on the challenge or the situation, but some of the people don't see the other side of the hill until they're actually the other side of it.

Baz: 4:13

They think, oh, it wasn't that bad. So what are some of the challenges you've had to overcome, not necessarily in business, but also in your personal life, to achieve the status you have today?

Rachel: 4:24

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I could go back probably to around the time that I knew I was having twins and I knew that it was going to be a journey I was most likely going to take alone. But I felt like I had been given that, rather than as a challenge, as a gift to help me rise higher. So that was the first thing is two babies crying, two babies up in the night, two babies to feed, and all of that, and of course, I had a family and friends and love and support around me. But that was very challenging and I survived. I didn't get much sleep, probably for five or six years, but I survived. But what that pushed me to do because I knew I just wanted to be there and take care of those babies and make sure they were, you know, had a good life and were well taken care of is that pushed me to go back to school and kind of shift gears from being a massage therapist into something that I could find, a different zone of genius where I could maybe work from home, which I did. I was able to find that and create that long before people were working remotely as much. It just really motivated me to work for me, to want to take care of them, but in that process, it pushed me to really dive even deeper into manifesting something that I've done done very intentionally, probably for the last 13 or 14 years, very intentionally but I realized that it was something that I had been doing since I was a child, naturally by visualizing, by believing, by embodying, and I really just put that into full force when I had the babies and said I'm going to go after this, I'm going to achieve this. I kept seeing the vision forward. I kept seeing the vision forward, asking for what I wanted, and it just got better and better. However, of course, there were other challenges along the way. I've had challenges in figuring out the relationship with their father and how that's going to work, and financial challenges that I had to figure out and overcome.

Rachel: 6:35

Where I live here in Oregon, we had some wildfires come through in 2020 and 2,500 homes were lost, mine included and part of the moment of tragedy was that I had actually just moved into this beautiful home and what that symbolized for me was really getting to the next level. It was like, okay, I just I finished school, I'm finishing up grad school, getting my MBA. I've done this as a single mom with twins. And here I got us this beautiful home and three months later we lost the home, we lost everything. We owned everything and it was actually such a blessing.

Rachel: 7:19

You know, you say sometimes you get to the other side and you look back, and that really pushed me to the next level because one I realized that I could let go of things, things were just things, and it really changed the course of my life and my desires in some ways, and not that I was on a course of only wanting to attain material things or wealth, but it really shifted my perspective. And it was humbling because it was right during the pandemic, when people were living in fear and they weren't leaving their homes and they weren't relating and people came out of the woodwork to make sure we had, you know, some clothes, some food, place to stay, you know a stuffed animal for my child, because we literally lost everything. And going through sifting through donation sites to just find basic necessities was very, very humbling and, as somebody who's always been fiercely independent, asking for and receiving like gifts and help, it was so hard but so important on this journey and something that I've continued to learn how to receive. We have to learn how to receive, especially when we love to give and we love to help others. It can often be such a challenge for us to receive. So you know, there's been many challenges along the way, but every challenge has leveled me up If we were playing this game of life leveled me up in my personal development, in my spiritual development, in my financial, in my clarity of purpose, and so I'm sure there's more challenges, but those are the big ones. That kind of stood out.

Rachel: 8:59

And then there was some aftermath from losing everything in the fire and going right back into.

Rachel: 9:05

I went right back into work mode, which was my trauma response, was just to keep going and keep achieving. And you know, it took me at least a year or more to kind of look back and say, oh, that was a trauma response, not giving myself the time, the self-care, and then continuing to achieve in these startup environments. And so I'm now at a place of unlearning some of the way I learned to be as part of that trauma response, where being hyper-vigilant, checking my email all the time or my Slack notifications, or feeling like I had to jump right into tasks and do, do, do and not give myself the time and space for personal care or to really like, follow my natural rhythm or, you know, even give myself that ability to just laser focus on the things that were really important. So there's been a lot of lessons along the way and I can with certainty look back at every single thing and say this happened for a reason and this has brought me to the next level and it's been a gift. It's been a gift each thing.

Baz: 10:13

I love what you said about. It's been a gift and you're changing the growth aspect into an opportunity. A lot of individuals who have gone through some of these challenges and overcome them and changed them into an opportunity have discovered rituals or things they do in the mornings or in the evenings that become part of their routine. Now, some of the things that you've been through is anything you'd like to share with the audience that has become part of your habitual routines but really set your day up for a level of success and it's a must. It's not non-negotiable. It's like meditating in the morning, going for exercise or whatever it may be. What can you share? What happened, what you've discovered through that. That's a good journey.

Rachel: 11:05

Yeah, yeah, it hasn't been a straight path for sure. It's been figuring out a lot as I go. I've always had a love for nature and I've always known that if I feel off-center, ungrounded, things are foggy or I'm overwhelmed, doing too much, getting in nature is going to be the thing that immediately brings me back to my center. Nature is my temple. So, getting outside, getting in the trees, going for a hike, even if it's just a walk, breathing fresh air, nature breath, remembering to breathe right, there's so many times of the day, over the past few years especially but whereas I would catch myself not breathing, how often do we stop and check in, like, am I fully breathing, am I taking deep breaths or am I just kind of shallow breathing? So being aware of my breath is very important.

Rachel: 12:02

I've gotten into more of a consistent meditation and journaling habit and it's something. I've tried different methods, from 10-day silent vipassana retreats to using apps like Headspace or Calm or Insight Timer, to now I have a whole new system that I use after I've truly fallen in love with ChatGPT. I've truly fallen in love with AI and I see all the positive and I'm certainly aware of all of the ethical implications, but for me. I see it as an incredible tool, not only for business growth, for helping others, but for personal growth. So I've started to really utilize that and have a process of journaling and I use some other AI tools to produce personal guided meditations that I do each morning and each night, and then I use AI to produce a visual, an image, to go with that. So it's how do I want to set up my day, create that visualization, listen to a meditation, create an image and then do the same thing in the evening, and it's been so transformative, this process and the reflection of that.

Rachel: 13:17

Aside from that, I'm really making more of a conscious effort to take care of myself physically. Yesterday I did a yoga class and yoga is something I love. Getting on my spin bike is something I love. It's just finding that thing that we can take a break, unplug, and so those are really important and then just being able to unplug and being able to shut off the computer and not look at the notifications on my phone and be really present, not only with myself but with my family, with my kids, and just give them that time where I'm not distracted by anything else.

Baz: 13:56

I love that. It's interesting. You say not look at the notifications on your phone. The easiest way to do that simply turn them off. It's so freeing when you start actually focusing on what matters to yourself as an individual, and I think we model people and aspire to be like others or walk in their footsteps. Who are the five people that you've not necessarily model, want to grow and be, but have really set you up in the role that you're showing up in your business and also in life today?

Rachel: 14:37

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm going to say first and foremost, my parents, both of them in different ways. My father was always that icon for personal development and he was always this compassionate, loving it is very compassionate, loving, nurturing person who always saw the best in me and in others and, I think, really instilled that in me and at times I felt like that was not a good thing, to always be able to see the good in others, because sometimes I think that affected my ability to have boundaries, which I'm learning more about. But I think, having that instilled in me my whole life, to just be loving and be compassionate and see the good in others and want to help others, it has defined my purpose in the world. And my mother, being very different in some ways, was much more the tough love, but what that actually gave me was an ability to nurture others in a way that I didn't receive and also be able to see the difference and also give love and forgiveness and compassion, because a lot of times we're just a product of how we're raised and what we're taught growing up. So my parents always were so proud of me and loved me and supported me and believed in me and I think that level of self-esteem and confidence I've had throughout my life has taken me really far.

Rachel: 16:22

Other icons, other figures I love poetry. I always love poetry growing up. So Pablo Neruda, maya Angelou, just really listening to words I always loved words and poetry. So I think I was very much influenced by that. Growing up I was an avid reader. Now it's much more the audiobooks, I would say now probably. I love Brene Brown. I love the idea of bringing vulnerability, how crucial and important vulnerability is, and when we start to be more vulnerable and be more authentic, that gives us freedom, it gives us connection, it gives us clarity and peace in our life.

Rachel: 17:11

Who else Gosh? I don't know. I'd say those are some of the top ones right now. I love some of the ideas from people who teach manifestation, like Gabby Bernstein and others. But I started doing it long ago and kind of developed my own way, and so I love some of the models that are out there and I really have my own rituals and ways that I do that.

Rachel: 17:37

So things related to Law of Attraction, you know, abraham, esther Hicks, that whole kind of belief, the secret read that book, the original, yeah. And then art art is an inspiration to me it's one of the things that was always a passion, wherever I travel in the world, you know, to go to the art museum, to spend a lot of time in the Louvre in Paris to really soak in the art, and I think that when it does something for our brain, when we look at beautiful art or when we look at a beautiful landscape or view or sunrise or sunset, it, you know, actually can help our neural elasticity. It releases dopamine and serotonin and melatonin and oxytocin and all of these things, and I think we spend so much time in our little box computers or our phones. So, again, taking in beauty, taking in things that are like exciting to our brains and our nerves and our nervous system, that get us, like to keep us motivated and inspired.

Baz: 18:44

I love that you mentioned something earlier when you were speaking about your father purpose and he helps you find your purpose. Have you truly defined what that is and how does it show up for you in your life? And I want to add on to that because I really like testing people sometimes and I'm sorry. I'm not sorry, but I am sorry. How have your? They say your kids and children are our greatest teachers. How have they actually, how have they taught you about life and who you actually are as a person, and how have you combined that with your purpose?

Rachel: 19:27

Yeah, great question. I think I knew from a pretty young age that my purpose was to help others, to heal others. That's why I was put on the planet, yeah, why I'm here, and so originally that I actually wasn't sure what that looked like, even though I knew that's what I wanted to do. The reason I went to massage school was because my mom told me you know, rachel, when you were a baby, when you were a toddler, you would just like put your hands on me and you were. It was so healing. You always had like this healing energy, this healing touch, and really that's the reason I went. I said, okay, I was, I was 20 years old. I thought, okay, I'm going to go. I wasn't sure what to do, I wasn't sure what I wanted to study. So I went to massage school and that really served me and it was so rewarding. I felt, okay, I'm living my purpose, I'm helping others, they they walk out of here. They feel so good, they're relaxed, they've forgotten their stress, they're worried, they come back the next week. This is great and that has evolved and I think now it's it's.

Rachel: 20:30

I love to see people achieve their dream, their vision that has shown up in the business world, with helping guide them to make their dream and their vision a reality and help give them some structure and strategy to that. But it's more than that. It's also being able to be a reflection for them, believe in them, remind them of their worth and their power and their possibility, their own creativity. And I tie that in with my values, and I've gotten really clear that my values are creativity, freedom. It's really important to me to have freedom in my life and be able to make my own choices throughout my day, family inspiration, and so these values are things that I love to impart on others as well, to see in themselves. So my children have been an incredible mirror and they've been incredible teachers because, you know, they've shown me both my capacity to love and to love unconditionally and selflessly, and they've shown me my shadow side, where I can be triggered, where I can be, you know, maybe get it gotten in touch with my own anger. And even when they were really young, I noticed something like they would mimic a tone or words or you know, there are greatest mirrors and I remember, when they were really little, looking at them doing that and being like wow, like like it was brought so much awareness and that level of awareness of one being mindful of that. You know, these little humans are going to take what they see and they learn and, of course, develop their own personalities. They're going to learn a lot from me.

Rachel: 22:38

So it's really important how I show up, it's really important how I behave. It's really important for me to be mindful and aware and look at my own emotional intelligence at times, or where am I getting triggered and how am I reacting and not responding? What am I reacting to and how am I reacting? So I've learned so much. Learned so much and it's been humbling and it's also really calmed me down in ways that I needed to and it's matured me in ways that I needed to be matured. And every day is a lesson and I just look at them as they get older and I'm just awe inspired by how incredible they are and it's really beautiful to see the pieces of me that are in them and it's mostly the good things. Fortunately, there's moments, though, my daughter will say something in a certain tone and it'll really trigger me and I have to go back and say, oh, that's me, she got that from me.

Baz: 23:37

Yeah, my bad, that's me. Yeah, I get that.

Rachel: 23:42

Many of our listeners.

Baz: 23:43

They love they love to be aspiring leaders. How would your curiosity show up in your lessons of leadership for yourself, and what is the biggest lesson of leadership you've actually learned within you that's very, very prominent today in your life?

Rachel: 24:11

Yeah, I love leadership. I've learned a lot through my roles as a leader. In high I got a little visitor back there. I had the opportunity for one of the startups I was at to manage a team of about 20. And within that team of 20, they all worked with 300 to 500 app users. I did any given time for this particular app and a lot of what they were doing was helping guide people along a journey, and so they would then come to me.

Rachel: 24:49

So that was wonderful and I learned that I love to lead as a transformational leader and as a servant leader and that it was important to me even managing a team and they would come to me with questions and technical things and I had to run weekly meetings and things like that. But even in that space, personal growth and being able to share that with them and put that into their lives as a tool for how they went out into the world and worked with anybody so important, it's so important. So I always lead with transformation. I want to see transformation, I want to experience that. I want to watch. I want to watch people grow and if they fall down or they get stuck, you know I want to give them a hand, but I want to see them figure out how to get unstuck through that process of being loved and supported along the way and guided along the way, because that is so beautiful. What else about leadership?

Baz: 25:50

It's a very diverse and vast subject, which is why I like, I like putting in there it is.

Rachel: 25:57

you know, I've been in the leadership roles also where, again in a startup corporate environment, where it was almost like I was given a role as a leader but then I wasn't really allowed to lead. To me leadership is not hierarchical, it doesn't have to be that way. Although our work sort of conditioned and organizations are sort of conditioned for it to be that way, the best leadership is really leading by allowing, leading by listening, leading by curiosity and guiding from that place. There's always going to be a need for guidance and for saying, okay, we've got to put this into action. But I think that there are softer ways to do it than many of us think leadership has to be.

Baz: 26:57

Yes, I think that you were very much on the money there with the hierarchy and the concept of a lot of some not all you know get shot for saying this A lot, sorry. Some corporate companies still are employing this hierarchy leadership genre and in this day and age, because of the environment we're working and the flexibility of all that diversity, it doesn't work.

Baz: 27:30

What I found in serving Fortune 500, fortune 5,000 companies, fortune 100 companies they go in. They have got first clue about what leadership actually is and placing the people who are the right roles in that position. It's sad to see the incompetence of some or of these companies because they're not taking the employees first. One of the challenges that I love going into is stripping down the company and going this is really what's going on. Do you find when you are in startups and other aspects of growing, fast-paced, growing industries that they haven't got a clue? They've got a macro vision but they don't know how to implement the micro?

Rachel: 28:27

Yeah, I think what I've seen in the startup space is that there's that intention, is sometimes there in the beginning and it does feel like a community and it feels like everyone's voice can be heard. And there isn't that. But as they grow and sometimes don't know how to really scale up, scale up the culture and the management style and the leadership with the growth and the demand, and then you add in more stress. That comes in with scaling. Even though it's exciting and it maybe it means more money for the company or raises or whatnot, it puts so much pressure on having to shift things fast.

Rachel: 29:10

What happens when you have to shift things fast when it comes to a culture or policies or quality control or any of that, is that the humanity gets lost in it and it becomes all operational and it starts to feel really yucky for the people who are empaths or just really want to be valued and seen and heard.

Rachel: 29:35

And all of a sudden, well, we're going to do it this way because we have to, because the company's growing so fast, so it's like the time isn't taken to keep that humanistic approach, and I've seen that happen multiple times in startups, where it's not necessarily to blame the leadership team or management for it happening that way. I think if they had a you or a me or somebody able to really come in and have that 360 degree view and guide them. And this is how we really continue to lead in a transformational, servant way, where it feels really good to everybody and it doesn't feel like there's suddenly this hierarchy where leadership is up here and everyone else is down here, where it felt like this to start with, but that gap gets bigger and bigger and I see that as a huge, huge problem.

Rachel: 30:29

It doesn't have to be.

Baz: 30:30

No, it doesn't.

Baz: 30:32

That's the whole point of these podcasts, of these conversations, is because your message, in your point of view, matters not just to me but to so many other people and organizations, and where you learn this knowledge and how you implement it, that also is unique to you and which makes you strong and also powerful as a leader and individual in your life and also in your company.

Baz: 30:59

And when you start to take ownership of that game changer, not just in your company, in your business, but in your life, because it shows up everywhere that you go and you exude, this energy of this is me and this is what I do, and this is the standard and the values and how everything else goes in with it. Going back to the foundations of it. In a fast-paced industry, in a fast-paced world, we pick up information, whether it be books, podcasts. Is there anything that stands out to you that you've learned, whether it be on a podcast, whether it be on it through books or other cultures, that you've absorbed the information that you have not necessarily the business information, because you did an MBA.

Rachel: 31:47

Is it an MBA?

Baz: 31:49

you've got. Yeah, so, but where did this information other the natural stuff come from? Can you recommend any books or podcasts for the audience to literally go, not saying this one don't have to recommend this one, but you can go to get informational stuff for their industry. So if someone is a marketer or aspiring marketer, what podcast could you recommend to them? There's the obvious ones out there, but is there anything that really resonates with you?

Rachel: 32:18

Yeah, you know I love the book Atomic Habits. For someone like me who tends to be creative and I really like structures and systems, I need them because I can very easily float off into the creative world and ideas and vision and strategy, which I love. Atomic habits is great because it's short a short read or listen. It's very straightforward and there's some really great tips in there, like habit bundling right, like you know, putting your shoes by the door so you go work out, or you know there's certain things that are really relatively simple that we can do that can actually impact and change the whole productivity of our day and our life force and our energy. So I love that.

Rachel: 33:10

I recently listened to a book called Do Less by I think it's Kate Northrop and really this is kind of speaking to women and hopefully you have a lot of women listeners. But this is also great for the men who support women and who love women. We actually, if we pay attention to our cycles, we can utilize energy at different times and there are times where we as women and men have this too in different ways and maybe it is affected by the moon or testosterone. But I'm just going to speak on the women side of things, but learning to recognize where we're at and being aware of where we're at in our cycle and how we show up in the world. And there's times where we should be in our cave a little bit more and more introspective, and then there's times where we have all of this energy and we should come out and be creative and be more in the world, and so I think it's valuable for us as women to explore that and look at that and just see where that matches with our own patterns and where are we finding resistance and is there a way to not have so much resistance during a few days in the month? That's going to bring more peace and harmony but also help us cultivate. When we come out of that, it's like a contraction and an expansion physically, symbolically, you know, because we all need that. Men, you know, will go into their cave and not talk about things and come out and then they have the answers right, like the cave men did. If you read, men Are From Mars, women Are From Venus.

Rachel: 34:47

I think women need to be aware of that as well, and so it's just something I've started to explore and look at and pay attention to and see the relational patterns. So I love that I'm just looking at recently, listened to the big leap, so really kind of getting into, like figuring out what's my zone of genius, and I think it's very important for us to think about. What are we good at, you know? What do we love doing? How do we thrive? Even the concepts like Ikigai, the Japanese concept of like you know what you do for money, you know, should be related to your passion and your purpose and it's all very similar themes.

Rachel: 35:30

But I think we sometimes absorb a lot of information and then we don't know how to go out and implement it. And I see this, of course, in businesses all the time. I see people like buying programs and absorbing and listening and all of these things and then they're not actually doing. So it's something that will motivate you to take inspired action each day. Take an action, you know, whatever system works for you and I've tried a lot of systems, I've tried time blocking, I've tried different apps and tools but I think we each need to kind of figure out what works for us, but creating a system that works for us, to set our goals, our habits and then be consistent in doing them.

Rachel: 36:08

So I probably could go on and on. I don't listen to any specific podcasts consistently. I have tried, and I am somebody who, if I'm listening to something, it takes away my focus and I'm always so focused on the work I'm doing, so I have to release. That's again something I need to set time aside for, but I will listen to audio books.

Baz: 36:28

One of the things you mentioned there is allowing the time to implement what you've learned. One of my friends and his name is Peter.

Baz: 36:39

Swain. He is a very good marketer and there's a bank and many other things in life, but he's a fellow Englishman and he runs a very, very powerful company and he always says on his masterminds listen, but always, always set aside time and I don't mean five minutes, proper allocated time to implement and have an understanding of what we're teaching always. So I love that point and it's very important to anybody's success. So thank you for bringing that up.

Rachel: 37:20

Yeah, I recently heard instead of multitasking and there's all kinds of books on like focusing on one thing and focus. Brian Tracy's books are great, but the new term is monotasking, and I love that because and actually what I started to do is I used to have meetings. I would be in meetings back to back to back, right, all these meetings. The problem with that is I wasn't getting anything done. I was connecting, I was having meetings, but then when do you actually do anything? So I've decided now to have way less meetings, like way less meetings, which is great, but then also allocate an hour after each meeting I have with a client, while the energy's fresh, while we've just talked about things, while I'm feeling really jazzed up about whatever it is we're doing together to focus whether it's go dive right in on a project or take some notes or do some action for that client related to that meeting. And that has been a game changer not going from meeting to meeting and putting intentional time and focus for what I just was working on for a period of time.

Baz: 38:24

The game changer. I love you love you bring that up. Failure is often viewed as a detriment to someone's progress, but also failure can be a valuable lesson for us. Can you share a time where you've had a perceived failure but has actually turned out to excel your growth in a positive way?

Rachel: 38:54

Yeah, I mean going back to kind of my personal story. I could look at this idea of being a single mother and some of the comments I've received throughout the years oh, that must be so hard. Or people you know well they want to ask and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, but they just look at you a certain way like why are you single? Where's the dad? Like you know, lots of questions like that, you know, and I could have looked at that as like as a failure, like, oh, this relationship didn't work out. Or, you know, I didn't give my children a whole family, like we think we're supposed to have right, and I could have looked at it that way. But really I don't think I would be where I am right now if I had been in a different relational situation with their father or maybe with anybody, because it really propelled me to keep going ahead and working harder and going after my dreams.

Rachel: 39:56

And it wasn't just for myself, it was for now, these two, you know, humans that I brought into the world and that I was solely responsible for. And had I had somebody taking care of me financially or, you know, in other ways, I might not have had the drive and motivation. Now that's just what has worked for me and I've seen it be really a powerful force in me, you know, going after what I want and getting it and not letting anything really stop me or hold me back. Or, you know, even if I've hit some imposter syndrome along the way, I've been able to work through that. I didn't need to lean on. And for me it could be anybody in our life, it could be our mom, it could be a brother, a sister, anybody but for me it was like I didn't need to lean on a man to support me or to tell me that I or give me permission to move ahead in my life. And for me, in my personal journey, that's been really powerful because I have been in situations where I think I was looking for a man's approval or, you know, felt like my role, that I was supposed to be boxed into, a certain role of maybe taking care of, you know, a man and his path and his job and putting myself, you know, on the back burner.

Rachel: 41:16

So for me that's been really, really powerful, and so I don't look at that as a failure and I've certainly had things that I've started and stopped that I could say, oh, that was a failure because I didn't finish it. You know, I started something, I had this idea or I started this job or things like that. But when I look back at my history, everything that I've done has brought me to where I am right now. Everything.

Rachel: 41:43

And if I had missed one of those things, one of those pieces along the way, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be so dedicated to personal development for myself and for other people and this greater purpose of transformation, I wouldn't be so passionate about what I do, I wouldn't be as confident, you know, and I certainly wouldn't be where I am financially and in the sort of my own success measurement that just keeps getting better. There's always more and we all can define success differently. For me, it's not necessarily money, it's comfort, it's freedom, it's those values, it's making sure my life is creative and I'm inspired and inspiring. So, yeah, some may say, oh, I've had failures, but I don't actually think I've had any failures. I think they've all been steps.

Baz: 42:33

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Now, this podcast is all about serving you and this is why it was made and this is why I love doing this. It's a pleasure and an honor doing this with everybody, including you. Where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you see yourself? What's that next level for you personally?

Rachel: 42:55

Yeah, the next level is really continuing to find ways. For me right now it's through technology, it's through coaching, it's through connecting, but ways to scale even more in this transformational space. I think that there's a call to action on a universal level since the pandemic and with everything going on in the world, for more people to come forward who are, I call them, late workers, people in the mind, body, spirit. More people are coming forward and coming out in a way to help others. I want to see that grow, the pulse of giving and love and connection to grow. It's much more about collaborating and it's much more about community and it's much less about every man for himself or whatnot. I see that just growing and I want to make sure that I'm part of fostering that revolution of growth and connection and collaboration. This means, even if I'm a business coach and I'm a woman, I want to empower other women business coaches to be their best, to do their best to share their truth, their authenticity, their passion. It's really just continuing to bring that. And then these tools, these things that I've learned when it comes to burning out and being in the corporate environment, if I can make a difference and help stop that for others, whether that's at an organizational leadership level or in the wellness world or on a one-on-one level or through the coaches that I work with, preventing burnout and really helping impart this true, authentic idea of taking care of ourselves, filling our cup in order to help and serve others.

Rachel: 44:46

That's on the purpose side, dream-wise. It's lots more world travel. It's taking my children to see the world, experience different cultures, the way that I have for them to be able to walk down the street and bawl-y and look in the eyes of these beautiful, wonderful people and learn about these cultures and traditions around the world. That go see art, the art that's inspired me, and then just not to have to worry about money. Have that not be something that we have to worry about? How can I help others to not have to live in that place of scarcity? How can we live in more abundance? How can we live abundantly through giving and sharing our gifts? And yeah, so I think that's the direction.

Baz: 45:34

The path I'm on and the path I'm going to stay on Sounds good to me, For the people who have just listened to this and still engaged and locked in, because I hope you've been taking notes. Where can they find you? How can they get in contact with you if they so desire?

Rachel: 45:50

Yeah, so I am on all the social sites the Abundance Strategiescom the Abundance Strategies. My name Rachel Cald K-A-L-B. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook. Right now I'm on Instagram as Abundance Digital, because I do run a full digital marketing agency as well and done for you social media and a lot of other things that I didn't even mention here, but a lot of business services, so, yeah, can pretty much be found on any of those places. I have fun and do some TikToks I think what is my name on there. I think that's also under Abundance Digital, so yeah.

Baz: 46:35

Rachel, thank you very much for sharing your journey and your knowledge here today. I truly, truly appreciate it.

Rachel: 46:41

Well, thank you so much, Bas, for having me. This has been wonderful and I've enjoyed our conversation and sharing and appreciate the opportunity to connect with your audience.

Baz: 46:51

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. Please share the message, please support the channel in just sharing it. It's all about you, it's all about collaboration. As Rachel said earlier For myself, until the next time you meet my friends, live with purpose and inspire with legacy. Have a blessed day.