Category: Online Marketing

The last one of the year brought to you by mommy income. I am Kristin Ostrander and I am Amy fairman, we’re so glad that you are joining us today for this last episode of the year. What do you want 2020 to look like this is what we’re going to dive in today into today, because recently we were at a conference that talked about the fact that we are turning over a new decade, we’re leaving a decade behind, and so much happens in A decade, and so we’re excited to kind of dive into this exercise with you and just talk through these different things and reflect back because it is so powerful and so beneficial.

If you just take the time to walk through these types of things. So you’re going to walk the journey with us and hopefully you’re going to walk your own journey with this, and we would love to hear how it turns out for you. But before we dig into it, we want to make sure that you were aware that we have confident wholesale bundlers workshops coming up this year and then, if you haven’t grabbed your seats, you’re going to want to head over to mama income, dot-com slash workshop 2020 to Make sure you snag one of the last seats we still have available for sure you want to join us in 2020.

That is another thing that you can think about what your 2020 looks like if you want to get together in person and really work out. Some of the kinks in your business and add wholesale bundles we’d love to meet you at a workshop and in 2020, so make sure you check that out. Also do not forget that if you are not in our Facebook community already, we want you to join us. That’S where you get answers to questions you get access to like-minded sellers that are going through the same struggles as you.

They speak, the Amazon speak just like you do, and so, if you want to join us, go to mama income, calm, slash join us use. Your code word reflection for this week’s episode and you will be let into the Facebook group where we hang out. Other people hang out, it’s really awesome place to be. It’S awesome place to be so. You can have the conversation with other Amazon sellers when the people in your life are like huh.

That’S one of the things that I love about being part of a community like this is because you’re with like-minded people is they get the struggles that you’re going through. They can celebrate with you when something happens, whereas some of the people in your life might not understand that they’re oftentimes, my husband’s like go talk to Kristen or somebody else who cares about what you’re talking about it’s, not that he doesn’t support me in my business.

He just glazes over after about five minutes of the excitement he’s like I lost you, you’re like okay, I got it. That’S fair. There are just things that we get super excited about, that other people in our world. Don’T so make sure you have a place to share your wins and to discuss your struggles by joining our Facebook community. We would love to have you there now, like it or not. 20:19 is coming to an end so happy new year, everyone in just a day or two, but just it’s also a time of year that everyone likes to do new goals.

No, no year new, you right, whatever we’re not going to be super cliche about it. Look forward look forward, look forward right, that’s always what’s pounded into us at the end of the year, but this exercise is all about looking back. This is a special year because we’re turning over a decade ten whole years, and because of this, we are going on this journey and we want to take you on a journey of your own to really think about this.

This was impacted us so much so that we just had to share it with you, because we were blown away when we were are forced not against our will. But just you know those of what exercises that we participated in in a conference and we wanted to make sure that you had the same access to thinking through some of these things, because it was so. I opening and inspiring at the same time to be able to look over ten years and what has happened and ten years the well.

The days are long. The years are short that is so true. That was how the woman who presented this to us started this conversation, because it’s it feels like your days dragged on and on and on, but all of a sudden ten years are gone yeah it’s! So it’s so amazing how you can look back at ten years and just be like wow. How did this fly by now? Some of you guys have kids and diapers and you’re running around trying to somewhat run a business and also white noses and bottoms, and your laundry’s piled up bigger than you.

We get it like. Those days are super long when you’re running on three hours of sleep. So we are not glazing over that. We understand that the struggle is real, sometimes even now, at with my youngest being nine. The days are super long because someone’s sick or you have to do this or that so we get it but like also having a 19 year old talk about looking back at a decade and knowing that having a 19 year old and really looking at, like.

Oh, my goodness, it really has gone so fast and he is a grown man like he’s a young grown man, but he’s still like a grown man and had where did these ten years ago is just so crazy. So we a hundred percent, agree that this is a time of years or you set new goals for the new year and you just hit the ground running. But it’s also important to reflect back at all that you’ve accomplished. All that has had gone on in your life and this time we’re going to look at a ten-year section and not just the previous year you’re, looking back at an entire decade, ten whole years can really work wonders on your current state and also what you want For the future, this exercise that we’re going to walk you through did so much for both Chris and I to open our eyes of what has been accomplished in the past decade in our lives, so as as their as this reflection starts, you’re looking back over, you Know one year is okay, you can look at.

You know a snapshot, even if you flip back your calendar or you look at all the different things that we’re on it and look at the past year and I’m sure you’ve come a long way. Even since January of 2019, but what about the past ten years? So this is how it starts think about your life. Ten years ago, that was 2010. Okay. 2010. How old were you? Were you married? Did you have children yet what were their ages? What were you working on? Where were you working? Where did you live? How was your health? Did? You have a business? What are some of the key memories that you had during this 10 years? Now things come and go in your life, you have to just sit and reflect on this.

What were the hopes that you had so in 10 years ago? You think about oh, my gosh. Well in 2020, I don’t know that I’ve ever really had that many hopes. Looking for, but just reflecting on what some of the hopes that you had at that time, what were you striving for in those moments? What were you proud of? What accomplishments were you hitting? What milestones did you achieve in that time and you let motivate maybe read read from college or high school or maybe you’ve finished a master’s degree or maybe you’ve got a promotion or you know these are different milestones or maybe you became a parent for the first Time, yes, big milestone so thinking about over the past decade.

What that, what what motivated you and inspired you at that time, even not just in the whole decade but like in the beginning, think about all the way into 2010. If you can place yourself in that year, what was motivating and inspiring to you, then, and also what did you tolerate during that time period? Were you in a job with a boss that wasn’t the greatest situation for you to be in, or were you in a relationship that wasn’t a good fit? All of those things were things that you were tolerating so make sure that you’re writing those down as you’re going through the exercise as well, and also like things that you were tolerating, or you know going back to that were you broke.

Were you in a financial situation that you were really unhappy with? Were you in a financial situation that you loved thinking about those things that you tolerated? Usually when we’re tolerating we’re talking about a lot of things that we can’t control? Maybe other people bosses relationships that sort of thing or were you tolerating your own tiredness? Because you felt like that’s something that you had to do? What made you fearful worried and overwhelmed, because I promise you that probably changed in the past ten years back then what made you fearful, what literally overwhelmed you at the site or the sound of it? What were the things that kept you up at night ten years ago that that was an eye-opening one for me and did you give up on anything? Did you say not now I don’t have time not a priority.

It doesn’t fit into my world right now. What did you give up on and why did you give up on it be honest with yourself? This is this is for you. This is an internal thing, so be honest with yourself: don’t glaze over it spend some time in here guys. Is there something and we we’re going to actually answer these questions for you from our own lives, we’re just giving you all the questions, first, to kind of preface the stories and journeys that we’re going to walk you through? So, yes, don’t judge we’re going to be really vulnerable and really honest with you right here, because this was so impactful in all kinds of different ways, and so also what was the worst thing that happened and what was the best thing that happened.

There’S some great things and great memories. You have over 10 years and there’s some not so great ones, so we’re going to talk about those things as well, but these are the preface questions for doing this exercise and asking yourself all these questions. This we’re asking you to set aside an hour of your time to do this. Maybe it’s late at night! Maybe it’s early in the morning. Maybe there’s a time where you do devotions everyday or something like that, and then you can just slap out one day to just answer some of these questions.

As we promise you it’s going to impact you it’s going to inspire you, it might make you cry it might make you laugh, but it’s going to impact you. So please right now pick up your phones, pick up your calendar and put a 1 hour time slot. There, where you can give some mental energy to this reflection, because I literally promise you it will make it impact in your life. It will because both Kristen and not just the two of us but the women, wheat, 120 women.

We were in the room with when we were in this conference. We were all impacted in many different ways, because we got to share with each other. It was amazing just to see how different mindset wise we were in how different our businesses were, how different so many aspects of our lives were over 10 years. I mean we think of 10 years when you think of a kid going from 0 to 10 years. Old. Think of the amazing change happens in the growth of a child, but think of the amazing changes that can happen in relationships in businesses and all of those types of things over 10 years.

All right now, I think, we’re like procrastinating here, because we have to actually dig into our own journeys, and sometimes this is vulnerable, but we’re going to go at it anyway. Okay, so, ten years ago, Amy, how old were you? Were your married children? What tell 2010? I just turned 30. I had Taylor was, I don’t know six a little over six months, and so I spent most of my days lying on the floor with my six-month-old.

It’S going well over Rome. I remember this like in my living room, rug on the braided rug. I was very visual like that’s what came into my mind when I did this exercise was. Where was I ten years ago, I was lying on the floor on the carpet with my camera, hoping that Taylor was going to roll over, like I very vividly, remember that and it made me realize, wait a second I was married. I had a kid, but I’d also been laid off almost a year prior when I was pregnant with Taylor, and so I then realize well, I didn’t have a job I wasn’t working ten years ago.

I wasn’t doing anything in that space. I was focused 100 % on being the best mom that I could be in that moment. Yeah so, and you lived at your old house right in my old house, so we were at a much smaller house and wouldn’t have even I mean it. I look at that now go. How did I look? How do we function in that space? It’S so different than where we are now and part of that was. We didn’t have kids initially when we bought the house.

It worked very well for two of us and it didn’t work so well, once there were four of us in supplies like didn’t, you have just had surgery. I had Joe Kashia. I had just had Merton when Taylor was three months old. I had just had emergency surgery to have 12 inches of my colon removed. Yes, I was 30 and having surgery that people in their 70s sometimes have the doctors still have no clue what happened.

So I was in a place health-wise, where I was still recovering both from birth and from this emergency surgery, and I was in a place where I really didn’t know what was next. All I knew was I had this child that I was taking care of, but I also knew in my head that this wasn’t the only thing. I know that I wanted more. My brain was constantly saying. Okay, what can I do with this? What can I do with this? How can I do something at this point had no clue.

I just was like. I had a little human. That’S my goal: it’s not guilty human okay! So my turn, oh my gosh. So when we first were introduced to this – and it literally said like on this paper like reflect back and I saw the date of 2010 – I immediately was fighting back tears because 2010 was a difficult year in the Ostrander family. First of all I had like at this: if it were talking November 2010 December 2010 and thinking about where we were there um, it was really really the flashbacks were like.

Oh, my gosh, I’m about to cry in front of all these people like this was not the best year to reflect, not necessarily, I had just turned 30 also in late 2010. I had ally that year, and that was a really long and horrible pregnancy. I was a tional diabetes, my other kids were eight and six, and I remember like a week after Ellie was born in September, is when my husband got injured at work and he couldn’t work and we were fighting with workers compensation companies.

We had no income coming in. I had my Amazon business. I had had open for about. You know 1415 months at this point, but I was just kind of with being pregnant. Having two kids, I was just doing a little bit at a time books and a little bit of retail arbitrage at that time, just whatever I could fit in, as I was growing this baby inside of me and having two other kids. So I had this smaller business that I was working on and then that’s when all of what the next part of the decade would unfold for us and not so happy memories for 2010.

Well me happy that we had Allie and all that stuff, but health-wise not in a good place. My kids were kind of young. I just had this newborn and then my husband literally was had no work. Had no job had injured surgery had to go through. You know some things like that, so it was just kind of gut wrenching to look at actually look at 2010 and be like that’s kind of a year that I’d returned. That look that guy, to be honest and that’s part of this exercise, is it’s going to dig up it’s going to stir up emotions, it’s going to pull you through things, and it did that for both of us.

We promise it’s worth the effort to go through it because you’re going to see not just the bad you’re going to pull through and see the good so going back to you Kristin and where were you working? Why did you live? You know what? What did that part of your world? Look? He had this little Amazon business, but they’ll talk about the house a little bit in there yeah. So it was. We lived in what we thought was going to be our forever home that several years before that we had just bought our first home, we had rented for so many years.

We were actually the first homeowners in our, but in our family no one had ever really owned a home before that in our media family. Everyone was just always rented which no shame in that, but we wanted to own our own home and we carefully selected the home that we were in and we absolutely loved it. It had a pool, I love summer and I love pools and it had like a great backyard for the two kids that we had at the time and – and we just had Ally – and I had an office like in this – that was part of it – is that We bought a house that was a little bit bigger because at the time when we bought it, we didn’t have plans for a third child.

So I was like I had an office of my own. It was like my eBay room right because I was doing eBay at the time and then switched over to Amazon. Well did both of them still do, but I just remember that that is where we lived and it was in a cute little neighborhood down the street from the school and, like that’s literally like a great thing, my health was horrible that year, because I had gustation Diabetes and I was pregnant and then that also continued on after I had her, so health was not in a great place either.

I really like twenties and it was nothing crazy yeah, but this is just part of it. It was just like something I had to look, but I did have some key memories. You know having a child being born, having great summers with the pool and having family and friends come over and neighbors come over. We had like the house where everyone gathered, and so I really did you still have the house where everyone gather through we do um for me when I look back at 2010.

The key memory for me that year was having Taylor now being a first-time parent, was overwhelming beyond belief. I remain so 2010. I had Taylor the year before actually Taylor’s older, but um head Taylor of the year before, and I had this little kid and I’m trying to figure out what that looks like for me because being a mom doesn’t come naturally to me it’s not like I. I that’s not something that I feel driven to do.

I wanted kids, but I was like this is not normal, so I I don’t know what this looks like for me. I saw my parent house did. I saw how my my mother-in-law and all these different people in my lives and like what does mom look like to me and figuring out what that wasn’t. I spent a lot of that first time trying to figure out what mom meant to me. That is such an amazing insight and and vulnerable that you would share that because I think there’s a lot of moms out there too, when they first have their kids, that they think that you’re just have this natural-born instinct.

To do all these things, and sometimes you just don’t, and sometimes, if you’re not close to your parents, or I mean I know you are but like I know sometimes, if you’re not close to people or you don’t have like a support system, whatever you just. You look to the Internet at this point to be like what is momming really supposed to look like. What is it supposed to make me feel all these things and you’re putting your cat yourself in this category of should would could when, like same time with me, I was transitioning from two kids to three and having a business and having an injured husband and literally All I wanted to do was crawl in a hole and and have nobody knocked on my door and asked me for anything, because I was like literally the definition of this time and life.

I could not have handled one more thing. I mean my faith and God had brought me through that and I’m not like discounting it, but we do go through dark seasons and sometimes we just don’t have it all figured out. You know hey transitioning, to three kids. It was like I’m outnumbered. I don’t even know what to to myself the reason why I still only have two and the nurse a baby and trying to get the other two from fighting and, like I mean for great key memory of Benjamin getting on the bus, my gosh.

That was a little bit before that, but seriously, like my son, was like Dennis the medicine Curious George, all it’s got a huge thing on earth because I literally probably would have sold him down the river at some point because he was just challenging and that’s totally. Okay, but he literally was wild and, like I thought, is this really how all little boys act and my sister was like now – my kids aren’t really that high-strung it’s like, but what happened? I this kid.

I love his energy. He is 19 now, but like kind of going through that, so let’s talk about the hopes that we had a me. So I know this isn’t when we had some key memories about this, not just that but like through the whole decade. Do you remember like in the last 10 years, you have some key memories, both positive and maybe not so positive through this entire decade? What were some of the key memories that you have like early on, let’s think of like the first five years? Well, what I remember was having the realization – and this was a little bit before 2010, but it carried into 2010 was I’m going to make the decision about? What’S next, I’m I didn’t want to go back to work and I made that decision, because I’ve been laid off twice.

I didn’t want to have somebody else have that control over my world, and so I was deciding that. What is that going to look like, and in 2010 I was starting to lay the mental framework for okay. What does it look like to own your own business? Now? I grew up with entrepreneurs as parents, so I grew up in a space where they ran a business out of my house just because they did. That didn’t mean that I got it.

I have a business degree. I have all the things that I still say. How do I do this? You go to college for business degree, they don’t say here’s how you run a business now there are entrepreneur programs out there, but I think a lot of what it comes down to is learning by doing, and so I did a lot of things in this space. I hadn’t stepped into it, yet I’ve been doing a lot of well. What are my options? What is out there what’s available, I mean when you have a little kid when they’re not running around driving, you crazy, they’re sleeping, and so I used that time to start looking at what was there.

It was in those 10 years that I tried many different businesses. Anything from wedding invitation, design to blogging to Christmas. Favorite me dumpster, diving for coupons. I did extreme couponing for a while all of these things to try and figure out where I fit. Not only was I looking to how I fit as a mom, but how I fit into the world I didn’t know, because I’d are always defined myself by my job um.

I still struggle with that a little bit defining myself by my business and my word, and that so part of this was where, where do I go? What do I do, and so it wasn’t until gosh the year after is when I landed on eBay and in that same year, landed on Amazon for the first time, and that was the first thing that went click for me. Um I enjoyed doing it. It was something that I could do and it was fun and it used skills that I had wedding invitation is fun and I’m crafty and I can do that stuff, but I don’t want to do it for other people, and that was one of my chose.

Bridezilla yeah and I never ever got to deal with the bridezilla like I never got to that point. I only ever did a wedding invitation designed for friends of mine, but they even that process doing it. For my friends – and I looked at that one, this was hard to do for people. I love. Would I be able to do that for people I can’t stand, and the answer in my head was heck. No there’s no way I’m going to go there too, because, like the part of this this decade of before I had ally this was pre.

It was pre 2010, but like the leading up to that of like that discovery of yourself, I was doing eBay before that. We didn’t actually have plans to have another child when we first moved into the house that we were in it was just. We were happy with two. We had two and we didn’t really have plans to that now. Ellie was not a oopsie baby for all those who are thinking we actually um planned to have her after long discussions and talks and like you know, I was longing for something that was missing and I just felt like you know that was part of it.

My husband early on was like two kids is enough. My son was probably more like five kids wrapped up in him on and so once we kind of got a handle on that and had Jessica and everything else. Then we realized okay, like we can be ready for another one. But before that I had taken professional and cake decorating classes, and I was literally going to be like the cake, boss, female version of Cake Boss, because I loved making cakes.

I did that for friends and family and my own kids, since they were very young, it was like part of their birthday gift. Is they get this fun huge, extravagant eight, but I had never done it for money, and so then I took it. I was like. Oh, this is going to be my business because I was doing eBay and doing fine, but I was like yeah. This is okay. I still love doing Heba, as part of my like relaxation is that I can do treasure hunting, but I was longing for something different.

I thought I got ta find something different, something better or something whatever you know. The world is always telling us new, bigger, better, bigger and better, and so I took some professional classes and then I did one cake for money and I was the most stressed mess out. You can read all of this. The full story like in my book, but the book is titled, dream big step small. You can buy it on Amazon there.

You go okay, dream, big step, small on Amazon, okay, but in just long story short, I did my first cake for money. I was a complete stressed-out mask and I was like Noah. I can never do this for money, it’s something it was a labor of love for me and I thought as soon as I put a monetary value on it, there was like you couldn’t pay me. A thousand dollars to do a cake. I would do it for you for free if I loved you, because that’s just how it roll but like for any amount of money.

It was so incredibly stressful and I am NOT a perfectionist at all, and I never strived for that in my cakes, because it was for my kids they’re not going to nitpick all the little things they’re just going to be like look at this, I made a Candyland bored once and literally my Jessica was like it looks just like candy when she didn’t see all the flaws. But if someone paid me for that, I would just it was not a good space for me to be in, and so I said not for a million dollars.

Am I going to make cake for money, and so that was just like another reinventing of that. So going through and looking at the past 10 years, not just 2010, what we should reflect it on, but what we’re? What were we proud of accomplishments? I’M going to run through these really fast because this could be like a five-hour episode and we’re going to respect your time in ours. But let’s talk about that, we talked about a little bit of the beginning.

But let’s let’s fast-forward a bit because it’s not about to be 2020 and o-m-g. What happened in this past decade, I’m going to just rattle off a couple things right away: number one I didn’t know Amy the the earliest Amy and I met in 2014. I grew in Amazon business ice. We started mommy income, I met Amy, we started partnering. I took another partner for my FBA business. I’Ve written a book hit six figures hit.

Seven figures hit six figures again and another bit this um. Oh my goodness. What else like? There’S so many things, my dad passed away in 2017 they’re just things that are happening, but the reality is so much can happen in a decade and where are you and what you are doing and we encourage you to look at every year if you can’t, maybe A overarching picture of, and say, okay, what was 2011. What’S we 12? What we do here, what kind of vacations there was no such thing as a vacation.

Back in the day, we I did eBay and Amazon to make ends meet not to really like save. For soccer classes, or anything like that, it was like we need to put food on the table. In the mean time, we also lost our house foreclosure in 2012 and we basically rebuilt our lives in the past decade, and we are very proud of that. But it also is very mixed: bittersweet emotions because that house we talked about the beginning.

We don’t live there anymore, and so it’s like the just all these different things. Amy talk about your just overarching what has happened in the past ten years? Well, the Cliff Notes version when I sat down and did this exercise, that’s where I started a lot of this was just going and thinking about all the things that have happened, going from having one kid to having two kids having an ADHD and an autism diagnosis In the span of 10 years and having to navigate a system that really doesn’t make it easy for parents to have to deal with, I have a kid who has special needs.

Now. What and so we’ve been navigating that and now I’m also helping other parents who are struggling with that who are just getting diagnosis and then not knowing, because there are two parts to that process: there’s a finding out how to help my kid, but also I need Support in that as well, because there’s a grieving process, you go through when you realize that it’s not going to be the storybook that you expected it to be that this is the story.

You would told yourself – and it’s going to be a little bit different than that and that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that, and so that was a big chunk of my personal life as far as having to navigate that and manage that with one child and then Still supporting my now six-year-old in everything that she wants to do because she is neurotypical but she’s. We all have our own struggles, and so we have to be able to support both kids and not feel like I’m putting all my efforts one.

So there’s that piece of it, my supporting my husband through many different job changes. There have been three one was the two between companies, but three for that happened in the past ten years, going in between different role, changes, and that comes with its own level of uncertainty and change. I mean if you change jobs, if you change businesses, there’s always a period of time where things feel a little bit funky and don’t work quite as well, and so you have to factor that in so we dealt with all of that.

I went from having my own business to meeting Kristin to partnering and having an Amazon business that grew, helping to grow mommy income going from okay, here’s a big one for me, I’m sitting here talking on a podcast for an hour. I do this every single week and in the process of the past 10 years, there was a time where you couldn’t get me to talk for 30 seconds in front of a camera, talk about milestone and change.

That was a challenge at Kristin gave me and it has evolved me into a completely changed individual, because I can communicate and in person on article / podcast in something I never thought I would do. If you had told me in 2010 that I would become a possible caster, a youtuber and all these things out of said, like ah that’s not happening in my life and so being able to see all of the parts and pieces all of the changes.

And it’s interesting because we don’t think about this stuff, it’s it’s in the past! We’Re not going to look at it! It’S fine we’re through it we’re going forward right. But when you look back at ten years and realize all of those things happened over the last decade, Holi have to do that open my eyes and say: okay, I can do all of that stuff in ten years and go through the roller coasters that I’ve been In and come out to where I am right now, I’m ready and set to take on the mountains and valleys that come in the next ten years to see where the I can land at the end of next time.

I’M literally like over here like choking up listening this, because it’s so real and true that what can happen in a decade what can happen in over the sands of time I mean, like you, wouldn’t have been able to tell me in 2010 that I was going To meet an online BFF that lives halfway across the country from me and that we were going to team teach together, we were going to travel around the United States and maybe the world later on and teach workshops and be on a podcast.

I didn’t even know that these first livestreaming wasn’t a thing in 2010, like it literally wasn’t even was barely a thing in 2014 when we started doing it on spreecast of all places, but you know what the Internet has opened up, so many different opportunities for all. These things, because you know kind of looking back and some of the things one of the questions we have here is: what are you proud of? What kind of accomplishments and milestones have you reached and some of them? I didn’t you know it wasn’t well these weren’t, some of my hopes.

Some of my hopes at early on were just to make ends meet. You know, remember, I told you how 2010 started that was the rest of I mean 2011 and all that it was a was a terrible year. I mean we went through. You know home foreclosure. We were dealing with you, know, unpaid bills and trying to have my remember. I have this vivid memory of Ben after his surgery, which was February of the following year, and then he needed six months of rehab on his shoulder before he could return to work or even think about it.

We thought it could be permanent, but he was helping in the business of Amazon, so he had Ali and one art and his bad arm over here, and he was literally entering ISBN numbers into Amazon to sell books at Amazon, and I was on our bed, which Was across from like our desk at the time listing like things on eBay, while he’s doing that like we did what we had to do, but another thing: it’s something that we’re really proud of, and this is like, and this isn’t for bragging.

This is for reflection, because it’s a big deal to us is that, during the foreclosure and during all that kind of stuff, we racked up a ton of debt just to buy groceries. We were charging our electric bill on a credit card like that’s the only way we could live – and I don’t advocate for this, but in the past decade not only did we build off that debt, but we also paid it all off to the tune of over $ 50,000, so wherever you’re at right now and you feel like you’re drowning in a mountain of debt – and you might be on the verge of foreclosure or you’re, dealing with Heche health issues or surgeries, my life is a living testimony that small actionable steps can dig.

You out of any hole, because I lived that I understand what it feels like to have $ 50,000 of debt on your back and not knowing where the knot Neal was going to come from and it wasn’t overnight. We didn’t have some rich aunt that dropped a bunch of money into our plate. We hustle and grinded to pay that stuff off and to make a better life for ourselves, and so that’s some of the things that were really really proud of is that we did buy another house and board by board.

We fixed it up. We bought a foreclosure and then we fixed it up and made it our own, and we worked penny after penny to pay all that debt back and you know just that’s something that we’re proud of, and so it’s just something that you can think about. What can happen in ten years? I want to take us to the motivate and what motivated inspired you, because one of the things that motivated and inspired me was a story that I heard on a live show five years ago and see I’m going to have to make myself not cry now, because It was a it’s a god moment.

That’S what I’ll call it because that’s what it felt like, even though I wasn’t a Christian at that time, but whatever we’re going to talk about that too, like I’m going to forget what I was, I remember sitting there and listening to Christian doof, the first ever Mommy income live whatever, it was called back, then it was just getting on spreecast and talking – and I remember realizing like this is somebody I need to connect with like.

I want I’m inspired by what she’s done in her business and what that looks like, and I want to be able to take my business where hers is and to take it where you want me to take it over the course of the next five years. There’S touch points there’s all of these moments that I remember – and there was one very vivid memory in my life, where we’re driving to go to eat come back for me, come Chicago where we had dogs I’d flown into Detroit, and we drove the five hours together, Which is an amazing thing to do with your best friend, by the way, that’s freaking awesome to spend time uninterrupted by husbands and children and all the other things in life.

You can just sit and talk every trip. Road trip. Amazing thing to do. That was a lot of fun and it that really solidified. For me, a lot of wheat. We got to know each other on a very deep level. We’D only known each other have been talking to each other for year, but I felt in that time we got to really dig into all of the things about who we were and what not. And in that time we had the conversation about.

I I asked: how is it that you have the relationship that you have with God, because I’ve walked readed her walk through this and seen how she lived her life? And so I asked a very tough question for me because of my background and growing up in a church, but not ever having a relationship with that or anything like that. It was just something that we did um. So this was a different world for me and being able to have open conversation about it and the words that she gave me in that moment.

She doesn’t remember what they are there. It was just. It was just an amazing ton of bricks. It was all from the men upstairs because I was all God I I mean I can’t take the credit for that when the when the spirit moves – and we have conversations it’s just him speaking through you know – and it’s just part of you know if it’s part Of who you are you know you, you bleed that out and it’s it’s just.

That was an amazing experience as well, because knowing that that was there and I could see the seeking and coming out – and you just don’t know – I mean ten years ago – you probably would never have predicted that you’d be going to church with your family and solidifying. Those relationships and being in the life group and things like that, and then I will tell you an interesting piece of that is, I remember, writing down my goals in 2013-2014 and two parts of wait.

We’Ve been in this house for four years, so whatever that was do the math backwards. 2015 then. So one of my goals in that year was a to find a house because we were outgrowing what we were in and the other was to find a community. I didn’t know what that community was. I didn’t know what the definition of that was. I just needed, like-minded people around me and now in 2019 I have a church community.

I have a very close life group. We just did friendsgiving together and being able to spend time together and do life together has been absolutely amazing and that’s just how God moves in my life in a way that I never anticipated expected or, to be honest, thought I wanted yeah see you just you. Just never know, what’s going to happen in 10 years and that’s the great thing about it, so we can have hopes and we can have dreams and we can have goals, and we want that and we’re going to move you guys to that in this next section.

We appreciate your patience with us being so vulnerable, but this is just so important because we’re trying to walk you through the same things that walked us through, because so much inspiration and reflection comes out of this. We are super, jammed excited about looking through the next 10 years. Now we’re not going to stay here and plan 10 years so don’t think that we’re going to do that, but as we’re going through looking back, what happens is we are so inspired by what has happened in the past decade that we’re like unstoppable for the next Decade, because what I can’t happen in the next 10 years, what literally can hold us back at this point when we start looking at all these things, when we start looking at the fact that, like look at all the milestones, you can birth and raise a kid In 10 years you can get married and deepen your relationship, you can be, you know, find faith and spirituality for yourself and you can grow in that inch.

A that can change your whole world. I know it has changed your whole world. You can grow and and just get involved in a community. You can do somebody, you can start and grow a business. You can pay up or two or two or three. You can write a book. You know me times. I stopped and started writing a book. How many times, okay, I will tell you the seed was planted for me to write a book in 2015. When Chris green told me you need to write your own book 2015.

I did not publish until 2019, so to look at how many things we talked about. Did we give up on anything? I was like. I don’t have anything. No. She just said it wasn’t a priority right now. I readed Kristin, stop and start that process so many times and I’m so proud of her for actually coming through and finding the method that she needed to help support her and doing that when we put stuff off it’s because it’s vulnerable, because I have to tell My story, because I have to put myself out there, because it’s vulnerable work and that’s hard, and so it’s easier to do things that are easier than it is to face the fact that, like I’m, going to put this story out there, because at some point it Clicked and I knew that my story held the keys to someone else’s prison and it would be selfish for me to not tell the story, because someone out there somewhere even listening to this podcast right now, is going to be inspired to be like.

If these people can change this much in 10 years, so can I this is why we do this, because it’s not just for us. We don’t just like to listen to ourselves, talk and tell you all about our lives. It’S literally for inspiration for you, because this is motivating and inspiring to look at the past 10 years, because it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. There was a lot of hard stuff. I mean talk about losing a parent to cancer.

When I had no plans to bury my dad at 62, how old he was 62 nope, that was not in my future plan. My future plan was for him to be really old and really grumpy for, like the next 20 or 30 years. It was not in my plan that that was going to happen if he certainly wasn’t in his land. It wasn’t God’s plan, but not mine, and so with. Those are things that happen to us that we have to react to as well.

So those are the types of stuff. What are the worst things and the best thing so now that we’ve gone through all this? What did it sparked, though, when you looked a me back at ten years and we talked about milestones and all the different things and all the different changes? What is your response to that? My response in my gut was what can’t you do like if you can do all of these things. If you can come back, the things you’ve come back from and you’ve been able to experience, extreme highs and lows and all of the things in between and land where you are right now.

What are you willing to do over the next 10 years? What it look, what it inspired in me is: what are you tolerating, and what can you do to get to the next place you want to be so stop tolerating and start doing, because I know that there’s so much that can happen in 10 years and it’s Not looking to be planned, there’s going to be things that happen that I don’t plan for. Just like you just talked about with your dad, and there are going to be things I have to deal with in that space, but I also know that anything is possible if I put my mind to it and decide to move towards something, and so by looking At that I didn’t plan half the stuff that happened to me in the past 10 years.

I did not plan to meet you mm-hmm, that’s just God moment that God planted in my in my world and I’m forever thankful for that, and I’m like what what’s the next thing, that what is the next thing that God has planned room was next and I Can do to move forward? What does that look like for me, and that was a hard saying and a great thing all at the same time, all wrapped up into one, and let me explain what I mean by that.

What I mean is, if I can do anything if I’m stand, there are certain things I’m stuck in right now. Why am I allowing myself to be stuck there? What can I do with that to move forward to make it into not being a stuck place to be anywhere? What can I do to actually do what I want to do be a be what I want to be like. I, if you can tell me in the span of the past 10 years, I did so many of the things that I did that 10 years ago.

I would have laughed in your face. If you told me I was going to do them. What am I going to be doing in 10 years that I will have the same response to, and that is part of this? Is that that’s what we’re going to talk about now that we know because the same impact happened to me when I literally first of all, was like thrown back into 2010? My initial response was, I don’t want to do this exercise because 2010 was really hard and the years following 2010, through 2013 20, like getting into 2013 those were years.

I’D rather not talk about not rather not look back on. There were, you know, just a lot of emotional things, a lot of like you know when you hold something like this. So tight note for you guys that aren’t people of faith like you’re going to have to tolerate us talking about our faith because that’s who we are, but if you hold something in your hand, so tight. Sometimes God has to pry it out of your hand.

In order for you to realize that he knows what’s best for you and you don’t, and so that’s what God had to do with that house for us I was holding on so tight. We have a file that literally I’m going to burn this year because it’s been 10 years and after 10 years you can burn files like this, but literally there’s this file, because we fought tooth and nail to keep that house every dime we had. We were like literally pinching pennies everywhere Allisyn, paying with our groceries with credit cards and utility bills, because we were trying to keep this house that we literally wanted.

And so we have a file like the size of Texas. That literally, we went to all kinds of different government programs and we did like we paid half of our mortgage for a long time and then they said the mortgages do upfront and in full, and we had all this kind of stuff. And basically God was saying. Let go this is not yours to keep and I’ve got something better for you and so looking over the past 10 years.

No one would have told me that that number one you’re going to get into $ 50,000 in debt and then you’re going to pay it off. You’Re not you’re, going to move from this house, but you’re going to get a better house is more suitable for you and your new business and your new family and you’re going to lose your dad and you’re going to get through it and you’re going to have To do and make all these different changes you’re going to actually become someone’s boss, which I never thought I’d ever do I didn’t want to be anybody’s employee, but I also never thought I would you know, run a company.

I would never dreamed of having a million dollar business. This was not a goal of mine, I’m so glad that I hit there, but the reality is it wasn’t a goal. I was always stuffing smiles and what can I do to make the next fifty dollars to pay this bill? What can I do to make the next hundred dollars to do this, and so looking back at that? It’S the same exact feeling. If now that I know what I’m capable of because of this last 10 years, what do I want the next 10 years to look like, and I literally get goosebumps like right now I get a good goosebumps of like I’m unstoppable.

That’S how I feel I feel, like you, know, we’re just following God’s path and asking him what he wants me to do and then going in to the next ten years. I just felt unstoppable. Well, there’s nothing! I can’t do like tell me what I can’t do. Cuz, I’m going to show you I can you know, that’s the kind of thing so if you are doing this exercise, this is the last and final piece of this. Really, if you are doing this exercise, we’re talking about right now getting vulnerable, getting nitty-gritty.

Looking at the decade, what would you want 2020 to look like if you’re doing this in 2030, if you’re doing this reflection exercise 10 years from now? What would you want this year coming up 2020 to look like what do you want today to look like knowing? What’S the past ten years of life, what would you want to look back on and craft what this year would look like ten years into the future? It’S really taking the time to to understand what it is that you want does do you want to hit six figures or seven figures in your business? Is that your goal, or is it not? I had to come to terms with that last year that that was not my goal in my business and I had to reconcile that with myself.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2CqwPvAx8kM

Do you want to close a business? Do you wan na end a toxic relationship? Do you want to start saving for retirement? There are so many parts and pieces of what that can look like in 2020. What does that start to look like? What are those small steps that you can take to get there? It’S just something now this isn’t like we’re going to sit down and do goal planning, but we actually do have a workbook that goes around this.

We call it an in dream, big step, small in my book. We call it this in a perfect world scenario, so we know there’s no such thing as perfect and you know we couldn’t have planned the past 10 years. If we tried – because you know, God has different plans in us, but we are charged with the responsibility to be responsible and be good stewards of our time and our money and our energy in our relationships, and so there were not off the hook for planning we’re.

Just looking at it with like it’s very –, it’s wiggle, its wiggle, a bowl. Is that even a word? It’S it’s that we christianism. I know I’m always making up words, because there’s just sometimes not words for things I want to say so in 2020. If you want, if you have a specific goal, maybe it’s to create your nine-to-five job, maybe it’s to make enough money to take care of an ailing parent or to pay for extra therapy for a kid who has special needs whatever it is, for you write it Down and say in 2020, I want to blink, create you’re in a perfect world now in our hub in our Amazon files hub, which is our exclusive membership site, we have a workbook that goes along with this.

It’S a whole workbook that you can create you’re in a perfect world scenario, and you can answer some of these questions for yourself, so that you can get a really good handle on what you want for 2020, because in a perfect world is not necessarily goal setting. Yes, you want to set goals and there is some some things in there to help you set the goals, but the reality is it’s all about how you want to feel.

Yes, we’re talking about feelings. Oh my goodness, I thought this was an Amazon show yeah. It is how do you want to feel how do you feel right now? What do you want it to change if you’re stuck in a nine-to-five that you hate, you want to feel freedom from that you want to make enough money so that you can tell that boss, bye, bye. You want a quit day on the calendar, that’s something you want to feel you want to feel empowered and and in control of your income earnings and not have to answer to the man right.

So the reality is you want to feel something in a perfect world. Is about creating what you want to feel and then taking small steps to make that happen? So, while we’re going to this exercise while you’re looking back while you’re in 2030, looking back, what do you want to accomplish in the next decade? What do you feel like you can’t accomplish the next day? What do you think is possible? How do you, what do you no longer tolerate? What are you getting rid of getting pivoting from whatever? What do you no longer want to tolerate because they’re allowed if they stop there for just a second seriously, because that is a really big thing.

That’S just what we talked about the nine-to-five thing: it’s something about one of the biggest things what you want to accomplish, but also what do you want to stop tolerating, because we’re all tolerating something right now that we don’t want to tolerate anymore we’re putting up with It because we feel like there’s no other option, there’s no other choice, or this is just the way it’s got ta be.

You know. We talked to you about that a couple weeks ago, about q4 and running around, like a crazy person doing retail arbitrage and you’re not stuck there. There is solutions. What are you tolerating that you want to say in 2020 this far and no farther? Maybe it is that toxic relationship with a boss or someone in your life, if that doesn’t mean you’re running for divorce court, either there’s a lot of things.

I was tolerating in my marriage for a long time and we have grown ourselves up and decided we’re not tolerating this anymore and we’ve had some breakthroughs because of it. So, yes, you might have to walk through the mud before you rinse off your boots, but the reality is you can do it? What are you tolerating that you’re unwilling to tolerate going forward? It’S becoming aware of that and putting a plan in place too small step.

Your way to what comes next, what challenges do you anticipate? Now we don’t anticipate all the challenges that come flying at if there are going to be things that hit us over the freaking head. I still remember sitting in the parking lot at the rock gym when Kristen told me about her dad’s cancer diagnosis, it’s a very pivotal moment in my brain um. That was not something she anticipated, but that was a challenge that she then had to work through.

As that happened, and so that changed a lot of things for her and so you’re not going to anticipate everything, but there are going to be things if you are making changes and pivoting and not tolerating things. There are going to be things and challenges. You can anticipate going forward so making sure you’re aware of them, because sometimes we let those challenges just make us turn around and go the opposite direction instead of working through them.

You see you don’t have to have all the steps planned out of how all of these things are going to get accomplished, but I want to tell me that, because she’s like you’re, not going to have it all figured out, it’s never going to cuz. I am the perfectionist, and that is all the way I want to be. I want to be planned out. I want to be figured out. I want to know, what’s going to happen the next ten years.

Reality is that’s, never going to be the possibility and I’m becoming better at understanding that I can control the moment I’m in right now. I can’t control my past and I can’t necessarily control all the things in my future. Either we can plan, we can be good stewards, we can be responsible, we can have an idea of what we want, but we also can’t be extremely disappointed when things don’t go our way.

We have to be able to know that things are happening for a reason and a time and there’s a season for everything, because if you look back on your life, that’s what you’re also going to see you’re going to see seasons, herbs and flows of good times And so good times and hard things and easy things and looking for those things and saying what do I want you’re not going to have it all figured out, but you can have a target in mind a a big picture in a perfect world.

I want to feel and look like this. I no longer want to be tolerating X Y Z. I no longer wanted to tolerate debt, and so I was literally cutthroat about paying off our debt and making sure that we were debt free, because that’s something that I really wanted to be free from. I wanted to have this feeling of freedom of like my money is not mine and I don’t have to you know, pay it to someone else all the time.

So I didn’t know how that was going to happen. I didn’t know when I didn’t have these huge projector E’s. I was just like what can I do every single day, and so I made some decisions about finances and things that we were going to do and not do you know during that time we’re not as cutthroat as Dave Ramsey. I love the Dave Ramsey program and we do follow it too mostly, but there were some things were like okay, my dad when he when he was dying, one of the the last few conversations that we had with him.

He was always a planner. He was always like a planning out every single diamond he’s, I’m going to do that. So I’m going to do that and I’m going to pay this off and then, when I retire, I’m going to do all these kinds of things, and you know he was just ahead all of his duckies in a row and he was just waiting for this retirement To happen and his retirement never came, it was not in the plan for him and what he said a few weeks before he passed away.

Is he he looked at my husband and I both and he was like what I’ve learned is just do it. If you want to boat by a boat, because you can’t just wait until you’re going to you know retired before you get, it did, life is short and you don’t you’re, not guaranteed your retirement you’re not guaranteed the next 10 years, you’re, not guaranteed health. Even if you live, and so do the things that you want to do now and responsibly, but he said just do it now, if you want to buy a boat, buy it if it doesn’t work out for you sell it, but don’t wait until you know you’re Older to do all the things because you’re not promised that, and that was just huge eye opening it was a change in him.

It was a change in us and it really gave us this freedom to be like. We want to do things now and later, and so we mixed a little bit of that into our lives, small steps and that’s where it comes down to did. Did you know in 20:10 all of the steps that you needed to take to get you to where you are right now, of course, you didn’t because most of the things that happened, that time were not planned or shifted and pivoted along the way you made it.

You started small wherever you were then and you’ve come through so much to get to where you are today and so taking those small steps planning those small steps. One of the things that Chris and I have worked on together is, I tend to want to see far in the future and plan it all out and Kristen has helped me realize that we need to plan in shorter periods of time and adjust and pivot. As time comes along, so whether you’re planning a day a quarter a week a month, whatever it looks like for you planning what those small steps are right now so that you can get start working towards where you want to be, and we want you to write It down, even if it’s on hello, sticky notes with my craziness, even if it’s written down on a sticky note, there are studies about this.

There was a Harvard study that they did and they followed people for ten years hello, a decade. This is what we’re talking about people who have written goals, even if they’re, crazy, huge, seemingly unattainable the people that write down their goals. That, in this Harvard study is they earn ten times more income than the people who had no goals at all hello. Ten times more, that doesn’t mean you can earn ten times more than you’re earning right now, but it’s possible because people who write down goals there’s something that clicks in their brain.

That says I am going to do this. It’S going to happen. They write it down. They doesn’t they don’t necessarily write down all the house and whatever is write down a goal, and then they follow these people for ten years and those people that wrote those ten times the earning of their fellow friends who did not write stuff down. So if you really want to deep dive into this – and you get excited and motivated by doing this exercise, please come into the Facebook group and talk to us about it say: hey, I’m doing the reflection in a perfect world exercise, it’s so eye-opening be vulnerable.

We just literally dish the dirt and in some of the vulnerable moments that we’ve had a past, you know hour and a half or whatever of talking about these things. If you want to deep dive more, we do have an exclusive workbook. It goes along with this that accompanies this, it’s for it’s in our membership site. It’S in our membership group, the hub, mommy income, comm / hub – is where you go to find out more about that.

You do need to be a wholesale bundle student in order to be inside of the hub, so make sure that you’re aware of that. But this is where you’ll get the workbook and you can kind of deep dive into this and then at the bottom. It gives you um the extra step of then creating your next steps. So if there’s a section of it’s the secret sauce for members only, but those are the things that in there that talk about not just paint painting this fancy in a perfect world and reflecting on the last 10 years.

But then also. What are you going to do right now to start working towards what you want in the next 10 years? Our goal is to help you be inspired and motivated to look at where you’ve come from and see where you can go and take the time to put the next step forward. What does that look like for you, because all the things that have happened to us in the 10 years anything is possible. We’Re feeling that, and we want you to have that same feeling, so skip yourself.

That hour, put it on your calendar, sit down and go through this and write it down, figure that out and then what are your next action steps? We really want to see you succeed. We always want to see our students and our listeners succeed and when you take steps to be able to actually make success, happen is when you see the most amount of change now we I just want to leave you with these final thoughts.

You know the years coming to a close, the decades coming to a close, but we, you have been through a lot in the past 10 years, both good and not-so-great, reflecting on that, but we believe in you. We know that you can accomplish anything because hello, look at 10 years, look at what you’ve done. You can do so much more or even so, much less. If that’s what you want to do, I know that in my life, I’m working on doing less in the next 10 years.

I want to enjoy the moments with my kids with my husband. I want to enjoy travel. I want to just enjoy every moment. I don’t want to tolerate things anymore. I want to look at things that, if it’s not the best choice for me right now, I don’t want to tolerate it anymore, and so that’s something that I’m excited about moving forward Amy. What are you excited about? Looking forward to the next year and then years beyond that, I’m excited to pivot in ways that I didn’t expect I’d wan na pivot.

In some of the things that I’m tolerating are not things. I expected to be things that I was tolerating ten years ago or five years ago or whatever, and so being able to realize that not that something that’s right in one season of your life doesn’t mean it’s the right for the rest of your life and so Being able to look at it and realize it works your time that did it now, it’s time to fit in and adjust and so being able to be open to what that change looks like it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

It means it’s complicated, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on, but I can process through that because I have a tool to use to do it, and this is just where it goes back to don’t just leave this here as oh. This is an end-of-the-year reflection, type thing. This is something we want to revisit because any time we’re down any time we’re doubting anytime, we feel faithless and we feel like this is hard.

I can’t I won’t there’s so many things in my way. Look at the past ten years, heck look at five years and just say what has happened in the past five years. Look at how far I’ve come and regardless you’ve made changes. You know recently, you know, so I ran into someone that I hadn’t seen in a really long time and they said well. You’Ve really changed a lot and I was so excited to hear that so most people, it was kind of said in a little bit of a negative way, and I was just like awesome.

Thank you for that. Thank you for noticing that I’m not the same person that I was ten years ago. I’M so glad I would not want to be that person. I was 10 years ago. I’Ve grown and changed so much into it, just a different person and a better person and a better human that I’m glad that I’ve changed a lot so the person that said that to me. Thank you. I appreciate that I’ve changed a lot and I’m embracing that, and so we just we believe in you guys you can do this, do the hard work first so that you can then be inspired of what your next 10 years is going to look like so make Sure that you go and check out, if you’re interested in the hub go to mama income comm, slash hub, we will be back the same time same place.

Next to we will see you soon.

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