54 Rejections, $250K Loss, and a Newborn: How Wealth Identity Coach Emily Williams Rebuilt from Rock Bottom

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About Today’s Show

Hi Emily, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Before we begin, can you share with me one beautiful childhood memory?

The first thing that came to mind was that my grandparents had a house in Florida. Every spring break, we used to go there with them and just go to the beach, and it was normally over Easter. We’d have an Easter egg hunt and Easter brunch. I just remember it being a really special time. 

I’m just grateful that my parents traveled with us a lot, even when we were really young. Having those experiences of getting out of where I’m from, I feel like it really opened my eyes to other places, even though it was just Florida. It was something that always stuck with me.

It seems like getting out of where you’re from is the theme of your life metaphorically, right?

You’re right. Although I’ve come full circle and come back, which I’m sure we’ll get to.

Well, tell them about it.

I grew up in Ohio in the US, and it’s one of those places people kind of call the ‘boomerang state’ because people leave, but then they come back because it is a really amazing place to grow up in the sense that the people are really incredible and nice. It’s very grounding. 

But I always wanted to leave. I had always wanted to go somewhere else, and so I planned to attend graduate school in Chicago to earn my master’s degree in counseling psychology.

But literally as I was driving there, I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach, like this was not the right next step for me. My mom was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. She saw that I was crying, and we ultimately ended up turning the car around and heading back to Ohio. 

At that point, I still wanted to leave, but I didn’t have any clarity around what I wanted to do. So I kind of entered into a major quarter-life crisis and had to move back in with my parents. I worked at Starbucks for a while, but I just didn’t have any direction.

It wasn’t until a few months later, when I went to visit my sister who was studying abroad, that I landed in London and England and stepped out of Victoria Station, and it hit me. I was meant to live in London. It’s not something that I ever planned, and it’s not something that people from my hometown normally do. No one in my family has moved to another country, but I just felt like I was meant to be in that place. 

I figured out a way to get there. I applied for a student visa for a nonfiction writing program because I thought, “Well, I’ll write a book.” I’ve always wanted to write a book. I moved there 15 years ago, knowing no one, and didn’t have a place to live. The only plan I had was to attend graduate school, and I just started my life there. A year later, I met my husband online, and everything started to unfold and fall into place a little more.

I went through that period of a good two years of just being really depressed, uncertain, not sure about what I wanted to do with my life, but still having this feeling like I was meant for something big.

What was it like? Were you struggling when you just arrived there, being alone?

I lived in a hotel for a few days and then ultimately realized it was going to take longer for me to find an apartment, and I didn’t want to run out of money. So, I moved into a hostel, and I recently found those pictures. 

My room was actually disabled-accessible. It kind of looked like a hospital room as well. The bathroom was quite big; I put all my suitcases in there, and I couldn’t believe I did it, to be honest with you. I eventually found an apartment that was a few tube stops, about 15 minutes away from where I was staying and didn’t have any money. So I decided I was gonna lug all of my suitcases across town myself and up four flights of stairs to my new studio apartment.

I remember just arriving in like a pool of sweat, but being like, “I did it, I’m here.” I got a job as a nanny part-time, and luckily, it was for this amazing American family, and they kind of took me under their wing and were so lovely. Their son actually ended up being the ring bearer at my wedding.

We’ve stayed in touch all these years, and it was just a crazy time. Like I said, I met my husband online a year later. I ultimately decided to throw myself into the world of online dating because I didn’t know how to make friends in person. I didn’t know how to go up to other women in bars or wherever I was going to try and be like, “Will you be my friend?” I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t feel comfortable with that, but for whatever reason, I felt comfortable doing the online dating thing. 

Luckily, meeting my husband opened up a lot of doors, and I was able to befriend his friends and have a social life. It was definitely interesting. And now, having a daughter myself, thinking about her doing that at 24 years old, it’s so nerve-racking. I have a lot of admiration for myself, and I can’t believe my parents were okay with that. If they weren’t, they never told me. But yeah, it was a big deal. I figured it out as I went along.

That’s amazing. It reminds me of my own story where I arrived in New York City when I was 25 or 26, and I schlepped my suitcases into my little studio apartment on the fourth floor on 74th and 2nd in Manhattan. I get it. 

My goodness, those first two years were super hard for me, too. Not really, because I went to an acting school, and I was already immersed in it, with friends there. However, with all those friends, I still felt pretty lonely. It takes a while to actually know people deeply and all that.

I kind of felt like my quarter-life crisis followed me across the pond, and it wasn’t as quick. I honestly didn’t know how to be happy. I actually ended up seeing a happiness coach, and she really opened my eyes to the world of personal development. The fact that I didn’t have to believe everything my mind was telling me. 

Although I grew up with parents who were into personal development, and I had studied psychology for four years, the way that she phrased things was completely life-changing. I started practicing things like the law of attraction, and even just practicing gratitude was a significant step for me. 

I started to shift the way I was thinking about it, but it definitely took time because there were certain patterns that I was showing up with and behaviors I was participating in that didn’t make it easy for things to transform until I started to get it for myself, and things started to click.

What do you think was one of the phrases or the things she told you that created shifts for you internally?

I really started to focus on ‘what do I want,’ paying attention to the things that were going right in my life.

I remember I had six sessions with her, and it was like a small fortune for me at the time. I literally just cried throughout the sessions. At one point, she interrupted me, and she’s like, “You know, you don’t have to believe your mind, right?” And I was like, “That’s super interesting. I’ve never thought about it that way.” 

I have all these thoughts going on a loop and never thought that I had a choice to not believe what my mind was telling me, or to think about it kind of like a program, an operating system or a playlist that I could adjust and change. She also taught me about the law of attraction and that when we start to think about the things that we actually want, it’s obviously much easier to attract them into our lives. 

I had never been taught about that. And so I started; one of the first things I tried to attract was finding the perfect partner. I wrote out a list of all the qualities I was looking for in somebody, and luckily, that wasn’t a hard one for me because I had parents who had a beautiful relationship. 

I didn’t have a belief system like love doesn’t exist. My belief system was quite the opposite, but I really started to focus on ‘what do I want,’ paying attention to that and starting to focus on the things that were going right in my life. Even the little things, like starting a gratitude journal, where I had a Tumblr blog for anyone listening, who had a blog like that back in the day, I would write out my gratitude list every single day. 

Although that’s super simple, it truly did change my life because I shifted from thinking about all the things that were going wrong or the things that hadn’t happened yet or the clarity I didn’t have into, ‘This is working, the things that I desire are on their way. Things are working out for me.’ That shift in my mind really transformed everything.

The thing that is so powerful about gratitude is that our brain has this primitive part of it that is still being trained to run away from the saber-toothed tiger and look for danger. That’s why we love the news, and everything is sensational. And every time we go into gratitude, we shift it into looking for what’s good. It’s not our nature to look for what’s good. It needs to be premeditated and intentional for us to feel gratitude.

A lot of people are programmed to stay in the box and do what they’ve always been told. They have money beliefs and stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, and they’re not even theirs.

A lot of people think, ‘I’m just naturally going to be grateful, or I’m naturally going to be happy or I’m naturally going to be positive.’ There are people out there who are like that. However, for many of us, it requires rewiring and being intentional, as you said, with a new way of thinking.

When you went there, you weren’t as wealthy and successful as you are today. How did you work on your mindset to become who you are today?

When I went to London, I didn’t have a lot of money. I had to take out a student loan, and it was in dollars. It was basically like being cut in half because the dollar was so weak at that time compared to the British pound. I really didn’t have a lot. I was only allowed to work a certain number of hours as a nanny because I was on a student visa.

I remember a point where my parents came to visit about a year into my being there. I was just sitting on a bench outside of this church at High Street Kensington, and my dad and I were chatting, and I was literally crying because I didn’t have any money, and so he lent me some money, which was amazing. 

It took a good few years for me to start to figure out what I even wanted to do as a career.  I got into a master’s in nonfiction writing program, so I was writing a book. But alongside that, I was actively exploring all these other different things that kind of were interesting to me. For example, I considered fashion journalism, so I took that class. 

Luckily, I worked as an assistant for a couple of consultants, and I didn’t know that I would end up doing similar work to what they do. However, it was a really great segue into the world of small businesses. I also worked as a matchmaker for a bit. 

So, I started trying on various businesses and roles to see what aligned with me and what I loved. But ultimately, what ended up happening was as I got into the world of personal development and started to transform my life, I realized, “You know what? I could do this for other women.”

One of my best friends actually sent me Marie Forleo’s B-School website, which was fairly new at the time. It hit me. I was like, “This is something that I could do.”  I had recently discovered the world of personal development and began transforming my own life. I had these practices that really helped me. So the idea for my brand, I Heart My Life, just came to me. It was September 2013, so about three years after I’d moved to London.

The intention behind it was to help other women fall in love with themselves and their lives, and figure out how to do that. During that time, coaching was really starting to take off. My husband helped me build my first website. He took my first photos. Bear in mind that I was about $30,000 in credit card debt and $90,000 in student loan debt.

With over $100,000 in debt, I didn’t have the necessary funds to start my business. And my husband lent me his credit card to be a part of the first program that helped me get things off the ground. He was only making about 35 grand a year, and this program was $7,500. That was a big thing for us, but he believed in me, and he could see how passionate I was about this. 

In 2014, I got my first client and made $442. But in the next 18 months, I built my business to seven figures. It happened very quickly. Because I was kind of new in the coaching space and things started to take off as I was a part of this program, my coach started promoting me basically and promoting me as her star student because things were happening. 

More and more people came to me, and it ended up turning more into business coaching because people were asking me how I was doing it. That was never, like I said, the intention behind the brand, but that was a lot of the work that I did for the next few years.

That’s amazing. You said you had some rituals that you did at that time that really helped you. What were they?

I found that many people had money available. Still, they simply weren’t giving themselves permission to start their own business or invest in themselves personally due to their own limiting beliefs.

The biggest thing for me is that there was a period of time in the beginning of my business where I didn’t know how to sell. I kept getting on call after call and hearing ‘no’ after ‘no’, and ultimately ended up with 54 ‘nos’ in a row—54 people said no to working with me. I was like, “Okay, this is not working.” I remember getting on one of the group calls with my coach and literally crying. I’m a very emotional person. 

She coached me on how to have sales conversations because I realized that I had many of my own money blocks and limiting beliefs that were holding me back. For example, whenever anyone said to me, “Oh, you know, I’d love to work with you, but I can’t afford it,” I was like, “Okay, no problem. Thanks for your time. Bye.” That was kind of the end of the call. I realized I wasn’t comfortable talking about money. That was something that I learned how to shift.

The other piece was that I entered conversations and calls believing people either didn’t have the money, or when they told me they didn’t, I bought their story. One of the things that I talk to my clients about is really going into calls with an abundant frame of mind. If you believe that everyone has the money for the thing that you’re selling or the thing that they desire, that will change everything for you. I had a little practice, and I still talk about it today. It’s called my ‘Rich Grandma’ method.

What I found is that people will find the money for the thing that they want. Maybe they have a rich grandma who’s willing to lend it to them. Maybe it’s a savings account. Maybe it’s a 401k. Maybe it’s a credit card that their husband or spouse lends them. 

But if they want something bad enough, they will find the money. I just reflected on my own journey and realized that’s what I did. On paper, it didn’t look like I was the type of person to start a business or that I was going to be successful. We didn’t have the money sitting in the account.

But I made it happen. I shifted my mindset and went into the calls with that frame of mind instead. And if you think about it, everyone wants a coach who believes in them and believes that something’s possible for them. 

You have to evaluate what’s actually yours.

I realized that people were so much more appreciative when I believed that they had the money or they could find the money than when I said, “Okay, no problem. You don’t have it. Let’s just speak in a year or whatever it is,” and send them on their merry way. They really loved the fact that I literally asked them, “Okay, so you don’t think you have the money right now. Do you want to talk about finding the money? Do you want me to help you find the money?” 

I started to say things like that and really go deeper with them in terms of their bank account, what they had, what they gave themselves permission to use. I found that a lot of people had money sitting there, but they just weren’t giving themselves permission to start their own business or to invest in themselves personally because of their own limiting beliefs.

It was just super interesting to not only dive into my own money story, but then get the tools to support other people in their limiting beliefs around money. That obviously supported me in creating more sales, working with incredible clients, and ultimately building the business that I have today, because that was the foundational work that I teach even 11 years later.

What was your story about money? 

The biggest ones were that I wasn’t allowed to talk about money. It was taboo. It was ‘un-Christian’ or unethical to want to have a lot of money, especially if you’re helping people. You don’t want to be greedy. I had a lot of people in my life who thought that I had expensive tastes, and that was obviously frowned upon growing up religious in a Catholic household.

Just a lot of shame around my own desires. As I mentioned, not being willing to discuss money, as well as a scarcity mindset. When I shifted my thinking and believed that everyone has the money for what they desire, or they can create the money, that changed everything for me, as well as for my clients.

One of the fastest ways to get yourself out of your head is to show your body and your nervous system that it’s safe to do something by taking that action.

I worked with a woman who said that every time she had some money problems, she would book the most expensive hotel and have the most luxurious vacation, and then the money would come as soon as she did that.

How do you think we can change this frequency-wise? Because there are beliefs that are limiting beliefs. Obviously, money doesn’t grow on trees, etc. But there are also the subconscious beliefs around money that are not surface-level. How do you go into those and change those?

What I talk to my clients about is living as if, which is what your coach was talking about, knowing, living as if the money is there and getting on a different frequency. I like to support people with more micro upgrades. 

For example, when I was starting to do this work, I would do little things that really helped me to see that I was on a different frequency with money, but also not spend all my money at once. Especially when I was living in London, I used to take the bus or the tube because it was cheaper. 

At some point, I started to practice this micro-upgrade work and take taxis. That extra 10 pounds or whatever it was, obviously didn’t break the bank, but it was enough to get me into a different frequency and start to have my system see that it’s safe for me to live in this different way.

Buying yourself flowers, like whatever the little things are, or spending more time, like drawing yourself a beautiful bath, or when you take the flight, asking how much it is to upgrade to a first-class ticket versus being in economy. All those little things really do add up and help shift you into a whole other level; help you rewire your subconscious and your nervous system to see that it is safe for me to be the type of person who lives in this way.

A lot of people are just so programmed to stay in the box and to do what they’ve always been told. They have money beliefs and stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, and they’re not even theirs. It’s been adopted from their grandparents, who maybe lived through the war and had a lot of scarcity in their life or their parents who had a bankruptcy or something happened that then they passed down limiting beliefs around. 

There’s an actual pathway to the amount of money that you want to create in your life. It’s uncovering your limiting beliefs, getting clear on your desires, and your purpose for the money.

You have to evaluate what’s actually yours, and for a lot of my clients, it also starts with getting clear on their desires and what they really want for their life and accepting that those desires are really true. They’re a map leading you to the life that you’re meant to live. So starting to shift through those micro upgrades into that life right away, versus waiting 10 years from now when you have that big pot of money. There are little things we can all be doing every single day.

What do you think comes first, the mindset or the action?

It’s different for everyone. Look, I appreciate the world of therapy, but sometimes you stay in this place and this circling of the story for way too long. One of the fastest ways to get yourself out of your head and again, to show your body and your nervous system that it’s safe to do something is to take that action.

You’re probably not gonna feel 100% ready when you take the action. I remember even when I moved to London, I was questioning myself, and my grandpa said, “Well, you’re never gonna feel 100% ready. You just have to go and try it.” It depends on the person and on how deep those limiting beliefs are. 

One of my clients back in the day said that her mom used to tell her, “Just effing do it.” And so we came up with the phrase ‘JFDI’ to help people just get out of their own way because so often again, we’re in the story and we’re processing all the stuff, but we don’t actually take the action. Taking action is a key piece of this.

If someone is listening right now and wants to change their money story forever, what are some of the first steps they need to take?

I do believe in having awareness around what your story actually is because it’s super eye-opening for people, and especially to see that, “Hey, this isn’t actually my story. This is passed down from my parents or grandparents, and I can relate to that. I don’t need to hold on to it. It’s not serving me anymore.” And really thinking about how you are thinking differently from the people that you admire who are wealthy and successful. What is their mindset?

There’s an amazing book called How Rich People Think by Steve Siebold, and he literally went around the world and studied the wealth habits and the practices and the thought habits of the world’s most wealthy self-made millionaires or billionaires, whoever it was. I think it was over a thousand people he interviewed. 

That’s a really incredible book because he talks specifically about how people who are wealthy think differently from those who aren’t, just really evaluating your belief system first and foremost.

Then, also getting clear on what your actual desires are. What is it that you want for your life? Because especially the women that I work with, they have big dreams, but still, they’re limiting themselves. They haven’t allowed themselves to stretch into what they currently deem as impossible, too big or too next level—really getting clear with yourself. 

What is the actual desire? When I map out those desires and the life that I want, what amount of money does that take for me to achieve that? 

One of the things I realized early on is that money wants a purpose. In the beginning, as I was building out my coaching practice, I got really clear, like, “This is my desires list. These are the normal expenses that I have. This is what my ideal life costs, and this is what I’m working towards.” Then I broke it down into, “Okay, well, that’s 10 clients or that’s 15 clients,” or however many it is.

There’s an actual pathway to the amount of money that you want to create in your life. I’d start with those things. It’s uncovering your limiting beliefs, getting clear on your desires, and your purpose for the money. Then that will lead to, “Okay, well, what action do I wanna start taking towards that purpose?”

I like that you talk about action because it seems like there was this movie, The Secret, and a lot of people were thinking that, “My goodness, I’m going to just meditate forever, and everything is going to come my way.” 

But we live in a world of action. We need to take action to achieve our goals. You probably have a group or a club. I don’t remember exactly what you got. How do you push them to take the action? Do you have weekly assignments, monthly assignments?

My current product is my membership. It’s a money mindset and wealth identity-based membership. Basically, it walks them through my framework, which I call the ‘rich life method.’ This essentially takes you from where you’re currently at. 

For many people, it’s a matter of survival. They’re not aware that all these things are running the show. They’re not aware that they’re holding themselves back in this way. They’re in survival states. So we move them from survival into awareness, which is what we’re doing here today. We’re uncovering the things that are holding us back from being more empowered, more abundant, and ultimately living the rich life that they are craving.

For a lot of women, this is the first time that they’ve done this work. Many of us weren’t taught that we have a money story. That in itself is very eye-opening. I really support them in observing what those money beliefs are that are holding them back and keeping them from their next level life, and then moving them through the phases to ultimately get into the rich life that they want to create. 

And for me, it’s not about stopping there. I really want them to be in a state of overflow, where things are easier. They’re not in a place of burnout. They’re not in a place of hustle, working every second. 

There’s definitely a time for that. Especially for entrepreneurs, there’s a time when you’re really building and creating and moving things forward, but ultimately not coming from a place of survival and shifting into a more abundant frame of mind, not just in their business, but in all areas of life.

We have a whole course and curriculum built around that framework. Then we have monthly calls. There’s also a second track of that membership where they can go even faster and get one-to-one calls with me as well as other coaches. It’s a full process moving through them through different phases.

Maybe you can share a story of a client that really surprised you.

Even last week, I was on a call with a colleague and a client. We got off the phone, and she immediately texted me, “My gosh, I just had my highest level client sign a contract for over 20k.” It’s her highest contract yet. And she’s like, “It happened right when we were on the phone. I know that all this work that you’ve been talking about, all these things that we’ve been doing, what you’ve been teaching me about getting out of survival has been really helping me shift.” 

“When we come back to the fact that our desires are true, that changed everything for me.” – Raymond Holliwell.

It was interesting because the person she signed that day didn’t even think, in the beginning, when they first met, that she had the money. She was starting out and didn’t know, but she chose to believe that she had the money. It was a lie. 

She was gonna find the money, and she did. This is somebody who has been in business for a while and she’s successful, but she has never done the mindset work, and she’s never done the pieces that we’ve been talking about today. 

It just wasn’t something that she grew up knowing about. It’s really opened her eyes to the small shifts she can make in her belief system that have a huge impact on her clients, the people she draws into her life, the amount she can charge, and her overall happiness, as she’s running multiple businesses. 

There are a lot of things going on. But this summer, she literally chose to raise her prices and change her packages and trust that the right people would be on their way. 

That’s the other piece of the equation, which is really like holding that faith and that trust and not going to a place where you’re just gonna take anyone who comes through the door, but really like holding firm and knowing that your work is valuable. 

You’re deserving of this new price point. You’re deserving of your champagne clients and not letting any of the doubt, disbelief or feeling like it’s not happening slow you down and cause you to revert back to the old way of being.

I also want to talk about things that might be lower in frequency, like your family is in a different place than you are. You’re in London, you got your success, and you made your peace with your money story. They didn’t, and they watch you on the sideline. Did you ever have any conflict or feel like, “I don’t fit in with the family anymore, I think bigger than life right now compared to them.”

Things don’t always happen in our perfect timeline; sometimes it feels like it’s not happening.

For sure. I do have family members who are still very uncomfortable with me talking so much about money, which is interesting. But I’m really clear on my purpose and the message that I’m here to share. That’s the thing that I’ve really focused on. It’s been hurtful. It’s been challenging because a lot of times, people aren’t actually looking into what I’m really doing. 

I’m not here just saying, “Yeah, let’s make a ton of money. That’s the only reason we’re doing that.” That’s fine if that’s what people want to do. But like, I work with a lot of women who want to have a big impact in the world, and their purpose for money is very heart-centered; it will change the world essentially. I see my work as having a lot of depth.

But a lot of people on the surface see it as, “She’s just talking about money. She just wants to help people have a rich life. She’s just, whatever it is, overindulgent.” 

And even just that, what’s wrong with that? We all need to suffer together because this is how things are.  

It’s just releasing that judgment, right? We can all do so much better at that. Just let people do what they want to do in terms of their work. It’s been to answer your question. There have been challenging moments for sure. There are definitely people who don’t understand, but I also know that those who don’t understand are not my ideal clients. 

I don’t need to try to cater to them. I don’t need to try to speak so that they understand. I need to stay true to myself and speak to the people with whom I want to work. For the most part, it’s not that people don’t love me and aren’t supportive of me. It’s just that they don’t necessarily get it. But that’s okay. Not everyone is going to get what it is that you do and what your purpose is.

I’ve definitely seen that in working with women, especially because sometimes even their spouse doesn’t get what it is that they want to do. So you really have to stay true to yourself and remember that you’re the one being given the divine download. Your desires are true, and only you know what you’re meant for and what’s possible for you.

Especially with spouses, when it changes the dynamic in a relationship and all of a sudden she’s not a damsel in distress. Still, she’s just like blooming into this powerful, successful woman. This is hard. It can be hard. 

What do you do as far as self-soothing to handle rejection, or what do you teach your clients to handle rejection? Whether it is a rejection of your purpose or even a simple rejection in general.

“When we come back to the fact that our desires are true, that changed everything for me.” There’s a quote I love by Raymond Holliwell. He’s a spiritual teacher, and he talks about how your desires are essentially leading you to your fully expressed life. Your desires wouldn’t be there unless they were possible for you and you had the tools to be able to bring them to life.

I’ve really latched onto that as like my core belief because things don’t always happen in our perfect timeline. People don’t always get it. Sometimes it feels like it’s not happening. Sometimes we want to sign the client, and it doesn’t work. Or like you said, our spouse doesn’t get it, or our family doesn’t get it. 

You really have to stay true to yourself and remember that you’re the one being given the divine download. Your desires are true, and only you know what you’re meant for and what’s possible for you.

You have to really hold your faith and know that what you desire is meant for you and possible for you. Otherwise, you literally would not feel it. It would not have come across your path. I really support my clients in knowing that, and also help them to have a community that supports them in making the thing that they’re doing a reality, regardless of the timeline. 

I’m an introvert, but from the get-go, I was a part of group programs, and that was game-changing for me because I had people who were doing the same thing that I was doing and in a similar boat, in a similar chapter. We were able to support one another. 

Although my husband has always been super supportive, I know that for the women who didn’t have a spouse or partner who was supportive, it was life-changing to have all of us there cheering them on. 

Definitely like working on your mindset, working on your self-trust, knowing your desires are meant for you, and then finding your tribe of people that will continue to build you up and tell you to aim even higher, even when it feels like things aren’t working or when the rest of your family or friends don’t get what it is that you’re trying to do.

How do you actually do it? Do you use affirmation? Do you use journaling? Do you use some kind of morning ritual?

Honestly, it depends on the season that I’m in. Sometimes I do voice notes to myself. Back in the day, when I was first doing this work, I would lie in the shower for about 17 minutes and listen to an affirmation audio that I loved over and over. 

I also had post-it notes around my house with all of the new money mantras that I was instilling, all the new belief systems. For example, “I’m a money magnet, or money flows effortlessly to me, or my ideal clients are on their way.”

I had a list of all the clients I wanted to bring in. It was like numbered one through twenty or whatever it was. And then would write their names as they came in. I was focused on tracking money, really paying attention to money, because money is just like another relationship. 

If you think about your relationship with your spouse, if you didn’t pay them attention or you didn’t have a connection, it wouldn’t be a very healthy relationship. It’s the same thing with money. I just got myself into this place where I built a new relationship with money, and ultimately, it’s different with every single season.

I’m a mom now, and I have a lot going on. I have two businesses, and so I’m not as intentional with that work, but I also am kind of like in more of a maintenance place, versus when you start working out at the gym and it’s much harder in the beginning. But I’ll record affirmations for myself. I’ll go on a walk, and I’ll just literally speak into my phone. Sometimes I use ChatGPT.

I’ll do journaling, and I’ll think about my desires on a regular basis. I take screenshots of different things that inspire me, and I’ll put them as screensavers on my phone. I’m in a high vibe group, and so next level money, next level success is always a part of the conversation. 

I think for people who aren’t used to that, you need to normalize that type of conversation because you essentially want to create a new normal for yourself. If you don’t have the people in your life who are talking about big things or building you up, it’s very challenging. So, to ensure that the conversations you’re a part of are also high-frequency, and that can be very powerful.

How old is your daughter?

She’s two and a half.

How do you handle everything being a mom, and what shifted when you became a mom? I bet you could understand some of your clients a little bit better.

My husband and I have been married for almost 13 years. We actually waited a long time to have kids, and that was intentional. I was somewhat of an older mom. I’m 39 now. Everything changed. People always say that. But in terms of my husband, it’s sad to say, but he said to me, “Charlotte (our daughter) can get you to put down your computer, put down your work way better than I ever could.” 

That’s really sad for me to admit out loud, but she’s really changed my perspective and has opened my eyes to wanting to have more time off. I love my work. That’s probably obvious. I have a hard time switching off and putting down my computer and taking breaks, etc. I’m just that person, but she has really shifted that for me and helped me just to have a whole other purpose, which has been really beautiful. 

I don’t know that we’ll have time to get into this, but like her, the period of me being pregnant with her was crazy because we actually lost $250,000 during that time, and we had just purchased and built a brand new house. I took out multiple business loans because I wanted to grow the business in a different direction.

Work on your mindset and self-trust, and know your desires are meant for you. Find your tribe of people who will continue to build you up and tell you to aim even higher.

We almost lost everything. We had to sell our house. We had to move back to my hometown. It’s been a crazy three years. She literally got us through it because you can’t not look at your child. I was so grateful for her, right? Despite all of this stuff going on, she kind of brought us back to what was actually important.

You’re so strong for handling all this. This is amazing. 

To come back to like the core of what we’re talking about here, it really taught me that that foundation I had with money mindset and belief in knowing what I meant for like that was everything because that’s what pulled me through. 

I was literally sued by American Express with a six-week-old baby in my arms. I remember in that moment, I was like, “You know, that’s not fun.” But at the same time, like, “I’m going to get through this because I know what I meant for. This isn’t going to hold me back.”

It’s just been three years of rebuilding and getting back on track. Ultimately, I have an inner knowing that’s what was meant to happen for whatever reason. Now my vessel is much more expanded, and nothing can really rattle me at this point. I’m grateful to have gone through it. But yeah, it was definitely incredibly challenging.

Yeah, very challenging. What do you think about AI? A lot of people are afraid that they’re going to lose everything. The world is very intense. The last four or five years, everything has been becoming faster and faster, and the change is really big. What do you think about that?

I’m grateful for AI because I use it every single day, and it has supported me in reaching more people, doing things, like you said, faster. That can be seen as a negative thing in some aspects, but for me, it’s been really positive. With every generation, yes, ours is moving at the speed of light, but there’s always been something that people are afraid of and worried about happening.

I just refuse to go into fear regardless of what the conversation is about, whether it’s about AI or anything else. I’m not going to go to a place of fear. I’m just going to trust that whatever is meant to happen for me, like I know that truth, and I’m going to figure out how to utilize AI in a way that helps me have even greater impact.

So that’s my current belief system. I think I apply that to everything, regardless of what the conversation is. I’m just not going to a place of fear. How can I show up with a place from a place of love and gratitude?

When you’re near other moms, how do you handle that? Not all moms are working moms. A lot of moms are stay-at-home moms. They don’t care about success or the limelight or working hard. How do you find that affecting you or not affecting you?

I don’t think it affects me, to be honest with you. My daughter is two and a half. We’re going to be homeschooling her. We have a different scenario. I’ll have to pick your brain. I have a little bit of a different scenario, but I did grow up with a mom who was a stay-at-home mom. 

I so appreciate having her at home. She had four kids, and it was a lot for her, and that was the right role for her. Not everyone’s going to understand why I do the things that I do, but they don’t need to. I just respect whatever path people have chosen for themselves. And I get it, having a daughter, there are days where I’m like, “Okay, well, do I really want to do this call or do I really want to do this thing?” I’d love to just spend time with her. 

That’s ultimately what I’m working towards as I’m rebuilding, creating more freedom to be with her. I understand if people don’t love what I do or don’t get it. They don’t have to. They’re probably not my ideal client anyway, but I can still show them love and have respect for them.

Why do you think you want to homeschool?

The biggest thing is to have control over the curriculum and what she’s taught, and to teach her things that will actually support her in the future, rather than just the material that has been reiterated over and over for the last however many decades. So even things in the space of entrepreneurship, just stuff that’s actually going to help her in the future. 

I also don’t believe that children need to be sitting behind a desk for eight hours a day, and I don’t think that’s the healthiest way for them to experience childhood. And then the third reason is that we want to travel a lot. 

My husband’s British, and so we desire to spend a lot of time in the UK and really travel a bit more than I did growing up, even though my parents were amazing at that. However, we also want to live in different places and experience different ways of doing life. We’re going to be a bit more nomadic, so that’ll make more sense for us.

Amazing. I resonate with everything you just said. I also feel like nobody’s gonna take care of my child the way I do, and I mean, the way he learns is different. If it’s interesting to him, he will learn the big, hard things right away, but skip the boring, tedious things that they teach. So he learns in a different way, and he’s really brilliant, and he learns so fast things I don’t even teach him. He comes back and tells me, and I’m like, “How did you know that?”

That’s like my husband. He had to be really interested in something, paying attention to it and learn it. He’s super smart.

I’m looking at him versus kids that are in school, and I control; there’s no bullying in our environment. There is no kid who will corrupt him because I know who is with whom. He feels safer because he’s close to us. It comes with its challenges. It’s a commitment. But I am extremely happy, and I’m incredibly proud of myself as a mom for doing it. I’m also proud of my husband and my son. So I think if you can do it, it’s a marvelous choice.

I bet, yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

I want to go back to building a money identity. How do you build yourself, your identity as a wealthy person? Do you do meditation and see your future self, or because I heard you put up all the sticky notes and affirmations and walk and listen to yourself? Maybe you can share more about that.

Within my community, we go through five different archetypes that are really centered around your survival self. We support people in shifting out of that. So a lot of what I talked about today is definitely the method to do that. But I think one of the things that we haven’t yet mentioned is to envision yourself as your next level self. And that really requires you to uncover what it is you actually want for your future chapters. 

For example, that could be something as simple as how you dress every single day. I recently had a podcast interview with this woman who’s a stylist, but she’s also really big into manifestation. 

Her big thing is to wear clothes that reflect your next-level self. I was honest with her, and I said, “You know what, that really triggered me when you said that because I’m a mom, I’m running two businesses, lI do love clothes, but at the same time, do I have time to get dressed for my next level self every single day?”

I do love my shorts and t-shirt, man, can’t lie. I like it simple.

Exactly, sometimes like that comfort. And she said, “You know what? I totally hear you, but you’re getting dressed every single day. Just try it.” I’m not going to sit here and say like I’m in full hair and makeup and dresses every single day. That’s not true. But she challenged me to get rid of everything that wasn’t aligned with my next-level self. I ended up getting rid of over a hundred pieces of clothing.

That was so powerful because it also reminded me that I didn’t go and replace everything right away. Still, it reminded me that there were things that were, I was hanging on to in my closet that were attached to my last chapter, and they weren’t actually things that were reflective of where I wanted to go—doing practices like that, releasing that or looking at your friend groups and seeing who’s actually an alignment for me as I go to the next level, who do I want to spend more time with or less time with?

Things like that, or even for me, one of the big ones is just tapping into the truth in the moment. A lot of times, people are making decisions from a place of fear without knowing it. So I’ll literally ask myself, if I had $50 million in the bank right now, or if I was already at the level that I want to be at, what decision would I be making today?

From how would I be spending time with my, how would I be spending my time? Who would I be hiring? Would I be releasing this program right now? If I already had that money in the bank, would I be working with this client? Or would I say, “No, absolutely not.” And so just using that kind of questioning to help you tap into your most abundant self is very powerful. You know you’re making decisions from a place of desire, not from fear.

In order to be surrounded by a higher caliber, you just have to take the courses, go to the workshops, and find where those people are and befriend them. Which sounds so easy, but it’s so not.

No, it’s not. It’s especially for those of us who are entrepreneurs and into personal development. There are conferences, there are networking groups, and there are lots of local opportunities in most cities. Even today, my husband sent me a link to a conference that’s coming to Columbus. I’m in a fairly entrepreneurial place, but I’m no longer in LA, London or New York. But there are opportunities all around. And then of course, virtually.

Like I said, I’m a total introvert, but my second business is called To Be Ambitious. It’s a peer-to-peer community for female founders. I started that when I was going through the craziness of losing all that money, because I realized I had spent nearly $600,000 on masterminds, coaches, retreats, networks, and events over the last 10 years. I had this amazing network.

It was like, I’m going to bring all these women together just to support one another. That’s me as an introvert doing that, but there are always opportunities for you to start your own group if you don’t see something out there that is aligned for you.

I’ve done that in the past. I get what you’re saying. What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

Number one, tap into what it is that you actually want for your life. Be honest with yourself, not somebody else’s version, not what your parents said that you should want, but what you actually desire for your life. 

Number two, really ask yourself, are my beliefs aligned with that vision? And if not, what can I do to start to shift? 

And then finally, take action. I’m in my last 30 or so days of my 30s, so I decided to take 30 bold action steps before I turn 40.

Amazing. What is one of them, at least?

The other day, I started a Substack account and began writing again. I’m a published author, but I decided to do this back in February. I wanted to do it, and I just hadn’t done it yet. So I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna go on and do this.” Another reason is that I’m pitching myself for this publication, which I really want to be featured in and share.

And honestly, I’m just being intuitive with it as I go throughout my days and just seeing like where am I holding myself back? Where could I lean in? I invited somebody amazing to an event I’m hosting. Just thinking about how I can stretch myself, I have this book idea, and I am submitting a proposal to a publisher. So that’s on the list as well.

A lot of them are business-related. I’m sure there’ll be some personal ones. My husband wants us to do a 24-hour fast. That may be one as well. We’ll see, but yeah, just not so hard. Yeah.

It’s not so hard to do a 24-hour fast. My husband did a three-day fast, a four-day fast, something crazy like that, without water and food.

Wow. The most I’ve done is two days, and I know four days is just like epic for you. So we’ll see. But anyway, challenge yourself to take that bold action as well.

Love it. Anything you want to share before we finish?

My website is iheartmylife.com. You’ll see our membership. It’s called The Rich Life membership. There’s a free master class. We have an upgrade guide—77 micro upgrades that you can do to start stepping into abundance and living out your dream life. I have a podcast called the I Heart My Life Show, and you can find me on Instagram at @emilywilliams.

Love it. Emily, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you, and thank you, listeners. Remember to think about your desires and creative vision for yourself, and then see if that vision is actually aligned with your values. And after you figure out all that, please take bold actions toward your dreams and have a stellar life. This is Orion, till next time.