Hello.
It feels weird.
I'm actually sitting in my office
recording this episode proper, using
my professional microphone , here's
what I wanna talk about this week.
It's.
I'm kind of connected to a
couple different points that
I'm noticing a couple different
threads running through my life.
Last Monday was my 55th birthday.
. Mike gave me stick with me on this
story 'cause it's gonna be like,
why is she talking about this?
Mike gave me a necklace for my
birthday and we don't really celebrate
birthdays real big around here.
. For a lot of reasons, like the older
we get, the less stuff we need.
I am also not the kind of
person who gets like totally
lit up by a whole lot of stuff.
I'm just so happy.
The happier I get with my life,
the less external stuff that I find
myself wanting or shopping for.
So it's kind of hard to get me a gift.
But Mike, I could tell he was really.
Excited to present me with this gift.
So he had me open it and it's a
pendant, a necklace, and when I
first saw it, I was like, Ooh,
this is not my particular taste.
Okay.
I didn't hate it or whatever.
I just thought, oh, that's nothing
that I would ever pick out for myself.
And I thought, that's kind of
odd that he would get me this.
And he was so excited.
He said, let me tell you
the whole story behind this.
This particular stone is
called a merchant stone.
And it's meant to bring success
to anyone who is building a
business or starting a business.
And I know you're not
starting this business.
You've been working on it for a few
years, but you're so focused on it right
now and you're doing all this work.
And so I wanted to get you something
that really would support you.
And I researched all about it.
And this particular stone,
it's like a citrine.
He's telling me there's two different
kinds of citrines and why he picked
the exact one he did and how he
had another necklace picked out
first, but then he realized when
he was going to purchase it that he
noticed it was a lab created stone.
And he was like, I thought
to myself, if this thing is
supposed to be carrying energy.
Being created in a lab
can't be a good thing.
So then I knew I had to find a natural.
Citrine.
And so I went on a hunt for that
and I first saw this like bracelet
and I thought about that and I saw
earrings, but , then I was researching,
where should you wear this citrine?
And it said as close to
the heart as possible.
So I knew I had to do a pendant, I mean,
the level of thought this guy went to.
By the way, I know he doesn't listen
to these episodes, so that's why.
Speaking so candidly about my
initial instinct to the necklace.
, What else did he tell me?
Oh, so then he said, , when I picked
the setting that I was putting it
in, do you notice the shape of it?
And I said, yeah, , it's an infinity loop.
He said, I just thought
that was really cool.
We share the number eight, 'cause both
of our birthdays are on the eighth.
Eighth is a very abundant number, and
the symbol does , represent infinity.
So he said, I knew I had to go with that.
Then I was choosing between white gold
and yellow gold, and even though the
yellow gold was nice, I, I just feel
like the white gold represents more you
and it will look better on your skin.
, And do you like it?
You can take it back.
If you don't, you can tell me.
I mean, he was just so
precious about it all.
I couldn't.
Love it more.
And I said the amount of thought that
you put into this, first of all, coming
from a man who a year ago even wouldn't
give the idea of energetics or crystals
or any kind of woo work mindset work
even would give that no credence.
To see him devote so much
time to trying to do this.
He said, I really think this is
gonna make a difference for you.
And he was so genuine.
We, we held the necklace and I said,
let's set an intention for the necklace.
'cause I'm all about having an intention.
So I said the most beautiful
little saying, we held it together.
I went to put it on and the
thing slid off onto the ground.
Slid right off the chain, and I was
like, oh my God, this is a bad sign.
I'm like, no, no, let's just
redo, try to redo the intention.
I don't think it was as good,
but I was like, you gotta
get outta your head, Laura.
, Set the intention, put it on, and
he was like, I love this thing.
Every time he, I said, you know what?
I'm not taking it off.
I'm just gonna leave it on.
It's gonna be on my neck
now everywhere I go.
Until I hit this level of visibility
and success that I'm going for.
He said, that's exactly what it's for.
This is going to give you the strength
and the determination to keep going.
I was like, I already have that.
There's something else about
being recognized or being visible.
So I got my citrine on.
Every time he sees it, apparently
it's called a merchant stone.
I don't know.
I haven't researched it myself.
He's like, I.
Cannot get over how
good that looks on you.
It looks so good on you.
I have to agree.
Like the actual yellow hue of the
stone up against the skin tone of
my neck, like it doesn't stand out.
It's a nice look.
I agree with him.
, It catches his eye all the time
and he's like, I just love it.
People are gonna comment
about it all the time.
So I wore it to work.
He's like, did anyone say anything?
I was like, no, of course not.
He's like, Laura, I'm telling you.
People can't help but notice this
so what I have noticed is that since
I put this thing on, not one person
has said anything to me about it,
aside from Mike, not one person.
I even wore it out to coffee yesterday.
My friend Kiki was in town and
we just had the most magical.
Like four hour conversation.
I was wearing a V-neck tank top.
Okay.
This thing was on prominent
display, not one word from her.
Normally she would notice something.
I'd be like, Ooh, that's a
cool necklace, or That's new.
I haven't seen you wear that before.
Nothing.
also one of my grad
students earlier last week.
They had decorated my
door up for my birthday.
I don't know how they found out
it was my birthday, 'cause I do
not talk about it, but they just
decorated my entire office door.
It was so cool.
And then one of my grad students came
up and said, how was your birthday?
What'd you do?
Blah, blah, blah.
Did you get any good gifts?
Which I thought was kind of odd,
but I was like, oh, whatever.
So I said, well, my husband
designed this pendant for me.
I got this.
And I literally showed it to her and
it's like she didn't even see it.
She was like, oh, and
what else did you do?
It just like totally went over it and
it didn't register with me in the moment
when that happened, but now that a week
later and I'm thinking, wait a second.
Not one person has said
anything about this.
I wonder if it's like energetically
invisible to other people.
and, and since I'm working
on my visibility, which is a
whole other thing on Instagram,
, is this tied to that somehow?
Is this like showing me that I'm not
allowing people to actually see me on
some level or I'm still continuing to
make myself and my success invisible?
I don't know.
'cause the brain just is
gonna try to find a meaning.
For every fucking thing we do.
Right?
So this just at at, at the very
least, this shows me where my
thought process is on all of this.
Then I realized when I was talking
to Kiki, we were talking about
our different situations going
on and of sharing a little bit
about the business and everything.
I'm doing, hold on.
I gotta have a sip of my latte here
because I can feel my throat getting dry.
So we're talking about it and.
She's like, I'm loving what
you're doing on Instagram
with your little daily videos.
And I said, well, my views are tanking.
And she's like, what?
I'm like, yeah, my actual metrics
on Instagram are going down and
it's affecting my other content.
Like when I'm doing a
regular post or whatever.
Like those views are now going down.
I'm sure, because the algorithm was
like, what the hell is she doing?
This, this isn't consistent.
We don't know what
she's all about anymore.
Who knows why.
It's one of those things that just
happens, but I'm, I was explaining
to her the whole point wasn't to
grow my audience, it was to just
get comfortable with being visible.
And I said, I've gotta believe based
on the quality of my work, which has
never been better, I've never felt
more confident in my actual work.
Yet, I don't see the growth.
And then she asked me, what are you.
Doing, like , how do you
know it's not successful?
What are you doing to be more successful?
Or to like put your name out
there more outside of Instagram?
And I was like, well, I'm doing the
podcast, which I love, and my substack.
She's like, your substack is so good.
It's like, give me more of that.
For whatever reason in that moment, I
remembered those of you who have been
with me since last September won't.
Remember this whole journey I
went on with the podcast tour.
I was like, you know what?
Oh my God.
I actually hired someone to put together
an entire podcast tour for me and
we got to probably the 90 yard line.
Like she helped me work through
all of my pitching points and like
structuring how we were gonna put this
out there to the different podcasts,
like 10 to 12 different podcasts.
For promoting Memo, and
then I just stopped.
I said, I literally stopped.
I, I didn't log back on to the
portal to, to communicate with her.
I didn't return an email from her.
I mean, horrible.
I shouldn't call it horrible.
This is natural human behavior.
I see this in my own
clients sometimes too.
I literally stopped myself
and I don't know why.
It doesn't make any logical sense
to me because talking is one of
my best ways of communicating.
Talking on a podcast is the
natural way to promote Memo because
memo is 200 episodes of audio.
So if somebody's listening to me
and relates to me and gets who I
am and likes the way that I present
information, they're gonna freaking love.
Memo.
I get messages all the, I actually
got a message this morning.
From someone who said, I listened to
the latest memo and then I went back
to an earlier one, and it totally
helped me get through this particular
situation that I'm in right now.
I get messages like that all the
time, so what is it about me that
is trying to block that visibility?
Why don't I want to be seen on that level?
I think part of it is
that memo is pretty raw.
It is.
Not perfectly packaged in
a polished program that you
walk through sequentially.
. It was originally twice a week,
so there were just episodes coming
out all the time, and it turned
into this entire volume of coaching
episodes, very short coaching
episodes, and then I built this whole.
AI bot, a custom AI bot because
it became too many episodes to
remember which one was what.
So I built this bot that you could
go in and chat with it and will dig
down using the same kind of questions
that I ask my clients to suggest
three different episodes that you
should listen to and in what order.
I was like, okay.
It's not about that.
It's not polished or professional.
, There's a whole structure there.
So what is it?
Anyways, back to Kiki, she
said, you've got to do that.
That is your next growth move.
And then I realized, I think it's more
about if I do that and it doesn't work,
then I'm gonna be like, there's nothing
left to try, which is ridiculous as
I hear that coming outta my mouth.
That sounds ridiculous.
So.
I'm gonna look at my calendar.
When I get to the university this morning.
I'm gonna look at some days that
I can just take off and block to
getting that podcast thing wrapped up.
I think I actually even committed to
doing that on one of these prior episodes
back in like December or January.
That is just like I would tell
my clients that is a pending
loop that is open right now and.
Even though I can't feel it consciously,
I know in my integrity, right,
my inner integrity, that I have
breached what I said I was gonna do.
I'm scared to do it for some reason,
even though it doesn't make sense.
I think probably 'cause I'm gonna be on
podcasts where I don't know the people.
It's not like I have a relationship
with them already, so that
feels kind of unsafe to me too.
I dunno, I could invent 23 reasons
right now Why I'm scared to do it.
What I need to remember is I just
need one reason that it will work out.
I can just clinging to that one reason
to do it and then all those other reasons
why it's gonna be scary can also exist.
But as long as I point my
focus on the one reason it.
It will be good for me,
then I know I can't lose.
So that's everything that came
together for me this week feels
like a massive shift again.
I'm also told the universe this
morning, I sent a little message.
I said, okay, now none of
you count in this experiment.
'cause I just told you about
the necklace, but I said.
The next time or not next time.
'cause it's been zero times when
someone sees this necklace and
compliments me on it or makes a note
about it or says something about it.
That will be a sign from you
universe, creator of all good
things that I have just unlocked.
A new layer, a visibility, a new
layer of success and abundance and
comfort with being seen for the
fricking work that I love doing.
I've never been more happy with
my life and my work, so maybe
it's time to let more people in.
That's how I feel.
But clearly something in me hasn't figured
out how to put all those pieces together.
So that's what I got for you this week.
, Thanks for sticking with me and thank you
for sharing a part of your time with me.
I hope these episodes help illuminate
some portion of your life where
you feel like you can relate.
To another human who's going through
a similar journey to where you are.
And I hope that it gives you the
strength to continue to stay on
your path or to find your path.
And fricking love it and own it.
I want everybody living the life that they
have deliberately chosen for themselves.
That's the whole game.
That's the whole game, and not quitting.
If you can do those two things,
take quitting off the table and
plug yourself onto your path.
What else is there?
Okay, sending everyone out
there so much love and respect.
And don't forget, do you
always bet on yourself?
I.