Episode 13: From Silicon Valley Engineer to Life-Changing Coach with Susanne Goldstein
Susanne Goldstein is a transformation, success coach and business consultant. Her passion is to help each of her clients become the best that they can be.
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Transcript:
I had a time in my life where at $153 in my bank account, I had decided to leave the film business after I'd produced movies for Disney and I was getting into this brand new world called the.com world. It was originally done on CD ROMs. There were, like five people working in this whole industry.
Emily: Welcome to the Em Makes Money podcast. With me, your host, Emily Wilcox, serial entrepreneur, seven-figure business owner, mindset junkie, creator of the money moves wealth attraction program, and a collector of crystals. My mission is to help you attract lasting wealth, ditch the hustle for money culture, and build the life and business of your dreams with an ease and joy you never thought possible.
Each week a new episode will air featuring expert advice, live coaching, and guest interviews, where we'll dive into the specifics of how much money we make, which money wounds we've healed and how we've tapped into our divine feminine energy to attract more money with ease.
We all deserve a healthy, empowered relationship with money so we can experience more freedom, pleasure and joy. So get ready and lets dive in.
Hey, Hey, I've got such a juicy episode for you today. Quickly before we dive in. Many of you have reached out to ask how we can work together. And I do have limited openings to work with me via one-on-one private coaching inside the rise mastermind, and I've actually even opened up a few spots for human design readings.
So if you're ready to step into feminine energy wealth, this is for you. If you're serious about ditching those old limiting beliefs, you're tired of having the hustle to grow your business and income, and you're ready to attract more money, joy, and ease from feminine energy, this is for you. If you're tired of being in control all the time and feeling the pressure of your business and your household, then this is for you. If you want to be relaxed and work in life, but don't know how without all the balls dropping, then this is for you. So head to Instagram or Facebook and send me a DM, or you can click the link in the show notes.Take the action now, that your future self will thank you for.
All right. Welcome to the show. I am so excited because I have an incredible guest here today. Susanne Goldstein, who is a high and coach and mentor for purpose driven humans who desire to be a force for good in the world. She has been coaching and consulting from startups to fortune 100 companies for 30 years. And in 2020, she founded dare human with a mission to help people build purpose driven profit making entrepreneurial ventures. Susanne Goldstein believes in humans. So through DareHuman, she helps people crack open their consciousness. Four to five, their emotional foundation activates their authentic purpose, accelerates their ability to get shit done and build high performing and high impact entrepreneurial ventures.
Susanne, welcome to the show. I'm so glad you're here.
Susanne: I'm so excited to be here, Emily. Thank you for having me.
Emily: And what I love about you is that in this industry, that, in my opinion, you're so young and it's so new. I love that you're coming with so much experience like corporate experience and entrepreneurial experience, and it feels like you're kind of a bridge between all of these different worlds. So tell me just a little bit more about that and how you got into this line of work?
Susanne: So it's funny. I kind of stumbled into coaching, but if you were to ask my parents, I think they would tell you I've been coaching people since I was five years old. I'm just that person who was born with a desire to make the world better and to help people get there. And so I think my parents said it best. They used to say to me," Susanne, just give us this script. How about you need us to say"? Because I like it, you just see that it's this way. So I have had a kind of vast career. It's been fascinating and fun and interesting, but it's gone all over the world.
I was trained actually as a mechanical engineer and also in theatre and film. And I have moved from professional theatre to the film industry. And I produced movies in Hollywood for quite some time. And then I got into the early.com world and started building technology companies as an architect using my mechanical engineering degree, but also bringing in the storytelling aspects from working in the arts. And what happened is because I had all this interesting background, people started asking me how they could or should yourself. And so I started advising, I started consulting, I started coaching and it became this incredibly organic thing, though that I've been doing forever, professionally for 30 years, but unprofessionally for many, many years before that. And a lot of fun.
Emily: That is so cool, so interesting. And I'm curious because you're also like, Ivy league educated. And when you're talking about like, you know, kind of the tech boom, like to me, that all skews like such masculine energy, but then you have this really creative side with the arts. So do you feel like you've always had a good blend of masculine and feminine energy or was that something that you had to learn to balance over time?
Susanne: So I come from a very masculine oriented family. And so I was definitely brought up that achievement was really important. Perfection was really important. Being exceptional was really important. So there wasn't a lot of like feminine motivation there, there wasn't a lot of receiving motivation there, but for me, I always wanted to be that.
I actually went to engineering school because my parents really wanted me to. And I tested incredibly well in that direction. That became a long ongoing conversation. So I went to Cornell and I was actually just enrolled in the engineering school. But while I was at Cornell, I was taking all these arts classes.
I was taking all these theatre classes and filmmaking programs and writing programs. And by the time I got to my junior year, I was taking so many programs that it was no longer like a minor. It actually was three degree credits away from getting an arts degree. So I started really pursuing that and made the last couple of years of my time at Cornell, really about pursuing both degrees. And so I think it is for me.
Emily: When it is so you got a dual degree in engineering and arts.
Susanne: Theatre and film.
Emily: My gosh. That's amazing.
Susanne: And it was crazy. Cause I was that kid who was in the engineering school, dressed in dance clothes. Right? And then I would run across the quad and I'd have my tesla book or my physics book or my summer dynamics book. And people didn't understand me because I was this bifurcated kind of person. But for me in my brain, it always needs sense, this is just how I see the world. So in terms of the masculine and feminine energy, I don't know if I understood those words until much later in my life, but I've always worked what I call globally across both sides of my brain.
Emily: I love that. And it's interesting because I think so much of this older paradigm of marketing and branding yourself and really having an identity has been around niching down and being really clear like, I'm one thing. And here you are this incredible multifaceted human and really like your super power and all of your skills. And really the value that you have to offer comes from the totality of you. Not just the engineer, not just the theatre girl. It's like you can be all the things. And I love that we're entering into this new paradigm where people and especially women are allowing themselves to be all the things and not making themselves wrong for that.
Susanne: You know, I certainly got a lot of weird looks. I'm 57 years old. So I went to college in the eighties. There were 11 women in my engineering program. And I remember when I got out of school, my dad and mom would have this conversation with me and be like, Susanne are so many incredible recruiters on campus. You should go meet with them. You could be a female engineer and there's so few female engineers who go sled. It's gonna be amazing and housemate, every week we have the same conversation. I wanna work in the arts, I wanna work in the arts. I wanna change the world through communication and art and storytelling, and that's what I want to do. And they're like, you could do that as a hobby. I was like, no, I don't want to do that as a hobby. I want that to be me, have this conversation over and over again. And I ended up going to the UK when I got out of school and I was like, I'm going to make it in the arts to prove everybody wrong.
When I first started, there was a lot of masculine energy in proving everybody wrong that I can actually make a good and viable career working in the arts. And so I went to the national theatre of Great Britain. You're gonna work in theater in the world. You go to the best theatre in the world, and I didn't know what to do to get a job there. I didn't know anybody. This is a pre-email. It's pre-internet, it's like, oh my gosh, how do I get, go back getting a job?
So I showed up with a backpack and then my backpack, I had an analysis of an Arthur Miller play. And I also had some schematic drawings that I had done of a solar house that I had designed. So I'm like, okay, what else could they need at a theatre? Then I could show them that I'm capable of doing. So I went to the backstage door of the theatre and I walked up to the desk and I just think huge mane of blonde hair. And I'm like with my American accent and like, "hi, my name's Susanne Goldstein. I'd like to get a job here at the national theatre". And this woman who's so proper and so British is standing behind the desk just like. "You have an appointment, do you"? And I'm like, "no, I don't have an appointment. Would you mind just like, "is there anybody you can tell me I can talk to"? And she's like, "we're rather busy right now. Would you mind coming back another time"? And I said, "well, if you don't mind, can I wait"? So I sat there in the national theaters lobby. And I watched every single person go in and out and I read every pamphlet they had and I kind of looked in, and I checked in with her.
It was a no-no. And then at the end of the day, she's like packing up a person she's getting ready to go. And she's like, "sorry, we couldn't help you. You have to leave now". And I was like, my dream of working at the national theatre is gone. But then, I went back then stayed. And the day after that, and the day after that, and I sat in the lobby of the national theatre for eight straight days until what I call my Hanukkah miracle.
She said to me, "I, by the way, I like learning who's who, right"? I'm asking her like, "who's that walk by"? "Oh, that Sir Peter Hall. Oh, that's Sir Allan Acorn". That I was watching these legends walk by me and I'm asking about them. So finally she finds someone for me and meet with. And It's this guy who runs one of their stages, and needs someone to help him.
I don't know what, and we go through these big double doors. I've been, like staring at these double doors for eight days. Felt like weeks to go through and finally meet with someone who's on the other side when he sits down with me. And he's like, "so, why are you here? What have you been sitting in this theatre for so long"?
First of all, I tell everybody I tell this story to please don't do this in 2021. You will end up in jail. So anyway, he needed someone who knew mechanical drafting and new theatre, and he hired me on the spot. It was like this creative moment that I've no idea where this impetus came from. I have no idea how I knew what to put in my backpack to show him. I just trusted that there, I had a belief. I was going to work at the national, and there was nothing that could stop me. And I think that is a balance of masculine, feminine energy. But if you would ask me at the time, I would have no clue.
Emily: Absolutely like you followed a feeling, you followed an intuition, and then you took a line action. So that is, it's the feminine receiving of inspiration, the feminine feeling, and then switching into the masculine and being like, okay, I'm going to do something about this.
Susanne: Exactly.
Emily: So I'm curious, and I love that story by the way, like how incredible the tenacity and the synchronicity is of all of that. And it's just funny to look back at like former versions of ourselves and be like, damn, she was brave. Awesome, I love that she did that. So I'm curious, like rewinding a little bit. It sounds to me like the influence that your parents had and their desire for you to go into engineering and everything like really what was happening underneath that was a limited kind of money mindset, right?
This is how you get a good job. And so since I'm all about talking about money mindset and limiting beliefs on here, I'm just curious, like, did you adopt that as well? Did you think I need to make a good living and I do that by getting this degree and getting a safe job, or it sounds like maybe you were like. Okay. I'm gonna check that box, but then I'm not really also gonna do my own thing.
Susanne: You know, it's really funny. I don't know how I got to be this way. Cause I definitely grew up in a household where, you know, we discussed money in the sense that like, no, you can't have that. We don't have the money. I grew up very middle class, like almost on the upper end of middle-class. But I did not adopt that.
And I don't know why for me, I was born into this lifetime knowing that money will always come.
I don't know why or where there's a funny story about money. I had a time in my life where I had $153 in my bank account, I had decided to leave the film business after I'd produced movies for Disney and I was getting into this brand new world called the.com world. It was originally done on CD ROMs. There were like, five people working in this whole industry. And I had so little money in my bank account that I didn't know how I was gonna pay rent the next month, but I landed a contract with a company that was building the first interactive television network. So you liked your set box top box today.
They didn't link to this back then. This was 1993. And so before the web came out and this guy who was supposed to be designing this big system with Silicon graphics for this project for time, Warner had decided to follow the world cup soccer tournament around the world. So here I am, I have been hired to write the tutorials for how the system works. And I know that my contract says I don't get paid until I make a deliverable and I have 153 bucks in my account and he's travelling the world. So the thing I'm supposed to write about has not been designed because he's out doing something. And so there was a lot of necessity right there. And so I opened my computer and in Microsoft Word, I used the drawing program to design how the system works. And then I wrote a tutorial about it. And then I went in the next day and I handed them my writing. And they're like, what is this? And I said, "well, I wrote the tutorial and they're like, the system's not designed". And I said, "well, I need to get paid. So I designed the system and wrote about it". And they were so angry with me, like, so freaking angry with me. And I was like, I don't care. I wrote something I need to get paid. Please pay me. And they paid me, but they kind of put me for load. They're like, we're mad at you, the owner of the company, was supposed to do this and you're doing it and who are you?
Emily: The audacity of this check.
Susanne: Exactly. And then I got a call like four days later. From the lead of this project saying, "Silicon graphics loves what you designed. Can you move up to the bay area for a few months and work with them to build it". I was like, what just happened? So I have this manifestation power that I've tapped into that. I've no idea how I got it, but I now teach it because there's this thing about belief and knowing that proceeds any kind of manifestation and I've proven it over and over and over again in my life.
That if you don't believe in, no, you can't have the right thoughts, the right feelings and take the right actions to manifest the thing that you desire. So manifestation for me is a very active process. It's not leaning back hoping and praying and meditating and journaling that something magical would happen like that to me is postulating, but manifestation is an active process. And all I can tell you is that I have always figured out a way. To manifest what I need.
Emily: That is so cool. And I'm curious because here's the conclusion that I've come to, and I'd love to know if you agree with this, or if you have any edits on it that it's really not masculine versus feminine. It's about the sequence. And I believe that the sequence that works out the best for us is to start in the feminine and then flip to the masculine. And then we flip back to the feminine again. So it's like you're in the feminine. So you get that belief that knowing that feeling, you get that intuitive hit of like I'm supposed to do something with this, or this feels really good. Or I feel like this is going to happen, but, where sometimes people get stuck as then they stay in the feminine. Okay. I'm just going to trust that this is going to happen. But when we flip into the masculine and we take some aligned action based on that intuitive feeling, and then we can flip back into the feminine to receive the actual physical manifestation of it, the money, the accolades, or what have you. Does that jive with your understanding of the recipe?
Susanne: So for me, I have this word I use called "beliefment". It's like belief and alignment together. B E L I E F MENT, "beliefment". And for me, this is a dance. It's a masculine, feminine energy dance. So belief and trust and knowing our feminine thoughts, generally our masculine, feelings, our feminine energy. And actions are masculine energy.
So there's this dance between the two. That for me, is what I call the art of manifestation. You create the art of manifestation. You can't just start with thinking it. You have to believe it first, because otherwise you doubt your thoughts underneath it. You might on the outside say all the right things, but your inner knowing is doubting. And when your inner knowing is doubting, you can't make it happen. So, yes, the answer for me is I agree with you completely. And the question is how do people understand and learn this dance? Because it's like any kind of choreography you need to learn the steps.
Emily: Absolutely. I love the idea of it being a dance because it's true. It's not so rigid. It's not like step one, be in your feminine step to be in your masculine and step three, back to the feminine. There is this stance, this flipping back and forth that happens all the time. And while I do think that there can be some masculine structure and strategy around like learning it.
What I see often, like with my clients, is that it's so much more about getting in touch with your feminine essence, because it all boils down to how we're feeling inside of our body. Right? So it's like you and I could both be scripting out an affirmation or scripting out a future version of ourselves that we're trying to manifest.
But for one of us that actually, if we really truly check in, it feels a little yuck. There's like a part of us. That's like, uh, but I don't think so this doesn't feel like it's going to happen. And so actually the vibrational signature of that action is more doubt, more questioning. It actually strengthens the limiting belief that we already have.
And, and maybe for you, you're doing the scripting and you're feeling so lit up by it. Your body, just get, you're getting goosebumps. It's like, holy smokes. This is it. This is it. This is it. Oh my God. I can't wait for this to come into my life. And so it's like when we can tune in and just, you know, really truly know, does this feel good? Does this feel like it's moving me closer to that reality? Or does it feel a little yuck? And if it feels a little yuck, then stop doing it, doing nothing is better than doing that thing.
Susanne: So I love a concept that I teach called true north.
Emily: Okay.
Susanne: So the idea of your true north is to really know that aligned path for yourself, the things that cause you to have a regenerating battery in your heart. Because the things you're doing are constantly exciting, like, think of the Eveready battery going and going and going, I think it's eveready. It might be Duracell, who knows, but the idea is that you have this battery in your heart, that's going and going and going. And it happens when you were working along the roadmap of your true north.
But if you can identify your true north and I mean, really identify it, then you can. You start to live that and build a roadmap around it. So for me, the feminine part of that, if we're talking about energy, again, is allowing yourself to believe that your true north is your true north. As we sometimes think, in order for me to make the living I want, I better go in this direction. That's what the true north is. I mean, I've been following my true north, my whole life. And I've, I don't know if you know this about me, but I literally upgrade myself like software. So I'm version, Susanne version 16 dot four right now. And I up version myself because I want to remember where I've been. And I want to remember what I did to get to where I want it to go. And the way I up-level myself is by using what I called. Themes and themes is spelled T H E parentheses, M E it's like the me and what I do. And I'll just show you one, because it's fun. This is the theme of the month for my theme of the month club, the choices mine. And when you live that theme for 30 days, you can actually change your inner workings.
So if you create themes around your true north, the thing that is literally the north star that you're heading for this regenerating battery happens in your heart and you just are keeping excited at a high level all the time. It doesn't mean you're not human and don't have moments that you feel yucky. It's that you learn to walk with two emotions at the same time with the ambivalence of knowing, like something's hard and exciting at the same time. So for me, that's what it takes.
Emily: So I'm someone who would have very much struggled with identifying her true north. I'm an Enneagram three. And if you're familiar with that before. So we figured it out. What everyone else's true north is like, what will please them? And we nail it. And then it's like, not until a little later in life that we're like, wait, hang on.
I did all of these things, but I don't feel that great about it. What do I actually want? And so of course, I tend to attract clients that are similar in the sense that these are women that do not have an intimate relationship with their true, true, true desires.
So I'm curious, do you have some methods for helping women tap into that true north or just their true desires that are there? Just because not for anyone else. Not because it's going to even change the planet for the better, but like, just because, because, because, because I desire it.
Susanne: I read a book.
Emily: Of course you did.
Susanne: Based on some of my methodology called Terry Paintbrush, how to be the artistic director of your own career. And there's this whole section that is about finding your, what I call in this particular book, your personal career brand. But I have actually taken that and built a program called true north. And it is online. And this program is about identifying the purpose of your life. The why, the passion, the interest, the skills, what you want to get out of your work, what your special sauce is that you have to add to it. We have all of these ingredients that we pour in and out of that.
We come up with what I call it, doing this and doing this is this sweet spot where your passion, your interests and your skills literally come together and create that regenerating battery. And when you're living in your sweet spot. Life is extraordinary. Now what happens to most of us over a lifetime is that our passions get even stronger. They hone in, we might have five passions when we're younger, but then as we get older, we get really clear about the one that really lights us up, but our interests expand.
So my passion has always been to help people become a force for good in the world. And I have done it in professional theatre. I've done it in movie-making in London. Did a movie making in Hollywood. I've done it in the.com industry. I've done it in the social entrepreneurship world where I taught at Harvard. I've done it in diversity, equity and inclusion. I've done it in healthcare. Absolutely the place I go. For me, the passion would be my interests expand. And this to me, and then your skills grow as you mature. And as you get better at what you do, your skills grow, you can offer more tactical things that people go, oh, I want a piece of that.
Emily: That is so cool. Is there anything you haven't done?
Susanne: Yes. And I tend to not talk about those things. You know, it's funny. I used to be called in my consulting business and a mini accenture. And that sounds really big headed to me because Accenture is one of those big consulting firms, but I have a lot of experience across a lot of situations. And so, and I luckily have a little bit of a file cabinet for brain. So if you bring something up to me, I can pull out an experience I had that was similar to that. Or I can see the common thread. So it's living at 30,000 foot to you and kind of understanding how things work together. I'll give you an example this week in the news. I do a show every week in my group Dare Human.
On Facebook called ITK in the note. And I literally summarised that week's news and I listened to the news from every news outlet. I'm a news junkie, I'm a politics junkie. And I come live once a week to kind of talk to people about specific things that are going on, but also themes. And the theme this past week was about men behaving badly. And about empowering women to take on more because if you look across the news and what's been happening from Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, getting divorced. To Matt Gates, the Republican Senator, like going off on the joint chiefs of staff about critical race theory. There were so much men behaving badly this past week in the news, but most people might not have seen it that way. So when you sit at that 30,000-foot view, you can really start to understand how things thread together and start to tell stories that way.
Emily: That is so cool. I love it. And having an e-commerce business, having an agency and also playing in the coaching world, I see some similarities in the sense that every industry. Seems to be a bit siloed as far as, like what are considered the gold standards and the way that that industry thinks and operates. And there's so much cross-pollination that can happen where it's like, you can take something really, really cool that like the real estate agency or real estate industry is doing and apply it to online marketing or apply it to the coaching world or whatever. And those tend to seem like revolutionary ideas. But it's like, as you said, can you be the person that can see the common thread and that can zoom out and make those connections.
Susanne: Exactly.
Emily: So I'd love to talk about money and some specifics and just like what that journey has looked like for you?
Susanne: Wow! That's such a good question. So I think of money, a couple of different ways. I think of money as my income, the revenue I generate. Versus money that I manifest out of nowhere versus investments that I have. I've been very fortunate that I've made really good money in my life. And I've socked away a lot of money. So I feel very grateful to be in this position now because it allowed me to hire my mentor, to grab hold of someone who was vibrating and calibrating at the level that I wanted to be at in this online world when I decided to bring my business online.
Emily: And let's just pause on that for a second. Cause you and I have the same mentor Melanie Anne Layer. I'm in the hyper mine, which is a, her mastermind and that's a $120,000 a year investment, which felt crazy, scary, and big to me to commit to you. You do one-on-one private coaching with her? What kind of investment commitment was that when you signed up with her?
Susanne: So when I first signed up with her, it was $7,777 a month. And I paid that for three months, but by the time my three months was over and I want us to continue. It was $10,000 a month. So my private coaching investment is the same as your hyper mine investment, but her private coaching prices are now 20,000 a month.
Now the truth of the matter is though I hired her before I had a group online before I had ever coached a single thing before I'd ever done a Facebook live. What I did is I spent six months researching who I wanted to coach with. I knew that this is something I wanted to do. I saw so many coaches that operated from a place that did not resonate with me. And it was so beautiful because I could go, not that one, not that one, not that one. Oh, that's the one. And it felt like I just locked in and I was in her alpha femme experience container for about three and a half months. And then for my birthday, I gave myself the present of doing three months with her.
I had done an intensive before that, so I was kind of like all in right away. And when I knew. I'm a really amazing coach. And I knew nothing about the online space, but there was a reason I wanted to go online. And that reason is that I have this huge urge and this huge desire to change the world. To make it better.
When I see problems I want to dive in and solve them. So the reason I wrote this book is because there was a jobs crisis after the whole real estate crash in 2008 and nine. And then what happened afterwards? And so many people had been saying to me forever, how do you keep reinventing yourself? How do you do it? And I would coach people. My first coaching was career coaching or kids coming out of college coaching. And so I would go off and I'd say, "I'm going to write a book", which means I'm going to shut down all my clients for a period of time. So I can write this book and get it out. And then the jobs crisis was so bad. I decided to tour the country and give speeches to help people figure out how to get back into the job market.
But what happens is every time I do one of these crazy projects, I have to restart my business. And I was in the midst of a big, crazy project, a big, crazy project. When I decided that it was time for me to restart my coaching business. And that's when I started doing the six months of research to figure out who I was going to go in. So my money situation is that I make a ton of money. And then I do these crazy projects where I don't make it to time. And then I realized my income, my revenue bank account is on its way down. I need to kick start something again. So I have had a path of up and down with money-making my whole life and the difference between perhaps me and a lot of people is I'm super comfortable with it.
Emily: That's so interesting. And like what a guess, right? When we can thank our money. Thank you money that I can decide that I want to be a coach online.
And I don't have to make my decision based on what's in my bank account. It seems like the best of the best.
Susanne: And for me, it was more about, we want to be honest here. It was about my ego because I'm walking out of corporate boardrooms, charging them X amount of money coming into the online world, wanting to offer that and going. No one's buying. What the heck do I need to do differently? Right?
Emily: What's happening here? Okay. So when you said that you have these periods of like, you make a lot of money, then you can do a passion project where maybe it's no money or a little money and then ramp back up. What's a lot of money?
Susanne: It depends on the year. You know, I would say my highest amount of money I've ever brought in in a year is about $750,000. And that to me is a shit ton of money.
Emily: That's amazing.
Susanne: But I would say that depending on what I was doing my quarter amount. For me money hasn't been the big driver. Money is something that allows me to do the things I desire to do to make the world better.
Emily: Yes.
Susanne: And I love it and we have a great relationship and it just seems to pop out of nowhere. Melanie calls me an instant money manifester, which I'm still trying to figure out because sometimes it just, like plops in and sometimes there's none to be found. Then I get in my head and my ego gets involved and I like, wait yesterday, I just manifested money out of nowhere. And then today, well, I know it was nobody buying, right? We're all human.
Emily: Right.
Susanne: And for me, money is an expression of our passion that allows us to pursue things that matter.
Emily: So, what would you say? Cause that's one of them. What are some of the other beliefs that you have around money that you feel like have been really helpful and supportive for you?
Susanne: So my grandfather grew up in Slovakia. And he was the fourth of nine children and they didn't have enough money to feed him during the Russian revolution time. And so he was basically kicked out of the house because they didn't have enough money to feed the kids. And he was the most entrepreneurial of them.
So before his older brothers, he got kicked out of the house at the age of 12 and he went and lived on and the Czech Republic before they, they used to be one country and he lived with a family. And for the first year of work, they were in the textile business for the first year. He slept on a pile of hay underneath the kitchen sink and for his payment for his whole first year, it was a pair of shoes.
His second year was a pair of pants, right? So third year he managed to actually negotiate that he could live somewhere outside of the kitchen sink. My grandfather came to this country. It's a long and unbelievably beautiful story that I created a documentary about because his life was amazing. By the time he moved here in 1929, which was the year of the great depression. He decided that the little bits of money that he was able to make, he was going to invest in the stock market and he made money. This is a guy who came from nothing who died with a couple million dollars. I mean, that's a big deal. And when I was growing up, my grandfather never gave us gifts. He always gave us stock. And when your kid, and you're six years old and you're seven years old and your grandpa gives you a piece of stock and you're like, what the hell is that? And why do I have it?
It baked into me this understanding that we can master money in a way that we perhaps haven't seen before. And I also know very clearly how fortunate I am to come from where I came from. If you haven't come from the kind of background I came from, where education is the most important thing, and your parents will bend over backwards to make sure that you can get the education that's going to help you fly. I know that that is such a privilege. I'm very clear. I have no college debt. I had grad school debt, but I had no college debt.
Having that background and having someone who God forbid, something happened to me. Had my back changed everything. I know that compared to most people, I don't have one step ahead. I have a hundred steps ahead. Just knowing they have my back. However, when you grow up like that, you also, if you're like me. Become incredibly determined to never have to take money from them. And it becomes this desire to do it on your own. And this actually interferes with money because this idea of closing money channels.
Emily: Of closing money channels.
Susanne: I'm closing money channels. And I would say that the big work for me was reopening my money manifestation channels from all kinds of places. That affects my business. They're not, like random. I'm not even talking stuff like your stock just went up by 300%. I'm talking, literally cuts money that comes into your business. I got back from, I live, by coastally between Boston and Los Angeles. I was in Boston in the spring and I came back to Los Angeles at the beginning of June. And there were a bunch of checks. Sitting here from my mail. And I had no remembrance that they needed to come in, no clue they were coming in and I opened up my mail about a week later. I'm like, oh my God. And this only started happening for me once I reopened my money channels of, I don't need to do it alone because alone means the universe isn't involved. So that was a big move for me.
Emily: I love that. You said that because, this idea of going it alone, I mean, it really is masculine energy and receiving as feminine energy. And also for me, when I learned that money came from source, through other people, but not from those people. It totally blew my mind because, you know, you created a story in your head about why you didn't want money from those family members. Right? Whatever it was. I want to earn it. I want to prove that I'm worthy of it. I want to show that I can do it without my family background, whatever it was. The fundamental flawed concept there is that the money's coming from those people. And when we can really understand and believe that it's coming from source, it's coming from God, it's in co-creation and it can flow through so many channels. And some of those channels may be family. It really recontextualizes our relationship with that money in the channels it flows through.
Susanne: Exactly. And I think the thing that people get hung up on and I can speak for myself because 20 years ago, I was exactly like this. It didn't understand that money was energy. I didn't understand that money came from a source. I didn't understand that my manifestation of money that I'd had my whole life that I cut off at a certain point, was because of my ego. Wanting to have control of the situation and have proof that I'm good enough. And as soon as I let that go and I stopped attaching meaning through where the money was coming from. What if I am just not good enough for us? What if the checks that came that I had forgotten about that they're just happening. What if someone decides, like, I rent my place in a leg? And I moved here and it was furnished. And then my landlord had the ugliest couch in the world and he tried to buy me a new couch and it was so horrible that I made him return it.
Fine, you go out and pick out a couch. So I went to west town and I picked out a $5,000 couch, which is the most gorgeous, glorious thing in the world. And I said, "here's the cash I want. Is this okay with you"? And he's like, sure. So we went from a $700 couch to a $5,000 couch. Because I knew what I wanted. I knew what was gonna make me feel comfortable here.
And I was not afraid to say I would like to manifest a $5,000 couch right now, to make my home look beautiful and be in reception of that. Now I don't count that as business money, but it sure is manifesting something beautiful.
Emily: And, you know, I love that example. And I also, I want to circle back to you the comments that you made around privilege, because this is something so important.
And I think, you know, for many of us it's come into our awareness and, much more deeper and profound ways in the last few years with the black lives matter movement and it needed to. Thank God. You know, those of us that have the privilege are waking up to it and seeing it and acknowledging it in ways that maybe we didn't before. And also what I've seen is that for some people. They almost weaponized that against themselves, like I'm privileged. And so I almost want to really show everyone how hard I'm working, really show people how much I'm working for this.
So that, like almost to counteract the privilege and the sense that I get from you that I just love is acknowledging the privilege. Being grateful for it, understanding that not everyone has it. And instead of saying like, gee, I'm starting this marathon at mile 10, some people it's like, they almost decide to, like run backwards because they're so embarrassed about starting at mile 10 and it's like. With you, I get the sense of like, okay, how do I use this to amplify my impact? What a gift to start at mile 10? How can I use this to help more people?
Susanne: Well, thank you for saying that. So I ran a, I was CEO of a diversity equity inclusion company for a while. And my personal activism is an I, you know, I teach people how to be an activist and an advocate in their own lives. My personal advocacy is around what lives matter, social justice issues and It always has been. It's a big deal for me. And I have the great honor of running this company for this very well-known woman who is one of the top speakers in the topic. And when George Floyd was killed last May, having been in that world for quite some time, I called together a bunch of my colleagues. And we did a series of things on Facebook panel discussion about race and privilege.
And it was such a great honor because in the coaching world at the time, there was such a lack of privilege. And I still think there is quite frankly, I actually developed a program. I teach called the girlfriend's guide to unpacking white privilege because, they're not just in the coaching world, but in the world in general.
A lot of white people who talked to me had never heard or noticed that they had any privilege whatsoever based on the way that they had lived their lives and how sheltered they were from that experience. And so it's been a joy for me to see people starting to wake up. I want the work to be deeper. I want people to go deeper, but for me, learning to use my privilege for good is the reason I was given my privilege. And so the more I can use my privilege to elevate and amplify and help other people discover who they really are and understand where they really come from and what they have and what they don't have, and not denigrate themselves for being at mile 10 when they start. But having them be at mile 10 and reaching back and pulling other people forward.
Emily: Yes.
Susanne: Is what this is all about. So that thing that we did on race privileges has like 16,000 views on Facebook. It's insane. So many people wanted to engage in that conversation. Because it needs to be had. We can't talk about money without talking about privilege, we can't talk about money without talking about systemic racism. We can't talk about money without talking about the history of policing in this country. They're just too intertwined for us not to be talking about them.
Emily: Absolutely. I love that. And it adds so many dimensions to the conversation and it adds so many voices too. Right? And it's like, we need that. And it's okay to say like, man, I grew up so poor and it was so hard and money felt really difficult. And the color of my skin didn't make that more difficult. Right? That does not diminish, but struggles that someone personally experienced. It's just an acknowledgement that with a different skin color in the United States, it's even more difficult.
Susanne: I think the thing is I remember a time when we used to put on a conference, it was called the Vernay Myers company. We used an opponent's conference every year called focus. And we brought together leaders in business and the law to really talk about privilege. And this is the thing is we had a whole section called understanding white privilege. And there were people who were offended that we have those words.
This was back then10 years ago, and had those words in our agenda. And like, you can't use those words. I'm like, why not? Well, their offensive. Said, who? Well to me for one, cause I'm white and I don't have any privilege. And the thing is if, to try to get, especially a man, but women too, to try to get people to understand that they have privilege, they have to be able to detach from the fact that it's not personal.
Emily: That's right.
Susanne: Because when you take it personally, you're like, wait, I worked really hard for everything I have. Well, I'm not taking that away from you. Well, you are because you're telling that privilege. Well, I am telling you, you have privilege. And they worked hard. It's a both, right? So anyway, I could go very deep on this topic, but I'll leave it there.
Emily: I know. I was thinking that too. I'm like, man, we could just riff on this all day and it has been like such a joyful discussion and I feel like we've covered so much ground and it's been super fun and we're getting together in person tomorrow and we're celebrating an exciting milestone in your business. Would you like to share that?
Emily: Sure. So my business started a year ago, June 2020 under very challenging circumstances. I had all of this plan to come out of the gate at the beginning of 2020, just ready to go. I hired my mentor. I hired Godin's experience. And then on January 20th, 20 days after I'd paid for ASC, my mom got sick. And a few days later, my dad did. And I got on a red eyes and Los Angeles and headed back to Boston. And basically then while I was there helping them. COVID hit. And so in the midst of me having all of this energy and done all this research to find the right mentor and paying the money and not having a brand, I decided because I created a theme for myself back to themes.
My theme for 2020 was to play a bigger game. And I decided that even though I was living at my folks house. That playing a bigger game meant I was going to do both things at once. I was going to be an amazing daughter. I was going to live through the challenges of moving back in with your folks at 56. And if it wasn't for Melanie, I don't know how well I would have navigated that she had my back every step of the way.
It was the most difficult thing I've done. And the most glorious thing I've done. My relationship with my folks now is better than it's ever been before. But it was a freaking hard place to start a business in there. My old bedroom in their home. So launching in June of 2020, it felt impossible, but I had to do it. And so now a year later, after another six months of helping my folks and now they're both doing great. I finally have hit a milestone that really makes me feel significant in this industry, which is that I'm about to have my first 40k month. It's going to happen tomorrow. And after breaking the 10 K month, thank you. After breaking the 10 K month, which was a big deal, I'm used to making multi six figure businesses. Right?
So to start from scratch, to know that no one knew who, I had zero social media presence. This is what Melanie says to me all the time. "Susanne, you started with nothing" I had cousins and friends and some high school people on my Facebook and to go from that to actually having a 40 K a month is just like, mind freaking blowing. I've been saying all week, my brain feels soft cause I have no idea how I did it.
Emily: Well, and as Melanie says, you'll wonder how to do it until you wonder how you did it.
Susanne: Exactly. And that's exactly how I am now. I'm unpacking what I did because I do like patterns. And I do like to figure out what it is that I did. And so I'm going to be teaching some programs about that because there's some things that I just wasn't taught. I'm a very practical and tactical coach and mentor. So if we need to open up zoom together and we need to actually build out a proforma, let's do it. Right? I don't have a problem consulting to my clients because I want their acceleration to happen as fast as possible.
So, it's a big deal for me. And I'm going out with my three best girlfriends tonight, tomorrow night for dinner to celebrate. And I just, I feel so gloriously lucky.
Emily: That's incredible. Thank you for sharing so that we can celebrate with you. And I think it's a good reminder, like the numbers are numbers, right? And it's just about the meaning that we give them. And so some people in your shoes might say, gosh, I'm only at 40 K a month and I've done 750,000 in a year before. But if I multiply 40 K, which is my highest, and I don't even know if I can do that again. And I multiply it by 12, then I'm still not even quite at half a million. And it's like, what a crappy feeling story. And instead, the story you're telling yourself is like, look at how incredible this is. I had zero online presence a year ago. I was in my bedroom growing up. Dealing with trying to hold this new identity as an online entrepreneur.
Well, being, having every anchor around me of this old identity from childhood and growing up and all of that and like, wow! and I did it, I did it even with those difficult circumstances and I'm at 40 K a month and it's incredible. And I'm gonna celebrate the hack out of it. And I'm going to allow other people in for the celebration as well. I just love that because it's, again, it's an example of letting instead of wounding ourselves with the number.
Which we can easily do. How about we celebrate them? How about we create a fun story around it? How about we use it as the evidence that we can do it and that more will come.
Susanne: And I've been spending some good conversation time with myself about not worrying whether or not I can repeat it or not. Because if I worry about not repeating it or not, they won't repeat it.
Emily: Happened at every level it's like, you know, I'm inside the hyper mine and there are women hitting 175 K going, oh my God, what if I can't do it again? The first time you hit 10 K you go, oh, what if I can't do it again? So it's like, the fear is going to be there. The ego will have a say about it, but it's like, can we see that and say, "that's cute". I remember that thought creeping in at 10 K and here I am at 40 K. And you know what, if I can't repeat it. So be it at least I did at one. Amazing.
Susanne: Exactly and you know, for me and a lot of the women who are in my world and in my container are women of a certain age, right? So I think what's different about me is one, I have just tons of experience, but I've been doing this for a long time. And people resonate with being a woman of a similar age and they come into my world. It's not that I don't have younger women, it's that I mostly have women of a certain age. And I think what it shows them is like, you can start over at any age and you can be successful. And to me that's the most important thing, but I'm not the kind of girl who's gonna leg. Feel my house with luxury goods. And that's just not who I am like. I'm probably gonna, the thing I've been looking about doing is donating 40,000 meals to feeding America, because to me that's a celebration. And whether I tell people that it doesn't really matter what matters is my relationship to the universe.
And knowing that I care so much, my big decision right now is whether I'm gonna do it at the LA food bank, at the Boston food bank or at my friend's company called No Kid Hungry. Or if I'm going to do, an feeding America, like that's my big decision right now, as opposed to, how do I celebrate?
Emily: I love that. Well, thank you so much for this conversation today. And I feel like everyone listening is gonna be scrambling to want to follow along with your journey. So where are your favorite places to connect with people?
Susanne: So my absolute favorite place to connect with people is in my group, which is called "DareHuman" on Facebook. So you just go into the search bar and type "DareHuman" one word, and you can find us, you just fill out the little form and you can come on, in and play with us. I do a lot of free content, in there every single week, because I believe that people at all levels of income should have access to content that makes sense.
Be able to be a better person. So I do stuff every single week. I host a thing called, a DareHuman dialogues, where I bring people from all over the world who are serving in a certain way. So I've had ambassadors, I've had a general from the US army. I've had people who serve on nonprofit boards. I have all kinds of people come in and they talk about how they're being a force for good in the world. And it's so inspiring. I just love it. I'm so grateful. I get to do it. I do a show called ITK. I think I mentioned that and there's lots of free stuff in there. So that's one way, another way is on Instagram. It's at follow Susanne. Which is FOLLOW S U S A N N E. Follow Susanne. I'm kind of there everywhere, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etcetera.
Emily: And we'll throw those links in the show notes to you.
Susanne: Perfect, so those are the best ways. And I would love to have people come, especially if they're looking for a way to give back in their life. And they don't exactly know how.
Emily: Beautiful, I love that invitation. awesome. Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited to celebrate with you in person tomorrow.
Susanne: Thank you so much for this and inviting me to do this. And it's really just a beautiful conversation.
Emily: You're welcome.
Thank you so much for listening to today's show. Changing the way we think, feel and talk about money will change the world. I truly believe that it starts with you tuning in and it spreads when you share this show on Instagram and Facebook and tag me at Em Makes Money and you know, what moves the needle the most.
Taking just a minute to leave a five-star review on iTunes. This show isn't free to produce. So let's multiply those dollars invested to help this show reach a bigger audience each week. So thank you for your help. I really appreciate it until next time. I'm wishing you health, happiness, and boatloads of money.
