Episode 73: September Celebrations & Stretches

I just love that it feels effortless enough to me that it's so easy for me to say like, "Yes, I'll do it," and I'm so grateful that I have enough time freedom that it doesn't feel stressful because it's not hard for me to connect in with the version of me not too many years ago that just did not have time for extras and ancillary things.

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Hello and welcome to the EM Makes Money Show.  I am here to record the September recap, and I know it's been a doozy because, I had to scroll back away to even find the note in my phone, which tells me that I have not been updating it. And be reading through the things that I did put onto this note in terms of celebrations and stretches for September, like they almost feel foreign to me. I don't understand how these things happened within 30 days of now. But whew! my schedule has been two full, which I will get to in the stretches, but that has led to apparently some amnesia.

So anyhow, we will jump in. I will share some celebrations. I'll bop on over to the stretches, share some more celebrations, and as always, Share the numbers and the businesses. Okay, so let's start off the top with what was great in September, I will say it felt like a month of just almost rebirth and renewal. It kind of had a new year energy, which one of my clients. Said, you know, for mom, September is like the new year and it's so true because finally our kids are back in school and we're getting back into a new routine and we had a new moon in Virgo, kind of like right at the end of August, beginning of September. And it was very much like brought in the energy of just structure and schedule and I was so here for it and I really felt inspired for the first time in months to launch something that wasn't already prep.

And so what came through was a popup mastermind that would go September through the end of the year. It's called Emerge, and I want to celebrate that. The launch of that was so, so good. I just had the most delicious soulmate. Clients saying like, "Oh yeah, I want in. Count me in. Here you go. Take my money. Yep. Want a VIP spot?" And it's been just a fun container to be in, to hold, to witness these women. I love the questions that they're asking and you know when you launch something that's group, it brings up all kinds of anxiety cuz it's like, oh God, what if only one person signs up? Or what if only two people sign up and then they can see that I've been launching it and selling it, and they probably thought it was gonna be a bigger group, and then it's only two. And so if you want to really hone in on your belief and your personal power, I highly encourage you to sell Masterminds. And group programs because it really brings all of that stuff to the surface. So, although some of that stuff came to the surface, I have to say it was an absolutely amazing launch and it basically sold out with relatively, you know, easy breezy promotion and pretty quickly as well. So, super happy to report that it's just right on top. Probably getting to the one of the juiciest things in the month.

I'm laughing at the version of me that wrote this, but I wrote on my celebrations that I'm crushing the team mom thing for sports. And I have to agree with that somehow I kind of ended up as the team mom for both Fay's softball team and her soccer team. And the duties are not that difficult, honestly. Kind of like setting up, uh, snack schedules and helping to communicate, collecting money for things, planning a team end of season party. But I just love that it feels effortless enough to me that it's so easy for me to say like, "Yes, I'll do it."  And I'm so grateful that I have enough time freedom that it doesn't feel stressful because it's not hard for me to connect in with the version of me not too many years ago that just did not have time for extras and ancillary things.

I remember even just getting emails from like the room mom in preschool. You know about this, that or the other, and feeling like, "Ugh, I don't have time for this." Like this is another to do. And here I am, the team mom for multiple sports teams, and it's fine, and it's easy, and I'm glad to do it, and I feel so happy that I can help and support. So it's just one of those tangible reminders. About how intentionally I've cultivated my life and how important it is to me that, you know, my role in motherhood and the way that I participate in my kids' activities feels really important and that it is a priority. One of the other things in September that I'm celebrating is that we really thrived during a wild heat wave.

If you don't live in Southern California, this might come as a surprise, but the area that I live in, in Southern California, it's called the South Bay, the beach Cities. Most homes don't have air conditioning because. The weather is so temperate that you don't really need it. And so we used to always say that there was one weekend a year where we wished we had AC and didn't. And I think that's mostly been true, but obviously with climate change, like you know, the weather patterns have shifted and we really had a prolonged like a week plus long heat wave where it was in the high nineties with no breeze and no air conditioning. And I feel like as a family we handled it so well. Not only did we spend a lot of time in our pool, but we also got creative with activities that we could do where there was air conditioning, like going to the movies, going to the mall, going to Chucky cheese, like any place with air conditioning to cool down and just having an attitude of adventure about the whole thing.

Now, I will say that after like 10 days, we did break down and buy a portable air conditioning unit that we have in our bedroom, and I feel that that will serve us well for any future heat waves. But more importantly was just our attitude and the way that we were able to look at it through the lens of adventure instead of playing the victim card or just complaining about the weather. 

Okay, so I'm gonna jump down to some stretches and you will get a sense of this as I jump back to celebrations. But holy smokes. Our schedule felt so freaking full. And this is something that I knew was gonna happen and I did sort of consent to it. And that doesn't mean that I haven't been kicking myself with how full things have been. So it was like I was on retreat in Sedona for a. During that time that I was on retreat, Jeff went to Oregon to visit friends. Then we were home for a week, and during that time, Jeff flew up to Tahoe to go to a concert, and then we both went to a different concert over the weekend. Then we flew to Albuquerque as a family and spent there,  And then now we've been home for one night and tomorrow I leave RA Palm Springs to host my Rise retreat. So clearly the schedule has been so, so, so busy and it's not been the easiest. So not only have there been just logistics from a stretchy perspective, but I also am realizing that like we really did not give ourselves a buffer for life to happen.

And of course life happens, you know, like my almost brand new Mercedes for whatever reason, the battery died and it needed a new battery and that happened like the day before. We were flying to Albuquerque and my mom, who we were supposed to say with my mom and dad, In Albuquerque came down with Covid and so all of a sudden we're having to scramble to figure out different accommodations and you know, I also had to just walk myself through feeling bummed about the trip, not unfolding the way that I thought it was going to, and thinking that we were gonna be staying with family and then having to get an Airbnb and not being sure whether were really gonna see a whole lot of family during that trip. So, you know, what I have noticed is that when our schedule is too full, even though it's fun things and it's things that we've said yes to, what it means is that it's harder for us to eat the way that we wanna eat. It's hard for us to get quality sleep to exercise. We end up feeling more stressed out. We are shorter with the kids. Then we'd like to be, our intimacy goes out the window. We, you know, can't show up as well in work if we want to. It's just being spread thin.

And one of the things I wanna do better about is really thinking about some of those second and third-order consequences before saying yes to fund things that fill up the schedule, but in a way that's too full.So the other stretch that happened in September, Partially, mostly, perhaps because of a full schedule, is being really inconsistent with content creation. So I wasn't able to show up on social media or for my email list and just to post a meaningful thing with the depth and regularity that I desire, and that's the standard for myself.

I also, and this is like jumping back to celebrations, I hired a company that's gonna be doing a lot of the visual content for my social media. I'll still be writing. The message and the captions. And one of the things that I think often happens is like once we invite in support, it's like we just want to hand it off and they're still in the planning phase, so the visual content really won't change yet for like another month plus. But it's like I was noticing the part of myself that felt like. I just wanna start batching my content, and I just wanna have a team that's like helping support me and posting it every day. And so it was like I wanted it the moment that I hired them. And because of that, because it doesn't actually work like that, it meant that I just was more inconsistent than I desire to eat. But I do think hiring them is a celebration because it does feel really nice to know that I'm gonna have a team and have support in that regard so that I'm not waiting for, you know, inspiration and creativity to hit at the same time that I also have open space in my schedule for it. That's always the challenge, and so I really look forward to doing a little bit more batching of content when I am feeling super inspired.

So then that delicious, masculine structure and support can hold me on the days when I'm feeling uninspired or I don't have the time to dedicate to the content creation. So speaking of content, I did have a reel that went viral in September with like almost 10,000 views. So that was really fun. Now it feels like a hundred years since I've even posted a reel.

I also welcomed in some delicious support with copywriting, and that's been fun to play with as well. So if you're sensing a theme here, it is structure and support and really getting more, I don't wanna say serious, with my content creation. I think I've always taken it seriously, but just getting more honest with myself about the cyclicality of my creativity and welcoming in some support so that when I am feeling the cyclicality and I'm not feeling like showing up. There's content that I've already created that still gets to go out so that my audience still gets to feel supported. I also paid in full for a personal stylist who is gonna be helping me with an upcoming photo shoot, and that felt like a total calibration portal into the next level of wealth and a version of me that you know really gets to leverage personal stylists moving forward. Working with a personal stylist has been something that's been on my like-goal slash dream list for quite a while, so I was really excited to pull the trigger on that.

Also, celebrating that I spent almost a week in Sedona on retreat. These retreats are so special to me because they really are a space where I can focus on my spirituality. And my relationship to the divine and quieting my mind and tapping into just that ancient wisdom that lives within me and around me and is always available when I get quiet enough to listen to it.

So I'm really happy that that was something that I prioritized and I really felt an energetic up level and. A full shift in kind of consciousness and vibration within myself. Following that retreat, we also went to the Boogie Bash, which is a special like Halloween themed event at Disneyland. Again, that's something that a year ago, We saw people arriving at Disney for it, and Jeff was like, "What is that? I wanna do that." And my money mindset at the time was like, Ugh, we already spend so much money with Disney. We already buy the passes. We already pay for the parking and the food. Like they're not getting any more of my money. And so it was really fun this year to be like, Yes, of course we're gonna do it. Oh my gosh, the tickets, there's such good value. Like I can just see the growth in. My desire to spend money and circulate it in an aligned way, and I'm just trusting that when we lean into pleasure and desire, that more money is always flowing to us. So as mentioned, we had a trip to Albuquerque, and that's also part of my celebrations because we were there for a variety of reasons.

We did kind of a bucket list hike. That my dad really wanted us to do. He originally was gonna do it with us, but then he decided that he wasn't in good enough shape. It's a pretty strenuous hike. You go up to 10,500 feet. So it took us. I think just shy of five hours to do. But I know that the one time that my dad did it, it took like almost eight hours and so he just was not feeling up to the challenge. But nevertheless, it was something that he really was encouraging us to do and. Albuquerque has what I think is the largest hot air balloon festival in the world called Balloon Fiesta. So we were there during that timing as well. So we got to see a mass ascension of more than 600 hot air balloons all around us, and it was really fun for both the kids and the grownups.

I also got to do an incredible one-on-one client, VIP day with one of my favorite clients, and we went to just a really beautiful luxury resort outside of Albuquerque on indigenous land and really enjoyed great food. We also went on a hot air balloon ride, so it's a first for both of us and really felt like super special and memorable moment, and I don't know if you've ever been in a hot air balloon, but there's really so much perspective shift that happens with being up off the ground, but it's very zen and it just gives you a different perspective on the houses and the land and the topography. And there were just so many analogies and parallels to that hot air balloon ride and the way that we look at our business and our wealth and our lives and our goals and our dreams.

So those VIP days feel so special to me because I'm getting paid and it feels like such a dream come true. And. I really grow and change through them as well. So a shameless plug here that I have a few more spots open for VIP days right now in Southern California. So you can choose between the Ritz Carlton, Los Angeles, the Ritz in Marina Delray, or the Ritz, and we will spend a full day together.

You get overnight accommodation. I line up some beautiful, relaxing, indulgent activities and some delicious food and leave time for us to do a business deep dive. So that's coming up, and then I'm gonna be doing a collaboration with one of my business besties, who is incredible with branding and web design and web building. And we are gonna be opening up one spot for a VIP day in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, which is where she is. That'll be in November around Thanksgiving time. So either right before or right after Thanksgiving, you can expense a business trip to Hawaii. Come hang with us. Refine your messaging, your pricing, your packaging, your branding, your website.

It's gonna be a little bit of like an ahart, choose your own adventure VIP day. So if that sounds exciting to you, you can shoot me a DM to find out more about the investment and claim that spot. Shameless plug over, but the rest of the Albuquerque trip was really beautiful as well. We just had like a nice mix of kids activities and visiting with family and getting work done and doing things with clients.

It really felt like, again, such a physical manifestation of a dream come true, which is having these blurry lines between work and play and business and pleasure, and just allowing a vacation to also be a work trip and allowing a work trip to also be vacation and just making memories as a family. So those are my celebrations for September, and from a numbers perspective, the agency did 112, 239. The coaching business did 18,059. The E-com brand did 10,963 for a grand total of 132,261 dollars. So thank you September for all the fun and all the memories and all the lessons and all the growth.

I would love to hear from you all. What were you celebrating in September? What were any stretches that you went through?

As always, thank you so much for listening. This podcast would not be what it is without your support. I love you. I thank you and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

You guys are the best. Thank you so much for listening today. When you subscribe, review and share this show. It's an important and free way to show your support. I'd also love to stay connected on Instagram. You can follow me at and makes money, and if you're curious about working together, head to emilywilcox.com to explore. Until next time, I'm sending you all the magic money vibes.