BTS of Online Business without the BS
BTS of Online Business without the BS is the podcast for the entrepreneur who wants real tips and strategies to grow a sustainable online business while also getting into the REALITY of being an entrepreneur and juggling everyday life.
If you have passion, drive, and a big vision but you also don't fully buy into the 'you can be overnight success and this shit is #easy', you'll love it here!
We're cutting out the BS, and getting real on the path to building successful, sustainable businesses!
BTS of Online Business without the BS
Redefining Wealth and Freedom with Wendy Verwey
Ever wondered how to achieve financial freedom and retire early? Wendy Verwey, a life and money strategist who retired at 41 is joining me today to share her story of how she did it and how you can too - the realistic way!
For many of us, part of the reason for starting an online business was to achieve that elusive sense of freedom - both in time and money. Wendy is sharing with us some tangible tips and strategies on how you can start to truly feel that today - without a changing a thing - and get yourself closer to your idea of financial freedom and success!
About Wendy:
After divorce and death of family members, Wendy Verwey took control of her money once and for all and was able to retire at 41, as a single mom.
How did she do it? By SIMPLIFYING her life. Wendy used her F.R.E.E. framework to create a life she doesn't need a vacation from.
Now as the host of the FIRE Yourself First podcast and her online courses, she teaches and inspires others to use what they know, have and do to create freedom for themselves!
Links:
www.wendyverwey.com
https://www.instagram.com/iamwendyverwey/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-verwey
https://www.youtube.com/@fiyourselffirst
FIRE Yourself First Podcast at www.wendyverwey.com/podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts
Connect with me here:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamtaraleson/
Website: https://www.taraleson.com
Welcome to the behind the scenes of online business without the BS podcast. If you're a motivated entrepreneur with a dream of building your own sustainable online business, you are in the right place. I'm Tara, the systems expert, and I help online business owners put systems into your business so you can live in your life, not in your business and still make daily sales. I also love to keep it real with what it takes to build an online business. Get ready as we go behind the scenes on this wild ride of entrepreneurship and building successful, real businesses, of entrepreneurship and building successful, real businesses. All right, welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 1:Today, I have with me Wendy Verwey, and Wendy is a life and money strategist and I just think, like your story is so interesting, I absolutely love it. So you were able to retire at 41, which is like mostly unheard of, unless people come into like a lot of money, which is not really what you did. You were just like super good with your money and found out how to actually get to that point. So we're going to talk about that and a bunch of other things in terms of you know, really looking at your finances and how you can, kind of as the listener, structure things and look at this so that you really can have that freedom that I think that we all come into online business looking for. So, wendy, introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi Tara, so good to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so my name is Wendy Verwey and I'm in a small town in Alberta, canada. I did not come from money, I didn't inherit anything, I didn't win the lottery, none of that. I actually didn't know anything about money until my late 30s. So when I say, you know if I can do it, so can you. There's a lot of things that we all have within our own control that we don't realize, that we have control over.
Speaker 2:So I love to talk about all of that stuff. A little bit about my backstory. So I was a corporate employee for many years and you know, kind of live in that life doing all the things you're supposed to do to be a successful human being. Did all the right things, got married, had the kids, had the job, had the house, the dog, all of the things, and then the bottom dropped out completely when I was about 38 and my husband left and then my dad died and then my father-in-law died and then my dog died and it was kind of a full-on country song.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of what my life had become and I was in this state where I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn't want to just wait for more bad stuff to keep happening to me. I wanted to take control of my life and at that point every man that I'd ever loved was gone. Yeah, so I'm like, well, he's not going to save me. You know, Prince Charming's not coming around the corner and going to take care of everything I have to save me. I was a single mom to two little kids and I wanted to. I wanted to give them a good example of, you know, not just what women can do, what moms can do, what people can do. I didn't want them to grow up with the image of just me being angry all the time and frustrated and stressed and all of those things.
Speaker 2:So I started with my money because I thought well, you know, numbers don't really lie. Yeah, I can't lie to myself through numbers. You know, there's not like body dysmorphia when it comes to your budget or your bank accounts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty black and white. It's great, it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Exactly so I thought well, let's, let's start there. Because initially, when my, when my husband left, my initial thought was okay, I'm now a single mother, and just that label or that title felt very, very heavy. So no, I'm now a single mother, and just that label or that title felt very, very heavy.
Speaker 1:So no, I know, you know, Tara but you know it.
Speaker 2:Just it felt like this whole stigma and this new role that I had to live where you know my kids were going to be dirty all the time. We'd live in some like high rise tenement house, like in the musical Annie was kind of what I was getting right.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to take in laundry to pay my bills and stuff like that. That was the image that I had. And when I really started looking at things and one of the things that I tell people all the time is really like figure out what's your very worst case scenario. And that was it for me, right? I was, you know, destitute. My, my kids would be hungry, you know, we would be stuck in this perpetual poverty cycle, all of that. That was kind of my worst nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, once I faced that and understood that, okay, if that happened, I have some plans. I have friends. I could sleep on a couch for a little while. I could, you know, sell some of my things. I could, you know, start a business. I could get a job. I could, you know, do all of these things. And at the time, I mean, I had a good corporate job. I had, you know, support, I built a community around me, all of that kind of stuff. So just accepting what the very worst case scenario was meant I now had an opportunity to improve upon it Exactly. Anything was going to be better than that, yeah, and so that's kind of how I started and I looked at okay, what do I actually want my life to feel like? Because I didn't want it to feel like that. I didn't want to feel stressed, I didn't want to have you know everything, feeling like an overwhelming responsibility.
Speaker 1:I wanted peace.
Speaker 2:I wanted simplicity, I wanted quiet, I wanted to enjoy the moments, and so I really started looking at first of all how I was spending my money, but then I got into how am I spending my time?
Speaker 1:How am I?
Speaker 2:spending my energy. You know what are the things that I have surrounding me that are causing me more stress. Can I just get rid of them? Can I walk away from some of this stuff? And at the time I had an acreage property that I'd shared with my husband and when he left, I stayed there for another year because I didn't feel like I had a choice. I was like, well, this is my house, we're paying the mortgage, this is where my kids are, you know all of that kind of stuff. And it took some friends kind of getting me out, of getting me out of my space first of all, and just saying just go look around, just see what else is available, because I was coming home from work picking up the kids and then having to go cut the grass right, that's a place that I just.
Speaker 2:It no longer served me. I didn't like it anymore. I didn't want to spend my time and energy doing that, when I could have spent time and energy, you know, being with my kids and helping them through this time that they were just long for the ride on Right. So I did kind of a full Marie Kondo of my life tidying everything up, like I packed up only the things that I loved and the things that I used often. I packed only those things and I left.
Speaker 1:And I.
Speaker 2:I found a little duplex property that I was. I was renting and so if something broke the landlord would fix it and I didn't have to pay property taxes and I could walk to work from my new location. So I didn't have to pay for parking and, you know, extra insurance for the car and all of that kind of jazz. My kids could take the school bus and they were like the first pickup, which was great because that counted to me as before school care. So right. So I didn't have to, like pay somebody to watch them so that I could get to my job.
Speaker 2:I had worked everything out so that I could be as present as I wanted to be. I didn't have to come home and take care of a whole bunch of stuff because we didn't have a whole bunch of stuff. We lived down the street from a park. So I told the kids let's go play at the park, like we don't have to cut the grass, we don't have to read the flower beds or anything, we can just go and show up and friends will come. So it was really shifting all of our mindsets into. You know, what do we want life to feel like? Yeah, and how can we do that now, as we're working toward whatever goal it is that we've got going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's so important because I think people get stuck in that you have to do it one way and it has to look one way, and you know, and you don't have other options, but there are always options. You can literally do whatever you want. You can make your life look however you want. Yes, it might take some time to get there, but you don't have to stay stuck in. You know that one place you can change things and it doesn't have to look just this one way. There's so many options available to you and I find it I find it really interesting because I know, like I've gone through this myself and like I've changed so many times what I've done in my life and you know where we're living and different things, and it's because I always keep an open mind of like you know, there's so many possibilities. You, you get to choose what this looks like. Yeah, so like, choose it for you, like you get to do this Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, once I kind of moved to this new place, it freed up so much time. It freed up a lot of money, because I wasn't paying for daycare, I wasn't paying for, you know, all of these other things that I had to in the past. And then I learned how to invest. I got curious about what do I need to know in order to take control of my money?
Speaker 2:Right and started taking some courses and talking to people and I worked with a money coach to just kind of align things so that it was one less thing to worry about. Yeah, you know, and, and the money coach that I worked with, she was fantastic and she, she's. She asked one of her first questions was what are your fears? And so I told her the whole Annie story and after she had a look at my number, she's like that's, that's never going to be you. Yeah, okay, well, okay, what can we do then? Yeah, and I just didn't want to have to stress about it, so we set up systems to make things easy, right, so that I knew where my income was coming from.
Speaker 2:When it was coming, I knew where and when it was going out, I knew exactly what I was spending things on it wasn't just show up at the end of the month and there's no money left and I have no idea what happened. You know I'm a big champion of doing the really boring things to have a sexy life, and that is one of the boring things right Figuring out all this stuff and for me, it started with just tracking my spending so that I could understand.
Speaker 2:you know and I know that you talk about this all the time, tara with you know, data getting, some data together, because then you can make some decisions, you can see where your victory is and you can make a decision.
Speaker 2:And so that's what I did with my money, I learned how to invest, I did all of that kind of stuff and then, you know, once I got kind of to that, that point where I could sleep at night knowing that my bank account was where I needed it to be, all my bills were paid, all of that kind of stuff Then I started looking at, well, what's next? And I kept coming back to I wanted peace, I wanted, you know, just I wanted to be able to close my door and go on an adventure. Whenever, you know, inspiration struck, you know, if it was a nice day, let's just go on a road trip, kind of thing. Right, like, I'm a pretty spontaneous person that way. But I was still working this corporate job and once I kind of got things in line, um started learning about investing to make my money start to work for me so that I didn't work super hard for it, just like you and your systems getting your you know your website to work for you, getting your sales funnels to work for you.
Speaker 2:So you don't have to be present and doing all the things. That's what I did, and I ended up buying a house that has a rental suite and so the rental suite pays for my mortgage and my investments were doing well and all of these things were happening and I realized I don't actually need this corporate job anymore. Yeah, like I was going there just for fun because I liked the people and I liked some of the work that I was doing. But I was going there just for fun, yeah, because I liked the people and I liked some of the work that I was doing. But I was really just waiting for that trigger to okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, look at me the wrong way in a meeting and I'm out. Yeah, yeah, there's so much power in that yeah you know, to be able to show up that way, and I mean, I had a great time and I ended up being part of a mass layoff company, like they were going through a big reorg and lots of people were getting laid off and everybody around me was terrified to lose their job and I was like, oh, pick me please.
Speaker 1:I'm ready, I believe. Yeah, I got this.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of how the and I couldn't have predicted, you know, that all that kind of stuff would happen, especially when I was in you know kind of the depths of the country, um, but yeah it just I knew. I focused on what it was that I wanted. What was that feeling that I wanted? What did I want my life to feel like? What do I want to, um, share with my kids? You know, what kind of life do I want them to have? All of that just kind of was running in the background and then stars sort of aligned to make all that happen. So, yeah, I was retired at 41. You know, probably not your typical definition of retirement. I wasn't collecting a pension or any of that kind of thing, but I had enough savings uh had enough investments to fund my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I and I lead a very simple life. So, again, it's really about balancing. Like what is it that?
Speaker 2:you want, want a simple life. I love my simple life. Yeah, exps are pretty low. You know I don't. I don't do a lot of luxury things or my my idea of luxury is different than you know. Instagram idea of luxury, yes, yeah, right. So just keeping all those things in mind. And then you know, as as I was doing things and people would see me doing things, they're like how are you going kayaking at 10 30 on a Tuesday?
Speaker 2:And you know, they were just asking me questions like how did you do that? Cause everybody else you know anybody else that got laid off. They were like stressed and looking for a new job because they had all this debt, they had all these other things that they needed to pay for, um, and I didn't have any of that, I didn't have that stress. So I started teaching them and I just kind of accidentally fell into entrepreneurship. And I just kind of accidentally fell into entrepreneurship, yeah, yeah, right, so, and I didn't plan on that, like that was just life kind of evolved that way and yeah, so now I get to do all kinds of different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's so interesting how it works out that way and it's so like, it's so nice to hear this, versus so many of the things that we hear about online, where it's just like you know, you have to be making millions and you know it's so much extravagance and so much to the extreme and you really you don't and you can start this small like you don't have to be, even with investing, and I mean, I'm not an investment advisor, but I know for us, like we don't make tons of money right now, but we have also invested and we have, you know, stuff saved for the kids, for retirement. We have a TFSA, like we're saving all of these things and we don't put tons in every month, but it still builds and it's built up to like quite a bit already and when you start doing that, it makes a difference Totally. It's just getting started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's absolutely planting the seeds. You know like I mean there's, there's so much power in compound interest. Yeah, people don't know about. Right, you think you have to have a million dollars, and so when I start working with people, you know and they're, that's their idea of success.
Speaker 1:I have to have a million dollars.
Speaker 2:I'm like cool, that's an awesome goal. Where are you starting? Are you starting from $5 or are you starting from $950,000? Because the strategy to get there is going to be a little bit different depending on a few factors here. Right, but yeah, starting small is it's the only way, right? You know, the whole journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. It's true Like it sounds like a cliche or some platitude, but it's been around for a long time for a reason.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, exactly. So I want to talk to you about your the hourly rate wage thing, the true hourly wage. So tell us about that and what that is all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. That was a game changer for me. So if you go to my website, it's wendyverwaycom and I've got in my tools section there's a link to your free true hourly wage calculator and it's a spot where you can put in not just how much you make and you know like people are always looking at what's my retirement number and all this kind of stuff but really I want to break things down super, super granularly so that you can see where you've got decisions that you can make. This was not a concept that I made up. I'm going to give credit to.
Speaker 2:There's a book called your Money or your Life by Vicki Robin. That changed absolutely everything for me. It was written originally in the seventies I think, but the principles still apply and it talks to you know, really understanding what it is that you have, what you have, what you want, why you want the things that you have, um, all of that kind of stuff. And so really the true early wage is I kind of talk about it as how much does your job cost you to have it? So in my corporate job, let's say, you know, just using some random numbers, I was making $50 an hour and this corporate job. So the true early wage calculator looks at how much do I have to spend in not just money but in time, energy, all of that to make that $50 an hour.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So in that example I was living at my acreage property so I had to commute probably 30 minutes a day each way to get to work. So an hour a day. So that was an hour of my time, plus the gas, you know, extra insurance for driving to and from work. What else do I have in there Parking all of that kind of stuff? So that's just the transportation side of things. Then I looked at well, I had to have my kids in daycare when they were really little. If I didn't have that job I probably wouldn't have that expense.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it's looking at in that light right.
Speaker 1:Like if you didn't have this job.
Speaker 2:What would you? What would you be doing? You know I had to have a certain standard of clothing. Um, they call it costuming, yeah, like you've got to put on the costume to fit the part to you know, work in the corporate office and have the right shoes and all of that.
Speaker 2:So I would, you know, look at kind of what, what is a typical day, and I would get up extra early to, you know, do my hair, do my makeup, all of that kind of stuff, then get the kids up, then take them where they needed to go, then drive into work, park the car, go get the fancy coffee because you know that's what you do and then go into the office and I wouldn't have time to drink the coffee because you know I'd have to just chug it and get on with my day because stuff was happening all the time, right?
Speaker 2:So then I would get into work and I'd be bugging away for a while. Then I'd probably go up for lunch with a coworker and you know we'd chit chat about the office gossip or what's going on today, all of that, do a few more hours of work and then at the end of the day, be completely fried and not have the mental strength or energy to cook a healthy meal for my kids. So I grabbed some takeout on the way home. The kids, get them sorted, get them fed, get them to bed, then maybe sit down for an hour to zone out on Netflix, have a bottle of wine, a box, whatever it is that you need to get through the day, right, yeah, while dreaming about this like fantastic two week vacation, where that's the period of time where I actually get to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That I want right. So, and that day was just on repeat. So, when you go through the true hourly wage calculator. It just gives you space to escape from your life. Yeah, If you didn't have that job, would you need that?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like looking at things in that perspective. So when I did this exercise for myself and you know this $50 an hour job sounds great, right? You know, 2000 hours a year, it's a hundred grand Like that's a pretty decent salary. Should be able to get pretty far in life doing that.
Speaker 1:But when I?
Speaker 2:input, all of these other things. I was making less than $10 an hour. And it was just like this lightning bolt, like why am I stressing all of my extra time? I'm stressing on the weekends about? Well, this PowerPoint presentation doesn't look just right and you know, like cause my boss can be mad about this thing or what's the next thing that's coming up or getting ready for this meeting and all of that. I'm like it is not worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was that was part of it. But then the other side of it too was that changed the way I spent money because I've got, you know, the $8 Starbucks coffee and realized it would take almost an hour of my life to make the $8 to buy that coffee. Based on my two hour wage.
Speaker 2:I'm like, is this actually worth it? I mean, sometimes it is, but yeah, sometimes it is, um, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't, and it changed everything. It changed the way I looked at my money, changed the way I looked at my energy, my life, how I was spending my time, all of these sorts of things. And yeah that I was able to. You know, when you read all these self-help books, it's really easy to just like read it, oh yeah, yeah, I'm totally going to do that and then just drop it.
Speaker 2:And this was one that I actually went through and did the exercises and yeah, yeah, I'm totally going to do that and then just drop it.
Speaker 1:And this was one that I actually went through and did the exercises and, yeah, it changed everything. Yeah, that's so interesting. Well, because it's so practical, like it's so you can see it. Yeah, you can see it in your everyday life, like how that's actually going to change things. Yeah, you know, and it's so interesting to look at it that way and like, really, look at those you know little things. They seem so little, but when you break it all down it's having such a big impact every day, absolutely. So, yeah, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll link that in the show notes and, you know, on YouTube here so that people can go through it and check it out, because, because I think that that's really interesting and just to do kind of like an assessment of like where you're spending your time and what actually is. You know, are you spending it the way that you want to and looking at, I think, what you really want and are you doing the things to actually get yourself there?
Speaker 2:Exactly. You know, like I, I look at it a few different ways. First of all, a warning to anybody that does download the calculator you can't unsee the number. I'm sorry, but it's going to be shocking. But, but having said that, when you have that number again, you've you've looked at what's your worst case scenario.
Speaker 2:Now you can improve upon it so I like to say that you know, once you look at how much time you're spending getting ready, I stopped wearing makeup to work because I'm like, well, why I'm buying all these natural looking products that are more expensive to make me look more like myself? Like, yeah, why am I doing that, you know? So I did some experiments and things with stuff like that. Right, I started packing my own lunch instead of buying them and all of those kinds of things, and every time I did something like that, it increased my true hourly wage. So it was like giving myself a raise without asking my boss, and that really cemented I do have so much control about my boss isn't paying me the right amount and you know, maybe that's a case sometimes, but in in this case it was. Well, this is a fair wage for what it is that I'm doing. I'm choosing to spend it in different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't have to do that. I can make more of my money by making some small changes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that that's. It's so interesting and especially, I think right now is the time that people probably need to look at that, with everything being so expensive. Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:Well, and even in the online world, right, like looking at online businesses and things like that, I mean you can do. It doesn't have to be just for a corporate job. You can look at what am I spending on, you know, additional software or paying somebody to do these things, or you know what are the day-to-day things that I'm doing that are creating this revenue? Or not, can I make some tweaks and cuts?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think that's really, really important because too many people like we were saying before we started recording don't look at their you know income and expenses and all of that for online business. So tell us about how you have worked with online business owners and looking at this kind of thing and like, where do you suggest even people start at? Because I know a lot of people just kind of ignore it. But you really can't. If you want to have a business that is profitable and like truly you can actually pay yourself from, you have to look at the numbers. You can't ignore them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, first of all, it's about getting over your fear of the numbers, right, there's so much drama and trauma attached to finances. I mean, I grew up thinking I wasn't smart enough to invest on my own, I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to do any of this kind of stuff, and it was only when I just let go of that and said, says who, right, like, who in my life is actually telling me that I'm like? Well, there was no specific person, it was just this collective feeling I'm like. Well, I don't have to listen to that at all. Um, right, so that's, that's a good one to start with. Um, but even in doing that, like, I talk about tracking all the time, and I know that you talk about tracking as well, right, so just looking at where you're spending your money and, like, doesn't have to be hard. There's all kinds of online apps and things that you can use that are tied to your debit card and your bank accounts and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, for me, those did not get granular enough to get to a point where I could make a decision, right, like, if I went to Costco and saw on my, on my app, that, oh, I spent another $300 at Costco, but I don't remember what it was for. Yeah, that doesn't help me make any decisions. So I literally went to the dollar store and picked up a little notebook that you know it's got the little elastic on it so it can stay shut in my purse Um, and I just started writing out. You know, this was the expense, this is what came in and this is what went out for every single thing. And so you know, it's like groceries, bank fees, gas, netflix, like you know it can go down this whole thing. And so I just started writing down every little thing that I was spending money on.
Speaker 2:And, um, eventually, some categories kind of emerged. I've got an online course that that really walks you through this entire process, right, it talks about all of the tracking and give you the categories that I use. Like, you've got my spreadsheets, all of that kind of stuff, that's all as well.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's uh kind of stuff that's all well, um, but it's uh. What that did for me was made me look at everything really, really carefully.
Speaker 2:So, for example, I had five different categories for food spending. Yeah, which, you know, on an app wouldn't have given me that granularity. So I was looking at how much am I spending on groceries versus, you know, takeout versus dinners out with friends, which was like a social occasion versus lunch at work versus you know the convenience stuff a candy bar at the gas station or Starbucks coffee on the way to work, that kind of stuff. So I had these five different categories because then I could make some decisions.
Speaker 2:You know, if I looked at, I was spending this much on groceries but at the end of the day I was too tired to cook any of them, so I got takeout instead and then end up throwing away a bunch of the groceries because they went bad before I could use them. Like that changes a lot of things.
Speaker 2:That's where I can make a decision. I can buy some more convenient groceries. Maybe, you know, get the pre-cooked rotisserie chicken and just pull it apart, get the the you know baby carrots that are already cut like whatever, whatever you have to do. But yeah, I started doing things like that and realizing, okay, I can have that takeout feeling, you know, if I do a bit of meal prep, and that's really what worked for me too.
Speaker 2:And again, going back to what I wanted my life to feel like, I not only wanted peace and simplicity, but I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to be strong and I wanted to be around to play with my kids and looking at how much I was spending on takeout food and realizing that didn't feel very good in my body.
Speaker 2:That doesn't align, let's cut back on some of that and spend more on the good groceries. Yeah Right, so just tracking something, something, anything is really the start. You know whether it's how much water you're drinking in a day, how much sleep you're getting, how many steps you're doing. If that's what you want to do, um, you know how much money you're spending, how many, um, how many sales calls you're doing, how many. You know how many downloads do you have on your podcast? Like, just start tracking something, cause that puts some focus on it and just kind of opens the door to make some changes.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, because if you don't look at it, you just it makes some changes. Exactly yeah, because if you don't look at it, you just you will never know, you'll never know. And I do the same thing. I have Excel or Google spreadsheets, I guess, where I track everything in both my business and in, like our personal finances, and I track it all that way so then we can see exactly what we are spending on, what's coming in, you know, and what we need to adjust and cut out and whatever move around, because it's the only way that you're going to know and if you truly want to get to like the time freedom or retire early or whatever it is, that's the only way to get there. It's not just going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're all working within systems right now, right, whether we formally call them systems or not, but by not having any data, you can't change the system, right, cause you know, and the system might be showing up every day and looking at your, your stats, to see, you know, did I make any money last night?
Speaker 2:Well that could be your system, and if you're not looking at that to say, okay, what do I need to do in order to bring some money while I'm sleeping? That's when you build another system you build something complimentary, and then you start tracking what's happening with that and then you make tweaks. Right it's, you're planting those little tiny seeds that you can then make tweaks to. You know quote somewhere it's talked about something about like dream with your hands.
Speaker 2:Kind of resonated for me because it was like yeah, we can sit back and say, oh yeah, I want this. I want, you know, the million dollars, the $10,000 months. I want this fabulous online business that's going to pay me while I sleep. Yep, that's cool If you're dreaming about it, but until you actually do something it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:It's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean, I'm a human design junkie, I'm a manifester. So for a manifester to say you still have to do something, you have to, like push the energy in that way, yeah, that carries some weight right, like yeah. Even as a manifester, I still have to do stuff in order to make things work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's funny because I was going to say yeah, you can't just sit and manifest and expect it to fall from the sky, even though you know we are fed that online. It really doesn't work that way. It really does not.
Speaker 2:No, and you're so right Like we get sold so many things online and you know, even the whole, the whole idea is that that you need a million dollars to retire, right, like I'm not going to have a million dollars to retire, right, like I don't have a million dollars. And when you when I like to work with people and you know find out what are their goals, and if their goal is a million dollars, I'm like cool, if you had a million dollars today, what would you spend it on? Yeah, what would you do with it? What would you do today? It's just dropped out of the heavens and it's now here. What changes for you?
Speaker 2:yeah right and like. For me not much changes because you know, like we were talking about just before we hit record, I went for a walk in the park. I took my shoes off, was walking in the grass, you know, just had this lovely grounding moment. That wouldn't change if I had a million dollars.
Speaker 2:Do that now yeah you know I dog sit a lot because I love dogs. I don't since my dog passed away in the country song here, um, I never. I didn't want to have a full-time dog. I love that dearly, but I didn't want the stress and the responsibility. I was simplifying but I love the energy of dogs. So we have dogs come and stay with us and I get to be like a dog grandma and then send them home.
Speaker 2:And only when I want to, you know, want to have them around. My kids love it because they love dogs. And we get to, you know, interact with all different ones. Um, that wouldn't change. I would still probably do that because I love dogs, but I don't want to have a full-time dog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you don't need a million dollars to do that.
Speaker 2:No, I walked to the library today to pick up a book that I wanted to read. I had it on hold for you know. I just went online and searched for whatever book and, like I don't know a few weeks or something, it was all of this books available, Cool. I walked to the library to go get the book. It's not because I can't afford to buy a book. I don't want to, because I don't want to store it in my house and have to move it from place to place to place. I just want to read it and then send it home. Like, none of that changes based on how much money I have. If I had a million dollars in the bank, none of that would change the life right now that I want and everybody else can too wants.
Speaker 1:It's what do you want, because then you can see okay, so what do you need to do to get there? Or what can you do now to make it happen? Because there's probably things that you can change right now to incorporate some of that and then start taking the steps to make your like dream life whatever that looks like actually happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not about making a bunch of to-do lists and you know, more things to your plate. It's really about being mindful, being where you're at right.
Speaker 2:Like during the whole country song year, I was grieving and, you know, stressed and dealing with lawyers and all of the things were happening all at once, and I remember thinking to myself well, I'm not feeling enough joy in my life, so that's it. I'm going to put that on the list every day. I'm going to create some joy, joy. So I had it in mind. I'm like this is what's happening. And that only lasted a day or two when I realized, okay, that's just adding another thing to my overwhelming list. So I'm going to change the vocab a little bit and, instead of creating joy, I'm just going to notice joy every day. And that changed everything. Again, there's so many little things that change everything, and so noticing joy for me was drinking a cold glass of water and feeling it. You know, go down my throat, into my belly.
Speaker 2:It was petting a dog. It was smelling that first hint of lilacs when they come out in the spring. That was just noticing joy, right. I don't need any money to do that. None of us do right. So these are kind of the little, the little tiny pieces that you can just start to implement. And again, don't make it a to-do list item, but just start to notice. Notice joy. Notice when you're getting stressed about something. Notice when how it feels when you're spending money, when you're getting stressed about something.
Speaker 2:Notice when how it feels when you're spending money. Notice how it feels when you're, you know, paying somebody for a job well done. Notice how you feel when the money comes into you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. There's no judgment, there's no shame, there's no blame, there's no good or bad. It's just notice what that feels like and then, when it feels really good to you, figure out how can you start to recreate that more and more often.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's so good. So where can people connect with you and find all of the things and all of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm online. I'm on. Wendyverwaycom is my website, so I've got all my tools, my online courses, all of that. Yeah, so I'm online. I'm on. Wendyverwaycom is my website, so I've got all my tools, my online courses, all of that is there. Um, you can catch me on Instagram. I'm on Facebook, on LinkedIn. Um, I'm also the host of the fire yourself.
Speaker 2:First podcast and Tara was recently a guest, so check out her episode. We talked all about systems and how they make life so much easier. Yeah, but yeah, I'm around, I'm here for it and yeah, I'd love it for anybody to come and find me ask some questions.
Speaker 1:Amazing. All right, well, I'm sure that they will, and we will link all of the things in the show notes and on YouTube. So thank you very much for joining me today. This was great.
Speaker 2:Thanks Tara.
Speaker 1:All right, and if you are on YouTube, I would so appreciate if you would like and subscribe and I will catch you in the next one. Thank you so much for listening, friend. I appreciate you being here and sharing in our experiences as we go behind the scenes in online business. I would love for you to hit that five stars, share with a friend that might enjoy it too, and leave a review telling me your favorite part of the show or this episode. Until next time, go, be successful, do the hard things and stay away from the BS.