Curiosity, Freedom, and Building Life on Your Terms with Maddy Garrett

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day — travel twelve minutes.

It was — yeah, twelve minutes, might've been eleven actually.

Would you mind just introducing yourself?

Absolutely. Yeah, you texted me and were like, if you want to prepare an intro — and I was like, oh gosh, I'm not a preparer, I'll do more of an on-the-fly thing. Yeah, my name is Maddy Garrett. I live here in Denver, Colorado. I'm an entrepreneur, founder, creative — I've started a few businesses throughout my twenty-seven years of life, and currently I'm a full-time UGC creator and coach. I have my adventure pup, Cedar, who I love very much, I have a van, I do part-time van life, and I also have a podcast — so I'd love doing podcasting, or something like that.

Well, thank you so much for that introduction. I'm also an off-the-cuff dude — I don't like planning for anything. I've had to learn to, over the years, because running a business, obviously there's so much you do have to prep and plan and prepare for. But I truly just believe the magic happens in the moment, almost always. I'm a very in-the-moment person, driven by spontaneity and creativity, and that's just so hard to replicate when you're so plan-plan-plan. I think it's funny talking to people about travel — people are like, "I can't believe you moved somewhere and didn't have a plan," or "how do you do an itinerary, how does one travel without an itinerary" — that's bonkers to them. Have you always been that way?

I think so. I don't know, honestly I hardly remember so much of my childhood — it's hard to remember what I was like as a kid. But it's interesting, because growing up I cared so much about my grades, about being good at stuff, kind of just fitting in and falling into line — very different from how I am now. I was a straight-A student my whole life, very good in school, a very hard worker. I think that maybe makes sense in terms of, you're a hard worker now, you own businesses, that tracks — but now I just don't care about that stuff anymore. It's funny that I used to be such a stickler — I have to do all my homework, I have to get straight A's, I have to be perfect — and now I'm like, my god, I can't believe I was like that.

Yes, I feel the same way — I was also just a nerd, I followed the plan that education and university set for me and I was like, okay, this is it. You said "fuck normal" on your website — that's in big letters. So there's clearly a shift that occurred from when you were in school, making straight A's, wanting to be the best — but also, I think you still clearly have a strive to be the best version of yourself, just that the best version of yourself now is something unique that you've created. So when did that shift happen? Was there a moment, or do you think it was just over time? Paint us a picture.

Yeah, it was a long journey for sure. A little background: I grew up in Orange County, California, which is considered like the red bubble of California. So I grew up very conservative, in a conservative religious household, and that shaped a lot of who I was as a kid. I was very by the book, very followed-the-rules, and again just fell into what was normal. I went to a religious university. It wasn't until my senior year that I started deconstructing some of the beliefs I grew up with, and the communities I surrounded myself with — that was a huge part of the shift, just coming out of that lifestyle, deconstructing all of that, and realizing I didn't quite believe or fall in line with the way I grew up. I was talking to someone about this the other day — I just didn't know who I was when I was younger, when I was super religious, because there were rules, things I was supposed to do, a person I was supposed to be, and I was really good at doing that and being that. I didn't have a lot of individuality, I think. So when I left that space it was this whole opening of, oh my god, who am I? I had to find myself, rediscover that — it was a long journey, multiple years of just trying things and discovering different parts of my personality. A lot of that led to being like, oh, I do not fit in these boxes I was putting myself in when I was younger. So yeah, it was a journey.

Yeah. And it's funny, because it's just a similar story to mine, really — I've interviewed a good amount of people who are taking a different path. At the time of this recording, I still don't even have a name for the show yet, it'll come to me — but there's kind of a common thread: most of the creatives I've had on the show, most of the people I've interviewed, just always felt like the traditional path wasn't theirs. And for me and for you, it came so easy — it was so easy to just do it. I mean, obviously it took work in school to get A's, but it wasn't hard to encourage yourself to do your homework, to study, to perform well academically. You touched on feeling like you didn't understand your true identity, like you were kind of living almost someone else's life. Was there a moment — a singular moment — where you had the realization of, "I don't know who I am"?

I don't know that there was a single moment. I feel like the one moment I go back to sometimes is — I remember sitting in my car, right after I graduated college. I had this internal battle — grew up religious, believing in God, following all these things — and I didn't know quite what I believed anymore, or if I wanted to be in that community. I remember sitting there and just saying out loud, "I have to fully leave, otherwise I'll always be one foot in and one foot out" — one foot in religion, in the community I grew up with, and one foot in exploring myself, or something else. I was like, I have to fully get out. Back then I thought, I'll probably come back — that's what I told myself, like, it's cool if I leave, and if the journey brings me back, it'll bring me back, but I cannot do things half-assed. That's not who I am, that's not how I am. So the thought of being in that in-between, I was like, I cannot do it — I have to leave. And that was so scary, to say, "I no longer call myself a Christian." I literally sat there and said it out loud, and I was like, this feels so wrong, this feels so crazy — but I know I have to do it, and just see what life looks like on the other side of this. Otherwise I'll always wonder.

You know? I know very well. Yes — again, I think that just hits the nail on the head for kind of what I feel is core to me too. It's hard to have — when I wanted to change, I decided to move to the farthest possible place from the US. I just needed a big change.

Where'd you go — Australia?

Yeah, yeah. I'm literally — Perth is the furthest city, maybe not the furthest place, but the furthest city, from Atlanta, from where I grew up. I didn't realize that until I was out there, and I was like, damn, there's probably a reason why I chose it. I just needed to go to the complete opposite side of the world.

I can't believe I'm asking this question — when were you born, like what year?

No, no — you want to know my star sign? I'm obsessed with this.

I am an Aries. I was born in April, April 15th — tax day, actually.

I know, right? So fun.

Yeah — Aries sun, Sagittarius moon, Virgo rising.

Literally, I look at my chart and I'm like, yeah, that'll make sense. Is Aries known for being pretty against the grain and independent?

Yes, okay — Aries are the first sign of the zodiac, so we're the initiators, the fire starters.

Okay, okay — yeah, this is all relatively new to me. What about you, what's yours?

I'm an Aquarius.

I fucking love Aquarius people, so much. I just vibe with them — I don't know, I just love Aquarius energy. One of my exes was an Aquarius — actually, three of my exes have been Aquarius, and several of my friends are Aquarius. They're just so unique, and I think they love being unique. A hundred percent, and I love that, because they fully step into their personality. I'm like, yes, I'm obsessed with you — Aquarius, teach me to not be afraid of who I am, of my authenticity.

Wow. Yeah, that's powerful. Okay — so when you made this mental shift, going back to the shift from the more traditional path — I think on your website you talked a bit about having a nine-to-five and then, "fuck that" — what sort of resistance did you meet when you made that shift? Could be any form, external, internal, just broadly speaking.

I feel like I'm pretty lucky, I didn't have a ton of external resistance to it, honestly. I think my parents were a little like, "what are you doing," when I quit my job — but they also know me, and they know I just figure shit out and make it work. I'm very self-sufficient, independent, a hard worker, and my parents have always believed in me, and I'm very lucky for that. I think honestly the scariest part was just not having a backup plan. I quit my job and didn't have anything — I remember I had like two weeks left, and I just went on Upwork and was like, alright, I'm going to find freelance copywriting jobs. And that's what I did — I applied to a bunch of stuff, got a few copywriting clients, and that held me over for the next six months while I figured out what I was doing. But I think that was the hardest part, just not having a backup plan — because again, I grew up very "this is my path, this is what I'm doing," and then just walking away from that was terrifying.

Yeah. But you know, it's funny — that's also probably the biggest driver toward what made you actually succeed, which kind of goes back to the all-or-nothing thing. I always tell people that.

Yes, I'm very much an all-or-nothing person, and I really believe — I, and a lot of other people — you'll only really fully go into something if you don't have a plan B. You cannot have a plan B, otherwise you're always going to end up with plan B. It's like you have to just have plan A, because plan B is easier, so you're always going to fall back into that, even subconsciously.

Yeah. Wow, that's a powerful statement. It's so based in neuroscience, too, because our brains are wired to do what's comfortable. We're not wired to step out of our comfort zone, not wired to chase things that don't feel comfortable. So even if we really want plan A, want it so bad, plan B is the life we know — so we're always going to fall back to that if we don't make plan A the only option, because our brain is literally wired to be like, okay great, if plan B's there, we're doing plan B.

Yeah. And I feel like that's a big reason why the striving for discomfort, striving for something greater, is imperative — because you're not going to stumble upon that, right? That's not the fallback, the de facto — that's something you have to go find. Something difficult, something challenging, finding yourself in a foreign country not knowing the language — that's not something you fall into, it's something you force yourself into. And I think there are a lot of people today, myself included a couple years ago, who are just terrified of the unknown. And then something clicked and it made me want the unknown, maybe desire it. Now I'm in a place where there's so much comfort in this apartment, living in Denver, having a homestead, that I'm like — I actually don't think I want this. I do, on a deep evolutionary level, seek comfort, but in terms of the greater goals I have for myself, I can't achieve what I want if I keep placing myself in places of comfort and ease.

Yeah. I totally agree — whenever you get comfortable, you just kind of stop growing.

100%.

And that can be hard. I definitely wrestle with that too — I've been a nomad for many, many years, and have lived in Denver now for a year, and I just resigned my lease here for another year. I had this internal battle — I don't know if I should stay here, maybe you want to go somewhere else — and I was just like, it's okay, you can stay put, you can have this sense of stability while also having other areas of your life where you're still exploring and doing new things. So I've very intentionally been like, okay, I'm staying in Denver, and I'm going to put myself into new situations, new rooms, meeting new people, traveling new places. So I signed up for a flag football league — the Denver gay and lesbian flag football league — and I was just like, you know what, we just gotta try new things, get out of my comfort zone in different ways instead of just being like, I have to move again. Because I do that a lot.

This podcast is just teaching me a lot about myself. I love that. And we're gonna dig into this a bit more, because — it seems antithetical, you having a place, a homestead, and then the traveling side — that almost seems pretty antithetical to the "go balls to the wall, have no plan B" thing. It almost seems like your home is your sort of fallback, and your travel is your plan A. Is that the wrong way of thinking? Am I perceiving it incorrectly?

I think it just depends what your dream is. I know my end goal, my dream, is to have a home, own property, and travel from there. For what I have right now, that feels very similar to that — I have a home base, a homestead, I can travel from there. So this very much fits into the reality I want in my future anyway. And I do love travel — I also did full-time travel for a while and was like, okay, I don't think this is for me, I'm exhausted, I'm burnt out, I need some stability. But for me, having a home base and being able to travel whenever I want — that's my dream, the best of both worlds.

What does the cadence look like? In other words, how long do you plan to travel versus stay home?

Yeah, I feel like I'm home probably half the time.

And when you're traveling, does that mean a week on, week off? A month on, month off? Three months, six months? What does that look like?

Yeah, it's always different.

Really?

Yeah, it's always different — sometimes I'll just be gone for a week or two, a weekend, or like this winter I'm probably going to leave for two months. I was just gone for five weeks, got back like three days ago.

Yes, I saw your story, I was like, yeah, I know. So it's always different, and I think I like that, because again it doesn't feel like routine, like "okay, every December through February I'm gone and I do this." I don't want a plan like that — I just want to have my home base but travel when I want.

Do you feel like — I'll give a little background. I think one of the things I've wrestled with is —

— growing up surrounded by, like, a vacation culture. What I mean by vacation culture is: you have a life you more or less hate, and then you fuck off for a week and drink on the beach until you're blacked out every day, and then you sort of hate going back home, and you need a vacation from the vacation. That's an extreme case, obviously — I'm using hyperbole intentionally, but —

Is there any other way to use hyperbole? That's redundant.

Anyway, the point is, I think that's kind of how I perceived travel until I started doing solo travel — and that's when I started to realize, partly you just organically fall into the type of traveling you like, because —

— it just unfolds, right? But part of it is you recognize the agency you have, and you realize, shit, I can decide how I spend my time. In that exploration, I've noticed a subtle increase in duration of stay — a week isn't enough, I feel very rushed. Maybe a year was long.

I love the year. I want to live abroad again for another year — I don't think that's too long. But I think fast travel is really just not my thing.

I hate it too. Okay — so if you go for a week, or one of the shorter durations, how do you feel like you're able to break out of that fast-travel, checkbox mentality when you're constrained by five, six, seven days in a place?

I don't know — I feel like people will be like, "I disagree, I hate the way you travel" — but when I travel somewhere I do not really do that much, and that might sound weird. I just went to Portugal for a week, seven days, to a small surf town. I stayed at a hostel there and had no plans — literally zero plans. The only thing I wanted was to work a bit while I was there, walk around, go to some coffee shops, sit on the beach, meet some people. That was the only plan I had. People are like, "you went to Portugal and that's what you did?" I'd never been to Portugal before, first time, and I basically spent my whole time in this tiny town — it's called Peniche, and there's a little subsection of it called Baleal, tiny town, most Americans don't even know it exists. People would be like, "why'd you do that?" — because that's just how I enjoy traveling. I don't care about seeing a ton of stuff, don't care about touristy things, I just want to go somewhere new, put myself in a different environment. I think I just view travel really differently, because I'm really just there to live my life — I'm still working, still doing whatever I do, I just happen to be in a new place. Even if I'm somewhere for a week it doesn't matter, because I have that slow mindset — I don't have to see everything, don't have to do anything. And that comes with the privilege of knowing I can come back here if I want.

Exactly. Yeah, I love that — because you're probably spot on that most people hear that and go, "you don't have an itinerary? You're not going to Lisbon and checking out the art and the city?" It's like, nah. I think when you go to a place and you're just checking off boxes, really what you're doing is maintaining stimulation. And when you maintain that stimulation, you kind of remove your energetic, emotional connection to the place — you don't get a feel for what it's actually like to be there. And realistically, two things: firstly, if you really enjoy your life, you shouldn't want to take a vacation from it — you shouldn't feel like, "I have three days, I'm gonna go fuck off for three days and not do any work." I don't know, I love bringing my laptop and doing development work, because it's a hell of a lot better to do that with a beach view in a foreign country. I loved working in Costa Rica — there's monkeys and parrots, all these animals bopping around in the jungle while I'm working, and you're like, wow, I'm so lucky. I think that's amazing.

Yeah, I think it's good to just have the conviction, the confidence, to go to a place and just be yourself.

Yeah, no, I agree. For my birthday this year I took a solo trip to Mexico — went to Sayulita, obsessed, want to go back this winter. The first week I was there I stayed at a hostel in town, met a ton of people, had so much fun. Then for the second week I went to more of a nicer, boutique-resort kind of thing — very quiet, small boutique hotel, everybody there just relaxing on vacation, and the whole time I was working. But I very intentionally said it that way, because I actually love being in places like that and working — first of all, it calms my nervous system, so I have a space where I can actually think and do creative work. Whereas at home I feel very scattered, and I don't know, just — what's the right word, structured, logical? When I'm traveling I'm so much more creative, free-spirited, and that translates really well into my work. So I like traveling to places like that and working — I stayed there six days, was so happy just doing creative work, coming up with ideas for my business the whole time I was there. Most people look at that and go, "you're at this resort and you're working the whole time, what are you doing?" But that's exactly why I went — I knew it would make me feel a certain way that translates to my work. And it's just to say, travel looks different for everybody, work looks different for everybody, there's no right or wrong, it's figuring out what works for you.

100%. And I think the fact that work looks different for everybody is something that's new, nowadays too.

Your parents were a little afraid because you didn't have a plan B, you moved away from the "real job" thing. It's funny, when people ask me what I do, I'm like, I don't know — today I don't know. They ask, "did you work today?" I'm like, define work — does that mean I logged into Slack? I responded to a couple of Slacks, so — but I think also, you talk about working sort of part-time versus full-time, and I think that's an interesting concept in itself, because I read that on your website — I think we may have talked about it before — the idea of working part-time versus full-time. What does that mean? I guess it means you're not putting in forty hours every week, but —

— it comes down to how do you work best. It's funny, "full-time work" isn't defined by output, it's defined by input, right? If someone works eight hours a day, five days a week, that's seen as a full-time worker. But if their output is similar to, or less than, someone who works eight hours one day a week — does that mean the person who worked less but had far more output is actually the part-time worker? Literally. It's interesting, the incentives aren't aligned — they're not about the actual quality and caliber of the work, it's like, you're a machine, your job is to work this many hours, clock in, clock out, and if you're not, you're failing.

I could talk about this forever. No, literally, that's so much of what's wrong with corporate — so many of my friends have bullshit remote jobs, they work two or three hours a day, and I'm like, this is what's wrong with our economy. Are you kidding me? They could be hiring half as many people as they're hiring. What are we doing? It literally makes me afraid, as a business owner, to hire people, because people have this expectation of, "I can just bullshit my job."

I get it, as someone who didn't like my nine-to-five, didn't like working for other people — trust me, I get it. But it's like, how can we find things we're actually passionate about and put in really intentional work? I would love to own a company, hire people, where it's like we're all genuinely stoked on what we're doing, we don't have to clock in, clock out, have an eight-hour workday — it's like, these are our objectives for the month, let's get these done as a team, put in the work to get there, and if we need more people, hire more people to do that.

My god, the way corporate is structured literally drives me insane. Right now I'm working on a project for a big brand and they have me on weekly calls with so many different people from different agencies, teams, companies — it's crazy, we're on this call, there's like ten of us, and I'm like, why is everybody in this room right now? We do not need this many people on this project. It just blows my mind — companies are spending so much money on bullshit every day. Anyway, that was a rant, it just makes me mad.

I get it. It came up in conversation yesterday, actually, with AI — like, shouldn't technology exist to make our lives as humans easier? What does that mean?

Well, AI doesn't exist to make life easier, it exists to make life more productive. So the output — if it's 10x, theoretically you should be able to, with the same input, achieve a 10x output. So what took ten hours now takes one hour. But now — it's great, what took you ten hours takes you one hour, so now we expect you to have a hundred hours of work done in that same ten-hour period. So we're just running into this recursive loop: more productivity means more output, more output doesn't actually save you time.

And that's what — you talked about meetings — back when I had more of a corporate role, there were definitely meetings I didn't need to be on, but I was like, I'm just gonna fill my calendar, for optics.

It looks like I'm doing stuff. Honestly, it's kind of entertaining, especially working remote jobs, to hop on a call. But is that really the best use of that time? Could that hour — am I even value-additive to the conversation? Probably not. If anything, I think it could be more value-detractive to have unnecessary players in a call than value-additive to have extra heads in it — if anything, it just adds more confusion.

It's going to be a bunch of people who don't even know what they're there for, so they're confused, asking stupid questions — or maybe good questions, but just not relevant to their work. So instead, what if we used that hour of that meeting and gave someone the agency to do something they feel is productive — or something that feels distracting, but distracting in a way that helps them be more productive later? Like, if you're struggling to — let's say, what are some of your favorite creative hobbies, creative outlets?

That's a good question — this wasn't supposed to be the hard question. I'm like, wait, why does this feel like a hard question. Creative outlet, I think for me — last winter I took up crocheting, that was really fun, stuff like that, where you just pick up a hobby, crafty stuff.

So if you're crocheting, and you get to a point where you're just frustrated, and you're like, "fuck, I'm so tired, these hooks are driving me fucking crazy" — in that moment, if you were to take the logic and framework of corporate culture, it's like, no, fucking persevere, get it done. But in reality, what would actually help you finish the project better, be happier about the result — maybe adding some new colors of yarn you weren't expecting — is to take a fucking walk. Remove yourself from that. So if you're banging your head against the wall on this and you can't make it — don't. Go outside. Distraction can be a really helpful tool for productivity — well, it's not usually described that way, but it can be.

Completely agree — it can be detrimental if you're distracted from your job and need to get something done, but a phone distraction is different from an intentional, nature distraction that's grounding you.

Completely, yes. As someone who's a business owner, has had to be very self-motivated, work for myself for the past several years — it's hard to find that balance, and that mindset has still carried over, where, gosh, when I was younger and I'd get straight A's, it wasn't like I necessarily wanted that internally, or that it came with a lot of integrity, if that makes sense — because I would email teachers and say, "I'm sick, I can't do this assignment," and get an extension. I wasn't fucking sick, I was just lying because I wanted more time. Same thing when I had a nine-to-five — I'd call out sick, "I'm not sick, I just don't want to work, or don't want to do whatever I'm doing." And even still I have to wrestle with that, because it's so ingrained in me — I'll have a call with my students and just not feel like doing it, and want to be like, "sorry guys, I'm not gonna make the call," but I have to show up because I'm leading it, I'm in charge of this thing. And it's been an interesting balance between when do I actually genuinely need a break, and when do I need to have boundaries — and if I can't show up for something, when do I make that call?

Yes. And also there's a lot of internal stuff that holds you back because you're not in the mood, or feeling lazy — and pushing through that is really different from pushing through being burnt out, or actually being sick. And when you work for yourself, navigating all that is really hard.

Right — because it's a weird combination, you have more responsibility and more freedom. I'm responsible for the success of these students, so I must make the call — but also, I'm running the show, so I can call out, I could call out. So it's finding that balance, because you also have to consider your own mental health — it's important you recognize when there's a moment you need to take time and cut out. But only do that when it's appropriate.

So you talked a bit about pursuing a life you love, I think, also on your website —

Yeah, you scoured my website.

I stalked your Instagram, your website, good prep work — nice job, podcast. Yeah, yeah, I don't really prepare in the sense of — I don't come up with a bunch of, I come up with general questions, of course, but the conversation tends to be a bit more organic. But if there's little nuggets I see, I'm like, we should touch on this. And one of the things I saw was, "living a life you love," something like that. Why does that matter to you? Why is that something you care about and want others to appreciate?

Oh, god. Literally just because of how I grew up, I was so depressed for so much of my life — because I didn't know who I was, didn't know what I wanted, I wasn't living a life that was in alignment with who I was, and it was soul-sucking. Literally, it was horrible — from how I was raised to working a nine-to-five, just doing that my whole life. I've literally had this conversation with people where I'm like, I don't know if I would still be here if I had stuck with that. I would have such lows, I was just like, I don't want to fucking be alive, because what is the point of all this? I was just living a life I didn't like, but didn't know any different. And I think so many people live that every day, where they're like, I don't want to be working this job, it's soul-sucking, I hate it, or I don't want to be living in this place — but they don't know any different, and don't know it's actually really possible to get out of that, and that it's typically easier than you think. It's really just mental — that's the hardest part, mentally convincing yourself it's okay to leave. But in terms of your external reality, it's actually really easy to change. And that's what I'm really passionate about helping people do — change their external reality. Because when you start to change it, you can be like, okay, this can happen for me. One of my students posted in our Slack channel yesterday, "I got my highest paying deal yet," and she was like, I still can't believe I'm getting paid for this, that this is real — she's getting paid more to film this video than she did for a couple hours of work at her job, it's mind-blowing to her. And I read that and smiled so big, because it's just cool to see those mental shifts of, oh, this is possible for me — and that's what I'm just so passionate about helping people do.

Yeah, I love that. I want to put a little bookmark in "it's crazy that you can make money doing X," because that's a topic I want to discuss in more detail — but before that, I'm curious, what advice or encouragement might you have for those who feel really stuck, who feel like they don't know there's another option, may not be aware there's other stuff out there — give me words of advice or encouragement for those people.

I know what it feels like, and I know it can feel like a really shitty place to be, a shitty way to feel, a shitty way to live. And honestly — just go meet new people, put yourself in new situations. That is always what gets me out of my small world, my small mindset. Go talk to people. And if you're too nervous to talk to people, meet new people, I get it — I used to be so introverted, which you wouldn't really know now, but I used to be so scared of talking to people. It started with just finding people on the internet I really related to, watching their life and being like, whoa, so cool that they're doing that, living that life — there are so many more people out there than you think, doing cool stuff, probably exactly what you want to do. I hosted a webinar yesterday, and I always do this journal prompt with my students where I have them write as if it's a year from now and everything they're currently working toward has worked out — what does your life look like? They put it in the chat, and everybody's answers looked so similar — a lot of people were like, "I moved abroad," or "I live in a van with my partner and I'm doing X, Y, Z." I was like, see, we all want this same thing, and there are so many people for whom this is their reality — it's not a crazy reality to move abroad, or buy a van. I know so many people who've done that. So just putting yourself in situations where you're seeing there are so many other people who want this too — this isn't so crazy, or, "this person I follow on social media lives in a van, that's cool, I'm gonna go find some other van lifers" — literally just opening your mind to possibility starts to be a catalyst for getting the courage to change your external reality. That's always kind of what it's come down to for me: finding other people as inspiration, whether in your everyday life or online, that's such a big catalyst for getting out of where you are and seeing what's possible.

That's great, I love that. I think any time you expand your perspective, you're going to grow, but also feel a sense of relief — because in expanding your perspective, it almost seems like the opposite would happen, but what really often happens is you realize how much more similar you are to others. And any time you get that feeling of "I'm not alone," that can be enough encouragement to get you over whatever hurdle it is.

Yeah, 100%.

And we only know what we know — what we were raised on, what's in our immediate circle. And it's on you to do the research, meet new people — you have to actively work to change your external reality, it doesn't just happen.

Sometimes it does by chance, but usually it's because you're being intentional about it, and I think most people just walk through life very unintentionally, because they think, well, this is all there is. It literally just takes some research to realize, no, there's way more than I thought out there — I could go down that rabbit hole forever. So the concept of money has come up recently in my life. Have you heard of Lewis Howes?

No.

Okay, so he's got a book called Make Money Easy — it's over there, next to that little wine thing, in the jacket, because I always take the jackets off books when I read them, I'm anal about keeping my belongings — I'll annotate books, dog-ear them, but I don't like them to get messed up.

That's so funny — I mean, yeah, looking at your apartment, I can tell you're very neat.

Very, very neat. Anyway, the point is, that jacket houses a book I'm currently reading called Make Money Easy, and it's mostly about fixing your money wounds. I think — you have a religious background, I have a religious background — it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than a poor man, or than a camel to go through the eye of a needle. That's definitely caused some issues. What I'm coming to learn is it's not that being a "rich man" in that context means someone with a lot of money — I think it's defined as someone who hoards their money. It's someone who, if you die — let's say you and I each have a billion dollars — if we choose to deploy that capital well, and die with nothing, we're not the "rich people who can't go to heaven." I don't believe in heaven, but that aside — that's kind of how I'm coming to understand it. The whole point of bringing this up is I've learned that the way I've perceived money has been painted by a very American, very capitalist, very Christian — specifically Catholic — lens, and all of those have their own sets of principles that created trauma and wounds around money in my life. And now what I'm coming to learn is, when all of those things created this very specific lens through which to view money, and now I'm looking at people doing user-generated content, doing podcasts, and it's like, how is that a way to make money — you said it's crazy that when you're in Portugal at a beautiful spot, you're like, I can't believe I'm working and making money while doing this — and your client, or a student, who said, I can't believe I made more money filming this video than I did at my corporate job. I think the idea of money as this very scarce resource, something you have to grind for and must hate, is just a lie fabricated by a lot of institutions — billionaires, but not only them, it's everything, it's also, you know, priests who preach about poverty, they've continued to reinforce that lie too. So I'm curious — how, and when, did your shift around money change? Was it something that catalyzed the shift away from corporate, or something that coincided with it, or maybe the third option — did it happen only after you started making money doing what you love, and that changed your perception?

Money is such a hard topic, because I even still have a very tumultuous relationship with money — it's been something I've had to very actively and intentionally work on over the past several years of making money and having businesses. It's such a nuanced topic, but there's absolutely money wounds — I definitely grew up in that same position, of, people who have money are bad, and if you're rich that means you're greedy. You have this mindset around what it means to have money, to be rich, and I always saw that as a bad thing, I really did — I didn't have any examples in my life of really good, generous people I looked up to who had a lot of money. So in my world, that doesn't exist — all we hear about in the news is horrible billionaires, so money just equals bad. It's taken a lot of work to undo those stories.

And also to your point — there's different ways you can make money, right — you put in a certain output, per hour you get paid whatever, or you create a service and sell it — there's just different ways to make money. And I've experienced that evolution over time, from having an hourly job, to a salary, to working freelance getting paid retainers, to content creation getting paid that way, and now getting paid for my intellectual property — I don't get paid hourly now, I get paid whenever a student signs up for my program, and a lot of that is passive, and that's been a mindfuck as well, because — I mean there's so many layers, but the money stories I believe, plus the fact that I'm a woman, all of these things are saying, you don't deserve to get paid passively, that's not fair, that's not how it should be, your worth and value is based on the amount of work you're putting in. And I still believe that, and it's really hard to get out of that mindset, because I really care about helping people, doing the most I can — and also how people perceive it, especially when I have a public platform. People all the time will be in my comment section saying, "well if you were making so much good money with UGC, why are you now coaching," blah blah blah — and I'm like, because coaching is more scalable, I can grow my income more with coaching, that makes sense to me — UGC is still an exchange of services for money, whereas coaching, an online program, you can make that a lot more passive. And a lot of people see that as negative, and it's really hard to get out of that mindset, still hard for me — for it to not be a mindfuck.

And it sounds similar to — I'm sure you get this all the time — people who say, "man I wish I could travel as much as you." I'm like, bitch, you fucking can. Everyone can. I mean, I'm not going to claim no one enters the world on the same exact footing — but in terms of your ability to create the life you want, really what it comes down to is the conviction and determination that it's the life you want. If you really want it, you travel. There's a quote I'll botch, but it's like — your values are where you spend your time. So if you say you value travel, and you haven't done more than one trip outside your state or a couple-mile radius in the last year, you don't value travel — you might be curious about it, interested in it, it might be knocking on the door, but you can't tell me you value it, because that's not what your energy is illustrating.

But it sounds similar with money — it's like, "well, it's not fair that you can have this passive income," and it's like, why? Because you chose not to have passive income, so you want to take that from me, but you have just as much opportunity to earn it.

Yeah, that's what's crazy — I'm such a firm believer that competition is basically non-existent, competition is made up. Collaboration exists. Competition is a made-up thing the patriarchy needed, and we don't really need it that much anymore — there's so much money to go around, so much opportunity to go around. Even economically speaking, competition doesn't really exist — what's stronger than a monopoly? A duopoly. Uber and Lyft wouldn't exist without each other.

There's kind of this concept that's come up about following your heart, or listening to your gut, your intuition, whatever you want to call it — there's a quote, something along the lines of, if you follow your heart you'll never make the wrong decision, or something like that. I think one thing I've personally struggled with a lot in the past is doing things that were sensible, logical — sounds like you did a lot of that too. So I feel like probably part of the shift in your career was recognizing that a lot of decisions were being made from a place of "this is what I've been told, this is the smart thing to do." So, firstly, how have you shifted your mindset to focus more on things coming from your gut, your intuition — and do you feel like there are practices you've explored that helped you dig deeper into that, to make sure you never revert back to a different place?

Yeah, I just got curious. I think intuition is just curiosity without fear — literally just being curious about things and following that. Because I think a lot of people, instead of curiosity, have judgment, disbelief — instead, what if we just asked, "that's interesting, I want to know more about that" — asking questions about something, or when you're walking down the street and see a store, and for whatever reason you're curious about the sign, what's in there. Your typical self just says, whatever, keep walking. Your intuitive self says, let's pause, I'm gonna go look. It's literally just curiosity you actually act on — that's what I feel intuition is. And that's very much how I got in touch with it, because for most of my life I didn't really allow myself to be curious, because I thought this is the path, anything else isn't what I'm meant to be doing, isn't right — because I saw things as black and white, and then I realized so much of the world is very gray, and I had to get curious. Once I started following that, it led me to everything.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like there's a part of that too that's leaning into childlike joy, the innocence — because really, innocence is tied to that curiosity, there's no judgment associated with it, whether it's a store, or someone's belief, someone's perspective. It's the innocence where you're able to look at it without judgment — I don't know what this is, I don't care what it is, I am just curious. Think about it too with meeting people — you're at a coffee shop, you see someone reading a book, the cover intrigues you, but you just walked away, because there's that fear of an awkward social situation, or "are they going to think I'm hitting on them" — all these things you make up about why you shouldn't ask what they're reading, if they liked it, if they'd recommend it. Following your intuition is just following that curiosity without the fear, without the judgment, and living that — because that's literally what holds so many of us back, from meeting new people, romantic interests, new friends, traveling to new places, getting book recommendations. It's just fear that holds us back, and the lack of curiosity. So it's like, A, get more curious, and B, get over the fear of the repercussions of acting on that curiosity.

Yeah. 100%. I hate the phrase "curiosity killed the cat" — I hate that, it's so wrong. That would be such a sad way to live. One thing in my life that shifted that perspective, made me want to lean into curiosity more, is going to music festivals and places that are very clearly intentionally designed, weird places created to spawn that curiosity — like, "what's that, that's interesting, let's look over there." But I feel like the world can be that, right — the world is truly the best playground, but we're discouraged from play once we get to high school — there's no recess in high school, maybe PE or some performance training class, but it's like, all fun is done, no more recess, no more play.

What do you mean the world is a playground?

It's so much better than a man-made, manufactured playground — you've been to rock slides in Costa Rica, that's a hell of a lot better than any water slide I've been to, and I fuck with water slides, but nothing beats it, that naturally-occurring thing. I think people have this fear that curiosity — and I felt this growing up, from a religious perspective — curiosity is bad, because if you follow all your whims you're going to end up down a bunch of bad paths, never really commit to anything, or know who you are. But it's the opposite — once you actually get curious, you're really able to tune into your intuition, and it's not like every path you go down is the path for you, or that everything you explore you're going to enjoy or resonate with — but it's great to find what you don't resonate with, what you don't like, and that's really important, and it takes being in tune with yourself, your body, your intuition — all of that plays so well into each other. Following your curiosity doesn't mean you can't commit to things, it's not that — it's finally understanding, through experiencing so much, what you actually like and don't like, who you are and who you're not.

Yeah, yeah. I think most people have a voice in the back of their head, some louder than others — "what if I liked that, what if I tried that thing" — it's hard sometimes.

It is. But it gets easier, right — once you start to listen to that little bit of intrigue, of curiosity, every repetition becomes increasingly easier.

Yeah, it does. Like I said, I used to be super introverted, scared to meet people, talk to people — I would never go to an event by myself. Now I'll just show up to stuff alone. I just joined the Denver gay and lesbian flag football league, and I was just like, why not, that sounds fun. Did I know anybody? No — I showed up to the registration party, didn't know a single person, but I just walked in and was like, hey — and you just meet people. I would have never done something like that five years ago.

Are you kidding me? But it's just from doing small things over time — now I'm so much more comfortable in who I am, and I know if I walked into a space and it wasn't for me, I could leave, walk out of it — but often you're going to find somebody or something in a space you can resonate with and connect to. And there really is that confidence that builds from repetition, too. I heard a little snippet from a podcast the other day — it basically said, it's impossible to have confidence in something you've never done. You can persevere through it and do it, but confidence comes, by definition, from having experienced things. If you've never spoken in public, you're not going to be confident about speaking in public — you can get over the hump and do it, but until you do it, you won't have confidence for that thing.

Yeah, it's the same way in my business — if I was never a UGC creator, I'd have no confidence teaching people how to become one. I don't know the ins and outs, all the things that come with personal experience.

Yeah, it's the same thing. With exploring those curiosities and peeling back the layers of your own onion, there's going to be things you like and things you don't like. I'm curious — what have been some of the surprises, both things you liked and things you didn't?

That's a good question. I feel like, in general, a really big surprise over the past maybe three years has just been realizing how much I actually love being around people — and that sounds weird, because again, I was so introverted for so much of my life. I love being around people, I get energy from people, I love yapping, I love just meeting new people.

Do you think there's something that changed — do you think you were previously more introverted and are now becoming more extroverted, or do you think the people you were around historically sort of made you not resonate with them, so you tended to go inward?

Yeah, I think it's a mix of all of it. I think a lot of it is I've grown a lot of confidence in myself, so I have no problem walking up to people, saying hi, being on a podcast like this — it doesn't intimidate me anymore, and again that just comes with practice. That would have scared the shit out of me five years ago.

I would've been really nervous to do that — but as you gain confidence in yourself by just doing it, it becomes easier. I feel like that's kind of the point of life — we have a finite number of years, we have this weird little suit we're wearing that, who knows what it's for, but why not make the most of it and appreciate it as best as possible.

Yeah, one of my favorite authors, Brianna Wiest — I don't actually know how to pronounce her last name — she has a podcast episode where she says, the things you struggle with most are the things you're here on this earth to master.

Yes. I love that, because it's so true, and that's all about stepping out of your comfort zone. I wasn't always good at public speaking, or holding conversations like this — now I understand I was literally born to do that, and I love it, and I struggled with it, and it took time to really master and learn, and then you get to live it, embody it, teach other people, inspire other people, and I'm like, that's the meaning of life — there are so many things that are harder, that you're not naturally inclined to, and one of the goals of life is to dedicate yourself to those things, to learn how to be more emotionally mature, to better interact with others — all these things you may not be naturally inclined to do — it's actually such a gift, so beautiful, to be able to dedicate so much of your life to learning those things.

Yes. There's a buddy of mine — he recently had a conversation about the meaning of life, just a normal, super-normal, basic Monday-night conversation — and he was saying he thinks our souls take on this human form and predetermine a lesson we want to learn. So let's say the number-one lesson is to learn patience — we predetermine that lesson, and when we're incarnated as human beings, we forget our prior lives, we forget our soul, we intentionally lose that sense of identity and any previous life and learnings we've had before we're born into this world. Then we go through life with the sole purpose of learning that. And he takes it a step further, and says given what's happening in this world, he thinks the lesson we're supposed to learn on earth is love and service of others — that's the overarching lesson everyone who's chosen to incarnate on earth is choosing, and some of us learn it, some of us don't, and you keep going until you learn it.

I love it too, and I think that's such a beautiful view of this world. No, I like that. It's interesting, because I don't feel like I have these kinds of conversations very often — the meaning of life, bigger existential things — and I think there are multiple reasons for that. One, I grew up having so many conversations about the meaning of life, where we go after this, because there's so much of that in religion. But another part of it is I'm so busy living it — I don't have these kinds of conversations often, and I do enjoy them when I have them, but I've never been someone who's super into reading philosophy books or stuff like that, because I feel like I learned so much of those principles naturally, just living life. And I love having conversations with someone like you, who I think has these conversations a lot, has more of that philosophical mindset — I can totally hold a conversation about these things, because I live it, I understand it, I know it. I think it's cool to have those different... I don't know, I feel like we're different, but yeah, at the end of the day you seem like someone who lives a very intentional life, and you don't need to read a philosophy book to come to that realization, to understand what a meaningful life is to you.

Yeah, and I think, tying this all back to where we started — for people who are just going through the motions, who aren't going through the mental gymnastics of figuring out what their purpose is — you definitely had to ask some of those questions to even get to where you are now. You wouldn't have gotten to a place where you're having a conversation like this, or took a path so different from the one that was kind of thrust upon you as a child and adolescent. So you definitely had to go through some of those questions, but perhaps you've come to peace with it in the current moment, where you don't feel a need to dig deeper.

Yeah, I just think — with this topic and so many others — people get so caught up in thinking that they just don't do, and don't live. It's like with anything in life, we overthink so much, and then we're not actually living it. For me, I just want to shake people and be like, put the book down, go hug your friends.

Yes. I think that resonates — I've definitely been on a bit of a "woo-woo" kind of grind the last couple months, and I catch myself like, alright Anthony, pick your head up out of this. Not that it's bad, but it gets to a point where you start to see that as reality, rather than — I mean, who really knows what reality is, but is this "skin suit" reality? There's so much of the world that's perhaps palpable but not observable, I believe, and I think a lot of other people do too. But I love that point — sometimes you just gotta pick your head up out of the dirt and go, alright, I'm also a human being. Even if I believe I'm this spiritual entity incarnated in this body, here to learn a lesson — well, great, go learn the lesson. You're not gonna learn it by thinking about who is God, what is this thing out here — you're gonna learn it by going through the process, and learning to love life.

For sure. Completely agree. Well, I think that's a great place to stop it. Before we go, do you have anything on your mind, your heart, that you want to just get out — something you feel called to release, share?

Something I've been really trying to live into lately is more intentionality — and that's playing out in my business life for sure right now. I've gone through so many evolutions of not knowing what I'm doing, what I'm teaching, what I'm selling, getting very in my head about all of it, going back and forth for a while — am I meant to be a UGC coach long-term, is this what I'm supposed to do long-term, blah blah. And I've had to sit with myself and say, dude, it doesn't matter — it doesn't matter if you're doing this three years from now or not, it's what you're doing right now, so do it. If, while you're doing this, you have some other great business idea you want to pursue, great, do that — but right now you're in this, so be in it. I've had to check myself, like, hey, I know this is work, I know this is a business, I know you're not going to enjoy every single second of it, because nobody enjoys every second of their work — that's normal, that's okay. I'm someone who can be kind of flighty, so if I feel bored, or things get hard, I can be like, I got to go. So learning to just sit within it and be like, hey, it's okay that this is hard, that this is maybe a little boring right now — that's normal, that's literally life. And finding ways I can find my way back to loving something a lot — for me, that's always intentionality, and connection with people. I just launched a new program yesterday for my business, and I'm going into it wanting it to be so intentional — there's 25 spots for the program, and I want to send a physical gift to everybody who signs up, maybe something outdoorsy, or a notebook, something that makes it very intentional, where people feel seen. I was reading a journal entry I did when I was at the resort in Mexico, and one of the biggest takeaways from being there is people love to feel seen, love to feel known — the people who work at the restaurant knew my name, my normal coffee order, that I like my sparkling water with lemon at every meal — they know me, and that makes me feel so seen and known, it makes me love that place, makes me want to tip them more. And I'm like, how can I carry that into my business — because it's not only going to positively affect the people I'm serving, it's going to positively affect me too, because I'll be more invested, investing into these people as well. So that's kind of what I'm focusing on right now — bringing intentionality and connection into my business. I guess let this be kind of a call-out to anyone — if you're feeling stale, missing some passion, I promise, if you just bring a little bit of intentionality, and make a point to make the people in your life feel as seen, heard, and loved as possible, it can bring so much more joy and passion back into your life, your business, anything you're doing.

Yeah. I love that — intentions are really powerful.

So powerful. There's a story — Johnny Cash was given a song someone had written for him to perform, and it was sort of intended, when it was proposed to him, to be articulated as a love song to a woman. He read the lyrics and really struggled with performing it, so he went to his producer, Rick Rubin, and said, hey, I'm really struggling with this song, I can't make it work for me. And Rick looked at the song and said, what if, instead of being about a woman, instead of romantic love, it were written about God? Johnny Cash read the lyrics again and said, I can do it. So by changing the intention of the song — who knows what the original writer wanted, and we, as listeners, based on my understanding of the song, it's not clear who it's intended to be about — it could be familial love, brotherly love, love of God, romantic love. I think when you change the intention, the meaning behind something, it really changes the experience you have with it.

Yeah, so much — it's so much about how we perceive things, our mindset, how we see things versus how they actually are. It's so much about our internal reality.

Yeah, which is kind of the only reality, right — what we see, and how we take things, is really what we experience.

Cool. Thank you so much, this is awesome.

Yeah, thank you — this is a great conversation, I had a lot of fun.

Cool, I enjoyed it too. Yay!