Financial Feminist - 297. What 5 Millionaire Women Know about Money (That You Don't)

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

I recently sat down on a couch in beautiful Laguna Beach with four women who've made over $100 million combined. And what they have to say will change the way you think about business. This episode is different from our usual format. It's a live panel conversation recorded at a seven-figure entrepreneur mastermind, where I'm joined by Adley Kinsman (founder of Viralish, Vanessa Marin (licensed sex therapist and co-founder of Vanessa and Xander), Maria Wendt (entrepreneur and educator who's sold over $21 million in low-ticket products), and Natasha Willis (co-founder of School of Bots). Together we get into the self-sabotaging beliefs that keep people from starting a business, what money actually buys beyond the sexy parts of entrepreneurship, whether ambition and rest can coexist, and the money beliefs each of us had to unlearn to get here. Links: Adley Kinsman (Viralish) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adley Vanessa Marin (Vanessa and Xander) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/VanessaandXandr Maria Wendt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maria.wendt Natasha Willis (School of Bots) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/NatashaTWillis Learn the exact strategies to save money, pay off debt, improve your money mindset, and increase your net worth. Get your personalized plan: ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠. 00:00 Intro 01:30 Self-sabotaging narratives and startup myths 04:25 From therapist to entrepreneur: overcoming the "business is dirty" belief 05:35 Making money is easier than you think 08:30 What entrepreneurship gives you beyond money 12:17 Identity before proof: what successful entrepreneurs know 14:55 The volume and obsession success requires 18:55 Ambition vs. rest: finding your version of "enough" 23:15 The moral responsibility to scale your business 29:43 Boundaries: what to share publicly 34:05 Money beliefs you had to unlearn 37:22 The ostrich effect: why you avoid your money 39:30 Making money vs. building a business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The women sitting with me on the couch today have made over $100 million. And here's what we know about money that we're ready to teach you. I recorded this week's podcast on the sunny shores of Laguna Beach at a seven-figure entrepreneur mastermind. And I sat down with four women who are absolutely killing it in their businesses. This conversation is not about spreadsheets or strategy. It is about the identity shift that must happen before you actually start making good money. And it has all of the secrets of high earners that you need to hear.

in order to level up your money story. So today, I'm sitting down with Adley Kinsman, Vanessa Marin, Maria Went, Natasha Willis, and yes, myself. And we're talking about what it really takes to build wealth, whether ambition and rest can coexist, and the money beliefs we each had to unlearn to get here. This episode is one of the most powerful transformations you can make in how you think about and earn money. So let's get into it.

But first, a word from our sponsors. I think in the year of our Lord 2026, everybody needs a website. Maybe you're a business owner, maybe you're a freelancer, or maybe you're someone who just needs a place where all of their work can live, especially when you're applying for jobs or getting new clients. And Squarespace is going to make that really, really easy. You can offer your services on Squarespace. They offer, as well, cutting edge design tools with like drag and drop,

so you don't have to know how to code at all. And you can buy domains on Squarespace, which is what we did. Herfirsthundredk.com is a Squarespace domain. We appreciate Squarespace's support of the show. They were one of our first ever ad partners, and we know you'll love them too. Add on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,

use offer code FF Pod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I'm so excited to chat with you all. Tell me how your business makes money in one second. Marie, I'll start with you. Low-ticket products. I've made $21 million with $27 products. Incredible. Vanessa?

Low-ticket products as well. Amazing. We teach women to be good with money. That's how we operate. We teach businesses how to go viral so they can spend less on paid ads and grow a viral brand. Amazing. That was Adley and Natasha. We help the top accounts on Instagram maximize their revenue

through our done for you services. Boom. So when we think about entrepreneurship, I think that anybody listening, there is this belief that I can't be an entrepreneur for whatever reason. Can you walk me through when you started being a business owner? What were the self-sabotaging narratives that you had

that someone out there probably has as well? well. Natasha, you want to go first? Yeah, I think one of the biggest kind of traps that I see people fall into is that they think they need more information. And so they constantly are stopping themselves from taking action and just continue to plan, plan, plan, plan. The analysis paralysis part. Exactly. And so for each person, it looks a little bit different. But at the end of the day, oftentimes it is just you're trying to consume more information. And so I think one of the best things that you can do in that situation is just get off of social media, put up a blocker through whatever app you want to and just completely get narrow focus so that you can just get something launched

out there. And the quote of you should be embarrassed by your first product or your first whatever is so freaking true. And it just means that you are able to move fast enough to where now you're iterating just faster and faster from there. And I think all of you are a great example of that. Or you look back five years ago, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I posted that. Or I can't believe that was my customer experience. But that's exactly what you want to see. Because otherwise then you're not iterating quickly enough to be able just fail faster by pulling the future forward in that way. Well, and I think, Adley, you and I have talked, and we talked yesterday about how many

iterations you've had in the business. So maybe talk to us about your first business is not the business you're running now. Your first business is not the business you're running now. So good. Never. I think I've had 20, I'm not kidding, 20 iterations of Viralish. And I'll have maybe another iteration or two by the end of the year because success loves speed. And I was bankrupt when I started as an entrepreneur.

But I just think entrepreneurship is trying to feel. find the problems that you uniquely can solve and that you're interested in solving. Yeah. And then you get paid in direct proportion to the size of the problem that you're solving. And so I didn't have money to spend on information that was gate kept 10 years ago. And so I had to just try on my own and fail because I couldn't afford the courses or to learn from a mentor and pay to be in their programs. Yeah.

But I credit so much of our now success and the woman that I try to be today to moving as fast as possible. Well, and I love talking about money. What you just said, I think is another narrative. people believe is I need a bunch of money to start a business. And I started with 40 bucks. I think most of us started with very little money. And you were bankrupt when you started. I was. And I think it's such a blessing because I think the constraints leave a lot of them for creativity. Yeah, they force you to figure shit out. They force you rather than if you have all the options and you can take all the

courses and all the information out there is free, then you're trying to take an ingredient from this person, ingredient from this person, ingredient from this person and make a cake and you wonder why your cake doesn't work. You wonder why it doesn't rise and why it tastes like crap because you're mixing all the ingredients rather than just picking a path with a limited scope because of your constraints and able to get really creative within that and come up with solutions that other people wouldn't have come up with otherwise. Totally. Well, and Vanessa, I think about you because your experience is, I think, so many people where you have a very quote unquote normal job. I mean, you talk about sex for a living, but you were a therapist. You had a job that wouldn't

immediately think, oh, I'm going to create content or I'm going to be an entrepreneur. So how did you transition from someone who took clients to now being a content creator? but also a business owner. Yeah, so I am a licensed sex therapist in our business. I work with my husband. We specialize in helping couples and long-term relationships still want to have sex with each other, even after all of these years. And I think my struggle with entrepreneurship was something that a lot of people struggle with

where I thought, you know, I'm a therapist. I went to school for this. I want to help people. The business stuff, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I never got any sort of training in it. I'm here to help people. And I think a lot of us helpers, we also think that business, is kind of dirty in a way.

I don't want to have to show the people. I just want to help them. So having to overcome that and recognize, nobody is really going to school for this. Like, we're all kind of starting from nothing and trying to figure it out on our own and just throwing stuff out there and making mistakes and learning from that

and reiterating over and over again. Maria, you're teaching thousands of entrepreneurs at this point. When you look at the mistakes they're making, how are they sabotaging themselves? Yeah, it's a great question. I'm super proud. We're almost at the 200,000 customer marks.

So we're getting very close. Yeah, every day we get 200 new customers. You know, something that I don't think got mentioned, but I think it's so important that I observe in looking at what do new entrepreneurs do to sabotage themselves? What do they do to keep themselves from success? I just think that they think it's a lot harder than it actually is. I really think that they don't give themselves permission to make it easy.

They overcomplicate it. I saw this quote, and it was so good, it's like, you don't have a knowledge problem, you have a discipline problem. And I think that if we understood that it's actually quite easy to make money, it's quite simple to make money. and we just started believing that belief and we're like, what does that actually look like

for it to be easy to welcome money into our life? That for me is when it clicked, because I spent so many years at first, $63 in my first year is what I made. And then the second year, I only made $350. So it took me like two years to make $400, and it's because I believed that it was very, very hard to make money.

But once I shifted that belief and I was like, actually, it's very easy to make money, my brain started trying to find ways to make that true. And it has become so easy. And so one of the first things I work on with my students is this is not hard. This is not hard.

and any industry can do it. I always say, like, I have a student who's made over a million dollars teaching parents how to knit felt hats for their kids' birthdays. This is the most random industry.

Anyone can make money, and it's a lot easier than you think. And I think we don't say that enough as leaders in our space. It's actually quite easy. This is not that hard. Yeah. I think that that's a belief

that I see a lot is that there is something that we all have some sort of like DNA trait that we have that the average person doesn't. And I'm like, there are privileges

that we all have, absolutely. But I think that there is like, oh, you have a certain degree or you knew a certain person. And it's like, no, I just put in a shit ton of work. Yes. Yes. And it wasn't glamorous. Not at all. And I think therein is like the answer. It's actually really empowering. You say, yes, I've had things that I've made my life easier. And I also just sat down and did the work. And anyone can. I really want that to come across. It's like anyone can make money doing what they love. I've seen it to almost 200,000 people. And I just really want beginners to have that belief. Because if they have that belief, they're going to work through the kinks, which will keep them from quitting. That's what we want, is we want to keep new people from quitting. Yeah. Well, and one of the things you talk about is

giving people access to just a couple thousand dollars extra a month because it's going to be easy to look at all of us. We're all seven-figure founders. We're making millions of dollars every year. And someone watching is going, I don't know if I need millions of dollars, which first of all, let's hope you want millions of dollars, right? But there is this belief of, no, I just need a little bit of money. And I think that is something that entrepreneurship can grant you in a way that you're nine to five. It's just really tricky to do. Yeah, I always say I don't want to help a few people make millions of dollars. I want to help millions of people make a few extra thousand dollars a month, which I think is very realistic. Right. If you had two K extra a month, what would you do? It's life

changing. It really is. And that's so achievable. Yeah. So when we think about the way we view money, you were mentioning this before. When I talk about money for a living, it makes people uncomfortable because we, I think, as women have been told that money is bad, that we should push away money, that the pursuit of money is wrong. And one thing that I am so passionate about is women unapologetically wanting to be rich. Yes. What did entrepreneurship give you in your financial life besides just all of the maybe sexy parts of running a business? What did entrepreneurship buy for you?

Entrepreneurship, more than anything else, has given me immense amounts of self-confidence. because as an entrepreneur, you were getting kicked in the face, left and right, with things you never saw coming. Totally. People betraying you, you never saw ever in your future that were going to betray you. And you just never imagine these things to happen. And you get a resilience and a self-trust over time because you've overcome imposter syndrome, not once, but usually several times throughout your journey. And so when you've been kicked that many times and you're still here and you're still going, I believe that I can overcome anything. Totally, Natasha.

100%. Yeah. I think kind of along that same thread, the thing that comes to mind for me is both the confidence and also like I feel very safe and protected because I know that even if I, you know, God forbid, lost my partner tomorrow or something else happened in my life like I would be okay because I would be able to have food and shelter and far more than, you know, what I need and still be able to feel like I have the option to go and be whatever I want to be. Yeah.

Because I have those options, which I love you are always saying how money does give you options. And that is the biggest gift that you can give to yourself. and all of us truly in the world deserve to have that as an option, but it only happens when you start to believe that for yourself. Yeah, and we were talking about this inside, but one of the things I think about all the time is when shit does hit the fan, the last thing you want to think about is money. And that's the gift for me of entrepreneurship is I earn more money than I could make in a nine to five.

And I also get to run my business the way I want to run my business. When I was working for somebody else, it was just really toxic environments. Like my income was capped. I didn't like making someone I did not respect rich, you know? And I think that when you're an entrepreneur, you get to run your business how you want, you get to provide the kind of benefits you want to provide. And also, you get to change the way you think about money and change what your financial picture looks like. Entrepreneurship gave me the ability to take care of my dad. He was diagnosed with stage four cancer at the end of last year, given an absolutely terrible prognosis. And entrepreneurship gave me the ability to support financially, to take care of. time off and be able to go to appointments and help him recover from surgeries and treatments, I cannot fathom what it would have been like to go through this journey. Just gets me emotional.

Like, you're just thinking about it to have to go through this journey and not have that opportunity. Well, the flexibility, and that's what I'm here too. Like, the money's nice, but it's the flexibility. It's the ability to take time off. It's the ability to work when you want. It's, I'm not able to show up today and act like a normal human being because shit's going down and offers you a ton of flexibility that a nine to five just doesn't. Yeah. I think for me,

entrepreneurship has given me the gift of being the exact kind of mama I want to be. You know, without compromising my financial goals, I make about a million dollars every single month and I work two days a week. And the rest of those five days a week, I'm at the beach with my daughter, Ellie. I'm reading the nerdiest fantasy books. I paint. I always say I'm rich in time and I'm rich in money and I'm rich in love. And today's my 13th anniversary of starting my business. So August 1st is my experience. I've been doing this for 13 years today. Thank you. And I made that decision 13 years ago. You can't predict, you know, you can't say it's going to be this. But, you know, if I would have known I start this business and 13 years later, I'm going to be a rich single mama living life

on my terms. Like, hell yeah, I would do this all over again. I'm very grateful. Yeah. Yeah. What do successful entrepreneurs know that the average person doesn't? Great question. Identity. has to come before the proof. Tell me what that means. So for me, I delusionally believed, even when I was completely bankrupt, I had no evidence to support that I would be really wealthy someday. And nothing around me had to give me any indication of that, but I knew it. And so I acted accordingly.

And I just believed it, even with the circumstances were very, very bleak. And that identity resonated and then attracted what I wanted to me. And I think people get law of attraction backwards. I think that they just manifest and they just think, I want these things, I want these things, but they don't become them first. When the identity shift happens before the proof, before the circumstance change,

that's when everything really unlocks for you. So identity has to come before the proof, and you resonate, and then that is what attracts what you want to you. Well, and manifestation is nice, but you can dream all you want, but a goal without a plan is just a wish. Amen. You can go, yeah, I want this life and it will come to me,

like this is something that drives me crazy. Some of the financial content I see is it's like, call in $250 to your wallet, like call it in. And I'm like, you know, people will claim, claim, comment claims. And I'm just like, no, this is the scam. This is the scam. So, yeah, you can want these things, but you have to go out and actually put it in the way. Be like, I am a millionaire.

Okay, then what would a millionaire do? Do the motions of that identity. And then maybe you can call on the 250. Right. And also, how do I unpack emotionally the feeling of, I want to be a millionaire. Oh, baths in sweat immediately. Who am I to want to be a millionaire? Who am I to want? Well, isn't it? Yeah, very similarly, confidence comes before action. And this is something that entrepreneurship and sex have in common.

Yeah, talk to me. A lot of people with sex will tell me like, well, I can't do that because I'm not confident yet. I'm waiting. I can't get on top and turn all the way around. I'm not confident yet. I can't let my My partners, I tell my partners see me naked with the lights on. I'm not confident yet. We're waiting to just magically, all of a sudden from the sky, the confidence just falls into our lap and we become this magically confident person. And that's not how it works. You build confidence by taking action that requires confidence. That's so true. You take that step. You realize I survived. The world didn't explode. I did it. You gain a little bit of confidence. You take another step. You realize you survived again. You got a little more. more confident. So it's the same in the bedroom as it is an entrepreneurship. Yeah, it's building that self-trust. Everybody needs a website in 2026. I think it's one of the most important tools in your arsenal, but you especially need one that is beautiful and functional and easy to find. Maybe you're a business owner, maybe you're a freelancer, or maybe you're someone who just needs a place where all of their work can live, especially when you're applying for jobs or

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You probably wouldn't be listening to this show if you weren't. And everything's really, really expensive right now. And there's also the pressure of looking at your money all of the time, especially when you're spending hours plugging in your expenses in a spreadsheet. But that's why Rocket Money is here to help. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket money has been sponsoring the show forever. I love using them. I think you'll love them too. And we've talked a million times on this show about how automating your savings is one of the best tools in your arsenal for building your wealth. Rocket Money makes that

super easy. You can automate your savings that grow towards goals with adjustable amounts and frequency so you can set it and forget it. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com slash SFPod. Support our show and join at RocketMoney.com slash SFPod. That's RocketMoney.com slash SFPod. Rocketmoney.com slash ff pod. Maria, what do successful people know that the average person doesn't? I think successful people know what it takes. And I think sometimes they keep how much it really takes

because they're scared of scaring people. But let's be so for real. Like we've all put the reps in. We are at the top of our game and we've put the reps in. And I just really reflect so much on how if we knew, it's a good thing we don't know what it takes at the beginning. Like they're really like the long-term game, not just how to make money. You made money so fast, so easy.

But like to really be in this game and play this game at this level that we're playing it for as long as we've been playing it, like I would have fallen to my knees. And so I think that successful people know what it takes and they're not afraid of it. I just got done with one of the most grueling months of my whole career and I'm so proud and I'm so self-satisfied and I'm confident. Like you said, like I've pushed myself to such a level. And I have the pleasure of meeting, we all do, like people at the top of our industry. And they're beasts, they're animals. Like they just, they do the work and they know what it takes. And they're not afraid of it. And I think

that that is one of the big gaps between people who are just beginners and people that are very successful is they understand the volume that it takes to see success. And they're not afraid of it. They're willing to do it. Yeah. Natasha, you're working with so many entrepreneurs. You and I have worked together for three years. Like, how do you see their behavior? Like, how is it different than the person who wants, to be an entrepreneur or wants to scale a business. Yeah. Obsession keeps coming back into my mind lately as the phrase. It's so true that you do have to allow yourself to be obsessed and allow yourself to create an environment that allows you to be obsessed. So for example, a lot of people maybe don't

have the most supportive spouse who's like, hey, it's time for us to hang out. Like, you know, maybe you should stop working as much, so on and so forth. And so for each relationship, that dynamic is a little bit different because you have to come to, you know, the right expectations together of, hey, what do I really want out of this relationship? Well, in seasons, too. Absolutely. And so I think that people experience challenges around their life when they're crushing it in business because they haven't set the right expectations with the other people that they are in agreement with, right? Whether that's their husband or their kids or their family or friends or whatever it might be. And so I think being able

to create the environment for yourself first is super important. Like you talked about confidence coming before the action, absolutely. And I think it's confidence and environment paired together because you can very quickly allow your confidence to be killed by external factors. If you are in a friend group that's like, why are you starting your own business? Oh, I saw your little social media post, you know, like, okay, kind of cringy, whatever it might be. And so you really do have to create that, even though it's going to be very lonely initially, knowing that and having faith in the fact that it's going to allow you to become the person that then brings you the next circle of friends, the next circle of team members, whoever's going to support you in that, to be able to do

what you want to do, that you're going to find your people. So it's kind of that confidence, faith, and environment that all need to be together initially in order for you to have those right ingredients. But it really is obsession. Like we were talking earlier, you're talking about the volume of customers you're currently bringing in. And the entire customer journey that has to exist, it really is all about volume. We were talking about how many emails that, you know, you're sending a day. We have clients that are doing $300 million a year. They send 20 emails a day. Like the volume, it becomes to the point where you're like, oh, what I'm doing is still the small game and there's so many more levels to the game. But I think the most important part of it all is just deciding what do I actually want out of life.

And not everybody wants to run a $300 million a year business. I mean, I know. I do. And it's super important to have that awareness. And my husband has really brought that for me because I'm very much a person who's like, let's do more, let's do more. And I've realized that that's not for everybody. and it's most important to know that because if you go on to social media, you allow yourself to be brainwashed by too many different people.

And all of a sudden, you feel conflicted with yourself, but you haven't spent enough time with yourself to know what you want. So it's like the most important thing is the confidence, the faith, the environment, and like starting to bring awareness to what you want. And in order to do that, you need white space to allow that for yourself. One of the things I struggled with a couple years ago that I imagine every single one of us has struggled with. I have this feeling of ambition. Like, I want everybody to know my name and I want to sell out stadiums and I want to write a million books that are bestsellers and I want all of that.

And then at the same time, I want a cabin in the woods where nobody knows my name and I adopt a bunch of dogs and I do puzzles. And for me, like, it was really hard to see. I would swing back and forth. It was a pendulum for me for a very long time. It was like, oh, really intense. And then it was like, I want nothing to do with this. And for me, I finally found the space where it was seasons. It was like predicting there are times where I will push and I will do that intentionally and there are times where I will pause.

So let's discuss ambition versus, yeah, cabin in the woods or whatever that looks like to you. The balance is a myth. But like how do you find the balance of those two things? I think past $5 million a year, maybe even past a million dollars a year, life doesn't look that much different whether you're at $5 or $10 million a year. Your overhead can increase and different things can change. as far as lifestyle, being able to order whatever you want off menu or afford some of the luxuries in life, it doesn't change that drastically versus maybe 300 million. But there's levels to this. And I think the self-awareness to know what you're aiming at is so important because the top of every mountain is just the bottom of another. Like I remember going to my first 100K was the hardest.

Then the first million, even harder than that. And then after a million, the leverage changes. And so it becomes a lot easier to make money after that. It does. It really does. You know? And then so being able to know where we want in the spectrum is great because once you get to the top, you're like, I'm crushing it, 10 million a year, bap, then you are around a different caliber of person that's doing 25 plus. And then I'm like, oh, I feel bad about myself versus did I want this in the first place? Is my quality of life, everything that I ever dreamed of? And my self-worth is not determined by adding another 20 million this year. Yeah. And there's so many people listening who again are just like, I want $2,000 extra a month. That would be really, really nice. And then there's

other people who are like, no, I want $50, $100 million. And I think both of those can coexist. But to your point, as soon as you open the doors to another room, there will always be another room. And you have to decide, I think pre-deciding is helpful. Because once you're in the room, you're like, I kind of want to go see. Now it's an emotional decision. Yeah. Right. Yes, yes, yes. And are you willing to sacrifice what it requires to get to that next level? Because we can all say, I want a $300 million company. Sure. But are you willing to say, sacrifice, are you willing to be the person it takes to do that? And then you have to answer that question very honestly. And it doesn't make you less of a person if you're not because you have one

important. Give me one second. Because what you just said too, I've had experience with of, there is some envy still that I have where I see somebody else because I'm ambitious. I am so supportive of other women. And also at the same time, I'm like, oh, I kind of want that too. And then the thing I ask myself is, am I willing to do what she did to get it? And if the answer is no, then I don't really want it. And that's okay. But that's the question I start asking myself is if I look at somebody and it's so easy, maybe somebody listening is looking at one of or all of us and going, oh, I really want that. And the point we're trying to make is, are you willing to put in your reps? And if the answer's no, that's fine, but then you can't say

you want it. One thing that's been really helpful for me is to bring it down to a much smaller scale and to think about what do I want my average day to look like. Yes. It's so easy to spin out and 10 million a year, 30 million a year, a 300 million dollar company. But if you shrink, I'm going to get back down to what actually feels important to me on a day-to-day basis. That's been really helpful in grounding me. So two things emerge for me. One was I actually want a lot of space and freedom in my day. I do my absolute best work when I have a lot of spaciousness,

when I don't meetings on the calendar all day long. I don't have a million things on my plate. I have the most creativity. I produce the best when I have a lot of space. And the second thing was I am not willing to risk my relationship. And especially since my relationship is a part of the business, I got to doubly protect it. But I really realized I am not willing to do anything that would put my relationship in harm in any sort of way. And just even having those two things to think about has really helped me identify

what I'm willing to do. I think I actually have a pretty interesting take on this. I think that all of us have been given so much with our success. And I think that we have a moral responsibility to grow as big as it can get. I think that it's called being a great. good steward of the opportunities we have. And so I would disagree. I don't think it matters in a way what I want my day to look like. It's what should my day look like. Think of us as women to be in such a tiny percentage of successful founders. We have been given such a gift and such an opportunity to impact not just our customers, but our family tree and to leave a legacy. And so I think that for me, I went through all of this where I was like, I can just retire early and live on the

money I have invested. So I went through this really big identity crisis this February. And I really was like, well, if I don't have to work, why am I working? And I wrestled with it. I actually took a staycation here in Laguna, fully unplugged from the world. And I really wrestled with this because I was tired. I wanted to retire. But I just, the conviction for me came so strong that like what you've been given, you're in charge of being a steward of.

And I think that it's my opinion, but there's what we might want to do and what we're called to do, what we're supposed to do. And not out of like heavy obligation, but more out of a gratitude, a gratitude, realizing this is what I've been given. And what an unbelievable, unique, rare opportunity for me, especially as a woman, to have that opportunity. And so I think that that's why I don't quit. And that's why I keep going. And that's why I keep pushing. It's because I'm ambitious and I want to. But also because I have a moral responsibility to steward the blessing that I've been given and to not just take care of myself, but to take care of the people I'm supposed to take care of,

which is so much bigger than me and my daughter. So that's my take on that. How do you balance that, like when it starts to feel like it's really draining you? It does. I experience that. Yeah, it's a great. It's not about me. It's not about me. Who gives a fuck if I'm drained? Who cares? Like, it's, you take your little break, like, practically, okay, I need to get off Instagram for a day and they need to reset. We're so talented and that we've reached levels of success that's so rare. Like, I think we were put on this earth for a very specific reason. And it's our gift. It's our gift to take it to the endth degree. And so there are so many days, of course, where I'm tired and I want to quit. But I felt this conviction very clearly to slow. is to let a business die, right? If business isn't growing, it's dying, and I'll be damned if my business grows on my watch. And so it's not about what I want. It's about what I'm supposed to do,

not in a heavy obligation way, but more in what a gift to be able to do this, and I'm not going to be selfish with my gift. Yeah, that's interesting. It's really interesting because I feel that exact same level of conviction of I know I was put on this earth to do this, and I know I want to have as big of an impact as humanly possible. But I feel like I have to take care of myself

in order to be able to best give that gift. And I think it's not to the exclusion of taking care of yourself, but it's to know that some days are going to require you to not do what you want to do and to really reach in within yourself and find that greatness of an athlete. Like we're pro athletes at business. And so pro athletes don't quit. They don't play slow. In my head, it's like you take care of yourself so that you keep doing what you want to do.

And also at the end of the day, like we don't love our business. 100% at the time. And so rather than being like, I just want to throw in the towel, determining is this just a season where it's just really uncomfortable to be a business owner and I just need to go through it?

Every single person is going to have a period or even a long season of entrepreneurship where you're like, this is fucking awful. Like, this sucks. And I think what you're saying is like, you have the mission or you have the belief that like, no, I still have something to give and I have something that the world needs

and so I have to keep doing this. I would say, yeah, like, if you get a business to 10 million, this is my opinion. But, like, you have a moral obligation to try to get it to 100 million. I would say that. Like, you have your, if you get it to that far, if you achieve that level of success, you're being selfish by not taking it to the next level. I should have a same conviction. And Blake and I talk about this.

See, I'm like, if I'm at 10 and I feel good at 10, I'm good. But that's you playing small and taking care of Tori. That's not you taking care of Tori's people. No, it's also your own personal tolerance level for that. Yeah. Because Blake was like, let's sail off into the sunset. we have hit the mark wire. I'm like, okay, maybe on like a rowboat.

We're not on a yacht. We had so far surpassed what he dreamed was possible for his life. So he's like, we did it. We crossed the finish line. We don't need to work anymore. And I'm like, we absolutely do. We have so many people to serve. My gift is not mine.

But also our knowledge is only as good as to the extent of which we give it away, to which we share. If I have all this wisdom, you have so much wisdom that can release so many people. if you just sail off on a yacht and you're like, cool, then it's just all yours. It's not actually good wisdom. To me, this is actually, this is two things. This is scaling versus service. I could retire tomorrow. I'm not interested in doing that because I have a job to do. And I think that's how we all feel. And at the same time for me, I'm never quitting. Yeah, yeah. And for me also, I could, if I really wanted to scale this to whatever,

I am not interested in doing that personally because of what it's going to require for me in this season of my life. Like when I was early 20s, maybe, but my success has changed. And I do want to impact as many people as possible, but there are certain things that I am not willing to do for me personally because I know that I would burn out or I know that this would no longer be,

how do I serve people for a long time? I don't want to firework and burn out, you know? I don't want to be a big ball of flame. You're protecting your long game. I want longevity. Yes. I want to be doing this until I'm in the hospital. My last breath, like, we got to find the clit, guys.

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of a website or domain. I shared this on social media, but my family and I have been going through a rough time. For the past nine months, it's been really, really difficult to just do life. And we got some news that was just really hard. I started sending factor meals to my parents. My mom manages her diabetes with diet and an exercise, and they have incredible keto meals. And so for the past six months, I have been sending them factor. And they have truly loved it. They are ready in two minutes. There's no prep. There's no cleanup. They are actually fresh. They're not frozen. I look forward to my factor delivery every week because it just makes my life so much easier. I am like feeling so good because my meals are portioned out. And they were also just so kind

after I messaged them and told them, hey, you are helping us get through this hard time as a family. They sent me and my mom a year's supply of food. So we appreciate you supporting them because they have supported me and my family in a really sweet way. Let's eat real. Head to Factor Meals.com. slash food 50 off and use code food 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code food 50 off at factor meals.com. See website for more details. Wait, okay, I wanted to ask you this question. Because you teach people how to have better sex, do you have to experiment a lot? You're like, honey, we got to go to work into the bedroom.

R&D. How do you, how what your R&D look like? All the time. All the time. We are absolutely guinea pigs. We will try any weird tip I've found on the internet, any totally bizarre position I've found. I want to try everything.

Absolutely everything. A lot of time people will ask me, well, does not take away the spark or the magic from it that you feel like you have to do it for work? And it's completely the opposite. Yeah, scheduling sex is actually the best thing. It's given us this freedom to just try things and not. put pressure on it. Let's just see. How does it go? That was terrible. Great. Okay. That was a really funny bonding experience between the two of us. I mean, we're having a whole conversation about something

that no one will talk about, which is money, right? Yeah. Same taboo as sex. Yeah. Are there certain boundaries you've set in your business of what you will or won't talk about, what you will or won't share? For me, if anybody's following me, you know that I am partnered, but I don't share my partner publicly. And that was something that we started our relationship. I was like, this for me is something that feels private and sacred and I want to keep it that way. Is there something for you? Right now, honestly, no. I think I'm in this season now where I've had so many different kind of phases where a wound hadn't healed yet and I didn't talk about, you know, that scenario. I now feel so comfortable in my own skin and I also don't

have a lot of personal attachment to like different scenarios that have happened to me or like people are leaving hate comments or whatever. I think I've just kind of developed. out this thick skin where my approach is just kill them with kindness, like literally anybody that comes at me. Yeah. And that leaves me in a happy place. And I don't, you know, feel any kind of resentment or guilt or whatever. So honestly, right now, I'm in a place where I'm like, film me 24-7. And I'd be cool with that. I'd love to see how that goes for the next five years. So I'm kind of moving into that season for myself. But I also have not had that experience before. So I'll probably have a different answer in five years. And also when I have kids maybe. Yeah. How about you?

Oh, I'm an open book. Yeah. I probably should keep more. I just feel so lucky to be here and blessed to be here that I'm like, ask me anything. And I'm not embarrassed about where I've come from or whatever, anything that's happened to me are my shortcomings because it's just this is who you are. Yeah. Right. And it's like, I actually love something that Layla Hermose says, which is that she tries to show herself as raw as she possibly can in every piece of content.

So that when you meet her, it's not like you're meeting a totally different version of that person. And I think it does kind of suck unless it's intentional like, hey, this is my, you know, alter ego, my alias, whatever. Totally. But like someone getting to meet all of us, I feel like all of you are the way that you are in person, for real, also in your content and the way that you show up for your customers. Public me is me. Like I'm not putting on a front. But also, I am very different in private circles because I will compare myself to Beyonce for a second if you will indulge me.

But like, I think it was actually something really smart that she did is she created Sasha Fierce to like, because there is a version of you that has to show up in public spaces. 100%. Like I am not who I am here with my partner. that would be so annoying. Like, I'm talking in sound bites and I'm like, that's annoying. But, like, it does coexist with that version. Are there certain things? I know you're an open book as well, Maria.

I'm a very open book. I talk about, you know, going through my divorce. I talk about all the money stuff. I share how much I spend in my personal life. But similar to you feeling like your partner is sacred, I would say similar, it's the same thing with my daughter. Yeah. I definitely talk about her, but I'm very mindful of how I do that.

You don't see her face. Her story is her story. And so if I mention her, it's only in, relation to my role as her mother. So I try to keep my story about me and just really respect her privacy. I think that's important. But other than that, I mean, I wish I could show her face. I love sharing everything. I wonder how I'll be when I start dating again. Honestly, I think I'm probably going to share it because I share everything. So it feels natural to me. But who knows, I love the idea of something being so sacred, we don't share it. And that is my daughter. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, vulnerability is really important to me. We know we're talking about this topic that the vast majority of people feel shame, embarrassment. They struggle to be open about it. So it's really important to Zander and I to take the lead, to take that first step, to show people, look, we can talk about all the most intimate details of our sex life on the internet. We can embarrass ourselves, make fools out of ourselves. Yes, my parents know all the details. But we do have a no-questions-asked veto rule between the two of us.

So at any point with any piece of content, if one of us says, you know what? I actually don't want to talk about that online. No questions asked. No pressure whatsoever. I love that. And the one question that we won't answer about our own sex life is how often we have said. Interesting. Because that's the number one question people have. It's been a barometer. How much sex should we be having? And I think that's actually the wrong question to be asking. But I think that if we were to share our number, people would think, oh, well, that's the right number. If I just try to hit this tally, then we'll magically be fine because that's what Vanessa and Zander do. You're like, I'm clocking in for my sex time.

And if you're trying to have sex to hit a tally, then it is not going to be good sex. My last question for us, what money belief did you have to completely unlearn as a founder? That not all debt is bad and that debt can actually be really good leverage in the business context. Yeah. I think that's one interesting thing as a financial educator. Debt, we label debt if you're poor. We call it debt. We call it leverage if you're rich.

That's right. So debt is credit cards, it's student loans, debt is bad, right? My nemesis Dave Ramsey wants to talk all the time about how bad debt is. But the interesting thing is, like, you know, could have bought my house in cash. I did not because it was made more sense for me to take out a mortgage and put my money elsewhere. So I think that's exactly right. Yeah, almost more about resource allocation. Yes.

And ultimately having a plan. Yeah. I think that and you see a lot more of this than I do. But in my own personal experience, a lot of the time you're not actually planning, like, what your payback is going to look like for personal debt. You're just like, great, I'll take out these loans. I'll take out, you know, this credit card debt. Whereas in business, yes, if you approach it with a plan, then you know, great, I can pay this back in two years, three years, whatever it might be. And so now it is just a reverse engineered decision as opposed to an emotional decision of, oh, I want to buy these things. I don't

have the cash, but I want to make an emotional decision and buy this thing to feel good or whatever. Adley, would you have to unlearn? I had to unlearn that money is hard to make when I was in such a place of scarcity and bankrupt, the best gift that I gave myself was the ability to see opportunities to make money everywhere. I was selling insurance door to door. I was flipping phone cases. I flipped pigs, baby pigs. I would adopt, then, nurture them for five months at a time, and then flip them for $850. You know, I was just finding ways to add value in this situation. The hustle's crazy. The hustle was wild. But I realized money is all around us. And then if you could just see opportunities.

And that helps me so much with it being a tool, knowing if everything was taken from me again, I know I could make it back because I have a gift to be able to see opportunities and anything and offer value in exchange for what people want and what I can bring into the world. Yeah. Maria? I had to unlearn that it wasn't greedy to want money. It was just common sense. Money is just so good.

We shouldn't have to justify our desire for money. It's not bad to want money. It's not evil or greedy. It's just common sense. Of course you want money. Money's good. Money's beautiful. It's such a tool. And I had a lot of conditioning that needed to be removed around, you are greedy if you want money. And so when I stopped seeing money as bad, I started getting some. And the more I started loving money, the more money started loving me. Yeah. And I think,

speaking of responsibility, I think that any person, but really any woman listening, like, I need you to have money because you will be the most generous. You will be the most family and community-oriented. And in a world where there are certain people who are so greedy and who are just interested and how do I get the biggest yacht and the biggest house and all of that. It's like money in the hands of women changes the entire world. Studies show that. It really does. It really does.

It's done studies on that. I actually need women to have, it's imperative, especially at this moment, to make as much money as ethically as you can, but in a way that is allowing you to provide options and choices. I want to learn to pay attention to money. I mean, so many of us women have been socialized to not pay any attention to money, to just kind of be the sleeping beauty, and, oh, I don't know, it's all going to work out, and not pay any attention to it. And I've learned to have a relationship with money, to talk to money, to be grateful for money, to have dates with my money, to send my money off to make friends and bring those friends back. paying out. And even to be grateful for expenses to think about who are the people's lives that I'm impacting by paying that bill that's kind of annoying or paying that home improvement project that I wasn't

anticipating having to do. But just being able to think of money as something that I'm constantly in a relationship with. Yeah. I love that. I think the ostrich effect is real. That's the most common thing I see in our community is you bury your head in the sand, you act like it doesn't exist. But the thing I've really realized with most people with money is that they say, oh, I'm really scared of my money, so I won't look, right? I hear that a lot. You're not scared of money. You're actually scared because you have no idea what the hell is going on. Exactly. So one of the things you're doing is it's like getting in a car with no gas gauge and now you're just driving. That's not a fun road trip. Yeah. Because the whole time you're wondering, am I going to break down at two in the morning without

cell reception, right? But if I get in the car and the gas gauge light is on, like the lights on, that's not great, but at least I know, okay, I can get my four miles to go get gas. So when you say, oh, I'm scared of money and that's why I'm not looking at it, no, you're not actually scared of money. You're scared of the unknown. And there's nothing that feels worse than going to buy something and your card declines or I haven't budgeted. So I have a peony collata on the beach, but it's with a side of guilt. I think that it's so important for anybody managing money, but especially entrepreneurs, as I see so many creative people, they go, well, I'm just not good with money. And I'm like too fucking bad.

Yeah. Like, this is a requirement. This is a skill that you absolutely can and need to learn. I don't care how creative your business is. You have to at least have a general knowledge of what's going on. Because if you don't, it's just your business will not be successful. It's just impossible. Do you think there's a difference between making money and having a business?

I'll give an example. Yes. We were doing a lot on Snapchat, and Snapchat came out with Spotlight for the very first time. They were giving away a million dollars a day. Did we create several accounts across several phones and post every five minutes between Blake and I for seven days straight through the night? Yes, that was making a lot of money. It was not a business. But I think in early entrepreneurial journeys, if you can just learn how to make money, get that muscle memory going, then you find the opportunity that you actually want to scale.

But it's nice. I like flipping pigs and selling insurance and phone cases and all those little things they did to make money. I won game shows. I just got in the habit of learning how to see money and how to make money. And that was how I edged myself into being an entrepreneur. I think that's such a great distinction. And found the thing you scaled it. I think the business is the system or the thing you've felt that is not requiring your active work all the time or the new opportunity. Like if you are 100% reliant on somebody else or some other thing for your profit, that's just really hard.

Because they can take that away from you at any time versus if you're thinking more strategically about not only how do I just make. more money. It's like how do I build something that keeps running without me having to feed the fire all the time? I think that probably is the distinction. 100%. Because I, as video creator, we would have to make dance for our dinner every day. And if I wasn't making videos, I wasn't making money. Then we turned it into a business where we started hiring people. We started a management division. We started training our knowledge. Right. So then it was a business that could run. And we were making the same amount of money, but I wasn't having to do the work. But there was a transition between starting to make money in the beginning, then scaling it into a real business.

Cool. Yeah. It's a great distinction. All right. I would love for all of us to go around and say and remind us who we are, what we do, how somebody can get in touch. Yeah, 100%. My Instagram is Natasha T. Willis, and my business school of bots helps the top Instagram accounts in their niche, maximize their revenue from their content. As a client, I can vouch for that. My name is Adley. I'm at Adley on Instagram, and we help business owners increase their visibility in their brand's reach in five days or less across all platforms. I'm Vanessa. I am on Instagram at Vanessa and Xander. We help couples still want to have sex with each other. So if you can't remember the last time you've done it, the last time it was good, then definitely come check us out. Yeah, I'm Maria Went. My Instagram is at Maria.com. Please follow me on all of your accounts, including your backup ones, because I'm almost at a million. So please have your dog follow me, all of them. And I help people get paid doing the things they love. I'm really good at it. you love doing, I can help you make money with it pretty quickly. So come find me and I'll help

you out. Amazing. And I'm Tori Dunlap. I run her first 100K. I hope women be better with money. You can go to Her First00K.com slash quiz, take a six-step quiz. There's no past fail or just getting more information about you. And we'll deliver you a free personalized money plan. So that's the easiest way to get in touch with me. It was so fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, produced by Her First 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free.

If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst hundredk.com slash s-s-S-Podd.