Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Mimi Bouchard on Rewiring Your Brain for Success and Confidence with Activations

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Today, Nicole talks to Mimi Bouchard, the founder of the app ⁠Activations⁠, who’s built a practical, science-backed system for rewiring your brain to create real change in your life.  Mimi shares hacks for productivity and confidence, the neuroscience behind manifestation, and how a quick audio pep-talk helped her get out of her own way and build real wealth.

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it's not. Saving even one month's worth of living costs can feel impossible. Just when you're making progress, that check engine light blinks on and derails your plans. Life already throws enough curveballs. You don't need your bank adding to the chaos. That's why it's so important to choose one that makes savings easy and doesn't nibble away at your hard-earned money with ridiculous fees. Chime understands that every dollar counts. That's why when you set up direct deposit through Chime, you get access to fee-free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit and more. With qualifying direct deposits, you're eligible for free overdraft up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.

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Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs. Bank ranking and number of ATMs according to U.S. News and World Report 2023. Chime checking account required. I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you, don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for so many rehab. When you hear the word manifestation, what do you think? Honestly. For some of you, you're probably going to be all about it, but for others you might think it's too woo-woo. But what if those ideas

weren't just mysterious and squishy and instead were actually backed by neuroscience and psychology? Well, today I'm talking to Mimi Bouchard, who's the founder of the app Activations, who's built a practical science-backed system for rewiring your brain to create real change in your life. I've actually been using the app myself, and I can confirm that it works for people who are a little averse to all the woo-woo. Activations is filled with pep talks, and that's how I like to think of it as a user anyway. The app has a ton of different guided audio pieces that you can listen to to build confidence, upgrade your money mindset, or just feel ready to tackle the day. You'll hear that during our conversation, Mimi offers to hook up our money rehabbers with a discount, which you can snag at

activations.com slash money rehab. She is the absolute sweetest. I am just obsessed with her and her app and everything that she's all about. Mimi also tells me the origin story of the company, the real science behind how it works, and hacks for productivity that actually work. Mimi Bouchard, welcome to money rehab thank you for having me Nicole I'm so happy to be here I'm so happy to have you I really really admire what you've built and I'd love to dig into it but as you know everything starts in childhood let's go back to the beginning what was your relationship with money and ambition like oh boy it was very different okay well we'll dive right in my relationship with money was incredibly different to my relationship with money now it's been one of the biggest things that

I've worked on over the past decade of my life. When I was younger, I grew up in a household that was very financially stressed. My parents are artists, and I was always around lack when it comes to money growing up. There was always a lot of fighting around money, bankruptcies, and just a lot of negative energy towards money and wealth. It gave me this feeling of deep insecurity as a kid, and I realized when I was young, you know what, I don't want this type of future for myself. It seems like all the fights, all the stress, all the anxiety, all the crying, all the tears comes from a lack of money. So I really hope one day I don't experience that too. So it was very different. And I think to be totally transparent, it was the biggest motivator for me growing up to create

my own future because there was such a negative context around it. I grew similarly. I used to think that was a weakness of mine, but I had so much work that I had to do to reframe all of that as my superpower because it really is what made me who I am today. It's very motivating when you don't come from it. Like it makes you realize that you want it, you know, quite badly. And yes, maybe there are disadvantages from not coming from money where when I first started my first entrepreneurial venture, my parents couldn't back it up. I had to work all summer out of a restaurant to try to get to launch this my first online venture which was like an online magazine at the time and it gives you a certain level of motivation once you started the work because we all go through this

journey you looked at tools like journaling right and meditation how did that resonate with you i kind of reached this rock bottom at a certain stage in my journey about 11 years ago and in this rock bottom every pillar of my life was lacking and I write about this in my book, Activate Your Future Self, you have five pillars to your life. You have mental, physical, financial, social, and spiritual, and every single one of those areas was lacking.

I didn't feel good in my body, my health. I was 30 pounds heavier. I didn't feel good. I was going out every weekend. I was partying a lot. I was living paycheck to paycheck, feeling a lot of anxiety towards my finances still at the stage in my life.

And I wasn't connected to myself. I felt very low confidence and security. So I reached a point where I decided I needed to change. And that came with diving into self-development, self-help, and personal development. And I started reading a bunch of books about it, started listening to all these experts, and started doing the things. And one of those things that everyone told me to do that I couldn't quite stick with was meditation. Everyone said, okay, to be successful, you need to meditate every day. And I tried and I put it on my to-do list and then half the time I'd forget to do it or I wouldn't check it off and then I'd feel guilt and shame and I reached a point where I was like, you know what, why would I do this? Because I want something to invigorate me. I want something to make me feel alive and feel motivated and disciplined towards all these goals that I have. And sure, meditation's great if you want to calm your nervous system and clear your head. But I'm not really trying to do that in this phase of my life. I have stuff to do. I have stuff to do. I want something.

active that can also take advantage of visualization and all these different practices that really help you reprogram your mind. But I just wasn't resonating with meditation. And I was also really busy at the time. I was working like four jobs trying to make ends meet. I didn't have time to carve out 20 minutes out of my morning. I needed something that I could habit stack. So around that same time, I remember the moment, Nicole, it was kind of crazy. I was sitting in my 200 square foot apartment in London. I lived in London in my early 20s. And, I just had this intuitive pull to record a voice memo on my phone. And I was essentially just speaking a visualization, a guided visualization of feeling like my future self now. And I weaved in

certain affirmations and certain other modalities into there. And then I'd listen to it. And it was good, but it wasn't giving me that motivational feeling. So then I added it to my computer on my garage band. I remember this so specifically. I took all this like cinematic motivational music from YouTube. I started layering it in. And then little did I know I created the first activation at that point. This was eight years ago. And I can't even tell you the shift that started happening in my life. If you think about it like a graph, the beginning, the first couple years of my journey, trying to do all the things that weren't working, it was this very gradual elevation and growth. I was feeling some changes. I was journaling. But then I'd fall off track and go back to the old

self. But then it was literally, if you think about it, like a bell curve from the moment I started listening to these activations and creating them and putting so much time and effort into creating a bunch of these audios to listen to, it was a bell curve of growth. It started going up like that. I started making more money. I started feeling better in my body. I started gaining confidence. and I was doing less than before. So I'm happy to kind of tell you why it worked so well, but that was really my story and now everything is so different in my life. And I have dedicated the rest of my life to teaching this.

I'm so grateful that you have. I went through something similar. I actually felt an extreme burnout that led to a breakdown. I had to push out the launch of my third book, never imagined that I would have done that as a super type A person who always wore this busy badge of honor. And I went through trying to understand and quantify what self-help looks like. And I love that you think of it as a chart because that's what I was trying to do too.

I wanted these modalities, but I also wanted to prove that they worked. I wanted science. I wanted a chart. I wanted exponential growth. I didn't want something that was only going to feel like a chore. And so to me, I looked at meditation and journaling similarly. I couldn't take the time to do all of it. And I felt like I was just taking one step forward, maybe taking one step back.

What was the rewiring process for you after going through it and then thinking that you had to come up with something totally different? Essentially, it came from a need that I had this need of feeling like my motivation and my discipline was quite fleeting. like I'd wake up in the morning and think, oh, okay, I'm not in the mood today, and then I'd kind of act like this version of myself. I didn't want to be. And I felt like it was very hard to hone in to this energy, this feeling, this emotion of being who I wanted to be, right? Because at the time, I was researching a lot. I'm just like you, quite a pragmatic person. I like to research the neuroscience. I like to research the psychology behind it. I was reading a lot of books on self-image psychology and how visualization literally retrain's your brain and how

our brains are actually malleable on how we can change our personalities. And when we change our personality, we start acting different and we start having different habits. And it was a shortcut to transformation, it seems, that all these people that really could hone in on this were doing. So long story short, I just, I wanted something to get me into that state in everyday moments. I didn't want to carve out 20 minutes out of my day to sit and try to journal or meditate. I wanted something that would give me this active aliveness feeling during these everyday moments like walking to work or cooking dinner. So I'd actually listen to these activations while I was doing these everyday activities. And now I know after it changed my life and I was like, wait a minute,

how is this working so well? Because it was dramatic. And one of the reasons is that it takes advantage of classical conditioning. It's kind of like a modern take on the Pavlov's dog theory. you know that theory where Pavlov rings the bell, the dog salivates, that's classical conditioning. Well, you're essentially taking advantage of that when you listen to an activation in an everyday moment. For example, when you're walking the dog around the block for 10 minutes every morning, if you listen to a walking activation in that moment, soon enough, you don't even need the activation to feel abundant, inspired, confident, alive, magnetic. So it really trains you in these everyday moments to be the version of yourself that has the life you want and all of this work I teach

Nicole it all comes down to being her now if you want to create the life of your dreams you must first become the version of you that has it it doesn't happen and then you feel all the good amazing feelings you have to be that version of you before achieving it and that makes it come to you so much faster it's not magic it's actual science when you become the self-image of your future you literally subconsciously without even realizing it become that person you start doing the same thing she does you start speaking the way she speaks dressing the way she dresses and it makes the process of transforming any area of your life very enjoyable so why wouldn't you do it this way is what I say agreed let's double click on the neuroplasticity and the classical conditioning

because as you started digging into this you really leaned on the science behind it. And what is that show with neuroplasticity? What I found in my self-help adventures was that neurons that fire together wire together. And I thought that was so cool because it showed me that a lot of this is in my control. Yes, absolutely. And that's actually one of the biggest beliefs that I had to change the beginning of my journey to start changing my life. The belief of I am 100% responsible for my life. I used to be a victim. I used to think, oh, because I didn't come for money. How could I ever be wealthy? I used to think, oh, because of this, I can't get that. There was always this stream of reasons why I can't. And I notice a lot of people naturally have that. And it's comfortable to have that

as a belief because it absolves us of responsibility. But the beautiful thing that happens when you start taking 100% responsibility for your life is that you realize that you're the creator of your life. You realize that you can actually feel empowered every day knowing that you're creating the future you desire and you actually believe it's possible. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy as well because if you think it's possible, then naturally you're going to do the things to get there. But if you don't think it's possible, how are you going to wake up in the morning and work towards your dreams? Because deep down, you don't think it's going to work. Absolutely. And what I love about what you've done with activations is you've also democratized this.

for people who might not have time to go on a self-help journey, to go to Bali and to Mirabal. And there's a ton of places that are also really expensive and it feels a little gatekeeping. But you've been able to take what you've learned and allow people to participate in the science-backed methods that you found to be so helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I honestly think self-development, personal development, becoming successful. It's a lot more simple than a lot of people realize, and I've always been the type of person that I like a shortcut. I like to get things done quickly. I'm impatient. I want to get there fast.

So when that beginning of my journey, the growth was quite slow for the first few years, I was like, I need to change something. There is a reality where I'm growing quickly, and I'm changing my life in a way that feels good. So, yeah, you know, it can be simple. It doesn't mean it's going to be the easiest thing in the world. but simplicity with personal development is what I like to hone in on. It's what I teach because it actually doesn't have to be that complicated. I have this two-step formula to transformation, and it's very simple. The first step is clarity.

You must first get crystal clear on who your future self is, and I say the term future self, synonymously with your best self, your favorite self. You can be your future self right now. It doesn't live in the future. But your future self is the ideal version of you. It's the most authentic version of you. the best possible potential version of you. So the first step is getting clarity on who they are.

Who is that future self version of you? And most importantly, how does it feel in your body to be that person? I don't want to get too woo-woo here because I'm very science fact. But really, it's an energetic thing. Emotion is energy, right? Feeling is energy. It's a frequency. How do you want to live?

How do you want to feel in your body? What is the feeling inside of you that is aligned with how your future self feel? So that's step one. And step two is becoming. You must then be her now in everyday moments and just keep showing up like her. And it doesn't mean that what you want is going to poof, you know, show up in front of you. But what it means is that you're going to change. Because when you start being her and training yourself to be that version of you in these everyday moments, everything begins to change.

Everything in your life will start unfolding in a new manner. Because really, your self-image, how you identify, you know, your identity, I am a successful person. I am a lucky person. If you have these core beliefs, good things happen to me. Then you're going to start seeing things everywhere that align with that belief. And that's another science piece I can share. The reticular activating system, the RAS, it's a system in all of our brains, we all have it, that essentially acts as a filtration system and it filters out information and shows your conscious brain information that it deems relevant, right? So we've all heard of like the red car example. If you're thinking about a red car, you start seeing it

everywhere, well, that's your RAS in motion, right? So the RAS also is in motion when you have these beliefs, I'm a lucky person. You start seeing reasons everywhere. Or if you have the belief, I was destined to be rich. I was destined to make enough money to help my family, to help my friends to, you know, create this life that I desire. I was destined for it. If you have that core belief, you are going to start seeing opportunities all around you that were always there that you just didn't notice before.

So it's actually crazy because if you're not doing this work, it's also working to your disadvantage. But if you are doing this work of reprogramming your mind to think better, beliefs to align yourself with your future self, you're going to start literally seeing things come up that were always there, but you just weren't seeing them. Hold onto your wallets. Money rehab will be right back. And now for some more money rehab. So if somebody's listening and they're like, I'm a really practical person.

does feel a little woo-woo to me. What would you say to somebody like that? Because what I love that you're doing with Activations is that you're really linking what you can be doing and the habits that you decide for yourself that are going to become a regular part of your routine can directly be linked to your own success and your own vision of what your life is going to be. So that feels really tangible that it's actually working toward the betterment of your career, your financial picture whatever you vision for yourself in money and finance. So basically what I've learned is this is all the truth no matter what you want to call it. Right. So an atheist will call it the placebo effect. A psychologist will call it self-image psychology. A scientist will call it quantum physics.

Christian will call it prayer. A spiritualist will call it manifestation or the law of attraction. However you want to package it, it's pretty much the same thing in a different language, right? really it is the truth and you need to focus on your thoughts and your beliefs and who you're being most importantly it's all about who you're being and I can share with you so many incredible stories because we have hundreds of thousands of people that have changed their lives with activations and every single day we have stories coming in from people that really just wanted to get their spark back, you know, in a small way to a big way. They wanted to feel better. Maybe they've just had a kid. We have a lot of moms that use the app because it's habit stacking. And moms always want to be

their best selves for their kids, right? Whether it's getting your spark back after you've had a child, whether it is when you're feeling confused about the direction you want to take in your business, whether it is you wanting to create so much financial freedom for yourself, or even you want to get a raise for $10,000 more at work. Every big or or small thing that you can think of, you learning who your future self is and reminding yourself throughout your day to be her now, to be that version of you now, that is the trick. And it will change results in your life. And that's a given. You mentioned habit stacking and you talk about this in your book, activate your future self. Can you tell me more about habit stacking and also

mental rehearsing and how that's worked in your life? So habit stacking is essentially when you pair different habits together to just make it a lot more effortless to do and easier to do. So for example, I will put a scoop of collagen in my morning coffee or matcha just to get a little bit of extra protein in and to feel a bit more balanced my cortisol levels in the morning. That's kind of a habit stacking thing. I will listen to a walking activation when I'm walking my dog in the afternoons. That's a habit stacking situation. I might listen to an educational podcast while I'm folding laundry. That's habit stacking. So even like wearing your red light mask while you are putting your legs up a wall and listening to an audiobook, like that's like the ultimate habit stacking

situation. I find that with activations, that's a reason why so many of our users use it every single day because it's just easy to. It's one of those things like I mentioned earlier when I was trying to meditate. I'd have it on my to do list and I just wouldn't check it off. With activations, you don't even want to add it to your to do list because it's like just having your morning cup of coffee. like you just want to do it. It's not something forceful because it just makes you feel good. It feels good to feel good. That's the base of all of this. So that's kind of why I created this business as well because I was seeking aliveness in life. I was feeling numb and I was seeking aliveness. And listening to cinematic inspirational music, especially paired with visualization

words, really just does something inside of you and shifts how you feel. Because the activations app isn't what's going to change your life. It's who you become when you listen to it that's going to change your life. And whatever it is that puts you into that state of aliveness and inspiration and that future self energy, you need to hone in on that. So whether that is waking up early and doing some journaling and listening to some soft music, whether it is weaving activations into your daily routine, whether it is deciding to not have screen time for an hour in the morning and an hour before a bed and that helps you connect with yourself and feel more alive. Whatever it is for you, just keep honing in on that feeling of aliveness and that feeling of

being who you want to be now before what you want comes into reality. Who did you create as your future self when you are starting this? What does she look like? Oh, thanks for asking that. I love that question. And I can honestly say that I feel like I am her most of the time now and I'm not going to say I'm perfectly her all the time because I don't believe in perfection. I've never had one perfect day on this journey of completely radically transforming my life. I am not going to lie and say that I'm now officially perfect. No, it doesn't happen that way. And no successful person that I've ever met has ever even had one perfect day where they wake up at 5 a.m. They have it stacked to the nines. They ate organic all day. They didn't have a negative thought.

they didn't procrastinate. Like we're human beings. We're not meant to be perfect. So perfection shouldn't be the goalpost for us. What should be the goal post is a quick bounce back rate. That's another term that I kind of coined back in the day. Your bounce back rate is the rate at which you get back on track after falling off. So perfection should not be the measure of success because it's not. It never has been for anybody. Your bounce back rate, how quickly you can get back on track after you fell off the bandwagon. that is the measure of success. So to answer your question, my future self, I feel like I'm the image of her today. I feel deeply happy in every area of my life. And I really, I'm astonished because

I didn't realize how it was going to happen, but I knew it would when I started to reprogram my mind and I started telling myself, I'm destined to be financially free. I am meant to live this unique, bigger life. And I know that every single one of us actually has that little voice inside. I'm not special. Every single person has that little soul whisper. Maybe there's more for me. I just listen to it. Anyone listening can also listen to it and create their version, their unique version of this beautiful potential life. Right. Back in the day, I wanted to make a lot of money because I felt lack growing up. So money was a big motivator for me. For some people, maybe just making 100,000 a year is the big goal post motivator for them. For some people,

it might be a million. For some people, it might be more. Whatever it is for you, that gives you that feeling. For me, money was important. For me, that felt like security, that felt like safety, that felt like I could help the people I love. And I also wanted to feel bliss and joy every day. That was a big future self image of mine. And I feel like I've achieved that too and so many other things. Did you put a specific number on it? It's funny because I did and then it changed when I reached that number and then it changed again. And then I realized I just wanted to feel that feeling of awe towards how I can attract this beautiful big life. And I just continue to see that over and over again. when I first made $10,000 in a month, I was like, wow. And then I wanted $100,000 a month. And then

that became normal. And then it was $500,000. And you know what I mean? So it kind of kept going up. But what I noticed with money that I think you're going to find interesting is your money mindset, your money identity is kind of like a thermostat on the wall. If you identify as like a 70 degrees with money and you're comfortable in that range. No matter what happens until you change that set point of your identity, you are always going to get back to that level no matter what, like subconsciously, it's like a need that we have, right? So if you get a raise and you have not brought your money dial up to 72 degrees, you're probably going to spend that extra money and get back down to this amount in savings. The same goes as if you had an unexpected bill, you're uncomfortable until you bring

your money, your savings or your identity around money around this. point. So what's interesting about this work is the more you do it, the more your set point kind of rises. For example, the baseline. So it would be uncomfortable for me to be making, let's say, less than 200 in a month, right? This idea of a money thermostat is just a honed way to look at money manifestation because I do think that money has energy. I've noticed we've talked about it on the show. When you put money out there, it comes back to you. how. Do you believe that? I think everything is energy, but that's not woo-woo. That's literally measured, right? And if you think about it on a subatomic level, like particles, attract like

particles. There are so many amazing theories that we could study in quantum physics that just open the mind to possibility. And our thoughts are energy, our bodies are energy, that glass on the table is energy. So yeah, I do believe it is. But I don't believe that when you think about something it pops up in front of you. I don't believe in the movie, the secret, where they try to emulate someone just thinking about a car and it pops up. That's not, that's too woo-woo for me. That's not what I believe in is doing this work, becoming the person that has what you want and naturally creating this life because it's just who you are. Did you meet your husband before you started activation? Oh yeah. We met just over eight years ago. And I'll tell you something

crazy. So this was around the time where I was still recording. I just started recording my own activations for myself as my little side hobby. I spend hours creating so many of these different because it takes a long time to create with the music and everything. So I was a couple months into creating my own activations. And on October 12th, 2017, I actually recorded an activation describing my person. And I described how he made me feel. And I literally met him on October 13th, 2017 the next day. Wow. Yeah. So maybe that's coincidence, maybe not, but I was definitely looking for what I wanted and it was in my subconscious and I found it. And I also think because this work is a lot about just being that version of you and not

necessarily creating lack between where you are and where you want to be is just already being there from a feeling perspective. So perhaps if I wasn't in that state, I would have wanted it too badly and created resistance and that would have pulled away, right? So it's important to not be too needy in a way with the goals that you have, I've realized. At what date did you tell him about that? Probably a urine or something. I'm like, I did some voodoo spell. No, it was maybe a urine or something. Yeah. He's like, all right. He's just been like, okay. But it's crazy because I met him at the beginning of my journey before I was who I am today. So that's so special. We've both grown so much and we got married three months ago.

It's kind of this, thank you. It's this full circle moment. And you did activations on your wedding day? I did. We actually launched our bridal series. Perfect timing for my wedding day. And it was incredible because one of our top composers for the app, Judah Earl, he actually lives here in L.A.,

he does the most amazing cinematic music for top movies and TV shows. And I found him because I just loved his music. I found it on Spotify and then I reached out to him years ago and he started giving us some of his music for activations and really his music's very emotive and that's what we need. So I tell my audio engineers, my team, you really need to make sure that every activation makes the listener feel alive and feel like they're this main character in a movie moving towards what they've always wanted. It's that intense, beautiful, cinematic feeling that we really need to infuse into every

piece of audio. Judah's music is so aligned with that. He actually created the custom composition I walked down the aisle to, and I flew him in from L.A. because we got married in the English countryside to perform it in person with the rest of the musicians, and it was an out-of-body experience, I'm telling you. That's so cool. My husband really connects with music in that way, too. I wish we had this when we were getting married last year.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it's, it's changing. We'll have to renew our vows. You all just have to get married again. No, I'm kidding. I'm so obsessed with all of this because I truly believe in all of my journey for finding my own answers to self-help. You've leaned in to the science and the data here, and I so appreciate that. I don't want to put you on the spot or be weird, but would you mind hooking up our listeners if they also take advantage of activation?

Oh my God, of course. I was actually going to offer if you wanted, but we're more than happy to give your listeners a big discount. Yes, please. So you can't do discounts in the app store. So to sign up, they'll have to go to the website. Let's just come up with a link off the top of our heads here. We could do activations.com slash money. Money rehab. Okay, activations.com slash money rehab.

By the time this episode is out, I'll make sure that we have the website up. And we also offer a two-week free trial. So we'll do the two-week free trial and like a big discount on that link if you guys want to try it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Hold on to your wallets. Money rehab will be right back. And now for some more money rehab.

I want to talk about the mirror activations because that was, that felt really vulnerable. And I've done a bunch of this work and I've done different exercises. Like I've had a time when I was told in a hypnotist office to like, visualize what success was and then switch chairs and do all this sort of interesting stuff around really looking at financial trauma or looking at other issues that might be standing in my way. But the mirror exercise, whoa, tell me where you came up with that. Well, that's a very niche category. I kind of love that you gravitated towards that. It's not as popular as our other categories. We have 16, 17 categories in the app. The mirror activations are really deep. Like you mentioned,

They're very deep to change your identity and to change yourself image. Most of our activations there for everyday moments like walking, cooking, cleaning, getting ready in the morning, whatever you want to be doing. But this specific category, it's really to just deeply reprogram your identity and you're essentially sitting in front of a mirror, closing your eyes, opening them, closing your eyes and just kind of, but that's quite a niche category. I love that you enjoyed them because it's one of my favorite categories when you really need to change something, but it's a little less popular on the app. But yeah, I think I came up with that because the more I think about how your self-image is a simplifying transformation, right? Continuing to simplify. Your self-image is everything. So how can you change your self-image?

Okay, we're doing this work. What if you need something deeper? what if you literally need to start seeing yourself differently, then that's kind of how the mirror activations came to be. But anyone at home listening can also just do them by themselves in a way where whenever you go to the washroom, just take a minute while you're washing your hands, look in the mirror, look at yourself, look in your eyes, and just start to train your mind to see yourself as more confident,

more beautiful, more magnetic, more wealthy, more whatever you want to be. And if you can just in these tiny moments, start to train yourself to have different thoughts about who you are. That's the biggest thing. It's the biggest thing. And transformation happens in the small moments. It doesn't happen on this one day in your calendar three months from now or this big thing's going to happen. No, it happens in the tiny moments of your day. It happens with consistency.

It happens when you keep showing up for yourself in these small ways every day. I'll share with you between us girls. I notice when I'm slipping with my own mental health, when I don't look at myself in the mirror, when I go so fast and I'm a new mom and something about it, I'm just like, I can't even look right now. That's when my personal bounce back rate I know is going to be a little bit longer because it's not really if but when you feel like you need more support. And so that's why the mirror activations were so resonant with me because it forced me to do a thing, that I know in the back of my mind is a sign that I need some more support. Wow. Well, you're very intuitive.

Thank you. And that's beautiful that you went to that. And it's tough. I think when you enter any new stage of life, you kind of need to rediscover yourself for a minute. Yeah. That's for sure. I was listening to your motherhood activation too because I'm going through sleep training right

now with my daughter. And so we're running on very little sleep. And I love that it's a reminder. that these moments are ones that I'm going to miss at some point. And so it's really helped to ground me in a place where I'm like, yes, you're crying. And I am very frustrated inside. But I know that in 10 years I'm going to be like,

oh, but she needed me. And she was just this little snuggle munchkin. And I'm going to miss that when maybe she's slamming in the door. She's never going to do that because she'll be a perfect angel and love her mother forever, never. But it's a really special reminder to lean into that chaos or embrace the chaos. And just reframe certain things in your life. You know what I mean? Like we are the ones that attach meaning to everything. And yes, we cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control 50% of the outcome. Reaction too. Yes, exactly. So there is this formula. It is E plus R equals O.

The event plus your response equals the outcome. So I think Jack Hanfield came up with that one and I love using it because it just reminds you that yes sometimes there are things outside of your control okay you have a big podcast in the morning but your baby's up all night and you're going to be tired but it's your response to that how you're going to translate that situation into something that could be better even what you just mentioned how you're going to savor these moments now because when she's older she's not going to need you as much and so yeah the only thing that you can control is your response to how all of the chaos is how My husband just started a company called Second Arrow because you can only control the second response with the second arrow.

Oh, that's so cool. I don't know it, but that's amazing. It's just this idea that you can't control the first arrow, like you can control the second. You can control your response. And that's it because stuff is going to happen. When I started this journey from myself, I thought, okay, well, I'll get to balance. Like it was a destination. Like I was going to find it under a chair or something. And it's just a constant journey because you can use balance as a bird and a noun. And so I started thinking about. it as a noun, something you have to cultivate all the time. And you have to continue to do these habits, activations, because you had a lifetime of bad ones or negative ones that weren't serving you. And only a lifetime are going to counteract that. It's kind of like the compound effect, obviously with investing, as you talk about a lot. I'm speaking your language here. It's like the compound effect. When you are showing up for yourself in these very small moments of your day, that compound so much over time that you end up in a completely different place, even a year down the line than if you weren't to do those tiny little things, that's actually one of the

biggest lessons I've had to learn when it comes to transformation. I used to kind of want it to be this one big thing and then I transform one day. But no, I really had to learn that it's actually just about the small incremental changes and showing up for yourself imperfectly in those little moments and that being the compound effect to massive transformation. And I also very much so enjoy investing and I'm very interested in it. So using an investor's mentality. I write about this in my book actually, embodying this investor's mentality towards life, not just money, but just towards your life, right? So it's making the certain decisions that will benefit you in the future, maybe not be as enjoyable now, whether that's with your health or your finances,

or your relationship, sometimes having the hard conversations now and not stuffing it down or choosing the healthier meal at the restaurant, whatever it is, those little things that can help you be this investor in certain areas of your life, just having a complete investor's mentality towards everything. I think that's such a game changer. Thank you. Yes. The ROI, the return on investment is so real. Massive. Investing in yourself pays the most dividends later on, for sure. And yeah, I think about that idea of compound interest when you would say, do you want a million dollars now or a penny that doubles every single day for a month? And the answer is the penny. But you think that you want like this fixed idea. And the penny every single day compounds to much more than that.

And so thinking about it in the same way for your own habits and your own mental health is totally true. It does compound over time to bigger numbers than you ever would have imagined. And I wanted to ask you, too about how this has impacted your business you talk about the 10x versus 2x principle yes which i can imagine it but if you can explain it would be awesome yeah there is a book i forget the author's name now i think there's two guys that wrote it it's called 10x is easier than 2x i didn't even read the book i just read the summary online i said someone recommended it to me and it's a very simple concept it's essentially the concept is especially in business if you just focus on the 10x X, things that have the potential to 10x your business and you forget about everything that

could 2X your business. That's the way that you're going to grow easier than ever, faster than ever and in a way that you won't burn out as much. So I started to integrate this philosophy into my business. I told my team to read the summary online or the book and it really has paid dividends because I think it's been a year and a half now of this and we've more than doubled the business. and this was also at a time where I took eight months off of social media last year, we've just honed in. And that's one of my biggest pieces of advice to any founder or any business person or anyone that works in a career where they can control what they do in their day-to-day life.

It's often very confusing. As you know, being a business owner, what marketing channel are we going to focus on? Or everyone's saying that we should do this Pinterest ad thing. And then your focus is spread in so many different directions. So that was what I was experiencing at the beginning of my journey in business. I was focusing on trying to do everything and then not actually focusing on one thing with so much intensity. So then I started to take in this 10x is easier than 2x philosophy. And really, we just stopped doing 90% of the stuff we were doing.

And I actually tell my team, I'm like, I don't want you to burn out. I don't want you to be working late. I just want you to fully focus on these one to two things that we are focusing on with laser attention. Think about it like a light. If you have a wide light, it casts a wide amount of light everywhere around you. But if you have a laser, it will burn through something. So really using that mentality of just focusing on the things that could 10x your business, whenever something comes across my desk, I think to myself, is this a 10x opportunity or a 2x opportunity?

And I now say no. So many things. I definitely needed to hear that today. Thank you so much. It's true because you can spend the same amount of time for something that will 10x or grow exponentially as you would on a smaller opportunity. Absolutely. Don't just do it because you think you should, right? It also gives you a lot of confidence doing things unconventionally because everyone's telling you to do all the things.

But if you decide to move into a different direction and not follow the norm, it makes you feel quite unconventional. And you think about it, maybe doubting yourself, right? But really, I have been unconventional most of my career and with most of this business. And I've never raised money. We keep the team very, very lean. And I don't do certain things the way that others would necessarily. But then yet, the revenue we're bringing in, the profits we're bringing in is unlike anything else. And I'm happy to say that because I want to inspire people listening that you don't need to do things the way that everyone tells you to. It's just because they have a certain title or they have this certain confidence about them. You need to listen to your own

intuition as a business person. That's a big learning that I've had and something that I always try to tell other people in business. I'm so proud of you for doing that and so happy that you're sharing that because I think it's such an important message to as someone who bootstrapped as well. This idea of raising money has been glorified and become like, I don't get it. You know, now you have bosses, but yay. So I appreciate that you saying that. How was taking so much time off social media? It was invigorating. I felt more alive than ever before. And you know my thing is like, aliveness for me emphasizing life. That's kind of how I like to live. I like to feel good. Did you have a withdrawal period? Oh my gosh. Yes. Like the full addictive behavior.

I'm busy. I'm not scrolling all day long. But still, when I deleted the apps off my phone, weeks later, I was getting this craving where I'm like going to where Instagram used to be. And I'm like, wait a minute, what am I doing? And it makes sense because these big social media giants, they literally hire people to make their apps more addictive. We don't have a chance. I know. So I think the best way to feel clear and to feel alive, which I keep talking about, that juicy aliveness feeling with inspiration and happiness and presentness, that feeling is what I want to feel more of in life. Numbing, which is the opposite, is what I want to feel less of. Social media and doom scrolling and, you know, binge watching too much Netflix, even overeating

over drinking, drugs, anything that numbs you out puts you into this state of just like disassociation of fatigue, of exhaustion, of kind of taking your life force away. And then the opposite. it is aliveness and it gives you this juicy life force and I really try to lean into things that give me that aliveness feeling so whether it's listening to certain music it's literally why I created activations every single one makes you feel aliveness whether that's having a beautiful deep conversation with a friend calling your mom and just sitting and not scrolling and just connecting connection gives you aliveness waking up early moving your body dancing laughing that's aliveness. When you're in this aliveness state, time goes by slowly. You are literally soaking up

your life in the most beautiful way. And when you're focusing on numbing activities and you're distracting yourself, time goes by very quickly. And you don't feel good. Even hours later when you're not scrolling, you still feel this like haze of just brain kind of tiredness. So again, I am not perfect and I still scroll, you know, throughout my days sometimes if social media is back on my phone, but I'm now a lot more aware of it. And when I start to feel that kind of, that feeling of numbness creep in, I often will just delete the apps so that there's just, there's no way. And I've noticed that a lot of people that I speak to feel the same way. I appreciate you saying that. It's true. Like you can try your best, but at the end of the day, you know, you're only human. And it was such a

program thing. And as you say, these companies have to profit from getting your attention. Well, a juicy alive life, sign me up. And thank you for spending time with us to help us create our own juicy alive lives. Let's say that 10 times fast. We end all of our episodes by asking a guest for one final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. I think my biggest tip here is you need to get very familiar with how it feels. to have the amount of money that you desire. You need to start feeling very comfortable with that amount of money. Because if you're not, then your set point that we spoke about earlier, that identity thermostat is just never going to budge. You need to feel a new standard inside of you

and actually feel it in your body. This is, again, not woo-woo. This is really just, this creates your self-image here. So get very familiar and very comfortable with the amount of money that you desire. We specifically actually have a whole manifest money category in activations, by the way. There is everything from manifest $1,000 all the way to millions and millions and millions and everything in between. So what that does, it doesn't, like I mentioned earlier, those activations don't just make money show up in your bank account, but they change who you are. And it makes you create more money for yourself, the more you listen. So I would highly stress anyone listening to try any of those out. It's in the targeted visualization category.

in the app. So yeah, it helps you get familiar with the feeling. It gives you that feeling inside of you. And the more you can hold on to that familiarity and that comfort with the amount of money you desire, the more the closer you will get to it and the faster you will get there. It's not magic. You have to work for it. You have to listen. But it makes it easier to work for it and do all the things you need to do when you embody the self-image. That's what makes it more effortless because when you identify as the type of person that is wealthy, you're going to feel weird if you don't wake up and work on your business. You're not going to want to procrastinate as much just like if you identify as someone that's healthy. You're going to feel weird if you ate like crap

all day and didn't move. So that's kind of shortcut to transformation. Amen, sister. Okay. And Activations.com slash money rehab. Activations.com slash money rehab. I will make the best discount, the juiciest discount for you guys. Just in a live juicy discount. That's what we want. Exactly. That's the word of the day aliveness. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Laffin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Levoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, money rehab at money newsnetwork.com, to potentially have your questions. answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me and follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you.

No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make. Thank you.