Steph Crowder (0:00)

Foreign. Welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast, we deliver both in equal measure. Oh, and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello. Hello, CNC listeners. Welcome to the podcast, episode number 117. Thank you for being here. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. As usual. I'm so excited to be hanging out with you. And for today, kind of a special episode, this is gonna be a little bit of a personal episode, a bit of a life update. And I. I've gotta be honest, I don't have a super prepared episode for you today. I've got some thoughts for you. I've been, you know, mentally sort of organizing what I wanna share regarding my life updates and how I think it applies to you and how you can benefit from some of the lessons that I've been learning through my personal life recently and some big updates that my family has made to our lives. And so this will be a little bit more of a, I guess, like, intimate, sort of cozy episode, not one of my more structured, like, do these five things kind of episodes. But, you know, I was talking to my good friend Claire Pelletro about doing this episode, and one thing she said stuck with me. She said, everybody likes a life update episode. And I think that's true. I do think that's true. And also, as I was brainstorming what I want to talk about, I think that in addition to it just being interesting to hear about, you know, someone's life, that you follow their podcast for a long time and you watch them grow. And I know, I love those episodes too. But I do think that there have truly been some gems to come out in the past couple weeks, months, that are super applicable to business and entrepreneurship in addition to being really helpful with your life. Okay, so we're gonna. We're gonna unpack. Literally and figuratively, we're gonna unpack. Because you may or may not already know this. If you're on Instagram and you follow me and you watch my stories, then you definitely know I'm at. Hey, Steph Crowder, by the way, that my family has recently moved. We've moved house. We've gone from one house to another house. We have not left the area where we live. It's a very, very close move, literally across the street to a different neighborhood, essentially. So, you know, my kids are still going to the same schools, but we have moved from one neighborhood that we've been in since 2017 into a different neighborhood that is literally a three minute drive from where I was before. But it has a very, very different vibe and is a bit of an atypical move, I think. So I want to share what precipitated this move because it. A lot of people in my life are like, I didn't even know that you were thinking of moving. And the truth was I wasn't exactly. And so this materialized really quickly. So I'm going to talk about the process of how we got here, but then we're also going to talk about the why. Because in the intro that you just listened to my intro, little music in my opening sort of words that I share every single week. One of the things I talk about is having the courage to do what looks crazy on paper. And there have been certainly multiple points in my life where I have done just that. And this is another example. I'm going to share what I mean. But this move is different, very different than other moves that my husband and I have done together. We are not first time home buyers. I think this is our fourth property that we've purchased together. So I don't know if that makes us veterans, but we're certainly not beginners. And this move was different than all of the rest. And it actually reminds me a lot of the moment that I left my corporate job. And we'll talk about why. I mean, those seem like two very different things, but there's a bit of a theme that I want to share. But first, just a word of caution, word of warning. I shared this with my clients that when we. If you've been through my Year on the Wall workshop, by the way, you can go to yearonthewall.com if you want to check it out. You can still get a ticket. And this is my process that I teach every year to my, my listeners, my clients, my audience. Anyone who wants to come can just buy a ticket and join. And this is my process that I teach to help people put these giant, giant calendar pages up on your wall that reflect your goals and everything that you're doing in your business and in your life. And the way we get there, we don't just start like, there's this sticky note system. If you haven't seen it, it's this color coded system for visualizing your whole life. But we don't just start slapping up sticky notes. We have to do a bit of work, a bit of pre work to get super clear on what you actually want in your life in the coming year. So I call it looking before you leap. Right. So getting intentional about, like, what am I actually trying to do this year? And I have a number of really powerful exercises that I always go through myself as an individual human being and business owner before I teach them in year on the wall. So I stress test, I literally do my own process and then I teach it. And this year when I was doing this process, I, I teach this system. I've mentioned it on the podcast called the life buckets system, where you really go through, like, if your life is a department store and you have the different sections, like your relationships, business, health and fitness, spirituality, et cetera, most of us have six to eight life buckets or departments. And when. And I teach this exercise where you get really clear on what you're trying to cultivate, what you're trying to create in each of these areas. And for me, sometimes you will find this too. My dear listener, if you, if you try this, some things will come up that you were not expecting. And so I was doing this back in November and I was writing about my home life and I saw us moving. And I have to tell you how bizarre this was because if you followed for a long time, you already know. In 2021, my husband and I had an opportunity to build, be built, our home. You know, we obviously we were, we worked with a builder, right? But we had this, we lived in this neighborhood. We kind of had the stars aligning moment and we found ourselves under contract on a home that had just been framed. There was enough time to, like, make some floor plan changes and choose all of the finishes and all of the paint and all of the, like, personality of the home. It was an amazing experience. It was really fun. It was a bit of a creative spark awoke inside of me when I got to sit down with a designer and figure out, like, what I wanted this house's personality to be like. And so we went through that process and it felt like a big leap. I mean, that was a big developmental moment for me because to be honest, my business that I've worked so hard on for almost 10 years now, helped us build this house, and we were so proud. And to be honest, when we moved, I saw it as our forever home. My husband, I believe, told me I'd be burying him at this house. He was like, we are never moving. And I think, as my daughter is now reminding me, she's eight. When we moved before, she said, you know, she. She reminded me of this recently because moving's been a little hard on her, even though it's a close move. She said, you said in the last house we were gonna stay there. Lessons abound. I don't say things like that anymore, but I. I suppose I. I believe her. I probably did say that because I believed that when we moved into that house. And so I. No one is really more surprised than me when conversations started popping up between my husband and I about what a different home could look like for us. So when I was doing this exercise, this Life Buckets exercise, I started to just have this. I guess you could call it a download, like a mental download. This clarity around the different feeling I wanted to have in a house. And in our previous neighborhood, it was a more urban area where the yards are super small on purpose, and it's got much more of like a you can kind of high five your neighbors kind of feeling. And for the first time in my life, I saw us with some land and a yard and nature. My husband and I are kind of like self. We self identify as city people. We lived in Chicago together for eight years, and that was really like, where we grew up together. And so when we moved here to Louisville, Kentucky, we loved this previous neighborhood we were in because it had this like, urban feel. My husband had no desire to maintain a yard, and that was such a good fit for us for like, seven or eight years, this. This neighborhood. So it was incredibly surprising and exciting, but also a little bit destabilizing to suddenly find myself craving something I've never craved before. And in fact, the neighborhood. I'm recording this podcast in this home of a neighborhood that I swore up and down I would never own a home in. It's a suburban neighborhood, y'all. It is a 90s nostalgia suburban neighborhood where the kids ride their bikes and, you know, the homes are colonial style. I never saw this for myself. And so I have to start the story here because I. I warned my clients, kind of half joking, like, be careful. Be careful when you do your year on the wall process. Be careful what you write down. Because I wrote that down. And I thought, God, that's weird. Like, I'm craving a house that is, like, opposite of what I have now are. You know, my husband and I have really only ever lived in, like, super open concept homes. And I found myself, like, I was on Pinterest during this phase. I was on Pinterest all the time. This is what happened next. So I was writing how I wanted to feel in my new home, and I kind of saw a visual in my mind. And so then I turned to Pinterest. If you're a visual person, you might be like me, where I started needing to, like, picture it. And so I started just pinning any interiors that I was vibing with. And I just. And I literally have a board on my Pinterest, this just for me, that I called Fall 2024 vibes. I think I said I wrote vibes Fall 2024 vibes. And I just started pinning, pinning, pinning and pinning. And a lot of these images had roaring fireplaces and bookshelves filled with books. And just like super cozy kind of modern, vintage interiors, which, again, so weird. And opposite of my brand new build that was more like modern farmhouse, like, very wood. I still love, like, wood interior, but just very modern. I would say rustic modern, but. But modern and new finishes and wide open spaces and crisp and clean and kind of white. And everything I started looking at and vibing with was like kind of if you're on TikTok, you may have been seeing. If you're anything like me, I get. Maybe it's because of my interests, but I get all this content about, like, the Nancy Myers aesthetic, which Nancy Myers is, you know, involved in films like Father of the Bride and It's Complicated and I think the Holiday where when you watch these films, there's kind of like more cluttered interiors, like lived in, lived in kind of vibes. And that is where I felt my heart and soul kind of pulling me. And so when you write something like this down and you start creating pin boards, it follows that in December, I remember I was teaching year on the wall. So it had to have been the first Monday in December. I was in this house. This house came on the market, actually. I suppose it was a Friday. I think I taught. Did I teach? You're on the wall on a Friday this year. I must have this house. So my husband and I, we. We identified the neighborhood. We were like. And both of us, for our own reasons, which I'll get into more. I've shared my reasons. My husband's reasons are similar, but a little different. His is the financial side of things, which we're gonna get to. We identified this neighborhood and we thought, let's just keep an eye. Like, there's no inventory. There's never really. Houses that come up for sale. People tend to stay. And so on a Thursday afternoon, this house came up for sale. By Friday morning, we were in the house and making an offer. And so I went to my year on the wall training having made an offer on a house that, like, a couple weeks ago, was not even on my radar. It was so crazy. And luckily for me, I've been through cycles like this enough to just trust the damn process because, you know, it was. Again, it was destabilizing. I was like, why is this happening? Like, why, why. Why am I, you know, outgrowing this home that I thought was supposed to be my forever home? It's like, when we moved in, I was in this state of, like, I can't believe this is my life. Like, this is everything I ever dreamed of. And then here I am, feeling like I live in a house of a person. I'm no longer the same. I'm not. I'm not that person anymore. I'm going to get more into that. And so what I. When the download started coming through, instead of, like, resisting it or being freaked out about it, I just decided to embrace it. And I said, okay. It's kind of weird, but I've been through this process enough times to just trust and believe that I'm being led by whatever you want to call it, God, my higher self. I happen to believe it's all the above. And just go with it. Just go with it and believe that I'll know and that I'll have a sense of knowing. And that's exactly what happened. I think I even shared on year on the wall. I said, hey, be careful what you write down. Because, like, I was just standing in a house that I put an offer in on, and I had. Didn't even have moving on my radar until a couple weeks ago. And so, long story short, we got the house. We ended up listing our home very close to Christmas, which was, you know, again, was that the plan? Absolutely. That's not when you buy and sell houses. But it all worked out. And here I am on February 10, and a week ago today, we moved into the new house. And we are very much under a lot of boxes, still in the clutter of getting settled, but really happy, really, really happy with the change. And I've been reflecting on this change because I've already hinted and mentioned that this move was unlike any other move that we've done before, this house. So like I said, we had this kind of flashy new, like, brand new, you know, new construction home. And now I'm sitting in a house that was built in 1994, so it's 30 years old. There's got. It's got stuff. It's got some issues. It has. It's outdated in a lot of different places. Um, we immediately had to redo the floors. We had to paint the whole thing. We had to have it deep cleaned. We've got some issues in the basement. I mean, there, like, this house is a bit of a project. I mean, you had to have a vision for this kind of house. And back to the idea of things looking crazy on paper. This is the first time my husband and I have done a moo. Every move we've done has been a big, bigger, more expensive, quote, unquote, nicer step up than the previous that came before it. And this was the first time that we. I don't know what word you want to use. You could say downsize, downgraded, traded down. I mean, the house that we bought is almost half the market value of the house that we just sold. And this next part won't be for everybody. So I invite you to take what you need from what I'm about to share. I'm not saying everybody should do this. I'm not saying that you should do this. But I am gonna just openly share what it's felt like in my thought process. There's been a bit of. There's. There's multiple layers to it. Number one, if you've been following me and hanging out with me for any amount of time, you probably have picked up on the fact that I've been on a pretty hardcore self healing, growth, development moment. I mean, I'm in my late 30s. I think that probably tracks as far as being like a quote, unquote, midlife woman. Right. But I know I've shared about my. My journey of. Of stopping drinking, my vice of choice, my numbing mechanism of choice. And now that I haven't drank for 550 days or something, uh, I've had to face a lot of things that were not quite right in my life. Um, turns out when you're covering up your feelings, you don't have to face a lot of things. You actually can find out that you're a different person completely than what you thought. And that has been the case for me. You know, I'm someone who had a pretty serious era of trying to be the most fun person in the room of trying to be the sparkliest personality and honestly trying to be the kind of person who's just up all the time, who just feels good. There was definitely fear of discomfort, fear of negative emotion. I was doing a lot of running that I wasn't even aware of because my drinking was very social and very normal and was not drinking every day. I was, you know, drinking on the weekends. But I was drinking to feel nothing or to feel happy or to, you know, change how I felt or to turn off my emotions. Probably the most accurate was to just kind of turn off my emotions and turn off the, you know, the, the gnarly, grisly parts inside that are asking you to look at them. When you take away whatever you're using to not feel those things, you're kind of left with the truth of it all. And I have grown in so many different ways. I mean, the miracle of all miracles to me is that my husband John has grown right along with me. Shortly after I stopped drinking because he was a partier himself, he said, you know, I'm down, I'm game. And he doesn't drink anymore either. And hey, that could have gone a totally different direction for us in our relationship. Two kids who met in college who were basically, you know, king and queen of the, of. Of partying and being fun, quote, unquote, right? He's gotten super into Ironman triathlons. That's not my cup of tea, but I've gotten into my own fitness journey. And the two of us have just gotten into other things and sort of gone through this process of getting to know who we are beyond that whole culture. I mean, it's not just the alcohol, right? It's the whole culture of it. And how we socialize has changed dramatically. And when that's the number one way that you spend your time on the weekends and then you take it away, you kind of have to figure out, well, what else am I into? So I've gotten really into reading and exercising and hey, getting sleep and taking care of myself has become like my other full time job besides parenting and running a business. And so what ended up happening was I found myself living in a house that belonged to a person who's not here anymore. The person who built that house, she's. We. We've shed her, right? Like that is an old skin. And that, I'm not saying, and I want to be clear about this, I'm not saying that if you go through a huge transformation person personal growth era, that you need to move. That's definitely not what I'm saying. But in my case, something was off. I. The things that I valued, which, when we moved into this neighborhood that is honestly chock full of bars and restaurants and kind of like social clubs and nightlife, again, these are all things I don't do anymore. The number one appeal of being in a neighborhood like that was just sort of not there anymore. And so I've had to ask my question, like, questions like, well, what do I value now? Those are my values before is being. Being fun and being rowdy and going out and, you know, making a lot of friends that way. And there's no shade to that. If that's your jam, that's. That's great. That was my jam for, like, 17 years. But I'm just, like, in a different chapter now and exploring what this chapter is all about. And I've had to ask myself, you know, the question, like, what. Who. Who is this person? What's super interesting is I've been reconnecting with the version of myself I was at 17 years old, right before I started ever having alcohol. I actually feel more like her than I do the person I became in my 20s and early 30s, which is so wild. I've had to like, if it's the real me, it's. It's honestly the real me. And that's not to say if you're listening to this and you happen to have been my friend through my 20s or early 30s, it's not like I'm a completely different person, but I'm just more of my real self now. And it turns out my real self has very different values. I actually am someone who really likes some slowness. I work my ass off, and I can move very fast at work, and I work out very hard in the gym. I also really love moments of slowness. I love coffee and sitting outside and having a fire and reading and chilling. Turns out I love what they call glimmers, right? Have you heard of this concept of. Of glimmers? Looking for the glimmers, like the little sort of moments in life that are joyful and that spark. Joy. And just those little in between moments that I couldn't see and I couldn't experience before because I was either drinking or hungover, you know, good 50% of the time. And so now that all of that is out of my system, quite literally, yeah. I found myself living in this house where the house is fine. It wasn't, you know, there was definitely some great things about it. Don't get me wrong. And my kiddos are still missing their old house, which I think is, you know, par for the course. But the idea of, like I said, having, like, I have nature, I have this creek that is facing west in my backyard. So the sunsets are just like out of control. If you follow me on Instagram, I share them. You can, you can check them out. But it's, it's an incredible difference and craving living in a house that flows differently, that has defined spaces. So I realized that one of the reasons I was numbing myself with alcohol was because I was very overstimulated all the time and very triggered by life with children. And instead of dealing with that, I turned to turning off those feelings. So for me, having an open concept house where everybody is on top of everybody all the time. My former home, it was just like one. One big room. The dining room, kitchen, family room were all just one big square, no defined spaces. My husband and I both started really craving a closed concept house where there's the kitchen is. Is its own room and there's a dining room that's its own room and a family room. It's its own room and a living room. And if my kids are in a different room, I can't see what they're doing. You know, they're getting older now, so I don't need to be on top of them all the time. And if they want to be, play hide and seek and be loud, they don't have to be, you know, in my space when I'm trying to put together a family meal. Right. And so that change is a huge one as well. So that brings me to the part of this that's like, okay, so fine, what. What part of this looks crazy on paper? There's also a bit of, in my previous neighborhood, this feeling that new and bigger and yeah, new. I guess new is like the primary word that's coming to my mind. New and bigger and next level. And like, what's the next thing that. That's always better. And I could see myself sort of falling into that where it's like, I had one house, I owned one house. When we first moved here, we owned this one house and we had the opportunity to build. And that's like a thing that ends up happening where people just kind of keep like, sort of house hopping, right? Like building every few years and feeling like they need to keep upgrading and upgrading and upgrading and going to the tippy top of your budget as your income grows with your spouse. If you're, if you have A partner, you just keep, like, filling that budget with, like, more house. Right. And so my husband and I looked at each other and we were like, what if we didn't do that anymore? And what would it be like? We started just like, look, so the area that we're coming from was very in demand from a real estate perspective. So I recognize this is not going to be everybody's situation, but just. Just hear me out, because you never know. We realized that we could sell that the house that we built has appreciated in value quite a bit from when we bought it, from when we built it in 2021. So we started doing the math and we were like, hold on, hold on. You're telling me that we could achieve our goals? That I already talked about having some yard, having a different floor plan, having a house that feels like I wanted that sort of 1990s, like, nostalgia coziness over brand new super modern, light and bright, like, just different vibe, as I already mentioned. But we were like, you're telling me that even with the interest rates where they are here in the United States, we could have the opportunity to maybe cut our mortgage in half or down by, you know, 30% or something. Somewhere between 30 and 50%. And yeah, there's going to be projects and yeah, we're going to need to address some things in an older home. But, like, the math started really making sense. But the catch with that was kind of putting your pride aside. Right. Like, again, this is the part that looks crazy on paper is like, when you have this, like, you mean the number of people that would tell me, like, your home is beautiful, like this beautiful brand new house, and then we're moving into this house that, like, quite frankly, needs work. Yeah, that takes a. Like I said, it takes a vision. It take. And it doesn't. It doesn't make sense to everybody, nor would it be a good fit for everybody. Okay. And there was a part of me that just wanted to opt out of the track I was on. And I recently heard this quote that goes, oh, how does it go? I don't want to mess it up. Just because you walked through the wrong door doesn't mean you should stay in the wrong room. Just because you walked through the wrong door doesn't mean you should stay in the wrong room. And my God, if that doesn't apply to your living space, your marriage, your relationship, your job, your career, I mean, look, how often do we do that? We walk through the door. Nobody thinks it's the wrong door, by the way, when they walk through the door, Everybody thinks it's the right door. And in the moment, you know what, I would even say maybe it was the right door at the time. Okay, you don't have to beat yourself up for having walked through the door. That moment has passed. But the moment you recognize that you might. Hey, hey. I think it's. At first the voice is so quiet, it's like, hey, I think we might be in the wrong place. Oh, and a lot of us, myself included, just want that voice to go away because it's so inconvenient. You're like, oh, come on. Like when I first started wanting to move, I was like my husband, he, he looked at me, he's like, oh my God, this is. We're going to do this, aren't we? There was a little bit of dread. It was like. Cuz moving sucks, okay? It sucks, right? Getting a new job, taking a risk, going through a divorce, like, terrible, terrible. Absolutely no one wants to do that. Transitions are so hard. But don't let the transition be the price of you staying in the wrong situation. And maybe you're afraid of people's judgment, you know, that's what is making me remind, like, remember? And it's incredible. It's 10 years ago this April, 10 years ago, I left my high powered director level stock options corporate job at a tech company to become a part time customer service specialist with a company run by three dudes who lived in Portland and had their business on the Internet. Okay, crazy on definition of crazy on paper. You know, my dad, God love him, look, trying to look out for me was like, oh, you can't do that. A lot of people were like, what are you thinking? And frankly, I knew that there was a 50, 50 chance that I would end up back on the Chicago job market. But I had to know because I was in the wrong room. And I thought, this other room. Then I was listening to podcasts of people who were running their own businesses and I thought, I'm not sure if that's the right room for me, but damn, I gotta walk through the door and find out. And now here I am 10 years later and I cannot believe what I've been able to create. But it required me doing what looked actually insane on paper. Totally crazy, right? And there was no way of knowing, there was no guarantee. But the moment you know you're in the wrong room, it's really time to ask yourself, what do we want to do? Right? Life is so short. I've been reminded of that in the past week. There've Been a number of tragedies in my community. And I've been really thinking, life is just way too short to stay in the wrong room just because you walked through the wrong door. Don't make that the reason that you stay in the wrong room. It's a huge, huge lesson. And so I also wanted to mention that for those of you I know, a lot of my listeners, or at least some of my listeners, are familiar with my concept that I call MVI, minimum viable income. I've been talking about this for 10 years, since my fizzle days. And the idea of minimum viable income is reducing your expenses to the point where, especially if you're in the early stages or you're just not making that much money in your business yet and it's feeling really tight, ask yourself if there's any way to, like, can you think outside the box? Right? We. We are so quick to accept, well, no, no, I got these bills. Like, no, no, I've had a mortgage. I have the car, I have the country club. I have the this. I have that private school, like, whatever the case may be. And look, I'm not. Again, I have to say, I'm not telling you to move. I'm not. If you love your house, if you love your neighborhood, if you love your life, then this is. This message is not for you. Okay? But maybe there is a part of your life that you could get creative in the name of lessening your living expenses. Because I got to tell you. Can I tell you one of the best feelings that I have felt personally for my nervous system, one of the best feelings I've had in my adult life is having money, having leftover money because I didn't buy a house at the top of my budget. And no shame, if you're listening to this, I'm probably triggering somebody. And look, I want you to know that every house I have ever bought up until this point in my life has been the tippy flipping top of my budget. And this time we just got to play a different game where, like, we can afford to have a leaky basement. Like, it's not a problem. It's not fun. But, like, we can take care of it. Our son, you know, it needs a different school environment. No problem. Right? Again, it's not the most fun money in the world to spend. But, like, I have to be honest. A big reason we made this move was because the numbers made sense, right? And. And there's a bit of like, okay, this house is going to be imperfect. My bathroom desperately needs a renovation. We're going to have to wait on those things. But like if it means that I'm no longer, that I've created a little bit of breathing room in terms of my living expenses, it's a pretty amazing feeling. And look that I understand this might not be feel like practical for you right now, but I just encourage you to ask yourself like, am I truly thinking outside the box? I've had clients move back in with their parents. I've had clients move from the city to the suburbs. Um, you don't have, but again, it doesn't even have to be moving, right. I've had clients pick up part time jobs just to take off a little bit of the pressure and keep working on their business until they're at a point where it's really more comfortable to leave the part time job. Just if you're finding that you're accepting status quo, you know, I can't do that. I got kids, I got this, I got that. I just gently and lovingly, if it's available to you, if it feels aligned, I invite you to take an honest look at how, what you're set up and ask yourself if I this question I love, it's a terrifying question. Okay, but if you had the chance to wave a magic wand and do it all over again, would you be in the same place? Would you choose where you live? Would you choose your partner? Would you choose your job? Or would you be looking for something different? And look again, especially when it comes to partnerships, like I'm not saying, hey, like leave your marriage just because you think maybe you there's somebody else out there. That's not that. My point is like maybe that reveals the work you need to do in your relationship. I'm not saying leave, but like maybe you and your partner have an opportunity to love each other better, right? Like if you had the opportunity, a magic wand to like rewrite it, to pick something different, would you live in this country? Would you go somewhere else? Right? Would you be schooling your kids the same way? Or would you make a different decision and hear me loud and clear, I'm not saying it's all this, this simple and maybe it's not accessible to you for any number of reasons and maybe it's not going to happen tomorrow. But not asking yourself this question and having the courage and it is takes courage to answer this question, right? Would I, am I, if I could have it my way, if I could make a decision again, am I living the way what I would pick if I were on Pinterest if life were a Pinterest board, is this what I would choose? Or is it something different? And if so, what, what, what, what is it that I would choose? And again, maybe it's gonna take you some time to walk out the door of the room that you're in, right? Maybe you gotta think on it. Maybe you need to be spend a couple weeks or months pinning images like I did because you just were cooking on something and you didn't know really what the hell was going on in your psyche, but you knew that something was brewing. Let it brew. Have the courage to let it marinate. Have the courage to listen to your whispers. If you're getting whispers, listen. Don't be afraid. They can't hurt you. You don't have to move you. Just because you listen doesn't mean you have to make a change. But make no mistake, that is your inner guidance. That is your highest good. It is trying to deliver the message. Stop plugging your ears and start listening. And if you are in a situation right now that was once your dream and it just doesn't feel like the dream anymore, and something else is pulling you, and something else is. Feels more aligned and it's uncomfortable. I sat in my pantry at my old house and I cried on Voxer to my good friend Claire Pelz. And I said, I feel like I'm grieving the person I was. This was her house. This was her house. This was her dream. And she's not here anymore. Like, she, you know, she, she, she, she evolved. She turned into somebody else. And like, I wouldn't change it, but it's a little painful, It's a little raw, It's a little weird, right? And I'm very much like, this whole thing has brought up so much emotion. I mean, I've had some shame around, like, especially with the move and being so busy moving. Now I'm like, why did I do this to myself? Because I could have been focused on the business. I, you know, I have. Do you know how long it takes to move and unpack and like, the distraction it creates, the disruption it creates. Like, I've looked at myself and said, why did you do all this? But at the end of the day, there's a trust there that you have to have for yourself when you are aligning with the environment. Like, if you've grown, it's okay. If you shed your outer layer, it's a beautiful thing. If what you thought you wanted isn't it, that's okay. That's the whole point. So, yeah, that's me. That's what I got going on over here. Buried in boxes, obsessed with this view out my window of this creek running through my yard. Helping my kiddos who are missing their other environment adjust to something new and different. Dreaming of the projects we want to do, embracing the sort of like, you know, like a newborn horse, like a cult who's trying to get its legs. It's kind of wobbling around all over the place. And one day, it's going to be running. But today's not that day. Yeah. Yep, that's where I'm at. And so there's your episode. Bit of a life update, some lessons. I'd love to hear if something resonates with you. Whenever I do an episode like this that feels a little vulnerable, nothing means more than to hear from you. I had shared a little bit on Instagram about this, like, slowing down and going against the grain that I'm doing in my life, and I got some really positive responses. So maybe this episode wasn't your thing, and that's totally cool. I. I get it. But maybe you loved it and you heard something. You heard some mirror that resonated. I'd love to hear. So please hit me up. You can reply to any emails that you get from me, or if you're on Instagram, you could just shoot me a dm. I'm at. Hey, Steph Crowder. I'd love to hear your thoughts. So that's it. My friends, I absolutely am wishing you the courage and the clarity to go after what you love, to have the courage to do what looks batshit on paper. Bet on yourself. Bet on yourself. Don't stay in the wrong room. I'll talk to you next week.