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Episode Description:

Are your Type A qualities the reason for your success, or are they holding you back?

In this special long-form episode, Beth and friend and fellow fierce freelancer and podcaster Sara Ann Kelly dive deep into the duality of being a Type A+ person, how structure & systems can lay the foundation for creativity, the biggest mistakes they've made in their careers and lessons learned from them, and how to confidently negotiate your worth in client meetings.

Content warning: This episode discusses death and grief, and contains explicit language. Please take care when listening.

About Sara Ann Kelly:

Sara is a 13 year publicist and strategist, specializing in helping small business owners create a custom sales strategy that proves profitable in the first 90 days of operation. She is the CEO of the Make Life Rich Movement, and hosts the ⁠Make Life Rich Movement Podcast⁠, with 3 episodes each week.

Links mentioned in the episode:

PODCAST:

The Type A Plus Podcast Instagram

HOST:

Beth Lawrence LinkedIn

Beth Lawrence & Company Instagram

Beth and other Type A+ Guests will be back each week, delivering bite-sized tips on how to optimize your work and life.

GUEST:

Sara Ann Kelly: ⁠Make Life Rich Movement Podcast⁠

Episode Transcript can be found below:

 Beth Lawrence: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the type a plus podcast. This is your host, Beth Lawrence. And I have a very good friend on the podcast today, Sara Ann Kelly of the make life rich movement and the make life rich movement podcast. Sara, I would love to just start out with you, you introducing yourself to everyone, because I feel like no matter what I say about you, it's not going to do it justice.

Sara Ann Kelly: Oh my gosh, you're the sweetest. My name is Sara. I am a 38 year old publicist and creative. Publicist mainly just means a strategist. I'm obsessed with helping people make their dreams become a reality. It can sound like really woo woo, but for me, living life to your fullest and being fulfilled, while doing something that you love in exchange for money to me is like the ultimate reality that we can create for ourselves.

And, I feel like I've been blessed with a lot of experience and time to just be able to help people. Get it going right away without any dilly dallying and it is like my main passion outside of that, I love talking, could talk for 24 hours straight. So creating a podcast and being able to both give strategy sessions once a week on Sundays that includes like templates and different things, and then doing interviews throughout the week with entrepreneurs that are either at the beginning of their career or have now leveled up to that place where sh** starts to get real and crazy.

It's like my main passion. So I've really segued into primarily podcasting three episodes a week while building out a container. I'm not too certain of the shape yet, but I do really want to come up with a newer way to help people create their businesses and try not to continue to participate in a saturated market in terms of what tools I'm delivering things through.

Also, love marijuana, my favorite. So it's really important to me to be able to. Help other people like me be able to create a lifestyle and a routine and a structure and systems for their businesses that can keep them on track while, not having our feet too far off the ground and staying more creative than productive.

So, um, I guess that's me in a nutshell. But I'm just so happy to be on this podcast and I love you. 

Beth Lawrence: I love you too. I'm so excited for you to be here. And if you've listened to our episode of Sara's podcast, you know a little bit about how we met, but Sara is someone that I've admired for a really long time.

Cause I feel like you've always authentically been yourself and you've always been helpful and positive and sweet, no matter what you've been going through, that I most of the time didn't even know about. You've always been there and been helpful and been supportive. And so I've always appreciated that from a business standpoint.

And you said a few things about, you said structure and systems, which are like two of, obviously my favorite words, it's like music to my ears. But you also said that. That's something that was really interesting about structure and systems allowing us to be more creative and that's something that I've never been able to put words to.

So can you talk a little bit about that? 

Sara Ann Kelly: Yes. So to take it back a bit over the last two years, my husband and I lived in Philadelphia for 20 years. We're like, f*** it. We don't want to be here anymore. We're not living the life. We want to live.

He had a nine to five. It was a great job, but it was holding us back. So we like slow key cut off our nose to spite our face and left before we really had a plan because we were in such a place of just like really feeling in our hearts more than our heads what it was that we wanted and we needed and Over that first year and a half I created a whole like five hour course on like how to be your own publicist for your business and it to be a lot more productive financially than it was I forced my husband to quit his job and he became a full time music producer and podcast producer for me.

And what we realized slowly over time through all of those like tribulations, especially for two people that are very type A, very creative, but very driven we realized that we needed to have this fall of sorts so that we could build back up a foundation and a system that was.

Kind of living in the reality that we preferred like we could have stayed comfortable in Philadelphia. We lived in Rittenhouse He had an amazing job. I was flitting about the city every day all day doing something networking doing some work with someone It was a really cushy life but it wasn't as real and authentic as we wanted to exist with ourselves, so Since that time period of leaving, I myself have realized that I personally needed to grow and I had a lot of things internally that were mindset shifts or trauma bonds or weird connections to mother wounds that I didn't realize were holding me back in my personal career and it all centered around my worth and my value and for a type a individual to can be.

Realizing that the reason why they have been so driven and so type A is because of the structural inflictions that happened in my childhood over time that led me to be the good girl that was productive and quiet and helpful and went out of her way to help everyone but herself and put her feelings on the back burner and bury them deep, deep, deep, deep, deep.

And it made me feel weird about my type A ness and it made me rebel against what I was doing, which was building out this course. That I had spent hours on that. I said, this is it. This is going to change our lives. It didn't. It changed us internally. It made us grow and evolve into who we were meant to become, to be able to now get to the place to where professionally things are falling in the place for us left and right.

There's been a lot of really beautiful moments to where we're like, there it is. I literally posted my 50th episode yesterday. Like I've put. So much structure and systems around it because it was something I loved creatively, but now I need to take it the mile.

I need it to be my marathon piece, and I wanted to have those foundational points in place. Old Sara, type A driven Sara from a year ago, being driven by trauma and not by growth, would have thrown together some sh**ty amalgamation of whatever I could make in the moment. And then drop it three months later because it wasn't to the standard that I liked but I didn't put in the time to set the standard.

So it's been a really crazy eye opening like past two years because it's forced me to recognize that what I saw In my customers that gave me the ability at the drop of a hat to be like, do that. This, this, this, this, this. It's like a sick skill. I didn't realize where it came from.

And because it came from a place of lack and scarcity and questioning of my worth and my wealth and what I already had in this like universe .It was setting me up with the wrong clients. It was setting me up with the people that would take and not give. It was putting me in a position to where I was really being forced on my boundaries and either in the beginning just letting them be trampled and then slowly transitioning into wait a minute, I don't like that.

And then implementing the boundaries while I'm like shaking because it's against every core of my type A self to not help with every like mitochondrial cell in my body. And then it grew into a place now literally in the last month I'd say to where I Absolutely, truly give zero f***s about anyone else but myself.

And if you don't fit into the plan, then it wasn't supposed to happen. And my talent carried me through every single work situation I've had previous to this moment in my life because I'm a dedicated, driven motherf***er that's productive and type a was my persona, but now it's given me the ability to truly and harmoniously take on the things that are like meant for me now that also level up my career, increase my wealth, Give me options to use thing as case studies and then transition them over to whatever, what my course was, whatever it's going to transition to, if it does it all and systems and strategy would have kept me in the psychological realm of things without being able to implement the hard personal work that I had done.

To be able to make it a thing to wear now, it's affecting my business. I was self sabotaging because I felt I had no worth. And that was because of the work that was still left inside for me to do. And it really blew the lid off of the container that I was keeping myself in. In a way that like almost shocks me and oh my 

Beth Lawrence: god, Sara, 

Sara Ann Kelly: dude It's been insane since our since our recording basically all this has come together and simultaneously for my husband as well So like we're just really feeling blessed.

I personally am feeling such a return to the 2010 Sara that you met a really long time ago, the girl that was coughing as f***, shaved head, b****, red lips, running around in six inch heels in a mini dress. Oh, 

Beth Lawrence: good. With short hair. I totally, I'm getting short hair again. And Sara. Oh my God. It is so strange.

I'm not going to talk about myself too much here, but like you literally, we had the exact same parallel situation to where my trauma had to do with my my relationships, like relationships. Primarily with my partners in my life, but I realized through the pandemic and tearing everything down and not being able to do events the way that I used to, I actually started to pull away from that too.

I created a course which completely flopped and I, because I was avoiding the work that I needed to do. I was like, I'll just create this course. I don't need to do events anymore. It didn't even come at it from a place of authenticity. Literally, just this past week, I still have to assert boundaries with people like exes.

Some of my clients who I've parted ways with come back and offer me the world and say, I'm so sorry. I totally understand your value right now. And old Beth, I call her would say, absolutely. And I did. There were, I've given proposals and been like, okay. Let's test. Right. But now I'm testing. I'm saying, do I want to work with them just as much as do they want to work with me and blew the lid off my entire business.

And now I think systems and being able to actually build from scratch, let people, there's a saying of seeing the forest through the trees, but sometimes you can't see the trees. through the forest. And I think type a people, there's always a forest of stuff going on. And without systems, you cannot see each tree that you have to take care of.

You just said so much. And I'm so glad that you came on this podcast because you said so much that I feel like type a people need to hear because so often. It comes from some sort of trauma wound where you're like, if I just make everything better, if I'm just good, if I'm even keel, if I get things done, I'll take so much pressure off of these people in my life and then everything will be good.

And then it extends into your business. So I'm so proud of you and so happy for you. And I'm sorry that it took like breakdowns to have that breakthrough, but my God, that is incredible that you've had this journey. 

Sara Ann Kelly: Dude, it feels insane. But honestly, I welcome suffering and pain. It's like very comfortable and normal for me.

My dad, like I've diagnosed with cancer when I was 12, which has a lot to do with my formation story of me turning into this type A nut bag. Basically, I lived for 20 years with walking grief, but we were, we're born in the 80s. We didn't know sh**. Our parents didn't know sh**. No teachers saw sh**.

Nobody helped me. I had to muster through the pain, which led to this type A exterior that had to get up and get going. I became head of the house at 12. My mother had to go to work. My dad was dying on a couch for 20 years. It was just... Uh, it made non important things be so like flow off my back.

I don't give a sh** about like 99% of anything that happens throughout my life or my day at all. And that got solidified when my dad died. I like had my hand on his chest to like kind of notify my family while we're standing around the bed okay, he's passed. Like here it is.

And in feeling that last heartbeat, dude, I, it was like someone took off. Five sweaters off of my body. I felt it leave and go out the top of me and go away. And that was, it's going to sound funny, but that was all the f***s I could never give away again because they left my body because I was like, holy sh**, literally nothing matters.

But my husband, my mom, my sister, my brother in law, my nephews, my other brother in laws, if all those people are happy, healthy and alive, any other single thing that happens throughout my day is a blessing. And I do believe, honestly, that was the moment where I started to disarm this very masculine exterior that I created under this Type A persona that was blocking every bit of what the universe wanted for me.

I think it was, like something that really got in the way of me being who I am, and it led me to be very judgmental. In terms of work, what I was doing for other people, which just kept hammering down on the value and me cheapening my worth. And it's literally why my PR firm was not successful. I'm extremely talented.

I am, I would put my talent against anyone in the industry and be like, head to head, b****, let's go. I'm gonna smoke you. But bank records, you're going to see a big fat zero. Like I made literally no money off of the. 14 years of having my PR firm, very little, like enough to scrape and get by. And it was because I just continually undercut myself.

I put myself in positions where I would do the work and then never get paid. And it was me knowing and seeing the red flags, but ignoring them completely because I felt like, who am I to turn down work? It's never going to come again. And that was honestly what has held me back this whole time, whole time, meaning like the last 20 years of my life professionally from being successful, I'm now mentally and emotionally enriched beyond any scale of success.

But the things that come down on paper that make people want to buy your company in a couple of years are looking pretty slim for me. So. This definitely feels like a brand new place to start and old me never would have given me the grace or the comfort to take this time and space to figure this all the f*** out.

It would have been like a week of Adderall induced psychosis just up and what do I do? I got to figure it out now. And it's like, of course you're going to make the wrong decisions. Of course you're going to take the wrong path. You're forcing it. What's a banana going to do when you force it through a square hole?

It's going to squish out all over the side to make a mess. It's like. That's how I lived and breathes for so long and it made me feel weird about being type a, but I realized their dichotomies to everything, their dualities to everything. Being type a doesn't mean you're one thing or you're another.

To me, being type A is the amount of emotional trust that you put into yourself because you know that your self discipline is going to carry you through whatever task is coming, whether it's emotionally upsetting, you're tired, sh**'s happened, maybe you have kids, like whatever. Add any excuse to the bucket.

A type A individual knows that they've made promises to themselves, which is something I'm still working on, full discretion. The achievement of showing yourself that you are who you think you are and you know you are is being a type A individual. Because it's so easy to turn around and look the other way because it feels better.

And it's easier emotionally. And it's less work physically or like mentally. And realizing that took me off the hook because I always felt it was like, let's f***ing go. Let's f***ing go. Like that was me. Like I probably looked like I was on cocaine or Adderall 24 seven in my youth. And it was just like f***ing hype.

But it was I was off balance. It was bad. It wasn't good. My cortisol is still skyrocketing from all those habits I put into myself. And it's given me now the ability to reclaim what type A means to me and doing so in a way to where I don't care, I don't care what anybody else is doing.

Good for you. I want everyone to succeed. I no longer compare myself to other people because I am so fully aware in this moment that like anything that happened before this was just fodder and experience. And now that I've gone through this journey. This is where I truly will get to turn the f*** up because there's nothing, I'm not holding me back anymore.

Before I was, and I could never realize it, I was. My God, it was 

Beth Lawrence: always about other people, right? It's always like, Oh no, it's the, it's them. They're not, they're acting this way or, and that comes from not setting proper boundaries typically in the beginning. And I empathize very much with what you said also in the beginning of not setting the boundary, being like, no, it's fine.

I'm going to just, waffle on my boundaries. It's totally okay. Totally. Okay. Totally. Okay. Not okay. All of a sudden it's not okay. And now you're angrily setting a boundary that you expected them to uphold when you never said anything about it. And then typically there's a fracture and you part ways.

And so it's, I, it's incredible that you recognize that about yourself. And I'm incredibly sorry. I knew a little bit about your father. I'm so sorry to hear that. And I totally understand why you would have built up those mechanisms of control in your life because there was nothing, there was no way you could control anything else in your life and reclaiming your type a parts of yourself is a really fantastic way to put it because there is a duality to type a people and that's something that I definitely wanted to explore on this podcast is that we always think of type a people as these like very buttoned up, happy, Very eager to please everything will be perfect when you get it.

But no one sees the side of us that is so mean to ourselves.

Sara Ann Kelly: Yes. 

Beth Lawrence: And you, when you said the 0, like first couple of years in my business, I was living the life. I was so excited. Externally. People were like, you're having so much success. So much of what I was doing was for free because I had no idea what I was worth because my worth was always had to do with other people's opinions.

And I'm so glad that you were able to say no, my type a self is what got me through all of this, whether it was the right way, quote unquote, to approach it or not, which there really isn't a right way. Yeah. And now you're going to use that to build this next chapter. I love that. And you help other entrepreneurs build this new chapter of their own lives, which is super, super critical because especially as type a people, we don't start things.

Or like you said, we will put it off and then we will put it together last minute, put it out there and then be like, eh, well, self fulfilling prophecy, it's going to fail anyway. And to be honest with you, I sort of did that with this podcast. I pushed it off for two years. I was so nervous about starting it.

I recorded it. I picked something, made a graphic, put it up. And so the podcast journey has actually been like my least type A journey, but people have been going on it with me. And I forced myself to not quit. Even when I saw those, we were just talking about download numbers, even when you look at the download numbers and you're like, man, why don't I have a hundred thousand downloads like this other person that I follow on Instagram?

And the other thing you said that is incredible is not comparing yourself to other people anymore because that is really, really hard. But as long as you're also not too critical and comparing yourself to yourself, which it sounds like you're not finally. 

Sara Ann Kelly: No, and honestly, I'm gonna drop a book because everyone needs to read this book Because this literally I finished in the last few weeks and it has freed my soul. Okay, it's basically called healing the inner mother.

It's surrounding mother wounds. People that are type A, likely, have mother wounds. The mother wound comes from, and this is not shaming moms at all, ever. It's just literally generational trauma handed down mother to mother to child to mother. It somewhat affects women more, daughters. And the notion is that patriarchy has held back generations of women for so long.

And with the very huge jumps in career changes for women in our current generation, our mothers have an unregistered, unconscious bias against us and our successes. And as children, we were always able to register this and understand this. And because our brain is wired, up until you're like 18 years old, to be bonded with the mother because the mother is survival, the mother is food, the mother is protection.

All of these things force you to put yourself down, keep the mother up, do whatever mother wants to keep her happy. Mother wants you to be quiet. I'm going to be quiet. Mother wants me to be less beautiful wear less pretty outfits. I'm wearing less pretty outfits. Like any scenario you can come up with.

It just sets the blueprint for you to devalue yourself. And in reading the book, I was like, Holy book. This is it. This is the thing. This is literally the thing. Cause like how many of you have ever. Just had those fluctuations in life and there's always that down and when the down comes you're like, what is wrong with me?

Why can't I figure out why I can't get it together. I don't know what's going on. It was this my whole life It was this Wow reading that book that literally was what gave me the ability to first set boundaries with my mom Free myself from being resentful with my mom because she too had these things thrown upon her and every woman before her And the freedom of that really gave me the authority to realize that I'm an independent creature.

I am not a child. I am not my mother's child. I am a 38 year old woman. I am completely independent in my autonomy of my experience. And I'm gonna do whatever the f*** I want. And that definitely made this feel so sturdy inside. I have a marble tower through all my chakras. I'm a lion and I'm tough.

There's no breaking what this is. But I think the cool thing about it is that no matter what it is you're doing, the way to know whether or not your type A is being driven by good or bad forces is going to be you seeing how much you benefit from the action that you're doing. Will it benefit you five years from now?

No. Then you're probably doing something out of fear of you not being enough for someone else. If it isn't building for you. Just as much as it's building for the other person, it's not for you. And it may seem easy to say, but literally I'm still in a place financially where I can't and should not turn away work.

But I do. And every time I do, another bigger, better thing comes. Almost immediately after I said no. 

Beth Lawrence: Almost immediately. Always. Yes. Always. I started working with a coach in 2020. She helped me heal a lot of the wounds that I have. A lot of mine are around Catholic school and, a lot of like my creativity was shut down when I was five by a nun.

So a lot of mine is like nun stuff, you know, my teachers thinking different things about me. And. One of the things that she said, I, I was always so afraid to say no, because that same thing, I was like, I need to eat like people, I started my business after being laid off six months after buying my first home.

So we needed money and we don't have, we don't come from a family, families that are able to, we don't have trust funds. We don't have like people that we could just be like, Hey, can we borrow, thousands of dollars? And the funny part is my brain went, how much do I need to survive? And that's what I'm going to try to make.

My brain didn't say how much do I need to thrive? How much do I need to go on these vacations that I want to go on or buy a new, I don't know, bed frame or like get a new computer or something. And it was not until three years. Not until I finally was going to have this six figure year in 2020, which now I'm so thankful that I didn't have because they were the wrong opportunities.

It allowed me to be like, Whoa, I am just trying to make people like me for free all the time. 

Sara Ann Kelly: Yeah. It's outrageous. I feel like the one thing in hearing you say that popped up for me. Listen. You're in, if you find yourself in this position that we both just said of you have to take the money, just the fact that internally you don't want to is a great sign.

That's a sign that you're like, this is bullsh**. They're not paying me that I'm not doing like that is great. And when you're in a place of literally having to put food on the table or pay your bills, you got to eat sh**. sh**'s a lot easier to eat when you know that it's sh**. Making yourself feel like what you've chosen for yourself or accepted for yourself is good is the problem.

Recognize it sucks. It's going to make you climb and work harder and get out of that hole. And the very next client or work that you take on, that's when you're going to be like, I'm never f***ing doing that again. That's not happening. So if you don't want this, this, and this it's what it is.

People also. Thrive on that f***ing cutthroat energy. Do you know how many times in the last like month people have asked me for things and I'm like, probably be about 7k and then I just stare. Yes. No face. This. Is that something you can work into your budget? Oh, I'll be asking for that money up front.

Oh, you can do that? Great. Let's get a proposal signed and finished today, and I'd like to leave with a check. Is that cool with you? Post date for today? Oh, it's not? Oh, okay. Well, why don't you get back to me when your funds are in a better position for us to be able to work together? It was so great speaking with you.

Thank you so much for thinking of me. Bye. Bye. 

Beth Lawrence: I never would have done 

Sara Ann Kelly: that. I would have 

Beth Lawrence: been trembling and sweating. But The power in what you just did, Sara. Sorry, say what you just said again. You would be trembling and sweating. I 

Sara Ann Kelly: would be trembling and sweating. And I had to learn that. From my husband because he worked on that for the last few years, putting in boundaries at his last job.

He was able to say dead pan. No, I won't be doing that today. And I, at the time when he was doing, that was working for a pharmaceutical company as their marketing director and they were running me f***ing ragged. And it was horrid. It was during the last year of my dad's life. And I basically open my body to give them access to all my organs.

Like I had put myself on a post. It was insane. And. I'd come home and cry every day. And then he was just like, no, this is how you say it. Just like that. And then I started thinking about it. I was like, how would I act if some dude back in the day in the club, like even just came in my space, I got to be doing that with these bum ass clients.

These people don't care about paying you. They want you to help them. And typically their energy is so thirsty. That you're like, Oh my God, it can fix all your problems. And then they have you fix the problems and don't f***ing pay you. So it's always. You have to be so tuned in to what feels right and what doesn't and when it doesn't put on that boss b**** face and make them uncomfortable with their mediocrity because they are not on your level If they change their tune and they level up in the conversation You've got some things you can put into play like ensuring that they pay you up front and you leave with a check that day Having them immediately sign a proposal with you sitting with them Like if they can't insure these things, their business is not in order enough for you to try and help them any further.

And it took a lot for me to understand that. Like literally up until the last six months. So it's been a lot of just like accepting that whatever it is I feel is probably real and that my type A brain wanting to come in and bleach everything and scrub it clean is just trauma. And I've been actively rewiring what being type A means for me.

And trying to lean in heavy on actual people. I know that I enjoyed their approach to how their type a or professionals or mentors that I've always admired, their ability to navigate while still personally growing. I'm leaning into those things right now, doing a lot of reading, listening to a lot of podcasts of people that I trust and admire.

And it really does help you to fill the gaps. Yes. Your brain wants to fill the gaps with new habits when you decided that old habits are not for you. So it's 

Beth Lawrence: kind Especially as type A people. And I had, one thing you said about about keeping quiet, like when you demonstrated how to like stand in your power, one of my mentors said, if you're on the phone negotiating and you feel, cause my thing is, if I get my people pleasing comes out in that when in the beginning of my business, I would quote.

Something I would say it's 10, 000 and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. I would continue but it's okay if you pay and then you can pay an installment and then, and my mentor was like, tell them the number and mute yourself. She's like, say the rest to yourself. If you've got to say it, say it out loud.

She said, it's going to feel like the most uncomfortable silence in the entire world. And yes, it did. And. But exactly what you said, they want that confidence. They want you to have the ideal people that work with you want you to know your sh**.

If you're wishy washy, that person knows, Oh, there's a boundary. There's a boundary. Everybody's a water. Yep. And they can post in the holes. I know. So, you've given so many tips without me asking this, but like as a type a plus business owner, or not even a business owner yet.

And you're like, I have this thing that I really think I'm good at. What is your tip for them to do that work or identify work that may need to be done before they start in that journey on their own? 

Sara Ann Kelly: So everyone is going to think what I'm about to say is such bullsh**. And trust me, old me. Also, it was been screaming like bullsh**, but it is real.

If I were to force you to sit down and tell me your life story, whatever narrative you're going to lay out for me is where the root of your work lies. And if you've been awakened to what that root is, your narrative will sound very different than the one you've been telling everybody.

For me, it was so funny when I lived in Philly, I just slipped in under the radar and like 2008 doing PR, I graduated college, got a job at a law firm. I thought it was going to go to law school. And then the recession hit in 2008 I was like the last person they hired. So I got fired almost like immediately.

I was like f***, like that recession was weird because. The jobs that would have been registered for 21 year olds were now by 40 year olds that were way overqualified. So it basically left us to like working at Burger King or like wherever. So when I floated into the PR scene, no one knew who I was and assumed that I was like a trust fund kid.

I was like, wow, that's so f***ing far from the truth. Like I eat one Mexican donut a day from the corner store because all the money that I do have, I have to spend on feeding my cat. And I literally lived on donuts and like the bottle of tequila that I had like sitting in my kitchen No bullsh**. Like that was my reality And you know, I love clothes I would get dressed up I'd go out to these events merely to have food to eat guys merely to walk in and devour All the food I had access to get real litty before I could go to the club that night where I knew I was going to drink for free.

And the thing about it, like at the time a dear old friend of mine was with me throughout this whole phase and he was like, f*** it. Let's ride this b**** into the sunset. They think you're a trust fund b****. Let's give them trust fund b****. And for me at that time I was so young and so still like really living in The revelry of not being in charge of my household where my dad was dying and I had a lot of responsibility.

So I truly let my personality just explore what felt good. That person was who I really am. And then along the way, reality hit in. Cause I had bills to pay. I had to get my own apartment. And that's when I had to start making sacrifices against that girl's ambition. Which was to live fully. And completely.

And be fulfilled. While doing it, while no one knows who she is, to then put myself in this position where I am thumbed down by every client I have, I am literally paying bills late, sacrificing, not eating for a day or two so I can feed my cat, like no, it could like make me cry thinking about this time because I made it through that.

It put me in a bad position professionally, but without that time frame for me to look back on and be like, wow, that was dumb. It wouldn't have given me the ability now to be like, that's okay. I forgive myself for all of those things. I allowed to trespass against me. I opened the fence and I let them all come in and ruin my grass.

There was no part of me that was protecting me. I was a part of a system that I got kind of built into because of how I was raised and now my narrative to get back to the question when I'm thinking about actively, because I'm still actively building out my products, my new business of how I want to help people.

What is that going to look like? I'm asking myself, what do I still need help with? And this was like such a big aha for me, even though any person worth their salt is going to say, the thing that you're best at doing is helping what you were two years ago to do to get to where you are right now. So two year ago, me was a girl that had a lot of ambition, was running by her emotions, the seat of her pants, wasn't able to slow down because she took on too much to turn around and look and be like, this isn't quite right.

My heart's in the right place, but I need to do a little bit more work before we blow Like this popsicle stand and just like move in with my mother and blow all of our savings over a year and a half And cry myself to sleep every night after my husband goes to bed because I literally don't know what the f*** I'm gonna do And I don't want to go get a job at Walmart in my hometown and have that rubbed in my face Which would never happen and not be the case like I live in a great place and that wouldn't be the thing But that was my fear that was controlling me and I had to literally just let it go.

I had to put it away And I was like, what's the worst thing that could happen? So I go take a summer waitressing gig what's the worst thing that could happen about that? And over the last month, I have had opportunities presented to me to where I can make money stably over the next year doing work for this person, while them also being very cognizant of my business that I'm building, and they allowed me to shape my workday around what I'm doing for myself.

This. Has relieved me of a lot of pressure because in all reality, it forced me to understand, which I've been trying to drill into my head and accept fully. That whatever is coming my way is what I'm supposed to do. And that's that. It gave me the ability to forgive myself for my past and all the things I did to myself.

Gave me the ability to forgive the girl two years ago that told her husband to quit his job so we can go move in with my mom. It gave me the ability to forgive myself every minute of the day where I slip back into an old pattern in my head. Instead of being like, what the hell?

We don't have time for this. Hey, whoa, like what's that about? Okay, let's take a second, sit back, why are you upset with yourself right now? Is it something that's going to matter five years from now? Oh, it's not? Okay, cool. You should just sit down for a second, simmer down, take some deep breaths.

Why don't you go get a drink of water? Let's just start over. I never had the ability to be kind to myself like that before because I was so stuck on this stupid reality that was never going to be mine because it wasn't meant for me. So taking time to sit back and be honest with yourself and like they say, the work is in the things you avoid and it couldn't be more true for your personal work.

It's gonna hurt. It's going to be like when you get a splinter in your finger, you can either slice the splinter open now with a little tool and get that b**** out. Or you can leave it to fester and boil for a week and a half to two weeks and then still have to cut it out. The first one requires you facing fear.

The second one requires you fixing a mess. That for me was so huge. That trauma of my twenties was me avoiding the hard decision. And now just realizing like also tuning into the reality I had when my father passed.

Nothing in your business f***ing matters. Is everyone in your life healthy? Are you healthy? Do you feel like you're growing and you're moving upward and you don't have a single problem. We are so spoiled with comfort. It puts us in a place to where we have the audacity to not be grateful.

The wallowing of yourself and, Oh, I can never start a business, you could pick 87, 000 different excuses, but they all come down to you not choosing you. And they all come down to you thinking someone else is coming to save you. Because that's not a reality. Watching my dad take his last breath by himself, slip away from this world by himself, was such a sobering thing.

You can push hit your wagon to any person and blame all of that, and put it on them to keep it off of you, but eventually, you're gonna get f***ed. And it's gonna hurt even worse, because in the very back of your head, you're gonna hear, I told you this would happen. What are you gonna do about it?

When you could have just met that mountain immediately and been like, okay, like you can sit in that place for a month. Just don't walk around the mountain. You have to walk up it, have to walk up it. And that part for me was huge because it took me learning that by myself. And it feels like that is some sort of information that if my dad were alive, we were best friends.

He would have given me, but it wouldn't have hit right because I had to lose the most important thing to me, which was my dad. For the real gravity of that lesson to settle in to where it's like a cardinal rule for me now, like I don't f*** around because I know like all these things don't matter, but they are important.

If you want to live the life you want to live, not be a slave to a comfortable paycheck, not trade your time for money, not miss out on important times in your people's lives. The last six months of them being on hospice and like being told you can't use your three f***ing weeks of PTO because it's not convenient for the pharmaceutical company and then feeling that last breath and being like literally gutted.

Like I felt my soul leave my body because I realized how bad I f***ed up. Took me a long time to work through that regret, but that regret was what pushed me to push my husband and I into a place where we left our comfort because I knew the comfort was a prison and it was holding us back. And we both agree now and we both feel that, but it took me turning and looking at the ugliest, scariest, meanest, baddest, most surreal thing I've ever experienced.

And not everyone, God willing, not everyone will feel this until they're very old and all the people in your life live a really long time. The sacrifice that was taken for me to learn that lesson is also what has helped me to become very disciplined in my purpose and my boundaries, because it was his literal life that was given for me to get that lesson.

But you don't need to have someone die in your life. You just need to think, oh my god, Ed Milet. Our boy. We love him. The thing that he said, my dad was still alive when I heard this episode, and it shook me. He said, my nightmare is that when I die, I get to heaven. And the person that greets me first is who I could have been.

If I didn't ignore my passion, if I didn't ignore my purpose, if I didn't get up and put everything I had into it cause I have one life and instead I looked at something and I thought it was too hard. Turn the other way. He said, that regret pushes me. The thought of that regret, it gives me goosebumps, pushes me every single morning to get up and get closer to meeting the me I could be.

If I got out of my own way. That is being Taipei. The scariest, most earth shattering, like nauseating thing ever. Is to think that one day you might meet the person you could have been. What? What? 

Beth Lawrence: Yes. Holy sh**. Scary. Wow. Oh my God, Sara, you just said so much. I'm sorry. No, I'm so grateful for you. I can't, there's nothing that I can even say after that.

I mean, you just put so much into perspective and when you talked about... Literally when you were talking about the mountain metaphor, I was thinking, before you said you can't walk around you have to go over it. I was thinking we walk around mountains as type A people that if you notice as a type A person that your schedule is booked, booked, booked, booked, booked, you do not have any time to sit by yourself.

You're passing out at the end of the night because you're exhausted. You wake up with. Hitting the pavement, doing something, not having time to think probably means that you're escaping yourself. You're running around the mountain. You're literally doing marathon after marathon around a mountain instead of taking the hard way.

But going through it, it's so easy to schedule yourself out of facing yourself. I'm in so incredibly sorry for your loss and I cannot imagine that feeling. But who was the podcaster that you mentioned? That's an incredible quote. 

Sara Ann Kelly: Ed Milet.

Beth Lawrence: I don't know that pocket. We'll have to share with the listeners.

Sara Ann Kelly: My God, I literally want to interview him so badly. He's like the tippity top of my bucket list, but he drops good knowledge. He's a Taurus man. So he's already got that type a in the DNA and About 10 years ago for him, he figured out that his type a was running in the wrong direction.

Didn't really say it that way, but you could tell he was like, the wrong things were fueling me. It was dangerous. It wasn't healthy. It was become addictive. I have a super addictive personality. And that really resonated with me because I'm like, Oh man, I just got addicted to work instead of getting addicted to the stillness of hearing who I am inside.

And I'm just sitting while I'm uncomfortable with it. I would feel like a failure if I didn't have two or three meetings a day scheduled with people in a previous life. And then over this last year, I would find myself sitting on my bed and zoning out for two hours.

And throughout that time frame, a lot of stuff from my past came up for me. So many of those things came in the moments where I'd have to be like You're not a loser for laying on your bed for two hours when you could, of course, be going out there trying to look for clients and money.

Settle in this. There's a reason why you're being lazy today. There's a reason why you're overly emotional today. Just lean into it. Something is there for you. There's an Easter egg waiting. Just go digging for it. But it's hard. It's really scary and it's f***ed up that we put ourselves in this position, but you can get out of that position by just... getting to know yourself. 

Beth Lawrence: Yes, that is so well said. And I also think that every single time I have ever given myself the grace to take a nap or take a day off or go to the pool for a few hours during the summer. I swear to you, every time I get a new inquiry email, I get a referral email, I get someone on my LinkedIn saying they want to do something.

Does it always turn into material, money, or a contract? No. But. It is the universe rewarding you for taking a break. And I never stopped to notice that stuff before until I started working with my coach during the pandemic and really unplugging unpacking all of this stuff.

Gosh, I, Sara, you've been through so much and you've made Every single time you could make lemonade and you've made lemonade like every single time not to quote our Queen Beyonce, but I mean you really are just an Example of you will have everything that you want in this life because you've defined what you want in this life and you define what you don't want in this life.

And I love the resiliency of your type a personality. I love that you think of it as a tool that you can use to kind of dig yourself out of whatever trench you're in, not in a way that you're escaping. The trench that you're in, but you're like, okay, I'm here. I'm in this trench. What are we going to do to get me out of this trench?

Let's, first identify that there's something happening. What, how can people get in touch with you? How can people learn more about you? Where can people find your podcast? I would love for people to be able to follow your journey and what you're going to do next. 

Sara Ann Kelly: Thank you. Okay. So on Instagram, I am, are you ready for this?

Y'all it's three first names, which can be spelled five different ways. So follow me here. It's S a R a a N N K E L L Y P R P R like public relations. And then on Spotify, I am the make life rich movement podcast. And my algorithm sometimes has me pop up, sometimes doesn't. So if that doesn't pop up, you can just type in my name and it will pop up.

Beth Lawrence: Thank you, Sara. Thank you so much. And I know this will not be the last episode that we do together. If you have not listened to Sara's podcast, obviously listen to every episode, but there's a personal favorite starring me. You have to go find that episode.

Sara Ann Kelly: That was such a good episode too.

Beth Lawrence: It was so fun. I know. I always love chatting with you. Well, I'm going to end the episode here, but please go find Sara on all of the platforms and go. Make your life rich. And literally Sara is giving you the tools to start your business with confidence. And also you're going to learn from entrepreneurs like us who've done it all and been there and made the mistakes.

So you don't have to we will be back next week. Thank you so much, Sara. And thank you so much for listening. Thank you.