Polly: 0:22

Hey superstars, welcome back Polly here.

Samantha: 0:25

Hello beautiful humans. Samantha Pruitt here.

Polly: 0:28

What are we talking today?

Samantha: 0:32

This is so fun for us because this is going to be a little different.

Polly: 0:35

Yes, we have a little free flow episode for you.

Polly: 0:37

Yeah, if you guys are willing to play along with us. So just a little background. Usually, Samantha and I, we jumped on a call beforehand and we talk about the topic, we share our notes, we have a approach, we’ve got our talking point. You know like, yeah, a lot of structure going on, a lot of structure. This episode, as we had that pre-call, like I was like hold up, hold up, there’s good stuff in here. So the general topic that we’re going to cover today is we were chewing on the word self-invest, right, and we started chewing on that and unpacking that and then comparing that or creating a distinction from self-care, right, and then we started getting this banter and I was like, hold up, we should do this live.

Samantha: 1:16

So, yeah, so free flow. Free flow, yeah, because we were unpacking some stuff about ourselves and for ourselves and we’re like whoa, we should share this with our audience. Yeah, I mean, it’s who we are, and what the show is, anyway is helping people understand that nobody is perfect. Hello, news flash. We’re not trying to live a perfect life by any means. We’re trying to feel good in our lives, not make things look good. So our own truth and our own process on this journey is just as important that we share that with the world, and it’s part of our growth cycle to be even producing this podcast.

Polly: 1:56

So let’s go in on all of that.

Polly: 1:58

I think one of the things that I most enjoy is just the conversations we have, like we bounce off each other, we get ideas from each other, we learn, we grow, and I thought that some of this would be. I mean, it’s going to be super vulnerable. I have no idea where we’re going with this. I’m hoping there’s going to be lots of good gems for both of us and for anyone listening to this. That’s our hope, that’s our goal, and thank you for being on the ride with us. So one of the things we usually start out with is a little bit of definitions. Do you have, do you want to share your approach or your thoughts? Because I would, and I just want to say so self-invest. Usually, I prepare for this because I love looking up definitions. That starts to spark my mind, and when I contacted you and I was like dude, I looked up self-invest and all I’m getting is like how to invest in the stock market or how like starting early in your 20s.

Polly: 2:49

I’m like yeah, that’s what Google thinks self-investing is. So from there, what is your definition?

Samantha: 2:58

How is it through?

Samantha: 2:59

So I’ve been using the term self-invest in my coaching with humans for a long, long, long time and I think I came to that term in my own process of evolving my own self and transforming my body and my brain and my career and all the things I perceive self-investing as me, the individual, or you, the individual, whomever is out listening to this right now, as the person, the human being themselves, taking resources, so time, energy, money, focus and putting it upon themselves, investing in themselves, those things.

Samantha: 3:41

So that can look really different for different people and it’s really important. It is different, it’s unique to the person what their goals are, what their path is, who they are, what they’re interested in. But it’s spending time, energy, money, focus on things that are going to develop me into a better Samantha Pruitt, and so finding that for each individual and helping them identify with what are the things we could redirect some of your personal resources towards that would make you feel better, function at a higher level and ultimately fulfill your own potential in this lifetime. So that sounds really big and outrageous, but it’s the everyday things. So that’s how I define self-investment.

Polly: 4:32

I love it. I love it, and you were, I think, the first person to speak that word to me, so I’ve definitely been being around you for as long as I have. I’ve heard you say that a lot. And then, when you defined it, I was like, oh okay, I get it, I get it. And so, like I said, I went to Google. I was like what is self-invest? Because I haven’t claimed this word, I haven’t thought about this word a lot. Have I thought about potential? I loved how you ended.

Polly: 4:58

That is like the potential, because as I went down the rabbit hole of the definition of investing and what is that? Or is there a definition of self-investing? So I just wanted to share some of that because this was helpful to me to align with exactly what you’re saying. So, consider invest To buy something you think will go up in value is one definition. Another is exchange energy, life force For more life force, life force in return potential. Wait a minute, say that one again. To exchange energy. I inserted life force To exchange energy, or your life force for more life force in return, right. And so I get this. So like, as I was like, what do I get? Down is like it’s the offer of greater potential is to invest in oneself.

Samantha: 5:48

Right, so just like wait a minute, you did this without me and that’s what you came up with.

Polly: 5:53

That’s what you want.

Samantha: 5:54

This is.

Polly: 5:55

I just reached out to say oh my God, that’s so awesome.

Polly: 6:00

Well, you own it. That’s what I just want to say is like you’ve been owning this. This is how you, the stance that you coach from, this is how you live your life. This is what you. You got it in your own life and then you started bringing it to people. I would say I have, you know, arrived there, like as you described your definition of it. I was like, yes, yes, because we both. I mean, that’s what coaches believe in is the potential of the human or, you know, whatever that person is, is their potential and a couple more things that so, as we talk about potential, so I was like well, let me go and see what potential means. So I love this one is latent qualities or abilities. They may be developed. So it’s latent. It’s like it’s already inside, exactly, exactly Right. So it’s not, oh, you know. Like, so you think about investing. It’s like I have to go buy something to get an asset.

Samantha: 6:51

No, no no, this is. There’s a risk involved and all of this drama around it, right?

Polly: 6:57

Now I do agree with you. You called out a couple of things besides. Like money, you said it’s time, it’s focus, it’s energy right, first thing is like it has to be important, like you have to prioritize Exactly, like you have to see the potential in yourself, like people don’t invest money in a stock or piece of real estate or whatever a new car, whatever it’s going to be. They don’t invest in something unless they see that potential. And so I think one of the things that I thought about this is like whether or not people are awake to their own potential is whether they start to self invest, right? You?

Samantha: 7:32

know. The precursor to that, unfortunately, in working with human beings and I’ve seen this a lot and I’m sure I did this in my own life and that’s why I recognize it in others is so perhaps they don’t see the potential or understand the potential within themselves. But if you back that up a few steps further, unfortunately there is a lack of value. So they don’t feel valuable, they don’t feel worthy. And so how could they possibly, if they didn’t feel valuable and worthy in their own life, think that there’s more potential to be had within themselves, to be developed, to be nourished?

Polly: 8:13

You know, as you said, that I started to think of, like two categories of people started to come to mind in my coaching history. Right, so I can picture the ones that, like you were saying, like they don’t feel worthy. You know, they just like don’t take care of themselves, they don’t see the value, they don’t see the potential. They run themselves into the ground. They aren’t, you know, pursuing their best self, let’s say so. They just don’t even see it. And then the ones that see it and want it and aren’t doing it, like they’re frustrated with themselves because they’re. I know I have more inside of me, or why am I doing this to myself? Or man, I’m made for more, or you know this crappy job that I’m doing, I should be doing that, whatever. So like they see the potential but they’re not pursuing it. So there’s that frustration gap. And then the ones that don’t see it and they’re just kind of like lifeless, like they don’t steal it, like their light isn’t turned on or something. There’s a third. Oh, oh, please.

Samantha: 9:06

And then the third, and we also do work with them.

Samantha: 9:12

They are doing it, they’re proceeding they’re chasing it and perhaps they’re chasing one aspect of themselves very hard. Could be career path, could be financial, could be relationship, whatever, you know, athletics. But the other aspects that would ultimately allow them to fulfill their full potential as a human being on this planet in this one lifetime that they’ve been given, those aspects are being ignored. So imbalance occurs. We’ve used that word and you know we’re going to get into that. So actually three possibilities there First, humans. There’s probably a dozen more, but that’s what we see on a pretty regular basis.

Polly: 9:56

For sure, for sure, and we’ve been there and that’s why we can see them so well.

Polly: 10:02

The only other thing I wanted to drop in here and maybe now’s a good time is about around potential was potential energy. So, under the definition of potential energy, like in science, physics or something like that imagine like a bow and arrow, so potential energy is when the bow is pulled back right, okay, there’s energy ready to be released, right. Or if you think about a hammer over a nail, if it drops like, there’s potential energy there, right, nice. I just think there’s something in that with regard to humans and using their energy, not using their energy, or how do we get sometimes, you know, like I’ve definitely seen in my own life to go forward? Sometimes you have to take a couple of specs bath, right.

Polly: 10:44

You know and I used to call this, I used to call it, I used to have this visual of myself of like squatting, like Superman. I’m like, whenever a superhero takes off, they don’t just like stand and fly, they like bounce, they like take a squat, and then they go right. And so sometimes I would say I’m just in my balance, I’m in the squat, and then it’s going to launch.

Samantha: 11:05

You know the priming of the pump. Yeah, yeah, the creating that potential.

Polly: 11:10

Yeah, yeah, pulling back that bow if you will. Nice, if you want to share some now, we can kind of start to unpack. Now we’ve got self-investing on the table. How about self-care, you know?

Samantha: 11:22

Yeah, this is where you and I started to go off the rails a little bit, because I mean, I guess I just have a little bit of a beef with it. The term Nothing personal. All you people who are out there in the self-care industry, you’re wonderful, keep doing what you’re doing. But for me, on my personal journey, what I have found that causes a little bit of friction with my own resistance to the word or to the concept is it feels very commercialized, it feels very superficial, it feels like something we put out in front of people.

Samantha: 12:00

Like you know, your life is incredibly stressful. You have all these burdens and circumstances that are really draining you from reaching your potential, holding you back lots of things that maybe you’re in or not in your control. But if you just take a little time each week for some self-care and get you know your hair done, your nails done, you know bubble bath with a glass of wine or these kind of things, it’s all going to sort of balance itself out and it’s going to solve those problems. It’s absolutely not going to solve any of those problems. It might feel good temporarily, but so does drugs and alcohol and lots of other things that are not good for you, you know. So I really want to see people maybe taking that term and doing something different with it and separating from the commercial experience. I gave you an example of a gal I was listening to.

Samantha: 12:53

she was talking about self-care and how she was trying to integrate self-care, you know, programs or practices into her life and some of them were great, you know, get more sleep and some different things that we were talking about nutrition or whatever. But one example she gave was, you know, going to the store and buying a bunch of candles like $100 worth of candles and like putting them all around her house because they smell good and all these things. So the commercial world had sold to her this concept that if her house had all these really expensive candles, that was an aspect of her caring for herself. And I mean that made me really slightly annoyed because first of all, I wanted her to spend her $100 on something that would actually have an impact on her physical or mental health, but secondarily, that wasn’t gonna solve any of the problems that really needed to be navigated for this human to feel better, right? So that’s my beef.

Polly: 13:49

Tie that back to like was that self-investing you know, like it was a mis-self-invest or a? And I 100% agree with where I think the term self-care started coming to nomenclature and then where it is now is so far from where I think you know, so I can’t. I looked at that definition. Hold please.

Samantha: 14:13

Of course you did. You’re our R&D department.

Polly: 14:17

Okay, okay, so self-care as opposed you know, on whatever Google.

Polly: 14:20

So the practice of taking action, I do like this to preserve one’s own health. Okay, so the definition I think we’re on the same page with. In concept, that sounds reasonable and I love this. So another one is taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, especially during periods of stress. And they talk about the four pillars. There were some studies of four pillars emotional, physical, you know, spiritual, mental. So, like, those four pillars are the well-being of the human, if you will, right, and so self-care is, I mean, what you and I are wanting to bring to people’s attention and why we started. This is like the dynamic of the self, of the preservation of self, like, you know, well-being, the health of one. Yeah, it is those four pillars I think we both agree, like good emotional health, well-being, physical, whatever. And then there’s this outer conversation of well, self-care has become, you know, marketers, get on board with that, and industry yeah, and we’re like oh, we’re going to have a billion, multi-billion dollar industry.

Polly: 15:28

Yeah, and so we’re not making it wrong, but I think one of the things that you and I are just calling out in this conversation, and really, as we were preparing for this, I was like man, I wish we could like have people call in.

Samantha: 15:39

I was like oh, I’d love for other people to join in. You need to have a hotline. I can’t wait till the day we’re both in studio together.

Polly: 15:46

And there’s a hotline. I’ve been relying.

Samantha: 15:48

I answer that phone all day long. It’s not my favorite thing to do. Call me sometime.

Polly: 15:53

So we could take live interaction because this just feels like a conversation. There’s a book that I started reading a couple years ago a friend gave me, which is about a better world that we know our heart’s know is possible or something like that. Forgive me, I can’t remember the exact title, but it’s like an invitation to get out of the world that we get plugged into let’s call it and I mean literally plugged into with society, economy, social, all that stuff, Anything you can kind of get plugged into, and when you unplug from that, like there’s a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. And I think what we’re redirecting the attention for anyone listening to this back to is the essence of self care is like the essence of the four pillars of taking care of oneself, not going out and buying something. I mean, if that feels like it’s a self care investment, cool, Like I’m not saying you can’t buy something and it does positively affect yourself. Care.

Samantha: 16:55

Or spend money upon things or services. I’ve spent a lot of money on my fitness, yeah. That’s a huge pillar for me to my self investment. It’s primary to my mental and physical well-being.

Polly: 17:08

Yeah, and it is not free and I value every penny Healing supplements, modalities, nutrition, what we put in our body, all that stuff. So we’re just saying you might want to take it back a little bit and remember what true self care is. It’s caring for yourself, not some. Buy more stuff. Buy more things, because I think that gets things, and one of your words that we wanted to touch upon was you think about balance, and so what?

Samantha: 17:38

do you have to say about that? Just speaking about the buying of things real quick. What just popped up for me was it’s also so important that each one of us really recognizes our own individuality. So what I’m going to need to spend my resources on my time, energy, money and focus on that. Our self investment in me, samantha Pruitt, are not going to be the same thing, polly, that you do, that anyone here listening does. So it’s not. There isn’t a right and a wrong way to do this either. It’s so important we spend the time understanding ourselves, doing the work to discover what makes me feel good, what charges me up, what is going to actually have me reach my personal goals. So it’s not like an outside project that people need to advise us upon.

Polly: 18:33

For sure.

Samantha: 18:34

You know it’s really spending the time understanding what those things are going to be for you.

Polly: 18:41

Yeah, and I think something that I’ll point to, that I’ve worked with some clients on in the past that this reminds me of is people come with some things out of balance, like you’re talking about let’s call it their health right, or working with someone right now and a relationship.

Samantha: 18:58

Where is the suffering?

Polly: 18:59

Yeah, a relationship issue or a health issue. We all have it and I think we don’t realize the underlying stories or the definition we have, like, so this one in particular. So there’s a person I’m coaching right now who has a relationship and the expectations of that relationship are, I think he’s recognizing that he’s set his own expectations for himself of what he’s supposed to do and how he’s supposed to show up for his partner and things like that are out of whack and it’s like and some of that we’ve talked about the influences we have when we get plugged in. So part of what I help people with and maybe you’ve done this too is like so let’s define what health is. Have you sat down and really define what health is? Because sometimes people are pursuing a goal like six pack abs and it’s like that’s not even health right. Or a weight on a scale. I’m like is that the definition of health?

Polly: 19:56

Right, because we know a lot of unhealthy people that are at the average weight but they’re falling dead.

Samantha: 20:05

Yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting what you’re saying because everybody’s definition is going to again be unique. What’s healthy in their financial world, their relationship space, their physical health? It’s all going to be different for each person. So spending the time and energy, either with someone or by yourself, to really understand that is just a process of self-discovery, of self-knowing. Also, it evolves over time.

Samantha: 20:34

One of the things we talked about is our roles in society and how each of us has very different roles, but society continues and really loves to do this, but upon us these particular roles. I mean, we’re females in the space, right? So there’s this whole thing around that. What should we be doing with our overries and uterus and what is our obligation to our family or our partner or in our career or community or whatever, and how we tend to get bogged down in those places and imbalanced and things of that nature. But so it’s individual.

Samantha: 21:08

Everybody has to spend the time figuring these things out. What do they actually value? What are the things that are important to them in their own life? I mean, this goes way back into values and purpose and all of this other type of work. But rather than going onto that side, let’s kind of flip back to where you were going initially and talk about this whole concept of balance, a balanced life. How do you perceive a balanced life? This is another word I have an issue with. I’ve got some issues with these words.

Samantha: 21:43

And it’s really not the words, it’s societies imposed. That’s a mission.

Polly: 21:49

Yeah, I remember pursuing that word balance in my 20s because it wasn’t looking very balanced for right. And then there’s like this oh, we’ve got to get balanced, we’ve got to get balanced. And then I remember it’s kind of like the phrase that you hear thrown around is like when the ducks line up, and it’s like ducks never line up or they don’t stay lined up, and the same thing with balance. Like balance is I don’t know, do you need to strive for that. I would say what’s healthy, what’s viable, what’s sustainable, what feels good, more so than some generally accepted accounting principles of balance or something.

Samantha: 22:28

Exactly. Our lives are not pennies and nickels and dollars and decimal points on this balance sheet. It’s totally nuts, right. Like there’s seasons to our lives. There’s so many times where there is an abundance and then a lack, like there’s this whole cycle that happens over the human lifetime. There’s no such thing as and really the unfortunate part of that word is a lot of people do comparison.

Samantha: 22:56

Well, her life looks so balanced. Look at her with her three kids and somehow they’re doing everything and they’re both working and they’ve got the nice house and the nice cars and everything just looks so great, right? Like, how is she not running around pulling her hair out, or him not pulling it? Whatever People judge themselves. And then they go well, my life’s just out of balance. Apparently, I don’t have the skills to create balance. It’s totally ludicrous. There’s going to be seasons where balance is not really possible. Right, there was definitely a point where my husband and I were operating businesses Collectively. We had four children. Like, there’s a lot of things going on Balance. Are you kidding me? I’d like to just get some sleep and eat a real meal. So if I had this idea that my life needed to look like somebody else’s in that season of our life. It would have been ludicrous, it would have been literally me just kind of beating myself for not doing it right, rather than look at what you are doing, picking ass. Nice work for even surviving this moment.

Polly: 24:04

For not killing the kids, killing yourself.

Samantha: 24:06

Staying married.

Polly: 24:07

That’s a miracle.

Samantha: 24:09

Why don’t we just say what it is people, it’s hard.

Polly: 24:14

So do you have any insights on what you were navigating at that time? Like, did you just not look at the world? I mean, you probably were so damn busy in your own life.

Samantha: 24:21

You’re like I didn’t stop to see other people’s. So the blessing of that period now that I’m going on 55, is we didn’t have these phones and social media and all this constant influx of BS, artificial world that’s out there that people think is like, wow, so that wasn’t there. Still, you had society and social norms, if you will, and groups and different things like that, where you would still fall into prey of comparing your life to someone else’s or whatever, but not to the magnitude that we do now, and especially that the younger generation has grown up with, unfortunately. So we need to drop a hammer on that.

Polly: 25:05

I just stop, I’m like double click on that for a minute. I mean I think about. I mean we’re old enough to not have had cell phones in our back pocket every day, right? Imagine as a teenager if every you know personally right, you were just constantly being reminded like are you keeping up? Are you looking like this, are you doing this, are you doing that? Whatever like constant feedback. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

Samantha: 25:32

Yeah, I mean we would look around and compare ourselves to you know other girls or our family, to another family or whatever. You know my family immigrated here and you know we didn’t have a lot and there was a lot of struggles in that, you know. So you look at other people that were maybe more affluent or more beautiful or had all the things or whatever. You know my friends that drove the nice cars and I rolled in with a $350, you know green station wagon that the windows didn’t roll up. You know what I mean. Like you had those moments.

Polly: 26:01

But you had them like once a day, yeah, and you didn’t compare yourself with somebody in Romania that’s been like doctored and photoshopped and all that stuff. It was like it’s just the girl in the desk next to you in class or something. You’re like okay.

Samantha: 26:14

And you didn’t have it like in volume, so like you’d have it. At the high school I went to where which you know however many kids were there, or whatever but I didn’t have a global concept of you know what was happening, and not only in my own country but in around the globe, of how other people are living, and then comparing myself to that. It seems ludicrous if you think about it. And why would we want that for our children? I now have grandchildren. Why would I want this for them? I don’t want this for them.

Polly: 26:46

So what’s like that not the antidote, but what’s the you know what’s the alternative how do we kind of stay in our lane or how do we know that we’re thriving and that’s okay. Like you said, in that moment it was like it was a bit about surviving through some tough, challenging.

Polly: 27:03

You know, like we got to get through this as a family kind of moment, as opposed to oh and you should be doing more and you should be saving more and you should be whatever and you know, have the biggest things and stuff like that.

Samantha: 27:15

How do, how do we? Yeah, I mean. So it’s going to be different for everybody and I think I would love to hear your story of, or your thoughts around, how you perceive balance. So I now perceive balance over my own lifetime and up until this moment of how I feel, allows me to clearly identify if I, if my life, is in balance and that is not anymore about am I, you know, giving enough service time to others, caring for others, like in the roles we’ve traditionally had, even as a business owner, you know, the taking care of others and making sure others got a paycheck and others customers or whatever were serviced, et cetera, et cetera.

Samantha: 28:02

All of that, like giving of others generally, was something that many of us still do or spent a lot of time doing in our upbringing and through our into our adulthood. You know, whether we’re mothers or partners or not, like just in society, right? And so I see a lot of imbalance, and a lot of imbalance for myself was reclaiming that time and energy, those resources and it could be financial resources or focus time and energy and redirecting those back into my personal development, because I feeling like I was stimulating my own brain and learning new things I have. I place huge value on reading and learning. There were times in my life I did none of that. I had zero bandwidth for that, and I know a lot of people can relate to this men, women, all ages of people or taking care of my physical health same thing no time, no time, no time. No space, no energy left at the end of the day, no money left in the bank account to buy the gym membership or to get a new pair of running shoes or whatever. Right, because those resources were being directed outward.

Samantha: 29:12

So I have great clarity now on. I am the most important person in my life. Yes, I have a partner, I have children, I have grandchildren, I am a community leader. I do all these things and I love all those people. But hello, the girl is worth something. She also deserves to have her needs met, and not only her needs but elements of herself and I’m speaking about me now so that she feels she’s investing in herself and she can develop herself into her best possible human Right. Yeah, so that’s when I feel like I’m in balance. When things start to slip back into my old ways or I find old patterns emerging, I call myself on it now. That’s when I’m imbalanced and I go whoa, what is happening right now?

Samantha: 30:01

And that’s just me catching me. I’m not shaming and blaming anybody else, it’s like okay, get back on track here. You know what you need to do.

Polly: 30:08

Yeah, I think one of the things that I started to pick up on the metaphor that was coming for me just at the end there anyway, but I want to go back and maybe touch upon some earlier things that you said and it was all amazing, by the way is our life, the areas of our life, all areas, I would say, have like a little thermostat in them, whether it’s our bank account or our self care or self care that is a loose word like how our physical body feels or how much time we’re putting into work or other people or whatever, right, so we have these little mini thermostats that are. You know, I’ve talked about other episodes of standards, and so I think this goes a little bit about. What you’re kind of touching upon is like where are your standards? Where have you set them? I think what I’m hearing of where your standards had to be a little bit out of necessity, is it different level than you’ve allowed yourself and given yourself now, because you have more freedom or independence to choose those things.

Polly: 31:08

And I wanted to say those words specifically because I want people to understand that there are times in our life where we feel a little responsibility. I mean, you couldn’t, just you know, I mean some people might just walk away from a family or kids or whatever you know, but you have responsibility. You felt invested in that and seeing that through. So there were some places where you were willing to adjust your thermostat, adjust your standards, so that the overall picture was, you know, one of you know, surviving, thriving. You know it was going to work, whereas if you took a totally selfish point of view in that place, you know. So let’s say you had the standards that you have now, back when there was no room to have that standard. I don’t know if that would have worked.

Samantha: 31:53

Well, that’s an interesting question to pose, because I will say I had a physical and mental health breakdown and I clearly know that part of the reason for those two things happening and mine happened to sort of collide magically around the same timeline it was over the course of a couple of years but it felt, you know, like it was all at once intensive was the fact that I’d become so lacking in my self-investing. All of those areas were completely depleted.

Polly: 32:27

So like your bank account. Yeah, your thermostat.

Samantha: 32:30

I wasn’t putting money in those bank accounts yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So my physical well-being, physical health, no, and when I say I wasn’t investing in those, I wasn’t putting time, focus or money right. And I could say the same for, like, my personal education and interests around learning new things. You know my relationships with others out in the community having fun, my girlfriends, whatever versus family time. So I’m not saying that there’s times in people’s lives that they should go totally bankrupt on themselves ever. So I did make that mistake and I’m not blaming anybody. These are. This is partially to do with my upbringing, circumstances in society and culture and so many things decisions made exactly.

Samantha: 33:20

It’s not like there’s evil people on the other side of this conversation. It was just me, literally not paying attention, not feeling worthy enough, not understanding what was required and not pausing or investigating. Some things are starting to break down. I should maybe take a look here right, ignoring and just going, going, going, striving for. I mean, for me it was a little bit like the American dream and that’s kind of how I was brought up, but so that all had to come to a head. So there’s so many factors that allowed those bank accounts to become depleted.

Samantha: 33:56

I do feel that if somebody wants to have a family and have relationships and have a career and be, you know, whatever they want to be doing and be physically healthy and fit, I believe that that all can happen. There are times that you’re going to put more energy into one area than the other. The pendulum is going to move back and forth, but ideally, you know, you can arrive that gracefully over the seasons of your life and maybe the amount of time you spend in one area is really big at certain junctions, but it doesn’t mean it ever has to go away. Maybe something else takes its place, so it just comes down a little bit in value, that bank account comes down whereas the other one maybe is built up. But it never needs to be that they’re all depleted or that you never get back to building that account back up with your physical health or whatever. Does that make sense?

Polly: 34:49

Totally, and, as you were describing this, the metaphor that started to appear in my mind was like the condition of our house, or something right.

Samantha: 34:57

So if our body.

Polly: 34:58

Our life is like a house, if you will. You know there’s periods where we can’t put a new roof on. Right now. You know it’s like I’m not going to replace the roof, we’ll give that a little bit of time. Or too much neglect or not cleaning in the corners, you get dust bunnies building up in certain areas or worse, you know, or mold grows in the wall or whatever. So, like the attention you pay to your quote life house, if you will, you see that return Right, like how healthy is that? How house look, how comfortable is it to live in it? You know there’s maintenance required in this thing called life. Like you said, the focus, you know. I mean you can completely have your focus on somebody else’s house, somebody else’s you know, front yard or whatever. You can completely invest your time in all the other people in your neighborhood. You know like, oh, let me help them.

Polly: 35:50

You know you can or you know, oh my my, my kids room looks amazing. Man, the master bedroom is a disaster, right you know.

Samantha: 35:59

I’m laughing because I’ve seen this before. I can think of many instances.

Polly: 36:02

Yes, it’s just starting to, you know, it’s starting to sound familiar to all of us. So it’s like, yeah, like what if life is like a house, and how comfortable it is to live in that house, how it feels good, how it looks good to us? Do we kind of walk around and it like you know, or is it falling apart and needs some love and we’re hiding out in it? You know?

Samantha: 36:26

or whatever right. You know, when you’re talking about that, I’m thinking about a couple of instances. One is like it’s relatively common to see moms and maybe dads do this too where they’re really investing a lot of time and energy in their children’s success. How their children’s dress, they spent a lot of money on that. You know, their kids being an extracurricular activities, having a lot of opportunities, having a social life, all these things.

Samantha: 36:55

And then if you ask the mom about her own investment in those areas for herself, there is very little that’s being directed there you know, and you see that also in a work environment like you could see a lot of people hard charging who are helping to make someone else’s business a success or to really, you know, make the leadership in their company, see them, value them. So they’re striving and working and working and putting in long hours and doing all these things but for somebody else’s ultimate benefit, for somebody else’s gain, for somebody else’s award, prestige, whatever right. So this happens. I think a lot in the human experience, that we do spend time and energy in that way and we become literally imbalanced, because where are we in the equation? How do you feel about that?

Polly: 37:52

Yeah, for 100%. That analogy, I think, is starting, or the metaphor is starting to really I can get it. I see that in my own life, I see that in family life, I can see that in how you can apply that to work and all those things. The self-investing is the line I just said. Just really resonates for me is like how does it feel to live in that house? And I think we don’t either. First step is awareness, paying attention, noticing like oh, there’s some dust bunnies or there’s laundry that hasn’t gotten done, or I haven’t left the house in three weeks or whatever, and recognizing that a little bit, as we talked about earlier, is like, is it the person who doesn’t think they’re worthy and doesn’t invest in those things? Like, oh, this house, this whole thing, this whole house, putting someone else’s needs above theirs.

Samantha: 38:47

How many people excuse me, they eat what their spouse or their children want to eat. I’m sure I have absolutely done this for a long time. I don’t do it anymore, but like, I can totally relate to that experience of like spending money on the groceries that my family wants and what they’d like to eat and making sure that they’re getting their desires met. In the meantime I’m either eating things I don’t want to eat or I’m not getting my needs met. That really kind of came to a head for me when I was diagnosed with celiacs and we had to change the entire way. The entire household ate and shopped and experienced food, not just me. Of course I could have just done it for me, but I live in a family unit that they’re all like.

Samantha: 39:38

This is a high priority to make sure I’m healthy, mom’s healthy, my wife’s healthy. That’s one of the kind of things. But you do see that things like that happen quite frequently too is that people and I’m guilty of this. That’s why I would say would, would or will make choices around putting somebody else’s desires and needs first. That’s not self-investing If you’re putting food in your mouth, literally putting food in your mouth, the number one thing besides air. So three things air, nutrition, water that make your entire body and brain work, and you’re choosing to put something in that I’m not even saying if it’s good for you or not. You don’t want it.

Polly: 40:19

Yeah, yeah, it’s somebody else’s preference.

Samantha: 40:22

Yeah and you’re that’s a no. We got to stop that right now. That’s it. Yeah, that’s a hard. No, that’s a drop the hammer moment right there.

Polly: 40:30

That is a whole nother. We have a future conversation. I think around all the you know, giving over the power and giving over the you know, control of our life and things like that, Because that’s where I put that in the bucket.

Samantha: 40:38

It was like, yeah that’s a little off the rails, but I know that that’s a thing yeah.

Polly: 40:43

Yeah, so self-invest and self-care, self-circle, back, yeah, yeah.

Samantha: 40:49

So do what happens when we do a free flow episode I get a little crazy.

Polly: 40:52

No, this is a good. So you know, when we were, when I first, you know I was coming out of my meditation this morning and thinking about this topic before I went online and I looked up self-invest, which was fun, but I’ll just. I just want to maybe introduce a couple of things here that questions that started to spill out of me and let’s see if this goes somewhere. So some of the questions were you know, what if the life we’re living isn’t even our design or intention? Right, you know, and we talked about the standards and where people go up. So what if society’s conditioning expectations, ideas of what life is, is dreadfully wrong?

Samantha: 41:34

It is. I mean, it just is. There’s no way that society and culture and even our family God love them know what’s right for us.

Polly: 41:46

And how do we wake up from that? I mean just know, yeah, well, and I think you know. So I had a new question why?

Samantha: 41:51

would we take a backseat to our own life?

Polly: 41:53

Wow.

Samantha: 41:54

If someone else knows better, to pause on that. Why would we take a backseat to our own life and feel that somebody knows better than we do?

Polly: 42:04

Yeah, why do?

Samantha: 42:05

we do that.

Polly: 42:07

Why do we? Why do people? Why is that done? I think I’m wanting to give that some space, almost like a moment of silence, because I think that needs to land for people, because you know, one of the things that I think and I want to redo a little, this is reminding me now. So the pivot year was how we started, and I’m reading this each day and I’m just getting present to align in this that maybe this was what sparked this for me is a part of this and I’ll double click on this part that I’m thinking of.

Polly: 42:39

Well, I’ll read this one sentence that goes where I think we were just going is.

Polly: 42:44

I’ll read the whole thing, but I’ll read this one sentence. So eventually, you give way to the guidance of your inner being, the part of you that knows how vital it is to recover, reintegrate, to reflect, to balance all doing with the simplicity of being and I think the doing that people we get up to covers up a lack of comfort in being who we want to be, what we want to be, what we think is important. It’s like Walter’s going to get busy doing this thing, right, like I mean, the prescription that a lot of us adopted growing up was get out of school, get go to college, whatever, get married, get a good job, have kids, and then it just falls up a cliff, anyway, but like, where in that is the? Oh you know what? There’s seven billion of us out here.

Polly: 43:40

Maybe that’s not what seven billion of us are supposed to do, right, exactly, and maybe that’s just the prescription that the Western US model has created. They don’t do that in certain countries, like they’re not fed that storyline, if you will, and so it’s just the self-investing I think is part of that waking up. So what would like to? If you’re okay, I’m going to read the whole part of this one.

Samantha: 44:09

Let me just say something real quick. I love millennials so much because I feel like they’re doing it differently, partially out of necessity, but you see them in general getting married later trying a different path. A lot of them did get college educated, but maybe they’re now starting their own businesses. They seem to be doing it a little bit differently and I know they have their own unique struggles based on the economy and all things happening in the world today. But it is still refreshing for me to see a little bit of a shakeup in that way and the more we can shake things up all of us, at all age, at any point in our life. I can shake it up tomorrow. I can shake it up when I’m 80. Do something counter to the norm because my heart tells me to do something different.

Polly: 45:00

Please read, yeah, and I think what is normal.

Samantha: 45:04

So it doesn’t exist.

Polly: 45:06

So this is day 38 out of the book is the pivot year. On the days when it hurts too much to dream, to hope, to think of anything beyond the line of sight ahead of you, just rest. You are raised in a world that believes your productivity can only exist in outward measure, that the only things worth doing are the ones that others can consume. Your soul cannot be fooled by this, no matter how much your mindset can try to superimpose its rigid beliefs upon you. Eventually you give way to the guidance of your inner being, the part of you that knows how vital it is to recover, to reintegrate, to reflect, to balance, all doing with the simplicity of being.

Polly: 45:51

There is nothing wrong with you for needing to take life at your own pace, in your own timing. In fact, there is something emerging from deep within you that is so strong in its conviction that this is making balance your highest priority. I know you don’t like that word, but excuse it. Your unwillingness to press forward is outdated, oh sorry. Your unwillingness to press forward in outdated ways is not a sign of your non-compliance, but that the spiritual freedom you have cultivated from within is finally beginning to take root. Nice, that’s awesome.

Polly: 46:28

That’s finally waking back up to yourself.

Samantha: 46:33

Well, the waking back up happens every day to people because there is discomfort. We call it suffering. It shows up in different ways, but so there’s little pokes and prongs and there’s sometimes catastrophic ones, but when something doesn’t feel good, it’s the call to wake up, and then we ignore it repeatedly, over and over and over, technically insulting ourselves in our own intuition, and then it continues. So let’s start listening.

Polly: 47:09

The addiction to busy and doing as opposed to being and listening. So I think, the more we can slow down this, I want to pause this conversation a little bit to help people. Let that sink in, like, hey, those little nudges, the bigger nudges, right, you don’t need a two by four. We’ve talked in past about creating a change. You don’t need to break down to lead to a breakthrough. You can create a breakthrough, and I think some of it is the more you can wake up to not living the life that you’re by somebody else’s design or that doesn’t feel good or is killing you. You had the physical symptoms waking you up and going knock, knock. Hey, can’t do this, the body’s not going to take it right, the emotional system can’t take it, and so it’s slowing down. Enough to go. Wait a minute. Do I even want this life? Do I want this stuff? Right?

Samantha: 48:10

And before the physical. Generally, there’s so much emotional and psychological messaging that is occurring. We’re listening. Yeah, you know, there’s a lot of anxiety in the world. There’s a lot of depression. I mean, I’m still. I’ll pray to it occasionally myself, like that’s part of being a human too, right. But now it’s like huh, did you hear the whisper? Yeah, or do I have to wait for someone with a bullhorn to walk in the room and scream at the top of their lungs?

Polly: 48:41

Right. Something I’m thinking about is you’re saying this. I’m like how can I relate this to you know? Is there any stories of you know where my path has looked like this or what has happened?

Polly: 48:51

I was thinking about the word self-invest and I was like, okay, so 20 years is an addict, not a lot of self-investing going on? Let’s just be clear. So I would say, you know, the house I was living in was, you know, patchwork, you know, ignored, didn’t think that it needed to be taken care of, whatever you know. So, and then, from the moment that I shifted from being a food addict to, you know, living a life that feels good to me, I would say, is like I started the self-investment, like I started to care about what my life felt, like I started to pay attention.

Polly: 49:30

And I think one of the things that I look at in that moment and how my life felt and looked to me before I made that shift and now, or since then, is I wasn’t afraid to look inside, like I was afraid to look inside and see what was there in the hurt or the shame or whatever I was, you know, stacking on top of myself to avoid, and using food to get out of it and not feel it. And since then, the investment I’ve made in going in, looking at that stuff, unpacking that stuff, bringing it out to the, you know, out into the world, sometimes like this ain’t ugly, this ain’t pretty, you know, here we go. And I think the thing that I can say for myself anyway is the early stages of self-investing or, you know, there’s like kindergarten, like playing around in a sandbox.

Samantha: 50:24

Micro, micro, yeah, and pennies. Let me put a penny in today. Yeah, a grand, insane sound of grain.

Polly: 50:31

Yeah, it’s like such a weak muscle, such a new, you know, I was like going into a whole new you know 12 year, you know university course like oh wow, look at all this stuff you can learn. Oh, I didn’t know that about me. Oh, wow, this boundaries Whoa, what are those Holy cow?

Samantha: 50:47

Well, you went, so I don’t remember exactly what years and you still do this, but there was a chunk of your lifetime that personal development was your highest priority. So in terms of like resources, time, money, attention, focus you were all in on self-investing for personal growth and development and you went on this amazing trajectory which, of course, transformed you into the person you are today, and you continue to do those things. But that was a conscious choice where you said my life will now be about me finding out who in the hell I am and what am I doing here on this planet in this one precious body in lifetime. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Polly: 51:32

Yeah, it’s interesting that you said that I hadn’t really stepped back and looked at that. So I was just thinking, as you were saying, that there was probably a good five year chunk of heavy financial investment, time commitment, discovery after discovery, after uncomfortable moment after uncomfortable moment of like I mean like the places I flew to to throw myself into, you know bungee jump. I mean this was all in personally, you know, warring up and like leadership, this, and I mean just I mean, and you know what’s interesting is I don’t think I knew at the time where it was going to take me. I just knew that it felt good, this feels amazing, this feels better than anything I’ve ever done for myself. You know, I don’t I wouldn’t say that, oh yeah, like you should totally do that because you get this result.

Polly: 52:21

It’s not like go to yeah. And then I remember the five years that I doubled down on obstacle course racing and fitness and sport racing and stuff like that and, just, like you know, crushed those years of my life, crushed in a good way. I mean, like you know, I was crushing it and invested in.

Polly: 52:40

Yeah, so yeah, really getting peak, peak fitness, and so you know, I hadn’t really looked at those and I’m like what the hell am I doing?

Samantha: 52:48

now I don’t have displays, huge displays of personal investment and travel. I’d say the same with you and travel.

Samantha: 52:54

Yeah, I mean literally, there’s been chapters of your life in your own development line involving where you’re like this is what I want to be doing, this is what I care about, this is where I’m going to really discover more about myself and become a better version of myself and work towards my potential. And you went all fricking in and then you found another path. And you went all in and you found another path. I mean to me, this is you just continue to do this, discovering, yeah, yeah, yeah, different things, and so that’s speaking to radical self investment, but also the seasonality of your life and how you’ve chose to take these chapters, if you will, into that and into that, and what’s so cool is they all stack. So if you’re really ultimately trying to explore your full potential as a human being in this body, in this one lifetime on this one planet, you kind of need to do a lot of different things and check it out, right, right?

Polly: 53:55

out there.

Samantha: 53:55

Yeah, and so it’s fun for me to see I have friends that have been really talented athletes for a big part of their path and now they’re like going hard charging in business More into a family or other arenas of their life. And, of course, they’re champions in all the arenas. But it’s so great for them to take all of those skills they learned, like you have done, and continue to stack them up and up, and up the mountain.

Polly: 54:23

And you do, I mean. One thing I just wanted to touch upon before is something that occurred to me and I was such a gift. I look back on this moment or this period when it was given to me and so I have a dear aunt, my aunt and uncle, that I love very much, and my aunt is like my second mom and I remember telling me and I can’t remember the age difference, but I was probably early 30s I want to say so. I say it’s a gift, because learning this from her, like a wise woman sharing with a younger woman Sage wisdom.

Polly: 54:56

And it was like they had done the work at a safe job their whole life, saved their every little penny, raised five kids, super post war era every little bit you can paint the picture. And so they go to retire and they had had a love of travel, but they did it with jobs each, so it was maybe a week or two a year, right, but had a huge love of it. And so they go to retire and they have saved up all their money and now their bodies don’t support them. And I just remember hearing from my aunt like we just can’t make those trips across the pond like we used to be able to, you know, you know, traveling to Alaska by whatever bus or whatever, it was just too hard on us and I was like, oh then, so talk about awakening the adventurer in me, like I had a love of travel before but thinking, oh my God, by like 60 something you won’t be able to travel the same. I was like I got to get after it, right. So that’s where some of that impulse and I think some of us, you know, we put off. So we think the life that we’re supposed to live, or the life that’s going to be amazing, is out in the future and it just keeps you know. It’s like you know. And I had that wake up call. I was like hell, no, I’m not going to wait until 65 or whatever to start enjoying moments.

Polly: 56:29

And I remember reading Tim Ferriss’s book, the four hour work week, and he called them mini retirements, right. So he’s like, why spend all that money and all that time? From 65 to you die, and some people die within seven years of retirement. Right, it’s like a statistic or whatever. It is Right, it’s pretty, it’s not very long. And it’s like what if you put that into your life, what?

Polly: 56:52

if you lived a life that was like mini retirements throughout your life and I just was like I think I’m going to do life like that. I was like that was a lot more fun. I buy into that model. Thank you very much.

Samantha: 57:03

Yeah, yeah, I mean, every decision we make is decisions to choose that path or the other.

Polly: 57:11

Right.

Samantha: 57:12

I guess people need to. All of us explore those from the right vantage point, you know, in a groundedness of our value and understanding our personal purpose, value, system, purpose, mission. Why are we doing this life anyway? Because it surely is not about you know what ultimately is our career path at the end and how much money do we make? Everybody knows that that is a fallacy. We don’t have to like nobody.

Polly: 57:41

Everybody’s aware that that’s not a thing anymore.

Samantha: 57:44

Yeah. So then what is the thing? The thing is the actual path, the journey itself. So you decide where am I going to invest my time and energy resources over the course of this time, you know? Is there going to be seasons where I invest more in this arena versus this and this? That’s what I deserve and should wisely invest in all of them, right? None of us need to be living anymore in that fallacy of invest upfront in all of this, put all your stocks and bonds here and then it’s going to be an easy ride on the other side. Yeah, nope, right. So finding that for yourself is just so critical, and I guess we should probably kind of try and drive home for our audience a little bit about, you know again, differentiating between self-care and self-investing, and just kind of posing a question to them as we start to wrap this thing up, what we’d like them to consider for themselves. What are you thinking?

Polly: 58:48

Let me look back at so see if any of these other questions that just poured out of me this morning yeah, this is one of the other ones is what if the formula we’re all following for a happy and fulfilled life is merely someone else’s story or dream or scheme, and somewhere along the way we got caught up, we’re vulnerable, lost our own inner compass, let go of our inner connection to who we are truly, are in favor of what everyone else is doing, and then, I don’t know, I maybe just Wakes the hell up.

Samantha: 59:26

That’s what then? Boom Right, you’re not in the back of the bus, just riding around in your life.

Polly: 59:34

Or are you, or are you, or are you, or are you.

Polly: 59:39

And so I think the thought that just all of what was spilling out of me this morning, as it aligns with self-investing, I think, is it’s key to what we said, like prioritizing spending potential right, and I think also understanding the latent or inherent potential that lives within us and owning it.

Polly: 59:59

Like we talked about the three types that either one was not seeing it, just ignoring it, one was seeing it and frustrated that they weren’t living it, and one was like overdoing one dimension of it and exhausting themselves because the lack of, let’s say, holistic care for their whole wellness, not just maybe perhaps something prescribed by the outside world instead, like how can we begin to get clear in our heart of hearts and our deep knowing what is our path? What is it supposed to feel like for us? And if we tune out, and it’s like we talked about a moment ago, like when we were younger you didn’t have social media to look at this comparison thing as often, like you might go to dinner with some friends once a week or once every couple of weeks, and or you see some kids at school, but it’s not like the whole world is in your phone right? So if we begin to unplug and we begin to stop looking at the prescribed or the conditioned or this even fake world that we’re supposed to be living into and we just spend some, maybe time in nature or quiet, or being with ourselves and listening, what becomes true for us Inside?

Samantha: 1:01:14

Exactly how about you. It becomes true for us, and how to listen to that, and also how to listen to what hurts. Where’s the suffering? Both of those things need to be identified, and that will help you get to the place of discovering. Oh, time to redirect, right? Take some of this over here. Maybe I’m ignoring this, like I call it, taking inventory with coaching clients. It’s like let’s take inventory. Maybe it’s an inventory of your business or of your personal life or your health or whatever, but it’s really an inventory of everything, right.

Polly: 1:01:54

Most often it’s pointing at something.

Samantha: 1:01:56

It’s all the things the human has, all the things we’re doing, all the things we’re incredible right.

Polly: 1:02:03

But the pain and suffering that you’re pointing to, just putting the microscope out and take a look right there. Don’t ignore it, don’t be too busy around it, don’t brush it under the rug or whatever or swallow it down. It’s like, hey you know what.

Samantha: 1:02:16

Be honest about it. Yeah, even if with nobody else but yourself.

Polly: 1:02:21

There’s probably some healing there. Most likely there’s some healing that needs to be worked on, explored whatever that looks like and that’s not for this episode to go deep into that. But look at where there is suffering. Look at where there’s lack of care or taking care of yourself.

Samantha: 1:02:37

And I would want to just end with if you think of the resources time, energy, money, focus perhaps we need to redirect some of those, if not all four of those things. A few of those things probably need to be redirected back towards yourself. It’s time, it’s long overdue. You are more than deserving and that’s where you’re going to see some results.

Polly: 1:03:08

And I want to just kind of sum up with something that I’m thinking about for us and that is like this is an invitation to people whatever you’ve gotten out of, if you’ve listened to this point and you’re on this journey with us and you’re recognizing something is off kilter, you’re sensing a disconnection from yourself, you’re not enthused about your life, you’re not feeling good in your body, you’re not happy with your finances, whatever your relationship or something like that. This is an invitation to take that. Look Like, spend some time, turn this off after and don’t just go on and get busy again. Can you pause long enough to take a look at this and get into the uncomfortable and then see where it takes you? Start that journey for yourself self-discovery.

Samantha: 1:03:57

And then call us so we can hear all about it.

Polly: 1:04:00

Yeah, share it with us. That’s just until we have our hotline.

Samantha: 1:04:04

Yeah, I know, that was so good.

Polly: 1:04:05

So if any of this resonated for you, we’d love feedback. I know, samantha, you do a great job of helping people reach us and find us online, so we’d love to hear if this resonated for you, if something spoke to you or if it challenged you or you want to challenge us. Here’s what I got out of that and this is what I think We’d love to hear, if we’d love to feedback.

Samantha: 1:04:26

So please challenge us.

Polly: 1:04:28

All right, what do you want to leave our good spirits, with Our good humans here with?

Samantha: 1:04:33

I just want to remind everybody that how your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Polly: 1:04:38

And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.