You never lose your resilience and your creativity and you've made it through every hard thing you've gone through up until this point. So what makes you think that when faced with something hard you won't be able to make decisions and pivot as needed and just respond to what's happening?

Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited you are here. It is now October and we are gearing up. Next month, we're opening up doors to Stuck to Strategy. The next cohort will start in January. So if you want to hit the ground running in 2022, can you even believe that I'm saying the words 2022? Insane. If you don't want it to be the same as it always was, if you want to go after that big dream that you have, I want you to get on the wait list because we will open to the wait list first. And there's only 20 spots. So whatever gets taken up is kind of first come first serve. So if you are interested, if you want to learn more, go to quitterclub.com/group. I hope to see you there.

Okay, I am so excited about today's guest and this episode. I have been waiting to have Bevin Farrand on the podcast for a while. She was on maternity leave. So we pushed this out and we will talk all about that cause it's such an amazing part of the story, but I honestly don't want to give away too much. I think in the intro, I really want her to explain more of her situation, but suffice to say, not only is she a quitter in the sense of going from corporate and creating a business that makes multiple six figures, she experienced uh extreme tragedy in 2019. And she'll talk about how that changed everything that she was doing. And it changed the business that she was doing. And she now runs a business and a platform called Take the Damn Trip. And it's all about doing the thing you want to do, going after the dream life that you want. Stop putting off the things you want for another day because another day is not promised and her business has grown. Her platform has grown. And her message is just so important. I think that as you hear her story and how she has developed this framework and the fact that this framework can really be used in anything, you will see how powerful it is. And hopefully I'm sure it will help so many of you guys, so I'm going to stop rambling so we can just jump in to all the goodness that is Bevin Farrand.

Hi Bevin, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time.

Oh my God. You and me both. I cannot wait, I'm so excited that I finally got you on and I know that it is going to not only inspire, but blow so many people's minds. It’s such a story that needs to be shared. So thank you for joining us.

My pleasure.

There's so much to cover. So I do want to cover briefly the way that we typically talk to people as like their previous careers. And I know that you left kind of the corporate world and started your business. So why don't you start by telling us how that happened and then we'll go into kind of the rest of it.

Sure. So in 2019, um, my husband surprised me on mother's day with four bottles of Bordeaux wine and a card written in French. Which he didn't speak French so it was a little weird and he told me he was going to take me on this whirlwind trip to France for my 40th birthday, like literally 39 hours. And then two weeks later I got laid off and I I went in thinking I was getting a promotion and I got laid off instead. And so our first thing was oh my gosh, should we cancel this trip? Um but we decided not to. And we were out, we live in the country, so we were out walking on our no sidewalks country road. And I told my husband I don't want to look for a job again because this was actually the third time I had been laid off in my career and it was a job I loved. And I said I don't want to put my financial health in the hands of anyone else again because when I have client and I had off and on had clients and done coaching and strategy sessions but when I lose a client, I lose a portion of my income. When I'd been laid off, I lost everything in an instant.

Oh my God, that's such a good way of looking at it.

Yeah and we were very much a two income family. So it wasn't like that, it wasn't that my income was insignificant. There were a couple of things that we talked about in those conversations because my husband was an engineer. So very analytical. And I said first of all, even if I, like I said, if I lose a client, it's a portion. It's not all of my income. But the other thing is I live in a small town in Ohio and most of my career has been with companies in New York and LA. And so the salary has been significantly more than if I lived in, had something near here. And I said Mark, if I take a 50% pay cut to take a job close to home, I won't ever get back to where I'm at. So even if starting my own business, I only make 50% of what I made last year, next year, I could double that. And the year after I could double that. And so that was part of our conversation. The other was, I am also a secret spreadsheet lover. And so I made a spreadsheet and I said to him if I don't make another penny from here forward, we will run out of money on October 12th. That was how we said it.

I love it.

And I said but the likelihood of me not making a penny is so slim. I mean cause I'm not just going to sit around and wish and hope for something to happen.

I love that so much. Because I think that so many people, especially with the money, I always say it's like sort of becomes this crutch, like an excuse, but most people don't even know their numbers. Like they don't know the money. Right. Or even realizing like how much could I take a pay cut and still be okay? What are my expenses to even decide what are, like the people I coach, the people I work with, so many people come with me and it's like oh I can never replace my income. And I'm like well, do you need to?

Like what is it? What do you need?

Yeah and then, and when you work for yourself, you know, the beauty of it is that there is no ceiling. So like yeah, maybe the first year you don't replace that income. But in year two, year three, you can make so much more. And I think a lot of times we are a little shortsighted when it comes to that.

Yeah, I've had clients where I'll tell people to do their A,B and C numbers. Their A is like what do you need to have your minimum life? Like I'm not talking eating ramen, but like like have a comfortable life where your bare minimum bills are paid. And then B is this would be a great year. And C is this would be an amazing year because I've asked some people, I had a client when I first started coaching, I said how much money do you need to make each month? She’s like I think like a thousand dollars. And I was like whoa, you live in Boston. So she, I said what's your rent? And she was sharing an apartment with more people than should have been in there. And she was like $600. And I said okay and what's your car payment? She’s like a hundred bucks and your cell phone? Okay, a hundred bucks. And what about, I said do you realize we’re already at $900 and you haven't eaten yet? And so I was like I don't care what your number is. It could be a thousand, it could be 10,000. Just know what it is because then you can plan accordingly.

Absolutely. And so just really quickly though, what you were doing in your job is what you were going to start a business in. I'm assuming it was like more a marketing brand or business-focused.

Yeah, so I had been doing, um, brand direction, brand strategy, launch strategy and execution for about 10 years. And what I decided I was going to do was take that and do it for smaller businesses who didn't need a full-time brand director, a full-time COO. And so and that's what I did. And I said if I can make $5,000 by the end of August, we're testing proof of concept. If I can't, I'll start looking for jobs. And I did, I think I made a thousand dollars, it was May, I think I made my first thousand dollars in July. By the end of August, I made my 5,000. And then by the end of, I want to say September, I was consistently hitting $10,000 months.

That's incredible.

Yeah and so by the end of the year, I had replaced all, but like $15,000 of what my salary would have been, combined with like the unemployment and severance and everything. But like it wasn't a huge hit.

So you've just started this business. And then you were saying your husband had surprised you on mother's day with that trip.

And so what happens?

Yeah, so the trip was scheduled for November because that's when my birthday is. And he had told me in advance because we had a four month old and a one and a half year old or two, not two year old. And so we needed enough time to, for me to, you know, save breast milk and like plan for childcare and all of the things. And so, but we still thought it was crazy, right? Even like two days before the trip, I was like shoot this is so insane. We're going to be in airplanes the same amount of time we're going to be on the ground. Should we just cancel? And we decided to go and it was amazing. We had an incredible time, amazing food, delicious wine. We walked around the city, it rained the whole time. We didn't care. We were able to reconnect with each other, who we were before we got married, before we had kids and we were such a good team. And so we came back home and it was the week before Thanksgiving so Mark had taken the entire week off work. We did stuff around the house. We took our daughter to her first movie theater show. We got prepped for Thanksgiving. We had it, we had it, it was pre-COVID. So we had a big group, I think, 20-25 people. And then the day after Thanksgiving, Mark didn't wake up. He passed away in the middle of the night and it's like I don't usually get this emotional telling this part of the story, but like no, it's okay. I mean, it's, this is we're right in the middle of the hard six months of my life each year, because from August 31st to February 23rd, we hit every birthday, anniversary, everything, so, but yeah, he just, he passed away completely unexpectedly. We had no idea. He had undiagnosed heart disease. He weighed the same he did in high school so there was, it wasn't like he was obese. And all of a sudden I am a solo parent of two kids under three. I am the sole financial provider running my own fledgling business and doing it without my best friend and the love of my life next to me. So, and this was six months before COVID hit. So I was already like my life flipped upside down. People are like oh yeah, March sucked, I was like my November sucked. So I made a post about it on Facebook about a month later. And I said, you know, I didn't really talk too much about my birthday this year. We went on this trip, this happened, I mean, people knew Mark had passed away and I ended it and I said I'm so glad we went on that adventure together. And anytime you're faced with the choice, just take the damn trip. And that resonated with so many people. They reached out to me. Um they commented on their own trips that they had taken and not just vacations but leaps of faith. They had quit their job and started a business. They had gone and decided to adopt a baby. They had moved across country, whatever it was. And so I bought the URL. I didn't know what it was gonna be but I was like that's something. And then about a year later, well, not even a year, like nine months later, another situation happened where the restaurant that Mark and I met, um, closed down. And that's where we went every year on our anniversary. And we took the same selfie in front of the sign. And we were super cheesy. We wore the same clothes, we sat in the same seats. The bartenders knew us, they were like it can’t have already been another year. And so I wanted to get that sign and I made a post about it and it blew up and people wanted to help me get the sign. It ended up going to auction, they wanted to donate money. We ended up pre-selling t-shirts that said we're not promised tomorrow, #TakeTheDamnTrip. We raised $6,000, which was well over what we needed for the sign. So I donated everything else to a friend's adoption fund because none of it was about making money but that's when the Take the Damn Trip community and movement began. And I basically have shut down Collaborate.Work.

Your other business.

Yeah because I realized I am so much more passionate about supporting people in their big, bold, crazy dreams and connecting with the people that they love. And so I created this framework around the word, damn, which actually does mean something. I say the word damn a lot but it actually does mean something. And so we've got Take the Damn Trip, but I also have a course called Start the Damn Business and a Mastermind called Grow the Damn Business. And I have a new adventure where it's Have the Damn Baby. And so..

We’re gonna get to that.

We’re gonna get to that.

It’s so amazing but I think, I mean, obviously you are a force to be reckoned with because I think oftentimes it is when tragedy strikes, when obviously it puts things into perspective very quickly. Like it puts all of the other BS that we have, all of the fears, all of the stuff that, you know, those are really like the worst case scenario for us. What we're all so afraid of and when it happens, it's like well, you know, am I glad that I actually lived my life in a way that I wanted to instead of being scared all the time or thinking, you know, like we shouldn't do this trip it's too expensive or whatever the thing is, like I'm so grateful that I didn't let those little things get in the way. But I mean, I do think, you know, for most people, I'm honestly in awe of you that to go through a tragedy like that, have two little kids, still run your business, grow it, and then like create something else out of it. I mean, I just have to commend you because I think it's, it's like superhuman level. Um, which is amazing.

Well thank you. It's not always super human, but I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, I mean, I think I've talked to a lot of people where, you know, there's this idea of how do we prepare for worst case scenarios. And I, I don't think we do because there's no way, even if I had thought how is our life going to shape? I mean, Mark and I used to talk about we're going to live to 123. That was just like the number because, you know, some people say I'm going to live to 90 and then they like die right at 90. We were like 123, let's overshoot our goal. So there is no way I could have worst case scenario’d that my husband was going to pass away when he was 40. So there's no reason in my mind to waste time worrying about all the, what if’s, but what we do need to know is that we can do hard things. I love, Glennon Doyle says that, I love it. And you never lose your resilience and your creativity and your ability to create things. And you've made it through every hard thing you've gone through up until this point, so what makes you think that when faced with something hard, you won't be able to make decisions and pivot as needed and just respond to what's happening?

Right, I love that so much. And I think that that's a lot of what I try to teach on the podcast, but even in my own work now and I think so much of people's worries and anxiety about future, like future-focused anxiety, is this fear of like how terrible it will feel. And it will feel terrible. You know, there's no, there's no way around it and feeling terrible now doesn't prevent it feeling terrible when it happens.

Right.

I think the focus always instead of oh, that's so terrible I don't think I can handle that is more like you just said is like yes, I have no idea how that's going to feel. I have no idea how terrible it actually can be, but I will handle anything that comes my way because I have to, right? I mean, I think part of it is like I don't have a choice in this matter. Like this is what I have to go through. And so I get to decide how I want to go through it just as the thing is like the only thing that we control is like how do I go through this?

Yeah, well, we have a mutual friend, Christa St. Germain, who I coached with. She's a grief coach for widows, widowed moms in particular. And I remember talking to her and saying it truly never occurred to me to just stop. And she goes well I don't think anyone would have blamed you if you curled up under the desk and just, or curled up in your bed. And like there are still days, no joke. It's kind of embarrassing, I guess. But I have been sobbing all morning for like just everything that's going on and like missing Mark and feeling like he would be, it would be great to be able to bounce things off of him and have him support me. And he, and I can't, and that's a reality that I hate. So there are definitely days that I curl up on my closet floor and cry, but it never occurred to me to stop because I know my yes and my why. And that's the first part of the Damn Framework, which is decide and declare and that's we find our yes and my yes is sharing the Damn Framework with as many people as I can, in as many ways as possible. And my why, besides my kids, like in a, in a larger sense, is so that I can create a business and a life that supports and inspires my family.

I love that.

And so when we know that then we move forward and the, the, A part is attend your own party. And that is about staying present in the moment. And when we were talking about future-focused anxiety, anxiety is in our heads. It's thoughts because fear is useful. Fear is there's a tiger in the room and you need to run. There's a bus coming down the street, you need to get out of it. Like I also, I lost my home in a house fire in 2010.

Oh my goodness, Bevin.

Fear is the house is on fire, right? Last summer, my grill shot a fireball out of it [oh my god] and of course it triggered everything, right. I was like oh my God, my house could have burned down. And Mark always managed the grill and he's like, all these things. And so in that moment, I got up in my head and I was very anxious. Like how in the world am I going to get two kids out of a house if it burns down? And I was like what if, what if, what if, and I had to stop and I had to say okay, what can I do in this moment to make me feel better? I ordered an excessive amount of fire extinguishers. I ordered some escape ladders. I put them around the house and I was like okay, that's as much as I can, that's the action I can do in this moment. And there's no other action so I need to get out of anxiety and back into my body and back into the present moment.

I love that so much and you're clearly a do-er. And I would like, I mean, just as like a timeout, I think that, I don't mean to say in any of this, that like even in the throes of grief, like you have to get up and push through and build a business and do all this. And I think Christa is absolutely right that like nobody would have blamed you and not only blamed you, like it's a perfectly normal response. Like if somebody, you know, tragically loses their husband and father of their children, I think it's, nobody would blame you because it's human to grieve as long as you need to grieve. And I think we all grieve in different ways. And I think it's so beautiful that you did find this why that allowed you to really channel a lot of that grief into a purpose to push yourself forward. I just don't want it to come off as like you could get up there, even if you lose someone.

No, in fact, I hate it when people tell me or anyone how to grieve. It is so personal. And like I didn't have that why immediately. What I knew when Mark passed away was I needed to make sure my kids were taken care of and safe, that I was taken care of and safe and I wanted to keep our house because Mark and I built this house. It's our dream home. And so in order to make those three things happen, I was going to have to keep my business running.

Yeah.

Right. Trust me, I had lots of grieving then, I still have grieving now. However, I also will say that sometimes we stay stuck in sadness and grief. When my dad passed away from cancer when I was 24, my sisters and I were sitting around having dinner and we started laughing and we were like oh my God, are we, are we allowed to laugh? You know, part of why I went back to my business when I did was because I was so tired of feeling ineffective when I was calling, you know, social security agency and life insurance and all this stuff and, and getting the, oh, you have to wait, it's in the mail. And I was so tired of feeling ineffective that I wanted to go back and do something where I could make a difference.

And I think that's really the point though, is that like you just said, there's no one way to grieve. And everybody is going to figure out, you know, has to figure out their own way. And there doesn't need to be any like guilt or shame of how you do it. And whatever you do is fine. But like you said, too, I think sometimes when there is nothing else that you can do and you feel, you know, like tired, for a lot of people it's like you're tired of the grief. Like you need something else to focus on, to be able to create a platform like this is incredible. And I think you are helping so many people and it's such an important message. You know, it's such an important message that like every single one of us, we lose sight, we lose perspective in our everyday lives. We sit in this fear. We're constantly trying to brace ourselves for something that may or may not ever happen and our life passes us by. And so I think it's absolutely necessary for people to hear over and over that like take the damn trip, start the damn business, do the damn thing that you want to do. And so you, you had told us, so the DAMN, we have decide and declare, attend your own party. And then what does M and N stand for?

Well so the attend your own party, the two parts of it, because one is staying present in the moment. And the other is that we all create our experience of life through our thoughts and our own filter. And so once we realize that, once it is our thought, once we realize it is our thoughts that are creating our emotions and our feelings and not the other way around then we realize we could change our experience truly in an instant. Like I jokingly say, I can not tell you how many arguments I've had with people who aren't in the room. Like that it's all in my head and I'm thinking well, how dare they get upset with me like that? And I'm like okay, that is all. If they can't answer back, they are not participating.

I love it.

And so I even jokingly said like I dated a guy in my head. I'm like I don't think I'm going to go see him tonight. And I was like I wonder if he'll be sad. I'm like he doesn't know. He does not know that I have these feelings so I don't think he's sad. So when we realize that, like I said, we can, we can just question our thoughts. You know, when we think about I could never quit my job. I could never move across country. That's just a thought that we have in our heads. And I am not saying replace it. I'm just saying question it like says who, right? Like who says you can't be super successful running a business? Who says you can't have a baby on, like I have friends who've had babies on their, who says you can't do that? Who says you can't? I would never build a tiny home but like who says you can't do that? Like you tiny homer's, who says you can't do that?

I mean, you were speaking my language and everybody that listens because all we talk about here is mindset. And it's all about your thoughts and exactly what you're saying though too. I think a lot of times people think like oh, when I'm telling them like you can always change your thoughts. You can change your thoughts to have a different experience. And that means like you should always, but that's not what anybody's saying. And what you were just saying with the tiny home is like you get to just, I get to decide like I don't want to live in a tiny home just because I don't want to. I could change my mind and have like if I was forced to live in a tiny home let's say, I could be perfectly happy because I know I can like control my own experience of it. That's not to say that you have to start a business or you have to live in a tiny home, right. But exactly what you're just saying is like question when you're thinking, I can't, I could never, I can't just pick up with my kids and move, you know, to Europe. Why not? Of course you could, if you wanted to. Just figure out if you want to or not and then you can figure out the how, but I do think like so many of us think that we're just saying a fact as if we're describing the weather, it'd be like no, but I could never start a business. Like what? Of course you can.

Well that goes back to the decide and declare like I've run groups and challenges where it's like Start Your Damn Business. And I've had people reach out and say I decided I want to keep this as a hobby. Or I've decided I don't want to focus on starting a business, I want to adopt a child. And to me, it is as amazing to get that clarity and decide…

Agreed.

And declare. And then also to remember there's a huge difference between permission and support. And we spend a lot of time unconsciously asking people for permission. Like I think I'm quitting, I think I'm gonna quit my job, what do you think? Or I’m thinking about moving, do you think I should? Like and that's asking for permission and we are not second graders trying to get to the zoo, we are grownups and so we don't need permission to follow our dreams. We can ask for support. But the difference is that when I ask somebody for support and we're going to come back to this, when we talk about the next part of this, but when I ask somebody for support, their decision of whether or not they can support me is not going to change my decision to do it.

Oh my goodness. I love this so much. Yes. I mean, I think most of us don't realize we're asking permission…

Right.

And we've been so conditioned to not trust ourselves that we think we need everybody else's like approval on how we want to live our lives. And really, I feel like I think for myself, like my second life began when I started realizing like oh, I don't need people to approve of what I do. And I, and I don't have to explain it. I don't have to get them to, like you were just saying like, their support. I can ask them to support me, but that is not conditional on whether I do it. They can not support me and I can still love them and be totally fine and be like okay, I get that you don't get it. I'm still doing this. But I think most of us don't realize that.

We don't and there's a different energy. And so the problem with asking for permission is you're usually asking the people that you love and love you. They care about you and they want to keep you safe and they don't want to see you fail. And so what they do is they take that idea and they try it on for themselves. And if they are at all uncomfortable, they sort of pick away at your dream like oh, in this economy, like in this housing market. And it's because they want to keep you safe. And because when they give you permission, it is like that permission slip, they feel like they are sort of liable for what you do. And so in the decide and declare part, like the declare sounds like oh, I have to plant my stake in the ground and shout it from the social media rooftops. I say start small. And not necessarily with the people closest to you. Start with a group of like two to three people. They are like your dream cheerleaders. I will sometimes compare it to like a newborn and a toddler. There are people that I would let watch my toddler that I wouldn't let watch my newborn. Cause it's like ah, you may drop that one. So I wouldn't give some people my newborn baby dreams. I would wait til it's a toddler and it's going to wreak havoc on everyone's life and I'm like but you know, so you gotta wait and you declare it first to yourself and then start to increasingly increase the circle.

Ah I love, such great advice. I definitely think because especially if you're sort of first starting out, like the first big step into something unknown, if you're not used to doing that, I think that you're right. Like when we have that doubt it's so like you may declare it and you still are going to be uncertain. Like people think once I declare, then I I'm just like oh, I know this for sure. And I'm like no, you never know for sure. You're always going to have uncertainty and doubt and all this other stuff. And so what happens is I agree that like when you have that seedling of doubt yourself, you still don't know. You're still worried that it's not going to work, when you start trusting other people with it. And then they're projecting their thoughts and it's just their fears. And they want, like you were saying, we want you to be safe. They've never done it. Right. It's so funny. Like that saying like don't ask for directions from someone who has never been where you want to go. And it's so true. It's like we're asking people that have never done the thing. They're like oh, you shouldn't start a business, like person’s never come close to anything like the business. Like how do you know? Right. But when you open it up, it just happens that they'll feed the your own doubts. Like they'll start getting you to question and it's so, I am the same way. It's like very protective of something when it's just a seed, like when I've just planted it and I don't know yet if it's going to grow. I don't know. It's like just keep it close to the chest a little bit, like tell a couple of people. And then when you're ready and it's kind of grown a little bit and you're like oh, this is going to work. I know I can do this then.

There is a point where you want people to try to poke holes in your idea.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? Like there's a point where you feel, where I feel solid enough about my idea. If, there's one sister of mine who’s very cynical. I'm like that's what I'm going to call her. I'm going to say like poke holes in my idea. Like because I want to make sure that I've thought through the things I need to think through. So I'm not saying only talk to people who who cheer you on and who, you know, like support the decision you've made always. Like you want people to say oh, I don't know, that might not be the best location. And then you talk through that. So yeah. Should we jump to M? Cause I know we're gonna, we're going to be here for seven hours. We talked about that before we pushed record. So the M is moments not minutes or meaningful moments. And so that is we all want to be a part of something that has meaning and significance. We know we can't be everywhere at once. So how do we choose? I I when I was talking about my kids with one of my mentors and I was like I don't know, how am I going to have all this time to, to be there? And she goes well, do you want to be there for the moments or the minutes? I was like yes, the moments, it's the, it's the first day of preschool, right? It's I leave my desk every day at three to go pick my daughter up from preschool because she loves that. And she runs out the door and is like mama. I, my son just started preschool this week. I try to either drop him off or pick him up each day because those are the moments that we don't get back but I don't have the time to do it all. Because again, I'm a sole financial provider. I have to run a business.

Mhm and even if you didn't, I think the thing is, is that with all of this stuff, we get on ourselves. If like we can't be present all of the time and it's like you just can't. And I think so much of the BS that we've been sold of like work-life balance and especially modern motherhood. I think like this level of, you know, I can't even imagine once it's like you're the sole provider and a single parent, but like having this need to be perfect. Not only like breaking the glass ceiling and being a girl boss and having this business and making all this money, but also like baking the organic, you know, cupcakes and being there for every moment, it's like that's insane and it's not necessary. And like your kids don't need it. And I think like really taking off that unnecessary level of pressure and burden on your life where it's like yes, I'm in love with my children and I don't need to be with them all the time. It's probably better for both of us. If I'm not with them.

I definitely, I've always known I wanted kids. I've also known for a long time that I would not be a very good stay at home mom because I love the creativity of running my business. And I feel, I like my kids more because I'm not with them 24 hours a day.

100%.

I'm a better mom, when I'm with them, by myself for 24, for 48 hours, whatever, I feel myself not being the mom I want to be by the end. Yeah, but if I choose to be as present as possible, which is usually about like a 92 ish percent with my kids when I'm with them and I choose to be as present as possible with my business when I'm with that, then I don't feel this constant guilt and pull of only being one foot into each. Like when I'm working, I'm like feeling bad about not being with my kids. And when I'm with my kids at the zoo, I'm on my phone. It's like no, I choose the meaning. You know, this morning my daughter was like can we go? She got this pretty pretty princess game. She's like can we go play that game? I was like sure. And I put my phone down, I went upstairs for 15 minutes. We played this game and I gave her all of my attention and she loved it. And now I don't feel bad being here talking to you, not being with her right at this moment.

Absolutely, I mean, I think like and I talk about this a lot, cause I feel like guilt is such a useless emotion at this point. Like we so overdone it with, for ourselves, we feel guilty with everything. And so I think even this is like a song and dance of like figuring out what is the right amount. And some days it's going to be more and some days it's going to be less and really just having that self-compassion and understanding like it's this level of what we've been told we need to do is a lie. And really like oh, like you said, I mean, being able to be present when you are there. And then being able to be off when you're not is the whole secret.

And choosing what the critical pieces are, right. I used to cook literally every dish for Thanksgiving. Right. Every single side dish, turkey, every, and I love it. Right. I love Thanksgiving but last year and even maybe the year before, I can't remember, but like last year for sure, because it was not, like not only was Mark not with us, but it was also the anniversary of his passing. Right. We totally Costco’d it up, all the side dishes because to me, I said okay, the important thing is being with my family and being present with this.

Well this just goes back to like it's the thoughts, right? Like the, you only had a thought that like I have to cook every side dish. Like there's no rule. It doesn't make you a better person if you do or don't. If you like it, it's great. I think no, you know, nobody would fault you that like the anniversary of your husband's dead, you've decided I don't need to cook anything. And even if it wasn't that, like I really do that kind of work now all the time. Like why do I think I even have to cook dinner every night? Like could I outsource this? And a lot of it is just thoughts of guilt of like you know, as a mom, I should do whatever. And it's like really just examine it. Is that something you want? Does it serve you? You know, like who said that cooking at home is better than, you know, getting someone else to do it for you. And it's just a matter of like again, examining and deciding and redeciding every time, every year. You can decide this week, I'll cook every night. Next week. I won't like it's totally fine.

We had this conversation, Mark and I had this conversation coming home from France because I was at a point where I knew it was going to hire somebody for my business. And we wanted to, uh, my, one of my clients just told me to do a brain dump of everything that needed to be done and decide who we needed to hire. And as we did that, I realized we need to hire somebody at the house. Like it's not so much about the, I mean, it was the business and I hired somebody amazing. But I was like but we also need to have somebody come in because why do we feel like it's okay to hire a babysitter for five hours so that we can do the laundry? And I'm like no, I'm going to hire somebody to do the laundry so that I can spend that time with my kids. So I outsource everything that I don't enjoy.

Good for you, good for you. I do too now. And I think that that's the thing is like I was under this illusion and like delusion that somehow it made me a better mother, if I did all this stuff and I'm telling you it's all crap. And it's also that we've been lied to. And if you look at like, you know, they've done all these studies now where it's like women now spend more time with their children than women in like the fifties who were stay at home moms. Right. It's because like what we've decided parents have to do, the involvement. And then on top of that, it's like domestic work and working and now, and it's just, it's not tenable. And so it's like what do you want to do? What fuels you? And what do you not? And then if you have guilt, it's just a good thing to start being aware of and really kind of digging deeper. Like what is the guilt about? How does it make you a better person if you do your own laundry? Like it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. So I feel like my life changed when I finally was like why am I doing this to myself?

Yeah, one of my friends, Deanna Mason, who has the refreshed moms podcast said just cause I have the capability to do it, it doesn't mean I have the capacity to do it. I love that.

I love that too. Okay, so now we're on to N.

N, so N is now is the time. And again, there's two parts to it. One is that we are not promised tomorrow, right? There's never going to be a perfect day for us to start a business, for us to move, for us to have another kid, whatever it is. There's never going to be a perfect day. So why not today? And the second part of that is in my experience, the scariest place to be for any of our big ideas is standing still. It's at the start because that's where it requires the most energy to get started because it's inertia. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. I compare it to that like deathtrap merry-go-round that we all used to have in the playground. It's like metal, everybody grabbed a bar and you had to run and run and run and run and run to get it going. And then you jumped on and it's fun and spun. And it makes you want to throw up now. But like once you're on, to keep it going all you need to do is like put your foot out and like give it another little push. That's the same way. So if you have this big idea, the thought of climbing the whole mountain is daunting. But if instead you just go like tree to tree to tree, it becomes so much easier. You can climb a whole mountain just getting to the next tree. So I encourage micro-actions, which is the smallest possible action that you will actually take.

Ugh so good.

So sometimes we make it too big. Sometimes we say I'm gonna outsource everything in my house. Like no, you're not. Why don't you just outsource one meal each week? Right. Um, if you're starting a business, like okay, I'm gonna build my website. Too big, go buy the URL. Go pick a theme, go, you know, just break it down. And if you still find yourself paralyzed, then make it smaller. Like if you're writing a book and you’re like I'm gonna write the first chapter. It's like no, just write the first word, open the Google doc. And over time, your micro-actions will become bigger. Like over time you can say, like for when I launched my business and I was writing marketing, one of my micro-actions would be write the headline. And now it's write the first email, write the second email. Right. You know, it's much, it's a much bigger micro-action cause I know I'll take it. So don't feel like I'm always going to be taking these itty bitty, teeny tiny baby steps. They'll get bigger, but you gotta take the first couple of steps.

I think that's like the whole secret to everybody's success is people think you need these like huge sweeping, I’m gonna. And it's like all it is is little steps every single day. Like as long as you're consistent and you're going to keep showing up and you're going to do it, you can change your whole life and it doesn't have to change in a month. And it doesn't have to be one huge like leap. It's just like w- step after step after step.

And we, we give ourselves these huge goals that are not sustainable. Right? So I'm like getting back into working out. And I was like I'm going to work out every day. I'm going to do this 21-day program, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Day one, I was like holy buckets that my legs hurt, my back hurts. Like I am not going to be able to do this every single day yet, but for now I can say okay, I'm going to move my body for 15 minutes every day or I'm going to do three workouts a week. And you know, like fun things like dance workouts and get into that habit and build that momentum and then let the momentum take me further.

Totally, I mean, it's, that's everything. That's like every person's experience with goals on January 1st, you know, it's like…

Oh yeah.

The problem is, is because we have a really hard time again, seeing ourselves in the future, we think like in the future, I'm going to wake up one day and all of a sudden stick to my schedule and do everything perfectly and work out. And it's like no, you build that slowly over time. And even all that stuff, you know, even the working out, let's say you do, you go hard for 21 days and you push yourself. That's not the point of working out. It's like how do I create a habit that I'm going to do every single day? And so what is the minimum thing I can start? So I can do it. Same thing with business, right? It's not a matter of like how do I throw everything in one month and build my website and do all the stuff it's like how am I going to sustain a working business where like every day I do something in it.

Yeah, I built a multi six-figure business in 2020, even during a pandemic. And even while grieving the loss of my husband because of the things I did every day.

That’s unbelievable.

It was not like this big, I got one, you know, a hundred thousand dollar deal. That was not, it, it was instead, it was showing up for my current clients. It was showing up for potential clients. It was showing up for people who I thought would never, ever, ever hire me, but they might miss say my name to somebody else. Right. Like it was the micro-actions that then added, because I knew where my goal was. Right. But I, it added itself up to a great 2020.

Well, can we talk about that please? That's amazing.

Thank you.

That's incredible. So tell us how you work with people through this framework. I know you said you like Take the Damn Trip and take the, I mean, Start the Damn Business. So is it like coaching programs, group coaching membership? What are you, what do you do?

Well, so Take the Damn Trip itself is sort of an overarching idea, right? Like trip is, is it your, like how you're deciding what you're gonna do? Is it your top priority? Will you resource it? Is it inspiring? And is it personal? And so that's sort of the overarching brand. I realized that what I'm known for and what I am best at right now is helping people start and grow businesses, typically women. Right? So, so I have a Mastermind that is a group coaching program that is Grow the Damn Business. And that is helping people make a sustainable business that's like $10,000 a month and more. That's not where everybody is like so I'm actually building this and it'll come out, I mean, probably right around the time that this goes live, but a Start the Damn Business course, which is how do you apply the Damn Framework to starting a business. Because this framework truly works for anything, right. It works for fitness. It works for relationships. It works for starting things. And I want to tell the other part of my story and how I used this framework. Um, but so it works for anything. But I realized I had to decide who I wanted to start with, which is women in business, because I want, I want to support people from that place of standing still to, you know, either they're an entrepreneur where they have shiny object syndrome and like a million different ideas or they're scared. And so it's like how do we start it? And we'd go through that same framework. So my big thing, right? So I used this same framework. So when Mark passed away, we were about 60 days away from having another baby. Well, I wasn't pregnant. So all my kids are IVF babies. Um and I shared that very openly. And so we were 60 days away from starting the next round of IVF to have our third kid. And we were waiting for my son's birthday so that we could, you know, I could stop nursing and all that stuff. So I did not think that it was fair to lose that dream as well when Mark passed away, because it had always been my dream to have three kids. Mark kind of went along with it. It was always my dream. And so in 2020 I decided and declared and did this and well, I'll come back to the permission, support, decided, declared, I was going to move forward with IVF, with the embryos that Mark and I had frozen before he passed away. And I did the same thing about this permission and support. I started with a very small group of three of my girlfriends. We started a text chain. I said your job is to cheer me on cause I don't have Mark. Your job is yay ultrasound, yay blood tests like and they were amazing about it. And then as, as the baby grew, and as my confidence grew, I let more people in on the story and on the idea and the way I did that, somebody suggested this to me. I sent a video out to my friends and family because they reminded me that's a big bomb to drop on people if they're not expecting it. And to do that in a Zoom call, people might not be able to maintain it like a calm reaction. But I said in that video, I would love as many people's support as possible. And if you want to support me and be part of this, like reach out and if you're not okay, if this is not your jam, like you are not ready to support me on this, that's okay too. Don't feel like you have to. Cause there are a lot of people, uh, not a lot. There are some people that were really uncomfortable with my decision to do this. They were scared for me. They, again, they wanted to keep me safe. And so I did the A, I stayed present in my, in the moment I even told my doctor, up until the moment you transfer this embryo, I'm giving myself permission to change my mind, which he was like but I so I'm going to pencil you in. Um, I chose meaning, like I knew that this was something that I wanted. This was my moment for sure. And I said now is the time because there's never going to be a day that this is not a totally crazy idea. Not going to turn a certain age and be like oh, now, now it makes sense to have my husband who passed away’s baby as a solo parent. It's never going to be that. So I decided to do it now.

I mean, it's incredible for so many reasons. And I think it goes back to exactly what we talked about in when we were talking about permission is that the thing is, is not, everyone's going to understand the choices we want to make in our life. And so many of us don't make those choices because other people are going to judge or not going to get it. Especially if it's something that really is outside of the quote unquote normal, what most people do, like you were saying, you know, most people, the reason they feel uncomfortable is this is something new. Like it's not something that, first of all, it wasn't available before IVF. And so now it's like something that is a situation that most human brains haven't thought about. And so whenever we're kind of presented with something that's outside of our norm, it's like whoa, wait, hold on. So I can see that it's like an instantly like wait, what are you doing? You know, whatnot. And that's where most people just stop. Where it's like well, everyone's going to judge me or everyone's going to, there's going to be people that have a problem or whatever. And I think it does speak to your character and your, you know, mindset to really declare for yourself first. Like a lot of people may not get this and I still want to do it because this is my one life. And I'm having the damn baby. Cause I wanted this baby. That's incredible.

You're so right about all of that. And we, it, it is, it's just like it makes people uncomfortable. I mean, most people who lose somebody that like lose their husband, weren't in the process, right? Like didn't have the embryos frozen, but even not if they were like but I still want to have another kid and there's a way to do it. Um, I think you are so right about all of that. And I will say, like to kind of cap that story, like my daughter is seven weeks old, her name is Mirastella, which means miraculous star. And she is amazing. I mean, it's hard, don't get me wrong. It is hard to be a solo parent. It is hard to be a parent of three. It is especially hard to be a parent of three during a global pandemic, but she just started like actually smiling, you know, not just like I have gas, but smiling. And when I hold her and she looks up at me and just smiles like oh mom, there you are. It's so worth it. You know? And so, and still again, there's still people that.

I was gonna say, how did you handle that? Like I know, I think that's, it's such a brilliant way of doing it, of asking for support. Really understanding even, that like I don't need to seek people's permission or explain, and they don't need to give me the support. I don't need their support, but at the end of the day it still hurts and we still want people to. So like how do you sort of deal with that, especially maybe now that she's here and if there's still people that don't feel comfortable with this.

Well, there's two, two parts of this. One of which is the funniest part to me, which is there really weren't that many that were not onboard, but the ones that weren't onboard, it was like so painful that they're the ones that stick out. I literally, I posted this and Take the Damn Trip. I have hundreds of people saying that's amazing but it's the five people who weren’t supportive that I remember. But one, so with, with two of them, we had this conversation, they raised their doubts. I said that, you know, I get it, I understand your concerns. I'm probably not going to talk to you about this much. And both of them got so offended by that.

What?

And I was like let me repeat back to you what you just said to me, but I was like and they said why and I said because you're not, you're not supportive. It's I don't wanna make you uncomfortable by bringing it up. Now I said to both of them, if you ask me, if you want to know how am I feeling, how my doctor's appointments are going, I am happy to share that information, but I'm not going to bring it to you. I think because people are not used to someone just stating their truth of like, the other thing that tends to offend people more than anything else I can say is well, that's not very nice. And they're like what? And I'm like they would rather I like drop an F bomb on him. I'm like nope, that just, what you said was not very kind.

What's funny is that because you're having conversations that most people would never have. Most people just like tip toe around this or don't talk about it or, you know, don't do it. And they, because they're assuming what other people are going to think. And I think most people of us are not even used to like somebody coming to our face and being like okay, well then I'm not going to talk to you about, we're not going to talk about this situation because I've decided to do this. I feel like our minds kind of explode. Cause it was like wait, what's happening. Right? Like we're actually discussing, you know, the, the underlying issue. And it's okay if we have differing opinions, but like you get to still stand in your truth. Like I can even see it. Like even my family, I feel like that would explode mine. So it's cause it's like..

Oh it explodes lots. I mean, my family is, my one sister is like how come when Bevin says it's, it's just truth but when I say it I'm being rude? And I was like it's just tone and timing and context because I never try to attack people at it. I'm just like okay like because you can only fight with somebody if there's friction, like they will only push if there's some, there's like they can only push back if you're pushing on them. So there is another group, they're supportive. They're like we'll get there. And I'm like well, I hope I'm still here when you do, but, you know, I just have to. So part of it is protecting my own, my own heart on it because it does hurt and it sucks. And so I choose how much I put myself into a situation that's going to end up hurting my feelings.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

You know, like I can say sit here and say oh, it's just my thinking and mindset and all this. I'm like yeah, but it still hurts. And I s-, I got into a fight once. That sounds terrible. I got into a disagreement once with somebody and their husband was being very rude. Right. And I said I'm leaving. And they called me later. And they were like I can't even remember how they said it but I said look, it's his house. And he gets to choose how he treats people in his house. I just get to choose whether I'm there or not.

100%. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's the thing. What you're demonstrating is such a beautiful example of what actual boundaries look like. Because I think a lot of times people don't think they're doing boundaries when it's mostly manipulation. So it's like if I, if you do this, I'm going to do this. And you're doing, you're doing it in a way where you hope by threatening that, the person will change the way they're behaving. That's not what a boundary is. Right. A boundary is like I get to just decide, like I get to have the boundary that I don't want to be around someone that smokes. I don't like the smell of smoke let's say. You don't have to stop smoking. You get to decide whatever you want to do. I will just leave. Like that's my boundary. There doesn't have to be drama. There doesn't have to be anything. And I think for most of us, we don't know how to do that. And you're doing it so beautifully. Where it's like listen, this is my decision. Totally okay if you don't accept it, I hope you do. But if you don't or if this is going to be problem, then I'm going to remove myself because like this is for my own mental health. Um, again, like just because you can change your thoughts doesn't mean you have to all the time, you can just decide like I want to be around certain people or I don't want to be around certain people or whatnot. Again, I think most of us aren't used to that. So I think it probably takes people off guard. Cause they're like wait, you're not screaming and yelling and trying to like change me and do all this stuff. And it's like no, I just decided what I want.

Well, cause you're not going to change anybody. Like theres and I don't remember if I've actually ever had this conversation or just was brilliantly in my head. But I want to say to people like okay, when you say and do that, it hurts my feelings. I'm not saying you have to stop it. I'm not saying you have to change, but just now you know that when you choose to do that, you are also choosing to hurt my feelings. Like and then just leave it at that. And then they get to choose, like when Mark and I first did our first round of, our first successful round of IVF, because we had a miscarriage and we had one that didn't work. And I said we are not going to discuss, like once we've told you we have this many embryos, we're not going to discuss it. We're not going to talk about when we're transferring. We're not going to talk about, cause we wouldn't talk. If we were going about it the traditional way, we wouldn't be like hey, we're going to run upstairs and have sex, everybody like cross their fingers. So I said we will tell you when we feel confident, just like we would with any other pregnancy. And I, um, my mother-in-law was like okay, well when was the transfer? And I said no, we've already talked about this. I've already set that boundary. And so that's sometimes the issue when we s- we, we set these boundaries in our minds, but we don't tell people what they are. So if instead you say what your boundary is when you're not in a heated situation, then if something happens where somebody crosses a boundary, you say oh, you know what? I've already shared that that's my boundary.

Yeah and that would require having tough conversations that people don't want to have, which is why we don't set boundaries. But that's a topic for another podcast. So now do you help people? I know you on your website, or like now on part of your thing, you have Have the Damn Baby, but is that part of it?

Oh, I don't have that anywhere on the website yet.

Oh you don’t? Okay.

Well, and this is, this is it, right? So I've taught, eventually, one of my goals is to have part of my business that is supporting women and couples going through fertility issues, whether that is as a solo person who has decided to do it on their own, a couple who is doing it and like how do we use that Damn Framework to get through it, right? When Mark and I were talking about having my daughter, I was also doing theater and I got offered an, a call back. And I said, my mom, I said mom, what happens if I, the transfer is the same weekend as the show? And she said well, then maybe you just need to put IVF off for three months. I said nope, because that's not my yes. Like I have decided and declared that. So how do we use those frameworks to get through it? So that is a goal that I have in the future. And if there is anybody listening, who is like I am struggling with fertility, by all means reach out to me and I want to support you in any way I possibly can, but I don't have a program for that.

Okay, got it. Okay, great. So where can people reach out to you or find you um and find the programs that you do have?

So you can go to TakeTheDamnTrip.com and that's the hub for everything. From there, you can join the community. You can get the recordings of like the summit that you were on. I did this whole Take the Damn Trip summit where I interviewed 14 people and their Take the Damn Trip moment. Just you can do everything from TakeTheDamnTrip.com. You also, I have on there a meditation called Just One Damn Minute. If it has the word damn in it, it it's probably me, but that is getting, it's a meditation you can literally do in a minute. There's a guided version of it that you can sign up for and it's free. And it gets you grounded back in your body because your body can only ever be in the present moment. And that's where we make our strongest decisions from. So you can get that on the website as well. So that's it. And I'm, I'm, you know, TakeTheDamnTrip on Instagram.

I love it. I will post all that in the show notes in case people can't write it. But I think Take the Damn Trip is, I mean, you've still have that. It's so easy. You know that. So go to the website and check it out. Thank you so much, Bein. Any final words? I mean, I think obviously your message just stands on its own. Like take the damn trip for the love of God, but anything for people that are feeling a little stuck, feeling unfulfilled?

We never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Whether it's with our job, our family, ourselves, the people we love. So we never know what's going to happen tomorrow. That's not a reason to live scared, but it is a reason to live fully.

Oh my God. So good. I love that so much. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to share your story with us. I am so appreciative and I know that it is going to inspire so many people.

Well thank you for having me. I know, you know that I adore you and I love what you're doing in the world. So I loved being here with you.

Thank you so much for listening. If you liked this episode, share it with someone else. I promise you know somebody who also hates their job and wants to quit, so why not share the love? And if you want to come follow along for more, come join me on Instagram at LessonsFromAQuitter and make sure you say hi. I'll see you next week for another episode.