 Welcome to Dare to Dream. This is Debbie Daschinger, and this show is sponsored by Dr. Dane Here and Access Consciousness. They do beautiful work out in the world, and if you're interested in their classes, their books, or to become a facilitator, just go to drdanehere, H-E-E-R.com, as well as accessconsciousness.com. Dare to Dream has been nominated for two People's Choice Podcast Awards, as well as a Webby Award. We are listed in the top 50 best podcasts in all of USA, as well as many other countries, and literally this week, we were trending in the top podcast in St. Lucia. How beautiful. So thank you so much. I pay attention to all those statistics. Great to have you aboard. My question to you is, how can we lead a core, blissful, and wealthy life? I personally believe that they are all connected. My guest today is Monika Sawyer, a friend of mine and a colleague, and she is known as the Blissful Millionaire. Monika reached her financial freedom by turning $10,000 to over $5 million, working only five to 10 hours, most times per month with very little stress. She is now on a mission to help as many women as possible to do the same. Monika hosts the top rated podcasts and radio show, Real Estate Investing for Women, and has interviewed prestigious guests over the years. She's also been featured on stages with Suzanne Summers, Martha Stewart, Ice Tea and Cocoa at places like Nasdaq Marketplace, Harvard and Carnegie Hall, and on TV, on NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox, reaching over 150 million people. If you'd like to learn more about her, you can go to blissfulinvestor.com. And Monika, I welcome you to Dear to Dream. Great to have you. It's so nice to be here, Debbie. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, finally, I feel- I know. We've been working on this one. It's been a couple of months in the making, and you are here, and you know what's kind of amazing to me as we're saying that, because I feel like the timing's really perfect with everything going on to have this conversation because when you talk about very little time per month, turning that kind of money into the kind of money you're living on now, and very little stress, and that you're adding wealth and bliss, I think these are very attractive commonalities that not everybody would put together, but that many people desire. Absolutely, especially now, we're so aware in the world of sort of what our deepest desires are and where we want to go. And if we start to really look at our lives, we look at what is that bliss, and how can we get there? And living a blissful, wealthy life gives you choices and freedom to do the things that you really want to do, which is so much of what we're focused on, you know? So real estate, is that something you always did? How did you get started in real estate? How long ago? Yeah, so real estate, it's so funny, right? You talk about blissful wealth and people are like, what? Real estate, what are you talking about? So let me actually just back up and connect the dots a little bit here. Does that sound good? Yes, please. Yeah, so okay, so first let me define bliss so that everybody kind of understands what I'm talking about. So bliss from my perspective is a deep sense of joy and contentment and the confidence that you can handle anything that comes your way, okay? So now what does this have to do with blissful wealth? Warren Buffett has been known to say that if you can't control your emotions, you can't control your money. So if bliss is about emotional mastery and emotional resilience, you can imagine now, based on what Warren said, right? Mr. Buffett, why this is relevant? So for me as an investor, it's been very, very important to create that blissful state of mind so that I can be successful. Now, why real estate? This is so random. I actually got into real estate kicking and screaming. I did not wanna be a real estate investor. What did you go to school for? Can I ask you? Yeah, I went to UC Berkeley for business. Okay. So I wanted to be in business, right? And I had all these ideas of what I was gonna do, but I come, I'm a legacy real estate investor. I come from a family that invested in real estate. Interesting. So my parents started, I'll just tell you this, my parents came to this country with $200 in their pocket as newlyweds arranged marriage. And they come to this country and my dad had heard that the golden ticket to wealth here was real estate. So when I was born, you know how this is, right? They have a new child, their hearts are filled with love and joy and hope and excitement. And they wanna build this life. And so they started saving all of their nickels and dimes and they started investing in real estate. And so then you fast forward and they paid for my college education through real estate. They paid for the same for my sisters. They paid for weddings. Anyways, so they did a lot. So you really got to see what real estate could do, right? But on the other hand, I also saw the stress. I saw my dad freaking out about mortgages. I saw renters calling at two o'clock in the morning. I heard all the horror stories that many of us can kind of relate to, right? That we've heard. And so by the time I was a young adult, I was like, no, thank you. I wanted to be happy. That was my highest priority and real estate was not the thing I was gonna do, right? So one day, I remember when I finally graduated from college, I graduated during a recession and couldn't find a job. So to think about this, I went to business school at UC Berkeley and I couldn't find a job that was just horrifying, right? That's so wrong too. That's like, that should be a ticket to somewhere. I know, exactly. So I'm like sitting there and I'm a really independent woman. You know me, Debbie, like I wanted to be independent. I wanted to have my life on my terms. And for me, I really got that that meant I wanted to not be dependent on anybody else, right? Emotionally, financially, physically, anything. So money was a big piece of this. So I remember sitting on the dinner table one night with my dad and I was telling him about all my stress and I was freaked out and how was I gonna do this adulting thing? And you know, all of that. And he said something to me over the table that changed my life. As I was saying, I don't wanna get into real estate because it's so stressful. My dad said to me, you know, Monica, everybody has stress, everybody has fear and everybody has money problems. Do you want poor people money problems or do you want rich people money problems? And they go, Mike, that's good. And in that moment, the thought that I had was rich people have money problems, right? I was like, what? But in that moment, I did decide that that was the path that I was gonna take. And so that's why I ended up getting into real estate is sort of this, okay, I'm gonna have issues anyways. I might as well have good ones. So that's how the journey started. And blissful investing. So I just wanna say from my point of view, I'll tell you how I resonate with your words and these are your words, blissful wealth, blissful investing, why I like them is because my highest value is freedom. And I have learned the hard way that finances are freedom, meaning having them means freedom, freedom to do what I wanna do, travel, have what I want. I also love self-development, healing workshops, energy work. That means I have the money to do that and see people like that, that I can come up to Northern California and see you when I want to, a doctor when I want to or anything magnificent that's going on or if there's a health issue, I can take care of myself for a dental issue or buy myself beautiful food, we can all make a list, comma, comma, comma. That to me is bliss, that to me is freedom. So what does it mean to you, blissful and investing together? Yeah, and that's exactly what it means. It's freedom of time and choice for me. So really that financial foundation allows us to have the comma, comma, comma, right? All of those things that we want in our life. But here's the problem. How many people have you met that are rich and have all of those things that are not happy? You know, the people I know who have money, they're not unhappy. I know a lot of people who, they have pretty amazing effing lives, if I can be honest, you know, your trips and their, you know, acquisitions and what is available to them. Yes. And it's pretty beautiful to me. Good, but I think, and that is amazing. And you know what, we become who we hang out with. So good on you, right? But I think that a lot of people who are listening might have that experience. If they know a lot of people have worked really, really hard for their money and they're not happy. They're not getting the time with their families if they want. They miss their children growing up. They're not getting time. They didn't get time to say goodbye to their mom, you know? Or you know, there's a lot of priorities that we have in our life that working hard kind of stands in the way of. And so a lot of the times we're making money but we're not standing by our values or our priorities. We're putting money as the highest priority. And for me, my big thing is put you first, your core values, your priorities, your true goals, not the goals that people tell you you should have or you think you should have, but the true goals that come from deep inside of you. And then you build your wealth based on that and you pick the strategy, the vehicle, the job, how much you work, all of those things based on you first. And then you build those other things, right? And that's how we create it blissfully so that you can enjoy the journey to wealth, not just the end goal, right? Because the end goal is never gonna be enough. That's the one thing that we all know I think as humans is that we're always, most of us striving for the next thing, right? So if really the only time you're gonna feel bliss or joy or freedom is when you get to the end game, well, then that's not gonna be enough because then there's gonna be another end game, right? So you want to really build your life on a foundation of bliss, which is you, your feelings, your happiness, your joy, the whole time. Okay, this is so huge. So I got this big aha while you were saying that. And I wanna ask your advice. I have a client who's just coaching he and his partner. This guy is so brilliant. And I always feel so blessed about who I get to work with. He has an incredible story. He's an amazing writer and storyteller and speaker and I could go on. But our particular conversation this week was that he keeps not doing what he says he's gonna do and why I'm coaching him. And he feels terrible about it. However, his job keeps pulling him away. And he went so far as to say, this job is killing me. I don't even wanna do it. It's not my passion, but I can't leave it because I'm so successful there. So here are these other things and he talks about, oh, if I've asked him, if you could have your way, what would you do? I would write and I would speak and I would, and it's like, so what would you say to somebody who's clearly leaning toward wealth without bliss and missing that element of what he really came here to do? Why is he staying in it if he's really successful and he doesn't like it? What is the thing that's making him stay? Is it the money? Yes. Because it pays for his lifestyle? That is correct. Okay, so I used to be a coach for executives that had a very similar problem where they had these really successful businesses. They had beautiful marriages, they had lots of stuff. They had the cute dog and the cute kids, right? But they were sort of miserable. They were like rich and miserable. And the very first thing that I would talk to them about is, well, okay, so you've made a decision inside of you that you wanna continue to keep this lifestyle, right? So the very first choice that you could make is to quit and change lifestyle, right? That's the first choice that we can make. A lot of us, that's a hard choice to make to go from living this lifestyle to a completely different lifestyle, right? So if that's the case, what you need to do is realign what you're doing with your big Y and your core values. So let's say, for instance, he's, whatever he's doing, he's miserable there. Well, he needs to find out why he's miserable and turn that around, because that's really a mindset thing, right? So if you, if he can do, and actually if you go to, I wanna see if I can remember the URL. I think it's blissfulinvestorforbidslashvalues. There's a value exercise that he can go to and just go through his values and then look at what he's doing for a living and see if they align. Now the thing is that they may not align on the surface, but if he digs deeper, he might be able to find alignment in his job just by looking at it a little bit differently. So the very first step is just to find the common denominator between your heart and what you have to do for a living. And then once you can find that common denominator, now you can use that as a foundation to start building and then instead of resenting it, now it's a tool, that job is a tool to create the next step in your, it's sort of in the path or journey of your life. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, this is a guy who doesn't like his job because he's so busy, it constantly, he can't even do this stuff, he loves on the outside, it's just chronic. But tell me that URL again, because I will send him there. I think that's a great idea. It's blissfulinvestor.com forward slash values. I wanna do it too. Yeah, I recommend it to everybody, forward slash values. Slash values, okay. Yes. And you know, this thing that we talk about where people are so busy, it takes so much of their time, please forgive me for sort of the tough love thing, but you're the one that commits to that time. Yeah. No job owns you. If you're successful, like, okay, so how are we defining success? I'm so successful because I make a lot of money working so hard. You know what, if my husband spends an entire 10 hours or work and feels like he needs to work late at night, I don't consider him successful. I consider him squandering his time. Okay, I love this. Okay. Right. So tell me then, because I wanna go to this piece that is in your bio. I am sure everybody wants to know when you talk about only working five to 10 hours, we're not even saying a week, five to 10 hours a month. Yes. How do you sustain that lifestyle and still bring in a comfortable living? What are you doing? Yes. So I will be really, really honest. It didn't start that way. You have to set up your business and systems and really became disciplined and developed good habits in order for that to work, right? But the way that you create the discipline and the good habits is you put in the time on the front end. So I would say for the first few years, I put in a huge amount of time into my business. Now I was working in corporate. So a huge amount of time was maybe five to 10 hours a week at the time. So it wasn't huge, but it was a lot considering that I was already working 50 or 60 hours a week, right? Cause I was in corporate too, right? But what I did is I figured out how to build all the things that I needed to build a business so that then I could step away from it and it would run itself. So the very first thing is you figure out what you want to do, right? You set up your values, set up your big Y, you have your plan, right? I wanted to move from corporate to taking care of myself, right? I didn't want to have a job. So you sort of set up the plan. What it is that you want to pursue, I decided on real estate investing. And then as I'm going through the process, I take notes, I'm setting up systems, and then within a couple of years, when I would go through another transition or I would have something come up, now I had all my notes, which kind of became manuals of operation. Now those change constantly, right? But at least you've got your base. So you're not reinventing the wheel every time. A lot of what takes our time in the business world is reinventing the wheel, right? So if you can delegate stuff or if you can create systems, both of those things really help you to recover so much of your time. So now, here we are 20 years later, and I don't actually work five to 10 hours a month. I frequently work zero hours a month. Oh, I might spend 15 minutes to deposit a rent check. But that's what I do. But what happens is, for instance, we have one of our houses. There was a big storm here in California three weeks ago. One of the houses, the fence blew down. So I had to go meet with a guy to fix the fence. He's coming next week. I met him, it took me a grand total about a half hour to deal with that. If I have someone leaving and I have a transition happening, I might have to spend some time on that or fixing up the house and dealing with handyman and stuff like that. So over a year, I might spend between 40 to 80 hours a week, 48 to 80 hours total. But then if you divide that over 12 months, it works out to 40 to 40 to, wait, is it 10 to five to 10 a month, right? So I do have their times and their chunks where I really have to pay attention. The rest of the time, I don't even really worry about it. So I say that split up because it doesn't make sense the other way. But I will be really, really honest. I mean, it doesn't take that much of my time. And when it does, because I have so much flexibility because I have my blissful wealth that I have all this freedom of choice and time, well, that's okay. I just open up my schedule during that time and I handle it and there's no stress around it. Well, you describe, just give us a couple of examples when you say you have developed systems and this is genius, by the way. I love that you have created an architecture, if you will, for your business so that you can literally extricate yourself and allow it to run on its own, this is genius. So when you say develop systems, can you give us a few examples of the kind of systems after you wrote everything down and had a manual of operations, then what did you implement that allows this to run? So I'll give you my secret sauce. Ooh, yes. I don't actually tell many people this but I'll give you my secret sauce. There's two systems that are imperative to make my business run the way that it runs. Actually, there's many systems but there are the two that I think nobody else really talks about. The very first thing is I choose my business partners first. So for me, my tenants are my business partners. They're not just my tenants, they're not just people who are living in my house and holding it while it appreciates, they're not just paying my mortgage. These people are my business partners because they are the single biggest factor that's gonna determine whether my business is blissful or not because they're the ones that are in the home, right? They could call me at two o'clock in the morning asking me to change light bulbs. They can call me with toilet problems. They can make my life miserable. They could not pay rent, right? So understand that they are the single most important people to make it my business blissful. So I chose them first and what do I mean by that? Who is it that I wanna be in business with? Right? I decided I wanna work with executives. I was an executive in corporate so I can kind of relate to that mindset, right? What is it that I love about that mindset? They do not want some landlord breathing down their back. They do not want to be on someone else's schedule. They want to be able to control their own schedule. They do not want someone walking through their house and asking questions and they want to be able to entertain and look really good, right? Now think about that as a tenant. That person is gonna take really good care of a house. They're gonna need a house that looks good. So when they do stuff, it's gonna be done right. They're gonna do it timely and they're gonna be willing to handle all the things that happen in the house. What does that mean for me? I, the next system, so I pick them first and then I purchase houses that that kind of person will wanna live in, right? And then I move them in, then the next system is training them to keep the rental house as if it's their own property. So I train them on, if something goes wrong, here are the systems. I've got my little manual. Here are the systems that I go through. You try it a few times. I'm willing to help you through it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what worked and what didn't. You pay for things, take it out of the rent, send me receipts and we're done. So those are two big systems that now, tenants call me to say happy birthday and Merry Christmas. They don't call me because there's problems in the house. Does that make sense? Yeah, taking care of and nurturing your investment property. This is, and it's a win-win. I hear you saying that because they get their autonomy. No one's breathing down their neck. They have a great place to live and they're also not paying for all these fixtures. They're taking it out of the rent. This makes sense. Let's say that somebody's listening to this, Monika, and they're like, okay, this is my first time, but I'm very interested in what you're saying. What is the first thing that a first-time investor should do so that they can get started toward a blissful, wealthy life of investment? Well, I'm gonna sound a little bit like a broken record here. But you really do need to know yourself. So go to the Values page and pick, sort of figure out your values because I always tell people there are a million ways to make a million dollars in real estate, but you don't wanna get caught up in the shiny object syndrome or in somebody else's idea. You want to pick a strategy that's aligned with your values, right? And your resources and your big Y. So let me give you an example on this. All of us have seen an HGTV in these beautiful homes, right? They go from yucky to yummy, right? They're like amazing. And it took 30 minutes and she's wearing heels with a big smile, right? So wow, this is easy. Well, I will tell you, flipping is one of the most dangerous investment strategies you can pick. However, it is such an adrenaline rush. It's so cool. But most people go bankrupt on flipping just so you know, okay? This is very interesting to me. Okay, why is that, may I ask? When you're flipping, you have to buy exactly right and sell exactly right and the whole process, everything has to be exactly right. And the thing is that I've found that and it can be done, it's very stressful. It's very difficult. And usually your first couple will go wrong. It'll take longer than you expected. It'll cost more. You don't really know what to expect. That's the thing is when you're rehabbing a place, you start opening up the walls or you open up the floors and you find all sorts of problems you hadn't anticipated, right? It's not all glamour and glitz. There's a lot of yakias that happens. And so people go in, if you've got deep pockets, if you've got some money, it's okay. If you've got some time, it's okay. But if you need to make that money, you know, the way they talk about, it's just really, really hard to get it right the first few times. And a lot of people get stuck with properties that they can't sell. And then they don't know how to rent it or they have too many loans or there's all this other stuff around that that now they're stuck. They don't know what to do. So that's just one strategy. There's a lot of different strategies. For me, when I took a look at my core values, you can imagine what my first core value was. Less, right? For me, it needed to be low stress, low time commitment. I needed to love what I was doing, right? So for me, the best strategy was buy and hold. Buy a place, fix it up a little bit, put a good renter in there and let it do its thing, right? But that's the long game strategy. I also said, okay, if that's what I wanted, for me, I didn't want to work too many hours. I was an incorporate. So my priorities were bliss, time freedom, right? My relationships, I still wanted time with my husband and my family, right? Adventure, I still wanted to be able to travel. And this business wasn't gonna be take, we were gonna take all of that away from me. If that's the case, then I had to give it more time. So I did a buy and hold. I gave myself 20 years to be right and to create the success that I wanted. My goal was to retire by the time I was 45. I was able to do it by the time I was 38, right? So because it worked nicely, but what if it hadn't? I had given myself time, but I chose that strategy based on my core values, my big why, my resources, which means my time resources, my emotional resources, my financial resources, my skills, all of those things. I picked a strategy and then I went for it. So that was a really long answer to a short question. Sorry about that, but the thing is this, right? You need to know who you are and pick a strategy on that truth, not on somebody else's good idea. Yeah, so it sounds like the trick is to choose measured risk as opposed to reckless risk so we can have the surest path to our wealth and our bliss. Exactly. And I will just say, there are a lot of people that listen to me. They're like, that sounds so boring. Like I can't do that. Well, if your bliss is to have adrenaline rushes and you've got the money to spend and that's your bliss, try it. Right. I'm just saying that that's not my bliss and you really need to know who you are, what your risk tolerance is and what your resources are. Is your dad very proud of you after all of this that you ended up doing this and so successfully? He is so proud. Every single birthday he gives me some card about, oh, it makes me cry, Debbie. It's so beautiful. That's awesome. There's an expression, Monika, which is invest with intent. So what is investing with a goal in mind? Investing with intent mean to you and also to some of the clients that you mentor. Yeah. Blessing with intent again is really making your priorities the highest priority. So what do you mean? Give me an example. Yeah. So some people will say, I'm investing because I want to make this much money, right? And I even said that I wanted to retire by the time Jeff was 45. Obviously I didn't retire, right? What was the real thing that I wanted? What was my true priority? Bliss. Bliss and what is bliss? It is the freedom of choice and time. It's also emotional balance, like being able to live a life that feels joyful and even if I get really depressed, really sad, I have such a balanced, beautiful, supportive life that I easily bounce back, right? I've got the skills. I've created the life and the environment, right? So I easily bounce back. So for me, that's the most important thing. So retiring at 45, it wasn't because I wanted to stop working, it was because I wanted freedom, right? So when you're looking at investing with intent, there's two pieces, there's the actual investment, like where do you want to go, right? You want to have some goals, but the underlying intent is really your why. So why are you doing it? For you and me, it's freedom, right? And when we're talking about freedom, we're talking about freedom of choice and time, some people might be talking about freedom from an employer or freedom from having to drive all the time. Freedom shows up in so many different ways. So that's why I keep saying what it means to you for me. But so when you're looking at that goal, look at the underlying intent because if you invest with your intent, if you're intentional with how you invest, it's gonna be a lot more joyful, blissful ride than if you keep shooting for something that you're not really emotionally attached to. Yeah, that's fascinating. I'm thinking as you're saying that, besides freedom, ROI is so important to me. So if I invest my time, my being, my energy into something, I have to know what I'm receiving back and that it was worth that. And that's even if I go to a workshop, right? That whatever I invest, I'm going to be really, not only filled inside, but somehow changed. Like for the positive, my circumstances, my being, all of that, if I spend time with friends, people I meet, I have to know that I leave feeling just wonderful and that was a beautiful experience. So it can show up in a lot of ways. Absolutely. That's what I like when you talk about this why and your long game because it's always somehow filling you and leading you to allow you all of what it is that you desire. Well, it's also interesting because it's deeper than that, Debbie. So we've got all of this stuff about my priorities and creating this life. But part of Bliss for me is also what you just talked about is this meaning. When I go into a home, I'm looking to make that home neighborhood community better than when I got there. I always buy redevelopment properties. So REOs, foreclosures, those sorts of things. Thanks. I'll buy the place. I'm usually the ugliest house in the neighborhood. I fix it up and make it beautiful. And then I put happy people in there and that uplifts the neighborhood. And then that uplifted neighborhood now contributes to the community. So for me, even way being on Monika the things that I get, the growth that I experienced, the relationships that I build, the financial freedom that I get, the ability to have choice of who I spend time with, when and where, right? All of that's awesome. And I get to uplift my communities and I have meaning with what I'm doing. So it's like this whole package that I've created based on the things that all fill me up and are really important to me. That is so amazing to take it out into, oh, I'm still muted. No, I'm not muted. You can hear me, right? I'm live. I know that's so cool to think of it as far as uplifting a whole community based on a home and based on the people living in that home and the kind of neighbors they'll be and the contribution they'll be. It reminds me, a novelist and philosopher, Ayn Rand said, money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but will not replace you as the driver. Yes, ma'am. Right? The money is the vehicle. It's the investments you buy with it. It's the road you're traveling to your financial goals. That's so true. And what's also true about money is that it is going to amplify who you are. So if you're a blissful person and you have blissful ideals and goals and core values, as you become more and more wealthy, those are now amplified out in the world, right? I want to bring meaning to those neighborhoods. Well, now when I do a building, which I'm doing, if I'm building something bigger, now I'm amplifying that even more. I'm creating even more beautiful, even more beauty, even more happy people, right? So I'm amplifying. And then I contribute to lots of different charities. That's a big thing for me too, is philanthropy. So when I monica, a blissful person become wealthy, now I'm making blissful decisions with that money, right? If someone is miserable and unhappy and then they become wealthy, they're not gonna automatically become happy. They're just gonna be a rich, miserable, unhappy person. And then that is amplified into the world, right? So you also part of bliss is becoming the person that you want to amplify out into the world because once you're wealthy, that's the experience that you get to have. Yeah, and so conversely, monica, interesting times right now. I'm really doing well. I wasn't in the beginning of COVID a year ago, but I feel like I was meant to go through a journey and inside journey for sure, to let go of some baggage, feel some feelings, face some things and I did head on. And I just, I feel amazing on a lot of levels. I miss travel and stuff and I miss seeing people like you terribly, that part hurts. But in general, I feel like I'm doing very well, but I don't speak for everybody. So when we talk about bliss, when there's people who are going through difficult circumstances, who are not really sure how to navigate, how can they still decide to choose bliss or how can they find their way back to bliss? That is such a good question. And I just want to start by saying that we can't, we can't control what happens to us or outside of us. We can't control the economy. We can't control our neighbor. Most of us can't even control our dog or husband, right? Like we just can't control what's out there, but we must learn to control what's going on inside of us. And that's the true secret to creating bliss is, there's a lot of horrible stuff that people have had to suffer through. There's no lie. This has sucked for a lot of people, but we do, as you said, get to decide what we're going to focus on. Because the truth is, there's a lot of horrible things that have happened and there are a lot of miracles that have happened. And I know there are people that are listening and they're like, what are you talking about? But just look around at some of the ways the world has changed. This is the first time, I can't even remember the last time, if there ever was one, where the entire community of the world has been through something together and had to help each other. What is that going to cost for us in the future? How are we going to grow and evolve, right? So, and that's like on the serious macro level, right? On the micro levels in each of our lives, there are ways that we can find that this has served us. So the truth is, it's really about our focus. If you choose that you want to be blissful, then the next step is to choose what you're going to focus on. Yeah, that's a good reminder. I love that because what I always love about that, whether it's gratitude or bliss, is that it's then an opportunity to find the proof, right? So we create that mindset and that energy inside of us, then we can look out with different eyes and see those very things, which obviously will attract those very things. And I suppose listening to you, people are going through the circumstances anyway, so they can choose, you know, I'm here, but maybe I could feel bliss for these five minutes. And what about debt? Does debt erase freedom more surely than anything else or what is your feeling on debt? Yeah, that's a really long conversation. I do not think that debt erases freedom by any stretch of the imagination, but being slave to debt is. And so I'm not saying carry a lot of debt or forget about your debt, that's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying creating a plan to continue to live your life and to pay off your debt is important, but don't allow it to completely consume your mind. Again, if we're really talking about bliss, you choose what you're going to focus on. So you create a plan, you pay off your debt over time, but you choose to focus on all the good things that are happening in your life. It is my experience that every year of my life has been an overarching theme. And for some reason it just keeps presenting. It's something I have to learn, experience, go through, see, whatever it is. Is that so for you? And if so, what for you, Monika, this year has been your theme, your journey? You know, actually I have not had that experience. I feel like I am always changing so fast. My husband's always like, I have no idea what's gonna come out of your mouth. Like, I feel like I'm an ever-changing person. So my theme, it feels like for the last, like many years has been evolution, what's the very best person that I can be? And I will say that, you know, we've all had ups and downs, I have no exception. The last year's theme was again, circling back to choosing bliss. Because like you, in the beginning, actually you and I were on phone calls. I don't know if you remember me telling you this. My whole life was falling apart. I was letting go. I was losing all my friends, not on purpose, but just because the dynamics had changed so dramatically that we weren't connecting, right? It was so much that wasn't working. And in those moments, I would choose to focus again on what was working, right? I was closer to my husband. I got more time to cuddle my dog. I was home. I wasn't traveling as much, right? Not fun travel. I wasn't traveling as much with the business travel. So I was homework. So focusing my own bed, my own pillow, just focusing on those things. So I think over the last year since COVID, it really has been really, really focusing back on choosing bliss. And you said something really cute. And I want to kind of tell a story that helped me along with that. Sure. You said it's through the filter that we use. All of us understand, all of us see the world through the filters of our own mind, right? So imagine glasses. Those glasses are filtering everything you see. And we all heard the term, right? She sees life through rose-colored glasses. Well, what color glasses do you want to see life through? Blue, green, black, rose. What do you want, right? Choose your filters. Because that's going to determine your experience. Rose-colored ain't so bad. You know what I mean? And I've had to really, and I physically do this, Debbie, is in those moments where I'm like, ah, this is so hard. I literally will put on the rose-colored glasses to remind myself. It's an anchor, right? It's not physical, but it's an emotional anchor or a mental anchor to remind myself to look at things in a way that serves and supports me, rather than draining and depleting me. You know, it reminds me, the filter is so beautiful that one of the filters you lived through fairly early on in the pandemic, I was visiting you. And you're one of the first people I know. You were not wearing one of those cotton masks. You had had, I think you went to Etsy and you had a belly dancing face mask made for you and you had one with bling all over it. It was like, fabulous. And it's, what are those things, right? You can make a choice, right? Everybody else is wearing the medical ones that I'm like, okay, if I'm doing this, it's gonna be fun, right? Make a statement, girl. Yeah, I loved it. And what about, what do you do every day, Monika? What grounds you? What kind of ritual of practice do you have that brings you to center, brings you to bliss? Yeah, I have a lot of gratitude practices. And I know you probably, your people have heard this on your show all the time, I'm sure of it. But because it's such a big deal, but I have a really special gratitude practice that I do for myself. And I'd love to share it if you'd like, because it's brand new. Always, yes, please. One of my coaches taught me this early in the pandemic. At night, before I go to sleep, I write myself a love letter. And this is hard the first few nights, but I write myself a love letter and it starts with, dear Monika, thank you so much for allowing me to be you. And then I write a letter to myself and it might only be three lines. I love the way that you see the world. I love how you take responsibility for everything so that it gives you choice and power. Da-da-da, you know, you write these things. And then I end it with, you amazed me, I love you, and I sign myself. And then I go to sleep. And then in the morning, you wake up in this beautiful empty space, because you can imagine the kind of dreams you're probably having after that. And then I fill it up with my normal gratitude practice of, I am so grateful for, I am so thankful that I believe my day will be. So that's what I do at night and morning, super easy, grand total of five minutes of my time and the front end and then the back end of my day. But it completely has changed my outlook on life. That's beautiful. So your specialty is women, which I love. I think women absolutely need support with money and really stepping into their power around that. Just more, doesn't mean it doesn't happen, happens a lot, but even more, more up-leveling. So women with money, women in power, are these uncomfortable ideas for most people or are they easy to navigate or learn about? I think money and power is uncomfortable to navigate for most people, men and women. But I think culturally, men have a little bit more support around the conversation, right? Women, we don't yet have enough of an open conversation around it that we feel like we can get out there and get help. And so I think that's a little bit of the roadblock for us. We have it, we have the capacity, we are so strong and capable inside, but we don't always have the network. So a lot of times the conversation is in our head and because it's in our head, we're remembering and hearing conversations with our parents that had a different set of beliefs than we did than we might want to or should. And I just wanna say this one thing about that. Every single generation, every single generation has thought things that the next generation thought were wrong. So it's not bad and they did not try to do as a disservice, but understand that those conversations are old conversations. So the thing that we can do as women is start to expand and open up our worlds to people that will bring the conversation that will help us to rise to the next version of ourselves and to up level, rather than continuing to stay in our heads with the conversations we've heard that are probably not serving us. And staying in communities, definitely you can stay in community, but around the money and power conversation, if you're hanging out with people that are uncomfortable with it, you're gonna stay uncomfortable with it. So just open to the opportunity of new conversations with other powerful rich women. Hang out with Monika. I'm just playing. Yeah, I do exemplify this. That's so great. This is Dare to Dream. Perfect segue at a very interesting time, especially if somebody has created so much. What do you next dare to dream? What are your future dreams and goals, Monika? Well, I'm building right now. I got my very first construction project going on. I'm building a building with condos and shops underneath. From the ground up? From the ground up. Oh my gosh, we just poured the foundation. Oh my gosh, so cool. I wanna do at least three more projects like that. And then from there, my husband and I would like to take a couple of years off and just go travel the world again. So that's kind of what I'm looking forward to and I'm putting out there, I'm looking for new projects and that sort of thing. I think it's kind of a cool thing to mention. You and your husband have a really awesome relationship. You've been married for a minute and you have all this love. I know the celebrations you have of each other and birthdays and that you really look forward to spending time and you do beautiful things together. What is, if there's an element there that you could hang your hat on and say, you know, this is why we're so successful, what would that be? I choose to marry him every single morning. And he does the same. Anything you wanna say to the listeners here at the end and how can they find you? Yeah. Please find me at blissfulinvestor.com. And here's what I do wanna say to your listeners. You know, we are dreamers and your listeners are listening to the dare to dream. And so there's a thing that I say on my podcast and I'm trying to adjust it a little bit but what I say is goals without action are just dreams. So get out there, take action and create the life that you most deeply desire. And you need investment to get there so you can have the bliss and the freedom to live the life of your values, your why and you can develop the systems and delegate. And if you don't know how, go to blissfulinvestor.com slash values. Let Monika show you. Yes. Girl, this has been so great. Thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing all of this hope with us. Yeah, thank you so much Debbie for having me. I've had such a good time. Yeah, this is delicious conversation. I hope you guys have gotten something out of this and please post in the comments, let me know. I'll share with Monika and also we love to hear from you. What's your takeaway from today? What's the one thing you're gonna implement if you had more than one share? Because as reminders, it helps us to focus on our next right steps to live the life of our dreams. I end the show today with a quote from Aya Laraya. When you invest, you are buying a day that you don't have to work. Join us on this number one transformation conversation, weekly podcast show, Dare to Dream. My guest next week is Dr. Christopher Maclin. He's back for a second time and Dr. Maclin is a powerful channeling medium and healer from England. He's able to heal many people simultaneously and as before, he will actually be doing some inductions and healing. I know last time I was knocked out. So absolutely join us. I am the one who runs the Visibility Hub, Debbie Dashinger. I coach you to write a page turner book. I help you take that book to a guaranteed international bestseller and I run the ultimate visibility formula, how you can be interviewed on radio and podcast in 60 days or less and most important, get results. Thank you so much for joining today. And remember, don't just dare to dream, dare to turn all your dreams into your reality.