Books:

“In the Flo” by Alisa Vitti

“Quit like a Woman” by Holly Whitaker

“Life” by Keith Richards

Hello, visionaries, happy January. I hope that this year is off to a beautiful start for you. And that all of your biggest dreams are already beginning to manifest. I have a good feeling about this year. So I wanted to do this episode in hopes that it supports you in creating everything that your heart desires this year and share what I found to be the three most influential books pertaining to my year last year and share them with you for this year. 

Now, I hope that this episode is valuable, not just because of the three books that I share, but more so because of the reason that I thought the books were helpful. And the reason that I thought that they helped me in my own success and development, because I don’t believe that it’s really about the books themselves, but more so the purpose behind reading them.

And you can kind of substitute them with whatever book you find fulfills that purpose for you as well. So these books aren’t necessarily timely. It’s not about them being the newest books or the trendies books. It’s just about looking at, um, a full year and thinking what of all the things I read did I really implement into my life? You know, it’s so easy to read books. It’s so easy to absorb information and content, but to actually apply it to your life and to see your life change because of it is a different conversation. And so that’s really what I wanted to focus on for this episode is the type of books that I felt like I actually did something with in hopes that you, um, you know, can take this into consideration for your next read, or even decide to read these books on your own and hopefully see results in your life because of reading them.

I just wanna mention, excuse me, that if you’re a follower of this podcast, you know, that last year I, uh, was pregnant and had a baby. And so I also read several pregnancy books and I’m just going to leave those out for the purposes of this episode. If you’re at all interested in that you can always see me or email me and I’d be happy to share, but for the purposes of this episode, I wanted to stick to what I thought helped me most, uh, specifically as an entrepreneur and, and as a business owner. So that further ado let’s go ahead and dive into the top three, the most influential, actually, I don’t know if these are in order, but, uh, the first one that I wanna start with as the, one of the most influential books I read in 2021 was called in the flow by Alisa Vitti.

It is for women specifically, or, um, those who identify as being a woman. And it is like, it sounds, it is like you’re, it is a somewhat about your period, but stick with me. It is more so about your hormones. I actually think that the title is a little bit misleading. I understand why she wanted to use the, uh, kind of pun in the flow because the book really is about getting you in the flow of your hormones and how you can use your hormonal cycle as, um, a female, your, your female hormones to maximize your life basically, and how to work within them so that you’re not resisting the natural balance of your body. 

So it’s far from just about your period. In fact, it was a lot less about my period than I thought it would be. And I, and I like that for it. So I think the biggest thing I got out of this book was learning about how women’s bodies work and how our hormonal cycle works and understanding that so much of our society and our natural structures within society that we think are natural anyway, are based off of a male hormonal cycle, which lasts 24 hours. 

Whereas the female hormonal cycle lasts 28 days. And so there’s so many times in life. And I am, I think what I really loved about this book was that I, it made me realize how often I have days where I just don’t feel like doing X or I just don’t feel like what I am supposed to be doing, or I just don’t feel like doing the plans I had made to be doing. Do you ever have those times where you’re like, oh, I really wanna go out. I really wanna see friends.

I’m really feeling social and you’re kind of like craving that. And maybe if you don’t have plans, you feel kind of down, but then a week later you’ll have made plans and you’ll just be like, oh my gosh, I just wanna stay in, watch a movie, you know, a order food and take a bath or something like that. And sometimes you’re like, why can’t I just like, want to do what I already have planned to do when I do it. And sometimes the same happens with work. I know that was my experience. Anyway, some days I’d wake up at an 11 outta 10 motivational scale. I was jumping out of bed to start working. I was motivated and inspired and excited and, and wanting to create things. And then other days I would just feel completely turned off by work. And I wouldn’t really know why.

And I would worry, I would worry that something was wrong with me or my business or that I wasn’t working on the right thing, or why wasn’t I happier? And so I didn’t realize how many sort of questions could have been answered just in my day to day life by better understanding my hormonal cycle. So what I learned in, in the flow is that through those 28 day cycle, through that 28 day cycle, we have four phases of your hormonal cycle. 

You have your follicular phase, your ovulating phase, your UDAL phase, and then your menstrual phase and your hormones change with each of these. And depending on the balance of your hormones, you as a person are going to crave different things. So the ovulating phase, for instance, really lends itself to socialization. And, um, maybe more of your outgoing side and just likes spending time with friends and family, um, or going out on date nights.

Whereas the menstrual phase in contrast is much more about hibernation and kind of going inward, feeling more quiet and, um, methodical and maybe even logical and just restful. And then the Lal and follicular are kind of in between the follicularis where you’re probably the most creative cuz it’s kind of like a, a new bur, um, after you men straight. And then the Lal is, is kind of like your internal fall is the way she would put it, cuz she kind of related the forward to seasons, uh, where you are a little bit more logical, your hormones are the most balanced, it’s a good time to make decisions, et cetera. 

So that was a very, very, very brief recap. I mean, there’s obviously a lot more to it in the book and um, it’s something that I will be excited to do again, uh, after pregnancy because I really was only able to apply it to my life and to my business and to my eating habits.

I mean, it’s such a thorough book with all the different ways you can apply it to how you eat, how exercise, um, you know, how you plan your calendar. And I really only applied it to my life for a few months before I got pregnant and my hormones changed a lot. So it was so eyeopening and it really helped me realize how hard we as women are on ourselves. Wondering why we feel a certain way sometimes or wondering why we don’t feel the way we think we should feel or wondering why our feelings are inconsistent. 

One day we can be really excited about doing something. And then the next day we have no interest and we worry that maybe we don’t really wanna be doing that when in reality it might just be because of the stage of your cycle that you’re at and you just are craving something different entirely it having nothing to do with the actual being a negative thing or a negative thing in your life.

So I really recommend that book specifically, if you’re looking for some sort of, I don’t like to say order, but almost like, uh, system for how you manage your life. Because I think it’s very good for the woman who is an extremist, which I am an extremist, so balance. I don’t even like it. They call it the B word. It’s not part of my vocabulary really. You know, I think we all, as a society focus too much on how to find the balance between spending time by yourself and spending time with your partner and spending time on personal things and time working and wanting to achieve your big dreams, but also wanting to be kind of more in your feminine flow. And it just all feels too exhausting to me to try to find the balance. I think you should just do what you want.

I, being an extremist, can often find myself doing a lot of one of those things and kind of rejecting the others. And I’ve just learned to accept that about myself and I like that learning to work within my hormones and actually applying it to my calendar and applying it to my schedule and applying it to my work life helps me feel more organized and helps me feel like there is a little bit of a natural order to the way I do things when I naturally do things quite extreme and almost lets me do things in ex in an extreme way. So if you identify as a woman who can feel like you go all thing or who can really work herself, you know, overwork herself or under work herself, or sometimes feel lazy, but then other times feel really motivated and just sometimes get hard on yourself about any of those in betweens.

This is a really great tool to help you organize your, the way that you work and give yourself permission for that to look different every week. And so you can have those weeks where you don’t work as much and you’re more quiet and you maybe just do more things for yourself. And then you can have those weeks where work is really cranked up and, you know, you’re kind of in go, go, go mode. 

So, I would recommend it for that. If you are just looking for sort of a system to go by to organize your lifestyle and your priorities and your balance. And then I also would just recommend it if you wanna learn about your hormones, obviously, and if you wanna use your health as a tool to optimize your business, I think that that’s becoming more popular. I know that biohacking has become popular.

I haven’t really gotten into that. It’s not really my thing, but just using your health and, and healthy habits as ways to go beyond just benefits for your health, but also benefits that pour over into the rest of your life and, and especially work. So I loved in the flow. Um, and I know she also wrote girl girl code where she talks a little bit about some of this. So if you’re interested in the hormonal piece specifically, then I recommend either of those, uh, but really just making your health a priority this year and allowing it to be something that improves your business. 

Basically looking beyond just business advice for business and thinking, how can I go even deeper and maximize my own wellbeing, whether it’s mental or physical or both so that it improves my business. Okay. The second book that I cannot of course leave out because this was probably the most influential on me, but this is going to be something you’ll probably wanna take or leave because it’s very personal was Quit like a Woman by Holly Whitaker. I’m not sure how you pronounce her last name. 

So I read this at the beginning of 2021 and it was a little new then. So it’s probably not quite as new now. I think she wrote it in 2019. I don’t exactly remember when it was published, but I’ve talked about it before on the podcast. I also just reflected on it a few weeks ago when I shared that I have gone a year without having a drop of alcohol. And I largely owe that to this book. Uh, this book was the most influential and I don’t think any other book has had such an impact on me in terms of my decisions because no other book regarding anything has made me start the book, having a singular habit that I have develop for over a decade and not really spending that much time questioning that habit, not really looking to change that habit, sort of just having it.

I mean, it’s sort of like if you were to read a book and you go into this book and aren’t really sure what to think of it, and then you leave this book and whether your habit is that you’ve always, always showered every day for, you know, the past 10 years, which hopefully most of us have, or that you have, um, I don’t know, had coffee every day for the last 10 years. Like, you know, you drink caffeine and you just never really questioned it. 

Then you just completely lose interest in it overnight, basically something that you didn’t even really question that much. Um, that’s what quit like a woman did for me and alcohol. So there there’s a little more nuance to the story. I, I had kind of a, a personal revelation slash a revelation, I believe from, uh, the divine that really channeled into me a year ago saying that if I stopped drinking so much, so many of my dreams would come true in different ways.

And that, that was just what I should explore doing. And I read this book kind of coupled with that epiphany and it is the best examination of your relationship trip with alcohol that I have ever, ever read. And so I guess the reason I wanna suggest it, even if you’re not necessarily wanting to quit drinking or you’re not questioning alcohol or anything like that, I think what I’ve learned in my journey, going from someone who drank very regularly, very casually, um, very frequently and just had it as a, you know, a big part of her life to a non-drinker and, and don’t identify as an alcoholic, you know, it’s not like I don’t, I don’t feel like I had to quit in terms of, um, it being an addiction, but I do, I did really overturn my life when I did it. Uh, I’ve realized, and I’ve learned because now I’ve read quite a bit on the topic as sort of the, uh, it’s called, I think quitting has become more popular and just sober.

The sober, curious movement has become more common and just, uh, selective alcohol free movement and things like that. All of that has become more mainstream. So I’ve read quite a bit about it. And I, especially when I was deciding to do it, I read everything. I could get my hands on basically about it. And what I’ve learned is that everyone, every single person, whether you identify or have any, uh, familial patterns of addiction or not every single person has to address their relationship with drugs and alcohol, or define their relationship with drugs and alcohol or decide what it is. 

So many of us think that we don’t, and we just have a default relationship with drugs and alcohol, meaning we drink the way that either society has kind of showed us that we can, or our parents did, or our friends do, or our partner does, or the way that we always have, even if we didn’t ever really think about it thoroughly.

Um, but it isn’t really a relationship that you have the convenience of just not defining, you know, even if you don’t consciously define it, then it’s being defined for you, which is that you are unconsciously deciding to consume this, you know, this alcohol. And so I recommend this book because no matter what your definition ends up being, and no matter what you end up doing with drugs or alcohol in your life, or how you treat it, I think that there’s really valuable information in this book to help you define it in a way that feels really aligned with your values. And that feels like it, it feels like you can be confident in it in terms of how it supports your dreams and your lifestyle. And I think that that was the biggest aha for me, as I realized that this was not supporting my dreams, this was not supporting my lifestyle.

This was not doing anything for the life I wanted to live. And it, and because I hadn’t really either taken the time or had the courage or a combination of both to define what my relationship was with alcohol up until this point, it had sort of just been a default. And at that point it had become something that was negatively a negative part of my life. It wasn’t hurting me. I don’t think my work was suffering because of it. I wasn’t, my relationships weren’t suffering. 

It wasn’t a problem, but it certainly wasn’t helping at that point in my life. I, you know, last year we hit my a mil, the million dollar mark, my business really skyrocketed to a new level. And I had to take an honest look at what in my life was. I had to cut out the excess fat, so to speak, which I know is such a gross metaphor, but I had to get rid of things that were holding me down that were weighing me down that could potentially, uh, this next level from happening for me.

And I realize that alcohol is one of those things. So if you feel like let’s see, I think there’s a few different places you could pull from to either read this book or read a book like it specifically, if you want to be more clear or upfront or confident about your relationship with drugs and alcohol, whatever it ends up being. I think that Quit like a Woman is really informative and offers very powerful views on the women or the relationship that women have with alcohol that I had never heard before. I also think that this book or a book like this could be helpful for you. If you are just questioning parts of your life, that you haven’t ever really questioned as good or bad, and maybe they still neutral, but you’re curious about how your life could get even better. And you’re starting to look at maybe relationships or habits or, um, hobbies, or, uh, you know, diets, uh, that could potentially be hurting you more than you’ve realized in the past.

And maybe this is one of those things and you just wanna explore what that could look like or what it could look like without it. And then finally, and most broadly, but from the strongest entrepreneurship standpoint, I think that this book is a good book or a book like it. If you wanna continue asking yourself how much better can my life get. And I know that that’s what a lot of you listening to this podcast are really passionate about. I know that’s why a lot of you wanted to start businesses. 

That’s why a lot of you keep going. Even when business is hard, because you’re motivated about thinking, how can you make the absolute most of this life, even when something isn’t broken, right? Alcohol’s a good example. You don’t have to wait until there’s a drinking problem to decide that you don’t wanna have alcohol, be a part of your life anymore, or a big part of your life anymore.

Maybe you wanna it to still be a small part of your life. It’s the same thing. I talk to my clients about this all the time. Your life doesn’t have to be horrible for you to want it to be better. You can have a good job. You can have a good salary. You can have a good, um, apartment and still you have permission to want it to be great. You have it. It’s like, this is your one life. Why would wouldn’t you want a, a, a career business that really fulfills you just because your nine to five is good. Why wouldn’t you wanna be able to move into, you know, your dream apartment or dream home, just because your apartment is fine right now, you don’t need to wait for things to be broken in order to

Allow them to get better. And, but, but that does have to come from with you. No one will do that for you. So whether or not you want that to be with alcohol or a different part of your life. I think it’s always worth exploring where you’re not questioning things where you’ve just continued with a practice because you’ve inherited it, or you’ve just done the way society has done it. And is that really what you wanna be doing? Okay. The third book is the example I’m going to use is very much an example, and you can do whatever you want with this, but I love this book and it is constantly an inspiration for me, which is life by Keith Richards. I’m a huge rolling stones fan. And this is one of my favorite autobiographies of all time, because you really get an inside look at what is, what I believe the best band of all time.

And you see the inner workings of rejection, failure, humiliation, uh, disbelief, having to almost believe your own crazy in order for other people to start to realize it. And everyone, you know, loves the stones now, but there were a long, a lot of years and a lot of things they went through where people thought they were crazy, where people thought they were inappropriate, where people didn’t really support them or, or understand their vision. And I really think that Keith Richards, um, shows that I also think that it’s a great book because it shows that he truly is so brilliant. And one of the greatest songwriters of all time and not just this crazy party maniac that society has kind of made him out to be, although it is pretty crazy how hard he can party, considering everything he’s done. 

So I don’t think you need to read life by Keith Richards, if you wanna be inspired in this way, but read a book about success, read a book about an entrepreneur that you look up to, or a legend you look up to, or a business that you admire, or maybe want to learn from, and really get honest with yourself about how often they deal with rejection, failure, humiliation, or, um, loss, and how often they have had to continue going and how, how much they persevere.

And then have an honest look at yourself and ask yourself how quickly we tend to throw in the towel. When a launch doesn’t go the way it was planned or when we don’t make money back on a certain timeframe that we thought we would, or when we get a mean Instagram comment, or when we have a family member or partner say a comment that doesn’t support our belief or any of these other things that we go through. 

It’s a, it’s very sobering to realize that a lot of us have way tooth thin of a skin. And a lot of us give up way too quickly. And I don’t even think that a lot of great entrepreneurs talk about how much rejection failure, humiliation challenge they go through, because I don’t think they have time to talk about it. , you know, there’s a, a, a point you get to where it’s just part of the process.

It’s part of the journey. And it’s so uninteresting in comparison to all the great things you’re doing and the vision that you have and the dreams that you’re pursuing, that you just don’t even really let it bother you anymore. And meanwhile, in entrepreneurship with small businesses that I see a lot of the times, people are letting these failures define them. They are letting these setbacks have weight to them. 

They are drawing prove proverbial lines and the sand where once crossed, they don’t think they can keep going anymore. And we really have to ask ourselves, how much do I really want this? How great do I wanna be? And why am I letting these things that everyone goes through, be what I’m focusing on, because my guess is that for every loss, there’s a win. My guess is that you have a vision. And my guess is that, you know, that it’s not supposed to be easy.

So why aren’t you allowing it to not be easy? And I, and I think that just reading these autobiographies or behind the scenes of great companies or stories of perseverance, just kind of help us feel, not alone and, and keep things in perspective and remind us that even if something’s humiliating today, or even if something’s scary today, things can change so quickly and we have the power to change them. No one else is going to do it for us. So I’ve reread Life. Um, a few times now I know David Nagle, one of my own mentors has read it several several times and he actually, uh, it, it really, you know, encouraged me to read it, even though I love the stones to begin with, but he just said that he thinks it’s such a great example of success, because it is so about being exactly who you are and not letting other people’s opinions of you negativity, um, just judgments all around.

It doesn’t even always have to be negative, define anything other than, than who you are. So I highly recommend an autobiography or a inside look on success to keep your success in check. All right, you guys, I hope that this was helpful. So in summary, here are the three types of books that I really thought helped define my success last year. And that I’m going to read again this year, the first is health focus, whether mental or physical health focused seeing your as a new step to unlock a higher level for you, especially for those of you that have already found a lot of business success and might feel like any more business advice could just be exhausting or confusing or overwhelming. Um, it could very, very well be that it’s time to look at something like your health or your habits or your relationships or other parts of your life, and think how you can hack them in a sense to, and your success to the next level.

The second is, uh, whether you want it to be about getting honest with your, uh, drug and alcohol use, or you want it to just be about looking at your own habits and thinking are my habits lending themselves to my ultimate success and my dreams for this year. Um, and just continuing to question the status quo, whatever that be and making sure that you’re doing things because you want to, not because everyone else is doing them. And then the third is an autobiography from someone you look up to, or from an inside look of a company, you look up to, to remember, to always keep yourself reminded that success doesn’t come easy to anyone, but it belongs to those who keep going. All right, everyone. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thanks for tuning into your biggest vision show. And here is to your biggest vision.

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