Leah Gervais: Hello visionaries, It is Leah here and I am so excited to be back here with you guys, just talking and kind of having more conversations with you all. There’s been a lot going on in my personal life. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I am about to move, uh, from Miami back to New York City. So the move is taking up a lot of my time. 

You also know that I recently got a puppy, so we are busy training her and of course, doing everything for my business and my clients. And, um, I also, you know, over the past few months wanted to celebrate my five-year business anniversary by bringing back the five most popular podcast episodes I’ve had. So in short, I feel like it’s been a minute since I have just kind of come on here and talk to you guys, and I’m so excited to do so.

And I’m actually going to be doing so a lot more over the summer. I have some really exciting podcast episodes in mind that I want to share with you guys that I have planned things like how I made April my highest cash month to date without launching anything. I want to kind of share the behind the scenes with that. I also wanted to share some insights on how my business expenses have been going up a lot lately and how I have approached that and how I make these kinds of decisions. 

So lots to come and I’m always open for suggestions the best way to get in touch with me with things like that. As soon as DM me on Instagram, if you don’t follow me there, you can follow me @LeahGervais_ and yeah, just let me know what would be helpful, what you want more of, um, any questions you have, what you like, and just let me know if you want to say hi, I would love to hear from you if you’re listening to this, especially if you are a regular listener that has listened to the recaps, and now you’re like, oh my gosh, hello, Leah, again, you are here in real time. 

Uh, so either way, I’d love to hear from you. If you are new to the podcast, it was so nice to have you here. If you don’t know my story, my name is Leah and I started a side hustle about five years ago that turned into a six figure per month business. And my podcast is just meant to be a really candid platform to share with you how I did that and how my life has changed as a result. So it’s not just about my business, but it is about my life and that is really what I want for my clients as well, and what I really help them bring into existence and with that, that kind of sets the tone for today’s episode, which is a fun one. I wanted to share three ways that you can Up-level your daily life.

And this, I was in the mood to share this because I’ve been thinking about these things a lot as I have been moving and going through that transition and kind of taking this opportunity to reevaluate what my day-to-day life looks like and what makes me happiest and just how I can continue to not settle. Uh, and I think we all sort of have that opportunity right now, moving or not as the world re-emerges and reopens as the pandemic is finally settling down. And we are just so unbelievably fortunate to live here in the United States, where we have relatively easy access to the vaccine, which is allowing us to get back to normal. So no matter where you’re at in that process, I think we can all kind of collectively feel this sigh of relief and this new beginning. And so I think it’s a great idea to use it as an opportunity to have your own new beginning.

And it’s also kind of coinciding with the beginning, or I’m sorry, the middle of the year- new quarter, but honestly, whenever you listen to this, I hope that you, uh, take it to heart and are constantly asking yourself how much better your life can get. So a little bit of background for those of you that don’t know my story, or just for the sake of illustration. 

I want to start by saying that this episode is definitely coming from a place of already knowing my life is pretty good. And I’m definitely not here to complain about that. And I know that I want to acknowledge the place of privilege here. Um, you know, there’s so much about my life now that only a few years ago, not even probably two years, years ago would have felt like I don’t think I would have believed someone if they would have told me that I would live the way I do.

And I’m not just talking about my business and money and kind of the bigger things. I just mean like the day-to-day life, because that’s really what our life is comprised of, is the days and the days together. Um, and there’s so much about my day-to-day life that I still just have a little prayer of gratitude for pretty much every day, little things like the fact that I don’t ever wake up to an alarm ever, you know, that was not the case for pretty much my entire life up until I started working for myself. And I started delegating enough to where my team was able to help me. Um, I just made the decision that I wasn’t going to be a slave to my business. So up until yeah, yeah, probably two years ago, I always woke up to an alarm every single morning, like so many Americans, like so many people with jobs, like so many people in school.

And I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with an alarm, especially if you are not a morning person and need one to wake up. But I don’t, I wake up pretty naturally. I love waking up in the mornings and just not waking up with an alarm is something that’s never lost on me that I kind of have the privilege and luxury to wake up whenever I want, whenever my body naturally wants to rise. And I typically sleep like eight or nine hours a night, which again was not the reality at my nine to five job. And it was not the reality in the early days of building my business either when I didn’t, I understand that more work does not equal more success or more money or more happiness. It equals more tired, but that’s, that’s, you know, I, I needed to learn that lesson.

So little things like that, the fact that I’m alive, that I’m able to sleep as long as I want that I’m able to not set an alarm that I set my own schedule. I get it actually say home and work when I want and can really cook healthy nourishing meals for myself throughout the day. Or if I choose to be on the go that I’m choosing where I want to eat and where, what I want to put into my body and choosing where I’m going, choosing if I want to get dressed that day or not, or if I’m into the lounge wear set. I mean, there’s just so much about these things might sound simple, but they were it’s our dream come true to me compared to they were once my dream, right, was just to be able to have that freedom and that autonomy over my own life.

So it’s not lost on me that the majority of, um, people working in this country don’t don’t live like that. Don’t don’t have the luxury of sleeping as long as they want. Um, do have to set, uh, do have to wake up to alarms, do have to get to nine to five jobs dress a certain way, work a certain schedule, et cetera. And look, I’m not saying that my way is the only way I think some people like their nine to five jobs, I’m not trying to hate on people’s choices, but I’m just saying that as I go through this, I want to share with you that my intention here is to set the example, share the message and be the like, walk my own walk that you have to continually, you don’t have to, we get to continually ask ourselves what, how much higher we can go. 

What’s next to what, what else, how bad, how much better can life get? What else could this look like? What is my next level? And, and it’s not about greed, it’s not about chasing shiny objects. It’s not about what more, more, more, more, more, it’s truly from a place of humble-ness and gratitude, and just reverence and respect for the preciousness of his life. Because this is it. This is our only shot. And it’s really not that long, you know, at the time I’m recording this, um, father’s day was, uh, recent. Yeah. And

That is a somewhat difficult day for me as someone who has lost her father, um, recently, and I say somewhat difficult. I mean, it’s very difficult. Who am I kidding? But I try to make it not as heavy as days like his birthday or especially the day that is the anniversary of his passing, because those days are so heavy about father’s day. I try and make more celebratory because he was in, he was such an amazing father, but my point is,

You know, if God forbid I were to pass at his age, my life would be halfway over, you know, more than halfway over. And I’m not saying that to sound dark or depressing or, um, like I’m expecting anything bad to happen. That’s just the truth. That’s what happened. And things like that happen all the time. And he lived a great life. 

And still, when I really think about that kind of thing, it just puts things into perspective so much that this is so short. And so we’re spending our days matter, how we’re spending our lives matter if we’re saying yes to ourselves and what we truly want matters. And it matters for more people than just you. 

So as I continue to evaluate this, and as I am sort of in a, uh, changing of turning of chapters, if you will writing a new chapter, um, as I do this move, I wanted to share with you guys three of the ways that I am continuing to Uplevel my life, um, through my business, uh, and just through my decisions. And I hope that this gives you a little bit of inspiration, no matter where it is finding you. And as the final disclaimer, before I go into these three points, yes, all these things cost money. This is not a budget podcast. 

And I encourage you if you like the sound of these and you’re frustrated because you might feel like, well, those cost money and I just don’t have that money. And you’re an entrepreneur. I highly recommend that you learn to make that money on demand, because if you’re an entrepreneur, there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t be able to do any one of these things. 

If your heart soul desires and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll do it all and do it all right now, but you should be able to, uh, be supported. So let’s dive in. The first thing that I am focusing more on lately is continuing to look for how I can be supported in my personal life and in my work life. So if you are an entrepreneur or if you, and or if you are part of the personal development world, um, or you just have read about personal development, you likely understand the importance of support in at least some aspects of your life, whether that is getting help with your daily home tasks, so that you have more time to pursue what really lights you up.

Um, or maybe you have, uh, you know, the importance of support with your mental health. If you’re a business owner, maybe, you know, the support of having or the importance of having a team and, or a coach. So the concept isn’t something that I want to introduce, but I do think it’s something we can continually look at. So here are some of the ways I have continued to find support in my life so that I can continue to Uplevel my daily life and Uplevel my business. Um, one of these examples is that as you’ll know, I got a puppy Ruby and without really blinking. And we decided to hire a trainer for her.

Now, was this necessary, probably not. And even the trainer, it’s so funny, he jokes with us because he says that he’s used to training, you know, like pit bulls or rescue dogs, or like victim dogs that were tragically abused and really aggressive dogs, really huge dogs. And then here he is training like our eight month, eight pound, eight pound, five month old puppy Ruby, who was just like the absolute sweetest has the sweetest demeanor. So, um, clearly, you know, most, you don’t need to do this. If you have a puppy, you don’t need to hire a trainer, right. And that’s probably true. 

We don’t need to, but it was an alignment with my thinking of how can I make my life better? How can we make our lives lives easier? And how can we make all of our lives better? It is safer for Ruby to be well-trained so that she listens to us so that she doesn’t eat things she shouldn’t or run into traffic or, um, get bit by something, but get bit by another dog because she doesn’t know come or something like that. Um, it is better for her to understand how to communicate with us. 

It’s better for us to have someone help her learn that so that the pressure isn’t on us, both my husband and I being entrepreneurs to feel this pressure, that if we don’t work with her on this, you know, every day or a few times a week, we are going to be failing her or this could not turn out well. Or what if she ends up getting into some sort of situation. And we haven’t really taught her, like, it’s just always a thing in the back of your to-do list. You end up very busy and busy is like, not my thing, you know, no one wants to just feel like you constantly have too much going on and it’s chaotic.

I don’t think that that is in alignment with sort of the, just reverence for life that I really am trying to come from here at this point. So we hired a dog trainer. Another thing we have been doing is that we hired an interior designer. Um, well, we hired a consultant, uh, for this because I’m not going to get too deeply into it. Actually. I’m going to talk about it on my next point. 

But the point is, um, that’s something I always thought I could do on my own. I just always assumed that, like, you know, I love Pinterest and I love real estate. I probably could decorate my own apartment. And it’s like, what? But why? Just because you can do things on your own doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to, it also doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. Um, and just reminding myself of that is really helpful.

At the time that I’m recording this, I also am about to go away for a three day virtual or not virtual a three-day retreat by myself to a different part of Florida. This is before we moved back to New York, um, to plan the rest of my year there, to play in the rest of my business here. And I hired a coach to help me do that. I paid thousands and thousands of dollars to go on this trip and to have this coach help me do this because I so value the support of the heavy lifting of planning six months of a business with a team. And that makes over a hundred thousand dollars a month. It’s a lot of moving parts. It’s a lot of responsibility. We have a lot of clients, none of which are things I’m complaining about. I just understand the scope of what I’ve created for myself. And this is my way of rising to the occasion.

Having support around planning things, having support around, looking at things from a holistic perspective and thinking is, does this all work? Does this make sense? What am I missing? What do I, as the creator of this, not see as someone who can maybe see it from an outside perspective. 

You guys know if you’ve listened to my podcast before what a big fan of coaching I am. I’m no, it’s no secret that. I think it’s really important to have support with your vision, with your strategy, with these big picture, honestly, dreams that you have for yourself. Why, why would anyone not want or allow themselves to receive help with that is beyond me. I mean, I guess I did it for a few years. I was very, very afraid to spend the money if I’m being honest, but I’ve obviously moved past that my life and business has changed in the most spectacular ways.

And I see that time and time again with my clients too. So that’s something I’m receiving support with, uh, in my business as well. And I’m really excited about it because I have big dreams for the rest of the year. And I think that that’s what this is. The whole, the conversation here is about is, you know, when you have big dreams, when you have a big vision, when you know that you want a lot out of life, you can’t do it alone. You shouldn’t do it alone. You shouldn’t have to do it alone. And I, and I think we have to break this cycle of like, well, I could do it alone, but, but does that mean you, you have to, um, like I could decorate my apartment alone, but why, why should I, I could probably manage my business alone, but I don’t want to burn out.

I want to have more fun with it. I want to be able to do the things I really love and allow people to do what they really love instead of micro-managing it by myself for no real reason. So all this is to say, get creative or not even, you don’t even need to get creative, just look at your day to day and think, where could I take some things off my plate and or where could I hire someone to help me so that they can do a better job than I can do myself consulting with an interior designer means they will do a better job, like planning my apartment than I will do by myself. And one of my clients actually does this virtually you guys. So if any of you are, well, actually let me get to the next point. 

Point number two is to decorate your space. So I realized in my year in Miami, as much as I’ve always loved real estate and apartments, and like, I love looking at apartment listings. I’m just one of those people that loves looking at, you know, places to live. I love hotels. I love all of that type of stuff. I love interior design. I just always thought that I must be naturally good at interior design. And what I realized is that in my last apartment, in New York, before we moved to Miami during COVID, um, we lived there for three years and it was the first place my now husband and I moved into together. 

We were just dating at the time and I went into it with this vision of like, I just wanted to have a really light feel, but then I want the bedroom to feel really cozy and kind of like mellow. And my favorite color is blue. So I thought in the living room and in the kitchen area, we’ll paint it light blue, cause it’ll have that light vibe, that kind of optimistic peppy vibe. And then in the bedroom, we’ll do it dark blue. You guys, our apartment looked like a mix of a poorly decorated, old Cape Cod apartment. Like not cute, but you know, like all the blue and white and a little boy’s room, all the blue was a total fail. 

I’m being a little rough. I loved that apartment and we actually did a really cute job decorating it, but the paint was so bad and it was just this great lesson for me that just because I think I know what I like doesn’t mean I know interior design, I don’t know interior design. I didn’t go to school for it. I don’t understand the theories behind it. I don’t understand the science behind it. 

It’s not that I couldn’t, but it’s like, why would I put that on my plate when someone else is literally amazing at this born to do this in her, his or her zone of genius doing this. And then when we moved down to Miami, they sold all their stuff from New York and we moved into a furnished apartment. And this is really where I realized how important it is to me to have kind of like my own space. I mean, the apartment here is beautiful and I love living here and the view is great, but it never really felt like that true sense of my own home.

And so between these two things I realized as we move back, it doesn’t matter that we’re still living in a rental, which is, you know, for those of you that are listening, you might be like, well, why would you pay an interior designer to help with the home you don’t own in New York, It’s very common for people to break. It’s just a town of renters. So that doesn’t really bother me as much as it might someone else who lives in a different part of the country that feels like, why would you spend anything on anything you don’t own? It’s just not really a thing in New York, but so even though we’re renting, I still wanted to have that hominess, have that space, have that sense of the energy that Adam and I want to live in. So we are working with an interior design consultant.

We were having consultations with this interior designer to do that. And if you’re interested in that, even if you already have been living in this space for a little while, even if you like, you know, own it and maybe have liked the design, if you just are realizing that your day-to-day could use some sprucing up and could use a little bit of a higher vibe, feel free to DM me because one of my clients is an interior designer and she does virtual consultations. She went virtual during the pandemic and she does it at an incredible price. And you can just have that spruce up in your life. You know, I’ve always, um, like loved and gotten really inspired, working out of beautiful hotel rooms, beautiful bars. I used to do that before the pandemic. I would just go have a nice glass of wine by myself and I would work and your home should be no different.

It should really give you that energy of walking around or walking into a room in the morning or waking up there and just thinking like, wow, I’m so happy. I live here. I’m so inspired. What can I do with today? What can I create? And if you don’t feel like you can do that on your own, or you don’t feel like that’s currently it, then hire an interior designer to help you. There are people out there, there are people out there that are born to do this type of thing. So that would be my second one is just make sure that the space you’re living in is holding the energy and the vision that you want to be living in. Okay. The third tip is a journal prompt. So these are, this is for those of you that like to journal, but even if you don’t, I recommend doing this.

And if you are at that place that I was just kind of, I’ve been kind of describing throughout this whole thing where you’ve like made some improvements to your day-to-day life. And now you’re wondering what else could be next. Here are two journal prompts you can use every day. I challenge you to do it for 30 days. One is ask yourself and write down: “Am I asking for what I want or am I asking for what I think I can get?” And this is in to my favorite quote, pretty much ever from Bob Proctor. If you’re a client of mine, you’ve heard me say this. He always says, most people don’t ask for what they want. They ask for what they think they can have. And I can’t tell you how true I find this. When I have initial phone calls with clients or we start some of our programs and I ask them, what do you want out of this program?

What do you want out of your business? What do you want out of your life? And it’s very clear that a lot of their initial reactions to the question are really responses to what would be enough for you to get by in your life. What would be enough for you to get by in your business? So answers are things like, well, I want my business to make as much money as I make it. My nine to five, or I want to not worry about X, Y, and Z, or I want to feel more confident in what I’m doing, or I want to feel, um, more sure about my path and my career, or I want to make an impact. 

And there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things, but nonetheless, they still more sound like the, this is what I need in order to get by than what I truly want. Um, I think it makes total sense for a new entrepreneur to say that they want to make as much money on their own as they make for their nine to five. And I would imagine that they want a hell of a lot more than that. I would imagine that they want to make as much in a month as they were making in a year at their current nine to five job or their previous nine to five job. And yes, that’s possible. I did that twice at this point. I would imagine that, yes, they want to feel more confident in their business, but they want to be hugely successful. 

They want to be the next big thing. They want to make waves. They want to be someone that people look up to and learn from and know about and admire, and really have an impact and a message with what they do. So do you kind of see what I mean? There really is a difference between asking for what you think you can have, which is often synonymous to what I need to get by. And that is very different than what do you want, what do you really want? And if you can ask yourself that in the mornings and do it in the context of what do I want today, doesn’t have to be this big grand. What do I want out of my life, my existence, my legacy, those are decent questions to ask too, but they have their time in place.

And for the purposes of this episode, if you’re just thinking about your daily life, how you want to, up-level it, just ask yourself, what do I want out of today? Do I want to be waking up in this home or do I want to move somewhere different? Somewhere bigger, somewhere in a different city, somewhere more new, somewhere newer. Those are very, very, that’s very possible for you, but you have to admit that you want it first. Um, do I really want to work for 10 hours today? You know, maybe you’re a new entrepreneur and you love your business and you’re working a lot, but there’s a time when you come to think, yes, I love the work that I’m doing, but I’m, I’m just doing too much of it. Do I really want to be working this much? Or do I want to be doing these exact things?

Could I be hiring someone else to help me do them? Do I really want to continue doing things in personal life that maybe aren’t actually the most efficient for my time? And someone else could do a much faster job with them, like the design example or like training your pet and having someone else help you do it. Um, do I really want to be planning everything on my own or do I think I have to plan everything on my own and really I want help doing it. See what I mean? So that could be the journal question. And then the other one is the always classic: how good am I willing to let my life get? And just see what comes out and don’t judge yourself and don’t filter yourself and allow yourself to get curious about what your day to day life would or could look like if you really were asking for what you truly wanted, not only what you thought you could have.

All right, you guys, I hope that one, if not all of these tips inspire you and that you start implementing them sooner than later. And in light of my kind of message here, as I’ve shared, um, I’m moving back to New York and I’m feeling kind of a new chapter coming as this pandemic is fading. I just also want to say that I wish you a lot of health and safety during this time as we do reemerge, I hope that the pandemic was as kind to you as possible. Um, and your loved ones and just still hoping that we can all really be there for each other because we’re all still coming out of this together. So here is to Your Biggest Vision. So nice chatting with you guys again, please DM me on Instagram if you liked this episode and I will talk to you guys soon!

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