031 – Cait Scudder: Taking a Wild Leap

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:08] I’m Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories, about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves.
The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life-saving tools.

[0:27] Music.

[0:38] Welcome, Threshold Moment listeners. Today we have the honor of having Cait Scudder with us. In my intro, you’ll hear more about who she is. So for now, I just want to say that, this episode is so good for anybody who is curious about making a shift in their life.
At the beginning, we talk about that shift from a clear nine to five job into an entrepreneurial life and both the huge leap that is taken, but also the baby steps along the way and the time it might take to actually figure out the path and the ways that we can resource ourselves when we are in the unknown and when we say yes to the chaos.
So I think that that in and of itself is incredible. the second half, we start digging into, is it possible to be a well-resourced mother, to have motherhood actually feed your business and your business feed into your role as mother or partner, family member?
That it’s not either or.
Throughout the episode, you may hear an ad here or there about her free three-day program, Matriarch, that is August 28th, 29th, and 30th.
As we dissect this a little bit, you hear me getting really excited and I’ll say, I’m not an affiliate.
I’m just super interested and curious.
I’m into this shift in paradigm.

[2:05] And after it was all over, she asked me to be an affiliate and I said, hell yes, just because I want to know about it for myself.
I want to know and break down this link thinking that either I can be a great mother, or I can grow my business and try my hardest not to miss out on my kids’ lives.
And I just want to keep leaning into that possibility that they feed each other.
So yes, I just want you to know that yes, now I am an affiliate.
And when you do sign up, you can get a free day.
It was like a group call that I’ll do September 1st to add a little nervous system support as we begin to shift our paradigm to what is possible.
I hope you enjoy this episode. I found it fun and fascinating and full of possibility.

[2:54] Music.

[3:04] Today we have with us Cait Scudder. Cait Scudder is a homesteading wife, mother of two under three, about to be a mother of three under three.
Congratulations. Thank you.
And multiple seven figure business mentor who is wildly passionate about helping big hearted, ambitious mothers and aspiring mothers, grow their businesses as big as they want to grow them to create rich impact, lasting wealth, and a legacy that makes them proud.

[3:41] Cait has her own podcast called The Millionaire Mother, which is a resource and a space for mothers to come together and to talk about what actually goes on behind the scenes as our family constellations change, as business or business ideas and values begin to reshape themselves if we so allow them to.
And as we steward in really big legacies and big bodies of work.
Welcome, Cait.
Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. There were a few more little points that I might bring into the bio.

[4:24] And this is kind of a reflection of maybe past points of who you were in your bio, but what to me carry through into who you still are, but in an evolved form of it.
So I have Cait was, is an athlete.
And I think of this athletic associate, you played college basketball.
And I think about the stamina, the teamwork, the vision, the dedication.
Birthing humans into the world. Also an Olympic sport. The energy.
Olympic sport. Was, is a teacher, so you were a Spanish teacher way, way back in the day.
And I see people who were at one point a teacher, maybe before they started their entrepreneurial careers.
And they have an ability, not all, but often an ability to break things down to a way that people can really understand the essence of something and also build people up, like to see the special skills that other people might not see in themselves and to help to amplify them for people.

[5:32] Was, is, and adventure, I’m gonna ask you before we get into your most recent threshold to talk to us about your 2014 threshold and the part of you that took off to Bali.
Yeah.
But then still that part of you that’s like, yeah, my family’s going to South Africa with two kids.
And I’m gonna, you know, like that there’s still, and even the homesteading part, like the adventure of saying like, yes to goats and that you have that part of you, the part that- 40 animals, Sarah, we have 40 animals.
Do you really? Oh my gosh, it is crazy. If you don’t count the like 1,000 bees, then yes, we only have 40, but it is- Add the thousand bees and you have 1,040 animals.
It is wild. It is so wild.
And that risk taker.

[6:25] I, today, as part of preparation, I went back and I watched your, I think it was 2017 TED Talk.

[6:33] And at some point you said that your success is directly linked to your willingness to take risks.
Yes, 100% and still very much true. And so welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Thank you so much for being here.

[6:51] I’m wondering, since this podcast is called Threshold Moments, before we get into the threshold of motherhood and how it has changed the way you see and interact with business and life, if you could bring us back to 2014.
And the reason why I’m wondering if you could start here is for people to get a bigger feel, like more context on who you are, but also because I have quite a number of listeners who have reached out to me saying, I’m in the middle of a threshold of.
Moving, like either wanting to change careers or they’re in the middle of it and that, you know, unknown territory in between or that scary leap.
And so I’m wondering if you could say a thing or two about your 2014 threshold.
100 percent. Well, I can’t promise brevity, but I can promise depth.
Great. And I’m so glad that you are starting us in 2014, because that really was the catalyst.
And it feels so perfect to talk about that on this beautiful podcast, Threshold Moments, because to me, the interrelationship between risk-taking and threshold moments is so.

[8:08] Intertwined and inextricable. And I will never forget. So 2014, I was, as you mentioned, I was a Spanish teacher. I had been teaching Spanish for two years at that point at a small, private middle and high school in Western Massachusetts. And while in so many ways, I thought, you know, first of all, I graduated college, went right on to get my master’s, graduated with a master’s degree at 23 of arts and teaching from Smith College.
And I emerged bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, just so excited about a job. And I actually trained to be an English teacher, creative writing and literature was my field of study, but I was also fluent in Spanish and had spent a lot of my undergrad years, the majority of those four years, actually back and forth between Costa Rica. I was working for a nonprofit. I ended up studying abroad there, but I started a nonprofit literature and library initiative in this small village that kept me there for the majority of those four years. And I managed to work out a way way with Amherst to do that anyway.

[9:16] And I was in a relationship with a Costa Rican guy, thought I was like gonna get married and live in this village, the whole thing.
Ended that relationship, decided to go to grad school, got a full ride to get my master’s.
And when I emerged with my master’s, this very values aligned school popped up or so I thought.
I mean, it was a school that I would have loved to send my kids to, but as an educator and particularly like 24 years old, They just, you know, suck all the life force out of what you’re willing to give.
And I was just learning what boundaries in a professional setting looked like and realized they were going to ask for as much as I was willing to give.
And I really wanted to please, I wanted to have this great job.

[10:01] So I was probably working 60 to 65 hours a week, plus an hour and a half of commuting each day, 45 minutes each way.
And after two years, I was absolutely exhausted. And I was like, I know I love teaching.
I know I love being in this practice of facilitating the art of discovery and expansion, but I don’t want to do that. Like this isn’t it.
This small classroom talking about, you know, the plus comperfecto is not my destiny.
And so I was also during summertime, I’d been leading for the last couple of years, Spanish immersion, language and culture immersion trips abroad and my best friend at the time and I were placed in Spain to lead a group of very like elite 14 and 15 year olds, on this language immersion trip in Spain.
And I will never forget this. I can’t remember if I’ve told you this story before or not, Sarah, it’s perfect if this is the first time. But I will never forget this.
First of all, we were like 24 years old in charge of.

[11:10] 12 teenagers. And it’s like, who made us the adults who put us in charge also. And it was one of the kids 15th or 16th birthday. And he was like, and he loved Avicii who was alive at the time. And we were in Barcelona for the final leg of the trip. And this was where like very, very, very well-off people sent their kids to go away on this Spanish immersion. And it was sort of like whatever the kids wanted, they got kind of thing. And so he managed to convince his father to convince the company director of this immersion program to let us all go out to an Avicii concert on his parents’ dime to celebrate his birthday. But Sarah, it turns out it wasn’t just an Avicii concert. It was like the famous Barcelona EDM rave that happens annually. And we were in charge.
So we all go out and get like neon glow sticks glow in the dark. I heard Barcelona gear. And anyway, I’ll never forget. We were in this apartment getting ready. I was in my bathrobe, literally writing my resignation letter that I had been drafting for months. And I was finally just like working up the courage to send this into my employer. We were supposed to start the school year in about three weeks a month. And it was one of those threshold moments where I was like, the path is supposedly paved for me. This is everything I wanted in terms of a school.

[12:40] They love me here. They’re giving me the world’s religions class. I wanted to move away from just Spanish. They’re letting me teach yoga. Like all the logic says, stay, grow, develop safe path.
But my soul was like, this isn’t it, Cait. Like there’s something more. And with the kids playing like the boom box or whatever they were listening to in the other room, getting ready to go to this rave. I’m in my bathroom. I finally just finished the letter. I remember hitting send, getting, dressed, going with these kids to this concert, like vigilantly saying, okay, this is the plan of how we don’t lose each other and how we make sure you all don’t die. Everyone was fine by the way. But I will never forget as the night went on. And when, when I think it was David Guetta started playing and the beat dropped and the whole crowd, I mean, tens of thousands of people just started roaring. It was this moment of like, Oh shit. I hope I can start a new podcast. Oh shit.

[13:41] What did I just do with my life? Like everything feels wild. And that was, that was the day that I quit my job. And so when I came home from Spain, I was living in North Hampton, Massachusetts at at the time. It was…

[13:58] Both terrifying and so exhilarating to be like, wow, this is what it feels like to live in this town, not as a student or a graduate student or a teacher at this school, but just me, just a girl in her mid to early 20s figuring out her life.
I called some people, I picked up some freelancing work for a non-profit.
I was tutoring in Spanish. I got a waitressing job and waitress from August to February, which was such a great phase.
I like dated a bunch of guys, had a lot of sex.
It was such a fun phase. And frankly, I needed it to go from being 23 to being like responsible for 60 students and having parent teacher conferences.
I was like, I need to be like an irresponsible mid twenties person right now.
There was nothing like that. David get a beat drop to kick that all off.
But I remember seeing, I had done my Kripalu 200-hour yoga training in 2013.
And I remember my teachers, Grace Jal and Jovina Chan had created, they no longer run this, but they had created a 500-hour add-on training program that they had run in Bali for two years now.
The year that I went was the second year. And I’d always marked it off in my mind because I couldn’t take a month off and go to Bali as a teacher during the school year.

[15:23] But in this season of waitressing and doing odd jobs, I saw it came.
I don’t even remember where I heard about it. Maybe it was through a newsletter or something.
And I was like, I just got this deep intuitive hit to go.
And it’s interesting, Sarah, because I actually had this itinerary plan to do Latin America.
Like I’d spent a lot of time in Costa Rica, but I’d not been anywhere else in Central America besides Nicaragua for like two days.
And I hadn’t been to South America at all. And I think I had this programming of.

[15:56] You’re a Spanish teacher, you should really know more firsthand about Latin America. And it was like, no, you are not a Spanish teacher anymore. And that’s not actually where your body is being called. And so when Bali came up, I’m like, first of all, that’s so far. Second of all, it’s so expensive. Third of all, it’s so random. I don’t have any connection to the language. And so much of my world had been about the language. And yet there was this undeniable pull. And so long story short, I raised some money. I pulled a GoFundMe together to be able to pay for the training.
And I went, so August of 2014 is when I quit my job. February of 2015 is when I went to Bali. It was a one-month immersion called Shakti Initiation. And it was all about, I thought I was going to be doing like one-handed crow, like insane. And I actually like probably gained five pounds and was like no better at asana by the time we were done, but it was so much inner alchemy and it was exquisite. It was really, really powerful. And I felt it just alchemically aligning and clearing, and clearing so much from my system and bringing me into this resonance to be able to attract what was coming.

[17:16] And I think, you know, this part of the story, I had a ticket out.
So I kept my itinerary very open, a la eat, pray, love, but I did have a ticket out to Thailand.

[17:29] And had a loose plan of what I was gonna do in Thailand, but no real draw, I wasn’t going to see anybody.

[17:36] And a few days, so I gave myself a few days after the training ended in Bali to stay in Bali to see what the other girls were up to.
And the next day, or the day that the training ended, a few of the girls from the training were going to Bingin Beach in Bali. And I had no idea what this beach was. I had no plans, but they had an extra space in their bungalow. And I was like, oh yeah, I’d love to go.
And so went there. And the following day I was down on the beach. If you’ve ever been at Bingin or anyone who’s listening has ever been there, there’s like the cliffs up the top. And then you have to walk down a bunch of stairs to get down to the beach below. And I was supposed to to go down to do a photo shoot with a girlfriend.

[18:13] Who ended up getting a massage and wanting to chill by the pool as you do.
And I’m like, I’m still gonna go down. So I went down, did some yoga on the beach, was meditating on the beach and then was walking back.
And there were a group of guys sitting around a table and one of them was getting a massage from this Balinese woman.
She had this big rod of aloe vera leaf in her hand. She was like scooping out the aloe and rubbing it on this guy’s back. He was wearing sunglasses.
It was really cute, but, and I, there was this moment, I think he, they said hi to me and I said, hi back.
And I said something like, oh, it looks like you’re getting the broil treatment or something.
And he said, well, sit down. Like Simon’s getting a massage next, but I’ll treat you to one, like take a seat.
And it’s so interesting, Sarah, I mentioned that. And I mentioned the Shakti Initiation Training because I, as I mentioned, was living in Northampton, Mass, like feminist capital of the world.
If that exact same interaction had happened a month prior, I’m sure I would have been like, you assholes, like, why are you hitting on me?
Or whatever, just like really been very defensive and had my guard up.
But I was so in my body and I was so energetically attuned that I was like, oh, they’re being playful and so am I, but I am like completely safe and I’m gonna sit down.

[19:35] And thank God I did because that man who was getting the massage was Toby and is now the father of my two soon to be three kids and we’ve been married for six years and been together for eight now.

[19:49] That’s incredible. There are some parts of your story that stick out to me and some I want to revisit as well.
In this world that you and I cohabitate around business and life, there’s a saying that clarity is power.
And I want to lean in to like the both hand, which is.

[20:15] When we drop everything that seemed clear, that seemed like a clear path, that seemed also safe, and we open up to maybe chaos and to confusion, that the world gets an opportunity and maybe like the universe and our soul gets an opportunity to shake the illusions and begin to like, and then almost through trial and error, I think about my daughter who’s eight and it’s like, oh, you want to try piano lessons? Cool. You want to try horseback riding? Cool. You want to swim? Cool.
You want to like go play in the woods? Cool. Oh, you like to play, you like art. And as we get older and we narrow it in and narrow it in, narrow it in, we’re looking for that clarity and for that next step and of the letting go and of the going into the curiosity and then of flowing with what’s next, where am I being pulled to next? And what I’ve also heard has accompanied that in your TED speech you talked about, and I know this so well, I remember this so clearly when I resigned from my job that I was also working like 65 plus hours a week and getting all the positive the feedback and knowing what my paycheck was, was like, oh, I’m going to give up health insurance.
I’m going to give up knowing that I have a check coming in.

[21:40] I know what’s in my savings. I also remember piecemealing certain things together, like, oh, this company is gonna pay me $5,000 to put together some yoga for golf videos.
And these people wanna hire me for a little bit here and I’ll do this pop-up yoga class here and really like through living, letting life show me what’s next.
So I wanna highlight that too, that there was clarity and that each part feeds a next, and that clarity then also has come.
You know, we’ll have time to talk about where your business is now, but really that beautiful phase that can both be fun and scary at the same time where there isn’t clarity.
And I love to think about that curiosity being where we open up to the soul’s wisdom.
Yes, so much, yes. And I love that you use the word chaos in my mastermind.
I always do two card pulls for my mastermind. One, to get a pulse and an energetic read on the energy that the group is coming in with.
And one to inquire about what is the theme or the medicine that this particular group needs before we begin the mastermind.
And with this group, I pulled the Solis, the Sun, and this is from the Kim Kranz alchemy deck.

[23:09] Pulled the card of Solis, the sun, just like that shining, noble, masculine, divine, masculine, got it under control, performer, doer, achiever. That was the pulse on the group.
And then the second card that I pulled was the chaos card. And originally I was like, oh shit, you know, that moment of like, do I just slide that one back in the deck?
Totally. That wasn’t for me. I think that was a mistake.

[23:32] It was so wild because on our first call, I told that to the group and as the shares emerged, I was like, this is perfect because you’re so right. Chaos, well, seemingly the opposite of clarity. And I mean, this is so related to the gestational process of motherhood and business and.

[23:54] Creativity and ideation. Chaos is actually part of the clarity. Like no artist sits down at a blank canvas and just flicks her fingernail and a masterpiece is there. It shape shifts and transforms a million times before the final piece is created and emerges from the chaos.
And it may be at the very last moment. And so when I think about the interrelationship between clarity and chaos, it’s like, for me, it was the clarity to know part of this is aligned.
This teaching path, this Dharmic leadership path is deeply aligned, but this isn’t it. And I’m clear on it, but I’m not clear on what it is. I didn’t even know what online business was at that point. I had no idea the words personal brand weren’t even in my lexicon. I had no idea about any of that podcasting, what have you. It was foreign to me. And yet I could feel this deeper resonance saying like, come into the mystery, come into the mystery and let me shape you.
Let me transform you, be here with me. And it is, I think that that is so much.

[25:07] The path that as entrepreneurs, we are asked to walk. And as creatives, as artists, whatever form of artistry your walk is in life or business, it is required of us to be able and be willing to go into the mystery, into the void, into the uncertainty, into the unraveling, and and emerge as a new person that we can’t predict or control predict or control before we step into that.

[25:35] Music.

[25:42] Are a mother or someone dreaming into being a mother and feels like it’s complicated to figure out your new identity and how to be in business and be a present mother, Cait is offering a free three-day workshop August 28th, 29th, and 30th from 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time until 1. I will also offer a follow-up program for nervous system support on September 1st, 12 to 1, for anyone who signs up for this free program through me.
The program is going to look at how to let go of your premotherhood identity and step into the new paradigm of creating wild success from the seat of your motherly power.
It means to be a present mother without sacrificing your business. And I have to say for me that, I know that there are unspoken contracts woven into my body, into my belief system that that’s not possible. And I want to say here that I am ready to untie those contracts to let them go and lean into a new possibility. She will also be offering practical tools for for shifting your business model and daily rhythms to be a motherhood friendly and create massive success.

[27:07] Day one is about identity. So I would say about how do we lean into the archetype of the matriarch, of the well-resourced mother.
Day two is the infrastructure of creating your support network.
And day three, the business end of innovation, impact, and income.

[27:25] If this is of interest to you, we will have a link below. I will definitely be there myself. I am, really excited and I’m curious and it just feels like an authentic yes for me. And if you are feeling that in any way, again, the link is below and I will see you there. And then we can also see each other on September 1st at one o’clock for a little extra nervous system support. Cheers.

[27:50] Music.

[27:57] When Kate Northrup and I had a conversation, I think it was episode five, we were talking about, the cycle of awareness and the middle of the cycle is the fertile void. And, then, you know, she brought up the idea of crop covers, which I love. I think when she and I first met, we were both like, what is our next step? And what is it going to look like? But we also had our things that we could fall back on that we were in our own rights, like experts on in our field where it might not be the future. Like we might know like, okay, this is slightly outlived, but I can still do it. And I still love doing it. And again, in your last story of that threshold, that’s like, and you tutored and you picked up some jobs here. And so we get to have those crop covers that give us like just enough stability, just enough nourishment while also, so it’s like, doesn’t even have to be this or that, where it’s like, we get to resource ourselves in certain ways.

[28:57] While we’re in the unfolding. Yes. And so I think a lot of people, when they like jump, like when they’re like, I want, you know, this job is not for me, and it feels very all or nothing.

[29:08] To know that we can still resource our crop covers or like the things that we could do on the side to help give us some stability, some resource, as we’re going into this great mystery.
Yes, I love that. And I love that metaphor. I often think about the metaphor of stepping stones across a river.
And we’re so fed the language of the big leap and taking the leap.
And I think taking the leap is amazing. I mean, as you referenced, in so many ways, the TED Talk that I delivered is about taking risks, which is the analogy of taking the leap.
But I think sometimes taking the leap actually looks like finding your stones and stepping across.
Like, so for me, and to just connect the timeline between 2014, 15, and today, I ended up canceling my plans to Thailand.
I stayed in Bali with Toby and had this unbelievable, better than Julia Roberts and E-Prey, I mean, it was just so magical.
Falling in love with Toby, canceling my, I moved my flight to Thailand, canceled it again, and he invited me to go to Australia after three and a half weeks of just honeymoon phase, discovering Bali together.
He had this epic villa there and connected me with a bunch of amazing people.
And we went to Australia and met his whole family.

[30:35] And when I saw him with his family, I was like, okay, this is the one.
And he thought the same thing.
The first day we got to Australia, he asked his mom for his grandmother’s engagement ring.
And that is the ring that is now on my finger. But anyway, I share that because, okay, so then I went.

[30:54] Back to the States, Costa Rica for a month to deliver another language immersion program, back to the States for two days, then went to Spain to do another summer of this immersion thing and wasn’t really aligned with the company.
So I actually quit in between the two gigs I was supposed to do there. And Toby flew out, met me in Madrid and proposed in Madrid. So we were engaged like three months after meeting each other. And I moved to Bali in December of that year, December of 2015, but I didn’t start my business until May of 2017. So it wasn’t like I took the leap, I moved to Bali and I was like a six-figure entrepreneur from day one. I moved to Bali and it was interesting because not visiting there and quitting all my other jobs and moving to Bali to be like, this is where I’m going to figure it out, brought up all my shit. I was absolutely terrified. I almost left Bali, almost left the relationship. It was just bringing up all of my money stuff, all of my fear stuff around what am I going to do? And I can’t just get a job at a cafe here. Foreigners can’t work like that. There’s a whole visa process. Anyway, I ended up getting a job as a technical writer working for a company based in the States, writing user manuals for a technology software company.

[32:19] I mean, like boring for me. It was so boring, but it was something that I could do. I was very competent in it and it gave me the steady income I needed to build up a little nest egg to be able to invest in my business. And I share that because in so many ways, it was a wild leap. I mean, a wild leap across the world, a wild leap to leave what I knew, a wild leap in the direction of my intuition and mom needed to make some money. I needed to figure it out. I needed to be able to pay for life. And I did that job for a year and a half.

[32:54] Working remotely from Bali, taking a thousand screenshots, writing really boring user manuals, having really boring meetings, but that served a purpose in such a rich way. And so that was my stepping stone thing that brought me to the ability and the courage to start my business and really drove for it.
And it was about.

[33:20] A year and a half after doing that job that I finally quit, I had replaced my corporate salary.
I don’t want to say replaced, but I had matched my corporate salary and what I was making in my business after my first launch and signing some private clients. And I’m like, okay, I can do this. It’s time. And again, that felt like a leap, but it wasn’t total lack of proof of concept.

[33:42] It was built over time. An alchemical alignment, they say, small doable steps over time. And there are the quantum leaps.
As you said that I was thinking of the story of Hanuman, the monkey god, who before he makes his big jump from India to Sri Lanka, he has to stop and first remember his divinity. His father is Vayu, the god of wind. And so there’s that part of us that has to tune in before we make the big leap, but after he saves Rama’s consort, his wife, he actually finds out he has to go back and he has to build a bridge. So kind of like you were saying, the stepping stones for the other two to unite so that we can have this big leap in which we’re following our soul, we’re following our divinity, but then there’s a part of building the bridge between the two gapped things that we can actually walk over. And I love the idea that both of them exist. Both of them are part of that story.
And as you were saying, yeah, the big leap and the stepping stones, I really love that.
And also it was, um, I felt my heart as you were saying that I felt my heart, like really starting to warm up. It didn’t even feel like it was beating faster. It was like warming up and and kind of felt like it was expanding as I was listening to you.

[35:01] There was something meaningful to me about you sharing. So we said 2014, I think you were moving into 2017 when this business really started to get its foundation, getting its footing.

[35:15] It’s really healing to me actually, just to hear that. And I have to go back and remember what it was when I built my business, because in some ways I’m like starting again.
And to start again after having like, So like for 2015 was probably like my peak year before I left everything and moved to Maine and started, became a mom and everything shifted.
And just to know that time can go by and all of that time is helping us in our becoming.
Yes. In our first steps, in the beginning of a business.
It’s really beautiful to hear that so that it’s not like if you don’t immediately when you jump in, have this wild success that it doesn’t mean it’s not coming.
A hundred percent. And you know, Sarah, I think we’re in such an age, particularly right now in the online culture of, and just societally overall, you know, We’re in the Instacart Amazon Prime.

[36:21] Day and age where we almost expect, not just because we can order things and have them arrive on our doorstep with a few flicks of the thumb, but also because I think particularly in the online space, it’s become almost normalized to celebrate instant or seemingly instant, like velocity is connected to validity in results.
And I just think that while I am so much in celebration for women shouting from the rooftops, their wins and their epic momentum, I think it does damage when we neglect to show the.

[37:03] Parts of the story where there is very quiet percolation underneath the soil.
And I think that for me, this is so much about honoring matriarchal motherly wisdom in business is, this is the process of the womb.
This is the magic of creation is that there is a gestational period.
You don’t have sex and have a baby the next day.
There is a gestational period where there is very little evidence except for the growing tummy or when you plant the seed and there’s very little evidence until one day a tiny little sprout comes out of the ground. You know, you don’t have the juicy mango. The second you plant the seed, there is a process of cultivation. And I think it’s so healthy and healing. And that somatic response you’re describing of that warming of the heart and that deep breath, like it’s so important that we remember that that is actually the law of creative process. And when we forget that in the business world, because marketing messages of overnight success are very popular, I think we cut ourselves off from actually the overarching magic of creation.

[38:27] This, I think really segues so beautifully into The Millionaire Mother. And I want to say for myself, there was, not when I heard Millionaire Mother, because you saw me when you first told me the update in the name, I was like, yes, amazing. But yeah, that just because I’m so used to, like you said, the Instacart and the Amazon and the promises of the big things and success only if that, when I listened to one of your first episodes under the new name, The Millionaire Mother, I really loved how rich the theming was and the stories are so that it’s not just what happens in the summer after the mango tree has been growing for many years. It’s not just the birth, but the messiness before. And I don’t always, I probably wouldn’t listen to her like, does she always have to highlight the messy? I want to celebrate the bigness and the beauty too.
And I just love when the whole picture is there. Like the whole picture gets to be there when all of us gets to exist. And so I’m wondering if you would like to tell us a little about your.

[39:40] Transition. And I think this, I know there was a transition into motherhood that was big, but I know that your second birth in particular really helped to begin to shift this new version of what you’re offering. A million percent. Thank you so much for asking. I, um, it’s wild. So my eldest daughter Ella is going to be three in October. We’re recording this in the first week of August. So she’s two and three quarters or what have you. So that’s how long I’ve been a mom and I’m pregnant for three and a half, you know, first got pregnant three and a half years ago.
And so, the themes of identity unraveling and rebirth grappling with.

[40:27] This go-getter, rah-rah, running in the rice fields first thing in the morning, dancing to Beyonce, HIIT workout. So many of the versions that I knew to be true of myself when pregnancy hit and my body slowed down and my body started expanding and I could feel the tendrils of unraveling before even entering the birth portal with Ella on October 10th, 2020.
I could feel that something really big was rewiring itself through me.
And I gave birth October 11th, 5.45 in the morning in 2020. And it was surprise, surprise, not the birth I planned for.
We wanted to have a whole birth, but she was 41 and 6 and ended up transferring to the hospital.
And I was able to deliver her vaginally, but it was extremely painful and scary.
There were a lot of, there were probably 15 NICU people on the phone.
Like one of them was on the phone taking calls.
I could hear them even though I was, you know, on the ayahuasca trip of giving birth.

[41:36] And it was just, it was not the experience that I wanted. I had a third degree tear.
I had a really challenging time walking across a room by myself for the first six weeks postpartum.
It was quite rough, but slowly started to reemerge and integrate really deeply loved from the beginning.

[41:57] Which I know is not the case for all women.
But I just felt so at home inside of motherhood, like, oh, this is what I was born for. and also felt.

[42:12] Almost reinvigorated for my work, like straight away, I my experience after having Ella, even though the physical recovery from the birth was more challenging. I didn’t feel it fazed me on an existential level as it related to my work. And then with my second birth, so I found out I was in Greece with my parents and Toby and Ella for my parents’ 60th gift and my, and Ella’s first birthday. I’m like, thank God she was one. So she doesn’t have the precedent of going to Santorini every year for her birthday. She can’t remember it, but, um, we were there and on her first birthday, I took a pregnancy test to find out I was pregnant with Jack. And so Ella and Jack are 20 months apart and I am now pregnant again. And this baby and Jack will be 19 and a half. So they’re almost equidistant spread out and kind of back to back. But I have to say.

[43:12] The Jack’s whole birth, I mean, I’m probably going to cry on this podcast, but Jack’s birth, rewired me on a cellular level. And I gave this analogy to a friend the other day. It’s my experience with going from maiden to mother of one, but then going from mother of one to mother of two, I almost feel like, you know, when you’re walking in, maybe you never do this, but I have done this before. When you’re walking in from the car and you’ve just gone shopping or whatever, and you have the shopping bags and you’re like, oh, you know, you do the mom thing of 75 things.

[43:56] In your hand. And you’re like, all right, I can just get this one more bag and like, hold it with my pinky finger. And I, it’s just a short walk to the car, like to the front door.
I’m just going to do one trip and just bring it all in. And you can get there and make it.
And it’s a little, you know, wonky, but you get there and then you try to do that. But then there’s just one more bag and it’s like they, they break and all the berries go everywhere and everything just kind of bottoms out. For me, having the second kid was like just that one extra bag where it’s like, no, no, no, we can’t just do it like we did it before and make some adjustments on the fly, but just, just kind of get through. And I didn’t feel in my postpartum with Ella running my business that I was like pushing through, but in many ways I was doing the same thing and talking about motherhood, but I was very much doing the same thing, sharing the same message with this updated identity of being a mom, but it was very, it felt very coherent with everything that had come before.

[45:01] But there’s something about Jack’s birth. I did so much healing work. I mean, I worked on my own healing, physically, emotionally, semantically, clearing the trauma of the first birth, really re-templating my nervous system in my body to welcome in an easeful, expansive, the welcoming embrace of labor and delivery.
And it was still a longer delivery. So from the first gentle waves that started to all 10 pounds and 15 ounces of Jack roaring into the world, into the water bath in our home.

[45:45] It was 19 hours, but it was the most beautiful experience most beautiful experience of my entire life was that birth.
Feeling him come into the world and feeling my body.
Open and expand and my entire I think of all the significant things that happened during that birth of so many divine synchronicities his quote unquote due date was supposed to supposed to be a Gemini but this boy is cancer through and through I went to the day I went into labor, so it was the day before June 26th, his birthday, just June 27th, was the first like hot, hot day of summer last year. And we went to the lake and got in the water. And that is what really gently kicked off labor. And the moment in the labor, so it was.

[46:37] Around midnight that the labor really started to pick up and, you know, was in and out of the water, the shower in the early kind of early active phases of labor.
But when I went into transition, I was in the tub and the rain started to fall.
It was around 11 o’clock and Jack was born at 1230 on the dot.
And he was he was the size of a toddler. He was 10 pounds, 15 ounces, he was absolutely enormous.
His head was 15 centimeters and I barely tore.
And it was so profoundly healing. And I think that the most significant part of that experience, like, especially in contrast to my birth with Ella, which is the only other reference I had, I mean, I literally had nurses holding my legs up, which is not, I am not an anatomy expert here, but that is not the position that is most optimal for the pelvis opening, is that kind of like scrunched position, they were like literally holding my legs up.
And when a contraction came screaming in my ear to push and with Jack I was on my hands and knees.
I was listening to sacred mantra music. I was in my home.
I was leaning into my beloved and I did not push him out and He literally.

[48:05] It’s a physiological thing that happens. It’s called the fetal ejection reflux.
And literally the fondus of the uterus, the top of the uterus will literally expel the baby out.
Women who are in a coma will vaginally deliver a baby with no conscious effort.
And Sarah, like so much of my brand and my business and my message is about taking the risk, the risk to rise, rising up.

[48:33] And this sacred, you know, I know, you know, because we went to a party together where we both dressed as our Venus sign and my Venus is in Capricorn.
There’s this leadership, sacred, divine, masculine, energetic that I carry.
And it’s just part of my, my inner masculine is very integrated and I feel very comfortable in leadership positions, coaching, mentoring, like that role.
And a lot of the flavor and energetic my body of work up until that very moment was around like setting the vision, taking the leap, going for it.
And what happened during that birth was a complete rewiring of my understanding of and relationship to power from the innermost deepest feminine space inside of me, which is when, When you bow to the power that exists in you without your effort, when you allow yourself to surrender to the majesty that is actually moving through you, when you remove yourself and remove all efforting, and it takes a kind of discipline and an effort to do that.
But when you essentially remove your will and exertion out of the way and allow yourself to catch this cosmic wave that is gonna carry.

[50:01] Literally this being from the cosmos through your legs and into the world.

[50:08] It just changed me forever in that moment. And he came in and I spent the following 10 months.

[50:20] Which is an interesting timeline from conception to birth, but I spent the following 10 months in myself and in my business in more of an identity shift than I think when I went from from maiden to mother. Because what I had just birthed was not just Cait, mom of two, it was, oh, hold on. What is my message? What do I stand for? What is it that I’m really saying about leadership and motherhood and business? Because that experience just changed my entire reality. I love that we were speaking before about the clarity and the chaos, because I had my best-selling programs that were taking along. I had a bunch of stuff that was pre-sold.
Jack was born a little over a year ago, a year and a month-ish ago. I delivered on many of those things that had been pre-sold and carrying me through. But at the beginning of this year, I could feel that there was this like fundamental stripping away that wanted to occur and the emergence of something new. And I didn’t know what it was yet. And I share about this in-depth…

[51:42] I could literally talk about it for an hour, but I won’t make you want to listen to that.
But I share about this in-depth in the first or second episode of… Since we rebranded the podcast, it’s like I closed a multimillion dollar offer. Here’s what happened. That’s the title of the episode. And long story short, in the end of May, I got the very clear hit that it was time to close down the mastermind that I have run for the last five years that has made millions and millions of dollars that I knew it was time to compost and give back to the earth and make space for what was wanting to emerge. And very similar to the story that I told at the beginning of knowing in my bones it was in alignment, but not having the clear vision of what would emerge next, I listened, I obeyed. And immediately after I went to Paris and spent some time with my best us read and came back and.
I literally kid you not, I’m glad you’re not showing this video because I’m not exactly camera ready, but I could bring you over to this whiteboard in the corner of my office where I sat.

[52:48] I actually was on hands and knees in my office. I have never done this. I was beautiful 19th century French table that is my desk. I was on my hands and knees channeling like I was freaking making ancient Egyptian scribe or something, I was just channeling the entire vision and rebirth to the exact detail of the rebrand of the entire company to the millionaire mother.
And it was such a testament to me in leading in my business through the exact frequency and medicine that I’m describing to you of what if I got out of the way and allowed this like cosmic life force current of creation to flow through me, what would happen? How would birth be different? How would business be different? And that is how we rebranded to the millionaire mother. I’m seeing this parallel between, did you call it uterine ejection? It’s called the The fetal ejection reflex.
Fetal ejection, yeah, right. Cause you want to keep your uterus, right?
So the fetal ejection reflex.

[54:01] I love that. I wish I had heard of that before I went into my labors.
My pushing was around like three hours at a time.
And even just the difference between the idea of pushing for something, what I, it was actually my favorite part of labor was because my body was giving me such a clear sign and I got to work with it.
Like I really understood, I felt like I really understood how to work with it.

[54:25] However, how you’re describing it is almost like getting out of the way of working with it, that like it will come through.
And it’s so gorgeous. And I love it because I actually like going back in that and tracing back, I’m like, oh yeah, I could totally feel how it’s happening anyway.
Like this is happening. 10.

[54:45] The way that you just described the rebrand coming through was also like an ejection, like it’s coming through and you get out of the way and you write it down.
And so the birth of Jack and the birth of this new rebrand, they both sound like that. Ejection can sound like really fast and aggressive, but I really see it as this portal from above and down through almost like the seven chakras where it’s this divine idea through manifestation, but really getting out of the way and letting it come through you. So I really, I’ve never, heard you describe it quite like that before and I’m loving it because I think, again, for me, when I hear the millionaire mother, I get really excited and I feel that Capricorn and Venus, so Capricorn having more of that strong masculine holding. And as I hear you tell this too, like I really feel like then there’s the mother, like, right, that’s the second part is like the mother.
But also I think in our culture, mother has been living in the patriarchy.

[55:54] Yeah, so the way we might hear mother is still often a doing, right?
There’s like the doing of the schedules, the doing of the laundry, the doing of the dishes, which I’m not saying this should be mother, but mother within patriarchy often holds that role.
So what is sacred mother?
What is sacred feminine? What is the million, like the millionaire mother who is holding the sacred of letting the channels come through without being the one just like struggling and working.
And I think because that’s in some ways moving into a new construct, it could seem impossible, but as you’re living into it and as we live into it together and as a community, which is so.

[56:40] Excited to see what comes of it and what shifts in different women’s lives as they begin the inquiry into this possibility. Yes, 100%. I love and appreciate all of that so much. And firstly.

[56:55] I want to say that that fetal ejection reflux, I learned that from Karen Welton, the founder, she’s at painfreebirth on Instagram. One of the many things that I did to heal and prepare for Jack’s birth was take her e-course pain-free birth, which there was a part of me that’s like, all right, pain-free. Are you serious? Knowing what I know about my first birth, I am a skeptic through and through, but this is what I desire. So let me learn. And I have to say it prepared me so well to embrace the sensation of birth to allow instead of resist. And I could say so much more, like I did a hypnobirthing course for my first birth, but what I realized, I didn’t realize this until after Ella’s birth. But I was using my breath basically to brace against brace myself against the intensity of sensation as opposed to using breath using sound to just allow and embrace like a warm hug every contraction but there was a moment it was I was right about in transition and I could feel the fetal ejection reflux starting it was more than just like breathing and embracing and breathing the baby down, like it was more than just that.
I could feel my body starting to expel.

[58:17] And I turned to my midwife, this is in Jack’s labor, I turned to my midwife and said, I’m scared. And side note, I think this is one of the healthiest things that we can do.

[58:27] Whether we are in labor with a baby or we are in labor with a project, is to find the people, the trusted web, intimate web of support, and to speak the fears out loud, because otherwise they fester and we hold on to them. And we don’t have to do that alone, which is, I’m going to say so so much more about that. But we, when I spoke that fear, and I said, I’m scared, this is getting like, way more intense.
And I’ve been doing like, I’ve been a champ, but like, I’m going to another dimension, like the baby is coming. And she looked at me and she said, Cait, that exact sensation and that exact intensity that you fear is what is going to bring your baby home. And he was here like 10 minutes later. And it is that same thing when we are birthing a business. And so I really hear you with the association of the millionaire mother. There’s this aspirational expansive element, and there may be a little twinge of contraction of like, could I really have that? Could I possibly do that? Is this one more fucking thing that I have to do as a mom. It’s not enough to make the dinners and do the laundry and be here and there and drive my kids to school and remember to say the right things and reflective listen and not snap. And oh, now I have to become a millionaire? Like Jesus Christ, when does this shit end?

[59:49] That is not what we’re talking about. And I honor and respect anyone whose association is like.

[59:58] First association with the name of the brand is like, fuck this shit. Like I’m already doing enough. I so hear that. And the invitation that I want to provide is that, First of all, I have to just say this little context, I told you I wasn’t going to be brief, I’m sorry, about the name. So it was maybe like eight weeks postpartum with Jack.
And I literally sat up in bed and I texted my lawyer and I was like, we need to trademark the millionaire mama today.
She was like, hi, how are you doing? How’s your baby? What? Like, do you have a program called this?
What is this? And I was like, no, but I just, I can feel… It was just, again, divine download.
It just came in complete.
And it was several months later that I was sitting in a hot tub masterminding with a couple of really close girlfriends.
And one of them reflected back to me what she was hearing me say.
And she was like, Cait, this feels like the millionaire mother, not the millionaire mama.
And it was just instant chills over my whole body in a sauna.
And I was like, yes, this, it is this archetypal, it’s an archetype.
Millionaire Mother is an archetype and she is not the superwoman who, on top of being depleted, exhausted, stretched thin, bucks up, and also is this A-plus performer in a man’s world.

[1:01:23] Rocking it through the patriarchy and making millions. She is a richly resourced woman who is sourcing her creative power from the depths of her womb and birthing a movement and the wealth that comes from it from the seat of her motherly power. That is what she is. And so the millions, the money, that I believe and is my experience that that is the byproduct of profound alignment.
It is the byproduct of choosing to move through the world in business and in life.

[1:02:05] Richly resourced, rejecting the martyr archetype and the overextension and the committing when she wants to rest. It’s like, what is possible for women when we reject, I say in the brand, trying to become wealthy or trying to succeed in business like a maiden.
We don’t have these other humans that we are responsible for, or a man.
Being competitive, what does it look like to truly run our companies and our lives from the seat of our wisdom as deeply feminine beings and mothers?
What would change, what would open.
And my experience, I mean, I became a millionaire after becoming a mother and the millions of of dollars that have come into my world.

[1:02:58] Have happened. My first million-dollar year was the first year I became a mom, and we’ve continued to have seven-figure years every year since then. My experience has very much been, by allowing myself to step deeper and deeper into the seat of that motherly identity and run my company the same way and ride every contraction and expansion like riding the the waves of labor, more and more literal magic continues.

[1:03:32] And that is what the millionaire mother really stands for and is all about.
Thank you so much. And I do wanna say that when I first, I know I already said this, but when I actually first heard the name of it, it was a full body yes for me too.
So if my mind might get in there and be like, what if, and this and that, like I heard it and I was like, wow, I knew that there was something powerful here and I love how you define the archetype.

[1:03:59] I have a podcast episode right before this one that talks about leaning into archetypes, and when we lean into an archetype, it’s not that we’re trying to be something we’re not but we are leaning into the parts of us that are there but possibly asleep and beginning to help them to kind of come alive, like vibrate a little bit more, kind of nurture them really.
Like, if I was gonna be the millionaire mother that is resource, that is moving from my womb, that is moving from my wisdom, what would that look like?
Would she, how would she find support with childcare? What would her community look like?
So moving into an archetype is like, what scent would she wear?
What clothes would she wear?
And a lot of this came even as I was listening to the 12th House do a podcast episode on this.
And I just think it’s such a beautiful practice.
And maybe as I kind of, I think, do a crystallization of this podcast episode, which is like we get to hear the beauty of that archetype and in moving the feminine, not just from the maiden, but bringing in the mother, we talk about like the mess of birth and the moving into like, well, who knows what your version, any one person listening to this, of the millionaire mother is going to look like until we say, yes.

[1:05:28] To letting it move through us, right? And knowing like that we have things that we can use for crop covers and everything we spoke before that there is kind of this both a leap and the stepping stones. If the idea of being a woman who is moving for a womb and moving for wisdom and the possibility, like sometimes that could even be like, don’t even tell me that a woman could be be well-resourced.
But just to open up, going back to the idea of the reticular formation in episode three, it’s like just the idea of opening up to the possibility, our brain will begin to see ways to bring it in.
And so also being part of a community that is collectively, it’s collectively in the field that we are looking for ways where the possibility or even seeing and collecting evidence that this is possible, things begin to shift.
And so on that note, you have a three-day free course.

[1:06:30] And if not, it might be a recording by the time it comes out called The Matriarch.

[1:06:35] Yes, it’s called The Matriarch.
Sure, it’s happening August 28th, 29th and 30th and is going to be such a rich room to plug into for that support.
It is a three day business and identity rebirth workshop where we are tuning in.
And I love that you spoke about that archetypal work and especially that there’s an episode coming out on the podcast about that, because this really is about what does it mean to align myself with the archetype of the well-resourced mother.

[1:07:10] The woman who is the mother who is leading from her matriarch power.
So she’s integrating this wise elder leadership stewardship frequency with the deep wisdom and intuition of the mother with the heartbeat and the wide open from crown to root this wide open channel of receptivity and creativity and allowing that circulation of energy.
What does it look like to run our companies as her? And so this is gonna be an incredible, incredible workshop.
We already have thousands of women registered and expect to have over 10 or 15,000 women in the room.
So you will be in such great company if you’re listening to this and you come to join.
And I really hope you do because it is gonna be so profound and you will find community there as well as a lot of wisdom.

[1:08:08] I’d love to add one more thing, this idea of the field, which at some point in my life just sounded like an idea, but I’ve gotten to experience over and over again that.

[1:08:19] When I come together with a group and intention is set for the field, that it begins to amplify those things and say in alchemical alignment, if the field is birth, that I might start to have a lot of nonverbal things happening in my body that I think are random. And a partner might might be like, oh, you’re experiencing things, like things that you would have experienced from age this to this.
And that might be a terrible example of the field.
What I’m saying is that as soon as you say yes to something that has an intention, that without even efforting, almost like you’re saying with that birth, it begins to come through you and you begin to feel and experience things that you might not have if you hadn’t said yes to being a part of that field.
So that there’s a non-efforting portion of just saying yes to being part of a field, a group collective field.
And then on top of that, you get the details and the questions and maybe some step-by-step stuff, the whole package, but there will certainly be things that reverberate in you just by saying yes, which I’m not an affiliate of this program, I’m not, but I’m just like, I’m actually just excited about that possibility.
And thank you so much for coming on today.

[1:09:32] Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I love that description of the field.
And I feel like that is such a beautiful, nuanced, rich, energetically attuned description of what the power of getting in the room or the magic of getting in the room, like that exact thing.
It’s the frequency ripple effect that is often invisible, but is undeniable about the things that start to move and shift when we align ourselves with that intention. So that was so beautiful.
And thank you so much for having me.

[1:09:59] Music.

[1:10:05] Hey friends, I’m popping in here to say, since the recording, I know I said this at the beginning, since the recording, Cait said, do you want to be an affiliate?
And I said, hell yes, I’m so into this work. This is big and it’s big for me and I wanna learn about this.
And this week has actually been a pretty intense week for many reasons.
And I’ve questioned my yes to this. And each time I ask my body and I tune in, the answer continues to be, yes, this is important work.
Yes, and do it in a way that is in alignment with myself, with my body, with me being resourced.
Lean into the message of the program itself and move from there.
So to be clear again, her free three-day program, Matriarch, is August 28th, 29th, and 30th.
I will be there. And when you sign up with the link at the bottom of this podcast, then you will also get a group call with me on September 1st to support you and are just to answer questions that you might have from what you heard during Cait’s calls.
Thank you.

[1:11:18] Music.

[1:11:30] Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free, called 21 Days of Untapped Support.
It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com.
And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it’s wildly useful.
So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom, subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or two.
If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.

[1:12:11] Music.