Money + Freedom Formula

Speaker 1: [Music] hi I'm Melanie bar welcome to the she builted experience with Melanie you're here because you want to experience the life and business that you crave join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it a career and business that they love we dive into the topic of how they built it and talk about everything from Having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively create successful teams Implement strategies for growth and Infuse Tech innovation magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let's dive in lesle CER is a multiple seven fig e-commerce brand owner whose business back from Bali offers women Bohemian Chic clothing ethically made in Bali the success of back from Bali affords lesie the life of her dreams and she is passionate about igniting and inspiring other women entrepreneurs to rise while creating financial and personal freedom thank you so much for joining us today lesie I'm really happy

Speaker 2: to be here and I'm really happy to talk about how you build something I do know that for myself the most important thing was getting honest about what I

Speaker 1: wanted and I think that that is how you build something how do you think you were not honest with yourself initially

Speaker 2: because it seems like you made a shift somewhere I made did a huge sh so I've been an entrepreneur for a really long time and I started being an entrepreneur simply because I didn't want to get a job I was a mediocre entrepreneur for a really long time like 17 years and when I say mediocre I mean only financially my own life was a beautiful and I had uh freedom and I could do what I wanted but I was not creating wealth and and money that I felt I knew I can really be doing and that was the part about getting more honest I had this feeling of being a failure and and not living up to what I knew I could be doing and I knew I could be doing so much better than I was doing there it was just this feeling I was getting more and more uncomfortable but this feeling in me I'm not sure it just got stronger and stronger and there was really a pivotal moment I mean I I could pinpoint it I was sitting the old apartment we used to own in a little apartment in my little office and I just felt like there is just no way I am waking up on my next birthday in the same situation I'm in right now there's no way that I was not going to be making more money there was no way that I was not going to elevate myself more there was just no way and that was the moment and I began to be honest with what I wanted and what I wanted was more money and more wealth and more personal success I wanted more empowerment I wanted more control I wanted more Independence I wanted not to expect my husband to buy the dream apartment and that's what happened I just got honest with what I wanted do

Speaker 1: you think you just weren't ready at the time maybe it took you to this pivotal moment to just be ready enough to say I'm going to get serious and do this I guess so because like why did it happen then it happened then and and why didn't it happened 10 years earlier or or one year earlier I don't know but that isn't life like that sometimes that you get inklings of things but then you have to get to a point where you're really frustrated or really unhappy right or really had had enough in order to make a change so maybe I got to that point you

Speaker 2: believe in unapologetically claiming a Love of Money tell us about that and how has that mindset helped you in building

Speaker 1: your business I realized that a big reason of why I was not so as financially successful as I am now and what happened once I made that decision is because I had so many false mindset beliefs around money and around my commitment to my quote Freedom I've always said freedom is my number one value and it still is my number one value but I saw it in conflict with success so I'm a spiritual person so therefore money is not that important to me or I want to have the time to go to my retreat in the summer or I want to go to my yoga classes and if I become more too successful I won't have the time to do those things so it was sort of like I am this and success and money is going to stop me from doing this that I really want to be doing and this is all false beliefs that I think many women have that they believe that by being successful or going up their dreams or building their business or having a financial goal that it is going going to take away their free time take away their connection to their spirituality or take away their connection to being feminine and sensual or whatever that that means and now that I'm on the other side of it okay because I did build it I have it all and this is what I didn't know then I have the money and the spirituality I have the success and I have the free time and I couldn't have it without the money and I couldn't have it unless I became honest that having the money was part of it and I've now become very passionate about supporting women entrepreneurs I've written a book about it called money and freedom and I am passionate about it because without ability to have access to finances to the economy we could do nothing it is so essential that women take control over their money because without it we can't

Speaker 2: do anything you're so right do you think you were taking in information through that time because there are moments where I marinate on an idea I'm not quite ready to do it to make the leap whether it's big or small do you think over that time you were thinking about money and thinking about what you wanted to do as far as a focus to get more of it and then just at that one point you were ready to make that leap it was more

Speaker 1: I felt that I was um UND serving myself I felt like I could be doing better than I was doing I was aware that I had a lot of talents that I was not using and it just I don't know it was just this moment and also another thing happened in that moment which I want to mention cuz I think this will help I at that time had actually two businesses I had the business I have now which is a women's clothing business called back from Bali and I manufacture clothing in Bali Indonesia bring it into the United States and I sell it online mostly on Amazon and my website and I had another business called girl power because I also have my MSW my Master's in clinical social work and I ran empowerment groups for young girls who were 7 to 13 years old so I had two businesses and what I realized in that moment sitting in that chair in that in our old Department was that that was so much the reason why I was not successful is because I was not focused and when you have too many things going on or too many businesses and women sometimes think they're you know they're so great because they can multitask well well truthfully we're not because it just leads to mediocrity um and I realized sitting in that chair that if I wanted to elevate myself I needed to focus on just one of the businesses and that was another huge thing that I shifted and decided to do and I did I let go of one of them and I decided to go all in on one and to focus to know I can do it to try to do it even if I couldn't do it at least to to be honest with myself that I wanted this and I wanted to make more money and I wanted to be more independent and to go

Speaker 2: for it and I did I think a lot of women particularly female entrepreneurs can relate to what you just said because sitting in the nursery I created two businesses also I created a children's clothing box business and then I launched she built it at the same time and I thought these are going to feed my two passions and then I had twins babies that I was responsible for keeping alive and I thought I cannot do all of this I thought I have to let go of one and I actually never launched even though I built the whole business the back end everything I was ready to launch and I thought I'm not going to be present at all for anything in my life if I launch these two businesses so I think a lot of our listeners can relate but you're so right if you don't Focus I have a background in business development and I just wrote a blog post on this if you don't focus on Business Development and kind of go back to the basics and say what clients do I want how do I get them where are they living and even just starting with one just get one because that momentum will build on itself and I think it's the same to your point with money and finances once it starts to grow I'm sure for you that became pretty addicting in addition to doing what you're passionate about well because money enables you to do what you're passionate about money is neutral and it's not not good or it's not bad it just is basically and it's here for us to use it's like you know there's abundance in the world there's the abundance of sunshine and water and there's an abundance of difficult situations and there's an abundance of money and it's it's all available to us and I just think for us women we have so many wrong beliefs about saying we're a money person or that we want money or that we want more money to to do whatever I rather say so you could buy your Dreamhouse so you could leave your horrible relationship let's stop with the how we're supposed to use money let's get rid of this this is why we are not growing enough and I I want to just throw in a statistic for women entrepreneurs that there are only 10% of women entrepreneurs that do more than $100,000 a year in Revenue that means that 90% of women entrepreneurs do less than $100,000 a year in revenue and we need

Speaker 1: to change this you're so right it can be a limiting belief when you think there is abundance when it comes to money that changes your thinking instead of thinking that money is scarce yeah what gave you the courage to launch and build back from Bali and can you tell us about that and what led you to the business

Speaker 2: yeah what led me to the business is I didn't want to get a job I in my early 30s um I had something happen where my my apartment was robbed and I all of a sudden got insurance money and so I decided to do something I always wanted to do which was to travel and I wanted to travel to Indonesia I always saw those islands on the map and I thought I want to go there and so I went to Indonesia and I loved it and I I just had the best time it's such a freeing and and a beautiful country Beautiful People amazing culture but I had to go back I was living in New York City at the time I had been doing PR public relations in corporate and I needed to go back to New York and get a job and I just I so didn't want to get a job and there was not one job I wanted and I had a light bulb moment literally and I just thought wow I remember seeing all this beautiful clothing in Bali um in particular children's clothing colorful and vibrant and and and hand crapped because it was bati which is uh the craft they use in Bali to make fabric and I just had this thought I wonder what would happen if I went back to Bali and I bought clothing and I brought it back back to the US and I took out a calculator tick tick tick tick tick how much it would cost me to fly there um and I knew there was all these street fairs in New York City and I thought okay I bet I can sell it one of these street fairs and tick tick tick tick and I just felt like there's just no way I could lose money unless everything was stolen or something on the way back and I did it I literally did it within a week I jumped on a plane I went back to Indonesia to Bali I hit the streets I bought clothes I brought it back to New York City and that is how I launched a business and that was you know quite a long time ago where I was selling at street fairs and it's gone through many different businesses and and even product lines so I've had this business for a long time I I did markets I I then wholesaled but it wasn't really until uh getting online and it wasn't until about eight years ago when I really had that pivotal

Speaker 1: moment that I was talking about that I decided to change everything and I changed the product line at that time I changed my mindset I changed my actions and I changed my business and at that time I had just gotten on Amazon maybe within a year or two this is maybe 2008 9 10 something like that early Amazon and I was doing about 50,000 a year in sales on Amazon which I was really excited about and thought was pretty damn good but then I had that moment where I I experienced that I told you about and from then my my business just grew and grew and grew and I happily can say I'm now at the multiple seven

Speaker 2: figures in my business good for you and that's why I decided to also write a book is because I started to think how do you do this which is why your podcast is so great how do you build it and I didn't have a business degree I didn't go to school for it I'm not a fashion designer I'm not even a by the way I sell women's clothing I don't even know how to sew all right so all of these ideas you have you have to go to Fashion school you have to go to business school you have to the limitations the limitations so wanting it is really the first thing and knowing what it is that you want so I started to think about how does one do this really and that is how I came up with my book my book is called money and freedom seven keys to Seven figures for women entrepreneurs and I go through the steps the house steps which are really so many of them is is mindset and when what comes from the inside as well as action and you can completely tell by talking to Chi that you have done that work because the determination it takes to build what you have built you found your passion and you stayed determined to make it into what it is today you spoke about your pivots you know we have to accept that okay maybe the business isn't going to look as it grows exactly as we think it's going to look or want it to look but that's part of growth and being okay with those pivots and changes

Speaker 1: along the way such a good point and I want to add to that because I think a lot of um women Entre preneurs who maybe see other women entrepreneurs as successful want to remind everyone that it's definitely not a straight path and it's not an easy path and part of the success that I've had part of it has simply been perseverance it has simply been not quitting and staying and I can't tell you how many setbacks I've had and failures I've had and problems I've had in my business but it's the persevering that over time and the baby steps and all of that stuff that brings you to the right direction and sometimes it's a whole different direction but it's some direction yeah and it's finding that Joy too Joy is in the journey to all of your points like we have this idea of where the destination should be right but it's finding Joy along the way in those moments and if you're doing something you're passionate about or if you're making money because like you said that affords you to do those things it just becomes kind of more and more addicting to do what

Speaker 2: brings you Joy so true I think it's also

Speaker 1: important to know that sometimes it's just sucky too yeah oh yeah and the sucky Parts also have its value because the sucky Parts also can help you change directions or hire an assistant or do something different it's 5050 and you you have the joy and you also sometimes

Speaker 2: don't right yes a lot of times don't I

Speaker 1: think if you know if you're doing what brings you Joy it makes those difficult

Speaker 2: days a little easier because we've all been in those like you mentioned not wanting to go get a job we've all been in those jobs that we really didn't want to do yeah exactly what is one thing that female Business Leaders can do right now to increase their net oh

Speaker 1: that's a great question and there's one answer which is Know Thy numbers so we need to get real intimate with our the inside of us with our spirituality with who we are with what we want and with our numbers your numbers speak okay your your business speaks and the only way to know what it's saying is to know those numbers and I highly recommend a bookkeeping system such as zero I use something called zerox e r o and so it's online so I can and every day I can go and I could look how my business is like how my revenue is my expenses what the what the net profit is of of that particular month so it's really getting intimate with those numbers and knowing the numbers and that is so incredibly important and one mistake I made such a long time ago when I was in the early stages of my business and I was working with my coach my consultant who by the way I still work with to this day the same one she said to me do I pay myself so I said well sure of course I pay myself kind of I said you know I pay for like plane tickets when it comes and I pay for vacations and she said no do you pay yourself and I said well am I supposed to and this is also so typical that women don't pay themselves and another tip I would like to give everybody is a fantastic system and and book that which I read called profit first it's written by Mike mallwitz and it's a system of paying yourself basically and making sure that you get paid first before anybody else so those are our great tips for increasing your net is really know your numbers and to make sure you are paying yourself no matter what it is even if your income is $500 a month you still pay yourself a certain percentage of that that's so smart because it's a

Speaker 2: mindset once you start paying yourself you want that to grow right and you can feel good about your accomplishments and what you're doing so true exactly

Speaker 1: because if you're work working all the time which is what a lot of women do and entrepreneurs do work work work and you're not making any money you're not paying yourself anything and you're just paying everybody else that just is going to just as you said just just destroy your mindset you want to make and this is a really good point you want to make yourself feel rich at all times you want to feel it and even if you don't have it in the moment you still want to experience feeling it and that's where our mindset our imagination our visioning our praying our journaling comes in because we can still feel really rich and abundant at any moment you say if you want to be successful in business there are times

Speaker 2: you need to stop doing business tell us

Speaker 1: about that absolutely I have been very dedicated to my own spirituality and my own what I call empty time and I have been going to a spiritual Retreat for 30 years in the last two years because of obvious situation have not but up until then have always done that and I've always gone for about six weeks at least sometimes even eight weeks because I believe that it is actually in the downtime in the empty time in the quiet time that we connect with what it is we really really really want and what we really really really yearn for and without connecting with that we're taking actions and making decisions based on what we think we should do or what we thought we wanted to do and and we're just on this treadmill all the time I actually believe that part of My Success has been because I've taken so much time to stop now with our our current situation and and everyone is home more we have to take this time in any way we can early in the morning or late at night or go for a walk by yourself or Journal meditation there's so many ways to do this but getting in touch with one's emptiness to connect to our higher self the wisdom from inside of ourselves into our intuition is the fuel it's the there is no satisfaction in this world without it we cannot function without it it's just as important as breathing in food having that inner connection with something higher than ourselves you are

Speaker 2: so right my mother taught kindergarten for 29 years and I learned from her she would take one day on the weekend and do nothing no housework no lesson plans for the week no work she would just let her mind just go and I found that I do that now on the weekends I try to put my phone away I tell myself I'm not thinking about work I'm not going to organize our life today I'm just going to take that day and I I understand you're talking about taking it a step further right to really meditate and go go deep into what you want but also with homeschooling the Twins and the last year to your point like you mentioned going on walks by yourself I found the kids just started school the twins started second grade but my son hasn't been in school since kindergarten so he's been home and I found myself the first two days they were gone thinking oh I have to do this quickly I have to do this fast and then I thought no I don't I'm in the house by myself because we've all become so used to if we have family around us at all times not being alone and I'm finding now that I'm by myself that I am kind of sinking into those moments more and I'm realizing what a lack and I know I'm not alone I know so many listeners are probably

Speaker 1: thinking they had the same experience just how important to your point that alone time to really think and dive into ourselves is it's so important without having a connection to ourselves a deeper connection to God to Spirit to the Divine to our whatever you want to call intuition nature whatever it is the universe the universe we will continue to be unhappy because it's the only thing that will make us really happy um and so we have to carve out that time that empty time we like we have to otherwise it life is only partly lived truthfully so true magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy what is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy you have to work at it and what you need to do is know what those things are that bring you Joy and from simple things like my grandmother had beautiful tea set and saucer and cup and you know I use this to make really good green jasmine tea and just drinking that beautiful tea with the scent of the Jasmine out of my grandmother's cups that brings me joy brings me joy to to go into nature and and to hug a tree and to connect with a leaf and and and a flower and everything brings me joy sitting with my husband in the morning and having coffee and talking and dream building with him brings me joy connecting with myself and having those empty moments brings me joy so we need to do the things and that's why I said we have to work at it because if we waiting for joy to just arrive it isn't going to and we need kind of the discipline to bring joy into our lives

Speaker 2: so true and it's so beautiful that you gift yourself those moments such good advice yes we have to give this to ourselves lesie it's been so much fun talking to you can you please tell our listeners how and where they can find

Speaker 1: you oh I would love that so um the best way to find me is on my website which is lesli ker.com and do check out also I have a great free video and the video is called three things to do before 9:00 a.m. to reach seven figures and it really teaches about the interactions the outer actions we need to take in order to have the the successes that we want so do check that out and you could also find me on Instagram at Leslie Custer official and would love to connect with any of your listeners if you are new to Sheil it we'd love for you to join us we offer Community memberships masterminds Innovative virtual events and meaningful connections to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders please also check out our sheb built it shop curated products from women-owned businesses who put their heart and soul into their beautiful and Innovative products we offer sheb built it business Consulting and the shil tip blog thank you to

Speaker 2: everyone around the world who joined today thank you to my editor Rich stalino please download And subscribe wherever you get your podcast and until next time together let's let nothing stop us from experiencing the life that

Speaker 1: We crave

Speaker 2: [Music]