Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
What Do You Really Want? Reclaiming Desire & Freedom with Carrie Bradley |133
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What if the life you want is on the other side of a single question?
In this revealing and transformative episode of Manders Mindset, I sit down with author, speaker, and international mindset coach Carrie Bradley—a woman whose journey from people-pleasing and perfectionism to deep personal freedom is nothing short of powerful. We dive into how her divorce, financial uncertainty, and emotional burnout cracked open the deeper question: What do I actually want?
Carrie shares how that question became the foundation for a new life rooted in self-trust, desire, and aligned abundance. From overcoming postpartum depression to writing her first book (Dare to Desire), this conversation is packed with vulnerable wisdom on what it really takes to let go of who you think you’re “supposed” to be—and start becoming who you actually are.
Whether you're navigating change, questioning your direction, or finally ready to put yourself first, this episode offers inspiration and practical steps to start living in alignment with your desires.
🎙️ In this episode, listeners will learn:
🧠 How people-pleasing and perfectionism show up as survival strategies—and how to break free
💬 Why asking “What do I want?” is harder (and more life-changing) than it sounds
🧘♀️ How meditation, movement, and mindset work can transform anxiety into peace
💸 Why Carrie believes pleasure—not restriction—is the key to true financial freedom
📚 The real story behind her book Dare to Desire and how it blends self-help with storytelling
💡 What it looks like to build supportive relationships when you're starting over
💥 How shifting your energy can accelerate the results you want in life and business
🕒 Timeline Summary:
[1:09] – Carrie shares her core value: freedom in finances, emotions, and relationships
[4:56] – Growing up in a religious home, early people-pleasing, and starting investing at 17
[6:29] – Realizing she didn’t know what she truly wanted—and why that matters
[9:32] – Battling postpartum depression and the wake-up call that sparked change
[13:52] – Why meditation, running, and dance became healing tools for mind and body
[15:18] – Carrie redefines wealth through alignment, pleasure, and a mindset of trust
[20:01] – How one friend’s support changed everything during her divorce
[24:44] – Lessons from The Hobbit and walking through your own hero’s journey
[27:28] – Behind her book Dare to Desire and the woman who inspired its creation
[36:17] – Practical steps for women who want more freedom in life and business
[39:08] – Why abundance is more about energy than hustle—and how to tap into it
🎧 If this episode moved you, please take a moment to rate and review the show—it helps more people find these honest conversations. And if someone you know needs to hear this message? Send it their way. We all deserve to ask for more.
To Connect with Amanda:
Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
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👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, Amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Amanda's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life.
Speaker 3:As always, I'm your host, Amanda Russo, and I am here today with Keri Bradley, and I am so excited to speak with her. Keri is an author, national speaker and an international mindset and strategy coach who focuses her work on empowering women with money, and she started her investing career at the age of 17. And I am so excited to delve down. Much for having me. Amanda Pleasure to be here. So that's an awesome bio. But who would you say? Carrie is at the core.
Speaker 4:Present day Carrie gosh, I would say Carrie is somebody who is so passionate about the idea of freedom. That includes financial freedom, emotional freedom. That includes financial freedom, emotional freedom, relationship freedom, every area. I believe this is our birthright as human beings, and so being able to think about how to have agency and choice in our life is so empowering. It's something that I'm cultivating in my life and also guiding my clients to achieve higher levels of. If that's the simple answer, I would boil it down to that this is being my core value.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Have you always really believed in the power of choices and agency?
Speaker 4:No, actually no. It wasn't until I got into mindset work where I started to realize how much agency I actually had in my life. And in fact, you know, I grew up in a family, in a religious context that really didn't promote a lot of critical thinking, even as a woman. It was very, not really encouraged to be a powerful woman. It was more just kind of follow the rules, do what you're told, follow the societal script, and so yeah, once I came to that realization that I actually can affect so much change in my life through the power of my mind, it changed everything for me.
Speaker 3:Wow, so you mentioned no critical thinking and a little bit of a religious background. Can you take us down memory lane? Tell us about your childhood family dynamic, however deep you want to take that?
Speaker 4:Absolutely so. Yeah, I grew up in a very what I would call a loving family. I am one of three girls. I'm the middle child. We grew up in a Catholic belief system, and so what that meant is the messages that I received were along the lines of put yourself last, deny yourself, don't be selfish. And I took that very seriously, to the point where I became I would call it a chronic people pleaser, and that's how I got my needs met as a child. That's how I got my needs met as a child. I was a strong achiever, wanted to get all A's, to please my dad and to do the right thing. But also what that meant is that I was really dismissing my own desires like who, what do I want for my life? I was really listening to what my religious upbringing taught me and what everybody else wanted of me, but I wasn't asking that of self, and so you know it wasn't, I would say, like a very traumatic upbringing by any means. But also there were a lot of unmet needs that were going under the radar, and so that brings me to you know, you and I were just talking about how I was able to start my investing career at the age of 17. And thankfully this was due to my dad, like he was very financially savvy and he didn't give me an extensive training on it, but he did teach me how to open up a Roth IRA when I was pretty young, and so, because of my age, I've had the ability to benefit from compounding interest all these years, so I'm very thankful to my dad for that.
Speaker 4:I ended up getting married at a pretty young age, which was very customary in my rural I grew up in the country so it was everybody gets married quite young.
Speaker 4:You have babies, you do the family thing, the woman stays home with the kids and so I started doing that. I was, I think, 24, got married pretty quickly, had a couple of children and did the stay at home mom thing for quite some time, until 2020. That's when my partner at the time and I decided to part ways, and it was a very challenging, difficult year for me and also liberating, because I started to ask myself the question like well, what do I want for my life? I spent so much time taking care of everybody else pleasing dad, pleasing teachers, supporting my ex in his business until it was a wild success taking care of my children and then I just got to this point where I started asking, like what actually do I want? And that's what changed everything for me and led to the separation and ultimate divorce from my partner. So that's kind of like the backstory of what has catalyzed me to live this new life now of independence and so much freedom.
Speaker 3:So I want to backtrack a tad Now. You mentioned how you were kind of like a chronic people-breathe, though when did you start to notice that?
Speaker 4:Honestly, it wasn't until my late 30s this was around 37 or 38. I started reading a lot of books and started meditating as a part of my morning practice and that's helped me to become more aware, more aware of my thoughts, more aware of my feelings and more aware of, like these deeper questions that started to kind of bubble beneath the surface around what my desires. And so, through that process and then reading books you know self-help books to help me become aware of this pattern that's the otherwise. It was just largely unconscious, like I was just operating. This is what I was supposed to do in order to be acceptable. Right Is to please everyone. And so now I've been on this journey of just completely rewriting that pattern and becoming way more assertive and direct and clear and honest, and that process has been very, very liberating, to kind of let go of that coping strategy.
Speaker 3:Now these self-help books and meditating. When did you get into all of that?
Speaker 4:Well, I've always been an avid reader, so the self-help journey started when I was pretty young, like a late teenager. The first book that started to change my life then was it's called the Road Less Traveled. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's a pretty popular book. I've read it. Yeah, scott Peck is the author and that started to help me think about taking more responsibility for my life and thinking about you know how do I want to start intentionally living it. Even though I wasn't actively pursuing it, it's got my mind thinking about it.
Speaker 4:So the meditation, though that didn't really start until my late 30s, I remember. I can't try to remember how I got into it, but I just started with five minutes a day. Maybe. I thought it was like gonna help my mental state, because I did go through in and out of periods of anxiety, occasionally depression, and so I incorporated this and it was very difficult to begin with. I said five minutes a day, and then we'll see. And so after I got into the practice of it, those five minutes stretched to 10, to 15, to 20, and now it is just a non-negotiable part of my everyday life because I feel in that time most myself. But it took that transition and that willingness to really engage it in order to kind of deepen into it. So yeah, that's kind of how it's been a part of the journey.
Speaker 3:And you said it was your late 30s that you started meditating. Yeah, so how did you handle or manage the anxiety before?
Speaker 4:Well, not very well I actually. This brings me back to a time period when both of my children when I gave birth to them, I went through challenging postpartum depression, and I'm now reflecting on it. I think it's because I didn't really have the support that I needed to transition well into motherhood. There really was nobody to offer some wisdom or guidance and it was very overwhelming, and so that sparked anxiety, depression. At one point I even was admitted to the psych ward for a couple of days because I just couldn't cope with the overwhelm of it.
Speaker 4:And I'll never forget what the psychiatrist told me after that, which really catalyzed me to like not ever have to deal with anxiety again. He said to me you know you're going to be dealing with this for the rest of your life. I just want you to know that. And I was so mad when he said that because I thought who are you to predict how the rest of my life is going to turn out? So how about I'm going to show you that that's not going to be true?
Speaker 4:And so that really sparked me onto more self-help you know that exploration trying to understand mental and emotional health more, because I realized there's such a stigma around it, which is now changing quite a bit, but at the time it was almost like a shameful thing to admit that you are struggling with these things, and so having had that personal experience with it is something now that I absolutely love guiding people through. Once you have the tools and the awareness to know how to deal with anxiety, it frees you in so many ways. So I didn't manage well then, but now I feel like I've got all the tools that I need and I can't say that I really feel anxious anymore at all. It's just a thing of the past, which is so wonderful to say.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. Approximately how long ago was that?
Speaker 4:So that would be. Let's see, my youngest son just turned 12. So about 12 to 13 years ago, and really I think I can accredit so much of the emotional freedom that I have to the mindset work that I have really intentionally done over the past four or five years and and understanding, like our inner psyche and our emotional world and how to manage that and how to use that in your favor, how to regulate Learning all of that has created such a state of stability and peace that you know at this point I don't ever see that becoming an issue. There's just so much acceptance around life and who I am Like. I said something I love empowering people, especially women, with, because how many, how many depressed and anxious people are in our world and it's just. I don't think it needs to be that way.
Speaker 3:I completely agree. Now, did you discover or start meditating before or after you're working with a psychiatrist?
Speaker 4:It was very much medicine-based support, which I'm not against, but I think there are limitations around that. So this would have been probably five or six years after that experience that I started to factor in more Eastern practices like meditation, a little bit of yoga, occasional like breath work, things that really connect you to your body so that you facilitate that wholeness again, if that makes sense, right? Because I think we're all. So much of us are stuck in our heads like spinning our wheels and we don't even know what we're feeling and experiencing in our bodies. And that's where I found Eastern practices to be so helpful.
Speaker 3:Now did you start yoga around the same time you were meditating also?
Speaker 4:Yes, and just a caveat, I'm not an expert in yoga. I do it occasionally and I find it to be really helpful to like recenter me and feel at home in my body. Mostly my movement is either in long distance running or dancing, both they're all different, they all serve different purposes. But any kind of movement I was just telling a client today when you are feeling like you're stuck up in your head and you just can't get out of the loops or you're trying to overanalyze things or problem solve things or perfectionism, if you do something to get into your body, if it's running or yoga or dance or anything that helps to quiet the mind and you can feel that groundedness again. So now I recognize the value of that and it's a part of my everyday routine.
Speaker 3:That's so true. I agree with what you mentioned, though the pharmaceuticals I don't think are enough. I think they have their time and their place, but I think there's a lot of stuff they don't do, like tapping in energetically how is that emotionally, I don't know necessarily changing the same thing that meditating is, you know. So I think that's amazing that you found that. And now you mentioned mindset work. What type of mindset work?
Speaker 4:Well. So I took a deep dive into this with a coach that I hired a few years back, and at the time I didn't really know what fully that meant. But having gone through the experience, like what it did for me, and I'll break this down in a practical sense so I talk a lot about a scarce mindset versus an abundant one, and a scarcity mindset is generally motivated by fear or by guilt, and it looks like I'm trying to control certain things that I just can't feel a sense of control around. And an abundant mindset is more of like trust. I trust in life, I believe that good things are coming, I feel appreciation, gratitude, so those are the two things to toggle back and forth between. And so, for me, what I realized we'll just use finances as an example when I separated from my ex, it put me in a position where you know he was the breadwinner and all of a sudden I am a single mom. I have no idea where my next paycheck is going to come from, and I had just launched my business, so it was just kind of new. There wasn't like predictability to it, and so what that meant is I felt very insecure about my finances. All of our assets were up in question. There was just no stability anymore and I felt some anxiety creeping in.
Speaker 4:And so the mindset work that I did as an example is when I noticed the anxiety coming in, like oh my gosh, what am I going to do? How am I going to figure this out? Where's the money going to come from? I became aware of it, and then I consciously chose not to fixate on it. I said to myself okay, I see this, but I'm going to choose to trust instead. I'm going to choose this other thing of abundance. I'm going to choose to see what is working well versus what's lacking. And doing that over and over again literally trained my mind to not allow fear to come into my experience, to interfere with the, the process of like I want to be free. It's not interfering with that anymore, because now I'm trusting instead.
Speaker 4:And the crazy thing is this is what I tell people when I give talks is that once I did that work, the manifestations of everything I wanted started occurring on the outside. So I hit my first six-figure year of income, which was like so far faster than I thought it was going to be. It was less than four years after my divorce, no-transcript. And so all of this manifested because of the mindset work that I did, and this is why I see it being so powerful.
Speaker 4:It's like you do the inner work first and then you see the outer like reflect everything that you've done inside. We think we start with the outside and you can get things done that way. You can do strategy and you can invest in the stock market and that's going to give you a return. But if you actually do the inner work, that's where people talk about you know jumping timelines and quantum leaps and that kind of thing. That's where you're using energy in a much more efficient way to get the outcomes that you want so much faster than you could conceive possible. So I know I just said a lot that was decreased, no worries.
Speaker 3:So you started changing like how you saw things. Simply put, was there anything that helped you, especially while going through divorce, having to go to court? I was a family law paralegal for about four years and divorce is nasty, it's really nasty. So is there anything that helped you, especially going through this awful experience at the same time, to really shift the inside of what you were thinking?
Speaker 4:I love that question and the two things that are coming to my mind are yes, I was able to create a very supportive network of people after I kind of pruned out all the people in my old life that really weren't very supportive to me. They were nice people, but they didn't support me. So once I made that break, I lost all of my friends. I was even estranged from my family and I had one person who had my back, and so receiving that support changed everything for me, and then I started to understand oh, this is what supportive relationships actually feel like. So then I started welcoming more of those people into my life and I created it's kind of like a safety net, I guess, in a way, when you know you have enough people who have your back, then you can take bigger risks without fear, right? So it was the relationships that I was able to cultivate.
Speaker 4:But another thing that I did that is one of my signature talks to kind of like deal with the anxiety I was experiencing around money is my tendency was to feel guilty or restrict a lot when it came to money because I was afraid Like well what? I can't let any of this go. I can't spend it on myself. I need to like amass this so that I feel safe. I need to like amass this so that I feel safe. But that was so counterproductive at a certain point because it's almost like a hoarding mentality if you think about it.
Speaker 4:And so one of the things I did is I said you know what, I'm going to put the spreadsheets aside and I'm just going to go have fun. I'm going to put what I call pleasure into my portfolio. I'm going to spend money on some things for frivolous reasons only because they feel good and not because they're practical, not because I should or like it's going to help me at some future date I mean, I do advocate for this but, like being able to enjoy my money, it changed my whole nervous system about it to where now I was able to relax and be a little more free with it. So that was another thing that I did that was very powerful. That supported me is just allowing myself to feel good through my money. Or you know money, or you know even experiences I allowed myself to have just because I wanted to, which sounds, you know, selfish or indulgent, but when you're coming from a background that's very restrictive, it can be so liberating and empowering to allow yourself to do that.
Speaker 3:That makes a lot of sense and the supportive network, especially as you were. This relationship was unraveling. It was something that this community, basically you, benefited from, so you were launching your own business right at the start of when you were going through the divorce.
Speaker 4:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3:So what was the biggest thing that helped you push through and keep going?
Speaker 4:And then I had these couple of friends who would remind me like no, you need to know, I don't know if I could have done it. And this is where I tell people if, even if it's just one person that you have in your life, you know, I meet a lot of women who are stuck in toxic relationships or situations, toxic work situations, and they're terrified to leave or they're afraid of what they're going to lose. But I tell them, if you have one person who's going to have your back, you can do it, and it will be so worth it when you do. And it is scary, right, because you're leaving everything that you've known, maybe, but also on the other side is so much more for you, so much freedom. So I think I would really give a lot of credit to that one friend who showed up for me in a big way.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, that, like having somebody for the emotional support, the physical support to lean on, especially in times of transition, you know things are changing.
Speaker 4:having something, some similarity, you know that you're used to are when you start to doubt or when you have those concerns like I just need to go back. This is too hard. I don't know, have you ever seen the movie or read the book the Hobbit? It's the prequel to the Lord of the Rings series and it I just like remember referencing it all the time because the it's a great story of you know this hob. He gets invited onto this big adventure and he resists it all along the way. He's like no, I don't want to do this. But then he kind of gets caught up in it and then all of a sudden there's like a new challenge and he's meeting these people along the way. But every single time he comes to this new thing he says I just want to go back to my hobbit hole, like I just want to go home, I want to be done with this. But also you're like so far in that you just have to keep going Right. And then by the end of the story he's like realized what he's truly capable of and he's so strong and courageous and he's got this sword. And now he gets to go back home and like tell everybody about what he's learned. And I just remember thinking of that so often, when I felt the discomfort of the change, it's like I can keep going, like there's something ahead for me.
Speaker 4:There's a term called the hero's journey that people reference. Joseph Campbell came up with it and it's used in every great book and movie where you set out in the unknown. You're going to have to slay some dragons, you're going to have to overcome some fears, you're going to meet a guide along the way who's going to help you and then you're going to come back at the end and be able to bring what you've learned back to the community. And this has been true in my life. I see it every day in my clients' lives and it's so important to have that one person to help, to carry you along until you get to the promised land on the other side of that scary change that you're making. So it's kind of like you're like a midwife in a way. You know it's just to help birth the baby. No, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3:I want to. I want to transition to Chad. You wrote your first book recently Dare to Desire, can you? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. Have you always known or wanted to write a book? I'm also curious about that.
Speaker 4:No, which is so funny. People ask me that, like I never really set out to be an author. You know, what happened was, as I was going through this transition in my life, this friend of mine said you need to be writing this down. Like you're living a pretty incredible story of change, so capture that. So I did, I started journaling a lot and then at a certain point, another friend encouraged me to turn it into an e-book and I said, okay, I love a good challenge, so I turned it into an e-book and then it just kind of got tucked away for a couple of years. A business mentor and he at one point he's like you really should write a book. It's gonna be great for you you've got so much to share with people and it'll be great too, like, just for people and your, the clients you serve as a resource. And I was like, well, I guess I'll do that. So then I took that ebook that I started and I just turned it into a full a full book and what it is.
Speaker 4:It's called Dare to Desire. It's a woman's journey from fear to freedom and, yes, it's based on my story, but I also integrate concepts from my clients' stories, all while protecting their privacy. And it's all embodied in this character named Kelly. So you're following her journey and her story of what she had to leave and let go of in order to actualize the freedom that she wanted in her life. And she started that by asking the question what do I desire? What do I want for me? So that is the catalyst that can really carry you into a radical transformation if you choose to listen to it and allow yourself permission to go after what it is that you want.
Speaker 4:So it's a blend of sort of like this fictional character with some practical self-help stuff at the end of each chapter that goes along with what she's experiencing. So there's content in there around like setting healthy boundaries and self-care, and there's a little bit about financial freedom, integrity. So I felt like, is this going to work? You know, because I'm blending both sort of fiction and self-help together, but the feedback I've gotten so far is that it works great and people have really enjoyed it. So it's really for me it's an offering to inspire people to think bigger about their lives and to show them what's possible when you do courageously start allowing yourself to have desires and then to act on them. So that's kind of the premise of it and, yeah, it's been one of those mountaintop experiences, but I never thought I'd be an author. So here we are.
Speaker 3:Wow, and now what was the timeframe? If you know from like you were journaling to, you did this for an ebook and then you vote the official book. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So it's from like that very first journal entry to the date of publish. That would be probably four years. The actual book writing itself took, I would say, one to two years. And this is another thing I like to share with people is that there's so much power in doing something consistently in a small amount every day. Because people ask me all the time like, how did you, how did you do this?
Speaker 4:You know you're a single mom, you got your own business, how did you find time to write a book? And all I did was carve out 20 to 30 minutes a day. It was the first thing I did. So I protected that time, I had it just for myself and I would just kind of like do a little bit every day. And then all of a sudden I got to this point where I'm like, wow, I think it's a book, you know. And so just to really never underestimate, if you do one small thing consistently over a period of time, then all of a sudden it turns into something very significant. So I love sharing that as an encouragement to people who think they want to do something big but they're like it's overwhelming or how would I ever do that? Just break it down into tiny steps.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I love that, and you did a little bit every day when you were writing.
Speaker 4:Yep, every day I just I literally would just set a timer. I didn't even really know what I was going to do, but I just like set the timer and just write, and then you know, then it started a process of getting feedback and beta readers and all of that. But the writing itself, it's like just do it, the Nike slogan, just do it, stop thinking about it and just write. And then you never know what's going to come out of that kind of commitment and that devotion that you have to yourself and what it is that you want to create.
Speaker 3:That's so true. You know I love how you mentioned your book. It came with asking like what do you desire? I think so many people don't realize or actually know what they actually desire. You know, we don't ask ourselves that usually. Even something as basic as what do you want, what do you want to do, Whatever it is, we aren't really introspecting ourselves.
Speaker 3:Actually, when I went and got certified in Black Work, we did this modality and at the time I was like I don't want to do this and I really understand now why. But we partnered up in groups and we would just go back and forth and we would ask the other, like looking in the other person's eyes, what do you want? And as you kept asking it, the answers got deeper, we got more reflection and it was powerful, Like people were crying, Like you started to really uncover what you actually wanted. And at first you might be like I don't know and he's like no, we're not saying I don't know, Give an answer. It doesn't matter what do you want, and sometimes it was random, stupid things. But it really honed in on what do you actually desire? What do you want?
Speaker 4:Even desire. What do you want, even out of light, you know? Yes, oh, I love that you're saying this because it's true. There's so many people, especially women, because we've been taught to not think of ourselves and it's almost like I remember going through this myself like, oh my God, I have no idea. But that's okay to not know. Just ask the question and maybe have somebody to help bring out the answers from within you, because they're in there, they're just like suppressed right.
Speaker 4:It takes a lot of courage to really allow yourself to sit with the not knowing for a minute and to just explore and discover more of who you are. That's what it is Like when you bring the answers. These are clues about who you are as a person, and then you start to live authentically. When you act on those clues and living as an authentic person, there's nothing better. It's like you're not pretending to be somebody else, you're not making decisions based on what other people think you should do. You're basing it off of you and what you want. So I love that you're saying that, because it's a clarifying process to really sit with all of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it does take time and you're completely right, it's normal if at first, especially as women, we don't know, because we have that people pleasing mentality, even if women don't consider themselves a people pleaser, I feel like all of us women have a little bit of it, just from society. Honestly, you know, like we're going to take care of the kids, we're going gonna take care of the kids, we're gonna take care of the husband, like, even if you're not married and don't have kids, like you're taking care of somebody and like it's just that, that kind of how society is absolutely, it's completely true that and like even perfectionism, I think, is another one.
Speaker 4:it's like let me look perfect, let me be perfect, and I you know all of the years of studying psychology. Now I see both of those things. They're just coping strategies to feel acceptable but, like, at a certain point it compromises your own integrity because you're not living true to yourself, you're living according to someone else. So, yeah, it's a very much like deconstructing the way that you operate and the way that you think about yourself and putting yourself higher on the list, which a lot of women feel very uncomfortable with, but it's so important if you want to be free.
Speaker 3:So what do you have suggestions for women, like the first step they can take to start being, or feeling more free in their life?
Speaker 4:Hmm, well, I mean, I guess it depends on where they're out on their journey. But this sort of step one of asking yourself, like what do I want? And sitting at the time and she was just kind of holding space for me and, like you know, helping me to think about what I'd like to do, and, oh gosh, it was just like it was kind of scary and I had to grieve some things, but then all of a sudden, like these clues started coming up and somebody's like, well, maybe you would like to try coaching. And then all of a sudden, like things just started lining up Right, but I had to really sit in that space of not knowing for a little bit before I could get to that clarity. So I think step one is sitting with that Like what do I want? And then, you know, get building what I call relational capital.
Speaker 4:If you're going to make any kind of change in your life, if you're going to pivot in your career or your life's work or change, you know, maybe get divorced or some kind of change that I would say, have that strong support system. If it's your friendships, or maybe you get a therapist or people that are going to be there for you to support you as you're moving forward, is going to help you to feel more free. And then you know, self-care all forms of self-care, like exercise, reading maybe it's meditation healthy food all of those simple practices that anybody can do at any point is going to build the foundation for you to be able to take more risks in your life to. You know, maybe not get into these behaviors of people pleasing, because now you're loving yourself, right, you're not pleasing to get love from other people. You're taking ownership of that and you're cultivating it within yourself.
Speaker 4:So I see that as being a really powerful thing that can help you to shift out of like deferring to everyone else. But it just shows up in so many like sneaky ways. I mean, even still I've done enormous work on myself and I can still see how that like dynamic wants to show up in my relationships. Then I forget myself. I'm like no way, I gotta come back. So it's a process, but I think those are some things that any woman can probably do at any point in their life.
Speaker 3:To start, feeling more of that freedom that makes a lot of sense. Do you have suggestions for people to approach wealth in a new way and not necessarily like this hustle grind culture that we have so much of?
Speaker 4:Yes, I do, and it's my approach to money and finance is not very conventional. I actually call it the pleasure based wealth approach or process, because approach or process because you know the messages that we are taught is you got to hustle, you got to grind, you got to save up for someday being retired. And my approach is like well, how about we design a life that you never want to retire from? And we do that by aligning to your values, aligning your spending to the things that you value, cutting out everything else, adding pleasure in. So, teaching people how you know, especially women, if they struggle with guilt, like, oh, I should be spending my money on the kids instead of me. Well, no, there's a way to balance that and you can spend on yourself without feeling guilt and really cultivating more pleasure in their lives. That, along with the mindset work as well.
Speaker 4:All of this, yes, is not conventional, it's not in line with our patriarchal society at all, but it nets you faster results. Yes, you want to add some strategy in there, of course, like you can do some stock market stuff or real estate, whatever. Those are the vehicles, but when you really work on you know, dealing with your fears and adding pleasure into your life and then applying that into your financial decisions. It is such a game changer that not just speeds up your path of financial freedom, but you feel good as you're doing it. You're not restricting yourself.
Speaker 4:So I spend a lot of time speaking about not needing to hustle, learning to trust, learning to open up to life, being able to see abundance all around you. And when you see it, all of a sudden you're noticing opportunities coming your way. You say yes to more things. Money starts to come in easier. It's all connected. So that's my philosophy and my approach. I'm not against the traditional way of doing it. I just think you take that and add this to it and it makes it feel better and gives you better outcomes as well.
Speaker 3:I love that. Of course, the strategy is important. You got to do something. But you know, if you're projecting fears onto whatever it is you're doing, I'm a strong believer you're only going to get so far with that. Even if you're not saying it out loud, if you're saying it in here, it's projected. I love how you mentioned even dealing with your fears whatever they are. We all have them. People might say like they don't, but we all do. You might not be aware of it, but we've all got a fear of something.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes and this is bringing up some other point that I want to make around I love thinking about energy, right? So energy makes up 95% of our universe. 5% is matter, according to physicists. And if you think about fear, it's we're all made up of energy, right? Our emotions are different types of energy.
Speaker 4:So fear and anxiety if you think about like, okay, I'm stressed about money or that's you're spinning in your head about what am I going to do? What am I going to do? It takes so much energy to maintain your life when you are thinking like that, right? But if you work to regulate yourself and you shift your mindset toward abundance, all of a sudden you're recapturing so much energy that was going towards surviving in a fear-based mindset and now you have so much energy to use to create whatever it is that you want. So there's like a in the world of physics, there's a huge recapture that takes place when you do the mind work. That then has that bigger exponential impact on your outcomes and your results, because now you're not wasting all of that energy anymore. So I think it's fascinating to think about it that way too and kind of like add it up in that way.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I didn't realize it was 95%, I knew it was a lot, but wow, no, it's true. Like energy is, is a big thing. You know, and I've learned that in a lot of different avenues of my life what we are subconsciously thinking, even if we don't say it to somebody, even if we don't realize it's in our heads, like these little fields, these little limiting beliefs, if you want to call them that, like if we don't start to shift them, like it's not going to work.
Speaker 4:Yes, and you're operating on this autopilot. So it's like you have to become aware what, what's actually happening up here, what are the stories, and it's helpful to have another person to really help you to see how that's manifesting in your life. So you've got to become aware of it first, but then, once you do, and then once you realize, oh, I have a choice in the matter, that's the rewards of it. You feel more joy, more satisfaction, more fulfillment when you kind of rewire it in that way. So it's very exciting and this you know there's a lot of people out there now studying the world of quantum physics and the mind-body connection and just how much potential there is within us to like create so much in our lives. We just don't know it. So first we got to talk about like, what does fear look like? How is that happening in your relationships or your money or whatever, and then you do the work to change that.
Speaker 3:I completely agree, I love that Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Love that, well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4:I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely, this has been such a fun conversation with you, so thank you.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 4:Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes, I have. Let's see, it's been a little bit since I've been in touch with his stuff, but he used to be a monk, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Tell me, and he's got a podcast called On Popus and he ends his podcast with two segments and I've stolen these two segments and I end my podcast with two segments. The first segment is the Many Sides to Us. There's five questions and they need to be answered in one word each. Ooh, okay, a fun challenge. What is one word? Someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as Hmm, enthusiastic, what is one word that?
Speaker 4:someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Empowered.
Speaker 3:What is one word you'd use to describe yourself Whole? What is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would use to describe you as Triggering? What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Aliveness. I like that Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered up to a sentence.
Speaker 4:What is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:That it's okay to want more for your life and for yourself. Why?
Speaker 4:is that the best? I think a lot of people question that and they doubt that it's okay. They wonder if they're going to be seen as selfish or what that will mean for them going to be seen as selfish or what that will mean for them, and I love to give people permission to not just want more but to go after it fully, and then they get to realize the joy that comes on the other side of that exploration.
Speaker 3:I love that. What is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 4:I guess I'm going back to that psychiatrist. I don't know if this would be the worst, because it actually catalyzed me but he said this is something you're going to have to deal with forever. And I did not like that one bit because I don't think anybody should get to decide what's right for somebody else or what's true about somebody else. We get to decide that. And so thankfully I was able to take that and use it as fuel, but I would call that really poor advice.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, though, that you were able to use that as fuel, you know, as like motivation to get you going. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 4:Gosh, these are fantastic questions, Fantastic questions. I used to value making people happy, and it's not that I don't care about that now, but I have found that making myself happy, making that the priority, is the thing that ultimately, I think, touches people on a deeper level that they get to receive from the joy that I cultivate within myself. So letting go of trying to make people feel a certain way and to just focus on how I feel has been something that has been very radically transformative.
Speaker 3:If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it what would you want it to say?
Speaker 4:I would want my legacy to be centered on this value of freedom, that I was able to live a life according to what mattered the most to me and creating that freedom in myself, so that I can then guide other people to experience more of that, whatever that looks like. You know, if it's inner freedom, financial freedom doesn't matter. But if one person came to me and said that they received that from the work that I've done or the life that I've lived, then I would be so content and satisfied.
Speaker 3:If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 4:One law oh gosh, this is a pretty tall request but that we would not harm each other, that we would have to become so aware of ourselves and our behaviors that we're not allowed to inflict any violence or any harm, and that we're required to choose peace in every situation, which I know is a big ask. But we're going to live in a dream world here. Why would that be the law? Would that be the love? Well, I think that that is the way that we will be able to live lives that are centered on peace and joy and happiness, connection and intimacy and all the things that I think everybody secretly wants to experience but doesn't know how to, and so I think, if we were not allowed to harm each other in any way, we would automatically experience all those amazing things we all want. I love that.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 4:Oh, thank you for this opportunity. It's been such an amazing conversation with you. You're such a great question asker, by the way, so thank you for bringing it.
Speaker 3:Of course, thank you so much and I will link your website in the show notes. But where is the best place outside of website for listeners to connect with you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so there's a couple other places. If you go on my website, you can find my book on Amazon. It's called Dare to Desire and you can find it by an Amazon search and that gives you more insight into my work. And then also I post daily on Instagram Content, tips, strategies, encouragement, inspiration, all kinds of stuff, and so if people want to get connected to that, it's at Carrie Bradley Coaching is my handle on Instagram and I would love to connect with anybody who wants to take the conversation further.
Speaker 3:Awesome and I will link that in the show notes and I do just like to give it back to the guest. Any final words of wisdom you have for the listeners.
Speaker 4:Well, I'll say here what I say to my clients and people over and over every single day, which is you can trust yourself, you can really trust yourself, you can trust your desires, you can trust your decisions, and that is really how you take your power back.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you, amanda, it's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Of course, and thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Mando's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks, guys, until next time.
