In this raw and revealing episode, Kristen Boss begins a powerful three-part series chronicling the rise, fall, and healing that reshaped everything she thought she knew about success. This first installment focuses on the grind—how she built a thriving, multi-seven-figure business from scratch—and the glory—what it felt like to be on top of the mountain.
But beneath the surface of her seemingly unstoppable growth, Kristen candidly shares how deep-rooted scarcity, people-pleasing, and identity wounds quietly shaped her relationship with business. Listeners are invited into the hidden side of success: panic attacks, over-identification with validation, and the psychological fallout of rapid growth.
Whether you’re building something new or wondering what happens after you “make it,” this episode offers a cautionary tale with depth, compassion, and honesty.
“A half-told story only allows for half the transformation.” – Kristen Boss
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Transcript for episode 230 “Part 1: Grind and Glory- The Early Phases of an Empire”
00:03):
You are listening to the Kristen Boss Podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a bestselling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning. Hey friends. Welcome back to another episode I used to start these episodes with like, Hey bosses, welcome back. Nah, with what I’m about to be telling you guys and the journey we’re about to go on, I have a feeling we’re going to be developing some friendships and some of you, when we’ve connected offline, you’ve been like, I feel like you’re my friend.
(01:16):
And you know what? That’s the best compliment. So again, I just want to do a shout out for everybody that left a review after my comeback episode one. Thank you. Some of you also sent me private messages. Those don’t go into Neverland. They actually, I read them. I take the time to respond to them. So I want to sincerely thank you. Some of you sent me the kindest, most heartfelt messages that made me teary eyed, and thank you, thank you. I felt seen and it was very sweet. So thank you. And again, thank you for your reviews. That means a lot. And man, I would say I’m excited about the next few episodes, but I would say I’m slightly terrified because I’m about to invite you into the story that I was holding close to my heart. I also want to say if last episode sounded a little choppy to you, that is because I used AI to edit the episode, to take out the pauses because we are a lean startup machine right now, so I don’t have a podcast producer.
(02:16):
It’s all being done, which is hilarious being I feel like Regina George and Mean Girls where she shows up at sweatpants and Regina, you’re wearing sweatpants today and she’s like, it’s all that fits me right now, guys. So me bootstrapping and doing it myself, it’s all that fits me right now, guys, at this season in entrepreneurship. So I guess I’m inviting you to the behind the scenes of the, well, it’s interesting because I’ve titled this episode The Grind and the Glory, and right now I’m in the gritty and gruesome to put it clearly, but I’m going to be sharing my story in it might be three parts. I am pretty sure it’s going to be three parts. We’ll find out as we go, and I kind of want to invite you into the fuller picture of the pivot, the new build. I’ve been talking about being in a healing season, but I am not sure there’s a lot of context to that.
(03:16):
I’ve shared some and I think I had to get to a place where I was ready to share the story. And so I would say this part is the easier part of the story. I’m going to invite you into parts, but it’s going to lay the groundwork or the foundation for why the second part specifically will make sense and why it went the way it did. So stay with me. Let’s do this. And my hope is, is that even if you’re not a business owner, maybe you’re not scaling anything, but we all are humans trying to figure out this really messy thing called life, and we all face pressure and stress in different scenarios. And I just want to honor you where you are. And maybe you’re in a hard season, maybe you’re in a gritty and gruesome season. Maybe you’re in a really great season, maybe you’re in the glory season and I’m actually really delighted for you.
(04:16):
If you’ve been in a season of grit and you’re finally tasting glory, I’m truly delighted for you because man, how can we know the sweetness of the mountaintops without the despair of the valleys Contrast is what makes our human emotion painful and beautiful at the same time, how can we know the heights of joy if we don’t know the depths of sorrow? And so I also think I of this quote or saying or passage, however you want to say it, it’s called deferred hope makes the heart sick. And it’s when our hope keeps getting deferred into the future or maybe or in a waiting phase. And man, I know that heart sickness and maybe you are in that with me. And so it is a humbling place to be. It is a place where we seem to be stripped of self-reliance. I don’t know about you, but I see myself as a very high capacity person.
(05:16):
I can solve my way out of any problem and to not be able to solve every problem I touch is quite humbling. And it strips me of this sense of I can control my universe, which I think is true for entrepreneurs. I think entrepreneurs, specifically ones that can scale and grow large businesses, I sometimes think we can develop a false sense of reality and a false sense of self because for a number of years, I can tell you in this kind of attributes to the glory, the glory phase of business is I felt like anything that came my way, I could strategize, fix, solve. And in many ways I could strategize my way out of a problem. And in some ways, I know this sounds crazy, I felt like I could predict my future. I felt like I could move things around or strategize things to work in my favor.
(06:08):
And many times they did. And because of that, I created a false sense of my own reality. I really felt like I am the master of the universe. I am untouchable. It’s the invincibility that sometimes comes in the winning season of entrepreneurship. But let’s go to before that. So some of you have been listening to this podcast for a long time, and if you’re a long time listener, high five to you, the fact that you have been with and listened to all these versions of me, I feel like that’s kind of marriage where it’s like, wow, you’re still choosing me after all these versions. Thanks for still being here. I’m really well and truly honored. So when I started out, I want to give you a little bit of context to, and this kind of points to what I talk about in my book, pivot to Purpose. And this is going to kind of how it’s going to lay the groundwork to the fall because today is the rise. It’s all the rise and the glory. Next week we talk about the fall, the disillusionment crumbling, all that one empire crumbles.
(07:16):
So when we started out, my husband and I, we were in a quite scarce place in life when we got married, our first seven years of marriage, I was a hairstylist. He worked at a church, he was in the ministry, he was a youth pastor, so he literally lived on pizza and kids taking him to Dutch Brothers Coffee. That was our life. And because of that, our schedules, we didn’t have the same day off together for seven years. And so we had student loan debt, we had all those fun things that come along with being young and married I think, but also just life. And so it got to the point where I knew I felt like I was called to something more. I desired something more. And so I decided to start serving online business owners. And because marketing made a lot of sense to me, Instagram made a lot of sense to me.
(08:08):
And I was just somebody that, I am a nerd. I love psychology books, I love marketing books, and I read them for fun and marketing just clicked for me, it made sense. So I just started talking about it and then people started coming out, reaching out to me and being like, Hey, can you teach me how to do this? And I would. So it started being more and more people. And then I had people in the network marketing space reach out to me and say, Hey, this is really helpful. Can you teach me this? Because what the unique angle at the time I taught just to give a little bit of perspective is back in the day with paid ads with, and people would call it, these were the glory days. So funny, I think we’re going to keep referencing the glory days and maybe you have your glory days that you remember your entrepreneurship glory days.
(08:59):
And at that time, people could spend a dollar for every dollar they spent in Facebook ads, they could get anywhere from five to $10 in return if you had a great service that you could sell and do those things. And in order to get the ads to work, there was a certain formula that you used and that was reserved for the paid ads world. People were not using it in the organic, which means non-paid ads, like the way you see social media today, actually not today, the way you experienced Instagram in 2016 to 2019, that was right before you really started seeing the social media space you have today. And that could be another episode for another time. But what happened was I took the principles that were normally only taught to paid ads, and I thought, well, if that still works, what if we teach people the same concepts to their organic accounts, teaching them?
(09:56):
And now these are very everyday language that you hear. You have to have a hook, you have to have a compelling offer, you have to talk about pain, you have to solve the problems. Well, that wasn’t being taught to that particular market at the time. And so I had something unique to offer. And so next thing I know, I have a wait list. I’m working one-on-one with clients. They were often six and seven figure earners. They’re like, can you teach my team? And I was teaching all kinds of business owners, but I saw a need in that particular market. I’m like, man, if I could teach that market to attract people to them by using the principles and concepts that were once reserved and exclusive to paid ads, this could really give them the leading edge. And so it was just like right time, right place, right offer.
(10:37):
I also had been in network marketing, so I understood the unique pains that came in that industry. And so boom, there we go. I launched the academy and it did far better than anything I could have imagined. If you had asked me six years ago, what would be your dream? I couldn’t even begin to comprehend making more than six figures a year. My brain couldn’t comprehend that. And suddenly income was coming in and it was a market saying like, yes, we will pay you for these things and it’ll be great. And then at the same time, I think it was June of 2020 is when I decided to have my podcast. And I was like, I’m going to speak to this market and I’m going to talk about these things and the efforts. And it started to compound and gain traction. And it started to, I’ll never forget the first time I experienced launching the social selling academy.
(11:30):
I think before it, I had maybe, I dunno, 50, 60 students. And I decided to do this last minute, Hey, I’m going to do this before Christmas event. I’m going to talk about how to have sustainable success, a sustainable business so people don’t burn out, which is very funny that I said that because I think we’ve come full circle again, we’ll get there. And so I was just like, what I remember telling my at the time, my virtual assistant now COO, I remember telling her, she’s like, how many workbooks should we plan for? I was like, I don’t know, 30, maybe 30 people will join. And we’re like, okay. And a week later, right before New Year’s, we had 250 people join. And at the time it was a thousand dollars offer. And that happened in a 48 hour period. I don’t think the story I ever told, I don’t think I’ve ever shared this and I’m going to share it.
(12:21):
I had a full-blown panic attack that night. I felt like an elephant had sat on my chest and I could not breathe. And some people would be like, wow, what would it feel like to win the lottery? That in my universe in my world, that kind of money coming in that fast did feel like the lottery? And it wasn’t pull out the champagne and confetti and call your friends. It was like, I’ll never forget how dark that bedroom was that I was in, and it felt like the weight of the world was collapsing on my chest because I thought, what if I can’t serve? What if everyone tomorrow changes their mind and I lose it all? Panic. That was my first ever panic attack.
(13:06):
Once that kind of normalized and neutralized in my body, it still felt like this is make believe money. And what happened was these things kept starting to compound. And so six months later I decided to host another event. And same thing, I thought, there’s no way we’ll sign 250. I really believed it was a fluke. I’m like, I think this was an accident. And I hosted a May event and it was called Recruit, reboot, all that to say. And I was like, alright, how many people will come? And so the event size doubled. So I think 5,000 people came. And then I think this was May of 2021, and I made the offer and I thought, man, what would be absolutely wild? Well, what would be absolutely wild would be 200 people signing, but I’m not going to plan for that. I’m going to plan for 30.
(13:57):
We had 900 people sign up, do the math, a thousand dollars, 900 people. I’m disclosing this. I want you to understand I’m only disclosing this. Please hear me not as bragging rights, but I want to give you context as what was happening psychologically behind the scenes of a quote, very successful business. And so now it’s like, does a fluke, does lightning strike twice? So now I’m realizing, oh my gosh, maybe this isn’t. So I was like, well, maybe I knew I kept adding materials and made the program better. And we’re like, okay, we’re going to send one last email out saying, Hey, before this becomes a $2,000 program, this is your last chance to get it at a thousand. And in that time, I want to tell you, in a 45 day period, we had 1400 people join the program, 1400. It was wild. My brain and my did not know how to integrate it. I kind of was in shock. Again, this must be some kind of mistake, but I believed in what I believed in it. I believed in the materials, I believed in the concepts and the training. I still do. I look back on it, I’m like, I’m really proud of those things and I know it created a lot of meaningful change for a lot of people. Here’s what started to happen around that time.
(15:15):
I want you to remember that who I was when I started the business, I was somebody that could not imagine a hundred thousand dollars more than that. I could not do that. And suddenly lightning strikes in my mind twice more money than I know what to do with in a short period of time. And my brain, short circuits, we always are like, Hey, we think we’re going to operate a certain way. We think we will think certain things and feel certain things. No one could have prepared me for how psychologically, how big of a mind f for lack of a better term. That was for me. And I felt so much guilt and shame that all came in and I felt more scared and afraid than ever. Then I was like, what if this all goes away? I had more than I ever had, and I was never more scared than I ever was because I was still that girl that started the business who could barely rub two pennies together.
(16:20):
And she was still there, even in the environment of plenty and of a lot of resources, the fear and the scarcity had never truly left me. And so that hungry version of myself, that very hungry, fearful, scared version of myself, she never really left. And she stayed with me. And so she was always be like, okay, but it could all go away. So how do we hoard our resources? How do we make sure more comes in? So this is, and I also want to say I put a lot of work into this. I wouldn’t say my hours were crazy. I protected my time. I hired the team, I had the systems and even the whole, and I had written the book Pivot to Purpose. So I was like, I don’t want to hustle. I don’t want to act from this place. But I had only one understanding of how I understood or perceived hustle at that time.
(17:15):
I thought hustle looked like a flurry of activity or kind of swindling or trickster kind of energy, or how my people understood it was the gross energy of selling. And that was one aspect of it, or mostly just scarcity. Hindsight, 2020, I don’t think I could see or understand just how much scarcity was still in my body. And I couldn’t grasp that. So I knew I could look at my calendar and be like, I’m not hustling, but my inside my body, how I was resting, sleeping, I never truly felt at rest and I couldn’t understand why. And I carried a lot of guilt with that. And it wasn’t until there’s actually this thing and I feel shame talking about this because I feel like, and you know what? Somebody is going to hear this and be like, wow, that would be nice if that were my problem.
(18:13):
So I think because I felt all this shame, I was like, I shouldn’t feel this way. There’s amazing abundance. There’s resources I’m serving. This is impactful. What is wrong with me that I feel this way? So I internalized a lot of shame. Something must be wrong with me. Why am I not grateful? Why am I not scared? Why am I all these things? And it took a therapist who said, Hey, have you heard of this thing called sudden wealth syndrome? And oftentimes it does happen with lottery winners, but it’s anytime someone comes into a lot of resources or money very fast overnight and their brain can’t process it fast enough, it kind of comes as a shock or a trauma to their system. And for me at the time, she’s like, just so you know how your body perceived that, hence panic attacks, that’s a trauma.
(19:04):
Well, that sounded really disrespectful in my mind to people who had real trauma. I’m like, wait, no, after all these years and places I’ve been, they’re like, there’s capital T trauma, there’s little T trauma, but trauma is still trauma in your body. And so I felt like I couldn’t say that I couldn’t have that. And so I was just shoving it down and being like, and so I didn’t realize it, but I was constantly in this, the grind and the glory of everything was working. I could come up with an idea, and the market received it and was ready for it, was excited for it. They were hungry for it. And so my feedback loop was off the hook if I needed to feel worthy or a sense of safety, which at the time my brain was like, maybe the next launch you’ll bring in enough money to finally feel safe again.
(20:00):
I’m not saying that makes sense. It doesn’t make sense. I still feel I’m still processing that and I’m still holding space for myself understanding like, yes, I’m still a human being. And sometimes how we think doesn’t make linear sense. We could look at somebody and be like, why are you doing this? Why do you feel unsafe when you’re in a warm bed and all your doors are locked? Well, it’s like, well, if you say that to somebody that has PTSD, it doesn’t matter. And again, I’m not trying to, I don’t want to disrespect people who have gone through severe PTSD, but the brain, it doesn’t make sense sometimes. We can’t accurately look at our reality. And so for me, so the feedback loop I had was anytime I felt unsafe, uncertain, unworthy, I could throw together something or come up with something or do a training, and it was widely received, it worked, and resources would come in. So of course, my brain builds this essentially a dopamine feedback loop where it’s like, I know eventually my brain built the equation. I know if I feel unworthy, I don’t matter or any of those things, I can just post online, do a training, do an event, and I will get the feedback whether it’s through resources or respect. I will get that. And so I kind of fell to this feedback loop and I didn’t know it. I didn’t realize it at the time. So in this glory phase, there’s stages, there’s books.
(21:36):
I got to be at conventions, and I had people waiting in lines to hug me and sign their books. And I had a lot of anxiety at that time, and I didn’t know what to do with that. And so in that season, there’s a couple things that happens in our season of glory, so to speak, if we are not careful, we think we are invincible. And I did. I thought I was invincible. I thought I could not do wrong, not wrong by my customers, but my business savvy. I was like, I could solve this in my sleep. Sure, I can solve this, I can do this. I even looked at people who were collapsing or breaking with their businesses. I saw cautionary tales everywhere. And I looked at them and I thought, that will never be me. I really thought I was above that. Oh goodness.
(22:35):
In the season of invincibility is where our pride really takes root. And that was true for me. And so at that time, I scaled and grew a company fast. So I went from just me and two people on the team to now we had 15 people helping run the company. And I went from being just a coach to now running a company and being a CEO and working on profit margins and forecasting and all these things and payroll. I’m like, oh my gosh, I didn’t anticipate this. But at the time, because resources were all around me. What’s interesting is sometimes in a season of plenty, we ignore the warning signs because we can, because why things are going so good. That’s fine. That’s probably not a problem. And I was doing that even in my business where I would throw cash at problems and be like, okay, well just hire somebody for that.
(23:34):
I don’t want to deal with that. Or even in my personal life, I didn’t realize until later that I could, my entrepreneurial mindset at the time was in that season of invincibility, I really truly believed I could buy myself out of any problem. I could buy a problem in business, hire somebody, fire somebody, and no, that was not me. But it was just like hire somebody. Delegate that, outsource that. Pay for it. Just throw money at it. Personal life. That’s a problem. Okay, put money there, spend money there, it’s fine. And I will say money gives you options and resources, but I was starting to have a pretty unhealthy relationship with the purpose of money in my life. And I started viewing it as it was going to be the thing. If I had enough of it, it could rescue me from discomfort. And mostly the thing I thought it would always rescue me from was fear.
(24:32):
If I’m going to be completely honest, if I just have enough, I’ll stop being afraid of running out. I don’t understand that. But welcome to the psychology of what was happening. So we have the build, we have the grind, the season of building and establishing the thing, and then all of the glory, not realizing that it was kind of creating this dopamine feedback loop. And at the time, I felt pretty invincible, untouchable, those things. I will also say another thing I was kind of getting from my business was, I don’t know if I’ve shared this in my podcast, but I’m sharing it now. I wasn’t in my mind. Now, my husband likes to make fun of my high school experience. It was a very tiny high school. He’s like, how was that a high school experience? I’m like, it was for me, okay, I went to a tiny little private school, but my experience was how the 14 to 17-year-old version of me, how she internalized her high school experience was she never felt like she truly belonged.
(25:37):
She felt like she was on the outside, always trying to gain approval, never felt like she could be in with the in-crowd, was never seen, never validated. And oftentimes these stories that we create in our youth, we still hold in us in our adulthood. And so that was true for me. The girl that felt unseen, who felt like she didn’t belong, who felt like she could never sit at certain tables, that affection, validation, starved version of me, she showed up to my business too. So we have a couple versions of me that are showing up to the business, the one version that’s like, I’m really afraid of being without or feeling scarce or the scarce version of me, the version of me that’s like, what if we won’t have enough and we run out of money, that version of me. And then there’s a version of me that is validation and affection starved.
(26:37):
So because I didn’t understand how to give that to myself, I was inadvertently getting it from my business. I was getting it from my audience. I’m like, wow, they love me. Like Sally Field and the Oscars. You like me, you really like me. And that’s how I felt. I wasn’t just in a resource feedback loop of like, cool, if I do this, then I get money. It was, if I do this, I get to matter. I get to belong, I get to be validated. And so that version of me, man, she was eating up this phase, it was like, whew. She needed it. And also what had happened was when I started my business, I just started as Kristen Boss and I started scaling, which means being able to deliver more with less of you. And so I had scaled me personality wise, and people were wanting a lot of access to that, proximity to that.
(27:43):
And again, I didn’t realize that I was kind of setting myself up for where I had accidentally. And I said this last episode, I had accidentally and inadvertently commoditized myself. I had turned myself into the product, and that kind of did start to happen. Whereas I was hired for all these keynotes and in I think it was in 2024, which I am not surprised by this at all, because it was the same year I imploded, and we’ll talk about that in the next episode. It was the year I was gone the most. I think I spoke on a dozen stages last year. I was gone a lot. And what was happening was I was starting to, how do I say it? I’d be hired to do these keynotes and I would get on these calls and I would be told essentially, this is what we want you to say.
(28:36):
This is what our people need, but this is also what we want you to say. And so I felt like, Hey, I have to still belong here so I can’t stray. I have to make sure I still say these things. And so I even started to feel like a product to the companies that were hiring me just like, no, we want you for this. You’re the spokesperson. Say the things that corporate can’t say to the field, but they’ll hear it from you. Which is, I think there’s some truth there, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But again, it just reinforced I am the product and I had kind of dehumanized myself. And so then it kind of became this because that affection, validation, starred version of myself was like, yeah, but we can’t be rejected. And because I had identified with what I was selling because I was selling myself, well, if people aren’t buying or if people don’t buy in the quantities, I think they should, then that’s a rejection of me.
(29:34):
Or there’s something flawed or wrong with me because I’m the product. Oh boy, this is what happens. We over identify with our business when it’s not like, this is what I do, not who I am. And if you had asked me, I probably would’ve still told you like, oh yeah, this is what is just what I do. It’s not who I am. But my emotional experience of that, my mental experience of that, I would not have been able to separate them for you. Because if I was to get mass unfollows overnight, I would take that as a personal rejection of we don’t like Kristen Boss, whatever. And there was some of that. I mean, there was some people that absolutely told me, I don’t like you and I’m unsubscribing from you. I’d be like, okay. The version of me today would probably be able to hold a little more space for that without immediately falling apart.
(30:22):
I’m still learning. But at the time, I felt like, okay, I created this dangerous equation. So again, scarce, desperate version, scarce version of me who’s always like, maybe behind the next milestone, I’ll finally feel like we’re safe enough and I don’t have to be so scared anymore. There’s that version of me, then I need to belong. I need to matter, get approval. Those two versions of me had created a very toxic relationship with my business because the scarce version of me was like, you better not upset the people because if you upset the people, we lose our security, we lose our safety, we lose the thing that makes us feel good. And then my hungry validation hungry self was like, we have to make sure that everything we say is what they want to hear so that they don’t reject you. And so imagine living under this suffocating condition that I had created a mental and emotional prison for myself. I really had where I could not operate in true alignment with myself, with others. I was always scared, either scared of rejection or scared of well, and then the rejection would mean no safety. They were synonymous. If people don’t like you, they don’t buy from you. If they don’t buy from you, you don’t make money. If you don’t make money, you die. That welcome to my brain. It was like, cool, we’re just going to be hungry on the streets and lose everything.
(31:58):
How amazing. Well, I want to, I’ll share this a little bit more in probably the third part where I talk about the healing, but the version of me today who has had forced detoxing from all of it, I’m talking forced detoxing, the validation still happens not in the massive doses it used to. I haven’t been on a stage in almost a year, a large stage in almost a year. And I think that’s a good thing. Am I always down with stages? Absolutely not. I love it. I’m going to talk about this more in my healing, but I think there is a different version of me for the next time I step on a stage. And so it has been a detox, a detox of used to watching a lot of money come in and watch a lot of validation come in. And I’ll tell you, both of those versions of me have been starved out in the last year.
(33:10):
And not from a place of, I can’t stand these parts of myself. I hate these parts of myself. Actually being able to be very compassionate with those parts of myself and being like, okay, these parts of myself, if I don’t learn to love them and give them what they need without them going out to get that going to external ways to fill those needs, I’m going to end up right back where I was a year ago. So how do I provide that to myself? How do I learn to resource myself in less harmful ways, in healthier ways? And this is my work, but in the grind and the glory, I was blind. I had no idea what was coming down the pipeline for me. No one warned me. I didn’t see people say, all I saw when there were cautionary tales, I would just hear like, oh, their life blew up.
(34:06):
And I’d be like, why? What happened? They had everything going on, but no one was talking about it. So I’m like, cool, I guess it’s going to be my story that I’ll be sharing. And I even was telling my new social media manager, I was like, all right, I’m going to get ready to tell my story. And I got on a call and met with her, and I think I ugly cried through most of the call. And she’s like, yeah, you got to tell your story. And I realized, I was like, okay, I’ve only been telling part of it. And listen, a half told story only allows for half the transformation or half the power. And so it’s going to be the whole story and the healthiest and best way said, but today was about kind of laying the foundation for how those two parts of me, the very scared one that never felt resourced enough to feel safe in the world, that always said the next million will probably feel safer.
(35:01):
And then the affection and validation low self-worth version of myself that was like, if we could just get on a stage and everybody claps for you and fan girls, you can feel better and remember, and then you can feel like you belong. And look, you get to matter here and people want you here. So those versions of me, I had to bring them up a how they formed when they showed up, not realizing that they were running the show until the fall, until the collapse, the crumbling. And so that’s what next week is going to be about. It’s going to be what happened at the top. And before I kind of wrap up this episode, I think I remember what year was it? I don’t remember when the whole Dave and Rachel Hollis thing blew up and they announced their divorce and it was just like we kind of watched that unraveling.
(36:09):
And she had built an empire and she had a lot of authority. People were, you want to talk about fan girl? There was a fan girl culture around her for a while. And I will tell you, when her empire crumbled, I had very little compassion for her. I don’t like admitting that. I remember looking at it with a lot of judgment and being like, yeah, that ego was way unchecked. And what was so interesting is oftentimes the things that are most off-putting about others to us is often maybe because we see ourselves in them. And so there were parts of me, I’m an Enneagram three. I don’t know what Rachel Hollis’s Enneagram is, but I suspect she is. And I remember watching her be like, that is a really unchecked Enneagram three. And I remember thinking, Ooh, that could very easily be me. And then I kind of wrote that off, and then I made the, I was like, that would never be me.
(37:05):
And I had all these judgments of like, yeah, her empire fell and blah. The version of me today has so much compassion, so much compassion for what happened there. And I don’t know if I’d ever be on a podcast with her, but I’d have a whole different set of questions for her. And because I’ll bet you she had versions of herself show up in her business too. And I wonder what versions those are and if she saw warning signs. And so next week I’m going to be talking about the warning signs I blew by the falling apart, the implosion. And then the following week we will talk about the healing and the moving forward parts. So if you found this, I don’t know, refreshing, valuable, do me a favor, take a screenshot, share it on your Instagram, drop me a note. You don’t have to tell me you like me, that version of me, she’s pretty calm right now.
(38:03):
I think I’ve had to make a lot of peace in order to be like, yeah, people are going to have some thoughts when I share this episode. But again, a half told story is not a story that allows full transformation. And I know this is a story that needs to be told, and maybe there’s an opportunity for reflection for you. Maybe you can be like, okay, what parts of me show up either in my business or my everyday life that is calling all the shots, and I didn’t know it. I didn’t know those two parts of me were calling all the shots and creating a pretty codependent and toxic, unhealthy feedback loop that would later come back that almost cost me everything. And we’ll talk about that in next week’s episode. Thanks so much for being here, guys. We’ll catch you in the next one. That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to www.kristenboss.com. It starts right here.
