AnYes: The Reinvention Mentor on Personal Transformation, Minimalism, and the Power of Letting Go

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to. This Is Source, the podcast that invites you to explore the depths of your being and tap into your true potential. This show is all about inspiring you to discover the power within yourself to create a life of purpose, joy and fulfillment. So sit back, relax and let's dive deep into the essence of who you are.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Well, I'm happy to introduce I'm yes. We met a little while ago and I was so impressed by all the work that you do and by the conversation that we had. It was very inspiring and I was looking forward to this conversation so that we could share it with many, many people who are searching for the kinds of strategies and things that you share with people. I think that there's so many people that are looking to reinvent themselves at some point in their life. I think it's probably a natural part of being a human right, but sometimes it can be overwhelming and maybe we don't have the support that we need or we don't know really what steps to take. So let's start off the conversation with how you became the Reinvention Mentor.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Gosh, by reinventing myself multiple times, and actually it's funny I don't remember if I told you, mark, when we spoke is that there is something about the number eight in my life, and I like the idea, because eight is infinity, but I don't know what happened to me at eight months old or at eight years old, but at 18 I left my parents. At 28 I came back from the Netherlands. At 38 I started my journey off of there is more to life. At 48 I set up my business, my first business. At 58, I arrived in London with two suitcases, and so now that I just moved to Croatia, I thought wait a moment, that's a problem, it's not, I'm not 68. No, but it's eight years later. Yeah, you have it. It's very weird.

Speaker 2: 2:13

So before you go on Agris, was there anything that you want to say about the number eight? Agris is my numbers guy, so he usually knows a lot more about numerology than I do.

Speaker 4: 2:24

Yeah, numerology is one of my passions as well, which I really love numbers and I, you know, once you start to call those numbers, for me was like okay, doon, doon, doon doon. You know, it was like counting in my head, you know. But it's definitely, you know, and also, I think it's also, if we really pay attention to something, it happens that way. That's just because we start to believe that something is connected to certain numbers and we just start to believe that that's how it happens in our life and just life presents us in that way, for us, you know. So I think that as well, that the way how we start to believe, because everything is based on beliefs- yeah, no, absolutely Reach to the converted.

Speaker 3: 3:08

But that being said, this pattern, I only realized it a few months ago, less than a year ago. So it's not as if I've always noticed, I've realized it only recently.

Speaker 4: 3:19

Yeah, for me it would be very interesting to look into your birth chart from numbers perspective and to see actually how, because in numerology we see life more like there is a nine year cycle, which because the nine itself is like ending of the cycle and then starts new one, right? So it's like from one to nine. But it's interesting you mentioned that for you everything happens after eight years. You know cycle.

Speaker 3: 3:48

But no, it's not necessarily after eight years. Number eight is a recurring pattern, yes, but, that being said, I'm not very well well versed in numerology, but I moved to Croatia on the first of November 2013.

Speaker 4: 4:03

And that's a one.

Speaker 3: 4:05

That's a one.

Speaker 4: 4:06

That's a one. That's where you seed new ones, seeds.

Speaker 3: 4:09

Exactly exactly.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Yeah, it's very interesting. I just made another. I just realized another pattern too. You said the first one was 18, right? So that's the second end of a nine year cycle, right?

Speaker 3: 4:21

Yeah, good point.

Speaker 2: 4:23

All right, just just throwing it out.

Speaker 3: 4:26

I'm not, yeah, knowledgeable enough in numerology, but, yeah, a few things that I had noticed.

Speaker 2: 4:32

So you reinvented yourself several times, and so that builds up that muscle right, the courage that you have the ability to do so, right. So what did that feel like? When was it that you realized I could do this? Really, I could handle it, no matter what's thrown my way.

Speaker 3: 4:49

I have sometimes wondered to what extent it is more to do with being naive, not sinking through that, you know, challenges could be there. The one thing I know is that I follow my gut. If my gut tells me it's going to work, I go for it. And, of course, the opposite is true as well. And it's like this move to Croatia.

Speaker 3: 5:16

I decided it only six months ago and, yes, I did look into it, of course, because nowadays we have so much more, you know, information at hand, but I all I did after a while, after a few months, was to come because I'd never been here, to come for a week to see if maybe I would like it. And I did, and it felt home, it felt good, despite the language being a barrier, of course, and it's quite frustrating for me because I speak three languages, so now being in an environment where I don't understand anything. So I'm going to learn Croatian, of course, but so, yeah, I don't know it's, unless it's something that I sort of. A few weeks ago, someone interviewed me. She said is there something in your genes? And I said my genes. No, why would it? Actually, my father came over from the Netherlands to France at 18 with nothing. So maybe it is in my genes, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 6:16

And I wonder if those stories I'm sure he shared those stories with you but that plants a seed as well, right, this seed of possibility that somebody could do that, right? As opposed to having parents that maybe followed a very sort of rigid structure their whole life and never really ventured out much, they'd be planting seeds of safety and security and don't go too far from the nest and things like that. So, yeah, so that definitely. So that's pretty incredible, because you're, I feel like just that story to me indicates that you don't let obstacles get in the way, because most people would consider that a big obstacle moving to a new place where there's a language barrier, right?

Speaker 3: 7:00

Yes, but you hear me say yes. I told you the story of the capital Y in my first name. I write my first name with a capital Y because I say yes to life. So in other words, I live in a world of possibilities and let me rewind slightly the Dutch in these very pragmatic, solutions oriented systems, tools, et cetera. But then I'm also a firm believer in universal laws and quantum physics and et cetera, and one of the universal law is the law of polarity, and law of polarity says that for one thing to exist, its opposite must exist. So, in other words, if there are problems, there are solutions, and if there are possibilities, there are impossibilities. But what are you choosing to focus on? I focus on possibilities and to the extent even that when I decided to move to Croatia six months ago, I didn't know anyone and people were saying are you going? And you don't know anyone.

Speaker 3: 8:04

But I'm a connector, I'm a networker, and because I started posting on social media as a teaser on my post for the Reinvention Mentor, I was starting every time and I started at 100 day. I started saying come down to Croatia, minus 100 days, minus 99 days, et cetera. I did a calm down and so people started reacting and some people reached out saying welcome to Croatia. Oh, where are you? I'm in splits, oh, that's where I'm going. Well, that was the first contact. Already we had a Zoom and we spoke, et cetera. And then I had an American woman who runs retreats on the island of Russia, opposite to splits, twice a year and she said, oh, I'm six months a year in on the island of Russia, we should meet. So we had Zooms and we started talking. And then the most funny one was someone who there is a group expats in split on Facebook and she was posting this woman is British and she posted oh, we just arrived on the 1st of July. How does one make friends here? So I sent her a message saying I'm arriving on the 1st of November. When I'm there, we can meet.

Speaker 3: 9:19

And I actually ended up not living in split but in Botsrana, which is outside of split. Will you believe that? That couple of British people is living in my street and they've helped me. She's away for a first few days. She's coming back tomorrow. She was in London but her husband has already helped me and moving stuff here around, et cetera. And then there was another woman saying oh, you need to contact blah blah, blah whatever the name was who's living in Trugir and she's a New Zevander. And well, I'm an international person, I need an international environment and I'm already building it. I've already been introduced to a female business network. I haven't been in touch myself, but they already have my contacts and yeah. So, coming back to what you were saying, agar is what you're attracting, it's what you send out and what you believe in comes back to you.

Speaker 4: 10:22

I just am so happy for you to be honest, because you're so similar to me and I was like, oh, that's so amazing, because I had as well many places I lived. I changed. I recently changed to Florida from California. I came here knowing no one here, and those kind of things. What you just said really makes me happy because I think deeply inside we know we belong to the planet Earth and not a certain place. So it's not hard for us to change. And for me it's not like I'm traveling alone. I have a wife and two kids and changing some schools and everything and play at the stations.

Speaker 4: 11:08

And probably it's complications, but it doesn't really anymore make me worried so much, because it's like, oh, everything works out. It's not like something bad can happen, because you don't send that intention into universe, as you said. You're just sending like I believe that if something really, that some magnet or something pulls me there, have to go and explore that place, and it doesn't mean that I have to stay here forever and it doesn't mean anything that. But there is something we have to learn in certain places. We have to learn probably to networking, we have to learn other stuff which really is helpful for us to keep going for our purpose in life and doing what we're supposed to do. So I think that's all it is and that's beautiful. So I'm really admiring that you have that fun saying yes to life and explore it from your perspective, and that's beautiful.

Speaker 3: 12:19

Yeah, and then I mean, to that extent I am also tempted to say that I am a good example myself of what I help women with. I do believe I want to change the societal expectations of what's the life of a woman 50 plus should be, and because we are no longer able to procreate, because we no longer fit the use and beauty standard, somehow we are expected to just become grandmother. So so you know, and I'm happy to become a grandmother. I will become a grandmother twice any moments now, within this week for the first time, and in February again. My two kids have are expecting baby three months apart.

Speaker 3: 13:06

But I don't want to be only a grandmother. There is more to me, and what I help women do is to bring purpose, passion and impact in the second season of their life. There are so many reasons why we can do that. We know what. We may not know what we want yet that's not necessarily the case, but at least we know what we don't want anymore. I know what I want, but the women I work with don't necessarily know what they want instead. But they know what they don't want anymore. They don't have the same responsibilities anymore. They very often have more means than they had when they were younger. So there are so many reasons, and they are. They understand that there is more to life than me, myself and I only so we can do something about it. But I walk my talk. I'm an example that it works when you believe.

Speaker 2: 14:01

So do you have to take them through? Because obviously it's all mental game, right? So you have to adopt a certain mindset in order for this to work right, because there are obstacles and there are things that you need to do right, and so there's a lot of excuses that we can use right when things aren't going. Oh, this is why I shouldn't be reinventing myself. I should just be satisfied with who I am right, and so you have to start. I'm imagining when you start working with someone with sort of laying a foundation of how you can adopt this mindset of saying yes, to think well, take me through that. What does that look like from your perspective?

Speaker 3: 14:38

Well, the very first thing. It's interesting what you're saying about. I should be happy with what I have. The very first thing I start with is to have them make an inventory of what is working in their life, what isn't and what is missing, because people that's human nature really go through that type of change only if what they have now isn't working. It's painful. They understand that. If they continue to do that, they will die with regrets, and so people rarely go through profound changes. If it's not hurting, they have to be somehow very in pain. This is not to work for me more. So that's the very first thing, and from there I help them create the vision of what they want instead, because without a vision I always say it's interesting because I'm not into cars, but I have a lot of analogies with cars If you are not having a vision, it's like leaving home for a long journey but forgetting to put an address in your GPS.

Speaker 3: 15:48

You could land anywhere. So you need that vision, you need to know where you want to go, what you want as a result. I help them do that, and then the fear kicks in, because we tend to look at the mountain instead of looking at the next step. And then I give another analogy If you have an address in your GPS and you're driving at night, the road isn't folding with your lights as you move. You don't see the whole journey. The other thing with the GPS also. Therefore, the vision is that, even if you need to be flexible in how you will reach it, and so if you have that address and your GPS and suddenly you are asked to turn left because they're roadblocks, you trust that your GPS will bring you back where you need to go. So then, that has to do with fears. We all operate from a place of fear, whether we are conscious of it or not, and we need so. For me, fear. So you need to have a vision and you need to know how to overcome fear. Fear will always be there, but the key with fear is not to stay with it. So identify it, deconstruct it and then leverage it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you. Of course it sounds easy, so that's simple, but still that's the process. So when you raise yourself awareness because, again, of course, you cannot change something that you're not aware of so it's when you start observing how you behave, your patterns and etc. And the words that you are using. Words are so incredibly powerful. So the work that I do with them, at least in the one-to-one process, is that I will constantly help them see what they're doing, and I'm very good at lifting their spirits.

Speaker 3: 17:41

I had a call this morning. I was in oh, I forgot that one. I was introduced to another Croatian woman, but in Zagreb, and I had a call with her and very clearly I could see that she had not had a good night. It was the first time we met. She had not had a good night and in no time she opened up, explained what the challenges were and I gave her some, I pointed at some things, the words that she was using and you know the fact that she wanted to be in control of everything, etc. And at the end of our conversation which ended up not at all being an e-introduction we didn't talk about what we were doing or whatever it was a coaching session in essence, she was completely uplifted. She felt. She said, oh, I'm feeling so much lighter. So that's an ongoing process.

Speaker 3: 18:32

And then in that mentoring process, every time the person then goes in a dip, and we all do myself included, I'm a normal human being it's showing the possibilities again, and I tend to don't. I have a triple certification in coaching, but coaching for me is just one of my tools and in coaching we're being told, in pure coaching, we're being told that we shouldn't, you know, share experience or give advice or whatever, because we have to help the client find the answers in them. I use that at points, but at other points I use my experience and I share my experience, etc. Because when you give an example of something that has worked, I'm saying to them try, don't do the same as what I did, just try it out, see what works for you and if it doesn't work, how can you adapt it so that it does work for you. So that's an ongoing process.

Speaker 3: 19:37

And then it's also, of course, about the. It's reigniting the passion if it's not there anymore, it's giving purpose and it's looking into how can they make a difference, because it's no longer about me myself and I. So, yeah, that's a transformational process. It doesn't happen overnight. You did not construct yourself over a lifetime and then all of a sudden, overnight, everything changes. But it's a transformational process and it works. I've seen massive results and it's yeah, it's transformational. It's amazing to see the results.

Speaker 2: 20:20

I think the fact that you've gone through it yourself not only gives you the confidence to have these conversations with people and to sort of be that support system, but it also and this is I'm saying this on the heels of you sharing, that you share your personal stories with them. I personally think that that's a very powerful way of teaching, because when you tell a story, you're not telling it for the purpose of them to emulate your story in any kind of a way, but people, when they're listening to stories, they adapt their life through that story and they try to figure out how that fits in. And when it does, that's when the light bulb turns on and that's when I feel like people really go oh wow, I never even thought about that until you told that story about so I don't know that you could be a good coach without that, you know. I think that that's really, really important and it doesn't even have to be your life story. It could be you sharing somebody else's story.

Speaker 3: 21:14

Absolutely. I give examples of other people as well that I've worked with or in my environment. It's interesting that at some point when I was back in the days when I was an active coach and not a mentor like now, I was already doing that as trainings in organization et cetera, and quite often people would say to me, oh, but for you it's easy because I don't show as a person who has problems, and so, oh, for you it's easy. In other words, you never have problems. And then I give them the list you know, and it's mindset, it's what you decide to make out of it.

Speaker 4: 21:57

Right. I think it's just important where you focus on right, it's just if you focus on your problems all the time, it's hard to get out of the problems and see the life right and see all the possibilities. And what struck me when you've been telling the way how you engage with people, I think it's you're really giving them the power of imagination back. You know you are giving them that like, okay, you can imagine life, different circumstance, you can imagine life and open your eyes and see that it's not everything confused. As you feel confused, you know there's. You can just turn into this imagination.

Speaker 4: 22:41

This is one of my favorite subject, actually how we come out of confusion into imagination, and that confusion itself is really a shadow of frequency for us. As you said, you know there are always two sides of things and you can choose. You know you can live confused life and be unhappy with things that comes in your way and always oh my gosh, why is this happening to me again? Or like what's going on? And you're confused all the time. You know. Instead, you're like oh, okay, I can actually use. That's the same confusion and imagination is the same thing, just where you're focusing on right, and I think that's the and what I noticed it in you. You have amazing way of explaining same things, very great different words, you know like, using even analogy about GPS.

Speaker 4: 23:37

It's like oh yeah, who doesn't know GPS if you drive or like touch GPS.

Speaker 4: 23:42

But if you think GPS and spirituality would be like, just trust your intuition, right, because it's going to take you it's going to take you any ways out of any path, ways where you should go, you know, don't be worried, your GPS is always connected with you, right, your intuition and everything. So I love that you adding those kind of understandable words into vocabulary for people just like look, this is how the universe works, so don't worry, your GPS is on all the time, so you will be able to drive where you should drive. So I really love I think that's your really strength, being very imagine imagining person who can describe life situations in different ways, so people actually can connect back to themselves and start to see life from this different aspect. So it's just really amazing.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Yeah, I agree, I agree. I think that that's why people are stuck in a life that they're not happy with is because it's sometimes Difficult for them to imagine like living the polar opposite. You know, they only know the life that they live and they only know the people that are surrounded with, and so and it really does Take that faculty of imagination, you know to get anywhere else. But I love that idea of what you said before of like, if this, you know the law of polarity, if this exists, that can only mean that this exists. And it's like, if you adopted that, you know, as part of your main tenants, you know, if you only had a few and that was one of them, I could see how it would be.

Speaker 2: 25:20

It would feel so much easier to change any situation, because that means that no matter how bad anything is, there's always the it's opposite exists somewhere, right, and so that right and so now, if that's true, now it's like, how do I get there? Right, if I'm on this island and my opposite is here, how do I get there? And then you come in and you're like, well, you could take a plane, you could take a boat. You know, yeah, you know, you start to get them excited because you're like well, let's talk about that, let's talk about all the different ways that you could get to that other side.

Speaker 3: 25:53

Yeah, I don't. The other thing that I always say also is that's ultimately, when you think about it, in life, there are only two positions possible either you are a victim or you're in charge. So what, what are you choosing? And I don't want to be a victim, but back nine years ago, when I left that toxic relationship and I that I lost absolutely everything, everyone was saying to me oh yeah, what he did to you, and you know, usual blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3: 26:20

And I realized suddenly that One of the things that I was always saying to my clients is that whatever situation negative situation we're in at the subconscious level, we have chosen to be in it, which, of course, is hard to hear when you are in it. But I then decided to okay, wait a moment, that's that means it applies to me also. There's a pattern here, whether romantic or family or friends or whatever, I had this, this recurring pattern of sacrificing myself for others and and. And that is when I started looking at okay, where does that come from? Blah, blah, blah, etc. And I decided to take charge. And that is when I decided that, ultimately, it was not something bad that had happened to me. It is a I had chosen to get, to get out of it, but it wasn't bad at the country was an amazing opportunity to reconsider all my choices in life and business, and so two major the major decisions came out of that. The first one was to do with the fact that I was a change management consultant, executive coach, working only with corporations, etc. And and I never liked it and and that's when I decided I don't, I didn't want to work with corporations anymore and I would work on with women entrepreneurs, because I love working with with women and I am an entrepreneur at heart. So that was the first decision.

Speaker 3: 27:47

And the second decision was to move to because I've never felt home in France, I've never felt home in the Netherlands was to move to the UK at 58 with two suitcases, without any income or savings Very scary. People now say to me oh, you're so brave to go to Croatia, and I love when I say, come on, that's nothing compared to moving to London with two suitcases and not having anything anymore at 58. I mean, you know, so it's what? What? What do you choose to focus on? Is completely Constantly coming back to that and taking, choosing to take charge, and and and. Don't forget that we, we live in a society where we are not being told to take charge, at the contrary. If we could be only lambs listening to everything, etc. You know. So we have a whole, every one of us. We have a lifetime of being molded, molded into what society wants us, until we have a wake-up call and we realize wait a moment, this is not what I want, definitely not what I want.

Speaker 2: 28:51

Yeah, thank you bring up such a good point. There's, you know, and if we're not used to taking agency right, then we. It's just not how we handle our life, and I think that we have to be willing to look at and take responsibility over the parts of our life that are not working and the role that we play in that, instead of just pointing the finger at other people, and I think that that's the easy way out. Sometimes I know that sounds weird, because a lot of people are suffering, so that's not really easy, but it's easier to point the finger at somebody else while you're suffering rather than look at within ourselves and say what got me here, you know?

Speaker 3: 29:31

And you know it's always coming back to the same old story of, ultimately, it's that inner child in us that you know keeps coming up again and and because it's something has triggered an old memory or whatever. And I mean, it's not because I am such a positive person that it means that I'm not suffering. It doesn't mean that I don't have my moments where I go like, well, I don't feel like it anymore, but it's. It's important again, self-awareness, it's, it's important to acknowledge it when it's there, ask yourself the question Is there maybe something that that triggered it? Because maybe there's something obvious and if not, just that it happened, go with the, go with the flow. I tend to know for myself that, in most cases, by just going to sleep, have a good night rest and tomorrow is a better day and, and you know, most of the time it works. So, yeah, it's. It doesn't make us immune to pain, it doesn't make us immune to fear, but we, we learn how to navigate it and we learn how to grow from it.

Speaker 4: 30:44

Yeah, I mean listening to you, I think, and you choose to live this extraordinary life so you can inspire more, so you can actually be as a role model for who you choose to work with. Right, because you it's maybe intentionally or maybe not, but you had to live this sort of life and show how, like okay, I did it, you know. Look, I did that too two suitcases and I moved to London. So, like it's not like, so what? I mean, you're not coming from the place who always had I don't know that very wealthy lifestyle and sitting in your villa in Caribbean islands or somewhere else, and always had lots of money, you know, and just teaching people to live life. You know like oh why, why you're suffering. You know, like you, you can just imagine and you get everything right.

Speaker 4: 31:40

So I think it's important that you actually live through those life circumstances, just to be who you are and really to come as the really role model for people you work with. So I think it's just so important. I see some sort of parallels with my life too. You know, it's so funny, you know, and I had very similar situations in my life, and that's really what really makes this whole conversation so fun for me because it was like, oh like, literally somebody like a mirror, sitting to me, you know, and telling the similar stories I've been going through, and it's just so fun, you know, and I like can I ask you what is your vision and mission at this point in your life, like, what is your mission, what do you feel most, what is your purpose, what you want to achieve?

Speaker 3: 32:37

It's all about what I said earlier on helping more people in my case women in the next phase of their life to fill it with purpose, passion and impact. And, above that, it has everything to do with wanting to change the narrative of what the life of a women 50 plus should be. And when I say 50 plus, it can be 60 plus, it can be 70 plus. We see an increasing number of women at a much even over 70, starting businesses, and not because they have to, because they want to. And for me, my first value is freedom. As in freedom of choice, I think that at any moment, everyone, and in particular women, because they quite often are stuck with that should always have the choice. So like a woman being stuck in a relationship that is not good for her, but because she doesn't have the money, she doesn't leave, etc. She stays with it. That should never happen. Any person should always be emotionally and financially free, in particular women, because that happens more often with women, of course, to be in that cage, then with men.

Speaker 3: 33:54

But then it's interesting that you were talking about money. It's also putting your priorities right again, the sense that I mean I have lived five years in a bedroom in London, or is it 12 square meters, something like that? I mean, I came from a house of 250 square meters on where I was living alone and I but I've never, ever felt poor because I live in a world of abundance. And that's when people will say to me oh yes, but don't you want so. For instance, I'm not interested in to work with women who want to say I want to bring my business to six or seven figures or whatever. I couldn't care less because that's not my motivation. But from a financial point of view to give you a stupid example that I would give, very often, I couldn't. I don't like Louis Vuitton. However, if I were to fall in love with a bag of Louis Vuitton, I want to say I can buy it if I want to, but I don't care, because that's the chances that I will fall in love with one of them is very unrealistic, because I'm not attached to stuff anymore. I'm attached to experiences, and so, for instance, the flat that I had in London was was a rental, but I have bought all the furniture myself and I thought what am I doing? And actually I know for myself that what is extremely important is that I'm surrounded and living and working, given I work remotely. So I work from home, surrounded by beautiful, aesthetically pleasing stuff, and I don't need to own that stuff. So I just sold everything in London and I happen now to be renting a furnished flat in Postranna that happens to be the type of furniture whatever the core that I could have done myself. It feels like this is what I love, this is how it looks, so I don't need to own it. So I have my removal arriving tomorrow morning and of course, that's more.

Speaker 3: 36:00

Personal belongings is more than just one or two boxes. It's always more than we think and I'm definitely more a minimalist than a hoarder. But I did not even take insurance for the removal because the only thing value and value for me are for paintings, which is why, by the way, I like your background, since the type of painting that is coming back tomorrow. I have huge paintings and those four these I really want. So I packed them myself extremely carefully. So if they arrive broken, they will have chosen to break them. But the rest I don't care, it doesn't matter, it's only stuff, it's only stuff. So that mindset of abundance also makes the difference because, as I said, I never felt poor. You cannot create abundance if you don't understand what feeling abundance is. Then you can start creating more of it.

Speaker 2: 37:02

You could teach a whole masterclass on that, because I think that that's something that a lot of people would love to experience. Love that really simple, four worded sentence. I've never felt poor and I think that if we allow ourselves to get seduced by this idea that if you collect all of these things and have this huge house and lifestyle or whatever, that that would make you not feel poor. But if you talk to enough people, enough people that own those things, many of them don't feel wealthy.

Speaker 2: 37:41

Really is just a mindset. It's not like having the things. It all takes place up here and I love that idea and I feel like I never realized that. That's kind of what always made me feel like that I never had to be overly concerned with money because it really depends on like well, it's all relative. If you want to live somewhere for the experience, then that's enough. You're there for the experience and then there's the value lies in the experience itself and you don't need all these other things around to make you feel like you're abundant. It really is just a mind frame. I like that a lot.

Speaker 3: 38:19

You know what made me feel abundant when I was living in that room? I have always loved white orchids the white ones, not the others, the white orchids. And a white orchid makes me feel abundant. And so at the whatever next door supermarket that was Tesco for us in London they were selling those white orchids for seven pounds. And so at the beginning I didn't have seven pounds, but as soon as I could afford seven pounds I was buying myself a white orchid which was dying. After a while I was able to replace it, but that made me feel abundant.

Speaker 3: 39:01

And it's coming back to also stuff as in oh yes, but that reminds me of my parents. That reminds me, so I keep stuff. My mother passed away when she was very young. She was 62. My father passed away much later, at 82. And when I emptied I'm the eldest, so I took care of emptying the house, et cetera. Elders of six siblings, and so who wants this, who wants that? And you know, et cetera. You know the only thing I have from my father which is arriving tomorrow, I took it with me.

Speaker 3: 39:39

The memory of my father is that every single morning he would prepare his breakfast, so he would take two slices of bread. He would put butter on it and then he would put sugar on it. But he was doing that on a wooden plank that he had created himself. There was a hole for a knife in it bread knife and so he would take those slices and then he would take off the excess sugar, and that's my memory of him. That's the only thing I've kept.

Speaker 3: 40:09

That plank that's not straight anymore, I can't use it, but it's, it will be there in my kitchen, Reminds me of my father. That's the only thing I have, and that's enough. And the only thing I have of my mother which which is a bit more weird in the sense it's not something that I've experienced with her I came across back in the days. It was not a piece of paper, it was a ceramic, this big, of her having had her swimming diploma when she was 14 with her name. That's the only thing I have of her, because I don't need the stuff that reminds me of them. They're here. They're not stuff, they're not stuff. Yeah, coming back to that notion of money, it feels so much richer.

Speaker 2: 40:53

Well, yeah, and you know, talking about keeping all that's, my sister's a professional organizer and she helps people do move out and then a state clearings and and by the time people get to her, like you said before, nobody reaches out until it's a situation it's painful, it's a problem. But they'll reach out to her and then you know she'll go to their house and they'll open up the garage and it's stacked with boxes from, you know, the floor to the ceiling and they're overwhelmed, they're upset and it's because they're like but this was my mom's, this was my dad's, how could I get rid of all this? This was all important to them. And if I get rid of them some way, that means that it's important to me. But that's not true. That's just the mindset.

Speaker 2: 41:36

You know, I mean, and I love the idea of just taking one, just one thing. It's every time you look at that board. It's never going to make you think of anything else but him, right? So that's all you need. Is that one thing? You don't need boxes and boxes in your attic and you're paying for storage facilities to hold on to all this stuff. You know, and it's creating stress in your life because you know you're responsible for all this stuff and like there's a lot of concern that comes along with that, so I like that. It's another takeaway from Agnes.

Speaker 3: 42:06

Well, you know, you know orders, it's very rarely just physical, it's the when you clear your physical space, you clear your mental space.

Speaker 4: 42:17

You know that for me that was a little bit surprised when I moved to Florida, and so we are renting house here, not big house, but house, it's for family kind of first house we live in, you know, and there was always strange for me, why everyone keeping their cars outside of their garage? You know Like I was like. Then we took a walk, you know, around the neighborhood and people keep their garages open doing something, you know, around it and I was like, oh, that makes sense. Everyone has garages, like completely full garage, you know two, two space car garage, you know everything full. They have to keep their cars outside because they don't have. I was thinking like, oh, we must look very strange for for neighborhood because we don't have cars outside, because, okay, first of all, we have just one car, you know, and that's why it's always in the garage.

Speaker 3: 43:19

That's why they call it the garage.

Speaker 4: 43:22

And for me it's like that for them, they might think nobody lives in that house because it's like garages meant for the cars. You know, that's why I'm putting my garage inside, like my car inside of the garage, instead of keeping it outside. So it's, it's fun. You know, I, I love how. I know what does it mean to come with two suitcases somewhere? Because when we moved to USA we came with two suitcases. You know, like six years ago with my family, and now when we moved from California to Florida, like just recently, we are like, oh my gosh, we have so many stuff. It's incredible we had to take you know like big car, you know just to do it's like well, how fast we and we throw it out and gave you know like things we don't use. We gave, gave kind of up, we put, put for what's the name of where you put for the people in need.

Speaker 2: 44:22

Marketplace.

Speaker 4: 44:23

Not marketplace.

Speaker 1: 44:24

We just don't tell we just don't like charities.

Speaker 4: 44:28

So and we put lots of stuff, the gateway and and, and still we had lots to carry. You know, we're like oh my gosh, this is incredible how in six years, you can.

Speaker 3: 44:39

It can go. It can go extremely fast. I was going through, I was going through my pictures, sorting them I mean, even that type of things you can sort and I just came across the pictures of, I recall it, of the of the removal, the boxes, and I thought, oh my God, this is so much. I, you know, I was looking at stuff like this, yeah yeah. And then and then in the quarry, oh that's one of the paintings there. It goes very quickly.

Speaker 2: 45:14

So it's funny because aggressive I've told you this I went through the same thing when we left our house, we sold almost everything and gave away what we didn't sell, and that there was like this happiness that came from that, like this, I guess it was because for years and years and years I had just been collecting and collecting and collecting and and I think that came from my parents like it was this idea of like once you have, like once you have all the things that you need, then you're somehow like rich or something. You know what I mean. Like then you're good and so, like I was on a mission since we got married to just accumulate stuff and then our family was growing and growing, so we needed more and more stuff to support that you know like and but then one day, you know, before we packed up everything and left, I just I was so overwhelmed by all the stuff that we had and we lived and we bought an old farmhouse, like 100 year old farmhouse in the country and it was like the epitome of 100 year old farmhouse. So we wanted the aesthetic to match that right. So you can't just go to a store and buy things that are 100 years old. So we started going to estate sales to buy, you know, furniture and decor that would match that.

Speaker 2: 46:26

But then you go into an estate sale and you know what a good deal is, right, so you might go there for the painting, right. But then, oh, that's a good deal on a bike. Oh, that's a good deal on a lawn mower oh, look at that over there. And all of a sudden you're at $1,200, you know paying the guy as you walk out. Oh, can I come back tomorrow with a van so I could pick all that stuff up? And then you know anyway. So you end up accumulating all this stuff and I remember when we got rid of everything and we got into the RV was like this great feeling of like there was a sense of freedom that came with not having all that stuff anymore.

Speaker 3: 46:58

Feeling lighter.

Speaker 2: 46:59

Yeah, feeling lighter, and I know that now we're starting to take inventory of all the stuff that we have, now that we're in the house, that we're now we've been here almost five years and the more I start to look around, the more I start to feel. Well, that overwhelm comes like, oh God, I got to do it again, I got to, I got to start. I think I'll probably end up giving more away, though it's easier than having to go through the whole sales process. Where is your car parked? Oh, it's in the, it's in the driveway with my RV. All the cars, the bikes, agres, that's.

Speaker 2: 47:29

The thing is, when you live in the south, which now you're in the south it's nice enough to keep your car outside. So everybody uses their garage for storage. But yeah, I mean, and my sister like luckily I was saying, my sister's an organizer, so she came down here and she organized the entire garage. So it looks really good, right, aesthetically, but it's still bins and bins and bins and bins. And, to tell you the truth, most of the time I don't even want to go searching for stuff because you know, you just you want to do things quick and then move on. So but yeah, I mean bring up a lot of really great points.

Speaker 2: 48:02

I think there's there's there's so much that you can share. There's so many more questions that I have for you. Hopefully you'll come back one day and we can have another conversation because I really think that there are so many people that are looking to reinvent themselves and they don't have the confidence and they don't have the strategy to do those things. And I think you obviously came from a life of suffering and have found some peace, enjoying your life, and you want to share that with other people. So it's it's sort of like the symbiotic relationship. They're looking for this positive change in their life and you're looking to help somebody have that experience. So that's just, that's amazing. And you don't need that feeling. You'll never get it from a Louis Vuitton bag. You know. That's just. That's just. You know, enjoying life and being of service to people and and serving yourself as well, so that's that's amazing.

Speaker 3: 48:55

Yeah, it's going back to purpose, passion and impact.

Speaker 2: 49:00

Yeah, well, thank you so much for this conversation.

Speaker 3: 49:03

it's been Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed this, and it's the first time that I do it. As you know, a conversation with three people is really nice.

Speaker 4: 49:12

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for for joining this beautiful conversation. Enjoy it a lot and hopefully, hopefully, listeners as well it will enjoy. Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 49:24

You know what's a grace. You're right, I don't have a headache anymore. It always works like that. I mean, it's a prolific. You know, just quickly, when I was learning to be a coach, I had to do coaching sessions in the evening to practice etc. And so after a whole working time, quite often I felt like don't feel like it, and my son was always saying no worries, mommy, you will. You will, you know that you will come back and you will feel great, you know, not having the headache similar, yeah, very uplifting.

Speaker 2: 49:59

Excellent.

Speaker 3: 49:59

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 50:03

Thank you for tuning into. This is source. We hope that this conversation has sparked something within you and that you feel inspired to continue exploring your own journey of self discovery. Remember you are the source of your own transformation and the possibilities for growth and expansion are infinite. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and family, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep shining your light and living your truth.