How to Balance Motherhood & Entrepreneurship: Ina Coveney's Journey to Happiness

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

Twenty years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, well, consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

What's happening, my friend, and welcome back to the podcast.

How are you today?

Hopefully you are feeling good, looking good.

I know I am all kinds of pumped up and excited for today.

Because, well, today I've got an extra dose of energy in the studio.

And well, it comes by the name of Ina Kovany.

Ina Kovany is an online coach and host of her own podcast called The Global Phenomenon, the podcast for online coaches and solopreneurs.

She features their stories getting down and real on their journey and what has brought them to become such well-known, respected names in their industry.

But that, to be honest, is them.

And even though I listened to Ina's podcast, The Global Phenomenon, and I love it, and I think you should probably check it out.

I wanted to hear her story.

I wanted a little bit more of Ina Coveny in my life.

And so when I was ready to do this mini-series on highlighting the stories of my favorite people in the podcast industry, well, Ina Coveney made the list.

I wanted to discover her story in OMG, a story she has indeed.

You're going to get to hear about her decision to leave a successful career in corporate to embark on the wild west of entrepreneurship.

You're also going to get to hear her story as a child, growing up in Venezuela, and ultimately coming to America.

Ina's story has many different directions.

We're able to go with it, and I try to pack a lot in inside of today's interview.

So, here's my biggest piece of advice, though.

Ina is a woman who is like a firecracker.

She's got some energy irradiating from her.

And so, well, I just want you to hold on.

I want you to get ready for this.

Because when Ina Kovany enters your little earbuds, comes through the speakers on your smartphone, you better be ready for it.

Because she comes in hot and baby, woo! I am so glad she is here today to bring it to you.

Anyways, guys, it is my pleasure to introduce you to none other than my friend, the podcast host, the coach, the absolute superwoman, Hina Koveny.

SPEAKER_00: I was nine months pregnant and my boss called me into his office.

And at this point, this business that I have now, which is, you know, coaching and my the Global Phenomenon podcast, all of that didn't exist.

The only thing I had was a side business making websites.

And I had been doing that for six years at that point.

And I liked it, but I didn't know if I wanted to grow it.

I didn't know what to do with it.

So I was just still in my corporate job, moving up the ladder like everybody else, like minding my own business.

Then, nine months pregnant, my boss pulls me into his office and he starts asking me questions about this particular problem that they're having at work.

And he's just picking my brain.

He's like, What would you do about this?

And I told him, like, I think you should do this and this and this and this and this.

And he said, Okay, what would it take for me to just pull you from the job you have right now and just focus on this 100% effective immediately?

And I'm like, sounds great, but you know that I I do have a full-time job.

Like, I do have things on my plate that I need to do.

And he's like, just hire a contractor, do whatever you need to do, but I need you on this now.

I'm like, okay, great.

So, me, because I'm smart, I figured it out, hired a contractor to take the job that I already had.

And I also hired another contractor to follow me around while I was going and fixing this new problem for the company because I was about to pop.

Like everything that I was doing could just be gone tomorrow because I needed to go on maternity leave.

So I hired those two people.

I let go of my job after like 24 hours, like record time to off-board the job.

And I started working on this big problem.

Within those two weeks that I'm reporting to my boss and I'm telling him this is what's going on.

This is a person that I hired.

Everything is going great.

I'm going through and fixing the problem.

He says, I really think this is your next big step.

And he announces to the company that I'm going to be reporting to C-suite.

I'm going to be the director of a new department that I'm going to be growing.

Like, I'm like, great.

That sounds wonderful, right?

He gives me the new title.

He announces it to the company.

I'm in the new org chart.

Everything is great.

Two weeks later, I finish fixing the problem that they had.

And now it's time to really like start with a new department.

But I'm about to go on maternity leave.

So it's kind of agreed upon that I'm gonna go on maternity leave.

The contractor is going to stay kind of playing maintenance on my new role.

And when I come back, we're really going to kick it into high gear.

Everything sounds great so far, right?

I'm moving up the ladder.

It things are happening.

But then I realize that even though I received a letter for a new job, I did not get a pay raise with it.

So I, and this is 2017 when Me Too is at its pinnacle.

I had been spending all year talking to the company, like at their request, like they actually handpicked me to represent basically the women's movement at the company, where we talked to the CEO, we collected all the feedback from how females were feeling in the company.

You know, females and other genders too were expressing feeling discriminated against, not getting paid what they were supposed to, not having the same titles as other men who were doing the same job.

They were called directors, they were called, and the women were called managers, right?

So we had expressed all of this, all of this had been happening all year.

So that's the context in which we're talking here.

So I go to my boss and I tell him, hey, so I noticed that there was no pay raise.

I really think based on every like hashtag the past 12 months, right?

I think you really need to do this right.

You need to give me the director name and the salary increase.

And he tried to argue with me that because I was using the same skill set as I was using in my previous company, because I hadn't acquired really any new skill set, I didn't really deserve for this to be called a promotion.

This was basically the same thing.

And I had to explain to him like he was a five-year-old.

Listen, this is a new job with a new report, with a team potential, right?

We're gonna grow the team with a team potential, with you know, visibility to the entire company, with visibility to clients, with higher risk.

You see how this is a promotion, right?

Like, do I really have to explain to you how this is a promotion?

And he just kind of sighed.

He's like, uh, you're going on maternity leave anyway.

So basically, like, what is the point of giving you a raise now if you're about to leave for four months and we're gonna have to pay you a higher salary for basically doing nothing?

And I knew that the words that were coming out of his mouth, and he didn't say all of that to give him credit.

All he had to say was, you're going on maternity leave anyway.

That's all he said.

And at the time I was making the website for an employment lawyer.

So I talked to my client and I'm like, hey, so this is this doesn't sound right, but is it illegal or is it just it just sucks?

Like, what are the grounds here?

And he says, actually, no, it is definitely illegal to withhold promotions and raises from women going on maternity leave.

So you do have grounds, but how far do you want to take this?

So my husband and my mother who are seeing me be nine months pregnant, if anybody knows anything about pregnancy, whatever you're feeling goes to your baby.

I mean, if you're feeling stress, all of those hormones are being spread all over your body and getting transferred to the baby.

So my parents, my mother and my husband are looking at me like, can you please just have a healthy baby?

Can we just prioritize having a baby right now?

And then you can deal with it when you come back.

Like you can retroactively ask for the raise.

Just right now, can you please care for your health and the child and your unborn child?

And I'm like, okay, you guys might be right.

You know, in the grand scheme of things, let's just focus on what's really important, which is our health, our family.

So I did, and I said, okay, fine, I'll deal with this when I come back.

Eight weeks into my maternity leave, I get a call from a new boss because now my job is not reporting to C-suite anymore.

They added a new person in the middle, and she called me and said, Listen, you remember that promotion?

We decided to not do that anymore because the male contractor that you hired is doing such a great job.

We're just going to let him keep that role.

So would you mind just going back to doing what you were doing before?

And if you're asking me for like what was the pivotal moment, that was it.

Is when I realized that these people had no idea what they had in front of them.

That if I were to continue in this company, if I were to continue down this path, I'm still at the whim of somebody else and what somebody else thinks of me.

And I couldn't do that myself anymore because I knew my value at that point.

So I actually came back, talked to my husband.

I got myself a business coach.

A lot of other little things happened in between, but I ended up just quitting my job effective immediately after maternity leave, of course.

Came back from maternity leave, quit effective immediately, and I started working with a business coach on February 8th of 2018.

And I said, okay, I want to see how far I can take this.

And I didn't plan on being a coach.

I didn't really know what that was.

I didn't really think that was my path.

I just wanted to create an online course and become rich off of it, like everybody else.

But obviously, you know, through that entire first year in business, I learned so much about how you go out there and help people and create a market out of the services that you offer.

That now I am a you know full-blown business coach.

I've been doing this for five years, and I don't think that I can go back to corporate.

But I'm telling you, if they had kept their word, if they had done things right, if they had given me that promotion with a race, and I had come back to a completely different situation, I would probably still be in corporate.

So I credit that point in time with that pivot.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what though, Ina, it's everything happens for a reason.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_04: You know, and and I can't help but think that there was more for you in the realm of of what you're doing today.

And to touch more lives and to expand yourself and to show yourself what you're capable of.

So I mean, you know, in that regard, awesome.

In the other regard, at least you were able to not be the victim in that situation.

You know, that you were able to turn it around and be like, you know what, in your face.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

And I'm gonna tell you something.

It's so funny that you you say that about being a victim.

I actually just wrote a post for my Facebook group that I've learned to mother myself when I am a victim.

When I feel like a victim, I've learned to kind of nurture myself, to just give myself a pat in the back and to just say, like, that sucked, and I'm I'm I'm with you.

Right.

So when things like that happen, I'm not saying that I was like, you know, Joan of Arc, right?

Like, you know, and I like strengthened up and said, Well, screw everybody.

Like, I wish I were that strong.

Like, this was a hard thing to go through.

Like when you put your identity into your job, into what you do, I was really good at what I did, Kev.

I was sad to leave it.

And it was just one of those things that it's like, you just need to learn to take matters into your hands, own hands at some point, you know?

Yeah.

And I I really felt like I had no choice but to not be a victim in their eyes.

Like I needed to really stand up for myself at that point and be like, you know what?

Like, this is just not worth it to me to be away from my newborn baby for, you know, all day long to be working for people who really didn't value me.

Like at that point, I had just gotten enough self-respect that I couldn't let that happen anymore.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, Ina, I would love for you to take me back though, because I'm kind of curious to understand two things.

One, kind of the journey that even led you to be in that level, to be in corporate.

And and two, the journey uh in in in kind of understanding, I guess, kind of where you come from to be such a strong woman, to stand up when so many maybe won it.

And yet you did.

And so I'm kind of curious if you could kind of give me a little bit of your backstory and what brought you to that point in your life.

SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna just start everything by saying, and by the way, thank you so much for the kind words, because it it hasn't always been that way.

I've definitely taken my hits and and been woe with me many, many times in my life.

So I'm going to just mention a couple of things that are really completely out of my control that have nothing to do with my grit and determination and my personality.

One is my privilege, right?

I was privileged enough to be able to come to the United States from Venezuela, to be able to come to the United States at the exact right time when things started to go sour in my country.

And that is something that, sure, you can say, well, I did fight my parents for wanting to come back.

I did, but the truth of the matter is that my life path led me to a place where I had parents who could afford to send me abroad, where things hadn't soured in my country so much yet that it was possible for me to be sent to the United States to study.

Right?

Like there were so many things that conspired for me to be here that have nothing to do with me.

That just happened because of where I was born and the family I was born into and the genes that I got, right?

Like nothing to do with me, number one.

Number two is really longevity.

I mean, I need to put up like a bust, a statue to longevity.

By that I mean just the fact that I was old enough and I was experienced enough in my career to know what was right and what was wrong.

If exactly the same thing had happened to me back in, I don't know, 2006 when I was first, you know, first out of college.

I got out of college in 2003.

So like 2006, a couple of years in college, like out of college.

If something like this had happened back then, I totally would have not reacted this way.

I would have just said, okay, just, you know, where do you want me and and put me there?

Okay, I'll do my best, right?

Kind of like still paying my dues.

So I do have to say that by that point, I had been in corporate for 15 years.

And I I knew I had seen enough, I had been a leader enough times that I knew when it was time to just really throw in the towel and just go and make the life that I really wanted for myself.

So those two things have nothing to do with me.

And I I hope that it encourages people to understand like it's not like if you have not been able to create the life that you want, like it's all on you.

No, it's possible that you're just in your own path, in your own journey, and you will get there.

There will come a breaking point when you decide to do something different.

But if right now that doesn't seem right, it has nothing to do with you.

You're not doing anything wrong, you're learning from your path.

So I'm gonna say those two things are basic.

Now, now that we have said the obvious, what were the the pieces of my background that kind of made me have this attitude?

Um sadly, very, very sadly, I grew up feeling bullied at school and feeling bullied at home.

And and this is something like people know, I talk about this, that I really felt like I had nobody that I could lean on.

And I was always looking for a way to reinvent myself, a way to independize myself, right?

To just do my own thing without caring what other people thought, because what other people thought was my life for so much of my life.

That when I came to the United States, I actually came when I was a junior in high school, and it was my first time truly making friends.

When I was in Venezuela, I had I felt like I had friends, but then they would turn on me so quickly that they never lasted.

I would probably have a different best friend every year.

Like it never lasted.

I inevitably would do something wrong and I would get shunned.

I would do something wrong and I would get looked at the wrong way.

To this day, I only have very few people that I know from my time in Venezuela.

And the ones that I do, I just love so dearly because they have been able to look past everything and just just be a human with me.

So when I came to the United States and I started making friends, I realized that I did have the potential to actually have a nice life and to have people who liked me.

And I really wanted to stay.

After one year, we went we were supposed to go back.

I really wanted to stay.

I cried.

My French teacher in high school, she offered to host me for my last year of high school so that I could stay.

Like I was really in problem-solving mode, but my parents did not want to let me go.

I mean, imagine like if your child, your 16-year-old, is telling you they want to stay in a country that you don't belong in, right?

You're like, no, you're coming with me.

Because you're a minor and I'm your parent.

So, no, they're like, no, no, you're gonna come with us, but we appreciate what you're trying to do.

How about this?

Let's go back home.

And this is credit to my parents 100%.

Let's go back home, let's go to an American school so you can finish 12th grade and then apply for colleges here, and then you can come.

And that's exactly what I did.

So as soon as I got my letter of acceptance into UMass Amherst, go Minute Man.

That's where I went to school.

That's where I went to college, that's where I met my husband, that's where I got my computer science degree.

As soon as I got that acceptance letter, it was like six months before I even had to come to the States.

I packed up my entire room in boxes and I said, I don't live here anymore.

Like it was six months before I had to go and I was already packed.

I was eager to leave, to become an independent person and to do my own thing.

And that that meant a lot to me.

So when I came to the US, I came completely by myself, 2,500 miles away from home.

And I just created my own life, my own world as soon as I could, as soon as I started making money in my internship and my jobs.

I told my parents, you don't have to pay for me anymore.

I bought my own car when I just got out of college.

Like I'm like, I can be independent now.

So it really came from not having had a background where I felt completely supported.

I felt like I only had myself to rely on.

And I actually really enjoyed being able to trust myself to know that if I put my mind into something, I could observe that I could do it and I prove that to myself.

So, yes, I was put in many difficult situations throughout my entire corporate life.

But by the time that I got to that point in that story that I just told you, it was that background of wanting to be independent and believing that I could do my own thing and just all the right factors aligning for me to be able to make that kind of decision on my own.

So yeah, it all comes from wanting to be as independent as possible.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: I wish it was a happier story.

SPEAKER_04: Well, first and foremost, the the obvious part of your story that I did not know is that I had no idea that you lived in Venezuela as long as you did.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: And I mean, obviously I knew you have.

Your beautiful accent.

I know it's not boring like we have here in in Florida, but I didn't realize how long you lived there.

And so I wanted to say that first and foremost.

And and and I I guess the reason I want to point that out so much and be sure that I I draw emphasis to this, is because even though maybe things like that, they worked out for you, it wasn't like everything was was easy.

You can as you just explained, you had really this whole childhood of drama, of trauma in your life.

And yet you you overcame that.

You didn't let that stop you.

You moved to another country to go to college and you keep just progressing and you keep making a life for yourself.

And again, I think so easily it is for us to see people who are on top and think to ourselves, yeah, but they don't have the life that I have.

They don't know what it's like, they don't have a clue what I'm going through.

But the fact of the matter is, is that you do know that you have been there, you've been in the trenches, but you've figured out how to make it in this world.

And I just I just straight up want to say like what and just a round of applause to you for that is truly, truly amazing because that's not something that everyone has the strength in them to do.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I really appreciate you saying that, Kev.

And I don't know, this just kind of speaks to my own limiting beliefs or my own insecurities, but I I keep thinking it's it all just lined up the way that it that it was supposed to.

I mean, the alternative could have been maybe that when I was faced with all of this, you know, bullying and discrimination, and I came to the US, which had nothing to do with me, came to the US for the first time and made friends.

Technically, I could have just said, okay, let's just go for the safe path and just go back home to Venezuela, go to school there.

I would have studied a completely different major over there, by the way, which is so funny.

I could have just gone back, done my thing, just kind of remained status quo.

But there was something that was telling me that I belonged here.

And I can't tell you what it was.

Maybe it was me just trying to run away from a country where I just didn't find happiness, right?

And this has nothing to do with them.

There's many people who absolutely had a wonderful time growing up in Venezuela.

This has nothing to do with that.

It was just my personal experience.

But maybe it had to do with just wanting to run away so badly.

But I just feel like for anybody who's listening who feels like they they're staying safe, maybe that's what needs to be challenged a little bit, is maybe realizing that, you know, if you were to bet on yourself, would you do it?

Right?

Have you seen yourself thrive in certain situations where maybe you normally wouldn't have seen yourself thrive?

Like I think that trusting myself has been a really big factor that I have learned to do about myself.

That that I know if I if I'm late to something, if I'm procrastinating on something, I know that I'm gonna pull through.

Like it's just something that I know.

So, what are your patterns is what I would be asking.

What are your patterns that you can always rely on and fall back on?

And just use that as your safety net.

So I really appreciate you saying that.

I I really want to take more credit, but I feel like everybody's experiences just kind of shape us, you know?

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're all on our own unique journey in this life, but along that journey, we do have a choice.

You know, we, you know, I always use the analogy of, you know, we can sit it out or we can choose to dance.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: And, you know, in in as you said, stepping outside of what's comfortable and choosing to dance and see what happens.

Yeah.

And you, well, you, you tore up the dance floor.

SPEAKER_00: I danced for sure.

Like, I do I still to my parents, I I tell them, I cannot believe you let me come to the US by myself.

Like, seriously, like anybody that has kids out there, would how how would you feel about your child, just like sending your child off to another country where you barely speak the language, where like they're gonna be so far away from you that you can't see what they're eating and who they're hanging out with and advising them at every turn.

And, you know, this is back in 1999.

We were talking like we were talking through calling cards, right?

There it wasn't like this like, oh, let's just call each other on WhatsApp or on Hangouts or FaceTime or whatever.

It was like calling cards, it was expensive.

Not to mention the flights and everything.

I'm like, I still tell my parents, I can't believe that you did that.

So kudos to my parents for sure.

SPEAKER_04: Why do you think it was important for your parents?

SPEAKER_00: I think that they they tell me, like, you were doing okay.

And I'm gonna say this, this is uh this is gonna be super controversial.

I'm sure the wrong people are not gonna be listening to this anyway.

But so my sister, my older sister, she had always been a troublemaker.

She always took up all the air in the room, all of the like my parents didn't really have to worry about me and my little sister as much as they had to worry about my older sister, who, by the way, my older sister is now a perfectly contributing member to society with amazing children, with an amazing home and life and career.

And she's she's just definitely turned it around for it's for herself.

That's her own story to tell.

But when she was a teenager, she really was one of those like really troubled kids.

And my parents just spent their entire time trying to make sure that she was going to be okay.

So I really feel like I had no, I didn't really have much of their attention.

I knew they loved me rationally, but I really didn't have a lot of their attention.

So, um from my parents' perspective, in comparison, I was doing amazing, right?

Like I was a really good kid and I had shown promise.

And they sent me to a camp for three weeks in Maine when I was 15.

And I was able to really loosen up with my English.

That was the first time really that I was able to be fluent.

This was, yeah, at six, 15 years old.

So they really saw that I had potential.

So they just told me, you know, we just trusted you.

We just knew you were going to do okay.

And we could afford it.

Like we were in a good position to do that.

So we just said, like, okay, why not?

What's the worst thing that can happen?

And they did have several like backup plans, by the way.

It's not like they just sent me off and be like, okay, there you go.

Go become the next Bill Gates or whatever.

They like they had backup plans.

Like they told me, okay, what when we go home and you go back to an American school to get 12th grade, you are going to get like the equivalent of like your GED in your Venezuelan high school.

So I was actually taking night classes at the same time that I was in high school, that was at the same time that I was in my senior year, because I needed to get my Venezuelan high school diploma so that I could apply to colleges in the in Venezuela.

And I did apply to Venezuelan colleges and I got into the top university, top 2% of applicants.

And I ended up deferring for a year because I got into my first choice, which was UMass.

So I deferred for a year.

So we had all of these backup plans, right?

Like, hey, if this thing doesn't work out, you can always come back and study at the best university in Venezuela, right?

So there were backup plans.

Let's not say like they were so rogue.

They definitely knew what they were doing and they they safeguard themselves.

And after one year, they saw that I didn't fail basically because I did not do well my first year.

Uh my GPA was like a 2.5.

And I was so disappointed in myself.

But my parents looked at each other like, you passed.

SPEAKER_01: Like you, you, like this was an entire year in a different country on a different language, and you did okay.

So they're like, go back and see if you can do better.

SPEAKER_00: And I ended up graduating with honors, but they really had a lot of faith in me.

I'm crying.

Uh, they really had a lot of faith in me.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's just it's absolutely beautiful.

And uh I think I think it goes back to the thing of parents wanting the best for their children.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: And maybe even for them.

I mean, I can only imagine how scary it had to be for them to send their daughter away.

But they were willing to do it because they they knew deep down that it was the best for you.

SPEAKER_00: Right.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

I love it so much.

Now, talk to me about after college.

Where did the career path take you?

SPEAKER_00: Oh, I still like oh my God.

I went to school for computer science because I loved programming.

Okay, let's just make that clear 100%.

I loved give me a programming language.

Uh, we did, I learned Pascal when I was in in high school.

And then when I went to college, I had to learn Java because that's the language that they used in that department.

Well, everybody else was learning C.

I'm here learning Java, but I absolutely loved it.

I would create my own little programs like on the side just to automate tasks.

SPEAKER_04: Uh, I just loved it so much that I really were you were a computer nerd all the way.

SPEAKER_00: Yes, oh my god.

I I loved it.

I loved it.

I started teaching myself C in the summers because I'm like, I really need to learn C.

I feel like nobody's gonna give me a job knowing Java.

I need to learn C.

The pointers always drove me crazy.

So that's really what like it just stopped me.

But like I love like object-oriented programming, it was just my thing.

Yeah, so when I graduated, I really wanted to get a job as a software developer.

And I must have applied to like 32 jobs at IBM.

I knew that I wasn't gonna get a job at Microsoft.

I knew I wasn't gonna get a job at Sun Microsystems.

That's another one that was around at the time.

I wasn't gonna get a job at like, oh, what was the other?

I forget what the other big one was.

But there were like two companies that we were always like fighting for positions for.

And Google was just in its infancy.

I mean, this is 2003.

They had just come out with the with the search engine the year before, right?

Like, and only like my really nerdy friends knew what it was.

We were still using like Yahoo.com and like Alta Vista and S Jeeves, right?

So yeah, so Google wasn't really like a big company yet.

Like nobody was really like applying for jobs there yet.

So so anyway, like Microsoft was really the big thing, but I never got an interview, I never got pulled, I never, so I'm like, okay, forget about the Microsoft dream.

How about and you know, I I applied to Sun, I did not get jobs there.

32 applications later at IBM.

I even went online and tried to find people's phone numbers.

I'm like, hey, can you direct me to that hiring manager?

And they're like, no, and they would hang up at phone numbers.

Like, I really tried.

I'm like, I need to get out of this being a software developer.

And that didn't happen.

Weirdly enough, I went to a career fair and I went to the General Electric booth for some reason.

Like, I'm a programmer, like programmers don't work at General Electric.

Like now they have, you know, more of a more of like software teams in the US.

They didn't at the time.

All of their development was being done in India.

So I and I it's not like I knew that at the time, but I'm like, who programs for General Electrical anyway?

So I went to the booth because there was nobody there, and I go up to the booth with my resume at the same time that another girl goes and approaches.

So we both came at the exact same time and we looked at each other.

And the person behind the booth, and you know how these career fairs work, like you need to really impress the person that you're talking to so that person can recommend you.

So we both get there at the same time, and the person behind the booth is like, oh, hi guys.

She takes both of our resumes, puts them on a pile, and then turns to us and says, So, what questions do you have?

I'm like, what a waste of my time.

Like, you're not even gonna remember who I am.

You're not making notes on my resume, you're not gonna recommend me for anything, right?

I'm like, never mind.

So I asked like a couple of questions and then I walked away.

Then like like months later, somehow like that resume got into a database.

And months later, I get a call from GE telling me that they want to give me an interview.

And I'm still trying to find jobs as a software developer.

I'm like, you guys don't have software development, but okay.

It turns out that this was, I mean, this was right after 9-11, by the way.

This was 2003.

This was two years after 9-11 had just happened.

And giving visas to international students was not a thing.

All right.

It became increasingly difficult for international students to get a job out of college because 9-11 had just happened and patriotism was on an ultimate high, right?

We don't know who these international people are.

We don't know what they're gonna do with our technology.

We like, no.

So everybody had shut down their international students program, but GE was still hiring.

So I went in for their information management leadership program.

And to my surprise, I get an internship and I excel in the internship.

I get recommended for a job, and that is the only job acceptance that I got out of college, is to be a project manager in software, which I knew I didn't want to do.

It was my third day on the job.

I'm like, this is not what I want to do with my life.

But my mother was like, Can you please just stay?

Please, just stay.

It's just two years.

You're gonna get a like really good experience.

Maybe you'll be working with developers.

Like, just do it.

And I ended up actually really loving project management.

Like, I didn't know that I had that leadership skill, that I had those organization skills.

And my knowing code made it possible for me to ask all the right questions that other people were just not able to ask.

So that kind of kicked off my career in IT and information technology.

And then after being a project manager at GE for eight years, I got my master's in business and I finally quit.

Finally quit.

I didn't think that I ever would.

I was very scared that I never would.

I was scared that I would retire for GE.

And they were very good to me.

I mean, it's because of them that I'm here, right?

So I have a lot of gratitude for that job, for everything that I learned there.

I'm sorry if I'm just a brat who says that I didn't want this job.

But like it's really what got me here.

So after I quit my job, I went to work at Mass General Hospital because I was really in love with the medical field.

Then I went to work at a consulting firm and I stayed there for five years doing software consulting.

And I really loved that job.

It was like a like a brotherhood where I was the only sister.

Everybody was like six foot two.

I'm like five foot one, and it's all men and me, right?

Then so I did that for like five years.

It was a great environment to work in.

And then after that, I went to work at this other startup company where the story that I told you happened about a year later.

So that's kind of where my career ended up taking me.

And I that's why I had my business making websites on the side, because I still, to this day, I still love code.

I mean, I can do anything on a WordPress site knowing cascading style sheets.

CSS is like a secret power.

I can like, I'm just gonna give you like one example of how this is like a secret power.

And I'm just gonna put myself in evidence here.

I just hope that the FBI doesn't come and get me.

But like, you know, when you're reading a New York Times article and they put up a screen saying, sorry, now you have to buy because you've seen the limit number of articles that you have.

I don't know if you've ever seen that screen like pop up, you can't read anymore.

If you know CSS, you can just right-click, click inspect, and just remove that layer and keep reading your article in piece.

So like it's that kind of like thing.

It's it's being able to just modify this.

Is something I use with my clients all the time, is going to a website and I can modify anything I want on this website.

So I use it with my clients to show them, like to do Instagram audits.

I go to their profile on a computer and I edit their profile right there on the spot so they can see what it will look like.

And then I just take a screenshot and send it to them so they can implement it.

So like it's it still has a lot of power for me knowing code.

So and that's kind of where where our story kind of catches up to what we were talking about before.

SPEAKER_04: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So you you are a woman with many layers of this story, of your personality.

I mean, we I I just this is incredible.

And so, okay, so we're back up to speed.

We're we're basically where we started our conversation of quitting that, going into entrepreneurship.

But before we catch up to speed, because I have some questions on what it was like for you actually leaving, starting your own business, yeah.

Fill me in a little bit though, because you weren't just working in career, you of course had your personal life.

You met your husband, you started a family.

Give me a little insight into that.

Where did you meet your husband at?

SPEAKER_00: I met him at UMass, and it's so funny because I was dating other people at the time that I met him, and I just really was not interested in him.

By the way, we yesterday we celebrated 15 years of wedded bliss, and we have been together for 20 years at this point.

So, but in the beginning, I just I really wasn't interested.

Like, I'm sorry, just I just don't see anything there, right?

So, oh my God, this is so funny.

So we would hang out, but purely, and I I'm sorry that I'm just such a horrible person.

I did marry the guy, so like it's been vindicated, right?

But I really got a kick.

And actually, this is maybe a lesson for a lot of guys trying to like trying to find a good woman out there.

It's like, you guys, patience is key.

Don't push the woman to anything, okay?

Like, don't worry about that friend zone situation that people talk about.

Because if you are the constant person who's just nice, like I'm telling you, it's your day is gonna come.

Okay.

So my husband, he would just let me hang out with him.

And I just got a thrill out of him liking me, right?

Out of like doing like flirting with him and doing little jokes with him.

And I could see him like get all red, right?

Like he's a super nerdy guy, like geeky guy.

Like, and like, and I love that's like my type, right?

But I really did not, I couldn't see his personality because he was so shy that yeah, I got a little bit of a kick of flirting with him and him not flirting back, just getting super embarrassed.

But I didn't really get to know him through these interactions.

So one winter, this was the winter right before I graduated, I go back home to Venezuela and he comes home to Boston, and we just keep talking, but we use AOL instant messenger.

And we are having conversations until four in the morning, and that is when I started to really see his personality and to see his and to see his humor, because he had this thing that he was afraid that I wouldn't laugh at his joke.

So he would think of a joke and not say it.

And I could see him just go like, um, like wanting to tell me, but then like stop himself and go like, yeah.

So he would say that all the time, and it just bothered me.

He would say, um, yeah.

I'm like, oh, why are you not telling me what you're saying, what you're thinking?

So on AOL, he just really loosened up.

And at one point, at the end of that winter break, we tell each other that we like each other.

And I'm like, oh geez, this is gonna be so awkward seeing him in person when we've never had that relationship in person.

And this guy was the coolest cucumber ever.

Just like, hey, like, like basically like nothing happened.

Like everything was just so easy that we just kind of started hanging out more and more and eventually just turned into something more special.

But I kept thinking, like, well, you know, um, we're gonna break up when I graduate anyway, because he still had another year.

We're gonna break up when when I graduate anyway.

And he'd be like, okay, no problem.

And I'm like, don't you care?

SPEAKER_02: Like, aren't you like fighting for me?

Don't you want to stay?

And he's like, you know, whatever you want to do, what am I gonna do?

Like force you?

Like, whatever you want to do.

SPEAKER_00: So I graduated and I ended up working in Connecticut, so like an hour away.

And I just bought my own car.

So I'm like, okay, I guess we can still hang out because we're close enough, right?

Like, okay, so we kind of stay together.

But I told him, hey, but as soon as the company sends me somewhere else, we are breaking up.

And he's like, okay, sure.

Right?

And they did send me someplace else.

And we decided not to break up.

But he promised that he would come and meet me there, that he would move where I was.

And he didn't.

And it had been six months.

I was living in Kentucky.

He's from Boston.

Imagine a Boston guy moving to Kentucky, right?

And I'm here getting extremely sad that maybe this guy's not as into me as I thought.

So I broke up with him.

And a month later, he shows up at my door in Kentucky and he says, I got a job.

I got an apartment about 15 minutes away from here.

And I just felt like if I didn't do this, I would never know what would happen with you.

So I basically like, I'm I'm here to give this a shot.

And I I couldn't believe it.

That was like the grand gesture of the century.

And we had the most amazing year together in Kentucky for from 2005 to 2006.

Then we came back to Boston after my assignment was over.

We came back to Boston.

And um a year later, he proposed.

So he proposed in 2007.

We got married in 2008.

So yeah, that's that's kind of what was happening at the same time that I was living that corporate life is me wanting to marry him, him not proposing, and that whole drama.

And finally he did, and it was beautiful, and it's been 15 years.

SPEAKER_04: Ada! Ada! Oh my gosh.

That is like that is like the love story of the century.

SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.

You don't even know all the like I just summarized it for you because this guy right here, I won the lottery with this guy.

You don't even know.

SPEAKER_04: That is just absolutely amazing.

Oh my goodness.

I love it so much.

So much.

So, all right, now we're talking about how amazing this man is.

Spectacular.

Moves to Kentucky of all places.

Wow.

Wow.

Exactly.

So we now speed back up to where we started.

You're pregnant.

SPEAKER_00: You have the with my second kid, by the way.

Oh sorry, go to the second kid.

SPEAKER_04: Second kid.

SPEAKER_00: I had a six-year-old.

Yeah, I had a six-year-old at home.

So Gregory was my first one, and that's when I started my first business.

That's when I started with making websites on the side, it was my first maternity leave.

And then six years later was my second maternity leave with James, who's now five.

And yeah, so yeah, we missed a kid in there.

But yeah, there would there was another kid.

And then there was another one.

SPEAKER_04: Okay.

So now we've got we've got a kid, we got another one on the way.

Honey, I'm done with this corporate job.

I'm putting and what does Mr.

Amazing say to that?

SPEAKER_00: Mr.

Amazing swallows a bowling ball.

Because you gotta understand that at this point, we are making about the same money.

SPEAKER_04: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: Right?

And I don't care how much money you're making.

If somebody comes and tells you that you're about to slice your income in half, it's going to be a strain.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

I don't care how much money you're making.

Half is what's about to come in.

He swallowed a bowling ball.

He said, that's a picture, right?

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: He said, honey, can we please take a look at our finances?

SPEAKER_00: Right?

And let's check out like, is this even possible?

Right?

And actually he was supposed to do it.

He was supposed to take, he's like, let me look at our finances, because he's the one that manages our finances for us.

Like, let me look at my finances and figure it out.

But he kept procrastinating, procrastinating, procrastinating, because he's like, eh, nothing is really real until it's real, right?

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_00: And which is by the way, part of his personality, which is why, like, he, as you can tell, like he never really pushed for us to go out.

He never really pushed for me to not break up with him.

He never, like, he just like, hey, whatever happens, happens.

I'm cool.

SPEAKER_03: Right?

SPEAKER_00: So because he's like that, he just kept procrastinating and pushing it off because I hadn't quit my job yet.

So I told him, like, hey, I'm planning on quitting on Monday.

Actually, this was a long weekend.

So I'm planning on quitting on Tuesday, and you haven't told me if I can yet.

So I need you to take a look at it.

And it turns out that that day, like that weekend, we both came down with like the most violent case of food poisoning.

Oh no.

So there was no way that he was going to open up a spreadsheet.

So I did it Monday night, Monday of that long holiday of that long weekend, Monday night, I opened.

I'm like, okay, send me our quicken file.

And I downloaded it to a spreadsheet and I did all of this analysis.

Okay, here are all of our expenses, here are all of our income.

He's like, this is what would happen if Laura, I did all of that and I said, okay, based on how much we have in savings and how much we have in credit cards and like our debt and like all these things.

It looks like if I quit working, I would have to go back to work like a year later.

Like, and my husband, because he's Mr.

Wonderful, he has done an amazing job with our finances.

He had already paid off both of our cars.

Like we we were like in zero debt.

Like he had done an incredible job with our stuff.

So I'm like, all right, so it looks like I could quit for a year before I have to go back.

And he looked at it, he said, okay, that's fine.

And he actually got excited about the prospect of me taking care of my son in person because he grew up with a mother who was there.

I grew up with a mother who worked.

So he actually was excited about me taking care of the baby at home and not having to outsource daycare.

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.

And he's like, okay, so you're gonna take care of the baby, right?

And I'm like, yeah, honey, but I'm also starting a business, just FYI.

Like this is happening.

So he's like, yeah, okay, but the baby.

I'm like, yes, honey, the baby.

But so yeah, that's kind of how that conversation went.

SPEAKER_04: Wow.

He is Mr.

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00: He is he really is.

He has been my biggest supporter, even when things don't go right.

Even that time when I had to ask him for money because I had gotten myself into so much debt in coaching and courses and all these things that I had done.

This is like part of the story that I tell in my masterclasses that I got to the point that I was overinvested while under-earning in my business, and I had to go back and actually ask him for money.

This was like three years into my business, and I was embarrassed and I couldn't believe it.

This is the business that was supposed to like solve all of our problems, and I'm here asking him for money for the business.

And even then, he said, I still really believe in you, and I still really believe that this can work and this is what you need to keep going, then here you go.

And I did end up paying him back a few months later.

But he has really been my biggest supporter.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's amazing.

And you know what?

That's what a relationship should be.

Yeah.

And whether it's whether it's a husband and wife, whether it's it's friends, whether, you know, whoever it is, that's what it should be.

And I think that's a beautiful representation of it.

So, catch me up to speed, catch me up to today.

Oh man.

You you enter entrepreneurship.

Did you have any clue at that moment that it would lead to where you are today?

SPEAKER_00: I was hoping that I would be where I am today six months into it.

SPEAKER_04: Okay.

SPEAKER_00: So that was the biggest shock for me.

That as soon as I went in, I realized that wait, this is not going to be as fast as everybody's telling me that this needs to be.

And it was really hard in that first year because I was not seeing results while I was seeing all of these other people bubbling up to the top saying, I just had my first 10K month, and I had my first 20K month, and I just, this is how you can do it quickly and stop wasting your time and invest in my thing.

And I really thought that I was a failure, a complete failure, like my first three years because my audience wasn't growing.

Like, why is my audience not growing?

Like, what am I doing wrong here?

Why is everybody else getting 10k months and 20k months?

And I'm here like still like struggling to make like 5k months.

Like, why is this happening?

And I like I'm gonna tell you, that was the biggest shock of all of it.

And now it's at the point that I understand, like I said, I need to raise a bust to longevity, right?

And now I understand why people make it and it's because they didn't quit.

Period.

I could after that first year, I could have said, well, this failed, right?

At the end of my first year, I think I made like$16,000 total.

And most of it was from my websites business.

It wasn't even from the coaching business I had started.

It wasn't even from the course that I had spent six months creating, right?

I'm like, okay, I guess I could go back to work.

But if I did, then we wouldn't be having this conversation today.

So it really took me a while to realize that time is really what is going to make this thing work.

Time and not quitting and continuing to evolve.

Because I've tried everything over the past five years.

I tried creating an online course, I tried doing one-on-one.

I tried incorporating one-on-one coaching with making making websites.

I even had a program where I had interns who would make a website for my clients, which was based all on my one-on-one work.

Like all of that stuff is building up to me what I do now.

But I had to realize that things needed to evolve and things needed to keep moving.

And I couldn't just quit when things got rough, and I couldn't quit when I had a bad month, and I had to really figure out how to use do my finances.

And so I've gone through several different niches, I've gone through several different offers.

Now I am at the point that I've created an offer that I know that it will stand the test of time.

And I finally, I finally made the decision to trademark it and to trademark the name of my podcast.

Like this is a brand that I want to stick with.

But it took me five years to get there.

It wasn't in the first month and it wasn't in the first six.

It really needed nurturing and paying attention to what I liked and what I didn't and what kind of clients I wanted to work with and how I wanted to work with them.

Like all of that was not an easy journey, Kevin.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

No, no, no doubt.

So here's my question: is what was the moment when you realized that you found the thing, that this is going to work, that you have been doing this for a reason, that this is where you're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00: You know what it was, Kev?

It was at the end of 2021.

Because every year I like immediately as soon as the year started, like in January and February, like even in December, like right around that year turn, I always end up like retrospectively looking at my year and saying, and looking at something that I didn't like.

It's like, man, like that should have been different.

Maybe I shouldn't be using these branding colors.

I want to reinvent myself.

I want to reinvent myself.

Like every year I reinvented myself.

I actually got a branding strategist to help me create a brand.

And that happened like in the beginning of 2019.

And like in 2021, I decided, I think it was 2021, 2020, 2021.

I decided to redo the brand.

And she saw it and she didn't like it.

She not that she didn't like the brand, she didn't like it that I changed it.

She's like, What are you doing?

That was supposed to be like your lasting brand, your legacy brand.

Like that's what you were supposed to be doing for the rest of your life.

And I'm like, no, thanks.

I'm cool.

I like this better, you know, is when I switched to the pink, right?

Because I was doing pink before, and then I switched to red, which I did with a branding strategist, and then I switched it back to pink.

And she's like, What are you doing?

I'm like, what feels better?

Right.

So by the end of 2021, that feeling went away.

And I didn't feel like reinventing myself anymore.

It was the end of 2021 where I had been doing my Instagram account, which was called Your Engagement Coach.

Now I switched it to Ina Kovany, but I started Your Engagement Coach on that year.

And I started that pink brand again.

And I was really fully promoting my get clients first methodology back then.

And at the turn of the year, I was like, wow, I actually feel good in this.

I feel that I have a great offer that I really like.

I feel like I really like the people that are coming into it.

I feel good about the price.

I feel good about the value.

I feel good about the things that I'm doing.

And I don't feel like changing anything.

And that was the moment when I'm like, then let's lean in on this.

And I spent all of 2022 just promoting this one offer and experimenting with a higher ticket offer like here and there.

But I am still going strong on this one offer that I absolutely love.

And I want to grow it.

I still have this dream to grow it as big as I can.

And I don't really feel a need to change anything in my brand right now.

So that was it.

It was that feeling of not needing to reinvent myself again.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's amazing.

Now, obviously, I have to ask you, what is the offer?

SPEAKER_00: So, to tell you why I love this offer so much, I kind of need to explain to you what I didn't like about my previous offer.

So that you see, like you can compare and contrast with me.

So I had an offer before this one that I thought was an amazing program.

I would guide an online coach, that's my people, my people are online coaches.

I would guide online coaches for the first six weeks of the program to truly define their ideal client, to truly define their offer, their pricing.

We created their freebie.

I mean, like we really set up their funnel.

And then the next six weeks, me and my team, we would create their perfect website.

And the website was always delivered on time, always delivered on budget.

It was a fixed price.

Like there was no budget.

It's like you pay me, and this is what's going to happen.

You get your business in a box by the end of, I think it was like 13 weeks.

And every time we finished it, people were elated, so happy with their website, so happy with their new business.

But then, months later, when I went back and asked them, hey, how's the business going?

Did you get clients?

Is it growing?

Like 80% of those businesses were not even active anymore.

And it started to really make me feel like I was a part of the problem here.

Because online coaches enter this coaching world, this coaching universe, and they are being told exactly what I was, what I was buying in that first year, right?

That you need to get to 10K months as soon as possible, that it is possible for you, that all you need to do is invest in this program and it will happen.

Look at my testimonials and invest in this and invest in this and invest in this.

And that's how I got myself into trouble.

I got myself in investing in all of these courses and all of these programs that at the time I didn't really need.

All I needed was to get clients.

That's all I needed.

Get clients, make money so that I can reinvest that money and maybe create my website and maybe invest in travel and conferences and everything else.

But I didn't have my priorities straight.

And I really felt like I was almost like preying on people who were in that vulnerable state, right?

People who were telling themselves, I need a website to be taken seriously.

So I need a website right now when they didn't even have a business, right?

And I didn't see this at the time.

Obviously, I'm not going to be willingly guiding people down the wrong path.

If somebody as a grown adult business person is saying, I need a website, hey, I'm here for you.

I'll make it for you, right?

But I started to realize that the people who were buying these websites, who were investing in this program, were not ready for a website yet.

This was not their first step.

But me being a seller of these products is not my place to tell you whether this is your first step or not.

And that started to feel very crummy to me.

I'm like, I could continue to sell this product, right?

Which it seems like it has high demand.

It's the product that helped me cross a six-figure market my business for the first time.

But I didn't feel good about selling someone something that they thought they needed, but it's really not what they needed at the time.

That's when I pivoted and I said, you know what is one thing that I've done really, really well over the past whatever, how many years that was, the past three years, even though my audience hasn't grown, I am able to get clients.

And I think that that is exactly what coaches need.

Coaches, right now, like the beginning coaches who need to iron out their offers and their pricing and their ideal clients, do not need a website to start.

And making a website is a costly endeavor.

It is expensive.

It is frustrating if you've never done it before.

It is frustrating if you're working with a developer who doesn't understand client management and expectations management and project management, right?

And I hear so many horror stories of people saying, I sat down with this developer for three hours and told them what I wanted, and six months later they still haven't delivered it, or they delivered the wrong thing, or I hate the way that it looks, and now I can't even edit it because I don't know how.

And I'm like, why do you need a website right now?

Do you even have clients?

Why are you spending all your money on this?

So it became kind of my mission to be like to say to coaches, listen, what you need right now is clients, and you can absolutely do that without a website.

I have paid top dollar for coaches without ever visiting their website.

That is not what you need right now.

So I let go of the website business and I said, okay, this is not what my people need.

What my people need is to get to get clients.

And that's where my new program began is okay, I'm gonna create this program to teach you how to get clients with a small audience.

But here's the kicker because I don't want you to come and invest$5,000,$6,000 into this program and then open module one and procrastinate and never open module two, and now you're$6,000 in debt for something that you never even opened.

Because that's really our purchasing habits, right?

It's we buy something and we barely even scratch the surface of it.

I've been there, I've done that, I have bought the$5,000 course that I still have not finished.

So I didn't want that to be the case.

I wanted this program to actually help people right now.

And the only way that I could do that is if I could allow them to cancel their payments, which means that this became a membership.

You get premium coaching access to me, to my course, to all of the steps to create your first launch with a small audience for your brand new offer, and you only pay$200 a month and you can cancel it at any time.

So that felt really good to me because if that had been the model of every course that I had taken in my first year, I wouldn't be in the kind of debt that I am right now.

So if this program is good, you'll be in it.

If you're not even opening it, if you're not using it, if you're focused on something else right now, then cancel.

You can come back anytime.

This is right here for you whenever you need it.

And that feels really good to me.

So yeah, that's that's kind of like my beautiful offer.

And it really came from this experience and realizing what people actually need.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I love that so much.

So here you are.

You you have this incredible offer that truly comes from the heart and in in delivering something to people that you want to help, but you want to be sure that you're truly helping them.

What does your life look like today versus when we go back to that corporate career?

How do the two?

Lives differ.

SPEAKER_00: I have, and I'm I'm not even saying this like in a super like I I I really want you to know this comes straight from the heart.

I have so much flexibility, it's not even funny.

And it is amazing because just before we jumped on this call, Kev, I was telling you that, you know, my day has not been the best.

My son had to have surgery last week.

And he has been out of school since then.

Then yesterday I had to take him to the doctor to get a shot.

And today he woke up with a huge allergic reaction to it, right?

And my calendar right now is tailored for those situations.

That's why right now I'm not doing one-on-one coaching.

I can't imagine filling my calendar with appointments that when things happen, when my son wakes up sick, I'm going to have to cancel an entire day and then have to worry about rescheduling it.

I can't live like that right now.

My life would absolutely change as the phases change, right?

As my kids become older and more independent and sick less often, I'll be able to fill my calendar a little bit more the way it was in corporate, right?

Like actually working from nine to five and spending all of that productive time on my business.

Right now, I can't.

I don't have that time.

So my days right now are pretty much I focus on my kids, and then I have meetings that I have very carefully chosen and set up to be at that time, at that place.

So today, for example, I have two meetings, this one here with you, and then a coaching call at 12 o'clock.

And after my coaching call, I go back to taking care of my son.

Yesterday was pretty much the same thing.

I had a VIP day that I had scheduled, and I had a live that I needed to do.

So I in the morning I cared for my son and I made sure to give him something to eat, and then I went to my meetings.

But I am able to juggle both.

If I were in corporate right now, I have no idea the amount of stress that I would be under because my son right now has been needing me a lot more than anybody else, right?

And a lot more than any other time.

So yeah, so for the past week that he hasn't been in school, I have no idea what I would have done with my corporate job.

I remember my corporate job being booked for meetings back to back to back to back to back.

I have no idea what I would be doing if I didn't have the kind of flexible schedule that I have right now.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

Well, Ina, I have one last question for you.

And it's kind of taking it full circle in this journey that you've been on where your parents, they they took a chance and and they they let their daughter move to another country and and start this life that is just blossomed for you.

If you had one wish for your children, what would that wish be?

SPEAKER_00: I want them to realize that nobody is coming to save them.

That sounds so grim, but hear me out because this is really the wish that I have for everybody who's listening right now.

Don't put your faith in somebody else's hands, in a corporation, in a company, in your boss, in anybody except for yourself.

You have more control over your life than you think.

So I want my kids to grow up knowing that.

Because you have any idea, all of the time, like for anybody who's listening, I want you to notice all the time and effort that you're spending on your corporate job or on trying to start your side business.

What if all of that energy was focused on really creating the life that you truly wanted?

And I know that the first thing you're going to be thinking of is like, well, but wait, I have all of these restrictions on my life.

Hey, so do I, so does Kev, so does everybody.

Everybody, you know, has two hands tied behind their back.

But we all have control over our choices.

So if your dream is to quit your job and then just do your work full-time, map it out.

Get yourself the right kind of help to get there.

What are you going to need?

Is this just a dream or is it a plan?

So if I were to teach anything to my kids, is to plan for what they want rather than planning for the immediate compromise.

You see what I mean?

Is if I don't know where I want to get to, I'm inevitably always going to end up dissatisfied because it's always going to feel like I'm compromising something.

So instead, start with what you want and start dreaming as big as you can.

Say, you know what, by this time next year, right now, June 2023, right?

July 2023, July 2024, one year from now, what do I want to be doing?

I want to be quitting my job so that I can pursue my coaching full-time.

Okay, what does that take?

And this is something that I used to do when I used to in my all my pivots, I used to call myself a salary replacement expert.

And I would tell my people to calculate two numbers.

Number one, I need to know, I need you to know how much money do you actually need to live?

And it is not equal to your current salary.

How much money do you need to keep your home, to keep your food on the table, to keep your gas bill paid and your water bill paid and your phone bill paid.

How much does that add up per month?

Okay.

Now that you have that number, I want you to go back to your finances and see.

If you quit your job right now, count how much you have in savings.

If you're comfortable with this next step, you can see how much credit limit you have on your credit cards, right?

Not everybody's gonna do it that way, and that's totally fine.

But I want you to look at what is your runway.

If you were to quit your job right now, how many months would you be able to cover of that point number one of those expenses?

How many months would it take for you to run out of money?

And that is your runway.

So if you want to replace your salary, think about point number one.

Think about the number number one, the expenses.

And if you want to quit your job, how much time are you giving yourself for this thing to work, for this new business to work, for you to start replacing the salary?

And that is that second number.

So think about what is it that you want, how much money you need to save for that to happen.

Give yourself, I don't know, six months worth of expenses, a year worth of expenses to make sure that your business is actually working in that time.

Give yourself that runway and plan for it and create the life that you want and then work back to a compromise.

If things are not working out perfectly, then you can start nudging it down.

But don't start with a lower notch.

So that's what I would really encourage my kids to do.

My my husband hates it when I say this, but like, I'm not even married to them, even going to college.

What I want them to is to really look at their life in a really critical way and to say, this is what I want.

So what do I need to do to get there?

And to just wholeheartedly go for it.

Because, like I said in the beginning, nobody's coming to save them.

Nobody is coming to give them that life and hand them stuff.

This has to be their doing, and they have to start doing it now and planning for it.

Now, I'm not saying for everybody, hey, go quit your job right now.

No, that's why you calculate the numbers.

You need to figure out how much money you need to save in order to give yourself that runway.

Okay, you gotta plan for this.

Be smart with it, but don't give up on it.

Don't compromise on it.

Know exactly what you want and then just go for it.

Remember, nobody's gonna hand it to you.

You're the only one who's gonna make it happen.

And I was watching Moana with my son yesterday.

I don't know if you guys have seen Moana.

Kev, have you seen Moana?

SPEAKER_04: I have, yes.

SPEAKER_00: I love Moana.

Here's what I love about Moana, and like it inspires me so much.

Is that Moana had no idea if she was going to succeed in her mission?

All she knew is that if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be her, right?

And like, if anybody's gonna do it, then she's already doing all the right things, right?

What what would be different about somebody else taking on that big project or taking on that business?

What is what would they do differently that I couldn't do?

Of course you could.

The only difference is are you going to quit too soon before seeing the results or not?

And I love that about Moana, that she just didn't give up.

It's like if anybody's gonna do it, it's gonna be me.

And if anybody's gonna do it, they're gonna do it this way because I'm doing all the right things.

So let's just do it.

And it was not easy, and she wanted to quit many times, but she didn't, and she actually pulled through.

So, with that uncertainty in front of you, like what are you going to do?

Are you going to pull through and never give up on it?

Or are you just going to give it a lukewarm try and then go back to your job?

So, anyway, I know that's not exactly what you asked me, but it's what I wish for myself.

Like, right?

It's not just for my kids, it's not just for the listeners.

It's what I tell myself every day.

If anybody can do it, it's you, and you're already doing all the right things.

So just stick with it, raise that statute to longevity, and trust that you're going to get where you want to go.

SPEAKER_04: I love it.

And in the spirit of Mijuana, only those who have seen it will understand when I say that Ina is shining like a wealthy woman's neck.

SPEAKER_02: Like a wealthy woman's neck.

Because I'm so shiny, babe.

SPEAKER_04: So shiny, so shiny.

Ina, you are incredible.

And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being on my podcast today.

I love you.

I've loved you from the time I first met you, introduced to you, and having you on my podcast is a true honor.

And I want to thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00: That is so nice, Kev.

And I do have to say, I was like starstruck when I saw you at Podfest.

And I had to come over and just like give you a hug.

Like, oh my God, it's Kevin.

So I want to tell you how what a what a pleasure.

And I'm so, so happy that I got to meet you face to face.

And I'm just the honor is mine to be on your podcast.

And really thank you.

This was an amazing journey.

Nobody has ever asked me these questions before.

Nobody has ever gotten this deep with me.

And now I'm a little bit worried.

I'm I'm hoping that that people took really good stuff from this interview because I have no idea how it turned out.

SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I said all the right things or all the wrong things.

You definitely took me down paths that I did not expect.

So thank you so much, Kev.

SPEAKER_04: Listen, I think the only worry you have is maybe your sister coming after you.

You know, so so we'll hope that she doesn't listen and uh all will be good.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's hope she never hears.

Like, let's not, yeah, Kev, do me a solid and let's not make a real and uh in an audiogram with specifically that part.

SPEAKER_02: Let's just not bring attention to like that particular part of the story, if that's okay.

SPEAKER_04: I got you back.

I got you back.

SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Kev.

SPEAKER_04: Ina, thank you for being here.

And for you, my listener, thank you for being here.

As always, this podcast is only possible because of you tuning in every week.

And, you know, my my hope with today's episode is that you're left smiling as big as I am at this woman who we have here on the studio today showing us that anything and everything is possible.

That sometimes our dreams, they're merely the roadmap for what we are to make come true.

My name is Kevin Low.

This is Grit Grace of Inspiration.

Get out there and take on the day.