Why I Chose a Tiny Studio After My Divorce
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Episode Summary:
When I moved out of my parents' house after my divorce, I lived in a 350-square-foot studio—not just to save money, but because it felt safe. It was small, in my control, and I could sleep near my kids. And STILL, I bought an extra lock for the door. That’s how fried my nervous system was. My sense of safety was shattered. I knew I was overreacting in a way—but I LET MYSELF, because that’s what made me feel safe. And I’m so glad I did - because that's what helped me feel safe enough to take the ACTION that made me feel long term safe.
In this episode, I’m sharing what that season of my life taught me about safety, control, and trusting yourself as you navigate change—and how these same lessons translated into growing my business. If you're struggling right now, the answer isn't to make it harder. It's to make it simpler, easier, and more supported with community. More than anything, I hope this week’s episode gives you permission to see that I am SUPER imperfect—but I still let myself make a lot of money along the way.
Topics:
Taking “shortcuts” that make you feel safe to take the action
Shifting from external control to internal safety
The power of simplicity especially when things feel hard
Letting go of perfectionism around business and making money
Building your resilience, problem solving and intuition
Episode Resources:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
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Anna (00:06):
Welcome to the Heart-Centered Entrepreneur podcast. I want you to be rich. Yes, I want abundant financial success for your business, but I don't just care about your business making money. I care about you too. I want you to be rich and happiness in the impact you make, in your relationships and in how you give back. I'm Anna. I built my six figure business as a side hustle while I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016. Now I've helped dozens of women do the same. I'm here to help you build a profitable, heart-centered fully book business with the latest tips on sales and visibility with proven mindset hacks and sneak peeks behind the scenes with what's working right now in the online space and in my business, ready to make more money with heart. Let's go.
Anna (00:51):
Hi, friends. <laugh>, I'm recording this podcast on a sunny day, a sunny day. I feel like we have not had a sunny day in like four months. I feel like I've been living in a cave and when it's cold and you know, when you like get a chill in your bone that you just can't seem to warm up. I have been coaching sitting on my heating pad. I've been taking hot showers, but there's just been something inside me for the last four months that cannot warm up. Okay, <laugh>. So with this little burst of sunlight, I am just feeling so thankful. So thankful, and just the reminder that the sun always comes out, right? I've heard from so many of my clients that in, you know, if you're listening to this in real time when this goes live, it's probably like March-ish, 2025, and just a reminder that we still have 10 months of the year left in this time of year.
Anna (01:42):
We can feel like, oh, if it's a rough start to the year, whatever, right? Like discouraged. No, you've got plenty of time left. You're right where you need to be. Let me just say a prayer, a blessing of hope, of encouragement over you for you that you would feel peace, you would feel calm, you would feel clarity, you would feel renewed energy, you would feel new ideas, just that you would feel that the world is limitless. And that can be hard in a time where globally we are facing so many challenges and so much discord and all of that, and so many of my clients are going through personal struggles too, right? But just saying a prayer that you would find, uh, some element of peace and hope to get you through as we press into spring. Okay? I kind of wanted to like go a little bit off the cuff and I took a few notes, but really talk through something I've been thinking about a lot lately, which is, how do I have success in my business even though I am a control freak, a safety freak, like lightly hypervigilant, like I am not a perfect person.
Anna (02:40):
And I think if you like see me online, you might see this. Yes. Like I have an amazing life and I'm so grateful for it, right? It's amazing that I basically made $300,000 last year on part-time hours as a single mama living in San Diego, owning my own house, having my Tesla. Like I am so blessed and lucky and grateful. We're going on a Disney cruise in a few weeks, right? But what I wanna say is I have all of that and I'm an imperfect person, right? I have all of that and you know, I have all these things that I'm still working on improving with my coach, with my therapist. I say that because I think so much as women, we feel like that we have to be perfect in order to have success. That we have to be more organized. We have to be skinnier, we have to be smarter, we have to be more certified.
Anna (03:26):
No, and not that it's, it is of course we can work on ourselves, but I'm a big fan of like in, especially when we're in the personal development space, there's always something we can work on, right? We improve one thing about ourselves and then there's something else. As a mama, we master how to be a mom to a five-year-old, and then our kid turns six, right? Like we figure out how to have a small business and then our business gets a little bigger and we're like, oh, how do I do this team thing? Right? There's always going to be something that you're working on as an ambitious woman, I talk about this in my book, right? So I think it's so important to realize that it's safe to have success and make a lot of money and work on yourself at the same time, but not necessarily tell yourself, you know, this is why I am not getting success or this is, you know, I have to be perfect before I can have more money.
Anna (04:10):
No girl, make more money this year. Pull back your work hours just because you deserve it and it's your birthright to make abundant income as a woman, right? To have that abundance. So today I just wanna like share a few stories from my life. I hope that they're helpful for you, just as an example of things that IE either like still am working on or just like in ways that I, I just wanna show my imperfection to you because I thi I hope it, I love sharing my wins with you. I love sharing that. Like, yes, I'm making a ton of money on a three day work week. Like, but I also wanna share that I'm not perfect because I otherwise you won't feel like it's accessible to you. And I want you to see that no matter what it is that you're facing or carrying or struggling or feeling challenged with, it's safe for you to have abundance.
Anna (04:55):
And that thing. I also wanted to share this because I feel like in my life how I've gotten through some of my biggest mindset hurdles is sometimes through action, sometimes this through like going to therapy, going, talking to my coach, like doing the mindset work, right? But sometimes I find that like taking the action or taking the shortcut, making it easy on myself, has kind of shortcutted some of the mindset work. And I don't feel like this is talked about enough in the online space and I think drives women into feeling they have to like journal it out forever until they're perfect or something like that, right? And the truth is like we're all unperfect and I feel like we're gonna go to the grave imperfect <laugh>. And so especially for women who are heart-centered, who are trying the breast, who are trying to self-improve, I think we can like self-improve to a fault instead of letting ourself like quote press the easy button.
Anna (05:44):
So just this example popped into my mind and it's, I hope it's helpful for you. So, um, during my, you know, I got divorced, I moved in with my parents for a little bit and then I moved into a very small studio that wa had a bedroom and it had kind of a tiny little kitchen. I had a toaster oven and our living space, right? And so I tell the story a lot of like, the reason I did that was to save money for my house. And it's true, it did like literally cut my rent expense in half so I could save that $200,000 in like two and a half years, right? That is absolutely true. I got a small space to cut back my expenses. But you know, the other reason I got a small space that I don't even think I shared or realized until now is because it made me feel more safe.
Anna (06:28):
Like I'm someone that, like, for me, like with my kids, I felt I was so nervous to live on my own. Number one, even though, so we were renting a studio in the back of basically like a H house that was like a million and a half dollars, this gorgeous home in a super safe neighborhood. My studio was behind the home behind an iron fence, like super safe situation. But because my nervous systems was so fried, everything felt unsafe. Everything felt unsafe. I remember like buying this special lock that I put on the door, like I put an extra lock, you guys <laugh>, and, and it was so nice because it was so small. So I always knew where my kids were. It wasn't even like a, a small house where like I had to like listen for them. They were literally sleeping in the same bedroom as me.
Anna (07:13):
We had their bunk beds and then I had my twin bed, right? Even when they were playing on our little side yard, I could literally see them in the side yard all the time. I just, I think I needed a chapter of like having them near to me and having that sense of control for me because again, my system was so fried and I think sometimes we feel like we have to like mindset out of the work, like I said. But for me, like I didn't guilt myself over buying the extra lock even though it made no sense for me to put an extra lock on the door, right? Same thing when I moved to my house. When I bought my house, I did so much research you guys on safety stuff. Like I literally shopped for, um, this film to put on all the windows to make it impossible to break in.
Anna (07:54):
I literally had safety bars for every window on my, in my Amazon cart. And for me, even though quote, it was unnecessary, it made me feel safe to buy the house. Once I bought the house, I actually ended up not <laugh> putting bars on the windows. I ended up not doing any of that. I bought security cameras and then I like, you know, they ended up being unplugged for a month that I didn't even notice. Honestly, this house, I felt so unbelievably safe in this house, but it's really because I feel safe, right? Because I feel grounded. I'm at a, a much more stable situation now that I'm not married and everything like that. I have a lot more money, right? Like I practically am safer, but I'm so glad that I like didn't force myself to like, I could have like done therapy to like, okay Anna, you don't need to buy bars on your windows because practically you don't need them, you're fine.
Anna (08:47):
But instead I let myself put them in my Amazon cart and like I wouldn't have felt any shame around being the only house on the block with bars on my windows if that made me feel safe, right? And I think as women we need to be ruthless about like doing what makes us feel good or right or comfortable as we're doing scary things. For me it was scary to buy a house, right? For me it was scary living on my own at first, right? Like, and I think like we don't need to make ourself wrong for the things that we need to do to make ourself feel comfortable. When I was quitting my day job, I was a little extra. I was like, I wanna sign paying clients. I wanna have be fully booked. I wanna have a wait list of people literally paying me to work with me when I come back.
Anna (09:28):
Guaranteed future income and I wanna have a savings account that's a little extra. Some people might be like, no, jump in the parachute will appear. But for me, that's what my nervous system needed. So I'm so glad I didn't like therapize myself out of that and I was just like, you know what, no, this is what I need and that's okay. This is what's gonna make it feel safe and right for me. And I think honoring that has been so imperative to my journey every step of the way, right? Another example of like when I started the Facebook group, yes it was because I like wanted to grow my community. It was also because I didn't want the general internet knowing what I was doing because I was still figuring out like what are my therapy peers gonna think of me? What are my professor peers gonna think of me like, right?
Anna (10:07):
And so the Facebook group was a really a way I could control who came in and out of my world and who saw my content. I mean, that only gets you so far. I think like for me, I'm so glad I let myself do those things at the beginning. But then to a certain extent, those things that we do that create an illusion of control really start to hinder us, right? So I wanna also talk to you guys about how I create safety now in a way that's a little bit more open-handed. But what I wanna say to you is if you need to create safety for yourself in a way that is embarrassing, screw it. Do it and be embarrassing. Like for me it's like, if that's what I need, that's what I need. Come at me. I have bars on my windows, come at me, I'm in my private Facebook group.
Anna (10:48):
Like that's what I need to feel good. And then when I am ready, I will take the step and feel a little more safe. I love, love. I have this book that I started reading my kids when they were really, really young. It's about like body boundaries and consent. It's an excellent book actually. It's really appropriate for kids of any age. I read it to my kids when they were like one and three and they still love it. Literally my kids are eight and 10. And the other day, like my daughter requested it just because it's a very interactive book. But I love that it really like puts in this element in kids of like self-trust and like, you know, it has this graphic of like, if someone has to hold your hand and you say yes, and then you change your mind, you can change your mind and say, I don't wanna hold your hand anymore.
Anna (11:27):
And this sounds so simple, but I think especially for women, we have to be taught that it's okay to change our mind. Like it's okay to do one thing and then change things up later, right? Okay. So what I wanna talk about too is like how I create safety for myself now in a little bit more of like an abundant way, okay? <laugh>, I still am someone that like, again, like I'm a single mama, I have small kids. I'm someone that errs on the side of, of like anxiety. Like I am kind of a control freak. Like I am a good girl at heart. Like all those things, which honestly make me like a great coach, but also can like, you know, hurt me sometimes. And so when it's come to like growing my audience, growing my expense, feeling safe, feeling letting new people in, like, here's the thing, you're not gonna grow your business.
Anna (12:14):
You're not gonna grow your income if it already feels like you're at capacity. Here's so many women saying that. Like, Anna, I wanna sign more clients. I wanna make more money. But also I already feel like I'm like overwhelmed. I don't wanna let new people new energy in. I don't know if I can handle that right? And I can relate to that. But I will say something changed for me big time when I went from like controlling things on the front end to instead really tapping into my ability for self-trust, for resilience to like, instead of like, okay, I gotta make sure someone's a perfect client. That way when they work with me, they won't stress me out, right? Instead it's like, what if like I really like have these different filter systems, but if someone gets in that's not a fit, guess what? Like that consent book said, I can change my mind.
Anna (12:58):
I can let them go and refund them the money, right? Like I think so much we put ourself in this bind of like, I have to pick this message. It's gonna be that way for the rest of my life. I'm showing up on the social platform and I have to show up there in this way for no, no. Like you always have an escape hatch, right? And I think me knowing that I can trust myself and I can always change my mind and have an escape hatch is almost like my new version of trying to control things on the front end, right? I used to really have like a basically a hundred percent close rate on my sales calls. You think that's a good thing? It's really not because what I was doing is only inviting someone on a sales call it after I was sure they would work with me or after I felt sure they were a fit, instead of realizing like, no, a sales call is a first date, A sales call is like a 10 minute chat.
Anna (13:44):
And it is so useful. And that instead of like, I had to filter someone before the call. No, the call is the filter. Some of you need to hear that again, okay? You don't have to filter someone before the call. The call is the filter, right? And I love sales calls because it's not just them trying to figure out are you a fit, but you're figuring out are they a fit? Is this someone that is a fit for my work? Is this someone who I want to work with? And for me that just provides so much safety knowing that like, you know, at every step along the way, you can say no to someone, right? If someone's being rude in your audience, you can block them. If someone's not a fit on a sales call, you can be kind and say no if someone blah, blah blah, right?
Anna (14:24):
Like if someone's not a fit and they're already a client, you can gently dismiss them, right? And be like, okay, here's your money back. It's not a fit, right? And I think if we give ourselves permission to have those escape hatches, that's when we feel comfortable letting the floodgates of money and clients in because there's so much we can't control. We might think we are doing the right thing by like not letting someone in on all of this, but on the backend we don't really know who's gonna be a good fit until we're on the call, until they are a client, right? And so instead of like having this focus on like control and perfection, having this focus on your ability to be resilient, to adapt, to stand up for yourself, to have boundaries, to say no, those skills and entrepreneurship are so much better to have than the skill of perfection and control.
Anna (15:08):
And I think sometimes in the beginning of business we rely on that, right? Whether we have a thing of like, I don't feel safe or I don't feel enough, I don't feel worthy, right? We can do things to kind of like buffer that. And I'm a big fan, like I said, of like buffering it. Like if you don't feel like you, like how you look on camera, change it. Like get hair extensions, like wear lip gloss, like I don't care. Like do what you need to do to feel good. Like I'm a big fan of that. Like I said, like put the safety bars on your windows, like shame free, right? Like use the medication, use the aid, use the support, right? Like have your friend help you have a coach baby you, right? Like, and I'm not saying that in a bad way, I'm saying that in like a good way, right?
Anna (15:49):
But then to a certain extent, I think we get to a place where like how can we, once we feel safe, once we feel secure, once we're not in survival mode, how do we let the flood gates in? How can you trust that? I want you to close your eyes for a second if you feel comfortable with that. I want you to trust that you can let your content go viral. That you can let your list grow to 10,000, 20,000, 40,000. And you can trust yourself with that energy. You don't owe those humans anything, right? You can grow your list of 40,000, doesn't mean you have to email them, right? You can sign a group of 10 paying group clients and then you can decide the next round. You only wanna have three people in that group, right? You can launch a course and then the next round you can decide to just do it DIY, evergreen, and not have life students in it, right?
Anna (16:36):
Like you have consent. You, you are in charge, you're in control. You can trust yourself every step along the way. I think I told you guys this story, but I had one client who had really bad migraines that she could not control. And so it really helped her. She wrote this letter be she was having trouble signing clients and she was really nervous about like, oh, what if I sign 'em and have migraines? She wrote this letter of like obviously what she would tell clients on the front end, but then also if she had a migraine in the moment, the email she would send to cancel the session and she never even had to send the email. But that gave her the confidence to start signing paying clients. And she did sign paying clients, right? And I think that's it. So often we need to know that we have the option, we have the escape hatch and like giving ourself permission to create that instead of like, don't write that email just like blah, blah blah.
Anna (17:23):
Like no, just write the email. Like just, you know, I think there's this like false positivity in the online space of like, oh no, that could ever happen. No, actually someone could be mean in your reels, right? Actually, someone could sue you actually. Like obviously like these things aren't likely to happen, but I think we live in this delusional world sometimes of like, oh, that'll never happen. No, it could happen. And what would you do? How do you equip yourself? How do you prepare yourself for that next level of success? This helped me when I was really nervous to start my business. 'cause I was like, I'm nervous I'm gonna be a bad mom, right? I was afraid that it would make me a bad mom. Spoiler alert, it's made me have so much more mental, emotional, financial resources for my kids. But I didn't think that.
Anna (18:01):
And so I remember like literally writing a plan for like little safeguards for like, you know, when I was making more money, when my business was bigger, how I would still make sure to prioritize my kids, right? So there's that. Oh, I wanna say one more thing too. And that is like I'm a big fan of like, instead of like self-sabotage, like using the word like self-protection and really seeing that so often, you know, we feel like, oh, like I'm not getting the results I'm on. I'm not. Maybe you're in a season of business where you're feeling stuck and I mean like stuck. Stuck, right? Often we are protecting ourselves from something, right? Like there's something that our bodies and brains are smart, right? So I would really encourage you to look into what is it that you're nervous about? What are you self-protecting from?
Anna (18:45):
What about making another a hundred thousand dollars feels the most nerve wracking? What about signing 10 more clients feels like too much to handle, right? And can we solve that problem? Can we look into what that is and get curious there? Okay, I think that was it, <laugh>, that was it for my thoughts. But I just really wanna encourage you to think through how in this next chapter, can I, number one, embrace that I'm a messy, imperfect human. And also I can have a ton of, I can have what I want, right? Like I know I'm an imperfect person, but I know I can find my partner, my next partner. I'm a marry, right? You're an imperfect human, but you can still make a ton of money and be a great coach and make a great impact. Be a great service provider, right? Like it's possible for you to have both.
Anna (19:27):
You don't have wanna have to be perfect. And also just permission to like what can you, I did a reel the other day of like, yeah, money doesn't solve. Well, there's a thought of like, don't throw money at the problem or money doesn't solve everything. I don't know. But in my experience, money does solve almost everything. <laugh>. Like there's almost nothing in my life that money, the resource has not helped me solve when it comes to my job as a mom, right? Like it really has bought me like time freedom so that I can like journal and pray and like work through my parenting challenges. Like it has bought me therapy, it has bought me like a house, it has bought me resources and health insurance and like money does solve problems. And so asking yourself kind of like I did, like when it comes to the next thing that I'm growing on that I'm nervous about, where can I sometimes do the deep work, but where can I also just buy the bars on my windows so I feel safer, right?
Anna (20:21):
Where can I just make it easier on myself? I don't have to tough it out, I don't have to like buy the shortcut, like take the easy button. And I don't say that in like a weird scammy way, but like I think sometimes we think it's more noble to suffer and truly it's not like, and that's where I think like it's safe to grow from a place of regulation. And I hope I'm an example of that, right? I think in some ways like quote, like I've been in business almost 10 years and yes, that, you know, I made like $300,000 last year, but I probably could be making a million dollars a year right now if I wanted to. But for me, I like the slow growth. Like I like the, like I say the happy boring dream life. Like there's a lot of things I don't wanna compromise.
Anna (21:02):
Like I really currently still love coaching my clients personally because that's what makes me like my business is I love to coach. Like I don't wanna take that part outta my business right now, right? I love to work part-time. I love to be super available to my kids. I love to have a small team. Like for me, this is the win, this is the success, this is the happy, boring dream life. So I hope that's an encouragement to you. And as a final reminder, remember that you don't have to do this alone. Like there is nothing that I think like all women, we either have a core thing of like not feeling safe or not feeling worthy, right? Something of that. And I think for me, both those things are so solved with support. Both those things are so solved with community, right? When we're in fear, when we're in survival, we believe this lie that we have to do it alone.
Anna (21:51):
This is a lot of like western thought too is the individualism, right? But the truth is that I really believe that we were designed to be in community. Like we were designed to need each other. Like healthy dependence is definitely something I had to learn. Number one, like learning to trust my team, my beautiful three women that support me, also, my therapist, my coach, my friends. Like I would be nothing without them in that sense, right? And I really think, you know, the more you let yourself be supported, the faster you're gonna grow and the faster you will feel safe, worthy enough. All of those things. So that's my one of the takeaways I want you to walk away with too is like how can you equip yourself? How can you support yourself more? Especially when you're feeling stuck. I think sometimes we're like, oh, I gotta figure this out, right?
Anna (22:37):
I've gotta make it difficult. No, I've gotta, I've gotta make my goal bigger. No, make your goal smaller. Make the steps simpler. Get more support. Take the easy way. Like it's so interesting how we're conditioned to wanna make our life harder when it's hard. Instead of like, okay, things are already hard. So how can I make it easier? How can I make it simpler? You guys know I'm a big fan of like simplified business model, right? You can a hundred percent get a $300,000 a year and more. My clients that have businesses that are 800, $900,000 a year have very simple business models, have very simple business plans. They are not on 17 social platforms. They do not have a podcast and a YouTube channel and a blah blah blah, right? Like they don't have 17 offers, right? Both of them have one main offer that I'm thinking through in particular, right? Like, you know me, I have my mastermind and my course right? Like permission to keep it simple. You don't have to work harder, you make it easier on yourself. Okay? Sending you the biggest hug. Thanks for hanging out today. Please hit that subscribe button so you can make sure to stay updated anytime a a new episode drops. And I would love for you to join me in my free Facebook community. It's called The Heart-Centered Entrepreneur. We discuss the podcast episodes. I regularly go live and do free trainings, and you may even meet your newest biz bestie so you can join at https://heartcenteredcommunity.com/. It's absolutely free and I cannot wait to see you in there.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.