Shownotes
What if collaboration — not competition — was the real secret to wealth? In this inspiring conversation with Monique Alvarez, founder of Network Like the Rich and AMA Publishing, we explore how authentic connections and intentional partnerships can multiply your income, impact, and influence. Monique shares her journey from small-town beginnings to building a global multimillion-dollar business with her husband, and the powerful role collaboration, gratitude, and hope have played along the way.
You’ll learn:
🌿 Why “leaving everyone better than you found them” is the foundation of true wealth
🌎 How to network with heart — the way the rich actually do it
💜 What it takes to blend love, leadership, and business in harmony
If you’re ready to elevate your circle, build relationships that open doors, and grow your empire with ease — this episode is for you.
👉 Connect with Monique at NetworkLikeTheRich.com
🎧 Hosted by Jill Hart, The Coach’s Alchemist – helping conscious entrepreneurs amplify their voice, monetize their mission, and get visible.
Want premium clients from your content?
Grab a free Client Acquisition Audit and I’ll show you exactly where your message, offer, and CTA are leaking conversions—and the 3 fixes to turn your podcast/Substack into a client pipeline.
👉 Book here: https://coachsalchemist.com
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Transcripts
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What if collaboration, not competition, was the real secret to wealth? Our next guest reveals how powerful connections and intentional partnerships can open doors you didn't even know existed, and how to build a network that multiplies your income, impact, and influence.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi, and welcome to the UWorld Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs who are stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, The Coaches Alchemist, on a mission to help coaches and entrepreneurs amplify their voice
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: monetize their mission, and get visible. If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head over to Coachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out, rather than you having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Monique Alvarez. Monique is the founder of
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Publishing and Network Like the Rich, where she helps visionaries turn their message into movements. Alongside her husband of 18 years, Monique has built
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: A global business that generated millions in revenue and created opportunities for countless women around the world. She's the woman behind the best-selling collaborative book, Sacred Redesign, and her expertise in building authentic relationships and high-level collaborations has made her a sought-after mentor and leader. When she's not helping others grow their empire, you can find her making chocolate souffle.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for her two boys, and savoring the richness of a life well designed. Hi, and welcome, Monique! It's so great to have you here, I've really been looking forward to this.
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::Monique Alvarez: Me too, Jill. Thanks. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I know we're gonna have fun.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it is gonna be fun. But I'm going to start us off with a big question that I'd like to ask everybody, which is, what's the most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?
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::Monique Alvarez: The most significant thing we can do right now is to have hope.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes.
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::Monique Alvarez: I can't claim to be a person who has light inside of me, who has vision, who has purpose, and then be hopeless.
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::Monique Alvarez: I'm okay if I'm the foolish optimist, I will be that for all of time, and that's the most important thing we can do right now.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It makes such an impact on how everything else around you happens.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you face the world, like, today's a brand new opportunity for great things to happen to me, and you just…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: just let it out there. No matter what else is going on, this can still be a great day for you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it… More likely than not, it'll turn out to be okay.
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::Monique Alvarez: Absolutely, that's what I found. You have a much better chance of having a good day if that's how you are starting out, and that's the way you're approaching it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, if you're planning for it. Let's plan for the best! And if the worst happens, we can ignore it!
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::Monique Alvarez: Exactly.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or find good things that have happened. So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know that you have a community network like The Rich. I just love that name.
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::Monique Alvarez: Thank you. It came to me out in the field. God gave me the name, so that's why it's so good.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It seems like it. So, tell me a little bit about it. What are you doing over there? How is it helping people? And what do the network… what do the rich network like that, you know, the rest of us.
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::Monique Alvarez: You know…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm missing on.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, it's… I'm so glad you asked this, because most of the time, people are like, what's Network Like the Rich mean? And sadly, what usually comes to people's minds, like, oh, are we being cutthroat? Are we… are we just being so strategic, and we're thinking about ourselves and no one else? But this is the foundation of Network Like the Rich.
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::Monique Alvarez: Is to leave everyone better than you found them.
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::Monique Alvarez: And if you go through your day, and you go through your business, and your conversations, and your interactions, and you have that as your intention and your foundation, I'm going to leave everyone better than I found them, then you're doing it right. That is the richness I'm talking about.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And let's talk about rich just for a moment. Because often when you say the word rich, people think money.
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::Monique Alvarez: But Rich is…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: so much richer of a word than just money. We are all wealthy.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's just not a human being who's having an experience in this realm that is not wealthy.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: on some level, And it goes kind of back to what you were saying before about the,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: having hope.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They tied together so closely.
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::Monique Alvarez: They do. You know, one of the things that's easy for us to forget, and
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::Monique Alvarez: I'm an American, but I spent many years outside the U.S. I've lived in countries that have experienced war and dictatorships and…
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::Monique Alvarez: You know, all of the worst that poverty brings, and…
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::Monique Alvarez: what I think Americans in particular forget, or, you know, from the develop… like, the richest countries on Earth, is we forget we literally have it all. Even when we think we don't, you know, when the cafe is out of almond milk and we don't get our matcha almond latte.
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::Monique Alvarez: We are so incredibly rich. You know, most people
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::Monique Alvarez: have so much that they take for granted. We have electricity, we have running water, we have health, we have two arms, two legs, two ears, two eyes. We have this ability to think, to receive ideas, to communicate, to ask for help, to… the list is endless, and…
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::Monique Alvarez: when we are willing to look at all of that… I mean, I remember one day, I was… I was in my own funk. I was in a foul mood, and I, like, paused. I was like, whoa, wait a second. And I put myself… I went and sat in my own pantry.
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::Monique Alvarez: And I was like, just…
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::Monique Alvarez: be grateful for what's sitting in your pantry. You have 50 pounds of beans, you have 100 pounds of coffee, you have the… you have pasta, you have lentils, you have all this. And sometimes we have to put ourselves in a little timeout and go, just even look at this one section of our life.
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::Monique Alvarez: and go on a rant about how good it is. Instead of constantly ranting about what isn't working, or how something's wrong, or how that person, yada yada, it's like if we can flip that around.
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::Monique Alvarez: Boom, we remember how rich we are, and how many opportunities, and we create them! I can create a million opportunities for myself in this moment, if I can get my head straight.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just looking for…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The things that are going right, and you'll find more things that are going right. If you focus on things that are going wrong, then everything around you is going to go wrong. And we can take this back to our bodies.
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::Monique Alvarez: For years, I was just like, I have to lose, like, whatever I…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: feel like I have to lose, which is always a lot, because, you know, I'm getting older, my body's not already, you know, in agreement with how I think it should be looking. But I've come to the point where I'm just like, it just looks like it looks. It's okay. I've got some parts that are… I'm really grateful for, and other parts, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They serve their purpose!
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::Monique Alvarez: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's okay!
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::Monique Alvarez: That's okay. I mean, this right here, I was actually just talking to my dad and husband yesterday, and I was like, you know, there's these seasons of life, or these situations that happen, that help us to accept what is.
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::Monique Alvarez: And, you know, I love that we're always on this track of improving, and getting better, and making more money, and being skinnier, and being happier, and being healthier, and being all those things, but there is something to be said about being able to come to peace with things, and just be like, I accept this exactly the way it is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I can be happy with it. I'm having… I'm here for an experience, and that's what I'm getting. It's different.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How fortunate are we to have this moment that's different?
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::Monique Alvarez: I mean, we learn so much in the contrast. We learn so much when we're… when we're rubbing up against that edge, and we're like, but I didn't want that, but… but…
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::Monique Alvarez: What are gifts? What are ahas? What are insights that it's giving me?
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::Monique Alvarez: Even if it wasn't… even if it's not what I would…
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::Monique Alvarez: say I would want and choose in this moment, even with my wrestling match, what is it showing me?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And all of life is that way. And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it kind of goes back to leaving people better than you found them.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Where you're… When you show up expecting the best.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it… it allows that other person to… to shine, too. And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And to explore what's going right, instead of, like, getting into the doom scrolling and the… because you can always find
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: things that are going to tell you the end of the world is happening right now, we've already gone over the cliff, and… you know, it's… it's miserable living in that, I know, because I lived there for a long time.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I… I can look in my pantry and see, you know, the 50-pound bag of beans, because, you know, we're from Idaho.
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::Monique Alvarez: We… we got the same… we got the same pantry, we got the same food storage system, yeah, exactly.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it doesn't matter to me anymore. It's like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, if I had nothing, it's okay. I'll figure a way. Something will show up, and it'll be novel.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That would be exciting, too. It'll be a different adventure.
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::Monique Alvarez: So true, so true.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just leaving the door open for that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know that you've built global businesses, and you have a powerful reputation.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What role has collaboration played in that journey for you?
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::Monique Alvarez: It's played a big role, because when I started my business, I didn't ever think, like, oh, you can do this, like, you're gonna do great, you can make it.
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::Monique Alvarez: I was more, like, clear that I couldn't do it if I didn't collaborate. So, I was raised in a family full of entrepreneurs, like, I could take you down Main Street, and there's… there's the lumberyard my grandpa built, and there's that person, that relative's business, and this one. But…
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::Monique Alvarez: I didn't ever learn business, because everyone in my family was busy running their business.
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::Monique Alvarez: And I was sort of the, the nice, pretty daughter who everyone just kind of patted on the head and was like, well, let's hope she marries well, right?
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::Monique Alvarez: So, no one really expected anything of me.
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::Monique Alvarez: And when I, you know, I was a straight-A student, I was the good girl, I didn't rebel, I did what was asked of me, I made everyone happy.
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::Monique Alvarez: And…
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::Monique Alvarez: I chose not to go to college, I chose not to get a degree, I chose not to get a corporate career. Instead, I went overseas, I left my small town in the middle of nowhere, and I went to Myanmar when I was…
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::Monique Alvarez: 18, 19 years old, And that blew my world wide open.
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::Monique Alvarez: And… when I started my business.
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::Monique Alvarez: I didn't have the experience, I didn't have the education, I didn't have the relationships, I didn't have the know-how.
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::Monique Alvarez: But what I learned from living overseas and being a volunteer in my 20s was that if I walked up to somebody and asked them for help or for directions.
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::Monique Alvarez: 9 times out of 10, they helped me.
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::Monique Alvarez: So, when we started, I thought, if I surround myself with a dozen people who know something about business, who are 20 or more years older than me, who have a track record and a bank account that shows they know what they're doing.
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::Monique Alvarez: I can learn this, I can be okay, and so that's what I did. From the get-go, the first thing I did is I put together a group of 12 people that I collaborated with, and it started off with me asking them, what can I do to grow your business? And I sought that out, and then they trusted me, and then this relationship and dynamic grew, but that
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::Monique Alvarez: is how I got started, because I was, you know, 32, 33 years old, and didn't know anything and had no experience.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But you got so much in terms of… of an education In practical terms.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's so much more important to have an experience like that to me than to go to college and waste time over there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: in there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Traveling is… is hugely important in the world. I was talking to my dad about it. I was raised mostly overseas, as well, when I was young.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And so…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was talking to my dad, and he was telling me about a gal that worked for him.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: years ago, who… who came to him, and… and she was like, should I do this thing? And it was going overseas, and my… and she's… and my dad's like, heck yeah! You're young, you don't have anything tying you down, you should definitely go over there, at least for a year or two, and just, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: see what… how the other world lives, because the whole rest of the world does not live like the United States lives. It is way different, and every place you go is different, and they just, like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Culture is something. And, you know, we have all these
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: culture sort of wars in the United States, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They're silly. They don't have the history that other places have that create the way that they live their lives. And so.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: she did go. She asked my dad if he would save her job, so that when she came back, she had a job, and she did. And she did come back. And, she was like, that was the best!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: best experience in my whole life, and it shaped the whole rest of her life. And, you know, we're talking about the same thing here with you, and going to Myanmar. Myanmar, I always get that mixed up.
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::Monique Alvarez: I don't know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Having these experiences that really enrich you, and then give you the confidence to go to other people and say, hey.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Let me work alongside you, and see how you're doing this stuff, and contribute.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, there was a… I forget who said it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was probably an investment person, that, you should hire… you should take somebody who's really good at what you want to do, who's making a lot of money, you should go and buy them lunch. You pay for it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But you pick their brain during the lunch. And, you know, that's great advice.
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::Monique Alvarez: Definitely. That's what I did. I took someone different to breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, tea, and I learned from them. I listened to what they said. I noticed how they thought.
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::Monique Alvarez: Because people who have established themselves, they think in a particular way. People who have experienced success over the long term, they…
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::Monique Alvarez: they plan and strategize differently. You know, there's people who have this ability to go for, like, short-term goals, but then long game people, they… they're just different. They… they're built different. And that's exactly what I did. I bought time with them.
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::Monique Alvarez: And, you know, we know this when we're young, our parents say it, you know, we say it to our kids, like, your company matters, you know, your friends and your circle is a reflection of you, and that's where you're gonna end up, and that's exactly what I did. I knew where I wanted to end up, so I just spent as much time right next to them as I could.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So let me ask you, What… what is the… the one thing…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The biggest piece of advice you've gotten that you tried and didn't work?
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::Monique Alvarez: Oh my gosh. It… I could boil it down to this. Be someone you're not.
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::Monique Alvarez: Be someone you're not. Be professional. You know, be serious, be buttoned up, you know, basically, you know, be someone that you're not, so that people take you seriously, and they… they trust you, and they…
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, that, that… There was a lot of different angles on it, but that's basically what it was.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The whole fake it till you make it idea.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You just keep faking it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You'll never make it.
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::Monique Alvarez: It is, it's never gonna end.
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::Monique Alvarez: And I think what that implies is that there's, like, a…
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::Monique Alvarez: a certain personality. There's a particular person who can be successful and no one else can, and that's what I've learned is, like, oh, there's a million ways to do this, you know? There's not one right… and that's what school teaches us. There's one right answer. And in business, that's not how it works.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It doesn't… you don't need to be told what success looks like, either, because success can look different for everybody.
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::Monique Alvarez: Site.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And the whole fake it till you make it assumes that success only looks one way. It's the big mansion and the car.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I've had big houses, and I've had little houses, and let me tell you, I prefer a little house with a little bit of land.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the truth.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to a big house that I'm a slave to.
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::Monique Alvarez: that's… that's just it, you know? It's… everybody…
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::Monique Alvarez: desires different things, and different things make people happy. Like, this morning, I saw a post on social media, and this lady was talking about how
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::Monique Alvarez: she wears, she has 5 outfits, and she rotates through them, because she gets decision fatigue with clothing, and she has 5 dinners, and she eats the same meals every 5 days. For her, that was relief, and that was…
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::Monique Alvarez: oh, yes, this helps my life, and so I can focus on these other things. But for me, that would be…
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::Monique Alvarez: awful, like, shoot me now, life's not worth living if I'm eating, you know.
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::Monique Alvarez: chicken and carrots every meal. If I'm eating the five… same five meals, because I love cooking and I love creating, I love going in the kitchen and just being like, what have I never made, but I have these five ingredients, what could I dream up? So, it's like, what is a blessing and a joy and a relief to one person is a burden and a life sentence for another.
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::Monique Alvarez: And that's what we have to remember. Like, across the board, that's how it is. We're all so incredibly unique in terms of what makes us tick.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's okay to be different, and it's okay to change your mind. Like, this…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I have seasons where I have…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: 7 or 8 pairs of overalls.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I have about 10 turtleneck shirts.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I decided this year I got some jewelry, so I'm gonna add jewelry to my look.
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::Monique Alvarez: This isn't me! I love it!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I can't be bothered with trying to figure out a wardrobe that…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: feels good, and looks good, and is something that I'm not. I'm just not.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Took me a long time to become a country girl. I'm a country girl.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I like… simple and easy. But when it comes to cooking, I'm with you, I'm just like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If I have to eat the same things over and over again, it's like, I'd rather not eat.
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::Monique Alvarez: Exactly.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: just not doing it.
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::Monique Alvarez: No.
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::Monique Alvarez: I took all the fun out of it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And I like to cook, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Good food. And food from, like, lots of different…
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::Monique Alvarez: regions and ethnicities and experiment. My husband could eat the same 5 meals.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: day.
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::Monique Alvarez: He's kind of… he's good about it, he's getting better.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Now that he's retired, he's like… Okay, I'll try it.
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::Monique Alvarez: Here we go! What did she come up with today?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, that's pretty much… I try to let him know in the morning, so he can brace himself.
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::Monique Alvarez: You can mentally prepare.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: He doesn't eat fish, and we go and visit my dad a couple times a year, and my dad loves fish, and he does not understand people not eating fish.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And my husband will ask, so what's for dinner? And my dad will name some fish dish.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And Jeff will say, ugh, he'll make that face, like, and I'll say, you know, Dad, Jeff doesn't really eat fish. And Dad's like, he's shocked every single time!
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::Monique Alvarez: Still, we haven't converted him? He hasn't changed his mind?
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::Monique Alvarez: I love it. He's, he's optimistic about that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: He's totally hopeful. If a man is nothing, he is hopeful.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So we're gonna get him a shirt that says, I still don't eat fish.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, there you go. Send the picture ahead of the visit.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's okay, though. It makes us laugh, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We're… we're good with, you know, he can eat… he can make himself a sandwich, macaroni and cheese, or whatever.
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::Monique Alvarez: There you go. He'll figure it out.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: He'll figure it out. Life's too short to be stressed about some of these little things that…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just don't matter.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You guys have worked together, you and your husband, for a long time.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What have you learned about blending love and business and leadership?
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::Monique Alvarez: Hmm… you know… For us, It felt very natural, and we…
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::Monique Alvarez: have very different skill sets and very different personalities, and so we were kind of like the… the yin to the yang, you know? But in having conversations with so many other couples, it was like, oh no, we can never do that. I can't even be in the house with him for more than, like, 2 hours a day, and, you know, I need a job that I'm gone 12 hours a day.
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::Monique Alvarez: So…
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::Monique Alvarez: it's kind of like what you said, however you grow up, or whatever country you're born and raised in, like, you think everyone does it that way. And I think, looking back, the best thing that we did is I didn't…
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::Monique Alvarez: tell Derek how to do his thing, and he didn't tell me how to do mine. It's like, I trust you with that. I don't know how to do it. I'm definitely not gonna try to give you input on how you're gonna do it. So we allowed each other to be the expert and, like, the leader of our own domain. And what he would tell you is, is like.
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::Monique Alvarez: I'm the boss of me, and he's the boss of him.
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::Monique Alvarez: And that's what's really worked for us.
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::Monique Alvarez: and valuing each other, because we don't… there's… there's not a lot of crossover. Like, I don't have any…
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::Monique Alvarez: expertise or skill sets and what he's good at, and vice versa. Like, he'd never want to do the part I do.
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::Monique Alvarez: So…
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::Monique Alvarez: in a practical sense, what I would say, too, is that there has to be times that you talk about business, and times that you don't talk about business.
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::Monique Alvarez: This is, like, a business-free zone. This is a business-free day. We don't even crack open the… like, this computer does not turn on, you know, certain days of the week.
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::Monique Alvarez: you know, it doesn't matter if a client's howling, and we know that, you know, the DMs are blowing up, and there's 17 emails, and you get to me right now. You have to be able… what we found is you have to be able to have space
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::Monique Alvarez: You have to have dates, you have to have days off, you have to have timeframes and things, and…
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::Monique Alvarez: You have to have processes.
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::Monique Alvarez: that keep it within a boundary, because business will just run everywhere. And I think kids are similar, you know? When we had kids, we didn't experience the same challenges that we saw a lot of our peers experiencing, because we had the business to practice for 7 years before we had kids.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, even with the kids, it's like…
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::Monique Alvarez: the kids didn't become our whole world. We didn't lose our marriage and each other when we had kids, which I see a lot of people doing. Like, for me.
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::Monique Alvarez: The relationship of my husband is first to my relationship with my kids.
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::Monique Alvarez: And having that time, and having these boundaries, and…
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::Monique Alvarez: That's… that's been the ticket for us.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that. Do you homeschool?
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::Monique Alvarez: We did for a long time. Actually, my boys right now, they go to a very unique school. It's down in the canyon, it's like 30 minutes from where we live.
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::Monique Alvarez: I call it the perfect boys' school, because they get to play outside most of the day.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Like that.
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::Monique Alvarez: These teachers are giving my son, you know, the…
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::Monique Alvarez: 7 times 7, you know, as he runs around in a circle. And so it's been so good for them, because they haven't been made to sit down and shut up, because that… it just wouldn't have worked well.
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::Monique Alvarez: In the next season, you know, when we are into the next year after elementary school, we're gonna go back to homeschooling. But for right now, it's been… it's kind of been, you know, nice for them to experience both.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I, I…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Did something similar with my kids, where, you know, one of them wanted to go to… she really wanted to go to school, so she went to school for about a year and a half, and then…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Then they were getting into the weirdness that junior high is, and she came back home, and… we unschooled…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At this point, I was like, I never graded anything they did. I gave them assignments, we explored things they were interested in learning. Math was…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I was really bad at math, so…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I didn't… I didn't push the math. I read somewhere that kids can learn everything they need to know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To survive in the world in 2 years.
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::Monique Alvarez: Mmm.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And when they're… when they're teenagers, it's really kind of pointless to try to teach them stuff when they're really little, because they don't have the framework for it. They really… their bodies are growing, and their minds are developing, and they just need to run around and play, and make believe.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if we would encourage children to do that and read to them, you know, fantasy stories, whatever, and get them to read to us, you know, teach them to read, but
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and make it fun. Learning should be something that people want to do, they desire the education. Then we stuck them in an alternative school when they were 13, and this is the school where the troubled kids go, so all the kids in the school were
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: much older, they were just trying to get their credits and get out, but my kids thrived there. They made A's, they, they got out in two and a half years with their little paper diploma that says, you know, we're official, we're stamped by the state. But when we would talk about their schooling.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because none of them were in the school at the same time. They're 3 years apart, so one would graduate, and the next one would come along, and the teachers, there are 4 teachers there, and they love my kids, because my kids were, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They wanted to learn, they wanted to suck the information out of them, and they understood it was a game, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There really aren't any consequences to this, because you can always go back home.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Mom will make you a paper that says you graduated.
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::Monique Alvarez: That's right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because she just doesn't care that much. It's not that I don't care about them, but I don't care about, like, squishing them into a box that doesn't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: doesn't benefit them, and it doesn't benefit the rest of the world. When we squish children down and say, you have to… this is what you have to look like, and this is how you have to behave.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The blowback is… is ridiculous.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, it's… it's true. You… you realize this, looking back, you're like, oh yeah, you know, that didn't actually…
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::Monique Alvarez: play into…
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::Monique Alvarez: how my life turned out. And I think there is a lot of pressure unnecessarily put on kids going through school, and it…
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::Monique Alvarez: you know, this whole idea that they need to, you know, be perfect in school, and know what they're going to do for the rest of their life and all this nonsense, it's like, there's adults that haven't figured out what they're going to do for the, you know, when they grow up, so it's like, I don't quite know why we keep doing that, like you said, and squishing them in.
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::Monique Alvarez: But I think a lot more parents are opting out of it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm excited about that. I am excited about the generation of kids that grow up, and they're like, you know, work is not everything.
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::Monique Alvarez: Oh, yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's okay to be a minimalist?
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::Monique Alvarez: Yes.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, it's… it's okay to be however you choose to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for however long you choose to be that way. It's like…
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::Monique Alvarez: That's it. The other day, I told one of my sons, because he was like, Mom, I don't know if I want to do this or that, because I like animals, and you know, I said, oh, honey, you'll probably do a lot of things. It's going to feel like you have 20 lives in one.
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::Monique Alvarez: And he just looked at me, and he was like, oh, that's true. I don't have to just pick one thing. It's like, you could be a vet, and you could be a YouTuber, and you could, you know, travel the world, and you could be a chef. There's so many things you can do. You get to pick it, like you said, you know, there's seasons, and there's…
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::Monique Alvarez: Things to explore and try on and keep it on or don't. And…
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::Monique Alvarez: Continually reminding ourselves of that, like…
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::Monique Alvarez: oh yeah, this is my life! You know, I'm the governing voice of what happens here, not all this other out here. That's a constant reminder.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it… for women especially, because I think so many of us were raised with the idea, you have to find a good husband, and, you know, pretty much you're in charge of, like, living his life for him.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: or part of his life for him, the part that he wants to share with you, and you're just kind of the afterthought, rather than bringing all of you to a relationship and letting them have the experience of, you know, this is who I'm growing to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And allowing them to grow to be who they're going to grow to be, too. This is, like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's so much magic in that, and…
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::Monique Alvarez: Oh, yeah. I'll tell you, after 30 years, it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's important. It's important that you remember who you are, and that you continue to grow and change and adapt.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's sheep.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Your marriage is doomed.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, it's true. You'll feel like you're suffocating, you know, you'll feel like…
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::Monique Alvarez: you're not living anymore, you know? You're continuing to uphold a persona, or a role or an identity that has made sense and is expected by others, but
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::Monique Alvarez: You know, being able to swap those out, and let them die, and resurrect them, recreate them.
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::Monique Alvarez: That's… that's what life really is, you know? It can…
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::Monique Alvarez: Out picture and show up in lots of ways, but…
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::Monique Alvarez: It's being able to honor ourselves and seasons, and… and just go, you know what, I can… I can trust the next one, and this is… this is who I want to be now.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, that's so beautiful.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, let me ask you… I sort of know what you do, but why don't you share with the audience what…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: In your own words, what you do.
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::Monique Alvarez: I know you do the, the book…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: thing, but I think you do other things, too.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, you know…
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::Monique Alvarez: I gather people. I love gathering people. Whether it's in my home, I have an 11-foot farm table, I love gathering people and having conversations, asking them questions, figuring out what makes them tick. What do you want now? What… like, I just got a… right before I got on with you, I was in a call.
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::Monique Alvarez: And that's what I asked everybody. I have my notes here, you know. What do you need right now?
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::Monique Alvarez: to move things a step further in your business or mission. Yeah, and then I'll think about it, and I'll go, oh, you know what, I know you need to meet Lisa.
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::Monique Alvarez: So, I… I gather people, and then I'm a matchmaker. Oh, you and her, that… there we go. That's it, you know? Oh, yeah, go do… and that's… that's essentially what I do. I create environments where people can articulate and communicate who they are, what they want, what they need.
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::Monique Alvarez: And then I just throw out ideas, and I go, oh, that's it.
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::Monique Alvarez: That's it, you know? Because… One of the worst things about life and business
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::Monique Alvarez: is when we think, if I was smart enough, I'd figure this out on my own. If I was really good at what I do, I could do it all by myself.
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::Monique Alvarez: This is where my time overseas really influenced me.
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::Monique Alvarez: Other cultures don't think that way.
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::Monique Alvarez: At all.
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::Monique Alvarez: They're so multi-generational in one home. You know, Asians in particular are so team and group and community-oriented.
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::Monique Alvarez: And then you come to America, and it's just… it's me, myself, and I, and you know you gotta pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you gotta figure it out, don't ever ask for help, it's a weakness, da-da-da. And growing up in a small town, to be honest.
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::Monique Alvarez: I think the reason I so leaned into collaboration and gathering people and connecting people is because
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::Monique Alvarez: My family, they're a family of pioneers. They got here because they were the toughest SOBs in the lot. They survived all of the things, right?
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::Monique Alvarez: And they built things with their own two hands.
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::Monique Alvarez: And in a small town, it's easy to just… everyone's on their own 100 acres.
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::Monique Alvarez: And figure it out themselves.
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::Monique Alvarez: And I didn't like that feeling.
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::Monique Alvarez: I could appreciate what they did, but I didn't want to do that for myself.
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::Monique Alvarez: I didn't like that feeling, and so everything in my life and business, it's about bringing people together and saying, that's an option, you can choose it, but that's…
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::Monique Alvarez: It's not as fun, and it's way harder. It takes longer, to tell you the truth.
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::Monique Alvarez: So that's what I do. I host networking events, I teach people how to communicate better, so that when people say, hey, what can I do to help you? You actually have an answer that they can understand, so that practical next steps happen, because
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::Monique Alvarez: If we're not in the habit of asking people for help, we actually don't know how to do it very well, and most of us didn't see our parents model this.
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::Monique Alvarez: Most of us had parents that were like, if you want it done right, do it yourself. And so, I bring in the other end of the spectrum.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Love that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Okay, I… I knew I felt an affinity for you all along.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's because we're kind of similar in a lot of ways, because that's what I do. It's just like, I'm all about connecting people, and shining the spotlight on them, and saying, hey, this is what this person does, and this is how they shine, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you want to connect with them, this is how you do it.
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::Monique Alvarez: That's it. Bingo.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's really important, I, you know.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: People like to think that pioneers didn't
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: didn't ask for help, but a lot of those communities became communities because they did help each other. If you look at the Amish, the Amish don't… they live on big…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: big acreages, farms, but they help each other. They get together to do things, and, you know, they have their weekly meetings, church meetings, and the pioneers around here.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: did that, too. And they… they had to work together to create the things that they needed to… the infrastructure, and, you know, you raise a barn or whatever, and you helped each other. And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, yeah, they had… around here, they had some interesting ideas about what formed a family, but, you know, today we have some interesting ideas about what forms a family, too.
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::Monique Alvarez: So true, so true.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We actually used to have polygamous families that lived around us, and there… some of the wives would work in the local grocery store.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and at Casper's, where my kids worked for a spell, and they're just, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they're normal people, they just have a different idea about how they're gonna arrange their family life. And it works for them, so who's to say that they're wrong? It's just like…
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, you know, whatever works for you. What Derek often says is, you know, I couldn't do that because I can barely keep up with one wife, you know, so God bless the man who can handle four, you know?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And sometimes women just want to be part of a community they don't actually want a full-time husband.
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::Monique Alvarez: Well, you know, I've thought about that a lot.
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::Monique Alvarez: I think that that dynamic that has…
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::Monique Alvarez: Been lost a lot in modern society of when women would raise children together, and they'd cook together, and they'd gather and have their own time together, which is still present in a lot of cultures, but not in ours.
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::Monique Alvarez: I… I think there is something to be said about that, you know? And…
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::Monique Alvarez: there's also, I think, it highlights this ability of, you know, how well can we get along?
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::Monique Alvarez: we need each other. You know, I watch my cats. I have… I have cats, like, I've never had cats before, and so I've got, like, 3 cat moms out there, and there's kittens, and they all help each other. They all nourish each other's kittens, they all gather them and keep them from the dogs, they all do their thing.
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::Monique Alvarez: And, yeah, you know, there's elements that we really miss on that, you know? Motherhood is very lonely in this country. I feel grateful that when my boys were little, we were in another country, because I always felt supported by…
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::Monique Alvarez: the group of moms, and, you know, I always had women around me helping me, so I never felt like, oh, I'm by myself, and, you know, not to mention, you know, Derek and I, we each had one in our arms, because we had two in 12 months, so that was just kind of how it had to be.
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::Monique Alvarez: So yeah, there… there are, there's… and this is what we said in the beginning, like, there's elements… you can learn from everyone. You can learn from every arrangement, every culture, every setup, every religion, you can learn something.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you don't have to be right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can just be curious. I think that's… Wait, what?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can't…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's missing in our society so much is just the ability to be curious, and to let whatever it is
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just unfold, and not have to, like, drive it.
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::Monique Alvarez: Don't have to drive it, you don't have to be offended by it, you know, you don't…
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::Monique Alvarez: Yeah, you know, I saw this reel the other day, and it made me laugh. I was like, thank you, this lady said it perfectly. She was like, so, I think we've forgotten something that my mom taught me.
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::Monique Alvarez: is we have inside voices, and we have outside voices. So there are some thoughts that you think that you don't have to say out loud. You don't have to put on social media. You can just have the thought, but you don't have to start a war over it, you know?
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::Monique Alvarez: We forgot that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We don't have to live our whole life out loud.
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::Monique Alvarez: Just let… just let some things be, you know? Just… just let it be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if it's really a problem for you, that's what block is for. If you find people are constantly triggering you, it doesn't say anything about them, and they probably will never notice, and it might make their life better. Just block them, and then they're not… they're not tempted to…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Say things that are gonna, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: cause you to have a reaction, and we all like to think that, you know, we don't react to things, but there's stuff that just… it's like, I hear it, and it just…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: sends a jolt through me, and I'm just like… And then the cortisol's going.
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::Monique Alvarez: Right. We don't want that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We don't want this!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: God forbid the cortisol starts going in our body.
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::Monique Alvarez: You can almost feel it, like, oh god, all the fat cells are having a revival, oh God, we've got to get out of here.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So true, so true.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, Monique, how do people get in touch with you? How do you work with people? Like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How does all that look?
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::Monique Alvarez: So, people can connect with me on Facebook, I'm there a lot, but they can go to NetworkLikeTheRich.com.
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::Monique Alvarez: And…
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::Monique Alvarez: learn… learn a slightly different angle, yeah, a very different feeling of… of connecting and networking and figuring out, hey, you know, could you help me, and I could help you, and we could make all this more fun and easy, so that's the best place.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Okay, perfect. So it's networkliquetheRich.com.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you have a Facebook group that's by the same name, correct?
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::Monique Alvarez: I do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And people can find you on Facebook there, too.
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::Monique Alvarez: Yes. So, I love that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thank you so much for joining me. This has been an amazing conversation.
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::Monique Alvarez: Thank you, Jill. Yeah, and like… like we've said, I think we have a lot of parallels, and I appreciate that you are sparking conversations, like you said, and you're highlighting people, because if we had more actual conversations with people, we'd remember we have more in common, we're more alike.
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::Monique Alvarez: than not. And we need to remember that right now.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes, we do. And we need to allow people to be who they're gonna be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And honor them for stepping up to be who they want to be.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's not… there's no good and bad. There's only… what is?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: than our perception.
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::Monique Alvarez: Right.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, to learn more about Monique and to learn how to network like the rich, please go visit networkliketherich.com. Thanks for tuning in today to the UWorld Order Showcase podcast. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next step is simple. Head to coachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Be sure to join us today for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today and get visible.
