Are you feeling stuck in your job or relationship? In this episode we speak with Maria T. Finch, a life coach who specializes in helping high achievers find greater fulfillment in all aspects of life. Maria's coaching practice, "Silence the Mindcluck," is all about combating the daily battle we all face with mental chatter that can make even the best moments harder. By silencing the mindcluck, you can tune into your inner intelligence, approach life with calm confidence, and break free from patterns that make life unsatisfying. Maria shares her own journey of dealing with toxic work environments and finding inner fulfillment. She also offers advice on recognizing when it's not the right moment to be with other people, and how to develop greater self-awareness. Join us for an enlightening conversation with Maria T. Finch.

Maria’s hype song is Mama Said Knock You Out by LL COOL J

Resources:

• Learn more at silencethemindcluck.com
• Mosquito Nets: tedderfield.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/79056890
• Facebook: facebook.com/silencethemindcluck
• Instagram: @silencemindcluck
• Twitter: @quietthatmind

Today’s episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. If you’d like to find peace of mind amidst the chaos and no matter what’s going on around you, you’ll find a whole bunch of free resources, like meditations and articles at ZenRabbit.com. And while you’re there, if you’re curious about how you might stop working so hard and achieve more success at the same time - get a copy of The Five Easy Ways to Start Living a Sabbatical Life. It’s a short - and free - guide to working less and living better. Find it all at ZenRabbit.com.

Produced by Nova Media

Lori Saitz:

Hey, my friend. Welcome to FINE is a 4-Letter Word. My name is Lori Saitz. I'm an entrepreneur, mentor, founder of Zen Rabbit. And your instigator in saying fuck being fine. This show is for those of you who are done living with the dumpster fire and are ready to find the tools and courage to transform, to step into more success and fulfillment in both your personal and business life. You're in the right place for stories of self-discovery, gratitude and connection, and to help you strengthen that connection to your own inner guidance. You'll find each episode has an accompanying meditation. Now let's get into it. Hello and welcome to another episode of Fine is a four letter word. Today we have an amazing guest, Maria T Finch, who is an inner intelligence coach and the founder of Silence the Mind. Cluck. Yes, you heard that right. Mind cluck means exactly what you think it means. It's the mental chatter that can often derail even the best moments of our lives. In this conversation, Maria opens up about a difficult situation she faced in her professional life, where she had to deal with an abusive boss for almost four years. She shares how she learned the importance of doing inner work to develop her awareness and recognize when it's not the right moment to be with other people. Maria believes that it's essential for adults to be self-aware, as it can help them attract more of what they desire instead of unknowingly repelling it.

Lori Saitz:

She emphasizes the importance of protecting yourself from reacting in a way that might come back to bite you. Maria is a perfect example of how somebody can turn challenging experiences into something positive. During her sabbatical, she started an Amazon business selling mosquito nets, which combines her interests in biology and international cultures. It was also during this time that she started her coaching business where she helps people silence the voices in their head so they can make decisions from their core selves. So sit back, relax, and join us for an insightful and inspiring conversation with Maria T Finch. Today's episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. If you'd like to find peace of mind amidst the chaos and no matter what's going on around you, you'll find a whole bunch of free resources like meditations and articles at Zen rabbit.com. While you're there, if you're curious about how you might stop working so hard and achieve more success at the same time, get a copy of the Five Easy Ways to Start Living a Sabbatical life without taking a month long or year long sabbatical. It's a short and free guide to working less and living better. Find it all at Zen Sitcom. Hello and welcome to Fine is a four letter word. Today's episode is featuring Maria Finch. Welcome to the show, Maria.

Maria Finch:

Thank you, Laurie. I'm so happy to be here.

Lori Saitz:

Maria and I were introduced by one of my past guests, Billy La Si. I pronounced that right because in Billy's episode I introduced him and I pronounced his name wrong. So yeah. La as, as he pointed out, rhymes with bar. Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Maria Finch:

Easy way to remember.

Lori Saitz:

Shout out to Billy and his podcast, The Mindful Midlife Crisis. Thank you for introducing us. I am super excited to get started into this conversation, so let's jump right into it. Maria, tell me what the the values and beliefs that you were raised with. Okay. How did that how did that help you develop into who you've become?

Maria Finch:

Oh, wow. That's a really good question.

Lori Saitz:

So and I don't know if help is the right word. Yeah. How did it affect you?

Maria Finch:

Yeah, how did it guide me? Whatever. I mean, so there were a lot of really good values, like, you know, do under do unto others as you would have them do to you and the value of working hard and going for your dreams and what else? I mean, love, like love is such an important part of life and something that I really, really value and try to manifest in as many ways as I can. And then I would also say one of the one of the things that I've been confronting recently is that I developed a belief that I needed to be productive all the time. And I'm in the process now of rewiring that belief.

Lori Saitz:

A lot of us were raised with that belief, whether it was explicitly stated or it was just implied.

Maria Finch:

Yes, absolutely. And for me it was implied, but it has definitely had a big impact on my life. And now I'm really paying attention to where do I put my energy and how do I feel okay not being productive every minute of the day.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. So talk a little bit more about how that manifested in your life and how it, you know, how it showed up as Oh, I have to always be productive.

Maria Finch:

The thing that I noticed is that I, I seem to be exhausted so much of the time and it was like, you know what? I don't really want to live my life exhausted. And so I started diving deep into this in a variety of ways and then understood that the belief that I had had formed was that it was important for me to be productive all the time. And where I really noticed it was in having trouble sleeping because I would be on. So even on a Saturday where in theory I'm taking some time away from work and I'm relaxing instead of really relaxing, I'd clean out my closets, I'd come up with some other project and so I'd still end up over tired, which then made me not sleep well, which then just repeats the cycle. And so it was really like, okay, I recognize like I don't want to live the rest of my life feeling exhausted. So what am I going to do about this? And I realized that this belief about productivity was a really key factor.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. I have no idea what you're talking about. That always being productive and spending your weekends doing things. And I'm sure none of my listeners do either. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. What? How did you come to this realization? Because for me, I didn't. It wasn't like one day I just went, Hey, I have this belief and this is how it's driving me. Like I worked with coaches and other people like I've had so many conversations with with Kochi, Kochi kind of people, whether it was in a formal coaching agreement or not, that and read so many books and listened to so many podcasts that it finally showed up for me or that I finally got the message. But it wasn't something that I was able to uncover myself. So how did you find your how did you discover this?

Maria Finch:

So the way I discovered this is through a kind of therapy called EMDR. For listeners who aren't familiar with this, it's eye movement reprocessing, EMDR. I Oh, it's eye movement, something reprocessing. I forget the I forget what it means, but.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, I've heard of it.

Maria Finch:

It's it's very, very powerful. So the way that I have always done it is you hold these like, buzzers in your hands and they buzz back and forth and you get to set the pace of the buzzing and the intensity, and people naturally set it to a heartbeat. So it's like you go into almost a well, you go into a different sort of state of mind and it enables you to access information that you can't access consciously. So it enables you to get into your subconscious. And for me, this has always been very powerful. And so I can get to a belief, I can get to an experience in my life where I formed this belief. These are all things that are located in your brain stem, which is not regularly something you can access. It's like in the deep pockets of information. But once you know that you have this belief, then you have the ability to say, Well, I don't really want to have that belief. I want to have a different belief. And then because of the neural plasticity of the brain, you have the ability to change it.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, reinstalling, it's like a computer program that you can uninstall and reinstall a different one.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, I mean, you can think of it as feedback loops. So we form beliefs at very early ages and these are based on our circumstances at that time. And people carry these beliefs their whole lives without even knowing it. But when you pay attention and you start to be like, Wait a minute, why do I always feel bad in this particular kind of situation? And then you can recognize like, Oh, I believe that if I do this, this will happen. But it might not apply very well to a situation as an adult. And then because we have adult reasoning and rationality, we can say, Oh, what would I rather believe? And you can change your feedback loop to one that really serves you well.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, I just looked up EMDR and it's eye movement desensitization and reprocessing.

Maria Finch:

Thank you for looking that up. I'm sorry I had total brain lapse. I should be able to zip that off my tongue and I couldn't.

Lori Saitz:

Happens all the time. That's why I just fill in that piece of information there. Thank you. Yeah. So can you do that yourself, or do you have to have a coach or a professional?

Maria Finch:

You know, I to start, I would say you need a professional. I think that it's it's a it can be a complex thing and there can be things that you uncover that you're not sure what to do with. And so working with a professional is definitely what I would recommend. It is incredibly powerful. And granted, I say that knowing that every single person on earth is different and what works well for someone might not work for somebody else. But if you're interested in getting into your own core beliefs and healing things that you may have been carrying your whole life, that are inhibiting you now, it's one way to try and do that.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, Yeah. Very cool. So talk to me about the, the time in your life since the podcast is called Fine is a four letter word. The time in your life when everything was fine, but not really fine. You know, the like dumpster fire going on back here, but nothing to see. It's all I got it under control. It's fine. I'm just going to keep being productive so I don't have to look at it. Right?

Maria Finch:

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a really good example. My last traditional job, I say traditional. I've been an entrepreneur now for quite a long time, but before I did have a traditional career and in my last traditional position, I had a good job. I was very good at my good job. I was well respected, but I had a boss that was just a nightmare, a boss that would draw me in and then squash me, draw me in and squash me. And to the outside, I'm sure the people just thought, Oh, she's got a great job. She's really good at it. You know, people respect her. But on the inside, like I was feeling sick driving to work in the morning.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. And how long did you stay in that situation?

Maria Finch:

So what was complicated about it was it was a push pull situation. So there were times when I was drawn in and I felt like, Oh, everything is wonderful. And then things really were truly going well only to get clobbered again. And it was so confusing because I kept trying to be like, okay, well maybe if I do this differently then I'm not this person isn't going to start mistreating me again. But so I stayed in the situation for much longer than I wish I had, simply because I did not understand what was going on when things were going well. I'm like, Great, I've got a good job, I'm doing well. And then when that would turn, I'd be like, okay, what do I do to fix it? So I stayed in it for a it was almost four years.

Lori Saitz:

I mean, that sounds like an abusive relationship. It was like whether it's a work relationship or a personal relationship. Yes.

Maria Finch:

Yes. And what's hard is that when you're in it, it's really easy to be like, what am I doing wrong? Instead of being like, why is this person such an asshole?

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, right, right. Because we tend to turn things in on ourselves. Like it must be something wrong with me. It can't be like it never even occurs to you that maybe it's them, right?

Maria Finch:

And not only that. Not only it must be something wrong with me, but also I should be able to fix this. That was one of the things that kept me in it. And it was also complicated by the fact that different people in my life were making suggestions like, Have you tried approaching it this way? And so I kept thinking, okay, well, there's got to be a solution. The truth was there was no solution. This person was an awful person. Excuse me, was an awful person. And there was nothing I could have done to change that because it didn't actually have anything to do with me.

Lori Saitz:

Right. And this is the point for most people, when you are in relationships, whatever kind of relationship you're with with someone else and they're acting in that way, it really has nothing to do with you, has everything to do with them. I was thinking about a conversation I had this weekend with a friend who was talking about how her parents had treated her children the last time they had all gotten together and were like, Why are you, you know, just get over it? Or like they were they were saying very unkind things to her children. And I was thinking about it today, this morning, actually. And I was thinking, you know, that's really hopefully she can impress upon her children that that has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with how her parents feel about themselves.

Maria Finch:

Yes. How they feel about themselves. And also the I mean, I think so often when somebody is doing something unkind, they're they're reacting. So they're reacting to something in the situation. And usually the person who's on the receiving end has no idea what's going on. And yeah, and especially with kids, I mean, that's, you know, that's impossible because the kid is just going to be like, what did I do?

Lori Saitz:

Right, right.

Maria Finch:

Yeah.

Lori Saitz:

And right. And then and then because they're so impressionable, carry that on through their life with these beliefs that they are not enough or they need to change how they are.

Maria Finch:

Right. Right. We're in when really it's the adults who have the responsibility of like being tuned in enough to recognize like, okay, I might be in a bad mood, but I've got to give as much grace as I can to this little person because they're not a part of this at all.

Lori Saitz:

Right. However, most people are not aware enough. To understand themselves in that way. And like you said, they're just reacting. They don't even stop to think or experience their own emotions because that was another factor in this family. And a lot of the the guests I have and a lot of the conversations I have with clients raised in families that were not allowed to have emotions.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, it's so complicated. I think one of the biggest gifts anyone can give to themselves and to everyone that they interact with is doing some inner work and developing your own awareness and recognizing like, Oh, you know what? I'm in a really bad mood. And so I knew I was going to meet these people, but this is just not the right moment and I'm going to give myself a pass and do what I need to do to take care of myself and feel better before I bring myself out into other people's midst.

Lori Saitz:

I love what you just said so much because there's let's unpack a little bit of that. It was it's okay to be in a bad mood. It's okay to feel that and to give yourself grace and not impose that bad mood on other people, because a lot of times people think that there's this, well, I just need to be happy like I'm in a bad mood, but I just need to pretend I'm not in a bad mood and put on a happy face and go out there and be happy. And that's not healthy.

Maria Finch:

No, I mean, I define that as toxic positivity, which I think is such a part of American culture. And it just makes me ill because the reality is everyone's human. You have good days and bad days. You have good moments and bad moments, and it's okay if you're in a bad moment and you're with other people and maybe you overreact or maybe you lash out in a way that you wish you didn't. But then you go back and you say, You know what, I'm so sorry. Here's what was going on. And, you know, I'm not trying to excuse myself. I really apologize. Or if you can catch yourself before you're in that situation, you can say, you know what, I'm going to take a pass because this is not the right moment for me to be out and about.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah, Yeah. That is so much healthier for everyone involved. And I don't know that I've ever had somebody come on the show and say that in that way. And so if you're listening, pay attention. Rewind that. Listen again.

Maria Finch:

Well, and I think just just like being aware so you know, actually like taking a moment and saying how do I feel today? What would be the best way for me to be interacting today? Of course, we all have obligations that we can't get out of, but then it's really paying attention to like, okay, I'm going to be in this obligation, but how can I take care of myself within that so that you protect yourself from reacting in a way that might come back to bite you?

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it's taking an extra five minutes before you go into that situation and just breathe and just center yourself, do some centering exercises or something. My belief is that as adults, it is our responsibility because we are adults now to find self-awareness and to. What's the word I'm looking for? Because I'm really not about fixing people. We are not broken. We don't need to be fixed.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, I agree.

Lori Saitz:

However, we can become better versions of ourselves. We can become more self-aware so that we attract more of what we say we would like to have in our lives instead of repelling it unknowingly. By acting in ways that that don't serve us.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, I really think of it as if you have a really good relationship with yourself. So you can tune in and say, Oh, I feel great today. What am I going to offer? Or you can say, Oh gosh, I feel really bad. And so today I want to be an observer. But by doing that, you you give a gift to yourself because you're honoring yourself and you're saying, okay, I care about how I feel in this situation. And if everybody did that, like think about different interactions would be, you know, where it's like everyone's thinking like, okay, I'm going to be as true to myself as I can be. And if somebody is having their bad moment, I'm going to let them have that and I'm not going to react to it.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. Being true to yourself. I'm writing that down.

Maria Finch:

Yeah.

Lori Saitz:

Because that's really what it's all about. And we seem to not want to allow ourselves to do that.

Maria Finch:

Well, and the thing that's incredible is that when you do that, it's so freeing. Like you just feel like, oh, wow, I can I mean, I can think of situations like I live in a townhouse complex and I can think of like tricky situations with neighbors. And when I really like centered myself and walked into that, then I could just be like, Oh, wow, I can see exactly what's going on here. And I don't really have to be a part of it at all. I can be like, Oh, okay. Uh huh, yeah, I hear you, but I don't have to dive into it. It's very, very freeing.

Lori Saitz:

Yes, when you can respond with compassion.

Maria Finch:

Yeah. And be a little bit removed, you know, So it's like you don't have to put all of your energy right in there and jump on whatever tensions going on. Instead you say, I'm going to observe this, I'm going to put on my anthropologist hat and just see what I discover.

Lori Saitz:

Yes, I love that. I love that. So you were in this situation, this horrible boss situation for four years. What was the thing that finally like? The last the last like-.

Maria Finch:

Last straw.

Lori Saitz:

Last straw. Thank you. That's the word I as looking for. See, we can help each other out here with finishing, figuring out what we're trying to say. This is good. Yes. What was the last straw? And. And what did you do? Because that's when you took the sabbatical time, right?

Maria Finch:

Yes, that's correct. So the last straw was I just remember this one morning in particular, like I can play it like a movie in my mind. I was driving to work. I literally felt ill and I said, I am not doing this anymore. And I did not have another job and I just quit outright. You know, I gave notice and I quit. And I did decide that I was going to report him to the new director of HR. So I had a confidential conversation with her and I said, This is exactly why I'm leaving. And I wanted that to be clear. And I did that to honor myself. Mhm. Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. So that was, that was my last straw moment. So I quit without a job because I was like, I am not going to subject myself to this anymore.

Lori Saitz:

Yeah. And so you had mentioned earlier that you were listening to all these outside voices telling, Have you done this? Have you tried that? And were you did you reach a point where you also went, okay, I'm going to stop listening to all the outside voices and tune in to my own inner voice. Where are you at that point yet? Because I know you've come to that to be able to do that a lot more. But were you there then?

Maria Finch:

I was, I was. So basically what happened was I had spent I realized that I had spent too much time listening to other people's opinions. And the truth is their opinions were given to me out of kindness. They knew that I had a good job. They knew that there were things about this job that I really liked, and they wanted me to be happy and successful and everything else, but they weren't living my day to day, and so they couldn't really put themselves in my shoes. And I had to say, You know what? The only person's opinion in this situation that matters is mine.

Lori Saitz:

That's the case 100% of the time we just get caught up in, well, what will other people think or what what maybe their opinions are more valuable than maybe they know something I don't. And the truth is they don't know. Only you know what you know.

Maria Finch:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that it can be easy to borrow someone's opinion because in a way, it gives you an out. So you're like, okay, well, maybe there is still hope here when deep down inside you're like, no, this situation is awful and I want out. And it can be hard to to take yourself away from what's an easier path. The easier path would have been for me to stay in that job. Absolutely. I mean, I gave up. I gave up my income, my security insurance, all of that. I gave up all of it. But it was 100% the right thing to do.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. Honoring yourself and understanding that you deserve better.

Maria Finch:

Absolutely. No one deserves to be mistreated when you're being mistreated. It doesn't matter what the relationship is. No one deserves to be mistreated.

Lori Saitz:

You just mentioned walking away from job money, health insurance. A lot of people listening because I've gotten these questions before when we're talking about sabbatical and taking time. How did you do that? I could never do that. How?

Maria Finch:

Yeah, I mean, I will say that I was in a financial position that I could afford to take some time off. So I this, you know, that that did enable me for sure that I had. I mean, I chose to use my savings and I chose to say I'm going to spend this money now because this will this is something it's totally stupid and corny, but I, I think about it all the time. So a long, long time ago, Jay Leno did a commercial for Doritos where he said the tagline is, Eat all you want, We'll make more. That's my tagline for money. It's like, yeah, obviously don't spend beyond your means, but I had savings and I could spend it because I could make more. So it was my own belief in myself to say, I'm going to spend this money now because I will make more. And right now, getting out of this situation is the most important thing that's more important than having money in the bank.

Lori Saitz:

Oh, that's so good. And it's so true because money is energy just like everything else. We are all everything is energy. And we never think about taking breathing too much. Like there's always more air. And money is the same way. I know a lot of people don't see it that way, but there is always more.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, well, and I think that one thing that I think is really valuable is to consider your own personal definition of wealth. And when I did that, I realized that for me, what makes me feel the wealthiest is time. I value time more than I value money. And so it was like, okay, so then I want to construct my life in such a way that I have control over my time. And I believe that when I do that, the money will follow.

Lori Saitz:

Mhm. Okay. And so then, what did you do during that time that you weren't working. And you hadn't found your next adventure yet.

Maria Finch:

Yeah. So I did like I did apply for some jobs and then I realized I was like, no, you know, that's not really what I want to be doing. And so I took the time to do a lot of deep inner work to really understand what happened, what were the beliefs that I had that made me stay in that situation, even though I could recognize that this person was mistreating me? Like what made me put up with that and how do I shift that belief to say no? Like, I'm not going to put up with that at all. So I did a lot of deep inner work, and then I decided that I did not want to work for somebody else ever again. And this was actually me coming back to something because when I was in graduate school, I wrote a business plan. I started a business. Unfortunately, it got wiped out by September 11th, and then I went back into the traditional work world. But entrepreneurship had been a part of my life already, and I knew that it was something I felt very drawn to. And so I started doing research to figure out how can I create a business for myself that I define as a lifestyle business? So it affords me the lifestyle I want. Like I was not looking to become the next Uber, you know, I was looking to create something that would give me the lifestyle I wanted. And so I spent a lot of time doing research to figure out what that would be.

Lori Saitz:

Okay, Excellent. Yeah, I know. I think a lot of people think entrepreneur and they think that's what they think, like Uber or Facebook or, you know, the next Salesforce, whatever. But the majority of entrepreneurs are creating lifestyle businesses.

Maria Finch:

Yeah. I mean for me, what I wanted was I wanted something where I didn't have to have staff, where I could do it myself, and I could call all the shots and I could make all the decisions. And I was willing to take the risk that the buck would stop with me.

Lori Saitz:

What did you come up with?

Maria Finch:

So I found a wonderful course online about creating an online store, and I chose to go the Amazon route. So I have an Amazon business where I sell mosquito nets.

Lori Saitz:

That's so cool and unusual.

Maria Finch:

Thank you.

Lori Saitz:

Everybody's selling t shirts or digital marketing courses or whatever. You're selling mosquito nets?

Maria Finch:

Yeah. For me, it was it was. I mean, I did a lot of research to find a particular product niche, but it combined a lot of my interests. I was a biology major undergrad, so I'm super interested in the science of mosquito borne disease. I've lived overseas for a variety of jobs and so I had used mosquito nets for protection, for health and safety. And my my manufacturers are overseas. So I got that cross cultural exchange element. And, and then I had to learn the ins and outs of Amazon, which is very, very complex and I'm a detail person, analytical. And so even. Though there's a love hate relationship with their relationship, for me there it was it it matched like all of my skill sets. And so yeah, so that's the that's the route I went.

Lori Saitz:

I'm going to put a link to your store in the show notes, but just-

Maria Finch:

Thank you

Lori Saitz:

...Tell, tell us what it's called.

Maria Finch:

It's called Tetterfield.

Lori Saitz:

Okay. All right. So if you're looking for mosquito.

Maria Finch:

Yeah.

Lori Saitz:

And and, you know, you don't have to live like in the Amazon to need mosquito nets because I was on your website and I saw what - yeah.

Maria Finch:

Yeah, well.

Lori Saitz:

You'd be surprised at how many, like, situations in in I don't want to say daily life, but regular life that you would need them.

Maria Finch:

Well, the thing is, they're. They're useful for protecting from not just mosquitoes. So it's like spiders and flies and whatever. Any kind of creepy crawly. But not only that, it's like what's really significant is that in the United States, mosquito borne disease actually exists. And at a time in my life, it was actually while I had this awful job, I got West Nile virus in the United States. I was very lucky that I got a mild case. But it's, you know, protect yourself from mosquitoes. It's a good idea.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. Yes, for sure. Yeah. Um, okay. And then you also came up. So you have that business and then you do something else as well and that you came up with after that business was up and running. Right? I mean, I think, yes, you were interested already, but you wanted to get this. Tell me a little more.

Maria Finch:

Yeah. So I I have a life coaching practice and it is something that I've really been drawn to my entire life. I've always been the kind of person that people find themselves opening up to. And I'm infinitely curious and I have a huge amount of compassion and I'm really good at seeing options. And so when somebody comes and presents a challenge to me, I can see a whole bunch of different paths and, and people find that helpful. My coaching practice is called Silence The Mind Clock. Mind clock is a euphemism. You can guess what it.

Lori Saitz:

I love it

Maria Finch:

...what it means. And so it comes back to how do you silence all of the voices that are in your head. So whether they're your own voices, other people's opinions, things you read, watch or listen to trauma, et cetera. It's like, how do you silence all of that so that you really pay attention to your core self? Because when you operate from your core self and you make decisions from there, everything is just easier.

Lori Saitz:

Yes. Yes. So you and I have that commonality. However, since you mentioned EMDR, do you do that with people now?

Maria Finch:

I don't.

Lori Saitz:

Is that part of your practice?

Maria Finch:

No, it's not at this point. It's not. It may be in the future, but at this point it's not. But I can do I do a version of it. I mean, I there there is. Yeah, I do a version of it.

Lori Saitz:

Okay. Very cool. I will put a link to that in the show notes as well.

Maria Finch:

All right. Thank you.

Lori Saitz:

I have so enjoyed this conversation. Now you are you just have this energy that's very calming.

Maria Finch:

Oh, thank you.

Lori Saitz:

And very yeah, you can just feel the the compassion and the the openness. Like I can see why people would feel safe in a space and sharing stuff that they wouldn't tell anybody else with you.

Maria Finch:

Thank you. That's very kind.

Lori Saitz:

I'm guessing, though, that there is also a time when you need to boost your energy and you just want to get more hyped up. What's the song you listen to when you do that?

Maria Finch:

My song is Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J.

Lori Saitz:

Oh, my gosh. Okay. See, this is I love it. And this is so not what I. It's like completely doesn't fit this picture I have of you, which makes it even more awesome.

Maria Finch:

If you put on that song and like, really pay attention to the lyrics. It's all about believing in yourself. It is an incredibly powerful song and I love LL Cool J. I love all old school rap.

Lori Saitz:

Awesome. All right. Well, you can find a link to that in the show notes as well. Maria, thank you so much for joining me today on FINE is a 4-Letter Word.

Maria Finch:

Thank you, Lori. It's just been such a great time to be here. Thank you.

Lori Saitz:

Here are the key takeaways from today's episode. Number one, it's dangerous and often counterproductive to believe that we have to be productive all the time. All you'll end up doing is feeling exhausted. Allow yourself time to really rest. Number two, you have the ability to change your unconscious beliefs. The hardest part is becoming aware of them. But once you are, you can decide to believe something different. Number three Self-awareness is essential. When you understand and care about how you feel, you can give yourself the gift of being true to yourself. Number four, people are going to give you advice about your situation, and no matter how well-meaning it might be, the only opinion that really matters is yours, because you're the only person who has to live with it. Number five, wealth is going to mean different things to different people. Consider your own definition of wealth. Is it money time, friends, freedom or something else? When you know that you can start to build your life around that thing instead of chasing metrics that don't even matter to you? And lastly, not every entrepreneur is out to start the next Uber or Tesla. It is perfectly fine to start a business with the goal of supporting your lifestyle. In fact, that's how the majority of entrepreneurs are doing it.