How to Act as the Family CEO with Mary Oves

Do you need to take a more active role in your finances? Today we’re joined by Mary Oves, a freelance writer, English professor, and widow. When her husband died, she set about creating a new life for herself. Over the past four years, Mary has opened up on her blog about the hard lessons she’s learned.

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On this episode of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast:

• Why Mary says she always knew her husband would die early.
• What prompted Mary to participate in financial activities more.
• Why Mary emphasizes the importance of a substantial emergency fund.
• The financial lessons she has learned by force (rather than interest).
• How women can take a more active role in their finances.
• Why the CEO of the household needs to be tough.
• Mary’s top tips for budgeting and how she’s managing her finances now.
• What Mary’s eyes were opened to once she became a widow.
• How conversations have changed since Mary’s husband passed.
• Why it’s important to look at your bills and charges closely.
• Mary’s journey with her financial advisor and what she changed.
• What Mary wishes she had done differently looking back.
• The importance of creating a will with your family.
• The money obstacle Mary is still working to overcome.
• Why understanding your money mindset is important.

Connect with Mary

Website: https://www.chrysaliscollective.org/

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TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to the live love engage podcast on today’s show, we’ll be talking about women money and becoming your family’s CEO. Stay tuned. I am Gloria Grace Rand, founder of the L.O.V.E. method and author of the number one, Amazon Best seller live love, engage – how to stop doubting yourself and start being yourself in this podcast, we share practical advice from a spiritual perspective on how to live fully love, deeply and engage authentically so you can create a life and business with more impact, influence, and income. Welcome to live. Love. Engage.

Namaste and welcome. Welcome. I am so glad to be with you for another edition of live love, engage, and I am delighted to welcome Mary Oves to the show.

And I’m going to tell you all about her in just a second, but I just want to just, you know, say, Hey, glad to have you here, Mary. Thanks. I’m so happy to be. Well, I’m really curious to hear what you have to say, about the subject we’re going to be talking about. So, which has to do with, well, finances.

We’ll, we’ll, we’ll start with that, but let me tell you a little bit about who Mary is and why I wanted to have her on the show. she is a college. The English professor I can speak today, a freelance journalist of thirty-five years, and she’s also been a widow since 2017. And when her husband died, Mary said about making a new life for herself and has spent the past four years regaling readers of her lifestyle blog about online dating, single travel.

Dressing for your widowed fifties and menopausal hot flashes among other things. And with her unique brand of humor, she has bridged the gap between the grief of widowhood and the joys of reinvention. And I also forgot to mention that she’s also a mom. She has three, I guess mostly grown sons, I think.

but I wanted to start off today talking about, as I mentioned, finances, so. most married couples., it seems like the husband is usually in charge of finances. I know in my case I pay the bills, but my husband kind of does the investing side of things. So I was wondering if that was the case for you and, you know, fan, how did you manage then having to now of course, take full responsibility after your husband passed when.

My husband was alive. He was a dialysis patient for his entire life. when he proposed to me, I remember he said to me that night, I’m not going to live to be an old man. So if you’re going into this with me, you have to go into it, knowing that we’ve always known that. and you know, he died, you know, at 54 that’s young, you know, when we’re young, that doesn’t sound.

When you’re now we know it’s very young, so he would try throughout our marriage to get me to participate. I was a full-time teacher raising three little kids, you know, I have this much energy and that much energy for anything other than work and kids. So I usually would just, you know, kind of blow him off and maybe tomorrow, and he’s like, you’re going to have to do.

Stuff and yeah, well maybe tomorrow and, well, this is where the insurance is and it almost got to a point where. It became, it became a point of dissension. It really started bothering him that I wasn’t, participating more, in, in those activities. but again, as you know, our marriage went through, I became less and less interested.

So, you know, fast forward to 2017. And now here I am with a rental house insurance mortgage. Investments policies, tuition, student loans. You know, I was pretty much, you know, thrown into the, into the deep part of the ocean, you know, without a paddle. So my, my answer to you is it has been a very oftentimes scary, but mostly liberating, experience just.

The things. I mean, I’m when I’m reading, I’m reading about, you know, reading, finance books. I have, you know, I’m always having zoom meetings with my financial advisor and I’m always on the phone. It’s a learning process. It’s not something that comes naturally to me, I’m more of the nurturer, but you know, and my twins are 23.

They do their own thing now. And my other son’s going to be 20, but I’ll tell you. What I’ve learned that the person I am now as opposed to on October 22nd, 2013, 2017, I’m not sure he didn’t propose to me now. I mean that me now it’s just a completely different person. I don’t mean that in a, you know, in a, in a disrespectful way, but I’ve learned so much over the last four years about money and investing.

And, I finally got a grip on. That’s good. Well, that brings me to my next question is, you know, as you, as a special, you know, as, as a teacher, you know, when you’re learning something, you sometimes can make mistakes. So what, could you share maybe, you know, one or one or two and maybe one of the big mistakes you may be made while you were trying to learn this and then, and then what you learned, you know, from.

Absolutely. I think I’ve made so many mistakes. I’m trying to figure out which one to share. Oh boy, how many mistakes I’ve made? I’ll share one with you because it’s hitting me right now. All right. And everything’s working out, but when they, when they tell you to keep an emergency fund, all right. Of this amount of time, and I did, I had it.

I, it wasn’t big enough. So now my son’s tuition, my son is all almost as a full ride to his school, but my son’s tuition was due last week and I didn’t have it. I have it in a 401k. But now here’s the kicker. As you know, now I have to take it. Luckily it doesn’t affect his scholarships and you do not get, if you take it out, if you take money out of your 401k for tuition, you do not pay a penalty, but you still get taxed.

I never understood any of this tax. What 10%? What does that mean? I mean, why can’t I use that 401k? It’s mine now I get it because I was forced to get it. I had to call my financial advisor and go through that with him. And he says, if you put it back in 60 days, you know, you won’t get that 10% tax on it.

I’ll tell you when they, you know, for women or widows. I think mostly widows, but, when they tell you to keep that, you know, three months worth of, of an emergency fund, that’s what that’s for. That’s the kind of thing that’s for, because I had to take that, that kills me. I took that out of my 401k, but I have high hopes.

I can replace it in 60 days, but if I can’t now I’m paying this tax. So that is one probably big mistake that I made. I never put two and two together. Now I’m paying $2,000 to use my own money. Right. Yep. Exactly. Oh, I could regale you with so many mistakes, but that’s the most recent what I just made, but I’ll tell ya.

I learned, and I will never make that mistake again. Never. Well, that’s, that’s good. A good lesson. And it, it is challenging trying to understand all of these things. So, what you, you talk about, one of the things you, you, you talk about is that, We’re essentially becoming like, our own CEO, the CEO of our family.

So, how can women do that and really take a more active role in, in their finances? What, what, what would you, what would you recommend them to do? Well, I think there’s two schools of thought. I think I’m, you know, on one hand, if you’re single, that’s. That’s easier investing for yourself. You’re doing this for yourself, but when we’re talking about, and again, my sons are not little children.

I mean, they have their own portfolios, and their vest, they invest their own money. They’re really good already. What, what I think right now I’m doing is trying to make them understand, which was a lesson. My late husband tried to teach me so many times. We really can’t do that now. I never understood that, but I want this now, why can’t I have this now?
Like I walk on that person, like, I want it now, why can’t I have it now? He said, well, we can’t do that now. So I’m trying to impart to my sons, you know, you’re going to, you’re going to fly to Utah, although I do embrace carp. And I do embrace doing it while you’re young. I have one of my I’m going, gonna go here and I’m going to go there.

You know, you kind of as CEO, You know, I’m no longer, you know, the cute mom in the background saying, I’ll just let him just let them go. You know, that’s the moms, or I’ll just let them go. Let them know son. And the father is the one saying, well, that’s ridiculous. You’re teaching him like, you know, instant gratification and not everything in life is instant gratification.

You, you have to work. And then, you know, you get to enjoy the fruits of your labors life. Isn’t a beer commercial. He used to say, now I’m that person. The CEO has to be tough. The CEO has to say, no, I’m not buying you. Snowboards for Christmas. I don’t have that. You know? No, I’m not buying your lift tickets.

If you want to go skiing, you buy your own lift tickets. No, I’m not. And you should probably, and I’m telling you gotta get your oil change. Cause if your car breaks down, I’m not buying any more vehicles. So now I’m kind of that I’m not the soft nurturing mom. I am sometimes, but I have to be him too. I have to be the one saying that car needs to last you for another however long.

Do you know what a car payment means? And now my late husband would not be able to believe some of the things that have come out of my. Get that oil change. I’m yelling at them all. That’s really important to get that oil changed, you know? So, you know, I would have to say a CEO now, you know, you’ve got to be tougher.

You’ve got to take that tougher stance. Yeah, absolutely. A little, a little tough love goes a long way and it’s, and it’s, and it’s good for them because you’re helping them to learn, to become responsible adults because they’re going to be getting jobs and they’re going to have to be. You know, they’re going to be living on their own.

They’re going to need to be able to manage, their finances and manage the money coming in and money coming out, which leads me to something that I’ve also not been very great at doing is establishing a budget. Do you. Had to do that now. And, and what are, what are some tips you’ve learned about, about coming up with a budget and keeping it in balance?

I’m so glad you asked me that. And like I said, these are such timely questions cause I’m going through all this right now. you know, I have two. Now with, you know, being the CEO CEO, doesn’t use credit cards, indiscriminately, the CEO understands that it’s not just magic, that’s something you have to pay, you know?

And now I see, I look at the credit card bills and I’m like, okay, I just paid this amount of money, this amount of money for this credit card, I just got charged $38. And now I’m starting to see that now the interest. so as far as. Establishing a budget. What I’ve been trying to do now is pay myself first.

That to me is the most important thing. When my, paychecks go into my account, first, I pay myself. That’s the first thing I do. I put it into my account. That’s my nest egg. and then I take out cash. Not much, but I, gas is so expensive. Now you have to factor that in as well. In a million years, I wouldn’t have done that when my husband was alive, who cares about how much gas is?

What do you mean? It’s this now I, now I understand it takes me $60 to fill my tank up. So I think, okay, I need to do that twice a week. Let’s say I have to do that. Not really though. Maybe the twice, every 10 days. So I figured that into, okay. That’s like $300 maybe a month for gas, give or take $50. So that say that’s two 50, between 2 50, 300, always have a little bit of, of cash if you need it for whatever.

No, I don’t get to go coffee. I don’t do any of that stuff. So I try to, I try to get by on $100. I know sounds crazy, but I work a lot, so I’m not really a lesson I’m on vacation, but, like a hundred dollars a week. And I try not to dip into my credit cards. I’m trying to just use my cash and say, this is once this is gone.

Okay. It’s going on Wednesday now you’re waiting until Monday to get your other a hundred dollars. So budgeting, I’ll tell you. That is the toughest thing for me to really see. And now with groceries being expensive, so expensive, everything is so expensive now, budgeting, I’m telling you I’m still in a learning process with it.

but I’ll tell you it’s a quick. Yeah, absolutely. I know you’ve got to, your blog and, and I know one of the articles, I think you’ve put in there with some, something about like 22 tips to save money. what’s, what’s one of the, or maybe a couple of tips you have found that have helped you to save money and that could help others as well.

I’ll give you one right now because I was just on the phone with him before this podcast. And, he was so nice to me when you’re a widow. You enter into conversations with utilities and cable and phone, you’re already aggressive because it’s. Difficult, especially now because with COVID they don’t have a whole lot of people live people.

They all, they want you to do, you know, they want you to go into the automated or they want you to go online. Okay. It’s very, very time consuming to get a human being. But I got one, it took me 20 minutes, but I got them on the phone. So by then I was already frustrated and he literally said to me, take a deep breath.

And calm down. I said, I don’t under, okay. I said, I don’t understand what this bill is. He’s like, well, that’s your, I said I’ll even own only online anymore. So one of my tips would be to go into all of your bills. Now I’ve been paying Comcast blindly, just because, okay. I know it’s my first bill of the month.

It’s due on the second of every month. Let me pay my $126. I was all of a sudden, wait a minute, 153. Let me take a look at this. Why did it go up and what is it for? I have DirecTV and at and T and it turns out it’s from my landline, which I gave my father who’s on hospice. I gave him my landline phone, so I wouldn’t even use the lamb.

So one of the many tips, by the way, that was the great Dave Ramsey who helped me out with that article. I took that. I took a lot of those tips from him. One of my, of many different is really look at those fees, see what you’re paying for. I looked at it and I’m like, okay, I’m just paying Comcast and down.

Like now I’m really gonna look at these charges. I’m like remotes and boxes and landlines. So, you know, I’m going to now, I don’t know what day, but I’m going to go in, in person and I’m going to bring the bill and the. Hack at it until they take off everything on. I mean, we’re talking, we’re probably talking about a good $60 a month now.

Only 60 bucks. Okay. Now multiply that by 12. Now, multiply that by 10 years and tell me that’s something to sneeze at those little teeny tiny fees. Really. Yeah. Well, and as you mentioned, that’s, that’s a tank of gas for your car right there. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I know that you’re, you’re absolutely right on that because I I’ve I’ve.

I’ve found that, in dealing with even like the, the phone bill, you with your, with your mobile phone that I was, I have T-Mobile and they have actually a program for seniors. And so, oh, you know, over 55. And so I qualify that. And so we were able to actually get onto that plan now, instead of, especially because now my son has his own phone plan, so he’s not on ours anymore.

My daughter’s off of ours, so we could actually start saving. Yeah. So there are ways do and facts. And sometimes I think if, even if you just call them, cause I know you used to do this even with the cable company too. And just say, you know, Hey, is there anything you can do to like, you know, are there any specials or something going on right now?

That’s what you have to do. You have to really. And again, you know, people work. I was, I’m lucky, you know, I’m a retired teacher, so I have a little bit more time. I don’t have a whole lot of time, but you really have to chose off, especially right now because everyone’s hurting for employees. You have to say, I’m going to actually dedicate, you know, this much time to this because you go into at and T they’re going to have you standing there getting my husband’s name taken off.

That account was a nightmare. And then by the time I got his name taken off, I was getting these astronomical bills. So I had to keep going back and forth. And then I got the teacher’s education discount. Then they took off and there’s all these little hidden seas that they put on there. I scanned by an escalate for this bill.

I started either going to get rid of our phones or you’re going to get it down to something I can afford. It took a year. I’m not exaggerating of visits and phone calls, but I got it down so low. AT&T has to be mad. I’ll tell ya. I, I almost cut it in half how much they were charging us. You have to be stubborn because it’s so much easier to say I’m just going to give up and pay it.

I don’t have the time. I don’t have the patients. It is. It’s very, very frustrating. But if you put your time into it, save a lot of. Yeah, absolutely. Now you mentioned that you have, you have a financial advisor that you talk to. So, how has that been in, in dealing with that with, you know, investments?

Cause I think that’s another, I actually went to a money conference with my husband a couple of years ago and there was a whole, there was one whole session for women because women are just not, you know, It’s probably like 80% men or who are investors or maybe ma and probably even 20% might even be generous.

So, yeah. What, what kind of, how has that been your experience and then what kind of advice do you have for, for women in that respect? Yeah. when my husband died, our financial advisor was a friend of our family. He also handled. all of, you know, my extended family, he is a family friend. I unfortunately, after the last four years, my portfolio has been performing.

Okay. But again, I have only, it’s been a very long journey into where I’m actually looking at the portfolio. Now it was chaos for two years. so these last two years I’m been in now I’m in the learning. But what I did was, I S I did send them a letter. And then we talked on the phone. I changed, I’m still with the same house, but I just, I wanted to start fresh.

I don’t want someone who knew my husband knowing my finances. I don’t want. Someone who handles my ex laws, money handling my money. So right now I’m in this complete, just changing over to my own people. so I’m with the same financial house, but I’m have a new advisor. Okay. So having said that, he knows now I don’t, I can’t speak for other women, but let’s say.

one out of 10, you know, a really well-informed woman is a five out of a 10 with financial literacy. I’d be at a two I’ve risen, probably at a three or four now, which is better than, you know, negative three that I was when he was alive. But, I’ll tell ya. I told him he sent me a 10 page questionnaire and he says, we’re not doing anything until you fill the whole thing out.

And they really get very. The hardest thing other than publishing my first blog, because I’m very private. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was putting those numbers on paper and showing him this is who I am. This is what I’ve done. This is where I’ve screwed up and messed up. This is where I’ve overpaid.

This is where I’ve over traveled. I know I’m an idiot here and I’m an idiot there. I should have done this. I should put, you know what, it’s in the past, the mistakes are in the past and he took that document. He’s like, well, you’re a mess. But that’s what I need. I need someone to tell me you’re a mess, but we’re going to get you back and you know, I’m going to help you.

So we, zoom, , once every two weeks actually a meeting with him. I forget the days of the week now, Thursday, where we’re going to discuss. Whether I want to become more of an aggressive investor rather than moderate, which is where I am now. I want things to move a little quicker, but I also don’t want to lose that.

And I have too much apple. I need to get rid of some apple, but, again, as far as a financial advisor, he just came with the financial house. I need him to treat me like, not like a husband, that’s disrespectful to his wife, but I said, I need you to treat me like, I’m your sister. And be really tough with me, cause that’s what I need now.

I need someone to really taking me in hand and telling me this is where you can afford to do this and that and the other. So that’s where I am with my financial advisor. Awesome. Well, that’s, that’s good that you’re making progress and learning cause yeah.

That’s hard. That’s hard taking that long. Look at yourself in that financial mirror. I mean, my husband tried to get me to do that for 25 years and I blew him off and blew him off. He was like, okay, one day, I’m not going to be here. I’m telling you one day, I’m not going to be here and you’re not going to know this.

You’re not going to I’m like, oh yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever he was. Right. But I think he’d be proud of me. I mean, it’s but it is what is it? Necessity is the mother of invention. Is that correctly? I don’t know. I have no choice. I have to learn it now. So yeah. So, so what, what would you tell someone, you know, out there, what would you tell wives in particular?

What should they be doing? What should they be doing to making sure that they do protect themselves? Because in case they, you know, even if their husband, you know, maybe leaves them, you know, it could be divorced, doesn’t have to be necessarily death. What would you recommend them to do? Start doing? You know, it could be too, I’m not judging anybody.

I’ve never understood women who don’t work. I think it’s, I think in this day and age, it is very dangerous. To not have your own income. And wait around to your 60 for social security, but it might be too late for a lot of women. but you know, my first advice would be, be a career woman, have your own job, have your own income, have your own checkbook, have your own, maybe even your own little portfolio.

So what have you only put $20 in a week? I mean, I just wish I had, I mean, I did. Okay. but I wish I had, I had contributed more to my, to my portfolio. So my, that would be my first kind of sounds judgmental. No, not ever, not every woman. She, they want to stay home with their children and that’s wonderful too.

so I would say, especially for let’s consider a woman, what happens if her husband dies? I was, as I would suggest you have him, right? First of all, You get on him until he makes out. You get on him too. My husband died without a will. Oh, it was, it was the most stressful, even now. I’m like I said, I’m still trying to prove that, that he was who he is and I’m who I am.

I don’t care how strong is or how defatted he thinks he is get him to make that well and put that in a safe deposit box. At first, even a living trust, all that stuff. Get back done. And I’m telling you one day on a Sunday with bad weather. Sit down and you write down every single account number of every single account, every single password.

and you keep that in on a piece of paper somewhere shaping your home so that when banking information. Insurance papers and have everything in file folders and the little filing cabinet, because if you know, something happens to him, whether it’s divorce or, or death, you have already cut your frustration by 80%.

No, every single thing you have and he has what you share, what you don’t. cause if you don’t, you are setting yourself up for. A lot of aggravation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m sorry that you’ve had to go through all of that aggravation, but that’s true. And, and again, I think even though you don’t have daughters, but I think it’s still good that your sons have been hopefully, you know, seeing what you’ve had to go through so that maybe they can, then when they get involved with, you know, hopefully they can, you know, talk to their, you know, girlfriends and then what wives possibly, or whatever, and encourage them as well.

And just say this and, well, my mom went through, I don’t want you to go through that. I’ve been doing a lot of, a lot of soul searching during these few years about financial finances. And I keep trying to figure out where my mindset comes from that mindset of whenever he would bring it up, my mind would shut down again.

We had more fights about that than anything in our marriage. And I have to trace it back to your childhood. I’m like, well, I mean, the only thing I ever experienced as a child was watching my father work. My mother was a housewife, but that was normal. Back then. The only thing I remember is that they, you know, they dressed me in hand me down clothes because they didn’t, you know, they, they were saving money and they didn’t want to put money out for clothes.

So as soon as I got my first job, every penny went to clothes and makeup and shoes. I’m still battling that day. I’m still battling, not wanting to always spend my money on clothes and shoes and makeup. You know, you also have to trace back. Women have to trace back to where they get their w their wealth.

Poverty mindset. Did you grow up in a household where you were? I didn’t grow up in a household where I ever wanted for anything other than clothes, you know, it was an intellectual household, but you all, you have to ask yourself that, you know, why am I like this? You know, and to try to trace it back up again, because as soon as you’re cognizant of that, that’s when you can begin to work from there.

That’s true. Absolutely. Yeah. You can make that shift for sure. Yeah. is there anything else. I should have asked you, but I haven’t about this subject.

I mean, if, if, if we’re talking again, this being a college professor, I know right now student loans are at the forefront. we’re kind of engaged in, you know, a lot of different, you know, things, things getting forgiven because he passed. Things that were, we’re the process of getting forgiven. but this is more like, I guess, family advice.

I’m sure every family has their own idea, but say a woman, you know, a woman becomes a widow and her children are young, or, or, or in high school and enter, I’ll tell you, don’t get caught up in the student loan stuff. You know, I know it’s hard. It’s very easy to hit apply. It is. It’s very easy. Okay.

Congratulations. You know, you have this one with this. I mean, you know, if you have. Tell that kid to own it. You know, maybe my, my youngest just paid for one of his, he paid for his semester was on money. Cause he worked over the summer. Let them pay for some of it. Let them pay for the real, let them own it.

The student loans, aren’t this kind of amalgamous thing. Just floating through. It’s like, like it’s not like, you know, like we saved credit cards at some point. They’re going to be like, oh, by the way, here you go, you owe us this. You’re like I do. So I, you know, I would say for women who like, if, especially for widows or whatever, I think widows are different than women that are divorced because they still have probably have a father or an ex-husband that is still, you know, participating in his children’s lives.

But when we’re talking widows, it’s very easy to kind of be seduced by that student loan thing. You know what I teach community college. Tell him to go for the first years, go to community college. Don’t even do you know, if, if there’s a woman who’s a widow and she has a a child starting school. I worked for a year, worked for, you know, you have to start right away, eight weeks after, you know, you graduate from high school.

my again, cause we’re involved in all of that. Now things are working out, but you get caught up in that whole student loan thing and you know, that’s, it gets, it gets tricky. Yeah. And I think that’s, regardless of even, even with, you know, two parents with, with income, because I know for our kids, like my daughter was accepted to all these lovely schools, you know, including Notre Dame and, and then they offered, financial aid was like, I don’t know, $5,000 a year.

And the tuition was 55,000. So needless to say, she didn’t go to Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, and she graduated like second in her class too, so it was crazy, but. But she went to a state school, she got a scholarship, she did have a fit. She did get one loan to help supplant and then, right.

And when he graduates, it’s completely doable, he has his own money. We’ll be able to pay that off like that. Very small. It’s okay. To do small. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s it. And then, and that’s the thing I think is the, is the lesson is they don’t necessarily, and I think there’s even been studies showing these, you know, Ivy league schools.

They don’t necessarily really give you a better education than just, you know, your state schools is depending on what type of degree you’re going for. So, you know, keep that in mind because yeah, these kids who are saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, it’s like, oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine it.

So yeah, both my kids, their loans are paid off now, already, and they did it themselves. Yes. Yes. But I will say, you know, my, my middle son, he’s just the youngest twin. He went to Penn state and I will say that he has this amazing job with this company expense account and a car. And they put them up in hotels because he have to travel and they wanted a Penn state kid.

That is what they wanted. So. I understand there is something to be said for what’s on the resume. So I would not downplay that, but some of these schools, they have some they’re charging what they charge, just because it says Harvard or Yale or Princeton. But again, in other cases, you know, it was between him and a kid that went to a community college.

He got that job. So there, you know, we are thankful to Penn state. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. you know, before we close out, tell me a little bit about the blog that you have. So, cause I mentioned that in the, in the intro, so, so what’s that all about why did you start it and, and, and what can people expect when they go there?

Yeah. You know, I’ve been, I’ve been a journalist since I’ve been 22, I submit to many publications, but what I was finding, in 2018 was I had all this. I needed to release and I couldn’t get, you know, when you want to try to pitch to a magazine, they either don’t answer you. You know, I needed a release.

It doesn’t matter to me. If I have made my name, I’d see my name and byline. So many times I needed a release. So, my F you know, friend of mine said, you all, you, you know, you’ve gone around interviewing people your whole life. Why don’t you tell your story now? I’m in intent, you can’t tell, but I am intensely private and I am an introvert.

so publishing that first blog. was terrifying. and now write about anything, but I’ve told my readers, Chrysalis, collective.org that’s. I said that’s not my writing life. That to me is like you see an athlete stretching before. Or you see someone, you know, a chef, you know, preparing something for the staff before he serves it to my blog takes me.

I, I post Monday through Friday, it’s like my warmup. I keep my, I keep everything, all the joints moving and oiled and everything running smoothly. And I amused myself. I only have a few hundred followers. I’m trying to change that, but it gets complicated and I’m not really, I don’t like social, not that interest in social media, but that’s all we are now, you know, but, it’s just, I post, I post funny things.

I post things about what overhead money travel, not so much now, but hopefully we’ll get back to. music, fashion. It’s just fun. It’s something fun for me. my, my, my followers enjoy it. So hopefully I’m gaining steam, but it takes a long. All right. So, so if someone wants to check it out, say, say the name of that website again with Nicholas collective.org.

Okay. All right. And I’ll be sure. I tried to flick find, I tried to get the.com, but someone had bought it and then they try to sell it for like 10 grand. They do that stuff. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll be sure and have that in the show notes. So if you’re listening to this go when you’re somewhere where you can look it up again, you can even, you can also go to live love, engage podcast.com and you’ll be able to find the episode that’s where you can see the show notes and you’ll be able to get it there.

So, well, thank you so much for being with us today, Mary. You’ve definitely shared a lot of great information, you know, sharing your story and some of the, you know, the hard lessons that you’ve learned, but I’m sure it’s going to help a lot of other women out there in particular to help them through.

Great. I hope so. It’s a journey again, every day. It’s baby steps, Dave Ramsey’s new book, baby steps to a middle. Yeah,

well, awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for being here and thank all of you for listening. I really do appreciate it, that you are, you know, checking out our podcast when we come out and, If you are enjoying this, I hope that you also make sure that you leave us a review wherever you listen to this podcast and, including Spotify would be great.

So until next time as always, I encourage you to go out today and every day and live fully. Love deeply and engage authentically. Did you know that a majority of entrepreneurs tend to discount the importance of their work and a good number? Feel their success is simply due to luck. I know from personal experience that self-doubt can keep you from having the kind of life and business you desire.

That’s why I’ve created a free guide called uniquely you how to move from self-doubt to self-love in four simple steps. To claim your free guide. Go to live love, engage.gift. That’s live love, engage dot G I F T .