Write Your Path

What if the biggest thing standing between you and the life you want isn’t a lack of time, money, knowledge, or opportunity—but you? In this episode, I make a commitment to myself: I am no longer my biggest blocker. I talk about the limiting beliefs, fear, self-doubt, procrastination, and resistance that keeps us from doing the things we already know we need to do, and why becoming the person who can actually hold what we say we want requires us to start changing our daily habits now. I also share my work with a business coach and a soul mentor, simplifying my business around my Book Doula + Writing Coach work, and getting brutally honest about where I’ve been getting in my own way. I outline the simple daily habits I’m committing to and why I’m giving myself more grace. But the real shift comes from thinking about these habits not as things we have to do, but as acts of devotion to ourselves; what if taking a walk, journaling, singing, meditating, or doing the thing you’ve been avoiding could become a living, breathing act of self-devotion? Resources & sites mentioned in this episode: Check out my coach Claire Seller’s work here Ready to Write Your Book? Grab your *Finish the Effing Book* call here Start building your freelance writing business inside The 6-Fig Freelance Writer self-paced digital course Check out Ailish’s Instagram here, and listen to my episode where I break down our first call here The episode where I talk extensively about my experience sitting Vipassana Listen to some of my early mantras here!

Today’s episode features my longtime friend & serial entrepreneur Neil Goldsmith. Back in 2016, Neil quit his 9-to-5, moved to Thailand, and built a successful e-commerce business selling Viking-inspired products. Since then, he’s traveled the world and turned a single horn mug into a 35-product business. We talk about the wild, messy, and often unexpected path of watching a business grow, decline, and evolve over its first 10 years, and then figuring out what comes next. Neil opens up about the emotional attachment entrepreneurs can develop to their businesses, the challenge of becoming a slave to it, the missed opportunity to sell his company, and his efforts to build systems, teams, and AI-powered tools that give him his freedom back. He also shares the story behind his new SaaS company, Replenly, a failed venture into the kava industry, and why some of his biggest “failures” became some of his best adventures. Resources & sites mentioned in this episode: The episode where I talk about the concept of freedom can be found here, and where I talk about productivity can be found here. Check out Norse Tradesman’s website, Instagram, and Etsy shop Learn more about Neil’s new SaaS product, Replenly Find Neil on Instagram and LinkedIn

In this conversation with the impossible-to-categorize Lola Villa, we dive into everything from finding your voice to following your curiosity, and trusting that the more deeply you become yourself, the more aligned opportunities begin to find you. Lola—a creative strategist, musician, curator, and storyteller—shares her journey from working in traditional media and visual storytelling to creating music, working with nature, and eventually being invited to help shape a new version of NASA’s legendary Golden Record, a project designed to tell the story of humanity and the Earth to other intelligent life in the universe. Lola believes authenticity can actually be a trap, as we’re all inevitably shaped by the people, books, music, languages, and cultures that influence us (which is why copying can actually be a powerful part of developing your own creative voice). We explore the creative process, the importance of becoming obsessed with a subject, and what it means to see ourselves as porous beings constantly shaped by the world around us. Essentially, this conversation is an invitation to stop striving for some perfect version of authenticity and simply start creating from your own unique way of seeing the world. Resources & sites mentioned in this episode: Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change. Book recommendations: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown, and The Overstory by Richard Powers The Gap, a short video by Ira Glass. The audio is taken from a talk on storytelling he gave; watch parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 here (the excerpt is from part 3). Future Sound of Nature, Lola’s record label that blends the soul of electronic music with the rhythms of the Earth. Atmos, the nonprofit media organization focused on the cross-pollination of climate and culture where Lola worked. NASA's Golden Record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, first launched in 1977 to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. Here’s the Radio Lab episode that talks about it. Echosystem School of Sound, Lola’s online electronic music production school & community Lola’s website, Instagram & LinkedIn Corrections to this episode: It was Neil deGrasse Tyson our friend Glo sat down with, not Carl Sagan LOL (I tend to confuse my famous astrophysicists). Watch their chat here and listen to Gloria’s episode on the podcast here. Apparently the Vozinha LinkedIn recruitment story is false?! Ugh so heartbreaking (it was such a good one!).

This solo episode is all about finding peace in the pause. What if the season when it feels like nothing is happening is actually preparing you for everything that comes next? In this episode I talk about my own recent season of pause—especially the anxiety I experienced around money and business—and the realization that ultimately, the universe had my back. Instead of constantly pushing, producing, and trying to make something happen, I decided to trust the pause, root down, and allow myself to rest, reassess, and prepare for whatever comes next. We often forget that nothing in nature blooms year-round. A tree has to grow an extensive root system underground before it can break through the surface, and sometimes we have to do the same. I share a few metaphors that have helped me understand these quieter seasons and offer a reminder that the invisible work you're doing right now may be exactly what allows you to step into your next chapter. You might not be stuck, you might just be rooting down before you can rise up. Resources & sites mentioned in this episode: Listen to the episode about my experience doing a 100-hour Vipassana meditation retreat My first baby business, Crea Content Marketing, is now 12 years old! Check out my second business, Write Your Path Coaching Learn more about my 5-week group coaching program The Write to Heal Get a copy of The 6-Fig Freelance Writing Contract for free Check out The 6-Fig Freelance Writer, the self-paced digital course I created for other writers who want to start and scale a business

What happens when the ways we learned to survive are no longer the ways we want to live? In this episode I sit down with my friend Claire Macias—an energy worker and Life Alignment practitioner—to explore the stories, patterns, and experiences we carry in our bodies, and what it can look like to come home to ourselves. Claire shares her extraordinary journey as a third-culture kid who grew up between Venezuela, France, and Israel, her mother's battle with terminal cancer, an ATV accident that forced her to question whether she was truly living her own life, and the unexpected path that eventually led her to energy work. We also discuss what Mexico City taught Claire about softness, strength, and belonging, how different environments can bring out completely different versions of ourselves, and whether you're living from your own truth or from the adaptations you've accumulated along the way. Resources & sites mentioned in this episode: More about Aura-Soma and its founder, Vicky Wall The book Claire stumbled upon in Madrid, Aura-Soma: Self-Discovery through Color Learn more about The Journey, a healing method by mind-body-healing expert, Brandon Bays The Life Alignment system Claire studied and now practices Claire’s website and Instagram