Healthy N Wealthy N Wise

How to juggle side hustles and be true to yourself in balancing life. – powered by Happy Scribe

Welcome to the Healthy and Wealthy and Wise podcast with global sales trainer and professional speaker Lois Koffi each week, it is her goal to share inspiration and education for you to be to have the best health and wealth and wisdom for your life. All right, guys, happy Black Friday. If you’re watching this live, this is Lois Koffi. I am the founder of Lois Koffi Enterprises and the healthy and wealthy and Wise Dotcom. That’s the name of this podcast.

And we’re super excited every week to bring you experts in health and wealth building, as well as wisdom of experts of all walks of life and background.

And I’m so glad I’m still doing this on Black Friday so we can keep encouraging you through this holiday weekend here in America. And if you’re listening or watching in from overseas, we just want to thank you guys so much for tuning in, because every guest has some some pearls of wisdom and some encouragement. And I know in these times of pandemic, 20, 20. Right. We want to we want to be of encouragement to you today. So if you are tuning in, feel free to hit hash tag.

Leive, if you’re on the live or hash tag replay, if you’re on the replay and let us know where you’re tuning in from. If you are tuning in live or even after the fact, please hit the share button outside of this community, the health of all families, Facebook community, and share it with other people so that they can find encouragement today. And again, if you know me, I’m a passionate sales coach and I always bring people on that bring value to my community of likeminded positive, supportive salespeople, entrepreneurs, network marketers, coaches.

We have such a beautiful, beautiful community here. And I’m super excited today to introduce you. Debbie, we’re going to go ahead and dive right in. I met Debbie, actually. I think we met online. Right. I don’t think we ever met in person, which is what’s so fun about this, this new normal, this paradox of social online networking. She’s a social worker. She’s a beauty consultant with my wife. She’s a connector.

Obviously, we connected and now here we are. And what I love about her is she is encourager. She’s a cheerleader of other people’s success, especially women. She’s all about female empowerment. We’re going to talk today about her journey. And I’m just going to turn it over to you, Debbie, and find out what is your story? What is your your why how did you get to be where you are today?

OK, thank you, Los. I’m so excited to be here and talk with you. So I grew up in a family that my parents really wanted to have a large family and my mom had difficulties with pregnancies and so my family started doing foster care. And so I had foster siblings and I have an adopted sister. And I think in in growing up in that way, it exposed me to a very different view of life than I otherwise would have had.

I grew up white in America, very privileged, all those kinds of things. And so I think it it really opened my experience and just really gave me a heart for people. And and my parents were very much people who cared about serving others in our faith community, in the community that we lived in, that type of thing. And so I just really grew up with that heart. Additionally, my mother had disease, multiple sclerosis, which they later found out about why she had difficulties with pregnancies.

And when I was in my teen years, that came out of remission and came on very aggressively and she became quite disabled. And so prior to leaving for college. Roles kind of reversed instead of my mom taking care of me. I had to help take care of her and I had a baby sister, so I was the only biological child. And when I was 16, my mom got pregnant, which surprised everybody. And my sister Karen was born.

And she’s just an amazing human and absolutely love that.

I have her as my sister.

And so life was very different for me in my later teen years and early college years than what I had expected or what my peers were experiencing. And my mom ended up dying because of complications due to M.S. when I was still pretty young, I was just out of college. So it took me a lot of years to deal with that and figure that out. I kind of tried to tough it out. And I think sometimes when we experience trauma in our youth, it makes us fiercely independent.

So it’s kind of like I’m good with helping other people, but I don’t need any help. And it took me a while to figure out I did. And more than anything, I needed the community of other women and relationships with women because I lost that most important relationship, which is the relationship you have with mother. There were so many things I still needed from her and still do and miss her quite a bit. And so once I figured that out and started being more in community with other women, I realized that is where my heart’s passion is.

Like I, I want everyone, every woman to experience that sense of community being known, being seen and being loved for who you are.

Wow, wow, wow, I didn’t realize how much we had in common because I shared with you why I’m more of a tomboy. I was raised by a single dad. I lost my mom like at four or five to mental illness and moving on. And I can identify with so much of what you shared and growing up faster than probably most people with a quote unquote, normal family, although we don’t really know what normal is. And I find that in sales, a lot of people, if they have call reluctance or if they just don’t want to, they don’t feel like adopting that day because work and connecting with other people in sales is required.

Right. You’ve got to you’ve got to talk to people. You’ve got to build a relationship, the trust and rapport. And yet if you have that trauma or you have not figured it out yourself because of that trauma, you can really hold you back from making an income and making an impact. So I’m just curious, what ways did you reach out for help? What ways or steps did it take for you to? Because I’m sure there’s a lot more to the story that we can probably cover today.

But what helped you are who helped you guide you in that journey to discovering the female empowerment, the women’s groups? And obviously that’s helped you as a beauty consultant with life as well, I’m guessing.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. So, you know, there have been so many people along the way, my my my grandmother, some of my closest girlfriends. I’ve I’ve experienced great love and support from specific women in my life. And so that’s kind of place certainly getting some counseling. I ended up going to college psychology. I wanted to be a counselor. I think a lot of times when we grow up with situations that we’re trying to figure out for ourselves, we can be very drawn to those healthy fields.

And so I was and so there were certainly things I learned through my schooling, but luckily. I’m sorry, but I didn’t say anything. So there was a lot I learned through through my schooling, but it was still all very intellectual. So it really was a process of unfolding. And I think life events, becoming a mother myself, getting married, all those different things, certainly through my faith community being apart of different, different women’s groups, Bible studies, different things like that has made a huge difference.

I have a neighbor that I now walk with quite frequently, and we’ve developed a really beautiful connection. And one of the things I love about that is she comes from a completely different faith background. She’s originally from another country, although I did grow up here.

But her family. So there’s this beautiful just exchange of information and ideas. So they’ve just been so many different people and things along the way. But I really think it was realizing I just have to do something scared and I really have to look at some of the the losses in my life and feel them and not just intellectualize them.

One of the biggest things that made a difference for me with that is when I did something I never thought I would do, I became a network marketer, which I always was like.

I joined online Life by Elkhorn and part of part of the reason why I was drawn to that, a best friend of mine when I lived in Connecticut was one well, she was the very first beauty guide with with wildlife life. And I kind of she told me about the opportunity. She’s like, Debbie, this would be amazing because she saw the vision that I didn’t see. I saw sales, network marketing, all these things that I had ideas about that I later learned my ideas were not correct, but I did not see the vision and I watched her for a while.

But it was when. I saw that they were involved with a foundation called Grider Together Foundation, and that foundation is all about female entrepreneurship, leadership, financial empowerment for women globally. And I got to go to Guatemala and meet some of the women that have been helped through this program. And it’s it’s basically going in and it’s not micro lending. It’s going in and teaching women business and accounting skills. And they need to learn some reading and writing skills because they don’t have those skills, all the things that it takes for women to truly be empowered.

And it’s pretty hard to be empowered if you don’t have some financial empowerment. So it kind of does start there. And these women would form these communities or pods of about 10 people and they would develop a loan program within their own group. So they’re the ones putting the money in from their businesses, whether they sell corn, whether they create textiles or make some other craft. And they would put maybe they would decide two dollars a week and over time it would grow and they could give each other loans to help build their businesses.

And hearing the stories of these women and how with very, very little opportunity, they succeeded and they built their businesses and helped their families and then help their communities. That was so empowering to me and that just really opened my eyes in a whole different way. And also, again, that whole sense of connection with women and how talking to these women through a translator, they were not all that different than myself or my other peers that were from the United States.

They struggled with the same issues. And, yes, their lives looked very different because they lived in poverty until they were able to develop some of their own businesses.

But it just.

Continued to build on that whole momentum for me about how important it is for women to come together and community to support each other, to empower each other, and that we need to understand our own finances and gain that financial empowerment, because through that, we can have greater impact for our own lives, for the people we want to help and serve for the greater community. It’s just very life changing and that is something I’m experiencing in my life. We just put my son in private school because he needed a smaller class size and some other things that he was just having a lot of anxiety and a very large school district.

And it’s expensive. We may need to look at downsizing our home and things like that, but I’m so grateful I have my side hustle because I can help pay for that. And then even more importantly than that, for me, is having a team of women. I, like you mentioned earlier, I love encouraging people. I love seeing them be successful and helping them to be successful because I really believe in abundance, not scarcity. I really believe that the more others have, the more I have.

And so I want to see that for them. And just the personal growth is huge seeing that and other people. And it makes me grow. I mean, I’m. In many, many ways, I feel like I’m just an adolescent or a baby, like I have so much yet to learn, even though I’m 51 years old, but it’s through other women that I learn it, so.

And we all are mirrors to each other, you said so much there. I’ve been taking notes, so I don’t forget because you answer the question beautifully. But I just want to reinforce some of the things she said, guys, because there is a lot in there. I wrote a book years ago. No one succeeds alone. I was it takes a village to raise a child. I was a part of that village. And it sounds like you were as well with foster care and all of the things that helped you.

This is my assessment. I’m not a psychologist, but I work. I’ve worked with thousands of people over the last 20 years. So I get people a lot faster. And it sounds like you had an open mind. And an open heart number one, you came from a non judgmental place, you came from a place of curiosity. And even though I can so relate with what you said of a network marketing and like this and like even say, Hustle’s, because for years I had a lot of people saying, just focus on one thing, let’s just focus on one thing.

And that it’s not in my I’m a triathlete. So right there I have three disciplines. I couldn’t just run. I couldn’t just bike. I couldn’t just swim. So I was always curious to learning. And it sounds like you have that that same spirit or you opened your mind to it and now you’re fulfilling having that extra income a goal for your kiddo. Right. And that’s a beautiful thing. It’s your why is is massive. So having an open mind and open heart.

Trying new things, which is fearful, scary, but it helps you expand once you expand that, you you can’t really go back. You’re not the same person. You’ve you’ve grown exponentially. And then you talked about even like sales. Whenever someone says they don’t like sales or they don’t like network marketing or affiliate marketing right away, I know that there’s some stinking thinking or some trauma there because they have they have been taught or programmed by someone, somewhere in their life that sales is a bad word or a network.

Marketing is bad. And I’m here to tell you guys you’re leaving money on the table. You probably won’t experience true freedom if that’s just my philosophy and my experience. I think Debbie can appreciate and relate to that because it’s obviously transformed your life and it’s all about the corner. The signature of what you said was all about relationships. Yeah. So if you can help other people, like Ziggler said, if you help enough other people get what they want in life, you’ll get back tenfold.

It’s not even about the money. Right. It sounds to me like it’s more spiritual for you in the sense that and not not religion, but the spiritual components of we are here to love and serve one another.

Am I right that one hundred percent money? Money is not a big motivator for me. I always forget the color personalities. That’s that’s a green. I’m definitely a yellow. I am yellow. My love of people, social relationship connecting all of which I really do get through my side hustle. I love my social work job too. And I manage a team of women which they’re beautiful, incredible, smart, gifted women who care so much about the people they serve.

And I love that. But I’m a manager, so I get to do all that administrative stuff and not as much of the connecting and kinds of things that I went into social work for. So I get that through my side hustle, which is great, but yeah, one hundred percent about relationships and I couldn’t do what I do if I didn’t feel like I wasn’t helping and serving. And so yeah, I don’t look at it as sales so much anymore even though.

Yeah it certainly is. And yeah I want to make a paycheck, I like making a paycheck but I just get such joy when I’m able to really connect with someone and help them come up with a solution for a problem. But even more than that, just the transformation that happens within that relationship, because I really look at the makeup in the skin care products are great. They really are.

But people can get that anywhere. I really look at that as the vehicle or the tools I have to be able to get into people’s lives and have those relationships with them and maybe connect them to other things, too, that they they need and and just help them to see. Who they are, how beautifully they are, how how I see them through my eyes, because I think in our culture so often and I know this is certainly true for myself and many of my friends I’ve spoken with, women tend to really beat ourselves up.

We tend to be very critical. We never think we’re good enough. We’re not good enough mothers. We’re not good enough spouses or partners. We always. Just have a tendency to not really look at what’s amazing about ourselves and what’s beautiful, maybe culture, I don’t know, we think that’s prideful or whatever, and it’s the same thing with self care. Like I used to think I would hear that. And I think, oh, selfishness. And I don’t see it that way anymore at all.

Like, I can’t help other people. I can’t take care of my family if I’m not taking care of myself, if I’m not fed and revitalized in all of those things. And there’s a lot of ways we can take care of ourselves. I love your whole healthy, wealthy and wise because it makes me think about that. And we get to take care of our health in terms of our physical, our spiritual, our mental. We have to the whole wealthy peace.

It’s not just about money, but going back to financial empowerment kind of forms the basis for many other things. But I don’t see wealthy as just about money. I see it also is about the relationships in our life, our sense of community, all these other ways in which we could be wealthy and then wise to use that whole spiritual piece that we have to be learning and growing, have a growth mindset and and and have a grounding in connection.

For me, it’s my my Christian faith. Other people have other things that is their grounding and their belief system. But I think it’s so important to have that. Absolutely, yeah, no, it’s you said a lot there, right there. When you think about how you spend your days and how you spend your time more, your money, obviously, how you spend that, that’s a reflection of you, too. Right. But how you choose to spend your time says a lot about your core values and your your belief system of humanity.

I, for me, struggled with scarcity a lot until I hired coaches and worked with mentors and guided me on a journey away from that. Scarcity says I don’t have enough time. Yeah, right, and I got to work twenty four, seven, so let’s let’s actually talk about how you so you have a full time job, right? So that’s number one. Right. And then you threw in a side hustle and you have a family, one one child.

Right. And a husband just making sure I’m not thinking of the wrong person. So how do you come from a place of abundance and be successful in your eyes, whatever his success means for you, because it’s different for different people and keep it all together, because like you said, as women, we tend to be very hard on ourselves. And I’m I’m right there with you, sister. And so especially when you’re a nurturer and you want to care for your team, now, you have a team, you have this job that you’re really have a responsibility for.

Right. How do you keep it all together?

Well, I don’t always. I’m still working on that. I haven’t figured that all out. I will say I’ve definitely gotten better and I have put some things in place that are helping with that. I think, you know, there’s a visual that I really love and it’s we have all these balls that we have to keep in the air. Right. And I do think not that men don’t have very, very hard things and have all the roles and lots of things that they also have to juggle and think about.

But it’s very different for women and we tend to be more in the caregiving roles and all of that. So we tend to wear a lot of hats. And so I like to think of there’s glass balls and there’s plastic balls and I have to figure out and discern what are the glass balls, because those have to stay in the air. I can drop the plastic balls and they’re going to be OK. So I think it’s that discernment, prioritizing, which in the past has been very hard for me because I love all things right.

I want to join everything. I want to meet it right. I want to go on that train. We’re not trained on that in school. Right.

That wasn’t a class that we took in high school or grade school or even college, you know, so and so I’m learning I have to be very intentional and I also have to be very protective of my time. I was not good about saying no. I wanted to say yes to everything and not because I was afraid people wouldn’t like me or wasn’t. That was like genuine interest, like, oh my God, this is so exciting. And then there’s this thing in this thing.

So I’m really learning I have to be protective of my family time. So it’s about efficiencies and learning that balance and and learning which are the glass balls and which are the plastic balls. And so right now, my full time job, I have to be there. I have to be present from whatever age five the hours and focus on that. And then I’ve got to carve out family time. I’ve got to carve out time for my spiritual girl.

I got to carve out time for my side business, which is what I love about that is I can do so much of that virtually and through social media and so I can fit it in little pockets of time. I might be taking my my son to a swim meet or swim practice and I can sit there and work my business from anywhere. I love that about my side hustle. I can go visit family in Wisconsin for the weekend and still be working my side hustle and little pockets of time.

So I just kind of blocking out my schedule and looking at it that way is is one of the things I’m part of. With the Brighter Together Foundation. We just created chapters in each of the states, some part of the Minnesota chapter. And one of the big things with that is teaching that balanced momentum of how do you balance all the different things?

And there’s different pillars with that foundation. So there’s the financial empowerment pillar. There’s wellness and self care, interpersonal relationships, professional development, growth and then citizenship. And so figuring out how to balance all those things. And we meet quarterly and have a speaker, but we also have weekly calls in between. And it’s a community of women across the US where we’re supporting each other. With this, we’re cheering each other on for our own personal goals because every woman in the group is different and it’s a nonprofit.

It’s open to everyone that’s interested in being part of it. It’s not just a limelight thing or I’m like beauty guides. But I would say that that’s really helping me because it’s like it’s keeping me on track.

Otherwise I get off track very easily. Right?

Oh, my gosh. Isn’t that most everyone? I think, especially here in America, even though I have clients all over the world myself, but I see patterns in other countries. It’s old patterns, right. We’re we’re conditioned to nine to five, get married, have the job, the mortgage, the car, the two point two kids, the. All of the things right, and that’s not for everyone. Sometimes we all get lost in what is my place in this world.

And if we if we come from a place of authenticity and figuring out our priorities, which it sounds like you have almost mastered in a beautiful organic way, that’s that’s what healthy and wealthy analyzes for me is is helping people figure that stuff out. So I’m so proud of you and excited for you and the women that you serve. I want to quickly just endorse anyone who’s looking for a side hustles, talk, talk to Debbie, talk to me, especially in this world that we live in right now.

I mean, I’m fortunate. I’ve been homeless, lost everything, foreclosure, bankruptcy, car, repossession did that because I only put my eggs in one basket. Right. And there’s a lot of people that are hurting. So make sure you seek someone out who’s had success like Debbie or myself, because you got to have three, four or five, six or seven streams of income to really be recession proof and prioritization. What you said, time blocking, carving out, time to fill your cup with serving others.

Does that all these different ways that you can do that is so, so key and so important.

Yeah. I agree, yeah, and and I love talking to people about that and not just like I love Limelight, if I could sing its praises all day long because I’ve had such a positive experience and I think the mission of the company is so in line with my values. And there’s a lot of integrity in how they do network marketing.

However, it doesn’t have to be limelight. I mean, there’s all kinds of other wonderful things out there.

You do have to be smart and you have to investigate because there are some less than wonderful opportunities as well. But I think overall, the direction of a lot of these side hustles that we can do, things are improving and there’s a lot more transparency. And, you know, at the end of the day, it’s not as much about the particular company or the product that you have. It’s about what you bring to it. It’s about who you are, what your values are, how you want to help people.

So really, everyone has the ability to do it and be very, very successful. We all have natural gifts. And if we’re willing to share those, you can’t not be successful. And I really believe that. And that’s what I want to help women see about themselves. I want them to see that they have those gifts, they are there, and they can use them to have their more inspired life for them and their family and help others to.

So awesome, I want to we’re wrapping it up here, guys, but I want you to tell everyone and I put your email address up already so they can reach out to you. It’s Debbie Roko. Thirty seven at Amazon.com. But if they reach out to you, you have a free gift. So I want you to explain that to everybody, sir.

Yeah. So with my side hustle, we have natural skin care. So it’s free from harmful chemicals, cruelty free, really wonderful products and also professional makeup. So it’s makeup that the pro makeup artists use that you can’t buy in stores or other places. It’s easier to use. It lasts longer. So I can tell you all about that.

But what the free gift is, is I can consult with you to find out about your skincare, unique needs or concerns, and I can send you free skincare samples. I’m also able to do like free makeup tutorials on a basic nice natural makeup look, getting Zoome ready or whatever it is you need. I’m not a huge makeup wearer myself, so I really like to teach people just a quick get out the door, look more awake kind of a thing.

So happy to do that and send you some goodies in the mail. A little spark hit. You can reach me through my website. You can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram to that or email me. Awesome, awesome, and I, I usually I want to I want to close with you I want to go over to some really, really quick announcements, guys, and then I’ll ask you the closing question, because it is Black Friday.

There’s so much going on. And I also had a gift that I emailed out to my my network through my email list. I sent out as it goes along with what we talked about today so well about how to be grounded and how to take care of yourself. So I sent a five minute my last podcast episode is only five minutes because I wanted to keep it short with the holiday week and all of the things. But it’s all about how to ground yourself when you’re feeling stressed, when you’re feeling burnt out, when you’re feeling like your cup is empty and you don’t know where to begin.

So if you guys aren’t already subscribe to our podcast, please go and find that episode at healthy and wealthy and wise dot com and you’ll be able to see that there. But then you can also get Debi’s episode emailed to you once it shows up into YouTube on Monday. And then if anybody else has any questions about my Black Friday offer, you can go to follow up with loess dot com. And right now I’m doing a special where you can buy one month of coaching, you get the second month free.

So if anybody’s interested in building their email list or growing their social media presence and all the things that I’ve been doing to find success this year, please go and check that out there. But I want to I want to close with you, Debbie, since you’re the the main event here today and ask you, you’ve already kind of answered it, so I hope you don’t mind sharing again. In summary, when you hear the phrase healthy and wealthy and wise, what does it mean for you?

Sure. So healthy to me is making sure that we’re nurturing all those different parts of us, our physical health, our mental health, our spiritual home. They they all interact. And if you ignore one, there’s just no way for us to be healthy. So you can have a very firm and healthy body. But if you ignore the mental and the spiritual, you can end up still being very subject to depression or what have you. So I think it’s so important to have those things working in balance in tandem and again with wealthy.

To me, it’s so much more than just financial wealth. However, financial stability and financial empowerment do make a huge difference. And if we have that, we have a lot less stress, we’re much more present and able to help others. So that’s, I think, an important piece, but also wealth in the sense of relationships and community and wise. You know, for me, that’s continuing to just learn and grow, be smart about who you surround yourself with, people that build you up and that are positive.

Not not awfully tough. I mean, we we need people who will speak the truth to us and love so that we can grow and be aware of some of our blind spots. But, you know, my faith is so important to me. So ultimately, for me, wisdom comes from the Bible. But there’s so many places that we can get that wisdom. And I think as long as we have that open growth mindset. So and the last thing I want to share, if anyone needs help with holiday shopping, I would love to do that.

My life has a lot of really awesome Black Friday specials right now. Anything you buy are donations greater together, foundation for all purchases and shopping free. Awesome.

And again, I’m putting your email address back up there. Obviously, for the live show, you guys can take advantage of reaching out to Debbie. And anybody who sees this later on, feel free to connect with Debbie. And thank you so much again for being here today. Please, please share this episode with as many people as you can. Thank you guys so much for taking the time. Next week I have a guest. His name is Lucas Root.

He’s he’s actually pivoted very, very well. He was a consultant to multi-million dollar companies. He specializes in startups and he actually now has his own work from home course that can help you flourish in this new normal.

So that’s who we have on tap for next week. Same time, same channel. Come, come and bring friends and tune in live if you can. But we appreciate you guys until next time. Here’s to your best health, your best health and your best wisdom. Bye bye, guys. You have a great weekend.

Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this, please subscribe. Refer a friend and please drop me a rating or review. If you do that, I’ll reward you with a free twenty minute free coaching session and crafting your journey to your best self. Reach out to me at Loess at Loess Koffi dot dotcom to claim. Your 20 minute slot until next time, be healthy, wealthy and wise.