welcome to the Self care with Marissa Rehder podcast. I'm your host, Marissa and I am a certified life coach and self care expert. I'm making it my mission to help busy women build a self care centered lifestyle because self care is so much more than just pampering yourself. Society leads us to believe that basic rights like taking a warm bath or having our hair done is self care. But I'm here to change that narrative. I'm going to teach you how I went from overwhelmed, stressed to the max and burned out on life to thriving and loving the life I'm building. And it all started with making a commitment to myself. So what do you say? Are you ready to commit to your own personal development journey? Let me lead you to the path of happiness and contentment. That's right. The one that leads you to a life you truly love. Let's get started. Hey, welcome to season two of Self care with a Marissa Rehder. There are some amazing and exciting things going on in this season of the podcast.

I have no idea how many times I've said it, but I know that it was at least 3, 5, maybe even seven times. So I was like, I wish you could see my face right now or I wish that you could see our faces or they see the energy between me and my podcast interviewing. I would love for you to get the whole picture because that's just part of my personality. You guys - that I'm animated with more than just my voice. It is a whole body experience. So this season, I am so excited to announce that we're not only launching a new season of the podcast, but we are videoing every single episode and uploading it to our brand new Youtube channel which is so excited. So if you are tuning into the podcast side of things, welcome, I'm so glad you're back and if you have just recently found me on Youtube, don't feel bad because this is the first time, so first for everything and this is it.

And so I am just super excited about all the things that are coming up on this year, not just for me, but for you as the people that I show up for every day, the people that I get to have a job because of. So thank you for being here and thank you for yourself for showing up because every time you choose to watch a video or listen to a podcast episode or whatever it is that you're choosing to do for personal development, you are choosing you because you value yourself and you value where you are headed and I love that for you. I love it for you. It makes me seriously. I have goose bumps right now because I am just thrilled with the steps that you are currently taking too live your dream life- to live that life that you just always dreamed of. And speaking of that I want to introduce something new that I have started this year and it is a community because I have a goal, a personal goal that I want to welcome 100 women into my community.

And then I got to thinking that what is my community, we should have a name. And so I want to introduce to you the elite dream followers society. It is a special place for women to show up authentically be themselves and chase their dreams. And so what it truly means to be an elite dream follower is that you chase your dreams unapologetically, you nurture your mind, your body, your soul and your heart, you value integrity, your self worth and results were not just daydreaming here. We're going to get results and you believe that you can change the world and every one of you has that inside of you. I know you do. And so I cannot wait to celebrate that about you as the year goes on. So I want to welcome you to the community right now, if you are like, yeah, I want in on this, I have phone backgrounds, I have an actual manifesto for you about what it means to be a part of this community.

You can download it in the show notes um down in the comments here on Youtube, go and get your hands on the copy of my free guide. It's how to build your dream life. I break it down in a free pdf and it's completely actionable. It is, it's life changing to say the least. And so I'm sharing that with you though, because I want you to be a part of my community and that's how you get there, that's how we build a community, because we all come and have common ground that we want to work on together, and I want to be your leader, your Sherpa, I want to I want to get you there and so head to the show notes, get that guy downloaded and and get your hands on the screen backgrounds for your phone so that you can embody every day what it means to be a part of this elite dream followers society and today, that's what I want to talk about. I just want to talk about my personal journey of how I became an elite dream follower, because I wouldn't be a very good leader if I wasn't practicing what I preach, and that is the number one thing that I will always always do, I will never, ever claimed to have all the answers or to know everything about everything.

But what I do know is that if I don't know something, I will find the answer, I will search for it, I will ask until someone can give it to me, but I won't stop until I find it. And so that's kind of where my journey started was I'm a small town kid, you guys, and I know like when I say small town people are like oh yeah you know 10,000 20,000. No you guys, I am from a small small town South Dakota. I grew up in a town of 700 people, a graduating class of 15 kids and I think like 12 of us were the original O. G. S from kindergarten through 12th grade which was all in one school building because When you only have 15 kids in a class you don't need multiple buildings, you put kindergarten all the way through seniors in one building. And that's how I grew up. So I had no idea what I could create or make for myself because not that growing up in a small town is bad.

It made me exactly who I am and I'm so insanely grateful for it. But there aren't a lot of examples of people like dominating the business world. I mean there are successful people and they are doing amazing things and I am so proud, so proud of the people in my town and what they've done and what they've created because it's an amazing little community. Um but I grew up watching my dad build his own business from the ground up and it took 10 years for it to finally really pay off for him. And so all along I knew it was possible to build something of your own that it was okay to have that dream. I watched my dad do it personally. He is an inventor, He invented a product, he patented it. He still runs the business today. It's amazing. But in my mind I was like, I don't know how to do that.

Yeah, I watched him do it, but I don't have anything to invent or to create and sell. I just kind of put my big dream life on the back burner. I wasn't from California, I didn't grow up in L. A. I didn't come from a bunch of money. I wasn't gonna be that person that could fly first class. So that was gonna have multiple houses or could go on vacations on a whim you guys, I didn't even go on a true vacation until I was 16 years old was the first time I ever got on an airplane and we spent time driving to family's house and, and hanging out there on the lake or you know, out in the black hills of South Dakota and had amazing, amazing times. But in my mind I always dreamed of more and I always felt kind of guilty about that because I really, I loved everything about my life. I didn't want to trade any of it. But there's just that little hint of like what if, what if I could be that person that had all of those things and now I'm not gonna lie, I'm not completely there yet, but dang it, I'm on my way and I want to bring you with.

And so I was that kid. I was an athlete. I Played two sports in college, my freshman year, I was a successful kid by successful teenage girl standards. I would say what society perceived I was going to get my four year degree, I was playing college sports, I had ambitions to, you know, make something of myself. I didn't really know what that was yet, but in my mind, okay, people who are really successful, what do they do owe their doctors, right? I mean, who doesn't, who doesn't want to be a doctor? They have the means, they have the job, you know, security and all of those things to live a pretty grand life if if they do it right. And so in my mind, I was like, that's, that's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be successful and I'm gonna be a doctor, because in my mind that was the most successful thing that you could do.

Well, I'm going to tell you I played volleyball and basketball. The seasons overlapped by three weeks and I was on a spiral of depression and anxiety, like I had never known possible. I remember calling my mom crying and being like, can I just move home and thankfully they didn't let me, but if they would have let me, I'd come home and I would have lived in my small town for the rest of my life and just like, put the dreams away because I was miserable. I guys, oh my gosh, it breaks my heart to even just like go back to that place because I was so unhappy with my choices of of what I wanted to do with my life. I was not really drawn to any of my pre med classes. It was like, I was just doing it to do it. And so I knew something had to change and that was where the first bit of courage came in because in my mind I was I was a failure. I couldn't cut it as a pre med student.

And so now what, what do you do after that after you've just failed at your entire future. And so I was like, well the next thing you do is you become a business major because you can do anything with a business degree, literally anything holy moly business classes, do not prepare you to be a business owner. They teach you the most ridiculous things. I went through three business classes and was like, help me out, I do not want to be a business owner, this is what I have to do. So once again failed at that at this point, I was becoming pretty, Pretty good at admitting that I was just a failure at life. I mean here I am, 1920 years old and I'm like, well this is it, I failed at life. I'm done, just send me back home and I'll live in my parents, you know, basement for the rest of my life now. I started working for an after school program though and fell in love with it and got a lot of validation from the parents and the teachers in the building that I was amazing at it.

I quickly became the head of the after school program at the elementary that I was working, at managed 90 kids every day after school and six staff. And I you guys, I was 20, I was like 20 or 21 years old. I knew nothing about managing other humans, Let alone 90 kindergarten through fifth graders or other adults who are older than I was. But it gave me that glimpse of like I okay, I'm not quite the failure. I thought it was, there's hope here. And so I'm naturally drawn to doing things that I am good at and that other people tell me I'm good at. Am I right? Like who doesn't like to be told that they're good at what they do? And so I tried teaching. I got my degree like rapid pace because dang it, I was not wasting any more time in college than I had to because I had a life to live and I had a game plan and because I had failed so many times before I was behind and so I actually still finished my degree, I only ended up going extra half a semester to do my student teaching and I just, that's what I did.

I became a teacher and I loved it. It is like ingrained in my soul to teach people. It just made sense. Everything I learned being a teacher just clicked and made sense. It was like, they actually have to teach people this because this just, this just makes sense. Like who doesn't understand that this is how teaching people works or teaching kids or that this is how kids work. And so I thought, yeah, this is it. But soon after I had been teaching for a few years, I got to that place where I just felt stuck. I couldn't advance in my career anymore, working harder, getting better results, none of it was giving me that validation that I needed anymore. Like, yes, doing it for the kids was enough for a while. But eventually my true self started started coming out and I was learning to better manage my anxiety, better manage being a mom better manage just my emotions and keeping myself in check.

And when I started doing that, I started learning more about myself and what I found was that I needed something more. I needed something for me that I did for me. And so I started selling teaching resources online, started off as a hobby, but I'm also kind of a competitive person. So when I found out that people were doing this full time and they were leaving their teaching jobs, I was like, um that's where my success is gonna come from. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna become so wildly successful at this, that I can leave my teaching job. And I set a five year goal to be able to walk out the door of my classroom and not look back. And on year three I looked at my husband and I said, it's overwhelming. I can't do both anymore. But I know I'm not ready to leave the classroom, financially. My business isn't quite there yet. Had that five year plan, Covid hit. I taught from my kitchen table, talk about resilience you guys. I found grit in me that I didn't even know that I had through the pandemic, just like every other one of you has, and so I want to give you a freaking high five right now because we are still surviving it.

And that's amazing. So the fact that you are getting up every day and you're still choosing to listen to a podcast or watching Youtube video to learn how to chase your dreams. You're doing it, you're doing the damn thing. So thank you for doing that for yourself. But what I found was that I just, I could not go back to the classroom, I told my husband said I just can't do it. It's not in my heart anymore. And that's not fair to anyone. It's not fair to me. It's not fair to the kids, I'm teaching to the rest of the staff at the school. It's not fair to my family to watch me be in complete misery over a job that I no longer loved because I found what I really was meant to do, which was to run and own my own business. And I agreed to go back for one more year. I will I will do it. I will do it for our family because I knew we needed the income. And at that point it was really focusing on teachers, mental health and helping them show up for themselves.

Because when you show up for yourself, you can show up better for the people around you. Um a lot of you, if you are having listeners of the podcast, you've probably heard me talk about it before. But we want to use that metaphor like you can't pour from an empty cup, but I don't want you to ever pour from your cup. I want you to think of all of the people who depend on you and who are in your lives and that are a priority to you. I'll have cups underneath yours and your stacks on top and we want to fill your cup so full that it overflows into the cups below you to fill them. So you are never depleted in order to fill someone else's cup and that's what I was speaking out against and teachers were worried going back, we had just done virtual learning. We knew nothing about Covid, it was just a mess and we were talking about masking kindergarteners, social distancing them, having to wipe down tables in between seeing kids and having to wear shields and fogging our rooms after after being there for the day possibly only having school on monday Tuesday with one group of kids Wednesday off for virtual learning and then coming back and meeting with the other half of our kids on thursday Fridays.

Like there was so many things weighing on teachers and their mental health that I started speaking out about it. And I wanted to meet with my district because I wanted to do what was not only best for kids because I'm sorry, masking kindergartners and social distancing them and not allowing them to share supplies and play together on the playground was not okay with me. And if that was the choice that we were gonna make, then we shouldn't have even been in the classroom and teachers were worried they were, it was a mass. And so I wanted to speak directly with our superintendent and just really help set out a plan for how we can help meet the needs of teachers and their mental health and meet the needs of our students and you want to know what happened. I was given an ultimatum, your business is now interfering with your ability to do your job as a teacher and I was told I could either teach or I can run my business and I literally walked out to the car called my husband and was bawling Because I just quit my job because I walked away from an almost 10 year career because deep down in my heart, I knew that that was the time I had to have the integrity, had to value myself worth and it was time to actually chase my dreams and change lives the way I wanted to change lives on my terms, not on somebody else's terms, because I was just never meant to work in a setting where things have to come from the top down and that I wasn't allowed to help formulate that and you want to know how you solve that problem.

You start and run your own business. And so I launched my company and you know what, I've never looked back, I've never been happier. My family has never been happier. I've never been healthier mentally, physically and I wake up every day knowing that I still get to teach, I still get to do all the things that I love to do that. I get to do it in a new setting and in a way I want to do it and I, that's what this whole season of of the podcast and of the Youtube channel here is going to be about and it's going to be about helping you learn to chase your dreams no matter what they are, you don't have to want to run a huge company and become a ceo it could be that you just simply want to start a side hustle to be able to pay for dance classes for your kids or gymnastics or karate or whatever it is, or you might just need that little push from someone to help you start living life on your own terms, that's what I'm here for, and that's what we're going to focus on this entire season and I cannot wait to bring you more amazing stories and testimonies of other people who have done the same, we're really gonna focus on self love this year and that's going to be our entire focus of february because february is the month of Love, Self Love, and that's what we're focusing on and I cannot wait to bring you another episode, we're gonna be bringing on amazing guests.

I have a self love coach named Rosie lined up for this month coming up and we are going to create this amazing community of elite Dream followers together, so thank you for being here today, thank you for sticking around, make sure you download that free guide and come find me on instagram, I cannot wait to connect with you on there. Tell me hey, I just listened to your episode on, on becoming an elite dream follower, I caught some of your previous episodes on the podcast, like let me know that I love to hear from you and I cannot wait to check your names off to be on my list of 100 women that I help build this community with this year. So until next time I'm gonna be here cheering you on and go out there and chase your dreams. That's it for this week's episode of Self Care with Marissa raider, thank you for joining me and listen, if you enjoyed it and think your BFF or any other woman you know might benefit from it, send them a link, share this episode or screenshot it and share it on instagram and tag me and hey, if you haven't already come hang out with me on the gram where I share all things building a life you truly love in order to help you be the best version of yourself.

Until next week I will be here cheering you on.