Expand Your Fempire Podcast #127 Transcript

Design the Life You Love with Samantha Buckley

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. This is your host, Caterina Rando, and I am blissing to be with you today. We have an amazing guest who I’m so excited to introduce you to, Samantha Buckley Hugessen. She is a life coach for high-achieving women, which I know you are. If you’re listening to the Expand Your Fempire Podcast, I wanna introduce her to you. We wanna get some guiding principles from Samantha about living great lives as high-achieving women on a mission. Samantha, thank you for being with us.

[00:01:08] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Thank you and I’m so happy to be with you. I adore you.

[00:01:11] Caterina Rando: I adore you. Bing. Bing. Samantha. You are a thriving woman in business. You live in Mexico, in Cabo. We’ve had guacamole in Cabo together. We have. You are living a great life, your dream life with your beautiful husband, your beautiful children. How did you get from young gal to living a dream entrepreneurial life?

[00:01:40] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Young gal, so young gal, married a raging alcoholic at 22, and abusive, yada, yada, yada. So young gal just got really good in business, got really good in business, and taking care of everybody and everything, right? And I think what happens, For many of us high-achieving women is that we take care of everybody and everything, and we tend to not take care of ourselves. And so I actually had to focus on me, not put my focus on everybody else. And in doing that, I started learning really great boundaries.

[00:02:24] I started getting in tune with what I would love to have in my life and knowing that the stronger, and I don’t mean stronger as “I can take it,” cuz that’s what we all do. “I got it. I can take it. You know, don’t worry about it. I got it.” Instead of going, mm, I’m gonna go ahead and not take that. These are my boundaries. You know, I’m, I’m meant to live a beautiful, purposeful, yummy life. I deserve that as do all of us because we were born into this like, with all the abilities in the world.

[00:02:58] Caterina Rando: Sam, you say that we are all deserving of a yummy life. Our best life. Yep. And you know, one of the things that I have seen, and one of the reasons why I like to talk about blissing in your business is because a lot of women start businesses and they’re thriving in the business part, but they’re not necessarily thriving as a woman.

[00:03:21] And I wanna hear from you, what are some of the things that you talk about with your clients and how do you guide them and advise them and what can we share with our listeners today to support them to bliss everywhere in their life?

[00:03:37] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Right, right. Such a great question. So I like to think of us as, you know, cars or as tables, and I only say that because a car, for instance, let’s say it has four cylinders or a table has four legs. I mean, obviously there’s different variations of that. But each cylinder, you know, one is your love and your relationships. You gotta, you gotta have this one firing. One is, of course, your business, one is gonna be your health and well-being and you know. So you have time freedom. You have money freedom. You have your career.

[00:04:16] I don’t believe in balance, to tell you the truth. I, I think that balance is like… what? You don’t either.

[00:04:22] Caterina Rando: No, I don’t. I hate the concept of balance. It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Cause life is dynamic. Thank you. Thank you, Sam. You’re welcome. Thank, yeah.

[00:04:30] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: I don’t believe in balance, but I do believe that you have to have all those cylinders firing. They all have to be working. If one shuts down, guess what? It’s putting too much pressure on the other and then the next one’s gonna shut down and the next one’s gonna shut down.

[00:04:44] So that’s why I’m a life coach. You know, I’ve been in business working for other people. I’m 56, right? So I’ve been doing this since I was 16 as far as literally on my own, paying my own rent. Business person, businesswoman.

[00:05:01] Women like us, we need some love and support. And someone, as Laura has shared with us, because others have shared with her, we need someone to see our eyebrows for us, we can’t see it ourself.

[00:05:14] Caterina Rando: Sam is referring to Laura Gisborne, who is a mutual friend of both of us, and we both are in Laura’s Legacy Leader program and Laura Gisborne has been interviewed on this podcast, and you can go to caterinarando.com/podcast and you can search for Laura and her podcast interview will come up, which is very info-packed. Okay, that was a little sidebar there.

[00:05:39] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Little plug for our girlfriend. Love her so much, right? Yes. But it’s such a great point because as a coach what happens is, is I, I really learned to ask great questions. I am an overperforming woman as well. I for many years was the breadwinner in our family.

[00:05:59] Caterina Rando: Oh, my friend. I don’t like to say over. I like to say high achieving because I don’t wanna judge anybody’s, you know, I think that women, when we say overachieving, overperforming, Overperforming…

[00:06:11] we can talk about this. But I feel like, you know, a lot of people say, “oh, she’s, she’s an overachiever.” Which is like saying, you know, it’s not okay to be a super successful woman, right?

[00:06:22] So, yeah. So you can make a distinction here because this is important to me cuz I don’t want women to feel like it’s not okay to be successful either. See, I think you tell me, my friend. You tell me.

[00:06:34] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: This is good. This is good. I’ve never actually sat down and really thought about that. Okay. I come from a place, typically in my coaching of women. They, they overdo, in other words, they put way too much pressure on themselves. And so it’s like, listen, you don’t have to have the gas on or off.

[00:06:53] It’s okay to kind of flutter, flutter the gas pedal. Flutter the brake. Mm-hmm. It’s fine. Mm-hmm. It’s actually encouraged to not just put so much pressure on themselves right? All the time to, to overachieve. So yeah, I find that a lot of my clients don’t give themselves grace. They never think they’re doing and enough.

[00:07:14] Caterina Rando: Yes. Well, I think this part about pressure, let’s talk about this, Samantha, cause I know you did a, a successful event last week. We did our first-ever Bliss Summit on Friday, which was phenomenal and fabulous.

[00:07:30] And it’s so interesting, even though it’s virtual event, I do put pressure on myself and you know, here’s the truth. It’s not my first rodeo, not my first virtual event. You know, I could really do all this with one eye closed, one hand tied behind my back, but at the same time, there’s still this pressure that seems to be there maybe cuz I want everyone to get massive value. I want it to be successful.

[00:07:53] So I wanna hang out right here because this is something for me that is up for me. How do we not put pressure on ourself and what’s the opposite of that? Which I should, should be having attention on.

[00:08:08] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: I’m not saying don’t put pressure on yourself because I hope you have butterflies and that you wanna over-deliver. Right? And, and it’s like my event that I just did, I’ve literally done that event 25, 30 times over the last decade. And it’s hanging out with people and like me, or don’t like me, you know, whatever I’m gonna deliver.

[00:08:27] So it’s not about pressure. I think it has a lot to do with too much.

[00:08:35] Caterina Rando: Too much what? Too much pressure. Too much….

[00:08:37] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: too much everything. Too much Again, too much. I am gonna get involved with the community too much. I have to do this for work. I have to do that for work. Those persons count on me. And perfectionism is a problem.

[00:08:51] And, and I get it from almost all my women. So I’m gonna tell you that perfectionism problem, which is married to procrastination, which then we create a lot of pressure and we put ourselves down often. I didn’t do that good enough. I didn’t do this. What’s wrong?

[00:09:07] You know, I know you are a giant calendarizer, like that’s my made up word about it.

[00:09:12] Caterina Rando: Yes, yes.

[00:09:13] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: So am I. But your calendar, I think looks way fuller than mine, even though.

[00:09:20] Caterina Rando: I don’t got a problem with that. I don’t have no, with the full calendar, because if it’s not on the calendar, it’s probably not gonna happen. And also you know me, I want time for connecting with people for sales, and if that’s not on the calendar, then something else will take its place. Yeah. But I also put days off on my calendar. I also put breaks on my calendar. As you know, I put my time with my workouts on my calendar, so, so yeah, everything’s on the calendar and a lot of it’s good stuff to support me.

[00:09:57] Samantha Buckley Hugessen:  I think that’s the point that we wanna make, right? For anybody listening is if you wanna take some pressure off you, put it on your calendar. Get it off your head, off your shoulders. Don’t worry about it cuz you know it’s got its place and its time.

[00:10:13] So many of us women wake up in the middle of the night. Oh, running through list. I don’t, but I know so many of my clients had, it’s like you make an appointment with that in the morning, put it on your calendar, go back to bed. Right?

[00:10:26] Caterina Rando: A couple nights ago I woke up and I was talking about we have to have an event. And that made me wonder, okay, am I having too many events, if I’m thinking about events in my sleep?

[00:10:40] Now Sam, I love this. Let’s just get it on the calendar. Give it a time. Give it a space. Let’s talk about related to this, you know, part of the reason we have pressure is that we are doing it all ourself.

[00:10:56] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Yep.

[00:10:57] Caterina Rando: And I’m a big believer in creating as much support in your personal life as you do in your business life. And when we say, you know, it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to run a high achieving woman’s life too. Please share some of your thoughts about having support in your life.

[00:11:18] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Okay, so this is maybe gonna directly answer it or it’s just, I’m gonna share how I feel about it.

[00:11:26] The reason I have narrowed in on the niche that I am in is because I had a really, really hard year. I personally had a really hard year. And when you’re at the top of your business, you’re at the top of the family. You’re at the top of the PTA, the kids, the, you know what I mean? This is what we do. We are women. We are wired to take care of stuff. We’re wired, you know, to, to be multitasking and proactive and yeah, I got that.

[00:12:00] That’s one of the biggest things I’ve discovered that I’ve done almost my whole life. “Don’t worry, I got it. Don’t worry. I got it. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I got it.”

[00:12:08] Well, guess what? Who do I talk to? I realized, oh, I need somebody that can be my trusted counsel. I need someone that can be my business partner, that I can mastermind with. These are all things that I’ve been learning, working with legacy leaders. It’s been things that I realized that it’s not weak to ask for help and support.

[00:12:33] Because I positioned myself in a place of taking care of everything, so many people, you know, just kind of like came to me. Cause I said, “I’ll take care of you. I got you.”

[00:12:44] That’s why I’ve realized that all of us at the top, we need this sisterhood. We need people to see our eyebrows cuz we can’t see them ourselves. We need people to mastermind with. We need to be able to say, “you know what? My partner is pissing me off.” It’s like, okay, let’s hear it.

[00:13:03] Because if I’m your girlfriend, I’d be like, oh yeah, they are. You need to break up with them. Let’s go get martinis. You know, I’m not gonna do that. You know what I mean? I have nothing in the game except my client’s success, and I’ve been doing it for a long time.

[00:13:18] You and I had some beautiful conversations up in Austin, right? Mm-hmm. They’re, they’re girlfriend, high-level business, personal, you know, all those four cylinders of life. And I think we all need our person like that.

[00:13:37] Caterina Rando: Talking about our, our life coach or our life advisor or however, somebody like that. I 1000% agree Samantha. And you know, you made reference also to our hangout time in Austin, which was wonderful.

[00:13:52] And I recently came back from Colorado where I hung out with our friends. And I gave a speech and then we hung out and we ate lemon meringue pie, which was really fun. And by the time we left the location, I said my cup is full. It was really great.

[00:14:11] And I do wanna say that one of the things I think is very important for the thriving woman in business, the woman with a Fempire, or building a Fempire, is business girlfriends.

[00:14:24] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Yes.

[00:14:24] Caterina Rando: Girlfriends that are your friends, that also are like you having a business. Because there is a big disparity. I also hung out recently with some friends that are not in business and they don’t quite understand because they have J.O.B.s you know, they go in nine to five. You know, it’s very different.

[00:14:49] And so I wanna encourage our listeners to make sure that they have some girlfriends that are business friends because it is very enriching and cup filling to have some hangout time, not, not necessarily at a workshop or a seminar, some hangout time with your business girlfriends.

[00:15:11] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: The conversations are very different. They’re also, in my opinion, when you pick these people, you know, your business girlfriends it’s a safe place cause I’m gonna be super transparent. I didn’t want anybody to know what was going on with me because my job was to be there for them, right? So I was depleting, depleting, depleting, depleting, depleting, depleting. And then I realized, okay, so my message is that we all have shit. Is that okay? We all have life. We’re all wearing meat suits.

[00:15:53] And we might be extremely powerful in our business, but we’re not doing so great in our personal life. Or people look at us and are in awe of our relationships, or our health because we get up and meditate and work out and da, da da, da, but we’re crap in business.

[00:16:10] We need someone that sees us and supports us, and I love that word, support, you know, love and support.

[00:16:17] Caterina Rando: I do wanna say, Samantha, that I don’t meditate. And it’s not that there’s anything wrong with that.

[00:16:23] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: I don’t either.

[00:16:23] Caterina Rando: Okay. But the reason I mention it is because sometimes people say, you know, “I get up, I work out, I meditate, I eat my fancy juice. I do intermittent fasting,” which I do like, “I get to bed by eight o’clock” and this schedule that is so challenging to try to achieve that. I do wanna say, you know, however, you’re doing it, my friend, listener is perfect. And if you wanna pick one thing to upgrade, that’s totally fine.

[00:16:56] You know, trying to do all the things that we know that we’re supposed to do all the time is a big burden to carry. And I think that’s part of why we sometimes feel like we’re not good enough because there’s so many things we think we should be doing.

[00:17:18] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Yeah. We love to judge ourselves and we also think that we’re the only ones. And remember, I work with a lot of women one-on-one and I get to hear everything, which I love. Right? I love life coaching. I didn’t start out as a life coach by the way. I started out as a sales coach.

[00:17:35] But I wanna back up for a second to what we were talking about is where I commented on okay, you do you, in other words, meditation or workout or fancy juices or whatever. In my book that came out in 2019, I actually have what’s called a P.I.M.P. Menu. Powerful, Important Morning Practice. And it’s exactly to your words, Caterina. Where? That’s so funny. I know, right? Get a pimp, get it? Get a pimp!

[00:18:04] Powerful, Important Morning Practice. And it’s got a P.I.M.P. Menu.

[00:18:08] Caterina Rando: Love it.

[00:18:09] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: It’s meant to change things up, you know, and so it’s got a menu of ideas- visualization or prayer or, you know whatever.

[00:18:17] And here’s the thing. Some people’s cylinders are just like full on the self-care, but their business cylinder sucks. You know, because we do what we like and we do what we know. That’s human nature. We do what we like and we do what we know.

[00:18:35] You know, it’s also like we wanna hang out with people that are like us, believe it or not, you know what I mean? That they’re, we’re most comfortable. In business, typically, you’ll find one of the mistakes in business, I believe it’s a mistake is that we hire people like us. We need to hire people in their area of genius.

[00:18:54] Caterina Rando: Well, yeah, and we also wanna look at where are we? Cuz I will say I consider myself super creative, not super organized, not detail-oriented. And right now I’m looking for a new person to help me in my business, and I’m really looking for the person that is not like me.

[00:19:12] Okay. Let me ask you this. You have worked with so many high-achieving women. What’s one thing that you always wanna make sure they have their attention on what’s one super tip for having more fulfillment in their life that you wanna make sure we touch on?

[00:19:33] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Giving themselves grace. We’re incredibly hard on ourselves and I talk to women every day and they are like amazing. And they often believe they’re still not enough and they often believe they’re the only one that suffers from whatever it is, from disorganization or procrastination or, you know working until midnight and getting back up at four and lack of self-care.

[00:20:01] Let me just tell you sisters, you’re not alone. And so maybe I want you to hear that maybe I want women to hear that. Is the reason I specialize in this niche is because we all have this in common. We all have it in common, so let’s work through it. You know, you’re not alone. That’s what makes women so yummy and so great.

[00:20:26] Wanna hear a fun fact? Didn’t really like women. Didn’t really like ’em. Nope.

[00:20:32] Caterina Rando: When you were younger, you’re saying you didn’t really like women?

[00:20:36] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: Yeah, I started to welcome women into my life when I was 26. That was after the divorce. And then when I did a ton of personal work, a ton of personal work like years of personal focused work. Yeah, I didn’t like ’em. And then even in my coaching, I had a lot of men, which is fine. And then I made a determination last year that, no, I love women. We’re badasses. I love us and we do everything and we need love and support in a safe place, and I’m gonna be that safe place for my women. There you go.

[00:21:16] Caterina Rando: That’s awesome. Sam, everyone I know is gonna wanna connect with you. How do they do that?

[00:21:22] Samantha Buckley Hugessen: I would say the easiest one is my website. And so the website is adesignedlifellc.com. Super simple. I’m in all your other yummy places. You can find me on Facebook and you can find me on Instagram and you can find me on LinkedIn.

[00:21:40] But the website, you can fill out a “work with Sam” form and then I will personally review it and get back to people.

[00:21:50] Caterina Rando: Bing, Bing, bing. Samantha, thank you so much for being on the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. Thank you for shining the spotlight with me, with us together on women not feeling like they gotta do it all, taking pressure off themselves and everybody, you absolutely can have a fulfilling life that works for you. Connect with Sam, she’s awesome. You want her in your life. And this is Caterina Rando thanking you for joining us for the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. We got a lot to support you to sell more, serve more, uplift more lives, including your own. Love to you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.