Holistic Business Radio – The Podcast of the Love and Money Revolution – with Andy Dolph and Rhiannon Llewellyn

The next in our continuing discussions of Gift Economy and being human in business. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Sandi is an instigator. Among other things she instigates shining in her clients by asking questions in an unusual and wonderful process. She tells us about it on this weeks show. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Soul*full describes just about everything that Catherine Just does. We talk about how she uses photography as a tool for transformation, her journey as a creator and much more! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Attorney to instigator of an honest marketing revolution? That's just part of the journey that Erica shares on this weeks show. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Margret's calling and business is creating meaningful ceremonies and rituals to mark the major life events - weddings, coming of age ceremonies, and particularly memorials. We talk with her about why and how she does this work, and why ritual is so powerful and important in our lives. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Rhi and Tanja discuss her unique approach to copywriting, communication, and working with introversion. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

We begin the second year of Holistic Business Radio (YAY!) with a conversation about a whole new way of approaching marketing as a human act. This is a very different, and fascinating line of thinking. Join us! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Zombie Recording - A drawing Marty did just for this show! (Isn't it awesome?) Marty uses his artwork to create visual stories - ways of communicating ideas and emotions that go beyond words. Sometimes zombies are included. We have a wonderful discussion about art, communication, earning money as an artist, the gift economy experiment that Marty and Megan are doing in their business, lots of zombies and so much more! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

We discuss the problems of bartering and how barter is different from the gift economy, how to balance desire for your work with your capacity to do it and much more... We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

MEM and Kristin join Andy and Rhi to talk about their experiences with gift economics in a whole variety of ways. Awesomeness ensues. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

This week we continue the conversation about the shift Megan is making in Ideaschema moving to a gift economy model, and how people are responding to it. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Money is hard for many off us, and often that means we don't pay as much attention to the money in our business as we'd like to (or know we should.) We talk with Jessica about how and why this can be so much easier. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Connection and community, psychological marketing techniques, and Natural Human Marketing are the topics of today's deep dive. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Sales pages, and selling are something that many of us find hard. We talk with Catherine about her way of approaching this, which is both different and amazing (at least to Andy and Rhi). We also review Catherine's new program "I Love Sales Pages". We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

In our first in this series of special episodes, we talk what Metacosmology is and how that can inform living and doing business in a new way. This grew out of our last conversation with Megan.  You can listen to it here! You DO NOT need to listen to the previous episode for this one to make sense, but it fills in more of this whole discussion and is highly recommended. Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this bonus episode with Megan Elizabeth Morris: Andy talks again with Megan Elizabeth Morris of Ideaschema. This is the first in a series of special bonus episodes of Holistic Business Radio entitled “The Metacosmologist is In.” That title begs the questions: “What is a metacosmologist?” and “Why is Megan one?” Megan says that she hopes Andy isn’t hoping for a serious answer because if he is he might be partially disappointed. The metacosmology thing is tongue-in-cheek and is kind of a joke with Megan, much like a lot of things are these days for Megan because everything she says might as well be made-up based on what she perceives as her experience in the world, which is what everyone does no matter how they describe themselves. Over the last few months, Megan had been trying to identify certain kinds of patterns in her life and in the world and in her perceptions and come up with some sort of word that would describe or refer to what she was doing when she worked on those patterns. It eluded her for a while, and she knew it had to do something with analogical thinking—where you understand Thing A by telling a story about Thing B—but she knew it also had a lot to do with different abstractions, levels and angles and permutations or patterns of things, and of course, she has zero academic background in this sort of observation and learning, other than her own self-directed reading and casual research. So she decided that if she could find something that referred to all of this and seemed logical, considering the way the English language works, that she would be happy. But ultimately, any of us is the metacosmologist when we seek to identify and understand those same patterns. She spends most of her time these days vacillating between being the Metacosmos and the metacosmologist, which is just another way of saying “between just being—like a rock or a tree or an animal or a Megan versus observing and thinking about what is the being that I am.” So that’s maybe a less complicated or a more complicated way of explaining part of it. Andy asks Megan what metacosmology means. Megan says that, for her, it’s a reference to the Universe being a Matryoshka nested doll, but something way more complex. So when she says “the Universe”—which is always what she has called it when referring to some kind of Big Thing—what she really means is the Metacosmos because what that represented to her felt so much more accurate considering the figuring that she had done. She says that it’s all her perception and that it starts to sound like crazy talk… until you start to look at all the pieces. So that’s what she’s doing: looking at all the pieces of what she is just referring to as the Metacosmos, which is maybe all of everything or maybe just her or a single atom in her body or whatever. There are a lot of directions from which metacosmology makes a lot of sense to her because the patterns all seems to fit together in really interesting ways. She admits that she doesn’t have a lot of experience talking about this in an abstract way, but in terms of how things relate to metacosmology in concrete ways, like if you’re talking about one specific thing; those are the things that she has been seeing over and over again and what she has bee...

What if systems created more ease and spaciousness in our business rather then constraining us to doing things in a way that doesn't feel good because we "have to"? Michelle says that this is TOTALLY possible. Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Michelle Nickolaisen: In this episode, Andy talks with Michelle Nickolaisen of Bombchelle. Michelle works with mostly creative folks to make the boring parts of business less boring and easier to deal with so they get done. Andy points out how big of a deal this is for creatives because we just want to be about the creating or the healing, the business parts of whatever our business is. Michelle uses the word “systems” a lot and says that it really kind of sucks to use that word because it has a lot of negative connotations with it, but she hasn’t really found a better word for it. When she uses that word with creatives, they usually think of either really boring corporate shit or Tim Ferriss. Michelle says that the way some people try to automate and streamline their business so that they never have to touch anything is a crock. The way Michelle does systems is to set things up in your business to make things easier: if there’s something that can be automated, she shows people how to lovingly automate it, and things that can be streamlined are streamlined as much as possible. That way, you can show up and rock your clients’ world and all the great stuff instead of dealing with all the shit you hate to do over and over and getting frustrated. People so often get frustrated with having to spend time on admin-y stuff and getting caught up in all of that. Sometimes, half a day is spent on admin stuff, which leaves the creative business person pissed off to “waste time” like that. Andy says that all creative business people have pretty much been in that situation before. He asks Michelle for some specific examples of how she works with systems so that listeners can get a better grasp on it. Michelle mentions how Chris Guillebeau sent a welcome e-mail to his first 10,000th e-mail subscriber. Chris says that one of the things he has done to help his business grow has been to send people e-mails when they signed up for his newsletter. He recommends that any business person do this. He would write the new subscriber an e-mail and say, “Hey! I noticed you’re here. Let me know what you think or if you have any questions,” etc. He would get replies from people saying things like, “Oh, what a clever auto-responder.” And he would e-mail back to say, “No, it’s not an auto-responder; I just wrote it myself.” Michelle does something similar. It is a template that she copies and pastes into an e-mail, but then she tweaks it to be specific to each person. The template is part of what makes welcoming new people doable. She’s also working on something that otherwise would not be sustainable at all: she just signed up for a Contactually account, which is a Customer Relationship Management tool. This program goes through all your contacts and lets you sort them into different buckets: clients, leads, previous clients, colleagues, family, close friends, e-mail subscribers, and it syncs up with MailChimp. She’s still working on the logistics of this, but she’d like to set it up in such a way where everybody who’s on her newsletter dispatch list gets added to this e-mail subscribers newsletter in Contactually. Then she’ll be able to set up a reminder so that Contactually will ping her every 90 or 100 days so she can follow up with those people personally. Doing all of that by hand would be almost impossible, but using this template or system gives her a way to reach out to peo...

Virtual assistant, writer and creator of HBR's amazing show notes Karla Tucker talks with Rhi and Andy about being a VA, how VAs can help in a business, and how to work with one effectively. (And if this sounds boring, it's totally not.) We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Service, Gift Economy, Spiritual Economics - What if these formed the basis of business? How amazing could it be? Megan shares her thoughts (and they go deep!) Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Megan Elizabeth Morris: Andy talks with Megan Morris about changing our perspective on money, business and life. Andy was really struck by a post that Megan made on Facebook. It goes like this: So, we're all trying to make *money*... money is all connected to our fear/survival stuff... But in many ways it seems silly -- every one of us so isolated, not talking about the things that we're not supposed to talk about because "not having enough money" is so freaking taboo. Trying to bootstrap it individually, worrying that we won't make the cut, doing our best to put on brave faces about it, feeling alone and lost sometimes. And might seem ridiculous at first, but can you imagine if every one of us who was trying to make money put our heads together and looked for ways to help one another? I bet we would need less money in order to have the things we need... and we might find better ways to get the money we need, too. Short of me having an actual plan in place (okay okay, give me time)... Who's in? ;} Andy asks Megan how things have been going for her since she made that post. Megan says that what has happened since that post is not what she expected. She thought it would take time to test and build, but the energy felt right and she realized that it could be done right now, that day. The development of this idea of people helping people has spread out over other areas of her life. What’s happening for her is that she’s seeing so many other areas and disciplines that are backing up this idea. She’s exploring connection—natural human connection—when two people really resonate on a deep frequency. She has really applied this question of “Why do people have such a hard time around money in our culture?” to her learning and reading and has really started to dig into it, even in day-to-day life. She says that basically, we think money is necessary, but really it’s not. She expects some argument to that concept. But it’s because we’re hanging on to this little money demon—anxiety, sadness, anger, brokenness; we don’t want it but we won’t let it go. Andy compares it to hanging on to a rope as you’re being dragged across a field. You don’t want to be dragged along, but you don’t want to let go either. Megan says that letting go seems like a really easy concept, but she recognizes that it takes a lot of time to do. She is astonished, for herself personally, that letting go of the money demon has been way easier than she thought it would be. She’s also amazed, though, at how long it has taken her to get where she is with it and how much further she has to go. With every step, she feels happier, safer, and freer to connect with people. Megan talks about her reading of Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. In this book, we’re reminded that human beings evolved in tribes or packs. What we really needed to survive was the pack bond. If you were separated from the pack in the wilderness, you could die. So, to Megan, it makes sense that we human beings have within us a deep-seated need or drive to stay connected to the tribe: seek connection, stay relevant and useful to the pack, and center your love and your work in the pack. Her understanding of this concept has been massively transformed by reading Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics, a book she highly recommends. Now, we live in a civilization that has taught us that instead of prizing the pack bond over everything—instead of being terrified of lo...

Musician and weaver of magic Sharon Knight is our guest this week. She talks with Andy about her music and how she creates it, the spirituality which drives her music and the business of being a musician. Sharon's Website: http://www.sharonknight.net/ (go listen to her music there for free!) Sharon's Blog: http://www.sharonknight.net/blog/ Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Sharon Knight: Sharon Knight has a unique description of her music: Neofolk Romantique. It started out as Celtic-inspired music. She learned on Celtic music, but over time she started writing more of her own songs which were inspired by Mythology. The staunch Celtic traditionalists called her out on it, so she decided to create her own genre. And there we have Neofolk Romantique. It’s Celtic-inspired and folk rock based, drawing on a lot of romance and Old World legends. She just decided on the description for this genre a few years ago while working on a project that’s due for release any day now. The pre-release version is available now. The pre-release was put out there to raise funds for this upcoming project. The pre-release is more intimate because it’s just her and her husband and music/business partner, Winter, as a duet. The newer project will include guest musicians and will be more fleshed-out. On the pre-lease, Winter plays acoustic guitar, and Sharon plays octave mandolin (larger and tuned an octave lower than a regular mandolin), acoustic guitar and an Irish drum called a bodhrán (pronounced similarly to boron). Sharon and Winter both sing on the CD. There are a couple of guest musicians on the pre-lease, but most of the music is Sharon and Winter. In the new, full version, there will be several guest musicians—their long-term collaborator, Caith Threefires will be playing a lot of different instruments from the mandolin family; he also plays keyboard and bass. A cellist will be sitting in. There will be several new songs, and some of the songs from the pre-lease will be removed. There will be bagpipes and some flutes and a dobro. It will still be acoustic, but the sound will be more fleshed-out. They have a darker, harder version of their sound in their band called Pandemonaeon. It’s formulated like an electric rock band, but it’s a very different sound. She describes it as Dead Can Dance mixed with hard rock and a little bit of metal, but the Folk influence is still there. She finds that their acoustic stuff is more well-known than their harder, electric stuff. This isn’t surprising because the acoustic music reaches the New Age and Neo-Pagan world where most of their fans come from. Sharon gives a broad description of Paganism: an earth-centered spirituality in which people live harmoniously with Nature and perform rituals to celebrate different cycles of the year. She says that there are Reconstructionist movements that try to reconstruct the pre-Christian thing, people who are trying to recreate, as close as possible, how the rituals were done before Christianity. Andy brings up the point that people tend to strongly disagree over what Pagan Reconstructionism really is, because how can any of us really know how things were done back then? Then there are people who want to recreate the meaning of it but realize that because we’re not living in that ancient world any more, things don’t really mean the same thing. Sharon says that most people she knows do a really good job of finding balance. That’s the place she comes from: Being inspired by some of the ancient traditions to live in harmony with Nature but making it relevant in our society as modern people.

Andy talks with Rhiannon Laurie, the creator of the Mirrorhaven Academy of Self Love about the power of spaciousness and her own process of self discovery. It's big and amazing stuff. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Rhi hangs out with Nathan and Larah, two of her best friends in the whole world, and they talk about Wordpress hackers, badger-hunting Scots, the pros and cons of sex ed in public schools, spoonie entrepreneurship, and various nerdy things on this extremely hoopy 42nd episode. Show Notes Coming Soon We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. If you just want the feed link to use in a different podcast software:

Rhi talks with Marisa, who supports wellness professionals & creative entrepreneurs in crafting their messages, spreading the word about their work, and building community online. Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Marisa Goudy: Rhiannon talks with Marisa Goudy about her work. Marisa was raised in an entrepreneurial family so the seed was planted in her at a young age. It was dormant for a while, however. When her mother passed away suddenly in 2010, that entrepreneurial seed opened for growth. Marisa had, at that time, an eight & half month old baby and was working a job that didn’t fulfill her. When her mother passed, she decided that life was too short. She decided to quit her job and start writing and promoting wellness professionals, since she had trained in holistic healing for 10 years herself. She maintains a small practice in that field but enjoys working with other healers. She wanted to stay at home with her baby, so she just started. She has had a couple different business names and a previous partnership that failed. She now has a business partner, web designer Corinna Rake, with whom she started Online Empowerment Formula. Her mission is to help people discover, describe and deliver their messages. Corinna had two Ds of her own, so together, with those five Ds, they’ve started their own thing. They teach website courses and do one-on-one consulting. Their real focus is on empowerment. Marisa does the copywriting, and Corinna does the web design, so they work with clients as co-creators to get their business out there. They want to help people by working with them but also teaching them how to do it themselves. Rhi asks Marisa if she still resonates with healers. Yes, she absolutely does. A lot of the people she works with now are from a holistic healers group. They’re at least 50% of the group. The other half is people who identify with the creative entrepreneur, artists, writers and coaches. Her perfect people are those who are feeling disempowered in some way around their web presence and the presentation of their messages. There are a billion people on Facebook, so there’s the belief of “There are so many people here; somebody’s got to hear my message.” So you create great content and don’t get a single Like; it can be very disempowering and discouraging. Marisa started her first business by “coming out” on her Facebook page. She and Corinna speak to that paradox of things being simple and easy but not being easy. WordPress is so user-friendly, but you can get snared up in there for days trying to solve a problem. Marisa and Corinna help people save time by not having to go through the endless WordPress forums looking for answers. Marisa says that there’s a really low barrier to entry when it comes to marketing yourself online. All you need is an online connection, even at a library. So then you have to ask how you’re going to not only “enter the building” but get to the top floor of it. Rhi points out the disconnect between people’s ideas when they first start out that they’re going to “make it to the top” and things are going to be great. Marisa says each person should ask what their own top floor is. Would being an online celebrity be a good fit or would you feel exposed? Rhi points out the measure of control we all believe we have over our lives and what we choose to do, and how something comes along to make it obvious that we’re not really in control at all. Marisa had a course called Take Charge of Your Website and “control” was in the tagline. They realized they couldn’t throw the word “control” out there because it’s all just an illusion of control.

Rhi and Amanda talk shop about the business of making beautiful, meaningful things on the internet, and delve into the new paradigm that Amanda is bringing into being with her Digital Artisan Collective. Scroll down for show notes. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Amanda Farough: In this episode, Rhiannon talks with Amanda Farough of violetminded Media. Amanda is in the process of re-opening her doors as a new web agency. She is doing something different and revolutionary: bringing together extremely talented and brilliant people in what she calls a digital artisan collective. Rhi asks Amanda to share a little about how she came to this place and what challenges she faced. Amanda was a solo operation at first. She realized, however, that she was burning herself out by doing everything herself. Burn-out does not go well with her desire to be of service to others. So she decided to look at competition in a whole new light. She posted an article years ago called Collaboration Trumps Competition. She believes that if you want to do well and want your people to get the best possible experience, you should work with or hire people who are especially smart. That was the strategy she used when she started violetminded. She gathered all these ridiculously smart people to work with to create the best possible website and best possible experience for her people. Rhi goes through the potentially overwhelming thought process that can go into starting a new business or project and asks Amanda how she dealt with those challenges. Amanda says the trick is feeling comfortable enough to figure out how to be a leader and not just a boss. A boss directs everybody around and puts the responsibility on everybody else’s shoulders. A leader leads the pack and shows the way; it’s a team effort. Trust is essential. It’s a mutual investment. Rhi also points out that Amanda works with people who already have their own businesses. Amanda says that it’s the opposite of the scarcity principle. It’s a more expansive way to do business. It’s a prerequisite for anyone Amanda’s considering adding to her team: they need to have their own things going. When businesses get too big too fast, owners bring in people to help; then they find the business ebbs and flows, and during the ebbs their helpers don’t have anything to do. That flow is just to be expected, like the tide or seasons. Having to be a team member’s sole means of income can create a huge sense of responsibility for the business owner. When Amanda considers her team, she doesn’t see it as people working for her; she works alongside them, with them. She’s the leader, not the boss. When there’s mutual investment among the team, including the client, really great things are created. Rhi says the most fulfilling thing one can do in life is something that is deeply moving and makes money to sustain a lifestyle. But that doesn’t mean that you have to pull out everything you like to do and do those things for everyone else. It loses its “specialness” at that point. Rhi compares it to her love of playing the piano. She loves to play, but only for herself not in front of others. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep a little piece of you to yourself. That’s a part of loving yourself, doing something special for yourself. Moving the conversation along, Amanda points out the fear everybody has around design. She thinks it’s because people either have no experience with it or have had a horrible experience with it. She helps people feel comfortable by making sure everyone’s educated about how the process works and removing the mystery. Other designers leave so much to the imagination that it...

Rhi talks with Kristin about her journey, her literacy outreach work in Belize and so much more! Scroll down for show notes. We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Kristin Pedemonti: Rhiannon talks with Kristin Pedemonti about the inter-connectedness and importance of our stories and about her upcoming literacy outreach project in Belize. Rhi asks Kristin how she got started in her work of free hugs and unconditional love. Free hugs and joy and bubbles were a progression for Kristin, starting as early as her college days. She moved to New York City in 2008 and noticed the potential for overwhelm and disconnect. She wanted a way to feel better and connect with others, so she started standing on the sidewalk with her Free Hugs sign. In college, a dorm mate of hers actually called her the Hug Monster, so her Free Hugs was a natural progression for her. She also worked in women’s health and ovarian cancer research for a while where she had to tuck away the Hug Monster. She had a very stressful commute to work so she decided to find a way to bring in some fun. She started carrying bubbles with her to share with people. In all her years of bubble blowing, she has only had two not-so-positive incidents with people. In 2008, her joy encouraged her connect to people. She had worked as a children’s librarian during her time in cancer research. It’s funny that no one had ever encouraged her to work with children; looking back, she realizes that it was perfect for her. She calls herself a perpetual five-year-old with depth. So she decided to share whimsy and joy with adults. Even though her website appears whimsical, there’s such a deeper message within. Kristin isn’t just “one of those people” who was born happy, however. She was born into a relatively difficult situation with her dad having been a Vietnam Vet, elite of elites who couldn’t share anything about his time in the war. He was very wounded by all of it yet was never allowed to talk about it or process it. This led to major depression and, at times, suicidal tendencies. She has great compassion for her father because of all he went through. That compassion spread to others, including her. Having dealt with depression herself, she understands what it’s like. She offers hope to others who are going through it. Kristin believes there are no strangers. She encourages her audience to take five minutes to talk with someone they’ve never met; it’s amazing how many similarities can be found. Kristin shares an example of the van driver who helped transport her mother. He had an accent so, being curious, she asked where he was from. He said that he was from Kenya and she shared with him that she’s going there soon. They had an instant connection. He was so excited to share his home and his story with someone. She has also been learning over the past several years about the giving and the receiving. That is true interaction. Even in the grocery store or the post office. It’s so important to just take a moment to really connect and get in touch with people. Kristin recounts several experiences that she has had around the globe. At a TEDx talk in Poland, she started in the audience with a Free Hug sign. The organizers of the talk told her to not be offended if no one hugged her because she was, after all, in Poland. She acknowledged that but did it anyway, expecting maybe two or three hugs. When she started her talk with her sign, about 75 people from the audience quickly gathered around her. After the hugs, she went to the platform and began her talk by asking the audience “What if there are no strangers?” We make ourselves vulnerable when we offer a hug because there’s a chanc...

Rhi and Luna, the author of two upcoming books about money, have a winding conversation around creativity and money and how she has discovered the perfect way to relate financial concepts to non-financial people using art, play, and loads of compassion. Scroll down for show notes! We love your feedback! Please let us know what you think – email us at radio@loveandmoneyrevolution.com, or leave us a comment below. If you’re not subscribed, please join us! How to subscribe: Most people subscribe to podcasts in iTunes; click the button to view the podcast in iTunes. Show notes from this episode with Luna Jaffe: Rhi talks with Luna Jaffe about combining financial planning with the creative world. Luna has two books: “Zguide to Money” and the recently-released “Wild Money: A Creative Journey to Financial Wisdom” and its accompanying workbook/journal. Luna has always been a creative human being, but she struggled with money for 20 years. She got involved in the world of finance ten years ago and realized that there were no resources or educational materials for people who think differently than the left-brained, analytical world. So she decided to change that and provide some really cool materials for the right-brained folks. After writing for herself for many years, she decided to turn that outward and write for others in order to help them find tools and build confidence around money. She uses visual images as a very powerful tool to help people understand what the deeper mythology of their own subconscious is. She says that words just don’t do justice to our feelings around money, so she has people draw or sketch their feelings around the topic. Making it a visual experience is a tangible and powerful practice and tool for transformation. People can “draw themselves out of money trouble.” Luna says that if people can visualize their financial situation as different, then they can make it different. She helps people find their own language to use so they can own their attitudes and feelings around the topic of money. This proves to be very empowering. Luna decided to do a workbook to accompany the book in order to share the exercises around money that she has done for herself over the years. Working with something, especially money, in this way validates our learning and knowledge in a positive, non-threatening way. When Rhi asks Luna to describe her path from artist to psychotherapist to financial planner, Luna recounts her journey from her days as a successful businesswoman in art. Her work as an artist allowed her to travel and live the lifestyle she wanted. Not long after she decided that she wanted to be a mother, her father died suddenly. She was 30 years old. She decided to evaluate where she was and where she wanted to be in life. That led her to graduate school. She continued to use art to teach creative process workshops and decided to pursue psychotherapy. Three years into practice, she realized she didn’t like it: it was too isolating for her. She wanted to be able to share her ideas and help people to get going rather than wait for them to come to their own conclusions—which is great in psychotherapy, but she really wanted to help people in a quicker way. She got divorced and reinvented herself at 36 years old. She realized that in order to fulfill her desire to be a mother, she would need a job with a reliable income and benefits—something she’d never had before. She started in high-tech, in customer service, and she loved it! She was promoted to be a trainer within three months. She realized that there are things that people can learn, and then there are things that are just innate—a part of who someone is that can’t be taught. She spent three years doing this for a Fortune 500 company and did it well but felt uninspired. She’s thankful for that experience, however, because it allowed her to experience the world of the 9-to-5 workaday. While she was employed with that company,