Leslie is the ninja in heels! She helps empower women to create the business life they desire. Leslie gives tips for financial independence and budgeting your way to wealth.

Do not miss these highlights:

[6:02] The strength of women and wanting to share the wealth

[6:35] How the Ninja in Heels got its start bringing both the badass and the feminine leadership skills together

[13:11] Learning to balance your work life and your personal life so that one is not suffering at the expense of the other

[15:20] The importance of connecting with your emotional self in order to better your over health

[17:36] Creating a financial cushion in preparation of the unknown and learning that creative accounting is not creative, it is just not commonly known practices

[23:55] A look into the process used to take people out of the crisis thought process into something creative

[25:44] When is the best time to start a business

[34:03] The impact that moving through crisis to success has had on her family and teaching the new generation

[35:40] Learn to be FLIRTY with your money and learning how to manage it to meet your retirement needs early

[45:20] It is never too late to become the Oprah of your industry

Access Leslie’s assessment and first program for free.  www.leslielanepeabody.com  Code: heels

Resources Mentioned

Phoenix Factor – https://debra-s-school-1b7e.thinkific.com/courses/phoenix-factor-protocol

About our Guest:

Leslie Lane Peabody, the Ninja in High Heels, is a speaker, author, and corporate mentor and coach for

over 30 years. She is a mental toughness coach and helps women become financially independent while

living a life they love – today! While going through a Hollywood style divorce and raising 3 teenage boys

on her own, Leslie started creating her own side hustle in the cracks of her day. She now helps other

women do the same with her Kick Your Heels Program that takes the learning curve out of growing a

business, and heightens your health, and give you the mental resilience it takes to accomplish anything

in your life.

Social Media & Website:

Website: www.leslielanepeabody.com

Instagram: @LeslieLanePeabody

https://www.instagram.com/leslielanepeabody/

Facebook: Leslie Lane Peabody – https://www.facebook.com/leslie.peabody/

Twitter: NinjasHighHeels – https://twitter.com/NinjaHighHeels

LinkedIn: Leslie Lane Peabody – https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-lane-peabody-5116ba22/

Transcription of episode #116:

Debra Muth 0:02
Welcome to Let’s talk wellness. Now I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness, and learn to defy aging, and live our lives on our own terms.

Debra Muth 0:16
Welcome back to let’s talk wellness. Now Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Deb, and I am here with a awesome guest. I can’t wait to have a conversation with Leslie lane Peabody, the ninja in high heels, a speaker, author and corporate mentor and coach for over 30 years. She is a mental toughness coach, who helps women become financially independent while living a life they love today. While going through a Hollywood style divorce and raising three teenage boys on her own, Leslie started creating her own a side hustle in the cracks of her day. And she now helps other women do the same with her kick your high heels program that takes the learning curve out of growing a business and heightens your health and give you the mental resistance that it takes to accomplish anything in your life. I love Leslie’s bio, I think it’s amazing. I think the things that she’s done is incredible. And it just goes to show that as women we are stronger than what we give ourselves credit for. And we can do so much more. So today’s topic is going to be part of your problem is that we get so busy, we don’t make time for what’s important to us in the long run. And I can’t wait to talk about this because I think this is so true. We get so busy that there’s just never any time and there’s always a crisis. Our program module that Leslie teaches, is I’m future boarding your health, how to emotionally connect with your goal for better health, to make it a priority for you every day. You know, we talk about this quite often on the show is putting yourself first putting your health first doing what’s right for you. And I totally get what Leslie is talking about. Because so many times in business, we keep going and going and going and we forget to look at ourselves. And this is what our vital female program teaches you. And it helps you along the way identify how to eat right how to be right how to sleep, right, how to get your hormones balanced, how to keep your adrenal health functioning, all those amazing things that make you who you are. Check this out.

Debra Muth 2:54
Hi, everybody, this episode is brought to you by my very own Phoenix factor coaching program. Look, we are all trying to create that absolute perfect life. Let me show you how to do that for free. In my virtual coaching strategy call. You and I are going to spend 20 minutes chatting about your desires where you want to take your business life, your health, and of course, your sex life. And then I’m going to give you tips and ideas and techniques on how to actually get that going. So you can have that absolutely perfect, amazing life you’re looking for. Now it’s super simple. All you need to do is click on my calendly link here in the podcast notes. And hop on pick your time. And let’s start creating that amazing life that you’re looking for.

Debra Muth 3:50
Oh, welcome back to the show. I’m Dr. Debbie, your host and I am with Leslie lane Peabody today, this is going to be an awesome conversation, you guys. I can’t wait to hear all about the ninja in high heels. I love that topic. And I had a friend once who said her higher power was her high heels and I remember that and they weren’t super high spike heels. They were just a little bit of a heel. But it was enough to make them powerful for her. So welcome to the show, Leslie. So happy to have you.

Leslie Lane Peabody 4:21
Thank you so much. I appreciate being here. I really love sharing the message of strength and hope to other women. That’s that’s my thing.

Debra Muth 4:29
Yeah. You know, and I feel the same way like a powerful women, making them creating them supporting them. I am all over that because it is us that really make the world go round. And the older I get, the more I realized like that, I think, how, how was it that men were supposed to run everything because I’m not always seeing that today. Not no diss on men at all, but I’m just kind of like, quite sure either My life is surrounded by men who can’t quite figure it out or There just was a whole lot more men that couldn’t figure it out that I didn’t realize before. And I love surrounding myself with powerful women. I mean, it’s just so inviting and exciting. And I learned so much from them. And I’m always just so fascinated by all the amazing things women are doing these days that nobody’s talking about, right?

Debra Muth 5:25
Totally. I mean, I get to talk to some powerful women. And when I hear their stories, I’m like, why are we not just screaming this stuff from the rooftops because these are women that are making the world a better place every single day and empowering other women to do the same thing. Awesome.

Leslie Lane Peabody 5:42
That is the trick, right? paying it forward, making us more powerful together, women are such a community. And I don’t think you know, we have the good old boys club. But women, they empower each other they build significantly. Yeah, amazing organization.

Debra Muth 6:02
It is rare that you find a woman that is not willing to help another woman. But the go boys called they want to keep everything to themselves. Women, they want to share, they want other women to be powerful, and helping other people because they know that we can do more in numbers than we can do by ourselves. And we’re not afraid to share the wealth.

Leslie Lane Peabody 6:22
Exactly. That’s awesome. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Debra Muth 6:27
Thank you. So tell us how you started the ninja in high heels. And I love that title. So you do have to tell us where it comes from to.

Leslie Lane Peabody 6:35
Oh, that’s awesome. I love this story. Because I think I have a story very much like most women, right. And there was a crisis in my life. And for me. I was sitting there in a courtroom, listening to the judge hand down my divorce decree, wondering at that moment, if I was gonna have to pay alimony if I was gonna have to pay child support. My ex husband wasn’t working, he’d quit working it not that he couldn’t he just quit. And he was trying to ruin me emotionally, financially, physically, everything. He was trying to ruin me. And I was sitting there in that courtroom, wondering how was I going to keep my home for my children and still move forward. And it was at that moment, I knew that, you know, I had been trained as a CPA, I have an MBA in accounting. I knew I had the tools to help myself out financially. But I wasn’t mentally tough enough. At that point. I was a rock star at work. But I was not mentally tough enough at that point, to be the rock star, the badass woman at home, I had let myself take on a lesser role be. stoppable, that’s a terrible thing to say, but be stoppable, be a share shell of myself. And at that moment in the courtroom, I knew that if I were going to get out of this, I had to take control of my life. I had to become mentally tough. No matter what came down the pike. I had to handle it for those kids. And that’s how it started.

Debra Muth 8:24
Wow, what a powerful story. And it just makes my heart flutter because you don’t hear women tell this story very often. And it happens more than we think that that women are the breadwinners women are the powerhouse. And it’s the men taking them. You always hear the opposite story. But it sounds to me like this story kind of built something inside of you to say, wait a minute, I’ve got more than I thought I had. And I can make this work. I can make this happen for my kids. And for me

Leslie Lane Peabody 8:58
that right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and as a mother, right. As a mother, I was a single mom at that time, because there were the dad couldn’t see the children at that time. So as a single mother of two children, I brought a third boy into my house. His grandmother was our nanny. And she got too ill to care for him. So I brought him into our house. So I’m going through chaos. And I’m still giving because I knew somebody else needed it. And that’s kind of how I got my name, right. I went to work every day I was in the corporate world. So every day you had to dress up back in those days, not like today, but you had to dress up every day in those days in high heels and a suit and everything. And so as part of bringing my family community together because I knew I had to wrangle those boys. I had to get them involved. I had to get their vision the same as mine. I said okay, you guys, I’m gonna start this business. What shall we call it? Well, they were 13 and 15 year old boys, they’re like, okay, okay, well, I don’t know guys how that’s gonna work. I’m a girl houses ninja thing gonna work. They’re like, Huh, huh, we have it, you wear high heels, you’re the ninja in high heels.

Debra Muth 10:24
That is awesome.

Leslie Lane Peabody 10:26
I loved it, I loved it because it brings both sides of my being together, it brings the badass ninja with the feminine leadership skills that I think are so important to us as women.

Debra Muth 10:41
I love that story. That’s great. And I love that you included your boys in on creating this business because now they have, they have a commitment to you, right? They name this, they have a responsibility to help you make this successful. And they got to be part of it from the beginning for you. And that’s awesome to include our kids in those things.

Leslie Lane Peabody 11:03
Right. And you really have to I think, you know, your your whole family is going through turmoil, regardless of what the crisis is, it could be COVID, it could be divorce, it could be a job loss doesn’t really matter. Your kids will become mentally tough. If you teach them to become mentally tough. If you teach them that, regardless of how you feel, you get up and you show up, that you don’t always feel like doing it, that sometimes you’re a little down and depressed. But you do it anyway. And that’s the message you know, and especially as we link it back to health. If you don’t do it, it’s not getting better tomorrow, you’ve got to do it every day, make a priority of yourself of your health. And if you your health isn’t your priority, you can’t be a good mom, you can’t be a good entrepreneur, you have to have the energy and the body, that doesn’t hurt every time you do something, you got to do that for yourself. And for those kids.

Debra Muth 12:10
Oh, that is so true. You know, so often we put our health last, instead of putting it first, right. So it’s a workout tomorrow instead of I’m going to work out this morning. And when you work out, you feel so much better on the backside you have more energy and you have more creativity to do the things that you need to do in your business life. But it’s easy to say I’m too tired, I want to sleep in or I’m too tired to make myself a decent breakfast, I’ll just grab something at the drive thru or whatever. All of those things make it difficult than for our bodies to be fueled the way we need to to run our businesses. We need to be at our best peak of all of that. So it’s so important to do that. Leslie, tell us a little bit about how the ninja in high heels tell us a little bit more about what that is and why you we know why you decided to create it. But what came out of all of that in that crisis for you?

Leslie Lane Peabody 13:11
Well, the first thing that came out of that crisis for me is I had to get my house in order I had let my home life suffer. I was a bad gas executive at work, but I’d let my home life suffer, I wouldn’t open my bills. Because I knew I was gonna find something that I didn’t want to see I wasn’t going to be able to pay that bill. I let my health suffer because I just didn’t feel like getting up and cooking in and I started drinking and and life went really down the toilet, I became a terrible mother, a terrible human from my home life terrible daughter, a terrible sister. And I couldn’t do that anymore. I could not let someone else take my power and control how I behaved because I was going through a tough time. And so that’s really how it started is when you decide to take back your life. You have to take it back in all the areas of your life. So I have a heal program, h e l heal that teaches you how to bring your life back into balance and grow all the areas at the same time. And I start financially because most women like to reach out financially. That’s their number one problem today. They think it’s their number one problem, right because you can’t pay your bills today. So that’s the number one thing that I help women with is how to bring home more take home pay. But number two right on the heels is how to take back your health and your energy and your life. And if you do that, when you do that, you can accomplish anything you have the energy to Do anything. And it’s not that easy, because today you feel like it. Next week, maybe you feel like it. But three weeks from now, you don’t feel like it anymore. It’s not, it’s not fun anymore. It’s not new anymore, the scale went the wrong way, or it was too hard to get to the store that day, or whatever. So one of the most important things I do in the health segment of my coaching program, is I teach women to emotionally connect with the reasons that they want better health, like you said, better health is the last thing that we really spend time on, we’ve got to do something. So we, we respond to an email or we take the kids to school, or we work on that science project. And we don’t get up to work out because we’re too tired. I help you connect with Why do you want to work out in the morning? Why is it critically important to get up and half hour early before the kids do? I was getting up sometimes at 330 in the morning, so that I would have time to work out and build my business before my kids got up in the morning. And the only way I was able to do that is to connect emotionally not with the exercise. But with what I wanted out of my good health. That’s the key.

Debra Muth 16:22
That is such a good point. Because if you don’t connect with where the end goal is, you won’t connect with those daily goals that have to happen to get you to the end goal. Right? I really resonate with the fact that you know, everyone starts with finances, right? That’s a big issue for a lot of us. I see many women over the years that don’t leave a relationship because they’re worried about financial stability. They don’t have a means to earn income, or the income that they’re accustomed to, or they don’t know what income they have in the household because their spouse took care of all of that and never shared it. And so now they’re 50 or 60. And they’re finally learning about finances, and they don’t know anything about it. And it can be rather intimidating for sure. Just like intimidating to learn about what’s healthy to eat and what’s not healthy to eat these days. Because it depends on which program you’re listening to. Right. It’s the same thing with finances, it can get very scary. I’m sure for many women, if they don’t have their finger on that pulse, like how do I survive? If I don’t know where my next income is gonna come from? How do you guys work through some of that?

Leslie Lane Peabody 17:36
Well, one of the most important ways I worked through one of those types of things is I sit down with a woman and I assess, I call it is my heal broken, right. We assess where you are in your life, and what should be your next step. So one of the ladies in my coaching program, Amy, her biggest problem was she had a good job. But she didn’t have a cushion. She didn’t have five or six months of cash cushion in case something happened. So we created a program for her where it didn’t hurt. But she could start creating that six month cushion. And today she has that cushion. And in fact, she talked to me this morning. What do I do next? Where do I go next? So she’s really loving the fact that she feels confident and secure now, because she took those steps and it wasn’t very hard. Yeah, that is so true. I

Debra Muth 18:31
mean, so many of us don’t have that cushion, and we don’t have that cushion. We feel like we’re stuck. And you’re absolutely right. It doesn’t take as much as we think to create that cushion. There are lots of great financial programs we can put money into that give us a great return that don’t risk our money. But sometimes we don’t know about that. Because nobody talks to us about that, you know, we’ve just got this one way of looking at things. And we don’t know what we don’t know. So I’m glad you start there with people. Because I think if they feel confident with their finances, they feel comfortable spending their finances to fix themselves and improve themselves. One of the biggest things that we see that people don’t want to spend money on their selves because a they don’t either feel like they’re worth it. Or they don’t feel like they have the extra funds to spend but they desperately want to be better. They just don’t know how to do that together.

Leslie Lane Peabody 19:25
Right. And that’s exactly where I start because that’s where I was right. I was a nine to five worker, but as soon as I started a business before I made my first dollar in my business, I was able to through tax deductions, increase my take home pay by $8,000 that very first year, wow, these are techniques that everyone else is using, but we didn’t know about them. I was a CPA and I didn’t know about them because I wasn’t a tax CPA and you know, not many tax CPAs really help you strategize. How to make your life better how to improve your finances. They just take what you give them and make sure the tax forms are filled out, right? We have a strategic planning session about how do you want to move forward? Who do you want to be with when you grow up? And how do we help you get there today?

Debra Muth 20:18
That’s awesome. I love that, you know, you’re so right. I’ve had many tax attorneys over the years and CPAs. And everybody promises you, they’re going to find you that extra dollar that you shouldn’t pay to the IRS. And somehow they never find the dollar that the IRS is going to pay you they only find dollars that you get to pay the IRS more. So if you don’t have what we now call creative accounting, which is not creative at all, it’s the way it should be. But most people don’t want to think in that light, you could be really stuck in your finances, when, depending on what kind of business you have. Almost everything you do in life can become a tax deduction, except nobody tells you that

Leslie Lane Peabody 21:00
exactly simple things like your cell phone. If you start a business today, your cell phone can be a tax deductible part of that business, because you need it in today’s day and age. Everybody uses it to grow their business, you have to do social media, you have to have a phone, that becomes a tax deduction, instead of a personal expense. That’s how I changed my take on pay that very first year before I’d made any money from my business.

Debra Muth 21:31
Yeah, it’s so funny that we don’t think of that. And I really think it’s a disservice in our financial world that CPAs and tax accountants don’t typically have these kinds of conversations with people. And it can be the difference between like you said, $8,000, take home pay, or $1,000 to to pay Uncle Sam, we’re all looking for ways not to pay Uncle Sam more money. And if we can offset things to businesses, that’s the best way to do that. Exactly.

Leslie Lane Peabody 22:01
Exactly. And many of us, the first place we start to get into a business is in a Health and Wellness Business. Right, right. So this leads in, in fact, that’s one of the first places I started, it leads in to your health and wellness business, if you know how to use tax deductions, even your children’s allowance can be reorganized and a tax deduction to your business. If your kids are seven or up, they can do social media for you. So you can have a seven year old liking and and responding to friends and that kind of thing. So you can do it. You just have to be very precise in how you do.

Debra Muth 22:43
And how many times do we post pictures of our children. They make great models for our social media posts, and you can pay them for being a model and add to their college funds that way.

Leslie Lane Peabody 22:55
Exactly.

Debra Muth 22:56
You’re going to pay them anyway. You’re going to put money in their college fund anyway. Why not divert some of that and use it to your benefit instead of your detriment?

Leslie Lane Peabody 23:04
Exactly. That is so true. Most people don’t even see that I’m so thrilled that you do. That is how it starts, you are going to learn how to do things. And you’re going to say, Oh my gosh, what if I did this? What if I did that? And you kind of try and figure out how much can you make tax deductible? And if it can’t be tax deductible? You don’t do it anymore? It’s no fun anymore.

Debra Muth 23:31
Exactly. That is so true. That is so true. So tell us a little bit Leslie, how do you coach people out of living in that crisis mode? Because that’s where most of them are coming to I’m sure they’re kind of in that crisis mode. How do you get them out of that crisis thought process and into this creative thought process of how important a business can be for someone.

Leslie Lane Peabody 23:55
It’s amazing how fast that can change. And it has to come with a willing mind. But the way you start is figure out where you are and where you want to be. And if you can step outside of yourself for a moment and say, Where do I want to be? Then I if you’re coachable? Basically what I’m asking Are you coachable? If you’re coachable, then I have a ton of techniques to show you how to step out of this pit that you’re in because we’re all in a pit when we start this pit that you’re in and take action. Anyway. I help you know which actions to take and how to step out of that pit so you take action. Anyway.

Debra Muth 24:41
I love that because you know what? You’re right. We’re all in a pit at some point. At some point, none of us can get ourselves out. We need somebody to help lift us out. Give us that hand and help us out of the pit so that we know where to start because that’s the other thing is I think all of this sounds great, but some people Listening, you’re going to feel like it’s very overwhelming. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to do tax deductions. I don’t know how to start a business. I don’t know what kind of business to start. I don’t know what I like or what I don’t like, I don’t know if I’m gonna have support, right? It’s all that negativity that comes into our head. We all need someone that can help us see through the weeds so that we can get ourselves out quicker than sitting there. Like I’ve literally talked to women who said, I’ve had this idea for 25 years. I’ve just never felt like I could do it. That hurts to the Corps a woman because if you had this idea 25 years ago, can you imagine where you would be today? Because 25 years ago, nobody was thinking like you were thinking.

Leslie Lane Peabody 25:44
Right? Right. So when is the best time to start a business 25 years ago? Exactly. That is the second best time to start a business yesterday. At least today, you only have today, darling. You’re only today. So start today, right start today. And it is very easy. I mean, we get overwhelmed. Oh, I don’t have the time. You know, girlfriend, I was a single mom with three teenage boys. I was working full time. And I was building a business all at the same time. Busy women get more done, sir. And I teach you how to do it in small 10 minute blocks. My my tagline is I teach you how to build a business in the cracks of your day. We all have those 10 minutes when we’re waiting for band camp to get over. Right, we have those 10 minutes when we’re waiting for them to eat their breakfast or find their shoes or whatever. If you have 10 minute increments, five minute increments, and we all do. If you can dedicate throughout the day, an hour a day, in five to 10 minute increments. You can grow a business, but it’s got to be based on consistency every day. I don’t care if you don’t feel like it. Every day, you’ve got to do it. And I teach you exactly the steps you should be taking. So you’re not spinning your wheels.

Debra Muth 27:08
I love that. Because you’re absolutely right. We all have an hour in our day. However, sometimes that hour can feel really overwhelming. But you’re right, you’ve got that five minutes here and 10 minutes here. And I know people don’t think that you can do a lot in that timeframe. But you can. It’s so amazing these days what you can do. And my story is a lot like yours. You know, I was I worked full time I went to school full time I had three children, I was a new partner in a practice, I was learning business, I had no idea about business, I had just gotten out of naturopathic school. So I was still learning how to navigate health and wellness in an alternative fashion. And I’m learning how to manage a business. I knew nothing about that. I did all of that in my timeframe. And it was it happens we do it somehow as women. But since that time, it’s been 25 years since I’ve done that I now have six businesses that I run, I don’t recommend people go out and try to do to six businesses. Unless you’re a little crazy. But I have a team of people that helped me know, I would never run six businesses all by myself. But it can be done and you just learn to pivot, you know, you’ve got a half hour here, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. You know, there’s all kinds of time in the day that we forget about, you know, these things we got in our ears, podcasts, trainings, everything’s by audio these days, you don’t have to pick up a book anymore. So you could work out and listen to something at the same time. Exactly. You could drive and listen to something besides the wonderful news that nobody wants to hear anything about anymore. Anyway, use that time to your advantage. Because that’s, that’s crucial time.

Leslie Lane Peabody 28:52
Right? And business has changed so much lately. A lot of people say, Oh, I don’t want to worry about reaching out to my friends and family. And I don’t want to go to Home meetings and this and that, or I don’t want to host home meetings. Look what has just happened in the last year to us. Everything can be done on zoom or meetings like this. You don’t have to leave your house. If when I was going through my divorce, this had been a possibility. I can’t even imagine how big my business would be right now. Then you had to go somewhere you had to go speak at the corners club or go speak here goes to be there. Now. I just get on Facebook and I share my message wherever I want. I grab up podcasts. I share my message right from the comfort of my own home. So I don’t even have to put my children second. I can do it all at the same time while being a better mother to my children.

Debra Muth 29:51
That is so true. I’m glad you brought that up because this new digital world that has really really catapulted itself probably 10 years. In advance of what we would have been using it had COVID not happen is amazing, because now you don’t have two and a half hours of time taken out of your day, because you’re having a meeting, you have a 10 minute prep time before you hop on zoom. Just to make sure you know what you’re talking about, make yourself look halfway decent. Clean up the room a little bit. But then you do your time you’re off. You’re making dinner five minutes after you hop off your zoom call. It’s perfect compared to what it used to be. I love this new digital world that we’re in.

Leslie Lane Peabody 30:35
Yeah, it’s amazing. And you can also my secret passion is a bathtub. Right? I love being in the bath. And I used to watch TV when I was in the bathtub. Well guess what I do now, I learn Italian in the bathtub, or I edit videos in the bathtub, or I post to social media or I respond so I can combine things. During my downtime. It has really revolutionized the way women can do business. And it is so important that we just get started today.

Debra Muth 31:10
Absolutely. I love that. Tell us a little bit Leslie, how this crisis time for you transitioned into the success you have in your life. Now, what successful now that you attribute to the crisis itself that you went through?

Leslie Lane Peabody 31:28
Well, I’ve got to be honest with you, prior to the crisis, right? I was happily employed. I had been a mom for years, I didn’t know there was another option. I was a nine to five mom, that is all I knew. And I was thrilled with it. But when I went through my crisis when when I was going through the divorce, and we were a two income family at the top of our expense game, right, we bought the biggest house we could afford on the hill, our forever home, we had it built. And now suddenly, I went from two incomes down to one. And I started thinking, How can I get another job? How can I bring more money into my family will you know as a mom who’s already working, already watching the kids, you don’t want to give up all of your time with your kids. So I had to find a way that I could work from home while still being employed. And that’s the biggest thing I learned during this crisis time that if you work hard enough at it, you think long enough at it, or you just let it set, answers will come and solutions will materialize. So I just kept looking for different things, knowing that I couldn’t work another job, kept talking to people at that time. meetings, networking was big, right. So the meetup groups were big. So I’d go to meetups, and I’d meet people. And that’s when something fell into my lap, what fell into my lap was network marketing. And that started my journey. But it allowed me to work from home, learn everything about social media. At the time, I didn’t even have a Facebook account, I still had an old flip phone. never done anything. So that’s when I started my online presence. And I was able to do it right there with my children. So I learned, if you think about it, you can make what ever dreams you have come true. You just have to think differently than you’ve ever thought before.

Debra Muth 33:36
I love that story. I’m so glad you shared that with us. Because I think so many of us feel that way. Like I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to get into social media, I am not going to be able to conquer this marketing world or this digital marketing world. There’s all that fear. And so I’m glad you shared that truth with us. I’m curious to know, have you taught your boys how to start a business already?

Leslie Lane Peabody 34:03
Oh, yeah, they’re older. They’re 25 and 21. And in fact, over the years, they’ve been working a little bit with me. Not a lot because they didn’t you know, they’re boys, they want us to work on their band camp or whatever. So they are learning now my oldest one is learning how to be a social media expert. He’s he’s building his own business. Being a social media expert, and my youngest one is learning the importance of budgeting and how to budget he brought his girlfriend to me and we’re sitting down and taking them through my budgeting steps. Now they’re interested because they want to start living out on their own and they don’t know how to budget no one knows how to budget people don’t teach that. You have to either learn it from your parents or from someone like me, so I’m loving bringing it to the next Next Generation because as I teach other women these skills and techniques, they will take it to their children, and it will become the biggest movement

Debra Muth 35:08
we’ve ever heard. Isn’t that the truth, we don’t teach those things in school anymore. I remember being in seventh grade. And one of the classes we have was to learn how to write a check. Honestly, not many people write checks anymore, we use the debit card. But we wrote out a check, we learned how to balance a checkbook, we learned what a checkbook was, and how to budget. My kids never learned that kind of thing in school, they didn’t teach it in school, we’ve lost that whole concept of managing money being taught in the school system.

Leslie Lane Peabody 35:40
Right? It’s so true. And we’re afraid of money as women, many of us are afraid of money. So I’ve developed a mind helper on mnemonic helper, it’s called flirty, I want you to be flirty, with your money. And that’s what helped me prepare myself to retire after 30 years. I’m 56. And I’ll be retiring by the end of this year. Because these are the things that you just need to start applying today. And within 30 years, 20 years, actually, it was less than 30 years, I gotta tell you, I had to give up half of my retirement, half of my 401k to my husband when I got divorced. So I came in, at almost nothing. I had more than quadrupled my 401k to allow me to retire this year and focus full time on my business.

Debra Muth 36:39
Right? Celebrate that, right? How often does that happen? Ladies, if you have to get well past, you feel like you’re going to be working till you’re 70 or 80, instead of being able to retire at the beautiful age of 56. And still you have 25 years plus to work on your next career. But it’s something you love doing versus something you feel like you have to do

Leslie Lane Peabody 37:03
Exactly, It is it is and I totally love it. And my next career, my my business career, I’m coaching, but I’m also bringing my kids into real estate investing and things like that, and I’m going to be honest with you, when when I got divorced, and, and even ever since I’ve been divorced, I’m not putting all of my money away in my retirement accounts. That’s not what it is. I’m putting the bare minimum in there, right? the bare minimum that my employee employer matches. So it’s not like I’m shoving 1000s and 1000s and 1000s in there. It’s those small daily steps, consistent daily steps that make a difference just 10 short years down the road. I’ve been divorced for eight years now. So my life turned around in eight years. Five years ago, I thought I was working till I was 70. Now, I’m going to retire when I’m 56.

Debra Muth 38:04
Good for you. Good for you. And you’re going to share those secrets with the people you coach, I assume, right?

Leslie Lane Peabody 38:11
Absolutely. I already share them with the people I coach and it’s making a difference in other women’s lives. Women who felt like they could never retire are building some of those retirement accounts. Now they’re building their six months there stop. They’re gonna let Okay, let’s just talk about one simple technique you can do today. How much is your daily coffee? If you still go out for coffee daily? What is that? $5 dollars? Yeah, if you took that $5 a day and invested that in yourself instead, put that in some long term savings.

Debra Muth 38:50
Oh my gosh, you would not believe how much money you would start saving by simply making your own coffee at home. Absolutely, that is so true. And with some of the programs that are available that earn us 15 or 20% interest these days. And so the traditional banking system that’s 100% safe. You just do the math on compounding interest on $5 a day. It’s incredible how much money you’ll have in five years, more than you would have ever thought you could have.

Leslie Lane Peabody 39:21
It is totally amazing. So that’s the importance of getting started today. Because everyday you wait is a day that you’re not making money for yourself. You know, the other day I posted this on social media too. It was the first day I make good money. I just have to tell you that before I tell this story. Yesterday was the first day where my investments made more than I made in my job. So I am totally on my way to financial freedom because my investments are making more than my job is making now.

Debra Muth 39:56
Isn’t that amazing? And if you would have started before the upswing, you would have missed it.

Leslie Lane Peabody 40:04
And if I would have just said, Oh, God, I lost half of it. It’s not worth it. I’m not even gonna try. No, I said, Okay, this is non negotiable, I have to do this. Every single paycheck. Okay, I had to give up cable, like we had to stop going out to eat, you know, we had to change what we ate, we had to do a lot of things to adjust to my non negotiables.

Debra Muth 40:29
Yeah, you know, and it’s so true. We all have, we all have moments like that, like, I think back when I started learning about golden silver, and how important that was, and that’s been over 15 years ago. And I kept saying, I’m gonna buy some gold, I’m gonna buy some silver. Every year came and went, I didn’t have the money, golden silver got more expensive, pre COVID hit, and I looked at my husband and said, We got to buy some gold and silver, this is crazy. And I did. And now I’m like, Oh, my gosh, the price of golden silver is crazy. Why didn’t I do that 10 years ago, because I could have bought more with half the money that I had. But I kept making an excuse, I don’t have this, I have to pay for that I have to do this, I have to do that. And I look back at how many times I missed the mark on things that I’ve wanted to do that I learned about doing. I would be so much more ahead financially today than I am had, I just figured out a way to make those steps happen 10 and 15 years ago, it’s crazy,

Leslie Lane Peabody 41:28
right? And it doesn’t take a lot lot to start, you just need to start. And my program takes you from starting to growing, right? Because at first you start maybe all you have is $1 this week. Okay, start with $1. The next week, that dollar felt so good, maybe you’ll get $2. And soon you get to a level where it really matters.

Debra Muth 41:56
Yeah, that is so true. And if we’re starting our own business, we just found money that we never had. Because as you make money, you’d already didn’t have it before. So you don’t have it assigned to any debt or bill or anything. So start there and take that 10% tie that whatever you want to do from the money that you never had in your pocket to begin with. Now all of a sudden, you have a whole bunch of money that you just came across that you never knew you had. And it can go to work for you even faster.

Leslie Lane Peabody 42:29
Totally. And I teach you not to take too much. Don’t forget to give Uncle Sam his portion and right and do that. Right. I don’t teach you to rob Peter to pay Paul, I teach you to come compartmentalize your money. So that you know, the second you open, you know, your bank statement on your phone, most of us look at our phone everyday to see how much money we have. Right. And I put those compartments in there. So you know, at any moment, exactly what you have available to spend on what

Debra Muth 43:00
Yeah, so you have your wealth builder account, you have your vacation account, you have your bill account, you have all those different accounts. And then that way you know what you’ve got. And when you don’t have enough to start with investing, like you were saying, put $1 put $2 put $5 here and there before you know what you’re going to look at that account and there’s going to be $1,000 or more in there, that’s really going to go to work for you then at that point,

Leslie Lane Peabody 43:23
Right. And don’t forget that we still keep fun in the equation.

Debra Muth 43:27
Yes, right,

Leslie Lane Peabody 43:29
we still have a reward system in flirty to our is for reward, right? You still have to have fun with your money. So there’s a reward system and you get to put money aside, and then spend it on whatever you want. Because that’s an important part of money management as well, that many of us just shove away and say no, I’m not going to reward myself. But you don’t have longevity. If you don’t enjoy your money, you won’t treat it like a long lost lover.

Debra Muth 43:58
That is so true. If we have to account for every dime, and it has to be a logical spend, then you start to get frustrated. And you’re going to start to get angry about the budgeting process. And you’ll end up just giving it all in and not be able to do what you’re doing. Right. Right. Yeah. And some of these investment ideas, I would bet can be somewhat tax deductible as well.

Leslie Lane Peabody 44:24
Almost all of what I do anymore, that is not in some way tax deductible,

Debra Muth 44:30
Which the way we’re going we’re going to need lots of tax deductions, right? If we’re gonna pay 56% of our income to taxes, we better figure out a way to deduct 50 some percent of our income before we have to pay more tax on that going in the future here.

Leslie Lane Peabody 44:48
Right. And it’s all legal, moral and ethical, right? Because why would people get tax deductions because as you grow a business, you’re going to start employing Others. So there’s a reason for it. Use it grow your business become Oprah. Yes. Become Who do you want to be when you grow up, become Elon become Oprah become whoever it is you want to be when you grow up, start today, because they all had to start somewhere.

Debra Muth 45:20
Absolutely. And you, I’m so glad you brought that up. Because we look at those people as though Oh my god, they’re so amazing. But if you hear their stories of where they started, they’re not any different than you and I, they just started, that’s the only difference. They started, they took that first step. And they worked their tails off to get where they are. But we can do the same thing. There’s no reason we can’t be the Oprah of the digital world, or the Oprah inhealth, or the Oprah and cooking or childcare or whatever it is that we want to do. We can be the Oprah in that industry.

Leslie Lane Peabody 46:00
Exactly. And so many people, so many women have started after they were 40, some even after they were 50 and still created an unbelievably strong business. Lucille Ball is one of them, right? She was the queen of comedy, didn’t really start getting well known until after she was in her 40s.

Debra Muth 46:24
Yeah, I just heard and I didn’t know this, the guy who created KFC was on Social Security. When he started KFC, he was that old that he was you know, he was collecting Social Security when he started that company. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I didn’t realize that.

Leslie Lane Peabody 46:43
Exactly. So it is right now is the great time for you to start the rest of your life, it is not too late. If you are still breathing, there is time for you to do what you want. And if you’re confused, and that’s, you know, that is one of the biggest problems I have with women. Not the problems I have the biggest problems that women have when they start is they don’t know where they want to start a business. We haven’t been taught to think and grow and decide what contribution we want to make. It’s all about our children. It’s all about that kind of thing. So I recommend that many of us if we don’t have a place to start, I recommend that many of us start in the health and wellness, because that is near and dear to our hearts. I know that that’s one of the places that you start when my children were little and they were diagnosed with ADHD. We totally took all drugs, all colors, all whatever. And everything I did was cooking from scratch. Everything I did was cooking from scratch. We also had to go gluten free. We did all of that stuff. So I had a whole lot of basis and knowledge and education based on what I did for my children that helped others. Absolutely. And that’s where it all starts, right.

Debra Muth 48:01
I mean, women have so much knowledge, they have so much information. We have so many creative ideas. And you’re right sometimes it gets confusing, like where do I start? What do I do? It doesn’t matter. Just start just start posting to social search, boosting your content, start posting your ideas. If you don’t think you have content, you have content. What do you teach your children every day? What do you talk to your girlfriend’s about every day? How do you encourage your children or your girlfriends? That’s content? Let’s just start getting that information out into the public. See what sticks with people see what gives you the most traction, then, you know, you’re kind of onto something easy way to start. And you didn’t start a business in it. You just started sharing your knowledge. Right?

Leslie Lane Peabody 48:47
Right. And you don’t have to wind up doing the same thing forever. You have six businesses, oh my gosh, right. You don’t have to wind up your end, start somewhere. Naturally, organically, you’ll be drawn to where your strengths are. You just have to get started. Absolutely.

Debra Muth 49:08
I my businesses have waxed and waned throughout the years, and kind of moved and twisted. I can’t tell you how many times things have changed. We set out on one path and all of a sudden we were over here because that’s what the market wanted from us. That’s where I learned something new and started sharing and didn’t realize that more people needed that knowledge base. And it just kind of grows and naturally it will become what it’s supposed to be to be so worried about having the end in mind. Have more worries about the beginning in mind just getting started.

Leslie Lane Peabody 49:42
Right and what you said about getting started just start sharing your day. That really helps us identify where our strengths are because what we think is common most women don’t know their strength. They think that whatever they’re strong at everybody else knows and gets through the sharing have our everyday lives that we realize we’ve got something that most other women need.

Debra Muth 50:07
Yes, that is so true. I’m glad you said that. Because I made that mistake of myself, too. I just assume that everything that I know in health and wellness and business, all my colleagues know as well. No, they don’t. They may be experts, but they’re not experts in what I do. And they still want to learn the tips and tricks. And I have to I have to get over that every single day, I have to tell myself, like people don’t know this. I live this every day. That’s why I know it, but not everybody else does.

Leslie Lane Peabody 50:37
So I’m so glad that you brought that up. Because it’s so important. We all think that way about ourselves, we do we do. And if you start sharing, and you start getting that feedback about what’s important, then you’re gonna start realizing what an impact you have on other people, they’re going to start saying, Thank you, you made a difference in my life today. I never knew until you. And that’s going to help you feel better about what you’re doing cement in more emotions, more tangible reasons that you want to do this. And you’re you’ll grow faster and have further reach every time you hear that fabulous feedback.

Debra Muth 51:20
Yeah, that is so true. Because we need that feedback as much as we need to put out into the world as well. Leslie, this has been such an awesome conversation, and I know you’re busy woman, I want to be respectful of your time and energy. How do people reach out to you or get in touch with you, if they’re resonating with you, and they want to connect and learn what you have to offer?

Leslie Lane Peabody 51:41
Oh, well, that’s awesome. I would love to hear from people. And in fact, for your audience, I have a very special gift, I have my assessment and my my assessment for the flirty program. And they will get it for free. It’s typically something that I charge 1997 for but because you’ve invited me here, and I am just loving meeting you, I’m going to give that to your audience for free. And the way people connect. And the way that they find me is they go to Leslie lane peabody.com, or Ninjas in high heels.com. If that’s easier to remember, managers in high heels, you can find me and there will be the assessment right there on the web page, put in your little code, your code is going to be heels H e. l s, your code is going to be heels, and you’ll get the assessment and the first program for free. Because you were a listener here.

Debra Muth 52:41
I love that. Thank you for giving that to our listeners, that is going to be awesome. And people take advantage of that. Because free things don’t come along very often, especially quality things from Leslie. So you really want to take advantage of that if you’ve been driving or you’re working out. Don’t worry about stopping and writing that down. Just head over, you’ll see it in our show notes. You’ll also see it on our social. So if you lose it or you forget it, it’ll be right there. And you can reach out to Leslie right away and get her assessment because I think it’ll be a huge help for all of you getting started. And even if you haven’t gotten started yet, you will. And if you’re working on things, don’t worry. It’ll give you that uptick that you’re looking for in your business as well. Thank you so much for being with us.

Leslie Lane Peabody 53:25
Thank you for allowing me to be here and share my story. I believe that every woman has the right to financial freedom. And people like you and I we’re going to make that happen.

Debra Muth 53:37
Absolutely I agree to I love to support women. And I’m glad that you’re in this arena with me. It makes me feel good to be shoulder to shoulder with people like you as well.

Leslie Lane Peabody 53:49
Thank you so much.

Debra Muth 53:50
Thank you. Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the let’s talk wellness now podcast. If this episode has helped you or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review, share this podcast. And if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fullest