How A Fentanyl Accident Sparked Sobriety, Healing, And Financial Legacy w/ Sophie White

We share Sophie White’s near-death wake-up, the path to sobriety that followed, and the tools she now uses to help women leave toxic relationships and build financial security. The talk moves from healing habits and social support to practical legacy strategies like IULs and family banking.

• near-death experience as a turning point 
• signs of toxic relationships and leaving safely 
• building a support network to reduce isolation 
• sober tools including apps, boxing, and journaling 
• self-compassion, mindset, and daily routines 
• writing as therapy and survivor stories 
• financial empowerment for moms with IULs 
• family banking, tax advantages, and living benefits 
• interest, taxes, and the rule of 72 
• simple saving plans to build resilience

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Chapters

• 0:27 Meet Sophie White
• 0:52 Warm-Up And Life Mission
• 5:21 Nate’s Why And Mental Fitness
• 8:01 Near-Death Wake-Up And Writing
• 12:12 Signs Of Toxic Relationships
• 16:10 From Pain To Purpose Stories
• 21:24 Social Networks And Leaving
• 23:07 Digging Deep To Heal Root Causes
• 24:58 Rituals, Meditation, And Journaling
• 26:13 Journey To Sobriety Tools
• 28:14 Navigating Social Drinking
• 30:13 Self-Compassion And Daily Care
• 33:13 Financial Empowerment And IULs
• 37:20 Family Banking And Million-Dollar Baby
• 40:25 Interest, Taxes, And Rule Of 72
• 42:53 Final Takeaways And Listener CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Nate Shear, your host, and you're tuned into Mind Force, the podcast that explores love, life, and learning because your mind truly matters. Today we have Sophie White, and we will be talking about transforming pain into purpose, lessons from a near-death experience, the journey to sobriety, breaking free, and reclaiming power, and building a legacy, financial empowerment for moms. So we'll move into the warm-up: the who, what, why. Sophie, who are you? What do you do, and why are you here?

SPEAKER_01: 0:30

Hello, Nate. Thank you so much for having me here today on your Mind Force podcast. I'm very excited to be here. I am Sophie White, and I am a life and financial coach. Uh did also go through a very hard uh time in my life. I had been through several abusive relationships. My last one being with uh the father of my two children, who had a family, whole entire family behind my back for seven years. And when that relationship ended, I had a very hard time dealing with it. And it led me to substance abuse. And during those years, I had I did not know that my son was high-functioning autistic. So it was an extremely hard time because he was constantly getting kicked out of school. So I had more reasons to be super stressed out and you know, fall short to to alcohol. And, you know, I just kept trucking through life and and not realizing that I was I wasn't healing at all. Being around the those type of people, I met a woman at a bar that I had bought a car from, and uh one day she she gave me a hug and she was wearing a fentanyl patch. And seven minutes later I dropped dead to the floor. I was completely white with blue lips. And um, luckily that day my husband was there and he was able to give me CPR until the paramedic showed up where they had to inject me with Narcan, and I just like lifted up like in the movie Pulp Fiction, like you know, and I had no idea what had happened to me, had no idea why there were 12 strangers circling me in my garage. And that was a huge wake-up call. I had small children, and they, you know, would have never known who their mother was. I had no plan for them, I had no financial plan or a will or anything. And and I would have been really scared that they would have been raised by their father, you know, saying things about me that were probably not true. And and in the end, everybody would have thought I would have died because I was a fentanyl user, which was not the fact. I would have hated to die with that thought in mind.

SPEAKER_00: 2:31

Yeah, that was not the way you wanted to go out. It's it's so shocking to me how many times in life that we need this large shift. And it seems like, you know, we have illnesses or bumping into a fentanyl patch or these things. Different people I've interviewed. A lot of them were going through life and maybe in a relationship they didn't enjoy, a job they didn't enjoy, and it seems like it a lot of times it takes some large vent that kind of shifts the the course of their life. So it's it's interesting to me that it takes something uh so large. We'll kind of put up with a lot of things and kind of push on for the longest time. I have a few uh fun warm-up questions before we get into the interview. I'm curious if you could choose one word to describe your life's mission right now, what would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01: 3:17

Empowerment. Because I just really want to help empower women, whether they're struggling in a relationship, trying to get out, empowering whether they're just lost in life, or empowering them to be able to find their way through a financial freedom. So I would say empowerment all the time.

SPEAKER_00: 3:33

Empowerment. That's a good one. The next question is what's one thing that instantly makes you smile no matter what?

SPEAKER_01: 3:41

My kids.

SPEAKER_00: 3:50

It's nothing better. And last one, if your life was turned into a movie, what would be the title and who would play you?

SPEAKER_01: 3:58

So the title would be called Weeds to Wisdom: The Journey of Sophie. And ironically, it would be the woman. Um, I don't know, I think it's her name is Viola Davis. The woman that that did uh the how to get away with murder.

SPEAKER_00: 4:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

Now that's not the woman I was trying to play, but her as a as a character, she's very strong, she's vibrant, she knows how to deal with situations depending on whatever's thrown at her. And I just feel like her character is very much like how I am. I'm able to, you know, take on a lot and nothing really brings me down.

SPEAKER_00: 4:34

Awesome, awesome. So before we get into the interview, one question for me, and then we'll get rolling.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

Okay, so um you said that a lot of the things that you talk about is about mental illness and also about um substance abuse. So I wanted to ask you like you had mentioned to me a little bit that your grandmother suffered with mental abuse. So maybe share share with me a little bit more about her and maybe uh what what happened to you in your life with substance abuse, maybe a relationship or self, a self-story that you could, you know, explain why those are your very passionate topics.

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

Yeah, absolutely. Uh I don't have any personal experience with substance abuse. I know my biological dad, I think he had some issues, uh, but he was in and out of the picture a lot. So I didn't really get too much firsthand experience with that. Um but the you know, the reason I started the podcast and the reason you know I'm really driven towards that is that mental health and mental fitness portion of it. So as a kid, my grandma was the light of my world. She lit up the world and you know, she would take care of anybody. Um, if we were driving by somebody, she would stop and help them. And so she always seemed so bright and vibrant to me. And it wasn't until I'm at the funeral for her that I realize and hear more about the suffering and pain that she went through. So, you know, mental health already kind of has the stigma, and I think we're getting better and we're trying to clear it up. But she was obviously from a previous generation, so she buried it deeper and deeper. So as a kid, and I think it was like the eighth grade, so I was still pretty small, but I didn't even know until I was at the funeral, like I said, that she would spend a week in bed at a time. And I I didn't know that. Um grandma and grandpa kept that really under wraps and hidden and things like that. So the whole point of the show is really to have these conversations and push through the sigma, make it normal and make it so that we can continue to talk about it. And that's the reason I called it mental fitness, because I feel like it's a thing that's ongoing. We could talk about it, we make people better, we you know, give improvement to people. You know, mental health seems to have a negative connotation. It's a building, it's a person, it's a place you go where it's the worst day of your life. That's not what it is intended to be. It's the same as any other fitness routine. You go and, you know, you jump on the treadmill three times a week and you get your cardio in and things like that. So I just want to carry on the light of of my grandma that's no longer here. And I just, you know, the part that bums me out the most about it, I mean, even though like it's super difficult and and whatnot to think of, like not being able to show her the kids that you know I now have, and I'd love to take her, take them to grandma and things like that. I think the thing that hurts me the most is that her light is no longer here. And so I hope through the show it, you know, brings some of that light that she gave to me, you know, through the beginning of my life that I can push out to other people. So if it's a story, if it's a guest, uh, you know, whatever it is that connects with somebody and you know helps somebody, it's it's all worth the time and effort.

SPEAKER_01: 7:28

100% agree. I love your story. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00: 7:31

Absolutely. So we'll move into the interview. So, first portion, transforming pain into purpose. So I'd love to hear how did your near-death experience change the way you see the world and your place in the world.

SPEAKER_01: 7:44

Well, it was huge because I've always been somebody that had, like from very young, I always had a lot of dreams and inspirations. And when that happened, I realized that I had not fully accomplished any of them. And so that really just made me realize that like I needed to take a step back and just actually go after the goals that I had. So one of the first main goals for me was to publish a book. I wrote I had written a book when I was 19, um, but my father had given away the laptop that I wrote it on, so I only had a paper copy. After the situation where I realized that the the father of my kid had left that he was with two women, he also had had a previous woman that he had a child with, she came to me telling me maybe he might be a psychopath. You know, she had done some research, and so I was like, you know, his behaviors. I was like, I don't know, let me look it up. So when I, as I was doing my research, I started learning about narcissists and that pinpoint what my situation was. And so that I had been in the relationship with this person for seven years once I had realized that he was a narcissist. I didn't even know what a narcissist was. That's how naive I was. And at this point, I already had two babies with him, a year and a half old and a three-month-old. When I the day I realized he was still in this relationship with another woman, another which he still is with today. So I decided to leave that relationship, and within two weeks, my son stopped sleeping and had been kicked out of schools. He got kicked out of four daycares before he was diagnosed for being autistic. He was very aggressive. He would bite kids, well, mainly biting. He hurt a lot of other kids all the time, so that's why he would get kicked out. He bit his brother in the skull every day for almost two years. Um, and to and the day that he stopped was the day they became best friends, and they're still best friends to this day.

SPEAKER_00: 9:31

Nice. So what I'm curious, though he's 12 now.

SPEAKER_01: 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:36

Twelve, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 9:38

Nice. I wanted to ask about uh the books. What are the title of the books and the general synopsis of the books that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

Okay, so the the first book I wrote or and that I just finished writing is called Ending the Cycle of Abuse. Abuse to Purpose, and it's because from my very first relationship as a teenager, it was kind of an abusive relationship, and they were never really healthy until I left the boy's dad. Now I'm very lucky. Now I'm married to a very wonderful man, and we have a healthy relationship, but I did go through many different types of abusive relationships, and they all were painted in different ways, so it was like I didn't recognize them until you know I was too far deep into them. But with my child being autistic, that was the most challenging for me, and that's what you know brought the uh like depression and abuse further in. You know, and it made it like where I just stopped being able to deal with anything. And and that was like one of the harder than actually being in an abusive relationship, like just being so lost, you know. Like before it was like it was because of somebody, then I was just lost. And I wanted to become sober, and I tried, and I kept trying, and I kept trying, and it was it was hard. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. And I I didn't do the traditional way, I didn't, I was about to put myself into a rehab, and that was my like, okay, I'm gonna be able to do this because I know how serious I need to do this. And so I was able to quit and I I found an app on my phone. It was called I Am Sober, and I leaned on that app, and it was a community of 11,000 people that were quitting at the same time as me. And we just talked to each other and helped each other through the hard times, and it had like daily little, you know, quotes that were very positive, and I had to just stay very busy. I had to find projects. In the beginning, they were small because everything felt overwhelming. But over time, you know, I took on bigger projects like real estate school until I realized that I did not want to be a realtor. But in that, in that journey led me to the financial services, and then I found, you know, something that was really I was really passionate about. I was like, man, I didn't know about all this stuff. And it includes the life insurance and being able to prepare for your children's future and being able to leave them something that's meaningful that you can do over your life and have it as a backup for your own life if anything happens, but as well be able being able to leave something for your children that's that they can grow on and that they can leave for their family and hopefully for generations to come.

SPEAKER_00: 12:17

That makes sense. Yeah, I'm I'm curious, like what are some of the signs where you knew the relationship was in a bad spot? Because it's something that's kind of an interesting thing for me. I I've also been divorced. And I I think going through it, like you you've never been married before, and so you don't know what you don't know, I guess. And so I remember like seeing my aunts and uncles, and you know, they would bicker and you know, uh do some things here and there. And so when things were difficult, I always thought, like, oh, life's a little bit difficult, you know, marriage isn't supposed to be perfect. But there's some point, like, when do you start to know where it's like it's you know, not just difficult, it's too difficult, and you need to get out.

SPEAKER_01: 12:56

Well, there were many signs there and I didn't catch on quickly, that's for sure. One of the first signs was that I didn't have anybody to talk to. I didn't have any friends left because basically he had pushed everyone away. But it wasn't till my sister, which is my closest friend and the person I cherished the most, she was the one that told me I don't want to talk to you anymore if you're gonna keep talking about this guy. So that was a huge wake-up call. She was also the one that gave me the wake-up call about the drinking that she said that she didn't like talking to me often because I was always, you know, under the influence. And that also her telling me those two things helped me in both those situations. So for me it was my sister because she's somebody that probably the most important person in my life to me. And um, and I just never wanted to lose that relationship with her, nor, you know, disappoint her.

SPEAKER_00: 13:43

Yeah, that makes sense. What would you say the most challenging part of confronting the pain was confronting it, looking in the mirror. That's tough because you can, you know, fix the drinking and the actual action you're taking, but if you don't really fix that root cause, then you're just gonna keep coming back.

SPEAKER_01: 13:58

We yeah, when you can't recognize who you are when you're looking straight at yourself, that's a w that that really helps to be like, I need to change something because I'm looking at me and I don't see me, you know? So that's that definitely like is like, okay, there's something wrong. Like, I need to change.

SPEAKER_00: 14:15

So what was that? Was that your sister, or what was the thing that really drove the change where you're like, hey, I g I gotta do this?

SPEAKER_01: 14:21

Well, so there was the death experience, but that didn't happen right away. That first brought more depression, but then my sister said something to me, and that was the wake-up call that really like drilled the nail to me. It still took me like three more weeks after she said it, but I was daily trying. And that's when I was gonna put myself in the rehab, and um and then when I called the rehab, they were like, you know, you have to check yourself in. And I and I owned a cleaning company, I ran crews, I have you know, the small children, and I was like, I can't be locked away for 30 days. Like, can I just come every day, you know, at that time that I want to drink? And that wasn't an option. So um I was just like, okay, I'm I'm an adult. I'm I was like a couple weeks away from turning 30 uh 40, and I was like, you know, I I I want this, I know I need to do this. I know that I have somebody to do it for, which is my children. I have two sons and I have a 24-year-old. She's 24 now, but she was 20 at the time. And I have and I finally, you know, found the love of my life. Somebody that's not abusive and amazing. And I have just so much to live for, and I want to write more books. And I I've created courses and quizzes for women to help them figure out if they're in a toxic relationship, uh, once they're out of the relationship, also how to leave a relationship, and once they're out, how to deal with those emotions so that they don't fall to, you know, substance abuse. And once they can heal from that, then how to use that pain and and channel it into something that's powerful and then empower themselves.

SPEAKER_00: 15:48

That makes sense. What what did your sister say? Did she just drop the ultimatum? And is that what was so powerful about the the thing that she said?

SPEAKER_01: 15:56

Well, she was like that she didn't like I just wanted to be able to talk to her like every week, you know, and and I'd make those efforts. And she just, you know, really didn't make make it a priority like I was I would have hoped, you know. And I was there for for her birthday, and and you know, I'm there and I was like, I had gained a hundred pounds. I've lost the hundred pounds now, but I had gained a hundred pounds, and I was at the point where like nothing looked cute. I would just wear like spannox pants and the same shirt every day. Like, I just looked like I don't know, like a disaster. And all of her friends showed up, it was like a hundred of them, and everyone was so cute and happy, and you know, and I was happy to be there, but I just felt like so out of my element. Like I just I didn't feel like I belonged, but I just knew. I just knew that like what she had said to me, I was like, I want to be closer to my sister, I want to share life with her, you know. We we have kids around the same age, and I don't want to miss out on that. Like, I want her to want to be part of my life as well, you know. And and we've been gotten super close since she lives up north in Massachusetts, and I live in Florida in this year where we will have seen each other five times, which it used to be more like every two or three years. So that's so yeah. So that's yeah, a lot of everything good has happened to me since I've gotten sober, like just all goodness.

SPEAKER_00: 17:10

That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: 17:11

Except for the having to get rid of the people in my life that you know were part of that. And that was the hard part is that a lot of my friends went way the other way, like turned to very very hard drugs, even you know, crack and heroin. And I just had to dis disconnect to everyone I knew and then find, you know, other people, new people that were, you know, positive and empowering and and had a different kind of idea of what life should be.

SPEAKER_00: 17:36

Yeah, it's difficult to make that change. Earlier you said turning pain into power. Can you expand on that? Someone right now that's out there listening, they're struggling, you know, they're thinking, oh, I'm just in pain, but they can't see through it. How do you turn that pain into purpose?

SPEAKER_01: 17:51

Well, for me, I used the pain. I wrote the book about, you know, everything I had been through, which was very helpful because it was very therapeutic. And then I was like, okay, but you know, I had met a woman who had shared her story with me, and her story was like the ultimate worst thing I could possibly imagine. And so that opened up my eyes to like, okay, well, I I've been through a lot, but you know, there's so many more things that have happened. So I opened up a Facebook that I called on to women that had been in abusive relationships and had exited them successfully, and I interviewed about 20 different women from all over the world, most of them from the United States, but there were some from uh not in the United States, and I was able to incorporate those stories into my book so that it it could talk to anybody, you know, not just something that I'd been through, but somebody that had been through something more severe, or there's just so many different dynamics. So I broke it into emotional abuse, physical abuse, and then sexual abuse. And so that, you know, there's a section there with uh five or six stories from different women, whether it was from their mother, their father, or their brother, their sister, their uncle, their boss, you know, it their priest, all kinds of stories I heard. And um, I just felt like if somebody could hear a story that that the woman was in right at that moment, but then they could see that that woman that who they're reading about was able to successfully get out and that they found a happier place, that it would have given some encouragement that, you know, they're not that they don't need to stay stuck, that they can get out, and that, you know, the manipulation of their abusers telling them that no one's gonna love them is not true, and that they're never gonna amount to anything is not true, and that all those horrible things that are told to them they need to use to fuel their fire to want to better for themselves and to want to to get out. And I use my pain to write about it and then hopefully to empower women for change, but I also have been coaching women for a good amount of time and I've been able to help a lot of women through some really difficult times, and and that just really, you know, empowers me to know that I can have that effect on some somebody to help them through what I've been through by skipping the steps that I had to go through, by you know, not having to go through so many more painful steps than I did. And that's just all I really hope to be able to do is, you know, be able to see women flourish to their fullest power.

SPEAKER_00: 20:13

Yeah, and I think that's what's perfect about the show, and I hope that's kind of what goes out to everyone, is you know, I think back to my grandma, and I I think of these people that are in these dark moments. And I think the the most difficult part of being in a dark moment is that you think that you're the only one, which I think we know that's not true, but you need to see it and you need to have that connection. I think that's what really gets people out. Because I know, like in the military, we have to do, you know, suicide awareness trainings and whatnot. And the suicide awareness training always drives me a little nuts because we talk about warning signs, we talk about, we talk about all the negative aspects, all the things to keep an eye on, the bad things. But to your point, exactly what you said, the success. Like we need to talk about the success on the other side. Yeah, I was low, I was here, I was there, but I did this, and I was able to recover. And so I think, you know, we go into these trainings and it's supposed to make us more equipped and feel better, but I feel like all we did was talk about the negative. We didn't talk about the positive, so it's almost like keeping this negative thing going. We really should have people get up that, you know, had a suicide attempt or had something. And they're like, hey, I bounce back, I'm here, and you know, I'm better than ever, I'm married, I got kids, and and so I wish we would hone in on the success. And I think that's really important. I'm glad in your book you're showing people that um the full part of the story, you know, not just the bad, but um the success on the other end. I think that's what gets us through. I think these trainings, like we do them one day a year or whatever, and everyone always asks, like, well, what should we do? What's the perfect answer? And I think the answer is that connection to know other people are there, they've been there. Like when you're alone, you just spiral. So if you know someone made it through, I think that's really the turning point.

SPEAKER_01: 21:57

And one of the things that I would tell a woman, like the first thing when you're leaving an abusive relationship, is start to build a social network, you know, try to find people that you can count on or talk to. And even if you have to start in a church, you know, then the church they're always open to helping people that are going through a hard time. But having a social network and having someone to talk to is super important as one of the first steps that I suggest to women when they're leaving an abusive relationship.

SPEAKER_00: 22:22

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any tips on isolating the root cause? Because we kind of talked about that briefly. You can go to substances, you can go to these different things, but if you don't fix, you know, whatever that trauma or that thing is, you're gonna kind of revolve back to it. So how do you kind of work through pinpointing what that exact thing is?

SPEAKER_01: 22:40

So one of the the courses that I have is called Digging Deep. And so we just really go into, you know, the guilt that you have, feeling guilty that that you you went through that, the sadness, the anger, the feelingness of aloneness, because you know, sometimes it's just the comfort of having somebody around. So we go through all of those emotions that, you know, really bring you down and that you can spiral, but just take them head on, talk about them, deal through them, you know. And if you have deep scars, really get into like what happened and why does it hurt you and like how are we gonna move forward from that? Because those pains, you can always keep bringing have them bring you down. But if you work through them and you say, Okay, like now I know why this happened, like, but I have to live my future. Why stay in the past? You know, then you can use those things to move forward. And then so then the last class that I that I have created, it's not out yet, but it's created, is called Seed to Flower. And it's about like, you know, rediscovering who you are. So you plant a seed, and my seed is a sunflower, and uh, and then you, you know, water it daily by doing self-love, you know, being around people that are important to you, journaling, meditating, you know, small exercises, and with a, you know, that comes with a coaching course and till they become the flower, you know, that where they feel very confident, they love who they are, and then from there, hopefully they'll be able to empower other women as well and keep keep it going so that we can have a happier world. And that's that's the idea, right? Because I just would love for people just to be like abuse, no, I'm not taking it, because then those abusers will have no one to pick on anymore. So they'll just have to be all alone.

SPEAKER_00: 24:19

That makes sense. It's good for them. They can be alone and you know, be mean to themselves. Uh exactly. So I wanted to ask uh the last couple weeks I saw the hashtag situationship trending. Do you have any uh thoughts on situationships?

SPEAKER_01: 24:35

In which way? Like I don't think I saw that hashtag.

SPEAKER_00: 24:37

I think it's like a relationship where you're stuck based on the situation. So like your finances are tied up or you're just kind of used to it, so you're kind of stuck. Do you have any tips on you know breaking out of that? I mean, it's not I don't think it's to the point of abuse or anything like that, but you're not sure.

SPEAKER_01: 24:54

Right, but just don't don't stay yeah, you don't stay comfortable because it's comfortable. Like life is about growing. So if you're somewhere or you're with somebody or in your situation where you're just like there, you know, it's not bad, but it's not moving forward, you're not gaining uh any momentum in your life, then uh make a plan and move forward without. If it's financial, just start putting a little bit aside. And even if it's ten dollars, that might sound like nothing. But if you put a little ten dollars a week, eventually it'll be twenty, and eventually you'll be able to, you know, save up enough for your first deposit for your own apartment. But if you don't plan something, then nothing's gonna happen, you know? And there's so many opportunities uh out there in this world is you just have to look for it. Don't just don't stay stuck.

SPEAKER_00: 25:40

You can't do anything unless you put some action behind it. Uh the next part is the journey to sobriety. I'd asked about your turning point, which it sounded like your sister laid down some critical uh thoughts, and that kind of broke you free from that. Uh, the other question I had was what strategies or tools helped you during? So, what were those tools that helped you? Did you relapse? Did you bounce, you know, back and forward, or how did you get through that road to sobriety?

SPEAKER_01: 26:05

I did not relapse, thank God. I have not, and I will not. But um, what got me through it? Well, I told you I had the app that was called I Am Sober. So it was a huge community of 11,000 people, and unfortunately, there's only a thousand of us left. You know, you it's still a good number. It's still a good number. I mean, it's only 10% after three and three plus years. But it's nice to know that, especially in the beginning, like after one year and so, I needed the support less. I felt confident. I just really needed to get to that one year mark. But in the beginning, having people just to vent to or just to say, like, hey, I really need a drink, I'm not gonna do it, but you know, I just want to admit it. It was nice to be able to just be honest with those people, and a lot of them were in a rehab or going to AA. I I didn't have to. My husband had quit drinking a year prior to me when I had the death experience, and so I had his support, and that really helped. You know, there was no alcohol in the house, and so I just was grateful. Like, I'm I'm a pretty strong person. I had fallen a week, but I just stayed busy exercise, journaling, meditating, audibles. I mean, I really did everything. Boxing was was huge for me because I always loved boxing, and and so I just dove really deep into that. I joined a gym and I'd go often and and I would talk to the coach about it, you know, like that this was really helping me because it's something that I loved for over 20 years and uh that I was using it for my sobriety. And so, you know, I had that him as accountable as well, the boxing gym. And I still go there now. I'm I'm doing workshops and self-defense for girls.

SPEAKER_00: 27:42

Nice. That's awesome. You found something that, you know, you used to love and you got back in there. I'm curious, uh, coming from the military standpoint again, I feel like we integrate drinking into a lot of social events, and it's uh, you know, a pretty big part of what we do, and I think we probably should do probably a little less. And so I'm curious when you're at social events and someone's like, Hey, can I grab you a beer? What are kind of some of your tips and tricks like going through that? Because I feel like people kind of want to pressure and they make it weird. And you, you know, do you have any advice for you know navigating the the social environment of drinking?

SPEAKER_01: 28:16

It's I could I could see how it's very difficult for a lot of people. I just don't let it bother me. I drink sparkling water and then you just throw a lime in it and just have a bunch of them, you know. I think the whole thing that makes it awkward is that people are like, you're not having a drink. So just play it off, you know, just have a Coca-Cola and it looks like a Rum and Coke. So, you know, just sip on something so you don't feel like the odd man out. But I just I go out until I can't understand what anyone's saying, and then I just leave.

SPEAKER_00: 28:46

That's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01: 28:47

And when they drink to the point where like they're slurring, I'm like, see ya tomorrow. But I also, you know, don't find myself out in bars as often. It's more like uh double day dinners with my husband and maybe another couple. And often, you know, they know I don't drink, so they're usually are just like respectful and don't drink. I don't care. It doesn't bother me because I feel like, you know, after this amount of time, I want to be able to be in this world without like, you know, being feared that everything is gonna be a trigger. And that's something I had to work through, you know. I had to talk myself into like that's not gonna bother me. I'm not gonna allow it to take over me, you know? And I wanted to not be left out of everything either. In the beginning I had to, but once, you know, once I got through the hard times, like I think after six, six to eight months of being sober, I felt, you know, I could be around people, and I just did it in small doses until now it just does make a difference.

SPEAKER_00: 29:40

It's nice. What role does self compassion play in overcoming addiction and regaining that power?

SPEAKER_01: 29:46

Well, I think that self compassion has a huge role because I mean, you're not being compassionate with with yourself when you're abusing with alcohol. So, you know, you just really it's it's about not you're not. Loving yourself. So being com self-compassionate is super important because you have to take care of your health, your mind, your body, and your soul. So I mean, I think all of that is very important. You have to be thinking positive thoughts. And I mean, it's it's human nature that we think negative, but catch them. It's important to catch your negative thoughts and to redirect them, you know. Like, this is not a good thought for myself. I shouldn't be thinking this. Let me think of something, a different way to approach it. It should be positive, you know. Like, even if you have to talk to yourself like that, I think it's important mentally. And then spiritually, whether you're religious or whether you're not, and you just want to be spiritual with yourself, I think it's important um to exercise that, you know, whether it's meditation, whether it's going to church every Sunday. I think you owe it to yourself to be dedicated to taking care of yourself spiritually all the time. Don't just do it sometimes. And then journaling your thoughts out is also just as well spiritual. And I believe that physical exercise, you know, taking care of yourself, whether it's small walks, I like, you know, high-intensity things like boxing and roller skating, as well as yoga and Pilates. You know, anything that helps your body just move and um and and just keep it flowing is very important for yourself too. And I understand some people have handicaps, but there's always a little something that you can do, you know. So if you can't use your legs, then you can do something with your arms. You can go rowing, you know, or just good stretches all the time. I feel like those little things that you do for yourself is super important for your future, the direction of your future, the way that you feel, and the people around you, the way that you make them feel, and the way that they make you feel as well.

SPEAKER_00: 31:38

And one thing that's super important to remember, I think that we say it all the time, but I say it on the show just to try to reiterate it and put it out there more and more, is you got to take care of yourself to take care of others. And so sometimes we have this weird thing where we feel it's selfish or something to take care of ourselves, but I mean you can't pour out of an empty cup, so you really have to fill yourself up. Do you have like a specific routine each day, or how much time do you block for yourself to journal and things to take care of yourself?

SPEAKER_01: 32:08

I do. I do make myself priority without making the people around me feel like I'm being selfish. Well, first of all, my kids are teenagers and so they're young teenagers, so they just want to play video games. They don't really want me around, anyways. But on Sundays I try to always take a nice bubble bath, you know, like take care of my nails and my skin. I like to put coconut oil on my skin. I'm not very much of a product type of person. I like to kind of be natural, but you know, everyone has their own thing. But I do have one day that I, you know, do a full self-care day. But daily, you know, every morning I like to do small little exercises, whether it's a little bit of stretching, a couple push-ups, and some squats, and then I go on my patio and I do my five to ten minute meditation. And then I like to listen to audibles. Um I I do that for about an hour.

SPEAKER_00: 32:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 32:58

Because I love learning, so that's my thing.

SPEAKER_00: 33:00

Yeah, that's awesome. So for people that are interested in meditation or journaling, uh, what is your advice to get into that? Uh because I feel like, you know, you could say, you know, sit and do breathing exercise and things like that. Uh do you have different ads?

SPEAKER_01: 33:13

It's super hard.

SPEAKER_00: 33:14

It's super hard.

SPEAKER_01: 33:16

When I first started trying to meditate, I fell asleep every single time, without a doubt. And I was like, it's I don't know if I'm getting any benefit from that. So I have to find apps. So I have an app called Mindful. And I don't like to have too many subscriptions, so I use the free part of it. So it gets you like you can have five or ten minutes, and it's just it talks you through it. You know, it tells you, don't think about this or do think about this. And it walks you through daily uh a different little 10-minute that you just close your eyes, you listen through it, you follow the breathing. There's no you don't have to think about it. So therefore, you know, because a lot of people are like, Am I doing it right? Am I not doing it right? And I think we overthink it, and that's why I use the app. But there's also tons of YouTube's that you can you can test out. But definitely take baby steps. Start with one minute, go into three minutes, you know, and then you can go up five, ten to whatever you want. But honestly, five minutes a day makes a huge difference in your life.

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

And then for the journaling, do you open journal uh like diary type style, or do you try to hone in on questions, or how does because I would love to start journaling, but I just I guess I don't know what the first step is.

SPEAKER_01: 34:27

So I I've journaled my whole life. I have like all of my high school journals right here.

SPEAKER_00: 34:35

You're a parent.

SPEAKER_01: 34:36

Um I've always journaled, but recently as an adult, like I was like, okay, well, as I read through them, I say a lot of the same things. So I'm like, okay, well, in high school, I complain about the same things. So I found um a motivational speaker named Brandon Bouchard, and he sells a journal that it it's a daily planner, and in it has prompt to journal entries, which I absolutely love. And so in all of my books, I offer prompt to journal entries and also in all of my courses. That's kind of my signature where I give people like questions to think about so that they can reflect and it helps them build to the next thing that they're gonna learn. So I like prompt to now, but I for many, many years freelanced.

SPEAKER_00: 35:19

Okay, that's good stuff. Thank you for the advice. Uh, we'll move into building a legacy, that financial empowerment. So I had a question for what inspire you to focus on financial education, but that sounds like that near-death experience and not having, you know, the financial well-being and things for your kids. That seems like that'd be a massive wake-up call. So, next question I had are uh what are some of the tools for family banking, life insurance that can create generational wealth and security?

SPEAKER_01: 35:48

So there's a life insurance policy that's called an index universal life. And what's amazing about this policy is that it is a life insurance policy, but it also comes with uh cash accumulation, which does compound interest, which mimics the stock, but without any downfall. So you can never lose money. So when the stock market crashes, your money stays where it's at, and so you never have to recover any of your loss. So it just mimics the stock market and you can choose the different s indexes that you want to choose. It doesn't have to be the SP 500. There's about six different ones, and you can change it every year as well. The only difference is that it has also a caps. Some of them are 10 or 12%. So if the stock goes up to 22, that's where the insurance money, you know, makes their money. But year after year, um you put that money in and you gain interest on what you have put in, not necessarily what you've taken out. So your interest is all on the net of everything that you've put in. These policies also come with long-term care. So if you get cancer or you have a heart attack, you get dementia, they'll pay for all of your medical bills for that. And the best part of all of it, and the reason why it's better than most products, is that it's all you can loan your money tax-free, you can inherit it tax-free, and well, leave it for your family tax-free, and you can grow it tax-free, which uh you cannot do in the stock or with your 401ks. And definitely you can't grow any kind of interest like that in a savings account or a regular bank account. So with the IUL, and so with family banking, the way that family banking is set up is where you would put all of your money in there and then you just take out what you need for your bills so that the accumulation is a much larger amount than just putting away like um like a policy, like a life insurance policy, like instead of just putting the 200 away every month, if you were to put away like 4,200, the interest would grow on the 4,200, even though you're taking the 4,000 back.

SPEAKER_00: 37:40

Wow. So if there's no losing money, what's the down? There's no downside. That's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 37:46

I mean, of course, every policy, including, you know, stocks, everybody has some fees, but it is one of the best policies out there if you compare it to a term or if you compare it to a 401k. Because with a 401k, yes, it's great because it grows very well and your employer contributes to it, but when you have to pull it out, the taxes, you lose so much of everything that you've gained that you end up with a much smaller nest egg than you've ever imagined. So it's a much bigger difference because of the amount of stocks that you're losing, the tax that you're losing when you're trying to get your money and when you're retired. That makes sense. And the way that the family banking is set up is that you can set it up that once you hit 65, then it gives you the salary that you desired. So you have it all depends on how you structure it. If you structure it for retirement, if you structure it for your children's education or for buying a home, usually when you start a policy, you want to kind of have a goal in mind so that you can plan it properly to fund it properly. But every year, if you have a good financial advisor, you would go over it and see where you're at, and then you can always change which index you want to follow. Or if you also if the stock market crashes for several years, you can go into a general and still gain four percent while everybody else is losing their money. So that's why we do the year-to-year analysis, which is very important. Because if you yeah, if you if you just let go of it, you know, then you it's not as powerful of a vehicle. But if you are, you know, doing the the ye every year, checking in, seeing what you gained, and you know, making the decision for the following year, it can be an exponential retirement uh fund and life insurance policy, been for your whole family and your kids.

SPEAKER_00: 39:28

That's good stuff. What was your poll to specifically, you know, empower moms?

SPEAKER_01: 39:33

Well, because of the fact that I wanted to work with women leaving toxic relationships, I felt and that I am a mom, is just all aligned together. And one of the things that you can do with an IUL policy is also that certain um companies will allow you to create a life insurance policy for your child. So they call it the million-dollar baby policy, where you would fund this policy for your child. So if you know your child were to end up with cancer or anything, they would be taken care of. And also that this money could grow like for education, they would be able to access the money for their education tax-free without having to get loans, it'd be a loan on their own money. And what's even more amazing about the IUL is that they pull it out of your death benefit, they don't pull it out of the money that you've actually saved.

SPEAKER_00: 40:17

Wow, that's good stuff. What is one piece, one piece of financial advice every mom should know regardless of their current situation?

SPEAKER_01: 40:26

Save. Save for a rainy day.

SPEAKER_00: 40:29

It's always good to have some money, right?

SPEAKER_01: 40:31

And like in the movie Robin Hood, where where he's like, you know, with his little pennies there, he's like, it's for a rainy day. Yeah, that's what I think of.

SPEAKER_00: 40:40

That makes sense. The last question I had for you, how do you balance the emotional aspects of legacy building with the practical side of financial empowerment?

SPEAKER_01: 40:47

Well, I mean, the emotional part for me is like feeling proud, feeling that I'm doing something that's really meaningful for not just me and my future, but for my children's future. And like being able to educate other moms means that I'm able to protect them and their children's future, which means that I'm able to help, you know, a lot of people, which is my goal, you know. After having that near-death experience, one of the biggest things that I've always wanted to do was be a public speaker, but I just really want to be able to connect and help empower as many people as I can, which is through education. And so the more I can educate women, the more that they can empower them.

SPEAKER_00: 41:25

That's good stuff. What do you think is the com most common misconception in like the financial world? I mean, maybe specifically for moms or maybe just for anybody. Let's what's one thing that no one really understands or understands incorrectly?

SPEAKER_01: 41:38

Well, first of all, how much taxes cost, and a lot of people don't understand interest rates. So if you borrow$100,000, let's say for your house, you're paying and your interest rate is$7,000, you're paying$7,000 every year on that loan. So if your payment is$10,000, you're only paying$3,000 towards your$100,000 and you're paying$7,000 in interest, and that adds up very fast. As well as if you're saving the other way and you're compound interesting, you're gonna gain the profit with that amount of interest. So if you're getting 4% interest, it's much big difference than 10%. And one of the most important rules is the rule of 72. If you divide 72 into your interest rate, that's how many years it takes to double.

SPEAKER_00: 42:25

Interesting. Okay, Sophie, we talked about a lot of goodness today. What is your final takeaway?

SPEAKER_01: 42:32

My final takeaway is that we help really empower somebody, you know, whether they're struggling with mental health, whether they're struggling with substance abuse or domestic abuse, that they have a way to get out and to help themselves and so that they can help other people and just keep this world a better place. And what about you?

SPEAKER_00: 42:52

For me, uh final takeaway I think would be save, because save came up uh multiple times, and I think that's just a good reminder. It's something we know we should do, uh, but it's uh it's another thing to actually do it. So me and my wife have been talking about some of the uh smaller savings boxes where you like cross out, you know, the one, five, ten, and it does, like to your point, seem kind of small, but then you get to crack the thing open or whatever you do with it at the end, and you know, you save some money. So that's the big takeaway for me. Uh I'm gonna try to do a better job of saving. Um she actually found a thing that was like one day or one dollar a day or something through the whole 365, and then it's you know, whatever the dollar amount is at the end of the year, like ten thousand dollars or something. So even though it feels like only a dollar a day or you know, you know, going up every day, it really does add up in the end. So save your money. It's important. Rainy day is is always uh coming along. Something will always happen.

SPEAKER_01: 43:47

Yes, for sure. And be prepared for it.

SPEAKER_00: 43:50

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Sophie, thanks for coming out. Uh, we'd love your input. Share your questions or feedback on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, or Buzz Sprout. Engage with us so you might hear your suggestions on an upcoming episode. I love you all. See ya.