OUTLINE
0:00 - 5:00: Introduction. Erin Davis discusses the focus on money, mindset, and confidence, emphasising the emotional load women carry regarding their finances. Sammi Jaeger shares her journey towards becoming an author and the role of external accountability.
5:00 - 15:00: Navigating the Shift from Employee to Freelancer. Sammi reflects on her early days as a freelancer, learning to value and price her skills. Erin highlights the importance of separating self-worth from business acumen in freelancing, with a focus on sustainability and scalability. Sammi discusses the process of gaining financial literacy and implementing a profit-first methodology.
15:00 - 25:00: Setting Financial Goals and Creating a Profitable Business. Erin emphasises the importance of setting clear financial goals and understanding profit margins to achieve a "life by design." Sammi discusses the process of setting goals, including determining the structure and habits needed to generate leads and hit those numbers. Sammi shares her goal of working 40 weeks per year, 4 days per week, while prioritising relationships.
25:00 - 35:00: Money Mindset, Confidence and Investing in Self. Speakers discuss the mindset shift towards viewing money as a facilitator, not an end goal. Sammi shares how she trusts herself with money by understanding account balances and seeking help when uncertain. Discussion about the importance of prioritising self-care and personal growth over material possessions.
35:00 - 45:00: Trusting the Universe and Financial Literacy for Women Entrepreneurs. Sammi emphasises the importance of trusting yourself and your skills for success. Speakers discuss finding balance between structure and flow in business and finance. Sammi shares her "fueled up life" philosophy, highlighting 8 areas of life that require attention and goal-setting.
THE ERIN DAVIS SHOW
Erin Davis
Okay, so welcome today, everyone. We have Sammi Jaeger here, who is a mindset and accountability coach, speaker, podcast and author in the making. That's pretty cool.
After Sammi’s life hit a crossroad, she hit the wall, picked herself up again and began leaning into creating and living her own Fuelled Up Life. This time by design.
Sammi is deeply passionate about how our relationships impact the quality of our lives. She is an advocate for the UN Global Goals and knows that we all have a role to play in creating a better world.
So Sammi is deeply passionate about how our relationships impact the world and the quality of our lives. She's also an advocate for the UN Global Goals and knows that we all have a role to play in creating a better world.
So welcome, Sammi.
Sammi Jaeger
Thank you for having me.
Erin Davis
You're welcome. So author in the making, that's pretty cool.
Sammi Jaeger
Yes. So I have had the field of life kind of on my brain for the last maybe two or three years. But yeah, it's time to write it. So I'm doing it so that I'm trying to step into the identity of an author and saying it out loud in public on a podcast so that other people can hold me accountable. And that yeah, it becomes real. It actually happens. And doesn't it? External accountability sometimes helps us nudge across the line to take action. So yeah, I'm stepping into it.
Erin Davis
Perfect. So today, we’ve got to have a conversation around money, mindset and confidence. So I would love to know a bit about you and your story and your money, relationships, your alignment with all things in money. Because money to me is a currency. It's just a transactional thing. But it's the relationship that we have with it that impacts so much of our lives that I'm really curious about.
Sammi Jaeger
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I tend to agree like money is a resource. It's a tool and it makes the world go round, right?
Erin Davis
Absolutely.
Sammi Jaeger
Yeah. So my relationship with money has changed a lot in the last sort of five years. When a big fork in the road moment for me was leaving my full time employed salaried position and making the transition to freelancer and then into business owner and entrepreneur. So my relationship with money has changed quite a bit and I am getting more and more comfortable with the uncertainty or the variety or of not having a regular recurrent predictable pay cycle.
That's really challenging, I think, because you go from that comfort of having money every week, or every fortnight, it just shows up in your bank account. No matter what you do. Being employed, you get your sick leave, and your annual leave, and it just happens. But when you move into that space of freelancer and entrepreneur, it really changes everything.
Erin Davis
So how did you deal with that shift between going from that certainty to now uncertain?
Sammi Jaeger
Well, I didn't. A couple of things changed quite quickly in my job. I went from having a very long term vision of being with that company for the foreseeable future, to nope, I can't see myself here long term at all. And then I felt quite incongruent, leading a team to a future that I knew I wasn't gonna be part of. So I really jumped with no plan with the blessing of my husband and my partner. So we did have some conversations about the financial impact of that decision, but I was never not going to work or create some kind of income to replace it. It wasn't like I was quitting to then become a stay at home wife, we don’t have children or anything like that, like, but yeah, I learned a lot of lessons in that first jump into freelancing mostly in how to value and price my skills. My time, my knowledge, it was quite disorientating. And I realised I'd probably been underpaid for quite some time. And recognising as I went into doing some freelance site projects and things for clients and going, ah, okay, I actually do know a lot. And I'm applying this knowledge and the skills and the clients are getting an outcome, and that's generating the revenue.
And I look back on some of the invoices that I sent out in my early days. And, yeah, I'm a bit embarrassed as to how much I put myself to market for. But I think sometimes we don't know if we don't know. Right. And that was definitely the stage I was in. I wasn't totally unconscious, I didn't know what I didn't know.
Erin Davis
And I think that's the thing, isn't it? Like we put a lot of value on ourselves. And it's through our own filters and our own beliefs and our own upbringing and experiences as what we think we're worth. However, when you take a step back and take the emotion out of it, and actually look at the skills that you have, it all quite often paints a very different picture. But it's that self worth space that we have, that really then impacts the ultimate price that we put on ourselves.
Sammi Jaeger
I suppose. Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't go to market with a set, you know, package or service or offering like I was doing everything very bespoke. In the beginning. You know more about what the client wanted? And yeah, I could do that. Yes, I could do that. Yes, I could do that. So that yeah, there was definitely some early stage learning around those types of things. And also, I think a lot of freelancers don't have a lot of business acumen. So when we have conversations about pricing, they're often still coming at it from an employee mindset without recognising there's operating expenses and are you going to pay yourself super? And how much do you know, how are you going to bill for the time that you need to spend invoicing and the time you need to spend marketing and the time you're going to spend doing proposals that never actually come to fruition? All of those kinds of things.
So there's a whole heap of unpaid labour that is associated with your actual billable time. So often I was having conversations with freelancers who still weren't building a sustainable or little own scalable business model, or service. So yeah, I had a lot to learn. Even though I'd come from an environment being a general manager for a training and education company I had been accountable for profit and loss. So I was a bit more nervous about it. But it was interesting how much I'd struggled to then apply that to my own skills and services when I was productizing it and sending it to market.
Erin Davis
I think when you're an employee, it's really exchanging that time for money. And we're very much in these hours that I work. So this is the amount that I get paid. And like you said, there is so much more to running a business, rather than just the face to face or the actual thing that you deliver to the client, there is all of the things that happen in the background. And I see in my role as an accountant, just how much people struggle with that financial literacy. You know, they go into business thinking that they're great at what they do. But it's all of this backend stuff that needs to be in place and processes and systems happening, so that you can sustain it and scale it. Because if you don't get it right from the beginning, it is really hard to fix things up. And from the accountants perspective, it's going to cost you a lot of money to get it sorted. So it is definitely a shift in mindset from going from an employee to a entrepreneur.
Sammi Jaeger
Yeah, and it really was and I mean, that there is some very expensive lessons to learn if you don't get it, get it right, like not putting aside the right amount of money for tax or not putting aside money for your insurance or your police checks or anything that actually allows you to continue operating and providing the service that you're sending to market. But yeah, when I started freelancing, I was of the mindset that it was like, this is just a bridge between my employment and this bigger overseas holiday that I'm going to take so I didn't. I wasn't really coming at it from the mindset of trying to build a business as a sustainable thing. I was just keeping some money coming in for this interim little bit of time and I'll you know, grow up and I'll deal with all that later. Later, which is a super, super common story. But yeah, so then I did, I went on the big overseas holiday, I took a couple of months off. And that was really my opportunity to where I talk about discovering my idea of what is a fueled up life. And I recognized that I didn't want to go home to Australia and recreate what I had left. I didn't, I wasn't happy in the life that I had created. And I didn't want to do that again. So I really reflected on, okay, cool, this freelancing, working for myself thing has actually been quite fun, I've really enjoyed it, maybe I don't need to go back and get a job, maybe I can start to take working for myself a little bit more seriously. And shift that mindset of it being a temporary stop gap kind of thing. To more, no, this is actually my future and my way forward, and my path, and I get the opportunity to design it for what I want it to look like.
Erin Davis
And I think that's really powerful to have that shift in the mindset. So often I see though, that women in particular, are stopped in their tracks in that space, because they are frightened of the money. They're frightened of not understanding. They feel a lot of shame, because they don't understand the money. And they don't want to ask questions, because it's assumed that you should know this stuff. So how did you change things around from moving from that temporary type of freelancer to now okay, this is serious, I want to create this as my business. What did you need to do to be able to step into that real entrepreneurial space of managing your money managing the mindset that goes with it, so you don't feel that overwhelmed and shame and lack of control.
Sammi Jaeger
One of the things that I did was get advice, professional advice, go and talk to somebody who has figured this out. And not only figured this out, but has helped other people figure it out, as well. So one of the decisions that I made was to move from being a sole trader to a company. And then I learned quite a lot about trust structures and company structures and the tax implications of those things. And even just like registering for GST, and all of that sort of stuff. But yeah, I got, I got advice. And I went to a couple of different workshops and training sessions about just business basics around your financial literacy, and really understanding. I read Profit First. Again, I had read it previously, but I was now reading it from a lens of okay, this is me and mine, not for another business that I was operating in. So I operate from that profit first methodology. I'm not sure if that's your vibe, Erin. But I'm gonna go to my different buckets. And I got really diligent about putting aside the right amount of money for the right things from the very beginning, which gave me a really great understanding of how much I needed to invoice to hit the take home goals that I wanted to hit to have the life and the lifestyle that I really want to enjoy.
Erin Davis
And I suppose to coming from that perspective of having a field of life of living on your terms, designing your life, the way that you want it, it's important to have that profit figure knowing because that's the take home pay, which is different to sales and revenue that comes in, then a lot of people get stuck in that turnover space. So you know, they're doing $10,000 months or $20,000 months, or whatever it is. But that's not the profit. That's not the take home pay. And I think that a lot of people get stuck in that space. And I think having that advice straight up, and finding what works for you is the most important thing. Because if you don't set it up, right to start with, and you don't educate yourself, in that financial literacy, it's just going to end up being a mess, and cost you more money. And then you're not going to live that life by design that you so desperately want.
Sammi Jaeger
Yeah, and whether or not you're going to structure as having like your owners pay on and are you going to do as a percentage or is it going to be a fixed amount per month or per quarter or per week or whatever model you sort of choose but yeah, for me getting clear on the goal and the clarity around that helps me reverse engineer then like the what are the consistent habits and practices that I need to have to generate the leads to hit those numbers, all of that sort of stuff? But it started with yeah, getting the clarity about the structure, and then what the intended outcomes are and it you know, like everybody, I've set goals that I haven't hit. But it's having the structure in place that's allowed me to even be able to know whether or not I'm on track or off track to hitting those goals. Yeah.
Erin Davis
So what's the process that you go through to be able to set those goals? And I know with your fueled up life, business that you have you focus on different areas to create that whole life by design. So how is it that you determine what those goals are going to be? And then that then impacts like you said, that the number of clients that you need the price that you need to charge, so you end up with a profit at the end?
Sammi Jaeger
So I think for me, part of my field of life is doing work that matters when and where I want. So for me, I'm not just chasing financial goals, one of my big goals is to work 40 weeks a year, four days a week and bring home 400k take home. Every time I say that I'm like, feel like yes, that's what I'm moving towards. So I don't want to work at all costs to hit the money goals at any cost. Because for me, my relationships with my friends, my family, my peers, my husband, that's what makes life worth living for me. So it's nice to have those goals and aspiring to be able to take that time off, like properly off, which is, which can be really challenging to do as a business owner, especially if you're a solopreneur, or with a small team. So I'm not sure if I'm answering the question, Erin, but the goals that I have set are across lots of different areas of my life, not just my career in business. I've got really clear lifestyle goals about how much I want to work and the ability to do that work from wherever, with people that I really like a bit to be able to strongly enforce that. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear. But the no dickhead policy, if there's someone that I don't want to. Yeah, if I don't want to work with it wasn't meant to be one of the benefits of working for myself is that I get to choose? So one of my humming household goals for this year was to purchase and automate the cleaning of my floors. I have a dog who makes a lot of fur, I live by the beach. So there's a lot of sand. And it's a task, a household task that both myself and my husband don't like and are not particularly good at. So that was a humming household goal for me was to buy and invest in an automatic robot vacuum cleaner. And it is delicious. I love that thing. But that was a goal. You know, yeah.
Erin Davis
And that's the thing, isn't it, because it's not necessarily money. As such, it's what money provides. So money has provided you with the opportunity to buy your super duper cleaner that you can now enjoy life and not feel tied down to a messy house full of sand and puppy fur everywhere. But having your money structured in a way that allows you to generate enough or more than enough, so then you can create the life that you want. That's just that's the ultimate goal, isn't it, to create the things that you want?
Sammi Jaeger
And being and being smart about it too, because I could have invested that same amount of money and said, alright, well, it's probably gonna cost us like, I think I think the machine was like $1,500 or $1,800, around about that much. And I was like, well, we could probably get a cleaner, like, once a month for that for the year. I'm like, but that's not that doesn't solve my problem. So I kind of was able to deploy money to buy my time back. So that I can Yeah, spend at the beach or with my husband or walking that beautiful dog who's malting everywhere. But yeah, I wouldn't do it. For me. That's a yes, it's a financial goal. But it was far more about my humming household and creating a really beautiful environment. You know, I work from home. So I'm here a lot. So it's nice to set a clean environment, which then, you know, has the ripple effect, and I'm able to manage my energy more than my time because the space is set up for success.
Erin Davis
Absolutely. And I think that that all just plays into the mindset. It doesn't matter if you just focus on money, and I need to make $1,800 to pay for this. Because that's just what I need to do. Then the whole energy shifts and the focus shifts from the joy that it brings and the calmness in your house that it brings. The way that you're able to show up to your business and for your clients totally shifts when you're focused on delivering or having a business for these bigger goals, rather than just a financial reward, which is totally a mindset thing,
Sammi Jaeger
I could have easily had the mindset of like, you know Oh, that's so lazy that what a waste of money or any of those more negative kind of mindset pieces about how I then spend the money that I've earned? It is my mindset that I know that I will be a higher and better performer if my environment is well maintained. And one of the ways I can automate the maintenance of my environment is by investing in this tool. So I kind of don't really see it as an expense really having a financial literacy discussion, of course, there's an outlay, but I really see it as an investment.
Erin Davis
But that's a whole thing, isn't it, because I feel like there's so much focus on
money as the thing. But it's not the thing, it is the facilitator, or it's the thing that allows something else to happen. And the whole purpose of it is to create this field of life that you want. It facilitates things - it's not the thing itself. And I think when you have a different relationship with the money, and the way that you do business, all of the energy changes, and it shifts, and of course, you get paid for it. And of course, there's a financial reward for it, but it's not the driver. And as women, I think we were not, it's very masculine, to be driven by money and to be driven by those very tangible things for women. It’s more about the feelings and the things you can create and the connections you can have with yourself and the people around you. So I think being able to shift that thought is a really powerful thing.
Sammi Jaeger
Money gives us the ability to take even better care of ourselves, or the people that we love, right? You know I don't have very high maintenance hair, but I freaking love that I have budgeted and put aside the money so that I can go and get a beautiful hair treatment a couple of times a year and take really good care of myself like that. And for other people, it's maybe massages or getting their nails done, or float tanks or a regular facial or Dermalogica, that kind of thing that I like but any of those investments in cells,they just make me better, right? So absolutely.
Erin Davis
And that plays into the whole mindset, confidence space. Because when you are feeling better within yourself, because you have invested in yourself, you do love yourself, and you're able to show up as your best self, the confidence just oozes. And it is something that you can't pretend, and you can't fake. But you can really feel the shift in the energy when you are investing in yourself. And you're investing in those things that make you feel good.
Sammi Jaeger
It's like, if you you want to go be able to go and see a specialist or get particular type of advice about something or you want to see a personal trainer, or whatever the thing is that you want to improve in your life like to be able to invest in that is what the money is really for. I know a lot of people have a lot of problems even spending the money that they've earned. And they'd tuck it away, tuck it away, tuck it away, you know, that rule, rainy day approach, but I think confidence is about that trust, trust in self that I have the capability to make the money in the first place. I trust myself when I've earned it and that I know what I'm going to do with it. And I trust myself to spend it wisely for Sammi here and now and Sammi in the future and it's that real tension of taking care of Samiy now and Sammi in the future.
Erin Davis
So how do you build that confidence? And what are the things that you do to grow the confidence so spending in the future is looked after but then also spending me right now is looked after as well?
Sammi Jaeger
I think the structure helps me a lot. It really is knowing and understanding how much money is in what account and what it's for. That gives me trust that at the end of the year, I'm going to have the right amount of money put aside to pay for that tax bill. Because I know and I look at it regularly and I understand the numbers so I think that's one thing that helps me trust myself with that and that I got the advice and asked the questions. I also trust myself to know when I don't know. I had something curly happen a couple of weeks ago and my first thing was to shoot off an email to my accountant and say, Can we please jump on the phone? And I don't understand this, I tried to read up on my own and I don't get it. So I trust myself that when I feel uncertain that I know that I have the capability to ask for help, which I think is a learned skill as well. And then I trust myself about what taking care of future Sammi looks like because I have got really clear about what she wants, what she needs, what are the line items that are in my beautiful fueled up 10 year vision, like, how much does my lifestyle that I'm shooting for actually cost. And then I'm able to reverse engineer my income and revenue goals for my business. And then for my take home for myself, between now and there and how I'm going to do it.
So I've planned for it. That's probably what's helped me develop that trust in myself around money.
Erin Davis
I think that plan is the most important thing, because you can just keep showing up day after day. But if you don't have any direction, or you don't have any, it doesn't even need to be a goal as such, but you need to have a plan of where you want to go. Because otherwise you just keep treading water. And before you know it - the week is finished, the year is finished. And then all of a sudden, the decade is finished and you go oh shit, I’m in the same position as I was 10 years ago. What the hell has happened here? So I think being really clear on that plan. And then like you said, reverse engineering it. What is it that I need to do? What are the steps that I need to do and being financially literate and financially well enables this goal or this plan to play out and things can change and be adaptable. But if you don't have that structure in place, I find that people are just treading water and it's continually treading water. And before you know it time has just disappeared.
Sammi Jaeger
I think another thing that's helped me with that money piece is understanding what matters to me. And not what I perceive other people think that I should have all care about. My husband and I share one car, it's I think a 2017 model. We very rarely drive like I don't really care for that. But what I do care for is that my mum and her partner visited from interstate over the weekend. And we went for a bougie lunch, a beautiful experience on Sydney Harbor. That's the things that I prefer to invest in. And that's not to say that my model is correct. But I just have clarity over what matters to me and what doesn't.
Erin Davis
And I think that's super important. We have society telling us what we should have, or what is the definition of success, it’s driving the fancy car and easy living in the super big house. But along with that comes a super big mortgage, and you know, credit card debt that's out of control. So society is making it look like that you need these things for success. So to be able to take a step back and get that real clarity about what is important to me. What is it that I want? What fuels me up, what makes me feel good, and recognising that those material things are not what drives me, it's these other things, it's the experiences, feelings, it's the relationships.
Sammi Jaeger
I got married in 2012. And I think something insane has happened to the wedding industry in the last decade and I’m a bit like, I'm sure Instagram has a big influence on the things that people spend money on now, in regards to that one day. And I'm not saying if you want the big Princess wedding, you should absolutely, you know, save and plan and organise and have that beautiful experience. But that stretch of what is normal or baseline for a wedding just blows my mind. And I think there's been that sort of lifestyle creep or luxury creep or almost what's been normalised as a basic as opposed to a luxury. Super, super interesting. Like I said, you know, there's things that I really love. I've got designer handbags and things and I’ve worked really hard to earn them. And I you know, the conscious purchase or they were gifts and that sort of thing, and I love them, but they're not who I am, I would be the same without them.
Erin Davis
Exactly. And I think it's that expectation we put on ourselves to keep up and this is the new normal or this is what I'm expected to do. Rather than being super clear on what it is that is important to me. And am I doing this for me or am I doing this for somebody else to keep up with everybody else, and I think social media has a huge part to play in that space. But it's then up to us to take responsibility and ownership and become aware of what it is that drives us. What is that thing that we need for ourselves because, if you are so mortgaged up and your credit card debt is out of control, and you live this big, high flying life, but behind the scenes, you are drowning in debt, the emotional load that we carry is enormous. Which means that you can't show up as your best. So if you're tired and you're cranky and you're angry and you're frustrated and life is just hard, which then draws you away from the things that you love to do.
Sammi Jaeger
I'm glad I asked for permission to swear. But I think that's something else that has allowed me to trust myself is that when I felt like my back was up against the wall in the last year of my 20s, and I was in this job that I just could not do any more. I was so burnt out. I had been giving my everything and sort of the three years leading up to that point, I had fuck you money. I had money sitting aside that allowed me to say, F*ck you. F*ck this. I'm out. Like, and I didn't. I had that permission to give to myself, because I hadn't painted myself into a corner of scarcity where I needed this job. And I needed that next paycheck or I needed the things that that job was providing.
So I think there's also so much power in having visibility over your finances and your money. And I think it's lifelong. Last year, I invested in a program so that I could learn more about investing. I feel like I've learned quite a bit about making money. But I don't think I'd learned quite enough about making that money work for me long term.
Erin Davis
So what's the next thing? What's the next step for it?
Sammi Jaeger
I imagine why I plan to invest in that learning and development in that area of my life, for forever. And I think it's an evolution. The first step is becoming aware of what you need, what's going on, educating yourself in that then you've got that part mastered. Now, it's time for the next step. And I find that it's really hard to do everything all at once, and it cause causes a huge amount of overwhelm, because you just go, oh, shit, I don't know what to do, I don't know where to go, I don't know how to do it, I'll just bury my head in the sand and it will just be money. And we'll just keep going on this little treadmill of life and still end up in the same position.
So funny. Because I do have a little bit of trust in the universe. We are rooted in energy about me, I trust myself that I am either going to fall on my face and know how to get back up, or I'm going to land on my feet. So I don't have a plan as such but I’ve got the idea. And, you know, I have sort of a bit of an idea about where that money is going to come from to hit the goals that I've set, I'm also open to it looking totally different. Trusting that the universe has a better idea for me, maybe I'm going to meet someone who offers me an opportunity where I can make a quarters worth of revenue on one day or something like that I'm open to
those things. And I think being open to that is having the mindset around, I'm going to be okay, I understand my money, I understand what it is, not necessarily where it's coming from, or how it's playing out, or all of those finer details, but it's trusting yourself and being confident within yourself, that things will work out. And I think when you don't have that financial literacy and financial understanding, being able to trust in that space and feel comfortable about trusting in that space is a whole lot harder, because you're coming from that scarcity mode, stuck in that scarcity, to be able to educate yourself enough.
Erin Davis
There's always so much more to learn. And there's always so much more information out there and people that know more than what we do. But to get yourself educated enough to be able to then feel comfortable, that you can make decisions, you can be fluid, you can flow, you can change and you'll be and you'll be okay is such a powerful thing.
Sammi Jaeger
I think all of that ability to trust the universe is also because I trust myself. And that my relationship with myself is in a solid place where I've got a good mindset around my skills are valuable. My skills are in demand. I'm continually evolving. The market wants what I've got, and I genuinely believe all of those things about myself. So I can show up and be like, okay, universe, show me what you got, because I trust me.
Erin Davis
If you don't trust yourself in that space, it makes it so hard to just trust the universe that it will all work out. So I love that. And being an accountant, I have been very analytical in the past and very much for this is a structure, this is what needs to happen. This is how it flows. But that is such a very masculine energy rather than the feminine energy. I think, as women, we need to lean into that femininity a bit more and trust the universe. But we also need to have those skills of understanding, knowing when you need help, being able to ask for help, getting rid of the shame that you don't know what you don't understand and really just taking your power back, educating yourself so then you can allow things to flow naturally, as they should.
Sammi Jaeger
Yeah, I think it is that balance, right? Especially in business. I’ve seen many of the case studies and models and stories that we hear are taught by men, they're men who started businesses or men who succeeded or men who pitched their ideas. And we know that a lot of Angel Investor venture capital money still goes. I'm probably not going to get this stat quite right but it's like 86%, or something insane. Like that goes to men. So I think it's not surprising that we then feel like we need to employ masculine models of operating for business and finance, because that's what's been modelled. So I do think it can be a challenge to find the flow of structure, rhythm, predictability, order and then allowing for a little bit more soft, feminine flow, trust. I'm not sure that I always get it right. But it's what I strive for.
I don't think we all get anything right all the time but that's the whole thing that we can be adaptable. And we can flow. And I think when you're not so rigid in the process, or the system, you do allow for the opportunity to flow and to have those spontaneity moments come up and trust yourself that you're able to jump and feel confident that you're okay.
Erin Davis
I love that. So to finish up, what is your definition of success and how is that aligned with your personal values and your vision as a woman in business?
Sammi Jaeger
I think success for me is anchored around a lot of freedom, like freedom, flexibility, adventure, doing work that matters when and where I want. I'm not really aspiring to retire by 50, or anything like that. I want to work and contribute and engage. But for me, I think success is being able to contribute to projects and causes around the world that matter to me. Being successful is being able to show up present in the moments that I'm in, to be able to sit down at lunch with my mum and her partner and my husband and just be exactly where I am, and not need to be anywhere else. I think it's Tim Ferriss quote who says something like, you can either want more or desire less. So I'm trying to learn to desire a little bit less, I still find myself buying things for those dopamine hits or because you know, the fashion has changed or that sort of thing. So being content, I think is what success looks like for me, while still being ambitious for the goals that I really want out of my life. But yeah, I think freedom flexibility and having whitespace is really truly you know where I can serve in the middle of the day if I choose to. I can take my dog for a walk because it's sunny or I can optimise that long weekend or take the extra holiday. That's really what success is for me and I don't need the bank balance to be big and fat and juicy. To a point of ust overflow. I'm quite happy for it to take care of myself and my husband and contribute regularly to causes and projects that I care about particularly education without it being a stretch.
Erin Davis
Wow, I love that. Thank you so much. That is just such a beautiful definition of success. And
I think that time freedom piece is such an important thing particularly in this busy world where everything is on the go 100 miles an hour to be able to create that white space like you said to then have the freedom to do what it is that you want. is really just such a priceless gift that you can give yourself.
Sammi Jaeger
But then I've got the masculine as well. I know that I want to work 40 weeks a year, only four days a week so I can just really measure and track those freedom days and how much closer I'm getting to that goal. And that being my year in year life.
Erin Davis
That's such a balance, though, isn't it? Because it's, you know, on the one hand, you've got these very strong determinable goals. But within that is built the flexibility and the whitespace. And the time freedom that allows you to do what it is you need to do, but still hit these very masculine goals. But it just creates that happy balance where then you can show up as your best self.
Sammi Jaeger
Thank you. That's nice to reflect on.
Erin Davis
So if there's anything else you want to share with our listeners, what would you want to share?
Sammi Jaeger
Yes, there is one thing. So we kind of mentioned my idea of living this beautiful fueled up life. And if I can quickly just share what those eight different tanks are for me. So this is the idea that there are these eight different areas of our life that if we neglect them, they will at some point run out of fuel, they'll hit empty. And when one or two, or maybe even three of those tanks hits empty, it absolutely impacts the others. And as I said, being able to trust the universe is because of my relationship with myself, there's a lot of fuel in that tank. So I'd love to just quickly share those eight. So the first one is, my relationship with myself sets the tone for every other relationship that I have. Number two, our romantic relationship with my love doing life with someone that we deeply love, our relationship and network so that we can go far not just fast. Our humming household, that our home is, it's more important for how it feels and how it looks. Our career and business is about creating opportunities, not just waiting for them to come to us. That wealth and lifestyle piece that we talked a lot about that we want to have the money in the bank, but not and make sure you've got the freedom and flexibility to enjoy it. And then number seven, the world the opportunity to contribute to causes and projects that you really care about. And then the future and taking care of it, the future version of us. It's not just waiting for us, it's created by us. So I would encourage everybody to get really familiar with those eight different areas and make sure that you're setting goals, financially or otherwise in all eight of those areas and not do what I did in my late 20s and go all in on one tank at the expense of all of the others.
Erin Davis
I think that's just so important because everything is intertwined. And while I've heard you say in the past that not every tank needs to be full 100% of the time, it's making sure that you're giving to each of those tanks what it needs at that particular time. So sometimes one might be up, one might be down. But if you're feeling content, and you're okay, then that's fine. And then when you recognise when you need to fuel up a bit more in one particular area or not. So yeah, that is beautiful. Thank you for sharing. So where can people reach you?
Sammi Jaeger
My home on the internet is www.sammijaegar.com So I'm Sammi with two m's and one i. You might just want to check the show notes. But www.sammijaeger.com And if you want to grab a bit of a diagnostic PDF guide to check your eight fuel tanks, I've got that available there too. So www.sammiyaeger.com/tankcheck But yeah, you can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, all of the usual places. If something in this episode has resonated or you've got a question, I would love to chat. I love connecting with other people, which is one of the joys of working for myself. So yeah, slide into my DM say hello. I'd love to chat.
Erin Davis
Thank you so much. Thank you very much for sharing that amazing content. I love your fueled up life perspective and ideas that you have. And it really resonates with me being able to look at all of those different fuel tanks, and money is just one part of it. For me, it's about the whole lot. Everything is intertwined. So thank you again for our conversation, particularly around money. But you know, I know we talked a lot about mindset as well. And I am very grateful for you being here today.
Sammi Jaeger
Thanks for having me, Erin.
