Being on my knees, hands behind my head while being handcuffed is the day that changed my life.
I thank God for that day, every day.
Now, that I have been able to build a social media empire and impact close to half a million women worldwide over the past 7 years through my health and fitness programs.
It was in that moment, I decided to take control of my life. I was certain I didn’t want to be controlled by a man ever again.
Back then, I was an egotistical, party animal, people pleasing, money driven teenager, that only cared about impressing people. I ended up falling in love with a very handsome man, who came off as the perfect man…
As the relationship continued, he got abusive, mentally and psychically.
So one night, he asked me to drop off drugs on a drug deal. At first, I said no. He continued to ask and as I stood strong, he realized it was time to use his superpower! MANIPULATE! haha
He started comparing me to his exes, saying “oh if I was with so and so, she’d do this for me.” So my ego overrode and I ended up going and dropping off drugs for him. $10,000 worth the drugs… as I handed over the drugs, the guy said, “steve is going to enjoy this.” He repeated it twice and it hit me… this was a set up.
So all these cop cars come out, guns drawn.
I was 18 years old, just starting my life so as I was placed in the back of the cop car, all I could think was, “how the fuck did I end up here?”
Everything I worked for had been taken in that moment. I had to try and come up with $10,000 to pay for a lawyer, I was forced to move back in with my parents and find a home for my two dogs. So it felt like 10 steps back.
I felt like I let my family down, I failed as a dog mom and I felt completely hopeless with my own life.
As I packed up my home, crying my eyes out and kissing my dogs good-bye. I knew I never wanted to go through this again.
I made a decision in that moment.
I decided, I will take control of my life. No man will ever control me again. This moment will not define me. I will be empowered by this and create my dream life.
As I started to rebuild my life, I kept getting hit with BS! (or so I thought)
I couldn’t get hired anywhere because of my felony. Luckily, I did hair but that was barely paying the bills especially now that I had to pay off a lawyer.
Doing hair was a lot of fun, I loved making people feel amazing about themselves but it was only in that moment. And that’s when I knew it wasn’t my life purpose. I knew my heart desired a deeper transformations for people.
That’s when I decided to follow my passion with health and fitness.
At the time, instagram was just starting out so all I did was post exactly what I was doing everyday.I asked people what they needed and I served them. It came from my heart because it was my passion. I didn’t think of followers or money. I just wanted to teach others and empower them to take action. And from that… I saw my following grow. I was blown away. It went from 300 to 1.6m slowly but surely. haha No matter how slow social media was, no matter how low my likes were and no matter how many people hated on me. I continued to show up because I knew my purpose was to serve through health and fitness.
I started doing online programs. I was heavily focused on the body transformation but as I evolved, I knew the internal transformation was a huge part of it. I wanted people to feel happy, at peace and truly have a whole life transformation by simply starting them through health and fitness. I started voicing that and all the sudden my following started to drop…
At first my ego panicked!
What was I doing wrong?
Do they not like me?
I had to check myself (before I wreck myself haha)
I had to remember the lives, I was impacting in such a deep level so I said FUCK IT! and continued to impact the people who were open to what I was saying. This is where my heart was at. I know health and fitness opened a whole knew world for me but my mindset is what took me to a whole new universe.
And that’s my purpose. I know to best serve and help others, I must live life in my true voice. So I owned my story and didn’t let it control me but instead I took control of my life and stepped into my true power to have everything, I have today.
Good news is… you can do it too.
It all starts with you.
You can start to take control by doing these simple steps…
- Check your Mindset. Do you have limiting beliefs about yourself? If you do, it is time to do some inner work and work through them so you can serve. I do this by meditating and journaling.
- Own Your Story. Have no shame in your game, don’t let it define you. You went through everything you went through in order to serve.
- Let go of Numbers. A lot of times, we want to get our message out to the masses so we focus so heavily on the numbers that we forget about why we are truly serving. So put the ego aside and continue to show up even if no one else does because when you stay consistent, people will eventually show up.
This isn’t something that happens over night. I am constantly checking my ego, evolving and transiting. I allow myself to constantly learn and grow. I will never allow my failures to dictate who I am or what I will create. So be kind with yourself and remember whatever struggle you are going through will eventually be apart of your success story so keep going. I want to leave you with an amazing quote I heard from Les Brown, “God can’t use you until he breaks you.” So when life seems like a mess, do your best to find the lesson in it. Learn from it and keep pushing so you can be the best version of yourself.
Want to hear more on this? Then join at at JOYride this weekend. August 4-5 in Las Vegas!
