Episode 17 transcript: Lessons learned from selling everything and traveling the world

 Episode 17: Lessons learned from selling everything and traveling the world with Lisa Broome

Podcast Introduction

We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life. But what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead? It's the breath, depth, and purpose of each day that matters most. Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian kuzma. Join me weekly as I interview guests who make changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.

00:03.27

Guest Bio

 Today's guest is Lisa Broome. Lisa is a charter professional accountant, and money mentor for women who want to experience greater abundance for themselves, their families, and their mission in the world. She loves helping women create mindful money flow and expand their capacity to receive wealth in a way that is authentic and aligned with who they are. What do they truly desire? Drawing on over 15 years of professional experience as a chartered professional accountant in over two decades of in-depth financial study and her work as a certified Mindset, coach Lisa has created a framework that allows women to transform their relationship with money and create wealth with ease and flow. Lisa loves exploring her home on Vancouver Island with her husband. Hiking, paddle boarding, and searching for the next bottle of great wine. Welcome, Lisa to the show.

[00:00:00]

Aneta: Welcome to the show, Lisa. I'm so excited that you're here.

Lisa Broome: Thank you so much for having me. I am excited to be here as well.

Aneta: I was actually in anticipation of today's discussion. I was thinking through when we met, and I think it was either the end of 2019 where it was the right beginning of 2020 before Covid.

Lisa Broome: Yes. I think it was right before Covid. Yeah and we were in Florida together when the lockdown started. It was so eerie. Do you remember that?

[00:01:00]

Aneta: I do. So, we met, I think through a coaching program we were both doing, and then we were in person and I remember thinking, do I go to Florida? This was March 17th or something. It was the weekend, literally the day I flew back. The very next day was the lockdown. I'm in the States. You're in Canada. I loved meeting you in person, although we met through some group coaching before that. But it was one of those things where I don't know that we knew that everything was shutting down, including the hotel we were staying in in the city of Orlando. Everything was at that moment, the next day.

Lisa Broome: Yeah. It was so crazy to be in this big, beautiful hotel we were getting ready to pack up to go to the airport and it was quiet. There's nobody around, right? And the same thing in Canada. I got back and it was immediate quarantine. I was, what? Wait, what? I can't go to the grocery store. What's going on? It was so surreal.

Aneta: It was, and the thing that I found so interesting is we were all there working on strategic planning. We were looking to grow our businesses. We were talking about, in my mind, I had everything written down for what 2020 would look like, and then I feel afterward. I didn't do that.

Lisa Broome: I could have just set fire to it.

[00:02:00]

Aneta: I put it on the shelf and said, I will revisit this at a later time. But in a matter of a day or two, everything changed in our world. It was so crazy.

Lisa Broome: Yeah, it was a unique time.

[00:03:00]

Aneta: So, for those that aren't familiar with your story. I would love for you to just spend a couple of minutes maybe talking a little bit about your journey of where you were. How did you get to the place that you're at today? I think that ties into how you and I met also.

[00:04:00]

Lisa Broome: Absolutely. Yeah. No, happy to share. So, I'm a CPA here in Canada by trade. So, I spent probably 12 years in the industry. Working in corporate finance, big companies, sometimes I loved it, sometimes not so much. I thought was pressure on myself to do well, and so there was a lot of stress. That I put on myself and so that started to wear on me for sure. I've always had this love of personal finance, I'm a big reader. I think I picked up my first personal finance book at the age of 16. I've always loved numbers. It was just fun. I just enjoyed reading them. So, I started sort of doing that on the side of something fun to do to take me away from the work that wasn't so much fun anymore, and enjoyed it. But had no idea what the heck I was going to do with it then? So, kept making plans. Yeah. One day, I'll do something with this, and then in 2018, I would say life intervened in quite a dramatic way. I can be fairly stubborn and I realize now I kept sort of moving the goalposts on when it would be okay or when I could give myself permission to either take a break from the corporate world or maybe shift my career. So in 2018, I say, life intervened and I had what I call the triple whammy. I had my career, the role I was in shifted and I was no longer going to be in that role. I had the most amazing team. It was one of those magical experiences where everybody just meshes and it was beautiful anyway, and that was a shock to the system and then our fur kid, Dukey, who had been with us for nine years at that time. We don't have any human children. So, it was pretty much my kid. We found out he was terminal with cancer and given weeks to live, and that just sent my health into a spiral. I ended up on stress leave. I couldn't keep a coherent thought for someone who uses her brain all the time. It was the most surreal and scary experience I think I've ever had. It just shook me. It shook me to my core and I realized I can't keep doing what I'm doing. Things have to change and I needed to stop planning and taking some action and making some decisions that would support me and my family moving forward with that, I'm a planner and I like to plan things out. I like everything. But over the course of that summer, in three months, we decided to sell our home like 80% of our possessions. We decided, as Doki did pass that summer and I began the most painful healing journey. I'd never been on up to that point in my life. I recognized that I needed to physically have some distance from where we were.

[00:05:00]

Lisa Broome: And so it had always been a dream of ours to travel. For more than two weeks at a time. We've done a lot of travel up until that time but never extended. So, we took that as an opportunity to travel and we spent nine months in various countries exploring. Again, not all planned out at the beginning. We knew our first couple of countries and that was pretty much it. So, it was very much out of my mind and my husband's comfort zone. But it was also exactly what we needed at that time. So, it was when we came back from that you and I met.

[00:06:00]

Aneta: I just remember hearing that and the idea seemed like I romanticized it and I thought, this is amazing! Leave for nine months, and travel the world. So there was a part of me that wanted to do the same thing as you and then the other part, Then I also think you have this part of you that was like, wow! You just, how do you just sell everything and just get rid of everything and release any attachments if you have any? So, was it hard to decide to get rid of 80% of your possessions, or did you also always live a very sort of what they call, a minimalistic lifestyle?

[00:07:00]

Lisa Broome: I wouldn't have called us super minimalist by any means, but we do like to live fairly simply. Although after being in our house for nine years. It's amazing what you can accumulate even when you're not trying, which is what I realized. Yeah. the physical stuff, no, wasn't as, For me, it was incredibly therapeutic as I was giving hospice care to my dog and being on stress, leave it. It was like this therapy for me to be purging and releasing these things that I knew I didn't need. And in between the emotions of everything. It gave me something tangible to do and so it was a lifeline because we were getting ready to sell the house. That was also like, okay, well, we don't need all this stuff. At the time when we were thinking of leaving, we didn't even know if we were going to come back. We thought maybe I'd pursue my career in another country. We'd always thought of living overseas. So we had that mindset and thinking, well, if we don't come back, or we just come back temporarily. What the heck are we going to do with all this stuff? So instead of storing it. We released it. We sold some, we gave some away. We donated, like, we did a bunch of different things. But yeah, it was, I mean, it wasn't always easy for sure. But for me, it was incredibly therapeutic.

Aneta: What are some of the kinds of things that you hung onto then? So, I can imagine that we accumulate things, as you said, without even being always aware of them. But what did you say? No, I either have to hold onto this or I want to hold onto things.

[00:08:00]

Lisa Broome: I love that question. So, we have some artwork that we've gotten from our various travels. So, we've held with that. I have this tea mug from Spain that was hand-painted. It's ceramic that I've always loved and then when you travel in a backpack for nine months, like the stuff that matters, you start to notice. Yeah. And so really it was a mattress, one mattress that was the same firmness all the time. I certainly miss that when I traveled. And then my tea mug, there's something about this tea mug it was made for me. And when I have a nice cup of tea in it, it's just my whole body relaxes. So I would say, yeah, our paintings and my team mug are probably what I miss. What I wanted to hold onto the most when we traveled. They were the things that I guess, missed the most while we were gone.

[00:09:00]

Aneta: I love that. I think that it's works of art, things that are beautiful that you have some sort of an emotional response to when you're, of course, the mattress is very important because sleep is I'm obsessed with sleep as well. So, nine months and how did you begin? How did you know where you wanted to start? Did you, you said you planned some of it, but not all of it. So what, how did that just naturally unfold?

Lisa Broome: Yes. So as we were talking about where we wanted to go? We had been to South America in the past and had enjoyed Ecuador. We wanted to start in, well, originally actually the plan was to just spend nine months in South America. We were going to do, I think it was three months in Ecuador, three months in Chile, and three months in Argentina. The accountant in me is like it's cheaper to travel down there. again, it was sort of a short-notice plan. We were going to be using some of the house money that we got from selling the house to travel and that sort of stuff.

[00:10:00]

Lisa Broome: So I was like we could do it, fairly, not cheaply, but reasonably and so the plan was at the beginning, so we started with Ecuador and the plan was to spend three months in Ecuador and so we were, great! We'll spend nine months in South America, explore, do that thing, and then come home well. Three weeks after being in Ecuador, we realized, we don't actually want to be here for three months. So it was so interesting. Because it is very different to go to a country on vacation versus going to a country and renting an apartment. We were going to the grocery store we were living in Ecuador.

[00:11:00]

Lisa Broome: And I still love Ecuador. It's a beautiful country. I definitely want to go back. But for us, the energy just wasn't right for a place we might want to settle. And certainly not for three months. So we were, what do we do now? Right? If this is not what we're going to do. So first, we scrambled a little bit and then I was, you know what? It's okay. We have had this apartment for as long as we want it. But then we started to realize, we were ready to explore. And so what ended up happening is it evolved over. But my husband will love to explore. He's the go go go, guy. I like a nice mix, I can curl up with a book and a glass of wine, even in a foreign country, and be in bliss. Yeah, right. So for me, I needed that mix. After being somewhat stationary and Ecuador, we decided, well, let's explore chili and we did. I mean, we didn't see it all by any means. But it's this time, this long country, right? There are a lot of airplanes. But we did, we got to experience a lot of it and then we realized, okay, now it's time for little breaks. So we spent a little bit of time in Argentina and then we'd always had a dream of going to New Zealand. It's sort of evolved every time we got to another country, we were, okay, we want to experience this, but then what's next?

[00:12:00]

Lisa Broome: And then again, the synchronicities of life showing. We ended up in New Zealand next where we did the camper van thing and just saw the country, it is such a gorgeous country, reminded me a lot of Canada. From there, to Australia, where we were able to house and pet sit, and it just flowed so beautifully. But yeah. So the original plan, is not what ended up happening.

Aneta: Well, and I love that! You were flexible enough and also reflective enough to say, Hey, this isn't going to best serve us, so how can we adjust? Were there, and it sounds you and your husband were on the same page most of the time. I mean, I don't know what that would've been if you weren't for nine months. But, how were you guys able to sort of be on the same page and decide when you would move from one place to another?

[00:13:00]

Lisa Broome: I wouldn't say we were always on the same page by any means. There was compromise and balance. I probably could have stayed and just chilled in Ecuador a little bit more. I was coming from a serious burnout from work. The grief of losing Duke. I am Will was also grieving but didn't have the work aspect. Like his work had not been as stressful. So, like I could have probably chilled a little longer, but the poor guy was going stir-crazy and I could see that. I wanted him to be enjoying our travels too. so, it was a lot of like open communication, being honest with each other, and then it was given and take, like his wanting to explore Chile was Will's idea and initiative. So, we ran with that, and then we were both actually after that like, okay, it's time to chill. So, when we got to Argentina. We literally, what was it, four or five days we spent in Mendoza and we thought we'd like to go around, see the different vineyards. Turns out that this beautiful boutique hotel we were staying at a gorgeous pool and had a wine cellar full of wines from all over. So, we didn't leave the hotel for five days. Like we just decompressed. So we learned a lot about ourselves as well as we were traveling and so really, yeah, it was a lot of open communication and then being willing to try things that, maybe I would've been like, I don't need to do that. But real will want to do this. So okay, I'm going to do it. Then half the time, I would enjoy it. So it worked out well.

[00:14:00]

Aneta: That's great. So, what did you learn about yourself? What were some of the things that, were either surprises or maybe you just reinforced something you already knew?

Lisa Broome: So in terms of surprises. I had put a lot of meaning and my worth into my work and in stepping away from that. I realized how easy it was to step away from that and go there is so much more to life, so much more to life than work and work had become quite all-consuming. It felt super important. I'm not saying, accounts don do important work, but, but I had completely.

[00:15:00]

Lisa Broome: I'd given it way too much meaning in terms of like my overall life. And so that was, it was a bit of a surprise that I had done that. Like, even before we traveled, I remember we were getting the house ready to sell and I'm home, right? And so like I'm chatting with my neighbors. I haven't gotten to know my neighbors. I had fantastic neighbors. I knew a couple but like a few of the others. And I was like, we've been here nine years and like, this is the most conversation I've ever had with my neighbors. So like, things like that, I was like, whoa, like Lisa, your priorities have like completely gone out of whack here. That was a bit of a surprise for me and then I would say also, as it reinforced. I prefer a slower pace than the life I was living. It was very busy. It was very full. There was so much beauty in it for sure. I'm not saying it was all like stress and anxiety but my natural way is slower and that environment I had put myself in. I was not permitting myself to slow down. So, that was the other one.

[00:16:00]

Aneta: Those are amazing lessons. It made me think of sometimes when we're running so hard and you finally get to sit down at the end of the day or maybe on the weekend, and then when you're finally sitting in that quiet space and of rest, you realize just how tired you are? We're either just it's adrenaline or it's cortisol pumping through our body nonstop. And travel takes you away from some of those familiar settings and the things that we could occupy our time with. Right? You're still there. You're traveling, but the surroundings are so different.

Aneta: So do you feel like travel does that, it just allowed you to become more aware of things that were probably always there, but maybe we just didn't, you didn't have the time to notice it before?

Lisa Broome: Absolutely. And now that you say it, exhaustion was a big part of it. I had no idea how tired I was until I took that step back. Yes, jet lag does a little stuff to you, right? When you, sure. Depending on where you're going. But like I didn't realize how exhausted I was. I didn't realize how far I had pushed my body past what it like felt good. So like it wasn't probably until we were probably even a month and a half into our travels that I started to feel like myself in a way.

[00:17:00]

Lisa Broome: Like, you said, I had no idea how exhausted I was because that it calibrated to my nude normal, and when we traveled I was able to recognize that, whoa, no, I don't want that normal anymore.

Aneta: Yes. One other thing you said made me think of how often we do things that we feel like we should be doing, rather than the things that we want to do.

Aneta: So I wondered if at any point during your trip when you're in Argentina, for example, where you're like, there are all these wineries and we should be visiting them, or we should go here, or we should do that. Instead, you said, no, actually I'm quite content to sit by this beautiful pool and sip this amazing wine. Let it come to me. Did you struggle at all with your shoulds on travel versus what you want to do?

[00:18:00]

Lisa Broome: Yes. It was a constant. We're in this country. We don't know when will we bag, we should and this, right? And Chile was a great example of that and it taught us like, okay, there'll be more times, we don't have to try and see it all and so we were able to slow down a bit from there, but absolutely yeah. I was starting to learn to listen to my body. I had been speaking loudly before, but I was finally starting to listen and pay attention. And so yeah, my brain was like, we could do all these things. And the body's just chill. Just chill. But yes, they kept coming and so it was a matter of like filtering them through and being like, whoa, hang on. So, yeah. Now I'm very mindful of when the shoulds show up in my brain because I don't think so. I don't think that needs to happen, right? Yeah. So absolutely.

Aneta: So that sounds like that's a lesson that you were able to bring back into life post travels. So anything else that, any other lessons that you, or epiphanies that you had while you were sort of away from your traditional home setting and in this new exploratory phase?

[00:19:00]

Lisa Broome: Yeah. As you're asking, what comes to mind is I had made money, like the decision-making factor in my life.

Aneta: Tell me more. Tell me more about that.

[00:20:00]

Lisa Broome: As we traveled, I realized like, first of all, we could have done it sooner, so I had to let that go. Because I could've beat myself up on that and then I recognized. I had been moving the goalposts. It was like there was never enough. It was like I never felt comfortable or safe enough for me and Will and me to do what we want. We'd been talking about a sabbatical for several years. we'd been talking about maybe traveling more, moving overseas. I did a ton of analysis. But I never took steps. I realized it was because I was looking at it all through a purely financial lens. I was never like being willing to take a step back and be like, could we do it now? what is it I'm trying to accomplish here? What is it that I think I need from this certain amount of money to make this happen? If everything that happened with Duke passing and my health and everything had taught me. It was like, life is short. Yeah. We don't know how long we have. I truly believe we can beautifully balance each of us in our unique way, the now and the future when it comes to our finances and planning and things like that. But I was so focused on the future. I had stopped living in the now.

[00:21:00]

Aneta: That's such a key point and something that so many of us struggle with. I think it's interesting that. You got to the point where we're going to travel, and by the way, we're going to donate or sell 80% of our possessions, we're going to release our home and just return to what's for certain, this body, this relationship, right? At this moment in time. My husband and I always a lot often I would go back to when we first got married, we lived in New York City and we had a one-bedroom apartment. I remember some of our best memories were things that we did for free, right? Things that, like on the weekend you'd go into the city and just explore window shop or maybe get a cup of coffee or just walk around or share a slice of pizza and half a chicken roll. Like little things that used to bring us such joy and happiness, right? And at that moment, in. It was good. It was good exactly the way it was. We didn't need all this other stuff. So what point during your travel, cause so you started off thinking about a shorter period? Yo? then were gone for nine months. How did you know that it was time to come back to Canada?

[00:22:00]

Lisa Broome: Yeah. So yeah, as I said, when we first started, we weren't even sure we were coming back to Canada, right? So, I think it first started to hit us in New Zealand. It was both of our first times. It had been top of my bucket list for travel. If you want to call it that. We get there and it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. I'm like, so is Canada. Like we have a lot of this in Canada too. It was like my eyes were open. I'd been so focused on traveling outside of my own country. Honestly, I think I've seen more of New Zealand than I have of Canada. If I'm being completely honest. It started to wake up my eyes and then we, from New Zealand. We went to Australia where we did a lot of house pet-sitting. So like we were like living in Australia and I'd been there twice before. I love that country. The people, and the energy. It just warms my heart. I had thought as we started on our travels that we might end up there and as we're, it no longer fit, as it fits. I could appreciate it for what it was, but it no longer fit. And so I would say it started in New Zealand and then we spent like three months in Australia. So that gave us plenty of time to explore and also for me to go inward too. Yeah. We both recognized that we missed Canada. We missed it, and we were able to appreciate it. What it was for us and why it was important for us to make our way home.

[00:23:00]

Lisa Broome: So we did eventually make our way home. But yeah, I think it started in New Zealand when I was like absolutely all these other countries are amazing, but we have beautiful places in Canada too. And then I was like, and beautiful places where I'd want to live? And so that sort of got the ball rolling because up until then I'd lived in the prairies. Think of lots of snow and cold in the winter. Lots of extremes. Yeah. And then I moved to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, but I worked so much. We hiked, but other than that like I didn't explore a ton. But again Winter, the snow thing, I know I'm Canadian, but my preference is less, is more when it comes to the snow. So yeah, we ended up working our way to the West coast. And you can't get much more west than Vancouver Island, which is where we've. Ended up settling. So yeah, it was fascinating because I was not expecting that when we started I thought we were going to find another country and that's where we're going to settle, and instead it was like, I need to go home.

[00:24:00]

Aneta: It's like, the Shepherd and the Alchemist, right? He hands up coming back home to where he started after traveling the world and sometimes you find our treasure much closer to home. So, you did move to Vancouver Island, which is not where you lived before. So what was that like to just decide, okay, here we go. We travel lighter now because we have fewer things. So, did you move the year of Covid or when did you guys move to Vancouver Island?

Lisa Broome: The adventures continue. So yeah, we got back to Canada in July 2019 and we didn't know yet where we wanted to settle. We knew we wanted to be West Coast. But didn't know exactly where. So again, it was so beautiful. We were learning to trust and so we put out feelers. My family's in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and so, we were going to land there and then see where we could find a place furnished that we could rent a little bit.

[00:25:00]

Lisa Broome: Turns out my aunt had a house like two, like a five-minute drive from where my parents lived, where we could stay. It was beautifully furnished and so we ended up that was sort of like our temporary home base, and then we took some trips out west and so we ended up in for those of you who maybe are a little familiar, British Columbia is our most western province in Canada. There's a beautiful area called the Okanagan where lots of our wine and fruits like it's a gorgeous area. So we went and we explored there and it is, it's a fantastic area, but something will, and I got good at on our travels is like Feeling the energy of a place. I know it might sound a little woo! But some, like for example, New York City, like tons of energy, right? It's just like, right? You can just feel it when you get into the city and so we started to pay attention to the energy of places and what felt good for us. So absolutely Okanagan is a beautiful place. It just didn't fit us and so then we came out another time we came out to Vancouver Island. So those were like our two sorts of, we thought top places. Ironically, we came to Vancouver Island in winter. Which is like the rainy season. So, we do get some snow, but mostly it's a lot of rain. Good, let's go when it's like the worst weather, and see what we think. Right? Yeah, and we got here and for me, it felt like home. There's no other way for me to put it than the energy of it, and its beauty. It's not as densely populated as other places in Canada. Lots more space. Just like, and nature just abounds here. So, after that trip, we were like, okay, that's it. So, that was December 2019 before Covid. Right. So, then we're like, okay, we're ready, let's go. Then of course the whole world shuts down. It's like, so they must have meant to be because then Will got to experience his first Winnipeg winter. I got to tell you, it was one of the coolest ones they'd had in a while.

[00:26:00]

Lisa Broome: So, he can check that off. I don't think it was on his bucket list. But he can check it out. Yeah. We ended up like, it was this crazy thing because we couldn't go out and see places. So, we ended up like FaceTiming and looking at apartments. It was a time when we had to use and stretch our faith muscles because we were like, we know this is meant to be.

[00:27:00]

Lisa Broome: This feels so good and yet with everything going on in the world. We have no idea how or when or anything. So we ended up finding this amazing apartment complex. They FaceTime videoed us the apartment and we're like, yes, we love it. We'll take it. So in the summer of 2020. It was kind of like in between, I think it was in between waves when things sort of opened up a little bit here in Canada and Will just got this like intuitive nudges, like, we got to, like, it's going to go down in the summer and then chances are it's going to go back up. So, we got to go in the summer. I was like, okay, let's do this. So, okay. We didn't have a lot of stuff. We packed a little U-Haul trailer to pull behind our Jeep and yeah, but we were going across the country. Wow! How far is it?

Aneta: How many miles? Yeah. Or kilometers, right? How many hours? Let's do hours. What are the hours?

[00:28:00]

Lisa Broome: 24 hours of driving. Yeah, okay. 24 hours of driving. That's a lot from like, so literally the middle of the country to like the west coast, you got to take a ferry to get onto the island. So yeah, it's 24 hours of driving. So we did it over several days. But yeah, it was so surreal because you never really knew, depending on where you rocked up, can we eat in the restaurants? Does it take out, unless, so it was right? It was quite the adventure going cross country in the middle of Covid.

Aneta: But now you're there and does it still feel at home?

Lisa Broome: Yes. More so I think, it takes a while for the brain to adjust. It's got to learn a new way, like where's your favorite grocery store? Coffee shop and stuff like that. So the first six months. There's a lot of rewiring going on and it's pretty exhausting, but now that we're here, absolutely love it. Still feels like home. I think it'll always be home. Even if, we do pack up and travel some more at some point. But yeah, this is home.

[00:29:00]

Aneta: I definitely want to visit. It's on our list. So, well plan that. So Lisa, in addition to all this other stuff. I mean, the way you and I met was because we were both launching our businesses. So you've had all this change that was happening and at the same time, you came back. Did you work at all in your business while you were traveling or did you just start everything when you came back to Canada?

[00:30:00]

Lisa Broome: So, I'd been dabbling before our travels. But I was intentional about not liking, it because I didn't know where I wanted to go. Like again, I'd been dabbling on the side while I had my corporate career. So when we traveled it was really important, especially at the beginning to not even think about it. Like my brain would try and go there, I'd be like, stop. Stop. Right. So, I'd still have conversations with family or friends. Because I love to support, especially women when it comes to financial awareness and understanding and making empowered decisions. But, I wasn't looking really at anything. I need to give myself this time, this space to just take a step back. So it wasn't until we got back to Canada that I was like, okay. What do I want to do? But I didn't force it, which was important because in the past. I'm a forcer. I make a decision. I'm like, okay, let's go. I'll like Bodo, to make it happen. Which I realize is not always healthy for my body. It took the summer to just ease in and spend time with so much of my family was there. I hadn't seen them in quite a while. It was time to reconnect. I love farmer's markets and I love Trying things in the kitchen. So, it was a lot of nourishing and nourishment over the summer, which was super powerful. Then I got at, I think the catalyst that started it was my mom's a, uh, a life coach and she focuses on self-love, which is so powerful and so needed in this world. Anyway, she and my sisters wanted to put together this retreat called Soul Food for Women. They'd done one while I was gone and they're like, Lisa, you should do something. I was like, I'm like this introvert over here behind my computer doing my stuff. I was like, what? What? No. They're like, yes, yes, yes. So I was like, okay, I can do this. I can do this. It's my mom, it's my sisters, and it's this people group of women. Like I think we were, 10 women came and I don't even remember what it was called, but I shared and then I shared my story and everything that had happened. They were just like so grateful and so appreciative. I was so lit up. I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to help women. Like I don't always remember or realize how much I know because I've been in the world of finance for so long and I've like been entrenched in all these things that when you speak to others who that's not like their career or their areas of interest, how much I can give? So, I was this is the kind of stuff I want to do. I don't want to go back to quarter ends and reporting. I was like, no, no, no, no. This is what I want to do. So I think that was the spark. Then, I was like, okay, I've got the time and the space. I ran some numbers. We're living a very minimalist life. Remember like, we didn't plan any of this. So it's not like I had like three years of savings put away. Like, and then I hated your story. I'm like, it sounds so graceful and like planned, and yet I know had I tried to plan it. I never would've taken the steps. So like, everybody's different, right? So I just remember going. This is part of my journey to relax. Learn to trust and know that I like the things I've done and the things. I'm doing, that it's all going to work out. It may not look like what I think it's going to look like, but it's all going to work out and so yeah, that was the catalyst. Then I think I joined that coaching program and I think it was December of 2019. That was the start of me getting super serious about it, yep. About shifting into that business and that shift in my career.

[00:31:00]

Aneta: I love what you do. I know you have such a passion for finance and you've brought that into your business. But also it's so interesting knowing you. I feel like you've been able to bring in the spirituality and this focus on women. You come from a family of many strong women, including your mom, right? And then also what you've learned about yourself and some of those money fears that you talked about, how you prolonged doing some of the things that you wanted to do for some time. So, how have you been able to take all of those things into building the business? Maybe you wouldn't have been able to build it like that three years ago, right? All those experiences sort of created what you have now. So tell us a little bit more about whom you serve and how you're able to help women with their financial goals.

[00:32:00]

Lisa Broome: Yes. I love this. Yeah, no, it definitely, like ever since. I started on this journey and decided that I was going to grow a business. I have changed and evolved so much in the last three years as well. That you're right. Like I started out providing projections and plans for women and then doing some coaching with them, right? Educating them, which I loved, but I, yeah, have been able to expand that. And I like to think of it as almost a holistic approach because it's not just about the numbers. It's never about the numbers, honestly. Like we use our money to support us in our life goals and the experiences that we want to have. It's a tool. But deeper than that I have learned that money is like our relationship with money is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. I can certainly tell you three years ago, my relationship with money was, I don't deserve it. I got to work so freaking hard. If I want to do anything, I got to prove myself. I'm not worthy of having a successful business. All those limiting beliefs were like showing up left, right, and center. Yeah. And so absolutely this journey has helped me to gain awareness and grow myself, but then also recognize where, especially as women, we can often find ourselves the criticalness, the self-criticism, or even just the downplay of our abilities and our worth. It's very natural for us. So, what I've done is I've taken all that, so the mindset, the energy, or like your way of being and also like the actual practicality of cash flow and how we want to allocate our funds and save for goals. I've brought all of those together. So I, the way I like to say I love to help women create like mindful money flow because it's really, it's not so much about, I'm not that how much money you bring in. Although yes, yeah, we all agree at a certain level, right? Just to have food and shelter. Absolutely. Like we need to have a certain amount of money in our lives. But above that, it's really about what we do with that money. How it flows into us? Through us to others? Especially as women, right? Some of us can tend to give it all to others and not necessarily even take care of ourselves. And so creating mindful money flow and then also expanding our capacity to receive and I don't mean let everyone become millionaires. That word gets a lot of attention and a lot of hype, especially in marketing. Yeah. What I've come to learn is absolute. If that's your goal, great! But why? What's the purpose behind the money? What is it you want to experience and what matters to you? Right? What is it that you value and what is it that you specifically want to do? Not what you know, the Jones is over there or doing, or what you see others doing, but what is it that you actually want to do? And that clarity is such a big piece of it. And so what I like to say is I help women awaken to their natural way of being like, we are all abundant beans, all of us.

[00:33:00]

Lisa Broome: Help them awaken into what it is that they desire to experience, because it's not always clear, right? We can get muddled, well my partner wants this and my kids want this, or like, my mom needs this. But it's like, no, no, no. What is it that matters to you? What do you want to experience? What do you want? Who do you want to become? Right? What things do you want to learn? Then also recognizing what's holding them back. So, a lot of limiting beliefs that show up. It's around that gap between where we are now and where we want to be. And so recognizing that and helping them to overcome that and then aligning. This is my favorite part. We align, right? We help I like to help them come up with new, empowered decisions and beliefs that are going to support them as they move forward. But it's not just mindset. Again, there's also the energy of who you're being and the space you're in, right? Our environment who connecting with.

[00:34:00]

Lisa Broome: That all matters and it all plays a role and then, yeah, also helping them to reality with their values. I like to say values and goals, or values and priorities, but like, what's important to you? What do you want to be doing in life? Then, I'm all about inspired action, not just any action, but I want it to feel exciting and hopefully fun. I like to make money fun whenever I can because I can certainly take it too seriously and I know many others can too. Right? We give it so much. So much meaning, but not in a positive, empowered way. Helping them to come up with a plan that's going to help them to achieve what it is that they want to achieve in a way that feels good to them. Because that's what I have found. I've found that there are a lot of cookie-cutter strategies out there. I'm not dissing any of them. For certain people, they work. But I believe they're all like very unique beings and the things that we desire and the things that we want to experience are unique. I feel like there's a way that you can have a framework, but that allows every one of us to flourish and thrive in our way.

[00:36:00]

Aneta: So much to unpack there. I wish that I had worked with someone like you when I was younger. And actually, I think that this is fantastic for young adults. I think of my daughters too, and how important it is to be able to ask ourselves those questions. What are my values? What are the experiences that I want in my life? And how does the work that I do in this world and that I get money, that I compensated for? How do I choose to save or spend intentionally, right? Yeah. It's always tied to something because I think that's the work of redefining success or defining it at a very young age of what it is and then making those choices that you said just support and align. That's amazing and so exciting. Who are your ideal clients? Do you find that? People are coming to you later in life because they never learned these lessons and now they're like, okay, it's time. Or do you feel like you've got enough of a following with young adults who are saying, I should probably figure this out before I start to make some big financial decisions?

[00:38:00]

Lisa Broome: Yeah, great question. It's those older in life. It is 55 to 75 women in that range many of them either have gone through a fairly large transition, either like a changing career, health, relationship change, and maybe on their own for the first time figuring this stuff out. I know one of my first clients was my mother-in-law. When my father-in-law passed in 2016 and like to the point where she didn't know passwords to get into bank accounts because he just handled it right. I was so fortunate that I could be there but then it was also really eye-opening for me too. Right? I have such love for that age group. I guess like my mom's in that age group, she's one of my best friends. For the incredible lives that they've already lived. The wisdom in these women. I feel like I could just sit with them for days and lap it up and learn and that sort of thing. So, for me, it's just such a special time in life. Yeah and I know I'm nowhere near that, but I feel like I can bring my expertise, my knowledge, and my wisdom. and then we can learn from each other for sure. But yeah, it's women in that 55 to 75 or older. I'm right, it's not a specific timeframe by any means. But who is maybe going through a transition or a shift, whether it's like literally just thinking about retirement as itself or separating or now a widow? Wanting to change careers but not necessarily retire in the traditional sense. Which I'm all about breaking that box. But that could be another discussion for another time. So yeah, it's that age of women that I'm super, super passionate about, and who seem to be drawn. Me, that's not to say that I love helping. I also, I do help some younger women who are solopreneurs. Starting by helping them to set a strong foundation. So I guess, it's sort of the two. But primarily, yeah, women in their starting to come into like those wisdom years I feel like yet maybe having grown up where they weren't necessarily empowered financially, right? Even educationally, right? And being able to provide them with super safe. It's really important that the women I work with feel safe in our discussions and in the space that we have together. So helping them to feel safe and heard and empowered. Yeah, there's so much in all of us that we don't often recognize our worth and what we're capable of doing. So, I love helping them see that in themselves.

[00:41:00]

Aneta: I can feel it with your energy and I am sure that you just reflect. You take that mirror and just shine it back on the folks that you're working with. So what is the best way for someone to work with you? Do they reach out to you on your website or do I want to make sure that people who are listening are excited and ready, how could they work with you?

[00:42:00]

Lisa Broome: Thank you so much for asking. So you can certainly check out my website. It's time for some updates. It's got some older things on there. But, my website is inspiring prosperity.ca. So, that is certainly if you want to just learn more about me and what I do. Go ahead and go there. We'll be doing some updates as I'm narrowing down my focus. So I can focus on these women with whom I want to help. But, on my website, I'm not great on social media. But I am on LinkedIn, Lisa Broome. Yeah, alpaca And also Inspiring Prosperity are on LinkedIn as well. But if you want to. They can certainly just send me an email as well. If they just want to connect and just have a conversation. Yeah. I'm more than happy to do that as well as I love connecting with people. If they want email me. It's lisa@inspiringprosperity.ca.

[00:43:00]

Aneta: I will include all of those things in the show notes. One of the other things, was when you and I caught up and talked about you coming onto this show. You shared something with me that you haven't shared very broadly. I know that health and wellness are very important to you. It's always been a huge part of your life. But, we talked about whether or not you would share maybe something that recently happened that others could learn from and could benefit from. So I just wanted to open it up and just see if you were willing to share a little bit of your story.

[00:44:00]

Lisa Broome: Absolutely. If anything that I've gone through can inspire or support or encourage someone else I'm happy to share. Last year, it was a couple of years ago during Covid that I noticed it. But I noticed a small little bump just below my left breast. Honestly, didn't think anything of it whatsoever, and then in what year was it? I guess in 2021 when I was seeing my naturopath here. She just recommended I get it checked again. I was like, sure, why not? Anyway, turns out they ended up doing a biopsy and it did turn out to have what I like to call misbehaving cells. I'm not a huge fan of the cancer word. Just because of all the meaning that tends to be attached to them. Sure. So for me, they did find some misbehaving cells that were no longer communicating with others. That was a big shock. I was 38 at the time. There's no history of breast cancer in my family, and I was like, what just happened? So it was a huge shock to the system for sure. So grateful for all of the coaching and mindset work I had done up until that time because I was able to be still and quiet my mind, not all the time, but at certain moments when it mattered most. and my intuition kept telling me, Lisa, this is a gift and I can tell you some days I was like, it's fine, not a gift. This is I don't want to be dealing with this. Right?

[00:45:00]

Lisa Broome: But ultimately, it truly was because it helped me to see that yes. I'd made some amazing changes in my life. But I still truly had never learned to put myself and my needs first. This gave me cart launched permission. It was like I needed something this jolting to tell me like, you matter you first. So I stopped second-guessing myself. I stopped not putting myself first, and I was like, this is what I need and I started saying what I needed. Telling people no, when it didn't align with what I knew was important to me. But that was like, and it was so hard to do, like, it was so hard to do. So like, I'm a very, I approach health and wellness from a very natural way. I do believe in our body's ability to heal, but I'm also very grateful for western medicine. So I did like, it was a balance for me, right? So I did have surgery, and I had it removed.

[00:46:00]

Lisa Broome: I'd never had surgery before, like going under and things like that. I had to bring all these amazing people into my life who could hold that space for me when I couldn't hold it for myself. so I had amazing support during that time. And then, I don't know about it in the US but here in Canada, like breast cancer, doctors want to throw everything at it, which I appreciate. There are cases where absolutely that makes sense. But I got all the tests and they were saying low risk. So I was like, okay, low risk of recurrence. But you still want me to do radiation and you still want me to take drugs. That will likely put me into menopause. Although you won't actually tell me, they'll put me into menopause and I'm like, hang on a second, hang on. I sense that my life is going to be long and beautiful. It's what will support me going forward and what may negatively impact me long term. And so again, after a discussion with a naturopath, My spiritual mentor, and my mom. I had this little, counsel of women that I went to for these things and then I would sit with myself and be like, okay, what matters to me? This is my health, this is my journey. What do I want to do? Not do, what the doctors want me to do, not what others think I should do. What do I want to do? So it was probably the first time in my life where I stood up and was like, no, no, thank you, but no, that's not the path I'm going to go. Which was hard at the time. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:00]

Aneta: Thank you for sharing because breast cancer is very common. It's common here in the States as well. It is hard when we rely on different people in areas of expertise to tell us what to do. But it sounds like you did some important things. You looked at all the information, and you spoke to the right people, You listened to yourself and your own body. And I also believe in our body's natural ability to heal as well. how are you now? How are your any new changes since then?

[00:48:00]

Lisa Broome: Thank you for asking. Health is really good. It's a marathon, not a sprint for sure. Yeah. But no, my health is really good. I've got a, I call it my thrive plan instead of a cancer care plan. I've got my Thrive plan. I don't know, for some reason, language was really important for me in this journey. It is. So I've got my Thrive plan and so continuing to make those shifts and being just super aware of when my body might be under more stress than it needs to be, and I'd say nine times out of 10. It's all self-induced and so it's helping me to take an even deeper look at my thinking about life and especially about work, right? Work hard, play hard. I get that and I can see reasons for that, but I had become to encompass like always work hard, maybe play later. Yeah. Yeah. And so this was like the wake-up. I was like, no. If I had a year to live and I did, like I had to confront this, my husband and I had to confront this. It was one of the scariest things I've done. But if I were to go what is important to me? Like, where would I want to spend my time and energy? And it was like family, friends, and helping these amazing women, right? That was it. That was it. So I was like, okay. So like nothing else in the grand scheme of things needs to be on my radar right now. This is what matters.

[00:49:00]

Aneta: It's interesting hearing you talk. It just reminds me, you've used the word alignment a lot and sometimes we naturally align and sometimes we just need a little bit of shifting or someone to sort of crawl us in and it just feels like you've been able to take these experiences that were given to you, several of them, traumatic in and of themselves, or very awakening, and you used them for good to build the life that you want. And to ask yourself those questions like, what do I want? What feels good? What matters most? What are the values? So I think that segues into the question that I want to ask you. So the title of this podcast is Live the Width of Your Life and I ask everybody this question at the end, what does it mean to you to live the width of your life and how are you doing that in your own life?

[00:50:00]

Lisa Broome: Yes. I love this question. I gave it some thought yesterday because I was like, it's such a powerful question and you and I have learned how important it's to ask powerful and empowering questions because the brain will come up with an answer regardless, right? Yeah. So what does it mean to live the width of my life? It means to live with purpose and intention and to do the things that matter most. Absolutely, to me that just like you say, width and I think like the expansiveness, like the ability to just be in, in a space that feels so good and joyful and peaceful. And so for me, it's as much about how I'm being and how I'm feeling. even more so these days than what it is I'm like doing and accomplishing. And so for me, yeah, the width includes a lot of how I'm being in my life, and then what was the second part?

[00:51:00]

Aneta: How are you doing that for yourself? Or maybe you've answered it. Yeah, yeah. I would say for me it's about asking those questions. I still do it and not in a morbid kind of way at all, but it's like Lisa if you had a year to live, would you do this? And then I go, if you had five years to live, would you do this right? It gives, gives my brain a little more horizon, but not too much. And in those two questions, I can get clear on this is important, but it's not a like this year thing or if it's not on the five-year radar for me now. Let it go because it's not as like a priority in terms of like where I want to be spending my time, energy, and or money right now and so for me, that's how and I don't do it perfectly by any means, but that's how I help myself to stay now in the moment while also look into the future a bit. But it's helped me reign in my planning and my future casting where I would try to control it. How can I experience more now?

[00:52:00]

Aneta: I love that! Thank you so much for sharing all of your experiences, your wisdom, and your amazing adventures of life and I want to ask how can we best serve you? How can we best support you? I'll include your website and everything in the show notes, but anything else that you're working on that you want people to know?

[00:53:00]

Lisa Broome: Thank you for asking. Honestly, what's coming up for me now is if you know anyone who's waffling with like a shift in career or life change or a health crisis or a health journey or if anyone who's listening to this, if you think of someone whom you think would be encouraged by this, send them to this podcast because I have gotten the most, I'm going to get emotional. I've gotten the most encouragement from others listening to them and their stories and so that's truly my wish if this can help support others and empower them and encourage them. If it's one thing I've learned. The fear won't go away and I don't want people to wait until the pain of where they are is so uncomfortable that they need to move. I'd love for people to be able to do it in a more empowered way, but I can also understand because that was my journey. Sometimes, the fear of the unknown is less painful than the pain you're experiencing. That's what causes us to move. So yeah, if you feel anyone would benefit from hearing this please share it with others

[00:54:00]

Aneta: Thank you. Thank you, thank you. I love you, my friend. I'm so grateful that the universe brought us together in the most interesting way, and that we have nurtured and maintained our friendship over the years. I would encourage anyone to work with Lisa, so I am so excited to be able to introduce you to my community. If you listened to or watch today's episode rate it Likes it, and share it, as Lisa said, as many people as possible could benefit from her story because there was a lot of wisdom shared today and I wish you continued success.

Lisa Broome: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute joy to be here and yes, I'm so grateful for our friendship.

Aneta: Yeah, me too. Thank you, my friend.