300 MINISODE Gigi and Makena Sage: Monetize What Enlivens You

Gigi and Makena Sage are founders of Lumina Life, a global coaching and seminar company helping go-getter women reach their full potential for financial success AND fulfillment. They share how to build a business on your own terms, why giving back unlocks an abundance of wealth and freedom, and how to balance our masculine “go mode” with a feminine “flow mode” to avoid burnout. Learn too how Gigi as a single mom with 5 homeschooled kids traveled the world to build her empire on her own terms – and how Makena started helping her mom at age 7.

Melinda Wittstock:         Makena and Gigi, welcome to Wings.

Gigi Sage:                            Thank you.

Makena Sage:                   Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m so excited to have my first ever mother and daughter entrepreneurial team on the podcast. I wanted to start by asking both of you, what’s inspiring you?

Gigi Sage:                            Well this is Gigi, and what is inspiring me this year is I’m so excited, I have wanted to work with my daughter for years. We started in 2018, and we’re growing and we’re having so much fun.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh, that’s wonderful. And Makena, how about you?

Makena Sage:                   Yeah, same thing, I think it’s been a dream of mine to have a family business since I was really young and went a different path But coming back to being able to do that with my mom and my sister and to really work with women and men in some of our programs and support them to create lives of financial success and fulfillment, it’s just really lighting me up, it feels like I’m really stuffed into to my soul’s work.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, we all share a mission in lifting women up, which is exciting and why I’m so excited to talk to you both today. And of course, on the entrepreneurial journey there are always challenges. Are there special challenges involved with being a family? Like a mother, two daughter team actually? Or other challenges, just the usual ones? What are some of yours right now?

Makena Sage:                   Yeah, I’ll share first, this is Makena. One of my big challenges, and maybe Gigi can speak to some other ones, but in my career has been this balance between what we call “go mode” and “flow mode”. Go mode is sometimes referred to as maybe a more masculine energy, flow mode is maybe a little more feminine. But what I’ve found is that when we refer to them in those ways, I was like, “Oh I don’t want to be masculine”. But the truth is, in order to be successful in business, we need both energies. As a woman to do that in a sustainable way we need both energies, because if you’re in go mode all the time you burn yourself out, and if you’re in flow mode all the time you never get anything done. So for me personally, my first business was really on the go mode side and definitely approaching burnout. So what I’ve been really mastering, or trying to master, is struggling with at times is that dance between these two energies and how do we have both in the right amounts to really thrive and be filled up.

Melinda Wittstock:         I think a lot of women struggle with that in business. I know that I was in my masculine for most of my 20s, 30s, into my 40s, and like a lot of women, coming into their 50s, struggle with this kind of adrenal burnout. It does have a health impact on you and I finally found that, I think I have anyway, I’m certainly prioritized that balance between, I love that, go mode and flow mode.

Gigi, how about you? Because you are sort of more my generation, and so for women pioneers in business in the early days and you were the only woman in the room, I imagine those challenges were not exactly easy in the early days. What are some of your challenges right now?

Gigi Sage:                            One of my challenges always is I am a creative and always wanting to have so many ideas and I know I find this is true for a lot of female entrepreneurs that are more like the visionaries. And so it’s always difficult for me to just go, “Okay, I’m sticking with one.” And that’s where it has been brilliant because Makena’s very different than that and so she’s really, really supports me to be more structured in that way. And I think just for women to know that we can do everything, we just can’t do it all at one time. And I think I often still am challenged by that [crosstalk 00:04:07].

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh.

Makena Sage:                   Can I share one last little thing? This is Makena.

Melinda Wittstock:         Go ahead.

Makena Sage:                   Along those lines, you asked about challenges about working together, and I think one of the challenges is we are so different. We have many similarities too and we get along very well, and yet we’re very different types. Gigi is the visionary, I’m much more the integrator or, I don’t know what you would call that type. But communication and things like that when you are so different, and learning to work with each other around our differences, it’s something that is an ongoing evolution.

And I think that we’ve managed pretty well that it is something in a family business, or any business. I think communication and how you work with each other’s differences.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. I love what you said about the visionary and the integrator, because that’s true of any business. Everybody needs the person who is the visionary and the person who is into and enjoys and who’s heart sings with the operational detail. ‘Cause if you’re only the visionary, it’s really difficult. I have that same idea, issue as you. So many more than are good for me, and I need a good integrator too, I always have.

So Makena, thank you for doing that work. Thank you on behalf of everyone. But it’s true, and you do, and behalf of anyone listening to this episode who doesn’t have that person on your team, and your head is exploding ’cause you can’t do the operational detail, you’ve got to find that person that’s so … it’s so vital.

So let’s turn to the advice segment of the Minisode. What are your top three go to pieces of advice for women in business, of what you see now? And I want you both to be able to contribute. Maybe we could do it, Gigi why don’t you go first with your top three pieces of advice, and then Makena go with yours.

Makena Sage:                   Okay. I think we have [crosstalk 00:06:08]. Gigi can go on a couple and I’ll share some as well.

Gigi Sage:                            Yeah. So number one, it’s a little bit different than I think what most people would share, is our method is really designed around your aliveness. To put it simply, at every moment your vitality is either increasing or decreasing. So what I tell women, is begin to observe that, is because that gives you a map to how to align more with what you’re the best at, and what you enjoy doing.

So even if you’re not in your own business, and you’re successful, often you’ll find at the end of the day, you’re drained. So you got to see what are those activities that you’re doing that you need to either delegate or eliminate, or maybe take a different approach to. And so after you map your aliveness for a while, you’ll start to see also what drains your energy as well, and start to make changes around that.

Makena Sage:                   Yeah I think that’s really, just to touch and something around that, one thing that Gigi shares that’s been really powerful for me is there’s such a thing as a good kind of tired. At the end of the day, you can be exhausted because, to build a thriving business and life and everything else, there’s a lot that goes into that sometimes. But when you’re the right kind of tired, that’s such a different distinction.

When I was in my first business, in many ways it fit or me but it was also not always the right kind of tired at the end of the day. So aliveness doesn’t mean you always have unlimited energy. Another way of putting aliveness, right Gigi, is around feeling peaceful.

Gigi Sage:                            Peaceful or [crosstalk 00:07:47] in alignment, yeah.

Makena Sage:                   Yeah, so starting to notices those differences. And then like she said, delegate, eliminate or create a different approach to the ones that drain your energy. Creating a different approach means, what does that mean Gigi?

Gigi Sage:                            Change your perspective. If you don’t like a particular task, find a different way of doing it. Include other people or set up an evening party, or just take a different approach that makes you have a different perspective on the task or what you’re doing.

Melinda Wittstock:         This is such good advice [crosstalk 00:08:25].

Makena Sage:                   Yeah, one more tip we would share is that, in my work, my first career was in online marketing and strategy. And I was blessed to work with many amazing speakers and authors and experts and coaches. And at all stages, from just starting out to multi million dollar businesses. And one of the things I saw a lot of the time and still see in our coaching with women entrepreneurs specifically, and especially at earlier stages, is that we get caught up a lot of the time in dreaming and the planning and wanting everything to look perfect.

And I get it, I do the same thing. So definitely not outside of this myself. However, one of the things we really work with women in our programs around is monetizing first. And what that means, is if you have a new business or you have a new project, and you’re clear that it is something that you brings you alive, that’s the first piece. Is it aligned, does it bring you alive? And then once you’re clear about that, you want to go for it, instead of getting stuck in the planning and the dreaming and going, I’ll do that once I have the website and once I have everything else, we really encourage women to go and generate with that right away.

I’ll share that my first business grew up to six figures very quickly without any social media presence, with an ugly WordPress blog that I made to look like a website. And I had that as my website for the first year to two years of my business. And I just share that because it doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be successful. And once you do monetize with something, even getting that first sale, it gives you so much more confidence to go out and create more. So that’s our [crosstalk 00:10:08].

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh, that’s so true. So ladies, you’re doing amazing work for women. Thank you for all you’re doing. How can people find you and work with you?

Makena Sage:                   Absolutely. So we have a free audio and worksheet that we’d love to offer your listeners. And it’s to help women discover kind of that point of monetizing, but in a way that’s really aligned for you. Not going out and looking at everybody else’s strategy, but really finding, we call it your winning blueprint for financial success. So how do you create a financial gain and really go for that in a way that really fits for you?

So the URL for that is www.yourluminalife, so that’s Y-O-U-R-L-U-M-I-N-A-L-I-F-E.com slash blueprint.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wonderful, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Makena Sage:                   Thank you. Delight to be here.