Why you should believe in magic

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We’re celebrating our 200th episode!! And it’s all about magic. Not the fairy-tale kind, but the magic of believing in yourself, trusting the process, and taking bold steps even when the path isn’t perfectly clear.

I am sharing inspiring stories of working moms who embraced the unknown and unlocked incredible results in their lives. You’ll leave this episode feeling empowered to create a little magic in your own journey. Ready? Let’s get to it! 

Topics in this episode:

  • Why believing in magic is crucial for achieving work-life balance. 

  • Inspiring success stories of moms who trusted the process. 

  • How shifting your mindset can spark magical changes in your relationships and career. 

  • Practical steps to cultivate magic: letting go of control and focusing on what you can change. 

  • The ripple effect of personal growth on your family and community.  

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Working moms, today is our 200th episode. I am so excited, and I am celebrating you and the impact you are making in this world.

We are also so close to Christmas and the end of the year that I’m taking time in this podcast to talk about a little something that is part of the work-life balance equation, something I’ve never really talked about here on the podcast before.

You ready? Here it is: magic.

Now, I know it would be so much easier if achieving your goals were like an equation, where the steps were laid out in such a way that it would guarantee your success. But the reality is, you will never know for sure how to achieve your goals until you actually achieve them.

You could have a good idea. You can trust in the way it’s worked out for other people. But you’re never actually sure how it’s going to work out for you, or the path that’s going to be required, until you actually do it.

Instead, you have to believe in a little magic. And that’s what we’re focusing on here today.

I have several stories for you about working moms who believed in a little magic and how it worked out for them. I’ll also offer you the mindset that’s required to make magic a part of your equation.

This episode is pretty special, my friends. Are you ready? Let’s get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom. I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Celebrating 200 episodes!

Hello, hello, working moms! I am so thrilled to be with you for our 200th episode. I wish this made a sound. It does not make a sound. Oh, my gosh. Let me get my button. You guys remember the celebration button? 30 second dance party!

Yeah, that’s something I’ve implemented with my clients. Whenever we have a celebration, I hit the celebration dance party button, and we dance. And that is what today is all about. If you’re on YouTube, you can actually see that I have a room full of balloons behind me in celebration. I just can’t even believe it—that I have recorded this many episodes!

The Birth of the Podcast

The first episode actually aired back in March of 2021, right in the middle of COVID. I remember, I actually remember when I decided to create this podcast. I was driving in my car out to Santa Cruz. I live in California, and I had rented a little beach house for the week because I was attending a coaching mastermind virtually—since we weren’t allowed to meet in person.

As I was driving, I was thinking, dreaming about how I wanted to serve working moms in my business. And this podcast came to mind. I just jumped headfirst into it.

This is For You

I want you to know, more than anything, as we’re celebrating today, that this podcast is not just about me. It’s really about you. It’s about you and the ambitious and balanced community of working moms who are the backbone of our families, our businesses, and our culture.

There’s something absolutely extraordinary about you. You bring so much to the table as a working mom—not just through your learned skills and knowledge, but in the tone you set for your family and your teams. You have this magical way of making people feel seen, heard, and inspired to move into action—all at the same time.

Your ability to carry at least 10 important priorities in your head at any given time is truly magical. I believe that. And it’s because of how amazing you are and how important the role you play is in this world, in our communities, across companies, and for sure in your families, that I want to support you through this podcast.

That’s what this is all about. You are what it’s all about. Extraordinary people deserve extraordinary support. And I hope you’ve felt supported by me at every level over the last 200 episodes.

Celebrating Incredible Milestones

Some of the things that have truly blown my mind about this podcast are the numbers. It’s been downloaded over 180,000 times. That’s crazy—180,000 times! It has had over 66,000 unique listeners across 46 countries.

This community is strong, and I want to celebrate each and every one of you today. You’ve made this podcast what it is, and I’m so grateful.

I also know it’s December 23rd when this episode is dropping, so today’s topic feels particularly relevant to the holiday season.

As we celebrate this incredible journey, we’re going to talk about something unique—something I don’t often discuss here on the podcast. Today, we’re going to talk about magic.

The Desire for Holiday Magic

Over the course of this holiday season, I’ve heard from many working moms who actually use the word magic to describe the holiday experience they want. They talk about it like it’s something tangible—they want to experience the magic of the holiday season.

And it’s true. The holidays tend to have this magical feeling unlike any other time of year. It’s a season filled with joy, hope, and a sense of fullness. Kids, in particular, have the most remarkable ability to foster this magic.

Think about it: letters to Santa, sent with hope for a specific gift in return. Santa himself is magical—no one has ever seen him, yet they believe. We believe that he’ll come and bring joy in the form of gifts during the holiday season.

Belief Without Logic

What’s so fascinating is that kids don’t need evidence to believe in something. Logic isn’t the basis of their belief or their hope. They don’t need to know how Santa will get into their home—they just simply believe.

As adults, we use different words to describe this same sense of magic. We say things like God, the universe, karma, or even luck. These are ways our adult brains try to make logical sense of things that feel magical—things that don’t always make sense.

So, while today is just a couple of days before Christmas, and we’re knee-deep in the holiday season, we’re also celebrating 200 episodes of this incredible community. Today, I want to talk about magic and the important role it plays for all of us as working moms.

Revisiting My Story

I want to start us off by sharing a little bit about my story. Now, I know you’ve heard it multiple times on the podcast—the story about how, when I was pregnant, I felt really lost. When my daughter was born, that feeling only deepened.

That season of life led me to become a coach and start my coaching business, which has allowed me to serve this amazing working mom community. But back then, I truly felt lost and stuck because I didn’t know my next step.

The Struggle to Find Direction

I didn’t know where I wanted to take my career. I didn’t know how to focus my ambition. I had no idea how I was going to change jobs while being the breadwinner and holding the insurance for my family.

I wasn’t even sure what kind of change I really wanted. And even if I made a change, I wasn’t sure if it would make me happy or give me more time with my daughter in the way I envisioned. That uncertainty was overwhelming.

Taking a Leap of Faith

So when I decided to go after my coaching certification, it was gonna be about a two-year journey. And it was an expensive certification process. It actually required me to cash in some stock in order to pay for it.

And I remember at that time, I didn't even know if I really wanted to become a coach. I remember going to my husband and saying, "Look, this might be the most expensive personal development journey that I have ever been on, and it might not lead me to a new career, but I think I need to do it. I think it's really my next step."

And of course, being the most amazing, supportive husband that he is, he didn't second guess it, and he gave me the green light too. So I took that next big step. I sold stock. I spent a lot of money.

Trusting the Process Without Guarantees

I had to go to my boss and tell him that I was doing these classes and ultimately that I was likely going to be leaving that job. And I had to tell him because the classes were in the middle of the workday. And so I needed his buy-in cause they were like hour-and-a-half to two-hour classes.

And so I had to take a lot of steps, having absolutely no idea where I was going. Right. I didn't know what the end result was gonna be through the coaching certification. It was still very unclear to me.

I couldn't put my faith or my belief in that the coaching certification was even gonna lead me to a business, let alone a successful one. I couldn't put my faith and belief in getting my coaching certification that it was going to bring me joy. I couldn't put my faith and belief in how much money I was gonna make or even that I'd be able to replace my salary anytime soon.

My hope was not in the end result because I didn't know what that was gonna be. There was no guarantee, right? My hope, my trust, my belief was in the very next step, which was actually applying for the coaching certification and getting started.

I had to trust in the magic. Simply opening the door and taking the next step and trusting that it was leading me in the direction I wanted to go. Right.

Magic is believing in things without certainty. And that was the moment for me. 

When Burnout Becomes Unsustainable

In the same way, I can think of a few clients like Catherine and Skyler - Skyler's been on this podcast before, both of whom worked 60 to 70 hours a week on a regular basis. They were burnt out. They were operating on very little sleep. They were experiencing extreme amounts of guilt and feelings of failure.

Then they came to me for coaching, knowing that they couldn’t continue to operate in the same way anymore. They had to figure out how to stop prioritizing work as much as they were without sacrificing the productivity and success in their jobs. But they had no idea how to do that.

What they had been doing wasn’t really working for them anymore. Time management strategies, better scheduling, trying to even lower their expectations, stay out of perfectionism—they tried to do it on their own, and they couldn’t.

Believing in the Magic of Possibility

And so they came to me and said, look, I don't know how to do this, but I trust it's possible for me. And even though for both of these ladies, they had spent a lot of time in their career over prioritizing work and working a lot of hours, they knew, they just knew, they believed almost in a magical way that even though they hadn't been able to figure out this whole work life balance thing, they knew that it was possible.

They didn't have evidence that even coaching was going to work for them. Working with me was going to work for them. But they listened to the podcast and they heard testimonials of other clients. They obviously read through my website and my program. They knew it was all about. They got on a call with me. What we talked about really resonated with them. But they couldn't be 100% certain.

Trusting the Process

They didn't have a whole lot of evidence in their life to ever say that they knew how to break their overworking habit. But they chose to believe in the magic of possibility, that the coaching process was the possibility they needed in order to have the life that they wanted.

My job as their coach was ultimately to lay out an effective process that they could follow that would ensure that they made the most progress they possibly could towards their work life balance goals. And their mind had a hard time sort of wrapping itself around what that process actually looked like or what the end result of it was going to be like. But they just believed in the magic of taking the next step of the possibility.

The Comfort of Logic

Our human brains really like logical processes laid out, right? Move by move, A plus B equals C equals D. Right? That feels better to our brain when we can logically see all the steps and understand how those steps get us to the end result that we’re looking for.

For Skylar and Catherine, the result they were looking for was less time working, more time for their family, feeling more balanced, more in control of themselves and their life. For me, the end result I wanted was a successful career that I absolutely loved waking up to every single day, that made me the amount of money I needed to make.

When steps A plus B plus C plus D and so forth get you to the result that you’re looking for, your brain doesn’t need magic to believe that your goal is possible for you, right? You just follow each step. It’s sort of laid out for you. That’s how you have this sense of guarantee that you’re gonna get to the result.

Why Life Is Not an Equation

But most of the time, the steps really aren’t that clear because life is not actually an equation. And any person, coach, or influencer that tells you it is—they’re not giving you the whole picture, right? There’s too much uncertainty in life, too much that you don’t control.

Mostly other people or things like worldwide pandemics, right? Things that just aren’t a part of the logical equation.

Magic—believing in magic—is having goals, but not having 100% certainty on the path or the equation that it’s going to take to get there.

Facing Fear and Following a Dream

I think of my client, Erica, who started coaching with me because her life sort of was feeling out of balance. It felt like she was prioritizing the wrong things. Ultimately, with her son at home, she was just longing for more time with him and less time feeling so tethered to work. She wanted what I call that priority-first life.

But in the midst of our time, a secret dream kind of came out of her, right? And she told me something that she had always wanted to do. But the fear of failure was so strong that it paralyzed her from moving forward.

She wanted to start her own organizing business. She wanted to leave the cushy job where she was deeply loved and well-compensated to start her own business. But what if it doesn't work out? What if I really can't make money at this? What if I can't replace my salary? How long is it gonna take me to be successful? What if nobody hires me? How do I even get started? What are the logistics?

The fear was paralyzing to her, even though she knew that she was gonna regret it if she didn't actually go after it.

Writing Down the Dream

So I had her do one thing with this dream—one thing. I had her write down: I have a successful organizing business. That’s what she literally wrote down: I have a successful organizing business. She wrote it every day and posted it somewhere where she could see it.

I told her, don’t think about how you’re gonna do it. Don’t think about all the decisions that need to be made or what the implications of it are. I just want you to simply act as if—to step into that belief that your organizing business is already successful.

Activating Belief

She was sort of activating within her the CEO energy that she needed in order to be successful. And in fact, in that section of coaching that we did together, she didn’t do anything related to that organizing business.

We were working on the work-life balance stuff. We weren’t even working on launching her business at all. I just had her write down that dream.

Many months, maybe even a year or two later—I can’t really remember—when we were talking, she pointed me back to that exercise. She said that was the beginning for her. That was the beginning of her ultimately leaving her job to follow a dream where now she makes six figures and has replaced her salary entirely. Right.

The Magic of Claiming Success

Magic is claiming success before there's even an ounce of evidence that it is possible or that it's ever gonna happen.

In preparation for this talk, which I knew was going to be the 200th episode, and I knew it was landing just before Christmas, and I knew I wanted to talk about the subject of magic, I started writing down little moments where I noticed magic happening for me and my clients.

I just wrote this ongoing list. Some of these sort of everyday magical experiences were like this. These are the kinds of things that started popping up.

The Struggle of Carrying the Mental Load

I have a client who is the default parent in her household. She carries the majority of the mental list, just like I know most of you that listen to this podcast do as well. And she was really struggling with her roles. She was struggling with her partner and how to get him to help out more.

She needed some things taken off her plate to experience a little bit more relief and balance, but she didn’t know how to make him do that. Right. And she was experiencing a lot of resentment because of it.

Shifting Focus to What You Can Control

One of the things I always focus on when we coach is making sure we focus on the things you can actually control. In this case, she had absolutely no control over whether or not her husband chose to take on more around the house or carry some of the mental load.

But what she could control was how she chose to think about her husband in these circumstances. She could choose to believe he was lazy, didn’t care, or wasn’t capable. She could choose to believe she was all on her own and stuck in a partnership that wasn’t equal and was never going to be equal.

Those thoughts were keeping her stuck in resentment. Instead, as I coached her, I shifted her focus. I said, “I want you to focus on how you’re on the same team.” The reality was, he didn’t really want her to be doing as much as she was doing, and they both had similar goals for their kids, their marriage, and their family.

She could choose to focus all her mental energy on how they were against each other, or instead, she could focus on how they were actually working as a team toward the same goals. One perspective feels very different than the other.

The Magic of an Energy Shift

She came back to me the next week—actually, I think I might have even gotten a message from her in the middle of the week. She told me, and I think she actually used the word magic.

She said, “It’s almost like magic. All I did was focus my energy on how we are on the same team, and all of a sudden, he started doing things around the house more than he ever has before.”

His energy shifted as her energy shifted toward him. It was almost like magic.

Could it be that he was actually doing more things around the house than she was giving him credit for? It’s possible. Or, it could be that shifting her own energy shifted his energy as well. Either way, the results were undeniable.

The Magic of Shifting Your Focus

Magic is in believing there's a domino effect—as you change, others rise to the occasion. And I find this to be true and feel sort of magical with my children as well.

The moment that I drop the agenda to get them out the door on time, or to get them to clean up their mess, their Legos, or to do a chore around the house—whatever it is—I know they’re capable of doing all those things. It would totally make my life easier if they would just do it without me having to ask them 5 million times.

But the moment that I drop that agenda and instead focus on being the present and connected mom that I really want to be, everything shifts. In this particular moment, for whatever reason, they’re struggling to comply. Something I know all humans don’t really like is being told what to do. So, it makes sense why kids, at times, kind of resist that and fight against it.

The moment I drop the agenda and my energy shifts toward them, their willingness to step in and help changes almost instantaneously. Sometimes they’re able to actually pick themselves up and follow through with whatever the thing is that I’ve asked them to do. And sometimes they’re not, but they’ve dropped the resistance.

So, my ability to help them and care for them in that moment—whether it’s picking up their toys or doing the chore—improves. It’s almost like magic how, when I shift, they shift, and then everything gets better.

Magic is believing that when you simply focus on yourself and the things you control, instead of trying to get other people to do or stop doing things, you actually get what you want faster.

The Different Ways Magic Shows Up

Let me highlight for you the different ways I’ve explained magic based on all of these stories:

  • Magic is believing in things without any certainty—not knowing what the end result is going to be, and not being certain or guaranteed that you’re even going to get to that result.

  • Magic is having goals without 100% certainty about the path or even the equation it’s going to take to get there.

  • Magic is claiming success before there’s even an ounce of evidence that it’s possible or that it’s going to happen.

  • Magic is believing in the domino effect—as you change, others rise to the occasion.

  • Magic is focusing on you and the things you control—instead of trying to get other people to do things or stop doing things—and finding that you get to the results you want faster.

Practical Steps to Cultivate Magic

Now, in order to cultivate this magic, there are a couple of things that are really practical that you can do. The first one: release the need to know all of the details, right? The unknown is unknown.

You will never know how you are going to achieve work-life balance, or how you’re gonna get yourself into a job that you love waking up to every single day, or how you’re gonna change your overworking habits, or how you’re truly gonna understand yourself, your identity, and your purpose—and put that into practice in life.

You’re never gonna know how to achieve a goal until you’ve already done it. It’s at that point that you can look back and say, Oh, that was how I got here. That was the path. It was B plus C and then D. That’s how it worked out. But you don’t get to know that before.

The Coaching Process

For my clients in coaching, there are really three pieces of the process that I walk you through that, as much as I possibly can, guarantee you’re going to achieve the goals you set out to achieve:

  1. Clarity over your priorities and your goals.

  2. Confidence in who you are and what you have to offer.

  3. Control over your emotional responses and your mindset.

Now, I could break all of that down for you. I could go through each of those pieces and talk about every single practice, tool, or strategy that it’s going to take to get you there along the path.

Tailoring the Path to You

But I’m never certain exactly what’s going to be best for you. What worked for another client isn’t necessarily what’s going to work for you. You’re not a cookie cutter, right? You’re not a sugar cookie that I’m gonna frost. You’re a human being with your own circumstances, needs, goals, and ways of operating.

I could tell you, Here’s the whole alphabet of tools and strategies. But I have no idea which ones you’re actually going to use or in what order we’re going to use them.

What I can tell you is that this is the bucket we’re going to pull from in coaching. Together, we’ll figure out exactly what the right equation is for you so that you can experience whatever it is you’ve set out to experience in coaching—work-life balance, a fulfilling career, whatever it may be.

You have to release the specificity of how you’re going to get there because you’re never gonna know. And you have to trust in a little magic.

Release the End Result

The second thing you need to do in order to cultivate more magic and lean into this as a working mom is to release the end result.

Right now, you might think, I need a new job, or I need a new boss, or I need to be in a completely different industry, or I need a partner that’s going to help out more around the house, or we need a little bit more money.

Or you might think, I need to live closer to family, or I need a stronger community, or I need to get on the same page as my husband. But in the end, sometimes it’s not that. In the end, sometimes it’s different.

Discovering What You Really Need

I can’t tell you how often a working mom gets on a breakthrough call with me, thinking she needs to change jobs because she feels unfulfilled. And of course, that makes sense.

They come to coaching and say, I think I need to change careers. That’s what I need, because they feel unfulfilled in their current job. But once we really get into coaching—evaluating what’s truly important to them and what their future career goals are—the majority actually realize their current job or company is exactly where they want to be.

The job isn’t the problem. It’s how they’re showing up in that job that’s the problem. In fact, I would say about 75% of the women I work with who think they need to change jobs actually decide in the end not to change jobs at all.

Instead, we focus on stepping into their CEO energy, rebuilding their confidence and clarity, learning the art of prioritization, and really taking back control of their time and energy.

To make strides toward the fulfilling and balanced working mom life that you want, you have to release the specific picture of what you think that looks like. Because it might not be it.

Believe That Life Is Working in Your Favor

The third thing you need to do to cultivate a little magic is believe that things are always working in your favor. Find evidence for how that is true and how the magic is working over and over and over again.

Life is not against you. Your boss is not against you. Your kids, your spouse, and your industry are not against you.

One of the things I like to say to my clients is that we have to believe that God, the universe, the magic—whatever it is you want to believe in—is always on your side. It’s always working on your behalf.

So even in the most stressful and hard moments, when you feel the most out of balance and the most stuck, it’s actually the time to double down and believe that your goals are possible and that you are actually making progress, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

That’s magic right there.

Focus on What’s Working

My friends, when a client comes to me and tells me that they’re feeling so out of balance and everything they’re doing isn’t working, I usually stop them—sometimes mid-sentence—and I say, “Hold on. I know that you want to believe that nothing is working, but I want you to tell me about the things that are working.”

Sometimes it takes them a long time to think. They say, “Nothing’s working in my favor.” And I say, “That’s not true. Let’s find the few things that are working.”

They think and think, and eventually, they’re able to start rattling off the little bits of things that have changed—the little bits of progress they have made, the little bits of things they’ve noticed, the tweaks that have actually been effective for them.

Progress begets more progress, right? Stuckness—or feeling like the world is against you—just begets more of the world being against you.

So you have to force your brain to think about progress being made. Tell me about progress being made. And magically, you’re going to start creating even more progress.

Celebrating the Ripple Effect

Going back through and reading through my client evaluations and their stories from the past seven years, just so I could have some of these examples for you in the podcast. It has brought up so many warm and fuzzy feelings inside.

I have just had the privilege, absolute privilege, of coaching hundreds of women personally in my years of business. If you are one of them, I thank you. I am overjoyed that I have been a part of your journey.

This podcast having reached 66,000 people, and then if I include talks and trainings that I’ve given, I’m probably looking at the ripple effect of this community and what we talk about in this community having reached over 80,000 people, right? That’s amazing. It is something to celebrate.

If I wish my little thing here, I’m blowing a little horn that it would actually make sound, but it doesn’t. Here I go again. It’s one of those things that it kind of. You blow into it and then it comes out. It’s like, ah!!

The Ripple Effect of Our Work

…anyway, the message on this podcast and the ownership that we talk about here in the ambitious and balanced community—dismantling the idea that you have to choose between your career and your family—this work has had a ripple effect beyond measure.

Create Your Vision for 2025

If you want to make exponential progress towards your next year’s goals, if you want to guarantee you will experience balance, fulfillment, less stress, guilt, and overwhelm, and take back control of your time, I would love to work with you. Please, please reach out if you haven’t already, and schedule your free breakthrough call.

This is essentially a consultation call where you’re going to reflect on and define the vision for the life you want in 2025 and beyond. I’m going to help you cultivate that vision.

We’re going to talk about exactly what it’s going to take for you to get there. I’m going to lay out all the logistics of coaching, leave plenty of time to answer your questions, and ultimately talk about our next steps.

A Heartfelt Thank You

Working moms, it has been such a joy. If you have a moment to rate and review this podcast and you’ve listened to this point, you are a loyal listener, and I’m so grateful for you.

The best way you can get this resource into the hands of other working moms is to rate and review it right now. It will only take a couple of moments, but those reviews go so far. I love reading each and every one of them, they usually make me cry. I’m just so grateful for this community.

Thank you for celebrating with me today on our 200th episode. I’m throwing myself a little dance party, enjoying the balloons, and I hope you are celebrating with me.

Until next week, happy holidays. Let’s get to it.

Make 2025 Your Year of Balance

Hey working moms, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode! I want to let you know that the next cohort for my group coaching program, Ambitious and Balanced, is starting soon.

If you’re looking to make 2025 the year where you not only learn how to create sustainable work-life balance but also put it into practice—so that you and your family come first without sacrificing success at your job—then this program is for you.

I’m only taking 10 women into this cohort, and you’re not going to want to miss this opportunity.

Your Next Step

To learn more, head over to my website: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/ambitiousandbalanced 

This is the year where you feel successful both at work and at home. I can’t wait for you to start!

I’ll see you next week, and until then—let’s get to it!

Rebecca Olson