Unlocking Abundance with Alexandra Taketa - EP 018

 

 

In this episode, I'm thrilled to introduce you to an amazing guest whose mission aligns closely with mine and who brings extensive experience and wisdom in money mindset and abundance.

Join me in a conversation with Alexandra Taketa, a coach and mentor specializing in helping women master their money mindset and cultivate abundance. Alexandra shares her personal journey of transforming her money mindset, reflecting on her early money stories and experiences.

She talks about how a childhood experience shaped her money beliefs and her realization that she could control her thoughts. Alexandra emphasizes setting intentions, establishing a new norm, and slowly changing your beliefs to bring more abundance into your life. This discussion highlights how becoming more aware can help you change your story about money.

Throughout our discussion, Alexandra looks at how money and wealth are related, pointing out that money itself isn't good or bad. She talks about the importance of how we think and feel about money, believing in ourselves, and knowing our worth.

We discuss why it's key to focus on feeling good now and acting like the wealthy person you want to become.

Tune in for an enriching conversation filled with valuable takeaways about money and mindset!

 

Takeaways

• Our beliefs about money often come from our early life and the stories we hear, but we can change these beliefs.
• Controlling thoughts and beliefs is key to creating a new narrative and unlocking abundance.
• Setting intentions and creating a new normal can lead to new opportunities and experiences.
• Awareness and feeling safe are crucial in the journey of shifting money mindset and allowing in abundance. Money is a neutral exchange and should not be given too much power.
• Confidence and belief in the value of what one provides are key to financial success.
• Feeling good first and embodying the future abundant self are important for attracting abundance.
• Trusting in divine timing and prioritizing self-care are essential for sustainable success.

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Alexandra Taketa and Her Mission

01:25 Early Money Stories and Upbringing

06:57 The Turning Point in Alexandra's Money Mindset Journey

11:02 The Realization of Controlling Thoughts and Creating a New Narrative 

13:04 The Impact of a Month-Long Meditation Retreat 

16:32 Setting Intentions and Creating a New Normal 

24:08 The Shift in Mindset Leading to New Opportunities

27:08 Money as a Neutral Exchange

30:11 Putting Money in the Right Order

31:04 Feeling Good First

32:09 Embodying the Future Abundant Self

36:12 Trusting Divine Timing

39:30 Prioritizing Self-Care

42:04 Relearning Lessons

 

If you’re ready to have a deeper conversation about how to maximize impact, profit and pleasure in your business and life, you can schedule a time to connect with me right here >>> 

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Episode Transcript

 

Rachel (00:03.562)

Hello and welcome to Pleasure and Profits. I'm your host, Rachel Anzalone, and I'm super excited to bring you an incredible guest today whose mission is so aligned with my own and who brings really a depth of experience and wisdom around money mindset and abundance that I think we can all benefit from.

My guest today is Alexandra Takeda. Alexandra is a coach and a mentor to women business leaders and entrepreneurs, helping them to master money mindset, own their worth and take profitable action steps to create a bolder business and a bigger bottom line. I love the alliteration there. Her company has one clear mission, to help women become abundant, wealthy and empowered. She's helped hundreds of clients across five continents use their soul's purpose to create massive impact and make meaningful money.

She teaches the fundamental mindset shifts and practical business strategies that have helped her go from broke and overwhelmed to a massively abundant woman. We're going to talk about that for sure. And she brings her experience of 15 years in her corporate career as a six and seven figure earner, an author, a keynote speaker, coach, and CEO of two multiple six figure online businesses to help you and me up level our money game.

So like many teachers, many of our best teachers, Alexandra has done the work and continues to do the work. And so she has a lot of wisdom from experience that she's here to share a little bit of that with us today. So welcome to the show, Alexandra.

 

Alexandra Taketa (01:40.768)

Thank you so much, Rachel. It's really a pleasure to be here and to be talking about all of this good stuff together.

 

Rachel (01:49.194)

Yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation with you. We met not that long ago through our mutual friend, April Pertuis. And you and April have known each other a long time. And in preparation for this conversation, I was listening to your interview with her on her podcast, The Inside Story. And you started talking and you were talking about your experience growing up and how that sort of informed the money stories that you carried with you into your adult working life.

And then you got into how you resolved that. But when you're telling your early life stories, I was like, “oh my gosh, she's so much like me. We have the same experience.” And so I'm super excited for you to share that. And we can talk a little bit about that. And then you'll be like, “oh, here's your money stories, Rachel, because I have this story of like, oh, I grew up this way. And the people I know who are wealthy didn't grow up that way.” So I'm really excited for you to share this story of like where you came from and the beginning of how you got into doing this work around abundance for yourself and then how you started to share it with other people.

 

Alexandra Taketa (02:57.472)

Sure, and I'm trying to recall exactly what I shared there, but I'm not sure if it really matters. But I think the origin of my story when I actually started to do the healing work around my relationship with money, I started to explore what were all those things that had been encoded in my own financial abundance thermostat inside of my body. What were all the stories? What were the things that I learned growing up and one of the earliest memories I had around money and the shaping of my own money story was when I was in kindergarten. 

I was five years old and I was very, very timid about school. I really was scared to go to school. And, you know, people who know me now kind of think, oh my gosh, that's so crazy that you were like that. But I was definitely the kid who was clinging to my mom's leg being dragged in. And I remember I would cry pretty much every single morning going into kindergarten, at least for the first month or so. And I remember my sister would kind of see me, see walking with us and then bolt up the stairs. Like I got to get away from this, you know, this crying child. And I had a friend in that class who would come out the door and coax me in every day. And I think I was just overwhelmed. 

I was, you know, I was, barely turned five going into kindergarten. My mom was a single mom. You know, been divorced since I was two years old. And I think I probably had other experiences of being left different places and I didn't really like that, you know, so there was sort of that element happening. But I remember one day my, I was carrying my dime in for lunch and my lunch actually cost a dime because at that time I was on what was called the reduced lunch program. So it wasn't the sophisticated system that, you know, kids have now where it's the choice lunch and you log your credit card in and it just automatically deducts, right? 

That I actually had to carry my diamond to school and I had it in my pocket and somehow I lost it. And I remember feeling already like I was behind. Like there were charts on the wall where, you know, kids had lost like 15 teeth and I had lost any teeth yet. You know, there were, I wasn't totally sure how to hold the pencil. All the things, you know, I already felt behind and kind of different inside of that class. 

And then that particular day when I lost my dime, I got upset about it because I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, like, I'm not gonna be able to eat.” And so I told my teacher, and she probably had just had one of those days where she was totally maxed out and couldn't handle the 30 kids in that class and just unloaded on me and pretty much in front of the whole class shamed me.

You know, made me, pointed me out as you can't even, you know, hold on to your dime. And in that moment, everybody knew. Oh my goodness.

 

Rachel (05:56.554)

Ugh, my heart just breaks for that five-year-old. Like that's, yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (06:01.468)

You're the girl who only pays a dime and I pay $1.10. There was a real difference that was demarcated in that moment. And I think that was really the beginning of me thinking, “Oh, I'm different and I'm the poor kid and I don't have any money.” And the way that our brains work, you know, know this from neuroscience, it's just, we start to...to implant evidence of, you know, we start to implant ideas of, you know, who we are in our identity and then we, our brains are like constantly scanning the environment for that evidence to reinforce it. And that's really what happened for me. Not until my mid twenties did I really actually realize that, you know, I could change this story. This narrative could be different. I could create a completely fresh narrative with a much brighter future and one that actually aligned with my desires and my dreams and my wants and I was worth it. But up until then, I didn't believe that. I believed that little girl's story of you're poor, you're different. You don't deserve those things.

 

Rachel (07:14.826)

Yeah, so what I really identified with when I heard you telling that story was that I came from the same place. I came from a very poor rural town. My parents were divorced. I was on the reduced lunch program. Mine was a quarter by the time I got there. It was a quarter for lunch. And there was sort of this dichotomy of knowing that we didn't have money because most of the kids weren't on the reduced lunch program, right? And so that was kind of its own thing. 

And then also having no idea until really probably in my thirties of like what kind of money people really had out in the world, because even though we were poor in the town that we were in, everybody was pretty poor in the town that we were in. So there was just no concept of, you know, it was a county where that to date, the average household income is like $36,000 a year.  So it's really an extreme, I wanna say an extreme low, but I think it's very common. And then you get into the world of entrepreneurship and start being around people who just have an expectation that they're gonna drive an Audi and they're gonna have a million dollar house. And it's just like, it's such a foreign world. It's like just walking into an entirely different culture. And there's an element of culture shock and of feeling like, “Oh wait, I don't belong here because these people are here because they grew up in these places, because they had an Ivy League education, because they had these relationships or connections.” And so there's all this unlearning that has to happen. And so I love to hear your story of having come from that place and created all this incredible abundance and success for yourself.

And so how did you start to unravel that and get into shifting into a different place?

 

Alexandra Taketa (09:14.112)

Sure, and just thank you for sharing that because that's really helpful context just to know too. And it's interesting because I think I had two very distinct experiences because my parents were divorced and I would spend my summers with my dad and my grandparents and I would go visit him in Maine and where he was and then he went back to graduate school at MIT when I was around seven, went to business school and then created a very abundant life for himself. And so I saw very, had two very distinct experiences in terms of what I was doing on a day-to-day basis with my mom and my sister and where we were living during the school year and then being with my dad and that experience. 

And even with both sets of my grandparents, there was more abundance. So I definitely had tastes of it and pictures of it, but never fully being immersed in it. And I think what happened to me was that I got pretty defensive. And, you know, and I think probably this is very common, what a lot of people do, rather than taking responsibility for your situation, you want to externalize it and blame it on everybody else, and everything else, right? It's the economy, it's their fault, you know, I can't make money because of this or that, or, you know, my case, I started to hold onto a lot of judgment and really negative opinions and thoughts about people with money. Well, they have all that, you know, they're just like, they were just given that. 

In reality, you know, everybody's living a human experience and we all have ups and downs and things that are going really well and things that may not be going that well. We have no idea what's happening inside of people's lives, right? We have no idea what they did to create whatever they've created. And so the idea that I would be judging that is pretty preposterous and, you know, honestly, you know, kind of embarrassing, right? You know, it's like, oh my gosh, you know. So it really wasn't, it wasn't until my mid 20s when I was around 25, 26, that I started to realize that, you know, if I ever wanted to get out of this sort of broke situation, I was gonna have to do something about it.

And that's around the time where I started to realize that my own thoughts, my own beliefs, my own perceptions, my actions were actually creating the entire dynamic of what I was living and that I had to take responsibility for it. It wasn't like something externally was gonna shift and then it was magically gonna all work itself out. And it started with a series of different events and sort of making after graduate school, making a pretty key decision in my life that I was going to go and like join the corporate world and, and, and doing that, getting myself into a job where I still had so many different abundance blocks that I just worked myself to the bone and was like, got an eye tick because I was so exhausted and I was working like 80 hours a week. So even with my $60,000 salary or whatever, I mean, it equated to, you know, minimum wage, basically, if not less, right.

 

Rachel (12:26.89)

Same, I just want to say same, same, same. I was like, yay, I'm making all this money. Now I must work 12 hours a day in order to have earned the money that I'm getting paid. Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (12:38.322)

Yeah, so I was still pretty much broke even though I was working my rear end off, right? That happened, you know, so I was still blocking it. I was still blocking my abundance. I was not allowing myself to fully receive it because there, you know, there are ways to make a lot of money and not exhaust yourself, right? It's not either or. This is your whole theme, pleasure and profits. It is.

 

Rachel (13:04.202)

Pleasure and profits. Both. You can have both. Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (13:07.904)

Possible, right? So, so that was happening. I quickly realized that, okay, something's got to give here, I need to reorganize and actually took myself on a month long meditation retreat, whole other conversation, but I had a massive awakening. During that process, I don't think I'd ever meditated for more than like 20 minutes. I mean, I just didn't even know what that was. And I went to this thing that was, you know, 10 hours, 11 hours of meditation a day.

Total naivety and it was incredible. I am convinced that without that, my life would not have taken the path it has taken because there was just so many openings that were created for me inside of that experience. And one of them just being that, “Wow, I have all these thoughts that are going on. I could sit on the mat and have like, a million thoughts going on. I could be in fear, I could be in joy, I could be in total anger about whatever was happening. I could start crying. And yet, nothing was actually happening. I was literally sitting on this mat inside of this tent in the mountains of Colorado.” 

So everything that I was feeling was just something that I was making up inside of my mind, inside of my imagination. And that was a true epiphany for me because I realized, wow, like, I am not my thoughts. I am the director of my thoughts. I am just observing them, but I actually have the conscious ability to control them. And so yeah, I could go and spin out about this thing that could happen in the future or reflect back about something in the past and be really angry about it. Or I could get super present and be in my body and actually be connected to the abundance that's here right now for me, be really grateful for it. And I could expand that feeling. 

And that was pretty revolutionary for me. You know, there are a couple of other things that happened during that retreat that made me get really clear. I think when one night I went out and spent the night on top of the mountaintop and did all these, you know, like, burn all the things that you don't want anymore. And you know, create your crafter intentions and had a pretty powerful vision and dream. And the next morning went to my journal and spent, I mean, maybe like four or five hours writing everything that I was going to what my new normal was. This is what I'm available for. This is what I am no longer available for. I'm not going to tolerate this kind of, um, whether it was behavior from, you know, guys that I had dated or things that I wanted in my life. 

I mean, I just wrote it down and I wrote pages and pages of it. I mean, I got really specific. And I'm convinced through that experience, my husband halfway across the United States heard it, you know, and like, you know, cracked open a window and then like came inside of my, you know, came into my experience because of that.

I'm convinced because it was about, you know, two months later when I'd left that retreat, come back to my home in San Francisco, that I had started up a relationship with my now husband. And about a month into that relationship, he gave me a really beautiful gift of a pearl necklace. And I remember feeling incredibly overwhelmed, totally grateful, very appreciative, and yet I wasn't able to express my appreciation to him. My whole throat was closing up. I was sweating. I was getting uncomfortable. My body was literally having this reaction to the dialed up thermostat. My internal stat point was like 60 degrees. And it was like we had just taken the abundance meter up to 80, and I couldn't adjust to that level of receiving.

 

Rachel (17:29.194)

Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (17:32.544)

And it wasn't until probably like the next day or that night or whatever I sat with my discomfort and all the icky feelings of not really being able to fully receive his gift and really just sat with like, “Okay, what is going on here?” And it was like, I heard my higher self, God basically tell me, you don't believe that you are worthy. And you know, you don't believe that you're deserving of all these things, but you are. And are you willing to change it?

And that was the moment. That was the moment, hands down because that's when I realized, holy moly, this is not just about some broken relationship with money. This is about abundance. This is about allowing joy, pleasure, community, purpose, impact, friendships, love, wealth, you know, healthy body, vibrance, you name it.

This is about expansiveness, like true beauty, you know, letting myself dream. This is about all of the abundance. And if I don't deal with even just the basics of my money, there's no way I will let any of that other end.

And that was the turning point for me.

 

Rachel (19:01.898)

Yeah. And then it was all fixed, right? I'm just kidding. Hahaha. No. So first, yeah, and then you just were like, and we're good now.

 

Alexandra Taketa (19:06.496)

Hahaha. Yeah, right. No. Yeah, I just wished up the millions and there they were.

 

Rachel (19:26.378)

So I had a very similar experience with my husband who I met post divorce at 38 years old, I reached the point where I was like, I had been in this relationship that was really challenging for a lot of reasons. And then I left it and I dated for a couple of years and was just sort of just like having fun and enjoying life. And then I just reached the point where I was like, I know what I want. And I went away for a weekend and I made a little retreat for myself on the beach. I had a tent and a cooler and like, you know, pen and paper. 

And I on that trip, I like I wrote exactly what I wanted and not the kind of like superficial stuff that like he needs to be six foot tall. It's not that stuff. But like really, who's the core of this person that I want to be with? And, I met him two days later. No joke. And then in our conversations, he said he really had reached that point, too. Where he was like, I'm tired of pretending to be something I'm not in order to make somebody else happy. I'm tired of trying to like accommodate all these things, right? And so it was just this sort of magical coming together of two people who were like, here I am, here's what I do. Either it works for you or it doesn't. 

And then pretty quickly in a matter of months, I found myself trying to find problems with it. Because I was so uncomfortable being in a relationship that was easy, that I was like trying to find something to fight about. I was like instigating and pushing button, and I had to do the same thing. I sat down and I was like, what am I doing? What is going on here? And it was this like, you have never had it easy. You've never had a relationship with somebody who respects you and communicates or, you know, that it's just easy to be around, that you're not sort of in some constant like tumult around. And I had to really like relearn or learn probably for the first time how to just be okay with things being like simple and easy to navigate and not having to like fight my way through something. 

 

Alexandra Taketa (21:32.32)

It's so powerful, so powerful. And good for you for doing that and sitting with that. Because I think that's really the first piece is that awareness. It's like realizing that like, “Hey, there's something that I'm doing here that's actually not working for me.” Whether it's sitting quietly and just tuning in and listening or asking yourself those hard questions. It's that awareness. And then because the thing is, is until we're aware of it, then we can't shift it. And our bodies have to feel safe. We do, we have this thermostat for what we'll allow in and what we'll let ourselves receive. And what we could receive is unlimited. (Rachel: Yeah, absolutely.) There's not like some cap, there's not like some cap. 

It's like love or whatever, right? It just keeps expanding. It's that whole saying, the better it gets, the better it gets, right? It just does, right? It's this like delicious joy ride that we can go on once we allow ourselves to do that. And for me, it was a lot of unlearning, you know, I mean, I just I read like hundreds of books, I started listening to people, I went back and I got a coaching certification and you know, did a lot of my own internal work. And I was honest about it too, it was really vulnerable, you know, in the you know, in the disaster of my reaction to the pearl necklace, you know, I mean, I told, you know, my now husband, I'm I apologized, said, “I'm sorry, you know, this is, this is something I really need to work on. And will you help me? Are you willing to go on this journey with me?” Because there really was no other way to go about it. We both knew it happened. And I just decided that honesty was the best way to go. 

And what I do want to say, though, is that I felt like once I made the decision, things shifted really quickly for me. And that I, you know, once I decided that this was something I wanted to be different in my life, and that yes, I was willing to accept, you know, to accept that challenge that I was given by my by my higher self, by you know, by spirit to really step into my worth and step into my you know, owning my value.

It was like, you know, it was that commitment that just, you know, sealed it, you know, so then it was like, okay, every opportunity, everything that I was doing was an opportunity to practice that. And sometimes I didn't do it well or failed at it but I just kept going. You know, I just kept recommitting, recommitting, re deciding, yes, I'm doing this. And one of the things that you know, that opened up for me was that point I was doing some consulting work and you know, I was like, and charging wasn't like, you know, just things were, I was overworking, over delivering, under earning. (Rachel: Yes, common story.) Pretty, pretty typical. Yes. And because I still had all those blocks. But once I made that decision and shifted, it was like, oh, wait a second. You there was like a boundary line that got drawn. You can't do that anymore.

And I remember I got my first six figure contract within like three months. And so it was a massive shift. And then that opened up a whole other set of doors and experiences for me. And, you know, it wasn't like I went from zero to millions of dollars in the bank in three months, but what I did was I climatized myself gradually over the years to more and more, right? And to allowing in more.

And it was basic at first, you know, like when I was in college or graduate school or even, you know, before committing to this work, like, you know, I would never have taken myself out to a nice dinner. You know, I would have like a budget of like 10 bucks, you know, when I was in grad school to go to dinner, because I had like literally like a hundred dollars extra spending money and that was it.

 

Rachel (25:56.842)

Yes. Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (25:59.168)

So it was simple stuff like, oh, you can go to a nice dinner. Or, you know, we lived in San Francisco. It was like, oh, we could go up to Napa and spend a weekend and like go to the wine country. You know, I mean, it was like, or even stuff that didn't cost anything, allowing in more compliments, you know, just the basics. It was all of this stuff that was adding up that was gradually allowing my body to feel safe, turning that internal thermostat up, right? And gradually shifting, you know, because I had done all that meditation work and really, you know, had that epiphany about my thoughts too. It was shifting my thoughts, shifting my beliefs, shifting my perceptions, you know, realizing that, no, people with money are bad people. Money doesn't actually change anybody. It just like amps up what you already are and it just magnifies it.  And so, if you're generous, you're just gonna be more generous. And so accepting that, I think just like melted a lot of the heaviness and the stress for me and really helped me realize that it wasn't, I don't know that like money is just this made up thing. It's like just a value. 

You we, we, you know, we use it to, to trade value, right for things that we value, right? It's like, okay, I want to buy this phone. How much does it cost? Right? Money is just the exchange. It's the currency that we're using. And that to me also was really relieving. It was like, I left, dropped the pressure to that it was just totally neutral. I came into an understanding that, money's not good or bad. And so then for me, it was like, Oh, I just got to master my own energy and my own emotions and my own thoughts about it.

 

Rachel (27:49.166)

Yeah, it really is an internal project. It's not, you know, I read somewhere in your website and your post and email, you said something about, you know, people wonder why they're not earning or why they don't have the abundance. And they think it's because they don't have the right business or marketing strategy. But it's not about your business or marketing strategy. Like there is, and I agree, like there is like a fundamental level of like you need to have some tools and you need to have some basics. 

But I've seen people do exceptionally well financially with the worst website, with objectively sending out, they're just sending out a Gmail. They don't have a funnel. They don't have all these sort of bells and whistles that everybody thinks you need to have. And it's because they have a level of confidence and belief in the value of what they're providing that just they open their mouth and they speak and people are, they respond with, yes, yes, I want that. Yes, that has value to me.

 

Alexandra Taketa (28:46.752)

Yeah. They're magnetized by it because it is magnetic. They have an energetics about them that says, this is what I do. I'm owning my worth. I'm owning my value. I'm here to provide value, which in turn is going to return more value, right? Bring more value into their lives. 

And they're, yeah, they're not externalizing it, which I think is key. And I think, you know, even before we started to press record, you know, we were talking about that. It's like people think that it's some external thing. Ah, you know, when I make this mount, you know, or once I have this set up, once I've got my perfect website, then the money is going to come. No, no, it's setting it inside first. And then all of that then gets reflected out energetically, right. And we have to, it's also just, in general, I think people give way too much power to money. You know, it's like, we think that money is going to solve all our problems. We think it's going to fix it all. And yes, there's a lot of things that money affords that can bring us more choices and options and things like that. 

But in general, it's just giving way too much power to money. We have to put we have to kind of put it in right order. And we have to decide to feel the way that we want to feel first. So if you want to be abundant, like you got to feel abundant. You got to find ways to feel abundant in your life, whether that's just drinking a simple cup of tea or making yourself a coffee with froth milk in the morning or going for a walk or taking yourself out to West Texas and hiking, whatever it is.

Get that feeling in your body. Think about all the things that you desire. You want more clients, you want a handbag. Like, what's the emotion? What's the feeling that that thing is gonna give you? Figure out how to feel that way first. That way when the thing comes, you'll actually be able to receive it. You'll actually be able to let it in. You'll have primed all the receptors in your brain to actually say, yes, please, I'm ready for it.

 

Rachel (31:04.644)

Yeah, that focus on feeling good first. So this is a conversation I have often that's like, especially with people who are healers and helpers and want to be of service and have big hearts, that there's this idea of needing to like, do the work, create the impact. And then once I've done that, then I can make the money, then the money will come. And then once the money's come, then I'll feel good.

And it just doesn't work that way. There has to be a balance and a combination of the three and really learning how to cultivate that feeling of joy, satisfaction, pleasure, whatever it means to you to feel really good and to feel abundant, then contributes to your ability to create more abundance and to have more impact. They're all intertwined and you can't separate them or focus on one before the other to the extent of your well-being or the extent of your happiness. It just doesn't pan out that way, generally speaking.

 

Alexandra Taketa (32:09.12)

No, it doesn't. And it's, you know, its… Yeah, you got to decide how you want to feel like how are you going to feel once you've got that money? Get get into that place of feeling there now and then start taking the actions that move you there. And you know, one of the tools that I love working with women around is this is this, you know, future self abundant woman version of you, really getting into the embodiment of her now, using that future wisdom, because in my mind, there's always like, there's not just this sort of physical timeline that we're on. 

There's also this, you know, spiritual dimension of timelines where, you know, that version of you already exists out there. (Rachel: Absolutely) She's already done all the things she's already, you know, that big vision that's in your heart, she's already created it. So taking her perspective, and then applying it back in your own life, what are the decisions she's making? How is she attentive to her money? What systems does she have set up that are managing her financial wellbeing? How is she interacting with her clients? How would she come to the sales presentation? What are the marketing messages that really resonate with her? How would she be carrying her body? What would she be dressing like? How would she be going about the day to day of her work? How would she be going into the grocery store, enjoying her life while she's picking out the vegetables and the fruits that she loves.

All encompassing, you know, how do you really be her now and bring that wisdom into your now moment so that you're actually operating from that most abundant perspective of you, rather than the, you know, the limited version of you that might still be wondering and worrying about stuff. And am I good enough? No, no, no. Bring the version of you that knows she's good enough, right? That knows she's worth it. That is not afraid to value her work and charge, that you know, the price that’s you know, that's exciting, even if it's a little bit terrifying.

 

Rachel (34:19.906)

Yeah. Yes. I actually literally just published today a podcast. It'll be a couple of weeks before this comes out, but about how fear and excitement actually feel the same in your body. And you get to choose if you're going to be excited or be fearful, but it's not… the feelings’ the same. The feeling and the physiology of what happens is the same.

One area that I think is sticky for a lot of women is around time. And I recently was listening to somebody who's incredibly successful and has a huge business, has a massive following, massive audience, who's a teacher of many. And I heard her say, somebody asked the question, is it if I start doing this stuff, social media, email, like these kind of marketing things, what if I need to stop for a little while? And she responded, you can't. And my heart just broke. 

I was like, “Oh, you know, there's thousands of women listening to this and they just heard somebody really successful tell them that they can't stop.” And I see this a lot, this kind of like, well, “I have to do it right now because if I don't do it right now, the opportunity will be gone. Or I need to, I need to get on this. I need to take care of this immediately” because there's this sort of time.

And one of the things that I've really been playing with, especially the last couple of years is like, but is there a time emergency? Like what if I just waited 24 hours? What if I just let this opportunity go? If it's not, if I'm not ready, if I don't have the money in my bank account to buy it now, can I just trust that the timing's gonna come when I do have the money and I feel good making the investment instead of like stretching myself or overextending myself in a way that's not healthy. Can I trust that I'll get the opportunity to do that thing tomorrow, next week, next month, instead of pushing myself to a point of exhaustion because today's the only day that it can happen? And what I found is that it always works out when I don't push myself too hard.

 

Alexandra Taketa (36:34.464)

I have so much to say about that and I 100 % agree with you and I love the belief set that there is like constantly another ship pulling into port. So if you miss that one, like here comes the next one. And I have found and I've actually been playing with this concept around, you know, there really is like there's a real difference between when we go with God, versus we try to like, force it and that misalignment. And I don't know about you, but my experience every single time is when I, you know, when I go into something and I don't have that alignment upfront, it doesn't work out because it's probably me trying to like force the plan versus allowing the plan to unfold, right? And with the divine timing and generally, you know, when we're forcing things, then we do, we get exhausted, we overwork ourselves, we burn out and get sick, we somehow subconsciously or semi consciously sabotage ourselves, again, because we've got that thermostat, we're reaching for 80 degrees, but we're set at 60 and that push, we're like trying to push ourselves up to 80, but our body's like, wait, no, this isn't safe and then takes us back down even if we don't realize we're doing it, right? And it could just be like an illness or whatever that takes us out. 

Whereas when we let ourselves get into alignment first, take the day, and then make the decision the next one after we've really had time to sit with it, we're not forcing it, because then we actually can listen to the wisdom, we can discern, you know, spirits voice and be like, “Oh, no, I'm not supposed to do that.”

And then lo and behold, two days later, some other opportunity shows up that you're like, well, thank God I didn't take that thing, because then this wouldn't have been available to me, or I would have had to back out of that, right? There's all that kind of dynamic that's happening. So I don't subscribe to that even around social media. I mean, I've certainly taken times where it's like, I get really active and then I'm like, you know? And I think you have to follow the natural rhythms of your body.

You have to follow the natural rhythms of your intuition, of your own alignment and the seasons that you're in in your life. You know, sometimes it's just not ideal to go push. Yes, there might be a period where you have, I'm not saying like no action. I always feel like there's a little bit of treading there of like, I do believe you have to take action. You have to offer your work out into the world. You have to be vocal about what it is that you do. You have to get out there and be visible and present, but you can do it in a way that feels really in alignment and doesn't feel exhausting.

 

Rachel (39:30.154)

Yes, I've heard two things that I always like come back in my mind. One is while you pray, move your feet. So it's not just I'm just going to like sit and visualize like I also have to take action, right? And then the other is do the best you can every day, no more, no less. And so learning what it means to be doing more than your best or less than your best is that where you develop that discernment to say, “This is just enough. I did just enough. If I do another hour, I'm going to have pushed too hard.” 

I saw a post recently on Facebook in a group that I'm in, and it was definitely a man who posted it. And it said something about if you're feeling guilty or I think it was about if you're feeling guilty, it's probably because you're not doing enough. Does this resonate with you? And every man was like, yes, yes, yes. Whenever I'm feeling guilty, it's because… I've been lazy, I've been taking naps, and every woman was like, nope, that is not my problem. (Alexandra: No, because I'm overdoing it already.) I'm overdoing it all the time. I don't feel guilty because I'm not doing enough. (Alexandra: Most women are) I feel guilty because I'm taking care of everybody else and not me and not my priorities.

 

Alexandra Taketa (40:47.296)

Yeah, that's it. Most people are to most women are taking care of a lot of other people, whether they have kids or not. And yeah, there that is just, you know, prioritizing everybody else and leaving yourself for last is a is kind of a massive abundance block that I see a lot of women getting into and I am done guilty of it myself and I repeat it and I have to work on it and re-remember it.

 

Rachel (41:02.91)

Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (41:14.432)

And then expand again, you know, and, and that is that's it, you know, that's the work. It's like, we're all in it. I teach all this stuff, but like, I'm doing it too. I'm in the work. I'm still in the work of expanding my capability of receiving. Yes, I've received a tremendous amount. I have created a massively abundant life. There's miraculous things that have happened inside of my life. And I'm still in the work of learning how to expand my own ability to receive and not, you know, pinch it off or close off to it or, you know, or the nuances of, you know, not overworking myself or giving so much that then I get into that resentful place. You know, there's, it's, it's a continuous journey.

 

Rachel (42:04.266)

Yeah, you said, you've said something in the interview I was listening to with April about having to like relearn lessons over and over again. And I heard that and I was like, oh, I feel like that was for me because I get in this loop sometime where I'm like, yeah, but I know that already. Yeah, but I know I've read that book. I did that thing. I already know that. But there is so much to be gained. And it was a good reminder to be like. “Okay, but I didn't read that book from the place I am now. I read that book from the place I was 10 years ago. And now it's a new limit that I'm trying to move through. Now it's a new block or a new version of that old block.” Like the things come back up and you have to continue to work through it. You don't just do the work once and then you're done.

 

Alexandra Taketa (42:47.486)

Yeah, there's a next level of expansion. There's a next level of integration. There's a next level of embodiment that is possible. And the I've heard it phrased and I don't know who I wish I could give them credit. I'm not quite sure who has said this, but you know, next level same old devil. So, you know, the stuff that I've had to learn continuously iis pretty much always the same thing. Just a different iteration of it or a different, you know, level of it or, you know, a bigger expansion is possible with a small little shift. And a lot of times, you know, I think there's there's a real beauty and just giving ourselves grace through those moments and not getting down on ourselves, but really cheering ourselves on through them. Ah, you know, here we are again.

 

Rachel (43:58.538)

Yeah, it means I'm up-leveling. It means I'm growing. If you don't have those moments come up, then it means... Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (44:02.592)

Yeah, I'm growing, I'm expanding. And what may have taken me months of, you know, I mean, think about it, like this, it took me 25 years to figure the first thing out, right? Okay, then it was quick, you know, now it's like something that would have spun me out for a month, you know, shrunk down to like, oh, now I'm just like working through this for a week or now it can be, you know, then it could be like maybe 24 hours of like the chaos to this just, you know, this just kind of took me off track for 10 minutes or I caught myself right away thinking that way that I think that's not productive or wanting to do something or, you know, for me, it's always things like not asking for help and trying to do stuff all by myself. I'm still constantly relearning that one. 

Having come from where I came from. You know, I had to be extremely independent. There was a lot of approval. There was a lot of like recognition. There was, you know, all the accolades. Everything was earned through, you know, grinding it out and doing it myself. (Rachel: Oh, yes. Haha.)  

And so I have to like continuously remind myself. I don't I am not alone. God is with me. There's a whole entire invisible universe of like angels and helpers here to you know ancestors to usher me through and support me. I have got my family. I have team you know like on my you know in my work I have a team. I mean there's like so much help that is available. Why am I trying to do this on my own right? I have to remind myself of that often and sometimes it's literally just a quick little, no, flip the switch. How would the most abundant version of Alexandra do this? And then move forward that way versus, you know, I might've gotten hung up on it and exhausted myself and gotten sick. You know, when I first was grappling with that. And sometimes I still do.

 

Rachel (45:57.45)

Yeah. I think that's, I completely resonate with that in so many ways that like, you know, being patted on the back for being mature and responsible and for not ever needing help and for taking care of things is a great way to make yourself a really really hard worker. 

And there’s all this unlearning to do around that, being really capable. It was like, oh, you're so capable. And then needing to unlearn a lot of that stuff. And then just learning to trust and learning to know that you're not alone. There is support. And learning faster and faster. I feel like that's one of the things that I've seen for myself. As you said, it's like, oh, I would have gone for a week down that rabbit hole. And now, I can recognize it and now I can have the conversation with the person and say, actually, I know I said this, but I need to revisit that. We need to revisit because that actually doesn't feel good to be able to have those conversations that I would just have stuck it out in the past. Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (47:21.796)

Yeah, and I think that's really one of the fun things about this work and I'm sure it is for you too is just when you're working, you know, and coaching with people is being able to share authentically your own experience with it. And then also, you know, because I am in the work, I'm, I'm also, you know, I'm really, and I've done most of the things that people are going to do in terms of blocking their abundance. It's really easy for me to see that for people and then also to help ask them questions and tap them into their own wisdom, so they can make different choices for themselves, right?

 

Rachel (48:06.474)

Yeah. Yeah, that wisdom of experience that you bring, I think, is so valuable and something that we only get by doing it. And we get by doing it for 20 years. We get by doing it for a long time. And that's so much value that you bring to the table for anybody who works with you. So do you want to share with us how people can connect with you, how they can find you online?

 

Alexandra Taketa (48:32.768)

Sure.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. 

My website is alexandrataketa.com. So it's just my name and I'm sure we can link to it in the show notes. But if you click on there, there is a whole section with freebies. It's alexandrataketa.com/freebie. And there are many different abundance tools that are there available.

I have some trainings, I have a series of meditations and activations that I've recorded that are really beautiful. I've had thousands and thousands of women download those and they're really different. There are much more, a lot of them are set to rhythmic music. You can take them outside on a walk, go for a jog with them, go for a hike or sit quietly, put your headphones on. They're pretty magic. And probably one of the best ways that I have found to shift that internal thermostat, just to create that sense of safety in our bodies that allows us to start to gradually acclimatize ourselves to being better receivers of all the abundance. So that's the best way. I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, LinkedIn, all under my name. And yeah, I would love to connect and love to be able to give some of those free resources out.

 

Rachel (49:58.698)

Awesome. I will definitely link to all those places in the show notes. Thank you so much, Alexander, for being here. It's been an absolute pleasure. I think we could talk for 10 hours, but we better wrap it up. Yeah.

 

Alexandra Taketa (50:08.672)

I agree. I agree. Thank you so much for having me and I've loved being here and having this conversation together.

 

Rachel (50:17.13)

Thank you and thank you all for listening. This is Pleasure and Profits and I will see you on the next episode. Take care.