Valerie Fischer: A World Turned Upside Down | The Great Conquest

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Hello divine souls, Jamila Bernie here with becoming the big me. I'm so excited for this special segment of the becoming the big me podcast. This section of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing the stories of conquest for some incredible individuals. They are also featured in my latest book, becoming the big, the great conquest. In this section of the podcast, we will dive deep into each of their stories and their journeys and their hardships from addiction, PTSD, loss of loved ones and children.

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This segment of the podcast is dedicated towards sharing their stories and in sharing their journeys not only of the hardships but sharing how they overcame.

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To learn more about the author's behind the stories that you are going to hear, go to the great conquest.com And if you would like to purchase a copy of the great conquest book, you can go to bit.li/greatconquestandwithoutfurtherado Let's dive into the amazing journeys

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Hello, hello, welcome back to the becoming the big me podcast. I'm your host Djemilah Birnie, and I am so incredibly excited guys. I have an amazing guest with me here today. Valley. Valerie Fisher is a neuro linguistic programming practitioner. She has over 20 years of experience in advertising and marketing. And she co founded an E commerce site for locally made products. She was a chief marketing officer in a real estate company. And then she was let go along with millions of Filipinos last year during the pandemic. But Valerie didn't allow this to hold her back. No. Instead, she used this obstacle as a stepping stone. And this unfortunate incident actually led her to her purpose, where she now gets to help new online business owners and entrepreneurs grow their revenue with brain science selling. Hey Valerie, I'm so happy to have you here. And to share your story with the audience. Hello, everybody. I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much. You guys. I know it's late for Valerie. It's like, oh, he says like 11 at night right now. So thank you so much for taking the time, but I'm staying up for us.

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So let's dive right in. Valerie, can you bring us a back? And and can you paint kind of your backstory for us? Who is Valerie Fisher?

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That's one of the most difficult questions

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you know, because not a lot of people actually know themselves just this morning to just give you like, a little story because this this morning while we were having breakfast, some something came to me and I asked my husband I said, how do you actually know, I asked him if he knows Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I said, How do you know if you already self actualized if you're already there, because I believe that, you know, the, the way to really know the answer to the question of who you are, is when you've already self actualized when when you already know

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what you want in life when you have

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made peace with your you know, whatever happened to you in the past so I don't know maybe to answer your question. Who is Valerie? I'm a dreamer. I'm, um, I'm such a big dreamer. And you know, I we grew up poor but I did not let that stop me from pursuing my dreams. I was you know, a scholar most of my life. I was the only student in my not only in my class, but all the whole school who was actually a what do you call this?

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Who got into the State University? All because of dreams. I have big

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And ever since I was young, I just knew I was meant to do something big. And that's, I think what I have been chasing all my life. So I guess that's, you know, without, without the trap without the jobs without my husband without, you know, anything that's I think that's who I am. I'm a big dreamer.

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I love that Valerie, dreaming can take you so far as as you are about to tell us with your story. I know that you have been going through a lot over the past couple of years, as a lot of people have with the recent and events of a global pandemic. Um, and I know that this has affected you and your family specifically, but you have decided to use this obstacle to continue to chase your dreams. And that is something that I find incredibly admirable. So can you kind of can you bring us back to, to where you were before the pandemic?

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So, connecting it to the first question, since I was, you know, since I'm a big dreamer, I follow the, the, well, here in the Philippines, you are brought up, we are brought up thinking that, you know, you you study, you get a job, you get promoted, etc. But nothing really on the intrapreneurial life. So that's, that's, that's kind of the trajectory that we were brought up with. So

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I went to school, top university, immediately after school, I got a job, I got promoted, I moved another job I went, you know, I actually worked abroad for a while and then came back got promoted, etc, etc. So I followed that trajectory, thinking that because marketing was marketing and advertising was my industry. You know, when you're in that industry, what do you what do you hope for the biggest role, right, which is, in my case, was Chief Marketing chief marketing officer, because that's with advertising and within with Mark, marketing client and agency side, that's what you aspire to be in the corporate world. And

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that's, that's really what I was, you know, aiming for. And right before the pandemic, I was there. I was already there. I was in.

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Then, like what you said, the pandemic kit, and that changed everything.

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Wow, yeah. So, so what happened?

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So,

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okay, I'm

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around April. So April, actually, April, for I got a message from my boss, saying, We need to talk. And you know, when you receive messages like that, whether it's in a relationship in your family at work, that kind of, you know, makes your heart

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beat fast, right. And I kind of knew what that was what that meant, because I was new. I was not I've not been in the company that was the new company. I have not been there for a long time. And we were kind of not agreeing with how we want to move forward with the business, especially, especially transitioning the business online. Because the real estate industry at that time, really, you know, they weren't

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selling online. I had some ideas and I was presenting, you know, but she was like, No, I want you. And this was actually already in lockdown. She said, I want you to work like physically. And I'm like,

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No way I'm not going to

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you know, I'm not going to risk my life, my family's life, my, my health, my safety, for work. I mean, this I know that this is what I have aspired to be ever since but it's not worth it. You know? And the pandemic has made us realize a lot of things has made us realize our priorities. And so even if that was my dream job, imagine I worked my whole life to get to

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that point, but then I'm like, No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that for you, it's not worth it. So when, when she, it was, it was actually pretty neutral. She like, Okay, if you're not going to do this, then I'm sorry, I have to let you go. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't do it. And, you know, so I lost the job APR for 2020

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APR for 2020. And losing that job at that time, at the start of the pandemic, when everything was, you know, I, it was a scary time. If our, you know, our listeners, right now, if you remember that time when the the headcount was starting to increase, like people you see images, on TV, on your news feed about people dying everywhere, and then you lose your job. That was really scary, because I'm like, how am I going to,

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you know, help my family or, or how am I going? How am I going to help people cuz I really wanted to help people, you know, but how do I able to do that if I don't have money if I don't have income?

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And that was that was really scary. At this really scary.

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That, yeah, I know that so many people were facing that fear during that time. I mean, I remember,

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just, it was just constant everywhere you go, just hearing all of these terrible things, and to lose a job and your security. I know that you were talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs earlier. And for you to lose that security, on top of all of the other stress going on. I mean,

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how did how did you handle that?

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Well, aside from the side from the, you know, the loss of security, it was also embarrassing, it was a big blow to the ego. Cuz, you know, people know that, I have that job that, you know, I'm in that at that point in my career. And house already see him Oh, so that's also another layer to that whole, you know, losing my job incident. How did I handle it? I, I actually hid for a while, um, but hid. And by a while, it's my standard for like, a week. So you know, I did? Because how would I, I didn't want to tell people about, hey, I'm sorry, I lost my job. You know, it's not something that you announced on Facebook, you don't you know, you don't really share that the only I only share that actually with my husband. And and my immediate family. But nobody else, you know, nobody else knew.

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Again, it was embarrassing. And I was like, Maybe I can find another one. Because immediately after that, I lost the job. I went on LinkedIn. I said, you know, I'm available. And I had, you know, recruiters, I just activated all of those. So I was like, Maybe I will be able to find a job. But also, there was another, another part of me that was like, There's no way you're going to find a job.

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And so I hid. I just, you know, I stayed at home, watch TV. And it was for a while debilitating, the fear was debilitating, but I had to go through it. I believe you cannot really

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avoid, you cannot run from your feelings. You have to go through it. I went through it. I you know, I went through feeling humiliated. I went through the feeling of embarrassment, like I I wasn't answering on Viber

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you know, I was just, I don't want to talk to anyone right now.

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But then, after a while,

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people started asking for my help. They were like, hey, bow, I know that you have an E commerce site. I know you're marketing, you know, if you have time, maybe you can help us etc, etc. And I couldn't say no to that. You know, so I came out of hiding. I started giving out

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free trainings initially because I we have I'm one of the co founders of an E commerce site here in Philippines. We're locally made products and we have partners, makers, our designs

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from all over the Philippines, and I was like, Oh my gosh, what's going to happen to them, you know, what's going to happen to my friends who are in the event industry, what's gonna gonna happen to my, my former colleagues, I actually started with, you know, former colleagues, the one that I just left, I actually did a training, digital training for them outside of when I was already kicked out. So I'm like, Hey, guys, you know, you're still there, you, you're very lucky, you still have the job. So please keep the job, I'm going to train him going to give you a little bit of a training so that you can, you know, still sell online, even if I wasn't, I was not in the company anymore. And then I gathered up

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partners from the E commerce side, I gathered up co chairs and other trainers who I know. And I said, Okay, I'm going to have this, this training, you know, this, this training for you. If you can attend, it will be great. I reached really want to help, because

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we can only do so much when it comes to charity. And I'm a volunteer of an animal welfare group here in the Philippines, a volunteer of a

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what do you call that? Soup Kitchen, but you can only do so much when you when you when you give, and especially since I lost a job, um, like, I felt helpless. I can't give money anymore. Because what if I don't, you know, what if I don't get my that, that money back with in terms of income. So I had to find another way of helping people. And the way that I found was to empower them, by teaching them how to use the digital space for their businesses, whether it's a side gig, or it's, you know, you're a freelancer, you lost your job. And then, you know, you know, you have photography services, you have a little bit of Instagram selling on the side, you know, baking, gardening, whatever. So all of these people, even, you know, people who I did not realize, also lost their jobs, I started just giving out free trainings, and word got around that doing training. I was invited, you know, the webinars, Facebook Lives, et cetera, et cetera. And buy in this is very quick. This is actually why people feel like I'm an overnight success, because by April 23, so I said April, for by April 23. I already have my first paid, lame, I mean, first paid virtual training. So in, you know, in three weeks, it was really a quick turn around. A friend of mine, former former company said he Do you know, of a trainer who can help my team. So this is a sales team, a real estate sales team, who can help me my team, advertise on Facebook. And I'm like, Okay, I'll give you names. So I gave him three names of popular and established trainers. But they were expensive. And not only they were, not only were they expensive, they also did not have the experience of running a business online. So they, you know, they can talk about sales, but they cannot talk about online sales, which is what was needed at the time. And I had experience because I was running Facebook ads, Instagram ads, I was doing content for for that business, I knew real estate, I knew the language. So I just combined. And this is when I realized that my personal brand was actually really a combination of my experiences. My background, I was also a neuro linguistic programming, you know, a certified NLP practitioner. So I included that plus my 20 years experience in marketing and advertising and then my experience and in selling online and then, you know, when he when he asked, he's like, but these people don't sell online. I need somebody who knows how to train and how to sell online, you know, somebody who really knows, is you this this job. And then I said, this was life changing, I think, for me, because I said, You know what, you want me to do it for you. I can do it. I think I can do it for you. And he said, Okay, let's go how much and that was my that was my first paid virtual training

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peoples you know, sometimes we take for granted the

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Power of asking the power of just asking. And I just asked, I said,

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You want me to do it for you. And that changed my life because he wanted, he wanted me to do it for him. And because the first training was really valuable, gave a lot of valuable insights. It just, you know, continued and this guy is still one of my biggest clients right now, because it's, it's, it's a retainer though, the thing that I'm doing for this team, now, it's a retainer basis. So it's not just one, one training. And, yeah, so that's it. And then, you know, I just, I just kept on getting clients. Because I gave, I even know, I think I give the type of training that is needed. Like, right now. So you know, I also try to, I also make it a point to make my trainings, relevant, and timely.

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Wow, yeah. So one thing that I would just really like to point out, that Valerie did is when she was given an obstacle, she was given a massive obstacle, she no longer had a job. And no longer did she not have that job. But it was in the midst of a global pandemic. And so many people could have used that as an excuse, they could have used that as a stumbling block, they could have used that as a brick wall in front of their path. But that's not what Valerie that no Valerie, Valerie decided to use her value, her skills, her experience, to help other people who were experiencing difficult times as well, because she knew, because she was experiencing those difficult times herself, she knew the value that she could bring to these people if she could help their businesses grow online. And, and that that's just such an incredible, incredible feat, because it shows the strength and the power that you truly have. Because even when you are facing a loss when you are facing not having anything,

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you instead of running and hiding and and turning from your problems and saying, you know, woe is me, you decided to stand up strong, and and to help other people in turn helping yourself? Yes,

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yes, it does. You know, and I think that one of the reasons that people, my clients,

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like my message resonates with them, is because then I was not

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I was honest, about lost my job, but then I'm like, How do you know, how do you know have this time to train people? You know.

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So I had to, I had to tell them, you know, I lost my job. And this is how I'm moving on. This is how I'm pivoting my career. And for them, that was also powerful. They, I think that they saw me, they saw themselves in me that they wanted to be me in a way who can pivot who can change who can transition who can transform, and that's part of the appeal. I think that that's why, you know, I keep on I keep I still keep on getting trainings, because I wasn't, I wasn't.

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Well, initially, I was shy, but not anymore. I used that message. I used that message to really, you know, build my brand. Yeah. And people truly do like to support people who are willing to support themselves and who are willing to show up in the face of hard times. That's something that I have learned, you know, myself is, is people really will show up when they see that people are being authentic and truly trying to provide value for others, while also facing their own obstacles. That's something that so many people can relate to, because nobody is perfect, and every single one of us is going to face obstacles in our journey. Yes, and when you're honest about it, they they root for you, they will root for you.

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No

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Exactly. So I'm curious if you could, if you could give your former self one piece of advice, when you first initially, were going through the conflict of losing your job, from the perspective that you have now, what would that piece of advice be?

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Um,

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I don't think I'm going to change anything from you know, from that time, but what I would probably tell her was, I would probably just, you know, give her a hug and say, let it out. It's okay, you're not superhuman, and you know, things happen. And

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you will eventually realize that this rejection was actually a redirection. I didn't realize his realize that at that time, but you know, I'm just gonna hug my

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old self and say, it's going to be okay. Just believe and, you know, just be yourself. Go with the flow. And, you know, it's gonna be okay.

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I got you your future self got you don't worry.

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In NLP, call it timeline, right? Doing your back the NSA and with all sources that you now have, but I'm also gonna probably give her you know, I said, like a pat on the back end and say,

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You're doing good, you're doing great.

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I love that. So I know that you deciding to use this, as a stepping stone has completely influenced where you are today. Because if you had not, you wouldn't have taken any of this direction. I want to hear a little bit about what you are doing today. Like, I keep hearing this, I have been seeing Anyways, on Facebook, brain science selling and I want to know, what is that? And what do you what's going on here? Can you tell me what you're doing? Because it sounds like there's a lot of exciting stuff that you're doing right now.

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Okay, so, um,

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when I, when I realized that, that my personal brand, and it helps because again, I have background in advertising and marketing for for a long time, when I realized that the power of my brand lies in who I really am. And the combination of my skills and my background and experiences. I said, the brain science selling is not

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an immediate concept. It was really just a combination. When I was introducing myself to people, it was just a combination of NLP plus marketing plus ecommerce, it was just that, but then I was like, there's a process. This is my process. This is my method to teaching. And this is also the method that I help myself, you know, the, the techniques that I use to build the business that I want to teach people. And, and

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to be honest, I asked the help of other coaches and other trainers out there in Facebook groups. I discovered Facebook groups just this year, because, you know, I was doing trainings, I was doing the coaching and consulting last year

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with our any idea that there was this huge coaching industry in the rest of the world, because in the Philippines, it's pretty new. It's like a baby industry. So I had no idea that I was going into,

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you know, something with this huge potential. But sometime in January or February this year, I just covered all of these. I'm like, I was so amazed. I was so naive also, that I asked for people I asked, you know, I asked people what do you think about this? You know, I help people with and I couldn't answer that. You know, I was, I'm like, huh, do I really need to do that? And so I asked for people's help. And in one of the Facebook groups that I belong to a guy said, That's BS, NLP, marketing, ecommerce brain science selling that's BS.

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Again, you know, this is where imposter syndrome comes. But like what I what happened when I lost that job, I stopped again for a minute, I, you know, we regrouped. And then really thought about what I wanted to do, and what, what it is that I can offer. And so I just went with it. I'm like, I don't, I don't know who you are, you don't know me, this is what I do. So what brain science selling does, really is to use it uses neuro linguistic programming techniques to your marketing, or your copywriting or your branding. So I have a framework which I call prime, which stands for priming, report, intent. M stands for Metha and Milton, and then E for emotions. So my courses, my, my, or my modules revolve around those five. So it can be like, for example, I have a module called NLP and copywriting. So what techniques can you use from NLP, for that you can use for copywriting. I also have building rapport, you know, rapport, it's, it's really an NLP concept of how you can have, you know, great relationships with your clients. But how do you do that in webinars? Because that's the digital strategy that people want now. So, you know, before is easy, when it sorry, report B, it's easier when it's face to face. But how do you do that online? How do you do that in your Facebook Lives? How do you do that in your webinars? So I have those are the types of trainings that I give people, it revolves around those, those five so in another example is content marketing, content marketing is really organic marketing, but how to you know, use priming, the concept of priming the concept of preparing your, your clients and customers brains into accepting your message events into accepting your message and, and really supporting you using your content. So it's, it's like that, that that's, that's actually the brain science selling.

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You know, just to just a short explanation will die is really amazing. Again, you take you take this question that European asked, you know, what is it that you do, and and you just totally take it to the next level, you don't just come in, oh, I help x with y. Without X, you take it to the complete next I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna come. I'm going to design a complete process. And not only that, but didn't you get this trademarked? Yes, I just did.

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Actually just did. Because when this guy said, you know, this is BS, like, Okay, well, you don't know me, but okay. And I joined other Facebook groups and, and then I started seeing other coaches and other trainers using

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neuroscience using neuro marketing, using all of these, you know, brain science concepts into marketing. And I'm like, Oh, I have to protect my brand, I have to protect this idea. I have to protect this concept. And, you know, we sometimes don't think about protecting ourselves. But that's a that's I just wanted to do that. I just wanted to really own this.

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I really love that you did that, Valerie, because, um, I you know, I don't like to be the bearer of bad news. But I think that it's important that we do think about bad things that can happen and take the precautionary measures to protect ourselves and oftentimes in the internet space and and, and the coaching industry as well, we could get swept up with a lot of over over positivity that we can forget some of the basics of business and protecting ourselves and I don't know, I don't know very many people who have gone out there and actually trademarked their concepts and their frameworks and, and that is really awesome that you did that.

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Because, again, you know, this is a billion dollar industry there.

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will be, I'm sure there will be other other concepts that are similar. There will be different brands, it will not be me. But I'm the first.

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You know, at least I'm the first.

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And so now, now not only have you transformed your obstacle of losing your job into starting your, in your own business, embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship, becoming an actual trademark owner of your concept, and helping, and you help you help other people with doing these things, as well, right? Do you do you do coaching or I started with one too many. And early this year, I did want to feel so I have a mentor, mentor of mine program. And just last week, I signed up my first one on one. So it's reverse because some coaches start with one on ones, you know, I started with one too many, one too few. And then now I'm on to one on one, but I also do consulting. So I have small business owners who asked my help, but because I don't implement because what happens is, what they asked for me is Hey, Val, can you manage your social media? I can't, I don't actually do that I don't manage what I can do is you send me your, your marketing version, you send me one of the one of the co founders, and then I will mentor but I will not you know implement it for you.

Unknown Speaker: 36:53

Okay, that's, that's lovely. And, and how are how do people who want to work with you? Where Where can they find you? Where can people connect with you more, Valerie?

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Yes, I actually just saw your post about number one on Google. Congratulations, because that's also what I'm trying to do.

Unknown Speaker: 37:18

Yeah, when you type my name, Valerie Fisher, you can actually the first thing that will come up now is my website. So I'm also very proud that I did that almost, you know, organically with interviews and podcasts. So you can well number one is when you Google my name, you will see my website. It's WW dot Valerie Fisher dotnet. I am also on LinkedIn and Facebook as Valerie Fisher.

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I'm also an Instagram is the same and I just got on the tic toc bandwagon.

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I'm also there it's just I'm not actually I don't know if I want to grow the TIC tock

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platform

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so that's that's how you can find me. I love that you guys. You know, I always leave all of the links in the description down below. So if you're lazy, don't worry, I got you, you can just click on the link and valet before I let you go, I have one final question. If there is just one lesson one piece of advice or insight that the audience gets out of this interview out of this whole hour? Um, what what would that be?

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Um,

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I am my friends. Like, I admire me for manifesting. They think that I manifest a lot of the things that happen in my life, the law of attraction, and I I truly, truly believe in the law of attraction, whatever. You know, I say thoughts become things that ideally you have to vision yourself, being in that moment that you that you want to be doing the things that you want to be in that person who you want to be. But aside from that, you know, that doesn't really work. If you don't do the work, so you have to do the work. The transformation only happens when you take action. And that is a belief. What has brought me here because you know all these ideas that they had in mind I have in my head. It didn't stay there. I immediately took action on them. And that I think is is truly

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Power for you, it will really bring you places is so true guys remember the law it says it right in the name, the law of attraction requires action. And you Valerie have I haven't done that. And I've seen that and I haven't even been connected with you for that long. But in the time that I have been connected with Valerie, I have just seen her making these massive massive moves. And I'm so feel so honored to be able to have her here on the show at this stage in her journey because I know that she is going so far she is going places and to be able to speak to you now. I'm excited I want to you know speak to you again in a year two years and and see where you are because you just move so gosh darn fast. I know it's gonna be somewhere awesome.

Unknown Speaker: 41:05

I hope so I hope so. I hope so.

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I'll work on it.

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I'm so thank you so much, Valerie for taking your time with us today or tonight for you.

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Thank you for listening

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thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The becoming the big money podcast.

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I know that you found value in hearing this story today. And I would love if you could show your support by going and grabbing a copy of our book and you can do so by going

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To bit.li/greatconquestyoucanalsogotowww.thegreatconquest.comformoreinformationabouteachoftheindividualsinvolvedinthisprocessthanksagainfortuningin