✨ Magical Mindset Podcast: Title

Transform Your Life: Veronica Kissling on Gamifying Success and Abundance

[00:00:00] Introduction to Abundance Mindset

Macarena: Is your abundance mindset lacking? Then you have to tune in to this episode. I speak with the purpose and mindset coach, Veronica Kissling. And we get into the nitty gritty of how to create an abundance mindset, how to gamify your life, how to set yourself up for success, and share a lot of life experience and tools of how we got to this point. So join us for this exciting episode.

Intro: Welcome to Magical Mindset with Macarena Luz Bianchi, where we explore the magic of mindset, gratitude, and purposeful living. I'm your host, Macarena, and I'm thrilled to have you join me on this journey of wonder, wellness, and wisdom. You can find the episode show notes, your free Magical Mindset Blueprint, and more at xpres.me/podcast. And here's the show.

[00:01:03] Meet Veronica Kissling: Purpose and Mindset Coach

Macarena: Welcome to the show, Veronica Kissling. Veronica helps impact driven people realign their business with their purpose and vision while working on mindset. She works with people who want to create a change within their industry. I am so excited that you're here.

Veronica: Thank you for having me.

Macarena: What's exciting you most right now?

Veronica: I think my goal is I literally after this call, I just jumped off with my shaman. And I think what's exciting me right now the most, I'm always driven by, in the guys term, it's quick wins. It's like that hunting. So that's really what inspires me, motivates me.

It's just like attacking and being like,

"Oh, you can't get that. Let's do it."

[00:01:47] Veronica's Journey: From Corporate to Coaching

Veronica: I think what was happening very recently was the fact that everybody always said entrepreneurship was hard. And making 10K months, 20K months, 40K months, whatever it was that you wanted. And I was like right into my business.

Okay, here's 10K months. And it's okay, here's 20K months. And it's this week I might even be able to do a 40K week. for me, it was okay it's easy. Where's the challenge, which I know it's a very different conception from what people have. People say entrepreneurship is hard.

I think for me, I see it as easy because I worked on all my things before I even get started. I know they say entrepreneurship brings out your shadows and the areas where you need to do a lot of work on. And while that holds very true, I also think that me even starting to work on my mindset before I started a business makes it just seem like it's a game. So today I was like, "okay, let's 10 X my financial goal, let's see if money drives me a little bit because money is energy. I'm excited to see what takes shape or form into what I want, where I want to take my business, like what opportunities are going to come my way?

How am I even going to be able to play in all these different arenas to hit those goals? Because essentially now what I'm doing is I need to see how I can bring that in as a monthly revenue. So that's very exciting.

Macarena: Bravo. I love it. I love it. So you just mentioned a bunch of magical mindsets, which I want to unpack. But let's start with the abundance mindset. And not just that, one of the things, we have in common is we talk about setting yourself up for success.

That's a big, important thing. And it sounds like that's what you did by doing the inner work.

[00:03:26] The Importance of Inner Work

Macarena: One of the reoccurring themes, and I'm sure you have the same experience is no one is spared the human experience. No matter how successful or tapped in we are, we all have to do our inner work.

And my strategy with that is it doesn't have to be painful. It could be fun. It could be lighthearted. So my whole thing's lighthearted empowerment and self-expression. It sounds like you knew you had to do the work and I know you're quite young, which is a beautiful, wonderful thing.

What made doing the inner work a priority? I want to hear that.

[00:04:00] Health as a Catalyst for Change

Veronica: So making inner work a priority became the focus when my health was at stake. I had invested into mentorship probably one year before I quit my corporate job. It was all for sales, learn how to sell, how to do high ticket closing. Then my health took a really big turn because obviously we know stressors, it's the biggest killer. In the U. S. I can't say that statistically speaking, because I don't have any numbers for it. But I've heard that it's one of the biggest killers in just like the human experience. And it was to the point where I had borderline cirrhosis, I was 24 at this time. I barely drank.

You can do the math there. And then my face was full of acne. And I had been working with a specialist for a year and it kept getting worse and worse. And she was in the more spiritual realm. And she's the only way that you're going to heal it's if you do some sort of work.

Like everything is manifesting in the body. When you're tired, if you keep working out and you ignore your body when it says " oh my back is hurting or this and that." And then you go to the gym you work out then you're like "Oh, I just pulled my back and now I actually cannot work out for three months." So I think that's a very tangible example that people can relate this to where if you don't listen to your body your body will essentially make you pull that hard stop.

So in that time, I went to New Year's, I came back and I went to see a doctor and he told me, " Are you going to change something? Because if you're not you're just gonna go down a very black hole in your health." I said, "Yes, I'm actually quitting. I decided to quit." I don't know what I'm gonna do but I just know I have to do something different because I'm destined for more. And that's really where it all went. If a couple months went by, I had heard about the certification on ontological coaching and I was like, "I don't know." It's not really calling me and after three months of trying to be with myself and thinking I was like, "You know what?

I'm gonna do it." And that really sparked all of that of working in myself because as you needed to do training hours, a hundred, you also had to get training hours and you had a mentor. So you both get a mentor and you would have other students that would essentially do sessions to you.

Because in the end, the only way to be able to do a session and not have that you projecting your own world view was for you to start clearing up that world view that you had. Because if I try to put on glasses and they're all smudged, I'm going to see smudged everywhere. So I'm going to be "Oh no don't you see that black spot that I might have in my glasses?"

And it's " What black spot are you seeing?" So I'm trying to guide you through a world, through my worldview, where I might have a little dot on my glasses. I might have smudges. So you have to clear that view so that you're able to show up in a very unbiased way. So that's how it all went down and how it really got started.

Macarena: Wow. How fascinating. I love what you're telling me and I can totally relate. Sometimes people are like, "How? What's your secret?" "My secret is I've done enough inner work that I can show up and not make it about myself. I can be present and not judge and actually be available."

bravo. I love that, all roads lead to Rome as they say. That is quite interesting. Usually it does take a health challenge, either yours or someone close to you for the wakeup call. That's really interesting. For me, it started I have to listen to my body I used to love to tan and I've always had that workaholic-ness running through me.

So when I'm doing something, I really get into it and I would forget to eat, I barely slept, and this worked for a long time until one day, a few things happened. I had a heat stroke.

The first time where I was like, "Oh, maybe I have no business." Tanning or it's more of a hydration situation.

But at the time I was like, "Whoa, maybe this is not for me."

My pale body. And then same thing, I used to run myself to death. In undergrad, if I would forget to eat, my go to was a Coca Cola and a Snickers bar. One day that backfired. It made me sick instead of giving me the power boost.

And then, "Okay. No more caffeine." I beat my Coca Cola addiction, which was hardcore. And, "Maybe I should start listening to my body." So that's what set me on that path of holistic awareness of "Oh, everything is connected." At the time there was a book by, Deepak Chopra about how the body regenerates.

Because even though I was 18 or so at the time, I really thought it was too late for a lot of things. I'm like, "Oh, it's too late to be in shape." In this book, it talks about how, every so often we regenerate every cell in our body.

We have a new heart, new skin and new everything. So it's never too late. What we're putting in is so important. Okay. So you had a wakeup call with your health.

[00:08:47] Developing an Abundance Mindset

Macarena: Have you always had this fabulous abundance mindset?

Veronica: No, I think that's a common misconception, right? I grew up in a good family here in Costa Rica. But I think that's a common misconception that because they grew up not missing anything, they must have an abundance mindset or it's like the person that grew up with nothing, has the most broken mindset.

I really think it doesn't matter how you grow up. Most people have a broken mindset. And what I mean by a broken mindset, it can be anything from literally like money is evil, which to me was a little bit uncommon.

I had never heard that. Like money makes you a bad person. Like money is evil. All these things that now that I'm in this world, I start to hear more of now. I was very blessed that I was protected from that. But then there's also the scarcity mindset of money for them is not money for me.

I know in business, this comes a lot. It's if they get the client, then I can't get the client. So it's either they get the money or I get the money. And it's no. Doesn't mean that because they go with them, it means nothing for you. You don't know what the future holds and it doesn't mean that they can't hire both of us.

And it's this competition versus co-creation that we grew up with.

[00:09:59] Scarcity vs. Abundance: Personal Experiences

Veronica: And I think that's tied up a lot in the scarcity versus the abundance mindset, which I think a lot of us start out in. I was very giving all throughout high school. I would want to do community service, or we would do a fashion show for community service.

So all these different things was "abundance", but then here I was like, because I can't get everything that I want, then it must be that I'm lacking something. So it's funny because all throughout my life, there were different instances that it started to come up with.

So talk about relationships. It's they have to take care of me because I can't take care of myself. And then it comes up in business. Like if I send them their way, that means less money for me. And it started to show up in all these different ways.

And I'm like, " Interesting." And that's like the first step where I started to work. How can I become safe in my body, in my own business, instead of depending on somebody else, because that's where all my attachment was coming to man, right? I spent a year and a half single, because it came from a place of I want to be able to take care of myself, both financially, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, before I even get into a relationship and I put that burden on them. Because before, they used to say you're too clingy, you want too much time, which to the wrong person, it will always be too much time. Now I get even more than I asked for, but it's because I also have all my needs met within myself first before I go on and put it on somebody else.

Macarena: Bravo. Yeah. One of the analogies I use, ideally, when it works, you're a pillar of light and the other person's a pillar of light. When you come together, you shine brighter. Ideally, that is what's happening in a relationship, you create more together, which is the beautiful thing of being.

With the right person, but yeah, that's very common. I think it's part of the crisis with growing up with the whole princess thing, needing to be saved, wanting to be taken care of. There's nothing wrong with the beautifulness that comes with partnership and sharing and all of that.

Macarena: It is way more fun and lasting when the people are coming in. Everybody's human so everybody's gonna expand in different ways, but having that foundation where you can actually build something of not everybody being broken or not even broken, even just lacking,

at least perceptually or self-esteem wise is so important. So you took the time to take care of yourself. Bravo. That is a beautiful thing. That's quite interesting. In relating to some of what you're saying to me, like in my spiritual development, money's what happened, what I manifested to get my attention. I'll tell you a little backstory. I was a raging workaholic. I really thought I had to save the world. I had this crazy drive and I wanted to make meaningful films. I worked a lot towards that. I was thinking Oh yes, I've got the creativity.

I've got the talent, but I need the money. So I have to work with somebody to get the money." I found that person and now, it's a small deal, but at the time it was a lot. It was to do some independent films, each about $2M was like a 10-million-dollar deal. And it was like, "Yes, someone gets it. We're going to make this happen. We're going to do it great." So thinking that was a sure deal. And I was maybe around this time, 26 years old or something like that, 25, 26 years old. So I was like, "Okay, done deal. We're going to do this." And then macro things happened, like the ports in Africa closed and some crazy stuff, that no one could control started happening. And it affected the partner that was putting up the money.

And even though they wanted to do it, they found themselves in a position where they couldn't. So I had never thought that was possible. And this was at the same time of my spiritual awaking, where I went from atheist to spiritual teacher, which is a whole other conversation. And that whole shamanic journey, closet shaman, if you will. So it was amazing. There was leaps and bounds happening. And this crazy thing happened where I thought it was happening. So I spent a lot of money living as if it was, and then it didn't happen. So it was a big awakening.

And what was interesting about that is some of the people in my life were like, "Your life got ruined when you started on your spiritual path."

For me, it was like, "No, the spiritual path gave me the tools to actually deal with the reality." Because before that, life was pretty golden.

I had a great family. They really cared. I felt like emotionally they weren't available. So I had taken over the emotional management of everybody. And, so yeah, there was emotional challenges. But I had never had any financial challenges. That was the big wake up call.

Life is fascinating, the opportunities that it provides. I learned a lot and sometimes the worst things that happened to us turn out to be the best things that happened.

Veronica: I think it all comes back to that of the health.

[00:15:08] The Role of Pain in Personal Growth

Veronica: You always have to break down to break through. I think most people don't actually do a change until they break down. And I work a lot in the inspiration and going towards what you want.

But I think there's nothing that you can want enough. There's not enough pleasure that you can pursue in order for you to want to change your circumstances. And I'm all about working towards what inspires you, working from that state of pleasure. But I think what has to happen is that you have to actually want to run from pain.

Because people don't actually make a change until they're actually running away from pain. I don't want to live in that broke mindset. I don't want to be sick. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to have this relationship. I don't want to be with this abusive partner. Whatever that may be for everybody that is, you move quicker from wanting to run away from pain than from running towards pleasure. I think that catalyst always has to be something that is wanting to take you away from a situation.

Macarena: What a great way pain is a catalyst for growth. And I think this comes into play very early on, especially with parents. And I really believe we have to have a loving yet challenging relationship with their parents. Otherwise, why would we leave?

And most of us now, don't live in a tribal situation where we should not leave. It's not safe to leave the village. We have to so we can go on the journey of the individual. I think that's the first-time people come across that. And I also think that pain and discomfort is a wonderful helper because it wakes us up from autopilot.

And this is a big thing I work with my clients or people come to me when they feel stuck or something like this. And so when things are uncomfortable, it's yes, that's great. Because if it wasn't, why would you make a change? You have absolutely zero reason to adjust or upgrade or up level or anything.

You do have to be motivated. You do have to be hungry. Yes, I think what you're saying is true. Struggle is a part of life. Contrast helps us expand, but it creates the opportunity for the most drastic change when we've had enough and we hit rock bottom. Wow. So I love all of this.

This is fantastic. So for someone who is working on their abundance mindset, what are some tips you suggest?

[00:17:33] Exercises to Cultivate Abundance

Veronica: So I have this exercise where everything that you should see it from a neutral standpoint, right? So when you think about it, even money, if you think money is all good, then you have a bias of leaning towards that. So the moment where you don't have money, you're like, "Oh, then this."

So an amazing exercise is just for you to actually go through all the different things about money. And to write all the beliefs and see if they're positive and negative. And then to work with somebody to see if those are actually true and how could you change those beliefs, right? Because, some of them you might be able to do them yourself, but obviously the ones that keep you stuck are the ones that you can't even acknowledge how to flip.

So for example, some things that you would go through, it's like cash. So not money per se, but cash on itself, right? Then you would have debt, you would have credit. And these are for everybody. Then it's an entrepreneur. It's what does entrepreneurship mean to you?

What does business mean to you? How can you come to this homeostasis? Because what you'll start to see, it's what is an asset? What is a liability? how do you view those? You start to see how people see liabilities is all bad. And assets is all good. Or for example, debt is all bad

and credits see it good, generally speaking. But when you think about it, for example, debt, I always saw it as something that was bad. That's how I grew up with you should never take on debt. But then it's also a reframe that I had of how can I see debt as more neutral?

That can actually be good. How? When it's for an "asset", when it's an investment. So for example, if you're investing on yourself or your business, I think that's good debt, right? That's good debt. Why? Because it means that you believe in yourself enough that you're going to be able to make it back and pay it off.

When somebody else, like a bank, lends you money, you're in debt. The bank has enough trust in me that I will be able to repay this with the plan that they're seeing. So it's up to me to execute the plan that they saw. And how can I even execute it better? Exercise just to start you off and like, where is your mindset on abundance or scarcity?

How do I stand in neutrality with all these different concepts with cash, with debt, with credit, with assets, liabilities, all these different things that encompass or that are attached to money. So I think that's a very powerful exercise. And then just in general, I personally didn't experience this, but it's if you see somebody with money, think to yourself " Okay, they have money."

What does that mean? Does that mean that they did something sleazy? Does that mean that they did something unethical? They didn't do something good? They were born with it. They have a trust fund. What is coming up for you that is bringing these thoughts back because that will tell you even the starting point of your relationship with money. For example for me, It was not that I would think that money was bad and all of this and that, it was just I saved up probably in my two years of corporate,

I saved up one year of salary. How I would do it is that as soon as my money hit my bank account, I would immediately take it out and put it in my investment portfolio, so it would never hit my bank account. So I never thought that I had it. I never thought that I would have money that I could use.

I knew I had all this money saved up that was pretty liquid. I could get it within two days. But to my mind, I never had money. So I perpetuated that of I don't have money. I can't spend it. I can't afford this. I can't do that. And it served me because I saved up a lot, which a lot of people are not able to do that. But it also further and further threw into this hole of scarcity where I would never have it or even.

As I started my business, it was always like, " okay, it goes to pay off the credit cards or it goes to my investment portfolio. It goes to this, it goes to that." It was always reallocated because that's what I needed to do. I needed to know where the money was going so that more would come in.

And in the end it just perpetuated this belief of I can't even trust myself with money because as soon as it comes in and it goes. So it was actually not even selling because I was like, I don't trust myself with money. It was how my childhood wounds were being projected into my business money and all of those of like I abandoned money before it abandons me. It was this abandonment thing where it was coming up.

Macarena: Wow. So much good stuff. So in my theme park of experience, I talk about how work and relationships, all of that, the real estate of the things in your life. Your job creates a space for you to grow. It's not just about money, your career, your calling, it's about community.

It's about self-expression. It provides way more than just the money Whatever it is you do, it's not even about that. For example, I make books. Yes, the books are part of that, but it's not everything. It's the whole process of making the books and everything involved that allows me to expand, express myself, relate to people, and talk to people and all of those amazing things.

 It's a different way of looking at it. And then scarcity, this is really interesting because I have an interesting abundance mentality thing where I always feel like I'm going to be fine no matter what. So I've been maybe, I don't know if it's possible to have too much abundance mentality where it's just " Oh, I don't need to worry about it because no matter what happens, I'm fine," which has been true.

No matter what, even crazy things, I'm always fine. But, it's interesting. I'm all about abundance. But there is a difference between being abundant and being abundant when it comes to cashflow. For example, those are not the same. So I'm glad you brought that up earlier when it comes to analyzing where you are in your money journey, you have to look at each of these things and it's not about good or bad.

You're absolutely correct. It's about how you get to a place to neutral or we call it where it doesn't have a trigger anymore. There's an idea of when things are triggering good or bad, that's a problem because it keeps you from being present. But when you can get to neutral about each of these things, then you're actually able to be present and you're able to create from such a much more beautiful and glorious space. So scarcity mindset, I have interesting story about this. So I have a very good friend who used to talk all about abundance and mindset. But then sometimes, life shows you what's really going on. So there's one thing to talk it. There's another thing to live it. So I feel very lucky.

No matter where I go, I have that lucky girl mindset where I just know if I'm present, I have a magical, glorious time, no matter what, no matter where I am. So when I don't, that's when I have to start asking questions of " What's up with me? What is it that I'm not looking at? How can I take better care of myself? Or where have I let myself go into autopilot? Or what am I not dealing with that's causing this disturbance in the force that's causing my life to be unpleasant?" Because, I know there's no reason for that to happen.

So I'm out with my friend. We're at Drag Brunch. We're having a great time. We meet these fabulous gay guys, of course. And how the conversation started was at the time I had a Mini Cooper and I had an umbrella that was like the British flag. So he's " Are you English?" And I think he was.

And I was like, "No, but my car is." So we start talking and hit it off. They send us a bottle of champagne. Great. No problem. Meanwhile, my abundant friend is acting like champagne might run out or something even though someone was giving her something. So this is something really interesting about lack mentality is how do you receive?

[00:24:59] Receiving and Self-Esteem

Macarena: I think this is a very important question we can all meditate on, whether it's compliments or something else. So that was the setup. They gave us bottle of champagne. They kept sending us drinks.

I have the palate of a child, so I actually do not drink. But if someone sends me something, I'll taste it. But that's it. I'm not interested. I don't need to be intoxicated to have a good time and either does my friend. But instead of just receiving this gracefully, they were inviting us to dinner and it was so much fun.

It was just so much fun. She drank so much, she got obliterated and was puking. It was crazy.

Veronica: She wasn't used to it.

Macarena: So then there went the invitation to the yacht and the dinner and whatever. It was so wild to observe.

Veronica: Yeah.

Macarena: Wow.

Veronica: She wasn't used to the abundance of it. So she's " Let me drink because I don't get this It's I don't think this happens often. So I need to take advantage of all of it right now."

Macarena: Exactly. And it was just like, Whoa. She's a good friend and not my client. So I got to observe and hold space. But I was like, "How fascinating, this idea of scarcity comes up. And that the lack shows up in many different ways and practicing that receiving muscle" especially with the low hanging fruit, like being able to take a compliment.

And I remember when I was younger, I felt like, "Oh, I can take care of myself. I don't need the other's money." So I'm going to tell you something ridiculous that I did. I was a producer. I used to work in film. I've directed, I've produced, I've done all kinds of stuff in film. I was at the Cannes Film Festival and a freak accident happened.

We were waiting to get into this party and it was outside at the beach. And there's like a stone wall and it was very crowded. We're all waiting to get into the party. And then the bouncers pushed everybody and I was stuck in the middle of these people and we all fell over, someone stepped on me, I screamed because it hurt so much and involuntary tears are coming down my face. And then I look down, It looked like I had run red nail polish.

My toenail came off completely. It is the most painful thing. I don't wish this on anybody. This was crazy experience. We were at the most amazing hotel in all of Cannes. I'm there, my friends are staying in their yacht.

So they're like, Stay in the room, call in the doctor." Luckily in France, they had wonderful things. Like they had a gauze made out of fat and antibiotic gauze. It was a relief. I learned about something called tubular gauze that just fits Without causing pressure. It was really funny. So it's Cannes (the film festival). It's like full of people. And I would walk around with crutches and people would be like, "It wasn't me." It was really funny. I remember wanting to repay for the room. I wanted to reimburse them, which is ridiculous.

 I was a damsel in distress. They didn't care. I was like, "I'm a young, independent woman." I must've been 30 or 29 at the time. So I looked back on that and I'm like, how ridiculous, I'm trying to reimburse a billionaire.

Really? Why? So anyway, crazy, crazy thing, but life will give us these painful experiences to see how we're handling abundance. Sometimes it's not scarcity. Sometimes we think we have something to prove that will get in the way of being able to receive. I work a lot with self-esteem too.

So it's really interesting where people have strong self-esteem and where they do not. I always grew up being super confident of my brain. I was lucky I was born with a good noodle. But I totally would dismiss any kind of compliment or anything about my appearance, I was just " No, I'm okay."

And that's enough. it doesn't matter, some people would be like, "No, you're attractive." I'm like, "Whatever. I'm not." It was so crazy.

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Veronica: It's funny how you say that part of the abundance mentality is your ability to receive. Because that's exactly how this journey started even before the mindset stuff. It started with a therapist where I was like, I can't even receive a compliment. People tell me that I look pretty and I just completely dismiss them, look another way, or I tell them like "oh" and then I criticize myself. How can I not even receive that?

And I was trying to be more "feminine" and I was like "I can't even receive a compliment" and it's like "How am I gonna start receiving all things?" So it started a little bit of let's increase that capacity to receive because I really think that's all about abundance. It doesn't matter if you are thrown with 10, 000 in your face. If you can't receive them, you won't. It's really funny. Something that I do and it's kind of funny at the beginning was a little shy about it, but if I see literally a penny in the street, like one cent, 10 cents, whatever it is,

[00:30:22] The Value of Small Things

Veronica: I always pick it up from the ground. And people might look at me like, " Why that girl is picking up a cent?" And it's not how much money it is. It's just if the universe is putting money in front of me, I'm going to receive it. I'm going to take it in. That's just a little thing that I do all the time.

It's also a challenge because I don't want people to perceive me in the way that I need a penny. it's really interesting because I remember that I was in France too.

[00:30:44] A Lesson from Paris

Veronica: I was in Paris and there was this woman in the street. She was asking for money and all I had was coins. So I give her coins and she literally throws away. And in euros, you have one euro coins, right? So she threw away all the low money coins and she took only the euros. And I was like, "You're asking for money and yet you're still trying to be picky about what money you get." And then, she left that spot and she lived right by the building that I was staying in. So I would see in the spot she was always in, there was like a pile of coins for low coins. I didn't take those obviously because I knew that was her spot .So I was like, "That's weird." But she would move and she would always leave the money. Then eventually somebody else will come grab it.

[00:31:21] Receiving and Rejecting Abundance

Veronica: It's like we think that these small things that we don't receive, It's like you rejecting that compliment. Put yourself in a relationship. They might stop giving you a compliment for that because you start getting them used to you rejecting that. So imagine of the universe. If you give that same thing, you see a dollar in the street or whatever feels insignificant for you, and you don't pick it up, you're still rejecting it. Sometimes, don't get me wrong, I would see a 20 euro in a restaurant or something and I would give it to the restaurant. It doesn't mean that I always have to take it for myself but I always take it from the ground because there's no such training as the universe, but I want them to know yes I'm receiving of every amount that you bring my way.

It doesn't matter if it's hundreds of thousands to dollars. All the pennies, right?

Macarena: It's all good. Anything on the spectrum, I'm happy to receive. I like that. I have a friend and a client. Every time he finds money, he sees it as the universe blessing him. He sees it as a blessing. Sometimes people will say, when I see butterflies, I'm reminded of spirit. To him, it's coins.

Everywhere he goes, he's finding money, which is unbelievable. So that's really interesting, the abundance and the receptivity. So yes. I think we've covered some good tools on how to examine this within ourselves.

[00:32:35] Gamifying Life

Macarena: And then you had mentioned, I love the idea of making things play or the game mindset.

I also talk about directing your life, which is looking at your life through the lens of movie making. We talk about, main character energy. Sometimes, some people take that too far, but some people ignore it, or some people, for them to be the hero, they've got to have a bunch of villains around, or are they the villain?

 I use these frameworks because it's a playful way to look at personal development and enjoy the process in a fun, creative kind of way. How did you get started into making things a game?

Veronica: I think I've always done everything like a game. It's like for me, the game is a what if scenario. If you put it that way. It's even on a game. It’s like if you play cut the rope, right? If you cut the rope here, you'll see the candy swing and you cut here and you'll see it. So it's like "What will happen when I do these small things?" I think that's gamifying all the time. And I think it comes from the playful way of how you grow up.

[00:33:37] Curiosity and Learning

Veronica: I was a very curious kid. I think curiosity is the number one trait that I have and I think it's the number one trait that everybody should try to. Foster And it's really a what if scenario. Even silly things like if I poke this person, how will they react? If I make this investment, how will that turn out?

If I talk to this person in this certain way, if I say these things, how will they react to that? Even in sales, like that's literally sales conversations too. If I ask this question, if I explore this avenue, what will come out? If you start gamifying everything, and this might be my projection because I was always fascinated by the brain, but for me it's like, how will they react?

What will the outcome for that be? And how does their brain work? So when I gamify my business, when I gamify life, it's really for me a reaction of going out into the world and seeing how is it that people react for me to grab more information. So in a sense, I'm driven by learning. But it's this mix of learning and curiosity with determination that really make that playing fun.

Macarena: Wonderful. And what an interesting distinction. What if X happens, how will that play out? I do this. I continuously ask myself, " What else is possible?" I love curiosity too. And I'm always really open to anything and everything.

Cause I think that's one of the keys --not getting so bogged down into there's only one way to do something. I'm like, "Oh, all possibilities are possible." But a lot of people who suffer, they're stuck in slightly different mode. They're asking when this happens, I'll be able to be happy, so it's different. They're trying to create some perfect conditions to allow themselves to feel good. Whereas what you're doing is, with the flair of curiosity, that's a lot of fun. How will this turn out? What's possible in this scenario. Similar yet quite distinct.

One is extremely empowering, and the other one is really disempowering.

Veronica: Yeah,

Macarena: interesting.

[00:35:34] Happiness and Joy

Veronica: It's interesting how you bring up the happy because I do think happy is a conditional. Happiness is not, but happy is conditional. Because you always say, when I do this, that will make me happy. It's the same of joy. Joy is not conditional. Happiness is a state of mind. It's not conditional. But being happy, I do think that's a little bit conditional. And I don't want to say it's wrong or right. Because like I said everything for me, it's a conditional scenario of what if. But I do think you do have to cultivate these states where it doesn't matter what the outcome of me gamifying that is, I will always have that happiness and joy within me.

And I’m not making it for that happy or that pursue.

Macarena: Beautiful. Yeah. Happiness is an inside job and I hear it all the time. Like one of my superpowers is seeing how people speak in disempowering ways or think in disempowering ways. I've learned that unless someone is a client, It's not my business. But my spidey-sense, ... when it happens. And I hear it all the time. "I'm going to be so happy when this happens."

And I'm just like uh, you know, inside. But yeah, sometimes I like to say I'm happy no matter what, or happiness is an inside job. And sure, if you can express it this way or that way, it's just another option. It's just another way of doing it. But no matter what happens, I am thriving. And I think it's a lot of that internal work of the balance of the light hearted living formula, which is Wonder, Wellness, Wisdom.

So that when you take care of yourself at that level, the conditions, sure, you're going to get excited and things are going to happen that you're not going to like, but it's not going to derail you, right? It's not going to ruin your day. You get strong enough to the point where you can just be present, right?

Be grounded and live and enjoy and not be so determined or conditional on external things being exactly one way or not one way.

[00:37:36] Setting Yourself Up for Success

 I talk a lot about setting yourself up for success. And this came out when I was a marketing director with Whole Foods Market. So part of my backstory, I was getting ready to move to France, had just gotten divorced. I was doing courses on copywriting.

Macarena: I was part of a team. It was really awesome. And I just wanted to move to Europe. And then my mom got sick. So from one day to the next, she woke up, she couldn't walk. It was horrible. And I came to Miami for two weeks and that's when I met my husband. And they had given her six months to live. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm not going anywhere."

During my mom's illness, I got writer's block. What was happening, I had to produce, her situation, and it was very intense. I couldn't write. I couldn't do what I was doing. So it came to the point where I was like," I need a job." I needed a job. So I went to go work at Whole Foods and it was very challenging to get a job at that time.

Macarena: It was 2008. I was way overqualified, two bachelors, a master's, and I'm trying to get a job as a hostess just because I need something simple because I don't have the bandwidth to deal too much. So I ended up going to work at Whole Foods for, it was like 10 an hour or something. I didn't even know what the job was.

It was like working in grocery, but sure enough, in six months, I was a team leader and blah, blah, blah. It happened from there. So it was great community for me to experience that. And then the grieving after she passed and all that stuff, it was great. It was a wonderful experience.

But there, so I had managed people, of course, working in film and film production and coaching business people that I had done throughout. But in this particular case, I was working with some fascinating people, big range. And I noticed how people did not have to set themselves up to succeed. And it was like the strangest thing.

Cause to me, it was like, " Why would you make your life more difficult?" So it almost started like that for me. Make your life easier. You just have to look at the situation and do minor things and your life would be so much more simple. So I kept saying set yourself up for success.

I started off, set everyone up to win. That's how it started. Set everyone up to win. But then some people when they hear win, they hear somebody has to lose, but I've never thought that. We talked about this. I've never had an either or-- never.

I'm always like multiple choice, no matter what's going on. Then I realized everybody includes you, right? Cause you can start making sure you're setting up your people, but then you have to include yourself in that to make not just their life easier, but your life easier. So then that evolved to set for success.

And now it has a quite different use in my private practice, It was a wonderful way to observe people and see they would benefit from just thinking about this a little bit. So that's how Set for Success became one of the staples of my magical mindset frameworks.

How did it enter your sphere?

[00:40:29] Financial Lessons from Family

Veronica: I think I've grown up with that mentality of setting yourself up for success. It's " do I know enough? Do I have to learn more?" And I think my parents always were teaching me. So a lot of people would say setting yourself up for success would be like also financially.

And I was very blessed that my parents were always stressing the importance of saving and not being in debt. Every time we would go to trip, they would give us like a hundred dollars, which we could choose to spend, or we could choose to save. I was always the one that would go and buy the toys and spend it and buy. But it was funny because I would spend it in toys a couple for myself, but it was always to buy Walmart gift cards to give to people. So I would always buy it buying gifts for others. My brother was on the other hand, he would maybe buy one or two toys and then he would save up the rest. We always have the choice of what we wanted to do. And I think my parents always encouraged all of it of you have to save, but then you also have to be giving. And then you also have to be a little bit selfish

so I grew up with this very holistic view of setting myself up for success always meant. How can I play this in the long term, right? So even in college, how can I save up? How am I going to manage myself on a budget? I know people that they would either get a loan or they would go with their parents credit card

but even when you get a loan, they would go out and they would blow through it in their lifestyle. I didn't have a loan, but I didn't blow it all up in my lifestyle. Or at least part of the thing was I also had to save. So it really became into this integrated place of how can I play it for the long term and what is my game plan in order for me to be able to take care of myself. So I think like success. In my world, it's how much adversity you've overcome and that is on the personal realm. How much I've overcome from where I've come, how much my mindset has changed, how much my situation has changed, how much my financials have changed.

So I think success is really of how much adversity I've overcome. But then also, How can I play for the long term instead of for the short term?

Macarena: Beautifully.

Veronica: And here's where I'm going to say while still advocating for that short term pleasure because I'm all about take that vacation. Enjoy yourself. That long term success will only kill you if you don't feel that joy and that spark. Even like reward that you get from being able to enjoy the things.

Macarena: Amen. Yeah, you have to have the long game and the short game. And enjoy the journey, especially as you're going through it.

[00:42:51] Teaching Financial Responsibility

Macarena: So I'm a step mom and I loved very early on when it came to doing the money management. I felt very strongly about this. How do we handle their allowance? And there's something called the money kit for kids.

I love this thing. It had envelopes. So the idea was you get your allowance and you divide it.

Investing, angel, giving away, play, which you had to spend that one. And the other one you had to spend, you had like long term savings and maybe some short term savings. It was like five things. And I absolutely love this. And I thought this is so important. And I did this for my niece and nephew and my stepkids and we got them their investing account and we told them about the indexes.

 We had so much fun playing with this and doing that. But I realized that came from my background. Because I'm originally from Chile. I have really interesting information about my family trees of how we got . , all the different sides of the family, from the 1600s, I have journals before that. Anyway.

We're from Chile and my mom grew up in a house like a Downton Abbey house with butlers and chauffeurs and like the whole thing. They had land. They had a lot of land from way, way back. She grew up like that. So she would sometimes say the craziest things.

" My chauffeur taught me how to drive and he made sure I could put on makeup while I was driving." It was really hilarious. So I was always shocked that even though she grew up with a lot of money, her parents really did not prepare them for anything else. and then, I kind of blame my grandparents, but of course it was the time.

Life happened. So my mom's side of the family, her mother's side had all this land. It got taken away during some agrarian reform that happened in the late 1960s. Then on her dad's side, they were chemists. They work in labs . So even though they grew up with ridiculous amounts of money, they were never taught how to manage it.

So what happened? They spent all their inheritance on a trip to Europe, even though they'd been to Europe. I guess people process grief in different ways. I remember always looking at my mom and being like, "How can you be such a bad money manager? How is this possible?" And then I remember being a kid, my parents eventually got divorced.

They were high school sweethearts. And. It was very hard for her to move to the United States. I think she would have been much better off staying in Costa Rica, where she was the head librarian at a university. She was an editor of a magazine. She had a life, but then. We moved to the United States.

My dad was a finance minister in Costa Rica. He got hired by a Swiss bank here. And then he wanted his kids to be educated in the US. So that's how we ended up here. But it was really hard for my mom because at the same time, computers were coming in.

Not just that, English. She spoke five languages, but not English. So learning English plus computers. Her career shifted. It was very difficult for her. So they get divorced. She's a terrible money manager. And these are some of the things that woke me up. I remember once this horrible experience. She was a smoker. She had five dollars and she tells me, I need gasoline. Okay. So we go to the gas station and she doesn't put gas in the car. She buys cigarettes instead. And as a 13 year old, I was like, "This is not okay. These life choices don't make sense to me."

And I remember telling her similar to the money management thing. I'm like, "Can we have jars? This amount for this so we can budget." I was trying to teach my mom as a 13 year old about budgeting, which is crazy. And then she was like, "Ah, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just a kid."

I'm like, "Really mom?" So all of those life experiences affected. I made sure that every child in the next generation knew how to manage. But actually some of them are a little too frugal, which we have to work on. They're still young, but there is such a thing as being too.

Veronica: Yes, there is. I was probably a prime example too. I can't go out to eat with my friends. Even this was a couple of years ago. I can't go out to eat. I don't have money. And here I was hoarding money in my investments. But I was just like, I don't have any money because I didn't have it in my bank account.

And I was like stacking money.

Macarena: I remember we always said, it's not in the budget. So we never told the kids there's no money for something. We're like those funds are not being allocated there so that they understood this is how you manage yourselves. This is how you manage money.

I think it's so, so, so, so, so important. There's amazing resources now, of course. I believe that it's the Girl Scouts, which I never participated in, but I know that they do some kind of training for this type of thing. They're like, " What is your dream house?" " this, and this."

And then they actually run through what it costs. So that they have an understanding of the reality of things. And that's another very important thing I think is talking with the young people in our lives about what things cost, because our kids were pretty much in a bubble. They had no idea what things cost.

And one of the funny times this happened, so hilarious. We're vacationing in France and my husband loves seafood. Our kids love seafood. One of them does. The other one can't stand it . So we're out and about and he keeps ordering lobster, he keeps ordering lobster and my husband, he loves seafood. So he's ordering his seafood platters and stuff like this.

So one time, Martin is looking at the bill and he sees 90 euros for the homard or something. He's " What the heck is this?" And we're like, " That's your lobster." He was like, "What? Are you kidding me?" We're like "We budgeted well for this vacation, so it's okay. Enjoy it." And he was like sticker shock.

It was pretty, pretty funny. Then I was telling my dad the story, which you can appreciate. And we used to laugh, like my sister for her ninth birthday, she had sushi. This was a long time ago when there was like one sushi restaurant in Miami. Now, there's one in every corner. And I was like, how funny that for her ninth birthday, she had sushi.

How cool is that? And then he'd be like "What about you? When all the kids at the country club in Costa Rica were ordering French fries, you would only eat shrimp cocktail?" I was like, " Oh, there you go." So we're always laughing about stuff like that. He was like, "Shrimp had to come from very far."

And it was the most expensive thing in the menu. And that was the only thing you would eat. I'm like "Thanks dad." I got it out of my system because now it doesn't even occur to me to order shrimp. So there you go. # perspective.

Veronica: One hundred percent, one hundred percent.

Macarena: Okay. Who's your ideal client?

Veronica: My ideal client is really people that want to do a change in their industry. It's very funny because I have anything from magicians and statisticians all the way to politicians and people building in tech but it's people that want to do a change in their industry. That's really the underlying factor.

And that they know that they want to get somewhere and they want to create a big impact.

Macarena: it sounds wonderfully rewarding and fun.

Veronica: Yes. Yes. That's my one-on-one clients, of course. The spectrum, more on the group coaching side. It's still, they want to create an impact. And I don't need to know your business to know your mindset. It's really anybody that really wants to work in that mindset to get to that next level.

I think business is all 80 20 where it's 20 percent strategy, 80 percent mindset. Unlike people, how they say it, where they try to stick more to strategy. If you can't get on board with it, or if you don't even execute to the level of it, if you're self-sabotaging yourself, that 20 percent strategy that you have can go down the drain.

Macarena: Wow. So true. 100%. Yes. And I love what you're saying. Of course, some of these principles, these mindset are universal. So it almost doesn't even matter. The industry specifics. There's other specialists for that, of course, but this ability to give people, I find it foundational support.

So that the foundation, the scaffolding they're building their business on or their home on or whatever, that's solid. And that's the beauty of mindset.

Veronica: Yeah it's self-worth. I don't need to know that you are in this industry, that industry, you still do sales. You still price your products. Your self-worth is directly correlated to your income. It doesn't matter what industry you're in the end it's the same issue with everybody. And your self-worth, the I'm not good enough, or I'm not important, it's a core belief according to Morty Lefkoe.

So, It's a core belief to all of our human existence. Don't need to know what industry or your business and in the group coaching space. I don't really focus on your business. It's all about mindset. And yeah we do recalibration and stuff for your business, but I don't focus on helping you or giving you any business advice because that's not what it's for. I'm sure there's people that can do it a gazillion times better than I can. So I don't pretend to know what I don't know

Macarena: So interesting that you say there's a core belief that everyone shares that I'm not good enough. I would always say that instead of talking about whether or not that's true, looking at it is. Where is that showing up for you? Where in your life is not being good enough at play?

And let's deal with that. Quite interesting. Very nice. And I think that also relates to the self-esteem and how I say it is, self-esteem is a core corrector

It doesn't matter what the consequence you're experiencing due to it, but if you correct it, it has a multiplying effect of benefit all around.

So when you up level or improve self-esteem even just a little, you're going to see the benefits everywhere in your personal life, in your business, everywhere. So very cool. I like that idea of, yes, it's a given that it's happening, but let's address it.

Veronica: Yep.

Macarena: Very nice. So cool. Any final thoughts,

[00:52:53] Final Thoughts and Future Excitement

Veronica: I think success looks different for everybody, and I think you have to really define what success means to you and what does that look like for you. Because in order for you to get to that place where you want to be, I don't say act as if, I say become it until you are.

Macarena: Beautiful. And I think that's what authenticity means. How do you define success? People like, "Oh, how are you more authentic?" Or "What does that even mean?" You've got to do that in a work and discover who you are. One of the reasons I left the corporate world. So my mom passed. She got to be around two years instead of six months, which was really great.

And it was a really difficult time. And then I was in my corporate job for about four more years. After being there for six years, I was like, "Wait a second. I am an ambitious person. I have all of these things I want to do." And then I started feeling restricted and constricted. And what we were talking about before is the pain or the suffering.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. But the discomfort is what gives you the clue that a change needs to be made. That's how I knew, " Hey, wait a second. It's been long enough. I've grieved, I took four years to grieve. I'm good to focus on what's next." And being able to be that honest with yourself takes doing the work of setting yourself up for success and doing the self-reflection and all those beautiful things.

Very well put. So what are you excited for in the future?

Veronica: I'm really excited about is I have this live event coming up and it's all about mindset. It's a two-day event where we really dive into yourself worth and money believes and we reset them live in the call. It's free. It is by application.

 I'm very excited about that and just all future travels that I have upcoming. Excited about life and about business.

Macarena: Yay. Wonderful. It's been such a pleasure, Veronica. I'm so glad we got to have this fun, magical mindset conversation. I love you're such a beacon of strength and awesomeness and professionalism. I absolutely adore you. So thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Veronica: Thank you for having me. I love our friendship. So beautiful.

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Outro: Wow. What a journey we've been on together. I hope this episode has left you feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to embrace the magic in your life. I'd love to hear about your experiences and insights. Please tag me on social media using the hashtag magical mindset podcast, or leave me a DM to share your wins, challenges, and aha moments.

Let's keep the conversation and the magic flowing beyond this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and for being a. Until next time, keep shining your light and embracing the wonder of each day. You've got this!