She Knew Everything About Money… and Still Went Bankrupt (with Susan Glusica)

Blake (28:40.219)

You had a passion for teaching that was directionally correct. Your perception of how that had to come to fruition was where things got off of track

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:00.962)

I was humanly attached to one way that I decided was the way for me to make money. I wasn’t open to what the universe was laying out in front of me.

Blake (29:12.429)

And interestingly enough, because your focus was I have to figure out how to make money, you went into money and then experienced there are no accidents. Life will always teach you what you need to learn, right? And you got that and you kept getting the lesson over and over and over again, which is like the way I’m doing this is not in alignment. I’m, yes, whisper, knock, bang.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:19.37)

Ironic, Yeah.

Amen.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:35.69)

Sledgehammer time.

Blake (29:39.801)

The whole house comes down, right?

Blake:

Real leadership. Real life. Real impact. No more choosing between your career and your life. Here you’ll find honest conversations, science-backed strategies, and inspiring stories to help you thrive at work and truly enjoy your life outside of it. 

I’m your host, Blake, and I’m honored to help you create more impact with ease.

Blake (00:02.296)

Today’s episode features a guest, Susan Glusica, who spent 20 years in corporate on Wall Street, dealing with finances. And yet, despite all of her knowledge, doing quote unquote, what was right, underneath all that were patterns of misalignment that were creating these challenges, frustrations, and lack of fulfillment in her career. 

Her story is so compelling because what you’ll hear is, her story is so compelling because she truly is an example that shows what I talk about all the time, which is that the path to creating fulfillment, ease, success, and greater impact isn’t always what you think it’s going to be. 

For somebody who knew finances, who ended up in bankruptcy, in shame and guilt and stuck, believing that things had to be done a certain way to unlocking a completely different path where she’s actually able to use her talents in a way that give her energy and drive and create greater impact in the world. Her story’s fascinating and it’ll show many of the parallels of the things I share and talk about here at Impact with Ease. So if you want to hear about how success doesn’t always look like what you think.  Misalignment can show up in your career in life even if you’re doing everything right and how to unlock greater potential as well as financial abundance in your life. I think you’re going to be really excited for this conversation.

Blake (00:01.573)

Susan, thank you so much for being with me today on Impact with Ease. I am really excited to dive into your story, your journey, and hopefully really help unlock some new understanding for our listeners about what the journey looks like when you’re operating at a high level and you begin to realize that success is feeling, not as fulfilling or more challenging than what you want it to be. So with that said, you spent 20 years in corporate finance, working at a level where you really understood money strategy and how it’s supposed to work. Tell me a little bit about what that journey was, what was happening when you were in corporate and doing that work.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (00:48.758)

Yeah, so I was a very strong individual, contributing individual, and then ultimately got to lead a team in my last five years in corporate and realized, you know, I’m really not built for leading in the corporate space, like managing people. That was just not my forte. It felt a little bit like herding cats to me. And so I knew that that was out of alignment for what I was really built to do. And I came to a point where, when I had cut my teeth, like at, you know, the big guns, Goldman Sachs, when they were still private. And then I was there for, you know, four years. Then I moved over to Reuters America, which is the data side of the industry for eight years and then I was over in the insurance land with Guardian Insurance Company for 12 years. And at the end of that 12 year point, I was looking for my next step, couldn’t see it, but also was having a crisis of legacy, meaning I couldn’t see my footprint or my impact and, you know, or where I was making a difference. It just wasn’t visible to me. I didn’t feel it either. And so I looked out

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (02:08.44)

I was what I do. And I said, well, what does that look like? And he shared a little bit, you know, a lot of what I do is education. You’ve always wanted to be a teacher, which is true. I always want to play. I played school with my cousins as a kid, and I would send them, I would leave them homework and they would mail them.

You know, mail me the homework and I would send them back to them with my corrections. So education runs in my family. It’s in the DNA. So I always wanted to be a teacher, but I went to Wall Street because I couldn’t see how I could make the money that I wanted in teaching. Like at the beginning, right? I knew that if I’m on Wall Street where money is, I’ll make the money. And I was making really good money when I first started out. 

But, you know, my first salary was 16 and a half thousand and I thought I was, you know, queen at that point. Perspective is everything, right? And so, long story short, after my crisis of legacy and like kicking the tires on, moving over to the client-facing side, I discovered, well, I had already been a client of the planning methodology that, you know, then I became a proponent of, but I failed to do one particular thing, and that was change from saving 5 % to saving like 10, 15, or 20%. 

If I had done that over the first 10 years, I wouldn’t have suffered as greatly in the, what’s called the entrepreneurship cliff, like the income cliff that we go into, right, when we first go into entrepreneurship. So, you know, there were a lot of challenges. In my first year, I suffered what other people have told me that people in my career, in my new career, suffered over a 10-year period, I had collapsed into the first year. like, people in the business for decades were like, we have never seen anything like this. Knowing what I know now, I know that my financial frequency was set really low. 

So I was actually attracting all of that, let’s just call it not so positive experiences in my desperate gambit to replace my six-figure corporate income in the first year and having failed to do that in my second year, I basically negotiated to with the person who ran the agency that I was affiliated with at the outset to do some recruiting for him so I could get you know 75 % of a salary and then the rest you know still do my contract for the financial plan side and and stay in the game so to speak.

So that worked. And then after that year, I was able to go back full time to my financial plan contract. So it’s just a testament to if you want something, it’s already in your field and how you are showing up, like the frequency that you’re in is going to dictate the level of are you in an abundance of unpreferred circumstances or an abundance of preferred circumstances.

Blake (05:29.019)

Yeah, your story is so layered and we haven’t even gotten into some of the, I think more significant identity shifts, life shifts that you have been through. So you have had this long pattern in your life around money. Putting yourself in a place where you started out learning about money. So if you’ll bear with me, I’d love to go back because what I always know to be true is when we get further along the journey,

Sometimes we forget the signs, the symptoms, and the things we had to go to to get where we are today. And often that’s where the gold is. So I’m interested to hear you say, you said you came from a family of teachers, you had a passion for that, but you thought I can’t make enough money in this. So you end up going into literally the place where all the money is moving and shaking, right? So the clear insight that you had is I want to have wealth.

I want to make sure I’m making money. So I’m going to go to the place where that exists. What’s interesting is I see a pattern of you were changing and moving within that. So somewhere within that timeframe, there were things that were driving you to feel like maybe this isn’t right or I need to go somewhere else. Can you take us back to that experience? 

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (06:51.415)

Sure.

Blake (06:58.607)

What were you feeling and experiencing on a day-to-day basis that was like, something’s not quite right?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (07:02.764)

Yeah, so that was like in the final year that I was at Guardian was when that was happening, right? The crisis of legacy was underway. And so, you know, it just it felt misaligned in terms of so I made two out of three really good hires, but one of them was like a disaster. Right. And I told the HR director like my professional assessment of that employee, I mean, once she was on board and then showed her true colors. She interviewed great, she had great references, like the whole, all the boxes, right? Hire her and then all of sudden she’s the laziest person on the team and all these challenges and then et cetera, et cetera. you know, in managing her, she was starting to kind of complain to HR about me for these weird things. And I’m like, okay, this isn’t my first hire or managing experience.

But like, you know, you got to back me up HR and HR was like no, we’re gonna take her side. I’m like, alright. So when she left though, the HR person came to me and said, by the way, you were right. And I said, it’s okay, I don’t need to be vindicated externally. I knew, right? So it was more like I was in a place that was not supporting me, right? Like that was a big message early, well kind of early lead on. 

And then, you know, I actually knew that the that the internally they were shifting what what they wound up doing was taking my manager job and another person’s like a marketing manager job, putting them together and then hiring externally to fill like a V like more of a beat or more of a directorship level position. And so it wasn’t something that I wanted as like I saw that to go further in that same trajectory in the career, I would be putting myself into positions that I really didn’t want. They didn’t light me up. They weren’t what I was in the game for kind of thing. And I looked, I did look external to the company in the same industry, but I was more of a generalist and they were looking for specialists.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (09:20.332)

And then my personality profile was much too much of a driver for one particular manager position that I was going to go kind of like lateral move, but to a larger company that maybe had more potential for me there, right? But I couldn’t make any of that work. So I was being shown all of these signs that like, you know, this way is blocked, this way is blocked, right? And so I was trying to figure out, what, what can I do? And that’s when I reached out to people in my world. 

And I got that brilliant insight from my own financial advisor that maybe I had the capability of doing something totally foreign. Like I never imagined that I would be good enough to be, you know, helping people with their financial plans. And turned out that it is high education. It’s high touch, which is where I shine. I am very money motivated connected to the impact, right? So it’s income first and impact. And when you prioritize the money, it always does bring the impact, but not necessarily the other way around. You can have impact without a lot of income.

Blake (11:02.897)

It’s interesting because what I hear from you is, know, what I personally went through and what I see and have walked through with hundreds of people at this point is that moment when you hit the crossroads of what you thought your life and your career were going to look like. And you realize, I don’t want this path and everything I’m doing keeps leading back to more of the same.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (11:23.906)

Right.

Blake (11:31.225)

I also know when that moment happens, and for you that moment was the financial advisor that said, wait, maybe the way you’re looking at this is too limited. That there’s a moment of like, and I’m interested if this is what your experience was, this moment of feeling like excited and also terrified at the same time.

What was that experience like for you when he opened your perspective about what might be possible and what were the things going through your head at that time, right? About what do I do with it?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (12:06.446)

Counter-expectations, I actually wasn’t terrified, I was excited, which was one of the indicators to me that this was the direction I should follow, right? And I am an advocate of, you know, be scared and do it anyway, but that wasn’t the case for me at that time. I think I waited long enough to make the change that by the time I made the change, right? I was totally ready. In fact, it was maybe a little bit past due. So I was beyond scared and doing it anyway or the being terrified of any kind of change. And I was here. I was a mid-career changer. 

So something else to know is that a year and a half prior to making the actual formal change and I was very upfront and transparent with my manager and also the consultant that we were working with on the large technology project that we were working with him on that this was my desire that I’m kicking the tires to see if I’m a fit for this change. 

I need to include them that’s more of a European mindset of like let me bring in everybody so that on the business planning side they can also prepare and we have smooth transitions and everything and I’m proud to say that one of my hires stepped into my role as ultimately when they all you know Got kind of all settled again that she stepped into the management of that team now so I’m very proud that I made really two really awesome hires out of the three and things continued and and you know that really one of the things that attracted me not only to help people put what I call their self-equity ecosystem in place, but also for me personally was the unlimited financial income side of it. 

There’s really no limit. You’re your own limit, right? And I learned very quickly that in order to kind of cash in on that opportunity, I needed to be the best me that I could be, and that meant getting coaching, which I had very, very little experience with in corporate. I had some presentation training, you know, I had some they had some group coach, know coaching programs here and there It was kind of like spotty over the 20 years in corporate and when I got out on my own so to speak the reason I wasn’t scared or terrified was I was walking into a proven Almost like a franchise model right like they were gonna show me the ropes They were gonna tell me what to do. All I had to do was follow their instruction But so I got the strategy right but I failed to connect on who’s the me that I had to be in that new role. It was a total shift from being a strong individual contributor on a corporate side to shifting into basically eat what you kill territory and nothing, nothing shows or teaches you about yourself like entrepreneurship does.

Blake (15:01.431)

You are so right. When I became an entrepreneur, the thing that I learned was that entrepreneurship is a personal development journey. And I love hearing the insight that you have, and I’m excited to dive into that. As we get a little bit further, the shift that you had, because I heard two very clear shifts here, but I want to be able to take people through your journey because you don’t just get there. You had to go through a lot to get where you are. 

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (15:27.821)

Right.

Blake (15:31.292)

And hopefully, through your journey and through what we’re sharing today, you can help illuminate that path to make it faster for other people. But I heard two things. One, which is this idea of money is unlimited. And this is true, not just as an entrepreneur, it’s also true for those who work in corporate businesses, that there are so many ways that you can grow your income and your abundance. And I too did not have that perspective when I spent 18 years in corporate.

So that’s so powerful, but we don’t just get there. There was a series that you went through. So I’m excited to dive into that. And the second thing that I really heard was, you had success on a piece of paper. You had learned the skills. You were appreciated in the work that you were doing. You followed the plans that you were given about how to grow this business. And yet underneath doing all the things right were things that were misaligned that were stopping you from achieving the level of flow and ease and abundance that you really wanted for your career and your life. 

And that’s so powerful because so many people get stuck there thinking maybe something’s wrong with them or that this is as good as it’s going to get without actually realizing what’s necessary in the journey to achieve it. And so what I hear you say is you came to that realization.

and started to recognize that maybe there were some things that were personal things to you that were out of alignment that you needed to learn or shift in order to move there. Is that accurate?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (17:10.402)

That is totally accurate. And the way that I came about it was not having that realization first, but having the realization that I had that got me into that secondary realization was, okay, I’m a mid-career changer. I don’t have a lot of time to figure this out on my own. I thought I could come in here and execute on what they showed me, but I’m experiencing all of these negatives that people who’ve been in the business for all these decades are saying, this is really abnormal. We don’t know what’s going on.

And so it was outside of their purview to help me. And I said, I need to find somebody else. So I went within our organization to a sister agency. There were two people that they were at one of the conferences. I saw them on stage and I’m like, well, maybe they, sounds like they could help me cause they’re very successful and they were also doing like additional coaching. was called empowered mastery. So that’s what I stepped into with them. And basically,

I hired one coach initially for, I don’t know if it was maybe three or six months, I can’t remember, I think it six months. And then after that, I hired two of their coaches, one for business and one for health. So I was multi-coached in my second full year. And that’s what enabled me to have year 10 results by year three. But in those three years, I was backpedaling, trying to pedal fast as I could while I’m consuming all of this knowledge and being coached and refining. There was a lot to change actually. So I couldn’t change fast enough to reverse the challenges that I suffered in the first year and that’s what led to the bankruptcy. But then once the bankruptcy was filed and I actually started to embody the me that was not having commission breadth and not desperate to make a sale and all the things right, then the horizon opened up and then I started hiring different coaches.

Blake (19:40.112)

There’s so much of what you said. The question I wanted to ask you, and you sort of alluded to it, and I definitely want to go back to it. You said I was having all of these challenges, so many challenges that people around me were saying, what is happening? And then you just said bankruptcy. So can we go back?

What was actually happening at that time in your life? What were you experiencing and what were you living on a day-to-day basis?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (20:10.412)

Yeah, so like I said, I consumed the assets that I had set aside for the transitionary, the planned transitionary period. And if my business had been normal, I would have made it through unscathed. But as I said, I had all these challenges. 

You know, I had clients who just on the insurance side were like they had boxes of medical files, right? Like that never happens people. But she had done this crazy health program that like her, her employer offered her, but it resulted in these like literally boxes of medical history that underwriting had to go through. So instead of a quicker underwriting process, it took us a long time. And at the end of that process, she decided, no, no, thank you. So I spent a lot of time with no recompense, right? Things like that were happening. That was just one very memorable one. 

I could get people into meetings to, you know, implement or apply for certain things, but then at the end when they had to implement, then they would ghost me. And that’s where my business strategist came in to help me. She goes, I know exactly what’s going on. And she did, and she taught me conscious connection, which enables me these days, including my experience in it, right, that now I can have a 45-minute conversation with a total stranger who maybe even has money trauma, and she says at the end of that, I trust you.

Blake (21:52.828)

So that’s fascinating. So you were going through this experience, you were getting clients, you were investing in all of these things and randomly difficult things were coming up that were completely unexpected that were causing those people to leave or you’d get them right to the finish line and they wouldn’t commit. Man, does that mirror what I know to be true when you are in sales, how you show up and what you believe and what you tolerate is what you are mirrored back. And that’s exactly what it sounds like. So it sounds like, you came to understand that there was a trust issue there, but at the time you didn’t know that, what did you think? Did you just think I’m like the most unlucky person? What was happening?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (22:34.369)

No. Pretty much. I mean, I was like, I don’t even understand. Nobody, even the experts in my field don’t understand what’s going on. Like nobody could, like what is going on, right? Yeah. It was a total mystery. 

Blake (22:51.471)

And how much did it take you?

Blake (22:56.015)

Well, here’s what I know. And what I consistently see being somebody who has spent a long time studying and understanding patterns and how the world shows up is, right, that to get to a place where you did bankruptcy, right, I think that is the biggest fear of anyone that goes into entrepreneurship. Let’s just say it. I know one of the things that kept me in corporate for the length of time it did was, what if I make a mistake and I like, get evicted from my house. This is what my brain was thinking. And I know that I am not alone in that as I’ve had to coach and help so many people through that, that it doesn’t happen like that. It’s not one day. It’s a series of day after day after day of not changing course or not seeing what’s happening. And so for you, when you went through that, which must have been excruciatingly painful day after day,

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (23:26.158)

Yeah, what’s the worst that can happen? Yeah.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (23:48.835)

Well, not only that, but add on top of that the shame, because here I was, I knew everything that I knew from being in the industry for 20 years. If anybody should have known better, it’s me. So there was this huge element of shame on that. I didn’t, so I didn’t talk about it for a long time. The first time I talked about my bankruptcy and it was the hardest thing I had ever written was in a book, Courage Under Siege, and it was my perfect financial storms was my contributory chapter to that book. But then once that came out,

It helped, but I still had waves of shame around it. And then I started really sharing it and talking about it. And then over time that abated. Now, nowadays I have a release protocol that just that would have gotten rid of the shame. No problem. Right. Like in 30 seconds flat. And it’s one of the things that’s my favorite thing to show, show my clients. Right. So they don’t have to live that and they have to want to change, of course. Right. But it’s, it’s a, it’s a pleasure now to remove that pain if they want that removed.

Blake (24:59.963)

Yeah, there’s so much power to what you’re sharing in that.

Blake (25:11.019)

It is the ways that we guilt and shame ourselves that keep us trapped, that keep us from seeking help, that keep us from recognizing that what’s happening to us is not about our worth or our value, but about maybe the things we don’t see or the things we keep doing because we believe it has to look that way.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (25:34.648)

Yep.

Blake (25:34.777)

I know it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage to go from that and then decide to invest in working with somebody.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (25:43.853)

Well, the first coach that I hired, I didn’t even know how I was paying her.

I was like, you must be mad if you think I have any money. And she’s like, don’t worry about that. I’m going to show you. We’ll find the money. Don’t worry about that. And she taught me, she was the first coach that taught me if you want something, the way is already in your field. Like it’s already here. We just need to connect to it. So I had no idea. I put a little bit of a deposit down, you know, using credit cards and then boom, we found the money. Cause what I learned from working with her totally shifted my life.

Like that was the first mega shift that I saw. And then business shortly thereafter improved and I started doing joint work with their team. And so we did joint work for I think like four years after that.

Blake (26:37.147)

How did you find her?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (26:39.638)

She was, I saw her on stage.

And so I write a conference at a corporate company-wide conference for women. They were putting on these, you know, for the women field representatives. And I was going to everything that I could attend, right? And it was free. And so I was going to be there because I’m learner, right? And I implement immediately. So I was like this eager sponge. And I was like, I’m just looking, I’m seeking the answer. I need to know how do I fix this right now and there she was on stage and what they presented in terms of they were demonstrating, you know, muscle testing and certain other things and asking us to look back in our lives and you know, they were asking a bunch of questions that were very thought provoking and plus they were like these top producers and I’m like, I want to be like them, right? 

So that’s what I invested in. I want to be like them and learn the inner stuff that was creating, you know, and how I was being an emotional puppet in certain circumstances and how I was giving away my power and all the things, right? And that was even before I made my signature discovery of like financial frequency, like what’s the state of consciousness that you are in which is gonna attract so my I was in shame. I was in anxiety. I was in worry. I was in fear like every single day. I would wake up with my stomach in knots, right? 

Like that’s not a good way to live. I wanted to make money and I was not able to make money and it was just tying me up in knots, right? And so they helped me understand what was going on and how to transform and transmute out of that state of money creation and into a more expansive expression of who Susan is. And that’s the Susan you see right now.

Blake (28:40.219)

It’s amazing to see.

A journey that started so early on, right? You had a passion for teaching that was directionally correct. Your perception of how that had to come to fruition was where things got off of track, right?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:00.962)

Yeah, I was humanly attached to one way that I decided was the way for me to make money. I wasn’t open to what the universe was laying out in front of me.

Blake (29:12.429)

And interestingly enough, because your focus was I have to figure out how to make money, you went into money and then experienced there are no accidents. Life will always teach you what you need to learn, right? And you got that and you kept getting the lesson over and over and over again, which is like the way I’m doing this is not in alignment. I’m, yes, whisper, knock, bang.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:19.37)

Ironic, Yeah.

Amen.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:35.69)

Sledgehammer time.

Blake (29:39.801)

The whole house comes down, right? And in one way, it’s a, when you’re in it, such a horrible experience.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:41.43)

Yep.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (29:50.732)

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Blake (29:53.724)

And on the other side, you go, oh yeah, I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen to the whisper. I didn’t listen to the knock, right? And at least what I have seen pretty consistently, because it took me a long time to leave corporate myself, was those of us who grew up and had to be strong and resilient and responsible. We learned to push through, override, keep doing.

And that actually can be our biggest detriment because if we had grown up where we were used to asking for people for help and it’s okay not to know the answers and it’s okay to make a mistake, we would have asked for help earlier. We wouldn’t have gotten so caught in so long, right? And so it’s the double-edged sword of like being highly capable and that capability is the thing that actually makes it harder. 

Blake (30:50.915)

So when I see your story, I see a story of, you were given the whispers and the knocks, hey, this isn’t quite right. And you kept trying to solve it yourself and you kept pushing through and life kept saying to you, no, Susan, no, Susan. Nope, no, Susan. And then right through that journey was really the breakthrough that you were always looking for all the way from the beginning, which is how can I do work?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (31:04.034)

Wake up.

Blake (31:17.657)

That I get to teach people and I feel is impactful and also financially live the life that I wanted and you got there. I always say like and part of what my passion is about this is to help people realize it doesn’t have to be that hard because the signs of misalignment are always there. It’s how we’re interpreting them. And so my hope is and thank you for being so honest about what your experience is, is to help people understand that.

What happened to you was not because you were not capable. In fact, it probably was because you were too capable and too reliant on yourself. And it wasn’t because you, it wasn’t because anything was wrong with you. And I think so often when we get to these places where we’re misaligned or unhappy or unfulfilled or it feels hard, we blame ourselves or think we have to work harder.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (31:52.509)

So, right.

Blake (32:16.842)

Your life story is a full example of like, no, that’s actually not true. Did you have to do work to be where you are? Absolutely. But my guess is the last number of years for you have been infinitely easier than what you went through. Is that true?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (32:30.904)

Completely! I mean I live my joy every day I joke that if I wasn’t married I would do this 24-7 because it just fills me it fills me up fills me with joy and to the level that my voice will let me speak like you know endlessly I would do it you know 24-7 so it’s nothing is is easier than fully expressing your God-given innate talents in exchange for equal money for the betterment of humanity.

And whatever your unique, I call it your unique value blueprint, like whatever your unique fingerprint slice of that value is, the rest of us are depending on you to discover that so that you can do your job of bettering humanity in the unique way that only you, and only you, can do.

Blake (33:21.85)

Yeah, this is why you and I, when we connected, right? Cause that essentially is the work that I do is help people discover their, what I call unique fingerprint for success and strip out the things that are making it misaligned and creating that frustration. Because I like you saw and understand how deeply when you don’t have energy and when you’re drained,

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (33:24.348)

Thank

Blake (33:47.533)

You get in a deep hole of that where you feel like this is what life needs to look like. And when you do do the things that you are meant to, the energy replenishes itself. It’s like you can just keep going and spend time with people that you enjoy and do work that gives you life. My biggest heart is to help people to know that that’s possible for them and that we are not the exception.

We just happen to continue to have the tenacity to keep going forward. And hopefully through our journeys, we can help people better understand where they’re at in the map so that they can get there faster too. You wouldn’t have been able to get to, you know, year 10 and year three if you hadn’t recognized, I need help from somebody who is where I want to be. They’ve already done what I want to do. And that’s such a huge unlock. I think, I know, I heard you say I didn’t invest in myself in corporate. That was the same for me. Like I remember the very first investment.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (34:55.138)

I didn’t even know it was a thing. Like I didn’t know that I should have been, right? Because that’s not in the corporate culture. The corporate culture is, know, the corporation’s going to take care of your training or whatever you need or, right? Not so. At least when I went through corporate. Like not so.

Blake (35:13.284)

Well, and even when you look at how much society is changing right now, the world of work is massively changing. And what’s that old adage, right? No one will care about your career more than you do.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (35:27.832)

Yep, always take care of number one. Also, here’s a money tip for anybody listening, right?

Blake (35:29.976)

Yeah.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (35:35.467)

If you want to expand your money, the first thing you do is expand your self-care because the universe is always asking how much pleasure can you stand? Right? We only receive to our capacity and self-care is a way to expand that capacity. It’s like an instant way to expand for women, especially it’s the fastest way, to expand our ability to receive.

Blake (36:00.709)

I love that so many of the people in my orbit and listening are givers.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (36:07.98)

I know I just spoke to one. Yeah, I just spoke to one and I’m like, well, because I give a clarity call in which I’ll identify your biggest money block in 20 minutes or sooner and I can guarantee it’s not what you think it is. in one call today, she I said your second biggest is that you’re a giver and you’re blocking the receiving because you you’re identifying your identity is wrapped up into being a giver. Right. So there’s some work to do there to to you don’t have to stop being a giver, but you have to add the receiving in order to get the money in.

Blake (36:39.938)

Yeah, what you say I know to be true and I like to translate it like this, so I’m interested in your perspective. I like to translate it like this, right? It’s like water flowing down a river. When you only give and you don’t receive, it’s like putting a big old tree trunk across. You’re stopping the flow of everything that’s happening because you’re not in, you’re not allowing or seeing the opportunities to show up. And because your entire identity is my worth comes from giving to other people, receiving, right? It feels unnatural. We don’t like to ask for things, but that over giving and the lack of receiving is actually such a huge block that so many givers don’t realize.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (37:31.768)

True.

Blake (37:39.546)

And the gift is if you’re a giver that the more you receive, the more you can give.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (37:44.29)

Yeah, well, I like to think of it this way to your point of the flow. So giving and receiving are dynamic aspects of that energy exchange. If you’re only a giver, right, you’re actually preventing somebody from being a giver.

Blake (37:58.883)

Yes, so good. So it sounds like to me you had to go through one of the belief shifts that I did, which was that asking for help means that you’ll be a burden and competent and capable, etc. I know that that is one of the most important things we have to shift first in order to move. What advice or suggestions? 

Blake (38:26.234)

How did you learn how to get over that, the shame and guilt of I’m struggling and I don’t want anyone to know? And I quote, “I’m a financial person, I should x, y,” to get into a place where you recognized how beneficial asking for help really was.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (38:41.026)

I mean I think at that point it was just desperation for me. I got to the point where I was just, it was no longer sustainable to not do anything about it, right? Like I got to a point where I was like, well, I don’t have the time to figure this out as a mid-career changer. I have to figure this out now. Nobody around me, and least of all myself, can figure this out. So I gotta find it somewhere else, right? And so it was a challenge. My own mindset was, know, I need a coach, but I don’t believe I can pay for one right now. And so it did take courage to say, well, let me just explore, right? 

So I kind of unknowingly did some of the steps that I teach. I teach seven steps to create, to realize the money that you desire. you know, one of them is detachment, which is kind of counterintuitive. How can I have a desired outcome but still remain detached from it? It means you’re going to allow. So I went into detachment and allowing, although I didn’t recognize that that’s what I was doing at the time. And so with that, allowed me to do is to explore and have conversations without kind of any self judgment and because I really needed to, you know, have a transformation. I really needed someone to show me the way. I knew I couldn’t figure it out on my own. So I was willing to overcome that the shame of I can’t figure this out and be open to somebody better show me what to do.

Like now.

Blake (40:20.826)

Well, in the principles what you’re talking about, right? Non-attachment and also no longer willing to tolerate. There was a commitment for change and those things have to be able to exist in order to see a different way forward. love a lot of the quantum physics now they’ve come out and talked about how what you look at actually changes what’s possible, right? What we focus on expands and or.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (40:29.846)

Absolutely.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (40:48.47)

Or better yet, I just read something where like, you know, our time, right, we’re always choosing along and but there’s all this stuff that’s still simultaneously like out there, right? So it just blows your mind when you start thinking of that stuff.

Blake (41:04.302)

Yeah, it’s, I can go down rabbit holes and have for a long time about all that. And I just, it’s a really fascinating thing when you see the proven principles across so many different modalities. It’s the same thing. over and over and over again, non-attachment, you can see that in so many places, so many different religions, so many different approaches, manifestation, et cetera, that

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (41:07.552)

Yeah, me too.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (41:22.488)

Yeah.

Blake (41:33.358)

You know this idea of when we get caught, you’re you know you’re speaking to it in terms of frequencies. We could speak to it in terms of emotions or perspectives, right? But. Yeah, it has a million different names, but at the end of the day, when you are coming from a place of desperation. Even if people don’t cognitively know it, they feel it.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (41:43.37)

It’s consciousness whatever.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (41:56.015)

Because we’re all sentient beings, we’re always giving off and receiving signals and we, it doesn’t even have, we don’t have to be aware of it, consciously aware of it, it’s happening anyway.

Blake (42:05.986)

Yes, and there’s such power in that I recently came across a post from an old friend on Facebook and he’s going through a really difficult time and the post was so difficult because he was looking for help but the way that he communicated it was doing the exact opposite. And so

Blake (42:32.846)

You know, as I think about the conversation that we’ve had today and the journey that you’ve been through, right, bankruptcy to living in abundance and helping other people unlock that abundance from doing all the things that on paper looks like they were right to get you where you wanted to go. But with strength, they should have worked, but that they didn’t because they weren’t in alignment to actually going through the journey to recognize that you could have what you wanted from the very get go.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (42:48.642)

They should have worked. Yeah.

Blake (43:01.85)

And you were being shown that, it just didn’t look like what you thought it was going to, to get you exactly where you need to be. My hope is that at a bare minimum that whoever is listening can begin to see the pattern that I see, and I’ve seen over and over again, which is when we stay stuck in the circumstances of the things we don’t want and we get caught in blaming ourselves for those circumstances and not seeking help and not expanding our perspective, that is literally the worst thing we can do because it will whisper, knock, bang, and the whole house will come down. right, or you can see it as the greatest opportunity to maybe everything that you’ve ever wanted that may not look like what you thought it was going to.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (43:38.636)

Yeah.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (43:51.341)

And if anything, I’m a testament to that. And I’m going to invite your listeners, if anybody listening is feeling that pull but lacks the courage, I will offer this because I have it in boatloads. You can always borrow my courage. You can’t deplete it. It comes from a source and it’s always there if you need it. And just one agreement is that you agree to only use it for good.

Blake (45:02.722)

If you are feeling like you’re really out of sorts, the fastest thing to your point that you can do is have courage that it can be better and take a different step forward. And it’s amazing what can happen when you keep doing that. I think people often believe that people that are courageous just were that.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (45:14.606)

Yeah.

Blake (45:27.35)

I am definitely a testament that that is not true. I spent years or decades overthinking things because I was so fearful to make the wrong decision. To me, courage is a thing that’s built. Do you feel that way? Are you much more courageous now than you used to be?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (45:45.345)

Yeah, Alan Cohen wrote Relax into Wealth and in there he clarifies that courage, the root word, comes from the French and I

I can’t pronounce French, so don’t ask me to, but it’s the root cause for heart. So the way to courage is through the heart, not force, but through the heart. And once I learned that, and also anybody who knows the centers of the body, right, the energy centers, the heart is the biggest one and the most intelligent, I will tell you. So go to the heart, right? That’s where the wisdom is. That’s where your courage lies. That’s where your deepest heart desires are stored. There’s a lot in the heart and I would encourage you if you’re in your head just drop down into your heart, put your hand over your heart and just drop down whatever question you’ve got going on. If I did that out of the gate it would have been a much different story.

Blake (46:40.462)

Yeah, you gotta hear it, but then you also have to be willing to step into it. And I think the more of us that have done that, the more we can help people understand that is the way. Amazingly, yesterday, well, I’ve had this whole thing happening with my family. My daughter’s about to go off to college. 

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (46:50.872)

Yes.

Blake (47:05.824)

It’s been a journey to get her through and prepare for that process, right? I hired an amazing coach to help her really get clear on who she is, how she’s wired, what she wants to do, what she cares about for college, and what is the right college fit for her. She applied to like 12 colleges all across the South, all the way from California to Florida and up to like Kansas, right? And

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (47:10.67)

With a big transition.

Blake (47:35.511)

In this journey, she got to this place where she really decided on her number one school. She had gotten in, she got into, I think, nine of the 12 schools. She’s doing really well, a great student, but we go through this process and the school she wants to get into defers her from early admission. And she’s devastated.

And we’re looking at which schools to visit, know, find all for her to decide. And it’s like, it’s an out-of-state school. They only take 20 % of the kids out of state, small chances. Then I start researching because their early admission took in higher percentage of out-of-state students than they normally do. So she has a 5 to 10 % chance of getting into this.

Blake (48:24.684)

I get this deep intuition talking about listening to heart and it’s like you need to take her. You need to take her to go see the school even though she hasn’t gotten in. You need to go. So I reach out to her and I’m like, hey, I know we talked about only going to the schools that you got in, but I really feel like maybe we should go. How are you feeling? And she’s like, yes, I really feel like I need to go. So we go to two schools, the one she got into and this other school. We go to the first school and I can just see.

in her eyes that it’s just, it’s not there. And she’s nervous and she’s trying to make it all work, right? And she’s got all this FOMO, I need to register, I need to do all these things. I’m like, no, let’s just, let’s hang back. We go to the school that she wanted to go to, not there 30 minutes, tears. It just feels like home is exactly where I’m supposed to be. And I looked at her and I said,

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (49:20.879)

Tears show we got to the core of the matter.

Blake (49:24.12)

Yep, I said to her what I know to be true is that your inner compass will never lie to you. And if you feel like this is where you’re supposed to be, then you have to do whatever it’s gonna take to get here, even if it makes no sense. Even if it looks like it’s not possible, you gotta step into faith and you gotta believe in it. And so we left and it was like, know, this school, because it’s out of state, it’s twice as much as monetarily as what we have planned for her.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (49:43.407)

There you go.

Blake (49:54.435)

The likelihood of getting in is five to 10%. Everyone else is probably like, you’re absolutely crazy continuing to do this. All of her friends have picked schools or communicating about the schools, taking all the pictures, and she has to walk the line of saying, I’m gonna bet on me. I’m gonna bet on the thing I know is true, even when everyone thinks I’m crazy, even when I’m standing out and not doing what everybody else is doing. 

Blake (50:20.538)

I got kind of an intuitive insight a few days ago and sent it to her about like, hold the faith, even when it doesn’t look right. Then we got an email four days ago that says like, do you still want to be on the wait list? And she had done fall only when she could have done fall and spring. And I just said to her, I think this is your opportunity to write what you felt like you did wrong. See if you can change it. Cause before they told her she couldn’t. See if you could change it to fall and spring. She did.

Tomorrow is decision day. So May 1st is decision day for all colleges. Yesterday, she calls me. Mom, I got in. And to me, it was such a beautiful example of, we think we have to know how it’s going to happen. But what we do have to learn how to do is trust ourselves and take that step forward. And I know that if I had not walked this journey, if I had not walked this journey with hundreds of people, I wouldn’t have been able to coach her to do that. She wouldn’t have had somebody to say, trust yourself, keep moving, be willing to do whatever it is that shows up.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (51:08.239)

Right.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (51:29.475)

Yeah, at that young age when you don’t have the experience yet underneath your own belt to do that. That’s amazing.

Blake (51:37.901)

Yeah, thank you. was like the absolute best news yesterday. I’m so thrilled for her because that’s exactly what she wanted. And I’m like, great, now we just need the opportunities to show up to help you understand how do you fund the gap that you have. But I know because this is the right thing for you and the doors are opening, that that will open too. And she wants it, that that will open too. And for me, it’s a beautiful example of what you’re talking about. Like, how can we make it tangible for somebody?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (51:57.186)

And she wants it.

Blake (52:07.03)

That’s what courage looks like, right? Courage looks like you saying, I should have known everything about money and yet I ended up in this circumstance and I’m not gonna let that be the end. I’m gonna step into and ask for help and I’m gonna believe life can be better. Courage looks like my daughter who everything looks like it’s telling her no, but she trusts what it is that’s right for her. 

Blake (52:33.272)

That’s how you unlock abundance, whether it is life or finances. So thank you for being here to share your journey. And I hope that it has inspired those that are listening to realize that there’s so much more possible for their lives.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (52:48.813)

Yep, amen. Thank you for having me, Blake. It’s been amazing!

Blake (52:54.362)

Thank you. I feel the exact same way. I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you this last question. If there was one message that you wanted to share from an impact standpoint. What is that message that you want to share with people?

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (57:47.629)

I want to share that money is spiritual in that everything is energy and so is money. And so you can look at money if you’re looking for a different perspective on money to help you create more money in your life, right? You can look at it like money is currency or essence. So it’s connected to your ability to fully express or self actualize your innate God given talents out into the world for betterment of humanity in exchange for equal money.

Blake (58:18.202)

Thank you, Susan. Appreciate you. And for those of you who are listening who would love to learn more about Susan or connect with her, I’ll have all of her information in the show notes.

Blake (58:29.371)

Thanks again for joining me, Susan. I appreciate it.

Susan Glusica | Wealth Mentor (58:35.03)

This is great. This was great.

Blake:

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