Freya Savage is an impressive, multi-faceted woman: An established entrepreneur, a devotee to plant-based health & wellness, a certified raw food chef, an ultra-marathoner, and a successful financial planner.

In this episode Freya and I discuss different methods of building a successful business, establishing one’s boundaries and healthy routines, what to keep in mind when starting on a new endeavor, and why (and how!) to make time & space for yourself in an increasingly busy world.

Favorite Quote:

“If your first priority is not yourself you can’t go filling up other peoples’ cups if you haven’t filled up your own, if you’re not grounded in yourself.”

Freya’s Links:

• • @freya_savage_ on Instagram
  • Wealthy Rebels With a Cause on Facebook

 Other Relevant Links:

• Product Launch Formula
• Hedonic Treadmill

Transcript:

Brian David Crane0:30
I am sitting here with a friend of mine: Freya Savage. I might be saying her first name wrong it could be Freya, Freya.

Freya Savage 0:38
They both sound very beautiful, actually. It’s Freya.

Brian David Crane0:40
Freya – and she is a practitioner of I would call it raw food, knows a ton about raw food. She’s beautiful. She’s in amazingly good shape. She also coaches people on their finances. She had a life in corporate, got out of that life, and has now kind of come back into the corporate world in one sense, but is kind of doing it on her own terms from here in Bali and has one leg in health, one leg in diet – those two are a lot of times tied together – and then one leg and finances and making sure that your money… house is in order, I would say. And so the first thing, as I kind of wrap up the introduction for Freya, here, is her name is so badass because Freya is a Norse goddess of war and I don’t really know all the background on Freya from a Norse mythology standpoint. And then Savage is her last name. So if that doesn’t give you an idea of how much of a warrior she is, she’s going to tell you, but that the kind of sets the context. Yeah.

Freya Savage 1:40
Thank you. Every time someone says to me like, Oh, what does Freya mean, I want to like do a hair flick, like be like “Yeah,” like I’m in an advertisement or a movie. It means there’s so many different meanings to it. My favorite is the goddess of love and beauty.

Brian David Crane1:59
That’s a different one. Okay. Because most of the Norse gods are… they’re like warrior. They’re kind of battling it out in Valhalla yeah, okay. Yeah, it’s got a… I know that she is a central character in Norse mythology. I don’t know a lot about her but just that’s a cool name.

Freya Savage 2:16
She’s kind of multifaceted. Kind of like me. Like when you were doing the introduction, you were like: A bit of this, a bit of that, not really sure. One leg in here, one leg out there.

Brian David Crane2:26
Yeah, yeah, it’s a Venn diagram with multiple circles and there’s an overlap and you are in the middle of it.

Freya Savage 2:45
Totally! And you know, I think like, as humans we are multifaceted. And this whole thing about, which we’ve spoken about briefly around like, you must be good at one thing and niche that, that’s very popular right now like in the entrepreneurial world is like niche one thing and really hone in on that particular thing and go for that. And like know exactly who your audience, is exactly who you’re marketing to. Can I swear on it?

Brian David Crane2:57
Yeah, sure.

Freya Savage 2:58
Okay, good. Yeah. I said like: Fuck that, like, baby wannabe, do what you want to do, and it will all naturally flow like, absolutely. Like you said, I’ve got one leg in here, one leg in there. And I was like, actually I put my whole body in, like I go fully into each particular area. It’s not like, “oh, I’ll just take, I’ll just kind of take a little bit off the surface here in a little bit off the surface there.” Like whatever I do, I dive in deep, which is why now I’m doing, you know, I’m managing raw food trainings, I’m doing plant based and nutrition trainings and also doing teaching people about my mindset about investment education, because I go all in to whatever it is that I’m doing at the time. So I think that this whole idea of you know, “Yeah, you must be really good at something. You must focus just on one small area” can be contractional, for some humans.

Brian David Crane3:59
Well, one thing I would say, is that you have definitely dove in deep around these areas, but it’s kind of sequential order. Right? So for instance, when you and I met a couple years ago, I think you were just coming to Bali. And you were just starting with the founder of Seeds of Life, right? And so that you were like, kind of getting into raw foods, now you’ve mastered it. Now you’re teaching it to other people. And I assume the same trajectory took place with finance, as well as that, like you got into it. You learned a lot, then you’ve come out and started to use it.

Freya Savage 4:30
Yeah. Absolutely. And then I do kind of like, you might feel this as well, that once you get into something, you realize actually, it could never be mastered. There’s always more depths and nuances to it. And it’s like, you know, that thing… the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. And so it’s so interesting, you know, to just unlayer. It’s like we’re even working through yourself like all these layers and layers and layers and layers. And it’s like… The joy of the process, of exploring something in relationship to yourself. So exploring wealth, and how do other people do it? Like, how do other people invest? How do other people manage their money? What do they experts say? And then to actually become an expert, and to learn all of that, and to then have a base, which is also what I teach in my programs, like when I’m helping, particularly women around building businesses, and their money mindset is, first learn what the experts say. And then you can embody that and you can feel what feels good for me and what doesn’t, and then throw it away if you don’t want it anymore.

Brian David Crane5:42
So what is some of the advice that the experts say that a woman would typically take on and then potentially throw away?

Freya Savage 5:50
Right, so let’s go with the business side of things. Let’s say, you’re launching an online program. So typically the experts, you know, like Jeff Walker. He’s a master. He’s incredible. And he has…

Brian David Crane6:05
He is the founder of Product Launch Formula.

Freya Savage 6:07
Right, Product Launch Formula. He’s an automation guy. And there’re like all these steps to launch your program. But what typically ends up happening, it does work, mind you.

Brian David Crane6:22
Yeah, but you spend a lot of money doing it.

Freya Savage 6:24
Yeah, it really works. But what happens is, particularly for women, it’s not the feminine way. The feminine way is low tech, high touch, the feminine ways to move with flow rather than to have an outline strategy of what they’re going to be doing every single day. And what happens if you create a strategy, maybe at the start of the month, maybe it’s a six month long, let’s say, launch strategy, which… it doesn’t need to be that long either. But let’s say it is, and you know what you’re doing every single day for the next six months. In my experience what happens is you look at that and you think, Oh my God, this does not feel good. Like, this is not out of inspiration, this is where inspiration’s gone and you’re now putting, like your cosmeticizing, or… is that the right word? Like, making things cosmetic, you know, you’re taking away the essence of you, and you’re doing the things that are kind of manipulative, you know.

Why are they manipulative to come out with like a detailed plan?

It’s can be manipulative in the sense of this is what has worked for other people. And this is how you make money. And, and this is who you’re targeting. This is the kind of price point that you want to target them. This is how you sell to them. It’s like, it’s so far removed from your own message of just being an artist. It’s like you’re now painting based on what other people want you to paint and pricing it at a price point that you think is gonna work in the market. And you’re… the artist in you then gets shrunk. You know?

Brian David Crane8:07
So in your, what you’re saying you have the artists and the feminine is effectively the same thing.

Freya Savage 8:12
Right.

Brian David Crane8:12
Okay.

Freya Savage 8:13
Correct.

Brian David Crane8:13
So then… what’s the counter? What’s the counterpoint? The masculine is what, the operator?

Freya Savage 8:18
Yes. And absolutely you need the masculine. You know? Automation can… is also important because it creates more space for you to be in your genius mode. Absolutely. But what can happen particularly if you know you don’t have a big team, is you end up spending a shitload of time trying to automate everything. And you’re no longer in genius mode and actually what would have been the best thing for you to do? And to attract your people and to get your message out and to have fun, which is the most important thing, right? Like, what’s the point? You’re not having fun? Yeah, yeah. So then you keep doing it and you’re inspired, is to just share every day, whatever you want. Like, just go out and just share. Maybe it’s in uh… Maybe it’s In a Facebook group, maybe it’s a blog post, maybe it’s a podcast, but to allow it to flow. The other thing is, when you’re in this mode of like automation and strategizing, which I’m not saying, totally get rid of that. But if you’re totally in that world, then you’re not going to be able to see opportunities that come up every day. Like, for example, if today if I had, let’s say, I was like, Oh, you know, actually, I can’t do these podcasts because it doesn’t align with my next launch. And can we do it on this other date instead? Then it’s just I’m trying to control everything. And if you allow things to move with flow and you go with the opportunities then sometimes greater things can happen then you can even imagine, then your strategy could even you know that the result of your… the strategy that you want, the result you want from your strategy. Know that there is something even greater than that, that you don’t even we don’t even know. Possibly.

Brian David Crane10:04
Possibly, or something much worse than that.

Freya Savage 10:06
Or something much worse! But that’s a mindset thing as well, right?

Brian David Crane10:09
Well, it is a mindset thing. I’ll share a personal story, which was that I had hired an apprentice. I had a couple of apprentices here over the past couple months, and one of the guys was deeply a creative. And the business – he was charged with launching two different businesses. And I have a, personally a creative… I’m like, I’m a creative but trapped in a bit of an operator’s body. And so he and I were we were starting to butt heads almost immediately, because he was getting to be creative and what was left for me was operations. And I started to resent him quite fast. And not only was I starting to resent him, but I started to try to basically implement onto him, systems and operations to sort of get me out of it. Cuz I already felt overwhelmed. And I was like “this thing is going to take up even more of my time. And it’s actually the time that I don’t want to give it which is operational time, not the creative time, right.” And so we wound up parting ways. Actually, we wound up, it kind of came to a loggerhead it was better for us to both go off and do different things. But it was truly a testament to… I think it’s very difficult if you’re doing a partnership to be – to basically have two creatives who were in the same area trying to be creative. I think it’s gonna be a real problem.

Freya Savage 11:33
Absolutely. Totally. couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, when the the other thing is if you employ an artist, and you’re trying to make them into operations. Oh, they’re gonna hate it. They going to resent the job, they’re gonna be unhappy. And if you can, there are people out there who are great at operations. I have a marketing guy. He loves operations. Loves it! Like actually can’t talk to him for more than 30 minutes because my brain is just like, this is not exciting for me at all. But please go and do that.

Brian David Crane12:09
Yeah. Yeah, I trust you to do it.

Freya Savage 12:10
But don’t tell me about it! Don’t just like, you know… Give me an update but I don’t need to know like, the details around it… Is to, yeah, have people around you if you do, or building a team that’s operational and if you do have creatives then to manage them from the place of feminine, which is to, to like but still with the you know, the masculine of like, “Okay, this is the outcome that we want or this is the role” but allow them to do things as they want and to have faith and trust in their ability but then what can happen is, yeah, like your visions can start to part into different directions and he’s better to like, you know, always be on – always been communication, what is our vision, and if their vision doesn’t align with yours, it’s not going to work. You can’t put a creative into a box. Like I said, you know, the artist asking the artist you can for sure. Give them like a brief, you know.

Brian David Crane12:19
And try to get their incentives into alignment with what you want to do.

Freya Savage 13:05
And get their incentives in alignment and get the mix. If you can get the artist excited. And about the brief. Then they’ll be on, onto it.

Brian David Crane13:20
Yeah.

Freya Savage 13:20
But if they’re not excited about it, they’re not going to be a great… they’re not going to be a great team member and a great employee.

Brian David Crane13:29
So one of the things I found is, when dealing with creatives is that there is a… I think it’s a mistaken belief for creatives, which is that like, “I’m just going to create” and you touched on a little bit, for which is basically like if you’re going to be strictly creative, you have to almost view it as like an airplane which is like, you might have some fuel to get off of the runway, but at some point you’re going to either need to get to cruising altitude i.e. build a team around you for the operations, or your plane is going to come crashing back down. Because there’s going to be a point where like, you can be creative, and you might be super talented and get something up and off the ground. But eventually, there is a reason operations are important. And if you don’t get high enough, and get these people underneath, you are in some sort of whatever trajectory around you that support you. It’s going to come back down.

Freya Savage 14:25
Absolutely. And this is where, you know, I’ve been working with some of my clients on embodying this archetype of the queen, which is someone… she’s like, yeah, she’s in flow and she up and she moves with with her day, but yet she still gets stuff done. She still has a teamwork who are behind her, and she’s still an action taker, and she’s still into having order. So I think that’s really important. Like I have a team who got to pick up bits. Yeah, I kind of leave these like, you know, these trail of crumbs behind me in different ways in like a Word document or a voice note and they kind of you know –

Brian David Crane15:08
Or your journal.

Freya Savage 15:08
Or my journal and they like pick up bits and pieces, you know, they’re like, “Oh, I think yeah, this is what Freya wants me to do.” And so to definitely have a team behind you, but I didn’t used to have a team. So I did do strategy and operations. I mean, I came from financial advice, all strategy and I’m still very, very good at that. And there is something that I really enjoy about that for sure. But right now, it’s not something that I need to be doing. Um, so I have a team that the do all that for me, like you said, you know, you want to do the creative stuff. That’s what’s fun for you. So you want someone who does operation? And so you’re an artist…

Brian David Crane15:51
Trapped in an operator’s body,

Freya Savage 15:52
Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian David Crane15:54
And probably you are too in some sense, except you have just been able to move the sliding scale, more towards artists than I have. But you’re not gonna come out of finance being strictly an artist. There’s no way.

Freya Savage 16:08
Absolutely. And you know that is part of the finance side of things, you know, that’s part of what I teach is like, there’s new creativity, managing your money, don’t get creative. That’s not something to be creative with you know, like maybe 5% of your money. Yeah, get creative if you want to, if you like have fun with the market or you want to invest in like, new small companies or be an angel investor. But don’t do it with like a large amount of your money. Don’t go thinking that you can outsmart the world of finance. Because you can’t. You cannot outrun that. And why would you want to? Like, focus on your own lane, focus on what you’re good at. Money and finance are there to support you. So set up the structures, like I’m very structured with my finance, particularly cash flow, like that’s the number one most important thing is to be clear on how you’re managing your cash flow.

Brian David Crane17:04
When people come to you for financial advice, is that the first thing that you have them do, is break down what their monthly inflow and outflow is?

Freya Savage 17:12
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not so much of like, you know, people can feel contracted by that, like, oh, I’ve never done a budget before. Oh, things change every month. Yes, of course they do. They do for me as well. But it’s more, it’s also you know, on the energetic level is also to be aware of like, what’s coming in what’s going out because if you’re not watching it, well, how is more gonna come in, like… You know, the more the esoteric or I- it’s not really esoteric, it is practical. The money mindset stuff is: imagine money as a person, as a lover.

Brian David Crane17:49
I’ve got her in mind.

Freya Savage 17:51
And you’re like, Oh, yeah, I’ll get… Oh, I’ll look at you next month. And you’re not watching, like what’s coming in what’s going out, you’re not grateful. Or even like, where is money? Why hasn’t it shown up for me this month? Well, what have you been doing for money? Have you been feeling and thinking about money? How have you been treating money? How do you carry money in your wallet? How do you handle money? How do you pay for something? Are you like, “Oh, another bill?” Or are you grateful for the services being provided? Do you feel like money’s gonna run out? Or do you trust, have faith that money is abundant and money loves you? And these types of things are really important. Like how are you treating money? So then on the practical side of things like having, I don’t call it a budget, I call it a spending planner. Because it sounds nicer. Because I’m, you know, I’m also in financial advice. And the way we did things was let’s reduce spending to increase investments, increase wealth, and I’m not for that, like I’m sorry, not for that.

Brian David Crane18:56
You want to increase the top line.

Freya Savage 18:57
I want to increase the top line. Sometimes I actually means increasing spending. Like I’m of the belief if I want to fly business class, I’ll fly business class that’s gonna make me money. Because…

Brian David Crane19:09
How often do you fly business class?

Freya Savage 19:12
Not that often. When – I flew business class to come here, actually – when I feel like it, I do. And to be okay with that or like… and to not think about oh my god, this is so much money, you know, how can I afford this, and to really feel into what’s gonna make me feel the most expansive right now but within reason.

Brian David Crane19:34
And also probably within the box of what actually is in your…

Freya Savage 19:37
Within your personal spending plan! And then the importance of having this personal spending plan and being clear on your cash flow. I pay myself every week doesn’t matter how much I earn, how much – because being a business owner, your incomes tends to be lumpy like you generally have like, a bottom like a floor of your minimum that you would be earning every month you kind of have an idea of like, “Okay, this is the minimum, this is the minimum line.” But we also tend to have a ceiling too, right? And that’s to do with our money beliefs.

Brian David Crane20:11
I was gonna say, that’s called the hedonic treadmill.

Freya Savage 20:13
Right. Yeah.

Brian David Crane20:13
Yeah. Which for people who don’t know that phrase, it’s effectively that you… the way I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, is basically there’s a number in mind that you kind of associate as your net worth or your ceiling and you tend to basically oscillate back towards that number. Almost subconsciously, it’s like you’re gonna go cool. Making 250 grand a year is good enough. And you don’t really… you sort of like basically baseline there in a way. Yeah, is that right?

Freya Savage 20:44
Yeah. And it can be something that’s not even conscious. Like for me, it was my subconscious. So when I was employed, that was my ceiling. Like I realized that that was the most I was ever making, was as much as what I was getting. As a senior financial advisor in my business, and I’m like, “What is going on here?” And I realized, oh, there’s some beliefs happening here of like, I don’t deserve to earn more because I’m not working, you know, to earn more money, you need to work harder, spend more time working. You need to be professional, and like, have processes and have an office and wear a suit. Like that’s…

Brian David Crane21:21
Three things you no longer do.

Freya Savage 21:22
Three things that I no longer do! Right? And so these were actually subconscious beliefs that I was still holding on to like, as if I didn’t deserve to earn more, because I wasn’t working really hard for it because I’m no longer affiliated with the finance industry. And it’s, I almost felt like oh, I’m just like, I’m just giving them a big “Fuck you” by like, “oh, here I am. I’ve got my own business. I’m totally unplugged from you guys. I’m teaching people how to make their own money, rather than managing it for them.” And it’s so simple. But yet I still had my own belief that oh, I don’t know if I quite deserve to be earning more than what I was earning when I was employed, because it’s kind of too easy now.

Brian David Crane22:06
But have you surpassed what you were earning when you were..?

Freya Savage 22:09
Yes, last month!

Brian David Crane22:10
Congratulations. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, let’s talk little bit about your background there because you were in… Where were you living when you were in finance, if I can call it that, yeah? Like, were you in Sydney?

Freya Savage 22:24
I was in Melbourne.

Brian David Crane22:25
You were in Melbourne. Okay. So you’re in Melbourne, and how did you… How did you get from Melbourne to Bali? Like, what’s the… What’s the hero’s journey there?

Freya Savage 22:35
So, like a lot of people – well, I think it’s a lot of people, I had this like, burning desire to do something more, and experience more, to be more I just knew that there was more.

Brian David Crane22:50
Were you in Melbourne, basically commuting every day to an office and you were expected to be there from whatever eight till six in the night or whatever it was?

Freya Savage 22:58
Correct. Yes, spot on.

Brian David Crane22:58
Yeah. All right. Got it. And you’re wearing a suit. Yeah, and you’re, whatever, in your 20s and basically, yeah, just grinding…

Freya Savage 23:05
Gone to uni and then got an internship and my boss there… I only worked with men, I only had men in the office, always, and if there was a woman she’d be in HR or the admin assistant. Or the receptionist. Um, so I found myself in this really, like, masculine world and, um…

Brian David Crane23:28
And for those who aren’t familiar, Australia is fairly masculine in general, in terms of like, there’s a bit of like, you know, Outback attitude and your dad, from what you’ve told me about him, he’s quite masculine. He’s teaching you how to box, teaching… Yeah, like there’s…

Freya Savage 23:45
He’s a runner, but interestingly, he’s an artist. He’s kind of an artist. He’s got some… he’s got some of the feminine flow. But I think it’s not expressed, which causes him some disease. Yeah. And you know, that’s part of the theme that I… part of the issue that I saw is that, you know, we’re taught to be a certain way, and that doing and being productive, that’s how you become a value. So I started to do ultra marathon running because I had this desire of like…

Brian David Crane24:22
Which is running like 100 hundred miles at a time, right?

Freya Savage 24:25
Yeah, I haven’t done 100 miles but 100 kilometers. And because I desired to like push my- I wanted to see what was there, like what’s at the edge. And I do a lot of track, too, and cross country and got really into running because I lacked the discipline of it. I found that there was freedom in the discipline. And same with yoga, like I started to get into yoga and I started with Bikram which is kind of the most intense one and then did a yoga teacher training while I was still in corporate. And this whole other world sort of opened up slowly… It took its time, you know, with the running, the yoga. And then I remember sitting on my desk one day thinking “I wish I’d get cancer.”

Brian David Crane25:19
So I had an excuse to get out of here.

Freya Savage 25:20
so I could get out of here. Like Not, not terminal.

Brian David Crane25:24
Yeah. Just something that sends me home.

Freya Savage 25:27
Something that will just… I just need something. I need something to get me the fuck out of here. Because I know right now I’m just comfortable. Like, I’ve got, I’m earning good money. Like, I’ve got great friends, a nice place to live…

Brian David Crane25:42
Like Fight Club almost.

Freya Savage 25:43

It’s like, I just need something and I thought that all the running, the ultra marathon running, would kind of get, you know, that… that would be enough to satiate it but it didn’t. And I would travel often and I would go and party like extreme partier. I’m not insured anymore, so… I’d take cocaine and like I would just like, you know, I would party all weekend like on huge benders. And to me that felt there was freedom in that because in those moments there was like… Nothing else mattered. I didn’t need to be productive, it felt like I was connected with other people. Whether I was or wasn’t, I don’t know, but that’s what I felt like at the time, you know, getting like wild and dirty and like raw. And that’s what I wanted, like the rawness, you know, the realness and the rawness. It felt so fake. All of it, everything that I did, um, and I’m glad I didn’t get cancer. But what did happen was, it just eventuated that I was like, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going traveling. But of course, I couldn’t just go traveling, I needed a goal because I was very goal orientated. So I decided, Okay, I’m going to cycle with my partner. From Phuket to Bangkok.

Brian David Crane27:02
Okay, how far is that?

Freya Savage 27:03
Um, about 800 kilometers, with a lot of luggage on our bikes, and I was like, “Yes, that’s something that I could do.” I was actually wanting to run originally, but my partner has torn ACLs a few times from fighting. So not like street fighting, like martial arts. And so we decided to cycle and, it’s so funny because it wasn’t until six months after I’d left and we’d done the trip that I really softened into, like not being productive, that it’s okay not to do things. I was even making YouTube videos at the time of like our travels. And I would I’d be like I have to do this.

Brian David Crane27:49
There has to be some kind of work product that comes out of this, something productive.

Freya Savage 27:53
There’s got to be something productive coming out of this. And yeah, it took me a long time to really like soften in and find some space. And we…

Brian David Crane28:03
What year was this?

Freya Savage 28:05
This was 2017… no, 2016.

Brian David Crane28:13
Roughly three years ago.

Freya Savage 28:14
Yeah. And we moved to Johannesburg for six months in South Africa. And my partner was working there. And I was like, like, kind of like a housewife. And I had all this time and all this space and like, “wow, I have to fill it with stuff.” So I did a plant based nutrition course. I did the Seeds of Life chef training in Bali during that time as well. And I got a call from a girlfriend of mine who had a financial advice firm, and they worked with millennials. And she’s like, “what are you going to do now?” I’m like, “I don’t know, I’m not going to go back into finance. I don’t want to have a boss. I don’t want to work in an office.” I knew the things that I didn’t want. And she was like, “Ah, you know, that’s a shame. I would love for you to come and work with us.” And I’m like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” And then at the same time, I had another guy –

Brian David Crane29:06
She’s in Melbourne.

Freya Savage 29:07
Yeah, she was based in Melbourne. And then I had another another advisor, also contact me, who had a really, really amazing firm, really loved him and the team. And he was also asking me come to Melbourne, come and work for us. And it was kind of a pivotal moment of trusting and saying no, and this is, you know, part of… Like, if you believe in manifestation is you get kind of these tests of, “are you prepared to say no if it’s not quite right, or are you going to go back into that old pattern of saying yes to things that are not quite right for you?” And so I said no to both of those, and I just trusted. And then I had another call from my girl friend who had the phone for millennials. And she said, “Look, I’ve spoken to our investors and we’re going to change the whole structure of our company. So we can work together as a team, so you don’t have a boss. You get your license under us. We’ll give you a team, an admin assistant, a power planner. You’ll have a psychologist, you can speak to about your clients. You’ll have a sales coach. You don’t need to do anything. We just split the membership.”

Brian David Crane30:26
Commissions.

Freya Savage 30:27
Yeah, we don’t do commissions. That’s a dirty word you know, in Australia.

Brian David Crane30:32
Okay.

Freya Savage 30:33
Right now. Um, but yeah, yeah, the fees. And so, I started to do that. And I did it for a year and it was amazing. I got to work with people that I actually wanted to work with, young people and I got to make a difference with cash flow and like simple investments and educating people.

Brian David Crane30:55
On personal finance.

Freya Savage 30:56
On personal finance. And it was more than that, coaching was involved. So it just naturally happened that they get coaching sessions every year and they could book in a session with me whenever they wanted.

Brian David Crane31:08
You didn’t necessarily need to go back to Melbourne to do this. You were doing this –

Freya Savage 31:11
It was all online. So I could work from wherever I wanted. I remember the first time I had my first coaching session booked in, I was like, how do I be a coach? Like, what do I do? And googling, like, what do I do and like, reading, you know, the strategy of like, being a coach, like, these are the steps and to listen and I was so… I wasn’t even listening to what they were saying. Because I was so focused on like, making sure that I showed up in a certain way that I showed up professionally that I gave them the right answers. So I was still in that paradigm like I had quite a lot of stuff to shift, you know. And eventually I left the business because my my girl friend, left her and her partner would get a divorce and he took over business. And I wasn’t aligned so much with him, and the way he did things. So, as soon as I pretty much… when I found out, he posted this video to all of us, all of the advisors, there’re about five of us. And as soon as I was watching him, I was like, no. No. And I just really learned to trust, like my intuition. So I gave him a call. I’m like, “look, I’m going to transition out.” I had no idea what I was going to do. That same day, I made a call…

Brian David Crane32:29
How does it work in Australia, are you able to take the people who’ve been working with you to another advisory or, are they tiedt to the advisory?

Freya Savage 32:37
So this firm the the deal was… The other thing about this deal was yeah, it was amazing, but I didn’t own the clients.

Brian David Crane32:46
Okay, so they stay with the advisory.

Freya Savage 32:48
So I mean, I’d created like, over a few hundred thousand dollars in recurring revenue in that year, reoccurring. Not even up front. And so I just left that. Yep, left all that. And I, it was another moment where it’s like, what am… I did, we did do insurances, and we do take commission from insurances, so I had like, quite a bit of commission coming through the next month and I was like, “Okay, do I wait for that to come through?” And I’m like, “No, just cut, just do it. And trust that it will that it will work out.” And so that day, you know, I’m all for listening to these pings that come through, I call this person or reach out to that person or go and chat to that person without even being rational about why, what’s the reason, what’s going to be the result, just to do it, because I trust that amazing things often will come from it.

Brian David Crane33:44
So let me ask you one thing here because I often hear something along these lines and I want to make a point, which is you have a partner, you’re in a relationship, you probably also had money saved.

Freya Savage 33:59
No.

Brian David Crane33:59
You did not have money saved?

Freya Savage 34:00
No.

Brian David Crane34:01
Okay, so you were gambling your ethic? Let’s call it the the blackjack table of life and you have no cash by which to play with? And yet you still rolled the dice.

Freya Savage 34:12
Yeah.

Brian David Crane34:13
Okay.

Freya Savage 34:13
I’d spent pretty much everything traveling. Um, and then within that year we’d move back into Melbourne. And there was like, you know, we had a… the way that I lived quite expensive in that sense. And I had a bit. I had a bit but not enough to be like, not enough runway to last me a year or anything. I had enough runway to last me maybe six months. So yeah, I had enough.

Brian David Crane34:41
Okay. You weren’t on the street, in other words, but you weren’t like…

Freya Savage 34:44
Yeah, I mean, the other thing is people use that as a roadblock. That’s an excuse. I find often like what is enough, you know, there’s always gonna be more and to even dive into those fears. So what if you lost everything?

Brian David Crane34:59
Yeah, that would suck.

Freya Savage 35:00
It would suck, but you’d be okay.

Brian David Crane35:02
Yeah.

Freya Savage 35:02
Right, it would be okay. And that would be something that I mean, Richard Branson, like he’s gone bankrupt so many times.

Brian David Crane35:09
But I mean, you’re in finance, you know about mitigating or at least managing risk and knowing what your risks are. And so there’s some times that you take a calculated risk.

Freya Savage 35:18
Absolutely.

Brian David Crane35:19
Because there’s different variations and flavors of risk, right?

Freya Savage 35:21
Yeah. So I wouldn’t go out and tell like my clients, I don’t go and say to them, “Hey, quit your job today.” I would say start your side hustle, and then transition slowly. But for me, I was very clear on like, I knew, like, I knew that I could easily get clients. Like I had that belief. And I’d seen that over the last, you know, year of working for this other firm.

Brian David Crane35:45
We’ve done it twice, you’d done it previously as well.

Freya Savage 35:47
I knew that I was like, really great at what… I knew that I was an expert at what I did, so I had, you know, total faith, like I was like, I know this is gonna be okay. And that very day. Yeah, I call I had a ping to like, speak to someone who’d contacted me a few months before, they wanted to work together, but the offerings that we had didn’t fit with what they wanted. So I called them up and I said, “Hey, I’m starting my own thing. I’m not able to give investment advice. But I can do even better than that. I can teach you how to manage your own investments, teach you how to manage your own money, but it’s gonna take you putting in some work at the start, because I’m not going to do it for you.” And they were like, “yep, sold.” And so, I mean, that very first day, you know, I’d made three and a half thousand dollars just from one 5-minute phone call. And I was like, okay, it’s gonna be okay. Yeah, it’s gonna be okay to do this, and it felt really good to be able to move freely, and to… Actually the best thing about it, there are many good things, but is not having meetings, put in my calendar that were bullshit meetings that I didn’t want to go to, like staff meetings, you know? Like I just loved having my freedom. And that’s one of my biggest values and, you know, pretty much everyone’s value is… you know, freedom is… it’s top. And then it’s love.

Brian David Crane37:09
I think you and I were talking prior to the recording about safety being important for some people. Yeah, I don’t know… I think Bali or Ubud in particular draws people who… they really oscillate towards freedom. I don’t know if that’s true with me ever since calling.

Freya Savage 37:28
Yeah. I’d be really interested to actually do, like, find out more about that. Yeah. Is it just the people that I know?

Brian David Crane37:34
Yeah. I just I probably imagined that it’s like a sample size question where you’re not coming across people whose safety is their primary motivator.

Freya Savage 37:43
I mean, but when I think about my friends back home, they’re very safety orientated. But is that… does that make them feel… happy?

Brian David Crane37:56
I don’t know.

Freya Savage 37:57
I don’t know! And I’m wondering if it’s because they don’t… they’re not looking at the freedom. The funny thing about safety is that it’s just a facade like…

Brian David Crane38:06
It’s a false wall. Yeah.

Freya Savage 38:07
Like, you know, the people who, who worked in the Twin Towers, you know, they thought, “Oh yeah, I’ve got to secure, a safe job. I’ve got my insurance, I’ve got, you know, income coming in every week.” And they didn’t know that on that day…

Brian David Crane38:22
They were gonna be hit by an airplane.

Freya Savage 38:24
Hit by an airplane. You know? Safety is an illusion. And it helps us to feel grounded. But it’s kind of like group, you know, like we’re grouping onto something. It’s also like in relationships too, you know? Like, these boundaries that we put in place to make us feel safe. Like, okay, you know, like a traditional relationship. All right, well, the rules are, you’re not able to… Boyfriend has different rules, but you’re not only able to sleep with anyone else. Maybe it’s you’re not allowed to even flirt with anyone else. Maybe like you’re not even allowed to have friends of the opposite sex. We put these in place to make ourselves feel safe. But in reality, our partner could go down the street, go and order a coffee, fall in love with the checkout chick. You know?

Brian David Crane38:27
There’s some gorgeous girls serving coffee, too, by the way.

Freya Savage 39:11
There absolutely are! I mean, you just never… you don’t know. And I feel like safety is, it’s scary to release that safety. But it feels good when you just really step into that fear and like, “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. If your partner leaves you, it’s gonna be okay. If you lose everything, it’s gonna be okay.”

Brian David Crane39:37
I think there’s, I think there’s a distinction there, which is you have… you two might agree on certain guardrails in a relationship. And they’re not necessarily… Yes, the part of them, or the point of them, I should say, is safety but also it’s an agreement. It’s not as if they’re imposed from the top down, right? You to have talked about it. This is what you’ve said works for both of you. That gives you a sense of safety. But it’s a sense of safety that comes from… It’s actually a spoken.

Freya Savage 40:10
But interestingly, a lot of the time, relationships do come from top down. It comes from what society says you don’t even talk about it. Just all of a sudden one of you is like, “Oh, I’m gonna go meet… meet with my friend Sarah.” And then your girlfriend’s like, “Who’s Sarah?” “Oh, she’s a friend.” “What? You can’t go meet with her.” You’re like, “Whoa,” because you have different ideas. And so what’s actually happened is it has come from top down. Like you’ve never actually agreed upon it.

Brian David Crane40:35
Or there’s, there’s unspoken expectations.

Freya Savage 40:37
There’s unspoken expectations. My partner and I, in the January this year, we decided to actually open our relationship. And because we were like, well, who made these rules? Like are these the rules that we’ve been living in? Are these the ones that suit our relationship best? So we opened our relationship and we’re very, like we had weekly meetings about like, who we’re talking to what, was going on, how we’re feeling and we go to relationship coach as well. So we were like, oh, felt like we just wanted to be as supported as possible. Maybe this was another illusion of safety. And we did have an agreement in place with like what we spoke about, and it we had everything…

Brian David Crane41:16
You’re 12 months into it now.

Freya Savage 41:18
No, we, we closed it. Because of this. Because, um, probably around in July, we closed it down. And we decided that…

Brian David Crane41:29
Didn’t work for the two of you.

Freya Savage 41:30
It didn’t work for us. But how great is it that we actually, we’ve designed our own relationship. It wasn’t just like, “Okay, well, this is what you meant to be doing.” We’ve like went and explored the different boundaries or the the agreements and like, this is what’s gonna- this is what’s working for us best now. And maybe that will change again in the future. But to actually go and explore for yourself like, if you do want to create you know, safety or you want to create create agreements, then rather than just doing what you think you should do or what someone told you is the right way, to instead to go and to have the courage to open those agreements up and go and explore that. For a little while, and then maybe it does look like, you know, you think you want to have your own business and maybe you go and explore that you like, actually, you know what I really enjoy getting the weekly salary that feels really good for me, it gives me time to spend with my family, then do that! But um, but like, don’t do the things you think you should do because you’ve been told that. And we often hear that being said, I’m like, “Oh, yeah,” but really like, think about how it impacts every day of your life. Your relationships, the way you eat, the way you sleep, the way you communicate, what you wear, everything.

Brian David Crane42:43
And so what have you found to basically snap people out of… So let me paint paint it a different way. So you imagine you’re traveling along and you know that you want to make a shift but you’re not really sure where to start that shift? I’ll tell a personal story which was, like, I was in a relationship and I knew it wasn’t ideal, we’ll call it that. And I didn’t really have the courage to end it and I went and did a series of things that were quite challenging: bungee jump and some other like very… things that caused me to sort of stretch a courage muscle, and then I came back and we ended the relationship and it was we ended it on… well, we ended the relationship and so, but it was due to kind of having the courage from another facet of life, which then transmuted itself over to the, to having this difficult conversation. So for someone who says, okay, cool, like, I know, I want to make a shift. Where do they start? Like, what’s the activity they do?

Freya Savage 43:43
Basically? Is like, it’s, you know, we look at things like even in, you know, the introduction of me, it’s like, “Okay, well, food,” but everything’s the same, like…

Brian David Crane43:57
The underlying substructures are the same.

Freya Savage 43:59
The underlying substructure’s the same. It’s not what we do, but it’s who we are, and who we are in each moment rather than, like who we are when we’re in a relationship, who we are when we’re in business. And so if you can, like, lose like, go into what scares you? And it’s like start small like you did. Although bungee jumping scares the shit out of me. I mean, to me, that’s big.

Brian David Crane44:22
It was very scary. It was, it… We did it a couple times on that trip. And it was… every time I didn’t really like it. Yeah.

Freya Savage 44:28
Shit! Yeah, that’s not my vibe.

Brian David Crane44:31
Yeah, but, I mean, as a woman, you were, you’re a woman who has quite a bit of courage, I think, probably more than the average woman that I know. So, how do you cultivate it? Or what is it that you attribute that to? Is it due to your upbringing? Is it due to some like, because a lot of what you’re talking about is due to you having the courage to basically say no or to have difficult conversations.

Freya Savage 44:53
It’s a few things. The first is I would say discipline and…

Brian David Crane44:58
Self discipline?

Freya Savage 44:58
Have self discipline. Yeah. And have disciplines in your life that allow you to get to know yourself. So whether it’s like for sure, you know, you release into all, you know, successful entrepreneurs and they will say, oh morning routine, so important. And it’s absolutely imperative to have like space for you in the morning, where you’re not reminding you know, Joe Dispenza talks about this, you’re not reminding yourself of who you were yesterday and day before the day before by picking up your phone. By having a coffee by reading the newspaper, then you’re going to the same paths getting triggered again, and instead in the morning to have space for you to become who you decide to be and who you want to be. And to build up.

Brian David Crane45:41
Well, let me make a distinction there because you just described two different things. One of them, which is you have a morning routine. But the morning routine is more of a conscious morning routine, as opposed to going back to the default of checking the phone or whatever.

Freya Savage 45:53
That’s not a routine. That’s a…

Brian David Crane45:55
That is a routine but it’s one that puts you back into… Yeah

Freya Savage 45:59
Right. So let’s say a ritual. Okay, rather than a routine.

Brian David Crane46:01
Yeah, so people should have morning rituals, effectively

Freya Savage 46:04
Absolutely, yeah, and…

Brian David Crane46:05
Which are consciously chosen.

Freya Savage 46:07
And I really do believe it’s important to do something every day that requires discipline. So whether it’s Ashtanga or whether it’s going running or whatever it might be, like having something that is difficult, and getting used to feeling uncomfortable, and being okay with feeling uncomfortable and actually finding the space in that, because when we go into the outside world, there’s so much shit going on. Like there’s energy, there’s like, sounds, there’s people, there’s like, things going wrong without business, or whatever it might be. And if you can’t even have your own morning ritual where you’ve created it yourself, and you’re unable to even like stick through a practice, then how are you going to manage to get through your day in a way that’s conscious?

Brian David Crane47:02
When all the sudden you step outside into the larger world. Yeah, so I want to ask you, so like, you’re in a relationship, you got a partner? How do you maintain morning routines when he’s around? And, you know, let’s assume that you and him are I don’t know you’re on different schedules or he likes to do certain things in the morning and so how… Yeah, how do you handle that? Yeah.

Freya Savage 47:25
Well, this is important, right? Is also to have people in your life who are supportive and they uplift you and they help to expand you. And my partner also has rituals in the morning so we have our separate thing.

Brian David Crane47:41
Yeah, so do you like… just run me through: you wake up in the morning, you basically like, “we’re not gonna talk to each other for the first few hours, like you don’t exist”. Yeah.

Freya Savage 47:47
Totally. We wake up. I mean, maybe sometimes we make love in the morning. And I’m all for that. It’s also, you know, about not being like, if greater opportunity’s happening or you’re feeling, like, to also be in flow. But then to go into your morning ritual and then to do the things. I never miss my morning ritual even if I’m getting up like 5am for a plane, I will wake up an hour or two hours earlier than that so I can have time for it, you know? You have like the bare minimum at least to do the things, but…

Brian David Crane48:17
And so then in order to honor that time, what do you do? You move things the night before, you basically like, you’re with friends at seven o’clock at night. You’re like I got a flight next morning. I gotta go.

Freya Savage 48:26
My priority is me. My priority is always me above any kind of social event, above my partner, above my business, above my family, always me. And even though that might sound like oh, that’s…

Brian David Crane48:41
Narcissistic.

Freya Savage 48:42
Yeah, that’s narcissistic, that’s selfish.

Brian David Crane48:44
Tiresome, yeah.

Freya Savage 48:44
Yeah, I mean, but if your first priority is not yourself, you can’t go filling up other people’s cups if you haven’t filled up your own, if you’re not grounded in yourself. You can feel it when someone’s with you and they’re exhausted. And they want to be somewhere else or they’ve got stuff going on. It doesn’t feel good, that energy is not one that’s a high vibration that’s going to… that’s going to translate or transmute into change for other people. They’re better off going home, going and being in their own space and just going to bed.

Brian David Crane49:20
Like you don’t need to be here. Let’s just go to bed.

Freya Savage 49:23
You don’t need to be there, right? And this is you know, part of- I mean, it’s very different hearing Ubud, but the culture in Melbourne and the US is like, oh, there are things that we should do and have to do.

Brian David Crane49:35
What about if somebody says you should just tough it out? Like, you made a commitment. This is somebody’s birthday party, it’s important. It’s a friend of yours’ birthday party and you say I can’t be there. Because I have a flight the next morning they’re like, “I’m crushed. I’m crushed that you didn’t come.”

Freya Savage 49:52
Well… maybe get some new friends.

Brian David Crane49:54
Really?

Freya Savage 49:55
I would say you know, the people in my life. We all understand each other. Like if we have plans and I’m like, “Hey, babe, you know, I’m really tired tonight. I just want some time in.” My friend will be like, “Yeah, sure. Cool.” And to, you know, get rid of this, like, “Oh, we have to do this and we have to do that. Otherwise it means we don’t love each other.” I think what really is like, is love and support is to be like, do what feels good for you, and absolutely, like show up when your friend… Like if your friend is calling you like constantly and they need you all the time, and you’re their crutch. Like, I would look at that. But if it’s like once every now and again, you want to be there then go there and do that.

Brian David Crane50:39
I just think there’s a distinction, which is when you say do what feels good for you. You do a lot of things that don’t necessarily feel good for you. Ashtanga might not necessarily feel good for you, an ultramarathon doesn’t necessarily feel good for you. So I think there needs to be…

Freya Savage 50:52
So… what feels expansive for you? So I often think if I don’t know what decision to make, how will I feel after the fact?

Brian David Crane50:59
Got it. Okay.

Freya Savage 51:00
So if it’s like going to the birthday party, how am I going to feel after the fact? Am I going to feel really great that I went and I showed face and that I got to see my friends? Or am I gonna feel really pissed off and resentful at my friend? Because I feel like they made me feel bad about being there even though that’s all your own shit. How are you gonna feel about it afterwards? And to tap into that. And then from that decide, okay, actually, this is the right decision for me. It’s like yeah, Ashtanga and running ultra marathons feels shit. But afterwards I mean, look after ultra marathon. You don’t feel physically great after running like 24 hours. Um, but wow. Like you just… you have this this courage inside of you.

Brian David Crane51:45
You push yourself to the edge.

Freya Savage 51:45
Yeah, you push yourself to the edge.

Brian David Crane51:46
You stretch the rubber band. Find out how far it goes.

Freya Savage 51:49
Absolutely, absolutely. So that’s expansive to me. That’s expansive. For some people it might not be. And that’s why I think there’s no right or wrong. There’s no like, you know, your answer to that question might be different to my answer. Because what makes me feel expansive might be different from what makes you feel like that.

Brian David Crane52:09
I go at it in a different way. I’m basically… I come at it from a philosophical perspective of like, how would I want… if the situation were reversed, if it was my birthday, and this person calls me up and cancels, at the last minute, tells me that they’re tired, I would feel… I would be upset. So I wouldn’t necessarily want to do that to someone else. That’s a bit of the golden rule where I would say, like, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s not… I think there’s a place for expansiveness. But I also think that if you strictly orient yourself around expansiveness as being your one litmus test for making decisions, you’re going to wind up… it’s like too narrow in a way; it doesn’t take into account other people.

Freya Savage 52:51
Yeah, I totally get that. And I see that and I feel that and I disagree with it. Fully.

Brian David Crane52:56
Why do you disagree with it?

Freya Savage 52:58
Because you’re talking about fairness.

Brian David Crane53:02
I’m talking about treating someone else as I would want to be treated. Yeah. Right.

Freya Savage 53:05
And the thing is, everybody has a different scale of what’s important to them. So, you know, let’s say we all went out. We went out for dinner. And there was 10 other people there. And the chef brought the same thing for everybody. The same portion, the same, the same dish. You might be like, “Oh, this is amazing. I love fish.” I’m gonna be like, “I hate fish. I’m, I’m plant based.” Someone was gonna be like, “Oh, this is too much food.” Someone else can be like, “Oh, this is not enough.” Everybody’s got a different idea about what feels good. Like what feels good for them. They’ve got a different scale. So if we’re going around being like, “Okay, well, I must do what other people… I must do to others what I would like done for myself.” That person might not give a shit if you go to their birthday party or not. So then you’re putting your own ideals on them.

Brian David Crane54:05
No, because just because they don’t give a shit, I still know that I would give a shit.

Freya Savage 54:09
Okay, then that’s like, if you’re doing it from a place of rather than like,…

Brian David Crane54:13
I would hate if somebody canceled on me that’d be like, yeah, so I don’t want to cancel on somebody else.

Freya Savage 54:17
Right. Yeah. But-

Brian David Crane54:19
Whether or not that person cancels, like they can operate how they choose to operate. Just for me, I think it’s, you need it to be self referential because if it’s… so the chef example of that you have different, you know, 10 different people at the table and they all have the same the same food choice. I’m going to guess that your point with that is that they should they should have all optimized for what it is that they want to eat. Now what if they do that and it results in: they’re not actually able to eat at the same restaurant? So for instance, you have one person who’s like “I strictly eat meat.” The other person’s like “I’m only plant” like… Then you never reach any kind of consensus.

Freya Savage 55:02
This actually is what happens. Like this exact example. I was using it like more of an analogy, but in a practical world, this actually happens. I mean, we have a lot of students that come through who are going plant-based. And they can’t… they’re no longer able to eat out with family and friends. Because…

Brian David Crane55:25
They choose not to.

Freya Savage 55:26
They choose not to. Based on their new values. Yeah. And so yeah, it’s difficult, and sometimes it does mean, not necessarily cutting people but it does mean creating a different space for yourself that is supportive. Because if we’re constantly trying to fit into how we think we should be and what the people around us want us to be, then we’re never going to transform.

Brian David Crane56:00
Sure, I understand your point is that basically, you’re gonna be so constrained by whatever this box is that you’re already in that you’re never gonna be able to break out of it, right?

Freya Savage 56:07
“Oh, it’s my mom’s birthday. So I’m gonna go over to the steak restaurant and I’ll… and I’ll eat… Oh, I’ll eat a salad.” I mean, yeah, do that. That’s possible. Right? So there’s always you know, you can always… there’s generally flexibility but if it’s like every night, you know, your family goes out for dinner and they have steak. And you don’t want to do that. Then don’t do that. And go create a new space for yourself. And some, it can be really painful. Because we let go of people we love. But we’re not letting go with them in the sense that we don’t love them anymore. We’re no longer…

Brian David Crane56:24
You’re just gonna see ’em in a different context.

Freya Savage 56:48
We’re just gonna see them in different contexts. And the thing is, even if we try and go back, to going to the steak restaurant and eating the steak, we’re not going to feel good about it anymore. Because we’ve changed and so then we’re just… then we’re resisting ourselves, and we’re gonna cause toxicity within ourselves. So it’s like recently right?

Brian David Crane57:07
Let me let me make a counterpoint to that. So let’s assume that you decide you’re no longer going to the steak house with your family. And you do it because you believe that doing so causes toxicity in your body. Now, the counterpoint to that is you say, okay, cool. We also know that it’s important to be social. And that’s important as humans to be around people that you care about, XYZ, and so you’re no longer doing this. Black and white, but now you’re no longer in an environment where you’re around your family. So is that… hasn’t that caused more toxicity?

Freya Savage 57:39
No, because what happens is when you say no to things, there is this moment where it feels dark. And it’s like, “what have I done?” Like when you break up with somebody, right? It’s like “Shit, did I make the right decision? Oh, my God, I’m gonna be alone forever. They were like, a really nice person.” Right? And there’s this moment where you’re like, “Fuck, maybe I’ll call them back.” And then you have some space. And then you see that because you said no, you have space now for other things to enter into your life that are aligned. But if you don’t say no and you’re constantly doing what you always did, because then you don’t make space for new friends and new people to enter into your life, like I was talking to a guy yesterday, I mean, this is quite extreme. And one of his friends is a liquid… liquidarian? Liquidarian?

Brian David Crane58:35
I don’t know what that means. Explain that. I’m just shaking my head.

Freya Savage 58:39
He just drinks juice, doesn’t eat food. And for this guy, it’s been like a few years and he feels amazing. He like, has tons of energy. He lights up rooms, but his family, of course…

Brian David Crane58:55
Don’t support him.

Freya Savage 58:56
They don’t support him. They think he’s wacky. So naturally, you know, it’s like, “Okay, what am I going to do?” It’s like, “Am I going to save face and when I see them, I’ll do what they want me to do? But it’s not going to feel good for me.”

Brian David Crane59:14
What is it they want him to do? They want him to eat meat and potatoes with them?

Freya Savage 59:18
Yeah.

Brian David Crane59:18
Okay. So that’s an extreme.

Freya Savage 59:20
Right.

Brian David Crane59:21
To me the middle ground could be why doesn’t he take his juice with him to see the family right?

Freya Savage 59:25
But the thing is, the family will have a go at him. “Why are you drinking that juice? Are you gonna eat something? Look how skinny you are.” And I mean, even my dad does this to me and I eat with him but he’ll always be “Look how skinny you are.” I’m like, “Dad, I’m the same as I’ve always been.” It’s, uh, you know, it’s how our parents want us to be, how our family wants us to be because they want to keep us safe. They’re not trying to hurt us. They’re not trying to be mean. They really just want to keep us safe because it’s how they’ve kept themselves safe. So their subconscious beliefs are coming through: “Okay, you must eat food to be healthy.” And that belief comes through and they look at him and they think “We love you, you must eat food to be healthy.” And that doesn’t fit with his paradigm.

Brian David Crane1:00:16
I just think that, let me interject here, because I just think that there’s a part which is… it’s a lack of communication and you wind up with these very bipolar, very binary choices. So you basically come with, like, whoever this guy is, let’s assume that he’s not very comfortable just being like, “Look, this is what works for me. You don’t have to like it, but I’m not going to necessarily eat what you want me to eat. But I want to be here with you all. So I’m going to bring my own food.” Right? That’s the middle ground, and to have that difficult conversation, as opposed to just… because there’s a very… I want to call it it’s like a dark thread to basically like, “I’m just not going to go see the family at all because I don’t want to have that difficult conversation.” Right. And I think that’s the wrong strategy.

Freya Savage 1:01:01
Absolutely. I totally agree with you like, absolutely communicate.

Brian David Crane1:01:04
Yeah. And then have the hard communication, like, the hard talk.

Freya Savage 1:01:07
This is who I am. This is what’s going down for me. This is who I’m gonna… this… I’m still the same person. I mean, they’re probably not, but I still love you.

Brian David Crane1:01:16
Still in the family, I want to be here.

Freya Savage 1:01:17
I want to be here. I love you. But the thing is, sometimes, it doesn’t matter if you say that. I mean, it’s great that you said that and all you can do is like show up and be the best version of yourself irrespectively of if that’s gonna be received or not. And I do think absolutely, it’s so important to have that conversation first before being like, “Okay, you know, I’m just, I’m no longer going to be showing up for you guys because you don’t make me feel great.” To like, first…

Brian David Crane1:01:43
You just keep picking on me about it. Like we just need to change topics. Right?

Freya Savage 1:01:46
Right.

Brian David Crane1:01:47
Talk about rugby or whatever. I don’t know.

Freya Savage 1:01:48
Exactly, yeah, at least go into that. But from my experience, that doesn’t work.

Brian David Crane1:01:55
Right. You’ve had difficult conversations.

Freya Savage 1:01:56
Like we’re family who were very stuck. Um… particularly family. Yeah, it doesn’t always work. And so then it’s okay.

Brian David Crane1:02:07
But there’s an old axiom, which is God gives you family to teach you how to get along with people you wouldn’t choose to associate with. I think it’s an art form to basically like, I don’t really like this person. And I wouldn’t spend time with them. But blood’s thicker than water, as you talked about before we get on the show.

Freya Savage 1:02:24
Yeah. Which is interesting as well, because you know, it’s still our choice, right? If you don’t want to hang out with your family, you don’t have to, like there’s no rule. There’s like, throw out the rule books. Like do whatever feels good, if it doesn’t feel good? And when I say feel good, okay, yeah, expansive. If like, you’re like, you know, my family and toxic as fuck, they’re like draining me. They’re always asking for money. They’re always having a go at me or whatever it might be. You don’t need to hang out with them. You know, I have a… like my sister. She’s had a lot of problems. She’s a heroin addict, she’s been in and out of hospital, eating disorders. And I could have gone in, and I did at some stage of like, I want to help you. I want to be there for you. I want to help you get better.

Brian David Crane1:03:17
Was she asking you for that?

Freya Savage 1:03:21
She asks, because I believe she thinks she should be asking, but she doesn’t actually want to get better.

Brian David Crane1:03:26
Got it. Okay. Yeah.

Freya Savage 1:03:27
Yeah. And, you know, this is the same with my, with my dad and her mom. And then I was like, “Oh, she doesn’t want to get better.” And it’s draining on her. For people to keep people keep asking her, “Are you okay?” You know, she’s whole as she is. Let her be that way. If she wants to do that, later, do it and love her fully forward rather than trying to fix and change everybody. That’s her journey. And so wow, what a release that was for me to be like, “Oh, that’s not my responsibility to fix her or change her to see her whole.” And same with family or parents that are difficult to see them as whole and not want to fix them, even if they don’t understand, even if their paradigm is quite narrow. And they think there’s just one way to do things, to love them and see them as whole, but you don’t need to hang around with them all the time. I don’t need to spend time with my sister like, I don’t need to hang around with her all the time. I’m there for her if she wants me to be there, but she has sent me an… like she wants I I had some money put aside for her. And I said to her, she can use it for you know, any kind of program or anything she wants to do that’s going to like support her will give her some joy. And she came back and she said she wanted it for some surgery. Okay, but cosmetic surgery. She had like piercings in her ear. And she wanted to close them. And I’m like, “No, it’s not for that.” You know. And when…

Brian David Crane1:04:57
You’re still the guardian of the funds, right? It’s not a blank ticket. Er, blank check.

Freya Savage 1:05:01
Yeah. And so yeah, she sent me this super abusive email and I was like, you know, I don’t have space for that. I’m not gonna read these. And when you’re ready to send love, I’ll be open for that. And that’s it. Closed. And I think it’s important to control your own space, you know, to not let people like come in and just hijack it and be like, you’re wrong for eating the way you do, or what’s wrong with you? You’re weird, or you need to do this for me. And instead to be like, nope! I control my space. I get to say no, I mean, on social media, it’s the same right?

Brian David Crane1:05:42
Get to block out the haters.

Freya Savage 1:05:43
You can block. Delete the comments, if you want to delete the comments, block the people you want to block if you want to engage, engage and have some fun with it, but do it out of a place of love. Not from a place of like, oh, like a place that you’re trying to defend yourself.

Brian David Crane1:06:01
So I want one thing I’m picking up from you is I imagine you’re very good at setting boundaries. Probably better than most.

Freya Savage 1:06:07
Yes.

Brian David Crane1:06:08
Yeah. Why is that? Because a lot of what you’re talking about is you basically defining boundaries. And if it’s freedom, that’s the driver. That’s the reason that you’re doing it. That could be but you’re very good at it. So what is the… what’s the secret sauce there? Basically, just don’t put up with stuff you don’t want to put up with but why? Yeah.

Freya Savage 1:06:33
Yeah. Because I think, you know, it’s interesting because the things that we had to do as children like who we had to become as children, the lesson as we move through life is actually the opposite of that. So, let me give you an example. So one of my… I had a few and it kind of seems juxtapose but one of mine was: Okay. My parents went around a lot. My dad left when I was quite young. I lived with my mom, she worked two jobs with the judiciary house. It was like, she wasn’t… it was very different from like, you know, my friends.

Brian David Crane1:07:18
White picket fence with two parents.

Freya Savage 1:07:20
Yeah, nothing like that.

Brian David Crane1:07:21
Yeah.

Freya Savage 1:07:22
So I had to learn how to be independent. And…

Brian David Crane1:07:28
From an early age. You’re like A Boy Named Sue, that Johnny Cash song. You know that song?

Freya Savage 1:07:33
No! Can you sing it for me?

Brian David Crane1:07:34
Well, it basically says, you know, his dad leaves him, and he names his son Sue, and he finds him; he chases him down and he says… and the dad winds up saying I named you Sue, basically named him Sue to give them a fire in his gut, because he knew that he wasn’t gonna be around to make him tough. Okay, yeah. And so he winds up loving his dad. It’s a beautiful song actually. I can’t sing it. I’m definitely not gonna sing it on here.

Freya Savage 1:07:57
Beautiful!

Brian David Crane1:07:57
Yeah. So but that was early adversity,

Freya Savage 1:08:00
Right? So then what happens is then I go through life and I’m like, “Okay, well, I need to fend for myself. I need to, like, be strong and tough and, you know, be independent and make money and like, not ask for help.” And so actually, the lesson for me is to soften, and to ask for help. And to, like, let people in and to trust people and to be like, “Oh, I don’t have to work so hard.” And it’s often the opposite of what who we had to be because we get this hardness around us.

Brian David Crane1:08:29
And you get rewarded for being whatever it was, yeah.

Freya Savage 1:08:33
It helps us and it’s like, thank you, you know, I like to be grateful for that.

Brian David Crane1:08:37
Yeah, cuz it served me up to this point.

Freya Savage 1:08:38
It served me up to this point, but it gets to a point where it’s no longer there. So about the question around boundaries. I think being a child, I often felt like, “Oh, who do I have to be to be loved? I must change myself so then I can grab attention.” Like, I must be perfect. Like when I was with my dad, I would be really quiet; he would often work. He worked as an electrician at that time, and he would take me around, like on the weekends that we had together in his panel van. And that’s was our time spent with each other. Like, he would go to jobs and I would sit in the car. And I was like, okay, and I’d be quiet and I’d be a good, good little girl. And so it’s like, and so now, then, even through my teenage years, you know, I really wanted to just, I wanted to be liked. Like most people, I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be included. And now I’m learning over the last few years. Oh, what happens is when when you’re a people pleaser, you lose your sense of self.

You become vanilla and alone, right?

Mm hmm, yeah.

Brian David Crane1:09:47
And you lose the spark.

Freya Savage 1:09:48
You lose the spark. Yeah. So boundaries is a way for you to find yourself and also be to be clear with others, because what often can happen if you don’t have boundaries, you snap, and the other person’s like, “well, you never even told me this” because you’d never communicated and you never set it out. So it’s a way for you to keep your relationships intact. And in fact, like, often gain more respect from that person. And it’s actually inspiring as well, when you will say, like, if someone says to me, you know, “Actually, I’m not feeling like hanging out, and I really want to just spend some time alone tonight.” I’m like, “Thank you. Thank you for telling me that and for doing that, because that’s inspiring for me.” And to be really… yeah, it allows you to really listen to yourself. And like, what do I need right now? And then you can also support other people much better, like much more effectively and you can be present with them.

Brian David Crane1:10:51
Because when you’re there, you’re 100%. You truly want to be there.

Freya Savage 1:10:55
Yeah, absolutely.

Brian David Crane1:10:59
Okay, maybe we wrap there. Tell people how they can find you online and if they want to get in contact with you how to do so.

Freya Savage 1:11:06
Okay sure, so, um… you can find me on Instagram @freya_savage_ and Freya is spelled F-R-E-Y-A. I also have a Facebook group called Wealthy Rebels With A Cause and I often put a lot of free content out there on money mindset, investment education, cash flow stuff and it’s a really great community that’s there and they’re getting great results.

Brian David Crane1:11:35
Great name as well.

Freya Savage 1:11:37
Yeah, you’re in it?

Brian David Crane1:11:39
No, I just like the name.

Freya Savage 1:11:40
Oh, okay. Yeah, um, and I’m also you can also contact me on Facebook as well.

Brian David Crane1:11:46
And you’ve got a website.

Freya Savage 1:11:47
And I’ve got a website which is freyasavage.com

Brian David Crane1:11:49
There we go. Yeah, that’s… it looks somewhere between… It’s, I think if you go to it, you’re not gonna… It’s not going to be what you expect for a finance site, nor is it necessarily going to be what you expect for… It’s kind of somewhere between like a fashion-esque minds… it’s a pretty interesting juxtaposition. I think it matches your personality. Well.

Freya Savage 1:12:11
Yeah, you’re right.

Brian David Crane1:12:12
Okay. Thanks a lot, Freya.

Freya Savage 1:12:13
Thank you! Thank you so much, Brian.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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