We were lucky to catch up with Deborah Fryer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Deborah , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Tell us the story of a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big, life changing risk or a small risk. Either way, paint the picture for us, tell us the backstory and all the relevant details so we can fully understand the context and circumstances around when and why you took the risk and tell us how it turned out.

I’ve always been a risk taker.

Before I knew how to swim, when I was about three years, old, I jumped off the diving board into the deep end of the pool. I somehow figured out how to dog paddle to the edge, and my mom immediately signed me up for swimming lessons.

This impulse to leap first and then figure out next steps is a personality trait I came in with.

Sometimes the risk is walking away from something I no longer want to be a part of.

I dropped out of high school at age 16 because I was being bullied, and I went to live on a Greek island, where I became a weaver’s apprentice. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but I knew what I was walking away from.

Other times, the risk is walking towards something without knowing how it will turn out.

I finished my PhD when I was 29, and then took an office job translating documentary scripts for an educational film distribution company. I loved the work, but I wanted to be the one making the films, traveling the world, meeting the people… I didn’t want to be translating someone else’s ideas… so I quit that job with a steady paycheck and moved to a new city, collected unemployment and became an intern and worked my way up the public television production ladder.

A decade later, I moved again, this time to start my own documentary film production company (www.lilafilms.com). Each move was a move towards greater self-expression and self-agency.

For all entrepreneurs reading this who are considering starting your own business and being your own boss, it’s a risk. You won’t know how it’s going to turn out, and you don’t need to know the how. What you do need to be solid in is knowing yourself. Knowing you are capable, resourceful, tenacious and willing to experiment and learn and grow every step of the way.

I saw myself as resourceful, capable, creative, willing to put in the sweat, the time, the money, willing to make mistakes, willing to not know, willing to learn by doing. The anxiety of not knowing how was replaced by the excitement of permission to make it up. When you know that you have the wherewithal to make things up and that your creativity is the seed of the innovations you’re bringing to market, you’re no longer afraid of not knowing in advance. The Creatrix in you jumps for joy that she has the freedom to create something that does not yet exist, or refine something that already exists.

When I created my Anatomy of Money coaching business, it didn’t exist before I created it. It was a risk for me to put myself out there in this way … I had a PhD in Literature and decades of experience making documentaries about science. I had 30 years experience teaching yoga and meditation. I had been working in an anatomy lab for 3 years. I knew the body inside and out, literally, so I knew the terrain by heart I was leading my clients through (visit deborahfryer.com to learn how to upgrade your mind-body-money relationship). At the time I started my business, there was nothing else out there quite like it. As my business grew and I watched my clients make six-figure leaps, heal their relationships, release limiting beliefs and claim their freedom, I got comfortable enough to make another big leap.

The next big leap for me is adding Intentional Creativity to the medicine bag of meditation, mindset, mindfulness, mantra, movement, money magic and metacognition I carry. (Visit deborahfryerart.com to see my art work and explore your own intentional creativity journey with me.)

Every time I expand into the unknown, it feels risky, precisely because it is unknown. The brain perceives the unknown and the unfamiliar as a threat to the status quo. Become ok with rocking the boat of the status quo if you want to experience more of your Self and live as the Soul’s potential.

Deborah , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I help entrepreneurs, creatives and visionary leaders (like you!) find your true voice, heal your money wounds, and become more confident, creative, calm and clear.

My signature Anatomy of Money system blends ancient wisdom, modern neuroscience, integrative mind-body processes, creative solutions and timeless business strategies that accelerate ease, abundance, freedom and flow.

Integration, nervous system regulation, alignment and embodiment are foundational to true wealth, sustainability and inner peace.

When you feel safe and secure being YOU, you naturally experience greater physical, emotional, financial, creative and spiritual freedom than you ever “thought” possible.

I offer many tools to help you upgrade your mindset, elevate your income, rewire your nervous system and reconnect with your divine feminine power and infinite potential.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the hardest lessons to unlearn was the conditioning that insists we have to work really, really hard to make money.

Turns out the opposite is true.

The more hours I worked, the more I tried to plan everything in advance and get it all perfect before I launched it, the more stressed out and anxious I was. I worried about tech breaking, people judging me, people being mad at me, people unsubscribing, people calling me greedy or arrogant or narcissistic.

So much subconscious conditioning made me afraid to even take a step because I was afraid of what other people would think of me. I was unwittingly making their opinions matter more than my own about the value of what I was offering to the world. I was making life really hard for myself because I believed it had to be hard. Hard is a conditioned belief. It runs automatically until you interrupt it.

When we are in fear, our nervous systems react with chemistry that slows down our productivity, blocks our creativity, interrupts our sleep and makes every thing take ten times as long. We are all wired to think we need to work hard to make great money. If we are not working hard, we tell ourselves we are lazy, or don’t deserve that, or should not be charging for that. We find ways to “accidentally” mess things up so things actually do take longer. We find ways to self-sabotage so that we do have to work harder and longer.

It takes time to rewire your nervous system to feel safe with money, and to feel with taking time off and still making money while you’re not working. For years, I used to go on vacation, but not really go on vacation. I’d tell myself I was going on vacation, but I’d be chained to my laptop, jumping anytime a client complained, and I could never truly relax — because if I did, something bad would happen.

So many spiritual business owners carry this same internal programming that they are the glue holding everything together. We disempower our clients when we position ourselves as being indispensable, and we unwittingly set ourselves up for resenting the very people we are here to serve when they need us. We have taught them to rely on us. This kind of codependence is a habit… and it plays into everything being hard.

I offer a little pearl of insight here so you don’t have to spend years NOT going on vacation while being on vacation. :-) Cut yourself some slack. Leave the laptop behind next time. Let your clients figure it out when you’re not there to rush in and fix whatever is challenging them. Your clients will thank you for it. Giving them space to figure it out is a form of extending them trust, seeing them as powerful and capable. This is what they want, so give that to them. When we rush in and fix and do for them, they don’t have the opportunity to discover how powerful and capable they are. Back off.

It took my nervous system years to really take vacations, and weekends off, too. I’d schedule weekends off from work, and I’d not be working, but I would be sitting on the couch feeling guilty for not working, I realized that I was still working. I was working at feeling guilty, which just made me feel more guilty.

Once I was onto myself, I unhooked from that condition and finally learned to relax in every cell of my being. Without hesitation. Without guilt, Without apology. Without defensiveness. Without explanation. I have learned to be with what is. Unlearn the habit of stress and working hard and you’ll find yourself in a whole new world.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I have loved all the ways I have earned money and all the ways I have contributed my expertise. In a way, they all feel like facets of the same jewel of self-awareness.

As a weaver’s apprentice, I learned how to create something new from something old.

As a translator, I was also creating a new version of something that existed already, and was turning it into something new.

As a filmmaker turned mindset coach and creativity catalyst, I am queen of the reframe. One of my superpowers is perspective. How can we see this differently? What are we not seeing? What happens if I open up my aperture? What happens if this is no longer in the frame? What happens if the background fades and becomes less dominant in the image? The skills of observation and deep listening as a filmmaker absolutely apply to the movies we create in our minds, Turns out you are sitting in the director’s chair. You are the scriptwriter, wardrobe consultant, cinematographer, producer and editor. You are playing all the roles.

What I offer today is an integration of all I have learned from filmmaking, practicing and teaching yoga and meditation, working in an Anatomy Lab, writing a dissertation about narrative and the stories we tell ourselves, being a serial entrepreneur and an artist who’s not afraid to take risks.

I have created journals for artists, healers and coaches (check them out here: https://deborah-fryer-art.printify.me/products).
Unleash your creativity with me at www.deborahfryerart.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.deborahfryerart.com/ https://deborahfryer.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deborahfryer/
• Facebook: Personal Page: https://www.facebook.com/@deborahfryer Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/deborahfryercoaching Anatomy of Money Academy (free group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/205011894143341
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahfryer/
• Soundcloud: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg8fE_ukU2080ZvOQEeAhMQ
• Other: ART GIFT SHOP: https://deborah-fryer-art.printify.me/products

  ANATOMY OF MONEY PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anatomy-of-money/id1659694831

Image Credits

Deborah Fryer