The MetaBusiness Millennial

Hosted by Erin Patten

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Aug 2026

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October 2, 202643 min

How to Stop Performing Confidence and Start Feeling It

What if confidence isn't something you collect, but something you embody? You can have the degrees, the title, and the years of proof, and still feel your heart pound and hear that voice asking who do you think you are. My guest Dr. Aleksandra Plazinic has a PhD, two master's degrees, and has taught at business schools across Europe and worked with the United Nations and the European Commission. And she still felt like an imposter. In this episode we trace imposter syndrome back to where it often begins, in a childhood where straight A's were the minimum and praise was rare. Then Aleksandra, author of From Fear to Fearless Female Speaker, walks us through her body, emotions, mind, and content method and guides you through tools you can use before your very next big conversation. ✨ WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY Why imposter syndrome is really a proving dynamic, and where it starts Why perfectionism is a moving target you will never hit Why most speaking training starts in the wrong place How to rate and unthread your fear so it loses its grip The one question to ask before every meeting this week The power pose, the sniff breath, and the affirmation "I know that I know" ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Confidence Isn't Collected, It's Embodied 1:44 Growing Up in Serbia Under Sanctions 2:16 When Straight A's Were Just the Minimum 4:16 The Proving Dynamic Behind Imposter Syndrome 5:31 Perfectionism Is a Moving Target 6:05 When a Young Woman's Voice Goes Quiet 8:42 The Pleasing Dynamic and the Fear of Being Found Out 10:36 Two Master's Degrees and Five Years of Doubt 12:50 When the Student Is Ready, the Teacher Appears 14:52 From Collecting Credentials to Embodying Them 17:20 Why Most Speaking Training Starts in the Wrong Place 18:39 Start With the Body 19:55 Find a Slightly Better Emotion 21:05 What Exactly Are You Afraid Of 22:58 Rate Your Fear From Zero to Ten 24:32 Walking Through the Worst Case Scenario 27:22 What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid 28:21 Speaking Up When the Stakes Feel Highest 31:25 I'm Not Here to Please You 32:43 Tools for Your Next Big Conversation 33:36 Take Up More Space 34:44 The Power Woman Pose and the Victory Stance 35:25 The Sniff Breath and the Long Exhale 36:10 I'm Glad I'm Here, I'm Glad You're Here 37:13 I Know That I Know 38:33 Lightning Round 40:08 What She'd Whisper on PhD Defense Day 41:08 Where to Find Aleksandra 41:27 Fearlessness Is a Practice 🎤 ABOUT ALEKSANDRA Dr. Aleksandra Plazinic is a communication coach, speaker, university lecturer, and author of From Fear to Fearless Female Speaker. She helps executive women overcome imposter syndrome and speak with confidence, clarity, and authenticity. Originally from Serbia and based between the Netherlands and Spain, she brings experience with the United Nations, the European Commission, and top business schools across Europe. Her holistic approach blends NLP, emotional healing, and practical presentation skills. 🔗 CONNECT WITH ALEKSANDRA Free guide, 3 Steps to Prepare for Public Speaking: https://mailchi.mp/bd941fc15c82/welcome-freebie Website: https://aplazinic.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandra-plazinic-phd/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleksandraplazinic.phd/ Her new book, From Fear to Fearless Female Speaker: https://www.amazon.com/Fear-Fearless-Female-Speaker-Confidence/dp/B0HCVZ8SCR 💛 WORK WITH ERIN Ready to stop performing and start embodying who you are? Book a consultation for the Divine Alignment Mentorship: https://erinpatten.com 🌺 RA BEAUTY The hibiscus petal oil and the rest of the collection: https://rabeauty.co 🎧 ABOUT THE SHOW The MetaBusiness Millennial is where metaphysical truth meets business strategy. Soul-led conversations for the woman ready to build success without leaving herself behind. New episodes weekly. 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code OBLHV59Y6AYKEIS6

September 25, 20261 hr 4 min

The Founder of TikTok's Favorite Brush Says Stop Chasing Viral

Lisa Jauregui built BK Beauty out of her living room in 2019 with thirty thousand dollars and a YouTube community that trusted her. Seven years later she has sold over a million orders, landed on the Inc 5000 four years in a row, and made a concealer brush TikTok could not stop buying. All of it self funded. No investors, no board, nobody to answer to. But the part of this conversation I keep thinking about is what she said about virality. Somewhere in her fastest growth years, a private equity investor told Lisa his firm does not like to invest in brands like hers. Not because she was failing. Because she was growing too fast. She could have been insulted. Instead she let it humble her, and it changed what she is building toward. We also go deep on the Hoffman Process, the seven day retreat she did in 2022 at thirty nine years old, and how it rewired the way she leads. She talks about the four parts of herself she checks in with every single day. She talks about sobbing through the prep work in her own backyard before she ever got on the plane. And she describes walking out of that room feeling the same tsunami of love you feel holding your first child, except this time it was for herself. Then we get into the mechanics. How the Kitten Paw brush actually went viral. Why she got on TikTok Shop in 2023 before the big beauty brands would touch it. What a deep creator relationship really looks like when you refuse to outsource it. And what she had to build inside her company to survive the day Ulta projected 4,800 units and she sold 22,000. If you are building something and trying to figure out how to grow it without losing yourself inside of it, this one is for you. 🌿 WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY Why stability is a better goal than virality, and the investor comment that changed how she measures success What you actually give up when you take outside capital, far beyond equity How the Hoffman Process gave her a leadership skill no business coach ever did The four parts of yourself to check in with daily so you stop operating from your head alone What it takes to build creator relationships that last years instead of campaigns How to prepare your operation for a viral moment before it arrives Why going narrow and deep beat launching something new every quarter The most expensive lesson she learned about selling product you do not physically have yet ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 — Welcome and Why This Conversation 2:17 — Who Lisa Is Outside of BK Beauty 4:41 — Back to the Living Room in 2019 6:26 — Where Beauty Is Kindness Came From 10:05 — Building a Company Through COVID 13:14 — Losing Her Father and What Flexibility Is Really Worth 14:16 — The Hoffman Process and How We Bonded 16:24 — Therapy, Limiting Beliefs, and Turning 40 17:19 — Sobbing Over the Prep Work in Her Backyard 18:54 — Walking Out Reborn 20:33 — What It Did for Her as a CEO 21:53 — The Quadrinity and the Four Parts of You 24:13 — The Journaling Practice She Still Uses 24:37 — Keeping Fulfillment In House When a VC Said Not To 27:15 — A Million Orders and Zero Outside Capital 29:11 — What You Actually Give Up When You Take the Money 30:08 — Staying Narrow and Going Deep on Brushes 35:10 — No Plans to Sell Ever and the Estée Lauder Story 36:00 — How the Kitten Paw Brush Went Viral 36:48 — Getting on TikTok Shop Before the Big Brands Would 38:03 — What a Deep Creator Relationship Actually Looks Like 39:24 — Flying Five Creators to Austin for Dinner at Her Home 42:52 — What You Have to Build Inside to Survive Going Viral 43:55 — The Ulta Day They Sold 22,000 Units 45:35 — Letting Go of the Pretty Box 46:44 — Chasing Someone Else's Viral Moment 49:23 — The Private Equity Guy Who Humbled Her 50:15 — For Anyone Still Waiting on Their Viral Moment 52:15 — Lightning Round 58:47 — The Hoffman Day That Brought Back Her Inner Child 1:00:05 — One Word for the Next Chapter 1:01:56 — Where to Find Lisa and BK Beauty 💫 CONNECT WITH ME Website: https://www.erinpatten.com/ Instagram: @iamerinpatten Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3d5JluD4wiOC8pYSDVHTSq Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metabusiness-millennial/id1654460591 🤍 CONNECT WITH LISA & BK BEAUTY Website: https://www.bkbeauty.com Also available at Ulta, Nordstrom, Amazon and TikTok Shop BK Beauty: @thebkbeauty Lisa on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok: @lisajmakeup 🔮 EXPLORE MY PROGRAMS Free Masterclass — Future Ready Leadership for the Beautiful, Loving and Knowledgeable Woman → erinpatten.com/masterclass-homepage Apply for the Divine Alignment Mentorship → erinpatten.com Join the Sol Full Accelerator → upgrade.erinpatten.com 🌸 MY BEAUTY BRAND Ra Beauty → rabeauty.co 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: TXHYWC0KUZLPOGCD, P7AJEYMRCXEUB7B2

September 18, 202626 min

How to Stand in Your Truth When People Turn on You

Being liked and being truly seen are not the same thing. In this solo cast I talk about what to do when people ghost you, when silence becomes the answer, and how to stand in your truth when the people you trusted turn on you. This season handed me two truths in a single week. One about a man who went silent, and one about betrayal from people I had trusted with my mother’s care. Both were teaching me the same lesson, about being liked versus being authentic, and about refusing to let anyone else decide my verdict. Consider it a soul transmission on being seen in your truth. This is not victimhood. It is curriculum. ✨ WHAT YOU’LL TAKE AWAY Why silence is a form of communication, and how to stop chasing a response that is not coming The difference between being liked and being truly seen, and why authenticity is worth the discomfort How to come in peace and speak your truth even when your whole life trained you to keep the peace Why betrayal and false accusation can be curriculum instead of a verdict on who you are How surrender becomes the real assignment when life feels completely out of your control How to remember who you are and stay anchored in God through the hardest seasons ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 A Rough Season and Two Truths 0:50 When Silence Is the Answer 1:51 The Weight I Have Been Carrying 7:51 Wrongly Accused by People I Trusted 9:50 It Is Not a Verdict, It Is a Curriculum 10:46 Coming in Peace to Seek the Truth 12:48 Being Liked Versus Being Authentic 16:18 Why Speaking Your Truth Is Not Weakness 18:26 The Reset I Did Not Know I Needed 19:32 Betrayal, Yeshua, and the Spiritual Muscle 22:18 No One Decides My Verdict 23:19 Remember Who You Are 🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW The MetaBusiness Millennial is where metaphysical truth meets business strategy. Soul-led conversations for the woman ready to build success without leaving herself behind. New episodes weekly. 💫 WORK WITH ERIN Ready to come back to yourself and stand in your own truth? Book a consultation for the Divine Alignment Mentorship at https://erinpatten.com 🔗 CONNECT WITH ERIN Website: https://erinpatten.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamerinpatten Ra Beauty, the plant-based hibiscus petal oil I use every day: https://rabeauty.co 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: U04HTTAGS2MYDJ9G

September 11, 202625 min

Why Doing Nothing Is the Most Important Work You’ll Do

This is my first solo cast in a little over six months. The last time it was just me and you in the confessional room, I told you I was leaving. Off the wine, off social media, all the way back into the dark on purpose. This is me re-emerging. Not the same woman who left. An embodied one. The past six months brought some of the hardest and most humbling challenges of my life, and inside all of it God taught me the one thing I keep coming back to. It is one thing to claim to be a woman of Spirit. It is a whole different thing to be an embodied one. And the biggest gift the season handed me is the truth most driven women never let themselves hear, that doing nothing can be the most important work you will ever do. This episode is what the fallow season gave back. Consider it a soul transmission from the other side of the dark. ✨ WHAT YOU’LL TAKE AWAY Why rest is the real work, and the permission to do nothing without guilt Why you sometimes have to disappear in order to come back to yourself The difference between claiming to be a woman of Spirit and being an embodied one How to tell whether you are reaching out from fullness or from emptiness Why enough is a discipline, and how to sit in it when the enoughness feels uncomfortable What a fallow season teaches you about provision and trusting God to meet you daily ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 My First Solo Cast in Six Months 2:21 Sitting in the Judgment and the Accusations 4:45 Remembering Who You Are 7:13 What the Body Knows and the Fullness Test 11:48 Hearing Your Clear Yes and Your Absolute No 14:14 The Fallow Season and Letting the Land Rest 16:25 Enough Is the Discipline 18:43 Rest Is the Work 20:21 Where the Pressure Really Came From 21:15 What I Had to Lay Down 21:53 Authenticity Is Cultivated in Rest 23:29 Closing Blessing 🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW The MetaBusiness Millennial is where metaphysical truth meets business strategy. Soul-led conversations for the woman ready to build success without leaving herself behind. New episodes weekly. 💫 WORK WITH ERIN Ready to stop out-strategizing what you are here to heal? Book a consultation for the Divine Alignment Mentorship at https://erinpatten.com 🔗 CONNECT WITH ERIN Website: https://erinpatten.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamerinpatten Ra Beauty, the plant-based hibiscus petal oil I use every day: https://rabeauty.co 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: JXUBL7XOEXJDOHZA

September 4, 202658 min

How She Cleared Three Diseases Doctors Couldn’t Heal

You built what most people only dream of — the title, the track record, the room where the real decisions get made. And still, some quiet hour, you wonder when it finally gets to feel like enough. My guest this week, Celinne Da Costa, knows that feeling intimately. She left the life she was “supposed” to want, spent nine months couch-surfing the world, and came back with a USA TODAY bestselling book, The Burning Ground . In this conversation she also opens up about something extraordinary — clearing three tick-borne illnesses doctors said could take years, by treating her body as a teacher instead of an enemy. This one is a soul transmission from start to finish. ✨ WHAT YOU’LL TAKE AWAY How she cleared three tick-borne illnesses doctors said would take years — by treating disease as a teacher, not an identity Why ambition can be a “clean word for avoidance” — and how to tell the difference The monkey-bar truth about fear, faith, and the leap into your next identity How to change your entire life without burning it all down The 51% rule that quietly rewrites your future ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 The Woman Who Built What Everyone Calls Success 1:54 When Achievement Stops Being Enough 4:01 The Tight Sweater That No Longer Fits 6:44 The Fear of the Unknown and Letting Go of Control 8:17 The Monkey Bar and the Bar You Can’t See Yet 12:13 Why Every Day Is a Good Day to Die 13:47 The Life Celinne Couldn’t Unknow Anymore 17:19 Is This Happening For Me, Not To Me 19:31 Erin’s Own Burning: Detroit, Loss, and Leaving 21:22 Ambition as a Clean Word for Avoidance 22:38 Freedom To vs Freedom From 25:53 Why Ambition Is Achieved by Slowing Down 27:12 Let Her Cook: Watching the Ego with Curiosity 29:05 Nobody Gets Left Behind 33:03 You Don’t Have to Burn It All Down 35:04 The 51% Rule for Changing Your Life 36:20 What the Body Knew: Clearing Three Diseases 41:10 Disease as a Teacher, Not an Identity 46:27 Every Emotion Is a Friend in the Caravan 48:39 Lightning Round and What the Fire Taught Her 52:11 Where to Find Celinne and The Burning Ground 53:33 One Percent Brighter and the 51% Benchmark 56:00 Closing Blessing 🌍 ABOUT CELINNE Celinne Da Costa is a master coach, TEDx speaker, and USA TODAY bestselling author of The Burning Ground. Born in Rome and raised between Italy, Brazil, and the United States, she has lived and worked across 60+ countries, guiding executives, founders, and leaders to break free from the story running their success on autopilot. 🔗 CONNECT WITH CELINNE Website: https://celinnedacosta.com (one L, two N’s) The Burning Ground — with $200+ in bonuses: https://theburningground.com Substack (Living From Soul): https://celinnedacosta.substack.com Instagram: @celinnedacosta 💫 WORK WITH ERIN Ready to stop out-strategizing what you’re here to heal? Book a consultation for the Divine Alignment Mentorship: https://erinpatten.com Instagram: @iamerinpatten 🎙️ ABOUT THE SHOW The MetaBusiness Millennial is where metaphysical truth meets business strategy — soul-led conversations for the woman ready to build success without leaving herself behind. New episodes weekly. 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: OFVCZBQWP12LZYFO

August 28, 20261 hr 9 min

You Are Not the Doer and That Is Your Greatest Freedom

What if the struggle you're gripping so hard right now was never yours to force — only to move through, awake? In this episode of The MetaBusiness Millennial, I sit down with Marvin Wilkerson — master evolutionary astrologer, certified hypnotherapist, and author of Soul Fusion Healing: Integrating Mind, Body, and Soul — who has spent 75 years learning, teaching, and embodying one radical truth: you are not the doer. We go deep on the soul's life plan, why your desires were imprinted before you were born, the real difference between surrender and giving up, why the most spiritual thing you can do is simply be human, and how your birth chart reads like the language of energy itself. If you're a woman building something real and quietly exhausted from forcing it, consider this your permission slip. Come sit with us. ✨ What You'll Take Away Why “you are not the doer” isn't permission to stop — it's permission to stop forcing How your desires, and your hardest lessons, were chosen at the soul level before you arrived The real difference between surrender and giving up (and why the grief lives in the gap) Why the most spiritual thing you can do is be fully human — not more spiritual How evolutionary astrology reads your chart as the soul's blueprint — talents and karmic patterns alike Why the chaos women are moving through right now is the birth of their organized power ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 — You Are Not the Doer 00:53 — Welcome Marvin 01:33 — The Reading at 18 That Flipped the Switch 04:48 — Why Soul Fusion Healing Had to Be Written 08:36 — Seek, Don't Believe — Beliefs Are Fiction 11:12 — White Light, Theta, and Wordless Unity 15:36 — You Are Not the Doer, Unpacked 21:02 — Soul Groups, Karma, and the Lessons You Chose 25:54 — Surrender vs Giving Up 31:00 — You Are Not the Body 34:22 — Where Vision and Pain Live in the Brain 38:31 — Talking to Spirit Out Loud 45:36 — Astrology as the Language of Energy 52:15 — Reading the Blueprint — Nodes, Codependency, Power 55:48 — Women Coming Into Their Power 1:02:32 — Lightning Round 1:05:42 — Where to Find Marvin + Close 🔮 Connect With Marvin All of his sites in one place → soulfusionhealing.com Evolutionary astrology → astromarv.com Hypnotherapy → blhypnosis.com Book: Soul Fusion Healing: Integrating Mind, Body, and Soul → Amazon & Barnes & Noble 🤍 Work With Me Ready to build your business in alignment with your soul purpose — without forcing it into being? Explore my Divine Alignment Mentorship → erinpatten.com 🎧 About the Show The MetaBusiness Millennial is where metaphysical truth meets real business — for the soul-led woman who refuses to choose between them. 🎵 Music Licensed via Soundstripe → DEQKXK4HBKNCFYPH

August 20, 202641 min

How To Rewrite Your Self-Image, Release the Hustle + Build From Abundance with Mariko Fujimura

What if every result in your business the revenue, the rooms, the yeses and the nos is just your self-image made visible? In this episode of The MetaBusiness Millennial, I sit down with Mariko Fujimura — mindset and self-image coach, founder of the Kiseki Institute, and TEDx speaker — for a conversation about the story running underneath your success. Mariko spent years as a pastry chef and mother, looking like she had it all together on the outside while she was miserable inside, before she picked up the pen and rewrote her own story. She shares the moment it broke open, why she stayed a $30,000-a-year earner for years even while devouring every book and program (hint: it wasn't strategy), and how she finally changed it. We get into the 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts moving through you every day and the same old tape they keep playing, why the answer to “how do I create more abundance” is letting it happen instead of making it happen, and how alignment magnetizes what hustle only chases. We talk about telling the difference between a goal that's truly yours and one you absorbed from the outside, and what to say to the woman who has hit the numbers and still feels the gap. This one is a soul transmission. Come sit with us. CONNECT WITH MARIKO Website + monthly complimentary masterclasses → kiseki-institute.com Instagram → @manifestwithmariko WORK WITH ME Explore Divine Alignment Mentorship → erinpatten.com Instagram → @iamerinpatten

August 7, 20261 hr 31 min

Their Hollywood Love Story Almost Destroyed Them Both

Forty-four minutes into this conversation, Romi Marie looked down at the timer on her phone and read the number out loud. 4401 — the number that has followed the two of them for twenty-three years. Seconds later, James Haven said the words he had never said out loud in his life. James Haven is a writer, a director, the son of Jon Voight and the brother of Angelina Jolie. Romi Marie is an author, a coach, a mother, and a Substack bestseller — and she is the woman he married in Laguna Beach in front of his father, then lost fifteen days later when she filed for annulment citing fraud. This is the first time the two of them have ever told that story together. What they reveal is not what the headlines said. As Romi puts it, she filed because someone was lying to her about a lot of things, but mostly lying to himself. We go all the way back to May 2002 — the El Rey Theatre, the only date night she ever had with her father, and the tall man who walked over with his mother. The nickname Marcheline Bertrand gave them. The key left under the mat and the twenty years of silence that followed. What it does to a boy to be introduced at Hollywood premieres to people who never take their eyes off his father or his sister. Being locked in a closet at five years old for reaching for a dress. A father who called him sick — at their wedding table, after the wedding. And then June 5th. The day the court finalized the annulment. The same day Romi picked up the phone and called him, without knowing what day it was. This is a coming out, a reunion, and a resurrection. 🌿 WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAY Why hiding one part of yourself eventually costs you the whole self — and what it takes to stop How the wound underneath your relationships, not the people in them, is running your choices What it looks like when someone finally lets you tell the truth about them without calling you crazy Why endings are completions, not failures — and how a reunion can be a resurrection instead of a repeat How to stop forcing love into a shape it was never built to hold What becomes possible creatively when you author the story you once survived Why you have to let yourself see you before you can ask anyone else to ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 — Welcome 2:25 — June 5th: The Day the Court Finalized the Annulment 5:50 — Why This Conversation, and Why Here 11:15 — Wisdom Inside the Trauma 12:31 — May 2002: The El Rey and Her Only Date Night With Her Father 18:35 — Peter Pan and Tinkerbell: The Nickname That Was Prophecy 21:26 — A Divinely Appointed Life Path 25:27 — Growing Up as a Shadow in Hollywood 28:19 — "I Had No Value Whatsoever" 29:19 — The Model 3: Why the Work Never Came 30:58 — The Key Under the Mat: Why He Really Left 31:54 — "I Didn't Care to Begin With" 33:48 — The Drinking Years and What Abandonment Cost Her 39:42 — The Wedding, His Father, and What Went Unsaid 43:21 — What the Fraud Filing Actually Meant 44:01 — 4401: He Says It Out Loud for the First Time 45:09 — Where Is the Win? 45:43 — "It Cost Me My Life" 46:16 — What Freedom Looks Like Now 49:32 — I Am That Man: The Bracelet and the Nathan Story 50:30 — Locked in a Closet at Five for Choosing a Dress 1:00:54 — Breathe Mija Hits Number One 1:03:23 — Pitching Breathe Mija as a Television Series 1:12:54 — "Go Write It": Her Message to Every Woman 1:21:16 — Lightning Round 1:26:12 — The Dinah in Palm Springs 💫 CONNECT WITH ME Website: https://www.erinpatten.com/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3d5JluD4wiOC8pYSDVHTSq Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-metabusiness-millennial/id1654460591 🕊️ CONNECT WITH ROMI & JAMES Breathe Mija (Substack): romimarie.substack.com Website: MadreRomi.com Instagram: @romi_hairandbeauty TikTok: @madre.romi Romi's Speaking Bookings: LOUD Management — https://www.loud-mgmt.com/ James is not on social media at this time. He has asked that anyone who wants to reach him send their questions to Romi, and he will answer through her. 🔮 EXPLORE MY PROGRAMS Free Masterclass — Future Ready Leadership for the Beautiful, Loving and Knowledgeable Woman → erinpatten.com/masterclass-homepage Apply for the Divine Alignment Mentorship → erinpatten.com Join the Sol Full Accelerator → upgrade.erinpatten.com 🎵 MUSIC Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: RYOVICCZZN33RKOZ

July 15, 202639 min

How To Stop Chasing, Reclaim Your Energy + Build From Wholeness with Barbara Burgess

What if the chase to become a better version of yourself is the very thing draining you? In this episode of The MetaBusiness Millennial, I sit down with author, executive, and Corluma founder Barbara Burgess — whose first book, Enough: Finding Peace in a World of Distractions, Hustle, and Expectations , names the ache so many high-achieving women carry. We unpack the seduction of self-improvement: how the endless pursuit of more conscious, more healed, more optimized becomes just another version of not enough. Two women who climbed every conventional ladder and chose something deeper. This one is about the difference between growing because you love to and grinding because you are trying to earn your worth. It is about boundaries, the small nos, and what it means to finally build from wholeness instead of lack. — — — — — — — — — — 🎧 What You’ll Learn Why the chase to become drains more energy than your calendar ever could How the self-improvement industry sells you a permanent state of almost enough The difference between wanting to grow and needing to be fixed Why enough is the foundation for ambition, not its ceiling The playground-and-fence principle for boundaries that free you The power of the small nos, which are often harder than the big ones How to read the meter of your own heart as an internal compass The simple reframe that changes everything: not I have to, but I get to 📚 Connect With Barbara Burgess Book: Enough — Finding Peace in a World of Distractions, Hustle, and Expectations (beenough.com) Website: corluma.com LinkedIn: barbaraburgess1 ✨ Connect With Erin Website: erinpatten.com The MetaBusiness World: themetabusiness.world Ra Beauty: rabeauty.co Explore the Divine Alignment Mentorship and book a free consultation call directly at erinpatten.com If this episode hit, like and subscribe so you never miss what is next, and share it with a woman who is exhausted from trying to become. When you are ready to build from enough, book a free consultation call with me at erinpatten.com. Much love and light 💕 ✨ 🎵 Music Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: CZFEIR7DFXVF1EOE Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: CLZWED2SJ8JUAPUW

June 9, 202645 min

How Gucci Coca-Cola and Louis Vuitton Built Brand Love

Why does a $5,000 Gucci bag and a $500 bag hold your stuff the same way — but one feels like an extension of your identity and the other doesn't? That's brand love. And in this full-circle episode of The MetaBusiness Millennial, I'm sitting down with the woman who literally wrote the international bestselling book on it — Lydia Michael — who also happened to be the marketing strategist behind my very first clean beauty brand, DAO Detroit (DAO = Defy All Odds), back in 2017. Years later, she's a #1 international bestseller, owner of Detroit-based Blended Collective, an adjunct professor across three continents, and a Board of Trustees member at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. I'm building Ra Beauty, my second clean beauty brand — this time from a completely different place. So when she reached out a few weeks ago for a testimonial, I told her — let's do better than a testimonial. Come on the show. What unfolded is part reunion, part masterclass, part love letter to the brands that built us. We unpack The Eight Brand Love Stages — Lydia's framework featured in university programs worldwide and translated into Turkish and Vietnamese. We talk about why 90% of customers make decisions based on gut feeling (and then justify with logic), why Coca-Cola doesn't sell beverages (they sell joy and happiness), and why I'm a Gucci goddess in the era of Tom Ford sensuality. Lydia walks us through how brands like L'Oréal, Garnier Fructis, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel, and Versace build emotional resonance — and where most small businesses leak love. Then we cross the bridge into my world: the mirror principle. A brand can't receive love it isn't broadcasting. I share why I'm praying over every Ra Beauty box and signing every insert card by hand — and why building from the inside out is the new luxury. This is the conversation for every founder, marketer, and high-achieving woman who wants to build something people don't just buy — but actually love. — — — — — — — — — — — — 🎧 What You'll Learn The real, dinner-table definition of brand love (no jargon) The Eight Brand Love Stages framework explained Why 90% of buying decisions are emotional first The difference between a customer who likes you and one who loves you Why Coca-Cola sells joy and Gucci sells sensuality How the mirror principle applies to brand-building Why kindness is a marketing strategy Why small businesses are the future of conscious commerce 📚 Connect With Lydia Michael Book: Brand Love – Building Strong Consumer-Brand Connections (Amazon and wherever books are sold) Website: blendedcollective.com | lydiamichael.com LinkedIn: @lydiamichael | @blendedcollective Instagram: @lydiamichael_ | @blendedcollective ✨ Connect With Erin Instagram: @iamerinpatten Website: erinpatten.com Ra Beauty: rabeauty.co If this episode hit, do me a favor — like, subscribe, and drop a comment with the brand YOU love most. Share this with a founder who needs to hear it. Much love and light. ✨