50 Not Finished Show

Julie Ciardi
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The midlife reinvention, revolution & reclamation show leveraging the NEW Human Design www.julieciardi.com

  1. 1d ago

    Your Offers Are Supposed to Evolve

    Some people sell the same offer — same name, same everything — for a decade. My business was never built that way, and if you're a transformational entrepreneur, yours might not be either. In this episode I take you through the real evolution of my offers — including the one I sold more than 400 people into and still shut down — and why your offers are meant to change as you change. We get into your divine design, the guru trap of "just be more practical," how to watch and observe who your launches are actually bringing in, and why the right evolution quietly weeds out everyone who was never your tribe in the first place. Nothing has gone wrong. You're becoming the leader your people are waiting for. Are you a Red Rebelle? Come do the inner work with us in the Red Rebelle Room - learn more here! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

  2. Jul 17

    Hearing Gwyneth Paltrow Read My Book

    I wanted to do a pop-up episode on this. I’m not behind my Yeti mic, I’m just on my phone — but I had to share it with you, because it’s such an important lesson and it’s so much a part of my own design. So you may or may not know this — I wrote a book. 50 Not Finished. It came out a little over a year ago, last May, May of 2025. And I was proud of it. But being a classic 2/4 profile, I was like — okay, it’s okay. It was so much work, so much of my heart went into it, and I still couldn’t quite see it. I couldn’t see if it was anything special. That’s so classic of a 2/4. The two cannot see her own genius. It has to be called out by others. So I did the launch, and it was great — we made bestseller on Amazon, all of that. But I knew I was missing some components of really giving it its due. And for the last year, I haven’t been promoting it much. I kept telling myself I needed to redesign it, rewrite it, reorganize it. Was this missing? Was that missing? It became this big thing sitting out there that I just — wasn’t working on. I was going to relaunch it in September. And then September got close and I was like, oh, it’s really not ready. And then two big things happened. Number one, I got the major download that no — I’m not meant to be focusing on rewriting that book right now. My focus needs to be on the IGNITE Her® Frequencies guidebook, all 64 Frequencies, the 12 profiles, the 36 superpowers — probably a 400-plus-page guidebook my certification women will use to study their own design. So the book didn’t need a rewrite. It needed a few minor tweaks — a couple of the calls to action, because my website moved over to Substack — and then it needed to go back out into the world. But I also decided I really needed to read the book again myself, cover to cover. I’ve done it many times, but I wanted to do it again — and I realized I didn’t have a lot of time. So I said, there’s got to be a way I can have this read to me, like an audiobook. It’s not available yet as an audiobook — it will be — but I was sure I could have it read to me. And I asked Claude, and Claude said, yeah, there’s plenty of tools, Speechify is one. And I was like — oh, I tried Speechify years and years ago. It was okay. But of course the AI has changed. So I said, all right, I have a three-hour drive this afternoon, let me get the PDF of the book into Speechify and listen to it on my drive. And I got to pick who I wanted to speak it out. And Gwyneth Paltrow was one of the voices. And I really like her voice. So I was like — yeah, right, I’ll have Gwyneth read this to me. And I’m laughing, because in such a 2/4 way, I needed to hear someone else’s voice reading my book back to me to actually realize how frickin’ good it is. And here’s the funniest thing. I’m listening on the car ride, and my twelve-year-old fell asleep. So it’s just me and the book. And there were certain times I forgot it was my book. Because it’s Gwyneth Paltrow reading it — I’m forgetting it’s mine that I’m listening to. And I’m like, oh my God, that’s so good. Oh my God, that’s so right. And having Gwyneth Paltrow speak it back to me — it finally hit me. I actually had tears in my eyes. Because if I feel this way, so many people feel this way. We cannot see our own genius. We cannot see what we have the capability to create. So actually having her read it back to me, I got more convicted than ever that this book needs to be out in the world in an even bigger way than it was. For the last year I’ve been doing a complete disservice — not getting this book into the hands of every woman. And it hit me, the power of what I put together, and — shame on me. This is where we always come back to it. Our own self-image, how we see ourself, how we see our work — how I saw my book was the biggest limiter to my fulfillment and my legacy work. I updated a few things, and I’m sending it to my publisher later today. We’ll get it updated on Amazon, I’ll make an announcement when the latest is live. And we’re going to be creating an audiobook — which is critical, which is coming — and really focusing on getting this piece of work into more hands, because it has the power to be a catalyst and a reference guide. Here’s how I see this book. You can read it, or listen to it, on the first pass, and it’s going to ignite you. It’s going to fire you up into the work you’re here to do. It gives you the tips and the tricks and all the lessons from the various mentors and guides that helped me across my own growth and fulfillment. But it’s also a reference book to go back to when you’re feeling stuck. When you’re not sure of your next steps, you can take out 50 Not Finished, randomly open it up to any chapter, any page, and get gold nuggets. It’s truly all of my work. I don’t know what you need to hear about your genius, about what you’re here to bring into this world — but if you need to hear it through another voice, I highly recommend it. That was a game-changing, pivotal moment for me yesterday — to actually be able to see what I’d created over a year ago, and the mission to get it into more hands to help change lives. You have that too. You just might need to hear it through someone else’s voice. So here’s my little tip for today. If you need to see your work in a different way — take a transcript of your own stuff, upload it into Speechify, and have Gwyneth speak it to you. Because I think you’ll be shocked. We don’t love the sound of our own voice. We can’t see the genius we have, because we think everyone can do what we do. I’ll keep you posted on 50 Not Finished. When the updates are made, get a copy, use it with your clients, do a book circle around it — we’ll probably run one ourselves, and you can join us. So funny how we operate, and how we’re limited by how we see through our own eyes, our own paradigms, our own self-image. And sometimes we need someone else to show and reflect back to us our genius. All right, my friend. Have an incredible day. — Julie This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

  3. Jul 15

    Your movement in 2 words...

    Never miss a podcast or article! Subscribe here & grab your free 50 Not Finished report! I want to talk about something really powerful — your movement, and having a consistent theme running all the way through it. Let me use my own example. IGNITE Her®. My entire brand is two words. And it was just over six years ago that those two words came to be — without me even knowing what they would ultimately become. It’s incredible to be at this stage and look back at the journey those two words have been on. I registered the trademark, of course. And we had to fight for this one. We’d been using IGNITE Her® — we had different things, like IGNITE Her® Society, our mobile app for clients — but right when we went to submit the two words, someone else came in and was using it. So we fought for it. We showed we’d been using it for six years, and we won it. IGNITE Her® is our brand in two words. Steve Jobs is so famously quoted — you cannot connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. You remember Connect the Dots as a kid? Dot one to dot two to dot three to dot four, and an image would begin to appear. When I look backward, I can see exactly how the dots are now connected. With each and every download, I’ve been able to move my mission forward — because I’ve stayed in tune with the present moment and actually executed on whatever was put in front of me to start. Why we wait — and why waiting traps us I’ve watched so many women who have legacy work inside of them wanting all the answers before they launch anything. They want to be certain it won’t fail. They want to know all the plans, how it will all play out. And that will trap you. That will not allow you to move forward. It’s not confidence that’s needed before you start. It’s not even clarity. It’s courage. We have to have the courage to go after the download when we get it. We get a hit, we get an idea, and we know. It’s an inner knowing. We know this is the direction we want to go in. And then our mind gets in the way. The noisy roommate in your head takes over — it won’t work because of this, and what are people going to think if this fails? And that beautiful idea doesn’t get executed on, because you talked yourself out of it. Go back to the Connect the Dots picture. As a kid, you could almost see what the picture was going to be, because all the numbers were already there in the shape of the drawing. But that’s not how this works. Your legacy work starts with a blank piece of paper. You’re standing at dot one, and there’s nothing else there. You get a hit for what dot two is, so dot two appears, and you’re meant to connect one to two. That’s the action. And it is only after you connect to that second dot that the third dot will appear. People don’t like that. They want to know the whole picture, the step-by-step, the next thing and the next. And it doesn’t work like that. It cannot. Your legacy work must unfold exactly that way — the next dot, the next download, the next idea will be intuitively given to you only when you take action. It’s the series of actions that create the result. The decision, not the desire Let me take you back to IGNITE Her®. I feel like I was trying to leave IBM for 20 years. The only way I actually left is because I made a decision that I was going to leave. From the moment I made that courageous decision, it took two years. But in those two years — dot one, dot two, dot three, dot four, dot five — all the dots started to appear. What happened for the prior 20 years? Why didn’t those dots get revealed to me when I knew I wanted to leave? Because I hadn’t made a decision that I was going to. Do you see that difference? It’s such an important distinction. The desire to want to leave IBM was not enough. It had to be a decision. Wanting and desire is not enough. You have to decide this is what you’re going after, this is what you want, and that enough is enough — you’re not taking anything less than that. So in my own journey of growing a business and leaving IBM, I had to ignite my highest self. I had to ignite the highest frequencies of myself. I had to become who I’ve always been but had been completely blinded to — living in the paradigms and all the things. That’s when the two words came to me. I started working with other women and realized they were all in the same place. They had a goal. They had a dream. They had a desire. But their noisy roommate kept telling them — you don’t know how, and what if you fail, and what if no one wants to buy this, and what will so-and-so think, and I’m overwhelmed, I don’t have the answers. That whole narrative dulls the higher frequencies. You’re living in a shadow state. How you actually manifest anything I remember getting sucked into the whole law of attraction thing. Sit crisscross applesauce, hold your palms up to the air, and you’ll manifest anything you desire. That’s BS, by the way. The way you manifest anything you desire is you have to ignite her. Period. Full stop. There’s no other way. Bob Proctor said something that resonated with me so deeply. The law of attraction has been so misunderstood, he said. It’s the law of vibration — which is the same thing as frequency. So what frequency are you vibrating at? If you’re vibrating at a low frequency, I don’t care what you’re doing out of The Secret, you’re not manifesting anything. I don’t care if you’re taking a manifestation course. I don’t care if you’re writing letters to the universe and sealing them in a box. In reality, we have to do some really hard work that no one wants to do. To manifest anything you desire, you have to ignite her. You have to ignite that highest frequency that is already inside of you. It’s not outside of you. It’s nothing to look outside of you for. It’s a battle going on within you. That’s why I call it the inner rebellion. We are deciding to ignite our highest self. We’re going to fight off the shadow. We’re going to fight off the paradigm. We’re going to fight off the centuries and decades of programming that has made especially women feel the way that they do. We’re going to shed that and step into that higher frequency. It’s not easy. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens through continuous study, courage, action, learning — and continuing that loop. The vision I can finally see IGNITE Her® came about before I ever took the Human Design system and redesigned it, rewrote it for women. It has been the mantra that led the business to where it is today. That was always the pathway. That was always the mission of the brand. And it’s why we trademarked it. But the how has had to evolve over time. The how was waiting for me to evolve. And as I’ve evolved, the how — how to help other women ignite their highest self — has played out over the last six years especially. Looking backward, I can see it all play out. And I can see at least the very next step I need to take. I have a vision that IGNITE Her® becomes a system of daily personal growth and development for women around the world, helping them go into the new era. Women certified as an IGNITE Her® guide, taking this system and helping others. The system is analog and digital. It’s physical and AI. It’s all these things in one — and I think it’s what people are craving right now. Bob Proctor talked about studying every day. There were times he would study the same two pages of a book over and over across several days until the concepts really stuck. So — are we willing to do that? Are we willing to study our divine design? Are we willing to study the IGNITE Her® frequencies and the IGNITE Her® system so we can understand ourselves, our highest self, so we can alter the vibration of ourselves — which is the only way to have the relationships, the life, the money, the legacy work, the fulfillment, the joy? For centuries, people have prayed outside of themselves for the answer, for the outcome, for the result. But it’s an inner journey. You actually get closer to Source, to God, to Universe — whatever you believe — when you go in. Because that exact Source created you, and that exact Source and your spirit are waiting for you to figure this out. I know mine was. You don’t have to wait for January The beautiful part is that I’m diving all in to bring this system forward by January — a guidebook, a journal, my Daily Frequency podcast for members, a Kardex to study, and a web-based app called Juno so you can interact with me, with your design, and study alongside me. It’s AI, it’s digital, it’s physical. It’s all the things, and it’s life-altering. But you don’t have to wait until January. Because the Daily Frequency already exists. It’s been around for two years. We do it in The Red Rebelle Room. You can get started today — getting your reports, starting to study your design, using our custom GPTs for now, and being one of the early adopters of this system. Every day in our community — we have a private mobile app called IGNITE Her® Society — it blows my mind how much people are having major, major breakthroughs from simply studying their own designs, simply studying the IGNITE Her® frequencies and awakening something deep inside of them. As I was talking to you just now, I had a total download of the next step I needed to take, and it was so crystal clear I had to write it down while I was recording. Because that’s how this works. I believe this in my core. It’s changed my marriage. It’s changed my parenting. We are financially in a totally different situation — and it’s not because I randomly had business success. It’s because I’ve had sustainable business success through the development of me. Our business cannot outperform us. Our legacy work cannot outperform how we see ourselves. We need to be able to see o

  4. Jul 8

    I Could Make Millions Teaching Substack. That’s Not What I’m Here For.

    I’m writing to you from a beach bungalow in Queens, New York. It’s almost 100 years old, and it’s new to us — our old bungalow, new to us. I’m an O’Connor from Boston. When I did my 23andMe, it came back 98% Irish. And here I am, sitting on the beach in the very part of New York where people from my homeland came to chase their dreams and build a life for their families. It’s not lost on me. It’s special. I came home from this week with a clarity I have never had before in my life. And I want to share it with you — my focus for the second half of this year, and the why underneath it. Because I believe we’re meant to share our paths with each other. It’s what helps me most, when a mentor tells me the truth about what she’s building and why. So I’ll be honest with you. It would be so easy for me to take the easy path. Have you received your 50 Not Finished personalized report? Join the email list to get yours! I know business. I have my MBA. I spent more than twenty years in corporate, most of it as an executive at IBM. Marketing, sales, product, offers — it comes naturally to me. When Substack came onto the scene, I nerded out, because I could see what a powerful, simple tool it really was for building a business. I could go out tomorrow, run a live launch, teach a free masterclass on Substack, and make sales. I’m good at it. I could probably make millions teaching women how to use Substack for their business. I’m not going to do that. Because teaching business is not what I’ve been put on this earth to do. It’s a bonus — it’s what you get when you work with me inside IGNITE Her® University, where the business training is simply part of the deal. But it is not my calling. It is not what I’m here to be known for. My calling is to help women understand their own unique inner design. Their divine design. And then to find the courage and the clarity to actually take action on it. We are going into a new era. And this new era is about the individual. It’s about listening to yourself — not to the gurus, not to the master coach. It’s about you becoming the master coach of you. And there have been so few tools for a woman to do that on her own. To self-study. To self-coach. To have a self-transformation and finally see herself the way God, the Universe, Source already sees her. I’ve looked for those tools for years. The Enneagram. Bob Proctor’s work. I got certified through the Life Coach School. I went to Human Design and the Gene Keys. Every one of those pieces matters. But there was a huge piece missing. This is what I mean. A woman would go get her Human Design read by an expert — someone who became an expert after seven years of their own deconditioning and three more years of certification to become an analyst. That’s ten years. I don’t believe it should take that. I believe we can transform quickly when we truly get to know ourselves. I used to use an analogy, and it’s time to bring it back. Picture a gorgeous, powerful woman standing in front of a mirror — but the mirror is completely fogged over with steam. She can’t see her reflection. Or the reflection she sees is distorted. The IGNITE Her® Frequencies are the tool I built to wipe that mirror clean. To take the steam right off the glass so she can finally see the sparkling, incredible reflection looking back at her. The Frequencies come from a culmination of everything — my Bob Proctor work, the books that shaped me, my own book 50 Not Finished®, the frequency and awareness work of Dr. David Hawkins, and yes, the operational, mechanical components of Human Design. Not astrology. That’s never been my thing. We are not a Human Design company. You won’t hear me use those two words very often. The IGNITE Her® Frequencies are their own thing — rooted all the way back in the I Ching, one of the oldest texts in human history. And they are a complement to whatever you believe. I’m proud that nearly every religion and spiritual practice is represented among the almost one thousand women in our community around the world. The IGNITE Her® Frequencies go alongside your faith — never instead of it. This is about understanding yourself more deeply, so you can be an even clearer vessel for whatever it is you believe. This is the vision I’m going all in on. We are becoming the world’s leading daily growth practice for women of the new era. I want the IGNITE Her® Frequencies to be the tool she reaches for every single morning to grow into her purpose. And I want a growing force of certified IGNITE Her® guides carrying this out into the world — holding book circles and women’s groups, gathering with their books and card decks and journals to go deeper together. Our mission is simple. My team and I give women a daily method — the IGNITE Her® Frequencies — to know their divine design and grow into their purpose. We are so used to a daily practice for our bodies. Meditation. The way we eat. The way we move. I believe we need a daily practice to get back into who we truly are — and I want it to be both digital and physical. Because I don’t know about you, but I still love to hold a book and write with my pen and sink into something with my hands, not just my screen. So picture the full kit. A guidebook of the 64 Frequencies, the 12 Profiles, the 36 Superpowers — a big, beautiful book that becomes, if I can say it this way, the Bible of you. You study you. You underline. We’re even building in pages for your own notes. Three card decks, about to be published. Your own personalized Frequency reports. A journal that becomes your daily-practice companion — one you’ll collect over the years, the record of your own growth. The Daily Frequency, my daily podcast, which just turned two years old this month — live mentoring, every single day. And Juno, our new AI web app and contemplation partner, built to sit with you around your own divine design. That’s the full kit. And together, it becomes a daily practice. Now imagine an IGNITE Her® guide, certified on all of it, holding circles of women — in person, virtually — building a real practice of her own with this work and helping others do the same. The opportunity right now is incredible. Women are waking up — especially women near and over fifty who feel the call and the pull. I believe the IGNITE Her® Frequencies are how we answer it. Learn your IGNITE Her® Frequencies for free - subscribe for your free report This is not the easy path. The easy path is right there, and I’m walking past it on purpose. Because this is my legacy work. It’s been building since the day I started writing the Frequencies years ago, and I have never felt clarity like this in my life. I’ve made huge progress on the book down here at the beach house. And I’m thrilled to tell you that my dear friend Sarah Connell and her publishing company are going to publish the IGNITE Her® Frequencies book. We are living through one of the most important moments in human history. Yes, a lot is in collapse — four hundred years of a masculine, hierarchical way of doing things. And the feminine frequency is rising alongside it — not to replace it, but to help build what’s next. That’s the inner rebellion. That’s what it means to be a Red Rebel — a woman using the IGNITE Her® Frequencies to step into her highest self and her calling. 2027 is six months out. Now is the time to prepare to step in. If you feel even a flicker of curiosity, come join us in the Red Rebelle Room. This month, our workshop is the New Era Leader — and it’s the reason I have the chills. When you join, three things are waiting for you. Your own personalized New Era Leader report — your locks, your keys, your gates, how your profile is built for the new era, and any new-era superpowers you carry. The live workshop, where we walk through it together. And the brand-new Julie Bot I built for this — a custom GPT with a companion workbook of contemplation questions, so you can keep going deeper long after the session ends. Come get your New Era Leader report — and come see the sparkling reflection. The world will be saved by the ignited woman. I can’t wait for you to see what’s coming. — Julie This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

  5. Jun 24

    Midlife isn’t a reinvention - it’s a Rebellion

    Become a Red Rebelle This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

  6. Apr 28

    The worst mentors & bosses I ever had were women...

    👉 Come join me for the free 5-day New Era Coach Masterclass — we kick off Friday, May 1st. Register now and I'll send you an advance copy of my book TRIBAL: The New Era of Business for Women Near and Over 50, free. Over 5,000 women are already in. Join us here! Learn more here! In this episode, I'm getting honest with you about something most women won't say out loud: the worst mentors and bosses of my 25-year corporate career were women. Not because they were bad people — because they were forced to lead inside a masculine system that stripped the feminine right out of them. I'll tell you the soccer-coach story that nearly cost me a promotion, why I walked away from corporate after 22 years, and why I believe you — if you're a woman near or over 50 — are uniquely positioned to lead what's coming next. Here's what I cover: Why "leaning in" was actually leaning into the wrong system The hierarchy problem that breaks decision-making (and breaks us) Why the new era starting in 2027 belongs to the individual The 4 pillars I'll walk you through in the masterclass: the opportunity, the simple business model, why Substack is the feminine approach, and why tribe is everything Why this rebellion is happening from the inside out — not on the streets One line I want you to sit with: The world will be saved by the ignited woman. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

  7. Apr 21

    The Authority Architectures - your unique operating system that AI can't touch

    Be sure to join us in the upcoming free masterclass - The New Era Coach >>> www.igniteherbrand.com/neweracoach Episode Summary There’s a layer of Human Design almost no one is talking about — and it’s the missing piece I’ve been searching for, for eight years. Variables. In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on my newest body of work: the Authority Architectures. My clients are calling it “the absolute clarity report,” “validating times a thousand,” and “the most seen I have ever felt.” This is the work that reveals your cognitive operating system — how you were divinely designed to take in information, see the world, and lead from. It’s the layer AI cannot touch, cannot replicate, and cannot fake. And it’s the reason your business has felt misaligned when you’ve tried to build it someone else’s way. I’m walking you through what the 16 Authority Architectures are, the four groupings (and which one might be yours), why this work is changing my clients’ launches, marriages, and entire businesses overnight — and how you can get your own report as part of what I’m releasing this May. What We Get Into * Why I knew, eight years ago, that the existing tools weren’t going to cut it — and what I built instead * The difference between inner authority (how you make decisions) and outer authority (what people pay you for) — and the third layer almost no one teaches: your cognition * The overlooked piece of human design called the variables — the four arrows at the top of your chart that change everything * The 16 Authority Architectures, grouped into four families: the Strategic Family, the Peripheral Seers, the Right Mind Pioneers, and the Warm Receivers — which one are you? * Why your environment, your perspective, and the way you process information are the keys to your outer authority radiating * Real client reactions: launches flipping 360 degrees, women finally feeling permission to drop the proof-stacking, the relief of “this is why I’ve felt like a fish out of water” * Why this is the layer AI cannot go — and why that makes it the most valuable thing you can build your business on * My challenge to you: stop trying to be the next version of someone else’s blueprint. Your design is the blueprint. Come Get Your Authority Architecture: The New Era Coach Masterclass I’m gifting the full Authority Architecture experience inside the VIP upgrade of my brand new free masterclass, The New Era Coach. The masterclass itself is completely free for coaches, consultants, guides, and healers ready to reposition themselves for what’s actually coming next: * Prep gathering: Friday, May 1st at 12:00 ET * Live masterclass: May 4–7, 2026 * VIP - New Era Brand Workshop May 8th * Free with registration: an advance digital copy + audiobook of my new book TRIBAL, our private pop-up Facebook community, and a seat at the full 5-day experience Get Your Authority Architecture — Upgrade to VIP for $47 When you register, you’ll see the option to upgrade to VIP for just $47 — and this is where you get the report I’ve been talking about: * Your full Authority Architecture™ Report — your cognitive operating system, the environment you’re designed to lead from, and the perspective only you carry * Your custom Juliebot + Contemplation Guide with prompts to go deep into your design * The brand new Her Profit Map™ (paid version) — your full human design for business * A seat at my New Era Brand Workshop on May 8th My clients are calling this the most clarifying work I’ve ever created. I cannot wait for you to experience it for yourself. 👉 Register at www.igniteherbrand.com/neweracoach xo, Julie This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.julieciardi.com/subscribe

    The Authority Architectures - your unique operating system that AI can't touch

  8. Apr 17

    The Six Figure Substack System

    Replay of live training 4/17/26 The old way is over-tilled soil. Substack is the fertile ground. Here’s the six-figure system I’d build if my whole business burned down tomorrow. Okay, my friend. Pull up a chair. I need to talk to you about something I cannot stop thinking about, cannot stop talking about, cannot stop teaching — and quite frankly, I don’t want to. I’m psycho for Substack. I joke about it because it’s true. But here’s who I’m actually psycho for: you. My clients. The woman reading this who is knee-deep in her coaching business — or trying to launch one — and is exhausted. Exhausted by the tech, the tactics, the tools, the algorithms, the “post every day,” the funnels, the lead magnets, the email systems, the course hosting, the webinar software, the landing page builders, the scheduling tools, the graphics, the editing, the private podcast software, the VA you can’t quite afford but can’t live without. You are not imagining it. The online business space has become madness. And I’m here to tell you: there is a new way. There is fertile soil. And we are going to plant your business there. A Quick Story About Me Feeling Stupid I spent 25 years at IBM. I was a global VP of marketing and sales. I had my MBA. I had spent thirty years either studying business or actually executing on business strategy at the highest level. I left corporate eight years ago, walked into the online business space, and I felt this big. Because everything was complicated. Everything was overbuilt. Everything required another tool, another tech stack, another funnel, another course on how to build the funnel that was going to sell the course on how to build the funnel. I went from feeling like a confident executive to feeling like I knew nothing. The model was broken. All the bros (no offense, bros) built an industry that looked a whole lot like the tech industry I came from — layered, complicated, tool-heavy, and completely disconnected from the thing we actually started our businesses for: serving our people. The Survey That Told Me Everything Back in January, we ran a survey inside a big free masterclass. Thousands of women, and a few good men. All of them starting, restarting, launching, or trying to grow coaching, consulting, advisory, mentoring, guiding, healing businesses. 87% of them wanted the same thing. They wanted a multiple six-figure business. Not an empire. Highly profitable — 50–65% margins. Very small team. Maybe a VA. Maybe one or two support people. Something meaningful. Something manageable. Something that created freedom, fulfillment and financially sound. Only 13% wanted the empire. The seven figures and up. The big team. All the things. Eighty-seven percent of you don’t want what the online coaching industry has been selling you for the last fifteen years. You want the simple six-figure business. You want consistent income without chaos. You want your life back. And almost no one is speaking to that woman. So I am. Loudly. Every day. On Substack. The Old Way (Are You Ready for This?) I made a visual with ChatGPT the other day because I wanted to show what most of you are currently drowning in. Picture a page covered in boxes. Each box is another piece of tech: Email system. Course hosting. Community platform. Webinar software. Landing pages. Sales funnels. Checkout capability. Scheduling. Graphics. Video editing. Audio editing. Public podcast hosting. Private podcast hosting (different software). Lead magnets. Social content — across Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more, none of which talk to each other. Website. Analytics. VA support because it is literally impossible to manage all of this alone. Who can relate? Who is nodding so hard right now that their neck hurts? And even if you got all that working, the buyer is savvy right now and wants nothing to do with being marketed and sold to that way. She knows she’s in a funnel. She recognizes the webinar formula before the first slide loads. She sees the countdown timer reset when she reloads the page. The buyer got smart. The emperor has no clothes. And every box on that left side of the page requires skill, time, energy, and money — none of which you have infinite amounts of. The gold rush is over, my friend. From roughly 2014 to 2022, you could build a coaching business with a ring light, a Facebook ad, and a ClickFunnels account. That era had a beginning, a middle, and now an end. Every emerging market in the history of markets has the same arc: emergence, gold rush, maturation, reset, reinvention. We are in the reset. And the reset is calling new leaders forward. Over-Tilled Soil vs. Fertile Ground Here’s the metaphor I keep thinking about. What does a farmer do when her soil is over-tilled? When the minerals are depleted, when she’s pulled every nutrient out of the ground, when nothing will grow there no matter how hard she works? She moves her crops to fertile ground. Social media — Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok — is over-tilled soil. Best buyers are leaving those platforms because of the AI junk. It’s only going to get worse with AI-generated video flooding every feed. You cannot out-content the AI industrial content revolution. You cannot compete with machines that are creating content while you sleep. So don’t. Substack is the fertile ground. I don’t know how long the soil will be fertile — I hope forever, I’m praying it’s forever, I’m obsessed with how simple it is — but right now, today, it is the place your dream client is actually reading. Actually listening. Actually paying. Actually staying. Everything on the Left Can Be Done on the Right Substack is an all in one. For free. I want this to sink in because it is the single biggest mistake I see people making about Substack: they think it’s a newsletter platform. It is not a newsletter platform. Maybe it started as one. That is not what it is now. Let me walk you through what Substack actually is. Ready? Your email system. Built in. Automated. Your course hosting. You can gate content, build tiers, deliver modules. Your community platform. Chats. Threads. Paid-member-only spaces. Done. Your webinar capability. Live video is native. You hit one button. Your podcast. Public tier. Private (paid-only) tier. Auto-distributed. Your landing pages. Your about page, your pricing page, your sales page — all on your Substack. Your checkout. Built in. Subscribers upgrade with one tap. Your video hosting. Your live auto-posts to YouTube. (I paid $5,000 in 2021 to a YouTube expert and gave up because it was too complicated. Now? One button. I don’t even think about it. Hell yeah.) Your LinkedIn repurposing. Automatic. Your articles go. Your clips go. You don’t lift a finger. Your website. Custom domain. Done. (I made julieciardi.com my Substack. That’s how all-in I am. That’s me walking the walk.) And here’s the thing that makes me lose my mind every time I think about it: most of this is free until you’re making money. Substack doesn’t take a cent until your paid tier starts generating revenue. And when it does, they take around 10%. That’s it. No $400/month software stack. No annual renewals. No VA hired specifically to duct-tape your tools together. One platform. One learning curve. One login. One brain. The Six-Figure Substack System Now let’s talk about how you actually make money. Because yes, I want you to have a feel-good business. But I also want you to have a profitable business. You’re here for both. I call this the Six Figure Substack System. You have three jobs: 1. Marketing 2. Sales 3. Delivery That’s the whole job description. Every single one of those can happen on Substack. Stage 1: Your Free Soapbox This is your public content. Free articles, free notes (Substack’s version of short-form), free lives, free podcasts. This is where you show up, give value, and let people find out who you are. No algorithm roulette. No dancing. No trending audio. Just your voice and your depth and your people finding you. And — this is the part I love — every single surface on Substack has an upgrade button built in. Every article. Every note. Every live. Every podcast. Zero friction. Zero salesy. Zero traditional-funnel energy. Because here’s the culture of Substack: nobody thinks you’re salesy for having a paid tier. It’s expected. It’s normal. It’s why they came. Compare that to Instagram, where everyone is hiding the sell until minute 42 of a webinar. Stage 2: Your Paid Tier Recurring revenue. Warm audience. Trust built before they ever hop on a call with you. Your paid tier can be anything you want. Low ticket — $7/month, $79/year, whatever. Or higher ticket if your stuff is niched and nuanced and your people need exactly what you have. There’s a 20-something in New York City running a paid Substack for the FiDi financial district water cooler — Feed Me by Emily Sundberg — and she’s at nearly a million dollars a year on a $79/year paid tier. You could model your entire business around just the paid tier if you wanted to. You do not need a high-ticket offer to build a multiple six-figure business on Substack. But most of you will have one, so let’s talk about it. Stage 3: Your Higher-Ticket Offers One-on-one coaching. Group masterminds. Retreats. Signature programs. Consults (we call them magic sales calls around here). Here is what has been impossible for most of you: selling high-ticket offers on Instagram. Because it is almost harder to sell a low-ticket thing on Instagram than a high-ticket thing. Because selling on any social platform is brutal right now. I have been in business for eight years and I will tell you: I have never closed a single dollar organically on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Not one. I have sold masterclasses. But the organic-to-sale path? Nope, not once. Now compare that to Substack. Your reader finds your free article.

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About

The midlife reinvention, revolution & reclamation show leveraging the NEW Human Design www.julieciardi.com

Information

  • Creator
    Julie Ciardi
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Julie Ciardi
  • Show Website
    50 Not Finished Show

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