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The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

The Woman Who Makes Millionaires: Only 1% of People Do This! The PPF Framework Will 10x Your Income!

Published November 10, 2025
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About This Episode

Steven interviews Natalie, an entrepreneur who has co-founded two nine-figure companies, Cardone Ventures and Tenex Health, and worked directly with over 15,000 business owners to grow and scale their organizations. She explains her frameworks for goal setting, hiring, communication, time management, and sales, and contrasts the mindset and behaviors of the top 1% with those who struggle to build wealth. The conversation also explores hard work versus burnout, respect versus likability, AI-enabled opportunities, the coming women's wealth transfer, and the importance of believing you can learn any skill you need.

Topics Covered

Entrepreneurship Hiring philosophy Communication skills Personal development Work ethic Artificial intelligence Financial independence Leadership and management Mental health Goal setting Women's wealth transfer

Disclaimer: We provide independent summaries of podcasts and are not affiliated with or endorsed in any way by any podcast or creator. All podcast names and content are the property of their respective owners. The views and opinions expressed within the podcasts belong solely to the original hosts and guests and do not reflect the views or positions of Summapod.

Quick Takeaways

  • Wealth comes from hard work applied to the right problems, not just effort in any direction, and most people cannot clearly link their daily tasks to the financial results they want.
  • Natalie believes long-term business success is primarily determined by the character of the people you partner with and hire, more than by the specific business model.
  • Her PPF framework (Personal, Professional, Financial) structures goals into 1-, 3-, and 5-year targets and she argues there are no goals that sit outside these three buckets.
  • She uses a three-step hiring process (cultural interview, technical interview, core values presentation) and will not hire people who lack clear 5-year goals.
  • Hard work is, in her view, non-negotiable for unusual outcomes; she rejects the idea of burnout as an inevitable result of working a lot and sees "burnout" as a sign the work does not genuinely lead to a desired goal.
  • Respect, she says, requires choosing to be respected rather than liked and backing that up with undeniable results and statistics in specific areas.
  • She advises ignoring passive income until you have at least $1 million, focusing instead on rapidly increasing active income through skill-building and value creation.
  • Natalie sees massive opportunity in AI-enabled services for small businesses, service trades, health, and pet care, and believes the only durable edge is the ability to learn and adapt quickly.
  • She highlights a major upcoming women's wealth transfer (from about $10 trillion to $30 trillion controlled by women in the US between 2025 and 2030) and argues that women are currently underprepared financially.
  • Her core message is that anyone can learn anything with current tools, and that dropping excuses and confronting your weak spots (like numbers or communication) changes your trajectory.

Podcast Notes

Framing the conversation: Wealth, hard work, and working on the right problems

Why this discussion matters for people who work hard but lack wealth

Disconnect between effort and financial results[3:27]
• Natalie says if you have worked hard and put in effort and energy but do not have wealth to show for it, this conversation is important.
• She defines wealth as coming from hard work on the right set of problems, not just any work.
Need to connect daily work to measurable results[3:44]
• Regardless of role (team member, leader, business owner), you should be able to objectively point to your work and say it generated a specific result.
• If income and wealth are not where you want them to be, it likely means the problems you are solving daily are not tied to your wealth goals.

Natalie's diagnosis of a global wealth crisis

Confusion about financial literacy and who is making money[4:27]
• She believes there is a wealth crisis across the globe driven by confusion and misunderstanding about financial literacy.
• She notes people do not understand who is making money, how they are making it, and what those people spend their time on.
Focus of the conversation: Strategies of the 1%[4:36]
• She wants to unpack the strategies the top 1% use for time, investments, skills, and mindset that are different from the 99% who cannot seem to create the wealth they want.

Natalie's business background and scale

Overview of her two nine-figure businesses

Cardone Ventures: Management consulting and investment firm[5:07]
• In the last six years she co-founded two businesses that are now nine-figure companies.
• Cardone Ventures, started in 2019, is a management consulting and investment firm that helps small business owners grow and scale.
• She works daily with owners doing about $3M in annual revenue who want to reach $5M or $10M because they realize $3M does not create financial security.
Tenex Health: Health business acquisition[5:36]
• Their second business, Tenex Health, was purchased in 2023.
• She says Tenex Health is helping people all over the world and is also a nine-figure business.

Types of support Cardone Ventures offers small businesses

Education, consulting, services, and investing[6:01]
• She describes Cardone Ventures as similar to McKinsey for small businesses.
• They reverse engineer the client's market, products and services, and then provide either services or education/consulting.
• Services can include doing marketing, recruiting, or bookkeeping for clients.
Training and building competence in owners[6:35]
• They run large events training owners on hiring and recruiting so owners can eventually do it themselves rather than outsource.
• She prefers when owners build competence; e.g., understanding a P&L and balance sheet instead of abdicating financial control to someone like "Steven from church" who may only know how to run a $3M business.

Core lesson from working with 15,000+ business owners: Character and people

Fundamental difference between successful and unsuccessful owners

Character over business model[8:13]
• Natalie says the ultimate differentiator is the character of the person running the business.
• Even with a great business model and scalable operations, if the person is unethical, compliant (overly acquiescent), or not someone who genuinely wants to win, success is extremely difficult.
• She believes principles around accounting, recruitment, and platforms have remained fairly stable; what she painfully learned is that everything is about the people you do business with.
Impact of partners, inner circle, and team[9:09]
• She emphasizes partners and inner-circle people as critical both in her own companies and in clients' businesses.
• She gives an example of a promising business owner whose spouse, child, or even paid employee can undermine her goals, reducing confidence and keeping the business stuck.
• She notes the irony that you pay employees to help you, yet some end up detracting from your ability to achieve your goals.

How Natalie finds and selects A-players

Three-step interview process

Step 1: Cultural interview and 5-year goals[10:37]
• She begins with a cultural interview, focusing on alignment with the organization and whether the candidate is goal-oriented.
• Her key question is: what are your five-year goals? She insists on a real, specific answer.
• She will not hire people without goals because it is demoralizing in an environment where others are there to achieve their own, the company's, and customers' goals.
Step 2: Technical interview - get close to the work[11:34]
• She immediately moves to a technical interview to see candidates as close to the real work as possible.
• For sales roles, she has candidates call a list of 50 people and listens to the calls.
• For graphic designers, she rejects long briefs and timelines; instead they must quickly produce ads or presentation graphics using tools like Adobe or Canva.
• If someone cannot assemble a basic presentation or graphic quickly, she will not hire them because the work in her environment must be turned around fast.
Step 3: Core values presentation[13:01]
• Final step is a core values interview where candidates must present to leadership how they have exemplified the company's core values in the past.
• For the first 100 team members at Cardone Ventures, she personally listened to every core values presentation.
• She uses specificity as a test: if someone cannot give concrete metrics like leads generated or conversion rates, they probably do not know what they are talking about.
• She insists business owners must actively own their culture and environment or employees will create their own subculture and the owner loses control.

Goal setting framework: Personal, Professional, Financial (PPF)

Structure and reasoning behind PPF

Three buckets for all goals[13:56]
• She has a three-step methodology rolled out to thousands of people: personal goals, professional goals, and financial goals.
• After more than a thousand one-on-one conversations, she says she has never found a goal outside those three buckets.
Avoid esoteric New Year's lists[14:18]
• She contrasts her framework with typical New Year's resolutions, which she sees as vague and esoteric.
• She recommends clearly defining what success looks like personally, professionally, and financially, then setting 1-, 3-, and 5-year targets for each.
Difficulty of thinking 5 years out[14:41]
• She notes that 1-year goals are easy for most people, 3-year goals are fuzzier, and 5-year goals are hardest to imagine.
• She emphasizes that time passes regardless; in 5 years everyone will simply be 5 years older, so you might as well define who you will be.

How to write PPF goals

Simple layout on paper[15:56]
• She suggests writing "Personal" at the top with columns or buckets for 1-, 3-, and 5-year goals.
• Then do the same for "Professional" and "Financial" with defined targets in each time frame.

Natalie's transformation: From anxious 20-year-old to self-described badass

Early anxiety and fear of judgment

Concerns about marrying an older, successful man[16:30]
• At 20 she was crippled with anxiety and fear about what others thought of her relationship with a man 25 years older.
• She worried people would think she married or "slept" her way to the top, was not smart, or was a gold digger.
• She even questioned whether she should avoid marrying someone she loved deeply just to avoid others' judgment.
Fear of being successful for the "wrong" reasons[16:50]
• She feared that if she became successful, people would attribute it solely to her husband's success, and part of her worried they might be right.

How she built confidence: statistics and proof

Obsessing over stats to validate herself[17:47]
• Natalie says her aura came from targeting specific stats that others could not take away.
• She focused on measurable outcomes like the number of people she recruited, which proved she knew how to hire, interview, and build culture.
• She became obsessed with avoiding activities that did not lead to stats and outcomes.
Advice to insecure or anxious 20-year-olds[18:52]
• Her advice is to go all in on yourself and on one specific interest, not 12 different things.
• Whether it is scrapbooking, social media, recruiting, or reading business books, she urges becoming completely obsessed and structuring your environment to become the best at that thing.

Identity, appearance, and rebranding yourself

Does how you look matter in transformation?

Balancing self-acceptance with strategic appearance[19:53]
• She says appearance matters a lot to many people, though people have different acceptance levels with how they look.
• She believes people often overemphasize looks, but if you want a new identity (e.g., going from an unserious college student to a professional golfer), it makes sense to look and act the part.

Be, do, have: Her identity model

Become the person before you have the outcome[21:09]
• She strongly believes in "be, do, have": first become the person, then do the actions, and finally have the results or identity you want.
• To change your external environment, she advises getting into the rooms you want to be in and, as long as it does not violate your moral code, dressing and acting like the person you want to become.

Communication: Presence, frameworks, and conviction

Importance of presence in communication

Being fully in the room[22:39]
• Natalie says communication is essential for success because you must be able to convey ideas, who you are, and your point of view.
• She is "incredibly present" in any room, which she sees as a missing skill in a phone-distracted world.
• She notes many aspiring leaders look unaware in meetings because they are checking emails instead of being fully engaged.
Owning your physical presence[23:05]
• She believes effective communicators track what is happening in the room and can converse with anyone who approaches them.
• She stresses that how you present yourself to every individual, not just the most important person, matters because you are sharing that environment.
• She recounts sitting at a 35,000-person event listening to Grant and Elena Cardone, taking notes and being visibly engaged, which she says helped lead to their eventual partnership.

Vision-Commitment-Execution (VCE) communication framework

Overview of the 3-step framework[25:39]
• She uses a three-step structure for any important communication: Vision, Commitment, and Execution.
• She says VCE can be used for asking for promotions, laying people off, persuading a partner about dinner plans, or delegating new initiatives.
Step 1: Vision - explain the why[25:39]
• Vision articulates the intention and why behind what you are communicating; she argues people forget tactics but remember why something matters to them.
• In a Twitch example, she would tie launching a Twitch channel back to Cardone Ventures' mission to help a million business owners achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals.
Step 2: Commitment - what you give and what you ask[27:24]
• Commitment has two parts: first, what she commits to (training, mentorship, investing money), and second, what she asks in return from the other person.
• In the Twitch scenario, she would commit to providing top training and contacts, and in return ask that the person take it seriously, follow up, and aim to be the best in the space.
Step 3: Execution - specific plan and targets[27:42]
• Execution describes how it will look in practice, such as setting up accounts, paying $5,000 for mentorship, and targeting 10,000 Twitch subscribers in eight weeks with daily check-ins.

Common communication mistakes

Starting at execution and skipping alignment[28:24]
• She says leaders often return from conferences and immediately tell staff to "figure out" a new platform, starting with execution and skipping vision and commitment.
• Without mutual commitment, leaders assume progress is happening for weeks or months when nothing is actually moving, wasting time and eroding trust.

Language choices: "I think" vs "I believe" and certainty

When hedging is useful vs when it weakens you[30:20]
• Natalie says phrases like "I think" can be outdated advice to avoid, because sometimes it is honest and builds trust to admit uncertainty.
• However, she warns against overusing weak filler phrases in contexts where you need to project conviction, because you are always playing a certainty game with investors, clients, and team members.
• She agrees that "I believe" can sound more authoritative in written communication but cautions leaders to be careful: if they express too much certainty, subordinates may stop challenging flawed ideas.

Time management, calendars, and designing your life

Your calendar as a mirror of your priorities

You must invest time in what you want[33:55]
• Natalie says nothing just manifests; to have a great relationship, you must actually invest time with your significant other and friends.
• She calls your calendar a representation of what you find important and whether your time use is aligned or misaligned with your goals.
Revenue generation and misaligned time[34:29]
• If you spend zero time on revenue-generating activities, you should not be surprised when revenue does not grow year over year.
• She teaches business owners to review their calendar daily and align it with their aspirations rather than letting life become a story of luck.

Strategic time use for better relationships, friends, and opportunities

Reverse engineering your time to change your life[35:11]
• She says many listeners likely want different health, income, or friendships than they currently have.
• To get "badass friends" and do cool things, she suggests reverse engineering daily time use for two years to get around people doing similar things and to bring them value.
• She acknowledges it sounds strategic but argues great people want to be around others doing great things, which only happens if you control and design your time.

Hard work, burnout, and responsibility

Her stance on hard work and unusual outcomes

Hard work is non-negotiable for big goals[37:04]
• She states that working hard is the most important thing and you cannot reach unusual or out-of-the-ordinary goals without it.
• She acknowledges some people can "hack" success through looks or inheritance but says such people often have crippling fear and anxiety because they did not earn it.
Be-do-have ordering and reduced anxiety[38:24]
• She contrasts lottery winners or inheritors (who "have" before they "do" or "be") with those who become the person and do the work before having the result.
• Because she did the work to become the person who creates money, she does not fear it all collapsing; she believes she could redo it.

Her own work hours and lack of hobbies

Working essentially all the time[39:03]
• When asked how hard she works, she replies she is "never not working" and that everything in her life is optimized to the work she does.
• She feels the work she does can change her life and others' lives, so it would be selfish not to think about it constantly.
Minimal hobbies and sense of responsibility[40:01]
• She says she does not have hobbies besides enjoying facials.
• She feels a huge responsibility toward business owners who are confused and need her help, and wants her behavior even in private (e.g., with her husband) to match what clients expect of her.

Reframing burnout and responsibility

You are not a candle: Her view of burnout[41:23]
• She quotes Grant Cardone saying, "You are not a candle. You cannot burn out."
• She acknowledges people feel pressure and stress but does not see burnout from a long day as typical among successful people who are still "in the game."
Why people actually feel burnt out[42:26]
• She argues people burn out when the hard thing they are doing is not clearly leading to a goal they truly care about, like working out intensely but believing they will never get a six-pack.
• If they believe the hard work will actually get them there and change their life, the same sacrifices feel energizing instead of draining.
• She has seen business owners who sell for hundreds of millions feel joy first, then a renewed drive to solve more problems and make more impact as new goals emerge.

Kids, excuses, and allocating time to family vs work

Working hard when you have children or sick relatives

You can do both: be a good parent and work a lot[44:35]
• Natalie acknowledges that critics might say her schedule is only possible because she does not have kids and says "they're right" that her situation is different.
• But she insists you can have kids, be a great parent, and also work a lot, as long as you define and protect focused time with your children.
Defining the right amount of time with kids or parents[46:29]
• She encourages parents to decide what amount of time per day (e.g., two or three hours) would make them feel they were being a good, actively involved parent.
• She differentiates between genuinely focused time and half-present time spent on TV, social media, or calls while with kids.
• She gives a similar example with a sick parent, suggesting 90 minutes of fully present time in the hospital might be what is truly needed, rather than six distracted hours.

Exposing "I have X" as an excuse

Checking screen time to reveal misused hours[47:41]
• She hears many people say "I have kids" or "I have sick parents" as reasons they cannot build what they want.
• Her tactic is to ask for their phone, open screen time, and if she sees hours spent on Netflix or Instagram, she tells them to reallocate that time to building the life they want.
• She does not believe children are harmed by seeing parents work hard; she credits her own parents' strong work ethic and goal pursuit with shaping who she is.
• She even argues parents' own goals and success should, in some sense, be more important than their children, rather than over-indexing on kids at the expense of everything else.

Happiness, contentment, and success

Are happiness and success opposed?

Natalie's view: success and happiness are the same[48:45]
• Asked whether being happy and content or being successful matters more, she says they are the same thing, not opposites.
• She is happiest when she is driving revenue, hiring people, and helping business owners, i.e., doing the activities that make her successful.

Debate about "Sarah" and the Netflix life

Steven's hypothetical contented Sarah[50:50]
• Steven introduces a hypothetical woman "Sarah" who scrolls Netflix, walks her dog, crochets, and works a nine-to-five, and questions whether she could be genuinely happy.
Natalie's rejection of passive contentment[51:49]
• Natalie says she refuses to believe Sarah is happy staying in an escapist bubble of streaming and social media.
• She argues Sarah is being constantly slapped in the face by reminders of things she cannot have and that she is dependent on external sources of income, which breeds resentment.
• She notes many women watch endless makeup tutorials without ever applying the techniques, using them as distraction rather than action.

Survival, status, dependence, and independence

Survival and status as underlying drivers

Social media, status proxies, and survival[54:36]
• Steven suggests that historically status, not wealth, was the core survival currency and that modern fixation on material wealth may be a proxy for status and belonging.
• Natalie agrees status is a proxy for survival and says having many people who know and trust you globally increases your chances of being helped when you have a problem.

Genetic survival vs independence trends

Genetic extinction and independence[57:50]
• Steven notes that people focused on independence and achievement are statistically having fewer kids, while someone like Sarah with four kids is genetically continuing.
• He observes declining faith, community institutions, and family formation, worrying society is becoming too individualistic for our nature.
Dependence as unavoidable and scalable[58:00]
• Natalie responds that once personal survival is handled, money quickly goes to addressing others' survival-family, friends, employees, and broader groups.
• She frames building wealth and contacts as creating abundance so you and others around you can survive through different challenges.

Respect versus being liked, and earning respect

Choosing respect over likability

First decision: prefer respect to being liked[1:00:48]
• Natalie says the first step in earning respect is deciding you would rather be respected than liked.
• She points out that when the respectable choice is unlikable, many people still choose to be liked, which undermines respect.

Getting undeniable stats in specific domains

Respect is domain-specific, not global[1:01:55]
• She argues you need stats in the area where you want respect; respect is not an all-of-life label, but tied to compartments like business, relationships, etc.
• For example, someone with no successful relationship should not be giving relationship advice and expecting respect in that area.
• She believes people must decide what they want to be known for in 3-5 years and act now in alignment with that future self.

Boundaries, ethics, and firing for personal behavior

Firing employees for infidelity

The cheating incident and immediate termination[1:03:42]
• Natalie describes firing two employees as soon as she learned they were cheating on their respective partners with each other.
• She had posted about it publicly and received heavy criticism online.
Why she sees personal ethics as business-relevant[1:04:40]
• She insists it is her business even if the affair were fully outside work, because if someone will cheat on the person they are supposed to spend their life with, she expects they will cheat at work too.
• She views such individuals as liabilities who erode the group's values and distract themselves with personal ethical messes instead of doing good work.
• She says as a leader her job is to make people's success easy, and she would not want her own spouse in an environment accepting cheating, lying, or drug use.

Choosing businesses to build in 2025 and beyond

Framing new business ideas: maximize chance of success

Pick markets for highest success probability, not just existing skills[1:07:05]
• She advises would-be founders to ask where they have the greatest chance of being successful, not simply what matches their existing experience.
• She notes most people default to what they already know instead of strategically selecting the best opportunities.

AI as a massive small-business opportunity

Few small businesses know how to use AI[1:08:33]
• She calls AI the great leveler because almost nobody in small business has deep experience with it.
• She notes small businesses do not know how to hook up automations, connect CRMs to financial software, or build AI assistants to support operations.
High-value service: implementing AI systems for owners[1:09:04]
• She suggests a founder could build an 8- or even 9-figure business in 18-24 months by solving AI integration problems for business owners.
• She points out business owners have "infinite" budgets for things that really work to make them money, and will be very loyal to providers who solve these problems.

Market growth and choosing high-opportunity sectors

Why growth markets beat stagnant ones[1:10:16]
• She emphasizes the importance of market growth when choosing a business; entering a shrinking or flat market like paper in 2025 requires exceptional differentiation.
• Fast-growing markets allow more innovation and more new entrants to succeed even if they are not perfect.

Promising sectors: AI, home services, health, and pet care

Home services and AI-enabled operations

Trades are stable but operations are ripe for AI[1:10:45]
• She is excited about service-based businesses like roofers, plumbers, electricians, and HVAC companies.
• She notes their core service is hard to disrupt until robots exist, but their operations are ready for AI-based improvements, which consultants could implement for tens of thousands per client.

Hybrid wellness clubs and health

Health priorities shifted after COVID[1:12:26]
• She says there has been continued growth in health-related markets since COVID, as people increasingly prioritize health over nightlife-based activities.
• She mentions amenities like new technologies in gyms and cites an example of a spa facial integrating IV services to add health-related revenue during otherwise idle time.

Pet care as a high-spend emotional market

People spend heavily on pets, sometimes more than on kids[1:14:37]
• She says people will spend more money on their pets than on their kids or themselves.
• She shares an anecdote of someone doing Reiki for 12 dogs to illustrate how far pet owners will go.
• She believes high-income earners without children are particularly inclined to spend discretionary income on making their pets comfortable and "well" via services like caretakers, nail polish, and therapies.

Scaling from owner-operator to real business

Hitting the bottleneck around $1M revenue

Expected challenges in moving beyond self-doing[1:15:13]
• She says reaching a plateau around $1M (or similar) where the owner is the bottleneck is not unique; statistics show this is an expected break point.
• The core problem is that owners do not know how to train others to do what they do well, so they stay stuck doing everything.

Tactical skill: documenting and delegating processes

Using the calendar to identify and delegate low-value tasks[1:16:41]
• She advises owners to open their calendar, examine what they do each day, and identify tasks that are not the highest-value for them to keep doing.
• They must then document those tasks as processes, ideally using a structure like vision, commitment, and execution so employees understand the why and the expectations.
Four-step training method: tell, show, let, coach[1:17:41]
• She recommends a four-step training approach: tell the person what to do (the process), show them, let them do it, and coach them with feedback.
• Once employees are consistently doing the process correctly without the owner's involvement, that piece of the owner's role is effectively delegated.

Why "I tried that and it failed" is often the owner's fault

Onboarding and hiring accountability[1:19:00]
• Owners often say they tried delegating, were disappointed, and concluded they must do everything themselves.
• Natalie challenges them to examine their interview process, onboarding, whether they truly showed the person what to do, and whether the role was clearly defined.

Hiring senior talent and the risk of being duped

Owners not knowing what they are hiring for

Vague job descriptions and misaligned outcomes[1:20:09]
• She thinks many owners do not truly understand the work they are hiring for, so they copy generic job descriptions from the internet or AI.
• Without clear outcomes, new hires drive their own interpretation of the role based on past experience, which often diverges from what the business really needs.

Guardrails for hiring "smarter" people

Ensure new leaders can duplicate what already works[1:21:43]
• Natalie believes hiring people "smarter" than you becomes appropriate only after you can clearly articulate and prove what works in your current business.
• She warns that if a new leader changes core processes that got you to, say, $10M in revenue, you risk sliding backward to $7-8M.
• Her approach is to have senior hires first master and replicate existing successful processes within a few months, then add their innovations.

Sales and being "sold" yourself

Grant Cardone's maxim: to the extent you are sold, you will sell

Belief in product, company, and path[1:27:41]
• She quotes Grant: "To the extent you are sold you will sell," meaning your belief level sets your ability to persuade others.
• If a salesperson does not believe in the product, company, or even that selling cars is what they truly want to do, they will rationalize poor results by criticizing their environment.

Choosing the right thing to be sold on

Reasonableness leads to unsold salespeople[1:30:25]
• She argues some people took jobs like car sales because they became "reasonable" after being rejected from roles they truly wanted (e.g., a PR firm).
• Instead of going back to the job or industry they were genuinely sold on, they try to sell something they never believed in, then conclude they are bad at sales.

Example: Selling roofs ethically and confidently

Selling as problem revelation and solution framing[1:30:45]
• She trains roofing sales teams by first making them see the real value of showing homeowners damage they do not know about, such as after storms.
• She describes walking roofs or flying drones to find damage, then educating salespeople on the long-term value loss and repair benefits, often covered by insurance.
• When salespeople are sold that they are protecting the homeowner's largest investment and that insurance may pay, selling the roof becomes a mission rather than a hustle.

Women's wealth transfer and financial literacy

Scale and timeline of the women's wealth transfer

From $10T to $30T controlled by women in the US[1:34:18]
• Natalie says that between 2025 and 2030, money controlled by women in the US is expected to rise from about $10 trillion to $30 trillion.
• This wealth will mostly be in assets like homes, businesses, portfolios, and bank accounts, not just cash.

Structural gaps and content culture

Historical exclusion and current ill-preparedness[1:35:16]
• She notes that as recently as 50 years ago women were not allowed to open bank accounts without a husband or father, with relevant laws changing only in the 1980s.
• Many women inheriting assets today were left out of conversations with financial advisors and do not know how to manage what they receive.
Manifestation content vs real financial systems[1:37:27]
• She cites an Elvest study showing there is 12 times more manifestation content created by women than investing and equity content.
• According to her, 70% of women feel more overwhelmed about finances after consuming such content because it is mostly tips and hacks, not systems and processes.

Broader financial crisis: small businesses and low margins

Too many small, low-margin businesses[1:38:30]
• She says there are about 35 million businesses in the US but fewer than 200,000 make more than $1M in revenue.
• With an average business margin around 8.5%, she argues many owners are barely making enough money and the apparent abundance seen on social media is misleading.

Most important financial lesson: money matters and skills create income

Prioritize income growth over tiny investment gains

Money matters, so align time with making more of it[1:39:49]
• She believes the most important financial information is simply that money matters and you must spend time getting skills and doing things that generate more money.
• She warns you can "save your way to the bottom" if you never focus on increasing your top-line income.

Using AI to design a personal upskilling syllabus

Prompting AI for a one-year income jump plan[1:41:27]
• She suggests going to an AI platform with your current skills, interests, and job, and asking it to design a syllabus to increase your income by $100,000 within 12 months.
• You would specify you can invest two hours per day in learning, and AI can break that into weekly skill-building plans.
• She frames things like investing and 401(k)s as secondary; the main lever is acquiring skills that solve valuable problems in exchange for higher income.

Passive income versus active income and the AI era of skills

Reality of passive income

Ignore passive income until you have $1M[1:43:49]
• She says you should only aim at passive income once you have at least $1M in your bank account.
• Before that, you have no significant asset base, and your time is better spent learning how to rapidly grow active income.
• On a $60,000 salary, even a 15% return on savings is too small to reach financial freedom quickly; increasing income matters more.

Compounding confidence from learning

Learning as the "greatest drug"[1:45:05]
• She describes learning as the greatest drug, because once you have learned to add $100,000, you realize you can run the same process again to 10x your income.
• She says passive income is a backup plan or rainy-day fund, but 99% of your time should be spent making plan A work.

Future of skills, AI, and the only durable edge

AI and robots threatening existing skills

Many traditional skills are being automated[1:46:29]
• Steven notes that accountants, lawyers, writers, and even podcasters are seeing aspects of their work replicated by AI.
• He raises the concern that investing heavily in one skill may be risky as AI makes it obsolete, and even his edge as a writer is challenged by AI mimicking his style.

Natalie's answer: the edge is the ability to learn and adapt

Confront what you do not know and use AI as a tutor[1:48:56]
• She believes the only durable skill in an AI world is the ability to adapt and learn new things.
• She urges people to honestly acknowledge what they do not know (e.g., reading a P&L, legal contracts, AI terminology) and push through discomfort to learn.
• For her, AI has been a personal tutor that taught her in two years what she would otherwise have needed formal degrees for, and even then she says many degree holders missed important aspects.

Not being scared of AI

Excitement instead of fear[1:51:59]
• She says she is not scared of AI at all; she is pumped because it removed her sense of numbness about topics "smart people" knew that she did not.
• She emphasizes that AI is accessible regardless of gender, race, or age, giving everyone a chance to learn what they need for new circumstances.

Believing you can learn anything and dropping excuses

Core message to all income levels

Radical belief in your ability to learn[1:53:01]
• Natalie wants listeners earning $60K, $1M, or $100M alike to truly believe they can learn anything they want to know.
• She says there is no special privilege or characteristic that others have and you do not when it comes to learning.

Her own limiting belief about numbers

From thinking she was stupid with numbers to attacking the weakness[1:54:08]
• She recalls struggling to remember numbers, reversing them, and believing she was stupid for much of her life.
• She realized it was just a story because she had never actually spent a Sunday afternoon trying to get better at remembering numbers.
• She says successful people limit how many excuses they accept, either over-indexing on strengths or attacking limitations that are truly holding them back.

Gender differences in confidence and goal setting

Men's and women's different self-assessments

Observations from goal-setting conversations[1:55:43]
• She has personal, professional, and financial goal conversations with male and female account managers in similar roles.
• She observes that a highly performant woman making $80K might ask to earn $90K in a year, while a less performant man on $80K might target $200-250K within three years.

Helping people, especially women, expand their vision

Using visualization tools like Pinterest[1:56:52]
• With such women, she asks them to imagine their life in three years-age, money, relationships, travel, etc.-and then build a Pinterest board of specific things they would love to have.
• She believes leaders' job is to inspire people that they can have the life they want through their work, and to be brutally honest about behaviors that hold them back.

Communication journey: from panic on stage to confident speaker

A humiliating early presentation

Freezing during an hour-long leadership program talk[1:58:18]
• She recounts presenting a new leadership program at 8am, getting through five minutes, turning to the screen, and then being overcome by nerves.
• Her thoughts and words disconnected; she rushed through the remaining 55 minutes of material in seven minutes and then sat silently while others discussed points she should have covered.
• For about four years afterward she was unable to speak comfortably to groups larger than four or five people due to anxiety.

Deliberate practice to become a strong communicator

Launching a podcast on age-gap relationships[2:00:26]
• To work on communication, she launched a podcast even though she did not yet have business authority.
• She focused on what she did know: being in an age-gap relationship, being a stepmom, third marriages, and how to navigate associated stigma and family conversations.
Making toasts to practice speaking[2:01:07]
• She set herself the mission of making a toast at every meal where it made sense for a year, as a way to repeatedly practice speaking in front of others.
• She did this so that when she returned to the annual charity trip where she had once fumbled the "What do you do?" question, she could present herself more confidently.

Feeling disrespected, being "too nice," and liking yourself

Not being taken seriously as fuel

Converting frustration into action[2:03:37]
• Natalie says being looked down on or not taken seriously is actually your superpower if you convert that frustration into changes in how you show up.
• She describes being mortified at a charity trip when she could not answer "What do you do?" convincingly, then using that to fuel a year of building tangible achievements.

Being liked vs respected in social and work contexts

Choosing who you want to be liked by[2:05:21]
• She says people stuck in the loop of wanting to be liked while feeling disrespected must choose who they want to be liked by.
• If you choose to be liked by unrespectable coworkers who complain about the company, you stay trapped; if you seek to be liked by respectable people, you must make different sacrifices.

Becoming your own best friend

Brutal honesty and dropping self-cruelty[2:06:03]
• Natalie says there is no greater joy than actually liking yourself and being your own best friend-not in a coddling way, but with brutal honesty about strengths and weaknesses.
• She notes she used to be extremely mean to herself, saying things she would never say to others, and had to work on rewiring those patterns.
• She gives the example of watching large amounts of reality TV, loving Bravo shows, but feeling crappy because she envied the cast's lives instead of creating her own.
• She sees such escapism (TV, social media) as harmful drugs that shortcut the process of building the life you actually want.

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Wealth and meaningful success come from applying hard work to the right problems, which requires clearly linking your daily actions to the measurable results you want instead of drifting through tasks that are disconnected from your financial and life goals.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What specific problems am I solving each day, and how directly do they connect to the income and outcomes I say I want?
  • • How could I redesign my next week so that more of my calendar is spent on activities that clearly drive revenue or meaningful progress rather than busywork?
  • • What is one recurring task I do that has a weak link to my goals, and what concrete step can I take this week to eliminate, delegate, or redesign it?
2

Character and people decisions are leverage points: who you partner with, hire, and allow into your inner circle will amplify or sabotage any business model, so you must prioritize ethics, ambition, and alignment over convenience or vibes.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Who in my current environment consistently undermines my standards or goals, and what does that reveal about the boundaries I've set (or not set)?
  • • How might raising my bar for character and alignment in partners and hires change the trajectory of my projects over the next 12 months?
  • • What is one specific boundary or hiring criterion I can implement this month to better filter for the kind of people who will help me win long term?
3

Building undeniable "stats" in focused domains-concrete, measurable achievements tied to skills-creates deep confidence and respect that cannot be dismissed as luck, connections, or perception.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In which area of my life or work do I most want to be respected, and what hard, objective stat would prove that respect is deserved?
  • • How could I break that stat into a 3-12 month target with weekly actions so that I can see tangible progress instead of staying in vague aspiration?
  • • What is one metric (clients helped, revenue generated, projects completed, talks given, etc.) I could start tracking today to build my own evidence base?
4

Your calendar is a brutally honest mirror of your values: deliberately scheduling time for revenue generation, relationships, health, and learning gives you control, while unscheduled hours tend to dissolve into distraction and excuses.

Reflection Questions:

  • • When I look at last week's calendar or screen time, what does it say I truly value, regardless of what I claim is important?
  • • How can I redesign one weekday and one weekend day so that they more accurately reflect the life I want in 3-5 years?
  • • What is one block of time (even 30-60 minutes) I can protect each day this week for a high-leverage activity like sales, skill-building, or deep work?
5

In a world where AI is rapidly automating tasks, the only durable edge is your willingness and ability to learn new skills, confront what you do not know, and use tools like AI as tutors rather than threats.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What important skill or domain (finance, AI, contracts, data, etc.) have I been avoiding because it makes me feel stupid or behind?
  • • How might my confidence and opportunities change over the next year if I treated that discomfort as a signal to learn rather than a permanent limitation?
  • • What concrete learning plan could I start this week-perhaps using an AI tool to design a syllabus-for spending at least 1-2 hours a day upgrading a specific skill?
6

Choosing to be respected rather than liked, and being willing to let go of relationships that reward your lowest standards, creates the space to become someone you genuinely like and to attract people who respect you for the right reasons.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in my life am I currently choosing to be liked over being respected, and what compromises am I making as a result?
  • • How would my behavior change in meetings, friendships, or family dynamics if my primary aim were to respect myself rather than keep everyone comfortable?
  • • What is one concrete conversation, boundary, or small act of courage I could take this week that might make me less liked in the short term but more respected in the long term?

Episode Summary - Notes by Jordan

The Woman Who Makes Millionaires: Only 1% of People Do This! The PPF Framework Will 10x Your Income!
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