What if there was a NEW way to visualize that was 10x more effective? And what if that method was backed by science? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Mimi Bouchard, the visionary founder of Superhuman Activations—a groundbreaking app that’s redefining activations and visualization practices. We go deep into the transformative power of visualization, sharing personal stories about how manifesting has shaped our lives, and exploring actionable strategies to hack your brain for success. Mimi opens up about her journey from having just $7 in her bank account to building a multimillion-dollar company, all by harnessing the power of self-image and visualization. If you’re eager to up-level your career, relationships, or personal growth, this conversation is packed with insights and practical tips you won’t want to miss.
Key takeaways:
- The power of self-image: Changing your self-image is the foundational step to transforming your life. By visualizing your future self, you naturally start embodying the habits and actions that lead to success.
- Visualization as a tool for success: visualization isn’t just “woo-woo”—there’s science behind it. It can reprogram your brain to recognize opportunities and accelerate your journey toward your goals.
- Bounce back rate: It’s not about perfection; it’s about how quickly you recover from setbacks. Improving your “bounce back rate” can make you more resilient and keep you moving forward.
- Overcoming shame: Letting go of shame and embracing self-worth are crucial for personal and financial growth. Shame can be a blocker, preventing you from taking action toward your goals.
- Unbecoming to become: Personal development is more about shedding layers that aren’t truly you rather than becoming someone else. It’s about aligning with your most authentic self.
Notable quotes
“This work is truly more about unbecoming than it is about becoming something different.”
“To be different, to feel different, to feel outside of average and to experience an un-average life, we must be doing things that the average person does not do.”
“Back then, personal development was like white men on the cover of books with their thumbs up. There was never anyone that looked like me, so I’d love to be that person for someone, especially a young woman.”
Episode at-a-glance
≫ 01:21 Introducing Today’s Guest: Mimi Bouchard
≫ 02:53 Mimi’s Journey to Success
≫ 09:39 The Power of Visualization and Manifestation
≫ 15:26 Overcoming Scarcity and Achieving Financial Freedom
≫ 23:38 The Science Behind Visualization
≫ 37:23 Travel and Activations
≫ 41:05 The Power of Visualization
≫ 42:26 Changing Your Self-Image
≫ 46:24 The Importance of Consumption
≫ 53:55 Balancing Self-Development
≫ 01:00:34 The Bounce Back Rate
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Meet Mimi
Mimi is an entrepreneurial trailblazer who defied convention by making radical changes to pursue her vision of creating a revolutionary new type of audio – Activations – offered on the top rated app, Superhuman. Hailing as one of the OG personal development bloggers from almost a decade ago, Mimi has accumulated over 250,000 followers across her social media platforms and is the host of the highly successful MIMI podcast, with her journey to success resonating deeply with her audience.
Superhuman was founded just two years ago. It has quietly amassed tens of thousands of subscribers and an 8 figure valuation, with high profile devotees like Miranda Kerr and Lauryn Bosstick, and it has changed the way we think about meditation. At just 27 years old, Mimi has become a new, pragmatic motivational voice for women globally, being compared to the likes of Mel Robbins for her no nonsense advice and measurable results. Mimi has gained attention globally, with press covering her story and business, including Emirates Woman, EveryGirl, Refinery29, and Cosmopolitan – to name a few. Mimi is an inspiring entrepreneur with a powerful story of personal growth and business success. Her journey in the competitive wellness industry is full of valuable lessons.
Transcript:
Mimi Bouchard:
So, you must visualize with your body in everyday moments being your future self. You don’t need to carve out 30 minutes every morning to sit down and do a meditation and then open up your eyes and it’s like, “Okay, I’m back to my old habits and routines, because it’s such a focused way of doing it.” And that’s still great. And I still think meditation is good for you and I probably should be doing more meditation, but I’m more in the camp of activation, which is a different approach. It is more for the ambitious and energized woman.
Tori Dunlap:
Have you seen the perfect couple? Here’s the deal. If you’re going into it thinking it’s going to be as good as Big Little Lies or it’s going to be some, I don’t know, the bear, it’s not like highbrow TV, but it is murder mystery and thriller and fun. And Nicole Kidman is her hottest fuck. She’s a public person, bestselling author that has money but has a backstory, and then every single character is also a piece of shit with a backstory, and it’s very fun. She’s iconic, she’s fantastic. It’s set in Nantucket, so it’s like just beautiful. And if you need stimulating TV that isn’t anything good, Perfect Couple.
Okay, today’s episode is very, very fun. We have an incredible entrepreneur on the show who has a product that I truly love and use, and that’s why I’m so excited to have her. Her app is called Superhuman. It is like a combination of visualizations and meditations and a podcast based on certain things you’re doing in your life. So, if you are going on a walk, you can listen to these visualization affirmations as you’re walking. If you’re packing for a trip, this is one of my favorite ones they have, it allows you to send intentions for the trip. I’m the person that wants stimulation, if that makes sense. I want things to listen to, but I don’t always want to think. I don’t always want it to be a podcast. I don’t always want it to be an audiobook where I have to super pay attention. I talk about this in the episode, but we’re discussing manifestation, but really what we’re talking about is visualization.
And it’s been a huge buzzword over the past couple of years. And let me tell you, although it does sound woo woo, it 100% works. It has worked in my life. Any success I’ve had with the business, I have visualized it. I have set my goals to achieve it. So, we talk today about how I use visualization in my entire life, but especially in our business. We talk about the actual science behind visualization. It’s not all woo woo. And we also talk to Mimi, our guest today, about how to hack your own brain using audio as this visualization tool. Mimi Bouchard is an entrepreneurial trailblazer who is defied convention by making radical changes to pursue her of creating a new type of audio activations offered on her top-rated app, Superhuman Activations.
Helen is one of the OG personal development bloggers for almost a decade. Mimi has accumulated over 250,000 followers across her social media platforms with her journey to success resonating deeply with her audience. Superhuman, her groundbreaking luxury motivational audio app was founded just two years ago, and it’s quietly amassed tens of thousands of subscribers and millions in yearly revenue, including high-profile devotees like Miranda Kerr. And I’m going to throw myself in there too. I’m going to lump myself in with Miranda Kerr, and it’s changed the way we think about meditation. Designed to fit seamlessly into daily life, Activations are functional audios designed to help subscribers make the most of moments every day to live the life they’ve always imagined.
Mimi has become a new pragmatic, motivational voice for women globally, earning comparisons to Mel Robbins for her known nonsense advice and measurable results. And her debut book is launching in spring 2025. So, if you are someone who is trying to achieve your goals, is trying to change your life, is trying to up level your relationships or your career or your business, this is a great episode and super actionable. And please check out Superhuman Activations. I’ve been absolutely loving them, truly. All right, let’s go ahead and get into it. But first a word from our sponsors.
So Liz Moody, she talks about circ walks and it’s like circadian walks. So, within a half hour waking up you get up and go outside. It doesn’t even have to be a walk if you don’t want to, but at least 10 to 15 minutes up to a half hour. The idea is that you’re getting your circadian rhythm of like, hello, I’m awake, sunshine in my eyeballs. And then apparently it helps with everything. It’s like digestion. It’s how awake you feel, it’s your sleep. And so our team has started doing circ walks almost every day.
Mimi Bouchard:
Well, I want to join your team. That sounds fabulous. I totally believe it. I love walking in the morning. I don’t do it every morning, but when I have my dog with me we’ll go on little walks in the morning and I feel the difference. It’s just the best way to start the day.
Tori Dunlap:
And the whole thing is like you can’t do it with sunglasses. You want the light to get in your eyes, and so-
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah. Makes sense.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s very interesting. Yeah, it’s been a nice little routine. So this was my shirt from my circ walk, which was like, I got to get it in before I talk to you.
Mimi Bouchard:
Well, you look amazing.
Tori Dunlap:
Oh, you’re made up and beautiful. I’m a little gremlin, but I appreciate it.
Mimi Bouchard:
You look great. Listen, it’s 5:00 p.m. for me. It’s 9:00 a.m. for you.
Tori Dunlap:
9:00 a.m. for me.
Mimi Bouchard:
Can you give me some slack here?
Tori Dunlap:
I appreciate it. We love asking guests what their first money memory is. What is the first time you can think about thinking about money?
Mimi Bouchard:
Oh my gosh. Lack, feeling lack and having desire for money. Growing up my family didn’t have much. My parents are both artists and they always struggled when we were younger and I was very close to wealth because some grandparents had a bit of money, friends at school had some money, and I just remember feeling immense shame around not having what everyone else had. So, that’s one of my earliest memories sadly.
Tori Dunlap:
How do you feel like that shaped your relationship with money as you grew up?
Mimi Bouchard:
It definitely motivated me to create financial freedom for myself. I think in a good way it created that motivation. But then there was also a bad part of this motivation as well where it was everything that I wanted for so long and I put such a big focus on it. And yes, I achieved it, but I have this bittersweet feeling when I think about this. Because it was so all consuming and I had to create extreme financial freedom for myself to realize that, “Oh yeah, there are other things in life that also really matter.” So yeah, I’ve been always quite all or nothing. And I think money and wealth, it’s a beautiful thing to have. I know we both agree, it’s amazing to have money. It’s a protection, it’s freedom. You’re able to do what you want if you have enough money. So, I definitely love and respect money, I have a very good relationship with money. But I wish, thinking back when I was younger, I wish I knew that it wasn’t everything. It’s something, but it’s not everything.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah. Well, and I think especially coming from a background of scarcity, it’s very easy to then believe, “Oh, money will solve everything.” And you’re right, I think money I talk about all the time, people say, “Money can’t buy happiness,” and I call bullshit on that. I’m like, it can too. It can buy you stability, it can buy you safety, it can buy you security. But to your point, it also isn’t everything. And if you are … I think people say money can’t buy you happiness in the like if you buy a Ferrari expecting it to cure your depression, that’s not going to work. It is interesting that you went from a background of scarcity to almost the exact opposite trying to solve that problem.
Mimi Bouchard:
Absolutely. And I agree, money has brought me happiness. And I’m happy to say that, but it also, if I have a bad day, having money isn’t necessarily going to fix it. It’ll just make me more comfortable. With all of this being said, I would way rather life with money than a life without. And I am so grateful that I’ve created this type of life for myself, because I can spend my days doing whatever I want and I don’t have to look at the price tag on things when I go to shops, and it’s created this life that feels very good. And I, from a young age have always felt like I was meant to live an abundant life financially. And it does live up to the hype, but then yet you also realize there are other areas, there are other categories of wealth, whether that’s your health, your relationships, your fulfillment. I don’t like when people say rich people aren’t happy, because sure, there are a lot of wealthy people that aren’t happy, but there are a whole lot of poor people as well that aren’t happy.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s just different reasons.
Mimi Bouchard:
Exactly. It’s not a good indicator of that. So, it’s definitely an interesting topic. I’m so excited to be on your show today, Tori. I love everything you talk about and I am very honest about money. I’m very honest about what I do with my money, so I’m really excited to get into this.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, in the spirit of that transparency, you talk a lot in your story about how you started as an 18-year-old, moved to London, you were kind of broke, miserable. You talk about having $7 in your bank account. Can you take me back to that time? Was that an extension of the scarcity, and what did that financial strain feel like?
Mimi Bouchard:
Absolutely. I really did kind of just drop everything when I could move out of the house. I was born and raised in Toronto in Canada and I felt like I just needed to get out at that point. I had gone through a pretty difficult teenage year time in my life from the ages of 12 to 18, really. I had quite a difficult time. I lost myself. I partied way too much and did a lot of drugs and I just was going down a wrong path. Then I discovered personal development around the age of 18, 19, which I’m so, so thankful that I found it at such a young age. I really needed it. I had bad eating disorders, severe depression. I was doing whatever drug I could get my hands on. I was just not aligned with my happiest version of Mimi. Yeah, so I found personal development and it really was the thing I needed at the time.
And I decided to take a crazy risk and move across the world to London, England, and we have a working holiday visa, so I could spend two years there and I decided that I would start an online magazine, become an entrepreneur, create this life for myself. And I just had this fire deep in my belly that just started coming out. And I look back and I feel so thankful that I had this deep belief in myself. Because no one else had that belief in me. When I told my family that I was moving, I remember a random uncle was like, “All right, I’ll see you in four months. You’re not going to make it.” No one believed in me. My parents, they were kind of just like, “All right, go for it, honey, but we’re here if you need to come back home.” So, I felt like I was really the only one, and I think at the beginning of your journey you are going to be probably the only one that believes in you, and you have to really curate that relationship with yourself. It’s the foundation of all of this.
And then I moved to London and I was working four jobs while trying to make my online magazine a reality. I was waking up at 6:00 a.m and going to work at a juice bar. I always liked working at juice bars, because I’ve always been really into health and a $15 salad or a $10 smoothie was completely out of budget, so I’d always work at these juice bars so I could get the food for free. And then I would go intern at this fashion agency across the city in the afternoons, and then I would babysit at night for this Italian family with three crazy kids. And then I would do random odd jobs like dog walking or just dog sitting. I always loved pets as well, so I would do that. And yeah, there was a moment when I was in London where I literally had, I think it was like seven or nine pounds in my bank account and I was running late for my juice bar job and I had to call my sister who was living in Australia at the time.
I missed the bus and I literally didn’t have enough money in my bank account to get an Uber to go to my job. So from Australia, a core memory was my sister calling me an UberX that cost 10 pounds or something like that so that I could get to work on time. And I think back at that time, and I just feel so grateful that I kept going, because it really felt like I had come face to face with a lot of walls and blockers, but I had this energy inside of me, this deep self-belief through the work that I was doing, through the personal development books that I was reading. I was really creating this new self-image. Now, fast-forward nine years, I live in the Bahamas most of the year. I just bought a multimillion dollar home in Chelsea in London that I’m now sitting in, with my own money, and I live a life that I once dreamt of.
I own a company that is worth multiple tens of millions of dollars and I’m helping thousands of people around the world with my work. It’s an app called Superhuman Activations, and it’s a new type of audio that helps you align your self-image with the person that you want to be, which is essentially the work that helped me get to where I wanted to be. So, it’s really this incredible journey I feel like I’ve been on over the past almost decade, and I could almost get emotional when I think about it. Because I don’t think about my story enough, and I love doing podcasts like this, because it reminds me of where I was such a short time ago. And I did it and I am happy to share everything I learned along the way with anyone wanting to listen, because I believe that anybody can also change their lives.
It’s not just my wealth that I transformed. It is my body and my health and my relationship with myself. It is my personal relationships, it’s my self-love and just quality of life. Everything transformed, I can’t recognize the person I was 10 years ago, and I really needed a transformation. I needed to become more myself after years of losing myself. So yeah, I’m so grateful and I’m happy to share what worked for me along the way. It’s possible for anyone is the other thing I just really want to say. I remember back when I was starting my personal development journey, there weren’t that many women that spoke about their financial transformations. It was really mostly just men, especially back then personal development was like white men on the cover of books with their thumbs up. There was never anyone that looked like me, so I’d love to be that person for someone, especially a young woman.
We can create financial freedom and abundance for ourselves. We can earn tens of thousands of dollars a month. You can retire your parents and help your family, which is the most fulfilling thing that I feel I’ve experienced back in the day. Not to go on a rant story, Tori. I just, so many things are coming to my mind back in the day. I remember I’d think about like, “Oh, I could buy that handbag when I have money,” but now it’s like those dreams that were on my vision board once, yes, I’ve achieved the number of the bank account that was on my vision board, but maybe that car or that handbag that was also on my vision board doesn’t really hold the same weight as it used to. You kind of realize as you create this things that really matter and money can do so much for you, and giving to the people that you love has been the most fulfilling thing for me throughout this journey as well.
Tori Dunlap:
I have so many planned questions for you, and I’ll get to those in a second, I promise. But one thing that you … The through line I think to all of that of all of what you just said is the belief in yourself and this community of women. We have five million women and I talk to them all the time. I hear what they’re struggling with and all of the personal finance stuff of course.
But I think it really does come down to that we as women have been made to not trust ourselves. We have been made to not believe that we are worthy of love and opportunity and a good job, or a successful business or money. And then when we have the audacity to maybe think we’re worthy of those things, society, patriarchy, white supremacy, all of these things start convincing us again, who are you to want this? Who are you to believe that you can do this?
And I think you and I are very similar in this of I have known my worthiness from a very young age. And I have a lot of things I have to work on and a lot of things I’m developing as in terms of my personality and how I see the world. But one thing that’s never ever been a challenge for me is knowing that I am worthy and that I am worthy of all of the things I want. So, do you have any advice or any tips for people listening who are doing the like, “I can’t start a business, because I don’t know enough. Or I can’t negotiate for this job because they’re going to think I’m ungrateful.” How do we get to a place of worthiness?
Mimi Bouchard:
It is such an important question, and I want to preface this with the acknowledgement and the mutual feeling of you just mentioning here that you still have things you’re working on. I still have so much that I’m working on myself, and the one biggest thing that I thought I would achieve when I created this life, I’m currently now living my “future self-life” that back in the day I visualized and I wanted used to think that when I got here everything would be perfect. And what I didn’t realize is that no, I’ve never had one perfect day in this entire journey of creating the life of my dreams. I’ve never had one perfect day where I woke up exactly at 6:00 a.m and I did a perfect morning routine and I didn’t procrastinate once and I
Tori Dunlap:
And your Aura score was 95.
Mimi Bouchard:
And I ate organic and I did intermittent fasting and then I didn’t have technology before bed. I’ve never had one of those days in the past nine years, not one, but I still achieved “success,” the success I see today. So, just one of the biggest learnings that I’ve had throughout this experience is that we’re always going to be works in progress and it’s we’re never just reaching a destination. There’s always going to be something that we want to work towards. So, there’s also finding that balance of loving who we are in ourselves now while also striving for more. And I just wanted to mention that, because I feel like if someone listening was like me eight, nine years ago, very, very perfectionistic, ambitious and has very high standards for herself and her life, I feel you, you’re going to get there, but also understand that it’s not going to require perfection. What it requires is a quick bounce back rate, which is something I talk about. It’s the rate at which you bounce back into being your future self from your old self.
And we can get more into that later. But to answer your question about worthiness, when in my teenage years I didn’t feel worthy, I felt extremely insecure. I had severe body image and self-image issues. And it’s one of those things like a muscle that you just have to work and you just have to go to the gym as they say, and do the inner work, the inner gym work to feel that worthiness. But what really helped me when I was at a time or in a time that I didn’t feel like deserving of these things was simply the understanding, the truth, the belief that I am 100% responsible for my life. If I want to create a life where I’m earning 100 grand a month, I can do it, but it’s up to me. So, removing the victim mentality that I had was one of the most important stepping stones in my journey, because when you realize that you can have that thing you want, it’s possible.
That’s all you need to know. Your worthiness is going to increase as you work. It doesn’t have to be perfect before you start. Everything improves as you start taking action. I wouldn’t even say that you have to sort your worthiness out before even starting. You have to start and then it will sort itself out as you go. But just the understanding, the belief, the knowing that you can create that life you want should be enough. It’s up to you. And this also empowers you to take the essential actions and steps to getting there, because when you’re in that victim mentality, you don’t even take action because you don’t even think you’re in control. You don’t even think that it’s up to you, your future.
That’s the other massive thing that helped me on my journey. I was such a victim when I was younger, and now it’s like, okay, if I want it, I can create it for myself and there might be limitations, but I also am going to start looking at the advantages. Yes, maybe I’m not a guy or people don’t take me as seriously because I put makeup on and I look a certain way, but that’s okay. I’m going to use that to my advantage and I can try to find ways to utilize that. And just being more of an optimist is something you can learn. It’s not like you’re just born with it. A lot of people are, but you can learn it. I learned it and it’s worked out for me pretty well.
Tori Dunlap:
I love this conversation with Mimi, and if you want to check out all of her Superhuman Activations, she is letting financial feminists try it risk-free for two weeks. These audios have the ability to completely impact your life, to visualize your future self, and it’s the shortcut to getting where you want to be. So, to access this two weeks free, you can go to activations.com/ffpod. You can get a massive discount off your subscription after that if you like it. This discount is only available through the website, not in the app store. They also offer a money back guarantee, no explanations needed. If it doesn’t work for you, you can get your money back. So once again, you can go to activations.com/ffpod to get your 14-day trial and a discount on your subscription. Back to our conversation.
We talk a lot in my work about all of the systemic issues that people face, sexism, ableism, homophobia, student debt crisis, right? There’s a lot of privilege I think in you and I’s story. And also, I think what you’re saying is exactly correct, which is, how do you control the things that you can control to optimize your life, your decisions, your choices to get to where you want to be? Now, there’s going to be external barriers that we have no control over that are going to make this harder or going to sometimes make it even impossible. But I do think that there is a version of our lives that can acknowledge those barriers, understand that the path is going to be more difficult. And yet also, if you want something, let’s advocate for you getting it. Let’s figure out how you can get there.
Mimi Bouchard:
Well, the truth is that there are countless people that started in a more difficult position than the person listening or me or you that achieved it. There are these incredible stories of people that started in completely different positions that had all the odds stacked against them, that created this life for themselves. And I think that if you’re listening right now and you want to create a bigger and better life for yourself, just flood your mind with those stories of possibility. That’s all I’m going to say. Because what you believe, you create, what you believe, you become, and your beliefs are genuinely the root to all of your life. So, flood your mind with these positive stories, with these incredible opportunities that could happen. Start to daydream about bumping into that person who could lead you to this thing. And then that opportunity comes up, like trick your mind, retrain your reticular activating system in your brain, your RAS, and that’s the filtration system in your brain that essentially decides what you consciously notice or don’t notice.
Just this very simple example of a red car. We’ve probably all heard it all before. If you’re looking to buy a red car, you start seeing it everywhere. It’s not that they start manufacturing them more, it’s because your RAS was triggered to notice it. When you start to notice the things that you feel could benefit you in your journey you start to take action on them, you start to see them. And the RAS works from the red car example to empowering belief examples. If you truly believe you’re 100% responsible for your life, you’re going to start seeing opportunities everywhere that prove that to you. You’re going to be looking for them. And it’s the most incredible phenomenon that we literally can train our brains what to notice. It’s life changing, and that’s why I believe this work, this self-image reprogramming work is the make or break for anyone’s success, happiness, relationship fulfillment, because it literally changes systems in your brain from a very scientific level. This is not woo woo. We can get into more of the woo woo stuff, but this is actual facts and it’s incredible how much power we hold.
Tori Dunlap:
That transitions me perfectly. I have to tell you something that I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted out loud, and that I definitely have never said on the show. I am a visualization manifestation total believer. And for listeners, that might surprise you, because I am more left brained. I’m very scientific. I’m very methodical. I for years, probably since I was a kid before I knew it was what I was doing. And here’s my little confession, in the shower, I will sometimes still do this, in the shower I would interview myself like I was sitting for an interview with Cosmo, or I was sitting for an interview with Good Morning America in the shower. I’m like shampooing my hair. I still do this and it feels so embarrassing, but this works. I would do the like, somebody asked me a question in my head and I out loud would answer it, like, “Oh, what is the song you can’t live without?”
Like, “Oh, this song, this song .” I still do this. I interview myself like I’m on Good Morning America or on a red carpet. And I do feel like that was the first version of what I now do more intentionally, which is manifesting my goals. I’ve written about this in my book, I’ve talked about this, is that my favorite goal setting hack is writing down my goals as if they’ve already happened. So, I’m a big Try Guys fan. I wanted to work with them for years. I wrote down in my journal, “I loved working with the Try Guys,” even though we had not met, they did not know I existed, nothing happened. And then last year I got to be in one of their videos and that was a big, huge deal for me.
And so, we got to talk about the power of visualization and manifestation because I do feel like it gets a bad rep sometimes as like, “Oh, it’s woo woo, white girl bullshit,” which sure, maybe, but I think also it has worked for me. So, let’s talk about the science of it. Let’s talk about how you use it in your life. And was I manifesting when I was a kid interviewing myself in the shower?
Mimi Bouchard:
Well, first of all, I just want to say, I love this, Tori, and I believe that you absolutely did. And there are many different ways you can look at, let’s just say the word manifestation. I actually don’t even like to use that word so much, because like you said, it has these preconceived notions and some people think it’s bullshit. I know you’re loud swearing on this podcast, so that’s-
Tori Dunlap:
You all said bull crap. And it was so cute.
Mimi Bouchard:
I’m not a big swearer anyway, so I’m like, oops.
Tori Dunlap:
You don’t have to be. That’s fine. I haven’t heard of bull crap in a while, I was like, “Oh, cute.” I love it.
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, You know what, bull crap’s my new word. But to answer your question, yeah, I don’t like to use the word manifestation that much because of these preconceived ideas of what that word is. And there are a lot of gurus out there that promote, “All you need to do is think it and it’ll appear in front of you and you don’t need to do anything else.” That’s not the camp that I sit in. I am a lot more pragmatic. I teach a very pragmatic approach. I also just finished, last week I handed my manuscript in, I just finished my book, it’s coming out with Hay House in the spring, and I have done so much research on this by writing this book this past year. So, everything that I knew even beyond that, I’ve been even more convinced while writing my book that this work works.
And it doesn’t matter how you explain it, all that matters is that it works. A spiritualist will call it the law of attraction. A Christian might call it prayer, an atheist will call it the placebo effect. A scientist will call it quantum physics, and a psychologist will call it the RAS or the placebo effect as well. And all I know is that this work truly works when you commit to it. And you truly believe that it’s going to work, you don’t need to know how. And to be totally honest with you, Tori, I don’t have one belief system of what the how is. I am a little bit spiritual, but not overly. I don’t even know exactly what I believe in. I don’t know, I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m in a phase in my life where I’m trying to figure out what my beliefs are.
But all I know is that this stuff works and it’s part of how the universe works. And just to break it down in a very simple way, visualization to me is simply reprogramming your self-image. The father of self-image psychology, Dr. Maxwell Maltz wrote a book in the ’50s called Psycho-Cybernetics. It was one of the books that changed my life. My grandfather told me to read it about five years ago. And it’s all about how your self-image will literally create your entire life. It will create your personality. Your personality will influence what you do, how you think, what you say. It’s not even about your thoughts, it’s about your self-image. Think about an onion. The core of the onion is your self-image. When you change that self-image and you tweak it, all the other layers will naturally change, your actions, your thoughts, your personality, how you walk, how you talk, what you produce.
There are books that say, “All you need to do is change your habits,” but that’s a very difficult way of transforming, because changing your habits is hard when your self-image has not adjusted with your new self yet. Does that make sense? So, your future self is what I call it, the ultimate version of you that you aspire to be. And if the word future self does not align with you, you can use the word your favorite self, or your best self, or your highest self. I use future self and I believe that you can live your future now. So, it’s not necessarily thinking of a version of you that’s never in reach. I believe even in this moment I’m acting as my future self. What you need to do to transform your life, it’s very simple. There are two steps. The first step is clarity, and the second step is becoming.
You must first get crystal clear on your future self persona, your future self self-image. What are her thoughts? How much money does she earn when she wakes up in the morning, what does she do? What does she look like? How does she hold herself? How does she walk? What’s her posture like? How does she treat people? You must get so clear on how it feels to be her. Now, this is very important for visualization, and I’m sure you did this in the shower, because you’re acting out and acting as if and using mental rehearsal to align yourself with a new energy, a new possibility. But I’m sure you felt it, Tori. It’s not just thinking it and speaking it. It’s about feeling it with your body. I believe, and there is a lot to prove that our biofields influence our realities.
And there are a lot of theories in quantum physics that reflect this. But there are also a lot of hard facts that reflect this, and we can get into more examples later, but I just want to stay on this point. Your biofield, the field of energy around your body, it is influenced by how you feel. And your emotions influence how you feel. So, when you are giving off this energy, this frequency of your future self, I call it the future self frequency, and it’s simply the feeling inside of you that emanates all around you of what it feels like to be your future self. For me it’s this beautiful mix of happiness, of bliss, of awe. I love the feeling of awe, just being surprised by life, by the universe, by seeing things come together in ways I never expected. My future self frequency is full of abundance, of possibility, of unlimited potential. When I feel this energy inside and around my body, I know that everything that I’m experiencing is going to be reflecting that. So, clarity on who she is and how it feels to be her.
Then the second step is becoming, you must act as if you are already there before achieving it. You must go out into the world and be that future self version of you. Don’t wait until you have that salary. Don’t wait until you get that bonus or find that husband or get that body, whatever. Just stop waiting. Just be who you want to be in this moment. And that’s the thing that will attract it easier than anything else. And I know I’m just coming on this podcast as another personal growth guru, but honestly, if anyone is taking anything away from this conversation, I hope that it is so much more simple than you think. There is so much noise out there. And trust me, I’ve tried everything. What changed my life the fastest was taking these two steps and simplifying it, and then training my mind and my body to be my future self in everyday moments.
So, the trick to visualization, I believe, is to, and by the way, when I say visualization, I mean visualize it with your body, with your energy and your mind, but it’s about a feeling. It’s less about a thing you’re thinking. You must visualize with your body in everyday moments being your future self. You don’t need to carve out 30 minutes every morning to sit down and do a meditation and then open up your eyes and it’s like, “Okay, I’m back to my old habits and routines because it’s such a focused way of doing it.” And that’s still great. And I still think meditation is good for you, and I probably should be doing more meditation, but I’m more in the camp of activation, which is a different approach. It is more for the ambitious and energized woman. Activations are a new type of audio that I’ve created, and essentially you listen to these motivational, beautiful cinematic audios in your day-to-day life. While you’re walking the dog, while you’re doing your morning walk, Tori, to help your circadian rhythm. While you’re brushing your teeth, while you’re cooking dinner, while you’re at the gym-
Tori Dunlap:
While I’m packing for a trip, that’s my favorite one.
Mimi Bouchard:
Oh, you did that one.
Tori Dunlap:
That’s my favorite one you have. Yeah, at Superhuman you have ones around if you’re on a flight or if you’re literally packing for a trip, which I love, and I’ll talk more about it in a second. But that was my favorite one, because I was about to go to Europe with my partner and I always before a bigger trip I like to think about, “Okay, what do we want to get out of this trip?” I don’t want to just be like, “Okay, that was three weeks and it went by so fast and now I’m back to my everyday life.” So it was a really great grounding experience, while I’m literally putting my shirts, putting my swimsuits in my suitcase, I’m listening and thinking about what do I want to take away from this three weeks?
Mimi Bouchard:
Totally. And just like how you’d listen to a podcast or an audiobook or just music, an activation is just another form of audio that you can choose to listen to when you’re in the mood to feel energetically different. And these activations, there are over 700 of them in the app and they’re designed for every single type of moment you can think of. But the beauty in them is that they remind you to be your future self. And we have a team of audio engineers that put together this insane music. It’s like you’re the main character of your life when you are listening to an activation. It’s that feeling, if I can describe it, when you’re in the back of the car and you’re on the highway and there’s a song playing in the background and you’re looking at the window and you just feel life and you feel like you’re in that movie and you just feel that soulful, intimate feeling of just being alive, bottle that up, and that is what an activation feels like. It just reminds you of who you want to be. It reminds you to be her now, and it makes you feel these high energy emotions and feelings and frequencies of the life that you desire.
It’s a habit stacking tool essentially, because you don’t even need to carve out new time in your day to create new habit, like for example, meditation. This is one of those things you listen to in the background of your life. And single-handedly activations have been the thing that helped me go from where I was to where I am today. And way before I ever started this company I was creating my own activations at home on GarageBand, and I would create dozens of them and I would use these visualizations and motivational language and I’d find this inspiring movie moment-like music on YouTube, and I’d put it all together and I’d create this track.
And I didn’t know at the time, but it was my first activation that I created in that time. And I would listen to them while walking. Our Walking Activation category is super popular because you feel this energy to go out and move and manifest and create and become, and it’s a very transformative type of energy. When I created these activations, I didn’t realize what I was doing, but then years past and my life had changed more than any other few years in my whole journey, and I realized I really had something there. So anyway, I released a few to the public and they went wild and viral. So, I created an app, and that’s Activations, that’s Superhuman Activations.
Tori Dunlap:
I have so much I want to dissect from what you just said. The first one is that I can hear that we have a couple of skeptics, because I just know. And you’re like, “This is too woo woo.” And I’m going to tell you, I’m going to speak to you. I was not the person who was very woo woo, especially a couple of years ago. And then I started reading more about visualization and realized I’ve been doing this my entire life. And if you look at any person who inspires you, I can almost guarantee you have done some sort of visualization in their life. If I in any way inspire you, first of all, thank you.
Second of all, I believe that a huge part of my success was visualizing what I wanted. Getting to your point, very crystal clear about that and then going and doing it. And what I appreciated too about what you said that I want to highlight, it’s not enough, just like it’s not enough to set a goal, it’s not enough to just visualize it. It’s not enough to manifest it. It is you visualizing what you want so that you know can get it. Then you do have to go get it. It’s almost like what we were talking about before of the feeling of unworthiness, or, “I can’t do this. Somebody else is more worthy of this than I am.” It is convincing yourself and you having the full knowledge that you’re worthy, because future you has it, you visualize that. However, you still have to go get it, right? And I appreciated the highlight of that because it’s not enough to just think about it, you have to go do it.
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, well, Tori, that’s the thing. Visualizing is great, but you visualize to change your core self-image. And when you change your core self-image, you naturally do the things that your future self does. For example, if you are not a runner and you really want to start running, it’s going to be very, very hard to just try to use willpower to wake up in the morning and start running.
Tori Dunlap:
Especially when for me, I’m like a quarter of a mile in and I’m like, “I don’t want to run anymore.”
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, I feel you. Listen, honestly, me too. I’m not really a runner, but I’ve also, it’s not something I necessarily want to start doing, I’m more of a Pilates girlie. But anyway, just using this example because it’s so simple, but you think about it, willpower isn’t enough. We’ve all hated ourselves and felt shame because we couldn’t have willpower in this perfect moment where we wanted to change an old habit. But what we are getting wrong is that of course we’re going to mess up, because our self-image hasn’t changed. We don’t see ourselves as runners. And I think if people just started to tweak the core of the onion, everything that they want to do will just happen more effortlessly. And that is what visualization does. It helps you rewire your brain and change new thoughts and beliefs to align with your new self-image. And when you change your self-image, you naturally start doing the things that your future self does.
So, guess what? If you start to believe at the core that you are a runner, you’re going to wake up in the morning and feel weird if you don’t run. And that is what the trick is. That is what I want everyone to really understand, because it can be easy. It can almost be effortless creating this life. And of course, there are going to be very focused and treacherous times, and I’ve built a tech company. I know that it’s incredibly hard, but you need to become the kind of person that is okay with that hard, that just embraces it. It’s just another Tuesday when something really intense like that happens. And manifesting, there are a lot of people that speak about it in a woo woo way, but my teachings are a lot more pragmatic. I’m not overly woo woo. All I’m telling you is that your self-image will create your life.
And if you have tried things up until now that haven’t worked, this is something that you should try, whether it’s doing it yourself, you can create your own audios on your voice memos app and just speak about what you want in your future. And there’s something that music does that changes your state. Just like how in a movie, you know how they’ll use certain music in the background to evoke emotion inside of you. So, listen to music that it invokes that. Or you can try activations. And we have a two-week free trial, so you can try it completely for free, and you can feel what it feels like to listen to these. But you can do it yourself or not, all I’m saying is that you really need to try this, because if you actually do it, I can assure you that you’ll feel a change.
And this is something that I wish I had nine years ago. It’s this tool in my back pocket of being able to use audio in my everyday life to transform. And we all want more in our lives. Why don’t we just start with changing our self-image? That’s all I’m going to say. The self-image is the most important. How to change your self-image, listening to audios in everyday moments, especially visualization audios, because just like the Pavlov dog theory, we’ve all heard of this theory. Pavlov rings the bell and the dog salivate because they’ve been conditioned. This is classical conditioning. We’re doing that with ourselves when we’re listening to activations on our morning circadian rhythm walk. And soon enough, if you listen to a walking activation every morning on that walk, Tori, you might not even need the activation anymore after a week or two, because you’ve already conditioned yourself to feel unlimited, abundant, inspired at the beginning of your day. Because you’re creating these new thoughts and beliefs and tying that to everyday actions. It’s the biggest life hack, and I just feel so passionate talking about it, because it’s almost easy to do.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, no, and I think one thing I’ve been thinking a lot about and we’ve started talking about on the show is the diet that we feed ourselves. And I don’t mean, I guess I mean physically, but really what I’m talking about is, what are you consuming? If you are unhappy with your life, if you want to be a business owner, listen to business podcasts. Listen to Superhuman Activations that talk about becoming the highest version of yourself. Listen to audiobooks, read books. Surround yourself with people who are business owners or who are doing the things that you want to do. I think, again, someone listening is dissatisfied, especially in a particular area of your life, do a diet audit. What are you consuming? Do those things actually make you feel better? Now, we’re going to have trashy TV. I’m in the middle of The Perfect Couple right now on Netflix. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this. It’s trashy as hell, and I love it. It’s like Nicole Kidman-
Mimi Bouchard:
I’m needing a new reality.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s fun. It’s murder mystery.
Mimi Bouchard:
Oh, my God.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s murder mystery. It’s very fun. It’s my favorite show, which is just like, this isn’t fantastic TV, but Nicole Kidman looks great. That’s great. That is my turn off my brain. But if I do want to be inspired, that’s not what I’m watching. If I do want to be motivated to do this project at work, that’s not what I’m consuming. And so, maybe can we talk about how our diet is so important and how we can get more of the things that do inspire us incorporated into our lives?
Mimi Bouchard:
This is so good. And something I struggle with still. My fiance at night will want to watch TV, and I’m like, okay, some nights of course I am happy to do that, but I don’t want this to be something I do every single night, because it doesn’t make me feel that good. I would rather read a book, or even if it’s a fiction book before bed and just do something.
Tori Dunlap:
No, I do the same thing. My partner wants to watch TV, and sometimes I do, and sometimes I will have watched TV and I’m like, “I would have rather read a book. I feel better sometimes when I read a book before bed as opposed to watching something.” Yeah.
Mimi Bouchard:
I also think technology, and this is why I like audio so much, and I’ve always been an avid podcast listener. It’s interesting that I created an audio app. I love audio because your eyes aren’t glued to a screen. And there’s really something, I can’t pinpoint what it is, but tell me if you feel the same. So much technology everywhere these days, it almost feels like mindnumbing. I feel numb, and I like feeling alive, and I feel like numb is the opposite of alive. And I want to do things that make me feel alive more. Whether that’s going outside and being in nature and having a beautiful deep conversation, or reading a book and romanticizing the moment, or listening to an activation or traveling and doing things that make me feel alive and listening to things that make me feel alive, rather than doing things that make me feel numb. And things that make you feel numb is over consumption, whether that’s alcohol or drugs or even overeating. I remember when I had an eating disorder, I’d binge-eat a lot, and that was something that made me feel numb.
Tori Dunlap:
The mindless TikTok squill.
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, like disassociated state. And I just, the more numbing … I’ve realized, the more numbing things that we do, the less alive that we feel. I agree with you, Tori, what we consume, it’s everything. And everyone says it, but at the end of the day, do you want to live the “average person?” And unfortunately in today’s world, average is unhappy, depressed, just not fulfilled. And I wish our average was different. But if we’re looking at our average and we’re looking at what everyone does in their day-to-day life, it’s like there’s a connection there. So, to be different, to feel different, to feel outside of average and to experience and un-average life, we must be doing things that the average person does not do. And hopefully that will change the average one-day if more of us do that. That’s just how I think about the whole consumption piece.
Tori Dunlap:
Well, and one of my favorite things, to just shamelessly plug what you do, one of my favorite things about Superhuman is I often need some sort of stimulation, especially when I’m doing chores. I will click play on a podcast or I’ll listen to an audiobook, and those are great, but sometimes I don’t want to actively participate, if that makes sense? I don’t want to actively-
Mimi Bouchard:
Yes, you want to learn.
Tori Dunlap:
I don’t want to learn. I don’t want to actively listen. I listen to a lot of politics podcasts. I’m like, “I’ve listened to my four hours today. I can’t hear Donald Trump’s voice anymore. I got to turn that off.”
Mimi Bouchard:
No, I hate watching the news. I know, it’s just such a low vibe thing. Of course, it’s good to be aware of what’s going on.
Tori Dunlap:
It’s so hard, I know. I’m trying to stay informed, and yeah, it’s a whole thing.
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, stay informed, but you don’t need four hours a day, Tori.
Tori Dunlap:
I know, I;m being a hyperbolic, but. One of the things I’ve loved though is while I’m doing chores or while I am on my walk or while I’m in the shower or while I’m packing my bag, I can listen to something that does have a bit of the things I already love. It has the music, it has the audio from you. And it’s so funny hearing your voice, and I love it, because I hear your voice in my ears all the time already. So, I feel like that is the great thing where it does feel like I’m doing something good for myself, but it’s not an active thing. It’s part of my everyday life. It’s on top of something I’m already doing, as opposed to, “Okay, I have to sit down and add this whole other thing to my routine.” And I really appreciate that. And it’s also, again, it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for myself, but I don’t have to be this active participant in that moment.
Mimi Bouchard:
Well, Tori, I just want to say thank you so much. I’m so grateful that you love the app, and I love talking to people that use it, because just like you said there, and I really like what you said about it not needing to be this big thing. Because we’re all so busy, we’re all so consumed with our own lives and what, this is just another wellness thing to add to our full stack of things we need to do. And it’s overwhelming. I don’t want this to be that. And thankfully, it’s not that. It’s just one of those little things that you can do to make you feel different in your day. That’s simply what it is.
Tori Dunlap:
I was searching like travel on a trip, and I was like, “Oh, there’s one.” And then I was searching driving, road trip, and boom, there’s one too. That was my other favorite thing is that there were categories for every single thing I was encountering in my life. Where I’m like, “Oh, I would like a little bit of stimulation and a moment where I do feel like I’m doing something good for myself.” But I don’t have to be fully present. I don’t have to opt-in to listening to this thing.
Mimi Bouchard:
Exactly. And your subconscious is listening, no matter what you’re doing.
Tori Dunlap:
We were talking before about the focus on self-development, and how I do believe that … Again, so much of, it sounds like both of our success can be attributed to that. I do feel like there is a certain level where too much of a good thing can be too much. You were talking about, yes, we want to grow. Yes, we want to develop as people, but we also can’t hate ourselves now and we can’t be mad at where we’re at now. So, is there such a thing as too much visualization or too much self-development? And that being said, how important is consistency when it comes to all of this?
Mimi Bouchard:
That is such a great question. And definitely in my past when I was younger I hated myself already. So getting into this work, I wasn’t going to love myself now and do this work, but as the years passed, I learned that when I use activations and visualization, I’m not living in this future reality, I am living in this current reality, feeling the emotions that I desire to feel when I feel abundant in this moment right now. And let’s just say, because money is an easy example, it’s a number. Let’s just say I wanted to be earning a million dollars a month, but right now maybe it’s two or 300,000. It’s not that I’m feeling lack because I’m not at a million. It’s that I’m feeling abundance in general, and that’s it. And I can feel it now. I can feel it if I was making $1,000 a month and I wanted to start making $10,000 a month.
But it’s just feeling abundant, and it’s an energy and it’s a feeling. To be honest with you, yes, I believe there is too much self-help and personal development if you’re coming from a place of hating yourself. But for me it was this incredible journey to self-love. It helped me love my life now. It helped me love myself. So, I would say that it’s simply the act of changing how you feel, from unhappy victim mentality, hating your life, to happy, confident, loving your life abundant mentality. And if you had the two options in every moment, which one would you choose?
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, and I think just like anything else we can become obsessed with it. We can become obsessed with optimizing every single version of our life. And again, one of the things I appreciate about your work is, it’s not about that. We still have things that we love to do. We can still watch our trashy TV if we want to watch our trashy TV, because that does have benefits. I think it’s a balance, just like anything else. You going zero to 60 and deciding, “Yeah, I’m going to save a million dollars,” when you don’t even make a million dollars. That’s not feasible, right? We’re not asking you to set goals that are unachievable and then beat yourself up when you don’t. I think it’s like a mix of going so hard and then realizing that that’s not sustainable. And then also the shame that comes with all of this, the shame that, “Oh, we’re not where we want to be.” Or the shame of, “We’re in this state that we’re not excited about our lives.”
The shame is everything. We talk about shame a lot on this show, and it’s like, I think that’s coupled with a lot of your advice. It’s like if there’s one thing I want to get women to do, it’s not feel shame, not feel ashamed that you’re not further along in your career. Stop feeling shame about your net worth. Stop feeling shame about just where you’re at in life in general.
Mimi Bouchard:
You know what, Tori, that’s such an important topic, and I feel like us women, we deal with shame way more than men. And I don’t know why that is. We’re so hard on ourselves.
Tori Dunlap:
Patriarchy.
Mimi Bouchard:
I guess so.
Tori Dunlap:
No, literally it’s patriarchy. I did the research for my book where the shame that men feel is much more minor than the shame women feel. Men feel shame about choices. Women feel shame about who we are as people, if that makes sense?
Mimi Bouchard:
Yes, I see it.
Tori Dunlap:
Men feel ashamed of like, “Oh, I fucked up. That was a weird thing to say to that person.” Versus women go, “I said that weird thing to somebody. I’m such a bad friend.” It’s an identity thing for women in a way that it isn’t for men. Men are just like, “I feel shame because I said a shitty thing.”
Mimi Bouchard:
It’s a self-image thing.
Tori Dunlap:
Yeah, “I ate the cookie, so I’m a bad person. I can’t save money, so I’m not good at money.” It’s not just like no one taught me or I made a bad financial decision once. It’s like, “I fucked up, so I’m fucked up.” And it’s very interesting.
Mimi Bouchard:
And even if we put all of the work into ourselves, I definitely still deal with shame. And it’s so crazy, because I’ve done so much work on myself and I really feel like it’s just this constant practice of waking up every morning and choosing to be okay with not being perfect. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely dealt with perfectionism a lot of my life. And that’s why when I had that unlock that I mentioned earlier about it’s not about perfection, it’s about how quickly you can bounce back and how I’ve never had this one perfect day. I’ve never heard some big successful person talk about how they’re not perfect. Everyone likes to put this act on that they’re all perfect. And the truth is that there’s not one person that’s ever had a perfect, perfect day. Everyone feels this shame, and everyone feels this not good enough feeling, whether they’re the most successful and famous and prettiest and whatever.
Everyone feels this way. So I think just normalizing that and these days and interviews when I talk about, “Oh look, this life I’ve created,” I always feel this urge now to say, “But listen, I also still deal with a lot internally. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but I’m very much so still just a girl, and I’m still just dealing with hormone imbalances at a certain part of the month where I’m feeling extremely self-conscious and shameful that I didn’t do this thing or doubting what direction I should take my company. Or looking in the mirror and not really liking how I look that day. And although I’ve done so much work on myself and most of the time I’m feeling positive and happy in my life, it’s never going to be perfect.”
So, what we need to do is deal with that and understand with full grace towards ourselves that that’s okay. It’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to not be in this space of just ultimates. And understand that when you get to where you want to be, you’re still going to be needing to do that work every day on your self-love and on you. And the most successful, happiest, gorgeous role models that we all look up to, they do not feel this way all of the time either. So, we need to find peace knowing that we’re all cut from the same cloth and we’re all just women doing our best. And I love that you talk about this, Tori, because it’s something very close to me at this time in my life.
Tori Dunlap:
I have to round back with you, because we talked about bounce back rate, and then I realized we never went back. So, tell me what that is and tell me how that works in our lives?
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, so it’s kind of just this random thing I came up with eight years ago, honestly, when I, my first business was that online magazine, and I wrote about personal development as part of it. And I created this term called the bounce back rate. And I realized that I would fall off the bandwagon a lot, especially at the beginning, and I still do to this day. We all do. We’re human, like we were saying. I’d fall off the bandwagon whether it was me trying to be eating healthier or me trying to not procrastinate as much, all these things that I felt that I needed to do. When I would fall off track I started to realize it was less about trying to be perfect and staying on track, but it was more about how long it takes for you to bounce back on track after you’ve fallen off, if that makes sense?
It’s less about being perfect and it’s more about your bounce back rate. The difference between someone that is unhappy and unsuccessful in their life and someone who is happy and successful in their life that has created a lot is their bounce back rate. When I first started my bounce back rate was literally months. I would fall off track on something I wanted to do, and it would take me months to try again. And now it’s on average a few minutes, probably maybe an hour. And I’ve realized that very happy and abundant people have a very, very quick bounce back rate. If they mess up or they fall off the bandwagon, they get right back on. They don’t wait years or months or weeks or even days, the very successful ones, they just get right back on.
If they mess up or they slip up or they fall off, they realize it’s all about getting back on. They don’t fester over how they fell off. They don’t fester over how they failed, they just get right back on. They take action. And I’ve realized that with everything in life, from business, money to health and beyond, it’s all about your bounce back rate, it’s not about perfection. This is something that I use a lot in the book that I am writing, and it’s coming out with Hay House in the spring. It’s called Activate Your Future Self, and it’s all about my teachings and how I develop activations. And the first part is called Clarity. The second part is called, Becoming, like my two-step formula. And the third part is about Maintaining. And maintaining this new future self, self-image. One of the biggest tricks in there is your bounce back rate, and it talks about how you can strengthen your bounce back rate. But really at the end of the day it’s all about this self-image work.
And if you are listening to an activation that talks about this specific thing, you’re more likely to see it with your RAS when it pops up next time. And it’s really just this new construction of how you think that you need to develop. So, that’s a bit more about the bounce back, and I just find that it gives you a bit more peace in knowing that it’s not about how many times you fall off, it’s about how quickly you get back on.
Tori Dunlap:
I always just want to echo how smart that is. I have, literally as we’re reporting this, I’m in a reading rut. I’m a really good reader. I love it. And I just haven’t found a book in the past couple of weeks. I also left the one I was reading somewhere, so I have to go pick it up. It’s a library book, so I got to go get it. And I have just been having this feeling of like, “Oh gosh, I got to get back into reading.” And I think to echo the bounce back rate, I think it’s so important. I think you’re exactly right. I will also couple it with, speaking of shame, try to bounce back without shame. What I could be doing right now is going, “What the fuck are you doing? You’re a reader. Why aren’t you reading? You know you’re happier when you read.”
And that self-talk could be really, really negative. But instead, I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve trained myself to be as neutral as possible, which is just like, “Hey, Tori, you haven’t read in a while. You like reading. Let’s get back into it.” And talking to myself like I’m a friend or I’m a nice mom to myself. I was just like, “Hey, Tori, you like reading. You haven’t done it in a while. Get back to it.” Same thing with fitness, right? Or money. You made a mindless purchase, rather than going again, “I’m so bad with money, I’m so fucked. It’s all over.” And then just deciding you’re going to go rogue and spend all of your money. It can just be a, “Hey, that wasn’t my best choice in the world, but I’m going to get back to it, because I know this is important to me.” Because I see this especially with money.
Mimi Bouchard:
Totally. And shame is a blocker.
Tori Dunlap:
Yes. Yeah.
Mimi Bouchard:
Shame is a blocker for your bounce back rate actually. So when you’re feeling shame, you get into this fight or flight response and you don’t want to take action. So bouncing back, actually, it takes you out of that shame spiral, which is such an important thing, so I completely agree with you.
Tori Dunlap:
And I think with money, I see it a lot where it’s like, “I’m already $10,000 in credit card debt, so what’s another 2,000 more?” And I’m like, “It’s another $2,000 in credit card debt.” It’s not, “Oh, all hope is lost.” I mean, New Year’s resolutions, right? This happens every year. Okay, I set goals and by week two I abandoned them because I didn’t go to the gym seven times a week. And usually it’s again, a combination of you setting unachievable goals, but also not making a plan to achieve them. And then being like, “Okay, well, I’ll just wait until January 1st next year to set goals again. And I’m like, “You can set goals on any day of the week. You can set goals on a Tuesday the 22nd. It does not matter.” I think that I love the bounce back rate.
Mimi Bouchard:
Honestly, you’re so right, and I talk about that in the book too. It’s like us humans, we have a penchant for a clean, fresh start. We want to wait until the Monday. We love it when a Monday falls on the first of a month. We love a New Year’s. And I’m like that too, I definitely notice that I’m more motivated.
Tori Dunlap:
There’s data behind that, we love it.
Mimi Bouchard:
Yeah, we love it.
Tori Dunlap:
But okay, create that for yourself.
Mimi Bouchard:
Exactly.
Tori Dunlap:
Okay. It’s not the first of the month. Okay, wait until Monday if that really is going to motivate you, but-
Mimi Bouchard:
No, start now.
Tori Dunlap:
… use it to actually motivate you.
Mimi Bouchard:
Be who you want to be now. You need to realize that the version … This is what I believe, the version of you, your future self, the version of you that you want to be, that person is more you than who you are today. This is what I believe. When I created my dream life it was more about unbecoming the layers of what I was not. I feel like now I’ve uncovered the truest me, and I feel like there are a lot of qualities that I have that are very similar to when I was six, seven years old, bright-eyed, looking at the world before it got tainted by how I was supposed to look or what I was supposed to and how I was supposed to act.
And I feel like this work is truly more about unbecoming than it is about becoming something different. And I think when you shift that in your mind that, “Oh, my future self or my best self or my favorite self or my higher self,” whatever you want to call it, “is actually the truest version of me.” It makes it feel more within reach and it makes it more attainable to just embody in everyday moments.
Tori Dunlap:
I think that’s the perfect way to end it. I so appreciate you being here. Plug away my friend. Where can people find out more about you? Where can people get Superhuman? Go for it.
Mimi Bouchard:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Tori. If you guys want to try the two-week free trial and get a very generous discount through Tori’s link, you can only sign up with the big discount on the website. So go to activations.com/ffpod, I’m sure it’ll be in the show notes. If you go to the website to sign up, that’s the only way you can get the discount, because the app store doesn’t really allow us to give discounts. So go to the website, check it out, you can learn more. Just take advantage of the two-week free trial. Trust me, money back guarantee, no questions asked. You do not need to stay subscribed to this. Try it out, and if you like it you can continue listening. And if you don’t, then try to create your own voice memos on your phone. Just try to utilize audio in your everyday moments.
This is the biggest takeaway is using visualization and specific cinematic music weaved into your everyday life. That is the key. This is what will transform you. If you have tried many things that haven’t stuck, this is the type of thing that you look forward to doing every day. It’s not hard to do. It’s easy, and it’ll change you quickly if you actually stay consistent. That’s what I’ll say about activations. For me, I’ve seen synchronicities that have just blown me away with this work. My first $100,000 month was by doing a specific activation every single day the month prior, I swear to God. And this work truly changes lives, so please go try it out. I’m not really on Instagram right now, but if you want to follow me, my account is @mimibouchard. I’m kind of taking a social media break at the moment, but really, activations is where you’re going to find most of me.
And yeah, I’m so grateful, Tori, for being on your show. I really hope that this message came across and people feel inspired to change their life, whether it’s their finances or just generally loving their life, going from a life that feels okay to a life that feels amazing. It’s possible for every single one of us, and I just am so thankful to be on your show, so thank you.
Tori Dunlap:
Thanks for coming on, we love to see it. Thank you so much to Mimi for joining us. You can go to activations.com/ffpod to try it out for two weeks. I would love to hear what your favorite one is. I am doing a lot of walking activations right now, as well as trying to replace my office listening addiction in the shower with activations instead. Laundry is especially a good time that I do. When I’m folding laundry it’s activation time. It’s perfect. All right, financial feminists, we appreciate you being here. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for telling your friends, and I’ll talk to you later. Okay, bye.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant, research by Sarah Sciortino, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Leffew. Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmetyeva, Taylor Chou, Sasha Bonnar, Rae Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram, and Meghan Walker, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.
A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
