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She Googled “how do you change your life,” and now she’s running a 7-figure business that’s deeply aligned, wildly profitable, and actually impacts people’s lives. What happened in between blew my mind.

In this episode I’m joined by Samantha Kozuch, founder of the Maniscripting Journal—a 7-figure brand built through pure grit and intuition. From selling her Audi to fund inventory, to getting arrested and bouncing back, to creating a journal that’s literally changed people’s lives, we dive deep into the messy realities of entrepreneurship.

Samantha shares how she built a profitable e-commerce brand, what it really takes to succeed without outside funding, and why she believes being “delusionally confident” is essential. If you’ve ever questioned whether you have what it takes to succeed, this conversation will light a fire under you.

Key Takeaways:

• The single most important asset for any e-commerce business (it’s not the product)
• The difference between “soft girl era” and actually earning your freedom
• The mindset and cash flow realities behind growing from $85K to $1M in just three years

Listen now and steal Samantha’s approach to building a brand that’s deeply aligned, wildly profitable, and actually impacts people’s lives.

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: All right. Yay. Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. We were just catching up, like we haven’t seen each other in two years, but it feels like we just went wake surfing.

Samantha Kozuch: Literally, it feels like last weekend or something.

Emily Hirsh: Social media’s so wild because you do feel like you can keep up with so many people, but I know you’re also only getting the social media little version. Yeah. So I’m excited to drop in and catch up and also hear more about your story. ’cause we’ve only hung out once.

Yeah, yeah, me too. Let’s start there. Let’s start with your story, your entrepreneur story.

Samantha Kozuch: Oh, so it’s a deep one. Are you ready to Yeah, I’m so ready. Let’s go deep. Okay. So my entrepreneurial story started kind of by accident. I went to college to go to med school, and then my senior year of college, I just had this deep inner knowing, like, I don’t know, it was weird.

Like I, I at this point didn’t know what intuition was, any of that, but it was just this weird gut feeling of. I’m not supposed to be doing this. And it was really confusing and hard because I had spent, even in high school, you know, I was doing like the pre-med classes already getting ready for college and working really hard in college.

And in that moment I was like, huh, okay, I gotta listen to this. And so that senior year I had told my parents, which a layer to the story, I’m a first generation immigrant. So that was a lot of pressure to even, you know, be, become something, right? You’re usually with first generation par like being a kid.

Your parents want you to be a doctor or a lawyer or something. Like, you know, they sacrificed so much for you to have this life here, you know? And so I had written them a letter saying that I’m just going to take a year off to figure it out. Deep down knowing there’s, I’m not even gonna pursue med school after I graduated.

And during that time I had gotten into modeling and acting. Instagram had just launched. I don’t know if this is like dating me a ton, but Instagram had just launched. And while I was like even in school already, I was like posting my workouts and like bikini photos and I’d gotten into modeling and started not acting a lot, but just like doing that kind of stuff.

And I had learned that, oh, by doing this I can get paid to do it. And it felt really cool to be able to make money without having a quote unquote job. So as the years went on, I had moved to Scottsdale, Arizona where I pursued modeling and acting full-time living there. I had also started a video production company, a marketing company to create product videos and marketing videos for businesses, which today are now we are now called influencers.

But back then, obviously the word influencer didn’t even exist yet. So I was basically already doing that before it was even a thing. And at that time I had grown my social media. I had started selling fitness plans online and all these sorts of things. So basically with telling my parents that I wasn’t going to med school, they had said, okay, well we’re not gonna support you financially anymore.

So it really lit a fire under my ass to just go do all of these things without having to go get a job. ’cause I’d gotten this like good taste of money. So over the years I started doing that sort of stuff and then from there got into teaching people how to. Grow their social media and how to create their programs and stuff like that to sell online.

So I kind of started becoming like a social media coach, which then turned into talking to clients like that. Didn’t wanna grow their social media, but they wanted to learn how to grow their businesses online. So I kind of became this online business coach. And then during COVID, so every little pivot, like just like led into the next thing.

’cause I just like followed. I don’t wanna say followed the money. I just like followed what made sense where a lot of people I feel get really scared to pivot and change. I just kind of like followed with what made sense, what I was having fun with, what I was having good at. And then during COVID I saw my entire community just go, you know, I mean we all experienced it so I don’t have to talk about it, but it was the job loss, it was the, you know, fear, the scarcity, the, all of these different emotions coming up with what was going on.

So I just kind of started sharing my morning routine and at practice to just help my current students and just like share it online. And then from there people started asking me, oh my gosh, like is there a PDF download for your journal prompts or for how to do these meditations and all these sorts of stuff?

And I was like no, but also. This sounds interesting and this isn’t something that I’m just gonna create and put it in A PDF so it gets lost in your email when you opt in to download it. And that was the download that I received to create the Maniscripting Journal.

Emily Hirsh: Wow.

Samantha Kozuch: And from there I just went all in.

And we can dive into like that story because there was a lot of like fear and like even taking that step. But basically I leaned into listening to that download and that intuition feeling that I got to create and launch it. Even though I had never created an e-commerce product, had no idea how to even sell online with a physical product, nothing like that.

And I just went for it. And fast forward, here we are five years later, I’m the founder of the Maniscripting Journal. Have a huge community of women that I’m making an impact on every single day, and teaching them how to create and live their dream life through manifestation, different mindset stuff, nervous system regulation on all of that.

That is so cool.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And you, I feel like, I mean, creating an e-commerce product is like really challenging. Yeah. I mean, and you did it. Yeah. And you also did it, so five years ago, like COVID Yeah. Time. Oh yeah. When production Oh yeah. Was we dive the worst

Samantha Kozuch: time

Emily Hirsh: on the planet to go do that, but you did it and, and I mean, I feel like yeah, creating an e-commerce product, a lot of people don’t know how, I mean, not dunno how to do it, but aren’t able to get through the hurdles of like the inventory and the Yes.

Margins. And I see it all the time with e-commerce as a marketing company. So we’ll definitely dive into that. That’s incredible.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: So where, where are your parents from? Poland. Okay. Poland. Mm-hmm. And how did they, when you wrote that letter, how did they handle that initially?

Samantha Kozuch: Oh my gosh. I think it was kind of like no response.

It was no response and I kind of hid from even trying to hear the response. It was almost like. Okay. I gave it to him. I sent it like it’s out there and it’s, it was for me, it was like, my job is done. I don’t even care what you have to say. But it was that disappointment and that’s where it came with the whole, okay, well if you’re not gonna go do this, we’re no longer supporting you financially.

Which even though I worked throughout college, like of course they were paying for my schooling. They’re helping me with all these different things. So it was like that, that unspoken rule of like, you gotta go figure it out now.

Emily Hirsh: Which was probably great. The best. Pushed you. Yeah. The best. Yeah. Did you have a lot of like, okay, I have to prove them right.

Energy in the beginning, like, oh, 100%.

Samantha Kozuch: Like. That fire my ego and I already had, I feel like this mentality, even just growing up, I had this, I guess now we would look at it from a, like, you know, a self-development and mindset coach is like that unhealthy ego. But it did serve me because I was very much a person that, you know, always had to win, always had to do really good.

Like, I didn’t take failure as an answer. I had a very deep drive for success. And I think in this case it really served me where other people might crash and burn and just like succumb to like, I dunno, getting some crappy nine to five job and just like, you know, that kind of path. So I think it really served me, even though it might have been unhealthy at the time, but it, it drove me to success.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. I really, I really resonate with that. So my story, I became a mom at 20. Mm-hmm. And so the response to that was very much like I. Okay. You’re gonna be poor. Like you didn’t finish college. Yeah. You know, that’s gonna ruin your life. Yeah. And same thing I had for a long time. Such a drive of like, I need to prove everybody.

Right? Yeah. And it did 100% create my success. Yeah. And then, you know, fast forward like six, seven years later, I had to work through that. Yes. Because I don’t wanna operate from that drive anymore and in survival mode, essentially. But it really does speak to, I think you have to have, you have to have that belief that you will make it happen no matter what in yourself.

Samantha Kozuch: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: Because no one can give you that.

Samantha Kozuch: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: And, and you had that like, I am going to make this happen because, and entrepreneurs experience this all the time because we’re doing the crazy thing, right? Yeah. Like, we’re not normal. We’re saying screw the, you know, standard way of doing it, this, this safe way that guarantees I’ve got, you know, a college degree and, and an income and I’m gonna create a reality that doesn’t exist yet.

Like, yeah. To most people they’re like, that sounds terrifying. And so it’s easier for a lot of people to be like, okay, I’ll believe my parents when they say this is a bad idea, or my friends or my family, or whatever. And you were like, no, I’ll, I’ll make it happen no matter what. Yes. And that’s the same story, obviously similar story, but I mean different story, but similar start of my business as well.

Mm-hmm. And I think, yeah, was a huge driver of success. And I see this with entrepreneurs today of like if, if I meet an entrepreneur and they have that where they’re like hungry and they’re like, I will make this happen no matter what. I know they’ll be successful. Yeah. I don’t care if they’re making $0 right now.

Yeah. And they don’t even have a good offer. I’m like, you will be successful. Yeah. Like, period. That is the only thing you need. And then everything else you can figure out. Yes. Yeah. I agree more. Yeah. Okay. So you. Then kind of went on a journey of following what was working. Mm-hmm. And, and when was like it when you started making money and you were like, okay, this is actually like working, which part?

In the beginning or the beginning or later? The beginning. The beginning. Before the journals.

Samantha Kozuch: So back in college or like leaving college. Yeah. So you

Emily Hirsh: decided I’m gonna go do something else. Mm-hmm. And then you jumped into modeling? Yes. And yes. Yeah. Like when was the time that you started to realize like, okay, like this was a good decision and I can do this?

’cause at first did you doubt yourself A little bit, but keep going. It’s interesting. I

Samantha Kozuch: don’t think I ever doubted myself. It was weird. Like I didn’t understand what just manifesting and delusion and all of that, but I was so effing delusional. Like, looking back, I was like, holy crap. Like who taught me to be this delusional?

Like, it’s crazy. Like I thought I was gonna be this big top model and actress and all of that. Which it’s funny, it’s like I, I did a lot of cool things with my career. I didn’t get to like that top model, you know, Cindy Crawford stars by any means. But that delusional drive like got me to being really successful.

And I think when I, you know, started getting those first like couple thousand dollars paychecks as a 20-year-old, as a 21-year-old without having a job where I saw my friends working for like $15 an hour, you know, straight outta college, $20 an hour, maybe 21. I was making 30 to 50 to a hundred, sometimes 200, $250 an hour, even more, you know, I could make a couple thousand dollars in a day sometimes for different bookings.

I was all like, girl, like this is freaking awesome. So very quickly I had found like, oh my gosh, this is it. I can do this. And I just kept hustling and I worked really, really hard. But I did have that unhealthy work ethic, like looking back now, which I didn’t learn to way later in life, but I was very much the work hard, play hard.

No days off. Taking days off meant I was lazy. Like it was really unhealthy, but at the same time, like I wouldn’t change a minute of it because it, it, it literally propelled me to every single next state of my life. So it was just,

Emily Hirsh: yeah, I did, like so many people don’t talk about the positives of that mm-hmm.

Hustle and grind season. And I actually just saw Alex Zi post something about, I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something about having a season where you don’t have work life balance is actually a good thing. And I agree with that. Mm-hmm. I think, I think eventually you’re gonna burn out if you Totally, if you stay in that state, state.

But I feel like right now the message out there is so, like the pendulum has swung so far to don’t hustle and, and you gotta have a regulated nervous system. And I get it. I get all these things. I’m for all those things and. There’s a season in the beginning where that hustle and that just unwavering commitment Yeah.

And grind and like willing to work really hard. Yeah. Is, is

Samantha Kozuch: necessary.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. I think

Samantha Kozuch: in the beginning, 100%, and I’m seeing this trend right now on social media. This has been like the last year, and I, I think I even made a podcast about this at the, at the beginning of the year, but I keep seeing it pop up about this soft girl season and it’s coming from these coaches, and this isn’t a bad talk badly about anyone, but it’s coming from these coaches that are now like saying, I’m in my soft girl season now.

Okay girl. But you’ve, you’re now making your hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, maybe millions per year, whatever. Cool. But what got you here? Was your hustle and grind season and now you’re promoting Trevor and, oh, join me in the Soft Girl season, and you’re promoting it to these women that haven’t even started their business, or maybe they’re in their early stages of their business.

So I couldn’t agree with you more where we swung it the other way, but we have to have that, our own discernment that like, honestly in the beginning, like, I get it and I agree with you. Like yes, there is that I, and first of all, I don’t even believe in balance something. This is this word that is put out there that we all strive to do and be, but whenever we are working towards something, we’re gonna have to let go of something else.

If we’re working on a business and working lots of hours, okay, we’re gonna sacrifice time with our family, with our kids, with our husbands or friends or you know, something’s always going to give. But this whole soft girl season, or you know. You know what? What was it? 50 day hard, 40, 75, hard or so?

Something like that. Yeah. Seven by soft, right? I feel like everyone has to have their own discernment and figure out what is your goal right now? And I’m sorry, but if you are building a business, yes, you can have the tools in there to journal and meditate and have those soft parts of your day, but there is a magic in being in the hustle grind and just doing so much every single day to your business to grow it and scale it.

I know that in any sort of part of my businesses that I have started, I’ve started like three or four at this point. But even with the Manuscripting Journal, when I started it five years ago, like I was hustling in that business and working, you know, 10 hours a day to create things, launch things, create the content, like doing so many things.

If I had gone into starting that business, or even in the, in the early stages of the business and being with this like soft girl energy, like, oh, I’m just gonna get up and just like do the one thing and Oh, it’s doesn’t matter. I’m gonna do it when it feels right. I’m gonna let myself relax. I would not have the business that I have today.

Absolutely not. Same. So it’s like,

Emily Hirsh: yeah. And I feel like it, this comes from like humans are so linear. Mm-hmm. We need right versus wrong, good versus bad. Mm-hmm. Like this is the way, this is not the way. And I think what happens is then people teach that way too. Mm-hmm. Of the coach is saying soft girl era, to your point Exactly what got you there.

Yeah. You, you earned that. Yes. If that’s what you want your life to be like mm-hmm. You earned that. Right. You put in the time to get you there. Like, I know. You know, I, I don’t know what my future will be because things come up, right. I can’t predict 10 years from now, but I probably will never go back to hustling at that level because I don’t need to.

And my, my standard of life has shifted, but I put in the time, yeah. I put in the midnight work days and the long days with the newborn baby. And I think where I, where I struggle with it is when new entrepreneurs feel like they’re doing something wrong because they see another entrepreneur who’s living this dream life.

And that’s what they’re seeing as their reality today. And you’ve gotta be like, okay, but what do they do to get there? You know? Yeah. And, and that is entrepreneurship is you, you build, you work, and you put in that front end effort to have the life of your dreams. Mm-hmm. Whatever that is. I mean, Alex and Layla, her, they wanna work 12 hour days, right?

Yes. Yes. And it’s like, that’s their path. Mm-hmm. And they don’t have kids. Mm-hmm. And they love it and it doesn’t feel like work for them. And you know, there’s people who will say, that’s wrong and I don’t want that life. Mm-hmm. You know, I have kids and I wanna travel and I wanna experience things because.

That’s what I value. But there is actually no right or wrong. Like what if we operated from the place of there’s no right or wrong way to do it, and you’re gonna have to earn the life of an entrepreneur who has full freedom.

Samantha Kozuch: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: And I, yeah. I just think there’s not enough conversation about making that, I guess.

Okay. Because we have swung so far into making it not okay. And there’s a bal I mean Yeah, I agree too with balance. Like, because what balance looks like to you is probably different than me. Mm-hmm. With, with the kids. And so your point on using discernment is the biggest thing, right? Because so much teaching out there is, is telling you, listen to me.

I know what to do. I did it. And so my way is the right way. And I love to remind people like, well, what, what is the right way for you right now in this season too? Yeah. You know, life is actually cyclical and in seasons versus these linear like paths that our brain wants it to be.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. Yeah. And I feel also with entrepreneurship, right?

And it’s, I’ve had these conversations with a few people and like, look at you and me, like, we became entrepreneurs during a time. There was no online business coaches, there was no programs. Like, it was like, I don’t know who it was at the time, like Tony Robbins and I don’t, I can’t even think of any other coaches.

What was that? What

Emily Hirsh: was that platform that people started doing videos on before, like Instagram, you know what I’m talking about? Yeah. And there was like, these influencers would just go on and be like alive on video. Oh my God. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s clicked on the tip of my tongue. That was right when I started.

Yes, yes. Oh, I can’t remember it. It was those live videos that I would watch people on. That was, that was the social media. Yeah. And Facebook.

Samantha Kozuch: But yeah. And you know, the one thing I see today happening too is. Entrepreneurship. Like it’s, I swear, it’s like, it’s like it’s a mental state. It’s such a drive and we figure shit out.

And I feel like the one thing that social media has also done to society in a good way, but also I think in a bad way, is that it’s like with, depending with how different people show what’s possible with business and entrepreneurship, it gives certain people this false hope that they can also be an entrepreneur and start a business when ultimately it’s not what they should be doing.

They don’t have, they’re not wired. They’re not wired for it. Yeah. And I think that’s like where I have seen it in the past with just like different students or clients or just people in my community or world, and I’ll just have the most basic conversations with them. You can tell ’em right away, like, man, you’re not cut out for this.

You’re just doing this because you see someone else doing it and maybe they’ve sold you on the idea that you could do it too. But ultimately, like entrepreneurship at its core. And I’ll die on this hill. It’s like if you wanna start a business, if you wanna launch a business, like you’re gonna fucking figure it out with a coach or with not, like you will do everything.

Google, YouTube podcasts, you will search it out to figure it out. Having coaches and mentors, fantastic. I have one. I’m sure you have them. You know, they’re, they’re such a great tool, but like at its core, a lot of us will figure this stuff out because we have that wiring to go for it to drive. And yes, maybe we have some doubts and limiting beliefs in the back of our heads, right?

But at the same time, we’re gonna do everything what it takes, because we live it, we breathe it, we can’t stop thinking about it and we just like continue going for it until it is success.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Literally, if I talk to someone, that’s the only thing I have to see is that they have this drive of I will make this happen no matter what period.

It’s not if it’s when. Yeah. If you have that, you’ll be successful. Yes. And I mean, I think that you could probably do enough. Work to teach yourself that. Sure. Mm-hmm. If you don’t feel like you naturally have that, but that, that is like the core, that’s it. If you have that, like everything else will fall into place.

And I think, you know, even what’s coming to me is like beyond entrepreneurship. I think as society we have gone into this like, I want someone to save me a lot of times. Yes. And

Samantha Kozuch: mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: I think it’s really powerful and something even I remember in the hard seasons of like, yeah, it sounds really nice that someone would come in and like solve all this and just come save me.

Like, that’d be great, but no one is coming to save you. Mm-hmm. Right. And, and when you operate that way in your life, outside of business, in all areas of your life, that you are the creator. Everything is in your control and your power. You are not a victim to the environment, to the circumstances, to your past, to any of it.

Like, I just have chills. You can have anything you want. And that’s like, that’s a secret to life. Literally. You’re speaking my language.

Samantha Kozuch: Like that’s what I preach all the time.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think in business when a lot of entrepreneurs wanna say, if I hire the agency, if I hire the coach, if I get the right team member, if this person shows me what to do, right?

Like, I’ve had many people, not even in my community, like, you know, when you have like friends or my family and they’ll be like, can you teach me? And I’m like, no. Like you have to go figure it out. I have resources. Yes, you can go listen to my podcast, but I’m not gonna sit there and teach you. ’cause you’ll never, you’ll actually never figure it out.

Mm-hmm. And so when you let go of that, if you can identify when you’re doing that, ’cause I mean, I still think I probably do it, you know, in some situations where it’s hard and it’s like you get, your mind gets fixated on, well if I just hire that or if I could just, you know, get this coach who could tell me the exact solution and then that will solve that problem.

But. The reality of you’re fully in control, no one is coming to save you. And so the second you realize that everything changes. Yep. Yeah. Could agree more on that. Yeah. And I, I mean, yeah, you can do the work and you can mm-hmm. You can become that person, right? Like I do think there’s a natural wiring to entrepreneurship.

Like I was definitely born with it, and I’m really grateful for that. I think that you can teach yourself it if you are really committed to being uncomfortable and, and in those moments of like, fear, and I don’t know if I can figure this out. You choose a different path and you can, because you can have anything you want.

For sure. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you started figuring stuff out. You started making the. Okay. I’m making a thousand dollars in a day. And did you have the experience where people started to go, like, okay, maybe I’ll take her serious now that she chose this path, like your family at some point? Oh my gosh, yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: No. You know, it’s funny, it’s like, I don’t think it was until I even launched the Maniscripting Journal showing them a physical product for like the first decade of my career. They were like, what do you do again? You’re getting paid to do what? Like photos you get paid on this app. Like, they were so confused and, you know, like, God bless my parents’ hearts, but, you know, and I would try and explain to them and I, I got to a point where I’m like, you guys just don’t get it.

Yeah. And that’s fine. Just no, you know, I’m good. Obviously, like, you know, I have my own condo, luxury car. Bought a house at one point, like they knew I was doing. Is she selling that quite okay? Right. They were like, what are you doing? And Right. But no, it was never, it wasn’t until I could show them like mom and dad, like this is my company.

It is a physical product. They were like, oh, okay. You know? Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Was that, did you have to work through that at all? Was that hard to, like, do you have to work through the, like proving yourself? F pieces.

Samantha Kozuch: I didn’t have to work through the proving myself. I think the hardest part was, you know, I’d hit really big milestones in my career.

Like my first year where I made six figures in a year. Like that was such a cool thing to celebrate. But then, you know, and it was like I never had the parents that’d be like, oh my God, congratulations. Good job. You know? ’cause they just didn’t get it. If anything, it was even worse because how we grew up in our household, we didn’t talk about money, we didn’t talk about those things.

So that was, that was a whole nother, you know, rabbit hole I had to go work through as far as money mindset goes, but I never really had to prove it. I just kind of got to a point where, you know, I was proud of me and that, that’s all I asked. I think I didn’t, I didn’t need the external like validation.

Yeah. I just kind of like,

Emily Hirsh: I think that’s the key. Like that was my experience is when I could, when I was no longer chasing the external validation because. I was happy regardless of whether I had it or not, which honestly for me was like the last three years of really coming to that place and realizing even in things like CrossFit of asking myself like, am I doing this for me or am I doing this for mm-hmm.

Some sort of validation. Mm-hmm. And one thing I’ve, I’ve realized, I’ve sat with this a lot because I’ve gone back and forth on can you just be happy with what you have and chasing the next thing and like where is the balance? And my linear brain is going like, what’s the right, what’s the wrong, what’s the too much?

And so I’ve worked a lot on that and, and I think one of my takeaways is when you enjoy the process more than the end result. Yeah. And like when I look at my CrossFit training or, or my business, yeah, I’m trying to get somewhere, but I am happy if we don’t get there. Like I am in the process and I truly enjoy being present to the process and I don’t need that finish line to tell me, okay, yeah, you’re doing a good job.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah, me and my husband actually were just reflecting on this over the last couple weeks, probably like month. It like popped up. But we had realized like five months ago, and we like reflect. We do all this sorts of, we have deep conversations, we do all that sort of stuff. But he had mentioned, like, we were sitting outside, it was like a nighttime, we were looking at the stars and the patio at night and he’s all like, babe, do you realize like we’re living our dream life already?

And I’m like, oh my God. Like, you’re fucking right. Like we wanted this, like, you know, where we live, our home, our businesses, everything. Of course. Like, and for entrepreneurs, right? We’re always just like pushing. We’re driving to the next thing, the next goal, next goal. And it’s not like we, we don’t, it’s not like we don’t sit to reflect.

And I’m very good at celebrating. Different successes and milestones now. I think that’s such a huge part, especially when it comes to just manifestation. But in that moment it was just like, whoa, this is so cool. We’re like literally living our dream life as we’re creating and building our dream life.

And when it comes to just like entrepreneurship and being on that journey, it’s like, yeah, just loving what we, I we love. I love what I do every single day. Is it sometimes like shitty and hard? Like Yeah, but at the same time, I think that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship is that we get to choose what we want to do with our day and with our time.

And then it comes back to, right, are you in alignment with what you’re doing? Are you in your purpose of what you’re doing? Or are you just doing what other people say to do? Or what’s popular or whatever? And do you like, if you hate the day to day every single day, then that’s kind of also a sign like,

Emily Hirsh: yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: Should you really be doing this?

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. I’ve had moments like that too. Like recently, have you done the perfect day exercise where you write out like your perfect ordinary day and like Yeah. Yeah. We did that I think around the beginning of the year. Yeah. And so I’ve had, like recently there was a day where I was like, I just live, I think I just love my perfect day.

Yeah. Like, you know, and I think then it’s like, okay, well what’s driving you? And for me it’s the, it’s purpose and passion. Yes. Mm-hmm. Right? Same. Because yeah. My, and it doesn’t mean my every day is my perfect day. Right. Obviously it’s life, but I’m so grateful for the present that I could, like I’m good. I, I don’t need to chase more.

And I’m also driven by passion to create and have the impact that I’m mm-hmm. I’m here to have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and I think that, like, I don’t know about you, but for me, starting my business in a place of survival mode. Mm-hmm. Money was obviously the driving factor, right. ’cause I needed to survive. I needed to live, I had a baby.

And then once I was making more money than I ever could have imagined, I had to be like, okay. What do I actually want? You know, and what is my purpose and how much do I wanna work and what am I willing and not willing to sacrifice and, and be able to have those conversations with myself. And then that’s when it’s so beautiful.

Yeah. Is when you are really clear on your purpose Yes. And, and your passion. And that’s what’s driving you every day. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about starting Maniscripting Journal. Mm-hmm. So COVID. Mm-hmm. You had people kind of asking you for PDF download. Mm-hmm. And that was the inspiration for the journal.

Tell me more about like, when you decided I’m gonna make a physical product.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. So it all came from right just sharing on social media and just like you had heard, like throughout my story, I am, I’ve always been the type of entrepreneur. And now it’s like just, just following the inner guidance following.

Guidance from source, right? Like every single pivot that I made from, you know, starting this social media company to becoming online business coach, to shutting down my video marketing agency, all of these different things in the moment, this is the one thing I wanna drive home, is like in the moment of doing those things, it wasn’t easy, it was confusing, it was scary.

It was, especially when it came to like certain pivots, like there was a point where I had to shut down one company in order to put more energy into another. Like, for example, with the video marketing company, like we were doing Will over six figures, or I was doing, it was just me, myself and I, you know, that branch alone in my business was doing will over six figures a year.

But it was like, I cannot continue doing this anymore if I, I can’t continue doing this anymore if I want to grow other parts of my business. So it’s like shutting it down. So at that point, did not make logical sense to shut it down. If I talked to anyone about it, they’d be like, you’re fucking crazy.

Like, why would you shut down this company? Right? Like, that is crazy. But. I had already experienced so much throughout basically 10 years of doing different pivots and changes and all of that. I got used to understanding, oh, this is like divine guidance telling me this is what I need to create. So when I was kind of getting that feedback from people in my community, I was all like, okay, this needs to go.

So I told, I had just moved in with who now is my husband. I had just moved in with my boyfriend at the time and I was like, I know this sounds crazy, but I think I wanna make this, this journal. And he was all like, yeah, let’s fucking go. Let’s, let’s do it. I love that. And primarily because he’s an entrepreneur too, but he’s in e-commerce space already.

He was, he had an electric bike company, so not like smaller, tangible e-commerce stuff. Like that’s a really big e-commerce product. Very different to sell than a journal. But he got excited because he’s all like, sweet. Like I, you know, can help support through getting you through this. So when I launched that it or started creating it, I just started really easily with creating a PDF version of the journal.

I got 30 women to like beta test it for a month, got their feedback on it. They all had like incredible results. Like I, my only thing was like, please use this every day and show up for a call every single week just so you can gimme your feedback. And I started having one woman couldn’t show up for the calls because by using my method, she had like manifested her dream guy and every single time we had a call, she was on a date with him and another one had manifested like a promotion during that time, like there was just all these cool things like obviously a signal like.

Yes, this works. Okay, let’s, let’s get into production. So then it was this period of time with just finding manufacturers and all of that, which I’d never done. Went through finding different sample products and, you know, making those connections. And from there, just like literally just started taking the next step for each thing.

Emily Hirsh: And it was kind of like the next step became clear to you? Yeah. Because you were so connected. And I feel like when you have those ina alignment decisions, you don’t have to go searching and pushing and it could, it just like, oh, here’s this person that I needed. Oh, okay. And you’re like, okay, like I’m just gonna keep moving forward.

And like you said, it’s not easy. There’s still the fear and the human aspects to it, but Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: And I just looked at it as a step by step process. Like, I know most people, ’cause I, I talk to people. Every now and then that wanna start a product company or something like that to get my advice. And they’re, you know, they’re so terrified and paralyzed in even taking that first step because they’re like, they haven’t even started anything yet.

They’re already worried about shipping and all this stuff over here. And I’m like, who care? Like, you figure that out doesn’t matter yet. Like literally doesn’t matter yet. So for me, I always just, what’s that next step? Like, I know I will always figure it out because someone else has already done it. The answer is already out there for me.

I just need to take the next step. I don’t need to worry about where my warehouse is gonna be or how we’re gonna ship things, or what the packaging’s gonna look like if I don’t even have a physical product yet. So for me, that’s always been my thing of like, just take the next step. Just take the next step.

And of course it’s scary along the way, like starting Inc. Commerce brand, like I didn’t make a dollar for like two and a half, three years. And even then I was, because we didn’t take any outside funding, still haven’t, we’re very much self-funded throughout this entire thing, but it’s really effing expensive.

And anyone out there, and this is what drives me nuts about like the online space, about making money with e-commerce products. I’m like, you know, like, oh yeah, make 10 grand a month, 30 grand a month, a hundred grand a month. I’m like, it makes me so mad because I’m like, okay, like, what are you keeping? Yeah,

Emily Hirsh: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Samantha Kozuch: yeah.

Because inventory is a big thing. I’ve got premium by inventory. I, we, you just, you make the money, but you’re pouring every single dollar of that back in, especially if you’re not taking outside investing, you know, like, and that I’m very much still on the fence about there’s pros and cons to that, but it’s, you know, you’re very, you need to be very passionate about it and need to be very, like, long term minded.

It’s not like a quick. When overnight. And I think just with like what I see on social media is so far from the truth, especially from like those people selling programs or coaching stuff on e-commerce. It’s really dangerous.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And I mean a couple of things. One, I think that, that you’ve done really well is you have a brand.

It’s not just about the product itself. You have a brand and you had a following before and they were asking for this. And I think what I see with e-commerce is I think sometimes people think it would be easy to just make an e-commerce product, but all the good e-commerce products have a brand

Samantha Kozuch: you need to, because what I’ve also seen time and time again is now with, you know, just how easily China can rip off anything.

Right. I’ve seen so many people in this space, you know, they create, I don’t know, like a t-shirt or a bag or something like that. And within two seconds, even on, like a lot of Etsy sellers, I see this happen to all the time, you know, these custom, cute little products that they’re making by hand, and within a couple months China’s selling them.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: And that’s the most powerful thing you can do when you start an e-commerce company, is make it a brand, make it something that you’re own that’s trademark, trademarking through different countries. But for example, we’ve never had an issue with someone ripping off the Maniscripting brand in the journal, because like, it is Well, they’re buying

Emily Hirsh: into your community too.

That too. You, you were

Samantha Kozuch: mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: Not just selling, oh, here’s your journal. Good luck. It’s like you to host those challenges. I see. Yeah. Is that a big part of your strategy? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Having the ch is it like you sign up for the challenge and you buy a journal too, or how does that work? Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: We only run challenges twice a year in January and in the middle of the year in July.

So that’s just kind of like more of like a. Get the community kind of energized thing. Just ’cause it’s like, of course at the beginning of the year everyone’s journaling and everything like that. But yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Because I’m seeing

Emily Hirsh: you do those and I’m like, that’s so smart. Mm-hmm.

Because you’re creating community and you’re creating connection mm-hmm. Connected to the product. Yes. Do you have any digital, do you do digital, like course or training offerings with the journal?

Samantha Kozuch: So we have a version of the digital journal that we sell, and then we have, well, we have a digital version of the journal course.

In video format that teaches someone how to use the journal as soon as they get it. And then as far as like offerings go we did for a minute. I did play around for a little bit with doing different programs and courses, but I hated it. So now we just have a monthly membership called Elevate. I was gonna say membership.

Mm-hmm. Would be like so

Emily Hirsh: smart. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve seen that. And I, I have a client who I was actually referenced, you, they have in a different space like an organizing planner. And I was like, you gotta check her out because I think you do a really good job with the community that goes along with the product.

And to me, that’s, these people buy based off connection and emotions. 100%.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I really love about. What we’ve created with the Maniscripting Journal is having that community and we have, you know, monthly master classes and they can jump into elevate her, which is the membership, which there’s a whole bunch of other, like, that’s where we kind of host all of our mini programs and stuff like that.

So we’re not doing, we’re not, we don’t do high ticket coaching or anything like that. It’s very affordable, especially for the entry level woman that’s coming in. Maybe she’s never invested in herself before and she wants to like dive into manifestation mindset, work, all of that. So

Emily Hirsh: smart. Then they’re buying your methods, your process.

Mm-hmm. Like your wisdom with the product. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve shared, I’ve seen a video. You shared how you like sold your car Yeah. To tell me that story.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. Yeah. Sold the car. So yeah, I was at a point where yeah, we were needing more inventory and we needed How far

Emily Hirsh: in was this to the business to starting this?

Samantha Kozuch: Was it two years? Maybe two years? We were scaling real quick, like our first year in business. Just to give you like a number perspective, our first year of business with the Maniscripting Journal, we did less than six figures, which, and that’s another thing, right? It’s like that could, if I watched what everyone else was talking about with the e-commerce, I would’ve been like, oh my God, I didn’t hit six figures in my first year.

I’m a failure. I need to shut it down. Right? I think we did like 85, 90, I think our first year in business, which

Emily Hirsh: honestly is amazing for the price of the product. You gotta sell high volume for that, right? Yeah,

Samantha Kozuch: right. But you know, in terms of watching what everyone else is doing, you know, that’s not amazing.

And then our second year we did a little over two or three, so we like tripled in size. Then our third year, I think we did a little over, did we go from three? I think we either went from three to five or three to 1 million. Wow. Wow. So it was in between, so it was that second year where we needed effing inventory and we had, I had gotten a couple like business loans but it wasn’t enough to cover everything that we needed.

And with our manufacturers, and this is pretty typical I know that there’s like people out there that say, oh, you can have like 30 days, 60 day terms, which means basically you don’t have to pay for your inventory until 30 days after it lands, like basically to you so you can have time to sell it, to make money back, to then pay the back.

But with our manufacturer they wouldn’t have those terms. So we had to basically pay up front for all of our inventory before it would get shipped out to us. So that’s a lot of money, especially when you are scaling that fast and you’re just on this roadmap and you don’t wanna sell. Sell outta stock because you’re on this like virality path right now of selling.

We did ultimately, like we couldn’t get a lot of funding in time or money in time where we did sell out for multiple months. In turn. Like it sucks that it happened at the same time. It did create that, oh, we’re out of stock. Like then it was count down to getting back in stock. Yeah. Waiting. Yeah. So that was okay, but it was not good.

Like we do paid advertising. Like it is not a good look for paid advertising when you just like stop, you know, that process and have to start over again. But yeah, it got to a point where, you know, I was, I was living with my boyfriend at the time and, we didn’t need another car. We both worked from home and I was all like, screw it up, sell my Audi.

Like I’ll, I’ll, I’ll just go sell that. Like, we don’t need it. We have your car. So I went and did that, turned it in just to literally take that cash to literally pay our, our many

Emily Hirsh: factors. I love this story ’cause it’s like you were also closer add a million dollar business. Yeah. But you still had to do that.

Yeah. And, and were willing to do that. Mm-hmm. And I feel like that also takes, it takes setting the ego aside of like, I’ll sell my Audi, you know, and I’ll put the money back into the business because I see the long term, you know, pay off of this and this is what I have to do. And it, I mean, that’s just the real side of entrepreneurship.

That’s why I love that story.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. It’s, and I’m sure there was lots of things that you’ve had to, I mean, scaling an e-commerce on its own product to a million dollars is not easy. So. It’s incredible. I know that you’ve done

Samantha Kozuch: that. I know. It was wild. Like it was very much like we don’t know what we were doing.

Like I didn’t have a coach or mentor. I didn’t have anything like that. I, I, I just recently got into a mastermind this year after five years of not being in one. But it was very much a solo journey. We went to a lot of different e-commerce like events and stuff like that where we got to know other people in the industry and how they’re doing their businesses.

So that’s how we kind, we kind of learned. But yeah, we were just kind of like figuring it out as we went. And that’s the beauty too, of entrepreneurship and I loved every second of it. We learned so many different things made different mistakes, you know, had different crazy setbacks. But at the end of the day, like every single thing that we experienced, whether it was a fire, when it, whether it was like, you know, we lost 20 grand on something stupid, you know, I’m so glad that I went through every single.

Part of that because it made me a better business owner, a better founder, a better, you know, just operator in everything. Like every single thing needed to happen in order to get us to where we are today. For

Emily Hirsh: sure. Doesn’t it make it so much easier when those things, those challenges, are presented to you where you’re like, I I have almost gratitude for them ’cause I know this is gonna get me to the next level.

It takes a bit to get there. ’cause you like resist them sometimes. Oh yeah. But at least for me now something happens and I’m like, all right. Like, right. You know? Yeah. I’m, I’m actually grateful for the challenge. Mm-hmm. Because I know it’s going to either give me the wisdom I need for the next thing, build me up for the next thing, or you know, break something down so something new can be built on top of it.

Exactly. And that’s what

Samantha Kozuch: comes to like having a really good, positive mindset. And I think having a really good foundation to, you know, self-awareness and having a drive and all of that, because shit is gonna pop up, shit’s gonna happen. You can’t prevent it. It’s gonna be either something that you do in the business or.

You know, an outside thing happens, or if with customers or clients or whether it’s your product or something goes down and you gotta, you need to know how to handle it. And I’d, I’d 100% rather have a few things happen, you know, on a smaller scale versus when I’ve got hundreds of thousands of customers and it happens, you know, company wide.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And in my experience as an entrepreneur too, is like, you’ve gotta build capacity to handle the bigger problems mm-hmm. That come at scale. And, and in order to do that, you have to have that mindset. ’cause you have to stay so regulated and grounded through them. And I mean, if I go back to myself 10 years ago and then I look at the problems that are thrown my way today, or challenges that I just roll right off my back, you know, like, but 10 years ago I would’ve been like panicky.

Oh my gosh. It was the end of the world. Like, shut it

Samantha Kozuch: down, burn it down. And that’s how it was. Even for the first year of business for me with the Maniscripting Journal, there were so many times that I just wanted to shut it down. Burn it down. Fuck this. I mean, even in the second and third year, even when we were on that way to like that, hitting that first million, and even when we did, I was all like still like, I’m like, I think you are gonna

Emily Hirsh: always have those days, right?

You always have those days. You always have those days. I still have those days. Yes, yes.

Samantha Kozuch: But just like with what you mentioned earlier, it’s like I just think about, and I’ve gotten countless messages over the five years at this point where I’ve gotten messages where this journal has saved women’s lives.

Like literally like I’ve like crying, reading so many of these different messages, how they’ve helped change lives, and whether it’s helped someone find the love of their life or getting that job or starting that business or inspiring them or just motivating them to have a better day. Like all this crap that I have to hold and deal with is so worth it because I know deep down to my freaking core, ugh, what I am doing with this company, with this brand, it’s, it’s.

It’s for them. Like, I don’t wanna like put myself up on this pedestal, like it’s for humanity, but it’s making an impact on such a deep level. I will take the brunt of whatever shit comes up just to make sure, you know, these methods, these tools, this book just like gets in the right hands of, of the people.

I mean,

Emily Hirsh: and that, that’s exactly what we were talking about with your purpose and your passion. Mm-hmm. You have to have that. Or in those moments of business, you will, why would you continue? You’ll Yep, exactly. ’cause like you have no reason to, no reason. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And the, and I think, you know, those moments in those days, they only heighten in my experience because, you know, the bigger that you grow your company, the more challenges you’re gonna face.

Yeah. You got more employees, you have more cash in and out, you have more leverage. And so the capacity to hold that and then knowing what’s really driving it on those days, and then for me it’s like just. Go to sleep and look at it tomorrow. You know, like sometimes that fixes a lot too, because we take ourselves seriously on those days of like, here’s all the bad things and all the reasons why I should shut it down.

And it’s like, that’s just your thoughts. Just reset. Just reset, reset tomorrow, walk away. Reset. Yes. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Question and then I also wanna talk about manifestation in general from you. You mentioned like your connection spiritually to source and your ideas. I wanna know that journey. Like have you always had that since you were young?

Did you develop that? Mm-hmm. I know for me that’s been also an important part in my journey in the last three years. And in entrepreneurship I think is like so key because in also those days where you feel like alone and like you wanna quit, having that for me has been a game changer. You never feel actually alone.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. So tell me about that relationship and journey. Oh, I love this

Samantha Kozuch: question. So I was raised really strict Catholic and it wasn’t until I went away. Off to school. And mind you, like I have no offend, like I don’t want to offend anyone with, with what I’m gonna say, right? Like with religion and everything.

Like, I don’t even know how to say it, but basically I’m just gonna share my story. But just don’t take offense to it. It’s your truth. It’s my truth, it’s my experience. Right? Yeah. So, you know, growing up I just always had this weird thing about church and so did my sister. Like, it was always just like, why?

Why are we going to this? Why are we doing this? And grew up in a very loving household, very religious household, all the things. But something just always felt like weird to me. Like, I don’t know why I didn’t have those answers. And then when I went away off to college I stopped going to church. I think I went to church a couple times, but just kind of like.

Went away from it. And then I think it was until like my mid twenties when I’d moved to LA I had gotten tapped into more, or actually, no, it’s when I first learned about manifestation, which, oh my gosh, that’s a whole nother story we didn’t even get into. So when I was 26, I got arrested. Okay. What’d you do?

Something so dumb. Actually it wasn’t, it was so dumb. So I was, this was during my timeline of modeling, acting, work hard, play hard mentality, lived in Scottsdale, went on a partied on the weekends, right? And one of the nights I had gone out and I had, at that time I could drink my ass off and just like be quote unquote fine, right?

So I’d gone come to this nightclub and then within a couple drinks I had just like started feeling like a complete shit like. Not normal. So I had rushed out to the back of the nightclub. I knew, like, I, I went out so frequently, it’s like I knew the bartenders, the bartend, the bouncers, the door guys, whatever.

And my friend was working the back door and he like, just like put me in a cab, not realizing that I had left my bag at the table. ’cause I just like, I’m like, I just need to get the fuck outta here. Like, this is weird. And by the time my condo was literally four minutes away from this nightclub, by the time I got to my condo, I was so fucking out of it that I didn’t have my wallet or money.

I was like gone into like an argument with the cab driver because it was like a $6 cab ride and I was like saying I don’t have money. And he could barely understand English. He called the cops saying that I didn’t have money. The cops were literal, like right down the street. Like I was in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale.

So they rolled up and I was this female officer, and of course I’m like dressed all you know, night clubby ride. And looking back, I’m like, oh my God. I just know she just made this example outta me. But basically she arrested me because I took a cab ride without intention to pay. Oh my

Emily Hirsh: gosh. So that was like the silliest Yeah.

You okay? Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: So I got arrested, handcuffs and all cop car, taken to jail. Spent the night in jail that night, like the whole thing. I am so grateful for that because I ha was living that life like again young, making good money, traveling, you know, the country sometimes internationally for work and stuff like, but I knew also that I was playing so fucking small, but I had no reason to expand.

I knew like being a model and stuff. I knew I needed to live in la I knew that. But I was always like so afraid to go there because I had multiple girlfriends move there, couldn’t make it, it was too expensive. They couldn’t land the booking, so they moved back home. And for me, again, talking about the unhealthy ego, I was always like, so like I felt like that big fish in like a little pond, you know, in Scottsdale.

Like I was doing really well, all of that. And I was terrified to go make that jump, especially when I had seen people firsthand in my circle try and go do that and fail. And I just never wanted to fail. So I was ignoring so many red flags for years. And I think that 100%, I believe it, that that was my wake up call that Oh yeah.

Sam, like, you’re not gonna go after this stuff. Well. Let me show you what’s gonna happen if you continue on this trajectory of living here and not pushing yourself. So when I like had gotten home from that, like my parents, oh my gosh. Next level disappointment. Like I’m sure, could you imagine your daughter like doesn’t go to med school.

She’s now, now doing God knows what to make money and now she gets arrested. It’s like they’re poor brains. Must have just been so mind blown. They were, I know they were, but I was like, after that, for like multiple weeks, I was just in this, I’ve never been depressed or in such darkness, but it just felt like the entire world knew that I’d gotten arrested and the entire world knew that I had done this thing.

Nobody fucking knew, not even the friends that I went out with that night. I was so ashamed. Like they don’t even know that it happened because my parents had projected onto me like, this is your fault. You should be so ashamed. And I carried that story even though I’m not the one that put the shit like in my drink or whatever the fuck that was.

Like, I don’t even know what that whole thing was.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah,

Samantha Kozuch: like. I just carried this story of shame when I did literally like nothing really wrong. Okay. I forgot my wallet, like, sue me, like, you know, arrest me. Yeah. Yeah, they did. But throughout those couple weeks I literally Googled like, how do you change your life?

Wow. And the story, the, the movie The Secret popped up. Mm-hmm. So I watched that Spencer

Emily Hirsh: in that. Right?

Samantha Kozuch: I watched that and that was my first time learning about manifestation, learning about I, I’m the crate of my reality. Like, it sounds so crazy stupid, like, duh. Right? But it’s like, no, but I

Emily Hirsh: mean, it’s true.

Most people don’t have, you don’t, this connection, you don’t, you don’t have

Samantha Kozuch: this connection, this understanding that like you are the creator. And then from there, I made my first vision board. And from there. That’s when I really started looking into spirituality and that’s how I, you know, started exploring with meditations.

And in that time of creating that vision board, there’s like, we could talk for hours about this part of the story of like how I like moved to LA and how I, my one and only friend in la she was very much into the spirituality side and like crystals and sage and cards and all these sorts of things. So I spent a lot of time with her and got introduced to all her friends and I got exposed to this world of like, you are the creator of your reality and manifesting.

And I just like deepened my practice with that. So as far as like how I got introduced to it, that’s kind of like the path that I went into and I loved it. And I think with what that, so I very much like, like obviously stepped away from like the Catholic religious practices and everything. But what I learned through that, because now I’m on the other side of it, I think it was maybe like two, three years ago, I.

All of a sudden just like didn’t wanna pull cards anymore. I didn’t wanna, I didn’t care for Chris, like didn’t care for Christmas, but I’m like, I didn’t need them. I really get what you’re saying. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I didn’t need them. Like, it was just like, I didn’t need it anymore. And I’m like, that’s interesting.

Not that I don’t agree with them, because now like looking at this reflection of it all is, I have now learned that everything that I had been disconnected from, whether it was from the religion that I was brought up in, just disconnected because we’re not taught this, but all over those years of being deep in the spiritual practices and pulling the cards and using the crystals and D doing different rituals and all those sorts of things.

It taught me how to reconnect to myself and my intuition and my like own divine connection to source to God. Like I feel like today I have a deeper connection with God than I ever have in my entire life. I feel like my intuition is so freaking on point now, like I’m so connected back in that now I kind of don’t need any of these other external things.

So my whole journey through this has been so beautiful and it makes me like so excited, especially for the women. Anyone that like uses those things and even if you feel so connected, I’m not saying if you use those things that you’re not connected. I’ve just gotten to a point where I’m like, oh, I actually don’t need them.

I, I don’t need to pull that card today to figure out what the message is. Right. I’m like, ’cause I fucking know. I know it. Yeah. So that’s been kind of my whole journey of where I’m at today. And, and Sure. Like I’ll pull cards like I host retreats and I’ll, I’ll, you know, do that with the women. It’s not that I don’t believe in them or anything.

I think they are such a great tool to help you connect back to yourself. And especially if like, you use it as that. It’s, it’s so powerful.

Emily Hirsh: It’s so good. Yeah. I, I really resonate with that experience too, of not needing them anymore. Mm-hmm. And just kind of like stopping using them. But in the beginning it was a practice that I really enjoyed.

Oh my God. I loved it. Whether like, pulled it cards or you, whatever. Yeah. And I also, like, I know some people in religions think those things are bad or whatever. Mm-hmm. But it’s like, okay, whatever. You know, there are actual things in the Bible about those practices. Yes. Yes. But yeah, like when you have that really embodied mm-hmm.

Connection and knowing Yeah. You don’t need, you don’t need anything anymore. And you just kind of like, stop. Yeah. And I have had that same experience, like it’s a, yeah. And at retreats I’ll put cards out. They’re fun. Yeah, yeah. But I don’t need it to have that connection Correct. In the day. Yeah. Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: And that was like another thing I also noticed over the last couple years too, just like we were talking about at the beginning about this like soft girl era and all of that, how these coaches are now saying they’re in that even though they’ve hustled hard to make their money, and now they can lean back and do this.

I’ve also noticed this in the spiritual community too, of. Let’s just say women, ’cause guys aren’t usually sitting there pulling cards where women are like coming out saying like, oh, I don’t need the Crystals anymore. I don’t need the tarot anymore. I don’t need the Oracle cards anymore. Because you know, everything is within us and these are all people that literally went through the same thing we did.

’cause I feel like all of us started in this like generation thing where we’re now coming out on the other side of that. Right. But they’re again, not explaining that the reason they are now so connected, the reason they have this trust is because for many years they were like learning and tuning in

Emily Hirsh: through those practices.

Yeah. In their process. Yeah. It’s a process. It’s a journey. Again, there’s no right and wrong. There’s no

Samantha Kozuch: right and wrong. So it’s like, you know, everyone has their own journey like, and I always say like if you’re pulled to doing the cards, if you’re pulled to the rituals or the crystal stuff or the money magic or whatever it is, like fucking do it.

Because if that’s going to further like strengthen your own belief system. Amazing. But I’ll never sit here and be like, you don’t need those things. Right? Like, I mean, at the end of the day, like we don’t, but it’s just like they’re just awesome tools to help you strengthen that thing We can get here maybe without those things, but for me, I don’t know if I ever could have gotten to, I mean, who knows, right?

’cause I’ve lived the life that I’ve lived. But I don’t know if I could have gotten from Catholic religion to where I am today without some sort of bridge in the middle. And for me it was that spiritual bridge.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And I think for a lot of people it is. Yeah. And I think like you’re saying, it is there.

Yeah. I mean, let people just live their process. Exactly. Like there’s no right or wrong. You

Samantha Kozuch: don’t have to do it this way. You don’t have to do it that way. Yeah. Just explore. I think for me is I allowed myself to explore, even though, you know, I had the Catholic mother, like, oh, I had to hide my spirituality for years.

I couldn’t post about it on social media. It’s why during COVID I finally started talking about it, but for years leading up to it, because I’d got into it. Five years prior when I’d gotten arrested and I watched The Secret, got onto all the, you know, all of these things. I did all of that in hiding primarily because I was, you know, of my mom.

Right. Because she was so against it. And I totally understand, like from her perspective, why, but I’m so grateful. Like I didn’t listen and I did my thing, and then I finally like, came out of the spiritual CLA closet and just shared it anyway even. And, and she was just like, okay, whatever. But yeah. Are they still really Catholic, your parents?

Oh yeah. And so how

Emily Hirsh: do they

Samantha Kozuch: feel

Emily Hirsh: about

Samantha Kozuch: manifestation in those tools today? Yeah, the manifestation stuff is like fine, I think with the tools and I mean, I don’t use them anymore. So that’s not a thing. If anything, it’s just more like, I still get, you know, asked like, you know, why don’t you come back to the church?

Why don’t you think? And I have honest conversations with my mother, like, you know, there’s. Certain things I just do not agree with. And I just always have to constantly keep reminding her. ’cause her biggest fear is so like, oh my gosh, I just, I just wanna make sure like, you know, you’re supported by God and stuff.

And I’m like, mom, I, I have to, I have the strongest relationship with God. Like, I don’t have to go sit in her church on Sundays in order to do that. You know? And I, for her, it’s very hard. To understand and you know, that that’s just been, ’cause that’s been the entire generation before me, has been that way and that belief system.

Yeah. Yeah. Here to, yeah. Kind of change things up a little bit. I love that. And I mean,

Emily Hirsh: she pro and she probably won’t change in her life. She won’t. And it’s beautiful that you guys have a

Samantha Kozuch: relationship even with that difference. Yeah. We can have a beautiful relationship and beautiful conversation. I’m just honest and loving with her.

It was not like that years ago. You know, we’d like fight about it and stuff like that. But again, as I’ve grown in my own evolution and under being, understanding where she’s coming from and not letting that trigger me and just know she’s coming from a place of love too. And she just wants to make sure, you know, like I am, I’m healthy and supported and, and all of that.

And I can’t get mad about that.

Emily Hirsh: I love how you were brought up hardcore Catholic. Mm-hmm. And then have moved in this more spiritual direction and manifestation because in order to do that, you really had to. Explore and become so embodied yourself in those teachings because it was so different than what you had as a child.

So it’s like, it’s so authentic in you because you really had to like go on a journey mm-hmm. Of probably like questioning past, you know, things from when you were brought up and like, where does this fit in and how do I feel about this? Yeah. And then it creates such a depth to your own practices and connection.

I love that. I feel like that was meant to be your story. Yeah, of course. Right? Yeah. To be brought up that way and then kind of evolve it to how you have, yeah. Mm-hmm. Have you been to a Joe Dispenza week long?

Samantha Kozuch: No, not yet. Every single one that they’ve had has always something in our life with something going on.

But we’re gonna be going this year. I don’t know which one we’re gonna go to. Yeah, you gotta go. I just went, but I cannot, so I feel like I talk about it on every podcast. No, it’s so good. But I actually did just get my sister to sign up for one coming up this next month, so I’m so freaking excited for her.

Emily Hirsh: Oh, that’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. So, ’cause he was in The Secret and he was like one of the, he is one of the originals talking about, oh, G, yes. Manifestation. Mm-hmm. So let’s talk a little bit about that, because I feel like, I feel like manifestation, this is my, my perspective. I feel like it, it almost like got a bad rap.

Oh my gosh, yes. Right? Yes.

Samantha Kozuch: Oh my gosh. Thanks, TikTok. It

Emily Hirsh: got it. It became this like you could just manifest and do nothing. And like, I just feel like people don’t actually understand and sometimes people hear that word and they associate it with things that it’s really not. Yeah. And for me now having, I watched The Secret a long time ago, so I’ve always believed that and that we’re the creator of our reality.

But I don’t think I had. Nearly as embodied of an understanding of it until really the Joe Depen event. I just went to a Yes before then. But for me, the Joe Depen event was, here’s the brain science and the logic behind it. Mm-hmm. With the spirituality that makes this so real that you can’t even question it.

Deny it. Yeah. You can’t deny it. But I feel like sometimes when people hear the word manifestation, I know there’s like an association with it, that it’s like BS kind of Yeah. But it’s really not like, right. You know, it’s, it is real. But I, I think from this has been my interpretation and, and what I wanna share about it to truly manifest, you have to be so embodied in, in your beliefs and in how you show up as an individual and your frequency and your energy and, and all of that for it to work.

That it’s not like, let me make a vision board and then just magic’s gonna happen. It’s actually takes a lot of intention and a lot of energy to create this reality, but it is real. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, I think anything you wanna say to that, to the person who’s like, oh, manifestation. You know, eye roll.

’cause it’s such a bummer that I know, you know, that’s the association people sometimes have with it.

Samantha Kozuch: Right. I wish we could like, create a new word, right. For this practice so bad. Maybe it should be like a maniscripting, I don’t know. Yeah. Like even with like, you know, with UFOs, they now, now try to rename them, to call them UAPs, right?

Yeah. Because they wanted to get rid of the stigma, rebrand it around us. They literally have been trying to rebrand it for three years and it hasn’t been working. But no, the same with manifestation and I couldn’t agree more. It is more than just creating the vision board and writing down what you want a couple times a day.

Right. It is truly. Getting specific on what it is that you want, right? Like that is the foundation getting specific, but then taking that aligned action from those things that you desire every single day. But then also learning how to feel into those things that you desire. And like the whole, like acting as if it’s already happened.

Like it’s not a fake it too, you make it, but it, it’s acting as if, because we need to be in that frequency and that vibration of the thing that we want is already here. And then having gratitude for it. It is, there are so many layers to manifesting. And I think the way that you just like mentioned it, like the embodiment of it.

Like literally, like that’s, that’s the best term. To describe it, but yeah, it’s not something you just do once, like I always say to my community and my students, it’s like manifesting is a lifestyle. It’s not something you just do once at the beginning of the year when you create your vision board. No, this is something that you are showing up for and doing every single day, and you are, I, what I always say is it’s like.

You are, you’re becoming her every single day. You’re becoming him every single day, right? Like you are taking that action, you’re having those different practices. And that’s why we do have the journaling and the meditation or EFT tapping and other sorts of nervous system regulation work, right? Because we need those tools to support that day-to-day stuff, so that when the doubt creeps in, when the self-sabotage pops up, when something doesn’t go as planned, we can help ourselves reregulate our nervous system.

So then when that energy and that frequency that we are putting off right, is a higher vibrational state, and then when those other things come up, if it’s negative, we’re working, we have a toll to work through the shit, whether it’s in that moment or, oh, let me, let me, let me bookmark this. This is something that really triggered me.

I need to go figure out where that’s coming from, right? In order to then move on and manifest those things that we desire. So there’s so many layers to manifesting, and I couldn’t agree more like with what has happened on TikTok I, and not even just like the whole, just a creative vision board. I think a lot of people also think it’s very.

Very spiritual, witchy, woowoo, that kind of a thing. Right. And it’s just so far from that.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. I mean saying it’s a lifestyle. That’s exactly right. Mm-hmm. Because it’s every single day choosing to be the person who already has the things that you’re trying to create. Yeah. Or you’re create, you are creating.

Yeah. And that requires a lot of intention and effort. Yeah. Because your old programming is gonna show up every hour of

Samantha Kozuch: every day all the time until you reprogram it to the new. Right. And that’s what I just like love to say. And I think what’s the hardest part about manifesting for majority of people is that it’s not instant.

That it’s taking too long. And living in a society where, you know, we have same day Amazon Prime and having these instant results with so many different things, it’s so hard to sometimes fathom, oh, you know, that goal that I have to maybe make a hundred thousand dollars this year. And I think where sometimes where people get caught up is setting these really big goals, even though they are great.

If they are so, so farfetched and so stretchy, no matter what you do, your nervous system is never gonna regulate for that to be possible. So what I, one tip that I have is like, cool, have the big goal. Keep that in mind. It’s almost like practicing the long detachment where you create that goal and it’s like, okay, it’s done.

It’s gonna be coming, but then let’s chunk it down a bit. Let’s chunk it down to something that you can achieve maybe in six months, or maybe that will be the thing that you achieve in a year. ’cause I think what people forget is, the reason you don’t have, say it’s that a hundred thousand dollars right now is because you are not yet programed and wired.

You’re, yeah. You cannot hold that energy yet. So the things you need to go through and master in order to have that haven’t happened yet. And that’s where this, this lag in time jumps in is, you know, you could go through all those lessons in the next month if you put your intention towards it. But if you’re slowly going through it and some days you feel like it, some days you don’t, it could take you a year or three years before you hit that six figures because you’re not willing to show up and learn all of the things that you need to know that will well equip you to be able to hold the energy and space for that a hundred grand.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Yeah. I love Joe at his events will tell stories of people who’d be like, I don’t have the, you know, the house that I wanted and, and he’s like, well, the person who has that house doesn’t look like you. You know? Yeah. Isn’t acting like you, like of course you don’t have it. Yeah. You know, and I mean, it’s not easy to become a new person.

Mm-hmm. It takes a

Samantha Kozuch: lot of intention and a lot of energy. I love to say this, like you need to become fucking delusional. You need to be delusional. And it’s interesting that in our society when people say, oh my God, delusional, that means you’re crazy. That means you’re like out there. Yes. Because you need to brainwash yourself into believing that you are going to have that.

Like that’s. Really what it takes and that anything’s possible. That anything’s possible. Like that’s what it is every single day. So it’s like, you know, all these, all these funny trends of being like, oh my God, so ulu. It’s like, yeah, because you gotta be, you know, that little bit of, because Yeah. Because

Emily Hirsh: not fitting into the, you know, program brainwashed that we’re all fed is delusional, right?

Yes, yes. Yeah. Because they want us to think we can’t create our own reality, that we are not as powerful as we are. I mean, I went into that Gen Joe Dispenza event and watched someone who was blind open their eyes and be able to see holy shit. So like the amount of power that we have as humans. Yeah. And through energy, which is a real thing.

Yeah. Whether you’re ready to hear that or not Yeah. Is beyond what your logical brain can comprehend. But science is catching up to it. Yeah. And it is starting to prove it. And then another thing I wanna say is I think that one thing people have such a hard time with is the unknown. Yeah. Right. And with, with manifestation and with.

Bringing your, you know, future dream to reality. You can’t be like, here’s the path, you know, it’s gotta happen on this date. And this is exactly how, and I know better and we wanna control so much. Myself included, that I feel like the last few years, the journey to appreciating the unknown and understanding that the magic does actually happen in the unknown, which our brain is wired to do the opposite.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: Our brain is wired for predictability. Yeah. It’s wired to know exactly what’s gonna happen tomorrow and make sure we don’t get, you know, chased and letting that go, and trusting and yes, putting out what you want, but then knowing you gotta let go all of all of the, the ways you think it should happen and have some trust.

Samantha Kozuch: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: And I think that’s hard for people to do too, because we’re

Samantha Kozuch: not wired that way. Yeah, yeah. Right. Our subconscious programming is. Always wanting to keep us comfortable, even if it’s miserable, even if we hate it, even if it makes us upset up every day, even if it makes us depressed every single day, our brains will keep us there because it’s predictable, because it’s comfortable.

And that’s what I always say to my students too, is like, you need to get freaking comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah. Like, I know for us, like Mark and I, my husband, like when, if we ever get into a phase where we’re feeling like, like, I don’t even remember the last time I was bored, but it’s like getting on the verge of like status quo.

We’re like, fuck, we are not stretching ourselves enough. We’re not, we’re not doing the next thing to, to get towards our goals. Not that life can’t be that way, but if you have big goals and dreams, it, you know, when you’re expanding to that next level of like, that mastery’s, like when you’re stretching yourself and when you’re expanding.

So it’s like. I feel like whenever I have these conversations with people that are like stuck with manifesting, it’s like, when’s the last time you felt uncomfortable? And I’m not talking about you being uncomfortable ’cause you’re broke right now. I’m talking about you taking an action that scares the shit out of you.

And if they’re like, oh, I don’t know. Yeah. Six years ago. And I’m like, well, there you fucking have it. Yeah. And

Emily Hirsh: you have to, you have to try to be uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. It literally goes against like, we have to understand our brains are not wired for this. Mm-hmm. They’re wired for survival. They’re wired to keep us safe and they do a great job at it.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. You know, but if you wanna create your own reality and have this ability and, and, and access, you have to actually go against what your brain is telling you to do. You have to overcome it. Mm-hmm. That, that was a huge thing for me with dispen of like, you we’re not our mind and we’re not our body.

Yeah. And I’ve talked about it a little bit on the podcast, but after the event, the concept of we are not our body really. Like I knew that, but with all of the work, like somatic work and trauma, I was like, okay, if we’re not our body, why are we putting so much attention and energy on the trauma and some of those practices that yes.

Can be a tool and they’re powerful. It’s just kinda like the cards. It’s like, I think, you know, an hour long breath work session has a purpose. Yes. But it leaves you at the place where, okay, what about where you wanna put your energy? Yeah. Like we just spent an hour putting our energy on the stored anger and, and trauma, but now what?

You know? And so it really, that really changed me. ’cause I’ve been a huge, I love breath work. I love the somatic work. I think my, my journey the last several years has been outta the mind and into the body. And then the next phase is okay, but you’re also not your body. Yeah. You’re, you are not the emotions of your body, those are temporary.

Those are like, let ’em flow like a river. Yeah. And also you can change your emotional state.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really interesting that you bring that up. ’cause I just actually put up a TikTok yesterday talking about this. ’cause one thing that I’ve also seen and noticed where there’s some people that are constantly stuck in this loop of doing trauma work.

I’m not saying that there’s no place for that there. There definitely is like to childhood trauma, inner child stuff, you know, limiting belief stuff, all of that, like deeper rooted shadow work, all of that. There’s a time and place for that. But I also see people getting either so stuck in, I can’t be successful until I heal this, the process

Emily Hirsh: this.

Yeah.

Samantha Kozuch: Oh, I, the reason I’m not becoming successful or manifesting a thing is because this is holding me back and I know it and I’m like the, the reel that I put up yesterday, I’m like, that is no. Like, yes, there’s a place to do those things and all of that, but at the same time, like I’m a multi like millionaire.

I’m like the millionaire business. All of that like. Like, trust me when I tell you, I have not healed all of my trauma and shit

Emily Hirsh: at all. And the more you keep right looking

Samantha Kozuch: and digging, the more you’re gonna find, you’ve gotta find more and more and more, right? Like everything from generational stuff, like we, everything.

So, and I know this is like, I feel like it’s like touchy taboo subject almost. Yeah. Because, but I, I literally just had this reflection of the last few months of just seeing certain people in my life or just like on social that I felt, and I’m like, I feel like you’re just constantly doing the work and I feel like nothing’s changed in your life.

Emily Hirsh: Right. And yeah, when I went to Dispenza, like it was, it’s caused a lot of reflection because I was like, if energy goes where you put your attention Yeah. Then why are we putting our attention on the so much mm-hmm. On the trauma in the past. Yes. Yeah. And I, so I like literally called Samson after and I was like, I need to talk.

I like, I’m feeling so conflicted. Yes. And, and his response was putting. Putting the attention on the future and, and Joe Dispenses method is absolutely powerful. And then sometimes people will get stuck and they need to process something to be able to continue to do that. So like yes, that I, so I see that.

Yes. And you see it like even in dispenses meditations, he uses the Kundalini breath. And when you’re in a room with 2000 people, you hear them processing and there’s a reaction to that. And the body is processing. And that is powerful. But do we need to put so much attention on it? Mm-hmm. And do we need, and, and should we be stopping there?

Like, I feel like a out, in my opinion right now, this is where I stand. I can change my mind in the future, but an hour long breathwork only somatic session, I feel like leaves you at a point where you are not completing and focusing on the person you wanna become.

Samantha Kozuch: Mm-hmm.

Emily Hirsh: And the emotions that that person has and the beliefs that that person has.

Mm-hmm. You spend that time focused on the body. And the past emotions and what it’s storying and things like anger and sadness, which yes, we carry. Mm-hmm. But we can’t stop there because also we are not that anger and sadness. No. And it’s easy to focus on that and then become a victim to the past of like a poor little girl, Emily, who had to deal with this.

Yeah, sure. But also she’s not like, yeah, I can choose a different reality. Yeah. So it was really powerful for me, but it also caused a lot of questioning things that I was, you know, die hard for even. Like, have you ever done sacred rage or mm-hmm. Like, yeah. Powerful practice where you bring up the feelings of shame and you bring up the feelings of anger and you process them through slamming a pillow and using your voice.

Yeah. I guess I’ve done that like on my own, but not like, like, but after, like, I mean, and I was, this is why you can always change your mind as you evolve, right? And it’s like, I, I reserve the right to change my mind, but. I mean, I’ve facilitated that at my retreat. Right? Then I go to Joe Dispenza and I’m like, but I’m putting my attention on anger.

Right? Right. Like now question mark on that. You know, like, yes, it’s a release for my body to do that, and that’s healthy. And we have a lot of repressed emotions. A hundred percent. So I guess where I’m at is like, okay, they’re tools. Yeah. They’re helpful. Yes. But I think there’s a gap. And I think it’s that like where the pendulum swings too far.

Mm-hmm. And I think we have, we are now swinging so far into the trauma, even like internal family systems, like a lot of people love that. And I’m like, but you are focusing on the past. Yeah. You know, it’s leaving you at a place where you’re not, if you, if you’re, you wanna put your energy on who you are becoming.

We’re not doing that enough.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. Yeah. And I think also just, I love having this conversation because I always felt kinda weird over the last few years of like, you know, being invited to go to breath work or something like that. And I’d be like, no, I don’t feel like going, you know, I feel like we’ve turned these things into, it should be a weekly thing or part of the routine and all of that.

But how I’ve ever used any of these things is maybe I’m at a point in my business or something happened in my life where I’ve got this mental loop going on, or I keep repeating the same thing or mistake over and over in business or, or like where am I self sabotaging? Where is this coming from? And I think when we are going through a certain experience, then we go to those tools to use them.

But like you said, I don’t think it’s something we need to have a part of the routine to do it every single week. I think it’s something that when it’s. Like, again, I feel like, ’cause I, I feel like I’m so tuned in. It’s like you have that knowing. It’s like, oh, okay, it’s time. I need to go do X, Y, and Z. Yeah.

Because I’m not able

Emily Hirsh: to get past this block. I’m not able to get past this belief. This keeps showing up. Like I’ve definitely had things where it’s like, I know that future Emily is not gonna do this, and I’m still doing it, you know, over and over again. Like, my body’s not listening. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so, okay, what’s there?

Mm-hmm. Maybe then breathwork, something like that is the space for it. So I think, yeah. It’s like we have all these tools at our fingertips and I think you have to really question everything. Yeah. And it,

Samantha Kozuch: their discernment, at the end of the day, it’s like, do you actually need this? And of course there’s this point of like, you’re either telling yourself you don’t need it and you actually do.

Right. It’s a fine line. There’s all these little fine lines and everything. But again, I, I just coming back to your point is like, I don’t think we need to go to the depths all the time in order to dig that up. Because again, what are you manifesting then? Exactly. And it’s not like you’re gonna manifest it in that moment, but if you’re like every single day you’re doing some sort of trauma work and all of that, like manifestation happens over time.

It’s the frequency you put out over time. Right. So if you’re constantly in that you 100% of holding yourself back from the greatness of this other version of you that does have it all. ’cause you’re putting your attention and focus there.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. Yeah. I was listening to Joe yesterday and he said, everybody always asks me like how to be a happier person.

And he’s like, and my response is just to stop being an unhappy person. Yeah. And it’s like, it really is actually that simple. Like it’s, you don’t have to go back into all the trauma. Mm-hmm. Yes, there are. There are times and some people will have more trauma than others, right? Yeah. And have more blocks.

But I think as with anything, when something becomes really mainstream and popular, we swing too far. Right. And I don’t know if we’ve swung too far. All I know is after that week in Joe Dispenza, I will be rethinking things in my retreats, in my events. And not that I think, I think, I mean, Joe uses breath Breathwork is an ancient technique.

Yeah. But using it in the format of an hour long, in intense breath, that is going to naturally bring up most of the time, not every time, but feelings of anger and sadness and shame and bring that up and then stop right there. Right. Like not continue to bring you to the future self is where I’ve questioned and I, I, yeah, I, I have not heard that conversation and I think I was like, I wish I could ask Joe what does he think about this?

Right. Right. Because I’m like, I need this answer. But it was good. And I think. It it, when you are a leader and you have something you teach, like always evolving yourself and even questioning your own Yes. Practices and not being afraid. Like, I mean, I, a month before Joe Dispenza hosted a retreat and hosted Sacred Rage because at that point, that’s how, you know, it was the best practice I could provide.

I had done it myself and this, you know, it was that version of me the best thing. And now like, to be able to be like, I think I’m actually not in alignment with that anymore, and I’m gonna make that shift. Yeah. Yeah. I think as, as a leader and a facilitator, you need to question yourself.

Samantha Kozuch: Yeah. I mean, and even the same thing in the journal, right?

Like, I have lots of rituals in there with crystals and we have a whole section for a cardpool, like in the coming, in the coming year when we’re doing the, the updated version. Like that stuff’s coming out. Yeah, because I’ve evolved as a leader. Not saying that you can’t go do that. We’ll have probably like a supplement guide if you want to tap into that side of things.

But yeah, I’m evolving my practice too, and it’s not like, oh, don’t do that. It’s bad. It’s like, again, it’s like what’s in alignment? What’s in alignment? And this is where the community’s going now and that kind of a thing. So.

Emily Hirsh: Well, I love it. I feel like I have talked about Dispen on like every, every episode.

Sorry guys. He’s the best. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, he is really incredible. It was a great, yeah. Experience for me. And it’s even shifted at what I think about plant medicine, and

Samantha Kozuch: I believe that, but

Emily Hirsh: talking about a regular practice meditation. Meditation is the regular practice that I, I think everybody

Samantha Kozuch: should have.

Me too. Me too. I had gotten away from doing just like, it was like busy. Usually I do it in the morning, meditate, use my maniscripting journal. And that was just like a couple days where we were just like up and go up and go up and go and then I would just like do a meditation and do a my journaling practice.

Later in the day, but there was one night, it was a Friday night, my husband and I were sitting out on the patio and we’re like, oh, let’s just do like a nice little drop and guide of meditation. We do that a lot together and we put on this really good one that we love. And after that meditation, I was just so energized and so excited and so wired after like not doing a meditation for like three days in a row or something like that.

And it was just like this moment of like, holy shit. Like this is why people need to meditate. I was like going, like going off on him like, like, this is why people need to meditate. Because when you have something like that in your ears, like going into your head, like there is no doubt that you are gonna step away from that and like go take action on the thing.

Especially if it’s a guided one. Like of course there’s like ones where, you know, you just do it yourself and whatever, but we are listening to this guided meditation and the power of it. Yeah, like the power of it because Right. Our, our thoughts, they control our day, they control our life. And if you’re.

You know, waking up with the anxiety, the depression, the negative thoughts, the I can’t do this, how am I gonna do all of that? Like yeah, of course you’re never gonna take that action. Of course you’re never gonna manifest the thing that you desire. But if you even just start with something as simple as a couple minute guided meditation, ’cause I know it’s people just hard to just sit there Yeah.

Silently. You know? But even just starting with something like that is completely life changing.

Emily Hirsh: Yeah. And I’m always like, okay, what are the ancient practices? Yeah. Right. That we haven’t, we haven’t commercialized and changed. And I mean meditation is one of the most ancient practices that in using the breath in meditation in that way is different than breath work.

Yeah. And I’m like, where, where did breath work come from? And when did that start? You know? And I think that there’s a lot of power in not recreating the things we already know work. And yeah, meditation is for sure. I’ve been doing two hours a day since I came back from Dispenza. Amazing. I missed today in like 30 days.

That’s amazing. And like life changing. Like, and I mean, in, in dispensing you do like 35 hours in the week and so two hours is like nothing. And I look forward to the next one. I’m like, I can’t wait to get to no time, no space. Oh my God, I love that. Like, mine are so deep. I mean, it is like plant venison journeys.

Like I’m gone, I mask on headphones in, I’ll be back in an hour. I literally cannot wait to go see him in person. Yeah. I mean, and it, it’s not easy like that, that I said this on a, an interview with, with someone recently like. With plant medicine, I think. And even deep meditation, you’re going to the same place.

Yeah. All taking you to the same place. Meditation, you gotta put in a lot of effort together. You gotta come up against yourself over and over and over again. Mm-hmm. Up against your brain, up against your thoughts, up against your body going, I wanna get up, I don’t wanna sit here. Yes. Plant medicine, you don’t have to do that.

Right. And so for me, meditation has been so much more of an embodied outside of the meditation. Yeah. Because I had to work so hard to get there. Yeah. I had to overcome myself so much. And in the dispense event, the first three days I was like, this is not fun. Like I’m meditating five hours a day. Like, I’ll do this, but this is terrible.

Yeah. Oh, that’s so good to know

Samantha Kozuch: that That’s like the feelings you had going into it. Yeah.

Emily Hirsh: And the, all the people there and like the first three days I was like, I mean, I’ll finish the event like I’m here, but I’m not doing another one. And now I’m like, sign me up for the next one. That’s, I love it. Oh yeah.

So that’s so good. Well, this was an amazing conversation. Do you feel like there’s anything we didn’t cover? Anything you wanna share? My gosh. No. I feel like we went. We went everywhere. I love it. It was so good. And where should people go to buy a journal and find out more from you?

Samantha Kozuch: To grab a journal, maniscripting.com and to connect with me.

Find me. I’m always on Instagram, so Samantha Kozuch, just my full name on Instagram. Amazing.

Emily Hirsh: We will link to both in the show notes and I highly recommend her journals, like I was saying about your product, like you’ve built a community. Mm-hmm. And you’ve built support around the practice. Yeah. Yeah. And really just within integrity and authenticity in what you teach.

I do actually reference you a lot too, for e-commerce businesses, as an example. Oh, well thank you. Because I think you’ve done such a great job building that community and just pouring into your product in, in a beautiful way, so, Aw, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for being here. Thank you.

Samantha Kozuch: Yay. Yay.