Trailblazing With Truth: God, Money & the Courage to Be Fully You with Jaclyn Shaw

Trailblazing With Truth: God, Money & the Courage to Be Fully You with Jaclyn Shaw

What happens when you stop looking outside yourself for the right words, the right strategy, or the right path—and become willing to trust the truth already moving through you? Today on Voices of Influence: The Podcast with Criss Madrigal, I’m sharing a powerful keynote from Jaclyn Shaw, spiritual mentor, bestselling author, speaker, and a mentor of mine for the past several months. Jaclyn originally delivered this talk as the opening keynote for Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment, and it was simply too powerful to keep inside that experience. My mission is to impact the lives of 1 million women across the globe by 2029, and I know a mission this big cannot be accomplished alone. Part of that work is amplifying the voices of women whose messages have the power to create real change. Jaclyn is one of those women. In This Episode Jaclyn takes us into a conversation around truth, God, money, self-trust, and what becomes possible when we stop diluting who we are. Tune in as she explores: The power of living your truth—not just speaking it.Jaclyn challenges us to look at the places where we know what is true for us, yet still soften our words, second-guess ourselves, or change direction because of fear, judgment, or someone else’s opinion. Why truth and leadership are inseparable.Real influence isn’t created by trying to be polarizing or disruptive. Jaclyn shares why being unapologetically who you are will naturally attract the people who are meant for your work—and repel those who aren’t. The cost of becoming more fully yourself.There comes a point when the people-pleasing, approval-seeking, “should” following parts of us can no longer lead. Truth can be inconvenient. It can be uncomfortable. And it can require being willing to be misunderstood. What happens when someone else’s voice becomes louder than your own.Jaclyn shares deeply personal experiences from writing her books and being encouraged to remove, soften, or change parts of her story and spiritual message—and the decision she made not to betray herself in the process. Why your lived experience matters.Your stories, wisdom, experiences, and voice may be exactly what someone else needs. But they cannot impact anyone when they’re hidden because you’re afraid they’re too much, too vulnerable, or won’t be understood. The connection between God, truth, and money.Jaclyn brings forward her unconventional perspective on wealth: what she calls God × Money. She shares how faith, trust, conviction, and a willingness to move before having evidence changed the trajectory of her business and finances. Her journey from $200,000 in debt to building multimillion-dollar businesses.Rather than allowing past evidence to define what was possible next, Jaclyn began questioning the story she was telling herself about money—and choosing a different one. Why the unknown may be exactly where you’re meant to go.Sometimes the next move will not make logical sense. Jaclyn speaks about releasing the need to control the pathway and trusting what she describes as God’s direction, even before knowing where it will lead. And perhaps one of the most important reminders in this entire conversation: You are not being asked to become someone else. You are being invited to go deeper into who you already are. A Question to Sit With As you listen, ask yourself: Where am I still betraying what I know to be true because I’m afraid of how it will be received? Maybe there’s something you’ve been called to say. Something you’ve been called to create. A decision you already know you need to make. Or simply a fuller version of yourself you’ve been hesitant to let the world see. This conversation is an invitation to stop diluting it. Listen to the episode and notice what speaks directly to you. Connect With Jaclyn Shaw Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/the.jaclynshaw/ [https://www.instagram.com/the.jaclynshaw/] Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589883624633 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589883624633] Employed by God I’ve personally been inside Jaclyn’s Employed by God mastermind for several months. If you’re ready to explore what it looks like to have God as your co-creator and co-pilot in your life and work, this is a room worth exploring. Learn more about Employed by God:https://jaclynshaw.ca/employed-by-god-page?am_id=criss1865 [https://jaclynshaw.ca/employed-by-god-page?am_id=criss1865] Stay Connected With Voices of Influence Voices of Influence is about more than my voice. It’s about creating a platform for conversations, perspectives, stories, and women whose work has the power to ripple far beyond one room. Subscribe to my Substack to receive new podcast episodes, personal reflections, conversations on reinvention and aligned living, and updates from the Voices of Influence world. Subscribe here: — Criss MadrigalVoices of Influence: The Podcast This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com [https://crissmadrigal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Reinventing Yourself After 45 Isn't Hard — You Just Need Clarity

If you’re over 45 and quietly wondering whether it’s too late to become someone new, I want to save you some time: reinvention was never the hard part. Clarity is. I know because I did it. At 44, I walked away from a 20-year corporate career — three degrees, a six-figure income, all the boxes checked — to rebuild my life on my own terms. And the thing that finally moved me wasn’t a bigger goal or more discipline. It was two simple questions that cut through twenty years of noise and showed me exactly what to do next. This week, I hosted a private session called Aligned for More [https://youtu.be/pZhRO7ALkRY], where I walked a group of women through the exact process I used. And honestly, I can’t keep it private because I keep hearing the same story over and over again from women who are stuck in the same place I was — successful on paper, disconnected underneath. So here it is, the two-step method, the real stories behind it, and how you can reinvent yourself after 45 or any age! Why “figuring it all out” is the wrong goal Most people who feel stuck at this stage of life think the problem is that they haven’t found the answer yet — the rightnext career or next chapter. So, they keep researching, keep waiting, keep hoping clarity will just show up one day. But clarity doesn’t arrive by waiting, it arrives through a process. For years I lived what looked like success — the job, the family, the resume — while feeling exhausted, disconnected, and honestly unable to recognize myself in the mirror. I had upgraded my parents’ financial struggles, but I hadn’t upgraded my freedom. A company was still in control of my time. I hadn’t broken the cycle. I had just polished it. The shift finally happened when I asked myself the right questions, in the right order. That’s the whole process: two steps, four questions each, one decision at the end. Step One: LEAD — Realign with Your Truth The first step isn’t about doing anything yet. It’s about seeing clearly. You can’t lead your career, your family, or your next chapter until you’re leading yourself — with truth, not on autopilot. LEAD breaks into four moves: Listen, Evaluate, Align, Decide. Listen means returning to the inner voice you’ve been drowning out with everyone else’s noise. My own turning point came the day I sat back and really watched my life on replay. My mother dropped out of school in sixth grade to help support her family, married at 17, and dreamed of giving her children the opportunities she never had. With my parents’ support and motivation, I got three degrees. I built the career. I checked every box. Then, the truth slapped me in the face when I realized I valued all the things my parents did, but I wasn’t living my dream. I was living their dream of giving us everything they envisioned. That’s the moment I got clear on MY dream and the things I desired in life Evaluate is where you get radically honest about what isn’t working, even if it “should” be. I took inventory across the five areas that matter — relationships, health, money, time, and career — and saw how far out of alignment I’d drifted. My marriage was running on fumes because everything went to the kids and work. My health had turned into an autoimmune condition after a decade in survival mode; I saw five different specialists who told me my labs were “fine” while I sat there covered in hives. My career had quietly become the opposite of what I valued and I knew something had to change. Align is where you stop reacting to your life and start designing it — from truth, not guilt; from desire, not duty. For me, that meant admitting I couldn’t do the redesign alone. I hired a coach, then became one myself, and started building the life I actually wanted instead of the one I’d inherited. Decide is the step people skip, and it’s the one that actually moves things. Everything is one decision away. Mine came in a conversation with an executive, presenting a vision, thinking outside the box, only to be told, “You think too big. You need to think smaller.” That sentence triggered the decision and I said, “Enough, Criss.” And I began to map out my exit from corporate. Fear, doubt, and everything in between showed up right on schedule, but one decision opened the door to freedom. (The colleague who did believe in that vision applied everything I’d taught him and hit 100% of his team’s goals after I left. Belief travels.) Ask yourself the same four questions I asked myself: What truth have you been ignoring because it’s inconvenient or scary? What areas of your life look good but feel heavy? If you were living in full alignment, what would you stop doing? And what is life asking you to decide, right now? Step Two: HEAL — Become the Person You Desire Clarity tells you what’s out of alignment. HEAL is what lets you actually become the person capable of living differently. It also breaks into four moves: Honor, Embrace, Align, Lead. Honor means acknowledging everything you’ve survived instead of rushing past it because the world tells you to “get over it” and “be strong.” I didn’t fully honor my own story until I was sitting in a functional medicine practitioner’s office, covered in hives, the same week I learned my twin daughters — who live with a rare genetic condition — needed lifelong infusions every two weeks, and the same week our bank account was hacked and emptied. My practitioner looked at me and said, “Criss, you’ve been living in survival mode for over a decade. This is how your body is speaking to you.” I stopped bypassing my own exhaustion that day. Six months later, I was healed — not just physically, but in how I related to every version of myself, including the messy, unglamorous ones. I decided I was no longer a victim of my circumstances. Now, I embrace every part of my journey that led to every evolution I go through. Embrace is where you reclaim the parts of yourself that got labeled “too much,” “too sensitive,” or “too ambitious.” I’d been called an overachiever, told I thought too big, asked why I couldn’t just be satisfied — until I stopped listening to that noise and started listening to what I now think of as divine downloads, messages I wrote down in a notebook long before I understood what to do with them. When I finally got the courage to share a divine download with my husband, he looked at me and said, “Just obey.” Whatever you call your own inner guidance system, the point is the same, you have to trust it even when others don’t understand it. Align, in this second pass, is about letting ease into your life instead of earning your worth through exhaustion. I used to run meetings, travel constantly, manage a household with medically complex twins, and still answer emails at 1am before waking at 5am to do it again. That wasn’t responsibility, it was self-abandonment dressed up as productivity. Real alignment meant learning to receive instead of constantly proving. Lead is the final move — leading yourself first, from intention instead of exhaustion. Today, I don’t answer emails 24/7. I am intentional about family time, log off when I say I will, and let my teens see me present, not just productive. That’s not a personality change; it’s what happens when the first three moves are actually done. Ask yourself: What have you never fully acknowledged that you survived? What have you labeled “too much” that’s actually part of your gift? What joy have you been delaying until some condition is met? And where are you still leading from pressure instead of peace? The one decision Two steps and thoughtful questions. All of them point to the same place: one decision, made from truth instead of fear, is what changes everything. Not a five-year plan or the perfect exit strategy. One decision, followed by the next right one. That’s what reinvention after 45 actually requires. Just enough clarity to see what you already know, and enough courage to decide. It’s not starting over from zero like many seem to believe. It’s repackaging your gifts and sharing them with the world in a way that lights you up. Go deeper: watch the full session Everything above is the framework. The full private session — the guided visualizations, the complete stories, and the live workbook exercises — is where the real shift happens, because clarity lands differently when you actually sit with it instead of reading about it. If this resonated, I invite you to watch the full Aligned for More [https://youtu.be/pZhRO7ALkRY] session and meet me there. It’s also where I opened up Magnetic by Design [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/offers/4j4jCukE], the 6-week live program built for women ready to do more than reflect — women ready to actually redesign the area of life that’s calling for attention, release the guilt and fear keeping them stuck, and lead with clarity instead of default. Magnetic by Design starts Tuesday, July 21st. Registering by July 9th includes a free 1:1 private session with me where we look at your Human Design to help you crack every door open. And remember, you’re not behind. You’re not too late. You’re exactly where you need to be — and you’re one decision away from your most magnetic life! Xoxo, Criss Madrigal This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com [https://crissmadrigal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Why Your Income Is Stuck

You’ve tried all the things. You’ve hired the coaches. You’ve tweaked the plans. And still — nothing changes. What if the block isn’t in your business or at all? In this Speaker Spotlight, I sit down with Carol Mortarotti — revenue expansion strategist, former professional tennis player, and one of the very few women who worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Carol’s path to this work wasn’t linear. After losing her ex-husband to suicide in 2011, her world shattered. She stepped away from finance, dove deep into grief coaching and shamanic energy healing, and came out the other side with a profound understanding of what actually keeps women stuck — and it’s not their tactics. It’s the hidden emotions they can’t see themselves. We talk about: * Why business women who are doing everything “right” suddenly plateau — and what’s really behind it * How life transitions like divorce, loss, or an empty nest quietly derail your income without you realizing it * The emotions — resentment, shame, blame — that block alignment across every pillar of your life * Why you can be a stay-at-home mom, an entrepreneur, or anywhere in between and still need this work * What Carol is bringing to the event: how to detect what’s keeping your income inconsistent and the shifts to get it moving again Carol’s message is both grounding and liberating: your strategies aren’t broken — you just need to get back into alignment first. Then everything works. “Don’t attend alone. Bring someone with you — and experience the shift collectively.” 🎙️ Carol Mortarotti is a revenue expansion strategist who blends financial expertise with energy healing to help women entrepreneurs identify the hidden emotional blocks keeping them from consistent income — and finally get back to shining. ✨ The second half of the year is yours to reclaim. Join us at Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] — a FREE virtual event happening June 15–19. Start with a 10-minute alignment audit when you register, tune into what’s calling you, and walk away with tangible tools to shift the remainder of your year. Health, wealth, love, and personal power — all in one week. 🔗 Register here: https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com [https://crissmadrigal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Love Revolution: Coming Home to Yourself

What happens when you have the career, the success, the life that looks right on the outside, but you’re standing on your balcony watching fireworks and feel completely numb inside? That was Laura Peoples’ wake-up call. And it changed everything. In this Speaker Spotlight, I sit down with Laura Peoples, the Love Coach and one of our featured voices at Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience]. Laura helps women come back home to themselves through deep self-love, inner child healing, and the kind of radical self-permission most of us were never taught. Her story is the one a lot of high-achieving women are quietly living right now, and her message is the one they need to hear. We talk about: * What it actually means to “come home to yourself” — and why it’s the foundation for everything else in your life * The moment a doctor told Laura she was heading for a heart attack — and why she still didn’t stop * How inner child work can unlock the part of you that’s been waiting to come back to life * Why forgiveness, release, and daily self-love practices aren’t soft — they’re transformational * The difference between living with a ceiling and living in the garden of infinite possibilities Laura’s talk at the event is called Love Revolution: Healing, Self-Love & Second Chances — and she’s bringing personal story, a heart meditation, 3 keys to shifting your life, and journal prompts that will invite you to finally choose yourself. “Coming home to yourself is having that sovereignty of knowing what your truth is — and living it every day.” 🎙️ Laura Peoples is the Love Coach, speaker, and guide helping women break the cycle of emotional disconnection, fall back in love with themselves, and step into infinite possibilities. ✨ This is your midyear invitation to come home. Join us at Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] — a FREE virtual event happening June 15–19. Start with a 10-minute alignment audit when you register, then let the right voices find you. Health, wealth, love, and personal power — all in one week. 🔗 Register here: https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com [https://crissmadrigal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

From Food Stamps to Multi-Six Figures

What if your money isn’t actually the problem — it’s the system you don’t have around it? In this Speaker Spotlight, I sit down with Lisa Marie Robinson — the Sassy Wealth Queen, Fractional CFO, and money mentor — and one of our featured voices at Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience]. Lisa works with women entrepreneurs who are making the money but not mastering it. She helps them stop the leaks, build aligned money systems, and design a financial life that actually buys back their freedom. And she didn’t build this from a place of privilege. She built it from food stamps, a repossessed car, two foreclosures, a short sale, and a bankruptcy — and then took her business to multi-six figures in three years. We talk about: * The money leaks quietly draining your finances (hint: check your subscriptions and your coffee habit) * Why budgeting alone doesn’t work — and what holistic wealth codes actually look like * How your physical health, relationships, and mindset are directly connected to your wealth * The simple 3-step framework Lisa is bringing to the event: designing money systems that buy back your time * Why mid-year is the perfect moment to stop, realign, and decide where you want to be six months from now Whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, this one will have you looking at your money differently — and your time even more so. “This is self-care. These are gonna be my few self-care days.” — Lisa on why she registered for the event herself. 🎙️ Lisa Marie Robinson is the founder of Transcendent Wealth Co., a Fractional CFO, and money mentor known as the Sassy Wealth Queen. She helps women entrepreneurs master and multiply their money through aligned wealth systems that support freedom — not burnout. ✨ Your midyear realignment is waiting. Join us at Top 50 Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience— a FREE virtual experience happening June 15–19. Start with a personal alignment audit when you register, then tune into the speakers speaking directly to where you are right now. Health, wealth, love, and personal power — all in one week. 🔗 Register here: https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience [https://www.crissmadrigal.com/top-50-voi-experience] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com [https://crissmadrigal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]