Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife: Asking for a Friend

Ep.172 Stop Asking, Start Becoming: Manifestation Secrets for Women 40+

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 172

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Steffani LeFevour shares that manifestation isn’t magic—it’s mindset. Learn how to create life on your terms. 

Why do some prayers go unanswered while others manifest with ease? The difference may surprise you. Manifestation mentor and happiness coach Steffani LeFevour joins me on Asking for a Friend to share how women in midlife can stop asking and start becoming—rewriting their stories to create the life they truly desire.

Steffani’s journey is both raw and inspiring. After losing her sister at 11 and growing up with an alcoholic father, she spiraled into self-sabotage before discovering the spiritual tools that helped her climb what she calls “the mountain” toward happiness. Her story reminds us that reinvention isn’t a crisis—it’s an opportunity.

In this episode, you’ll discover:
 ✅ The five power tools—thoughts, words, feelings, beliefs, and stories—that shape your reality
 ✅ Steffani’s four-step manifestation framework for lasting transformation
 ✅ The “New Reality Formula” that aligns your energy, beliefs, and actions
 ✅ Practical routines and self-care practices to shift out of negativity and into possibility

Whether you’re facing a career change, relationship challenges, or simply craving more joy in daily life, Steffani’s perspective will challenge you to take back your power. As she says, “All the peace is available. All the joy is available—if you choose it.”

👉 If you’re a woman in your 40s, 50s, or beyond, this is a must-listen conversation on midlife reinvention, manifestation, and creating life on your terms.

You can find Steffani LeFevour at https://www.instagram.com/coachwithsteff/

Her book You Are a Badass Mom is available on Amazon

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💌 Have questions about 1:1 health and nutrition coaching or Faster Way? Reach me anytime at mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

✨ For more tips, science-backed strategies, and midlife health inspiration, sign up for my weekly newsletter:
👉 https://michelefolanfasterway.myflodesk.com/i6i44jw4fq

🎤 In addition to coaching, I speak to women’s groups, moderate health panel discussions, and bring experts together for real, evidence-based conversations about midlife health. If you’d like me at your next event, let’s connect!

OsteoCollective osteoporosis resources and community link: https://app.osteocollective.com/invitation?code=BE98G9

Transcripts are created with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions regarding a medical condition.

Michele Folan:

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Michele Folan:

We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. What's the difference between praying for something and actually manifesting it? Prayer is about asking. Manifestation is about becoming. In midlife, when so many of us are ready for reinvention, that distinction really matters. Today's guest, Steffani LeFevour, also known as Coach Steff, is a manifestation mentor, happiness coach and author who helps women turn desires into reality by aligning beliefs, mindset and action. If you've ever wondered whether your dreams are possible, this episode will make you think differently. Steffani LeFevour, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Steffani LeFevour:

Thank you for having me. Love that intro. I'm intrigued, I want to talk about it.

Michele Folan:

I want to hear more. Well, I think this audience is going to be very intrigued about what you have to say. I want to start first with your journey and your story. Tell us a little bit about how you first realized that you had a bit of a gift to helping others, and really about creating your own happiness.

Steffani LeFevour:

Wow, great question. I think when I was young, I had kind of a rocky, tumultuous childhood. But I didn't know that, because when you're in it it's just normal to you. You know, I thought everyone had a childhood like this. I had an alcoholic father who was pretty violent. We never talked about it, we never processed it. My sister died when I was 11. She was 18 in a car accident, oh gosh.

Steffani LeFevour:

And we didn't have, you know, grief, therapy or counseling or anything. Maybe it was available back then, in 1981, but we didn't have access to it and really my family just froze. We did the best that we knew to do at the time with what we were given and it was just a lot of grief. I feel like now I look back and we were all on our own grief islands, just trying to survive, you know, and to support each other as best we could from our own island yeah, because we didn't know, you know, and to support each other as best we could from our own island yeah, because we didn't know, you know. Did it? Did it build our family up? Yes, did we get closer? Yes, but we all shut down for decades, not knowing how to grieve and how to support each other.

Steffani LeFevour:

So I just had a plan to throw my life away. That's all I really knew. I saw my dad do it. I saw it happen to my sister. I thought when you get close to people, they leave, you lose them. I can reflect now. Hindsight is so huge. When you reflect back on your childhood you can see it all with a different lens.

Steffani LeFevour:

But at the time it was just really heartbreaking. I felt very broken and very unlovable. I felt like I was broken and unworthy of a happy, healthy life. So when you have that and you're 11, 12, you're a teenager, you're in your twenties. What I did was just sort of sabotage my life and spiral out of control. I drank a lot and I partied and I failed a lot of classes and I got fired from a lot of jobs and you know it was all I knew to like reach for the, the better feeling of like partying and you know being in the moment because my feelings and my, my history was like too much for me to deal with. So we're going real deep right away.

Steffani LeFevour:

But I'm sharing all this because I think I knew when I was young that these experiences happened for me so that I would best learn about loss and about spirituality and about life and about happiness and about inner strength and inner peace, because without all that I don't think I would have found my way to it. Yeah, so I think I pushed that away for a long time, but I always had a calling and I can see, you know, when I was 20 and I was writing my brother a birthday card when he turned 18 and I was only 20 and I was in the midst of my sabotaging, you know self-destructive behavior and I was saying to him in this card life is so precious, like stay in the moment, like be all that you can be, because you are so special and you're so gifted and you can be and do and have anything you want in this life. You are meant for greatness. And so he gave me this card that I gave him and I was shocked. He gave it to me. When you know that I gave him and I was shocked. He gave it to me. When you know, in the last decade, I was shocked to see that that many years ago I was preaching the same thing I'm preaching now, that I had that inside of me and I was sharing that with him. So it was always there. I really denied it for a long time. I tried to sabotage it for a long time, but it was always there. And I think in college I think I hit many sort of milestones or dark nights of the soul that built into the becoming of who I am now. One time in college I kind of realized I have two roads here. I can keep sabotaging my life or I can start climbing my way up to happiness. I'm going to have to do a lot of work to get there.

Steffani LeFevour:

I read the book by Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love, and it taught me about forgiveness and I was like this is a concept that has never been introduced to me and I was probably 19 or 20 at the time and I was going what Forgiveness? Not to mention like forgiving the girl who was driving the car when my sister died, but forgiving my sister for leaving, forgiving my dad for leaving, forgiving my dad for his addiction, forgiving myself for the self-destructive behavior that had been going on for the last 10 years. Like so many beautiful concepts, it was like I was left at this, you know, fork in the road. Do I ignore these concepts? And this, you know, inner work, and I was, you know, the watching Oprah and she was turning me on to new authors and I'm here reading Marianne Williamson and then Wayne Dyer, and then Deepak Chopra and Pema Chodron and all of these magical, really insightful tools. Do I ignore them and just go back to the self-destructive behavior or do I make a choice?

Steffani LeFevour:

So I made a conscious choice and I had this rock that I had found in the woods at a like keg party that I had put in my pocket.

Steffani LeFevour:

I took the rock and a book of Maya Angelou poems and I went down to a river nearby at Eastern Illinois where I went to school, and I put all of my sadness and all of my fears and all of my unforgiveness into this rock and I read a Maya Angelou poem and I threw the rock in the river.

Steffani LeFevour:

Like where did I have this? Like ceremony and ritual, I don't know, but like I needed it because the self-destructive behavior was so strong, the past trauma and childhood wounds were so strong and there was something pulling me in the other direction. And so I did that and I had this like energetic shift and I wouldn't say everything was like rainbows and butterflies. After that it wasn't like, oh, and now I? You know I didn't like get sober, I didn't like get healthy and happy, but it was like a nudge in the right direction. It was like I agreed to make the climb up the mountain toward figuring out my own happiness and finding my own you know soul's journey, um. So I made a choice and I I'm really grateful that I did, and I became kind of a personal growth junkie after that, you know, soaking it all up and doing everything that I could get my hands and my heart on.

Michele Folan:

Well, there were two paths you could have taken. Right, you could have continued down your path, which a lot of people do, and you can't blame them. Sometimes, with everything that they've been through in life, it's hard to get yourself out of that, to pull yourself up out of that, to pull yourself up. But there you know it's. I know it's hard for you to define what this wake-up call was, but something pulled you in another direction and it's just fascinating how we make these life choices that you know are so profound. And you know. Look where you are now.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, a lot of the life choices. Some things happen that aren't as conscious. Sometimes you get fired from a job or, for me, my boyfriend checks into rehab, things like that that you're not consciously making a choice. It's like God or the universe is making it for you. It's slamming a door closed, it's opening another one. So that was a conscious choice back in college. That made a big internal shift that I still reflect back on to this day.

Michele Folan:

Many of my listeners are women in midlife I would say mostly maybe 55 plus, somewhere around there. They're going through those life transitions. They're maybe career and empty nesting relationships. Sometimes this is where they have the epiphany that maybe they're not happy in their marriage. They're taking care of their ill parents. How do you feel like your own life transition? All of them so you've been married, you have kids have shaped the work that you do today.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, it continues to get shaped right. I just turned 55 a week ago and, gosh, it changes so much. I've been with my husband for 29 years. We've been married for 19 years and together for 29 years and it's like when back in college I decided to start climbing that mountain, I thought that was the mountain. But then you get a new career and it's a new mountain. Then you decide to get married and it's a totally new mountain. Then you have a preemie baby and it's a brand new mountain. Then you have a second kid and it's a new mountain. Then you go through decades with a person and it's a new mountain, new mountain, new mountain. Then you start a new business. So there's so much reinventing.

Steffani LeFevour:

I think we are undervaluing all of the reinvention that we've done through every decade of our life and putting almost a little too much weight on the midlife reinvention, because we are forever changing and growing and becoming, and we have done it up until now and we can make a decision to do it out of fear or out of faith, right Out of being reactive or proactive, like I proactively decide and choose to reinvent myself all the time. You know, I tell my kids and I tell any of my clients, all the time that you get to decide how you want your life to be and then you get to make it that way, period. So if we are always living with that, forward, with that lens, I get to decide how I want my life to be and then I get to make it that way with my career, with my kids leaving the house, with my husband and my relationship, even though it's two, takes two people. I get to decide how I want it to be and I get to make it that way. That's really what manifesting is all about and we have the power to do that about and we have the power to do that. If we have that, we wear that lens first of all because within that lens is a story and we create from our five power tools. We create from our thoughts, our words, our feelings, our beliefs and our stories. And our stories contain a lot of those things a lot of feelings, a lot of thoughts, a lot of history. So if we have a story that is oh, when my kids move out, when I'm an empty nester, oh, I'm just going to fall apart and our relationship is teetering on the edge and it's getting worse by the year and I gain five pounds every year because it's menopause. And all of these are stories. We don't have to believe them.

Steffani LeFevour:

I'm in the best shape of my life, at 55, the best shape of my life. I've never felt better, I've never looked better, I've never felt sexier, healthier, happier. My relationship is in the best place. It's like incredibly fulfilling and connected and fun and loving, and just like passionate. It's awesome. I love being a parent of teenagers. I feel like I was born to be a parent of teenagers. I love it so much, and I know that's not normal. I know it's not a normal thing. God bless you, stephanie. Yes, but it's the story that I've chosen, and so it is my reality. Our stories shape our reality, so it's my reality and I gift that story to anyone else who wants it. You can jump on with any one of these stories and take it on as your own, because you get to decide how you want your life to be and then you get to make it that way, and so we get to choose our stories and look at the ones that don't work for us and rewrite them.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, oh, okay. I've got so many questions for you. We are going to take a quick break and we'll get back. I want to talk about the difference between manifestation and prayer. If you've been following my journey, you know I'm passionate about helping women build strength and protect their bones. That's why I've partnered with Osteo Collective, an incredible resource for anyone navigating osteoporosis or looking to prevent it. Inside you'll find expert-led classes, strength workouts designed for bone health, nutrition strategies that actually support your body, and a community of women walking the same path you are. It's not just information. It's actionable tools to help you stay strong, mobile and independent for decades to come. You can try it out for yourself with a free one-week trial. Just head to the link in my show notes and start exploring everything Osteo Collective has to offer. All right, we are back. I know you have talked quite a bit about the difference between prayer and manifestation and I think this is a really good place to start. Can you break that down for our listeners?

Steffani LeFevour:

I mean, it all depends on how you define prayer and what you're doing. I think it's really important to understand that prayer is a way to you look at prayer as A lot of people define prayer as praying to God when you're in a place of need and desire. Please, god, I pray for my son to make the hockey team. Please let him make the hockey team. That is usually what I would say 98% of people think of as prayer laying down at night and saying thank you for all these things and please also give me that promotion. I'd really like that promotion, but I and then we think of manifestation as all these other things. When we do vision boards and we do meditation and we're like athletes have been visualizing since the dawn of time. They've been meditating and visualizing on these certain things. Well, what is the difference? I don't know that there's that big of a difference we create from those power tools. So if in prayer you are thinking and feeling and believing in something, you're manifesting it. If you are sitting in prayer and saying, please, let my son make the hockey team, but then all day long you're complaining, you're upset, you're in a negative energy, you're yelling at him because he's irresponsible and he's not committed enough. All of that is also a prayer. Everything that we think goes out there, everything we feel is reflected and magnetized back to us. Everything we believe is manifested. Every story we tell, every word has wings, and so it's all a manifestation. And you might look at that as it's all prayer. That's okay. If that word works for you to say oh, that for me is praying, then great.

Steffani LeFevour:

I use the word universe and source and people say are you talking about God? I'm like sure I can use that word too. So I hope that doesn't leave more of a question, because there is not really a difference. It's in the decision. So I create more of anything that I give my energy, attention and focus on. So I will create more of what I pray for. But also, what am I doing the majority of the day? We create from our dominant thought. We create from our dominant feeling. We create from our dominant story. So if one time in the day I was like frustrated and I was just like, oh my gosh, that was so frustrating, but the rest of the day I was joyful and hopeful and happy, then I'm creating from that place, if the majority of the day we're frustrated, and one moment in prayer. We're begging and we're pleading and we're hopeful. We're creating frustration. We create from our dominant feeling, our dominant energy right.

Steffani LeFevour:

And so it always comes down to what have I been thinking, feeling, saying, who have I been being? Because that is all going to be reflected back to me. You don't get more of what you want. You don't get more of what you need. You don't get more of what you pray for. You get more of who you are, what you have been embodying. That's the good news and the bad news.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, it's like ooh, I better watch my thoughts, Because you can say one thing but you can almost self-sabotage with your thoughts.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, we have these dominant stories that are always running and I can tell you a lot of self-sabotaging dominant stories that I had running. I had running a bad story that I was a terrible mom, that my kids were so misbehaved and it was because I was such a bad mom. Until I woke up to that story, I could never change it and I had this frustrating bedtime battles and they were always getting trouble at school. And it had this frustrating bedtime battles and you know, they were always getting trouble at school and it was like this, like terrible friction. And here I am I've been doing this work for 30 years and I run into that because it was this sneaky story of you didn't know if you wanted to have kids because you were afraid you'd be a bad mom. So now it's a self fulfilling prophecy and you're a terrible mom. Oh, I have that story running. No wonder I see everything they do as misbehaving and bad, because it's the universe trying to show me that story. Yeah, right, it's like when we have these underlying stories, we're announcing to the universe please only show me my kids when they're horrible and bad and misbehaving and show me what a bad mom I am, thank you. And then the universe is like okay, only let things happen that show her what a bad mom she is. Don't let her see the good stuff, don't let her see the kindness, don't let her see when her kids are really sweet and amazing. Only show her the bad. You know it is. It's reflecting back to me anything that I asked for.

Steffani LeFevour:

So when I had this mommy monster moment and I was on a life class with Oprah and Dr Shefali, I had a mom intervention. I woke up to that on my own. I went, oh wow. I was always afraid I was going to be a bad mom and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I have to do the work on that story and I have to turn it around. I am a good mom. I'm a really good mom. I am the mom that my kids need me to be. I might not be a perfect mom, but I am the mom that they need and I am doing the best with all that I've got in this moment. Look at the difference between those two stories. They're night and day. Yeah Right, when I had that wake up another one of my awakenings I started operating differently as a mom. I fully embraced being a mom of my kids. They were at that time like four and seven and I started loving it and I started seeing all of their light. And I started seeing all of my light and I started telling them every night that they're the light and that they're meant for greatness and I started just like really opening up to this stuff instead of stomping around like this mom that was always trying to control them. And so terrible. And the same thing in my relationship when I started.

Steffani LeFevour:

After many, many years together with this guy, we have this epic love story. We met when we were so young and I know we have a sole assignment to be together. But after years you can kind of forget that right. It can kind of start drifting away from you. And I started having a dominant thought of gosh.

Steffani LeFevour:

He's so negative. Oh my God, we communicate so poorly. We couldn't be on opposite pages. Oh, he drives me crazy. He's a workaholic, he's never available. And guess what? The universe responds and goes. Make sure he's never available. Make sure they communicate poorly. You know, even though he's like, charming and sweet and kind, make sure she only sees his negativity and his grumpiness. I'm creating it myself. John is like a player in my world, but I can change it by changing my story. So when I recognized and realized that story oh, I can change this story too I changed it to like we're so connected. We have this epic love story. We have a soul assignment and I don't know if I softened or he softened, but we show up for each other always and we laugh a lot and we have a good time together and it's been a long time and it is better than ever. That's the story that I experienced.

Michele Folan:

I was giggling only because I'm like, yeah, I probably do that. I mean, I know I do that. Right, you put something out there the other day because I told Steph, I follow you on Instagram and I find it's so motivating for me. But it's not just about the self-talk but really saying something great's going to happen to me today. Good things are coming my way, coming my way, and that, to me, is such a remarkable way to start any day is to let yourself know that good things are coming. You're going to have a great day and it seems so simple, but it really does change the trajectory of your mood for the day.

Steffani LeFevour:

It does. Well, it's the reticular activating system in our brain. When we decide that we're going to see good things just like I said with my bad parenting limiting belief and my bad relationship limiting belief when we decide that that's all that our brain starts to look for and that's all that we see. So when we say something great is going to happen today, I used to say to my kids when they were little and they would join me on these mantras, which they don't anymore, they're teenagers, that's fine I used to say today is going to be a, and they would say great day. I'd say I'm open and receptive, and they'd say to all that is good. And I'd say miracles. And they'd say find me now, you know. And that primes us for all of those things A great day, being open and receptive and seeing miracles.

Steffani LeFevour:

When we decide today is going to be a great day, we are looking all day long for how it's a great day when we go big. Every morning we begin in gratitude. We're looking all day for the things that we're going to be grateful for the next morning. You know, with my clients in my inner circle we do at the end of every night, we do this soul happy moments. What are the soul happy moments, those moments that made me happy to my core? That happened today.

Steffani LeFevour:

So it's a shift, because we're usually preparing for the worst and focused on what went wrong. It's just the nature of how we're wired. It's unfortunate, but we're wired for that. We're wired for negativity. We're wired for unhappiness. We're wired to protect ourselves. I hated hearing that. I've read all the books about it, but we can hardwire ourself for happiness and it takes things like you just mentioned, like today is going to be a great day. I am open and ready for a great and amazing day and to witness all of the miracles that are coming my way. That sets you up for success. It's really, it's science. It's not just woo-woo, it's science. It's the bridge of woo-woo and science.

Michele Folan:

My daughters and I went to a psychic on my birthday. We've done this now two years in a row and I was talking to the psychic about my business and that sort of thing and he's got a religious focus. But I didn't realize at the time what he was asking me to do was manifest. And he kept saying you need to ask for what you want. And he said and be very, very specific about what it is you want. And he talks a lot about spirit and angels and that sort of thing. So that can be really any entity you wish it to be. But I was wondering are there other best practices that you suggest for manifesting?

Steffani LeFevour:

Oh yeah, I mean yes, we have to ask for what we want. What and why is up to us, how and when is up to the universe. So you have to focus on what you want. What I teach as far as manifesting are these four steps to advance manifesting. You know, regular manifesting is ask, believe, receive. That's been around for centuries. Abraham Hicks shares that. And that ask, believe, receive. It's like we know that asking is asking for what you want. Believe how do I do that? What even is that? And receive that's even more elusive.

Steffani LeFevour:

So what I teach are these four steps to manifesting. The first one is ask for the general end result of what you want. I call it a header highly desired end result, h-d-e-r. The highly desired end result is how you want to feel. So for my business, I want to help more women find more daily happiness, like that's always been the highly desired end result result for decades. So if that unfolds in a book or followers or a website or courses, who knows? But the highly desired end result is that I want to feel fulfilled by helping women find more daily happiness and understanding their soul assignment, having a better soul experience, that is I am all in. I want to feel that. So focus on the header.

Steffani LeFevour:

Step two for me is the ask. So I teach manifesting very differently than most. Step two is ask for how, like ask to be shown the way to that. So it's a very different ask. Not I want the thing, the career, the six figures, I want the guidance to be shown. What is the most efficient and effective way to get that feeling, because the universe provides the how. So there's a million different ways. It might not be that this launch happens, but it might be that you get that book contract. It might not be the book contract, but it might be the speaking gigs. So show me the way to that feeling, give me all the guidance and make it very clear. Step three is take inspired action when you get that guidance. I just had an idea the other day to send an email to a book agent. Now I already have two contracts for my book, two offers of contracts for my next book, soul Assignments. But I got this idea. Someone told me about this agent. I looked her up. I was really impressed. I got the idea when I was on the treadmill and I sent the email. That's taking inspired action on the guidance that comes If the universe is showing me how my book, how my message can reach millions, how my book can get out there and change the most people's lives, I need to take that inspired action.

Steffani LeFevour:

And step four is something a lot of people don't teach and don't talk about. It's how you receive, it's being okay, no matter what, being happy in the now. I can't sit here like in lack and grumpy and complaining and expect that I'm going to get a book contract and everything's going to work out and my relationship's going to be great and I'm going to. No, I need to be so happy in the present moment that this is how I allow in that dream. I have to be so grateful and so happy in my life which I am like almost moved to tears on a daily basis that like I'm okay without it. If I don't get that book contract, if I don't, if that book doesn't ever get out there, I am blissfully happy, no matter what. That's how you receive. So being okay, no matter what, focus on the header, ask how to get there, ask for the inspiration, take action and be okay in the now. Be so happy and grateful that you don't need it. That's how you detach from it and that's how you allow it in.

Michele Folan:

You know, and I think about women, our age I'm 61, that think I'm too old, it's too late. This is just how it is. What can you suggest for someone that has that overwhelm? One simple manifestation practice that they could start just even tomorrow.

Steffani LeFevour:

You know, I think I mean it takes a choice. Like you're either operating, you're either reactive about your life or proactive. And I find most of the women that I coach are my age and your age. I think when we're younger we don't have these deep spiritual awakenings and by our fifties and our sixties we wake up to power by reflection, power by wisdom, power by becoming, and so I think we have more desire for it. Like that's why you do this podcast, that's why women listen to your podcast, that's why women join my courses, that's why you do this podcast, that's why women listen to your podcast, that's why women join my courses. So you have to want it, because if you just are happy operating your life by default and being reactive, then you'll just keep doing that. That's fine, that is 100% fine. I have so much acceptance for people who choose that road. But if you've been hearing the call and you have some desires and you are no longer satisfied with what you look around and see in your life, usually with, like, your level of health and fitness, with the way you're showing up for yourself, with your level of growth and expansion, with your relationship, with your career, sometimes it can be all of those things you can be going. God, I feel like I'm kind of settling. I don't know how many years I have left. This is so precious and important. Why aren't I being more proactive about it? Why aren't I being more intentional about it?

Steffani LeFevour:

Then we have to take action to make a change and it takes a lot of work. I'm not going to deny that it takes a lot of work. It's like we've gone down this old path in the woods and it has found us to this safe clearing and we can be content there, we look around and we like it there. But there's this other clearing over here that has a lot more fulfillment and a lot more growth and a lot more expansion and a lot more joy and some new things. And we're like, oh, I want to get there. Oh, but there's no clearing to get there. I have to actually do the work to clear the woods to get to that clearing and it's a lot of work. And, oh, sometimes it's too much work and I just go back over here and I go back to complaining and I go back to getting on my phone first thing in the morning and I go back to back back. We have to use some tools to create the new path in the woods to get to the new clearing, and I promise you the nudge, the voice that you've heard, it won't go away. The feeling of settling doesn't get better, it gets worse.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, so the one tool I would recommend is to prime yourself every day, to focus on your morning, because if we create from these five power tools, you have to think about how you feel every morning. You know what you mentioned like today is going to be a great day is a great tool to use in the morning. Not reaching for your phone, you know. Beginning in gratitude is a great tool. Drinking lemon water before your coffee, getting outside in nature, taking a few breaths.

Steffani LeFevour:

I'm not talking about the gurus that share the morning routines that are like 20 minutes of a high, intense interval training workout, 20 minutes of meditation and 20 minutes of writing. You're like do you even have a kid at home? Do you have a job? Because I love to scout it. Do you have a job? What do you do? Because that is what the male gurus all share about these morning routine. Things Wake up at 4.30.

Steffani LeFevour:

If you're not up by 4.30, you're a piece of shit. It's like I do what feels good to me. I wake up. I begin in gratitude. I do a soul happy daily planner that I created myself.

Steffani LeFevour:

That's for the women in my courses because I'm focused on writing a new story. I'm focused on my gratitude. I'm focused about what could go great in my day. I'm focused about how can I prevent anything from going wrong in the day and then writing a new story. I'm finding evidence every night. I'm looking for the soul happy moments. I am proactive about how I feel. So take the gurus out, take all of the shoulds out and think about what can you do starting tomorrow morning to prime yourself and feel a little better than you feel so far. You know what would feel really good? Would it be to have your cup of coffee outside on your front porch and just have three minutes of like silent reflection, you know? Would it be to write down things you're grateful for while your coffee is brewing? You can stack a habit. But what can you do to feel a little better in the morning?

Michele Folan:

That's a small thing that we can all start that really creates big change. There really is a self-care component to this, about integrating healthy habits that focus on you. I try to tell women all the time taking care of yourself and your well-being and that includes your mind is not selfish, you know, and I think this whole idea of manifestation and seeing what else is possible in your life I mean for me personally I don't want to be 85 years old and have regrets that I didn't try something or I didn't do the thing, because to me that would be worse than failing.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, for sure that's one of the number one biggest regrets of the dying is that I never lived true to myself and made my happiness a priority, right, and so so many people. I'm going to sneak in one more formula here. I call it the new reality formula. We try and create a new reality by taking action, and that is not what creates a new reality. So, like my husband and I are in a bad place, my health is in a bad place. You know, I'm going to start doing date nights and I'm going to join a gym. That's a great idea and it won't last, because what we need to do is put our state first. We need to feel different, we need to feel connected in our marriage, we need to feel healthy and happy. And then our story next. We need to think thoughts that are better. We need to have a better story about our marriage and a better story about our health and wellness, and then our strategy will work. So it's S plus S plus S equals R.

Steffani LeFevour:

Your state, how you feel, how you prime yourself, matters first and foremost. You can change all the strategy you want, but if you feel bad every day and you're complaining all the time and you're negative and your thoughts are aligned with that, it's never going to change. You're never going to change. So your state and how you feel, plus your story and what you think about, has to be aligned, or no change, never going to change. So your state and how you feel, plus your story and what you think about, has to be aligned or no change is going to happen. Then the strategies that you take and the actions you take will create a new reality. We can't just change from action alone. We have to have our state and our story on board.

Steffani LeFevour:

So what you said about self-care why it's so important so what you said about self-care, why it's so important it comes down to the science that is, our energy and our state matters. How worse things we cannot get out of that. It's a spiral downwards. Self-care helps give you that priming space that you can feel better. And then your husband comes to you with a problem and you're like what is it, babe? I'm ready. How can I help? We've got this, we're a team. If you haven't had any self-care, imagine he comes to you with a problem and you're like you deal with it?

Steffani LeFevour:

Why are you coming to me? I mean, it's just if you were hungry and angry and you got pulled over by a policeman, it would be the same thing If you were in a great place and you had a great morning and you got pulled over. You'd be like officer. I'm so sorry. How are you? How's your day? What can I do for you? What happened? What did I do? Right? It matters, it's all inner outliving instead of outward inliving. If you're outward inliving, you will always struggle. If you do inner outliving, you will always find peace.

Michele Folan:

It's this law of attraction, this stuff. Just I get goosebumps. I love this stuff. I do want to talk about your book. You wrote You Are a Badass Mom. I would love to know what inspired that and who you wrote it for.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, I wrote that a while ago when my kids were younger and when I had my big monster mom moment, awakening, where I really realized about that limiting belief that I that I'm going to be a bad mom and I was it was playing out in my life. You know, I've been in this world teaching this stuff for decades and I saw people writing books and becoming bestsellers on Amazon and all this and I was like I can do this. I can do that. I have a message inside of me and I want to share it.

Steffani LeFevour:

So for 10 years I wanted to write a book and then I decided to pick a launch date and I wrote it in two months and I put it out there and it has sold thousands of copies and it's on Amazon and it became a bestseller on Amazon and it's really sharing through my own personal experiences of discovering my limiting beliefs and turning them around and being reactionary to life and becoming proactive about my life. So it's just my journey of using all these tools as I've continued to climb that mountain and it's been an amazing experience. I love being an author and having that out there. People buy it every day and tell me that they love it. It means the world to me, and I wrote a second book called Soul Assignments. That is probably the reason I'm here on this planet is to share these messages of soul assignments, and so that's really exciting and it will hopefully be out next year.

Michele Folan:

This is, that's exciting. Well, we'll have to have you back yeah, I'd love to when that book comes out and we can talk more about that, because congratulations, by the way, finishing a second book is. I know I've had enough authors on the show to know that there's quite the process there, but that's admirable for sure. How do you work with clients today? What does that process look like, from the first conversation to maybe that breakthrough?

Steffani LeFevour:

Well, I love working with women in a group coaching container. You know, I started doing one-on-one coaching 15 years ago when I started my business, and it was everything. To me it was like be all end all. I have one-on-one clients. This is amazing. And then I realized I was saying the same thing one after the other and it wasn't as effective because women would come to a one-on-one call and they'd go okay, what was I supposed to do from last time? I don't remember what we talked about, catch me up. And I'd be like oh, oh, we, we were, we were. We got a lot of work to do here, and when I put it into a group container, women felt more accountable. So I have courses. I have a manifesting mastery course, a next level life experience. I have more content than anyone could probably ever absorb, because that's what I love to do.

Steffani LeFevour:

When you graduate from my courses, you get an opportunity to join my inner circle, and my inner circle is where we have a couple calls per month and we I share content. Every month we have a challenge. Every month we have a hot seat coaching call. We do the manifestation work Like we're doing wheels of focus and we're doing future polls and we're we're dreaming bigger, we're flexing our dream muscle and we're supporting each other and we're checking in on the challenges. And so the inner circle is where everyone ideally wants to land, because that's when where the rubber meets the road, where you're integrating all of the work and we share our wins every Friday and we, you know, share what went well every month, like it is the work.

Steffani LeFevour:

Right now, I have a five month container that I just put together for my birthday a couple couple of days ago, and so that's only available on my Instagram bio page. You know it's not even on my website, because I literally asked my team let's put both of my courses back to back and offer it at a really low price and see how many people want to join this five month container to get. I do group coaching. So you know, coaching is one thing, but community is something totally different. That helps you grow and transform, and then accountability is what takes it to the next level. So this contains coaching, community and accountability. So we have two calls per month so I can hold you accountable to do the work in the videos and in the you know the homework, so that you don't just like hear something and put it away and never apply it, so it's a really wonderful container that creates the most transformation.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I love that. Happy birthday, by the way, thank you. Can you share a success story? You have a client that you want to talk?

Steffani LeFevour:

about. Yeah, I have so many. I mean a lot of my clients have been with me for five years or more. I started my first mastermind seven or eight years ago and some of them are still in my inner circle and getting coached by me. And you know these women. I won't share their first names. I'll call this woman Nina came to me because she was.

Steffani LeFevour:

Her relationship was in a really rocky place. They had been to a mediator, they were considering getting divorced, he was sort of straying in another relationship and she was devastated and hateful and resentful and angry. And we looked at in in my course with her and group coaching, like what she wanted and why she wanted it and how she planned on getting it. And she wanted this relationship. She wanted to repair it. Their lives were so intertwined. They had a business together, they had kids together and he wanted it too, and so she did the work, the inner work that she had never been I've presented with before.

Steffani LeFevour:

You know a lot of this work. That is deep spiritual work. It might be very common to me now, but it is uncommon to most people Like. These concepts are not that common. That's why when I put this stuff out there in reels on Instagram. It can go viral and it's very popular because it's like wait what I get to decide how I want my life to be, and then I get to make it that way. What Wait, I can be more proactive. Wait, I've got these five power tools. What?

Steffani LeFevour:

We're not presented with this that often and we're wired to the negative and we're wired to complain and we find people that are doing that and it feels really comfortable and she decided she didn't want to live like that and so she turned her relationship around.

Steffani LeFevour:

She turned her inner world around and she turned her relationship around.

Steffani LeFevour:

And I hear from her all the time because we are gratitude buddies, so we share gratitudes all the time about how much she appreciates her relationship now and it came so far and they're so happy and they travel around and you know their their son is off and graduated from college and their other son has a girlfriend and like they made it work and I don't think there's any any better success stories than resuscitating or rescuing a relationship, because I think our relationships are part of our sole assignment and why we're here, and I think, especially in this country, I think we just cut ties from relationships too quickly because we can't stand in the face of the storm and do the work that it takes internally on our own.

Steffani LeFevour:

We always think it's the other person that has to change. We're not ready to do the work that it takes to show up in the relationship as who we can show up as, and so that's my I'm. I'm most proud of that. When this work has helped save some relationships and marriages, that's so nice and you don't get that necessarily in marriage counseling.

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, a lot of times it's talking about your past and your trauma and you know, like hashing all that out, like we just have to do the inner work, and you know, show up for each other and lean in and it's all available to us.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I do have a personal question for you what is one of your non-negotiable self-care priorities? What is it? Something that you have to do for yourself, without a doubt.

Steffani LeFevour:

Well, I um, you know I never used to be very good at habits. You know I wasn't like a morning person and I didn't have, you know, wasn't really good at like morning routines and stuff. So I say that because now, if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that I am very disciplined, but I never used to be disciplined. I made a decision to get more disciplined. I used coaching, community and accountability to get more disciplined. Like just recently in my inner circle, I said to them I've been getting the nudge, I've been hearing from source that I need to shake up my morning routine and I want to do a cold plunge every day for 30 days and it's not easy, it's hard, but when I say I'm going to do something, I do it because I said I would, for no other reason than because I said I would. So I have a daily practice of getting in the cold plunge at 46 degrees for three minutes and it is amazing. It's so hard and it feels so good when you're done and it like skyrockets me to another level of like confidence.

Steffani LeFevour:

I'm challenging myself, I'm showing up for myself when I decide something is a non-negotiable, like my workouts or, you know, um, my supplements, or getting outside daily or learning a new thing. I decided it's a non-negotiable. It's a non-negotiable. I do it because I have the community and the accountability that. So I posted a picture every day a picture or a video of myself in the cold plunge every day for 30 days, because that's massive accountability. So that's how you create a new habit or a non-negotiable you have someone hold you accountable and I have that built into my business that I love so much. These women all decided what their non-negotiables were and they were commenting under the photo every day. It's so powerful.

Michele Folan:

Ah, it's good stuff. You all need to follow Steffani because you will be incredibly inspired by her, her community. I've picked up so many wonderful tidbits and habits that I am using every day, and I was so excited when she agreed to be on the podcast because I just I think women in midlife, Steph, really need to hear this. They need to be empowered to step out of their comfort and go after the thing right. Shake shit up, yeah.

Steffani LeFevour:

Shake shit up, right, yeah and use new tools, because the same things aren't going to get you a different result. You know, being reactive to life, putting out fires everywhere, always responding to everybody, serving everyone's needs before your own, is not going to get you a different result. Like take your power back. Step in your power. Start doing some things for you. Work on your inner world. Stop handing away your emotional wellbeing to everyone outside of you in every circumstance Because we think, oh, the school is just so and oh my God, the government and oh, my husband, and well, if you saw my. Take your power back. Start with you. Do the inner work. All the peace is available, all the joy is available. You can choose how you want your life to be and you can make it that way when you're in your power, but not when you're in victimhood. So it's all available and I love sharing that every day I can and every way I can on my Instagram and speaking of which, how can people find you?

Steffani LeFevour:

Yeah, on Instagram I'm coachwithsteff and that's Steff with two Fs. Coachwithsteffcom is also my website, but I live on Instagram mostly. I'm on Facebook as well, but that's about it. I may have a TikTok page, but I don't really go on it. I have a social media VA who posts on there, so you might find me on there, but I'm not on there. I go live on Instagram a lot. I share stories a lot. So, yeah, find me on Instagram and on my website. Coach with Steph.

Steffani LeFevour:

Fantastic Steffani LaFevour thank you for being here today. Thank you, you're so great at this. Thanks for having me. I love it, thank you.

Michele Folan:

Thank you for listening. Please rate and review the podcast where you listen and if you'd like to join the Asking for a Friend community, click on the link in the show notes to sign up for my weekly newsletter, where I share midlife wellness and fitness tips, insights, my favorite finds and recipes.