Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]
Let me guess. Last time you got honest about what you really wanted for yourself and your business, you wrote it down, you meet the vision board, and it's all just been sitting there. Most likely, you've never even said it out loud to anyone else, did you?
Let me guess, twice this year you found an excuse why now is just not the right time for all your dreams to come true. A dream sitting quietly wherever you voted down has got has grown to the size of the wall. You've built around your own ambition. Writing it down again this year and the year after.
Won't move that wall that you've built around your dreams. Limiting beliefs loosen their grip the moment you change where you're standing. By the end of this conversation, you'll know how to test whether that wall around what you want is real or just a viewpoint from where you're currently standing. If this is your first time here, welcome to She Is A Leader, the show for women.
Who are building businesses on their own terms. One honest conversation at a time, and I'm your host, Yvonne Heimann.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:19]
Wani Manly, my guest today, sold nearly everything she owned and moved to Paris without knowing a soul and without speaking a word of French. Talk about having balls, but we know they are way softer than anything we have, because at least I was speaking English when I immigrated to the States.
Wani Iris Manley is a TEDx and award-winning speaker on change, a Fortune 500 IP and business lawyer, five-time American expat, and best-selling author, but is best known for her daredevil and iconic move from Miami to Paris purely on following signs she received daily for one year without knowing anyone in France.
One word of French or without a plan, embarking on the greatest change that fundamentally changed every aspect of her life.
She's the founder of the Paris-based speaking and consulting firm House of Inspirational Business, EURL, the U.S. law firm W. Manly, P.A, Where Inspiration Meets Law, the world's largest source of legal contract templates for entrepreneurs, and the Paris-based House of Inspirational Business.
Thought I'm a multi passionate entrepreneur and crazy person for packing two suitcases and a dog and roof. Girl, girl. If I wouldn't have any questions prepped right now, you got me, you got me speechless with resume. And anybody that's listening or watching, you know why I brought her on, right? You know. Now, let me ask you.
You build your entire life around science you couldn't prove. You were a lawyer, you were illegal, you were proving everything. And you just go up and move on some science you are getting.
Wani Manly [00:03:27]
Yeah. You know, you're right. I and it's interesting because so my background is like I'm West African, my family's from West Africa, Liberia. And in African culture and sub-Saharan African culture, is like you're either a lawyer, you're a doctor, or you work for the government. There is no, I'm gonna go explore myself, I'm gonna be a writer. And so for me, like I never I didn't want to do the my mom is she's a nurse, and I didn't want to do like the whole the whole doctor part. and so there was no what I the way that I've been living my life is just so unconventional in this very Baptist driven, you know, religious African family. And so I took that conventional path of being a lawyer because and even I I my father was former Minister of Finance for Liberia. And so I was groomed to be an attorney, but I've always been led by the unseen, you know, which isn't all that very, I would say, obscure for our culture, because like, I don't know.
Just very spiritual, like very in my fame, like the women, like a very clairvoyant. We have prophetic dreams and things like that. But what I did was just really like my whole family was like, what the hell are you doing? You know, but for me, I've always been very connected to God, the divine, and just believe there's just something that's just guiding our lives, whatever you want to call it. And I just trusted implicitly. For me, whether I could explain it or not, I just always just follow that.
And so but I will admit the the signs to the the move to Paris was pretty out there though. That's that's just something that's completely illogical or w it was illogical at the time.
Yvonne Heimann [00:04:55]
Tell me about that first month. Because I'm like, me moving to the States, we learn English in school in Germany, right? At least I got some basics. I had a starting point. You went there without a plan, without knowing anybody, without knowing the knowledge. What was that first month like?
Wani Manly [00:05:10]
The first month was in shock because I had no idea it was so hard to find an apartment in Paris because in the US it's just like you throw a rock, you know, it's like eighty million apartments, right? And so I it took me quite some time to find an apartment, but I found my first place in a a really wealthy suburb outside of Paris called Le Valois. And so I was actually renting a a room in a four bedroom flat with like a French teacher or like a French school. We had a French school. So that was like my first month.
And I was pretty much just writing. So the when I initially went, I went for only two months and I was c and I had a return ticket because at the time I had I don't do litigation work, but I did have one case that was in litigation in Miami. It's like a divorce case from California where they had property in, you know, and in Florida that was being like and and so the f the California lawyer had, you know, contracted my firm to help me do that. And so I had to go back. And so my first month there, I was just like
It was just so much eye candy for me because you know Paris is so beautiful. my my system was in shock because it was just so much to take in and so much to see. But when I got there, I just got I was I was just an attorney. I've been a lawyer my entire life. I've been groomed to be since I like, you know, in diapers, but I just became infused in inspiration and I just like I wrote my first book in 30 days. I wasn't sleeping very much. I was just being awakened to write a book and I I literally was just writing, writing, writing. I would go to restaurants.
And I would be writing on napkins. it was insane because that wasn't like my life prior to moving to Paris, but it just unlocked the writer in me. And so that's what I did my very first month. And then I was, I actually went to the south of France to actually to edit it. Like I threw a friend of a friend, like I was in a castle. I was given like a castle for a week by a well-known French, like a music producer. And so I was just like writing it. It's just like those first two months, I was there, you know, just you know, becoming a writer in Paris.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:08]
And I love how it's like, yeah, and then this just happened and I just went there and this just came along and we're just meeting for the first time and also with just the law background and and the by the book and knowing all the things. How much are you a planning person other than the okay, we're just going somewhere, other than the whole Paris thing, are you usually a planning person or somebody that goes with the flow?
Wani Manly [00:07:38]
I'm definitely something that was the flow. I am not a planning person at all. What keeps me in planning mode is the law side because as an IP lawyer, I am subject to like a calendar in terms of like, you know, following you know, clients' trademarks or responding to that. But for my own life, I just pack up and go. Like it's just for me, I'm very I'm very I'm a Pisces son and I'm very much a Pisces. And I was like, you Sagittarius, North Note, and so I'm very much like the explorer, the adventurer. And so
I just jump and I just figure things out later. I just kinda like with the T well for my own life, but for other people I'm like crossing the T's and tying the I's and planning everything for my clients, but for me, not at all.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:18]
So most people would probably call selling everything your own and moving to Paris without a plan and knowing the neck the language reckless. I I that's probably what a lot of people would call it. You call it leadership. Now I'm curious, where
Even though you call it leadership and you've done it and you've proven it's all possible as long as we leave our limiting beliefs behind, would you say there might still be when you look at it where there is still some recklessness left in hindsight?
Wani Manly [00:08:55]
Not at all. I think there are some things I would do differently, but I don't think it being reckless. Like for example, when I initially went to Paris, I didn't know, I didn't believe I was gonna be living there. For me, it's okay. For one year I kept getting all these signs. It wasn't like I said, I didn't go to Paris. Paris called me to it. And so I was like, you know, okay, universe God is calling me there for something. I don't have any connection to this place, so let me just go see what it's all about.
My mindset was I can always go back to Miami. It's like Miami's gonna go away or the US. And so even though I didn't have a home anymore, but it's like I just knew, okay, there isn't like I can always go back, even though I knew I would have never gone back. And it's it's never been a case for me. but there are things I would have like for example, like I sold my apartment because my mentality was I'm gonna start a new life, I don't quite know how it is, so I don't need all these things. So
Getting rid of the place was okay. Plus, it was like the the market was horrible anyway. And so it just makes sense to get rid of it. Knowing what I know back now, I would have probably done a lot better job of probably keeping my place and figuring out how to rent it and get somebody to, you know, to like maybe corporate rental. because I was finding myself like coming back and forth. Like my my move wasn't like initially good or stay there for like forever. It was like two months in Paris, come back for three months, deal with a court case then go back for six you know for three months because I didn't have a visa, then come back for six months and get a visa. So for me it happened like in different parts and like that. And so it wasn't reckless. I reckless I I would have if I thought I would have been living there long term before I left, I would have invested in or started learning French before I before I left. To me those are the only two things I would actually change. But other than that, I wouldn't change anything else.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:40]
Good, that means I'm on the right right path. Got it. Awesome. Because it's with my thinking right now is
one year on a rental in Austin and then buy something to be able to have a US home base and rent it out if that's Airbnb again, if that's corporate rental or something, it's Austin, right? You're always gonna find something. But have a home base, have my things here, have something I can stay at rather than always calling family or friends or hotels or all of that. And then starting to build a secondary home base in Europe. So thank you for confirming that I'm apparently on the right path with this one and I love how you always say the sky is not the limit and I'm curious what does the sky is not the limit as as a viewpoint as a height don't you don't even need to set the limit at the sky.
What does that look like on a day when things are not working out? When this mantra might feel like a lie? When it's one of those days where life is lifeing and it's a Monday and you're just like, I'm assuming you have fuck this all days too. How does that mantra show up? How do you remind yourself of, you know what, this guy really is not the limit and this is just a moment in time?
Wani Manly [00:12:03]
You know, so for me, I have always that I have always heard or or heard, yeah, when I heard that quote, the sky is not the limit, to me it's a limit in itself. You know what I mean? Because there's there's beyond that. And so for me, although I'm not a planner, I'm very much a visionary, right? And so for me, I look at things like from the broader perspective, even though like my my my my vocation, you know, forced me to look at the the minutiae.
But for me, I like to just zoom out a little bit because I think sometimes we get so like tunneled vision, like where when you say like life is actually life thing. And I think what I tend to do is I always be like, okay, you what? Like, let me just take a break. Like, let me just step back, right? Let me look at this moment like 10, you know, 10 months from now or 10 years from now. And that's how I'm able to take myself out of it. Because, and I will say too, I've I've done a lot of spiritual development work. it's just for me like being on a path of enlightenment. It's just there's always self-inquiry and so even though like it's less and less of like me being a poor me or like you know victim me but just saying okay like what is life teaching me right now? You know, I can tell you for I I'll be quite honest, like, you know, the last eighteen months for me have been a very, very difficult transit of where my apartment in Paris is actually sold. I you know, I travel back and forth between p you know Paris and here because I do a lot of my speaking here because the European market doesn't really believe in paying speakers or at least like paying speakers like anything livable, you know? And so most of my speaking is on here. And so whenever I come back to the US, I don't go back to Europe right away. I'll spend time with my mom and he used to go see my father because I have Asian parents. And so I came for like one of my biggest, you know, speaking engagements. It was complete like, you know, days before canceled. then I had to stay a lot longer and I was like, what is this going on? You know, and for me at that moment, because I absolutely hate being in the United States. Like for me, my threshold being here is like for two months and I'm like getting the hell out of here.
Wani Manly [00:13:00]
I like my European lifestyle, I wanna walk everywhere type thing. And so for me I realized that 'cause I was if I was frustrated a l a bit about it. I when I was like, you know what? When I zoom out, why am I here? I have aging parents that are, you know, gonna be eighty plus, right? One of my parents is like, you know, their health is not really, you know, it's declining. And so it by me being here, I'm getting to see the spend time with my family where I wouldn't be, you know, if things were not, you know, have been going like the way on the trajectory I would have been going on, right? And also too, I realized, okay, I need to go back and do Paris a different way. And also to maybe, maybe, maybe into the south of France. And so for me, there's I always believe there is a higher or better perspective than what I'm actually looking at. If I'm in frustration about something, if I'm in anger about something, to me by definition, it's like something better than I'm not quite seeing yet. And when I'm able to say, okay, let me look at it from the viewpoint, because I love flying.
And what I love about flying, I always get a window season because you get to see the clouds and you get to see beneath you. And so for me, that's how I visualize my life. That's how I visualize the possibilities. And I'm like, and even that, there was something else. There's like a galaxy. There's like multiple galaxies. Like, you know what? Like, let me just zoom out a bit. And so that's what I mean by that. For me, it's the viewpoint, not the not the limit.
Yvonne Heimann [00:15:15]
And flying never gets old. It just never gets old. I'm like, I'm I'm student pilot on pause right now just because of time and the amount of money you gotta put into it. And it's like I'm already itching. So by the time I get back into Austin, I'm gonna find a CFI and I'm like, I just need to go up. I just wanna have an hour flight. I don't even care about recording the hours. I just need to go up. I'm itching. And it's just it just never gets old. Insane. Always window seat. Always window seat.
Now, I know a lot of my listeners are digital businesses, they can do things that we can do. And I also know that not all of them, not everybody can sell everything they have and just move to another country, right? We have that luxury. Fortunately, others don't. So I'm curious, where do you see the just change your viewpoint fall apart for women who genuinely can't take the kind of risk or the travel or the pack everything up that we can do?
Wani Manly [00:16:20]
Let me just tell people, a lot of people think, first of all, I didn't move to Paris with a lot of money at all. and first, my first trip when I went to Paris, I had $1,500 in my bank account and I had account receivables from my clients at the time, right? And I'll share with you the first two months I was okay. And then when I went back the second time, because at the time I was doing securities law and I had like five bread and butter clients for all public traded companies, right? That'd been with for a long time.
There were dream one was like a dream client to where it was a telecommunications company to where the the C would put money into the court the the operating account and I would get an email from him and say, hey, Wannic, we need this legal opinion. John's already put the money in your bank account. If it's not enough, let him know how much it is and we'll cover it. Like those were the clients that I actually had. Literally dream clients for five clients, right? And so with the first time, I didn't have cash in me. Like I said, I went, you know, the first time I I had fifteen hundred dollars in my bank account.
The dream wear the dream client. Yeah.
The second time I went to Paris, I had less than 500 bucks in my in my hand. And I actually went again to, you know, with accounts receivable. And when I landed in Paris, I literally lost all those clients. And so I had to go through this whole episode of like in three months of learning a lesson of what abundance really really you know what abundance really is. I had to learn a lesson of having to redo my law practice.
I had to learn the lesson of asking for help. I had to learn the biggest lesson of just being able to trust God and say, you know what, everything's provided for you when you were following my calling. Everything will be provided for you. And so I don't want people to think that I and in fact when I sold my employees, I sold it at a huge loss. And so I didn't go to Paris like with a bunch of money. And so for me, I just went there with the attitude of, for me, you know, my my my resilience mantra is it's not working, it's not an option.
Wani Manly [00:18:15]
I've always operated that way. And, you know, when I got to Paris and I discovered what I was being doing was l self leadership, it just became very the what I was what I've been living was just becoming just very clear. It's like it's it has to work. This is going to work. Just like meme started my law practice eighteen years ago, it had to work because I didn't want to go work for somebody else. You know, so for me, I you know, not learn not knowing French, you're gonna learn French. I don't care how long it takes. So for me, I would tell your listeners, I just find that because of the way business is actually being shown on the internet, especially in the coaching space, is very damaging. There's not very much stictuveness to it, right? Everyone thinks they're gonna be rich in two weeks. Everyone thinks they can just like
You know, and and and so yeah, exactly. And so people are just allergic to work, you know, everything is masculine v versus you know, feminine energy. And I'm like, You've got to work, you know, and so people don't want to do that. And so people aren't willing to put in the hours, like the unsexy work of pitching people. I'm talking about going beyond posting your stories, your reels, and just like, you know, working twelve, fourteen, fifteen hours shifts, which I still do.
And I don't care about it because it's giving me the life that I actually want. But it's like it just takes work and people are lying to you. I'm until you like as a lawyer in the online space where people's intellectual property being stolen left, right, front, and center. When you look online, everyone's a baller, everyone's loving life, everyone's you know, it's just it's like it's a complete facade. Like it's so fake.
You know, and unless there's like there are good coaches and good, you know, entrepreneurs out there, but the mass majority of it is is fraud. I'm sorry it is, because people come to me and because I you know, such and such they sold my business and then you know, they sold my IP. And so, people have to really get real about what it takes. And so it may take you ten years. It just might. You know, it might take
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:10]
Or fifteen or twenty or five years in you got a rebuild because suddenly all of your core clients are gone. Know that feeling, we've all been there. So thank you for being open and sharing that you literally went with fifteen hundred bucks or five hundred bucks because yes, when we hear, cool, somebody sold everything and went moved to Paris, what we hear is like, yeah, you got that savings account and you got that going and this going, it's like, yeah, no.
Don't get me wrong I wasn't swimming in money either and yet still I've enjoyed my last nineteen days in Europe and being all over the place and now we gotta we gotta get the business back up and run not up and running but gotta jump back in and I'm working fifteen hour days to catch back up because the business isn't there yet that it fully can run without me. Not only that, I've met my team for the first time finally in person, so we all took some time off. It just is, right? And this whole marketing bullshit that yeah, we are on the same page with this one. The whole seven figures in seven days. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Wani Manly [00:21:18]
Yeah. And they're not. And even like this, you know, I and and I worked a lot of seven figure, most of my clients were the seven figure coaches. And I can tell you that, you know, be behind all, you know, they're not actually telling, okay, yeah, they they may have been making seven figures, but there's also like a twenty thousand dollar, you know, chargeback from a launch or from a retreat. And so I mean you they sell these high quote unquote high ticket packages, but it's like the numbers are not being or not the truth, they're not the full truth, you know? And so people just need to be very mindful and just be and want to ask more questions about what you're actually investing in as well too. But it is gonna take some work. And I think and and I like even though like right now the market's definitely shifted. You know, a lot of like the pandemic entrepreneurs are no longer with us. A lot of the it's all feminine energy people are gone as well too because no it's not just all feminine energy. it's like all the hobbyists are gone because now we're seeing like with AI you know, where, you know, people aren't are you know, w even with what's going on like in a in the global markets where like, you know, people are just very mindful of how they're spending their money, it's like, yeah, the hobbies are gone as well too. And so yeah, it's it's gonna be it's gonna take a little more a lot more work than what it used to say in 2020.
Yvonne Heimann [00:22:30]
And I think the market is also shifting, and people are getting tired of the marketing coaches, right? The coaches that keep coach coaches how to coach. Like you haven't built a business, you are just re-coaching what you learned from your coach. And I am market change always is a little bit fighting. Don't get me wrong. It's like things are changing. We are humans, we are just by nature, we like things the way we know they work. And also the change that I'm seeing in the coaching industry specifically, even consulting too, is one where the market is cleaning us out. And I'm happy about it.
Because now suddenly we have, I see less and less of the bullshit and more and more of the coaches and consultants that actually have done the work, that are still doing the work and not selling you marketing campaigns that worked five years ago when you know the ones from last month are not working anymore. And it's on one hand, yes, it's frightening because the market is changing so fast and so rapidly. And on the other hand, I'm like, I'm in for a nice spring cleaner. Bring it on.
Wani Manly [00:23:45]
One hundred percent, yeah. You know, and I think it's time for the real the real experts are actually being shown now. Whereas 'cause just for quite some time, the fake experts were actually out marketing like the real ones. And so because now with everyone's being burned so much, you know, there's a hesitancy, you know, in some spending. there's you know, people are, you know, asking a lot more questions than, you know, what time is the re are the calls and would it will there be a replay, which I think is the most useless questions to be asking and I'm all the way in Paris and I you know when I work with coaches you're in the US and so and I've been on calls at 2 a.m. I don't care. I'm not a replay person, but I always tell people like you need to ask people before you became a coach, what were you doing? What was your expertise in? You know, no more of this I followed her for a while. What does that mean? You watched a reel. What does that mean? You know, that's I that's due diligence. I'm like, that's not exactly, you know. and it's because everyone the the entire marketing is, I made X amount of money, buy for me. That's all that's every market is what it is, but then no one's asking, show me a proof of that. You know what I mean? And so what to take home with that? You know, how much are you paying, you know, your staff and you know what I mean? Like what's the profit margins on, you know, on that that number. Yeah. So it's it's quite an interesting market. Yeah.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:00]
Like, I don't care about your revenue, I care about the profit. If you spend one million to make half a million, you don't have a profit. And I'm curious because I always like to end on an action item. So for my listeners, for my viewers, for the women that are ready to question themselves, and that are like, okay, I
I built my own ceiling. What would you recommend them? An action step to take or a practice to do this week to be like, okay, where did I set my limiting beliefs? Where, where am I sticking myself in a corner that I shouldn't even be in?
What can they do? Yeah, to to start questioning themselves, to to get out of this, the the sky is the limit, and really see what limiting beliefs they set themselves.
Wani Manly [00:26:00]
One of the things I would tell people is to really start looking into somatic work. This is not quite the business advice that people would expect from me. But I would tell you that because so much of what we're told in business, and I believe that's like a rite of passage, because for example, when I started my business, no one taught me about mindset, right? And so I had to go the mindset route because then I was like, no, wait a minute, this is there's something much more going on here.
Once I begin to, for example, like to do daily practices, to, you know, just going on YouTube and just looking at somatic like you know, exercises and start bringing safety into my body, I could expand more. Cause for example, like, you know, I always say legally, God isn't going to, you know, bring a boatload of clients if you're not if legally you're not prepared to actually to, you know, to take them on, right? Meaning like you're gonna get sued. It's the same thing, like if a child is like eating.
And she's stuffed, you know, you're not gonna give her more food, right? It's the same thing with your body. So if you've got like a fifty thousand dollar business right now, but you want a seven million dollar business, it's like, okay, do you actually have the capacity to you know to hold all of that? And what I have found, at least for myself and for a lot of other people, and a lot of my clients were doing the seven figures, is like they do a lot of somatic work, you know, that is like bringing safety into the body because
You're no matter what your goal is, no matter whatever it's limiting beliefs you have actually like you have found you actually wrote down, I'm telling it's a it's a it's a somatic issue because like there's there's something in your your psyche where it's not feeling safe to expand. Maybe for you know, if for like example if you want to be a speaker but you don't want to pitch, okay, maybe there's something in your body just saying, Okay, it's not safe for me to go out there, you know, maybe I'm gonna be attacked, you know, maybe it's gonna be gonna come you know, comment on how I look and things like that. So I would tell people.
Don't ignore like these physiology things pieces in order to grow your business. And sometimes it's not it's not more push, you know, push more, you know, do more reps and things like that, but it's more okay, like let me just look at my physiology. Does my body feel safe holding, you know, 80k months or 100 K months? And for most people that's no. Especially for women, because I mean we just got the right to vote, just got a right, you know, to hold the bank account. So like these things are in your physiology. You've got to address and like and bring safety into the body and I'm telling you like whatever your blocks just start to like this, you know, disintegrate.
Yvonne Heimann [00:28:24]
Yeah, it's interestingly enough, I always love how how the universe delivers. I had a conversation with my right hand, my COO today, and we are going through the practice of 10xing everything, right? Rather than just, okay, we want to double the revenue. I'm like, no, 10x, because it focuses really, right? And she's like, Cool, what does 10x for us mean? And I threw a monthly number at her. And I'm like, whoo, okay.
There's work to be done because that number felt completely freaking insane. And yep. I'm already working on my practice to be able to hold that. She's working on the systems and processes behind the scenes so the company can hold it, so we can go into that. And that's that's really where changing your perspective is just the fastest way.
To the fastest business decision, the best business decision you can make this year. So if you've been waiting for permission to just stop believing that the sky is the limit, I already you already know this episode was definitely for you. And go forward it to a woman on your team who keeps saying she'll go after that idea somewhere, or your mastermind, or whatever woman you know that has major dreams and keeps holding herself back. Go introduce her to Wani, send her the episode, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye everybody.
Wani Manly [00:30:00]
Bye everyone. Thanks for having me.