Speaker 1: Welcome to Getting Rich Together. I’m your host, Syama Bunten. This show was born for my own journey. Coming out of a divorce, I reached out to 50 women to talk to them about money.

95% of them did not want to go there. That’s when I realized we need spaces where wealth isn’t hidden in silence but shared in possibilities. Here, you’ll meet women from all backgrounds, trailblazers, risk takers, visionaries, each expanding what wealth can look like. This is your place to be inspired to discover new pathways and to remember that we rise by building wealth together. Getting Rich Together is a wealth catalyst production.

At Wealth Catalyst, we bring together education, networks, and great opportunities for women to build wealth and change the world. Now, on to today’s show. I am here today with the brilliant Sara Vetter. Sara, not only are you the CEO of the Soul of Money Institute, you are a long-time partner to author and activist Lynn Twist. You have raised millions of dollars for global impact initiatives, which I think is so incredible, that opportunity to rally people around the causes that are so close to your heart, close to the vision of the world that you have, and to help people reframe what their relationship is with money from scarcity to sufficiency, from fear to purpose. Sara, I’m so excited to have you here today on Getting Rich Together. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I’m excited for this conversation because it’s such a big part of my life. I did no preparation. I’m just ready.

Speaker 1: I love that. We’ll start from where it all started. Today, you sit in front of me as this beautiful woman with great jewelry, your hair looks fabulous, but certainly, you were once a little girl and maybe that little girl didn’t have such fabulous hair or fabulous jewelry, or maybe she did.

But Sara, take me back to life when you’re around 10 and 12 years old. Where were you in this beautiful world of ours? Was it pigtails, ponytail, who were you and what was life like?

Speaker 2: Okay, definitely pigtails with the little corduroy ties. Well, I grew up in Central California in a wealthy, I didn’t really know it was wealthy, but a wealthy ranching family. So my mother’s family had a lot of land in Central California, Almonds, Walnuts, alfalfa. So I grew up in a beautiful home.

I didn’t really realize it was beautiful until I got older. My parents were very into how you looked, how you looked, very conservative, very tidy. My house, I grew up in, was immaculate. I was very well cared for, but it was also a bit of a cold upbringing.

My parents just didn’t really know affection. Everything was very precise. Everything was very impeccable. I carried through my life, which I’ve taken the good parts of that. And I was a tomboy. I was this tiny, skinny tomboy. You know, I wore my hanged-in t-shirts and my corduroy’s, and I was super athletic, tiny, and really funny, but shy. So I was really shy as a little girl.

Speaker 1: Were you aware when you were little? Did you see, I mean, obviously like farming and this industry, did you hear any conversations around the tables about, you know, what business was like for them, or sort of how they were navigating things, or how much exposure did you get to their industry and to what they were doing?

Speaker 2: Yeah. So my father worked for my grandfather, who owned the land of my mother’s family. My mother never worked really day in her life. She’s substitute teacher for a little bit. It was separate. It was like we had our home and our life, and then there was the ranch. And my memory of the ranch was in my kind of teen years, when I would get in trouble, because I was a little bit naughty. I was naughty. That was my way of getting attention. And I would have to go out to the ranch.

And when the all-in ones would come to this big machine, I had to pick the sticks out. So only when I was in trouble, would I go out to the ranch. So I didn’t have a lot of exposure to going out to the ranch, because it was in a different town than where I grew up. And it was really only when I was naughty and got in trouble, my dad would say come out to the ranch. So yeah, it was a more separate world. We had this.

Speaker 1: But you didn’t, you didn’t grow up going, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna work on the almond fields. It was more like I do not want to be there, because that means I’m in trouble.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a separate life. You know, we had a very, my grandparents had an exquisite taste as well, and beautiful things, and beautiful place settings, and all the things. So it was a very separate world growing up.

Speaker 1: Wow. And so when you found yourself in high school, did you have any inclination of maybe who you wanted to be in the world or what the world was going to look like for you? Did you find yourself, you know, was it going to do my sports? Do you really well at school? What was some of the narrative around you as you’re starting to develop your identity?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think, I let me think, in high school, I really had a special talent for athletics. I was a top, top tennis player in the area. And I really wanted ways to be out of the house, honestly, because the home life was exquisite and beautiful and all taken care of. But my, I’m Italian 100% Italian. So my parents fought a lot.

There was a lot of tenseness in the family, not a lot of cushy, loveless, not like love, like you would think in Italian families. So my escape was sports and friends and stuff like that. So high school, I really took my athleticism and that was my superpower. So I remember thinking I wanted to be Chrissy Everett. I thought I looked like her. I dressed like her, you know, like my goal in high school was to be Chrissy Everett. That’s really as far as I got.

Speaker 1: I love that. And so as you then started to think about what university was going to look like for you, was it driven by, let me get a tennis scholarship somewhere? Was it, you know, continuing to sort of focus on, on the athletic side? Or how did you start to navigate then what life was going to be like? And what did your parents want you to do? I mean, it sounds like they probably were quite vocal about their expectations of you. And certainly when you have a family, I think that’s they like things particular.

I’m sure that also goes for the children to be particular. So what were some of the expectations or thoughts and things that were happening around you as you decided what you were going to study in university and what those expectations would be?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for that, for university, I think at that point, I was burned out, was burned out on tennis. I had high expectations for my parents that I would always win and be the number one if I lost, it was a problem. So I was kind of done with the tennis thing. So going into college, I went to USC, I was terrified, you know, I was, I was this little skinny central valley woman going to USC with all these Newport Beach pot young girls.

And I, I really went there to not do sports and to just, I don’t know, I went into the whole sorority thing and really found my way that way of being like the fun, wild at a very wild kind of streak in college. But I didn’t really have a direction. My direct kind of find a husband that’s in my, I mean, I’m 65. So in my day, it was like, for me, I just thought, well, it’ll all just look for a kind of a husband here. That was really my thoughts.

Speaker 1: So as you went husband shopping, did you find what you were looking for?

Speaker 2: Well, eventually, I didn’t find any college, but a college sorority sister introduced me to my ex-husband, or I call him my husband, Joe. Who was just my just perfect. He was a, he was one of the first Microsoft guys. So he was very, very successful. And he was very charismatic. And he was, he was just perfect.

It was just like the perfect, perfect match for me. And he came from a really small town, Ohio. He had, his family had no style and no, none of the things that I had. So with his like newfound wealth and my exquisite taste, it was like the perfect match. What things to him that were complete, he didn’t know, you know, how you set a table. He didn’t know how you set a table. He didn’t know all the finer things, but he was this, he had this newfound wealth that was super fun. And I loved it. So it was a really incredible union until it wasn’t.

Speaker 1: So when you, when you found yourself graduating university was the intention or expectation given that you didn’t meet your husband in university, that you were going to work for the family business, or you were going to, you know, pursue another degree or take a job doing something. How did you sort of think about exporting yourself into the world post university? What, what were sort of the paths that relate in front of you and what did you decide to do next?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the whole work in agriculture was absolutely not because there was so much friction with my family and my family’s family around the land and the money. There was so much money stuff.

Now that I look back, the money issue, because there was a lot of money there between my mother and her sister who were the owners of all this land that I wanted to be far away from that. I wanted nothing to do that. Wasn’t even a thought to like go into that business. Like now in my life now I kind of do wish that I had, I had maybe thought about it because now I know so much more.

But at the time, wasn’t even a thought. So when I graduated, I just wanted to get a job and I wanted to get a cool job. And I got a cool job at Los Angeles magazine. I sold advertising space. I was in charge of restaurants. I went to all the hot restaurants.

I had the perfect job. That’s so cool. How fun.

Yeah. And then I met Joe and then Joe and I were set up and then that, and then that was like, I was living the life. It’s living the life.

Speaker 1: Wow, I love that. And when you sort of got sort of moving on in your career and you got married, was there and you would go home and have dinner, see the family and sort of talk about what’s going on in the world? Did your family ever share with you the things that were happening in the agricultural side? No. So you had no visibility into what was happening. So incredible. Wow.

Speaker 2: Just the flight. I mean, really just the fight, just the conflict, just the shit around money. Just like the, you know, when my grandparents pat, like it was all like, yeah, and it just money fights and fights around. I didn’t really realize at the time, but that’s really what it was. Get away from it. And I just, my all fun life in Southern California with Joe and we just had that we had a really great, fantastic, fun life.

Speaker 1: I love that. How did you guys, how did you guys have conversations together? You’re now newly married and obviously coming together on different values or ideologies around things from like very different backgrounds, right? Like he’s probably like, what these, this China set cost, how much, like, you know, like, how does all this stuff sort of reconciled together? What was it like starting to build a family together from, you know, from these different points of view and perspectives and coming together to create that?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think here’s the thing. When growing up, money was an issue that was not talked about. You didn’t ask about it. I assessed that we grew up with money as an adult, not as a child. I didn’t have a clue what we had or what I just knew we had nice things. Again, not until I was older. So I married the perfect person because we didn’t talk about it.

Joan, I didn’t talk about it. He made the money. I spent the money and I did what I did. We got married.

He had an opportunity to run all the Midwest with Microsoft. We moved to Chicago. I stopped working then got pregnant, three kids. So it was like, but we never talked about money, never talked about money or what we had. I just knew there was money and I spent it. I was so, so naive, so naive and so didn’t want to talk about it because I grew up with it being the forbidden topic. So that’s how I was. It was the forbidden talk and Joe didn’t talk about it. So it was perfect at the time. Wow.

Speaker 1: You know, it’s so interesting. I feel like people say, you know, you get married and the first marriage at least sort of mimics some of the things of your childhood. And I certainly had a similar experience. My ex-husband as well, where it’s like, there are not as, I mean, sometimes it’s trauma, sometimes it’s just environments, but like we sort of seek these familiar spaces. And without even realizing it, we are reliving certain things of our past until all of a sudden we’re not. And so tell me about some of these bigger transition moments. Obviously, going from California to the Midwest is a big change, you know. I’m sure there were a lot of ideological changes and obviously environmental changes and people are different. Did you live out there for a long time? Is that sort of where you guys had decided to settle down and then how long were you there and how did things evolve and at what point? Yeah.

Speaker 2: So moving to Chicago was great because I moved there as an independent person. You know, I was no longer, I don’t know, it was Joe’s wife. You know, so I moved there with like a fresh slate. Not that I had a bad slate before, but it was, it just felt fresh. Like, oh my God, we’re moving to a new area, Chicago. We were in this amazing apartment and right on East Lakeshore Drive, like we were, we just, it was so fun.

All these new people. So I got to like reinvent myself as Joe’s wife. And that’s really how I saw myself as Joe’s wife.

And then I got pregnant right away. So I wasn’t working and then three kids and we moved back to California. And when we moved back to California, we moved to Silicon Valley, which is like the epitome of money, right? It was new money. It was when people were making money hand over fist or whatever that saying is like, like stupid money.

Right? And we were one of those. We built a multimillion dollar home.

It was exquisite. We chartered planes. We hung out. You know, we were close friends with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

And we did like crazy stuff. And I hung around with very, very successful people in the Silicon Valley. And I created this amazing, affluent, but kind of shallow life because I didn’t have to feel. I didn’t have to really look inside and see who am I? Who was Sara? I was the mom. Joe was the successful business guy. He was gone all the time.

Who knows what was happening. And I was home in this affluent environment, raising these perfect, beautiful children. So it was a very shallow, but quite fun period in my life until it crashed.

Speaker 1: How and in what ways did, I feel like, for at least for myself, when something’s not right, it starts with these little pings. You start to see inkling that something’s not right. And then for a while, it can be like, well, I’m just going to like look away and like pretend I don’t see it.

But really, it starts to grow. And then all of a sudden, at least for myself and a lot of women, I know the moment you know something, you can’t unknow it, you know, or you have this feeling. And you’re like, I can’t not have had this experience. I’ve had it now. I know this.

I can’t unknow it. What were some of the experiences that you were having where all of a sudden you were like, I recognize this thing within myself and I could no longer pretend like I don’t see it.

Speaker 2: The first thing was my health. So I was in my, I had the three kids. They were still quite little, like nine, eight, the first two were 12 months apart, and then seven, six, five, so young. And my health went to shit. And I’m a pretty healthy, sturdy person. My immune system shut down. I was diagnosed with meningitis. And then that and then it just spiraled down.

And then I was diagnosed with lupus. But I still made myself look like you see me in this camera. Perfect, right? Like just the, you know, I just carried a facade that everything was great. But then my body just shut down completely was shutting down. And I was really sick. And my husband couldn’t handle that. He couldn’t handle that. He couldn’t accept it.

He couldn’t, he couldn’t handle it. And it was from that point that everything crashed. My health crashed. And then out of the blue, he decided he didn’t want to be married to me without a conversation, without a fight, without like we were arguing. It was just a moment in time when things were happening behind the scenes that I wasn’t aware of. And my body was shutting down. And then he suddenly decided he didn’t want this. So that was my giant, scary, frightening, wake up call and scare, life scare. You know, in my early, early 40s, I was like 42 when all that happened. Yeah, yeah, it was awful.

It was awful. Who did you turn to? That’s good because he wasn’t really there for me. And he’s a great guy.

So I don’t want to like badmouth him. He was a great father is still a great father. He just didn’t have the tools either. You know, he came from a big giant family in a small town in the Midwest.

And that kind of stuff just didn’t happen there. You know, so he, he did what he did. I did what I did. And then I, I was so sick and I didn’t want to go the medical route, which I, I did initially to get all these diagnoses. And that’s when I opened up to the spiritual path.

And in that space of just my body shutting down and my marriage in not in a good shape and Joe wanting to not be married, I just sought out something, anything. And the first thing I thought out was John Kabat-Zinn, who did this course called Full Catastrophe Living, which was at Stanford, because I was connected to all the best of the best. And then I realized there was an inside life. Like up to that point, I only knew there was an exterior life. I didn’t know there was, oh my God, there’s like an inside life that might be able to help me. And one of the paths I got super connected to a guru named Satguru.

I did like a 10 day silent thing in India. Like I went, I like I do, I go full out. And that was the beginning of discovering myself prior to meeting Lin Twist. Like that was the big, huge turning point where my life just went a different direction, a new direction, and did not include my life prior to that. So that was, it was really that. Just it was like the Ebalapuri. Just my, everything shut down.

Speaker 1: What a gift, you know, it’s like the pathways. I am a big fan of Satguru. I have done my, also went to India. I did an 11 day Vipassana. But as you do, when you’re, when you’re on the path and you go, something’s not working here. There’s something that’s bigger than what’s happening here. How do I access these parts of myself? How do I access this inner wisdom? You know, how prior to meeting Lin Twist and sort of in this liminal space, you know, between crisis and this new illuminated life, there’s so much pain that sort of gets, that you get to sit through and work through. When you were thinking about things like your values and what’s important to you and who you are and meeting your own demons, right? What were some of those moments like for you? What were some of the ahas that were like, wow, like I am both greater than I thought I was and also weaker than I thought I was because I feel like there’s a duality, right? When it comes to getting to know ourselves, where we get to, we get to hold everything, right? Everything gets to be true at once.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think because the health thing happened and then Joe decided he didn’t want this life with me. And before I desperately sought out these people or they showed up in my life, I had gotten to such a dark place that I was actually contemplating suicide. I just thought he’s going to be a better parent. I can’t be in my life without him in this life. Like I just got so far into the dark that I got to that point and I cringe at thinking that I would ever do that to my children.

And I don’t even think they know that. However, I got through that through friends and like realized I can’t do that and then discovering Saguaro and these other forms and then I went, I did every holistic thing imaginable to not have lupus or the meningitis had to work itself out. I got undiagnosed from lupus because I went the whole Zen route and I mean, I tried everything. So in that process, I found myself. That sounds kind of hokey, but no, it doesn’t.

Speaker 1: It sounds real.

Speaker 2: It sounds like the real me actually that other me was not really the real me. I had such a great facade, but deep down it wasn’t really the real me.

So the Saguaro thing was a huge break for me because I really found myself, found my inner soul and it was at an event that I said, girl came to California and stayed with me and because that’s my thing, I get right to the top person and that’s where I met Lynn. So it was in that space of like, wow, this is cool. There’s like, I’m okay. Like I’m actually a pretty amazing human being. Like I have something to say and that’s when I met Lynn and that’s when she said come to the Amazon with me and then that’s now 18 years later. It seems kind of quick. Like eat lupus, get through the immune stuff and all the modern medicine diagnosis and cures that people had that I just pushed away from and went this other route and I cured myself and then I met these people and then I found my spiritual path.

Speaker 1: Quick pause. I want to share something I’m hosting this year. It’s called the Freedom 2026 tour. I’m bringing small in-person salons to cities across the country to talk openly about money, power and choice. If you want to be part of one, the details are in the show notes below.

Now back to the show. And also, I mean, to talk about just real values and life alignment purpose. I mean, on the other night, I think of the dark night of the soul can come this like big, you know, life purpose awakening. And I always tell people, you know, the dark night of the soul, you have a choice to emerge on the other side or not.

You know, some people don’t emerge on the other side and stay places and others fight through this inner knowingness of whatever the demons are, whatever the obstacles are to really overcome who they think they are for who they truly are. And in this moment, you know, taking you back to when you first met Lindtwist and those initial conversations growing up in California, living in Chicago, but you know, going to the Amazon is certainly far from home. It’s also different than India. I’m going to India is also very far from home for most people who probably think about going but never go. But the Amazon is wild in a different way, right?

Like the energy is entirely different. And so what was it like for you to both receive that invitation and to embark on this new journey that you’ve now been on for nearly two decades?

Speaker 2: Yeah, eight, 17, 18 years. So honestly, I got truths when the opportunity I met Linna, the school lady, and then she buy me to a fundraiser and then I gave some money and then she said, come to Amazon. And honestly, that first time was a little bit like, well, she’s cool. This is I was kind of exploring.

This is interesting. It was my first holiday without my children. So I was newly divorced.

I thought, well, I’m going to go, this is cool. But get the cute REI clothes and I’ll barely read the I didn’t read the reading. And also the clothes are not that cute.

Speaker 1: So the cute REI clothes.

Speaker 2: I found a way. I found a way. But I kind of want like this is going to be great convo for when I get home to say I did this thing. It’s different than doing the normal holidays that I used to do. So I kind of didn’t go into going to the Amazon thinking this is going to be my life more like this is different. I need to get away.

I want to go by myself so nobody knows me. And yeah, she’s cool. And maybe there will be cool people. Really, I didn’t go into it with an intention like this is where I’m going to spend the next 17 years of my life. But then I got there. And because I think I was so open and wanting to find Sara Vetter, not Sara, wife of mother of that, all the titles, I wanted to just find my just, I don’t know, I just wanted to go as myself, not knowing anyone was so fun.

And at the end of that trip, journey into the Amazon, it was so life changing. I thought, wow, there’s something to this. And then Lynn and I just had this wild connection and she’s like, what are you doing with the rest of your life?

And, you know, I know you’re also about relationship with money. I was like, I don’t know. I think I might have to work.

I don’t really know what I have. I’m not I’m so naive about that. I’ve always let Joe do that. I really realized, wow, this whole message she has around this whole money, this whole work in the Amazon. This is interesting. And maybe it’s something I could do or whatever. I mean, I have connections to Silicon Valley.

I could combine with her. So I didn’t go into it like, oh, this is something I’m going to do. I just kind of went into it like, OK, I’m just going to go to right away from my Atherton life and try this thing. And then it ended up being such an impact that it became what I did for the rest of my for the last 17 years.

Speaker 1: How powerful. There’s something to be said about your taking risk on your intuition and being willing to walk into the unknown and knowing that whatever was coming to you was happening for a reason and possibly not overthinking it. Like there are a lot of opportunities, I’m sure, to have overthought it.

Maybe your family was like, what are you doing? We think that like the changes in our lives are happening to ourselves in our lives and our own world. And for some reason, every time we make our own changes, it tends to also challenge everyone else’s opinions of themselves and really can start to trigger other people to think about what boxes they might be maintaining, right? What sort of ideologies maybe no longer suit them anymore as you were making this transition into what would now be your life’s work because 17 years is definitely a large majority of your life where you met with any sort of obstacles. Was it challenging to get your friends and family on board to this work you were doing? Or was everyone like, yes, Sara, we want you to be happy and satisfied and fulfilled and go for it?

Speaker 2: No, nobody was like that. I mean, I still don’t think they ever know. I still, my parents have passed in the last three or four years, but I don’t think they ever knew what I did. They didn’t really care. They didn’t really want to know. As long as I showed up and looked a certain way to care myself and was safe and doing well, they just didn’t, it wasn’t even on their radar. That wasn’t, they weren’t like that.

Like, what are you doing and tell me more about it? I just, in that environment, it just wasn’t their thing. You know, it was like a non-subject. And then my past friends, it was kind of weird to them too. So, you know, I really had to reinvent myself. I kind of had to create a new community. I’m connected to some of my friends from my past, but it was really a jarring turn.

And so not what anybody was doing. So I just had to start over honestly. And I was in the 40s and I’m like, I had to reinvent myself.

I did. I reinvented myself. I’ve been creating myself and I loved my family for who they were and are and knew I couldn’t really talk about it. They’re like, what’s your thing you do? Why do you want to be there?

Like, they just weren’t interested and I didn’t bring them in. And I just, I just do what women do. We reinvent ourselves. We find the way. This is my path and I’m the poster child for a screwed up relationship with money.

Well, I can be a part of this conversation because I’m the example of just being so blinded by relationship with money and having it kind of screw up my life. So it was just the perfect match.

Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. So moving from this financial ambiguity, this financial sort of confusion or lack of lack of understanding and really opaqueness to then diving headfirst into, you know, the agency with your capital, the ability for it to line up with who you truly are to be using it in ways that create deep and meaningful impact in the world and that are truly reflective of your soul, right?

Your soul of money. How and in what ways did you start to close these gaps for yourself? Like, what were some of the ways in which you went from, okay, this is now opaque to I see it and maybe I’m intimidated. So like, okay, it’s being activated and deployed in ways that I feel really confident and strong around that certainly doesn’t seem like an easy process to go through that. What was that like for you? How did you move through those levels of transformation?

Speaker 2: I don’t know. I kind of felt like a fraud in the beginning, to be honest. I kind of felt like, God, this woman likes me. Like she thinks I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread and I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’m just going to keep showing up. And I felt like a fraud because I still was pretty screwed up in my relationship with money. I still kind of didn’t really know what do I have and I still lived like I had what I had. You know, I didn’t, I didn’t take it seriously. I just kind of kept thinking it’s, it’s going to all turn out for me because that’s how I am.

I’m magic, you know? So I think for the first, I don’t know, five, six years, I kind of felt like a fraud, but I did it pretty well. It was a well-quaught and well-spoken fraud. But deep in my soul, I wasn’t a fraud.

But on the outside, I wasn’t quite there yet. You know, I just followed her around, took in the insights and the wisdom, learned from it. And then I sort of recreated myself, which was something always in there, but it just took time. So I think back at the beginning and I just really listened, really followed, really took it in, really found new guidance.

I really worked hard at going from what felt like me being a fraud to this is actually the real me. But it took time. It wasn’t like, oh, here I am.

This is it. It was like, oh, I’m going to play this role for a while. And then it became really who I am. And it wasn’t like that at the beginning.

Speaker 1: I understand. So what was it? What was one of the first moments then when you, and I call this sort of like reconciling you with you, like all of a sudden, you’re like, I am that thing. I’ve always been that thing that I’ve been searching for, right? Or that thing that I want to be is actually the thing that I am. And now you get that like beautiful self-recognition of like the essence of who you are and acceptance and power because that is powerful, right? Like all of a sudden when you see who you truly are, I think it unlocks the most incredible power in your life.

Five, six years into working with Lynn, gaps are closing. You are recognizing the powerful woman that you are. What did it feel like? And what was one of the moments where like you had that recognition? Like, I got this, you know, like this is who I am and I am living it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, well, I would lead, co-lead the journeys to the Amazon. So we take a small handful of men, women into the Amazon and I would do that with the founders. So I was like the co-leader. And at the end of those journeys, the participants, people on those trips just saw me and they were like, wow, Sara, you are so powerful and like insightful and be like, what? So I think it was those journeys that when I wasn’t an act or it wasn’t like it wasn’t like a script, you had to just lead.

Your responsibility was to hold the space for 12 to 15 to 20 people for 12 day straight into the Amazon and uncharted territory and new environments and no small thing.

Speaker 1: Right. I mean, I’m sure people are like excited. Some are freaking out. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And so my ability to be able to work with anyone from any upbringing and hold a group like that and hold my own with incredible leaders like Lynn. I mean, Lynn’s a powerful, unbelievably well-spoken, wise woman. So to be able to stand next to her and find my own voice happened through those journeys, hands down. And then slowly but surely I would get more involved in the sole money work in courses, little by little. First, I just do like the intro process, you know, and then I had my own voice. So it was in just trial and error and having the guts to just put myself out there and trust whatever was going to come out of my voice and my thoughts and drawing on my life experience and not being scripted. You know, there’s times when you’re like, wow, I nailed that and I didn’t even rehearse it. Was those moments and courses but in those journeys where I’m like, shit, I got this.

Sorry if I’m not supposed to say bad words, but shit, I got this. And this is me and it’s not a rehearsed thing. Because in the beginning it was kind of rehearsed and be like, I’m going to say this.

Okay, what did she say to say? And I would think of my line and I just think, oh my God, I work so hard. But then at some point there’s a transition when it’s just who you are and comes through me. It’s not like I’m thinking, I do think about what I’m going to say, but not really. It’s like it comes through me. But you know those moments in your life when there’s that shift.

Speaker 1: It’s beautiful. You become the channel and the conduit for the work. It’s like a big part of it I think is when these gaps get closed and you become one with who you are, then all of a sudden it’s like you are now just a channel.

And it’s like, all right, you say the right thing when it’s supposed to happen. You show up in the ways you’re supposed to and there’s far less of intellectualizing and analyzing. And it’s more like, I’m here in service of this vision of the world and the right people, places, thoughts, ideas, words all sort of start to align.

You’ve been a part of this organization for a soul of money for quite some time. And it’s had so many beautiful evolutions. And I imagine you’ve all had many evolutions of yourself as a business leader now, right? It’s no longer Sara Vetter who’s just the mom or the wife or who’s going through transformation and who’s simply volunteering to pursue a better realization of her own life. But now it’s really a true service of others and building products and services, ecosystems, business models that are here to be in service to help have an awakening on this planet and for people to really see what their purpose is and how they can live that through an intentional acts of where they allocate their money, their time, their energy. Talk to me about some of your transformations through developing this business. I’m sure there’s been moments of like, holy bananas, I have to learn this thing. You know, like, oh my God, how do I figure out, you know, I don’t know, this system or this technology, what’s that been like?

Speaker 2: It’s been a huge growth spurt. But at the end of the day, it’s how you make people feel. It’s how you listen. It’s how you mirror back where they are in life.

And then sure, you give them your wisdom, your guidance, your knowledge, your history. But at the end of the day, it just, I really got that. And the people that were drawn to us were, I mean, we worked primarily with women, but also men, but were women that really were, had done all the work on themselves, like Lynn and I have done all the work on ourselves, we’re always doing work on ourselves. That’s never ending to the day we die.

But women who really are like, who am I out in the world? So it’s been a huge learning curve. And, you know, there’ve been times like, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m going to keep doing it. But then at the end of the day, it’s all about relationships. And I think that’s one of my biggest gifts of learning from Lynn is her relationship capital.

How she is giving each person she interacts with her undivided attention, unconditional love, that’s honestly the biggest gift I’ve ever learned. And that’s all you need because your life experience is the intellect that’s going to come through. But that way in which you make people feel seen and heard and loved is the magic ticket. And that’s how I keep showing up.

Speaker 1: I love that. What have been some of the transformations within your family dynamic? I’m sure your kids are now experiencing you as a totally different woman than the woman that they grew up with, right? Like you’re now sort of in this phase of really blossomed and in service with this great sense of leadership in your heart. How has that been in relationship with your children?

Speaker 2: Oh, they’re in there. I have a 32-year-old daughter, a 31-year-old son and a 20, I think he’s 29-year-old son. The boys, they just think they’re so proud. They’re like, this is my mom. When I go visit them, they’re like, this is my mom. They’re like super proud.

They just love it all. And Charlotte is not a similar business, but she’s all about spirituality and wellness. She’s also very proud. And then we also have the mother-daughter thing that sometimes we rub. And sometimes it’s like, oh my god, you’re too much, mom. So sometimes for her, it’s like, I’m too much. And we have to have our appropriate space.

And then sometimes I’m just the right amount. So yeah, I would be interested to ask them, yeah, they’re super proud. They have my own thing.

And also my relationship with my family of origin has had a huge transformation through the work I do because growing up, it wasn’t so great. And there was all the money thing. And there was all the, I don’t know, there was a coldness. I love my family, but there was a coldness in my upbringing. And my siblings and I have really worked that out. How has that biggest transformation is in my family?

Speaker 1: Wow, that’s incredible, Sara. How wonderful. Congratulations. I feel like people can see the outcomes of transformation and say that they want it, but it’s another thing to live through it because it’s well deserved. When it comes out on the other side, you know, you worked hard for it.

What do you see as sort of the evolution of Soul of Money? I mean, you’re at the helm of such an incredible organization. You impact lives every day. Where is your heart and your mind leading you towards as this organization evolves? What are your dreams for this future?

Speaker 2: Hi, that’s a big question. I don’t know. We’re kind of in that conversation, which is so interesting that you would ask that. One part that is a new sort of arm of the Soul of Money is embodiment. And part of my growth and evolution was in the last six years. I was leaning towards embodiment work and working very closely with someone named Mama Gina, Regina Tomashower, who started the school in the arts. Fabulous. Yes. Risky, nutsy, but there was a piece of me that was so shoved down for so long, I was really drawn to her, kind of like Sadguru.

She’s another of what I call my root teachers, you know, my core teachers, Len, Sadguru, and Regina. And I was so drawn to this very kind of risky world around pleasure and turn on and embodiment. But that’s a new direction. We’re doing, we did something called the embodied women this year that I led, a retreat. So I’m bringing embodiment, fun, play into the work of the Soul of Money Institute.

And that has been a game changer because women, when they get to a certain age, we work with women, you know, more in the 40s, 50s, 60s, some in their 30s too. But the thing that goes to the wayside is pleasure, desire, embodiment, all that play and fun. So that’s my superpower. I’m the one I bring to the work. And so for the future, continuing to do all our incredible programs, but the embodiment part is really fun and juicy and exciting and pleasurable. It’s awesome to combine those two worlds.

Speaker 1: I love it. It’s also, you know, I think that there’s an integration. So much of understanding can be so intellectual and even spiritual, right, on this very sort of cognitive level. We understand things and we’re always reading and processing. But the embodiment and the alignment of sort of our full selves really allows us to inhabit what it is to be human, you know, and to be human is not only to live in this intellectual way or to feel spiritual connection, but it’s also to feel in our bodies, it’s to experience things all together.

I think it’s beautiful. You know, we are living so much longer these days than I think we imagined, you know, I feel that I just, it was at a longevity conference the other week and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, my grandmother died at 95. So I’m like, okay, like there’s a long lifeline ahead of us and with, and that was without longevity supplements and, you know, all the things. So I’m like, oh my gosh, we’re going to be alive so long. There’s so much to do. But if you were to project yourself into the future at a young age of let’s say 103, you know, which gives you many more decades ahead, right? This is like much more living ahead. And if you were to project yourself there and look back at this body of work that is your life, right, this legacy that you are leaving on this planet, what might you have to say about that? What might this body of work look like?

Speaker 2: Wait, so am I 103?

Speaker 1: 103 looking back at your life and reflecting on this body of work that you’ve created?

Speaker 2: I would be like, wait a kickass and that and be 103. I’d still look 20 years younger than my age. I’d still have vitality and life force and I would have worked really hard for it.

And I, I don’t know. I would just be content all by myself if I was all by myself and I would live life fully. I mean, the thing about wanting that work, the vibrancy, what that brings into whatever serious work you’re doing because saving the Amazon is serious. Working with people’s relationship with money is, can be serious.

When you are embodied and full of life and you maintain your desires, you bring a vibrancy to really hard subjects. We know about Peace Prize Laureates who work around the globe doing gnarly stuff. They are most fun, vibrant, alive, embodied women you would ever meet. And they’re doing incredibly hard things around the globe. But when I’m with them, when we’re with them, they dance, they laugh, they play. It’s unbelievable. So, pattern three, I’m going to still start it. I’m going to be doing that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it, Sara. I’ve got two, two final questions to take us home. You know, the first is we’ve spent a lot of time talking about money stories as a child, the evolution of self, what it’s like to direct money in these powerful ways. And certainly money is also really fun and really great. And we can do fabulous things with it. And so I would love to know what is the most recent, fabulous way in which you have spent your money?

Speaker 2: I don’t know if it’s fabulous, but it’s something that floats my boat. Every year, I go do a detox at a really kind of fancy place in Palm Desert. It’s called We Care. I’m always giving out. Then I go to that place and I do every treatment and thing and detox.

It’s expensive and I don’t mind. I love it. I love it. I love it. So I go to We Care and then I’m going to go to Costa Rica in December and be with my kids. They’re going to all meet us, meet there. So I love going to night, beautiful places on the beach. And I love my annual We Care extravagance.

Speaker 1: I have to be honest. I just had a girlfriend who came back from We Care and she was like, this was amazing. She’d only gone for two days and she’s like, I need to go for a week. She’s like, three days.

Speaker 2: It doesn’t work. To me, it’s not enough. I need to be locked in a place and disciplined for a week. And you come back feeling 10 years younger and glowing like no tomorrow.

Speaker 1: Oh, I love that so much. And my final question, Sara, is this show is really around championing the women who are on the show and supporting and rallying around the things that are important to you. So this is my invitation. What are you calling in next? How can we support you? What do you need? What do you want? How can we rally around this vision of the future you want? Or even more simply, how can we hook you up with something you need? What do you need?

Speaker 2: I’m in a great place right now in my life. So soulofmoney.org and we have all these incredible programs and things that we talked about with anything anyone wants to do.

Awesome. And then of course the work of Patron Alliance. And right now the Amazon is under threat.

Right now the vitality of our great mother and mama and Pachamama means the earth, the sky, the universal time is under threat. And this particular government doesn’t support that. So patronmama.org, you know, it’s a nonprofit.

And any way in which you feel generous to support Patron Alliance is huge to us and they do incredible free things on there too. But that’s really important work and it’s really at risk right now the vitality of our planet. And honestly the planet goes, we all go. I mean like no planet, no us. So it’s vital. So that right now is really up.

Speaker 1: That’s a big part of what we do. Thank you Sara. It’s been an absolute gift to have your story on today’s episode of Getting Rich Together. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. That was so great. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Getting Rich Together. My hope is that you leave every episode feeling more inspired, more powerful, and more connected. Until next time, remember you have everything it takes to create wealth on your terms.