She Rises with Ashy & TijanaEver caught yourself thinking, “Money buys happiness”? Don’t worry—we’ve been there too. And honestly? We’re not here to argue that money doesn’t help. It can take away stress, give you more freedom, and even buy you a little extra "me time." But here's the kicker: it cannot buy that deep, soul-level happiness or the kind of contentment that lasts. And today, we're unpacking it all—from the highs of “having it all” to the real, raw moments where we realized that money isn’t the answer to everything.
We’re getting real about what truly makes us feel fulfilled, the lessons we’ve learned (sometimes the hard way), and how chasing external success can leave you feeling emptier than expected. So grab your coffee, cozy up, and let’s have an honest chat—because this is the stuff we all wish we talked about more.
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Apogae Production. Welcome to the She Rises Podcast. I'm Ashy and I'm Tiana. This podcast is.
About female empowerment and encouraging you to be your biggest, boldest, and most authentic version of yourself.
We help you shed the shame, grow to a new level. We're gonna laugh, cry, and talk about the topics everyone else is too afraid to talk about.
Get ready for your next level of self.
Hello everybody, Welcome back to another episode of She Rises. Today we're talking about having it all but being fucking miserable in the process. Just to put it lightly, just to put it bluntly, I think you guys are gonna really enjoy the different insights we have on this because we both have been at a point where like, holy shit, We've got everything ever wanted. Yeah, why am I so fucking sad? But before we do, watch your share of the week.
My Share of the Week is actually a quote. It is a person's true priorities are revealed by what they abandoned first in chaos.
Oh isn't that true?
Carl Jung?
Wow, just a really cool perspective of like, okay, cool, what's the thing that you abandoned in chaos? What's the first thing that goes and do you actually prioritize it in the way that you say that you do, and if not, how can you improve to make sure that in chaos that thing you don't give it up?
The mean meditation goes out the window and I'm busy, but my exercise never Yeah, isn't that true? Everyone will be listening going, oh, I don't eat as well, or that's a really cool.
Quote my week.
Mine's a shameless plug, but it's our hideaway lip balms. They've been out of stock for so long and they're finally back in stock, and we've brought some of our favorite flavors back, including qutberry Bang, strawberry Gulato, and they're.
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You don't.
They just feel so hydrated and beautiful. My favorite look is the Mecha lipliner in Shade Classy that lipliner and then smudge it in with the lip um. It's just natural and pretty Okay, do you want to start?
There's almost this expectation when you are perceived to have quotations all of the things that you're not allowed to be sad, unhappy, depressed, not happy with your circumstances, or like you're not even allowed to have a bad day. Yeah, And there's this pressure almost because it's like the way that people are perceiving you is like oh but you know, they might look at you and go, oh wow, but she's got all the things, but then inside you're having a completely different experience. And I think it's really important to talk about because sometimes you do, on paper have all of the things, but when you're emotionally inside, not happy, not fulfilled, not filled up by your life and not actually fulfilled because you're not maybe doing the things that you want to do, or maybe you just feel like this sense of loneliness inside and you're just like, what is actually happening? Yeah?
I so agree, and I can totally relate because there was a point in my life where I literally had it all. I feel like I've got it all now. But this was on the peak of my career. I had the waterfront mansion, a beautiful, healthy baby, supportive husband. I had friends. I had more money. I didn't even know what to do with it. I could literally shout my friends trips around the world, buy them everything. I had, the nice car, I was buying, designer everything. I literally had everything that tick tick tick I thought I wanted. Yet I would go to bed at night and just feel really miserable. And I remember not even sharing this because then I had so much guilt. I'm like, would battle with myself, Well, you've got everything you wanted. How can you can't be sad? Everyone else wants what you have. You have all these fans that love you. You've got literally everything you'd ever wanted. And it was so hard to navigate. But what I learned through that is money does not buy happiness. We think it does. We think when we get money, and trust me, I've had all the money in the world that I could ever dream of and more. It does not make you happy. Yes, it takes away stress, Yes it gives you freedom. Yes you can be very generous and do cool shit. But true happiness comes from having a passion, purpose, deep connection, aligned dreams, taking care of yourself. That's not something money can buy. Yes, money can make it easy, but trust me, it does not make you truly happy. Such a big thing to talk about.
Yeah, money is a resource and it gives you freedom and opportunity. It might create happiness temporarily, and it might be like, oh, I can buy myself this thing, Cole. I'm happy in the moment, but the underlying feeling of am I happy within myself as a human? Am I happy within my life? Am I happy within my relationships? That is like a deeper level of happiness that can only be fulfilled by you looking at those things and not the temporary fun things that we kind of slap onund top.
You know, it's very easy for someone in an audience. I see on social media all the time, and I saw a video a few years ago when I was going through something hard. It was a little gossip page that made this video, and it was a video of me saying I feel really depressed. Then they put music on the background and they showed my car, and they showed my house, and they showed me shopping, and they showed all these clips of me doing really fun stuff, as in like paying me out, saying how can she be depressed? Because she's got all of this that we all want. But little did they know that I was going through a really hard time my relationship. Little did they know that I was struggling with the online world. Little did they know that I was exhausted. Little did they know that I was going through stuff with my child and unpacking that with a coach and really feeling quite low day to day. Little did they know I was struggling with my hormones. Like what you see visually on someone's life, you don't actually know what's going on behind closed doors. And then when you put that expectation on yourself, like oh, I should be happy and I shouldn't be sad and I can't be sad because I've got XYZ, you kind of just bury how you're actually feeling, and that just builds and builds and builds until one day it explodes and you have a massive breakdown, like I'm not fucking happy. Yeah. Actually, the first step is to just really feel and honor exactly how you're feeling, regardless of all the shiny shit that you have, because it doesn't matter that's the first thing I do is just fully fully feel it. I love that.
That's so beautiful. You really do need to hay. And I think in my own experience when I went through something similar, I was financial trading at the time. So I like bounced and jumped from like temp job to temp job because I was like this young, like driven little girl who wanted this big dream life and you know, wanted to create financial success for herself and live the dream life and all the stuff. And I remember being like, Okay, I've got to find my passion and I've got to find my drive, and I've got to find the thing that's going to fulfill me in a career, right, And so I bounced from all these different temp jobs and then I landed myself into investing and trading financially. And yeah, I remember investing this money. I was working like a temp job at the time. I was doing traffic control of all jobs at the time, and I was like making pretty good money. So I was working seven days a week for like a good year, and I lived off two hundred and fifty dollars a week and I invested the rest and I was making anyway up to like twenty two hundred per week and I was living off two fifty and I invested the rest of it, and then I remember making like quite a significant amount of money within like the investing space. It was all good and well, and I was like, oh cool, Like financially, I feel free, and I'm like quite young, so I was like, holy shit, I've got all this money that I can play with. But I just remember feeling so lonely because I was so isolated.
At the time.
I was working a full time job where I was working seven days a week. I was also really protective of myself of new people because of the sex tape and fearing that people had, you know, seen it and watched it. When they would meet me, that'd be like have they seen it?
Have they watched it?
Do they know about it already? Or do I have to explain this to them? And it was just such a big cloud that kind of sat on top of me that I just completely isolated myself from everyone and anything. And so I had like a brand new point one hundred and sixty thousand dollar portrait nineteen right because I bought that, and then I was living that life and I had all this financial freedom and like on the outside, I was showing that and I was showcasing that stuff, but I was like literally depressed, like I was alone, I was lonely. I felt like I didn't have anybody I could lean on obviously, like outside of my family. And I just remember thinking in that time, like what does it all matter?
Well for like what I'm gonna go fucking cry my Porsche, Like it sounds like a really privileged.
Thing to be able to say, but it's also that wasn't deeper than that.
It wasn't what mattered to me.
Like, yes, it was a cool goal to have hit and achieved and be like, oh cool.
I was able to do that for the moment, but.
It didn't really mean anything on like the underlying like what I actually craved and valued out of life.
I wanted connection and love.
And impact, and even me doing that as a job like financially trading, I was like cool, But then what, I'm not impacting anybody.
I'm not helping other people.
Fill you up and light you are.
No, it was very self focused and it was more something that I was doing for myself. But I was like, but there's still something missing. I didn't feel genuinely happy in that time of my life, and I honestly felt the most lost in my life in that time, and I remember just thinking like I can't continue doing this, Like this isn't it for me? Because what I crave is so much deeper than what I'm currently choosing, that something about me has to change. I have to choose different things. I have to look at the career that I'm in and go, Okay, does this actually fulfill me? Or is there something more for me? And be willing to lean into that curiosity of the fear that I felt of like changing that career yet again after doing like fucking six temp jobs and having the pressure of being like, well you didn't find the job, Another job down the drain, another year lost, Like that was the mentality I was in at the time. But then also same thing. With each job, I got closer to my passion. I got closer to the thing that was fulfilling. Yeah.
And it's interesting too, Like we were talking all the way up about celebrities, yes, and how many of them have done documentaries and they talk about how lonely they are and from an outside it's like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry and Salina Gomez, and it's sharing all these celebrities that look like they have it all. They have endless money, they have ravings, fans screaming how much they love them. They have the house, they have the cars, they can fly first class everyone, and you just look, you think that's it.
Yeah, But most.
Of them, they've said on the documentaries, have gone to bed so fucking lonely, like it's just not it. As humans, we just crave feeling like we belong to something. We want to help other people. We want to know that we're making a difference. So it's a huge thing to talk about. I've got a few different steps that I learned throughout the process that sound really simple, but help me learn as I was going through this. Number one is to feel all. To not put shame on feeling sad or depressed or anxious, even though I have all the things. Do you think about it? You know, when you're fighting with your partner. We always talk about this. You're fighting with your partner. It's the most draining fucking thing. Nothing feels good.
It impacts every everything.
If your relationship is not good, everything else suffers.
Can't work properly. I can't show up as a parent properly. I can't buy my way out of that. I can't go buy a nice hambag. I feel better about my relationship. It's the same thing, right, like money can't get you out of feeling sad if you're feeling sad inside. So just really feel all take the time to let it all come out, come up, process it, and once we always say that thing gives you clarity, remind yourself that you're human. Just because you're rich doesn't mean you're exempt from feeling sad or depressed.
You're human.
Just because you're fit and healthy to have a six pack doesn't mean you're going to have days where you don't feel insecure, doesn't exempt you from anything. So just remind yourself you're a human and what you're feeling is okay, it's natural, it's normal. That just dissolves any shame, which helps you move through it. And then my next thing is to explore and journal what exactly is coming up for me and be completely honest about it. Don't sugarcoat it, don't tell yourself it's wrong or anything like that, Like, really sit with that. In journal, I find just brain dumping onto paper helps so much get help from friends, family, always talking about this, but just reaching out for support through these times is so important to validate how you're feeling because anyone close to you, I know now even having this conversation doesn't matter what we have. We want to make sure that we're feeling fulfilled in your lit up. And even when we get in little ruts, it's like, okay, well have you been exercising, you haven't done dancing for a while. Yeah, what have you been eating? Like all those little things that make us feel really good. You let go of those, of course you're gonna feel shit once again. It's not something money you can buy. You've got to really actively do those things that light you up. We talk about this in a previous episode. But being okay to change your mind. I once thought, once I have the car, once I have the house, once I have the baby, once i'm married, once I have tick tick tick the white, like all the things that you think you want. Once I got all that, I was like, shit, no, it's not actually it for me. I'm going to change my mind on what I want. I actually want to feel more fulfilled. I want to make sure I'm making more impact. I want to try new things, I want to do this and that, and being okay to change your mind. It's so important. And then one of the other things that just really gets me through is leaning on gratitude. Yeah, it sounds so oh of course she says that, but it really helps. It really highlights what you do have in your life and what's really important. And it's not superficial things. It's what you choose to focus on. If you focus on, you will always get what you find. But if you focus on the gratitude of what you do have, you're going to focus on the positivity of that and how those things make you feel, as opposed to highlighting all the things that maybe don't feel the best right now.
And I love.
Everything that you just shared, and something that I would share to my clients is if you're constantly chasing the thing outside of you to make you happy, you are forever going to be following and chasing the dangling.
Carrote but you never reach it. You never actually reach it.
And you know what as well, Like, if you haven't had some kind of financial success and that's your first goal, I feel like you almost need to hit that to hit that realization of oh, my God, this isn't it. You need to have that like awakening moment of wow, this is not the fulfillment that I was chasing and that I thought it was going to give me.
But if you can condense.
That time, if you want to skip that step and just look within first and go, what is the thing that's actually going to create fulfillment within me? Now?
How can I be happy? Now?
How can I find joy in the things that I choose? Now you're going to completely skip that step of spending years chasing the dangling carrot of the thing you think is going to make you happy, and you actually get to create that now, Like what you were saying about the gratitude you creating the happiness now within you. Now with whatever it is that you have, whatever situation you're in, you're going to only manifest.
More of that. You're only going to create more.
Of that because you're focusing on what is good as opposed to what is lack. And when you focus on lack, you get more lack.
What you focus on is what you feel.
What you focus on expands more. Yeah, so true.
I feel like we keep relating it back to money, But I'm sure if you're in a position right now. You think money is going to make you happy. You could go and get a job that you fucking hated to earn more money, but you'll be miserable. Yeah, I've used its example before, but it's like I've let go of an active wad label that was making amazing money and doing podcasting. Now it just doesn't earn nearly as much. This is like pocket money compared to what I used to earn. But I am ten times happier. I'm so much more it up. I'm so much calm with my kids. I'm so much more excited for my days. I love the whole process and journey. Whereas I felt like Baseline got to a point where I was like, I have to cover the bills and I've got to hit these goals and sell this amount. And once I hit those goals and I had to make a bigger goal. I want to sell more, I want to do more collections. I need to And it was constantly chasing more and more.
But for what.
Once I hit that goal, I wasn't even celebrating. It was like straight away onto the next big goal.
I was like, for what different? Energy, isn't it?
Whereas even within the podcast, It's like, we naturally have this beautiful flow where things will just come up and then we'll work on it. Yeah, celebrate and we have fun and then we work on the next thing. So it naturally has that progression. But it doesn't feel like chasing or chasing after a goal.
It's it's enjoying the process and journey. Yeah, because it makes impact. It ticks the boxes.
Something you actually said to me when we did our first in person event, and you said, I actually really enjoyed the whole process of creating that event. It was like, yes, the event was over in a couple of hours, but the months leading up to that, so creating and getting everyone together and getting the teams together and us working on a project together, all of it was so much fun.
I enjoy that just as much as what I actually enjoy the event. Yeah. How cool is that to say? People would think it's just the event that you enjoy. The other stuff's hard, But it's like, no, I actually enjoyed the whole process. And if you can do that in your everyday life, you are winning. That is successful. To me. Yeah, that is successful. Love it.
I think something that's really important to note as well for anyone listening is to just be willing to explore what it is that the real you wants, because I think there's a lot of pressure in society or like social conditioning, or even from your peers social media right especially in social media, that there's a specific way of doing life, there's a specific way of doing things, and you need to quotations fit inside that box. And it's just not true.
Like you are such a.
Unique human and you deserve to live the life that genuinely lights you up and creates happiness and like genuinely makes you excited to get up in the morning, Like it makes you go, oh my god, I get up in the morning with a skip in my step and I'm ready to make my coffee and do all the things that I want to get done for the day. But you've got to be able to dig deep and really be honest with yourself about what you truly want, because right now you might be living a life or leading a life that you think others want you to live, but that's not going to make you happy. No, it's just going to feel like you're like living in this empty shell of a life, like the lights are.
On no one's home.
They're just existing, and no one has their sparkle when they're existing, when they're not truly living in alignment with what they genuinely want. Same thing goes for Actually, the same thing goes for me. We both experience that too, and maybe if you're here, just be willing to discover what it is that actually lies underneath your deep desires.
Yes, I love that. It's beautiful.
I've spoken a lot about the different stories that you tell yourself and when I quote Unquoite had all the things, it was when I was going through the most hate online and it was really fucking hard, to the point where I just did not think there was any light at the end of the tunnel where I wanted to end my life because I thought this was it. And some of the stories I was telling myself, which made me feel so stark and so depressed, regardless of everything that I quote and quite had stories were like, the trolling is never going to stop. Everyone hates me, no one wants to be around me. This is my life now, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I should be happy because I have it all and I had to really change the way that I spoke to myself because you can hear in that language. It's first of all, it's very victim mentality. It's not the truth. Comments like no one wants to be around me, that's not true, it's bullshit.
It's an absolute statement.
There's a couple of haters that don't want to be around me, for sure, But saying no one that's just so limiting and so isolating. As well, everyone hates me. No, everyone does not hate you. Yes, there's a pack of people that don't like you, for sure, there's thousands of people that are literally screaming your in an arena. You can't say everyone hates you. Yeah, but that language was so powerful, so I had to really switch that up. And how I did that, which I've spoken before, is getting professional help. That really got me out of it. And also what I was using my money for changed. So when I first started to come into a lot of money, it was just like buy the range drover, buy the handbags, buy as many friggin' shoes as I wanted, buy my friends everything, which just by bye by things, things, things, And yeah, that was fun and I still love doing that now if I can. Don't get me wrong, I'll always love doing that. It gives me a little hit a dope for me for sure. But it was actually using my money to make a big difference. And I didn't even post about this because it wasn't for anyone else's for me, but helping other families donating money where I felt like they needed that kind of really gave me a lot more fulfillment and got me also out of my own head of what was going on in my life. Yeah, just seeing that there's actually people struggling with so much and this is a collective thing. I'm not special to be going through something really hard, Like, there's a lot of people and when we come together and we help each other, it gets you moving again, and it gets you grateful for the problems that you do have because you see some fucked up shit when you put your head in the rabbit hole. And I started using my money for different things rather than just materialistic things, and that really helped me find more happiness with the money that I had. It sounds so crazy to say, because anyone listening, I feel like they'd be like, why is she complaining about having lots of money? I'm not complaining about it. Moral of the stories. It won't make you happy. And what you do with your money can contribute to your happiness, yes, of course. And fulfillment and contribution and making impact because that's all the things that I really value. I didn't value the handbag, Yes, I love them, I didn't value them. I valued making a difference. I wanted to use my time, my resources, and my money to be able to make huge impact.
It was like, you use that money as a way to make it go further. Yes, because it created impact within you and impact in other people's life.
Made me happy, yeah, Yeah, it wasn't the things that made me feel truly happy. What a journey to go on. Even saying this out loud, I'm like, wow, I just grew up in a family with no money. I never thought i'd be in a position where I had as much money. Yeah, but it's a cool journey to go on, and so many lessons in there that I got to learn throughout that and really realized what is important.
It's like what I was saying before, It's like you kind of need to go through the experience of getting the things that you want because you think that's what you want, and then once you get there, you're like, oh wait, there's more to this. There's more here for me to explore, because I want more out of life. And it's not more materialistic, even though we love materialistic things. You want more depth, you want more substance, you want more fulfillment, you want more love like growth.
I had this conversation with Steve a little while ago because we were talking about what we want to do with the podcast and whether it's the end of this year or next year. We want to be bringing out courses and stuff. And I get excited about all of it, the development of it, the impact we get to make, the money that's been made.
And he pulled me up.
He was like, but you don't need to make more money, bag, Like, we're good. I had to explain to us it it's not about the money that we get from it. It's the sense of achievement. It's the growth. It's actually celebrating that Tiana and I have done that together because I found in Baysesline and previous businesses, even high Toway like, we just we don't celebrate when we hit a milestone or we have amazing launch. It's like, cool, that's done. Now onto the next we have spoken about consciously when we achieve things and do things, we're going to celebrate it with a weekend away. We got by ourself something special and we really go, fuck, yeah we did that. Not only are we making impact, but it's not about the money. It's the journey of getting the money and hitting those goals and feeling it's a sense of achievement. And the money feels really good because it's helped a lot of people. Yes, it's a different meaning behind the money now.
Yeah, it's almost like the money is a representation of impact made. Yeah, and being able to do that together and experience that together. It's shared achievement and shared experience in impact because we both have that same value one hundred and then also connecting with other women who also have that value as.
Well of us.
That's unworrying. It really is. It's the growth seekers, fabe, it is. It's for the growth seekers.
Mum's always said, since I was a little girl, I've just had this like inner drive that was just so strong that I just wanted to do a lot of things, and even for money. For us, we've spoken about when we hit certain goals, we earn certain amounts of money, like where we can help, what charities we want that to go. It was like an instant, easy conversation and of course we want to do that. What do we want to do with that? How much can we donate? Where can we do that? When can we do that?
Where can we go?
Yeah?
Yeah, it's really cools, such a different energy behind it.
I loved the point that you were making before around celebrating what we're doing together because it just like it brings in the fun that we were talking about, and like the impact it allows us to enjoy what.
We're doing so much more.
And I really really want to like stress the importance of how having fun on the journey makes it such a better journey.
You know.
It's like, yes, you can have the goals, and yes you can want for the car and the house and the whatever it is that you desire. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, actually, I encourage you to have those goals because it will push you to be better. But it's not the destination. It's literally the journey. And if you can enjoy the journey, amazing. If you can find people.
To go on the journey with better let's say, with weight loss, right, Yeah, you think it has to be hard and restrictive and punishing and just, oh, I've got to do six months of dieting like this to get to my goal. That's a bullshit story. Actually doesn't have to be like that. You're better off finding a way of eating that you actually enjoy. So it's beyond the six months. You can maintain your body and feel confident for the rest of your life because you thoroughly enjoy it. Why does it have to be hard? It doesn't, And celebrating is so important. I want everyone listening to think about your last achievement, your last five achievements. Did you actually celebrate it or do you quietly sweep under the rug because you dont want people thinking you're cocky or you're want to rub it in anyone's faces.
Or worried about tall poppy syndrome.
No, it's not the right time. Someone else is going through something and you've just like swept your stuff under the rug. Not a way to live. You deserve to enjoy the journey, You deserve to celebrate, and the right people around you want to celebrate that with you.
I think also it's important to note with that it's yes, other people might be going through their things as well, but it doesn't mean that they can't hold you in yours. And the people who love you and care about you are going to want to hold you in that. So they're not going to want you or encourage you to hold back the things that are important to you simply because they're going through something. Thing we talk about often where maybe I'm in the trenches and then you're in the trenches too, and we're like going through some shit together, and I'm like, babe, bring it in. Yeah, Like I know, I've like cried to you yesterday for like twelve hours, but you know, bring it.
In because I've got space for you and I want you to bring it in.
Whether it's good, bad, heavy, scary, ugly, whatever it is, like, you always can bring it in. And I think it's important to know that you're allowed to take up space, and especially when it comes to achievements, You're allowed to be big, you're allowed to be audacious, shit, You're allowed to take up space.
We've spoken about this before on TikTok. At the moment, I love seeing business owners talk about their achievements. Yeah. I used to judge and think it was cocky. Yeah, oh, look at them bragging how much they've made I'm like, hell no, now, I'm like, fuck yeah, you're celebrating yourself and you should.
They're proud you have put.
So much work in and you've achieved a huge goal. Good on you for celebrating that loud, Like, good on you. It's so freaking cool.
It's so funny as well.
It depends on who you focus on, right, It's like, Okay, those people might be posting that to celebrate because they know the other business owners and people who are inspired by that are going to run with that and go, holy shit, look at what's pop. Yeah, But then it's like, you can also focus on the opposite. If you choose to, it's not going to benefit you. What about all the people who are going to judge me for being materialistic or superficial or egotistic or whatever the label. But like, what you focus on grows like you can either choose to impact the people who are like you, or you can choose to be scared about the people who are going to say something about what you're choosing and doing. But ultimately you get to decide, and it's just so much better on the other side when you can just choose to assume the best about other people and know that people will actually see you and.
Hear you on your journey and it's safe to do those things.
So to wrap up, money doesn't buy happiness, and get clear on what you really really want and find a way that you can enjoy the journey, not just when you get to the destination, and celebrate your fucking winds when.
You deserve too.
Yeah. Absolutely, hope you guys enjoyed today's episode and we'll see you say on Wednesday.
Bye bye,
