There’s a piece of money advice I keep hearing over and over, and I don’t like it. It goes something like this: if you want to make more money, go get the big job with the demanding boss, the long hours, and the boss who texts you on a Sunday night. You’ll probably hate it, but hey, you’ll be rich, and that’s the deal you make.
I get why people believe this is the best way, because the money is real. But I’ve watched so many women take that deal and end up miserable. They ruin their health, they stop living their lives to the fullest, they have no time to do what they love, and they don’t have the mental and emotional bandwidth to be a good partner, build relationships, or make friends. I took my own version of that deal (more on that in a second), and the part of the advice nobody tells you is that as the money gets bigger, you shrink. Your life gets smaller and smaller until you’re a shell of a person you don’t even recognize.
Wanting more money is great, and hating your life doesn’t have to be the price you pay for it. There’s another way to make money, and it starts with what you’re already good at.
If you’d rather watch than read, the full video is right here:
My whole philosophy: build your income around what you love
My whole philosophy is to build your income around the things you love to do, because that’s exactly what I did. I entered the workforce a little over 10 years ago, and I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to make money doing what I loved without a boss. So five years ago, I became self-employed.
In that time, I’ve worked with over 100 clients and lived in seven different countries, working from my laptop, which is quite literally what I was writing in my journal six years ago. Today I’m an expat with my roots in Panamá. I did all of it without ever having a corporate job, I never went back to a 9 to 5, and I made it as an entrepreneur. So I want to bring what I’ve learned to you.
Being good at something is a terrible reason to stay
One of the traps I see women fall into again and again is believing that because they’re good at something, they have to keep doing it. If they’re really good at their job, they’re scared to leave, because they think, “Shoot, well, I’m good at this,” and so they’re afraid to take the risk and do something else.
Being good at something is not a reason to stay. If your chest tightens every Sunday night (hello, Sunday scaries), or you feel like you’re wearing a mask at work, those are signs you’re out of alignment. When you can’t show up as your authentic self and you’re performing a version of yourself every day just to keep other people comfortable, that’s not a situation to stay in long term.
And you’re not imagining these feelings, either. McKinsey & LeanIn.Org publish a report called Women in the Workplace, and the 2025 edition found that about 60% of senior-level women frequently feel burned out. That’s f*cking crazy to me, and it shows there’s a fundamental issue with the system. The whole corporate world has its issues.
The second version of this story (the one that’s closer to mine)
There’s a second version of this story that could also be yours. So many women leave their corporate job or their agency job, start building their own business, and they’re so excited and so happy and full of life in the beginning. And then they rebuild their old toxic job inside the new business model.
I did exactly that. I got so addicted to making money and scaling that I loved the feeling of growing and growing and succeeding over and over. By 2022, I had a full-service marketing agency and I was hitting $30,000 months at 25 years old. On paper, I had made it, and everything looked great from the outside.
The part that still gets me is how many people congratulated me when nobody knew how I felt on the inside. I was in full-on people-pleasing mode. I said yes to everything: every client, every contract, every lowball offer. On top of that, I didn’t have the processes or infrastructure to keep up with the demand. I was a woman operating from scarcity, trying to hold a business together when I wasn’t in the right mindset to scale to that level.
Then AI completely changed my whole industry, digital marketing. In 2025, it all came to a head, and I said, “You know what? Running an agency is not making me happy.” So I scaled down and went solo. Getting rid of the agency model was the most honest decision I’ve ever made in my business, and now I wake up excited to work every day.
Before we keep going, DM me on Instagram at @SamanthaLeeWarren and tell me: are you living the first version of this story or the second one?
What changed when I stopped saying yes to everything
Working solo has been awesome, because I’ve been able to use AI in my own business to support my zone of genius. I love the freedom I have now because of the workflows I’ve built. I still meet with clients, but I have total flexibility in my schedule, and I can go to the mall on a Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 PM if I want to.
The craziest part is that when I stopped saying yes to everything, my income actually stabilized. Before, it was up, down, up, down, and super chaotic. Now I feel more regulated than I think I’ve ever felt in my business. My nervous system is calm, I get to have a slow morning, and I’m not rushing, worrying, or behind on my tasks. This is what I wanted from my business all along.
I’ve seen people online say that the most regulating thing they ever did for their nervous system was make more money, and you know what? That’s true. Money matters, and I’d even say money buys you peace. Misery is simply not a prerequisite for making more of it.
The Paid to Be Her framework: how to get paid for your calling
This is the whole premise of my brand, Paid to Be Her: manifesting your dream life by making money from your zone of genius. I also call it your calling. It’s the intersection of your skills, interests, experiences, and passions, so basically the thing you’re on this earth to do.
When you learn to monetize your calling, you get to spend every day doing something that fulfills you, something you love and that brings you joy, and something you don’t have to trade your whole self for. Here’s how I teach it, in three steps that happen in order.
Step 1: Become her
Identity work. First, you clarify who your next-level self is and close the gap between where you are now and that version of you. This is where most of the work lives, because what I’ve learned from working with over 100 business owners (many of them solopreneurs) is that a lot of them are blocking their own success. They say they want one thing, and their behavior contradicts it, because they don’t fully believe in that identity yet.
They’re not acting as the version of themselves who would post the videos on social media even though it’s scary, or who would make the investment they’re nervous to make. They’re still shrinking and acting like the old version of themselves, and that’s why the life and business of their dreams hasn’t shown up yet.
Step 2: Build the channel
Infrastructure. Next, you create the channel you get paid through. When I say this, I mean actually building an offer, setting up a business, or creating some way for you to receive money for your work.
Some of the entrepreneurs I’ve worked with have a really clear vision for their life and business, but they’re not tech savvy. You could be the best in the world at what you do, and if there’s no effective way for people to pay you, you’re not going to make any money, because how are you going to receive it? So there are really two different problems here: one is about identity, and one is about infrastructure.
Step 3: Let it flow
Receiving. The third step is making sure you’re not blocking yourself from receiving the abundance and the money you desire. Once you’ve become her and built the channel, this is where you let it in.
Channel-based vs. ceiling-based: how you get paid matters
Since we’re talking about ways of getting paid, I want to explain the difference between a ceiling-based business and a channel-based business.
The ceiling. Let’s go back to the corporate job. You get hired, and the company has a set budget for your role. You can negotiate up a little, and you might get promotions, but there’s a ceiling built into that role. As a made-up example, if the most they’ll pay for your role is $100K, you’re not going to make $200K at that company doing that exact job.
Businesses can work the same way. If you’re a freelancer who charges hourly, there’s a ceiling built into your business, because there are only 24 hours in a day. You can raise your rates (and you should when it’s time), but at the end of the day, your limit is the time you have.
The channel. What I love to teach is how to build a channel-based business with no ceiling built in. That means selling one-to-many offers: something you create once and can sell to lots of people. Think digital products, courses, and webinars, where you offer value to the people in your world without personally showing up for every call or making every deliverable by hand for every single person. You give many people the same transformation from the same product.
A channel is a business that keeps working while you’re out living your life. You could be like me and go shopping on a Tuesday at 1:00 PM. It’s all about packaging your genius so you can help people while you’re still doing the other things you love, and that’s the beauty of this internet money age we live in.
Use AI to take the parts you don’t love
If you want to go even deeper, you can use AI to take more of the workload off your plate and help you execute your ideas faster. The trick is to be picky about what you hand over. Automate the things you’re not good at, so you can focus on your craft and your zone of genius and do better work for the people you serve.
I also keep a boundary with my AI use. The original ideas come from my own noggin, every time. The packaging, organization, and execution of those ideas is where AI helps, so you can move faster, get the thing to market faster, and claim more of your time back, which is what I always say rich people do.
A 5-question check-in to find your next move
Grab a notebook (or open a note on your phone) and answer these honestly. They’ll show you whether your next step is identity, infrastructure, or letting go of something that’s draining you.
- Does my chest tighten on Sunday nights, or do I feel like I’m wearing a mask at work?
- Am I staying in something mostly because I’m good at it?
- Where am I still acting like the old version of me, like avoiding the videos or the investment I keep saying I’ll make?
- Is there a ceiling built into how I get paid right now, and what could I create once and sell to many people?
- Which tasks in my week am I not good at, that AI could take so I can stay in my zone of genius?
Get the free Manifest with ChatGPT workbook
Once you know who your next-level self is, the fastest way to start acting like her is to put that identity into words every day. My free Manifest with ChatGPT workbook walks you through it step by step, so you can catch the places you’re still shrinking and close the gap faster.
Here’s what’s inside:
- A setup prompt to get ChatGPT ready to work with you
- My 5-part prompt formula
- 6 prompt stacks: desire, belief, evidence, identity leaks, behavior, and feedback
- A follow-up toolkit
- Notes pages
Pop your email in below and it’s yours.
FAQ
1) How do I make more money doing what I love?
Start by naming your zone of genius, the place where your skills, interests, experiences, and passions overlap. Then build a channel for it, like an offer or a one-to-many product, so people have a clear way to pay you, and make sure your identity and habits match the woman who earns that way.
2) What is a zone of genius?
It’s what I also call your calling: the intersection of your skills, interests, experiences, and passions. It’s the work that fulfills you and brings you joy, the thing you feel you’re on this earth to do.
3) What’s the difference between a channel-based and a ceiling-based business?
A ceiling-based income has a built-in limit, like a salary budget for your role or an hourly rate capped by 24 hours in a day. A channel-based business sells one-to-many offers, like digital products, courses, or webinars, so you can serve more people without adding more of your own hours.
4) What is a one-to-many offer?
It’s something you create once and sell to multiple people, so many people get the same transformation from the same product without you personally delivering it to each one.
5) Should I use AI to automate my whole business?
I’d be picky about it. Use AI for the tasks you’re not good at and for packaging, organizing, and executing your ideas faster. Keep the original ideas and your zone of genius for yourself.
Here’s what I want you to take away…
You can’t achieve any of this if you keep shrinking yourself and lying to yourself about what you actually want. We spend so much of our lives working that it makes absolutely no sense to spend all that time in a job you hate, with toxic coworkers or an annoying boss. You get to make money in a way that feels good to you, and you get to become the woman whose income is built around her calling. Make the choice today to do better for yourself, queen. You deserve it.
Find your calling (and the cash in it) in 3 days
If you’re reading this thinking, “Okay, Sam, I believe you, but I have no idea what my zone of genius is or how I’d ever make money from it,” I made something for you. Calling to Cash is my free 3-day challenge, and it lives inside my Paid to Be Her community, which is also free to join.
I guide you through three exercises over three days. On day one, you’ll connect the skills, experiences, and passions you always thought were random and see that they’re actually an interconnected web. On day two, you’ll see the ways those things could turn into income. And by day three, you’ll have an action plan and a next move you can take that same day. You’ll get to do it alongside other women who are making the same kind of change in their lives. ✨
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