Diane Bell [00:00:01]:
Hello, gorgeous soul. I'm Diane Bell, and this is the aim from the Heart Podcast. Your weekly dose of tips, techniques, strategies and inspiration to help you live a life beyond your wildest dreams. If you're ready to use the art of intentional manifestation to create more freedom, more joy, more abundance and more bliss in your life, you are in the right place. S grab a cup of tea, pull up a chair and let's have some fun. I am so glad you're here today. Let's do this. Hello, gorgeous soul, and welcome to episode eight of the Aim From the Heart podcast.
Diane Bell [00:00:38]:
Today I have a really special interview for you. This is a conversation that I had with Joanna Hunter. Joanna is a Scottish medium and spiritual business coach and she is just an incredible woman and an incredible friend to me. She was actually my personal one to one coach for quite a long time and I would definitely credit her with helping me create my dream result of moving to Spain. When I first started working with Joanna, I was just dreaming of making this move and it seemed so far out of reach and we worked together really closely and she is a magical woman, as you're about to hear. I know you're going to get so much out of this. It is a longer episode, but honestly, once you get into it, I think you'll realize why. And I thought about cutting it down, but I was like, actually, there's just so much gold here.
Diane Bell [00:01:29]:
There's so much gold. Joanna really is speaking from source and really shares some incredible truths and some incredible wisdom and some incredible inspiration for you in this episode. Now, I have some also very exciting news about this, because in it, you're going to hear us talking about something called the million dollar experiment, which is something she ran a couple years ago that I just thought was the coolest thing. And I didn't actually get to do it because I heard about it after it already started and you're going to hear about it and what it is, but I have just heard that Joanna is starting a new million dollar experiment. So listen to this episode and then sign up, check out the show notes and get in because it is happening again. I am so excited. So please enjoy this episode, get yourself a cup of tea or pop in your earbuds. Honestly, you're going to love this.
Diane Bell [00:02:20]:
As you hear about this story of Joanna, this incredible woman who has gone from being on welfare in Scotland to creating the life of her dreams. Enjoy.
Diane Bell [00:02:31]:
I am so excited today to welcome to our podcast aim from the heart, joanna Hunter. And I'm just so thrilled that she's one of the very first guests here because it feels so right and so perfect for me to have her here. If you don't know Joanna, she is a Scottish medium and spiritual guide and she is also the author of two incredible books, the Million Dollar Experiment, which I have here, and Get Selfish, which I did have, but which I gave away. And by the way, every single time that I give away a book, it's a sign that it's a fantastic book. It means there was something that I felt really called to pass on and Get Selfish. It's just spectacular. She also has written three gratitude journals, I believe. Three, is that correct?
Joanna Hunter [00:03:13]:
There is three altogether, but one viter print at the moment.
Diane Bell [00:03:17]:
Okay, so there's two gratitude journals and also an Oracle deck, which I'm very interested in as well. And besides that, she also has a whole number of courses and programs to help people live incredible lives. I am so excited to talk to you, Joanna, and just as a heads up, just as a full disclosure, joanna was actually my coach for quite a while and that's why I'm particularly excited to have her here today because I'm sitting here right now recording this in my home in Spain. But when I hired Joanna as my coach, I was in Denver, Colorado, and I was in my basement and I was speaking to her and saying, I have this dream and I don't know how to make it happen. And literally, within a year, I suppose it was just over a year later, I made this move. And I can't even begin to say how grateful I am to you, Joanna, for helping me manifest this.
Joanna Hunter [00:04:14]:
I know I'm so chuffed right now because this ice is the cake. Seeing you sat there with your beautiful chopped up sand and we've had a little look outside your window and, oh, my God, it's living inside our dreams. That is what it's all about in life. And the fact that we can manifest these things and create these things using consciousness, that's what gets me so excited. And this is where you're sitting right now, is a testament to the shift in your consciousness and the shift in what you allowed in, because I think a lot of people think, I'm going to get that move. I'm going to get that for maybe your audience. I'm going to get that role or I'm going to get that script sold. We don't get anything, really.
Joanna Hunter [00:05:02]:
It's an illusion that we're getting something. The truth is we're allowing it. We're allowing it in. And you've allowed so much goodness in and just hearing you and how happy you are in Spain and the life that you're creating there, oh, my God, it's just like emotional.
Diane Bell [00:05:23]:
That's so great because I just remember literally, I think in our first call, you were like, what is it that you want? What are you going after? And I said, I have this dream and I don't know how to make it happen.
Joanna Hunter [00:05:33]:
It seems so far fetched and so.
Diane Bell [00:05:35]:
Impossible at that time. And thing that I would just like to say and we're going to dive into, obviously, your story in just a moment, but something I remember, really, that landed was in that very first call. And what I love about you was, yes, there was this whole manifestation magic side, but you were also like, okay, it's time to get real about this. I don't know if you remember this, but you said, I want you to figure out actually exactly how much it's going to cost you to make this move. Like, how much do you actually really need? Do you remember saying this?
Joanna Hunter [00:06:00]:
Absolutely. That is how you anchor something that is in the unseen realm into the scene realm, right? Because if we can price it, we now have something that is tangible to us in the scene realm, when we've got these big, big dreams and they're floating about in the ether untethered. What you do is, by pricing it, you price a tether that is anchored into the scene world. And that's how we like, have you ever seen that Bruce Almighty where he's pulling on the moon? Oh, yeah. Closer. That's literally what we did. Yeah. I love it.
Diane Bell [00:06:37]:
So thank you so much, because I wouldn't be here without you where I'm sitting today. I'm so grateful.
Joanna Hunter [00:06:42]:
I'm so excited. Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:06:44]:
So, please, let's begin by just I want to hear about you and how you came to be here, because I know that Joanna Hunter has not always been the incredible, powerful leader of light that maybe that we see you as today. So can you tell me a little bit about absolutely how you came to be, like, having this business, writing these books, helping people in the way that you do?
Joanna Hunter [00:07:07]:
So I moved to the UK. Or I moved to Scotland. My dad's Scottish, my mum's Swedish, so I moved from Stockholm when I was about ten years of age to Scotland. I moved from a large capital city, Stockholm, that's very vibrant, very multicultural, to little imperness. I think the population was about 35,000 people at that point. My mum likened it to moving from 1984, which was the year that we moved to moving to from 1984 to 1954. And so it was a bit of a culture shock. And obviously, people in Scotland back of that day, not to sack off Scotland too much, because she has worked well, but they had not really heard of any kind of gourmet food or anything like that, so it was all, like, kind of shop.
Joanna Hunter [00:08:00]:
I think my mom was going to crack up because she was used to having literally, the world on her doorstep in Stockholm in 1984. And when they move into it was like a couple of greasy spoons and a couple of chip shops. So it was crazy. So moved here and then I grew up, went to school, all the things. My first ever job was really with McDonald's, like hamburgers. And in a way, I felt really lucky that I got a job with them when I was just 15. One of the things with McDonald's that I've always appreciated is that other organizations look at your age. And in McDonald's, what I felt certainly in the restaurant that I worked in, was that they alluded to your ability.
Joanna Hunter [00:08:51]:
So by the time I was 16, I was in management, and by the time I was 17, I was doing local store marketing for them. So that's where I cut my teeth on marketing, was at the helm of McDonald's. And then at 19, I walked straight into a management position in a big department store. And that's where my story sort of changes, because I then had my first baby at 20. So it was like really young. And then I had such an issue of getting employed again, I literally went to interviews, and I kid you not, like entire interviews for professional companies and corporations, where they literally asked me the whole interview centered around what would I do with my kids in various scenarios if my kid was ill, what would I do? Like, basically, how could I keep showing up for work? And I felt like I'd had this thing tattooed in my forehead liable to breed again, which was like, we can't put you in a management position type thing. Eventually I did get a job offer, and the job offer, I seriously believe that there was like about 10,000 missing from the numeration package. And I thought no.
Joanna Hunter [00:10:10]:
So I went into the company and I had a wee chat with them. I went into the store and had a chat with them and discovered that they were hiring me for assistant store manager, but they had not hired a store manager, which they were missing, and they had not hired an admin assistant. So they really wanted to pay me like, really bad money and literally have me do the role of three people. And I was like, no. And then it got really mad. And when I get mad, I've always had the ability to channel anger. I think anger is a very underrated and powerful human emotion. And so I got pissed, and I was like, and when I get pissed, my feathers fluffed up.
Joanna Hunter [00:10:53]:
And I'm like, I'm going to sort this. And I had seen a shop in the February, and jokingly I said to my mum, that's such a cute shop, because it was like the traditional shop, two windows and the door in the middle, our little town that we lived in at the time. And I had seen that in the february. Well, in October of 1999, I opened my first business on a budget of three and a half thousand pounds. That bought me my stock, that paid for my rent, that paid for the paint, shock fittings, everything. Like I literally stretched that budget to the I wagged as much free stop as I could to basically begin my business. And then within a year, I built my first six figure business, and I was 23 years old, and I built my first six figure business from scratch on an initial investment of three and a half thousand pounds. And between the ages of 23 and 26, I built four six figure and multiple six figure businesses.
Joanna Hunter [00:12:02]:
So that initial shop, which was the strangest thing, is I can't even believe it because I had like three and a half grand, and I'm still trying to work out how I did it. Because it was a designer clothing shop, so that also bought my stuff. So you can imagine. But we did discount designer, where I saw Ralph Lauren, that kind of things. And I had managed to find this really cool supplier that could do like discount versions of those things, overstocks and things like that is what I bought in for my shop, and I just built it up. And then I added a shoe shop, and then I added a cafe, licensed bistro and cafe. And then, because all of that was not challenging enough, I also added a spiritual events company on that as well. And then I worked in all of that for a decade.
Joanna Hunter [00:13:01]:
I didn't work on my businesses. I worked in my businesses. So really putting the graft in, which I do not recommend, and I hit a huge burnout, massive burnout. And that was the beginning of my spiritual awakening.
Diane Bell [00:13:19]:
So, speaking of spiritual awakenings, I just want to know, did you as a child, because I know you are a medium, gifted medium, was that something that you felt that you assessed as a child or growing up, did you feel any calling to that, or was it just not something you were aware of at all?
Joanna Hunter [00:13:34]:
No, super aware as a child. So, as a child, I had a really challenging childhood because of it. Because when I was younger, I couldn't tell the living from the dead. So I would see these people that I then later began to call the Wispy people. And the Wispy people for me were people that were they were semi translucent. And so when I was younger, I thought they were just like ordinary folk. So I would say to people when I started speaking, I would say to people like, oh, your grandmother's so nice. They'd be like, My grandmother's dead.
Joanna Hunter [00:14:08]:
Never mind. No, she's not. She's standing right here. And then I would relay messages and stuff. So by the time I was six, I'd been chucked out of Sunday school for giving the message to the priest from his dad's mother. And so, yeah, it was really challenging. And then by the time I was nine, I was really suppressing my spiritual gifts, really pushing them down, and all I really wanted was just to fit in at that point in time. And the only gift that I couldn't suppress was my spiritual sight.
Joanna Hunter [00:14:39]:
So I've always had the ability to see colors around people, to see energy flitting in and around the world. There's always lots of energy and colors moving around everything. And I always had the ability to see that with the naked eye. So at nine I managed to kind of shut down, which this is the sort of stuff that can have you locked up the voices because I would hear spirit and I would sense spirit, I would feel spirit, I would know things, I would have clear cognitive, so I would just simply know something. I remember when my mum started working, my mum started working in this restaurant as accountant and there was this guy that worked there and I just took one look at him and I said, promise me something, Mum. And she said what? And I said, you have to swear on my life. And she was like and I said, swear you will never be alone with this man. And my mom said, Why? And I said, I can't tell you why, I just know.
Joanna Hunter [00:15:40]:
Never ever be alone with him. And it turns out he was a waiter in the restaurant and it turns out that he was actually a serial sex offender. And I made my mom promise, but I didn't know why. I just knew that if you were a female, you were not to be alone with this man. And it was just a knowing and there was no explanation. He was uber pleasant to me, uber pleasant to my mum. He was not an unpleasant person. There was no rational explanation.
Joanna Hunter [00:16:13]:
But I knew, and it took six months before that came to light.
Diane Bell [00:16:18]:
So I'm curious about your mother. Does she have these gifts as well? How did she respond to you having them? Was she supportive and protective of that or was that something that she felt, I don't know, threatened or concerned or worried about?
Joanna Hunter [00:16:35]:
No, I'm really lucky. So I'm really lucky in the fact that both my parents were very open minded to things like ESP and stuff like that and they were really open minded about that. And my mum and dad had a really kind of very eclectic friends know, they were friends with the undersecretary of the UN and they were friends with the busker down the street because my dad was a musician and also an and but then they were also friends with the Royal Physician in Stockholm for the Royal Family. So they had this really weird eclectic group and part of that group was this group of university professors that basically studied ESP and studied basically phenomenon and stuff. And I believe that apparently there is some footage of me literally when I'm very young giving messages to these people from the beyond and they're amazing.
Diane Bell [00:17:42]:
That's amazing because I think your soul chose the right parents then.
Joanna Hunter [00:17:47]:
Yeah, I believe that my parents came in with I believe that we all choose the right parents to give us lessons and that lessons aren't always pleasant for people, and I think like that. But on that part, I can definitely say that I was never belittled or poohed. My mom would always say, oh, that's interesting. And if I wanted to say more, I would keep speaking. I was never felt like I was shut down of like, don't be so ridiculous. You're making that up. I was never, ever did I receive that. And for that, I'm internally grateful, because I received a lot of that from the outer world really young on my love of science developed, and the reason my love of science developed was that I had a choice.
Joanna Hunter [00:18:39]:
I was either batshit crazy, right, and everything was literally all in my head, or there was a scientific explanation for what was happening to me. And I thought, you know what? I know I'm not crazy. I know that I know this is real, and I know that there must be an explanation for this. And so, for me, it was really, really, like, exploring that and beginning to explore that through a scientific lens and starting to see and I found an explanation for literally everything. I mean, I remember the first time that I found the law of thermodynamics, for instance, of energy, once created, cannot be changed. It cannot be destroyed. It can only be changed, and it can only change form. And realizing, oh, that explains the wispy people, because they've literally just changed form.
Joanna Hunter [00:19:44]:
But the energy that that body contained continues to live, and the law of thermodynamics literally supports this. And so I remember just kind of really just hunting for explanations for everything, realizing that the visible spectrum of light that human beings see, and realizing also as well how arrogant we are as humans because of our five senses, and realizing that our five senses tell a 1% story. So our five senses tell a 1% story. We hear less than 1% of the audible spectrum. That's why dogs can hear more than we do. They hear a larger percentage of the audible spectrum than a human being does. So we hear less than 1%. We see 1% of all visible light.
Joanna Hunter [00:20:38]:
So that means 99% we're not seeing. And so I used to love saying to people when they said, oh, hey, I don't believe in all that. And I would be like, well, here's the thing. A dragon or a unicorn or even a mermaid could be standing right next to you right now. And if they are outside the audible spectrum, and if they're outside your visible spectrum, you would have no idea that they're literally standing right next to you right now. And so because your five senses are only processing 1%, so I started to realize that there is people, and then I got obsessed with history, and I started to realize that there's people like me throughout history. The oracles of delphi are probably some of the most famous seers here, up here in scotland, we have a very, very famous seer called the brand seer, who predicted roads over 400 years before the first actual roadways. He said his prediction was he said that in the future, scotland will have ribbons of black running all across her, and upon these ribbons, horseless carriages will ride at speeds that we can only imagine.
Joanna Hunter [00:21:57]:
Wow. That's cars on tarmac roads.
Diane Bell [00:22:02]:
Yeah.
Joanna Hunter [00:22:04]:
But explained in language where we don't even have the language for what that seer was seeing. And so I realized that this was something that was there. And during the time that I was building my businesses, the spirit world was always my place of solace. Okay? So when things were going horribly, which often they did, because I had a lot of unhealed wounds and stuff from like this, I took so much stuff personally. People like employees messing you around, stuff like that, I took all of that to heart. I literally wore my heart on my sleeve. And then even people like customers and stuff, we had a lot of really amazing customers, but then there were some people that thought they in the clothing shop thought that they could wear the clones and then try and return the clones, and I would take all of that stuff so personally. It was in a personal attack on myself.
Joanna Hunter [00:23:08]:
So that made everything really very difficult. But the place I always returned to was meditation and spirit. And I think my bank manager back then would be horrified to know how many decisions I made with the tarot deck.
Diane Bell [00:23:25]:
So you reached this point, and you said and I think for some people, they might be interested, when you said, I was working in the business, not on the business, just explain what that difference is for people who might be listening.
Joanna Hunter [00:23:38]:
Might absolutely that concept. So working on the business is where you're holding an overview over everything and that you're holding the vision for the business, and you're maybe delegating things that need to be done. Now, when you are a person of one, there is a certain amount of needing to work in the business where you're actually at the rock face, so to speak, at the proverbial rock face, chipping away. But we can still work on the business and not in the business, even if we are a person of one. And the difference is how we are looking and treating the business. When we're in the business, it's like you're too busy to stop, right? So you're not using consciousness to make your decisions. You're like firefighting. You're reactive.
Joanna Hunter [00:24:32]:
You're like stuff's coming in, and you're like, oh, I've got to do something about this. And so it's very intense when we're working in the business as opposed to on the business. When we're working on the business, we're taking time. We're thinking strategically, we're using reasoning, we're using higher consciousness, higher functions of our brains. But when we're doing it, like working in it's, kind of very reactive state of being. And so you don't get time and you miss opportunities when you're working in the business.
Diane Bell [00:25:05]:
I think this is such an important conversation because I feel like for so many soul led entrepreneurs, we start out, we have some passion, we have something.
Joanna Hunter [00:25:14]:
That we want to share.
Diane Bell [00:25:14]:
We set up some sort of business, whether it's a shop, whether it's an online business, whether it's whatever it is. And within a short amount of time, we find, like, we're just stuck doing the thing. We might be making money, but we're just now making money and we're getting exhausted. And so you said yourself you ended up having burnout, huge burnout.
Joanna Hunter [00:25:37]:
I say now to people, hustle is for people who don't know how to flow. My first four businesses were all built from the energy of hustle, because I was convinced that's how you get ahead in life. And I've never been shy of work. I've never been work shy. So I was like, you need to work hard for money. Okay, I got this. I'll roll up my sleeves, I'll do what it takes. So I worked in my businesses, not on my businesses.
Joanna Hunter [00:26:06]:
I didn't ever pull out and look at things and be more strategic. Instead, I was just firefighting all the time and I was proud of my hustle. And I thought people that didn't hustle were a bit of a loser. That was the dogwasses back then. Now I wholeheartedly stand by. Hustle is for people who don't know how to flow. So when I hit my burnout, my burnout was massive. I'm literally lucky to be alive.
Joanna Hunter [00:26:36]:
So my burnout happened about 15 years ago now, coming up about 15 years. And I collapsed at home with multiple organ failure. Wow. And every soft tissue organ in my body began failing. And I was told to write my letters to my young children. I had two at the time, and I was told to write my letters to them and I was told to prepare my family for my passing. And I went down this really strange rabbit hole of starting to mentally prepare and thinking, oh, I wonder if my mum could take my shops over, because she was, like an accountant and she was doing our books and things. And I thought, well, I wonder if she could take our shops over and maybe pay my husband a wage so he can keep the family going.
Joanna Hunter [00:27:19]:
And I was halfway down that rabbit hole by the time I caught myself and was like, what the fuck are you doing? And I'm like, Assess how you want your story to end. And I thought, no, this is not how my story ends. And the moment I said it, I was like, this is not how my story end. I literally grabbed hold of my own energy and was like, we are not going out like this. We are not going to fade in a hospital bed with a million machines trying to get your organs to work. We're just not going to go out like this. And once I made that decision, I was just looking for a sign to get out of hospital. And my liver function showed some improvement on about day eleven.
Joanna Hunter [00:28:10]:
And I said, right, that's it. And even though I still had breathing tubes and lots of things, I was like, I'm leaving. And they were like, no, you can't leave. We can't send anything with you. We can't send a nerd site to you. No, you can't leave. And I said, no, I'm leaving. Prepare my papers, I'm signing myself out.
Joanna Hunter [00:28:30]:
And then the doctors came rushing and about three doctors tried to persuade me to stay. And I was like, no, because these people, I told me I was going to die. And I literally needed to just get the hell away from them because I needed to be around people that were expecting me to live like my kids and my husband. And so for me it was all about even back then, even though it was all happening very instinctively, I now see through the lens of the work that I do now, is very much like how much that was mindset. I just needed to be around the right people. People that believed that I would live, as opposed to the people who believed that I was going to expire. And I was like, I wasn't ready to go. And it was absolutely not how my story was going to end.
Joanna Hunter [00:29:18]:
And so, I mean, I staggered out of that hospital. I was so weak. I hadn't been able to digest any food in over like eleven days by that time and stuff. So I was not in a great state. And I got home and the only way that I was really labor breathing and so we had these patio doors in the living room and I got my husband to push the couch next to the patio doors and I lay down on the couch with a big blanket and I was like and it was October, and we cracked the patio doors and there's air was coming in so that I was getting, like extra air. And of course we live in the Highlands so the air quality is so good. And that was just like how I was breathing at that point. And I was an in between moments of consciousness because I was very tired and drifting in and out of consciousness.
Joanna Hunter [00:30:15]:
And in the moments of consciousness I got my journal out and I wrote probably one of the most scariest things I've ever written in that journal. And it was extreme self abuse got me here. And I realized in that moment I began focusing on the solution. And I thought, the only way that I am going to get out of here is extreme self love. And it would have to be extreme self love. Because extreme self abuse had got me there. And my drug of choice hadn't been alcohol or drugs. My drug of choice had been working.
Joanna Hunter [00:30:54]:
I was a workaholic. And it was the first time that I really, really admitted that I had been a workaholic and my drug of choice was work.
Diane Bell [00:31:04]:
So when you had that moment of clarity and you saw like, this is yeah, what were the steps to actually creating change? Because obviously you had this identity of being this workaholic. You'd had a business running it for all these years and being in that mode, and no doubt you were in flight or fight mode. You were highly most of the time. So what was the tangible steps that you took to actually change that? Or was it not necessary after you saw it?
Joanna Hunter [00:31:34]:
No, God, it was really necessary, the tangible steps. So the first thing was, as I wrote, extreme self love. And then I just remember feeling absolutely bereft because I did not know the first thing about self love beyond a bubble bath. I literally did not know what self love looked like.
Diane Bell [00:31:59]:
This is a great title for a book, by the way. Beyond the bubble bath.
Joanna Hunter [00:32:03]:
Beyond the bubble bath.
Diane Bell [00:32:04]:
Yes.
Joanna Hunter [00:32:06]:
Beyond the bubble. I began kind of really kind of thinking about what would be the first step through my realization. The first realization that I had was that I wouldn't need to get selfish. And it really, really filled me with horror because my father was actually a narcissist and quite a selfish man. And the idea that I would have to exhibit a behavior that he exhibit, it was really intense because I was like, I had been people pleasing and over giving for years, which is also contributing to the workaholic as well of really always being there, always being the one, always push, push, push. This whole realization of like, I'm going to have to get selfish. I was like, oh my God. And so what that realization was followed with was, well, if I'm going to have to get selfish to survive this, I'm going to to have start listening to myself.
Joanna Hunter [00:33:23]:
And so that became the second step. So the first step was really to get selfish. And the first step in my book, Get Selfish, that I wrote, which is the title of my book, it's that process that I literally did. The first process of that process was to really identify getting selfish. And then the second process of that was to create space for healing. And my spirit team, Skylar, gave me a really cool vision of a hot oven. And if you place your hand on the hot oven, you have no chance of healing that hand until the hand is removed off the hot oven. And what I realized was that I had a lot of hot ovens in my life.
Joanna Hunter [00:34:10]:
My relationship with my father was a source of massive stress and was extremely triggering for me, we couldn't stay in a room longer than half an hour without arguing over something which was really, really stressful. And so that was one of what I call life's hot ovens. And I had other hot ovens as well, where it kept me in constant either emotional pain. And the thing is that it's so logical. If you put your hand on an oven and it's hot and it starts burning and hurting you, you take your hand off immediately. You don't keep it there. Unfortunately, we don't treat emotional pain like that as human beings. So when we're in emotional pain, what we do is we're like, we'll start negotiating with the pain, right? So a classic example for some people, not everybody, but it's like a mother in law, right? And they've got, well, just stay for half an hour, but deep down in your soul, you know, this is going to be painful, this is going to be emotionally painful, this is going to hurt.
Joanna Hunter [00:35:14]:
But you were willing to negotiate with emotional pain. So part of getting selfish for me was becoming unwilling to negotiate with emotional pain. The pain means one thing and one thing only. This will hurt. And so either I'm making a choice for pain, or I'm making a choice to not have pain. And therefore, I would have to pick the one that would basically be the choice for not for pain if I did not want to be in pain. And so that was the process. And then becoming self aware and really aware of oneself and aware.
Joanna Hunter [00:35:48]:
And I realized one of the things that I realized was that as human beings, we are addicted to lying to ourselves. So just like we're willing to negotiate with our pain and lessen our pain, or dismiss the fact that we might be in emotional pain, or this situation may cause emotional pain, and we'll be like, oh, yeah, but it's all right. We'll just stay half an hour, just one cup of tea, and then we're going. And the negotiation of that. But what I realized is that we also lie to ourselves as well. So one of my biggest lies that I told was that I was self employed, which was true, but the lie that I told was that I was living the dreams. I can create my own hours. I can work when I want.
Joanna Hunter [00:36:33]:
That was the lie that I was telling because I was literally the worst boss I'd ever had. I was relentless. I was not allowed to finish early. I was not allowed to start late in the morning. I was a relentless boss to myself. And so therefore, that was one of the sort of lies. And I realized that as human beings, we often tell these lies and believing that they're truth and thinking, oh, yes, I'm living the dream. But somewhere along the lines, that dream had turned into literally a living nightmare where I had a young family and I was working 72 hours a week, every week and took no holidays because the business always came first.
Joanna Hunter [00:37:19]:
Yeah.
Diane Bell [00:37:19]:
So what did you do on a practical level? Did you close those businesses? Did you sell those businesses?
Joanna Hunter [00:37:24]:
I sold my shop. At that point, we had already closed the cafe and actually expanded the designer clothing shops into the space that the cafe had been in. The shoe shop ahead of 50% business partnership. So I sold that and I had sold that earlier and then I sold my shops. So I had three shops and I sold two of them and one of them was closed. And then the Spiritual Events Company was the only one that I kept because the Spiritual Events Company was like a pop up event and I still needed to earn some income. And I thought even though I was very ill afterwards and I had a lot of chronic illness after that, I was like, if we do a mediumship event, for instance, it would open the doors at seven and we would finish that event around about sort of 09:30. And I was like, sure, I can fake it for two and a half hours that I'm feeling.
Joanna Hunter [00:38:17]:
So that's what I did. But it meant that we would create one event, and because it was just at the beginning of the era of Facebook and stuff like that, so I could market my event on Facebook and places like that, and I could market my event on social media. So in that way, it meant that I could lay in my PJs or lay in my couch and if I wasn't feeling great, I could still kind of keep a hand in and market my business. But I had really, really committed to this road of working and ease, joy and flow. And of course, the first place that I went back for me was Spirit. And I let Spirit guide my journey and I really just surrendered to Spirit of letting them guide the journey and they guided me back to my health and they guided me back to my healing. And when I got to the end of that journey, I was doing readings for people, so I was doing like, tarot. I was working as professional medium alongside Spiritual Events Company, and so I was doing a few readings here and there and they were like an hour at a time and things like that.
Joanna Hunter [00:39:20]:
So I felt really manageable with my energy at the time and I had this policy that you could only have a reading with me six months apart because otherwise I was just telling people the same thing again. And even if I didn't remember what I'd said to them the last time, if things hadn't shifted that much, it would be almost identical stuff that would come through the channel. So I was like, no, you have to have at least six months, or at the very least four months. If you've had significant changes in your life, then I would have let them come about 2 hours two months earlier. And I had clients, they would book on the dot six months, and they would want to come back and get a reading. But some of those clients had additional needs. They would be, oh, can you not give me a reading again next week? I just feel so much better when I come here. And one of the clients that had was a woman that was suicidal, and I really, really feared for her.
Joanna Hunter [00:40:18]:
She was in a really, really bad place, and it was the first thing that I saw in her energy. And she had two young girls, and she asked me after the reading if she could come back next week. And I began to say no, because I had that policy in place. But I just watched her energy field begin to implode on itself. And I thought, God, I can't do this. So I said, here's the thing. I'll make a deal with you. Come back next week, and I'm going to teach you this thing.
Joanna Hunter [00:40:50]:
I cannot give you another reading because it's just not ethical. But here's what I would do, is I will teach you this thing that will help you, and we'll do the first session for free. And if you like it, you can come back and book further sessions. And so she was like, Right, okay. And so she came back the next week, and I taught her the Law of Attraction. I taught her how to use her thoughts to begin to change her life. And the next week after that, she came back again, and she banged through the door, and she had started to really, really shift her life. After about four months of sessions, she was coming to see me weekly.
Joanna Hunter [00:41:30]:
And after about four months of sessions, she convinced she basically confessed to me that she was going to drive off the bridge that day. She was going to come from my reading to my house and have the reading, and then she was going to kill herself that day, basically, and that she's so grateful that she met me. And I just feel so emotional. I tell those stories and that her little girls have literally got a mom. And she went on to create a life by design. And she went on to it was so funny. There were so many incredible lessons for me as well in that as well. So that's how my first life coaching client came along.
Joanna Hunter [00:42:18]:
That's literally how my first coaching client came along. It was completely kind of like, accidental and yet so meant to be. And then a very similar story with my next coaching client. Somebody who was in a really bad place came for a reading, and I was like, listen, I can't ethically just give you another reading. But what if I teach you how to feel better and feel good about yourself and to begin to powerfully change your life? Things that I've used to change my life. And I teach you it and let's do a session for free. And then if you like it, you can keep coming back. And that's how my first kind of life coaching practice began.
Joanna Hunter [00:42:57]:
And from that it was every single client. I learned something from that client in working with them. And I always worked with the way that I always worked was what had worked for me in my process of Get Selfish. And the book Get Selfish actually got its name through that process of working with these clients. Because every single client that I described the process to would gasp and be horrified and they would say, but that's so selfish. And I'm like, lady, if I ever write a self help book, it will be called Get Selfish is what I would joke with them and say. And then years later I did it and I wrote the book. And of course I had only one name.
Joanna Hunter [00:43:41]:
It was Get Selfish the Way is through because that's what it was. But a lot of these women were so out of alignment with themselves. Like I had been people pleasing over giving, working from the energy of resentment, working from the energy of feeling hard done by or feeling like they got the short end of the stick. Working from all of these really funky energies and then wondering why the universe kept showing up with these funky energies again. And so all I did really with these women was really working on reconnecting them back to source and letting them have a relationship. And sometimes I would have to kind of sell angels to them. So I always used to sell angels to people who didn't believe in angels and didn't believe in stuff. And so what I would say is like, I've got this thing, I want you to try it, but it's going to sound weird because they were maybe not into the spiritual stuff at all.
Joanna Hunter [00:44:42]:
And I was like, I want you to ask your angels for help. But listen, before you go, I roll and go, oh, not me, not for me. I said, you're really worried about this situation? And they go, yeah. And I said, okay, so here's what I want you to do. I want you to go home. I want you to light a candle. I want you to take a couple of deep cleansing breaths. I want you to literally just say, guardian angel.
Joanna Hunter [00:45:06]:
I ask you to come and help me in this situation and then describe the situation that you want them to help you with, okay? And then you're just going to sit for just a little while and watch the candle and just chill and like this. And he says, Enlist. Even if you think it's weird, you can't lose. Because either you've just spent ten minutes asking your angel, which meant ten minutes that you weren't worrying about the problem and nothing happens. But you still got ten minutes where you weren't worrying about the problem. Or your guardian angel fully pulls out the bag, shows up and helps you. In which case, winner, winner, chicken dinner. So my clients would go off and then they would come back and they'd be like, the freakiest thing happened, or this happened, and miracles began.
Joanna Hunter [00:45:54]:
Unfolding for them, because when we do ask our guardian angels, they do show up. They have to be invited to the party. We've been given free will, and they will respect that free will until we stop and say, hey, I would really like your help here. And so a lot of them began. And one of the other things that was really incredible was so many of my clients ended up stepping into their spiritual gifts. They started opening up their intuition. They started living from an intuitive sense in life and began to be guided by that intuition and guided by that way of being and living. And it just moved them back in tune with who they are because they just lived for years outside the truth of who they are, piling on more and more and more onto their plates until they were so overwhelmed that they didn't know really which way was up or which way was down.
Joanna Hunter [00:46:47]:
And I could totally empathize with that. I'd been there. Worn the hat, got the T shirt and the DVD.
Diane Bell [00:46:55]:
Yeah, I love that so much. I want to ask you just about money, because obviously your other book is The Million Dollar Experiment, and something that.
Joanna Hunter [00:47:07]:
You say in this book.
Diane Bell [00:47:08]:
You said, I get really excited about the topic of money because I believe there is no greater tool to teach us so many things. And could you just illuminate a little bit about this because obviously so many people have this idea that money is not spiritual good. People don't care about money. People who are motivated by creativity or by healing or by these things shouldn't be bothered about money because it's not a spiritual thing. It's not a good thing. So can you just talk a little bit about your journey with money and why you think it's such a great tool?
Joanna Hunter [00:47:41]:
It's amazing, patronala collective consciousness called Skyler, who teach through me and most of my teachings and really my books are kind of co created with them. And Skylar calls money one of the greatest spiritual teachers on our planet at this time. And I fully, fully agree with that statement, and I wouldn't have always agreed with that statement, but I do now fully, fully agree with that statement. So my goodness, there is nothing like money to start the we from the shaft. It really is. First of all, money has a lot of traits that Source has. So Source's energy is always giving and always expanding. So money in itself tends to be what I call an expander energy.
Joanna Hunter [00:48:32]:
So if you're a good person with the resource of money, you can be even better. You can do more. You can help more people. It will expand that trait inside of you. If you're literally a bit of an asshole, money will also expand that trait in you. So literally, we'll expand the trait, right? That is you. At the end of the day, through all my research around money and all of my investigation of money, one of the things that I have really come to know is that all money issues come down to one issue. It's a self trust issue.
Joanna Hunter [00:49:09]:
If you fundamentally know, like, you know, like you know, like you know that you are a good person, why would you fear having a lot of money? Why would you fear that money is evil or money is bad or money is terrible or money will corrupt you? Right? If you totally believe in the essence and trust yourself, trust yourself wholly, completely, fully, why would money be such a freaking issue, right? It wouldn't. But the thing is, the reason we feel all squiffy and weird around money is that it highlights all the areas we don't trust ourselves. It highlights all the places. If you got a big pot of money handed to you, who are you going to be? And most people internal real, truthful answer to that would be, I don't really know. So then it would be, well, can I be trusted with that? Because if we fundamentally knew that we were a good person, we might be at our current financial level and be like, I feel like I'm a good person, right? I feel good. I feel like I do good things. I think I care about other human beings. I care about people.
Joanna Hunter [00:50:18]:
I care about the world that we live in and the environment and all of the things, and then add some money into the mix and holy moly DAP your popcorn, people. Because there's a whole thing that starts going on in people's heads, right? It's self trust. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which way you cut and dry. It comes down to self trust. Can you trust yourself to still be a good person with a large pot of money? And that's what it comes down to. So really, at the end of the day, what money does is not only is it a tool, I remember the first time I heard this from a spiritual teacher called Wallace Wattles, who wrote a book a hundred years ago now, actually called The Science of Getting Rich. And he basically in that book, it triggered me so hard when I first read that book, and why it triggered me was that he said that you literally can't reach certain things in this life without money. And I remember feeling so triggered by that statement, because at that point in time, I had zero money.
Joanna Hunter [00:51:18]:
So I was, like, very triggered by this. And I was like and I hated the idea that some of the world would be closed to me because of my financial status. It rubbed me the wrong way, and it triggered me a lot. But what I realized is through realizing that my triggers highlight the unloved parts of myself, and my triggers are my teachers. And they are also one of the greatest virtual teachers that we have access to on a daily and consistent basis. Whatever is creating strong reactions inside of you is this virtual teacher for you if you're willing to learn and be the student. And I was willing to learn, and I was willing to be the student and the triggers that I had, and I thought, Why do I feel like this? And I realized that I had a fear that I may never be wealthy. So I decided to work in undressing that fear of realizing what I realized now is that money, for me, what money means is choice.
Joanna Hunter [00:52:20]:
With more money, you just simply have more choices and you can choose what you truly want sometimes. And again, it comes back to this, we human beings lie to ourselves. How do you know if you go to your wardrobe, for instance, this is a super simple exercise. You go to your wardrobe. Is your wardrobe filled with the clothes that you truly desire? Or are they filled with the clothes that fit your current budget? Right. And you won't actually know the answer until the budget for your clothing is infinite of what you truly do. Would it all be high end designer brands or are you okay with a T shirt from Gap? Well, you guys say, Well, I'm really good with a T shirt from Gap right now. But the thing is, do you really, really know that for sure? Until we're in the other end of the spectrum and we could have everything is actually an actual choice, at that point, we really get to know ourselves.
Joanna Hunter [00:53:21]:
So for me, money is a tool that helps us to really, truly know ourselves, to realize our dreams and our desires. It is a tool that we can use to help others with. It is a tool that can be liberated and liberate people. And yet some people wield money like a weapon to hurt others, but that's what money highlighted for them.
Diane Bell [00:53:44]:
So you actually ran an experiment one year. This book, I guess was this book did the book come before the experiment or did it actually I wrote a.
Joanna Hunter [00:53:52]:
Book for the experiment. So everybody who entered the experiment, so we went viral with this experiment.
Diane Bell [00:53:58]:
Tell me about the experiment.
Joanna Hunter [00:53:59]:
Because I love the end of 2029, I decided that I was ready for a seven figure year. And I said to Spirit, I have this prayer that's part of a Native American prayer. And the Native American prayer is, make me your hollow bone, right? And the prayer is to be a channel for something. That's why they pray and say, make me your hollow bone. And so I said, okay, this is what I desire spirit. I desire to have a seven figure year but I practice this other energy called the great exchange which is that if you want something, you desire something from the universe, you can rock up to the universe and exchange an energy for that. So I said to the universe, hey, I would really like to do a seven figure year and I'm willing to enter the great exchange. She'll make me your hollow bone, put through channel through me, whatever it is.
Joanna Hunter [00:55:01]:
So I was on a call with a client and she was just having a tough day, right? And we all had those but she was like, I'm never going to make money. She was really, really like we've all gone to the dark night of the money soul, right, and been there. So I said to her, she was an American client, so I said, go and get a dollar. I said, have you got a dollar? And she said, yes, let's go get that dollar and bring it back. So she runs off to her purse, gets the dollar. So she's sitting on her zoom call with this dollar in her hand. She's like, what now? And I said, if I told you to take that dollar, buy something for a dollar and then sell it for $2. And you kept doing that.
Joanna Hunter [00:55:39]:
So you buy something for $2 and then sell it for how many times do you think you would need to do that before you reached a million? So she was really having a tough day. So she was like, I don't know, probably like 5000. And I said, well would it surprise you that the actual number is 20? You would only need to do it 20 times. And she was like, what? I said, do you understand that right now while you think that you're a million million miles away from any decent amount of money, that you're actually only 20 steps away from being a millionaire by holding that dollar? So she was like, oh my God, this is crazy. And I was like, I know, right? So I said, I want you to pin that dollar somewhere and I want you looking at it and knowing that you're only 20 steps away. You're only ever 20 steps away. The illusion that there is so much lack in this world is an illusion. We are told that millions, a million dollars are so far away when the truth is only 20 steps from a dollar.
Joanna Hunter [00:56:45]:
Like so chill, right? You got this. And not only that, you can actually have your intuition guide you on how you can make it happen, right? So you come with extras. All humans come with extras, like time we use them. So she left that call as you can imagine, on an absolute hide. But it reminded me of a book that I had began writing eight years earlier and abandoned. So I went digging on my hard drive to see if I could find this book. And I found the book. And I had written 22,000 words for this book already, so it was quite a sizable chunk already written.
Joanna Hunter [00:57:21]:
And I read the book and I thought, I read what I'd written already and I was like, this is freaking good stuff. This is genius. Because it had this 20 step plan and it was all about how you can climb the mountain and that now you've got your list of base camps. So turning each dollar is your base camps, but I might as well have given you the base camps of Mount Everest because you won't be ready to make the climb until you get your mindset squared away, right? And we'll have to. And that's where the big training is. And you don't just rock up to Everest and go like, let's do it. It's months of training. Sometimes we train our brain to be able to achieve such a feat and even our physical body to achieve such a feat.
Joanna Hunter [00:58:04]:
So that was how the kind of book, what I had already in the book. And so that night I went to bed and as I sat on my bed, I said, spirit, show me what I'm meant to do with this, because I feel like there was no accident today that that client jogged my memory of this book that I began writing. And I was also having this sort of twilight music playing in the back of my head going do. Because when I began writing that book, I had no knowledge of the online world and how to build an online business at that point in time. And by the time that I recalled that book, I had multiple courses. I had already done multiple six figures in my online business. So I was like, oh my God, I am so ready for this now what's it meant to be. So the next morning, I woke up and I put my first foot on the floor.
Joanna Hunter [00:58:55]:
And by the time my second foot landed on the floor, the complete download had arrived for the Million Dollar experiment and the whole thing. I knew what the branding would look like, I knew what it was called. I knew that everybody would get this book. I knew that they would get 52 lab notes, so they would get a lab note for every week of the year. And the lab notes were like mindset, experiments and things to prove that their mind literally creates their reality. And that I knew that I would do a podcast. And it was how my podcast was born. And I knew that I would do this podcast and that we would do a series on the podcast called the Million Dollar Lab Series, where.
Joanna Hunter [00:59:40]:
I would interview 52 millionaires and self made millionaires and basically ask them how they did it. And I called that podcast the Millionaire Marinade so that people could marinade in the vibes of that. So I thought, okay, well, and I knew that I wanted but then the biggest pause was the price that Spirit had given me for that, which was $25 for a year long container. And I literally thought I was going to have like a kitten because I was already selling like horses at multiple thousand. So who was like, you want me to do what now? Are you fine? And Spirit was like, no, $25. And not only that, we want you to run an affiliate program as well and get 50% away. And I was like, so I was like, okay, I'm just going to have to get back to you. Let me just sit with my own energy to know that.
Joanna Hunter [01:00:40]:
And this is a process that I used from get selfish. I never do anything unless I am completely squared away in my own energy because I refuse to work from overworking, over giving. I refuse to work from the bikes of resentment or any of those energies that so many people do work from. But after I went through the whole thing of nearly dying of multiple organ failure and all of the stuff, I'm like, no, this woman does not work like that anymore. So I knew I had to be like what I called squeaky clean in my energy. I had to be super clean in my energy that I was okay with this. So I sat and at first I thought, well, what if 50 people sign up? Like, are you going to be cool with holding space for them for a year? And I was like, no, I'm not cool with that. That does not feel like a fair exchange.
Joanna Hunter [01:01:30]:
And I thought, okay. So the number that I got was 200. And I looked at my community that I'd already built and I had over like 1000 enrolled students and I had over 2000 people on my email list at the time. And I thought, is there 200 people that would want to give this a whirl, this million dollar experiment, an experiment in mindset to see if mindset and intuition along with a million dollar plan can make you a millionaire in just one year. And I thought, yeah, surely there's 200 people that want to get a little bit crazy with me and go down this rabbit hole and just explore basically this whole thing. So I decided, okay, so I said, Spirit, I'm going to do it. But there is this woman that used to work for me and I would love to have her working for me again. So if that happens, I'm all in.
Joanna Hunter [01:02:24]:
I'm all in. So anyway, that lady phoned me just to see how we were doing. It was just New Year and it was end of 2019, beginning of 2020. So she phoned me and I said, oh, how's it going? She's like, great. And I was like, how's the work going? And she's like, oh, don't even talk to me. And she had a boss that was really micromanaging her. And she is just so not a person that you micromanage. She's a person you give the project to.
Joanna Hunter [01:02:54]:
And she goes and runs with Know, which is why I wanted her to kind of work for me. So I said, you're not up until another job, are you? And she's like, well, what you got? So I went out to Edinburgh and met her and I gave her the copy of what I'd written so far in the book. And I said, this is the project. This is what we're going to be working on. It's called the million dollar experiment. And she read it and she was like, oh my God, this is like actual genius. I think I could be a millionaire as well. It's like so we did a soft launch in August of 2020 and began getting people in for the 1 January start of 2021.
Joanna Hunter [01:03:38]:
And then we had our proper launch on the 1 September. Then I made a rather embarrassing video with me crying. We've got 600 participants, but Spirit wasn't even finished with us at that point in time. The number that we ended up with was 4300. People said yes to this. It went completely, utterly viral. I had a client write to me and go, my estate agent just contacted me and asked if I'd heard of this person called Joanna Hunter because they'd been offered this million dollar thing. I was literally everywhere and it was like, really fun.
Joanna Hunter [01:04:21]:
And I started the 1 January with a $32,000 day. And that January was $175,000 a month on it. And I had three consecutive 100K launches. So that became the Million Dollar Experiment became my 1st 100K launch. Wow. And we started the experiment with a $25 offer. With a $25 offer. Price didn't go up.
Joanna Hunter [01:04:52]:
The price did not go up at that point. After on the 3 January, the price went up at that point, but we had, like, hardly anybody joining us after that. So it was like the 25 and then that was that. We began the experiment. So 1500 people showed up live on the first live stream. We had said that the dress code was their dollar, their pound or their euro. Bring it with you so that you could hold it in your hand. And we really made a big thing like, have you got it in your hands? Have you got it in your hand? Like, it's really significant.
Joanna Hunter [01:05:26]:
And then we revealed the Million Dollar Plan and it literally blew people's mind. And that was on the 1 January. From the 1 January to the 3 January. We welcomed 2300 people in during that period because as soon as we actually broke the internet, the whole thing broke, like our Cart page and everything stopped working. PayPal couldn't process the payments fast enough because they were coming so fast. It was absolutely insane. It was like, one of the most exciting things I've ever done in my life. And eight months into the process, we had our first millionaire.
Diane Bell [01:06:06]:
Oh, my God.
Joanna Hunter [01:06:07]:
And it was amazing. And it could not have happened to an absolute nicer person. Her name is Anka. She arrived in this country in the UK with 40 quid in her pocket from Romania and small children. Wow. She was an osteopath to trade, but didn't feel like her English was good enough to be an osteopath. So she began cleaning people's homes and she started an eco cleaning business. Through sheer grit, determination and hard work, she had built her business up, survived cancer wow.
Joanna Hunter [01:06:47]:
And she decided to do the million dollar experiment. Do a whirl. Give it a whirl. Her business was completely screwed because it was COVID, and she couldn't go to people's houses and clean. And her partner had an equal driving business and he couldn't drive. He drove an electrical vehicle and he couldn't drive people because of COVID So basically, both parents income decimated gone. And so she decides to pay this $25 and give this a whirl. She says on her interview that I interviewed her, and she said, I thought a really unkind thought.
Joanna Hunter [01:07:28]:
I was like, AHA, so it's Joanna that wants to be the millionaire. My million dollar experiment. But she's like, okay, I'll give it a whirl. She said she read that book that you've got there, cover to cover, four times. She loved it. She just could see how it was changing her mindset and changing her mind, and as the book says, be open to opportunity. So she was sitting, driving along in the car one day, just going to the supermarket, and she heard this guy talking about flipping properties. She knew nothing about flipping properties, not a single thing about it at all.
Joanna Hunter [01:08:02]:
And so she heard and then he said this one thing that was the sign for her was like, essentially what flipping properties is, is really giving them a really good clean. She was like, cleaning, I know that. So he bought properties at auctions, and basically on this interview, on this radio interview, he told people what to do. So she looked him up and she got some more advice on his free stuff that he had. And she went to the bank and saw if the bank would lend them money. So they secured a mortgage for pending a property. She went to an auction, found a property that she wanted to buy, set herself a budget, which is what this guy had said. So her budget was 60,000, she had 15,000, which was literally all their savings that they had.
Joanna Hunter [01:08:54]:
And remember, they've got no incomes coming in. Right. So she took a huge risk and she managed to get this property for 41,006 weeks later, she sold it for 120. And in the period of eight months, she flipped properties to the tune of $1 million. And by the end of the year, she had reached $1.4 million in property flips. Wow.
Diane Bell [01:09:19]:
That's incredible.
Joanna Hunter [01:09:21]:
Yeah. It gives me goosebumps to this day.
Diane Bell [01:09:25]:
Because I remember I was in your world when this was going on, and I think I came after you had already launched this experiment. And I was always like, oh, this is so interesting. I remember you celebrating different people who are becoming millionaires. How many ended up becoming millionaires through the experiment?
Joanna Hunter [01:09:40]:
We had 14 millionaires altogether.
Diane Bell [01:09:42]:
Amazing.
Joanna Hunter [01:09:44]:
Celebrated that year was celebrated 105 people who had had a significant change. So, basically, the ODS of you becoming a millionaire through my experiment was one in 287, which is like, if you look at the ODS of the lottery compared to what we did, it was a metaphysical experiment. We were looking to prove, can mindset and intuition, along with a million dollar plan, make you a millionaire in just one year? The fact that our odds were one in 287 people did become a millionaire was a resounding absolute yes. That is mindset and intuition can make you a millionaire. Absolutely. 100%. And so it was really what we set out to prove, is what we proved with it. But there was other things that happened, like weird things that we weren't expecting.
Joanna Hunter [01:10:38]:
So we call boards the outlier results, the results that kind of fell outside the remit of what it was. So we had a woman who had been on morphine for 20, I think, 24 years, because everything that I do is about reconnecting you back to source. Source is literally the source of everything. So if you have depression, trust me when I tell you, connect back to source. It'll help to lift it. If you have money problems, connect back to source. It'll help to lift those, like, whatever issue you have, sources of solution. That is my one stop shop.
Joanna Hunter [01:11:09]:
So, literally, I just approached the million dollar experiment in the same way, helping people to reconnect to source. So this woman had been on morphine for 24 years, and she writes to me in February, and she says to me, joanna, I don't know what magic is in your experiment, but I've had to come off my medication. I've been known for 24 years, and my back is healed. Wow. My back is healed, and I don't require this medication anymore. And then in the June of that year so the experiment had then been going for six months. At that time, I got a message from a woman who actually lives locally to me. And the fun thing was with this woman.
Joanna Hunter [01:11:52]:
She'd actually been to some of my earliest seminars, where I used to teach these seminars called live life unlimited. And she'd been to them, and she said, joanna, I'm sat in the car park of our local hospital, the big hospital here in Inverness. So she says, I'm sat in Regmore Hospital and she can't believe it, like I'm in a state of shock. And I thought, oh, my God. What's know? And she says, I was on the organ transplant list and my consultant has just taken me off the organ transplant list, I no longer need an organ transplant. I took all of your advice for money and I applied it to my health wow. Instead of money. And she said, I haven't made a million dollars, but I think I've got something even better because I was told if I got an organ transplant, I would have two years to live, even if I'd got one.
Joanna Hunter [01:12:41]:
She says, but they've taken me off the organ transplant list. My body has completely healed itself. And my consultant says, I don't know what to say to you other than have a brilliant and amazing life, like, enjoy your life. And she's healed my body. We had lots of that. We had another lady who had been long term medication, we had another lady who had had asthma since the age of 15, had been on medication daily from the age of 15 inhalers every single day, who completely and utterly came off all of her inhalers and stuff and things. And this is the power of source. Source heals everything.
Diane Bell [01:13:29]:
I have a question. Are you going to run the experiment again? Because I was sure he was going.
Joanna Hunter [01:13:35]:
To do it the following year and.
Diane Bell [01:13:37]:
I was so excited to sign up for it, so I was like, I want to be a part of this experiment. I missed it that time. And you haven't run it again, have you?
Joanna Hunter [01:13:43]:
No, we did do it one year, but we did it in a more kind of like, higher end container because obviously we'd proved that we're going to do it, but we keep getting asked, are we going to run the experiment? Are we going to run the experiment? And we may do, but at the moment there has been no plans. But we keep getting asked about it because it was such an incredible thing for me. It was remember when I first got all the download for this? It was pre COVID. And so as soon as that March happened of 2020 and we went into the first lockdown here in the UK, I now then knew because immediately people started getting into jeopardy with their money and I thought, of course, beside asparag make me your hollow know. And I knew. And that's one of the reasons why the person who became the first millionaire anka and her family, why it was so special to me, because COVID had literally decimated their income and they were both self employed and they had no premises, so there was no cushy like ten k grant from the government or anything like that. It literally was no money coming in and I knew that that's what it was about. That's why Spirit decided on the price and that's why Spirit decided to do it as it was and things.
Joanna Hunter [01:15:11]:
Because right now in the world, we're told it's an economic crisis, cost of living crisis that's in the newspapers and everything like that. And I'm not making light of anyone who is affected by that, but I actually no longer believe or subscribe to things like that, even though people are saying, well, this is my reality, this is actually happening. But so many people subscribe to it and it becomes their reality because we create our reality through our thoughts. And when I run mindset experiments like this, so I've done a few different experiments. I recently run an experiment which I'll be running again in December, and it's called the Heal Experiment. So heal your abundance. So it was an experiment that we did can You Heal Your Abundance in four Weeks? Using consciousness. And we worked with over 400 people signed up for that one.
Joanna Hunter [01:16:05]:
And we did four weeks together, which were extraordinary. Four weeks of really working on their money mindset. And each of the letters meant something. So, like, each, for instance, was Honesty in Hindsight. So we took them through the healed framework. So there was each letter was there was four weeks, and each letter meant something. So the first letter that we took them through was Honesty in Hindsight, really getting honest with themselves and money and abundance and getting really honest. And then also as well looking back in hindsight, because a lot of people slow their role by looking back in hindsight and beating themselves up for poor choices that they've made.
Joanna Hunter [01:16:45]:
And that does you no favors because that time that energy is spent is gone. And now you're expending your now moment energy beating yourself up on something that you perceived as a mistake, right? And it's like, it's literally the definition of a waste of energy. And so we take them through the framework to heal that and to heal themselves. And it's all about your self relationship, really, at the end of the day. But there may be a million dollar experiment on the horizon.
Diane Bell [01:17:17]:
I understand. And something that's been a massive shift for me in the last year was just this message that I got, which is follow soul. Like, just follow soul. Don't try to be smart. Don't do things that don't feel aligned. Don't try to repeat things because they were successful in the past and think they'll be a success now or do it for that reason. But literally just follow soul. And I think obviously that's what you do and why you haven't repeated it.
Joanna Hunter [01:17:46]:
But maybe when I thought about doing the experiment again after I ran it, sort of like the second year, we ran at a higher price. And then I thought about doing it again. I got that image from the Incredibles, you know, the woman who's the designer with the glasses?
Diane Bell [01:18:02]:
Oh, yeah.
Joanna Hunter [01:18:02]:
And she goes, don't look back, darling, we're not going that way. And I just got that, like, Bert just sent me that image, and I thought, okay, that's done for now, but maybe there's something else. And then the next thing that I got the Cult team was the Heel experiment, which was amazing. And again, we ran the 50% affiliate fee with that as well. So the cool thing with the affiliate fee that we do and what I love, because so far, I've blessed people to the tune of over $100,000 in my business through my affiliate programs, which I really, really love. So what I love is that if money is a barrier to coming into one of my programs like this, like the Million Dollar Experiment or the Heal program, is that you just need to find two friends that will say yes to it as well. And you sign up first, you get your affiliate link, you give that affiliate link to your friends, they sign up, and then you literally make your money back.
Diane Bell [01:19:00]:
I love that.
Joanna Hunter [01:19:02]:
I love that because it just stops it being a barrier. Like, money doesn't have to be the issue here. And I love doing that. And some people have introduced way more than two people where we're actually literally paying them to be in the experiment. And that's so much fun because then they maybe create a group around it themselves, and it's a group of friends doing it or a group of colleagues doing it or something like that. So I love being able to offer that because when I first started this money mindset journey myself, I was literally living on the good old British benefit system, welfare to our American friends. And things were tough and they were hard. And I think the worst thing that nobody tells you about living on welfare or benefits is that the shame that you feel sometimes or that you feel like not even quite shame, like, maybe it's not maybe the right word, but you kind of feel less than not enough.
Joanna Hunter [01:20:00]:
And it really took me into the depths of that, and I went from there to becoming a woman. So in 2021, I did a million dollars in sales.
Diane Bell [01:20:15]:
In how much?
Joanna Hunter [01:20:17]:
A million dollars in sales. $140,000 cash bank in 2021 and a million dollars in sales.
Diane Bell [01:20:24]:
Oh, that's so beautiful, because I know also what that means, like, how many people's lives you've impacted and that ripple effect of light and goodness in the.
Joanna Hunter [01:20:33]:
World, it just makes me so happy. Yeah. And then on our list, we had 105 people that we read out their names of extraordinary achievements that they've made in our world from in fact, you were on that list, I think you hit that year, you were at quarter of a million, I think is where you were at, which was amazing, right? In that so, like, absolutely amazing. And in fact, it was so funny I was just decluttering my office and I came across the list that I had read out on the day and I saw your name on there.
Diane Bell [01:21:10]:
Well, that's beautiful. That makes me so happy.
Joanna Hunter [01:21:15]:
Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, we had loads of people that hit like half a million that year as well. When you hear their stories, they're really extraordinary because one of the ladies that hit half a million, which was extraordinary in itself, her previous year was 50,000.
Diane Bell [01:21:32]:
Wow.
Joanna Hunter [01:21:33]:
So she had ten X to her income by joining the million dollar experiment. It was like insane.
Diane Bell [01:21:39]:
It's incredible. So I don't want to keep you all day, although I could just talk to you all day. So there's two things though, to close this out. One is if you have one piece of advice or one piece of wisdom that you would want to share with everyone in the world, this is your opportunity to share it. Like if there's something you wish everybody in the world could know, what would it be?
Joanna Hunter [01:22:00]:
I always say that if I could teach just one person, one spiritual tool, that would help them to transform their lives and transform every aspect of their life. And I think it's one of the most underrated tools in the world and it's gratitude. Developing the attitude of gratitude is key to creating the life that you want. We are obsessed with thinking about everything that we don't want. The worries, the stress, the fear, the oh my God, the mistakes, the failures, those things. We're obsessed as human beings of thinking about those things. But when we think about gratitude, there is physiological changes that happen to our physical body. People who are grateful live on average seven years longer than people who don't practice gratitude, which is kind of cool.
Joanna Hunter [01:22:49]:
But also as well, there is chemical changes in your brain. So your brain produces more positive chemicals. Those positive chemicals create wellness and well being in your body. But also as well, you begin to attract through the law of attraction, more things to be grateful for. And so if that dream life is something that you think that you would be really grateful for, or having more money is something that you think you'd be grateful for, you can't go wrong practicing gratitude if the worst case scenario will make you feel better about your day in your life. Best case scenario, it'll develop your dream life. So it's a win win. So that's my number one tip for everybody is develop the attitude of gratitude.
Diane Bell [01:23:31]:
Love that. And that's no doubt why you have written these gratitude journals.
Joanna Hunter [01:23:35]:
Absolutely. So we got two journals. We've got the gratitude journal that also has Affirmations in it. And then we have a second journal that's called the One One one Magic journal and it's actually for 111 things to do with your one and only life. So it's a bit like a bucket list of things that you've always, always wanted to do. And then what we do is you put in what you want to do and then you put in like the date you did it, how you felt, how you'd rate it out of five and all the things. And then right at the very back of the book, there is 111 things and then there's a little bit of synopsis. So it's like, what is the one thing you'll never do again? You thought it was going to be great, but actually let's not do that again.
Joanna Hunter [01:24:23]:
And what was the thing that you would do again in a heartbeat? And what was it one that made you laugh and giggle the most? And what was the one that so it's really fun. So by the end of your completing your 111 things, not only will you have developed a bigger sense of well being, because I think going through the get selfish process, I think for many people, they don't really live their lives, right? They exist their lives. They don't live their lives. And I think doing things that your soul desires, doing things that your heart desires is so important for quality of life. And so the whole one one magic list is about writing a little bit of one one magic into your life and just doing things that light you up and just make you feel like, yeah, really living as opposed to just existing from day to day. And then of course, when you get through that and you're moving through all the things that you desire and do and stuff like that, of course you've got this amazing tool that you can look back on with deep gratitude of all the crazy stuff that you got up to and all the things that you did. I recently, this year I checked off a few things that were on my list. So I wanted to see the stones at Kalanik, the standing stones at Kalanick on the Isle of Harris and Lewis.
Joanna Hunter [01:25:49]:
So we went into the Outer Hepbridges and got on a boat and oh my God, it was amazing, but it was just so magical. I brought my one one one magic journal with me and I was so magical filling that in and saying I love it and it was great. I was with my hubby and we just had the best time ever. And I know that I'll be able to look back on that book forevermore and relive that memory and fill my soul back up with all the light that I generated in that day.
Diane Bell [01:26:19]:
Oh my gosh, I love that. I love that so much and I totally agree. Amen. Do what your soul desires. Follow your passions and your bliss and let yourself have those moments and be aware of what it is that you desire. Bring that into your awareness. You get to do all these magical things and even the little ones, like, just the little things that can feed your soul. It doesn't need to be absolutely big trips or anything.
Diane Bell [01:26:42]:
Sometimes it's just like small things.
Joanna Hunter [01:26:44]:
No, it can be like a walk in a forest or walk on a beach or in my local area, we have a lot of magical stuff. I always wanted to see a place called the Clava Cairns. That is these three massive stone cairns that are surrounded by over 80 standing stones. And this site is over 4300 years old. Right. It's been on my doorstep for years. And it wasn't until my husband one day just randomly said, because I said, oh, I really want to go out. I really want to do something.
Joanna Hunter [01:27:14]:
And he's like, well, what do you want to do? And I was like, I don't really know, but I want to just feel like I want to do something today. And so he said, well, why don't we just get in the car and go to ClubA? And I said, okay. And I couldn't believe I had taken years to get myself there and just do it.
Diane Bell [01:27:32]:
And it was amazing day that I meant to be here.
Joanna Hunter [01:27:35]:
Yeah, exactly. And it was just such a beautiful like, it was a beautiful autumn day and the leaves were crunchy underneath our feet and there was hardly anyone at the site, and it was just beautiful. And the site's completely free to go and visit, and we just had the loveliest time. And so it doesn't have to be things that cost you a lot of money and stuff like that. It can be just something that you've always desired to do this literally on your local doorstep that you just never gave yourself permission to go and do.
Diane Bell [01:28:05]:
Yeah, I love that. So, last thing, how can people find you? Where's the best place for people to connect with you?
Joanna Hunter [01:28:12]:
All those things?
Diane Bell [01:28:13]:
Because just by the way, just as an aside, follow Joanna on Facebook, and I hope she's going to mention Facebook, because you always post the most magical posts and the most magical things.
Joanna Hunter [01:28:23]:
Yeah, Facebook definitely one of my favorite platforms to be on. So I'm super simple. So Joannahunter.com is my website, and then Joannah C-O-M without the dot is where you can find me on all social media platforms. So I made it super simple for everyone so they can find me. Joannahunt at Joannahunter C-O-M like TikTok I do a lot of money stuff on TikTok. So you'll find money stuff on TikTok. I do a lot of wisdom, skylar and healing stuff on my Instagram. And Facebook.
Joanna Hunter [01:28:57]:
It's melting pot. Whatever stirs in my soul is what I love.
Diane Bell [01:29:03]:
You're just a natural writer. I mean, the things that you share just so often are just that's exactly what I needed to read today. It's exactly what I need.
Joanna Hunter [01:29:11]:
I often use my prayer in the morning made me your hollow bone. So. What's the message today that you want to share through me? And I just let there often so I often channel my stuff on Facebook because what is it that needs to come through today? And I just trust that that is and I trust that when people see that message that it will be divine timing for them and that that's what they maybe needed that day to hear or to be part of or to be present. Yeah.
Diane Bell [01:29:42]:
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I could literally chat like a thousand hours with you and I feel like there's so many other things I want to ask you, but we will save them perhaps for another appearance one day in the future.
Joanna Hunter [01:29:55]:
I would love that. I would love that. And thank you so much, Diane, for having me on the podcast. I'm absolutely chuffed about. I know this is a bit of a long one for people to listen to, but I hope gotten lots from it. And yes, I could literally talk to you forever.
Diane Bell [01:30:15]:
So I hope you've enjoyed this conversation with Joanna Hunter and you feel as inspired by her as I certainly do. Again, the million dollar experiment is happening, so check the show notes for your link. Get in there. Sign up $25 are you going to be one of the people to become a millionaire next year? Sign up. Let's do it. And also check the show notes to find out all the other information about what Joanna's up to and how to get in touch with her. She's amazing. You will love having her in your life.
Diane Bell [01:30:45]:
Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast today.
Joanna Hunter [01:30:51]:
If you enjoyed it, could you do.
Diane Bell [01:30:53]:
Me a favor, please leave it a little review wherever you're listening to it or screenshot it and share it on your social media and tag me so I can see it. I would be so appreciative. Thanks so much. I love you and I'll see you soon.
