Be The Wolf

#162 From Dirty Roadie to $9 Million CEO, and Why It All Crashed Anyway with Tarra Stubbins

She scaled to $9 million. Then watched it disappear in three months. And she spent six months trying to rebuild the exact same broken thing.

Tara Stubbins didn't plan to be a CEO. She left high school at 15 to chase rock bands across Canada. Two decades later, after managing world tours with the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, and Drake, she fell backwards into entrepreneurship. And she built something real.

Then she lost it. Fast.

What came next was harder than the collapse. It was the six months of brute-forcing a restart, blaming everyone around her, and refusing to look at what was actually happening. The market was different. The time was different. She was different. But she kept trying to run the same play. And it kept breaking in the same place.

The moment she stopped asking "whose fault is this?" and started asking "how did I create this?" is where this episode begins.

Here's what nobody tells you about rebuilding a business that failed:

🔹 The six-month restart that proved the problem was never the strategy

🔹 Why she kept saying yes to the wrong clients, and what scarcity was really costing her

🔹 The moment her inner voice told her to go back to her roots, and why she almost didn't listen

🔹 How money became the flashlight that finally showed her the truth she had been avoiding

If you have ever tried to fix something from the outside that was broken on the inside, this conversation will stop you in your tracks.

Listen now. This is the one you needed.

 

About Tarra:

Tarra Stubbins is the visionary founder and CEO of two multi-million-dollar service-based organizations,

built entirely through her dedication to goal-setting and unwavering determination despite having no

formal business background. With over two decades of diverse experience, she has managed the lives of

and worked alongside legendary musicians like Mick Jagger and Drake and high-profile CEOs such as

Richard Branson.

 

Known for her no-nonsense, purpose-driven approach, Tarra specializes in empowering individuals to

achieve their personal and professional goals. She transforms daily lives by eliminating ineffective

multitasking habits and introducing proven techniques utilized by the world's most successful people.

Passionate about helping others unleash their inner potential, Tarra continues to inspire countless

individuals to live the lives they've always dreamed of. 

 

Connect With Tarra:

Website www.takeiteasygroup.com 

Instagram handle https://www.instagram.com/tarrastime/ 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarrastubbins/

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

#161 I Trained for Everest and Still Got Helicoptered Out

There's a version of success that looks like you're winning and feels like you're drowning. This episode is about that.

Genea Barnes just returned from hiking to Everest Base Camp. She trained. She paced herself. She chose slow and steady when everyone else was sprinting. And still, at altitude, her body said no. Her oxygen dropped to 62. She got helicoptered out.

But here's what she came home knowing: the way she showed up on that mountain was the opposite of how she’d spend her life showing up in our businesses, our relationships, and our health. Push, crash, recover, push again. Call it hustle. Call it drive. The body knows what it really is.

Instead, she showed up steady, consistent, and she was willing to listen. 

This is not an episode about giving up. It's about what becomes possible when you stop performing endurance and start building real momentum.

The altitude stripped everything back and left four truths that are going to stay with you:

🔹 Why consistency has nothing to do with pushing harder and everything to do with the pace your nervous system can actually sustain

🔹 The tortoise and the hare story, lived out in the Himalayan Mountains with real altitude, real sickness, and real consequences

🔹 How taking her foot off the gas in business always cost her more than keeping a slow, steady pace ever would have

🔹 What it means to play the infinite game in a world that keeps selling you finish lines

If you're tired of the crash cycle and ready to move differently, this one is for you. Watch or listen now.

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

#160 What Made Me Feel Most Alive Was the First Thing I Learned to Abandon with Debby Meadows

She sat down at a piano at seven years old and played a song she had never learned. Both hands. First try. Every adult in the room went silent.

That was the moment Debby Meadows discovered what she was made of. And it was the moment other people decided what that gift was for.

In this episode, Genea sits down with artist, musician, and educator Debby Meadows for a conversation about what happens when the most alive part of you becomes someone else's resource. 

Debby grew up in a high-control religious environment where her extraordinary musical gift was celebrated and claimed in the same breath. 

She gave everything she had, for free, to a system that called it holy. And somewhere along the way, the music stopped being hers. Then it stopped altogether. For almost twenty years, 

Debby didn't touch an instrument. Not because life got busy. Because owning her gift had become too dangerous.

This is the conversation for the creative, the over-giver, the devoted one who has quietly wondered why the thing that once made them feel most alive now feels like a distant memory.

Here is where this episode cracks open:

🔹 The moment Debby's father tore up a job offer from Kings Island and threw it in the trash … and how that single act became the blueprint for every upper limit that followed

🔹 How a televised praise and worship stage, an unwanted marriage, and government housing while giving away $200 a paycheck, taught her body that her gift, her money, and her choices were never really hers to keep

🔹 The nearly two decades she spent unable to touch a piano … and what the silence inside that absence was actually trying to say

🔹 How a cervical fusion surgery, a YouTube rabbit hole about Steve Perry, and a single morning of stillness in nature cracked open a creativity she had believed was gone forever

If you have ever given the best of yourself to something that couldn't hold you, this episode will meet you exactly where you are. Come listen.

 

About Debby:

Musician. Artist. Writer. Educator. Multi‐instrumentalist and visual artist turned memoirist, exploring what happens when performance becomes a cage, and what it takes to walk out. I spent 15 years in creative exile after high‐control religion and relentless service broke my relationship with music. Now I’m writing about reclaiming the gift, healing the mind/body that carried it, and creating from sovereignty instead of obligation.

Currently writing Tell Me Something True: The Perry Parallax—a memoir about creative burnout, religious trauma, and recovery that doesn’t skip the shadow work. Using Steve Perry’s archetypal journey as a mirror for my own 15‐year exile from music, I’m mapping what it really costs to step away and what it requires to return whole, owning your art, your story, and your life.

I write at the intersection of embodied creative practice, somatic integration, and deconstruction: how to listen to the nervous system, metabolize grief and shame, and make work that’s authentic instead of merely performative. My lens is part musician, part artist, part educator, part mystic, part farm‐raised Kentucky girl who refuses to abandon either rigor or wonder.

 

Connect with Debby:

Website: Substack.debbymeadows.com 

Instagram handle: debbymeadowsstudio

TikTok: debbymeadowsstudio

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Freedom Calls - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

#159 Doing the "Right" Thing Cost Me My Friends, My Freedom, and My Peace

She did everything right. Followed every rule. Protected every job. And it cost her her friends, her freedom, and her peace.

Genea Barnes grew up in a home where the rules changed without warning. So she did what made sense … she became the best rule-follower she had ever seen. 

And when something threatened the structure of the rules, she controlled the people breaking them. She reported coworkers. She went around friends' backs. She maneuvered quietly from the background and called every bit of it doing the right thing.

It wasn't until decades later that she understood what it had actually cost her. Not just the friendships. Not just the peace. But the freedom she didn't even know she was desperate for.

This episode is one of Genea's most honest confessions yet.

Pull up a chair for the parts of this story nobody says out loud:

🔹 The doorman selling drugs, the cameras, and the friendship she lost before she ever made a conscious choice 

🔹 How a childhood built on unpredictable rules quietly wired her nervous system to control everything and everyone around her 

🔹 The moment she realized doing the "right" thing and feeling free had never once lived in the same place 

🔹 The afternoon at the park when she finally felt freet … not in a ceremony, not in a session, but watching strangers break a rule she no longer needed to enforce

If you've ever wondered why you hold on so tight, why letting go feels dangerous, or why being "the responsible one" has cost you more than it's given …  this episode was made for you. 

Listen when you're ready for a deep, honest look at what it takes to give up control. 

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

#158 The Retirement Plan That Made Him Blow Up His Whole Life with Young Han

He walked out of that meeting and thought: this is a life sentence I never agreed to.

Young Han was a CFO in Silicon Valley, building the kind of startups that made people nod with respect. He had the title, the funding, the accolades. And he was quietly, deeply depressed. He didn't recognize it as depression. It just looked like going through the motions, gaining weight, losing his spark, and pretending everything was fine.

Then he sat across from a financial planner. Four hours. A responsible retirement strategy. And a slow realization that the plan amounted to: live a kind of shitty life for 25 years, hope to afford another shitty life for 25 more, and pray you die before the money runs out.

That was the crack. In this episode, Genea sits down with Young Han, CFO, entrepreneur, father of two, to trace the full arc from that meeting to a five-year sprint that rebuilt everything. 

They talk identity loss, the loneliness of evolving, and what it actually costs to stop performing someone else's version of enough.

Four moments from this conversation that don't leave you:

🔹 The financial planner meeting that made him realize the "responsible plan" was a future he'd never actually chosen

🔹 Why his brother's move back to San Diego to be judged on his favorite taco shop started unraveling the whole Silicon Valley identity

🔹 What four years of tracking every hour of his life revealed about where his time, energy, and truth were really going

🔹 The friend who said, "If we're gonna be friends, I need to know your gross margins,”  and why that was the most honest offer anyone had ever made him

If you've ever followed the plan, hit the milestones, and still felt like something essential was missing ... this episode names it. Listen now.

 

Connect with Young Han

Website: www.thesis.inc

Facebook link https://www.facebook.com/youngh/ 

Instagram handle https://www.instagram.com/youngsta/?hl=en 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/younghan/ 

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+girl+dad+show  

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Freedom Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

#157 The Wound That Stole My Voice (And how I took it back)

You said the thing. You asked for what you needed. And somehow... nobody heard you.

That's not a communication problem. That's something deeper.

In this episode, Genea Barnes gets radically honest about a lifetime of feeling unseen … from a music teacher who shamed her out of singing, to a sexual assault at age seven that wired her nervous system to believe that using her voice was dangerous. 

She traces how that one belief quietly shaped every relationship, every sales call, every conversation … until she started healing it.

This is the episode that makes you look at your whole life differently:

🔹 The classroom moment that taught her silence was safer than being seen 

🔹 Why her voice was physically different before the healing … and what shifted when the fear cleared 

🔹 The sales call pattern that exposed the truth about presence and being heard 

🔹 What it actually feels like when the need for external validation finally stops

If you're tired of explaining yourself, over-communicating, and still feeling invisible …  this one's for you. Listen now.

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

#156 She Came for F-You Money, Lost It All, and Became Unfuckwithable with Kirsten Franklin

She didn't just lose everything. She lost everything she'd spent her whole life trying to become.

Kirsten Franklin entered this world with the odds stacked. Adopted by white parents in a homogenous neighborhood in the 1970s. Neurodivergent in a world that had no framework for that. Straddling two financial realities after her parents divorced — one where money was easy, one where everything was a struggle. She made a decision early: she was going to make F-you money. She was never going to be poor again.

So she became a lawyer.

And then a colleague systematically dismantled her career. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit. Then her license was suspended. Then she found herself a single mother with an infant and no place to live.

The universe, as Kirsten tells it, had been tapping her on the shoulder for years. She just didn't listen. So it took everything.

In this episode, Genea and Kirsten trace the full arc … from a childhood of feeling unwanted and out of place, to the ego-driven climb, to the total collapse, to the woman who now wakes up like a kid on Christmas morning and helps high-achievers become unfuckwithable. 

They talk about control, denial, the difference between intellectual knowledge and embodied change, and why your leaky vessel has to shatter before it can hold anything worth having.

Four moments from this conversation that don't leave you:

🔹 The colleague who sabotaged her career from … and why Kirsten's denial of it was actually the more important story

🔹 What it felt like to be homeless with a law degree, an infant, and a suspended license in 2009 … and why she now calls it the best year of her life

🔹 The difference between checking a box and embodied change … and the moment she finally felt what that difference actually is

🔹 Why becoming unfuckwithable has nothing to do with not caring … and everything to do with being so at peace with yourself that nothing outside you gets to decide your worth

If you've been doing all the right things and still feel like something essential is missing ... this episode names what's actually in the way. Listen now.

 

About Kirsten:

She is a retired attorney turned founder, investor and elite performance coach who has helped thousands of high-achievers become UnF*withable in business and life. 

 

Connect with Kirsten:

Website https://kirstenfranklin.com/ 

Instagram handle @kirsten_franklin 

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-franklin/ 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Freedom Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes  

#155 Procrastination Isn’t Laziness … It’s Fear of Being Seen

She had hundreds of books sitting in her hallway. And she still couldn't let herself be seen.

Genea Barnes traveled the country photographing ghost bikes. She ran a Kickstarter. She finished the book. But when it came time to put it into the world... she couldn't do it. Not because the work wasn't good. Because being seen came with consequences she hadn't healed yet.

In this episode, Genea tells the full story of that project and uses it to crack open something most people never talk about. Procrastination isn't laziness. It's not a discipline problem. It's what happens when your nervous system learned that joy, creativity, and being fully seen weren't safe.

If you're a creative or entrepreneur who can do everything for everyone else but freezes on the things that matter most to you... this episode will change how you see yourself.

Here's what the ghost bikes taught her about all of it:

🔹 Why she could only finish the book when she locked it to someone else's expectations, and what that cost her 

🔹 The invisible cap on how good she was allowed to feel, and how it kept her art from ever reaching its potential 

🔹 Why operating from fear means you can only recreate what you've already done, never what you're truly capable of 

🔹 What it means to raise your set point, and why that single shift changes everything you build from here

If you've been waiting to feel ready... this is the episode that explains why ready never comes from that place.

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

#154 Workaholism Is Just an Eating Disorder Society Decided to Celebrate with Lilia Bogoeva

The worst inner demons don't start out looking like demons.

Lilia Bogoeva was 12 years old when she found her first sense of control. She called it a "project." The world would later call it anorexia. And for a little while,  it actually felt like freedom.

This is a conversation about how our survival strategies start out as gifts. How the restrict/explode cycle isn't a flaw in your character, it's a nervous system doing what it was taught to do. And how creative expression might be the most underrated path back to yourself.

Genea and Lilia trace the full arc: eating disorders, substance abuse, identity fragmentation, emotional restriction, and the breakthrough that happened when Lilia stopped trying to feel the "right" emotions and started letting them move through her.

 

Four moments from this episode that stay with you:

🔹 Growing up between two countries, two identities, and never quite fitting either, and how that fracture became the seed of everything

🔹 The restrict/binge/explode cycle hiding inside workaholism, people-pleasing, and fitness culture

🔹 The difference between shame and real emotion, and why shame is just a shortcut to avoid the hard feelings

🔹 Why creative flow is one of the few places where survival patterns can't follow you

This one asks you to look at your own patterns. Not with judgment. With honesty because that's where the freedom starts. Listen now.

 

About Lilia:

Lilia Bogoeva is the “Inner Demon Crusher,” a badass mental health advocate who uses comics and performing arts to turn your greatest fears into visible monsters and fight them! The purpose of her work is to motivate creative and free-spirited individuals to eliminate the mental blocks that hold them back from building the business and lifestyle they desire. Whether those mental obstacles are driven by unhealed trauma, social stigmas, or anything else, Lilia is here to motivate you. And she speaks as someone who’s made tons of mistakes and learned lessons the hard way, after battling eating disorders, addiction, depression, and the effects of lingering trauma to become the creative entrepreneur she is today.

 

Connect with Lilia:

Website: www.liliademoncrusher.com

Free Gift Link: https://mailchi.mp/a6066a8396a5/comic-demo-freebie

Another Link: https://substack.com/@innerdemoncrusher

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

#153 It's Not Your Mindset. It's Not Your Trauma. It's Something Deeper.

She did ten years of therapy, ayahuasca ceremonies, shamanic healings, and coaching. The good feeling still kept fading.

In this episode, Genea Barnes shares the quest that built Be the Wolf. Not the polished version. The real one. Growing up inside neglect, abuse, and trauma, she spent decades touching joy and losing it again. She chased every tool, every modality, every framework that promised change. And she kept cycling back to the same muck, the same heavy feelings, the same quiet voice saying nothing is ever going to work for me.

What she eventually discovered wasn't on any healer's menu. It was a layer beneath the worthiness work, beneath the trauma processing, beneath everything the gurus teach. And everyone has their own unique version of it.

Here's a look at what lives inside this episode:

🔹 The painful loop of feeling better for a while and then falling back, and what was actually driving it 

🔹 How she went from spending 98% of her time feeling bad to feeling good almost all of the time, and what finally made it stick 

🔹 The difference between a life that looks free on paper and one that actually feels free in your body 

🔹 The subconscious cage that lives beneath your stories, and why most healing never reaches it

If you've done the work and still feel like something's just off, this episode is the one you've been waiting for.

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis... 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram:   / geneabarnes   

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

 

 

#152 The Job Didn't Break Her. The Belief That She Couldn't Leave Did with Alenka Kyslik

She didn't stay because she was weak. She stayed because leaving felt like throwing away everything her family sacrificed to give her.

Alenka Kyslik is the daughter of Soviet immigrants who fled in the middle of the night for a better life. That story became her nervous system's operating code. Opportunity meant safety. Achievement meant survival. And saying no to either felt like a betrayal of everything they crossed an ocean to build.

So she stayed. Through the body disconnection. Through the out-of-body driving moments. Through the week she couldn't get off the floor. Through the boss who told her, "I could give you a green card, but I know you'll leave." She stayed, because her nervous system didn't know there was another option.

This isn't a burnout story. It's a story about the belief underneath the burnout. And what becomes possible when you finally see it for what it is.

Here's what Lenka's story quietly teaches you about your own:

🔹 The moment her body stopped working before her mind caught up with why

🔹 How a green card became a carrot, and seven years became a cage

🔹 What building a business on her own terms actually feels like when the pattern starts to shift

🔹 Why building her new company slower and more intentionally isn't taking longer. It's collapsing time.

If you've ever stayed somewhere longer than you should have, and told yourself it was loyalty, this one is for you. Listen now.

 

About Alenka:

Eldest daughter, overachiever and recovering people pleaser Alenka has gone through a series of health issues. After years of searching for answers, she found a new version of herself. She saw how challenging it is for so many to find answers for their health and decided to do something about it. With over a decade of experience building software Alenka decided to build an online platform that uses custom matchmaking to connect people with holistic experts based on shared values and current needs. The mission is to give people back control of their health initially focusing on burnout of all kinds.

 

Connect with Alenka:

Website: https://sahacollective.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saha.collective/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sahadotcollective 

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram:   / geneabarnes     

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

#151 If Your Childhood Was Chaos, Your Business Will Be Too: Freedom Starts Here

If you want a life massively different than the one you grew up in, you're kind of f^cked. Unless you know how to dismantle the cage.

Genea doesn't hold back in this one. She walks through the brutal truth most people don't want to hear: the dynamics you learned in childhood … how you got safety, love, attention, needs met … are the exact dynamics you're replicating in your business, relationships, and health. 

If you grew up scrambling for needs that were always slipping away, you're still scrambling. 

If you grew up keeping things casual and safe because commitment felt dangerous, you're still doing that too. 

The way you dealt with the world as a kid is how you’re still dealing with the world.

And it's why your business feels stuck, your relationships feel hollow, or your success never feels like enough.

Genea shares her own story … growing up with an unpredictable mother who told her hunger was "a figment of your imagination," and a stepdad who brought stability but stayed casual, never fully showing up. 

That became her model: casual equals safe but incomplete, committed equals anxious and never enough. 

And she repeated it everywhere … in romantic relationships, in jobs, and most devastatingly, in her business.

In this episode, Genea reveals:

🔹 Why she kept five part-time jobs instead of one full-time commitment … and how that pattern was protecting her from the anxiety of "the one"

🔹 The moment she realized her business was playing the role of her stepdad … casual, safe, but never enough to meet her needs

🔹 How anxious energy chokes the growth of everything you're trying to build, and why you can't grow a business while chasing it to save you

🔹 The flea-jar metaphor that explains why your programming might not even be yours … it could be from three generations back

This isn't about mindset. It's about dismantling subconscious and generational patterns at a level so deep most people never touch.

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis... 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram:   / geneabarnes   

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

#150 He Meditated Two Hours a Day and Ended Up Divorced, Broke, and Alone in an Empty Apartment With Dave Shotgun Shell

Peace and harmony looked like an empty apartment and a recliner. That's when he knew something was wrong.

Dave Shotgun Shell spent decades chasing adrenaline … football, MMA fighting, even karaoke when his body couldn't take the hits anymore. 

After multiple concussions and near-death experiences starting at age two, he subconsciously became addicted to intensity. 

But when the crashes started outweighing the highs, he swung hard in the opposite direction: two hours of meditation daily, seeking peace and harmony. 

What he got instead was an empty apartment, a divorce, kids who lived elsewhere, and an isolated existence with nothing but four white walls and a recliner. 

He had achieved perfect peace. And zero impact on the world.

This conversation with Genea digs into the cost of extremes, and what happens when you finally stop escaping into either adrenaline or spirituality, and start living from the middle.

Dave and Genea explore:

🔹 The childhood trauma of a cinder block dropped on his head at age two, and how it set the trajectory for a lifetime of seeking near-death experiences

🔹 Why meditating two hours a day gave him exactly what he focused on … nothing … no wife, no connection, no impact

🔹 His friend who told him to join a monastery … the moment he realized he'd escaped too far

🔹 The mantra that changed everything: "I do. Either things will or they won't. But that doesn't change who I am."

If you've been swinging between grit and escape, intensity and isolation, or giving until you're empty … this episode will show you there's another way.

 

About Dave:

As the founder of BlueVantage—a company forged in the ashes of 9/11, now thriving under his daughter Adrienne's leadership—and DCPacket, revolutionizing power distribution through Digital Electricity, Dave has built a legacy of value creation. His ventures also include partnerships like R.B. Akins, enabling mission-critical infrastructure. Yet, beyond business success, Dave's story is one of personal renewal,anchored by his wife Gretchen's discovery of neurofeedback therapy, which silenced the ghosts of his past Traumas.

 

Connect with Dave:

Website:  https://shotgunschell.com/

Free Gift Link: https://shotgunschell.com/about

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis... 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/

 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram:   / geneabarnes   

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes 

#149 I Worked All the Time So I'd Have an Excuse to Say No

“I really want to… but I can’t.”

That sentence sounds harmless. But it’s quietly shaping your entire life.

In this episode, Genea Barnes tells the truth about why so many high-functioning people struggle to say what they actually want … and how fear, childhood conditioning, and survival patterns turn honesty into excuses. 

This isn’t about time management or boundaries. It’s about authenticity… and the cost of losing it.

This episode moves through moments you’ll recognize in your body:

🔹 The fear that hits when you imagine saying no without an explanation
🔹 How white lies disconnect you from real intimacy and self-trust
🔹 Why overcommitment is often a trauma response, not ambition
🔹 What changes when you start choosing what’s true instead of what’s safe

If you’re tired of feeling trapped by obligations, guilt, or other people’s expectations, this conversation opens a different way. 

Listen when you’re ready to come back to yourself.

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regis... 

 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/

 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram:   / geneabarnes   

Facebook:   / bethewolfnow   

TikTok:   / geneabarnes   

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom.

#148 I Used Gratitude to Stay in a Marriage That Was Killing Me with Rachel Martin

You can't ride the middle between joy and bitterness.

Rachel Martin thought she could. She thought if she just held it together, stayed grateful, did everything right, the chaos would fix itself.

But the truck got repossessed. The finances were abysmal. And she kept saying "it is what it is" like it was protection, when really, it was surrender.

The wake-up call came on a winter road in Minnesota when she heard: You have to choose. Not someday. Not when things get better. Now.

This conversation is about the moment you stop tolerating and start owning your life. Rachel opens up about the messy middle, the emotional stages of taking responsibility, and what it really means to choose truth over comfort.

 

Here's what unfolds in this episode:

🔹 The phrase that signals you're choosing bitterness without realizing it
🔹 How gratitude became Rachel's numbing mechanism, and why that almost destroyed her
🔹 What it feels like to go from powerless to sole provider while everyone thinks you've lost your mind
🔹 The permission her friend gave her that changed everything: "That's not normal."

 

If you've been waiting for life to fix itself before you step into who you really are, this episode will shake something loose.

Listen now and stop riding the middle.

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethewolfnow 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@geneabarnes 

 

Connect with Rachel

Website: https://findingjoy.net

Facebook link: https://facebook.com/findingjoyblog 

Email: rachel@findingjoy.net 

 

About Rachel

Rachel Marie Martin believes in the quiet, unshakable strength of the human spirit and its ability to rise again, to rebuild, and to rediscover joy.

She is the author of Get Your Spark Back, Mom Enough, and The Brave Art of Motherhood, and the voice behind FindingJoy.net, an online community reaching millions of readers each month.

Her words have been translated into more than 25 languages and featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, The Huffington Post, Tiny Buddha, Parents, PopSugar, and more. A founding partner of Audience Industries, Rachel also equips entrepreneurs around the world to build message-driven, sustainable businesses that make a difference.

with over 50 million pageviews, 1.1 million+ Facebook followers, and a deeply engaged community across social media, Rachel’s work reminds people that their stories matter, they can create an impact,  and that joy can be found. 

#147 I Didn't Want My Trauma to Define Me ... But it did

She held his hand while he died.

Genea was four years old. He was a Vietnam vet. A junkie. And the only person around who made her feel loved.

Her mom was emotionally unavailable, physically abusive, and gaslighting her constantly. So this man up the street became her best friend. He gave her what her mom couldn't. Belonging. Encouragement. Safety.

And then he overdosed. And she watched him die.

That was just the beginning. Trauma stacked on trauma until Genea's entire nervous system was wired for one thing: survival.

She never wanted her trauma to define her. But it did. It defined every job she took. Every relationship she stayed in. Every dollar she made. She couldn't make more money than her mom. She couldn't step into what she wanted. She couldn't hold joy when she found it.

In this raw solo episode, Genea opens up about:

🔹 Why she used her trauma story to push people away (and how that kept her trapped in freeze)
🔹 The moment she realized every decision she'd ever made was about staying safe, not living free
🔹 What happened when she spent years in therapy, plant medicine, NLP, hypnosis, and still felt stuck
🔹 How she finally broke the pattern and stepped into relationships, money, and work that actually feel good

If you've been running from your past while it quietly runs your life, this episode will meet you there.

Listen now and stop letting survival mode make your decisions.

 

Connect with Genea

Weekly Clarity Call - Wednesdays 7a PST/10a EST - Join the call here:  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Mr9xoteOSj-pYabKDTNBRA 

Inquire about Events, Firewalking, Coaching, being a guest on Be the Wolf LIVE or Be the Wolf Podcast https://bethewolfnow.com/connect/ 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethewolfnow 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@geneabarnes 

 

About Genea

Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to make everyone else feel good and put their needs first.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with the anxiety that it would be lost or taken away. 

She was great at making other people’s dreams come true, but when it came to what she truly wanted, she self-sabotaged and procrastinated … always putting something else first. 

She spent decades exploring and studying every modality under the sun to break free from those patterns and create a life that felt like joy, ease, and freedom. 

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and sacrifice of self … so they can create the life they crave and access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life. 

This gives them access to loving, authentic relationships, consistent healthy habits, and success in business, finance, and career that feels like fulfilment and freedom. 

She believes that when you operate from the TRUTH of who you are, humanity evolves. 

#146 An Honest Evolution: Merging Spirit and Success With Jen Mitchell Love

The system was designed to create destruction, and she was part of it.

For nine years, Jen Mitchell Love worked as a litigation attorney. She watched families get torn apart in courtrooms. She saw kids become collateral damage. She felt the heaviness of a broken system that treated people's real lives like billable hours. And she knew something had to change.

This conversation captures Jen in the middle of her most honest evolution yet. She's merging the spiritual practice she kept private for years with her legal work. She's speaking the truth about what divorce actually is: a sacred transition that can heal generational patterns instead of destroying families.

Jen gets raw about:

🔹 Why she became a lawyer to get around the rules (and ended up trapped by them)
🔹 The moment she gave a client lavender essential oil and thought, "What am I doing?"
🔹 Why she attracted a narcissistic relationship right after her divorce (and what it taught her)
🔹 The divine message she received on October 12th that changed everything about her work

This is for anyone who's built something impressive but hollow and stressful. Anyone who knows they're meant for something different but hasn't fully claimed it yet.

Watch to see what real evolution looks like when you're still in it.

 

Connect with Genea: 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/

 

Connect with Jen:

Website https://solacedivorce.com 

Appointment Link: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=20935226 

Instagram handle: https://www.instagram.com/solacejenmitchell/ 

 

Jen’s Bio:

Jen Mitchell Love is a family law attorney, mediator, and holistic coach who founded Solace Divorce Mediation to change the way people experience divorce. After years in the courtroom, she created a heart-centered, spiritually grounded approach that honors the soul contract of marriage while guiding couples through the legal process with mindfulness, intention, and love. 

Through Solace, her “Divorce with Love” Master Class, Solace University, and her book “Shine, Soul, SHINE!” Jen helps people release what no longer serves them, protect their children, and step into a new chapter as empowered co-creators of their Dream Life.

#145 The Real Reason Your "No" Gets Ignored and (What To Do About It)

Your no doesn't land because there’s something deeper at play.

Genea spent years behind a bar, unable to say no to doing shots with customers. Come on, just one drink. Just one more. She'd start every shift saying she wasn't drinking, and end it five shots deep. Not because she wanted to drink. Because her no was laced with guilt, fear, uncertainty.

Fear that they'd be upset. Guilt that their experience wouldn't be good. All stemming from being a child who made her mom's (and everyone else’s) feelings her responsibility.

This episode breaks down why saying no feels impossible and what's actually happening underneath. Genea shares stories that cracked the pattern open. The structures she built just to protect herself from having to choose. The anxiety that came up when she finally started putting her experience first.

She reveals:

🔹 Why taking a month off drinking was the only time people respected her no (and what that taught her about clean boundaries)

🔹 The workaholic structure that let her say no, but also kept her from saying yes to things she actually wanted

🔹 How putting other people's experience first since age two created nos that never stuck

🔹 The joy practice that trains you to choose yourself even when you're running late If you struggle to say no without an excuse, this episode will show you what's actually in the way. Listen to learn how to say no cleanly, without fear, and have it actually stick.

Connect with Genea:

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/

 

About Genea Genea Barnes is a mentor, coach, and speaker whose early life was rooted in deep trauma, abuse, and neglect. To stay safe, she learned to ‘prove’ her worth and take responsibility for others’ needs and feelings.

It worked to survive, but it came with a cost. She lost her ability to discern what was truly right for her. And getting what she wanted came with anxiety that punishment would follow, or be taken away. This led to self-sabotage and limits on how much peace, love, joy, and freedom she was able to feel and maintain in her life.

She spent decades exploring every modality under the sun to create a life that felt like ease and freedom, and finally achieved it.

Today, she empowers people to move away from and resolve conflict rooted in trauma, generational trauma, and loss of self … so they can access greater peace and freedom in all areas of their life (in way less time than it took her).

This gives them access to success that feels like fulfillment and freedom in business, finance, and career, loving, authentic relationships, and healthy habits that feel like a ‘want to’.

She believes that when you operate from the TRUTH of who you are, humanity evolves.

#144 Unlearning the Good Girl Script and Choosing Yourself With Ashley Jordan

She had everything she was told would make her happy. So why did it feel like a cage?

Ashley Jordan built a life that looked perfect on paper. The dream house. The marriage. The career as an activist. A life that looked enviable from the outside. The result … feeling absolutely caged on the inside.

She walked away from it all. The marriage to a good man. The activist career. The friendships that couldn't handle her evolution. And she rebuilt everything from the inside out based on who she actually is, not who she was told to be.

This isn't a story about dramatic betrayal or abuse. It's about the quiet 

suffocation of living a life that isn't yours. The terror of leaving safety for the unknown. The death of your ego when you stop performing goodness and start embodying truth.

This conversation captures the messy, beautiful journey of unbecoming. Of stripping away every mask to find the truest self underneath. Of walking away from a good man and a good career because good wasn't enough. Of losing friendships that couldn't survive her transformation. Of discovering that grief is actually love calling you home.

 

Ashley shares the raw truth about:

🔹 The moment she had to leave the activist group she founded because she no longer fit her own mission

 🔹 Why 24 years of repressed grief cracked her open when her childhood sweetheart died

 🔹 How closing her heart at 13 to avoid pain kept her caged for decades

 🔹 The loneliness of not fitting anywhere while you're becoming who you really are

 

If you've ever felt like your life looks good on paper but still doesn’t “feel right,” this episode will shake something loose.

Listen to understand what’s possible when you choose yourself.

 

Connect with Genea: 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/

 

Connect with Ashley: 

Website: ashjordan.com

Instagram: @msashjordan

Promotional Link: unhappy achiever.com

 

Ashley's Bio:

Ashley Jordan is the author of Unhappy Achiever: Rejecting the Good Girl Image and Reclaiming the Joy of

Inner Fulfillment. She writes and speaks for women who are done with the masks, the striving, and the

silence—and who are ready to reclaim their voices and rebuild their lives with truth, freedom, and love.

#143 What if You Don't Really Care About Others (you might not like this one)

You might not like this one.

If you're someone who does a lot for other people, buckle in. Because Genea is about to challenge the story you've been telling yourself about why you give so much.

 

You think it's because you care. And yes, you do care. But the capital T truth? There's something deeper. Something you're avoiding by making everyone else feel better.

 

Genea shares her own pattern of over-giving. 

 

Hours researching to help an ex-boyfriend’s health issues. Lying awake trying to solve clients' problems. Never taking time off because she "cared" so much about the company. 

 

But all of it (yes all of it) was running from unresolved pain inside herself.

 

Here's what this episode reveals:

🔹 The invisible conflict that drives people-pleasing and over-giving
🔹 Why you can stand up for others but not yourself
🔹 How childhood wounds show up as adult caretaking patterns
🔹 The freedom that comes from resolving what you're really running from

 

Warning: This episode asks you to look at uncomfortable truths. But on the other side is peace. 

 

Connect with Genea: 

Website: http://bethewolfnow.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geneabarnes/