Episode 180: Trust Your Intuition: Don't Ask For Permission To Be YOU With Anne Bonney
Career pivots and transitions are indeed challenging, but you can handle them with finesse if you just trust your intuition. Amy Vetter sits down with Anne Bonney, who grew up in multiple countries and took on several jobs before finding her biggest purpose as a keynote speaker and emcee. She reflects on her childhood experiences in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Greece, which instilled in her a strong sense of independence and trust in people. Anne also looks back on her various career paths, including teaching special education and working as an animal trainer at aquariums and wildlife museums. Learn how you can succeed in any endeavor you embrace in life if you do not ask permission to be authentically yourself and simply unleash your very own superpower.
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Trust Your Intuition: Don't Ask For Permission To Be YOU With Anne Bonney
Welcome to this episode of the show. I am interviewing Anne Bonney. She was born to speak. Just ask the teachers who wrote, "Talks too much" on her report cards. She puts that superpower to work helping overwhelmed professionals build resilience, emotional intelligence, and courage in the messy reality of change. A high-energy keynote speaker, dynamic conference MC, two-time author, and host of the hit Dancing in the Discomfort Zone Podcast, she blends sharp humor, real-life stories, and practical tools audiences can actually use.
After twenty years leading in corporate and nonprofit roles, she now challenges people to tackle their own reactions, tackle tough conversations, and move through change with confidence, even when it is uncomfortable. In this interview with Anne, we discussed her life journey and her career transitions along the way. Anne shared her childhood experiences growing up in multiple countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Greece, which instilled in her a strong sense of independence and trust in people.
What you are going to learn about is her various career paths, including teaching special education, working as an animal trainer at aquariums and wildlife museums, and corporate roles, eventually transitioning to become the professional speaker she is today. We also discussed the importance of letting go of the ego and previous identities when making major life changes, trusting your intuition, embracing cultural differences, and all the challenges of entrepreneurship. I am so excited for you to hear Anne's story. There is so much to take away. Make sure that you share this episode with someone who you think could really hear these lessons and be inspired.
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Welcome to this episode of the show. I am here with my friend, Bonney. Anne, would you give us a little background on yourself before we get started?
It all started on a warm summer day in July in New Jersey. I am Anne Bonney. I am a keynote speaker and MC. I am also an author, podcast host, and all different things. I have had a crazy career background. I was a special education teacher right out of college. I trained animals for a while. I worked for Under Armour and Les Mills. I worked for a large gym chain in New York City. I decided I did not want to have a big kid job, and ten years ago left it all behind to start my business as a speaker. Here we are today.
Awesome beginning for you. Why do we not get into it and go back further? Why do you not tell our audience where you grew up and what your parents did for a living?
My dad worked for Marriott Hotels, and my mom was an artist. She took care of us and did all the artwork that my dad needed for the hotels. We moved a lot. When I got home from second grade in the spring, my dad and mom sat my brother and me down and said, "We're moving to Saudi Arabia." Apparently, I was just talking to my mom about this. Apparently, I was like, "I have places to go and people to see," and they were like, "That's weird. She's our weird child." My brother was like, "As long as I get to see the pyramids." He was nine, I guess 9 or 10, and I was seven.
That is amazing.
We lived in Saudi Arabia for two years. We lived in Egypt for a year. We lived in Greece for four years, which was amazing. I had a relatively creative freshman year in high school, where I did basically what I wanted and what my parents did not want me to do. I went to Michigan for boarding school after that. It was a performing arts high school, and it was amazing. I sang opera in the woods for three years. It was not a terrible experience. That is where we grew up, basically on Earth. It was fun.
Living In Saudi Arabia And Riyadh
Let us talk about Saudi Arabia first. Moving to another country that is so different. Where were you brought up? Where were you born?
I was born in New Jersey, but we only lived there for like eight months. I did not take anything on. We moved to Minnesota, we moved to Virginia, we moved to Missouri, so I moved a lot.
What was it like on your first day of school in Saudi Arabia?
Of course, Saudi Arabia is a desert, and I lived in Missouri, where it was trees and lakes and beautifulness. I remember the playground was very different. I remember going into the classroom, and there were Asian kids and Black kids, White kids, and Arab kids. It was an international school, so kids from all different kinds. I was like, "Oh my gosh," because I am used to moving, I am used to new places and new friends, but everybody looks different. At one point, a girl in front of me, who ended up being a good friend of mine, who was Japanese, whose name is Yoko Tanaka, turned around, and I had not met her yet.
It is in the middle of math class. She turns around, and it is third grade, so we are not supposed to be talking, and it is my first day. I am trying to be cool, try to be cool. She turns around, starts talking to me, and she goes, "How fast can you run?" I was fast, I was athletic, but I did not want to brag on my first day, and I was like, "I can run fast." She goes, "Good, it's girls chasing the boys day. Be ready when it's recess." She turns back around, and I am like, "We're going to be okay." This is not that different than Missouri. I think we are going to be okay.
Living in Saudi Arabia, what was that like besides school, as far as being a girl would be very different culturally?
This was back in the eighties, though I understand it is not that much different now. A White American family moving to a very Muslim country, a very strict culture, is very different than America. I was seven, or I was eight. I had not gotten solidified in a lifestyle yet, so that was actually perfect. My parents did a really good job of educating us on cultural respect and how important it was going to be for us to be respectful and wear clothes that were modest and to not draw too much attention to ourselves and understand that we are going to go swimming in the pool in the morning because that is when children and women go, and then the men can go in the afternoon.
We can go to the hotel pool in the morning, and we have a driver because Mom is not allowed to drive here. They did a really good job of prepping us. None of it was really a surprise. It was a bit of an adjustment, more so for my mom, probably. I think kids just adapt. I do not remember it ever being a bad thing because our expectations were set, and we knew what it was. Within the first couple of months, my dad was like, "Kids, I need you to do some work for the hotel."
We were like, "What are you talking about?" He is like, "We have a promotion going on, and we're going to have a camel standing outside for a couple of hours by the front door. When people come to check into the hotel," like it was a big weekend or something. "We're going to have this baby camel. We'd like you two guys to be with the camel and to babysit for the camel up front, would you do that?" I, of course, love animals, and I was like, "You'd never get to do this in Missouri."
I know, in many places.
Talk about service animals. It is my emotional support camel. Funny to think about it, my dad actually considered buying the camel as our pet. They did not tell me this till like probably 5 or 10 years ago, which is good because had they told me at eight years old, I would have put on the pressure and said, "Daddy, we need a camel."
That's the best.
It is funny because I remember the first letter I got from my Girl Scout troop in Missouri, and they had all these questions like, "Do you have bathrooms? Do you ride camels to school? What do you eat? Do you have food there?" All these questions. Even a couple of weeks in, I was like, "These questions are so stupid." They did not know. We adjusted really fast.
That is an amazing story. You left Saudi Arabia. Did you like living there?
I did. It was a little hot.
By this point, you are about nine years old when you leave.
We lived in Dhahran for third grade, and we lived in Riyadh for fourth grade. Those are both cities in Saudi Arabia, and then we moved to Egypt.
Did you ever get attached, or did you start learning to not attach?
We had already moved four times by the time we even got to Saudi Arabia, so I never questioned it. It is an interesting question because I had friends, and I made friends easily, and I liked where we lived and all the things in all the places. It was never a question. It was like, "We're moving." I am a go with the flow person. That is a default setting anyway, but I do not remember my brother ever having a particular problem with letting go and moving either, though I have actually never asked him.
It's just interesting because I think, based on what you're used to, is there any friend that you felt like, "It's so painful to leave them" when you moved?
I feel terrible that I am having to think about this.
It was a habit that started being created, probably too.
We had already moved a few times in the US. I remember Tara O'Kelly was my first best friend in Vienna, Virginia, when I was 3, 4, and 5. When we moved to Missouri, we kept writing letters to each other. As much as I had to leave her and not see her every day and go next door and knock on her door, we were still friends. Even then, I had the idea of: what's the next adventure? I still get to keep all of this. I am not going to see it every day, but it is still there. That was a mindset that developed quickly. Did I feel bad? You know what? Mark Shalaby. I had a crush on Mark Shalaby in fifth grade, and I thought I had a chance at the end of the year. My parents said, "We're moving to Greece." I was like, "I had a chance at love." Still single, by the way. I am, but yeah.
Listen up, any single people listening.
They're like, "She's a speaker."
Moving To Egypt And Greece
When you moved from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Greece, what are some big differences that you can look back on and remember?
I was actually talking to my mom about this yesterday. I am glad the progression went the way it did, from Saudi Arabia, a very strict Muslim country, to Egypt, still a Muslim country but not quite as strict, to Greece, a very progressive European country, a very different, and a Christian country. It was a lightening of the intensity of the cultural difference. Being dropped into the deep end, going right to Saudi Arabia, inoculated us against the shock of difference.
Going to Egypt, I remember I was ten, I was in fifth grade, but I used to walk out of the hotel and go walk down the street in Egypt and walk around the neighborhood by myself. Part of me is like, I was ten years old, my parents let me run around Cairo, Egypt by myself? Going to Greece sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth. In the ‘80s, Athens was so easy to get around. We were riding public buses, taking cabs, and running all over the city. The level of freedom increased as we moved to these different countries, probably based on our age, but also just based on the culture and the pervasive view of Americans.
Give me a little idea about your mom because this is a big decision to marry someone who is going to move this much. How did they get together, and what interested her about doing that?
She and my dad got together in college, and he immediately went into the Army after college, and he was in ROTC. He was an officer. When he was going to get shipped off during the Vietnam War, fortunately, he ended up in Germany. He said, "Look, if we get married, you can come with me." They spent two years living in Germany and loved it. They traveled all over Europe and just had such a great time as young twenty-somethings running around Europe and traveling.
They both said to each other, "When we have children, we want to raise them internationally. We want them to have this experience." When my dad had his career with Marriott, and he grew from supervisor and housekeeper to a hotel manager, finally, they were always saying, "AG, we'll go overseas. You want us to manage a hotel overseas? We're the ones, go."
Finally, the call came, and I asked my mom about this the other day. When they finally said, “We got a hotel opening in Saudi Arabia?" She was like, "I was thinking of England." She was like, "No.” We immediately were both like, “Yes, come on, let's do it." There was no question. I am who I am, and I do what I do today because of the lessons and the strength and the confidence and the perspective that I gained from the seven years that we lived overseas.
Learning An Incredible Sense Of Independence
I absolutely was going to say the same thing when you said it because you definitely embrace that freedom in who you are, but in how you go about your work and your life. What were some lessons you learned from your parents that you think you instill in what you do today from that time period?
They fostered an incredible sense of independence. I remember very often when we got to the airports when we were on vacation. Again, when you live in Saudi Arabia, you do not go to Disney World for vacation. You go to Nepal, and you go to France because it is closer and it is cheaper. I remember a few times where my parents were like, "We're here at the airport. We have a two-hour layover. You're in charge. You have to get us to our gate.
You have to get us to our gate at the right time. You have to decide what we need to do. Do we need to eat? Do we need to get any supplies?" They would just go, "You're in charge." They would walk behind us or me or my brother, specifically whoever was in charge. They fostered a level of independence. It was supervised by independence, but it was a "Figure it out. How can you find out? How can you learn this? Is there somebody you can ask? What signs do you have?”
That fostered not only a level of self-dependency and a belief that I could figure it out and a belief in myself, but also an understanding of resources. The people are there to help. 99.847% of the people on the planet, according to my statistics, are good. They want to help, and they want to connect, and they are lovely. You could go up and ask somebody, and they will wonder why your parents are standing behind you, like, "Why don't you ask them?" That was a different thing.
Most of the people on the planet are good. They want to help and connect with others.
It fostered that as well, which has served me really well. That definitely hits me hard because I had the complete opposite. People are bad. Only trust me. I am the one who is the only one who is going to be there for you, and your parents are going in the totally opposite direction, which affects your view of the world.
I literally was talking to my mom about this. I said the same thing. It fostered this belief that people are there to help and they are good, and you always have resources and always have ways to figure things out, even if you do not speak the same language. She said, "It also fostered a level of intuition where you know, like, I'm not going to ask them, or I'm not going to stay here. Let's go over there." I do not remember them ever talking about that or us being taught that, but you are just being in so many different situations.
I do not remember whether it was Thailand or Nepal, but all of a sudden, my dad goes, "We're going to go." We were like, "I thought we were going over there." He is like, "Something's happening here. We're not staying." It turned out there was a demonstration, a political demonstration happening that turned into not violence, but not calm things you want your 10 and 12-year-old children around.
It was just like, "This is changing, and we're going to go over there." I never thought about it until my mom brought it up, but it was like, yeah, that's, and I trust my intuition an awful lot now. It has served me incredibly well. Just like, "You're not the one I'm going to ask. I'm not going to go in a dark alley with you with my wallet." Not you, Amy, I love you, I give you money. Thank you.
It is such an important lesson, and I would say, especially for women. I am trying to think of the book and the author I will remember. She did this book about girls versus boys, and there was a part in the book where she had a son and a daughter, and they both had friends over, and the boys were sitting in front of the television, and the girls were all sitting on the couch. She came in, and she said, "Do you guys want pizza?" She said the boys never turned their heads. They looked internally and said, "Yes, I want pizza."
The girls on the couch all looked to each other, "You're going to get pizza." The speaker for the girls on the couch says, "No, we do not want any." It is a big lesson in life when you have not been taught that to say what you need or trust your intuition and know you need to go in another direction, not just to be nice, to be safe. All of those things are really important because in the yoga world, we talk about the rational mind and the intuitive mind. Too many times, we are thinking with a rational mind instead of looking internally.
I have never made this connection before, but it is an amazing connection. It is one that, in developing my speaking business now, I only five years after I started, realized that every once in a while, I have to take all the notes from all the conferences and all the trainings and all the conversations I have had with experts, go into a dark room and say, "What works for me?" The perfect solution for them may be exactly the opposite of what I need to do.
Trusting that intuition for myself and making my own decisions, and not asking for permission to be myself. It goes against human nature. Our brains want us to fit in because, back in the day, when our brains were invented, if you did not fit into the village, you were going to die. You needed other people to survive. We are hardwired to need approval and to fit in. It goes against our nature, but it has served me well. It has been really fun.
Intuition: Our brains want us to fit in because, back in the day, we would die if we did not fit in with our village. We needed other people to survive.
That observation is so important to just learn what works because I think we do, whether it's bosses, wherever you are, or coaching or consulting, you have to take all that information in and then filter it. Too many times, we try to emulate somebody else because they have been successful. You are like, "I'll just copy that." When it is not congruent with who you are, it does not work whether you are a leader, whether you are a speaker, whatever it is.
A hundred percent. Conversely to that, flip it around. We cannot expect, and this is something I learned from being in different cultures, that what works for me will necessarily work for you. Who I am is not who you are. My reactions are not the way you are going to deal with it. It becomes an incredible emotional intelligence skill to be able to say, "Here's what worked for me. Try it if you want, but you have got to do it your own way." So much of human interaction is about control and "You do it my way," and do not even get me started. That is a whole other podcast.
It is so much in the business world because that is where micromanaging comes in or "I'll just do it myself because it's easier," because you just did not give someone the path to try another way to get to the same answer.
You did not accept that their way would work as well.
Exactly.
When you look at religion, you look at politics, you look at schools, all of it. We all want everybody to be like us because it is safe. To be able to say, "You do it your way, I'll do it mine, and that's fine. Like we're good," it is all over the place.
Getting Into Opera Singing And Teaching Special Education
Why did you end up going to boarding school? What was the shift there?
I was a juvenile delinquent.
Too much freedom.
I had an older boyfriend, and I literally just walked out the door and did whatever I wanted. My parents were like, "She's fourteen." My nieces are 17 and 18 or 19 right now. I cannot imagine them doing what I did back then, now, let alone at fourteen years old. My parents were like, "Why don't you go to boarding school?" Which worked out really well. Again, it was a high-end performing arts boarding school, so it could have been a whole lot worse.
That is where you began opera singing?
Yeah, I had sung in choirs and shows and all that stuff as much as I could throughout my life up to that point. I had gone to the camp. It was Interlochen Arts Academy. I had gone to the camp a few times.
It was a great place to be. That's amazing. How did you find that that was going to be your thing there when you went there? Did you already know going in that you were going to sing?
Yeah, because I had always been a singer. I have an ear for music. I played the piano as well. That was my minor. Finally, my piano teacher fired me after my sophomore year. He is like, "You're not going to minor in piano anymore." I am like, "Why not?" He goes, "It’s because you do not practice." I was like, "Okay." I knew how to play well enough to be able to accompany myself singing. I was like, "I'm good."
What was it about opera? Why did you go that direction?
That was the only vocal option that they had at Interlochen at the time. They have musical theater now, which I would have selected, but it was classical singing or not. That was the direction I took. It was incredible training for my instrument.
What did you do after that? My senior year, as I had already accepted a vocal performance admission to Ithaca College, I realized I did not want the life of a musician. I did not want to go gig to gig. I did not want to get up at 2:00 in the afternoon to go to the theater, go to bed at 2:00, and get up at two in the afternoon to do it again. I wanted a white picket fence. I just switched it and ended up getting a degree in psychology with a minor in special education. What was it about those that you decided?
I had always been interested in teaching. When I was little, my mom got me a chalkboard, and I used to have a classroom in my room. I was always interested in teaching, and I said, "I just do not want to teach regular education. What if I do special education?" It was awesome. I love the kids. They were great.
Working As A Professional Animal Trainer
You have been a teacher, but you were also in the corporate world. How did these transitions occur?
I spent two years teaching special education, and the kids were amazing. I loved the classroom, but it was the other adults. Coming from high-end international schools overseas to a high-end boarding school for high school. I had a high expectation of adults, and I ended up in a small town in central Massachusetts. It was a whole different level of performance from the adults. At the time, with my "I am going to save the world, do you believe?" I was super disenchanted, and I was like, "I'm going to go get my master's degree." I got accepted to Smith College to go get my Master's in Social Work.
That spring break, we went to SeaWorld down in Texas for vacation. I was like, "That's what I've always wanted to do." I saw the trainers and everything. It was my childhood dream. I always thought I wanted to be a vet. I shadowed a vet, and I was like, "That was terrible" because the animals were sick and sad and dying, and like, "No, I do not want that."
I saw the trainers at SeaWorld. I am like, "That's what I want." I wanted that partnership. Fortunately, I lived down the street from the New England Aquarium in Boston. I quit my teaching job, said no to Smith College, and said, "Give it to somebody else." I ended up working at a pet supply store and volunteering twice a week at the aquarium in Boston. It turned out that the degree that I had in behavior modification and psychology was exactly what I needed to be a trainer.
We had vets to deal with their health, and we had biologists to deal with the water. I just needed to deal with training the animal. The education I had was what I needed. I just needed an opening. Eight months into volunteering, one of the trainers moved to North Carolina, and I got to be a seal and sea lion trainer at the aquarium in Boston. It was awesome.
I also want to highlight in that story that you took the time to volunteer to get the job that you wanted. We want these quick answers a lot of times to get what we want, and the fact that you explored veterinary and where you fit is to do the thing that you're looking inside to find passion about. It's not just about the animals.
It's about hugging the sea lion.
That's so cool. How long were you doing that for?
I worked at the Aquarium for 2 or 3 years. Ken, the guy I was married to at the time, got a job with Raytheon down in Arizona, and he was making all the money. I was like, "Here we go." I ended up getting a job at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, working with the birds of prey, because the principles of learning are the same. I got a job working with hawks, owls, and falcons. We had a roadrunner. We had a few vultures and a little baby great horned owl.
From there, what did you do?
I got a divorce. I was there for two or three years again. My divorce came through. The interesting thing that I found and I learned a really important leadership lesson at the Desert Museum. It was an incredibly toxic human environment. It was the coolest job, like you are walking around with a hawk on your arm, free-flying hawks in the desert, and they are coming back to you. That was my job. It was so cool, and I did not want to go to work because it was such a toxic environment.
It was, "Talk to them. Do not tell them we're doing this. Do not tell the vet about this." It was so toxic that finally, when my divorce was going on, and I was in an upheaval, I was like, "I do not want to go there. I'm miserable. I hate it." I just blew up my life, and I am trying to figure myself out, and this is not going to cut it. I went and worked in a restaurant until I moved to Baltimore because I was like, "I do not want to go there anymore," which is crazy.
It's important to understand when you're in a bad spot, where it's coming from. It was not the work itself. It was the environment. Sometimes you have to make a pivot based on that, or it might be something internal as well in a work environment that you have got to shift to, but it's an important observation to have, like, "I really did love what I did, but I couldn't." It's interesting.
It was a difficult decision because it was my childhood dream job, and I was really proud of being an animal trainer. I am sitting there eating breakfast, and I remember saying, "I hate my job," and then thinking, "I do not hate my job. Why am I miserable? Why don't I want to go to work?" You work with hawks, that's really cool and fun. The animals are amazing. You get to free-fly hawks in the desert. Who does not want to do that? What is your problem? I have had several of those moments in my life. It was a small enough ecosystem that it was not like I could move departments. It is not like I could get away from the toxicity, and the toxicity was all higher than me. Finally, I was like, "I just do not want to do it anymore." I am out.
If your work environment is getting toxic, make the big decision to go away.
Finding Purpose In Professional Speaking
There is the opportunity to find that passion again. How did you get into what you're doing today?
I started dating a guy. He moved to Maryland. I moved in with him. We broke up. I was facilitating ropes courses for that summer. When summer was ending, and winter was coming, and nobody was going to be at the ropes course, I was like, "Crap, I need a big kid job." Health insurance would probably be a good idea. I started working with Under Armour. I got a job as the receptionist. This goes back to volunteering at the aquarium before I got the job. I was like, "I'm starting out. This is my first office job. This is my first corporate job. I've never done this.
I have a college degree. I have 7 or 8 years of working experience, but I've never worked in an office before. I'll be your receptionist." Within three months, they were like, "You're wasted here. Move to sales." I worked in sales. I worked in marketing. I worked for Under Armour until about 2010, tons of growth, tons of incredible pride in being part of that. I had gone on some morale-building tours to Iraq, England, Germany, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and some sponsored trips that Under Armour took. I was the only one who they were like, "Anne'll go."
It was incredible. I suddenly was like, "I want to go get my physical therapy degree to help wounded veterans come back and rebuild their lives.” I was applying to schools and looking at what was involved in physical therapy school, and getting a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. I was married again at the time, and it was not a great situation. I suddenly realized, "This marriage won't last if I do this three-year intensive full-time working thing." I chose the marriage, which, unfortunately, I unchose about a year later. I ended up working for another organization that did group exercise, because I was in fitness at this point.
I moved to New York City to work for a large gym chain running their whole group exercise, all the yoga classes, spinning classes, and all that, for 160 gyms. I woke up one morning again and said, "I hate my life. I do not want to go to work." Again, it was that moment of "What is your problem?” You are an executive at one of the largest gym chains in the country. This is what you have worked for. You have a corner office and a corporate Amex, and you travel, and you are important and everything. What is your problem?
I was like, "I hate my job. What is your problem?" I was scrolling Facebook one day and saw an ad for the John Maxwell Team, where you could get certified in public speaking, leadership training, and coaching. I was like, "I'd like to do that." I called them up, and it was more money than I had ever spent on anything. I was like, "Cool. Thank you." Hung up and was like, "We'll figure out something else."
The next day, the CEO walks into my office and says, "It's bonus time." He goes, "It's too early for us to give you the traditional bonus that everybody else gets because you haven't been with the company long enough." I think you had to be there for two years to be eligible. He goes, "You're doing a really good job. I just wanted to give you a bonus that I have the option to give." He hands me a check. He walks out of the room. I look at it.
It is the exact amount of money that the John Maxwell Team required. I called back the lady, and I was like, "You're not going to believe what just happened." That gave me the courage to finally say, "I'm leaving this job. I'm going to move to Northern Michigan." Backfired on him. It worked really well for me. At that point, I was like, "All right." It gave me the courage to leave New York City, move into my parents' basement in Northern Michigan at 42 years old, and start a business as a professional speaker.
That's a lot.
Talk about blowing up your life. It was one of those moments.
You've taken so many pivots in your life. It comes back to that belief in yourself.
I remember somebody asking me as I was telling people that I was leaving, and I gave two months' notice because I wanted to make sure my team was set, and they were going through a big reorganization, and they were not going to replace me. They were like, "Can you stick around for it?" and I was like, "Yes, absolutely." I remember somebody going, "What are you going to do if it does not work?" I stood there for a second and literally never thought that that was even a possibility. I was like, "I'll get another job."
It is such a funny thing because a lot of times, that is the first thing people think of. It literally never occurred to me that it wouldn't work. It took five years to get it off the ground. I made $3,000 the first year, the entire year. I got a job at Olive Garden because $3,000 is not enough to live on, and I did not want to live at my parents' house anymore, so you do what you have to do. I joke that I put my ego and my furniture in storage while I moved into my parents' house at 42 to start a business I knew nothing about.
That is one of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we are in these fork-in-the-road moments. What am I willing to give up to get what I want? We can sit where we are not happy. I was making great money in New York, I was very well respected, and all that, and I was miserable. I moved into my parents' basement and made $3,000. That was a big difference. I remember sitting in the first week of being in business for myself, staring at my computer, going, "What the heck did I do?" Ten years later, it worked out really well.
Intuition: One of the biggest questions we have to ask ourselves when we are in a fork-in-the-road moment is “What am I willing to give up to get what I want?”
I listened to this podcast, which was actually about narcissists. They were saying one of the worst people to be in a relationship with a narcissist is an entrepreneur or an athlete because in both cases, entrepreneurs and athletes are like, "We can get that done, there has got to be a way to change this."
I do not think I am a narcissist, but at the same time, I like that.
No, I am saying that being with a narcissist, you think you can change them. I do think anyone can be an entrepreneur, but you do have to have the wherewithal to see the positive when you're at the bottom, or when no one sees all the negative stuff happening, and to keep going and to pull yourself back up and to tell yourself, "I can do this. There's just another way. I'm not there yet."
There was one time when I ran out of money, my credit was maxed out, and it was right before I started at the Olive Garden. My credit was maxed out, and I was out of savings. I am trying to get this. I had created a mindset for a weight loss program, which I still think was really good, but people did not want the long-term mindset change. They wanted the weight loss. I ran out of money, and I was like, "I've got to go get a job."
I spent about five minutes on Indeed.com, and I literally closed my computer and was like, "Nope, there's got to be another way. I want to keep trying to do this." I went to the Olive Garden, and I was like, "Can I slap some pasta?" and I dressed male mannequins at the Men's Wearhouse. I did what I needed to do to pay my rent so that I could keep trying to do this speaking thing. Again, now I am almost eleven years into it and doing better than I ever did in corporate life.
It is important to understand that what you see today is years of work. People want the easy button. There is not one. You have to go through the reps, you have to go through the learning. There is a process of people getting to know what you do and who you are, and you have to constantly be evolving who you are.
I will build my skills. I look back at presentations I did 5, 6, 7 years ago, and I am like, "How embarrassing." Even though I am in it now and it is working, I am still developing. I am still saying, "How can I make this even better? How can I connect with people better?" I am getting better as it goes, but it takes that intention and not sitting on it and saying, "I'm comfortable now." Unless you are comfortable and then good to go, do the thing. For me, it was not enough.
Answering Rapid-Fire Questions About Spirituality
I like to close with just some rapid-fire questions. You pick a category. You pick family and friends, money, spirituality, or health.
Money or spirituality. Let us go spiritual. Does that count like mindset stuff and beliefs and all that?
It is more about where you stand in those areas.
Go with money. I will get vulnerable. Go ahead.
Things or actions I do not have that I want with money.
Debt-free.
Things or actions I do have as far as money that I want to keep.
Income and a belief that the income will keep coming. Which has to do with debt.
Something that you love to do. Things or actions that I do not have, but I do not want to have as far as money.
Scarcity mindset and more debt, more bills, more medical problems. Last year I had to have surgery.
It's rough. I am glad you are okay.
It did not cost me very much money. Thank you, insurance.
That is what makes it hard to be an entrepreneur. Those are the things that you cannot predict, and you make money by being on the road. Things or actions that I have that I do not want.
The debt.
You do have that, and you do not want that. I do not want that.
Again, it's one of those bills that we need to fix because if things fall off or if I have a low point or if I do have to get surgery like I did last year, and I do not get to work for a while, I need to make sure that I can cover it. There are two ways to do that. One, have a lot of money saved, and two, do not have a lot of bills. I am trying to work on both.
Allowing Yourself To Move Forward By Letting Go
You've given so many great stories, but is there anything you want to emphasize or any takeaways you want to make sure the audience leaves with from this conversation?
One of the concepts that I have been noodling a lot this year is that we talked about early in this conversation when we were talking about moving and changing. The concept of letting go. Often, to change and to evolve and to move forward, we have to let go of things. As humans, we are not good at that. We are not good at letting go of beliefs, we are not good at letting go of mindsets, we are not good at letting go of people, or of ways of doing things, or of jobs, or things that we have invested in.
I really think that we would all be stronger if we thought a little bit more about how I can let go of something to keep moving forward in the direction that I want and in what is right for me as who I am today on May 21, 2026, versus who I was 5 years ago, 10 years ago, or last Tuesday for crying out loud. Letting go is something that I would encourage everybody to think about because I think it is where we get stuck, because we are not willing to let go of certain things.
You referenced it, not knowing where I was going, but a lot of it's ego, right?
100%.
In your story, you were able to let go of your ego at 42 and become a waitress again, even though you had been an executive, you had done the things. You were not going to every table like, "I'm really a corporate executive. I need to make money so that I can do my thing and not worry." Anyone looks at you like you are proud of who you are. You are an independent thinker, all the things that you grew up being, but being able to let go of the ego to be able to change.
Having the courage to suck at something new. Again, I look back at some of the presentations and keynotes. I am naturally a good speaker, but man, there are so many pieces to being a really good keynote speaker that I did not have. Fortunately, did not realize it. I call it naive arrogance, which is what you need to be able to be an entrepreneur, because you need to be like, "I'm good, we'll figure it out." Every day, I vacillate between terror and elation. I am like, "This is the greatest thing ever. I'm terrified."
Every day, even 10.5 years down the line. It takes a lot. If you are not terrified, that means you are probably not pushing yourself to let go of anything.
Sometimes being in the comfort zone is awesome and just leaves it alone and floats along for a while. I do not want to say that everybody needs to get out of their comfort zone all the time. Sometimes you know that it is that time to feel like, "Cool. I have to let something go and move forward."
Sometimes, being in the comfort zone is awesome. You can leave things along and let them float along for a while.
For sure. Thank you so much for being on the show. So many great lessons that you shared. I look forward to having everyone here.
Thank you so much. It was great to be able to show you. Those are great questions. That was a fun interview.
Thank you.
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About Anne Bonney
Anne Bonney, CSP®, was born to speak...just ask the teachers who wrote “talks too much” on her report cards. Today, she puts that superpower to work helping overwhelmed professionals build resilience, emotional intelligence, and courage in the messy reality of change. A high-energy keynote speaker, dynamic conference emcee, two-time author, and host of the hit Dancing in the Discomfort Zone podcast, Anne blends sharp humor, real-life stories, and practical tools audiences can actually use. After 20 years leading in corporate and nonprofit roles, she now challenges people to own their reactions, tackle tough conversations, and move through change with confidence—even when it’s uncomfortable.