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ashleyklemieux

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When we first got married we each had a $20 monthly allowance that we could spend on anything we wanted. It was all we could spare, and that special twenty bucks was the most exciting money ever! We had a wedding coming up that we were invited to and I’m a girl so of course I had nothing to wear. We were walking through the mall and I stopped dead on my tracks when I saw the most beautiful dress. I looked at the price tag and it would have taken four months allowance. We moved on.
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A week later @mikelemieux told me to go check in my closet, the dress I had wanted was hanging in it for me. I turned around and he said, “before you say anything about the money, I have been saving my allowance up for a pair of new shoes I wanted and got you your dress instead.” I still have the dress.
❤️
I believe that love exists where you want it to. Sometimes you’re the one who receives the dress, and sometimes you’re the one who gets to save up your allowance to fill up your person.
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Our marriage is made up of years of deposits and receiving from one another. It’s made up of us both giving 100% to each other... and the understanding that that means different things in different phases of life. Saying that a relationship is 50/50 is the fastest way to burn and miss out on all of the good stuff.
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I know that relationships get rocky, of course they do. LIFE IS ROCKY! But we can’t take out our frustrations of a rocky life on our marriages. Relationships need to be the safe place that’s filled with all the good surprises when we need them the most. Now when I get frustrated with Mike, the first thing I’ve started doing is to ask myself, “have I gone all in for him 100% today? What does he need from me right now?”
❤️
It’s easier to blame the other person... but it’s better to be the one who saves up months of allowance.
❤️
Also, for my single friends: don’t you dare settle for anything less than someone who gives you 100%. That’s exactly what you deserve, and it exists. I promise.

Photo: @eunicebeck

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I wrote this book even after being told women wouldn’t want it.

I was told it talked about things that were too hard to talk about.

But I knew that Born to Shine was exactly what we’ve been hoping for. Permission TO talk about the hard stuff. And then to uncover tools that allows us to shine through it... to find light even when it’s dark. I’ve found that once we talk about it, it feels less scary and lonely.
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It’s now been read thousands and thousands and thousands of times... in your homes, in hospitals, in sorority houses and library’s and in hopes that you’ll walk away with new found courage.

Born to Shine is my very human story that I wrote to help you walk through yours. I know there’s a lot of new friends here (welcome!) and also a lot of you who have been here a while who haven’t read it yet...
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So here’s my promise:
-It will help you uncover your power.
-If anything I write on Instagram has impacted you, this book will have that affect but on steroids.
-Much of my story I haven’t shared publicly, it felt safer with the sisterhood of those who read Born to Shine, and although the details of our lives are very different, the feelings we share are the same.
-It will teach you how to find joy where pain used to set up camp. And it feels like my moral obligation to make sure these words reach the hands of every woman who needs them.

Born to Shine is hitting best sellers again on Amazon right now, so I’m here to ask you:

Will you spend $11 to change your life?

If so, the link to purchase this book that I poured every part of my soul into is in my bio.
❤️
PS: if you’ve already read it will you share this post with your friends? I love how many of you end up buying copies for your tribe!

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It has taken YEARS to get to this moment we’re currently in.

It has taken pinching pennies and rice and bean dinners.

It has taken finding other people’s trash on bulk pick up day so we could repaint a kitchen table to eat on.

It has taken scratching backs while the other is throwing up over the toilet.

It has taken struggling through years of grief from a loss that made us not want to be alive.

It has taken countless therapy sessions.

It has taken thousands of hours of taking leaps of faith to build new companies.

It has taken overcoming NOs.

It has taken being patient with each other through the years our marriage was struggling.

It has taken finding strength while being drug through the mud in court.

It has taken days in the boxing ring together.

It has taken trusting our guts even when everyone else thought we were nuts.

It has taken being knocked on our faces, and choosing to pray to be able to figure out how to get back up.

It has taken miracles.

It has taken a love that’s greater than either of us.

It has taken us staying committed to figuring it out, one day at a time, even when it would be easier not to.
❤️
When I hear someone refer to mike and I as “relationship goals”, I sometimes giggle, because our lives have never reminded me of any goal I’d ever set...
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But then I think about it, and maybe this life we’re creating was the goal all along... To love the life you live, even when it’s hard.

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Our life together started out in a cockroach infested condo, uncertain what we wanted to do in our lives but determined to figure it out.
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I started a company with $300 - almost everything we had. Social media didn’t exist and I had to teach myself everything... That company employed first generation college students, we closed large wholesale accounts like Hallmark stores who sold our product, and became a 7-figure company.
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When Instagram launched, we were on it immediately. @mikelemieux had an idea that if we sent the jewelry from my company to people who had some followers, and they posted about it, then we could reach new people. Influencer marketing wasn’t a thing yet... and it worked.
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His idea worked so well, he became the first employee at a start up company who was doing leading edge marketing with social media influencers.
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He quit his grocery store job to go all in on this new start up, and I continued to learn the small business grind.
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Mikes company then sold to Disney and he became a director of campaigns, leading the worlds largest social media marketing efforts. After a couple of years; he decided to go out on his own to create social sales strategies for large and small businesses.
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We lost our kids and I began to pivot my focus. I knew I needed to write and help women find power in their lives, and used everything I knew to create a strong map forward that would leave me fulfilled and doing work I love.
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I now get to work with the worlds largest brands, write books and speak, and it all started with taking a leap and knowing how to find focus.
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Nothing has happened to us because we “got lucky” or blew up over night. Our growth in life and business has come because we know how to find clarity, and then create strategies that can be executed to make an impact.
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And we want to personally teach them to you in my exclusive Clarity Mastermind. We’ll be spending four weeks sitting on video calls together, sharing everything that you can’t learn from anyone who’s never done this before.
❤️
This opportunity won’t be for everyone, but if it’s for you, it will change your life. Apply now in the link in my bio!!!

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WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!
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This is the look of pure relief and excitement after we found out this morning that our offer was the one accepted after this weekends insane house battle! Thanks for being so invested in our stories and for rooting for us🙌🏻🎉
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Moving back to Phoenix has been a huge leap of faith. We didn’t have a house (we’ve been living in our Airbnb), and we weren’t quite sure how life would feel here. We’ve felt a bit in limbo, and have been searching since last summer for a home we can grow in to and establish roots in. Last week we walked into a house that actually felt like home, and we just knew it was the one.

We rushed getting our taxes done and submitted our offer Friday night, only to find out Saturday morning that someone else gave an offer an hour after us.

This weekend was a roller coaster, and at one point the sellers tried to get us to pay even more. I saw our family living in the house, but the new price didn’t sit well with us. As much as we wanted the home, we trusted our guts and said no, they already had our final and best offer.

Within five minutes their realtor called, and said they wanted us to have the home, so they’d accept our offer.

We move in on Valentine’s Day, which feels pretty perfect 💕 I’m just so grateful this morning, and wanted to share it all with you. Thanks for always cheering us on, I swear I have the best tribe on the planet.

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Taking time everyday to move my body and create energy literally transformed me from depressed and stuck, to motivated and strong.
Some days are harder to work out that others, but it’s a promise I’ve made to myself.

I’m so excited to have found @30dayfitness App!
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It’s like carrying a personal trainer around in my pocket,and helps me have workouts so I can stay in my routine, even from the other side of the country!

How do you keep that routine when you travel?! You can download your 30 Day Fitness App for great in home or on the road workouts! It’s so easy to use, and not intimidating at all. #30dfchallenge #newyearswith30df #ad

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