Finding Expansion in Lacy Phillips’ Success

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I’ve been a Pathway member since 2019 and do the Deep Imaginings (DIs) almost every night.

In her work, Lacy teaches about expanders: people you identify with who have something you want and allow you to see to believe that you can have it, too. 

Lacy has been a personal and professional expander for me. 

Over the past 3 years, I’ve heard stories from Lacy through her blog, podcast, and work. I got the “ping” on April 24th 2022 to examine her life more closely for expansion. In doing so, I got a chance to see just how much she persevered to her level of personal and professional success.

Lacy was born on February 15, 1985, so she’s currently 37. She owns a $1.1 million dollar house in Topanga, CA and a Forest Retreat house near Yosemite. She previously rented the Forest Retreat house on Airbnb but now splits her time between both houses. She has one daughter with her partner, Max. Her company To Be Magnetic helps thousands of customers and has been featured in goop, Vogue, Bazaar, and Forbes, among others.

Lacy is building her family, a thriving business, and a real estate portfolio that is drool-worthy.

Not to mention, she puts her well-being at the forefront of her life.

Early Career

From ages 21-26 (2006-2011), Lacy was an actress in LA. She also worked as a waitress in restaurants and a comedy club. After quitting acting in 2012, she worked at a preschool in LA where she didn’t have a great experience and had to commute two hours per day. It was during this time that she started to get serious about holistic living and wellness.

In her late 20s, Lacy started her blog: Free + Native.

At age 29, Free + Native was mainly a holistic living blog and not about manifestation just yet. Her blog was featured in How She Glows where she references her pop-artist boyfriend—I’m assuming this is the blond surfer with the Parisian mom that Lacy mentions from time-to-time. As Lacy has shared on the podcast, they broke up when she was 30. 

Lacy is now in a successful partnership and growing her family, but she shared on the podcast recently how difficult this breakup was, especially because she was 30, single, and desiring a family.

It was around this time in her life that Lacy published one of her most influential blog posts (in my eyes). She published it in November 2015 at the age of 30 and its titled: I am an autonomous woman. 

Shifting into Manifestation

In 2015 and 2016, she started regularly writing about manifestation on her blog and she met Max, her current partner. I tried to pinpoint exactly when she met Max, but to the best of my knowledge she first posted about Max’s company Older Brother on Instagram in 2016, when Lacy was 31. 

As we know, Lacy didn’t always host digital products. She worked with private 1:1 clients for many years. It kept growing and growing, which is when Lacy knew she needed to move to a more digital platform.

In November 2017, Lacy announced on Instagram that a digital workshop would be coming soon. And in that same month, Lacy was featured on Almost 30 for the first time.

In early 2018, Grace Abbott started working as an independent contractor for Lacy, which is when they named the brand To Be Magnetic and launched The Pathway. 

The Expanded Podcast

The podcast has been a pivotal growth area for the company. The first episode aired in July 2018.

Lacy was the host of the podcast from July 2018-December 2019 for a total of 73 episodes.

In December 2019, Jessica Ashley Gill debuted in episode 74 as the new podcast lead.

And a huge milestone for the company came in June 2019 when Lacy was featured on the Goop podcast.

The Forest Retreat House

In February 2019, the Forest Retreat House was under construction. Lacy rented the house for $500/night on Airbnb for several years, but she eventually took the listing down. She now goes back-and-forth between her home in Topanga and the Forest Retreat house.

Growing Family

Teddy was conceived when Lacy was 35 after struggling for several years with infertility. She gave birth at age 36.

Money Management

Lacy didn’t come from an affluent upbringing, although she did hint that her grandparents were successful.

It’s clear that since the beginning of her career Lacy has been savvy with money. She’s a long-time believer in living below your means. She also has prioritized purchasing assets. She bought the Forest Retreat house as an Airbnb asset before she bought herself her own home. 

She also mentioned on the Expanded podcast with Ramit Sethi that she loves learning about investing and finances in her free time. She probably would love Good Fortune.

Lacy has done a great job of taking full responsibility for her own life and taking matters into her own hands. She wrote on her blog:

I am 100% responsible for my life as it is. In order to reach my highest goals, I remove all distractions and negativity to focus on the exact life I want and will have. —Lacy Phillips

Look at your Expanders

This article has been helpful for me to create because it required that I take a deeper look at how my expander, Lacy, has created such a successful personal and professional life. What is particularly expanding for me is that Lacy didn’t have this all figured out by age 30.

By 30, she had learned a lot and was taking steps in the right direction, and that’s ultimately what mattered most for her success to unfold.

I highly recommend using this as an exercise for yourself. Who are your expanders? Can you reverse engineer their success? What does that tell you about your own next steps?

Join The Pathway

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