In the world of success stories, Shay Bacani’s journey is not your conventional tale. It’s a narrative woven with threads of resilience, determination, and unfiltered authenticity. Join me & Shay as we unravel the layers of her remarkable life – from facing the challenges of teen pregnancy to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

A Rocky Start

Shay starts by taking us back to her teenage years when she found herself pregnant at 17. This pivotal moment set the stage for a series of challenges, compounded by her parents’ financial downturn, resulting in a loss of everything they had. Shay said she was so broke, it wasn’t even funny how much money she didn’t have. When she was pregnant, there was a period of time when she and her mother had to sleep in the car. Shay was confident that this was her rock bottom, but it would soon become her testimony because when you’re that low, you can only go up.

Shay knew that she couldn’t stay at rock bottom for much longer because she did not want to raise her daughter in those circumstances. She started dabbling in makeup but nothing ever really took off because she devoted a lot of her time to working full time as an admin at a fortune 500 company. That company had a location in San Diego that Shay dreamed of moving to and creating the perfect life of being a celebrity makeup artist in LA. Never having been to California before, Shay figured that LA and San Diego were both in southern California and this would work out perfectly. So, she submitted a transfer request to her company with the reasoning that her parents were moving and she’d like to go with them. Three months later, her request got approved, but she had to be in San Diego in two weeks. Undeterred, Shay packed up and made a courageous move to San Diego with virtually nothing but the strength to face the unknown and a vision to create a comfortable life for her family.

For several months, she found her and her daughter living in a hotel and surviving off the continental breakfast. She dreaded her job working at a smaller company because she felt she was doing the job of 3-4 employees. However, she was soon able to take the knowledge from the small company and move to a larger company where she was solely focusing on accounting. There, she met the CAO who was a woman, dressed to the nines, bubbly, and beautiful. This was where Shay started to gain some hope that she could make it big in finance, even as a woman interested in beauty.

The Pandemic Era

The CAO of that company became a quick mentor for Shay and really helped her understand the ins & outs of finance. Then…the pandemic hit. Unfortunately, this meant she had to stop taking clients for makeup, but fortunately, this is where Centure Financial really began to take off.

A year prior, Shay had sent a cold email to a beauty business owner who was very successful and had her own agency. Shay explained all she did with finance and how she’d love to do that for this beauty business owner, too. They eventually started working together and completely reshaped the inside of her business from a financial standpoint. They took a company that had $300k a year in client sales to over $900k. This was when Shay realized she had a knack for this and her business began to grow by word of mouth, all within the first year. Now, she manages over $8 million a month!

Fear of Getting Vulnerable

At first, Shay didn’t want to get vulnerable online because she didn’t think it would make a connection or that people would care about where she came from. It started as an assignment from a mentor in our mastermind and Shay quickly recorded some stories, made sure they were posted in order, and turned off her phone for the rest of the night. The next day her DM’s were flooded with people saying how much more they loved her and how they can really relate to her.

Shay felt super cringe when she posted those initial stories and despite the positive response she received, she still feels cringed out when she has to lead with her testimony now. She agrees that you ought to share your story so people can get to know you more and create a deeper connection but says,

“I don’t think that you should be defined by a traumatic moment.”

Soooo, you know me, I had to give her some hot seat therapy to find out why she might be feeling that way. In the episode, we found out that Shay was disassociating from the old version of her and solely identifying with the new, successful version. She didn’t feel safe as the old version of her because of the lack of control she had over such big events in her life.

Losing Everything

Even though Shay feels this aversion to vulnerability, we still went super deep in our conversation. Shay opened up on the pod about her family losing nearly everything beginning around her sophomore year of high school… The story will blow your mind. →

“Both my parents lost their jobs in 2008. My dad worked in the Chicago stock exchange and my mom worked in accounting. The actual year of 2008 didn’t have as much effect as the years after… It was really like an earthquake. There’s the initial shock and then that aftershock…and that’s what happened. We were good for a few years, at least from what I could tell, then, things started to shift a little bit. Like, I didn’t always get money that I needed to go out with my friends and little by little, we lost everything. The house that we were living in, the car we drove, and then we had to live in a hotel. So my entire life, for those last two years of high school, was honestly the worst ever. I’m like, this sucks. I hate my life. I hate you guys because you didn’t have a solution and I got that attitude of ‘I can just do this myself. I’d rather take care of me. I got it.’”

Realizing We Can’t Be In Control

As the conversation unfolded, Shay’s unapologetic approach to life really came through. She openly admits to still struggling with wanting to have control in most situations, but realizing that life doesn’t work out that way. Because of this, she also opens up about struggling with not spending enough time with her kids, missing enrollment deadlines, or needing to move to a better neighborhood. Shay says it’s a constant battle of being mad at herself that she didn’t meet the standards that she created for herself, when there’s no need to have that pressure.

Lack of Contentment

At just 23 years old, Shay felt like she had accomplished everything she’d dreamed of. From having her daughter at 18, getting married, and buying a house in California with a thriving career and side hustle, she felt like… “now what?”

To this day, she still battles with a lack of contentment and always wanting more. If she could be so successful at 23, imagine where she’d be at 33 and 40. That idea continues to push Shay into an anxious achiever and forward thinking mindset.

I think we can all relate to seeing things on social media that send us down a spiral of comparison because we are consuming content with such unrealistic standards so that we will never truly feel contentment. That’s why we need to emphasize the importance of choosing what aligns with our personal values and outsource things that don’t energize us. We ought to be spending more time doing things that fill our cup so we can feel content in the mundane.

Shay’s commitment to authenticity now extends to her online presence. Give her a follow on  TikTok for a more unhinged version of herself, providing a behind-the-scenes look into her life. && if you’re interested, Shay offers financial consulting services through Centure Financial, creating a bridge for those seeking guidance on their financial journey from someone who embodies authenticity.

Shay Bacani’s story is a reminder that success isn’t just about professional accomplishments; it’s about embracing your authentic self and finding strength in your unique journey. We may not love where we came from and the situation that formed our wounds of success, but they are what shaped us into the women we are today and we ought to look back and be proud. You are freaking killing the game.

GET YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS

This series is equipped with an additional email that goes along with each podcast episode that gets a little bit deeper with additional therapeutic action steps so you can release your wounds, too.

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