#117 What's in Your Luggage? How to Build Your Abundance Mindset
With Karisma Jay
Hi! New here? Welcome to the Uplifters! I'm Aransas Savas. I've spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. On The Uplifters Podcast, we share diverse stories of women who have found something beautiful on the other side of the hard stuff. Despite self-doubt and fear (and honestly, who doesn't have those?), they've done big, brave things anyway, and show us how we can too!
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This Week’s Featured Uplifter: Karisma Jay
In 117 episodes of this podcast, few guests have had such an immediate and profound impact on my daily life as Karisma Jay. Her energy is so infectious, her wisdom so powerful, that the very next morning after our conversation, I finally started The Artist's Way, which I'd been talking about doing for two decades. (It's been incredible, but more on that another time.)
I know lots of us are feeling short on resources right now. Maybe your bank account is low, maybe your hope is running dry, maybe your courage capital account feels like it's at rock bottom. If that's you today, this episode is medicine.
Karisma Jay is a true multi-hyphenate – award-winning performing artist, dancer, actress, filmmaker, director, wellness coach, teacher, entrepreneur, and the founder of the non-profit AbunDance Academy of the Arts. She's performed on Broadway, been featured in The New York Times, taught at Juilliard, and somehow still finds time to mentor the next generation of artists. Despite all of her incredible success, she’s navigating the same doubts, fears, and financial challenges that artists and non-profits are facing all over America right now.
In our conversation, Karisma talks about seeing negatives in her bank account more times than she'd like to admit this year. But instead of letting that scarcity slow her down, she's turned it into evidence of what's possible when we really show up for ourselves with integrity and intention.
I'm going to listen to this episode again and again – with my mother, with my daughters, with my friends – because it's jam-packed with practical wisdom about how we take these tough times and turn them into something that's FOR us, not against us.
Her Courage Practice: The Luggage Check
When life gets overwhelming and resources feel scarce, Karisma has developed what I'm calling her "luggage check" practice. She literally asks herself, "What do I have in my luggage that I can go back to?" Then she inventories her resources – not just the practical ones, but the experiential ones too.
Sometimes that means pulling out her journal and writing the same miracle story over and over again, reinforcing her faith in what's possible. Other times, it's remembering all the times things worked out when they seemed impossible. She's trained herself to play the miracles on repeat instead of the challenges, creating a mental playlist of evidence that good things can and do happen.
This practice ripples out into how she shows up for her students, her nonprofit work, and even how she designs her living space. She's learned to give herself the same care she pours into others – making her bed like she's providing turndown service at her own personal resort, asking herself what she needs before she hits empty instead of waiting until she's already depleted.
She even uses it preemptively. Just like packing sunscreen for your next trip while you're still on vacation, Karisma has learned to make deposits in her emotional and spiritual accounts when times are good. She surrounds herself with people and places that "give her back to herself" so that when the inevitable hard times come, she has resources ready to draw from.
Lift Her Up:
Follow and engage with her work on social media – as she beautifully explains, artists need more than just emotional support; they need strategic advocacy and long-term partnership. Find her and her work at: @iamkarismajay @abundancebk @palantethefilm @crownthefilm on Instagram
Share her content with your networks, especially if you know people in media, entertainment, or education who could help amplify her voice
Connect her to opportunities in your sphere – whether that's speaking engagements, collaboration possibilities, or simply introductions to people who share her values
Support Abundance Academy and learn more about their educational programming that's nurturing the next generation of conscious artists
Keep Listening
If you love Karisma’s abundance mindset and courage practices:
Listen to Tai Abrams, who nominated Karisma: Tai is an education entrepreneur, passive income lifestyle coach and bestselling author with a mission to empower people to achieve financial freedom and self-actualization. Like Karisma, Tai understands how to transform scarcity thinking into abundance and helps others create the life they want. If you attended Uplifters Live in 2024, you’ll definitely remember her crowd favorite panel.
For more on creative courage and reinvention, listen to:
Cleyvis Natera - Award-winning novelist who left a lucrative business career to write fiction. Her story echoes Karisma's courage to choose authenticity over security.
Julie Hartigan - Engineer-turned-chef who completely reinvented her career, showing that it's never too late to follow your creative calling.
Kara Cutruzzula - Writer and editor who crafted a multi-faceted creative career, embodying the multihyphenate spirit Karisma champions.
For abundance mindset and overcoming obstacles:
Jenny Jing Zhu - From a village in China without electricity to building a $100 million company. Her "luggage check" mentality perfectly complements Karisma's approach to finding resources in unexpected places.
Katie Horwitch - Founder of Women Against Negative Talk (WANT), helping women shift from negative self-talk to empowered action. Her work aligns beautifully with Karisma's practice of "playing miracles on repeat."
For courage in the face of challenges:
Maureen Spataro - Survivor who turned multiple traumas into her purpose, demonstrating the courage corner work Karisma talks about.
Rebecca Soffer - Co-founder of Modern Loss who transformed grief into meaningful community, showing how to alchemize struggles into strengths.
Resources Mentioned:
"The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron – Karisma's "artist bible" that she returns to again and again
AbunDance Academy of the Arts – Karisma's 12-year-old nonprofit organization
The quote "I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my sh*t" – from Erykah Badu, which resonated deeply with young Karisma
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