A story about identity, personal power, and why small decisions reshape everything

The year was 2019.
I was rebuilding from zero.

I had sold my businesses.
Left the United States.
Walked away from a stable remote coaching job.
And I was deep in the middle of paying off more than $100,000 in debt.

Most months, I was earning three to four thousand dollars.
I lived inexpensively, budgeted tightly, and poured almost everything I made into debt payments.

And even in that season, when things were stretched thin, I did two things with my money that personal finance experts would have called irresponsible.

I started investing.
And I started giving.

Not later.
Not once I was debt free.
Not once I hit a “safe” income milestone.

I did it right then, while things were still uncertain.

The Two Small Decisions That Changed Everything

Every week, I invested $50 into fractional ETFs through an app.
Part went into a tiny personal portfolio.
Part went into a retirement fund.
It felt small, almost symbolic.

And every month, I donated $25 to fund microloans for entrepreneurs around the world.
Those twenty-five dollars traveled farther than I ever could have imagined.
Today, that choice has helped support more than seven hundred small business owners, most of them women.

Why did I do this when I still had debt?
Why did I do this when “experts” would have told me to wait?

Because the shift I needed was not mathematical.
It was personal.
It was identity level.

I Did Not Want to Be Led by the Story of “There Is Never Enough”

I grew up with that story.
I carried it into adulthood.
I carried it into how I earned, how I spent, and who I allowed myself to become.

But I knew something:
If I kept living from that story, I would keep recreating it.

I wanted to be a woman who invested.
A woman who gave.
A woman who made choices that aligned with her future, not her fear.

I wanted to become someone who lived a new truth.

There is always extra for what matters most.

Those small decisions, made every week and every month, rewrote my relationship with money.
They rewrote the way I saw myself.
They rebuilt my internal sense of possibility long before the numbers reflected it.

The Long-Term Impact of Living Like the Woman I Was Becoming

Those early and “irresponsible” choices helped me:

Pay off more than one hundred thousand dollars in debt
Build multiple revenue streams that support my life, not drain it
Create a business that aligns with my values and energy
Live in a way that feels rich in every sense, not just financially

What I learned in that season is something I teach constantly now.

Lifestyle design is not just about freedom, travel, or time.
It is about identity.
It is about rewriting what you believe about yourself, one small decision at a time.

Because becoming the next version of yourself does not happen later.
It happens now.

If You Feel the Pull to Rewrite Your Story Too

If your financial life feels heavy
If the way you earn does not match the life you want
If your relationship with money still feels tied to old stories
If you are craving alignment and clarity

You do not need to wait for perfect conditions.
You do not need to be debt-free.
You do not need to have it all figured out.

You just need to decide you are worth designing for.

If you want support in making that shift, start with either:

The free Profits Reality Check Guide to understand what is really happening in your business and where pressure is being created.
Or a Business Architecture Audit if you want personalized clarity on how to redesign your business and life around your values.

Small decisions change everything.
This is where that change begins.

Katrina Cobb is a Business Architect for high-achieving women founders scaling beyond their status quo. She helps leaders redesign the architecture of their business — systems, structure, team, and profitability — so growth feels spacious, sustainable, and deeply aligned.
Explore her work at katrinacobb.com.