Be Your Own Genie! How to Turn Wishes Into Reality | Alexa Fischer, Ep. 203

Jennifer Norman:
You know, there's a moment in every life when waiting sometimes starts to get old. Waiting for permission, waiting to feel ready, waiting for someone or something to grant us the confidence to begin. But what if the power we've been looking for was never outside of us? Today's guest believes you don't need a fairy godmother, you don't need "better timing," you don't need to be chosen. You just need to remember that you are the genie. Alexa Fischer is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and the founder of WishBeads and WishClub. A Yale-trained actress turned confidence coach, she has taught more than 300,000 students worldwide how to communicate with clarity and step fully into their potential. She is the visionary behind a global intention-setting movement and the forthcoming book, You Are The Genie. Through Wish As One, she's also helping to spark collective activations rooted in shared imagination and possibility.

Jennifer Norman:
As a member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, Alexa's work bridges belief, embodiment, and bold action. So in our conversation, we are going to explore what it truly means to be your own genie, to move beyond wishful thinking and into intentional creation. We are going to talk about building self-trust, recognizing when life is calling you forward, and having the courage to answer. Alexa shares how belief lives in the body, how rituals anchor alignment, and how big ideas become meaningful experiences when they're rooted in community. So if you've been sensing that it's time to stop circling your potential and start claiming it, this episode will feel like a loving nudge from the universe. So now let's welcome Alexa Fischer to the stage. Hi there, Alexa. It's so good to see you.

Alexa Fischer:
Hello. Hello. I'm truly delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jennifer Norman:
You are most welcome to be here as my guest, and I had recently been your guest. I had the honor of meeting you a short while ago in your beautiful studio office in Santa Monica, Los Angeles as well as attending one of your beautiful workshops. And so I just knew that I had to have you on because your work is so meaningful. And I love the phrase, you are the genie. It's so playful and it's radical. I think that a lot of us have been conditioned to wait and to hope and to defer. So at the foundation, I would love to talk about what you mean by saying, hey, you are your own genie. What are we actually stepping into?

Alexa Fischer:
Well, actually, I love how you began this conversation because I think it's a very human thing to want to hedge our bets, right? We don't want to necessarily take this big risk and risk failing or wasting time or wasting money. And so I have found in my own journey that when we truly connect with our hearts and when we really ask ourselves, what are we truly wanting? There is an energy line, a power line, if you will, a magical connection and, and strength that comes with that decision. But we're all wrestling with belief. And so when I, and we'll talk about how I came up with the idea for wish beads because I, I say Alexa did not come up with it, it was given to me. But when I really understood that wishing is this powerful thing that we all do collectively, not everybody, but so many people do to celebrate the day of your birth, there's something to that. And yet society teaches us not to believe it with so many of the concepts that we have around wishful thinking and watch what you wish for. Wishy-washy, whatever. And yet when we really step back and recognize that if we can connect with that wish, this wish contains so much power and magic and nobody else can activate that but us.

Alexa Fischer:
So you are the genie. You are the one who can take back your own power where you don't have to hope that you bump into some magical lamp and then you have to rub it and some creature pops out.

Jennifer Norman:
Wouldn't that be nice?

Alexa Fischer:
We're completely reinventing this idea to recognize our own power within. That's the genie.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, gorgeous. Now, do you relate to this as manifestation or is this something else? Is this something deeper?

Alexa Fischer:
It's a great question. And a lot of times people ask me about manifestation, and there is a part of me that recognizes that manifestation is an extension of the Law of Attraction. And if you think of the Law of Attraction, you're really talking about energy meeting like energy. I'll give a very sort of rudimentary example of this. We feel people's energy. It's not a conscious thing. Our bodies feel it. So if someone were to walk into your home right now and they were gonna be very aggressive or very upset, your body would have a reaction because your energy is affected by their energy.

Alexa Fischer:
In a way, the thoughts that we have in our head, if you are rooted in a thought where you feel that the world is against you, that everything is bad, your mind is literally scanning your environment to recognize that story and reinforce it. So I used to say like, oh, the traffic in LA is horrible. But what I was doing was actually sitting in my car, assuming that the traffic or the drivers or whatever are going to be very aggressive very obnoxious, very whatever, but I would be looking for it. And so when something would happen, I'd say, "There you go." I'd reinforce my belief. Now, when you recognize that what you are setting your mind to, you are attracting, you are seeing, you are reinforcing, then you recognize that you can actually train your thoughts. So when we train our thoughts and we anchor them in the belief of, I see my wish, I feel this, I can't wait to see the manifestation or somebody recognizing the light in me, I see the light in them. It's a vibe. It's an energy. It's a perception shift.

Alexa Fischer:
And so when I think of manifestation, I think of the conscious choice to elevate my energy and tune my mind to that which I am desiring. And I will recognize it when I see it. So this is really out of the realm of woo-woo where you sit back and you just think it and you just do nothing and it just comes to you. Sometimes I think that that's the belief that people have about manifestation. Rather, I like to activate my own willpower. I like to activate my own genie muscles. I'd like to take my genie to the gym and train my mind to see the world where things are coming toward me.

Alexa Fischer:
And then it's my job to build my intuition to recognize and take action toward them.

Jennifer Norman:
Okay.

Alexa Fischer:
And so when you meet somebody, for example, when we met, I felt your energy. I asked questions, I learned about your story. I felt the synergies. And so there is a manifestation that's happening, but it really is about attunement, recognition, and action. It's a way of retraining your mind so that you are building up these new muscles of awareness, of perception, of intuition. And that's how things happen because it builds upon itself, and then suddenly that's just who you are. That's just who you are. But we do have the power to shift our thoughts.

Alexa Fischer:
And that's exciting because it puts the accountability on ourselves. And again, we're not waiting for somebody to grant us our wishes. We are in collaboration and co-creation with our wishes.

Jennifer Norman:
Listeners, you can tell what a master Alexa is about this. It's essentially like turning wish and that waffling feeling, that sentiment that you have like, oh, it's escaping, it's not really there, it's fleeting, it may or may not happen, but I wish, I hope. And there's a little bit of a desperation there, and Alexa teaches us how to turn that wish into will, into actual tangible life that you are absolutely living. And so this is interesting to you, then do stay with us because we are going to talk about the difference between fantasy and then aligned action, and that's where it gets real. Okay, so let's talk about this part because there is a big difference between wishing and creating. So Alexa, how do you help people cross that bridge?

Alexa Fischer:
Ooh, well, first of all, I just wanna call out, I love the translation of turning some, a wish into will. I love that. And I will tell you, I have really differentiated the difference between a wish and a goal because we've all become very goal-oriented and we're very comfortable with naming our goals and mapping out our goals and working with coaches to find our 1-year, 5-year, 10-year goals, all those things. And I am a very goal-oriented person. But where I find the secret sauce lies is a wish comes from your heart and a goal typically comes from your mind, your brain.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, that is the difference.

Alexa Fischer:
And we have built a cultural acceptance towards goals and that becomes the norm. And we use that language in our businesses. We even use it in our personal lives. But a wish has some tenderness because it is of the heart. Now, when we are young, I believe that we come into this world with our hearts wide open, like, I'm here, and we're very vulnerable. We have to be cared for. And then along the way, the Earth school is actually pretty rough, and things happen, and it's a scary, scary situation down here at times. And so we slowly, slowly begin to build up walls around our heart to protect our heart.

Alexa Fischer:
And some of that protection makes sense. It certainly not ill-advised, you don't be wide open all the time, but what we don't realize is that it happens so much that people confess to me, now that I've been in the wish business, that really the scary thing is they don't even know what to wish for. And what that says to me is that they have blocked their connection to their heart for so long that they don't know what they desire. And part of the learning, the new learning process with wishing, the way that I reinvent the way we wish is to slowly, slowly welcome people back to their hearts, back to that connection. Because the way that I understand wishing is that a wish is like a seed that your soul planted inside your heart before you were born. And inside this seed, it's almost, you can imagine, like a tiny little map that you said, you know what? And you said in your soul form, I'm gonna come to the earth and I'm gonna play out these things because this is my intention. In Buddhism, they call it the dharma. This is what my mission is. This is my work. This is what I came here to experience. And it's all contained in your wish.

Alexa Fischer:
But if we block our wishes, we move that awareness into our minds and we detach from our hearts. So wishing contains this invitation to just gently come back to your heart, to build a sense of childlike wonder, back to the question: if you were living your wish as if it already came true, what would that look like? What would it feel like? So you have to begin by giving yourself permission to do just that?

Jennifer Norman:
I'm going to share a very personal story which harkens back to inner child healing, and I've moved past it. A lot of times we say tell the story from our scars, not our wounds, and I assure you all that this is a scar and not a wound, but there is this real situation when I was younger and I was doing some homework and a family member looked at it and said, what the heck, you got almost everything wrong, and then somebody said, God, she is so stupid, and that stuck with me, and I remember it was almost like that moment when I felt everything moving to my head, like I had to like armor up and forget about the love. I had to show, I had to perform, and I became hypervigilant, did the whole MBA business school thing, I felt like I was overcompensating in that direction because I was trying to avoid feeling stupid. And it stayed with me for a long time until I realized that that was a voice from long ago and I forgave the voice and all of those things that you do when you unravel all these things in therapy. But that is the interesting thing, how the world can shift us from our hearts and even our guts, our intuition, to the head. And we get so focused on head because we feel that we have to perform. We feel that we have to have goals. If we don't, then we're not intelligent and we won't make it in our careers.

Jennifer Norman:
And so there is this sense that there is an imbalance towards potentially— there's the 3 brains, the head, the heart, and the gut, and sometimes we dismiss in society the heart and the gut and we overemphasize the brain, you know, the head. And so here we are divinely saying that it's okay to recognize that it is not weakness to think— I say think, but to feel with your heart, to listen to the gut, to really utilize all of these beautiful aspects of you that may have been suppressed or ignored through conditioning in your life. And so what Alexa is sharing now with wishing and dreaming and hoping and becoming and allowing and having will and having that true belief in you that you are enough, that's where the magic happens. So I just wanted to take that slight detour and share that story because it really landed for me.

Alexa Fischer:
Absolutely. And I thank you for sharing that. And I also love the scar and not the wound because it's a beautiful remembrance of what so many people— and even if a parent or a family member thinks that they're doing some kind of favor by saying something, those imprints in our mind and our heart can really shape us. And it's true. And it's never too late to rewrite your story, to go back and use techniques and therapies and methodologies to be free from that and recognize that story story that was given to you that you took as your own, that you took as the truth, that can be changed. And I often think about the film, I don't know if you remember this film, Life is Beautiful. And it was such a powerful, powerful film. But essentially, if you, to anyone watching and listening who has never seen it before, the premise is a father for the sake of his son, they're in a concentration camp and he convinces his young son that it's all a game.

Alexa Fischer:
He creates this illusion to carry this child's spirit through this horrific experience. And I go back to it because again, it is a conscious choice to navigate whatever is going on, to hardwire your spirit to optimism because that, again, we're gonna go back to quantum physics, we're gonna go back to energy meeting like energy. Something in that divine benevolence carries this soul through this experience. Even though it's not the truth, the truth as we see it, because so many things happen below our level of awareness. So much magic. And our society has convinced everybody that the truth is what we can see, what we can measure, what is right in front of our noses. And it's nonsense. Like, I'm looking at these beautiful trees outside and the magic that's happening with the rain falling on them and the photosynthesis and the growth and the— I don't know how any of it's happening.

Alexa Fischer:
I don't see it. I can't see all of the trillions of things that are keeping me alive and breathing and the mitochondria and all the— I can't see them. Does it mean they're not real? So, I mean, I could go on and on about this, but my point is that I think we could all use a beautiful dose of humility to recognize that when we are putting ourselves in a more positive mindset, even when we are facing difficult things, it is a gift not only to ourselves, but our energy is contributing to the energy around us, to the people, to the planet, to the consciousness. And so wishing is not a selfish act, not at all. Wishing is our birthright. Our happiness is our birthright. And when we wish, we change the energy of ourselves, which changes everybody around us.

Jennifer Norman:
So that's another topic, but yeah, and it's beautiful. And I think about how energy and that the way that we might react to some sort of causality may in fact be the blockage. But I love how you mentioned you have an active choice. I am a firm believer of radical responsibility and agency. You're not the victim here. We do victimize ourselves and we project some sort of persecutor in. In the case of my example, I might say, oh, it was that family member and how dare that I could live my life in that way, and perhaps I did for a period of time, until we wake up and say, no, I actually have the power to choose.

Jennifer Norman:
You know what? I'm gonna be happy. I wanna live joy forward. I wanna live heart forward. I am going to live my life deterministically based upon my wishes, not other people's wishes, not what other people should think of me or how I should be. And I will love. My choice is truly to be one that understands and recognizes and has compassion. For those voices, has self-compassion for if I might have fallen for it, and learns, okay, here is a moment in time, there is only my future to create. I can design the life that I want to live from this moment forward, all fresh, all fresh.

Alexa Fischer:
Yes, beautiful. And I think that's one of the things that I really so admire about you. I see in the brief time that we've known each other how you live your life through the lens of love. And so by all rights, you have taken your life journey and you've created beauty from it. And to have the courage to create the books and the, just the work that you do in the world and the person that you are in the world. And I think that that is a shining example that by making the choice to lean in with love and look at whatever situation that you're presented with and ask yourself, what am I meant to learn? And it's not to say that we all want life to be easy and to have, right? You know, it's sometimes our biggest life lessons come from our hardest challenges. And I stood in awe as certainly one of my friends, Claudine Champion, she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer with the appearance of brain lesions. Like, if you Google that for all of 20 seconds, you would realize that this is a very serious diagnosis.

Alexa Fischer:
And yet, after the initial kind of shock of the diagnosis itself, she navigated through her healing journey with that one question, "What am I meant to learn?" And she, that openness, this is the same energy of wishing, this just divine curiosity, the presence of the fragility of life was so part of her process that in her healing, in her treatments that she did, and the way she showed up with energy into her treatments and the way that she dialogued with nurses and the doctors and all this stuff. I don't know how this happened, but she's in full remission. And she— I think of her and her— that question whenever I'm confronted with all of the decisions of life, of all the challenges in life, because everybody has challenges, even if it looks like on Instagram that they don't, right? They do. But what am I meant to learn is really the playground that we want to live in. And what am I meant to discover? And how good is it going to get? What is the best case scenario? And it goes back to where is the lens of your life? Most of us have been programmed to think, and we say all the time, I mean, what's the worst that could happen? That's the default. What's the worst that could happen? But imagine if we were a society to present ideas and say, well, what's the best that could happen? And that feels weird because we don't say it. Now it's time for us to say it because we are the dreamers. And if we want to dream and wish into a new world, it is time for us to recognize what is truly meaningful, what success really is.

Alexa Fischer:
Because if there's one thing that these Epstein files have revealed is that what we thought was successful, right, is not successful. Not successful.

Jennifer Norman:
Power dynamics. Big reckoning.

Alexa Fischer:
Big reckoning, people. Big reckoning. Some of the biggest minds in mindfulness, I'm looking at you, Deepak Chopra. I know. Sorry, I just gotta say it. It is time for people to not just sit in anger and rage and sort of disbelief. Rather, what are we meant to learn? What are we meant to learn? Because there is what I know that we can do today is take ownership of ourselves. And so when we take that ownership and we look around our homes and our families and our businesses and our— and say, how can I pour a little more love into myself, into my family, into my business? How can we create the best case scenario? But yes, the reckoning is the beginning of the revolution.

Jennifer Norman:
That is really remarkable and beautiful. I want to talk about the embodiment or the act of wishing and what that does and what feels like, because I think that there may be a feeling that wishing is like anticipation, and like, I want to hear you describe it in your words. What— I hate to say the word optimal, but— or like, what is a great wish versus one that is not necessarily what you're thinking of in terms of the energy that you want to embody when you are wishing? Could you take us through a little bit of that?

Alexa Fischer:
Yes. Well, that's sort of a multi-pronged question. It is. It is. Yeah, no, we'll break it down like this. I will tell you the ways in which I teach wishing, and we'll start there. So when we think about wishing, it's like in society now and sort of how we've thought about it, we've got a couple of different ways that we wish right now. And that is around the birth— your birthday candle, but you're given a very brief moment and it kind of feels a little performative, right? So on your birthday, someone presents you with a cake and you see those little candles and maybe there's a moment where in a performative kind of way, you're like, oh, what's my wish? But you haven't really thought about it.

Alexa Fischer:
It's just sort of something that happens. You do it very quickly. Maybe you close your eyes, but the intention is that you're closing your eyes, which is an invitation to go inward. Perhaps you're checking with your heart. Maybe it goes to your mind. What do I want? And then you're taking action. You're blowing out a candle. In other ways, maybe you pass by a fountain, you see a bunch of pennies on the bottom and you think, oh, I'm gonna make a wish. Maybe you give yourself a little more time. If you're the kind of person who's gonna throw away your money into a thing, a public thing of water, maybe you give yourself a little more time and then you toss it. Maybe you're having a contemplative moment looking up at the stars and you see a falling star and you feel like, okay, I'm gonna make a wish. But all of these are pretty fleeting.

Alexa Fischer:
When I share the resources or I lead experiences in my wish circles, I guide people through a visualization. So if you've meditated before, meditation is simply an intentional time to quiet your mind, maybe connect with your breath, connect with your heart, connect with something outside yourself like a flame or a dot on the wall. But the idea is to quiet your chatter, chatter, chatterbox mind and come back to the presence of you, the energy of you. And this is a practice.

Alexa Fischer:
You can't just start meditating once and think, well, I did that, or I'm not a meditator. It actually takes It takes practice to allow to have that moment where you're quieting your mind, coming back into your body, and awakening presence. For those of you who might be new to this, I would recommend listening to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now just as a way to come in. I think he does a beautiful job as a teacher and as a person. But wishing, when I teach wishing and I guide people through the experience, it's a guided visualization, and that usually when I do them, I do offer them as monthly virtual wish circles, but essentially you're imagining sort of de-stressing your body, so sort of relaxing any tension you might be holding in your body and your mind and releasing that so you can kind of bring your awareness back inward. Then I invite people to imagine and connect with the light around their hearts, and this light grows so much that it actually forms almost like a little movie projector. Your light is shining onto a screen and you're imagining a moment. Now here's what I always preface before we begin: never to judge the experience, because we all have conscious wishes.

Alexa Fischer:
Maybe there are things that we're wanting to change in our personal life or our financial life or our business life. But when we are doing a guided visualization, in a way, you're trusting yourself to have an experience. So if something is shown to you, and I'll get to the clause, the asterisk, which is some people are not visual, and so I'll talk about that in a moment, but in the experience, perhaps you're seeing a moment that you didn't anticipate, And it's not like this is fortune telling. So if you see something that you're like, wait a minute, I don't want that. And I'll tell you a story about when that happened to somebody who kind of freaked out. All it is is with curiosity, not criticism. You just have the experience. And then as I guide you, I invite you to awaken your senses in your mind's eye and to see something, to feel something, to touch something, to recognize what are you wearing.

Alexa Fischer:
And all of these are like little clues that can show you the essence of what you're ready to bring into your life right now. So it works in a number of different ways. It can give you a very specific insight into what you're ready to call in, whether it's a beautiful Hawaiian vacation or a new home or the energy or the presence of a new partner in your life, whatever the case may be. But there's also other details that tell a story. But let's say, for example, you're wearing. I'll just get— this one just popped into my head, but many years ago in a Wish Circle, I saw myself wearing a toe ring. I was like, I don't wear a toe ring. It didn't even occur to me to wear a toe ring.

Alexa Fischer:
But this worked in a couple of different ways. These are like symbols. So I thought to myself afterward, as I, with curiosity, contemplated what this aspect meant, I was barefoot. It was somewhere super in nature. It was like, it felt like camp. I'll talk about that in and the toe ring made me feel like I was like super goddess grounded, earthy, like it had a vibe and an energy to it. Now, about a year later. So on one hand, so one, I got a toe ring.

Alexa Fischer:
Two, because that's not hard to make your wish come true. I just was like, let's try it. What does it feel like if it's just a toe ring on my toe, which is kind of cool. But the other thing was about a year later, I had an opportunity to co-lead as a facilitator at another event. And as I I was getting to know this individual and we were talking one morning and it was casual and it was out in the earth, it was very earthy, it was sort of a camp setting. I looked down and she's wearing a toe ring. So these are these little clues and coincidences that I think allow you to see that you are supported, that when you open up your perception, you are going to recognize these little clues that you're in alignment. So going back to your wish, it does offer sort of a pin in the map of your destiny, meaning this is this thing that your heart is ready to call in, these clues, this energy, this feeling.

Alexa Fischer:
And you can use it in two ways. One, you can consciously actively work towards making that experience happen for yourself and then see how you feel, even if it takes time. And you can also bring elements of it into your life right now as a visual reminder to connect you to the energy of your wish. So for one, I mean, I've led literally thousands of people through this, but I had one woman who did a Wish Circle with me and she saw herself on this big ferris wheel. Yes, exactly. Anyway, and it had a whole story around it. And as she was telling me this story, her whole face softened and she had this like, just this glow about her. And I said, one of the things that you can do is find an image of what you're seeing, this ferris wheel that was at night and it was all lit up.

Alexa Fischer:
Just find an image, any image online, and then take that image and put it on your phone. And then every time you pick up your phone, you have a visual clue that is gonna connect you to your heart and that energy of your wish. Now on a tangible level, she can go create that vacation or destination for her, for her family to actually experience that. And that's very powerful in and of itself, but it's the energy that you can bring into your life right now, which means you can in a way make those wishes come true. And you're setting yourself up vibrationally to connect with that energy throughout the day by those visual clues. And that's actually what wish beads is all about. It's a visual clue because your wish is connected or tucked inside these cylinders or written on the paper that connects you back to that story so that in life as you are, woo-hoo, in life as you are navigating all of the stresses, which is part of being human, you can go back to those visual clues to just remind yourself, yes, this is what I am about, this is what I am anchoring my mind, my heart towards, and this is what I am quote unquote attracting.

Jennifer Norman:
Excellent, excellent. So the vision board or a visual cue helps to activate and get you into the energy of making your wish come true. Do you think that it happens faster or slower, or do you think that, you know, just let the quantum— the universe works in mysterious ways and, um, yeah, I think versus just like the fleeting thought, like, oh, I wish— I mean, is it further off if you don't, you know, kind of get that energy and bring it towards you as you've described?

Alexa Fischer:
Well, I think that there's energy, but then there's action. And, in 2019 I published a book called Wish Work, and in addition to wishing because I like action. I'm an entrepreneur by nature. I'm a teacher by nature. And so I think there's always homework to do. And why? Because I want to make sure that I'm giving everything I've got to make those wishes come true. Because I believe that where, you know, your energy goes— what's that phrase?

Jennifer Norman:
Where your attention goes, your energy flows.

Alexa Fischer:
Boom. Yeah. Okay. So the idea is is that on one hand, yes, you can visualize it, you can claim it, you can name it, you can write about it. All of these are very important things. And when you do a little work, hence the wish work, you are going to see for yourself, you're gonna build those genie muscles. You are going to see that there is momentum that is built, there is energy flowing. So I believe that you will achieve those wishes much faster. And you will also recognize that you are more capable.

Alexa Fischer:
So if you can do it with this one wish, well, then you can do it with your home remodel. Then you can do it with revamping your resume, which is going to help you get those job interviews, which is going to help you get a new job. It's help you go to a networking event. So these are— this is how you build the momentum. Wish Work itself is a 21-day experience where each day you are given a very simple game to play with life. The first day is literally called Time to Smile, and the invitation for this wish work prompt is to notice 3 smiles and consciously decide, 'cause many of us walk around in life just sort of with either a default or maybe a scowl, or maybe we're worried. But when you consciously decide to connect with another human and offer a smile, energy shifts. Now I'll tell you a story because I think this is the one that, well, this was shared with me by one of my customers.

Jennifer Norman:
And as an aside, I swipe left on profiles without a smile.

Alexa Fischer:
Boom.

Jennifer Norman:
Anyway, go ahead, you were saying.

Alexa Fischer:
It's true. It's an energy.

Jennifer Norman:
Just had to throw that in there.

Alexa Fischer:
Yeah. A smile is a reflection of your spirit. It is your like billboard that says, yes, here I am, universe. Let's go.

Jennifer Norman:
Good toothy smile. Mm. Just let it out. Yeah.

Alexa Fischer:
Love it.

Jennifer Norman:
Let the joy flow.

Alexa Fischer:
Let it out, baby. Exactly. Exactly. That's who I wanna hang out with. Exactly. But there was a woman who wrote to me and her girlfriend, they were taking a girls weekend and her girlfriend had decided to get everybody wish beads in advance. And she got my recording of the guided visualization. She got everybody wish workbooks.

Alexa Fischer:
And the whole idea was to create this sort of culmination celebration of each other's wishes at the end of the weekend. So they did that. But the woman who wrote me was like, look, I loved my bracelet. I was a little skeptical of the wish work thing, but the next day in the airport, I was sitting there and I had plenty of time before my flight. So she told me that she opened up the book and started reading, you know, reading reading the book and then got to day 1, which was called Time to Smile. And she thought to herself, she almost double dared the universe. She was like, I don't know about any of this. So she's like, fine, I'll do it. I've got time. I'm sitting here at the airport.

Alexa Fischer:
So she looks up and she scans the terminal and everybody has their head down. I'm talking everybody. They've got their head buried in their phone. Nobody is looking at anybody else. So she's first noticed, this is crazy. Nobody is looking. Everybody is like drowning in their own story. Okay.

Alexa Fischer:
But she finally scans and she's like, spies like a 4-year-old boy, 5-year-old little boy, and they lock eyes and she decides to smile at him. That's the prompt. You know, just smile at somebody. This little boy marches right over to her, stands right in front of her and says, you are the best person ever! She was like, what witchcraft is this? Now I don't know why that little boy did that. However, something unlocked in her that was like, whoa, this is wild.

Alexa Fischer:
And that's just that blast that you need to have the courage to keep going. And we've all had those moments when someone says to us, like, I just had the craziest thing happen. Like, I was just thinking about you and you called. And that's when you start to become a believer. That's when you start to say, this stuff is— something is happening here that I am not aware of, that like, this wild. I am more supported than I realize. And that gives you that blast of encouragement to keep going, keep going. So that's what the wish work does for you.

Alexa Fischer:
It takes your genie to the gym. It makes you go, okay, well, let's do this. Let's go. And then when you walk into events, let's say for example, you are already in alignment to be like, come on, universe, show me who I'm meant to meet. You are just ready. And that's when this comes back to the manifestation law of attraction. Attention piece. You are tuning your energy to look for the magic.

Alexa Fischer:
The magic is gonna find you. The coincidences, the opportunities, the alignments, the things that you're supposed to notice, but it takes practice. And that's what the wish work does.

Jennifer Norman:
And the wish work is grounded in almost like these rituals. It's like you create these beautiful symbols, these talismans of your wish so that your attention is going to them. You're wearing them. Ladies and gents, beautiful humans, I've got my paper beads on that I made in Alexa's workshop where we actually wrote wishes down and we created these gorgeous— I don't know if you can see them, I'm gonna get closer, but there's the handwriting on each of these paper beads so that I can wear it and remember what my wish is. Inside these wish bracelets is a cute little secret compartment where you can actually— yes, there you go, there you go. I have a scroll where I have written a wish inside and I've tucked it in here and I keep it close close to my body so that I can touch it, I can feel it, I can remember the wish. And you told us a beautiful story when we were together about this gorgeous insignia, which is on— yes, which is the WishBeads logo. Can you share that?

Alexa Fischer:
Yes, absolutely. I had the pleasure of working with a phenomenal designer when I was first launching the business. Her name is Satoko Furuta, and she asked me when I was starting my company, so what is WishBeads all about? Like, what was the inspiration? And I had shared with her, she happens to be Japanese American, but I was sharing with her that my philosophy around wishing was anchored in a few, ironically, Japanese principles. One is wabi-sabi, which is the art of imperfection. So there's this idea that we think we're all striving for something that's perfect, but actually we're beautifully unique and imperfect, and that's what makes us beautiful. So there's no such thing as the perfect wish. It's this beautiful, bumpy, wild road of life, and we are to celebrate the art of that. The next was I shared with her the principle of kaizen.

Alexa Fischer:
Kaizen is about the art of continual improvement and the idea that when you are wishing, you are improving yourself. You are saying yes to this journey of self-discovery, which has always been a huge part of the work that I do both personally and professionally. And then the third thing was at the time I was practicing Ishin Ryu karate, which is a Japanese form of karate. I also practice Aikido. And so anyway, I was sharing with her that these are the energies behind WishBeads and the work that I'm doing. And she said, so she came back and she showed me the WishBeads logo. I don't happen to have a box with me to show you what it is, but essentially it looks like, it looks like the sign of the woman, but on its side. And it's the stylized Japanese kanji for wish granted.

Alexa Fischer:
Like, it's a done deal. Thank you. It's also indicative of the Egyptian ankh, which is the sign of life. So there's a lot of probably more sacred energy that I'm aware of, but that was the evolution or the birth of our logo.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, I love that. And I love how you're so respectful to the elements and just the beauty of nature and just the the fact that we are so entwined and in unity with nature. I see the beautiful wood that you have behind you. You make wish wands out of these beautiful wooden rods and wrap them with crystals and feathers and, and, and have a beautiful workshop and rituals around that as well. And yeah, there is a sacredness that, and a beauty and a reverence for the work. And that's how I love that you're creating these magical rituals, if you will, and making them special so that they light us. There's something that does spark the inner child in us when we're, you know, kind of playing in the woods or feeling like we've got crystals and things that are magical and whimsical around us. And that energy, I think, is also part of the joy of the experience as well.

Alexa Fischer:
Yes, I thank you. I, you know, I think you, when you recognize that you are creating what you are desiring, I think that Wish Club, which is my new space in Santa Monica where I host events and workshops and wish circles, was really this playground for possibility. And I think especially since this post-COVID world, when we all were squirreled away in homes, that the craving for human connection was so real and I was hungry for it. And I think that it's a healthy way for humans to recognize how powerful we are. You know, we, We are now living in the birth of AI, and so I believe there will be a returning to the preciousness and reverence of the Earth and being an Earthling, of being together to be creative, to recognize that we are so strong in community. And so when I was presented with the opportunity to get this new space in Santa Monica, I immediately jumped in and I thought, let's create Wish Club, let's create space where these kinds of activities can come together, not just in the rituals that we do with found objects and crystals and paper bead wish beads and all of that, but also in those activities that bring joy, that bring connection. And so we just did, we're doing Mahjong Monday and we had a huge group on Monday and it's so fun to listen to the laughter and the music and the camaraderie. And it's like Monday night, you know, from 7 to 10.

Alexa Fischer:
It's the perfect way to start your week. I just hired a line dancer to come. Why? Because that's fun. But I also have, you know, energy healers come, a beautiful sound practitioner named Christy Christiansen does regular workshops. So the idea that we come together to really build that support so that we are not just hoping that our wish comes true or doing it secretly and not telling anybody me, forget it because it doesn't even make sense. When we do things in community and you have those opportunities to ask questions, we have an event that I host for Wish Club members called Wish Work Wednesday where you're literally coming in and we talk about how's it going towards your wish? What actions are you taking? Where are you stuck? How can we help? And that's where we start to build that momentum.

Jennifer Norman:
Like an accountability buddy.

Alexa Fischer:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I know that my biggest wishes, they come, they happen because other people help me. It's not all up to me.

Jennifer Norman:
Nothing happens without another human being to support you. Nothing in life.

Alexa Fischer:
Nothing. Nothing. And yet because of that tenderness, going back to the tender way that we protect our heart, we don't wanna share that wish. 'Cause how's it gonna feel if it doesn't come true? But how's it gonna feel if you never try? You're gonna leave the planet with regrets. And that's not okay.

Jennifer Norman:
It's courageous work. And I love that you are building community and you have talked about the power of communal wishing and, you know, people coming together as a collective to, you know, do this work, to support each other, to cheer each other on, and for people to be bold enough to stand up and say, this is my wish. And you never know who in the group is like, I know somebody, or I can do that, or I can help you with that. And the networking is there. The universe brings together your collection of angels, you know, in human form and non-human form, and they beckon to your genie call. They really do.

Alexa Fischer:
They do. I mean, that's the magic. And you're the lamp, you're the one rubbing the lamp, you're the genie that's popping out. It's all you. It's you in concert with the world. And the more that people do that, we can have these quantum shifts and solutions and creativity and all of it that we are wanting, that we are hungry for. And now is our time.

Jennifer Norman:
And I think for those who are listening, this is probably a sign from the universe because there's usually this moment when in our lives we feel summoned or we feel like there's something goading us on or something calling to us. It might not be loud, it might be persistent, we might not have been listening deeply enough, but maybe this is a sign that you are able to, to hear it a little bit clearly. So I wanted to ask you, Alexa, how do you think that we know when life is inviting us into a bigger version of ourselves?

Alexa Fischer:
I mean, I don't really know that there's ever a moment where that's not happening. I think that there's a readiness, and you can recognize the readiness. There are seasons in our lives where maybe we're taking more of a listening mode instead of an action mode, I know that we've just moved into the Chinese Lunar New Year of the Fire Horse, so there's a lot of conversation around like action, go, go, go. And yet I think that developing a relationship with your own intuition is honoring your own rhythm and recognizing that taking care of this body is your best— your body, mind, spirit, heart, all of them, not just your physical body— is your best friend. And when you are getting that excitement in your gut, in your heart, my friend Alex Francic calls it your HUT, the combination of the two, that is a great indication of readiness. So that's that spark. So if you train yourself to listen to the spark, to listen to that rev of energy, just become a witness to these patterns. So if you get this excitement, I'll give you a real example.

Alexa Fischer:
This is a real example. It just happened to me the last 24 hours.

Jennifer Norman:
Of course. Please.

Alexa Fischer:
So yesterday I got a message and I happened to see it on my phone. It was an email, but I got it on my phone where for many years I was a media trainer. I would train people how to speak with confidence on camera, on stage. And it's with a terrific company. I love this, this guy that who has a PR firm. So he asked, he introduced me to a client. She wants some media training. She's going on a national TV show.

Alexa Fischer:
And I'm in a place in my life where I'm building quite a few things. And part of my brain says, Alexa, focus. I have a lot going on. Every time I take a client, there's a process. It takes time. So be focused. Say with graciousness, no. So I wrote back the client, my friend, and I said, thank you so much.

Alexa Fischer:
Here's where I am. This is, you know, new update. I have a new space, et cetera. I gave it, but I wish you luck and good luck. And like, I basically graciously said, no, thank you. Then, you know, end of story. Okay. Boundaries. Haha.

Alexa Fischer:
Then I I got a wonderful email back from the client and she was like, 'cause I explained I was doing Wish Club, I had launched this space and this is where my energy and focus was. And she was like, 'Totally understand, super intrigued about Wish Club.' Now because I was at my desk at this point, I decided to click on her. I decided to do a little research. If you just check somebody's email address, usually if they have a company, you'll see the end of the— I said, 'Let me just see what she's about.' 'Cause I liked her spirit. She was sort of curious about Wish Club. She was very friendly. So I looked at the work that she does.

Alexa Fischer:
Well, this woman is a survivor of colorectal cancer, stage 4, maybe? Mother of 3 boys. She's going on, she has a nonprofit. And I was like, oh, absolutely. I am going to help this woman because she's got an important message to share. Now, here's where I want to say my brain yesterday said, Alexa, focus, boundaries, say no. Be true to yourself. The next day when I got a little more information, had a little more spaciousness, I could learn about her. I felt the excitement of, and the enthusiasm that I had for this woman's work in the world, that it felt I could imagine, I could project in my mind me helping her just a little bit share this important work with the world on national television.

Alexa Fischer:
And I thought, make time. This woman is doing important things. Make time. It made me feel enthusiastic. That's my body that telling me, "Yes, pivot and say yes." And so I wrote her back immediately and said, "Hold on. I now know what you're up to. Let's call me later and let's make time and let's do this. It would be my honor to help you." And I think that when you're working towards your wishes, your readiness, you're going to have to figure out who's in charge.

Alexa Fischer:
I've worked a long, hard while on my inner critic. Inner critic, and now we are in relationship. We're in conversation. I am not a victim to that voice that is telling me, no, you can't. No, it's not possible. Sometimes that voice has more power than you realize, but I've worked over the years to really work with my inner critic because sometimes there's constructive criticism. That's cool. But this critic isn't going to stop me.

Alexa Fischer:
So I give myself permission to really do that dance between, am I being stopped? Am I thinking small? Am I being stuck and scared? That's when the inner critic has got too much. It's like the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. He's got too much power, she, whatever, that power in you. But you have to be in dialogue recognizing that you always have plenty of power, that you always have choices. And when you can connect with your inner intuition, your body language, your feelings, then you can make a decision that really is moving you in the direction of your highest and best self.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, I love that. I love that so much because I think that there are so many times where people are like, I'm not ready yet. I feel like maybe I need to take another certification class until I'm ready, or I need to get more under, you know, I need to do this before, before, before, before, before. And then they're waiting to be so ready for that leap that the energy doesn't necessarily invite itself in. There is some blockage in that nervousness or in that feeling of, of, I would say, perhaps a lack of self-confidence. And so that might get in the way of the curiosity and that openness to say, okay, what, you know, what could I invite in that might move me towards a little bit closer to my dream that isn't necessarily the same kind of action that I've already been taking? Because that hasn't necessarily gotten me there yet. Maybe there's some curiosity about something new that you can try. If it's something where you feel like it might be out of your comfort zone, that is, you know, a good sign that, oh, maybe we can start stretching boundaries a little bit.

Jennifer Norman:
But then also boundaries are important to your point, you know. And so it is a very personal choice. It is a very personal thing about whether or not you feel that you're ready for activation. But I love that you have a 21-day service for people that they can actually follow along and as simple as noticing smiles, as simple as like, you know, writing your wishes down, things like that, and getting into the energy so that it doesn't feel like it's so daunting that it's impossible, that your wishes can't come true. They actually can, and there are some things that you can do to continue moving actively, taking action towards that, that feel comfortable and right for you. It's so beautiful.

Alexa Fischer:
One of the things that I'm working on, and I'm going to be launching in the next month or so, is is a community called Wish Class, because I think that what you are speaking to, a lot of people have confessed to me that their wishes seem so big or it just seems so daunting that it actually is easier to sit on the couch and watch Netflix or say, I'm not going to take another certification or do all the things. And I do it too.

Jennifer Norman:
That's procrastination. I do it too.

Alexa Fischer:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that there are so many ways that step by step, that there are ways that we can flex those muscles. And for anyone listening who this might resonate with them in terms of the dauntingness or you don't know where to begin, we can start with the teeniest action steps. And I tell people that, you know, when you're deciding what you want to wear in the morning, changing the language of what do I wish to wear today, just raise it up a little bit so it doesn't just become a function of like, I have to dress my body, but make it a little delicious. You know, what's going to feel amazing? That act of asking yourself something as simple as choose the clothing, what do I wish to wear, is flexing that same muscle. But it's easy. It's just one decision. There's no ramifications.

Alexa Fischer:
It's a baby. It's a little low stakes, you know, low stakes wish. The same with you go to a restaurant. You know, maybe if you're somebody who is so used to accommodating, like, oh, do you wanna split? Whatever you want, I'll eat it. Maybe you always deflect to somebody else's what they desire. But when you sit down at somewhere Yeah, if somebody is sitting and giving you a menu or you're deciding where you want to eat, you're looking at all those choices and what do I wish to eat right now? What is going to be so satisfying to me right now? And this is the way you start to orient yourself and work those muscles, but you just start them with baby weights. Then it becomes, you start to up, what do I wish to do this weekend? What do I wish to do this weekend? What would be my dream weekend? Or what do I wish to do with this free half hour in my day? What do I wish to do? And then you start to, again, it's just you're building up muscles. Wish Class is an extension of that where we go a little bit deeper, where we're looking at the things where we're draining our genie juice, where we're building up to get our genie to the gym.

Alexa Fischer:
So it's really meant to be easy, fun work, but it's powerful work. It's deceptively easy, but it's powerful work.

Jennifer Norman:
I love that because there are so many times it's like, what do you want for dinner? Oh, and it's a stressful thing. It's like, why do I have to decide again? What do you want to have? Where do you want to go?

Alexa Fischer:
Oh, don't turn it into stress.

Jennifer Norman:
That's what we don't want to do. This should be fun. The energy should be light and juicy. I love that energy.

Alexa Fischer:
Amazing.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh my goodness. Amazing. Oh gosh. I want to ask everybody. Okay. So if you were to start this work, if you were to be granted a way wish that you want to have just by the end of the day? What would that be? We can start small. What would that wish be? How many smiles can we notice today? How many smiles can we give today? How many compliments? How many people can we tell they are the most amazing people in the world? How great would that be? Yeah, to help each other smile, and that energy is also one that welcomes in and invites wishes granted.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh my gosh, Alexa, I can talk to you forever. I can absolutely talk to you forever. But I wanted to, to let you know that in my podcast, towards the end, I always ask my guests 3 common questions. They're simple on the surface, but I think that they reveal a lot because they're reminders of what connects us: our beauty, our humanity, and the truth that we live by. So this first question is, what makes you beautiful?

Alexa Fischer:
That's such a beautiful question. Your light. That's what makes you beautiful. And your light is that energy inside your heart. It's the light that you share when you allow yourself to let go of all that judgment and you step into your joy and you step into your laughter and your love and your silliness and your presence. And so it's light, and that's actually the energy that when people say, you know, that person lights up a room, they're just living in their light, and that is irresistibly beautiful.

Jennifer Norman:
The year of the fire, year of the horse. Love that answer. My second question: what does it mean to be human?

Alexa Fischer:
To be human is to— the first word that came to mind is humility. I think that we are bodies having a spiritual experience here on Earth, and I think to be human is to recognize the gift of being alive, to recognize that this was our choice to come here, and to recognize that it's a privilege to bring our energy, our soul energy, to the planet. And when you recognize that and connect with the intentions that you made before you were born, whether you're aware of it or not, consciously or unconsciously, living that legacy is how you will leave the planet with knowing that it was a life well lived.

Jennifer Norman:
It seems like that is how wishing and humanity intersect for you. That's really a beautiful answer.

Alexa Fischer:
Yeah, they do. They do.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. And the last question is, what is one truth that you live by?

Alexa Fischer:
Ah, the only truth there is, the golden rule, which is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden rule that if you really stick, it is golden for a reason. In life with all the complexities of human behavior, and the state of the world and everything. If you go back to just to do unto others as you would have them do to you, you are golden. That is it. And sometimes we need to catch ourselves in the heat of the moment and pause, the magic pause, to really remember that truth. And instead of feeling entitled to spew a little bit more negativity in the world, and I do too at times, we have to recognize to go back to the Golden Rule.

Jennifer Norman:
I love that Golden Rule. I wish, yeah, I wish that it was something that was top of mind for everyone at all times. Oh my gosh. Well, Alexa, I think, I mean, listening to you, I always do come back to this feeling of remembering. It is like remembering our soulfulness, our divineness, our joy, our light, our ability to love ourselves and love each other, doing unto others as we're doing ourselves, and I feel like, you know, doing the whole genie work, being our own genie, isn't about getting everything that you want. I really think that it is about being choiceful, being intentional, being mindful about what aligns with you and how grand that energy can be for yourself. Trusting our own voices, trusting our own inner beliefs, our body, our— not only our brains but our our heart and our guts, and then having that vision to move towards what we're truly desiring. I love how you answered those 3 questions.

Jennifer Norman:
I think that, you know, it just seems like, you know, beauty is light, being human is being a soul incarnate and having humility and, and serving other people, and the truth is just living a life of love, living a life of of just authentic, unfettered, beautiful love. So my heart is full right now. I thank you so much. I think for our listeners, if something stirred in you from our conversation today, let it stay with you. Choose one wish, choose a courageous step, choose a truth that you're ready to embody. Do not be passive because wishing is action-oriented. It's a declaration. You are so much more powerful than you've ever been taught to believe.

Jennifer Norman:
We know it, you know it, deep down inside, you are such a beautiful human. Thank you, Alexa, for all of your work and for being my guest today. My name is Jennifer Norman, and this is the Human Beauty Movement.

Alexa Fischer:
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to the Human Beauty Movement podcast. Be sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community-based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.