You did everything right.

The degree. The job everyone told you to want. The boxes, checked.

And still — there’s that quiet voice asking, okay… when does the good part start?

Here’s the truth: we never stop evolving. New desires aren’t a sign you’re ungrateful. They’re a sign you’re growing.

In this episode, I’m taking you inside my actual manifestation process — the mindset AND the strategy. Because the woo without the work is a wish… but the work without the belief burns you out. You need both.

We get into:

• What manifestation actually is (spoiler: the universe is not Amazon — it’s not delivering your dream life to your couch)
• The four moves: decide, think, feel, and become the version of you who already has it
• Why your thoughts and feelings are either speeding up your manifestation or quietly blocking it
• A future-self journaling exercise you can do tonight (I walk you through it with my real example)
• The one action that attracted opportunities I didn’t even know were possible — the New York Times, Harvard, Telemundo, CNN — all without chasing
• Why building a personal brand is the biggest manifestation hack of 2026

You don’t manifest what you want. You manifest who you’re being.

Ready to take the action?

I’m teaching you exactly how I did it — for free. Join my live training, Three Secrets to Grow 5,000 Followers in 90 Days, so you can build a personal brand that makes an impact AND gets you paid — without living on your phone.

📅 Wednesday, September 23rd · 5PM PST · Free & Live

Stay to the end and I’ll audit your hooks live.

👉 Save your spot: https://theerikacruz.com/training

Bring a friend — everything’s better with built-in accountability.

Your magic is waiting.

Transcript:

Hello, hello, welcome to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution Podcast. I’m so excited for today’s episode because we’re talking all about how to manifest your dream life. If you’re listening to this podcast, I guarantee you have already accomplished so much in your life. And maybe you worked really hard at creating this life only to look back and be like, my gosh, I’ve outgrown this life. Or maybe you have been working for somebody else and you’re like, This was exactly what my goal was, or maybe you graduated and you’re like, this is exactly what my goal was, but then you get there and you’re like, wait, why do I feel like there’s more? And the reason is as humans, we never stop evolving. And obviously, we could get into the conversation of maybe you were chasing your parents’ dream, or maybe you were chasing something that wasn’t necessarily authentic to you. But I can tell you firsthand that even when I walked away from everything I thought I should do and then did what I wanted. It was very fulfilling. And now I’m going on six years of being a full-time entrepreneur, and even now I feel like I’m ready to reinvent myself. And that doesn’t mean burn everything to the ground, but it does mean that I’m feeling called to a different life. So, regardless of where you are, I think it’s nor normal and natural to have new desires over and over. And I was recently Invited to a podcast, and we talked so much about personal branding, but we talked a lot about manifestation. And I truly believe that I manifested my business. I have manifested the opportunities that I have gotten. I’ve had some crazy opportunities, right? Like working with Harvard, being on the front page of the New York Times. It’s wild how many things have happened. And one of the questions that the host asked me is.

Are you living a bigger life than you thought you would be? And my answer was 100% yes. And that is what happens when we practice manifestation. We can’t even imagine how it’s going to turn out because it always turns out bigger and better than we could have even imagined. And I thought I would take you through my own manifestation process. So, what I do from a mental standpoint and a mindset standpoint, as well as give you really practical exercises.

And then the strategy that I’ve used to attract these amazing opportunities. So let’s get into it.

Let’s talk about what manifestation actually is because I’m not talking about your soft girl era where you’re just letting everything come to you. And I’ve done an episode about this in the past, but I think it’s worth mentioning again here. There is a big misconception about what a what manifestation is and what it’s not. And I do think it’s great that we aren’t in this hustle culture. And I do think it’s great that we’re allowing ourselves to rest.

But manifestation doesn’t happen when you are sitting on your couch and the universe isn’t going to deliver things to your home like Amazon does. Manifestation requires you to feel worthy, to think a certain way, to be a certain way, and to take action. And it does require that action. It requires discipline. My business, I say that I manifested it. I was also in my room.

During a pandemic with nowhere else to go and putting all my creative energy in this. It was like no distractions at all. I don’t think I realized how much effort was actually put in, but it didn’t feel like resistance. It didn’t feel like effort that I didn’t want to do. It was almost like flow, if that makes sense. So manifestation isn’t just thinking positive thoughts, saying affirmations. It does require doing. And The woo without the work is a wish, but the work without the belief and the woo burns you out. And it turns out you actually need both. You need the mindset and you also need the strategy. So this is how I would break it down. And I do have an episode called my BFF method for manifestation. And I definitely think you you should look at that. But when we’re talking about manifesting your dream life, if I was really going to make it Very basic. I would say first you need to decide what you want and actually decide. Not one day that would be nice. I think we can all think back to a moment in our lives when we were like, nope, I’m gonna figure this out. And we made that decision, and that was the beginning of something else. I’ll never forget the day that I decided I’m going to go all in on this business, and everything changed. That decision changed something in me energetically. It changed where my focus went and And it doesn’t mean that I was like, yeah, I’m gonna do this, and then here’s my other plan, and here’s my other plan. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard the saying burn the boats, but whenever the kind of explorers back in the days were going out to explore, and then the colonizers found of obviously I’m not I’m not siding with colonizers here. but do you ever think about how if you identify as Latina or as an individual of color and your c home country was colonized?

We’re like part colonizers too. Isn’t that crazy? But we so identify with the others. Anyway, that’s not what this podcast episode is about. this is what happens when I don’t completely script my episodes. I just go kind of off on tangents. But if you have been listening to this podcast, then that is nothing new to you. So what the colonizers did was, I don’t even remember which colonizer it was, but when they landed on the new land, which is what they called the Americas, they said Burn the boats because people got scared. It was very much out of their comfort zone. So this idea of burn the boats meant there was no other way to go back home. So they had to figure out how to live here. And when you make a decision, it’s almost like you quote unquote burn the boats. I know that’s not the best example, right? Because we’re not trying to colonize, but when you make a decision and you’re like, okay, I have a plan B and a plan C and a plan D, you actually decide this is what I’m going to do. You’re more likely To get it done. The next thing you really have to look at is your thoughts. Because manifestation, I just told you what it’s not. I don’t think I told you what it is. So let me give you my definition of manifestation. My definition is to bring something to existence that doesn’t currently exist using your thoughts, using your actions, and using your thoughts. So pretty much using who you are being to create a different.

environment for you or a different life for you.

So if we know thoughts are important, it’s very important for you to identify how you are thinking. This is why I’m such a big fan of journaling. I journal every day. Not gonna lie, I had a few months where I totally fell off and I am not kidding. I saw a difference in my confidence, I saw a difference in my mood, I saw a difference in my revenue, and now I’m back to journaling. And I literally this morning I meditated, I journaled.

And then I went to a Pilates class. And while I was in the Pilates class, I just got this download of a bunch of different content ideas. And that always happens when I feel like I’m prioritizing my well-being. And this is why why okay, here I go on another tangent. But this is why I’m saying it’s important for us to rest and yes, to be in your soft girl era, but we also have to be disciplined. So, like be disciplined about the journaling, about the meditating, not just scrolling all day. Okay, back to our thoughts.

So when we are aware of how we’re thinking, it makes manifestation so much easier because that is when you will be able to identify if you are thinking, let’s say that your desire is to build a business that makes six figures a year, six figures a year. But maybe your inner law inner dialogue and what your thoughts are saying to you all day is who am I to do this? Of course I can’t do this, who’s going to pay me for this?

And those two things are contradicting and it’s not going to speed up your manifestation because if your thoughts are thinking, who am I to do this? I’m not qualified, I’m not going to be able to do this, that’s going to influence how you’re feeling, how you’re acting. And you are almost going to block your manifestations with your own thoughts and beliefs about yourself. That is why I am a huge, huge fan of journaling. And I think if you’re not journaling, give yourself some time. It doesn’t have to be every day. Maybe.

Once a week you do your manifestation journaling. And I’m actually going to give you a specific exercise that you can do in today’s podcast episode. But let’s go to the next step, which is feel or kind of the next component. You have to feel the feeling of already having the thing you want because the body doesn’t know the difference between something that is imagined and something that is real as is reality that’s actually happening. And I’ll give you a perfect example.

Let’s say that you and your partner are you’re upset at your partner and you are going to have a discussion about how they got you upset, right? How they pissed you off. And you are already thinking about what you’re going to say to your partner. You will start to have the physical reactions as if you are in front of your partner already having the conversation. Maybe your heart starts racing, maybe your palms get sweaty. You start to have a physical reaction as if you’re already having that conversation. And guess what?

This only happened in your mind. So feeling the feelings of what you want is the biggest hack in creation, in manifestation.

But what’s important is that we cannot wait for the results to start feeling the feelings because remember, manifestation is creating something that doesn’t already exist. So for me and for my clients who they are looking to manifest a personal brand, this means they need to think of themselves as somebody that is interesting enough to have a personal brand. They need to feel like they can figure things out that are difficult, like editing and all the different stuff.

They also have to feel worthy of being seen. So there’s a lot of inner work that happens whenever we are manifesting because we don’t manifest what we want. We manifest who we are being and what we believe we are worthy of. So as far as the feelings go, when we are in the process of creating a personal brand, it’s so important for us to already see ourselves as this person who is giving back, who is helping.

Who whose content changes people’s lives. Because if all you’re feeling is, I’m not good enough, look, I only got 200 views on this post, those feelings will make you keep thinking negative thoughts about yourself because our thoughts and our feelings are very intertwined. Joe Dispenza talks about this a lot. I went to one of his retreats last year and he talks about, I forgot the name that he uses, but he pretty much says, It can either start with the thought we have, which makes us feel a certain way, or it could be a feeling that we have, which makes us think something. And it becomes this cycle. So if we just look at the examples that I gave, let’s say you take action and you post a video, but you’re thinking, my gosh, this is gonna flop, I’m not interesting, people aren’t going to care, and you only get 200 views on it, then you start to feel shame, embarrassment.

And then the results of that is affirming your thought, and you just keep going in this cycle over and over and over. So the mind is telling the body to feel bad and shame. And then that shame is making you think more negative thoughts. So it really does become this cycle. Getting yourself to journal is allowing you to step out of that cycle and observe what’s actually happening. And again, I have an exercise I’m going to take you and just take you through in just a moment.

But the biggest hack around feeling is if you could already feel success, if you can already feel gratitude, if you can feel the feeling of already having it, that is one of the biggest hacks. So ask yourself, think about that something that you want to manifest. And ask yourself, how would I feel if I already had that? And then practice that feeling over and over and over. So for me, it would be a seven figure business that’s seven figures in a year.

That would be great because then I can help my mom retire. Like I know my reasons and I know the thoughts that I need to think. And I know sometimes I don’t have the best thoughts, so I need to adjust those. But how does it feel? So if I close my eyes and ask myself, how does it feel to look at my revenue and know that I impacted the lives of people and I made enough money to pay my team, pay myself, and help my mom, that feels like relief in my body, and that feels like Purpose and that feels it feels light and it feels good and it feels expansive. So my job is to continue to practice that feeling. The next thing is who we become. So this one’s probably huge, right? Because who you become is almost like a combination of the thoughts and the feelings, and that kind of makes up who we become. You have to become the version of you, like I was just saying, who already has the thing in order to.

So you have to ask yourself, the version of me that already has this life thinks what, feels what, does what? And then you must show up as that person. How does the version of me show up whenever a post flops? How does she show up whenever somebody doubts her?

So I mentioned I was going to take you through a journaling exercise that’s going to help you tap into deciding. It’s going to help you tap into thinking as well as being. And then I’ll go over the action that has really helped me. But for now, we let’s go through.

But for now, let’s go through the journaling exercise. This is the best way to what I call forget reality, forget what is now, because remember, if you want to manifest something new, you can’t focus on what is right now.

This is called future self-journaling. And the rule is really simple. The instructions are simple. You are going to write your current worries as past tense, as if they happened in the past. And then you’re going to write your future desires in the present tense. And you’re going to give gratitude for them right now, as if it has already happened. So let me give you my example.

This is one that I used in my business when I was really stressed out about my business, and I didn’t know if my business was going to survive or if I needed to go back and get a job. So this is what I wrote, okay? my gosh, remember when I was so stressed out about whether this business was going to work? I’m extremely grateful for the 15 new clients that I onboarded this month, and I am so excited to make an impact in their lives.

I have been wanting to buy a home and now it’s actually looking possible. I am so grateful that my profits are high. So I’m writing it as its present tense, and not everything on here has manifested yet, but I keep doing it. I keep writing as if my current stresses are of the past. And I write as if my future desires are currently happening, and I’m giving gratitude for them.

So you’re not begging for it, right? Do you see how it’s almost like you’re remembering it from the future? And I hope I don’t lose you there. But what I’m what I’m trying to say is that your body can’t help but feel the excitement, and you can’t help but have the thoughts that are aligned with that. So this is a great hack for you to manifest your dream life. You can use this for a dream partner, for a child, you can use this for a job, a pay raise. if somebody is sick, right? If you’re sick, if you’re Feeling just like really depressed and obviously like get help. I’m I’m a firm believer in in therapy and having a great support system. But if you can include this journaling exercise, I highly, highly recommend it. So try it tonight, try it tomorrow, try it whenever you have a moment. Obviously, if you’re in the car, don’t do it then. But if you do have a pen and paper around or you’re in a place where you can write this down, try it.

So remember earlier I said thoughts and feelings are really important, right? And our identity is also really important. And manifestation needs action. It really does. And it’s not just about thinking, it’s also about doing. So I want to tell you which action has supported me in changing everything in my life. And it’s also helped my clients as well. And this is why I pivoted in this direct direction. Because if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, then you know that.

My clients would work on a bunch of different projects, like a different courage project. And what I found was that when I can be more specific, I can create very specific frameworks and help my clients. So I really started to ask myself what was the one thing that moved the needle for me and has moved the needle for my clients, and that is building a personal brand because your personal brand is where your identity.

It where you get to really embody your identity and then you can Let me say that one more time.

Because you because your personal brand is where the identity that you are embodying becomes something that the world can see. It is again, I was talking about the future self journaling being a big hack. I think having a personal brand is the biggest hack in 2026, 2027, hands down. Whether you don’t want to start a business or whether you do want to start a business, because I have seen people who work in corporate that build themselves a personal brand.

land promotions, land great opportunities, end up getting job offers from other companies that are way better than the one they have at the moment. I have seen people build a personal brand and build generational wealth from it and give back to their family. For me personally, building a personal brand allowed me to leave a tech job that would have laid me off six months later because the company closed if I hadn’t left. And it has allowed me to impact the lives Of over 375 clients, over 230,000 people who follow me across different channels. And I really do think that it is the biggest hack. So let me tell you why.

Every time you show up as that version of yourself that you are embodying online, whether it’s the founder, the expert, the leader, or the person bringing you along the journey, you’re not faking it, right? You’re literally embodying this version of you that already exists in the future and that you are stepping into. And there is something about already embodying this identity through your personal brand that makes opportunities come your way.

And the way you see yourself lets you influence the way that other people see you as well. And here’s what happens when you do this. You will start to attract opportunities that you didn’t even know were possible. For example, I never thought I was going to be on the front page of the New York Times. I would have never, I wouldn’t have even known who to message, right? I would have never DM’d them. I would have never emailed them. I would have never pitched myself. That wasn’t even on my radar. Yet I ended up on the front page.

Of the New York Times. I would have never thought that I would have worked with Harvard. They wouldn’t have even been on my radar, but it was my personal brand that brought these opportunities to me. I’ve been on Telemundo, the channel that I grew up watching with my parents. I’ve been on CNN, the LA Times. And it’s all because I built this personal brand. None of it came from chasing, all of it came from showing up, building my brand, and embodying this version of myself. And that was the fastest way to manifest my dream life. And I want to give you an example because pretty much when you are building your personal brand and you are showing up as this version of yourself, it’s such a powerful thing that even recently I have seen people use it in a negative way. So for and I don’t want you to use it in a negative way. So I feel like this is a very important distinction.

So this was all over my feed, and this is an example of how somebody leveraged a personal brand and did evil with it. We don’t ever want to do that. Okay, we don’t ever want to do this, but Dejan Love has been all over my feed. He is a 35 year old man who was arrested by the FBI because he ended up scamming $1.3 million from a variety of women, from a variety of women.

Posing as a San Francisco 49ers wide receiver. So the reason I’m sharing this is to share the power of a personal brand. I even read somewhere that he even bought followers. He had all these videos of himself supposedly training with the 49ers and my gosh. I I laugh because that’s crazy. He convinced all these women he actually worked with the 49ers, he was drafted by them.

And ended up doing all this fraud and got money from these women that he was supposedly talking to, and then introduced his fake financial advisor, who also is now arrested. And then once he took their money, he would ghost them. And this is an example of the power of a personal brand used negatively. So he was scamming people, right? But now imagine the power of a personal brand when you have a purpose and you are.

Looking to help and give back. The way that you show up online is the way people are going to see you. So of course, we have to do this responsibly. But if you’re listening to this podcast, then I know you’re purpose-driven. I know you care about giving back to your community. I know that you want to make a difference. So building a personal brand is the best way to manifest your dream life because you get to show up as the version of you.

That you want to be. And I’m not saying be fake, right? Just embody the version of you that you’re trying to become. And I’ll give you a perfect example of how you can leverage your personal brand to help you. I had mentioned earlier that I was on Telemundo, and this opportunity came kind of out of nowhere. And this was Telemundo National. This was earlier this year. And I could have gone on Telemundo and not told anybody. And I totally lost what I was saying.

yes, about the news.

I could have woken up, been on the morning news, and then went about my day, and nobody would have known. But what I was able to do, what my team and I did, we coordinated to record the interview. And then what I did is I posted the interview on my Instagram. Why am I sharing this? Because that is me building my personal brand. Had I just gone on the news, whoever saw me live on TV would have seen me live on TV. And honestly, that’s not.

My ideal audience, I don’t think you are all awake at five or six in the morning watching the morning news on Telemundo, seeing who’s being interviewed. You are all on TikTok, on Instagram, listening to podcasts. So I took it upon myself to pretty much ensure that my personal brand was capturing that moment and that.

Ended up giving me way more return on investment. It gave me so much more credibility. And I’m I didn’t lie about being on the news, right? This is what I mean about we have to do it ethically, we have to do it in a way that’s in alignment with us. Sharing your journey. if you’re not an expert in something, sharing your journey, if you are an expert, own that expertise. So building a brand is such a powerful thing because it is essentially what people Think about you and say about you when you’re not in the room and you have influence over what that is. So Dijon Love is a good example of somebody who really exploited that, which is not what we want to do at all. But when you want to manifest your dream life, thinking the thoughts that are going to help you get there, believing that you are worthy of it, as well as as well as taking the aligned action. And maybe that for you, that’s also building a personal brand.

If you are listening to this and you’re like, yes, yes, this is exactly what I want, then I invite you to take the action. And I’m actually going to show you exactly how I did this for free. It’s in my live training. It’s the 3 secrets to growing to 5,000 followers in 90 days so that you can build your personal brand that makes an impact as well as gets you paid without living on your phone. Somebody recently said to me, Yeah, posting content is a full time job.

And I was like, it should not be a full-time job because I’m running a whole business and I’m doing all of my content myself. that same person asked me if I had anybody editing my content for me, filming my content. And I was like, no, I do it all myself. And it doesn’t have to take very long. So building your personal brand feels overwhelming when you don’t have any guidance around it. Trust me, I know because I made all the mistakes, which is why I’m sharing my three secret secrets with you. Which is why I’m sharing my three secrets.

Which is why I’m sharing my three secrets with you in my upcoming training. And I invite you to join us. It is completely free. It’s happening on September twenty third at five o’clock Pacific time. I invite you to invite a friend because whenever you do things with a friend, there is a there’s like built-in accountability there.

I’ll show you how to build a personal brand in a simple way without feeling completely overwhelmed. I’m going to show you what works now, as well as some of these manifestation principles and how you can implement those into building your personal brand. Completely free. It’s happening live. You don’t want to miss it, especially because at the end I’m going to be doing Instagram audits. So I’m going be looking at your content and looking at your hooks, but you have to be there live in order for me to give you feedback.

So if you want to be there, save your spot now and I will see you on September 23rd.