Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Steph Crowder
Foreign welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living doing something they love over the past 10 years. On your journey, you'll need the courage to be bold, to take risks, and to do what looks crazy on paper. You'll also need the clarity, the brass tacks, simple strategies that actually work. And on this podcast, we deliver both in equal measure. Oh, and by the way, we've got absolutely no time for bs, gross marketing tactics or get rich quick schemes. Just sustainable business strategies for good humans with big dreams. If that sounds like you, you're in the right place. Let's go. Hello CNC listeners. Welcome to the podcast. I am taking you out on a walk and talk with me today. Been a while. It's been a while since I brought you outside with me, but man, what a gorgeous day we have here in April in Louisville, Kentucky. Just too beautiful for me to not take advantage of the weather. And I gotta tell you, sometimes I just feel my most reflective and get access to some of the best thoughts when I'm moving. And so I decided today to allow the perhaps slightly reduced audio quality to allow that to be enough. Because the message I want to share with you today I think is worth it. So stay with me. I want to talk to you today about a very special anniversary that I am celebrating in my life. 10 years. I left my career as a director of sales training at the company Groupon in Chicago and I left that company to be a part time member success specialist at a company run by three amazing guys that were total strangers to me at the time at a company called Fizzle Co. 10 years ago was really my first foray into online entrepreneurship officially. Some of you have been with me since then, which is incredible. Can you believe it's been 10 years together? And I just couldn't let such a significant anniversary go by without marking the occasion with a special podcast episode and taking the time to really reflect. And so what I want to share with you today, I mean I sat down to make a list. I actually am walking outside in my neighborhood with a piece of paper in my hand. I have written down 10 lessons or reflections that I have about my decade in this industry. And the truth of the matter is I think I could write down 100 things, but I decided to just go with the 10 that were coming up really strongly for me are the first 10 that came to mind and I'm going to share them with you. Because I think these are also the 10 things that I'm going to be keeping in mind as I head into my next decade. Because if it's one thing about me in the online business industry, it's that I, even though I've been here for 10 years, which I think kind of makes me a dinosaur at this point, I really feel like I'm only just getting started, and I have many, many years ahead of me. I've only begun to make the impact that I want to make. So in order for these lessons to really hit, I think it's important for me to remind you or share with you, if you're newer around here. You're hearing this for the first time of how I even came into this space, how I even came to become a business coach all those years ago. And it's one of those things where, you know, we can look at it now and say whatever you want to say about my success, you know, crossing a million dollars in lifetime revenue. I hit that milestone last year in my business. And of course, it looks like I'm a sure thing now, but at the time, that decision that I made was anything but logical. I was blogging with a totally different business. In fact, I have to take a picture. I have an old business card, you guys, from 2014. I had a blog and a little business and a little podcast. Doesn't exist anymore. I wish it did. It was called Ms. Corner Office. And I thought I was going to be doing career coaching and kind of doing what it sounds like, helping girls and women, like, really ascend the corporate ladder. And so that's where I started. And all of the lessons that I was learning about management. I was becoming a people manager. I was a people manager at the time, becoming a director. I was just drinking from the fire hose, getting so many amazing lessons from my mentors about leadership and difficult conversations and so many other things. But that's really where I started. And I was listening to lots of podcasts at the time. I was living in Chicago, didn't have kids, I was married. And I would be driving my 2008 Toyota Camry that I still have. Actually, we still have that car. I'd be driving it to, to my office in Chicago in the freezing weather, hands on the steering wheel, listening to podcasts like the Smart Passive Income podcast from Pat Flynn, and listening to these stories of people, a librarian, a football coach, you, you know, average normal people who had figured out how to make a living online with mostly with digital courses at the time. And I just remember Thinking I want a piece of that. I, why not me? I want. This is what I want. And a big motivation for that I think is going to be really thematic in this episode is I knew that my husband John and I wanted children. And if it's one thing you need to know about me, it's that I want to do things my way. And I, like a very good friend of mine, always likes to tell me very lovingly that I'm. Sometimes I like to have my cake and eat it too. And in this case, what that looked like was I wanted to have kids, I wanted to have a career. Being a stay at home mom did not appeal to me, never has appealed to me. I've always had ambitions. But I wanted it. I really wanted it all. I didn't want to buy into and believe the idea that women can't have it all, that women have to choose. I just rejected that. Or at least I felt like I had to try this option before believing that was true. And I've been thinking about entrepreneurship for moms and aspiring moms. And it's something I'm going to be talking a lot more about in this second decade of my business. Because I've been thinking of this as the third path or the third option, as women and mothers, aspiring mothers, soon to be mothers, tenured mothers, whatever your journey looks like if you are in a corporate setting, at least back when I was, I mean, I know that remote work has somewhat changed this conversation, but at the end of the day, even if you work remotely, you are still, you know, chained to somebody else's demands, right? You still have to ask to go to your kids midday performance at their school. And back when I was in this position, there was no remote work. I mean, I tried, I tried. I had meetings with hr. I was really trying to pioneer as a director. We had so many women in their twenties working at groups. And I was like, this is going to be a problem for us. Like, we did not have an environment that was conducive to mothering, right. Parenting in general, but the unique challenges of being a mother. And when I had these meetings, the answer I was met with was no, we'll never have people working from home. That would create laziness, that would just be incompatible with our business. And I remember I was lucky enough at the time to have women above me in leadership positions. I know that's not always the case, but I was lucky to have that. And there was really only two types of women, women who had consciously chosen to not have children so that they could really dedicate themselves to their career with a full life that they already had. And then there was women who did have children, but they never saw them effectively. Partner, stayed home with the kids. And those women were in the office from 7 to 7 or 7 to 8, right? 7 to 10 sometimes, depending on what we had going on. And I just looked at those options and said, this can't be it. This not what I want. And at the same time, I love working, I love creating, I love using my adult brain and engaging with difficult problems. And I don't think that should change just because I'm gonna become a mom. And so I sought a third path. And that's what I'm calling it, the third path. I don't think this idea is popularized the way that it should be. And I hope to bring more light to it in the coming years. I still talk to so many women in my life offline who are like, have incredible careers and are feeling so understandably strained and stretched by having a demanding career and having children, and they feel like their only option is to quit. And it's not, you know, it's one thing to make an intentional choice to be a stay at home mom. Like, if that's something that is in your heart and that's your true heart's desire, that is one very different thing. What I'm talking about are the mothers who didn't desire that from for themselves actually desire a career, but don't know what else to do. As one of my friends told me recently in person, something has got to give. And so it's been this very binary choice for women. Stay home or work through it, right? Not, you know, be out the door at 7, take off your kids at 5, 30. And there's nothing wrong with that unless you feel like it's not scratching the itch for you. And it wasn't scratching the itch for me. And that was every motivation I had was to figure out, can I do this? Can I make an impact, earn a living doing something meaningful on my own schedule, home with my kids, calling my own shots and paving my own way. That is what motivated me those 10 years ago. And so with that in mind, you know, I was working on my blog, I was going to networking events, I was shaking hands, I was getting my first clients with my network in my sphere, the way that I teach my clients exactly how to do inside of my foundational program called Same Day Sales, how I got my first clients and I coached people on their careers, I took them through some diagnostic testing and all of that was going fine. And I joined this community called Fizzle as a client. It was a membership site. Some of you were there. It was amazing. And it was basically, you know, coaching for entrepreneurs. And one day I listened to the Fizzle show podcast and one day, my now dear friends and former colleagues, Corbett Barr, Chase Reeb, Barrett Brooks were looking for a part time member success specialist. And I thought, I'm going to apply for this. I'm going to apply for this. Me as a director at Groupon with stock options. I'm going to give this a shot. And I remember later Corbett would tell me that they basically like threw my application out because they thought it was a joke. Like I was so overqualified. But I got that job. I interviewed and I got the job. And pretty quickly, I didn't know this at the time, but pretty quickly I was made a full time employee. And ultimately I was essentially, you know, like an equal stakeholder in the company, right? Like I was running the company with the guys. I was on the Fizzle show podcast and that is really where I cut my teeth on business coaching. And I learned about, you know, what it takes to build an online business. I was, you know, doing this work under a pair of founders who had earned over a million and revenue and had had different business models themselves. Right? So at the time though, I remember talking to my dad about it and he was like, are you really going to walk away from your stock options, from this incredible career to work for three dudes who live in Portland, Oregon that you met on the Internet? Like, that's crazy. And it was crazy. But I just remember having the thought, this might not work. There is like a 50, 50 chance that this is going to turn into something. I don't know what. I had no idea. But I thought to myself, I have marketable skills. If this doesn't work, the worst thing that will happen is I'll be right where I am right now. I will go back to the job market, I will polish up my resume and I will tell people that I interview with that I wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship and it'll just be one more asset on my resume. And that never happened. I never had to go back. Here I am today, after my time with Fizzle, which lasted for a few years, the Courage and Clarity podcast was born and ultimately my own business. So that's the origin story. You didn't remember it. And I remember this is the crazy part. I mean, it's all crazy, but in that this all happened in April, right around. It was April 15th, tax day, 2415. 2015, that's right. Because it's been 10 years. And I remember it was January and I was doing my goal setting and I was visioning and manifesting and I was like, I don't know, I remember I said this in January. I don't know what's going to happen and how it's going to happen. And I just decided to pick a date And I said, April 15th, I'm leaving, I'm quitting. And it's all going to be clear by that time. And I just put it out there and said it with my chest and believed it. And it is my just blows my mind to tell you that April 15th was my last day at Groupon and I started my new job at Fizzle the next Monday. It was so crazy. And so that is the first lesson that I want to share. I'm going to kind of get into my 10 lessons now. The first lesson I want to share with you is stay open to secret doors and taking the long way around. I think this one, this is the one I have to start with because when you are clear, another way of saying it that I wrote down is pick the target, not the how. Pick the target, not the how. For me, April 15, 2015, and quitting my job was the target. I didn't know the how. And in fact, I made peace that I wasn't gonna know the how and that I had to just keep showing up as if it was already done. And once I did that, once I got it in my head that, yo, I'm quitting out of here on April 15th, and that's like four months away and I have no idea how I'm going to do it and what I'm going to do, but I'm going to know. I'm going to figure it out. I swear. Doors showed themselves. The fizzle door, the part time member success specialist door, was a door that I would have just walked right past if I hadn't picked my target, right? There were so many reasons to talk myself out of that. There were so many reasons that looked crazy on paper. It was crazy. It was kind of an unhinged decision, right? But because I had made this commitment, because I had this target, I was willing to do things in an unconventional way. And I think this lesson is really important for many of you to hear because. And I fall into this myself, I'm reminding myself of this as well, is sometimes it is going to be the long way Around. And a lot of times I notice we try something, we try it once and maybe you try really, really hard. Like I was trying really, really hard with Ms. Corner Office, my first attempt at business, I was trying really hard. I was up at 4 in the morning working before work. I was hyping myself up in my car to go into the networking events. Like I was, I was working hard. And sometimes I notice what happens is we try really hard and it doesn't feel like it's working. And then we kind of just want to throw our hands up and be like, this was supposed to work and it didn't. Right. It's like, where are you not being open to the long way around? Where are you not. Where are you being too good for the part time member success specialist job? Right. That, that ended up being one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. And I can say that with 100% certainty. Not only did I lot like, those were some of my favorite days. I got to go out to Portland, be with these guys. They're such amazing people. The clients that I met, some of my clients today are still from those days. My reputation on the Internet was built there. I had no idea. And it was the long way around. Like, I just wanted to jump into my business and make my first, my first six figures. But I had to accept that I don't get to pick the how. And the how might not look the way that you would have designed it. So it's like, where are you being so attached to? To having your way. That's one thing the universe does not reward, is needing to have it your way. This happened to me again when I went to leave Finzil a few years later. It was time. It was time for me. I had people banging down the door for me to be their coach. I had my own podcast at this point. It was time for me to go and I resisted it so hard. And I remember it's like all I wanted though was to have my own thing. Like, I was so ready. It was just, it was my time. And I remember praying or journaling or whatever I was doing. And I remember thinking to myself, I really, really want this, but only if it doesn't upset my co workers, only if I have their blessing. And I just remember one day it dawned on me, this is not. Oh, like, I don't get to have it that way. Right? The universe is just like, nope, you're either in or you're out. Right? You can't have conditions. You can't be like, yeah, I'll do it, but only if it's never uncomfortable. And my income can never dip. I never have to dip into my savings. My parents have to be proud of me the whole time. Like, whatever it is that you are trying to put your conditional thinking on, like, you know, I want a business, but it can't be one on one. It's gotta be a group or whatever you're doing. As soon as you decide to release that, I promise you, the universe will meet you right where you are. It's actually crazy. I remember as soon as that dawned on me when I was leaving Fizzle, as soon as I came to terms with the fact that, you know what? Yeah, I might piss them off, and I'm gonna have to be okay with that. Literally within days. Within days, everything came to a head. And you know what? They weren't happy. We weren't all happy with each other for a few days. It was a little bit of a, you know, these things can be difficult. Ultimately, we. And everything came together beautifully. We came to a great agreement, parted as friends are still friends. Like, everything turned out fine. But I had to be willing to go through the messy middle of it. I couldn't have it my way. I had to have my eyes on the target, which was going out on my own. And I had to be okay with however the universe wanted it to unfold for me. And I know that's terrifying and you probably don't want to hear it because you just want to do it your way. And I get that. But as soon as you make your peace with the fact that, like, I don't care how it happens, I'm on board. I'm just keeping an eye on my target. It might be the long way, it might not be the way that I chose. I might have to go through a secret door. There might be a maze involved. That's when you're going to see. And it's not going to make sense at the time. It's only going to make sense in hindsight. I promise you that. So that's my first lesson. Stay open to secret doors and the long way around. The second one is be driven by why it matters. Be driven by why it matters. I know this one seems obvious. We hear all the time, know your why. And it's those types of words that tend to, like, you hear them so often they lose their meaning. Right? But here's why. This is number two on my list, if you can keep in mind why it matters and why you're doing it in the first place, you will be able to stay in the game through the really hard parts. For me, it wasn't enough to think about making lots and lots of money. It wasn't even enough to think about helping thousands and thousands of people. I wish I could say it was, but it wasn't. And it probably won't be for you either. It certainly helps. Like, I mean, sure, like, that definitely gets me up out of bed a lot of days. But what really puts the wind in my sails is what I want my life to look like, how I want to feel in my day to day life. It's where it all began for me is being intentional, being intentional with my time and recognizing that for me, wanting to be a mother who controls her schedule, who doesn't have to ask anybody's permission to go to school at 11am and be the mystery reader and someone who deeply desires having a really meaningful career that employs people and touches people's lives. Like, I have a very strong vision of why this all matters to me. And sometimes that vision gets obscured. And sometimes, I mean, look, I think to myself, just like anybody, maybe I'm just gonna be done here, you know, like, maybe that maybe this is it, maybe I'm doing too much. Maybe this is all over. Maybe it would be easier if I just did some other job or whatever the case may be. But what keeps me coming back is remembering why it matters to me and for me personally, this idea. I can't believe that we live in a world where it really feels like there's just those two paths that I was telling you about, career woman or stay at home. And the fact that we still live in a world where that is pretty popularized outside of the coaching industry, outside of the online business industry, tells me that I'm just not done. Because this life that I've built for myself over 10 years. My daughter's turning nine next month. My entire time as a mom, I have had this amazing life. It hasn't always been easy, don't get me wrong, but it's always been on my terms. It's always been like I've always had my autonomy and I desire that so deeply for other people, in particular for the moms. I want all moms who want this life to be able to have it because it's a beautiful life. It is a rigorous life, a challenging life and. But it has given me the tools to be an even better mother. Because I know what they say, you know, like, what's the expression? The fastest way to go through Personal development is build your own business. I 100% believe that's true. The tools I've acquired, the coaching I've been certified in, all of those things make me an exceptional mother. My business feeds my motherhood, and my motherhood feeds my business. They're very symbiotic. And so it matters to me that I want to be able to bring this to as many mothers out there in the world who want this life. Being driven by why it matters and trying to remember and hold in my heart that version of me in 2014, that was like, could it be me? I think of her all the time, and I still, to this day, I'm trying to make her proud. Because once you. I mean, that's the thing about being human, is once you acclimate to the level that you're on, sometimes it loses its luster. But it doesn't have to if you can continue to remind yourself. I love that expression that's like, don't forget. Like, don't get so busy dreaming about the next chapter that you forget you have everything you pray for right now. And it's like, where can you see that that's true in your own life, even if you don't have everything you could have ever dreamed of? But in what ways? If you really look at it, in what ways would you be. Would a previous version of you be so amazed by where exactly where you are right now? Think sometimes, like, maybe you make a sale, right? And you're used to making sales now, and you're like, oh, whatever, if it's a thousand dollars or it's just fifteen hundred dollars or it's just whatever, right? What about the version of yourself that wasn't sure she could ever make a sale? Excuse me. You're telling me that money just flew into your bank account because of a conversation you had on the Internet? Are you sure? Like, incredible, magical, miraculous. So don't lose the why and also stay engaged with the miracle. It is a miracle. Like, I think about this all the time. That as a mother, if this is really for my moms out there and it can apply to anyone. Truly, incredibly miraculous. Is it that we were born, when we were born, and I talked to my own mom about this, sometimes she's like, this wasn't like, the life that you have wasn't a choice. When I was a young mother, right? And I have a mom who was, like, always getting herself into something, from real estate to a very, very pioneer, like, health coaching program, she would have killed to be able to build something like this as a young mom. And I think about the many, many women who came before us where this, nothing like this was an option. So it's an honor and a privilege to even get to try. To even get to try, right? So stay engaged with the miracle. Even when it's difficult, it is absolutely miraculous that we even get to try. Even if you're in a job, you're still in a job, you're in a day job, you're side hustling, whatever, and you're making a little bit of extra money outside, outside of your job, in your business. Are you kidding me? I think about this now with, with, you know, recession fears and it's like I teach people how to make as much money as they need, right? Like, I look at my own husband who is in a salary job and lots of my friends, and it's like they're going to make what their W2 says they make and that's that, that's the end of it. Maybe you get a bonus if the company's had a good year, maybe, maybe you get adjusted for inflation. But as entrepreneurs, we get to keep going, we get to keep trying. The sky is the limit on the legacy that you get to create financially with the impact, the people that you help, the. You know, if you're podcasting that, the number of, of ears that are hearing you, it's insane how you can just, I mean, I'm on a walk right now talking into my headphones and some hundred of you, hundreds of you are going to be taking this in. Like, don't lose the miracle of. Because that's how you become jaded and just decide that, you know, none of it's worth it. So that's my second one. Be driven by why it matters. The third one we've touched on a little bit, but I just can't say it enough and I'm seeing this a lot lately, so we have to talk about this one. Number three is be willing to play the long game. Be willing to play the long game. Are you getting stuck in the need for immediate gratification? You know, I've been thinking, love him or hate him, I know he's a bit of a controversial figure, but as far as being a golfer, Rory McElroy is now, what is it? Agree and slam? I don't know golf, you guys, but I just know he's a grand. He did a grand Slam, right? He won the Masters. And you all might already know that he has been coming up short for 11 years. And that just got me Thinking like, what if it takes 11 times longer than you think? Are you still willing to do it? If it's going to take you 11 times longer? If you're going to go and you're going to fall on your face 11 times before it clicks, are you up for that? Like, are you really up for that? And if not, why not? It's interesting. I see this a lot where people will be like, oh, I tried, and it didn't work. And it's like, at what point was it ever guaranteed that we'd be successful on the first shot, right? When did we get. When did we lose touch with our ability to fail? So many other industries and so many other areas of the world. Failure is like a huge part of it. I mean, most companies are, you know, gonna fail of, you know, online business and beyond. And so we have to be in for the long game. We have to be for the twists and turns. You know, in my 10 years, the other thing I haven't mentioned yet is in 2021, I quit my business. I was kind of burning out. I had two kids. One was a baby with toddler. It was a pandemic. I needed a break, and so I quit and I took a job for somebody else. And in that year of working as a marketing director for somebody else, I learned so many things, and I, at the same time, strengthen my desire to be back in entrepreneurship. I built my battery back up so that when I was ready to go out on my own again, I had a new lease on Life. It was 100% the long way around. I think maybe sometimes people are surprised to hear me say, like, I'm not somebody who made my first million in a couple of years. It took me 10 years. It took me 10 years. And, like, are you okay with that? Maybe you'll do it faster than me, and that's great. But the twists and turns, I mean, I also look at the past 10 years. I had two babies. One one of those babies has had a bit of a complicated start to life. I've been through a pandemic. I took a job. You know, there's been some bumps and bruises. There's been some ups and downs. But I'm still here. And, you know, I'm in it for the long game and the places I want to go, I know they're going to take me a long time to get there too. And I'm willing for it to take however long it takes. You have to be willing to. Okay, number four, I really love this one, is be loud about Your expertise and humble about your results. Here's what I mean. Be loud about your expertise and humble about your results. I'm going to start with the second part first. Stay humble as you build. This one actually ties to. I'm gonna actually, you know, I'll do the next one together. Number five is drop. Drop your entitlement. Drop your entitlement. Okay? When you have a win, When I have a win, it is very natural to acclimate to it and be like, this is just how it is now. Oh, you know, I smashed my goal. Maybe you've smashed your goal many times in a row, and that's amazing. I love that for you. I've been there, too. But. And there will come a time. Nobody wins 100% of the time. Okay? There will come a time where you miss, where you misjudge, where things don't turn out the way that you pictured, and you will spiral if you have allowed yourself to believe that this is just how things are done. Now, I have to admit, with a very open heart that I have been here, where I have maybe even let myself believe that it should be easy, that I should just, you know, have to throw out a few podcast episodes and throw out a few emails and expect to immediately have people beating down my doors to work with me. And the truth is, there are times in my past 10 years where that has been the case. But when you come to expect it, when you're not humble and humbled by your results, that expectancy and that entitlement will change your energy completely. You want to be loud and proud about your expertise. You want to show up with so much gusto and be as visible as you can be. And then a little bit more when you want to stop about your subject matter. Right. You can be confident, you can be. Have gravitas. You can keep going. And because, like I. When I wrote this one, I hesitated to use the word humble because I. One of the. An interview that I loved this year that you all may have seen with Kamala Harris on the call your daddy podcast. Who's your daddy? Call your daddy, I think. What's that podcast called? You guys know the one. I don't typically listen to that one, but I listened to snippets of her interview, and I love when the host asked her something about, like, being humble or how. How do you stay humble? Or something like that. And her answer was, who said, I'm trying to be humble? And it was so mind blowing, because I think women in particular are always taught to be humble. And gentle and modest and all the things. And I thought, ooh, yeah, like, I love the idea of not trying to be humble in some ways. In some ways, right? I think not trying to be humble and not worrying about, like, taking too much of the spotlight and all of these things that we're taught as women when it comes to how you are showing up for your clients, Right? And, like, if you know yourself, if you know your stuff, which I'm sure you do, if you're listening to this podcast, you know. You know what you're talking about. You know that you can help people. Showing up with so much pride, unapologetically, from a place of your expertise and from a place of service and at the exact same time, remembering that no one owes you anything and that's a tough pill to swallow is like, it's temp. Believe me, it's tempting for me to be like, I've been out here for 10. I have had these thoughts, guys. I've been out here for 10 years. It should be easier than this. I shouldn't have to work this hard. I shouldn't have to fix a launch that's not working. I shouldn't have to do extra calls and try extra things. Like, my brain, of course, wants to offer me those thoughts. And that's how I know that I have slipped into a very natural but very dangerous place of entitlement and expectancy. Right. I also think that in this online industry, we expect to grow our results every single year. We expect to, you know, double it. You see? You see these stories? You know, I doubled my revenue. I doubled. And, like, I share those stories, too, because, of course, they're so inspiring. We love it when it happens that hyper growth is fantastic. And do you really think it's going to be like that? You're. If you're in it for the long game like I am, we talked about being in it for the long game. Do you really think every year can be like that? That's, like, unsustainable, right? There are going to be some years where you just maintain. There are going to be some years where you do less. And instead of that being the end of the world and slipping into entitlement and being like, last year I did 200k. I shouldn't be doing 100k. This year I did 50% of what I was supposed to do, like, something is so terribly wrong. I'm losing, I'm failing. Right? It's like, just because you did that 200k doesn't mean you're entitled to do that again just because it happened once. I mean, it would be great if it did. But not every single year is going to be like that. And there are so many reasons for that. Some of it could be what's going on in your life, you know, some of it will be what's going on in the world and a slew of other possibilities. So never be humble and apologetic about sharing your message with the world and getting out there and helping people and building your reputation and showing up boldly. Never be humble and apologetic, but be humble with your result. Stay in gratitude about your result. Remember that it's not guaranteed and it's not entitled. We're. It doesn't owe us anything. Our business doesn't owe us anything. And the second we have slipped into, oh, this will just be easy. Let me just sit back and kind of let the go. On autopilot is really what we're doing. Going on autopilot. The second we do that, it's the second that we've kind of disengaged from the energy that really magnetizes our clients to us. And so I think that one's absolutely huge. Okay, the next one. What am I on now? I think I'm on six. I love this next one. Number six is be a beginner. Never stop being a beginner. Repeatedly learn so much from beginners. I'm not a beginner anymore. I'll never be a beginner again. When it comes to business coaching, it's been 10 years since I was a beginner, and beginners have access to so much creativity and so much scrappiness and so little, like, in a lot of ways, beginners don't have as much to lose. Right? And you might be thinking, that's not true. Like, I have a family to feed, and I totally. But I promise you, when you've been at it for a decade, you. It's. It's difficult. It's difficult to have that same, like, well, nobody's really watching me. Like, the beautiful thing of nobody watching you and nobody paying attention is it doesn't matter as much when you try something and it. Right. Or you try something and it totally fails. Right? Like, it's not. It's just not that big of a deal. Nobody's really paying attention. When you feel like you have an audience, when you feel like you have a reputation, you're going to have thoughts like, I should have this figured out. I should be further than I am. I shouldn't be confused. Right? None of those things are true, but they're Very natural thoughts and feelings to have. And so I always find that when I'm slipping into that mindset of, you know, rigid, like, I've become rigid, and I'm like, just doing the same things over and over, and maybe it feels like they've stopped working and I've lost my creativity. I really like to try to put myself back into a beginner energy. I would even go study beginners. I'll be like, what are they doing? What are they willing to try that I've been too cool or too good to try? You know, they're willing to jump on a call and talk to, you know, do customer interviews are Right. What are the new strategies the beginners are using that I haven't done because I have. Haven't felt like I've needed to? What are the beginners seeing with their fresh eyes and their lack of jadedness and their lack of baggage? How would a beginner, with all of the ambition and all of the excitement, how would a beginner show up to this moment? Beginners are master experimenters. Beginners are so curious. Beginners are so willing to try. And I think all of us who've been at it for longer can learn so much from beginners. This is why you'll never hear me complaining about being in a program that has beginners in it. I have friends who are like, I would never, would never be in a program that has beginners. I'm like, not me. I can. I firmly believe that I can learn so much from beginners. I'll be like, what are you doing? How are you getting sales? What did you try? Oh, it never hurts that, like, that's how you stay current. I love working with more experienced people. But listen, us dinosaurs, sometimes we're like the old ladies and the old men who were like, back in my day, you know, that's not how that makes you rigid, that makes you antiquated. That puts you behind. You gotta stay young in this thing, right? Curiosity and experimentation is so available to you beginners. And so as you. You won't always be a beginner. None of us will. So as you get deeper into your expertise, remember that you can always tap back into that beginner energy. Okay, number seven, I think we've kind of touched on this one. It's very similar to what we talked about, but just to take it from a slightly different angle, be prepared. Be prepared to work 10 times harder than you think. Some of you really don't want to hear this one. And listen, I'm not the coach. I'VE never been the coach, I don't think, least not in recent years. I've never been the coach. Who's going to tell you that this is going to be the easy button. I'm always going to tell you that it's worth, worth every day of the week. It's worth it. This life, this life that we live as online business owners. But if it were easy, everybody would do it. Okay? I've always said it's like having a six pack. It's like having six pack abs. It's so incredibly difficult to have six pack abs. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Don't let anybody tell you that it's easy. If they tell you it's easy, run, run away, okay? Hard work is not something to be afraid of. I'm not talking about burning out. I'm not talking about hustling. I'm not talking about running yourself into the ground. But I am talking about good, honest, hard work. Right? I recently heard someone on social media say, if I followed you around for the day, would I be able to tell what your goals are? And it had me sat, as the kids say, right? If I followed you around for the day, would I be able to tell what your goals are? Would be obvious. Would I see it in your behaviors? Would I see it in how you're showing up? Or would I not be so sure? Would I hear you saying that you want it but then not really seeing it and how you're showing up? I don't know. You could tell me. Some of you are like, no, totally, I, I'm doing all the things. But some of you need to hear that. I know it because I needed to hear it in the moment that I heard that quote. Be prepared to work 10 times harder than you think. Just get on board with that. Just go ahead and get on board if you want a really easy career. This is not, like I said, it's worth it. So worth it. But you have to love hard work. And listen, I spend, I only work about 20 hours a week. I spend a lot of time with my family. I spend a lot of time in the car. I am a glorified hoop. So it's not about spending your whole life working. But I often say, like, there are very few people who work harder than me when I'm sitting down in the chair. Like, I am working and I'm doing all the things that I can think of, not all the time, but I'm just really willing to have it take a lot of work. And in fact I think doing it while doing a lot of work makes it feel even more worth it. So that one's absolutely huge. Number eight is another big one. Number eight is the terror. The terror that you. It isn't going away. The terror is not going away. And I don't know how you're going to take that news, but I think it's important that I share that. I think it was Brene Brown who said, no, no, I'm sorry. It was Liz Gilbert who said that fear is a passenger. Right? Fear. I think we spend so much of our lives trying to kick fear out of the car. We're like, I don't want fear to be here. What is fear doing? Something's wrong, Right. Whereas what's most important is that fear sits in the backseat. Right? You don't want fear driving the car. God forbid fear is driving the car. Then you all definitely not end up where you be. It'll be a very unpleasant experience. You don't even want fear sitting in the passenger seat. Right. You want fear sitting in the back, but trying to get rid of the fear or maybe believing that the terror that you're feeling right now is not going to be there when you reach your first six figures, your first 500k, your first million. No. I have felt pure terror this week about my business. I promise you that I have. You can ask my coaches, you can ask my friends. Terror is part of your ticket to ride. And I would argue terror isn't even a bad thing. It's a sign that you're alive. Right? It's a strong sensation in your body. That's for sure. Terror is a strong sensation in our body, but it can't actually, as much as it feels like it's going. I'm someone who really does not like to feel afraid that I find myself trying to get away from my fear. It's so unpleasant. I don't like sitting with my fear at all. In fact, I just got coached about it this week. But what I've learned and what I have to make my peace with, and you will as well, is that terror is hard and we have to stop trying to solve for it and just understand that we are human beings asking ourselves to do impossible things. With entrepreneurship, we are asking ourselves to do crazy things, show up in a way that makes us feel like a saber tooth tiger is chasing us. Showing up in a way where we are risking such failure in our own minds that it feels like you might die. Right. And just being willing, have that be part of the price. It's part of the price. It's your ticket to ride. So do it. Terrified people say, do it. Scared. No, do it. And just recognize that when you're dead in the ground, there will be no more terror. That's when there's going to be no more terror, my friends. It's part of it. It's part of the experience. It's part of having an exceptional life. It's part of being one of the very few people on this earth who get to be entrepreneurs. Okay, so that one's really big. Number nine has been something that I have been focusing on so much in the past couple of years, and it has completely changed my business and my life. Number nine is client results over everything. Client results over everything. When you focus on giving your clients not only an incredible experience, like not having them love you and think you're great. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about your clients getting what they came for and more. That might look like helping your clients double their investment. If they're a business, you're a business coach. It might help them. It might mean, know, helping them make the tantrums go away forever. If you're a parent coach, it might mean, we thought we were getting divorced and now we're staying together. If you're a relationship coach, Right. If you can allow your client results to be the North Star in your business, I honestly think you can't lose. You might have sales problems you might need. You know, you might not be doing the best job with your marketing, but the biggest thing that you've got to optimize for is your client result. Okay? It's the most important thing. I think at some point in the past 10 years, we came to this really toxic moment when it was being popularized by coaches to say, their results are not our responsibility. Right. Client results, that's not our responsibility. And I think at a certain point, I probably was like, nodding along, like, well, yeah, I can't go to people's houses and make them do stuff. But I cannot tell you how far off the mark. I now believe, while it is true that I cannot legally go to my client's house and make them do stuff, I see my client results as very much my responsibility. I don't take credit for my client results, but I see their ability to get a result or just as importantly, maybe even more importantly, their inability to. To get results as a reflection of how I am doing as their coach. It's my report card. When you have a lot of clients who are consistently not getting the results that you promised. You have to take a look at that. And I know it can be uncomfortable and it can be painful, but whenever I see this in my business or other people's businesses, my advice is always the same. I say, go strengthen your client results. Do whatever you need to do. Coach them as much as you need to coach them. Get in there and figure out what is going on and help them get on track. I'm not saying you can control 100% of their outcomes. That's not it. But your business, your confidence, everything about your business will change so dramatically when you are willing to do what it takes to be the coach who gets their client, helps their clients get results. When you have a program or a package or a service that just has positive result after positive result, not, you know, Steph was so nice and she was so cool and I thought she was so smart. That is not what I'm talking about. Not accolades, not people throwing roses at you. I am talking about, I doubled my investment. I 20x my investment. I wanted to quit, and now I didn't. The number of clients I have who have started podcasts and now have 30, 50 episodes, that is a client result. That is something that I helped my clients create. So when you become obsessed, I'm going to use the word obsessed. Not like, in a negative way. Not obsession as in, like you're agonizing over it. But what the. The positive use of the word obsession. Like excitement when you are just so excited and so committed to rolling up your sleeves and being like, all right, whatever it takes to get this done, we're going to figure it out. I've even had clients, you know, make the decision to say to their clients, I'm going to coach you until you get the result right. Like, for example, if you were a coach who was helping people leave their job to start a business, you could say, I'm going to coach you until you quit. Right? I'm going to coach you. Like, that's. That's how committed you need to be to your client results, it will change everything. It will make marketing easier. It'll change your belief. It'll strengthen your why you will feel such a shift in your energy if you become disconnected from your business and you are questioning whether you're even good at this and you're wondering if you're even making a difference. Go deeper into your client result is some of the biggest advice I can give. When you strengthen your client results. When you interview your clients on your podcast, when you have them Tell their story. When you are brave enough to ask them, how is it going? Sometimes we hide from our client results. We're like, oh, I don't know if they're getting results, so I'm just not going to ask them. I'm going to hope that it goes away. I'm going to hope this problem and this discomfort goes away. You need to lean in, friends. You need to lean into your ability or inability to help your clients get results. Okay, number 10. This one's kind of interesting, but I think it's really important. Number 10 is you will be shocked by who doesn't make it. You will be shocked. I was just thinking of my 10 years. Right? You'll be shocked by who doesn't make it. I know there's people in your industry, or maybe even just the coaching industry in general that you're looking at, just like I was for all these years, being like, wow, that person is killing it. That person is so successful. That person has it so easy. That person is always going to be ahead of me. That person's running circles around me. I cannot tell you how many people started around the time that I did who are not here anymore. Basically, they're on the earth. Okay, let me be clear. They're. They're here on the earth. But they. They quit, right? They left. I know I left and I came back. But, like, they quit for good. Forever. Like, they're. And so I think that's important to share. I think that's important to recognize and be open to, because you really never know what's actually going on in somebody's business and life. I know comparison is so normal and so human. And sometimes I see my clients look at other people being like, I'm never gonna be like them, or, they're so much better than me. Just wait. Not. And I. I want you to know, I wanna be very clear about this. I'm never rooting for anyone's demise. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying I want people to quit or that I'm even in competition with them. I don't even see it that way at all. But what I am saying is things are not always what they seem. I have a client who was telling me recently that someone in her industry was bragging about how he was getting so booked out with Facebook ads, like, he wasn't having to do anything except just, like, dump money in Facebook. And my client was like, oh, my. Like, he's killing it. He has, like, so many clients. I'm Struggling to get clients. Like, he, you know, told me that he's getting free booked out with clients. Few months later, this business totally shut down. Turns out he was spending all of his money on Facebook ads, and it stopped working, and he didn't have a strategy for pivoting, and he quit. And it was just so interesting that in that moment, my client was, like, really tempted to abandon her whole strategy. She was like, I feel like I'm doing things the long way. I. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Facebook. I'm just giving you an example that this client was like, you know, she had her. Her. Her plan. Things were working, but not as quickly as she wanted. And she was like, man, this guy, he started. He started his business after me, and he's like, laughed me so many times, and it was really painful experience for her. Feeling kind of embarrassed that she wasn't further than she was. And then. And then, you know, things just weren't what they appeared. You might hear people bragging about how much money they've made, but not talking about how much money they've spent. I see that all the time as well. You might hear people bragging about how well it's going financially. They may have a bunch of clients, but they're totally miserable and burning out and hate their business and can't sleep. So just be careful comparing yourself, because not only do you not have the full picture of what's actually happening on the other side, but you will be amazed if you stay in long enough. You will be amazed at the, like. You know, it's not always true that people who, like, rides to success really, really fast are kind of like the burning stare that just, like, burns out. But I have seen that to be true more times than not. It's kind of like, you know, if it looks like a shortcut, be skeptical. Right? If it seems like somebody is taking shortcuts, it kind of reminds me of, like, crash dieting or something. Like, if you've ever seen anybody who's, I don't know, done, like, the Slim Fast diet or something, and they look really thin or juice cleansed, and you're like, wow, like, you lost all this weight. Like, what are you doing? And they're like, oh, I did this, you know, cayenne and lemon pepper drink for 10 days, you're like, wow, right? We all know the end of that story. Like, it's probably water weight that that person lost, and when they start eating again, the weight comes back. Right. I don't know if that example fully works. You get what I'm saying? That things aren't always at what they as they appear. You have to run your own race. You have to keep your eyes on your own paper and just be prepared. Be prepared to be shocked. Buy some. You'll. You'll see some of it and you'll be like, wow, man, I thought that person was going to be here forever. And then, you know, it just. Just not what it seemed. So, my friends, thank you for joining me on this walk today. Those are just ten lessons. Like I said, I have a hundred ten lessons that really stood out to me from ten years as an online entrepreneur in this industry. I'm so grateful. I try really hard. I'm not perfect, but I try really hard to never take a day of this life for granted. I love what I get to do. I know there are so many podcasts you could be listening to, and so many of you have been here from the very beginning. And if you haven't been here from the beginning, I'm so happy that you're here now. And I'm so excited for what the next 10 years will bring. I feel like I'm really growing up in. Well, in life, but also in business. And if you have, if you thought my first 10 years were good or inspiring or fun to be a part of, please just hang around, because I promise you, I am just getting started. So cheers to 10 years since 4-15-20. I keep getting this wrong. 2015. And my friends, I am wishing you all of the courage and the clarity that you need to keep going. Stay with it, and I will talk to you very soon.