Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign
- [00:04]
B
welcome to the Courage and Clarity podcast. I'm your host, Steph Crowder. I'm a former sales training director who's
- [00:11]
A
helped thousands of entrepreneurs earn a living
- [00:14]
B
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.
- [00:46]
A
Let's go. Hello there friends. Hello, hello. Welcome to the podcast. I hope you're having an amazing day, an amazing week. I am taking you on a walk and talk. It has been a minute since we've done a walk and Talk episode and at the time of this recording, it's a beautiful spring day here in Columbia, Missouri where I am visiting my husband's family. It is spring break and I'm out here on a walk with my pup and I wanted to talk to you all. I wanted to talk to you all about Q2. I'm recording this on the first Monday of Q2 and I thought we could just reset together. I thought we could talk about how to approach your second quarter of the year, what you might be thinking and some thoughts that you might need to clean up. They may be sneaky, they may be obvious and help you get to a place where you feel really awesome and fresh and ready to tackle the second quarter of the year, which I think is a really important quarter. I mean, obviously they're all important for their own reasons, but I've been thinking a lot about the second quarter of the year and I actually think it might be. I mean I could make the case that they're all the most important. But like, I kind of think it's a little bit of a forgotten quarter. We sleep on it a little bit and so I want to talk about that. And I will also say, please pardon any lower quality sound that you may be hearing. It's my hope. I'm actually walking. My parents in law's neighborhood is quite quiet at the moment, but there's also, I think a little bit of wind. So hopefully you don't mind. But I always just love moving my body and sharing my thoughts. So that is what we're doing today. The first thing I want to say about Q2 is you may Be tempted to be feeling a little down or a little bummed that maybe your Q1 didn't go the way you hoped. Maybe it went amazing, and that's awesome. I think you're, you know, you can kind of feel like you're skating into quarter two on cloud nine, and that's great. I love that for you. But for a lot of people, I find this happens year over year. Q1 can be a little bit of a bumpy ride. I know for me this year, and a lot of you will probably relate to this. Parents of the world, like, if you live in a place that gets a wintry climate, we had missed a lot of school. Combine that with cold and flu season and what you have is a. A lot of days off, a lot of interruptions in service when it comes to your daycare, your childcare time that you expected to be yours. You know, a lot of 52 card pickup, as we call it in my house. Like throwing a deck of card and cards in the air and then having to pick up all the pieces. Right? And I think when we're doing our annual planning, if you do year on the wall with me in December, January feels so full of possibilities. It's a brand new year. It's a clean slate. Like, it's easy to be inspired walking into January. I think it's harder to be naturally inspired walking into April. You might be feeling a little beat up by the first quarter. You might also simultaneously be feeling a little hopeful if you're living in the Northern hemisphere. We are coming into spring, and spring means the return of the sun, the return of some warmth. So there is a hope there. But I also want to say there's also a lot of distraction in Q2, at least in my world. You know, we have spring break. We have, like, the nicer it gets outside, the more you want to be out there playing. Right? Where I live in Kentucky, we have the Kentucky Derby, which is, if you know anything about the Kentucky Derby, it is a huge affair. Our kids are literally off school the Friday before the Derby. It's like a big, big deal. And you might have your own version of that in your life. And then, of course, our kids are getting out of school and summer starts and the pool's open and it's a lot of playtime, and that's great. Like, we love playtime. I am all for playing. And also, this is kind of what I mean when I say I think there's a lot of opportunity in Q2 that gets squandered and that's what I want to focus on. So the first thing is, no matter what happened in your first quarter, I want to encourage you to treat Q2 like a brand new start. You might have big goals this year. You all know that I have really big goals this year and 25% of the year has gone by, right? That's just a fact. But just because 25% of the year has gone by doesn't mean that you need to be 25% to your goal. Let me say that again. Just because a quarter of the year has gone by, 25% of the year has gone by, does not mean that you are behind if you have not hit 25% of your goal, okay? And that's because anything can still happen. All right? We have nine months left in the year. It is asinine to let ourselves succumb to the thought, oh, shoot, the first three months didn't go the way I hoped. I haven't made as much progress in the first three months. I guess this isn't it. I guess it won't be it for me. I guess this is it. I guess I better lower my goal. Don't even get me started on that. We'll talk about that in a minute. Right? Let me lower my goal. Maybe I should slow down, quiet, quit, pump the brakes like I'm losing inspiration because, like, I'm behind. I'm behind, okay? That thought is just a thought that you can let go of right here and right now. Because truly, my friends, there is no such thing as behind. There just isn't. And the reason I know this is true is I have a friend. I have multiple friends, actually. If we just take the goal of making a million in a year, million dollars in revenue in a year. I have multiple friends and colleagues who've hit this goal. This goal is top of mind, of course, for me, because that's what I'm working towards and shooting for and thinking about a lot. And I have friends who have said, when my first million dollar year, my first quarter was abysmal, my first quarter was low, my first quarter, I was not 25% to goal. Well, how is that possible? Right? Well, what if your second quarter, your third quarter, what if you, you know, hit some kind of weight? What if you take off? What if some incredible project lands in your lap? What if some opportunity comes that you can't even conceive of right now? Right? I always say to my clients, like, what if you're on Good Morning America this quarter and suddenly the floodgates open. I mean, that's a dramatic example, and it really doesn't need to be that dramatic in order for this to still be true. There is so much opportunity ahead of you, and so I'd really like to encourage you right now to take a hard look at the thoughts that you're having about your year so far. Are you quietly, or maybe not so quietly, Maybe it's loud, but it could be sneaky is what I'm really getting at is like, are you quietly starting to slow down on your big impossible goals? We've talked about impossible goal on this podcast. Are you starting to count yourself out? Is it feeling harder to believe because of whatever happened in Q1? Are you looking at summer coming up and thinking, how am I going to do this? I got kids and the vacations and the this and the that. Like, are you having the dreaded thought, maybe I should lower my goal? Okay, no shame if you're having any of these thoughts, but it's just so important to catch. Because nine months is so much time. You can have the thought that the year is actually just beginning. And before you call me delusional for that, let us keep in mind that there are multiple cultures who see the springtime as the beginning of the year, not January. In plenty of cultures, the winter months are a time of rest. They're not a time of getting off to a fast start. Right? If we look at nature, truly the year is just beginning in so many ways. Where might that be true for you as well? Something I've been thinking about because I posted something about this over on TikTok and someone commented and thanked me for sharing and they said I was just about to lower. Actually, the person said, I lowered my goal this morning, but I'm going to go and change it back because of your video. And I responded with another video where I said, don't you dare lower the goal on yourself. If you don't like where you are right now. If anything, raise it. I know it sounds unhinged and maybe it is. I'm okay with that because maybe you're not inspired enough by your big goal. Maybe the goal you set isn't asking you to reinvent and get creative enough. Right? If your goal is to hit 100k this year and you're like feeling really behind on that, don't you dare bring it down to 50k. Oh, maybe I could hit 50k and feel okay about myself, right? We'll talk about that in a second. But instead, what would happen if you doubled down and said, forget that. What would happen if I aimed for 200. What would I have to do to become the person who hits 200k in their business? Right. You would have a totally different set of thoughts, of ideas, of team. Okay? What happens when we lower our goals on ourselves at the first sign of resistance is it completes a loop in your brain that says, when it gets hard, when life throws me crap, which life always will, I can just back down. And I think even worse than that is it can send a message to your brain that says, when I set a goal, I don't really believe in myself. Right? It kind of like if you. I don't know, I'm just thinking about parenting. And if you. This is maybe not the best example, but just bear with me on this. Like, if you told your kids, like, let's set a goal to get straight A's on your report card. Maybe you don't like that goal. That's fine. Just bear with me for the example. You have different feelings about grades, and I get that same. But let's just say for the simple example, that you're like, okay, I believe in you, kid. Like, you got this. Like, you can get all A's, and then we get halfway through the semester, and you're like, you know, kiddo, maybe Bs are fine for you, and you think you're doing your kid a favor by making them feel better and giving them a win, right? But what you may not realize in that example, what are you actually saying to your child? You're saying, I don't believe you can actually figure this out. So is that the message you want to send to yourself? I don't think that it is. So never lower the goal on yourself. Raise it if you must. Change it. When we set big goals, we have to be prepared to be disappointed. And that's okay, right? Like, I'm on board with that personally, you know, I have this goal to make a million in revenue this year, and I keep picturing, what if I hit 700? What if I hit 800? I won't hit my goal. And I'm like, that would be a delight, right? Like, technically, it would be a failure, But I am in no way going to be upset if I shoot that high. If I shoot for the moon and sort of land among the stars, right? It's not just about hitting that one target. If I'm able to do that, which would be significantly higher than my best revenue year, that would still be doubling my best revenue year. I will have nothing but celebration. Even though I didn't technically hit my goal. That's. Remember, part of the reason we set these impossible goals is because of who I think the best part, the most exciting part, is who we become in the process, what our company has to look like in the process, the problems we have to solve, the questions we have to answer, the belief we have to have. Right? So let's get excited about Q2 and all of the possibility. And if you're feeling behind with Q1, don't even worry about that at all. What if you give yourself permission for this to feel like a fresh start? That is really something that I'm just doing so differently this year. Like I said, I think Q2 has been like the secret, secretly sneaky, like kind of status quo quarter for me. I usually have launch, I launch in Q2. So it's not that I'm not working, it's not that I'm not busy. But I don't know how much reinvention and creative thinking and real problem solving has ever happened for me in Q2 because like I said, I start to get distracted. I start to take my eyes off the prize. And so I'm setting the intention that Q2, like April is the new January. April gets to be the same quality as a January. And I think that's really, really important. So that is what I wanted to share with you all today. Just a kind of a short one here to get you inspired for the quarter ahead. Whether you're super happy with where you're at or you're feeling behind or after listening to this podcast, you're realizing I was kind of going to give myself a pass, right? I was going to count myself out. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. What if you had the thought anything could still happen this year? Because it's a hundred percent true. It's a hundred percent true that we don't know how the story goes. So I hope it's helpful. I am wishing you an amazing start to your Q2 and I have so much awesome stuff coming up for you all. I am going to be talking all about if you listen to the podcast regularly, you might be wondering, how did my recent summit go? The sold out Fail System summit just concluded. It was a huge. Oh my gosh, spoiler alert. It was a huge success. We had over 400 people register and I opened enrollment for my Mastermind sold out group programs and surpassed my goal by 50%. So we had a really great launch and I'm really excited about it. I am saving some of the unpacking of that because I'm going to be having a conversation with somebody who I love to talk to, hint, hint about my results, and I'm really looking forward to diving in. So that is coming to the podcast very soon. I am waiting until I'm together in person with this individual that's actually happening at the end of this week. So we're going to be recording some honest conversation. So if you're the type of person who loves the nosy behind the scenes, what worked, what didn't? If my first time hosting a free summit, all of that is coming up very soon. Friends, get outside. If you've got some weather where you can get outside and move your body, please remember to do it. I am wishing you the courage and the clarity to go ask for what you love.