← Dream Life Club
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That's when I believe you become a magnet for every single opportunity that the world has to offer. That's when you find that the people who are excellent at their craft will notice you. That's when you find that those at the highest levels of the ladder of whatever industry that is, whether it's in politics or whether it's in your business or whether it's in leadership in any sense, those world changers, those people that you really respect, those people that everybody's like, wow, how does he do what he does? How does she do what she does? Those people will notice you when you start operating like this. Hi friends. Welcome back to the Dream Life Club show. My name is Sumi and this podcast is for you if you are an entrepreneur or a creative ready to grow your brand and business. If you don't know me, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 19. I feel like I was made for this. I grew and sold an eight figure consulting company with 200 employees in D.C. and now I'm here in LA growing a whole new brand as a music artist, as a recording artist. And so it's a whole new challenge that I'm taking you on the trip with me for. But I, I am here to talk to you about helping you get your business off the ground scale, change your life, change your trajectory for yourself and generations to come. Build community that you love and do it in a way that makes you feel really, really proud. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how do you define success? Now, this is a topic that I don't think is talked about enough in the business coaching world or in the entrepreneurship world or in the business world in general. Most people have one metric for success. And what is that one metric for success? Money. Right. Even I talk about building your company to seven figures, your blueprint to make crossing seven figures in your business, like it's always that the general yardstick is how much money are you making. But here's the problem with that and here's what I want to offer you in today's short podcast. I want you to start thinking about other ways that truly measure your success. Because if you just use money as your only metric as your only yardstick, then you could fall into the trap of a lot of things that won't make you happy, that won't make you feel good about how you're carrying yourself, about your integrity, about your character, that'll make you a lot more vulnerable to, to pray from bad actors, that'll make you start to consider things that go against your ethics, that'll make you start to turn into somebody that you might not recognize. And that's why it's so important, especially as an entrepreneur, to be able to really elegantly balance this idea of growth. And this idea of building a business is obviously like building monetary value, right? And with the idea that there's a lot of other. Sorry, there's like a gnat. Oh, get out of here. Oh, my God. Okay. That. There's a lot of other ways to measure success. It's kind of like losing weight. Okay. Like, if anybody has been on a fitness journey, you follow me here. So when you, like, first start out on your fitness journey, you're, like, all about the number on scale, right? It's like you. You're. It's like this obsession could be unhealthy, could be toxic. We could have a whole conversation about my feelings on that. But a lot of people start to look at the number on the scale and want to see that number moving in order for them to feel like they're making progress. But when you reach a certain level of maturity, you realize a few things. One, that oftentimes when you're actually getting healthier and you're working on building muscle, building your bone density, building strength, doing resistance training, weightlifting, the number on the scale actually might start to go up. And that's a good thing, right? Even if you're trying to quote, unquote, lose weight when you're building muscle, it very well might be that the number on the scale goes up because muscle weighs so much more than fat, right? Or you might realize that even though you have lost a lot of fat, like, even later on in your journey, you have lost a lot of fat, but you still weigh the exact same amount as you weighed in the beginning. But you look totally different. You look like a completely different person. Your body composition has changed drastically. And so that's why in the health and fitness world, when you get into it, you realize the number on the scale. Scale does not matter. The number on the scale is not the metric that you want to use for success. You want to start to look at other things. Like, are you getting the right macronutrient combination? Are you getting the right micronutrient combination? The right micronutrients in your body. Like, a lot of people recommend 800 grams of fruits and vegetables every single day, which is a lot. Which is like, six cups of fruits and vegetables every single day as, like, a starting point. Like, are you getting that in your diet? Right? Like, that's Something you could look at to measure, right? You can also, of course, look at how your clothes fit. Like, do you feel more comfortable in your own skin? You can also, of course, look at pictures of your body in the mirror. If body changes and body composition is something you're looking to change in some way, whether it's build more muscle or lean out or lose some extra fat or whatever it is, right. You can, you can look at your measurement with a tape, with a measuring tape around your waist, right? There are so many. You can measure your muscle too, to see if your muscles growing around various parts of your body. So there's so many ways to measure success in that example of a fitness journey. Similarly, we want to get off of the idea that measuring success in business can only be done through monetary means, through money, through bottom line, top line, or through whatever it is, right? Through revenue, profit. I want everybody to follow me here. Revenues, top line, profits, bottom line, right? Doesn't matter where you're looking at it. But we want to get away from the idea that money, money and dollar signs is the only way to measure progress in a business endeavor. Okay? Now I want to talk about this because it's so important and it'll change the way you approach your business. It'll change your idea, it'll change your energetics, it'll change your vibe so that you actually become more powerful, you actually become better at what you're doing. You actually relate to other people better and you are more impactful in your work. Okay? So. So let's take an example I use. I am in the coaching industry, right? I am helping women build businesses and that's what I'm so passionate about doing. If I can help offer my experience, I want to do that. And in the coaching industry, in and of itself, I know that there is a lot of people who talk about how much money they're making. They say, you know, I'm 20k months, I'm at 50k months, I'm at 100k months. I met, you know, then it becomes I'm at seven figures. I'm at multiple seven figures. I'm at eight figures. I'm at multiple eight figures. I have a goal to make nine figures, figures a year, right? Like whatever it is, there's a lot of focus on money and what I have seen over the past. I've been in this industry for 10 years. And I have to tell you something that I've actually never shared with anybody before. So listen up. I wasn't sure if I was going to Share this. But here we go. The reason why I kind. I started business coaching back in 2014, and I dabbled in it. I was still growing my consulting company in D.C. but I wanted to give back. Like, the whole reason I started business coaching in the first place is because I felt like I had learned so much, I had made so many mistakes, and I had had successes, and I wanted to be able to give back. I wanted to be able to offer to others things that I had learned and help other women. Because it's particularly hard for women and it's particularly hard even more for women of color to succeed in the business world because of a lot of structural and systemic discrimination and lack of opportunity. And we can have a whole conversation about that. But I had this passion to help other women grow and scale their companies, get them off the ground and grow them, right? And then I, I started in this industry, business coaching. And I have to tell you, the honest truth is that when I looked around and I saw everybody measuring their success based off of how much money they were making, it really started to bother me because I saw really manipulative sales tactics being used. I saw coaches preying on people's vulnerabilities. I saw people desperate to get their business off the ground, to make money, to change their family's financial situation being preyed upon. Because ultimately, so many people, like, want a solution, right? We want someone to come in and help be our savior. We want someone to rescue us. And the messaging and the marketing strategies that were being used and the. What is it called? And neuro. Neuro linguistic programming, NLP that was being, like, inculcated in this whole movement of, like, coaching and business coaching. And everything at the time was able to was if you used it with bad intentions or even with, like, neutral intentions, right? There was a lot of preying on people's codependency, preying on people's vulnerabilities, preying on people's desperation, preying on people who simply did not have the funds to sign up for a program, but then they were getting convinced into buying a program that would, quote, unquote, change their life. And they weren't ready or they weren't going to be. They didn't. The program didn't actually offer them that, right? Like, it was a lot of false props, promises. And it made me really take a step back from the industry as a whole. I took a step back for seven years or more because I was like, I don't know if I can do this. Like, I don't Want to be one of those. Like, I do not want to be one of those. And a lot of people were making a lot of money from operating in that way. A lot of people were making a lot of money. And here's the thing, like it's tempting, right? Because especially if you can convince yourself that you have a, a quality product or a quality service and then you, you know, hear that, well, this is how you should position it and this is how you should close it. And these are the questions you should ask on a sales call. And this is how you should, you know, follow up. And this is how you should overcome their objections. And this is how you should, you know, make them feel like they need you, otherwise they won't ever get their end results. And it's, it's easy to convince yourself even that this is a fair way of doing business. Then when I looked at how many of the people in these coaches programs were actually being successful, were actually getting results, it may have been like 10 to 15%, maybe 20%. Max, Max, Max, max, max in pretty much all of these programs. And while one could argue that that's just par for the course, like no one's ever going to, not everybody is always going to like be successful. That didn't, wouldn't work for me. That wouldn't work for me. If I knew that I was only giving 1 out of 10 people the change that I had promised them, if I had, if I knew that I was only giving 2 out of 10 people the change that I had promised them, like that would not make me feel good. Yet these coaches were going along, living their lives because their bottom line and their top line, their revenue just kept increasing because they were good salespeople. And that's what I want to argue against and make the case against today, that there are other ways to manage and measure your success that will make you a lot happier at the end of the day. That will make your reputation so rock solid that everybody will want to work with you where you can feel so good about the work that you're doing. Where people who you really, really, really respect, smart, interesting people, not just people who only care about money, but deep wise world changers respect you. If that's the kind of business you want to build, then keep listening. Okay, so here's what I want you to think about your metric for success. I want you to list out these other ways if you're listening right now, in some place that you can write this down, make a note of it so you remember and figure out how you can incorporate these measures into your quarterly reviews. Okay, so the main measure of your success should be the positive change that you're able to provide in other people's lives. That, hands down, should be one of your motivating factors. Right. How much positive change and transformation and positive value are you adding to someone's life? Okay, To. To whose life? Lots of peoples. You have the opportunity as an entrepreneur to affect and impact so many people, and that is exciting. Let yourself get excited by that idea. Okay, I want you to, first of all, look at your target market. Okay, so write down number one, target market. How can you add or increase the amount of positive impact you're making in your target market's life? Now, who is your target market? Are they just the people out there that don't currently buy your product or service? Yeah, that's your target market. Okay. They're the people. They're. They're. Yes, your clients are also part of your target market, but they're a specific group. Your target market as a whole should be the people that you are offering value to. Okay, in general. Okay. In general. And a lot of times there are things that we can do that we don't think about doing until we give ourselves permission to look at it this way. Like, this is how you're going to get successful. And by the way, the money will come. The money will come when you take your focus off of it, but onto these things. And this is why I disagree with a lot of the way that some of these business coaches talk about. Like, I don't know, I just. I disagree with it. You got to think about how can you increase the amount of positive impact you're having in your target market's life. Okay, then you gotta ask yourself. And now let's think about that. Let's brainstorm for a quick second. A lot of the times with us with, like, online businesses, that's done through the way that we offer our free content. Okay. The way that we film our social media, the value that we offer through that, what we decide to talk about and share on podcasts. Okay, the emails that we're sending out, how are those emails really? Are we really putting our best put foot forward to help those people, Right. To help change their life in a positive way. There's so many ways sometimes people are doing, you know, challenges or free, like free webinars, masterclasses, trainings, okay. Talks. All of these ways are ways that we can offer positive change in people's lives and measure that by that feedback. The feedback that we're getting from our target market in terms of how their life is better with us in it. Like, how amazing is that thought? Even that thought that you have the opportunity as an entrepreneur to make other people's lives better. If that's the frame you're coming from, how much more relaxed do you feel? How much more at ease do you feel? How much more excited do you feel versus oh my God, I've got to sell this many clients into this many programs to make this amount of money. Like, that is like kind of like I can even. I can feel it. Like it's kind of a very contracted closed energy versus the energy of how can I make these people's lives change for the better every single day? Like, that's exciting. Okay. Not only do you have your target market, but guess what? You have so many other arenas to apply this thought process to. Okay? And I made a list of them. Your team. Okay? Ultimately. And if you're a solopreneur, then you don't have a team yet. This doesn't apply to you yet. But you might be using one off contractors to do certain tasks for you. You might have a part time va. You might tap into somebody to run something specific for you. All of these people who come in contact with you ask yourself, how can you make a positive change in their life? How can you make their life better? Okay? Whether it's just being like an. Being a happy voice that they get to talk to, being an encouraging boss. Okay? Helping them learn something. Like instead of getting frustrated with your team, which is so easy to do, most people cannot run team effectively because it's easier for us to do it ourselves. Right? We just want. We. Oh, it's easier to do it ourselves. It's so frustrating. They can't learn it fast enough. They make all these mistakes, blah, blah, blah. It's easy to get so frustrated with your team and ultimately that's a sign of a very immature leader. Okay? Because your team won't be able to do things like you would do them. That's why they're your team, right? You have to take the extra time to train them. You have to be extra patient for them to get up to speed. Speed. You can't expect them to be able to pick things up just like you would. That's why you are the leader. And that is not meant to be condescending. They have a different skill set. They might be smarter than you in. They should be smarter than you in their area of expertise. But also, also you might be training them up in how to operate in your company, how to operate in your culture. Okay. Or how to actually do, do the task. Like maybe you are trying to train somebody more junior and they need a little bit more time, they need a little bit more experience, they need a little bit more hand holding. So if you switch your mental frame from, oh my God, this is such a waste of time, I can't believe they made this mistake. I should be going a lot faster too. How can I make a positive change in their life today? You will see that people will stick around you guys. I had to figure this out from managing an executive team of like seven people when I was in my MA. When I was in my mid-20s and a full time team across the country of 200 people. And so I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do and about how when I was that young, I had such unrealistic expectations for team members. I had, I had such unrealistic expectations. Okay? So think about how your, how your team can also be a tool for you to practice. This idea of success is measured by how I can make a positive change in other people's lives. Okay? So that every time you get on a frustrating call with a team member, just think to yourself, well, how can I be a positive force in their life? How can I make a positive change in their life? And it'll change your energy completely. It'll make your team members want to go to bat for you. It'll make people want to show up for you. It'll help people want to put their best foot forward. So that's the frame you want to approach them with, okay? The industry as a whole. Now this is so cool because once you think about how can you make a positive change in other people's life as your measure for success, then you get to get super creative and you actually become a leader. This is when you become a leader. It's like when a girl becomes a fucking woman. It's like, I don't know, I just have this like, image of like, this is when your life changes. This is when you become a leader. This is when you get out of this scarcity mindset of trying to get your bag. All of that. That is, that is the absolute wrong mindset. It's not about you getting what's yours, okay? It's not about how you can make a quick buck. It's about you making change. It's about you being as powerful as you can possibly be. It's about you creating movements, making the biggest impact, doing Things in a way that other people admire being a real force. You get to think about, how can you make the industry better? How can you make a positive change in the lives of people in the industry? Okay, this might mean putting on events with other industry leaders. This might be like. Like my friend Mikel, who runs a PR firm here in Los Angeles in the music industry. During COVID he decided to get a bunch of PR agents on Zoom. And they have completely revolutionized the way that agencies work in the music industry because independent musicians could not afford to pay 3,000, 5,000, $10,000 a month to these PR agents who didn't necessarily get them any press. It was just a retainer for pitching. Right? Just because you pitch doesn't mean you're not going to get any placements. So he's changed the way that industry works. He's made a positive impact on the industry. And similarly, you can make a positive impact in your industry if you start to switch your frame, if you revise your thinking and stop making it about getting your bag, stop making it about how much money you're going to make this year, and make it about this instead. Okay, the next category are your clients and your customers. Now, this is even more exciting than the target market that I mentioned previously, because these are people who are actually working with you, right? These are people who you are offering your product or service to. They're already invested. You have such an opportunity here to really change their life. And I don't care what your product or service is. You can think of ways to go above and beyond for them, to really help them, to get them the results and at a minimum, get them the results that you've promised. That's like minimum bar. Okay, no more of this. Well, it's outside my scope of work. So, like, I'm not who. When did we stop going over and above for each other? When did this stop? What people don't realize who operate in that limited worldview is that when you go over and above for somebody, when you make sure you're delivering on your promises, when you over deliver, people will go to bat for you. People will be referring you like wildfire. You will be it. The success in terms of money comes when you focus on the success in terms of how you can make a positive difference in these people's lives. Can you send them a book that you think they might like? Can you make an introduction that you didn't promise in your scope of work, but you realize this might help them? Right? Can you get on an extra Call with them if they're really struggling with something to work them through a real low point in their business or whatever it is. Think about ways while not depleting yourself, not, not depleting yourself or, or running yourself so thin. What's the expression? That you don't have anything left. Right. You of course have to make sure you're taking care of yourself, that your own cup is filled up and you are serving and offering and working from the overflow, as they say. But think about ways that you can make a positive. Like if you are doing your job, you should feel like so happy about the fact that you're making all this positive change in your clients and customers lives. The community is the next category. The community around you, right? Like you get to, as an entrepreneur, you're building a platform. Your whole thing is you want to build a platform, you want to build your brand, you want to have a voice, you want to have a stake in things, you want to have a seat at the table. And we want you to because like I always say, we need your work, we need your art, we need your voice, right? So at the same time then you need to figure out how your community can benefit from it. Okay? So it's not just all about you, it's about how can you make a difference in the community. Your friends is like an extension of it as well. Right? This is all like this idea of integration, of integration. It shouldn't be like, okay, I'm working on my business and I'm stressed out and I'm scurrying around trying to make some money and then I get to relax with friends. That doesn't sound appealing. It's like, what would happen if you just saw yourself differently, if you saw your role in the world as all one. If you saw like, okay, these are all different ways you get to express yourself. You get to express yourself through your work in this way and make a positive impact, you know, with your clients. And then you get to make your positive impact because your work is most likely going to be something. As an entrepreneur and as a business owner, you can't separate. You don't turn off. We all know this, right? We don't just shut off our brains and like never think about business on the weekends. But maybe you can offer an idea to a friend when you're having coffee or when you're going for a walk that like you would only think of because you're in the business world. Maybe you can figure out how your business might, could partner with a friend of Yours who's try, who's like, starting up something else. Like, there are so many ways that when you start to think about how you can shift from thinking about meeting revenue goals to incentivize, instead thinking about making a positive change in the people's lives that you are either working with or serving or coming across in your industry, in your community, in your friend group, and of course your family. That's when I believe you become a magnet for every single opportunity that the world has to offer. That's when you find that the people who are excellent at their craft will notice you. That's when you find that those at the highest levels of the ladder of whatever industry that is, whether it's in politics or whether it's in your business or whether it's in, in, in leadership in any sense, those world changers, those people that you really respect, those people that everybody's like, wow, how does he do what he does? How does she do what she does? Those people will notice you when you start operating like this. So give yourself that chance. Take yourself out of the race to the bottom. Take yourself out of this little world where it's all about getting your bag. Like, I can't see understand that phrase. I don't know why that popped into my head, but I feel like it's like ramping all over TikTok these days. So this is my rant against that. It's not about that. It's about your impact. It's about your reach. The money will come as a result of you doing good work. And yes, you can enjoy the money and you can enjoy nice things and that will come. But you will also see that you will attract a different crowd when you focus on this. You will attract a crowd of people with high character, with high integrity. You will attract a crowd of people who want to do good and make change and are much more holistic and much more interesting and much more wise and much deeper than the people who just focus on how can I make my next dollar? How can I get another person into this program? How can I perhaps use this NLP technique to convince this person who's saying no to instead say yes? That shouldn't be where the focus is. The focus is how can I better serve that person who's currently in my program? The focus is how can I make sure, sure that the promises I made come true for these clients? The focus is how can their. How can I do such good work for them that they will recommend me to every single person that they know? Right? That they'll be shouting me from the rooftops, right? The focus is making myself happy by making other people happy. At the end of the day, that's what it's about. You're here, you're living your life every single day to enjoy it and to help people, right? And then the money will come. So that is my rant for you as a powerful woman in business. If you want to really do this thing, if you want to really go places, if you really want, really want to make an impact, you've got to change this in your mindset. So I'll leave it there for today. And lots of love. I hope that you can take this with you and think about it, Think about it over the weekend and start to think about how you can include this as a tangible measure, a tangible metric of your progress and your growth as a business owner. Lots of love. See you next time.