3 Emotions That Will Help You Stick With It (Even When You’re Not Seeing Results)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Grow Your Local Business

Episode: 3 Emotions That Will Help You Stick With It (Even When You’re Not Seeing Results)
Host: Leslie Presnall
Release Date: July 29, 2025

---

In Episode 3 of Grow Your Local Business, host Leslie Presnall delves into the emotional challenges entrepreneurs face during the often arduous learning phase of their business journey. This episode provides listeners with actionable insights and strategies to navigate through periods of frustration and stagnation by harnessing three key emotions: compassion, detachment, and trust.

1. Understanding the Emotional Landscape of Entrepreneurship

Leslie begins by addressing a universal struggle among business owners: the emotional turmoil experienced when efforts don't yield immediate results. She remarks, “That gap between where you are and where you want to be can feel really uncomfortable” (00:21). This discomfort can lead to negative emotions such as frustration, doubt, and inadequacy, making it difficult to maintain momentum.

2. The Perpetual Learning Curve

Highlighting the continuous nature of entrepreneurship, Leslie shares her personal journey, stating, “I started my first local business back in 2010, almost 16 years ago, and I'm still learning and growing every day” (00:45). She emphasizes that the learning process never truly ends, as there’s always more to master—from marketing and sales to audience growth and client acquisition.

3. Navigating the "Messy Middle"

Leslie characterizes the phase between initial efforts and achieving desired results as the “messy middle” (02:00). This period is fraught with challenges, including:

• Feeling Overwhelmed: The sheer volume of tasks can lead to exhaustion.
• Self-Doubt: Questioning one’s abilities and strategies.
• Comparison: Measuring progress against others who seem further along.
• Perfectionism: Striving for flawless execution, which can result in procrastination.

4. Introducing the Three Transformative Emotions

To combat these challenges, Leslie introduces three pivotal emotions that can help entrepreneurs persevere:

a. Compassion (05:30)

Compassion involves being kind and understanding toward oneself during the learning process. Leslie explains, “Compassion for where you are, meeting yourself where you are” (05:30). This means acknowledging that it’s okay to be inexperienced and allowing oneself the space to grow without harsh self-judgment. By fostering compassion, entrepreneurs can reduce the emotional strain and maintain their motivation.

b. Detachment (12:15)

Detachment, as Leslie describes, is about separating one’s self-worth from immediate outcomes. She states, “I'm doing this thing to learn... I'm not going to expect anything in return instantly” (12:15). This mindset encourages entrepreneurs to view each action—be it a social media post or an email campaign—as a learning opportunity rather than a measure of success. Detachment helps in mitigating the pressure for instant gratification, allowing for more sustainable and consistent efforts.

c. Trust (18:45)

Trust encompasses believing in the process and in one’s ability to achieve desired results over time. Leslie articulates, “I trust the process. I trust myself even if I don't see the results yet” (18:45). This involves having confidence that continued effort and persistence will eventually lead to success. Trust fosters resilience, enabling entrepreneurs to stay committed despite temporary setbacks.

5. Embracing a Growth Mindset

Leslie contrasts a growth mindset with a fixed mindset, emphasizing the importance of the former in entrepreneurial success. A growth mindset is characterized by the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. In contrast, a fixed mindset perceives talents as innate and unchangeable. Leslie encourages listeners to adopt a growth mindset, stating, “We want to move you into having a growth mindset” (25:00), which is essential for continual improvement and adaptability.

6. Practical Strategies to Cultivate Compassion, Detachment, and Trust

To embed these emotions into their daily routines, Leslie offers practical strategies:

• Daily Reflection: Taking time to acknowledge and appreciate one’s efforts.
• Setting Realistic Goals: Focusing on incremental progress rather than perfection.
• Mindfulness Practices: Engaging in activities that promote present-moment awareness and reduce anxiety.
• Community Support: Leveraging the support of coaches and peer groups, as she mentions, “If you work with me inside the LocalPreneur Academy, I like to remind my students of the support of a coach in the community” (07:30).

7. Overcoming the Feeling of a "Follow-Through Problem"

Leslie challenges the common misconception that inconsistency in following through is solely a matter of discipline. She posits that it’s often rooted in emotional responses: “People think that they have a follow-through problem, but they have a feeling problem” (28:30). By addressing and managing these underlying emotions, entrepreneurs can enhance their consistency and commitment to their business endeavors.

8. Encouragement to Persist

In conclusion, Leslie urges listeners to embrace their emotional experiences as integral to their growth. By intentionally cultivating compassion, detachment, and trust, entrepreneurs can navigate the messy middle with resilience and determination. She reinforces that these emotions are not just fleeting feelings but powerful tools that, when harnessed, drive sustained business growth and personal development.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Acknowledge Emotions: Recognize and accept the negative emotions that arise during the learning phase.
• Cultivate Compassion: Be kind to yourself and understand that growth takes time.
• Practice Detachment: Focus on the process rather than immediate results.
• Build Trust: Believe in your ability to achieve your goals through persistent effort.
• Adopt a Growth Mindset: Embrace challenges as opportunities to develop and improve.
• Leverage Support Systems: Utilize coaches and communities to bolster your journey.

By integrating these principles, entrepreneurs can better navigate the challenges of growing a local business, ensuring they remain steadfast even when results are not immediately evident.

Transcript

[A]

You are listening to the Grow youw Local Business podcast, where local marketing expert and life coach Leslie Presnol shares the strategies and the mindset to help you reach more people in your city and bring in a steady stream of clients. All right, let's dive in.

[B]

Hey, welcome to episode 127. Today we're going to talk about something that every business owner deals with. The emotions that come up when you're learning something new in your business and when you don't have the result yet. You know what I mean? Like, when you're showing up, you're trying, you're learning, you're implementing, but you're not there yet. Like, that gap between where you are and where you want to be can feel really uncomfortable. And then because of all of those negative emotions that come up and. And that feel really uncomfortable, that's really when we struggle to follow through. And I know if you're listening to this podcast, you likely are in the learning phase in your business. You're learning how to market, how to sell, how to get visible, how to grow your audience, how to talk about what you do and how to actually get more clients. And whether you've just started your business or you've been in it for years, this never really ends. Like, I. I started my first local business back in 2010, almost 16 years ago, and I'm still learning and growing every day. That's part of what makes entrepreneurship exciting and what I love, but that's also what makes it hard. Like, we're always in that growth. We're always in that learning, and I just don't think that ever stops. As entrepreneurs, we're always going to be in that because there's always going to be more to learn and more ways to grow at every level. But I also know that it can feel terrible. The learning phase is emotional. We can feel a lot of negative emotion when we're learning things and when we aren't good at them yet, or when we don't have the results we want yet. I will watch myself get really frustrated or really down when I'm trying to learn something new or when I'm trying to just do something or develop a new skill or implement something new in my business. I will watch all of these negative emotions come up. And I see it with my students every day inside the localpreneur Academy. Like, they're learning how to grow a local audience, how to stand out locally, how to start showing up every day as that local go to person and really position themselves like that. And Even how to create differently on social media. So they aren't just posting to post, but to really post to create local demand and desire for people to work with them and. And of course, to learn how to sell. Or, you know, I have students who are hosting their very first events or designing maybe something in Canva for the first time, or starting that email list and sending emails, or they're reaching out to local businesses to partner and to collaborate, or they're pitching themselves. And all through this learning, they're just in this messy middle part, and they're in that part of not having the results that they want yet. It's easy to feel frustrated, to feel overwhelmed, doubtful, inadequate. It's easy to compare ourselves to people who are further along. It's easy to fall into perfectionism, which leads to procrastination. And what I always tell them is, this is the messy middle. This is the hard part. It's normal. It's part of the process. So let's talk about it. How do you actually get through this hard part, this messy middle? And how do you keep going? How do you follow through when your brain is screaming at you to quit? There are three emotions that I want to offer you that can change everything. When you're learning something new and when you're not seeing the results yet. So those three emotions are compassion, unattached, and trust. And I want to break down and talk through each of those. But I also want to say, and really hit home, that just feeling uncomfortable in this process is normal. Like, let's just accept our humanness for a second. I do love just to stop and appreciate what I'm even trying to do, that I even have the desire to learn and to do something new to begin with. Sometimes I have to bring it back to that. Like, you don't have to learn this thing, but here's why you really want to. But then also bringing it back to it's okay that this feels hard or that this feels bad. We can feel our feelings. If you've listened to my podcast for a while, you have probably heard me say that negative emotions do not have to be a problem. And if you're in entrepreneurship and wanting to grow your local business, you are inviting more negative emotions in. That's how we grow. That's how we get better. By doing the hard, uncomfortable things and by reminding ourselves that we have the ability to think and feel on purpose. Our brain's default just kind of goes straight to the frustration, the comparison, the overwhelm, confusion, and straight to this will never work. I will never get better at this. And that's typically when we stop, we avoid the thing we're trying to do, or we quit altogether, or we kind of start and stop. But there are other things available for you to think and feel on purpose in the moment that will move you forward and get you out of this pattern of stopping and starting or avoiding it when it feels bad. So there is something called a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. And what that means is a growth mindset is where you know you're going to get better at this. Like, you see the potential, you see where this is going if you stick with it. A fixed mindset is more like, this is hopeless, I'm hopeless. This is always going to be this way. This is never going to work or get any better. I'm never going to make this work. I'm never going to get any better. This is just the way it is. It's very fixed, it's very permanent. We want to move you into having a growth mindset. Like, that's why you're here to learn to grow, to let yourself be bad at something right now or to maybe not be quite at the level you want and to understand that it's going to get better with your commitment and with your follow through. So by tapping into these three emotions, compassion, unattached, and trust. It'll help you stay in this growth mindset and stick with what you're learning and stick with what you're implementing so you can get better results. Okay, so let's break down each one of these. So number one, compassion. Compassion. Sounds like I'm learning a new skill. I'm giving myself the time and space to not be good at it. I know I will be. I know I can figure this out. I'm just getting started. If you work with me inside the localpreneur academy, I like to remind my students of the thought I have the support of a coach in the community. Or like everybody started exactly where I'm starting now. They all started where I am. They all have access to the same resources and I like for them to look at where everyone else has grown to. And it's like, they've got me, I've got me. I'm just gonna keep going and not let where I am now determine, like or define what's possible for me. I'm not gonna let that determine where I'm going and how good I'm going to be. So just compassion for where you are, meeting yourself where you are. And I'm Learning something new. The second one is unattached. And to me, unattached is I'm doing this thing to learn. Like, I'm writing these captions to learn. Like, I'm just going to post them. I'm not going to expect anything in return instantly. I'm just using this as a learning opportunity or whatever it is that you're working on now. What it doesn't mean is that I don't care. It means that I'm not attaching my worth or what's possible or what's coming to the outcome of one post or one email or one action that I'm taking. I know logically that there's no one perfect post or one perfect email. I understand it's a learning process and that I'm getting better in it. Like, I don't need the instant gratification to feel better about that process or about what's possible for me. In other words, I don't need a like or a sale or something to happen. Like right this second, right after I do something to make me believe in what I'm doing or what I'm building. So I'm unattached to the result of this one thing I'm doing. I know it's moving me forward. It's everything working together collectively. It sounds like this is part of a process I'm learning, I'm building. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to work perfectly to be worth doing. It's like, think about training for a marathon. You do so many runs over months to train and prepare. You start really small on your mileage and you build up from there. You have recovery days, you have speed days, you have long run days. There are just so many runs that build up your ability to do a full marathon. But then some days you go out and you feel like complete garbage. Like, maybe you get a cramp and you have to stop, or maybe you pull a muscle and you can't do it for a little bit. Maybe you get sick. Maybe you just aren't feeling it. Like, maybe you go out and you just get in your head and you. And you quit early. Maybe it's like that single run isn't a success, but that one run doesn't determine if you can run a marathon or not because it's really the collection of all of the runs that you do together over that time that build up your ability to be able to go and run 26 miles. Or it's like think about a team that wins the World Series. They had some losses in there. They didn't win every game. They probably had some injuries, they had players traded, they had other hard obstacles throughout the year, maybe some slumps. But it's the season as a whole that made them winners. They didn't get attached to one game. So you're not going to get attached to one post or even other things in your business like one event or one email or one client or one consult. It's all of them together. I just see so many people quitting over one thing, not working or not working fast enough. So this brings me to my last emotion, which is trust. Trust Sounds like I trust the process. I trust myself even if I don't see the results yet. Like, I believe they're coming. I have the ability to create them. If I just keep going, if I keep doing the work, if I keep following through. You trust you. You trust what you're learning. You trust what you're building overall. You trust that every single thing you do is compounding over time and that you are getting better and better every single day. So compassion, unattached trust. These are the emotions that I come back to over and over when I'm in a hard season, when I'm learning something new, or when I'm implementing and not seeing the results yet. You can feel these on purpose. You can practice them. You can remind yourself of them daily. And when you do, that's when you stick with it. That's when you follow through. Because following through isn't necessarily about discipline. It's about how you think and feel in the moment when you want to quit. People think that they have a follow through problem, but they have a feeling problem. So we want to be able to feel on purpose. All right, my friend, if you want. Loved this. And if this hit home and you're like, yes, like, this is what I need. I know I have a feeling problem. I don't need to do more. I just need help shifting my mindset so I can actually follow through and grow my local business. This is exactly what we do inside the LocalPreneur Academy. So you will learn my process to reach more people in your city and bring in more clients. But more importantly, you're going to learn how to think, feel, and show up on purpose so you can get fully booked and stay consistent. So come join us. Click the link in the show notes to learn more and I will see you inside. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, I want to invite you to check out my program, the LocalPreneur Academy. This is the only program for small business owners who want to become the local go to in their industry with a steady stream of clients. You can find more [e-mail] and I'll see you inside.