001: Why Now is the Right Time to Start Your Next Project ...Your Soul is Calling

Hey, have you heard there's a new style of CEO on the block. The modern CEO. And she is changing the way businesses are run. She's setting her own hours and her own salary. She's creating a business around what matters most to her. Freedom, family, and impact. And her corner office looks nothing like what you'd see on Wall Street. It's a kitchen t your grandma's lake house, a spacious home office, the living room floor, maybe surrounded by kids and crayons or the local coffee shop. Your business, your way. This modern CEO is here to stay. Because when you embrace your role as modern CEO, you will have more freedom, more profit, and more fun. Most importantly, you'll fall in love with your life and a business in a way you've only dreamed of. Trust me, this isn't a pipe dream reserved for only a select few. You are the modern CEO. You are creating a business and life you love because a better business means a better life. Hey, welcome to the Modern CEO podcast. I'm your host, Amber McHugh, and this is a big day because it is our very first episode of the Modern CEO podcast. And today, in this episode, we are talking all about resistance and how to overcome and how to keep doing the thing you know you need to be doing, even when you're feeling resistance. We're going to talk about what that looks like, how to get around it, and I'm going to share with you some of the resistance that I have been feeling bringing this baby to life. Boy, have you ever experienced that, guys? Or there's something that you wanted new, you're making something new. Whether it's a course that you're launching or a new marketing campaign you want to test out or something. Something new you want to put into the market, like a podcast or a book, or you wanna explore something new, like working out and trying a new, different workout. But you are resisting it. Like, you are shooting yourself in the foot every which way simply because you're nervous about it. It's new, it's different. And there are two things that very specifically come up for me around resistance, around this podcast. And let's see if you can relate. And you may be experiencing different things when it comes to resistance, but I think we might have some strategies in here that are gonna help your mindset a little bit and see why now is exactly the right time for you to do that thing that you are experiencing resistance to. The two big things I experienced front and center as we were doing this podcast are differentiation. And you're way too Late to the podcast game. Let me break those down for you. Differentiation is one of my big values, right? Innovation, standing out, being different in the market. And if I can't see a different way, for example, my products and services or a new Facebook Live or a new message I have to share, if I don't see a different way to present that, or if it's the same exact message that someone else is putting out there, it does not feel good and aligned to me to present that. I wanna look for a different way to present it. So maybe you can receive that information differently. And it's just who I am. So I kept thinking and playing over and over in my head, how is this podcast going to be? Because y', all, there are some really good podcasts on the market. I mean, I'm sure that you could share some and are listening to some fabulous podcasts yourself. Like I spent some time the last few months spending a lot of time listening to Jenna Kutcher's Gold Digger podcast, Jeff's Lively's the Lively show podcast man. Loving what she is up to right now and am in total alignment with what she's talking about, about raising your vibration, raising your frequency in life to operate at that higher level. And then Rick Mulready, the Art of Paid Traffic, James Wedmore and Phoebe Mind you'd business podcast. I mean, the list of good podcasts goes on and on. Not to mention outside of the business podcast. I totally got a little bit sidetracked by that Richard Simmons is Missing podcast that's out there. I didn't get through it all. I stopped myself. I stopped the Netflix style binge. I was falling over a binge listening cliff and I stopped myself because that was another way that I was procrastinating. Getting to the thing that I needed to do, which was bring this podcast to life. Can you relate? Is there something out there, right, that you are putting off, that you are procrastinating on for any which reason? And instead you're like, oh, let me go check out that new show OA over on Netflix, which is pretty good, by the way. Or oh, there's a new show out on Hulu or my next favorite episode of Scandal is out. Got to watch it all ways for me of procrastinating the things I really need and want to be doing now, sometimes it's perfectly healthy and I'm okay watching some of those Netflix shows, but I can spot it and I know when I'm using it as a way to procrastinate. So differentiation was Something that was coming up big for me. And of course, my coaches in the past have said to me and I've said to even my clients, right? One of the ways that you will differentiate is just by showing up and being you. And of course, as I'm going through and building out this podcast, I can play that in my head. But it was not sticking until a client and friend of mine said to me, remember, Amber, you are going to be different just because it's you like. And when people play your own words back to you and they remind you of things that you have seen said to them before, like, okay, practice what you preach. So we are differentiating. And the other ways that we are gonna differentiate is really by making this a workshop style. I want you to take away an actionable nugget every time you listen to this podcast so you can put something small into action in your business, in your life, to get where you want to be going. So we're definitely gonna include differentiation of making sure those action steps are in there. And again, they might be small sometime, sometimes they might be mindset shifts, but those baby steps really do add up as we're moving to make progress and make change and to reach our goals. Another way that we are gonna differentiate this broadcast is not gonna be implemented right away. I've got some visions and I've got some ideas for how we might edit a little bit differently, but those are going to be put on hold because we are birthing this baby. We are shipping a little reference to Seth Godin there if you're not familiar. Great, great, great person to listen to and get inspiration from, from an entrepreneurial perspective. If you are feeling resistance and we are putting aside some of the perfectionist thinking or the next level things that we want to achieve with this podcast just to start. So I encourage you also to jump on that. Just start, train with us and ship. Make steps to start shipping the things that you have been sitting on as well. And for me, the other thought that came to mind when I was experiencing resistance was, you are way too late to this podcasting game. I mean, I gave you that list of fabulous podcasters, right? So such good episodes, so many people doing such good things. Not to mention all of the other podcasts, right, that are not even related to business. I threw out some business ones, right? But there is so much out there. So I was thinking, man, you are way late to the game, McHugh. Why is anyone gonna wanna start listening to your podcast on this topic? Issues and challenges that face modern CEOs and that we come up against as modern CEOs. And I was also reminded by my clients cause I'm sharing with them, of course, the journey I'm going on as we bring this Modern CEO podcast to life. And they reminded me, you are right on time. You know, I hold this belief that you're right on time. Whatever it is that you are doing now is that time again. Of course, sometimes you just need to hear it said back to you, right? Even if it's a belief that you hold or a thought that you have and something that you've expressed to other people, hearing it said back to me was like, oh man, you guys are so right. I am right. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit more and we're gonna dive deep into this concept of why you are right on time. Tanya Wheelis from Happy Grace found this quote as we were talking about this concept of being right on time and shared it with me and I think it's so relevant here. It's a quote from the book Change Me Prayers by Tasha Silver. And the quote is, whenever you get to where you are, that's your time. You can't be late to your destiny. You can't be late to your destiny. So we are not late. Whatever it is that you are thinking about putting out there and you are feeling resistance on, you are not late, my friend. You are right on time. And I honestly have worked hard over the years to embrace a shift in mindset around time. You know, I for a long time had a big fan fear of being late anywhere. Being late to school, being late to meetings, you know, just being late. Even in replying to emails. My first, one of my first corporate jobs, I would race to reply to emails first. If someone sent me an email and there was a group copied and I even made a game out of it. So I was super engaged. An email would come in, I'm like, oh, I've got a reply first. And I have to have the most comprehensive response so that no one else has to worry about responding because I. I've got it all taken care of. Whoa. Talk about pressure. The pressure that I put on myself and this mindset. I already had a fear of being late and now I'm racing to get to emails first. And I made this game and I wanted to win. Of course I wanted to win at this game that I created. So guess what? That put me on. It put me on a total hamster wheel, constantly racing to engage and reply. And sure, people expected it, but I gotta Say I work with some pretty good people, so there was no pressure coming from them for me to reply. It was all pressure I put on myself. Another belief I embraced around time was, if you aren't early, you are late. Oh, my goodness. So then of course, when I had kids and we were late because, you know, things happen, the pressure I felt, the guilt I felt was just terrible. And these three things, this fear of being late, this game I made of it, to race to get to things first and reply to people first, and this mindset of if you aren't early, you are late really put me in a cycle where I was always hustling to stay ahead. And I don't know about you, but that feeling of feeling like I'm always hustling and have this anxiety and this pressure to get ahead and get to the next thing and always be on is not how I wanted to live my life. And I had this big wake up call. It's a time when I was in corporate and I was working at a new job. I had just changed jobs. And this company that I was working for, everyone was 10 minutes late to the meeting. It was like part of the culture. They would just be 10 minutes late. It was expected. The leadership set this tone. Meetings would run a little bit over. It was a small building, so you didn't really have to walk very far. You know, in some companies you can blame, you can blame a big building or having to get far from one end to the next as a reason for being late. But no, no, it was, this is a small enough building. You pretty much get where you needed to go in a short amount of time. Not 10 minutes. You did not need 10 minutes to get from one end of the building to the next. And there was this belief and this, this operating model that everyone was 10 minutes late. So, guys, you can imagine when I showed up there with this mindset of if you aren't early, you're late, and that I had this fear of being late. So, you know, I was getting to those meetings 10 minutes early. And I would get to the meetings 10 minutes early and be like, all right, this is great, I'm 10 minutes early. Everybody else is gonna be right on time. I'm gonna prepare. I'm going to look like I have everything together. I'm gonna know the answers when the questions are asked. I'm gonna have ideas. I brought new ideas and fresh ideas so I could have creative ideas and content to present in this meeting. Whatever it is that we were talking, talking about. This was Basically, my operating model for all meetings. 10 minutes early. Have that space in the room to collect myself, prepare, and get ahead again. So I could be totally on it. So I'm there. 10 minutes early. Tick, tick, tick, tick. And okay, now it's top of the hour. It is meeting time. Where is everybody? All right. They must be running a little bit behind today. Tickets. Tick, tick, tick. Okay. 10 minutes past the hour. People finally start showing up 10 minutes past the hour. You could imagine how my mind was blown and then how much stress and anxiety. I am 10 minutes early. They are 10 minutes late. I am wasting 20 minutes around every meeting. When I finally discovered that this was part of the culture, I realized this wasn't a problem in the company. And we could argue that, right? But this. This company, they are who they are. They have a strong culture, a really empowering culture. I needed to adapt. The joke was on me. The joke was definitely on me here. So I set out to realize, you know, you don't have to get to everything first. And if you are early, it does not necessarily mean you're late. In fact, you might just be right on time because you cannot be late for your destiny. So I've been working on this mindset shift, and I came across this book called the Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And I highly recommend this book if you are moving to the next level in your business and you are coming up against mindset blocks. And there is a story in this book, and I'm not gonna lie. I read this book many, many, many years ago, and this story stuck with me. So if you go read this and you hear this story and you read this story in the book, and you're like, that is not how Amber told this story. Well, this is how I tell this story. What the story is in the book may be a little bit different, but this is working for me. So we're gonna roll with it, and I'm hoping it works for you, But I'm gonna give the credit back to the Big Leap, and I'm hoping I'm not messing it up too bad, because it is a really good book, and it was a really good story, but I may have adapted it and taken some creative liberty. So roll with me. So there's this book called the Big Leap, and there is a story in there about this concept that you truly have all the time in the world. And, you know, when I was Johnny on the spot and first to everything, and if you aren't early, you're late. This belief that you have all the Time in the world was a hard one for me to embrace because, no, I don't have all the time in the world. There are limited hours in the day and I have got goals and I need to reach a certain level in my company and then in my business by a certain time or I will feel like a failure. So I don't have all the time in the world. I have got two years to get to the next level. I've got a year to get the next promotion. And if I'm not getting a promotion every year or every six months, I was behind. And I set those guidelines for myself. Nobody else was setting them for me. You know, certainly I did all of the right things. All the right things as society was telling me to do. I went to college, I got a job, and I was climbing that ladder. So this belief that, you know, you could have all the time in the world was a really hard one for me to embrace. But in the book the Big Leap, there is a story about a guy who has a big meeting the next morning. So he goes to bed early. He's got everything prepared, and he is going to be on in this meeting tomorrow morning. Well, wouldn't you know it? He wakes up the next morning, not by the alarm, because the alarm didn't go off. So he is now behind. He is feeling late. He has got to rush and hustle to get in the shower. Like, quick, quick, quick, shower, shower, shower, shower. Okay, great. All my stuff is packed already. Rush out the door, headed to the subway. Just missed the train. Okay, okay, okay. That's okay. We'll wait for the next one. All good, all good. We'll get there. Okay, okay. Next train comes, we get on the train and it breaks down. Oh, my gosh, is this really happening? The alarm doesn't go off, I miss the train, and now the train is broken down. Okay, okay, we're stuck. There's nothing we can do now, so get. Finally, the train gets going again and he gets off the train and he races to the building. Running, running, running, running. Out of breath, gets up to where he needs to be, and there is no one in the meeting room. Panic sets in. Where is everybody? What did I miss? Panic. Complete and utter panic sets in. And come to find out the meeting had actually been canceled by the client and moved to another time. And he didn't see this because he was preparing and he did all of the things he needed to do and he went to bed early and he wasn't checking his email late into the night. And then of course, the alarm didn't go off in time, so he was just focused on getting to that meeting. And the point and the moral of this story is that you have all the time in the world. Because sure enough, right, if you embrace this methodology, things come up and things happen like that, that. Oh, okay, well, they canceled anyway. Now, as I've more and more been embracing this methodology, I've even seen it happen on my calendar where I have a double booking and I'm like, oh, okay, panic. I've gotta change the booking. Who am I gonna switch? Okay, I don't wanna move either of them. They're both really important meetings and both really important people to me. I don't wanna move them. I don't wanna disrupt their day. Great. So. And then I would go through a thought process of, okay, what are our meeting topics? Which one's high priority? Which one is more time sensitive? And now, instead of going into that place of panic and wonder and anxiety, what have I done? How am I gonna fix this for people? I just think you have all the time in the world. You are right on time, and this is going to work out exactly how it's supposed to. And wouldn't you know it, more and more and more as I embraced that mindset, when I've got a double booking or when the very, very, very rare triple booking comes up, people instead have something come up on their end, so they need to reschedule anyway, and it all works out. And sometimes, you know, the double booking, both of them will go away because something came up or they need to reschedule for some reason. And I will just get that time straight up back to myself. And there was a time when I would have felt like. Like when I was 10 minutes early to that meeting, like someone was doing something to me when they didn't show up on time or when they needed to reschedule. And I would certainly feel like I was doing that to other people, like, oh, I'm letting them down if I don't show up on time, or if I'm not early, or I'm letting them down if I need to reschedule. But truly, the mindset shift of, you are right on time, everything's gonna happen at exactly the right time, and you have all the time in the world has really helped me calm down. Instead of panicking, when I see that double booking, I take a breath and I know it's gonna be fine. And that I respect these people that I have calls with and we have a mutual respect that they have for me as well, and it'll be good whatever happens, and it always is. So I started to not only gift this belief that you have all the time in the world, and you are right on time, and we're gonna talk exactly when we are supposed to talk, especially if we need to cancel or something needs to happen. And I not only gift this to myself, but I now also gift this way of thinking to my clients, to prospects, to my colleagues, to people in my world, right? Because there was a time when I first started my business when I thought, no, I need to have good boundaries. And if people cancel on me, that shows that they don't respect my boundaries. Or when I cancel on other people, whoa, I am way letting them down. But the truth is, life happens. Things come up, right? Who knows what's going on in that person's world when they need to reschedule on me, right? Did their kids get. Did a client of theirs really need them at that given time? So they are also prioritizing, you know, who knows what is happening? So I stop the judgment. And certainly there are times when there's a reoccurring pattern or there's something going on that, you know, any coaches who might be listening to this, right, you have to work with your clients on that. But if there's. If it's nothing, right, Sometimes it just is something. There's nothing more to it then, hey, I need to reschedule today. Something came up that I really have to take care of, that I have to prioritize. And to that, I say, no problem, because you have all the time in the world. You are right on time, and you cannot be late for your destiny. There's also a Steven Pressfield quote from the book the War of Art that comes to mind here. And he gives this rule of thumb about when you are feeling resistance, like I was in bringing this podcast to life around differentiating and being late to the podcasting party. But he offers up this rule of thumb, and he says, the more important a call or an action is to our soul's evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. I'm going to repeat that quote just in case you are in that place of resistance and need to hear this again. The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it. So if you are feeling that resistance and you've worked something into your plans that you know aligns with your vision, and you know it will move you closer to your goals, and you have decided to do this thing, know that you are pursuing your soul's calling and it is time to rise, it is time to start, and it is time to do that thing that you have been thinking of doing. Because now is the exact right time and you are right on time, my friend. So here we are. We are totally in this together. I am birthing this podcast, the Modern CEO Podcast, with a little bit of resistance. So thank you so much for joining us on our first episode. In the next episode, I'm going to talk about how you move things into action when you are feeling that resistance. You know, today we sort of talked about some of the mindset shifts that I needed to make stepping into this podcast, and I hope they benefit you and resonate with you. And if you're feeling some other sort of resistance, I would love to hear from you on any of the various social media channels that will certainly link below this episode. In the next episode, we are going to talk through how do you move into action when you're feeling that resistance? How do you stop watching Netflix and get in action on that thing that we need you to be doing because it is your soul's calling. So I will catch you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to the Modern CEO Podcast, Sam.