Call 1-818-572-2910 w/ your Career, Business or Life Questions w/Bernadette Boas

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back. 818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone. Happy Tuesday, or whenever you decide to download and listen to the program. If you're not listening or watching live. I am not broadcasting live, but I am videotaping this, so be sure to— over the next couple days, give me a couple days and I'll tell you why in a second, but I am videotaping it so we can slice it up. It's Ask Bernadette and it's life, business, and career questions. So I'm going to provide you some tips and advice and some suggestions on the questions that you've given me., and I'll make sure that I slice those up so if there's only one particular question that you want to listen back to or watch on our YouTube channel, then you can do that. So I do welcome everybody to the program. Yes, this is Ask Bernadette, if you're new to this kind of episode of Shedding the Bits Radio. Basically, I want to devote one program to you and the stories, questions, and challenges you might be having, whether that's in your career, in your own business, or somewhere in life. Because shedding the bitch is all around that junk in whatever aspect of life that is confronting you, and how to not allow that junk to impact you negatively. But let's shed it so then you can move on and create and accelerate the riches in life that you deserve. So Ask Bernadette happens right here on Sheddin' the Bitch Radio the first Tuesday of every month, and yet all month long on Facebook, Sheddin' the Bitch, or Twitter, feel free to post your questions, stories, or challenges, and I will immediately get you some tips, advice, and sometimes tough love, and yet bring it right here into the program so I can dig deeper into it, or you can even join me on the program by calling 1-818-572- 2910. So that's what today's program is about, and before we get into all that, I will let you know that I mentioned there's a reason for kind of this conversation today, and that is, if you've listened to the program over multiple years, you'll know that the first week in May, I am in Ocean City, New Jersey with my Five Fishers, typically my mother, but she's passed, for a few years, and any of my nieces that are over 21, because let's just say it's an adult female vacation. So we can't wait for the other nieces that I have, 'cause I have about 16 of them, to get over that 21 years, but in the meantime, we love them and do a shout out to them. And we just kind of soak up a week to 10 days of each other, and just have a blast of a time. But I always want to still bring the show to you. And a lot of the times it's the Tuesday before Mother's Day. And this year it happened to be a very late Mother's Day. It's like the 14th. So today's Ask Bernadette, next Tuesday we're going to be talking to Irene Hildeberger. You really need to look her up, especially if you are a mom. She puts the mom And the me back in mommy. And basically what that means is she wants you to focus on you as a woman first and make sure you're kind of pursuing and achieving what it is that makes you happy, because in turn when you do, it'll make everyone around you happy. Make sense? So that's Irene Hildeberger. And then we're going to be talking to Holly Brown the following week. And let's see, who else might I have on the docket? Pretty much the rest of the year lined up. And at some point we're also, actually May 31st, we're also bringing back a very popular guest, Jeffrey Tobias Holter. And he wrote the book Y, the letter Y, Women. And he is a huge advocate, leadership consultant, strategist, diversity, whatever, you know, it pertains to women. And he really also targets the men in organizations, associations, and businesses and hopes to get them to recognize the return on investment and the benefit of really up-leveling women. So stay tuned for that as well. Let's see what else announcements we have. We don't have Deborah today. Maybe she'll jump on. Deborah Parkerhouse Virtual Services is our social media guru. But that's okay.

That's all right.

I'll man the studio board. I'll hope that the video is lined up and good to go and all that kind of good stuff. No worries. If you are listening to this live and you have a question, story, or challenge, feel free to call 1-818-572-2910, and I will be sure to pick up your call in because I can see it on the board. And actually, I want to make sure that we're launched on our chat room because you could always go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitsradio and even chat with us in the specific episode for today. So you can scroll down on our radio page on BlogTalkRadio and you'll see a chat room.. And I also make sure that we are tracking that. All right? Let's see, what other announcements? It is Mom's Day, or soon to be. So for all of you moms, single, couples, even if you're— and my sister hates when I always say that I'm a mom because I have Charlie. Everybody knows Charlie, my 11-year-old Labradoodle. But if you happen to parent in any way, shape, or form, you know, take care of yourself and really focus on your goals, your dreams, and what makes you happy. And that's really what we want to celebrate is— for Mother's Day is the women that really take care of all of us in our lives. And I'll be thinking of all of you as moms. We'll be celebrating and talking more about it as we move closer to it. I think that's it. It's been nice and quiet. I'm sitting actually at the beach. I wish I could show you the window view of where I am at, because I'm right on the ocean in Ocean City, and a white beach and beautiful sunshine. We've been seeing dolphins, hundreds of them, which is beautiful. We'd love to see some whales, because I understand there's been some whale sightings. But have it. But let's get to your questions, stories, and challenges, shall we? I'm going to take a quick break, and when we get back, we're going to dive into the multiple career and business and life questions that you sent in. And again, if you have one, feel free to chat it to me if you're on our chat room on blogtalkradio.com/7daybizradio. Or even post it on our Shedding the Bitch Facebook page or Twitter. And I will take a quick break and be right back to dive into these questions for you. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistants and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. As I mentioned, it is Ask Bernadette today. I'm taking your stories, questions, and challenges, whether it's in your career, business, or life, and trying to provide you some tips, advice, and tough love at times that will help you kind of move on and address the issue and start shedding whatever might be holding you back so you can create the riches in life that you deserve. I did mention that I am videotaping this as well, so be sure— give me a couple days since I am on vacation, and I will make sure that the team gets it up there, uploaded into our Shedding the Bits YouTube channel. And we're going to splice it all up so you can go and look at the whole program, or you can just take the questions that you might relate to and that might help you. And then at any time you can go to our Shed the Bits Facebook page or Twitter page and post your own. And if you want to, because a lot of people say to me, Bernadette, I don't necessarily want to expose what challenge or story I have. Can I just shoot you an email? Absolutely. You can shoot me a private message on Twitter or Facebook, or you can come right to me at BernadetteBoas@SheddingTheBitch.com. I want you to get the support you want and need, so don't let exposing your question hold you back. Just come right to me. All right?

All right.

I was quite proud— so our first rich tip question, I should say, is about your passion. We talk a lot about this, about finding your passion, or how do you know that what you're doing is your passion? But I was more honored to have been asked this question from a student, a high school student that I mentored. He was one of 3 that I just mentored this past Friday, and they're part of Linden High School. And it was part of nepriest.com, which is an online mentoring support community that provides experts and mentors like myself out to high schools and colleges to help mentor and coach the students. So I was just very honored to be part of that program, but more so this question that a young man, Mark, had asked me. And he— and basically the question is, how do you know when you had your— have found your passion and what you should be pursuing? It's a tough question, especially when you're in high school. So I appreciated him asking it and actually being curious and wanting to know more. So, at whatever stage of life you're at, if you're looking to really recognize whether or not you are pursuing your passion, we'll address that, and then I'll give you some tips if you're in search of what that passion is. So, first off, I responded by saying, "If you were jumping out of bed every morning excited excited to go and do whatever it is that you're doing, whatever that job is, whatever that vocation might be. If it's something that causes you to really jump out of bed and really kind of look forward to doing it, no matter how hard or easy it is, it's just something that really kind of gets you going. So I'll give you an example is I never knew how to write a screenplay. I'm not a writer. I had no clue what it meant to kind of put a movie onto paper. I was scared to death of doing it. I had no knowledge, and yet everything in every cell of my body was so excited that I didn't mind sitting in the library and spending hours researching it, studying it, getting books, going to classes, and then actually doing it and spending 3 to 4 years working on that screenplay. Not to say I wasn't frustrated. I wasn't insecure at times. I wasn't sure about whether or not I was doing the right thing. But you can tell if you're doing something that is passionate to you if all of those things still gets you and keeps you excited and moving forward. You might have to sit still and breathe a little bit to kind of say, okay, is this insecurity or is this— Is this doubt, or is this response I'm having as a result of just something new, something unknown, or is it because I really am not enjoying myself and I'm frustrated? So if you're jumping out of bed, if you're excited, if you're curious, if you're knowing or feeling confident that you're making a difference, or whatever you do at some point in time will make a difference and serve others, and you're actually acting almost selfless toward it, then most likely it is a passion that you have toward whatever that activity or vocation or even career or job or business might be. It has to really just cause you to keep moving forward and pursuing it even when the times are really tough, when maybe you feel like you want to give up. Maybe it's taken you years to get it off the ground. And a question coming up in a little bit will also kind of touch on that point. At the same time, you also feel clear. You feel focused, determined, persistent. Confident. Now, that's not a 7 days a week, 24 hours a day thing, but it's still when those things come up, when those insecurities, those bitches as we call them here in the Shedding the Bitch community, when those things come up, your passion, your why, your gut, your heart says, you know what, we can work through those challenges. We can work through those hiccups. We can work through those rejection. We can walk through those door slams, the people that might boo-hoo you and try to detract you from your goals and your passion. So you found your passion when you kind of are keeping pace and energy and focus and clarity and confidence, and you just love what it is that you're doing. Even, even, and especially you are willing to do it and not even be paid for it. So I'll go back to my screenwriting. I know that that's a multi-year if not multi-decade pursuit when it comes to money. And it actually may never happen. But yet I still love doing it. And I'm doing it for a number of reasons, money being one of them, but I certainly would love to have a story sold. At the same time, if it didn't happen, no regrets. Loving it. All right? So that's if you could kind of say, okay, to answer the question, is what I'm doing my passion? Now, what if you are looking to find it and you're just not sure how to go about doing that? Again, look around you and look at things. Sit down and kind of put on a piece of paper the things you love, the things you like, the things you don't like. What gets you excited as you even start thinking about that? And ask yourself the question, what am I willing to do even if I didn't get paid to do it? And if you follow me on a regular basis, you'll hear me use the term, your truth rises to the surface. And what I mean by that is, if as you're kind of walking through this, self-discovery process of wanting to seek out your passion. And you do get really excited, or when you do start putting down that list of what you love to do, what you like to do, what you don't like to do, and you're starting to— you know, there are things that are coming to you in a split millisecond, and there are things that kind of take a little bit more time, and maybe you're forcing yourself to come up with ideas. Those ones that get created or thought about in milliseconds that's your truth sitting on the surface. And you may have never wanted to say it out loud or even to yourself, and yet if you do and you allow yourself to speak your truth, so to speak, then you would get closer and closer to what it is that you're passionate. Now let me give you a quick example of that. Several years ago I had a guest on my show, And she was talking just about this subject, about finding your passion, finding your dream, so forth and so on. And I was listening to her, but I was so in my head about thinking about my own passion and my own pursuits that I kind of blurted out right over her, I spoke right over her and said, "I want to be a radio host." And she's like, "Excuse me? What?" And I was like, "Yes, I want to be a radio host." radio, she's like, "Aren't you already one?" And I was like, "I am, but I want to be like a formal one. I want my own syndicated broadcast show type of thing. I wanted to be a serious radio show, although I absolutely love what I do here for you." But she just kind of laughed. And what I also discovered in that conversation is Anything that puts a microphone in my hand and lets me inspire and motivate and educate other people, I absolutely love to do. So think about that as well. Another little test to kind of seek out your passion is think back from when you were even a child and, you know, all the way through the years or decades, and think about what career or what pursuit or a business someone else has had that kind of made you jealous. Now I want to clarify that jealousy. It has to be the good jealous. I used to watch my sister. She's a singer and she would do stage performances. So she was in the entertainment arena. And I absolutely loved sitting and watching her. And I would get goosebumps, but I don't think it's goosebumps of jealousy like I wish I was that person on stage. I wish I had her voice. I wish I I had her save talent. And that is also a good indicator of what might be very deep as far as what a passion or dream of yours is, and you may not have just acknowledged it or recognized it. So if you fast forward 30, 40 years, and when I look at the fact that now I am doing the kind of thing that I used to— I'm not a singer, don't get me wrong. But I'm doing the kind of things that I used to get goosebumps over, that might be a good indication for you as to what your passions are. So you can sit down very pragmatically and make lists about what you love to do, what you like to do, what you don't— throw away the don'ts— and then you can start kind of seeking those out. You can also go and do internships. You can find a part-time job. You can just, you know, ask someone to shadow you in something that you kind of have an idea that you might want to do. And actually, I always advise my clients to do that when it comes to starting their own business or buying a business. You want to make sure— trust me when I say you want to make sure that it is a passion that you're going to want to jump out of bed every morning and go and do and work hard at. So I even suggest to people to go and kind of shadow, or take a second job, or even do it just for a few hours and make sure it is something that you want to dedicate and devote so much of yourself to. All right, let me see if I had any other notes. Oh, and then I just had a note around test and fail fast, because I also believe in failing fast, meaning go and make mistakes. You do not succeed without mistakes. Just learn how to make mistakes and learn from them quickly. But when it comes to looking for your passion and finding it, you know, go and try a bunch of things, and then just kind of assess right away whether or not you have those goosebumps or you're getting that excitement or you're getting that desire to want to jump out of bed and go do it. And so that's another way, testing and failing fast, to find and seek out what your passion may be. All right. So I want to, again, thank Mark and Carolyn and Maham for allowing me to mentor and coach you. It was my honor. And it's one of those things where you look forward 5, 10 years from now, and you hope that something you said might have stuck. So thank you very much for allowing me to do that and providing me this question around passion. 'cause I love answering it. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. I believe we have Deborah with us now, and we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna be talking about when you struggle with your job, maybe you hate it, maybe you're miserable, but yet you need the money, you need the work, what can you do? When we get back, we'll address that. We'll talk to you in a minute.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at MediaRelations@SheddingTheBitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone to our Bernadette Boas. This is your questions, stories, and challenges that you have, and I'm here simply to provide you some tips, advice, and sometimes tough love in order for you to move forward in whatever situation you might be dealing with. All right?

So—

oh, I want to mention before we move on, we are recording this, video recording this, so I'm going to slice it up and get it up onto our Shedding the Bits YouTube channel. So whether it's the whole program or just one of these questions, because I'm often posting the questions that we're going to be addressing online, and I'm doing that in hope that maybe there's something that you relate to, and then you could go and listen to the program or go watch it on our YouTube Shedding the Bits channel. All right, just a note for that. It might take me a couple days. I mentioned at the top of the hour, I'm on vacation. And so it might even be a little bit until I get it to my team in order to splice it up. So just stay tuned over the next couple days. I promise I'll get them up onto YouTube. But you can always go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch and download the podcast at any time and take us with you. All right? Okay, Deborah, how are you? She put herself on mute. Okay, I thought maybe she'd jump in. Oh, she just dropped. She might be having trouble. All right, so let's see what we have. All right, our next Liz question is, I'm struggling with my work. I hate it. I'm miserable, yet I have no choice. I need the work. Well, first off, I want to tell all of you one thing. You always have a choice. You always control the situation or the predicament or the great experience that you're, that you're sitting in, you're residing in right now at this moment in time. So first, you need to know that you always, always have a choice. Now, I can feel in this question, especially the way it was sent in to me, a little bit more elaborate than what I'm sharing with you; but the base of it is, "I feel I have no choice. I need the work." So, you may feel you don't have a choice because you definitely need the money. You need the career. It's still hard out there in some professions to find another job. You can't risk. Not finding another one. Can't argue any of those points, all right. It's definitely relevant to you, and yet I will just share that the fear that you're feeling is that famous acronym for fear, and that is false evidence appearing real, all right. FEAR, false evidence appearing real. And what that simply means is, yes, you're anxious, you're scared, You're unsure. You're questioning whether or not you'd be able to find another job and still have money coming in to support yourself and maybe even a family that you might have. And therefore, you feel stuck and you're miserable. Yet, let me help you at least break that down and give you a new perspective and some tips in order to change that for yourself. I definitely need you to kind of get grounded in the idea that, yes, you're in control and you have a choice. Because once you do that, once you recognize that you can either accept the situation that you're in or change it, then it definitely feels a lot lighter, as if you can breathe a little bit. And now what you just need to do is definitely breathe so you can clear your head and sit down logically— and I say this all the time— logically with a piece of paper and get it out in black and white as far as what the situation is that you're sitting in, residing in, as I mentioned. So, first, the breath. Recognize you have a choice. You either can stay with the situation or change it. And now it's logical, unemotional, thought-provoking step of just saying, okay, so what am I going to do next? What are those choices I have? All right? At least prove me wrong and lay those out and then say, okay, so nothing on this list of, you know, what I'm dealing with and what I would want to change, none of it can be changed, then you can kind of say, Bernadette, you're full of it. But I just want you to go through this with me. And recognize that you have a choice. All right, that's the first one. Put that kind of big and bold on the top of a piece of paper or something. So what I want you to do is this. I want you to kind of just think through— again, get the emotion out of it— and almost very pragmatically, just write down what is it that you don't like? Who is it that's creating the issue for you? Why are you so miserable? Why are you struggling with your work or with your job, with your position, with your team, with the boss, or with the company as a whole? What is it about it that is making you so miserable? So very black and white, scribble it out on a piece of paper. All right? And then on another side of the page, or on the same side, second column, is, is there anything that you do like about it? What are the things that you do like about it? Now you can add a third column or write it underneath. Why did you even take the job, or why did you go with that company, or why did you accept that position? All right? And that might come down to money, but then we'll work through as to why Not all money is good money. Put that down on a piece of paper if you need to, because I had to learn that for my own business, taking clients on just because I needed the income when I first started out, or even like a couple years ago when I was spending so much time doing something else and not revenue-generating work, and found myself learning hard that not all money is good money. All right? Okay, so you have this list of what you don't like, who's impacting it, who's creating it, what's creating it. Is it you creating it? Be honest about that. Is it you that aren't kind of suited for that position? Maybe you're not skilled enough. Maybe you're over-skilled for it. Maybe it's something that you're contributing to as well. If you're going to be honest, you have to be honest about everything. So, what is it you don't like? What are those things that you do like? And then why did you even address, you know, take that position in the first place? Then take a look at that as a big picture and look especially on the right-hand side first. What is it that you do like? And are there anything there that kind of puts the scale heavy on that side? Let's say it's a great salary. All right. Although money— not all money is good money. That is the one thing that you like about it. But there's so much more on the left-hand side that you don't like about it. So what we're doing here is just— we may change it, and we'll talk about that in a minute. We may be able to change kind of the approach that you're taking to the job, to the company, to your role. But at the same time, it's just— it's also the way that you're going to learn about what you like and don't like about a job, about a position, about a company, about That's not the type of boss you want to work for. So that's what we're trying to gain. Self-awareness is key. Okay? So what I do want you to do next is to say, is there any redeeming factors, anything redeeming about the situation that I'm in? And if so, then what do I need to change in order to do that? Now remember, you can't change anybody. Only you can change the way you look at that situation or the way that you behave or the way that you approach it. Not everybody can— or you can't change anybody. It has to be your viewpoint, your perspective, your approach, your attitude is the only thing that you have control over. However, that control is the choice that you definitely have. All right? So if you get down to an answer of no, but you still say to yourself, "But I need this work," you still have a choice. You still have the choice of, "Well, I'm willing to take the risk of that work, and maybe I go home and I talk to my family, talk to my spouse, talk to my partner, talk to my children, and we kind of say, 'Okay, this is a situation. I want to leave the job, risk not having the income. Is there anything that we could be working on together?'" If that comes up with a no, then what you also have the choice to do is while you have the job, while you have the income, change your attitude and your behavior and your approach to it by saying, okay, I need to make my life as effective and productive and tolerable, if that's the case. But even what you want to work toward is you want to make your situation better. Happier for yourself, for yourself. In order for while you're doing that and you're not, you know, making yourself even more miserable, you now have this goal, this choice that you've made that to say, while I have this income, while I have this job, while I have this situation, I'm going to go elsewhere and look for the real job, the real position, the real boss, the real company that I prefer to be working with. Not all money is good money. When you make a choice to go and pursue a job, go and pursue a business that you want to join, even go pursue a relationship or whatever the situation might be, you really need a good idea. And that was a lot of the information that you just gathered from what we— the exercise we just talked about, to be able to say, what is the type of job I, you know, I want to do, I would love to do? What is that type of company? What's that type of boss? What do I like? What don't I like? And therefore, what will you accept? What you won't accept? And set up for when you go out and you start putting out those applications, they should never be going to companies, positions, or roles that don't meet up with what you just laid out as what you like, what you don't like about your work or your business or your boss or the company. Makes sense? So it is and always is a choice. It's just a matter of you taking the emotion out of it and getting it very logically down on a piece of paper in black and white. And then if you have to go and seek counsel from family, friends, or even a mentor, coach, or an advisor, or some sort of other professional, then go ahead and do that. It's worth you then when you go and get that next job, that next business. It's something that you want to be doing. It's something that you're excited about doing. It's something that you can contribute effectively and productively to, because being miserable and struggling at anything is not fun. And yet you do have a choice, so I need you to change that perspective, because until you change that perspective,— then you're going to be blocked. Change the perspective that you always have a choice, and you'll be able to find a solution to it. All right? I hope that was helpful. Okay, so what we have coming up next is something— no, not something too similar, but this individual has their own business, and no matter what they do, it's not going anywhere. So she's wondering what she's doing wrong. A lot to adjust and perceptions to be shifted there. So we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll address that as another Ask Bernadette question here on our Shedding the Bitch episode. We'll see you in a couple minutes.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, confront and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone to our Ask Bernadette episode of Shedding the Bits Radio. On our first Tuesday of every month, that's what we do, is we take your questions, stories, and challenges that you might post on Facebook, Twitter, you might send them to me directly at BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebits.com, you might post them to LinkedIn or send me a message through LinkedIn. I'm not concerned, Deborah's not concerned how you get us your questions, stories, or challenges. We just I just want you to make sure that you're getting the answers, tips, advice, support you need in order to keep yourself moving forward. And I'm laughing because I mentioned at the top of the hour that I'm on vacation, our yearly beach vacation with my 5 sisters and a niece, a couple of nieces, down at Ocean City, New Jersey. And this house that we rent, and we've rented it every year for 11, 12 years. I swear they have a ghost here because the doors always open and shut on their own. So while we're out on break, and probably on the video it will be heard, but the doors just keep opening and closing in front of me where I'm taping the show. So anyway, apologize for that little outburst. All right, your next rich question, as I call them, came from Nicole. And Nicole, if you are listening or watching this, Bernadette, I will be contacting you because you gave me a lot of information and I culled it down to just this very question, and I definitely need a lot more information from you. But that's okay. I'll get back in touch with you. All right, so the question was, "No matter what I do in my business, nothing is going right and it's going nowhere. What am I doing wrong?" All right. So I culled it down because there was a couple of things in like the 3, 4 sentences that I actually got that I really needed to make sure everyone listening, especially Nicole, but everyone listening who, if you're like me and Nicole, you've run into this situation in your own business, maybe even your own career, or even your own life when it comes to friends and family and relationships. And that's just, you really are stuck. Things could be progressing., and yet they're not at the pace that you want them to be. Maybe they're not progressing, but it's not that you're doing anything wrong. It just might be that you're not doing the things that your business calls for at this particular time, and you haven't taken the kind of the breath to really evaluate it. I don't like the words "wrong." I don't like the words "weaknesses." Just shift that, because all you just need to do is look at it in a very logical way. Notice that kind of, if you're listening to this whole program, there's some themes in kind of the responses I have for you, and that is you need to get detached, you need to get unemotional, you need to get logical when it comes to getting very in your head about situations at work, in your business, or at home. So I'm always looking for you to just kind of take a breath and clear your head so you can look at these things very logically. All right, so it's not wrong. Maybe you are doing things that aren't appropriate. I still wouldn't want to use the word wrong just because then you just need to change some things up. I also just want to make sure that you're not drawing a conclusion of it being wrong when actually it's just not at the pace that you want it to be. So I do need a lot more information, so I'm going to go at this in a very general way. What I'd be asking, just so you know, what I would be asking, Nicole, and anyone listening, to further detail this out, is I would want to— need to know kind of how long have you been in business or in that job or whatever the case might be, but in Nicole's case, How long have you had your business? What have you tried already? Definitely want to know what have you already tried. These are questions you should be making note of so you can ask them yourself. What have you done already? What has worked? What has not worked? How much time have you given to them? Even how much investment have you put to them? I'm talking both time, resources, and money. So for instance, I often find myself feeling very stuck when I really can't put the marketing budget behind what I know I should be doing when it comes to social media, when it comes to online marketing, when it comes to even press releases, when it comes to exposure for all the work that I do. So as opposed to kind of hitting myself up the head and kind of getting in my head about it. I just simply have to look at it logically, saying, okay, if this is what I have, then this is what I'll do with it. And then my goal is always, now I want to work toward a number or a plan so I can actually execute on that plan when I am able to— when I have it flowing and the income coming in in order to do that. So I'm not going to beat myself up because when I do that, I'm just going to drag myself down, and I'm not going to stay focused and stay in the game. So Nicole and everyone else, I just want you to look at these things like, okay, I just need to— we talked in the other— another rich question about failing fast. Test and fail fast. And if you are in a business or a job and you're feeling as if things are going awry, then you just need to look at what it is that you've already done, how it's worked, how it hasn't worked, what changes can you make to it. What tweaks are the same thing? What would you do differently? And then maybe there isn't anything more you could be doing, so you say, okay, I need to put that strategy or tactic aside and try something else, and keep moving, and try, try, and try. I'll bring up the Thomas Edison light bulb example just because it does, whether it's true or not, it does hit home. You know, it took him, so to speak, 9,999 tests of a light bulb before it actually worked. So he never looked at it as he failed 9,999 times. He looked at it as it took him 9,999 different configurations, different, you know, models, different shapes, different sizes in order to get to the one that was optimal. So that's how you might want to be looking at your situation as well. So beyond all of those questions that you can initially be asking yourself to figure it out, I also want— I would recommend somebody spend the next week. It's Tuesday. So spend the rest of this week. If you're listening to this on a replay, spend a full 5 days, whether it's at your career or, in this case for Nicole, in her business, and make note of everything you do and how long you've done it in a given day. Take your day, if you start from 9:00 to 5:00, and literally keep track either on your online calendar or on a piece of paper how much time and what activities have you done in your business. I don't care if it's eating lunch. I don't care if it's responding to email, if it's sharpening pencils. I don't know if anybody does that anymore, but I want you to track. At the end of the week, actually give yourself a couple breathing days, I want you to go back and look at it, and I want you to scratch off anything that was not revenue generating and/or what I'll call productive, meaning that if there were things like sharpening the pencil or doing things during your 9 to 5 revenue generating hours, as I call them, that you could have been doing at night so you could continue building your business, getting ahold of clients, reaching out to prospects, vendors, partners, whatever the case might be, going to meetings, going to networking events, then you want to kind of really evaluate where you're spending your time. I also want you to look at it, though, to say, "Okay, so on all these different types of tasks and activities, were they effective in moving my business forward?" If not, scratch them out. When you went to that networking event, is that networking event where you should be spending your time? Did it have the right type of clients? Did it have an opportunity for you to meet somebody that you set up a meeting with, or did you just go and have a glass of wine and chat it up and walk out going, "Well, that was nice," but it didn't get you anything anywhere. It didn't move you or your business forward. You have to really be very focused and very aware and attentive to that type of thing, because especially if you're a new business, and that's really where I got stuck, because I'm not sure how long she's been in business. But if you are a new business, the first thing people are going to tell you is you have to go out and meet people. You have to go out and network. Well, I spend $500 on average a month just purely networking, meaning either the $5, $10, or $15 entry fee and a glass of wine. And all of a sudden I looked at the end of the month at the $450,000, $500,000 I was spending, and I had to go back and say, okay, so of all of those events, what did I actually kind of produce from them? Were they just kind of socializing, or were they the type of client, type of prospect, type of company that I would work for? Or was it a networking event that purely was something totally off base from what it is that I always need to be focused on when I go out for a networking event. What goal did I have for that event, and did I achieve it? All right, so that's another thing that you could be looking at. Take your week, look at every single activity that you do and how much time you spent on it, and revise it. How much time do you spend on Facebook and Twitter? I even talk to Deborah on occasion. She's our— our social media guru, and she's out there as we speak. So I'll tell her that I really only work, and focus, and schedule an hour in the morning to do my own type of online activity. She handles certain things, and then I personally want to be engaging with you. But I can only do that for an hour a day, because yes, I'm doing that as a way to enrich our community of Setting the Bench, So I do find it to be— I wouldn't call it revenue generating, but I would call it that productive bucket that I talked about. And yet, I can't do anything more than that. So it's always from like 8:00 to 9:00, or maybe 8:30 to 9:30. Then I have to get into the core of the day. So some other things, if you are struggling in your business, you have to take a hard look at whether or not, are you in the right business? Are you targeting the right customer? So it goes back to your business plan. It goes back to that marketing plan. We don't have time to get into all of that right now, but if you don't have a business plan for your business, and I don't care if you're a solopreneur or you're running a business of 50 people, you need to have a business plan for yourself. Business plan, don't get overwhelmed thinking it's this big old document. I typically have a 1- to 2-pager. All it really forces you to do is look at, "Why am I in business?" often called the mission. "Where am I going with this business?" often called the vision. "Who's my client?" You know, "What are their needs? How best am I to serve them? Therefore, what products and services should I be offering them?" And a number of other factors. "How am I going to reach them and communicate them?" That's your marketing plan. So, you also— the first thing I would do is have someone go back and either tell me they have one, and actually I don't even let them tell me. They have to send it to me, because I know with a lot of you entrepreneurs out there, you say you have it up in your head. I need it on a piece of paper. You need it on a piece of paper, and it should be your guide as to whether or not you're doing the things that are appropriate for your business. Again, are you in the right business? Are you targeting the right clients? Are you spending the time, the right time where you should be? I would look at, if you feel like you're going nowhere with it, maybe you are doing things that are appropriate or not appropriate. Is this something you want to be doing? On one of our other Rich Tip questions, we talked about that. Is it something that really makes you want to jump out of bed and go for it, or are you kind of, dredging? Are you kind of just, you know, slogging along? And again, you know, one way— this goes back to that question about passion and whether you love what you're doing— is if you are in this business and you're struggling, is this something that you would want to continue doing even if you didn't have money? But say you had all the money in the world, what would you be doing differently? Because maybe if you're in your head about the fact that you can't afford to put the money where you need to put it. And, you know, we all run into that situation at points in time. So what you want to back up and say is, okay, what if I had all the money in the world? What if I knew I couldn't fail? What then would I be doing differently in my business? Because then once you have that understanding, even if you don't have the money, you'll figure out what you need to do to generate that type of business so you can then invest in those things that you know will move your business forward. Sometimes you do have to spend money to make money, but as I said earlier in another rich tip question, not all money is good money. So, go back to those questions and find out a little bit more details about that. All right, let me see. Okay, good. We're kind of— we have one more question I want to hit on, but we're going to take— no, we're not going to take a break. You can take your finger off that button there, Ms. Deborah. No, I'm kidding. We're not going to take a break because I do want to make sure we get this last question addressed. And then, of course, we have announcements about our upcoming shows. So let's just continue. And our next quiz question is one actually— is one that I think every one of us can relate to. So let me read the actual statement and question that this woman sent to me. A friend dismisses my dream of traveling to every continent in the world. I've had this dream since I was a child. Though I'm in my 40s, I still plan on doing it. What can I do to get her on board?— so her friend. Now of this description, I did not understand, is this, you know, like who is this individual? She does say a friend. You know, is it a family member? Is it a partner? Is it just a friend and she wants that friend, it's her best friend, she just wants to get her on board? And the only reason why I'm asking is because there's always going to be people in your life, even the person that sleeps next to to you that just can't get on board with something that you do. And you have to figure out how you're okay with that and how to get them to be okay with that. You're not asking them to get on board with it, maybe, but they have to be okay with it. So let me just break this down. So you have to first accept not everyone is going to be on board. So you could have a family member, a friend, a lover who— the reason why they don't get on board is, one, they might be afraid for you. One, they— and most likely, they might be afraid for themselves. So as you're going off and pursuing your goal, that means you're leaving them. That means you're changing on them. That means you're doing things that might not include them. That means that you might change in a way that you no longer want them. So there's a lot of their fears that are going to come up in any conversation when it comes to your own goals and dreams. Women, you definitely face this when all of a sudden you do decide to take care of you, and yet your family and your spouse or partner, your work, they don't want you to necessarily do anything for yourself because it will change the dynamic of what you do for them. You have to get selfish. So this individual, this woman, needs to get selfish in a way that says, "Yeah, I'm not going to give up on my dream of traveling to every continent in the world despite what my friend's doing. I would just like to get her on board." So first get in your head that, yes, regardless of anybody's naysaying and poo-pooing, you're going to pursue your goal. Yet I want them on board. So the next thing you do is that you can have a conversation with them and— excuse me— and let them know you want them on board. However, if they don't get on board, it's not as if you're walking away from the friendship or the relationship. Excuse me. But they need to respect your goal, your dream.. And if they can't, or if they can't be quiet about it, but they then need to be quiet about it. They then need to respect you enough to not interfere in your goal and your dream, even though they can't get on board with it. Now, you can ask them, you know, drill into a little bit further with them and ask them, what is causing you this, you know, this resistance? Why are you not able to get on board? Why can't you support me? That's all I want from you. And hopefully they'll be open and honest with you. Again, if they're not, it's your choice to then say, well, you know what, I have to kind of create this box of which I'm going to put you in. And maybe you don't talk to them about your goal and your dream. Maybe you don't involve them in the planning of your trip. Maybe you, you know, just keep them in a certain place and you accept for yourself that you're going to pursue this goal regardless of what that individual says. Because sometimes you just can't get them on board. Sometimes they just are doing it because they themselves don't pursue their goals and dreams, and therefore they don't want anyone else to either. Well, that's kind of— people find it easier to kind of get a strong back and say, okay, well, I'm doing it regardless, because they see that it's coming out of their own resistance to pursue their own goals, and they're not going to hold them back. So there's a number of things like that. There might be a time when you just have to walk away, and maybe you can't even continue that friendship. I've had to do that in a number of situations. So you get to that point where that's a choice as to what you're going to do and how you're going to allow that individual to influence you. Does that make sense? So continue pursuing your goals. Let me know what continents you travel to. I've been to a good number of them myself. And I'll just wish you well, that you pursue and achieve the goals and the dreams that you have for yourself. And that goes for everyone in our Shed in the Biz community from this Ask Bernadette episode. And again, look on our YouTube channel, Shed in the Biz. Look by the end of the week for our videos of the program. And then I'm going to look forward to having you right back here for Irene Hildeberger next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. She's going to put the me back in mommy. All right, we'll talk to you all next week. Bye everybody. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your Bitches to Riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week. Bye, Deborah!