6 Truths to Pump *POW* You Up When You Need Some Entrepreneur Motivation - 021

This is Law and Wit episode 21, 6 Truths to Pump Pow You Up in Your Business When You Need Some Motivation. Welcome to Law and Wit, Creative Counsel for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Brittany Ratelle, mother of 4, entrepreneur, naptime lawyer, and attorney for creative entrepreneurs. I'm here to share inspiration and action so that you can tackle your business blocks and confidently own your business in every sense of the word. Thank you so much for being here. Hello and welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm really excited about this episode because this is literally the, like, I want to pump you up. Okay. So for any of those who didn't have the pleasure of watching a lot of SNL, Saturday Night Live, when they were growing up, this is— I'm referring to the famous Hans and Franz skit where they were, I'm sure, making fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his heydays. But, you know, if you didn't have the pleasure you should really go treat yourself with a little YouTube break. But if you can imagine, the guys are in like their gray sweatsuits matching up. They're like roided out, you know, like stuffed underneath their sweatshirts. And they're always like, "We are Hans and Franz and we are here to bump you out." And there's always a sound effect, the fist bump, that is mixed in with it. I wish that I could somehow convey that in the title of this episode, that sound effect. So I'm going to do my best. But in case you didn't really understand that, that didn't play really well, know that that's where my heart was. Was on that right there, and that's what this is making me for. And the reason is that, honestly, I think we all need some pump-up sometime. Don't you agree? I know I do. I'm a podcast junkie. That's why I like to podcast, I'm sure, some of it, because I like to listen. I like to listen on the go. I'm a busy mom, and so it's something I can do when I'm still doing my mom stuff, while I'm doing laundry and dishes. Ferrying around kids to various activities, and yet I can be learning and thinking and processing and still feel really active and my brain engaged, which I really love, um, which totally does it for me. Um, and sometimes specifically what I get out of podcasts and what I'm searching for is I want motivation and I want to feel invigorated in my business, in my planning, when I can feel instead of feeling overwhelmed, because I've learned, uh, and just being good about being introspective, that that's not a useful thought for me to just feel overwhelmed. So I don't know if you have ever felt like you were in that camp as well, but if you have in the past or you are right now, this episode is for you. And I hope that as we go through the things that I'm talking about today, if you know someone else who you think could use this, who might be in a point somewhere where they're working on a business idea or they've already launched a business or they maybe hit a wall in their business or something else where you think that some of these tips could be helpful, please, please share. I would— that would just make my day, honestly. You know, you can share a screenshot or just send an episode. Obviously, I love to see that, and that brings a smile to my face, and that really helps me keep me motivated and keep producing this content for free, knowing that it's helpful to people. But most of all, I want it to be useful. So if you just send it off to someone and they find it useful, then that's great. That's what I'm here for. Okay, so let's get going. So the first truism or truth, you know, truth bomb, however you want to say it, it's all the same, that I want to talk about is that the universe is not going to manifest to you that you are ready, okay? And I first, this is me quoting myself, I know, like huge ego Brittany, gosh, like you have to be an attorney and you have to be quoting yourself? Yeah, I do. I said this originally on an interview I did with Allison Faulkner of The Allison Show on her audio courses. If you're not familiar with those, she has a brand school, And part of her education piece that she has is these audio courses. And she— I was kind of a bonus interview where she was talking to me about legal stuff and how that relates to being an influencer and working online. Um, and I told her this because, um, what the issue that I get a lot, and when I talk to people about their businesses, and particularly I think this is hard for creatives and people who are bloggers or content creators or who maybe approach their businesses from a non-traditional background is that they are always questioning as to whether they're capable enough or whether they can really do it or whether they're ready. I hear these kinds of thoughts a lot in circling, and my point in that is the answer is that you are probably ready. I'm going to talk a little bit more about readiness and why that's probably a myth, and that in fact your brain, your beautiful human brain, its whole job is to point out ways that you're not ready. Human minds are designed to notice the negative. We're designed to be problem solvers and issue spotters and to look for things that don't fit a pattern. You know, our, our brains are designed with the kind of cortex and executive functioning that we have to look for patterns and to find things that don't fit in a pattern. And so your brain is going to do its job in its natural state, which is it's going to try to probably undermine you when you try to do something new and different than what you've been doing in the past because that is a new pattern. And it doesn't have like a, you know, a highlight reel it can play back in your mind to say, oh yeah, yeah, you can totally, you know, do an ice cream stand at a farmer's market. Because guess what? You haven't done that yet. And so there is nothing for your brain to call on to say that you can do that. I'm sure you probably can, but that's why your brain is saying that. And so, you know, if you can just recognize that and just think of it as like you, you know, are— I know this is getting a little existential here, but just like, you know, you are sitting and watching the stage of your mind and you watch thoughts enter and you decide if they're going to stay, if they're gonna be the main act or if you're just gonna send them off stage left. And you get to decide that because it's your brain and it's your stage. And so when thoughts like that come around that say that you're not ready and your brain will look for evidence to support this, you know, this point that you're not ready to launch a business, to turn your hobby into a business, to turn your side business into a real business, whatever that means with quotation marks, I'm just saying that the, the brain will see what it, uh, you know, the eye will see what, what the brain wants it to see. So if you are looking for evidence of why you're not ready or why it's not going to work, then you will find it. Assuredly, you will find it. It's not to say that you shouldn't be thoughtful and circumspective and have good planning and get feedback from people, but just take that all with a grain of salt because your brain is going to be working against you on this front. Okay, um, and along this goes with the idea of the imposter syndrome. I don't know if you've, you've heard of this, but imposter syndrome is kind of the idea that all of us deep down sometimes struggle with the idea that we are an imposter and like someone is going to call us out. You know, I think of it as like in The Princess Bride, you know how there's like that hag lady who like stands up and is like, you know, boo, boo, boo on you! You had love and threw it away. Like, I think that's sometimes we imagine that we're gonna put ourselves out there in a business, or especially online, and there we're gonna get a hag who's gonna come and do that. Unfortunately, because of the way social media makes people really brave behind their keyboards, sometimes we actually do get a person who is that cruel and thoughtless with their words that they do call us out or maybe say that, "What are you doing?" or "That was really stupid," or "Why would you say that?" or "You're such a fake," or whatever it is, the rude things that people say online. Just know that you are not an imposter and whatever credentials you have or don't have, are really immaterial to whether you can do a good job. Okay? So I want you, again, let those thoughts come onto your stage of your brain, you can just shoo those off. You can say, like, "Thanks for coming, but I'm all good. We're all full up of crazy here." Okay? The last part on this I want to talk about is that everything starts out ugly. I saw this meme fly across somewhere on Instagram the other day and I loved it because they listed out specifically what starts out as ugly. And I'm going to add my own twist to here, but they talked about, like, hey, videos, podcasts, new businesses, babies, families, you know, photography, babies. They mentioned babies like 3 or 4 times, which I find really funny because I love babies and I loved bringing my babies in the world. I have 4 babies. We're not so much babies anymore, but still young children. But I also still am aware enough that I can joke that when a baby arrives, a sweet, special fresh baby from heaven, it still kind of looks like an old man and a potato. I mean, can we laugh about that? We love babies, but they are a little funny looking. They do kind of look like old man potatoes in the beginning. Um, and yet they get better and we love them and they smell amazing. But just like that, you know, your photography is not going to look great in the beginning. Your product photos are probably going to be pretty crummy. Your website's probably not going to be that great. Your podcasts, your first ones are not going to be great. Your YouTube videos, your first blog posts or your first pitches, they're not going to be that great. That's okay. Okay. Because you have to start somewhere and you don't get to play the game if you don't start on the starting square. Okay. You have, you have to start and then you're going to get better. You're going to get feedback. You're going to learn some more. You're going to invest in education if you need to, in skills. You're going to hire it out if you really find out that you don't like doing this and that it's not a good use of your time after you've kind of delved into maybe the skill split of whatever your business requires. Um, but you got to start somewhere, and I would hate for anyone to stay in the land of indecision and waiting and on the sidelines of their life and on their business because, um, they were too afraid that their thing was going to be ugly. Yeah, it probably is. Get over it. Get over it. Okay, everything starts out ugly, including babies. Okay, um, the next, uh, second truism that I want to share is that you need to treat your business like you want it to be treated, okay? And this is another truth bomb that came from that interview with Alison. I mean, what's the common thread here? Alison's show is amazing, and if you wanna be listening to her, then you should be listening to her podcast as well, which I have kind of a list of resources at the end, but I'll go ahead and plug that in right now. If you're not listening to Awesome with Alison podcast, you should. It's free, it's amazing, and she, you don't have to own a business to find some use out of it, but I'm sure you will if you are a business owner and are hustling and trying to create things and trying to work on the internal workings of your mind and heart and your energy level and your relationship with others and yourself and trying to be more generous with yourself and feel more worthy just the way you are and yet trying to improve, which I think is a really great balance that Allison strikes with her show. So go ahead and take a listen, subscribe if you're not already. But back to how you need to treat your business like you want it to be treated. This stems from the truth of that you Treat yourself like you want others to be treated. And it's really hard for other people to love you and to show you respect when you are not modeling that kind of behavior. And it's the same thing with your business, okay? People tend to not, you know, have a hard time paying you or paying you more than what you ask for. In fact, that never happens. I've never heard of a case where, you know, a photographer set out one rate and then someone came back and said, you know what, I would love to pay you double that. You know, can I do that? Like maybe someone will throw you a bonus or say thank you so much and send you a nice card, but typically people will pay you what you charge them and even sometimes balk at that. And so people will treat your business like you are telling them and you are giving them signals of how you want to be treated, which means that you should be doing things to treat it like a real business if you want others to expect the same thing. So what goes into this category? Our tips here are please pay yourself. Okay? If you are running a business, even if you're just starting out and you're like, "Yeah, well that sounds nice Brittany, but I'm not really making a whole lot of money." I understand. I understand bootstrapping. Believe me, I understand. Okay? I've been running this business as we know it today in terms of helping creative entrepreneurs, legal services, I've been doing it for a little bit more than a year. And I still consider myself squarely in the bootstrapping stage because I do everything myself. Everything. Okay? From doing the legal work to the graphic design to doing this podcast. Okay? So I totally get that, but I pay myself and it's, I pay myself every month and not only does it make it seem like a legit business and your accountant's gonna appreciate that and the IRS will appreciate that or anyone else who's trying to dig into your business backend stuff, but also makes sure that you have skin in the game and that you know that you are directly tying the same incentives of your business with yourself and your personal needs. Plus, this makes it a lot easier, say, if you want to treat yourself to something and are like, oh, I'm making money. It's so much easier when you are paying yourself a regular paycheck than to know I can afford that, and you can build your household budget or your personal budget around that. So I think that that number should go up as your business gets to be more successful. Hopefully it does. I'm sure it will. But please start paying yourself, okay? You know, every month or every week, every 2 weeks, whatever works for your business. But start, start somewhere, okay? The second tip is that, this is probably no surprise, but I think you need to set up your business and get legit, okay? By this being legal legit means set up your LLC, get some real contracts, hopefully ones that didn't just fall into your inbox, you know, that you didn't get for free on the internet, and that you're hoping actually apply to whatever it is that you're selling. I had a new client came to me this week, and It's so funny because I've had this conversation dozens of times now where someone's like, okay, don't be mad at me. And first of all, I have never been mad at anyone. And I'm like, I— and but they're always like, it goes something like this. The client's like, don't be mad at me, but I've been using this contract and I got it on the internet and I don't even know if it's any good. And I tried to fix some stuff, but then there was some other stuff that I didn't understand and I just left it or I deleted it. It's some combination thereof. And this client had said that he accidentally didn't catch all the things he was trying to find and replace, and someone that he was sending this contract to replied back and said, "Um, what's the deal with the American Medical Association?" And this client has nothing to do with healthcare services. So, you know, if that's you, I'm not trying to like bring shame or embarrassment on you. I'm just telling you it's maybe time to invest in a good contract, okay, that actually protects what you need to have protected, that actually sets out the kind of relationship and the expectations that you'd like to have, that actually tries to solve some of the problems that you may be having in your business, especially, especially if you are running a client-based service business, okay, or you are providing client services to someone, creative services of any kind, graphic design, web design, photography, social media management, PR, you know, branding, any of my people who are in that field, let's please get you a decent client service agreement, okay? So we can make sure that people from the very get-go, as soon as they interact with you and they're getting onboarded and they're seeing this contract, they feel, they have a very strong sense of your brand and your degree of professionalism. They know what to expect. They're minimizing the questions and the concerns that they have because everything's already set out really clear. And we're just minimizing the chance that people have of having miscommunication because we all know that that happens in even the best, you know, intentions of business relationships because we're humans and we process things differently and we remember conversations differently, which is why you got to have it in writing. Okay, so, so get contracts and yeah, and you know, protect your brand. Make sure you're copywriting stuff that should be copyrighted, you're trademarking things that should be trademarked. So And if you have questions about these kind of more specific skill sets and legal stuff, look at some of my other episodes that I have on here about that because I dig into a lot of depth and then I give tips online on my Instagram account too. So if you're not following me on Instagram, do it, do it to it, Lars. Brittany Ratelle. Okay, the last thing here is that, you know, I want you to plan on making money because you are a real business and you don't need anyone else to tell you that. You should know that just on your own. So I want you to charge a fair rate for the value of your services. And a fair rate is not the rate that your competitors might be charging. It's not the rate of the cost of your goods plus some arbitrary markup. You know, that's maybe a place to start in that conversation. Really, the rate that you should be charging for what you do is based on the value you are providing to your customers, okay? I'm gonna repeat that again because it's super important, okay? The rate that you charge for whatever it is you sell, services or products, should be based on the value you're providing for your customers. What problem are you solving? Okay? What problem? Okay, we all know that we should focus on the problems that we're solving, on our clients' problems and how we should solve them, our customers' problems, and not on our product and our special sauce and how we're, you know, a beautiful unicorn and what we feel and we can get really out in the weeds and all of that stuff. But if you focus on what problem is you should be solving and you're very clear about that and you've done good market research and you've talked to people and you have qualitative and quantitative, then you're going to be able to really pin down a good number for what that is. Um, and if your number is too high, then you'll hear crickets. Um, but if your number is too low, then you're going to get swamped with work and you might start to resent and not feel like you're doing the best kind of work you can because you're not charging a fair value, okay? And it's also a signal to other people of what kind of value they're getting. That's the really weird thing about this. You know, a lot of people feel the pressure to undercut services to make it lower so that it's available to more people, and the only problem with this is that when you give someone a $100 service instead of $1,000, well, guess what? They're going to think they're getting a $100 service and not $1,000, okay? And that might not be the case, okay? You might be a $1,000 service provider in what you're doing, or that's what your product is. Okay, so make sure that your price is not signaling and giving a mixed signal in terms of the value that you're providing. Okay, make sure that there's a good congruency there. Okay, the next truism that I want to cover is that you can be scared and excited because you're a complex human being. Okay, this is probably not news to you that you're a human being, you're not an animal, that you have a complex brain system, that you have you know, a nervous system that responds, ones that reacts. You have, you know, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. And that because of that, because you're a complex human that's able and that's capable of managing all these emotions, that there are times in your business that you can be excited about developments and motion and hiring a new team member or moving forward or being on a podcast or some new development. You can also be really excited. You can be scared and excited. You can be terrified and energized all at the same time. That's okay. That's totally normal, and you should be curious about those emotions and not run from them and not be afraid to feel them and just embrace them and know, like, that's such a cool thing to be a human and to have that kind of experience, okay, to have all of that mixed together. This reminds me so much of— and I'm showing my Harry Potter nerdness here— but it's the scene in Harry Potter where Harry has just got back from kissing Cho, you know, remember, and she was crying because Cedric has died. And Hermione's trying to explain and she's like, "Well, you know what she must be feeling, right? She's worried about her father and she's worried about her exams and she's sorry about Cedric, but she also has a crush on Harry and all the—" And Ron goes, "One person couldn't feel all that. They'd explode." And she says, "Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon." I love that. I love— you do not have the emotional range of a teaspoon, okay? You are not Ron. You can feel all kinds of stuff at the same time, especially— now, I'm not going to typecast men as brutes and women as these all-feeling goddesses, but there tends to be a little bit of truth in the stereotype that women feel a lot and they connect a lot and they are relationship-oriented, meaning that the relationships and the way that they interact and the way they feel about all the people they're connecting with is very important to them. So if you are feeling all the feelings, that's totally normal, okay? And I don't want you to think there's something wrong with you or that you can't handle it or that you're not cut out for this, okay? It's totally normal and you can handle it. Okay, next room is that, um, number 4: you don't have to know everything, you just have to figure out the next step. Okay, you don't have to know everything, you just have to figure out the next step. And this is a great thing, you know, this is a little business affirmation that you can repeat to yourself when your brain wants to get stuck in the zone of, "I don't know how." Okay? "I don't know how. I can't figure it out. I can't do it." Okay? I put that all in kind of the same zone. You know, this reminds me of, frankly, of my children because I've got a 7-year-old, 5-year-old, 3, and 1.5-year-old. Particularly, my 3-year-old is in that zone where everything is, "I can't. I can't." You guys know this stage. You know that 3-year-olds have a hard time sometimes embracing life and feeling capable of doing things. They go from feeling on top of the world and I can do it and I want to do it and it's all me to not being able to bend over and take off their shoes. Or, you know, gravity is collapsing and you must carry them out of Costco while pushing the cart. So, you know, that's where you find yourself in. And so what I want to make sure is that you are not falling prey to this mind trap, this you know, little brain myth that you might have that you don't know how and that you can't figure out how. Okay, so if you hear this thought coming onto your little stage, I want you to, you know, your first line of attack is to disqualify it and say, I don't know how to do this yet. Okay, even just putting the word yet on there really helps, and it starts getting your brain interested and saying, you're right, I don't know how to do this yet. I don't know how to do Facebook ads yet, but I'm gonna look into it. I don't know how to pitch someone to be on their podcast yet, but I'm gonna ask around and get some more information about it. Okay, I don't know how to find a supplier for my new hats, but I'm gonna look into it yet. Okay, I know I'm gonna find out yet. So, um, just adding the yet on there will kind of help. And the other thing is that we know that the access that we have to education now is limitless. I mean, we have, you know, access to the internet. You can learn about anything you want to do, whether it's you sign up for a course, you watch YouTube videos, you listen to podcasts, um, you have access to information. So you— it's not that you don't have a lack of resources, you just are maybe not seeing the resources that you have or you haven't found the right ones. And yet, and let's remember that you haven't found them yet. It doesn't mean that they're not out there. It doesn't mean that you're not capable of learning what the next step step is and then taking action on the next step, just as importantly. Okay, don't be stuck in analysis paralysis or in education mode or thinking that, you know, research, research, research is an end to itself because it's not. It's a bridge into the next activity. Okay, and this is coming from a self-proclaimed research nerd. I love researching, I love listening, I love digging, and you know, I'll download the freebie and I'll put it away in my files and I'll make my little lists. Um, but it's a lot harder for me to sit down on my computer, for me to make that time and actually do it, or for even me to shut off and forego and postpone client work or to say no to a new client so that I can do the things that I need to be developing other parts of my business. Okay, that's really hard for me. So if it's hard for you, just know that you're not alone, but that we can do it. Okay, so, you know, make sure that you're making time for that and making time for your business to invest in the things that you want to be learning and moving forward with. Okay. Um, and if that means cutting out some of your, you know, other activities that are not moving the needle forward, then, then do it and be okay with that. Be brave enough to, to, um, to sit in that and be comfortable with that. Okay. Um, number 5 is that you are not a just, okay? And what I mean by this is that I want you to stop labeling yourself or putting yourself or your brain or into some sort of box, okay, that is limiting in terms of what you can do what you're capable of and what you can do with your business and as an individual, okay? You are not just a mommy blogger or an Etsy shop owner or a music producer or a writer or a shop owner or a hand letterer or a maker or a makeup artist or, you know, I could go on, a food stylist or a kitchen or a fitness blogger or whatever. You're not just that. That. Okay, again, like we said, you're a complex human being. You can do all kinds of things. You can learn how to do all kinds of things. Um, so the moral of the story is that you are a business owner, okay? If you were doing any of those activities, you are a business owner whether you recognize it or not. You know, whether you have it on a t-shirt or a tote bag or on a gold letter embossed snaggy, you know, snazzy saying that you got from TJ Maxx and have it on your desktop, It's there. You're a business owner, okay? Capital B. So I want you to start owning your business. Owning your mistakes, your fears, your dreams, the question marks and everything else in between. And this plays into all the other things that we've been talking about today, is that I want you to feel capable and confident of moving forward and of getting the information you need to in your business to do what you want to do. Okay? I don't want you to fall into the trap of feeling limited that because you're an introvert you're this, or because you're a creative you're just not good at numbers and you just can't figure it out and they're just too confusing. You know, BS. I'm calling BS on that. So I'm not saying that you have to love the numbers or that you have to do your own accounting and that's going to be your jam, or that you have to register all your own copyrights. That might not be your jam. That, that's more, maybe more of my jam. So maybe we want to talk. But I'm saying that, um, that decision should be based in love for yourself and in a feeling of, you know, capacity and ability and of strategy, and not based out of fear or anxiety or feeling like you are not good enough. Um, okay, so it's all about the framing of that conversation in terms of you're looking at the spread of your— the pie of your time and of what you want to do in your business, and you're looking at your to-do list and the goals and the vision for your business, and you're saying, hmm, This is curious, so let's just think about this. What is the best way to accomplish this? What should I be doing? What should I be hiring someone else to do? Where should I be devoting my time and my resources and talents and where should I not? Okay? But you're not coming from the place of, "I can't and I can't learn and I just can't do it because this is who I am." Okay? I don't accept that. I don't and neither should you. Okay? Alright, last but not least is that we talked about this a little bit but that you are a business owner owner. So I want you to own your business in every sense of the word. Okay? And what I mean by this is, well, first of all, obviously this is all just a giant marketing spiel because I'm going to get this on t-shirts someday and sell them. Because wouldn't this be cool to say like, I'm a business owner and I own my business? Like own, you know, get it? Own, like all the ways. Like, oh, you got to own it, own your problems. And I mean that you need to own that there are going to be highs There are gonna be lows, there are gonna be some sillies. I've shared this before that we do this every night around my dinner table with my kids and my husband. We talk about everyone shares their high, low, and their silly from the day. And I think it's really great to not just remember and comment and talk about the highs, but the lows too, because they're also part of our life. And you're supposed to have both, okay? It's not all supposed to be highs. If it was all highs, you wouldn't even recognize the highs for what they are. There's a great saying that a fish doesn't know what water is. Okay, think about that for a second. A fish does not know what water is. Why? Because a fish lives in water, and when you're in something like that constantly, you don't even recognize it for what it is. Okay, so a fish doesn't know what water is, and if you are in highs all the time, then you don't even know what a high is. You have nothing to compare it to. So we gotta have highs, we need to have lows. There's probably gonna be some sillies too. Make some room for that. Make some room to be playful and curious about yourself and your business and the people around you. And not to feel— take yourself too seriously, okay? And ride those waves. They're gonna go up and down. It's gonna stretch you. That's great. That's awesome. How wonderful that you get to learn things and develop as a person and be a little bit different tomorrow than you were yesterday, okay? And that's all that learning really is. That's all that making mistakes is, is recognizing that you know something today and you're in a better position today than you were yesterday, okay? So even in your business, if you found that you've made mistakes, and we all have, okay? We've all made mistakes in our business. I've made mistakes in my business, okay? But I've recognized that now I just have more information than I did when I started, and that's great, and that's a great place to be in, okay? But don't let the degree or the highs or the lows, okay, so the ease and the highs when everything's going swimmingly and you're sold out and everyone wants your stuff, or some of the doldrums when you launch something and it was a flop, like I guess they didn't want goldenrod, everyone wanted Poppy this year. Whoops. Or you thought that everyone wanted these kind of templates and they didn't. They really wanted something else. Don't let either of those affect you too much. You're going to have feelings. You're going to have thoughts. Look at those for what they are. Keep the ones you want to keep that are serving you and let the other ones go. But know that you are capable of handling it all. You are totally capable of handling it all. You're a beautiful, complex human being. You can do it all. Okay, and my closing thought for this, which I know this has kind of been more deep, you know, personal development conversation today, but I thank you for indulging me, is this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that I'm really loving, and I've shared on Instagram before. He says that, "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." Okay, isn't that beautiful? God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. And whether you're a religious person or not, I think you can all see the value of believing in a higher power, of believing in things that are larger than yourself, and that you want to tap into that and be part of that, being part of the human family. And that, that kind of work, that beautiful work that brings value to you and the people you love, that lets you serve people and solve problems and just bring so much beauty and value and grit and determination, success in your life in all different ways that you would determine what success is. That none of those things can happen by cowards, okay? If you're not willing to step out in the arena and do things that are uncomfortable, you know, uncomfortable emails, uncomfortable conversations, uncomfortable walking around and introducing yourself at an event, okay? Those are all things that we need to do and just suck it up and do. Don't let your brain talk yourself out of it that you can't handle it because you totally can. So as I mentioned, I want to share some other resources in terms of business motivation or things that I found to be really motivating when you're kind of wanting that, you know, pump you up and get going in your business. And some of their thoughts are things that I shared with today. Ones that I really like are Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School podcast that you'll find awesome. With Allison, I already mentioned the other one that's kind of more, you know, more like tactic, but she has some good, you know, kind of mental work that goes behind business too. Mindset coaching, I would say, is Amy Porterfield. She's kind of the email marketing guru, but, um, I like that she talks about kind of mindset coaching as well. Um, Jenna Kutcher is another one in the space. Um, her podcast is amazing, The Gold Digger Podcast, and she talks a lot about, I think, um, developing the mindset of an entrepreneur and handling those kinds of doubts and fears and insecurities while also, um, coupling that with good strong tactics. So, um, and the other one that I love, um, that I always find to be really encouraging and uplifting is Pat Flynn. He's one that I've been listening to for years. He's the one, his stuff has kind of encouraged me to even start being in this realm in terms of really niching down into people who had online businesses and who were online, you know, indie entrepreneurs and also being curious myself as to what I could be offering that would be helpful to solve people's problems in this space. So Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. So okay, those are just a couple and I will link to all of those in the show notes which you can find at BrittanyRatelle.com/shownotes. 21, as in episode 21. BrittanyRatelle.com/21. Thank you guys so much for joining me on the special episode today. I really enjoyed it. And if you want information about me or working with me, you can find it on my website, BrittanyRatelle.com. You can also follow me on Instagram @BrittanyRatelle. That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-Y-R-A-T-E-L-L-E. I also have an email newsletter that I don't send out super regularly, so I promise to only bug you on that. If I have something good that I want to share. But that's at BrittanyRatelle.com/newsletter. If you sign up for that, you get a little legal checklist that kind of gives you an overview of some things that you might need to be— that you should be, actually. I'm gonna come out and say it. I'm not gonna couch that. You should be thinking about this stuff for your business, okay? And it will give you a good framework of some questions you need to be asking and then give you an idea of where to look for some resources that can help you getting your business legally legit if you haven't done any of those things. Best guess where you should start. It's a good starting place. The other resource that I wanted to mention is, besides this on the podcast obviously, and the newsletter, is that I also have a do-it-yourself template shop where I sell contracts, contract agreements. They're all templates that you can download, that you can customize. They come with highlighted fields for the things that I think that you're probably going to want to dial in for exactly what your business does. They come with ScreenFlow instructions where I do this basically, I do a voiceover and I walk you through exactly where you want to put what and how you want to implement it. And so the URL for that is creativecontracts.co, okay? creativecontracts.co. But my aim is for those to be a resource for people who they know they need to be doing something for their business but they might not be in a spot where they want to hire me one-on-one, done-for-you, where they're looking for a more affordable option, or you think that it's just the kind of thing that you're going to be wanting to use something. You want just a good solid template that you want to use again and again, and if you've gone on LegalZoom and been completely overwhelmed or have something that you've been using but you're not quite sure if it's legit, if it actually makes sense for your industry and the kind of work that you're doing, that's the problem that I'm trying to solve, okay, with my contract shop. Please check it out and if there's something that you need that's not on there yet, because I'm still developing my library of resources and trying to put on my list of what I think people most need and what I need to get up there, shoot me an email or connect with me online, send me a direct message, whatever, communicate, smoke signal, get a hold of me in some way and let me know because whatever you guys telling me that you're wanting, needing in your business will really help me develop the right resources as I can for you. So you can always email me at hello@brittanyratelle.com. And then I have information on my website if you want to hire me to work one-on-one with you, then we can talk about that. So everything we talked about today is just for informational purposes only. In fact, I don't really think I talked about any legal stuff, so— but just so you know, this is not an attorney-client relationship. That's not how it works with me and your AirPods in your ear. But if you are interested and having something like that with someone like me, an attorney for creative entrepreneurs, then you'll find my free discovery calendar where you can set up a free consult on my website at BrittanyRatelle.com. And I do free 20-minute phone consults where we can talk about your business. You can tell me what's going on, what concerns you have, what you've done, what you haven't done. I don't get mad. I don't judge. Okay? I'm your buddy. I'm your teammate here., and we could talk about maybe some next steps that might be appropriate and what the pricing would be for that. Those are purely for your benefit, okay? I'm not salesy, I'm not pushy, and I don't charge you for those 20 minutes because I understand that sometimes a huge barrier in reaching out and getting quality legal services is the fear that you're going to get charged some exorbitant rate as soon as you walk in the door. It's going to be someone who doesn't know your business who's going to mansplain to you or make you feel dumb. OK? I don't do any of those things, not a one. OK? So if you want to work with me, I'd love to work with you, so please reach out and make an appointment. Thanks so much for joining me today and listening to my spiel. If you like what you heard, please give a rating in iTunes. That allows more people to find this. Or share with a friend. OK? Share with a fellow boss babe, an entrepreneur, share with someone in your mastermind, share with anyone else who you're maybe bouncing ideas with with your business and you think could help. And maybe need a little pick-me-up, okay? Because don't we all? Thanks so much and have a great day.