Ep.154: "Stop Playing Small" with Ina Coveney

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights, and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed LMFT 🎗️, marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Hey y'all, welcome back. I am so excited for today's guest because not only is she an incredibly powerful force of nature in her own right, and you're going to see as we talk to her in a little bit, but she's also a good friend and someone who I just adore and respect as a human being. And, uh, her name is Ina Coveney. She is the business coach and host of the Global Phenomenon Podcast. She is a 6-figure entrepreneur with a tiny audience of less than 1,000 followers on any platform, and she helps online coaches and other business owners monetize their existing network through natural and organic lead generation techniques. As the host of a global phenomenon podcast, she's interviewed some of the biggest names in the podcast community, such as Pat Flynn, uh, who created the Smart Passive Income community, and John Lee Dumas, who has the Entrepreneur on Fire community. So, right, she's bringing this incredible passion to the stage, and she's worked with entrepreneurs from all different backgrounds. She is a speaker, she's a social media coach, and, um, little known fact about her, she is a rock star in front of a karaoke mic, as we all witnessed at our last podcast conference together in Orlando, uh, earlier this past year. So I really am excited for the conversation. I think that there's gonna be so many takeaways. Not only are you going to see someone who is good at what they do, but you're going to hear someone who's incredibly passionate about what they do. So stay tuned and hope you get a lot out of it. And as always, we would love for you to reach out to us, right? Please, you know, follow any of our guests that we have every time. Please check them out on social media if anything connects to you from that. But also, I want to hear from you. I want to know who you are. I know we have so many people that are listening to the episodes each week, but I really do want to focus on in 2023 creating more of a connective community. I'm actually thinking about hosting a retreat closer to the summer and offering some other online type programmings and maybe Zoom get-togethers. So please let me know, reach out directly to me, and obviously you know where to do that. Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️ on Instagram or The U Winning Life on Instagram. You can reach out to me directly, you know, through Facebook and etc. So looking forward and hope you enjoy today's episode. Ina Wasser.

Jason Wasser.

What's going on?

I am so happy to see you. How are you?

It's— first of all, I'm great because like, I've been looking forward to this since we scheduled it. And when I did schedule it with you, right, and we even though, like, you know, I did in the intro, we saw each other last summer at the podcast conference. And we first met with the How I Show Up retreat that Pablo and I hosted together before the pandemic. Like the fact that like, You are always right in front of me, right? Whether it's on social media, whether it's in our, you know, the random WhatsApp group that we have and stuff like that. And I just want to give you a heartfelt apology of like, I don't know why it took me so long to like, oh yeah, what about Ina? So forgive me. Yeah. And community should forgive me.

It's one of those things I'm like, I would love to talk to Jason Wasser, but I'm not going to go interrupting his space. Maybe I'm just not the kind of person that he talks to on his podcast. And he's totally within his rights to talk to anybody he wants to talk to. So I am very honored and I'm very thankful that we have been invited, so thank you.

Well, and it's reflexive. I'm very honored and glad that the time in both of our crazy schedules to make this happen. And if anybody, while you're listening to this episode, if you hear some stuff going on in the background, we want to give you the heads up that there's some stuff going on in the background, so you might hear some random stuff. So just put that aside and have fun with us because Ina and I always have such a great time whenever we get to be together.

Yeah, sorry, I don't know if you can hear the banging. So there's somebody fixing my son's— my son's drawers in his dresser, they came off. And like, right now it sounds like they're throwing the entire thing up and down the stairs. So yeah, sorry if you can hear anything.

We're good on our end. So if it sneaks through to someone listening on the other end, then— but we're already— yeah, they know. Apologizing for that, but it's all good. So, all right. So I think what we're already starting to talk about, right, of this idea that you just said, like, I didn't want to reach out to Jason Wasser because I know I would love to have this conversation with him. And knowing that he probably would love to have this conversation with me because we adore each other. And like, The fact that you didn't do that, right? The fact that you say, hey, Jason, Pablo's been on and Ollie's been on and Jeremy's been on. What the heck? What about me?

Right?

So like, I want to unpack that for a second because I know that we started talking about— I know, as you're shrinking away, right?

Yeah.

So we don't get the— we don't get— I don't get the opportunity to do this. And you gave me permission to do this, to kind of not only hear all the awesome things you're doing, but also help our audience unpackage what's also helping them play small and keeping them playing small. And you and I are really organically playing small. Yes.

And, um, so to answer that, that is kind of part of my whole psyche. Like, when you ask me, like, what could we talk about, I'm like, actually, this is something that I don't— I haven't really talked about in any other interview because I, I would need to talk to, like, a licensed professional about this, right? Which you are. Uh, so this is something that I can just like very easily just throw out there and expect people to know what to do with, which is this whole idea of playing small. And I have, like, like you might have mentioned in the intro, I have a small audience and I've kind of made it work for me, right? I've, I've never had a big audience. I don't know how to have a big audience. I don't know how to grow my audience, but I know how to make a six-figure business out of the audience that I already have, which is You know, it's what I built my entire business on. Um, but that doesn't mean that I don't want a big audience. It doesn't mean that I'm not going for a big audience. I've just, I got really smart at working with what I had, but that didn't mean that there weren't any issues there, that there weren't, there wasn't anything there. And, and not asking you, hey, can I be on your podcast? I mean, I, right now it would like give me hives just thinking of asking, right? It's like, it's like, no, no, no. I'm just going to stay right here. And if somebody wants to ask me, me, then that's great. Which is, it's kind of the same way as, you know, like getting clients. It's like I, the way that I talk about getting clients is you are not pushy. You are not salesy. You, yes, it's attraction marketing, but it's also creating relationships, right? Because if I'm friends with someone, if I'm in a relationship with someone, that is not like just me trying to sign them as a client, then they're more likely to ask me more questions about what it is that I have going on. They're more likely to check out my stuff if they don't get a weird, bad energy from me. And that's out of my sales process. So yeah, it's not a coincidence, and it's not out of character for me to not ask you, can I be on your podcast? Because I, you know, I'll just retreat to a corner, and that's where I'm most comfortable.

Well, it's interesting while you're saying that. It's, it's— I had someone reach out to me from my social circles yesterday who I haven't heard from in a while, um, and they, you know, they call me to ask for a resource for, for someone in their family. And it was like, yeah, like, oh well, Jason Wasser does this, right? And, and I think that one, because I haven't seen them in a long time socially, that what the benefit is of what you're doing, what I'm doing with our podcast, with social media, is that these are constant gentle nudges and gentle reminders that we exist. So I see this from my own personal growth is like when I had this back office in the corner of this building that no one would know that I was a therapist, that if I did not put it out there exactly the way you said, like offering value, offering resource, resources, offering tools, making it gentle, then no one would know I exist. But then I realized like, that only goes so far too. And I started asking, obviously, according to my boundaries and what's healthy for me, is in what way could this be useful to you? Or how can I point you in the right direction of the right person? And they're like, oh, well, yeah, you probably wouldn't be able to work with me. And I'm like, oh, well, where's that assumption coming from? Right? So both us, right, us being the person who's providing a service and the people who want a specific problem solved, both have tons of presumptions that are keeping us stuck.

Yeah. No, absolutely. And I always, in my conversations with potential clients, everything, I kind of have to speak out what my assumptions are, so that I don't just act upon assumptions that are just not true. This is something I've just learned out of just communicating and living in the world, that whatever I'm thinking is not exactly it's not gonna be exactly accurate. I actually just had a client who wanted to ask some people who had been to her masterclass. She wanted to ask them if they wouldn't mind just doing a little bit of market research with her, like, can she ask them a few questions? And I told her, yeah, go ahead and ask them. And she came back a week later and she's like, nobody, nobody took me up on it. I'm like, well, how did you ask? And she said, I sent them an email, like a, you know, a marketing email. To my mailing list with people who attended. I sent them an email and I can see that they opened it, but they didn't get back to me. And I'm like, well, I would not assume that they looked at the email, they read it, they understood it, and they said, no, I don't want to give you my time. How dare you? Right? I would most likely assume that, hey, they know what a marketing email looks like, right? And they know that they're not the only person getting it. They know this was cast to who knows how big a net that was. And they feel free to just stay hidden behind that, that glass wall that is, you know, you're not really talking to me, you're talking to a whole bunch of people, right? They know that. So they're going to react accordingly. Like if I stood up on a stage and I said, hey, who can give me a pen? Right? Most people are going to be like, you're just talking to each other and not really paying attention to me. But if I get down off the stage and I go to one person and say, do you have a pen that I can borrow? That person's going to give you the pen. So I told her, Why don't you go and ask them personally? She's like, yeah, but they already got the email. Isn't that weird? I'm like, no, act as if you didn't even send the email. Yeah, I promise you it's going to be fine. She came back the next day. She's like, 5 people responded. I had like, I had no idea that there was such a big difference between talking to people and sending me. I had no idea. I'm like, yeah, that's what happens when you're talking to people one on one.

And it's so powerful because I'm seeing this also for— take it away from the business setting, but even like people who like might struggle socially with creating a community and a network for themselves. And they post these generic things. Hey, does anybody want to go see the new movie that's coming out? Does anybody want to go to this new park? Does anybody want to go try this new pizza? Right. It's so generic. It's such a wide net versus having those personal one-on-one touches. And I think like as a society as a whole, because of social media, because we're hitting a lot to one, right, we're trying to hit so many people at once. That we lost that personal touch. And like a handwritten letter would— like if someone showed up with a handwritten letter of like, taking time, I'm thinking about you, I hope you're doing well, I know this is right, I could have texted you. And I like, how much more impactful is that going to be? Or like an actual like, hey, I'd like to invite you on this date with an actual invitation as an adult, not an invite, not a Facebook event invite, not a meetup invite. Like I'm personally inviting you, Ina, to come join me at such and such event. And if that doesn't work, then, you know, let's find another time.

You know, that's something that I've been wanting, really wanting to do, especially now that we're in the holiday season. I've been really wanting to, like, get down to paper, and I have not gotten around to it. We were just talking about the fact that, like, I haven't even put up a tree yet because there's so much to do. But really, my business would not exist if it wasn't for that personal touch. Like, I've had clients tell me that the only reason they joined my program, they joined my membership, is because they got a voice note from me, right? Basically getting off the stage and going straight to them and being like, yo, what's up? And they're like, yeah, just because you did that, uh, that made me join. And this was, this was one person who, uh, has been in my membership for over a year. And she like, she's going nowhere. Like, I mean, like, she's not leaving the membership. She's like, nope, I am. I'm here to stay.

This is my community. This is my— you're right.

This is me. This is— and she told me, she's like, it's because you were sending me those personal reminders, right? Like, otherwise, like, who knows when I would have actually taken action? Who knows when I would have done anything? Yeah, right.

So, so, and it's so simple, right? And so I remember I was at the 10X, the Grant Cardone 10X conference a few years ago in Miami. And I can't remember, I think it might have even been Grant Cardone himself who said like, okay, I'm going to stop right now. And there was a stadium of, I don't know, 23,000 people that were there. And he goes, I want everybody to take out their phone and scroll through their contacts. And I want you to find someone you haven't talked to in at least a year and just send them a voice— either send them a text or send them a voice text saying, hey, I'm actually at a conference. You came up in my mind. I would love to set a specific time for us to jump on a phone call or Zoom. And he stopped the conference and everybody did that.

Right? So who did you call?

So there was a childhood friend of mine who I grew up literally down the block from, and I knew he was working in development for a very large international company that pretty much every woman listening to this show may have benefited from or used at some point in their adult life. And that company is now sold, but he was doing HR and a bunch of other stuff for that company. But I just wanted to reach out to him because I'm like, oh yeah, we saw each other a couple years ago, we bumped into each other, we never got together, and like his name popped up and that was it. And we ended up scheduling a phone call and it was Right? It was cool to like actually just catch up and like be on each other's radar. And I think that's a lot of, right, this idea of playing small and right, I've had the opportunity of seeing you speak in front of a group of people at the conference and obviously seeing all the stuff that you do and listening to your podcast.

Right?

We, right, I'm 5'2", you're approximately 5'1".

I say I'm 5'1" and I'm sticking with that. 5'1".

So, so right, we jokingly have been playing small our whole life. And people don't look at us or assume with your personality, with my personality, that, right, that's what limits us. But I think for everybody listening, right, it's our own beliefs about how we show up, which was the name of the retreat that we met on that Pablo and I hosted that like this is really part of this unpackaging for our personal growth.

Yeah. And it's funny you mentioned about our heights because I have been working. I understood that this was something that I needed to tune into, like my own intuition, my own What, what does my higher self look like? How does she act? What, what decisions she makes? I knew that I needed help figuring that out. And I've been working with an intuitive coach. Shout out to Kendra at Anchor Intuitive. You can find her just by, if you search for that, you will find her. And I, every time that she has me talk to my higher self, for some reason, she's like 6 feet tall. Like, I don't know why. I know she's wearing heels and it doesn't matter, but whenever she gives me like the best hug, she's coming from above, right? It's like, oh, you know, it's okay. But my higher self ends up being somebody who's super cool, super nice. Uh, nothing seems to faze her. She has the answers, right? And my, my coach keeps telling me like, you know, that's you already. Like, it's impossible for you to not be able to picture that person and to see what they're like and what they're acting and be able to imagine a conversation with that person if you you didn't have that stuff in you already, right? Uh, so that's something that I really try to embody. And I don't know if you've, if you've been, um, paying attention on Instagram lately, but a lot of people are using this AI art. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you been seeing that? With all their different, like, profile, like 17 different profile pictures.

Yeah. And it has, um, like, it makes you look like a warrior or like a princess or like a, you know, whatever. Um,. And so I went on the app and I got myself all of these different avatars. And they look crazy, but they look amazing. I just, I'm going to show you. And I know that, you know, unless people are watching the video, they're not going to really be able to see it. But like, take a look at this. Yeah, right. Right.

That's you.

Right? Like super, like power.

Uh-huh. But it's interesting, right? And I've known you now for 2 and a half years. And everybody, those are all the variations, like of how you show up, right? I've seen you speak. I've seen you present, right? We did TED Talks at our little retreat for each other. We— right, I see you on social media. I've listened to your podcast. I've seen you socially engage with other people. I've seen you on the stage, both speaking and rocking a microphone at karaoke and dual piano karaoke, right? So, right, a lot of times we don't— and I see this all the time for me, and I know that in my own insecurities, like, let's say even at events or for dating, right, where I'll have like, when I'm secure, and I'm confident, and I'll have people say like, Oh, I didn't know you were only 5'2". And then there's times where I'm completely insecure. I'm like, I'm 5'2". Who's going to want to, like, you know, whatever, right? Even professionally, like, why would somebody who's radically successful and is making millions and millions of dollars want to work with this little guy, right? And then, of course, I flub that up. So it's all internal healing, self-awareness, growth processes.

Yeah. For me, I, you know, like you, I have been short my whole life, so I don't know anything else. When I walk into a room. I'm used to looking up at people. In fact, I, it's to the point that I become a little bit uncomfortable if I meet someone who's shorter than me because I, my thought in my head is I don't want them to think that I think I'm better than them because I'm taller. So I am, figure that one out, like, like, but put, put the, put the, draw the dots together. Uh, tie the dots. There's an expression, right? Put the dots together.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Connect, connect the dots.

Connect the dots.

Right. But if I think that if I'm taller, I am better than someone else, then what do I think of everybody else in the room when I'm the shortest person there? What does that tell you about how I think about myself and how I think of everybody else? And it seems like I am very comfortable being seen as the small person in a corner rather than taking up space. So I think that's why The online world has been so wonderful for me because I don't have to do this in public. I get to create my own avatar and create my own personality away from people. I don't need to look at them. I don't need to see what they think. I can just do my thing. And when people respond, that's very nice. It's very flattering, but it's not what I'm expecting. I am going online and literally going on stories, and I've told this to my clients that when they're like, Ina, can you teach us about doing stories? Because your stories are so engaging. Your stories are so great. And I'm not funny like you are, Ina. And I'm like, I'm gonna tell you the secret to my stories. I actually don't like being alone. As soon as we turn this podcast off and I am alone in this room, I start to freak out a little bit. And stories have been my way of feeling like I am busy, like I'm, like I'm hanging out with someone and that person is myself, right? Because you're really looking at yourself when you're talking on stories. So I get to talk to myself and it's perfectly socially acceptable to talk to myself, right? So that's why my stories are like that. This is all coping mechanisms for something else.

Well, and I want to, I want to dig down a little bit deeper just because we're talking about our struggles and our challenges, but But the fact is, you are doing so many awesome things, right? You, you have a beautiful family, you have it, right? You have this amazing reputation, and you have this community of people, right? Again, I want— I don't want to— you're not— I know you're not trying to, and this is not even— I don't even think people are hearing this. I'm not hearing this, right? By saying like, well, I only have— I can only have this many people, and this is how I've been able to be successful. Like, I want to talk about the pros of that, that people think that they do need thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people, right? And Pat Flynn talks about this, right? It's your super fans.

Yeah, right.

And you've been able to be on your own time, on your own schedule, be your own boss, be part of the things that you want to be of. If you want to travel for a conference, you can travel for a conference, right? Right. I always see you with your family and your kids somewhere, and, you know, on a little trip. So, you know, when everything is— everybody and everybody's healthy and everything's healthy, right? So I want, I want people to hear a little bit of like, yes, playing focused at that number level, at that small circle, the positives. Like, in other words, why up to now has been focusing on that led you to be so successful? What are some things you've done? What are some of the takeaways? What can some people actually start implementing today after hearing this episode?

Yeah, I'm gonna tell you, I didn't I wasn't ready to just monetize a small audience the first day that I quit my job, right? When I quit my job, I was in the same spot as everybody. Oh, I need to grow my audience because if you're going to have a business online, you're going to be making money online. You need to grow your audience. So I actually ended up spending a lot of money, a ton of money. I'm still in debt from those quote unquote investments, right? For which I had no ROI, no perceived ROI, no, no expected ROI. I just dropped money into all of these courses. Courses and coaches and programs for the first 3 years of my business. And while I'm doing that, dropping all that money, trying to figure out how to grow my audience, because that's really what I was trying to do. I was basically investing on these things like it's a lottery ticket, right? Like, oh, that person had a great testimonial for that program, then that program is it. I just have to focus on that program for like a month, right? But if I focus on that program for like a month, like, I'll be famous because look at me, I am awesome and I'm energetic and people are gonna You don't need that new book.

You don't need that new course. You don't need that new, right? Right.

So I'm like, you know what? I, so I invested in all that stuff, but at the same time, I needed to make my business work. Right. So at the same time that I was trying to grow my audience, everything that everybody else thinks they need to do, right? Like just investing in all these things and trying to grow. I'm like, I need to make this work because, you know, one thing that I don't want to do is go back to corporate. I can't go back at this point. I cannot go back to sitting in an office in somebody else's time, using my skills and my talents for somebody else's gain. I can't do that anymore. So I had to make this work. So basically my side hustle, because my job was to try to grow my audience, right? That's where like the goal was and that's where the money was going. So my side hustle was, okay, Lynn, let's just get clients in the meantime so that I have something to do and stuff. I'm saying that very, very sarcastically here because it shouldn't be that way. It should be like, it should be flipped. Your priorities in your business should be to get clients and help people. In my mind, it wasn't. In my mind, the goal of my business is to grow the audience. So while that's not happening, while I'm trying to focus on that goal that is being proven really hard to achieve, I think I'm gonna focus on trying to get clients just to keep myself busy. Wrong way to think about your business, but that's the way I thought about it. So as I started to get clients, I crossed the 6-figure revenue mark without even noticing. I didn't even notice that I had, because I wasn't focused on that because getting clients and making money in my business wasn't my priority. It was trying to grow the freaking audience, which wasn't growing, right? To this day, it hasn't grown. I'm like, I have been I'm like 10 followers away from hitting 2,000 followers on Instagram forever. Actually, no, I think I'm like 70 away from hitting 2,000. It's been like that forever, right?

But those 2,000, right, soon to be 2,000, are so focused and so—

It's actual people, right?

It's not people who are just randomly following you or bots or anything like that.

Exactly. So, so, so yeah, so this is how I kind of landed here is after those first 3 years, I got really, really angry. I got really, really mad because I was, I ended up in this position where I had a coach, a high-ticket coach that by the end of the year, I didn't have the money to pay her. I had signed up to work with her hoping that just by signing up with her, I was going to get all of this money coming in like a lottery, right? And it didn't happen. And at the end of the year, I couldn't pay her her final investment. And that I mean, that's not fair to her. Number one, there was nothing wrong with her, right? That was not fair to her. It made me mad that this is how I had been like, I'm smart. I'm resourceful. How did I end up here? Where did all my money go? Where did those six figures go? Right? So I ended up having to borrow money from my husband, my hardworking husband, who, you know, I, this business had been self-funded all this time for the past three years, right? And he's waiting for it to like like take off, and I'm here asking it for money. So now not only has this become like a money pit, right? But now it's taking money away from personal finances. That's not fair to anybody. So that's the point where I got super mad, and I wrote a message to my audience, and I said, I'm done. I am done falling for every Facebook ad, and I'm done with falling for every coach and program and course. I'm done with all of that. From now on, it's just about the cash. I am gonna go out there and focus on the things that I've noticed I've been doing well, which is getting clients. And that's how I went from negative thousands of dollars per year to 30% profit that following year, just by focusing and by matching my knowledge to my implementation, to not leaving it in somebody else's hands anymore. I'm like, no, I'm gonna do what I know how to do best, and I'm gonna do it right, and I'm gonna do it well. And I had an amazing year. I created a brand new offer teaching people how to get clients because clearly that is one thing that I noticed I've been doing well, right? And then this is year 2 of that experiment. And I just calculated what my profit was this year and ended up being like 26% profit this year, right? Crossing like all boundaries this year. So one thing that everybody can take away from is if you're prioritizing, if you think your business exists to try to grow your audience, then you're looking at it the wrong way. If you have been making money getting clients focused on that and double down on those efforts, and you're gonna realize that it wasn't your efforts to try to grow the audience that were actually helping you. It was something else. It was the relationships. Where did your clients come from? Did they come from the referrals? Did they come from past clients? Did they come from a conference that you went to? Like, where are they coming from? You're gonna notice that 80% of them had nothing to do with everything you've been trying to do to grow your audience.

So, right.

Tune into that and your business just starts to work. So that's kind of how I landed here.

Interesting, because I'm also cross-relating this again back to just the social. Let's say someone's listening to this, they're not in their own business, whatever it is, but they're taking it just into the social world or taking it into dating and just niching it down to like, okay, so what are the friends? What are the attributes and the character traits and the things that I have done with those people that I enjoy the most, right? What are the character traits of the people that I enjoy the most? What are the activities what it is that we have done or I've done with other people that I've enjoyed the most and focus and streamline on doing more of that and inviting more people who are interested in that, right? So I remember a year, a couple of years ago, Patrick Gentempo, Dr. Patrick Gentempo, he is chiropractor. He's, you know, created and sold multiple, multiple practices. He's now entrepreneur and does coaching and has done some documentary films. But he wrote a book called Your Stand Is Your Brand. And he was the original co-founder of the business program that I was in. It was originally chiropractic finishing school and then it became business finishing school. But he was a guest speaker one time because he's no longer part of the program. And he said, "What is your line in the sand? This is who we are. This is who we serve. This is who we want to be around. This is not who we want." And that's going to piss some people off. We see it in some negative ways. There's a certain Bulgarian former kickboxing fighter person who was just kicked off major platforms for being exactly that. But he's making his millions and millions of dollars with his educational program because he has people that align with that. Now, we may hate that and we're not absolutely going to be their client of this person, but there are thousands and thousands of people out there that will be. Whether that's right or wrong is not part of the conversation. It's just every one of us have to take a stand on what our actual personal brand is. And I think this goes back to like, well, we— when we met, one of the, one of the things that we did was that core values workshop. Right? What are our core values? What are the core values of our business? And if I know that when I'm working with someone, I can help you get whatever you want, because then it just becomes, well, this is what you stated your core values to be. This is what you stated what you want the attributes and the values of the people in your life you want them to be. These are the attributes and values of what you want your clients to be. Why are you making this decision? Because that apparently goes right against that. So let's not do that anymore. And what can be the decision instead?

Yeah. And I like what you're saying about like planting your stake in the ground of about what is it you stand for. Um, I was just walking one of my clients through this exercise to like figure out what her messaging would be. And a big part of it is not just say, oh, I want people to feel more empowered or I want people to, uh, increase their self-esteem and I can help them do that. Like, that's not enough. That's not enough. You need to tell me what you're up against. Right? What, what is the, where is the enemy in the situation? Right? And by the way, in terms of messaging, here's a little tip for everybody. The more controversial it sounds, the better. Right? So in my case, the one that really like brought the house down was me going around saying, stop growing your audience. Right? Do I actually believe that, you know, you should go and stop growing your audience? I'm like, no, having an audience is great. Growing your audience is awesome. I want 100,000 followers tomorrow. What I mean is that if you're focusing on growing your audience and you're not getting clients, you're focusing on the wrong thing. So you need to stop trying to grow your audience and start getting clients. So that's how mine kind of works out. And you kind of have to think about, okay, what is that opposing statement that you're going against? And the more, the more controversial it sounds, the better. And people are going to pay attention. And you're like, wait, why should I stop growing my audience? That sounds crazy. You know, I have an online business. Online businesses thrive on audiences. Why would you say that? Now listen to what I have to say. And if that message resonates with you, then you're going to have a much stronger connection with that person than if you just, I just went around saying everybody just needs to get clients. The no shit, right? Like tell me something that I don't know. Right. So it's more important what the thing that you're up against. Are just equally important— what you're up against and what you're ready for.

When I see that, especially like, right, we were talking before briefly about my family's furniture business, and they're, they're a high-end furniture business. So when people come in, they're like, oh, it's going to cost me $13,000 for a sofa or for a table or whatever. And like, listen, we're not Rooms To Go, we're not El Dorado, we're not, you know, any of those like big box— they're shipping it over on containers, they have 1,000 of them at the store. If it breaks, they'll give you a replacement because that's what they're already expecting, and that's worked into the factor. Like, that's if you are okay with— in other words, it's not— we don't want to put those down because there is a— obviously there's a large industry for that, but that's not who we are. We're going to walk you through, we're going to measure everything, we're going to make sure it fits in your apartment, we're going to make sure it looks good in your apartment, we make sure if it's left-facing versus right-facing, we're going to make sure it's going to be— if you have kids or if you have pets, what type of leather or fabric do you— so it's gonna be so— but you pay more for that and it's not going to fall apart in 3 years, right? So these are all the things of like, that's their brand. So when people come into the store and they're like, oh well, we were just over El Dorado, you know, and again, not like there's good stuff there, they're really good looking things, but it's a totally different, right? It's an education process of, well, let me tell you why what you're getting at El Dorado is really the same thing you're getting at IKEA. Now, that furnishes the bookshelf behind me, and they make a great bookshelf, right?

I think I have this, I think we have the same one. Um, no, I, what you're describing is that is options in the market. Yes, right. And the fact You don't have to come and follow our process and pay $13,000. You don't have to. You can go someplace else and buy it. But guess what? There's somebody out there who went to El Dorado and who went to IKEA and said, but what about my pets? And what if it doesn't fit? And what, you know what, I would pay more if somebody could just take care of that for me. And then they go to your store. So there's gotta be options out there and you gotta be comfortable with the step that you're taking.

And I think this is where it goes back into you, me, right, Pablo, any of our— any of the people that we're all servicing our clients in unique ways, is our job is to, like, really know what they don't know. So we can tell them, hey, have you thought about this? And if you haven't, like I just shared with a client, I get this all the time, right? I closed my office, right, the weekend that we were together in North Carolina with Pablo, like I closed my office that weekend, the beginning of the pandemic. And I haven't gone back into it. Office yet. So I'm doing everything like we're doing right now in this conversation. All my therapy, my coaching is 99% on Zoom. And the only thing I'm doing in person is the muscle testing, the neuro-emotional technique, which you— right, which you saw and experienced. So that's the only thing I'm doing in person, but I'm doing it outside by my pool, under the tree. And if it really is gross, and we go into my rec room in this really, like, really whatever, 1960s library that they have in my rec room. But once I talk to people about like, well, I don't have an office, well, I only want to work with someone in office. Well, I do have an office. It's just an office in nature, or I do have an office. It's just not sexy. Is that okay? And I really do like, listen, the work is the work. Are you just, are you uncomfortable enough and stuck enough that you're willing to suspend the way that it had to be done for the 80 years? Because the therapy world is behind in these things. And the pandemic allowed us to finally offer something different. And sometimes we—

and thank goodness.

Thank goodness, right? Oh, it's been such a blessing. And I'm booked more now and I'm making more money now and I'm making the ease of the ease of my clients now. But I walk them through all the objections of, well, you don't have to come to my office anymore. You don't have to wait in the waiting room. You don't have to drive home. So what's a 45 or 60 minute session is literally only 45 or 60 minutes. It's not the 20 to 30 minutes to get there and the 20 to 30 minutes to get home. So now it's not a 2-hour session.

Right, right. And thank goodness that that exists because I You know, I needed, especially in the pandemic, my son and I went into therapy together because things got really crazy between us. My son at the time was 9 years old, you know, saying things like, oh, I don't want to live here anymore. I'm going to run away. Right. And I got to a point where I'm like, I don't know what to do anymore. And we got ourselves a therapist that we both went to because this is not about like fixing the kid, right? Like, hey, fix my kid. It was a communication problem here. It was a trust problem here. So we got together and we got to both speak out loud, like, this is why mommy yells sometimes and how, how mommy feels about yelling and how she doesn't like doing it and she's going to try not to do it anymore. And then he can see that it's not just him, right? He can see that it's like a full communication. We were able to do that over Zoom. And that was like, it saved my relationship with my son. So thank goodness that that exists.

Right? And it makes me so happy to hear that because that's one, that's how I'm trained as a therapist, right? Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. It's a misnomer. People think we just do marriage and family, we're actually relational dynamics. So it's you in relationship to anything that's in your life, whether it's your beliefs about money, whether it's your spiritual beliefs, whether it's your health beliefs. And I really wish they didn't, they would change the industry name for it and call us like systemic therapists. But it really is like to hear that. And what— when even when I offer that, like, oh, like, I don't do drop your kid off therapy. Like, you're gonna have to participate at least 50% of the time. And especially with couples all the time. Oh, well, you know, it's the complaint of the consumer and the visitor, which is really from the business modality, right? It's fix this issue, or I'm just gonna— right? I see that so many times. And one of the excuses, right, we know people, even though they may want help, even though they may know that you're the right person, they're still possibly going to come up with some type of self-limiting excuse, like you said, because they're not absolutely certain with what the outcome is going to be. And when you were saying before, like, no, no, no, we have to tell you what the pain point that you're going to work through is, not just like, I help you solve your stress, or I help you put your marketing message out there. No, no, if you don't do this, X. And if you do do this, this will also allow you to do this, this, this, and this that you probably never even thought that you can even get to because this mountain has been the mountain in front of you and you don't even realize what's in the valley over there. Let me help you describe that to you.

Yeah. And that, that's what I, the way that I describe that is explaining to people what their problem is, like describing the problem and educating them on the problem because most people are out there looking for solutions and they haven't really diagnosed their problem yet. So when you become become that expert at the problem and you can speak about it and give it language and give it a structure, then people start to listen. It's like, wait, that, they, it seems like that's me, right? Okay, so how do I do that? Here's my service. Okay, great. Then let's go sign up for it. That's kind of, yeah, that's what you're describing. It's educating people about their problem.

And, and, and right as everybody's, as you're listening to this conversation, right? What if you were my, if someone was my client, if you're my, whoever, we would always go back to beliefs, assumptions, and expectations that you're aware of, or that you're not even aware of in your programming, whether it's cultural, whether it's gender, whether it's religion, whether it's hierarchy in your birth order, whether it's whatever, right? Trauma. All of those things get projected on whatever the issue or topic or concern is.

Yeah.

And then you're rubbing up against that with beliefs, assumptions, and expectations that aren't serving you. But instead, what do we do? We double down, we triple down, we quadruple down of like, nope, this is the way it has to be. And I'm— and things have to convert to my side in order for it to work. And wait, so then therefore someone has to win and someone has to lose.

Yeah. And that paradigm. Yeah. And I don't like playing from that stance. You know what I mean? So, but anyway, I feel like we got totally sidetracked from talking about staying small. But I think this is— I hope this is all helpful.

Yeah.

So helpful to people about, you know, I think this is playing because we're stuck in our beliefs, right? Whether we were describing about like, well, I'm not going to be good in front of all these people, or not all these people want to be around me, or whatever the story is that you carry, that I carry, whatever, right? I think that's the best example. Because what is it? It's a belief. It's an assumption. Or an expectation, aware or not aware of what might happen if you played differently.

Yeah. And that we all have the ability to play differently. Like, um, I am, I mean, a lot of people shoot it down, but I'm a big proponent of fake it till you make it. Because even though we're telling ourselves, no, I'm going to fake it until I make it, we're really not faking it if it's coming from us, you know, it's just, we don't see ourselves that way. So we think that we're faking. Um, so, but that ends up being our most authentic. Self most often. So I am a big proponent of that, of imagining what is, what does your higher self look like, what decisions they would make, what they would do, and always making the decisions based on what you feel is right. Many times when I'm, I get a question out there about should I be doing this or this? I'm like, I know you're not going to like this, but there is no right answer. The only answer there is, is which one are you going to regret less? Which one are you going to feel most comfortable with? Um, so as long as you're always acting from your intuition, there's no way for you to fail because whatever, whatever happens after that, you knew that it was the best case scenario. Um, I've, I've had, I've been in situations where I meet someone at a conference where I'm very excited about meeting them. I'm very excited about interviewing them on my podcast and I go talk to them. And I get a really weird vibe and I get a really weird, like, like, ah, I'm, I'm not sure if I want to interview this person anymore. And I end up not extending an invitation. Like, not every decision ends up being a really easy one, right? Like, like this kind of situation. It's like, if I interview that person, maybe that will give me a lot more visibility to a new audience. Maybe they'll give me a whole ton of credibility because there's other people who look up to that person. But at the same time, I'd be doing at the expense of my own soul, at the expense of my own, you know, my own alignment with, with myself. So I let go of those opportunities and I welcome all the ones that feel great to me, so that I'm not in the end kicking myself, because usually that's, that's what you're going to notice, is that you end up kicking yourself when you say to yourself, like, I knew it, I knew it, and I didn't listen, I knew it, and I ended up doing it anyway.

So just intuition.

Yeah.

Right? Always do what you think is best at this point in time. Leave doors open for later if you want to go through them. But, uh, yeah, I think that plays a huge part in us starting to play a little bit bigger.

It's so interesting. I was listening to a podcast this weekend, and every once in a while I'll go back to this person. It's in the integrative, uh, functional medicine world. Um, and I would say from the time of the pandemic, that person got on a specific, you know, agenda on a specific thing that I don't necessarily personally agree with. But 93% of everything else they say, I love. So I struggle with them, like, ah, do I not listen to this person anymore? Do I stop following them? Whatever it is, which I think is like, you know, we've become so polarized that maybe that's not healthy, easier of like, just get everybody out of your circle that disagrees with you or you disagree with. But I like, I realized when I was listening to the, to the episode, I'm like, I really, really deeply respect this person. And even though I don't disagree, even though I don't agree with this part of their message, everything else I really like and I really respect their journey and I respect what they've done and what they've learned and what they've trained and what they're training. So it's, it's interesting because then there are people like that also. I've listened to podcasts like, oh, it'd be great to have them on my show and not. And I'm like, I don't know, like they didn't realize that what they said was anti-Semitic or what they're saying is like X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, maybe like, can they have that conversation? Are they open to having that conversation? I'm like, listen, I do love all this, but let's have this conversation on your show. Or on my show. And, you know, and are you open to being receptive to it? And I think whether that's professionally with our clients of who we want to work with, who we don't want to work with, whether it's friends, whether it's family members, and unfortunately we're in the holiday season, so we have to be kind of discerning with who we want to spend time with, whether it's romantic partners, the same. I think this rule of playing small, which is really just us truly knowing our value and our worth and asserting it.

Yeah. And it's like, like you just beautifully illustrated, it's not always black and white. It's not always a really, really easy decision. So yeah, you follow your gut and then you stick with it. Um, and you know, if you need to give people the benefit of the doubt, do it, do it cautiously, do it openly, but do it because you could, you wouldn't have done it any other way, you know, because that was your authentic way of responding to that scenario. And be proud of that. Right. So yeah.

So before we wrap up, I just want to like, you know, one, obviously, I want to talk a little bit about like, you know, your process, right? Get Clients First, the premium membership. I know it's right, you have it for coaches. But is there people who also who are not coaches, or like, who really, who else can benefit from it if they're not a coach, if they're not doing some type of— I mean, I'm assuming, right, if you're a therapist, if you're a doctor, if you're someone who actually needs to get in front of people and share some type of brand, that would also be applicable to them as well.

I think it could help consultants, like anybody who works with one-on-one clients, um, anybody who's looking to grow into getting groups going, groups of clients going. I think it would be helpful for, uh, the one thing that I've seen is that I've actually gotten a lot of freelancers who end up joining the program, but because we make it very coaching program focused, like getting one-on-one clients, you're going to coach through something, that you're going to be educating them on something. They come, they learn what they need to learn, and then they, you know, they go and extract it. Like, they come, they learn, and then they leave. They don't really find that, that really meaningful community because it's a community of coaches. But if anybody out there is like a consultant or looking into grouping their offers and they are open to doing their stuff online because like a brick-and-mortar business would not find, you know, anything really helpful in the program. But as long as you're willing to do this online, teaching someone something online or helping someone something online, you could learn a ton inside the Get Clients First membership. That's all we focus on is how do you get one-on-one clients, right? And there's some guidance in there about, okay, how do you scale that? That into a group offering. So if that sounds like you, whether you're a coach or not, then you might find some really good nuggets in there.

Yeah, I'm thinking like people who are like speech-language pathologists or PTs or tutors in a specific thing, right? If you think of like the word coaching, it's like you're helping a particular community solve a particular problem. And I think that, right, I'm thinking about like tutors, right, of like specific type of math, would like— this would be a perfect possible thing for because you have a specific population you to show and highlight that which you're good at. You want to create an audience around that. You want to separate yourself from everybody else. And I think that's like, it's interesting how much more that people, people might distinguish themselves or say like, oh no, that's not for me because I have this brick-and-mortar mindset. But I wonder, I really do wonder, and maybe this is something that you and I can talk about, you know, more offline of like, how do we get someone from a brick-and-mortar mindset and transition them from like, I had to do that from brick-and-mortar mindset to being fully online and now having licenses in multiple states and coaching clients all over. But yeah, it is a mindset that everybody, I think, carries as a professional that I do think, so to speak, solo practitioners still have to build a brand.

There's also, there's also kind of like a— there's a big divide between coaches and, you know, healthcare workers, mental health workers that are actually licensed in a specific There's, there's a very big difference between the two in terms of what they are willing and able to charge for their services, because there's a lot of people out there. And this is, this is basically the one thing that I, I run into all the time with specifically like healthcare worker kind of person is that their clients could have a cheaper option through insurance.

Right.

So they say to themselves, well, well, I'm not gonna go and charge $250 an hour without insurance. I'm not gonna go and charge $500. I'm not gonna go charge $1,000 for spending 6 lessons with me. So, and that's something that, you know, like, like you said, like, there are people out there who are doing that, who are making good money creating those programs, but I have no experience in, and I, I would not be able to guide a speech pathologist on how to charge higher prices, how to get around the insurance, how to attract and educate those clients so that they will want to pay more. That is not an expertise that I have. So, like I said, it's one of those things that I will teach you how to get clients for healthcare industry and looking for patients. You will find a lot of really good social media strategies. You will find really good relationship building strategies. But in order to charge those prices and create the programs and working with insurance is probably— you're not going to find what you need inside the program, if you know what I mean.

Right. So that's where people, I guess, would come to me because that's what I'm— I've done. I moved from an insurance practice, 95% insurance to 100% cash practice over the last 2 and a half years. So it's interesting because I've had to learn all the stuff that you're teaching, right? I've had to learn all those things because they don't teach that to therapists. And I think kind of coaches are more the new version of what a coach is, is kind of like they focus a lot on that. So it's interesting to see where— which community lacks a specific skill set.

Yeah.

And again, right, you're providing that to a specific community. And yet I'm working with therapists that could go into insurance base that could go and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, let me help you get a full thriving cash practice. Even if someone only says they have a $5 copay, why you— how you can talk to them so you can convince them to pay $250 for the hour, which is what I charge, versus a $5 copay.

I think we should like create a program together or something for exactly— y'all, everybody in the house. Right? To kind of like combine our powers together and teach them how to have a thriving business online.

Absolutely. So that's why I like even like just mentioning that and you not being afraid to say, right? Like as we started off with earlier in our conversation of like, hey, right? I think, and maybe this is a great place to kind of, as you give all your places that people can find you. When I started my podcast, I had my little Business Finishing School community. And so there was a lot of people that I met either from that program or through that, people from that program.

Program.

So there was some not so big asks, but they were bigger than I've ever asked before. And then I remember going on Amazon and going through, um, recently released books, or books that are suggested to you based on what I bought. And Howard Behar, who is the former international president of Starbucks, his book popped up called It's Not About the Coffee. And I knew about him because of the Conscious Capitalism community and all those other things of like, you can make a lot of money and also do a lot of good in the world, that mindset. And I wrote him a nice email. And I'm like, listen, I'm just getting started in this. I've only released, I don't know, 20-something, 30-something episodes. But I'm a huge fan of Conscious Capitalism mindset. I'm just moving into this new entrepreneur space. I'm a therapist. I've met so-and-so, and I've heard them speak from your community in that world. I'd be honored, you know. And within 8 minutes, the person said yes.

Ah, right. That's awesome.

So what's the first thing that I had to do besides like, not crap my pants, was like, oh my God, I had to buy the book. And then I had to read the book. And then I had to take notes. And then I had to watch other interviews to make sure that I wasn't going to ask the same questions that everybody else asked. Because this is like, they're honoring me. This is a very— this person literally brought Starbucks all over the world under Howard Schultz's, right, as the CEO. This was the international president. I had to like up my game. So I think like, when I realized at that point that I was done playing small, is— and this is something that like some of my close friends now know— is that like the worst thing that someone can say if you ask is yes. Because if you know that they're going to say no, or you assume they're going to say no, you don't do anything differently than what you've already been doing, right? But if you get the yes, you have to change everything that you're doing to now play at a bigger level, to now scale yourself, to now grow. When Ryan Serhant said yes to me, I probably watched 40 hours and read both of his books within the span of a month of interviews and YouTube videos and some of the show, because I wanted to make sure that if he was giving me a half hour of his time and this is right, Bravo Million Dollar Listing, New York City, Ryan Serhant and Joe DeSina, founder of Spartan Games, the same thing. Like, I wanted to make sure that I'm going to ask people questions that they're like, and I started off our conversation previous to that, right? What are you not talking about? And that's how we got here. So I think like the ability for us to give the people to say yes versus just expecting the no is one of the first things that everybody can do, can implement to stop playing small.

Love it. I love it. I agree. That's how I get the guests on my podcast as well.

Exactly.

Just ask. That's how I got—

yep.

John—

like, John Lee Dumas and Pat—

right, John Lee Dumas and Pat Flynn were like episode 1 and 3 of my— but the podcast didn't even exist when I asked them to be on it.

So like, these are— and, and one of those people charges a fortune right, to be a guest, right? And the fact that you did it and they got— and they were honored, like, I think that's so amazing. I think this is just testimony to what you, I, and others who are like attracted to this world of personal growth, personal development, taking the psychology stuff, taking the entrepreneurial stuff and melding it together.

Yeah.

And it is affecting us both in our personal life and our relationships and our health and all, and especially in our professional life. So, all right, where are people finding you? Give all your plugs, even though I already did it in the intro, but I want you to do it again because I want them to hear it from Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having me.

This has been super, super fun. I just love talking to you. My Instagram is @yourengagementcoach. You can find me there all day long. And if you would like to learn more about Get Clients First, which is a premium coaching membership for coaches, I'm there every single week answering every question that gets thrown at me. And I give everybody my, my curriculum for how to get clients with a small audience. That's what they get in there. So if you would like that, that, then you can go to joingetclientsfirst.com, check it out, see if it's for you, and we'll wait for you inside. So thank you so much.

And if they go to your website, right, to your name, to my knowledge, there's still a little pop-up that pops up about some templates and a free little—

actually, if, yeah, if you went to, um, 100postideas.com, I painstakingly sat down and wrote down 100 ways that you could post in a way that is going to be engaging, in a way that is going to be attracting conversation so you can stay in the driver's seat of your engagement and your relationships and you can actually start getting clients online. So yeah, that's completely free. You can go to 100, that's 1-0-0, postideas.com. Thank you for reminding me of that.

Listen, I know your stuff.

I guess, you know, thank you. I appreciate it. And if everybody's on the podcasting app right now, don't forget to subscribe to the Global Phenomenon Podcast for online coaches. This.

Yeah, that's it. Right. So guys, like, this is, this is what it is, right? It's just the ask, right? So as you've heard me before in previous episodes, if there's anything— I mean, well, let me rephrase that. I'm absolutely certain that somebody got something from listening to this conversation today. So please, please, please, right, go to mine, to You Winning Life, and you know, not only on Apple where you can subscribe, but leave on— you don't have to have an iTunes or an Apple account to leave a review. But also, like, if you also love what Ina said, go over to our podcast and leave a positive review of like, hey, heard you on Jason's— on the Winning Life Podcast. I love this bit, I love this point, right? That really not only does that like obviously tell us that we're on the right track, but it also helps us get in front of more people when they see those numbers come up. And that actually gets suggested to the algorithm and our podcast gets shown to more people during searches. So, you know, just a simple— a simple— we don't— there's no cost of listening to this. I'm not— we're not charging anybody for, you know, listening to secret podcast episodes at this point. But that's the little, the little that we ask back in return. But Ina, love you. You're, you're— it's always a pleasure.

And thank you, Jason. I feel the same.

Well, hopefully, yeah, obviously we have more conversations to have off camera. But, but again, reach out to Ina, hit her up for any questions that you have in that world. And obviously you guys know how to reach me. And see you at the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready To minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at You Winning Life.