Ep. 81-Love Your Business & Reclaim Your Life with Debbie King

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 marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, winner and certified entrepreneur coach, Jason Wasser.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the You Winning Life podcast. Today I'm hanging out with business mindset coach for entrepreneurs and author of the new and as of today best-selling book, which is super exciting, uh, Loving Your Business, which is rethinking your relationship with your company and make it work for you. And Debbie King is getting to hang out with us live right now. And I'm so excited because we were talking pre, uh, jumping onto this of how much we have in common in how we think and how we work and what we're interested in. And so this is definitely going to be the next little bit of an exciting conversation.

Thanks, Jason Wasser. Yes, I'm really excited to be here.

So before we get started, let's just start off like there's all these different types of coaches and you have some really cool background in your world of all of these different things that you have? As I go through your resume, you're a Certified Executive Leadership Coach, you're a life coach, you're a high-performance coach, you went to Georgetown in the School of Business and Leadership. This idea of being a business mindset coach kind of cuts through all of that, doesn't it?

Yes, and I think that what's so important to me is, as a business owner, you can know what to do and not do it. So, just like so many people know they should exercise and eat right and they don't do it, right? So, why don't we do the things that we know we should do? Well, it's because of the stories that we're making up in our mind and how we're constructing reality. So that's why I like to say business mindset, because to me, you know, we create reality with our minds first.

Exactly. So as a therapist, which we were talking about before, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and it's interesting that people have this misnomer that we only do marriages and families. And really, our training and my philosophy that we are trained in is about relational dynamics. It's you in relationship to whatever that is. In your life, and it could be your business, it could be your family, it could be your friends, it could be your employees, it can be your employer, right? And we know that there's the intrapreneurship, someone who works for another company, and entrepreneur. But my whole philosophy as a therapist has always been in alignment with that, that we create our stories, we create our emotional reality. And in fact, right before you, you and I jumped on, someone was texting me and they're like, back out in the dating world after 20 years. And I'm like, great, that's awesome. Like, take your time, do not rush. And they're like, "Well, I'm finding that men aren't just old-fashioned anymore." And I'm like, "You're 6 months out of a marriage and what you believe is going to show up in your world." And she's like, "No, that's not true.

That's just what's showing up on my dates." It's such a shame because we don't realize the role that confirmation bias has in what we see. You know, when you change what you look for, what you see changes. You know that expression? And I think it's really because— and you might know more about this than me, Jason, even— is the idea that our brain Everyone wants to be efficient. So, you know, neurons that fire together wire together. So once we've created neural pathways for how we believe the world is, we then look at the world through that lens. And so we see more of what we expect to see. And this can work for you or against you, depending on what your beliefs are.

Absolutely. And it's— and those who've been along the journey of A, my podcast, B, my clients, and C, people who are coming to my online classes. Know those phrases verbatim of what you're talking about. So this is why I'm sitting here across from you so excited and so amped up about that. So that phrase, you know, neurons that fire together wire together, right? We've heard that in Dr. Bruce Lipton, in biology belief, in the whole field of epigenetics. We know that Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about that, right? That's one of his big things in that TED Talk in the TED Tacoma. If you look, make sure you're watching the right one of the Joe Dispenza TED Talk, as if there's not a Right, Joe Dispenza, one to watch, right? But this idea of neurology influencing our success, neurology influencing our emotions. And, and earlier today I was talking to Dr. Scott Walker, who's one of my mentors and the founder of NeuroEmotional Technique, who we were talking about that emotions are not psychological, but yet they're physiological, that they're the expression of our physiological response, that fight or flight response, as it triggers and turns into either a physical thing or an experiential thing. So, in the world of business, as we focus in on that, the idea of loving your business, you pick that, that's a very, you're talking about it from a very conscious, mindful perspective, correct?

Yes. And I'm so glad that you brought that up first because I kind of want to talk about it. I think it's sort of almost a little shocking. You know, I have a technical background. I mean, a statistics undergrad and the business and, you know, a master's in business from Georgetown, and the business world of high tech that I built data warehouses and scaled a company like that, the last thing in the world we think about is love, okay? Is love is like some woo-woo, like soft, or you picture people crying or whatever, you know, from emotions and stuff. And I'm like, no, no, no. Love is the strongest emotion ever because when you love something, you feel appreciation and you feel connection connected and we're all one anyway, right? So what I think of a business is containing 4 aspects. There's you, and it's the same in, in many other areas, but there's you as the owner, there's the clients that you serve, there's the team that supports you, and then there's the solution that you have. So there's 4 aspects of a business and loving each of those means feeling connected. Connected, wanting those connections, and feeling appreciation. So, that's why I called it Loving Your Business because it's a decision. And we have a relationship with our business just like we have a relationship with people or with money.

Right. And we really can't separate those things out because those are all parts of our reality, all parts of our daily life. In fact, a friend reached out to me today. They just got a new job and they're in the therapy world. They're really not happy with what they're doing and how they're being treated already. And I'm like, well, why aren't you just picking up some clients on the side here? But right, because every 1 hour of therapy is going to be equivalent to your full day of getting paid by someone else. And they're like, well, I don't want to be a solopreneur. I'm like, what, what is your— but first of all, what does that definition mean to you? So I always want to start off with whatever word they're throwing at me about that experience. What's their definition and framework of that? Because if we don't start there, we're never going to get anywhere because Why build a goal based on something they have a misidentification about? And I said, but if you— but why not? Like, if you look at it as if you're tutoring, right, that for 1 hour equals X amount of hours at other work, and even if it's an add-on, is that a different way of looking at it for you? They're like, oh yeah, but I still want to be around people. I'm like, okay, how can you do both? So it doesn't have to be a one-size-fits-all or all black or all white or all right. We can find both and. Reality.

So great reframe, right?

So how do we start picking apart the pieces? Because in every business, especially if you are that solopreneur, you're a person who started off a business by yourself, you may have grown maybe to a few people who are working under you, but I would call that solopreneur, you know, a small business is, you know, debatable about how many people, but let's just say it's you and maybe another person, associate, whatever. And there's still things on a daily basis that you have to do. You might have to be the social media person, you might have to be the billing person, you might have to wash the floors at the end of the day.

Yeah.

How do you get a person to start loving all of that versus, and maybe this is included in that, versus knowing when I need to hire someone who loves doing that and love that person for doing that for me?

Well, my response to that would be you have to love doing it first anyway. So, I believe that we choose how we feel by the thoughts that we think. So, in my model of reality, it's Thoughts lead to feelings, which fuel your actions, and that's what gets results. So that's sort of— I'm always looking at thoughts, feelings, actions equals results. And so if you're having a feeling of resentment or if you're feeling frustrated, that energy being applied to the action that you're doing that you don't like makes it worse. It's that simple. So if you reframe it and you're thinking, "Well, I'm doing this now so that I can make sure I understand how it's being done so that then I can show someone else how to do it, then you can have a feeling of curiosity or excitement, and that kind of energy is better fuel for your tank. That's going to get you to take the actions that you need that will lead to the results that you want.

Exactly. And I would pivot that one last result. In my world, the way I— as I'm cracking up here, that people who are going to be listening, and if you're watching the YouTube video version later on, you'll see me cracking up as you are saying that, because I have on my whiteboard— that's literally one of my whiteboards from my office— it's literally, I can't dry erase it anymore. It's been so stuck on there for so long. And it says TFAB. Oh wow, thoughts, feelings, actions, beliefs. Oh, okay, right. So, so you and I are like right there on that, on that, on that leading edge of this, of this idea that, right, your thoughts lead into your feelings, your feelings lead into an action. And when you do that over and over again, that becomes your emotional reality, which in other words we call beliefs. And then next time you have a decision to make or a thought comes up about it, you already are inclined or predisposed based on that now-created belief around it. And the more we play that record, the more we get either stuck or empowered.

Well, that's right, because, you know, the brain is creating beliefs as a shortcut so that it can navigate through the 60 million bits of information per second that we're being confronted with. And so beliefs are just a way to interpret interpret reality quickly. And like I said, and you know this, I'm preaching to the converted here, you know, that we see what we're expecting to see. So the idea of creating beliefs that serve us, I think, is a really powerful one. And people want to argue with me about that. They're like, "Well, it's true." And I'm like, "You know, what is truth?" Like, is a mountain dangerous or beautiful? Like, it's both depending on how you look at it.

It's the both/and reality as opposed to it's either this or that. And it's also the question of truth with a capital T or truth with a lowercase t, right? That you have— there is a generic truth of, yes, that is a mountain, and whatever language, it's still going to be called a mountain. But is it the mountain, right? And therefore, if it's your mountain, right, your favorite mountain, then it becomes the mountain, right? The capital, it starts becoming possessive to you. And I think we start— certainly become insanely possessive of proving our beliefs. And that's how we as entrepreneurs and as humans get stuck. And would you, would you agree with this statement that we get the business that we are showing up for? Before, right, before we start doing all this work, but that's a reflection and a manifestation of everything we believe.

Absolutely. Because you can be running around taking a lot of action. But if you don't believe it's going to work, or you you don't believe you deserve it, which is a whole nother thing we really should talk about because that worthiness aspect, which is one of the reasons why love is so important in my opinion, it starts with loving ourselves. You know, I find that the clients that I work with, the biggest area of growth is in this blame judging, you know, thing that they have with themselves. And I just don't think that it serves us when we beat ourselves up to try to get us to take action or do something different. Energy is not going to lead to the same result as when we accept ourselves, love ourselves, and then choose to take an action. Yeah.

So, the concept of success versus— how do I want to say this? I guess it's like when someone is looking at, is their business being successful? Are they being successful? And they constantly come up with an excuse, a justification, or a blame. They're really never going to grow or evolve unless some crazy thing happens that like they get lucky about something. And I see that more as a reactive approach to business strategy and business success than it is as far as a proactive paradigm.

Yeah. And I think that what happens with blame, okay, anytime we're blaming, whether we're blaming ourselves or anyone or the government or the weather or the economy or whatever, it implies there's a victim. And when there's a victim, there's no agency. We don't want that. Like, we don't want to believe that the world happens to us because then what can we do? I choose to believe that we decide how the world is with how we act. We have a decision in how we interpret things. And blame is one of those ones where it sounds like something's happening to you. And so I like to take responsibility, and to be able to respond to something means that you're not a victim. Yeah.

One of my favorite exercises, and I just did this 2 weeks ago in one of my young professional classes that I give during the week, is I broke them up into groups on Zoom And I said, you have 10 minutes, 5 minutes each to tell a— now don't make it a therapy session, was the first caveat, nothing that would be like, you know, but a story that you're absolutely convinced that you were wronged by somebody. And I want you to spend 5 minutes convincing the other person that you are absolutely completely the victim in that story. And you've been— and this is— and I want it to be something that you've been carrying around for a while that still annoys the heck out of you. And they did that and they came back like, what was it like, right? Wow, yeah, like, you know, for sure, like, this is, you know, I'm so stuck and it makes sense why this person is stuck X, Y, and Z. Okay, great. Now we're going to do the same thing. We're going to put you back in the same group. I want you to retell that story, but at multiple points throughout that story, I want you to tell the other person what other option you could have chosen to do in that point. And one of the persons who I've gotten to know quite well playfully said to me, I don't like that exercise, before even doing it, right? With a big grin on their face because they knew like this is going to be Holy crap. Wait, I do have to take accountability. And they're very mindful of all that stuff. And they're a really wonderful person. But it was like this, this mischievous grin of like, see what you're doing. And if we can do that in our relationships, in our history, in our life, in our, you know, whatever we've gone through and take some level— now, God forbid, there is, God forbid, those scenarios where we were, right?

Yeah.

But in a business setting, right? What are some of the most common things that you hear where if retold from sitting with us, that they'll be like, "Oh yeah, I could have fixed that." Well, the most thing, the thing is, you know, the employee did it wrong, right?

Or the client is unreasonable. So those are the two. The third one is always, I hear from everyone, is there just isn't enough time. And so that it's kind of funny because we don't actually manage time, okay? There's the same amount. We manage ourselves in relation to it. And so I hear a lot of blame as it is with this neutral thing called time, and then a lot of blame about other people, whether it's the client or the employee. And, you know, when you stop and you realize that when you're doing that, you're losing your power. When you're blaming some external thing.

So, what's one way that we can regain or shift that mindset specifically around time? Because that's such a great topic because we all want more time to do with our family, with our health, with working out, with eating better, right? It's still time-based at the end of the day, probably even before it might be about money.

Yeah. Well, what I have discovered the most is the reluctance of most of us to schedule time because there's this feeling that if we schedule our time, then we are trapped and we're boxed into this thing. And what I found is that scheduling time actually freed me up because instead of thinking about all the things I should be doing, I just do the thing I said I was going to do. And when I work with business owners and entrepreneurs on this, the number one thing is that when they really get down to it is they realize that they don't trust themselves to honor their word about time. They trust themselves to honor their word when it comes to doing things for other people, but they don't honor their own word about time. So, this becomes a muscle that we just have to build.

So, where does accountability in your perspective come in? And not just about accountability to self, but having someone else hold you accountable to those specific goals, right? Because we set these things up, right? We know that New Year's and we set a goal and that lasts, what, about 10 days? And then you have people like in that entrepreneur social media world who are like, "Write down your goals every morning." Right? And you're obviously 365% more likely to achieve your goals if you do that than you are if you do it once a year. At that process, what levels of accountability, what are some of the accountability hacks that you would recommend or suggest or have seen to be most useful?

So, you know, what I actually advise people that have a hard time honoring their commitments to themselves, they have a lot of reasons that are excuses that are forms of blame. And so what I try to help do is to make it easier and fun. And the way to make it easy and fun is to tell yourself that you're going to do something that you want to do at this certain time for this amount of time so that you practice like looking forward to honoring a commitment and then stopping when you said you would. And so it's just little baby steps, really.

Huge fan of the time blocking. And I actually had, um, from The One Thing podcast, I had the host on a while ago. And it really is, it's finding those priorities. And in my program where I'm a coach for, through Business Finishing School, we do talk about your 5 categories of life that are the most important to you. And anything that doesn't meet those categories gets off your calendar. Because if I were to follow you around with a documentary and you're like, Jason, these are the most important things to me. And I'm like, well, why are you doing that? And why are you doing that? And why are you doing that? Because there's your time, right? And your energy and your, you know, all the toxic stuff that we let in. And we can find within one day by shadowing someone why they're not accomplishing that which they want to accomplish, because they're not in alignment with A, their priorities, B, their core values, and C, they're not rhythm and ritualing the life that they want in reverse engineering to their success.

Yeah, that's really good, Jason. That's really good because people say their priorities are A, B, and C, but then they spend their lives doing D, E, and F. And it's just not— like, people say health and fitness is important, but there's no time at all on their schedule for, you know, taking care of themselves. And yeah, it doesn't lie.

So, so this whole epigenetics thing that we were alluding to before, right, the whole Bruce Lipton Philosophy, right? His book is called Biology of Belief for people who are out there, and tons of YouTube videos to watch before you go get the book. Watch the YouTube videos, a lot easier to digest probably for as your first step into it for many people. How does that now tangibly go into the steps that you're taking, right? As I've gone through your book, right, it's so sequentially worked out. You know, I just want to kind of like go through this from the content's point of view. Just so the listeners out there know, like, kind of like, guys, if you're gonna like invest in a book, like, for your business, this is like super cool. So I just want to like talk about like, because we already started talking about creating reality and the science and the brain and what you can do about it and the power of beliefs. And now we're going right now, we have this like turning things into an asset. So I want to walk through this from an epigenetics lens of that love concept, but also what you talk about, mindset, focus, strategy, money, numbers, knowing your numbers, knowing your stats, right, is incredibly important, which leads, I think, into what you call step 6, which is the freedom. But walk me through that from this philosophy, from this framework.

Well, I actually had a section in the book on epigenetics, and I took it out because it was just hard for me to stop talking about it, and it wasn't the focus of the book. So, but I'm so glad that you asked me now because I I get so excited about epigenetics. I feel like it's the equivalent of the discovery of quantum physics, you know, and how that changed everything. You know, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle where the act of observation actually changes the result. And we have a probability distribution of what's likely to happen. But when we interact with reality and observe it, that's when that collapses into the actual experience of reality. Well, epigenetics is this concept that We impact the expression of genes. So genes don't— they don't express unless there's an action on them. And, you know, one of the things that can cause a gene to express is our behavior. And I think that that is the most exciting thing ever because it means that you could have a gene predisposition to a disease that might not ever express because of the way you hold your reality. And conversely, you could not have a gene and then have, or have a latent gene expression that gets activated by the way you create reality. What do you think about that, Jason Wasser?

I absolutely love it because I'm, you know, those who've been along this journey know my story, that I'm third generation family business that's not in the family business. My siblings went into it, my younger siblings went into, we have a family furniture business. And over the last couple of years, because of my rabbit hole entrepreneurship journey, I've had— I've come back around and had this relative influence to a world where I walked into this conference a bunch of years ago after a friend tried to convince me for 2 years to go, saying, I'm not a business person, I'm a therapist and a healer. And to see exponentially, once I transitioned to mindset, once I started, you know, getting— combining what you and I are talking about on the neurology side and the belief side and all that stuff with this tactical strategic stuff and merging those two worlds together, I saw the exponential growth in my business. I saw clients I didn't want to see disappear because I made that core values and said, ah, I'm sorry, like, this is what I do and this is what I don't do. You're not an ideal client anymore. And that falling in love with doing what I was doing. And here's what's so crazy. This afternoon I had a delivery that was supposed to come to my house and they kept screwing up the package. And for some reason and it's not even in the system, but they kept delivering it to my office 2 offices ago. And I got a call from them 2 days ago saying, you have a package here, after I knew that they resent it out to my home address. And I went to my old office that I haven't been in in 5 or 6 years today to pick it up. And there happens to be a therapist in my office now, of all the— and it was just like, God, like, it's so old school. Like, it was so like, I'm so not energetically there anymore. And to see that shift of where I was suffering then, where I was philosophically there, where I was emotionally, where I was mopping the floor at the end of the day, where I was taking out the garbage, where I was cleaning the handles, where I was— all the stuff of the chaos side of running a business to shifting towards loving what I do and knowing what I don't— I'm not good at. And then like we were talking about before, off— resourcing it out to people who do love that and then loving those people. What a massive— like, it's just, it's so cool because we're having this conversation now, which of course that makes sense that we're having this conversation now, right?

Yes, that is so good. I'm really, I'm really impressed with the way you just described that. That is awesome. And what I think is that it comes from the decision, the decision to make a change. And, you know, again, that's how I believe we create our reality with our minds. First we decide and then we create the evidence. Most people "Look for the evidence and then decide." And I'm like, "No, no, no, no. You create the reality that you're living into," is what I advocate for. And I really separate sort of what I do into 3 sections. There's the mindset piece, which is loving yourself and loving your business, and then learning to manage your mind with those thoughts, feelings, actions, and beliefs. And then there's the clarity piece. And so that we haven't talked about yet. We can chat about for a minute here, which you just alluded to. And then there's the freedom piece. And the freedom piece is having eventually a business that can run without you so that you're really spreading your message, whether that's speaking or mentoring others or what have you. So in the clarity section of what I do, this idea of finding your ideal client and your ideal market is so important, I think, for so many reasons. Mostly because when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, as you know, right?

Agreed.

But it's also this idea of who do you want to serve and what is it about them that you can help with? Because once you're clear on that, you can communicate in your marketing and in your speaking and in your daily life so congruently and so authentically authentically, that people will be pulled toward you. You don't have to go out and like beat the streets even. You're just singing your song and your message is so clear because you know who you serve and they come to you. So I think that's why.

And being congruent. I love that word because congruency, especially from a neurological perspective, is kind of when we talk about the three brain, the triune brain theory, right? The reptilian brain, which is the fight or flight, mammalian, which is the emotions, the neocortex, which is the rational brain. If those three parts of your brain are not in sync, you're in chaos mode, right? So the word congruency really speaks to me where from the therapy side, from the coaching side, from just a personal side, and that's why I love the conversation about core values where you can't get what you want unless you're living in alignment with it. But if you don't declare what those are, not like, "Yeah, yeah, I know my core values." Well, what are they? Well, it's like, right, unless it's like practical, written down, what's your definition around those core values? And I say this to my clients, one of the first assignments I give to every— no matter what they're coming in for, is a core values worksheet. So I can't help you until I know what we're making our decisions based on.

And ranking them, right? That's another really good exercise.

Yeah, right. And because it's really like these 5 to 7 words that are constantly binarily— you're looking through it, and are you making a decision through that lens?

Yes, I'm so glad you said that, because that's the key, is that the reason for getting super clear and aligned and congruent with your core values is that then they become the lens through which you use as a decision filter. It becomes so much easier to make decisions.

Life is so simple. And I'm hearing all these people, right, with trauma and drama. And I'm like, do you mean, does this meet my core values or not?

Right?

And again, I'll give this example of, of that person who was talking about the dating thing. And they reached out to me through my social media, through one of the Facebook groups I'm in. And like, oh, I see you have a podcast, you seem like, whatever it is. And they were, they were investigating to see, like, you know, they're checking me out. And And then they told me what was going on with their, you know, they're recently divorced. And I said, I'm really sorry, I have a hard rule. I don't date anybody who's been divorced for less than 2 years. And then they went on to try to convince me how great they are. And my response to them was, right, and I said to them, I'm really sorry, I'm not going to date, right? I'm not. I just want to let you know, like, it's not about you. I'm sure you're wonderful and amazing, but this is my thing. And when they went on to say, but I'm really funny and I'm really nice, and I'm like, this has nothing to do with you. I'm sure you're all of those things, right? Why are you trying to convince me to do something against my values?

Well, you're aligned. You're aligned and you know who you are. I mean, they're not situational, I don't think, values, right? But you're, you're a little further down the path, so good on you. That's right.

Well, it took me from being in that office where I used to be, where this is like— so I just want to talk about the chaos side of running a business. And, and I love the fact that, like, right when we talk about, we've been there, right? This is where we all have been. And I love sharing these stories where I remember, as I'm thinking about a client, they called in sick that day. And there was some more severe mental health stuff. Now, I don't work— I work with what we call the worried well. It's your average anxiety, depression, but nothing significant and crazy. And that person canceled on me. So during my lunch break, I used to live about 15, 20 minutes from that office. I went and I stopped over at Barnes Noble when they used to exist in a brick-and-mortar form, or at least down here. And I ended up bumping into someone I knew and I was standing outside talking to them. And then out of the next store, whatever department store that was there in that plaza, comes my client with 8 shopping bags.

You are kidding.

Nope. And I'm like, oh my God, that— the person was a clergy member, so there was confidentiality and whatever. But I'm like, That's my client who just canceled the session I would be now at instead of talking to you, who's now here. And I went back to the office and I never called them out on it to this day. I never said, "Listen, what's going on?" But I knew where they were coming from, from their mental health story. And that's when I started making those decisions and it started leading me to like, "Wow, what am I letting in to my life?" And when we talk about that ideal niche, right? And this is something that I want you to definitely take the next step on is what I think you were just leading up to was this idea that the more crystal clear you are with who you want to work with, what you want to sell, the more niche, the more— it's not like I want to create a business. It's like, what problem do you want to solve? And who can you serve in the most unique way that no one else is doing it in that way? And my joke here is in South Florida is like, we don't need— and I live in a Jewish neighborhood. I'm like, I don't need another falafel shop to open up across the street from the other falafel shop that the guy just quit from, right? And that's the joke that I give locally because it's, you know, that's what it is. Or another pizza shop or another Italian, right? Sushi place. What's the problem that needs to be solved? Why are you uniquely positioned to solve it?

And how are you gonna do it differently? Right, and how can you add value, right? Like how can you really add value? Because we make money with our mind. And the way we do that is by deciding on how we can solve problems by adding value. And so, and if you're not making the money that you want, I would say that you're not adding as much value into the universe as you think you are, because the universe tells you, right?

Yeah.

And so many people doubt their own value or they're not crystal clear on what they're doing in the first place. And I have this conversation with a, with a colleague of mine who I think is just a lovely human being. Seeing, and they're finally going back into the therapy world full-time. And their question was like, well, what do you see that I bring to add value that makes me so unique? And my question to— I haven't responded back to them— is, what do you think I will say to you?

Yeah, I would definitely get them to answer that question.

So, and then I'll obviously honor that, and I have no problem honoring all the wonderful things that I do see in them because I have no problem telling them, but I think that's the uniqueness of where I see, as I was driving again down this block earlier today and how many businesses are no longer open over the last 6 months. I also know that it's a very— Businesses go in and out over there, but what survived and what hasn't? And that's where I think all these business owners need to start with is like, why you? Is it really a business idea versus is it just a hobby? Is it profitable?

Yeah.

Are you creating— are you really just creating a job for yourself versus creating a company?

Right?

You and I, we're at the end of the day, we're doing— we're, you know, we're the technician, right? You know, in that whole E-Myth model of entrepreneur, manager, technician. Listen, we're the technician, we're serving, we get paid when we get paid, stuff like that, unless we create a passive income aspect. But most people go into this only thinking about all the things that which they're gonna be a technician in.

Right, yeah, I don't consider myself a technician anymore. This is now my third business really. And you know, what I think is important to do is when you're looking at your niche is to look, I don't know if you've heard of the book "Blue Ocean Strategy," but I'm a big fan of that because the idea is you wanna be in the blue ocean where there aren't a lot of competitors. And people say to me, But how do I do that? There's a lot of people who do what I do. And I'm like, you niche down, you niche down, and you niche down again. And it, you know, it's counterintuitive because people think that, no, I wanna have the broadest possible market so that I'm diversified and I can serve all these different types of people. And I think not. I think that you wanna be as niche down as you possibly can, and then you own that niche. And from a business school perspective, the idea of owning a niche means that You are unique and you are a premium provider because you add value in a new and unique way. And when you're a premium provider, you can charge more. And I don't have a problem with that personally, because when you charge more, then you make more profit and you can actually explain to more people how you add value in a new and unique way and you can help more people. So it's a virtuous cycle that starts from getting super clear on who you serve, how you add value, and making sure you communicate to them in a way that they say, "Oh, she gets me. Like, I gotta work with her because she totally understands," or he, you know what I mean?

Right.

And that actually makes you the expert and positions you as the expert. I have a buddy of mine, Pablo Gonzalez, who he was working for a company and was going out and doing all this networking, and he's such an incredible networking person. And then for him, the networking isn't about, right, the way that most people like, oh, let's just do business with you. It's really about the relationships. And he really is a relationship-oriented person. And he created a title for himself, which was the Chief Executive Connector. No one had that title before. It didn't exist. So he decided to create it for himself. And then when he subsequently went into business for himself, that's where he— right, where and how he's doing it, where he's the person who is all about, if you want to learn in your community, how to make relationships turn into business and still be high-quality relationships, I'm the guy that you—

What a great example.

Right?

Like, that is really creative, right? He came up with that and then he owned it. And now that's what he is and nobody else has done that, right? Right.

So that's why I want to challenge people out there. If you're listening to something and your business is going through this, it's like, well, what are we? Are we just, you I'll give the example of like furniture store, like my family's a third generation furniture store. So, you know, we're competing with Rooms To Go, but we're not. It's a furniture store, but we are high-end American Italian and designer to spec. So, okay, so maybe we're competing with Macy's. Well, they have some of the things, some of the lines we carry, but we also carry higher end and spec to that. So when I was sitting and working with my family on some of their positioning, it was, you know, we highlight what's amazing about working with a brick-and-mortar family business. Great.

Right.

And that was what makes them uniquely positioned because they're getting someone in the family business that they know they're going to get that high quality from them. And I want people out there to really hear that, especially as, you know, our conversation has evolved. And if they want to check out your book, is where is it that you can uniquely position yourself? And if the title doesn't exist, if what you're doing doesn't exist, We're giving you permission to come up with that. And I think that's something that I want people to really start taking away from, from what we're, what we're talking about.

Yeah, I really love that.

Yeah. So I kind of want to like, you know, round it into like the more nitty-gritty because we were really on this macro, the philosophy, the belief side. And, and I want to go from, you know, as Gary Vee says, from clouds to dirt, you know, macro to micro. And, and kind of like, this is kind of where your book kind of rounds itself into, which is really what your Chapter 10 is, right? You're getting your documents in order, your trusted advisor, really knowing your business plan, figuring out what your SWOT analysis— really, right? And knowing how to do what you need to do and then actually implementing it and doing it is what it sounds like.

Well, I'll say that like for me, what I found is that as I grew my business, the more it grew, the bigger the traps. Felt like. And so, you know, for your listeners out there, I would say that the bigger that I got, the harder it became, and the stories that I made up about it got more intricate and complex. So, what happened to me is that I started to resent my business. I mean, my multimillion-dollar business was holding me hostage. That was the belief that I had. And so, I spent a lot of time trying to escape escape from my business, my own creation. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs that do that. I have a lot of friends in EO and other groups and they're like, "Well, you know, I..." They either overdrink, overeat, over-Facebook, overwatch TV, overspend. So we try all these ways to buffer between the stress of the business growing. And it's kind of crazy to think that something we created, we believe is holding us hostage. So when I started to realize that, I said, "Wow, this has got to change." And there were two things that I did really, and it was deciding on purpose to love my business by looking for what was good in myself as a leader instead of beating myself up all the time, loving myself unconditionally, loving my team, loving my customers, and loving my solution, which meant looking for what I appreciated. I didn't appreciate pieces of them changing that, like not just accepting it, but deciding what needed to change. And for example, I didn't love my solution. I was doing custom work for every client. We had very large clients like the American Academy of Pediatrics and things like that. And so the work that we would do was difficult and hard. And different each time. And so, what I learned was to figure out what did my clients have in common and what could I do that was similar for all of them? And that became a solution that I then could offer. So, that's sort of how I built a business.

I'm sitting here again as I so amazingly enjoy our conversation. This is a conversation I had with my sister the other day as they're working with some designers. And she's like, Jason, it's the same story. Like I'm telling him this whole megillah over and over again I'm like, Jamie, record it. Ask one of the people, can I record our conversation with you? And then you do that, I'll help you get it edited, and that will be your, hey, by the way, before we talk, I want you to watch this onboarding video. This will explain everything. And when we do talk, I'll answer your questions on that.

Exactly. That's exactly the same concept, precisely. And then the second part that was so important and what I do talk I talk about in the book is, and this might be a little shocking, and I like that it's shocking actually, because Seth Godin says, right, make sure that you're different. So, for me, the idea is love your business, but build it like you plan to sell it. Now, I know that's not necessarily a common thing in the counseling world, but my concept is that when you build a business that you could sell, whether you ever do or not is irrelevant, the way you build a saleable business is by making sure that it's not dependent on you, that it's a very narrow niche, and that has solutions that can scale, and it has positive cash flow so that you're getting paid in advance. And so, when you do those things, that's the kind of business somebody would buy. It's also the kind of business you would love to own.

Yes. Right. And if you don't want to go in buying that type of business, if you are doing it for the first time, then you're definitely going about it backwards. And it's so wonderful that you and I are so aligned in all of this. And one of my buddies, Judge Graham, who that's what he does. He doesn't create a business unless he plans to— every business he builds is to sell. And that's what we— that real serial entrepreneur. And it is. And we also have this, which kind of ties into if the business, from your perspective, if the business isn't making X amount of dollars by a certain amount of time, when do you say, you know what, You know what, it might be time to fold it and try something different. Like, where is that? Where would you say, like, you know what, go in even more? Obviously, if you're working with a coach like yourself or something like that, like, let's give it X amount of time. But like, at what point would you say to someone, you know what, A, you might be in the wrong vertical because of all the things, the reason why you started all this, your niche might not be the right niche, your population might not even exist anymore of who you're serving. So, when do we know? So, if we've already decided to build it according to what you've built it, the way you're saying, but it's just not going anywhere. And when does that parachute get pulled?

I mean, you have to watch the numbers. And that's why I talk in the book about money and numbers, key performance indicators, which are like ratios that show you this compared to that. Year over year is important, of course, if you're tanking, if your industry is taking, like retail, that might be something that's a big red flag. But if not just your industry, but your, your industry is okay, but your business seems to be going down, then you need to look and see, is it because of your offer or is it because of your audience? So I believe it's one of those two things always. You're either not offering something compelling or you're offering it to the wrong people. So, you have two choices, change your offer or change your audience. And you sort of have to iterate through that. I mean, one of the best things about entrepreneurs is this concept of massive action. Like, I'm not a big one of giving up until you understand what the data is telling you. And so, I would always try to change my offer first and then I would change my audience. Yeah.

The other night, a friend of mine interviewed a famous author that they're a big fan of and the person's very well known in the literary world, Dr. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk on emotions and trauma. And they said to me in one of our classes, "I'm not really feeling like that was such a big thing." And this goes very much into that massive action paradigm. And I'm like, "Well, A, why is that a problem that you don't feel so super amped up after? You don't feel—" She's like, "Well, no, it was cool, but obviously I didn't feel like that out-of-body and the idea like maybe I didn't really fall short." All the doubt started kicking in. All right, so if we put that aside, when you reached out to him, how long ago was that? They're like, oh, it was like 2, 3 months ago. Okay. Is it possible that you have evolved so much in that time that once you asked and they said yes, you were then allowed and given yourself freedom to move to a higher level of what you now expect for yourself? Yeah, that's— and therefore that goal that you set at that time is no longer big enough for you from where you're at now. That's really good, Jason.

I mean, that goes back to this concept of feelings. Like, I think feelings are everything. Like, you've heard, I'm sure, that it's the emotional guidance system, but I actually really think that they're like a— they tell us a lot. So if you're feeling frustrated, if you're feeling resentful, if you're feeling exhausted, I say take a look, take a beat, and figure out what are you thinking? 'Cause somehow your thoughts are misaligned with what you really want. And you're creating these feelings that are fueling your actions. And if you're fueling the actions you're taking, if you're trying to grow your business from a feeling of resentment or frustration or irritation, it's not gonna work.

Just pure exhaustion. Not gonna work. Right, especially if it's just pure exhaustion and you're already burnt out. And one of the things I constantly tell all my clients clients is never solve a problem from a place that feels like crap. That's right. You're already in fight or flight. You're already in reactive mode. You're already in constricted mode. And, you know, without even getting into the whole Law of Attraction philosophy, it's like, and, and all that neuroscience and quantum physics and all that stuff behind the Law of Attraction stuff. But we do, we do know, right, that the constriction versus expansion, it won't show up from us if we're solving it from there, right?

And look at, are you solving your problems from moving away from what you don't want or moving toward what you do. And that energy is completely different between those two things. Agreed.

And one of my favorite ways of sharing that with people— and I don't think I've actually said this yet in any of my episodes— is that when someone wants to quit smoking, what do they then become? They become a nonsmoker, right? But what happens if you've never smoked a cigarette before? What are you still called? So how did not— right, how did the, the paradigm, the context of being a nonsmoker become the dominant paradigm? Why isn't it clean air breather, lung polluter? Right? So even the constructs that we walk into are already designed to keep us anchored to that which we're not even coming from. Sometimes that's not even part of our reality. And yet because of our social stories or whatever it is that we're— that we still have that attachment to something that just isn't relevant to us and never was or isn't any— anymore. So that's, I think, going back all the way to the beginning of our conversation as we finish our time together is that, what's the story you really want to be telling? What's the story about your business, right, that it sounds like you really want to be telling? How do you start talking about how you can love your business? Even if you don't yet, right? How would you like to love your business?

You want to love what you do because it's an expression of yourself. So if you don't love your business when you're starting, then you're in a pickle because because it's not gonna necessarily get easier. So, I would question why you're doing what you're doing if you're not starting from a position of love. But if you used to love it and don't anymore, for sure it's because of what you're focusing on. Instead of focusing on the opportunities, you're focusing on the risks and the problems. It's just like any other relationship. Like, I would end it like this way. I talk about loving your business and rethinking your relationship Because your relationship with your business is like any other relationship. It's like your relationship with your spouse or your partner or even with your children. And it consists of your thoughts and feelings. I mean, what is a relationship like? You can't touch it. Like, you can't say this is a relationship. It's a word like geography. It's a non-touchable thing. And so what I think of a relationship is your thoughts and feelings. And so what are your thoughts and feelings about your business? Is it a trap? Is it something that you're afraid of? Of? Like, do you have, like, these beliefs that, that you're not even aware of? Or is it something that you, that you feel is an expression of who you are and, and how you want to give value to the world? So, um, that I look at it like any other relationship. When you have a healthy relationship with someone, you want to spend time with them, you appreciate them, you nurture the relationship, you look for the things that are good, you feel good when you're with it, So that's what I mean when I say rethink your relationship. Love it.

So for everybody who's been getting any value, which I'm hoping you are, and I'll be really disappointed if you're listening to this or watching this YouTube video that you haven't gotten anything out of this. I'm going to come over and have a— well, I'm going to give you a free coaching session on that one. But please, please go check out Debbie's book. It's available pretty much everywhere, right? Amazon. And you said as of today, it was a bestseller.

Bestseller status. I'm so excited.

Yeah. Yes. There you go. So if you do get it and you, you know, and you again also get value out of it, please go and give her a positive review. Go on Amazon and other platforms and write a review because that really does help the same way that it helps us on iTunes or any of the other podcast platforms, that it helps other people out there who don't know about us find us. Exactly. And that's one of the things that, right, it's free, it'll take you 30 seconds, but it means the world to us to hear your feedback from what we're doing and how passionate we are about that. And we want people to benefit. Benefit from those things. So, Debbie, thank you so much for sharing your passion and your wisdom and your shared alignment with everything. And I really, really have such gratitude for our time together today.

Yes, me too. I feel like we are very congruent. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Jason Wasser.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggle, 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 Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️.