188: Energy Capacity Planning, Pricing, and Finding Resonant Masterminds with Kelli Thompson

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What does this do to my energy? Does saying yes to this request surge my energy? Does the schedule boost my energy? What do I do to recover my energy? Does this person boost my energy? Like, how do they feel energetically all of the time? I don't think that we slow down enough and really pay attention to like what does this person, this place, this thing, this group, what does it do to my energy?

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host, Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Welcome back Free Timers. Jenny here. I am so delighted to have a crossover guest today. Kelly Thompson was on the Pivot podcast in episode 315 on intuition building, Spotting Pedestal Syndrome and Closing the Confidence Gap, the title of her new book. She is a member of our BFF community and we had so much fun chatting in that conversation that I wanted to take her over to Free Time and dig in behind the business. She's a leadership coach speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained hundreds of people to trust themselves, live with more confidence, and create a career they love. As I mentioned, she's the author of Closing the Confidence Gap, Boost yout Peace, your Potential, and you'd Paycheck, which was selected as a must read by the Next Big Idea Club. And today we're talking about something she shared in one of our BFF calls and in our Circle community about how she created an energy capacity plan. When I saw the spreadsheet, I was totally blown away. I'm like, kelly, we got to dig into this on the podcast and I think you might have suggested that too because it's in a really structural way. Think about not just your time in a flat, unchanging sense, but capacity. How it changes from day to day, from week to week, and even from season to season. So Kelly, welcome to the show.

Oh, thanks for having me. Again, especially as a crossover guest. I'm so honored.

Yay. All right, so let's start. What inspired you to create this energy capacity plan?

You know, I think like all good things that we create, they are created from a place of this is never gonna happen to me. I was about three years into my business as an entrepreneur. I'm a corporate veteran, you know, not unlike Jenny, spent a lot of time in corporate. And as you're kind of figuring out what entrepreneurship looks like, I think one of the things that we don't talk about a lot is we talk about, well, how much can you actually handle? Because I think that there's this whole world out there that's like, oh, if you hustle and do all the things which, if you're listening to free time, you know that that's like a message that really doesn't resonate with you. And so here I was in this moment, three years into my business, I'm getting ready to launch my book. I'm deep into editing. The spring is also when I tend to run my group programs. Spring is just a busy time in general for corporate training because folks are in the office, tends to be in the springs and in the falls. And plus, my one on one business was just growing. And I hit this moment where I over promised to the universe of all the things that I had. And it's not that I really felt like I underdelivered, but I underestimated, like, how much time that would take. And one of the things that we can dig into more is I've always just been overly aware of my energy and how much energy I have. And one of the things that became apparent to me at the end of March, the end of last spring was like, I am exhausted. Like, this is not a pace that I can handle. I am not built to be one of those hustling entrepreneurs that can work 80 hours a week. That's just not me. It's never been me. I've always been really acutely aware of my energy. And so out of sheer necessity and Excel spreadsheet geekiness, because I do love me and some Excel spreadsheets, I was like, I gotta figure this out. So I literally opened up an Excel sheet and just started mapping out, okay, if this is the schedule, the amount of time that I have, like, how do I want to feel? Because at the end of March, I did not feel the way that I wanted to feel. Like I was overwhelmed, I was exhausted, I was a little panicky. I had more anxiety than I wanted. I felt A little incapable of like just meeting some of the demands. That just doesn't feel good. So I really sat down. I'm like, okay, how do I want to feel? And that was really kind of my guiding principle. And then I thought to myself, okay, well, what capacity, like what schedule is going to give me the income and the revenue that I want and that I need, but that is also going to continue to make me feel the way I want to feel? And so I really just started to think about, well, on an average month, what do I want that to look like? And what has always been important for me is that Mondays are always set aside for planning. Call them marketing Mondays. That kind of just a day to plan, to strategize. And so on my little Excel spreadsheet, I'm marking off all of the Mondays. Another thing that's really important to me is to reserve Fridays for more kind of fun activities. And so lots of times I'm recording podcasts on Fridays or maybe taking a client here or there, or doing like a get to know you meeting. But usually Fridays only have one, usually no more than two events, because it's really important for me to just have that time and space and energy to really recap my week on Fridays. And so that leaves me with, well, what's happening then? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And given that my business is a mix of meeting with clients, one on one webinars, and sometimes leading group training classes online, or perhaps sometimes traveling to a place to deliver a training, which happens maybe every other month, I gotta somehow work that into Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. In a way that feels good to me. And so I really started to think about, like, energetically, how many one on one clients can I handle? And I put that into my spreadsheet. And I also put the value of those meetings in there monetarily. Okay, so then how many web presentations could I handle on a day where I'm meeting clients? And I put that in with a monetary value, how many Q and A calls could I handle, how many training sessions could I handle? And so that became really important for me to think about and balance, okay, what's an energetic capacity for me that makes me feel the way I want to feel, but that also recognizes that my time has value and there's like a monetary value attached to that. And I also have to meet the income goals I want to create in my business. And so we can unpack this more. But at a high level, it really helps me say, okay, this is what I can handle over the course of a month. This is what I charge for these things. And Jenny, it actually kind of became an aha to say this is where I could be undercharging because of the energetic capacity and really even helped me kind of take a look at my pricing in a whole new way.

Well, that's so interesting. And I love how if we zoom out a bit, you also mapped out week one, week two, week three, week four as week one high intensity, week two moderate intensity, week three moderate, and week four recovery. So I love that you're looking at your capacity not just in a day or a week, but in the whole month. You've actually created a cyclical energy exertion for yourself that's built in. Because what I love looking at your spreadsheet, I've had the privilege to go behind the scenes and take a peek. What I love is that it's not intricately time blocked. This spreadsheet does not rely on at 8am, I do this at 8:30, I do this at 9, 10, 11 and so on. It's just a big picture on the week. If we look at a random day, I'm going to look at Wednesday of week two, you have coaching, coaching podcast, webinar. That's it, four rows and then over on the right hand side. Like you said, you've attached a value to those different activities and you've done the math. So each week you have your weekly value that totals really what you're earning. It's really interesting to hear you say that. It sheds some light on your pricing. Why do you think that is? Why do you think doing the math and seeing it visually like this in a spreadsheet, how did that help some pricing synapse fire? That wasn't previously.

I think one of the biggest ahas I had in this whole scenario is and if we're just that the whole topic here is energy, it was thinking about. Okay, so the amount of energy I spend not only on the call with that person is important. And that's kind of what I'm blocking out. But as I really just started to have a lot of deep thoughts about this, I also thought about, well, what about the energy that I'm spending checking in with this person in between our calls? What about the energy I'm spending thinking about this person, seeing an article, sending that article to that person? You know, because I'm thinking about them, they're a client. Or even not just the energetic capacity that I'm being present on a call, let's just say a webinar. I'm Teaching a course to an employee resource group. I think a lot of times we think, oh, our pricing is just the 60 minutes spent with that person. But as I started to rise up 50,000ft and look at everything that I spend energy on and needing room for those things, I was like, oh, I also spend energy preparing for that client, doing an intake call with that client, customizing some stories, maybe some handouts, and just doing little check ins and prep work with that client. And one of the things that I started to realize was my delivery is not just the 60 minutes that I spend, it's the energy that I spend on a Monday or a Friday thinking of that client, preparing for that client, sending that client more tips. And so when I really saw that all laid out, it was just kind of an aha moment. That the value of that, yes, while I do have it in that block, I'm also spending my time, energy and attention on the Mondays and Fridays when I'm thinking about them, preparing for them. So that was kind of just a higher level kind of aha that came from that whole practice.

You mentioned to me that your knowledge about Enneagram has also informed how you personally handle time and energy capacity. So tell us a little bit about where you are in the Enneagram and how it informs not just creating the plan itself, but the need to create the plan in the first place.

Absolutely. So just enneagram101 personality test that tells you what motivates you and it tells you what your fears are, kind of what holds you back in the world. So I am an enneagram5. What that means is I am motivated by the need to feel capable and confident. I am motivated by the need to conserve my time, energy and resources so that I can kind of free myself up for kind of just knowledge and intellectual pursuits, those sorts of things. And one of the things that my personality type is most fearful of is being overwhelmed or depleted or being in a place where I feel incapable. And then I look foolish, I look like I don't know what I'm talking about. Before I really even knew that I was an enneagram 5. I always just had this weird sense that like, other people had more energy than me. Like I just remember thinking at the end of every day or at the end of social interactions, which I'm a huge introvert. I prefer to stay home anyhow. But if I go, like I was exhausted or I'd be in social situations and I would just get tired so much faster than everyone else. But I couldn't really put my finger on it until I had gone through all the personality assessments, the disc, the Myers Briggs, and I came across the Enneagram. And it literally told me that, you know, I tend to believe I have this limited amount of energy and my need to be capable and competent, you know, drives my motivations in the world. And so knowing this about myself was the biggest. Aha. Cause I'm like, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm just an Enneagram five. When I think back to last spring, it's almost like all of my fears were coming true. I was overwhelmed to the point where I felt incapable. You know, fives have a big fear that the world is going to demand too much from them and they're not going to be able to meet that energetically. That was fear number two. I believe the world and my business is demanding so much for me, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to meet it energetically. Just recognizing that about myself and really being in tune to my energy, I really started to ask myself, I'm like, if I'm more in tune to my energetic capacity than most other people, like, how can I actually make this an asset? Like, how could I build my business around maximizing the energy that I do have so that I have enough energy left to meet the personal demands of my life? So I have enough energy left at the end of the day so I'm not walking out of my office exhausted and having no energy left for my husband and my daughter or any weekend activities they want to do. So really just kind of embracing what people might think of as a flaw, you know, in my personality design that I have a limited amount of energy, I'm like, well, gosh, how can I actually use this to my advantage and build my business around maintaining my energy in a way so that I don't get burnt out because I've been there, I've done the whole working crazy hours, and I just can't do it.

Oh, gosh. I know. I love what you said about we usually create things from, oh, no, what have I done? Yep, we get ourselves in a sticky situation. What's so interesting about what you're sharing is that a lot of the need to double down on this came from your success. So it came from pursuing the big dream of the book, publishing the book, having the book do really well, having a lot of demand on your time, and having to recalibrate and even be more discerning about how you spend your time and your energy, how it relates to the revenue in the business. I feel like we talk about that less. It's like there's so much conversation at the beginning of things about failure, about being scrappy, about getting the courage to begin. But there's a lot less about how to handle success, how to handle the surges of attention, how to handle marketing. Something as complex as a book and as intense as a book, where you're out there. And of course, you don't really want to say no if the Big Idea club comes knocking. You want to rise to the occasion. And yet we only have so much bandwidth. So I just think that's an interesting piece of this. Maybe you could say a bit more of that, of just actually handling the success coming your way, whether as a five, as a business owner and juggling what seem like competing interests, of meeting the demand, keeping the momentum going while still being really clear with your energy.

So one of the things I think that I am learned that I am pretty good at is because I am an enneagram5, I'm really good at saying no. Like, nah, I don't want to do that. No, I don't have the energy for that. But in all seriousness, one of the things that I've really learned in the last year is that you're right. And Jenny, you've experienced this too. When your business grows and you have a book out in the world and more people want your time and attention, etcetera, it becomes even more important for you to be discerning about what aligns with your business values and your business mission. Like, I have my business mission written up and I've had to ask myself, I'm like, okay, this looks like interesting request. I don't know. I'm kind of on the fence with it. You know, I always go in and kind of listen to my gut. And again, you can go listen to the Pivot podcast on that. But I really have to ask myself, if I say yes to this request, does it align with my business values of love, respect, family, creativity, and learning? And that's kind of the way I want to live. If I say yes to this request, does it align with my mission of helping women advance to the rooms where decisions are made? And that can be a really good level of discernment because one of the things that I wrote about in the book and I even talk about with, you know, just some of my entrepreneur friends, one of my favorite phrases is success loves clarity. And I think it becomes so important as you grow as a business owner to be very, very clear about who you serve and who you don't serve and being able to be okay saying no to all those things that just kind of look right, a lot of things are going to look right. But it's like, okay, but does this really align with the mission I am trying to put forward in the world? Does it align with my business values? And it takes a lot of courage as a business owner to say no, because there can be mindset tendencies to be like, well, if I say no to this, nobody else is ever going to reach out again. This is going to be my last business inquiry. So, you know, you really have to work through some of that mindset stuff. And I wish I could tell you that, like, I never have it, but I do all the time. But one of the things that the universe has proven to be kind enough to show me is that the more clear I am about what I do and who I serve, the more success I have. Because people then know how to use you. But that's just been a really big lesson learned for me, is that as the attention grows, you're going to have to be more and more discerning about who you serve and what you say yes to so that your business mission doesn't get off track.

I love that success loves clarity.

Ooh, that's so good. I have little bookmarks with that phrase. I love it too.

Oh, amazing.

We'll be right back just after this.

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So tell us, how's it going? Trying to modulate. I mean maybe trying and succeeding at the different weekly cadence like week one, High intensity all the way to Week Four Recovery. Have you been able to keep up with that after mapping it out hypothetically in the spreadsheet?

I would say if I gave myself a grade, I'm at a B. One of the things that I want to do a better job at is really honoring that recovery week. So in the last few months, I would say I've done pretty well because we had Thanksgiving and so I could take that off as a recovery week. I always take off two full weeks at Christmas. January was busy. February and March, we had week long vacations. So that like forced me to take that recovery week. But I'm really glad that you asked that because in all transparency, I'm sitting here looking at April going, oh, you know what, I need to go into my calendar and actually block off these recovery weeks or these recovery days, because I don't have a forced vacation that blocks my calendar. And so if I don't go in and force that, then I'm not going to get it. And so one of the then the lies, the mindset things that comes in is like, well, you can't just block off your calendar just for pure recovery and like, how will you fit everything in? And I'm like, oh, but I've already fit everything in the last two months when I was in Florida, right. I would give myself a B. Definitely do a good job of, you know, managing and only saying yes to the right amount of things during the week. Knowing that some weeks are higher intensity than others, but not yet to an A in that. It was a big aha for me. Just looking at April, saying, oh, I need to really go block off, you know, a few days just for recovery strategy, thinking, reading, catching up, et cetera.

And then I don't know if you've been doing it long enough, but how are you noticing, let's say, actual seasonality? So if we look at the three months of a given season or a quarter, are you finding that some quarters, I mean, in most businesses, at least those of free timers, there is a little bit of feast and famine or times where everybody's active, interested, reaching out for inquiries, and then times where there's a big lull. So I'm curious on my end, there might be a tendency to really double down and do everything I can in a three or four month window, but it'd be hard to kind of keep the steady cadence week by week when it's a surge of the entire season. So I'm just curious how you're thinking about that even if you haven't totally nailed it yet.

Yeah, there is cadences in my business. So just to set context, most of my corporate business is presentations to women's leadership groups. If you've spent any time in corporate, you tend to know that if you're going to go to training, lots of times they schedule those in February, March, April, when there's not a lot of vacations planned, and then again in September, October, November. And in a lot of corporate worlds, they don't love to schedule a lot of things in the summer because, you know, people tend to be on vacations, et cetera, et cetera. So I have noticed some seasonality in my business in which the spring there's a little bump, and then in the early fall there's a little bump. And you know, the summer is quiet when it comes to doing a lot of corporate training. But I really learn to lean into that time to just. I can really, truly, honestly take a lot of Fridays off in the summer or really dial down just because it is a little bit lighter. So luckily I have an amazing CPA and she's helped me manage some of that. But I will tell you, to be honest, though, absolutely the heaviest season in my business is in the spring. The February, March, April timeframe, because it's Women's History Month. I'm usually in a lot of organizations delivering topics on women's leadership. Just the demands in my time are very high. Plus, I also run my public women's leadership group program starting in April. It just started at the beginning of April of this year. I really have to be mindful of planning my recovery because it's almost like the weeks are really, really high intensity for two or three weeks. And then I remember thinking to myself, me and my husband planned a trip over spring break to take my daughter to Florida. She's a senior, so we're forcing her to spend time with us before she leaves for college next year. And I was like, why did I take a break during my busiest month of the year? It's Women's History Month. But then I was like, oh no. I'm like, this is what I value. I took a break because it's my busiest month of the year. And I had three really intense weeks. And so that recovery is just really, really important. And so those are just little things I'm always paying attention to and just trying to balance.

Yeah, I love what you just said. Like that you're always paying attention to it. And like you said, you always have. Even going back to your enneagram personality of looking at other people thinking they had more energy than you. Or as I'll sometimes say, it's like your energy eyes are bigger than your calendar stomach.

That's exactly what it is.

Yeah. We think we're gonna have so much energy, but the day or the week arrives and sometimes it just doesn't line up. That's the other funny thing about having a calendar and planning at all. It's like life interrupts, life intervenes. There'll be times I've said it a whole bunch on the show, but after I got Covid at the beginning of the year, I had asthma that was waking me up three times a night just to take my inhaler. And that happened for three months where I literally be woken up by not being able to breathe, take the inhaler, fall back asleep. Till that wore off, I kept thinking it would go down. Long story short, I ended up finally recently seeing a pulmonologist. This is me being slow and stubborn with going to the doctor, but it's like that completely changed my energy. For Q1 of 2023, no matter what I was thinking and dreaming and planning, the reality of my energy was so different. And I'll roll with that. I'll go, well, all right. This is what I'm dealing with. I'm not going to reject reality and what's happening, but it's completely different from what another quarter might look and feel like.

And it's just one of those things too, where it's like, life happens. I so relate to that story. I remember it was in 2020 and 2021. My husband and I were going through several rounds of ivf and like, no one can prepare you for just the hormonal swings and how exhausting it is. And like, you know, you talked about not only the physical exhaustion of the asthma, and when I think back to, like, the physical exhaustion of ibs, the other thing we don' always talk about too, is the exhaustion with your nervous system. Thinking about it, worrying about it, laying in bed about it, when am I going to fall asleep about it? I mean, just that nervous system regulation, too, it just is really, really draining. And one of the things I even had to learn about myself going through that. And again, I think as highly motivated people and living in the culture we live in, there's just this message is like, well, you can grit through and I'm like, or you can design a business that's really intentional and in alignment with your values that says, you know what? Like, I don't feel good right now. Like, I'm going through some medical treatments. And because of this, like, I've had to make some conscious choices to say, you know what, I think I need to carry a lighter load and I'm going to let a one on one client drop off and not actively seek to replace it because I just need a little more spaciousness now. Does that impact my income? Yeah, it can totally impact your income. But at the end of the day, it's like, I often think about energy and entrepreneurship as levers you can pull. And there's just gonna be some times where we are sick, we have family things or we have children or people who need us. And so it's like I need to be able to push up a lever to pull down another lever, just energetically speaking. And even with your offerings, like, I know so many times in entrepreneurship, I've had to push up certain levers of products or services that I offered so I could pull down another one that maybe just didn't have such an energetic toll because of what was happening in my life.

I love thinking about it as levers, and it's so true. Energy is a lever. You can push it up or down. Entrepreneurship up or down. Within being an entrepreneur, business streams up or down. And I always try to remember too, that sometimes pulling it down creates the space for the next surge of energy and income and opportunity and ideas. So that's such a more natural way of being. We are part of nature, you know, we're not machines. We are not chatgpt.

No, we are not a foot tool, but we are not it.

Instant and unceasing. I want to shift gears just while I have you here, because offline we were talking about how masterminds have also played a big role in your business and in helping you reach different stages and deal with different cyclical occurrences in life and work. I would love to just hear your thought on this. What are the benefits of masterminds? How have they served you? And then we can talk about any downsides or things to watch out for for people who are thinking, you know, it's really time I join one again.

Yeah, a hundred percent. So I started my business March of 2019, and I joined my first mastermind off of an intuitive hunch in February of 2020. No joke, Jenny. I had this little gut nudging that was like, you know, I feel like this year might be challenging and I feel like maybe I could really use some support. Having no clue that like a month later Covid was gonna come. And I was like, oh, that was a really genius intuition Gut nudge.

It's like good job intuition.

In 2019, I had started to experience some success in my business. Luckily I had worked for an author and an entrepreneur. So you know, I had kind of watched kind of in my business was building it kind of by watching and replicating some of the things that I'd learned. But I also had kind of hit this point where I'm like, I could probably and I noticed even just some self limiting habits about myself. And I was also at the point where I was like, I mean I am starting to make money, but I don't know if I really love what I've created so far. And so I remember thinking and hearing of some other entrepreneurs who are part of masterminds that really helped them bring clarity to like the product they were offering. You know, really identifying a mission and how they approach their business and really just giving them tips to grow a thriving business. Because I'm like, I've never been an entrepreneur before and I'm sure that I'm going to make some mistakes, so let me go get some help. And so I joined my first mastermind. It was a group of 12 women in March of 2020. And honestly that one was amazing because one of the things that that really did for me was really helped me get clear about the process by which I offer programs to people. It helped me get clear on like, okay, if I was going to design an eight week, an eight hour workshop, here's what it would look like. And so she had some tools I thought that were really helpful to me in program design. I joined another one though at the end of 2020, honestly that I was in for about a year and a half, that was really, really, really helpful. And I would say that one was mostly focused on mindset, growing your business, dealing with all of just the mindset junk that comes from putting yourself out there, taking a stand, sharing your voice. And you know, it was also filled with a lot of just good general business tips. But I would say the thing that that one did for me the most was it taught me what it felt like to be in a room with other women and just to be safe in talking about some of the issues and challenges that women have. I grew up in a male dominated environment in corporate, so like one, we didn't talk about some of these things. Not only could we not see ourselves, but there just wasn't the safe container. And so what was really special to me in terms of that mastermind was it taught me how powerful it was to be in a Room to be in a container with other women, dealing with the challenges that are unique to women. And because of that mastermind, I mean, that is the reason why I started my own women's leadership program. I'm like, oh my gosh, we need this in corporate. That one was just really helpful for me, not only personally and in my success, but it really just gave me a model for something that I knew was missing in the corporate environment as well. You know, in terms of what you said to look for and to stay away from, I would say look for masterminds that are led by somebody who has like documented success running their own business. I would say look for a mastermind that, whose values are aligned with yours. I would ask a lot of questions about the actual results that people receive, because if you're not careful, there are a lot of masterminds out there that are running off the premise of promising you results. And I really want to be careful about the promise of making a certain amount of money or a promise of certain results, because you can end up paying in quite a large fee. And you really need to make sure that you're asking a lot of questions about the substance of what you'll be learning because it can get a little mlm ish if you aren't careful where you're like paying in this fee because they're promising you and you, oh, you'll make a hundred thousand dollars. We need to ask a lot of discerning questions to make sure that it's in alignment with your values and ask them specifically, what exact tools are you going to teach me that's going to help me grow my business? Like really ask about that substance and.

Also what type of business model they have and know how to teach. Because the other potential pitfall could be that yes, they kind of know exactly how to take you to some revenue target, but maybe it's a business model that you hate, that you really don't want to do, that doesn't fit your strengths, doesn't fit your vision. I feel like that is really crucial and I don't really see people talking about that as much when they market the mastermind.

So many mastermind leaders want to make mini me's. So I think that's another really good discerning question to ask. And you just kind of hit on that is, oh, I'll teach you how to make six figures, but I'm going to do it by basically just telling you how I did it. And we gotta be really careful because that can really take us away from kind of what our true north is. That can take us away from what we're meant to do. It can really cause us to kind of override our intuition and our gut about the business we're supposed to build. So the best masterminds I've ever been a part of are the ones that were like, okay, what's your business? What's your goal? What do you want to build? Okay, here is some tools and, you know, some tips. Honestly, on some things I've learned. Yes, but that will also bring you closer to the business you are meant to build. And I'm not just trying to create a bunch of mini me's. So I'm so glad you said that because I think that's so important.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I've been part of a lot of informal mastermind groups or with frienders in the business world where we just form our own kind of pop up group with a cadence and check ins and everything. But then I know of course there's more formal programs so I don't know if you've had both types. The more formal mastermind groups, the investment can be quite high, although they wouldn't want me to call it high. You know, maybe the ROI is 10x whatever you put into it. How do you Kelly, decide when to create something with your peers versus when you want to really invest in a mastermind someone else is leading. And then if it's the latter, what if you spending all this money and you don't know who you're going to be surrounded by? It seems like a big leap of.

Faith the answer is I've done both. So in the first mastermind that I was a part of, unfortunately probably was an investment where I didn't get a ton of return. I did walk away with one useful thing from the business, but the thing I did walk away from that mastermind with was there was four of us who were like, we really aren't getting what we thought we were supposed to be getting. But we all really loved each other. And so ever since late 2020, we've been meeting on our own. Like, we have a little Marco Polo group. We meet quarterly on zoom. Like, we were like a byproduct of like, we don't know if we really like this mastermind, but we love each other, so we're going to keep meeting. And so they've been kind of friends, mentors, you know, as you say. But for me personally, a good level of discernment that I use is does this person offer tools or a skill set that I feel like I am lacking that is keeping me from my next level of business. So I will tell you, the first mastermind that I thought was really beneficial that I joined and I was with for over a year and a half was honestly just business sales and entrepreneur skills and mindset. I mean, it was truly just so helpful to be part of this because I was just a newbie in the entrepreneurship world. And I just felt like that program just gave me a lot of rails in terms of like just business building, clarifying your message, getting yourself out there. Oh, and by the way, all of the mindset drama, like, it was just a helpful, supportive container. The next mastermind that I was looking for after that one had kind of come to an end and I felt like I got everything I needed from it was I was really starting to think about, you know what? I am not an entrepreneur serving other entrepreneurs. So that makes me really different sometimes in these spaces because a lot of these spaces can be entrepreneurs serving entrepreneurs serving entrepreneurs. And it's. Some people say it feels a little pyramid. Y but I digress. I'm an entrepreneur serving corporate businesses. I was like, I feel like I need to learn a few more skills to be a little more in tune with what corporate buyers are wanting, how to speak with corporate buyers and really focusing on my corporate business. And so I joined another mastermind that was exclusively focused on entrepreneur serving corporate. And that one was also really, really helpful for me in just learning some language of the business, understanding corporate buying cycles, really understanding how corporate buyers think, how to approach corporate buyers. That's Usually my kind of level of discernment is is it a key business skill? I feel like I really need to know and that some formal structure and tools is going to help me versus I do just kind of have my little entrepreneur pod that we have on the side and those are just people that I can use for those little one off questions, business issues, you know, just the stuff that kind of comes up every day.

That's super helpful. And yeah, it's a great point about whether it's a mastermind based on curriculum and specific brass tacks, you know, tactics, strategies, whether it's one on mindset or in your case, what you're creating. Executive women leaders connecting with other women, where it's less of the nitty gritty, it's more about kind of who you are and the journey you're on and the transformation together you're trying to create in the world. And then the pop ups on the side. I love the pop ups. And if you're lucky enough to be friends with people who are either coaches and or intuitive, I find that we don't really need to even be running a similar business. You just need people who are good listeners who can say back to you, oh, you sounded so excited when you were telling us about that thing. You have a lot of energy in your voice. People who are intuitive enough to point out just reactions to questions. And then of course if you do run similar businesses, I've also gotten so much value out of pop up masterminds where genuinely you can say I'm a little stuck here. How should I communicate with this client, this sticky situation? Or I'm not sure how much to charge. And then instantly most of mine are in Marco Polo, sometimes in a live zoom, but instantly you just get all this great feedback and no other person's going to have the right answer. But you can then bounce off of what they've said and notice your own intuitive hits about how you react.

You just hit the nail on the head. Whether you have an informal group or you're joining a formal group, the right mastermind, formal or informal, will always point you to building the business that you are meant to build. They will always point you to noticing your energy. Here we go again. Jenny, you got really excited there, Jenny, you seem really passionate about that. They will never try to force tips down your throat. That worked for them to make you more like them. I think that that's just such a good bottom line discernment is does this group make me more of who I am? Does it point me Closer to my true north and give me tips and tools to get there instead of just making me show up as someone else.

Oh, I love that. Does this group make me more of who I am? That's so beautiful. And yeah, that the right group helps you become who you're meant to be, helps you build the business you're meant to build. Yes. They have to be smart and wonderful. Hopefully they're people who give energy in the world. They're not drainers. And I just love thinking about it that way and looking for those people. And I find sometimes you need to set up a one off call. Like if that goes well, you set up another. And that's how they start to get momentum because you don't always know up front how it's going to gel either.

A hundred percent.

You also connected it. Thank you for taking us full circle because you pulled out that energy theme. I've been thinking, what on earth do masterminds have in common with energy and creating an energy capacity plan? But you just said it. Which is that they are also helping reflect your energy. And I find that the masterminds that I cherish so much, these people mean so much to me. They help me steer my business and my time toward energy capacity that's truly life giving. Even when I can't see ahead very clearly, even when I hit a dip or I get discouraged. They are the ones saying, you've got this. We believe in you. I know you can do it. You've been here before, You've been through this kind of a dip before. We've seen it. And yes, we believe in you. Like keep following your energy and keep working according to your energy and keep pursuing the projects that give you energy. They are the ones that prop me up when I feel exhausted and can't prop myself up.

Exactly. It's like a good bottom line from this whole conversation is you can walk away with one thing. It's just asking yourself, what does this do to my energy? Does saying yes to this request surge my energy? Does the schedule boost my energy? What do I do to recover my energy? Does this person boost my energy? Like, how do they feel energetically all of the time? I don't think that we slow down enough and really pay attention to like, what does this person, this place, this thing, this group, what does it do to my energy?

Yes. And what you said, how you're not afraid to say no. I find like as soon as there's indecision, or should I say yes deep down so often it's a no. Mm. You don't really need to ask. By the time you're asking, you're already trying to wiggle. Wiggle around a little bit, you know?

Exactly. No, I agree. Like, I think it's Mark Manson, who's the one that says it. He's the author and says there is no maybes. Maybe is usually a no.

Yeah. And he's also super clear. I've heard him say on a podcast, I don't know what his specific number is, but he got it to something like five keynotes a year. Something very tiny because it's not his main activity. And so I love how this is his capacity. There's five slots in a given year. That's it. He's probably going to price through the roof accordingly because he has very high demand. But by deciding that number in advance, he said it helped him reduce the guilt of saying no all the time or turning people down. It's just, well, this is what it is. This is my dance card. This is what I've got.

Absolutely. You know, when I was leaving corporate, it's because I was on the road, like, almost 50% of the time. And when I started my business, and every year my husband and I have this conversation, like, I'm just over sitting in airports, being laid over, you know, just that whole thing. And so I've set a cap. I will get on the road. I will get on an airplane. Four, no more than six times a year, ideally. Four, no more than six. And so it's kind of that same thing. Once I've hit that, especially once I've hit four, well, then definitely we're going to talk about some pricing things. But that's just. Also. Just made it really easy to be like, when I hit this number, I'm going to price for that number, and I'm only going to get in an airplane if you pay full price. Like, I'm not going to get in an airplane for discounts.

Yeah.

And that's also been really, really helpful, too.

And it's like, once you've hit those six, then it better be Oprah calling.

Exactly. I might make an exception for Oprah.

Yeah. Super Soul Sunday, if you're listening. If you're listening, Oprah Kelly's amazing. This has been so fun. Thank you for letting us in. Behind the scenes, what was your personal spreadsheet to just make sense of your life and your work and sharing it with us?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know the famous last question. If you could give fellow business owners permission to do something differently or drop something altogether in their business. What would it be?

Drop anything that drains your energy. I would say if you can take away anything from this call is do an energy audit. What sort of things are draining your energy and your business and give yourself permission to stop doing it.

Beautiful. And I'll put an energy audit template in the show notes. I have one. Kelly, Whatever you're willing to share, we'll put it in the show notes related to all this and I love it. So do an energy audit and maybe even take it so far as to create your energy capacity plan. Kelly, where else can people find you if they want to learn more and keep in touch?

Absolutely. You can find me@kellyraythompson.com, i'm Kelly with an I R A E Thompson and if you want any of the tools or templates that we talked about, just go to my free section on my website and you'll see all the good free downloadables in that little section. Otherwise, I like to hang out on Instagram and LinkedIn. You can definitely connect with me there. And I'm forward slash. Kellyrae Thompson amazing.

And go check out episode 315 of pivot if you haven't already. She just shares some amazing stories and was like so open with us. You were one of my favorite guests. Thank you for being on both shows. Kelly. You're amazing and big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

Well, thank you for having me.

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