Episode 64: The Simple Business Truth I Learned From Disney

Welcome to the Create youe Laptop Life podcast, where entrepreneurs all around the world come to learn how to market and grow their online business right from their laptops, wherever they are. We don't have traditional nine to five jobs and we don't want them because financial and lifestyle security and freedom is too important to us. We know the world is changing for the better and that the freelance and entrepreneur economy is the cleaner, greener, smarter way to work for both families and businesses. My name is Julie and this podcast will teach you everything you need to know about creating and growing your laptop life.

Hey, everyone. Hope you're doing awesome today. I actually sent out an email this morning and I would like to do a whole podcast episode on it. So if you are on my email list, you saw the email, but I'm going to expand upon it a little bit more here today. And it's called the business lesson that I Learned from watching Frozen 2. So yesterday I took my two teenage girls to watch Frozen for the second time in two weeks and we saw it during opening weekend and we loved it, memorized all the songs, promptly went back. And I think that Frozen 2 is more complicated storyline than the first one, but Disney did a great job and I think the second movie, you know, is a lot better than the first. And I expected to laugh and I expected to cry, but what I didn't expect was to have this, like, very profound and simple business lesson that if you actually did what the movie preached, you'd watch your life transform before your eyes. And I said all of this in my email when I sent it out. I'm currently in the process of simplifying my life. And I think that all of us, when we get to a certain point in life, we are married, maybe we have kids, maybe we have a business, maybe we have, you know, customers. We create. Like, we collect stuff along the way. We collect stuff, we collect people, we collect, you know, programs that we've launched that now have like a whole life of their own. And things often feel messier as you get older, right? We don't see things in black and white. I think much. We see it in shades of gray. And so I'm in the process of simplifying my life. And if you've been following me, I started that simplification process in June when I resigned from being a partner over at ClickFunnels. My life, my marriage, all these things were really exhausted beyond belief. I have four children, three of them are teenagers. And I, I looked at my life and said, oh, my gosh, Like, I don't even know where to begin because there's so many needs and so much going on. What can I start with? And that really began sort of this season of my life of simplification. And when we say, oh, we're simplifying things, it sounds cliche, it sounds trendy, it sounds like Marie Kondo. It sounds like Eat, Pray, Love, but it's messy. It is hella messy, Hard, complicated. Not black and white, lots of shades of gray. And if you are trying to simplify your business or your life and you have collected people and things along the way, this can feel like an unbelievable task. And so you end up having to turn over things that you figured, yeah, you just would rather just leave those things be. And I have felt that way in sort of undoing and looking at the stuff that I've built, looking at the stuff that I've done, the relationships, the programs, the ideas, all of it. And just saying, okay, where am I really making an impact? Where am I really making a difference? What is working and what are things that are not serving me anymore? And it's not just selfish serving me, but meaning also serving my customers or my kids or my husband or whatever it happens to be. And so for me, I've had to square up to the fact that I have this really bad habit of people pleasing. It is not a fun thing to have. And oftentimes when I walk into a situation, I'm a very intuitive person. For those of you guys who do Myers Briggs, I'm an infj. So the N and the F. I read a room. I read what people need, I know what they want, I can see. And it sets me up oftentimes to say, oh, well, if I give them that, they're gonna really like me. And so I can kind of morph to become what they want or what they need in that moment to serve them. But like anything that's people pleasing, I eventually get tired of that because it's not really me. And so then I end up in a situation where I have two choices. I can either show up as the real me and risk rejection, or I can get really resentful. And so I've had to work on this. And in my act of simplifying my life and my business, like, okay, I don't know where to begin. Right. It doesn't feel simple. So here's where. And maybe you can relate to that. So here's where Frozen 2 comes in. So Ana is in a cave. Spoiler alert. She's destroyed by the apparent death of her sister, plus the loss of her fiance, her sidekick Olaf. She's like her just. Her world is turned upside down. And she begins a song called the Next Right Thing. And there's a line, it says, it's all that I can do, the next right thing. I won't look too far ahead. It's too much for me to take. But break it down to this next step, this next choice, this next breath is one that I can make. And it was so profound. And I just burst into tears in the theater because I was like, it's just the next RA Right thing. We all know what the next right thing is. It's a small, easy decision right in front of you right now. And a lot of times we don't take it because we're too busy playing chess with all the moves and the consequences 10 steps ahead. We worry about a year from now, two years from now. We overthink, we analyze, we talk ourselves in circles. But there is a business decision or a life, one small or big, that's sitting in front of you right now as I'm. As you're listening to this, and your procrastination is most certainly a sign that you're forecasting way beyond the next right thing. It's making you very hard to do the next right thing right in front of you. And it sounds so simple. Our temptation is to sort of just like, turn up our noses and be like, this is. This is so simple. Because we expect, like, the things to make the impact in life to be elaborate or complicated, but really, just try it. Look at your to do list today. Look at your business, whatever it is that's sort of plaguing you, and ask yourself, what is the next right thing for me to do? And if you're like, I don't know, Julie. I honestly don't know, then break down the decision even smaller. What is the next right thing that you can do to help you make the decision? Try that. So I hope that helps. I hope that gives you an aha. For me, it gave me a big aha. Because I have decisions, and every decision seems to have rabbit trails and side trails and just all kinds of stuff that makes me nervous that, like, well, what if this wrong decision? Then it has, like, ramifications, and that can really just totally throw you off. And so instead you just say, you know what? I'm just going to do what's right in front of me and the next right thing, honestly, and most often shows up as showing up, showing up in your world, in your relationships, in your business. Speaking the truth. The truth is always on your side. Even when it feels like the truth will get you in trouble, the truth is on your side. Trusting your instincts. Ignoring fear. Fear is not a good predictor of success or making great decisions. Upholding your values, the things that are important to you. Moving towards your dreams. Shaking off what is over complicated. Trusting the process, even if the process feels uncomfortable. And most importantly, betting on yourself. So I encourage you to go today. Go do the next right thing. I appreciate you all. Talk to you soon.

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