Brave Biz Lab 2024 08 09

Foreign. Hello. Hello. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. How's it going? Good. Good. Let's start with some celebrations. What are we celebrating?

One of my speaker proposals got selected for a conference in December.

Fabulous. Well done. Yay, relations. Thank you. And, Jason, I kind of know what you're celebrating.

Yeah, I am celebrating having my first sales call.

Yeah.

But I'm also celebrating that, like, setting up things like acuity are not my thing. And I did that last night, and I felt really good about the fact that I just made myself do it and watch the videos and slow down. It was something I didn't think. It was something I thought I needed a lot more help with, but I was able to work through it, and so I think that's worth celebrating, too.

Awesome. Awesome. Congratulations. And, Lauren, what are you celebrating?

I am just, like, going with the flow. It's very unlike me. Every several hours, I'm like, am I okay?

Am I okay?

Am I allowed to just be okay?

I think I'm okay for now.

So that's what I'm celebrating. That's awesome. You are okay. Absolutely. Yeah. How about that, Alex? What about you? What are you celebrating today?

Can I go in one minute? I have to walk upstairs real quick because our cleaners just moved to the downstairs area.

Oh, I'm leaving real quick.

Okay. No, wait. What am I celebrating? I posted two LinkedIn posts, and they are performing horribly, but I'm still celebrating that I did it. And I know it's not a short process, but.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's.

You know, it's funny when you change. When you change, like, your style of posting, you. You kind of have to retrain, like, the people who are following you how to interact with it.

But I'm not even getting impressions. Like, it's.

So don't stress out about impressions. Impressions, like, is not a real number. I. I genuinely don't. Yeah. I don't know. So, like, how. How LinkedIn handles impressions, like, is tipsy, turvy all the time.

Okay.

Up, it's down. Like, you cannot count on impressions being a good metric for success. Okay. Okay.

Because the first ones, I feel like it was almost like LinkedIn rewarded me for finally being back on. And then when I posted, I would immediately get, like, not immediately, like, a thousand impressions. Like, yay.

And.

And now it's like 200, 160. I'm like, what?

Yeah, they're fun. We can look at a few things for you. But, you know, it's. Honestly, LinkedIn does that sometimes. Yeah.

So just keep on going. Ignore it.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks any Vaughan. We're celebrating stuff if you want to hop in. There's anything top of mind that you want to celebrate? I want to celebrate that my best friend in Sausalito, California wanted to get a new puppy and another friend who lives an hour south of her was fostering two puppies and so I was able to connect them and now she has one of the puppies from across the country. Awesome. And then one announcement. So I know I talked to a few of you in BYOB about this this week. So next week looks a little different. We're not doing the sprint next Monday. I'm moving that call to the fourth month Monday of the month and then Brave Biz Lab. This call is actually going to be at 1pm next week and then our co working session is going to be immediately after at 2pm this is because I'm going to be in ADHD seminar with Edward Hallowell Monday through Friday next week. You know, learning about all the new things that are coming up in adhd. So really excited for that. But it does change our schedule a little bit. Yvonne, did you want to celebrate anything?

Well, first let's celebrate you. That's super cool.

I know, I'm really excited.

So I guess I would celebrate I. Starting at the end of the month, I'm starting a two year Chronic Healing cohort. So it's, it's getting deeper into chronic healing. I'm already certified. But what makes this super legit is that by the end you can, you can finish it in a year or two years, but you need to have 25 cases where you have proven healing so before and after. So it's like a legit healing. I don't know year's worth of work on it. So I'm super excited about that.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's phenomenal. Really excited to see how that folds into your business.

Yeah, I'm not sure, but that's where I'm going right now.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. One more thing I want to put on your, on your docket and your awareness is in September we're doing another 30 day challenge for posting every single day. And as clients of BYOB and one on one clients, you get free access to that. So you'll get a content calendar. And every day, Monday through Friday for the duration of the 30 day challenge, there will be a 9am call for an hour. The first 30 minutes will be silent working. So whatever you're writing, you're just spending time on that or you're creating graphics Whatever. And then the last 30 minutes is going to be me giving feedback to one person. So if you want feedback on a piece of writing or a piece of content, you can volunteer for that. And I'll show you exactly what you can do to improve your content in real time. All right, so just if you want to make sure you can make those calls, go ahead and block that time off on your calendar. What month again? It's September, so the calls will start on September 3rd at 9am Eastern. And I apologize to you being on Pacific time. I know that's a really.

I was, I was hoping it was in November because November would have been 7am, not 6am for me.

So might do it again in November. But, but technically you do not need to join for the first half hour. You're more than welcome to join at 6:30.

I know, but I really, I really, I really enjoy these sessions, so.

Okay, good, good, good. Yeah, I'm going to try to do them a few times a year because I just think it's just one of those, hold your feet to the fire, get going, build the, build the routine, flex that muscle, do the thing. And there are a few ways you can incorporate it. You can use it to really get consistent on the one platform that you're focusing on. You can also use it if you're wanting to go on to a secondary platform or do a lot like Lauren and I did, this kind of in a delayed manner. We did a 30 day live challenge together. Whatever it is that you're trying to do, you're more than welcome to utilize it. But it comes with a whole bunch of thinking done for you.

That was going to be my question. Does any type of posting, whether it's video or live, count?

It all counts.

It all counts.

Yeah, it all counts. So yeah, it'll be really exciting and we'll get to see each other every day. Awesome.

Cool.

Well, let's go into Q and A. What questions do you have? What can I support on? I have yet another very random question.

So being the security nerd that I am, I got this email and I am assuming that it's a scam, but I wanted to just share it and get your thoughts on it, if that's okay. Let me share.

Yeah, on. Let me let you. There you go. Okay.

So it's one of those like, very relatable to me. They've reached out saying that they have openings in Forbes to feature career coaching experts, but it's this top mags IO company and I don't know what that is. And then this also like that doesn't match the company.

Yeah, network.

But I was just, I was just curious if anybody has heard of this. I was hoping Carrie would be on this call.

So this is absolutely scam. Anyone can submit to Speed to write for Forbes. You could honestly submit to write for Forbes right now.

Okay.

Yeah, like it's like there are people who pretend to be these intermediaries for things that you could absolutely do yourself. So they may be like kind of legit, but kind of like, I don't know, what's it called, a parasite where like they do submit you to Forbes but like they're charging you for something that you could do yourself. That's not that hard. Okay. Or they could be a scam, like a full on scam. Like they just take your money, never submit you that. There you go.

Yeah.

Can't tell.

Yeah, yeah, I figured that. But I was like, I'm just gonna ask anyway just in case somebody's heard of this company.

Alex, what were you gonna say?

Yeah, I have one addition to that and I used to get these all the time when I still help my corporate jobs. And Katie, as you just said, they might be legit, but it's also so Forbes and all of these magazines, they have like a gazillion like sub pages or something that, where they're like basically trying to like yes, you're sort of on Forbes but you're not, you're like on one like, like 100 million layers down. Like, and even from an SEO perspective, it's not going to help you to get more SEO ranking or anything. Like unless you are like what Katie said, unless you're working with a legit whatever like journalist, reporter that is working with Forbes and you know, like if you don't want to do the work yourself, it's, it's all, even if it's not scam, but it's, it's nothing that would ever bring you forward. Like in corporate you get these outreaches all the time.

Yeah, yeah, you're, you're, you're going to get a lot of cold dms and emails about doing lead gen for you don't spend any, any money on.

Oh yeah, I get those all the time. Those ones are bad.

Yeah.

Also, also like hey, we want to feature you in the top women of Da da da da da. And those are all pay to play. They're fake. No one cares about them. You know, and you can tell like once you start recognizing these kinds of companies that do these like fake awards and then you start seeing coaches who are, like, talking about being awarded this, that, and the other thing. Like, there's no awards in our industry if you're in coaching. Like, no. Like, how do. How would they even do that? It just. It's not. It's not something that's regulated, so it's really hard to have actual awards. You know, you'll know that they're. They're buying their awards. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like I said, I was like, this is a scam. But for some reason, I just feel like bringing it up on Friday because I got it, like, last night, and.

I was like, I'm just gonna show.

Yeah, another one. Another scam, just so you guys are aware of it, is if you have, like, a business page on Facebook, I always know it's a scam because they email me to my Katie, Katie McManus stuff.com email saying that my business page violates the terms and conditions of Facebook. My Facebook accounts are all set up to my Gmail account. They're not set up to my work email. So. But it comes from an email that actually looks like it should be Facebook. Right. And so my team has almost gotten sucked into that a couple times. And it's like, no, no, it's not real. Don't give them information. But yeah, when it went in question, just don't respond. Yeah. But thank you.

Can I just share, though, that there are. I just recently learned there's two legit ways to get kind of featured in things where, like, reporters are looking for experts.

Yeah.

And I'll put them in the link. One is quoted.com where you can sign up with a profile and they will, like, you can submit a pitch. The other one is help a reporter out harrow.com and so both of those are legit places where reporters or journalists will go to look for experts.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, Right on in the chat. Thank you. Yeah. And you know, Monica, I think this is honestly, like, the most relevant to you because, like, data security is something that is so hot in the news when something bad happens. You know, it's something that you could absolutely reach out to reporters and journalists on and just say, hey, listen, like, I know there's nothing happening right now, but if you ever need a quote or my take on what's happening in data security, here's my credentials. I've worked in this in a really. For a really long time. And like, for instance, here are my thoughts on, like, previous things that have happened. You know, you get to become their go to. If they are writing a story or if they are doing a news segment on that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Thank you. Yeah, of course. Awesome. Thank you, Yvonne. Great. Good enough. Okay, what other questions do we have today?

I have a question about the pricing call that I just had.

Yeah.

So the call went really well. I got lots of those mini buy ins because I watched the clips on running a sales call before doing it. I felt from her that she wants to do this, but I really do think that finances are probably going to be the thing that kills it if it gets killed. What, what should be my follow up approach afterwards with a call like this? Like, should I wait and talk to her on Monday? Should I send her an email with the links so that she can review them?

So you both, do you think?

Yeah.

What would you send her something to review? Because it's pretty simple, right?

Yeah, I just, I remember like when you, when, when I did the call with you.

Yeah.

There was an email in my inbox.

Like I only do ask for it. I only do ask for it.

Okay.

Yeah. And oftentimes it's not necessary.

Okay.

Yeah. But if she asked for it to be outlined then, then send her the same kind of outline that I did. And, but it's like, it's the bare bones, it's, you know, this long, this many calls a month, this kind of extra support. And here are the pricing options.

If she comes back and says, we can't do this right now, it's too expensive. At the stage of my business that I'm at right now with nothing, do I cut that and can continue on to the next or reevaluate, what would your thoughts be?

So here's the deal. You're a business owner now. You get to make the rules, right? If you really want to work with her and you're willing to do less than 500amonth or 550amonth, you get to play let's make a deal. You say, okay, cool, like I totally understand. Finances are tight right now. Where I'm at is I would honestly love to work with you. And I, you know, like, if money weren't a problem, would you want to do this regardless? And if she says, yeah, like if, if I had the money, I would do this and you can say, okay, cool. Well know that like I normally charge 550amonth. Is there a number that's less than that that you'd be able to afford? You know, and she can come back at you with like, well, I could do 300amonth or whatever. And you get to, you get to say that's, I can do that or no, it's too little.

Okay.

You know, if she comes back to you with 200, you know, I can't quite go that low. But would you be able to do like 275?

Right, right.

And then if she needs to go to her husband again, you can say, awesome, why don't you do that? And then let's schedule just yes, no call tomorrow. Right, Right.

Is. How would you handle the I have to talk to my spouse objection?

In what way?

Well, like, I responded by saying, of course you have to talk to your spouse. Like, I would too. I would never want you to make that decision without that buy in. Do you think your spouse would be supportive? And that's when she said yes.

Yeah. So I would also. So I think you handled that perfectly. Right. Anytime you have a secondary decision maker and the person you're talking to wants their buy in. Yeah. You support it. Right. Because they're not going to make a decision on their own. Like, there's, there's not a way for you to pressure them out of that without being kind of smarmy and manipulative. What I would also ask is, are there any questions that they may have that you haven't asked yet?

I did not ask that question because.

You know, like, it's Kyc. Right. Know your client, know your customer, they remember she wants this. Right. If you have a client on the phone who's like, I really want this, I just have to check in with my husband or my business partner, whatever, know that they want this and they're going to sell it to this person. Right. We all have that experience of like really wanting like that pair of boots. And we have someone that, like, we call, like to like, agree with us that we should do it, you know, and we come up with all the, all the things. If she's never bought this before, if she's never invested in coaching before, she doesn't know those things. Right. So asking her, what questions will your husband have that you haven't asked yet will be really helpful because she knows her husband.

Right?

Right. And she could say, oh, well, he might be like, like, he might be curious what the cancellation policy is, you know, or he might want to know this or that or the other thing. Okay. And you can say, oh, awesome. Like, here's a cancellation policy and here's this and here's that. Any other questions he might have? No. And then I always like to encourage them because it is an investment for the whole family. Right. Like, it doesn't really matter what it is that we're all doing. Right. Monica, you're. You're the exception here where if you're doing it with a company, it's for the whole company. It's not just for that one person. Right. But especially if they're investing in something for themselves to help them, like, get better in their life or in their business or in their career. This is an investment for the whole family because it impacts the whole family. Right. And so I always like to say, hey, listen, like, this is an investment for the whole family. If they have any questions, like, please give them my email. I'm more than happy to answer any questions if they want to hop on the phone to understand what I do. More like happy to do that as well. I won't divulge any sensitive information between the two of us. I only ever had one instance where a client's sister was paying for the coaching and she was curious about a few things. And, and we kind of emailed back and forth trying to find a time to talk. At the end, we. It was too complicated scheduling wise for her, and she said, fuck it, you know, whatever my sister wants, she gets, so. Which I wish I had a sister like that. That would be awesome. But anyway. But yeah, you just, you, you keep everything above board. You know, unfortunately in the coaching industry especially, there's just a lot of weird players. Right. So we just have to be open. We have to be open. We have to just be like, completely above board with what we do so that everyone feels comfortable. This is the right investment.

Right?

Yeah, yeah. But I think you handled it great. And it sounds like it's only a matter a question of money, I think, because she's unemployed.

Right, Right. So it's a career pivot niche.

Yeah.

She's. She's currently. Her company went under, so that's why she's being forced to pivot.

Yeah.

And she has deep imposter syndrome about not feeling good enough to step into a space.

Right.

She's actually trying to step into a company that I work for for seven years, but. So I don't know, like, it's. I think that if she says no, that'll be the thing.

Yeah. But honestly, if she says no, I, Yeah, I agree with you. That'll be based on money. But I think, I think you play let's Make a Deal.

Okay.

Right. Because I mean, you just listed off a whole bunch of things that make you uniquely the perfect coach for Her. Right, right. I mean, you work for that company. You have insider knowledge. Right. So you're not just going to be doing coaching, you're going to be doing some consulting with her. Right, right. And if she wants to apply to companies like that, like, you're also going to understand what it'll take.

Right? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we don't celebrate having a client before we have money in the bank and agreement signed. But I mean, I think, like, this is a really solid sign that what you're doing is working, you know, and that this is a niche, that there's potentially a lot of. A lot of clients for you. And. And that grammar sucks, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, no, it's. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah. Awesome. I'm taking French classes in the mornings and it's messing with my English grammar for like two hours after. And I'm like, that didn't sound right. Anyway, good enough.

Mm.

Cool. What other questions do we have?

Katie? I don't have a question. It's not interesting. Anyone else? But my Heartbeat account doesn't work. Like, if I log in or I'm logged in, it says this is paid community, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know what to do.

Are you going yesterday? That's weird. Why don't we stay on after? If you do you have a couple minutes after this call?

Yeah.

Okay, let's stay on after and I'll. You can share your screen.

Maybe by then it's working again. Who knows?

Yeah. Are you trying to access the one on one video library?

Any, like, literally anything Brave Beanies is not working.

That's so weird. Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, it's. It operates differently for my one on one clients because we have to give you like kind of back end access because you don't pay through Heartbeat, whereas everyone else does. So there. Yeah, sometimes there's a weird thing that happens, but we'll. We'll figure it out. Yeah.

And it looks like you're online, Alex, so that's really weird. Like it has a green dot next to you.

That's so funny. Great. Similar, but just won't let me in.

Yeah, yeah, we'll. We'll hop in. Okay, cool, Cool. What other questions do we have?

Okay, I'm gonna ask something that is so out there, but I think, Monica, I saw something that you posted that you're working on some great stuff. And Katie, you have a full library full of things. And Jason, you just said like, oh, imposter syndrome, blah, blah. I 100%. Get that.

Uh. Oh. Oh, no. Alex, you froze. Can you hear us, Alex? Oh, no.

That means she was going to say something brilliant because that's usually what happens.

I know. And then she's not going to remember exactly what she said. Oh, no. Okay. Oh, okay. Well, she'll come back. Can I answer? Oh, hi. So we heard imposter syndrome, and then we couldn't hear anything else.

I.

It's super stormy and windy here. I don't know if anyone else has tornado warnings in there. Yeah, Areas. But we do, even though we're in pa, Pennsylvania, so it's really random. We don't get tornadoes here. Okay. Imposter syndrome.

Blah, blah.

When did you guys all start with, like, having these, like, extra things. Programs, Some things, or is that just, like, specific to your industry and I should not worry about it? And eventually maybe things will just, you know, like all these extra. Oh, hi, there's my son. We're working a little weirdly today. Yes. When did everyone start creating these, like, extra assets, like a video library or templates or something that, like, working documents that, you know, your clients can work with? Because I feel like an imposter now selling, like, a package program a little bit more. As in, like, my hourly consulting services that I feel like I need to give them something extra or else. What's the difference between, like.

I honestly didn't create any extra videos or assets until I was making 250,000 a year.

Oh, okay. So I have a little ways to go. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think anyone here has like a. Oh. I mean, Monica does, but she's been teaching for a long time and she's also working with LinkedIn. But, like, I don't think anyone else has a video library or assets like that.

You like the perception of, like, you see something.

Everyone has a. Yeah, it's.

I'm literally creating assets, like, for the needs of my clients, and so then I have them. So, for example, this week I used a five whys exercise with a client who was looking for, like, what. What values they have now compared to before anyway. Like, I literally created it for them. And so now I have that as an asset that I can use in the future for others. But I'm just creating things as needs come. I'm literally, like, laying the track right before the train gets there.

Okay.

Because I also don't want to spend.

A whole lot of time creating things that then nobody finds useful.

Right.

And you sending them then as your next client may need them. Not like In a library or something. Like, okay, I'll first, I'll give you access to all my 15 documents that I've already. Okay.

Now you can put them, like, if you have a website or whatever, you can store them someplace that's easy to give them to. But yeah, it's, it's pretty all over the place at the moment.

Keep it as low tech as possible for as long as possible.

Okay.

Okay. So I mean, like, keep it, you know, in a Google Drive.

Yep, that's.

Yeah. Right. Something. So what I ended up doing when I started building out like videos and, and trainings was like, what was it that I was getting really bored of teaching, you know?

Okay, yeah, it's a good point. Like, I don't want to say the same thing.

Yeah, so like acuity, that was the first thing that I did because I was just getting so bored of sitting down with every client and going like, click here and then click here. It's like, you guys can handle this on your own. And then sales training, you know, like it's the same thing over and over and over again. And then, and then I started like doing like beta testing group programs around those things and then realized, oh, this is missing. Like they don't know how to get sales calls booked. Okay, cool, so let's do that. And then really started piecing it all together. Byob, for instance, my, my group program, I did like three different, like, trials of parts of it before I rolled it out. And even after I rolled it out, I changed it and then I changed it again.

Okay. So there's really no point in like unless you have like a certain amount of like, experience and like doing the same thing over and over again to seeing like, okay, this is what I'm being asked over and over again. Yeah, Like, I mean, in reality it's only been like four different clients, so I wouldn't have the experience. And they were all over the place from different. So not to stress about it. Wait until a certain milestone.

I mean, I think about it like, who are you working with? You're working with people who are already super fucking busy. Are they going to have time to go and watch like a whole video library? Is that worth it to them?

Yeah. And so far I'm like still working on my ideal client. Is it like the, you know, the small business that has had, has one or two junior marketing employees or not? Or is it like working actually with like more CEOs or, you know, whatever, so maybe they would want to watch it. But then at the end it's like, I've also sent people already to HubSpot. Like, hey, HubSpot has a huge marketing library. Let's. Let's see if we can find something there. I don't need to reinvent the wheel every single time when we're just looking for, like, look, this is account based marketing. Like, read about it here and then next time we'll talk about it. If this is something you think you should do.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, eventually you might want to, like, put up a copywriting course for people who are too early on in their business to hire you, you know, but of course, like, we're not going to know that until you get some. Like here, here's your marker for it is if you get a bunch of sales calls from people who are too early on to invest in working with you one on one. Yeah, right, like that. I know.

I need like a little something else in between.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then you get to decide. Like, I get, I get calls sometimes with people who are like, I just don't know what idea to go. And I'm like, no, I have no interest in helping you figure out the idea. Like, go work that out on your own, you know, talk with your friends, talk with your therapist. Come back excited, you know? Yeah. So, like, not everything has to be made into a product or a course or a training or anything. You know what I mean? Good.

Needed to hear that. Thank you. Just to like.

Yeah, yeah. I think we see people who have been in business for a decade and or less, and we see them with all these assets and we think, okay, that's the benchmark. Like, I have to have four, I'm successful. And it's like we forget that they didn't have all that when they started.

Yeah, probably not.

Yeah, yeah.

So probably not. Okay. Actually, just give me a couple of ideas too. But yes, that is so helpful. For now, I'm going to concentrate on just the basics.

Good, good, good. Okay. All right. What other questions do we have?

The reason why I need this to be successful so we can keep hip and the other half sitting, like, entertained and have all the best experiences.

Yep, I'm here for it.

This is less of a question, but maybe a encouragement or. So I've gone and click up and I've like scheduled out, like, themes for the next 20 weeks and they, they kind of all are closely related to burnout and leadership and all these things. But then I'm like, oh, new idea. Right. And so then I'm like, afraid to like, break I'm like, do I just schedule it for after the 20 weeks or. This sounds really dumb, but I feel like I don't want to confuse things. And really the only person that's going.

To get confused is me.

But yeah, of, of like, how strictly do you stick to your own schedule of things?

I mean.

I.

There's like, the really regimented, like, here's how we run a campaign answer that's like, strict and, and I think that's great. And I think it also discredits that our intuitions reading shit in the universe that cannot be quantified in data. Right? So, like, if you're getting an intuitive hit of like, something that you're excited to talk about that day, there's a reason for it, right? There's a reason you're wanting to talk about your experience with something or a win that your client had. I, I am a firm believer that, like, we, we are reading so much more like we're connected to our ideal clients on a plane that we probably don't even have the ability to understand. And sometimes we'll just get an idea or like, something funny will pop in our awareness and we'll want to write about it. And I say trust that urge. I don't, I don't think it confuses anything if, say, say you're in the middle of, like, a launch and you have very specific things that you want to get out, then just post again, you know, post whatever you had scheduled in the morning and then post the thing that you wanted in the evening. Or you could reverse it, you know, oh, I was going to post this thing this morning, but why don't I post the thing that I'm getting an intuitive hit about right now and then I can post the other thing like, 12 hours from now?

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah. There's. I mean, there's no right or wrong way to run a business or to market yourself. There's the right way for you. I know something that I, like, have an ongoing struggle with is I'm an intuitive creator, right? So, like, when I create content, it's like I'm like, checking in with, like, what I feel needs to be said that day. Right. Um, and it gets messy because, like, you have really, like, awful situations like what's happening in the UK right now. And that's where I tend to get crunchy because I'm like, I don't know that I like. I know, like, there are supportive things that I could say, but I don't feel like Any of them, like, are supportive enough for me to actually post them, you know, and so I get crunchy around it and then I feel, I feel weird about posting. But of course, like, that isn't going to happen every single day. And also me getting crunchy about it doesn't help my business. Right.

Yeah, I feel like I'm either completely organized or completely not. That's why I like keep flip flopping between the two.

Yeah, well, and also remember, like, you know, as you're coming up with like your 20 weeks worth of content and you're writing it all out and you're getting set up, you. You need to create content regardless. And everything that you write, regardless of whether it follows that plan or not, can be reused later.

Yeah. And it's editable.

Yeah, exactly. You know, unless it's like super hyper specific to one day. Right. Like we only, we only turn 40 once. You know, you're not going to reuse that on your 41st birthday. But yeah, you know, make the plan, Follow the plan mostly, but also trust yourself. Deal?

Deal.

Yeah, we had like the biggest marketing interruption we've. We all live through the pandemic. You know, the world shut down and there were people who you saw were, were like mid launch or had planned, like started a launch maybe a few days before things got really serious. And people went for the jugular on those people because they stuck with the plan. And it's like, how insensitive of you is it to. Or how insensitive is it of you to continue to try to sell us stuff when like everyone's freaking out and everyone's worried they're going to die and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, like there are very few moments where something like that is going to happen where sticking to the plan is going to like get you in trouble. But it happens. Sometimes you do have to like, ditch the plan. Sometimes you do have to like, read the room and see, okay, well, what's needed now? Deal.

Yeah, totally.

What other questions do we have?

A money mindset question.

Yeah, yeah, mindset. And then Alex, Jason, Go ahead.

Yeah, so I listened to your video clip on sitting down and writing out what you want your life to look like. Designing that. In the process of doing that, I cannot get myself to a place where I believe that that's possible. Like, there's this voice in the back of my head when I write it out, when I'm like, I want to make 300 grand a year and I want to be able to work from anywhere. I want to work 25 to 30 hours a week. I want to do all those things. Like, there's just this part of me that writes it out, and it feels like I'm writing fantasy land. And I'm just wondering how. How to go from where I am right now, which is like zero, completely ground zero, to believing that that's possible. Because I think that I need to believe that that's possible to pull me through the heart.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. So two things. The first thing, you actually don't need to believe it, right? Like, you don't need to believe it. You don't need to believe that you know exactly how it's going to happen. Right. Our brains, you know, we're. We're trained from a very young age that, like, we have to know exactly what the plan is to get to where we want to go. Right. You want a high school diploma. Cool. You have to go through all four years, and you can't be absent more than X amount of days. You want to get a call. A college degree. Cool. Here are all the classes that you need to take to qualify for that degree. Right. You want a job? Cool. Here's a list of qualifications that you need to be able to land that job. And then you also need to interview well. And you also need this. And you also need this. Right. Starting a business, you don't have that. Right. You want to go somewhere, like, it's like, cool, I'm going to head in this direction. I just started rewatching Game of Thrones, and I'm on the second season where Daenerys is, like, is in the Red Waste, and it's like this desert. And you forget that she doesn't have an iPhone with a map where she can be like, oh, we're here. We should go this direction. Right. She sends riders out in three different directions to see, like, will we dive this direction? This direction, this direction. Where is their safety? Right. We kind of have to do the same thing with our business. Like, you get to. You get to be so excited about wanting those things that you are looking for opportunities for those things to come true. You don't have to know how they're going to come true. And here's a question for you. Did you know exactly how you were going to meet your spouse?

No.

Could you have planned on it? No. Could you have planned on how your life has gone together?

Definitely not.

Well, are you happier with her?

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. So sometimes we have, like, we can't imagine how things happen. Right. On the flip side, it sounds like you're trying to manifest from like your shadow space where you're doubting yourself. That's not where we manifest from. You know, we think so manifestation practices really gloss over the shadow work that needs to be done. Right. We think, okay, well, I have to be high vibration all the time and then from high vibration I'll attract more high vibration stuff and then my life will be perfect. And that's, that's, that's not how life works. That's not how humans work. Like, you miss a meal and you're out of five. High vibration, Are you kidding me? Right? So here's, here's a practice I want you to play with when you're not in high vibration, where you're feeling like really disconnected from, from that vision, that goal of what you want. Like, you just, like, you can't buy it. Right. So I want you to write this down. So you're going to set aside 5, 10 minutes to do a shame inventory.

Okay?

Okay. Very specific. You want to say I have shame or I am feeling shame, not I'm ashamed. We don't want to train your subconscious that shame is part of your identity.

Okay?

Right. And you want to create a whole list of like all the things that you're feeling shame around all the things that you have shame on. Right. And after about 5, 10 minutes at a timer, don't do this forever. You want to go through and you want to find the ones that are really, really hot for you. Right then. Right. And you want to look at like, what's the underlying belief here? What's the thing that I'm really believing about myself? Cool. And. Or what's the thing that I think is wrong with me that makes, you know, this really hard for me? And it's not about getting rid of that belief. It's not about, I don't want to say this. It's not about fixing yourself so you're perfect so that you deserve things. It's about understanding cool. I'm allowed to be afraid of this and also be successful. I'm allowed to wimp out on certain days and still get what I want. Right.

The.

Like, here's my practice that I do on days where I'm really not feeling it and I will set aside like a solid hour for it. You don't have to set aside that much time, but it's kind of a. Yeah. So low vibe days. You do your shame inventory and then based on what comes up, you want to do like, what are the sticky ones? You make a list of the sticky Ones. And then the things that you need to accept about those sticky ones, the things that you accepted about yourself. And if you do like tapping, you can talk. You talk through like, I accept this about myself and just go through all the things. If you do emdr, you can do that as well. And then we want to do like integration statements, right? What's your integration statement? And I like to do these along, like with the chakras. So I like. I know, I see. I. When I speak, I accept this about myself. I love that. Sometimes I fuck shit up, you know, I act. I act from integrity. And sometimes things don't go the way I want and that's okay, you know, I feel. And then I am. You get to also make this yours, you know, but like, we have to let that part of ourselves, like, get like, its grievances out. Right. We can't glance over it or gloss over it. Right. Because we're not going to be able to get into our high five days unless, like, the shadow work is also done. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah. How often do you do that?

I mean, I want to do it every day, but this says I haven't done it since January. So. No, I'm pretty sure I've done it. I've done it more since then. But like, this is. I have different journals in my manifestation thing and I kind of float in and out of different practices. But you know, if you can do that once a week, you can do like high vibe. You know what I'll do? I'll. I'll put together some instructions for high vibe days and low vibe days so that you guys can do them. But if you do it once a week or once every two weeks, like, it's really powerful.

It really, really helpful.

Yeah, it really does help you clear out the. That's holding you back. Yeah, but. But again, like, let go of needing to know how it's going to happen. You know? Did you ever watch that movie the Santa Claus? You know, like, when he's in the North Pole and he's like, what the. Am I on drugs or whatever? And the elf has to tell him, like, like, seeing isn't believing, but believing is seeing. You know, like sometimes, like, we don't have to see the path, we don't have to see the proof for it to still happen. Right. Like, things happen even though we don't believe them. There is this article I saw, and I say article, it was a TikTok about how they've discovered that, like, at the depths of the ocean where there's no sunlight, no ability for plant matter to grow. There's still oxygen. Like, there's still oxygen being produced that allows for fish and crustaceans to live. And they've realized that there are these rocks that generate oxygen. And they're now examining these rocks, and they don't know why, but their theory is that the rocks have some kind of magnetic thing that separate the molecules. So they are separating oxygen from the water molecules that are there, and it's producing oxygen. Right. Like, who would have saw that?

That's the. The only known creation of oxygen that doesn't include photosynthesis. They thought it was impossible.

Exactly. Exactly. So. So there's shit out there that's happening that no one believes is possible. Right. Why can't that be true for your business and your goals? Deal?

Deal.

Cool. All right, Alex, what was your question?

I feel like it's completely irrelevant now that we've talked so deeply about something. I was like, good way to remind yourself that it really. That doesn't matter. That was, like, a completely boring question. Just about, like, LinkedIn stuff. Whether you guys. And this is a question for everyone. Whether you guys like polished pictures, just a random picture of something or someone, like, from, you know, like, something me snapping a selfie or. I don't know, like. I guess the question is, like, do you guys tend to, like, look more at the polished things, or do you want to actually purposefully ignore the polished things? Because it. It looks so polished and. But I personally like both. That's why I'm asking someone else.

Or I like the same thing. And I get more engagement on the messier, just, like, snapshot versus, like, the things I create on Canva. I wish it weren't so, because I love creating this stuff on Canva, but it gets way less engagement than just a shot of me doing something.

The Canva is like, just. I mean, yeah, because it's fun to play with.

And it's absolutely. Like, if you're posting on Instagram, you know, it's important. But, like, Canva on LinkedIn really doesn't do much.

Okay. Because, I mean, it's another, like, 10, 15 minutes of your life and time and everything.

Yeah, totally. I think the only picture that I've ever posted on LinkedIn that, like, was Canva. That did well. Or the. The posted well was, like, where I had used Canva to, like, put in a banana for my phone. Right. Okay.

Something funny?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But honestly, like, you know, selfies, pictures of you drinking your coffee, all that stuff, it makes people Feel like they're hanging out with you, like they know.

You rather than, like, even if it's just an overlay of a, you know, like a line, it's. It's already created. Then, like, it's like this. Like, I'm not having a true conversation. I started getting that feeling. And I've. I don't know, like, for example, like, I follow Dave Gerhardt, who's like, a big marketing. B2B marketing person big. Like mediocre big. And I mean, he gets like, you know, 230 likes on just a post. There's not even a picture. You're like, oh, why am I, like, so overly obsessed about, like, creating something cool in Canva and creating my brand or something if. If that's not even, like, what's really always in the algorithm.

Your brand is you.

Yeah, it's just you.

It's just like, how you talk to people, how you make them feel. It's your sense of humor. It's how you look at stuff. You know, we don't. Especially earlier on in your business, you don't have to overthink what your brand is. You know, a few years from now, like, when you are scaling up and you want to, like, expand your reach and we figure out, like, what your scaling goals are, then we're going to want to, like, take elements of your personal brand and infuse your business with it so it feels like. Like it's you, but separate. Yep. But for right now, it's just you.

Yeah. Okay. Makes sense.

Yeah, I see.

Like, I'm so drawn to esthetics and maybe what you said, Yvonne too. Like, it's this. Like, I like creating and it's like. And then I love seeing all the pretty ones. I'm like, oh, I wish mine were to look like that because I'm personally so drawn to it. But that's.

Yeah.

I'm not my target audience, so.

Right, right. And. And just because you like seeing it doesn't necessarily mean you feel connected to it.

Yeah. So true.

Right.

Yeah.

Connecting.

Yeah. And we're trying to build trust with our ideal clients.

Yeah.

Like, when was the last time you saw a nice Canva thing? You're like, oh, I trust this person so much. Right.

That's so funny, because didn't we, like the. The connection trust? Wasn't that one of the content pillars that we just, like, established for myself the other day? So. Yeah, okay, good point.

Maybe.

That was my one and only Canva post.

I mean, honestly. So you have your cleaners there, right? Now, I mean, you're, you're a red blooded person. Did you clean before your cleaners came?

Oh, I tidy the heck out of our house. But I, yeah.

So like, honestly, you like, but this is something that's so human and everyone does it, right? But you taking a selfie of you with like a laundry bin full of all the shit that you're gathering to hide in a closet. You, like, my cleaners are coming. This is me doing like the clean before they arrive because I don't, I don't want them to know how I really live. Think about the level of trust because like, oh my God, I do that too. I do that.

Think of that content idea for next time I'm not in or not yet. A what? You said, like an intuitive content writer.

It's.

I'm not there yet, but yeah, that would have been a good one.

Yeah. But you know what?

Like more than a glimpse into my personality.

Yeah. It's something that you develop over time. Yeah. You know, I once did a content training for a bunch of my clients and I had everyone just share really weird facts about themselves and I shared that. Like, you know how dogs get that, like crusty stuff in their eyes, like eye boogers. I shared that. Like, I'll like pull them off and feed them to my dog.

Like, I do that too.

But everyone did it too. But it's like, it's something so weird. Like, like we don't talk about it. It's not like, like, like really gross. Disgusting. It's not like, not disgusting, but like for anyone who also does that, like, oh my God, I do that too. Like you feel like you have immediate connection, A click.

Moment.

Exactly.

Moment.

Yeah, exactly. And it's just like, okay, cool. Like that's, that's kind of what we're going for on social media. Right? And people who don't get it who are like, ew, gross. That's why I don't have dogs. Like, off. What's wrong with you?

Right, yeah, okay, just, I'm gonna write this down. Content idea for. Yeah, right. Two weeks when the cleaners are back.

Right, right, right, right. You know, I mean, if you're the kind of person who like makes coffee, forgets about it, goes to microwave it forgets about it in the microwave. Like, where my coffee, where's my coffee? Go back, goes back, makes another one, forgets about it, has to microwave. And it's like, here's my first cup of coffee. Take a picture of the two cups of coffee in the microwave.

Yeah. All these like, true you moments.

Yeah, yeah, my husband does that. I call it my bonus coffee because I'll always find our.

That's so funny. I'd rather just have cold coffee. I don't want to, like, put it out of sight, out of mind. Because if I. If I. I like. I'm five. Five minutes to enjoy the rest of this coffee or else I'm not gonna sleep tonight. So.

Too much humor.

Man, there's a. Oh, sorry. What was that, Monica?

I was gonna say fun fact. There are mugs out there that heat up your coffee.

Yeah, but they're too small. Someone bought me one, but it's only like 8 ounces. And it's like, who the only wants 8 ounces of coffee that's fairly short on time?

You just add ice and call it a day.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Alex.

No, the 12pm or like once time hits 12 before listening to Andrew Huberman, I was like, yeah, I know. Like, not too late. But ever since listening to Angie Huberman, I was like, okay, no more coffee for me. Yeah, I think you just identified yourself as a listener.

No, it was actually I had a concussion and I wasn't allowed to have caffeine for a year, so I was drinking decaf. And then once I went back on actual caffeine, like so much more. Which is great. Get me wrong, it really gets me going in the morning, but it also sucks at like midnight when I. I am regretting 4pm cup. So anyway. All right, so we're almost out of time. Want to do main takeaways? And then Alex and I are going to stay on to. To handle a heartbeat. Who would like to start us off? And we will Popcorn this so you get to voluntel the next person.

Yes, I'll go. Sorry, Monica, you go.

You raised your hand.

You did it the right way.

I like the whole building the assets as you're going based on what people.

Are asking you for.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Alex. Yeah.

That. You know, building connection is. And letting your followers build, like a connection with you is more important than the aesthetics and everything else. Yvonne.

My takeaway is have a plan, but follow your intuition.

Yeah, right.

Like, let it. Let it. Let you wander.

All right, Jason.

I don't have to know how it's going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll. I'll share. I. I never would have guessed that I'd end up with my business the way it is right now. I just. There's. There was no way for me to conceive of how things would go. The incredible people I get to work with the people that I would have on my team at this point, how I would have met them, like, like, beyond my wildest imagination. Like, fuck. Like, this didn't even exist when I was in college. Like, social media wasn't even really a thing back then except for, like, Facebook and MySpace. You know, we. We just don't have the ability to even imagine how things are going to happen. Right? So, like, yes, set a goal and have an idea of what you want your life to look like, but also know that, like, if you keep working at it, probably going to end up better than you can imagine. Right? All right. Unless everyone wants to hang out and watch Alex's screen. I really see your weekend and I'll see you next week.

Thank you.

Bye. All right, Alex, go ahead and share your screen. Share.

Wait, where is it? On Zoom.

I'll stop the recording in case you have anything sensitive.