BYOB Beginner Group Session 2024 09 18

Who are you talking to? I'm about to teach a class. No, They're going to hear you. They're going to hear you, and they're going to call the abused parents hotline. Hello.

Hi.

How's it going?

Good. How are you?

Good. We have a grumple kin who wants stuff. Happy Wednesday. It's so funny doing this challenge and then doing the calls because I feel like I'm hanging out with you all, all the time. What are we celebrating today? All good.

Am I the only one on the call? I can't hear other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

I don't know.

It's Jason.

All right.

Yeah. No.

Okay.

What am I celebrating? I think I'm celebrating just moving forward because it's been a bit of a grind getting back after being on vacation, and a lot of things in a lot of areas aren't going exactly as planned. But I'm just doing the work.

Yeah, yeah. Luna, what is your problem?

I. Did she just say good job? I think she did.

I think she did. She's so grouchy right now. Normally when I'm on a zoom call, she, like, knows that it's not a conversation moment. Okay. I'm not rewarding this bad behavior. I just want you to go away. Jason, I love that this is your celebration and also, like, get used to this. There's going to come a point in everyone's business where you constantly feel like you're just having to get back in the groove and just have to, like, celebrate doing the work. That's why we celebrate when we don't have something necessarily to celebrate. Right. Because, like, we're the ones that keeps the momentum going. We're not showing up and having a job where people just tell us, you know, what needs to be done. We have to do that. We have to keep it going. And so it's this process of constantly finding your groove and evolving it and making sure it's working for you and for your business and all that stuff. So love. Love that you're giving yourself credit for this. And also, I don't want you thinking that this is a phase that passes, you know, good news, bad news kind of moment. Yeah. Deal.

Deal.

Yeah. Love that celebration. Who else has a celebration they want to share?

Today is graduation day for my boot camp.

Yeah.

So on to my new chapter in having, you know, my evenings available to do other things.

Yeah. How many nights a week do you teach that? Three. Okay. Wow. That's a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's how I pay the bills and Now I don't have the money to pay the bills, so that's a little bit stressful, but. Well, we'll figure things out.

Yeah. It's a good thing you have other things you've been working on for a while.

Yes.

Yeah. Very good. All right. Congratulations to all your new graduates and Yvonne. What are we celebrating?

I'm going to celebrate the bright side of being a business owner of, like, the Freedom. Right. Like, there's been events that I've been able to attend. There's calls and reunions and things I've been able to schedule because I'm my own boss versus having to say no to things. So just the freedom.

Yeah.

The. The flip side of the coin of having to manage yourself.

Yeah.

Is that you do have a lot of freedom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's really special when you actually take advantage of it, which we have to be careful to do. Right? Yeah.

Awesome.

All right, well, I know we've been spending a lot of time together, but I'm sure there are questions and ways I can support. So what you guys got for me?

Okay. If it's okay, I'll go with one. I have one of the first people that I did an interview with and then did coaching with went completely dark on me for weeks after our first session. She just bought one session and then came back. And she sent me a long email yesterday explaining that, you know, things haven't been going well. She's stuck in our job search, deaths in the family. Like, it was a lot. And then at the bottom, she said, I can't wait for some things to fall in place, that I can get to work with you. And so. I know, but it feels bad.

What feels bad about it?

Because I feel like she needs help now, and it feels bad to be, like, sitting on the sidelines waiting for her to figure her out. Like, I. I feel emotionally not good about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So here's. You know that book I always tell you guys to read, Building a Story Brand. Okay. Donald Miller. I have it. I know. I have, like, seven copies floating around, and I can. I never have one on hand when I'm talking about it. Anyway, Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller talks all about the hero's journey. Right. And from a marketing angle, we have to talk about our clients like, they are the hero of the story. Right. We're just the guy that they come to when they're ready for us. This is also a great business lesson and coaching lesson. Right. We can't be the saviors for our clients when they're not ready for us. Right. It's a hundred percent within her ability to say, hey, listen, I can't pay you now, can I pay you later? She's not asking that. It is 100% on her to like get scrappy and figure out how she can work with you now. She could ask, she could have asked to pay for another session, one off sessions, right? In her mind, she needs to do some shit before she's ready to work with you. Right? Right, right. It's like some, it's like someone who's going through a divorce and really likes someone. But it's like, hey, it's not fair to you, it's not fair to me. It's. There's just too much going on. I need to sort this shit out before I can go and do this thing. It's not always logical, right? It's like folks who go to the gym and say, great, this is beautiful. Definitely want to work with a personal trainer. Let me do this. I'm going to go home and I'm going to work out by myself for three months and then I'll come back. Right. People, There's a point at which some people just need to get so sick of their own bullshit before they're willing to do the thing that they knew no needs to be done.

Right?

Right. It feels terrible for us, Right. Sometimes I get on the phone with someone and they're like, okay, cool, this is great. I'm so desperate for clients. No idea how to market myself. No idea how to sell your program. Sounds like exactly what I need. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go and get some clients and then I, I'll be able to pay for this. And you know, depending on the rapport up to that point, I may be like, cool. We look at this logically, right? You've just named this and this. And this is the main issues of why you need help. You know, do you want to try to do the thing you've already tried doing that isn't working already to get to the point where you can get help, or do you want to just get help now? Right.

Yeah.

Sometimes you can do that. Sometimes there's stuff going on like death in the family. You want to figure out how to walk that line.

Right?

But you're not running, you're not running a nonprofit that you don't require to be paid for your time. Right. At some point when you have enough clients and you're making full time income from this you can absolutely have a scholarship fund. Right, Right. But remember, people put in, get out what they put in. Right. Whenever I get something for free, I never do shit. If I get a discount, I walk away if someone offers me a discount because I know I'm not going to follow through because I feel like, oh, it's not, I don't have enough skin in the game. Right. That's me. That's me. It's not everyone's to that degree. Right. So for one, it's not your responsibility, it's a hundred percent her responsibility to ask for the support that she needs. Right. She may need to get to the point where she's absolutely sick of her own bullshit before she asks for help or invests in herself. And that's okay. That's some people's process. Right. And also like, she's not going to get that much out of it if you try to play savior. Right. You can't be the hero of her story.

No, nor do I want to be.

No, yeah, totally. You get to be the awesome guy that she finally figured her shit out to like go and work with.

Yeah. Can I ask one follow up question? So kind of in line with this, not with this specific individual, but I'm starting to notice some sparks happening in the background. Like some people are showing up on my calendar now.

Yeah.

They're going to my LinkedIn page, they're booking time with me. But the big but is that the people that I'm attracting right now are not the people that I want to work with.

Well, what's wrong with them? That sounds terrible, but what's wrong with them?

No, no, it's, it's the, the people that, that have been showing up have been people that have been wanting like free advice or people that are very like, like unemployed, have no money, no ability to hire a coach. I'm, I'm not getting that like six figure earner who is just so frustrated with all of the corporate and trying to figure out like what they want to do again to be happy, which is ultimately who I want to work with. So I'm just wondering if the fact that people are showing up is sparks that like I'm doing something or if it means I need to pivot.

So, so it's absolutely good sign. It's absolutely a good sign that you're, you're showing up and people are seeing it and thinking, oh cool, I would like for this guy to help me. You know, one thing we want to be conscious of is like, what is the Pain you're speaking to, right? Because what I'm hearing is you're speaking to the pain of people who are desperate for a job and not the pain of the person who, who like, needs to find their happy and still make six figures.

Yeah, right. Which is kind of where I'm at.

Say more about that.

That's, that's exactly where I'm at right now. That's why I joined this program. That's why, like, I, the thought of filling out another job application to go to another company makes me want to claw my eyes out. And the thought of having to get another boss makes me like, I want, I want to like crawl under my desk and cry, like when I think about that, because I don't want to work for anybody else.

Yeah.

And. But I also need to generate a six figure income to keep our world running. So that's kind of the path that I'm up.

Yeah. So maybe you start talking about something like the six figure prison, right? My clients are in a six figure prison. That's like, like, call it anything you want.

Like the golden handcuffs, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But like, if we're, if you're wanting to attract six figure earners, like, that's, that's the language you got to use, right? Just, you're in a six figure prison. You know, you, you make enough that you quote, unquote, should be grateful it's covered.

Yes.

Allowing for things to happen. You get to go on vacation, you get to do this, but you are miserable. Right? And like, you may be able to quantify that misery with like a toxic environment, a shitty boss, unrealistic expectations, having to overwork, but also not necessarily. You might just hate what you do. Like, and that's okay too. That's okay. Like, you don't have to have a gory, miserable story to justify. I don't want to do this anymore. Right. Your simple justification is, I live one life. There's no guarantee that I'm gonna get to do this again. So, like, do you spend how, like how many more years in this place that makes you miserable until the timing's right for you to change? Like, by the way, the Chinese, the timing is never going to be correct, Right. Or do you like, suck it up and put on your big person pants, your, you know, your, your adult pants and actually change something. Right? And then you go into some kind of language, language around, like, if you're ready to start being the narrator of your own story, you know, if you're ready to start, like making changes for you Then I'm your person. I, I help people who are in a six figure prison like, like design their six figure life, you know, like, like they actually want a life. They don't want to feel like they're trapped by everything.

This is the part that I've been struggling with, like, that I couldn't quite find the words for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's sometimes, sometimes our, our messaging goes off on tangents and we start attracting people who aren't our ideal clients. Right. And so at that point we always need to ask, what's the problem I'm speaking to? Right. Sometimes, like I, you know, I have a mental health, you know, healing journey that I sometimes talk about. I have ptsd. I was in an abusive relationship. Like, like I've dealt with narcissists in the world, unfortunately, you know, every time I broach those topics, I attract people.

Who.

Believe that starting a business is going to heal them. Right. Which we know is not the case. It actually brings out all the shadow work that you could possibly need to work on. Right. It can make things worse. Right. And so even though that's part of my journey and I like to make sure that people know that so they know that they're safe bringing that into the space if, if it's relevant, I have to stay away from it because it speaks to a pain that I, that like to, to protect the sanctity of this kind of space. I can't bring that in. Right. Because then it becomes a therapy session. Right. Then it becomes like a level of support that I, I'm just not qualified to provide. Right. So we all, and, and that's like a different example, you know, like you're, you could start attracting people who want like resumes. Right?

Yeah, I've seen that.

Yeah. There's not my bag. Susan Clark, who's another client of mine, she's based out of France, she actually does that with her clients. So I'll, I'm happy to introduce you guys because you might be able to refer each other, you know, clients.

Okay.

Yeah. But yeah, like you need to figure out like, what are the pains that that six figure earner is, is going through and like, what is it that they're getting so sick of that they're about to look for help to change, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. This is the beauty of, of being in this space. Like people. It's not like a leak in your kitchen, your kitchen sink. Right? A leak in your kitchen sink happens. Like it just happens. And all of a sudden you need a plumber boom. Like it's not like you're in, you're thinking, oh well, this pipe looks like it's about ready to start leaking. Like if, like we can't foresee it. Right. But the problems that you all str, you all help people, you know, overcome, they're all things that build over time. Right. And so you get to name, oh, you're at stage one. Stage one of this is this and stage two of this is this and stage three of this is this. And you do not want to get to stage four. Stage four is terrible. And, and you're not, you're not being fear mongering, you're not making shit up. You're saying, hey, listen, like this is where you're going.

Yeah, that's a story arc.

Yep, exactly.

They can fall into.

Yep. So, yeah, so play around with the pain you're speaking to. Also your tagline, I'm just looking at your, your LinkedIn profile. Stop putting up your dreams and start doing stuff that scares you. It's a little coachy, so it's not, it's not specific enough.

Okay.

Right.

Do you have any recommendations?

I mean, be as literal as possible or be as attention grabby as possible. Minus. Stop being a weenie. Right. And then I go into starting a business and all that jazz. Right. But people are like, why is she talking about weenies on LinkedIn for you? It could be, you know, helping six figure earners find their next six figure role, you know.

Right. Yeah, that's. I think that six figure earners is important because I, I don't want to be getting people that are making 50 grand a year and just, they can't afford me. That doesn't help them and it doesn't help me.

Right, Right.

Okay.

Yeah. And try it. It's not going to be the end all. Be all, you know, you get, you might not get anything out of it, you know, and the differentiator is you're not going to just help people get a job. Right. Because that's what a lot of, a lot of coaches do. Your bit, you know, career coaches, a job, they help you with the resume, they help you with this. You're, you're helping them figure out like, okay, you're miserable here. You're making six figures. You're pretty sure you'll just be miserable everywhere else. What is it about here that makes you miserable? So we don't, so we can sort out for that in your next role.

Yeah.

You know, what are the things that will actually make you happy?

Yeah. Because it's kind of like a wherever you go, there you are situation.

Yeah. Yeah. With this, we. And this is for everyone. Whenever we're talking about happiness, we have to refer it back to the three things that people spend money on. Getting laid, getting paid, and living longer. Okay. Okay.

Thank you so much. This is very helpful.

Good. I'm glad. All right, what other questions do we have today?

It's not really a question, but it is something that Jason talked about earlier of, like, when you have a client and then they kind of disappear for a while. I'm now understanding the benefit of signing someone up for a period of time versus, like, individual things, because I do have a client who's, like, a perfect client, but I initially had set us up to work together weekly, and it's just not happening that way. Right. Like, she's not ready. Like, she's absorbing so much. And, like, our sessions are amazing. We both walk away, like, really happy with the session. But then I won't hear from her. Like, she won't reschedule for two weeks. So it's just. It's interesting finding that nuance where I was like, well, wait a minute, you're really burned out. We need to talk more frequently. And she's actually like, I can't. She. She hasn't said this, but that's the sense I'm getting. Like, I can't actually take on that much.

Yeah, this is. This is. Every week is aggressive. It is aggressive. Like, it. Like, you as the practitioner, you're like, no, like, this will change your life. Right. You can see it. But for a lot of people, they get so much out of that hour that they can't take action on more than, like, 10%. Right. And then they feel like they haven't done enough to deserve to work. Do that next call. Right. Yeah. So, like, this is. This is a great feedback loop for you to really figure out. Okay. Is it two times a month? Right. Because I personally think two times a month, it's going to be just great for your clients to see a really dramatic.

Yeah, that's what I'm offering going forward.

Yeah. Yeah. And I might even reach out to her and say, hey, listen, I'm noticing that we had. We had agreed to every week. You're not using it that way. Do you want to redesign how we work together? Yeah. Right. Because it seems. I'm. I'm noticing that you seem to want more space in between our sessions. Right. And then what you can do is you can do an addendum to the agreement and just say we're doing away with the other agreement. The new agreement is we're going to work together for this amount of months. You get two sessions a month. You can book them however you want at whatever cadence you like, but they have to be used up within the month that they were given. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To. You know, it's funny, we think, like, oh, our clients want so much more time with us. They don't know what to do with that more time. Right. When I used to, when I first started doing this, I did three sessions a month. And the third session they'd be like, I don't know. I don't know what to ask you. Like, I'm already working on all the things we've already covered. You know, this, like, and then we'd find something to work on, but it would never be the thing that they actually needed to work on. Yeah, cool. What other questions do we have? I have a question.

Adding on to the question that I sent in Heartbeat around a pitch deck.

Like, yes.

I don't even know where to go with that. Yeah, I can google it to see, like, what it is, but I wanted to start with talking.

Yeah. And I'm glad you brought it up because I'm not even really sure where to go with it. And here's where I'm not sure is like, is it a blow off? Is it a plate blow off? Like, oh, we'll just send us something, we'll say that we passed up the ladder and then we. We've been polite to you. Is it actually, like, how they make decisions? So, like, in a pitch deck, like, for you to do a proper pitch deck, you have to understand what their problems are.

Yeah, I know. I'm like, I just want. I just want to, like, have a conversation with them. Like, hey, can we have a chat on the phone? Like, why do I need a pitch deck for this?

Is this.

That's why I was like, is this how it works?

No, no, no, no. This is not typical.

Okay.

That's why I'm kind of like, is it. Is it a brush off? Is it like, they're genuinely interested and maybe they just have, like a very analytical thinker as a boss that, like, has to be presented with something, like, physical. I would almost do, like, like a one or two pager on you. On, like, what you help your clients, like, solve, like, the problems you help them solve, the outcomes you've helped companies do in the past. And of course, you can refer back to, like, your previous jobs where you've implemented these things and just give them a little, a little background on you and, and then make it clear. Like I customize each program or each, you know, consultancy package to each client, depending on their needs, depending on the size of their team, depending on, you know, what their, their audit system needs to cover, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And yeah, if you need help with any of this or if this problem is popping up and you really want to solve it, book a call with me to find out more. Right. We want like a good headshot of you on there. Maybe not like that's a little real estate, but you know what I mean? There we want, we want it to be. And it can be big font. It doesn't have to be like you've packed it full of text.

Okay.

You know, make it scannable.

Okay.

Right. Makes sense. Yeah, that's more doable.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I've trying to think if I've ever had a client who had to send a pitch deck like before even having a conversation. I can't think of a single one. Right. Yeah.

Even with like corporate. Because remember, I'm back to no 100% with the boring corporate people.

No, even with corporate.

Okay.

You know, the most, the most I've had clients be asked for is like kind of just a one pager on who they are and what they do.

Okay.

But even that, like those don't necessarily lead to business.

Bought it.

Right. So like make one. Make one just so you have it. But it's all about booking the call.

Yeah.

And if you want to, if you want to make one mock it up and then have me go in and edit it, I'm happy to do that. Perfect.

Okay, Monica, I'm happy to share. I have a one pager that I've passed around to HR friends and different organizations. Just a one pager.

Okay.

Not to say that mine is the one that works or hooks them, but just to give you an idea of like a one page, one what that looks like because it's like really high level stuff. And then when they're interested, that's when you get, have the conversation and then create the actual pitch deck. But I'm happy to share that.

That would be awesome.

I'll drop it into Heartbeat and tag you on it.

Okay, thank you so much.

You know, Monica, because. Because you're already pretty comfortable with video and you're doing a lot of trainings. You know, it might also be interesting to like show, do a video where you're kind of showing them like, here's what's possible for your business. If you could create like, I don't know, some mock up data sets and like reporting that you pull from it and showcase like how much time it would take. And as, as you go through the video, be like, cool. So what I help clients with and have like a list of problems that they have, like burnout, they're working too many hours, they're missing stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They need to stay updated on new requirements. You can say, listen, like, you know how, how everyone has been doing. This is manual. Yeah. Time, take this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here are all the problems with it. I help you move from this to a more automated model that helps your auditors do their jobs better in less time. So you're the company saving money. They're not paying a ton of that overtime. And, and these are all the other benefits. And then like, here's kind of what it looks like. When you have this set up and have like the data set, you can say this is a mock data set because I don't want to share the actual data from any of my clients. This is not sensitive information. Don't worry. And you know, create the data set and then have a report come from it and, and have it flag like some kind of information in there. If you can manufacture that and you could have it on your website, you could have it be like something that people can share around because that gives them a better idea of like what it is that you do. Yeah, right. Yeah. And then you also want to throw in there, you know, I don't just do this for you and then have you be relying on me forever. I actually train your team on how to maintain this and how to, how to utilize it going forward. Yeah.

Right.

Like hiring me is not a forever cost.

Yes, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah, I can totally do that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Awesome. What other questions do we have?

I'll ask another one.

Yes.

Because in the content meeting you were talking about how you don't want to use your coaching language. Right. But I'm still, I'm still having problems with. Because this month I'm, you know, for this challenge, I'm focusing on trying to reach out to the audit folks and I just feel like they resonate more with that audit language versus, you know, generally.

Yeah.

So, so, so then I, I'm like, like trying to play with that.

Yeah. So again, like the alien check. Right. So if. So if you're using a term or referring to a person that not Everyone knows you have to immediately describe what it means.

Okay.

Okay. So if, if it helps for you to. Because everyone understands you're creating content for social media, you're not just sending them like a personalized email. Right. So they're not going to hold against you if you explain a concept that they already know. Okay, Right. Because what we want this to do is we want it to not only speak to your ideal clients, but to their spouses, to their best friends, to their neighbors who kind of know what their friends do, but aren't 100% sure, but they know what they they about. They know the problems that they're constantly complaining about.

Yeah.

You know, they may have similar, similar complaints, but like, you might not be the right person for them, but they can still comment on your post. Yeah, this happens in my job too. But then it gets in front of their people because they've commented on your post. Right. We want, we want pretty much everyone to be able to read your post and know exactly what you're trying to get at, even if there are words in there that they don't have in their vernacular. Right. And maybe they've learned a word from your post. Okay. Right. So you can still use the technical language, but make sure that you're just immediately. Which means like, you know, skibidi, gibbit, which means this thing. Like. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

That'S.

That. Yeah, that's helpful because I've been trying to completely avoid using any of the terminology and I'm like, this is difficult.

Yeah, yeah. You know, and that actually might be like kind of a funny post for you to do occasionally, like audit folks or people with really technical jobs. Try to describe what you do without using any technical language.

Ooh.

You know, Like, try to use, try to describe what you do without using any like industry language. Right. So people who do sales can come in and be like, I talk about products and talk about all the good things about the product and then in exchange, people will pay my company money so that they can have the product.

Yeah.

You know, oh, this could be a fun exercise. I was just thinking, how would I describe it to like a kindergartner? Right. It's like I help people not cry at work.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. How would you describe it to a kindergartener? How would you describe it to your 89 year old grandma but doesn't understand anything about the new world? How would you describe it to an alien who's just arrived on this planet? You know, that's a good engagement post. Yeah. You know how Would you describe it to, like, someone who speaks very little English? You know, how would you describe it to someone who just got out of surgery and is still kind of messed up on morphine? Or, like, I don't know, like anything that, you know, there's like a barrier to communication. Right. Yeah. Good enough.

Yeah.

Thank you. All right, what other questions do we have today?

Sorry, go ahead.

I was gonna say Luna was being such a terrorist and she didn't even eat the treat that I gave her. Anyway, continue. Sorry, Go for it.

I have a humor question.

Yeah.

Because there are times in my life when funny things happen and I'm. I'm really drawn to that. Like, yeah, my wife and I like to watch 22 minute comedies. That's our jam in the evenings. But when I try to translate into writing those funny things, it falls flat. It doesn't work. What's, what's, what am I missing? How can I. Because I. I generally think that sometimes I'm funny. Not always, but sometimes. And I'd like to be sometimes funny online, but it's right now not working.

I want you to give yourself a little more credit than that. You are funny. Even the way you said that was funny. Oh, God, I just made these worse. Okay, anyway. Yeah, so do you ever call one of your friends, just say, oh, my God, the funniest thing just happened or the dumbest thing just happened, and then you go in to tell the story? Yeah, like, tell them, tell the story like that. Right. Any bits that your friend knows, that's like a given because they know you better. You can explain that a little bit more. Right, right. You know, like, for instance, I'm just making this up. This did not actually happen. I, you know, it's pretty well known that I hate doing laundry. I. I post about it fairly often. It's always like my go to comment when people talk about housework. You know, I could write a post about how, like, my laundry pile was possessed, you know, and of course, like, it's. It's always there. Like, it's like there's a pile of clean clothes and then a pile that grows over the week of dirty clothes, and they just kind of live next to each other, right? And I could say, like, the dirty laundry pile started moving. Started moving. And I'm like, oh, my God, like, is there a ghost? Like, what's happened? And it's like, then like, my cat has made a den inside the dirty laundry pile, and now it's even dirtier because it has cat hair on it. Blah, blah, Blah. But, but like first, like, maybe I was falling asleep one night and it started moving and I'm like, oh my God. Like, and I almost like beat it with a bat. I don't know. You. Like, that's a story that I would tell my friend and they would know that I wouldn't have to describe the laundry thing because they know, they've been to my house and they've already judged me about it. Right. People online, I would have to explain my, my reluctance to do laundry the proper way. But then I can just tell the story.

Right?

Right. And also, like, being funny in writing is just something that you have to practice. Right? And, and actually like a huge part of this is reading funny things.

Right?

Right? Reading funny stories, seeing how people tell the story. Actually I have a book.

Where is it?

There's a book, Comedy Writing Secrets.

Okay.

I've only read like 7 pages total of this, but it's, it's pretty interesting. It's by Mel Pulitzer with Mark Schatz.

Okay.

But yeah, like, you know, how do I say this? Like, you're all learning to becoming, to become copywriters, right? This is what they don't tell you about becoming a business owner is that you also have to become a copywriter in the beginning. Right. This is really hard. People spend years learning how to do this. Right. You're not going to be perfect at it over overnight. You're going to tell a story that you think is funny and it's going to fall flat. Right. It's almost like doing a stand up show. We know when you're testing out jokes, right? You don't know. Dave Chappelle is a great example. He develops one show a year. When he does, when he's working actively, he spends all year touring at all these unknown to comedy clubs, just testing out jokes, testing out jokes, doing them again and again and again and seeing like how he can change them and evolve them and then anything that makes the cut makes it into that final show. Right. Thankfully, we're not comedians. We don't have to be funny all the time. Right. And like the barrier, like someone reading something on LinkedIn, like the barrier to funny is not that high, you know, But yeah, like you get to play with it. And also like you can't write something funny when you're, when you're feeling stressed out. So if you're trying to write a funny post and you're like getting more and more stressed out and annoyed, that's not working. There's no way that's going to Be funny, Right?

Okay.

For me, like, my funniest posts when are, like, when I think of something funny, like while I'm in the shower, while I'm brushing my teeth and I start going to myself, I'm like, oh, I can't wait to, like, say this online to my friends. You know, like, wait for those moments to hit you, is what I say.

That's good advice.

Thank you.

I know I struggle with that because I try to explain it more than just saying it. And so I get caught up. I don't know if that's the adhd, but I'm just like. And then. But what I'm trying to say is. And the reason why that's funny is, I mean, not exactly that cringe, but I just, I explain too much of it rather than just saying it.

Right? Yep. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. I think, like, what's an easy way for you to do this? Like, so when you're thinking of something funny that you want to write, what I recommend doing is opening like the voice note on your. Or the voice record on your phone and just tell the story as if you're leaving a really long voicemail to a friend who, you know, would think this is so funny. Oh, my God. The funniest thing happened the other day. This, this, this. And then, you know, that person. Oh, my God. And then they came in and. Right. And then, and then go and just like, transcribe that.

Okay.

Erica, you just came off mute. What's up?

I was just gonna say, what if you just actually did send the voice note to a friend to test out how funny it is and use that transcript of that voice note? Because now Apple's voice note transcribes the stories.

I mean, you absolutely can, but just because, like, your friend thinks it's funny doesn't mean. Yeah, I mean, if they don't think it's funny, I think. I think people still will. You know what I want you all to get used to doing is just like trusting your gut, right? Because the more checks you put in to, like, as a barrier to you posting something, do you know how long it's going to take for you to get anything done? Right? If you're waiting to hear someone thought something was funny and then like, you lose the juice around it, going to be a lot harder to write that post. A client literally just texted me as I'm saying this, saying posted it anyway. She had asked one of her, One of her circle if she should post a picture of her holding, like, doing something. And they're Like, I don't really like it. Right. Your people are going to have opinions about all the things. Right. They're not your clients. They're never going to buy from you. They're your friend. Right. They, they don't have need of your services. And also their fear gremlins are also your fear grow months. Right. They're going to think, oh, my God, I don't want my friend to be rejected. I don't want my friend to be, like, perceived in this way. They're judging it by a whole different set of values, by a whole different set of outcomes that they want for you. They don't really understand what you're doing. So checking in with other people, like, you know, if you want to, like, record yourself telling the story to a friend and it's easier than just like doing a voicemail or a voice note at nothing. Absolutely do that. But don't, don't, don't get into the habit of trying to make sure that other people approve is what I'm saying. That makes sense. Except for me, make sure I approve of everything. Just kidding. What else do we have on this. Guy?

Just have a question of just.

The.

Showing up part for yourself. Because I think times that I just. Even with the scheduling and things like that, there are times in which I don't know if it's overthinking or, like, slowly moving, then slowly getting discouraged about just like, oh, I want to get from here to here, but my progress is not as fast or as, like, much as I wanted. I think what. When it comes with, like, the whole building your business, is there something that you go back to about just like, saying, like, these small wins are what helps me feel like, okay, like, at least like, the needle is still moving.

Yeah. You know, if everything always happened to the timeline we want, we'd all be millionaires. We'd all have, like, these giant businesses. We'd have the team set up exactly the way they need to be. We'd have investment accounts. We'd have our second homes and vacation areas that we love. Life doesn't happen that way. Right. And we have this expectation that if you show up every single day in your business, like, the timeline should just go to the way you want. Right. And I'm guilty of this too. You're not the only one who's like, it's not going fast enough. Like, I want the results that I want right now. Right. If we constantly hold ourselves to the expectation that that is how it's supposed to be going and we're Just not matching up. So we're behind. It's gonna crush your soul. And I'm not, I'm not being, I'm not exaggerating there. It will crush your soul. You're gonna destroy your self confidence. You're going to start really having a difficult relationship with yourself because you're gonna attach labels like lazy, stupid, you know, not creative enough. Whatever, like whatever is the most harmful thing you can attach to yourself. You're going to start doing that. Right. So can we agree to like set that, that timeline aside? Right. And also like whatever that big goal that you want, like we have to reverse engineer it to where you are right now. Right. It's like oftentimes like for you say you want. I mean I know, I know what your ultimate goal is. You want to have like this agency where you conn. Influencers and creators or in creatives and, and companies and you want to be able to do all this. You're going to need a pretty large following to be able to enroll these people. You're going to need a lot of relationships built, a lot of trust. You're going to need some capital, you're going to need some money to be able to invest in bringing creators in so that they can do the creative work for the influencers. You're going to have to figure out like what has already been being done on the market and how can you innovate it to make it more appealing to influencers. Right. Like there's so many pieces of puzzle that you just don't naturally have right now and you're going to naturally acquire them by doing the rest of the work that you're already doing. Yeah, like you are already setting yourself up to build the foundation of the building. But you can't just build a foundation on top of a field. Right. You have to dig, right. You have to pull out some, some tree stumps. You know, you have to like notice where there's a gas line. You probably shouldn't dig there because you know you're going to blow some shit up. Right.

I think I like this is coming in terms of tying from reflecting yesterday and some within. Even within, physically speaking I feel like I've been through a very long journey and then I was doing like a side by side comparison photo of just like where I was and where I am now. And I was just kind of surprised that even though I feel significantly different from the person who was like the prior mentally and all that stuff, I was just thinking about how I, I'm like surprised that Physically, it's not as drastic as I felt mentally. And so it almost bled into, like, how I feel now. More ready to do freelancing than or, like, build this business before, when I initially started during COVID But then it's just. I think I'm starting to have that thought process, so I'm like, okay, let's that back, because that's not gonna help anyone here.

I want to make sure I'm understanding correctly. So it feels like your physical environment, your physical self, and a bunch of other stuff, like, they just don't fit anymore, I think. Yeah.

Like, I'm thinking about just, like, making investments and stuff like that of changing the environment. And I think I'm just nervous.

Yeah. Yeah. So what does your favorite self want?

My favorite self?

Yeah, the favorite version of yourself. The part. The version of you that you so enjoy being every single fucking day.

Oh, my gosh. Like, the freedom and capacity to just, like, work anywhere and everywhere with, like, my friends around. Yeah.

Okay, cool. So here's your homework, is I want you to spend some time with your favorite self and flesh out what that means to you. What does that look like? Get granular with the details. You know, Are you moving to an apartment that has a massive living room that you can have an espresso machine kind of set up shop so friends can. Can come over and work with you? And you have a constant supply of caffeine, Right? Like, do you have a dog and have, like, three dog sitters on call so you can go on a weekend getaway if you want to get. Get really hyper specific about what your favorite self wants in your life right now. Right? Because, I mean, as humans, not even as entrepreneurs, as humans, like, we outgrow old us, right? And often times we just kind of, like, follow along with what we think society says that we should do next and what we should want next. Right?

Right.

And we all come to a moment, we're like, oh, this really it. This isn't really. Like, this makes other people happy, and I'm fine with it. But, like, is this what I'm really about? Right. When we tap into our favorite selves, that's. And it might not be a big change. It might just be a couple upgrades, a couple shifts, like, no longer spending time on this, spending time on this. But when we spend time with our favorite self and we design a life for them, that's where our businesses get massively successful. That's where we stop having shame about shit that, like, we actually really love about ourselves.

Right?

So everyone if you want to do this homework along with Erica, go for it. What is the life to the minute detail that your favorite self wants for you? Because whatever that is, we can reverse engineer a business to support that. Right. We're not just here designing businesses that can be arbitrarily successful on their own. Like the business has to work for your life, not the other way around. Eric. I'm not sure if that's helpful.

That is. That is very helpful. I've been thinking about just like taking that script. Honestly, like, did the whole tick tock chatgpt, write your like list to do's of your what your bucket list is and ask for like a 24 hour dream life thing. But I think being able to write it on my own versus just like have a computer write it would probably have a lot more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the ChatGPT is great to throw out ideas of stuff that you maybe didn't think of wanting, but we want, we actually want the weirdest. We really do. You know, like, we just do and like, we don't give ourselves permission to make it okay for us to want it and then to make it real. That can only come from you.

Right.

An add on to this exercise is acknowledge where you already have a version of the thing that you want and like how you can make it a bigger part of your life. Cool. Final question today before we move into main takeaways. It. No going once, going twice. All right, main takeaways. Who wants to kick us off? Monica? I'll go. Trust your gut.

I liked that one.

Thank you. And who are you picking next? Jason?

I'm really gonna play with the, the six figure prison. Like that turned a light bulb in me and I've got to go process and write about that.

Awesome. And who are you picking next?

Yvonne?

I really like the conversation about humor.

Right.

Like I've, I've been on this kick to be just more creative and have more fun with it. And I think it's, it's worth playing with the humor piece even if we do it badly.

I'm sorry. One more resource for funny things is the Moth. The Moth podcast. They do story slams. Like, not all of them are funny. Some of them are heartbreaking. Some of them are very serious. But when you get a funny one, like just filling your. Your brain full of funny stories and different ways to tell them, such a powerful tool. All right, and then thank you, Yvonne. And then Erica.

Definitely reverse engineering the. My perfect person. But also just like the, the focus on we are becoming copywriters so in addition to everything else that we're doing, it's like we're doing that.

Yeah, yeah. And I. I just want to check on in on some verbiage thing there. Perfect person, not. There's no such thing as perfect.

Right?

Or no, like, that's not ever going to be the goal because it's not attainable. Right, Right. Favorite. Favorite person. The version of you that you most enjoy being in every single moment. Right. Right. Cool. All right. Awesome, everyone. Great job today. I. Do we have a weird long delay till the next one? I don't think so. I think it's just normal. A normal two weeks. But I'll be seeing you pretty much every day in the challenge, so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, you know where to find me if you have any questions and I'll see you soon. Thank you. Bye.