Do you like surprises?

I can taste. I can taste. Foreign. Hello and good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset coach. Welcome to my live, everyone. I am super excited. A week from today is my birthday, and I love my birthday because I get to do cool things for the people I care about in my world and I get to do whatever the hell I want. And so I have a spot surprise coming, and it's not the whole topic of this live, but I just wanted to let you know there is a surprise coming and I am so, so super delighted. Oh, no, no, no. Hold on. Good. Okay. I am so delighted to bring it to you over the next couple days, but. Oh, no, hold on. All right, we're good on Instagram. Okay. So excited to bring it to you over the next couple days. But to make this a little fun, because I'm not going to tell you what it is yet and I'm not giving any hints. I want to hear from you. Either DM it to me or put it in the comments. What do you think I'm going to be doing a surprise on? What do you think? Am I going to be jumping out of a cake? Probably not. That would be really hard to do when everyone is so dispersed over the interwebs. You would really just wouldn't be able to appreciate it in its full glory. Also, that seems very messy and I like my clothes. Anyway, whatever you can guess I am gonna do as a surprise for my birthday, please send it to me because I am going to be going live tomorrow and I will be reading out everyone's response. Okay, so. But I want to own that aside. So that is your homework. Please tell me what you're guessing I'm doing as a surprise for my birthday. Hi, Nor. Welcome. All right, so. But I have to tell a little behind the curtain story. So much stuff has gone wrong in me rolling out this surprise and relaunching my BYB program. So much stuff. And I am not one to pretend like I'm perfect. I'm far from it. I lean into the mistakes. I lean into the imperfection. Because I want you all to be able to see that that is just the nature of running a business and that the world doesn't end when things don't go to plan. Okay, it does not. I know it feels like it does in the moment, but it doesn't. I know from experience. Okay. And so I really, really wanted to come and talk about how you lean into imperfect action. Okay? Because that's the only way your business is going to grow is if you let go of perfectionism and dive head first into just doing side story. So I recently hired two incredible virtual assistants, Terry and Lois. They're out of the uk were they're helping me with my social media. They're doing all the graphics and everything. And I've actually hired them because I'm going to be utilizing them to do social media for, for a lot of my clients going forward. I'm so excited to be doing this. And of course, like whenever you're starting something new, you kind of have to pilot it. So I decided to use myself as a guinea pig, right? And I adore them and they're brilliant and they do just absolutely gorgeous work. And also this is our first time working together and so I gave them a bunch of instructions, I gave them a whole breakdown of all the content that I wanted to go out in May with instructions. I even did like a video explanation, explanation of what I meant. And I, I'm shocked that they didn't think I was absolutely crazy. But you know, we went through all of May, we have one week left, you know, for this month of content. And the first two weeks they, they told me they were so nervous because they were worried about doing it perfectly for me, when really my expectation was, you know, do it. And it's going to be an adorative process, you know, because we've never worked together before, you know, we have to find our groove. And I'm going to get better at giving instructions and you're going to get better at understanding what I'm asking for. And my point to them was really, I would rather that you do this imperfectly. I'd rather you do this shitty than me not do it at all. Right? Because let's be real, I'm busy. I'm serving my clients, I'm relaunching a program. I don't have time to go and play around on canva and make 20 pieces of content for a month of stuff. Just. It's not going to happen, right. I would rather someone else do it shitty than me not do it at all. All right? And that's. They're not doing it to you, they're doing it beautifully. You know, we've had a couple things that need to be corrected, but of course that's to be expected. And the reason I bring this up is because it's the only way that you're ever going to reach any of your goals is if you are willing to take imperfect action to get there. That's it. That's it. There's no such thing as perfect. There's no such thing as doing things the right way. Okay. There's doing things the right way for you. That's it. But you have to figure out what the right way is. And the only way you're going to find what the right way is is by doing it and trying it and realizing, no, that didn't work, and, no, that didn't work, and, no, that didn't work, and that really didn't work. But this kind of works. This thing right here works a little bit. And I'm going to double down. I'm going to try it again. I'm going to try it again until you find your groove. Okay? That is what starting a business is all about. Okay. It's always so funny to see new business owners, because I relate so much. I felt this way when I started. They go out and they do a couple things in their business, and they get so discouraged because it's not working and they're not getting clients and they're not making any money, and they feel like they're just failing. And I remember feeling that way. I remember sitting in my little office that I rented in San Francisco because my apartment was tiny and my roommates were very, very loud, and it just didn't feel professional for me to have client calls with all that racket in the background. And I remember sitting there and just like. Like grinding away at all this busy work that I thought was going to get me clients and just feeling like I was spinning my wheels, which I was. That's. That's the nature. Hi, Louis. Welcome. So that's the nature of starting a business. And so. But I wouldn't have found out what worked if I hadn't grind, ground, ground, grinded. How do you say that? What's. What's the past tense in this context? They ground your wheels or grinded your wheels. I don't know if. If we can have the grammar, please. Please come in. I wouldn't have figured out what worked for me. And if I hadn't figured out what worked for me, I wouldn't have realized what could work for other people. So I wouldn't be able to help the clients that I have today. And I just want to tell you, like, I was there, and I got past it, and it's beautiful on the other side. Okay. It's gorgeous. It's just incredible when you're able to support yourself doing work that you really love. And I watch clients all the time, like, double down into the things that work for them. Not the perfect things. The things that work for them, that get them to the next level. And it's beautiful on the other side for them, too, okay? But you have to let go of perfectionism, okay? Perfectionism will kill your dreams. It will. And welcome. Hello. So here's the beautiful thing about when you dive into taking imperfect action, okay? Because action raises your vibration, okay? When you start taking action and doing things in your business, it raises your vibration. You know, the universe starts paying attention. People start paying attention, right? You can't sit in your room by yourself and just, like, work on a blog that you never post, or maybe you post, but you don't share it anywhere and expect to get clients. That's just not how it goes. You have to go on social media. You have to go out and you have to meet people and you have to tell people what you're up to. You have to take action. You have to put yourself out there, right? When you put yourself out there, it raises your vibration, right? It you start believing, oh, my God, I'm in business. I'm a business owner. I am taking clients. I'm doing this. Wow. And that excitement, that lift, other people notice it, and other people tend to, like, lean in towards it. Because I want you to imagine, you know, you're walking, you know, down the street and it's kind of dusk, and you see like, a light, a bright light, you know, coming up down the street, and you start paying attention to it. And not because you're threatened by it, not because you know it. You're going to that place, but because it's just standing out, just brighter than the rest of the environment you're in. When you start taking action in your business and start putting yourself out there and being brave and just, like, own that you're a weenie and act anyway, you. You become that bright light. And people who are walking down the street just can't help but watch you and pay attention, and they start noticing no volume on the gram. The gazelle. Hmm. Does anyone else on the gram have volume issues? Can you let me know? Let me see. Does that work? Is that better? Can you tell me if there's volume on the grammar? Okay, if you guys aren't getting volume on the gram, then there's volume. I Hope on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter. You can find me at any of those places. But I apologize, the volume actually isn't working on the gram. That would be annoying anyway. But if you can let me know anyone who's watching on the Gram, please tell me anyway. But when you start taking action, you become that bright light. People start paying attention and if they happen to need what you're selling, guess what? That's their opportunity to buy from you. They can't buy from you, however, until you do something, until you take action, until you raise that vibration, become that shining light, and let yourself be seen. Okay. You have to. I'm assuming because people are logging in and logging out of the Instagram. It's probably just not working, so. Oh, well, we'll see. Anyway, see, imperfect. This is imperfect. It's going wrong. As I'm talking about things going wrong. Like how meta are we getting here? Anyway, I just realized I told everyone to come and watch me on the other stuff when the audio wasn't working and they can't hear me because that's not how that works. So anyway, we're just gonna, we're just gonna skate past that. This is the second day in a row I've had issues with Instagram. They went down yesterday. Like there were. There was a two hour window last night where Instagram was just down. You couldn't post, I couldn't even see my own profile. Nothing was there. So I wonder if Instagram is just having. It's just on the struggle bus a little bit right now. Talk about imperfect, right? It's a, what, multi million billion dollar app business, Whatever. And things go wrong, it does hurt them, but it doesn't end them. Right? Okay, so you are taking action. You are letting go of perfectionism and your vibration is rising and people are noticing and you're attracting more clients and more attention and you start to believe that you can do this. You really start believing that you have something here that you can go forth and do the thing. When this starts happening, this is where you start getting feedback. This is the only time you're going to get feedback in the first stage of your business. Okay? The feedback that you get in the very, very first stages is, oh, that's so nice for you. You're starting a business. Let me know how it goes. Oh, you're doing this thing. Oh, that's cute. Oh, oh, you have a side hustle. Oh, you have a little business and it's patronizing af. It's so annoying. Okay? We hate, hate, hate, hate hearing that as new business owners. So if you have someone who's starting a business in your world and you're saying that to them, please stop, okay? We don't like it. But like, that is the only feedback that business owner gets for Their first three, six, nine months of their business until they start taking action. Until they start. Oh, James, we do have volume on Facebook. Thank you for jumping to Facebook. That's so sweet. I'm glad you're able to join anyway. Well, I don't know if you jumped to Facebook. Maybe you're just there the whole time. Anyway, I'm getting really distracted tonight. Anyway, so you're raising your vibration. You are attracting people. They're interested in what you have to. To say. They might even be buying from you. Let me see. Michael, what did you have to say? You're so lucky to have flexibility. Me? No, you're Katie. Thank you. Yes, I am Katie. Oh, man. Thank you, guys. But here's. Here's the moment where you get. You get the feedback that you're in the right place at the right time, that you're doing the right thing, okay? Let me tell you, starting a business is one of the scariest things you're ever going to do. I say it over and over and over again because it is so true. Because there's no guarantee this is going to work, okay? We all know the failure rate of new businesses, okay? We know that there are so many people who get started every single year and they don't finish out the year with that business. We've seen loved ones just fall flat on their face and have to go back to jobs they hated because they tried to start a business and it didn't work out. Let me tell you, when you take action, let go of perfectionism and raise your vibration by letting yourself be seen, that is the only way you are going to get that feedback that you're doing this right? That is the only way. Okay? When. When you start seeing results, it shows that the only person who is limiting your success in your business is you. That's the only person who is limiting the success here. And. And. Hi, Jim. I'm just gonna wave to. I'm just gonna keep waving to all the people who are on Instagram because they're joining and they can't hear me. And I just feel bad anyway. And I feel bad just ending it anyway. It's just like the Phantom Live. They don't know what I'm saying. I could be saying awful, weird things. I could be telling, like, all the secrets of my life. I could be. I could be sharing all the gossip I know and they will never know. It's okay. I actually don't know that much gossip. Not that. And the gossip I do know. I don't think any of you would be interested in anyway. But the point is, you have to take action. You. You can't. You can't just keep doing what you're doing. If it's not working, you can't keep doing what you're doing. Okay? That's the. That's the definition of insanity. If it's not working to get you clients, if it's not working to build your business. Yeah, Jim's saying this. He can't hear. Yeah, I know. Sorry. Anyway, you have to take action, right? And the only person who can control that is you. The only person who can decide to raise their vibration so that they can attract more clients is you. Okay? If you are the problem, you can also be the solution. Okay? But just stopping the fucking problem. Just stop it. Like, come on. I just want to circle back. So my birthday is coming up next week. I love my birthday. I. I'm an adult, and I just get ridiculously excited for it. Usually when I lived. When I lived in San Francisco, I would have, like, a massive picnic and I would just tell everyone I, like, remotely cared about to come and do, like, you know, byob, you know, bring snacks, you know, whatever. And we would just have, like, a great time outside and just enjoy each other's company. Since we've gone online and since I've moved away from California and all my friends have dispersed into all the four corners of the world, however, I like doing some fun things online. And I have a surprise that's coming, and I'm going to be letting you in on the secret over the next couple days, but I would love to hear what your guesses are about how. What the surprise is. And there's no guess. It's too silly. No guess. Because tomorrow I'm going to be going live and sharing all the guesses that I get in. So if you want to guess what I'm going to be doing for my birthday surprise, please let me know in the DMS or in the comments. And James and Michael, thank you so much for joining. That's it for me tonight, folks. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset coach. Thank you for joining, and I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Bye.