Conversation with Jody Moore | Ep #58

Hey, I'm Chris Plackey, host of the Lead you'd team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy. And whether you're just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific, and clear practices you can use right now, today to improve how well you lead your team. Let's go ahead and get.

Okay. Hello, everybody. Welcome, welcome. I'm so excited to have the first of a few interviews I'm going to be having with some amazing women who I know and have worked with for quite some time about how they're pivoting and how they're negotiating what is just an unparalleled and disruptive time in our time as business leaders, but also as family members and families and community members and so forth. So I'm super excited to have Jody Moore join us today. Hi, Jody Moore.

Hi. I'm the first. I didn't know that. You're exciting.

You're always first.

So I'm going to have Jodi talk a little bit about herself here in a second. But I'm going to talk about Jodi, too, because I've known Jodi a very long time. Long time. What has it been? Do we think? Do we want to.

Probably 11 or 12 years, I guess.

Yeah. Jody and I used to work together in a former life, and then we just. Our lives kept intersecting professionally and then by natural path, just personally, because I love her and I just like to sit next to Jody and be close to her.

But Jodi is.

Things wrapped up. She is.

One of the best coaches, I think, on the planet. She's somebody I go to when I need help to help me think. And she is a wizard when it comes to how she thinks about how to serve her client and her community. She just has really, really sound and simple but. But, like, obvious solutions that she's able to come up with. And so I've been, you know, as. As I always am reluctant to say this because it sounds like a little maternal, but I have been very proud as I've watched my friend Jodi grow in her business.

Yeah. Because you taught me, let's be honest, a lot of what I know today. Yeah.

I might have started it. Let's start with. Let me introduce you. Yeah, there we go.

You introduced me to the coaching tools, but also to so much that it serves me today in my business about leadership and so many things.

Well, thank you. We've been good partners for a very long. We also have fun times in Mexico together.

That's right.

So what I want Jodi to do today is, first of all, I'm going to give you a minute. I want you to talk about your business, and then I really want to just get in your brain, because we know so much of where success comes from. Our ability to be resilient, where all of that comes from is starts in the mind. Yeah. So let's talk about you and your beautiful business. What do you. Okay.

I have an online business where I coach mostly members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which is the church I belong to. So most of my clients share my same faith, and most of them are women mothers, stay at home moms or working moms, just navigating, you know, life, raising kids, marriage. A lot of them have a lot of goals that we're trying to achieve. So anything that fits under the coaching realm in terms of either solving problems or achieving goals, that all is at least in alignment with the values of our faith.

Yeah, I have a. It's evolved over the years, but today it's a membership style business model where I coach and teach classes and offer tools online in group format.

And you know what I love about what Jodi does is while you have your.

Tribe, your community originates from your Latter Day Saints community. Everything Jody teaches you guys, we all need to know.

Because you also have a wonderful podcast. Right. And so the name of your podcast is Better than Happy. Say that again.

Yeah, no, that's right. Better than Happy.

Better than Happy. The name of her podcast is Better than Happy. And she just again, like these pearls and these gems. And I know that Brooke and I will even talk. We both read all your emails.

Oh, that's so nice.

She said to me, she honestly was just on a walk. She just said, I just read Jodi's email. You talked about some webinar or something that you're going. You're doing. And Brooke's like, yeah, I think I have to go to find out what the answer.

Writing that email. That's so nice. Yeah, I mean, I do get people ask that a lot. Like, if I'm not a member of your church, you know, and the truth is, my emphasis is on mental and emotional health. But a lot of times clients will come to me, and if they're struggling in a certain area of their life, they want to know that I understand how their religion comes into play. And so I understand that part. But even within my own religion, I have. There are varying levels of belief, and so it's really not about Me imposing my religious beliefs on anyone so much as I understand how religion plays a role in your head and in. And then in your life.

Yeah. Compliments, everything. It's beautiful. Yeah. So it's been lovely to watch you grow this. And I know that, you know, I work with clients who have online businesses. I work with clients who have brick and mortar. Certainly a lot of the. A lot more of the clients who are public facing. Right. Interact with the public every day in a building are more significantly impacted right now by the shutdowns that are happening or the shelter in place or whatever your language is, state that you're in.

Yes.

But I'm kind of curious for you, like, this was like a rolling tide. Right. How this all came together across the US I would love to know as a business owner, not necessarily as a mom with your own kids and a family, but just as a woman running a business, what were your original or if you can recall your initial thoughts when you started hearing about this happening?

My original thoughts were sort of panicked, to be honest, because even though I have an online business, I heard it described this way, that, you know, a month ago, as a society, we were operating at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And so people were focused on self actualization and personal involvement. And what this pandemic has done is dropped us all to the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy. And now we are just worried about survival.

Where's the toilet paper? We all are.

Right.

I just offered a client on a Zoom call. She had a thing of Clorox wipes sitting on her counter behind her. I'm like, can I send you $87 for those Clorox wipes, please?

Supply and demand.

Yeah.

Fortunately, another client held up another bottle and she's like, I'll just send you these for free. I'm like, you're a good sweet. I would have paid you $87 for them, right? Yeah, absolutely. Such a great analogy.

Yeah. And so. And so what I offer to me falls more in the middle of the hierarchy. Like, really, if your marriage is struggling or you're really unhappy, that's a pretty important thing to pay attention to. But not as important as, can I feed my family and pay my rent? And so I did worry a little like that what I'm offering, at least in some people's minds, is disposable, if we're just worried about the basics. And in my program is a really reasonably priced program. And so it attracts a lot of people who are living paycheck to Paycheck. And so if you got to start cutting things, my coaching program might be one of the first to go. So I was a little panicked. And at the same time, I know that what I offer is really useful right now. It's emotional and mental support. So, you know, I would say I was 50. 50. Half of me worried, half of me like, you know what? No matter what happens, we're going to be fine. And. But yeah, yeah, I'd like.

I think that that's an honest. I think a lot. All of us probably went through that. Right. I know I did. I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is my client. Right. Business owners are going to be the hardest hit, probably initially. And yet, of course, then my other thought was, but no, this is exactly why need to work with people right now, because I can help people through this. So I think that's very honest and real. You know, it's something that none of us have encountered before. It's also.

I know, right?

How do you do that? How do you make your brain handle that when nothing seems like it's just not real? And yet it is.

Yeah.

This is the way I've been thinking about it, both for myself and my business and with my clients that I'm coaching is this is a time. And I sort of learned this terminology from you, actually, in a course that you used to teach on difficult people where you would talk about changing your lens length. And I find that that's really necessary right now. So I can't really tell you what I'm going to be doing in my business even a month from now. Last year, I could have told you what I was going to be doing all year, at least what I thought I was going to be doing.

Yeah.

It's like being willing to bring that lens in closer helps me because this is the analogy I've been using is like, I feel like we're all trying to solve a puzzle that's in the future. So we don't even know how many pieces it is, what shape the pieces are. We don't even know what the picture is that we're trying to. And that is so stressful to the brain, because the brain wants to be able to problem solve, but it can't attach to, like, any variables because we don't know what the variables will be. And so the only puzzle I know I can sol the puzzle that's right in front of me right now, those are the pieces I have. Those are the variables I'm aware of, and those might change tomorrow. Or next week, but when I bring that lens length in and I know, even though I know, like we're not going to go back to how things were or any of that, but we are going to get to a point where we're able to lengthen our lens again and we're able to see further ahead. So this, like, really short term, let's just decide what we're going to do this week or this month and then we decide next month. That part is temporary. And so I'm okay with like, hey, this is the puzzle we're solving today. And when my brain wants to freak out of what are we going to do in six months? I just tell it, I don't know yet because I don't even know what puzzle we're going to be solving in six months.

Oh, I love that analogy because that's something I know I talk about a lot, right? Like, we all think we know exactly how life will be, right? And you're right, especially in business. We make our annual plan, we have our quarterly plan. We just believe that'll be that way. And we have such a level of certainty and then safety comes with that too. Like, we feel safe. Like, well, of course that's all gonna happen, right?

It doesn't.

We'Re like, wait, we're unsafe? Like, you were never really safe or you were never really unsafe. It just depends on, right? So as long as you believe what you're saying is like, I don't know the puzzle, but I know what I can do today.

Well, and when I get to that future point, then that puzzle will be there and then I will get to work figuring out how to solve it. So I constantly am telling myself that like, if and when that problem even occurs, then we will have to deal with it then. But this kind of short term emergency type thinking doesn't serve us always. You know, we have, we want to have quarterly plans and annual plans and 10 year goals, but in a crisis like this, you bring that lens length in and that's where I find peace. The other thing that I think about that's been really helpful for me is I've always thought about this with my business, is that there are times in my business, or even just certain activities in my business that I call sowing activities and others that are reaping activities or reaping times. And so, you know, like, even just a month ago, I would have said it was more of a reaping time in my business where like a lot of the work I've been doing over the past six years is paying off now, and we're seeing the benefits of that. And as soon as this pandemic hit, I'm like, zoom right back into sowing mode. Like, I am planting seeds. And I don't mean like I'm strategically, hey, one day I'm going to cash in on this. I just mean this is a time for me to show up and serve my community and over deliver to my clients and over deliver to people that are not my clients and put as much good out there as I can. And one day that is going to come back to me. I don't know how. I don't expect it in a direct, linear way, but I am, like doing massive sewing right now in terms of planting seeds. And I don't know what that will do in the end, but that feels like the right thing to me to do. Not that I've stopped selling either. We're still doing that, but it's a, it's more of a sowing time in my business. And then there will be reaping time in the future.

I love, love that. I think there's a lot of, lot of value in that from a service perspective. That's certainly been my thought that it's just, how can I help? How can I help? How can I help? This is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm just all in. And I also love it because I think it helps us stay very focused and our brain gives your brain direction and purpose. A time where it could be very confused and idle and.

Destructive. Much free time with your mind. So, but I am curious because I think I've heard, you know, I definitely heard some of my clients say, yeah, I wish I could be creative right now, but I can't even like, yeah, I can't find it. I can't get to it. So do you have any advice for someone who might be thinking, yeah, I would love to be taking advantage of this and sewing, but I'm like, either scared or I'm, you know, homeschooling 14.

Children, which I think you have to make space for all of that as well too. I think if what you're capable of and what you need is self care, that's what you have to contribute to the world is to take care of yourself. I'm okay with that too. I don't mean that everyone has to be going out, you know, serving in, whatever. I don't mean that has to look any sticker.

It could be serving your family or even like, you Said serving. Yeah, because a lot of people are discovering, like, I haven't been taking care of my body and now I can do things I've never done. I can sleep in a little more. I can take nice long walks. I can meditate, whatever.

I haven't seen anything, but I'm finding.

I'm finding, yeah, little things like all of us eating family dinner together every night because we're not all going 12 directions. And I'm like, oh, I can make dinner, can't I? Like, I've been telling myself, I can't or I hate it. No one will eat it. I'm like, oh, no, we can do this. Yeah. So there's a lot of good coming out of it. You know, I heard Martha Beck this week talk about change. I don't know if you heard her webinar, but she talked about, you know, she uses the analogy of the caterpillar and entering chrysalis and melting down into this gooey, icky pile of mush, which is what we're all experiencing right now, that ultimately becomes a butterfly. And I think we are going through an evolution like that. But I love the analogy she gave of that caterpillar, though. Needs a cocoon. And a cocoon might be a relationship. It might be a show that you're watching on Netflix. It might be called Outlander.

Called Outlander.

It might be any number of things that. Where you hold space for you. And maybe part of that is holding space for your children and your family. But I love that idea of like, yeah, I got a cocoon in whatever way. I cocoon right now when I'm feeling that meltdown. And I find that when I do that, I make space for that. I have like, peaceful music that I listen to at night when I'm going to sleep because my, you know that you have to turn off all the noise, whether it be positive or negative. I don't want to hear about coronavirus at 9 o' clock at night anymore.

So, like, music helps me cocoon. Just going for a drive helps me cocoon. And when I do that, I do have personally, a lot to give. I have ideas. I see people suffering and I know I can help. And to me, I'm so grateful that I have that because it's a distraction and it's something I can do. But that doesn't mean everyone should be doing that. I don't mean to say that. Right.

Well, I do think there's this intuitive wisdom that we all have to follow. And, you know, if you're feeling like you're cocooning because you really can't deal. Then you. Then you probably need either a coach or you need, you know, you need somebody who will come and help you or a really good friend who can. You can talk to. So I think it's powerful, you know, and you and I. I think depending on where everybody is in the country. I've been saying this to all of my clients and it's been interesting because I coach clients in all of North America and I've been on. I've been in shelter in place for almost 13, almost three weeks, maybe just under. Whereas some parts of the country it's word at the time of this recording, it's only been a week. And so there's an evolution that everybody also is going through through that process of like that initial, like, okay, we can make it work. And then there's like, wait, what? That's right. With these people and, and people, you know, if you do run a business, you start to feel. Feel it more in your business. If you are a business that's affected. And so. And then what I'm watching now, which is so interesting, all of my coaching calls this week, there's been at least one, if not more than one woman on the call who said so I don't really know if I want to build it the way I had it before.

Which is sure. Which is sort of a gift, right. It's like a re. Like the reset button got hit on the Xbox and we all get to decide what do we want, how do we want to rebuild this? And we're going to rebuild everything even better because we know more.

It's going to be brilliant. And people are adding parts. You know, people who've never had online or adding online to their business or they're shutting down parts of their business line because it didn't really wasn't lucrative and they're just getting rid of it. And you know, where they might have had issues with people pleasing, now they don't because it's like, nope, can't keep it. Or they were always afraid of online because it was so intimidating. And they figured it out in three days.

Doing that. So, yeah, I just think it's gonna be if we really do take the opportunity because you're absolutely right. It is a gift if we allow ourselves. If you're healthy in a time when, you know everyone is very concerned, they won't be. Right.

Right.

Everybody isn't or is not healthy. Yeah. So I think it's important to really, really capture it and not Be afraid of what you might learn about yourself and what you really want.

Yeah, that's right. And I know this looks different for everybody in every business in terms of what they're able to keep offering right now, but for anybody listening, I know I've experienced a little bit of drama about, like, should I be selling right now? You know, and should I make all kinds of exceptions for my clients? Like, if I have a clients that have lost a job or whatever, do I accommodate that? And I think it's a. You know, those are. Those are decisions that everyone has to make individually. But I heard Russell Brunson talk about, you know, your business thriving through economic downturn like this, and he's been around long enough to have experienced some of it. And I love the analogy gave in the movie Forrest Gump, when, you know, Forrest and Lt. Dam buy that shrimping boat and they go out and they're not having any luck. And then all of a sudden, a big storm comes. Comes all the other shrimp boats head in.

Yep.

They stay out and they weather that. They're the only ones that stay up there. Right. And they're in that huge storm, just getting knocked all around, but they weather that storm, and then the next morning they head inland, and all the other shrimp boats have been wiped out from the storm.

Wow.

And that's when overnight, they become billionaires. Right. So he talks about that this is the time to weather the storm and in whatever way that is, and that you got to stay out to sea. Even if you're just barely out to sea and you're not catching any fish, you're still out at sea. And that. That making offers in a responsible way, of course, is what will help our economy. We need people to keep spending money, to keep money moving.

Yes.

So I. That helps me when I get in my head about, you know, should I be charging for this and what have you, I'm still charging the same amount. I haven't changed my policies at all. I'm just over delivering for my clients and the general population. But I still need to make money. The economy needs to generate money. There's nothing wrong with asking for money, with making money. Yeah, I said it.

I agree with you. I'm like, if you have the capacity, like, there's some people who legitimately, their businesses are shut down. That's right. Have the ability to make money. I think you have almost like a responsibility to make money so that you're supporting the people in your community. You can still pay your hairdresser and your local restaurant that you love. My biggest fear, honestly, is that three months from now, my favorite restaurants aren't here. That's going to be unacceptable to me. So I'm all in. Right.

Me too. I'm like, we're going to get curbside takeout every week. Because I want to support them. I want them to still be here. I'm trying to help them weather the storm, too.

Exactly. And some of them might decide, wait, do we even need to have, like, a restaurant? Maybe we should just do this delivery thing. It's probably better and more lucrative. All we need is a kitchen.

I can't wait to see what our world looks like on the other side.

Oh, we are on the beginning of. I think. I just think a ten year, like.

Yeah, evolution.

And so what I love about that is for everyone listening, don't be afraid of the wisdom that's like whispering at you right now because you might be thinking, I had a client say this to me the other day. She laid off all her employees. And then she said, like, she got this whole other part of her business going. And then she said, I don't really know if I want them all back. Mmm. Okay.

Yeah.

Time to revision. We got to go back to what? The beginning. What's the vision that you then like, you knew you were. You built one. Mm. What's the next one? So let's not be afraid of what this is introduced to ourselves. Because, Judy, I know we've all said this, right? If we could just take a break for a minute and think.

And look at now. Everybody has it.

That's right.

Not when you maybe planned on it, but that's right.

You have it. That's right. This is here whether we want it or not. So I might as well use it as the opportunity that it is.

And so the last thing I want to talk to you about is that because I have these sort of steps that I think are really critical that I've watched the clients that I'm working with who are kind of weathering this, as you said, weathering the storm and making it work in a way that works for their business. Right. Without knocking themselves out at the same process is the final step is being willing to take a lot of risk, take risks while being seen. And I think a lot of people are okay with risk if it's, like, in a crowd and nobody really notices. But, you know, if you are the only person kind of standing out there and helping people, then there's a lot of visibility for failure just as much as there is for anything else. So what has kind of come across out of your business, Ma? Just what have you noticed about your clients and what's happening in your community that you've put into the world now that you didn't used to do that, you know, required some of that risky?

Well, we started a bit of an offshoot where so in the LDS Church, we have, you know, 19 to 21 year old boys and girls who go out and serve missions because of coronavirus. The majority of them have come home or are sort of in a holding pattern and they're really struggling right now. And I realized that they're struggling, you know, obviously mentally and emotionally in that we can help them. And so we just quickly threw up a program. We didn't overthink it, we didn't try to make it perfect. I have a couple of coaches that work for me that I coordinated with and we created some classes and some coaching calls to help them. So, you know, the risk there is. There's again the question of do we charge for this? How do we make it really affordable and try to accommodate as many people as we can, but still help people get value and generate revenue and just all those decisions and then you have people's judgment about that and then, you know, it's new for us. Working with young people is different than coaching adults. And so it's new for us, but. And then there's even a lot of judgment about whether or not we should be doing this or if we're overstepping our bounds. And you know, church authority is supposed to guide a lot of those things. And so I just have to keep my head focused on my motivation is good and pure and I feel good about my motivations and people allowed to think whatever they want. And yes, we may fail at it even, right? But the alternative is we don't show up and help people. And I really like Kelly McGonigal, wrote a book called the Upside of Stress. And she talks about one of the things that stress does is it helps us connect. And either that's me reaching out for help when maybe before I was like, oh, it's fine, I can do it on my own. Or it's a stepping up, wanting to help. Like you look at 9, 11 and Boston Marathon bombing, and immediate response is like, what can I do to help? How can I help? That's partly how we cope with stress, is say, how can I help? And so for me, where as of now, everyone in my family is healthy, thank goodness, and my business hasn't been too severely impacted so my feeling is, how can I help? How can I help? And so maybe it is just for me. Maybe it makes me feel better to try to help you.

But there's a really great byproduct if you create solution for people because you're.

Trying to help you, and it's a win either way.

You do kind of have to have thick skin. At least that's what it is for me and my business. Where the risk is, is the judgment. People have a lot of opinions about whether I should be doing this or if I'm doing it the right way or if I should be charging or not.

Yeah, or if you're capitalizing. That's a big.

That's right. That's right. Capitalizing on a crisis. So I'm pretty good at, like.

Yep.

You know, you're allowed to think what you want.

Go ahead. You know what? I. It's just interesting. As you were talking, I just had all this kind of gel in my brain. So Jodi and I worked together, right? We worked together in a former life. And what really brought us together as colleagues and friends was a huge disruptive crisis in a business that we had both worked for for years. And we were watching it fall apart. And there were the people who were kind of the pointy, fingery, blamey victimies. You know, I don't have any better words for that. And then there was sort of this other group of us who were like, well, we're gonna help the people who are still here and who want to show up. And, you know, because my mantra always was in that time was, if you decide to get up, wash your hair, put on your makeup, put your lipstick on or your tie or whoever you are, and you walk through the door and you say, yes, please pay me for this day, then you have a responsibility to show up.

That's right.

And so for the people who wanted to show up, I just felt so like, I'm going to help you have a mind that helps you function in a time that is. It is difficult. It is so confusing and uncertain, and like, we. We ripped away people's comp plans. Nobody knew how they were getting paid anymore. Like, it was total mayhem, really, when I think about it. But I think we were able to really be sources of support and service.

At a time where a lot of leaders. We were very rudderless in a lot of ways.

That's right. And that got me through that, too. Just stepping up, going, how can I help? I know. Or even saying, I think I can help in this way. Let Me help. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

And, like, stress connects people. And I think that was true for a lot of us. It's like we found each other because we all wanted to be parts of the solution, whatever that was going to be. And we thought we knew we had the answers, so we went about the business of teaching them.

Yeah, but there were a lot of people, at least around me, telling me, you should be mad about this. You should be worried about this. The ship is sinking. And you. I really gravitated to you in that time because you were like, well, maybe, but maybe not. And maybe we don't have to focus on that. And we're like, we're allowed to believe whatever we want. Like, maybe there's a better ship coming, or maybe it's time to get off this ship. And, you know, I just remember, like, yeah, that's right. Well, and you look. Now, I don't know about you, but I look at my life now, and I'm so grateful that I had that experience because I learned so many things, and I still adore my time at that company, but I'm so glad I'm where I am now.

Oh, my gosh.

I don't know if I would have got off that ship if it hadn't sunk, we hadn't been kicked off.

Yeah. I think it's a truth. And that's why when this all started happening, I really did have all of that kind of research for me. I was like, oh, wait a minute. I know how to do this.

Yes, that's right. I did, too.

Come on, follow me. And I love being able to be that kind of instrument for change for people in these moments of uncertainty, because it's so painful to not be.

It is. Yeah, that's right.

And we can create that.

So.

Oh, my gosh. I just love you so much, and I'm so glad you're on my podcast.

Thank you for having me. It's so fun to chat with you.

Okay, so let's just tell people where they can find out anything and everything about you. Where do we go?

Okay, well, like you said, my podcast Better than Happy is a good place if you want to hear my voice more. And it is a fabulous.

And that's on itunes and all places.

ITunes and all the places where podcasts are. And then my website is jody moore.com. i always have free webinars, classes, all kinds of great stuff there if you want to go.

Okay, great. We're going to have all that in the show notes so that people can click on links if they prefer to go to them, but it's Jodi with a Y and more with an E. Yes. Just in case you know that. All right. Thank you for being here. I'm so grateful to you for your time.

Thanks for having me.

Everybody else, have an incredible, credible day. We'll talk to you next time.

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