629. Winging It is Better Than Planning - With Emma Isaacs

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Here we go. Oh man, you guys. Okay, Like, I get excited about guests, but I'm telling you, I'm out of my mind excited for this next guest because she is going to change your world, hopefully as much as she has changed mine, if not more. This woman has quickly become one of my favorite people on the entire planet. No exaggeration. I don't know if I've ever met someone quite as generous and someone who has just lit a fire underneath my ass. And you better get this book because it's one of my new top five favorites for sure. So I'm not going to make you wait. Today I have Emma Isaacs on the podcast and she is the founder and global CEO of Business Chicks. A business owner by the age of 18, property investor by 19, and self made millionaire by 23, Emma Isaacs has entrepreneurship and achievement in her DNA as founder of Business Chicks, a thriving global community that operates on two continents in 11 cities. Her team produces more than 100 events annually with past speakers including Sir Richard Branson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Brene Brown, Diane von Furstenberg, Kate Hudson, among so many others, and as a committed philanthropist, has now raised more than $13 million for various nonprofits. I also have to add that Emma has connected me to so many of my incredible investors for Light Pink. This woman is completely all about helping women get to their goals and achieve their dreams. She's also the author of the bestselling book Winging it, which I told you is my new top five favorite. Released September 2020, it's endorsed by Seth Godin, Mark Manson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Arianna Huffington, and many more, and builds a beautiful case for going after your dreams without having a Perfect roadmap to get you there. And I'm telling you, winging it has been exactly how I've done everything in my career. So I was so excited that she wrote a book about it because you need to know this is how it's actually done. Emma is a mom to six kids aged 11 through to four months and recently livestreamed the home birth of her sixth child from her living room. With tens of thousands of viewers tuning in to watch this peaceful arrival. She doesn't believe in work life balance, preferring to advocate for a full life where people are in constant evaluation of what they truly want from it. A fearless leader from seemingly never ending courage to spare, Emma inspires thousands with her boundless energy and ability to see possibility everywhere she goes. You guys, this podcast is going to blow your mind. So let's get started. Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm super excited to have you here.

Yay.

I'm excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this chat.

So thanks for having me on. Yes.

Well, I have to tell you, I was so excited to have you on because I got your book in the mail and it is the cutest cover. I just have to. I'm obsessed with design and also the title. So I can't wait to dive into the title of your book, which is Winging It. Why Action Beats Planning Every Time. And I have to tell you, I am a big fan of Winging it, but I also think there is a big description and mean like what that means to you behind it and the preparation of Winging it as well. So I can't wait to dive into what this looks like in life and business and networking and relationships and all of the things. But because maybe there's only one person who's not familiar with you on this podcast. What we're going to do is just I would love for you to kind of just give us a little bit of your background story because it's so interesting. You had a really young start in the entrepreneurial world. I would love to hear about that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So you can probably hear from my accent that I'm not from here originally. I'm Australian. I was born and raised in Sydney, Australia and moved to LA five years ago. Now. Bradley and Angelina love it here. See our future here. Half my kids have American accents and the other half have Australian accents. That's kind of cute. But yeah, as you said, I started out in entrepreneurship super early. I had my first business when I was 18 years old. And how that came to be, just really briefly, was I went to university, and I only lasted for six months. For me, uni just wasn't going fast enough. And I love to learn through experience. I love to learn through the doing. And I just feel that I get where I wanted to go through sitting in a big, cold lecture theater.

So I dropped out of uni, and.

My parents were very, very disappointed, obviously. But really quickly after that, I met someone out at a barbecue one weekend, and she said that she just started a little staffing agency. She put temporary and permanent staff into different companies, and they were looking to hire someone.

So I walked in, had the job interview, got the role, and very soon.

After I started there, her and her partner parted ways. And as he was walking out the door, he said to her, if you're going to offer equity to anyone in this little business, you'd offer it to that kid sitting over there. And he pointed at me.

So that's how.

It's a very, very abridged version of the story, but that's how I came to be a 50% shareholder in a little recruitment company at the age of 18. And I spent the next seven years building that company with my business partner. And we did really well. You know, we got it to about team, about 40 people. It was a fantastic culture, you know, really, really fantastic foundation in, you know, small business and entrepreneurship and taking risks and dealing with clients. And, you know, I really got my kind of university degree for those first seven years, you know, on the job. After that, a girlfriend invited me along to a business chicks event. And my initial reaction to that brand name was, that's terrible. That's a horrible. It's a horrible company name. And, you know, I'm a ser. Entrepreneur and I'm a feminist. I believe in women. And, you know, I'm not going to anything that calls themselves chicks. And she said, come on, just, you know, come and give it a shot. So I walked into that room and fell completely head over heels in love with the concept of business chicks. You know, there was music playing that everyone was really happy to be there. It was like the sisterhood on steroids. And I felt just this super sense of camaraderie. And, yeah, it was just a beautiful community. So I ran back to my staffing agency and I said to everyone, let's all become members this organization. Let's buy three tables of the next event. We did all that. And at that event, I learned business was for sale. So I ran up to the lady at the end And I said, listen, I have no idea what I'm doing here. I never run an event before. I have no clue how to grow a membership organization. But I want to talk with you. So I ended up buying the business off of them. That was 15 years ago now. We started with 200 members. We now reach a 500,000 women across the globe. We pre Covid produced about 110 live events. So with speakers, yeah, like Richard Branson, Dan von Furstenberg, there's Gilbert Renee Brown.

Seth Godin, Arianna Huffington, you name them.

We probably have them on our stage. So that was 15 years ago. And I honestly, honestly, honestly I'm still as excited about the business as I was when I started out eight years ago. And it's been such a joy to be able to do this work. Obviously highly turbulent year, but I'm still as excited about it as I was back then. So that's a bit about the backstory.

Oh, I love that. I would love to dive into just a little bit more about that business because it's such an amazing business model which you've also had to pivot so much. And obviously I'm sure that there was some incredible roadblocks along the way because it goes from, you know, like buying the company to not knowing anything to having it be super successful. What were, what were some of those moments like where you bridge the gaps? Because right now I so I so feel you. I'm in the beginning of a brand new company that I know nothing about. I'm starting an alcohol company. So for me the question is always like, you know, in those places of the not knowing, how did you find, did you find people? Did you piece together a team right away? What was kind of your order of like your crash course in taking over this company?

Yeah, I love that. And it's a really, really, really big question. Obviously I go into a heap of the practical steps in the book which we won't be able to get through today, but it is, I get it, I get it. It's really hard to listen to entrepreneurs who went from like zero to hero and it just looks like it happened overnight. And we all want to have that path pieced together for us from A to Z. So I think the first step for me was really to interrogate the business model and understand how the business made money. And really at the start there was no way to make money. It was a pure play events company which, I mean you run events, you run a lot of events and you know about this, you know, events Fall into the revenue stream of very skinny margin, you know, very high effort in terms of resourcing and just very little return. So I quickly saw that we would not be able to scale a business based on a pure play events model. So I started to think about how else we could bring in revenue streams to the community.

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So obviously the next piece of the puzzle was to come up with a paid subscription model. So, you know, our membership is a paid membership, and that's been a phenomenal way for us to build community and have annuity income that ticks over every, you know, every night and every morning when we wake up. So that's fantastic. Next thing was to really look at how we commercialized through working with brands and other companies. So we have a fantastic B2B business.

Where, you know, anyone from an auto.

Company to a credit card or a bank attaches to our products and sponsors our different activities. And that's always been a really, really great revenue stream for us. And I think what I did in the early days was really try and leverage off of brands that were a.

Lot bigger than us, because I knew.

That I could leverage off of a brand with a huge name, then that would elevate our brand name. Right. So I didn't go to there's anything.

Wrong with the local yoga studio on the corner.

There is not. But, you know, I just knew I'd have to go to the biggest and best to start with. So once I had one of those under my belt and the other brands started getting interested. A similar strategy with the speakers that we had, I knew that once we had, say, a Richard Branson, you know, it would be a lot easier to leverage off of his brand and get other speakers of that caliber as well. So, yeah, interior business model was one of the ways. We also run a digital media business where we are featuring stories and producing content every single day. So really looking at the different revenue streams, diversifying the income streams is the first piece of the puzzle.

And then it's just about, you know.

You look at all those four pillars, if you like, and then you just get to work in growing them. You know, you start with a number and. And you started at base of zero, and you start building from there. So we did a lot of things in the early days, like referral campaigns. We did a lot of Outreach. We started with one person, even though we've scaled the business and it's a huge community now. I suppose my secret sauce has always been relationships. So asking people for help and asking you to join and then asking who else, you know that might want to be involved in the community. So really trying to individualize that offer and then I think the next, I suppose, piece of the puzzle, and we might go there today. But it's really about building a team around that shares the vision and understands core values. So, again, if I think I've done anything right in my journey as an entrepreneur, it's about attracting the right people to my business. So my very first hire in the company, I put her on board 15 years ago and she's still with me to this day. One of my other leaders, my CEO in my Australian business, she was with me in my staffing agency for four years. She left, came across to Business Chick. She was there for three or four years and she left and she's back now and she's been in a CEO seat for five years. So it's really about how do you make yourself redundant as a CEO or as an entrepreneur as quickly as possible, and how do you find the people around you that can carry on that vision? So there are a couple of things that can help help piece together the path. It was working out the business model and working out the revenue streams, making sure the right people are on the bus at all times. And, you know, knowing. And you know this, but knowing your role as a leader is not just to be liked, you know, to please everybody. You know, I think sometimes when we can get caught up, you know, in this idea that we have to be liked by everyone and that being a leader means you have to be popular. And, you know, whilst I think my team would tell you I'm very, very kind and fair, I'm also there to ensure that we have strong business and, yes, that everybody is happy, but, yes, that we have a performance culture. So that's something that I very much focus on in my company as well.

Oh, that's. You know, I think working with so many entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs, that is a tough. That's always kind of where a block comes up of how do I show up as a leader, but also let the, you know, create performance culture, like you said. Is there certain. Did you listen to certain books or did you have certain things that you follow? Did you do, like, attraction model or anything like that when you were creating that, or did that come naturally for.

You in the early days Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books and courses. Yes.

We didn't have podcasts back then, 20 years ago.

I don't read. I don't read terrible Kindle or Audible. No one read to us. Wait, listen. When I started we had cassettes and we knew DVDs. It wasn't even DVDs back then. I, you know how I got my start and I mentioned a little bit in the book is my dad was an accountant by trade and he worked with some of the big public companies and then he lost his job and so he decided he was going to get into small business and entrepreneurship. So our house was filled with all the greats like Robert Kiyosaki and Anthony Robbins and Napoleon Hill. So I would be going to a basketball game and listening to a cassette of some dude talking about how to get rich quick or whatever. I really religion on a lot of those teachers and speakers. And so definitely a lot of advice as a teenager. And it always interested me on the culture thing and on the leadership thing. Of course I read a ton of books. I think I also really earned my stripes through the doing, you know, making mistakes with people through I spent looking at different businesses and different leaders that I wanted to emulate and talking with them and asking what worked and what didn't. And a few little tactical things here which might help some of your listeners. You know, in both of my businesses I've had what's called a culture statement. So this is a two pager. It's, you know, double printed two pager. And on one side it just says what we expect of you and on the other side is what we can expect, what you can expect of us. And you know, give this bullet point seven or eight things that kind of define what your culture is and who you want to be as leaders. It kind of provides this north star for everyone to understand, you know, the way things are done around here. Because that's just what culture is. It's just a set of rules or whether they're written or unwritten of the way things are done around here. So the culture statement definitely helped in that regard. And then the other really the big thing that I'm into is having a set of core values. So we have a very, very clear set of core values at business chicks. And I can always tell when we're going off the path or making weird decisions or someone's coming to the business and I'm instant doesn't kind of feel right at all. And why is it? And so I look at, I always return the team to our core values. And it might be in our weekly WIP or, you know, on one of our calls, I'll say, guys, can we just get the values out again? Let's just read through them. And it just kind of reorients everyone. And for me, our core values are like a North Star. They just dictate, you know, a lot on culture and a lot on leadership and just show us the way for where we're going. So I think some of those tactics have really, really helped. Helped when it comes to leadership and developing your leadership style and the culture you want in your business as well.

So. Good. So the concept of your book, winging it, can you kind of tell me, was that a theme throughout all of your decision making process and how things worked throughout everything? Tell me where this came from and when you realized that this was pretty much what you were doing throughout?

Yeah, I mean, obviously being able to do the work that I've done at Business Chicks for the past 15 years, I've gotten to speak with literally thousands and thousands of women and I've heard about their challenges and their successes and.

What holds them back, but also propels them forward. Right.

So I feel like I'm in a unique position of having that kind of insight into a collective wisdom of women.

And what they tell me.

And a lot of these themes started coming back about how we, you know, and unfortunately it is still mostly women.

Who are plagued with these problems.

But we tend to overthink and we overanalyze every single conceivable detail. We do tend to sometimes wait for opportunities to come to us. We often wait for permission. So I started seeing these kind of these, these themes emerge and, you know.

Coupled with that, I've obviously been able.

To work alongside some of the world's most incredible entrepreneurs and business leaders. And I've seen how they conduct themselves and their business and what they're like on stage as well as off stage. So I think what we can do, and I think you'd agree with this, often we can glorify entrepreneurship. And often we look at these successful people and put them on this pedestal and we think, oh, they're unreachable, they're.

Untouchable, they've got it all figured out.

They've got this grand plan for their life and you know, and they, and yeah, and they know something that we don't know and we're wrong and they're, you know, we can, we can do that. We put a lot of space in between, you know, our journeys and their journeys.

But I got to, you know, travel.

With these people and spend, you know, two weeks at a time with them and be having breakfast, lunch and dinner and hearing calls that they were making with their teams and the problems they were noodling.

And I'm like, this is no different.

To what you and I face. And a huge theme started coming up.

For these people and why they'd been.

So successful is because they had found the courage to step forward even though they didn't know the answers. They'd had the curiosity to seek out answers to the questions they were asking. They were relentless in their pursuit of finding solutions to problems and they just didn't give up. So in a way, as I kind of wrapped all that thinking and wisdom together and came up with the concept of winging it, because to me, that's.

What it's really about.

It's stepping into the unknown going forward, even though you don't have the answers or a perfect roadmap of how you're.

Going to get somewhere.

And really, a lot of it comes back to trying to cultivate this level of self confidence or having an assuredness in your beliefs. Because again, I think we just look at these people and think they know something that we don't know.

But at the end of the day.

They are making it up just as much as any of us are, but.

They'Re doing it confidently.

So that's kind of how the concept came about and the book came about.

Yeah, I love that. And it's the only way that I've, number one, ever done anything. Number two, when I've gotten to interview people, same thing, it's like, it's literally just the experience of doing it gives you experience. So then you can be like, okay, nothing too much caught on fire with that one. And you know, I know.

I think you're 100% right. And I think what happens is, though, because we have so much access to.

Information and which is both a beautiful.

Thing and it's also a curse, but a lot of the amazing business owners that I've seen start and scale have not started with the same intention that a lot of people start out with these days. Like, I want to be the next.

Airbnb, or I want to be the next Netflix, or I want to be.

The next Uber of, or, you know, I want to run a billion dollar company. You know, because all we hear about in press is the unicorns and these amazing companies. When we didn't have as much information back going back 20 years ago now, you just kind of started something you started here with zero information, zero knowledge and you stepped forward and you put one foot in front of another similar to your journey. You figured it out as you went and for people who are clever enough to ask the right questions and obviously research and along the way they can scale and they can do really well. So yeah, I just think there's a real common theme there and I hope that the book is able to package it up and deliver it in a beautiful way.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

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So if you guys are if we're not diving deep enough, definitely get this book because it's amazing. And talking about scaling, was there moments for you where you did you have really clear goals along the way or as it grew, did you get and what did that look like? How did you set up your plan of growth?

Yeah, it's a great question. I never set out when I bought the business 15 years ago with this sort of huge vision for I want to have 500,000 members.

For me, the numbers are critical in.

Terms of the day to day management of the business And I encourage every single entrepreneur to be so in their numbers and to understand the levers that you need to pull in your business to be able to make more money. I, I see a lot of entrepreneurs making the mistake of sticking their head in the sand when it comes to the financials. And I've always been someone who, I check my cash balance every single day. I have weekly meetings with the people who like my CFO and our external accountant and our internal bookkeeper as well. So I really advocate for being in the numbers and understanding the numbers.

But, and I know this sounds like.

A little bit counterintuitive, but I'm not internally driven by the numbers. I've never been internally driven by. I will have reached success when we hit $200 million. For me, that has never been the driver. So for me it's really about impact. And for me it's about creating experiences and memories and moments for our members. For me it's about, I judge success based on if I'm still interested in what I'm doing every single day, if I can still have the opportunity to innovate, if we're still growing year on year. I mean, every single year for the past 15 years, we've grown both our top line and our bottom line, which is really, really exciting. So, you know, for me it's, you know, I never had this absolutely clear vision. It's always to be better than the year that's just passed. That's absolutely a goal. But you know, it's never really been about the, you know, having an obsession with the numbers. That's not what matters so much to me. Okay.

I think I'm just asking for, you know, if there are people who, let's say you have a company that's supposed to hit certain numbers or different things like that, is there ways that you work around? Do you try to get more excited about like how you're doing it? Like how do you flip into what you're talking about if you know, you do have, you know, maybe some pressure or things applied because of sales goals and things like that.

Yeah. And look, don't get me wrong for a minute. We have sales teams, we have partnership teams, we have very, very clear goals. And our planning cycles are done in three month sprints. So we certainly don't look at what's a huge 20 year plan or a 10 year plan or vision for 10 years. It's very much about a sprint. Because the way business works these days, it's impossible to know we're going to be in 10 years time. So yeah, our sales teams and our membership teams have very, very clear goals.

I'm just saying it's me as the.

Entrepreneur and the founder who's not in the business and it doesn't need to be as driven by the numbers that I leave that to them and their leaders to make sure they hit those goals. But yeah, I mean, I think the important point to make here is just getting really, really clear on what your business is and what the planning cycle is. For us, that three month sprint really, really works. But again, going back 20 years, it used to be a five year, used to be a five year plan. Right. But these days it's definitely about having a bit more short termism and trying to race to that end goal and planning in shorter cycles than we used to.

I love that you just pointed that out like find what works for you because sometimes we can see one thing that works. And also what I love about that is that you don't necessarily have to be because you have supported like you know, them, but you've supported yourself around it so that you can do what you do best. And that is like really I'm sure loving on the community and creating different things for the community and like what's your impact? Because I think that we forget, you know, when we're in the beginning of building something, we forget that we're going to get all of that support. Like you're not going to have to do all that. So you can actually go back to your zone of genius because you're going to have support around that. That was really powerful, 100%.

And two things I'd say about that. I mean, I've always been someone who has not been a micromanager. So I've always put people into their roles and been there to support in any way possible. But I think you free yourself up as an entrepreneur and a leader if you can put trust in your people and hire the right people to do their job. So I've never been someone who's looked over the shoulder of my people and said, how are you going? We're going to make it this month or next month. That's my personal leadership. So it might be different to you.

But the other thing is I am.

In a unique position. I started this company years ago. In a lot of ways I am living the entrepreneurs dream and that the majority of my business is run by my CEOs so I am a little bit hands off. And I can be, like you said, in my zone of genius. And that is to Innovate and productize and to love on the community and to make sure I'm still developing relationships. But I understand for sure it's a unique position that I'm in and I'm really proud of that as well. Because the end goal of any entrepreneur should be to make themselves, you know, they're role redundant in some way, you know. And I feel in a lot of ways I am living entrepreneurs dreams. So it frees me up to other things. Other things like speaking and writing books and. Yeah, I feel very blessed.

Yeah, I think before that I set out into, you know, starting a company and was more in like the speaking, writing, coaching, different role. It was kind of like I thought if people started a company they had to be the CEO and they kind of like had to wear all these hats a lot in the beginning. And then when you actually start to like look inside all of the different business models, you can say, wow, I don't have to completely give up myself and wear myself ragged. If you don't want, there are options. You could hire a CEO. You can't hire that out. So I'm so glad that you're sharing your experience of it because you really are able to then really have most of the great parts about why people want to run a company. So I love that. Okay. You talk a lot about just starting, which I love. Cause it's just kind of the story of when things actually started to happen in my life. It was because I was like, wow, well we're just going to do it. Don't know what I'm doing, but here we go. So let's. This is, I mean this topic, this could be just a whole like someone's podcast called Just Start. Tell me.

Maybe you need to do it.

Yeah, I'm going to let someone else do that for now. They can just start that somewhere else. So tell me a little bit about Just start. Like for everybody who's waiting, like they're just, they're waiting for you to tell them.

I mean, yeah, I, I love this. I mean, I think again, speaking to so many different entrepreneurs out there, what I found was people had a whole set of excuses as to why they didn't just start, you know, and things like, I don't have the money right now, I don't have the time right now, I didn't finish my degree. You know, I'm not smart enough, I don't have the right networks, I don't have the right knowledge. I think I'll do it when the kids go to college. And you know, I've just found that these excuses are not excuses that are strong enough. You know, I have six little kiddos under the age.

She said she has six kids just in case you missed that.

You heard that right. And you know, and I'm still able to, you know, run a global business and write a book and run my household as well. And I'm not, I'm not for one second saying I'm perfect or have all the solutions or answers. But I just think that when we let our excuses overrun what's possible for ourselves, it is a really, you know, it's a sure fire way to limit your potential and your own success.

So I've been working with a coach.

For 25 years now and I always, I always hire business coaches and I always go into sessions thinking that I'm going to talk about a business problem that I'm going through or. Yeah, right. And it all just unravels and what it comes down to is some silly self limiting belief or excuse that I have been telling myself either from childhood or you know, from five minutes ago. And once we can unpack that and understand, oh that's what I'm doing, then then you can get on your way and you can just start. So I think, I think there's something to be said about really self exploration and trying to go deep, understand why you are making these excuses. Because you know, while we stay in it and while we stay stuck and while we use these excuses, you know, it's nothing moves, nothing shifts, nothing happens. So you know, and I think this is all tied up and you agree with this. It's all tied up with this idea of perfectionism. It's tied up with the idea that I don't want to fail, I don't want to look silly, I don't want to be caught out, I don't want to be shown up. And these are all, they're all valid things. I mean I still suffer from imposter syndrome in some of the rooms that I'm placed in and just have to again go back to that self talk and say hang on a minute. If someone has deemed me worthy of being, being in this room than I am worthy of being in this room. So I, yeah, I can't, I can't labor that point enough. I think working on our own self talk and our own self limiting beliefs is where it's at and it will help you get over that stuckness and get into Amen.

Couldn't agree with you more. Every single time I've Been like, what am I?

What is.

What's actually going on here? And especially if I can share it, like, with, like you said, a coach or friends or, like, call it out, then I get over it quicker. It's like, well, could that happen?

Happen?

Sure, that could happen. Could you accept if that could happen? It would suck. But yeah, it's better than, you know, the excuse. Excuses are exhausting. Like, damn, so tiring. You can exhaust yourself by just always convincing yourself that you can't and then going back to that place of just like settling and. Oh, it's a really exhausting cycle that I found myself in for a really long time.

It's like a coaching session itself.

Yeah, this is great.

Thank you.

Oh, I should hit record. Just kidding. We are recording. All right, so with that said, I would love to know first of all, what your definition of winging it is. And I'd love to also hear what you, in your life right now feel you are winging it in.

Yeah, they're good questions. They're good questions. Winging it to me is about getting into action without having the answers. Is everything we've spoken about so far. You know, it's about pulling yourself out of self doubt, stopping with the excuses and, you know, just really stepping through the uncertainty. Uncertainty. And in a lot of ways, like, this year is the perfect storm for. Right. We are all in a moment of complete turbulence and uncertainty. So for me, you know, every moment I feel myself weighing in some way. We all are. Like in the pandemic, we had to.

You know, we sat down with our.

Team and I looked at my CFO and I looked at my CEO and I said, give it to me straight, like, you know, how many months or years do we have of cash before this becomes a thing? You know, and we really had to have some tough, honest conversations around the business. We unfortunately had to make a couple of layoffs, which is never, ever, ever fun for any leader in their company. No, again, we are here to ensure the viability of our people's jobs. And we're here to ensure the viability of the health of our businesses. So sometimes those tough calls have to be made. And, you know, we had to completely shake up our business model that we'd run for 15 years. Right? And that meant taking all of our 110 live events and turning them onto, you know, being produced digitally. And that was a real shift for us. You know, we like to be able to hug and high five people and, you know, we do events with four or five thousand people. So you know, to really try and, you know, manifest that or pivot it in some way to an online experience, you know, has been a real challenge. And, you know, we failed on a number of different levels. And it's been a real kind of, you know, a shock to the business. You know, we were used to, we could charge whatever, four, $500 to come to an event. Now we're charging $24 and most of them are free. So, you know, this, this year has really been about, okay, how do we innovate and how do we sustain ourselves and how do we, you know, try and get through this pandemic. And one thing that I sat down and said to the team was, you know, this is going to pass. We don't know when it's going to pass. Whether we're still going to be in this situation 6 or 12 months time or 18 months time, we have no idea. But who do we want to be known as? You know, what, when this is all said and done, what do we want our reputation to. About how we act in this time, what do we want to be known for? And so I think taking that urgent and immediate action and really showing up for our community, organizing a ton of virtual meetups, doing all the online event programming, all the outreach we did to members to check in and see how they were doing, that's all going to really set us up for the future. So for us, it has been a really beautiful time of returning to the scrappiness of an entrepreneur. I know you're in startup with one of your businesses now. For me, it felt like a new beginning. And, okay, how do we have to, to mix this up and almost like, start again?

Like, what have we got here?

What are our assets? What are our resources? What are our relationships? How do we maximize those and amplify them to the community? And I think we did that really, really well. Are we making much money from it? Absolutely not. But we have spent the last 15 years fortifying the business, diversifying business model. And so we're in a really good place that we will pull through the opportunity stronger than ever. But yeah, gosh, winging it every single day, baby. Every, every single day. Been a lot this year has been a lot.

That's, that's really powerful to hear, though. And you said something that I think is just one of the biggest lessons and I'd love to have you elaborate on it a bit more. And that's, that was the, what do we, like, what do we have here? What are we working with? And I think when people are. And I know you touched on it a bit in your book, literally, you guys, there's such a wealth of knowledge in this book, especially if you are running a business or starting a business, about, you know, what am I working with? Like, where do I start? What am I working with? You talk a bit about, like, how, like, how abouts do you go about creating a product? So with what you said, like, with what you had, you looked at what you had, and then you're kind of creating from there. So what's your advice to people if maybe they don't have anything or they do find themselves in the same exact position as you with the reassessing process? Yeah.

Well, I'd say this to start with.

Everyone has something, right?

And I think one of the things we do when we're starting out is we do this thing that I call compare and despair. So we look to the side all the time what everyone else has and think I don't have that, and therefore I can't be successful. Like, everyone has a uniqueness. Everyone has a story. Everyone has some level of talent or some sort of skill that they can amplify and take out to the world. And I don't know what that is for you. You've got to discover that. But I. I truly believe that every single human being has some level of uniqueness and they should really tell their story above all else. So for us in that time, the.

Biggest thing that I. I suppose the.

Thing that I've invested in the most throughout my entire career has been my relationships. You know, really, really, really investing in my relationships. And that is from a customer point of view. So really trying to, you know, go deep and develop a stickiness with our customers and trying to have a level of engagement and trying to have shared experience with our customers. So I know I have a legacy of depth relationship there with customers.

We know we have a set of.

Relationships with our speakers. So that was an asset that we had to work with. And because I have spent the last whatever couple of decades investing in my relationship with these people, I was able to call in favors because it wasn't like I just came out of nowhere and said, oh, hey, will you speak for me? And obviously we were having to pay these speakers a lot less if, you know, sometimes it was, I'm sorry, but would you speak for free on this virtual Would you speak for us for free on this virtual event? And all these people said, absolutely. You know, you've done the right thing by me for this whole time. And of Course, I will support you, and of course I want to see you, you know, survive through this time. So I think the investment in relationships is what really worked for us, and that's what we started with, and that's what we had. We're also looking at the business and the people, resources we had. We have eight or nine people that work on events products. They're our events team. So me and my CEO are sitting here going, okay, what are we going to do with these people? We want to keep them. We don't want to make any layoffs in this area, even though we are running zero live events. So how do we start the product types? How do we start to look at what the subsets are in our community and deliver content that is useful and valuable for these people throughout this season.

So a lot of that meant we.

Became experts or we hired experts in the different government stimulus packages and really trying to talk to pandemic content. And that lasted for a very short amount of time because then we all didn't want to talk about that anymore and we wanted more inspiration and not to talk about that sort of stuff. But it's really, again, understanding your customer base, understanding your assets, understanding what your customers need in that moment, and then being the first to respond. So, as I said, we were really quick to get an event up and live. I think it was within the first 10 days that the pandemic was announced. So I looked at the team and said, do we know how to do digital events? And they went, no. I said, well, listen, I'm going to go out to 10 speakers now and get their commitment. We'll wrap a brand around it. And we did all that work before we had the tech or the know how, how to produce the event. Right. But at least we were up and selling. We were up and looking like we.

You know, had all our stuff together.

And we were able to sell something right off the bat. And that sort of set us up, up for the next six or seven months as we went forward trying to produce a schedule that was meaningful for everyone.

Wow.

It's crazy, because I can actually put myself in your shoes to know what that pivot of. Because we do a lot of live events, and while we've always had a digital community and done things like that, I do know what it looks like to then try to figure out what this community needs and wants. It can be. It can feel daunting at first, but then once you do this once, it's kind of like you get these. This. You understand that it's limitless possibilities. Like there are limitless possibilities of how to serve this community that's kind of already, that's already there for you. So I just want to elaborate for anyone who doesn't have that community yet, what are some ideas around just like a way to show up to start creating a community?

Yeah, I mean, I suppose it starts. Can start with a list and just being really generous with content and ideas and wisdom. That was certainly one of the ways that we did it in the first instance. You know, it can be free events, you know, and asking for an email address and trying to build a list that way. So again, any level of expertise that you have, any relationships with experts and you could feasibly package up and put out there is a really, really great way to start building an audience. But I think it's like anything, whether it's an online audience or whether it's an in person audience, it's about being generous and it's about being authentic and just being who you say you are. I think it's about building trust and credibility as you go. I think it's about giving more than you take. So, you know, and I know for a lot of people we give and we give and we get upset when we don't get anything back. But you've got to let go of those expectations and be creating and be building and be giving that expectation of anything coming back to you. And you know, I know for many years, like in a lot of ways I still am quite an analog business owner, you know, because I feel like I've been doing this for so long now and I'm one of these people that at the end of the year will sit down and write 600 holiday cards to, you know, suppliers for business and friends and clients. Because that to me is investing in relationships. And to me it starts with seeing one person and investing in them and then and that putting in the hard yards and amplifying that. But yeah, I think that's a nice summary of how we can all build an audience and we all have a story to tell and have no shame if it starts very, very small. Just keep giving. I think also we can lose enthusiasm when things aren't growing as fast as we'd like. But hang in there because these things just, they do, they take years, you know, that it doesn't happen ever as fast as we'd like it to.

Oh my God. It's so crazy though, because it's like I can look at things right now with this company that I'm like, right down to, like, investors who. I made that relationship maybe five, six, seven years ago, and I'm like, oh, my God, like, at that Mastermind or at that business event, or like, thank God I went that night, you know, because look at what's coming up now. And so we forget that. It's like, if you can really be present in the moment with, like, is there a connection there? Does it feel good to help? You know, can you help this person? It's crazy how.

Yeah.

You're not doing it for what could happen, but things happen. You know, it's going. It's going to. You're going to equally benefit each other at one point.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it takes your whole career to build a reputation. Takes your whole career to build a personal brand. And your personal brand is just what people say about you when you leave the door, you know, when you leave the room. Whatever people say about you is your personal brand. And I think again, you know, we forget. That does take, like you said, years and years and years of shifting shared experience, years and years and years of doing the right thing by people. Years and years and years of doing favors and being generous. But I think there's a real clue.

In that and there's a real lesson.

Or learning in there. Like, we always should be out there telling our story. Networking, I know that's a super dorky word, but building our networks and building our circles because you never know when you're going to be able to tap into a relationship and use it for your growth or your business. So I think it's really wise advice to always be putting yourself out there. For sure.

For sure.

And it can. It can be very uncomfortable and sometimes the last thing you want to do when you're tired. But it's also something really. I actually build it in because I'm like, I can be an extreme introvert, so I have to, like, build in, like, get yourself out there or you're not gonna have any friends and this isn't gonna be fun.

So.

Husband is great and so are some. My dog is pretty awesome, so that's a tough one.

Yeah. Yeah.

He actually helps me network, so I just have to take him out on the street. And I literally. I meet everyone. So get a dog. That's how you network.

Network.

Okay.

It's funny.

I. It's funny because the other day I was literally walking my dog and I can't tell because living in la, like, I have had. I have looked up so many times and like, a celebrity will be petting. My dog. And I'm like, oh, my God.

Oh, hi.

Yeah, my dog's cute, right? Trying to act cool, you know, it's just so weird when you haven't lived in LA and then you do and you're like, wow, they're freaking everywhere.

You know what? We moved here, as I said, five years ago, and literally, like the second day we were here, we're taking the kids to some, like, doctor's appointment and like, because I have six kids. We didn't have six then. But, you know, I've got like a soccer mom car and the doors open, the kids sort of piling out. And I kid you not, like, I turned around and Justin Bieber was like, right there, like, like two feet away from us. And I'm like, this is la. This is crazy, man.

I know.

I've not seen a celebrity since, you.

Know, it's, it's, it's so much fun. It's crazy. Like, I remember the first time I.

Was just like, oh, my God.

And now I'm like, oh, hey, what's up there?

They.

It's really weird when you think that you know them and you're like, oh, hey. And they just are like, I don't.

Know who you are.

Okay, so fun things about la. I would love to know what so, so this is always fun for me to ask because I know when, when my book was getting out into the world, there were like these themes that I didn't expect to come out or like these different things that people were really kind of like clinging to and they loved about the book.

Yeah.

What is something that's like this reoccurring. You're like, oh, this is kind of what is coming up from the book. Do you mean know I what, what I'm talking about?

Yeah, no, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I think when you started talking there sort of testimonial from this girl came up to me and she said, I started reading your book on the weekend. It was Saturday morning, I was in my pajamas, I was on the sofa, I was having a lovely time, had my cup of tea. And she said as I started reading it, I just needed to sit up a little bit straighter. And then I needed to get off of the couch and actually go and get dressed. And then she was like, you know, and she just sort of told this story of this book. Really inspired me. It really got me, you know, really excited about my goals. I kind of of lost my way a little bit and I'm now really, really, really Excited to get going and to start something. And, you know, it may not be a business. You know, it might be like starting to heal a relationship that you have, you know, you know, needs healing. Or it might be starting your fitness journey, you know, and it's just for people, they're telling me it's a really inspirational reading. It will get them off the sofa and starting and taking it, you know, getting an inch close to their goals. So that's what I love most about the faith I can't receive about it.

Oh, it's so awesome. It's so much fun. I'm just, like, living vicariously through you. It's so much fun to start. When your book really starts getting out into the world, were you freaked out at all with this one? Were you like, oh, my God, I.

Was, my love, I was. Of course I was, because the book actually released two years ago in Australia and it hit all the lists and it sold off the shelves. And I mean, I have a very big audience there and a wonderful community. So that was fantastic. And it still continues to sell this day, two years on, which is really, really encouraging for me, and huge feedback.

Great.

Shopped it around in North America, found a publisher who's fantastic, and then had a whole book tour organized, as you would know, all about live events all around the country. All organized.

And the pandemic hit.

So we are all having to learn a new way of speaking to these companies on Zoom. And just looking at all these little heads, wild, like, this is just so wild.

Let's connect.

Yeah, let's connect.

So, yeah, it is a lot. It is a lot to wrap my head around it. I wish in a lot of ways I could get out there and meet people and do book signings and the whole thing, but, you know, we're having to relax into this is the way that it is right now in 2020. And it's. I think, you know, if anything, my mantra has always been just to be kind to yourself and just knowing every moment you're doing your best. Best, you're doing your best. And I just repeat that to myself every single day. You know, I. I can show up, I can do my absolute best work. I can try and be there to serve, but at the end of the day, I've done my best. So, you know, I just really hope.

The book reaches who it needs to reach.

And I know people get a huge amount of value from it if they.

Give it a try.

So, yeah, I love it.

Oh, beautiful. And I. I'm so. I'm Glad you pointed that out as well. Just like that. I'm doing my best and so much grace, because I. I don't think I've ever talked to someone who's anyway, that is successful and that I would love to emulate that isn't gentle with themselves because I don't think there's any way that you can put yourself out there that much and be hard on yourself. It's like you wouldn't be able to sustain growth and to keep showing up if you go through the beating yourself up or trying to hate yourself into your goals and different things like that.

Yeah, I mean, I think that definitely comes with a level of maturity and level of success as well. You know, you sort of feel like you perhaps when you start out, you've got so much to prove and, you know, I certainly don't feel that anymore. I feel like I, you know, have done the right thing by lots of people and all my people in my community and I feel like I've earned my stripes and, you know, it's been an absolute joy to build what I have. And so, you know, I kind of relax into that as well and say to myself, this is your time to enjoy. And yeah, again, just coming back to that. I'm doing my best in every moment and it really helps me keep going every single day, for sure.

Well, I am such an avid book reader and I would love to know because I always recommend books on here. Who exactly is this for if you were to gift this to your ideal book reader?

Who is that? Yeah, someone asked me that this morning. Anyone who perhaps needs a little shot in the arm or a kick in the pants. Anyone who is starting a scaling business. I mean, the book has some new tips in there. Building relationships, building your circle, building a network. It has lots of tips on how to fund your business and grow your business. Has lots of tips on leadership and building culture. Lots of fun stories from all my friends that we talked about before. So, you know, anyone who has an interest in making themselves better in both business and life, this book is for you.

What was your favorite thing to write about in it? Like what? Which chapter?

Which part story?

That's a great question.

I mean, I do love talking about building financial acumen in business. I think it's the one area that we don't focus enough with an entrepreneurship. I started my first company 18. I bought my first property at the age of 19. I, as I said, check my cash balance every single day in my business. I invest in the stock market every single day. It's a very, very bad month this month. But I just have loved. I know, never was taught this stuff.

Right.

So I have learned financial acumen through the mentors I've had around me and through in the doing mainly, though, like just working it out myself and asking so many questions about other entrepreneurs. And I think certainly as women, I think we have a responsibility to open up that conversation about money and to talk about it without shame and, you know, to build those friendships and confidants and mentors that you can have really clear and open discussions with about money. You know, I have friends who I turn to and, you know, we talk.

About what did you make about last.

Month or last year and what you know, and you can get into it. And it's. It's really comforting and enlightening to be able to, you know, have those people in your life who you can have those honest conversations with and, you know, you can turn to when the proverbial hits the fan. So, yeah, I think for me, I love talking about money.

I love talking about.

I love having no shame about that. It's okay to make money, and it's okay to not have the answers. So I think for me, those.

The chapters around money, some of my favorites in the book, for sure.

Oh, I love that. And what you don't talk about gets ignored.

Right?

It gets swept under. So you have to give it energy or it's not getting energy, it's not growing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I love that. I'm so passionate about that right now with just, you know, conversations that we have not maybe been privy to in certain parts of the country as women as, you know, growing up, maybe it wasn't something that was in our family, and I really think it is. You know, a lot of times we have to be the people who break that, like, family pattern of it being taboo or whatever that looks like. So I would love to know, because you have so many communities and different things to do outside of the book as well. How do we get involved with business Chicks? What does that look like?

Yeah, well, you should become a member first and foremost. We are running a promotion at the moment.

When you become a member, you get.

A copy of Winging it for free. And it's the most amazing offer I know.

So you should all become members of business Chicks.

So that's as much businesschicks.com but yeah, we're running a whole host of digital events, obviously, right now we can't wait for the world to come back online.

Because we run some amazing experiences like.

We get to go to Richard Branson's island every single year for a leadership gathering. There we run knowledge and study tours in partnership with UCLA and NYU Stern School of Business, and they're incredible. So, yeah, just look me up there. I'm@EmmaIsaacs.com as well. So, yeah, love to have you involved.

In whatever way that looks like.

Amazing. And just one more time on the book because truly, you guys are going to love it, I promise. You guys know that I don't recommend anything, any book that I don't love. So where can we get the book?

Yeah, so available at all your good bookstores. Barnes and Noble has it, Target has it, Amazon has it. So, yeah, just do a quick Google.

Search and it'll come up amazing. Yay.

Well, I'm so grateful for you. And I'll ask you one last question. What is something that you wish more people knew about you?

You.

Oh, that's so good. Oh, okay.

It's hard, isn't it? Like, I am an open book.

It is hard.

What I found most interesting about this conversation is just that one little thing.

You said, that you're an introvert. And I think for me as well, I'm an introvert masking as an extrovert.

I have a favorite public, but I.

You know, I would love for your audience and anyone I come in contact with, I really encourage them to understand how they get energy. And for me, I recharge by being alone and getting alone time. And that is the key definition. Definition of an introvert.

Right.

So it's understanding how you get energy, and that can be challenging when you have six little kiddos and a husband and a dog. But, yeah, I am definitely an introvert.

Masking as an extrovert.

I love meeting my fellow introverts, and I used to think you had to be extroverted to be successful. So I'm so grateful. I love when I meet them because they're like, nope. Okay, great. Keep going.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Okay. So powerful. All right, well, thank you so much. I'm so grateful for you and you guys, if you love this episode as much as I did, you know, the one thing that we can do to always show our guest how much value we got from her or him is to tag Emma. So, Emma, what is your Instagram handle?

It's Maisa.

So tag Emma or Maisa and then tag myself. And let us know what your biggest takeaway today from Emma was. And you guys know that I love to share your stories, and it's such a gift to the guest to be able to see how she actually impacted your life. So you guys, we're so grateful for you. And until next time, earn your happy.

Bye everyone.

Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the Earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment, tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys.

Bye Bye. Sam.