10 Biz Lessons from a Rough 2022: An Online Coaching Business Story

Welcome everybody to this very unusual talk that I am giving today called Business Lessons from a Rough 2022. I am Mary Schiller, author and coach of MarySchiller.com and Mary in Paris. And I'm so happy to have you here with me for this chat. I do have some slides to show because I wanted to try to keep my focus— no problem, Wendy— on this talk. So I'll pull those up in just a moment. But I just first of all wanted to say hello and thank you for being here and if you could type into the chat, I'd love to know what brought you here because this is kind of a weird topic for a talk. Frankly, I have never done anything like this before. I've given hundreds of talks by now over the years, but I've never done anything like this. I've never shared anything like this before. And so I'm just curious to know what made you want to come. And that goes for the people who are watching this on a replay, if I happen to share the replay. I haven't decided yet. We'll see how it goes. But Suzanne says, I consider it a great topic. Okay, good. Max, I love real talk about self-employment and business. Well, you're in luck then, Max. That's what's going to happen. Oh, thank you, Denise. I really appreciate that. Ingrid, I went to Facebook and saw it. Yeah, that's so nice. Thank you. It's rare for people to be honest on this topic. Yeah, I agree with that. So you're not going to hear me hold anything back here. It's, it's not that kind of talk. So it's going to be pretty real. And Marina, I'm here because I had a feeling that something was going on for me last year. Yeah, Nikki, business does fluctuate year to year. Curious to know how you navigate such challenges. Yes, Linda was interested in the topic. Wendy, more awareness of you and this business building topic I'm in. Lisa, 2022 was a difficult year for many of us. I love your resiliency. Oh, thanks. I really appreciate all of that. That, that means a lot. And so you will, you'll definitely get a sense of what was going on with me last year. And also, even though I'm going to be having some slides, I will definitely pause at certain points to see what questions or comments you have. So as I'm going through, feel free to type into the chat and I will catch up, but I'll definitely make time to make this an interactive discussion because I don't want to just jabber on here for 60 minutes because really What prompted this talk, I should say that, is that a few days ago I went to a talk by another coach who I'm very familiar with who was describing a transformation that they went through last year, and one might call it a positive transformation in that it was something that they'd been struggling with for years and years and years, and they were finally able to overcome this obstacle. And so They shared some things about how they were able to finally turn things around and all that. And I thought to myself as I was listening, I was very inspired by the talk. It was very nice. I thought, well, I kind of went through a transformation last year, but in a different way where it wasn't like I overcame something. It was more like I hung on with my fingernails kind of thing and stayed in the game. And I thought, you know, Maybe we need to hear more true stories of things like that, especially amongst people who are entrepreneurial, you know, and not the people who have millions and millions of dollars in the bank on reserve and they have a bad year and oh well, you know, it's not like that. I'm a real person and I'm, you know, I'm going through struggles just like other people. And I thought it might be helpful to put it into a business context as well. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here. And again, these slides are really to just help me stay on task, but please do feel free to type into the chat and I will come back to it routinely here and check in. All right. Business lessons from a rough 2022. And I also cannot guarantee that I won't cry. During this presentation, so I beg your forgiveness in advance. Okay, where is my thing? Here we go. So a little about me. Now, I recognize your names, those of you who are here with me live, but just to give people a little sense of who I am, I've been a professional writer since forever, basically. I was realizing that I started writing professionally, I think, in high school. Really, that's when I started. So It's been a long time. I've been a life and business coach since 2016. I have degrees in music, English, and online education. I'm a Californian who has lived in Paris now since 2017. I eat chocolate daily without fail. I literally have not gone a day without eating that. I like— I don't— I can't even remember the last time I had a day without it. It's just part of my life. That's just the way it is. I listen to a lot of Billie Eilish and Beethoven music. Those two people seem somehow, um, like muses for me, or some kind of, uh, what's the word I'm looking for, not just inspiration. But maybe you can tell me in the chat, is there something or someone like that for you where when you engage with it you feel more like yourself? I don't know how to put that, but like for, for me, it's always been music as a real focal point in my life. And those two just are magical to me. I do play the piano. I live in a small apartment now, so I have a nice keyboard, which is great because I live in an apartment building and I don't have to blast the neighbors with the piano. I can put my headphones on and play as loudly as I want. I'm also an avid knitter. I love to swim, walk, and play tennis when I can. And I absolutely love cats, and I have one sitting right next to me as we speak, and I'm just hoping she stays calm because she can be a tad, uh, crazy. Uh, yeah, like a touchstone, Wendy says. Yeah, exactly, kind of like that. Like, whenever I'm feeling out of sorts, I put on one of those two and I seem to feel more relaxed. So, um, yeah. All right, so let's rewind. 2022 was a year that I will never forget. I will never forget it for a lot of reasons, which will become clear as I go through this talk. I had some definite personal high points in 2022. The absolute highest point was my daughter graduated with her doctorate from Oxford. Last summer in July of 2022. And that was a very hard-won victory for her for a lot of reasons that I won't go into, but I was so, so incredibly proud to see her graduate with that degree from that university. It just was an amazing achievement that I could celebrate with her, and I was so happy to be able to support her in that. My husband, daughter, and I saw Billie Eilish in concert in London, which was amazing. I bought the tickets a year in advance back in 2021, so I waited a whole year for that show at the O2 in London, and Billie did not disappoint. It was amazing. I just loved every single minute of it, and I still relive it from time to time. My husband and I celebrated 25 years of marriage. We got married in 1997 when my daughter was 9, so she's 34 now. So it's kind of like, wow, a lot of time has gone by, a lot of things have happened. And then last October, I went to California and visited friends and family, and I hadn't been back there since just before the pandemic. So it had been a long time. I went back to celebrate my sister's birthday. Just for frame of reference, I am 61 years old and my sister is 81. So same parents. My brother is actually— how old is he? He's 78. So there's a huge age gap and it just felt really important for me to try to be there to celebrate her birthday with her. And it was great because I also got to see my brother who I hadn't seen in about 6 years. So it was a wonderful trip. Was also reunited with some college friends. Was able to bring some of them together who hadn't seen each other in like 25, 30 years. So it was fun to be part of that. And that picture of me was taken on an extremely windy day in Morro Bay. I don't know if you know where Morro Bay is in California, but that was one of the stops on my trip because I used to live near there. So while all of that was going on, some definite high points, my interior space really through all of last year was really frightening. It was very unfocused. It was scary. It was noisy. And I hadn't had an experience like that in a really long time, really since Oh gosh, maybe 2013, 2014. And so it was a very frightening place to find myself because I hadn't had that in so long, and I really didn't know what to do with it. I kept thinking that it was just a day or so and then it would go, and it just didn't. It just, it kept persisting and kept persisting. And I would say if you were going to use, you know, psychological psychiatric labels, you would probably call it anxiety and mild depression. I personally don't use those labels. I don't find them helpful to me at all. I just know that it was a very sort of high-energy feeling, but not what I would call in a good way. It was, it was just very loud and chaotic. And it was unusual for me because I don't normally, especially in the last several years, I don't normally have extended periods like that. And so as it kept being that way, I, I wasn't necessarily worried about myself. I'll get into this a bit more. But it was just unusual. It was, it was just very unusual. Wendy says discombobulated. I would say it was more than discombobulated. It was more like I really didn't feel like myself at all. And I felt I was, I had what would be called a lot of anxiety. And I'll talk about some of the ways that that came up. So actually, this state started in 2021. I even at one point in 2021, like in the fall of 2021, I actually had an appointment with my doctor to talk to her about what was happening with me because my energy just tanked. I mean, it was really weird. It was like, I mean, if you've been around me at all, you know, I'm a pretty energetic person. And I always have lots of energy to do things, and my energy was just like nil. And so I got a thorough workup done because I do have a condition that could cause this lack of energy. But everything looked great. And she was like, in fact, your numbers look better than they did the year before. So it wasn't anything that I could point to physically that was wrong with me. And so when it sort of continued and, and, you know, the emotions started to really go all over the place in 2022, I still was monitoring my physical health, which was fine, but my interior space was really— it felt very foreign. I don't know if that makes sense. I, I really felt like I was— it's funny since I'm an American living in France, but add another foreign feeling in there, and I didn't feel at home in my own self. Have you ever had that experience where you kind of just don't feel like yourself? And, you know, sometimes, like, if I've gone through periods of grief when someone's passed away, let's say, and you— or someone you care about has passed away, or a pet or something, and you have that feeling of not being right in your own interior space. That's how I was feeling a lot of the time. And a lot— I said sometimes, but it was often I didn't get out of bed until like 1 PM. So I just worked from the bed. I would just, um, not get dressed, not do anything. I would grab my computer and I would do some work on my business just from the bed. And then eventually I would get up, and some days I was really thrilled if I was able to get up and get dressed, showered, and all of that by noon. I felt like I had had a victory. Like, that really felt like, okay, I made it. At least in the morning I was up. But a lot of days I didn't. And there were times when I didn't leave the apartment for days at a time. And we live in a— just so you get some frame of reference, we live in a studio apartment that's 300 square feet. And it's my husband and myself and our cat. And there would literally be weeks where I might go out on Monday and then I wouldn't go out again until Friday or the weekend. I would just sort of be cocooned in here, which was very unlike me. Especially because during the pandemic we had extremely strict rules here about when we could leave the house, what hours we could leave the house. We had really strict perfumes. And so when all of that was lifted, I spent a lot of time outside. And then suddenly I found myself in this emotional space where I just didn't want to go anywhere. I just felt very kind of stuck inside my own self. As you might expect, on the business side, my income dropped by quite a bit, and it's had a really major impact on our, our finances. Because I was used to making a certain amount of money, and I would say it dropped by about half. I was used to making— I mean, I'll just share the numbers. I was used to making somewhere between $100,000 and $125,000 a year, and I think last year I made around $55,000. So if you think about the impact of that, it was major, and It wasn't like I wasn't trying, as I will talk about, but that's just what the ultimate result was. I really felt lost and confused and afraid most of the time. It was hard for me to sleep. Sometimes I would go to bed at like 11 and I would just lie awake until like 1 in the morning. And then, like I said, it was harder to get up in the morning. Sometimes I would wake up at like 8 or 9 and do a little work, and then I'd fall back to sleep. And then I try to get up, like I said, by 12 or 1. So my schedule was just all over the place and my emotions were very intense. I also, when my income started dropping, I started hearing a ton of thoughts like, you're a failure, nothing is working. You know, like just constant on repeat, you know, like, you don't know what you're doing. You thought you knew what you're doing with this whole business thing, but clearly you don't, because if you did, you wouldn't have lost all of this income this year. I mean, it was just on repeat like that all day long. Uh, every single thing felt broken to me. Everything. And it was, there was just no escape from all of that noise in my head. And it was, it was really rough. It was a rough period. And like I said, it really started kind of towards the end of 2021. So in total, I would say it was maybe 15, 16 months of this. And so you might be wondering, what the heck were you even doing all that time? During, you know, all of this internal strife. And I should add that other than my income dropping and everything, there was nothing else going on in my life that would be considered like a stressor. Like, nobody was particularly sick. We didn't have any major problems with COVID Um, you know, there was nothing, no major upheaval or anything like that. It was— there was nothing else going on. This was really a totally, uh, inside job here. Um, okay, thanks. Uh, no problem, Max. So what did I do all of this time? Well, as I said, I felt awful, and at a certain point I just realized I didn't have the energy to fight it. So, I just didn't. I didn't fight against any of the feelings. I didn't try to figure out why this was happening. I, I think if I've learned one thing over the past 8 or 9 years is that it's impossible to figure out why these things happen. They just do. And trying to pin them to some kind of cause or or, um, you know, trying to figure out, you know, is there some kind of deep-seated problem that needs to be unearthed? That is just— that just doesn't work for me and never has. And so I just gave up very early on trying to figure out why this was going on or trying to make the feelings go away, because I just knew that wouldn't happen. So I just experienced it all. I experienced all the feelings, all the thoughts, without trying to stop or fix them. And you know, I can't say that that was a pleasant experience because it wasn't. It was a lot of suffering. I would have to call it that, because at a certain point you start to think, is this how I'm going to be forever? You know? For me, I hadn't had anything like this happen, like I said, in such a long time that I thought, you know, is this just how life is going to be from now on? And maybe I just need to try to accept it. I didn't, I didn't know. I was nervous about that, to be honest with you. So to try to keep my business alive, I tested different things to see if something would kind of spark in me. It, you know, I tried selling different things, which some of you probably saw. I tried working with people in different ways, and I kind of just was literally— I felt like I was grasping at anything to just keep going, even if it didn't quote unquote work. If it was something that I could put my focus on, at least for a while, that was okay. You know what I mean? Like, I just needed something to keep going. So if a new idea came to me, I would just go with it. I just wouldn't reject it. I would say, okay, I'll try that. So I just kept testing things to see if I could land anywhere during this period. I kept going and I kept showing up as best I could. I know that, you know, if you are like on my email list, I kept emailing, I kept making offers, I kept, you know, scheduling programs, I kept sharing things, and I just kept trying to show up not in a disingenuous way, but as a way for me to get out of my own head. I tried to think about what my audience and what people might need. And I tried to, you know, create from there instead of just staying so locked into myself. Some of you may remember this, that I think it was in maybe August, September, I can't quite remember the dates. I gave 16 talks, 16 weeks in a row. So I gave one talk a week for 16 weeks in a row. Called Mary's Principles that were honestly mostly for me. I needed to talk about things to remind myself of the truth that I was ultimately okay. So that now I'm going to get like emotional because at a certain point when you're in that frame of mind for so long, you start to wonder, am I okay? Like, you know, am I really okay? I don't know right now. And so I thought, all right, well, I'm just going to talk about things for several weeks in a row to remind myself of this and to also try to give other people some reassurance in these areas. Oh, Max says you love those talks. Oh, that's so nice. Thank you. I really enjoyed giving them. I have the recordings and I have listened to the recordings myself. As a reminder from time to time because I really, you know, I was at a point at that point of the year. So like I said, that was somewhere I think around August, September in that part where I was starting to wonder what was happening to me. I, you know, by that point it had been a year-ish since I'd been feeling this way and I really didn't know what to make of it. And I was, like I said, I was kind of grasping at anything to make myself remember the truth. So I kept showing up online. I also cried a lot. I don't think I have cried that much in a long time. I would sometimes wake up and have a crying jag. I would go to bed and have a crying jag. I'd cry in the shower. And just, I had just a lot of emotions that would just sort of spill out. For no reason. I spent some time, way more than I normally do, watching my favorite movies and shows. I listened to a lot of Billy and Beethoven to try to center myself. So I just kind of did anything I could think of to keep myself going and somehow connected to what I knew was underneath all of it. I didn't want to forget who I was underneath all of this murkiness and all of this fear and anxiety. I'm using the labels and mild depression symptoms and stuff. I didn't want to forget who I actually was, and so I kept trying to do things to reconnect me with the truth. So, um, yeah, and the, the thing that really kept me going more than anything was the fact that I absolutely knew without any doubt that I was okay underneath all of it. That no matter what the eventual outcome was, that I was okay and that I didn't need to really worry about myself because I had had enough evidence over the years of all my diving into what we've called the 3 principles, and I've gone a little bit beyond that now, and all of these things that I had been learning for the past 8, 9 years, I knew that I was okay. And so I could— that, that nugget of truth allowed me to ride these really rough waves of emotion that I was experiencing. That was enough. I often wondered what was going to happen, like might I go bankrupt or fall into ill health. I, you know, even though I kept checking on my physical health, I was very rigorous about, you know, making sure that I was, I was trying to eat okay. I was trying to get some exercise sometimes. I even managed to— I was lucky enough to be able to play some tennis and do some things like that. And I was like, okay, I can still move around, I can still do things. So, you know, I was really trying to be conscious of these things as much as I possibly could, but I had concerns about them. And the only thing that I was really certain of, this was another thing that just kept coming back to me, was that my story wasn't over yet. You know, there were periods in there where I wondered if maybe the Mary story was going to end, like maybe my life was going to end somehow. Maybe I didn't know. I mean, I'm really just being very frank with you. There are times where it wasn't like I was suicidal or anything, but I just was like, is this— am I going to like fall ill and die or what's going to happen? You know? And yet there was still this thought that kept coming up that said, you know, Your story isn't over yet, so just hang on, just hang on. You're okay. Just hang on and keep riding this out. So underneath all of that, basically, to kind of sum this up, I really just tapped into my own inner drive to produce things, to keep creating and sharing, because it's kind of how I'm wired. Um, a lot of people have mentioned to me over my entire life, you know, that I'm I'm an incredibly productive person. I produce a lot. I'm very efficient. I create a lot of things. And that was still there, maybe not quite to the level that I was used to, but whatever was there, I was using it. I was literally like, okay, I feel like sharing something today, so I'm just going to say it. I don't even care what it is. You know, I just, I just kind of kept going like that. And ultimately, I, at times I had this thought of, should I just give up and just stop everything that I was doing with my business? There were, I had a few moments like that where I was like, maybe I should just quit and see if there's some job that I can do. But I couldn't. I just couldn't give up. And I've talked about this with my husband often, is that I'm actually totally unemployable. I'm the worst employee because I'm way too independent. I can't take orders from people and my ambitions are much bigger than any workplace I've ever been in. And I was like, well, that's going to be an even worse disaster. So I was like, we're going to find some way to ride this out financially and just I hope that this ends and I can turn things around. So I would say right now, I'm going to talk another minute and then I'll take a break, that this scary emotional state hasn't completely gone away. You know, there are, there are days when it's been hard for me to get going in the morning, for example, but they have gotten much, much more, they've gotten fewer, fewer and far between, you know, they're not as prevalent as they were. And so I have felt really just in the last maybe, I don't know, since maybe around Christmas time, I started to feel some of my spark returning. And I also, at the beginning of the year, I found someone online who I really connected with and have been receiving a lot of support from. And so I have now felt my energy and focus kind of roaring back to the surface. And you've probably seen that I have been producing more. I have some big stuff coming up in February. I've been putting myself out there as much as I possibly can because I just feel like I have a lot more in me that wants to come out. And now it's finally overpowering any of those other emotions that I was dealing with last year. I'm also making some big changes in my personal life in 2023, including potentially moving. To another part of France for a lot of reasons. That seems like the right thing to do for us. So that's where we're actually going to spend some time in another part of France starting later in February to see if we like it. And if we do, we may move there. So that's a big thing. And as you've probably seen, I've really refocused my business on something that I've been passionate about for a few years, which is helping coaches to reach that 5,000 dollar, euro, pound a month mark, because for me that was such a breakthrough number that— and it's something that I focused on a couple of years ago, and I just felt, you know, this is really calling to me. It's something I understand how to do, and I really want to help people to do this. And so that has really helped, is finding that singular focus. Again, I can't even begin to tell you how much that has helped me to channel this energy into something that is meaningful to me. And that was missing all of last year. I couldn't find that for anything. It was just completely invisible. And I'm so grateful that that has made itself known. All right. So before I get into the business lessons learned, let me just come back on the screen. So, um, what questions or comments do you have about anything that I've said so far? If you want to unmute yourself, um, feel free, or you can type something in the chat and, um, ask me. Hello to the new people who have jumped on since I went on there. Did anything stand out for you Mary, I'll, I'll go.

Yeah, I'll go. Well, first of all, thank you so much for sharing what, what appeared to be a very painful, if you like, year and time. Um, and I just, I mean, I love that you just kept going. You kept doing your best. But I also love that you didn't fight it. You didn't fight the, the feelings because, yeah, that's one of my biggest insights is when I feel rubbish, I don't like it at all, but I know not to fight it. And that came across in your talk. Um, and yeah, I'll be interested. You say that It hasn't gone completely, but it seems that you're less afraid of it and you're not, you're not surrounding it with a whole heap of stories about what it, what it was, what it could be, what is it going to be there forever. Um, you're just, if those stories come, you're letting them go. So yeah, thank you very much, very inspirational. And I think probably, you know, everyone on the call can relate to times in their lives where it just kept going on. Yeah, when we felt really rough. And, um, it's, it's, yeah, it's great. It's great that you shared it. Thank you.

Thanks, Denise. I really appreciate that. Um, thank you, Ingrid and, uh, Marina, Nikki too. I appreciate your comments. I mean, I think that the, the, if I can say, the weird thing about it was it wasn't. And, and I know our emotions come from within, not from without. Um, you know, it would have been quote unquote more understandable if something had occurred, like if there had been a death in the family, or if, you know, I don't know, any number of things. But there was literally nothing like that. Nothing. And I have, have wondered This is total speculation and really doesn't mean anything. I had wondered for a time if, um, some of you may know I had, I had a long history with post-traumatic stress disorder, um, and it was stemming from my first marriage. And I had wondered if all of this came about because of the severe restrictions we were under here during the pandemic and the feeling of being trapped and not being able to do things that I normally would do, not being able to see people, you know, having— especially in the beginning, which I know you all remember, you know, we didn't know how the virus was communicated. So we were literally washing our groceries and all of these things. And so feeling that sense of, you know, Am I risking my life going grocery shopping? All of these things. And, you know, that reminded me very much of how I lived in my first marriage for 7 years and then dealing with that same person for another 12 after that. So like 20 years of my life, I was dealing with someone who had that same effect because he was a very dangerous person. And so I started wondering, you know, maybe some of these feelings that I was having sort of started during the pandemic and then just sort of took over. I don't know. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. But the, the main thing for me was that I wasn't worried about me, like big me underneath all of that. I knew she was okay. Like little Mary was having this really rough go here. Uh, but like the real me was fine and was unchanged and was still creative and powerful and all these things. And I just kept trying on the surface level to tap into that as much as I could. And I just kept going the best that I knew how. Um, so, uh, oh, that's interesting, Marina, that you were starting to feel like you were making steps towards being in a better state around the turn of the year. Yeah, um, Wendy, would you be open to sharing a bit more on what you're seeing with Beyond the Three Principles? That's kind of a whole other conversation. I would say that would be another call. But, but ultimately, the, the real thing for me was that I, I kept hearing in my, in my head, or wherever you hear things— doesn't feel like it's in your head, it's almost like you have like this space that you live in. And in that space, I kept hearing, your story's not over. Your story's not over. And for whatever reason, that was extraordinarily helpful to me to hear on repeat. So underneath all of the things of you're a failure, nothing's working, you're losing money, you're, you know, this, you're that, blah, blah, blah. Underneath all that was, you're fine. And your story is going to keep going after this. And, um, I'm just not the kind of person who is wired to quit. I will never quit. I'm just not made like that. I've had many times in my life where I've been faced with things where other people probably would have quit, and I just won't. Um, uh, your story is not over, Mary says. Marina says would be a good book title. That's, that's good. Maybe I'll use that. Uh, you're welcome, Linda. All right, I'm gonna jump back to my presentation because I want to go through some of these business lessons. I have 10 that I'm going to share with you that I think might be really useful for you to hear. I hope so. Okay, 10 business lessons learned from a rough 2022. First one is it's only one year, and in the Mary story, it may prove to be pivotal. I don't know, like I may look back on that period and just go, wow, that was a major turning point in this stage of my life. And I'm just not far out enough yet to know. And I remember when I wrote this slide, I was like, yeah, well, when you're 61, 1 year kind of matters. And then I was like, well, does it really though, in the scheme of things? Like, I don't know. And I just started to think, you know, what's one year? Let's say I'm lucky enough to be like my siblings and live to be 80, you know, is one year in this period like that so awful? Not really, you know. And I don't know what will spin out from it. I have no idea. Business lesson number 2, this was something that I kind of knew already, but it's become even clearer to me over the past few weeks, which is that really anything that's happened before last week, last year, yesterday, it doesn't matter. It doesn't have any influence on today. It really doesn't. Because there were days last year, even though overall it was a very rough experience, there were days where I was, I was on. You know, I was on, I was giving good talks, I was having fun at my daughter's graduation, all these things. And, you know, sometimes you just have to remember that every day you wake up, you are in a new place, you're— you are in a new zone. Even if some of the same things are going through your mind, you are not exactly the same as you were before. And, um, I just kind of felt like, okay, I could look at last year and say, you know, that was, um, a really difficult time, and, you know, I'm gonna— it's gonna take me a long time to recoup the money and all that stuff. And I was like, why would I do that? That seems silly. Today is today, you know. I could make $20,000 in the next few weeks. I don't know. I mean, it doesn't have to influence anything that you do starting now. It just doesn't. This business lesson number 3 is so major, I feel like I should teach a whole course on this, which is to keep selling even if no one is buying. And I already— yeah, no reason to let the story of the past limit us. You're right, Marina. I, I already kind of knew this lesson about keep selling even if no one is buying, but last year this was probably the biggest lesson that I learned, which is that if you are in business for yourself, it's so important to just keep offering things even if nobody says yes. Just keep offering things, keep selling things, because as you keep doing that, you, you develop a way of experiencing selling and offering that makes it less drama-driven. I don't know if that is making sense. It just becomes more like a thing that you do and that's all, you know. And so the last year was very, very good practice for me because I offered a lot of things that nobody bought. And you might think, oh my gosh, well, that must have made your state of mind even worse. It actually didn't. What actually ended up happening was the more I sold, even if people didn't buy, I was like, well, I'm still out there, I'm still doing it, I'm still showing up. And that's the only thing I can ask myself to do is to keep showing up. And I, I thought, you know, yeah, it's a very good lesson to just keep in mind all the time. Because I think a lot of people who are in business for themselves get discouraged if nobody buys, you know, if they try to sell something and nobody buys it, they just quit. And I'm just saying that isn't going to do it. Like, you just have to keep selling, even if nobody's buying it, and just see what you can do differently. What you can change, you know, and just keep going. Um, this is another one that I learned big time, is lesson number 4: keep showing up, keep being visible, even if only a few people are commenting or quote unquote validating you. You know, we live in a culture where we want people to literally like us on every app, right? We if nobody responds or something, and it feels like it's just going out into the ether, you know, does it really matter? And I think it matters a lot because for me last year in particular, showing up and being visible, even though a few people were engaging with me, for the most part my engagement went way down and a lot of things like that just kind of dropped. Precipitously, it was really more about me staying as active as I could possibly be, even if it meant not showing up with my face, because a lot of the time I didn't look very well and just writing a post, you know, because there were plenty of days where I was like, I can't do a live, I can't take a photo of myself, I just can't. I'm just going to write something and share it. Or send an email, or I'll make a post or something. And if people comment, great. If they don't, great. You know, this isn't about them at this point. It's about me trying to just put one foot in front of the other. And this is actually true, I think, in business in general, is to just keep showing up even if only a few people are there with you. Um, Marina says, I get discouraged even before I offer something. Yeah, so take these lessons to heart then, because believe me, I felt plenty of discouragement and it, you know, I still just made a decision that I was going to keep selling. I was going to keep showing up and sharing stuff and whatever happened was whatever happened. A business lesson number 5, you can feel awful and still make money because I still made money last year. Did I make as much? No. As I mentioned, I made about half. What I have been making since, you know, 2017 or whatever. But I still made money. And I, when I actually looked at the total when I was starting to organize my finances for taxes, I was like, well, that was actually a little better than I expected. I really did. I thought I had made, you know, maybe half of what I actually did. And I was surprised that I had made anything. So it proved to me that you can feel really, really bad and still be able to earn money, that all of the notions we hear about being high vibe or feeling positive and all that, it's just baloney. It's just baloney because I did not feel that way 99% of the time last year and I still was able to make money as a solopreneur. Business lesson number 6: You can show up, sell, and coach people even if you're not feeling your best. So I may not have shown up physically as much as I had in the past, and mostly that was because I wasn't always physically able to do that. Although, like I said, I did do those 16 talks in a row. That was, that was a major achievement for me. And I helped a lot of people last year, even though I was feeling terrible. And that also made me realize that any excuse I might have in the future about that is just bogus. You know, I can't go, I can't go there. I can't have that excuse of, oh, you know, I feel really bad, so I'm not going to be a good Coach today. It's just not true because you know how it is when you, when there is something that you love to do, you can kind of turn it on when you need to turn it on. And you can be present for people when you need to be present. And then when that moment is over, then you can collapse or do what you need to do, you know. So like when I was giving those Mary's Principles talks, I think I started them at about 7 PM my time, and they would sometimes go till like 8:15, you know. So I would be talking continuously. They were Facebook Lives for like 75 minutes, and then I needed to do a bunch of work after them to get the recordings ready. So by the time I was done I had worked from like 7:00 PM till around 9:00, 9:15, and then I would just sort of collapse after that. But I felt like, okay, I have the energy to show up for this 2 hours and do all of this for people even though I'm not feeling great. So that was another really helpful lesson to know. Number 7, it's okay to change direction and experiment. If people don't follow you, that's okay. New people will find you. So I have always been somebody in my business who has sort of followed my nose and kind of gone where I needed to go. But last year it didn't really feel like that. It felt more like I'm just grasping at anything to keep going. And yet through all of that, a lot of people stayed with me, which I'm so grateful for. Some people dropped off and I've gotten new people in already as I've started to make this new focus on coaching to 5K months. And I just want you to know that if you change direction and experiment with something, it's totally okay. Like nothing terrible is going to happen if you, if you really feel the need to do that. Business lesson number 8: don't overlook what is working. So it might be challenging sometimes to see the evidence of what's working, but you need to look for it anyway. So, you know, last year I remember when my income really started to plummet. I had the first part of the year was okay, and then it just really was on this nosedive. And so anytime I earned anything, I was like, all right, look, that worked. Something— somebody benefited from something that I did and they paid me. Yay, that worked. Even if it was $50 or $25 or whatever it was, I was like, okay, there's some evidence here that what I'm doing is working in some way, shape, or form, and I'm going to keep looking for that instead of things that reinforce these thoughts that say I'm a failure and nothing is working. I just was I'm like, okay, I need to look at what is working as much as I possibly can and, and just keep going. Yeah, $25 for 5 taglines, Wendy says. Yeah, I wrote some taglines. I needed— that was something I did just for fun, just to keep my creativity going. A business lesson number 9. Okay, this is a biggie. It's, it's all about getting real about what you actually want. It may mean that you start over. It may mean that you need to change big things in your life and in your business. And don't be afraid to do that. So I will be very candid with you that one of the things that came out of all of this turmoil was I realized that I wanted to completely reorganize my business and how I was working with people. And so I have some, something new coming in February that I was mentioning. I'm not going to go into detail about it, but a new way of supporting people As I said, we may be moving to a different part of France for various reasons, and I just thought, you know, sometimes you just have to be really honest and say, you know, this isn't working for me anymore. The way that things— that I was earning a living before worked when it worked, and now it's not. And I need to be honest about that and not try to go back to what I was doing before because I could tell that that just wasn't going to work for me because of where I have landed now. I don't know if that's making sense, but like going through all of that in 2022, all of this upheaval and like uncertainty and unfocused and all of that, I can't— I started to come out of it and I went, I went, I can't go back to the way I was doing things. I have to do things in a very different way. And that's when I found this, this coach that I've been working with, and I'm reorganizing everything and how I do everything because I just felt a need to massively shift the way I was approaching my business and now also my, my personal life. And number 10, business lesson number 10: Surround yourself with the right people. Be judicious about who you let into your space. And I have also found that investing in great support, it's, it's really invaluable. And that's something that I also learned big time because in 2022 I invested in the wrong kind of support twice. And I learned my lesson there that I need to be much more careful about who I am hanging out with in a professional sense. And I feel like this is something that isn't talked about enough, that it's, it's very easy to find ourselves— I've done this more times than I care to admit. And like I said, last year I did it twice in a, in a massive way. I got into a space of people who were just not helpful to me, not right. We didn't have the same values. And I just had to leave even though it cost me. And I thought, I'm never going to make that mistake again. I'm really going to be judicious about who I am spending my time with. And if I'm going to invest in coaching support, it's going to be with someone who I know is right for me. And so I feel like this entrepreneurial journey as a coach it can be very lonely and it's really hard to do this whole business thing by yourself. And so that would be my, my last lesson that I'd share with you is to really get the kind of support you need. I'm not saying it needs to be with me, but with somebody who you can trust and who really understands what you're trying to do and is willing to be there for you. That's just super important. And I mean this not just in terms of our personal life, but really people who understand business and who do business in a way that connects with how you want to do business. Because as you know, there's a million ways that people do business and not all of them are good. And sometimes you can fall in with people who aren't right for you. So let me just do a quick recap. Number 1 business lesson: your story isn't over yet. Number 2: yesterday, last week, etc., no influence on today. Number 3: keep selling even if no one is buying. Number 4: keep showing up even without validation. Number 5: you can make money even when you're not at your best. Number 6: you can show up, sell, and coach even when you're not at your best. 7: it's okay to change direction and lose. Quote unquote people. Number 8, don't overlook what is working. Number 9, get real about what you actually want. And number 10, surround yourself with the right people and invest in supporting yourself. So let me stop the share and go down to the comments. Um, hi Nikki, uh, great lessons learned. Oh, thank you so much. Hi Lisa, all of this resonates with me, thank you. Oh, I'm glad, I'm really glad. So what other comments do you have now that we've gone through all of the business lessons learned?

I would like to say something. Yes, if I may. Yes, thank you for sharing everything here, and I'm sorry that you had to go through all this. We worked together— when was it? Like 5 years ago?

Yeah, I don't know.

And Mary was my very first coach, and I was like making no money. I didn't know, I didn't have any idea about how to do business. And you, you helped me so immensely with everything, like took me by the hand. And this, this one launch with the Dream, Draw, Do class where I emailed you like twice a day, it was— I could not have done it without you. And it was kind of bumpy. But now I don't understand anymore why it was so difficult. I'm now doing business coaching myself in a way. I had my best year last year, was for me the best year. So that's great. And, and yeah, so thank you very much for what you have done for me, and I'm glad you're going back to, to coaching. I don't know what else you have been doing. I'm more on LinkedIn now than anywhere else. And yeah, thank you for what you have been doing for me, and do it for others also.

Thank you, Ingrid. Oh, that makes me really happy. I'm so happy to hear that. I've missed you too. Yeah, thank you, Ingrid. Ah, Wendy, Wendy says nothing beats transparency and authenticity amongst us humans. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, I feel like, you know, so much of the business conversation is, you know, people really only showing you the positives and occasionally sharing the negatives, quote unquote, but maybe only if it serves their business or something. I don't know. Do you know what I'm saying? And I didn't want to have that kind of conversation. I was like, you know, I just want to tell people that there are some things you can learn from going through a period like this. Um, and I should say that, you know, if, if something I have said has really struck you and you want to talk to me more about it privately, just send me a note. Um, you know, you got my email address. You can email me, uh, mary@maryinparis.com or maryschiller.com, and just let me know that you want to have a chat because I know how it can feel when it looks like everybody else is succeeding and you're not, or if you're going through a rough period or you, you know, you feel like you've lost your direction. I really, I understand. I really get it. And I'm happy to offer you some support if I can. Yeah, Wendy says I may have to change my website to Mary in France. I'm still going to be Mary in Paris even if I leave because it'll give me an excuse come back here and take photos and do stuff, and I can write it off on my taxes. Um, but yeah, just, we're thinking of moving down to, uh, the Mediterranean, um, because we're Californians and we miss the sun and the surf and stuff. Although there's not much surf in the Mediterranean. It's very weird for a Californian to see a body of water like that that has no waves. It was very weird. But anyway, um, So what else do you guys want to say? Or you can unmute yourself if you have anything else. Hi, go ahead.

This is Gil.

Hi, Gil.

First of all, it appears that I'm the only male of the species on here.

So I think so.

I'm completely out of my league in offering suggestions to you, so bear with me on that. And I tuned in a lot because I just— in, in what, you know, you had written about doing this today, that, I mean, again, you've probably acknowledged this before, that, you know, Mary You're one of the most prolific and, I don't know, prolific people that I know. And I don't know you that well. I've only known you for a few years. And by the way, I'd recommend two excellent books that I've read before. One was on stress and the other one was on Trump that helped me.

You mean by me?

That helped me through some hard times and some very stressful times and all. So I appreciate that.

Thank you, Gil.

When you're— by the way, when you were doing the series on Course, helping people with Course programs and things like, and writing for that, I mean, I just thought that was tremendous. And I thought, this is great. She's going to do this forever. And I love this. You come out out with more and more of those course programs. So I hope you do. I even think I said that to you a while back when I wrote in. So, but anyway, I just feel like in listening to you now, it's— so you're a Billie Eilish— how do you pronounce her name?

Yeah, that's right.

I'm not that familiar with it. I'm more of a Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones kind of person. I'd recommend listening to that too. So I, um, but I, I heard a really great interview with Bruce Springsteen a few weeks ago, and, um, and he was talking about when he was like 15, 16 years old, and, and he would just come home from school and he taught himself to play guitar, and he was just in the basement playing guitar, learning more about playing guitar, and writing music. God, 15 years old. I, I don't know what I— I can't even remember what I was doing at 15. And it was kind of like just— it was really revealing his art, his artistry, that he was a true artist and that he, he could not do what he was doing. You know, he tried to go out and do things with his friends and stuff, but he had to do his art. You know, I myself have never had that experience. I, and, and I'm a little bit envious of artists when they say that they do that, they can just go and practice and practice and do what they do. And, um, and that's what I hear and see in you. I mean, I You may call yourself a business coach or even an entrepreneur or a business person. I see you as an artist, and I think that, you know, I'm being a little bit selfish, but I hope you continue to do what you do so well and to do your art so well. And I can learn from that because I I mean, I'm still just starting in the work I do. I teach something called the Feldenkrais Method. I've been doing that for about 40 years now, and, um, and, uh, but I'm still learning how to do it. And I, I trained with Moshe Feldenkrais, and I— he was a scientist, but he was also an artist in what he did too. And, um, so I can really appreciate those qualities in, in people and I know I have a lot to learn, and, you know, I turned 75 this past year. That was something that happened to me in 2022. And so anyway, that's just my two cents.

I really appreciate that so much, Gil. That means a lot. And I do think that each of us has something that we feel an innate drive to do. And I think that for me, you know, that really sustained me last year was that drive to continue to try to create things, share things, support people as much as I could, even though I didn't feel that great. And, you know, it's interesting that you see it as artistry. That's, that's really poignant for me because I have given some talks on that topic and said that I really do see a very strong parallel between the types of things that we all do and being artists and, and having that be an artistic expression almost. I do feel like business is a, is a creative expression, and I talk about this a lot, that You know, things like showing up that I talked about, just, I just kept showing up and I kept talking. To me, that was the real me trying to keep expressing itself even though I was very cloudy on the surface. And so I really appreciate that analogy very much. Um, oh, thank you, Denise. Um, anybody else want to add something? I hope, I really hope that this talk has been helpful and has inspired you if you've ever felt like you wanted to give up or you didn't know what direction you were going in, just to, just to keep going and keep trying things and, and to know that even if I don't actually see what you're doing, I am seeing you. You know, I, I mean that like somewhere in the cosmic space, um, I am seeing you and I'm appreciating what it is that you're putting out there into the world and that, um, that it's meaningful. You know, it doesn't have to be on a level of— to use Bruce Springsteen or Billy Eilish— doesn't have to be on that level to mean something. It can mean something even if you put it out on Instagram and you don't get a single like. It doesn't matter. It's still you expressing what's within you, and that's what we just need to keep doing. We need to keep trying to connect as much as we can. So keep going.

Thank you so much, Mary.

You're welcome, Denise.

Thanks everyone.

I gotta go.

Well, thanks so much for being here. And, uh, yeah, I think I will go ahead and share this recording, so I will send it out, um, to folks on my email list, and you can watch it again if you're so moved. And again, if you feel like you want to connect with me and have a private chat about anything, just send me an email and I will respond as I always do. All right, thank you so much for being here and for your kindness. Bye everybody.

Bye, Mary.

Have a wonderful week. Thank you.