Episode 58: Women Empowerment and Profitability with Michelle Patterson

You are listening to the Profit first.

Podcast and this episode's gonna be great because it's 58.

Boom.

58. We're here.

Oh, man, reminds me of the Spanish episode when you screamed out gold for like 90 seconds straight.

I know.

Welcome to the show, everyone. This is the Profit first podcast. I'm Chris Curran, I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first and Mike Kau. Christina Buldak is in the studio today.

Hey there.

You're listening to. You're listening to the Profit first podcast where we discuss all angles of profitability.

Profitability is the most important thing in business, period, hands down. And by the way, you can find our show on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio and also our website, profitfirstpodcast.com.

And you know, we're diligently working and bringing to the new Google Google platform too.

Yes, Google is. Well, yeah, Google's rolling out a whole podcasting platform and we're on deck.

They invited us as one of the first ones to be there because the popularity of our show, that is amazing. Yeah, we rocked.

Google.

Mr. Google called you personally on the phone.

Yeah, George Google.

Mr. Google.

Mr. George Google. He's like, I am George Google. He's like, I'm in Nigeria. I need you to send a $1.5 million check. And I was like, this is the deal to century. I mean, it's Mr. Google him. I sent the check. They haven't set us up yet.

So let's give a quick shout out to our corporate partners who we love very much.

Yes. I want to thank Fundera, which one stop shopping for your funds Fundbox, which they cash flow you to the black and they get money in your pocket by financing your invoices that are outstanding. Nextiva voice over IP phone system, the best in the world in T sheets, the time tracking software for champions.

That's right. More about them later. And so we're gonna have a great interview guest and then of course, what we do at the end of the show. We don't always mention this in the beginning, Mike, but we should.

We should.

We actually give our takeaways from the interview. So you gotta stick around on these episodes to near the end when we give our feedback. And of course, you know, one of us says something silly which is funny and everyone makes fun of that person, so.

No, but there's great insights. I mean, last week we had on the world pizza throwing champion, which like, how's that translate to Profitability. And at the end, collectively, we had, like, seven or eight things that we learned. It's like, holy cow, this guy has some amazing insights onto growing any type of business.

Right.

Well, you're going to learn that today, too.

That's right.

I did. Well, you're like, mike, keep going. No. Well, Chris, don't forget what you've been up to, man.

Before I introduce anybody, you know, I have to say, one of our previous guests. I don't know if I should say this on the. On the show. One of our previous guests blocked me on Twitter.

What did you do?

No, I didn't do anything. I don't. I don't do anything.

I mean, guests blocked you?

Yeah, I went to her profile because I'm gonna promote her episode, and I wanted to get her Twitter handle, and, you know, I wanted to promote her, and it said this per. You are blocked. And I'm like, what?

That is so funny.

I'm have to tell you who it is off the air. Maybe. If you're listening, you want to guess, put it in the comments section of the episode.

Yeah, yeah. We want to hear who you think could have blocked. Was the last name Glasscock, by the way?

No.

Of all people, he hasn't blocked me. First episode was a disaster. Because of him, we're 58 episodes in. It's still damaged to me emotionally, that.

One review that Mr. Glasscock gave our.

Show, the one review that just took me down.

What have you been up to?

Dudes keep growing this beard. It's getting longer and longer. By the time we do, like, five or six more episodes, I'm gonna be Father Time. I think.

Dude diet white, be Santa Claus, every dude, the whole.

I wish I had to dye it white. It's white on its own.

Oh, that was my problem. That's why I shaved my beard, like, three months ago, because it was all. Literally all white. And I'm like, I'm 43 years old. This is. I mean, I guess. I don't know. I think everybody. Everybody by the time they're in their 40s. Well, most people are. Have a lot of gray, but I think a lot of people dye it these days, don't they, Mike?

I guess that's popular now with women, too. They're dying their hair gray in, like, their 20s. It's a thing.

Oh, well, that's the reverse. Like, when you're in your 40s, like me and Chris, you can't help but the gray comes everywhere, and hair starts growing in the spots you never knew you could Grow like, my ear is getting hair. I'm like, what the hell is going on?

Check the website for pictures.

Yeah, we did. We did post from last week. There's a great studio shot. You can see my beard and you can see Christine in the background. Like, just disgusting.

Our guest is on hold, sitting here saying, what the.

What kind of show is this? You know who our guest is today, Chris?

I do.

It's Michelle Patterson. I know you've been waiting for this one. You knew episode 58 would be great. Michelle Patterson is the CEO of the Women Network LLC. This is. Women's Network is a umbrella platform that shines the light on organizations and corporations who empower women and bring them together as a community to experience what we call we are better together. Dude. Women's empowerment is a massive movement and there's someone leading it. Her name is Michelle Patterson. No further ado. We want to welcome you to the show, Michelle.

Hey, guys.

Welcome.

Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So, Chris, I was. I was looking you up where I have to block you if I need to. Dude, I will not do that. You are in the inner circle, so there's no blocking.

Hey, Michelle, I heard you were a former national sales trainer for Robert Half.

You heard correctly. I was with Robert half for 13 years and was producing. I had a region that was Southern California. I was the youngest vice president for a big chunk of that time. And we then rolled into. We were the number one, number two performing region and got selected to do sales training from a national standpoint. So it was incredible experience.

That's pretty amazing. Christine, I don't know if you knew this. My second company was acquired by Robert Half International.

I did not know that.

Yeah, Fortune 500, a big corporation. All right, Michelle, let's get right into the thick of things. What does women's empowerment have to do with profitability?

So I love that question. And I think too, it's what we teach women is they're doing great things, but doing good doesn't mean being unprofitable, being poor. I mean, get paid for the work that you're doing, get paid for the services, have that passion project, but have it be passion that's profitable and how to do that and really be successful at it.

You know, I work with a lot of women entrepreneurs, and I do see this as a common trait, that women in many cases undermine their value and it's reflected in price. The comparative alternative, if it's a guy, in most cases will be higher priced. Is that kind of what you're pointing to? Is that women are seeing, are doing this to themselves to some degree.

You know, I mean we see it across the board in all different areas. You know, let's look at recruiting. You know, we'd have an individual come in, a man, and he'd apply for a position and he had three out of the 10 requirements. And he'd look at the job and he's like, I got this, I own this, I can do this. You know, this has my name written all over it. And then you'd have a female apply for a position and she'd have seven out of the 10 requirements and she'd look at that same opportunity. And because she didn't have all 10, she Oftentimes, I mean, wouldn't take that next step. Oftentimes wouldn't even apply because I don't have all 10 and would undermine and undercut and be really her worst critic.

Why do women do this to themselves and why do men see themselves as differently?

I think too it's how we showed up in the world and really been trained. What we're doing with Women Network, you know, we're creating the largest community for women globally. We're in 192 countries. We produce. Our signature event is the California Women's Conference. It's been going on for 30 years. And what happens is again, this is our community, this is our golf course. And so, you know, how can we go ahead and really support one another? And we haven't always been, you know, really supportive of each other. We've been competitive, we've competed for that one spot, you know, thinking that we've got to go after that one spot and compete with each other when that's so not the case at all anymore. And there's opportunities that are coming up and what's happening and going back to your piece on profitability, you know what I tell people is the bottom line about women engaging and being involved is the bottom line. Companies, when they look at their makeup of their organization, having women engaged in senior level positions, the company is successful. Profitability reaches higher levels. I mean there's all these studies that show that. And so you want to have a successful company, look at the makeup of your company. Is it diverse? Do you have women represented in those senior level positions?

But I want to rewind to the woman's self perception. I understand and see the value for businesses to bring more women in, in higher level positions. Absolutely no question. Brings in a different perspective, different level of talent. Absolute compliments to a corporation. But what I didn't expect from, to hear from you was that you had this same type of person come in. I'm sorry, that same person. You had one position that you had people applying for and a woman comes in who's more qualified, yet she sees herself as less qualified. A guy who's under qualified sees himself as more qualified. Is this something that rewinds all the way to when a child is born, how they're being groomed, or is this something more genetic?

You know, several fronts, one of which is this mindset, you know, that women have of, you know, am I enough? You know, I want to be able to have all the pieces, everything filled out and the puzzle completely completed versus and we typically, we won't brag on ourselves, you know, we won't be. There's a, there's an example of a very, just this company where a group of guys went in and they all started out, you know, entry level positions and they said, okay, every opportunity that we get to brag on each other, we're going to do that. You know, I'm going to go ahead and you know, my boss is around, it's like, oh, have you seen what, you know, Joe's doing? And Joe's going to do the same thing back and forth. And you look, you know, 10 years out, all five of those guys are all in, you know, executive level positions and you've got one that's actually in the, you know, CEO level. And so it goes back to this mindset of, you know, women again giving those accolades, you know, supporting one another. And again we come to the table with this understanding, you know, of and this questioning, you know, am I enough? You know, do I matter? You know, what's my contribution and how does that play? So much so that we, again, we don't even take a step oftentimes into that situation to give us that opportunity. And that's the real power in what we're doing is being able to communicate and give those resources and those tools to women, letting them know they've got all the pieces to the puzzle. They just need to step into their greatness and make a decision to take on that opportunity.

Aren't women at a disadvantage from the aspect of if they try to behave like a guy, they're perceived differently. I've seen guys come in very, perhaps could be defined as arrogant or cocky, but the definition from the people around them is he's got drive, he's focused. Conversely, I see a woman come in and now she's a bitch for doing the exact same things, isn't there a bias toward men that candor, aggressiveness, forthright, just absolute drive is a good thing, but for women it's a negative thing.

Well, so I had a meeting yesterday and a good friend of mine with a huge, huge company and she's up for promotion and she's stepping into this role. And so I sit down with her and we're having lunch and she's like, yeah, I'm up for this position. And I said, you know, would you humor me? Let's roll. And she's like, what? And I go, just humor me. And I go, and I started asking her questions and I said, so what do you, you know, tell me about your background. Why do you think that you're the best fit for this position? And I was amazed because she's this powerhouse and completely took a back seat, didn't brag, didn't take the opportunity to really highlight her accomplishments. And afterwards we talked about this and it's, you know, you need to go in, you need to be your biggest advocate. And in doing so, it's not bragging, it's, you know, literally putting out there what's happening. And so again, there's this feeling of I'm not going to be, you know, not going to, you know, I'm going to come across as self interested. There's another example I have of an individual who we were out meeting and big, huge sponsor of the conference and she was named the top 20 women in Silicon Valley. So I show up and I said, oh, we need to do a press release. You know, this is amazing. I'm so excited. And her comment to me was, I don't want to be a target, I don't want you don't do any marketing, don't send anything out. And I look at her and I said, okay, that's why we got issued. I go, stop, like, enough, enough of this. And she looks at me, she goes, what do you mean? I go, what do you mean a target? And she goes, I just. And her husband, the way they've got their structure is he is a stay at home dad. She's, you know, again, you know, top 20 in Silicon Valley, you know, rocking and rolling. But she didn't want to put any light on that. And again, takes this back and she says, I just, I don't want to be under scrutiny, I don't want. And again, women, we have a tendency to not always be supportive. I mean, we can be catty. And so really stepping out of that and stepping into and recognizing, you know, I've got a gift and you've got this amazing gift. And when we come together, you know, that's when the magic happens and none of us were given all the gifts. And that's what I think is so neat about with business and collaboration, is that, you know, that's when you can bring folks together and really. And it's men and women and really, you know, celebrate each other's gifts and each other's strengths versus being competitive. That's when, you know, that's when you can create these amazing companies and really experience profitability when you're working in that type of environment.

See, I need to jump in here because I think, I believe that the fundamental basis of pretty much everything you're saying like a woman feeling like she's not enough or feeling inadequate or feeling like a target. To me, it's all habits of thinking and belief. It comes down to your thinking and your confidence and your habits of thinking and confidence. And you. And you also. And that's very fundamental. I mean, I do, I meditate, I teach meditation. Right. The mind is this tool we have, and most people don't even understand what it is. It's just on autopilot. So to go to the deeper fundamental is always going to be much more effective. And you also mentioned bragging, and I, I keep thinking of that. I don't understand why it's necessary to brag. I mean, my wife is a very competent professional, very successful.

Stop bragging.

She's from India. She's from India, which is a different culture, of course. Right. But she doesn't, like, she's one of the top people in her field, but she doesn't brag. She just, she's. It's a calm confidence. So I don't know that. I mean, do women really need to start pounding their, the table and pounding their chest to, to be like men? I don't think so. I think there can be a calm confidence, confidence that's running underneath, and that's real power. Right.

Well, and I think that you hit it right on spot. And that is, that's that confidence. That's when you can step in and really, you know, you're comfortable in your own skin and you have those, you know, feminine traits and you're not trying to portray yourself as something that you're not and have that masculine energy. And it is interesting. I mean, it doesn't, you know, I've met presidents and first ladies and individuals all over, you know, the world. And it's those individuals that come in where again, they're authentic and congruent with who they are, and they're not trying to be something or emulate, you know, another individual. I mean, it's truly who they are and their greatness. That's when it works.

So we have tons of female entrepreneurs listening into the show right now, and they're undermining themselves by underpricing themselves, not saying the things they need to say to distinguish themselves from the competition. And I'm hearing it's a thinking game. Do you have some very specific stuff that someone can do in the moment to improve their confidence in themselves?

So, and, Mike, you. I shared the story with you. I mean, you want to talk about monkey chatter? You know, I stepped into very, very big shoes. I had the honor of taking on the California Women's Conference, which Maria Shriver, you know, ran before. And so for me, it was, you know, okay, you're not a Kennedy. You're not out of the governor's office. You're not Maria Shriver, you know, you're Michelle Patterson. And, you know, I can't do this. And so, again, it really starts with you inherently. And if you let that monkey chatter, you know, get the best of you, you're really putting yourself at a disadvantage. And so for me, it was being able to go ahead and recognize that I'm bringing a certain skill set to the table, and it doesn't take away from someone else or there's no comparison. And again, it's how can we collectively come together? So it really starts with you. The individual is the first thing. And I can remember going through my having to raise money for the conference, and we were in a world of hurt. My first year doing it. We ended up being in a deficit of 1.8 million million. 17 days before the conference. And what happened? I had hired a sponsorship company. They pipelined 7 million in funding, and out of the 7 million that they were going to bring in, they brought a total of $100,000. And so I had my investors, I had my sponsor, you know, screaming, shut the event down. And I had to really make a decision. It's, you know, am I going to believe in myself? Am I going to, you know, take that leap and go forward? And what I had to do was two things. One was I had to ask for the help. And that's the biggest piece, is that we think that we have to go at this alone and work in silos and independently of one another when we don't. And I think for women in particular, you know, we're amazing collaborators. I mean, when we come together and we network and we support one another, we create amazing things. And the only way that I got through that conference, we ended up raising 1.65 million in 17 glorious days. If you can imagine, you know, somebody who was not a fundraiser, you know, I'm in the mirror brushing my teeth, saying, you are a fundraising machine. You can do this. And, you know, really pushing, you know, forward. It was. It was a head game. And. But I had to. I had to do something that is very scary for a lot of people, including myself at the time, and that was I had to ask for the help. And then when I asked for the help, I had to receive. I had to receive that help and really be okay with that. And taught me. It taught me so much, you know, in areas that I'm able to apply that. And I think that's the biggest thing is, again, you know, really have that confidence going in. You know, it's. You don't have to show up with everything. You don't have to have all the skill set. Nobody does. None of us have that. But what we do have is that ability to be able to go ahead and collaborate. And that's why our theme is Women Network better together. That when we stop having that competitive and we start recognizing, wow, this works, I can ask for the help and people will show up for you. Oftentimes, they just don't know. They don't know what your passion is. They don't know what that mission is and that project is that you're working on. So they can't get on board with it.

You know, once I was being coached through this process of just changing my thoughts, and what this coach had told me is, stop selling and start serving. And I want to ask you this and get a sense, Michelle, if this works in the. For women, because I'm not a woman. But here's. Yeah, here's.

But you have lots of feminine traits.

I did.

Great quality.

Thank you.

I'm noticing that you. And I love that about you.

Thank you. So one thing I have now totally thrown off what I find is, what someone told me is if there was someone drowning, would you run and help them? And the answer is yes. And, you know, some women entrepreneurs have asked the same thing. If someone's drowning, will you run and help them? And say, yeah, I compromise my own life. I dive in the water and pull them out. And that's what serving is, right? You don't have to convince them, hey, sell. Swim harder out there and just watch. You're Participating. And that coach of mine said, well, that translates into how you can work with prospects, realize that they are drowning in whatever challenge they're facing. And if you have the solution, it's no longer that you're trying to convince them to buy something. You have an obligation to save them from drowning. And does that little mind shift help change my mind? What's your thoughts around that? Does that strategy work for empowering women, or is there a different spin you have on that?

Well, serving and not selling and even taking that piece to that next step. And that is when I am of service. I mean, that's when you're happiest, when you can get out of your own head. And it's not about me, and woe is me and, oh, my life change, challenges, and this is the fastest way that you can reach success and that you can reach happiness and just really being fulfilled is by getting out of your own head and being of service and serving others. So it's twofold. And I think it goes into the piece of the conversation we were talking about earlier, and that is not wanting to feel like, oh, I'm bragging, I'm boasting. You know, I'm showing off is it's harder to be able for women and men is when they feel like, okay, I'm selling myself, I'm having a brag versus, okay, I'm being of service. You know, I'm living out my mission. And when you put that mindset on, you know, you want to tell everybody. You know, my husband makes the joke. He says, you know, there's three forms of advertisement that. There's the telephone, the television, and tell Michelle. So if I think something is amazing and great and that person is just on, I want to tell the world about them. And oftentimes again, when it's being of service and you don't feel like, okay, I'm describing me, I'm in my head, I'm in me, me, me, me, me mode versus I'm just fulfilling my mission and I'm being a service. Then that's when people, again, they're engaged, they get on board, and they want to be a part of what you're all about.

My wife, when she finds a product or something she likes, she cannot help but tell her friends. And Michelle is exactly what you said. It's because she's being of service. She found this lipstick that's also moisturizer. And on the lipstick container also has, like, a little mirror so you can see yourself as you apply it. She goes gaga over this thing and she tells everyone about it. And I said, wow, you can make a commission selling this stuff. She's like, no, no, I have no interest. I just want to serve others. I love what you're saying. If I, Michelle, what I'm hearing is if you can see yourself as being that product that you're now no longer trying to persuade others, you're just trying to serve them.

Exactly. And it's interesting, I mean that I had a hard time. I went from again, top, top producer, top region, working for corporate America to then running my own company and I dipped in sales. I mean, it was, it was horrible because I felt like, oh my gosh, I went from selling, you know, products, selling a service, selling someone else, to all of a sudden feeling like I'm selling myself. And it went, it was a disaster. And then when I, when I was able to realize, okay, wait a minute, my service, what I'm providing is creating this women network, is providing the best practices. What's the top things that women are doing to reach their success and having that and then being able to highlight and spotlight other thought leaders that are out there in our world and so that the rest of the world hears about them. And once that shifted for me it was like, okay, game on. It was awesome. So very similar to your wife. I mean, for me, you know, it's, I want to be able to tell everybody. It's, you know, this is who you go to, you know, you want to learn about how to be profitable, you need to listen to Mike's show. I mean, get on board.

It's actually 100% true, by the way.

Bingo.

But you know what I mean. And that's again with women in this collaboration and creating the largest community for women globally to. And the piece that we've taken it to, which I'm so excited about, is now we've gone in and we've set up challenges in each of these five areas. And so we've created this network and the support community for women to come on board, sign up. You know, what is that challenge that they're going after, who other like minded individuals are involved and be able to pull that group together so they can be that community and that support system to help get to their goal.

These are fantastic insights. If people want to dive in deeper to women network, where should they go? Michelle?

Yes, if you go to womenwomennetwork.com we're actually going through and it's been phenomenal. I mean, I've been able to go ahead and meet with world leaders and really talk now about, okay, what's worked for you, what's not worked for you, you know, in these five areas. And the reason I bring up the five areas is the five to thrive. That's a study that was done by Gallup poll and they did a 50 year study and they said that your best life, your most exciting life, the people that are happiest, they have all five elements they're tied to together. And only 7% of our world right now is doing all five elements. So what's happening? You hear stories about this. People are going off to work and they're completely focusing all their attention into work. And then their home life is out of sorts. Or, you know, they're working, but they have, they don't exercise and so their health is not working for them. And so what we do is we look at and work with major corporations where we go in and we say, okay, here's the five areas. How do we come up with your best life blueprint which you can download off of Women Network for free and be able to go ahead and put together what's your plan? What is it that you want to have happen? And I'm excited to be able to go ahead and continue this conversation with you on the financial piece because again, it goes back to is having, having the means to be able to do the things that you want to do. You know, I mean, women, oh, by all means. You know, we're less than 3% of the funding that comes in from venture capital groups. I mean, because we're not asking, we're not asking for it.

Right. And if you, if you want to deliver your mission, you have to have the means to do it. Michelle, thanks for joining us on the show today. Fascinating to you. Thank you.

Thanks, Michelle.

Okay, so now you guys talk about how great, how much you learned. Go ahead.

God, she's bragging to you.

Shit, man ears.

She's gonna hold on the line, isn't she? She bragged about herself. Hey, wait, Michelle, before we let you go, can you just quickly tell us what those five elements are?

I would love to. I would love to. So it's career, you know how you're spending your time with your day. Could be a retired person. Physical, having the energy to do the things that you want to do. Financial, having the means to do the things that you want to do do. By the way, the multi zillionaires, millionaires, they're not the happiest people in the world. It's once you reach the threshold of having the means. The happiness meter doesn't jump off the charts. And then relationships, the relationships you have, and then community. How are you engaged with your community? Are you being of service? Are you giving back? And those five elements are what makes your happiest life awesome.

Thank you, Michelle.

Wow.

Thank you, guys.

All right, Chris, with the. It's so funny with. With our connection cutting out on our virtual set for the first time ever. I didn't know Shorty shared those five things, so I didn't want to ask. We lost the connection like four or five times, so I'm like. I'm too embarrassed to ask the 5R. So thank you for covering for me, brother.

Good. All right. Yeah. So we're going to talk about our takeaways, but first, our corporate partners.

So listen, interestingly, by the way, all of our contacts, all these businesses are women, except for at Fundbox. I'll start with Fundbox. Fundbox is David Tolkien, but Rachel Taylor over there is actually our lead contact, but David's the one on the road. Fundbox, if you have invoices due to your business that you haven't been able to collect or taking longer than you want for legitimate reasons or otherwise, Fundbox will release those funds to you immediately so you have the full amount. Then when the funds do come in from your client, you continue the collection. So you don't lose that relationship. You just turn the money over to Fundbox, plus a service fee. Pretty cool.

Cash box.

Fund.

Yeah. Yeah. I gotta enunciate. So that's fund box. Nextiva. What does nextiva do?

CHRISTINA voice over ip.

Yes. What does IP stand for? Do you have?

I always forget. Don't ask me guess.

One of the letters. Internet. Internet protocol. Protocol, but close enough. Internet protocol. Yeah. So we just added yet two more phones. Jackie's desk here at the office and also at her home office. Christina's fully set up to work at home, and it's wonderful because it supports a virtual business. It supports. We have a hybrid business. We all come here to the office, but we all work from home, too. It has that flexibility. I travel constantly, but I'm always on my nextiva phone because it also virtualizes to my cell. So I have a traditional phone, a cell. Ultimate in flexibility. Nextiva. Go with them. Next one.

T sheets.

T sheets. Timesheets. Yep. Timesheet tracking. Ron, you can hear him in the background yelling away on his next tiva phone.

He's killing it.

He's killing it. And he's tracking his time all simultaneously because T sheets you can. You just track when you start and when you finish with a single click on the. On your computer or on your text message. Text messaging, but it's perfect time tracking accuracy. Accuracy is necessary for reporting purposes if you're working with clients. But also when I do the times for us and do payroll, it takes seconds as opposed to hours like it did last week for me because I messed up the system.

It's like the modern version of punching in and out.

Yes. Yeah.

More accurate, faster, easier, and way more flexible. Like you said, you text in. That's crazy, dude.

You can GPS and literally, your truck. Your truck could pull up. If you're, like, in the service industry, you send out one of your trucks, the second arrives at the address you send it to, it clicks it off and starts tracking so the guy doesn't have to push the button in.

Wow.

Yeah.

Classic.

And the last one, but not least is a fundera or fund era. It's 1D, it's not 2. It's not Fundera. Fundera, Fundera. I dare you to get funding. So here's the deal, yo. You need money to grow your business. At certain times, only put the money into things that are going to have a quick and profitable return. But once you identify those things, call Fundera. They will shop it out for you. If you need 5,000 or 500,000, they are the source to get those loans.

Doesn't get easier than that.

No, I need 500,000, by the way. I'm going to call them up. Hey, I need 500,000. For what? I don't know. You know, for me, for Chris. How are you going to pay back? I don't know. Probably never. They'll be like, oh, okay, we fund about 80% of those cases. Oh, I think we can hook you up. No, they don't. They would not fund that case. All right, I learned a lot on this call, but I'm not going to go first because I don't want to share it yet.

Chris.

Chris, you want to go first, man?

All right, I'll go first. Well, it's interesting that she said that. She brought up this fact, a thing you hear a lot these days. Oh. You have to be passionate about what you do. And a lot of times that translates into, well, you make no money. Right. She said you can have the passion and be profitable. So again, it's simple, but it's true. And it's. It's a mental thing. It's. It's just your thinking. The other thing I liked, she said to ask for Help. Right. A lot of us, especially solopreneurs or people who are on their own or just starting their company, you know, they kind of want to do everything themselves, and we all get trapped into that to some degree. But asking for help is. Is great.

Huge, man. I want to just mention something about that. Passion and profit. It absolutely exists. But if you're not experiencing it, it's because you're out of alignment. Kind of like a chiropractor. You. If you can't stand up, and the chiropractor's gotta put your spine back in alignment. Same thing with your business. If you love what you're doing, but no one's buying it, you got an issue with how you're positioning for the consumer. So you have to adjust so that the customer wants it. But don't pivot. That term drives me crazy, because pivot means adjust to what the customer wants, ignoring yourself, which is just as bad. Now you're doing what the customer wants, but you hate it. So always play into your passion, your purpose, but keep adjusting to what the customer wants in alignment with your purpose, and ultimately, you'll find passion and profits.

Nice.

Christine, what'd you like?

I think that also plays into being confident. And I don't think that's just for women. It's for men too. But people think that being confident means being arrogant, and that's not the case. If you're confident in what you do, you're able to, you know, price accordingly, and people will see your true value of it. Just stay true to that, which. And also not only be able to ask for. For help, but be able to receive it. When someone offers, say yes. Don't be like, no, I got it. Yeah, yeah, take the help.

You know, it's funny. And just talking about your own story, a few months ago, you were rocked for a while. You had a lot of family issues going on, and your conference was shaken, and you weren't asking for help. Then you asked for help internally with some stuff. We found a complimentary position out there, and your confidence at the same time, skyrocketed. But confidence came first. I noticed you were rocked, and all of a sudden, you started getting a little confidence, and that's when you started asking, and you got momentum, and now you're, like, fucking walking on.

Thank you.

Yeah, so I can't wait for the Broadway show soon. All right, here's what I learned, Chris. Ask for help. Both you guys said that. I wrote that down, too. So clearly a common theme there is the ask for help. I Also heard Michelle talk about get uncomfortable. Growth happens where you're uncomfortable. So if you are comfortable, that means you're not growing. You have to do things that make you uncomfortable. Next thing, head junk. Christine is actually one who said this, like, there's so much head junk going on, it's defeating opportunity after opportunity. You have to address the head junk and simply telling your head a different story, a different perspective. Here's one thing I just came up with. A lot of times people's women in particular are saying, I have to. I'm selling myself. But the words selling and myself together is a very negative connotation.

Scary.

Scary, right? Oh, I'm selling myself. That is scary. But also there's a negative connotation. I mean, I can't think of a better word. It's like prostitution, where who else sells themselves? Don't say you're selling yourself to yourself. Don't say that because of the negative association with that. Instead, tell yourself that you're helping people survive, that you're saving people. You're saving someone. You're not selling yourself, you are saving someone. When you're saving someone, it becomes an obligation. And I think you'll have much more drive through it.

And when you step out of your comfort zone, I know it's scary, but it's something that my voice teacher tells me quite often, embrace the fear and do it anyway.

Exactly. I have a similar saying, embrace the fear, then have a beer, or have a beer and you will embrace the fear. Yeah. No, it's a great point.

Hey, when she mentioned those five elements, which, by the way, were career, physical, financial, relationships, and community, she mentioned financial. She's like, oh, the richest people in the world are not the most happy. She said, there's a point when you get to earning a certain amount of money above that. If you earn more than that, it doesn't add to your happiness. And I think that is something that applies to this women. You know, what's the difference between women and men? Because men, we're kind of like idiots. We just want to go. We want to be king of the hill. We don't give a crap. Yeah, you know, it's. It's ego, it's bravado and all this stuff. Women, they shouldn't emulate that women can be successful enough and create the life they want. Full. A full life. A full, rewarding life without competing with the men and without trying to get to their level. You know, very, very quietly. You can. You can have a great life, I think.

Right. You can do within your own personality what speaks to you. And the funny thing is you said you could, you can be successful. Well, we all have our own definition of success. And I do know one thing because I've been on both sides of it. Now, money is not the definition of success. It's part of it. It's part of it because it brings comfort. But more of it does not necessarily define success. I think success is being authentically yourself at the end of the day. So stick that in your corn cob pipe and smoke it.

Thank you.

We gotta rock and roll and get out of here.

Let's get out of here, Mike. Profit first professionals. I know there's a way that all these entrepreneurs listening, you know, they have an accountant, they have a bookkeeper, but their accountant or bookkeeper isn't always focused on their profitability. So that's what you guys do.

That's what we do. If you own a business right now, right now, it's time to get profitable. And here's what I mean. If you are struggling or surviving, check by check, you sure as hell is not profitable. If you have to refinance your house to cover payroll, you really are not profitable. If you're making 5% at the end of the year, that isn't even profitable because the next year we'll eat that up. Most businesses, the healthiest of businesses make 10, 20, 30% bottom line profits, paying their owners, the people that took the risk of starting the business very well. Well, there's a great news. Any business can be there if you follow a process of reverse engineering your profitability. That's what we do. Profit first professionals. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Do not hesitate. Go there right now. Click on the find button. We will match you up with a bookkeeper account. Like Chris said, you need them anyway. We will hook you up with a bookkeeper accountant who is specifically trained, specialized in, and has mastered the process to improving the profitability of your business. It'll blow your mind away, you know, finally put riches in your pocket too.

It just makes too much sense. I mean, it's unbelievable.

It's too much sense.

And if you want to learn more about podcasting and go to my website, fractalrecording.com this has been an awesome episode. You can find us again on itunes and stitcher and tunein radio and our website, profitfirstpodcast.com where you can see all our previous episodes and all the awesome people and, and, and people who have blocked me on Twitter and be sure to come back.

Next week on episode 59, we have Nick Dancer coming in. Nick Dancer grew a concrete design business using profit first and is the leading profitability guy, I guess you would say, in his industry. He's going to tell us a secret how he did it.

He's killing it. All right, see you next time. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Bye, guys.

Sam.