5 priceless lessons I learned from 2021 - my most challenging year of entrepreneurship

I'm going to cut straight to the chase. This has not been the year that I thought I was going to have. And I know that's the case for so many people in the world right now. But my weird, almost pear shaped year has nothing to do with what's been going on in the world and everything to do with me, and how I approached the year and then how things have just come up, that sort of threw me off course. But this year, despite not being the year I'd kind of hoped for has actually been the year that I needed, very powerful, so much clarity has come from it, I feel like I have leveled up as a business owner, but also as a coach, because I have so much more to offer so much more, with hard earned wisdom, and insight. And so even though I have a whole bunch of other episodes that I'm planning on recording, I decided to kind of go off book today and restart the podcast with an episode of five of the most powerful lessons that came out of this year. Not all of these I've kind of learned myself, but also through the observations that I've made of the clients that I've been working with. Because I definitely noticed that there are a lot of patterns. As much as we all have our own business models and challenges and all of those kinds of things, there are just certain things that are relevant to all of us. So that is what I'm going to be talking about today. Welcome to the seen heard paid podcast, where we believe that success isn't just about what you need to do. It's about who you need to be. I'm your host, Kat Elizabeth. And each week, I'll be bringing you practical advice, honest stories and occasional dose of tough love to help you go from industry's best kept secret to in demand brand. So you not only get paid to do what you love, but can build a platform that creates meaningful positive change, and inspires the people around you to do the same. Let's get into it. So welcome back. It's been a minute. And is it weird if I say that I've missed you. Believe it or not recording this podcast is actually like, basically my favorite thing to do in my business. And yet, I've not been doing it. And there's so much to this, but essentially, this year has been one where I have been really pushed to the edge. Okay, I reached my sort of, while I was I guess I ran out of bandwidth to do much at all. And due to multiple things happening, like the first half of the year was really about some physical health challenges. And then the second half of the year was a whole nother kettle of fish. But what I ended up finding this year was that I had just enough to get through the absolute basics. And for me, the basics was really just about looking after my clients. So the one on one work that I had signed on, like I started the year very busy and overbooked, which was potentially part of the problem, why I ended up having some health challenges. And then also the clients that I have inside of the Academy, I ended up going on this journey of really looking at wherever I was coming unstuck or getting stuck in the program where there were gaps in people's knowledge where the the mindset challenges were coming up. And I basically dedicated the second half of this year to reworking the program and reworking my framework as a whole. Because I had made certain assumptions about what kind of help people needed from me. And I built the program around that and then having enough people go through the program showed me that all there are so many other ways I can help. How do I make this make sense and and not have it be completely overwhelming. So it's been a really interesting year and one where I've spent so much time behind the scenes. And so, you know, to you on the outside, it may seem like I've just kind of gone dead, gone. Gone absolutely quiet. But I kind of explained it to my email list last week, if you're already on it, you know this, but I was explaining that. It's like I've been in this season of my business that's kind of the equivalent of a caterpillar that goes in like, you know, creates the chrysalis. A lot of people like to say cocoon cocoon is technically what happens if it's going to become a moth. So I'd much rather use chrysalis because that's about becoming a butterfly. If you prefer to have a cocoon in your head, that's fine. But basically what happens is like we say these three stages of the you know, the caterpillar has kind of I guess life cycle where it's like it's a caterpillar, and then it's a chrysalis and then it's a butterfly and we don't really think about what is going on. for it to go from like, I mean, have you really stopped to think like a caterpillar is one creature a butterfly is a different creature. They they function totally differently, they look completely different. What do you think actually has to happen in order for an you know an insect or it's not really an insect? Is it like a creature a living thing to go through such a dramatic change? Well, I kind of have felt like, that's been my business this year. It's like, I'm in this process of going from the caterpillar version of my business. And I'm on the way to the butterfly version. But here's the thing. Did you know that when the caterpillar goes into chrysalis mode, it actually basically turns to goo. In the middle of that chrysalis like it melts down, like, kind of just like, just turns into nothingness. Like there's no form, there's no shape, like, I saw someone referred to it as like Caterpillar soup. Okay, so if you like, cracked it open, while it was in the middle of that process, goo would just come out like it's a mess, kind of gross. But then somehow, miraculously, it ends up re forming, turning into a different shape turning into something absolutely majestic that everyone sort of like has up on a pedestal like from like, no one's like dreaming about caterpillars and how beautiful they are. But then once it's a butterfly, it's like, oh, but it has to go through this really slow, uncomfortable, almost disgusting process to get there. Well, this year for me felt a bit like that, I felt like I turned to goo, or at least the business turned to goo. And I had to just be okay with it. It was like I knew there was no more rushing, there was no more cutting corners, I reached that point of like, okay, the only way through this is to just like, wait it out and take it day at a time. And part of that lesson came from being slowed down so much through my physical challenges. Like when I was struggling with that health stuff, like my brain wasn't functioning properly, I had such extreme brain fog and such extreme fatigue, that I couldn't do anything except, you know, just barely get through a day. And for someone who was used to rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, like everything is always rushing and high energy, like that was a huge change. So naturally, by God being put through something that slowed me down so much, and forced me to kind of change pace and change the way I approach my day, my week, my work, obviously, a lot came out of that. And so I've kind of boiled it down to five really key things. And some of these were like the thing, the really painful lessons, though, like, oh, done, like, what have I done. And some of these were just like happy realizations and things that happen kind of naturally. So let's just dive straight into this. This very, I mean, this, I feel like this episode almost lacks form. It's a bit Caterpillar gooey. But what better way to just like, throw myself back out there, and start recording again as if nothing's changed. Okay, so the first huge, big nugget that came out of this year, was really understanding the importance of focus. Now that sounds really boring, right? What I mean by this is that, I started to notice that I had so many things that I was trying to do, that I was constantly picking things up putting things down, I had this trail of unfinished projects behind me and I was just just flitting from thing to thing. And it's like, I managed to keep up with all of that stuff, just last year, when I had more energy. But this year, the thought of having so much going on, it just exhausted me completely. And so what really happened is because I had less energy to be keeping up with all of these different things, it meant that I kind of stopped doing most, as in, you noticed, I was very inconsistent on the podcast, I've had huge periods of radio silence. I have not published a YouTube video video all year. I've barely been sending out emails, I've barely been on Instagram. It's like, every single thing felt like too much. Now maybe if I was committed, I had absolute laser focus. And I knew that the only thing I was trying to do was just the podcast, maybe I would have kept publishing. But I was like, oh, there's just so many things to do. I just can't do any of them and then just like fell in hate. And the same thing happened with my my office suite. So, so many different ways of helping people that it just got to be completely overwhelming. I didn't. I didn't build momentum with any of them. It's like, I would have clients coming to me going can you help me this way? And I'd go yes. Yes, of course I love like, you're awesome. Like your dream client. Of course, I'll help you this way, I was kind of swayed because I wanted to work with the person so much. I was allowing myself to just help people in any shape or form. And so it felt like for the whole year, I was running multiple businesses. I hadn't really optimized anything at this stage, like I was still, I felt like I was still in limbo with the academy, like, I'd only just kind of relaunched it in January before I realized, oh, my gosh, I really want to change the, like, I want to change the framework. And I want to change the way I bring people on board, I want to change the length of the program, the amount of support in the program. So that was on my mind, I had some like, I had one on one coaching packages. And that kept kind of shifting, but I didn't give myself the time and space to figure out what I really wanted it to look like. And then I was still taking on copywriting clients and launch strategy. And like all of these bits and pieces. And as a result, you know, I really did, I got to the middle of the year. And because of the burnout, like I was really starting to try and say no to things and I wasn't bringing on new clients. But as things started wrapping up, I had this moment of panic of like, oh my gosh, like, my revenue has been coming from so many random sources. But I don't have like that one source where I feel completely confident like this is predictable. Like, I've got this down to a fine art, I know I'm going to be, you know, just signing people up for this one thing while I sleep, because I had, you know, like five mini courses. And I have this program over here and these over here. And so what I saw is that, at mid this year, I really felt like in some ways my business was in the same spot. It was 12 months ago, I hadn't built the traction that I really was dreaming about last year, because I hadn't picked my thing to focus on. Okay, so I had my own wake up call here. But then I also started noticing the struggle with a lot of my clients as well. So especially with the newer entrepreneurs, when you're drowning in ideas, and you want to just like put yourself out there and you want to bring your dream business to life. The temptation is to create all the things like I saw multiple freebies like like one person could have like multiple freebies, a digital product, three different versions of their high ticket offering. And they were wondering why they're confused and overwhelmed when it came to trying to market themselves. They didn't know what to talk about. They didn't know like they hadn't optimized anything like there was just so much going on. And the people that I saw succeeding, we're the ones who have been focusing on the one offer for the last two years, like I've got clients that I started working with when I first launched the personal branding product, a project like more than two years ago now. And they are really finding their stride this year, because they've had the one offer the whole time. And funnily enough, like I look back on when I was first get like building momentum as a copywriter and was like, wow, like, in my first year as a copywriter, I was fully booked out. Because all I did was just like, write website copy for people. I just got client after client after client and I'd write website copy. Now not to say that I was necessarily having the best time like I was a bit bored. It's not really a statement on, you know, like, all the other kinds of fulfillment and satisfaction that you get from work. But I was making steady income. And I can't remember if it was my second year, but I'm pretty sure in my second year, I made almost $100,000 Just writing website copy. Still without marketing myself like no Instagram, like I didn't have a podcast or a YouTube channel. I didn't have a website like I had, I had a portfolio and lots of testimonials. And that was my focus because I didn't I wasn't distracted by everything else that was going on. Because that is definitely what I think happening these days is we're so spoilt for choice. Everyone is selling their latest tactic and the thing that you need to have in order to succeed that we get very FOMO we, we get distracted, we get this shiny object syndrome. And instead of just having one one goal, which is I just want to land this many clients for this one offer. We're trying to do all the things and build a business that's years ahead of where we need to be. Because we think we need to. So bringing it I guess bringing it all back around like what I've really sort of come come to the conclusions around for how I'm approaching things differently in the new year is that I am I'm trimming the fat. I am eliminating a whole bunch of my office and for some of the stuff that I've already created, but like isn't completely optimized yet. I'm just allowing it to sit I'm really narrowing down and focusing on my hero offers my signature offers like, which is seen heard paid Academy, and my one on one coaching, because those are my babies like those are the things that get the biggest results, those are also going to be the things that generate the most revenue. And, you know, if all I'm doing is bringing in clients for those things, suddenly my yield looks very different than if I'm also trying to take on clients for five, seven different other kinds of things. And I heard this, um, said beautifully recently by it's, um, Justin and Sara of wake up to freedom, they were talking about the benefits of a boring business model, and how like, so many entrepreneurs like we want it to be creative and exciting, and all of that. But you get to be creative and have excitement and adventure when you have freedom. And freedom comes from simplicity in your business. So my whole thing for next year, my 2022, or feels really weird to say that is about simplicity, less is more, I'm going to double down on the stuff that I love, and allow the other stuff to fall away and stop worrying about all the FOMO. Knowing that I'm going to, you know, in time, I can do all the things that I want to do. But right now, this is my, these are the resources I have, this is the you know the bandwidth that I have. And I'm going to be okay with that. So this is I'm planting a seed now, because I'm going to be talking more about this moving forward. But I've already talked too long on this one point because I've literally got my my post it note with the other four things. So I will move faster now. But this is a really big one. Because I think it was the toughest lesson that I had to learn it was a really tough pill that I had to swallow to have that wake up call to go. Are you actually where, like if you had continued that momentum where you were at last year in the business, like you should be somewhere else this year? Why you Why have you plateaued? And yeah, really having to accept that it was my choices that allowed me to plateau by trying to do too much to try and do all the things and be all things to all people. I've kept my own, you know, potential, and I've slowed down the growth of my business. So I'm glad I learned it as painful as it was. But I am really excited about sort of unleashing, all hell next year because I have so much more time and energy when I'm you know, spreading myself like where I'm not spreading myself so thin. Okay, so tough lesson number two. And this is one that I'm really focusing on in, you know, with my clients as well as they're building their brands like I'm literally I had to insert an entire lesson inside sainthood paid Academy on this. And that is the importance of financial safety. We are very like all or nothing, often when we're trying to build our brands. And we feel like, I just need to dive in the deep end. And just like It's sink or swim like and that's how I'll succeed. And look, sometimes that works. But I'm telling you right now, that if you do not have financial safety while you're trying to build your brand, it is going to be a really stressful journey. And you're going to struggle to show up in the way that you need to in order to experience incredible results, like your magnetism really gets muted, kind of blocked. When you're so panicked about money and landing clients like you, you start approaching things differently, you kind of smell of desperation, and it's just no, it's no way to live. And so I even had to learn this the hard way this year, because I realized that, you know, I, I kind of kept counting on all this money coming in, but really never stopped to think about where how I was earning the money. And realize how much of what I was earning was time based, like just a timing, you know, time for money type exchange so that when I didn't have energy, and I didn't feel like I could do any more of that kind of work. I didn't have any sort of like cushioning for myself, I hadn't set aside big chunk of, you know, change so that I could take a break. I didn't I hadn't optimize any of my passive offers. So I couldn't predict how much I was going to make from courses like I people, I'll just wake up some days, and I'll see that people have bought stuff. And I'm like, Yeah, but I can't just say like, Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that every week I'm going to sell three courses like that. So that really affected my ability because I suddenly then felt trapped. And it was like, Well, I either have to get down to nothing in order to then make space for the new thing or I have to just keep up stay in this cycle of taking on work that I don't want to take on like it's just not fun. And no one ever really told me this earlier on in business like no one explained what financial safety even really means and how much freedom that that can create how much like freedom of choice, freedom to take time off, and freedom for things to take time and it'd be okay. If everything If you're in this desperate rush to succeed, because you feel like oh my gosh, if I don't build my brand and land this many clients by this date, I'm screwed. Wow, that is not like that is not magnetic energy right there. And so I have seen, yeah, just so many clients approached this backwards of just diving in creating, like making it very unsafe for them and just feeling like they had to single single swim. Because there's this shame in holding on to your day job, or holding on to clients that you know, not do it that aren't really giving you the work that you really want to be doing. But like, what if you sold them as investors in the future of your brand? And what if, you know, they allowed you to spend the next 12 months, creating something really magical and building momentum and, you know, building community, so that when you want, we're ready, and you're feeling like, Okay, it's time I'm going to launch something like, it's a completely different experience. It's just from a place of excitement and joy and curiosity instead of panic that what if this doesn't work? So financial safety is a huge one that I just don't think enough people are really talking about or thinking about in their brand building journey. And, you know, I and I think if you if you are kind of struggling, like when, if you have this like love hate relationship with, you know, social media, or if you're feeling triggered when you show up? Sometimes that's a good place to look of like, Could it be that I'm putting so much on this? Because I feel desperate to get results? Or am I actually showing up because I really want to, I won't go any deeper into that one. It's a huge topic. But let's move on to number three, creating offers that actually support you. So you know how I talk about you will hopefully you've heard me talk about this self belief strategies support. So that's my s cubed framework. And I'm always looking at how I can teach everything through that lens. So when we first start landing clients, often all we think about is like sweet, they're paying me like I have a client. And there is not much thought into Okay, but how are you supporting them? How are you serving them? And what does this actually look like? What level of support like what is included in this offer? How much time is it going to take? Are you charging enough that you can, you know, like not be working 40 hours a week, like we often there's like a lack of strategy that goes and intentionality that goes into building out your offers, because it just feels so good to have anyone pay you. And I totally, I totally get that. But as you know, now that I'm a couple of years into my coaching business, I can even see how, you know, something that I used to see is like, oh, my gosh, I'm charging so much money for this. Over the years, I've tracked just how much time and energy goes into my work with one on one clients and gone whoa, this isn't sustainable. No wonder I'm burned out like I'm charging this much. But I can only maintain like, let's say five or six clients one on one at a time, because of how much I give them, well, then that means I can only earn this much money, because like I'm capped. So I have like so this is the big shift that I've really made in my framework is that I used to assume that people would come into the academy already having their offers in place. And then my job was to just help them, like, do the branding piece, do the marketing piece. But I now see that offer development is so pivotal, like it's so crucial at this at the core of your entire brand. And business is your office. And we have this like there are tool of positioning, like you, if you create your office, right, you can already help it'll help you stand out it will help you be more magnetic, but also it's going to determine how much money like how profitable your business is. Because depending on how you create your office, you can either be you know, making great money for minimal time or ending up with a terrible hourly rate. And, you know, none of this has to do with your clients like for them. This is about figuring out how do we make the offer high value. So it's not like about overcharging or undercharging it's just about really understanding what goes into these offers, and making sure that you're charging accordingly. But then also knowing that you don't have to package your offers the way the person next to you does in your niche. I have now cycled through every kind of offer like I've done VIP days and coaching packages and you know, short sessions and retainers and project based work and group programs and like all of the things and I really understand now just how how much how much freedom and flexibility we have to build offers that actually support our energy levels, our ways of thinking, our ways of working and still providing like no matter how they package, we can do that in a way that completely blows our clients away. But it needs to start with self awareness of like what is the business that you want to run? How do you want your week to go? And then starting to go kart Okay, so what's the transformation? What am I needing? To deliver my client, okay, what's the happy medium here? And what do I charge for it. So there's so much to it, that I literally have an entire like of my four pillars inside of the academy. One entire pillar is offer development, which also ties into the focus piece that I was talking about of where I'm really actually forcing people. It's like, if you have not nailed one, offer your signature offer from start to finish, and you haven't optimized it and you haven't had enough people through it yet, you don't have social proof for it yet. Stop. And you're not create any more offers, don't even create your freebie focus on the offer first, because that is the thing like that you're going to be known for, that's going to be the thing that like, simplifies everything and helps you make money, and then we can go from there. So long story short, don't ignore your offers, when it comes to thinking about your brand marketing and business strategy. They are absolutely pivotal. Even if you're in an industry where you're like, oh, everyone does the same. I am betting you, I will eat my hat if I'm wrong, that there is a way of doing this that supports you doing it your way, even if on the surface, even to your client, it looks like you're doing it the same as everyone else. But although really, we want to make sure it doesn't look like you do it like everyone else, because that helps you stand out. So I think that's enough about that. I feel like I got really worked up about this topic, which tells me I probably need to do an entire series on offer development. But stay tuned for that one. Lesson number three was all about understanding the power of systems and structure. Because again, as a creative person, who you know, is I would say that I'm someone who's quite flowy in the moment, inconsistent, intuitive, not super structured. And yeah, any of those things I've never have, I mean, I've always kind of flown by the seat of my pants, let's be honest. And I think so many new entrepreneurs do as well, because you can kind of get away with it, when you're completely solo, this is less than a couple of times over because the first time that I realized that this lack of systems and structure wasn't even an issue was when I brought on my first like, sort of like consistent assistant as in like I had, you know, had them working for me, you know, five hours a week consistently. And I actually it was before that it was when I tested out trying to work with other people. And it didn't end up working out because I didn't know what to give them like I didn't have structures in place to say, Oh, can you just like go do this thing for me. I was like, Oh, how do I explain it like I, I don't even know how to tell you what to do, because I've never documented documented it for myself. And so I ended up just like having a lot of failed attempts of working with people. And then I finally started working with someone like long term. And thank goodness, like I found someone who was good at developing systems, so that we ended up being a bit more of a collaboration. But what I realized is I kept my own growth because I couldn't outsource like, because I was trying to do it all myself. And I felt like I had to because I just didn't know how else to approach this. I kept myself from outsourcing things, and therefore saving time and creating a more profitable business structure for like, way too long. Okay. But then the other place that I noticed that this was an issue is like really seeing this year and how just elbow grease, just like white knuckling it wasn't enough like in the past, maybe I would have been able to force myself to get things done. And I was you know, working longer hours and through the weekends to just catch up and just make things work. This year, it just didn't work like that. That wasn't an approach that I wanted to take or could take. Because I just had so little in me and not having any sort of systems and structure and consistency in place. Men just like week after week just kept passing me by and I might have had like some great idea for a podcast episode. But then when it kept like when I thought about sitting down to actually do it, I looked at my you know, my schedule, and I was like, oh gosh, like when am I actually going to do this really? Oh, it's too hot. Okay, I just won't do it. And so that lack of systems and structure meant that I probably went on longer breaks. And I actually needed to like I do believe that I needed some time out to just kind of go internal and get into like, I don't know, self reflection mode. Like it's been a really powerful thing. But I didn't need to be quiet as quiet as quiet as I actually was. And then so like now flipping this because I'm you know, hoping that you can see that this isn't just about coming from my own experience but also looking at my clients. So for especially for newer entrepreneurs, but really for anyone. Ideas are never the problem. I found like when it comes to content and all of that it's implementation like Getting the thing done and doing it consistently like sticking with an actual like schedule. And I've noticed that, you know, people will do these giant brainstorming sessions and come up with all the content. But there's usually a missing step where, like, I mean, you might even decide what platforms you're going to share on. And it may even be how many times a week, the missing step is, when do I post these? When do I create the content? Like, what is my actual content creation and publication schedule, how you going to carve that time out. And this is the thing you, you will not find the time, like, you have to carve that out in your calendar, no different to carving out time to work with a client. As long as you're all I'll figure it out, I'll just slap them together, at some point, you will stay inconsistent, like that is just, that is life. And it's okay, but that doesn't mean you're failing, like, you're failing yourself by not having the plan, not having the structure, not you know, having that schedule, the actual being inconsistent, because you don't have a plan. And that's not the part where you're letting yourself down kind of thing. So, you know, I have really seen that, okay, I need to split the difference. Here. I am not someone who is going to, like almost micromanage my entire day, my entire week, and, you know, have every single activity planned out down to the last, you know, minute detail that works for some people. I'm someone who needs in like something in between. So what I've seen is okay, if I can carve out one day per week, where it's, I'm uninterrupted, there are no calls, no distractions, no responding to people's messages, and it's just me and the work that I need to do on the business, then I can like, that's kind of step one, then I will decide, okay, so what are the things that I will do on a schedule? Like, okay, is it one podcast episode a week? Great, I'm going to start doing that. Maybe then I'll start adding in a YouTube video. And then also starting to think about, okay, if I'm not wanting to be on Instagram all the time, like, can I come up with a system for making sure that every single time I publish publish a podcast episode, I can create, you know, three posts from that so that I've got something to share that week. So systems and structure, I guess, are the things that seems so unsexy. So we avoided for a really long time, but they are also the thing that are going to create consistency. And the consistency is what leads to results. And when I say results, I mean revenue and revenue. And also the time freedom that comes as well. But like the revenue is the thing that's sexy. So you have to do unsexy things to get the sexy things I'm saying sexy, so many times right now I'm getting very self conscious. But do you see where I'm going with this? So I want you to really see that. Okay, if the like, if you want this business, this brand, that is all the things like It looks amazing. And you've got the content, you've got the community, in your community and everything? Well, it's going to take some stuff, some kind of boring looking stuff, and some legwork upfront to set up these systems and structures and commit to something in order for you to do it for long enough to see those results. And like that is that is it? I will absolutely I mean, I'd love to know where you struggle in this, you know, in this area. In fact, I'd love to know if you can reach out to me and just tell me from this episode, which of the things that I've been talking about kind of resonated the most and you need more help with, I'd love to know where you are struggling. But I will definitely be doing some cons like some content specific to the kinds of systems that we can be creating inside our business in order to help build our brand. That's that's coming for now let's finish with the final point, which is a bit of a it's like the least tangible, let's say, you know, way, which is just really understanding the truth about magnetism. And what it really is, because we talk about it. I mean, we talk about being a magnet for clients, we talk about people and how magnetic they are like their magnetic presence, but what really is a magnetic brand. And so I mean, the way I see a magnetic brand is you are attracting the opportunities and the clients and the attention that you really want that are going to help you get closer to your goals. So you're working with the people that you want, you're you know, speaking on the platforms that you want to speak about, and you just generally feel good about the things that you're doing like you're in in flow. And I think that a lot of people approach this backwards we think okay to be magnetic. I I need to make sure that I have the perfect visual brand identity, it's all about the right colors, I need to go book a brand photoshoot, because then I'm going to feel more confident in the stuff that I share, I have to design a really sexy grid, I need all sorts of like fancy software's and filters and whatever like I'm we're really seeing like the the magnetic part is about having the brand looks perfect in order to attract perfect clients. And I think the lesson that I was able to learn from this year in particular is that while everything was hitting the fan, and I'll probably do a separate episode, once I'm further away from the like, it was a really tough time, I had a very like dark period a few months ago, where I was just questioning everything, like it really felt like the rug had been pulled from under me. And when that happened, I mean, I didn't, I certainly wasn't showing up in any way, because I did not feel up to it. But what I did instead was go internal. And I started working daily on me, I started really identifying like the stories and the limiting beliefs that I'd been holding on to that got me into that particular situation. And I was every single day I was doing some sort of guided meditation, I was journaling, I was really trying to tap into my self worth, because in that time, I really felt lacking of it. Like I really was just lacking belief in myself. And during this work, of really going quiet. And really tapping into why I do what I do and what makes me so good at what I do and what makes me different. And like literally following some my own advice, like I have an activity that I do. Um, there's a lesson inside of sainthood paid Academy where it's called the credibility cocktail. And you're really looking at all of the things that you bring to the table beyond the obvious qualifications, like so I was doing all the things, making sure I was following my own advice. And sure enough, it started to work, I started to feel like me again. And I started to find this sort of like internal like, like the fire lit up again. Now, nothing else changed. During that time, as in, I didn't start showing up, I didn't start marketing myself again, like it's you know that because I'm here now months later. But what did happen during that time is I landed a whole bunch of dream clients, clients that totally resonate with my message with my values. People I loved working with who pay full price, who you know, like, just wanted what I had to offer, okay, and they landed on my lap during this time, while I wasn't really doing anything else. Now, this lesson isn't about saying, Oh, it means you don't need to market yourself. Like, I have definitely felt the impact of not marketing myself much this year. And I've definitely felt like the momentum that I've lost from being so inconsistent. But what happened was, like, you know, people were applying to work with me, and then, you know, hopping on a call or chatting on some emails or whatever. And I had, I was able to tap into such belief that, you know, what if these are my people, like, I mean, I know, I can help them. I know that they need my help. But if they believe that then great, but I'm not, I'm not here to convince them. Like, I'm just gonna say what I think what I feel I'm going to talk to them about what it would look like and present them with, Hey, this is this is what it would be. And they'll either say yes or no. And I just had a series of hell yeses. And you know, they were so in sync with what I am all about, that it was just this natural thing that of course, they were going to work with me, of course, they we clicked like, that's that. And it felt so easy and effortless. I was like, Oh, this is the magnetism. They came to me for different reasons. They found me for different reasons. But ultimately, at the core of it, it was like me, being me, like me sharing my message me just being clear on my messaging, and who I help, and how I helped them. And then it just being a match. And that was kind of like that was it. And so it really showed me that even though there is a lot of work that we do when it comes to, you know, creating our marketing, our visibility strategies, you know, learning SEO, building our website, like there's all this stuff that we do, but really the thing that is the magnet is you being absolutely tuned into your own value the way you want to show up and serve people and knowing who you're best suited to serve. And once that part is clear, and this is why again, like I've really worked my framework so the four pillars now have seen heard paid paid Academy like they're completely different. I've completely overhauled the program. It's kind of funny, I said it was like a little update and I was like jokes It's brand new, but it's magnetic energy. So that's when we do all the work on who you are. And like how you want to show up and what your strengths are, and what your values are, and all of that, then we move on to magnetic offers, which allows us to bottle up all of that goodness, and make sure that you creating offers that really have you at your best, and are also going to get the incredible results for your clients. Then we move on to Magnetic Messaging, because now that you know how you're serving your clients and what your value is, to them as a human being as well as you know, in your offers. It's so much easier to put that into actual words. And then finally, finally, Yes, last, we move into magnetic marketing the part that you know, everyone normally starts out, because marketing when you know exactly what you're selling and why is so much easier. Also, knowing how you best show up how you best communicate what platform you should be on like, because you will have done all the research, I guess what I'm saying is, I want you to really understand that you actually have it like the stuff that's in you right now. That is the magnetism, you don't need the website, you don't need all the fancy bits, like the logo and the colors and all and the photoshoot, those are all just gonna be like natural, like reflections of who you are. But if you've skipped the work on yourself of understanding your role, the role you play in your clients, and you know, your unique value. Like if you can't even see your own value, all of that other work is for nothing, it's not going to help. So you know, if things are feeling a little tough right now, if you feel like you just like white knuckling it, you're working your butt off and just not seeing results. Like ask yourself a few simple questions like, do I truly believe I have value to offer my clients? Do I truly believe that this offer is exactly what they need? Do I know how to explain the value of what I do. Because if you're struggling with any of those pieces, marketing is going to be really darn difficult. It's gonna be like pushing mud uphill. Now, this has been a really like much longer episode than planned. So I'm going to wrap things up, but I just wanted to let you know. So look, officially, I'm not really taking on new clients at this second, like as in my one on one of my magnetic brand accelerator, I'm kind of at capacity, I'm going to be opening up my books, again, late January. And Seen, Heard, Paid Academy is officially kind of closed for enrollment. But I've got something that will be coming soon. So what I'm doing instead at the moment is number one, I decided to open up my lightning in a bottle sessions again. So these are my 60 and 90 minute sessions, where it's like laser focus, let's tackle one element of your brand where you're feeling really stuck. And these can be really powerful, you'd be blown away at how much we can achieve during that time. I am doing that because I can fit in like the occasional our session right now. But otherwise, I'm very, very fully booked. So I'm going to include a link to that in the show notes. In case you've been wanting to, for us to work together. And something that I've talked about today made you realize, oh gosh, like I need help in this area, we could probably at least like get a good head start on it in one of these sessions. And the other thing I'm thinking about doing is running a workshop before the end of the year. I'm kind of on the fence about the topic though, I know it needs to be about communicating the value of what you do. But I kind of want to know from you what is going to be the most helpful. So options are writing your services page for your offer. One would be creating like let's say 30 days worth of content that helps to build demand for your offer. And one might be a bit of a pick and mix of like kind of a crash course in in messaging, and getting you to really understand what your value is. So you can communicate it on any platform in any format. If you are interested in any of these, do me a favor, drop me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn like I'll include my social links below and just say interested this one in particular or interested in any of them. It's going to be a low cost workshop like it'll be under 50 bucks. It'll be a good solid deep dive like probably a couple of hours plus bonuses and you'll get like there's going to be the live version plus you'll get the lifetime access to the replay. So I'm going to make sure it's super, super juicy. And this is just a good way for us to really knock something off the to do list this year and help you start the new year with a lot more built in momentum. So please don't be a stranger. Let me know your thoughts. And thank you so much for listening. I have very much missed being in your earholes and I will be back very soon. Bye for now.