Transcripts for Episode 133

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Stacy: So while I built this with this knowledge of my value and this person that I serve, I also am still doing the education and learning so that I can come informed. But I not disconnecting with my intuition. I’m bringing my intuition to the decision making. I’m coming in and I’m saying, yeah, give me the play by play on how to do this, but I know these things and if that doesn’t resonate, rather than going, oh, I just don’t know what I’m doing here, I’m going to really push back and question and make sure that I’m making decisions that feel really aligned and really anchored to my intuition.

Welcome, welcome. I am so happy to be here with you for a solo episode. Every time I do one of these, I’m like, oh, I love these. I should do these more often. Today I want to have a short, sweet and targeted conversation with you about intuition. And I want to share a little bit about my own journey in trusting my own inner wisdom in relation to my business.

I want to go back a little bit and talk a bit about my journey as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. If you’ve been following my work for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me say, I’ve been in business for 14 years. It’ll be 15, actually, in just a few months. So it’s been a while. It’s been a journey. I started out as a teacher. I had a side hustle. I actually started out my business wanting to serve the service community and helping them communicate better with their english patrons. That was a big flop. I tried my hand at travel writing. None of that really worked out until I got into the world of publishing, which was my first love anyway. And I grew really successful by most people’s standards, freelance business.

But when my kids were born, and specifically when my youngest started having a lot of health problems, I realized that I needed a business that would function beyond me, that I needed to really step into entrepreneurship, grow a team, and build something that if I had something happen, I didn’t have to be at my computer for my business to maintain health and to serve and support my family. And so about probably, gosh, what was this? Maybe like four or five years ago before that I started thinking about this. But about four or five years ago, I got really serious about shifting my business model. And that was really hard. It was very difficult because I had built this entire business around me as a service provider. I had an assistant.

Every so often I would bring in editors or I’d bring in other people to support me in little capacities. I’d hire a person for a marketing launch or for pr or something very small one off projects. And I knew that running this business in a different way meant I was going to have to learn. And I think that. I think that, I thought that a lot of it was education that I needed. But actually, now that I’m several, four or five years out, I know a lot of it was really mindset. And it still is mindset, actually, to this day. I find that every level of growth that I get to really is more about my mindset than my knowledge gaps, although certainly knowledge plays a huge part in success.

But a lot of times it’s really my inner world that needs a lot of the growth. So to mitigate the problem that I thought I had, which was a knowledge gap, which, let me just say again, it was a knowledge gap. I didn’t know. What I didn’t know. How do I go from being a solopreneur into having a team and not being the one that’s doing all the work all the time? That was a gap. And so to solve that, to learn this new skill, I started immersing myself in everything I could find. I joined a group, an entrepreneurial group. I read all the books. I hired external experts to come in and support me, spent a lot of money on those external experts.

I did a lot of things, followed a lot of systems and really tried to solve this challenge that I was facing of shifting my business model by implementing strategies that I was learning. Which sounds reasonable, right? Like, that seems like the right thing to do. When you are here and you want to go there and you know that you have a gap and you need to figure out how to get there, it makes sense that I would go out and look for different strategies. In a lot of ways, that was a smart way to do it. And I’m glad that I went out and immersed myself and learned. I mean, I am a learner by heart. That is how I deal with stress, is by reading books and reading studies and listening to complicated things. And that’s helpful for me.

It’s soothing, and I’m glad I did that. But here’s what happened that I was not expecting, and it’s something that is a cautionary tale for you. I turned to so many experts in so many different resources and books and programs and people that I forgot to, for a time, really check into my own intuition. And I would have these moments where I was about to make a change in the business and on paper, in case studies and all these things that seemed like the right thing to do because it had been proven out. But inside of myself, there was something that was going that’s not quite right. Like, I I don’t know why, and maybe I’m just not trusting the process.

And so I had a few times where I just leaned into this process that I was given to by someone else, even though there were aspects of it that just were not quite resonating. It wasn’t a values thing. It wasn’t anything that was, like, inherently icky or anything like that. It was just that it just didn’t feel quite right and quite aligned. And so after many years of education and you know, now I understand what KPI’s are, and I’ve got my cash flow, you know, cash flow forecast dialed, and I’ve got all these things that I’m doing now that I didn’t even know what those things were five years ago. I have all these things going, but at some point, I had to kind of pull back and check back in with myself.

And this is when things for me really started to shift in my business and really in kind of my, I would say my personal alignment with my business. And I think it’s also why I’m so excited about this year and why I’m so excited about what 2024 has to offer for me personally and in my business. And I want to give you a specific example of how I used the conventional advice and then how I checked in with my own intuition and I did things differently. And that is my author program years ago. Actually, I think I launched. Yes, I launched my first author coaching cohort in 2020. And when I launched that, it was initially a twelve week program. Was it eight? Gosh, I can’t remember now what the first one, if it was twelve, I’m pretty sure it was twelve weeks.

Eventually I landed on a ten week program and I ran that for a couple of years and I loved that program. I got great results from the program, but I felt a disconnect for me because part of what I love about the journey of the work that I do is the relationships. I love getting to also celebrate people along the way and see them complete their drafts. I never launched the program nonfiction book school, intending for anybody to write their book in ten or twelve weeks.

I don’t even believe in that for most people, unless you’re a real pro and you’ve got like nothing else going on and you’re just leaning in with intensity and still, even then, that’s a pretty rough timeline for most people that was going to get them organized and writing and with a clear plan to complete, but I wasn’t staying with them and I wasn’t serving and supporting them beyond that program or, sorry, beyond those ten or twelve weeks. So as I looked at my business and how I want to show up in the world and the work that I do, I asked myself, why did I launch a ten, 1210 week program, eventually landed on ten when my private coaching is six months? Like, what was it around that caused me to do this other thing that’s different than what I do in private coaching?

I want to really say again, I’ve had really wonderful results from this ten week version. So it’s not that it wasn’t working per se, it’s that it didn’t feel as aligned for me intuitively with how I want to show up in the world. And I realized that a lot of the reason that I was making that choice around the shorter program was in, it was a fear response, it was a fear based decision. And some of those scripts that were playing for me were, you know, are people going to commit to six months? Are they going to join a program that’s six months long? You know, I think it was also this idea that, like, if I didn’t get a lot of people signed up, it wasn’t a really long time, right?

So I think there were all these things that were going on inside of my head and then probably an even bigger driver was those were also the things that were being fed to me externally by some of the experts that I hired, some of the hired, and some of the things that I read. So when I was learning about launching a course or a program, I was hearing over and over again that you want it to be shorter, people won’t commit to long term. But then I was seeing in my private coaching that all of my clients were working with me for six months. So I’m like, those two things don’t really totally compute for me. So, pushing ahead, I launched in 2023, my six month program idea to draft, and I just wrapped up the first cohort.

Man, I have to say, number one, those are amazing humans. I get actually emotional thinking about them and the journey that we took together. And two, I think for me personally, it was so, such a really powerful and meaningful experience for me to go, no, I’m not going to do it this way anymore. I’m going to do it the way that feels most aligned for me. And I loved having a really clear goal together in this group. I loved being able to develop relationships with each and every person in that group. And it wasn’t. Again, I developed relationships in the ten week program, but the depth that I’m able to connect with people in six months is just a totally different space. I can show up for them in such a bigger and more profound way with this longer period of time.

And so I ran that program. It just concluded. I’m running my second cohort now. Those, for me, are ways that I’m showing up more in alignment with how I intuitively know I serve best in the world. One other example, and then I’m going to bring this around to you, is that I’ve been talking for probably three years now about launching an author community. I wanted a way to continue to serve my students and my clients. And I, you know, I just, I think I had a lot of fear behind that, and some of it was logistic, like, how am I going to take care of this community and really serve them and make sure I’m doing all the things that I know I need to do to make a community really great.

But then I also started asking questions against that, which were, what do my people actually need? Do they need daily communication? No. Do they want it? Probably not. I mean, yeah, they want it from the community, but they don’t need, like, a daily newsletter. I would get overwhelmed with that. What do they need? They need access to me for questions and coaching and support, okay. They need additional training and expert guidance. Okay, I can provide that. I can bring in experts. So I started to build the thing that was actually connected to my intuition and what I knew people needed versus what all the experts out there are telling me that people needed. Not knowing my unique value that I bring. Not knowing the people that I serve.

So while I built this with this knowledge of my value and this person that I serve, I also am still doing the education and learning so that I can come informed. But I not disconnecting with my intuition, I’m bringing my intuition to the decision making. So rather than going, oh, give me the play by play on how to do this, I’m coming in and I’m saying, yeah, give me the play by play on how to do this, but I know these things and if that doesn’t resonate, I’m rather than going, oh, I just don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m going to really push back and question and make sure that I’m making decisions that feel really aligned and really anchored to my intuition.

Now, I want to bring this to you because I think that so often we get disconnected from our inner voice and from our inner knowing. And I think it’s more common to get disconnected when we feel like we’re in a space that we don’t understand. And so I have to give myself some grace. When I look back, you know, I could say, oh, man, if I had just done it this way, I would have saved myself three years or four years maybe. But I also think we all are on the journey that we are on and that we have to go through the things that we do to get us to the place that we are in the way that we are today.

So I’d love for you to think right now about a big goal you have and consider in that big goal what progress you have made and what progress you haven’t quite made to the level that you want to make it. And within that latter question is there an area where you feel some friction or misalignment that is a result of taking in a lot of information but not going inward for information as well? I think both are very important. You hear me quote all kinds of things on this podcast. I am a sponge. I actually read real scientific studies. I read tons of books. I listen to very complicated podcasts. I’m a sponge and a learner. I attend events. I hire coaches. I do all of those things, and I think they’re absolutely critical.

I have to do those things to improve myself, but I also have to sit in silence sometimes. I have to be quiet sometimes. I have to check in with myself sometimes. And I have to not shut down that side of me that’s like, puts her finger up and goes, well, wait a second, that doesn’t. I don’t think that’s going to work. I don’t know if that’s going to work with this particular situation. And sometimes when that comes up, it’s a fear and I have to really work through that. And sometimes when it comes up, it’s wisdom that actually can take me in a direction that’s more meaningful, that’s more aligned, and that’s more connected. I hope this was helpful for you today. I hope it made sense.

It’s funny, sometimes when I’m, you know, working, I’m in the process of working through this right now. I mean, I’ve. I have been going through so much mindset awareness over the last few months around all kinds of things that I want to accomplish in my life, not just in my business, but definitely there in my relationships, in my parenting, in my personal goals. So much there. I keep excavating more like, oh, I think I’ve done that work. And then, oh, wait a second, there’s this whole other layer. There’s always more to uncover about ourselves, but we can only uncover those things about ourselves if we’re willing to still ourselves, if we’re willing to quiet ourselves and we’re willing to ask those questions of ourselves and trust ourselves.

So I hope if you’re in a place of inner, you know, tension or misalignment or stuckness, maybe this was revealing for you today. I want to thank you as always, for spending your time, energy and attention with me. I know it’s so precious and I appreciate you spending it with me. And as always, I have to say such a big, huge thank you to Rita Dominguez for producing this fine podcast. You don’t get to see all the things she does behind the scenes, but she’s really amazing and she makes it possible for me to show up with you each and every week.

If this was valuable for you, if you got a little point of awareness or I opened up something for you that will be useful, I would be so deeply grateful for you to take just 30 seconds, hit that five star rating, leave a quick review. It could be as short as I love this podcast that, you know, easy. It really makes a big difference for me in helping me grow and reach more people with this month message of living a life and running a business and making an impact on this world that’s beyond just better. Thank you for your time today, and I will be back with you before you know it.