Latest / The One Small Change Podcast / Finding Your North Star on the Journey from Corporate to Entrepreneur

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Finding Your North Star on the Journey from Corporate to Entrepreneur · The One Small Change Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the one small change, and I'm thrilled to embark on
• 0:04
  this journey of exploration and transformation with you. And I'm your
• 0:07
  host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial
• 0:11
  experience and passion for discovering growth through the power of
• 0:15
  seemingly small change. And I wanna thank you for being on this
• 0:18
  entrepreneurial journey with me. And this week, we are talking
• 0:22
  with the amazing Catharine O'Leary, and she is
• 0:26
  gonna be sharing some amazing things with you. So
• 0:29
  how she had a unexpected or insignificant
• 0:33
  change or decision that sparked a remarkable transformation and growth
• 0:37
  in in her personal or professional business. So,
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  Catharine, thank you for joining me today. I'm so excited. And
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  we're live, so that's why we've got the fire trucks going on.
• 0:48
  That's that's to give us the bells and whistles, so we're excited. Right?
• 0:52
  I love the bells and whistles. That's the kind of day we've been having
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  today. Right? So tell us about yourself and
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  what you do and how that small change had an
• 1:03
  impact on you. Yeah. Well, thank you, Yvonne, for having me on, and I'm
• 1:07
  I'm excited to be here. So for those of you that have not met me,
• 1:11
  know me, or virtually, seen me, my name is Catharine O'Leary.
• 1:14
  I am the founder of the Client Intelligence Agency,
• 1:18
  which is the, CIA. But I'm Canadian, so it's good. It's
• 1:22
  it's not, you know, nothing to be afraid of. And I
• 1:25
  spent thirty years in market research and consumer
• 1:29
  insights in corporate working for the likes of
• 1:32
  Apple and Pepsi and HP. And after thirty years of
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  doing that and asking a lot of questions of a lot
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  of people and helping businesses, you know, turn that information
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  into new products or bundles or innovation
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  or, you know, marketing messaging and so on, I decided to
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  leave corporate and to go out on my own.
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  And, you know, that wasn't a straight line. It never is, I don't think. Go
• 1:58
  ahead. No. I was just gonna say for those people who aren't gonna leave
• 2:02
  corporate, you know, that can be that can be even if you
• 2:05
  plan it, it can be nerve wracking. I mean, there's
• 2:09
  such a difference, but I I don't wanna stop you. Sorry. No. It is a
• 2:13
  big difference. So, I will say that entrepreneurship is not for
• 2:17
  the faint of heart. It is it's easier to work nine
• 2:20
  to five for somebody else. I'm gonna tell you straight up. Is is something that
• 2:24
  you do need to be passionate about. You do need to have a strong why
• 2:28
  that is beyond your financial why. Financial why's are great,
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  but they're not gonna get you out of bed when you don't wanna get out
• 2:34
  of bed. And when you don't have a boss anymore telling you you have to
• 2:37
  get out of bed, it's really easy to stay in bed. You need to get
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  your butt out of bed. So I always say to people, you know,
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  entrepreneurship gives you the freedom to work as many hours as there are in a
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  day. Entrepreneurs are the only people on earth that, you know, quit quit a
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  forty hour a week job to work a hundred Yeah. Hours a week.
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  That's, you know, that's that's the mindset. Now when I
• 3:00
  when I left Pepsi, which was my last, corporate,
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  job, which was a fantastic company to work with and for,
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  I started in, direct sales and network marketing,
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  which was a nice little, you know, toe in the water of
• 3:16
  entrepreneurship, I think. It wasn't ever my end game. And when I
• 3:20
  left that, I I, you know, some significant learnings, but the
• 3:23
  biggest one was I was really good at lead
• 3:27
  generation. So I was really good at getting people to, you know,
• 3:30
  wanna get on a call with me or, you know, learn more about what I
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  was doing. But I was really bad at
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  quality lead generation. So I spent a lot
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  of time with people that had no idea what they were calling me
• 3:45
  about. No no interest in moving forward. So I spent a lot of
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  time wasted on sales calls that didn't go anywhere and
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  advertising that didn't, you know, return any investment and
• 3:56
  just kind of soul sucking time wasted. And, you know, you get to a
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  point, and I think every entrepreneur out there has it, where it's like,
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  oh, I either figure this out or I go back to corporate. Like,
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  I mean, like, there's, like, you know, the savings are gone,
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  The patience is gone. You know? Like, the the confidence
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  is struggling. And so for me, going back to corporate meant
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  three hours a day in the car commuting back and forth to the city. And
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  I did not like that. That was my nonnegotiable. I'm not getting
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  back in the car, so I'm gonna figure this out. So I I, you know,
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  I started my actual own business where I was creating all
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  of the, the conversations and all the products and
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  everything. And, you know, I think that the biggest change, it
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  was a little change, but the biggest change that I
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  made was that nothing is set in stone. So
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  even though I started one way and I started, you know, creating
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  quiz funnels for, solo preneurs and entrepreneurs to help them
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  with lead generation. Last summer, I kind of
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  blew everything up and recreated things into the client
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  intelligence agency because I really wanted to focus in on
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  what clients were telling us and how to use that information to better serve them.
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  And I wanted to help businesses do that. But because I was
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  flexible and allowed myself to pivot and to move
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  those micro changes become macro changes, you know, over the
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  period of a year. You know, one of the things that I say is that,
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  you know, a small change if you think of the spokes of a bicycle,
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  at the center, it's the spokes are together. And as they go
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  out more, that small change gets
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  bigger and bigger and the impact that you have is bigger, but it
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  starts out small. And I think you said a couple of things that were just
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  really, really important, and that is you implied
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  that when you're working a job, you have structure.
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  Right? It's not necessarily your structure, but you have structure.
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  When you're an entrepreneur, you're kinda footloose
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  and fancy free. And and and I think that there's a part of us that's
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  like, oh, this is the best thing. I can do this whenever. And what you
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  find yourself saying is, oh, I didn't get to this today or I didn't you
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  know? So that's that's, you know, one of the changes. And plus the
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  fact that you have all these people to back you up when you're in corporate,
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  now you have to be all those people. Yeah. You wear a lot of
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  hats. You do. You wear a lot of hats. But I think the
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  thing the big thing that you said that is probably
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  I think the thing that is the hardest is being flexible.
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  And part of being flexible and adaptable
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  has to do with having your own North Star and being
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  anchored because you can be drawn in so many directions.
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  So can you talk about that a little bit and what you found that people,
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  you know, the fact that they have that problem focusing
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  and Yeah. Well, and I know that a lot of entrepreneurs,
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  myself included, so I put my hand up for this one. You start chasing the
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  shiny objects. Right? Like, if I just do this, if I just do this
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  podcasting course, if I just do this, you know, 7 figure something something,
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  if I just do this, you know, other thing, and you go coach
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  shopping and course shopping, as I call it. And if you
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  don't have that North Star, what why am I doing this? And and
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  what, like, what is the the impact that I'm trying to have?
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  Then you're you're like, the tangents and the and the
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  the the money that you can spend and the time that you can
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  waste is almost infinite. And
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  so really kinda getting grounded, and that takes the one
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  thing that I've always said about entrepreneurship is that it's probably the most personal
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  development that you'll ever do. You do it daily. It
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  it might feel like when you first get started that you're on vacation all the
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  time because you don't have a schedule. Right? You can go to the coffee shop
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  and have, you know, lunch and every day, and you can, you know, you can
• 7:53
  take Fridays off and you can do this and you can do that. And then
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  when you sit down and you realize, oh, dear. Like, I'm not gonna make
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  the mortgage this month or I'm, you know, like, I'm dipping into
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  my my savings. Then you have to kinda get back
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  into being structured, but you have to structure yourself. And I
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  don't know about you, Yvonne, but I fire myself almost weekly because,
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  like, I sometimes am not a very good employee. Find I find I
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  find that I quit on a regular
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  basis. I mean, I think that I think there's so many things that are going
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  on. First of all, you know, we are kind of brought up to believe, you
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  know, there's your your your professional and then there's your
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  personal, which is never really true. But
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  when you're an entrepreneur, it especially is not true. I mean, I
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  know when I first started working, my mom would call me up
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  and and I would say, mom, I can't talk to you know, she was older,
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  so I would answer the phone. And I'd say, I can't talk to you. I'm
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  working. She'd go, but you're home. That's what somebody thinks, you know, because
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  you're home, you know, that that you're you're free to do
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  whatever. But I think I think the other part is
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  that is so important is,
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  you know, you have to say to yourself I mean, time is a limited
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  commodity. It's nonrenewable. And so you have to say, what am I
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  solving for? And is this gonna really solve something, or is this
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  just slightly interesting? Which which is just a hard choice to make
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  because part of entrepreneurship is being able to be curious and
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  creative. Yep. Right? And so that's why that
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  North Star, I think, is so important. And, you know, what I what
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  I've called it is dead reckoning, and that's because it's a sailing
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  term. It sounds terrible, but the idea is when there wasn't
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  any GPS, you pick a point on the shore or a point, you know, in
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  the horizon because you couldn't control the
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  weather, you know, the the wind or the current. And so
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  you always have to say that. What am I solving for? And that
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  could be that could be when I do this,
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  I'm at a point where I want you know, I put in a lot of
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  work. I love what I do, but
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  I also know that I'm getting older and wanna spend more time doing
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  you know, enjoying things. And so how can the things that
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  I put in, you know, keep going without
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  me be having hands on it all the time, you know, and the
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  scaling so that I've got stuff that I really enjoy doing that, you know,
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  for some people that that's going from one on one to more groups and stuff
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  like that, but you, you know, you have to kinda look at that.
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  Yeah. And I think I think what people, like, what so you talked about kinda,
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  like, your personal life and your business life and that,
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  like, I don't like the the term work life balance anymore because I think
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  it's all harmony. And, honestly, if you've got the proper North Star, the North
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  Star is your North Star. It's not your North Star for personal and your North
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  Star for business. Exactly. Exactly. Right? It's your North Star, and it
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  should actually be guiding you regardless
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  of, you know, what what part of your your business or your personal or
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  your spiritual, whatever you're working on. So if you have one North
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  Star, then it's really working in harmony with all all of the different
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  parts of your your life. Where work life
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  balance came from really was from the corporate world where you're working nine to
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  five and then you only have the rest of the time of your day, twenty
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  four hours, everyone has them, but how you use them is up to you. So
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  if nine to five is always structured as business, that's where we get
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  into our heads that that's the way it always is, and that's not true. So
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  how do you like, again, entrepreneurship and running your own
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  business is personal development every day. So how do you
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  live in harmony every day, meaning that you're actually
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  giving, you know, feedback or, you know, giving attention to all sides of
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  your of your life. And that's not to say that there aren't seasons.
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  There's a season where you might be, you know, like, really focused
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  on your business and and, you know, you're you're saying no to some personal things.
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  You're saying no to that trip. You're saying no to that weekend away or whatever
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  because you need to focus on your business. That's okay. But there's gonna be some
• 12:02
  seasons where you're like, yeah. No. I'm I'm I'm out. Like, I'm gone for the
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  month. Bye. I really like the queues call it harmony because
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  I think, you know, I think balance is a a misnomer. I
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  mean, I don't I don't know that you can so everything that comes
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  into that, that's where you are. So that whatever happens, that's
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  that's where you are. Do you know? And I like the idea of harmony that
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  you don't have conflicting when you say harmony, I think you don't have a lot
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  of conflicting things, which doesn't mean that you don't prioritize.
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  Exactly. But you have a way to prioritize. And and
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  sometimes it is by the season. And I, you know, I have a
• 12:39
  productivity model because I like to do models, and it's called productivity
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  ahead. And the a stands for awareness. What is
• 12:47
  the situation I'm in right now so that I
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  know what it is that, you know, as I set my goal and what I
• 12:54
  have to do? I mean, I know so many people, women in particular, who,
• 12:58
  like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to remodel my house.
• 13:02
  I'm gonna start a new course. I'm gonna, you know, be
• 13:05
  the, you know, the den mother for my kid. You know, you
• 13:09
  pile the stuff on the plate, and you feel like you're not enough in any
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  of them. Right? So going back going back a little
• 13:16
  bit to being flexible and adaptable, I think of entrepreneurship
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  this is what has helped me. I think of entrepreneurship as an experiment.
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  And so you do something I I used to think that you either
• 13:29
  succeeded or you failed. That was the end result of your action. And
• 13:32
  so if I didn't think I could succeed, I wouldn't try things. Yeah.
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  Right? And so I think the idea that you know, First of
• 13:40
  all, the first the first problem is that you're shooting at a moving target.
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  Whatever you're preparing for in two months may
• 13:48
  not even be the same thing. So you just kinda have to jump in and
• 13:51
  do it now and be messy.
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  Right? So what are your thoughts about that? I mean, in terms of prioritizing
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  and Yeah. I mean, I think you set your
• 14:03
  plans down, but you don't set them in stone. Yeah. So,
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  like, you yes. Absolutely. Have a business plan and and have
• 14:11
  the goals and and, like, you know, you know, put those in I call it
• 14:14
  put those in sand, and then, you know, kinda, you know, put your
• 14:18
  your lifestyle or your five or ten year kind of
• 14:21
  viewpoint more in stone, where it's the it's more
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  I want to be living this life. Like, what's your north star telling you to
• 14:29
  to be living? So that harmony means that, you know, you can give
• 14:33
  attention to your business when you need to, and then you can give more attention
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  to your personal life when you need to. But the the
• 14:39
  flexibility, like and especially since COVID, I think that we just
• 14:43
  all learned that things can change in a minute.
• 14:47
  Right? Like, you know, like, we've got new
• 14:50
  technologies. There's a lot of disruptions in in the
• 14:54
  business world and and in, like, your personal life and all the rest of it.
• 14:58
  The disruptions come and, again, this will goes back to being, like, you
• 15:02
  know, a complete, you know,
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  advocate of personal development. When the disruptions come, how do you handle
• 15:09
  them? Right? When the disruptions come,
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  you know, how do you pivot? Like, how do you, like like,
• 15:17
  how do you your North Star is still there, but you might have to zig
• 15:21
  and then zag to to come back to it. And I think being
• 15:25
  the the people that, are more successful than not and
• 15:28
  not every single successful person out there has failed forward.
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  Right? So every single successful person, it was either
• 15:35
  successful or they learned. Right? There is no such thing as
• 15:39
  failure. You will learn you So lean into that
• 15:43
  and zig when you need to to zig or zag or whatever.
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  And and just and it's a game at the end of the
• 15:51
  day. And I don't mean to be trite.
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  I'm just, like, saying that, you know, remember
• 16:00
  why you got into it. Almost every single
• 16:03
  entrepreneur that I know of that got into, you know, being their own business
• 16:07
  and, you know, working the hundred hours instead of the forty a week
• 16:11
  was because they wanted to have more fun and more freedom. So remember
• 16:15
  that because if it's not fun and you're not getting more freedom, then
• 16:19
  go back and pivot. Like, go back and figure that out and start
• 16:22
  zigging and zagging so that you can get that. You know, it's interesting because
• 16:26
  one of the strange things alright. So two things. One is
• 16:30
  that in terms of personal development, you know,
• 16:33
  entrepreneurs are really good at what they do. The level
• 16:37
  that's before that is kind of the personal, you know,
• 16:41
  learning leadership of I call it leadership of self leadership.
• 16:45
  Right? And so they jump into, I'm really good at what I do
• 16:48
  and, you know, project management kind of getting that project done.
• 16:52
  But then in order to grow, you have to be good at leading other
• 16:56
  people. And if you haven't learned how to lead yourself, it's hard to lead other
• 16:59
  people. And so that is one of the challenges, I
• 17:03
  think, of entrepreneurship. And so it you know, if
• 17:07
  you're looking to take courses, it isn't
• 17:11
  it's not necessarily that you wanna take a course that's gonna teach you how
• 17:15
  to use a particular app or
• 17:18
  whatever. Because in two months, that app
• 17:22
  there's gonna be a better app. Right? So you wanna
• 17:26
  spend that time in how do I get the most
• 17:30
  for myself, how do I set my goals, how do I manage
• 17:33
  myself so that I can manage other people and grow my business.
• 17:37
  You can always hire somebody to do the
• 17:41
  technical things or some of the other things, but there's only one
• 17:44
  you that brings the essence and the goals of the business
• 17:48
  to it. I think that is so important. And, you know, so many
• 17:51
  people are like, when I get a coach, why are they talking to me about
• 17:55
  mindset? That's I want sales. Right? Yeah. If you don't have
• 17:58
  a good mindset about sales and yourself, you know, you can't hand
• 18:02
  you know, I say to people, I I don't think about sales too much anymore
• 18:06
  in the sense that, you know, scarcity. I need a client. I need a you
• 18:09
  know, I don't do that anymore. It's like when I consider it a connection with
• 18:13
  people, it's like, how can we help each other? Yeah. And
• 18:17
  the right person will automatically say, I wanna work with you.
• 18:21
  Right? And so, you know, that is a change in a
• 18:25
  shift in mindset, which has impacted my whole
• 18:28
  business. But that being flexible to see that there are other opportunities
• 18:32
  with people and stuff I think are is is really important. I mean
• 18:36
  So there's a there's a couple of things that came to mind. One
• 18:40
  is that business is a transfer of energy.
• 18:43
  So as, like, you know, you were talking about, you know, like, how can we
• 18:47
  help each other? How can we serve each other? You know, like, how can I
• 18:50
  help you? How, you know, like that, how can I help your clients?
• 18:54
  How can I, you know, impact more? Business is a
• 18:58
  transference of energy. And if you can get in that, and that's a mindset
• 19:02
  shift from a transference of money, a transference of a
• 19:05
  currency, because the currency is that will come.
• 19:09
  If you can keep your energy up to a certain level,
• 19:12
  not to get all woo woo on people, I am an economist, so they, like,
• 19:16
  you know, it's a little bit of a fine line for me. But, you know,
• 19:19
  it is a transference of, not to get boo boo, but it is a transference
• 19:23
  of energy. And any single millionaire or billionaire
• 19:27
  that I have heard talk or have had, you know, the the privilege of
• 19:30
  talking to, they will say the same thing. That, you know, once you
• 19:34
  get into out out of the game of currency and into the game
• 19:37
  of of energy, that's where real shift comes in.
• 19:43
  And I gotta say that 90% of business and entrepreneurship is mindset.
• 19:47
  You know, like, it's it's getting, you know, out of
• 19:50
  imposter syndrome. You know? Showing up
• 19:54
  authentically and in integrity. You know? Getting
• 19:58
  into the, you know, into your own value and value set and
• 20:01
  core and NorthStar. Like, everything we're talking about, none of that
• 20:05
  kind none or I I shouldn't say that. Most of what
• 20:09
  comes out of a heart of our business review may not be that.
• 20:12
  Right? But that is actually what's driving a lot of business,
• 20:16
  especially now. When I got my MBA,
• 20:20
  they had a case study, and I won't go into it because we don't have
• 20:23
  time. But the bottom line is I was the only purse I was older than
• 20:25
  most of the people in the class, and I was the only person everybody else
• 20:29
  said, fire this lady who'd been with the company for twenty years. And
• 20:33
  I said, are you kidding? This lady is like gold. I mean, she
• 20:36
  trained everybody that got promoted and stuff. Just put her someplace else.
• 20:40
  And my teacher said to me, you don't intend to work
• 20:44
  for a big corporation, do you? You're gonna work with small businesses.
• 20:48
  Right? And I'm like, But the thing is luckily,
• 20:52
  the life has kinda caught up a little bit more that people are valuable
• 20:55
  assets. Thank god. Alright. So you and I have talked
• 20:59
  before, and I know that we could keep talking. But I need to
• 21:03
  know if you've got a gift so we have time to talk about that. And
• 21:07
  then I wanna make sure that we've got some action steps that we can take
• 21:10
  away. Perfect. Yeah. So for those of you that
• 21:14
  have a business and are running, getting clients and,
• 21:17
  learning more about your clients, my my big thing is how
• 21:21
  do we make sure that we connect with our ideal clients in in
• 21:25
  a deeper way. And so one of the things that I did was actually
• 21:28
  create something called the ideal client profile. And the ideal
• 21:32
  client profile is is just four questions about your business and will
• 21:36
  actually give you a report on your ideal client. The
• 21:39
  demographics, psychographics, client journey, also is a really
• 21:43
  good, great, you know, kind of marketing and sales information for you.
• 21:47
  But it's really to kinda help, you know, do some of that market research for
• 21:50
  you and that us as small businesses or as entrepreneurs, we tend not to
• 21:54
  do. So what corporate does really well, it's what we tend not to do. So
• 21:57
  I wanted to solve for that. So if you go to join
• 22:01
  cianow.com, you will get to
• 22:04
  access to the ideal client profile and I encourage you to
• 22:08
  use that both from a perspective of finding out
• 22:12
  what your ideal client likes and is challenged with and how you might be able
• 22:15
  to help them. But also to put your,
• 22:19
  put your information through and find out, do you really wanna work with the people
• 22:23
  that it comes out with? Because there might be a problem with whether you're describing
• 22:26
  your business, and you might be attracting the wrong people that you're like, oh my
• 22:29
  god. I don't wanna work with that person. That's awful. Like, I I can't think
• 22:33
  of anything worse. Like, because we don't wanna get into the we don't wanna get
• 22:36
  into the I have to fire these clients, and I've done that before. And and
• 22:40
  it's not fun. I've done in corporate, and I've done it for myself, and it's
• 22:42
  not fun. So, you know, making sure that you are talking
• 22:46
  about yourself in a way that attracts the ideal client and then deepening that
• 22:50
  relationship, that's what I was trying to do with that. And and that
• 22:54
  is so important. I mean, I think that it's funny
• 22:57
  because I call it your right client because I feel like ideal is people you
• 23:01
  know? But one of the things that happens, one of the values of this
• 23:05
  is you get to say no you know, to people. We're
• 23:09
  not not no, but you get to say, you know, I don't think we're a
• 23:12
  good match, or you're not in the right place. You know? You have to come
• 23:15
  back later, or you're too advanced for what I do. And and that is
• 23:20
  the ability you say no is such a freeing thing, and we and
• 23:24
  it's something that we've never been taught to do. And I and I
• 23:28
  I would take that a step further and say, you know, say no with service.
• 23:31
  Right? So Yeah. Know what? We are it's not we're not a
• 23:35
  right fit. Like, you know, like, it's it's it's not gonna be good for you.
• 23:39
  It's not gonna be good for me. But, you know, like like, I'm not your
• 23:42
  person, and that's okay. Like, there are a lot of people that do
• 23:46
  what I do. They don't do in the same way, but that's okay. If I'm
• 23:48
  not your person and we're not vibing, if we're if it's not me, like,
• 23:52
  go find your person. Right? That's what I want for you. I want you to
• 23:56
  go find your person that's gonna help you grow if if it's coach, if it's
• 23:59
  a mentor. I also want you to find your ideal clients that light you up.
• 24:03
  That, like, you know, that are become part of your North Star. I get
• 24:07
  to run my mastermind today with these people that are incredible
• 24:11
  people, and I love, like, spending time with them. It shouldn't be,
• 24:14
  dear lord, it's 08:30 and I have to get up. We did that. Right?
• 24:18
  Like like, that was corporate. We did that. That's not what I want for people,
• 24:22
  and I'm sure that's not what you want for yourself. And and the other
• 24:26
  part is that the right people are willing to pay you what
• 24:29
  you're worth. Yeah. Know what you're asking. They don't wanna nickel and dime you
• 24:33
  and that kind of stuff. I mean, I find since I've started and shifted,
• 24:37
  you know, attract your right client with your unique power, one of the things that's
• 24:41
  so interesting is that, typically, before we go through whatever
• 24:44
  connection call we're having, you know, the you know, when we get to,
• 24:48
  let let me see what I can do for you or whatever, you know, or
• 24:51
  what you need. They're like, well, how do I pay you? What is it you
• 24:55
  know, you know, how can I get started? You know, that kind of thing. And
• 24:59
  it which is much different than, well, you know, do you need to take time
• 25:02
  to do this? Do you need to, you know yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it
• 25:05
  is that it is that, you know, people have to and some of it is,
• 25:08
  you know, they honestly need to do that to get ready to do the work.
• 25:12
  But it is such a change and it's such a joy,
• 25:16
  you know. And and and I remember the first time I was talking to somebody,
• 25:19
  and I said, I'm just you know, I'm gonna put the payment link
• 25:23
  in and, you know, beef and we got off on a tangent. Before we
• 25:26
  were finished, the payment was there, which is like,
• 25:30
  yes. This is the right person. Yeah.
• 25:33
  Yeah. Alright. So, again, because we have time constraints, if
• 25:37
  you were to tell people a couple of action steps to take, obviously,
• 25:41
  doing this quiz is the first one. What else would
• 25:45
  you have them do? Oh, that's a great question. So I think have them do
• 25:48
  with the quiz once they get the results. I mean, that could be Yeah. Well,
• 25:52
  so it is a nine page report, so it's gonna take a second to read
• 25:55
  through it. But the first thing I would do, I would say is, first of
• 25:58
  all, just double check, like, is this the right person? Like, do you wanna be
• 26:01
  working with a hundred of these people? Because the answer is if the answer is
• 26:05
  no, take the quiz again and change your answers to the quiz. Right? So change
• 26:09
  the way you're describing your business until you get to a place where, you
• 26:12
  know, you're like, yes, those people. Right? Those those are the people that I wanna
• 26:16
  work with. And then and then, you know, look through that report.
• 26:20
  There's there are golden nuggets all through there for your messaging
• 26:24
  and, you know, new social posts maybe that you can put out or that's a
• 26:27
  really good idea. I hadn't thought of that. You know, mark it up, like print
• 26:31
  it out and mark it up with a highlighter or, you know, put it in
• 26:33
  your, you know, your tablet and mark it up and, you know, you know, have
• 26:37
  it as your grounding part of your business. And then the other thing
• 26:41
  I would say is don't skip the foundational work
• 26:44
  for your business. Right? Don't skip don't there
• 26:48
  there is almost nobody that is an overnight success,
• 26:52
  like, $7,000,000 or whatever. It took everyone ten,
• 26:56
  twelve, a hundred years, whatever. Where you heard an actor say, yeah. It only took
• 26:59
  me, like, ten years to be an overnight success. To be an overnight success. Right?
• 27:03
  Like like, that doesn't like, that's not a thing. Or it's very rare,
• 27:06
  like, a lot rarer than you would think. So don't skip the fundamentals
• 27:11
  because there's nothing worse, and I've done it, nothing worse to
• 27:14
  getting to, like, okay. I've got the business and it's kinda going and
• 27:18
  it's guerrilla warfare because you've got a whole bunch of bubble gum and
• 27:22
  duct tape in the backroom that you haven't really built the system
• 27:26
  or the or the mindset even for the
• 27:29
  next step. So don't skip the the foundational work,
• 27:33
  and and spend spend the time and the money there as
• 27:37
  opposed to running off to be the next overnight wonder. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 27:41
  Absolutely. Okay. Here we go. When was the last time
• 27:45
  you did something new for the first time? When was
• 27:49
  the last time I did something new for the first time?
• 27:52
  Oh, probably about a week ago.
• 27:57
  Yeah. About a week ago. Yeah. I went to a a new place to watch
• 28:00
  my, niece do a dance competition, which I hadn't seen her live yet.
• 28:05
  Fantastic. Fantastic. So, unfortunately, we have
• 28:09
  to bring this to a close, and it always happens because it's like you kinda
• 28:12
  get warmed up and then then then it's time to go. So I need to
• 28:16
  make sure that I put in the commercial. And so be sure that you
• 28:19
  subscribe and share and engage with this podcast on social media.
• 28:23
  And why wouldn't you since you've got this great thing that you can share with
• 28:27
  with people? The jointheCIA.com. And, you know,
• 28:31
  one of the reasons that I do this is I feel this is my way
• 28:33
  of giving back to the community and helping to fuel your quest for growth
• 28:37
  and and impact. So I hope you will, you know, join me again
• 28:41
  for the one small change as you embark on, you know,
• 28:45
  trans transformations and changes in your vision so
• 28:48
  that it's bolder and more innovative. Catharine,
• 28:52
  what are your last words? What if you have to leave somebody with some last
• 28:55
  words to ponder or think on, what would you say? Yeah.
• 28:59
  So I would say join CIAnow.com. I'll see you on the
• 29:03
  inside. Alright then. Remember, the
• 29:06
  change is simple, but it's not always easy. Don't we know that? It takes
• 29:10
  courage and resilience, and you have to step outside your comfort zone. So,
• 29:14
  again, join me for the one small change. And until the next time,
• 29:17
  stay curious. Catharine, thank you. Thanks.