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Filter Advice to Find Your True Path · The One Small Change Podcast

0:00
Hello everybody, welcome to The One Small Change. I am so
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glad that you're taking time out of your schedule to join me today,
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and I hope that you will find something that
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will help you to grow your business. I'm Yvonne McCoy, your host,
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and I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. I
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can't talk, but I bring the experience anyway,
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and I have a passion for discovering growth through the power of seemingly
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small change. And every week I try to introduce you to
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somebody that maybe you don't know so that you can get
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some different insights and help you to transform your
0:37
business. And today we're going to be talking with Heather Cameron,
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and she's going to share with you a small, unexpected, or
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insignificant decision that sparked a remarkable
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transformation and growth in either their life or their personal business.
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So Heather, thank you for being here. Thank you for
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inviting me. I'm excited to have a chat with you. I'm excited too.
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And, and I want you to tell everybody what it is you do and
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what happened that makes you the expert at what you do.
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I am— I have two things that I do. I kind of wear two hats,
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which is always a challenge, but it's a lot of fun. So I am a
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business strategist and coach. So I work with women entrepreneurs to help them
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grow their business authentically themselves. I think there's so much pressure online these
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days to be somebody else. And I think success comes when you step
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into who you are. And then the second part of my business is I actually
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took the— I've been in business for 20+ years, and I took the
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experience I had running summits in the business space, and I run a summit in
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the crafting space. And so we have a really successful summit called Scrapbooking
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Fun Summit. And so that's kind of my other half of my business, and it's
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always a bit of a challenge to balance the two. But I'm sure
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that you do. And so I guess for the audience,
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The main thing I think is the business strategy.
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And I love what you said about not feeling pressured from
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the outside because I hear that all the time from my clients as well, is
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that they took expensive courses, they didn't get the results
2:05
that they wanted. It didn't make them feel
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more confident. They felt worse, actually.
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You took the words right out of the email that I'm writing this morning for
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my newsletter, which is exactly— I was using the
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Olympics as a I'm an Olympic junkie a little bit, and I
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was using the Olympics. As you know, they have a successful athlete
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has many coaches. They don't just have one coach, and most of their coaches have
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not won an Olympic medal, right? And yet we get this thing that
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we must hire somebody who's done what we've done, but that doesn't make them a
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good teacher. And so I think that we really have to, number one, be really
2:41
strong in the conviction of what our business is and what we want it to
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be. And we do know, even if we're just starting out, there's a knowledge of
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what you want to do. So standing in that and being really strong in that,
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I think, is important. And the thing, the thing that I think
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is interesting and I think that's missing from most
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things is the idea that,
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well, this is what I say, you don't need to be fixed, you need to
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be found. But that doesn't mean that you
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can't tune in or dial in
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as you go along. There are different stages in your business. There are different stages
3:17
in your in your message. You kind of start out wider, and then the more
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you start to do the one thing, the deeper that you get
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into it, the better that you get, the more clarity that you have.
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And I think, you know, I say all the time, being an entrepreneur
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is shooting at a moving target. Your clients move at a different
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speed, they go through the process of different things, your business
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is at a different stage. And so something that might work at
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one point may not be the same strategy that
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you want further down the line. Well, and it isn't. It isn't,
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right? It's a learning thing. But I think that, you know,
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one of the shifts that I made that's been always something that I have to
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go back to, and I think to me it's one of the important ones, it's
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the model of I just have to have that one thing and then I'll start
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doing that thing and I'll start being successful. But flipping that and
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deciding who do I need to be as a business owner, who do I need
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to be to be successful, and then find the things that are going to help
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me be successful. Versus, you know, looking for if I could just get
4:20
the perfect coach, then I'll start to do the perfect thing. Well, what if you
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started being in that of going, you know, I'm going to
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be this successful business owner, what does that look like for me?
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And I think that shift, and it's a bit of a mental shift, can
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really help you land stronger on your feet,
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if that makes sense. Well, I, I think the other thing with
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that is This is
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what I heard from the first speaking coach that I had.
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He was like, you are perfect for the people that need
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you now. So there's always somebody, you know, there's always
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somebody who needs to know that's behind you or hasn't gotten to
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where you are, who needs what you have. And there'll always be somebody
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in front of you who is more, you know,
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experienced than you are. And so it's not about comparing
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yourself with, you know, the people who are further
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along. It's about helping the people who need you now.
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And a perfect example of that was
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I wanted— at one point in my life, I wanted to teach weight loss
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because I had lost over 100 pounds, but I wasn't at my
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ideal weight. And I said, well, I can't teach this because I'm not
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at my ideal weight. And he goes, don't you think there are plenty of people
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who would like to know how to lose 100 pounds. Yep. And,
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and the point is that you lost it and kept it off, which most
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people haven't been able to do. That's something that you can teach
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right now. So I think people need to
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stop trying to be perfect because there is no such thing. But the
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other thing is, while you're trying to be perfect for a certain situation,
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by the time you get close, that situation is gone.
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Yeah. And one of my mentors said the best person to teach you how to
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learn a piano is somebody who just learned, not the concert pianist. Yes.
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Right. It's not the concert pianist. It's not the person who's— and in fact, typically
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speaking, the concert pianist is a terrible teacher
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because they're focused on that. And I think the online space has opened
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up that, right? We look for— and that's where kind of going back to the
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Olympic analogy is there's lots of people out there
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saying, I'm a coach, who have— may or may not have any experience, but they
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were really good about doing something their way. And then they're teaching
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their way and they don't have open and flexibility to teach it
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that the way that's going to help you actually use it. And that's where you
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get that dissatisfaction in courses and things like that. You know, I, I
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honestly believe that mentoring, coaching, and teaching is a combination of
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experience, um, learned things, and talent,
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right? There's a talent that is in there. And when we, when we
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dismiss the talent part of it is when we get into trouble and we take
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courses that don't work. And there's a new player in the game. That's really
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disrupting things, and that's AI, right? Because we go to AI
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now for that first initial conversation,
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and we believe AI. And AI is
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just a— and I love AI, so don't get me wrong, I use it every
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single day, but I use it in a different way. So we have this new
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thing, this new layer coming on to all of this stuff where I
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was working with a client the other day, and they— she had it right, and
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then she went to AI, and a— right for her. And when I say right,
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I mean right for her. And then she went to AI, and it totally took
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her off track. And because of her
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experience level, it was just taking her, and it would— it stripped
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her of her own voice. It stripped her of who she was trying to be.
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And because of the space that she's in, she's in a consumer space—
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excuse me— it took her into a
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corporate speak because that's kind of AI's direction.
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And so it's another thing in the game that's taking people off track and
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making them actually feel like they can't do what they want to
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do? You hit on a couple of things that I think are
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so important, right? So I guess I'll work backwards. I'll start with the AI.
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No, I'm going to start with be your own advocate.
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So I think that once you
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know what direction you want to go in, that is
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going to be the thing that's going to keep you on track. And
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not only, not only with, you know, what you're doing in your business, but
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also kind of your legacy, what you're le— you know, what you're— the way that
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you show up in the world, right?
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And I think that a lot of
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our uniqueness has been conditioned out of us,
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you know, because it doesn't fit the mold. And so you have to be an
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advocate for yourself, and that shows up can show up
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in so many places. I mean, just when you go to the doctors, you can
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say, wait, you know, I mean, when my dad
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was really sick, you know, I said to him,
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I said to the doctor, I don't want you to look at this man like
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a 90-year-old that only has a certain amount of time left. This
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man was walking up until, you know, a couple of months ago, he was walking
9:21
3 miles a day. He was doing this. His mind is
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bright, you know. Do not put him, pigeonhole him into that.
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And the same thing with AI. You have to train AI. You can't
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just take it at rote. And so, you
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know, I'm like you. I use AI all the time. And
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once you kind of get it trained and give it different sources and
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go, no, I mean, there are certain— I mean, and there are certain things that
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just kill me. Like in my model, the D and B found is
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delight, deliver, and delight. Because I believe that you have to
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delight somebody before they will start working
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with you and you can deliver to them. And even once you're delivering, you still
10:02
need to delight them. And AI seems to think that that's a
10:06
repetition and it takes out the first delight every single
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time. I mean, I'm like, you know, you know, and even if you train it,
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it's going to do stuff like that. So it's, it's an interesting— it is. I
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mean, it's a great tool, but it has certain things in it. But you said
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something that I wanted to comment on, if that's okay, which is being your own
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business. Like, so one of the models I always use with my clients is— and
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this is a filter, I find it's a filter to listen to anybody's
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feedback— is what type of business do you want to do? Do you want to
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be— and I use something called the restaurant lens. So all restaurants
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have a model that works, but you can be the McDonald's of your industry. Nothing
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wrong with it. It can be really profitable. You can be the,
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you know, small diner. You can be the franchise
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chain like Olive Garden or something like that. You can be a bistro, or you
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can And when you choose what you want to be,
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how you listen to everything else changes. And if you, you know, for
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me, one small change I made was stepping into who I want to be as
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a business. And I want to be a bistro. I don't want to be a
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5-star restaurant. I don't want to be that top end. I also don't
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want to be a franchise model. I love the fact that I'm very
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hands-on with my clients, that you get a very intimate experience. I want to
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be the bistro. And just stepping into that has really helped
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me. I've been in business for 20 years and we go through evolutions and more
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than 20 years. But stepping into that and reckoning that this is the business I
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want to be helps me filter out all the shoulds from everybody
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else coming at me, right? Yeah, so I should charge
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$100,000 or whatever number you want to put in there. No, I'm not a 5-star
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restaurant. I don't need to use that methodology. But I also don't need to
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be mass on social media because I'm not a McDonald's, right? So
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it helps you filter out the information that's coming at you. So
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I, and I think the other thing is, and I think having a filter is
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really good because, you know, it's— there used to be a
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time when the expert had all the information, right? But now we can
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go online, we've got AI, so information is not the issue.
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It's how to use it and what's the right information that a
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coach or an expert can help you with. And I'm with you, I am
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more of— somebody said, oh, you're a boutique business.
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And but I find that I like that
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one-on-one and, you know, so that I can personalize what
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you're doing so that you can be successful the way you want.
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The question I always ask a lot is, what is the
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purpose of this? You know, so if you're
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doing something because somebody told you to do it, what is it that you
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expect to get out of that? And, and will that really give it to
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you? Are you just doing it because somebody told you? I mean,
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it's funny, I've never had a
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workshop that's had like 100
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people registered, and I do a real workshop where
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you participate and do exercises. I'm not sure I want
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100 people to show up because I can't really filter, you know, I
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can't really make the connection. So I'm perfectly fine when only
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20 people show up for my workshop, and I could almost
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consider that big. Right, exactly. And right, and so, and, but
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you know what, what's interesting is because you and I talk from the same place,
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but there's a tone of almost apology in that statement, right? Which there shouldn't be,
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right? It shouldn't be, I'm fine. It should be, I'm ecstatic that 20 people
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showed up. And it's— I love that you use that word because that was, that
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was one of my models too. I am ecstatic. So yeah, but
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it is, we get this thing in our heads that we have to be these
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other things. And that my very first freebie that I wrote
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20-some-odd years ago, whenever I did it, was called a should buster because
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we are shoulded to death online, but we also should ourselves to death,
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right? We tell ourselves we should do this and we should do that. And I
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always tell my clients like, stop. And is this a want or a should? Because
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if it's a want, it deserves your attention. If it's a should, then let it
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go, right? If it doesn't move to a want, then you don't need to do
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it, right? And then putting a timeframe on it is also important, right? I
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want to do it, but hey, I don't have time right now. I'm going to
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do it in 6 months. That's a good answer. Right. We don't have to do
14:14
everything right away. But yeah, we, it's not, we don't need to,
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we need to be the business we need to be for ourselves, not the
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business we need to be for someone else. I think the other thing
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is you talked about models and I do a lot of models too. And one
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of the reasons I do models is because it kind of takes us
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out of our, what's wrong with me? What didn't, you know,
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you know, I should have known this or, you know, like you were talking
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about. And kind of takes that subjective judgment
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and gives you an objective framework, you know. So when we
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talk about— you were talking about, you know, the things I want to do and
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the things I should do. I have a model called
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Productivity Ahead. And the first thing is awareness,
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awareness of the situation that you're in right now.
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You know, what else is going on in my life? You know, if it's—
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is this the— you know, I'm not going to plant a garden in the middle
15:09
of winter. You know, so some of it's common sense.
15:13
Some of it is, you know, I'm
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sick and I got this and I got that and I'm still
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going to try, which is what I tried to do. Go ahead at 150%,
15:25
which did not work very well. The next thing is, what
15:29
can I put on hold? Right. It's not that you're getting
15:32
rid of it. You're just putting it on hold. The next thing is, what can
15:36
I eliminate? Right. And some of them
15:40
is, you know, you eliminate it. You can either, you know,
15:44
well, anyway, the next one is what can I automate? What I tell people is
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automation is not necessarily technical. It's just the system
15:52
so that you know what to do, what to do next. And we, we used
15:55
to do this when my kids got to a point where they would cook. I
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cooked on Saturday. My husband cooked on Sunday. We had leftovers Monday and
16:02
Tuesday. My one daughter cooked on Wednesday. My son cooked on Thursday. And
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Friday we did go for yourself. And it worked really well because we knew
16:10
who was responsible, who, you know, had to take care of stuff. But you
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also said something else. You said
16:18
the things you should— well, that you should— I know, I know
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what it is. You
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said, I went back and looked at one of my old models, and I—
16:29
that just happened to me recently. I was like trying to get rid of stuff
16:33
and And I found stuff
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that I had done when I first started coaching,
16:41
and I went, oh my God, why am I not using this now? It would,
16:45
it would be in a different form, kind of, but the
16:49
nugget, the gem of whatever it was, was
16:52
still viable. And I, and I think what
16:56
that people should always go back every once in a while and revisit
17:00
where they, the thing that made them start doing what they're doing. I
17:03
agree. And it shows you that you're still on
17:07
track, that you're still in the right ballpark, and you've
17:11
just refined it. And it was like, oh
17:15
my God, I can't throw this away. This is great. I like this. Well, and
17:18
I redid mine. I took it and redid it because I still think it's very
17:21
important. You need to, like, putting places in the model that you just
17:25
talked about. I think we have the same brain in some respects. I have a
17:27
very similar model of what do I want to stop doing? What do I want
17:31
to do less of? What do I want to maintain? What do I want to
17:35
increase? And what do I want to create? And those 5 questions have
17:39
really a great way of assessing where you are in your business or in
17:42
your life. It doesn't matter. You can use those 5 questions in so many ways.
17:46
Well, they're really powerful, but they have that same kind of
17:50
putting things in their right place and giving them the right energy. So
17:54
just, just as a funny aside, the, the worksheet
17:58
that goes with Productivity Ahead has one—
18:02
has two columns. One is for business, one is for personal, because you don't
18:05
get 24 hours for business and another 24 hours for personal.
18:09
So the idea is that you, you know, you are one
18:13
person. And I always say, you know, it's great if you can get
18:17
all the steps in both your personal and your private, but at least
18:21
get them between the two of them. Get them,
18:25
you know, get one for each. And the other thing that
18:29
you said that, that, that we were talking about is one of
18:33
the reasons that I start where I start. And I think where you start with
18:36
what kind of business you want is because a lot of times in
18:40
terms of productivity and doing stuff, people go, what can you delegate? What
18:43
can you delegate? And what happens is when you start with delegation,
18:47
you're actually delegating the wrong things.
18:51
You're delegating the junk stuff. Delegation is actually training
18:55
someone who can help you and represent you in your business.
19:00
Well, it's also delegating the things that are going to have the biggest impact. Yes.
19:04
I mean, there are some stuff that we just have to— we all have to
19:06
do taxes, let's face it. We all have to do the stuff. There are some
19:08
things that are nice to delegate that, you know, accounting, all that kind of stuff
19:12
that we have to do. But delegation and hiring a VA
19:16
or however it is should strengthen your business, not just detach
19:20
Right. Because it's funny because I was having this conversation yesterday.
19:25
If you remember the Eisenhower Matrix, I think it's Eisenhower, which is, you know,
19:30
important, not important, urgent, not urgent. Yeah. You don't need
19:33
anybody to do the not urgent, not important stuff.
19:37
Right. No one needs to be doing that. And so, but that's
19:41
often what gets delegated. What should be delegated is the important, not urgent
19:45
stuff. Like that should not delegated but supported. That should be
19:48
supported with delegation. Um, and the
19:52
urgent and not important, why are we even there? Yeah, right.
19:56
And so just even that simple. So there's so many models out there that we
19:59
can use that are so simple, and yet we make things very
20:03
complicated as human beings. So the other thing,
20:06
let's talk about this just a little bit, because both of us are talking about
20:10
being our real self. And so, you know, one of
20:14
the things that I like to do is share a lot of my
20:17
models. And if it doesn't click with you, that's fine.
20:21
You know, let's come up with a model that will accomplish the same thing that
20:25
makes more sense to you, or let's change the words or the way you think
20:29
about it. You know, so you may not, you know, with the Eisenhower
20:32
model, you may not say important, urgent, not important,
20:36
not whatever. That may not be something that you can pull up real
20:40
fast in your brain. Right?
20:44
You may have different words for that, but it does the same thing.
20:48
But you will be able to use your version of it where you
20:51
won't use the other version. If you don't use it, what good is it?
20:55
Well, exactly. We all think differently. Actually, I have a— in my corporate— when I
20:59
first started my business, I did leadership development in corporate world for the first like
21:03
10 years, and I'm certified in something called, um,
21:06
got I can't even think of the name of it right now, but it will
21:09
come. But it looks at the fact that we all think differently. So,
21:13
you know, one model isn't going to work for each other. Effective intelligence is
21:17
what it's called. We all
21:20
perceive the world differently. We all have different filters. So you're right,
21:24
each model has to be filtered for us. And that's what,
21:28
and again, AI is playing into this and all of the people out there we're
21:31
talking about is that Instead of trying to highlight individuality
21:35
and making our businesses our own and making us shine through, because that's what's
21:39
actually going to get people attracted to you, there's a flattening going on right now.
21:43
Yeah, right. There's a tone flattening going on right now, which my passion, part of
21:47
what I'm working on, is to get people to maintain their voices,
21:51
maintain their uniqueness, maintain their business model,
21:55
because that's what's going to make them successful and shine in this world that's being
21:58
flattened by AI. What, you know, one of the things that this happened
22:02
yesterday, we were rewriting my landing page and I'm
22:06
like, I would never say, you know, these marketing words,
22:10
right? Can we take these out? I mean, I, you know, I kind of
22:13
consider myself the anti-marketing
22:15
person. So
22:19
this is not going to, this is not going to attract the kind of people
22:23
that I'm looking for. You know, this is, and it's not me.
22:27
So, you know, it was— I forgot what the word— there was
22:31
differentiation, right, was one of the words.
22:34
And I'm like, I don't care for that. I would just say, what makes you
22:38
stand out? What makes you shine? What makes you,
22:42
you know? And, and so that is a perfect example,
22:46
I think. And the people that I want to
22:49
attract have had enough of the differentiation
22:53
language and that kind of thing. And I don't think most of our
22:56
clients— I mean, when we You know, when I
23:01
talk to people about their introduction, I say to them, I don't want you to
23:04
start your introduction with, hi, I'm so-and-so. I have, you
23:08
know, I've trained for years. I've got this, I do this, this,
23:12
this, this, this. I don't care. As the
23:16
person that might be attracted to you, I don't care unless I know you can
23:19
solve the problem I've got. Your voice is in my head. I
23:23
used to do a lot. I grew my business because when we started business long
23:26
ago, there wasn't Facebook and Zoom and all this stuff, right? It was face-to-face. And
23:30
I used to teach people how to introduce themselves at networking events. And I used
23:33
to be on one and I would count in the background, in particular when I
23:36
would count how many people said the word I. And I'm like, if you said
23:39
I more than once, then your introduction is not working. Right.
23:43
And to really rephrase it and get rid of the I, and I find
23:47
particularly women, we tend to overexplain the I part.
23:51
So, you know, pulling that out and going and changing the introduction to what
23:55
can I do for you? Yes. What do I do for you? What problem do
23:58
I solve? Or— and creating intrigue even sometimes.
24:01
Um, there's a woman I interviewed when I had a podcast several years ago, and
24:05
she was like, you know, you want to leave them hungry. You want to give
24:09
them an introduction that makes them want to come and talk to you. Yes.
24:12
Right? And so you want to leave them hungry. And she was a comedian, actually.
24:16
That's how she ended up moving to coaching. And she's like, that's part of what
24:20
you do. You want to leave them with that kind of little pull, um, and
24:22
not say the I word. So I 100% agree with you. I used to count
24:26
the I word for people and say nope. All right, before we run out of
24:30
time, because you and I are like having too much fun,
24:33
let's, let's talk about your free gift and some
24:37
actions that entrepreneurs can take because we want them to be able to
24:41
use what we've been talking about and having so much fun with to actually
24:45
grow their business. Well, actually, the, the, the
24:49
freebie is called Your AI Reality Check. And it just, you honed in
24:52
on your doing your page yesterday for exactly its purpose. It's a set of
24:56
questions. They're not hard that ask that you should ask before you hit publish.
25:01
And one of them, is this my voice? Would I actually say that? Would my
25:04
audience actually expect that from me? Right? So there's a
25:08
series of questions for how you want to do
25:12
AI from a, from a published point of view. So content, sales pages,
25:16
blog posts, emails, all that kind of stuff. And then there's a series of questions
25:20
for strategy because AI can take you totally off your strategy as well,
25:24
right? Like I've used it to say, okay, what's my, you know, now let's work
25:27
with 90-day plan. I'm like, I don't want to do that. Like you're telling me
25:30
to do something and it's not AI's fault is to always make it better.
25:34
And what it uses for better is stuff that's in the world out there, right?
25:38
And so the intention really is to give them a
25:42
reality check before you hit publish, before you agree to your final content on your
25:45
sales page. There's a series of 5 questions. And before you set your
25:48
strategy, there's a series of 5 questions to keep you aligned.
25:52
And it's really meant to be that gut check.
25:56
And everybody can use this. I mean, you know,
26:00
I think I've gotten pretty good at my AI. I mean, it's
26:04
like I will go back and I'll say, I want you to, you
26:08
know, tell it specifically what I want it to do. I want to make sure
26:12
that it's pulling in, you know, I've fed in all the models.
26:15
You know, so I want to make sure it's touching on those. I want to
26:19
make sure that the tone is right, you know, that kind of thing.
26:22
And it, it comes back pretty much 80 to 90%
26:26
right, and I still, you know, need, need to fix it.
26:30
So this will be something that will really help people, especially
26:33
if you're just starting out. Yeah, and AI drifts.
26:38
Like, even Mew has this, right? AI is changing every single day.
26:42
Right? And so it's drifting even though you may have trained it 6
26:45
months ago. It's drifting and you have to keep
26:49
yourself, you have to keep a check on it. And that's the
26:52
responsibility is us as a business owner to keep a check on it. And
26:56
AI tends to have a certain way of drifting you towards.
27:00
Right now, a lot of negative marketing comes out of AI, right? Why
27:04
you don't do this, why you don't do that. So it's really about checking. It's
27:06
a check and it's meant to be a gut check. But once you get used
27:09
to it, you're going to ask yourself those questions every time you publish something.
27:13
What I did a post once that said AI helped me delegate
27:16
better because I thought I had fed in all the
27:20
instructions that I wanted. And when I got back was like,
27:23
what? I'm not being
27:27
clear, you know, about what I'm asking. So that's really funny. All right. Give us
27:30
3 things that people can do or whatever number
27:34
you've got. I mean, let's get it. 3 people. One is make sure you
27:37
really decide what type of business you want to be. Like really, and it can,
27:41
it can morph and it can change, but you can use my restaurant analogy
27:45
or whatever makes sense to you, but step into the type of business you want
27:48
to be because it's going to be the most powerful filter that you can
27:52
put for yourself because you're going to filter out all the noise that doesn't apply
27:56
to you. And you get to say, nope, that's not in my model. I don't
27:59
need to do that. Right. So I think that's probably one of the biggest,
28:03
strongest things you can do. The second one is
28:08
Seek help when you need it, but seek the right type of help,
28:11
right? I think most of us have the skills within us to run a business,
28:14
otherwise we wouldn't have started this. But we need help that supports us,
28:18
not help that tells us how to do it. There's kind of a— that's, that's
28:22
a big one. I mean, so
28:29
I guess my feeling is I find that a lot of times people
28:33
don't want to ask for help because they think I should be able to do
28:36
this myself. What is something to
28:40
help them to realize that they need help, or that
28:44
they're— because there's a
28:48
couple of things that come to mind on that one. I actually— we keep landing
28:51
on conversations I had this week. Um, I had a conversation with a couple of
28:54
people yesterday morning, and it was, um,
28:58
you know, one of them was auditing what you're spending your time on, like, and
29:02
auditing it with a dollar value to it, like a simple audit And you can
29:05
use the matrix that we talked about as well and just say, okay, I'm spending
29:09
my time and I'm not getting a return on my
29:13
time, like a non-return on my investment, but I'm not actually getting a return on
29:16
my time. Where can I get help that's going to help me on this? Could
29:19
be that I need a coach to help me move my business to the next
29:22
level. It could be I need a VA. I don't know, but it just, it's
29:25
a great way of kind of, is my time effectively being used?
29:29
And it takes a little bit of honesty. right? To go like, okay. Um,
29:33
and one way to do that is just to, you know, give yourself dollar brackets.
29:37
Is this a $20 task? Is this a $50 task? Is this a $100
29:41
task? I.e., what it's going to do for my business. And you could
29:44
use numbers, whatever makes sense. But that's one way to start. It's just kind of
29:48
like the other one is, am I spinning my wheels?
29:52
Right? Am I keep doing, you know, that old adage, if you keep doing the
29:55
same thing over and over again and expect something different, well, no,
29:59
you gotta figure out where the changes are. Required. And to add
30:03
to that, I would throw in my question, what's the purpose?
30:06
And the situation that you described is exactly the
30:10
situation I had that I went through at the, you know, at the end of
30:14
the year, that I have my weekly newsletter and I
30:17
spend an ungodly amount of time on it and finally
30:21
decided that I was going to get a VA to do it.
30:25
And, you know, so The first thing is, what is— is this something
30:29
that's actually doing something to grow my business? What am I, you know, why am
30:32
I even doing this? And one of the reasons for me
30:36
was it is— for me, it's a lead generator because when I talk to
30:40
people, I go, I can list your event. And it's also
30:43
a way for me to give back to the community. It's kind of my heart,
30:47
so it's important to me. But I was spending
30:50
so much time on it, partially because I
30:54
was taking responsibility for finding people to be in
30:58
it. Like, they had been in it like 4 or 5 months ago,
31:02
and I tracked down the website and I was like, oh, I haven't seen so-and-so
31:06
stuff. Let me see if I can find what they're doing now. And, you know,
31:10
so it used to take me hours to do it and finally got
31:14
a VA, got a new submission form and said to people, this
31:17
model is not working. We have to change it. And I
31:21
actually got it. I got the VA's version of it.
31:25
I made my tweaks, which I probably didn't need to do, but
31:28
because— and it was done in less than an hour. It was like, oh my
31:32
God, this is amazing. Exactly.
31:36
And, you know, help can be like that where we're just off-tasking something, and help
31:39
can be something where you're just stuck, right? You know, I— people
31:43
often hire me, just— and hire yourself, I'm sure— just to move past that stuck
31:47
moment because we are I, for example, on elevator pitches or
31:51
mantras or whatever purpose of business, I can write anybody else's, but I can't write
31:55
my own. And I'm really good at writing other people's
31:59
pitches and helping them define what their business is and nailing their niche and
32:02
ideal client and all that stuff. I'm really good at it, but I can't do
32:05
it for myself, right? We're too deep in our own businesses
32:08
sometimes to actually see what's going on. I'm going to
32:12
admit this to you, which is very embarrassing. I put— I'm
32:15
doing a talk and I put in, you know, some things and I go,
32:19
you know, give me your feedback, tell me this. And it was like, okay, here's
32:23
where it's strong, here's where it needs to be fixed. And the
32:27
number 3 issue was— and I'm talking about
32:30
being yourself— the number 3 issue was you don't,
32:34
you know, you don't differentiate yourself. You don't tell people why you're good at what
32:38
you do. And I'm like, oh,
32:42
Me too. I find it, it's really an interesting kind of analogy
32:46
about humans. I'm not great at telling people, but I can sell someone else's
32:50
business and I can nail it very quickly too. I've done hundreds of them, thousands
32:53
of them, right? Hundreds. But my own is hard. So that's why we need
32:57
help, right? We need somebody who can help us just kind of clear the
33:00
fog and pinpoint what's really the, the thing that we want or the issue or
33:04
the next step, whatever it is. Um, and so the help can come in
33:08
many different layers, but we need to know that businesses aren't built on an
33:11
island, right? And whether it helps just having a conversation with a friend— I've
33:15
always had an accountability partner. I've always had that. I've always
33:20
sought out accountability partners. I've never paid for one.
33:24
I've always just found the relationship that makes sense for me to create
33:27
accountability in my business. And that's something important as well. And also,
33:31
also, that's a good thing about some— if you, if you're in a good
33:35
community you can find good accountability partners. All right.
33:40
I hate to do it, but it's that time. So
33:44
when's the last time you did something new for the first time?
33:48
I did something new for the first time would be in a creative form.
33:52
So I love to do art. I used to do a
33:56
lot of drawing and I haven't done it in a while. So I have— at
33:59
Christmas I was given a gift card and I went out and I bought markers
34:02
and I am trying to learn how to draw in a completely different medium. So
34:06
I've done other— you can't erase things with markers. It's a very interesting lesson for
34:09
me. You can erase things in the other mediums I did. You could lift it
34:12
off, but with markers, you're done. You can't fix things. You
34:16
can't change things. But I really want to learn how to draw and do
34:20
illustrations in that form, finding my own unique
34:24
style, which I don't have at all. But that's kind of a craving I've had
34:26
for a long time on the creative side. So that is the last time I've
34:30
done something new and My drawings aren't that good yet, but they will get
34:33
better. Well, I also think when you do something new and you're curious, it
34:37
grows your brain, you know, keeps your brain from stagnating. All right,
34:41
commercial time. So one of the things I really want to ask
34:44
everybody to do is subscribe, share, and engage with, um,
34:48
on social media about the podcast. And one of the reasons I do it is
34:52
to help you supercharge your business through connections and connection with
34:56
people who you may not know that can help you. And so
35:00
You know, it's a way for me to give back to the community, and I
35:03
hope it's going to fuel your quest for growth
35:06
and impact. So I hope you will continue to join me on The One Small
35:10
Change, and we embark on, you know, how tiny shifts can yield
35:14
monumental transformations. And there are a couple of
35:17
individual episodes that I put in that you might be interested in.
35:22
Last thing, Heather, tell me what your words of wisdom, your last words are.
35:27
One of my favorite quotes, and I remember using this even with my dad when
35:30
he was sick, so this comes even to what you were talking about earlier, is
35:33
whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right, which is a
35:37
Henry Ford quote. And it's so true.
35:41
It is so true. The power of our mindset. If we think we can't, we
35:44
can't. If we think we can, we can. And so really catch yourself
35:47
when you're thinking you can't and, you know, not allowing yourself to grow.
35:52
Absolutely. Okay guys, remember that change is simple,
35:56
but it's not always easy, and it requires courage, resilience, and a willingness
35:59
to step out of your comfort zone. I always say this: if I'm doing something
36:03
and I don't have butterflies, it means that I don't care enough or I'm not
36:07
doing something new. So I hope you will continue to join me on the one
36:11
small change. I hope that your journey gets bolder and
36:15
you seek out more innovative possibilities. And until the next
36:18
time, stay very, very curious. Thank you, Heather.
36:22
Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for inviting me. I've enjoyed our
36:26
conversation. It was great. Make sure you get our gift, everybody.
36:30
Bye-bye.