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Heart-Led Entrepreneurial Triumphs with Lisa Swanson · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let's go.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom: Ladies and lean loving gents, fasten your giggle girth and get ready for a jolly journey towards jubilance with Lisa Swanson.
• 0:44
  Tom: This wizardress of weight won'ts is weaving wonders for women of wisdom on their quest to reclaim their radiant waistlines Ready to rumble with some relatable revelations on the Heart-Led Business Show?
• 0:57
  Tom: Well, stay tuned because we're going to dive deep into the labyrinth of light hearted business learning with Lisa.
• 1:05
  Tom: So let's lunge into this episode.
• 1:07
  Tom: Lisa, welcome to the show.
• 1:08
  Lisa Swanson: Thank you so much for having me here.
• 1:10
  Tom: So good to have you.
• 1:11
  Tom: So one of the first question I ask everybody is what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:18
  Lisa Swanson: That is a great question.
• 1:20
  Lisa Swanson: And this really fits in with my journey that I have been on.
• 1:24
  Lisa Swanson: And a heart-led business to me is one that doesn't just lead by numbers.
• 1:28
  Lisa Swanson: Like sales or the number of clients or ROI, but also puts an emphasis on making sure that their clients are a good fit for the program.
• 1:37
  Lisa Swanson: One that emphasizes, empathizes I should say, with their clients and provides a service they can be proud of without compromising their own boundaries.
• 1:47
  Tom: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 1:47
  Lisa Swanson: How's that for a good synopsis?
• 1:49
  Tom: That's a beautiful synopsis and definition of a heart-led business.
• 1:53
  Tom: So what inspired you to start heart-led business?
• 1:57
  Lisa Swanson: Well, you know, there are two things I was thinking about this.
• 2:00
  Lisa Swanson: What inspired me?
• 2:01
  Lisa Swanson: I can go with two different things.
• 2:02
  Lisa Swanson: One is my dad.
• 2:04
  Lisa Swanson: So my dad was an entrepreneur, lots of entrepreneurs in my family.
• 2:08
  Lisa Swanson: So specifically my dad owned two different grocery stores at different times.
• 2:13
  Lisa Swanson: And on the side, he built houses.
• 2:14
  Lisa Swanson: He was always somebody creative and doing things for himself.
• 2:18
  Lisa Swanson: And one of the lessons that he taught me as I was, you know, getting to the age of trying to figure out what do I want to do?
• 2:24
  Lisa Swanson: And what's going to be important?
• 2:25
  Lisa Swanson: He said, doesn't matter.
• 2:27
  Lisa Swanson: He goes, doesn't matter what you do, but whatever it is, you be the best at it that you can be know that you gave it a hundred percent to provide the best service, the best work, the best outcome for everybody involved.
• 2:40
  Lisa Swanson: Because it's not just about you.
• 2:42
  Lisa Swanson: I loved that.
• 2:43
  Lisa Swanson: And I say, cause it's not just about you.
• 2:44
  Lisa Swanson: It's what you're creating for your life and for each person, your business touches it and how it's going to affect them.
• 2:51
  Tom: Oh, wow.
• 2:51
  Lisa Swanson: And I was like, oh, wow, right?
• 2:53
  Lisa Swanson: Like that.
• 2:53
  Lisa Swanson: To me was like the most important thing.
• 2:55
  Lisa Swanson: He's like, I don't care if you want to be a garbage can collector, you know, it doesn't matter, but you're going to be the best damn one out there.
• 3:01
  Lisa Swanson: And you're going to, you're going to get to know the people on the route.
• 3:04
  Lisa Swanson: And you got like, it was all about who are you connecting with, with whatever job you have, right?
• 3:10
  Lisa Swanson: Cause if you're going to change lives
• 3:12
  Tom: How, how-
• 3:12
  Lisa Swanson: and that changing lives.
• 3:14
  Tom: Oh, sorry.
• 3:15
  Lisa Swanson: I was just gonna say changing lives for him was even just if you put a smile on somebody's face that day.
• 3:19
  Lisa Swanson: Because it could be you never know, it could be that person's worst day of their life.
• 3:23
  Lisa Swanson: But if you could have made us put a smile on their face, you made a big huge difference.
• 3:27
  Lisa Swanson: You know because you're never going to know how much of an impact and I was probably in my mid teens.
• 3:33
  Lisa Swanson: I was not the type who liked school.
• 3:36
  Lisa Swanson: I wanted to leave school early.
• 3:37
  Lisa Swanson: He was like, no, you're not doing that But I wanted to get out of school.
• 3:42
  Lisa Swanson: I worked for him in his grocery store.
• 3:44
  Lisa Swanson: And so, but I was always thinking about what do I want to do, and I was always thinking like it's like, I'll be a hairdresser, and then I'll own the studio.
• 3:50
  Lisa Swanson: Maybe I'll work with dogs, and I'll own the kennel.
• 3:52
  Lisa Swanson: You know, I always went to that level of it.
• 3:55
  Lisa Swanson: That was the way my mind worked, but I think him definitely was the first insight into what we do.
• 4:02
  Lisa Swanson: It's not just about me, right?
• 4:04
  Lisa Swanson: It's about everybody that you touch and we touch so many different people in our lives and sometimes that we're not even aware of.
• 4:10
  Tom: Yeah, there's a author that that I heard about, I haven't read the book, but he went on a quest to thank everybody in the supply chain that provided his cup of coffee in the morning.
• 4:23
  Lisa Swanson: Wow.
• 4:24
  Tom: He said there were over a thousand people that he had to go thank.
• 4:27
  Lisa Swanson: That's amazing.
• 4:28
  Lisa Swanson: Think about that.
• 4:29
  Lisa Swanson: A thousand people for a cup of coffee.
• 4:31
  Tom: Right, yeah?
• 4:32
  Tom: From the growers to the pack, you know, to the barista, you know, it's everybody, the truck driver that, you know, how amazing, like talk about impacting other people's lives.
• 4:44
  Tom: Like that's incredible.
• 4:45
  Tom: And what great advice from your father and at such a young age as well like how did that transform you?
• 4:51
  Lisa Swanson: Well, hmm.
• 4:53
  Lisa Swanson: I had a chance.
• 4:53
  Lisa Swanson: I think it shifted how I looked at what I wanted to do with my life.
• 4:57
  Lisa Swanson: You know, when you start thinking about how do I affect other people, I think it changes what you want to do instead of coming from, well, let's see, what job is going to make me the most money?
• 5:07
  Lisa Swanson: Like where, you know, and not just, I mean, I think we all do need to be happy with what we do, and we do want to earn a certain amount of money.
• 5:13
  Lisa Swanson: It's just not that we can't just ignore that.
• 5:15
  Lisa Swanson: You know, I'm not going to, I know I like to have nice things, so I'm going to want to do something that's going to afford the nice things and live a lifestyle that pleases me.
• 5:25
  Lisa Swanson: But you also have to look at who you affect.
• 5:27
  Lisa Swanson: So I think, you know, maybe that's why I got into, I didn't get directly into coaching.
• 5:31
  Lisa Swanson: I struggled.
• 5:32
  Lisa Swanson: Unlike, I had brothers and sisters.
• 5:34
  Lisa Swanson: I come from a family of seven brothers and sisters.
• 5:37
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, a lot.
• 5:38
  Lisa Swanson: And
• 5:38
  Tom: At the grocery store.
• 5:40
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, nobody's at the grocery store.
• 5:42
  Lisa Swanson: One, one went to the grocery store business with them.
• 5:44
  Lisa Swanson: But there was, you know, all of them like they went to school, they knew what they wanted to do, they had this path.
• 5:49
  Lisa Swanson: And I was always the one that was sort of like going in different directions, like not knowing what is Lisa going to do, you know?
• 5:56
  Tom: Which number were you?
• 5:57
  Lisa Swanson: I was fourth?
• 6:00
  Lisa Swanson: One, two, three, four, fifth from the top.
• 6:02
  Tom: Oh, okay.
• 6:02
  Tom: Kind of middle-ish, right?
• 6:04
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, so it's middle-ish.
• 6:05
  Lisa Swanson: It was sort of, yeah, it was middle-ish because the four oldest we called the big kids and the three youngest we called the little kids because it was a space.
• 6:12
  Lisa Swanson: My mother had kids every year and then there was a space and then she had the last three.
• 6:16
  Lisa Swanson: So I was like the oldest of the last three.
• 6:18
  Lisa Swanson: So we were the little kids.
• 6:20
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, it's funny how families do things like that.
• 6:23
  Tom: Yeah.
• 6:23
  Lisa Swanson: But yeah, it just makes you think about, you know, what do I want to do with this life?
• 6:27
  Lisa Swanson: What kind of impact is it going to have?
• 6:29
  Lisa Swanson: And am I going to enjoy it?
• 6:31
  Lisa Swanson: Because that's part of it too.
• 6:32
  Lisa Swanson: We have to enjoy what we're doing.
• 6:33
  Lisa Swanson: We can't go to a job where we're miserable.
• 6:36
  Lisa Swanson: And then, you know, we all know the person at the checkout counter who hates the job, right?
• 6:42
  Lisa Swanson: We don't want to send that energy out there.
• 6:44
  Lisa Swanson: So, how did it impact me?
• 6:46
  Lisa Swanson: I think it was just looking at the broader picture.
• 6:49
  Tom: Nice.
• 6:50
  Tom: Cool.
• 6:50
  Tom: So tell me what is your business now?
• 6:52
  Lisa Swanson: So my business now is body and soul coaching and actually this is the reason I got here, was because I knew I wanted to coach.
• 6:59
  Lisa Swanson: I knew I wanted to get into fitness.
• 7:00
  Lisa Swanson: I was very curious with the body.
• 7:01
  Lisa Swanson: I ended up in a franchise.
• 7:04
  Lisa Swanson: And so that franchise, you know, at first it was very exciting.
• 7:08
  Lisa Swanson: I was learning a lot about growing a business and you know, what numbers do you track and what's the marketing, what's the sales, the hiring, the firing, learning all those things.
• 7:16
  Lisa Swanson: But every single thing I learned in the business, it was all number driven, number driven, and even to the point of pitting one studio against the number, against the next studio, like who had the highest sales numbers.
• 7:26
  Lisa Swanson: I was with them for about a decade, and I'll tell you by the time I left, I was no longer living a healthy lifestyle.
• 7:31
  Lisa Swanson: I was working out.
• 7:32
  Lisa Swanson: I was eating right.
• 7:33
  Lisa Swanson: I was, I competed.
• 7:35
  Lisa Swanson: I was built, you know, people probably like, oh, Lisa's in great shape.
• 7:37
  Lisa Swanson: I was exhausted.
• 7:39
  Lisa Swanson: I was working myself to the ground.
• 7:41
  Lisa Swanson: I had no personal boundaries and I completely lost my intuition.
• 7:46
  Lisa Swanson: And at some point, I can't remember what happened.
• 7:49
  Lisa Swanson: It was actually right around my 50th birthday.
• 7:51
  Lisa Swanson: I was just like, something needs to give here.
• 7:53
  Lisa Swanson: I'm not enjoying this life and I'm going to have a heart attack if I continue at this pace.
• 7:59
  Lisa Swanson: This is all leading up to my business now.
• 8:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 8:02
  Lisa Swanson: And somebody said, well listen to your intuition.
• 8:04
  Lisa Swanson: I realized, I said, I don't have any intuition.
• 8:07
  Lisa Swanson: I don't even know what that sounds like anymore.
• 8:09
  Lisa Swanson: And I really had to just start to ground myself.
• 8:12
  Lisa Swanson: Which book did I get?
• 8:13
  Lisa Swanson: It's a small book by oh, what's his name?
• 8:16
  Lisa Swanson: John Randolph, I think?
• 8:17
  Lisa Swanson: I think it's called John Randolph.
• 8:19
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, I can't remember the name of the book.
• 8:20
  Lisa Swanson: I wish I knew and it was a small book and I had these meditations that you did each day to just sort of connect into Into like what you wanted to do and connect it to the universe connect to you guys and all this and I really started listening to my intuition and I started saying do I really want to be with this franchise and it was just this big like, no! That I could finally do It's like, okay, that's not the thing to do.
• 8:41
  Lisa Swanson: And it's like, and then I had this vision of body and soul coaching, which was much more nurturing and called it body and soul because it had to do with fitness and nutrition.
• 8:50
  Lisa Swanson: Yes, but it also had to do with the mindset.
• 8:52
  Lisa Swanson: It had to do with helping people figure out their identities, their health identity getting past limiting beliefs and really empowering women to be their own nutritionist, to work on this, because I don't want, I didn't want anybody to have to come to me for life, you know, like diets that are out there.
• 9:09
  Lisa Swanson: It's like do the diet and then come back again when you gain the weight back.
• 9:11
  Lisa Swanson: I didn't want that.
• 9:13
  Lisa Swanson: So that's why I call it body and soul coaching.
• 9:15
  Lisa Swanson: And when I said, Hey, I said to myself, I own, and I created body and soul coaching.
• 9:19
  Lisa Swanson: It's like, boom, this light went off.
• 9:21
  Lisa Swanson: And that's like, okay, that's my intuition saying, yes, go that route.
• 9:24
  Lisa Swanson: And so that's how body and soul coaching first came about.
• 9:28
  Tom: Oh, that's very cool.
• 9:29
  Tom: And so that was really your purpose.
• 9:32
  Tom: Like you were leading, if I may paraphrase what I heard is you were living what you wanted to do with the franchise, but it wasn't your purpose.
• 9:42
  Tom: It kind of transformed into that, just the numbers thing and just trying to do better than the neighbor, you know, the neighboring studio.
• 9:51
  Tom: And then,
• 9:52
  Lisa Swanson: Exactly.
• 9:53
  Tom: you found your purpose that aligned with your inner self as well with body and soul coaching.
• 9:58
  Lisa Swanson: Exactly.
• 9:59
  Lisa Swanson: And I think everything serves its purpose.
• 10:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 10:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 10:02
  Tom: I, I see your trophy in the back as well.
• 10:05
  Tom: Is that for your, a bodybuilding competition that you
• 10:07
  Lisa Swanson: Yes.
• 10:08
  Lisa Swanson: Yes.
• 10:08
  Lisa Swanson: That was a bodybuilding.
• 10:09
  Lisa Swanson: Well, not bodybuilding.
• 10:11
  Lisa Swanson: I didn't go that far.
• 10:12
  Lisa Swanson: It was fitness.
• 10:13
  Lisa Swanson: know, they have the different levels.
• 10:14
  Tom: So, that's routine and doing the...
• 10:16
  Lisa Swanson: The fitness routine.
• 10:17
  Lisa Swanson: No, back then, I think you did not have, there was another level between it, where you didn't have to do a routine.
• 10:24
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, figure?
• 10:25
  Tom: Figure.
• 10:25
  Lisa Swanson: Actually, I, let me say, correct it.
• 10:27
  Lisa Swanson: It was figure, then there was fitness, then there was bodybuilding.
• 10:29
  Lisa Swanson: I did figure.
• 10:30
  Tom: Okay.
• 10:31
  Tom: Awesome.
• 10:31
  Tom: I did bodybuilding competition.
• 10:33
  Lisa Swanson: It's fascinating.
• 10:34
  Lisa Swanson: You learn a lot about yourself.
• 10:35
  Tom: Absolutely.
• 10:36
  Tom: And some not so great things about yourself either in the last two weeks before competition were,
• 10:43
  Lisa Swanson: Tough.
• 10:43
  Tom: Tough.
• 10:44
  Lisa Swanson: Tough.
• 10:45
  Lisa Swanson: Yes, I actually took my daughter through a competition one time too.
• 10:48
  Lisa Swanson: She was going through a difficult time.
• 10:49
  Lisa Swanson: She wants something to focus on and I don't know how we started talking about it, but she goes, I'll do a competition.
• 10:54
  Lisa Swanson: Will you coach me?
• 10:55
  Lisa Swanson: And I said, oh, I don't know.
• 10:58
  Lisa Swanson: But I did.
• 10:58
  Lisa Swanson: She did very well.
• 10:59
  Lisa Swanson: But you do, you learn a lot about yourself.
• 11:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 11:02
  Tom: Both the mental and the physical aspects too.
• 11:05
  Lisa Swanson: Yes.
• 11:06
  Tom: Yeah.
• 11:06
  Tom: It's amazing.
• 11:06
  Tom: Well, cool.
• 11:07
  Tom: So, you know, how do you balance then making a profit and staying aligned with your core values and doing what you love and leading with your heart?
• 11:17
  Lisa Swanson: You know, oh, they're so interconnected.
• 11:19
  Lisa Swanson: I felt like, Okay, so let's go back to the franchise days when I was feeling so disconnected.
• 11:25
  Lisa Swanson: So it was during those days I knew I wanted to create body and soul coaching.
• 11:28
  Lisa Swanson: I hadn't sold my businesses yet, and I was really starting to connect to my inner soul to my spirit.
• 11:35
  Lisa Swanson: I firmly believe in our guides and spirits being around us.
• 11:38
  Lisa Swanson: And I was really connecting with them.
• 11:40
  Lisa Swanson: And it was really funny.
• 11:42
  Lisa Swanson: I had this group of trainers that they were okay, but they weren't into it.
• 11:47
  Lisa Swanson: They were just about how many clients can I get?
• 11:49
  Lisa Swanson: They could care less about helping the business grow.
• 11:51
  Lisa Swanson: And they just, you know, you know, those trainers.
• 11:53
  Lisa Swanson: And I had made some changes and I lost my entire staff.
• 11:58
  Lisa Swanson: And through all of this work, I had been down doing spiritually.
• 12:01
  Lisa Swanson: I was like,
• 12:02
  Tom: Wow.
• 12:03
  Lisa Swanson: That's okay.
• 12:03
  Lisa Swanson: They're not meant to be here.
• 12:05
  Lisa Swanson: And the next month sales were very low and I can remember talking to you know, one of the upper echelons of the franchise.
• 12:13
  Lisa Swanson: It's like, you know, you've lost your, you've lost your staff.
• 12:16
  Lisa Swanson: You're not bringing money in this month.
• 12:18
  Lisa Swanson: I said, no, that's okay.
• 12:19
  Lisa Swanson: I said, I'm not meant to bring people in this month, you know, I have to be prepared for them.
• 12:23
  Lisa Swanson: And along comes this trainer who ended up being one of my absolute best trainers ever.
• 12:28
  Lisa Swanson: Just happens to walk in the door and said, are you looking for help?
• 12:31
  Tom: Ah!
• 12:32
  Lisa Swanson: I said, as a matter of fact, I am right.
• 12:33
  Lisa Swanson: So I talked to him and he, Oh, he was fantastic.
• 12:37
  Lisa Swanson: And to him and one other, one person who did not leave a, and a manager and myself, we had like the biggest month ever.
• 12:44
  Lisa Swanson: And that was without any marketing.
• 12:46
  Lisa Swanson: It was with just giving the clients what they needed.
• 12:50
  Lisa Swanson: It was working as a team.
• 12:52
  Lisa Swanson: And just like, I remember people walking in the studio going, wow, this place vibrates with energy.
• 12:57
  Lisa Swanson: I'm like, okay, I know I know this is what it is.
• 12:59
  Lisa Swanson: So I really believe it's not that you can just say, Oh i'm going to manifest this.
• 13:03
  Lisa Swanson: I hate when people say that it's I think it's knowing how to ground yourself, right?
• 13:08
  Lisa Swanson: You're manifesting from above but you're grounding yourself in what aligns best with you, what's in harmony with your own energy and then doing the steps that you need to also bring the money in because you can't just focus on one or the other.
• 13:21
  Lisa Swanson: It doesn't work.
• 13:22
  Lisa Swanson: I think it's the marriage of the two that really creates that.
• 13:25
  Lisa Swanson: And that's actually what I'm learning with body and soul coaching as I came online and just started this business up and just watched it grow and people like, well, where do your clients come from?
• 13:34
  Lisa Swanson: I say my website and it's like, Oh, do you do Google ads?
• 13:37
  Lisa Swanson: It's like, Nope.
• 13:38
  Lisa Swanson: It's organic and like that's the majority of where people are coming from and I have to chalk that up to it's energy.
• 13:45
  Tom: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting too that you even with the let's get the profits up.
• 13:51
  Tom: Let's look at the numbers.
• 13:52
  Tom: Let's compete against that other studio and all that.
• 13:56
  Tom: It was still just kind of floating along and he had this huge staff yet when it came down to people that were aligned and we're giving over.
• 14:06
  Tom: You know, to their clients and delivering a great product and service,
• 14:12
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah.
• 14:12
  Tom: That's when things started taking off and you were probably weren't even looking at the numbers too much then either.
• 14:17
  Lisa Swanson: Exactly, I mean you get them a course because you want to be smart.
• 14:21
  Lisa Swanson: But you're not.
• 14:21
  Lisa Swanson: But when you have a team like as I always try to teach my team I said every single client that walks in here should believe that you're their favorite client.
• 14:29
  Lisa Swanson: And every time they walk out the door, they want to feel better than when they walked in the door.
• 14:33
  Lisa Swanson: And I said, if you just follow that, you'll have a client for life.
• 14:37
  Lisa Swanson: And that's, they embrace that when you have a team that can embrace that.
• 14:41
  Lisa Swanson: And you can embrace that with your team too, because it's not just about taking care of our clients.
• 14:44
  Lisa Swanson: It's about taking care of our team.
• 14:46
  Lisa Swanson: And when they know that you care about them, and I think that's another thing I learned.
• 14:50
  Lisa Swanson: I was very much in probably a lot of entrepreneurs out there, very much a control freak.
• 14:54
  Lisa Swanson: No, I will do it.
• 14:55
  Lisa Swanson: Nobody can do it like me.
• 14:57
  Tom: Right?
• 14:58
  Lisa Swanson: And I can remember when I started having those shifts around this at the same time when they started asking my questions.
• 15:04
  Lisa Swanson: I'd say, that's a great idea.
• 15:05
  Lisa Swanson: Why don't you guys run with it?
• 15:07
  Lisa Swanson: And they'd be like, Lisa wants us to run with it?
• 15:10
  Lisa Swanson: The control freak, right?
• 15:12
  Lisa Swanson: But think of the power that that gave them and not the power of, wow, we're in control.
• 15:17
  Lisa Swanson: The power of, hey, I'm important.
• 15:19
  Lisa Swanson: I matter here.
• 15:21
  Tom: Right.
• 15:21
  Tom: And I have a choice or I have a voice in the business.
• 15:25
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah.
• 15:25
  Tom: Yeah.
• 15:26
  Tom: Or taking somewhat ownership of what they're doing.
• 15:29
  Tom: And I think employees get a lot of pride out of that as well.
• 15:33
  Lisa Swanson: They do.
• 15:34
  Lisa Swanson: And I think a lot of times we're afraid to give them of that because we're afraid that they can't, they're not going to do it as well as me.
• 15:40
  Lisa Swanson: They might end up doing it better, you know, or even if they don't do it as well, that's okay.
• 15:45
  Lisa Swanson: Let them learn.
• 15:46
  Tom: You know, I owned a fitness studio as well and had trainers and when I transitioned from, you know, working on the floor and, and building the business to just building the business, you know, it was probably the same thing that you were going through, like, Oh, I can't give up my clients.
• 16:02
  Tom: Like nobody's going to be able to train them as well as me.
• 16:05
  Tom: Like, and you know what, they got better results with the people that training them than they did with me.
• 16:12
  Tom: I was like, well, see, there you go.
• 16:13
  Lisa Swanson: Exactly.
• 16:15
  Tom: Yeah.
• 16:15
  Tom: It's so interesting.
• 16:17
  Tom: Yeah.
• 16:17
  Tom: One of the SOPs that I put together when I had the facility was small talk.
• 16:23
  Tom: So how to have small talk with the clients and just gave like little questions to ask.
• 16:29
  Tom: And I was listening to somebody else's podcast the other day and they were talking about the Ford method, F O R D, not the car, F O R D.
• 16:38
  Tom: So it's family, occupation, relationship, and dreams.
• 16:44
  Tom: So those are the four questions that you should be asking or the type of topics to talk to people about.
• 16:50
  Lisa Swanson: Right.
• 16:51
  Tom: They're like, oh yeah, like, that makes sense.
• 16:53
  Tom: Like, that's what people love to talk about, their family.
• 16:56
  Lisa Swanson: Right.
• 16:56
  Tom: What they do for work recreation, what they do for fun, and then the D is their dreams and aspirations.
• 17:03
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, that's pretty good.
• 17:04
  Lisa Swanson: I've never heard of that before.
• 17:05
  Tom: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Tom: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Tom: I think it probably came from a hotel chain or something like that, but this fitness center installed that into their kind of SOPs in terms of how do you relate to people on a person to person basis.
• 17:18
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, that's great.
• 17:18
  Lisa Swanson: And you know, that's probably needed now, this time than any other time because I don't think people do know how to relate very well.
• 17:25
  Lisa Swanson: There's so much social media and if you look at the way people talk to each other on social media, it's like exactly, that sounds, that's it all.
• 17:35
  Tom: Yeah.
• 17:36
  Lisa Swanson: That says it all.
• 17:37
  Lisa Swanson: Sometimes I look at it, it's like, would you say that if you were in front of that person?
• 17:40
  Tom: Oh, yeah.
• 17:41
  Lisa Swanson: Probably not.
• 17:42
  Tom: No.
• 17:42
  Tom: I've been on YouTube for, I don't know, like 10 years or so.
• 17:44
  Tom: And somebody had written a comment that was really rude to, to me is something like, Oh, you have really big ears or something like that.
• 17:52
  Tom: I'm like, well, yeah, it's better to listen.
• 17:54
  Tom: But then I was like, would you have said that to me if you were standing in front of me and the person, and I think by the name, it was a woman said, are you threatening me?
• 18:04
  Tom: I'm like, no, you're just insulting me.
• 18:06
  Tom: So I'm just asking, like, would you say that to me if you weren't on a keyboard and we're standing in front of me?
• 18:12
  Tom: And it was just, it was really interesting dialogue.
• 18:14
  Tom: So finally I just deleted the comments and went on with my day.
• 18:17
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, you have to, you have to be able to ignore and shut those things out.
• 18:21
  Lisa Swanson: I know a coach that had worked at that one time and she had gotten so many.
• 18:25
  Lisa Swanson: You know, she'd reach, you know, pretty big business that she has, and she would have people telling her, her nose was too big, or her nostrils were too big, and why do you talk fast, and why do you, it's like, you're a beautiful woman.
• 18:38
  Lisa Swanson: You know, it's I don't know why they're ripping her apart.
• 18:41
  Lisa Swanson: Who knows why, but, you know, people, they say the bigger you get, the more, trolls you get.
• 18:45
  Tom: All the crazies come out.
• 18:46
  Tom: Yeah.
• 18:47
  Tom: Well, it's really about their insecurities.
• 18:49
  Tom: It has nothing to do with you.
• 18:51
  Tom: You know, it's crazy.
• 18:52
  Lisa Swanson: Right.
• 18:52
  Lisa Swanson: Need to remember that.
• 18:53
  Lisa Swanson: Need to remember that.
• 18:54
  Lisa Swanson: Definitely.
• 18:55
  Tom: For sure.
• 18:56
  Tom: And some days it's harder than other.
• 18:57
  Tom: When you're talking about putting the people first, and that's really an interesting way of running a business rather than, you know, putting the profits first.
• 19:07
  Tom: So when you look back at the studio environment and then your business today and compare them, like what's the, what's the scale of your happiness for each of those?
• 19:18
  Lisa Swanson: Oh my goodness.
• 19:19
  Lisa Swanson: It's night and day.
• 19:21
  Lisa Swanson: It's night and day.
• 19:22
  Lisa Swanson: My, okay, so if we're gonna go on a scale of one to ten, right?
• 19:25
  Lisa Swanson: Happiness is ten.
• 19:26
  Lisa Swanson: And that does not mean that I never have a bad day.
• 19:30
  Lisa Swanson: I have bad days.
• 19:31
  Lisa Swanson: That's life, right?
• 19:32
  Lisa Swanson: The stress is in life.
• 19:33
  Lisa Swanson: That's okay.
• 19:34
  Lisa Swanson: I can deal with that.
• 19:35
  Lisa Swanson: But I am living my life with the boundary set up that I want them to be.
• 19:39
  Lisa Swanson: I am listening to my intuition, right?
• 19:43
  Lisa Swanson: I know how to do that without letting ego mind come in and drive things instead.
• 19:48
  Lisa Swanson: And I think before I didn't realize that it was probably more down towards like a two, a three.
• 19:55
  Lisa Swanson: It was that bad.
• 19:57
  Lisa Swanson: I didn't realize how bad it was till I got out because too many things in my life was suffering because of it.
• 20:02
  Lisa Swanson: Because I was working all the time like people say you work a lot and I say yeah I know they're like no you really work a lot.
• 20:09
  Lisa Swanson: To the point of you know, I didn't have time with my husband I didn't have time to take care of all those dogs I had that we talked about.
• 20:14
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, you know spending time with my children.
• 20:17
  Lisa Swanson: You know, it just, I realized how many parts of my life suffered because I was just like this hyper-focused into the business.
• 20:25
  Tom: Yeah.
• 20:26
  Tom: And then when looking at like the profit side of it, what's the difference in terms of your fulfillment in the bank account versus the fulfillment in your bank account today?
• 20:36
  Tom: Like what's the, not numbers, of course, I don't want to dive into that, but like what's the value of that happiness?
• 20:42
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, night and day again with that one.
• 20:44
  Lisa Swanson: And I think and it's not that I didn't make money in the other business, I did, but it was always just this drive.
• 20:49
  Lisa Swanson: And it's just like, okay, now you'd get to one month, you did okay, okay, now the next month, like immediately, let's get on that month.
• 20:55
  Lisa Swanson: We have to make money this month.
• 20:57
  Lisa Swanson: Which I started learning as towards the end of that because I was getting more into spirituality and learning how to set those boundaries and respect that.
• 21:05
  Lisa Swanson: And I was just getting even better at business because we all grow in business as well.
• 21:10
  Lisa Swanson: So it became more pleasurable, you know bringing driving those numbers in and keeping my boundaries and now I have a much smaller team very small team I had 26 employees back then now it's just like I have a content manager and a couple of assistant coaches.
• 21:26
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, so it's nice and tight and small and I like it that way.
• 21:29
  Lisa Swanson: So I try to remember the first question to make sure I answer the question properly.
• 21:33
  Lisa Swanson: What was the initial question?
• 21:34
  Lisa Swanson: Is the profit
• 21:34
  Tom: better now than it was when you were just looking at the numbers?
• 21:37
  Lisa Swanson: Yes.
• 21:39
  Lisa Swanson: The simple answer.
• 21:40
  Lisa Swanson: Yes, it's absolutely better now.
• 21:42
  Tom: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 21:44
  Tom: And I think that's a really good lesson for a lot of people struggling with having a business that might be struggling a little bit in terms of the numbers and then making bad decisions based on the numbers and the bad decisions being taking on people that aren't aligned with you or doing things that just don't feel good.
• 22:05
  Tom: But at the end of the day, it brings you money.
• 22:07
  Tom: Like, how do you get over that?
• 22:10
  Tom: Right.
• 22:11
  Lisa Swanson: Yeah, I think that's a tough one to get over and I said you have to detach yourself from the outcome.
• 22:16
  Lisa Swanson: You you can't we cannot be connected to the number of sales that we have.
• 22:21
  Lisa Swanson: We cannot be connected to the number of clients we have or the number.
• 22:25
  Lisa Swanson: How much money we have in our bank account?
• 22:27
  Lisa Swanson: I think when we start when we connect to that meaning we are, we're giving value to ourselves based on how many clients we have and how much money's in our bank account.
• 22:37
  Lisa Swanson: That's never going to be good for you.
• 22:39
  Lisa Swanson: And I think you have to learn that lesson before you can grow bigger.
• 22:44
  Lisa Swanson: Cause I know I used to compare myself.
• 22:46
  Lisa Swanson: So that's another one.
• 22:46
  Lisa Swanson: Don't compare yourself to others.
• 22:48
  Lisa Swanson: When I would compare myself to other people and be like, Oh, how they had a 50,000 dollars a month.
• 22:52
  Lisa Swanson: Why aren't I doing 50,000 dollars a month?
• 22:55
  Lisa Swanson: You know, when you start looking at that, you immediately bring this energy around you that's not gonna let you succeed because you're sort of shown the universe like, okay, well this is making me anxious.
• 23:05
  Lisa Swanson: I can't deal with that.
• 23:06
  Lisa Swanson: I'm not gonna go with that.
• 23:07
  Lisa Swanson: But as soon as you can sort of let go of that.
• 23:10
  Lisa Swanson: Detaching yourself from the outcome and say, you know what, whether I bring in 10,000, 5,000, 2,000 or 50,000 this month, I am still valuable.
• 23:19
  Lisa Swanson: I am still the same person that I am, no matter what that number is.
• 23:23
  Lisa Swanson: And then if it doesn't come in, it's like, okay, that's interesting.
• 23:26
  Lisa Swanson: What could I do differently?
• 23:27
  Lisa Swanson: such a hard, a hard one to learn.
• 23:29
  Lisa Swanson: And I think when you can start practicing that in your daily life and you can practice that in your business in ways, like when you say, don't bring on people who aren't in alignment with you.
• 23:40
  Lisa Swanson: How about those sales calls?
• 23:41
  Lisa Swanson: And you're talking to somebody like, Oh my gosh, I do not want to coach this person.
• 23:46
  Lisa Swanson: And in the beginning, right?
• 23:47
  Lisa Swanson: We have those in the beginning.
• 23:48
  Lisa Swanson: You're like, Oh, you bring them on and they are just so draining.
• 23:52
  Lisa Swanson: They take so much energy away from you.
• 23:54
  Lisa Swanson: I have learned over the years, don't let them in.
• 23:58
  Lisa Swanson: Tell them, I'm sorry, this is not a good fit for you.
• 24:01
  Tom: Yeah.
• 24:01
  Lisa Swanson: And it's okay to say that.
• 24:03
  Lisa Swanson: Let them go find somebody who is a good fit.
• 24:05
  Tom: Yeah.
• 24:05
  Lisa Swanson: Right?
• 24:06
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, it'll save you so much agony.
• 24:09
  Lisa Swanson: And then you have less time to spend the business because you bring in clients that are in alignment with you.
• 24:13
  Lisa Swanson: They're so easy to work with, right?
• 24:16
  Lisa Swanson: It makes everything much more pleasurable.
• 24:18
  Tom: Absolutely.
• 24:18
  Tom: 100%.
• 24:20
  Tom: I used to have a question in my sales consultation at the fitness center is like on a scale of one to ten, how committed are you to achieving your goals?
• 24:28
  Tom: And if somebody said a seven or less, I was like, you know what?
• 24:31
  Tom: Not going to work.
• 24:32
  Tom: Sorry.
• 24:33
  Tom: Have a good day.
• 24:34
  Tom: I wish you all the best.
• 24:35
  Tom: And I think maybe I only had a handful that just were not committed.
• 24:39
  Tom: And almost every time they're like, Oh no, no, no, no, no.
• 24:42
  Tom: Wait like I'll be committed.
• 24:44
  Tom: I'll be committed.
• 24:45
  Tom: I like really explain that a little bit for me.
• 24:48
  Tom: Like, how's that change?
• 24:50
  Tom: And we'd have a really good dialogue.
• 24:52
  Tom: And a lot of times those became some of the best clients that got the best results because they had hard truth that, you know what, this is not going to work.
• 25:01
  Tom: Like if you're not committed to this, it's not going to work.
• 25:04
  Tom: And I don't want to work with you if you're not going to do the work.
• 25:06
  Lisa Swanson: Exactly, that's such an important conversation to have and it's important for people to know, any of you out there selling, coaching, or whatever you sell, you need to be able to say that to somebody.
• 25:17
  Lisa Swanson: I start my conversations out by saying, okay, this is what we're going to be going through and at the end of this, we'll see if this is a good fit for us.
• 25:24
  Lisa Swanson: If it's not, don't worry about it.
• 25:26
  Lisa Swanson: I'm not going to worry about it.
• 25:27
  Lisa Swanson: If it is a good fit, then we'll take a look at coaching.
• 25:30
  Lisa Swanson: We'll get you going.
• 25:31
  Lisa Swanson: And I had a manager at one time who had a really hard time with sales.
• 25:35
  Lisa Swanson: I think sometimes I think I'm a unicorn because I know a lot of people in this business who just don't like sales.
• 25:40
  Lisa Swanson: I love sales.
• 25:42
  Lisa Swanson: I absolutely love sales because I have fun with it.
• 25:46
  Lisa Swanson: It's a conversation.
• 25:47
  Lisa Swanson: And I think that's what I was trying to teach my manager.
• 25:50
  Lisa Swanson: I said, because he was this great guy.
• 25:52
  Lisa Swanson: He had a wonderful personality.
• 25:54
  Lisa Swanson: The clients loved him.
• 25:56
  Lisa Swanson: The other business owners, like in the same complex, they loved him, but he'd get into the sales and it was like tense.
• 26:03
  Lisa Swanson: And it's like, okay, Jay, calm down.
• 26:05
  Lisa Swanson: You know, I was like, what's going on?
• 26:07
  Lisa Swanson: So we started talking about what was going on in his head.
• 26:09
  Lisa Swanson: And he's like, well, you know, I know you need to make money and I get nervous whether am I going to close them?
• 26:13
  Lisa Swanson: I said, don't worry about that.
• 26:14
  Lisa Swanson: Put that out of your head and have a conversation.
• 26:17
  Lisa Swanson: And your only thought is, is this person a good fit?
• 26:21
  Lisa Swanson: If they're not, I'm going to tell them they're not.
• 26:23
  Lisa Swanson: And if they are, I'm going to say, okay, you're a good fit.
• 26:25
  Lisa Swanson: That's all I want you to worry about.
• 26:27
  Lisa Swanson: And when he made that shift in his mind, he started closing like 80 percent of his sales.
• 26:32
  Tom: Yeah.
• 26:33
  Tom: Yeah.
• 26:34
  Tom: Hundred percent.
• 26:35
  Tom: Yeah.
• 26:35
  Lisa Swanson: It make such a difference.
• 26:36
  Tom: Yeah.
• 26:37
  Tom: That detachment is what it takes.
• 26:39
  Tom: Like if you're so tied up into the result, that's where all the pressure comes and the prospect feels that during the sales conversation
• 26:46
  Lisa Swanson: Hmm.
• 26:46
  Tom: as well.
• 26:47
  Tom: Yeah.
• 26:47
  Tom: That's real.
• 26:48
  Lisa Swanson: Oh, definitely.
• 26:49
  Lisa Swanson: Definitely right.
• 26:50
  Lisa Swanson: It's just like then you're trying to pull them in and you don't want to feel like that.
• 26:54
  Lisa Swanson: You don't, you want them to lean into you.
• 26:56
  Tom: Absolutely.
• 26:56
  Tom: Yes, exactly.
• 26:58
  Lisa Swanson: Right.
• 26:58
  Tom: Well, Lisa, our time is coming to a close here.
• 27:01
  Tom: I want to thank you so much for sharing your words of advice and wisdom from your years of experience on both sides of the fence, as it were.
• 27:11
  Tom: But if people are interested in learning more about what you do, how can they get ahold of you?
• 27:15
  Lisa Swanson: Well, they can always follow me on social media.
• 27:17
  Lisa Swanson: It's usually@lisaswansonfit for Instagram and LinkedIn, and Lisa Swanson Health Coach on Facebook.
• 27:25
  Lisa Swanson: But you can always even email me at lisa@bodyandsoulcoaching.com, which is my website.
• 27:30
  Tom: Well, we'll link all of that up into the show notes and Lisa, again, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 27:37
  Lisa Swanson: Thank you.
• 27:37
  Lisa Swanson: It was a pleasure.
• 27:38
  Lisa Swanson: What a wonderful conversation.
• 27:40
  Lisa Swanson: Thank you.
• 27:40
  Tom: You're welcome.
• 27:42
  Tom: And to our listeners and viewers out there, thank you so much for coming and listening to the show today.
• 27:48
  Tom: And I want to ask you to make sure you're checking out what Lisa is doing and all that will be linked up in the show notes.
• 27:55
  Tom: And also, if you could do us a favor and share this episode with a friend or family member that could use the advice and you know, become more of a heart-led business and stop looking at the numbers all the time.
• 28:06
  Tom: So until next time, lead with your heart.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.