the bossbabe podcast - 290. Design Your Dream Life - Part 1: Business, Money + Mindset with James Wedmore

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Is your ego stunting the growth of your business and stealing your joy? Business gets to be light. It gets to be fun. It gets to be easy… IF you build your business the way today’s guest lays it out for you. I personally jumped back into my business too soon after maternity leave, in a way that no longer fit, which led me to burnout. I was searching for a better way to run my business in this new season and came across today’s guest, James Wedmore. James and his signature program is literally changing my life and business. James Wedmore is every Digital CEO’s best friend. Over the past 15 years James has used his expertise to teach digital CEO’s how to scale their online businesses through his signature programs like, “Business By Design!” Having figured out the formula for running a multi-million dollar company while still getting to surf everyday at the beach, James realized he could help other business owners change their lives and businesses with this formula. It might surprise you, but James has seen it in his own business and for others that he’s coached, you actually need to do LESS to make MORE. This episode covers so many topics from how James went from 2 to 10 million in 1 year, game changing ways to lead a lean and effective team, what you need to delegate immediately, and what your business needs in its current stage to go to the next level. While we talk about the flip that you need to go from a 7 figure entrepreneur to an 8 figure one, these tips work for EVERY stage of business. In fact, they’ll help you avoid some major mistakes and roadblocks along the way. There is a better way than burnout. Bossbabe, it’s time to design your dream life. HIGHLIGHTS The shift James made that took his business from 2 to 10 MILLION in ONE YEAR! The real behind-the-scenes on what your business needs in its current stage to grow to the next level. How to be an effective leader of your team (or future team) and make MORE by doing LESS! LINKS Unlock Instant Access to BONUS Episodes with James at bossbabe.com/secret Save your seat for James Wedmore’s totally free, 3 day Rise of The Digital CEO Training Check out Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson M.D. FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie YouTube Channel: @bossbabetv James Wedmore: @jameswedmore

I believe we take a lot of what we learned in how to live in life and apply that to business. But so much of that set us up to be a good, hardworking, permission-seeking employee. And the moment you're in business, you are not an employee. And if you're operating your business like an employee, you're just working harder and longer. And sitting there probably going, I've worked so hard for this, I deserve it. Well, of course you deserve it, but working harder doesn't cause or guarantee anything. And so we need to approach it a different way. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise.

Keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm your host, Natalie Ellis, and this episode is going to be a good one. So buckle up. I discovered James Wedmore really by chance. When I came back to work, I was really looking to restructure the way I was running the business. And my big belief is that success leaves clues.

And so I started looking for a mentor, an entrepreneur in the space who had had a business of a similar size to mine and had been able to really restructure it so that it supported the lifestyle he wanted to live, which brought me to James Wedmore and his signature program, Business by Design. I think I spent maybe an hour diving into a stuff before I realized, okay, we are going to need to be friends and I'm going to need to find out everything you did so that I can implement it because it is an absolute game changer. And so I managed to convince him to sit down with me for three hours to record podcasts, which was basically me picking his brain and finding out the answers to every question I had

and that I know you have. And so what we ended up doing was turning this episode into two episodes because it was so long. But if you're anything like me, when you dive in, you are not going to want to stop listening. So what you can do if you want to instantly unlock part two of this access and get immediate access to another secret podcast that I recorded, which was an entire part three of mine and James's podcast. And I dived into my personal biggest needle movers behind the Boss Babe brand and really how I've built my dream life along the way and built a business that allows me the amount of freedom that I do have. So if after listening to this, you're like, I am not waiting another couple of days. I want it now. All you need to do is go to bossbabe.com forward slash secret. That's bossbabe.com forward slash secret right now. And

you'll get part two instantly and you'll get my version of part three. So in this episode, we are going to talk all about freedom, time, location, financial, and of course that inner freedom that I've been talking about. James goes into a lot of detail about the things that really make his business work. We talk about building a revenue engine, how to build a team around you, and how to really delegate for success, especially for those of you who might find delegation really challenging. Probably one of my longest podcasts yet, and it's absolutely my favorite. So with that, let's dive straight into the episode with James. James, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Natalie. I'm excited.

I'm so excited. And I want to start with something that blows my mind and is what really inspired me and attracted me to your work is you have an eight-figure company with eight team members. To me, that is heavenly. Yes. And when I have been listening to you speak and diving into your work, it really has shown me there's a better way of doing things. And I know myself and so many other women that I know have been in a place where it felt like the only way through was burnout and just like burning the candle at all ends and hiring team member after team member and building this company that feels quite bloated. And when I listen to you speak, I'm like, wait, there's another way. Can you please tell me about that? Right. Yeah. And so how did all of this come about? How have you been able to build what you've been able to build? By making every single mistake possible. And that is something that I look back on my own journey and have the most gratitude for. I struggled really badly for

four and a half years before I saw anything. I'm saying like I had to move back in with my mom and dad. I got addicted to my sister's Adderall medication. I don't have ADHD and I was popping 20 milligrams a day. I got down to 140 pounds. I was working 16 hours a day in front of my laptop, losing money, like literally going into debt, asking my mom for money every couple of weeks to the point where she's like begging me, please, you have to get this thing to work because I can't keep paying you and give you money and pay my bills. That's heartbreaking. So I went through a lot of painful experiences and I look back to where I am today and I inherited my dad's stubbornness.

And when I learned to use that stubbornness correctly, it's benefited me way more. And the way I look at things today is when things get hard and how you shared it with so many of your listeners where, well, I just double down or I effort my way or I hustle my way or it's either it becomes binary. It's either money or my time. It's either pay for the solution or pay with my time and my effort. And I believe there can always be another way. And that stubbornness caused me to think more creatively and outside of the box. And I think it comes down at a bigger level to the fact that most people aren't even wired for entrepreneurship, and so they're not actually thinking

or acting like an entrepreneur needs to be. I always get in trouble because I kind of poo-poo like the public education system as it did a massive disservice for entrepreneurship. And so I believe we take a lot of what we learned in how to live in life and apply that to business. But so much of that set us up to be a good, hardworking, permission-seeking employee. And the moment you're in business, you are not an employee. And if you're operating your business like an employee, you're in business, you are not an employee. And if you're

operating your business like an employee, you're just working harder and longer and sitting there probably going, I've worked so hard for this. I deserve it. Well, of course you deserve it, but working harder doesn't cause or guarantee anything. And so we need to approach it a different way. And that's what I had to do through those painful experiences. I finally surrendered and said, there's got, there's got to be a better way. And there is, there's just different, it's just a different approach, you know, so we can unpack that as much as you want and go in any direction you want, but that's kind of the big, the big picture of how I see it. So when you were in a place where you were losing money, was that just the cost of the

business were just way higher than what you were actually making? Yeah. So there was a, there was a point, this was 2014, I believe, where I got a phone call from my CPA, and she says, I got good news and I got bad news for you. And it's never good news when they say they have both. True. So, she goes, you've made the most money in January, it was this February of 2014,

she says, you made the most money in January that you've ever made in a non-big promotion, just like money coming in the door. She says, you made the most money in January that you've ever made in a non like big promotion, just like money coming in the door. She says, $70,000. I'm like, that's amazing. What could possibly be bad news? She goes, well, your expenses were 75. And I could tell you where I was standing

when I heard that because I got tunnel vision and I dropped to my knees and I had a panic attack. And there was a voice in my head, it's my voice that just went on loop and it said, this was it, this is it, this is the end. It's over, I hope you enjoyed it while it lasts, kid. And I think up until that point, I had been doing what a lot of entrepreneurs do,

which is when you see a little success, you start to think this must be, and I'm sure you went through this. Oh, yes. This must, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is too good to be true. Maybe this was a fluke. And then when anything happens, you're like, that's the evidence. I knew it. And this is the end. And that was really scary. I had a hard time dealing with that because I remember going to like a restaurant and like looking at your server and being jealous because like, at least you get paid. I'm losing money. At least you, you do a job and you're done at 5 PM or whenever you get off work and you, you get money and then you can go play video games or go

hang out with your friends or do whatever you want to do and see your family or whatever. And I don't. And I'm taking this with me 24 hours a day, even while asleep. And obviously, I love that quote of entrepreneurs are willing to do what most others aren't so they can experience what most others can't. And that I had to remind myself of. So in that instance, Natalie, what was happening was I was being a really immature, irresponsible entrepreneur. And this is the phase. So business growth happens in stages. And this is what I want everyone to understand. Business growth happens in stages. There's a startup stage. There's a stage where like something's working and now we need to double down on it. There's a scaling stage. And in this stage, well, I realize in every stage you have, there's a

different strategy. There's a different mindset. There's a different way of being that you need to be in each of these stages. And we don't adapt. Some are harder. Some of them are like, wow, I've kind of leaned into this one, but we kind of have this fixed mindset and this fixed approach for the totality and the timeline and growth of your business. So I would imagine, you know, having a new, a new child, like how you parent your child now is going to differ based on when they're in high school and they become rebellious, right?

So we have to adapt how we are with the business as it grows. And I was not doing that. And so I got to this place where I was making money. And this is what so many of us do once we make the money is we start being irresponsible with the money and we just start throwing money at the problem. So when we have money, instead of throwing our time at it, we throw our money at it. Up until that point, I'd been throwing my time. Now I got, I got money here. You figure it out. You fix it. You do it. And now all that, all that did was it perpetuated the problem and created a new one, which is, you don't have money, you're losing money.

And this is where the huge epiphany, the big, really big one, um, really came through. I mentioned video games. I'm kind of a, kind of a nerd, more like just a big kid. I like, you know, like playing with toys like Legos. And that's what I do in my spare time is I build Legos. I think when we have a digital business and everything's like intangible, I like to do something with my hands. And I remember just playing with Legos and realizing like an eight year old kid can build a 2000 piece complex thing on a box. And what I was dealing with were grown arse adults who couldn't build a fricking landing

page. I'm like, come on. And I'm paying them like $ freaking landing page. I'm like, come on. And I'm paying them like $40 an hour. I'm like, what is happening here? And my brain either went to like, maybe I need to hire an eight-year-old kid that can build Legos, or I need to build my business the same way that Lego creates their kits. And that was the huge, the first of many huge light bulb moments that completely changed the business. Because if you look at a Lego instruction manual, it's the step-by-steps one, two, three, one piece at a time, one step at a time. And it's so simple that everyone, even the eight-year-old kid gets it right. And I said, I realized I haven't been doing that,

that I've been treating any team member that I hire, any person that I work with the same way that I treat myself, which is just figure it out. And I want, I expect them to be a mind reader, right? I expect them to have my experience and my level of care. They should care as much as I do. That probably won't happen. So good luck with that. And so what I did is I did this thing where I just blocked everything off my calendar for two weeks. And I sat down, I said, what's one thing that we do all the time that takes a lot of work. And at the time I was doing webinars very consistently, like once every two or three weeks. And I mapped out in a Google doc, step-by-step

how to do a webinar. And I'm talking like, log in at the time we used to go to webinar, log into go to webinar, www.gotowebinar.com, press the button in the upper right hand corner. I mean, painstaking detail, things that entrepreneurs love doing, right? Details. I hated it. I hated doing it, but I said I had to. It's so funny. Entrepreneurs are terrible at details. Yes, we are big picture. And that's a good thing. That's stay big picture, stay visionary, but the business still needs it. Yeah. So it was a painful process for me to do it. And it took two weeks and it ends up, I forget the exact number today,

but it's like, I've asked people, I said, how many steps do you think are involved in creating a webinar? I don't know. It's like 15. I was like, no, it's 78. Like we don't, we collapse it so much. We have, we don't even, we take for granted how awesome we are.

We're juggling so many balls and hats all the time that we take for granted. Do you see what you just did? You just made this whole complex thing work. So I mapped it out step-by-step like a Lego instruction manual. And then I went on to a little website called onlinejobs.ph where you can hire a virtual assistants in different countries like the Philippines for very inexpensive. And I just, no training, nothing. I just handed it to them. And I said, let me know when it's done. 48 hours later, they said, okay. And they just give me a link and the link is to the registration page. So I tested it. The registration works. It works on mobile. Email sends me to a thank you page with a calendar reminder. All of a sudden I'm getting,

I'm getting the email reminders. It's adding me to the go-to webinar. It's all, it's all set up. And what took me two weeks to build out as a process took someone 36 hours or, you know, two days of work to build out. And there wasn't a single mistake. There wasn't anything wrong. And that's when I realized that how we approach business has to be different. That how you start as an entrepreneur must be different than how we approach business has to be different. That how you start as an entrepreneur must be different than how we run a business. And that the more structure and simplicity you put in the business, the more freedom you get back in your life. And that changed everything. I got obsessed and we created an instruction manual for everything. A standard operating procedure, a process for everything. Today we use that term,

let's processize it. And then recently, back in 2020, I was a little bored, you know, like a lot of people were. They're in their home for a while. And so I started another business, and I started an Airbnb business. We've taken that to $750,000 a year with four properties, and I built a new team. We process everything to how we have guests check in and check out, and we communicate them, process the whole thing, you know, have an A, it's one person and a built a new team. We process everything to how we have guests check in and check out and communicate them, process the whole thing, you know, have an A it's one person and a cleaning crew that runs the whole thing. And it's like the streamlined clockwork machine. And that's what really gets me jazzed up today is most entrepreneurs go on a personal development journey. I'm sure you've

grown tremendously since the day you said, I want to start a business. And you realize that as you grow, you see that manifest in the business. I grow, the business grows. So that growth comes from the inside. Who I'm becoming, what I'm letting go of, what I'm learning, how I'm rewiring and changing my thinking and what I say to myself and how I feel and that boom, I i'm growing i see that effect but as you you look at your business it has to happen the same way that if growth occurs from the inside with us growth needs to occur from within the business and that's not how people are approaching business they're going what's the latest cool tactic or strategy that the gurus are hiding in their secret vault what do you need to do what do you need to do? What do you need to do? What is it I need to do?

Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. And it's like, don't get me wrong. We still need right strategies. You know, Tony Robbins always says, you can head east all day long, but you're never gonna watch a sunset. So we need the right strategy.

But so much of the growth that we've seen is because I took that concept of from the inside out growth and applied it at a macro level to a small little business and when we did that there's a couple other pieces that that come to that another story associated but when we start putting that structure and i did it like a black wednesday i fired everybody and we started over in fact one of the people we started over with is here today that was seven and a half eight years ago and still with me and we took the business from two to ten million in in one year just by doing that because all of a sudden we could handle

what we wanted does that make sense that makes so much sense and i yes all of this and so okay let's just even go to you starting to put a lot of things into processes I'm sure you've seen there was a lot of busyness going on and is that why you then decided to fire your team it was kind of like because I know I've been in that situation before where sadly I've had to do something similar because I started to look at people's rhythms and rules and realize we don't need a lot of that stuff yeah but that's a really hard decision to make especially when you know you love your team and i think i know there's a lot of entrepreneurs kind of sitting there wishing they could be working from a blank slate right now because they've built these

businesses with so much complexity and it feels like there's so much going on there's so much busyness they're kind of saying to themselves it would be so much easier if i could just start again and even as i'm saying it i know so many people that would be saying this when and how do you decide when is the right time to kind of make a bit of a blank slate and say okay i'm going to take what i've learned and do things a little bit differently yeah there's a there's an old zen saying leap and the net will appear and someone interviewed me once and they said what's the biggest leap you've ever taken and i said said, that's really hard for me to answer. Actually, I don't think I've taken big leaps.

I think they're calculated risks and steps in the right direction. So I always encourage entrepreneurs to not make brash, dramatic, emotional decisions. Like I'm shutting it all down tomorrow and I want the world to know. And I was like, I've never done that. And I think I'm a little bit more calculated.

So my version of a Black Wednesday was I had two other freelancers and like a part-time person. And like, yeah, within 30, 45 days, they were all gone. But it was like, what really happened first was there was conversations. And so there's a quote that I love

that I apply to business. Whenever the moment you're working with another team member, and I know there's probably people listening that are like, I'm not ready for a team and all that. So that's totally understandable. It's not like you need to go hire a team today and solve every problem. It starts with us.

And the quote is, when a flower doesn't bloom, you don't blame the flower. You blame the environment in which it grows. And so the first thing I always go to first is what is the environment I've created that is either allowing or inhibiting this human being to flourish, to bloom, to thrive? And that was like that Lego instruction manual was the line in the sand of my past versus my future of from here on out my priority is to the environment first it's the

process over the person so when you're describing those scenarios a lot of times we're hiring a or creating a more person dependent business and we're looking for those unicorns and we want them to be like us, but not be us at the same time to do all the things, read our minds, do things that we, even we can't do and do it better than us and wow us constantly. And I see so many people trying to do that. And I don't see actually a lot of people pulling that off. And I see a lot of people that have failed doing that. And I failed doing that. So I said, this is where there must be a better way. So it starts with the conversation. If I can come and you're working, you're working for me and I say, hey, some things are not working and I'm

starting to realize it's because maybe I haven't been giving you enough expectations and training and I haven't been clear in my communication of what I'm trying to create and what I'm looking at. And I own that. If I give you better training, maybe we put a standard operating procedure and we just do the same consistent thing. Do you think that we would see an increase in your performance working together? And is that something you're willing to take on? What's happening in this conversation is we're either coaching them up or we're coaching them out. Now I coach and work with a lot of multiple seven figure entrepreneurs looking to get to eight. And I'd say this, uh, pretty, you know, declaratively that there's only a few exceptions where if you have to fire somebody,

you did something wrong. And I had a conversation about four weeks ago with somebody who was ready to fire someone. And I said, I just want you to know, I think, I think you have failed somewhere first and that's okay. And if you you wanna let them go, let them go. But if we do this right, then what will happen is either you coach them up to the level of expectations that is mutually agreed upon, or they will decide on their own that they don't wanna go to that level and they will exit.

And the only exceptions are like, if you ever find someone do something really shady, nasty, like we've had that, someone who steals or lie. Those are the exceptions. So let me amend it and say, if you do this right, you should never have to fire someone for performance issues.

It's about now I realize I'm in a business that I need to have more structure, more expectations and more training. I need to create an need to have more structure, more expectations and more training. I need to create an environment where my people can thrive. And I hope that's not getting too like intimidating too much for, for your listeners. Cause I'm not saying go out and just hire a bunch of people today. And sometimes people misconstrue that your, your business growth happens in stages. There is the stage in which you are in and there is what that business needs from you.

And I wanna say that, and then I will shut up, I promise. I go on long tangents and I apologize. I love it. But wherever your business is right now and wherever you wanna take it within the next 12, 18 months, it, just like in a relationship,

you wanna be in a loving, thriving, committed, connected it just like in a relationship, you want to, you want to have been a loving, thriving, committed, connected, just passionate relationship. Well, guess what? That partner of yours has needs. And if you don't assist in getting your partner's needs met, you're probably not going to get what you want. So take the same concept and superimpose it over your business and realize that you want a business that you love and gives you time off and freedom, all these things, which I'm here for it. But the problem is, is you don't understand that it has needs and it can't speak for itself. You actually have to be the advocate for your business because it cannot speak for itself. You actually have to be the advocate for your business because it cannot speak for itself. And so you have to be able to intuit, and that's what a business owner can do.

What does this business need from me? And not necessarily from you, the business owner, but just need in general, what does it need? And if you're not giving it what it needs, number one, who else do you think is going to give it what it means you think a magical unicorn employee is going to come in and just know and ask those questions no and if you're not giving your business what it means how long before it starts to to suffer just like in a relationship and that's what i realized the lego story was my business needs more structure if it's going to continue growing and that that was the beginning of changing a lot, so. And I really love going into the tactical too,

because even if someone's listening and they're not in a place where they've hired their first employee, I really wish I was listening into these conversations before I hired my first team member, because I definitely hired in the beginning with the idea that someone would come in and read my mind and they would do an amazing job.

I still want that, don't get me wrong. I would love that. So if you're out there and you're looking for work, but you know, that's like the exception, not the norm. And then what gets really scary is like, well, what if they do quit? And that was the thing I never wanted is I never wanted to felt that level of vulnerability in my business. Yeah. What if my entire business crumbles because that person leaves? Yeah. And I even loved the tactical way of showing how to have that conversation because even when I got into business, I was so terrified of having like a conversation where I needed to coach someone up or let them know performance wasn't great. And I also didn't realize how much of that responsibility was on me as the business owner to get the most

out of my team and it's something you often only learn with experience but I feel like if you can listen in on these conversations it would have saved me a lot of time yeah and and even if it's like I'm not ready yet I like to make sure that I can offer something that's applicable to every human being that's listening and I will tell you this that something that I've learned the hard way is your life works, your business works, and your relationships work to the degree that you are willing to have uncomfortable conversations. and feelings and beliefs and a particular cognitive lens through which they experience you, their work, the future, whatever, talking to them, listening to them and saying the things that feel uncomfortable that you don't wanna ask or say, but doing it anyways, because that takes a ton of courage,

can solve so many problems and uncomplicate so many things clarify so many things and will like give you so much catapulting of your own growth and today part of the reason why is team of eight is like they're incredible people this is what we call an a player and here's the part that stings. Everyone wants that A player, but A players don't work for B leaders. And the A players in the room nodding their heads. They don't wanna work for a B player. And I'm not here to toot my own horn.

I'm here to just offer what has worked for me. And my team will tell me, it's like, we love your leadership style. And one of the number one things is, it's because I'm willing to talk about whatever we gotta talk about. And I just had to have a tough conversation with an employee yesterday about their performance.

And it went from, I could have ignored it. I could have pretended it wasn't. I could have said, she needs to read my mind. Can't she tell that I'm being passive aggressive and avoiding her? She should ask me what's up and just change her behavior like that. Instead, I just said, she needs to read my mind. Can't she tell that I'm being passive aggressive and avoiding her? She should ask me what's up and just change her behavior like that. Instead, I just said,

we need to talk about your performance in this area. And I know this is gonna be a little uncomfortable for both of us, but, and this is the magic words, what the business needs is blank. And just like to go back to your original question, like when you have a team that you care about and you love well i have a love and respect for every i want to for every human i interact with so of course with my team but there's also an understanding of i have to advocate for my

business it's not we're not doing it for me it's not james the the dictator that you know i need you know my team came down today it's not because i need an entourage of people with me not at all it's like you guys are here to assist if anything else is needed if we want to capture any other content and they're doing it for a vision that i've casted and not for me and at every level when your number one question that drives your decision making and your actions is what does the business need, that will change everything, including those uncomfortable conversations. This is what, Natalie, this is just what the business needs right now. And I love you, but if you're telling me you're unwilling to give this, then I think I'm hearing you're choosing that you want to exit the company is that correct so i'm not being a jerk and saying get the f out of here but i hope that

offers something it does yeah and i'm nodding everyone in the room's nodding i feel like everyone listening is nodding it's so funny because i remember i mean maybe it's sad not funny but i remember when i started my business and i would hire people i would feel bad asking them to do their job i know i even delegating i would say things like and maybe part of it's being british is it okay if you i'm sorry but don't worry if and it's slow i feel like the only way to get through that is just to do the things that are uncomfortable and then you realize wait that actually got done because i asked for it to get done and they really liked and you just get so much better at it let's take

a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform kajabi you know i've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which i love not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening

and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's Kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. But you probably felt bad because you thought they were doing it for you. Yeah. And it's like, no, they're doing it for the company. They're doing it for the vision that they are being enrolled in. I got an idea.

We are going to take this to be the number one business and reach hundreds of thousands of women. And you're going to be a part of that. And so what that vision needs, what that business needs from you is more of this and less of that. And I'm just, they know that about me. They know my team. They know that I'm just the, I'm like the interpreter of what the business needs and they, they've seen it, you know? And I've had to make tough calls on myself. Like, you're right, I can't be doing that, or I should be doing that, and I'm not.

And when they see that from me, like I'm willing to admit my mistakes, you know? And that's the pressure. We put so much pressure on ourselves from so many directions, and it's understandably, but pressure is one of the biggest killers of performance at every level of business so there's no point doing it oh i love this so much speaking my language so going back to this two million to ten million you said you did this in one year we have a cfo consultant who's retired and so he just consults with us in a few small businesses

for shits and giggles but he um he was the CFO for freecreditreport.com when they were a startup and they took that to like a gajillion dollars and sold it, right? And he told me, he said, I've never seen a small business do this. And then he asked me, so how'd you do it? And that's what everyone wants to know and they hate the answer that I give.

And, but we've already started to allude to the answer but tony robbins says it richard bandler he got it from richard bandler he's the founder of nlp neurolinguistic programming which is a you know a modeled technology based on behavioral therapy and and family behavior uh therapy techniques and stuff like like therapists like virginia satir and and milton erickson the hypnotherapist and he says the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions that you ask like therapists like Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson, the hypnotherapist. And he says, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions that you ask. And I so believe that today that we as entrepreneurs, to be a true entrepreneurs, to create something that's never been created. And I believe the way to create through our mind,

to unlock creativity, that's what creativity is. And innovation and imagination is through our questions. You see all the stuff with the chat GPT stuff. People that are getting good at chat GPT are just asking chat GPT better questions. We'll ask your own damn mind better questions because the infinite intelligence that you are already connected to is already bigger and greater than chat GPT. We just don't see that within ourselves. We don't see what we're actually connected to, but we like the computer program. I get it. It's, it's easier. I get it. I totally get it. It's the simple, convenient, but I have a different philosophy about what is just simple and easy. I think shortcuts are the long way to get to where you want to go.

But when you ask better questions and I will get get to this answer here because this is what's setting that up, you get better answers. The problem is we don't like not knowing the answer because school taught us that I don't know is bad. But I don't know is a beautiful thing because it's having an answer that collapses and shuts down every other possibility. The moment you have the answer, nothing else could be the answer. So when you develop the patience and confidence to sit in that uncomfortable, uncertain feeling of I don't know to a great question, that's when all the divine intuition

and answers come flooding through. So the answer I told this very logical 3D business minded with 30 years of experience and a very impressive resume from corporate America, startup companies, all that type of stuff was I just kept asking myself what would an eight figure a year business do and that became the driving force every and you have to be very present to do that in your life and obviously there's all these studies that say we're like 90 on uh unconscious and on autopilot with the same thinking and the same we're just going around

merry-go-round every day and then we wonder why our life isn't different. It's like, well, cause you've been thinking the same and you've been doing the same based on that thinking. And so I had to force myself to be more present. And when a decision would come across my desk, I'd say, well, what would an eight figure your business do? And how would they do this? And how would they show up and how would they do this and how would they show up and how would they operate and then one of my favorite questions was what is the value of an eight-figure ceo where does their value and time go because we all have a value it's like your i call your energon cubes is your combination of your energy and time there's so much time and energy you decide to dedicate to

anything so if we have a if we're working with this finite resource called the illusion of time where in my eight hour day if i'm going to work eight hours let's say where am i putting that at an eight figure level i'm asking that at at 2 million. And little by little, the answer started to emerge. So we have to live in the, whatever, wherever you want to go next, you have to live into that question. You have to be in that question. And when you're being in the question, you allow the receptivity of answers. Now, of course, it takes one more thing, which is to trust what you get. And a lot of us really suck at trusting ourselves or trusting what we receive. But the answer that started to come was, um, to be the CEO coach and mentor to my team. And where I put more and more time was supporting them to be the best

in levels of performance, their skills, their management, and their leadership. And I noticed the more I put myself there, the more they grew, stood into their power and just like, you know, home runs were just incredible. And that allowed us, it wasn't just me. And that's what happens when we start building a team is we think it's like the pressure's on me. It has to all be for me. I have to have all the answers.

I have to be the best. Can't make a mistake. All eyes on me and I have to end up doing it all. And when I got people to be as good or better than me and a team of seven or eight at the time, it was like game over. And that was the answer at that level. But the question is the real answer. And wherever that next level of growth is, if every day in every way you can be present to asking that question and leaning in and then trusting whatever whatever you start to get back know that it's going to be different know that it's going to it's going to be so different than how you've been doing things and we we are so like stuck it's kind of like a double not an oxymoron but i'm saying it twice but it's a

it's like don't do a double negative but it's a we're so stuck in our fixed mindset that we have this stubbornness that is that is hurting us of an unwilling to change and i wrote a whole like mini book on this called hardwired for entrepreneurship and it shows all the ways that all the successful entrepreneurs I know are think so differently about things than the average person that isn't an entrepreneur. And if we are so locked in and cemented our thinking and our, and our perspectives on things and unwilling to change that, we, we can't, we know this, but we can't expect things to change. And we have a ton of BS, you know, belief systems that are keeping us where we are. And I think if you understand that business growth happens at stages,

at what degree are you willing to change the way you look at things or change your thinking or change your behavior, change your routine at a different level of growth, or you're just relying on I'll work harder and longer to grow it. That's great, and there are phases where you do that, but we all know that those are finite resources, which means at one point or another, you're gonna hit an empty on the gas tank. But the growth, money, sales, impact, reach is not finite.

So are we trying to reach an infinite potential with finite resources? And if so, something there is broken. I love that so much. And I'm so curious, when you were starting to ask those questions, what were you realizing that you were doing as, say, a seven-figure entrepreneur that you had to change to step into eight figures i love that you called out that we often think we need to do a lot more especially since so many of us are the faces of our business you think yeah i can't put my face on anything else my face is at capacity and then we often tell ourselves okay that's things our

team can't do which is just a story there's so much more that can happen. What was shifting for you in that space? The 30,000 foot short view answer is, and you're kind of touching on it, is like at every phase and every level, like from seven to eight, it is doing less. And there's a, I'll never forget this because I learned this when I went to a marketing conference. Someone said this on stage and I grabbed it and hooked onto it and I've said it for the past 15 years and it's been true ever since. The less I do, the more I make.

The less you do, the more you make. But people that are reaching burnout and overwhelm and questioning is this even worth it are saying that because they're doing more, thinking that the more i do the more i make and this triggers the f out of people when i say it and i'll tell you why it if it triggers anyone listening that's okay i don't mean to trigger people i piss people off all the time and i'm not trying to i'm just saying the things that i wish someone would

have told me a little sooner our audience love directness so i think everyone's listening being like let's say it like it is. Let's go. But it's like directness, but it's also like that doesn't make sense. That's not true because I've been taught my whole life that I'm valuable because of my effort. Yeah. And I'm saying, no, that's the freaking lie. You are not your accomplishments. You are not your effort. Your competitive advantage in the marketplace is not your willpower. Because I can just drink more coffee than you and watch more Tony Robbins motivational videos, and now I'm better than you. That's it. That's all you've got to offer. So that's where like, yes, think smarter. And it absolutely is. It's think more genius, divergent, creatively and intuitively. But the less you do, the more you make. Because you are not the technician of your business.

You are not the doer of your business. You are the owner of your business. The Airbnb business that I own is one 30-minute check-in meeting. And that's all I do for that business. Where it gets really tricky is when you decided to start a personal brand business, where, as you said, you are the face.

When you become the face, you are the marketing. You are the star. You are also the coach or teacher and delivery of it. And everything becomes wrapped around your identity and no one could ever do it as well as you could. But the reality is, is that there are all these other roles that exist in a business. And at every level, I'm doing what I can to get myself out of them. So I want to offer a new meaning or interpretation for that common experience that every entrepreneur feels where all of a sudden they feel that feeling of I'm approaching burnout. When we're approaching burnout,

chances are we've been doing what we're doing and we're still doing it. We're doing more of it. And it no longer, the newness wears off of it, the novelty, the excitement of it. And now it's just like, it's killing my soul. But then it's a battle. we are in a constant battle between who we really are and who we think we are when we look in the mirror and the burnout is because

i'll tell you this right now who we really are whatever however you want to define that but the you beyond you that you see in the 3d physical is always going to win. And so burnout is when, when you, the 3d version of you lost the battle because it's like a literal illness or killing off of the 3d of you. So isn't that interesting that something that we used to do was fun and exciting and now it's not. And now it's, now it's the thing that's taking us down before it was the thing that gave us reason to get up in the morning. The same damn thing I used to love to, why do I hate doing this now? Why is this just like killing my soul? And the way I interpreted it long ago is that that is your soul or higher self or the larger aspect of you telling you it's time to take that off the plate. It's time to stop doing that.

It's time to let that go. And the reason it is, is the moment you've said, I want something more, like I have a newer goal. I want to grow the business. That more intelligent divine aspect of you is saying, great, then this has got to go. And the only way it needs, knows how to tell you how to do that is to make it as painful as fuck until you drop it. The reason pain exists is so we'll pay attention. When a stove is hot and you touch it, it gets you to drop it. And if we didn't have pain receptors, you'd hold on to it until all the flesh melted off your skin.

I know that's very graphic. So pain becomes a blessing. So we don't do that. We see something becomes painful. Painful in many different ways. It's heavy. This feels exhausting. I just feel like,

it was only an hour, but I feel like I'm done for the day. That's a pain. That's like a soul level pain. And then what do we do? We go, but I got a power thrill because no pain, no gain. That's nonsense.

Pain means let it go. And let it go, we call it the dad it method. That's nonsense. Pain means let it go. And let it go, we call it the dad it method. It's either delete it, automate it, or delegate it. But when I train myself to means, that's now below my pay grade and I need to get someone or something else to do that for me. People ask me, I went to, I had an event back in November.

A person comes up to me and says, I've been following you for years and I follow a lot of other people. I'm going to be honest. Some people feel like when they're up there speaking or doing their thing, you can kind of tell they're over it and they're phoning it in. They said, I know you're not. It was very nice. That was very nice.

And he said, what is it like? What's the secret? Cause you've been doing this for 16 years. And what I just shared with you and your listeners is that's the secret. The moment, the moment something feels tiring or heavy, or feels like I don't want to do this anymore. I let that go. But isn't it funny that coming down here and doing a podcast for 15 years in a row, or back then we were doing

more videos and speaking on stages, that has never felt heavy. That has never led to burnout. I could do a dozen of these and we're going to do a couple. I'm like, let's go. And I was, because that's the thing my soul is telling me you're here to do. And there's a reason why you started a business and it's not to do your customer support. It's not to build landing pages and it's not to do tech. So you need to remind yourself of what those reasons are and you need to get everything that F off your plate and do that. And I love those things that become all cliche things on Instagram, which is you're not facing burnout because you're, you're doing too much. It's because you're doing too little of what you love.

And that is absolutely true. And I don't want to hear the excuses and the circumstances from, but, but I can't afford it. It's like, yeah, you can't afford it because you haven't been doing it. You're not going to make money when you're burnt out and unhappy and you think money's going to make you happy, but it's being happy that makes you money. So you can't afford not to hire that person or delegate. And you know, when you can get like, be scrappy, be resourceful, you can, you can get virtual

assistance. You can find people on Fiverr to get things off your plate. You can ask Billy down the street. You can ask friends and family. Obviously that's another conversation about the courage and vulnerability to ask and receive help. But it's like what we were talking about before. It's not helping you. It's helping the vision of your business. And we get to do that together. Not just to serve me, serve me, serve me, serve them, serve your listeners, serve your customers. And I can't do this alone.

Will you come with me? And we got to do that now because if you're trying to still prove it, I just wrote a post about this. If the gas in your tank right now is I'm trying to prove it, whether it's to you or to others, what the F do you think is going to happen

to your business once you have? It's like flying an airplane and the engine just drops out of the sky. Then what? I proved it. Now what? That's why you're doing it. That's, that's total ego. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. There's nothing to prove. If there's a, if there was that initial tug to start something, you need to find that again. You need to go back to what was really behind that tug. And I tell you what, it wasn't to make money. Money is one of the lowest forms of motivation. Money is a tool so that we can do what we can do. We can have nice microphones. We can have amazing cameras and unbelievable people to help us get this out to

a lot of people. And that's what money does. We're not doing it for money. Money is a means, not the destination. So go back to that. What was that pull? And it was to do something that is of service, guaranteed every single time, that is bigger than you, for beyond you, call it a legacy, call it impact whatever whatever works for you but it ain't about you and then you went and made it about you or you made it wouldn't be about all these other things that aren't important and that's why you're burning out that's why you're tired and it's because we let the body take over we let the the the ego the the brain whatever we call the three what we see when we look in the mirror take over. And we lost that guidance that was telling us

to start in the first place. And I think if we switch that, you're gonna love what you do again. And then of course, James brings in all the, did he just go like weird and woo woo for a moment? Yeah, and then he's gonna bring all his logical, strategic business structure back in and that's that's kind of what i love to do is like mash the the right brain and the left brain

and like the feminine and the masculine and just mush it all together because it is both it is both you know and i really think that when people listen to others say things like you've just said around being able to delegate the things that you know you don't want to be doing anymore or is that not serving your business's next level everyone wants to think they're the exception and they'll give you all the reasons why they have to keep doing what they're doing i've heard them all yeah and i've been that person too i've been the person that's like fight for your limitations and you get to keep them i fought for them i've i've tried to convince myself and my team i'm the exception and it's funny because if you just keep pushing pushing pushing the universe god whatever is gonna speak so loud

and force you to take a real look at it and i feel like for me when i took my maternity leave came back i had to leave again because i was like i i can't keep doing this. This doesn't work for me. And the only way for me out at that point was to just step back from the business, not keep trying to muddle my way through it. I stepped back and put myself first, my mental health first. And what was really interesting was firstly, the business survived. The business was fine. Of course. And secondly, I found myself gravitating towards the things that I knew I wanted to be doing

because I didn't lose my ambition. I didn't lose the part of me that still wanted to work. Yes, I was doing other things. I was really in my, and I am in my season of mothering, but it didn't mean that I lost my ambition. It looked different and I was no longer willing to just muddle through and okay, if I don't get to the things I love, I'll do them on the weekend. I'll

do them on the evening. And when I stepped back completely, I found myself gravitating back towards them. And like you said, it really isn't about the money. And for me, I started leaning so much more into creating the content that I found fun. And I wasn't even thinking, is this profitable content? Is this? And what happened was it became it. And I had this idea for, I wanted to create a peer group of women just like me who were in early stages of motherhood and really struggling with their identity and bridging the ambition and motherhood. And I just thought about the idea and I blinked and the whole mastermind was full and all of a sudden things just started happening it was like the universe was saying look it gets to be light it gets to be fun it gets to be easy and all the other things that I'd been doing

wading through mud like I thought it just wasn't necessary and it fell away and I really love to have these conversations because I know so many people listening and they're saying, Natalie, James, I'm the exception. You don't know my business. And I want them to hear. I do. I really do because I've been there and you do too. And there is another way to do this. Yeah.

Well, and I think as I hear what you just shared is, you know, the moment you became a mother, you changed. And it's the hardest thing in the world for us to see our change, because we live our life every day. And the quickest way to notice your change, and I learned this the hard way, because people would start saying to me, you've changed. You know, I love that meme of like the caterpillar and the butterfly, and it's like, yeah, you're supposed to.

And we are, we're here to evolve, we're here to grow. Like that's a huge aspect of why we're all here and whatever growth means and in whatever direction, but we're here to do that. But when we experience growth, we don't experience our own growth. We experience the things around us as changing. Yep.

And so all of a sudden you come back to this thing and you're like, I don't wanna do it this way anymore. It's because you're different and we have to keep up with that. And you did that. And because you chose to do that, then things continued working because the essence of you that makes things work, which we all have that, we can call that, that manifestation, that power, that, that spirit that resides within you, you maintained that before, you know, becoming a mother and after, but how it manifested and how you approach things changed. And I think, I think it's, um, oh, I forget the author. I think it's Kenneth Blanchard,

but it's a phenomenal book. Have you ever read who moved my cheese no so this is like what a silly name right is it a kid's book or no it's not a kid's book do i need this for noemi but here's the thing is like they kind of make a premise in the book that like humans are dumber than rats which is hilarious and again it's been a few years but but i do my best to paraphrase the book but when you put a cheese the stereotypical cheese in the maze and you have the rats or the mice find the cheese and then you put them back in the entrance they will go they will they won't go through all the other dead ends and they'll go straight to the cheese and they do that 10 times they memorize the maze then they take the cheese out and they put it somewhere else

the first thing the rats do is they go right back and they see it's not there. Then they will find where that cheese is again. Humans don't exactly do that. We just keep going back to where we thought the cheese was waiting for it to show up again. I don't get it. I'm doing all the things. I'm doing it right. I'm doing what I was told to do. Where's the cheese? The cheese has moved and we change. We grow. We have different seasons of our life. Just like your business has different seasons and it's a dance with your own changes and the changes of the business. And that's what makes it hard. And you were, there was something within you to be able to to honor what you were noticing was feeling heavy your soul is telling you not this way anymore natalie and what people do instead is they get really scared and they go no it has to be and they go they white knuckle their life and you said it yourself but

i love this little metaphor of um maybe you've heard this the first god throws a pebble you're not listening to get the rock and if you still don't want to listen you're heard this, the first God throws a pebble. You're not listening to get the rock. And if you still don't wanna listen, you're gonna get the boulder. So you're gonna learn the lessons that you're here to learn. Do you just wanna learn them painfully or like in the most gentle way possible? And I really choose and help every day.

Like I pray to learn my lessons as pebbles and not big boulders because I've had a few of the boulders in my life and they're extremely painful, but you definitely learn the lesson. And so there was something within you that was able to just like, wow, what like a faith to go,

this is heavy, so I have to put it down, versus this is heavy, so I have to, I have to put myself through more pain and torture. And that's what most people do, because I did that for a long time, and I see that in others, and then all of a sudden you go, wow, look, it's working even better and I'm happier. And, and, um, it's scarier, but that is the more effective way. Yeah. And like you said, those memes and quotes on Instagram, even the ones I'm guilty of sharing,

you know, it makes, I think it makes growth seem glamorous and it's like oh if you are grow people you are grow people and it makes it feel like so light and fluffy and okay on to the next and it was it for me it was a boulder and it was really challenging to realize that when i was putting myself back into the same businesses the same friendships the same relationships the same places rooms situations I had changed and no one else was wrong no but it felt wrong to me and it's so easy to like you said white knuckle it but I feel like for me I'm I'm grateful that I got such a heavy boulder that it was like you physically cannot continue like this because you're gonna get sick and I think also being able to step out

of myself and see that it wasn't just for me that I needed to change but it was for my daughter it was for my marriage it was for my business my team my community you know it was for more than me and when I could see it was for more than me it's how I got to see that it actually was for me because ultimately I know if I'm my best self, then my daughter has the best mom, my husband has the best wife, my team has the best leader if I focus on me. But it can be hard as humans, right?

To say, I'm gonna put myself first. Again, we say self-care isn't selfish, but it feels it. It's got self in it though, it must be, right? It's cute on Instagram, but it feels it. The oxygen mask metaphor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's easy to hear,

but putting it into practice is more challenging. But sometimes when you can hear someone else talk about it, you're like, you know what? It does make sense. And when you do it for yourself, game changer. Okay, I want to close the loop on something. Sure. That is really powerful.

Like you said, is we make more when we do less. Yes. And I had, I we make more when we do less. Yes. And I've been listening to you a lot. And I think you shared two of your products have made you close to $40 million. Yeah. Two products. Two. And I think that's very surprising for a lot of people because I know we've got so many-

One was $97. Okay. So we're definitely getting into this. We have so many women listening who are multi-passionate, which is a great thing, are still trying to find their footing and trying to find their thing. I was just on a call with someone yesterday who was telling me their offer and they had like 10 offers and you know, they're at the six figure mark, but I'm multi-passionate and I'm like, okay, we need to find a way to channel that into one thing and simplify. And I

love that, you know, that trying to find product market fit but at some point it's like greg mckeon has this amazing diagram of um energy a line going in one direction goes so much further than when it's split up into like 10 or 20 and that to me just yes it's very it's it's a very visual product absolutely because i've noticed it myself can you talk about those two products i can talk about so many things about that because it is a really big, big deal. And it's like the multi-passionate thing I really want to speak to too, because again, I have a different philosophy. I'm very contrarian, not intentionally. It's just, I think differently. And I think that's why I have some different results. I'm very multi-passionate. Yesterday I was building a drum stage in my home

and learning to play guitar. The week before, I'm rebuilding a go-kart for my nephew. The week before that, I'm refurbishing furniture and building out my wood workshop and then going mountain biking after that. Don't talk about multi-passionate. I'm so passionate about everything I dive into. The last year and a half, I've been diving into learning about music theory and music and guitar.

And it's just been an amazing journey. And I really see myself as like passionate about everything I wanna get my hands onto, but I don't start 25 businesses at the same time and then call myself a multi-passionate entrepreneur. Because if you try to chase three rabbits at the same time, you end up catching none. And there is a level of focus and consistency and discipline that is required to get you

to that finish line. And we have a motto within our company that is do less, do it better. And the ironic thing is people then do this thing like, well, I don't want to limit myself. And it's like, that is so backwards. want to limit myself. And it's like, that is so backwards. I'm so sorry, but it's so backwards because you, I understand where that's coming from. You are infinite potential. You can do anything, but you can do anything doesn't mean you need to do everything. And what's so funny is if you just did the one thing, then you can do anything and everything else.

If I was trying to build our signature program and take that to multi-million dollar launches with business by design while building an Airbnb business, that would be a lot harder. And I don't know why I would be doing that. But I intentionally waited until I got it to a certain place where it was like, we've unlocked this, we've sustained it, we've proven it. It's like at a rinse and repeat phase of maturity. Now I can do the next thing. And then I can come back and I can boom, boom, boom. And if I'm trying to do five things at once, I'm not going to do any of them. And this is more relevant today than it even was

when I first started talking about it. Cause I talk about the bridge metaphor. We are where we are, which I call reality Island. And then there's where we want to get to, which I call desire or outcome Island. And the way to get from where you are to where you want to be is to build a bridge. So there's all these pieces to build a bridge, but you could get 99% of your bridge done. You're not on destination or outcome or island until the bridge is done. And if you're now building five bridges at the same time, 30%, 40% of the way, because I got, I got an app I want to do. I'm writing a book and I'm creating a product and we're doing software and we're doing this and you're building 30, 20, 40%.

You can even do 90% of all those bridges, but you didn't even get one to the completion line. And so you're just staying busy in the doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, which is going back to the employee mindset. If I just do more, then I'll make more. It's backwards. So the less I do, the more I make is how do I get my bridge one bridge to outcome island as efficiently and effectively as possible once it's there it's and it's making money then i can go build as many bridges as i want but if you're trying to build five bridges at the same time it's i mean it's been proven you're going to take it's going to take longer then there's the whole

phenomenon of context switching which is every time you switch between bridges or projects, there's a waste of anywhere from like five to 15% in unproductive context switching where you're like, where did I leave off? And you're not in your flow state and like, oh, I forgot this. So that singular focus is so important. There was another question in there that I didn't answer because I wanted to talk about that. Do you remember what you asked? What the products were and what that looked like but on the bridge thing before we even dive into that i also feel like yeah you probably could build the five bridges at once but they're gonna be smaller less impressive bridges like wouldn't you rather have one fucking amazing bridge and be like i did that and look how effective it is and look how many people get

to walk across it versus like there's a janky bridge people are falling through the other bridge like that every time someone falls through it it's stress like that's how we get into burnout yes the insurance claims like it's not worth it if people knew how much time we've spent working on our just within the products and the curriculum and the content to then the messaging the branding the, the training and all of that. Oh, I know because I just texted you like what, two nights ago? I know, that was so nice of you. Okay, so you guys- I'm going to print that out.

It's going on the refrigerator. That was very kind. I've been just diving in. Me and my entire team have been in business by design. It is changing the way we do everything. And we were all on a call prepping for this podcast. All of us gushing about, oh my God, but I learned this and I did this and we're gonna do more podcasts on it.

But I texted you to say, this is the best course I have ever taken. It is phenomenal. And you can tell how much love and work has gone into that. I mean, the fact that you just click a button and a process unlocks. I mean, we'll get more into it because I know everyone wants to know,

but you can tell. And what an amazing, you must be so proud to know that product is changing so many people's lives. And that didn't come about because you were doing five products at the same time. Nope. You put the work in. It was that moment at the end of the poker game where they just go all in. Yeah. And I just went all in on that with all the chips and fell in love with that.

Something I said recently that is, successful entrepreneurs are more committed and obsessed with solving their audience's problems while struggling entrepreneurs are more obsessed or committed with solving their own. And that's why they're struggling for a lot. And so I took that whole journey of four and a half years of a lot of pain.. And so I took that whole journey of four and a half years

of a lot of pain. Like my beautiful, amazing girlfriend who now works in the company is right outside. And I've known her for 20 years and she was like my closest friend. And she's a trained psychic. So she's very scary intuitive. And-

Oh, so you're not getting away with anything. No, I'm not getting away with anything. But I called her 20 years ago, not 20 years ago, 15 years ago, when I like two years into the struggle and said, that's it, I'm done. I quit. It's too hard. Can't do it. And, um, and she wouldn't let me, you know, like helped that she was intuitive. She's like, no, it's just give it time, but you're not giving up. I will not let you. and she walked me off that ledge but i was done i was like this is too hard and i look back and i i have such a respect for that journey because it really was hard for me and i took all of that and i said even if people are facing

10 of what i went through i'm going to create the thing that can solve all of that for them. And that's what it became, was like, I started looking at all these things where I said, you know, I know we need to niche down. I know that's really important. I teach that, I'm a huge advocate for that. But with the work I wanted to do,

I knew that if I put it out there and it was only a piece, then it was incomplete. And so it's been a really hard thing because in one hand, I want it to like be the simple one thing you need. And it's like, but then I would leave my people incomplete with something.

Then they'd say, well, then how do I do this part? And how do I do that? And I actually undersell it when I talk about it because I don't want to overwhelm people. But I realized that part of the struggle with getting my business up was I was just missing pieces. I was like, oh, you're also supposed to do that? And I need that? And I didn't even know that. And I was like, I'm not going to not provide all that. But then I realized like, as we've been talking about too, is like, you can't get into the doing, you can't be doing all the doings yourself. Like you just, you just can't. And so if you can even

just hire five hours a week, a part time, like just get the, there's all these freelance sites where you can get people overseas to just do a job for you for so cheap, 20, 30 bucks. And you can give them one of these processes in BBD. That's the whole thing. It's like, give it to them, give them the landing page process, give them the survey process, give them the process of, of sending out the email or bill building your first sales page. It's all there. They can paint by numbers, follow it. And for 30, 40 bucks, they do it, but you just save 20, 30 hours of your life or however for the specific tasks that it would take. Sometimes it's one hour, sometimes it's more.

And then you get to stay doing the thing that you love. And that's where we like, you know, I like text you. I don't know if I said this when I texted you back, but it's like, obviously I really appreciate that, what you said, but it's a great course because I don't see it as a course. And the way I see a course is you have to sit, learn, consume, identify what you need to do, and then go do it. And I said, I want to just skip that part. Let me just give you what needs to get done and let's get someone else to do it. And let's, let want to just skip that part. Let me just give you what needs to get done

and let's get someone else to do it. And let's get you back into, that's what we call that role, the role of the digital CEO. And so there's a phrase we use over and over again, is that the results that you want in your business are determined by the role that you fill. And if you stay all day in the role of the doer and the technician, you're going to see

a lot less results than if you're in that high level role. Whatever you want to call that. You can call that the boss. You want to call it the CEO. You want to call it the entrepreneur. It doesn't matter. But you're at the top of your own little org chart. You're going to see more results.

And that's why the less you do, the more you make is so true. It's because there's a very interesting phenomenon that higher value activities tend to require less time and effort. Like I said before, those uncomfortable conversations are so hard and challenging to have, but they can be five minutes. Whereas we will lovingly say, I'll avoid that five minute conversation because I got like 10 emails to write, right? For five weeks. Exactly. So the higher level, what I call the 5% activities, 5% activities are directly responsible for 95% of your results. And we avoid those 5% activities, but they tend to be very

little work going live and selling your stuff. You could go on Instagram and make an offer right now, 10 minutes, done, but we're scared to death of it. But we avoid that, but we're doing everything. I'm gonna get my new website out, my new branding and do-do-do-do, all this other stuff that we actually hide behind the busyness. Whereas the simple things, scary, simple things

are the things that make us the most money. Do more of that, scary, simple, simple things are the things that make us the most money. Do more of that. Let go of the rest. So you're forced into the 5% and your business will grow. I want to get into all of that. We're going to do a two-parter because there's too much here. I don't, I don't talk concisely. I talk, I talk in large, large chunks. I apologize. I love it. So just to go back to the product. So then you had a $97 product. Yeah. So I went to film school.

I went to one of the top 10 film schools in the country. It was awesome. I wanted to go into Hollywood. I also got a double major in marketing because I was like, maybe I want to do commercials and I want to have my own ad agency one day. And that was kind of the dream. And then I was like no never mind and long story short i started making like youtube videos for small businesses in my hometown

and then i went to an event and someone was struggling to put up a youtube video it was a marketing event and i just helped them and i asked one of those million dollar questions they were like amazed like but you could put a video this is. Like, you could put a video, this is 2008, okay? You could put a video on the internet, this is amazing. They're using one of those little old flip cams. If anyone is, I'm like dating myself, that's scary to even say that. It was like before iPhones had video cameras in them.

We remember. Okay. We remember. Some of these younger kids are like, what do you mean? What did you have before video cameras on your phone? And she was just so blown away. And I said, really? Like that was cause we don't see our own value. And, um, and I asked her that question. I said, would you pay for that? Are you kidding me? Hell yes, I will pay for that.

And so the little light bulb goes, and, uh, in 2000 and it was in 2010 when I made the decision. And in 2011, I launched a $97 product with my good buddy, Lewis Howes, called Video Traffic Academy. And it taught people how to make their first YouTube videos and put it on the internet. And in the first 30 days with $97, it made $400,000 in sales. That product went on to do millions

and millions of dollars in sales. And it put me on the map as the niche down as the youtube video guy and what happened next was i had this fast forward to living in my hometown laguna beach three three minute 15 second walk from my front door to feet on the sand that was important i need to be able to walk to the beach and i would get up i would do my little morning work and I'd go, I always had to time the swells properly, you know, you know, and then I'd go to the beach and I'd surf for two or three hours. I'd come back, do a little bit more work. And sometimes I get a second surf session in and that was it. And I had a friend come and stay with me because it was a second unit. And she watched about a

week of this. Now my business at the time was just over a million and she watched about a week of this now my business at the time was just over a million and she's at 200 000 and part of her's like you son of a bitch like what the hell are you doing and she was very very inquisitive about that and that's when i started to realize that i don't think my purpose here is to help people make a video but maybe to show people how I did this. And that's where the seeds were planted, which is always funny is like, people come in your life to show you

and reflect back to you the value that you're creating in the world. And I've had those moments where people were like, I just didn't think it was a big deal. Even you're like, you must be proud. I was like, I don't know, maybe I should be, but like, I'm just doing what I'm doing and it's just who i am you know and um maybe i shouldn't take that for granted but but we have those moments this person was just i'm i'm making

200 000 i'm working seven days a week and it's sun up to sun down it's it's non-stop yeah what the hell are you doing and i started coaching her and i showed her in one month by the end of january it was who started working at the end of the year and we worked with one month and she made more money in that one month than she had the entire year and in nine months later she was at a million dollars and that's what i was like maybe i should be doing this like i want to help people figure this out. And that's when I actually launched the beta version of business by design. And today I teach people the same model, which is like, get out of your head, stop overthinking it and just put the first version

out. And so I said, 500 bucks, I'm teaching 25 people. I don't know what we're teaching, but you're going to get on eight live calls with me and I'm just going to answer questions and I'm going to start like telling you what I've done and we'll, we'll see what comes from that. And that was the first version of business by design at the time. It was called James Woodmore, super awesome, amazing, amazing, sexy beta program. And so names don't really matter. Was it actually called that? Yes. I'm dead serious. Oh my God. That's amazing. Okay. So listen, no excuses. If if you're listening you don't have a name yet yeah oh yeah excuse you either have a great name like there's there's a small bracket of like the best names on the planet and then there's like bad names and then there's this huge margin in the middle where it's like good enough

yeah good enough just go right yeah and um are we saying your name was good enough i've done james wedmore super awesome amazing sexy beta program would be good enough to get my beta in but i knew i had to change it yeah and um funny enough how i came up with the name was after i sold the beta and i got my 25 members saying i started saying i gotta figure out what the outline is for this i gotta figure out what i knew i what is it i'm selling yeah exactly it's like i knew what what the outline is for this. I gotta figure out what, I knew, I knew. What is it I'm selling? Yeah, exactly. It's like, I knew what the end result was because it was what I was doing myself,

but I said, I don't know how I'm going to deliver it in what order, so I started writing the outline. I said, well, I want the first call to be really about how to set up your business, like design it your way. Like I want you to build your business by this. That's it, build business by design. And that was it.

I registered the domain and like we were off to the races and whatnot. And so that led me to another breakthrough in my life that people are waiting for clarity before they take action. It's the opposite. It's action creates clarity. And so when you just take that first step, the next step always appears.

Takes courage and faith, but you just take that first step. I don't care that it's messy because it's going to get better. And it did. And what it is today versus when it was started is completely different, completely different. But the point is I got started. Yeah. And like they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. And I think it can be really easy to look at what other people's not finished product, but, but product that's been tested so many times and created over such a long period of time and say well i can't launch mine until it's as good as that and it's never going to be like that the first time around and i really encourage people

not to make their course or anything that they're creating that good first time around because probably people are going to come and tell you so many things are missing from it you know what i have to go re-record this because i missed it yeah And so it's so much easier to start, like you said, just listening and finding product market fit as you go. Yes. And get that feedback, that real time feedback. You know, James, could you do a little bit more training about this? Could you answer this? I didn't see anything, but oh, that's good. Yeah, definitely add that. And that's how we created it. It's like my first few rounds of customers is what created it what it is today. Here's an example of that.

All those processes you're talking about, I only had a handful of them and they were buried on the second page of the portal. And then I was showing it to one of the customers in real life, because we had a little like meetup workshop and they hadn't even noticed it. And then when they clicked on the second page,

I was like, no, no, we'll go over here. And I saw their reactions, same theme. And they're like, oh my, what is this? Why don't you bury this in the back? And then I was like, oh, you think that's valuable? Like you like that? Okay, good to know. So how are we gonna make it perfect

when we don't know what perfect is because we haven't asked our audience, they haven't told us and they don't even know until they experience it so feedback's important i know and if anyone's listening like wait i need to get into this just wait because we're doing something really fun we're doing boss babes collaborating okay so just wait there's gonna be more james i'm gonna give you a little break because i have about a thousand more questions for you great so we're gonna come back but thank you so much this has been incredible okay good thank you we were we recording this or was this practice no this is practice okay good yeah we're going to come back. But thank you so much. This has been incredible. Okay, good. Thank you. Were we recording this or was this practice? No, this is practice.

Okay, good. We're going to stop for real. I'll do the good stuff later. Yeah, yeah, it's coming. Okay, you know me. I am the biggest believer in investing in my education and growth as a business owner. And since you're listening to the podcast,

I know you're the same. So I need to tell you about a brand new, totally free training that James Wedmore is hosting. It's called Rise of the Digital CEO. And it's a live three-day digital workshop designed to show you exactly how to create a successful, scalable, and highly aligned business in 2023. The entire Boss Babe team is attending, and we're going to be learning the cutting edge strategies, processes, and tactics to double down on our growth this year. And I would really love to have you there with us. It's going to be an absolute game changer. So if you are ready to take your business to a whole new level, reserve your spot by sending me at IamNatalie a DM on

Instagram with the word CEO, and I'll send you all the information you need. That's at I am Natalie, DM me the word CEO and I'll send you all the information that you need.