the bossbabe podcast - 312. My Biggest Mistakes + Hurdles Last Year in Business

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

What ACTUALLY happened in the business while Natalie went on maternity leave? She has shared some lessons at a high level, but in this episode she is bearing it all. Taking a step back pointed out some areas the business was bleeding profit + where the team needed more direction to run optimally. If you want the option of stepping back, taking time off from your business, or simply want the peace of mind that your business has a healthy bottom line, you don’t want to miss this. Natalie shares the biggest mistakes she’s made in business from being the revenue bottleneck + using money as a bandaid, to the impact of losing one of the longest standing team members at bossbabe + so much more. What you learn today will help you avoid making these same mistakes + get super clear on the 3 vital things EVERY founder needs to be focused on in order to build a profitable business + thriving team. HIGHLIGHTS BTS of what ACTUALLY happened in the business when Natalie took maternity leave Tips for stepping back from your business (+ mistakes Natalie made + what she’d do differently) The 3 vital areas every founder should be focusing on RIGHT NOW How to get the right balance of “thinkers” (aka strategy) vs “doers” on your team + why it’s absolutely critical to your success  LINKS Subscribe to our Weekly CEO Newsletter to get more leadership + business insights from Natalie - https://bossbabe.com/newsletter  FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

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 back to the Boss Babe podcast. So I sent out a newsletter a few weeks ago and it was talking all about what happened when I took three months of maternity leave off, what happened to the business. And I thought it was really important to write because I think from the outside, it can look like everything was handled, it was smooth sailing, it was easy. And we know that in business, nothing is like that. And I really wanted to be super honest

about what happened in the business and what that's meant for the business moving forward, because it did change a lot of things. So what I thought I would do in this episode is just do a bit of a deeper dive on what it looked like taking those three months off talk a little bit about how I prepped to do that and then also what I learned from that and my hope in this episode firstly if you want to step back from your business for any point of time I hope it supports you in being able to do that but secondly I also hope it can help you shortcut some mistakes that I feel like I made or decisions I didn't make sooner or just generally things that I have put in place now. I hope that you can implement them in your business now.

So let's kind of talk a little bit about where the business was at. So leading up to my maternity leave that I took in May of 2022, my main focus in the business for the duration of my pregnancy was revenue. Now you all know since the beginning of Boss Babe, since Boss Babe was founded, my role has always been CEO. I've always been the one in charge of sales, revenue, marketing, social growth. So a lot of the community growth, a lot of revenue growth, and obviously, you know, company vision and pushing the company forward in that sense. But that was kind of my main role. And so before I was planning on taking maternity leave, I really ramped up my role on the revenue side even more. So while I'd been focused on audience growth, as well as revenue growth and multiple different things, I really focused and

was like, you know what, let's make sure that when I leave the business in a super strong position and we brought in some really big boosts of cash, because I know that's what the business is going to need to be able to survive when that may not be coming in. So like I said, it's always been my main role at Boss Babe. And in my opinion, it should always be the founder's main focus because without healthy revenues and margins in your business, the business is a hobby that cannot support a team, a client or community. I think it's all well and good saying you're doing this to impact people. I think that's great. That's why a lot of us are doing this. But the impact alone isn't enough.

If you're not paying the bills, you can't impact anyone. And I always say, you know, when people say, I feel bad selling to my audience, I remind them, well, you probably won't be showing up much longer to your audience delivering any kind of value if you don't start selling because we can't just be doing this for no income. Most of us can't anyway. So again, I think this is where a founder's time and energy should be focused on. With that being said, I think taking your eye off the ball elsewhere can have detrimental effects. I'll talk about what that looked like for me. I've definitely done

that in the past. But anyway, things were good in the business. We had a growing team of 16 people. They were across America and in some different countries. And then during my pregnancy, we executed on two seven-figure launches, which I think is incredible. And we had really happy clients sharing wins with us on a daily basis. I would say that I was feeling quite stretched, but I wasn't feeling stressed. So during my pregnancy, I was not willing to feel stressed. I was not willing for my nervous system to not be in a great place. It was really important for me to prioritize my well-being and my baby's well-being. And I was definitely not going to be doing anything that would jeopardize

that, especially not in the name of revenue. If I'm to think about where any of my stress came from work-wise during that time, it was probably more people-related, especially some external partnerships that we had at Boss Babe things like that like the people was more of the problem than necessarily the profit which is super interesting and I learned a lot from that but yeah I definitely wasn't willing to stress myself out I was willing to stretch myself but not stress myself so what happened was obviously the ship stayed afloat the business survived and listen it didn't necessarily thrive. There was a launch executed during that time, which didn't go as it normally would, but that's also to be expected.

I think it's also incredible that the whole team executed on that when they're really used to having me also supporting them in that, in the business. I think it's great that they went ahead and did that for the first time. And it's not like we had a full playbook running already. They were trying different things. And I think that was actually a really great thing, whether or not it worked. It's not about that. I think it's more, let's try something. I think having a company where people are willing to try and fail is really important

versus people not being willing to try just in case they get it wrong. That's definitely not the kind of company that I want to run. It was a really great time to see what gaps that we did have as a company. So like I said, the goal was not to grow during this time. And that's definitely not the expectation I set. That's not the goals that I'd projected,

anything like that. But it was to be a really great learning opportunity. It was a time for team to be able to put more systems in place. And then it was time for me to just get some breathing space because I also know from so many women I speak to, they don't even feel like they could take a maternity leave, whether they have tried and it didn't work out that way or whether they want to have kids in the future. They kind of feel like, how would I take that time off my business right now? It's not possible. So that was my goal. They kind of feel like, how would I take that time off my business right now?

It's not possible. So that was my goal. And I really felt like, you know what? If I come back to a company that's still starting, then it's been a success. And so I'm really happy with how it worked out. I probably did take a handful of stressful calls during those three months,

not from my whole team, which I'm really happy about. I stayed pretty much out of my email, Slack, Asana, things like that. I wasn't checking all the time. I really was focused on being with my baby, which I think is such an incredible gift. And I'm so grateful to the team for holding it down during that time, because I know that's just not something that they'd done before. And I hadn't taken that kind of time off before. So it was really new for everyone. One thing that did happen, because launch cash injections weren't coming into the company

in the way that we generally be used to on a quarterly basis is that we started to squeeze our profit margins because the company was solely relying on recurring revenue, which thankfully we had. That's really great. However, we were spending as though the cash injection was coming, whether that be on team, investments, ads, we were spending that money. We were investing in a ton of things. And for the first time ever, I got really worried about our bottom line. When I say I was staying out of emails, I was, but one thing I was always checking was the financial reports that were coming to me every Monday. I was kind of looking at them thinking, okay, I think we're spending as though we've got a big launch coming. And I was starting to realize, I don't think I'm going to be going

back to work and executing a big launch. I don't think that's where I am at mentally and physically. I think it's going to take longer than I perhaps planned to get back into that and get that ramped up again. There was just no way I felt like I could have done that. Whereas before I took my maternity leave, I thought that would be totally possible. I really did. I just had no idea what postpartum would have in store for me. My birth did not go as planned and my recovery was really challenging, both physically and mentally, like I've talked about, you know, I couldn't walk for weeks. And that alone was a lot. So just thinking about coming back and then executing on some kind of huge launch, just filled me with absolute dread. So I had previously planned for that it wasn't going to end up happening. So I was able to plan for a lot of

stuff from a business perspective, I just wasn't able to plan for the lot of stuff from a business perspective I just wasn't able to plan for the postpartum like area of this and I think that's super normal and the reason that I share that so candidly is I really want if there are any women listening firstly you've been through a challenging postpartum period I want you to know you're not alone I've been there with you and secondly if there's any women here who think having kids might be on the cards for them in future, I just share it not to put anyone off or make anyone feel fearful or anything like that. But just as something you can pop into your mind to think about when you are structuring your year, maybe don't put those expectations on yourself. And if you come back super fast and you

feel amazing, then I'm so happy for you. And if you then want to surprise and delight your balance sheet with a launch, great. But I don't want you to have that expectation on yourself because I think postpartum is just one of those things. None of us know how we're going to feel. And it's probably different for every baby and every pregnancy too. So let's go into what I've learned. And on my email, I kind of kept high level. I'm going to try and go into a little bit more detail on the podcast. So like I was saying earlier, I primarily sat in the revenue generation seat and my focus was probably more narrow during that time than it should have been. I really believe a founder should have their finger on the pulse in three

areas of the business, future vision, revenue and profit, and team. So let me talk a little bit about those. So future vision, really always knowing exactly where you're going and communicating this with the team. So they know based on where they're spending their time and the decisions that they're making, are they contributing to where you are going? I think if this isn't really clear, people can kind of go around in circles or perhaps spend time on things that really aren't that beneficial to the business, especially the business long term. So really communicating that and making sure your entire team, especially your executives and people that manage others, are really aware of this too, so that they can manage accordingly.

And if they are seeing that someone is spending time on something that actually doesn't really make sense, they can course correct and they can remind them where they're going. Revenue and profit, you know, kind of goes without saying. It's really important you have an eye on what revenue you're bringing in and what your profit margin looks like. One thing that I track religiously now is my team costs as percentage and also software costs. Things like this can really, really build up. And especially the economy we're in now, it really pays to be aware of our spending. It really pays to know what's going out the door. So it's something you really want to have your eye on. When I tell you that looking at this after

not looking at it for a really, really long time, I almost collapsed. I'm not exaggerating. I was in disbelief at some of the things we were spending on, whether it be external partnerships we were doing, whether it's freelancers, contractors, project-based things, softwares, it was mind-blowing and it has honestly taken me so long to course correct because I just didn't have my eye on the ball there. To be honest I probably delegated out a little bit too much. I would say I was the queen of delegation and getting things off my plate but looking back I realized that that might not be a badge of honor. I think it's really great for us to have our finger on the pulse in so many different places. And I know for a lot of people, if they're like numbers aren't my strength, I kind of just

don't look at them. I would say really look at them, really know what your numbers look like. And even if your team is telling you things are fine, go in there and make sure you look for yourself. 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 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. And then team, this is really, really important. And so many different areas of this, you know, how is people's morale? I'll talk a little bit about what happened in a second. But how is your team feeling? What's their morale feeling like? Are they feeling supported?

Are they really clear on what they are working on? So many things that I learned during this time, I've now implemented into our Monday meeting. And I thought it would be really helpful just to share the kind of things that I track on our Monday meeting. We actually have this with our entire team and every Friday or well, Thursday now, because our team have Fridays off now,

they go in and they fill these slides and then we talk about them on our Monday morning meeting. So they share their priorities and they talk about why these priorities serve the business. So people know why they are doing what they're doing. They talk about their main metric for the week and it's just one metric because people can get so caught up in tracking so many things and not really knowing what the needle mover is. So they talk about what main metric they are tracking and then what goal that this helps support in the business. They also share a screenshot or a win or something that they had impact on in the previous week. And then this really important section that I really hope some of you can take away and implement in your own businesses. There are four things that I have people rank themselves for out of 10. All right. I have them rank themselves out of 10 for their

capacity. So what is your capacity out of 10? Their clarity out of 10, their energy out of 10 and their growth out of 10. So firstly, capacity. Again, I delegated so many things out. I wasn't fully aware of what everyone was working on, what their rhythms looked like. And I kind of just assumed someone else was doing that right. And I think that is a terrible thing for us to do as founders. We really want to have our finger on the pulse. Of course, if you have huge, huge teams, this is different. But in small businesses like ours, I do think you want to have your eye on this. So I would have some chats with people and they'd be like, yeah, I've had nothing to do for the past month. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, I'm paying you full time. You've had nothing to do for the past month. Why has this not been flagged? And it was really just that we didn't have the process

in place in the business. It was nothing to do with the team members themselves. They'd been raising the flag, but then when managers are really busy, it's so hard for them to stop what they're doing and find tasks for other people to take on. It's kind of easier to say, can you go research this? Can you go look into this? So it's not the fault of the team at all. And it's not the fault of the people managing them. It really always comes back to founder responsibility. And that's one thing I'll say, no matter what I'm sharing in this episode, I take full accountability and responsibility for myself because it is our job as the founder and the CEO,

you know, the person operating this business to have our finger on the pulse. And what I realized was I didn't know because I wasn't asking. And people like to be at a healthy capacity. People like to have things on their plate. So I ask, where are you at out of 10 every week? And there's no judgment if you're low.

Great. Can you take other things on? Do you want to go research something else? Do you want to lean into another project? We have the conversation. Clarity, again, it's really important. And what this means is, are you clear on what we're doing in the business generally? Are you clear on what we're working on? Are you clear on why you're doing in the business generally? Are you clear on what we're working on? Are you

clear on why you're doing what you're doing? And if people are ranking low here, it means I'm probably not doing a great job of communicating the vision or me or their managers aren't doing a really good job of telling them, you know, where we're going and why what they're working on matters and how it contributes. Then I ask their energy out of 10, because, you know, business is a people game and we get to look after our people. And if someone flags having really low energy or not feeling great that week, then we want to take care of them. You know, if someone really flags that they're low on this side, we're not going to say, okay, let's throw more things on your plate. We're going to say, how can we support you? And then growth, you know, not every single week is going to be an eight out of 10. People aren't going to constantly feel like they're growing and being stretched. That's not what we

want, but we do want people feeling like they are learning and growing within the company. I do think that's really, really important for retaining amazing talent. So yeah, that's a meeting structure that I've put into place after coming back from my maternity leave. And just the great thing about leaving was just being able to clear my head and look at the business from a bird's eye view. One thing that we've always said in the business is like, when you're in it, you almost can't see the wood from the trees. You're so in it. It sometimes takes being able to fully get out to see these things. So again, I'm not making anything or anyone wrong here. Not even myself. It's just, this is just business. Business is constant evolution and learning. And that's just

the way we got to learn that lesson. So that was super interesting. And putting that Monday meeting into place has been an absolute game changer. I feel like right now, and I feel like my whole team would attest to this and they do comment on it. I don't think that the business has ever felt this fun and light and collaborative. And we're growing. We're growing in a really, really great direction, and it feels good. And I don't think the business has felt like this in such a long time because we went through so much explosive growth that it was just like chasing our tails. It was so hard to catch up on any of this. So really happy with being able to learn that and put that structure in place. And I learned so much about where I should be focusing

as a founder in that area. And then another thing, being a revenue bottleneck. I was a revenue bottleneck. And what I mean by this was, you know, I was holding the reins of revenue myself quite tightly. And although we were bringing in recurring revenue and things like that, when it came to launches, activations, new products, I was just holding the reins really tightly. And I had tried to delegate parts of this out in the past, but I don't think I ever did a really good job of holding people accountable. And I would always jump in if I saw that goals weren't going to be hit because I just couldn't handle the idea that we wouldn't hit our goals. And that was really, really interesting to notice. But the thing is, this is really demotivating for your team and it doesn't empower people to get in

the let's figure it out mindset. It doesn't empower people to really push even harder if they think or know someone else is going to jump in and do it anyway. So that's been something really interesting. I had to ask myself, am I willing to let a launch not do as well and actually not jump in and save it? Like, am I really willing to do that and see what happens? And the answer was no, no, but I did it anyway. Was I ready? No. Did I want that uncomfortability? No, but I also did want to

grow as a leader and I wanted my business to grow and I wanted my team to be able to step into more of a leadership role. And that sometimes comes with uncomfortability. And I'm just sharing that to be super honest. It really does. So I was just holding the reins way too tightly and being able to hold them a little bit looser and really support the team in pushing towards goals and launches and outside of launches has been incredible. I think they feel now that they have a lot more freedom and they can bring in more creativity and they can try things that had never been tried before. They have ideas that I've never had and it's really great to witness,

but it does take that uncomfortability. Like, are you really willing to let things not fail, but kind of like not hitting your goals as a failure to an extent? Are you willing to not hit your goals and how much you willing and wanting to change this? It's really the question you get to ask yourself. Another thing I learned is that money can be a really good band-aid. So someone's not doing their job. Well, let's just hire another person to do it instead without

letting that person go. Ooh, a shiny brand new software that I probably don't need. Yep. Let's give that one a shot. Okay. This person isn't at capacity and they do not have enough on their plate. Okay, I'm way too busy to think of something for them to do. So I'm just going to look away and pretend that I don't realize. Oh, this person's consistently not hitting any of their goals. Well, business is doing fine anyway, so don't worry about it. Quite frankly, money became a great bandaid for problems in the business. And I, as a leader had put my blinders on to keep pushing the business forward versus stepping up in my leadership. And it kind of feels like I'm getting really naked and admitting so many things to you guys, but I mean, I kind of am. This is really

true. I'm just going to be super honest. This is true. It was easier for me to push the business forward and keep it growing than it was to really step up in my leadership. For me, you know, I think I'm a very natural entrepreneur, like a born entrepreneur. I do really well in the visionary seat and it has been uncomfortable to lean into specifically management. It's been really uncomfortable to lean into leadership. One thing I did when I came back after maternity leave was I hired a leadership coach and it was an absolute game changer for me in so many ways, not just the way in which I lead my team, but the way in which I lead myself. So like I said, I felt like stepping

up would be really uncomfortable and require me to really push my edges. And all too often, I stayed in the seat that was comfortable for me, which isn't leadership. And all too often, I stayed in the seat that was comfortable for me, which isn't leadership. And I've learned that lesson. And hiring a leadership coach, it allowed me to learn skills for being able to hold people accountable, to be able to have crucial conversations, to be able to motivate people, to be able to really bring others into the fold. It was great in so many ways. And then yeah, in leading myself, it allowed me to have conversations that I've really wanted to be having for years that I've been pushing off because they were uncomfortable. It allowed me to

get really, really clear on what I wanted myself personally and how the business could be a vehicle for that and actually start asking for what I want or putting forward what I want. It just has supported and served me in so many different ways. I'm such a big advocate of coaching. And as soon as I'd come back after my mat leave, I realized, okay, time to bring in the troops here.

We need some external support. We're gonna need a really great coach, a really great therapist. I'm gonna need a little bit of help. And I'm so glad that I did that. And I lent on my peers, mentors. I wasn't coming back thinking I needed to figure this all out alone. None of us are in this to do it alone. None of us need to figure this all out on our own. We get to ask for help. And I'm really, really glad that I did that. Another thing that I learned was we had

too many thinkers in the company and not enough doers. So let me explain what I mean by that. We had a lot of people doing strategy and not enough people executing on that strategy, which would make any strategy really irrelevant. So we would spend hours in meetings and it felt like sometimes we'd talk in circles and it would take balls forever to be pushed forward. And even though we were a team of 16, it did sometimes feel like we were a team of 50 because there were so many people thinking about different angles, just everything, and not enough people executing on it.

And again, this was really easy to band-aid when revenue was abundant, but when your margins become squeezed, you really begin to see team gaps. Again, it was no fault of my team at all. It just showed me where the gaps were in my leadership. And I even remember, you really begin to see team gaps. Again, it was no fault of my team at all. It just showed me where the gaps were in my leadership. And I even remember, you know, a time when we were scaling, when we had so many doers and very few thinkers, that's also not great. So finding the balance here is really, really important. Finding the balance between people that can

really think strategically and can execute is really, really important. And if it's off, you're going to notice that you're going to notice things are moving slower. You might have really great strategy, but it's not actually able to be executed and implemented. Or you might feel like there's a lot of things being done, but you know, things aren't moving the needle because there's not enough strategy behind them. So you really want to think about getting that ratio right. And it's different for every single business. I just realized for us, it wasn't in the right place. So another thing I learned, which is coming back to what I was talking about earlier on, is the need to prioritize your people.

And I knew this, but I know this now, if that makes sense. So during those three months off, we lost one of our longest standing team members and this hurts so much knowing it was a work-life harmony situation as she is a mum. She's back with us now, thank goodness, and I took her feedback really seriously about how we could make Boss Babe an even better place to work. It also unfortunately took me experiencing postpartum myself to realize we need to take better care of women during that time. And we need to make sure we're always putting people above profit. One thing that we've done at Boss Babe is extended our paid maternity leave from 12 to 16 weeks, which by the way, if you're listening to this outside of America, you might think that is absolutely terrible, but I'm telling you in the US, things are different and it's crazy.

And this number still feels way too short, but I'm really holding the vision that we can continue extending this as our company grows. We're also now, like I've mentioned, experimenting with a four-day work week. We've added stricter work-life harmony boundaries, and we take the mental and physical health of our team really seriously. And I'm not saying that we didn't before this I'm not saying that at all I'm just saying it was a realization that we can do better and I think we always can as leaders as entrepreneurs and I don't feel ashamed talking about this because I think it's normal I think it's really normal it happens to so many businesses small or large and I think just talking normal. I think it's really normal. It happens to so many businesses, small or large. And I think just talking about it kind of takes the stigma away from,

oh my goodness, what does it mean about me as a person? It's not about me. It's about how am I leveling up my leadership and how is the business leveling up as a result? So that was really hard to go through. And it's something that I'm glad we did go through so we could realize, you know what, we need to be always prioritizing our people and we need to make sure that this is an incredible place to work. And I'm so grateful when I look around our team at the tenure of our people, how long they have been with us. You know, we don't have any newbies on the team. We have people that have been with us for a really, really long time. And that is something that I'm really, really proud of. And that is something that I'm really,

really proud of. And I want to continue. It's so important to me. And then last but not least, one thing I talked about in the newsletter, which is really important to bring up here is the freedom fallacy. I thought I had freedom until I truly needed it. So while I did have the financial and location freedom, I was still very much at the mercy of this crazy schedule, way too intense goals and pressure from other stakeholders. And it didn't work for me and it doesn't work for me. So I set out to do things differently. I set out to build my business differently and it has taken almost a year now, but I'm really proud to say that I've got the freedom now that I've been looking for over the past few years. So it feels like all of this needed to happen.

All of this was meant to happen. It had to happen. When we are entrepreneurs, we're really just flying by the seat of our pants and figuring it out as we go along. And the more that we can learn from others who've been then done that, I think the better. So my hope in sharing this is that you get to do that too.

But you know, I'm even more conscious now. I'm constantly reading books from founders that I look up to, listening to podcasts from them, getting coaching from them, taking their courses. I'm always trying to level up professionally. And then personally, I'm always doing the work because I want to make sure I keep pushing my edges and I keep leaning into what might feel uncomfortable. Through all of this, you know, I realized if I wanted to take my business to the next level, I had to first lead myself into my next level. My growth personally would reflect professionally. So I took full accountability. Like I said, none of this is anyone's fault, but my own. I stopped shying away from really tough decisions and conversations,

which is interesting as an Enneagram 8, I kind of always thought that I faced conflict head on, but I didn't if I thought it would upset someone or hurt someone's feelings. I was always very comfortable speaking my mind, but not if I thought that it might upset someone. Whereas what I realize now is if this is my truth and I'm saying it in a respectful, conscious way, if I don't say it just because I think they might get upset, I'm robbing them of the chance to actually do their own work on it. And I'm not respecting myself. So trying to respect someone else, firstly, I'm not respecting them, but it means disrespecting myself. I also set out to do things differently in the business, even though it was really terrifying and we were just, you know,

going to try something new. And I've been really willing to sacrifice short-term wins for long-term gains, which I'm really proud of how that's paid off. And a lot of people say, how have you turned things around so fast? Even though a year might not sound that fast is because I haven't sacrificed. And I think that's really important.

So my three months off was a huge gift in so many ways. I'm really grateful to my entire team for being willing to grant me that time and hold it down. And I'm really grateful that I not just got the opportunity to spend so much quality time with my daughter, but also to learn so many lessons about myself and my business. It was so, so powerful. So even if you've thought about taking a full week off the grid, maybe doing that would allow you to zoom out and look at your business from a completely different perspective

and see what you can see and do differently. You never know what it could change for you. And I really, really hope that this episode will inspire you to avoid some of the mistakes that I've made. you