Episode 72. 3 Years in Business: Lessons, What Worked, and What’s Next (Part 1)

When this episode is published, it will be a few days since the third birthday of the business, which is on March 6. The way I decided on the birthdate of the business is when I launched my paid offer for the first time in the world, which was back on March 6, 2019. And wow, three years later, I have so much to share!

We’ll discuss some of the major lessons and takeaways I learned after being in the business for three years.

This episode will be in two parts. In this episode, Episode 72, we’ll start with my journey to six-figures and then take a deeper look at the skillsets and mindsets that helped me get my business to a place where we’re now scaling to multiple six figures.

Then in Episode 73: 3 Years in Business: Lessons, What Worked, and What’s Next (Part 2), we’ll discuss the three areas I will focus on to get to the next level.

In This Episode:

My journey to six-figures
What got us to where we are today and lessons learned
Building your belief and confidence in your own thought leadership
I’m so grateful that you’re part of our podcast community!

My journey to six-figures

I want to reference a few previous podcast episodes that already went in depth about the earlier parts of my business journey and we’ve talked all about the lessons and the mistakes, the highs and the lows, of my business and how I got to where I am today, as an entrepreneur.

If you have not yet checked out those earlier episodes, here’s a list of episodes to check out after this one:

Episode 12: How I Made 10K in Sales in 21 Days – Released back in December 2020 where I shared how I made 10k USD in the shortest amount of time I’ve ever created five figures.

Episode 16: My Biggest Business Regret (Don’t Do This Mistake) – My business burnout between August 2019 and March 2020, when I cold turkey stopped my entire business and had to take care of my wellbeing and personal life first.

Episode 20: My Business Journey: From Zero to 5k-10k Months – A really honest and detailed overview of my business journey up until February 2021, when I released this episode. This episode broke down what I considered to be the five distinct phases of my business up until that point, and all the lessons I learned from each phase of my business journey.

Episode 47: 100k – My honest thoughts – Documenting my lessons and takeaways from how we created and crossed over our first 100k USD in the business

Episode 65: 2021 Recap: $100k+ as a Side Hustler – Solely focused on lessons and takeaways from 2021 alone.

Episode 69: Lessons from My First 2 Months of Being Full Time in My Business – Specifically touches on December 2021, January 2022, and a tiny bit of February 2022.

So these six episodes, combined with this one that you’re currently listening to, will hopefully be able to paint a deeper picture of my first three years in my business.

What got us to where we are today and lessons learned

Let’s dive into what I believe are the three major contributors to where I am today in life and in business, three years since starting the business.

These are things that I think have played a profound role in helping my business cross its first six figures and soon crossing the 200k USD mark. They have really changed me as a person.

These are literal identity shifts, not just business or mindset strategies.

So I really hope you too can find value from these takeaways that we’re about to talk about.

1) Learning to manage my thoughts, emotions and energy

The first skill that I truly believe helped me get my business to where it is today is learning to manage my thoughts, emotions and energy.

Specifically, I work really, really hard on two things:

1) Building the daily and/or weekly habits that constantly help to ground me back into the mindsets and state of energy that help be stay committed to why I do what I do, and

2) Being able to skilfully bounce back and ground back to why I do what I do, whenever things externally or internally are triggering responses from me, whether it’s feelings of anxiety, doubt, fear, shame, etc.

I think it’s relevant for me to share why and how I started really looking into how my thoughts and emotions can play a role in business.

If you are familiar with the earlier parts of my business, you might know that it really wasn’t until December 2020 when my business started seeing “consistent” results. It has been almost 18 months since I launched my business. It was around August or September 2020 when I felt like I had nothing to lose. I really, really felt like I had nothing to lose .

Back in early Q4 2020, I went through a “drought” in my business where I didn’t sign any new clients. At the same time, my identity as an entrepreneur was really shaky because I had just started my PhD. In my mind, I was having a lot of doubts about whether I can really do this business, even on the side. Can I really build a business on top of my career as a PhD student?

But a tiny flame in me really deeply believed that I’ve got nothing to lose, even if I wasn’t hitting any of my business goals at that time. Simultaneously, I knew that if I do start to lose faith and stop showing up in my best energy and stop giving value, that’s what people will see.

There was a shift in me around this time, when I decided to always be committed no matter what my business results were. I wanted to always give my best to my audience through my content, even if I didn’t sign clients. I really, really wanted to be known as someone who continues to show up simply because I want to give value, no matter what my success metrics were saying to me.

From that realization onwards, I wanted to be known for my energy and commitment. So, between September and November 2020, even though I didn’t sign any new clients during those three months, I showed up.

I kept creating amazingness via my content. And guess what? In December 2020, a 10k USD month. In January 2021, another 10k USD month.

Since then my business has been doing better than what I could have ever imagined when I first started in March 2019.

This internal shift was one of the core pieces of evidence which showed to me that my thoughts matter. The stories I was telling myself, matters. The decisions I made, matters. Whether to give up or not, matters.

Everything going on inside my mind, that determined the quality of the work I put out, and influenced how much I was able to help others. When we create value and help others, the right people will take us up on that offer and as a result, we are able to make both an impact and income.

Not signing clients, having an unmanaged mind and unmanaged emotions, was not fun at all. But I also knew that even if I was not signing clients, the least I could do for myself was have a managed mind and manage my emotions. That was the least I could do for myself as a human being, let alone a coach or entrepreneur, right?

I realized from then on, I could either have no business “results” and feel miserable because I would wallow in how I have no clients, be angry at my situation, feel jealous over other coaches posting about their clients, and so on…

OR I could have no business results, but feel at ease. Feel committed, grounded, creative, grateful and so on. It was a choice. And looking back, I’m proud of the choice I made.

Since then, I’ve been really intentional with a few different practices.

First, it’s building up the muscle of self awareness. Specifically, being aware of my thoughts and being able to discern which thoughts are simply not helpful at all, which ones stem from how I’ve been conditioned, and so on. And then self coaching from there.

Secondly, doing self coaching very, very regularly, whether it’s a 15 minute morning session almost every day, or a deeper 30 to 45 min session on a weekly basis.

Finally, I get my brain coached by a coach who I trust and understands how to work with me and my brain, and we operate from the same values.

These three practices have been a huge influence over not just my business, but also my life and wellbeing as a whole.

2) Taking responsibility over the results in both my business and life

Taking responsibility over my business results, or any result in my life for that matter has seriously changed everything for me.

Here’s how this first came to light for me. I realized this around the same time as learning to manage my thoughts, emotions and energy.

It was not a strategy that was responsible for my results in my business. It was not my audience who was responsible for my results.

It was not because another coach was taking clients away from me that was responsible for my current supposed lack of results.

It was not because I was a full time PhD student with other life things happening, which was responsible for my lack of results. I was responsible for my results.

Specifically, I am responsible for whether I develop the skill sets or mindsets that will help me get results.

I was responsible for how I regulate my emotions, energy and wellbeing, that would help me get results.

Simply putting a free webinar funnel with a 10-part email nurture sequence wasn’t going to change everything and help me get results. Being on multiple platforms wasn’t going to miraculously give me ten new clients every month.

The reason I say this is because when we’re either 1) solely focused on the doing, the taking action, the hustling and/or 2) blaming the circumstances or situation for why we aren’t getting results, we aren’t doing the work of first internally examining what is our thought patterns that are literally sabotaging our entire business.

1) What is the thought pattern that is leading us to say “Oh, it’s because of that coach. They have more followers than me, they have been doing it longer than me, they are more popular or better looking than me. And that’s why they’re taking all the clients and that’s why I don’t have any clients.”?

But where are you spending the time to question these thoughts or beliefs? Where are you looking at where you’re not fully showing up as the most unedited, unfiltered, and multifaceted version of yourself?

Where are you constantly second guessing your sentences and therefore masking the purest of pure intentions of your message, affecting the impact and potency of your content or how you show up?

That’s why clients are gravitating towards the coaches who are showing up as the most honest and genuine version of themselves.

2) What are the thought patterns that’s leading us to convince ourselves that because the other coaches are full time in their business and you’re still in your 9-5 or graduate school or you have a lot of family situations to attend to, that’s why they’re able to make their business work but you can’t.

But where are you spending the time to question these thoughts or beliefs? Where are you looking at where you’re spending time trying to do more things and fill up your Google Calendar because that’s supposed to mean you’re working on your business on top of your already very busy schedule.

Versus actually thinking of new ways, whether it is via your free content or how you help your clients, or how you can help people get better results and/or faster results.

Where are you just trying to create a few more myth busting Instagram posts or analyzing your social media analytics, versus actually thinking deeply about creating fewer, but way more impactful and potent, pieces of content?

Where are you focusing on frequency or quantity, such as “How many hours you need to spend doing something”, versus focusing on quality, such as “How can one single piece of content change someone’s entire life?”

3) How about the thought of, “This just isn’t working. I’ve been posting on Instagram for months but no one has DMed me at all about my program. I’ve not signed a client and it’s already been 6 months since I started this Instagram account. Everyone else online is already signing clients and are able to make it work, but not me. I want to quit.”

But where are you spending the time to question these thoughts or beliefs? Where are you looking at these uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that you’re experiencing right now regarding your business progress?

What if they’re actually a normal and expected part of the journey? What if right now, as you’re feeling hopeless and feeling like a failure, what if this is the challenge you’re supposed to overcome?

Rather than just giving up on the business, what if the current goal is simply to keep fine tuning something that’s on the brink of success, rather than just feeling sorry for yourself?

What if this is the actual work that you’re supposed to work on internally, and only then will you be able to start seeing the surface, external level results?

4) What about the thought of “only a few of my clients are getting results, but it’s because they’re not ideal clients anyway. They are not doing the work anyway. So this means I need more ideal clients.”

But where are you spending the time to question these thoughts or beliefs? Where are you looking at the fact that your client is simply being a client?

What if it’s actually your responsibility as the coach to understand why the client is finding it difficult doing the work or action items we set for them, instead of just saying “Ugh, that’s just how this client is. They aren’t an ideal client.”

Maybe we could look at where we can coach more on the client’s thoughts, worries or fears about the action items or whether they believe that they are capable of creating results.

Maybe we can look at explaining the action items from a different angle. Maybe we can modify the intensity of the action plan and more.

Because the thing is, if we don’t regulate our minds, emotions and energy first, then everything will be sloppy work. It’s not our best work. It’s not reflective of the quality of our thought processes, our methods, our creativity, our thought leadership, and the value we bring to the table.

By being able to break out of the thinking patterns or beliefs that usually end up creating physical stress cycles in my body that physically, mentally, and emotionally drain me, I need to start at the cognitive level and look at what I’m thinking and how I’m evaluating the situation in front of me.

Only then can I create the solution towards the situation and only then will I be problem solving creatively and effectively.

Overall, when it comes to taking responsibility for my results or lack of results, I’ve realized that whenever I’m triggered by something, it does not help me, my business, or my clients or audience when I just blame the trigger and/or just try to remove the trigger.

Because what if the trigger comes up again? Am I going to divert responsibility again every time it shows up in my business or life?

If anything, whenever I notice myself feeling triggered or having some sort of emotional response, it usually suggests that there could be something in me that doesn’t believe certain results are possible. Or that I’m not good enough. Or [insert another limiting belief here].

Because if I simply say that it’s because I’m a side hustler, that’s why that other coach has a more profitable business than me.

Or maybe, if I say that it’s because that person is better looking than me or that other coach has an underdog story, where they overcame much more difficult circumstances than I did, and that’s why they are able to create such a compelling brand and business… How is thinking any of those thoughts even helpful, right?

Going back to the feeling of being triggered. If we can work on healing ourselves and breaking free from these patterns of being triggered by other people or by certain circumstances or by specific limiting beliefs, would that not be amazing?

If you can see other people having a bad ass business and that no longer triggers you, how freeing would that be?

How can that change the way you show up in your own life and business if you’re able to first take responsibility over managing your own thoughts and emotions, and then take action from that headspace or energy?

I know that if I’m committed to the long term impact and results of my business, I have to be really, really intentional about not letting the short term thought spirals, limiting beliefs or the urge to cave into immediate gratification like expecting clients instantly when I haven’t even done the inner work that will set the foundation for the external strategies and action taking.

If I am committed to the long term bigger results, I know I will start taking bigger responsibility now, in the short term.

If I want to create amazing results, I need to take amazing levels of responsibility over myself and what I think and what I do, even when things don’t feel easy or smooth sailing. Even when I’m tempted to just throw in the towel and quit.

Even when I don’t get DMs or applications to my programs and not making money. I will always take responsibility over my results.

And that decision to take full responsibility changed everything for me.

3) The unwavering commitment to help people through my free content

There are two things I want to say in regards to helping people for free. I’ve observed this in the coaching space, and more specifically, when it comes to how coaches show up online.

The first thing is showing up to create amazingness and to market only because I want to make money. It’s like being someone who will only reach out to you when they need or want to ask you for a favor.

I’ll take it a step further. It’s like that person on Tinder who only messages you when they want to hook up.

We’re choosing not to be helpful to others because we are feeling shitty about our business or social media engagement or analytics, but we might make an exception if we know someone is going to become a client for sure. Then we wonder why no one wants to work with us.

One thought that has really helped me actually ground into my desire to help people for free through my free content is this: I just want to help people.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes to get my business to work, as long as I continue to do something that is helpful to others. If this means I will work a 9-5 for a few years before my business is sustainable on its own, I’m okay with that.

If that means I can take this time to explore other career paths or streams of income, such as doing a PhD, to both strengthen my repertoire of skill sets and explore new passions, and also to take the pressure off of my business so that I can focus on doing the bare minimum in my business but do each thing really, really well. Then fantastic! I’m okay with that!

I’m not saying that results in your business will take a long time. Because it can happen really quickly.

But why put the expectation on your business? Why put that pressure on yourself? Is that helpful to your wellbeing to expect results in a specific timeline?

The way I see it is that I’m going to work on the mindsets and skill sets every day that will help me compress my timeline to results. I trust that results can happen really fast and I’m going to stay committed for as long as it takes.

In order to really ground myself into the unwavering commitment to help people for free, I had to release pressure and expectations first, and then I can focus on creating amazingness for others.

That ended up creating results in my business and life that blew my own mind.

Building your belief and confidence in your own thought leadership

Now, one thing I hear a lot is “But Cheryl, you talk so much about thought leadership. But I don’t know how to be seen as a thought leader and that’s why I’m not signing clients. How am I going to be able to help people in the first place if I don’t even know how to do this thought leadership thing, let alone sign clients?”

When I thought about this question or some variation of this question, here’s what I concluded: Thought leadership is commanded and embodied and it stems from your honest belief in what you’re leading and standing up for. Not something you have to spend years to prove or earn or have your audience approve and say, “Oh yes, Cheryl is a thought leader in the space.”

The more I tried to ask my followers what they think they want to see from my content. The more I tried to ask my ideal clients what they would like help with or what they’re struggling with. The more I tried to ask other peers or my mentors on their thoughts on my marketing and messaging.

All this is doing is fueling my already low belief and low self confidence in what I’m doing.

On top of that, this has a flavor of people pleasing because it perpetuates the belief that we need our audience or mentor or colleagues to validate the value of our content or the value of our program/offer.

It also perpetuates the idea that our business results can only happen when we get approval from others or once we’ve proved something to others.

Rather than us showing up to lead the way, no matter what. Rather than us actually embodying the characteristics of a thought leader in our space. Rather than staying committed to the messages and words and stories we want to share, even if no one else seems to “get it” right now.

Once I truly understood that thought leadership is something that first stems from my decision to be a thought leader and thinking the beliefs and thoughts that a thought leader will think, making decisions that a thought leader will make, and hence taking actions that a thought leader would take, that’s when my identity started to shift.

I started not only to see that I , too, am fully capable of being a leader in my niche, and that resulted in me creating content that reflects this shift in identity.

I also started to command the attention of my audience and community at large. I started being seen as a thought leader.

I became a leader in my space and continue to be recognized for my thoughts. At the same time, I also had to constantly ground back to the belief that thought leaders, or just leaders in general, are willing to pave the way for others. They trailblaze for others.

That means, a lot of times, people don’t understand what they’re doing or talking about. People don’t shower them with compliments and tell them, “WOW! That’s amazing, keep going.”

Oftentimes, it’s dead silent, meaning, no Instagram engagement, No DMs, no clients. Leaders are willing to lead the way even if there’s literally no external validation, and they are committed to leading the way for as long as it takes.

So how does this tie back into wanting to help people even for free?

I saw an interesting correlation when my belief in my capacity to be a thought leader increased, my desire to keep creating amaizngness and value for free also increased and, not so coincidentally, my bank account also increased.

Meaning: When I stopped telling myself “Oh Cheryl, no one cares about your content. You’re just another business coach on Instagram. Your content is whatever. It doesn’t really help people – how much can you really help someone in a single Instagram carousel post or in a 30-minute podcast episode? Who do you think you are?”

I stopped telling myself all that bullshit and started working on the belief that I do have my own version of thought leadership that is of value to others. I worked a lot on my belief that I am a thought leader.

All of this was what helped me stop dwelling and playing around in my own bullshit, and started creating from the energy of, “Let me try to help someone with this set of Instagram stories.” or “Let me change someone’s perspective in this podcast episode.”.

It fueled my commitment to want to help people for free. Even if I don’t get engagement or likes or views on my stuff. Even if I don’t get any form of external validation.

I worked so much on this belief first, and then I created from that intention and headspace and energy. That resulted in free content that actually gave people something to think about.

That actually had an impact on my audience. And as a result, it actually changed both my business and my self concept of what I’m capable of. This changed everything.

I’m so grateful that you’re part of our podcast community!

To summarize the conversation, the three major shifts that helped me get my business to a place where we’re now scaling to multiple six figures were:

Learning to manage my thoughts, emotions and energy and being able to master the skill of quickly ground back to my baseline whenever something internally or externally is shaky.

Taking responsibility over my business results or lack of results for that matter. Always being able to question myself: Is it really true that it’s because of XYZ that I’m not getting results? Or is it because of something I have full control over, such as my thoughts and assumptions and beliefs about the situation that’s holding me back from effectively problem solving here?

The unwavering commitment to want to help people for free, through my free content. First, releasing the pressure and expectations, and then focus on creating amazingness for others. Second, working on my belief that I am a thought leader, and leaders in general are committed to helping people even if it’s for free, even if there’s no external validation, even if no one is liking their stuff or commenting on how amazing their stuff is.

This is a wonderful spot for us to start concluding this episode, and we will continue the rest of the conversation in the next one. For now, I just want to express how grateful I am.

Thank you so much to each of you listening to this. Thank you for being a part of our podcast community and thank you for supporting the show. I don’t take your listening for granted. Thank you.

To any of my clients listening to this, thank you also for trusting in our work and coaching together. I know that most of our clients are actually listening to the show, so I hope my clients are able to hear this message.

Thank you so much for your commitment to doing not just the front-facing work like content and making offers and sharing your amazing work with others, but also the inner, behind the scenes work, that is often, the much harder work.

To my clients, I want you to know that I never take your trust in me and our coaching for granted. I don’t take your commitment to yourself, your business, your goals, your vision for the world, and your desire to be of service to the world, lightly. Thank you.

Alright, that was really sappy and I’m probably gonna be an emotional puddle for real if I keep talking, so I’m going to hit stop on the record button and I’ll see u in the next one for part two of this conversation.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.