Five Things I Learned in 2020

12/10/20 • 21 min

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Today I thought it would be fun to talk about 2020, what a year, right? Like what the? It is hard to even understand how a year ago we were all dying to get out of 2019 out of that decade. We were all so excited to just turn over a new year. I am willing to bet that if you are the journaling type, you have entries about how you couldn't wait to get out of 2019. I have those, I was even a part of group chats where the title of the group chat was 2020 will be our best year.

Needless to say, there was a lot riding on 2020, and it kind of seems like homegirl buckled under the pressure a little bit. I don't think I need to really rehash everything that has happened. And of course, I wouldn't be encompassing everything, even if I tried, but it's safe to say that this year we'll be in history books. While 2020 seems to be bringing blow after blow, it's manifested for all of us in a different way. I know it unfolded way differently for me than I could have ever imagined. And even though things have been frustrating about this year, there are things that have been good.

Yes. I said it. You have to look for the good sometimes and I do believe it's there. In the spirit of honesty and transparency with my listeners, I want to make sure that I talked about the things that I've learned this year. This has been a big growing year for me. I'm honestly not sure what the year would have looked like if it hadn't turned out this way, I will always wonder if I would've had the same opportunities for growth in 2020. If it hadn't been the strange year that it is. But since we'll never know, I want to share with you some of the things that I've learned in the hopes that you will resonate with them yourself and sort of figure out how to move forward with these lessons. Or maybe it's just things that you need to hear. So I'm going to mostly talk about business, but there are definitely some things about being a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend that I also want to share.

The first thing that I learned after living through this year is that you can, and you need to be creative enough to pivot in your business. If you are a business that was hit by the shutdown, then you know that the word pivoting is probably the word of 2020, right? You've heard it several times. Or if you're working in a nine to five, you probably spent some time working from home this year. You've maybe taken this time to realize that your business, your side hustle business can really grow. Maybe your business dreams have grown themselves. You want to rely on that more. While it feels like 2020 and the things that have changed, it was forced upon us. I want you to realize that we were always meant to pivot in business in life. We are always meant to learn and grow and try new things. We're meant to niche down, niche out. We're meant to try new opportunities. We're meant to explore new possibilities. So while of course, you could have lived without it being forced upon you. Like, thanks, but no thanks. And you might not have felt as ready as you needed to be. If you were in the middle of a pivot, I hope that you're starting to see the other side. And I hope you give yourself permission moving forward to always know that you can pivot that you can.

My business has pivoted a lot. This year. I've worked with a lot of clients who are also pivoting. They're pivoting out of a certain industry for, for many reasons, or they're moving their lives from one state to another across the country. And they're taking everything that has happened in 2020 as a sign. Life is not long enough to wait. It's not the time to wait and see what happens. It's not the time to wait and let the economy or the election or whatever it is, influence your decision, which is going to lead me to my second lesson learned that you were always in control of the things that matter. Now, if 2020 has taught me anything, I don't know about you. It is that we are not in control of a lot. Like there's a lot. We can't control which for a mother, who's a business owner. That's a hard blow, right? We want to be able to control lots of stuff.

And we know that we are not in control of a whole lot, but that there is actually a lot we can control. And I think that there have been times where we sort of take that for granted, or we don't realize that we do have control over certain things. For example, many of us wait for the new year to start over. We think that just because it's a good time to start something. And I think a lot of us got hurt by the fact that we may have waited until 2020 to start something new, only to see it not be able to thrive in this new environment. The thing is you always had the power to start where whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, because the fact that clients do or don't sign with you, or the fact that you're showing up and providing value, that's all in your control.

You have control over whom you spend your time with. You h...

You have control over whom you spend your time with. You h...

Previous Episode

Creating Compelling Content through Vulnerability

Today I wanted to talk about creating compelling content through being vulnerable. It can feel awkward to figure out exactly what and how to share on social media. If we share too much, then ooh, that's like TMI. It makes us feel icky. And if we don't share enough, then we risk losing authenticity. It's really hard to find that balance if we share, and doctor it up a little. But everybody has done it. So don't roll your eyes. You've done it. We've all done it. Then we look really inauthentic if we do that, right? This is where attraction marketing has taken sort of had that bad turn. Think about those perfect newsfeed pictures. Their hair is perfect. Their makeup is perfect. They're so happy. And the reason they're happy is because of what's in their cup and they're holding up this amazing, beautiful cup. But the thing is, they're holding it in such a way that the logo that's obviously on that cup is covered and their caption is something like how they were able to go for a blowout because of this company and message me if you want the company name. This is why that doesn't work. Number one, it's sleazy, which is obviously a synonym for being inauthentic, right? The second thing is it's not vulnerable. It puts you in a position of power versus a position of leadership. And the third thing is it's not actually giving any real results, like, I can go get a blowout. That's great. I mean, that's a short-term result I suppose, but can I quit my nine to five? Can I spend more time with my kids? Because that just kind of feels like when would I fit in a blowout, but that doesn’t mean I feel like I see my kids enough or I feel tired all the time or I don't feel I'm making enough money as it is. Being vulnerable means sharing stories. And I say stories because stories are what people resonate with. Stories are what we, as humans are wired to understand. The cavemen told stories, right? That was their entertainment. There was storytelling on the radio, now we have tv and movies that keep us entertained with stories. That's what they make their money based on the fact that we are wired to learn, understand, listen to stories. The story in this case would put you in a compromising position, a position you might not be totally proud of a position that you were in at some point. Then the catch is how you tell your story to make sure people realize you've had a transformation. So right now we're just going to talk about the point of being vulnerable. Like why it's important to be vulnerable. It gets you remembered and it gets you to stand out as a storyteller. For example, sometimes you can tell a story of something that happened to you and you can connect it to something that you've learned that your audience needs to learn. So one example I can give you from a piece of content that I wrote quite a while ago, but it's still very powerful was from when I was pregnant. I was a little bit overweight when I was pregnant. So obviously I was also gaining weight while as I was going through my pregnancy. I used to work in a high school and I was eating a cookie. It was like 10 o'clock in the morning. And all the moms out there, you can feel me on this, that cookies at 10 o'clock in the morning when we're pregnant is ok and it's just what we do sometimes. I worked in a high school, so 10 o'clock in the morning was like lunchtime, so one of the teachers called me up to her room because she needed some help with something. I go up to her room and I'm chomping away on this cookie. I am living my best life. I'm in my second trimester. I'm starting to show, everyone knows, and I am eating a cookie. This is the best thing that has ever happened. The day can only get better from here. Right? This teacher I’m going to help says something to me like, aren't you afraid of gestational diabetes? And I said, what? And she was like, well, I wasn't overweight, but I had gestational diabetes with my two. She sort of shamed me for eating a cookie. I had a terrible day, the rest of the day. And I decided that any decision I ever made was bad. And I hid in my office for the rest of the day until I realized that it's obviously a reflection on her and not on me. And when I told the story, I waited until I was over it. When I told the story, I connected it to making sure that we're not bullying people for what they're doing in their business. That we are leading with kindness. And we're not bullying them into working with us, not bullying them into being our friends or into convincing them that what we have is what they need. It was a really helpful story that really helped make my point. I was vulnerable because I was telling a story about a time that I got shamed. It was really compelling in the sense that I was able to connect it to something that I know my ideal client struggles with. So that's just an example. If you have a pen and paper, and if you're able, please write this down, because I think it will be really important to ask yours...

Next Episode

When Your Partner Doesn't Support Your Business Dreams

Today we are going to talk about something that happens a lot unfortunately and it might even be happening to you right now. I hope that this is helpful and gives you some of the support that you need, and it is that your partner or your husband might not support your dreams to run your own online business. This might come up in a variety of ways. Let's say, when you ask him to watch the kids, so you can have some time to work, or when you're going to invest in growing your business when you need to make a decision about where your business is heading, or if you just want to talk something out, share something new you've learned, or a new connection that you've made. I want to talk about this today because I see it happening with so many women. And I see some dreams getting cast to the side or a growing frustration of being able to only do some things in your business, but not being able to go full out. It can be discouraging. It can be debilitating in a lot of ways. It can debilitate how you show up for your business on a regular basis. It can affect your time management or just your marketing strategy in general. Or if you have clients that can affect your relationship with your clients. The good news is there are ways to deal with us. I want to sort of give you a roadmap for how to navigate these waters. Now I am no marriage counselor. In fact, I'm very honest and open with my audience about my husband who is super supportive, but has also, at times, especially in the beginning of my business journey, been a little more than questioning and had his own doubts that he made very clear. Your roadmap starts at figuring out the kind of lack of support you're feeling from your partner. There are two kinds of lack of support. The first one is aggressive and the second one is passive. Let's talk about aggressive for a second. Aggressive can look like being vocal about how “this is never going to work” or pushing away conversations. There might even be some arguing, fighting and yelling. If there's aggressive behavior, don't talk about it. And the reason here is that if there is aggressive behavior towards your business, you are going to expend your energy, trying to persuade or fight, and that's not good for your mental health, let alone your business. We don't need to use that energy on that. We need to focus our energy on our business. It's not going to happen by talking, fighting, struggling. Nothing's going to change. My suggestion is to let it be. Now, I say, nothing's going to change. And that sounds a little negative. But what I mean is nothing's going to change by talking and fighting and struggling. There are ways to work around this without having to expend your energy on those things that I know for a fact, don't work. In the meantime, you can focus your energy on your business, even if you don't have a lot of time. I can probably do an entire episode on how to grow your business in very little time, but that's not for today. The thing is support from anyone in your life can waiver, but your business can't afford for that to waiver. You have to be the one to say, remember, you're in control. You have to be the one to say, I'm supporting my business. I trust in myself, I'm driving the car here. And regardless of who and what kind of support is going to come and go while I'm on my journey, I'm still driving the car. The second kind of lack of support is the passive kind. Now, this could look like you kind of talking about your business, but your partner is either not really interested or just doesn't seem to really get it. And really isn't working harder to understand, but maybe they are, but it's kind of a struggle. They go in and out, right? Basically, they aren't actively against you, but their actions have also made you kind of feel like they don't really believe or support. Now the next step here is the same step as the one before to talk about it less because your energy is going into trying to convince someone. We never ever want to convince someone, whether it's a potential client or somebody in our life, that's supporting us. Instead, now this is where the two different roads meet. You will always take the next step of taking action. You'll work. When you can on your income-producing activities, you'll stay consistent. You'll give it time and then you'll get results. Now, when we get those results, those are going to be the next step you need. So you can go to your partner and say, you know, this is where I'm at right now. And I'm going to need more help. This is going to work better for the partners who are more passive than aggressive. But what you can say is I've looked at a few clients' money's coming in and we're gaining momentum over here. Now ask for what you need. This can look like anything. This can look like childcare. This can look like just getting more time to work on your business, or it can look like something that he can participate in or something that he can provide s...