Episode Summary

Jenna unpacks her entrepreneurial cheat sheet and identifies tips to help you fast-track your way to success.

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Show Notes

To celebrate my 50th birthday, I am sharing my best foundational advice for female entrepreneurs. Regardless of where you are in your business development, these tips serve as timeless reminders that will enhance your ability to thrive.

As a coach, it’s my job to help clients. Personally, it took me far too long to seek help in the pursuit of my dreams. Don't make the same mistakes that I did. Seek advice, act boldly, and take in this cheat sheet so you can lessen the entrepreneurial learning curve.

Listen in to discover 10 tips I wish I had known as an early business leader and entrepreneur between the ages of 20-34. Learn the foundational skills and life elements that empower successful business leaders to achieve their goals and purposefully design their lives. Tune in today to begin unlocking your true potential.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• Ten tips for success in business (and life).

• How to be a disruptor.

• Why your brain is designed to keep you safe.

• How to discover your truth.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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• Human Design

• Stephen Covey

• Stacey Boehman

Full Episode Transcript:

You want a cheat sheet? Of course, you do. Why recreate the wheel? That's a complete waste of your precious time and energy. And you, my friend, have big things to do. So, in this episode, I'd love to help you move along the learning curve faster than I did, and hopefully smooth out some of the bumps that I, myself, experienced.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hey, and welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I have a really big milestone to celebrate with you all. I am now 50 years young. Ben took me to my old stomping grounds of New York City and we did it up. He was like, “This is all about you. What do you want to do?” My answer was not have an agenda or anything that we have to do, except eat well.

And specifically, eat foods that we can't get here in rural Pennsylvania. Like, good sushi and farm-to-table. Which is ironic because we're in the middle of farmland here. And yet, all the restaurants are Applebee's and Chick-Fil-A's. It's very odd.

So anyway, we would just mosey around all day. We sat in Bryant Park. We'd have a refreshment, do some people watching. I did some shopping. We slept in. It was so, so fun. And while I was there, I was reflecting on what makes this birthday so different than last year's. Because to be honest, last year, I was all, “Oh, boohoo! The last year of my 40s, I'm so sad.”

And I remember when friends of mine, when they would hit a big milestone birthday ahead of me, they'd throw a big celebration and pretend to be all happy. That's what I thought, right? Because I was thinking, “Yeah, yeah, but they're not really happy to be that old and losing their youth. It's just a show.”

But this year, for the first time since, probably 25, to be truthful, I feel totally differently. I feel a kind of thrill for the celebration of 49 amazing years that I've lived. And how lucky that is, and how wild and beautiful of a ride it has been.

Now, if you happen to have an interest in Human Design, there's something else going on too. I'm a Conscious sixth profile line, and what that means is that you spend the first part of your life in a lot of experimentation, potentially with some hard knocks involved. But you've just got to figure things out for yourself.

And then the second phase of your life, roughly 30 years old or 50 years old, you withdraw a bit, in observation, maybe introspection. As if you're up on a rooftop and you're witnessing humanity play out through the context of everything you've learned, that you learned in the first part of your life. And then finally, right at about age 50, you're ready to really come into your own, and come down from that rooftop and out into the world and share what you've learned in its full expression.

So of course, I love this framework. It's much healthier for me to think that I am stepping into this great new phase, rather than the clearly ageist concept that I grew up with, where a woman hits a glorious peak, and then it's all downhill, right? So, as I was thinking about this over that weekend, I got a little download that I could create some episodes with the advice that I would give to younger women.

That would symbolically kick off this new phase, and it would also celebrate those years, those past years. Because there was a moment where I was about to blow out my birthday candle on my birthday fruit; long story. We were at a sushi restaurant and they gave me birthday fruit, which I loved. It was so nice. And it's such a perfectly uncommon way of kicking off this phase, so it was perfect.

And in that moment, when I was going to blow out that candle, truly my eyes welled up with tears because I couldn't think of what to wish for. Well, I feel so, so good. And I want every woman to experience this. And so, if anything that I share helps any of you, the way I wish I'd had someone saying these things to me, then that is my deepest privilege and honor.

So, I started thinking through what I would actually say. And I realized that it would all make a lot more sense if I also gave you the context in which I formed those thoughts and those opinions. And realized maybe I should tell you a bit about my life. But then, I decided I'm going to make those separate episodes, so that these don't get too long. But that is coming.

Now, this advice that I'm about to give is for everyone, even if you're not in your 20s or early 30s. In an ideal world, you would have received it then. In an ideal world, I would have received it then. But you know what they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now. So, let's just say this is the foundational advice, even if you are 37 or 47.

And right before we begin, I just want to say to those of you who are in your 20s or early 30s, let's not minimize that. We hear everyone saying, “Oh, your 20s, it's glorious. You're so young and carefree.” But at least for me, and several of my clients, and several of my friends at the time, that was not the easiest decade.

It's a time of mood swings and existential crises and trying to figure things out. And a lot of pressure we put on ourselves, and all the ups and downs of dating and frustrations in the workplace. It's not for sissies, as my dad used to say. So, I want to honor all of you. All of you, my younger sisters, for the work you're doing now, and you are. To build for your future and be intentional about designing the life you want.

I hope at no point anything that I say here feels like I'm talking down to you, in any way. Okay, let's get down to those tips, shall we? I have about 10 of them for you, in no particular order. Just the way it came out of my heart and onto my notebook.

Number one would be watch how you speak, and train yourself to end with a question mark less frequently. Because asking, instead of stating, is very much related to our uncertainty and insecurity. Which makes a lot of sense, right? You're playing as an adult for the first time. Even 10 years in when you're 30, you're like, “Am I legit now?”

Ben and I still look at each other sometimes in amazement, and we're like, “We're grownups. We have a house and a son. What?” So, that's normal. But watching how we speak about it, watching how we speak, can be such an easy entry point for rewriting insecurity.

When I was an executive assistant to the chairman of the board for a large fashion company, my favorite thing to do, because I was transcribing; I was writing a lot of the emails. He would dictate emails, and I would write them. And I was fascinated just watching how he would respond and the type of words he would choose and how we would direct his voice. And the lack of “I think’s” and “maybe’s” and questions. And the lack of all the fluff and filler that helps us be more agreeable to people around us.

He really just didn't have it. He was very direct. Always polite, most of the time. But I was just fascinated about who is that person that speaks in that way? And why wasn't I speaking in that way? I started noticing that when we express our uncertainty through language, it not only affects how others perceive you, how others were perceiving me. And I know you want to be taken seriously.

But it also affects the patterning that's going on in your brain. So, right now just try saying, “I think we should try vanilla,” with a question mark. “I think we should try vanilla?” And try saying that while you stand tall and puff out your chest. Try it. It doesn't work, right? You reflexively hunch slightly and shrug your shoulders.

And now say, “We should try vanilla.” See? Your whole body changes. And just imagine what that adds up to, day in and day out. You start to purge the ‘who am I to do that? Who am I to say that?’ type of programming. You build the muscle of having an opinion, taking up space, and being willing to be wrong and take ownership of it.

And I understand that we get around groups of other people who are talking like that, and then we slip into that same intonation. But I recommend being a disrupter here. Be an example of what's possible. And all it takes, is you slowing down, taking a split-second pause to quickly adjust your intonation and word choice.

And this is also true for other verbal disqualifiers. Like saying, “I don't know,” or giggling or tilting your head coyly. And there's a time and a place for those, right? Maybe, I don't know, in the bedroom when you're acting out a Nabokov fantasy with your lover, right? Or maybe you're just having fun exaggerating it with some really good friends.

But in general, in real life, use those things sparingly. Because what they're really saying is, “Don't trust me. Don't trust me, because I don't trust myself. And so, I want you to take half the risk for this decision. Because I told you, I don't really know what I'm talking about. So, if you go with what I say, then you knew that going in.”

I've seen this with women in presentations or on sales calls, there's an energy of, ‘should I be charging this for my program? Is this really a great solution for you?’ And I just remember how many times I looked back on moments when I second guessed my opinions, or I let someone else steer the direction; maybe it was my dad or a coworker, or a friend or a boyfriend.

And in retrospect, I thought, “Damn, I was right. Why did I doubt myself?” Or worse, “Why did I pretend I didn't know the answer?” Which leads us to number two.

Number two, is assume you know your truth, and you have your best answers. And then test that decision-making process. So, breaking that down into the two parts: Number one, assume your truth is within. That clarity is within. This is not what I believed in my 20s by far. I so believed my brain's story that I really didn't know. I thought that maybe it was because I still had to go experience something or to wait longer or learn some more. But nope, your soul knows and has been trying to communicate what you're about for your whole life.

But I'm not just talking about big picture, the truth of my life kind of things. This philosophy is true for even mundane decisions. Assume you know your truth. Now, the truth might not be apparent to you in that moment. Because after all, you have a human brain. So, you might have patterning or conditioning or fears or conflicting desires that keep you from seeing the truth.

But just because you're not recognizing it, doesn't mean the truth isn't there. I'm going to say that again: Just because you're not recognizing it, doesn't mean the truth isn't there. And when you don't believe you have the answer, it's going to be really difficult to find it.

I had a client once that came to me for clarity, specifically. And this is something that she had been bouncing around in her head for years and years and years, in terms of what does she want to do for her career path. Which I could completely relate to. And she felt really nervous about signing on with me, because she hadn't been able to solve this. And it felt like such a leap of faith to think, “Can someone else help me with this?”

So, she decided to go forward with it. She paid me. And then, we got on her first call, and she said, “I got it. I know the answer. It came to me.” You had the laugh. I was like, “Well, you're welcome.” Because I hadn't done anything at all. But it was her commitment to the truth that allowed her brain to be like, “Alright, well, she's obviously going through with this, here's the answer.”

And so, there are strange things that our brains will do to kind of keep the truth from us, in order to keep us exactly where we are, which is the safety, and the comfort. And that's what our brains are designed to do. But that's just my example of how, and I've seen this over and over and over and over again, that so often we do have the truth within us.

And there's just like a tiny little veil, a little shadow that keeps us from seeing it. And when we can lift that, sometimes it's a commitment, like my client. Sometimes it's just a certain belief. Sometimes it's permission from someone around you. Sometimes there's some little thing that finally lets that thing release, and then you come to your answer.

And the most important thing to help facilitate that process is believing that you do. I actually have the answer. So, if you don't believe that this could be you, I've got something that I want you to try the next time you're feeling unsure or confused. I call it the grandmother question.

So, imagine that you are sitting with your granddaughter many, many decades into the future. You're telling her about this very point in time, this very moment in your life, and about the decisions, the fork in the road that you were facing, and you were trying to decide whether to do X or Y. Now, tell her why you chose what you did, and what you chose.

That usually helps illuminate your truth pretty quickly. Not to say you have to run out and do it immediately. You don't even have to do it, if you don't want to, at all. But at least you'll know, right? Then you can inform yourself, you can prepare, you can do what you need to do. But don't let your brain talk you out of that truth. Because the truth doesn't disappear. It just gets suppressed for a while.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. And suppressed truth never feels good for very long. It will keep reminding you that it's there. So, assume you know the truth. And then the second part, as you're making your decision, pay attention to your process. Pay attention to what's going on in your body.

Treat your decisions like a science experiment, where you observe what was going on. And then you evaluate the consequences and the results. That is going to give you so much information about your blind spots, and what works and what doesn't work about your decision-making process. About whether or not that really was your intuition speaking to you, for instance.

And you can go back to my episode on “Should I Say Yes, or Should I Say No” for more on that. But these things are so important. Decision making, learning to become a great decision maker, and the experimental attitude around decision making, are things that I didn't cultivate until much, much later. I either avoided the decisions and did a lot of spinning and overthinking. Or I'd make the decision, and then I would second guess that and beat myself up about it.

But powerful decision making and having your own back, are the prerequisites for developing the self-trust and the growth mindset that are essential for entrepreneurism. And they'll serve you so powerfully for the rest of your life. If I had been honing that skill in my 20s, rather than in my 40s, oh, my God, what I'd be doing now.

All right, number three. This is the third thing that popped into my head, and I'm going to say it: Let's talk about your biological clock. If you're like I was, you are not plunging headfirst into baby making. In my 20s, I wasn't sure I'd want a family. But I suspected that I might.

And so, here's my advice to all of you who are even considering having children. And some people know for sure they don't want to have children, and that is great. I actually envy you. Because I had such a drive, and it was such a painful process for me to conceive my son.

But for those who might, who kind of have that little glimmer that they may want to, then my advice is to freeze your eggs, sometime in your late 20s, is what my reproductive endocrinologist told me. And to be clear, I did not freeze my eggs. I didn't even know that was a possibility. But it's just such a fantastic insurance policy that gives you options later on.

And I recognize that it's expensive, but it's not as expensive as the years of IVF later. Or the hospital bills that might come with increased risk to you and the baby of having a child that's conceived with older egg and sperm. And it's certainly not as taxing on your mind or body as going through those things later.

And not to bring a lot of fear here, what I'm actually trying to do is just normalize the possibility. Because the process of harvesting eggs is really routine nowadays. So, you don't have to worry about going to the very, very best, most expensive RE, Reproductive Endocrinologist, that you can find, right?

You'll want to be more discerning when it's time to thaw the eggs and create embryos, if that is the route that you end up going at that time. Again, this is kind of like an insurance policy. And of course, I'm not a doctor. So, fact-check all of this information for yourself. There's almost certainly tons of new knowledge and technology that's come out since I was going through all this.

But what I know that would have given me, is it would have taken off so much pressure later. And what I see my friends going through as well, when they're like, “Okay, I should probably get serious about finding a partner who wants to start a family.” And then, maybe they settle, right? Or the grief of knowing you'll never have a biological child. It gives you freedom, if you're in a position to do it. Just my humble opinion.

Now obviously, if you think you'll adopt or foster, or if you know you'd be just fine using an egg donor in the future, because a child is a child as a child, then this doesn't apply to you. The group I'm really talking to here, are those women who just have this deep longing, that even if it's very quiet still, at this point in your life, it can feel like ‘I dream of seeing myself and my child. I want to know that experience in this lifetime.’

And something to mention here, if you do decide to freeze your eggs, just know that it's not a foolproof guarantee. And I'm sure your doctor will talk to you about all this. But you might not actually get an embryo, even if you freeze your eggs. But your chances are so much higher. And even if you do freeze your eggs, you still probably don't want to wait too, too long to have a child, like I did. Because there are other issues that come up. And I'll talk about that in part two of this series.

Okay, even if you're not interested in having children, I still recommend something else. Get your fertility hormones checked. You'll want to know your baselines later in life. Now, there are different times of the month that you have to take different types of tests. So, talk to your doctor about all of that. But it would have been really helpful for me to have known my baselines later.

Okay, number four, prioritize mindset. Learning how to manage your mind and emotions, and use that to create results and accomplish goals, and to not beat yourself up, and then create balance and uphold boundaries. Everything really, right? That is the biggest business and life skill you'll ever acquire. And yet, they don't teach this in school.

I much more highly value what I learned in coaching school and from my coaches, than what I learned in college. And it has certainly brought me more money. Until you understand the ways in which your own mind isn't serving your best interests, all the hidden agendas that have you repeating unsatisfactory patterns and creating pain for yourself.

And until you can take responsibility for that, rather than giving your power away to things that you will never be able to control. And with that, understand how to create your results intentionally, to accomplish your goals and really design your life on purpose, and create your own joy rather than relying on someone or something else.

Until you understand those things, true satisfaction and peace will seem beyond your grasp. And you'll most likely be vastly shortchanging your potential. Seriously, these things affect literally every aspect of your life; these mindset skills, these personal development skills.

From the quality of your relationships, to the dreams that you're willing and actually able to pursue, to how much you're earning, to how well you perform in your day to day, to your emotional experience, everything. It's the key that unlocks everything else in your life. And I see such a difference in my clients when they do this work.

Number five, don't recreate the wheel. Get help. Shorten your timeline. Time is your most precious resource. And it's easy to see the glory in, “I did all by myself, the hard way,” until you've actually done it all by yourself the hard way. And seeing how long that takes and how painful that is. At which point, you start thinking, “Hmm, maybe I wish I'd done it the smart way instead.”

Maybe there's a reason that so many people at the top of their fields have had mentors or coaches or a support team or an accountability group or something. I was so hard-headed on this subject. When I give you all the background stories, you'll see. And don't do as I did, please.

Oh, and regarding help, clarity is something that you can get help with. I just want to point that out, because I did not believe it myself. So, if you're at a crossroads, if you're searching for your purpose, if you're trying to define that niche, whatever it is, it's okay to get an outside perspective.

Even a brain surgeon can't do surgery on herself. Yes, clarity is within. But sometimes our brains keep us from seeing it. And I think that's the one thing that I might have actually gotten help with, if I'd known it was possible to get help on this. Because I was so, so desperate to solve this one question in my life.

But like I said, I thought it was outside of me. There are clients who come to me that have been spinning for a decade. And now, I've never had anyone come that was spinning for two decades, like I did. But yes, maybe a decade. And they're able to get clear within a month or two. Sometimes even one call, like the client I told you about earlier. But who knows how long it would have continued otherwise.

It's just not worth it. It's not worth it to not get help with big questions of your life. It's not worth it to not get help with your emotional wellbeing. It's not worth it to not get help understanding how the brain works. It's not worth it to not get help learning to accomplish your goals. It's not worth it to not get help building your confidence. And the list goes on. It's all been done before. It's all out there for us. Don't recreate the wheel.

Okay, number six, be okay with fucking shit up. You've probably heard this before, but I'll say it again, break things and build them back. It's going to be okay. You're human, you're going to get some things wrong. You'll get some big things wrong. And you'll be okay.

I remember both thinking and being told things like, “But I'll never recover. But what will this mean for my life?” Actually, you're the one who decides what it means for your life. You're the one who decides if you will rebound, if you will grow from that, if you'll come back stronger from that. You're the only one who decides if you're going to turn that lesson into gold.

It's all up to you. Your fate is never sealed. I have so many clients who are so afraid of getting it wrong, that they don't give themselves the chance to get it right. They're worried about saying the wrong thing, pursuing the wrong niche or strategy, of underperforming and then suffering some terrible consequences.

Of course, our brains like to show us the worst possible outcome, that's normal. It’s a survival tactic. But it's really not reality. Because we have so much power. Now, I am all for aligned action rather than just throwing spaghetti at the wall, you know me. But I'm also in favor of some action over no action.

And when you do take action, take bold action. Lean in, so at least you'll know, rather than wondering, “If I'd put my all into it, then would it have worked?” You never want to look back and wonder like that.

I'll tell you more in the next episodes, but everyone was convinced that I had thrown my life away when I ran away to Spain after college graduation, rather than taking that fancy consulting job. My parents had watched me work my entire life to get into school. All of my college friends had worked their whole lives. And it was all to get a good job, so that we'd be safe in life.

So, to veer left at that moment was like a collective “What the fuck is she doing? She has gone off the rails.” But when I came back, it was like I hadn't missed a beat. In fact, I now stood out from the other applicants in a big way. And within a year of coming back, totally broke when I came back, I owned a co-op in Manhattan at 25. I did okay.

And then later, I don't know about you, but I was really caught up in this whole idea of compounding interest and how you just have to start early and you have to be an adult and really manage your money well. Y’all, I was so, so close to bankruptcy at 33. It's a miracle that I didn't go down that route, but I was at zero. And I'm doing pretty fucking okay, right.

I don't even miss that money. And I believe that I can always make the money I want to. All of that, back there, all of that led me here. So, in a way it actually contributed. And even a bankruptcy drops off your record, in what, five years? I mean, not condoning or suggesting bankruptcy, but we live in so much fear of the big things, like bankruptcy and homelessness and being cast out of our family or excommunicated, if you're religious, all the big things.

And we could be dedicating our brain power to something so much more productive. So of course, follow sound financial planning in general, when you can. But expect that some things aren't going to work out the way you expected. What's most important isn't the hiccups, it's that you keep aligning to where you want to be eventually, and how you want to be and who you want to be.

And if you do that, if you keep doing that, you'll get there. I teach this in the Clarity Accelerator. It's what I call the “alignment principle”. And it's based on something from a Stephen Covey book, where he talks about how pilots, when they're flying from destination A to destination B, the plane is actually off course about 90% of the time, I think he said. And they're constantly course correcting.

Because they know where they want to go, they start veering away from that destination, they turn back. And then maybe they overcorrect, so then they turn back again. But we're still going to get where we're going. We're just not predicting the exact path to get there. So, stay engaged with that process of designing your life. And don't sweat the small stuff.

Okay, number seven. This next one, I don't really have a perfect header for it. But it's something like, watch the judgmentalism. Being judgmental, it's very much tied to self-consciousness. Because then you think everyone's judging you, too. And that fear of what others think; friends, family colleagues, or just some unknown “They” with a capital T, right? They think, they might think, that’ll hold you back from a lot of things.

It holds back a lot of people in their 40s too, but it tends, I think, to be stronger when you're younger. And all of this is a close relation to compare and despair, right? It's kind of a general umbrella mindset where this all gets tied together.

Now, it's understandable for sure, especially when you've just gone through the teenage years where developmentally, there's a big psychological push towards independence, and you realize your parents aren't perfect. And you start noticing that you think differently than some members of your community. And you naturally become both critical and idealistic, and start wondering, “What makes me ‘me’? What do I stand for?”

And then, the brain answers its own question of, what am I not, with a bunch of judgment and comparison. Being a critical thinker and idealistic, those are fantastic qualities, in so many ways. So, my advice here really, is just to kind of temper it. Temper it with the fact that paradox is everywhere, and there are so many shades of grey.

We're all walking around with human brains, doing the best we can. And it's usually when you find yourself in a situation that you never expected. Maybe you experienced something that doesn't jive with your worldview. Or you, yourself, do something that you never thought you'd do, for reasons that seemed like the best or the only option at the time. And then suddenly, you look at the world with a completely different type of understanding and compassion.

I remember doing a lot of judging of the people around me; of my parents, politicians, the choices my friends were making, all the things. And even at generations passed, which is so funny, because it turns out future generations, they will be pointing their fingers at you and all the things you got wrong. Or could have done, that you didn't do.

So, I like to hold two things in my mind. Number one, sometimes the intentions were good, right? My parents used to feed me margarine, and they thought that was the heart-healthy choice. My mom used to put talcum powder on me to help me avoid diaper rash. In hindsight, not the best options. But mostly, we're just a bunch of individuals fumbling our way through daily micro decisions.

And the second thing I like to think about, is the tools of my enlightenment tend to come from the generation that I'm criticizing. There was kind of that minority of visionary thinkers who came up with the concepts and started laying the groundwork, even though it seemed so far-fetched or reactionary at the time. And thanks to them, I get to speak about this as if it's normal.

Alright? I don't know, I'm thinking about people who were developing really harmful pesticides and synthetic food chemicals. But others were out there spending their dollars on high priced, perfectly awful tasting, organic food. It used to be so bad, guys. But that led to creating the easy availability of the amazing tasting, alternative foods that we have today.

So, I personally like to think of change as a continuum. And just be so grateful for the possibilities and the awareness that I have now. And when I start to notice my brain becoming judgmental, I just like to soften and just see all the shades of gray. And even ways that I have done that same thing, or may want to do that same thing, or have been suppressing that same thing. I just always turn it inwards.

Because judging without understanding and compassion, it probably won't lead to the solutions that we want deep down. And from personal experience, it can really undermine your joy.

Number eight, start patterning slowness now, as a habit. What do I mean by that? You might have the energy to drive yourself hard. But all of that gets wired into your nervous system. The more often you do it, the more of a pattern you create.

It's like if you're dragging a wheel through the mud, and then the mud hardens, then that wheel is going to tend to keep going in that groove. Now, that groove is already there for most of us, just because of the world we live in. There's just a lot of stuff going on all the time. And a lot of noise and things trying to grab our attention, and one thing and then the next thing and the next thing. And there's this quality of fastness.

So, build in slowness time, where you reset, so you can feel that in your body. Because you don't want to go in loops of days or weeks where you look up and then realize, “I have been in this low grade panic the whole time.”

Now, what you do to reset will look different to everyone. For some people, it's you go for a run, or for others, it's you dance it out, or some people would like to meditate or do yoga. Or even just take some deep breaths and feel all the sensations. Like, do a body scan. Start with your toes work, your way up. It doesn't have to be anything major.

Don't do what I used to do, which is get so burned out that then I’d just run away from everything; over to be a hippie in Spain, or run to an ashram, or do whatever I could, rather than just managing the day to day. Rather than using my brain to recognize that I was in a stress cycle and it was time to slow the fuck down.

It's about setting up little guards, little checks, where you metaphorically shake your head out of the madness, and you come back to reality; come back to what our natural state is supposed to be. And whenever you feel that driving need to hustle creep up again. The one that's always going for more and more and more. And it's telling you not to rest, or it's telling you to work late night after night. When you feel that turn on, you just need to get in the habit of stopping it.

You need to get in the habit of doing something to break that pattern. And what that feels like, in your body, is peace and calm, even joy. Now at the same time, this is going to seem like I'm completely contradicting myself, but I want to say, don't become so dependent on that, that you can't manage a time when you are working more intensely. When you are putting your all into it.

Because there will be times where you want to be able to apply that focused effort without making a big ole drama about it. I've had clients that were so worried about burnout, that they really couldn't even go through kind of a push period in their business. And these are really important. I have a coach, Stacey Boehman, who talks about these periods where we're building capacity.

Like, we get used to doing a certain amount of work, or we have a certain amount of exposure in our lives, or we have a certain amount of vulnerability in our lives, and as we're stretching those boundaries, it feels uncomfortable, it’s different for our brain. And that can feel activating a little bit. Your nervous system can kick up.

Those very concerted stretches though, are not, and that feeling that's associated with it, is not the sign necessarily, that you need to dial it back. It's actually a time when you want to take some deep breaths and continue, and maintain that momentum, in order to create a new normal for yourself.

It's not about doing-ness, it's not about packing more things into your day. It's about being able to sustain a greater amount of value output into the world. And that strategic capacity building is very different than the ongoing hustle, low grade, anxiety that I was talking about before.

Number nine, build a business, duh. Even if it's a side hustle, the skills that you learn through stretching yourself in this way are golden, and completely transferable I might add. To parenting, to other investments, to lifestyle choices, even to going back into corporate. And I'll stick by my earlier statement, that for women, entrepreneurship is the single greatest personal development work.

On the practical side, it's going to be a challenge for you to live the truly unique, uncommon life of your choosing when you're working for somebody else. Your income is capped. The expectations are set by someone else. Your vacation is determined by someone else; all the things.

Now, it doesn't come without effort. But the long-term freedom it will give you, is so markedly different than what most of the world experiences. We are so lucky to have these opportunities. Just 50 years ago, in this country, you would have needed a man to vouch for you on loan paperwork.

My grandmother couldn't have said, “You know, I think I’ll just do this thing. I think I'll just start a business.” Even me, when I was in my 20s, when we would think about starting a business, we needed capital for some brick-and-mortar structure. Or maybe you became an author, and you just hope to get a book published by one of few publishing houses that existed back then.

Yeah, there were some visionaries like Tony Robbins and Marie Forleo, who were starting information-based businesses, but I had never heard of them. And so, I worked at jobs I hated. And I left someone that I truly loved, my Spanish boyfriend, in part because I just couldn't see a future together. Either he'd be miserable here in the US, where I could do something fulfilling with my life. Or I'd be miserable there with him, waiting tables.

But that kind of thing wouldn't happen today. Right? We could have lived anywhere; we can do anything. This is just such a golden opportunity, not something that you want to let your fears get in the way of. So, start. Start sooner rather than later. Even if it's a side hustle. This is the most security that you can ever give yourself.

Digital businesses are the best business model. There is no inventory. We have the lowest overhead possible. There are minimal investments. And you can take it anywhere, and even determine the hours you work. Have I mentioned how lucky we are? When you compare that to real estate or even the stock market, the returns aren't as high and they're not as reliable.

You know what's reliable? Me, because I can figure things out. Because I can work towards goals, and I can build skills. Because I can think creatively and I can adapt to whatever's going on in the market. No matter what's going on in the world, there is always an opportunity to identify a problem or a desire that people are having. And then help them with a solution. I would bet on myself any day; I am always my best investment.

Even if it takes me longer than I expected, or cost more than I expected, or whatever kind of expectations don't get met, I am the one who cares the most. And I'll do what it takes to figure things out. No one else is going to go to bat for me, like I'll go to bat for me. That same kind of attitude, and taking that leap, is what has made my clients so successful.

Okay, I have just one more, and it's a little more lighthearted. Just kind of a PSA: Wear sunscreen every day. There's a museum for Salvador Dalí, in Portlligat, Spain, which is where he had his house. There's a portrait there of his wife, Gala, and she has her blouse open so you can see her breasts, and her face is so aged from the sun. And then her chest is perfectly smooth.

I remember, I was on the tour with some other people, they were younger, and they were looking at that and saying, “That is just so unrealistic. Nobody looks like that. So young on the bottom and so old on the top.” And I remember just looking over and thinking, “Oh, just wait.”

Because when I look at my body, the parts that were exposed to the sun on the daily, those are the ones that look older. My skin actually looks darker, I have more lines, it's thinner, and I look older. Whereas, on my torso, my hips, and my thighs, it looks just like I did when I was younger, pretty much.

And so, it's not the times that maybe, not that I'm advocating you should go get burned on the beach, but just saying, like the times where maybe I got a sunburn and I thought, “Oh no, this is it. Now I'm going to age,” I would think. It wasn't that, right? Those, then, when I started putting the sunscreen on, it really it wasn't about those times. It was just about the daily sun exposure on my forearms, my hands, my neck, my face.

That is my little PSA to all of you, so you can just avoid the things that happened to me as a White girl growing up in Hawaii in the 80s, when the Coppertone tan was all the rage. And all the health and beauty things that crop up now because of it.

Alright my friends, I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. And as always, I just want to leave you with this: You know who you are, and each day you’re stepping further into what you’re here to create.

Hey, if you want true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.

Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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