Welcome to how I Built my Small Business . I'm Anne McGinty , host of the show . While full-length guest episodes are on hold for the holidays , I've prepared a collection of short , impactful episodes to keep you inspired until Season 2 . Let's dive in . Let's dive in .
Don't necessarily squeeze yourself as a square peg into a round hole . It's really about finding what you love and also not pressuring yourself . I didn't start this photography business till I was 36 years old .
You have to know who you are . You have to believe in yourself , because if you don't believe in your own message , then how will the people that you would like to visit you schedule with you ? How would they believe you too ? How would they see what you're doing as worthwhile ?
Go for it and be confident and everything will work out , because I feel like a lot of my holding back on things was a result of just like having fear or anxiety .
Whatever fear you have about your worthiness in a room , no one else is concerned about you . Actually , no one else is in their minds going she's not enough or she's not worthy . Really , people are too busy .
It's not that they don't care about you , it's just that all the voices in your head that are negative self-talk just know that nobody else is thinking in that way about you , in the capacity that you are , to the extent that you are , that this is mostly all you , if not all you .
So you need to again turn inward and quiet the sound and go in there and show up and do the work , and I just wish I had had more of an understanding of actually how people think . And the truth is most people don't care as much about whatever's going on in your head as you are , so just deal with it . It's not something that can be resolved externally .
I was and you said it , it was . You're right . I was so lucky that I did get cancer Like I . That journey for me just changed everything . Like I was about to go work for Billabong , a surf company . Try and climb the corporate ladder , move to Auckland in the middle of a city that doesn't you know , because that's what everybody did when they retired .
They went into the surf industry and then I had that journey with cancer and my health and I just realized like no , that's not what I want , that's not what I'm passionate about . So don't conform , don't feel like you have to do what everybody else is doing and start something you're passionate about .
Yeah , it's actually not coming from outside that matters , it's not what comes from , it's not the praise that's going to come from the world that's going to matter .
And you're going to chase it for a while and think that's what's going to matter , but when you get it , you're going to realize that it's empty and have to go find it all over again on the inside .
So if you could circumnavigate that and just start right now loving yourself and just accepting yourself as you are imperfect and all , and you have to rewire that . What is success ? What does it look like ? Who am I proving anything to ? No , no , no . Over and over , I have to go back .
Nope , this is about you and this is about your purpose and what brings you joy . This really doesn't about anyone else . Over and over again , what we do is we hide and we hide and we hide it until we like realize no one is listening . Why is no one listening ?
Because you're not telling the true story , you're not telling what's true , and so I would have them practice that vulnerability .
I'd never really understood how to understand who I was in relation to who I thought I should be . It's okay to not always be so strong you can . You can be weak and vulnerable , and that's beautiful too .
I think the most important thing is learn , learn , learn and keep taking actions . Practice doesn't make things perfect . It's perfect practice . And imagine you're in the wilderness and you have a river running . You're on this side of the river and then on the other side of the river is your life goals . Okay , how do you get to the other side ?
You got to build a bridge , right , so knowledge is going to be that bridge where you can cross over and get to your goals . So if you try to start something without knowledge , it would be like you walking into the river and then you're just going to get carried away with the river .
Just believe in yourself . I didn't think that I was capable of having my own business when I decided that I wanted to stay in coffee . I figured that I would be an A plus employee . You know , I'll do whatever you want . I'll be the cheerleader for the company wherever I go and whatever it was with Amy and I and whatever she saw in me .
Like I'm so grateful for that , because sometimes you can't recognize it in yourself . But now that I'm older , I really see it in so many young people , so many people who work for me , who are so talented and want to pursue other things and , like I just want them to believe in themselves and believe that they're capable . You can go out there and do it .
You can start the business . You can fail at it , and that's okay too . Like just go out there and try it and do it .
I think when you're young you do not have to know what you want to do . I think it is better to just do stuff and at the very least start checking out things you don't want to do . You're like I did sales , didn't want to do it , flirted with law school , didn't do it . So I didn't really find the path and that can feel kind of unnerving for people .
So I always just tell people like look for three things a big brand , valuable skill building , like sales and great mentorship . If you can get two of the three , that's a good opportunity .
And if you can't figure out exactly what you want to do , just try something and then , if you don't want to do it , move on and check that off when we make a mistake , and it doesn't matter who is the cause of the mistake .
When a mistake happens , we're dealing with it as a team . We're thinking about solutions and how to overcome it as a team , because everybody is going to make a mistake along their job sometime , somewhere , right . And it doesn't help when you just keep pointing , oh why didn't you do this , why didn't you do that ? It doesn't help .
I've made my plenty share of mistakes , but it's that feeling of hey , if I make that mistake , I know my team has my back , I know we're going to overcome this together . So then , that way , when we're in the front line , we're trying to grow the business , we're trying to try different methods .
We're not always going to feel like , oh no , I'm going to have bullets in my head if I make a small mistake . Who wants to go out there and try ?
I knew I have always wanted to do something on my own .
When I got an accident , there were a lot of things that I was hurt on , that I didn't know how were going to play , affect my life and if I was going to really survive or live or how it's going to be , but for sure , in that moment it really gave me the vision to see how's this going to end up and if this was the end . This is all I did .
So , yes , I think it's one of the biggest things you know . You never know when things can go and you want to feel good when they do .
You want to feel what you accomplished and how you accomplished and where things end up yeah , like it's better better to try and fail than not yeah , exactly , and if anything , the failures create good stories take more risks earlier on .
Career wise , you should do the risky stuff and the travel when you're young , without the ties to hold you back . Because the travel when you're young without the ties to hold you back , because that's when you can enjoy it the most and by saying yes to things you develop your confidence , your contacts , your network , everything .
It's okay to fail . What do you learn ? Fail forward , fail fast . What's the learning experience in the failure ?
I wish that I would have focused some energy on understanding finance and to put away you know money to start my own retirement fund , because that information isn't really something that's talked about , at least in the creative small business field .
Everybody's talking about marketing and how to do Instagram and how to do this and all of that , but truly pay attention to your money and respect it .
Thanks for listening to this bite sized episode of how I built my small business . If you enjoyed it , share it with someone who might find it helpful , and don't forget to subscribe so you're ready when season two drops . As always , have a great day .