Angie (00:02):
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, a podcast about leaving self-doubt in the dust, punching fear in the face, and taking bold action toward your biggest dreams. I'm Angie Colee and let's get to it.
(00:18):
Hey, and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass. With me today is my new friend Sarah Greener. Say hi!
Sarah (00:24):
Oh hi. How are you?
Angie (00:25):
I'm good. As you may be able to tell from the accent, my friend Sarah is located in lovely New Zealand. So tell us a little bit about your business.
Sarah (00:36):
Awesome, so we have a couple of businesses. So we have me, business coaching, and I work with women all over New Zealand and Australia and the States that are looking to get back some time, they're working way too hard in their businesses and for way too long and for not enough money. And the reason I do that is because we've been in our own business for 15 years in tourism. We run an overnight cruise here in the beautiful Bay of Islands, and I worked way too hard for way too long for not enough money, until I figured that out and then finally realized it wasn't a Sarah problem, it was a collective female business owners. There was a few of us out there doing it and so got it to helping them out with that. So that's us, yeah.
Angie (01:24):
Oh, that's excellent. So you said two businesses, which of those came first? I'm curious.
Sarah (01:31):
The boat came first. I met my, he's now my husband, but he was my boyfriend back then, on a beach in Thailand, and the way that I dragged him off the beach in Thailand, he's English, and brought him to New Zealand, was that we found a floating houseboat and it has 10 bedrooms upstairs and a big open space downstairs, and I brought him back to Paihia. And we went on this boat and we were chatting with the skipper and he said, oh, well if you know anyone who might be interested in buying this? And I went, oh, we will, and my then boyfriend was horrified by this statement.
(02:07):
So in December 2007, six months after said conversation on the boat that we were just guests on, we owned it and we came back to New Zealand and started running the business in December 2007.
Angie (02:19):
Oh wow. So I was paying attention to the date there as you said it, so 2007, good time to go into the tourist industry when there's a global recession looming.
Sarah (02:30):
Yeah. So 20, what was I? 24, 25 year old Sarah had no idea that was coming. In hindsight, we all saw it now, but at the time lots of people didn't see it coming, so it didn't really feel looming at that point. So yeah, we jumped into this business, borrowed a ton of money at crazy interest rates. And then in March 2008, we were knee deep in a global financial crisis that we all know now as the GFC, and not ideal for running an international tourism business in, yeah.
Angie (03:07):
So how did you handle that? I imagine that required a little bit of scrappiness, a lot of maybe some tears.
Sarah (03:14):
Lots of snot and tears, lots of snot and tears. So I think to begin with, we had committed to it and we had a huge amount of work. Just in that first six months, we paid off quarter of a million dollars of debt, we were really scrappy. So we had not a dollar to our names other than this business, and so we lived on board the boat, we ate the leftovers for dinner. We were super scrappy about it. But we were also intensely focused on what we were doing, and I think that's the number one thing. Back then, we did it out of environment, so living on the boat, no power, no TV, no access to the news. So we were just really in our zone and weren't taking on board all the noise that comes.Now's a perfect example, you think about the noise that's showing on people's social media feeds, and on the news and the tape along the bottom, and oh my God, it's just doom and gloom everywhere. So I think because we didn't have that, we were just really intent on doing our thing.
(04:14):
In fact, we went into town one day, we're dropping off brochures, we were hustling, so dropping off brochures, we like to tell people about our cruise. And this one motel owner went to us and said, oh, well, it's all right. You're young, it's okay if you go broke. Johnny and I looked at each other and went, we're not planning on going broke. He's like, oh, well you know, tourism business aren't going to survive this. And both of us went outside and just burst out laughing, we had no idea, we were oblivious to this. Meanwhile, businesses are going bankrupt around you, and we just got on with it and did it. It was really about being out there and being different and thinking differently about it, and just not being influenced by the noise.
Angie (04:58):
I'm curious as to something that you said there too, because obviously there were a bunch of businesses that were going bankrupt. Do you think that their mindset played into it just as much as yours, like your refusal to be like, well, that's not going to happen to us, played into your eventual success?
Sarah (05:15):
Yeah, look, and I can't speak directly to that because I don't know what was going on for them, but having now 15 years of doing business under my, absolutely. And you think about COVID that's just happened as well, fundamentally the business owners that got through it believed they could get through it, had this deep underlying belief that they were going to be successful and could make it happen. And then the how piece, they just figured that out, there wasn't any question in their minds. Versus I think other people were like, this environment is happening to me and I've got no choice and it's not my fault, and they just walk away from it and let it happen to them.
Angie (05:53):
That is true. That's such a great recurring theme, and that often winds up happening when I'm recording podcasts back to back. It's so interesting that the decision to suffer knowing that we're all going to experience pain, I can't remember exactly the quote, but it's like everybody is going to be in pain. Everybody's going to experience pain at some point in their life, maybe consistently, maybe not. But you do not have to experience suffering, suffering is a little bit more of a choice.
(06:24):
And I say that acknowledging the fact that there are different socioeconomic and race and climate, and access to resources and things like that, that impact us too. But I've met so many people from so many incredible backgrounds with so many diverse businesses who have come out of every conceivable situation and they all had that in common, this determination to go, well, okay, that sucks and that happened and there's not really much that I can do about the fact that that happened to me. What do I do next? How do I get past that?
(06:54):
Yeah, it was reframing the question from can I do this, which has that whole yes no judgment connotation, to how can I do this? One simple but super powerful shift that really gets your brain thinking about, okay, well if I had to do this, how would I do this? There we go, unlocking the possibilities.
Sarah (07:15):
Yeah, I love that one. And we use a slightly longer version of that, how can I quickly and easily do X, Y, and Z? Because smart people make simple things complicated, because we look at it and go, it can't be this easy. No, it's not this simple, it's not this, and so we complicate the shit out of it. Oh, I didn't check if I'm allowed to say that.
Angie (07:37):
Oh, you can swear to your heart's content, this is the show for that. Drop the F bombs all over the place, I don't care.
Sarah (07:45):
Awesome, I should have checked that. And that makes you think about how do I go through this in a way that doesn't require a lot of work and slog, because that's an easy default to get into too.
Angie (08:00):
It's so brilliant that you add how can we do this quickly and easily? So many people, exactly like you said, especially if you're pretty intelligent, it can't be this easy. This feels like I'm missing something, I need to add 10 more steps to this to feel like I'm working on this enough to earn the fee that people are paying me.
(08:22):
And it really clicked for me many, many years back, when I wrote an email sequence that made $8.4 million, and it was three emails, less than 300 words. And granted, I worked at a retail store that had 3 million people that we were emailing, so there's some caveats there and there's some leverage in the extreme amounts of people that we were emailing. But that was what really changed my mind and made me realize, oh, we're tied to this concept of dollars for hours, and we still disconnect from value.
(08:53):
And I meet so many, since I'm a writer as a specialist, so many people that are like, I have to charge per email, I have to charge per word, or I have to charge per hour. You know what sweetheart, how do you quantify three emails that made $8.4 million? That was easy, I wrote them in less than an hour. Were they any less valuable because I didn't spend a whole lot of time working on that? I don't think so. And I don't say any of that to brag, but that's one of those in instances where it could have been easily overcomplicated if I was like, wait, if we're going for $10 million, I have to get, oh it's got to bust out the big guys.
Sarah (09:31):
Yeah, and I think that's such a massive shift to go from, what will I get paid for the input versus what's the value I create with my output? We're indoctrinated into that, how much time have you put into it, all the way through schooling, all the way through everything, instead of what's the value I'm adding? And in our early days in business, I was like, how many hours are they working? I pay them per hour. And now it's like, here's the work, the value that we need added to our lives right now. If it takes you an hour or 40, I don't mind. If you're smart enough to figure out how to do this faster and easier than I did, go for your life, you can make that happen.
(10:18):
And that's been a really big shift in that journey. And it's certainly one I think business people, you're talking about your writers and things, that shift, especially if you've come out of paid employment as well, because you've not just had that learning from school, now you've had that learning from being employment as well, that I trade my time for money, seeing it in a different frame is challenging for us, right?
Angie (10:39):
It really is, I've talked about that before on this show. When you come to entrepreneurship, especially if you're starting after having had some sort of job in the past, the only filter that you have to apply to all these new situations is an employee filter, you don't actually have any entrepreneurial context yet. So it's really easy to fall into these old, well, this is what I did in my old day job, I made $30 an hour at my day job so I'm going to charge $30 an hour for my [inaudible 00:11:05]. Mistake number one, consider all of your overhead and taxes. But those are all things that you learn only after going through it and getting all of the necessary context. Oh, this is fantastic.
Sarah (11:15):
Yeah. Or, listening to someone else and using their mistakes to your benefit. I think some of the greatest wisdom was always from people who'd stuffed things up and gone, oh, don't do what I did. And I'm like, yeah, I'm good with you having paid this stupid tax. I don't need to pay it again, I'm good with that.
Angie (11:36):
Oh yeah. So
Sarah (11:37):
So learn from someone else's mistakes because you don't have enough lifetime to make all of them by yourself.
Angie (11:42):
I love that. I want to put that on a mug or a t-shirt, that's so fantastic. Learn from other people's mistakes, you don't have enough time to learn to make all of the mistakes on your own. That's so funny, because earlier today I was talking to a coaching student of mine who wants to do a live event, she wants to do it on a mini local scale. And I've done a couple of these, both as staff promoter and doing my own events, and my first challenge to her was that she wanted to charge, we'll protect her identity a little bit, she was like, I'm thinking less than $100, think like significantly less than $100, for this live event. And I'm going to invite all the local business owners and I'm going to teach them about email marketing and they can bring me all their questions.
(12:27):
And I was like, I'm going to challenge you to 10X that. I'm going to challenge you to go at least $500 on that. And she was really, really struggling with that. I know that these folks in this area, money is tight, there's a recession, people are spending less, I don't want to charge them more. And we wound up talking pretty in depth about not spending other people's money. And then the flip side of that coin, which I think goes hand in hand with this concept of ease and value, is what people perceive of you when you charge something according to what you think people can afford.
Sarah (13:08):
That one is such a good one. We are having that conversation all the time with clients at the moment. And I don't know who said it, but I love it, it's like stop pricing other people's what they will spend with you based on your wallet. Stop it. You don't get to decide how much it's worth to them, they need to decide that. And so often, when I've had that resistance on my journey where I'm like, it feels like oh, and what's the market doing, and the competition haven't got their prices up and all that sort of stuff. And every time we shift, we actually see an increase in people buying the thing, because all of a sudden they go, oh, that must be worth that. It always cracks me out, we're twice the price, our day cruise that we run here, of everyone else, and people went, ooh. And I was like, people are buying it at that price, and guess what? I need to do half as many people to make way more money than you.
Angie (14:08):
What?
Sarah (14:10):
I'm like, that's the reality of it.
Angie (14:12):
And I'm not saying that you have to blanket raise your prices or anything like that to have a great business, but think in terms of effort. We were trying to do math on one show where it was like, what's the amount of effort to get 100 people buying a $100 worth of stuff each to get you to $10,000 in earnings? Or maybe you focus on getting two people at $5,000 for way less work. I mean, yeah.
Sarah (14:42):
Yeah. And every business is the same, it actually doesn't matter what business you look at, because you know can nickel and dime it or you can do it in bigger lots. So even in our tourism business, we saw that as true. We could sell each cruise at, our overnight, $398 a person, or we can sell the whole boat for $8,000. Now, I can tell you which is easier in terms of operations and marketing and organization, because you just talk with one person for that $8,000 sale, whereas doing the boat the other way, you talk with 40 people, and it makes everything else easier and fun. And it's just that shift of how do I package this? It's exactly the same thing, slightly different packaging, slightly different way of putting it together, and it just changes the game for you.
Angie (15:34):
Oh man, that's so amazing. I'm issuing the official challenge to everybody that's listening, invite more ease and quickness into your life. Ask yourself what you're good at and what you enjoy. You absolutely can build a business doing stuff that you like doing. And yeah, at first you're going to be sleeping on the boat and doing all the stuff yourself until you can grow it to a certain level. For me, it was living in my car and figuring out how to land clients while taking a homeless person shower in the bathroom at Starbucks and making sure that I didn't stink.
(16:09):
So yeah, there's going to be times of really hardcore hustle, but that doesn't mean that you can't have significant times of ease where you're going, is it really this easy? I'm suspicious. Don't be suspicious.
Sarah (16:22):
Yeah. And I was going to say, we both had that story of that time of hustle and work, and for me it was the leftover, if I never see a leftover cold sausage ever again, I'm a happy girl. But don't fall into trap of thinking, that's what the business journey is, because I think because you've done it and because it worked, it's easy to stay there. And that's the place of, you are not valuing your time. So then it becomes harder to value everyone else's time and you get stuck on that hamster wheel of just, I'll work longer and harder. And you just never get to that place, that place of, where's the ease, where's the fun in this?
(17:05):
Yeah, it's the timing, there's a rhythm and a cycle to it, right?
Angie (17:09):
Absolutely, absolutely. I've used that comparison before too, where it's like, I think even business is 80:20. People seem to think that if you jump ship for the greener pastures, I'm going to mix all the metaphors tonight, that you can somehow achieve 100% happiness at some point if you keep leapfrogging and changing things. And it's like, you know what? What I love about this business is that it meets 80:20 like everything else in my life. 80% of the time, maybe sometimes even 90% of the time, I'm having a blast, I'm like a pig in slop. Kid in mud puddles, splashing around, that's me, I'm having so much fun.
(17:44):
And there's 10 to 20% where I'm like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do my book, I don't want to balance my accounts at the end of the month and talk to my account. I love my accountant, I can't say that. I love talking to her, but I don't like talking to her about money. I like talking to her about fun stuff. I don't want to go into my app and log my miles. I don't want to schedule and do all of the admin stuff and Trello boards. I don't want to do any of that, that's not my happy place. And I don't want to deal with rude clients or disappointing clients, which happens from time to time.
Sarah (18:15):
Yeah, absolutely. For all of us.
Angie (18:18):
All of that too, to sound perfectly corny is, it makes me appreciate the ease that much more. If I get the occasional grumpy person that's like, yeah, I really just don't like you and I want an entire refund. And I'm like, well, that kind of sucks. Here's your money, best of luck.
Sarah (18:36):
And having this space to do that, that's powerful, because that desperate need to hold onto them and keep them, it never comes from ease. It never comes from a place of spaciousness that, and it shows up in everything you do.
Angie (18:53):
Oh yeah, the desperation. What was it that I used to say? When I first started coaching, I would say desperation is a stinky cologne. You can't tell you're wearing it because you have acclimated to the smell. Everybody else around you is going, where is that coming from? Oh my gosh, what is happening?
(19:16):
And I think that comes from a little bit of, money blocks, money insecurity, a little bit of anxiety, but also comes from trying to control shit that you can't control. You can only control you. Can't control the economy, can't control whether this person has a fit or says yes. Can't control whether somebody's credit card is going to go through. None of these things are within your control. All that's within your control is you going out and handing out flyers and talking to that business owner and going, yeah, no, we're going to find a way to make it work. Thank you.
Sarah (19:49):
Thank you for your unsolicited advice. And it's never good, would someone give you advice that you didn't ask for? It's never helpful.
Angie (20:00):
Clearly helpful. Well, yeah, I will say sometimes somebody comes through with that little nugget where I'm like, ooh, okay. But yeah, most of the time it's judgmental and it's fear based too. They're like, I don't see a world in which somebody can buy a houseboat and build a business. Not a houseboat, the tourism boat. I didn't even know the name for it.
Sarah (20:19):
Yeah, we call it New Zealand's biggest houseboat.
Angie (20:20):
Biggest houseboat, okay.
Sarah (20:22):
Yeah, it's got 10 bedrooms. It's huge.
Angie (20:23):
Technologically accurate.
Sarah (20:26):
Correct.
Angie (20:28):
I was like, they can't imagine a world in which you could make a living being a writer. Just because that's not your reality doesn't mean that that's not a reality and that I can't make it work for me.
Sarah (20:40):
And everybody's experience is different, so they can only do it from their place. I think that's really important. I think if you come back to, you don't have control over the economy, it's also when they talk about the economy, they're talking about the average. The average of all the successes and all the failures at the same time. And yet you want to pigeon your whole yourself, don't pigeonhole yourself into that. Just because the economy is in recession, which let's be real, what is it? -0.5% growth over two quarters. I don't know about you, but my business can cope with being 0.5% not growing for two quarters, because it might grow 10, 15, 20% in the last two quarters. It's so far away from the reality of your day-to-day business, stop listening to that crap.
Angie (21:34):
Yes.
Sarah (21:36):
Don't let that influence you. I didn't do it back in the recession, in the GFC, because I didn't have to. We lived out in the water, so there was no need to remove the news. But in COVID, I had to remove the news. I had to turn it off, I had to stop, get out of all the social media, just go in for what I needed to do for work. And it's been a game changer. People go, oh, did you hear about? Nope. Don't watch the news. Did you hear about this. No, don't watch the news. People are like, how do you not watch the news? And I'm like this, just don't watch it.
Angie (22:08):
I did that too for my peace of mind. I just noticed that I was anxious all the time, this existential dread feeling like everything was going to come crashing down around me at any minute, just all the time. Even when I was doing really well and everything was stable, there was no real complaints. So I tried it when somebody else recommended to me, just cut out the news. I stopped watching it, I blocked it from all my news feeds. I would still check social media, and I've curated my social media feeds at this point to positive messages and show me all of your stupid cat videos, I want to see it. Show me all your food porn, I want to see it. Tell me all your travel stories, but everything else I don't really care about. I want that positivity if I'm going to be scrolling social media.
(22:53):
And I remember the first time that somebody was like, oh, this big thing happened. Have you heard about it? Oh my gosh. And I was like, no, wait, when did that happen? Where? You know what? It's not that I don't care, it's just that I really can't do anything about most of these things. And to try is to drive yourself literally mad.
Sarah (23:14):
Yeah, that's so true. I wish I could remember what this piece of research was, but it said something like, if you're following in your social media effects, if you're following that news, we're exposed to something like 24 years worth of trauma and bad things happening in the space of 24 hours. I was like, no wonder we're having trouble processing that stuff. That is not a good influence that you want over your life. 24 years worth of bad shit in 24 hours when you are scrolling that.
Angie (23:53):
And we talk about how stuff gets blown out of proportion all the time. I remember years ago deciding when I first wanted to travel and I went to Columbia with a bunch of my friends in South America, my mom called me in a worry, and sorry mom, I'm going to tell this story and we're all going to laugh but we're laughing with you. She called me up because she had just seen an episode of this show called I Survived or something, just cheesy cable drama type stuff. And she was all worried, because I'm in Columbia and this man that she just saw on TV was in Columbia when he got kidnapped by a cartel.
(24:24):
And I was like, okay, okay, slow down. Just give me some context here and I'll see if we can make some sense of this. When did this happen? Somewhere in the late '80s, early '90s. Okay, cool, cool. Escobar was in power, totally understand. That makes sense in context. He's dead. So let's continue with it, what else? Where was he when this happened? And she says, well, I think he was hiking alone in the mountains. And I was like, cool, cool. Two things that I would never do, let alone in a country where I don't speak the language very well.
(24:55):
So yeah, I'm in a part of town that is walkable. I think street rules in every major city in the world that I've ever been to apply here, just be aware of your surroundings, don't flaunt money, all that jazz. And Escobar's dead, so I'll take my chances.
(25:17):
And I love you, mom. I love you mom, bless you for worrying about me. I'm very grateful to have people in my life that care that much about me. But all of this stuff gets blown so out of proportion. I can understand why she was worried. She saw this big overblown story on TV about somebody that experienced some real trauma, and then she was worried that that would happen to me. And I spent six lovely weeks in Columbia living it up, eating all the good food, dancing. I was not kidnapped.
Sarah (25:42):
That's so good. It's on our list where as a family we're going to go.
Angie (25:47):
Getting kidnapped?
Sarah (25:53):
No, no. Can you imagine, on my bucket list, get kidnapped in Columbia? No, to travel to Columbia. We're going to do a year in Central and South America next year, so I hear you talking about Columbia. After this work stuff, we should talk about Columbia so you can give me all the tips.
Angie (26:10):
Hell yes, hell yes. Oh gosh. And that's where I got my eyes fixed too. You wouldn't tell, of course they don't get to see the video. I'm wearing my glasses now, but that's because I have an astigmatism and I have trouble focusing at night, but I got LASIK surgery. I lost my glasses to the ocean, sacrifice to the mighty Pacific when I was in Fiji, and then I flew across the world from Fiji to Florida to Columbia, very long trip. And I was like, I'm just going to wait till I get home and I'll get my new glasses.
(26:41):
Wrong. When I landed at LAX, I was walking miles out of the way because I was near sighted and I couldn't see what the sign said. So I'm walking down that way for half a mile. Nope, got to walk the other way. That's where I was going. And I got so frustrated that I couldn't see that my friends were like, you know LASIK was pioneered in Columbia? And I was like, I did not know that. So I started investigating in expat groups, this is where social media does come in handy because an expat group-
Sarah (27:09):
Oh, there is value to it, right?
Angie (27:11):
Oh yeah. They connected me to a doctor whose literal specialty was, she just worked with English speaking expats. And she had this whole network of doctors that she could get you into see specialists in any kind of medicine whatsoever. American healthcare is broken, I'm sure the entire world laughs at us. But I was just astonished that I contacted her on a Tuesday, she had me into the appointment on Thursday, Friday they had the diagnosis and the recommendation for surgery, which happened on Monday and follow up was on Tuesday, for $400 American, and that included her going with me to all of my appointments to translate. I'm like, you will never convince me that international travel is a horrible experience because that was a lovely experience and I had my eye operated on.
Sarah (27:55):
Look, that stuff just happens all the time, and apparently everyone's like, we have a world class health system in New Zealand. That wouldn't happen in New Zealand either, there's just zero chance of it ever happening like that. It's funny what we perceive of overseas health systems based on what we've been told but yet never experienced, and then when you go and do it.
(28:17):
We had similar experiences and when we lived in Thailand pre coming back to New Zealand, and the healthcare and the dentistry and the all of that stuff's amazing and so well looked after. But it's just a perception that it's going to be lower class than our wealthy western countries and it's just not true.
Angie (28:37):
Boo, boo, boo. You know what, if I could wave my magic wand and control everybody in the world, which I know I can't, but just going to envision it with me people.
Sarah (28:46):
I will envision it with you for a moment.
Angie (28:49):
I would require from an early age folks to travel internationally, interact with other cultures and learn other languages. Because I would say if I've learned anything over all of my discussions with entrepreneurs over the past couple of years, my travels internationally and here within the States over the last couple years, it's that we have way more in common than it could ever possibly seem. I have connections with every single person I've had on this podcast and it's bizarre and I love it.
Sarah (29:18):
Yeah, I think that's so true. Travel's so powerful, where you could see... we were talking about this the other day in that we have so much more in common generally than we ever have different from others, yet we spend so much time focused on the things that we disagree on rather than the things we agree on. So often I watch the divisive stuff that happens around the world and back in our own backyard as well, and I think you both want the same outcome. You're just disagreeing on how to get there. If we could just take a step back from this for a moment, we can find a way there that everyone can agree on. And yet we seem so focused on what makes us different instead of what makes us the same, it's crazy.
Angie (30:03):
Right. And then there's the fear aspect of going out to travel, which usually involves a lot of, oh, new scary situation, I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle this. Then the stories that we make up on top of that, it's going to be ridiculously expensive, and what if I get lost? What if I get mugged? What if I don't know where to go? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I hear you, and also travel can be full of ease and can happen more quickly than you might think.
(30:33):
I agreed to go to Fiji probably six weeks before I wound up there and just one day was, all right, bought the ticket, guess I'm in. Tell me which resort you guys are going to so that I'm not wandering around an island by myself. Then started doing the research. Okay, if I've got to be in Fiji in six weeks, what needs to happen now? Okay, passport. Cool, got that. Do I need any vaccinations, immunizations? I don't think I did. Do I need a visa? No, I don't think I did. All right, I guess I'm getting on a plane to Fiji in six weeks. What am I going to wear? Oh my gosh. It can be that easy.
Sarah (31:09):
We've literally just traveled, we just spent some time in Indonesia, and it's a little bit different now, I have to say, traveling international.
Angie (31:20):
Yeah, that's true.
Sarah (31:21):
We live at the bottom of the world, so it was a little bit different, but still a huge amount of ease. To be fair, we are that family that went for a month traveling and people went, Is that all you've got? And we're like, yeah, no check in. I'm like, no, check in just carry on. So we are those people. But yeah, travel is, it doesn't need to be hard.
(31:40):
And if you tie that right back, if we come back right full circle and go, you know what? Business doesn't have to be that hard either. Yes, it's a journey, God, yes, and there's been some hard moments, but overall, it doesn't have to be hard all the time.
Angie (31:57):
It really doesn't.
Sarah (31:57):
You don't need to wait for those big crises to come to the next level or anything like that, and you can just have it with ease if you don't fight against it so much. I think that's probably the same with travel, you don't have to battle anything, it just is.
Angie (32:13):
Yeah. I mean I think that fits into the 80:20 too, that if you focus on allowing more ease, that actually frees up a lot of your mental bandwidth to better handle the eventual downturn. So I was talking to a potential client a while back who was having some money blocks and issues with, there's a recession looming and gas and supply chain and everybody's struggling. And I said, with all the love I have, not everybody is struggling right now. And that's not a value judgment, that's not a, you're doing things wrong, it's nothing of the sort, that's just a fact. Yes, there are a lot of people that are struggling right now and there are a lot of people that are not, that are still spending money. So be careful not to let your personal circumstances dictate your entire worldview.
(32:59):
And by the same token, at least here in the States, we've had 11 recessions since the '40s. This happens fairly regularly, fairly predictably. And at some point I got tired of being impacted by the whims of people like, oh my God, panic, pull everything out of the stock market. And then there's a chain reaction and everybody freaks out, emotions collapsing the economy, that I was like, okay, those people are there, seem to be weathering this pretty well and they're not as stressed out as I am. Can we be friends? I'd like to find out what you're doing and do more of that please. I'm tired of this.
(33:37):
So I was like, if and when that becomes something that you're comfortable with, I've got some resources for you to show you how you could survive and maybe even thrive in a recession. But I also understand if where you're at right now means that that's not something that you can really work with, if you're overloaded, if you're stressed, totally get that too. And I still don't know exactly how they feel about it after that, but I was just like, nope, nope, nope, I got to jump in there and correct. Not everybody is suffering right now. And that's not looking down on people that are, trust me.
Sarah (34:07):
That's just the reality, yeah, and you can shift. I was having a conversation with a friend and that can happen so quick. I was like, did you think when you were 40 that you would be where you're at at 50? And she's like, God, at 45, I didn't think I'd be where I'm at at 50. She's a few years older than me, and I just said, that's how quickly it changes, for all of us. But you've got to decide to change, you've got to take the first step to start moving towards that to make that happen.
(34:40):
I loved what you said though, I want to go back to the, I'm sick of people's emotions crashing the economy. And I have a little theory on that, it's people that survive in business, you build the crazy stats, this many survive the first year, and we're past the 10 year mark, so 1% of small business owners survive to 10 years. And I think my theory around that is, if you think about recessions, we have these kind of recessions, these contractory periods every seven to 10 years or there or thereabouts, so most people that are in business today haven't seen the last one. And so the lack of experience and the leadership of business ownership at that point in time is missing because they haven't experienced it before, so it's a whole lot of uncertainty and change. And so it comes down to how good are you at dealing with uncertainty and change, and not everybody is.
Angie (35:41):
Not everybody is, for sure, but you can get good at it. Like any other skill, if you want to get stronger, you go start lifting weights. And you're probably not going to lift very big weights to start with and your form's probably not going to be perfect, so you get some help with that, but after a while you could be bench pressing and you could be squatting some pretty big numbers. Takes time to build up to that.
(36:01):
Same thing with the business and the skills and the resiliency. I mean, we don't talk enough about resiliency in business because hey, news flash, I've said this probably 5,000 times on this show already, which is impressive because I've had a 100 episodes. 5,000 times, I stand by my math even though I'm not a math person. The hits are coming sweetheart, brace yourself. You're going to get knocked down, you're going to stumble. Things are going to get hard. You're going to have moments where you're like, what the fuck man? That just sucks. That really, really sucked.
(36:38):
Oh my god, I've had moments and I've built to this point, a fairly easy business. Easy is not the right word, but it's got a lot of ease, and I really enjoy it. And I still have moments every once in a while where I'm like, this is really hard, I just want to get a job. And then I remind myself, No, no, a job is way more painful than this. I have to answer to somebody else and I can't say fuck, and I have to take out my face piercings and they don't like my tattoos. No, no, no, no.
Sarah (37:08):
And I think that's the thing, sometimes your expectations get in the way of that. I think you have, I certainly did at 25, I had rose colored glasses on, I was going to go into business and it was going to be cool and glamorous. I knew it was going to be work, I'd grown up around business, but it was going to be fun and all these great things were going to happen, and we're going to do this with our money and we are going to have holidays every year. Not to begin with, there was some work to do, and so it was the not meeting of my expectations that was the problem. Whereas now I'm like, when things have been going good for a while, I'm like, what's coming? The next level's coming and the next level's going to come in a form of challenge that requires me to grow and develop to the next level, especially if I've been sitting somewhere comfortably for a little while.
(37:57):
I think that one's really interesting to me now. And sometimes once you've been sitting comfortable for a while, those challenges, those next levels, they come thick and fast, where you're punched in the face and then you think, oh, I'm up. And then again, and it just keeps coming, and you go, come on, you can't be serious, can't keep coming. And then you get out the other side and you've gone to the next level and you just think, oh, that's what it was. I did not enjoy that, but I know that that resistance now is for the next level. And now with a little bit of hindsight, I can look back and go and I can spot it coming now. But in the early days I was like, why has the engine died and three crew members quit, and the supplier? Everything happened that week, and not recognizing that this was my journey. You need to level up, Sarah. You're going to need this for the what's coming next.
Angie (38:55):
Yes, I like that. I like that you used the word resistance and I like that you framed it as life is challenging you to develop these skills that are necessary for the next level, which I think is a really awesome way to look at it. I can see people's faces when I'm coaching them and I've had to say often, so yeah, that feeling that you're feeling right now where you're deeply uncomfortable and you're anxious and you're wondering if you're a fraud and everybody's going to find out at any moment, it never really goes away. And they're like, wait, wait, wait, you're telling me I could have a $10 million a year business and I'm still going to feel like that?
[NEW_PARAGRAPH]I'm like, I know many, many, many multi-millionaires who with every single new product launch, every business pivot, they're like, this is the one. This is the one decision that brings everything that I've built crumbling down. There is the end of my empire, one dire mistake will have lasting consequences. And then they come out the other side going, Well, that kind of sucked and it got really woo, little anxious, little tense for a while there, but I handled that. Maybe I didn't handle it my best, maybe that went better than I thought.
[NEW_PARAGRAPH]I don't know. I love to overdramatize and build these things up in my head, and before I know it, I've got Mount Everest standing in front of me. When I actually get moving, it's an ant hill that I can stomp on and I feel ridiculous.
Sarah (40:20):
Oh my goodness, we had that exact conversation on the coaching call today. I call it the emotional wall, we can call it mount emotion if you like. It's that thing just on the other side, and at the moment there's three bricks between you and the thing you have to do. You can just step over it super easy and you're like, I'm just going to build up, I'll put some 20 more bricks. And then I'll look at it and go, well now I have to climb over the wall. Now it's going to be like, I have to put my hands on the top to get over it. You just keep building this emotional reasons not to do the thing, when ultimately those first few emotional blocks action would've fixed it. A little bit of anxiety, a little bit of fear, one simple action fixes all of it. Like you say, you just stomp on it. I'm like, don't build the wall, don't dig the hole deeper. Just hop out.
Angie (41:09):
Yeah. Action is absolutely the enemy of the overwhelm and the anxiety, and it'll show you very quickly whether your fears and your worries have merits or it's all bouncing around between your ears in this giant echo chamber and becoming really, really loud.
(41:26):
And I need to be clear here, because especially with folks I've worked with in the past, a lot of creative folks, there's a tendency to confuse studying and hoarding courses as taking action. That is great, thank you for investing in yourself and your education, especially if you're actually opening it and doing some of the work after you buy it versus just thinking, I bought the thing, my problem is solved. Human brains, they're bizarre.
Sarah (41:55):
But we're educated that way. Because at school, if I learn more stuff, I got a better grade, right?
Angie (42:03):
Yeah.
Sarah (42:03):
And so now we are like, I'm going to learn for my business and we go and learn the same way we did at school. So I say this to my clients now, I say, just so you know, there's no test out of 100, how much stuff do you know. The results you're going to get are based on how much percentage of my stuff you implement. If I look at all the programs or the development or the coaching I've done over the years, if I've implemented 5% of it, I would be probably exaggerating, and every single piece I've implemented has got me a great result. It's what you do with it and then work it until it works, not what you learn about it. It's not school, it's business. It's a totally different experience.
Angie (42:48):
Yes. That's the filter that I put that through too. Okay, if you're having trouble parsing out what is action that is helping your business versus what is "action" that feels helpful but is actually keeping you stuck and potentially adding to the overwhelm, I like to ask myself, and this sounds cold and capitalist, but it's true, is this making me money or is this costing me money? Okay, that adds a little bit of context. I just bought another $2,000 course. Is this making me money? No, it's actually not. It's costing me money because I just bought another course. Can I learn what I can, take actions recommended by the course and then make money? Absolutely. But the reality is, that course itself is costing me money, as is the learning.
Sarah (43:33):
In of itself, and then you are also going to make an investment of time into it to then implement it. I think someone said to me something like 1% of courses ever purchased get completed.
Angie (43:46):
Yes. It's sad.
Sarah (43:48):
And I'm like, oh my God, that's really, I have some stuff that I just like devour, some coaches and mentors that I work with that I just like all the things and apply. And then I've got stuff sitting in my inbox where I've signed up for something to have a look at or to use it and it's just sitting there, I've never even logged in, so I fall into that category. But that 1%, another course is not going to save your business. It's just not.
Angie (44:17):
Getting scrappy, getting creative, reminding yourself that we're all just figuring out how the hell this works as we go, especially with as fast as technology and society is evolving these days, wow. I mean, there are legal rules, yes, and there are ethical rules, yes, and they're societal rules, but there aren't really rules to what you can and can't do outside of that. And if you see a new way of doing something that you go, well, I want to do it this way, it's worth a shot. Try it out. That action is going to give you the clarity and the data to know whether it works.
Sarah (44:52):
That's the magic piece that people go, oh, you are good at this, Sarah, what do you think? Should I do this or this? And I go, I don't know, have you tried them? And they're like, no. I'm like, then there's no data to tell me which works better. Do both, and then let's see. Am I going to apply data from other people's businesses, yes, absolutely. But ultimately, someone can say to me, Sarah, this works really well. And then I apply it into our boat business and go, that's dog, not doing that. And then other times I put it in there and it goes like a rocket, so you've absolutely got to apply it.
(45:23):
And I think the other thing is, stop looking externally. You have everything you need inside your business already. If you have a business that has an income coming in and expenses going out, you have everything you already need to make your business work. You just have to do better business with what you've got. It fascinates me the number of people that come to me and I go, oh, so what's going on? They're like, oh, well I'm working all the time and don't have enough time, but we don't have any money. There's [inaudible 00:45:51] money and all that sort of stuff. And I'm like, okay, cool. What do you need? More customers.
Angie (45:55):
No.
Sarah (45:55):
Oh no, this is broken. If you're not making money with the 10 customers you have, putting 10 more isn't going to help.
Angie (46:03):
No.
Sarah (46:03):
Fix what's broken in the existing business without adding any more, and then you can put more people in. I think we live in a world, especially on social media, where they're constantly telling us, we need more. You need this new app, you need this new book. Small business is a big business for people and you don't need more.
Angie (46:03):
You don't.
Sarah (46:24):
In fact, so often we need less rather. You were saying right back at the beginning about what if you had two customers at $5,000 instead of however many, I can't even do the maths, at $100 to make $10,000, which is easier? Which is better? Less is more.
Angie (46:43):
Yeah. We talked about that earlier, a different guest earlier today, more is not better, especially when it comes to busy business owners that have a lot of conflicting priorities and people competing for their attention. And it's so funny how this comes up, because I was speaking to a different coaching student earlier today that was like, well, I have this income goal and the answer is more clients. And I said, is it though? And he goes, Yeah. And I was like, okay, but you just told me that you get up at 5 o'clock in the morning because you've got a new baby, so you need some focus time before the baby gets up to get this work done. Then once the baby's up, it's like all hell breaks loose until probably noon. Then you got a couple more hours to get in some calls, then you got to do some family time, get the baby to sleep and you're working well into the night. Where do the new clients fit in?
(47:34):
And he goes, well, so you're telling me that I can't take on more clients? I'm not telling you that. I'm telling you, I think if you take on more clients that it's going to be a lot more challenging and could potentially make you doubt your own capabilities, and that's the last thing that I want from you. Is there another way to make money? That's the question that I really want to ask, or is it I need more clients? I don't think that that's the answer.
Sarah (47:59):
Yeah. And I think we sold more clients is the answer. If you think about, would I be exaggerating to say 90% of the marketing out there to small businesses is make more money? Here, get more clients, get more leads, because it's sexy to sell more of that stuff. When ultimately, for a lot of businesses, their business isn't in a position to be able to accept that yet.
Angie (48:26):
Yes. They don't have the infrastructure, they don't have the systems or the process, they don't have the support staff. It's crazy. And like I said, the way that this is circling back in the universe right now, we literally, my business partner and I got a testimonial from somebody that we put through one of our VIP day processes, and he said almost word for word, Angie taught me that I already have the answers. The answers weren't more courses, more studying. I already knew what to do, but what I had to start doing was getting ruthless about cutting things away so that I actually could hear what I wanted to do. And I was like, I couldn't have scripted that better if I tried. Thank you.
Sarah (49:05):
I know. And that is the powerful piece, the powerful word of no, because that fallacy, and I'll be interested to know if you've seen this, but that success fallacy in business is the more success you get, the more opportunities come up, the better you have to get at saying no. Because you get into this place, where you're like, oh, I'm so excited, look at all these great new opportunities. You go, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then you just end up with this monster and you think, uh-oh, and now you've got to unpack that.
(49:34):
So know what's you important to you life-wise and business-wise, and then say no to everything that doesn't fit in those boxes, because otherwise you can just end up in such a bad place, right?
Angie (49:48):
Yeah. If you're going to invest in learning anything, back to courses, learn about how you work and how your brain operates, what makes you fulfilled, what helps you do your best work. Because recently I've come to an understanding that I do my best work from a place of joy, and people everywhere can tell that I'm having so much fun with my business. And I also know that for me, it's twofold, if I say yes to something, I know that I'm saying no to a whole bunch of other things. So what am I going to do with my limited time, since I can't do everything? What am I going to do with my limited time?
(50:24):
And my filter for that, my compass that points me toward a yes versus a no is, is this a full body hell yes? If I can feel this in my soul, then the answer is yes, let's go. If I'm going well, is this the next step? If I have to do this, and having this argument with myself in my head, well then the answer is no. It's either a full body hell yes or it's a no.
Sarah (50:49):
Oh my God, I use exactly the same frame. That's hilarious. I think I heard Tim Ferris say it, it was where I first heard it, where he said, it's a no unless it's a hell yes. And I was like, oh, life changing, and then I applied it. Same thing, it's either a hell yes, if I'm like, oh yeah, I could. I'm like, no, Sarah, it's a no. You're just being nice. No.
Angie (51:10):
And maybe to those of you who are listening, you haven't experienced a full body hell yes sensation, but there might be other ways that your body is telling you whether this is a yes or a no. Are you resisting this? Are you having trouble getting up? Is everything involving this project stressing you out or overwhelming you or making you wonder? Those are all signs, again, you could come at this from a place of ease versus struggling your way through that, right?
Sarah (51:42):
Yes, so true. Because we're talking before about the resistance, the level up resistance, you have to know the difference. Which is it? Is it the level up resistance, I need this for the next stage, or is it the resistance of, this does not bring me great joy and so I'm not going to do it? I've not read Marie Kondo's book, but I love that, does this spark joy? Yes, this totally sparks joy. Not necessarily with things, but with stuff in our businesses, does this spark joy? And if no, why would I do it? I got into business to do my own thing, so it better spark joy.
Angie (52:21):
Yes. Oh my gosh, that's genius. I'm going to circle it, highlight it, flashing neon red sign and emphasize it. I'm just like ear to the universe, don't take it personally if this describes you, why are you people out here [inaudible 00:52:39] things to your business because somebody else told you to do it, but you hate it.
(52:43):
I know that cold calling works, I know there are people that love cold calling and closing deals. My business partner is one of them, that is her happy place, closing five figure deals on cold calls, for which I am incredibly grateful because I don't have to do it. Will you ever get me on a cold call? No. It makes me break out in a sweat. I don't know what to say, that's when I'm not very articulate. That's when I start selling for, well maybe we could do this other, I'll give you a discount before you actually even ask for it because I'm feeling insecure in my offer.
(53:13):
Hell no, I'm not going to do no cold calls. That makes me miserable. What I am going to do is coaching calls, podcast calls, stuff like this where I can get good and ranty and we're both flashing at ourselves.
Sarah (53:23):
So good, right? And that's just it, like my clients are saying to me, do I have to do video? You don't have to do anything, that's why you're in it. Do you need to tell people about your business? Yes. How you choose to do that is up to you. Here are some things that do work, but if you feel awkward and uncomfortable, then no, because they don't come across, like I don't want to be here. That's not going to attract people, that's going to repel them.
Angie (53:51):
Speaking of that stinky cologne that you can't smell, if you're not feeling it, you're putting out the vibes where people are going, where's that coming from? I'm very weirdly uncomfortable right now, I don't like this.
Sarah (54:07):
That's so good. Every time you tell that cologne piece, I think of, we have a town in New Zealand called Rotorua and it has thermal energy, so it smells like rotten eggs. But when you live there, you acclimatize to it. and my husband will tell you there's some chemical reaction that happens in your nose, and so that's why you can't smell it, but everybody else notices when they go there. So every time you talk about this stinky cologne, I'm like, yeah, it's like living in Rotorua versus visiting Rotorua.
Angie (54:35):
There was a city like that in Northern California when I lived there I remember, it's called Milpitas, and it happens to be, it's not a thermal thing, it's a landfill thing, the landfill for the Bay Area is there. And some days it's fine, and other days I remember going to lunch and not knowing the landfill was there, and I got out of my car and I looked at my colleague and I went, what is that smell? And he just goes, Milpitas, and walks away. The whole city smells like that. Okay, good to know. Mark that off my, I don't want to live in Milpitas, that's not happening.
Sarah (55:11):
You live there long enough, you'd not smell it probably.
Angie (55:15):
Yeah, that's true. Then all my visitors would come into town and be like, how do you live here?
Sarah (55:23):
Yes, that's exactly it. That's exactly it.
Angie (55:25):
Oh my gosh. I'm going to rant and ramble about all of these crazy things all day. So what I'm going to do to keep this from being a five hour episode is say, hey, I have loved this conversation. It sounds like we need to do a part to tell us more about your business and where we can learn about you on the internet.
Sarah (55:42):
Yeah, absolutely. So as I said at the start, I work with women, I help them get out of that overwhelm, that stress. And I'll just say it really simply, I'll give you back a day a week in 40 days. So if you are in that place of total overwhelm and stress and you need help, I have some things for you if you're here listening to us, and it's at sarahgreener.com/PTKA. And I might get Angie to say that in not a Kiwi accent, so you can understand.
Angie (56:15):
We'll just say, sarahgreener.com/PTKA. That is the initials of this show, Permission To Kick Ass, PTKA.
Sarah (56:24):
Awesome. And everything you need to know about me is there. I've got a wee book you can grab, I've got a community there that's got some free trainings and stuff. If this is something that you need some help with, I want to make sure that you are loving your life and your business, not that your business is that big monster that you want to escape from.
Angie (56:42):
Oh yes. And hint, for all of you listening saying, I'm too busy to do that, you are absolutely the person that needs this. I'm just saying.
(56:49):
Ugh, thank you so much for being on the show. This is such a great way to end a long tape recording, I'm going to be laughing all the way to the gym. Thank you so much.
Sarah (56:59):
Hey, awesome. My pleasure.
Angie (57:00):
So that is it. Another awesome episode of Permission to Kick Ass on the books. If you want to know more about the show, if you want to know more about me, Angie Coley and the mission I'm on to help entrepreneurs punch fear in the face and do big, bold things, then head on over to permissiontokickass.com. That is all one word together, permissiontokickass.com.
(57:25):
Make sure to sign up for my email list so that you know whenever there's a hot fresh and ready podcast episode out for you. And also on Mondays, I like to send out a little newsletter called Kick Monday's Ass, I'm sure you're totally, totally surprised by that.
(57:37):
So thank you for being here with me today. I'm Angie Coley. Make sure that you share this with a friend that needs to hear this message today. Like it, share it, comment wherever you're listening to this today, and let's go kick some ass.