116. [FROM THE ARCHIVES] High Standard

Welcome to the Business Fondle, the Bold Business Podcast for entrepreneurs and business owners hosted by Peta Serras the Professional Babe. So why don't you pour yourself a drink and slip into something a little more comfortable and I'll get your business going. It's really interesting that in business and in life, uh, whenever I talk about, like things that I just, I, I won't do or I won't accept, or my, I'm calling it like my baseline.

It's really interesting, like the conversations that that come up from this, and I think that this usually happens when I'll tell people, I'm like, oh, I don't have imposter syndrome. Oh, I don't deal with that. Oh, I don't. All of the things that we think sometimes in business are normalized. There are things that I'm just like, I just don't have, and I think because of that, people think that I'm some kind of like alien, right?

Where it's like, I don't, I don't deal with any of this, what is happening with my brain. And it's actually not what's happening with my brain. It's the fact that I think if you, if you go through enough crap and remember I've been in business since, well, 2008. It's like you get to a point where you are like, enough is enough. I want more for myself. I want something better. I want a better life. I want a better business. I deserve this. And when you make that declaration.

You start to see all of the little things and the little behaviors and, and how you show up and what you accept and people that you let into your life that are really impacting the results in the life and the business that you want. And then what you get to do here is you get to like, raise your standards on, on how this looks. And this has been something I've been doing for years and years and years to a point now where.

A lot of this work is just so unconscious to me, and it's just something that I, that I do. And when we have these conversations, people are like, pause, tell me more. So I am really excited about today. I'm excited for two reasons because you'll be able to apply this to your personal life. However, you'll also be able to apply this to your business as well. So if you haven't already and you are loving these workshops, I would absolutely love a hot and sexy Google review.

I feel that my Google presence is good, but I have a personal goal to get to a hundred reviews by the end of the year, so I'm feeling really excited about that. If you are new to me, hi. I am Peter. I've been doing this for a very long time, and let me tell you that when I started, there were no standards within my business. My business was, let me just turn up, let me do all of the things, let me work a lot, let me take all the clients. And what happened within this first business?

There was a lot of burnout. I was really unhappy. I, I didn't like a lot of things that were happening in my business and it's really interesting that we can sometimes think this is business and not, oh no, this is how I am showing up in business, or this is what I am accepting in business. And it's so interesting the business that I have now compared to the business that I have back then and how much more happy I am, how much more satisfied I am. How like.

Every day is, is fantastic and there aren't really tears compared to that first business. And I do believe that this has a lot to do with the standards that I've set and that I hold for myself. So, you know, I have usually gotten feedback from people. Where they'll see how I do things in my business, or they'll look at parts of my business and they're like, I love that you do that. You are on my vision board. I want this, I want that.

And I think the reason that I get this feedback is because I have really high standards in areas of my business. And when we look at like people in business that we love. So we can think about our business expanders or people that were like, oh my gosh, if I had their life, I would love that. Or, I love what they've done, done in, in this particular part of their business. This is something that I want for me.

The reason that I think that we love this is because person will usually have a really high standard in that particular area. And they are going into it with a high standard. So someone that comes to mind for me is Steven Bartlett from Diary of a CEO. every time you talk about podcasts or people like, oh my gosh, I love his podcast, it's exceptional. And that is an example of someone that is just continually raising the standard on how things need to look.

And you know, he has spoken in depth about like the work that they go to to make this podcast exceptional down to. You know, playing, like the person that they're interviewing, playing, like the music that they listen to and really getting like every little tiny element working. And that is an example of someone that has like a really high standard. The same could be said for, for Gary v. And how he is like, you know, produce content, show up document.

That's his standard, that he will document everything and that he will just keep showing up and you can look at people in business and in their personal life and whatever you are feeling drawn to. So if you are like magnetized to a particular element within someone's life or their business, that can start to reveal to you something that you can create a standard around and, you know, post-workshop, this is something that, that you can go and do.

Anytime you feel drawn or magnetized to something, ask why? What is drawing me in? And then what can I take from this and then add this into my own life. Now, when we use the word standard, this is the, the boring. Dictionary ex, what's it called? Example, not example. This is the boring dictionary explanation, and that is a level of quality or attainment or principles of conduct informed by notions of honor and decency. That sounds so boring, doesn't it?

I define a standard as this is basically like my rule book on how I live, and that if you were to take all of my standards and you were to apply them to your own life. So just pretend that I was to write everything out. You are gonna print it out, and then you are gonna be like, I'm gonna live to this. Then you would have a life in business that was pretty similar to mine. So I see this as like the guiding compass of how you live your life and you run your business.

And all of us have particular standards and what may be happening, and this is what we're gonna uncover as we get, probably towards like the midpoint of our workshop is, you know, what our standards are, where are we betraying them, you know, where are we kind of going against the words that we have for ourself and, and like what we want for ourself, and then what we can do moving forward.

when you wanna have an incredible business, when you wanna have something that is just continually working for you, and when you wanna feel like that, you know, you wanna turn up to like business each day and you want to like just go through life feeling really good about everything that is coming, like your way. And If you follow me on Instagram, I put up a carousel, oh, maybe like it was a couple days ago, and it was about standards that I have in business.

And let me tell you, it was really interesting the amount of people that actually shared that carousel with me and they were like, oh my gosh, I'm obsessed with this. And what's so interesting is the more that you can convey what these standards are. Because again, it's first we have to identify what they are, but the more that we can, we can put them in our content, we can put them on our website.

It will be so interesting the people that then become magnetized to you and how all of these like leads or, or potential clients, they just come out of the woodwork and they're like, I love how you've said that. This is something that I want, and I feel that this is a really good strategy at the moment. When it kind of feels like that, obviously there is more content. AI is pushing more content, and with that you're getting more of the same.

It's like if we can come in and communicate like, here is what we stand for, here is what makes us different. Like this is my non-negotiable in my workday. This is my non-negotiable in my personal life. I think that you are gonna all find it really interesting, the conversations and even conversations with new people that you are gonna have. I believe that every single person.

Every single person watching this, every single person that's listening to the replay, we can create something so remarkable. We can create a beautiful life. Even if you feel like that everything at the moment is shit and that you hate it, and that if you look at your life and your business and you're like, I don't particularly love it. Or if you feel like that you are just up against a ceiling or you feel stressed or really overwhelmed, it doesn't matter where you are.

We can create something truly remarkable. And this starts with the standard that we set. And what we are gonna do is learn the foundations of that. So what I recommend to all of my clients is that this is something that they, that they do and that they explore. Every single quarter. Now, what I wanna say is, if you are in a really big growth period, so let's pretend that you just feel like that you've been growing, you've been doing a lot of personal development work.

You've just hit like a business milestone, and when you've hit that milestone, you've just kind of like. It almost feels like you've entered like a new era of you. I don't know if you've experienced that before where you kind of set out to do something. It doesn't even need to be anything ma, like massive. Maybe you've just launched a website or you've had a photo shoot, whatever it may be, and then you feel like that you've kind of like arrived.

At this new level, what I'm gonna say is that when that happens and you actually feel these shifts within yourself and your business, this is where you get to raise that standard and continually raise it. I will give you an example. So I am in my fit era at the moment. I'm gonna be, my healthiest, happiest, hottest self. My goal is to actually feel like I'm ovulating every day. So when I work with like any, like health practitioners, I wanna be like, I feel so good.

It's like I'm ovulating every single day. Now, something that I'm doing is I'm exercising, I have a treadmill at home, and the reason that I bought that treadmill is because the standard is that I will move my body every day. Now, I don't really love being outside in the weather and the rain because my hair goes curly. Do not tell anyone that that is a secret I like to keep to myself. So I bought this treadmill and I used to walk probably about six to 10 KA day, sometimes more.

It was, it was a huge part of my life now because I stopped doing that. You know, the standard is not, I'm gonna walk 10 KA day because I'm really setting myself up for failure. The standard is I'm gonna get on my treadmill and I'm gonna move, and I'm gonna do like half an hour. And I don't really put any requirement on how that looks. So I don't tell myself, you need to walk at six kilometers an hour. You need to do this. I just set the standard that I will move my body every day.

Now what will happen is when this starts to become. Like automatic where I feel like I just go and do it. I enjoy it. It's mostly pleasurable. I feel like this is easy. What I then can do is start to raise the standard, so it's like, okay, cool. Let's take this to an now 45 minutes a day. Let's ensure that now instead of 45 minutes a day, that we are doing like four kilometers or we are doing this. So it's about these incremental shifts.

And when we make these shifts, what this is about, it is about really having our, our North Star identified. So what goals do we want? Where in business are we kind of like working towards? And what it's about. It's about making these incremental shifts with our standards. So raising them up, and then what will happen is it will get to a point where it's not like this huge valley between where we are and where we desire to be. It's like you think about it.

If we are making these little shifts along the way, we're gonna get to a point where the whatever goals we're working towards, whatever outcomes we have in mind, they will just happen as a byproduct of us continually. Like raising these standards. So I want you to feel really excited about this because what this means is that whatever you are working towards in life and in business, the work that we do today will help make that happen in a really, really easy way.

Because what we are starting to do is rewrite the rule book. On, like how we're going to show up and how we're gonna live our lives. So I want you to feel really excited about this. I wanna be really clear that standards are not restrictions. I think a lot of us are like, oh, I don't know if I wanna do this. This feels, it feels like a bit of unsexy work. You know what I mean? It's like parenting yourself.

And in a way, I think maybe it is, but something that I want to let you know is that I work with so many clients and the amount of times that I will have clients that just say that they don't feel creative, or they don't have ideas that come up, or they just feel really flat.

What I wanna say is that if you are continually having to remember who you are and remind yourself of who you are and deal with stuff happening in your life and in your business, we are gonna be in this like firefighting mode where we are constantly putting out little fires. Now, how this can show up in a business is let's pretend that you have, uh, you've got clients and you've got like a retainer style model with your business. So you may not have standards around who you work with.

Maybe you're just like, I wanna work with everyone. Maybe you've discounted to get clients. Maybe you are happy with clients like paying you late. And when you look at your business, there's a lot of like elements that are kind of just a bit messy and it feels messy. What happens when you're dealing with that mess is that if you are thinking about chasing three people up to get paid and you're not really sure what to do with their work, should I work on it today?

Or should I pick the phone up or, I don't know about this. What happens is all of that energy that you have that could go to like being really creative in your business is just gonna go with dealing with shit compared to you basically just deciding. Yeah, okay, cool. This is the standard and that if you don't pay me, we cease the work immediately. And if we don't get this within two weeks, uh, we'll just like. Stop working with you as a client that's communicated.

Then we have that boundary within all of the comms that we put out there. But this is a standard that I have for myself. this is where when we have these standards, you'll find that your creativity just increases so much. You'll feel like almost like an ideas factory. You'll be like, hold on, pause. We cannot possibly do another idea this week. Okay? So you are not gonna feel creative if you are dealing with shit, and this is going to help you feel creative.

the standards that we have have given us the life that we have today. So what we can do right now is I want you to think about parts of your life and your business. That we are like not too happy with. So I'll tell you about mine. I am not that great at sleep. It's something I struggle with. It's probably for me, like the first thing that really just gets, like, it's really easy for me to fall off track. Now, the problem is, is because of this, also love to do some late night scrolling.

Uh, and I find it really easy to stay up every night until maybe like two or three in the morning. But I know that this is not good and it's not sustainable. And I also know for me to function at an optimum level. I need to have really good sleep. So when I think about that, it's really interesting the amount of like mental energy that I feel go to that and how much brain power I'm using instead of kind of creating a standard that I'm gonna have a particular bedtime.

And that I nourish my body every night with eight hours sleep. That's the standard that I've set. So you can start to think about areas of your life where you are just not getting the outcome that you want, or you just feel a bit icky with.

And some way, a, a different way to look at this is you may feel sometimes like something is fine, but you can then look at this as if you ever had to communicate this with someone, what would you kind of feel funny about or a bit like embarrassed about or like you just kind of wanna like hide the truth and it's like.

Where you have areas like that potentially can reveal to you where you feel that you maybe need to like raise your standards because you know deep down what is happening is really below what you're accepting. And the reason you feel funny about it is because you are accepting it. Because let's be honest, if we're looking at sleep, if I had no idea and I didn't care. I would, I would be fine telling people I hardly sleep. I only get like six hours a night. I would not care.

But the fact that then I feel like sometimes I try to justify it, right? That is telling me, oh, this is really interesting. We probably should raise the standard here. And you need to kind of parent yourself a bit. a huge thing that I wanna let you in on is we wanna make sure that we are not letting people. Define our standards for us. It is a really dumb move in life and business if we let someone set the standard for us.

I see this a lot with people that decide that they're gonna hire a virtual system. their business feels like that. The it's fucking shit show. They're like, there's mess. I'm stressed. I've got so much work. Let me hire a va. I see this a lot. The problem is with that is that if you haven't worked out how you want things to look, you are letting someone else decide that standard.

And the problem is with that is this is where I see a lot of a type perfectionists outsource to someone who just wants to get the job done. And this is not every virtual assistant, just like this is not every founder of its perfectionist. Sometimes you'll have a founder that doesn't care and the VA is the perfectionist. where it's like, if you are ever outsourcing anything in your business, I want you to remember that you are outsourcing the standard.

So if you are like, let me bring in a bookkeeper. They have a standard in mind that maybe is not your standard. Let's pretend that you have a standard that your books are gonna be reconciled and you are gonna be up to date every Friday. Maybe that feels really good for you. And then what happens is you then outsource it to a bookkeeper. And guess what? They do it monthly. What happens to them? You then feel uncomfortable because you're like, I wanna know where I am.

I, I don't wanna know where I am 12 times a year. I wanna know where I am every single week. So the more that you know yourself and you know your standards, guess what you can do. When you are hiring a bookkeeper, you can communicate, Hey, you know, it's really important for me that I know my fin financial position every single week, and I really love to kind of keep up to date books so I know every single Friday how the previous week has looked.

Is this something that we could do within this particular package? If the bookkeeper says, no, I don't work like that, you get to make a decision. Am I happy to lower my standard or change this or do I want to go with that? Or you think about it. If you're deciding between two people and one of them may be a little bit more expensive, that expense doesn't really matter.

If the standard that you want is held, and this is where when you work this out for yourself, this will just change your life because when you have these standards, you'll actually start to communicate what you want. And there's not going to be this like mismatch of you feeling like that you've outsourced or you've spent some money and then all of a sudden it's like what you've spent isn't actually delivering you what you want. And this is where a lot of us will have standards, but if we're not.

Sure of what they are. We then can't communicate that. And then what this will be fed back to us is, is data where stuff just feels like that it's a bit murky or that we're like unhappy with. So there is a cost to the business if we do not know our standards and we do not know ourself. caveat. This work can be really quite confronting.

And the reason that it is confronting is because you'll, you'll see all of the things that you have let slide, and you are gonna look for lots of areas in your life and in your business where we need to kind of like raise the standard. But I wanna say this is a good thing. This is such a good thing because when you commit and you do this work. This is where you are going to see such a difference in your life and in your business. It is going to be exciting.

So your life, your business right now is a reflection of standards that we have and we're not communicating, or standards that we just don't have at all. Okay? So if you are feeling uncomfortable, stuck, sad, whatever it may be, know that that can be changed if we have this standard set. And we communicate it. I feel like this could be a really fun drinking game. How many times can compete a say standard take a shot? That would probably be very unsafe.

And I wanna say too, that this also comes back to keeping a promise to yourself. I posted on Insta Stories last night, some stories around standards, knowing that we had this workshop that was was happening today. And what I had said is that. A lot of the time, you know, when we don't wanna do something, the reason that we probably don't wanna do it is because we are living the side effect or the byproduct of us, like betraying our standards.

So what I mean by this, let's go back to that exercise example. Let's pretend that I have my standard, that I move my body for 30 minutes every day. If I don't do that for a week, how do you think my body's gonna feel? Because this baseline has been to move every day, I'm gonna feel fantastic, and that is gonna be contrasted with me feeling not that great. Maybe my hips are sore, maybe my back saw, maybe I feel really stiff.

So what then happens is because I feel a particular way in my body, there is a chance that. I won't wanna exercise because I'm gonna be like, oh, my body feels like crap. I'll do it tomorrow. But the reason it feels like crap is because I have betrayed the standard that I've set. Now, in a business setting, this would look like that. You have a standard where you sell every day, or you pitch every day, and let's pretend that you don't do that for two weeks.

And then what happens is your business gets quiet and no money comes in. It feels like no one's paying attention. You've got no leads. Everything's dried up. So then what happens is you're like, well, I don't wanna sell because I must be really shit at this. Or it's really hard at the moment, or I can't make this work, or I'm, I'm not, I'm not cut out for this, or I've got imposter syndrome. But again, the reason that this is happening is because we haven't done the thing.

So this is where as you go through your day and your week. It'll be really interesting if you feel resistance to doing something, but the reason you feel resistance is because you haven't been doing it. This is where there is gonna be like a temporary, almost like a teething period where you are like, okay, cool. I know if I'm getting fit. That it's gonna feel a bit uncomfortable in my first 20 minutes, or I'm gonna feel resistant to putting on my exercise gear.

Or if it's selling, this is gonna feel clunky and it's gonna maybe take a little bit longer, or I'm gonna feel maybe a little bit funny when I go and I follow someone up. But I know that I'm doing this for my future self and that the reason Miss feels funny. Is because I haven't done it and I just have to like teach myself how to do this again. And until it becomes automatic and then it becomes like a habit, like brushing my teeth.

So whatever in business that you desire, we get to make a standard whatever you want. We get to make a standard and that is what we are gonna do today. is my process and this is what we are gonna work through, we are gonna be answering these five questions. So step one is, what are the standards in your personal life? We add any new standards. What are the standards in your business? We'll add any new, where are we betraying our standards and betraying ourself?

is the barometer for this happening and how do we measure? And then what is the strategy moving forward? Because we are gonna be deciding some standards, and the good news is if you feel like you have none or they're low, great. The only way is up. But this also becomes fun if you feel like that you have standards, and now we get to, we get to raise them.

When we look at standards in our personal life, this is like our, uh, I guess how, like how we run our life, or it's like what do we accept within our life? So examples of this are being on time and honoring time. I always keep my word. My standard is that I will always respect my boundaries, even if it makes other people uncomfortable. A standard is I go to Pilates three times a week. A standard could be, I drink two liters of water every day.

Uh, a standard could be that, you know, we have, we don't have phones at dinner time, or we sit at like the dining room table as like a family. So there are gonna be some standards that you have. What you can do here is if you're like, I have no standards, I don't even know where to start. What I want you to do is I want you to have a look through your week, and I want you to be like one of my actual non-negotiables, one of my non-negotiables, and how can I kind of like.

Communicate that, or maybe you're like, you know what? My life feels terrible. Everything is fucked. I wanna burn it down. So what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna make a decision right now of standards that I have. So a standard could be that you take time and you eat like a healthy, nourishing breakfast every single day. A standard could be, I have a dedicated lunch break of at least half an hour.

So we just had in the chat something that annoys me about other people, so I always make sure I stick to, is when I'm out with friends, I don't touch my phone. So a standard could be a. I'm always really present when I'm with people, and you think about that if you have like a standard of presence. It, it doesn't even need to be like around the phone.

It could be something around like, you know, when I'm out and I'm like conversing with people, I'm gonna make sure that I'm not kind of like switched off and not even paying attention. I'm gonna be really present with what they say. What you wanna make sure is this, this is then something that you. Like, it feels good. You're like, yes, this communicates what I want. And then you of course will, will write that down. I meal plan for the week, uh, a couple weeks. Big grocery shop every Sunday.

I love this standard monthly weekend vacation. Oh my God. Obsessed with that. I love this. Okay, perfect. Now, what you will find as we, we go through this and as you go through your week, is I would love for you to just keep like adding to this. Try to come up with like at least 10. And I think, you know, it's not about remembering all of these, so it's not like you need to kind of write this down and it's like every morning you read and recite it.

But where this is really good is the more that you have is you can then start to reflect on this every single day. At the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month, how you feel, and the more that you kind of feel like that if you write, just say 10 things down and then you do all of these 10 things, you'll feel remarkably different at the end of every day and at the end of every week. And you will notice be really beautiful changes over time within your business.

Okay, so now we're gonna go into the next one, which is our standards in business. You may find that this is easier to do, or maybe you find this is more challenging, but as you've done both, it's gonna be interesting if you feel that there is a disconnection where you have really great and high standards within your personal life, and maybe you're like, this is interesting because it's not translating to my business.

Or maybe you're like, I actually find this really easy to do in my business and I've got really high standards for my clients, but for some reason this just is not translating to my personal life. So examples of standards in your business could be that you are not gonna be a personal Google for your clients. So if they just keep like messaging you something and you're like. You could have easily Googled that.

Maybe you have a standard where it's like, I want my clients to, to like be their own leader and I am not gonna be their personal Google. Maybe a standard that you have is that you always have big picture thinking so that you are not gonna get bogged down in a drama. A standard could be that you have a really ethical sales process and that you are not going to sell something to someone that they don't need. A standard could be that you show up and you sell every day.

Uh, a standard could be that you like post a piece of content or that you do two podcast episodes or that you only ever publish work that you feel deeply proud of. It's interesting this question because this is where you can think as well, especially if you've been doing this for a while about the business owner that you are today versus the business owner that you were.

When you started, and you can see if there's a shift of things that you kind of like do differently now compared to when you started. So this may look like that you have a standard where you just don't discount or you never discount to win work where this may be something that you did when you started your business. Does anyone find this one more challenging or are you finding this easier compared to doing this for your personal life? Okay. I am very specific with the clients that I take on EG.

I only work in fertility, pregnancy, and birth. I do not treat men and I don't treat random health issues. I will refer on when it's not my zone of genius or interest. Love. I love, love, love this. Why I love this is because this is where sometimes and where business can be challenging is, especially if we are running our business to sustain us and our life and our livelihood, which all of us are. The problem is when stuff can feel quiet, it can be really easy to be like, I need to take money.

I need to take a client. And sometimes this can happen, even if we've just had this, the tiniest little dip. Or maybe we've got heaps of money in the bank and we're actually doing well, but we've just had five days where it feels really quiet and then all of a sudden we're like, no, I need this client. I need to take them on. And then what happens is if we take them on, then we start to be like, oh, I don't really like this. Why am I doing this? Do I even like what I'm doing?

And it's like you do. The problem is that we've really gone outside of, of our standards by. Accepting other, other clients. Uh, it's challenging because I've realized I don't have a lot of standards. You know what? This is amazing because you are going to see the most benefit from this, and you'll see when you actually like, have these.

What's interesting, and I said this again in my stories last night, is that I don't think a lot of us realize how much we are ruled by our emotions and how we feel in the moment. Because instead of us kind of making decisions based on our standards, we may make decisions based on how we feel. And the problem is how we feel.

If you follow the work of Brooke Castio from the Life Coach School, you know, she has her model, which is the circumstance, the thought, the feeling, uh, the action, and then the result. And how a lot of the time, you know, if, if we feel a certain way, we think it's about the actual thing, but it's not, it's about our thought. So a lot of the time we can be, you know, making business decisions based on how we feel. But that's a bit, that's a, it becomes a bit murky.

So what I'm gonna encourage you to do is if we can, let's like at least create like. Five, and I'm gonna give you some ideas as well. In some ways this is easy, in some ways hard. Like what is a standard versus a task or a schedule? Fantastic question. So a standard is really a rule that you have for yourself and it can be like a, a, like a principle on how you live. So you can have a standard around like a particular task where it's like, you know, I am going to like record a podcast episode.

Like and, and publish this every Monday. All right. Maybe your standard is just around getting the thing done, but you'll get to a point where you then see the difference between releasing a podcast episode versus releasing something that feels really good. That is kind of like. Pushing your business into like the direction that you wanna head or giving you the goals that you want.

So you may then realize, well, there's a difference between publishing a podcast versus there's a difference between me publishing a podcast, so something is published versus me having a conversation that needs to be had that may piss some people off. So it could be you then elevate that standard where it's like. I publish a podcast episode and I have conversations that need to be had, even if it's not easy to say this, or even if I'm gonna piss people off, that's your standard.

So if we're looking at this from content. You may have like a baseline standard where it's like I publish a piece of content every day, and that's maybe where some of you are starting where you are like, I know that I need to publish content, but I'm just not doing it. So that's just to get us on a ladder. That's that first little rung. I'm gonna publish a piece of content every day. And then you start to do this and you're like, okay, this is cool. I am.

I'm, I'm executing this really nicely, but for some reason I still feel a bit funny or I felt really good, and now I'm like, oh, this is kind of feeling really boring. Why does it feel boring? Well, it feels boring because I feel like that I'm not actually having the conversations that I, that need to be had, and I'm, I'm worried about pissing people off. I want everyone to kind of feel like all like warm and cuddly when they read my stuff, but you know that that's not serving your business.

And it's also not serving your clients. So maybe then the standard that you have is, I like and I, this is a Gary V quote. I am butchering it slightly, but he said, once you know, I'm always willing to deal with the ramifications of being my full, authentic self. So maybe your standard is, I will post content that is fully me and I am willing to deal with the ramifications of being my full and authentic self, meaning that I'll always say what I wanna say. And I'm not going to filter myself.

So a standard that I have is that I will pitch with like really strong conviction. And what this means is I will never say to someone, oh, I think this may be kind of like a good idea for you, but only if you want to. I'm not gonna fucking do that because I know I'm a fantastic idea. I'm not gonna undersell myself. I'm gonna be like, this is what I would recommend. This would be fantastic for you.

Another standard that I have for myself and my business is that I'll put myself in rooms where I belong or I'll put myself at tables where I belong. That is a standard that I have. Now, why this is like, what's good to remember is that. Standards won't always feel fantastic, and I have a bit of a story for you all. So Liv, who is in the chat, uh, I actually met Liv at a dinner with some really wonderful business people. Hello Gorge.

Now a standard that I have is I will put myself in rooms where I belong. So if I see that I wanna network with a particular group of people, or if these are people that I want as my peers or there is an opportunity, I will go and even if I don't feel like it. That's a standard that I have. So I will just make it like work. I'll make it work. Now, when I met Liv, I got invited to this dinner and it was my beautiful friend Daniel, and she was like, come to dinner.

We've got an incredible group of women, that are going. And she kind of told me a few of the people and I felt myself wanting to pull out because I had really bad period pain and I felt like shit. I was like, oh my gosh, I've had a really bad week. I feel like shit, I could find every reason as to why I shouldn't go. And I had to remind myself that I put myself at tables where I belong and I, I was meant to sit there, so I had to just put my big girl pants on and I had to go.

And I told myself, you can go. There's no limit on how long you stay if you wanna go and just have a drink and then leave. Incredible. You can do that, but you have to go. And I made myself go. Now what happened is I met the beautiful Liv, who is incredible, who's now one of my clients. I met the wonderful Jemima and I ended up going to an event that Jemima hosted about two weeks ago, like two weeks after I met her, and I met more incredible people and the flow on effect from that.

Was outstanding. And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because a lot of the time people will see the end result of that. So they will see, oh, you know so and so, or you know, so many people, or you've got a client, they're looking at the end result. But what they're not seeing is the standard that I had set for me to actually be there in the first place. Where you can see here if I'm like, oh, well I kind of have this standard, but I'm not really gonna have this like. Solidified.

And if I'm kind of still moving on how I feel, I will every day find every excuse as to why, like, I can't do something because of how I feel in that moment. And it's like if I was like, no, babe, nourish yourself. You've got period pain. You can see here how all of these like, incredible things wouldn't have happened because I would've just decided how I felt in the moment. So what you can look at here is.

If you see that people have something that you want, or if you feel like that you are not getting the results that you want in your business, what you can ask yourself is what is then something that you should be doing that you know that you are not, and then how can we make a standard around that? So you could have a standard that. I am gonna go to minimum one networking event a month, and when I'm at this networking event, I am going to remember who the fuck I am and how I help people.

Okay. There's a difference between just turning up, I'm in a network versus I'm in a network and I'm gonna present my business like I am the best spokesperson for it. Do you have any advice for making these standards realistic? And I am sure other women in the room struggle with this too. Have plenty of struggles around overachieving burnout, unrealistic high expectations for myself. Fantastic question. So what we wanna think about here.

Is we never wanna create like 50 of anything, and we never wanna feel like that. If we are here and we have nothing, like let's just pretend, uh, let's stick with the whole like business expansion, meeting clients, putting yourself in rooms for a second. Let's pretend you don't, you do nothing. You don't even talk about your business. Or maybe you're like my little side thing. Right. My little side business, my, my little hobby, my joby, you really undersell yourself.

Just pretend that you're all there. It is unrealistic if I then say, go and put a billboard up or go and do this, right? If, if there is like a huge leap between what is currently happening now and then what you desire to. Be, so maybe your standard is that you are just going to start talking about your business differently. Maybe that's where you're starting.

So it's not about you going and networking every day or going and picking the phone up and, and calling 20 people and saying, I'm incredible. Work with me. But it's just about the self-talk that you have for your business. And that's where you're starting. So it's about making these little incremental shifts. How I would look at this is. It is not really around like ever being the best or doing more.

It is about honoring what you want and recognizing that, and then asking yourself, how can we kind of like, like bring that into our every day knowing that I am still a human that is gonna have like little wobbly days and bad moments. And this is where you then get to, of course, make a decision. And if you know that you have these standards for yourself, like let's just stick with the exercise example for a second.

You know, if I have a standard that I'm gonna work out every day, that's my standard that I've set, I'm gonna get on my treadmill, or I'm gonna go for a walk every single day. may wake up one day and I feel really crap. I'm like, oh my God, I'm sick. I'm getting the flu. And then I get to make a decision, okay, am I gonna get on the treadmill even though I'm really unwell? Or what should I do? What you wanna always come back to here is what you are actually working towards.

What is the life that you want? How does this look? And when I think about that, it's like, well, the life I want is, I want every day to feel like I'm ovulating. That's what I'm really working towards. And if I'm feeling really sick, I know that I may wanna work out. And then I have to deal with the disappointment of, of not being able to do that. Because right now what is gonna actually serve me today is I need to just stay in bed.

I'm just gonna drink my water and I'm gonna relax and I'm not gonna put pressure on myself of needing to get this done. And this is where it's about making a distinction Actually what you can do is you can think about your future self. So it's like what is actually gonna serve future me more? And you know, if you're sick, it's like, well, what's gonna serve Future me more is to rest now because she's really not well.

So that by the weekend she feels amazing compared to, I'm gonna serve my current self now because I have these really high standards for things. yeah, I think it's a high standard, but really it's not, I have an expectation, so I'm gonna just focus on me now, but I'm actually fucking my future self up and this is gonna vary. But that's what I would do. I would come back to your future self. Yes, I love this. What would future me need?

Because you'll then work out, oh, am I kind of just giving into how I'm feeling? So let's stick with the exercise example, and then I'll bring in a business one. So if we're thinking about the treadmill, I feel like I'm getting the flu. I feel now like I need to work out because I've told myself I'm gonna do this. Um, is future me gonna feel great? No. She's gonna feel like shit. She's probably gonna feel worse, gonna prolong her sickness.

So I'm gonna hold off compared to maybe I didn't sleep that well the night before and I'm feeling really lazy and I know that, you know, oh, I'd probably not good. I'm not gonna walk, but would this benefit future me? Absolutely. You know, she doesn't need to walk at like six K an hour. She can go do a nice little stroll that I know she's gonna feel really good after she's done this.

So in business with this as future you, maybe you have a standard that you pitch with like strong conviction or that you sell every day, that's your standard. I sell with strong conviction every day. You could be having a day where you've had a meltdown. Let's pretend you've had a really awful client experience. Something has happened, it has not been fantastic, and you are crying. It's like snotty tears. Has anyone had that before?

Where you've done something has really, it's rattled the fuck out of you. Has that happened to anyone? No. Yeah. Okay. It's rattled the fuck out of you. You are not. You are not in a, you are not great. Okay, well, what's gonna help Future me? Probably not pitching right now because right now we've got a bit of a crisis and we just need to come back to this baseline of neutral versus I've just had someone and I've seen them wanna work with someone else and I'm feeling a bit bummed.

I'm still gonna pitch because I don't want this to happen again. Alright, so it's about making that distinction. And what you can think about here is you need to think about your future self. And where this may bring up some stuff for you is that potentially you don't even know who future you is and you need to come back and actually create some goals of what you're working towards. And then this is gonna feel a bit more clear now in doing that.

We've kind of covered a couple of these next little steps. So we've got three questions to think about. Where are we betraying our standards? What is the barometer for this happening and how we measure, and then what is the strategy moving forward? So this is where like when we were talking about the perfectionist, this is where I would put this. So where are we betraying our standards? Maybe we have really high unrealistic expectations for ourself.

Or maybe we're really like, we're, we're kind of like tuning out of our body and how we are feeling and we are just like not honoring our future self because we're just making us do something in the moment and it's kind of just adding more mass. So, I've got some examples here. Overloading your schedule due to optimism, following people up and reminding your clients of things continually, uh, constantly letting people reschedule, not taking my supplements.

By making my marketing speak to everyone, by not honoring the price that's always set. So you can think then about the standards that you wrote on the other like page. So remember your personal and your business ones, and then you can be like, how am I betraying them? How am I going against what I've said? And again, make that distinction where this isn't about staying like perfect all of the time, but it's just about honoring and keeping that word to yourself.

So where I do this is I betray my standards by, scrolling on my phone and not really having like a dedicated sleep time and telling myself, oh, if it doesn't matter this time. It doesn't matter tonight. You can catch up your sleep later. Where I do this as well is I will let my supplements just run out. This would be always something that I would do.

I would let, I would know that I would be coming to empty of something and then I would let things run out, and then I just wouldn't buy them again. And then I would be like, shit, that's right. I'm meant to be taking this. what the barometer of this, we'll stay on that example for a second. The barometer of this is. Oh, okay. How do I measure? Well, I'm always got empty supplements and I always have like a week or two where I'm like, shit, I'm meant to be taking my iron and I keep forgetting.

So the strategy moving forward is I just always have two of everything in my house at once. If you come to my house, the amount of double ups that I have, I don't just have one toothbrush, I have three. I mean, just have one toothpaste. I have multiple, and you know, obviously that's a, a privileged position to be able to afford more. It has taken me a while to get there, but anything that is important to me, I will make decisions or buy things to make it easier.

So it's like with my treadmill, I was like, let me go and buy a treadmill because daily movement is really important, but I know what I'm like, and if it's cold or if it's raining, I'm not gonna wanna do it outside. I'm not going to, so let me make it really easy for myself. I don't do more than three calls a day. it. Three. so I've got today this. We have a business bank call. That's all I have in my schedule. I could have another client.

I know if I had that fourth client or that fourth call, I would get to dinner and feel like shit. I would not be having a fun time. So what we want to see. Is where we are going against the word that we have kept for ourself. And then when we look at the barometer, this is how we are going to see how this is happening. And for a lot of us, this is gonna be how we're feeling.

So you may notice this with feelings that come up or you feeling really depleted or you feeling like that you need to do something. Resentment is a huge one. So when you feel really resentful, maybe you see someone and they have achieved like a particular like business milestone that you want, and all of a sudden you're really resentful about that.

Or maybe like, when I went out to this beautiful dinner where I met Liv, you know, we snapped a picture and we put it on Instagram and maybe some people saw that and they're like, I'm so resentful because I wanna be around like incredible women like that. But maybe you are like, well, hold on. I don't really have a standard around this. Or I always get asked out and then, then I just say no because I just don't feel like it, or I'm feeling a little bit lazy that day.

And the most important thing that we do here is we always wanna make sure that we have a strategy. So what you'll find is that you now have like a baseline or your little rule of how you're gonna live. You'll know where you kind of waver with that. So how we betraying them, oh, well, I waver because sometimes I just don't feel like doing it and then I won't do it. Your barometer is again, how, how do you know that you are not doing it?

Maybe there's like a bit of a check-in or maybe you just feel a bit shit. Okay, cool. Now that we know all this. What is our little strategy moving forward to lock this in? What I wanna say with the strategy is if we can automate or decide things ahead of time and use like our, especially if this is business our little automated or technical infrastructure, this is gonna be incredible. So let's pretend that you have a standard around that.

You really honor time and now you have a 24 hour cancellation policy. The barometer of you then assessing what's happening is you are probably gonna look at how many cancellations you have, or maybe you are like going to notice that because you feel pissed, because you look at your diary and all of a sudden you're like, how have we got so many late cancellations? So the strategy that we are gonna have is whenever I have a new client, they're gonna sign an agreement and that is point number one.

And I'm gonna highlight it and I'm gonna read this out to them. And we are just gonna remind them in like the footer of our email that we send out every month or every time they get a newsletter that's gonna be on that. Maybe the strategy is I need to have some conversations with repeat offenders because I've been letting this slide. I'm annoyed at them. About doing this, but I've actually never communicated that we have this policy. I've been letting it slide.

I've been wearing that and I've not been communicating that to them. Maybe you need to hire someone that actually keeps you accountable, or maybe your strategy moving forward is, I'm gonna buy a work phone because I need to have this separation. Maybe your strategy is, I'm gonna put my phone on do not disturb. Or you know, like when we were talking about this whole like presence in a group setting. Maybe if this really pisses you off.

Uh, like and remember, I've been doing this work for a while, so if that pisses me off with my friends, I may say, okay, let's all try something today. Who feels like we wanna try something? My friends might look at me being like, oh my God, what's she gonna say? I'm gonna be like, right. I'm gonna be present with all of you because we have so much going on and like, I think we all should just put our phones away for the next hour. Who feels up to the challenge?

And I would literally say that instead of going through this whole encounter with my friends and then seeing them on their phone and being pissed, and then getting to the end being like, I don't know if I want these friends anymore. Maybe we've outgrown each other. No, just, just say something like, bring it up in conversation. I, and, and again, this is a muscle, it's gonna feel uncomfortable initially, but the more that you do it, you are gonna be like, oh no, this feels really good.

I've actually found my voice here. I have those thoughts of maybe I don't want these friends because I don't say anything all the time. Yeah. And this is where. You know, you'll reflect back on situations of how could this have gone differently or would I have felt differently if I would've had a conversation about this?

And this is where when you have these conversations and you set the standard, if your friends are like, no, I wanna be on my phone, blah, blah, blah, you then get to be like, cool. Is this a friendship that I want in my life? Is this adding to my life or is this taking away? And once you've set this standard. You then get to make a decision. I do this with dating.

I have really high standards with the, the behavior that I will accept and I will not accept, So these are some of my favorite standards. I put myself in rooms where I belong. I bring the energy that I wish to see. The amount of times that I will see people say I was in a group program and the community was really shit. Great. What were you adding to it? Were you just sitting back waiting for it to get better? Or were you making it amazing?

You know when people are like, oh, I bought, I bought this, and it was awful. Okay, cool. What was your part in that? Uh, like if I want testimonials, I'll give testimonials. You can look at this on my LinkedIn and the amount of recommendations that I've just written for people, because if I want something, I'm like, let me give that out to the world. Uh, I pitch and send proposals with strong conviction knowing the value of the work that I provide.

This looks like always selling This looks like never underselling myself. I never talk about my little business. I've always imagined that I have. A multimillion dollar business, even if I have a week or two weeks or a month when no money has come in, I see myself as the same level of the people that I look up to because we're peer to peer.

So anyone in business that I love, I see myself that if we were sitting down at a table together, I know that they would walk away knowing that I've made their life or their day or their business better. And I believe that. And then because of that I show up very, very, very differently compared to me, kind of pedestal them feeling like that. I don't know anything. So some little closing reflections. Standards are a commitment to ourself and the rules on how we live.

So this is a commitment that we are making based on where we wanna go in our life and in our business. They are so important and everyone should have a standard, uh, for, for everything. And if you want to especially have change within your life, change within a particular area. Ask yourself, how can we set a standard? So let's pretend you're not happy with the sales in your business. Fantastic. Let's add a standard. Let's pretend that you are like, oh, I feel like I wanna hide.

Like I don't wanna do some reels today or get in front of the camera because I just don't like how I look. Okay, cool. How can we set a standard? Maybe the standard is that you get dressed for work every day. Maybe the standard is that you have like really beautiful like clean hair. You take the time to do your hair so that you never like, feel like that you wanna hide. You are always now in a state of readiness. Standards also transcend immediate results.

So a lot of the time we want something now I want this now I want a better business now. But you are gonna have so many things that are obviously outside of your control when you know a lot of what we want requires someone else to usually make a decision. So what we wanna remember is that even if it's not happening in the moment that we want, if we have this standard that is now how we live our life. This is just a matter of time before this is then going to like materialize into our life.

And then lastly, discipline is the highest form of self-care. So this is not easy work. After this call, something really magical will happen and where you have decided that you have a standard around something, you are gonna be challenged with that. So if you have a standard where you don't discount, you will probably met with a client that wants to work with you that will say, I can't afford that. You then get to decide how this looks. From there and you get to make that decision.

You can change the scope of work if you want, but then ask yourself, is this serving like my highest good? And you have to be really disciplined with yourself because you've gotta remember that this is your life and it's happening right now. I think about this all the time. It's like I was kind of acting like that.

We were doing this like dress rehearsal and I was waiting for life to begin, and I had to remember that this is my life and you know, I will be on my deathbed one day looking back at this moment or this period of my life, asking myself was I like always waiting or accepting shit or was I kind of showing up, wanting and expecting the best for myself and being really disciplined with that. doing this work has changed my life so much.

It has absolutely changed my business, and I know that it will change you as well. you've loved this and you wanna keep working with me, I'd love to have you in business. Bang. This is something I really do for all my clients is I hold them to a high standard even if they feel like they don't have like a standard within an an area of their business. This is something that I'm acutely aware of for them and I will, I will help them raise that standard.

This can look as simple as if I know that they're undercharging on something, I'll be like, you know, I feel like the value that you provide is so much more than what is written down right now. Don't you think? And they'll be like, yeah, and I'll be like a hundred percent, like what you do is valuable. I remind them of who they are, and then we set that standard. This is gonna be the baseline that you charge no less. We're not discounting. This is the minimum. Okay, cool.

I feel scared about that. Hundred percent. This is new. Of course you feel scared. What are we gonna do? We're gonna put it up on the website. We're gonna have some conversations and I want you to pitch, so you know, this is where obviously working. Thank you so much with someone is gonna be really, really beneficial for you to kind of hold that standard within yourself. Thank you so much for everyone who has come to every single workshop or watch the replay. I have loved every minute of this.

Have the best day. Raise your standards and go make some cash. Bye everyone. If you're craving more, make sure to subscribe to my email list, which you can find at professionalbabe.com. And word on the street I give good email. Now go and take everything you've learned, get your hands dirty with it, and go and make some serious money.