The 3 Things I Wish I Was Told When I Started My Business

Today, I am going to share the three things I wish I was told when I started my business. 

Around 14 years ago, I hired a coach, and after about four months, I realized, “Wow, coaching is what I want to do. This will bring together all of my talents!”

When I was younger, I didn't know what career I would have.  When they asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My answer would be, “I don't know. A teacher? A speaker? A broadcaster? I don’t know.”

Putting all of these little pieces together, I finally became a life coach and speaker, and all this came together with the desire to empower women. 

I actually did my coaching certification while working full-time, then got pregnant—that was all the plan—and then ended up on maternity leave building the business, and I never fully returned because I was building the business. Leaving a nine-to-five job was a great experience for me, and thankfully I was successful in my business.

Over the years, because I've been building my business and having success, people have come to me and asked:

• “How did you do an online program?”
• “How did you sell it?” 
• “How do you get speaking engagements?” 
• “How do you bring on clients?”
• “How do you build your clientele for your coaching business?” 
• “How do you do all these things?” 

Over the years, I've done a lot of business consulting and taught people how to do these different things. 

Even though it’s been amazing, I still have days when I'm like, “Why am I doing this?” Maybe you have also felt that way in your career or business. “Ah, this is not a good day. Why am I doing this?” 

It may come on because you don't get a client, a proposal is not approved, or whatever the case may be. Something happens, and you go, “Okay, this is why,” and it's very obvious. But what do we do on the other days? On the days when things feel bad, or you're not on your A game, and you're wondering, “Why is this happening?” 

These are the three things I've experienced over the years that I wish someone had told me about. 

Lesson #1: You won't always have the energy. 

People say, “Oh, do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.” Even though you love what you do, some days are a grind. If I have to fly somewhere for a speaking engagement, and then maybe there was a delay in the flight, and now I'm arriving late, and I don't get to sleep well. Then, in the morning, I'm doing a tech check, I'm meeting people, and then I'm at the event and then I give so much. They say one hour on stage is like eight hours of work. 

Then you're still schmoozing, talking, giving, and doing, and then you get to bed late, but you must wake up early to fly back. 

I don't always have the energy for that. That's just my own physical limitations. Maybe you're feeling like, “Some days, I don't have the energy, and I wonder if I'm going to be able to get everything done,” because your to-do list seems super long. 

I want to let you know that that's okay. There are days when you won't have the energy because maybe you've already given it, or maybe it's a task you don't love doing. It's very common for us to be in that place of “I don't have the energy,” which might be emotional, physical, or mental. 

Ask yourself, on a scale of one to 10, where is your physical energy, emotional energy, and mental energy? Which one do you have a lot of? Which one do you not? 

Knowing that is important so you can take the next steps around it. 

I also want to let you know I am creating a mini-course called Summer Productivity Playbook. It's being put together right now. You can purchase it for just $7 until I finish it. Once I do, the price will increase to $47. It's just something fun I want to do around these three different things I wished I was told and their solutions. 

Lesson #2: You're not always going to feel focused

Isn't it annoying when you don't feel focused? When you have a massive list of things to do, and you're like, “Where do I even start?” Or you have to work on something with a deadline, and you just can't get your head to stop floating around. The thoughts in your brain are all over the place. 

It's frustrating because you only want to get your work done. A lack of focus can come from many different reasons. It could be that you're not working on the right things. It could be that you've got a lot going on emotionally, mentally, physically, or in other areas of your life. 

When you lack focus, you can't get things done. Then, you start to feel your confidence diminish, and you experience a lack of self-belief and frustration because you want to move forward but can't. 

Have you felt that? Sometimes, the focus just doesn't last the full day. Maybe you have pockets of focus, like first thing in the day, maybe after lunch, or in the evenings, late at night, when you really should be sleeping and can focus. 

I wish I knew that this would happen. Sometimes, in my business or my days, there might be weeks when I'm just having difficulty focusing on the task. As much as you want to believe that you can separate your work and life, they are completely intertwined. How you feel and how things are going in your life will affect your business. I guess that would be something I didn't think of as much when I started my business. 

Lesson #3: You won’t always get stuff done, and you might not even get the right stuff done. 

When I started my business, I knew I needed a logo, a business card, a website, and all these things. I got them done, but sadly, I didn't get them done right.

If you've ever been in my program, the Million Dollar Woman, I share how things started, what my website looked like initially, and how I thought it needed to be custom-made. I invested a ton of money. Then, a little while later, I realized, “Wow, that was not the best decision.” I made decisions as a coach, not as a business owner.

In your business, you're not always going to get stuff done because you wear many hats and you aren't the expert on everything. In the book, “The E-Myth” Michael E. Gerber defines this well, sharing that everyone who owns a business basically has to be the CEO, the manager, and the technician. But many people come in as technicians who are good at the skills that clients are paying for. 

You're an accountant doing the accounting work. You're a social media creator doing the social media work, but that's the technician role. Not only that, but you also need to be a manager of the project, a manager of the people if you hire others, a manager of the clients, and you have to manage all the business workings. Then, you also have to be the CEO, the one working on the business, in the vision, the goals, and the timeline. 

You sometimes don't get the right stuff done because you're too busy as the technician, too busy as the manager, or too busy as the CEO. Then you're not the technician enough, or you're not in sales enough. Getting stuff done when your business's organizational chart is so massive, with your name in most of the roles, is hard. It's really hard. 

Then there are also these things that will stop you from getting things done…

• you get sick
• you want some time off
• you're busy
• there is some sort of transition or tragedy
• there are unforeseen circumstances in your life

How are things going to get done? 

Thankfully, I have people to help me get things done. As soon as I finish recording a podcast, it will be sent to Karissa and Kristine, and they'll take care of all the pieces afterward (like this blog), which is amazing. 

But I didn't know in the beginning that in order to get one thing done, many other things have to be done like if I'm going to have a podcast, there’s a lot of work that goes into it:

• What's the topic and outline
• Record it
• Edit it
• Get it published
• Put the description or the show notes that go with it
• Create the social media posts
• Write the newsletter that talks about it

It goes on and on and on. There are so many things to get done. Normally, you won't get the amount of stuff done that you want. That's just the reality of having your own business and of also being just a high-achieving, driven woman. That's kind of how it goes. There's always going to be something on your to do list. 

Wrapping Up
These are just three things I wish someone told me when I started my business. I wish they had told me because these would be things I would struggle with because I couldn’t plan for them or know it’s normal. It's like being pregnant or having a baby where no one wants to tell you the hard truth, the stuff you should do, and the stuff that you should watch out for. 

Not having energy, not being focused, and not always getting stuff done are realities of having your own business. Make sure that you go to this link so that you can get in on the solutions to these three different problems that I see in many business owners as I do a lot of my consulting work or even in professional women, high-achieving women, and corporate leaders. I see these things with them as well. 

In this mini course I will share the solutions to these three things, and how to easily get things going again, so you don't want to miss it. It's $7 before it is fully created. Once it's created, the price is going to go up. You want to make sure that you're grabbing this right away. 

P.S. Don't forget to nominate the Dynamic Women Podcast in the Podcast Awards for Best Female Hosted Podcast and People's Choice Award. I would really appreciate it if you did. 

Read my other blogs:

1. 5 Steps to Build Your Business… Even in a Recession
2. The Secret to Having a Vacation from Your Business
3. FREEDOM of Choice is Hurting Business Owners