Radical Insights and A-Ha Moments.
Be Brilliant In Your Business Podcast, Episode 100
This week is a very special week for us as we have hit our 100th episode of the Be Brilliant in Your Business Podcast! Looking back on these past 100 episodes, I am so grateful for all the amazing people I have had a chance to speak with and every one of you who has tuned in to listen.
We have covered some significant ground so far, and in the spirit of reflecting on our work, like I have been talking about lots recently, I think that we should take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of the most insightful moments so far.
For this episode, I have selected various clips from previous episodes that I think are going to be super useful to you all. Whether you have been here with me from the start and have heard these all before or you are tuning in for the first time, there is something here for everyone to take away with them.
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“You can’t override discomfort and negative feelings with positive thoughts.” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 68
Your thoughts create your feelings, which drive your actions.
Instead of labeling a thought positive or negative, take a look at the outcome it produces to decide if it's a useful thought, or not.
5 fluffy thoughts to be aware of, and exactly why they aren't useful.
How to find new thoughts that move you forward right away.
“There is no part of me that believes I will ever have less by giving others a hand up. My industry, let alone women business owners, will rise up and be more respected the more we collaborate and share.” - Sandra Funk
From Episode 17
You will never have less because of helping your competitors.
Find yourself a mentor that has an “abundance” mentality who is currently working out there in your desired field.
To be a great mentor, look to your past self and ask “what would have helped me?”
Use mentors to help propel yourself further and faster in your career. This idea that you have to do all the grunt work and earn your place at the table is simply not true. If you are willing to ask for guidance, there will be someone there to help you through it.
“We are afraid that if we really allow ourselves to love our life exactly as it is, then we will give up our ambition live smaller lives than we are capable of.
But the opposite is true. When you believe you have enough, you increase your capacity to have and to create more of it.” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 70
The best we will ever feel is the same as the best we feel now.
Why being satisfied with things exactly as they are will NOT stop you from creating or having more.
Our inner critic serves a valuable purpose, unless you use it against yourself.
Share This!
“I was still thinking and coming at my business from a point of, I'm a virtual assistant and I have a couple team members. Suddenly I realized I'm the CEO of my business and that was a such a huge change for me.” - Tasha Booth
From Episode 11
When you fall in love with your clients and your business, you will be inspired to serve them in new and powerful ways.
Push yourself out of your comfort zone by surrounding yourself with high-level people.
To transition your view of yourself to see yourself as the CEO of your company, you need to look internally at the value you already bring and own it.
“I just had no space to be creative and let my mind wander. I daydream about cabinets. This is my jam. So I realized I had to stop being the one on the ground and start thinking about this as my business.” - David Betz
From Episode 20
Mastery comes with repetition.
When your clients trust you, you are no longer selling them something - you are solving their problems.
Trust that your unique set of skills will set you apart from others and use that to leverage yourself to where you want to be.
“What if the thought ‘there isn’t enough time’ had never occurred to you? How would you approach your work differently?” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 66
Time is always sufficient. Your relationship with time will determine whether it feels scarce or abundant.
Busyness always produces a net negative result, because you spend more energy than what you receive in desired outcomes.
Entrepreneurs often try to solve problems by taking different actions. But this only intensifies the urge to keep taking more action instead of taking better action.
You will spend every minute that you have. Every minute you spend intentionally creating your business lifestyle, is a minute that you are being successful.
Share This
“If it’s important, commit for a year. 50% of the time you will think it was a terrible idea, and you need that commitment to carry you through.” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 43
If It’s important, give it a year.
If you are only supporting yourself 99%, you are sabotaging yourself.
Confidence is a by-product of failure, not success.
You have to be willing to learn and grow from everything - the good and the bad.
“You may think that your bad habit is illogical, but your body gets rewarded with dopamine every time you do it. To break the habit you need to retrain your body.” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 86
Our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and our actions produce results that prove our thoughts true.
We repeat bad behaviours because we are getting a reward that our body has deemed more important than whatever the consequence was.
To change our habits for the long run, we have to shift our identity and then choose actions that support the new identity.
A great starting point to change your identity is to find even the most miniscule evidence that you are already that identity and use that as proof that you are already that person.
“You can make a lot of progress just working on things in 15 to 30-minute increments.” - Shannon Baker
From Episode 67
You need a client database.
You're more likely to use a simple system than a fancy one.
Clients form their opinion of your relationship fast - so responsiveness is key.
The best news ever - you can build these time-saving systems a few minutes at a time. No matter how busy you are, you'll definitely have time for this.
“An emotion is a vibration in your body, like a ringing gong. If you keep thinking the same thought you keep intensifying the emotional vibration.” - Linsi Brownson
From Episode 65
Busyness is a choice, not something that happens to you.
The reason why many entrepreneurs choose busyness is because of a habit called “Buffering.”
Buffering is a behavior that helps us (temporarily) avoid a negative emotion. But the emotion doesn’t go away for long, and the buffering behavior has negative consequences - so the result of buffering is more negative.
You can start to coach yourself away from busyness and get control over your time and energy again by uncovering what's really causing you to buffer, and then allowing that emotion instead of avoiding it.
Episode Links
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Credits: Sound production by hearnoevilmedia.com
Episode 68 - Beware Of These Fluffy Thoughts
Episode 17 - Stop Charging Hourly! Pricing and Industry Seacrets with Sandra Funk
Episode 70 - Sufficiency Is Not Complacency
Episode 11 - “Me” To “We”. Stepping Up As The CEO Of Your Business With Tasha Booth
Episode 20 - Seeing What Is Possible With David Betz
Episode 66 - What To Do When There Just Isn’t Enough Time
Episode 43 - Give It A Year
Episode 86 - If You Want Better Habits, Change This First
Episode 67 - Become A Follow-Up Genius In 3 Steps With Shannon Baker
Episode 65 - Buffering With Busyness
Episode 100 Transcript
Linsi Brownson
[00:08]
You are listening to Be Brilliant In Your Business, the podcast that helps creative business owners take charge of your time and energy so you can run your business confidently without burning out. I'm your host, Linsi Brownson, and I'm here to deliver a creative cocktail of pep talks and practical tools to help you clear your head, take action, and enjoy the process of running your business.
[00:34]
Before we dive into today's episode, I want to welcome new listeners. I'm so glad you're here and I look forward to being part of your brilliant business. Be sure to hit the subscribe button, and even better head to bebrilliantlistener.com to grab your new listener goodie bag. Are you ready? Let's go.
[00:54]
Hey, hey Mavericks. Welcome to the show. Today, in case you didn't notice from the title, today is a milestone episode. This is our 100th episode, which is kind of a big deal in the podcasting world. Your first 100 episodes are like it takes a while to hit your stride. How about that, let's say that. And I actually started this podcast in December of 2018. So, that was a minute ago. And because of a few different format changes, we used to do seasonal shows, and then we did weekly, and now we're bi-weekly, you know, it's taken a little bit longer to hit this number. Nonetheless, 100 episodes is something I'm really proud of and I'm very happy to be here today.
[01:41]
So, today's episode is going to be a very uplifting one because I thought it would be fun to go back through our first 100 episodes and pull out some clips of powerful moments and insights and just lots of good things that you will either enjoy re-hearing, or if you're hearing it for the first time, it'll just be a little boost to your day. This was really fun for me to actually go back and hear earlier episodes and even just things that you know, that I've said or that guests have said that I kind of forgot about. So, this was a great exercise, not unlike the evaluations that I have been talking about a lot on the show lately, just reviewing your old work and seeing what you learn from it. So, this is really fun, I'm very excited to jump in and share with you some of the best of the Be Brilliant In Your Business podcast episodes, one to one hundred.
[02:47] Linsi Brownson
We have kind of adopted this idea about positive thinking as the golden rule of success. And the more positive you think, the more good things will happen. And then you can live happily ever after just as long as you're a positive, optimistic person.
[03:04] Linsi Brownson
But positive thinking is not inherently useful. It's important to know that thoughts create your feelings. So, every thought that you have generates a vibration in your body and that vibration is the predominant driving force of the actions that you take. So, the reason that positive thinking is assumed to be good, is because positive thoughts will generate positive feelings. And we like to feel good. It's kind of our thing.
[03:35] Linsi Brownson
But here's the catch. Feeling good isn't always the best thing for us, especially as business owners, especially when what we're trying to do is grow. Growing requires us to be uncomfortable. And often what happens is that people really try to resist their discomfort and their negative feelings and try to override it with positive thinking, or with fluffy thoughts, which are positive thoughts that sound really lovely, but don't actually help us to create the things we want in our business.
[04:09] Linsi Brownson
I want to encourage you instead of labeling your own thoughts as positive or negative, really start considering them simply as useful or not useful to you right now. Because it's a lot more powerful to be aligned than it is to be positive.
[04:28] Sandra Funk
I was working in a design firm, and I asked another small senior designer for a recommendation for a trades person and the designer pointed to her Rolodex - this is going way back that didn't just date me - and she said "you have to earn that. I've been in this industry for, you know, XYZ number of years. I'm not just going to give you my contractors name you have to struggle and, you know, have the wins and losses and find your own Rolodex of wonderful references to use". And I was - we were in the same design firm, not even the competing design firms. I was gobsmacked, I could not believe that a co-worker of mine was so out for herself and not out to help another person who was young in the industry. It was just an absolute shock to me. And it was also like a point where I decided that there would never, ever, ever be a day no matter how many years I was in this industry, or how - whatever - I ended up wherever level I ended up at, I was never ever going to say you got to go through the struggle that I went through, I'm not going to help you. That I was always going to give a handout, encouraged, share, be really, really an open book when it comes to if I've learned it, I'll share it, I want to help the rest.
[05:54] Sandra Funk
What I found is the more that I share, it is amazing to hear someone implement what you've told them and have their business grow or thrive and improve. I think the core of it is that I believe in abundance and I get asked all the time, "why do you spend so much time helping your competitors run a better business?" And I smile at whoever is asking me that and I say "it's because I do not believe that by helping my competitors, I will ever - there's never there's nothing in me that believes that I will have less. I believe that our entire industry will be more efficient, more effective, running better businesses, being paid better, thus being able to do better with more resources. And I believe that the entire industry, let alone entrepreneurship, let alone women business owners, will be more respected as we collaborate and share the entire industry and our whatever raises up, it doesn't take anything away from me".
[06:58] Linsi Brownson
So, this morning, I was sitting outside and I was watching my neighbor play in the yard with his baby. He was tossing him up in the air and just laughing so much as he watched the baby laugh. He was having so much fun experiencing his baby having fun. And I was having so much fun watching all of this.
[07:20] Linsi Brownson
And it got me thinking, this really is the best that life will ever be. This moment, this feeling of joy and completeness - this is it. And I think that sometimes we hear that this moment is all there is and that our purpose in life is simply to live it and to love it. And while we understand this conceptually, and we've experienced moments like this, it really trips us up. Because we think "well, then what's the point of wanting more? What is the point of wanting more, of having ambition, of building businesses that make a lot of money, or of writing a bestseller, or getting yourself featured in Forbes, or buying a beautiful house on the lake? Why go through all of that effort, all of the struggle and the disappointment? And why wait, when you can feel all of these things right now, today, with the simplest things in life?"
[08:24] Linsi Brownson
It's a challenging question for most of us. Because we are afraid that if we really allowed ourselves to love our life exactly as it is, we would stop trying, we would become complacent, and we'd live a smaller life than what we're really capable of.
[08:44] Linsi Brownson
I see this fear a lot with my clients who, like me, are highly ambitious and very future focused. We, and I'll use the collective we hear, we get kind of attached to the struggle. We do a lot of talking about how we'd like to not work so hard and how we'd like things to be easier, how we'd like to be more present in our lives. But deep down, a lot of us really believe that we need our insatiable critic to motivate us. Being satisfied and not needing more in your life is only going to create more abundance in your life. And instead of telling you why that's true, I'm going to just ask you to think about this for yourself.
[09:30] Linsi Brownson
How is it true? If you have enough time, then how do you treat your time? What do you create with the time that you have? If you have enough money, how do you treat your money? And how do you create more of it? The same goes for joy and love and satisfaction and pride. Having sufficiency in all of these areas will only increase your capacity to have and to create more of it.
[10:06] Tasha Booth
I remember looking around that room and being like, "this is totally possible, like, I can do this, you know, I can - I can be there and right alongside all of these other amazing female business owners that are doing their thing and fully embracing themselves as a CEO". And I think that that was the first moment that I really looked at myself as the CEO of my business. And not just as "Oh, I'm a virtual assistant", you know? And because I think before that, I was still thinking and coming at my business from a point of, "I'm a virtual assistant, and I have a couple team members". Instead of "I'm the CEO of my business". I started being more reflective about, you know, what am I best at? And what can I - what are the things that I really can only do, you know, and nobody else in my business can do it? I know that there are so many times in people's businesses that it's so hard to think about what you - what other people can do, like, what - what can't be replicated what you don't have to do, but it's so important because if you don't have that there's no way for you to scale or grow.
[11:11] David Betz
Yeah, so I was looking at - actually last night I was looking at pictures of stuff that I did about a year before we moved here, so four years ago, and I was impressed by what I had done. But at that time, I was kind of punching above my weight, meaning that I would never would say "no", ever. People would ask me, "can you do this" to show me a picture or a drawing? "Yeah, yeah, no problem". And then I would go home and, like, cry about it and freak out. Like, I don't want to do this. But I did those jobs, and then we moved here and I, I still didn't have whatever it was that was going to propel me to go out and meet these people and say, "I can do this job, I can make this I can do this". And I, for some reason, I still had this fear or this thought that, like, I wasn't worth it. And I don't know, I don't - there was just some - some blockage in me that wouldn't let me love myself enough to say, "you can do this, you can be the one. [Yeah.] selling it and designing it and in charge of it".
[12:06] David Betz
So, what would happen is with installing, go in, and I give it 100% and by three or four o'clock, towards the end of the day, I'm just wiped. I'm totally wiped out it is they're always challenging. And as we've gotten to be better at installing, we've gotten invited to better houses, and we're in multi multi million dollar houses, like all the time now. And so there. I just had no space to be creative. And to just like, let my mind wander. I love daydreaming. I really love daydreaming and I daydream about cabinets. That's what I think, also is part of the pivotal moment. It's like, this is my thing, you know, this is my jam. And I need to not be just the one on the ground, crawling around on my knees, screwing cabinets to the wall. You know,
[12:51] Linsi Brownson
like, that's not the highest and best use of your skills. [Absolutely]. And so it was really - when you shifted into that mindset of saying like, "Well, I'm not willing to keep living this way. I'm not willing to keep doing business the way I've been doing it because that just makes me exhausted all the time" [and summers coming]. And summer's coming, you had to actually like fully make a mindset shift [yup] into a place where you're really now focused on the possibility of what this business could be and then stepping into that role and saying, "Okay, what are the things that need to happen in order for me to make that work?" You are stepping into really being the owner of a business versus the tradesman, like the guy who has the team that you go and do the things like you're really starting to embody a completely different way.
[13:38] David Betz
It's your business that I'm like, "It's not a business. It's just I'm just a guy that installs shit that has a couple of guys to help them out".
[13:45] Linsi Brownson
So, when you think there just isn't enough time, how do you feel?
[13:50] Carol
Exhausted.
[13:52] Linsi Brownson
And describe exhausted for me a little bit? How does that feel to you and your body? Can you feel any specific sensations in a location?
[14:02] Carol
Yeah, it feels really heavy. Like, like my body feels hard to move. Hard to move because there just isn't enough energy some of it. Where in my body? I would say all over really like, just my body as a whole is just heavy and there's a slowness to it. Almost like if I were trying to walk through mud that's like waist high. So, I'm just fighting against this pressure that forces me to just it's really like trudging through this mud.
[14:52] Linsi Brownson
What are you doing or not doing with the time that you do have when there isn't enough of it?
[15:00] Carol
Yeah, that's really fascinating. I haven't - I haven't really thought this through. I wake up, I look at my calendar, what do I have to do today? Oh, I have these, you know, 10 tasks or whatever, that I would like to devote more time to doing the tasks, right? And not just like, Oh, this thing, do this thing now. The next thing do the next thing now, right? There's no thought there's no. "Yeah, I'm not intentional about the action I'm taking, I'm just sort of putting stuff together and throwing it out into the world". Yeah, like, I'm not showing up for my clients, I'm not showing up for my business, I'm not showing up for myself.
[15:42] Linsi Brownson
You're giving yourself this busy work to do. You're giving yourselves - self these little tasks to do and keeping busy without really thinking about maybe the end result of what they're creating, if that's the best use of your time.
[15:59] Carol
Yeah.
[16:00] Linsi Brownson
Does that sound accurate?
[16:10] Carol
That sounds like, "whoo", I haven't seen that one before, but yeah, that's - that's 100%. Right?
[16:17] Linsi Brownson
So, yeah, exhaustion doesn't come from the amount of time that you have in a day or the amount of time that you spend, but really, and truly, what you're doing to yourself right now is exhausting yourself by thinking that there isn't enough time and then trying to work harder to create more stuff to not feel exhausted. Do you see how that kind of like, creates this hamster wheel effect? Because you think that it's true that there isn't enough time? And as long as you continue to believe that that is true, there's no amount of time that you could have that would make that urge go away.
[16:48] Carol
Yeah.
[16:49] Linsi Brownson
Okay, so, what if that thought had never entered your mind? "But there isn't enough time?" Like, who would you be then if it had never even occurred to you that maybe there isn't enough time?
[17:03] Carol
I got this feeling of, like, space. Of, like, I have [Yeah] it just - it feels like the space around me just got a lot bigger. And I no longer have that feeling of heaviness. I no longer have that feeling of urgency. [Yeah] I kind of think I forgot what you asked, because I'm just, like, sitting here experiencing a very different thing. Oh, that's, that's mind blowing. That's awesome.
[17:33] Linsi Brownson
I just want to do a quick check in because I want to make sure that the way that we are talking about solving for exhaustion and dizziness in your business is not by changing the hours that you're working. [Yep.] But how do you see yourself actually solving it? Like, give me sort of this picture with a new frame of reference?
[17:59] Carol
I can already tell that I am looking forward to my time tonight That I am going to sit down and do what I had planned for myself. Yeah, like, I haven't given one thought to, "oh, I'm going to change the hours that I'm working". I just know that I am going to be showing up differently and, like, I actually feel really inspired. And I haven't felt inspired to sit down and do this in a long time.
[18:31] Linsi Brownson
Sometimes we just strip away some of those layers around the busyness - or choose your metaphor because they like it. We're like, pulling you out of the mud.
[18:42] Carol
Yeah, absolutely. I'm showering off and...
[18:47] Linsi Brownson
Yeah, so you can see what's underneath all of it.
[18:51] Linsi Brownson
If it's important, give it a year, when I decided to do the podcast, when I knew that I was for sure committed to doing it, I decided to give it a year. And the reason for that was I have had a lot of experience, I do a lot of business planning with business owners and we do it quarter by quarter. So, essentially three months at a time. And if you're going from never making commitments to making commitments, maybe making a three month or a quarterly commitment is a good idea. But if it's something that's meaningful to you, I want you to give it a year.
[19:25] Linsi Brownson
And the truth of the matter is that if you, like, at any given time, throughout the course of a year, it's going to be 50/50 whether or not you feel like this is a good idea or terrible idea. And if you allow yourself, like, this is planning for your success ahead of time. I knew that in December when I launched the podcast, if I had told myself I could quit in March, there's a 50/50 chance I would have quit in March.
[19:52] Linsi Brownson
Now, truthfully, in March I was still, like, this is the most fun I've ever had in my life. I totally wanted to do it. But, in July I didn't feel that way. In July I felt like this is a lot of work, it's expensive. Like, it's not directly, like, getting me the return on investment, if that's how I'm choosing to look at it. Like, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of mind drama that comes up with stuff like this. And so, I just knew that I couldn't allow my emotions in the moment to let me decide whether or not my commitment was worthy.
[20:23] Linsi Brownson
We never do any bad behavior more than once. At least not from a neuroscience perspective. So, there is always a reward that reinforces that behavior. So, often we think about our "bad habits" and we think, "I don't know why I do that", or "I don't know why I did that". Because in your logical, conscious mind, you're focused on the consequences of the "bad behavior". But in your nervous system, it's, like, "oh, that was great behavior, we should totally do that again", because it's all about getting that rush of dopamine in your system.
[21:02] Linsi Brownson
That is why you repeat behaviors that you are not a fan of. It's not because you're a masochist, it's because you're getting a reward that your body has deemed more important than whatever the consequences. And usually that happens simply because you're not aware of it and you haven't yet presented your brain and your body with an alternative option.
[21:28] Shannon Baker
So, my motto is I call them the mom cracks of time, which is 30 minutes or less, because really is with anyone that's a mom, you know that even if you get 30 minutes, that's a good day. That resonates with everyone, because as you mentioned, this is a sliver of time, and most of the people in my audience work during the day, another job, and then they're building their business on the side. So, they really do not have, you know, huge chunks of time, but you can make a lot of progress if you're just working on things in 15 to 30 minute increments.
[22:01] Linsi Brownson
Your feelings create your future. So, if an emotion is just a vibration in your body, think about this like ringing a gong. So, the loudest most intense part of ringing a gong is immediate. When you hit it, it makes a very loud sound and then it sort of reverberates and kind of fills the room in a few moments, then, it starts to dissipate.
[22:27] Linsi Brownson
Now, if you keep hitting that gong with the same thought over and over the same mallet over and over again, you'll keep feeling intensity, and then reverberation, and then dissipation, right? So, you can just keep doing that over and over, which is what happens when you jump into action because you keep having those same perpetual thoughts over and over and over again.
[22:50] Linsi Brownson
Or you can catch yourself and notice that thought. Notice that you're hitting that gong, and then just don't hit it again. Just allow it to shake itself out. And then you become free to move on to something more intentional.
[23:12] Linsi Brownson
Alright, well, I hope that you have enjoyed taking this trip back in time with me. And whether you are a new listener or if you have been with us since the very first episodes, I want to thank you so much for being here, for being part of this show. You listening - you are who I make this for. So, it means the absolute world to me to have you here and tuning in every couple of weeks.
[23:39] Linsi Brownson
If you love the show, if you have feedback, I definitely want to hear it. I plan to have at least 100 more episodes. So, I would love to stay in touch with you and it always means so much to hear from listeners like you. So, please reach out. You can find me on Instagram @linsibrownson or @bebrilliantpodcast. And you can take a screenshot of the show and tag me, you can also DM me anything you want to do. Let's get and stay in touch. I definitely want to hear from you. So, thank you again for being here. Have a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon.