364. Making Millions

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 364: Making Millions.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Okay, everybody, how we doing today? I want to tell you a little bit about my journey as a businessowner today. And I’m going to tell you about how we went from a stay at home mom with a laptop who had little to no experience being an entrepreneur, building an online business. To creating a business that makes almost five million dollars a year where I was able to bring my husband home from his job to work in the business with me. We have a team of employees now.

We literally serve thousands of clients every year and sometimes I pinch myself, could this really be? Could this really be my life? And so, if you’re triggered by someone talking about money or how much money they make, be warned. I’m going to talk about that in this episode. And I’ll tell you why I’m going to talk about it because I never would have wrapped my head around the idea that that was possible for me if other women like me hadn’t been willing to talk about it.

And so, I am not trying to brag. I’m not trying to say that if you don’t make millions of dollars you’re less than in some way. I’m not even saying that trying to make a million dollars is a noble or worthy goal. It really doesn’t matter how much money you make in terms of your overall life satisfaction. I care much more about your happiness, about you living into your values, about you spending your time the way you want to than I care about you setting a money goal.

But I also don’t think that setting a money goal in your business means that you have to sacrifice all those other things. I think if you want to push yourself and strive for it, and see what you’re capable of and see what’s possible that you can. And that we live in the most extraordinary world at the most extraordinary time. And I promise you that there’s nothing special about me. And that if I can do this just about anybody can do this.

So, I want to start out by giving you just a little bit of background. I worked in corporate, well, after doing a few other really high quality things with my college degree like waiting tables, and substitute teaching and things for a while. And that was fine. But eventually I worked for University of Phoenix in several different locations. And so, I feel like I have little families in all of those locations and I love those people to this day that I got to know there. And I just grew up a lot.

During my time working there I met my husband. I had children. Really my life evolved and changed a lot along with all the things that I learned through the different positions I held there. But eventually my time there came to an end. By the end I had learned actually the coaching model that I use now as a life coach. I learned that originally at University of Phoenix as a leadership coach. I was taught that model as a way to help coach managers and directors mostly of sales teams. And that’s where I first fell in love with coaching.

Once my time at corporate ended, I went through coach training at The Life Coach School and got officially certified in the model, in all the tools. And that kicked off my coaching career. Now, at the end of my coach training that I went through and coach training at The Life Coach School has changed a lot over the years. But back when I went through in 2014 there wasn’t a business component other than on the last day, Brooke Castillo spent a couple of hours showing us basically what it looks like to build an online business and sort of teaching us the basics of how it works.

And then she sent us home with a very rough checklist of things to do to get our business up and running and said, “You’re going to need to learn this part.” And I loved it. I was so intrigued by it. I was so excited by it. I could see just the basic, how the dots would connect and how building a business online would be a lot more fun than what I initially pictured when I thought of being an entrepreneur. And so, I dove right in. Coach training was in May of 2014.

I had a lot of work to do, a lot of setting up shop, a lot of starting to put out content. Took me until basically the end of 2014 to get my first three paying clients. That was a big milestone for me. I think I was charging about $600 for a coaching package back then. And then we moved into 2015 where I kept going. By the end of 2015 I had made $30,000 in my coaching business. And not only had I made $30,000 but I was really enjoying what I was doing, not all the time. There was times when I was frustrated trying to figure out technology.

And there were certain parts of building a business that I didn’t love. But overall, the challenge of it and the things I was learning and the way I was able to serve people was really invigorating to me. And so, I kept going. By the end of 2016 my little coaching business had made $100,000 which was more than I had been making at my corporate job. And so, I thought, this is kind of cool. I’m making great money. I’m helping so many people, I’m at home. I work whatever hours I want. I get to make all the decisions myself in terms of what we do in this business.

Now, the downside is it was all me in terms of again, figuring out technology, trying to do graphic design. I sort of brought in a little bit of part-time assistant type help by the end of that but mostly it was me. Keep going and by the end of 2017 I made $300,000 in that business. That was pretty fun. I was starting to blow my own mind about what was possible and what I was capable of. And I’ll tell you what, you guys, I had fear off and on all the time. I have and still do, self-doubt off and on all the time and still do. I have imposter syndrome at times.

So that was 2017. Some time that year, I can’t remember exactly when, my coach and mentor, Brooke Castillo planted this idea in my head. She said, “I think you should make a million dollars.” And I kind of thought she was crazy but I knew she was crazy before that. And that’s partly what I love about her is that she’s crazy. In other words, she has ideas and beliefs that most people don’t even consider, don’t think are realistic. And I also really trust her.

And something about her suggesting to me that I make a million dollars, I sort of gave myself permission to believe that if she thought I could, maybe I could, maybe it was possible. My business was positioned to do, so maybe I was capable of that. And so, I went to work and by the end of 2018 and at this point my husband was now working in the business with me. I told him, “We’re going to make a million dollars this year.” And he said, “Okay.” And sure, enough by the end of 2018 we generated over a million dollars in revenue.

It’s now 2022, it’s middle of 2022 so I’ll just report our 2021 revenue which was almost five million dollars in revenue, just shy of five million. Holy cow. Okay, here’s the reason I’m telling you this. Like I said, I’m not trying to brag, although I mean kind of. I’m super proud of what we’ve created and I still can’t believe it. I still sometimes wonder if this is all just a nice dream. But I want to tell you the secrets, they’re not secrets but we’ll just call them that, the secrets that I think have led me to my success this far, the secrets that are available to you as well my friend.

I’m telling you, I know you’re telling yourself, no, not me, I can’t, I’m not capable of it, especially if you have tried a business endeavor before and weren’t successful. But listen to me, I promise you that you are capable of this. And I’ll say this too. As a student of The Life Coach School what I watched happen in that community over the last eight years as I’ve been a part of it has been phenomenal.

I remember in 2016 when I made $100,000, we get together every year, certified coaches. We have the opportunity to come together at a really fun event that The Life Coach School puts on. And in 2017 myself and maybe five or six others of us had made 100K or just slightly more in our businesses. I think the top earner that year had made maybe 300K. And that was sort of the first year I remember seeing a handful of us hit a number like that and it was kind of mind blowing to everyone.

But once that started it again planted the belief in everyone’s minds that it was possible. If it was possible for these people it might be possible for me too. And today at The Life Coach School there are hundreds and hundreds of coaches making 100K or more. And then again the first year that some of us hit a million dollars, there was a handful of us. It gave people permission to believe that maybe that was possible. And now there are, gosh, 20 to 30 coaches making more than a million dollars and growing every year in that community.

And so again I just want to emphasize that what you believe is possible, matters. And that’s partly why I wanted to publish this episode. And if you have a business and you want more help from me, I just want to mention this now so I don’t forget. Go to jodymoore.com/business because we have a free Facebook group where I’m doing lives every week helping you with your business. There’s info about our event in Salt Lake in July, Impact 2.0 that you’ll want to come to if you haven’t got your ticket there.

And then there’s a waitlist for Business Minded which is my coaching program, that will be opening up in August. So, let’s dive in now. Here’s what I want to tell you about how to make millions if you so desire. First thing, start with what you have energy around. Here’s why I’m using that phrase. Sometimes we say, “Choose something that you’re passionate about.” And I agree. If you’re passionate about something, choose that. If you have a cause that you’re passionate about helping out with, or a solution, or product that you’re passionate about, choose that.

But guess what? You don’t have to be passionate. You just have to notice that you have a lot of energy around it. It’s helpful if it’s something that you can get at least a little bit excited about. But I feel like the word passion is so heavy and loaded that it frustrates people when they can’t identify something.

And so just choose something that you have some energy around, something that you think I could help in that way. I could serve the world in this way. Or I have knowledge about this product, or I want to create this thing, or I want to learn about it. I want to design something. I want to manufacture. I want to produce. I want to serve in this way. Something that you have energy around. Start with that. Don’t start with how can I make a lot of money? I have rarely seen that work for people.

Because the truth is, there’s so many ways for you to make money and starting your own business, while it does have a lot of benefits in terms of the growth potential and the flexibility. It is not the easiest way, it’s really not. So, start with what you have energy and excitement around, or are passionate about, or feel called to make an impact in that way, start with that. That’s number one.

Number two. Think big but work small. Here’s what I mean. I don’t mean only work a little bit. Work however many hours you have available to work. If you are in the thick of raising kids and you want to devote five hours a week to building your business, great. If you want to devote 15 hours a week, or 30, or 40 hours a week, great. Either way I want you to think big but work small. In other words, think bigger than what your brain is probably telling you right now. Think longer term vision. Think bigger impact but just do the next thing you know to do. That’s what I mean by work small.

Even though I’m thinking big and when I first started my coaching practice I was thinking big. I was thinking, how can I help 5,000 women who are members of my church, understand and use the model to make their lives and their families better? That’s what I wanted to do. It felt so big. But I didn’t go out and try to reach 5,000 people overnight. I just worked small. I just created one blog post at a time, one podcast at a time, one email at a time, one post, one message, one ask at a time, one mini session phone call at a time.

Think big but work small. It’s going to feel like you’re not making progress because you’re just working, you’re just doing the things that you think you need to do to grow your business. Or you’re learning what you need to learn to get your business up and running. Or you’re trying out something. You should be trying things that feel small. All those small things add up to something big in the end.

I sort of think of it like my kids growing up. Because I see them every day it doesn’t seem like they’ve grown until I look at a picture of them from last year, or two years ago, or three years ago. And I realize they’ve grown so much. They’re growing small amounts but they are actually growing a lot in the end. That’s how building a business is. You’re growing a business.

I recently heard James Wedmore say it this way that I loved. He said, “Listen, when you are building a business”, and this is true I’ll say of my experience, “You’re not trying to make money, you’re trying to build something that will make money.” There is a difference. If you’re trying to make money right now, that’s only going to get you so far. You have to be building something that will make you money in the end. And yes, you’re going to make money as you go, as you build it. But ultimately it’s going to take time to build that thing. Think big but work small.

Alright, number three, be super patient. Be relentlessly patient. Be ridiculously patient. I say this because most people are not patient when they’re building their business. Again, they’re thinking, I need to make some money today. And guess what? I could not have built my business the way I did if I didn’t have my husband making a salary in the beginning that was paying our mortgage, and our bills, and providing groceries. I couldn’t have done it because that would have been too much pressure.

I couldn’t have in the first year supported myself on my business. Now, that might be possible for some of you if you have more money to invest right away or more time to invest right away. I sort of wanted to keep my time balanced with being with my kids. And I didn’t want to invest more money than what was coming in through my business or through the little part-time job I took to help me get started. So, it can go faster. But be patient. I don’t know why we think a business success should come overnight when we don’t think that about most anything else.

We know that when we go to college it’s going to be four years. And then we’re going to go try to get a job and it’s going to take time to pay off those college loans. But entrepreneurs for some reason think that they’re going to jump in and in the first three months they’re going to make a bunch of money. Typically, that doesn’t happen. You have to be willing to be patient.

Number four, don’t believe everything you think or feel. Don’t believe all of your thoughts or feelings because if you’re like me, your brain’s going to offer you all kinds of thoughts, at least half of which are not useful. Half of the thoughts my brain gives me are things like, I don’t know who you think you are. This isn’t going to work. Your luck’s run out, time’s up, the gig’s over. People are going to find out you don’t actually know what you’re doing at all.

Sometimes my brain tells me, you must have just gotten lucky with the success you have because you’re such a mess. How could you have possibly have done this? It must have just been dumb luck. It’s not going to work anymore. Your brain’s going to go, never mind, I don’t think I want to do this. It’s too hard. I don’t feel like it. If your brain’s anything like mine. And you’re going to feel fear, and overwhelm, and frustration, and boredom, and disappointment, and embarrassment, and shame, and guilt.

I mean thoughts and feelings are just information. So, I’m not saying ignore them. I’m just saying, don’t take them as truths. Don’t just take them without examining them and deciding which ones you want to keep and listen to, and do something about.

And others you just say, “Thanks, brain, everything’s okay. We’re just going to keep going today, we’re just going to show up again today at work and we’re going to post something online. We’re just going to help somebody today. We’re just going to ask people if they want help. Your point is taken, brain, let’s keep going anyway.” Don’t believe everything you think or feel.

Alright, next thing, are you ready? This is one of my favorite things. Not failing is not the goal. I know that was a lot of not’s, I did it on purpose. Not failing is not the goal. If your brain is like mine, it’s going to think that the goal is to not fail. That’s not the goal. The goal is of course success. But do you know what is the next best thing to success? Failing. The worst thing is not failing, without succeeding. The worst thing is not failing and not succeeding because that would mean we didn’t even try.

And our brains don’t think that. Our brains think if there’s a possibility we’re going to fail then we should just not try. What I’m saying is, no, no, no, I’d rather you try and fail than not try at all. Now, I’m not saying you have to put anything at stake. That is going to be super detrimental if you fail. I get this question a lot. People say, “Well, what about money? What if I put money in and it fails?” And I say, “Don’t put more money in than what you can afford to ‘lose’.” Although I never think of it as a loss. I think of it as it cost me this much money to learn that this thing doesn’t work.

So, I’m not saying you should take out a second mortgage on your house to support your business. But you don’t need to, thanks to today’s world, thanks to the amazingness of the internet. It only takes a little bit of money to get your business up and running. And if I were you I would plan on the first year the money that you generate in your business goes back into your business to keep building, remember the machine we’re trying to build, that will over time generate money.

So not failing is not the goal. So yes, we take our best educated guess, we ask a few questions and we test some things out. We can test the waters. But at some point, many times as you’re building your business there are times when you have to take a risk, you have to try something out, not failing is not the goal.

Alright, next. This might seem basic but I have to remind myself often and maybe you need a reminder too. Don’t quit. Don’t quit. The only way you fail at building your business is if you quit. This is what I told myself over, and over, and over again when I first started. I had this vision of helping thousands of women, teaching the model, I felt called to teach it to women who were moms like myself. I love teaching it to women who are members of my church because I can tie in some of the doctrine of our faith with it and it aligns so nicely.

And so that was the vision I had. But I had nobody’s attention. I had nobody’s ear, nobody knew who I was, nobody cared what I was talking about. So, I just told myself, I don’t know how I’m going to reach all those women but as long as I don’t quit, I will. It’s inevitable. The only way I fail is if I quit.

Alright, next, be generous. Generosity is a really important value to me because I feel like partly the life I live today is because of all the generous people that have helped me out along the way. Beginning with parents who were always so generous in supporting me and helping me in any way that they possibly could. And then just moving on to mentors and teachers, both at corporate, through my coach training, people I have just come to know. And generosity might be financial generosity. It might be generosity with their time.

I remember again way back when I first started out, I reached out to Hank Smith who now I consider a friend because we have each other’s numbers and text each other once a year or so. So that counts as friends. At any rate, at this point we were not, Hank Smith was a big deal. But he had no idea who I was. And I reached out to him, I don’t know how, I think I got an email address somewhere online for him and I said, “Hey, I love what you do as a speaker. Do you have any advice for me?”

And he was generous enough to reply to me, to this nobody. He gave me some advice. He said, “Yeah, go help people anywhere you can. Be willing to speak at church events and places where people aren’t going to pay you to come. The more you speak the better you’ll get as a speaker and the more connections you’ll make. So be willing to just go serve and help people for free.” That’s the advice he gave me, great advice, thank you, Hank Smith.

So be generous, generous with your time, generous with your money. This doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries. It doesn’t mean that you have to say yes to everybody. But overall, generosity has never served us wrong in our business, it’s a value that both my husband and I feel is really important. And it’s really fun to get to be generous.

Okay, next, plan on the rewards not being what you thought they would be, but they’re going to be even better. Here’s what I mean. When you make a million dollars, it’s fun because you have more room in your budget. It’s fun because if you’re like me, you get to take your kids on a vacation like you never have before. It’s fun for those reasons that you probably are guessing. Back when I thought about making a million dollars, those were things I thought would be fun. And they are fun but they are nowhere near the best part. They’re just not.

The true rewards, the really amazing parts of making a million dollars are either little moments that I never could have anticipated or sort of side benefits that I didn’t even consider would happen. For example, we just finished the last in person with my high level Business Minded Mastermind group. There’s about 20 ish, 24 students in that. We met in person three times a year, it was so amazing. We all just get to be really close. We also communicate online in between.

And it was our last in person meeting and Top Gun had just come out and we were learning sales. And so, I said, “If you can sell me”, whatever it was, I was having them sell me, “Then I’m going to buy you a ticket and we’ll go see Top Gun tonight.” And so, they all got to practice the sales technique that we were learning. And of course, in the end I just bought everybody’s tickets and we all went to Top Gun. And for some reason, there’s something about that experience, just all of us being together doing something fun, it was a great uplifting movie.

We were joking, there is one girl in the group, Kym Showers, shout out, I love you, Kym. She goes to bed, I think she said at 7:30 every night because she gets up at 4 o’clock every morning to exercise, and meditate, and do her whole morning routine that makes her the amazing person that she is. And so, we were teasing her because the movie started, I think at 6:30 and we’re like, “Kym, it’s going to be past your bedtime, sorry.” Sure, enough the movie gets over maybe 8:30.

And I said, “Kym, we’ve got to get you home to bed.” And she goes, “Are you kidding me. I’m so pumped up now. Let’s go bowling.” So it was that experience, taking everybody out to Top Gun, I mean it adds up. But I didn’t have to think twice about buying everybody’s ticket because our business generates enough revenue that I knew we could cover that. And having that experience, being able to be generous with them in that way, being able to have that experience, moments like that make it so amazing to have a thriving business.

Sometimes it’s the people that I’ve met along the way. The Turnbull’s for example, Bill and Susan Turnbull who are the founders of Faith Matters. I met them as we published my book. And just knowing them has changed my world view in the best ways. And as well as their daughters who I’ve gotten to know, just meeting people like that has expanded me and as well as many others.

Being able to do things like buy my father-in-law a fishing boat. My father-in-law who has always been so generous and giving and he loves to fish. And we were able to, a few years ago, just buy him a fishing boat. And the joy that I see in his eyes at having that boat, when he goes out fishing he usually goes by himself and he’ll come by sometimes after and show us the fish he caught. Being able to do that, there are few things that beat that feeling.

So, my point is, it is amazing to be successful and make money in your business but maybe not for the reasons that your brain is guessing but there will be different reasons that will be so, even more amazing than you can anticipate. And of course, one of the best parts of all is getting to be a tiny part of helping make other people’s lives better.

The messages that you guys send me, the comments that you make when I get to meet you at live events, the DMs in my Instagram, the posts that you share online. The feedback I get from those of you in my coaching program about how your life is better. Over and over again people thank me. People will come on to our coaching calls in Be Bold and before I coach them it’s not uncommon for them to go, “First, I just want to thank you for doing what you do and teaching me what you’ve taught me. You’ve never met me and you don’t know but you got me through this tough time.”

I mean there is nothing that beats that, you guys. In order to make a million dollars you have to put a million dollars’ worth of value into the world, unless you’re going to do it in a dishonest way which I know nobody here wants to. You’re going to put value in the world and you’re not even going to know it. I don’t even know whose lives I’m impacting sometimes. I am just doing little things. I’m just sitting down even though I don’t feel like it and recording a podcast.

I’m just sitting down, even though I think I don’t have anything to say and writing an email to go out. Here’s the last thing I want to say. I make millions of dollars because I do what brings me joy, I do. I do what brings me joy and happiness in my business. So, some people have imposter syndrome in terms of somebody will tell them, “Thank you, you saved my life, you saved my marriage, you made my life better.” And they have thoughts of, oh, gosh, if only they knew. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. That’s typical imposter syndrome.

My imposter syndrome sounds slightly different. Here’s what it sounds like. People will tell me, “Thank you so much, you saved my marriage, you changed my life.” And my thought is, I just did it because it lights me up. I did it for me. I did it because teaching, and coaching, and learning what I’m learning, and sharing it with others, and trying to help teach others what I have learned makes me feel alive.

So sometimes I want to go, “I only do it for selfish reasons.” I am glad that it helps you, obviously, that’s the reason I do it, I want to help people. But helping people is what lights me up. Teaching people, seeing their brains go, oh, seeing those aha moments, there’s something in me that feels alive and lights up when that happens. That’s what I mean by I’m doing it for selfish reasons. So, listen, whatever you’re doing in your business it’s got to be for selfish reasons. And you’re serving people for selfish reasons. Does that make sense?

You have to have fun as you go. You’ve got to choose to make it fun. If it’s not fun you stop and reassess, I do this all the time. When I can feel myself getting overwhelmed or starting to dread it I hit pause and I take a look over all at what we’re doing in the business, at the way we have divided the work, at how our team is, you know, the roles that each member of our team is playing, at what we’re offering to our clients. At what we’re selling, what we’re promoting. How we’re promoting it.

And I just go, “What do I want to do away with? What do we want to change? What do we want to try? How do we want to mix it up?” You have to keep it fun, that is how you will achieve the maximum amount of success.

Alright, let’s all make millions. You want to? I would love to help you. Make sure that you, again, come and engage with me with the business coaching that we do. If you have a business and you want to make millions I would love to help you get there. Thanks for joining me today. I’ll see you next time. Bye bye.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.