309. Business Minded

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 309: Business Minded.

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.

Hey there gang, how are you doing today? I am going to be talking about business today. So I want to tell you why I’m talking about it on this podcast. For those of you that are like, “I don’t have a business. I’m not interested in learning about business, or entrepreneurship, or any of that. Don’t worry.

After today my Friday episodes are going to continue with the usual things I talk about, business usually sneaks in there a little bit, but focus on just mental, emotional health tools, general life coaching type stuff is going to be happening every Friday still until I don’t know, I lose my voice or run out of ideas. But for the next little while here, throughout the summer at least here 2021, I’m going to be doing some bonus episodes every Tuesday that will talk about entrepreneurship and business.

So I wanted to begin by talking about it a little bit today. And I think even if you don’t have a business or you think you’re not interested, I think you might find this episode to be interesting. Business is just one way that I apply tools. Of course they’re always relevant to many things. But I love so much being an entrepreneur. I love business. I love online business. I love small business I should say.

I mean big business is okay but I am not an expert in big businesses and corporations, even though I have experience in corporate I don’t consider myself an expert on a lot of the things necessary for executive level leaders around businesses.

But smaller businesses, and when I say smaller I mean 100 employees or less, that is my jam, even smaller than that, people just starting out, just trying to get a business off the ground, brand new entrepreneurs that have an idea and a passion, or maybe they are beginning a network marketing type business. So sort of a business in a box, trying to get that up and running. I love that space and so much.

And people who have a business that they’ve been running but now they need to scale and they need to grow that business and they feel kind of stalled and stuck. That’s where I’m really good. And I have been holding myself back for years. I have always wanted to coach on business. But I really wanted to make sure that all of the life coaching work that I do was really solid and that the processes were dialed in, and the staff was there, and that I knew how to still show up. I’m not going to stop doing any of that by the way. You’re not going to be rid of me, those of you in Be Bold.

I’m going to keep doing all the things I’ve been doing in there but I’m going to be adding business coaching starting at the end of this summer because I love it, I’m really good at it and I feel called to do it. So if you’re interested, that will be a lot of fun, you’ll want to join me. If you’re not that’s okay, I’ll still have all the other things that I’ve been doing. So I want to start by telling you a little bit about what my journey has looked like. And some of you probably know at least parts of this. I’m not going to go into detail on the things that I have already talked about at length.

But I worked in corporate America right out of college, well, I should say right out of college I waited tables and substitute taught with my college degree because I had a hard time finding a job. But anyway a couple of years of that and then I ended up getting a job at the University of Phoenix, which was a huge gift and blessing. I love that organization so much. I learned so much there. I did all kinds of jobs there. But at one point I began doing corporate training after doing a bunch of positions. Then I started training salespeople.

So I have a lot of experience in sales. I actually did sales in all different formats before even working in corporate. I did sales in college. I have done a lot of different types of sales jobs. And then I trained salespeople. And of course teaching something is the best way to learn it. So I got to be pretty good at sales. And then I started doing leadership coaching. So I’ve a little bit of experience in that as well. But at some point I found the tools of coaching. And I loved them so much that I sort of followed that path.

And after learning about coaching and becoming a certified coach myself, the only way that I could see that I would be able to coach people, that I would be able to use the model and the tools that I had learned to help people improve their lives was to start my own business. I didn’t really want to start my own business. I didn’t love business back then. I loved working for a company. I loved working for the University of Phoenix. I even loved going to meetings because I loved collaborating with really smart people and being part of a team, and pursuing a shared goal.

And so I didn’t really want to be an entrepreneur. I didn’t know anything about it so I thought. I didn’t think that I was business-minded. But I was wrong. I am actually business-minded. And turns out that I only needed a little bit of a head start before I figured out that I do know a lot of this. And then I went and learned a lot more in a lot of different ways. So at one point, I should mention this too that actually before I went through coach training and started that business I played a little bit in the world of network marketing.

I didn’t spend very long there but I sold Norwex, for those of you familiar with Norwex, they’re green cleaning products for your home. And I still use Norwex products and love Norwex. But anyway, I’ve played a little bit in business. A girl friend of mine and I actually started a company at one point selling painted children’s furniture. So I’ve done a few little random things. I did a little sewing company where we taught sewing classes. But I didn’t really get very far with any of those things.

It wasn’t until I became a certified coach that I realized I have to do this. I mean I don’t have to like I have to do this. But I had to do it the same way a shark has to keep swimming. It was such a part of my soul, the tools of coaching, and helping people, and sharing the model, and sharing the things that I learned, I just had to do it. It’s like when you see a really good movie and you have to tell everyone about it.

Here’s what we do in our house, we find a funny video on YouTube and then we’re like, “Have you seen this? You have to see it.” And it doesn’t matter if we’re at the dinner table, we pull out our phones and we are like, “Everyone look at this video.” We have to share it because it’s so good, it’s so powerful. It impacted us so much that we just have to share it. That’s how I felt about coaching. And so I started a coaching practice. Now, in my mind it wasn’t like this official, okay, I’m going to launch a coaching practice. It wasn’t really a formal decision like that.

And it’s okay if it is that way for you, whatever your business is. But for me it was just like, okay, I need to teach this to people. I need to teach the model to people. I need to coach some people. How am I going to find someone to coach? And then I listened to my mentors and teachers and they said, “Put out content.” So I’m like, “Okay, I guess I’ll start writing a blog.” So I started writing a blog. And they said, “Build an email list.” So off my blog I built an email list. And I just said, “Who wants coaching?” I did some free coaching at first. And then I started charging.

So anyway, I sort of just took one step right after another, following the steps that people had told me. And in my mind I knew I was starting a business. But again, there wasn’t this official launch of my business. And I only tell you that because for me that was the best way because if I would have made it a really formal, official, making an announcement to all my friends and launching on a certain date and all that, I would have freaked myself out. I would have been like, “Who do I think I am?” I don’t know how to do that nor do I have any right to do that.

So it wasn’t that for me. I’m just telling you that it doesn’t have to be that formal and official. It could just be like, “I’m going to try this thing. I’m going to study this thing. And I’m going to try some of what they teach me.” So that was back in 2014 which seems like not that long ago but it was almost eight years ago now. So what happened after that was pretty miraculous. In 2014, I should mention I went through coach training in spring of 2014. Started again writing a blog. I wasn’t trying to be a blogger though. I was trying to be a coach, so the blog was just a way to do that.

I think that first year of business I made maybe 10k in revenue. That would be guessing on the high end. I don’t recall off the top of my head and I didn’t pull my tax returns. But I want to say it was right around 10k maybe. So I didn’t make a lot of money. I probably spent at least that much, if not more on trainings and getting myself up and running in the business, so not a profitable year but that’s okay. I really wasn’t even – my main goal I should say wasn’t to make money.

My main goal was to be able to express myself and share what I had learned because I just had to. It was inside me and I had to let it out. That’s 2014. The next year, 2015 I made I want to say around 30k in revenue. Now, I had come from corporate, from the University of Phoenix where I had been for a while. And so I had worked my way up to a six figure salary at the University of Phoenix. So the 30k that I was bringing in, in my mind was just like well, that’s fun but that’s not really – to me that wasn’t a lot of money. It wasn’t anything impressive.

And again, I didn’t have any drama about that because I was just thrilled when even one person wanted to hear what I had to say. I was thrilled when one person would say, “I read your blog and I thought that was really interesting.” I was seriously so delighted. Here’s the thing you guys, if you love what you do, just let yourself be delighted when other people love it.

I have a good friend who’s an interior designer and I remember talking to her when she was first starting her interior design business. And I remember seeing that she was delighted. She said to me, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that we have 10 people”, or maybe it was 20 people or something at the time. She has way more than that now but she was sort of just getting started and she was like, “We have 20 people whose homes we are doing work in. And I can’t believe, 20 people want us to come in and help design the interiors of their home.”

And I remember thinking that is how I feel too when I have just a few people that say, “I want to hear what you’re teaching. I want to learn the model.” And if you can be delighted like that, you know you’re in the right field, first of all, you know, you’re doing the right thing, you know you’re doing what you’re probably called to do. But also it’s going to make the journey so much more enjoyable. I’m not saying money shouldn’t be your goal, totally fine, I love, I want money to be your goal.

But you have to delight along the way with the people that you’re helping. Don’t get discouraged if you only have 10 people that read your blog or listened to your podcast. 10 people wanted to hear what you’ve got to say, especially if those 10 people are strangers that don’t even know you. That’s kind of read that they’re interested in what you have to say. So that was 2015, I made around 30k I want to say in my business.

Next year, year three of my business, 2016 I made a 100k in my business. That was a huge milestone for me because I remember going, “Whoa. I just almost matched”, I think I was making a little more than that at corporate but not a whole lot more. I almost just matched my corporate salary in my business which is just me with my laptop and my kids at home. In my mind I was a stay-at-home-mom because I stayed at home. I did everything at home. I just opened up my computer when I wanted to work.

And if I didn’t want to work, I needed to take care of my kids or something, or I wanted to go to kickboxing instead then I just shut my computer and did that. So the fact that I could make a 100k and still juggle my life. Now, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy. I was working hard. I was learning a lot at this point. I was a solopreneur so I was my own graphic designer. I was my tech support. I was all the things and I’m not good at all those things. But I was delighted to see that I could make six figures and still only work at that point three days a week and do what I love.

Again, so delighted, more money means there were more people that wanted to learn what I was teaching. And remember, every time, I still get so excited when people see the power of these tools.

Year four, 2017, we went from 100k to 300k. Notice we’re – as I’m looking at these numbers now I’m realizing we basically tripled every year. So 300k, wow, that was super exciting too.

My husband was always supportive, by the way. He was always one of my biggest, just fans. He was always proud of me, even the first year when I made 10k, he was just proud of me for doing something I loved. He could see how it lit me up. He could see how it was so good for me and that I was helping people. And so he was always super supportive. But once I started making 100k, and certainly 300k, then he really started paying attention. What’s happening over there?

So after that we made the decision to bring my husband out of his corporate job into the business with me. And that was a decision that we did not take lightly. That was never really the plan for either of us. We hadn’t planned on doing that but he was at a point where he really needed a career change. He was a little burned out on his career. He really needed something different. And my business of course at that point is growing to the point where I need help.

And so after a lot of prayer, and a lot of discussion, and some coaching. I had to get coached on it and everything. We made the decision to have him come in and work in the business with me. And I’ll tell you what; especially for all you ladies listening, it’s pretty fun to be able to bring your husband home from his job.

And I’m so grateful that he was working to pay our bills up until that point because I mean 100k is a good salary. We could have lived off of that. But before that we couldn’t really, based on the lifestyle we had anyway, we couldn’t have supported ourselves on just what I was doing. So I wouldn’t have had the time and the freedom to play, and experiment, and build, and grow my business, the time that I needed, had I been reliant on that business to pay my mortgage. It’s not that you can’t do it. I’m just telling you that my experience, I was so grateful that I didn’t have to do it.

I think if I hadn’t had my husband supporting me I would have gotten another job somewhere because – and this isn’t – I’m not saying this is the only way. But for me, putting the pressure on my business to support me would have taken away the fun and the freedom that I needed to be able to fail at it in order to then succeed at it.

So at any rate, year five, 2018, my coach, Brooke Castillo called me in between those years, year 2017, 2018, some time in there. She said, “I think you should make a million dollars in your business.” And I thought what? “I can’t make a million dollars, are you kidding me?” And she said, “But what if you could?”

And so I borrowed belief from Brooke Castillo, this is one of the things I love about having a coach is I often borrow from their belief. If they believe in me, I tell myself, maybe they’re right, maybe I could. She seems to think I can. And she kind of knows me at least. And so maybe it is possible. And so we did, in the year 2018 we made over a million dollars in our business. And that was pretty exciting because that I never dreamed was going to happen. And then we just kept growing from there.

In 2019, we made 2.5 million dollars in revenue. And by the way, I should mention, and not that this matters, but I know a lot of people who are entrepreneurs or business owners have these questions. So you should know that we had a minimum of a 60% profit margin the entire time. Sometimes we had a much higher profit margin but we’ve always had a minimum of 60% profit. So that’s pretty freaking amazing. That’s a lot of revenue. That’s a lot of money coming in.

And it gives us so much flexibility, not only for ourselves personally, but to reinvest in the business if we choose to which is partly why it’s been able to grow so exponentially, because we have enough profit margin that we can decide to reinvest it back in the business if we want, or use it in our personal lives, or however we want to use it. And so that’s pretty fun.

Year seven we did – so year seven was 2020, which was last year. That was the pandemic year. And we exceeded the year before but only by a little bit. So we were right around 2.7 I want to say, in year seven, 2020, 2.7 mil. And this year we are on track to do 5 mil. Some of you are like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe she’s telling us this. You’re not supposed to tell people how much money you make. Or she’s bragging”, or whatever you’re thinking. I want to just explain the reason why I’m telling you this.

I want you to know, as you listen to what I’m going to be teaching you this summer here on the podcast about business, that I have a successful business, at least we have a lot to learn and we have a long way we can grow with it. But I am delighted with what our little business has turned into. I am delighted with myself and really proud of myself for what I have been able to create. I am really proud of my team now because it’s now my husband and I, and a team of people who help us do this. And I’m so proud of us.

And the money’s nice but it’s nowhere near the best part to me. I’m really not motivated by money. But I do want you to know that I have a successful business because personally I don’t want business coaching or business advice from somebody that hasn’t grown a business. So if you’re trying to get to the billion dollar mark in your business, I don’t know what to tell you. I mean a lot of this is still going to apply, the mindset stuff applies and all of that. But I’ve never created a billion dollar business. I’ve never even created a 10 million dollar business.

But if you’re less than 5 mil then you’re just a little bit behind me and you should come with me. And I feel confident that I can help you. And here’s the other thing, sometimes people look at me and think that I’m special which is super nice, I appreciate it. But I just want you to know I’m not special. Ask my family, they are sweet and they love me but they’ll tell you I’m not special. I’m a mess in all the ways that people are a mess. I’m really good at some things and I’m really terrible at other things.

And sometimes I’m really consistent, and focused, and driven, and sometimes I’m just lazy and I just don’t show up and I’m inconsistent. So I tell you that because I want you to know that if I can do this, I promise you can do this if you want to. Now, you don’t have to do this. Sometimes I get so passionate and excited about business that people think I’m saying that everyone should start a business. I’m not. But the same way I’m passionate about coaching, I’m also passionate about business and entrepreneurship.

In fact just a couple of weeks ago I was with my family and my sister, Natalie Clay who also has a business, and my dad and I, we were talking about this topic and about why some people just can’t get excited about being an entrepreneur. They can’t get excited about business. And often those people struggle to be successful in business.

And I was just saying, my sister and I were both saying how grateful we are that we love business. And my dad asked us, he said, “Well, which is it, which passion is it that drives you to do what you do? Is it the passion for coaching or is it the passion for being an entrepreneur?” And we both said, “It’s both.” It really is, as much as I love the model and all the things I teach you here on the podcast normally, I love entrepreneurship just as much.

And so if you don’t at least feel curious, because like I said, I haven’t always been excited about entrepreneurship but I was always at least a little curious. When I heard people talk about it I found it interesting. It wasn’t like; there are certain topics like math and science that when I hear people talk about them I just sort of go, “Oh man.” I’m just not interested in it. I’ll learn whatever I really need to, to the extent I need to but it doesn’t really light me up. I don’t get excited. I wouldn’t choose to take a course on it or learn about it just because it’s fascinating.

But entrepreneurship, business, on the other hand, yeah, I find it to be fascinating. So if you don’t want to build a business, if you don’t have a passion that you’re excited about. That might be it, like I said, my passion was coaching and I was like, “I’ve got to share this. I guess I’m going to have to start a business.” So that might be what leads you to it. But if you don’t, that’s okay, seriously, it’s not for everyone. It’s totally fine. Or maybe you don’t right now, maybe you will one day down the road. I’m not saying that you have to.

I’m also not saying that you have to want to grow your business. I hear people sometimes say, “I like talking about business but why is everyone always talking about growth, growth, growth?” Growth doesn’t have to be your goal at all, it really doesn’t. But what I do want to talk to you about today for the remainder of this episode are the reasons why I love business, why I’m so passionate about it. The reasons why I discovered that I am very business-minded.

And I will say that if you want to learn from me, if you’re interested in possibly working with me, I’m going to be talking more about that later on towards the end of the summer. I’ll be giving you all the details on my coaching program. I don’t know that I’ll do that here on the podcast but in some form or another we will. And the best way to make sure you don’t miss that is to get on the interest list, jodymoore.com/business because I’ve been working on my business coaching program and it’s going to be pretty phenomenal.

And there will be different offers at different price points. So no matter where you are, if you’re just starting out, I’ve got something for you. If you’re kind of the in the middle, you’ve kind of gotten up and running but you’re stuck, you want a little extra help, you want a little extra guidance, I’ve got something for you.

If you are doing pretty well and you’re a little further along but you really want some intense personal one-on-one coaching from me, I’ve got that for you too. So you’re going to want to get on the interest list, jodymoore.com/business just to learn more about it. Okay, but these are the reasons why I love business. Are you ready?

Number one, I love being part of a solution to a problem. I do. And I promise that we all love this. I think it’s how we’re wired as human beings. We thrive off helping one another, we do. When we’re operating in a healthy space sometimes we have things that creep in like fear, and jealousy. And sometimes we struggle. We have health problems, or depression, or things like that, that make it hard for us to be able to help people. That’s okay. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just saying that at our core a basic human need is to feel like you’re helping others.

And there are very few things I think that feel better than feeling like you helped someone. Knowing that I’ve impacted someone’s life for good is so much more fun than the money. It really is you guys. I mean money is fun, I do like money. You can do some fun things with money. But money’s fun and excitement is not as powerful. And it certainly doesn’t last as long as the feeling of knowing that you helped somebody. Seriously.

My daughter just today actually, may daughter who’s in eighth grade, Macy, she has a teacher, I’m recording this on day 11^th and we still have a whole week of school left. And I feel for those teachers because it’s been a heck of a year. And she has one teacher in particular who used to be one of her favorite teachers. And now she says, “Mom, she’s really struggling. She complains a lot. She tells us about her fights with her husband. She tells us that she’s looking for another job online. Something’s going on.” So I totally feel for this teacher.

But at any rate, Macy came home and said to me, “Mom, I wrote my teacher a letter the other day just thanking her for all the things she does.” And knowing Macy it was probably a pretty thoughtful letter. She is a sweet girl. She writes some pretty thoughtful personal letters like that. And she said, “Today she thanked me for it and she even started crying a little bit.” And I was like, “Mace that was so nice of you.” Now, here’s the thing, her teacher felt so impacted because Macy told that teacher, “You’ve helped me”, in some form or another.

And think about how probably infrequently that happens, that your eighth graders tell you how much you’ve helped them if you’re a teacher. I’m so sorry, teachers, you are helping them. I’m sorry if they’re not telling you. So for the teacher she got to experience that feeling of feeling like she’s helping someone. That’s powerful, it brought her to tears.

And then for my daughter, Macy, she got to feel the feeling of feeling like she helped her teacher. By just writing her that letter she helped her a little bit. She knows her teacher’s struggling, having a rough time. She helped give her a little bit of relief. That’s a huge win. So you don’t have to start a business to do that by any means. There’s so many ways you can help people. And starting a business is not the way for everyone.

But for me it’s the way, it’s just the way that is the most naturally aligned with my skills. It’s the way I get excited about. It’s the way that I choose to be part of a solution to a problem.

One of the things that I heard recently is that in the Alcoholics Anonymous program, they have a 12 step program to help people recovering from addiction. And the 12^th step, which they say is one of the most important steps, that if people don’t do the 12^th step, their odds of staying sober go down significantly. And the 12^th step is to help someone else, help someone else who’s struggling now.

And this is what I love about entrepreneurship and business is we almost always start the business around something that we want or that we struggled with. So I heard it said that if you help somebody who’s struggling with the same thing that you either are struggling with or at least used to struggle with, that’s a powerful experience for them, but probably even more so for us.

So sometimes people write me really nice messages saying, “Thank you for being brave, and doing your work, and putting it out there.” And I a little bit feel bad because I want to go, “I am doing it for you but I benefit from it more.” It’s not me sacrificing for you. I’m gaining just as much, if not more, than all the people I’m helping and teaching because we gain a lot by helping others.

There’s a primary song that the kids sing at church that talks about Christ. And it says, “Have faith, have hope, live like His son, help others on their way.” And when I used to be a primary teacher and I would sit in primary and when the kids would sing that line, “Help others on their way”, I would get emotional and choked up every time.

And I would think about my business. And I would think about my clients. And I would think about how I’m getting to help them and how they’re all helping other people as I help them. And the power of that brings me to tears. So that’s the number one reason I love having a business.

Number two, entrepreneurship, business is a social science. And I am a social science girl. Social science meaning the study of people and human behavior. And that is what entrepreneurship is and I didn’t realize this because when I worked in corporate it looked different. I still love my, like I said, I love my time in corporate.

But we would sit in meetings and we would look at spreadsheets with numbers, percentages. We would be looking for can we make a 4% change in this area, a decrease or increase depending on what the area was. And I was just like, “What is 4% even, can someone do the math for me?” And then these are fine-tuning little changes that we’re going to make to try to impact the spreadsheet to make the number look a little bit different in the end. And so in my mind, business was about numbers. Business was metrics.

But the numbers are only a way for us to gauge what’s happening with the people. That’s it. And it wasn’t until I started my own business that I saw that a little more clearly. Of course I knew that but I didn’t think of it in that way. When I thought business I thought numbers. Now when I think business I think people because that’s really what’s going on. It’s really about people.

In order to be successful growing my business I’ve had to pay attention to people. I’ve had to get even better at understanding human behavior and reading people, how to communicate effectively with people. And learning how to meet people where they are and talk to them in a way that resonates with them, not necessarily just the way that resonates with me, especially the people that don’t think like I think, the people that aren’t like me. It’s really easy to speak to the ones that are just like me, but what about the ones that aren’t like me?

And I love that so much. I love better understanding people. I love connecting with people. I love the practice of being accepting of all kinds of people. I’m not always perfect at it by any means. But I love that part of it. I love figuring out how to influence people for good. I love learning how to empower people to believe in themselves. And I know I do a lot of that in coaching but I do that in business too.

If somebody’s considering, and especially back when I did only private coaching, one-on-one coaching, I remember realizing I have to empower this person to believe that they can the result they want to get from my program or they’re never going to sign up. And I never did that out of integrity. If I had somebody that I thought wasn’t going to be successful, it wasn’t the right time, I didn’t think was a good fit, I am the first one to tell them that, “I’m not sure if this is for you. It doesn’t seem like maybe this is the best time.”

But for most people I know they could be and so to figure out how to empower people to believe in themselves is just something that I love doing and I find to be so rewarding.

The third reason I love business. It requires that I keep learning and growing, it does. And I love learning and growing if it’s something that I’m interested in learning, an area where I want to grow. And so far I actually have run into a few things that I’ve been like, “I don’t want to learn that but it seems like I have to.” So there are some things that I’ve had to learn to do that, of course I never had to but it seemed like the only way I could find at the time.

So there are things I’ve learned that I wouldn’t necessarily choose, just things like the fine-tuning of technology. I never really needed to know how to integrate a payment gateway with a website. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that and I don’t think it would have made my life worse. It doesn’t make it worse that I do know it; it’s just not that interesting to me. Now, there are people like my son who’s very good at computers who would probably find that really fascinating. Great, but I didn’t.

But at any rate there are many, many other things that I’ve learned that I do love learning that I find to be fascinating, that I find not only help me be a more successful entrepreneur, but help me in my personal life too and help me understand myself, and my kids, and my family, and just the world around me.

So I really do invest in myself because I personally don’t believe that my business can grow any faster than I can grow, or it could but then I’m going to end up with a business I don’t like. I’m going to end up with a situation that I don’t want to be in. So I’m not going to do this if I don’t enjoy it. That means I have to grow and then bring the business with me otherwise the business will outgrow me. So I go to conferences. I take classes. I hire coaches. I read books. I listen to podcasts. I’m constantly trying to learn more about business.

And it just so happens that the principles and values of good business are the principles and values of a good life. We learn that from Stephen R. Covey. He was kind of the first one that I recall that talked about business in a way that everybody said, “These are just good principles for life.” But there are so many amazing brilliant people out there teaching this stuff that I love learning from. I love learning from John Maxwell and from Dan Sullivan, and from all kinds of other people who are figuring out marketing and online business, people who are just really good at leadership.

There’s so many people out there, Amy Porterfield does an amazing job teaching business. Of course my mentor, Brooke Castillo is really good at business. So just so many inspiring people. I just read a book called Business Boutique by Christy Wright, so fun. I love learning from these people.

You listen to people and you start realizing, yeah, she’s saying the same thing he said. And he’s saying the same thing someone else said which is awesome because they all say it in a slightly different way with different examples, different stories. And I have to hear it a dozen times before I really can internalize it and apply it to my own life. So I love that about being an entrepreneur.

The fourth thing I love about being an entrepreneur is that I have my own place to experiment. It’s my only little lab if you will, my own social science lab, not like beakers and test tubes kind of lab. No, no, no, I’m talking about experimenting with just things I want to try out. And I don’t have to ask permission from anyone to try a new program, or teaching a new concept, or developing myself in some certain way, or investing in myself, or in my business, or in my team, or somebody on my team.

I don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. I just get to decide because it’s my business. And if it fails, alright, let’s try something else. I really do think of it like a lab where I get to play and experiment. I get to decide what, I get to decide how. I get to decide when. It’s so much fun to me to be able to experiment with how do I get more effective at doing what I’m trying to do, which is helping people through coaching? How do I become more effective at getting the word out that anyone with a brain needs a coach? How do I empower other coaches to be successful?

How do I empower my clients to solve for their problems and achieve their goals? How do I help other entrepreneurs in general? When do I serve and when do I say, “No. That costs money.” Just so many things that in a big corporation I didn’t have that kind of flexibility. I had to ask somebody’s permission and it had to go up the chain of command. And oftentimes the answer was no. So I just love the space and the freedom that I have to experiment.

And then the fifth thing that I love, I think I have six actually, did I write a sixth one? Yeah, I have six, sorry. But let me give you number five first. The fifth thing I love about business is that it is a creative outlet for me. So I think that we all have the desire to create. It’s different for all of us. Some people are creative through art. Some people are creative through music. Some people are creative through spreadsheets. Some people create courses. Some people create ideas. Some people write books, that’s how they create.

But in some way, I promise you that you are a creator. And for me the business has been an awesome way to satisfy that part of me that wants to create. In fact I noticed that for a while I used to sew, just as something that kind of was therapeutic and fun for me. And once I started my business I just stopped sewing.

I probably haven’t sewn anything for seven or eight years because I just didn’t have the interest in it because my creative need was met through my business instead. It’s met because in my business there is a lot of visual aspect to it. There are graphics and things that need to be created and decided upon. I get to be creative through words. I have to do a lot of writing in my business. I write copy. I write emails. I used to write a blog. I’m creative through this podcast. I have to be creative.

I get to be creative even just through titles and content, through different approaches, through different strategies of how can I better get through to this client? How I can I better achieve the goals I’m trying to achieve, and the mission I’m trying to pursue here in our business? So it’s so much fun to me to have this creative outlet. It sort of goes with number four where this is my own lab. But it also meets that creativity need.

And then the sixth and final one that I wanted to talk about which sort of overlaps with some of the others, but again I learned this from Dan Sullivan, he talks about that entrepreneurs, the successful ones and success meaning money, but more importantly, happiness, and life balance, and all the things that we really truly want in the end, those entrepreneurs are creating for themselves the four freedoms he calls them. There’s freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship and freedom of purpose.

So freedom of time meaning when you own your own business you get to choose what your time looks like. You might want to work full-time in the business, great, do it. You might not want to. You have the ability to choose. You get to choose what that time looks like and how you structure your time.

You have freedom of money because money doesn’t have to be the goal but you certainly have now a vehicle by which to make as much money as you want to. You are not at the liberty of somebody else’s budget. You are not waiting for that annual 5% raise that you get on a good year. You have the freedom to create what you want the money in your life to look like.

Freedom of relationship because all of us want to spend more time around the people that we like, and less time around the ones that are difficult, and having a business should be helping you to create that if you’re doing it correctly.

And then finally, freedom of purpose. I get to choose what is my purpose, just like me adding this business component is sort of a – listen, I want that to be a part of my purpose. I know I’m good at it. I know I should be spending time there. I love it. I’m effective at it. I get to bring it into my purpose. I don’t have to wait for someone else to tell me what it should look like.

So you can tell I get excited about this stuff. But again, if you have even just a little voice inside you that’s like, you know what? You could do this thing one day, I mean maybe one day, maybe it’s not today. But maybe I would be interested in trying this thing.

I have a friend that always says, “I just kind of want to start a So Delicious kind of place.” Or what are those places called with the drink shops where you get the good diet coke, the dirty diet coke and a cookie or something like that? We’re in Washington so we don’t have them on every corner like they do in Utah. And I’m always, “You should do it.”

So if that’s you, if you have some kind of idea, something you just kind of want to do or maybe you have been trying to work on building something but you’re kind of stuck or you just want to learn more, maybe it’s going great but you want to learn more, you want to keep adding to your toolkit, then I got you, summer of 2021, Tuesdays here at the Better Than Happy podcast, we will be doing business episodes. And then towards the end of the summer I’ll be launching Business Minded, my business coaching program and I cannot wait.

So thanks for joining me today you guys. Have a beautiful amazing weekend and I’ll see you soon.

Who is your life coach? If you don’t have one I would be so honored to be your coach. I created a virtual coaching program called Be Bold that I want to invite you to join me in. We can address challenges, we can work on goals, and we can do it in so many different ways.

We have group coaching, individual private coaching, and online chats along with hundreds of hours of courses and content that I’ve created just for you. When you’re ready to really take what you’re learning on the podcast to the 10x level, then come check out Be Bold at JodyMoore.com/membership.