Rachel Hollis: Reinvent Yourself After Failure and Build a Business That Lasts | Entrepreneurship | E350

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0:01:41 I went from being on top of the world and having this massively successful company to
0:01:42 slowly having to lay people off.
0:01:50 And by mid-2021, this business I had spent so many years building up to came crashing down.
0:01:53 So you wrote this book and you actually opened the book up with a question,
0:01:55 what must you let go of?
0:01:56 Why is that important?
0:02:03 The clarity and the sense of purpose and the real impact of our work happens when we
0:02:06 start to strip things away, not when we add to them.
0:02:10 I don’t think that with all the responsibilities we have in this life that we can successfully
0:02:14 try and build 10 completely different businesses at the same time.
0:02:16 You have to pick one thing.
0:02:21 Stop saying yes to things you don’t really want to do so that you can have as much time
0:02:24 as possible to work on yourself or work on your dreams.
0:02:27 It really isn’t about your dreams.
0:02:28 It’s about your standards.
0:02:34 If you can raise your floor, if you can raise your standards, then you actually get closer
0:02:36 to the ceiling without the ceiling needing to break.
0:02:57 Yeah, fam, have you ever felt stuck spinning your wheels, desperately wanting to change,
0:02:58 but not knowing how to break through?
0:03:02 What if the key to transforming your life was simply learning to ask the right questions?
0:03:07 Today, we’re asking the deep questions with Rachel Hollis, an entrepreneur, motivational
0:03:09 speaker, and host of the Rachel Hollis podcast.
0:03:15 She’s also the author of the bestselling book, Girl, Wash Your Face, and her latest book is called
0:03:16 What If You Are the Answer?
0:03:22 In this episode, Rachel will reveal how asking life-changing questions can completely reshape
0:03:27 your mindset, unlock your potential, and propel you towards a life you’ve always dreamed of.
0:03:29 Rachel, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:03:31 Thanks for having me.
0:03:34 I’m so excited to have you on the show, Rachel.
0:03:40 As a podcaster, I’ve always looked up to you, and you’ve inspired so many millions of women
0:03:42 and people in general.
0:03:45 And so my first question is really a warm-up question.
0:03:50 Because you are such an expert on personal development, and you’re really known for your
0:03:57 routines and your habits, what is the most powerful thing that you do every single morning to set
0:03:57 off your day?
0:04:02 Oh my gosh, this is like asking, what is my favorite child?
0:04:08 I think, honestly, the biggest shift that happened for me about 15 years ago was understanding what
0:04:15 a morning routine was and the value of creating one around not just what I wanted to achieve,
0:04:16 but the season of life that I am in.
0:04:21 I think there’s so much content out there telling you how to build a morning routine, and it’s
0:04:26 really easy to start to gather information and not really take that on board in what will
0:04:32 work for you. So if you are a new parent with a new baby at home, your life and your ability to
0:04:36 wake up in the morning is going to look very different than if you are a freelancer in your
0:04:44 20s. So for me, really understanding the importance of that time. Like, I have four kids, so waking up
0:04:52 before my kids wake up, I know it sounds so simple, but if you start your day on offense versus
0:04:58 on defense, it makes all the difference. So waking up before anyone else in the house, having my coffee,
0:05:05 I sit in the same spot every single day, I read nonfiction, I do a gratitude practice. I do those
0:05:10 things that are really paramount to what I am trying to accomplish in my life right now, but that’s not
0:05:16 something I understood I needed a long time ago. So I know that’s kind of like a bigger scope, but
0:05:22 building that morning routine around your life and your goals is the key.
0:05:27 That makes sense because every season of life is different and requires different things. Now, what if
0:05:33 somebody feels like they’re just not a morning person? This is me, right? I struggle waking up early. I get
0:05:41 really creative late at night. It’s just my natural rhythm to want to stay up late and not necessarily
0:05:46 wake up super early. So what would you say to somebody like me? Well, I would say if you don’t
0:05:51 have anything that requires you to be up early, then you should go with whatever your natural rhythms are.
0:05:57 So if I didn’t have four kids, I’m not sure what my normal rhythm would be, but I have to make sure
0:06:01 everybody gets up and gets out the door to school. And then there are other people listening who might
0:06:06 have a nine to five job that they have to start a commute for. But if you don’t have to, like I have a ton
0:06:12 of friends who are entrepreneurs and they might not wake up until 11 a.m., 12 o’clock because they don’t
0:06:18 have to. And they can stay up all night and really lean into when they feel most creative. That’s why I
0:06:24 was saying having a routine that works for you. Take a bunch of the information and do the research,
0:06:28 find out what works for other people. But at the end of the day, it needs to be applicable to your life
0:06:34 or it’s not going to get you the results that you want. Now, I will just caveat or add a little
0:06:41 bit here. For someone who does need to be up early and they really want to have a morning routine,
0:06:46 they want to be a morning person, but they don’t feel like they are, that’s a learned skill. Nobody
0:06:50 comes into this world, nobody gives birth to a baby and the doctor looks at the baby and they’re like,
0:06:57 oh, it’s an early riser. That’s not a thing. So if you want anything in life, if you want a habit that
0:07:02 you don’t currently have, you can teach yourself that habit. So if I were you, and let’s say you
0:07:07 get up every day at seven and you want to get to a place where you’re part of the 5 a.m. club,
0:07:12 set that alarm 15 minutes earlier every single day. Let your body adjust to getting up earlier. Make
0:07:18 sure that you have something exciting to wake up for. Like I love coffee. So it’s really easy for me
0:07:22 to pop out of bed. Or if I have a new book that I’m reading, because I’m super nerdy, but if I have a
0:07:25 new book that I’m reading that I feel like I’m learning a ton from, that’ll get me out of
0:07:31 bed. Have something that you’re headed right into so that you’ve got a reason to meet your
0:07:35 alarm where it meets you instead of hitting the snooze.
0:07:41 I love that advice. Just setting the clock back 15 minutes early every single time so that you can
0:07:47 just wean yourself. I love that advice. So we were talking about seasons of life. And I know a new
0:07:52 topic that you talk a lot about is reinvention, right? And you’ve reinvented yourself several times.
0:07:57 So talk to us about the different seasons of life that you’ve had so far and where you are now.
0:08:03 Yeah. I don’t know if this is every entrepreneur. I sort of think it is. A lot of my friends who are
0:08:09 in the space or who are entrepreneurs, I feel like every five to seven years, there starts to be a shift.
0:08:15 Or if there’s not, I think the work begins to feel a bit stale. Especially if you’re an entrepreneur,
0:08:20 you’re a risk taker, you’re ambitious, you’re competitive. And so I think you’re always
0:08:27 looking around for what’s happening in the market and how you might move with what’s going on.
0:08:33 So I actually started, my very first business was as an event planner in Los Angeles. I started
0:08:39 planning weddings and bat mitzvahs. And then I slowly moved into getting to do corporate events,
0:08:44 getting to work on movie premieres and press junkets and working in the entertainment industry.
0:08:52 And then in 2007, 2008, I kept hearing about this thing called a blog. Everyone was blogging. I didn’t
0:08:56 really know what that meant. So I just started to blog. I would literally write about what I ate for
0:09:00 dinner last night. And I just kept putting it out. And I had an intern one day that said,
0:09:04 you know, a blog is actually supposed to be about something, right? And I was like,
0:09:09 Oh, thank you. So I started to blog about events and how you could host events in your home and
0:09:15 set a beautiful table. And slowly but surely, I kept figuring that out and figuring it out. And then
0:09:21 one day a brand reached out and said, could we pay you to put our product into one of your blog posts?
0:09:28 And I will never forget. It was Eggland’s Best Eggs. And they offered me $250. And I was like,
0:09:36 I am rich. And this is a business. And I realized that there was, I mean, now it’s so common. But
0:09:42 back then we didn’t really know what we were doing. So we just started to build a company around having
0:09:46 a website that brands wanted to be a part of. And if we could just create content that was really,
0:09:52 really good, that maybe people would pay to get in front of our audience. So I did that for a while,
0:09:56 built that up to a place I was really proud of it. And then because I was writing every day for the blog,
0:10:02 started to dream about writing my own book. I’ve always been a book nerd. I’ve wanted to be an author
0:10:08 since I was a little girl. And so I was like, okay, I’m just going to try this. And I published my first
0:10:15 book in 2014. And, you know, like five people cared. I wasn’t an overnight success by any stretch of the
0:10:21 imagination, but I just kept writing. I’d come out with a book every year. And on my sixth book,
0:10:26 which was in 2018, I wrote a book called Girl, Wash Your Face, which unbeknownst to me or anybody
0:10:34 else in the entire world became this runaway success. And it really launched my career in personal
0:10:40 development. I never, I cannot even believe that this is my career, to be honest with you, Hala.
0:10:47 But yeah, I just tend to, I think, move at the risk of being a hippie, like move with flow and move with
0:10:52 where I feel like I’m being guided. And then I test stuff. If it’s just easy to move into it,
0:10:58 I expand with what’s going on. So my career has had a lot of different versions of itself,
0:11:05 but the entrepreneurial spirit is at the core of everything. So it’s one thing to be interested in a
0:11:11 certain kind of content. But to figure out how to monetize that in a big way is the key. And I think
0:11:18 as long as I have done it, I’ve kept the same customer base. So the woman who was reading my
0:11:22 blog in 2008 is the same woman who reads my books and listens to my podcast today.
0:11:27 I love that. It’s something that I talk about on the podcast all the time, which is creator
0:11:31 entrepreneurship, and you’re in an audience-based business. So your product can always change and
0:11:36 evolve, but you just keep growing that core audience. So I love that you brought that up
0:11:40 and hit that nail on the head. I’ve got so many questions to kind of dig deep on this.
0:11:41 Yeah.
0:11:46 One of them is the fact that I was shocked when I was like, this was her sixth book,
0:11:51 Girl, Wash Your Face. That’s when I first heard about you. And I thought that was your first book.
0:11:51 Yeah.
0:11:57 And it made me realize like, man, like nothing is an overnight success, but there’s a key here.
0:12:04 Your stuff was fiction before, right? You were writing novels and stuff and you decided to twist
0:12:09 it and do personal development and use all the skills that you learned. And I guess you had a
0:12:13 built-in audience. So you tell us in your own words, what changed this time?
0:12:19 There is no such thing as an overnight success. I cannot tell you how many journalists, when I came
0:12:24 out with Girl, Stop Apologizing, which followed Girl, Wash Your Face, were like, oh my gosh,
0:12:28 are you so excited to have your second book out? And I was like, this is my seventh.
0:12:35 So part of what I think happened there is something that happens a lot with athletes at the highest
0:12:40 level. I am obsessed with athletes. I’m not obsessed with sports. I don’t really know a lot about sports,
0:12:47 but I’m so curious about the athletes, the Olympians, how do they make themselves do the same thing
0:12:52 over and over at the highest level and get the best results again and again? Because essentially,
0:12:57 as an entrepreneur, that’s what we’re asking of ourselves. So I’m obsessed with this question.
0:13:02 And one of the themes that I’ve seen over and over is that athletes at the high levels
0:13:08 fall in love with the grind. They’re in love with the process. They’re in love with how do I make
0:13:14 this better by the tiniest millisecond? So for me, I really think a big part of the success was I wasn’t
0:13:20 trying to be successful. I just really liked writing books. I liked writing and I was trying to get better.
0:13:25 And that was my only goal was I thought, well, if you read my first book and you read my third book,
0:13:30 as a reader, would you think I had improved as a writer? That’s all I was trying to do.
0:13:38 And Girl, Wash Your Face was honestly, I think a fluke in a lot of ways. I actually think my ability
0:13:46 to write fiction is why I have success in the personal development space. Because my audience are not
0:13:53 people who self-identify as personal development nerds. It’s not like Tony Robbins’ entire audience
0:13:59 goes over to me. I was speaking to women who maybe had never considered personal development before.
0:14:05 They might not even have ever gone to therapy. They really had not considered these things at all.
0:14:11 So I think my ability to storytell and explain how I went through it and how it was helpful,
0:14:20 that really was a massive unlock that wasn’t in the space. Because I didn’t really know how to be a
0:14:25 personal development writer, I think that I brought something to it that maybe didn’t exist before.
0:14:33 But gosh, I cannot stress that enough to any of your listeners. It really is an overnight success after
0:14:39 working at it for a decade. It’s like, what we do in the dark that gets celebrated in the light,
0:14:44 nobody’s going to cheer for you. Nobody’s going to be there rooting you on, especially at the hardest
0:14:52 moments. It’s, can you love the process enough to keep going? Because you know, you don’t know when,
0:14:56 but you know at some point you’re going to get the results that you’re striving for.
0:15:01 I know even in my own experience, I started my career in radio working at a hip hop
0:15:09 radio station. And then I had all these different music at a music blog in 2012. I had all these
0:15:15 different music online radio shows before podcasts and Young and Profiting was my fifth show, but it
0:15:21 was my first business entrepreneurship type show. And then it worked out when the other shows didn’t
0:15:25 work out. So I always love to tell my listeners, there’s no one straight path to what you want.
0:15:30 You want it to be an author that had an audience. You did it in a slightly different way and
0:15:35 something changed with the way that people were really receptive to it and it worked.
0:15:40 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think going back to that idea of the audience,
0:15:44 if you figured out your customer base, if you figured out your audience, and even as you were
0:15:50 changing the format of your show, you were learning how to do a show. You were learning how to be better.
0:15:54 You were learning how to tell jokes or do an interview. So nothing is wasted.
0:16:00 Nothing is lost. It’s so easy to look at social media and see everybody else crossing the finish
0:16:06 line and feel like you are not far enough along in your race. But like, it’s all stacking on top of
0:16:10 each other to lead you where you’re supposed to go. So just stick with it.
0:16:16 So you were one of the first mommypreneur influencers. You know, like I always thought
0:16:24 of you as a mommypreneur and very big on Instagram and your blog. And you were really doing this
0:16:31 influencer stuff before it was even a thing. So talk to us about what it was like during those days. And
0:16:36 then you had this big viral moment that really turned everything around. So talk to us about that.
0:16:43 Yeah. So we didn’t have that word influencer. It’s so common now, but you didn’t call it that.
0:16:47 I knew a lot of women like me who had websites where they created content.
0:16:50 You were a mommy blogger. I remember that term.
0:16:58 Yeah. Like we just created this content based on whatever we were interested in. Like Joy Cho with
0:17:04 Oh Joy did something very different than I did on my site. And it changed based on whatever your
0:17:11 interests were. But then brands wanted our audience. And you have to remember, social media did not exist
0:17:16 back then like it does today. We had Facebook, but even then we didn’t really know what we were doing with
0:17:22 Facebook. So many of these brands wanted access to people who were devout followers. I mean, they would
0:17:28 check in every day to see what you wrote about. They’d share it with their friends. And so we didn’t know what to
0:17:34 charge. We didn’t know what that was worth. And I think probably we all charged way too little for the amount of
0:17:39 access we were giving away or what they were able to get out of it. But we really were, it felt like the
0:17:47 wild west of doing branded content for people. But it was fun and we were figuring it out. And if I could
0:17:52 go back in time, I’m sure I would approach it so differently. But I’m sure there are versions of this
0:17:59 today of being in an industry that’s either coming up for the first time or maybe shifting so quickly that
0:18:04 you feel like you’re building the airplane while you’re flying it through the air. There’s a certain kind
0:18:11 of magic and energy that happens inside of that. And it definitely was that for us. But yeah, we just
0:18:17 kept like, okay, let’s try this thing and now let’s do this. And even building a team inside of a
0:18:22 business that didn’t exist before, like you couldn’t call someone or look online and go, well, how do you
0:18:27 build a lifestyle website? How do you hire editors? How do you hire a photographer? We were making it up as
0:18:35 we went along for sure. I love that. And then in 2015, a post went viral because of you showing your
0:18:42 stretch marks. Yeah, for sure. Again, these things are common now. Back then it wasn’t a thing, but
0:18:48 I had just run the LA Marathon. And to celebrate, I went with my then husband to Mexico. We were on a
0:18:55 beach in Mexico and I was wearing a bathing suit that I thought was really cute. And I had a following
0:19:02 on Facebook, but maybe 10,000 people. It wasn’t huge at all. And I was like, oh, they’ll like this
0:19:05 bathing suit because the bathing suit was monogrammed. And I was like, oh, I’m going to show them. And it
0:19:10 was a bikini. And I asked my husband at the time, I was like, oh, can you take a picture of me in this
0:19:15 bikini? And he took a few pictures. And then I went to the pool and I was looking through the photos.
0:19:21 And in all the photos, you could see my stretch marks pretty predominantly. And I was like, oh,
0:19:25 I don’t know. Maybe I’m not going to post this. And I was like, oh, who cares? Everyone who follows
0:19:30 me is a mom like me. They probably have stretch marks too. They’re still going to love this bathing suit.
0:19:34 I’m just going to write about how I didn’t want to post it because of these stretch marks. And
0:19:42 I will never forget this, that I posted it. I was on crappy wifi. So I went, I did like a refresh to
0:19:50 make sure that it had posted. And when I refreshed it, it had a hundred likes. Now that doesn’t seem
0:19:54 like a big deal, but I am telling you, I’d never gotten more than eight likes on something in my
0:20:00 entire life. And I was like, holy crap, a hundred likes. This is nuts. And then I like refreshed it
0:20:07 again and it had like a thousand likes. And I was like, what is going on? And over the course of that
0:20:14 day, I just remember sitting by a pool, refreshing and just watching it go and get bigger and bigger.
0:20:20 And I probably had 10,000 followers on Facebook. And by the end of the day, I had like a hundred
0:20:25 thousand. I’ll tell you what too, Hala, if you’re going to have something go viral, that’s not the
0:20:31 thing you want to go viral. It’s not yourself in a bikini, like not feeling like the best version of
0:20:38 you. But that taught me so much because of the response from women to that post. I was like, oh,
0:20:44 women really want to talk about things that are real. Because this was the era of the Pinterest
0:20:50 birthday party and everything had to be perfect. And our kids needed to look amazing. And I was like,
0:20:58 oh, women really want to talk about real things. So that honestly, I think planted the seed of what
0:21:02 Girl, Wash Your Face would become, which was, can we have a real conversation about what this really
0:21:09 feels like? Yes, sometimes it’s beautiful. And yes, sometimes it’s not. And our lives are all of it.
0:21:10 So can we hold space for all of that?
0:21:15 And so there’s like silver lining, even though it went viral for something that was
0:21:19 kind of embarrassing and you didn’t know the world was going to go see your stretch marks,
0:21:24 it gave you a clue of what people might be receptive to and led to a bestselling book. And
0:21:29 really that was, to me, seemed like a huge turning point in your career of becoming an influencer.
0:21:37 Yeah, I just, I got so much attention for that post. I didn’t really know what to do with it,
0:21:44 to be honest with you. But it was, in retrospect, just a really great jumping off point of what my
0:21:49 career and my writing style would become. It’s kind of wild to me to think about.
0:21:55 Jenna Kutcher is in my podcast and arc. She’s one of my friends. And she kind of blew up in the same
0:21:59 way. She posted a picture of her husband and her husband’s very attractive. And she had just
0:22:04 had a miscarriage. And then she was looking more overweight than usual. And then that post went
0:22:10 super viral and kickstarted. It’s just so wild how you guys have similar stories. I think that era was
0:22:18 just craving body positivity. I feel like a grandma when I’m saying this to you, but when all of these
0:22:24 new websites came around, so let’s say Pinterest is a great example. We learned very quickly as content
0:22:29 creators that there was an aesthetic that would get you more noticed that people really loved. They
0:22:34 wanted the blowout. They wanted full hair and makeup. The audience wanted perfect, perfect,
0:22:40 perfect because they’d never really had a website to see that before. And now you could look up anything
0:22:46 on Pinterest and find the most aesthetically pleasing version of that. And we all started to chase that
0:22:54 visual ideal, not just in the work we created, but in our lives. So I think it was just right for this
0:22:59 opportunity for some women to raise their hand and go like, yeah, but that’s not always what it looks
0:23:05 like. Some days I feel like I look that pretty, but other days that’s just not reality. And so if we
0:23:12 can show up as our real selves, how would that be? I think there’s such a better balance of it today
0:23:18 because you have creators who are creating on both sides of that spectrum. You have stunningly beautiful
0:23:24 doing makeup tutorials. And then you have people who are like, oh, I haven’t taken a shower in four
0:23:30 days and I’m struggling with mental health and this is where I am. And it allows people to see themselves.
0:23:34 Let’s hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.
0:23:43 So let’s transition to your book. The reason why you wrote that bestselling book,
0:23:46 Girl, Wash Your Face, is because somebody asked you a really good question.
0:23:56 I had the opportunity to meet an author I really loved and admired in Jen Hatmaker. And she was so
0:24:01 many of us, like, oh, we all just like were obsessed with her. And I got to meet her and I was fangirling
0:24:08 so hard. And she asked me a question that truly changed the course of my life. She was like, oh,
0:24:11 what’s the next book you’re writing? And I was like, oh, oh my gosh. Okay. Well,
0:24:15 because I was writing fiction and I was telling her all about this fiction that I was writing. And
0:24:23 she said, no, God, no, not that. What’s the story of your heart? What’s the thing you would say to
0:24:30 women if you could say anything? And I truly did not know that I had an answer to that question.
0:24:35 I just started word vomiting all over her. I was like, oh, I just, I wish that women knew how powerful
0:24:39 they were. And I wish they knew they could stand up and go again. And I wish they knew they could take
0:24:46 ownership of their life. And it’s like, girl, like, please get it together. Stop crying, girl. And so
0:24:53 I just kept saying like, girl. And she was like, oh, right, girl, wash your face. And I was like,
0:25:02 oh my, that, that. And I left that conversation with her that we were on a trip together. I left that
0:25:08 conversation and wrote the first chapter of what would become girl, wash your face in the aftermath
0:25:14 of our chat. And so the idea that someone could ask you a question that completely shifts the way
0:25:19 you see yourself or your work. Oh my gosh, it’s so incredibly powerful.
0:25:26 So you wrote this book, I believe it’s 26 questions. Why did you decide to write this book in a question
0:25:32 format? Every chapter is based around a question. Honestly, it feels like a really beautiful bookend
0:25:39 to Girl, Wash Your Face, to be honest. When you have the kind of success that I had with that book,
0:25:44 everyone wants you to just keep writing that book. They’re like, I’ll do it again, do it again,
0:25:50 do it again. And I’ve just gotten to the place in my life and my career where I don’t want to tell
0:25:56 anybody else how to live. When I wrote Girl, Wash Your Face, I was like, I have all of your answers. I know
0:26:01 exactly what you should do. And the older I get, the more I understand that everyone’s on their own
0:26:06 journey and without context into someone else’s lived experience, you can’t really offer great advice.
0:26:12 But I have had those moments and I have had those prompts and those questions where someone gave me a bit
0:26:17 of wisdom that utterly changed the way I saw myself. So I thought, well, could I share some
0:26:24 of the framework that I’ve used to figure out my own path and my own answers? So instead of a book of my
0:26:30 answers, it’s a book of my questions so that you can form your own answers to wherever you are or
0:26:36 whatever’s going on for you. You quote Mike Tyson in the book, you say, everyone has a plan until they
0:26:43 get punched in the face. So you were just talking about you shifting your worldview based on the things
0:26:47 that have happened to you. I want my audience to get to know you really well because this is the first
0:26:52 time you’ve been on the show. What are some of those punching in the face moments that just changed the
0:26:57 way that you think about things? I think this audience will really identify with the fact that
0:27:04 at the beginning of 2020, I had a staff of 60 people. I had a massive business that was based
0:27:11 on live events. I threw conferences for women to work on personal development and we were crushing
0:27:20 it. We’re absolutely crushing it. And went into 2020 so freaking pumped, so excited. We did an event
0:27:26 in January of 2020 in Florida that was like 6,000 people for three days. We were like, here we go,
0:27:32 let’s do it. March, the very first week of March 2020, we did an event in Toronto. It was our first
0:27:38 international conference, absolutely crushed it. And I remember at that conference, we started to hear
0:27:42 about this thing that was happening in China and people were getting sick and we were like, wow,
0:27:48 this is wild. By the time I got back to Austin, which is where I lived at the time, the world was shutting
0:27:54 down. And like most people, we were like, okay, I guess we’ll work from home for a couple of weeks
0:27:59 and then we’ll be back. And obviously that’s not what happened, but probably one of the worst
0:28:05 businesses you could be in in 2020 was live events. So I went from being on top of the world and having
0:28:13 this massively successful company to slowly having to lay people off. And by mid 2021, just everything
0:28:20 had shut down. I just had taken my staff back to, I think, four or five people. And the podcast really became
0:28:30 the core of my business. But this business I had spent so many years building up to came crashing down. And I know
0:28:39 your audience is going to get this too. So much of that business was me. That’s how I saw myself. It was my identity.
0:28:47 I had a massive ego death, like so many things happened, but that, so the business collapsing,
0:28:55 I went through a really bad divorce in 2020 and just, it felt kind of like one thing had stacked on top of
0:29:02 another. And in 20, oh gosh, it’s all running together in my mind. Within the last couple of years,
0:29:10 my ex-husband and my children’s father passed away unexpectedly. And that was sort of just getting
0:29:17 your head back above water. And then life kicks the crap out of you again. And I know I’m not the only
0:29:24 one who has that story either. I know that so many people have their version of getting sick or losing
0:29:31 someone they love or getting fired or trying to figure it out. And I think it affects us all in
0:29:37 different ways. But for me, there’s just so much psychologically tied up in all of it. And there
0:29:42 are times where I’ve felt like, why am I working so hard? Why am I trying to build this? Why am I
0:29:48 trying to do this thing if it can like go away that fast? And then other times where I’m like, oh,
0:29:54 we’ve worked too hard to like give up now. So I’d sort of vacillate between both of those things. But
0:30:01 I really wanted to write about that lived experience because that’s my trauma. But I guarantee people
0:30:05 listening to this have way worse stories that they could tell and way harder things that they’ve lived
0:30:13 through. There’s some solace in understanding you’re not the only one who maybe had to fight hard to get
0:30:19 themselves going today. But by God, we’re here and we’re doing it and we’re showing up as the very best
0:30:23 that we can with what we’ve got. And hopefully it gets a little bit easier as we go along. We start to get
0:30:30 some momentum and then we can do some really great work. And I feel like there’s so many little lessons
0:30:35 in all of that. We were talking about the audience-based business. The fact that you have all these channels
0:30:41 with all these different audiences. Yeah, you lost the live events, but you were able to lean into your
0:30:46 podcast and grow that. You were able to lean into social media and grow that. I’m assuming you’ve
0:30:51 got an email list. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Basically, like you’ve made sure that you’ve diversified your
0:30:56 audience enough and you’ve got big audiences in different pockets in case something like this
0:31:02 happens. Yes. So question for you, advice for the entrepreneur that feels on top of the world,
0:31:07 like maybe me. What’s your advice for me right now where I feel like everything’s going great?
0:31:12 To your point, who knows? Crossing my fingers, nothing does happen. But what’s your advice to
0:31:17 somebody who feels on top of the world? And then what’s your advice to somebody who might be going
0:31:22 through a rough patch in their entrepreneurship? That is such a good question. And I love that you’re
0:31:27 wise enough to ask that, Hala. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I am crushing it,
0:31:32 I can do no wrong. Because there was a time where I was like, we’re just doing all the things. This is
0:31:37 working. One thing, and you kind of mentioned this already, is anybody who has a business
0:31:42 that is audience-based and you access that audience through someone else’s business,
0:31:48 you need to be really careful. So I told you guys that, you know, I had the website and we built
0:31:54 Facebook pages, which sounds so antiquated now, but that was the means to access an audience back in the
0:31:59 day. And Russell, I mean, you mentioned Russell Brunson. He has his own version of the story of
0:32:04 you build up this massive audience. And then one day the company you access them through
0:32:11 changes and now you don’t have access anymore. So I remember with Facebook, we killed ourselves
0:32:17 building up an audience and getting people to join that page. And then one day you posted something and
0:32:23 it literally would say underneath your posts, 3% of your followers saw this post. If you’d like to
0:32:30 access more of your followers, boost your post. Paying for Facebook ads is so normal now, but there
0:32:35 was a time where you did not have to pay to access the audience. The same thing happens when an algorithm
0:32:42 changes. The same thing happens as podcasters. You know this. iOS did an update a year and a half ago
0:32:48 that completely changed the way. Yes, it completely changed the way that our audience can access our
0:32:54 content. And it really makes you aware of how vulnerable you are if you access your fan base
0:33:03 or your audience through someone else’s business. So yes, I’ve had an email since I had a blog. So
0:33:12 300,000 people, 60% open rate because I have sent her an email every Sunday for 15 years. And I very
0:33:19 rarely use that audience. I don’t monetize it. I don’t sell access to them. I just utilize it so that
0:33:24 if I’m launching something like a new book, I know that I can speak directly to my fan base without having
0:33:32 to pay an advertising fee. So be aware of how you access everybody. That’s super important.
0:33:40 Be aware that I’m going to sound so ridiculous right now, but just real talk, the bigger that you get,
0:33:44 everyone’s like, this is amazing. This is amazing. This is amazing. And like one day people are like,
0:33:51 I don’t like this anymore. Especially if you are a woman. Straight up real talk. You hit a point,
0:33:56 everyone’s rooting for you and they’re so proud of what you’re doing. And all of a sudden it’s like,
0:34:06 wait a minute, this, something’s wrong here. So I wish that I had understood that you have to tread
0:34:11 lightly. I think you have to be a little bit paranoid when you hit higher levels of success,
0:34:18 because I tend to be such a Pollyanna and I’m just like, everyone’s amazing. Everyone’s kind. The world is
0:34:26 beautiful. And it is. And also it’s not. So that’s where diversifying how you get your revenue is
0:34:30 really important. Like you said, if one stream goes away, you know, you’ve got another, but yeah,
0:34:35 I just wish I had been a little bit more like a mobster or something, just like a little bit more
0:34:44 who’s going to get me. Yeah. Like I know that that sounds so dramatic, but honestly,
0:34:51 I think that as women in business, particularly if you’re building a company, particularly as you grow
0:34:58 bigger and bigger, I honestly probably would have talked about my success less. I thought if I share
0:35:04 what we’re doing, if I share how many people are employed at this company and they have 401ks and
0:35:10 health insurance and like, if I share what we’re doing, that will inspire other women to build
0:35:15 businesses as well. But the more that I talked about success, the more it seemed to upset people.
0:35:22 And I wish I had been a bit more protective of what we were doing and the kind of numbers that we do.
0:35:29 And now I don’t talk about any of that at all. I used to think, Hala, I was like, why doesn’t Oprah?
0:35:35 Why doesn’t Sarah Blakely? Why doesn’t Reese Witherspoon? These women are billionaires with a B.
0:35:42 Why aren’t they talking about their entrepreneurial success? And now I’m like, because the world doesn’t
0:35:47 like it when women succeed at that level. And if you want to keep succeeding at a certain level,
0:35:55 I think that the way that it is acceptable is to be demure and not admit your success. And maybe
0:35:59 that’s very pessimistic, but that’s what I would say to you.
0:36:05 I feel honored that you shared that with us because I feel like that was really deep. And thank you for
0:36:09 sharing it because I think we need to hear it. My mom always yells at me. She’ll be like, stop telling
0:36:11 everybody how much money you made or whatever.
0:36:18 Seriously. It’s so innocent when we do it. It really is so innocent. You’re like, holy crap,
0:36:24 this team has worked our butts off. We got to tell people we’re doing this stuff. But it puts a target
0:36:31 on your back. It really does. And I think, I hate that it’s the case because I don’t think it’s the
0:36:37 same for men who are entrepreneurs and who are building. People are inspired by that. But it’s also
0:36:42 like, this is the game as it exists today. I hope it’s not the same when my daughter gets older,
0:36:46 but this is the game. And so if you want to play the game and you want to succeed at the highest
0:36:52 levels, you have to understand what’s going to allow you to keep doing that. And I know that there are
0:36:57 people who get really frustrated by that because you’re like, no, you should break the glass ceiling
0:37:04 and speak out against this. And it’s like, yes, but also there’s a point at which that trying to do
0:37:10 that starts to go in opposition of what you’re trying to achieve as an entrepreneur. Just hold
0:37:13 space for that as you’re building this massive thing.
0:37:19 Have some humility. And I guess if you are going to share your successes, make sure that there’s
0:37:21 actionable advice of why you brought it up.
0:37:27 Right. Right. Yeah. We do it too, because women are so often underestimated in business.
0:37:33 So we want to say, oh, but wait, I’ve built an eight figure company. I have 60 employees. Like
0:37:38 I’ve done these because you want to like legitimize yourself. But then simultaneously, I think people
0:37:44 just the framework is they tend to hear that as bragging and you’re not trying to brag. You’re
0:37:49 more just trying to share your story. But yeah, I just think, oh, I feel like such a like
0:37:52 cheesy, but like be careful, be thoughtful.
0:37:58 I appreciate that. So how about somebody who maybe they’re like you where they have to lay
0:38:03 off a bunch of people, something happened where their business got turned upside down. They weren’t
0:38:08 expecting it. They didn’t diversify enough. And now they’re stuck in a spot where they feel like a
0:38:13 failure because they tied their identity to their company and now their company sucks. So they think
0:38:13 they suck.
0:38:19 Gosh, first of all, you’re not alone. That’s so many people. But I think that if you’re feeling
0:38:24 like that right now, you really need to study more successful entrepreneurs, because if you
0:38:28 study more successful entrepreneurs, you’re going to find failures at the greatest, most
0:38:33 massive levels. I promise you failures that are way bigger than what you’ve just gone through.
0:38:40 And the people whose names we know, it’s because they stood up and win again. I sat down with Alex
0:38:46 Hormozy a month or two ago, and he was talking about how many times he’s failed. And if you follow
0:38:52 his journey at all, you hear all these stories, it’s like four times he’s had these massive failures
0:38:57 where he’s been not just failed, but someone else has taken all of his money kind of thing,
0:39:03 where it would be so easy to get so bitter about that and to be like, see, like people are bad.
0:39:10 The world’s out to get me. I’ll never succeed. And I asked him, I’m like, how on earth do you stand
0:39:15 back up and go again? When this happens for the fourth time, not the first, the fourth. And he’s
0:39:22 like, well, because I figure at this point, I at least know what not to do. I actually have a lot
0:39:28 more information than I had previously. I’m back at zero, but I’m not at zero in terms of knowledge.
0:39:32 So now I’m like, okay, I know how to build because I’ve done that before. And I know the pitfalls
0:39:41 because I’ve fallen into them. He really sees that experience as this beautiful level up instead
0:39:47 of as if he’s done something wrong. So just study other people and listen to other people’s stories,
0:39:54 because you’re going to hear that this is part of the journey. Failure is part of the path to success,
0:40:01 period. And every time you reach a new level, you fail at new levels. Every single time you get to a
0:40:06 new level, you’re going to encounter ways that you’re going to mess up or lose money or lose time
0:40:11 or hire the wrong person. It’s just what happens. But if you can learn from that and keep going,
0:40:17 keep pushing forward, you are so much further along than 90% of people who encounter a hardship and give
0:40:23 up. So while we’re on entrepreneurship, I do want to ask you about your early entrepreneurship years.
0:40:29 So you actually started your first business, I believe, when you were 24. And you dropped out of
0:40:31 college, right? You never graduated college. Is that right?
0:40:37 No. Yeah. I went to a year of college and I’m going to use air quotes because it was an acting
0:40:44 conservatory. So it wasn’t even like legit college. How do you think about college now? You have kids.
0:40:50 Do you encourage them to go to college? I encourage my kids to go to college. My oldest is 18. So he is
0:40:54 about to choose. By the end of this week, he will know all the places he got into and where he’s going to
0:41:01 decide to go. Thank you. And I encourage them to go for two reasons. One, because I think college
0:41:06 gives you four more years before you have to be a responsible adult. And I think we all wish we had
0:41:12 that. So I love that they can have this time to experiment and learn who they are with a bit of a
0:41:17 safety net. The other reason that I encourage them to go to college is because they won’t have to pay for
0:41:22 it. I work really hard to make a really beautiful life. And that means that my kids won’t have to pay
0:41:28 for school. But if my kids did have to pay for school, I think I’d have a completely different
0:41:34 perspective on it. I know that it is possible to be incredibly successful without going to college.
0:41:40 If you want to be a doctor, yeah. If you want to be a lawyer, like there are certain things you need to
0:41:47 do to get that accreditation, but lots of other things. I feel like you can be very successful in
0:41:54 this life. Learning as you go through apprenticeships, learning through online. There’s so much freaking
0:42:00 information that you can get online for free. I would never encourage someone to go to college if
0:42:06 it was going to put them into debt. That makes no sense to me. We’ll be right back after a quick break
0:42:17 from our sponsors. Okay, so back to the book. It’s called What If You Are The Answer. How did you come
0:42:24 up with these 26 questions? Well, I looked at moments in my life where I felt like I had had what Oprah
0:42:31 calls the aha moment. When I had had a moment of like, oh God, how did I not see that before? So there’s
0:42:37 one in the book that’s talking about being a manager of people and being an entrepreneur. So this one
0:42:42 will maybe resonate with the audience. But I had an employee at the time that I was really struggling
0:42:48 with. I was trying to figure out how to be a better manager because I was like, it must be me. If I could
0:42:53 better manage this person, then we wouldn’t be having these problems. And so I was trying to become a better
0:42:58 manager and I was reading a ton of books and I was watching all the YouTube videos I could find.
0:43:05 And I happened to find this YouTube video super old school from early 2000s. And this guy was talking
0:43:13 about hiring and firing people. And I think probably my fatal flaw as a manager of people since I first
0:43:20 started my business is I don’t want anyone to be mad at me. Yeah. I want to be like a nice person and I
0:43:25 would, you know, and I give people way too many chances and then the work really suffers. And then the
0:43:30 quality of your team’s work overall suffers because everyone else on the team is like, well, you let
0:43:37 that person get away with coming three hours late. So I was watching this video and he said, would you
0:43:42 hire them again today? He said, if they came in for an interview and you knew everything about them that
0:43:48 you’ve just experienced over the last time, would you hire this person again today? And if the answer is
0:43:55 no, you need to fire them immediately. And I was like, whoa. And that became such an incredible, right?
0:44:02 It became such an incredible question, like with friendships or with commitments that I had or with
0:44:07 relationships with people where I was like, wait a minute, am I in this relationship with my friend
0:44:11 from high school? We have totally different lives. And I feel like I kind of become the worst version of
0:44:17 myself when I’m with them. Would I sign up for again today? No way. So why am I still showing up
0:44:22 for this relationship? And I’m like, oh, because I’m pot committed. Like I feel like I’ve given so much
0:44:27 time. I’ve given so much effort or I don’t want to be the bad guy. And so I stay inside of things I
0:44:32 shouldn’t be inside of. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that quote. It’s not the employee you hire
0:44:39 that destroys your business. It’s the one you won’t fire. That as a question for me to keep asking,
0:44:43 would you sign up for this again? Would you hire them again? Would you go on a second date?
0:44:51 And I say this again and again in the book, you don’t need to make a decision based on the new
0:44:56 information you have. If you’re like, yep, I wouldn’t hire Robert again today. You don’t have
0:45:00 to do anything. You might not yet have the courage to do what needs to be done, but just knowing that
0:45:06 information is empowering. It changes the way you approach the relationship. It changes maybe how you give
0:45:11 them direction, maybe a little fire in your belly. You’re like, dang, this cost me a lot of money and
0:45:17 I’m not leading well. Dave Ramsey says to be unclear is to be unkind. I’m not being clear with this
0:45:23 employee. Just having the information is empowering. So I looked at times in my life where I’d been given
0:45:27 a question that really helped me. And then I tried to share them in the chapters of the book.
0:45:34 I feel like that question in itself, would I do whatever again? Could be a whole book itself.
0:45:39 Yes. It could be a whole book by itself, honestly. I love that. It’s so powerful. I feel like there’s
0:45:44 going to be so many instances in my life where I’m just going to be like, even I’m dating right now,
0:45:49 would I do this date again? If not, then no second date, you know? You could apply it to so many
0:45:54 different things. I love that. We have to be careful, I think, as entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs,
0:45:58 entrepreneurs, even if we get stuff done, if we knock it out of the park, we do it. We’re also
0:46:04 dreamers. In our heart of hearts, we’re dreamers and we can envision big things and we can imagine
0:46:10 big things. And that is so powerful. It’s also super dangerous. I say dangerous because we’ll meet
0:46:15 someone. We desperately need to hire a marketing manager and we meet someone and they’re a marketing
0:46:22 manager and they’re like sort of good and you really need help. And so you’re like, you can envision
0:46:27 in your head what Becky’s going to be. And you make up this whole fantasy about how great Becky’s going
0:46:32 to be and how it’s going to clear a bunch of time in your day. And really that had nothing to do with
0:46:38 this employee and who they are. You just made it up in your own mind. So continuing to ask yourself
0:46:43 again and again, would I sign up? It’s also, if someone’s listening to this and they’re an employee,
0:46:48 let’s say you have a side hustle or you’re dreaming about starting your own thing. If you wouldn’t
0:46:54 sign up for this job again, if you’re like, this job is the worst, I hate this, I don’t want to be
0:47:00 here. What are you doing? There are a lot of ways to pay your rent. There are a lot of ways to make
0:47:07 money. And life is too freaking short to be miserable. So if you wouldn’t sign up for this job again,
0:47:12 again, you don’t have to make a change today, but you definitely have some information now that should
0:47:17 affect the way you are living your life. Maybe you start to be on the lookout or maybe you need to
0:47:23 increase the side hustle so that you can have more income. Everything that I do, the podcast or the
0:47:29 books or even the website has always been about this idea that we get one shot to do this life.
0:47:38 One. You get one time, one journey through this. And I just think we have to do everything in our power
0:47:46 to enjoy the experience, to live the best that we can and to stretch into our full potential.
0:47:53 And if you are miserable in your day job, I don’t know how much you’re going to be able to show up for
0:47:56 the people in your life that you love. I don’t know how much you’re going to enjoy your weekends.
0:48:03 I don’t know that you’re giving the full energy and full capacity to the dream that you’re trying to
0:48:10 build because if all of your vibration is being lowered going into the nine to five all week long,
0:48:16 that’s going to affect what you’re able to do in the off hours. It’s going to affect the side hustle.
0:48:22 So if you could pay your bills in a different way, if you could maybe have a job that doesn’t require
0:48:27 quite so much and maybe it’s not as exciting, but like we’re paying rent and we can like fully put our
0:48:32 heart and soul because we have the energy and a higher vibration to put into the dream, I think
0:48:38 you’d be shocked at what would happen. And I feel like on the flip side, if you decide I would be
0:48:43 an entrepreneur, I would do exactly what I’m doing now, I can imagine that that would really fire you up.
0:48:47 And then you’d realize the highs and lows, it doesn’t matter. I would be doing this
0:48:54 no matter what. And I feel like it would make you feel more optimistic and inspired to do the work.
0:48:59 There’s a fantastic book that everybody should read. Honestly, everybody in your audience, it’s very small,
0:49:06 super easy to get through. It’s The Dip by Seth Godin. It’s so fantastic. If you find yourself in a season
0:49:11 of, do I really want to do this? Should I keep going? Should I keep, should I stay in this? Should I go?
0:49:18 He gives this beautiful quote, which I reference in this book is, the opposite of quitting is not to
0:49:25 continue to do the same thing. The opposite of quitting is recommitting with passion. So people
0:49:31 find themselves and they’re like, should I quit or should I keep going? But if you decide not to quit,
0:49:37 the way that you come back and you add life to that and power to that is you’re like, not only am I going
0:49:41 to keep doing this thing because I believe in my dream and I believe in my company, I’m going to show up,
0:49:49 but you recommit with passion. You’re like, I’m all in. You get fired up. You remember your why. You show
0:49:54 up for what you’re trying to do because otherwise you’re going to be in the exact same spot questioning
0:49:59 the exact same thing again next year. So let’s talk about another question. You actually opened the book
0:50:07 up with a question. What must you let go of? Why is that important? Because I think that the world teaches us
0:50:15 that the answer to everything we’re looking for is to add more things. The world’s like, add a new house,
0:50:21 get a new car, get a bigger job, make more money. And the older I get, the more I understand that
0:50:31 the clarity and the sense of purpose and the real true impact of our work happens when we start to strip
0:50:37 things away, not when we add to them. So, you know, if you have people in your community who are
0:50:44 working on side hustles, same with my peeps and whether it’s at a book tour or maybe they call in
0:50:51 to ask a question on the podcast, I will inevitably have people who are like, I really want to build my
0:50:56 own company. I’m like, that’s amazing. Tell me about it. And they’re like, well, so I am a dog groomer,
0:51:03 but also I am a wedding photographer and also I bake cupcakes and also, and I’m like, yeah, no,
0:51:10 you got to pick one. You have to pick one thing. I don’t think that with all the responsibilities we
0:51:16 have in this life that we can successfully try and build 10 completely different businesses at the same
0:51:22 time. So this idea of what must you let go of, I ask myself at least once a month, and I encourage
0:51:29 everybody to do this, to ask in order to be the best version of myself, what do I need to lose?
0:51:34 What should not be here? Whether that’s excuses, whether that’s a habit, whether that’s something
0:51:39 you currently consume, whether that’s, you know what, I need to stop trying to do 50 things and just
0:51:47 go all in on one. What do you need to let go of is really powerful. It’s like, girl, we are not asking
0:51:53 you to add one more thing to your life. We’re asking you to stop signing up for the class bake
0:51:59 sale. Stop signing up to throw your cousin’s baby shower. Stop saying yes to things you don’t really
0:52:04 want to do so that you can have as much time as possible to work on yourself or work on your dreams.
0:52:12 It’s so good. And running this company that I’m running, I’ve noticed focus is so important. And the
0:52:17 bigger that you get, the more opportunities, the more sexy red dresses, as Alex from Woosie says,
0:52:23 there are. And you’ve got to just stay focused. So I love this question. I’m even thinking about putting
0:52:27 it in my leadership meeting every week. We can say like, what are we letting go of? What do we have
0:52:33 to let go of in order to get our priorities down? Yeah, there’s a fantastic author named Bob Goff.
0:52:40 He’s really like everyone’s favorite grandpa. Very, very wise. And he says he quit something every
0:52:45 Thursday. He’s like, Rach, I quit something every Thursday. Him and his assistant ask each other,
0:52:49 what are you quitting today? I’m like, that is a lot of quitting. He’s like, I know, but it really
0:52:56 works. So they’ll come up with these little habits. It’s more just like creating the intention of asking
0:53:05 what should not be here. Especially if you built a business from the ground up. It’s amazing because it
0:53:10 means you know how to do every part of your business. It’s also so dangerous because you
0:53:14 know how to do every part of your business. So it’s so easy to be like, I can do that. I can
0:53:20 figure that out. I’ll write that. I’ll post that. I’ll do the thing. And it’s not the best use of your
0:53:26 time. What are the things that only you can do and only you should be doing? And if you teach yourself
0:53:31 to ask what shouldn’t be here, like if you brain dump, you take all the stuff that’s in your head right
0:53:36 now, write it down in a journal. You’re like, I got to do all this stuff. The first thing to do is look
0:53:43 at the brain dump and ask, what is not mine? What can I just absolutely delete? What can I delegate?
0:53:49 And then once you’ve cleared that out of the way, you’re like, okay, these six things, that’s what I
0:53:55 actually need to do. And I need to be better about pushing off the other stuff that should not be on my
0:53:59 agenda. Yeah. And I feel like as an entrepreneur, when you’re first starting out, let’s say you’re a
0:54:05 solopreneur. You don’t have any team. You’re like rewarded for wearing all these hats, doing all
0:54:09 these things, inventing things. But then once something sticks and you actually start to grow
0:54:14 a business, that’s when you have to focus and you can’t be like how you were, even though you used
0:54:21 to be rewarded for it. I’m sure you’ve read it, but Traction and Rocket Fuel are both such incredible
0:54:28 books every entrepreneur needs to read. But the idea of having someone who can integrate your vision for
0:54:33 you instead of you doing every single thing in the business to have someone who comes in operationally
0:54:38 so that you can be the visionary and be the person who’s imagining like where you’re going to go and
0:54:43 what you’re going to do. It’s really hard to teach ourselves because we’re like, it’s just faster if I do
0:54:51 it. But what we accidentally do is also then teach our teams to function that way. So then you have someone
0:54:56 who’s your marketing head who’s posting on social because they’re like, well, I can just do it.
0:55:00 But then they’re not able to function at their highest level and give you the results that you’re
0:55:07 paying them for. So it’s not just important that we lead ourselves, but it’s also the reminder that how
0:55:13 you function in your role, your team is watching you to understand how they’re supposed to function
0:55:19 in their role. Okay, so you have a couple other questions that I wanted to bring up. You say,
0:55:24 what big thing is actually little and what little thing is actually big?
0:55:32 So the big thing that is actually little is just asking yourself, are you giving way too much power
0:55:38 and way too much energy to something that’s really, truly not that big a deal? For instance, if we’re
0:55:44 speaking in terms of entrepreneurship, are you currently doing something and putting so much
0:55:50 emphasis and so much time around this piece and it actually isn’t giving you the results that you think
0:55:56 it is, or it’s actually not that huge of a deal, but you’re just so in the cycle, you can’t step out of
0:56:05 it. Or the example I use in the book is so silly, but going to concerts or vacations or traveling by
0:56:11 myself is so normal. But I know a lot of women that that would be their worst nightmare to go to
0:56:17 a concert alone or go on a vacation alone. They’re like, I’d love to travel, but I don’t have anyone to
0:56:22 go with. And I’m like, well, if you can afford it, then go on the trip. Like, oh my God, I could never.
0:56:27 And I’m like, okay, well, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. This is actually not that big a deal.
0:56:33 I was on a podcast tour a couple of years ago and I would ask the audience, what’s a crazy thing you’ve
0:56:39 always wanted to do, but you tell yourself that’s for other people. I’m not that kind of a girl. That’s
0:56:48 for other people. And the overwhelming response was get a tattoo. And I was like, girl, literally you
0:56:54 could leave here tonight and go to a tattoo parlor and get like a dot. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.
0:57:01 And then all of a sudden between one breath and the next, you are a person who has tattoos. You’ve done
0:57:07 it. You’ve actually changed the way that you see yourself. So you have to be really careful in life
0:57:14 that these things that have become really big tent poles or really big belief systems, every once in a while,
0:57:20 you need to like shake things up and ask, why do I believe that? Why am I so scared of this? Why do
0:57:25 I keep doing the same thing? So what big thing is actually little? And then what little thing is
0:57:34 actually big is really a call to understand how powerful we are as individual people. I don’t care
0:57:40 who you are listening to this, where this finds you today. I don’t care how lost you feel or stuck you
0:57:46 feel. You are powerful beyond measure. You have so much capability. You have so much potential.
0:57:53 There’s that great quote, which I’m going to mess up. If you truly understood how powerful you were,
0:58:03 you would be shocked. So it’s just a call to remember what is it that you are capable of? Are you truly
0:58:10 living into your potential? If you get really honest with yourself, what percentage are you at
0:58:15 right now? If a hundred percent is you showing up as the best version of you every day, if you’re being
0:58:21 really honest with yourself, what’s your percentage rating today? And again, that’s not to make you feel
0:58:27 shame. It’s more just give yourself the knowledge. You don’t have to change anything today. But if you
0:58:33 have the information, if you’re like, you know what, if I’m being totally honest, I’m giving 70%. I have
0:58:39 more to give. I think I’m going to get the percentage wrong, but David Goggins is this really famous ultra
0:58:47 runner says, when you feel tired for the first time on a run, you’re really only at like 40%, which is so
0:58:52 crazy. But I can, I’m a long distance runner. I cannot tell you how often I’ve been on a run. And
0:58:58 I’m like, I’m tired. And then I hear David Goggins say like, you’re only at 40%. I’m like, okay, let’s go.
0:59:04 The race that we just started. Yeah, exactly. So just asking yourself these questions gives you some
0:59:10 more information for where could you put a little bit more effort in? Where do you need to challenge
0:59:15 your limiting beliefs so that you can move further along this year? There’s another one that I really like,
0:59:18 and it’s, what is your floor? I thought this was really powerful.
0:59:25 When I was younger, I used to think that everything, like all of our success was wrapped in
0:59:31 our imagination. Like how big could we dream and what was possible and how hard were we willing to work?
0:59:37 And I have learned over time that it really isn’t about your dreams. It’s about your standards.
0:59:45 It is what is the minimum standard for your life that allows you to grow. So it’s not in
0:59:49 the book I say, it’s not about expanding your ceiling. It’s about raising your floor.
0:59:56 Because if you elevate, if you draw a line in the sand and you say, I will never go backwards. I will
1:00:01 never be that person again. I will never smoke another cigarette or drink too much tequila. I’m
1:00:07 trying to think of leverage points in my life where I like, you know, I got sick because I had too much
1:00:13 Jose Cuervo. And then the next day I was like, I can never have tequila again. It was like a very
1:00:20 definitive line in the sand. But if you could approach habits that way, if you could approach
1:00:26 conversations with yourself that way, if you could be that hardcore about, you know what? I am never
1:00:32 going to commit to this kind of thing again. Or I’m never going to allow myself to be spoken to this
1:00:38 way again. If you can raise your floor, if you can raise your standards, then you actually get closer
1:00:46 to the ceiling without the ceiling needing to break. So now we’re actually achieving more and we’re
1:00:53 setting a new level for ourselves because we’re not backtracking. I think most of us can get really
1:00:57 excited because it’s the new year. They’re really excited because we’ve just celebrated a big birthday.
1:01:04 We can get pumped up and motivate ourselves to go do something big that pushes us closer to our goals
1:01:10 and dreams because of what’s going on in our life. That’s easy. The question is, can you do it next
1:01:15 Tuesday? Can you do it when life gets hard? Can you do it when you get punched in the stomach? Can you do
1:01:21 it when your girlfriend breaks up with you? Can you keep doing the thing even when you don’t want to?
1:01:27 That’s a standard. Years ago, one of the women in my community was going through something really hard.
1:01:33 I ran into her at like an airport or something. And she said, I do all the things you say because I’m big
1:01:37 on morning routine and the habits that you have in your day. So she’s like, you know, I drink the water
1:01:45 and I get up early and I’m doing gratitude and whatever. But my mom has cancer. I don’t know how I’m
1:01:51 supposed to keep trying to like add to my life and do all these things that I used to be excited about
1:01:56 when I’m going through something hard. And I was like, oh no, I don’t think that we build habits
1:02:03 so that we can keep expanding when life is hard because life will absolutely be hard. I think we
1:02:09 build great habits so that when life kicks the crap out of us, we don’t lose all of the traction we’ve
1:02:15 gained. So we’re like, okay, I’m not expansive right now, but by God, I’m also not backtracking.
1:02:20 I’m going to just minimum effective dose. I’m going to keep showing up in the same ways you build those
1:02:26 great habits when you can so that they’re there when you need them. It’s not about doing more. It’s
1:02:28 about raising your floor.
1:02:34 I love how it’s drawing a line in the sand and preventing you from being like wishy-washy,
1:02:39 going back on your word. That’s how you just stay in a hamster wheel doing the same thing over and
1:02:44 over and over again and nothing changes because you don’t have enough self-integrity to just say,
1:02:49 I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not doing this said thing that is messing my life up, right?
1:02:52 I love that. I love thinking about it that way.
1:02:59 This is for anybody, because this used to be me, where you’ve started and stopped a lot of dreams.
1:03:05 You’ve started and stopped a lot of health plans, exercise regimens. You’ve tried to quit smoking a
1:03:10 million times. For anybody who’s started and stopped and it hasn’t stuck, you’ve actually created a
1:03:16 pattern in your psychology that says that you’re a quitter. You’re like, well, you know, I try and then
1:03:21 I quit. And every time you quit, it reinforces the belief that you have that you are a quitter.
1:03:30 It’s why the line in the sand is so freaking powerful because you’re like, but I stuck with something.
1:03:36 I didn’t quit on this one thing. So one of my favorite things to encourage people to do is to give up
1:03:44 one thing that you currently consume, alcohol, cigarettes, binge watching TV until 2 a.m. and messing up
1:03:49 your sleep schedule. Anything that you currently consume that you know is not good for you. Doesn’t
1:03:53 matter what it is. Everyone will have something that pops into their head. If I just stopped doing
1:03:59 this thing, I would feel better. I don’t even care if you replace the thing with a different thing.
1:04:08 It’s just for 30 days, can you commit to not consuming that one habit? And if you do,
1:04:13 at the end of those 30 days, you’re like, oh, dude, I can keep a promise to myself.
1:04:20 I can keep my word. We will keep our words and our commitment to every single person in our life
1:04:26 and break the promise we made to ourself. So just for 30 days, if you can do something,
1:04:31 you will shift the way that you see yourself. It literally doesn’t matter what it is. It just matters
1:04:35 that you keep your honor in this pact you’ve made with yourself.
1:04:40 So Young and Profiters, I want you to take a moment. I want you to think of one thing that you’re going
1:04:47 to stop doing for the next 30 days. What are you going to set your floor at? Love that. Okay. So
1:04:51 another good one, especially for entrepreneurs, did you win or did you learn?
1:04:59 Oh my gosh. I used to beat myself up. Like I think a lot of people for not being where I wanted to be
1:05:07 for not winning every single time for not knocking it out of the park. And honestly, I think most of us
1:05:14 have experience with this, that you’re like, I can either look at these losses as an example of why
1:05:20 I shouldn’t keep going and why I’m not who I thought I was, or I can gain as much information as possible
1:05:25 out of this lived experience and I can use it to help myself move to the next level.
1:05:29 So it’s not a question of did you win or you lose? It’s a question of did you win or you learn?
1:05:37 Because as we’re going through this, you are going to fail. I cannot stress this to you enough.
1:05:40 You’re going to lose money. You’re going to lose time. You’re going to piss people off. You’re going
1:05:44 to make mistakes. You’re going to hire the wrong person probably over and over and over because
1:05:50 just every entrepreneur I know has that story. It’s part of the process.
1:05:56 But if you can ask yourself, if you have the courage to look at what has happened and ask
1:06:01 yourself, okay, what were wrong? How could we do that better next time? How was I responsible for
1:06:06 this? How were they responsible for this? Okay, we’re moving forward with this information.
1:06:13 Then suddenly you’re empowered. You’re not like the loser who keeps messing up. You’re like,
1:06:18 oh, I keep trying stuff. And in trying stuff, I’m going to make mistakes and I’m going to learn as I
1:06:24 go. I heard once that when you can remember something that used to make you emotional and it doesn’t make
1:06:30 you emotional anymore, it’s now wisdom. So when you can look at, you know, I’m sure Holly, you have an
1:06:36 experience in your business where you’re like, oh, I can’t believe I did that. The minute that you can get
1:06:41 to a place where you can look at that with acceptance, you’re like, yeah, I did the best I
1:06:48 could. I didn’t know better. Now I do. But it doesn’t make you upset anymore. That is like chef’s
1:06:55 kiss. That is the goal. And as we grow in our entrepreneurial careers, the faster we can get to
1:07:01 that, like the quicker we can get to the postmortem, like looking at what happened and not being emotional
1:07:07 about it. Oh my gosh, it is the biggest unlock because now you can move faster than the competition
1:07:13 because you’re not obsessing over the things you did wrong. You’re like, yes. And where are we going
1:07:18 from here? And so it’s really important to look back, get that postmortem, but it’s also important to ask
1:07:22 what’s working, right? That’s another question that you have in your book. Let’s take this one as the last
1:07:30 one. This one, I actually heard very early in my entrepreneurial career. I used to go to any
1:07:34 conference I could go to, and I really hope your listeners try this as much as you can.
1:07:39 Go listen to other successful entrepreneurs talk about their life. Now you’ve got so much access with
1:07:44 podcasts and YouTube, but being in person and listening to someone share their story, even if
1:07:51 they’re not in your industry, is just, oh, it’s so helpful. So I got to hear Mariam Nafisi, who founded
1:07:59 Minted. This was eons ago, very early in their career. And Minted started as a website for artists
1:08:06 to show their paintings off or something. It was not at all what it is today. And she said
1:08:12 this line I never forgot, which was, follow the signs of life. So she’s like, we launched this
1:08:19 company. We were so excited and it just did not work. And she had gotten like investment money and
1:08:24 everyone was freaking out and it was .com era. So everything should work, but this website was not
1:08:30 working. And just month after month after month, it was failing. And she was like, okay,
1:08:37 is any part of this site working? And I’m going to botch this story, but it’s some version of this.
1:08:42 She’s like, is any part of this website working? They look in the backend and they see that there’s
1:08:52 one thing. And they were like selling the stationery. No one was buying the paintings,
1:08:59 but this one artist or this handful of artists, the stationery was selling. It was the only part of the
1:09:04 business that was working, but we saw that and we were like, could we take artists’ work and put it on
1:09:10 more stationery? Might that be a thing? And of course, then that was the foundation of Minted and it’s very
1:09:17 successful and all these years later, so big, but it happened because they were looking at what was
1:09:23 working and trying to figure out how to expand on that. So in the business, it doesn’t matter what
1:09:28 industry you’re in. It’s so easy to get bogged down in like, this is the way we’ve always done things
1:09:34 or assuming that you know how the audience is finding you or assuming that you know the data.
1:09:42 You have to actually know what’s working unemotionally. You know, if you’re looking in the back and you’re like,
1:09:48 wow, this is crazy. So many people are listening to this kind of podcast episode or so many people are buying
1:09:54 only this product. So pay attention to what’s working in your business. Pay attention to what’s working in your
1:10:00 life. When you’re going through your day, which parts of your day feel really good? Are there friends or relationships
1:10:06 in your life that really pump you up? Are there friends or relationships that really drain you?
1:10:13 Okay. Some part of that equation is not working. So how do we put more energy and our own life into the
1:10:20 parts that work? If you, as entrepreneurs have not studied Pareto principle or the 80-20 principle,
1:10:29 it’s such a game changer in understanding the idea that a small amount of your effort actually equates
1:10:34 to a very big return. The problem is we’re doing a hundred things and we don’t know which of the
1:10:40 hundred are giving us the results. When you can start to identify which things are actually working,
1:10:45 you can pour more gasoline on that. And then you start to get these exponential results without
1:10:50 exponential effort. I don’t think you necessarily wrote this book for entrepreneurs,
1:10:54 but as I was reading it, I was like, this is, this applies, this applies. I want to use this.
1:11:00 I want to use this. So awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. I end my show with two questions. I ask
1:11:04 all my guests, you can just answer them from your heart. It doesn’t have to be about the topic of
1:11:09 today’s show. So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today
1:11:15 to become more profitable tomorrow? Know where the highest revenue comes from. So I know we’re at the
1:11:19 end, but let me give you this like bit of wisdom because it was huge for me. So I told you all that
1:11:25 I started as a wedding planner back in the day and I used to advertise on a website called The Knot,
1:11:31 which was like the, probably still is the place to get clients if you’re a wedding planner. And it costs
1:11:36 a lot of money to do that advertising. And I would, at the end of the year, you know, oh, I made this
1:11:40 money and I’d go on with my life. And I went to one of these business conferences and I heard someone
1:11:47 talk about margin, which truly I did not know about what margin was. And so I went home that
1:11:52 day and I made a list of all the clients that I had and how much money I had made and the margin on each
1:11:58 of them. And then I put where I got that business from. And when I looked at that list, I was shocked
1:12:06 to discover that all of my highest revenue, like the best margin, best budget clients came from one
1:12:10 person. They did not come from the website. They did not come from advertising. They came
1:12:16 from a photographer, this high-end photographer who only had high-end clients. So when she referred
1:12:21 them to me, I knew that they were people who had a budget to afford me and they ended up just being a
1:12:26 better clientele overall. So the next year I stopped spending money on the website and just absolutely
1:12:33 kissed up to this one photographer and bought her gifts, took her to lunch, spa days. And I did the
1:12:39 same for some other vendors and I saw my business explode and my revenue explode. So the best piece
1:12:44 of advice I could give you about profit is know where the best clients are actually coming from.
1:12:49 So good. Oh my gosh. You just gave me so many ideas from my agency.
1:12:50 Thank you.
1:12:51 Good, good, good.
1:12:56 And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And that could go beyond business.
1:13:06 I think it really has to be about checking in with yourself about what success looks like this year
1:13:12 or this quarter because it really does change as we get older and it really does change as you have
1:13:17 more responsibility, whether that’s employees or family who is counting on you. And you have to keep
1:13:25 checking in with what matters, right? And it’s so, so easy to get caught in the race of trying to one-up
1:13:30 people or compete on social media or how many followers do you have. And at the end of the day,
1:13:37 we can achieve success in the eyes of the world and live a life that’s completely bankrupt and absent
1:13:45 of joy. And I really want to find a balance. When I was younger, I was a workaholic. My early
1:13:53 entrepreneurial career was just nonstop. There comes a point where a toll will be paid. And usually,
1:13:59 especially for women, but this happens with men too, the toll is paid in our health. We start to
1:14:04 experience health problems. We start to get anxiety. We start to get just all kinds of things go wrong
1:14:10 because we are so good at forcing ourselves to keep up with the hustle. We don’t take time to decompress.
1:14:16 We don’t take time for self-care. We’re stressed to the max. And so that is going to cost something.
1:14:23 So as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned, yeah, I want to be very successful. I want to make a lot of money.
1:14:29 I’ve got four kids. I want to live a beautiful life. But simultaneously, it can’t come at the cost
1:14:33 of my health or my peace. I have to balance both areas.
1:14:38 So good. Rachel, it was such an honor to have you on the show. I hope you come on whenever you have
1:14:40 something new to promote. You’re always welcome on the show.
1:14:41 Thank you.
1:14:44 Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?
1:14:51 If you like a podcast, I also have a podcast. I tend to talk more about holistic success. So
1:14:56 that’s the Rachel Hollis podcast and can grab my books anywhere books are sold and I’m on social
1:14:59 media. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today.
1:15:01 You’re so welcome. Thank you for having me.
1:15:11 Yeah, fam. What an inspiring conversation with Rachel Hollis. She dropped so many gems on
1:15:15 reinvention, learning from failure, the power of asking yourself the right questions to keep
1:15:21 growing. And I could just go on and on. I loved this conversation. But if there’s one thing I could
1:15:28 take away from this, it’s that failure isn’t truly the end. It’s just a plot twist. And sometimes you’re
1:15:33 just going to get punched in the face when you least expect it. But even that can be overcome.
1:15:40 Also, as Rachel reminded us, the questions we ask ourselves will certainly shape the lives that we
1:15:46 create. And I loved so many of the questions that she shared. For example, what must I let go of?
1:15:50 When you’re first starting out as an entrepreneur, you have to wear so many different hats and you’re
1:15:55 rewarded for wearing all these hats. But as you get further along in your journey, you’re going to have
1:16:00 to start taking some of these hats off, putting these hats on other people because these hats
1:16:07 are going to slow you down. Another great question is, what is my floor? Like Rachel said, true progress
1:16:12 isn’t about expanding your ceiling. It’s about raising your floor. It doesn’t matter how lofty your dreams
1:16:18 are if you aren’t able to raise your standards. Finally, did I win or did I learn? Growth isn’t just
1:16:24 about celebrating victories. It’s about understanding what we can do even better next time. And every loss,
1:16:29 every setback, frankly, has a lot more to teach us on that front than any single one of our
1:16:36 successes. So pay attention to why you failed and learn from it. So Young and Profiters, what is
1:16:41 one question that you’re going to start asking yourself today? Thanks for listening to this episode
1:16:46 of Young and Profiting. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the amazing
1:16:50 Rachel Hollis, then please share this with somebody who needs a little push to step into their next
1:16:55 chapter. And if you had a good time and picked up something valuable, then show us some love with a
1:17:01 five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, CastBox, Player FM, wherever you listen to the show. It is
1:17:06 the best way to help us reach more people. And if you’d rather watch this podcast on video, head over
1:17:11 to YouTube, just search Young and Profiting. You’ll find all of our episodes uploaded on there. You can
1:17:17 also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala. LinkedIn, just search for my name. I’m not hard to find on there
1:17:23 at all. Huge shout out to my amazing Yap production team. I love you guys. You do such an amazing job.
1:17:29 Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Halitaha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.