Goodbye Brighton

As the world changes rapidly due to Coronavirus, we decided to move home to New Zealand earlier than planned – and it’s bittersweet. I can’t wait to see my friends and family in New Zealand and start the next chapter of our lives, but living in Brighton for the past two years has been an absolute blessing and adventure.

I’m so grateful for the lifelong friendships I’ve made in this beautiful, liberal, wild city.
Brighton, I will be back!

How to keep going when you suck at something

I’ve been creating content for several years now – and I still suck. Sure, I’m getting better, but on an objective level, I suck.

My videos aren’t well made or edited, my blog posts aren’t long enough, and my photography is subpar.

But I’m going to continue.

Every great artist, entrepreneur, writer, producer and creator sucked at one point.

Today I did a Facebook Live and my hair was all over the place, I stumbled when I spoke and I felt so awkward I didn’t even want to watch it back after it was posted.

I’m going to do another one tomorrow. Even though I don’t want to. Even though it feels like a waste of time. Because I once heard a story about Steve Jobs: he took a calligraphy course at college and felt like it was a waste of time. And yet, many years later, the very reason people love his computers are for the beautiful design.

No creative pursuit is ever a waste of time.

I might suck right now, but I’m going to get better.
It might take 10,000 hours, but I will get better.

So if you’re struggling to continue creating or practicing or training or learning something, just keep going.

It will be worth it.

Investing in Yourself

Classic business coaching advice is “Invest your heart out, take risks!” And you might be expecting me to say that – and in this post I am saying that… to a degree.

But I got myself into a sticky situation with investing in myself in 2018, so I’m sharing them in the hopes you can learn from my mistakes.

Between June–August 2018, I invested several thousand dollars into online courses and business programs that didn’t give me the return I expected. Looking back, it was a brilliant learning experience, because now I understand the power of slick marketing that makes unfulfillable promises. However, at the time, I thought I just hadn’t found the magic pill yet (top tip: there is no magic pill).

In October 2018, I invested every single dollar I had into my High Performance Coaching Certification, without considering what might happen if an unexpected expense occurred – and it did. I got a $2000 smack in the face when I arrived at Heathrow airport for my flight to go to my training in Phoenix, Arizona without a visa (Who knew you needed an ESTA visa waiver? Apparently everyone except me). I missed my flight, and had to book a new flight on the spot.

Just to be clear: I did not have $2000. I was lucky that I have an amazing partner and he was willing to put it on his debit card – leaving him with only $20 to get the bus back from London to Brighton. I am incredibly thankful he was willing to help me out that horrible situation (I will be forever grateful, thank you, Daniel!).

After coming home from the certification, and after paying off that $2000 – I felt burned. I was suddenly in a place with money I had never been before: my boyfriend was paying our rent, my mum was loaning me money... it was not a fun time. I cried a lot. My coaching business wasn’t bringing in enough income. I had anxiety about getting a job because of a traumatic past experience. I ended up in a total of $4500NZD of debt. At that point, I didn’t want to see anything with a price tag over $4 (or £2, since I was living in the UK) and I was terrified of ever making another large investment.

Don’t get me wrong – the investment in my coaching was a brilliant one, and I wouldn’t change it. However, it would have been a good idea to have had something I hadn’t heard of at that time: an emergency fund.

In early 2019, I discovered financial teacher, Dave Ramsey, and his “baby steps to financial freedom”, and it was like the clouds parted and I could suddenly see how I would set myself up for success long term. I was hooked. The best part? It was totally free.

If you don’t know the Baby Steps, they are essentially a life plan for how you will create financial freedom, and they apply to everyone in every situation, no matter your economic status.

I devoured Dave’s YouTube videos and I got myself out of debt in a matter of just a few months.

Now, two years after my first investment, I’m ready to make investing in myself a priority again.

Only this time, it will be different. I’ve got an emergency fund. I’ve got a money-management app. I know my limits. I will never, ever, ever go into debt again, unless it is for a mortgage. And even then, I’m cautious.

My new identity: I am someone who invests in myself.
Also my new identity: I am a wise investor.

So should you make that big investment?
If you’re finding it hard to answer this question, ask yourself this question instead:

Should you go jump out of an airplane?

The answer is “Yes, of course. But bring a parachute.”

Mistakes I Made When I Started My Business

Bonus mistake: posting images of me with flowers on my face for absolutely no reason. But this was me back then!

I started making money online as a coach almost exactly 2 years ago, so I thought it would be fun to share some of the mistakes I made when I started out. I hope they help you to avoid making the same ones – and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments or send me an email/Instagram message.

1. Getting distracted from the main thing. Stephen Covey said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.” When I first started coaching, long before I had a certification, I jumped straight in and my lack of knowledge was actually an asset. I had no idea how to create sales funnels or do email marketing, I didn’t have professional photos and wasn’t good at pretty much any business skill. So I didn’t do any of it. Instead, I focused most of my energy on creating and serving my clients – and that worked immediately. As soon as I started to learn about marketing tactics, my business slowed down massively. It took me a long time to figure out what was wrong. I’m talking at least 12 months.

2. Burning my weapons. Tony Robbins said, “If you want to take the island you need to burn the boats.” In other words, to really go all in and make something work, you need to have no return, no way back. I followed this advice, and I quit my job – which was the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do was to very quickly burn my weapons too – my money. I super quickly spent almost all of it on my coaching certification, and while I’m grateful I did that, in hindsight, I should have left some for marketing, and uh, food.

3. Make it complicated. Business is nowhere near as complex as it seems, particularly not when you’re a solo entrepreneur. You don’t need the fancy funnels, fancy marketing campaigns, or fancy anything to make money online. You need you, a skill, and someone who needs your offer.

4. Closing my Facebook group. This is a very specific mistake that won’t apply to everyone in business, but I feel that my Facebook group was a great source of connection with wonderful amazing people and many of my clients were in that group. Running a successful Facebook group is a huge time commitment, but the reward for your audience is massive. It’s a place to connect, ask questions, and get help for free. This is something I will be bringing back in the very near future.

5. Spending forever on my website. This is still a mistake I make to this day. I love editing website – changing the colours, the fonts, the style, the layout – and I am not kidding you, once I get started, that’s it, the whole day is a write-off. On several occasions, I’ve gone without food for more than 12 hours, totally immersed in getting the exact right font or something else inconsequential. This habit particularly deceptive because it feels like productivity (my website needs to be good for my clients, right?), but it’s not. My advice: Figure out your distractions and guilty pleasures, and limit yourself.

6. Not having a contract. The second client I ever signed ghosted me after the first session we had, but she hadn’t paid the full amount yet. Always get your agreements in writing!

What mistakes have you made in business? Let me know I’d love to chat mistakes!

Change

Right now, I feel like the world is in a state of total change. Everyone in this world will be affected by the current state with coronavirus. Here are some journaling questions I’ve been journaling for myself today, that I hope can bring you some positivity and certainty in an uncertain time.

1. If this crisis was an opportunity for a fresh start, what would I do differently in my life?

2. Who do I need to be in order to come out of this experience stronger?

3. What could I do to help someone else right now, even in a tiny way?

4. How could I contribute something beautiful to the world right now?

Sending you all so much love, and if you want anyone to talk to, feel free to send me a message. We are all hear for each other ❤️️

How to Determine Your Next Action Step

Three questions. That’s all it takes to choose your next action.

Most of us try to take action before we’ve changed our identity, which is why the action doesn’t work. If you change your identity first, the action will be automatic.

Step 1. What is the result I want?

Step 2. If I already had that result, what would I believe about who I am?

Step 3. Now that I am ____________, what do I do?

Ask these three questions over and over throughout the day and see what happens.

Who Do I Need to Be?

Most of us ask, what do I need to do to get the result I want?

When we should be asking, who do I need to be to get the result I want?

Worrying is Suffering Twice

We need to talk.

No, not you and me.

Me and my anxious brain.

Or you and your anxious brain.

Look.

I know your washed your hands 4 times before 10am, and you used sanitizing wipes to open the bathroom door today, and you didn’t eat anything until 2pm even though you had fruit in your bag because you were in public and afraid of consuming a sneezed-on banana.

The world is a scary place right now.

But you know what’s a worse place? Your brain.

And you can’t control the world. But you can control your brain. You can control the thoughts that your brain chooses to project.

There’s a second strain of virus that no one is talking about. It’s the anxiety that is surging thanks to global media and the internet. Do you think they have a health count on how many people have been infected with anxiety since coronavirus broke out?

I bet it’s festering.

I’ve been anxious all day. But I’ve decided that worrying about getting infected is just like being infected twice.

So no more, okay brain?

Okay.

Pushing vs Being Pulled

The things that feel most right in my life are the things I am being pulled towards.
The things that are wrong, the hustle, the icky feelings – they all come from a place of PUSH.

This distinction hit me like a lightning bolt today.

A great example is my coaching practice. People have often said to me in the past that they would have given up if they were me, based on how much “hard work” I’m putting in. But the thing is, it doesn’t feel like hard work. It takes effort, but I’m being PULLED by my vision. It’s automatic effort. Putting in the effort doesn’t take any effort. When I’m pushing myself towards something, it takes effort to put in effort.

Even though I’m only beginning to understand this, I feel like this is the distinction between a desire and a true calling. A desire requires you to push. A calling is literally reaching out to you, beckoning you, pulling you in. You just have to take the steps.

But the thing is, from the outside, you can’t tell if someone is being pushed or pulled. The only person who knows is you.

Are you being pulled towards your dream, or are you pushing?

Push Ups Update: Injury

50 in a row, even with my little arms!

Day: 211
Push up ability: 50

On the 22nd of February, out of the blue, I pumped out 50 push ups. I think I had extra energy from drinking a protein shake (I always thought those were all hype, but now I’m on board!).

Although I was sore the next day, the pain went away. Unfortunately, due to way too much computer use (I’m guilty of 8+ hours a day due to the nature of online coaching) I have really aggravated my right shoulder and I haven’t been able to do push ups at all in March yet.

Today I went to see a sports therapist, and she assessed me to see what was wrong. I will be going back in a few weeks, but in the meantime I’ve got some shoulder exercises to do.

I also signed up to the gym earlier this month but I haven’t had a chance to go because of my injury. I have still been running 3x a week though.

This has been an interesting journey so far, because I never expected that injury would be what held me back. I expected to struggle with the mental stamina to keep going when my body was tired. Turns out, that is the easy part! Right now, I am mentally ready to train hard, but my body is screaming “slow down!!”

I’ll keep you updated!
Let me know what the unexpected struggle with your goals is in the comments!