Ever since I started my blog in August 2013, building a six figure business has been a dream of mine. When my business crossed the six figure mark, I thought it would be the perfect time to chat through what it feels like to finally be here.
Like most people, I believed that having a six figure business would mean more happiness, more time and feeling more organised – but this hasn’t quite been the case! I’m so grateful for where I am but also wanted to share what can happen mentally when we achieve our big goals.
If you’re on your way to building a six-figure business, this episode is for you. I hope listening inspires you to continue goal-setting and reminds you that there’s no need to rush because you’ll always be on the journey.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode488.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
Sam Laura Brown (Custom Intro)
Today, I want to share with you an episode from the archives of this podcast that I think will be so helpful to listen to if you are on your way to having your first six figure year. So for me, I spent a lot of years on my way to having my first six figure year, and then it happened in my business in 2019 and I recorded an episode in real time when I achieved that goal, sharing behind the scenes of how I felt and what that was like, and it wasn’t all rainbows and daisies. And I think it’s just such a great episode to share. And for those of you who weren’t listening to the podcast then, or haven’t heard it, or even if you have before, but it was a long time ago to re listen to it, because what I talk about is really going to help take that 100k year off a pedestal, if you have it on a pedestal.
And this naturally happens when we have a goal, be a goal that we will kind of imagine, especially that perfectionist all in our thing thinking. We will imagine that when we achieve that goal, all of our problems will be gone. We will be so confident, so organized, so on top of everything, never in fear, never in self doubt, never in disbelief. And we can really romanticize it in a way that actually keeps us separate from that goal and makes it further away, rather than when we can actually acknowledge that we aren’t going to be that different, it can be really helpful to help bring that goal closer to us, and it not seem like such a big deal and that we have to make all these big changes, but like, oh, actually, I’m going to be pretty similar. Maybe a couple of things will have changed, and the way that I’m showing up and thinking about myself will have changed, in some ways, but in other ways, it won’t have and that is a beautiful thing.
That means that the goal isn’t so far away. I’ve just found time and time again, whenever I have a goal on a pedestal, and I really just feel like everything will be good once I hit that goal, it makes it harder to achieve. And of course, when you do achieve it, there is that anticlimax, which I talk about in this episode. So with that said, this episode isn’t to say that pursuing the goal of $100,000 per year is not worthwhile. I’m not saying that it’s not a worthwhile goal. I totally think it is. I think it’s an incredible goal to have. I am a different person in the best ways. Because of pursuing that goal, I had to overcome so many insecurities. I had to believe in myself in a whole new way. I had to see myself so differently in a way that was so much more empowering to be able to achieve it, the person I have grown into since achieving that goal, and since then, I’ve made over $2 million in my business, and I’ve had my highest year has been 600,000 in a year. But I want to share this milestone, making $100,000 in a year, from my past self, who had just freshly achieved it, and just the insights I had, because I think they’re going to be helpful for you. So without any further delay, here is that episode from my 2019 self.
Sam Laura Brown
In today’s episode, I want to talk to you about what having a six figure business actually feels like versus what I was expecting it to feel like. I really wanted to share this now that I am essentially on the cusp of having a six figure business. I should reach that mark essentially, in the next one to two weeks. So now that I’m right at that time, I wanted to share this in case, having a six figure business is something that you hear people talking about, and you’re working towards yourself, and you just have certain expectations around what might be different when you have that business. Because I certainly did have a lot of expectations around reaching the six figure mark in my business. It’s something that I had heard so many entrepreneurs and marketers talking about when it comes to businesses, a lot of hype around having a six figure business, so I just wanted to share my own personal experience. Of course, this isn’t the experience that everyone has had, but you’re on this podcast to hear mine, so that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you today.
I’m also going to be sharing exactly the amount of revenue collected for each what am I trying to say each month of this financial year? So in Australia, our financial year runs from July to June. So when I say I have a six figure business, what I mean is that the company, a separate entity to me, has generated $100,000 in revenue since the start of july 2018 so that is what I mean when I say six figure business. And I also wanted to quickly mention the difference between marketer accounting and actual accounting. Obviously, if you know a bit about accounting, there’s cash based and accrual base, and I’m not going to go into that, but what I do want to mention is that there’s this thing that I like to think of as marketer math, marketer accounting.
And this is when you hear entrepreneurs talking about how much their business is generating, and you can’t actually tell is that actual revenue that they have collected? Is that what they’re expecting to bring in? Where have these figures come from? And the more I’ve got into this, the more I’ve realized that so many people, when they are talking about how much their business is generating, they are often not even talking about the money that has actually been made. And at various times, I have spoken about hitting goals in these terms as well. So a while ago, it was September, I want to say the September personal growth update that I did. I talked about hitting my five figure month goal. So when I recorded that episode, I had just closed, get out of your own way.
I had 260 students sign up at approximately 40 Australian dollars, and that meant that I generated that amount of money. But it wasn’t actually all within the month of September, so it technically wasn’t a five figure month in one way, but it was in the sense that I made that amount of money in my business across a 30 day period, but I think the cart closed on the first of October. So some of that revenue went into October. Actually. I think most of it did. So when people are talking about how much their business is generating, it’s just great to be mindful that sometimes, as well, people will be talking about, and I have done this, and that’s why I want to be clear that in this episode, I’m really talking about cash collected when I did my launch of figure your life out, my group coaching program, which I am so excited to be launching again in the coming Months, that generated, I think it was just over $20,000 in my business, but about 40% of the women who signed up for that program did so on the payment plan.
So even though that was the amount of money I could expect to make from that program, I actually only got about, I think it was 12 or 13,000 on that actual day, or from that actual period of the launch. And then I have continued to have money come in from that each and every month since then. Yeah, I decided to mention that because a lot of people don’t mention. And it’s just hard to know what people mean when they say the amount of revenue that they are making in their business, and a lot of times it’s actually based on payment plans they’re expecting to collect. And there are always people who unfortunately default on payment plans, and so often that figure isn’t accurate.
So just wanted to mention that to just go through quickly so you can see the progression of my business so far. There’s still two months left, May and June of this financial year. I’m just going to round to the nearest $100 just so you can get a feel for the way things have gone. July was $3,300 August was $8,100 I remember being so happy to be getting up into the closer to five figures range. So that was really awesome. September was 5400, October was 9000, November was 13,500, December was 7400 January was 12,500 February was 3800. I think I mentioned in my last episode, Episode 104 which is about my money mindset and my money mindset routine and how I manage my money that I have had. What did I say five figure months since September, October, which is true in the terms of when I’ve actually made the money, but there’s just a difference in when cash has been collected.
Then march was 20,100 and April so far, according to my accounting in Xero, which, by the way, hasn’t been checked off by my accountant or anything like that. But these are just the rough figures. Is 7400 and there’s currently about six and a half 1000 to be reconciled in my bank account, which isn’t in there yet, and there’s other money that will be coming to me as well. So that equals just under $100,000 for the financial year. But I just wanted to go through that with you, because I definitely thought that having a six figure business would mean essentially 8300 every month, or consistent $10,000 months, when really there’s more of an up and down to it, and that’s just in the kind of business. I have someone who has a purely service based business, and if they’re fully booked, they might be getting to the point where there is that consistent level of income every month, but mine, because I launch different programs, I have different offers, and then there are times of the year where I take on coaching clients, and then I get fully booked, and so I don’t take on any new coaching clients for a few months.
So that is just a little look. I am sharing this with you because I have been so empowered by women and men who have told me through their podcasts how much money their business was generating. So that’s the reason that I share it as well, but it really is from that empowerment perspective, so you that you do know what is possible, and just remember that this is money that my company has generated. This is not money that’s sitting in my pocket. There is tax that’s taken out after that. Then there are expenses. And I invest a lot of money in my own education and in tools to run the business. There’s a lot of money that is spent on providing free resources and advice, such as this podcast and my blog and other things like that. And then there’s other PayPal fees, Stripe fees. There’s a lot of different things that go into it.
So that’s not $100,000 in my personal bank account, and I mentioned this in the last podcast episode, but I’m actually not paying myself any amount of money as a wage or a dividend or anything like that, currently from the company. So basically, none of this money has been mine. It has all remained within the company. So just want to chat through some of the different things that I thought would be the case when I got to this point, and that aren’t actually the case. One of those would be just that I would feel different, that I would feel happier, that I would feel more organized, that I would feel more productive, and I just have this general sense of accomplishment.
And in some ways, I do have a general sense of accomplishment, but at the same time to get to this point, I’ve had to normalize making that amount of money mentally. So before I got to this point, it has been normal for me to have a six figure business, and now reality has finally caught up, and part of that has been my 2018 impossible goal to make $500,000 in my business. And I also have that goal again this year. It’s just not an impossible goal, because my brain actually believes it can happen. But part of doing that work to reach 500,000 in revenue has been to normalize 100,000 so even though 2013 me, who just started my blog, would literally be pinching herself right now, I’ve needed to normalize this amount of money and the impact I’m having and everything like that, to get here. If I hadn’t have normalized it, I wouldn’t have been able to create it.
So it’s kind of this weird thing where you think you will feel different when you get there, but to get there, you have to feel like you already are there. So when you get there, you’re like, oh, but I’ve already been here, and then now I’m it’s so interesting. I’m thinking the same things about 500k that I thought about 100k so if I don’t catch myself, I’m not careful, I find myself thinking I’m going to be happier, I’m going to be more organized and more productive. When I’m like, Hey, I thought the same thing about getting to this point, and that actually wasn’t true, so I’m gonna feel probably about the same when I achieve my goal. And I did a podcast episode on this a while ago, this idea that it’s actually never gonna get better than this, which I know sounds a bit depressing, because we are taught that we need to change our circumstances in order to be happy, and so a lot of us had this sense of hope there that once we change our circumstances, we’ll be happier.
But of course, our feelings come from the thoughts that we are having, and so changing our circumstances doesn’t change the way that we feel for the most part. But even so, even if we’re doing that work to be in gratitude and to be appreciative, we still have a brain that’s going to generate negative emotions. So long as we are interested in being part of a community, shame will be part of our life, as will embarrassment and all of those other emotions. And then there are just generally those negative emotions that our brain likes to generate, even when we are doing very intentional mindset work. I really hope that you understand that by doing personal development, the goal here is not to get you to 100% happy thoughts all the time. T
hat is definitely not what we are doing, and I definitely can’t teach you that, because I don’t know how to do that. Such a great belief for me has been one that I’ve learned from Brooke Castillo’s podcast and her self coaching, Scholars Program. And that belief is that life is 5050. 50% positive emotion, 50% negative emotion. And if it feels like you are feeling positive more than 50% of the time, it’s likely because you are numbing your negative emotion, either with Facebook or Instagram or food or alcohol or overworking. But when we really allow negative emotion, it’s more like 5050, and when we allow negative emotion, we actually get to be in pure positive emotion more often, because we’re not feeling bad about feeling bad.
There are a lot of people who feel bad more than 50% of the time, because as soon as they feel shame, as soon as they feel guilt, as soon as they feel overwhelmed or confused, they start feeling bad about feeling those feelings. And it just adds this whole layer of negativity on top of it, and it’s really hard to clean up your thinking once you add a layer of negative emotion and drama over the top of it. So that has been a really big realization for me, that I am always going to feel about the same. And I find that really liberating. It really just lets me soak up the experience and not be in such a rush. Because I, at different points, have been in a lot of a rush to get to this six figure mark and then to get here and realize I feel about the same as I felt before. It now allows me to really just soak up the experience of growing a business and making it fun and ironically, that’ll get me to my goals so much faster than being like, Am I there yet? Am I there yet? Am I there yet?
And I have already spoken about this too on the podcast. I did an episode. I’m just trying to think of it off the top of my head. About success, I will find it and link it for you in the show notes, which will be at SamLaurabrown.com/episode105, but in that episode, I talked about how when I had my first five figure month, which was really marketed terms for online business terms for that September, October, 30 day period I had where I generated that amount of money in my business that I had since I started my blog had really had on this pedestal, the five figure month. And I just thought when that happened, someone would wave a magic wand like I really like to imagine it like in Harry Potter one, where Harry is in Ollivanders, and he holds the wand that he’s meant to have, and there’s that music, and just this gold light comes in, and his hair lifts up. I know a lot of you love Harry Potter, so I’m sure you know the moment I’m talking about.
I thought that it would feel that way, and then I realized I feel about the same. And so it’s happened again now that I’ve hit this milestone and doing this a couple of times now, and I’m sure you’ve done the same. You’ve achieved a goal. You thought you’d feel different, you realize you feel about the same, that it just helps me really just soak into this experience and enjoy the experience of growing a business. It can be a lot of fun if you’re not super stressed out about it. So that is something as well. I thought I would have no problems, like, I don’t know why I thought that, but I just thought, Okay, six figures, that’s done, and then from there, it’s easier. And I actually do think that making the first 100,000 will be the hardest, because now I have the mindset and the confidence to know that I can generate that amount of money.
That it will be easier the next time that I do that, and then again and again, and it’s by a lot of people like it can take years to make 100,000 and then it just goes, boom, boom, boom, up and up and up, because you develop that confidence in yourself that you can generate that amount of impact, because revenue is a measure of the impact that you’re having. So you get that confidence that you can do it, and then you have the skills there, and then you have also had to do a certain amount of mindset work as well to get to that point. So often, from what I’ve heard from a lot of people, I have listened to podcast now for six years, since 2013 and that is what I’ve heard over and over again, that it’s just this really flat, if you think about a graph, flat along, and then it just spikes up, and then goes up, up, up, exponentially.
It’s because in that time, at the beginning, you were really needing to do the mindset work, develop certain skills, figure out how to run a bloody business and do all of that. And definitely not saying that someone with a six figure business knows everything, but to get to that point, you do have to know a certain amount and have certain beliefs around money and a certain kind of mindset. So once you get that from the first 100k then, so I’ve heard it just gets easier and easier from there, but of course, there are other hurdles, so I thought I’d have no problems. Something that I’m working on at the moment, I don’t think I’ve really spoken about it too much on the podcast. Is growing my team I work from a co working space in the valley, because my dream isn’t to have the laptop lifestyle, which I know so many people love, and I’m so happy for other people that they love doing that, and really want to travel the world and work from anywhere and all of that. But that is not my dream.
My dream is to be based in a city I love and to have an in person team that I can essentially like, just be at a job that I really love, and have that opportunity to travel and to spend more time with my family and loved ones, and to create my own schedule, but what I really want to do, at least from where I’m at now and what I know now, this could change in the future, but I would really love to have that in person sense of connection, and to have that team, and to just be able to create with other people that I love creating with, and yeah, it’s something that I really excited about doing. But there’s also a lot that I need to learn, because I’ve never been taught how to manage people, or how to hire people, or how to delegate or any of that.
So at the moment, I have been binge listening to podcast episodes about hiring. I’ve listened to various ones from Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School podcast. Amy Porterfield has had a few. James Wedmore, trying to think the other ones I’ve listened to, I can’t think of them now. Or Jenna Kutcher, the gold digger podcast. I’ve listened to some of her episodes about hiring and creating team as well. So I’m just trying to figure that out at the moment what I can actually do. And for a long time, it was a fear that I couldn’t afford someone it’s just going to be in a part time capacity at the moment, but I still had fears there that even just wanting to get someone in person or to have them in Brisbane, locally for a few hours a week, would put financial pressure on my business, and that somehow I wouldn’t be able to have that money there to pay them.
But now I’m at this point where I really can see that if I don’t start investing in having a team, and at the moment, I have freelancers, but that’s very different, that I am going to become a bottleneck for my business, particularly in the last quarter, I realized I spent a lot of time doing various behind the scenes admin tasks that anyone could be doing. They don’t need my skill. There’s no special creativity or flair to them. Anyone could do it. So at the moment, I’m going through the process of figuring out what that will look like, and it’s only just happened, but I am going to be having my brother, Alex, helping me and working part time in my business while he gets his own things off the ground. So I’m really excited about that. I love him. I love being around him, and we get along so well, and he’s really into personal development.
So I’m really excited about that, but as I’ve told him, I have no idea really how to manage, how to lead, how to delegate. Maybe I’m not giving myself enough credit, but those are skills that I am working on and really taking a growth mindset approach to that. Those are skills that can be learned. It’s not like I came out of the womb good at managing or not good at managing. Those are just skills that anyone can learn with practice and repetition and effort. So I am putting in the time. I also wanted to mention for anyone who might be going through this too, that I read rocket fuel by Gino Wickman that talks about having a visionary and integrator. I won’t go too much into what that involves here, but that is something that I am really wanting to focus my business around. An integrator is essentially what is normally called a COO. So that is what I’m working on at the moment.
And there’s still a lot of growth that’s happening. There’s still a lot of things that I’m working on, that I’m learning and of course, I have my $500,000 goal, which I’m working towards for 2019 which will be different to it’s like I haven’t already made 100,000 towards that goal. Because what I’m talking about here is six figures from July, 2018 to June, 2019, obviously, we’re not at June just yet, but the $500,000 goal is for January to December. So it is a different period of time. But technically, how we work here, at least in Australia, is by the financial year. And by that standard, I am now running a six figure business, which is so bloody cool and yeah, but at the same time, it just feels normal. So yeah, I thought I’d feel more organized and like I’d made it, which I definitely don’t feel like, but all of these feelings that I’m having are just coming from my thoughts.
So if I was constantly telling myself I’ve made it, I’ve made it, I’ve made it, I would be feeling like I’ve made it, but because, as I said, I needed to normalize the goal in order to get here, I’m not constantly walking around feeling like I’ve made it. This is something so interesting to think about if you’re doing this work in terms of self image, which I talk about in episode 26 and I’m actually going to do another episode. I think it should be the next episode about changing your self image and identity, because I get a lot of questions about it, but you need to think about, what would a person who has achieved my goal be thinking and to use the example of weight loss, or to use the example of someone who eats very healthily. People who eat healthy food don’t actually really think much about food at all.
Of course, there are exceptions, but say someone who’s naturally at their ideal weight, they are not spending time thinking about food. And so in a lot of ways, someone who has a $100,000 business isn’t actually thinking about a $100,000 business, because someone who has a business is actually thinking about how to grow it, how to make a much larger amount of money. So when you are doing that work, and this is a bit more advanced in a way, but when you’re doing that work, if you are thinking the thoughts that will get you there, but aren’t the thoughts that people have there, it won’t actually get you all of the way there. Hope this has made some kind of sense, but yeah, if you think about someone who’s naturally at their ideal weight, they are not spending it’s not even like they’re thinking, I can eat anything and all of this. They just literally have very few thoughts about it at all. And I’ve used this example before. I’m not a smoker, so I’m not constantly thinking about not smoking.
It’s literally just something I never think about. If someone’s there with cigarettes, I’m not thinking I’m not going to have a cigarette. I just don’t even think about it. It literally, like doesn’t even enter my brain as an option. So you need to have a think about someone who has achieved the goal you want to achieve. What would they be thinking about? And likely they wouldn’t even be thinking about that particular goal at all. They would be thinking about something else. So I know that can be challenging to be like, Okay, what do I need to think? And I need to change my self image and believe something new. But that’s just a more advanced thing for you to have a think about, that the person who has achieved your goal isn’t actually thinking about your goal, they’re thinking about something else. I also thought I would be full time in my business by this point.
I literally remember before, about a year before I had my first made, my first 10k I was thinking, once I make 10k like, I’ll be able to quit my part time job, and I hadn’t actually done the math on what I what position I would want to be in. Of course, you can quit a part time job at any point in time. There’s no rule about how much money you need to have or how much money your business needs to be generating, or anything like that. But I just hadn’t done the math. It was because I had 10k on a pedestal, and just thought, oh my god, once I get there, for sure, like, I’ll definitely be able to leave my part time job and just feel really comfortable doing that. And then it kind of went on, like a year from there before it actually happened, but sometime before it happened, I started to do the math, because I realized, okay, I’m wanting to go full time in my business, but I actually haven’t figured out how much money I would need to be making.
So I crunched some numbers. I love crunching numbers, and my calculation was, if I was making in the company, so not me personally, $15,000 that would be 5000 for the tax man, 5000 for the business, and 5000 for me. So that was just a brief guideline. So I’d be needing to make $15,000 every month, and overall, that would be 180,000 so actually more than just 110 k month. And that was just for me to be able to replace my part time income, which is actually only 4000 gross per month, but I just created that guideline for myself. And so, as I said again, I could go full time at any point. There are a lot of people who go full time in their business who aren’t making any money in their business. There are people who go full time in their business who are already making a lot of money. I was listening to an interview, and actually saw her talk in person. Alyce Tran, who is the co founder of The Daily Edited, which is a I don’t even know how to describe it, they make leather things that have your initials on them.
And she was saying that her and her co founder, who were previously lawyers, didn’t actually quit their full time law jobs, which were at big law firms. So they’re not just working nine to five, they’re working probably seven to 10. They kept their full time jobs. She said they had over from memory, over a million dollars in the company account, and they had saved up for both of them, a full year’s salary. And for them, I want to say it was maybe one to 200,000 each for the salary, because they were matching their law jobs that they had. So it’s not like there is a certain point where you can quit or you can’t quit. It’s just a personal decision based on what you currently want to have in your life, financially and also confidence and so many different things. So I thought that easily, by this point, I would be full time, and I have a plan to make that happen, and the plan is very much in place and very much happening, but I thought that I would have already left by now.
And part of the reason as well that, like my the way I think about my part time job, has changed a lot. Initially, I was in such a rush to leave and just thought, I’m not a legitimate entrepreneur until I’m full time in my business and that no one will take me seriously. I won’t be able to any podcast interviews. I won’t be able to give anyone any kind of advice relating to business until I’m full time, because I won’t be walking the walk until I’m full time. But then I did mindset work around that, particularly in June last year, where I signed up for the co working space that I work from. And I realized I hadn’t signed up to the co working space because I didn’t believe I was legitimate enough too, which was just a silly belief. And looking back, it’s hard to believe I thought that, but it’s so true of so many of our limiting beliefs that it feels real until it doesn’t.
So I just had this whole belief going that I’m not legit and I’m not really, actually an entrepreneur, and. Then signing up for a co working space and just being there working on my business is something that really did help me create that identity for myself, that I am an entrepreneur, and as I have made more money in the business, that identity has shifted even more, which then allows me to show up in a way that allows the business to generate even more money. But I did think I would be full time by now, and that that would be a given. But as I said, when I crunched the numbers, I wanted to be able to replace my part time income, and to do that, I would be needing to make $180,000 in a year, which I’m not there just yet, but my plan is to have a six month buffer for me when I leave. So that’s like a six month runway that I will have six months worth of my own salary, my own wages saved up in the company account before I leave. But it’s so interesting. I I’m gonna do a separate episode on this whole thing. But this reminds me so much of when I left my full time accounting job because I did the Tim Ferriss fear setting exercise, I’ll link to it in the show notes. And I realized, like, I’m just staying in this job, like, not actually, for even any kind of reason. It’s just pure fear.
And then I started writing out an affirmation that I will celebrate the last day at my full time job on 30 June, 2017 or sooner. And then after writing that affirmation for about three weeks, I actually three to four weeks, I had an idea to go back to the part time job I had as a uni student, and then I left, and I had handed in my resignation on the sixth of February, which was only a few weeks after that. So it was actually making that decision that sped it up so much. And this week, when I was doing coaching with my coach, Erin, and I had that morning I was in my spin class, and I just had this instinct, like, I need to do that fear setting exercise again, because I’m feeling like I’m staying in my part time job because it’s a security blanket there for me, and that I don’t actually like there’s fear involved in that, even though I’m now not in a rush, it also means I’m not playing full out like I could be, not because it’s taking up a lot of time. My plan isn’t to do more work in the time I’m at my part time job.
My plan is to actually have more of a life, but it’s more so just mentally, it’s that security blanket there, so I don’t need to put myself out there as much in my business, because I’m not actually relying on my business for any of my income. I just need to be able to cover its own expenses. And my business is quite lean. Online businesses are definitely a lot leaner than if you have a product based business or if you have a brick and mortar so I didn’t have any kind of pressure. And initially, when I left my full time job, I thought, okay, I don’t really want to put financial pressure myself. And to be honest, I don’t think I would have thrived under the pressure back then, my mindset was very different. But now I’m in a place where I am doing a lot of intentional mindset work, and I can rise up when I put that pressure on myself.
So I have set a date, which is about six months from now, as the date that I’m going to go full time in my business. And I have been writing an affirmation out for the last three weeks, which is thank you for my easy and ever growing five figure weeks, and I’ll talk about why I have created that in the next episode that I do on image, self, image and identity. So I won’t go into that here, but I have just been feeling like setting that date, which I did when I met up with Erin and did our coaching session, which was in person, which was so much fun, but doing that has just like, turned the dial up on me in a huge way. And I had been planning to do so many things, like I need to ask Alex and see if he’d be interested in working for me, and all these other things. And then I made that decision, and I just went boom, boom, boom, and started taking the action, and have really been stepping things up a notch since then.
And it just feels so similar to the experience I had when I was leaving my full time job to then go to my part time job that setting that date, instead of having it be this one day someday, thing setting that date is what actually made things happen. And at least for leaving my full time job, it happened much sooner. And I have a sense that the same thing will happen again, because once you set a date, that’s when things change. And it’s not because of the date, it’s because of the commitment, there’s actually that real sense of commitment. There’s something that’s measurable, and you have to really make a decision instead of, Oh, I hope it’ll be around this date or that date, which is initially how I was with this and Erin made me set a really clear date, and I’m really glad she did. That’s exactly what I do with my coaching clients, but it is hard to be on the other end of that sometimes. So I set a really clear date.
And once I did that, and I was like, Okay, it’s done. And then I started telling people. I told Steve, I just started thinking, like, Okay, if that’s true, how am I going to act? What am I going to do? And that’s how I’ve been living only for a few days now. That was only earlier this week, but that has made a huge difference. So that is in the works. But I did think I would be full time in my business by now, which I am currently not. I thought I’d have more time to do things again. This is just magical thinking, thinking that somehow having this kind of business would mean I would have more time. But time is always, always, always, always up to how we manage our minds and the way that we look at things, and there’s never really a point that you have more time. Even if you are completely unemployed and you don’t have anything going on in your life, a lot of people find that they think they would be living a different kind of life and because they’d have more time, that they’d do the things.
And then they find that they have more time, but they’re not doing the things. And I know when I was working full time, I thought once I can actually get myself full time in my business, and all of these problems will be solved because I’m going to have time to actually do them and time to work on my business. And then I quit my full time job. I went part time, and I only work a few hours at the end of each day, four till 8pm and a longer shift on Monday, but generally speaking, four to 8pm on a weekday. So I really have a full day before I go to my part time job. And once I quit my full time job, I just felt so vulnerable because I no longer had that excuse around lack of time. And so I just spent a few months doing busy work because I was still very much in a fixed mindset, and I really felt like I had more pressure to succeed. Of course, that was me putting that on myself and that now I had the time. There was no excuse, whereas in my full time job, I could be a little bit more comfortable, because I could blame the full time job for lack of progress. So I just want you to have a quick think.
Now, is there anything that you are blaming, such as having a full time job or say you want to get fit and eat healthy, but maybe you’re blaming your partner and saying, Well, if my partner wasn’t eating all this junk food all the time, then I wouldn’t be eating it. There’s so many ways that we get in our own way and make these excuses to hide behind, and then it can just be a really interesting moment when the excuse disappears so you get more time, or maybe break up with that partner, or something happens to change the circumstance you were blaming. And you’re like, oh, wait, damn. Like the problem wasn’t that. The problem was the way that I’m thinking and not wanting to be vulnerable and put a full effort in. So I’ve had that realization at different times throughout my own personal growth journey, and really, when I started my blog, was when that journey fully kicked in. There is nothing as good as growing you as starting a business. And if you haven’t listened to it, episode one, the OG episode of this podcast is where I share my story, and that was recorded in, I want to say, November, 2017.
So a lot’s happened since then, which I talk about on the podcast. But if you want to know a bit about my background and how I got to where I am, not today, because it wasn’t recorded today, but where I was in November, 2017 go and listen to that one. So that is really a summary of how it feels for me personally to have a six figure business. Basically, I thought it would feel very different to what it feels like, and I just feel the same as I used to, and probably the same as I always will. But I’m definitely feeling very happy and positive, but I still definitely have my dark moments where I really feel overwhelmed, confused, I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing, and it kind of oscillates between the two. It might not look that way when you look at what I’m posting about on Instagram or in my emails, but at the same time, I share these struggles, but we tend to think, Oh, no one like it doesn’t feel as bad for her, it doesn’t feel as bad for him, and even if someone’s literally talking about the most traumatic experience, we think that it doesn’t feel as bad for them as it feels for us.
And I just want you to know that there are lots of emotions I feel, that you feel too, and we probably feel about the same if we both have positive and negative emotions. So all of this to say, the point of growing to a six figure business setting your sights on goals. That even bigger than that isn’t because they’re going to make you happy. Your thoughts are what make you happy, but it’s such an amazing way to have an impact on other people’s lives. If I didn’t have goals, I wouldn’t have started a podcast, I wouldn’t have programs that have changed people’s lives, I wouldn’t be helping people through Instagram. It’s my goals that have required me to show up in that way and really put myself out there, because it is not comfortable putting myself out there. And now some of it feels a lot easier than it used to, but in the beginning it certainly didn’t feel easy.
And if I didn’t have a goal that I was working towards and something that I was trying to evolve into, I would have just always chosen the easy option, which is to not show up, to just consume things, to just keep watching YouTube videos and listening to podcast episodes and never actually doing so I teach this and get out of your own way, my online course, and I also teach this in figure life out, my group coaching program, but the point of a goal isn’t because you’re going to feel happier when you achieve it. The point is for the growth, the evolution, the experience, the journey, the impact. That is the point you’re probably going to feel about the same. But that doesn’t matter, because the point of it isn’t to feel different. And then something that comes up I’m going to finish on this for my coaching clients, particularly, is once they fully get that they can feel happy wherever they are, they think, Okay, well, then am I just meant to settle like if I could feel happy in my full time job, because that comes from my thoughts, not my circumstances, then do I actually need to leave my full time job?
Or if I could feel happy with any partner, then does that mean I should just settle for the partner that I have? The answer to that is no, you clean up your thinking by recognizing that you can feel happy and positive and have all those emotions you want to have in any circumstance, because that is coming from your thoughts. And if you do the mindset work, you can learn how to generate those thoughts in any situation. But that doesn’t mean you have to then just settle for whatever you have. You can love where you are and change just because you want to. You can love your partner and leave them just because you want to. You can love your full time job and leave it just because you want to. We are taught that you need to hate your partner and hate your job and hate your circumstances in order to be able to justify changing, and so a lot of us really feel hesitant to actually leave. Like to allow ourselves to love a circumstance that we want to leave, because we think if I love it, then I’ll have no excuse to leave it.
We do this subconsciously, but I really teach my clients how to love the job that they’re used to hating, and how to love the partner and be create that happiness, and then you can leave because you want to. You don’t have to leave because it’s bad. But if you don’t clean up your thinking, you bring your brain with you to the next circumstance, and you will just have the same kinds of thoughts. So that’s just a little tangent. I also wanted to mention something very, very exciting. I’m so excited about this. Yesterday was meant to be my day off, but I just couldn’t help but get this started once I had the idea, I just have such a strong instinct that this is meant to be, and that I’m just so, so excited. So I’m starting a membership and community called perfectionist getting shit done.
And this is because I have noticed, particularly from those of you who aren’t in my courses, who aren’t in my programs, or aren’t working with me one on one, I’m getting messages in there. Was actually one in particular the other night in the Facebook group, and then I get them a lot on Instagram as well. That it’s like a thanks for that advice, and I’m struggling, and I don’t know how to apply it. And, you know, it’s hard to put myself out there, but you know, I’ll keep you update and let you know how I go, and I’m giving you all of this advice and doing everything I can to help you, but then you don’t have anyone who you can have there for accountability, unless you have the money to invest in one on one coaching with Me or into my programs. And there isn’t that like that opportunity for you to take this to the next level, to really learn how to apply this and to also just surround yourself with people who make your goals feel normal.
So many of you tell me that part of the reason you love this podcast, thank you so much, is because I make you feel normal, and you don’t say it in those words, but I am putting language to a struggle you have had for so long that you couldn’t articulate, and here I am saying it in a way that you never even knew how to say it. But it’s just hitting you to your core that I get you and that you are normal, that there’s nothing wrong with you. And so if you can actually be in a community where there are many, many others who are going through the same things and who have the same goals, and who know that they’re capable of more than where they are. Are, and they’re just struggling to get out of their own way, and they’re wanting a lot of you guys are wanting to start businesses, YouTube channels, podcasts. You are really doing well for the most part. Most of you like have a fine situation.
You’re not in this horrible place, but you just know you can take it up a notch. And a lot of you feel so guilty because you think I should be grateful for what I have, and if I want more than Am I saying I’m not grateful, and everyone thinks I should just be fine where I am. But I really know that there’s something in me that wants to make this bigger impact and really wants to unleash my potential. If you can be around other women who just totally get you and also feel the same. They have the struggles, they have the goals to and you can have me there as well when you’re actually applying things to help you put that into practice. So I am going to be creating this community and membership. It’s still in the works. I’m still figuring out exactly what that would look like and what’s going to serve you. I know for sure that I don’t want it to be overwhelming.
I’m not just going to give you stuff to feel guilty about not doing. I know you’ve already got enough on your to do list, but I really feel like this is the missing piece of the puzzle, and I would have gotten out of my way so much sooner if I had something like this, but I felt alone, and then I felt ashamed that I was the only one struggling with it, and then that shame just made it even worse and worse. But at the moment, I have for my different programs, different communities, but they kind of stop once the program has ended. And I would love to be able to be there for you on an ongoing basis, and to really do a deep dive into everything. And I’m personally in Brooke Castillo’s membership called self coaching scholars, which is an investment of 400 Australian dollars per month, 297 us. And I would love to create something like that. Mine is not going to be that much of an investment. I really want it to be something that’s affordable for you, that’s essentially a gym membership for your mind. I’m so excited about this, and it has been brewing for a long time, and I’m finally ready to release it into the world, and have you guys co create it with me.
So that it can really be shaped into something that’s really going to serve you, and you can have that sense of love and support and that you’re not weird, that you’re totally normal, and that you’re going through very normal things. And there are other people who can relate, and there’s me there as well, to get to know you better and to help you on an ongoing basis, stopping the procrastination, the self sabotage. And, yeah, I’m thinking of having there being a monthly workshop, or something like that. I’d love to do a book club. I’ve been trying to figure out how to, how the fuck to do a book club, and I think this would be a really amazing way to do it, but again, making sure that it’s not really putting you under this pressure. So it might be every second month or something like that, but I really am excited about this is going to be Q and A opportunities and community, and I want to do some guided meditations and hypnosis recordings and things like that for you, sorry, I need to take a breath, but that is going to be called Perfectionist Getting Shit Done.
Outro
If you enjoy this podcast, then I highly recommend signing up for my group coaching program called perfectionist getting shit done. So we are doing our next enrollment in October, and we are going to be open for one week only. So if you want to find out more about the program and join the waitlist, go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.