187: Evolution of a Big Thinker: Inside the She Thinks Big Podcast Rebrand

Andrea Liebross: Welcome to the She Thinks Big Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big! The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger, and the strategy and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in!

Hello, my friends, and welcome to the She Thinks Big! It's Time to Level Up Podcast. That is the first time that I have welcomed you to this particular podcast name. The podcast is still here, all the content is still here from the Time to Level Up era, but I have made the decision to change the name to She Thinks Big and this is the first official episode that will be released with that name.

In honor of that, I decided to invite my business coach Stacey Hylen on to the podcast because she really has been instrumental in helping me think bigger about all sorts of things.

But this podcast renaming is kind of, I don't want to say it's the culminating event, but it is, I don't know, it is one of the events, maybe the culminating event. But we're not sure yet because we don't know what's ahead in this Think Big Movement and helping me align all of my offerings. It's a very appropriate guest for today. Welcome, Stacey.

Stacey Hylen: Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

Andrea Liebross: I'm excited to have you. So Stacey has been coaching for over 20 years. She, at one point, was VP of Consulting for Business Mastery, Tony Robbins’ Program Business Mastery. She was 2016 International Coach of the Year and I have been working with Stacey now probably for three years? Two years? I don't know. A significant amount of time in her mastermind. So here we are. We're here. Welcome.

Stacey Hylen: Thank you, I'm so excited to be on the show. It’s fun.

Andrea Liebross: I know. It's fun. It's super fun. We've never done this before. We've talked a lot, but we've never done a podcast together. So here we are. All right, so I am curious, what have you observed in the past, I guess almost two years now, since I decided to write the She Thinks Big book? In your brain, or maybe you can pull it out of my brain, how has this all evolved? What would you say?

Stacey Hylen: Well, I want to back up just a tiny bit because I think when you first came to me for coaching, I can see the evolution. We talk a lot about in the mastermind that it's like this spiral, it's this evolution that there are these concepts that you just keep coming back to over and over again because you're getting better and better, but they're universal concepts and they don't just go away. You don't learn it once and then it's done.

But what I saw when you first came to me for coaching is that you were like this yes person. I was thinking about it this week of how you used to say yes to everything and things would come and you're like, “Oh, I should do that. I should do that.” I wanted to talk to your listeners about how saying no really allowed you to start to make that shift into thinking big.

Andrea Liebross: I think that's totally right. I was saying yes a lot, wasn't I? Yeah, I was. I think I was almost in a thinking small mode or a scarcity mode and not wanting to miss opportunities, not wanting to miss out on potential clients, not wanting to trust that bigger things could actually happen. I was, I'll call it a little bit graspy, maybe.

Stacey Hylen: Graspy, ooh, yeah, I think that's really interesting because I think when you think, “Well, I'm saying yes to things, I'm thinking big,” because I think, like even Shonda Rhimes, she has her year of yes. She's obviously a big thinker, like the creator of Grey's Anatomy and Bridgerton and all that.

But I think what happens is that when we say yes too much, it's coming from that graspy, scarcity place because it's also keeping you from seeing that bigger picture for yourself, allowing yourself to say no to things that are keeping you in that smaller state. So it feels like a conundrum of like, “Okay, what do I say yes to and what do I say no to?”

Andrea Liebross: You've got to get picky and choosy.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah, yeah. I've seen in the last three and a half years, you have been able to say no to so many things that are not in alignment and start saying yes to bigger things, things that were scarier, things that were calling you forward. That was really cool to see.

Andrea Liebross: I mean, even in the evolution of the book, and I told you I was going to write an e-book or create an e-book, I guess.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah, so when Andrea came to me, you had a gazillion e-books. You were like the opt-in queen. For those of you that don't know what an opt-in is, an opt-in is a free gift that you give to people to sign up for your email list. You had a gazillion of this. It's because I think you're a high achiever.

You're like, "Oh, I can write something on this. I can create something for these people." I remember you coming to me for the coaching and you said to me, "Oh, I'm going to write."

We were starting to think about this message and who your people were, getting really clear on your perfect client. That is also that evolution because it keeps getting more clear and more clear. You came to me and you said, "Oh, I have a great idea. I'm going to write an e-book." I said, "I'm really sorry." Sometimes when she Voxers me, I'm like, "You might hate me, but..."

Andrea Liebross: Never would hate you. Never would hate you.

Stacey Hylen: “I'm not going to let you get away with this small thinking to release an e-book.” Because she's released all these e-books, and really, the She Thinks Big message needed to be more of a movement. An e-book would be like dipping your toe in the water with it. And we were like, “No, it has to be a book.”

Andrea Liebross: I got to jump in head first.

Stacey Hylen: How did that feel? How did that feel when I was like, “No”?

Andrea Liebross: I think it felt scary. I mean, it felt scary, but yet it also felt energizing and empowering. I had to really control the little voice in the back of my head that was saying, "Are you sure you want to do this? This is a really huge undertaking."

But yet in the same breath, the fact that it was a huge undertaking was something that would completely push me out of my comfort zone. It opened the door to so many things too. I had to manage the small thinking, keep it in its little box, and really dive into bigger thinking, knowing that if I did do this, there were so many possibilities out there for me.

You always think about how can I grow or should I even pass growing? Am I into scaling or what's next? I think this was what catapulted me. That decision to not write an e-book, but to write a real book, was really what catapulted me into that next echelon of thinking, and even of choosing.

Going back to what do I say yes, what do I say no to, and really helped me define who my person is, who I really want a coach, I want to coach people and work with people who want to think big-er and sometimes have a hard time doing it just like I have a hard time doing it because we're human.

But I've moved through and past some of asking myself these what-if questions and answering them with fearful answers like, “What if it doesn't work? What if no one buys the book?” I've moved past that and I've really fallen into answering what-if questions more with possibilities.

Stacey Hylen: Ooh, I like that. Let's talk more about that big thinking. The what-ifs that were negative, that's a whole like your brain can go nuts with that, especially in the middle of the night.

Okay, what if we do positive what-ifs? What are some of the other ways that you changed your thinking whenever the fear would come up as stepping into this bigger movement?

Andrea Liebross: Before this, I was trying to piece things together. Almost like going back, I said yes to lots of things. So it's almost piecing a business together, I like to say with duct tape.

As I stepped into this bigger thinking, I realized that putting things together with duct tape only works for so long. Then I needed to create a platform, a foundation, or something that would give the business, the brand, and me stability in the sense of aligning the inside with the outside.

So aligning what I want to feel like and who I want to work with, that feeling piece, aligning that with what is external. I think sometimes before I would answer these questions with what if externally things aren't received well, even though internally I wanted it so bad.

As I stepped more into this, “What if the external receives it with flying colors?” That was a shift in how I answered what-if questions, but I realized that I had to align the internal and the external to create that base of the body, I don't want to call it a body of work, but how I pull things together.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah. It was not a one-woman show.

Andrea Liebross: Well, it was not a one-woman show.

Stacey Hylen: Let's talk a little bit about that because I think a lot of times, as women, we see people that are doing things and we're like, “Oh, well, they managed to do this all by themselves.” Meanwhile, they don't realize that some people have a nanny, some people have a meal service, some people have a COO, whatever it is.

What did you do in terms of a team? What was that like investing in a team for yourself?

Andrea Liebross: It's not just the big thinking, but really taking big actions, big investments, big chunks of time, big conversations, and then corralling, I'll call it, all the people that I needed to support me and figure that, I mean, part of it's figuring it along the way, but I've now started to think of me having a team of people versus just a bunch of contractors or me asking for what I need.

I guess that's another thing with this big thinking, I've really started to ask more for what I need than just assuming someone, “Oh, I don't want to bother them,” “That seems impossible,” or “That's not going to happen. So forget it, I'll just do it myself” kind of thing.

I've gathered the resources, I'll call them, together and really now think of them as one unit. That's everything from a graphic designer, obviously all the people that are working on the behind-the-scenes publishing the book, a copywriter, coaches, cashflow coaches, you coaching me, podcast producer, she's actually a very strategic thinker. That's helped me.

Putting all these people together in a Zoom room earlier in this spring was really also powerful. I've got all of the support systems. First I had to harvest them and then put them all together. Those are big actions and those are big investments for me. Those are big conversations and also big ideas, like listening to people's ideas and being open to what they have to offer.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah. So let me ask you this, with the people that you have, how did you shift yourself? Because I've seen it as you've moved through this, how did you shift it from the fact that they were doing things for you, just like, “Oh, they're going to do X, Y, and Z,” to being able to shift in your head and this has been evolving, the shifting of like, “I get to have it the way I want it and the way that supports me the way I need to be supported,” how did that shift come about?

Andrea Liebross: I think I just had to get clear on what I wanted, number one. I guess that was so number one. What did I want? What did I want this to look like? What did I want it to feel like? Sharing that, being open to suggestions, but ultimately going back to my idea in my head of how all of my brand, the podcast, my offerings, how they're all going to be aligned.

I think it was almost like leading the people, but in order to lead, I really had to get clear on what I wanted.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah. Well, because I think if we don't know what we want, then people are like, “Oh, what about this or that?” And you don’t have a place to come from saying, “Yeah, that supports what I’m looking for and this doesn’t,” because you don’t know what you want.

Andrea Liebross: Right. It all didn’t happen at once, too. As I got clearer and clearer and clearer, then I started adding people to the team and making sure that they were the right people and making sure that they would align with all the other people on a team too. This whole process has helped me get a lot clearer on who I am and what I want.

Stacey Hylen: Right. You get to have whatever you want because you're thinking big.

Andrea Liebross: Exactly. I guess so. I don't know.

Stacey Hylen: Yes. So in that vein of thought, you obviously coach women to grow their businesses and their mindset and you hired me and I coach businesses to grow and to improve their mindset because of my background with Tony Robbins.

What was it that made you realize that that was a non-negotiable for you to be able to get support with the coaching even though you coach other people and the other things that you're like, “Oh, well, I could throw that together”? There's that “I can do that” syndrome that we have a lot of times as women.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, I can't do it. I can't do it all right. I can't do it all. So having a coach is a complete non-negotiable, like 1000% non-negotiable, because I sometimes get in my own way.

I also can go back to small thinking and without someone pointing it out to me, then that's easy to fall back into that trap. So why it's non-negotiable is because I don't want to go back to that place. I am thinking forward-thinking, future thinking and in order to do that, I need someone to support me in doing that because it's really easy to go back to the small thinking or saying yes to everything.

So I think it also helps me preserve my energy in a sense like, “Where should I be putting my energy?” When I'm questioning that, I have now you to go back to and ask, “Hey, what does this sound like to you? Do you think that this is aligning with where I want to go?”

I think having a coach actually saves you energy in the long run. It saves you that decision fatigue and it gives you, again, possibilities. You are always like, “Hey, what about this? Don't get mad at me, but what about this?” You're actually giving yourself even more possibilities, which is something that big thinking is totally aligned with.

So, it's like, I won't work with a coach who doesn't invest in coaching themselves or doesn't see the value in it because I think no matter who we are, we still need that support piece. Securing support is one of the five tenets of big thinking anyway.

Stacey Hylen: Yes. I think it's crucial because we tend to go back to what's comfortable. I saw what you did here today, which I want to point out, which is really cool for all the listeners and the people watching is you're like, “This is the new name of the podcast. She Thinks Big Podcast: It's Time to Level Up.” This is the culmination. Then you caught yourself.

Andrea Liebross: Yes.

Stacey Hylen: I heard that. I was like, “Yes.” Because that's the thing is like this is the culmination. You're like, “Well, maybe this isn't the culmination.” Something else. So I thought that was really cool to see that in action.

For those of you listening or watching, that's a big thinker. You're always thinking like, “Okay, this is the achievement.” You do set the bar higher, but you can't then judge yourself for not hitting this bar when you just cleared this bar. That's the cool thing I think that we like to really focus on is celebrating the things that you've accomplished because you've accomplished them, but still having that think-big mindset for the next thing that's coming down the road.

Andrea Liebross: I think that's another reason why having support or having a coach is important because you are always forcing me to pause and like, “What are we celebrating? What's a win?” Sometimes you'll even point out to me like, “Well, that sounds like a win.” I'll say, “Hmm, I guess it is.” You're not doing that yourself.

If I said, “Oh, this might be the culmination,” okay, then I'm stopping, “But it's not the culmination. This could be just another step in the process.” You could say it's a win that, hey, I have gone through this rebranding, and I am aligning all of my offers, but it's not the last win. It's not like we won the World Series. We haven't gotten to the World Series yet.

Stacey Hylen: No, and I think when you get to the World Series and you win it, they're like, “Okay, what about next year?”

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, we're ready for next year. It's so true.

Stacey Hylen: I think that's a good analogy, because I think if you win the World Series, and I don't watch baseball, but we'll just go with it.

Andrea Liebross: We can go hockey. Do you watch the Stanley Cup?

Stacey Hylen: I do hockey. Let's say you win the Stanley Cup. We're going to go with the Stanley Cup. They don't say, "Oh, we're never going to win another Stanley Cup," or that's the top of the line.

The first thing they do is they celebrate. You see them with the Stanley Cup, and they're passing it around, holding it on their shoulders, making all this ridiculous stuff on TV.

Then after they celebrate, they reflect, they take time. They start golfing. That's why the joke is “You're out of the Stanley Cup, you're golfing.” Allowing that time for rest and reflection.

It's funny because one of my clients, he sold two businesses and we joke like, "Okay, it's time for you to go skiing," because when he goes skiing, it's that time to reflect that then is like, “Okay, now I've rested. Now I can go but think bigger again.”

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, so I think when the book was released last fall and I was like, “Should I do some launch celebration? I don't know. I don't know if I have it in me. I mean, I'm exhausted, to begin with,” you said, “No, we totally have to do a launch celebration,” because that was an element of celebrating.

However, I think to your point of going skiing, it wasn't as if I rebranded the podcast the next day either. I mean, here we are almost a year later doing that. Things have to settle.

I think that's another thing I've learned too about big thinking is it is not a straight line or it is not, I'm thinking of a graph when the line goes up diagonally, what's the word for that? It's not a straight line up. It's definitely like a big step, then you are on the step for a little bit, plateau, then another big step, and then a plateau.

If I think back of how I've evolved, I mean, that's 100% true. I think actually, now that I think about it, if I go back to being the yes person and I would call it small thinking person when I met you, I was trying to go up that diagonal line, like thinking it was just going to keep going and going and going and going and not realizing that that's not the way to do it, that's not a sustainable way to do it, or it's probably even not the most effective way to do it and that you've got to make big decisions, play them out, rest, more big decisions, play them out, rest, it's that kind. That's how this all evolves.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah, yeah. I think I wouldn't even say it's a plateau.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, I know, what's a better word?

Stacey Hylen: I would say it's more as you're expanding your capacity.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, better, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stacey Hylen: Like you're in your new normal.

Andrea Liebross: Correct, yeah.

Stacey Hylen: You're in your new normal, and you're expanding your capacity for this new normal to be your new normal. You see a lot of people, they win the lottery. What happens is a few years later, they're broke. Because their body, their mind, their friends, their team, nothing has set them up to have this lottery and have this level of abundance.

Or you see people that reach a certain level of business and they blow it all. You're saying, “All right, I'm thinking big. This is my new,” not plateau, but this is the new level of it. And I'm letting my capacity for this to be my new normal to get equilibrium there so that it's not so stressful for your body, for your mind, and all that. You're like, "Okay, I'm here, I've done this. Now, okay, what's the next level?" I love to see you do that.

Andrea Liebross: I didn't love the plateau word, but you're right. It's like you're almost expanding the capacity to handle whatever that new big thinking was. That's 100% how I've evolved, I'll call it, and I think that diagonal line going up was exhausting too, and wasn't serving me. When you do this method, this take a big step, expand, take a big step, expand, it is sustainable. It feels a lot better.

Stacey Hylen: Right, and I think also, it goes back to the very masculine way of doing things. It's like, “Okay, it's a business. We have to have a straight line of growth.” That's not putting into account the fact that you have a family, the fact that you want to take care of your health, the fact that you want to do it in a way that works for you, you want to do it in a way that works for your clients.

I think you're doing it in a very whole life way, and I think that's another big thing with your brand of She Thinks Big. It's not just like she thinks big about her business, the person that you're working with. She's thinking big about all of the things in her life, going back to that question of “What do you want?” Because I think that's what scares people about thinking big, is they think, “If I think big, then everything else is going to go to crap.”

Andrea Liebross: Correct, that's exactly what they think.

Stacey Hylen: Tell me more about that.

Andrea Liebross: I think, yes, thinking big, first of all, totally encompasses all facets of your life. When I talk about She Thinks Big, it is not just about business. I joke that I start coaching someone on business and pretty soon, we're coaching about how to be more efficient in the kitchen and outsource laundry or something.

It's like, “What does this have to do with your business plan?” It has a lot to do with your business plan because you need to have the capacity to think big or feel good in all facets of life.

That is another thing in a way how I've evolved and you've pushed me and watched me do this but I would say I'm a high achiever and I can just go into this work, work, work mode or work, play, work, play, quick little intervals of things, not giving myself any space.

What I've realized is I don't like that. A, I don't want that, B, it doesn't create the best version of Andrea, and C, I don't think it allows or it's conducive of growth or of a big thinking. I think you've got to have balance, I hate that word balance, but work-life integration.

Big thinkers have work-life integration versus work and life and work and life and work and life and trying to balance them. Really learning how to integrate is most important.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah, I love that word integrate because I do think balance, it's good, people think balance is a good thing. But if you think about balance, it is going to be like you're wobbly.

Andrea Liebross: A teeter-totter is only balanced for about 22 milliseconds.

Stacey Hylen: Yeah, exactly. It's a very wobbly feeling balance. So I think integration is great because you have to work things into what you're doing in your business and what you're doing in your life.

I think that's a big thing about thinking big is that it gets to be for what you want. The listeners, the watchers, it's not about what Andrea wants for her life as a big thinker, or Susan, Sandy, or whoever. It's really like, what do you want first? Because it has to work for you, it has to work for your life.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, we're going to come to a screeching hall, right there, right there. So when we recorded this episode, we thought it would be one episode, but the conversation was so good that we just kept going.

However, I know as a podcast listener myself, it's better for us to listen to things in smaller chunks. I think it actually allows for more big thinking. So we're going to pause this conversation here and pick it up in the next episode. So this conversation is not over.

But before we go to that next episode, I want to point out a couple of what I would call highlights of the last 20-ish minutes that you listened to, 25-ish minutes that you listened to, the conversation between Stacey and I.

Did you hear us talk about how business is like a spiral? It's an evolution, and you keep coming back to these same concepts over and over again. Even though you're getting better and better at what you do, they're universal concepts that come back over and over again, and big thinkers can get through those easier and faster because they actually realize that they have more and more thought options. They trust themselves more. They're willing to push through the fear.

Did you hear us talk about me saying no, and how I shifted from this graspy type of thinking into this bigger type of thinking, realizing that really anything was possible and truly believing that? Did you hear us talk about my need and desire to create a platform for my business and not just duct tape everything together?

That was bigger thinking because I was thinking beyond today. I was thinking into the future and who I wanted to be as a brand. That was big thinking. Did you hear us talk about how I have gotten really good at asking for what I need? And I'm asking myself, what do I want? Not only what do I need, but what do I want? That was part of this big thinking evolution.

I had to bring together a team of people and really ask them for what I wanted and get from them what I needed, which often was their expertise. Then I really do think that having support like a coach is crucial. We're going to talk more about all kinds of support, not just coaching support, in the second half of this conversation in the next episode.

But notice that we talked about me having to celebrate the wins, pointing out the wins, that's one reason that I need to be supported because if I wasn't, I would just blow past all of these wins. I think one of the last and final points here that we made in this first half of the conversation is how this thinking big has helped me expand my capacity and my ability to think big about all things in my life, not just business.

Take that, that last little nugget there, thinking big about all things in my life, expanding my capacity to be able to do that, take that and carry that into next week's episode. It's going to be a continuation of my conversation with Stacey Hylen, my coach on the evolution of my own big thinking. It's like I'm a case study in big thinking. I'm going to think about it that way. And thank you for being with me here on the very first episode of She Thinks Big! It's Time to Level Up Podcast. Keep thinking big. I will see you next week.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big Podcast. If you’re ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don’t forget to pick up a copy of my book, She Thinks Big! The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It’s available on Amazon, and at your favorite book store, and while you’re there grab a copy for a friend. Inside, you’ll both find actionable strategies and empowering insights to help you navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and life, and step into your extraordinary future.

If you found value in today’s episode, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast platform and if you’re ready to take this learning a step further and apply it to your own business and life, head to andreaslinks.com and click the button to schedule a discovery call. Until next time, keep thinking big.