175: Narrow Down Your WILD Goals and Think of Potential Failures and Obstacles

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Let's do this. Okay, let's do something here. If you haven't cut on all the little pencil with paper things in the bottom, it's my reminder to have you do something. All right. We're going to create three WILD goals. Three WILD goals. That's it, three. Doesn't have to be a hundred. It's just three, okay?

Because a lot of times, I get the question, “How many goals should I have?” And significant intentions or goals really take time to achieve. So I want you to give yourself that time. I want you to give yourself a focus too, because if we have seven million things, we can't focus.

I want you to set out three or four things, I'll make it up to four, but three or four things that you're going to do with gusto, that you're going to be ecstatic about, that you're going to really want to become, in the end, after a bunch of sucking at it, excellent at it.

I want you to think about, “What am I going to do with gusto? What am I going to strive for excellence in versus just sort of doing it sufficiently?” One of the things about SMARTER goals that I don't really love is about sufficiently a little bit. It's like, let's make this reasonable and rational. I want these to be not reasonable and rational. I want them to really empower you to do things differently. Do it differently.

Now, you could also just have a singular focus. If you're going to do something amazing this year, it could be a singular focus. I keep telling you, 2023 was the year of the book, and the year of the house. That was it. That was all, that was all I was focusing on. I mean, of course, as time went on, I focused on other things along the way, but really when it boiled down to it, is this fueling either of those things? Is this a good use of my time?

You have to trust your inner guidance, I'll call it. You have to trust that you're going to figure out how to get past all the things that get in the way. I want you to also think about this. When you do narrow down and focus, you also breathe a sigh of relief.

It's a little bit of a sigh of relief, like, okay, go back so to let this be easy. I don't have to have seven things. I can have one. I can have two. I can have three. That's it. It's a little bit of a sigh of relief. All of the days when I sort of had decision fatigue, which there were a lot last year, I just kept going back to these decisions around these two things. Most of the time, yes, and if they weren't, I did say no, or I eliminated it, or I asked what did I need to give myself in order to do that.

What are you most excited about? That's another good question to ask. What am I most excited about? What ignites you? What lights you up? Here are some questions that you can ask yourself. I think this is the slide that has the most words on it, just so you know. I was like, “This is a lot of words, but I'm going to keep it up there.”

These are questions that you can ask yourself to vet these goals, to help you feel better about them. Like, “Who can I work with to get this done?” Sometimes we forget about that. We think about we're all alone in doing these things.

What's going to have the great impact? What's going to move the needle the most? Does this help me generate that feeling that I'm going after? Or does this feel heavy? I always say, “Do you feel like you're carrying a Santa sack, slogging along?

What's going to make me the most money? What's going to require the most money? I was telling someone last night, I forget it, maybe Hillary, but I spent money on this today. But I was totally fine with that. I was 100% fine with it for lots of reasons.

Number one, I had a system to help me figure out if I had the money to do it. That took away so much stress. Also, it was something I really wanted to do. All the doubt or whatever, it just went away because that's something I wanted to do. Yes, it may cost you money, but is it really getting you where you want to go?

Whatever you write down for these three things, how could it affect you three, five, ten years from now? How could it help that future you of, we've just been talking about the future you of December, but I want you to think about the future you three, five, or ten years from now.

What's the scariest thing that you could do? That's always a great question. What would be the scariest thing I could do? What's the scariest thing? What would freak me out? What would feel impossible, but yet enthralling? Like just yes. These are just good questions to help you vet what you're choosing.

In case you're scared to make some choices, because you have too many things on your plate, I want you to also remember that you can change your mind any time. I am giving you permission right now. You can change your mind tonight, and it's okay. I'm not going to follow you and tell you you changed. You can change this any time.

Sometimes when I'm doing that Vision to Action planning, people get super stressed out. Like, “Is this going to be forever? What happens?” But you can change it at any time.

I'm giving you permission because remember that motion is better than staying still. This brings me to stuck stress and progress stress, which is something that I love talking about. I feel like we're all stressed, like let's get real. But you can be in stuck stress where you're doing nothing, where you can't come up with answers, where there are no solutions. Or you can be in progress stress where you are deciding and things are getting easier as you're taking action.

Like Aileen was saying, she just, “Just decide.” That's moving from that stuck stress into progress stress. Maybe it all didn't work out, maybe it did, but she shifted. Before I go to the next slide, who has one WILD goal that they want to say out loud? Because when you say it out loud, it gets real. Anyone have something they just want to say out loud? Go for it.

Participant 1: [inaudible] I was thinking about [inaudible] to me but our WILD goals, we want them to be a certain way, and whenever I start [inaudible] about my goals [inaudible] and now, we literally just like thanks to that idea and then [inaudible] I think a lot of it you got as well. So when I'm feeling that way, it's so tough. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm going to just do it. I'm going to figure it out. I guess I just want to encourage everyone to talk and stuff on the details. Just if they feel like there's this desire or goal [inaudible], and it's just self-preservation.

Andrea Liebross: Thank you for sharing that. Now, you might get frustrated with him along the way watching him do it. But it's true, I think that's true. He's just doing it. He's like, “We’ll figure it out along the way.”

I always tell the story of my husband would take the kids to the children's museum, and they're two years apart, and he would literally leave, like, let's say they were four and two, he would literally leave our house with a diaper stuck in his pocket. That was it.

I would go and have the whole diaper bag and all the things and he's like, “I just have a diaper. What else do I need? I mean, someone's going to have wipes in that restroom. What's the big deal? It's the children's museum.”

Meanwhile, I had snacks and all planned out. He somehow survived. Everybody's still alive. They're 20 and 22. They're going to be. Anyone else have a goal they want to share? Sherry has a goal over to your right, Nicole.

Nicole Pence Becker: We’ve been using it all day so why would we stop?

Andrea Liebross: I can't wait to hear this. Let's go.

Sherry: My big WILD goal: I want to have one beautiful box set of books all in one year. Yep. That's my big goal.

Andrea Liebross: I love that. That's new and exciting. I haven't heard you think about that before. That's so good. Okay. Anyone else over here while we're over here?

Nicole Pence Becker: Anybody else on this side? Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, and the sun shining over here on this side. Woo!

Participant 2: From last year to this year, I 10xed my sales. So my big goal is to double my sales volume again this year. It seems really impossible, but we’re just going to do it.

Andrea Liebross: Why not? Let's do it.

Participant 2: Yeah, and then I want to spend two weeks in Greece.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, I think Rebecca will go with you if you need a travel partner. She'll go. She's volunteering already. Anyone else over here want to share anything? No? No one, okay.

Nicole Pence Becker: What about the middle?

Andrea Liebross: What about the middle? The messy middle.

Amanda: To buy another property and like as an asset.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, I love that. That sounds exciting. Amanda's going to do it. She's going to tell us all the things.

Participant 3: I'd love to go decorate a chateau in the south of France.

Andrea Liebross: Tiffany can help you with that. Okay, we're good, we're good. I love it, anyone else in the middle who wants to share?

Nicole Pence Becker: Anybody in here? Ladies over here?

Participant 4: All right, it's a two-parter. I want to move into my own space, training space. I love my home, but training space. I want to move out of solopreneurship. I want to hire women underneath me to work with me this year.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, let's do that. Who else?

Participant 5: I want to create education as like a side service to my traditional PT practice, not for the people I treat, but for the providers that are not maybe holding things of the standard that I hold. Being able to bring everybody that comes into contact with, women dealing with women's health issues to be on the same page. To do that, we're probably going to have to figure out a house manager to help me out with that type of life.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Okay, let's talk about that for a second, this house manager concept. Because you might be saying, “Oh, that's a luxury,” or “I don't know, that just sounds like a crazy thing.” No, if that's the support you need to do what you want to do, then you're going to figure out a way to make it happen. It's all possible, it's all possible. I love that. That's exciting to me.

All right, who else? Back there in the corner. Morgan is going to share hers. Okay, everybody, this is awesome. I can hardly wait. Yeah, let's tell us, ladies.

Morgan: Let's do that. I didn't sign up for that. I'm Morgan. This is my sister, Margo, and we took over our dad's utility maintenance company a year and a half ago. We grew revenue 9% the first year and 12% the last year. So we've been crushing it together, have a lot of fun, but my goal has always been to be a stay-at-home mom, but I have no kids.

My sister wants to work full-time, but she is pregnant with her third kid right now. So kind of in different spaces, but trying to figure out how we grow together, and then both obviously have the lives that we want, so we're both very aligned with each other and want what is best and what each other wants, so she's good with my goal, I showed it to her before, and it's wild. I said, “Figure out how to successfully work part-time and make the same amount of money.”

Andrea Liebross: Okay, we can do that. You on board, Margo?

Margo: It’s very wild, I love it.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Do you have a goal you want to share? Besides make a baby this year?

Margo: Yeah, I want to design, sign the dotted line, and start my new house build that I've been talking about for a year now.

Andrea Liebross: Awesome. Love it. Anyone else over here want to share? We're good? Okay. All right, get your pencils out. Ready for the next piece of the last part of part three? Okay, here we go. You are going to make a list of 25 things that you are willing to suck at or fail this year.

If you think about your goal, what are 25 things that you could try? You might say, "Andrea, I can think of three things, but I don't know about 25." I want you to really push yourself. What else? What else?

This can be outrageous. This can be impossible. This can be, “How would I ever do that?” We don't need to know the how. What are 25 things that you are willing and ready to fail at?

I remember I did this with some clients a while back and I remember Cynde telling me, like you did this, right? It was hard. It was hard. But what it did, I think, I'm going to speak for you, is it really made her think outside the box, It really made her think outside the box.

In planning today, I had this sort of pipe dream. I'm like, “I should have an emcee for this thing. I've done this before and I've been up here all day by myself and it is not fun. So I am going to have someone up here with me and it's going to be a lot more fun.”

So then as Annie and I were talking about it, I'm like, “Can you help me with this?” She's like, “Yes, I can.” That's how this happened. But maybe it wasn't going to happen, but I was willing to give it a whirl. Maybe we weren't going to find someone, but I was willing to give it a whirl. What are 25 things that you are willing to give a whirl at?

Nicole Pence Becker: Like try to cook one meal a week.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, that could be it for real. That really could be it. I mean, I don't know who you're talking about. It's so true. It can be that. It can be, “Try to travel for 60 days,” and only get to 54. I mean, it can be “Make a million dollars.” It can be “Have a team of 200 people.”

Nicole Pence Becker: Try to make a palette.

Andrea Liebross: It can be “Delegate all the things that I really hate doing, find someone to help me with it because someone's probably going to love it.” It can be “Always stay in the green with money.” You can always have a reserve fund of money. It can be that.

Nicole Pence Becker: It could be read and understand the entire page of your PnL.

Andrea Liebross: Yes. That is a good thing. I would like that. Yeah.

Nicole Pence Becker: It could be “Try to go live on Instagram.”

Andrea Liebross: It could be. I mean, for me, one of my things is TikTok. I am not on TikTok, but I probably should be. Do you think I should be? I don't know. Okay, let's just take a little informal survey.

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah, I actually do.

Andrea Liebross: Let's take a little informal survey. I'm going to give you four choices. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Nicole Pence Becker: Favorite platform you're asking?

Andrea Liebross: Yes, I don't want to call it favorite, but when you open your phone and you're like, “Okay, I'm going to waste some time and scroll on social media.”

Nicole Pence Becker: Or most that you use for discovering?

Andrea Liebross: Okay, let's do two questions though. Let's do two different questions. What do you go to first? If you are a TikTok go to first person, raise your hand. Kate and Holly. Okay, two people. If you are on Instagram go to first person. A lot. If you are on Facebook go to first person. A little less. Okay, LinkedIn go to first person. Aileen is really good at LinkedIn, so you need to follow her on LinkedIn. I'm just going to put a little plug-in for that. If you want to learn how to use LinkedIn, just follow her and you're going to have lots of ideas.

Okay, but now to Nicole's point, if you're going to try to discover something, learn something, or figure something out, does this change? Okay, so who would go to TikTok to find out something? Colleen, you're like my daughter. You guys would go to TikTok to figure something out. She learns all these recipes and sends me things. Okay, perfect.

Nicole Pence Becker: I think the algorithm on that one serves it up more strategically.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Who goes to Instagram to learn things?

Nicole Pence Becker: Still same, same for me.

Andrea Liebross: Who goes to Pinterest? Okay, perfect. The artist, see? Look at this, three of you. Who goes to Facebook? Who goes to LinkedIn? You do? Okay. Who goes to YouTube? Okay, YouTube. Okay. These are good.

Nicole Pence Becker: Your podcasts are on YouTube?

Andrea Liebross: They are. Yeah, my podcasts are on YouTube. I don't know if anyone's really watching them, but they are there.

Nicole Pence Becker: They're vlogs.

Andrea Liebross: They are vlogs. Okay. How's this 25 fail going?

Nicole Pence Becker: You're a vlogger.

Andrea Liebross: I'm a vlogger. Yeah. Who's got one fail they want to share? Jesse Hillock, what is one fail? I'm going to call her out. What's the top one? What's the first thing you wrote? Second one. Okay, YouTube channel. Okay, perfect. Anyone else? Over here. One fail. Tell me, tell me. Come on. Am I going to have to start to call on? Melanie, what is one fail? I know you just knew it. Right. But that is a tricky business.

Nicole Pence Becker: She said learning the Amazon backend.

Andrea Liebross: To put your book up on it? Okay. I love it. Okay. Back row back there. They're very quiet. Heather.

Heather: Dance on stage.

Andrea Liebross: Let's do it. I love it. I should have brought my dance party button. I have a little “This could be easy.” I got the money one. I have a dance one. Okay. Anyone else? Lindsay, what's yours?

Lindsay: People will say no.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, I like that. She's willing to have people say no. Anyone else want to share? Tell me yours. Here comes Nicole with the microphone.

Participant 5: I want to take voice lessons, so I've been taking them since March. My coach, voice coach, asked me to be in the recital. I told her that I'm not recital material.

Andrea Liebross: I think you're perfect for recital material.

Participant 5: Then she kept going on and on. I had to shut her up. I said, “I'll think about it.” Then she said, “That's all I wanted to hear.” I think I might do it.

Andrea Liebross: I think he should do it.

Participant 5: My husband already told me he's not coming. He already told me that I'll be on the stage, we have this floating stage, he said, “Then you want to do that.” He said, “You can't do that to me.”

Andrea Liebross: I think you can do whatever you want.

Participant 5: Anyway, I'm just saying I’m going to do it.

Andrea Liebross: Do it. Heather's going to dance and you're going to sing.

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah, there we go. We're developing a small off-Broadway production today.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah. We are. What's another fail? Who's got one? This table over here.

Nicole Pence Becker: Relationships with builders?

Andrea Liebross: Build relationships with builders. Okay, you're willing to fail at it. You could suck at it, but you could be great at it. Here's another thing I want to throw out there. Are you giving equal air time to the possibility that you could be amazing at this? Or it could be easy.

Melanie's going to master that at Amazon about, she gives it half a day, she got it. Are you giving that equal air time? Equal airtime because it could happen. Our brains don't want to give it equal airtime. Our brains go to all the things that could go wrong. Like Stephanie was telling about her. She launched a subscription service.

“Do they really want a subscription service? We've never done this before. I don't know.” But she's willing to give it a whirl. Let's see. It might be amazing. It's going to be amazing. It will be amazing. Perfect. Perfect. Who wants to fail at something over here?

Michelle: I’d like to host quarterly social events for my followers and communities.

Andrea Liebross: I like that.

Michelle: I did one last year and it was pretty successful, I think, for the first one. Doing it quarterly would just gain momentum.

Andrea Liebross: Okay.

Nicole Pence Becker: I love it.

Andrea Liebross: Gain some momentum. Cynde’s laughing back there, so I can only imagine what this is going to be.

Nicole Pence Becker: Cynde, what does it involve in your head? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I mean like live or inflatable.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah. Well, we get both.

Cynde: Terri inspired this earlier. I want to meet the owner of the Indianapolis Colts because he loves whales and he could sponsor me to come to all the schools in Indianapolis.

Nicole Pence Becker: I love that.

Andrea Liebross: Nicole, can you help her with that?

Nicole Pence Becker: Well, I could, but currently he's not doing too well.

Andrea Liebross: I know. He's not doing too well.

Nicole Pence Becker: Maybe when he improves.

Andrea Liebross: Yes. Yes, his condition is not stable.

Nicole Pence Becker: A little suspect over there. But I like the idea. Because if you find that person who's passionate about the same thing you are, they're going to help push you like a train car and pull and push and I love that.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah. All right. What about our whale friends back there? Come on, ladies, tell me one thing you're going to fail at.

Participant 6: Well, I recently moved to a new city and don't know many people. My husband and I, the previous city we lived in, we hosted a professional development book club and so I would like to do that this year to create a community of like-minded, growth-minded people.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, so good.

Nicole Pence Becker: You will not fail at that.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, we got another one at the end.

Nicole Pence Becker: Love it.

Participant 7: I’m with The Whalemobile, but I also got my captain's license, but I haven't had the confidence to actually do anything with it.

Andrea Liebross: Like captain of a boat, by the way.

Participant 7: Yes, right, captain of a boat, whale watching boat.

Andrea Liebross: She can captain of a whale watch boat. So if anyone's ever been on a whale watch.

Participant 7: I have the license to do it, but I don't have as much experience, so just actually taking that step to do it.

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Let's do it. I love it. Invite us all. Anyone else over here? No? We're good? Okay. Did anyone get to 25?

Nicole Pence Becker: You got to 20? Wow.

Andrea Liebross: Alright, I'm going to zip my lips seriously for two minutes, and we're going to have silence.

Nicole Pence Becker: Really?

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, I know. It's hard to believe. I really want you to think about these three WILD goals in 25 things. Okay. Do you want me to put that list of questions back up? Okay. Let's see. How do I do that? There we go. Okay. It's going to be like a time where, do, do, do. That kind of thing. Here we go. I'm even going to use my phone to make it official.

Three seconds, two seconds, one second. How'd it go? Did you get further to 20, closer to 25? Yes? Okay. All right. Here's how I want to close out this session here for the next few minutes. I want you to think about sticking with it.

So you're going to leave here today like, “Oh, my God. Yes, we talked about a lot of things, but this sounds like a lot. This sounds like a lot.” How are you going to stick with it? because I hear a lot of people say, "I just know myself that I have all the best of intentions of drinking half my body weight in water every day,” and I bought some new water bottles on January 1st that I even have the little, you guys have probably seen them on calls, little motivational things like you're halfway there, keep going. It's two o'clock. But do you stick with it?

If you weren't to stick with it, what is going to get in the way? We talked about a belief plan, and we talked about a life plan, and we're talking about an action plan, but I want you to think about right now what potentially could get in the way of you not sticking with it? What could get in the way?

It can be people. It can be money. It can be that shiny object that sounds like a great idea. It can be kids. It can be husbands, spouses, partners, or your mom. My mom always is telling me, “You're working really hard. After today, I hope you're really going to take next week off.”

This is what she keeps telling me. I'm like, “Okay, thanks, Mom. Thanks for the boost of confidence there. No, I'm not taking next week off, but thanks.” What's going to get in the way? Go back to those most valuable resources. Well, we mentioned money, time, but now Stacie has taught us that we have all the time we need.

Money, we can figure that out. Brain power. Let's talk about that one a little bit, and people. Okay, brain power. What happens if you run out of ideas? Do you ever run out of ideas sometimes?

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah, and I was going to say like what if one of the reasons you can't get that goal is just because capacity, which is like brain power, maybe I'm not skilled enough to understand how to do it or how to fix it. You come up with the idea or you know where you want to go, but you can't exactly know it because you're not capable. It's not your skill set.

Andrea Liebross: Right. It's not your skill set, you've never experienced it before. It feels impossible. What happens when things get in the way? I think when that happens, when the brain power piece gets in the way, you really do have to tap into your other resources. I always ask, "Time, money, brain power, what's the most valuable resource?"

Nicole Pence Becker: Time.

Andrea Liebross: Time, I'm going to argue with you. It is not time.

Nicole Pence Becker: Well, that's what we all say.

Andrea Liebross: That's what we say.

Nicole Pence Becker: Because we're busy.

Andrea Liebross: Right. Brain power is your most valuable resource because you can use that to “create time.” You can use that to create more money. You can actually use that to create more brain power by using someone else's brain or investing in your own brain.

Think about that. What's going to get in your way? What do you think is going to get in your way? Who has an obstacle that they're thinking about that maybe I haven't mentioned?

Feelings are going to get in the way, yes. Okay, but we're all smart enough to know that we can change our feelings. Did you know that you could be excited about something right now even though it hasn't happened? You can access any feeling you want right now. They are all available to you today.

Sometimes, because we’re humans, we say, “Well, when this happens, then I'll feel so much better.” This happens a lot with money. When I hit this goal money-wise, when I hit this number of employees, when I hit this client number, or when we have this many jobs, then it'll make everything better. The stress will go away, I'll just feel so much better.

I always say, "How are you going to feel when that happens?" Relieved, sometimes people say relieved. I'm going to feel at ease, I'm going to be calm, I'll gain some confidence. You can feel calm and confident right now.

Imagine if you did feel confident, what would you be able to do today? If you felt confident right now that you're the person that has 20 clients this year, you're going to go after it. You don't have to wait until the 20 clients come.

I want you to make a list of possible obstacles that are going to get in the way of you not sticking to it. What's on that list? What is on the list? I mean, it could be like husbands or partners not “supporting” you, whatever that really means because it means a lot of things and it looks like a lot of things.

It could be someone just questioning you. What's going to get in the way? When you're turning your vision into action, what's going to get in the way? I was recently looking through some of my content and Emily is going to kill me, but here she is this is a quote from Emily, our amazing photographer.

I just stole this graphic, it was already created, but I wanted to highlight, and I didn't, because I didn't spend the time to go back into Canva, my new favorite friend, look at that last sentence. Maybe, most importantly, I've started to actually believe that I am worthy of having my own goals, dreams, and desires, like no one can get in the way. Like no one can get in the way.

We did, I don't know, a year and a half ago. It was in September, I think, September of 2023, nope, 2022, we did a version of this Vision to Action Intensive, and this is what came out of it. She had this actionable plan with steps.

Now we just redid it like last week, kind of round two and all these other things came up. She had all these other different ideas or the same versions of the same thing but flushed out more. It's getting clearer and clearer and clearer. So what's going to get in your way?

I picked on people that were here, there's Sherry, okay, a lot of times what gets in the way is confidence or lack thereof. She had on here, and I should have highlighted it, “I had a lot more confidence.” She got energized and excited when she put them on paper. Now she has new things to get excited about.

What's getting in your way? I really want you to think about that and how you're going to shift that vision into action. How you're going to do that, how you're going to take the time to do that?

I also want to go back to what that trust at the beginning, when I said TRUST and the secure support thing, I want you to ask yourself, "Who's your support? What is your support? Where is that support coming from? Where is it coming from?

What would that look like if I had different support than I already have? Because you all have some support right now. But what would be different if I had a different support network of people that I could connect with, relate to, ask questions? I like to say your own personal board of directors. What would that look like?

That sheet on your table again on the other side of the, there's one side that's about Vision to Action Intensive, the other side is about ongoing coaching support, if that's something you are interested in.

Here's what we're going to do. Before we break, what are some obstacles? Share with me some obstacles. Let's get three obstacles up here. What's coming up? Colleen, what's coming up? What's an obstacle?

[inaudible]

Nicole Pence Becker: That's a good one.

Andrea Liebross: Yep. We're going to get the microphone over there. She's going to tell us again.

Nicole Pence Becker: You've got some doubters. Is that what you said? Haters, doubters. Taylor Swift calls them haters.

Colleen: I just said I have really big goals for myself and I have a lot of people in my community or sphere that think that they're too big and that I should shoot a little bit smaller.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, I disagree.

Colleen: I do too.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, all right, who else? Stephanie, what's going to get in your way? She's back there behind, calling right there. I'm picking on her.

Nicole Pence Becker: Hi, Stephanie.

Stephanie: Poor time management, so really pouring into the time management piece and making my time spin better for me.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, time, does anyone have that as an obstacle? Okay, we're going to figure that out. Anyone else? Obstacle. Your children's needs. Okay, Sherry's children are now ages?

Sherry: 16 and 17.

Andrea Liebross: They can make their own peanut butter and jelly, but I know it's not as simple as that. Yeah, all the stuff.

Nicole Pence Becker: They're changing.

Andrea Liebross: They're changing. They're evolving. Yeah, okay. Oh, look at this obstacle, hands going up.

Nicole Pence Becker: I love it.

Andrea Liebross: Tell me, tell me.

Nicole Teal: Foot traffic, clients, people coming in. Like I've built something pretty, but now I need people to come by and hire me.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, let's think about this in a slightly different way. Okay, can you literally control that?

Nicole Pence Becker: The actual foot traffic? Like people walking.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, people walking in. Can we really control how many exact people walk in? We cannot. Thinking of that as an obstacle is doing yourself a little bit of a disservice because yes, you need people, but I want you to think about things that are in your own control.

You could say Sherry's kids are out of her control, but not really. She can decide how much she wants to engage with them, help them, do whatever she wants to do with them.

Colleen's like, okay, other people are saying things, but really that's just getting in Colleen's head. That's what's getting in the way, not the other people per se. What's in your head about the foot traffic that's getting in the way? “I won't have enough.” That thought is getting in the way. You see what I mean? That's something that you can control, you can manage, and you can overcome. You can manage your thoughts. We honestly can't really manage how many people walk in the door.

Nicole Pence Becker: You can motivate them to come through tactics.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Did everybody see where I'm going with that? Okay, yes, Stacie, tell us.

Stacie: I sometimes experience a lack of motivation or follow-through. I feel like, you know how people say, "Well, motivate yourself by thinking of a way that you could reward yourself." I feel like I reward myself every day. So that's not a motivator for me.

Andrea Liebross: I want you to think about how do you want to feel?

Stacie: Well, I want to feel like I'm successful and do follow through on my commitments, but I feel like the commitments that I don't follow through on are the ones for me. I think if I have commitments to others, I follow through on them, but the ones for myself, I tend to [inaudible].

Andrea Liebross: Okay, so you want to feel committed to yourself and what you want to do. So you've got to have a thought that's going to support and trigger that feeling. Like, “I am amazing, worthy. I am capable, let's do this. I'm done being just interested in doing it, I'm doing it.” We can control that one too. Imagine this, we can control all these obstacles. So intriguing. It's so good.

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah, like I am worthy of me prioritizing me.

Andrea Liebross: Yes, yes.

Nicole Pence Becker: Me, we prioritize other things, but prioritize yourself. Kate had something.

Kate: Yeah, so for one of my goals, I really would like to have a brand partnership with a product I use all the time in my design. So one obstacle I'm thinking about is how it would feel if they said no.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, if they're like, “So sad, too bad.”

Kate: Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, so that's the willing to suck at it thing. Being willing to go after it.

Kate: Yeah. To say I'm here for it.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, and so what's the worst thing that can happen if they say no?

Kate: You go to the next.

Andrea Liebross: A feeling.

Kate: Right.

Andrea Liebross: Go to the next thing.

Nicole Pence Becker: They often say just not right now. We had a client who is an interior design firm and one of the reasons she brought us on because she wanted to bring a collaboration that was a good goal but she couldn't get it if she didn't grow her social media. It's fun, and guess what? Now she's getting them from [inaudible] and all these other places. But they said not yet, and now they're saying, yeah.

Kate: Yeah, it's time.

Andrea Liebross: Super interesting, yeah. Just a feeling. Then from that, you can take some different actions. If they said no, what do I need to do? What do I need to do? Other things come of that that could be great. She's realizing other things she can do. Yeah. All right, who else has an obstacle?

Participant 8: It's balancing the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom forever so now I want to go back to work but trying to balance the concept of I know you say that it's not either/or, it needs to be an and, but the concept of going from being the stay-at-home mom who's always accessible, who's still dealing with the kids as I'm speaking here, and separating the life of trying to be the working person, and just trying to make that an and thing.

Nicole Pence Becker: Integrating.

Participant 8: Right. I love that word integrating with Stacie. But no, that's like my big obstacle because I don't want to give up. I've loved this time of life with my kids and I don't want to, I know you keep saying to me it's going to be fine. But I don't want to lose out on any of my time. I know it's this world of scarcity and it's not. So I had this wonderful time with the kids, but I also want to grow my business.

Andrea Liebross: So that's an and. How can we do both? It's also shifting a little bit of your identity. I'm someone who has an amazing business and is available and present for my kids. That's the challenge, right?

Participant 8: Oh, it's all mindset.

Andrea Liebross: There you go. But you can do it. That's changing, that's managing your mind. It's all managing your mind. Jill, what's getting in the way besides snow?

Jill: This may go along with foot traffic, but I suffer with chronic pain and it often gets the best of me without me doing anything other than just being in that moment. For me, making sure that I prioritize myself which is very difficult when you have kids, parents, and all that stuff. The obstacle is just chronic pain, trying to work through that.

Andrea Liebross: You can do it. Well, you’ve already done it. You've had bouts of success with that. Yeah, that's good. All right, over here, and then we'll have a snack because we're all very hungry.

Nicole Pence Becker: Yeah, very starving.

Participant 9: Right, yeah. I think this one's a little different. I have a repeating pattern of getting really excited and leaning into growth and having all the confidence and moving forward, and then one person says something or something happens that gets under my skin, and then all I think about is “I wish I was just a barista at Starbucks and can just unplug and go home at the end of the day.”

Andrea Liebross: Yes, yes. Don't ask me why, but when my kids were really little, I was like, “I could just be the male person. I just go to work, I sort the mail, I put it in the mailboxes, and then I go home, it would be all so easy.”

Nicole Pence Becker: I was actually going to say something like that, there was an obstacle, sometimes, like this has happened in the past to me, and I don't think we've used this phrase yet today, but sometimes, it's not even that the haters are going to hate, it's like, you're letting people live rent-free in your mind.

I always joke with the boys, they fight with the girls at school, and then they come home, and that's all they can talk about. We always say, "Oh, that little girl is living rent-free in your mind." But then you realize like sometimes that happens to me. I'll see somebody else's, whether it's a success or somebody else's perception or I hear what they say about something and then I just can't get it out. That rent-free occupancy is a bad thing. You have to get rid of it.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, and it's taking your power away.

Nicole Pence Becker: 100%.

Andrea Liebross: You're becoming the victim of one person's comment. It's ridiculous when you think of it that way. But that's a good one, that's a good one. Kaylin's got an obstacle she wants to share with us.

Kaylin: They go hand in hand, so one being my brain power as far as not my specialty, but how to approach community and marketing basically to grow, but also the capacity for doing that because that's effort. You have to be able to put forth effort, be able to create material and things along those lines. There's, I mean, time, but more like what is my capability mentally to handle all of these things? Not so much like the minutes of it.

Andrea Liebross: I want to think of like, what's your capacity?

Kaylin: Yes.

Andrea Liebross: Right, what's your capacity? How do we expand our capacity?

Kaylin: Support.

Andrea Liebross: Support. I think a lot of times when we have that capacity thing, that's true, capacity, but it's also those decisions are taking up so much space that you're not making, they're limiting your capacity even more. It's like the meter's going down even more. All right anyone else over here? No? We're good?

Nicole Pence Becker: I had one thought I wanted to add.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, tell us.

Nicole Pence Becker: I remember just, again, starting business and thinking through and I remember being asked, “Well, what's your superpower?” I remember my response and it's still if I write it somewhere, I know it's written somewhere, but it's like, “Not taking yourself too seriously,” which goes along with everything you're saying about it's okay to fail or I'm not scared to fail. That will be a learning lesson in itself.

If you don't take yourself too seriously, no one individual is going to offend you, no one's comment about you having a too lofty goal isn't going to bother you. Just not taking yourself so seriously that if you miss some minute of your plan, it doesn't all crumble.

Andrea Liebross: No, it does not. It goes back to, “Am I having fun or am I taking myself too seriously?”

Nicole Pence Becker: 100%. Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, this is going to be fun.

Nicole Pence Becker: You'll be stressed.

Andrea Liebross: This is simple, doable, and fun. That's one of my favorites. Simple, doable, and fun.