You know those awful dreams where you’re desperately trying to run away from someone or something and you can’t get away? You feel like your feet are stuck in blocks of cement. And when you try to scream for help, all that comes out is air.
I’ve had that same kind of dream more times than I would like to admit. Regardless of the scenario, the theme is the same: I can’t get away because I’m not in control.
Sometimes we can feel like that in real life too. You want to get ahead in your business. But no matter what you do, you just can’t take it to the next level. Or maybe it’s your relationship. You used to laugh and play and go on dates. But not anymore. Or maybe you feel like you’ve lost a piece of yourself, and you can’t figure out why you just don’t have the same gusto or energy you used to have.
Related: Perseverance in Your Business: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up
Feeling stuck is hard. But you know what? This is not a bad dream where you can’t run away or scream for help. This is real life, and you are more in control than you realize.
With a few small changes, you can regain momentum and get unstuck. Today, I want to share five practical steps you can take to get back to pursuing your goals.
We talk about your why all the time at Business Boutique. Knowing it will answer questions like:
I love that these questions can apply to any area of your life—parenting, goal-setting, your marriage, your business, etc. Wherever you’re feeling stuck, remind yourself why this thing or person or work is a gift from God.
When you go back to your original motivation, you return to a perspective you probably lost along the way—when you got busy, tired and stuck. Let your why reignite the fire within you.
The very meaning of the word stuck means a lack of movement. But it’s a lot easier to stay moving once you get moving. That’s why your only objective in this step is to take a baby step toward some kind of physical activity.
For some, that might be just getting out of bed and putting on clean clothes. For others, it’s putting on makeup or going for a walk. Don’t think about all the things you need to do yet; focus on the smallest step you can take to get moving. It doesn’t have to be directly related to your end goal either. Even just going for a run can you give you the energy you need to get back to work.
A long to-do list is overwhelming. When you look at all the work that needs to get done, it’s easy to believe you can’t accomplish all of it. Instead, I want you to pick the most urgent task and focus on completing just that one thing.
Checking off the first activity from your list will give you a great sense of satisfaction. It’s a quick win, and it’s progress. And any progress is positive.
We have a tendency to make our problems bigger with the words we use. Confession: I’m the queen of this. If I’m a little overwhelmed, I magnify the issue by talking about it a lot.
Related: Is It Fear, or Wisdom?
If you only think about how overwhelmed you are and how stuck you feel, then that’s exactly where you’re going to stay. You fan the flame when you talk about it day in and day out. That’s why Step 4 is to change your attitude and change your words.
I love how Brené Brown puts it: “Talk to yourself like you would someone you love.”
The power of prayer is real. If God cares about every dream in your heart, don’t you think He cares that you’re feeling stuck? He’s a way-maker. He makes a way when there seems to be no other way. If you’ve never experienced this, start now. I want to encourage you to pray about the big things and the small things and everything in between.
Related: Inviting Faith Into Your Business
You might be feeling stuck right now, and we all do in different seasons of life and business. But that’s not where you have to stay. Remind yourself of your why, get moving, focus on one thing at a time, change what you say, and pray. I’m confident that God will get you through this.
I am so excited to introduce y’all to Jordan Lee Dooley. She’s a creative entrepreneur, author, speaker, coach and the host of The SHE Podcast. Jordan is an accidental entrepreneur. In college, her boyfriend at the time (now husband!) encouraged her to find a creative outlet. She loved hand lettering, so she started selling mugs on Etsy.
It grew so quickly that she had to recruit the help of her sorority sisters to package and ship her products. Her Etsy store expanded to include a personal blog and social media accounts where she would write and share stories of the women in her life. People loved it. That’s when Jordan realized she was running more than just a mug shop. Today, SoulScripts is a lifestyle shop and movement of women supporting other women.
On this episode, Jordan and I talk about:
I’ve noticed something while working with women of all ages and stages of business: We have a lot of different ideas about what success looks like.
Years ago, when I was doing research for Business Boutique, I talked to some women who just wanted to make a couple extra hundred dollars a month to help pay for their kid’s sports. Others wanted to run a seven-figure business, grow a team, and open multiple locations.
Here is what is so beautiful: The heart behind both of those dreams, and everything in between, is what really matters. Because it’s not your top-line or bottom-line growth or how many team members you have that’s important. It’s whether you’re happy and feel successful in your dream.
If you want to make a little extra money for soccer or a trip to Disneyland, that’s valid and worthy and you should chase that dream. If you want your company to be a national brand and have multiple locations, that’s also valid and worthy. Both of those dreams are important because they’re yours.
Related: Shake Off Your Shame
Don’t look to others to define success. Just make money doing what you love.
So, how do you define success? Write it down. It might change in the future, so just focus on your version of success right now. In my research, I found that as women achieved their version of success, their dreams and goals got bigger. As their confidence grew, their dreams grew.
You have the right—in fact, you have the responsibility—to chase your version of success. So, what’s that going to be?
On this segment of #AskChristyWright, we talk about the pros and cons of launching a course versus a subscription membership site. If you have a question for me, call my toll-free number 844-944-1074 for a chance to be featured on the show.
1:27 Five Steps to Help You Get Unstuck
16:48 Persevering When You’re Stuck with Jordan Lee Dooley
42:58 #AskChristyWright
45:48 Challenge: Live Your Version of Success
Business Boutique Conference
The Business Boutique Conference is coming back to Nashville Oct. 24–26. If you want to learn how to grow your business and chase your dream, you don’t want to miss this event. To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT.
Check out our friends at DesignCrowd. If you’re looking for design work for your business, anything from a logo – to business cards – to your website, DesignCrowd is offering you, my Business Boutique listeners, a special offer to save up to $100 when you start your next project. Simply enter the discount code “BB” when posting a project on DesignCrowd. Or visit DesignCrowd.com/BB.
If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com.
New podcast episodes are available every other week.
My team thinks I’m never in the office. And, if we’re being honest, they have a point. Between travel, speaking engagements, video shoots and off-site writing days, I just don’t spend a lot of time at my desk.
I remember one particular week when I was with my team all day every day because we were launching a new product. They gave me so much flak those five days. They went on and on about how I was never in the office and how much more fun it was when I did come around.
So I decided the following Monday, when I normally wouldn’t be in the office, to surprise and delight my team with a box of warm donuts. I thought it was the greatest idea ever. I imagined myself bursting through the doors, while everyone cheered for this special treat. I mean, I really built this whole thing up in my head.
As luck would have it, no one was there when I arrived. Not a single person. I was so disappointed. It turns out, I chose a time when every single person on my team was either in a meeting or working in another building. I had planned this surprise poorly.
Even though the donuts were still great later on when everyone finally showed up, I was disappointed that my team hadn’t been there for the grand entrance. The effect just wasn’t the same.
This story reminds me of what it often looks like when we launch something new like a product, service or business. We come up with a great idea and have high expectations for what will happen when we share it with the world. And then we launch and no one shows up. It flops and we don’t understand why.
Launches are important, so we have to get them right. Whether you’re introducing a new product line, announcing an upcoming conference, or offering a new service, there are things you must do to have a successful launch—but there’s also a lot of room to be creative. That’s because launching is both a science and an art.
If you want to create a better launch experience, one where people actually show up and buy, you’ll want to incorporate three key elements.
Sixty percent of sales occur after the fourth interaction with a potential customer.(1) It’s because people buy from those they know, like and trust. That’s why if you’re going to launch anything, you need existing relationships to launch to. Otherwise, you’ll be launching to no one.
Don’t get intimidated if you don’t have any customers yet. Utilize your existing relationships to get started. Announce it to your Facebook friends, send an email to all your contacts, and ask your family, friends and church community if they would help you spread the word.
A launch is an event. And just like every event, it must happen on a certain date. The last thing you want to do is drag out a launch over a long period of time because then there’s no urgency for your customer to take action. Choose a date that people can put on their calendars, plan around, and get excited about.
When you land on a date for your launch, consider what else is going on in your business and the world in that season. You want to make sure it’s a good time for your customers to buy and you won’t be competing with another event.
Research shows that when we have time to anticipate something, we actually enjoy it more when it occurs. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Half the fun of a vacation is counting down the days.
This is why anticipation around your launch is critical to its success. Once you’ve picked a date, start creating buzz. Remember, it’s not just a date. It’s an event! People should be daydreaming about the release of your product or service like they fantasize about their upcoming vacation.
At Business Boutique, we do this every year when we open enrollment for the Academy. We create new videos, write about the opening in our blog, and post about it on Instagram. We’re likely talking about it everywhere you turn. And when the day finally arrives, we make it a huge celebration! This is all intentional, and it works.
Let’s recap: Whatever you’re launching, you can make it a huge success by launching to your existing relationships, choosing a date, and building anticipation.
My guest today is Stu McLaren! Stu is an expert at marketing online products, producing successful launches, and building membership sites. He’s also the host of the Marketing Your Business podcast. A lot of what we do at Business Boutique comes from what we learned from Stu, which is why I’m so excited to introduce you to him.
Stu started his career as a motivational speaker on high school and college campuses. But it wasn’t long before he realized there was a cap to the potential growth of his business. Schools could only afford so much, and he could only speak so many times. He dove into information marketing believing that if he could learn how to sell his expertise, he could to scale his business beyond schools. It was on this journey that he began helping companies build membership sites. And it’s when he quickly realized how much he enjoyed the launch portion of these programs.
On today’s episode, Stu and I talk about:
If you’ve ever attended a Business Boutique conference, you know one of the best moments of the entire weekend is when we all get up and dance to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” We always do this after my talk on fear. I love giving women this opportunity to shake off whatever it is that’s been holding them back from pursuing their dreams.
At the last conference, we wanted to change things up a bit. We thought it would be fun to hire a flash mob of professional dancers pretending to be attendees to come onstage during the song. The idea was that they would act uncomfortable and awkward and then at a certain point in the song, they would jump into a choreographed routine.
Originally, I wasn’t going to be a part of the flash mob. But at the last moment, the week before the event, I decided I wanted to go for it and learn the dance. It was a 30-second routine. I thought, Surely, I can do this.
Even though I practiced a lot, I was nervous. I felt totally great about speaking, teaching, interviewing, and putting on a great show. But I wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea of dancing onstage with a bunch of professionals. I planned to just hide in the back, where no one could focus on me.
Of course, that’s not how it worked out. The lead dancer called out sick the morning of rehearsal, so they decided to move me front and center. I was terrified. This was a three-day event, where I would be onstage 90% of the time. And yet this 30-second dance routine was more nerve-racking to me than anything else.
But when it finally happened, y’all, I felt like Beyoncé! It turned out to be one of the coolest parts of the entire event. The crowd erupted while we danced our hearts out.
I learned something that day: Sometimes the scariest things in life lead us to the best things. Oftentimes, what comes with the most risk can lead us to the greatest reward. I could have come up with a thousand different excuses. But I would have missed out on that incredible moment when I felt like a superstar.
I don’t know what that scary thing is for you. Maybe it’s that business you want to launch or saying yes to a volunteer opportunity. Whatever it is, I want to challenge you to go for it. Even though it’s scary, it might just turn out to be one of your favorite moments of all time.
On today’s segment, we talk about protecting your time while leaving space for new business opportunities. If you have a question for me, call my toll-free number 844-944-1074 for a chance to be featured on the show.
1:26 The Three Essentials of a Successful Launch
11:47 Pulling Off a Great Launch with Stu McLaren
35:19 #AskChristyWright
37:46 Challenge: Say Yes to the Scary Things
Business Boutique Conference
To save $10 on any Business Boutique Conference ticket, use the code BBWRIGHT.
Check out our friends at DesignCrowd. If you’re looking for design work for your business, anything from a logo – to business cards – to your website, DesignCrowd is offering you, my Business Boutique listeners, a special offer to save up to $100 when you start your next project. Simply enter the discount code “BB” when posting a project on DesignCrowd. Or visit DesignCrowd.com/BB.
If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com.
New podcast episodes are available every other week.
Picture this: You’re booked to speak on a college campus. The auditorium seats 1,000, but only three students show up. Yes, that’s 997 empty seats. And the icing on the cake? The three students who bothered to show up only did so for the extra credit.
Ouch.
Or how about this: You’re speaking at a conference for a bank, and even though there are enough seats for a few hundred people, only two show up. TWO! Are you cringing yet? To make matters worse, one of them talks—yes, talks, not texts—on her cell phone during your presentation. Oh, and that other attendee? He promptly falls asleep and snores the whole time.
No, I’m not describing my worst nightmares. Unfortunately, both of those things actually happened to me. I mean, I can’t make this stuff up!
And, y’all, I have stories like these for days from the years I spent speaking in high school cafeterias, family reunions, libraries and strip malls.
As an aspiring professional speaker like I was at the time, it would’ve been easy to get discouraged in those situations. And believe me, some days were harder than others. But really, it’s natural to feel disappointed when reality doesn’t measure up to your expectations—like when your business isn’t as big, impressive or successful as you thought it would be today.
Patience can be hard, right?
I get it because I’ve been there. But you know what? Even in that season when nobody showed up for my speeches, when every audience was tiny, I always brought the same level of passion and energy.
Related: Play to the Size of Your Heart
Why? Because I believe there is something sacred in every season we go through.
In other words, there is training in the trenches.
It’s during those hard seasons that something happens in you that can’t happen any other way. It’s like a rite of passage. So, instead of wishing away what you’re going through right now or focusing on what’s next, I encourage you to find contentment in the now.
I know that can be challenging when you’ve got big dreams. But I promise, it’s possible to be content with where you are today without giving up on your goals—it’s a both/and situation. That could look like super-serving the 200 Instagram followers you have today while working to turn that into 200,000. Or giving a heartfelt speech to five people while working on the marketing plan to grow your following. It’s both being content and striving for more.
Related: Dream Bigger for Your Business
I’ve told you this before, but it’s worth repeating. If you’re not faithful with what you have and where you are today, God can’t trust you with more. That’s exactly why—no matter if I’m speaking to two people or 2,000—I bring my all to every single speaking engagement.
Don’t despise your small beginnings, embrace them. Practicing contentment makes it much easier to hear what God is teaching you in each season. Here are three ways you can start doing that right now:
You have more power over your mind than you think. I know this is hard, especially when you’re scrolling Instagram and see that one of your girlfriends has a brand-new kitchen or is on a fancy vacation. Do you know what you’re doing in that moment? You’re comparing someone else’s highlight reel to your current reality. Stop doing that!
Comparison is a recipe for discouragement and resentment.
Related: The Benefits of Practicing Gratitude
When you look at what you already have, it is so much easier to have an attitude of gratitude. I love how 2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to take every thought captive to Christ. When you feel comparison creep in, kick those thoughts to the curb and focus on what you’re grateful for instead.
The truth is, you and I have more than most people. We live in the greatest country in the world with more money, resources and technology than we know what to do with. So stop focusing on what you wish you had. Focus on what you do have, and I bet you’ll find it difficult not to be content.
There is something so powerful about writing down things like what you’re grateful for or the goals you’re striving towards. It’s as if by writing them down, you’re elevating their importance so they can take on a life of their own.
That’s because when you put something down on paper, you remove it from the battlefield of your mind and bring it into the real world.
My guest today is Rachel Cruze! She’s the best-selling author of Love Your Life, Not Theirs and Smart Money Smart Kids. She’s also a speaker, host of The Rachel Cruze Show and one of my very best friends.
Rachel is passionate about helping people balance spending and saving money. But everything she teaches about money centers around contentment. That’s because mismanaging your finances is often a symptom of a deeper issue: discontentment.
In her work, she has found that content people are more likely to win with money because:
On today’s episode, we talk about:
I’m so excited to share that Rachel has just released a beautiful tool to help us all on this journey. Rachel’s Contentment Journal is a 90-day guided journal all about loving your life and focusing on who God created you to be. If you want to learn more and read the first 10 pages for free, text RC Journal to 33444 or click on the link in the Resources section below.
Time management is something I struggle with every single day—yes, even as a business coach! We all have 24 hours in a day, but somehow that never feels like enough. And social media has made this even harder. FOMO, anyone?
Related: Excuses That Steal Your Time
Thanks to FOMO, it’s so much harder to say no. We say yes to all the invitations because if we don’t, we’re afraid we’ll regret it when we see everything we missed out on all over Instagram.
But, guess what? Contentment is actually the cure for FOMO! When you’re content where you are—whether that’s at home in your pajamas on a Friday night or at the playground on a Sunday afternoon—you have the confidence to say no. You can easily turn down invitations without fear because you know you’ve said yes to what really matters to you.
Y’all, here’s the thing: We can’t do it all. Spending time trying to keep up with other people’s demands and expectations is just plain exhausting. I want you to not just find contentment in your heart, but also find contentment in how you manage your time. This week, I challenge you to spend your time only on what’s most important to you.
On today’s #AskChristyWright segment, we talk about how to raise your prices without losing your current customers. If you have a question for me, call my toll-free number 844-944-1074 for a chance to be featured on the show.
1:19 Intentional Living: Three Clues You’re Living in Your Purpose
11:49 How to Cultivate a Life of Purpose with Lara Casey
37:55 #AskChristyWright
42:45 Challenge: Share Your “Why” with Your Customers
The Contentment Journal by Rachel Cruze
Sometimes life feels insanely busy, disorganized, and downright unfulfilling. But God created you for more than that.
In a world full of distraction and comparison, Rachel Cruze's brand-new Contentment Journal is about loving YOUR life. This 90-day guided journal will take you from feeling busy, disorganized and unfulfilled to loving your life and focusing on who God created you to be.
There are 3 Sections of the Journal:
1. Gratitude
2. Humility
3. Contentment
This journal is the tool that will help you focus on what matters most to you. You can learn more and start reading the first 10 pages for free by texting RCJOURNAL to 33444 or by clicking on this link!
This 90-day guided journal will take you from feeling busy, disorganized and unfulfilled to loving your life and focusing on who God created you to be.
Check out our friends at DesignCrowd. If you’re looking for design work for your business, anything from a logo – to business cards – to your website, DesignCrowd is offering you, my Business Boutique listeners, a special offer to save up to $100 when you start your next project. Simply enter the discount code “BB” when posting a project on DesignCrowd. Or visit DesignCrowd.com/BB.
If you have a success story you would like to share with the Business Boutique community, email me at podcast@businessboutique.com.
New podcast episodes are available every other week.