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Episode 62. Honest Thoughts About My Business + Business & Life Updates

I’ve been on some major 2022 New Year, New Me sparkly sort of vibes. When I think about the New Year, I am hyped and I picture it with sparkles, stars and glitter. Which is very unusual for me, since usually I’m more neutral about arbitrary timelines and days like this. 

But because I have major things going on. With so many things shifting and moving around me in the next few months, I think I’m just ready for some major up leveling in my business and that’s probably why I’m feeling sparkly when I think of 2022.

There’s no coherent theme or core message, but I have several thoughts I want to share, which aren’t exactly related to one another but they kinda are at the same time.

In This Episode:

How my business allowed me to go see my family and boyfriend who I have not seen for nearly two years

I’d love to share a few updates. It’s December 2021, which marks the first of seven months of me being full time in my business. I’ve applied for an unpaid leave of absence from my PhD between December to June 2022, and I’m planning to resume my PhD by July 2022. 

The reason I applied for unpaid leave is because I’ve honestly been having a hard time coping with not being able to see loved ones in Vancouver, Toronto, and Singapore. 

For example, my boyfriend and I didn’t see each other for 19 months, and he was finally able to visit me for 2 weeks in Hong Kong in September this year.

But I’m unable to visit my family overseas because the travel restrictions in Hong Kong are very strict and the quarantine for people returning from Canada is currently 21 days. And I only have 14 days of annual leave. I’ve checked with my department and they said that quarantine days count as part of my annual leave days. Since I only have 14 days of annual leave each year, I literally cannot even go anywhere because quarantine alone will take up all my leave days.

This has been extremely frustrating especially when I really want to see my grandparents and other family in Canada as they are not getting younger. My grandfather is 91, for example. But yes, I ultimately made the decision to take an unpaid leave of absence and basically put my entire degree and career on hold because family matters more to me, especially given the current situation.

Growing up being very achievement and external results oriented, I always thought that I’d always put my career first. However, especially in the past two years, since Covid happened, my priorities and viewpoints on life have changed drastically.

More than ever, I can see myself making short term and long term decisions with people in mind. Because of the pandemic and the silly rules set by the PhD program, and also the strict quarantine and travel restriction rules in Hong Kong, I’m now starting to reimagine what my future life, career and business will look like. Because now what matters most to me is how I can be there for people who matter most to me.

So I decided to take 7 months of unpaid leave. Honestly, if it wasn’t for my business, I don’t think I would have taken this leave. I feel extremely grateful and privileged to be saying this. 

Because I have spent the past few years building my business to where it is today, I feel secure and safe knowing that even if I literally put my career and monthly PhD stipend on hold, I’m still going to be able to sustain myself. No words can describe how much gratitude I feel towards the business and what I’ve created.

The truth is, since starting my business in 2019 and up till mid 2021, I always saw mostly the impact my business has created for others. But I haven’t quite fully appreciated what I’ve created for myself. 

I see how my clients have benefited from our coaching. I see them look at life, their business, and themselves differently. I see them sign clients and make money in their business. I see them actually enjoy their life, rest, travel, and have fun. I see all that.

I also see the value that my free content has brought to people. I know that I consistently give my best to my Instagram content, podcast content, and our free webinar. I trust that those who consume our content have found tremendous value from all these. I see that and I trust that this is the case.

However, I don’t think I’ve quite fully understood what my business has meant for me until October when I decided to apply for my unpaid leave of absence.

Up until October this year, I’ve seen my business create income and new opportunities for me. For example, I’ve literally signed clients and made money. That’s important, right? I’ve also seen myself being invited to speak on podcasts and virtual events. Those are pretty cool. But it never fully registered in me how this business can impact my life on a deep level.

The truth is, I recognize that not everyone has the privilege of taking an unpaid leave of absence from their careers, especially for 7 months.

When I realized that the only reason why I can easily and safely make this decision to pause my career and stop my “consistent stream of income” is because I’ve built a business that has literally created this option for me. My business actually created options for me. It created the option for me to go see loved ones who I haven’t seen for two years.

No words can describe how grateful and amazed I am at what we’ve created.

As I was outlining this post, a part of me was thinking if I told you these things, you’re gonna think that I’m bragging and seeking attention. Which is not my intention at all.

Whenever thoughts like these creep up and tell me not to talk about myself and how proud or grateful I am about the amazingness we’ve created in the business, I realize that I have a choice.

The first option is to not talk about it. Which is fine. Play it safe. No big deal.

But the other option is to share the possibility with my audience. To share what’s possible for you if you stay committed to building your business.

The keyword here is commit. I started my business in 2019, but it was not until 2021 this year when my business really got to the next level and created its first 10k months and new milestones such as hitting its first six figures. 

Also, as of two days ago, on December 6 2021, we officially created 100k USD in sales in 12 months alone. Between December 7 2020 to December 6 2021, we literally created 100k in sales.

Sharing my honest thoughts on my business success

I have a lot of thoughts about my business and about sharing these honest thoughts about my business success. A lot of us have been told throughout our lives that by talking about ourselves, we’re just seeking attention.

I know for sure I’ve gone through a lot of situations where people told me to stop saying this or doing that because it’s attention seeking. That includes things like people telling me to stop talking about my emotions because they felt like I was trying to get attention or sympathy.

That included people discouraging me to share about my achievements because that’s too much and not humble. And on top of that, it’s better not to share my wins because there’s probably someone else who did better.

I’m sure for many of you listening to this as well, you might have also gone through experiences before where people around you discouraged you from sharing your honest thoughts, opinions, experiences, or even wins.

It was the process of building my business that helped me challenge a lot of these deeply rooted beliefs. I had to coach myself on moving forward with this topic because I started thinking if people would think that I’m bragging too much.

But here’s what I realized through coaching myself. Sharing my honest thoughts, my honest wins and my honest experiences is of tremendous value to the people reading this, who want to know that this is possible for them too.

Because that’s how I got into the online coaching space in the first place. I literally stumbled on the world of coaching by accident, through Instagram, in late 2018, around the time I was dropping out of law school.

The coaches on Instagram showed me possibilities. They too had similar goals, ambitions and core values as me. I saw myself in them, and they showed me what was possible.

That awareness of what’s possible nudged me to try this online coaching and a few years later, this business has changed my life.

How getting coached has changed my life and hence changed my business

On an intellectual level, we all know that creating a coaching business and our free content can help people.

We’ve also seen first hand how our work, ideas, coaching, and everything else we do within our business can really make an impact and difference in this world.

I deeply believe that our work as coaches matters, because I’ve experienced getting coached and it has changed my life and hence my business. 

For example, I recently had someone ask me whether a particular strategy or course helped me in my business. I said, honestly, no. I cannot confidently and honestly tell you that there was a specific Instagram strategy or course, or program, or step-by-step marketing & sales blueprint that changed the trajectory of my business.

I’ve consumed a lot of information and strategy during the first two years of my business, but that didn’t really make a difference in my business results.

It wasn’t until September 2020 when I decided to work with my current coach, who I’m still working with to this day. We didn’t work on strategy. 98% of our coaching together was spent on my thoughts. My thoughts about myself, my business, my career and my life.

Once we started to unpack all of my fears, doubts, limiting beliefs, judgements, comparisons and all the things going on in my mind, it released me from feeling like I have to do things in my business a certain way.

Instead, it freed up my brain to be as creative and as honest as I wanted. That is how I started developing my own thought leadership, frameworks and intellectual property. I also started showing up more authentically, honestly, and powerfully than ever before.

When I continued showing up this way and using my own brain and committed to sharing only things that came from my brain, that is when I saw my business skyrocket to its first six figures by mid 2021. That was also how I created my first six figure year.

It wasn’t some Instagram course or marketing or launch strategy that created results in my business. I simply had to lean into my own thought leadership and started building my business around this and started being recognized for this.

But first, I had to get coached in order to clear up all the shizz inside my brain. 

Coaching has changed my life. I’ve seen how my coaching has done the same for my clients. 

I believe so much in coaching, both getting coached myself and coaching my clients. I really, really would not trade anything else in the world for what I do in my coaching business.

I think a lot about my clients. This past weekend, I spent hours thinking about every single person inside my current programs, and the four questions I asked myself for each person are:

1) What’s getting in the way of this client from reaching their next level or creating next level results in their business?

2) What thoughts are possibly getting in the way of their results?

3) What action items or strategy might they need to implement, or what might they need to stop doing?

4) Where can I, the coach, take more responsibility in terms of coaching the client on these things?

For every person, I have at least one full page of notes. So far, among the six clients I showed my notes to, they were amazed by the level of detail, honesty and accuracy. 

There’re still several clients who I haven’t had a call with yet, but among the six so far, by being extremely honest with each of them about why they are not yet at the next level, that paved the way for so many deep and incredible conversations in the past few days alone. There were awkward silences, there was laughter. There was awe. And there were even tears. 

For every single person, by being extremely honest about each of them and their businesses, this has set a new standard for each of my clients. I am now committed to holding each of them to this new standard, which I know they are fully capable of.

Likewise, I will take responsibility as the coach to coach them on the areas that are clearly holding them back, such as their thoughts, mindset, self concept and identity, as well as the strategy.

What to do if you might not be seeing the results you’re hoping for in your business

I know a lot of you might be building your own coaching businesses and some of you might not be seeing the results you’re hoping for. What I want to offer here are two things: 

1) First, be honest with yourself in terms of why you’re not getting results.

Even if you’re like I don’t know why I’m not getting results. I’m doing all the things! Answer the questions anyway. Try to answer the question as honestly as you can. 

If you really don’t think you can answer the question, I sincerely and strongly recommend finding a coach who can coach you to identify why you’re not getting the results you want, and work together to actually take your business to the next level. 

2) Even if you think you know why you’re not getting the results you want, get coached anyway. Strategy alone can only get you so far. Get coached.

It’s really hard for me to demonstrate the value of coaching simply by talking about it. The value of coaching, in my opinion, is best seen when you’re actually in a coaching container and after you’ve built rapport with the coach.

So, get coached!

When your brain brings up all the reasons why it’s not possible for you

Your brain is likely going to bring up all the reasons why it’s probably possible for Cheryl, but here are all the reasons why it’s not possible for you.

Whatever reason your brain gives you, I’m confident that that is not true.

In my first year of my business, my own brain was trying to tell me why I shouldn’t even bother with the business:

1) Cheryl, you’re 158 pounds and only 5’1. You’re clearly overweight and people on Instagram can see it. No one wants to work with you because you aren’t pretty or thin enough.

2) Cheryl, you have no business or marketing or sales experience and you have no client results as a coach. How are you possibly going to make this work?

3) Cheryl, you’re a law school drop out. Why the heck would anyone want to work with a quitter?

4) Cheryl, you had no friends growing up. You were always alone and loneliness has always been your biggest struggle throughout high school and university. Why would anyone online want to follow you or be your internet friend, let alone become a client?

5) Cheryl, you have no original ideas or cool stories to share. How are you supposed to stand out from all the other coaches online? 

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the thoughts my brain gave me, especially in the first year of my business.

Honestly, it didn’t get that much better in 2020, my second year, either.

But once I started getting coached on these business related thoughts and thoughts about myself as a person, my career, my relationships with others, and so on, that’s when it finally started to clear up space in my mind to actually think for myself for the first time ever.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t let any expectations from other people influence what I wanted to create. I focused on creating things I wanted to be known for and I created things that I deeply believe can be of value to others.

I started truly stepping into the role of a thought leader in my space. And that is when my business results started to shifting very quickly too. 

As you can see, every single coach who has “made it ” in their coaching business struggles deeply. They struggle with their own thoughts too.

It’s been 2.5 years since I started my business, I still struggle with my thoughts. I struggle with different thoughts now. But, I still struggle. Just like all of you reading this right now. 

Anyone who you might be admiring on instagram? They’re human beings too. We all struggle deeply. We all have limiting beliefs.

The reason why those who made it are where they are today, is because they were willing to be uncomfortable and challenge their own limiting beliefs. No matter how much their brain tries to tell them they can’t do it. Regardless, they continue to level up.

Even when their brain gives them all the reasons why it’s not possible for them, they choose to think different thoughts and continue believing in the possibility that they can do this.

On top of that, many coaches are also highly driven by impact and they’re willing to stay committed to their business because they deeply believe in their vision and the impact they’re meant to make in this world. 

Remain in possibility. Even if you think you’re not good enough. You’re not pretty or smart enough. You’re not successful enough.

Whatever reasons your brain gives you, be extremely critical of those thoughts and challenge your own brain. Because I’m very certain that there isn’t a single coach who did not struggle with these thoughts.

The reason they’re where they are today, is because they chose to not believe their own brain. I can confidently say that this was the case for myself and my own business. 

By choosing to not believe all the reasons my brain gave me as to why I’m not cut out to build a successful coaching business, I proved myself wrong.

I continued looking to others as examples of what’s possible, I worked really, really hard on my thoughts, and I continued to believe that the work I do in my business can change someone’s life, even if it’s just an Instagram post.

I stay committed to creating value and believing that I can help someone through my free content and my paid coaching programs.

Your business can change your life

You may not quite fully believe that your business can change your own life right now. For example, maybe you don’t believe you can create 5k 10k months or leave your 9-5. Here’s what I want you to work on first.

First, work on believing that your content, messages, stories, and everything you’re sharing publicly via your social media or content is of value. Work on the belief that what you have to say matters.

Work on the belief that you don’t have to model after other coaches in order to create “valuable content”. Work on creating your own unique thought leadership and believing that things inside your brain are of value.

When you can get your belief behind why you’re doing this in the first place and energetically back the content and messages you’re sharing, you show up differently.

You show up as someone who actually cares about the things they say. You stop being performative and trying to portray yourself as some successful coach you follow online. 

Instead, you show up as someone who genuinely believes that what they say and do can help someone.

Because for me, that is how I got my first few high ticket clients. I may not have the social proof, testimonials or experience. But I had full belief in my message and story and I believed deeply that with my skill sets, I can help someone.

I shared my story of being a law school drop out as honestly as possible. For example, I talked about my experience with building up my confidence to share these experiences and how I genuinely wanted to help others to start showing up online as well.

Even though I didn’t have the experience, client results or social proof back in 2019, I showed up as someone who truly believed in what I had to say. 

I believed I could help someone achieve what I promised inside my program at that time – to help people show up online confidently to share their work and their message. That is the energy I carried myself with, and that was how I signed my first few high ticket paying clients.

Second, stay committed. Even if results aren’t happening as quickly as you’d like. Stay committed.

My business was not as smooth sailing as other coaches, if I had to be honest, 2019 and 2020 was not a beautiful upwards curve that many other coaches may have had.

But if it wasn’t for what happened in 2019 and 2020, my business wouldn’t be here today and I wouldn’t be the coach I am today. 

That’s exactly what my focus for 2022 is: Committing to being an even better coach for my clients who coaches them to create quality and consistent results, client after client after client.

This involves a few things. First, I’m going to intentionally carve out thinking time very regularly to literally think about my clients, review our coaching calls, my session notes, and so on.

I really want the coach version of myself on December 31 2022 to be miles ahead of coach Cheryl on December 31 2021. I’m committed to my business, my clients and my people who see me as an example of what’s possible for them.

I wholeheartedly mean it when I say I love what I do in my coaching business. I also truly mean it when I say thank you to those who consume my free content and are part of my journey. Thank you for being here. 

I’m actually flying off to Singapore tomorrow and I’m also on my 7 month unpaid leave of absence. It feels really unreal. I can’t believe this is my life now. I cannot believe that I have created options for myself.

To have the option to choose to prioritize the people who matter most to me. To be able to financially support myself during these next 7 months. And be able to pay for my own wedding.

Oh my goodness, I never thought I’d be someone who is interested in flowers. But I’m legit spending a lot of money on flowers for our wedding venue and my boyfriend does not understand. But I’m paying for the flowers myself so it’s fine, he doesn’t have a say when it comes to the flowers haha!

A successful business is possible for you too

Wherever you might be in your business journey, whether you’re just starting out or maybe you’ve already signed clients consistently. Or maybe you’re frustrated because you’re not seeing the results you want.

Remember: In your business, success doesn’t have to happen linearly and it doesn’t have to happen in the arbitrary timeline you set for yourself. In fact, success can happen exponentially. Just as it did in 2021 for my business. 

And even though success in business can have the potential to happen quickly and exponentially, stay committed no matter how long it takes to get results in your business. 

Even if it takes a few years to really get things going, are you in for as long as it takes? Because that, too, was what happened for me. My first two years of business were kinda awkward and not consistent. 

My business has changed my life because I continue to remain in possibility. To believe that my work matters and I can help people. What I have to say is of value. I continue to work hard on challenging my brain and my thoughts. And my business changes the lives of my clients too.

Please continue to stay committed to creating amazingness in this world, remain in possibility, and go get coached. This business thing? It is possible for you too.

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