Jeffrey: Welcome to the lightened, your launch podcast today, we're talking about whether or not your leadership ability is aligned with your vision. So stay tuned.

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Jeffrey: Welcome back to the show. My name is Jeffrey [inaudible] and today we're listening into another live by Katie Collins, and she's going to talk about our leadership level, where that is and how to address it and how to figure it out. Basically, you got to sit with it. You got to take some time and ask yourself, truly ask yourself. Am I being the leader that the vision I have for my business and my life is going to need, right? So let's take a listen to this again. This is great content pulled right from our Facebook group, our lightened, your launch Facebook group. If you're not already already a member, come on in, come join the party. We're having a great fun in there. We're always sharing tips and tricks. Um, just like this. So let's listen in.

Katie: Hey, Hey, Katie Collins Here wanting to talk to you today about your leadership and whether or not you even see yourself as the CEO in your business. So here's what comes up for people. Um, of course, because I'm a business coach and I talk about sales and strategy all day long, I hear people's problems. You know, the challenges that are coming up in their business and why they can't seem to move forward. And a lot, a lot of what I hear is based in the lack of leadership skills in the folks that I'm talking to. Now, this isn't meant to make anybody feel bad, but just to do like a self check, because you know how like we get to get away with a lot of things when we're on our own, right? When we have a job, then there's some accountability, accountability there. We have to, you know, let people know what we did in the meeting or submit, you know, whatever.

Katie: Um, we had to do by a certain date and time. And so you might not know about your self-leadership. If you've spent half of your career as an employee, and when, when you become an entrepreneur, it becomes this whole new journey, this whole new understanding of some self responsibility, right? And some leadership skills that if they don't come from you, my friend, they're not going to come at all. Because for most of you, you're solo preneurs. You're doing things on your own. And if you're lacking the leadership or you're not showing up as strongly in certain areas, it's never going to get better until you change. So let's talk about three keys that I like to just keep bringing up to folks around. What, like, what leadership are we talking about? And what does that look like to be the CEO of your business? Now, before I get started, some people, you know, don't like that word, or they think that belongs in corporate and it doesn't belong in your heart centered coaching business.

Katie: So I'm here to tell you, I don't care what word you use, but if leadership isn't crossing your mind as something that you must do and B, then you're missing the mark on how to successfully scale your business. All right. So we've got three, three things. I want to talk about the first idea here. Concept, if you will, is that you can never outperform your limiting beliefs. So I chatted with someone the other day and we were talking about just like the abundance mindset. And, you know, I can remember when I first got started, man, I was broke as a joke. Like I was coming out of being a schoolteacher. I was making under $50,000 a year. Um, my owned a home. I had a lot of debt, especially from building my business. I had invested in a company for my life coaching certification. That was just an astronomical amount of money for what I could afford at the time.

Katie: Um, and I just was swimming in debt and my mindset was that I was always going to be in debt. And that was something I learned as a kid because my mom would create a quarter out of a nickel somehow some way we always had enough money for what we needed, but there's just this understanding that even like selling our house, you know, 45 years later, we had remortgaged it so many times we still owed on it. Right. But that got us three kids through college and three kids through braces and three kids through Catholic school grades one through 12. Right. So that was important to them. And they were okay with that, but that was something that I kind of grew up believing and understanding as truth. And I had to unwind from that belief. And I remember someone saying that to me, probably about 2015.

Katie: Um, I remember distinctly where I was, I had just moved back to Denver and, um, again, I had just spent a lot of money moving. And so I was again like, oh, I don't have two nickels to rub together. Um, and I said something about 0% credit cards or whatever I had said. And he looked at me and he goes, I just want you to know it. Doesn't always have to be that way. And I remember thinking, yeah, yeah. So what is it me that keeps letting that recur so fast forward to today, I just paid off a $15,000 loan this week. That felt awesome. Um, and I just, I now, you know, I look at like, I've got credit card debt. That's from, you know, business-related stuff. And I look at it and go, ah, that's not even that bad. Like I'm going to pay that off definitely within this year.

Katie: No problem where that same amount would have crippled me years ago. So all that to say, if I had a limiting belief, which I did, right. That I was never going to make it, I was never gonna make it to six figures and I was never going to be out of debt. Then I was right. And my business success reflected that. But now that I'm in a flow, I have an abundance mindset and it's not something that I switched on one day, as much as something that I work on every day. So you need to be consistent in your mindset and making sure that you're catching those thoughts and beliefs that keep popping up that are keeping you kind of stuck wherever you are and whatever plateau you're on and understand that by upleveling your mindset, right? Understanding the limiting beliefs that you may have been born into or raised in a certain religion that made you feel that way.

Katie: Um, in fact, just the other day, we were talking about guilt around money and, you know, do I have the, my client was saying like she had this profound experience where she was, um, challenging herself. Do I have the opportunity or the willingness to accept 100% of the money being brought my way where, you know, in the spiritual world, there's a idea that you should tie 10% of everything you make, the minute you get it send 10% off. And I understand that because, you know, the concept is being willing to give and it's that kind of give and take, uh, reciprocal energy. But is there a point that you feel guilty if you don't tie like that there's some sort of guilt coming up in you and is that really what you need to be feeling? What would it be like to take it all and decide to donate to something later on, but that you don't have to do it instantaneously.

Katie: And it doesn't have to be 10% like let go of the rules and let your heart to side. Right. But that, it was like she had this limiting belief around being able to accept a hundred percent of the money that was coming her way. So that's one of the major leadership pieces here is recognizing, like, what are some of the thoughts that keep you stuck, right. Where you are and what do you need to be saying to yourself? Or what do the people, um, that you're looking at? What do they say to themselves that you're like, oh gosh, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. So, oh, thank you, Ashley. It is very, very exciting. Um, yeah, it's, it's been, you know, a long time coming and I just can see, you know, uh, all of my debt getting paid down, I have such a clear goal in mind for all of my debt getting paid off this year, that it's it's happening.

Katie: So again, that was not my mindset a few years ago. Okay. The second thing I want you to think about is that when you're feeling frustrated about anything going on, anything going on pretty much in your life or business, it's a sign. Frustration is a sign and you can put that frustration in one of three buckets. The first bucket is the, I need help bucket. I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be on a team with so many amazing people, because everyone's doing their, their genius and things that I didn't know how to do. Now. I've got Jeffrey in my corner doing it, doing it before I even ask him, right? Like there's so much automation and things that make my life easier than I didn't understand. I didn't even know existed. And the joke is when we problem solve something together as a team, the joke is always, well, if we're talking about Katie and her solo preneur business, this is how I would have band-aided you know, the problem.

Katie: And thankfully there are better ways to do things, but the concept and the ability to say, I need help is what is going to save you time and money. And the biggest mistake you make is to say, I'm not making enough money to pay for help, because if you look at what you would want to get paid per hour, and then you're looking at yourself, say, for example, you're building your website and you're pulling your hair out because something isn't working right. And you just keep clicking and dragging and it bounces back like, Nope. And then you click and drag again, bounces back. Nope. You don't know what you're doing. And then you feel frustrated. And you're like, I hate technology. I hate the website, blah. No, right. The bucket you want to put your frustration is, is the, I need help bucket who can help me with this?

Katie: Cause I don't know how to do this. Sometimes you know how to do it. And you just don't have time and I'm getting better and better at saying, Hey, team member, can you do this? Because it's not that I don't have the time. It's that I don't want to spend my time doing this. Right. So that's a, a new leadership thing for me is stop saying, I don't have time and start saying, I don't want to use my time for this and find someone else to do it. So that's the first bucket. When you're feeling frustrated, you can put your frustration in the, I need help bucket. And then you can finally say, okay, who can I hire for that? Or what do I need, what do I need to get that support? Okay. The second bucket, when you're feeling frustrated is the resistance bucket.

Katie: So you're feeling frustrated because I told you to do a video and for whatever reason, the technology isn't working, or you don't know what to say, or your lighting isn't very good or your internet broke, right? Some of these things are in your control. Some of them are not in your control, but all that is, is real resistance to doing the dang video. Right. And we create this energetic, uh, I don't want to freaking do it. And like, guys, I used to say the same thing, so I totally get it. But you have to, as a leader, acknowledge, I'm feel frustrated by making these videos. Is it that I need help? Not really. Is it that I'm resisting the task apps? A freaking lutely. Okay. Put it in that bucket. All right. So when you put your frustration in the resistance bucket, it's really the work you have to do on the inside to overcome that resistance.

Katie: I love writing it down. I don't necessarily need to keep a journal of all my resistance. I don't really want to read it once I've completed it. I, in fact, I like to shred it or burn it, like done. It's done. Right. But I'll kind of make a list of like, why am I resisting this? You know, like, oh, um, you know, I've got acne on my face or my freaking glasses reflect in the lighting or, um, you know, I know that my equipment isn't that good, or I feel shy that friends are going to see this video. And I only want, you know, potential clients and current clients to see the video. Once we identify like why we're resisting and what's coming up, we can usually solve it. We can usually just say, okay, who cares if my friend from high school sees it?

Katie: And actually what's the likelihood they're even going to watch the entire thing unlikely. So let's not worry about that. Right? Like we can't control that. Um, if I'm resisting because of the way I look or my glasses or whatever, and I did this, I found somebody that was doing videos who wore glasses and hers never reflected ever. And I emailed her. I was like, Hey there, this is how I know you. And you know, from one gal with glasses to another, how do you have your videos? A look so crisp and B not reflect on your glasses. And obviously she's been asked that a million times because she sent me, um, an Instagram like story link or something, or even a video, um, that showed me her setup. And I understood and learned about hard-wiring my laptop to the internet so that when I go live it's as crisp as possible.

Katie: And I learned about lighting and offsetting it. So I have a light over here instead of straight on, because if it were straight on, you would see these donut lights, right? The ring lights in my glasses. I also upgraded my glasses. So there's much less glare on these than my old ones. So, but those were things that I was resisting. It was bothering me. And I finally took the steps to ask the right questions, to fix whatever I was resisting so that I could move forward in the project because let's face it. You can't really be an online coach without video. These days, video is where it's at with SEO. It's where it's at with Facebook. Um, if you go live, you're going to get in front of way more people than if you upload a video that you did another time and way more visible than if you just do posts.

Katie: So, okay. So we had two buckets so far I'm frustrated, put it in bucket one, I need help or put it in bucket two, I'm resisting and figuring out why am I resisting and how to overcome it? Right. Okay. The third bucket is I'm overwhelmed or I'm tired. Now you may hear that and go, but Katie that's really the bucket of I need help. It probably is. It probably is. And a lot of times when we resist something, we do get very overwhelmed and very tired because we're expending energy on resistance and it's eaten up our spirit. So if your frustration is just simply related to, I don't mean to say just simply cause frustrations, frustration, and it sucks. But if you can put that in the third bucket, I'm overwhelmed and I'm tired, great. Put it there for today. And then you have to shut down your computer and really take a breath, take a pause.

Katie: I, and it's funny now that I'm doing this more, um, I see more and more people that I look up to and that I adore, um, and call, you know, whether they're colleagues or mentors that are saying the same thing. And I'm noticing that they're saying it because it's so clear to me how important it is. Right? But it's that essence of you have to rest in your body and your mind tell you that. So when you can't think straight, you're staring at a blank screen, you can't answer the questions. You can't think of what to say on the stupid video, blah, blah, blah. Right? If that's kind of the anger and the mean voices you have, um, it is just a clear sign. I need to take a breath, right. Or my friend Vanessa would always say, like, go out and ground yourself, right?

Katie: Like the whole concept of earthing, get your bare feet in the yard. And sometimes you guys, I just do that for 10 minutes. I'll go out and pick weeds. I love picking weeds just to, it's so gratifying for me, but I will take off my shoes and walk around the grass and just get my hands in the dirt and touch the earth and just re energize myself. I'll often feel my back hurt. And so just like bending over that will make me notice my back. And I'm like, oh gosh, okay. And I've got this Shakti mat, you know, with those little, um, they're not nubs, they're like freaking nails. Um, but anyway, look it up Shakti mat and you can lay on it and it's supposed to, you know, Enlive in you if you will. Um, and so sometimes I'll lay on that and sometimes I'm like, I need to take the rest of the day off.

Katie: I'm just done. So we've got to rest and relax and refresh. When we come back, we can look at that thing, that frustrating thing that we put in the bucket of I'm overwhelmed and tired. That prompted us to take a break. We come back and now we look at that thing again. And number one, can I just do it? Am I right? Like, can I just, maybe I'm gonna like pull one of my Oracle cards. I'm going to take out my crystal. I'm going to say a prayer. I'm going to light a candle. I'm gonna make a cup of tea and I'm just going to get it done. Sometimes that works for me, especially if I gave myself like the rest of the day off, I do feel much more refreshed or I'm realizing I'm either resisting it or I need help. And then I can make decisions based on that.

Katie: Okay. So that was key. Number two. So key number one, you cannot outperform your limiting beliefs. You've got to work on your mindset every single day. And then key number two was understanding that frustration is a sign and you can put it in one of three buckets and take care of it. So I don't want to go over that whole thing again, since I just talked about it, but I can see people are popping on. So I just want to catch you up. So key number three, to really being a leader in your business, showing up as that CEO is personal responsibility and integrity. When I first heard this term and sure I heard it, but it just went right over my head because I didn't have any personal responsibility or integrity when it probably first came across my awareness. But when I hired and I actually refer to her as my 30 K coach.

Katie: So, uh, when I hired her and she really brought this up because she was like telling me to do stuff and I was resisting, like for example, one thing I resisted in a big way was writing my email sequence. And we've got a couple of clients right now that are writing their email sequence and they're resisting it as well. So it's very normal to resist it. It's a very big project. It takes a lot of writing and thinking, and then you want to be fun with it too. You don't want to come off like, you know, just boring. So anyway, I wasn't getting it done. So she'd be like, where are you with this project? And like week after week, I'd be like, oh, well, you know, miss, like, excuse number one, number two, number three. And she just looked right at me, you know, through the camera, you know, Katie, like, you got to amp up your personal responsibility.

Katie: And that's why I paid her. So I really started to understand that every single time we say we're going to do something and then we don't do it. We are like removing a nut. Like, we're cut, we're taking it down a notch. Or if you picture like the spiral, right, you always want to be in this ever upward spiral. When you say you're going to do something, you don't do it. You moved yourself down the spiral. And let me just ask you, I mean, how do you think that feels like when we go down this downward spiral, right? It doesn't feel good. And so it's just interesting. We let ourselves off the hook and we think we're going to feel better, but actually we don't because what we just blew off actually has to get done. And now we're like delaying ourselves even more. So you've got to understand that if you can't trust you, your potential buyers will not trust you.

Katie: You don't realize just because they can't see you in your office blowing off your stuff, they can energetically feel it. And I hear it all the time. Like when I used to go to a lot of events, you know, pre COVID, I was big into events and people would make an offer. And sometimes it was on the sales team. And sometimes that's just, you know, there, um, but there's like something about the offer. The offer itself sounded great. The person that delivered it, their energy was off. And I would hear people say, I can't explain it. It's just this energetic thing. Like, it sounds amazing. But when I picture saying yes to this person, it just feels off. Well, a lot of times it's because probably that person is lacking self integrity and you can pick up on it. So really the personal responsibility and the, you know, integrity of getting stuff done.

Katie: When you say you're going to get it done, um, holding yourself accountable, right? Um, do what you say or express it as frustration, put it in one of your buckets, get it done. Who cares if you're the one getting it done or someone else is getting it done, get it done. That is the CEO of your business is somebody that says, Nope, it can't be skipped. I've had two people that are doing their email sequences right now. And they both wrote to me about, you know, different parts of it. Cause it it's time-consuming um, and they'll say, what do you think? Can I just skip that one? Nope. Get it done. Right. There's so much that we want to skip or make it easy. But as you know, like when you do a project from a to Z, everything they tell you to do, let's just like, okay, let me just give you this quick example.

Katie: Cause I'm looking at two big boxes out here. I've got to put together my new kitchen table and my new chairs. So let's think about furniture building. Now. We just want to get it done. Right. But if we skip steps two, three, and four, or we do them wrong in some way and we get to step five and we realize, oh shoot, I actually had to really do steps two, three, and four. I thought I could skip them. Then we go back and do steps two, three, and four. Or we did it wrong. Like I always think about like when you're putting shelves in a bookcase or something, and there's a rough edge that goes to the back of the bookcase. And then there's the front edge that goes to the front of the bookcase. And sometimes you don't notice, you put it in the wrong way.

Katie: And then you're looking at the bookcase and it's all done. And there's that rough edge you can tell. I put together a lot of furniture over the years. And once you mistake, make that mistake one time. You'll never make it again. Um, but that's just an example of you're going to do it, right. You're going to take apart. If you're, if you're like me, you're going to take the whole thing apart and fix that rough edge. It's not good enough. Right. And it's not about being a perfectionist. It's about doing it, right. Because the right way is the way that's going to get you the best results. So if you're looking at an email sequence and you're like, oh, can I just skip this one? I would ask yourself, why is this in here? Oh, it's in here. You know? So w one of them is, um, sharing content that you've done.

Katie: And so it's like, Hey, here's three videos that are my most popular or a three podcast episodes or whatever you want to do, but like three links to share your content so that when a new person downloads your free gift and they get this email sequence, they have a way to kind of binge watch you binge listened to you. So although that one's going to take a little bit of time. And for some people, they don't have the videos made. And for others they're made, but they're in a Facebook group which are public. Then you've got to figure out how can I download these and then put them up over here and then get these links. And sometimes you want to ask your friends to comment on those videos. So they don't look brand new and uncomment it on. Cause you're saying there is your most popular videos.

Katie: There's steps there. But if you skip that email, if you say, oh, I'm not going to send that one. Well, now you're preventing your new leads. An opportunity to learn from you in a binge watching way. And let me tell you that is the most flattering thing. I remember somebody messaging me and saying, oh, I'm binge watching Katie Collins videos. And I was like, oh, someone's watching them. Cause we always have this, this belief that no one's watching her stuff or no, one's reading our stuff, but I know that's not true. So it's just, that's an example of, you know, you kind of want to skip it. It's kind of a pain, but you know what, it's really, really worth it. And once that project is done, it's done. You don't have to do it again ever. Right? So this key around personal responsibility and integrity and doing what you say you're going to do and setting yourself up with deadlines that make sense deadlines that you can reach, not deadlines.

Katie: That sound amazing. Like maybe a pregnant woman would love to birth that baby sooner, but a healthy baby. Right. But it's like, Nope. The timeline that makes sense is nine months. Right? So whatever timeline makes sense for you, not for you to say, well, let's see, I've got to work 10 hours today, but then I'm going to put 14 more hours in tonight and get that done by tomorrow. No, you're not. You're going to be exhausted and you're going to get burnt out. Right. So come up with a timeline that makes sense for you, but then really stick with it. And you know, I always say like, yeah, things come up, right? I've got stuff that comes up with my mom. And sometimes I just gotta drop everything and handle whatever came up with my mom. I'm not going to make an email sequence more important than my mom right now that doesn't lack self integrity, things come up.

Katie: We've got family, we've got friends, we've got, you know, stuff happening, health stuff. It's just a matter of saying, when can you recommit to getting this done? Put it on your calendar recommit. So I send an email to our list. Every Thursday it's on my calendar. 9:00 AM send email. If it were not on my calendar, see with this live, I go live Thursdays in the afternoon. If it were not on my calendar, I would not do it because I forget about it. So it's making the commitment for the consistency and then putting it on your calendar. So again, that, that self-leadership right. Really that integrity. And then, you know, finally, if you're, you know, I blew off the lives a couple of weeks, I just couldn't manage it. And it was kind of that bucket of frustration. And I was like, I'm exhausted, I'm overwhelmed.

Katie: And it gave myself a break. Right. So that's okay. It's different than always pushing the deadline so that you're talking the same project six weeks later, because you've never put it on your calendar and you never got it done. Okay. So those are the three keys where you get to really step up and be the CEO of your business. Because if you're not stepping up your leadership skills, your sales are not going to increase. You've got to be a different person. And I went over that last week in a video, but being a different person so that you can get different results. And one of them is a more of a leader then you've been showing up so far. All right. So that's it for today. I hope you have an amazing day. Everyone. Thanks for being here. Appreciate you so much. Leave me a comment. If you've got a question or if you want to, um, you know, give me feedback or let me know kind of what landed for you the most today. And, uh, we'll see you here next week. Bye.

Jeffrey: So much for tuning in and checking out this episode. If you enjoyed this, please head over to, uh, anywhere you hear this podcast and give us a five star review and please leave a comment. We love reading the comments and, um, and come join our light in your launch. Facebook to get more content like this. If you want to go check out the show notes, head over to, uh, the launch squad, lab.com forward slash episode 35. Thanks a lot. We'll see you next time.

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