by Shawn Fink | Sep 25, 2022 | Recent
Imagine feeling fully supported in your business in a way where you don’t have to do everything by yourself or make every decision on your own. Imagine having a strategy in place that feels like you are able to do what you love and work in your zone of genius a majority of the time.
That is the ideal.
That’s what you should all be aspiring toward.
But, we also know that women business owners are less likely to be selected for loans, for venture capital investments, and for being chosen as federal contractors.
And that means women business owners are often operating with less cash flow on hand.
The result?
Bootstrapping.
There are a lot of benefits to bootstrapping, especially in the startup phase.
I know because that’s how I started my first 6-figure business for sure. I still remember spending a whole Saturday moving my wordpress blog to its own host and being terrified I was going to break things. I think I did break things actually, which ultimately cost more not just all that time on a family day but also the money to fix it.
Over time, it becomes clear that while bootstrapping can save you money but it costs you valuable time that you could be putting toward income generating tasks and activities — things that are likely much more in your zone of genius than setting up a shopping cart page on your website.
Let’s face it, as solopreneurs we wear a lot of hats. Most of us equally the finance department as we are the marketing and sale departments. We’re often doing customer service AND IT work in a single day.
But let’s take some time right now to think about what bootstrapping really is …
It’s a time suck, yes.
But mostly it’s an energy zapper.
When you are busy saying a prayer on a task that isn’t your zone of genius — or even your expertise — you are cobbling your business together with duct tape.
If you are ready to start taking yourself and your business more seriously, you’re going to have to change your Bootstrapping Mindset.
Listen to this episode now.
HIGHLIGHTS AND GEMS FROM THIS EPISODE
- The first hurdle to moving away from Bootstrapping Fallout and mindset is dealing with your own scarcity mindset.
- AS long as you remain unsure and unwilling to truly invest — time, money and resources — into your business, there’s always some level of … UNCERTAINTY.
- When you are burned out or stressed over details that aren’t in your zone of genius you don’t have the energy you need to make future focused decisions that will help you actually build your business empire.
- What is one way you are bootstrapping or winging it right now? Where do you have duct tape and prayers holding your business together?
- Try creating a Zone of Genius Grid, where you list all the tasks you do in your business and ranking them by how much you love them and how skilled you are to do them. Specific directions in the podcast itself.
by Shawn Fink | Sep 11, 2022 | Recent
Ready to go all in on your business?
The first step is to stop treating it like a hobby or a side hustle.
The truth is that sometimes we kind of fall into a rut, or we become really stagnant in our business.
And we start doing the same old, same old, where maybe you don’t even know what to do to get things moving in your business and your sales and your marketing.
So I thought I would get really business minded in any way that I get business minded — by talking about courage and the Brave Yes, and getting business brave.
Because it’s all necessary. All necessary, if you want to grow, pivot, or uplevel in your current business.
Are you ready to start taking yourself and your business more seriously?
Are you ready for that? Are you all in?
That’s the question that I have for you today. And, what does it look like for you to be all in and start taking your business more seriously.
**Get your FREE Weekly Financial Wellbeing Checklist now: Download and start using immediately to feel safe, secure and calm while tending to your financial life and needs. DOWNLOAD HERE
That’s really what we’re going to be talking about in this week’s podcast episode.
I really want to get into what what it looks like to take your business more seriously and the 6 signs you’re ready to start taking your business more seriously.
But I’m going to start with some caveats — and then I’m going to move into the 6 signs to look for right now to detect what you should put your energy into in your business — and yourself.
Ready to Get Serious? 6 Signs You’re Ready to Go All In on Your Dream Business
LISTEN NOW
HIGHLIGHTS
- What is the Fresh Start Effect?
- 3 Caveats to consider if you’re wanting to take yourself and your business more seriously
- Why bother taking YOURSELF more seriously in all of this?
- What does it mean to say I’M ALL IN in your business?
- How to lean into your own personal expansion to take yourself and your work more seriously?
If you wish to have the transcription for this episode — please contact me and we’ll end it over to you — no problem. 
by Shawn Fink | Aug 31, 2022 | Recent
Do you feel as if you are traveling through the dark valley of irrelevance some days as you try to build an audience for your work?
Several years ago, I quickly grew a Facebook page to 35K followers.
Those days of growing fast and reaching thousands of new fans in a single day are no longer a given.
If you want to stand out and make a bigger impact with your brand, you must do things differently.
First, you must recognize that any feelings of not enough is going to impact how you show up and take up space. Recognizing and being fully aware of your own enoughness thieves will be necessary growing your online audience in a saturated market.
In this saturated and noisy market, it’s hard to stand out and attract new fans but it’s not impossible.
You just need to focus on a few mental shifts and some powerful business practices.
Here are 5 Ways to Stand Out More Boldly and Make a Bigger Impact with Your Brand:
HIGHLIGHTS
In this saturated and noisy market, it’s hard to stand out and attract new fans but it’s not impossible.
You just need to focus on a few mental shifts and some powerful business practices.
1. **CARVE OUT A WILDLY UNIQUE MESSAGE** — If you are repeating more of what people already know you will not stand out. To find your unique core message, look at your expertise, passions and positioning in the market. **_You are what makes the difference._**
2. **OWN YOUR WEIRD** — What sets you apart? Being authentic and owning your strengths and superpowers is a gift. When you know, like and trust YOURSELF, you can begin to take up space as you are. **Your true nature is the gift you’ve been seeking.**
3. **TAKE CREATIVE RISKS** — Staying safe and taking the same old same old action week after week is not going to grow your audience or influence people. In my coaching work, we identify the Brave Yes you can take to become known for your brilliance. **_Your creativity is a strength. Use it.
4. BE CONSISTENT — It’s hard to want to stay with any marketing plan when it’s met with crickets but the truth is that people just don’t have the energy to respond or connect due to information overload. That doesn’t mean the right message isn’t landing. Show up consistently and you’ll find that lurkers are going to start paying attention.
5. LET GO OF EGO — Being a creator and sharing your message isn’t about you — at least it shouldn’t be. It’s about who you are trying to serve. When you let go of your ego and all the strings attached to it, you’ll create for the sake of creating. You’ll market for the sake of marketing. It’s not about you so stop making it about you.
by Shawn Fink | Aug 15, 2022 | Recent
Do you ever wonder what the next risk is going to be for you in your business? Are you ever curious if you are doing enough?
Today, I’m sharing 10 of my own courageous risks and the stories behind them from my first decade in entrepreneurship.
Each risk, some big and some small, was worth it — and each one had their own level of scary attached to them.
Being brave in business is essential. We know that to stand out, and to make a bigger impact we have to take risks and we have to do things that feel hard.
And, while I am not likely to say feel the fear and do it anyway, I do believe that as women entrepreneurs we have to keep pushing ourselves to leave our comfort zones — safely and gently.
Not only do I share what each of these 10 brave business moves were, but I also tell the story behind each one. Some of the stories are hilarious. Some are not so funny at all.
Either way, I hope by modeling my own #BusinessBrave moves you get inspired to start taking your own risks in business.
Here we go!
10 Brave Business Moves I’ve Made in 10 Years of Entrepreneurship
Listen now.
SHORT AND SWEET VERSION — BUT WITHOUT THE NUANCES AND DETAILS
- Started before I was ready
- Took imperfect action
- Got a coach
- Wrote and published a book — actually two of them —which launched my biz
- Becoming an S-Corp
- Started a membership community
- Hosting weekend retreats
- Not having a plan
- Pivoting my business — and then changing it all together.
- Self-trust — doing things my way instead of copying others.
- Trusting in my Unconventional ideas
by Shawn Fink | Jul 21, 2022 | Brave Yes Mindset, Recent
Joy is important and necessary for PEOPLE LIKE US.
People like us who are meaning makers, conscious, feminist, justice-oriented know that we don’t want a capitalist business model. We don’t want to run our business as usual.
We want more YESES.
Because fuck it.
Like is short.
In my last episode, I talked about things you can do to add joy into your business day.
But, the joy stuff doesn’t have to stop there.
You can operationalize joy.
You can make it a part of your mission, your business practices.
You can bake joy into your marketing plan, your sales strategy.
If your marketing tactics make you feel ick, you need a joy infusion!
If you feel resistance to a certain way of doing business that you’ve learned from someone else, that is a red flag that that system isn’t working for you.
Create your own system that is centered around what works for you, what feels good. It’s easy to think there are rules in business — that’s just because we’ve been conditioned by capitalism to operate by a certain set of workplace and business rules.
We can reject any and all of that if it doesn’t feel good.
Listen to this episode here … or read the highlights below.
Here are some ways to operationalize joy
- How you choose and find your most aligned clients — if your sales process zaps your joy, it needs to change.
- How you market and share your wisdom — if your marketing tactics and strategies zap your joy — they need to change.
- How and when you serve your clients — if delivery and follow through is zapping your energy, something needs to change.
- If you are all work and no play, where does joy fit in? Your daily structure and weekly routines need to change.
- If your vision bores you to tears, we can work on that.
- If your creative practices are non-existent — we can work on that.
- If you are too busy doing it all, it’s time to hire. If your team is sucking the energy out of you, we can make some changes there as well.
- How you come up with new offers or products, even email can be a joy stealer.
We can even operationalize joy on the hard days.
Hard Days in the business, hard weeks hard months.
You know, Joy is one of those most beautiful free things that doesn’t take a lot of effort.
That doesn’t take anything from us. It’s just it is always accessible. The question is, do you have the capacity and the clarity to know that that’s what you need right now.
When we operationalize joy, it means we’re really taking ourselves and our work more seriously — not lesss. It’s not just an afterthought. It’s not just a side, little side hustle, like from time to time like that we do just because it’s not a hobby. Joy is an important, positive emotion that we need to feel. Without joy, we’re not going to feel hope. So we need the joy to be infused to be to be baked in at every at every turn for us, for our team, for our customers and our clients. And then ultimately for you know, the community that we serve. So if you’re leading with joy that is going to spread like wildfire, it is a joy is contagious.
And I’ll end with this story. I was walking in the city recently, and just walking down the street, and suddenly we passed a woman.
And her whole face just bloomed and blossomed into the biggest smile.
Just at the sight of us. I was walking with my daughter.
And I of course smile back, you know, but I was so I was so mesmerized by that instant where her joy at seeing us strangers that she’s never seen before.
What it did for me and so that, that joy that I’m talking about that spreads, that happens in your business to it happens in in you and it happens in your business and it happens among your team members.
If you’re feeling the joy, and you’re baking the joy in then your team is going to start to feel the joy and your customers and your clients are going to feel the joy rather than just sterile business as usual.
You can have fun.
When you operationalize joy, you’re going to have more fun. And when you’re having fun, you’re going to stick with it longer and you’re going to work harder and you’re going to feel like you can accomplish anything.
So I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear how you are going to operate, operationalize joy, how you’re going to bake it into your business, how you’re going to bake it into your life and it’s your work day.
by Shawn Fink | Jul 11, 2022 | Brave Yes Mindset, Recent, Spiritual Practice for Entrepreneurs
So many entrepreneurs come to me feeling like there is more for them that they have more to give, but their capacity is maxed out and they can’t figure out what their next step is, what their Brave Yes is going to be or what that next bold move is going to be.
They want to shake up their business model or shake up their income or their sales, but often as part of the capacity building that we need to do in order to make big moves, or even to make decisions about big moves, we need to help them find their joy again.
Business can be a joy zapper.
Joy stealers are all abound in entrepreneurial life.
Some of the common complaints I hear from my clients who are in this place is they say,
- I’m bored with my business
- I’m burned out
- I don’t get excited about anything anymore.
- I don’t have time for joy in my life or my business.
- I’m too busy slogging through the daily grind.
- My business takes every ounce of my energy.
- There is nothing is left for me creatively.
- I’ve outgrown my business. And I don’t know what to do next. But I’m too trapped in the day to day to figure it out.
Even if what you’re doing is something you’re not passionate about — and this speaks to the passion paradigm right now, right because Everybody wants to start a business and thinks they will be happier.
Should you follow your passion, or should you do something more practical?
And maybe maybe you’re doing something that you’re passionate about maybe or not, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter doesn’t matter.
Joy is still available to you to everyone.
And it must be included and baked in for people like us.
For people like us, it is very important to prioritize and operationalize joy.
Listen to this episode now.
BITS OF WISDOM FROM THIS EPISODE
- Doing business as usual is where boring and unhappiness reigns.
- Life is short and we went into business not just for flexibility and independence but for creative freedom. To do business our way. To make our own rules. And I’m all about helping my clients make their own rules.
- I’m calling in soul led creators and entrepreneurs who want their cake AND eat it, too.
- everything I know about being a creative a creator, and an entrepreneur, which I’ve been doing for 15 years, is that when my passion is 100%, my joy follows. And when my joy leads, business thrives.
- Tiny Changes to Make Your Business Feel 10 Times More Joyful
- When when you’re trapped in the land of bitter and sour or when you are slogging through doing the boring things that you are not interested in doing. Expansion doesn’t happen in safe zones. And so yes, choosing joy in your business is a brave Yes.
- Here’s three changes to make. So that you feel 10 times more joyful in your business …
- ONE: the first way, first change that you can make in your business to feel more joyful, one, release the heavy stuff that isn’t working for you. And in this case, I would recommend doing a business cleanse, this is where you stop doing everything that doesn’t feel like joy, everything. And if you can’t let it go, and that is a sign that there is something that needs to change. If there’s still stuff that you have to slog through and do, it feels heavy and hard, and you’re very resistant to doing it, but you have to do it, there’s a sign, there is a red flag there that there needs to be a change in your business and your business model.
- TWO: reassess your priorities and recommit to the projects and aligned clients that bring you the most joy or contentment. When you focus on impact and joy, everything that doesn’t meet that criteria has to go and so when you are adding back into your business and you’re deciding what projects you want to do, what clients you want to serve what’s offers you want to put out into the world.
- THREE: Focus on your next brave Yes, as the founder of your business, focusing on your possibilities is a great way to boost your energy and your joy. And you know, truthfully, like, if you can prioritize your next brave, yes, either discovering it or following through on it. You’re gonna feel more joy. You’re gonna feel more joy. You just start. And again, brave. Yes, is about the Yes. There’s lots of things we need to do in business that are brave. But they’re not all brave, yeses. Some of them are just brave. Some of those are brave sucks, right? Like, you’ve got to suck it up and do it. But a lot of things can also be a brave Yes, where we’re just feeling good, joyful. Energy is stretching us in a good way. And we are excited about it.
