The Learner’s Dilemma: Balancing Education and Action for Business Success

Have you ever been stuck in the notorious ‘learning trap’ loop: the overwhelming need to seek answers externally, feeling as if you're on a never-ending treadmill of information consumption?

Tune in as we unravel the mystery of breaking free from this loop, finding balance, and propelling your business forward.

We delve into my personal journey of diversifying my business beyond coaching. Sparked by Ryan Daniel Moran's challenge; we explore the exciting world of physical products.

Check out the CEO Library and the CEO Audit Workbook mentioned in this episode. 

Get on the waitlist for the Biz Coach in a Box Oracle Deck.

Chapters

• 0:00 Getting Out of the Learning Trap
• 10:47 Balancing Expenses and Growth in Business
• 16:18 Balancing Learning and Action in Business

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever woke up in the morning not feeling it like you just don't want to do anything in your business, but you know you have to. It's like you have this Loop that you're going through is like I really need to do this, and then you start shaming yourself or you feel guilty. But then you distract yourself and you're like well, let me scroll on social media and let me look for some inspiration or a magic strategy Maybe a low ticket program or you can get some like quick wins and then you realize that you spend most of the day Just looking for answers outside of yourself. Well, if you ever experience any of those things you're getting stuck in more of a learning mode or a learning trap, and You're not allowing yourself to tap into your Intuition or your inner wisdom then this is the episode for you, because we're gonna be talking about how to get out of the learning trap and taking action and Feeling safe and certain to take that action that you've been putting off or just been, you know, questioning. So keep on listening.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Welcome to the Align a business woman podcast, where your inner goddess Activates your strategic CEO. This is the podcast for coaches, consultants and service providers looking for a simple way to grow their business. Each week, I share simple, actionable steps you can use to build a profitable business that is aligned to your energy, without having to cold DM strangers or follow outdated selling strategies. I'm here to help you tap into your natural talents and step into your power to show up confidently on social media and grow your business. Welcome back to another episode of the Align business woman podcast. Oh my gosh, I have some exciting news to share with you before we dive into today's episode, but let me kind of just go back and tell you Part of the reason not the entire story behind something that I'm launching soon, but let's go back to about this time last year I Was writing and designing the profitability and productivity planner and it just sparked so many ideas Of how I want to be able to create more Physical products to add to my offers, and so one of the things I thought about or Oracle cards, but I just wasn't sure, like how to position it. It was just an idea. I really didn't know Exactly what type of Oracle cards that I wanted. I have some like. I have a goddess deck that I absolutely love, and it's like I don't have the knowledge About all these goddesses to be able to create something like that. I don't have, you know, some of the just experience and some of the other types of information that these other decks that I have, you know, I just couldn't think of anything like that. I wanted to do that was similar to that, and I wanted something that's gonna be my own. I didn't want to do the typical thing. So I Kind of took on this challenge from Ryan Daniel Moran and he kind of like sparked that Desire again to add those tangible products.

Speaker 1: 3:15

And for the longest time I've told myself and I just the way my brain works. If you've worked with me one-on-one or you're in my world, then you know my brain works a little bit differently than other entrepreneurs. But I like to think about Forward thinking. I like to think about the bigger picture, the bigger impact, yes, and then I also like to be very strategic. I'm like, okay, well then, if that's the bigger thing, if that's the future, what do I have to do now? And then, how can I connect these different ways together and be really creative and strategic about getting them?

Speaker 1: 3:50

And so one of the things I've been thinking about is that, especially around this time when I just felt like the coaching Industry there is like it's like boiling and boiling and boiling, and I just saw so many people charging a crap ton of money for Programs that you won. You didn't get lifetime access to the replay, but they were just short amounts of time. Maybe you know two weeks, a masterclass for two thousand dollars, and I was really pissed off because I joined a program for two thousand two hundred and twenty two dollars and it was like six weeks and you did not get any replays. And so that was like on my mind, in addition to my product, my tangible products that I wanted to launch and Anyways, to kind of like bring this all together. I thought like how can I Be able to one, have Another because I don't believe in putting all your eggs in one basket but have another resource or another stream of income? That wasn't solely on the coaching industry, because again, I felt like it was bubbling, about to explode, something was about to happen or is about to happen.

Speaker 1: 5:02

And then, secondly, like I wanted to have that other income stream, but I also wanted to have an income stream where I could sell that, like I didn't have to constantly run it. So I wanted to be able to have something, a business that I could sell to someone later on. Well, that was in my awareness since last year Stumbled upon Ryan Moran's or Ryan Daniel Moran's book and I was like, oh my gosh. It's so funny because I was programming myself to think along the lines of what he was thinking. I mean he was. He teaches, like tangible products, to grow your business to scale to a million dollars, but then strategically setting it up where you can sell it.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I'm like that's exactly what I want to be able to do, because I know that doing coaching, consulting I am the only person really doing that that is not necessarily scalable, especially if I'm building a brand that's Vanessa and Miller, even if I bring in support coaches. I was like I need to. I would like to do something different because that's just the way I am. I like to diversify and, coming from the financial services background, you know like I'm not going to just put all my eggs in one basket. I'm not going to just have, like whole life insurance or, like you know, mutual funds only. Like I like to diversify and so I wanted to diversify my business, and so that is where a combination of that and the coaching business being extremely expensive and not always attainable for certain people, some people.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I decided to come up with my own Oracle cards called BizCoach in a Box, and the way that it's different is that, although you're, like you know most Oracle cards you kind of like, allow your intuition to choose a card for you. Well, this one is going to combine getting out of being in that learning trap with taking action. So these are action prompts for you to allow your intuition to guide you to pick one and then you take action right away. And there is a criteria for all the prompts that are on the cards. You know they're going to be something that you can do under 30 minutes. It's going to be something where you're at cause, like you don't have to like, depend or expect anyone to do anything for you. It's like you get to be in control of the action that you're taking and get to see results. And I also wanted to make sure that the action was going to serve you today and tomorrow so you can have that compound effect to be able to collapse time.

Speaker 1: 7:20

I'm super excited about it and it's come more and more into fruition because I was like okay, I got the idea of like hey, this is the type of Oracle card that I want to be able to have. In addition, I'm going to be adding other products, but I'll share those a little bit later. But I also sent the idea to my graphic designer. She came up with some beautiful designs for the cards. I found a manufacturer that is going to produce them for me. We've been in the talks, you know just kind of getting like the dimensions, and I'm so freaking excited. So I wanted to share that with you. And you know, if you've been looking at any of the offers that I do, you know, like the profitable CEO accelerator or even the CEO lab here in Houston. It just seems like I'm not ready for that right now. It's just not the right time and maybe I don't have the resources. Whatever it is that you might be thinking, I want you to be able to check out the Oracle cards when they do come, because that's just a way to be able to have your own coach just telling you what to do without paying the high ticket price. They're going to be starting at $27 for the box of cards and if you head over to the show notes, you can get on the wait list, because I'm only going to be offering 60 of them at first. So just kind of like, test them out, get some testimonials, you know, do all the things. So if you want to be one of the first people to get one of the 60, then head over to the show notes and then you can get on the wait list.

Speaker 1: 8:40

So let's dive into today's topic about getting stuck in that learning trap and never taking action, which makes you feel overwhelmed or starting to like mute your ability to tap into your intuition and then causes you to start searching outside of yourself for answers and just different strategies. But first let me tell you a couple of reasons why this kid stunt your growth and cause issues in your business, but also in your confidence. So when we are constantly searching for answers outside of ourselves and that might be in the form of downloading a lot of freebies or paying for a lot of low ticket offers, or maybe even paying for high level, high ticket coaching that you can't necessarily afford you start to develop the muscle of not trusting your intuition and not trusting your own wisdom, and so this causes your subconscious or causes your brain to second guess all the things that you're doing. So your logical mind goes into overload and you might have this like inner dialogue or get stuck in a thought loop pattern of like is this right for me? I don't know, maybe we should go do this, maybe we should try this, and you spend a lot of time, resources and money trying to learn all these other things that is right for someone else and not really allowing your intuition be like wait, this is good for us. And so you begin to have your logical mind go into overload and you're muting any kind of feelings or sensations or any emotions that you might be feeling in your body and then, like I mentioned before, it's like you use a lot of your resources so that's maybe your time, your money, your energy and instead of keeping that and being mindful of how you're directing that, you just give so much of those things to other things outside of yourself, and so you're not really building your business.

Speaker 1: 10:47

You probably are spending so much money on and it adds up. You know all these small ticket offers, so, whether they're courses or whatever, and that money could have been used for maybe a VA to. You know free up time for you, so you're not creating your graphics or you're not. You know editing your own podcasts or your own videos and all that stuff. So we think of it like, oh, $20 here, okay, that's okay. But then at the end of the month when you look at it, it's like holy crap, I spent $200, $300 on things that I totally forgot, that I even bought and I didn't even utilize them. I could have been spending that money on a VA to help me, right.

Speaker 1: 11:27

And this is why inside the Profitable CEO Accelerator, I have everyone put all of their expenses on a spreadsheet. We look at their offers, how much revenue those offers are bringing in, and then also we look at their expenses so they're fixed expenses and their variable expenses, so that we can look at their profit margin. And you know, if you are feeling like, oh my gosh, that is me, that's what I'm doing, I invite you to have a pattern, interrupt and kind of like, just I don't know, just kind of like, wait a minute, let me slow down before I get too excited and hop into this. Do I really need this? And also, in that spreadsheet that I have for the members of the Profitable CEO Accelerator, I have a tab in there for them to put it in their spreadsheet like, oh wait, let me put this offer or this resource that I want for my business. Let me put it in here and I'm going to keep tabs on it and I'm going to save towards that. Or I'm going to use this as a motivator, that I'm going to reward myself by doing X amount of sales or X amount of activities in my business and then I'm going to buy this. So they kind of let it simmer there and a lot of times they will realize, oh, wait, a minute, maybe I didn't need that, or it just gives them something to look forward to.

Speaker 1: 12:41

On an energetic level, what I've noticed is that, especially for me in the past, when I was buying so many things, I swear like I feel like 2020, 2021, I think everyone was buying a lot of just different resources a lot of programs, a lot of scripts, templates, all the things right A lot of digital products. What I noticed is that, energetically, it could weigh us down. Even if it's a digital asset that's taking up space on our computer, it's still in our minds that we bought that Like. We may not consciously remember that, but our subconscious is like oh, that's, it's tucked away back there, right, and so when you look at it from a metaphysical or spiritual perspective. It's almost symbolic that when you are consuming a lot of information, think of it as if you're consuming a lot of food. It's going to weigh you down. You might experience, you know, some weight gain. You might experience being sluggish because your mind is putting this information on you, like into your, your subconscious, and even though you're not like physically wearing it, it just can feel a little bit overwhelming because it's another decision that your brain has to make. You know to tuck this information away or to take action on this information, to make a decision on what you're going to, how you're going to use this information. So you know, to me those are the main reasons why we get stuck in how over consumption of information can stunt our growth in business. So how do we shift out of that? How can we shift out of balancing the learning as well as taking action?

Speaker 1: 14:31

If you've been hanging out with me for a while, then you know I'm big on setting goals, setting clear goals, and so I would first start with figuring out what exactly do you need to grow your business? Because if you know your specific goal, then you know like, okay, this is where I want to be. It's like driving out of town, going on a road trip. This is where I want to be. What are the resources I'm going to need to be able to get there? And then you almost like you write down a grocery list, right, and then you take inventory Well, this is what I have to get there. This is what I don't have, so let me go and buy these things. Instead of making you know right off the cuff decisions to buy something just because you're excited about it, you actually have a plan. You're like okay, I know that this is where I want to go, so let me make sure that I have only what I need and nothing that weighs me down or holds me back. One of the resources that you can get for free in the show notes that I also use inside the Profit Will CEO Accelerator is a CEO audit workbook, because it literally helps you blend logic and emotion. It helps you tap into your subconscious and channel your higher self to figure out okay, what do I really need in my business? Like, let me take inventory. If I were to ask my future self what do I need in this moment to get to the success that she's at now, then it's almost as if so much clarity and just so much wisdom cracks your mind open. So definitely check that out. It's in the show notes. It is the CEO audit workbook that is going to help you get clear on your goals and the resources that you need to reach your goals.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Now, if you're like me, I am a life learner. I have to learn. If I am not reading a book, if I'm not just perfecting or practicing self mastery, then I feel like I've lost a part of who I am. So, of course, I want to make sure that you understand I'm not saying stop learning or stop trying to perfect your skills, your entrepreneurial skills. I'm just saying allow yourself to balance learning and implementation. So, which leads me to the second one Like a structured schedule for yourself to learn. I like to make learning as part of my goddess day, where you've been listening to my podcast episodes.

Speaker 1: 16:59

You know about my balance work week, where we have a CEO day, a goddess day, and a doer day On my goddess days, when I get to learn and enjoy learning about either spiritual things or business things, whatever it is. That's on my list of books or programs or whatever, which, by the way, you can get access to the CEO library. It's a whole list of books that I've read in the past gosh year and a half that just really shifted my perspective on business strategies, you know, mindset, spirituality, all the things. So be sure to check that out. I think it is also in the show notes. If not, I'll make sure it's in there. So I like to have my goddess day, my time, where I guiltlessly and shamelessly spend time indulging in learning. So create a structure for that. And again, the balance work week is a great way to be able to structure both taking action, planning and learning.

Speaker 1: 17:54

The next thing I suggest is maybe even tallying or keeping track of how many hours you're logging into learning versus how many hours you're logging into taking action in your business. A lot of times, when you map out your business activities and you only focus on those things because you have set the boundaries, you set your priorities, then you're naturally going to fall into a great balance of learning and taking action. Do not be afraid to experiment and also release any judgment. If you do happen to spend one day or one week learning more than you are, you know, taking action, or vice versa, you know, allow yourself to get what it needs, but also make sure that you're checking in and you're not making excuses for not having the things that you want. Like I don't want you to say, oh well, I have to learn a little bit more. I don't want you to experience that imposter syndrome, like, well, I got into learning this and I got to get this certificate before I can do this.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Like, really call yourself out and maybe even have some kind of triggers or have an accountability Buddy. That's like wait a minute, you just bought another program. Like why do you need this? For what purpose? And see if there is any kind of limiting beliefs as you answer those things and ways to check, for limiting beliefs is going to be something like that. You want to avoid something you know. Like, well, I don't want to do this or I really need to do this If you're feeling any kind of mean or wanting to avoid a certain situation or certain feeling, and so share that with an accountability buddy so that you know you just kind of get out of that and you develop the habit of implementing and learning. You know, because when you are in that learning trap, you literally have developed an addiction to learning that sometimes you can't even you don't even realize what you're doing so.

Speaker 1: 19:45

All right, my love, I had to go pick up Oliver. That is all I have for you today, and I am going to take a tiny little break from the podcast. I usually try to take a break once a year and we'll come back with a new season, but I also want to come back with a new opening and some new theme music. So, all right, I'll catch you when I come back to another episode of the align business woman podcast. Make sure that you review and share the podcast, please, and then, if there's any resources that I mentioned that you really want to check out, then head over to the show notes. All right, catch you soon. Bye. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the align business woman podcast. I'm your host, vanessa Ann Miller, and I'm so excited to share some things with you. Head over to the show notes so you can grab your free gift and make sure to leave a review and join me inside the align business woman place with group until next week. I love.