B2B BONUS EPISODE: One Thing Entrepreneurs Don't Share with You

B2B is back for ANOTHER episode this week! 

In this one-on-one with Jada, we get honest about what an entrepreneur's journey looks like. But heads up, the path is not always linear. An entrepreneur's journey consists of many obstacles, factors, decisions - some good and some bad. But, an entrepreneur is not always going to tell you about every obstacle they faced along the way to starting their business. 

Join Jada as she cuts out the fluff and gets honest about what this path looks like.

How do you make the right decisions, if you don’t know where you are going? Work with me, and I will get your on the right path.
https://jadawillis.com/work-with-me/

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Transcript

0:00

I'm Jada Willis and this is the Back to Business podcast made for business owners, CEOs and high achievers that are ready to leave their BS excuses behind, get more out of life and see business growth like never before. Let's take the road less traveled and tackle the hard. Are you ready to get back to business. I'm excited about sharing this message with you because just due to the recent events in my life and some things that have happened and getting the inspiration from interviewing and my podcast guest the other day with my on Gordon, there were so many nuggets from that podcast. I do recommend that you check out the interview and the conversation with her, but at the same point in time, there was something that really resonated with me. And it's that entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs do not share certain things about the journey. Like we're really good. And I think society pushes all of us high achievers to share the outcome and performance, celebrate our wins, and even share it from a marketing perspective so that we can either gain more followers or clients or that sort of thing. What we don't talk about is everything we had to do, everything that we tried to get to the point of success. So my message is to keep trying. So even if you're passionate about something, but it's just not working yet, it's okay to keep trying and keep trying in new and different ways, different versions, get feedback from your audience, from your client group, from your friend group, whatever that thing is, it's okay to keep trying and for you to identify when is it something that is not worth your time and effort, what are you sacrificing for this thing, right? But really evaluate the fact that you see all these social media stories and you see folks popping up in regards to even weight loss success, right? And you see the before and after and you're like, oh my God, what did you do? Tell me. And we all think there's going to be some kind of magic bullet that they pressed go on a button and realizing that it wasn't just a straight line journey to all that weight loss success. It wasn't a straight line to building business success. It was, it was hard, there were sleepless nights, there were client calls, there was worry about team members and if you're going to have employees. There were de-escalating clients along the way. There were zero dollar bank account kind of days. There were so many, so many days. I'm feeling that right there were so many days moments that we don't share on social media It's just it's not our nature and it's not I know me personally. I know that I've seen Others that that cry, you know on social media and share Struggles and then I will share sometimes if something is a struggle for me But it's just not my nature because I am still trying to figure it out. I am still working on how do I make this work because I care about it so much or I care about it being a success. And to be honest, entrepreneurs love trying new things. Like I love the start of a new project or something new, a great idea that I wanna play out and work with. And that's a part of the entrepreneurial gift, the spirit that's a part of this journey. But at the same point in time, you got to keep trying. You got to figure it out. And in the conversation with my own Gordon, she said something like, dive into the mess. And it was a good refresher on, you're going to have problems. Like, come on. Everybody in life is going to have problems, but you as a business and an entrepreneur, this is some of the biggest, the biggest responsibility of a major journey. And there's going to be a lot of trying and learning, trying and quote unquote failing and figuring out what works. But we don't, we don't want to share that with each other. And maybe that's even a call to action for myself, it's a call to action to everyone else of, what are you not sharing with the world right now? Like what's not working? And maybe if you feel safe enough in your tribe and feel safe enough on one of your social media pages to say, hey, I've been working on this, this is the hurdle I'm having, this is the pushback I'm getting, what do you guys think? What's some feedback that you have for me or some advice? Now, I know you may want to discern on that feedback and be very specific about, you know, the platform you're doing that on because, you know, your customers could see that, your client group could see that. And I don't want there to be a loss of confidence in that way, but for those that really understand what it's like to be a CEO, be a business owner, be an entrepreneur. You know, it is a lot of trying to balance and figuring out what works at this point, may not work this next point, may not work this next month. And figuring out the balance of the strategy that you need to have. Constantly being very thoughtful and planful, and then also maintaining your flexibility and being agile. So you're looking at how do I take care of those around me today? So what I would say is all the gators closest to the boat. It's a previous reference that I talk about. And the future, you always have to be thinking about the next step, the future. What's my client going to think next? Am I going to have the right team? And how am I able to retain the same team in place? And so how do I manage my competition or even ignore them, but still be playing very high in the market? Like there's so much to think about, you know, as a CEO and as a business owner, but we don't share our struggles. And I wish that we did. I wish that I could share that the last, you know, seven years of building Willis HR. Listen, it was, it is so exciting to have sold my business. It's so exciting about new adventures and new opportunities, but I have to sit back and really remember the times that, man, it was crying and, and I wanted to quit. And if you were listening to me and you are a business owner, CEO, and you've never wanted to quit, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you because I think I had this conversation with a fellow business owner really early on, and he said something like, yeah, I quit like 16 times a day and then I show up again tomorrow. And it's just true. Like you quit so many times, but what you actually do, and this is just the mindset, I believe, of being in these types of roles, is that you have that grit. You have the resilience. And you're like, okay, so this hasn't beat me. It's not time yet. So how can I show up differently? And how could I think about this problem, this question, in a different way? I used to teach my clients about, even if there is a problem with the business or the employee, going to the balcony. It's really removing yourself from the situation, removing the emotion, and thinking through what advice would I give to my clients if they were going through the same thing? What advice would I give to my friends? And removing yourself. So in thinking about all that, can we challenge each other? Can we challenge each other to really share whenever it's okay to share your success and the outcome, because we're a very outcomes-driven culture, but and the wins. We want to celebrate the wins, absolutely. But guess what? There was the whole progress piece. There was a whole transition, the whole journey to get there. And we are missing out on the lessons of the journey, the camaraderie of the journey, and that's where the true success is, is that you've survived, you have conquered so many hurdles along the way in that journey. And then, yes, it led to the outcome. And remember, success looks different for different people. And even you, so even if you define success today, that may not be the same definition for you five years from now. And that's okay. So the people that challenge you that say, you know what, you committed to this. Well, I was a different person. I had different goals and dreams. It doesn't mean that it gives you this path to be a quitter by any means. You know, that's up to you, and you have to live with yourself and have self-integrity. But it does allow you to change your mind and to change what feeds your soul, what motivates you. And I think that there's different seasons in life. How many of us are different and have different ideas and habits and goals than we did 10 years ago, 20 years ago? Allow yourself to change. Allow yourself to keep trying. And allow yourself some grace in making mistakes, in learning as you go, in building whatever it is that it means to be successful in your life. And it was, it was truly an inspirational conversation that I had with my own Gordon and I'm saying first off first and last name. I do that sometimes, but, um, I mean, she just is a fascinating individual and I encourage you to really listen to, um, the previous podcast posted and that conversation. And we even go into some live coaching for both of us. That's that's really really neat Not planned, of course. I hardly ever have a true overall plan for the conversations because I do believe in the the moment the divine moment and Maybe my plan is not necessarily How that person needs to show up or what they need to be giving out and talking about in that moment. And I hope it's a gift. I hope it's a gift for everyone that listens, whether it's listening today or even five years from now. Whatever it is, we're meeting you where you are and it's showing up at just the right time. So I want to leave you with this encouragement is that it's okay to keep trying, keep figuring it out, cheering for you. There are so many people that want you to win and just keep cutting through that noise and step back to the balcony and start looking at that problem, that question, in a different way. Change your perspective, change your mindset, and you just might get there. All right, I'm gonna leave you with this because every podcast I have to leave you with this and if you don't know what this means I encourage you to comment I encourage you to reach out to me and I will definitely explain it and if you ever have any questions For the b2b back to business podcast reach out. Come on. I'll answer your questions. So I'll leave you with this Everything you want is on the other side of hard Choose your hard