Episode 69: Avoiding Decisions Is a Decision - How to Make Smarter Business Moves

 In this episode, Jennifer Kok, a business advisor and business coach for women entrepreneurs, is joined by Carrie Holland, MD, owner of FitLife, and Brooke Koeninger of Scale with Clarity for an honest conversation about the decisions that shape entrepreneurship.

Jennifer shares one of the hardest moments from her 20+ years in business, when employee paychecks bounced despite strong sales, and how that experience changed the way she thinks about leadership, money, and decision-making.

Brooke explains how women entrepreneurs often outgrow the early stage of doing everything themselves and need stronger financial clarity around cash flow, profit, and paying themselves consistently.

Carrie brings the mindset perspective, sharing how fear of failure, perfectionism, and self-doubt can keep women stuck longer than necessary.

Together, they explore why strong businesses are not built through perfect decisions, but through thoughtful ones rooted in data, habits, support, and self-awareness. This episode is for women business owners who want to make smarter decisions, build sustainable growth, and grow without burning out.

In this episode:

• Why avoiding a decision is still a decision
• Cash flow, profit, and financial clarity
• The emotional weight of entrepreneurship
• Perfectionism, procrastination, and self-doubt
• Habit goals vs. result goals
• Risk, intuition, and learning to trust yourself
• Why community matters when building a business

Meet our Guests:

Carrie Holland MD - FitLIfe - A board-certified family physician with additional certifications in personal training, health coaching, and life coaching. Carrie specializes in helping smart women build strong habits around Eating, Moving, and Thinking.
Connect with Carrie: https://carriehollandmd.com/

Brooke Koeninger - Scale with Clarity - Helping consultants, coaches and creative service businesses gain clarity around their numbers, develop a strategy aligned with their goals, and fuel sustainable, lasting growth. I’m here to help you step back, understand the full financial picture, and build a strategy that turns uncertainty into grounded, confident decisions.
Connect with Brooke: https://scalewithclarity.com/

Meet Your Host:
Jennifer Kok is a Profit & Growth Advisor and founder of Next Wave. A serial entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience, she helps service-based women entrepreneurs increase profitability through financial clarity, strategic decision-making, and systems that support sustainable growth.  

www.nextwavebusinesscoaching.com

Focus Growth Collective


If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with another entrepreneur who needs this reminder:

My name is Jennifer Kok, and I’m a profit and growth advisor for service-based women entrepreneurs. I help women business owners make smarter, more strategic decisions so they can grow profitably, pay themselves consistently, and avoid burnout.

Because the truth is, business owners make decisions all day long, but the ones that really matter are often the hardest ones. Should I hire? Raise my prices? Invest in marketing? Let go of a draining client? Expand, or simplify?

Those decisions carry weight, and they can impact your time, your profit, your energy, and your long-term growth.

That’s why I created the Focused Growth Collective, a virtual mastermind for women business owners who want support making the kinds of decisions that move a business forward. Yes, we talk strategy, but we also look at the bigger picture like mental load, health, profit, and long-term sustainability.

My goal is to help women build businesses that pay them well, support their lives, and still feel worth leading 10 years from now.

Connect with me:
Website:
Facebook:
Instagram:
LinkedIn:
YouTube: 

Transcript

Jennifer Kok (00:06.35)
Do we know if we're on?

Carrie Holland (00:09.562)
it's recording.

Brooke Koeninger (00:09.573)
I don't know.

Jennifer Kok (00:13.194)
Yeah, are we live in LinkedIn?

Brooke Koeninger (00:15.46)
getting paid 22,000. I don't know how to find the event. Hello anyone there?

Jennifer Kok (00:20.91)
Here we go. Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (00:26.32)
Let find your event.

Jennifer Kok (00:32.216)
Let's see.

Brooke Koeninger (00:36.76)
your link. Okay, hold on.

Brooke Koeninger (00:41.968)
Join. Starting soon, it says. Wait for the host to start. You have to go into LinkedIn.

Jennifer Kok (00:48.334)
Okay, let me go do that again. Oh boy, this is why we're doing this.

Brooke Koeninger (00:54.691)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (01:02.862)
Because I thought I said, okay, here we go, prepare to go live.

Brooke Koeninger (01:06.374)
Okay, there we go. So I'm waiting on my phone so I'll you know.

Jennifer Kok (01:13.814)
I did all this other.

Hmm.

Jennifer Kok (01:22.678)
Any luck?

Brooke Koeninger (01:23.622)
No, not yet. Hold on, let me X out and try and join again.

Jennifer Kok (01:27.628)
Hold on, let me try.

Brooke Koeninger (01:30.51)
Starting soon, it says.

Carrie Holland (01:31.811)
See if there's,

Jennifer Kok (01:38.048)
Okay.

Jennifer Kok (01:48.13)
Hopefully we don't lose people who are like, where is she?

Brooke Koeninger (01:50.79)
Yeah. Who, what does it show on your side, Jen?

Jennifer Kok (01:56.448)
It just shows prepare to go live and I click it and it says it's okay. It looks like you're running late, don't worry. And then I hit okay. And then it takes me to all these things that I already set up earlier. So I don't know what to do.

Brooke Koeninger (02:13.157)
One of the things LinkedIn needs to make easier is going less like Instagram. It's so easy. You think LinkedIn would do that too.

Jennifer Kok (02:22.496)
Right.

Brooke Koeninger (02:25.839)
Maybe they don't want people alone.

Jennifer Kok (02:26.572)
Okay, let's do this. Edit post, view event, did all that.

Jennifer Kok (02:37.354)
Okay, learn how to go live. We did all that. All right, let's see.

Carrie Holland (02:49.041)
Do you have a message that says the event will start soon? Like is that what, when I'm on LinkedIn, like that's what it shows. Okay.

Jennifer Kok (02:50.689)
I'm gonna call.

Brooke Koeninger (02:55.269)
That's what I see, yeah.

Jennifer Kok (02:59.79)
shoot.

Jennifer Kok (03:08.908)
I'm gonna call my Becky.

Brooke Koeninger (03:11.577)
Becky!

Jennifer Kok (03:19.636)
Hey, so I did the stream settings in Riverside,

Jennifer Kok (03:31.308)
What does that mean?

Jennifer Kok (03:37.907)
I thought I did, yeah. To set it up.

Jennifer Kok (03:52.724)
Okay, so how do I change that? Do we need to get out? Do I have to have the... Okay, and you'll have to come back into Riverside, Gales. All right, so I'm... Same link, yep. Leave in the session. Okay, leave studio.

Brooke Koeninger (04:02.031)
Okay, same link.

Jennifer Kok (04:39.115)
Okay, and then

Jennifer Kok (04:51.333)
Yeah, because when I hit prepare to go live on LinkedIn, it says looks like you're running late. OK.

Jennifer Kok (05:03.801)
I mean, I already said I'm not.

Jennifer Kok (05:08.653)
Yeah, shoot.

Jennifer Kok (05:14.597)
Where's my LinkedIn? Otherwise, what do you do? Do you just go back into?

Jennifer Kok (05:32.843)
you're there,

Brooke Koeninger (05:38.897)
Hello.

Jennifer Kok (05:49.849)
Barack, you want to make, sorry, echo, do a favor and just type in the comments of the event, like, technical, but we're coming, don't leave us. Thank you.

Brooke Koeninger (05:55.835)
Yeah. Yep.

Jennifer Kok (06:06.255)
Well, I feel like I did all that earlier.

It's, well, when I hit prepare to go live after I already did it, it's making me do it again. So should I just do that, US Central?

And then where do I put them? OK, copy the stream code. And that goes back up here.

Jennifer Kok (06:33.157)
Hopefully people don't leave us. I can't add the stream codes anymore.

Jennifer Kok (06:45.784)
Okay.

Jennifer Kok (06:51.119)
That'd be funny if everyone's watching this conversation. Well, you know, this is real life.

Brooke Koeninger (06:52.857)
You

Welcome to building a business.

Carrie Holland (06:58.881)
Is there any comments in the chat? Yeah, right.

Jennifer Kok (07:06.989)
Yeah. Shoot.

Carrie Holland (07:09.389)
or anything.

Carrie Holland (07:13.412)
Do you want to put a message in the public chat that says we're having technical issues? I don't know if you can do that or not.

Jennifer Kok (07:13.964)
Alright.

Brooke Koeninger (07:19.215)
I put one in the vent comments. I don't know if that's.

Carrie Holland (07:21.468)
you didn't, okay.

Okay. Okay.

Jennifer Kok (07:28.037)
All right. Well then I guess what we'll do, I can probably hang up. We're just going to record it on here.

Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (07:40.741)
Yep.

Jennifer Kok (07:45.891)
Well, and I can't change the URLs. And I had already set all that up, so I don't know why didn't work. All right, bomber. Not your fault, but thank you for helping.

Jennifer Kok (08:04.547)
Unless you want to be in it, you're welcome.

Jennifer Kok (08:10.501)
Alrighty.

Shoot.

Brooke Koeninger (08:14.759)
I don't

Carrie Holland (08:16.066)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (08:17.411)
I mean, we followed all the step by step. Poop. All right. And I don't even know how to like, if we just went into LinkedIn.

Carrie Holland (08:22.116)
you

Brooke Koeninger (08:26.075)
I know, I know, I just thinking, I wish there was a way just to go in there, but I don't.

Carrie Holland (08:32.11)
you do that.

Jennifer Kok (08:32.11)
So the options are we just record here, the three of us, and then I'll just post it and tag you guys. But it's kind of a bummer.

Brooke Koeninger (08:40.391)
Yeah, I'm not sure, yeah.

Jennifer Kok (08:41.869)
Unless you think we should hop out of this and just jump into LinkedIn, but at this point.

Jennifer Kok (08:51.397)
I think at this, yeah, I already got a message. Are you having technical difficulties?

Brooke Koeninger (09:00.327)
from an attendee or from.

Jennifer Kok (09:02.255)
from an attendee, yeah, she's a friend of mine, so that's good at least.

Brooke Koeninger (09:07.483)
Go live in.

Carrie Holland (09:15.8)
Are you, you still getting the same message? Like the event will start soon, wait for the host to start. Okay.

Brooke Koeninger (09:19.461)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (09:21.997)
Yeah, don't let me just try one more time why I'm here.

Jennifer Kok (09:31.321)
Well, now we know. Live studio. Prepare to go live. Yeah, that's so weird. I don't know how to, there's nothing else for me to do.

Brooke Koeninger (09:41.659)
I know, or like what the issue is to fix it for next time. I don't.

Jennifer Kok (09:45.07)
Yeah.

Carrie Holland (09:45.644)
I know that I don't, yeah I don't.

Jennifer Kok (09:49.901)
Yeah, like she, know, Becky, are, we already went through all this, we thought.

So all right, well, you know what I should do? I should probably hit Cancel Event on this. Should I hit Cancel so people don't sit and wait around?

Brooke Koeninger (10:06.567)
Yeah, I'll just say.

Carrie Holland (10:14.372)
Can you put comments in here? here. there's a, okay, it says, you started your, there's a question on here. Have you started your event? Like I'm just, yeah.

Jennifer Kok (10:22.595)
Bye somebody.

Jennifer Kok (10:26.607)
Like can't even get into that now. What a bummer.

Brooke Koeninger (10:37.115)
Yeah, I don't even see.

Jennifer Kok (10:39.653)
All right, we're going to hold on one second.

Jennifer Kok (10:46.977)
Yeah, oh yeah, see you shoot. We a couple people. All right. We're gonna, yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (10:51.119)
I assume, yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (11:03.922)
Shoot, yeah, I don't know, Jen.

Carrie Holland (11:06.03)
This is so weird. don't, yeah.

Jennifer Kok (11:14.661)
All right, I'm just putting sorry. We're going to record and I'll send you the recording to watch later. Thanks for showing up.

All right. Okay, ladies, we're going to pivot. We're going to use this as a teaching moment for future participants. This is what we do. I mean, it's a bummer, but this is what we do. Shoot. Cause you know, I like how people were showing up. So kudos to you and to us that people actually showed up. So, all right. Well, whoo.

Brooke Koeninger (11:26.812)
them.

Carrie Holland (11:29.71)
This is what we do, pivot.

Brooke Koeninger (11:31.015)
pivot!

Brooke Koeninger (11:41.743)
I know.

Carrie Holland (11:42.564)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (11:45.147)
There we go. There we go. It's a good sign. They're going to tune in on the replay.

Carrie Holland (11:45.667)
Yes.

Carrie Holland (11:49.453)
Yep.

Jennifer Kok (11:50.745)
We're going to hit the replay. We'll post the video. I'll put it on YouTube.

Brooke Koeninger (11:55.887)
Yes, it'll be, yeah. Good question. then, yeah. Ready?

Jennifer Kok (11:58.369)
So all right, are we ready? 12 minutes in, here we go. All right.

Carrie Holland (12:02.212)
I'm ready.

Brooke Koeninger (12:07.015)
Let's get some mindset work here.

Carrie Holland (12:07.3)
Right? Let's go.

Jennifer Kok (12:08.631)
Yeah, no kidding. Good thing we got Carrie. Carrie, do you like to be introduced as Dr. Carrie or Carrie? What do you prefer?

Carrie Holland (12:14.306)
It doesn't matter, I don't really care. Carrie is fine, I'm pretty informal.

Jennifer Kok (12:19.086)
Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Here we go. Five, four, three, two,

Welcome, welcome, welcome to today. I am so excited to have two really established honored guests. I'm so honored. I have Brooke with me with scale with clarity. She helps you with financials. And I have Carrie Holland with fit for life where she just really helps you build a strong mindset and a fit life. And ladies, thank you for joining me today.

Carrie Holland (12:26.02)
you

Brooke Koeninger (12:50.001)
Thank you for having us. I'm really excited.

Carrie Holland (12:50.18)
Thanks for having us.

Jennifer Kok (12:53.699)
So what I wanted to talk about today is really just kind of our path to get to where we are today. We know that came with a lot of decisions. Some were really good, some were not so good. And what we've learned along the way and what I've helped people with is really how do we make smarter strategic decisions so that we can build our business profitably, because that's my passion.

so that 10 years from now you're still standing if you choose to be, right? And there's so much that comes into every decision that we make. And I will tell you that before I taught this, I lived it.  I owned a business for over 20 years. And there's one day that really stands out to me. And it was a day my husband and I were in the car driving with our two daughters to go away for the weekend to Wisconsin Dells. We were going to take them on a weekend trip.

Life was great, so I thought we're driving along, loving life, and all of a sudden my cell phone rang. It was my manager. And she said to me really like just kind of that, our paychecks are bouncing. And it was this gut punch moment because the irony of it is our revenue was really good. Sales were up.

Brooke Koeninger (13:58.632)
Mm.

Jennifer Kok (14:08.432)
But when I look back at that moment, I was borrowing from tomorrow's revenue to pay for today's business. And then to make matters worse, we didn't have cash reserves, which Brooke, I know you're probably cringing thinking about that. We didn't have an emergency fund. We literally pulled over to the small bank in the middle of Wisconsin somewhere, took out a cash advance on our credit cards.

Brooke Koeninger (14:22.696)
I'm like, let me just jump in.

Jennifer Kok (14:37.296)
to put money in our checking account to pay for employees' paychecks. So to me, that was kind of this moment that I think it sticks out to me because it was very humbling. It was very hard. And I remember after that, looking back at my husband and saying, don't worry, I got this. I'll hustle harder on Monday. I'm going to go get some more clients. We're going to get some more business. Don't worry, I got this. And so when I think back, that really kind of changed the way I was making decisions because really, at that time,

Avoiding a decision is still a decision.

And so, you know, when I think about how we operate, especially year three, four, five, you know, we've built something, we've got some revenue coming in, we've got some clients, we've got some success. Well, then we kind of outgrow that stage of our business. And I know for a lot of us, especially women, and let me know if you guys think this is true, that, you know, we make decisions from stress.

Brooke Koeninger (15:17.288)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (15:30.407)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (15:35.107)
We're in the moment, quick stress, making a decision. We make decisions from fear. Like, what if this doesn't work? I better go try this too. Or overwhelmed because, you know, it's funny. There's four stages of owning a business. And I'm talking about how you lead, how you manage. And when you first start, you're the solo practitioner. You are the solo entrepreneur and you're the octopus, I call it. You got eight arms.

Brooke Koeninger (15:39.228)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke Koeninger (15:57.094)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Jennifer Kok (16:00.117)
And every arm is juggling something and some of those arms might be juggling kids or juggling elderly parents. Like we're not just juggling business, we're juggling everything. And what happens is we start to become exhausted. And so when we're tired, we do just react. Our decisions become reactions. So instead of clarity, instead of data, instead of support, we just hustle, push through it. Would you guys agree with that? Has either one of you felt that?

Brooke Koeninger (16:22.856)
Yep.

Brooke Koeninger (16:26.888)
I have so many thoughts, Jen. How much time do we have on this? I'll keep it short, Carrie, because I'm sure you have said, but yes. Yes. I think so many things. So Forbes, step back a second. Forbes, think like three weeks ago, came out with some stats. And it said, and it was based on LinkedIn data or whatever, that about 40 % of new entrepreneurs are women now. So we see this rise, which is great. And that is my passion. But to your point, I think.

Jennifer Kok (16:30.148)
Thank

Brooke Koeninger (16:56.935)
What I see, at least in my world with me and my clients, is exactly that. think women in general are the caretakers. You're the moms. You get in this reactive mode. You're growing more oftentimes than just your business. And so it is reflected a lot of times in your actions in your business, too. So I see that same trajectory. Like you've said, you're the solopreneur. You get used to just like, I can do this. I'm just doing everything. But some things naturally fall through the cracks. And one of them is the cash flow. And I like to say that

specifically at that pivot point with my clients, I'm like, there's two things that keep them from really diving into what is my cash, making these like what I call CEO decisions. And one is this fear of like, don't know numbers and that we can get all into and just, you know, why that shouldn't be scary. And it's just another data point. But the second is this, this guilt around, should have done it earlier. I should have like, why is this, you know, my, paycheck's bouncing now. And I always like to say like, that is the natural evolution. Yeah, you don't want to get into that. And it's the worst,

like gut crunching feeling whatever it may be like you said you feel but that is the pivot point when you say okay if I'm going to be the real CEO of my business and put on that hat and say now is the time that I'm going to bring in help and you shouldn't have to be doing everything and you shouldn't be the expert in everything so it is this awareness of okay how do I adjust for that too so exactly the story you've told every one of my clients has gone through that point and yes you can get ahead of it a little bit but

you have the octopus arms you're handling 15 or 20 things. So you've just got to pick what's right. What's the biggest problem now. And then when that becomes it then you address it then and you shouldn't have to do everything yourself or be the expert. So there's no guilt or shame around that.

Jennifer Kok (18:31.384)
Right, right, absolutely. you know, Brooke, I know. So Brooke, first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, what you do and how you help women entrepreneurs and your clients.

Brooke Koeninger (18:41.127)
Yes, yes. So Brooke Koeninger I'm a fractional CFO. sometimes feel like that terminology is off putting a little bit. feels like very, again, like numbers feels like, OK, there's this like, don't need a CFO. But I work with small service based businesses, oftentimes with a small team, five or less. And they're in the growth stage. And they're oftentimes at this point, kind of like you talked about there, their top line's growing. They are ready to say, I want to invest in my next employee, or I think I want to

put money into the business, my cash flow, I'm not paying myself enough. My cash flow isn't really consistent. I don't know what I can afford. And that's oftentimes they bring me in. it is not this, it doesn't necessarily have to be this long-term thing, but it's getting clarity around like, what do I see over the next six, nine months in terms of cash flow? And then you feel real, like with that black and white data, those decisions, even if you're like further away than you want, they become like, they become easier. it like clarity, obviously is my business scale with clarity. It's just,

You make decisions with real clarity on what you have and what you can't. And it really kind of eliminates what I've seen is this churn you can oftentimes get, like, should I or shouldn't I or am I doing making the right decisions? And it can really kind of bring it down, like I said. It's not, what is this saying? It's not simple, but it's easy. it's not, you know, like it's, can be straightforward. It doesn't mean that it's like an easy thing to have to do, but it can be really straightforward.

Jennifer Kok (19:56.506)
Right.

Jennifer Kok (20:02.245)
So that's one of, know, I walk my clients through a decision-making framework and one of them is we have to use the data. And obviously back in my year four when employee paychecks bounced, I wasn't using the data. I was just using sales, the top line number, but I wasn't really using all of the data. you know, we can get really in the weeds of all the data, but it's so important. And then Carrie, I would love to bring you into this conversation because I think what happens is when we have something like that happen to us,

Brooke Koeninger (20:21.298)
Yeah. Yes.

Jennifer Kok (20:31.554)
Even, it doesn't even have to be that big. I mean, we are making decisions every day. In fact, here's a fun fact. I read that we as humans are making 30,000 decisions every day. Some of those are so like, am I having a soup or sandwich for lunch? Well then, put yourself in a pair of entrepreneur shoes and think of all the decisions that you're making and how they carry weight. And some of them are little, but some of them aren't so little.

And when we run into like a roadblock or it maybe isn't going as we expected, what I see happen a lot is self-doubt starts to come in.

And then we sit there and we procrastinate. We avoid. And so now we're just in the stage of waiting for what to happen next. So Carrie, first of all, please introduce yourself. Tell us about your story and who you are. And then what are your thoughts around how do we overcome this self-doubt, procrastination, even perfectionism? I see that a lot in entrepreneurs. We're afraid to put ourselves out there because of what others might say or think.

Brooke Koeninger (21:12.731)
Me.

Carrie Holland (21:13.91)
You

Carrie Holland (21:21.122)
Thank

Carrie Holland (21:28.332)
Sure.

Carrie Holland (21:31.872)
Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, even in my own world, in my own life, even becoming the person I am now in my career, I had to get over a lot of that self-doubt and that kind of dies directly to my story. So just about me, I'm Carrie. I'm a family physician. And a few years into my practice, about a decade into my practice, I decided this is not it. I had always thought that becoming a physician was going to be my finish line.

And when I got there and realized, God, this isn't it for me, there was a lot of self-doubt.

And a lot of spinning, a lot of spinning, which led me to do absolutely nothing for years. And so the whole time I just said, well, if I just grind long enough until my financial planner tells me I can retire, I'll be good. But that approached didn't work. And eventually I got to a point where I felt that I had to do something. And so bit by bit, I built a different career. I started out as a personal trainer. I literally trained people down the street from the clinic where I saw patients. And sometimes on my own patients would see me at the Y in my gym shorts.

Jennifer Kok (22:17.477)
You

Carrie Holland (22:36.014)
teacher helping people with their dead lifts that they're like that Dr. Holland and that was me.

Jennifer Kok (22:39.813)
you

Carrie Holland (22:41.244)
And that one thing led to another. The personal training led to a health coach certification and that led to a life coach certification. And there's lots of pieces that I put together to what I do now. So now I am a coach and I help professional women take care of themselves by building strong habits. My three pillars are eating, moving, and most importantly thinking. So the women that I work with, they have checked all the boxes. They are movers, they are shakers, they are entrepreneurs.

They're physicians they're high stakes jobs. they work really hard at the expense of themselves. So what we do is we insert themselves back into their very busy lives and oftentimes that comes through things like eating and exercise. but underneath all of that is the foundation of thinking and taking care of yourself.

Brooke Koeninger (23:31.113)
Mm-hmm.

Carrie Holland (23:34.4)
to your original point about self-doubt and perfectionism and all the things, I find there is a common underlying factor, and that is how we feel. So I learned this a long time ago from one of my own coaches, and I'll just share it here. Everything we do or don't do is because of how we think it's going to make us feel.

Jennifer Kok (23:53.861)
Thank

Carrie Holland (23:54.506)
Right? So when we're talking about big stakes decisions in our businesses, lots of money on the line, people's jobs on the line, there's some fear there. And there's also obviously a fear of failure. often it's what are we going to feel when we do fail? Because it's not a matter of if, right? It's when we all have all three of us. And I'm sure anybody listening to this, we've all experienced some failure. And what happens is that can be a reason to pivot and move, or it can be a reason to stand down and quit.

Brooke Koeninger (24:10.153)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (24:21.946)
Thank

Carrie Holland (24:24.118)
Right? And often what happens is how do you take care of yourself when you do fail?

Because most of us make it mean that we're failures, right? Like there's a difference between failing and being a failure. But often we make it mean we are the failures. And so what I do is help you realize that actually, no, that's very different. And so there's a lot of mindset work, self-compassion, leaving the perfectionism, getting rid of all or nothing thinking. I shouldn't even say getting rid of, but managing all or nothing thinking. Because those things all come up, right? They're going to come up. And as long as we own a business, those things are going to happen. So it's not about avoiding them. It's not about avoiding failure.

Brooke Koeninger (24:30.846)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (24:50.013)
Yeah.

Carrie Holland (24:58.756)
It's not about avoiding imperfection. It's how do you manage yourself through it so that you can keep going? Sorry, that was a lot.

Brooke Koeninger (25:02.89)
Yeah.

Yep, I love, yep.

Jennifer Kok (25:06.947)
my gosh, that is, well, no, that is so powerful and so impactful because when you think about, you touched on so many elements of why only one out of two businesses make it five years. You know, part of that is the decisions we are making is the root of everything. But like you just said, what is fueling those decisions? And fear of failure is huge.

Brooke Koeninger (25:18.985)
Yep.

Jennifer Kok (25:30.623)
And also I think as women we carry a lot of fear of what other people are going to think and are we pleasing them? know, think about how many times have you had somebody give an opinion about your business?

Brooke Koeninger (25:35.401)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (25:43.345)
or tell you what you should be doing and they're not even entrepreneurs. They don't even have all the whole big picture and what do we do with that? We internalize it and we think, my gosh, we're not doing enough. We need to do more. my gosh, we better pivot. And Brooke, you and I have talked about this a few times where, and I see this a lot too, where we pivot or stop before the breakthrough happens.

Brooke Koeninger (25:51.369)
Yep.

Brooke Koeninger (26:02.951)
Yup. Yup. Yup.

Jennifer Kok (26:06.135)
And Kerry, you really alluded to that is like, is driving that? And I love how you said it's really about how we think it's gonna make us feel before we even experience it.

Carrie Holland (26:17.122)
I mean, you said it, the women who succeed aren't necessarily more talented, more this, more that, but they are generally more willing to tolerate imperfection, tolerate failure, tolerate all of those things, right? And that is a skill set. Like you have to learn to take care of yourself through that so you can stand up and do it again tomorrow. It's the same thing in fitness. It's the same thing in if you want to lose weight, nutrition. It's so funny because there's so many parallels between business and fitness, building a business and fitness. This is it.

Brooke Koeninger (26:36.105)
Yep.

Carrie Holland (26:44.854)
You have to be willing to tolerate the imperfection, tolerating failure, tolerating missing all the things and starting over again, getting up every day, putting in your reps, doing it over and over again. Same thing. Love it.

Brooke Koeninger (26:53.938)
It's so crazy, Carrie. I say the same thing too, because I got into working out recently or taking care of my body better. it's almost this exact metaphor for when you work out, you don't necessarily feel good in the moment. But it's like you know on the other side, it's good for you. It's going to feel better. I'm thinking, as I'm on the treadmill, like, this is the worst 20 minutes of my life right now. This is horrible. Whatever. But I'm like, I always go right to business. I'm like, what is the thing right now?

Carrie Holland (27:10.123)
Yeah.

Carrie Holland (27:16.352)
You

Brooke Koeninger (27:22.036)
that is feeling like I shouldn't do it, but I know on the other side. And we're not taught that that's not failure, that's growth, that's, you know, like even though it feels bad, that's growth. And it's like trying to change those neurons in my brain to be like, it's so exactly like you said, it's like a mindset thing, but it kind of comes easier maybe because we've always been taught like working out is good and eating healthy is good, even if in the moment, but we're not really taught that on the business side. Like you just think it should be easy or if you're good at it, it's just gonna come naturally. And that's not the case at all.

Jennifer Kok (27:47.673)
Right. And it's not, and like both fitness and building a business, there's no get rich quick. There's no lose 20 pounds overnight. There's no all of a become a bodybuilder in a day. There's no shortcut. And so how do we decide every day?

Carrie Holland (27:56.458)
Nope, there's no shortcut.

Brooke Koeninger (28:00.327)
No.

Jennifer Kok (28:05.475)
to stay in the game and to take that step. What is fueling us? So from a business standpoint, it's really hard for us to, especially overachievers, see what we have accomplished, because we're always looking to the next thing, and we're always comparing ourselves. And we're making so many decisions reactively because of maybe a comment somebody said to us or because of what happened like today. So we'll be real transparent here. This was supposed to be on LinkedIn Live.

and record it as a podcast. Well, for whatever reason, LinkedIn live didn't work for us today. So we had to pivot, we had to adapt, we had to tolerate the technology not working and we're recording here instead. And so that can be something that can derail people. know, somebody...

Brooke Koeninger (28:44.264)
Yes. Yep.

Jennifer Kok (28:55.597)
quitting on you, like a staff member giving in their notice can derail you. Losing a client can derail you. These are all things where, you I know at the beginning, we have a lot of grit, have a lot of perseverance, we have a lot of passion for our business, but over time, we start to kind of wear thin a little bit. And so let's talk about the world that we live in now that we're building a business. Let's kind of transition a little bit.

We live in a world full of more information than we can possibly humanly process. We have AI at our fingertips.

We have all these podcasts, webinars, teachings, books, everything. And while that's great, and I love having access to that, I also think as a human running a business, it's too much. It's overwhelming. And I love AI. It's a great tool. But every idea I put in there, they tell me it's the best idea ever. And I'm thinking, OK, really? It's really that great of an idea? Or am I really supposed to implement every single one of these ideas?

Brooke Koeninger (29:34.154)
Thank

Brooke Koeninger (29:42.11)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke Koeninger (29:54.226)
Yeah, your biggest cheerleader, but yeah.

Jennifer Kok (29:56.597)
Yeah, so how do we discern what's good for us? So Brooke, let's go back to you. And one of the pillars of making a good decision is data. And I know you kind of alluded to it before. for instance, let's use an example that came up the other day. A client wants to invest in some Google Ads. Well, investing in Google Ads is a long game. It's not cheap. And you have to kind of really think about, what am I going to gain? What's the return on this investment?

But it just, to her, it felt like, oh, if I do this, I'm doing something. I'm doing something to get more clients. So how would you guide somebody through a decision like that? Let's just keep it simple math. That's going to cost you $1,000 a month, and maybe your client pays you $300.

Brooke Koeninger (30:28.564)
Yep. Yep.

Brooke Koeninger (30:33.77)
No.

Brooke Koeninger (30:39.531)
I'm actually going to step out a little bit from math. And sorry if this is not the direction you want me to go to. We can turn back to there. But every one of my clients, all of these decisions, come back to what is your goals personally? Why are you in this business? And I'll say for me personally, it is you go on the highs and lows of life and business. And when you're in the lows or somebody quits, like oftentimes for a lot of my clients, they were former corporate. And that is the plan B. Do I want to go back and work for someone else?

Jennifer Kok (30:45.069)
No, this is great.

Brooke Koeninger (31:07.988)
And if we get back to the why, one of my clients, she went into business, and she has this business plan. And she's like, I promise my kids I'd pay for their college. That is her thing. And very heart-driven, that is my why. And so when it comes to these decisions, all of them are assumptions. And we can talk about how we build the business plan around everything and the KPIs that you should track. But it comes down to what is your why? Because some businesses may want to grow 20 % because I want to retire in 10 years, and I want to travel with my husband wherever.

Another might be like, I want flexibility in a lifestyle that I can be home with my young kids. I only want to have to work five hours a day, whatever it may be. if we come back to the why, what is the money that you need personally to support that why? What is the business that you really want to live right now? And what is that lifestyle? That is how we make the decisions. It has to come from a starting point of there. Because when we say, you invest in Google Ads, I want to say, why? Do you want more revenue coming in? And do you have the?

employees to support it and that becomes a little bit more work. But hey, if your goal is to grow this business as fast as you can and exit in five years, then that is where maybe we should look at that. If your goal is to have be at home more. So there is there it starts with the why it starts with what is the type of business and lifestyle you want. And then we make those decisions based on that. But underlying it is the passion is the reason. And then we build numbers and data around that to say, OK, this is now a clarifying reason to say yes or no.

based on what you've said, the life you want to live is. That make, don't, kind of took it a different way, but.

Jennifer Kok (32:39.653)
Well, no, I love that you took it a different way because that's what I'm here to build is a holistic approach to building a business. And you're right, a lot of us do get caught up in the day to day, you the old saying, you can't read the label when you're inside the jar. And that's why it's important to surround yourself with people that have been there, done that and have different perspectives. So you are still focused on the numbers, but you're bringing, you're looking at it from a different angle. And I really appreciate and respect that approach that you bring to it.

Brooke Koeninger (32:44.778)
Yes.

Brooke Koeninger (32:56.008)
Yes.

Brooke Koeninger (33:07.38)
Thank you. Can I add one more thing to it? Because besides knowing your why, it's the community. It's absolutely the community. Because these dips that you go in, I would say the why is internal. The why is like, you are the only one that can say, why did you go into business? What is the lifestyle that you want to live? What does the future look like for you? And you can't find that anywhere else. So you've got to define that internally. And then when you're working through that,

Jennifer Kok (33:09.507)
Yeah, please.

Brooke Koeninger (33:31.826)
you are naturally going to have these lows like we talked about, but having the community around you that's doing the same thing, you're not looking for the answers for them. You're looking for the support. You're looking for somebody who's maybe been in that dip before and here's what they've tried. And you're like kind of holding hands together going through it. And that has been the biggest unlock for me. I kept looking for this external like, give me the framework that's going to grow my business in 10 steps. You see that all over social media. That is not the case in a real sustainable, true business that's growing in alignment with whatever you want to. So.

Jennifer Kok (33:57.678)
Right.

Brooke Koeninger (33:58.836)
That's why I love what you're building, is this community around it. then the last thing, sorry to take all of this, is once you define all that, you do know what your 12-month goals are. You can really clear. But I always like to say, like, this is where it gets back to your pivot quickly, is where I've fallen short. And now I see a lot of my clients, too, I've learned from this, is you set these 12-month goals. You know what you have to do each day is like, I've got to make the cold calls or I've got to, like, manage these employees. You know what the weekly actions are to get to that.

And we still keep our head on that, like that 12 month goal. And we just see how far we are from that. And that can kind of burn us out. And I always like to say, you need the 12 month goal or the five year goal to figure out what you need to do now. But it's almost like once you figure out those daily, weekly, monthly actions, forget the goal, heads down, stay consistent for the next three to four months before you look up and see how far you've come. Because it can derail you to say the day to day stuff. don't make as much like you don't see the progress as often as if you just

Stick with what you are and four months down the road, you'll be surprised yourself at how far you can come than what you had originally thought.

Jennifer Kok (35:03.877)
And you you touch on something that a lot of business owners say is, I didn't understand when I got into business what a roller coaster it is. And it is.

You know, it's high highs, we're riding the highs and then whoo, lows. And that's when that self doubt and all that kind of second guessing, did I make the right decision? I mean, trust me, I've had a lot of moments over the 20 years of owning my service-based bakery. What the heck did I do? You know, we have those moments. So Carrie, let's talk about, Brooke, I love how you said, you know, understand your why, where are you trying to go? Make sure the data supports it. I know you and I are huge on profit. know, revenue is the vanity number.

Brooke Koeninger (35:27.53)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (35:39.915)
Yep, yes, yes.

Jennifer Kok (35:41.863)
Profit is what pays you every month. So then Carrie, give us some thoughts around how do we show up every day when maybe it's been a week since you've had a discovery call with a new client, or maybe you're just struggling with a current client and you're trying to think about what to do. Give us some thoughts about how do we create these habits and

really avoid the procrastination of the hard stuff because I know I do it and that's why I've always had a coach is because I'm going to pick and choose the things I like to do. I'm going to avoid the things that I don't want to do even though I need to. So any thoughts to help us overcome the procrastination that can really really kind of hurt the bottom line of a business.

Carrie Holland (36:16.844)
Come.

Carrie Holland (36:29.12)
Well, and I think honestly, and there's even like articles and books written about this, that procrastination is often perfectionism in disguise because we procrastinate on the things because we're afraid we're not going to do them correctly or that they're not going to work. So on one hand, it's being willing. Again, I talk a lot about willingness. It's being willing to.

Brooke Koeninger (36:36.533)
us.

Carrie Holland (36:49.794)
handle that imperfection and handle that failure if and when it does happen. But then on the flip side, it's also focus. I mean, Brooke, you were talking about habits and results and all of that. And so one of the concepts that I teach often is you have habit goals and you have result goals. So you may have a business result goal. I want to make this much profit, or I want to do this, that, and the other thing. And those may be things that you have ultimately no full control over.

Brooke Koeninger (36:56.427)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke Koeninger (37:04.587)
you

Brooke Koeninger (37:14.985)
Yep.

Carrie Holland (37:15.702)
But where you do have control are your habit goals, meaning I get up every day and I write my content, or I get up every day and I make three phone calls to people, or I reach out to four different contacts on LinkedIn, whatever that is. And again, the idea is to make it a habit and make it something that you can do no matter what, because you've got 100 % control over whether or not you reach out to somebody on LinkedIn. You have 100 % control over whether or not you send out your weekly email newsletter, right? But I get it, it can be hard

Brooke Koeninger (37:31.967)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (37:43.605)
Yes.

Carrie Holland (37:45.636)
to do those things repeatedly, putting it again, it's just like a bicep curl, putting in those reps. It can be really hard to do that when you're not seeing results immediately. It's like, okay, I've done my emails, where are my people? And the idea is, again, it's coming, I mean, I'm stealing some of what Brooke said, it's coming back to your mind, like, why are you doing this? Right? Like for my own example, I produce a weekly podcast, I...

Brooke Koeninger (37:57.387)
Yep.

Brooke Koeninger (38:01.899)
Yes.

Carrie Holland (38:07.966)
Some weeks the listenership is great, other weeks it's not. And it doesn't matter because it does matter, but it doesn't, right? It's a metric, it's a number. I could choose to freak out about it or I could choose to use that number as data and look at, what are the patterns here? What are the things that people really wanna hear and use that information not to freak out, but to make an evidence-based decision to move forward. So I think.

Jennifer Kok (38:26.757)
Thank

Brooke Koeninger (38:29.515)
Yep.

Carrie Holland (38:30.892)
There's lots of pieces to this. think making the habit goals so small that they feel almost insignificant, but they're not because you keep showing up and doing them every day. Those are the things that really make the difference. But then it's also keeping, like I like what Brooke said about keeping that end goal is there, but you kind of put it to the side because right now I'm gonna focus on what's in front of me and that's writing the stinking email before I talk myself out of it. You know?

Brooke Koeninger (38:36.447)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (38:50.027)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (38:56.896)
love that. Kerry, sorry to jump in, Jen, but exactly what you said, and this is not me. I read it somewhere recently, but I love how you said this. The quote was, you can't control the outcome. What you can control is your actions. And if you trust that the law of averages will play out. So if you continue to do it, you'll have some highs and lows. But at the end of the day, you continue to do the stuff, it will play out in your favor. And I love that too. So it's like, focus on your actions, not the outcome.

Carrie Holland (38:59.701)
No, no, peace.

Carrie Holland (39:22.41)
It's just like exercise, right?

Jennifer Kok (39:22.745)
That is powerful. Like, yeah, that is a powerful.

Carrie Holland (39:24.802)
I always use this and I mean yeah, there's always business and fitness analogies Here's another one like some of your workouts like your treadmill run some of them are gonna stink right some of they're gonna be awesome and some of them are just gonna be like in the middle and it matters but it doesn't because when you build it as a habit it doesn't matter because you're gonna show up again and do it tomorrow and the day after that and after that and after that that's when you know that it's ingrained and it's part of who you are it's the same thing as writing your emails or Doing your daily social media content or whatever your business is or whatever whatever it

Brooke Koeninger (39:42.005)
So good. Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (39:52.256)
love that.

Carrie Holland (39:54.756)
It matters, but it doesn't as long as you keep showing up. That's why you have to make it small so that it's not such a big hurdle to do. And then you do it more and more until it becomes part of your routine. And then you build from there. It's layering.

Brooke Koeninger (40:02.539)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (40:08.265)
I love that, I love that.

Jennifer Kok (40:09.444)
Yeah, I love it. call that stacking the wins, which is what I love to take my clients through. You're not going to get from one to a hundred overnight. We've to stack our wins. Okay. So we've talked a little bit about the decision-making framework is first of all, how you're showing up as a leader. You know, are you a solo entrepreneur, a business manager, the different layers? We talked about data. We've talked about habits, which kind of falls back into your energy. You know, that's why it's so important to take care of yourself physically, mentally. And then Brooke, we talked about kind of aligning goals.

Brooke Koeninger (40:11.808)
Yes!

Jennifer Kok (40:39.367)
talk about something I see often with entrepreneurs when they choose not to do anything, they sit on a decision too long. And what's happening there is we are potentially missing out on an opportunity because we're sitting there just marinating on it or waiting for the sign or waiting for somebody, something to happen. And it really comes down to the risk tolerance.

Brooke Koeninger (40:45.322)
Hmm.

Jennifer Kok (41:04.707)
You know, as we're building businesses, we have to do things. Like today was, I guess you could say a risk trying LinkedIn Live. I had never done it before. So that's a risk tolerance, right? And so a lot of us struggle with that. I mean, let's back up. I think if you're an entrepreneur somewhere, you're in your DNA, you're wired to be a little bit more of a risk taker, not risk adverse, because it's not a linear path and you're not getting your consistent paycheck and all of those things. But.

Brooke Koeninger (41:23.637)
Yep. Yep.

Jennifer Kok (41:31.447)
I think sometimes we stay stuck because we're afraid to step out or to take the next step because we're afraid of the risk. And I think, Carrie, you hit on it earlier. That comes down to the feeling and the fear. And we can have all these metrics and all these things that we need in our decision-making framework.

But where do you feel when you're making decisions, risk comes into it, or even gut intuition? I mean, I like to say let's bring it back to the human side of it. There's still some gut intuition like this feels right. And I don't want people to walk away from this and think, OK, I've got to have all the numbers in place. I have to have the strategy. I have to have my 12-month plan before I can try this because my gut's telling me I should. So any thoughts on that?

Brooke Koeninger (42:23.196)
Yes. mean, for me personally, I'm an open book here, people. Just DM me if you need more details. yes. for me, Jen, we were talking about this right before I pushed record. Risk for me has been, I realized I've been in business for myself for five years now. I am very, it's crazy because yes, you said entrepreneurship in and of itself is a risk. So I talked to some people like I could never go build my own business. And that to me didn't feel risky.

Jennifer Kok (42:23.813)
Brooke, you want to go first? You're nodding your head. So, Brooke.

Brooke Koeninger (42:52.013)
What I've realized over the last five years, and I've told many people this recently, it's been since this year started, I am doing a lot of what I call marketing stuff, like this awareness. I have a podcast, I have a newsletter. I am not doing sales. Sales is scary and risky to me. How I define that is the direct outreach to someone. It doesn't necessarily mean cold, but it's just saying, here's what I do. Do you know anyone?

You go back to your gut. So a lot of times, there's so many decisions to make. And you can say, OK, does that feel right or not? If I really think about it, and this has been an evolution for me too, because in my corporate job, was so like de-attached? Not attached to my inner gut and knowing. I was so externally focused. So that has been its own evolution. for me, knowing like, know I need to do this to grow my business or to bring more clients. you've got it.

actions I need to take and Carrie to your point. I'm like, it's relatively easy. It's the things that I should do each day. But I'm putting it off. And I see the other things that I'm checking off on my to-do list, which is edit the podcast and write the social media content. And so I realize, to your point, the data around here is showing me that I've put it on my list because I do think that it's important. I keep, I'm like, we'll get to it tomorrow because I got to do these other things. So that's when it shows me I know the thing that I'm putting off. Vice versa, Jen, to your point, the

Podcast to me, though, some people would be like, why are you wasting your actually my husband actually is brought up. Why what's the ROI on your podcast? And for me, again, in finance, I had to sit with it. I'm like, I find so much joy in it. I have these ideas that just come. I have people that I want to talk to. I've got. And so that's me. I'm like, that's my gut saying I should continue this Carrie like we were talking about. It's the it's not the outcome. It's not about the outcome for me. It's like, do I enjoy this? And does creativity come?

Jennifer Kok (44:23.642)
Right.

Brooke Koeninger (44:42.806)
through that for me. like it's that nuance of knowing like this is the thing I should be doing. I'm putting it off for fear versus this is my gut telling me I should keep going with this even when others say not. So it's like it's this nuanced decision making that you really it's just a practiced muscle. I think that gets stronger and stronger and you realize where you stand on that.

Carrie Holland (45:01.346)
And I think making a couple of mistakes along the way and learning from them and not making them such a big thing, right? Choosing to learn from them without the drama and using that as information to go forward has helped, at least in my experience, has helped me quite a bit. When I first started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to get clients. I didn't know how to even interact with people. And I made so many expensive, big, like just now looking at it, like laughable mistakes.

Jennifer Kok (45:09.263)
them.

Carrie Holland (45:28.62)
But I only would have gotten to where I am now had I done that and kept going, right? Like I could have used all of those things as a reason to stop and hang it up. But I swallowed my pride and dusted myself off and like chose to learn from it instead. But that was not easy at all. And there were a lot of feelings and a lot of self-doubt. I didn't need anybody to tell me I was messing up because I think I was being my own worst critic. And to be able to move through that and realize like, yeah, I actually can take care

Brooke Koeninger (45:53.74)
Yeah.

Carrie Holland (45:58.574)
of myself when I fail and move forward, like that has what has led me to being in business for six years and not hanging it up. Whereas I know many of my colleagues who have gone out, know multiple physicians who have started coaching, who are no longer because they just didn't tolerate it. So yeah, I think there's a lot of learning to be done there.

Brooke Koeninger (46:12.533)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (46:13.221)
Okay.

Brooke Koeninger (46:14.859)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (46:19.045)
Yeah, there really is. Yeah, I would love to.

Brooke Koeninger (46:21.9)
Can I just add one more thing, to what Carrie said? You can edit my words out. I like what you said, Carrie, about the looking back, the laughable mistakes are just things that you wouldn't do again. And I feel that deeply. And I always think, though, you don't know.

Jennifer Kok (46:28.37)
We're not editing. This is real raw and the truth behind building a business.

Carrie Holland (46:31.074)
Right? Stick it out there. Just put it in there.

Brooke Koeninger (46:43.829)
Looking forward, Jen, you and have talked about this before. You don't know where the path is leading you. But when I look back, can see exactly some of those things led me to connections. Like, Jen, we invested in, I won't call you, but we put some money into coaching. And did that work out? I don't know. But I met amazing people. Or the times that didn't work out in whatever investments and software, whatever it may be. But I look at it also, I'm like, I wouldn't have learned that to then help my clients, too. I'm doing this now.

Jennifer Kok (46:56.589)
Mm-hmm.

Brooke Koeninger (47:10.22)
Now I'm talking to from the trenches, not from somebody who just thinks that, you know, like I've done this stuff and tried it out. And so it is that flip I'm trying. And this isn't equated to me. This is Scott  who Jan, you and I know. But I think he was the one that said, like, when I was talking to him, I was like, if I can make it a goal to get more nos, like that actually turns the no or turns the failure into, oh, OK, so I'm like getting this goal, which means I'm actually pushing myself past where I have before. you know, I can turn it into maybe a sort of a good thing. It's still like.

scary and hard for me. anyways, Carrie, you saying that too, like I feel that deeply of like, God, if I just hadn't done this, like where would I be five years in now? But I'm like, I would have been somewhere totally different maybe if I hadn't learned that by then.

Jennifer Kok (47:52.537)
What I think I've loved about this conversation is a few things, is that we're really sharing with people that it's okay.

if it didn't work out the way you thought it was going to. It's okay if you screw up. Obviously, we're trying to help in our role. We're trying to help people not have those expensive mistakes that we had. But that this is just part of getting to know your business better, getting to know yourself better, and also getting to know your clients better. And that's how you build a business that can be standing 20 years from now.

You know, we have to realize that it takes showing up every day and it takes creating new habits every day and skilling up, you know, whether it's in sales or marketing and delegating, we have to let go a little bit. And so it's so, there's nothing like entrepreneurship that stretches you more personally and professionally development than being in the trenches of growing a business. We've all talked about something along the line that we learned because we

we didn't know and how we overcame and I love the word tolerate. You know it's funny I love how you use that word Carrie because a lot of times we hear perseverance grit you know just keep going passion but really it's tolerate and for me it's also adapting like you have to learn how to adapt when things throw you a curveball and for many of us that aren't that threw in the towel if so to speak or it didn't work out for them

Carrie Holland (49:10.197)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (49:20.005)
You don't want them to feel bad about that. They tried something. They tried something that a lot of people wouldn't try. But I hope that everyone listening today realizes that there was a reason all three of us left corporate. All three of us left are really good jobs. And Carrie the amount of schooling that it takes to be a physician. So our decision to start a business is a big decision.

Brooke Koeninger (49:32.65)
Yeah.

Brooke Koeninger (49:40.46)
Yes.

Jennifer Kok (49:46.085)
And when you are faced with these moments where it just feels like you're pushing a boulder uphill, just take a moment and pause and high five yourself that you did it in the first place. You're still here. And to think about your why I love how you brought that into the conversation, Brooke, because I always say the why is what gets you started. It's the who's that keep you in it long-term, but the why is really the root. It's, it's, you have to come back to that.

Brooke Koeninger (50:10.24)
Yeah, you got to come back to that. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (50:14.112)
And there's been days when I'm thinking, do I want to keep doing this? But then I think, well, what else would I do? At this point, I'm not even marketable. I'm not even hireable. Nobody's going to hire me now. So I'm in this. So here we are. So as we wrap this up, tell me about

Brooke Koeninger (50:22.614)
You're like, I'm in. I've burned plan B. Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (50:32.472)
like a who in your life that really kind of helped you in the last five to six years stay in the game and grow your business. Does anybody stand out? Did anybody have a mentor or a coach or someone that just really kind of inspired them to keep going? I kind of put you on the spot here with this one, but I'm just curious.

Brooke Koeninger (50:48.716)
I'm like thinking.

Carrie Holland (50:51.776)
I start. mean, I'm a coach and I felt like the only way I could promote a coach, like promote having a coach was by having one myself. And so I feel very strongly about like walking my talk and I've worked with a number of coaches along the way. And I can think of one in particular who I reached out because I just felt kind of, I call it twitchy. I feel like there are points in our business where we kind of get our legs under us and things are ticking and good.

And then we kind of get to, I call it twitchy, where it's like, all right, now what? And so I had some ideas in my head, but I just, similar to the conversations that we've had, I started spinning and felt like I was spending a lot of mental energy without anything to show for it.

So that's how I knew like, okay, I need some help like getting out of that jar that you referenced Jennifer. It's one of my favorites, getting out of the jar and kind of like seeing what do I actually have here? And so I worked with this coach for six months and really, I mean, that was the first time I had ever started a group program. I did it very small and I realized because I had been in previous coaching programs where it was very, very big and I felt like it was not, it turned me off to big group coaching. So was like, I just don't want this. And she's like, well, why do you have to go big?

Jennifer Kok (51:36.367)
Mm-hmm.

Carrie Holland (51:57.762)
That was such a simple, such a simple thing. But that whole idea that maybe I could do this my way really opened up a door for me. And so I did, and it was awesome. And we were midway through, and they were already asking, are we going to do this again? I was like,

Jennifer Kok (51:59.8)
Right.

Carrie Holland (52:11.57)
Sure. But the whole point was I don't know that I've ever, I don't know that I ever would have gotten there or have gotten there as quickly without having somebody to help me talk through that and work through that and help me pull apart my doubts and my fears and my questions and just help me see them differently. And so that's where I feel like having somebody to walk through you with this is essential, like really essential. You cannot do it. I mean, I love to do things on my own. I am a control freak 100 percent, but you can't do it alone.

Brooke Koeninger (52:21.911)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (52:33.093)
you

Brooke Koeninger (52:34.059)
Yeah.

Carrie Holland (52:41.534)
like you need people.

Brooke Koeninger (52:41.538)
Yep.

Jennifer Kok (52:42.617)
We can't. I love that you found that. And I 100 % agree. Owning a business can be very lonely, but isolation is a choice.

Brooke Koeninger (52:44.285)
I... yes.

Brooke Koeninger (52:52.716)
Yes, I would add as I'm thinking through this, Jen, it's going to be three quick ones. I promise three quick ones. The reason I started my podcast was because I wanted to have conversations with others like you, Jen, you've been on it. But I feel like I've learned something from everyone on there. It's my it's a gluttonous way for me to pull information from whatever every expert that I bring on. And I've learned so much from each of them. And I say that all of them are in the trenches with me. So I love that.

But two people that I would say are a lot further ahead of me in different aspects. So one is Tara Moore and Carrie, love how you work on mindset or whatever. She has a book called Playing Big and I was in one of her coaching groups and she really talks about like the inner critic and your inner mentor. And she was the flip for me to really look internally and be like, it's not out there, it's in here. It's like inside, like really thinking about what's stopping me and where do I want to be and what do I want this business to be? So that was one.

And the other one from a business perspective is Pia Silva. So she has a book that just came out, but it's called Scale Solo. And that for me, too, was kind of the one of several people. But the unlock, which I preached and I believed, but seeing someone successful further than me in that, was you can grow a business and be solo. That doesn't mean you got to hire a bunch of people. It does not mean you need to be bigger. It means what is it for you? And you can maximize that in a solo business. And I think that's a growing trend as well, as people saying, I don't want to be bigger and more.

I want to be the most that I can handle while still having flexibility and stuff. So I loved her kind of business model that she talks about.

Jennifer Kok (54:25.326)
It's funny you say that Brooke, because I've had two conversations with women entrepreneurs this past month and they both have built really good businesses, strong businesses, and they both looked at me and said, I don't know how big I really want to be.

Brooke Koeninger (54:38.861)
Yeah.

Jennifer Kok (54:39.395)
And like how you said, that's kind of a trend. And I think it's because it doesn't have to be that anymore. We have access to be able to serve people differently, especially online in different ways. And you don't have to manage a huge team anymore. And I love that because that's really knowing who you are, getting to the core of really knowing who you are. So, yes.

Brooke Koeninger (54:45.132)
No.

Yeah, yes.

Brooke Koeninger (54:55.863)
Yeah, like redefining success for you, releasing the ego. And what does that really look like for you? And it's not always monetary and bigger. I think that's what we've been preached for a long time, like kind of more the masculine energy versus maybe it's flexibility. Maybe it's the ability to travel all the time. Like, what is it for you? I don't know, but it's redefining that, I think.

Jennifer Kok (55:06.298)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Kok (55:12.229)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I love that. Well, ladies, I just want to thank you both for joining me today. And I want to share that I have created a group called the Focused Growth Collective. And the purpose behind this is it's going to be a virtual group for women entrepreneurs where we're going to talk about business strategy, but we're going to talk about finances. We're going to talk about money mindset. We're going to talk about habits, procrastination, fear, all of those things. Because my goal is to help people build profitable businesses.

businesses that help them pay themselves well every month and contribute to their family if that's what they choose.

and also still be here 10 years from now, if that's what they choose as well. And so both of you are going to be joining me in that group as advisors, as guest experts, and I'm just so honored and thankful that you will be bringing your message into the group because it's a conversation that I don't want it to end today. I want the conversation to keep going. So thank you so much for committing to that, and I look forward to learning more from both of you in the future.

Brooke Koeninger (56:16.727)
Thank you, Jen. This has been such a pleasure and I'm excited for your group coming up.

Carrie Holland (56:19.202)
Yeah, same here. It's gonna be fun. I can already feel it. There's some good energy in this room. yes, lots of people join us. There's a lot of good.

Jennifer Kok (56:29.615)
Thank you so much.