Angie Colee (00:02):

Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, a podcast about leaving self-doubt in the dust, punching fear in the face, and taking bold action toward your biggest dreams. I'm Angie Colee and let's get to it. Hey, and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass, with me today is my friend Sage Polaris. Say hi, Sage.

Sage Polaris (00:26):

Hey, thank you for having me.

Angie Colee (00:28):

I'm so excited to have you. I'm looking at the background, which of course they don't get to see, but you look so comfy and cozy in your home studio there. That's amazing.

Sage Polaris (00:37):

Yeah. I'm coming from my copy headquarters in Los Angeles, which means my office attached to my bedroom.

Angie Colee (00:43):

Love it. Hey, if that's the way it works. You create your office where you got the space. I'm doing my office in a hotel room, also in my bedroom. So no shade here. Tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.

Sage Polaris (00:57):

Yeah, Angie, I love that we've both been in business for 10 years, so I'm 10 years deep too, and I've been primarily running a copywriting business that has of course evolved over the years. The first seven years I was really focused on private client work and working specifically on launches. And then the last few years I decided I wanted my work to be more accessible because you had to know somebody who know somebody to be able to hire me, and now I have a copy template membership that's at a much lower price point and much more accessible. It's still an investment and I'm aware of that. It's a big deal for people to invest into, but I never had that option before. And then I run something that's a mastermind that I call a Collective. So those are kind of how my business has evolved over these last few years.

Angie Colee (01:50):

I love that. I think one of the foundations of business... I'm just going to get off on a tangent right away from what we planned on talking about, but that you mentioned, I didn't have the option to invest in these kinds of templates, these kinds of structures when I was starting out, because I remember that too. Somebody would reach out to me and say, "Hey, could you write a video script?" And I was like, "I don't know, can I?" Google! Okay, well that kind of makes sense and that one over here kind of makes sense. I think I'm going to cobble them together and create my own template out of this and I would just fumble my way through it. Now you can pick and choose from a variety of templates and it's awesome because you get to pick the one that resonates the most with you. I love that. I think that's great because it speaks to the evolution as a business owner that you can create something that you didn't have and help people that come behind you. That's totally a great business move I think.

Sage Polaris (02:44):

Yeah, and also part of the reason why I developed that for other people to use is because I wanted people to be able to save more time in their business because having an online business can... In the very beginning you'll give anything for your business to go well. I totally remember being in that space where I would bring my laptop on vacation, take client calls in the bathroom so that they couldn't hear my kids yelling in the hotel room that I was at, all of those things. And then over time I realized and early on I hired a project manager to help me better organize my time and that changed everything for me. And so yes, these copy templates that I've created are to help people get more sales. The other aspect of it though is for them to get their time back as they're growing their business and anytime they sit down, being able to shave 15 to 20 hours off of their writing project, if they're doing a launch for example, I'm here for that.

Angie Colee (03:48):

I mean that's a whole freaking day saved. Oh my goodness, how invaluable is that? And I love that you mentioned hiring someone to help you organize your time because I had to do that too. I thought I was really doing well as a creative by leaving my days open and free. I could change with the moment's notice and do all of the things and I didn't realize how counterproductive that actually was, that I had zero structure to my days.

(04:21):

Since I had somebody that was more of an expert and pushed me out of my comfort zone with, "No, if you block off calls to these days and then every other period you get to actually work on your business and do productive things without having to jump off for another call every 15 minutes right when you get into the flow of things, you're actually going to be much more productive." I accidentally last year recorded all of my podcasts for an entire year by June. I didn't set out to achieve that, but I limited my call days to Wednesdays and I just took as many podcasts recordings as I could on Wednesday afternoons and then before I knew it was full. So time management. Yes, absolutely.

Sage Polaris (05:02):

For the win, and I wish it was my zone of genius. It's really not though, but I do feel like anybody can do this one thing I want to share, which is, I recommend that you use a tool like Toggle or some kind of time tracking to realize how you're spending your time in your business because early on, the very first thing that I outsourced, I hired a VA and it was in the first couple years of my business for five hours a month for $16 an hour. So I was spending $80 just to have her do the scheduling for my clients and also the invoicing for my clients because that one thing was taking up time, really valuable time when I could be writing. So I do recommend, start with a simple tool, start to track your time. You'll be so surprised at what you do.

Angie Colee (05:54):

I think most of us are aware of this in this age of social media too, that your phone is in your hand and you're halfway through reading a site before you even realize what's happening. It's become such a habit and we lose time so easily with social media these days that having something that brings your awareness back to just how much time you're losing, it's a good thing for a business owner.

Sage Polaris (06:16):

Yeah, it's really powerful. There's also a tracker called Digital Wellbeing, at least on Android. I don't have an apple where you can see how much time you spent on social media and that's another great thing to track for sure.

Angie Colee (06:30):

Oh I love that one because I have a pixel, so I have an Android too. And when I saw that and the first time I looked at that thing and was like, "Dear God, how much time I've spent playing this stupid game called Two Dots today is freaking ridiculous." Maybe we need to set a time or limit on that to where the app shuts down after a certain amount of time, and now I do that so that my phone forces me off of those apps when I have just been wasting time and lost track of it. It has given me so much of my life back. I'm telling you.

Sage Polaris (06:59):

Yeah, it's so powerful. I love that.

Angie Colee (07:02):

That's awesome. Well I mean speaking of time, I know that we were talking about, before the call this really interesting thing that you had happened, where you wound up taking time off and then doubling your revenue and we're not just talking like, "Oh I took a three day weekend." You took four months off?

Sage Polaris (07:19):

So actually for the seventh year in a row, I take four months off in my business and-

Angie Colee (07:24):

Wow.

Sage Polaris (07:25):

... people always ask me, they're like, "Wait, what do you do for four months?" So it's not consecutive. There's a system around it. So actually I hired the project manager and I was like, "Hey." In the beginning it was fun Fridays like let me just take Friday off and go do something fun once a month. And then over time I was telling them, "I want to take more time off." I was thinking every other week, I came up with this terrible idea and it was going to be a really hard system to follow. And she looked at how much time I wanted to take off and she was like, "Hey, why don't you just take the last week of every month off for the whole year and that accumulates to three months and then you can take one month off." Or sometimes I break it apart, two weeks in November, two weeks in December, which I'm going to do again this year.

(08:15):

So once we had this system around it, my team keeps me honest around it. In fact, just this month is a perfect example. So it's October and I really wanted to book this client who wanted to do multiple phases of a VIP day with me, one day and then another day and I was like, "Okay, if we're going to fit this in and do it properly, I need to give them the last Tuesday of the month." Because I usually do them on Tuesdays, and my team member was like, "Are you sure you want to do it on that Tuesday because you're supposed to be taking that week off?" And I'm like, "God, I love you." So they keep you honest.

(08:56):

I was like, "Yeah, I'm okay with it because..." Long story short, I had to take a different Tuesday off that I was supposed to be working earlier this month. And so I was like, "It evens out for me and I'm okay with it." First of all, you make these rules and you're the boss, you can break them if you need to, it's totally fine. But I have found setting that intention for your time off in the beginning of the year, right now we're marking the entire year off and we're in October for 2023. You're more likely to take the time off.

(09:28):

So even if you're just listening to this and you're like, "Okay, clearly I can't take four months off yet, but what I can do is commit to marking my birthday off." Marking all the government holidays off if you want to take them. I think in Canada they call them stat holidays. Are there any days where your kids, I have young children, are going to get out of school early that day, you can mark that day off. So, that's what we do. We look at the school calendar, we look at the government holidays, we look at birthdays in my family and that one week off and we mark it all off a year in advance. And I know it sounds like a lot, but it's that intention setting that makes all the difference to you committing to it.

Angie Colee (10:11):

Oh absolutely. That was my discovery this year where I'm taking a record breaking for me, amounts of time off, which is going to amount to about five weeks all told. And it started with me doing my end of year analysis last year, early this year. Looking at what I did in 2021 when I did this drastic digital nomad change in my life and realized, "Yes, I'm technically taking more time off because I'm going to Lama yoga or hot air balloons." Or other random things where I am forcing myself to be away from the computer but I'm not taking time off in the sense that I am actively disconnecting from work for days or a week at a time, and basically finding myself and my center. I was always on in some form even if I was taking a half day off here and there.

(10:59):

And it was shocking to me because I was like, "Here I am on this crazy adventure but I'm not actually taking any time off." I do get the time for adventure of recharging but not taking time off. So I made that a priority this year and was like, "What happens if I do a quarterly vacation, new rule, quarterly vacation." What does that mean? I take the last week of the quarter off and I'm going to take two weeks off for the holidays in December, January. I did the exact same thing that you did. I blocked it in.

(11:26):

I sat down one week in January and marked all of those off. I marked them as busy so that nobody could schedule me stuff in advance, and I've been kind of the gatekeeper with my partner on stuff like that because if we have stuff blocked off in the calendar, she's known for like, "Oh we could move some stuff around." Like, "Nope, absolutely not. That week is blocked off for this. This week is blocked off for that. We're going to have to find some other time to do that." And the clients aren't aggravated by that. They just find another time that works because they're busy too.

Sage Polaris (11:55):

Yeah, yeah. It's definitely not something I announced to my clients. I'm not like, "Hey by the way I take all this time." No, it's just having the onboarding process already laid out for them. They know all the dates of when the deliverables are coming and that's all they care about. They don't want to know what I'm doing with all the other dates of my month.

Angie Colee (12:16):

Exactly. It doesn't even have to be a big production. It can just be, "I can't do that day, will this day work instead?" And you happen to schedule them for a week out after you come back from your vacation. It's not as big a deal as we've made it to be in our capitalist society where you're expected to be tied to the computer 24/7. But, if you just tell somebody, "I can't do it that day. No, how about this day instead?" It works. It works. It's not as big as a deal as it seems.

Sage Polaris (12:45):

100% and I love being able to love up on my clients and let them know exactly when all the pieces are happening and rolling out. The other thing I found that taking this time off has really helped me do is to create a system around creating content a month in advance so that I don't come back from my week off and be like, "Holy molly, I have so much to do." Because I have weekly emails that go out to my people in my membership. I have weekly emails that go out to people who are in my collective, and so by this, Fridays are kind of my writing days. So by this Friday I have the stack of everything I want to write for November and it's the first Friday in October.

(13:30):

So I like to get everything done in advance as much as possible. I would love to get to quarterly in advance with all my... Sometimes I do, especially towards the end of the year actually. This is around the time, November and December I really roll out as much as I can all the way through February. So yeah, I'm realizing I get ahead of the curve towards the end of the year going in the first part of the year, but then I get back on my monthly. It's easier for me starting in March and April to just write things a month in advance.

Angie Colee (14:05):

That makes perfect sense to me. I think this is a perfect example of putting Parkinson's law to work for you. So what we've got backasswards here in our capitalist society is, waiting for the work to be done, waiting to hit a milestone before we deserve our time off. There's a whole lot of internal head trash that happens that we aren't even necessarily aware of. But this change for me during the first part of last year, 2021, I'm traveling before the vaccines were available. So there were still a lot of very strict COVID protocols in place, including severe limits on the number of people that could be in certain spaces. You had to get a reservation and if they didn't have any available spots and you wanted to see, say the Grand Ole Opry, you're SOL if you don't get one of those spots.

(14:50):

So that meant that sometimes I'm booking an activity that I really want to see in the city that I'm traveling to and I have to take whatever random time slot they give me on a Wednesday morning, on a Tuesday afternoon. And the thing that I recognized in doing all that was that the work just fit into the remaining space. And that was a total aha moment to me that I had to deliberately make that choice that I'm going to spend my time here and the work fits into the remaining space that I've got left, and oh man, that worked. Somehow my 10 hour days cut down to five hour days fairly easily when I just made a different choice.

Sage Polaris (15:32):

Well a couple things come up for me. One, it goes back to that point of, if you schedule things for yourself in advance, you will make those things work into your schedule, you'll be more likely to. The other thing is that, when it comes to results in our business, we wait to celebrate and other people around us too. They may not want to celebrate with you before the result is there, but I found pre-celebrating is something I love doing. I'm actually getting ready to make an evergreen offer to my community and I was sitting down, I looked at the numbers and we think we're going to get 111 people. I love the woo-woo magic numbers.

Angie Colee (16:16):

Love it.

Sage Polaris (16:18):

So we think we're going to get 111 people taking a up on our next offer, and I'm already feeling into that energy. I'm already celebrating those people coming in and I'll already treat myself, go to brunch with friends or take a staycation here in Palm Springs. I love going because I'm in LA, I love going over there. All of those things, but don't wait to treat yourself, is the point. Start to celebrate before it gets here because that energy attracts more of that excitement and energy that you're wanting to do.

Angie Colee (16:52):

It's so good on so many multiple levels, making Parkinson's law work for you. I didn't articulate that earlier because Parkinson's law loosely paraphrase this, probably not going to get it perfect, but, "The task will take the time that you give it basically." And so if I've given it a week to get done except for Tuesday afternoon, then it's going to take me a week to get done except for Tuesday afternoon. If I've given myself two months, it's going to take two months. If I've given myself two hours, I will find out a way to get that done in two hours. It's amazing how our brain works, and then just that other concept of it, and it ties into the concept of the show so nicely too, of giving yourself permission to celebrate just because you want to. The rules that you set, and that ties into what you said earlier too.

(17:38):

You set the rules, you get to break the rules at your discretion or enforce them at your discretion because it's your business. That was such an awakening for me last year because I didn't even realize there was a different piece of head trash that I had, which was that I can't go do this thing that I really want to do unless someone comes with me. I'm not alone or I have something to celebrate. So in this instance, I really wanted to go to this magical spa I had found in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. And it was one of those floor hot tubs, but they have a three-sided building with a roof built around it so that you can sit in this hot tub and look out the trees in the mountains. And I really just wanted someone to go with me because I felt like I needed that.

(18:22):

And I had a friend lined up and she was going to come out and then she couldn't, and I was just so bummed because now I can't go to this thing, and then I got mad, "Why can't I go to this thing? I want to. I don't have anything to celebrate. I don't have anybody to go with me, but I just want to go and have the experience." And so I did it. I sat in that hot tub watching the sunset over the mountains, watching the fireflies come out because it was summer. And just having this realization that I feel like I want everybody to have, which is you get to go do things that you want to do just because you want to do them.

Sage Polaris (18:57):

100%. Yeah, I love it. I love your energy around it too. You're very fiery in that and it's beautiful to see, and it's true. I follow the same ethos, taking myself out on spa dates, going to the botanical gardens just because, and using them as my office sometimes just to switch out my energy, get in a new environment. You'll love this, when I do my free copy course every year. I offer it once a year and sometimes I do it twice, but usually once a year and there's six live sessions that I'm filming and I get Airbnb that's like 20 minutes from my house so that I can completely focus and swim during the day because water is very good for me when it comes to creativity and just being present and all of those things. I got this one cute Airbnb, had a tree house and a pool and I was just living my best life.

(19:58):

And then I would record my sessions. We had this last time 3,700 people sign up, which was wild.

Angie Colee (20:03):

Nice.

Sage Polaris (20:04):

I know. I'm so grateful and it was so beautiful being able to keep my energy in that really good place, and then I even had a massage therapist come to the Airbnb and give me a massage one night. All these little things. I realize you may have to build up to them in your business. You may not have the budget for all of these things yet if you're getting started. That being said, think about your energy and how you want to spend it during making offers or doing launches or whatever it is you have going on because people pick up on that. It's huge. Yeah.

Angie Colee (20:41):

Oh yeah. I was writing down so many notes when you were talking about that, but it sounds like you have an amazing ritual for taking care of yourself and preserving your energy. It's interesting how many people, because I think we both know a lot of people who do live events and productions, but they go into it with this mindset of, "I have to be on and it's going to be these super long days where I'm just going to have to be on 24/7 with all these people. It's going to be really depleting." But the most successful people that I know that run events, whether live or virtual, have something similar to you.

(21:11):

It's like, "I don't come out of my room and start interacting with people until a certain time because I need that alone quiet solitude in the morning. I need a longer lunch period so that I can go take a nap, take a walk on the block, recharge and rejuvenate myself." And then usually one guy that I worked with would shut down excess caffeine and sugar a couple weeks beforehand to really start getting that mental clarity that he knew would allow him to perform his best. So I freaking love that, and that reminds me of another piece of head trash. Go figure, head trash.

(21:46):

I am not a morning person, and I don't think that, that's really a secret with anybody that knows me. I've always wanted to be able to get up at seven o'clock and take a couple hours to get my head on straight, long and leisurely morning routine before I have to be on and working on anything. And one day it just occurred to me, I could just do that. I had said that someday when I've achieved this level of success or that level of success, I will be able to take this long morning routine. And that same thing with Parkinson's law happened, even though I didn't realize it at the time. It's like one day I just decided, "What would happen today if I got up, and I just did that long luxurious morning routine. Really indulged in that coffee, sitting on this front patio enjoying the breeze, listening to the crickets and smelling nature and having a moment."

(22:37):

Oh my gosh, and that really reflected, I feel like I'm rambling about this, but it makes me so excited. We had one of those rule breaking situations recently where we have to schedule a client due to Hurricane Ian of all things happening last week.

Sage Polaris (22:51):

Wow, that's so nice.

Angie Colee (22:54):

We have some limited availability. So it means that we're going to have to be flexible with some of our, we don't schedule on these days rules. And we talked about a couple of options including opening up some space on a weekend or starting at 6:00 AM because our client is in Paris and there's a big time difference. And I said, "I would rather open up space on a weekend because 6:00 AM is my morning routine and that is forbidden. We are not encroaching on that. That will not allow me to be my best self. I will be tired and grumpy on this meeting and not even able to provide a good experience, let alone good ideas. Let's not do that."

Sage Polaris (23:27):

Yeah. It's so powerful though, once you start to acknowledge these things about how you best operate. And so I totally see how you're doing a disservice to the client if you allow for things that you know are not best for you. So I love that you were working with them though and understanding sometimes situations happen and it's okay. Give yourself some grace because I do think when it comes to making rules around your business, we can get a little too uptight about how we want everything to run and then there's life. And if anything we've learned these last few years, things can change in a dime.

Angie Colee (24:12):

What's that old saying, "Man plans, God laughs."

Sage Polaris (24:15):

Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

Angie Colee (24:19):

You can plan all you want and then life is going to go, "No, that's not going to happen." So yeah, some flex. I like to think of everything as 80 20. You're going to love 80% of your business and struggle 20% of the time. You're going to have 80% of situations fit into the pre-established rules and then 20% of the time things are going to go off the rails or you're going to have to create a special situation. I live my whole life by that 80 20 instead of aiming for the perfection basically.

Sage Polaris (24:48):

Yeah, I love that. That's a beautiful ratio to keep it in mind whenever you're deciding these things in your business. And I think, the more you can create systems but then stay fluid within them, the more fun you'll have. It's funny because I'm very much a go with the flow person, but that structure, creating that early on in my business has informed so much of my clients feeling comfortable with investing in me, for one. That's a huge part of creating systems in your business.

(25:23):

The other thing is, avoiding what most people experience, which is burnout. I know a lot of my peers who are like, "Oh, I'm going to go create a course because I feel burnt out from my client work and I'm just going to burn that part of my business down. And I'm like, okay, but that is the most profitable part of your business and that's what I call your profit sweet spot. So I wouldn't be so quick to get rid of something that you know is working but might just need a little more systems around it. So I feel like most people skip this piece and then they're just like, "Let me go do this entirely other thing." That they don't know is going to be profitable. So I would rather see people prove something and give themselves time to build up other pieces of their business rather than diving from one to the next and then losing out on profits that they already have proven in their business.

Angie Colee (26:18):

Absolutely. I know several people who fit the profile of both ADHD and super quick start on Colby. They get excited by that brand new idea and they're like, "You know what, screw everything else. I don't care. That's fine. I'm excited by this new thing." And working with them is a special challenge and a special joy because it's like, "Okay, can we take all that excitement that you've got for the new thing and find something new about this thing that already works for you, so that we're not burning it down. Can we find new ways to explore this or automate this or systematize this or remove yourself from this piece of it so that it can continue to make you money and then you can go play in your happy place."

Sage Polaris (27:00):

Yeah, that, and people who are fast decision makers, they tend to do well in online business because they can go quickly. And so that is a strength, but there is weaknesses to every personality type. I found for me, I made the choice to say, with my growth and the money in my business, for example, if I have the potential of making 2.1 million next year, which I can see how it could all come together, I say to my business, "Only if it comes with the ease, comfort, and joy that I currently have."

Angie Colee (27:34):

Yes.

Sage Polaris (27:35):

It's the first time though that I put parameters on my money and I'm like, "This is how I want to experience bringing more money into my business." And it's very helpful for me to remind myself of that because it is easy to get distracted by what everyone else is creating. But I know my personality type, I'm a slower decision maker. I like to move more slowly in terms of my growth as well, and that's what serves me best. So we each have our personalities, our strengths, and what we're best at. And so a lot of it is me tapping into my intuition and asking more questions and going inward and finding ways to do things that maybe other people have not done that, but I know it will work in my business.

Angie Colee (28:26):

I think this brings up kind of a woo thing for me, which is, and I'm kind of a woo skeptic ordinarily, but it's been more interesting to me recently, especially when somebody asked me to do a human design profile. And so I took this, it involves star charts and stuff like that. Took this, I paid for a profile and I got this breakdown that said that I am a generator. And I started reading this profile and it says, "You respond to invitation, you go operate from joy and satisfaction. You put your energy out in the world. Somebody comes to you and says, 'Hey, I love what you do, let's work together.' And then you respond to the invitation and it usually has to be a full body hell yes, and that's how you do your best work and you should not feel guilt over that."

(29:14):

And of course being the capitalist brainwashed person that I am, most of us instantly had a reaction of, "That can't possibly be true, not that easy. You have to work harder to [inaudible 00:29:25] all of this stuff. But I challenged myself to sit with that discomfort and do some journaling on it. And anything that's at, whether you're skeptic or you're woo or you're not, I think anything that can show you some insights about yourself is a valuable tool. So use all of the tools. So I sat with that discomfort, I journaled about it and I realized every miserable situation where I suffered and was subject to abuse and it was just a horrible experience, was something that I pursued and I tried to force it to happen. Because that's what you're supposed to do when you work hard, and everything that has been full of joy and ease and has brought me profitability that I've been hoping for has been a response to an invitation.

Sage Polaris (30:09):

I love that so much. That's so good, and yeah, human design for me, I'm a manifesting generator. It's very eye opening. I feel like all of the personality tests out there kind of point to the same thing, but take a different direction towards it. And I know that you're saying once you realize and have an awareness of how you best operate, it's so powerful. And it's something I wish that people would start with first when they start their business. And I also wish that... It's interesting the way that branding works and how it creates a new awareness for people. And so whenever they have a new awareness, they're like, "Oh, I should go try that because it worked for that person." And it discounts the fact that each person has a different personality and that's why it worked for them. So I do think this is the crux of having success online.

(31:11):

Success is different for each person. Your personal version of what success means to you really starts with understanding yourself, your personality, your network. Also who's in your circle already. What can you leverage? Because early on in my business tried to do, for example, an affiliate launch for a course that I had created. I was year two into my business and I wasn't trying to run away from my private client work, but I was just like, "Well, let me try this." Because I had actually won a contest for someone I had create my course for me.

(31:43):

So I was like, "Cool, let me give this a shot." So I launched it and I included affiliate partners and I just hadn't realized A, my brand recognition wasn't high enough for me to be able to do that. I didn't hold the same credibility that some of my peers who were launching courses were having success with. The other thing was I didn't really have the network and the relationships with people who had big enough email lists, for example. But now that I'm year 10 in my business, I know so much more about the back ends of other people's businesses. I know who to ask for partnerships, and my last launch, 60% of people came through affiliate partnerships like the leads. But I like to think of them as human beings that came through came from that partnership.

(32:33):

So that looks completely different eight years later, year two versus year 10. And so, I do wish as people come into this online space that they would be able to think a little bit more strategically about, why did that work for that person and what specifically would work for me based on where I'm at in my business. So they're all things to consider, and I know when you're getting started, you're just inundated with the information and trying to do all the things. But I do think it takes a little bit of pausing and acknowledging all the things that we're talking about before you decide what direction you want to go with your business.

Angie Colee (33:13):

Oh yeah, and I think it was brilliant that you used the word, try it. And that's what I really want to like circle underscore, exclamation point, bright red flashing, neon light, try it. Absolutely. If something that you saw worked for someone else and it sounds interesting to you and it seems like it could work for you, try it. And if it doesn't work out, you thought, don't take it as a sign that this means that you're a failure, that your business sucks, that this is something that will never work. That's the second point that you made that I thought was brilliant, especially with the affiliate marketing. You tried it once. You could have easily come to the conclusion that affiliate marketing doesn't work for me. But instead you took that strategic route like you said, and looked at, "Okay, here's why it worked for them. What do I need to change in order to make this work for me?" And then years later when you had those in place, you went, "Let's try that again." And now it's a huge part of your business. Try it. Absolutely try it.

Sage Polaris (34:09):

Yeah.

Angie Colee (34:11):

And try it again.

Sage Polaris (34:11):

Yeah. 100%, and just in between those things, I think the only part in part is, there's a quote out there, I think it's like, "You never fail..." Something about losing your winning, but if you learn from your lessons, then you can't fail. I don't know. It's not as pretty, but the lessons in between each of these attempts at what you're doing. If you learn from them, then there's no way you can lose or fail, but if you don't take the time to learn from it, then sure, things may not feel as good and you may not be able to make those pivots over time.

Angie Colee (34:49):

Yes. I love that. I heard somebody phrase it as, and this was the pithy version I heard, "You win or you learn."

Sage Polaris (34:55):

Oh.

Angie Colee (34:56):

And I was like, "Yes, yes. You win or you learn." There is no lose until you give up or you die, and even in certain situations, giving up isn't a lose necessarily. It means a pivot. It means a change in... I gave up on my career in the TV industry. So I used to live in LA, lived in Toluca Lake.

Sage Polaris (35:17):

Oh fun.

Angie Colee (35:18):

In the valley. Worked at all the majors for a while, but then got laid off from the Oprah Winfrey Network right before it started, which threw me headlong into this lovely copywriting career that I discovered by accident. And giving up on the TV dream that I had doesn't mean that I was a failure. It actually opened me up to even greater wins. We wouldn't be here now if I had been like, "That's a lose. I'm a loser. I suck."

Sage Polaris (35:42):

Yeah, I hear you. It's a whole thing, and we have to process it. There's definitely emotions that come along with the lessons and it takes a lot to continue to show up and do the work, and I think you're right. If you continue to show up, then you're really not losing. You're winning.

Angie Colee (36:03):

Yes, absolutely. I love that you mentioned the emotions and processing, because that's another thing I don't think that we talk about enough in business that, you are a human at the end of the day, operating a human operated business with all of your human emotions and, your biases and your assumptions and, your grievances and your, I didn't get enough sleep and so now I'm just irrationally grumpy and I hate all of you, and you get to be a human. But that starts with actually allowing yourself to feel things and not judging yourself for it.

(36:33):

I was actually talking with a coaching student of mine about that earlier today where I told him, "Have you ever stood on the beach and tried to hold back the water?" That's what it feels like. That's what it looks like in my mind when I hear somebody being like, "I refuse to feel guilty." Okay, well, but the guilt is going to happen. It's what you do after that feeling that pops up, that really matters. And so I said, "Okay, instead of standing on the beach and trying to hold back the water, what if you just sat down and let the wave carry you to shore?"

Sage Polaris (37:03):

I love that metaphor.

Angie Colee (37:05):

Just let the emotion wash over you. Acknowledge that you had a temporary bad moments. Ask yourself if there's anything that this emotion is trying to teach you. If you're just having a bad day and you're frustrated, and then ask yourself what you're committed to and go act on those commitments. Just feel the feelings. It's okay because if you don't, if you bury them, if you say, "I'm not going to feel guilty, I'm not going to feel mad right now. I'm not going to feel stressed." You bury all that stuff and then it pops up at the most inconvenient time and demands to be dealt with right now.

Sage Polaris (37:36):

Yeah. I have a tool I like to use that I'll drop here, which is spiritually speaking, everybody has different beliefs and this really works for all beliefs. I specifically follow Abraham Hicks and I law of attraction stuff. So whenever I'm feeling a certain emotion, let's say I feel abandoned by a client, because that was a big one for me for a lot of years, I will go onto YouTube and I will search Abraham Hicks and the word abandoned and I will always get the message that I need. So whoever your spiritual leader is and whatever emotion you're feeling, I highly recommend, for me it's in the morning, turning that on and listening to the message that I need to hear and getting exactly what I need to continue to go and move on and work through it and do all the things that are important. I think our ability to process emotions is so important, and so definitely lean into those, whatever your faith and tools are.

Angie Colee (38:38):

And the funny thing is, the more you fight it, the more kind of, unbalanced is not necessarily the right word, but it gets really harder for you to control them when you're keeping so much inside. I think the folks that have the highest levels of emotional intelligence are the people that have practiced that skill of letting the emotion pass and then figuring out what they have to do with it. What is this trying to show me? What is this trying to protect me from? That's my favorite one. Stupid brain. Stop being scared of everything. It's not all trying to kill you. It's fine.

Sage Polaris (39:11):

Yeah, and there's a couple of people coming to mind right now. Maya Angelou talks about how you can't have rainbows without clouds. I'm paraphrasing, but I love that. It's so true, and it's just a part of the experience. And then Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about how pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, and I also really love that.

Angie Colee (39:33):

Oh gosh, that was just like a gut punch as soon as you said, and I've heard that one before, but I love getting those reminders. It feels so timely. Suffering is optional, it's a choice. Pain is something we're all going to experience, which is just a, "Hey, you know what?" Like little side reminder, be kind everywhere all the time, no matter how off you are because you never know what somebody else is going through, but you don't have to suffer. You don't. You can choose not to.

Sage Polaris (40:01):

Yeah.

Angie Colee (40:01):

Oh, that just feels like such a nice breath. Nice way to wrap it up. So I'm going to ask you to tell us more about your business, how we can learn about you.

Sage Polaris (40:12):

Oh, thank you. Yeah. So a lot of this interview, we talked about saving time in your business and I'm a big fan of templates, so I would love to share a gift with everyone. If you go to sagepolaris.com/we loveangie, you will get my triple email open rates. It's three emails that you can copy, paste, and personalize. If you have ghosted your list, it happens to the best of us. If you have an email list, if you haven't written them, you'll know exactly what to say to them. These three emails. Also, if you had an email list for a while and you have not removed your unengaged subscribers, these three emails will help you scrub your list and it will help either way. Whatever scenario you're in, like you've ghosted or you've had a list, your deliverability rate will be higher because your email open rates will go higher.

(41:04):

So I love sharing these with people. You can go to that link and snap those up and start using them to re-engage with your list and then you'll know exactly what they want from you as an offer as well because it'll set you up for making an offer.

Angie Colee (41:18):

Love it. Love it. What a wonderful tool. Everybody better go download that. I want to see, just because I love the link, I am unashamedly loving the link, but go grab that. Go put the tools to use and see if you can build that freedom and time space back into your business, and heaven forbid, have a little joy with all this. Thank you so much for sharing everything that you've shared with us today Sage, it's been a joy to have you on the show. Thank you.

Sage Polaris (41:44):

Oh my pleasure, Angie. I appreciate you opening up your circle and I get to know your audience a little bit more.

Angie Colee (41:52):

So, that is it. Another awesome episode of Permission to Kick Ass on the books. If you want to know more about the show, if you want to know more about me, Angie Colee and the mission I'm on to help entrepreneurs punch fear in the face and do big bold things, then head on over to permissiontokickass.com. That is all one word together, permissiontokickass.com. Make sure to sign up for my email list so that you know whenever there's a hot, fresh and ready Podcast episode out for you. And also on Mondays, I like to send out a little newsletter called Kick Monday's Ass. I'm sure you're totally, totally surprised by that. So thank you for being here with me today. I'm Angie Colee, make sure that you share this with a friend that needs to hear this message today. Like it, share it, comment wherever you're listening to this today and let's go kick some ass.