Unlock Your Genius Zone

Winners Never Quit: 7 Years of Business Failures That Led to My Zone of Genius | Ep. 65

• Ine-Wilme Coetzee • Episode 65

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This is Part 2 of my entrepreneurship story - the raw, unfiltered truth about the 7 years that led to my Zone of Genius breakthrough. From taking a pregnancy test 10 minutes before teaching a course that only 3 people bought, to realizing I was missing my son's precious moments while chasing a business that wasn't working…

I'm sharing the struggles most entrepreneurs hide: the 42 cents an hour seasons, the moment I almost quit, and the $25,000 investment that either saved or broke my business. Most importantly, I'm revealing how I finally discovered that my true genius wasn't teaching cello - it was empowering entrepreneurs.

Key Topics Covered:

  • The neuroscience behind why I kept going despite 7 years of struggle
  • How becoming a mother forced me to examine my business priorities
  • The difference between working IN your zone of genius vs. working AROUND it
  • Why "winners never quit and quitters never win" became my survival mantra
  • The 3 non-negotiable conditions I set for my $25,000 business investment
  • How I finally stopped teaching what I thought people wanted and started serving what they actually needed
  • The role of music and emotion in business transformation
  • Building a sustainable business that doesn't require sacrificing family time

Memorable Moments:

  • Taking a pregnancy test 10 minutes before a live course with only 3 students
  • The moment my toddler said "Mommy, look at me" and I realized I was missing everything
  • Investing $25,000 while averaging 42 cents an hour, the conditions that made it work and actually helped me rise to a new level
  • The conversation that led me to completely pivot from music education to business coaching
  • How I went from dreading work to feeling energized by my business

Resources Mentioned:

  • Tony Robbins and the education industry statistics
  • "10X is Easier than 2X" by Dan Sullivan (The 5 Freedoms)
  • Innovation Incubator (my signature business coaching program)
  • Private podcast for entrepreneurs with ADHD
  • Free Zone of Genius Strategy Calls (limited to 20 per month)

Connect with Ine:

Podcast intro music: J.S. Bach Cello Suites, Suite No. 3 in C major, Prelude 
Musician: Mari Coetzee 

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Speaker 1:

If you are just joining me. This is part two of a story that is very close to my heart. Last week, I shared about how I discovered my own genius zone. This week, however, I am talking about the seven years that preceded that moment. I'm going to condense it for you in a short video so that you can capture the essence of how I went from 42 to consistent 10K months in my business and truly feeling like it's giving me energy instead of taking my energy away every single day.

Speaker 1:

This story is going to include the moment that I found out I was pregnant with a business that was reaching rock bottom. The story of how, for the last two years as a mom, I resurrected the business and completely shifted it. In fact, I never work when my son is awake now, and this was only possible because of the frameworks I'm going to teach you throughout this story. Now, as I did last week, I'm going to give you the same offer at the very end, something I've never offered before. So definitely watch all the way to the end, but first I have to take you back to 18 year old Ina with a dream of a million dollar business. Are you ready? So I have always had the goal since I was 18 years old to have a business that makes a million dollars a year. I had zero clue what I was getting myself into, but one day I was listening to a Tony Robbins event online. I was sitting in my fifth wheel trailer that I lived in in the past In fact, my very first YouTube video. You'll see me in that very trailer and I thought to myself well, if Tony Robbins says that the education industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, set to reach, I think, $32 billion by 2032, this is my freedom, this is my ticket to freedom, and that was honestly why I'd started my business in the first place. I wanted freedom, and I know that if you're an entrepreneur watching this, you want freedom too. You want the five freedoms that Dan Sullivan talks about in the book. 10x is easier than 2X. You want time freedom, money freedom, location freedom, freedom of attention, which means you can focus on anything you'd like, and freedom of relationship, which is you can have a relationship with anybody you'd like in the whole entire world. And I was obsessing about if I was going to reach my numbers every month.

Speaker 1:

The first business I started, I was honestly very much in over my head and I had no idea what I was doing, as I mentioned. But I knew that, okay, if I was going to create this business, if I was going to create a business filled with freedom, I had to create something of my own. So I did what every entrepreneur does and I did a brain dump. I did a brain dump of all my ideas. I came upon two sides that I ended up choosing between organization skills versus cello skills. Which direction was I going to go? Logic dictated to me. My parents had spent thousands of dollars on the cello thus far and I had spent almost 20 years of my life learning the cello thus far. Why would I go do organization skills if I could do the cello? So I started trying to get students for my cello studio. I ended up filling 15 hours worth, which was my goal of one-on-one spots, rather quickly working for other teachers. But I still wasn't fulfilled. It was pretty draining. So I always kept in the back of my head, pointing at the back of my head, that thing that Tony Robbins said about the education industry and I knew, okay, a course that was probably closer to my ticket to freedom of time and money than one-on-one teaching. It was not a very scalable model. So this is now a couple of years into my entrepreneurship journey.

Speaker 1:

About four years in, I decided to create a course. It's now August of 2022. I had just launched the course and three people bought. I almost made a thousand dollars that's kind of where the math comes in. For the 42 cents an hour, I was working 30 hours a week for almost a year preparing for this course and had barely made $992. But I thought well, it's a start. This is just the first time.

Speaker 1:

It was week two of the eight week program and I was eating a hard boiled egg 15 minutes before the class was going to start. These details might seem a little bit arbitrary for you for now, but you're going to find out exactly what I'm getting at in a moment. All of a sudden, I think this egg tastes really strange. I check the carton. I have three weeks left before the eggs expire. That's not the problem. I think. Well, I'm going to go take a pregnancy test. So I run to the bathroom, take a pregnancy test. Five minutes later, the timer goes off. It's now 10 minutes before the class and, lo and behold, it was positive a positive pregnancy test, seemingly out of nowhere.

Speaker 1:

I had no idea what I was going to do. My heart dropped, my stomach rose to my throat and I'd been journaling for the four years before that. When I've been married for five years, which is a year in the future, I would start to try to have a baby and I would be an exceptional mother. I wrote down the sentence I am an exceptional mother and wife. I wrote down the sentence every single day because I believe in future, casting the goals we have. I saw those two pink lines and I knew okay, now I am a mother and I have to fulfill that promise I had made myself of being an exceptional one. I wasn't going to let standards slip here in the most important season of my life that was about to start. I had a reality check in that moment. I was teaching 15 hours a week. I was spending at least five hours a week preparing for my course, let alone the 30 hours plus a week that I was procrastinating doing the marketing for it. So something had to change, that was for sure. Okay, so that cohort ended eight weeks later. I'm now 12 weeks pregnant, because I found out at four.

Speaker 1:

It was the beginning of second trimester and I thought, well, okay, I have six months left. How would I launch a membership, a membership to learn the cello? I spent my entire second trimester figuring out the details, going back and forth on pricing. Literally I had five different versions completely scripted out, running it by my husband trying to figure out what is the best option here, what's going to be the most saleable, and I started getting into a few conversations here and there with graduates from my course. I run the course a second time. This time five people enter. I think I'm on my way to freedom. I've got this Okay.

Speaker 1:

Beginning of third trimester was now February 2023. I finally launched this membership I'd been pouring my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into and nobody wants it. I'm about to have a baby. I'm three months away from having my baby and I'm flabbergasted. I have no idea why people don't want this amazing thing I've been pouring my heart into and I think to myself after this launch, maybe I should just wait, wait until my kids are grown up, maybe I should just wait and be grateful. And for a few moments I considered it. But if you know me at all, you know that one of my favorite sayings is that winners never quit and quitters never win. And when I started my business four years ago to date, to that date I made a promise to myself that I would not quit until I'd given it a full chance, meaning I would continue until I reached my million dollar a year business and then I could assess what I would do. I had my baby three months later. I continued teaching. I got a substitute teacher when I went on maternity leave and my son, francis, was just the most beautiful gift. It was the hardest transition I've ever had to go through in my entire life, but it was the most worth it thing that I've ever done.

Speaker 1:

I am a different person two years later, but in that moment, six weeks postpartum, I was going crazy. I love my work, if you can't tell. I love business, I love entrepreneurship so much and I knew I had to keep trying. So August 2024, I have a four month old baby. I'm working in his nap times and I put my baby down for his nap, wash the baby poop off my hands from changing his diaper and I immediately hop on Instagram lives. I run a five day Instagram live challenge where I sell. The message of cello is going to change your life.

Speaker 1:

It was called the creative catalyst series and I had all the moving parts. The six figure entrepreneurs told me I needed all the moving parts in Kajabi. Everything was set up perfectly and nobody buys. I think to myself okay, something, something must be missing. So I changed the format of the program, I changed the offer and I continue trying to sell it. Finally I realized, okay, this isn't working. I need to try different strategies. So I try to create a challenge. I have all the moving parts that the six-figure entrepreneurs and the seven-figure entrepreneurs say you need all the funnel pieces, but still nobody buys.

Speaker 1:

We got to November 2023. I decide, okay, I need to give this another chance. I'm still teaching one-on-one cello lessons, desperately trying to get away from that model. But I'm doubting myself, I'm struggling. If you watched last week's video, you know that this is the point in time where I register for this business conference, this conference, june 2024. I think maybe it'll fix everything. I know I'm going to be networking, I'm going to be able to sell to people and I do get a couple of clients actually from that conference. But that is besides the point Because, as you know, if you listen to last week's video, I'm still doubting myself so much but, at the same time, not having quitting as an option. It was painful. It was so painful and I know you felt this pain because you believe in your offer, you believe in yourself to an extent and you know that it can change lives, but you just don't know how to make other people see that too. That is the key. That really is it. Okay, we're now in 2024. Cause if you listened to last week's video, you understand what 2024 was like.

Speaker 1:

And we move three hours North with my husband's entire company. My toddler is now one years old and it seems like every single time I blink, he grows an inch. I know you understand what this feels like parents out there, and I realized that I am not the exceptional mother that I wanted to be all those years. I am not a present mother. I am stuck to my phone, answering DMs, trying desperately to just post one more reel as my son starts to walk and he's climbing on stuff, and within a couple months he says mommy, look at me. And the first time he says that. I realize, okay, I realize I am missing it. I am missing that. I realize okay, I realize I'm missing it. I am missing the most valuable part of motherhood and, as you can see, I'm getting emotional about this because I wanted to be that mother who was there. I wanted to be an exceptional mother.

Speaker 1:

So I invest in a program $5,000, the biggest bulk sum investment I've ever made in my life, let alone in my business and I know that, okay, this is going to call me to a higher standard, because I make a deal with my husband. I'm not allowed to go into debt, I'm not allowed to use money except from what I make from my company and I'm not allowed to let family be sacrificed. Those were the three conditions. So, may through August, I make each payment. I switch to annual plans for the few people that were in my membership. By some miracle, I make the extra 4,000 a month.

Speaker 1:

But August comes around and I do the math the projections that were killing me, as you remember, in the beginning of the video and I find out I'm not going to make it. I need to sell at least $12,000 worth in order to make the payments for the next three months August, september, october. And I knew, okay, october, something was going to come in. So I was fine for November. But I had to make something work. So I created a challenge. It was called the make music challenge. Maybe if you've been around long enough, you remember it and nobody buys. What am I going to do Now? It is September, september 2024. I got a couple of extra work here and there.

Speaker 1:

I make the payment for September and, as you know, there's that moment where Jackie approaches me and I realized the power of the cello and I realized who I want to work with and that it is entrepreneurs. I'm getting a little bit closer to discovering my genius zone, but I'm not quite there yet. I have to try one more time. So, october 2024, I try one more time. I'm going to try to sell the make music challenge once and for all, and I decide six days in advance that I'm going to completely burn down that part of the business and try something else. I have not quit because quitting was never an option and you cannot fail if you do not quit.

Speaker 1:

I made a decision years ago that I would not quit, that I was going to be in the 1% of business owners that make it to a million dollars, and I knew something had to change. Something had to change many times in this story, but this time it was different this time. I had seen the sacrifices I had been making for my family and it hurt. It hurt me deeper than any loss of money could have ever hurt me and I knew I had to follow the calling that was on my heart to serve entrepreneurs. I had been trying to sell them how to learn the cello, but this, for two and a half years now, obviously wasn't working and I had to listen. I had to listen to what they were saying and what the call on my heart was, and after conversations with my coach, with a prospect, with my mastermind group, in three days I created my program, innovation incubator, which is a business coaching program, something that I didn't even realize I had a gifting for. But what made it clear is that I now knew that the cello was only a vehicle to helping people feel empowered.

Speaker 1:

My true genius zone is honestly moving people with emotion, and emotion, if you think about the root of the word, is rooted in motion. Motion is what moves people in a certain direction. If I add emotion to a situation and help move people towards action, move people towards sales as a cello experience, move people towards their biggest ideas, I could create the freedom people really desired in their lives, and cello could be a tool I use in my coaching, which it actually is. I now help entrepreneurs with ADHD, which is something that is holding the back from taking action, and we do it through music. I also help entrepreneurs with feeling stuck that feeling of being stuck and using music to move them into a mindset of creativity.

Speaker 1:

If you haven't downloaded the private podcast, that is there for that very reason. There is power in music, so I'll make sure that's in the link in the description box. You can grab the private podcast link and finally, I create an offer that people want and that I want to create. That actually lights me up. So if you watch the previous video, you will know that a zone of genius activity is something that gives you energy. And I finish making those final payments, along with sustaining my business, along with hiring an assistant. The expenses became much higher than they were before, but I was called to a higher standard and this allowed me to finally reach the freedom I was desiring. And now I sit here it's my son's end of his nap, almost as I finished recording this video, and I know I'm ending the day knowing I moved the needle, ending the day knowing this is a building block towards the million dollar business that I'm still working towards.

Speaker 1:

I'm not there yet, but I hope you will come alongside me on this journey. Hit subscribe if you want to learn alongside me and honestly skip the trial and error that I did the last seven years. Kind of just skip all that. Subscribe and you will basically catch up if you watch these videos and you start getting to know what all these concepts really mean, so that you can unlock your genius zone and experience the freedom that I now feel. You don't have to be stuck, my friend. You can scale to freedom. You can scale in a way that is sustainable and you don't have to do it alone. So with that, I have a very special invitation for you. I am opening up just 20 spots per month. So if you're watching this video a couple months in the future, you can still click on that link, see if there's spots available. I'll just close the link each month when they're full.

Speaker 1:

It is first come, first serve and they are strategy calls 20 minute strategy calls to figure out okay, number one, what is your genius zone? And number two, what a plan could be to connect your genius zone to the people. You want to serve their pain points. And when we mesh this together it becomes an offer that number one you're excited to sell. Number two, money becomes a byproduct of what you sell. And number three, you will be on your way to creating freedom in your life the freedom to go build that lake home by Lake Michigan with your family next summer.

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The freedom to pay off your mortgage early.

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The freedom to go Michigan with your family next summer.

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The freedom to pay off your mortgage early. The freedom to go travel with your family to Hawaii twice a year. Freedom to have fresh flowers on your table every single day the little things that give you so much joy but you don't feel like you have enough abundance to do so yet. That is so possible for you. I want you to get that message. If that's the only thing you remember from this video is that it is possible for you, I want you to get that message. If that's the only thing you remember from this video is that it is possible for you and you don't have to do it alone.

Speaker 1:

So if your feelings calling in your heart a gut feeling, you need to snag one of those spots, then go do that right away, and I cannot wait to see you on Zoom, where we can chat through what is on your heart, the ideas that you really wanna have out in the world.

Speaker 1:

So heart the ideas that you really want to have out in the world. So drop a comment about what really resonated with you, your favorite part of the story and where maybe you need to step into your zone of genius. After hearing my seven-year struggle. What resonated most with you? Drop that in the comments. I read every single one. If you have questions, if you have ideas for future videos, I want to know and finally hit the subscribe button and share it with two people that you think could benefit from this message People who need that little kick in the pants to get their creative juices flowing and to start creating in their genius zone. You know your potential. Are you creating it yet? If not, go grab one of those spots and I will see you on the next video.