Unfiltered Mistakes & Confessions After 5 Years in Business as a Wellbeing Practitioner | Episode 36

After 5 years as a neurodivergent wellbeing practitioner, I'm pulling back the curtain on every mistake I made - the ones I was too embarrassed to admit, the ones that cost me clients, money, and my sanity, and the ones I kept repeating because nobody told me the truth.

Listen up if you want to hear the biggest thing that will save you thousands in expensive chaos, and build your foundations to a thriving and fun business- what I would change if I was starting over again today.

We go deep in this episode, and I'm sharing what is normally saved for private conversations with clients inside my world.

If you’re a sensitive, neurodivergent entrepreneur who wants success without burnout, you're in the right place. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs more ease in their business, and leave a review so more founders can find this work.

Transform your relationship with money, ease, and desire in just 30 days

This powerful, neurodivergent-friendly practice rewires your nervous system to feel safe receiving more, without shame, pressure, or needing another qualification. Even if you think you can’t meditate.

 https://www.jennyadamscoach.co.uk/rewire-to-receive

Transcript

Welcome And Who This Is For

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Calm Your Nervous System podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Adams, Somatic ADHD business coach, and this is a space for you if you're a sensitive, neurodivergent, heart-led business owner who wants success without burning yourself out. Here we blend nervous system regulation with trauma-informed business strategy so you can increase your impact in a way that actually feels safe, sustainable and aligned. You'll have practical tools, honest behind-the-scenes conversations, mindset shift and a good sprinkle of spiritual wounds, all designed to help you put your body first, trust yourself again, and create more ease, energy and abundance in your life and business. I'm so glad you're here. Let's go calm your nervous system. Welcome back to the Calm Your Nervous System podcast. And this conversation is based on one of the chats that we've been having inside the Abundance Academy with a client who's fairly early days in her business, and she's been picking my brains on what are the biggest lessons that I've learned? What would I change if I went back and started my business again? And what are those biggest mistakes that I made when in the five, six years that I have been in business? So I thought, let's share this with you guys as well, because I've come up with 12, 12 mistakes, 12 lessons. So there's quite a bit, quite a bit in there to share with you guys that I really hope you will find interesting. And this isn't just for if you're new in business, this is if you are already established in business, you might recognize some of these patterns, some of these mistakes, and hopefully you can learn something from this as well. So let's start with the first one, which I'm sure some of you can relate to, is trying to be too perfect, trying to be too professional, you know, having that, you know, tone like the phone voice, the the specific tone of voice of okay, well, I run a business now and I need to put my professional hat back on. And especially if you've come from corporate and are a professional masker as well. Um, myself, I was definitely one of those people, you know, I couldn't be me in work, so I took that into my business and I would worry about, you know, typos in emails and making sure my website was was perfect. And what often happened is I would spend so long kind of procrastinating over these things that I then get fed up and overwhelmed with it, and I would just be like, fuck it, leave it. I can't be bothered anymore. It will do. And then, like, half of it's perfect, and then half of it's absolutely shit. Because you can see at the point, I've just given up. So, how I look at things now is done is better than perfect. And I was having a conversation with someone recently who actually said, you know, I format all my posts. So they're a specific size for Instagram, they are formatted for Facebook, they are formatted differently for TikTok. Um, you need to make sure that this, this, and this are all done. And I'm like, I do it once on Instagram, I post it to Facebook. Sorry if you're a Facebook person, it will be probably posted with a many chat prompt on there. The links probably don't work. Sorry, but not sorry, because my main focus is Instagram. So I would rather put something out there. If you want to work with me and a link doesn't work, people will message me and often say, this isn't working, or how can I book a call or something along those lines? Now I'm not saying, you know, put out a crock of shit out there, not at all. But at what point are you busying yourself and procrastinating instead of just saying actually that's good enough? If you have a team, great, you can get someone else in to maybe look through some of those things and help you out. But when I first started and I didn't have a team, it was just me. I wish I did not spend so much time faffing around with making sure everything was perfect and using that professional tone of voice. And I will speak more about who we're talking to in this episode as well. But you don't need to be somebody else, especially if you're listening to this podcast and you are someone who is a neurodivergent, well-being practitioner, you are running a business, you're doing something that you absolutely love that is changing the world. People aren't that interested in how professional things look and sound. And when I say professional, I mean like the corporate polished approach. They want to see who you are. So there's number one of being too perfect and too professional, because underlying that is a dysregulated nervous system that is petrified of being called out, of somebody judging me, of you know, losing clients, being judged. And I've had those emails that come back when I've sent out thousands, well, an email to thousands of people, and I've had multiple replies saying the link doesn't work, and it's that moment of oh fuck, shit, did I not did I've not put the right link on there? And I've had those things happen. Yeah, it doesn't feel good, but my nervous system has then learnt, okay, I didn't die, it was okay. And the last time this happened, I then turned it into another post because when when we make mistakes, they're a great opportunity to actually turn them into a teachable moment because your clients are also watching what you're doing and how you're showing up. I was in the Abundance Academy mastermind call yesterday, and I'm halfway through a sentence and I notice there's a bug on my bottle, and it's one of those moments where I just go, hang on, I'm distracted. Let me sort this out and then come back. And it's those little moments where your clients are seeing you, and I hope those who are in there didn't see that and go, Oh my gosh, she's so unprofessional. But they're going, oh, she got distracted, dealt with the thing, and then came back to the conversation. Cool, why can't I do that? Why am I so afraid of having to be so rigid and show up in a certain way? Because often it's the it's the nervous system as the foundation to this. So, number two is not having boundaries in place. And I'm not just talking about loose boundaries, but the actual legal protection of things like contracts and legal frameworks, agreements, you know, the boring stuff that if we have ADHD, we don't like looking at. But you can get some great templates out there. There are some amazing people out there that can, you know, work with you on something bespoke, having something in place that is a waiver if you are working with bodies and movement, and a contract that says this is what you have agreed to sign up to, this is your part in this contract, and this is my part in this contract. And it often will cover things like refunds, cancellation. Um, cancellation's a big one in there. Because if you don't have it written down somewhere that your cancellation period is 24 hours, 48 hours, whatever, how are people supposed to know how to act? And as the practitioner, as the therapist, the coach, the professional here, it's your job to hold that safe container for people. And I've spoken about this on previous episodes, where when there's no safety, when there's no container at all, people don't know what to do. Well, how do I book with you? And how do I pay? And how many sessions have we got? And what happens if I need to cancel? And it's too loose and too flaky, and unconsciously, our nervous system will read that as unsafe. And therefore, you look like you're trying to help clients by saying, It's all good, I'm flexible, whatever. They don't know what to do. People need to be told to a certain degree, here's the container, here's the safety. So I have started saying to clients for the last year or two now, that if in certain containers that they work with me, they can message me, they get additional um coaching in between sessions. I will say, you can message me anytime because I work with people all across the world. So we've got different time zones. You message me anytime. Don't worry about my phone going off or it being in the middle of the night or anything like that. It's on me to manage my boundaries. I will generally check in Monday to Friday in the daytime. Sometimes you might get a message from me at nine o'clock at night because that's on me. That's how I manage my boundaries. And I've noticed since I have said that to clients, they feel a lot more comfortable messaging me whenever, you know, on the weekends or late at night. And I don't then feel the need to have to reply immediately because both of us know I will get back to that message when I'm ready, and they can message me, you know, when they're in something, not waiting until nine o'clock on Monday morning when you know the working week opens, because we experience stuff not in certain time frames. And going back to the contracts as well, it's also having that legal standing. If you aren't calling in your ideal clients, if you do end up having somebody who is more difficult, that you know maybe doesn't show up to their sessions or they're not pulling their side of the deal, partly because they might not know what their side of the agreement and the deal is. But if I mean I've had to fire a couple of clients over the years, and it's generally because that agreement hasn't been clear enough in the beginning. And sometimes people do just take the piss sometimes. I've not had an awkward client in a good few years now because I have got my boundaries up front, in place. People know what they're signing up to. Um, I don't work with anyone until a contract is signed. So having that safe container for you and for them is helpful, even though it might be a bit of a pain in the ass to set up. It is one of those things that needs to be done in business. Okay, number three. I realize I've put in here twice. So there are 11 things I'm gonna share, not 12. So let's go to number four then, or number three, however you want to say this. Um, hiring a coach too late. Another big mistake. I hired someone in my first year, and that kind of put me off. It was too much of a masculine structure. I didn't really know what else was available out there. Somebody had contacted me that was in the Pilates world, that was where I was at at the time. And, you know, I went through their funnel and said yes because I was like, oh yeah, of course I need help. I didn't realize there were other options out there. So, you know, if you're listening to this and you're liking this, come work with me. But equally, go look elsewhere, you know, go and find the person that you you gel with because certain people they might have the fancy sales page and you know the tick boxes, but if you don't feel lit up by them or like you can trust them or that they see you, they're probably not your person. And I think I hired one of these people, it was very much a strategy masculine approach, and the mindset, the nervous system wasn't in that at all. So I went through, you know, I did learn some things, but it it put me off hiring a coach because I thought, well, that was my that was my framework. That that's what coaching is, right? And it took me then a good few years to hire somebody and be able to to interview them to some degree, which is why most coaches will have things like alignment calls and being early days in my business as well. I didn't feel like I had the voice to actually say this is what I want. So I'm in a mastermind at the moment, and she has a framework, and you know, there are certain steps that are there to be followed. I said, I'm joining this because I really need help with X, Y, and Z. I'm not necessarily going through everything step by step, but I said, I'm joining because this is where I want to get to in six months' time. Can you help me or not? Yes, I can help you. Okay, great, I'm in because this is what I need, and I need those needs to be met, essentially. And really, that is what a good coach should be able to do is to say, okay, I can see that you're struggling with this problem. Here's how we can get to the solution, the resolution that you want. Can they help you with that or not? Doesn't matter too much about how they're going to get there necessarily, but can they help? Do you feel comfortable enough to say, here's where I am, here's where I want to get to? And if you don't feel like they can help, or you know, maybe their their their course or their strategy is taking you off somewhere different, you don't need to work with them. You can find someone that is more suited to what you need. You can speak up for your needs because I don't think I did. I just went through their frameworks, and I'm like, yeah, it's not really working for me. Okay, number five, which I'm sure a lot of ADHDers will relate to, is jumping around niches too much and speaking specifically to that niche instead of sharing more of me. So I started with Pilates and I started thinking, okay, well, maybe I'll go into working with women in the menopause. By the time you actually start to figure out who your ideal client is and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it until you're known for, oh, she's the one for Pilates with menopause. I've already moved on to the next thing because I started putting it out there and you know, I'd put a post on Instagram, and because I'd put so much effort into a post or sending an email or something, I expected that instant recognition or the instant gratification of okay, well, now I'm doing this, so where is my whole queue of clients that I have just put out there into the universe? Where are they? And I've learned over the years, it's it's a compounding thing. We can't just say, I'm doing this now, and immediately it comes and you get the reward. I wish this is where business can be a long, boring, frustrating path. But it is also extremely rewarding when you start to see those rewards coming through from your hard work. I went, I then went into more chronic illness movement support and then coaching, which I still do some of. Um, a lot of the clients I work with are neurodivergent business owners and tend to have a background with something like chronic fatigue or fibro fibromyalgia or or childhood trauma. So that you know, those things are still relevant, but I don't speak to the chronic illness so much anymore. But a lot of what I was putting out there on my emails or on Instagram was specifically to do with the problems of these this this niche, for example. And then when I would pivot and change niches, people have forgotten who I am because I'm not putting me out there. So if you get known purely for Pilates and people are only following you for Pilates, if you then decide actually I want to bring some more coaching into this, they're no longer interested because they're like, Well, I thought I followed this account for Pilates, and now you're talking about coaching and I'm confused. Whereas when they see, oh, that's Jenny, oh, and she's the one who does X, Y, and Z, I know her for her travel, for her love of pink, for her pink car, you know, that's her, and people start to love you for you. If you start to to pivot a little bit and change your niche, those people will stand by you because they are there for you as opposed to what you're offering. So even if you do run a studio, for example, and it's not just you, not just a personal brand, what is the personality of your business, of your studio, let's say? That if you niche down into let's say pre and postnatal Pilates, then you change to actually we're gonna we're gonna have a group reformer studio on the side of this, and that's gonna be for hypermobility support. Now you're offering a similar product, but if people have followed you specifically for the pre and postnatal, and now you're talking about hypermobility, you're sending out mixed messages, people are getting confused. Whereas if you're putting out that personal brand or that personal soul of the studio, then they're gonna see another string to your bow and they're still gonna want to follow because they're they're there for the personality, they're there for that kind of fly-on-the-wall content. What's she doing next? What's going on? Instead of purely just niched into this thing. Because if you then start talking about something else, oh, that's not me. I'm I'm out, I'm out of her. And some of this was partly me being a little bit afraid of, well, why would anyone be interested in what I've got going on? But people are. I mean, you only have to turn the TV on and see how many people are watching reality TV shows. We love to have a nose into other people's lives and what's going on. And a huge part of it was shame as well, and feeling like I'm showing off. And I've realized over the last few years, you you would have heard me talk about this in previous episodes. The more travel that I've done, the more clients I get. And I was a bit afraid or a bit ashamed of sharing some of those adventures and things that absolutely light me up because I felt like I was I was taking from somebody else. You know, I can't be too happy and show, you know, I don't want to be showing off or being too flashy. I've been conditioned to stay small, to stay quiet, to fit in. And I just I can't. I'm not someone that fits in, I'm not someone that can be told what to do, to suppress myself. I mean, I did it for a long, long time and I was fucking miserable and it made me ill. And I now feel if you are somebody that comes onto my socials, for example, and you get triggered by me traveling, or you know, oh, she's doing this to the environment because she went business class, or you know, how can she spend this much money on a car, or whatever those things are, they they aren't my people. The people that I speak to are the ones that say, I secretly love that you've gone and bought yourself a bright pink Tesla because I really want to drive a car that is too flashy, but I'm too scared to actually admit that. But the fact that you're doing it really inspires me. And this is where we can talk about things like magnetic content, because if you think of a magnet, it repels as well as it attracts. So if you're putting out mediocre, flat, trying to please everybody content, it speaks to nobody, it's too meh. If you start looking at the people, the podcast you listen to, the content you look at on Instagram, the people that you probably really like are the ones that are saying something a little bit spicy, a little bit, oh, we're all thinking that, but no one said that. But she was the one that could actually say it. And the more I've actually been sharing me and the things I love, because I mean, my my parents met in aviation. My dad was an aircraft engineer, my mum was cabin crew. If it wasn't for aviation, for flying, for travel, like I wouldn't be here. So, you know, it quite literally goes through my blood. Um, travel has always been a huge thing for me, and I'm so, so grateful that we traveled as much as we did before my dad died, that we didn't wait till you know the kids are grown up or whatever. You know, we traveled the world when we were kids, and I'm so grateful for that, and that's also something I've I haven't got rid of. You know, I love to travel, and having spent so much of my twenties being so ill and in shissy relationships, I'm I still feel like I'm kind of making up for that as well. But I just I just love to travel, it lights me up and always, always gets me new clients. So I spent last week in Spain. I'm going to Scotland in two days, and I've had three inquiries come through in the last week and a new client from going to Spain. So let's see what happens when I go to Scotland. When this episode is released, I will be there. So um, yeah, we shall see. But the more of you that you share, trust me, people are drawn to you. The wrong people, they can leave. You know, we don't care about them. The right people. People will be seeing you and what you're doing and how you're showing up, and they want to see more of it. So then this allows you to be multi-passionate. You don't need to completely niche down and say, I'm doing this. I'm this is my ideal client, and this is the person I'm going to work with forever. Because we know that's going to feel really stifling if you are more of a personal brand that gives you space to grow and for your people to come along with you alongside that journey because they're there for you, not just the business or the service that you offer. Okay, number six is trying to scale too quickly. So I went from the coach that wasn't great, and then I got myself into some big courses with some big names, and I was seeing their methodologies and how they were showing up, the numbers of people in there as well, the systems that they were using, the structures, all of that without the business understanding of what was going on underneath that. And I was kind of comparing or copying their model and trying to put it onto my business and not taking into account that they have got a big personal brand already. They have a lot of not only followers, because you can have a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and they're all bots, you can have a thousand followers on Instagram and they all love you, and you'll make more than the person with a hundred thousand. It's not all a numbers game. And I will talk more about the numbers as well. But looking at comparing myself to someone who's been doing this a lot longer, who has built up that trust, who is known for something as well, and for those that have got to a certain point in their business where they've had to scale because they can no longer work with people one-to-one or you know in the smaller mastermind containers, or um it's for those people that have maxed themselves out with the close, intimate, trust-building relationships, and that's when they will throw money at ads and they start looking at numbers and things like earnings per lead and volume. And this isn't to say that that can't be done, but it's at what point does that get done? And I think I tried to do that much earlier before I'd built enough of the trust and the likability in there that people didn't really know who I was. They might have known, okay, well, she's done some stuff around chronic illness, and maybe she's talking about ADHD now, and she did Pilates, but who is she? That I was then trying to scale this model where people didn't fully know who she is. Can she help me? Am I one of her people? And almost gone through the trustability of okay, she's been around for a while. I've built that degree of trust up before then trying to get to make that a bigger thing. I have thrown loads of money at ads, and it does work to some degree, but you're then working with a lot of cold leads and numbers instead of really focusing on building up the human relationships and the trust and really getting to know your one-to-one clients and seeing the patterns between them. You know, what is it that you're noticing that they keep saying over and over? What is the problem that you could potentially solve for them? Going all in on that and speaking to here's, you know, here's the issue that I can solve for this group of people, also whilst having that personal brand touch as well. And at that point, you can then say, okay, actually, I'm the person known for the nervous system. So throughout all of the different niches, clients I've worked with, what has been underlying with all of the work I do is the nervous system. And if you think if somebody was trying to describe you to someone, oh, we've got Jenny in for a talk, so I'm doing a talk at the end of um next month. What is the thing? Oh, she's the one who she's the one who's gonna talk to us about ADHD burnout and the nervous system, specifically in business. So who what what is what do people say when they're trying to describe you? Is it you're just the the Pilates teacher or the yoga teacher, or can they say, I've worked with her, she really helped me out of this problem. I would really recommend if you are somebody who's struggling with X, Y, and Z, she's your person. So, yes, we need we need to be known for solving a problem, and we need to balance that with you. Who are you? Who is your your personal brand? Who are you all about? Because when once you've got the beautiful balance of those things, that you have enough likability and trustability, and you are seeing people for them, and then you add in the the niche of you are known for solving this problem, that's when you can throw money at this and kind of turn the volume up with things like ads and funnels and you know, all of those things where you can you just turn up the volume. But if you're turning up the volume on something that isn't working, you're just gonna waste a lot of money and just create more nothingness from nothing. And your clients are the best teachers, they will be the ones that you'll see patterns in. You will probably be able to see the problems that they're struggling with, the things that they might not even know are the solution to something. You are seeing this because you've seen so many other clients like them go through this thing. And at that point, when you're like, actually, I'm maxed out with one-to-ones, I'm fed up with repeating myself and telling people the same thing over and over. How about I then make this into something a little bit more scalable? Whether it's a course or a you know, a group program or um, you know, something along those lines, that's when it can be scaled because you know your clients, you you also trust yourself that you are known for this and you can fix this issue. Okay, number seven is quitting my job too soon. So I was working in defense as a senior commercial manager, and it did not agree with me from a values perspective. And I think the more I got into this the self-development and the more spiritual aspect of okay, there's another choice. I don't just have to stay in a corporate job that I'm literally selling my soul to do. As soon as I saw the light, I was like, get me there, get me out of this darkness, I'm done with this. And I don't think no, I hadn't even qualified at this point because I was still learning Pilates. I had finished my course, but I hadn't done my qualification yet, and I had already quit my job because I was like, I'm done, can't do this anymore. And I remember taking out a loan just before I quit my job on my old salary to kind of keep me going for cash flow for a while. But in hindsight, I kind of wish I'd have kept that job for a little bit longer to build up my business enough that I could say, okay, well, I can now replace that old salary because my business is already doing so well. I just went head first and was like, nope, fuck this. I'll make it work, I'll figure it out. And it was enjoyable to some degree, but it was probably a little bit naive of me because it then put my nervous system into a state of, I need to make this work. I need to make money from this. So it didn't give me as much space to be able to necessarily invest in myself, but also have those downtimes or, you know, the the space to step back and say, what's working, what's not working, what am I seeing in my clients? Because it was a lot of, I need to make money, I need to get more clients in. And a lot of the decisions I made then were probably around fear and being able to pay the bills instead of a longer-term strategy that might meant, okay, well, I'm not going to earn much for six months, a year, but I'm investing in the long term. Here's where I want to get to. Because when you're in that lack mentality, one, your nervous system is dysregulated, you are in that survival mode, but you also put the blinkers on. You only see what's in front of you. You only see, shit, the mortgage is due at the end of the week. I need to get X amount in by then, instead of going, what if I had a longer term strategy where maybe I set up something, maybe I set up a group instead of looking at the longer-term strategy of, well, actually, how much money do I want to make this quarter? Well, maybe this quarter has to be a bit quieter because the next quarter we've got a launch coming up, or I'm gonna put this new product out there, or I'm gonna try this new thing, or you know, set up a new um group class or something along those lines because you're so blinkered of what do I need right now? And I think that's where some of the fun can get taken out of the business and it becomes more serious because we've put that pressure on ourselves because we are used to working under pressure and getting things done. And yes, we can be very good at that, but imagine what it would be like to know every single month the bills are covered because you've still got your old job, and then anything on top of that is a bonus. Anything on top of that is the flexibility, the freedom, the okay, well, actually, I tried this with this client and they're loving it and they've signed up, but I tried that and it didn't work, and it's not then the make or break, it's that's information. What can I do with this? Maybe I need to add another string to my bow. Maybe I can do another um qualification over here that I need, not just because it's a shiny thing to follow, but having this the space to step back a little bit and see where see where your clients take you, see where their business takes you, instead of it needing to feed you. And then at a certain point, you will get to where you are completely fed up with your corporate job and your business has has matched the corporate job where you're probably turning clients down because you don't have the time because of your your part-time job. And I think if I'd waited to that that point, things would have been different. You know, I can't go back and change anything, but I think it would have cost me a lot less stress if I had built the business up to the point where it was supporting itself and not then running from that survival mode and lack and needing to make this work. You know, I have made it work five, six years later, but there's been a lot of tears along the way, a lot of dysregulation, a lot of how the fuck am I going to make this work? The mortgage is due, oh my god, I'm panicking. I should have known better, you know, all of all of this stuff that has come up in the business over the over the last few years. And I work with a lot of clients who are still in their corporate jobs and they are building up something like a coaching business or a well-being business on the side, and they can see the shiny thing. Oh my god, I want to get into this. I can't wait to quit my job and go into this. And that is the advice I give to them is wait for that to be supporting you as best you can. You can, you know, you don't have to be full-time in your job necessarily. You can wind that down as you turn the other one up. And you'll try just trust me, your nervous system will thank you when you have that safety and stability of income, especially when you're first starting out. Number eight is not understanding the importance of cash flow in business. So some of these are the boring admin business things that we have to do when we run our own business. I hear from people all the time, I just want to be a Pilates teacher, I just want to be a hypnotherapist, I just want to do the thing I love. Yes, so do I. But if we are running a business and we want the autonomy of being our own boss, we have to be our own boss. Because if you want to just be a Pilates teacher, you can probably go and work for a studio. But if you are somebody that wants to run their own studio, it comes with admin and things like understanding cash flow that might seem boring, but they cash flow is the blood of a business. We we need enough cash flow that I think that's one of the I think that is the main reason that businesses fail is because of cash flow. And I have definitely been in cash flow squeezes many, many, many times in business, and I have seen the pattern my nervous system goes into, which tends to be avoidance. I won't look at that until I absolutely have to, and I've got a whole load of bills due, and then I will sit down and look at it when I'm really dysregulated and stressed out. And what do I then do? Just reinforce that pattern that looking at money is scary and stressful and makes me cry. So I wouldn't do it, and then I would make decisions from that place of well, if there isn't enough, I need to borrow this from somewhere. And this is why I ended up with a 55% APR credit card on my business, because it's here's some money. Do you need it? Yes, I need I know I need it right now. Okay, give me, give me the money, that'll pay the bills. That'll that'll kick the can down the road for a little bit. Instead of actually looking again from that more strategic regulated place of well, maybe in the months that more money has come in, instead of spending it all, we put some of that aside for the lower months. So when you end up having a lower month, you can say, Great, well, I've got two grand spur from that month. So thank you past me, instead of being like, Well, hey, I've been working really hard, I've had a 10 grand month, I'm gonna spend it, and then the next month is lower, and it's like shit, what what do I do? I'll borrow. So yeah, understanding cash flow and how my nervous system reacted as well. Simple things like transferring bills before they're due, instead of waiting for my husband to to text me and say, Jen, have you put the joint account bills in this month? Doing it proactively, they're due every month, they're the same price every month. Instead of waiting to be squeezed, actually doing it in hindsight, and then saying, Yes, well done. I've managed my money in a regulated, healthy way, instead of waiting for that squeeze, that push, that you know, the the lions at the door, and I have to do something about this right now, because that is just gonna perpetuate more avoidance, more shame, more I can't do this, I'm a failure. All of that stuff instead of being more proactive, looking at money when you're regulated, when you feel good, even things like just putting some music on and going through your spreadsheet and making it a bit more fun so your nervous system starts to understand looking at your money can be fun, it can be safe. Number nine is probably the most confronting part of running a business, which is ignoring my doubts and beliefs until they confronted me big time. So I've talked about money and some of the shame around that. Things like the fear of being trolled or being called out for not knowing what you're talking about. The the fear, the beliefs, those things that are hidden in your subconscious that will come up when you run a business. You cannot avoid them. You either look at them consciously, which is what I do with a lot of my clients, is we we allow them to come up in a safe environment, or you wait until you're in a launch. And then every single negative, horrible thought that you have that you're not good enough, that you can't do this, who are you to be saying this, you don't know enough, all that shit comes up. And then you're trying to stay high, high energy, and you just feel like an absolute hypocrite when you're putting things out there and your energy is saying, You're an absolute failure, you cannot do this, just give up. And it started with things like when clients would cancel, and it might just be a last minute thing that you know they've their kids not well, or um, they've woken up with a cold or something along those lines that I would start to take personally and think, Well, have I done something wrong? Did they did they not respect me, or maybe I offended? Actually, what did we talk about in our last session? Did I poke them too hard? Did I not poke them hard enough? Are they gonna go find someone else? Are they actually speaking to another coach or teacher or whatever? And you know, the all these thoughts would spiral when I think 99.9% of the time it was just they're not very well, or they've been called in to look pick their kids up from school, or you know, something along those lines. Don't think it was ever about me. But what it showed were those subconscious beliefs coming up, and part of the work I did in compassionate inquiry, my trauma training with Gabul Marty, was looking at what our triggers were. We couldn't work with anybody until we did four months on ourselves first, and that was when you start to pull out some of these subconscious beliefs that they will show up in business. So you can either wait for them to show up and get triggered and it does not feel nice, or you can you can go and look for them, and when you find them, it's like, oh, I found something. When you approach it when you are more regulated, it is so much more easy to deal with than when you are in a dorsal place in your nervous system and everything feels hopeless, and you are then having you're you're maybe putting a product out there, you were in a little bit of a vulnerable position anyway, and then your nervous system comes along and screams at you that you can't do this. And a great example of this is if you are having any conversations with a client about how much you charge. If you are not a hundred percent behind what you are charging, and they might question, well, one, if you are not 100% behind what you are charging, you're inviting the energy they're picking up on that energy of not sureness. You will probably get more price objections when you are like, Oh, am I charging too much? Who am I to charge this much? That's when people will pick up on that and they will poke back and say, Well, I know such and such down the road, they don't charge that much. And then what happens? Because you believe them, you go, Oh god, you shrink. Because they have just called out that belief that you already have about yourself. So if you are already in the belief that you work hard, you have qualifications, you have an expertise in your field, you know you get results, and that's why you charge what you charge, and you don't need to tell anyone any of this, you don't need to justify any of this, you just need to know yourself that you stand by this. That energy comes across. It's the difference between going into the shop down the high street that everything's on sale for five pounds, and they're trying to justify, you know, 20% off this and half price and closing down sale and buy this and buy that, versus walking into somewhere like Prada or one of the designer shops where they might make you wait outside and you're invited in, and you wouldn't dare quivel about the price. The price is what it is on the ticket, because if you ask, you look stingy, so you don't. You're like, okay, well, if if I want the handbag, that's the price. Do you want to buy it or do you not? Because you can see the value in that product, and you wouldn't dare because rather don't negotiate because they stand by their products, how they're made, they know that they are a premium brand, they aren't open to negotiation. But if you go down to the cheap shop that's trying to flog everything for a fiver, they might be a little bit more open to negotiation. Okay, well, if you buy six of these hoodies, we'll give them to you for 20 quid instead of 30 quid. But do you want do you want that? Because the difference between the shit you get in the cheap shops or Prada tends to be a bit different. So, what are you shopping for? Who are you? Are you the the cheap shop? In the high street, trying to compete your way to the bottom because that is a one-way street to your business blowing up and you having no money. Or are you the premium brand that stands by what you do? And people will queue up to work with you. And I think it took me a long time to stand into I am a premium brand. I offer an incredible transformation and service for my clients. They change their lives in so many ways when people work with me. And I would try and discount things. If people want to work with you, they're not that drawn in to discounting it. They will they want to work with you or they don't. They will say the cost is the thing because you could have something for a fiver and people will still say it's too expensive. They're not your people, but the price of something and the value of something are very different things. If you are too focused on the price, it's a one-way losing battle to the bottom. If you focus on value, the right people will find you. If you value you, they will value you. And it did take me a while to figure this out and to back myself. And really, the only way I could do that was by trying it. And some of the most successful business women I have seen and worked with are those that have been in things like MLMs, because or like they've worked in sales call centers, they have been door-to-door salespeople. They've got used to no, they're not scared of someone saying no to them. And if you can actually go out and start actively looking for the no's, each one of those is a sign to your nervous system that you didn't die. Now I'm not saying we want to repel everybody out there, but they're a good sign. They can be a good thing because you're no longer operating from the fear of someone rejecting you because they're not rejecting you. They might it might not be the right timing for them, they might not see the value in what you're offering, you might not be aligned with them, the energy might be off. Don't be scared of the no's. If you can get more information from people and see, well, what is it? Why have you said no? Great, amazing information to work with, if people will be honest. But I have done this before where I have listened to people saying I can't afford it, and then I've cheapened my product massively. I still had the same pushback. I went from a 3,000 pound course of heal good, and people said I couldn't afford it. So I turned it into a£50 a month membership. Can't afford it. And it was one of those things that once you once you join, you had access to all of the content. And people, multiple people have gone through this who have chronic illnesses and have got their lives back on track. They have gone from bedbound, housebound to promotions, traveling the world, um, getting their dream jobs, starting businesses for£50 a month. It's not about the price, it's the value that people are seeing or not seeing. And I mean, it's now£197 as a one-off lifetime access, which for what it can do and what it has done, like you'd be crazy to not if you were someone who has a chronic illness and you haven't gone through heel good. Please do, because there's your life back. It teaches you everything you need in there. But can you see the value in what this is? It's not about the price, it's people understanding the confidence, the value, you backing yourself and practicing, hearing those no's, asking for the money. This is what I charge. And standing into that, even though inside sometimes you're going, Oh god, I can't do this. People will pick up on that energy. But once you've done it a few times and you haven't died, your nervous system will start to go, well, yeah, it's a number. That's the price I charge. And and noticing at what point, let's say um you start your package is a that is a thousand pounds. That feels comfortable. Yeah, I could charge that. That's my beginner rate. And then£2,000 might be, oh no, no, that's too much. I can't do that. You can build yourself up. Okay, how would£1,250 be? Yeah, it's a bit of a bit of a push. I could do that, feels okay. Is tuning into your nervous system and seeing where it feels like a little bit of a push versus a collapse that will give you some information about your pricing. Okay, number 10 is outsourcing my intuition, especially to some of those bigger coaches, or the people where I was in big group systems in, it wasn't intimate and personal to me. It was here's my system and here's where you have to go through it. And whilst we were on the topic of Heelgood, I remember when once I launched it as a membership at£50 a month, I did it as like a beta, like a trial. And I had about 10 people sign up to it, and it was working well, but I kept feeling like I need to be speaking to people with ADHD. And I remember saying in one of these live coaching sessions where you know you have to put your hand up and you get 10 minutes with the the coach. I've done this launch, this BISA launch. Yes, it was successful, but I'm really drawn to working with ADHDers. I keep seeing them, I keep having conversations with my clients. I need to be doing something to serve them. And they said, but you've already done something that was successful, run it again. So, yes, strategically, logically, I can see where they were coming from, especially as someone with ADHD. I might give the same advice. Are you chasing the shiny thing? Are you going off for another pivot instead of doing something that has actually worked and then repeating it? Because sometimes just repeating something can be a bit boring. I ignored my intuition and my heart just wasn't in that launch. And I followed the the script. I went through the here's the mastermind, here's the paid ads, here's all the newsletters, you know, all of the stuff. I went all in on it. And I think I made a third of my ad spend. So I'd spent more money, I spent three times more money on ads than I had on what clients actually converted. So yes, I had sales, it was a successful launch, but my heart just wasn't in it anymore. I knew I had to be creating something for people with ADHD. And I then took a bit of a step back because my energy was sending out mixed messages. On socials, I was talking more about ADHD and my experience and the crossover between ADHD and chronic illness, and everything to do with that launch was purely about chronic illness support. And when you're sending out confusing messages, when you don't know yourself where you're going, your clients don't feel safe to follow you. They can pick up on that energy subconsciously. And if someone came to me with a chronic illness and they're like, Well, she's talking about this and this, and I'm not sure, they won't buy. So, especially if you're in a launch period, it's going all in on that thing and showing yourself as the expert in that area for that specific launch period. And I was just sending out mixed messages. And one, I was ignoring my intuition there, but it was also looking at the the big coaches who, again, like I said earlier, they were focused on numbers and ads and you know the cost per lead and that model of you can either spend money or you can spend time. And I really, yes, you can you can throw money at solutions, but if people don't know you and they don't trust you, which takes time, they're not gonna buy from you. And I think I was like, let me get the quick win, let me throw some money at this, and it worked, but not as well as I hoped, because I had just I'd stopped listening to me and put my intuition, the power, I'd given my power away to those coaches that I was working with. And I say this to my clients I'm here as your coach, I can give you support, advice, listen to you first, whatever you're doing, whether it's in business, whether it's to do with your your body and your illness, you need to learn to listen to you over anything I say, and trusting what your body is telling you is a message for a reason. Because no one can know you better than you know you. However much you pay someone, however long you've known somebody, those nudges that we've often been told to ignore for a long time, they are your your North Star, your guiding light. And we're only going to get distracted and pulled off here, there, and everywhere when we stop listening to that. So a huge part of the work that I do with with my clients, whether it's with chronic illness, coaching and healgood, whether it's in the Abundance Academy, working with ADHD is in business, is how do you start to tune back into you and those messages and your body and it feeling safe to know? Well, is that me getting distracted, or is that actually a message to go and do this thing? It's knowing how do I trust what those messages are? Because you've probably had to ignore them for a long time and therefore don't trust yourself. So that self-trust is a huge part of the work we do. Number 11, we've got one left after this, is following the strategy and the systems over what felt safe in my nervous system and my life first. So being too rigid, going through the frameworks, you know, just find the money to invest in this thing when actually my nervous system was saying, no, no, no, I can't, I can't do that right now. Not because it's about the money, but it doesn't feel safe to keep going down this path. And then it putting me into too much lack and fear and operating from there, instead of building up the trust and the stability in my nervous system first. So, like I said about your prices, building up the stability of I know I'm good at what I do, here's what I charge, I can do this, having that foundation of safety before we then start to put the systems on top. I started with the systems when the foundation wasn't built. And it's it's like you can have the best builder in the world who can build you the best house. But if you're building it on Western Supermare Beach, which has the second highest tidal range in the world, then that building can be structurally sound. But if the foundations are shit and you're building on sand and mud, it will just get washed away, it will fall apart. So, yes, the strategy, the structure is needed, but the foundation has to be built first. And this is why I take my clients through the RISE framework because R is the regulation first, then the identity, then the structures and strategies in order to expand. That is where all my clients go through is building that safe foundation before you start to build on it. And the strategy is everywhere. It's fun, it's exciting, it's another launch, it's another product, it's something we can create that we can sink our teeth into, that we can keep going and doing. Because if you feel like things are not going the way they want to in business, what do we tend to do? Work harder, push, do more. And what your nervous system is actually doing in that moment is operating from that sympathetic, dysregulated place in your nervous system. The fight, flight, I need to do something, I need to take action, pushing, launching, creating, but it's not real genuine creation, it's it's momentum. Just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. But because stability and the pause, either didn't feel safe because the pause would turn into a freeze, or your nervous system has just got so used to operating between freeze and fight, flight, that anything else doesn't look or feel safe because they're so unfamiliar. The stability looked boring. So you keep going, you push, you do another thing, chuck this out of there, do this, do this, do this. And uh you burn yourself out because it's fucking exhausting, and you confuse clients because you're putting out this offer and then this offer and then this offer, and I have done that. And I realize with hindsight, yes, it's exhausting, and it's the nervous system just wanting to do because the the biggest fear for a lot of us ADHD is in business is to stop and take a pause and let things come to us, but it hasn't felt safe. So really building those foundations in the nervous system first is so so important before you start to build anything else on top. And then finally, number 12 is not taking myself seriously, and I'm gonna say this as how my appearance is because I used to love coming into the office and being like, I'm unmasked, I can come in in my joggers, and you know, I'm comfortable, I've got my nice hoodie on, and I'm comfortable because that's what's most important to me. But and I come to an office, so my office is about a 10-minute walk from my house. I was also doing this when I worked from home. I would just, you know, chuck my comfies on in the morning, go into the home office, and then there was no real divide between home and work because I'm just in my comfies, and it doesn't mean that I now go to work really uncomfortable, but I lost about three stone last year, and it got to October, and I realized I had no winter clothes that fit me. They were hanging off me, and I mean, I'm 10, I'm a very cold person. So when it came to winter and needing layers, they were hanging off me, and I just looked huge and just felt ridiculous. And in October, I invested a lot. Um, I bought a whole load of stuff from Farm Rio on the outnet, and that was also my second 10k month last year. It was me taking myself seriously in my appearance because not for other people, but when I go to work and I've put something nice on, I've done my hair, I don't tend to do my makeup, it's that putting on a different version of you, putting on the best version of you and showing up from that confident energy, it's for you and how you feel. And for the women listening to this, I'm sure you know the difference of when you you're in your comfies, you're in your joggers at home, and yeah, you're comfortable, versus when you put that standout dress on and you feel sexy, hot as fuck in this dress. Not because your friends might look at you or your partner might look at you, you feel good, and that energy is magnetic. Taking yourself seriously with what you're wearing. And I've just walked past one of the offices outside, and there's a bloke there with his feet out in the office gross, gross, gross, gross. Would I want to work with him in whatever he does? No, because he's got his feet out, and yes, that's his private office, but I'm not gonna take him seriously. So partly it's for it's for how people see you, and the most important thing is it's the energy of how you're showing up when you feel good, when you're wearing nice things, and it's no coincidence that the month that I invested in my wardrobe and actually got things that fit me nicely and that felt good, they were comfortable. Like I got some incredible trousers from Lululemon that they feel like joggers, but they look really smart. I love those trousers, they've got me through the whole of winter. I bought them in three different colours. I lived in them because they look really good and they're really comfy. Instead of me just turning up in my scabby joggers, that my husband says I have a nappy bum because they fit me from when I was three stone heavier, and now the bum space is rather baggy. Don't show up in them, don't show up in your nappy pants. Wear what makes you feel good because people will pick up on that, they will feel that. And whether for you that's putting makeup on or doing your hair or dressing in a certain way, what are those things that make you feel good every day? Do more of that, take yourself more seriously because other people will take you seriously when you take you seriously. So, to sum up many of the lessons that I have learned over the last five or six years in business, the big key things I would take away from this are focus on building a personal brand, letting people get to know you, who you are, the things that you love, showing more of your personality, building up the trust, because right now we are flooded with so much information. Buy this, buy this, buy this, buy this, and AI. There's so much information out there. We don't need more information, we want connection. People want to trust people, they want to connect with people. Can you be on the other side of that where they know you, they trust you, they don't need more information because they want an experience with you. And you probably know of these clients, I have a few of them. Anything I put out there, they're like, Yep, I'm in. I want this because I just want to be in your space. I want to be in your energy. And focusing on that safety and stability in your nervous system so your business is then able to scale. And that's when you can start to bring the strategy and the systems and the structure into that when that safe foundation has been built. Because otherwise, you're going to start building. One of those beliefs comes in and takes you down. It's it's like you're building that house, and then there's suddenly a massive thunderstorm right in the middle of it, and then you just all gone, start again. And we don't want this because you're not on your own with this. And at the end of the day, why have you started your own business? Chances are it's because this has been something that's helped you change your life, and you want to share that with other people. You want to share your passion, something that you love, and help people. If you're doing that from that place of needing, hustling, fear, lack, not feeling good enough, it's gonna come across and it's gonna it's gonna be really fucking hard. It's gonna be difficult, it's gonna be full of tears, dysregulation. Why are we doing that? If if we want the hard way, then there are many other ways that we could do things in a difficult way. If you want, if you are running a business because you genuinely love the work you do, love how you support your clients, you can do it from a place of joy and expansion and fun. It won't be like that all the time, but it doesn't always have to be hard. But the nervous system is the key to all of this. It is the foundation. So I hope this episode has been helpful. I hope you've learned something from this. Let me know what you've learned. Come send me a message on Instagram, and and if it's made you look at things a little bit differently as well. How are you going to change things in your business going forward? So thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for being here and listening to this episode. If something landed for you, I'd massively appreciate you leaving a five-star review or share this episode with someone who would really benefit from it. Your support helps this podcast reach more sensitive neurodivergent business owners who are ready to do things differently and increase your impact with more regulation, more ease, and less burnout. I appreciate you being here, and I'll see you in the next episode.