126. The $81,000 Mistake

I share the story I rarely tell about losing $81,000 after making a major business move without the clarity I needed. We unpack how survival mode decisions can cost you money and confidence, and how to protect your value with clearer terms, patterns, and needs. 

• losing $81,000 through a handshake partnership and no contract 
• making emotional decisions in survival mode instead of strategic decisions 
• bringing a salon business into a new location as an “investment” 
• watching monthly profit disappear through inflated costs and messy numbers 
• the bigger cost of identity loss and shrinking as a business owner 
• why the real issue is lack of clarity not lack of capability 
• four protective clarities: value, terms, patterns, needs 
• how speed and convenience can masquerade as safety and stability 
• building frameworks and systems after a painful financial lesson 
• slowing down to get clear before saying yes in chaos 
Go out there, create your day in the best way possible. 

Thanks for listening! 

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Transcript

Divorce And Survival Mode Decisions

The Handshake Partnership Setup

How Profit Kept Disappearing

The Identity Cost Of Losing Money

The Four Clarities That Protect You

Building Frameworks From The Fallout

Slow Down And Choose Clarity

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody, and uh welcome to today. I am going to be sharing today something that I have not really shared fully. I've spoken about it a little bit. It's one of those stories where even though it's been years since it happened, I still get like a little heated when I think about it, when I talk about it. So I honestly don't speak about it that much because it doesn't feel good, but it's important because I feel like a lot of what we are working towards together is tied up in this type of story. And I don't want to see this happen to you. So bottom line is I lost$81,000. And I'm gonna just right off the bat, in case you were curious, I've never been in a situation where losing$81,000 is not devastating. So it's not where it was like, oh, who cares if you lost$81,000? I was listening to um, oh God, I can't even remember who it was. I was listening to someone on Cody Sanchez's podcast, and he was speaking about how he lost millions in a deal. And at that point in his life, he was like, luckily it was not that big of a deal. And I was like, wow, I lost$81,000 and I can't, I still am not over it. So yeah. So um, this is not because I got scammed by a stranger, it wasn't because the market crashed or anything like that. I actually lost it because I walked into a really big business decision without the clarity that I needed. And that includes clarity around my value, clarity around what was I really agreeing to, and how did I need to protect myself from what um was happening? And I'm not, I don't want any sympathy. I'm way past that. The reason I'm sharing is because I know there are people listening right now who are making versions of this decision. And maybe your version is not for$81,000. Maybe it's less, maybe it's more, but the pattern is there. And that pattern could be, if it's like mine, my pattern at that point was I was moving fast, I was in survival mode, I was making decisions based on where I was emotionally instead of where I needed to be strategically. The gap between those two things, between the emotional decision making and strategic decision making, that price tag was$81,000. So let's talk about it because I don't know what your price tag is. I don't want to ever lose that money again. So let's talk about how I even got myself into this situation. And as you know, I went through a divorce, it was not pretty. Um, and I was really fragile, right? I'm emotionally fragile, I am financially fragile. I am trying to figure out, you know, I grew this business that, like so many businesses, looked great from the outside. People thought we were super successful. Um, my salon was busy all the time. I mean, it just the energy in there was amazing. I loved my team. I, however, was not bringing home a paycheck, which is really very common for an entrepreneur. I was not bringing home a paycheck, and now I'm divorced and not making any money. So, how am I going to make ends meet? Um, how am I going to survive month to month? So I really did not see a way out of the situation. And I did not want my team to break up. I didn't want us to be scattered all over the place. And I knew someone who had a salon that was also in the same city as mine. And she proposed a partnership. And the idea was that I was going to bring my business to her location, my clients, my stylists, my equipment, everything. And instead of her paying me up front for that, I would recoup this. It would be like me investing into the partnership. I can't write you a blank check for the partnership, right? So I'm going to bring my whole business that I have worked like blood, sweat, and tears in this business. I'm going to bring it and we'll we'll marry these businesses together. Great. Except there was no contract, no written agreement, literally a handshake and a plan. And nothing about this said danger to me. That's something to really think about. I mean, how trusting are we? I know a lot of you are hearing me and you're already cringing. You're like, what the heck is wrong with you? And you are 100% right. I need you to understand that the headspace I was in was not operating from a place of strategy. I was operating from survival. I needed something to work. I needed a win. I needed to believe someone was on my side and that this was going to be a fresh start, a fresh start that I really desperately needed. And when you're in that mindset, you really don't ask hard questions. You don't slow down to think about what could go wrong. You just want to move forward because standing still feels like you are friggin' drowning. So you'll do anything to just move forward. So I moved my business in. I brought everything. I was um had my team members there, my clients there. Like it was, it was a hard move, right? It was really, really difficult. And I was the one who was crunching the numbers every month, tracking the revenue, tracking the expenses, calculating the profit. And you know what? Here's where it actually gets really painful because every single month when there was profit, the my partner found a way to make that profit disappear. Suddenly there were things that I had not accounted for, costs that were super inflated, line items that were not adding up. And I would look at these numbers and think, wait, this doesn't seem right, but I didn't push back, and I certainly I didn't push back at all. Never mind push back hard enough because I had that story, right, running in the background, still telling me I'm not smart enough to understand finances, I must be wrong, and I need to trust this person. I don't want to make waves month after month until eventually I had to face the truth. I was never going to see that money. That number that we had agreed on when I itemized everything that I was bringing over, um, we knew that we would lose some clients, and so the number that we had agreed on with the accountant was$81,000 that my accountant appraised what I was bringing over. And that to me was the value of everything that I had built. And now, a year into this partnership, I have to face the fact that it's gone. I will never see that money. And oof, let me tell you, the$81,000 was devastating. It I'm still climbing out of that, and I don't want to minimize it. It was years of work. It was my proof that I could build something, but the money was not the most expensive part of that decision. The most expensive part was what it did to my belief in myself as a business owner because losing that money confirmed every terrible thing that I had been told about myself. I was bad with money, I made bad decisions, I couldn't be trusted to run a business. So for a while, I really believed it. I thought, oh, I guess they're right. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. And I think that's the part that I really want to land for those of you who are listening. The financial loss was real, but the identity loss or the identity cost, the way it made me shrink, the way it reinforced every limiting belief that I was already carrying, that is what almost took me out. So where do I go from there? You know, and I can tell you what I know now that I did not know then. I absolutely did not lose that money because I'm bad at business. I lost it because I didn't have clarity. And I mean that very specifically. I didn't have clarity on my value. Sure, I had this number, this$81,000, but I didn't truly believe in what that number represented. If I had, I would have protected it. I would have said, this is worth$81,000. We're putting that in writing, or this isn't happening. But somewhere deep down, I didn't really believe my business was worth protecting because I had spent years being told that it wasn't. And I let that win. I let that take over. I didn't have clarity either on what I was actually agreeing to. And this is something I want all of you to listen really close to. A profit-sharing arrangement with no contract is not a deal. It's not a partnership, it's hope. It's, you know, a pinky swear. And hope is a beautiful thing, but it is certainly not a strategy, and it is a terrible business strategy. If I had just slowed down and mapped out what the arrangement actually looked like, figured out, like if we had talked about who controls these numbers, what happens when there's a dispute, what's the exit plan? I would have seen the red flags long before I signed my business away. You know what? I never would have signed my business away. And I use the term signed loosely because it didn't exist. There was no signing. So what else didn't I have clarity on? I didn't have clarity on my patterns. I was repeating the same cycle that I had taken on during my marriage, letting someone else control the financial narrative while I stayed quiet to keep the peace. Different person, different setting, but certainly the same pattern. And without the self-awareness and clarity to see that, I walked right into it again. I also didn't have clarity on what I actually needed in that moment. What I needed was safety. What I needed was stability, right? That's what I thought I was getting. So when you think about the moment that I decided, yeah, I'm gonna close my location and bring everything that's in these walls over to this other place. What I chose was speed and convenience. There was no stability or safety in that decision. Speed and convenience, yeah, they're not the same thing as stability and safety. And the the lesson to learn that is not a fun one to learn. So I want every single woman listening to hear me. Clarity, it's not just a nice to have. It is protective. When you know your value, you do not give it away. When you know what you're agreeing to, you don't get blindsided. And when you know your patterns, you don't repeat them. When you know what you actually need versus what feels good in the moment, you make decisions that your future self is going to thank you for. Every single expensive mistake that I've made in business came down to one of those four things the value, the terms, the needs, the patterns, and every single one of them was absolutely fixable. Not fixable with more money, not fixable with more um hustle or work, but just more clarity. That's it. So I can't pretend, I will never pretend that losing that money was secretly a gift, right? I I can't turn it around and be like, it's the greatest thing that actually ever happened to me. It wasn't. It sucked. It still sucks. It was a painful, expensive lesson that I would not wish on anyone. But I will tell you what it helped me build. It helped me build what I do now. When I finally pulled myself out of that hole financially, emotionally, all of the things, I made myself a promise and I said, I am never going to feel this powerless in a business decision again. And then I started building the frameworks, building the systems, installing the clarity that I wish I'd had when I needed it most, honestly. And that is why I do what I do. It's not because I read about an operational system in a textbook, it's because I lived without them. And it freaking cost me everything. So if you are in a part of your life right now where things feel really chaotic and maybe the decisions are being made faster than you can think them through. You know, are you saying yes to things because you're just tired of saying, I don't know, I want you to hear me when I say this, slow down just for a minute. It doesn't have to be forever, but slow down long enough to get clear because the decisions you are making from a place of chaos have a price tag, and you really deserve to make them from a place of clarity instead. So I hope my story was a little bit valuable for you. I hope that you were able to, I don't hope you were able to see yourself in it because that that's a really tough place to be. But I hope that it does show up for you in the future if you do find yourself in this position, or if you're currently in this position where you are needing to make decisions on where you're going to focus your time, where you're going to invest your business, your money, your mental capacity. I want you to have the clarity that you need. So let my cautionary tale be one that helps you make sure you have the clarity you need before you move forward. Right? I've done an entire episode on um fire ready aim, right? How entrepreneurs really build their businesses. That's what I was doing here. Fire. I just fired, then I got ready, and then I decided to see where I was looking. And it doesn't always work out the way you want it to. So thank you so much for being here this week. I hope um that you're able to take this information, right? Go out there, create your day in the best way possible. And I will see you here next time. Until then, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and have a great one.