129. The Conversation that Changed Everything

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There's a season most women in business know well — where you're working constantly, doing everything right, and still ending every week behind. You look capable from the outside. Inside, you're barely holding it together.

This episode is about that season. And about the one conversation that named what was actually happening — not burnout, not bad strategy, but a structure problem nobody had said clearly yet.

Jenn shares what shifted, why one person's belief does something a strategy alone can't, and how to turn a moment of clarity into real movement using the CLEAR Process.

If you've ever needed someone to hold the picture of who you're becoming until you could hold it yourself — this one's for you.

In this episode:

• Why the chaos in your business isn't a discipline problem — and what it actually is
• The difference between "the business isn't working" and "the business doesn't work without me yet" (and why that distinction changes everything)
• What happens when someone holds the picture of who you're becoming — and why it works differently than motivation or advice
• The CLEAR Process: Cast the Vision, Locate your current state, Evaluate, Align, Roadmap — how to catch clarity before it fades and turn it into actual movement
• Why you don't need more confidence before you move — you need evidence
• How to be the mirror for another woman in business

Thanks for listening! 

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Transcript

The Question That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I want to start today's episode with a question. When was the last time someone saw more in you than you could see in yourself? Not speaking just about someone who's hyping you up, not that friend who tells you you're amazing, because that's what friends do, right? I mean someone who looked at what you were actually building, the real thing, the messy version, the thing that you you're not sure is working, and said something that made you stop. Because that happened to me, and I have been thinking about it a lot lately because I see so many people coming from the same place. And honestly, if you are living under a rock, you may not have seen how the first woman to ever win the Kentucky Derby in 152 years won this past weekend. And I posted the um, I reposted America's Best Racings reel of the moment where you just see her exploding. And the reel went viral, not unlikely, right? Because everybody just wants to see this moment where this beautiful person realized that everything she had been working on was actually coming true for her. And if you read the caption underneath the post, I speak about how she really didn't think that she could do it. And it took the belief of someone else, her husband, to show her that she actually was capable of it and that it was something that really could happen. So that also, I mean, I didn't win the Kentucky Derby. I can't say that. However, I have been thinking about this a lot. And I want to tell you about what it felt like for me, what shift happened for me, and what I want you to be able to walk away with, because I genuinely believe this episode could be that conversation for you or for someone else who is listening right now. So welcome to the Create Your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody. Let's get into it. I'm going to take you back to a time where I was in a point in my life where by every external measure things were going great. My business was running, I had clients, I had revenue. Um, I was really tired. I was really exhausted, and I really felt a lot of guilt around that because I felt like I should just be grateful and not feel so exhausted. But this is the kind of tired where you can't just take a weekend off and bounce back. We all know what happens on those weekends anyway, right? You take a Sunday, you spend it on your phone anyway, because you're afraid that the moment you step back, something is going to fall apart. You're afraid that that is the only option. And you can't tell anybody this because some part of you feels like it shouldn't be this way. So are you crazy? Are you just, you know, driving yourself into the ground? Every decision, though, does come back to you. Every question, every fire, every judgment call. And that's how I felt. I felt like if I'm in a meeting, there are messages stacking up somewhere else. I'm watching, right? The the um notifications come in with text messages, email messages. If I want to take a morning and go, you know, maybe have a slow morning and have some extra time to have breakfast with my mom, then my afternoon feels like it's twice as heavy because I was the person that everyone needed. And I was starting to resent that. And it, I had so much guilt around this because I built it, right? I chose this for myself. I know that I looked really capable from the outside because I got really good at looking capable. And inside, I really was not holding it together very well. And the specific feeling that I want you to recognize, because I think if you're listening to this, you might know exactly what I'm talking about. It's not really overwhelm exactly. Overwhelm has a cause usually that you can point to. This is more like a low-grade fever, right? Low-grade dreading that's just constantly this slow burn sense that no matter what you do, you're always going to be a little bit behind. There's a list of important things that you never got to, and it just keeps growing and it's growing quietly, it's growing steadily, and you're not slacking, you're not undisciplined, neither was I. I was working constantly, as I'm sure many of you are right now. But I was working like someone who hadn't realized that that was the problem. It was the way that I was working. I didn't have a time problem, I had a structure problem. I just didn't really have the language or the words for it yet. And there was a conversation that happened the way a lot of important conversations happen, which is not planned, not formal. It was not from a coach. It was just two people talking super honestly. And I was speaking with someone I respected, someone who had built something real herself, someone whose opinion I cared about. And she asked me how things were going. And I gave her the version that I give everybody. Oh, busy, but good, lots going on, all good things, all good things, right? That's the the MO. And this version is like, I'm not technically lying, but I'm definitely not telling the truth. So she looked at me and she was like, no, no, really, how is it going? So I told her. I told her, I said these decisions all come back to me. I took a week off not too long ago. I was lucky enough to travel to Europe over the summer, and it wasn't a week off. I was constantly putting out another fire. And I feel like I'm ending every single week with the same sense of being further behind instead of more on top of where I want to be. So another thing that I shared with her was that I had started to wonder if this was just how it was going to be for me. Is this always how I'm going to feel? And you know what? She didn't tell me to slow down. She didn't tell me to take better care of myself, and she didn't say any of the things that I expected her to say. She looked at what I described, which was the way I built my business, the ways, the things that I was offering my clients, um, the way that I was servicing my clients, everything that I had built. And she said, you know, this works for people. Right? You do know that. And I honestly didn't know how to answer it because I guess I never thought about it. I didn't know that. I didn't really know that. I knew that I was doing work, I knew I was showing up, I knew I was showing up 150%. But did I actually believe the thing I was building was going to work? Did I believe that I was the person who could build it? And I think she was able to see it in my face because she didn't even wait for me to answer. She said, what you've built is real. The problem is not the business. The problem is that the business doesn't work without you. And that's something you can fix. Of all people to fix it, this is what you do for people. So you have to be able to see that those are two different problems. And I just let that sit for a second and I digested the fact that it was two different problems. And I think that's what I needed someone to name for me. Because it's not you're burned out, just rest more. And it's not just you need to delegate things. Those are the obvious things, and they're not always helpful because they're obvious, you know them. But this distinction between the business isn't working and the business just can't operate without me right now, that was something that I could do something with. So I want to pause here because I think there's something worth naming about why that conversation hit differently than traditional advice does. Again, she did not tell me to take better care of myself. She didn't tell me she hears me and I'm run down and I'm burnt out. A lot of people say that, but when someone gives you strategy, you can take it or leave it. You can nod and go home and do it or not do it. The strategies live in your head and they're easy to dismiss or they're easy to implement. But when someone you trust looks right in your eyes and tells you that what you've built is real, that's evidence. And evidence does something different to your brain than advice does. Most of us have a voice in your head, right? I know that I do. And at the time, that voice was constantly running the counter-argument. You think you're building something, but you're probably just busy. You think you're capable, but what if this is as far as you're going to take it? That voice isn't always loud, but it is always there underneath everything. So when someone who sees the full picture tells you clearly what they see, not with just, you know, empty encouragement, but with actual specifics, that voice gets quieter. They're not talking you out of it, but now you have a witness. Now you have someone who has looked at the same evidence and come to a different conclusion. They're seeing the same thing that you are, but they're able to see, oh no, this is going to work. That matters in a way that motivating yourself rarely does. And one thing I know is that you do not need more motivation. You need evidence. Sometimes that evidence has to come from outside yourself first. Before you can hold it for yourself, you need someone to give it to you. Right. And if I go back to the real, where this wonderful opportunity that we all had to watch the Kentucky Derby get won by a woman for the first time. And what she had was someone, she was looking at what she was doing and didn't think that it was going to work. And it took someone, her husband, to see the same thing and be able to show her the evidence. You know, it's not just the way you see it. I see it differently. I see it that you can do it. You just have to go for it. And that's what I needed. I needed someone to give me a mirror, not a plan. She showed me what was already there. And once I could see it, I couldn't unsee it. So here's the part that actually matters because the clarity that I got by looking in that mirror, that doesn't build anything. The feeling of being seen, of having someone name the thing, that's really powerful, but it also fades. If you've ever had a really good conversation that left you all fired up, right? And then you found yourself three weeks later in exactly the same place, you know what I mean. Clarity needs a container. It needs something to catch it and turn it into actual movement. So what I started doing, and this literally is what I walk every woman I work with through, it's called the clear process. And clear stands for something. C is for cast the vision, L is locate your current state. Then we move on to evaluate, align, and roadmap. And I want to walk you through each one briefly because I do think when you hear it in the context of what I was just describing, it's going to make sense in a way that frameworks sometimes don't. So let's talk about casting the vision. This is not a goal setting exercise. It's not a vision board. It's a specific, honest question. What does the version of this business, of this life look like where it doesn't need me for everything? I don't want to know what you're wishing for. I want to know what you're actually building toward. Where does it go? Who's in it? What does your week look like? Because a lot of people have never answered that question concretely. They have a feeling that they want more freedom, they have a feeling that they want more money, more ease, but they haven't really sat down and said, okay, in 18 months, here's the specific thing I'm building, here's what I need for it to be true to work without me at the center of it. So that's where you have to start. Start there. Then we move on to location. Locate your current state. So this is not where you want to be. This is where you actually are. This is the part that we skip sometimes because it is so freaking uncomfortable because we're only wanting to move because we're not comfortable where we are. But you can't build a bridge here without knowing where you're starting from. So what does your week actually look like right now? Where is your time going? Where are the decisions that come back to you starting? What are the things that only you can do? And can you decipher those from the things that you've convinced yourself that only you can do? Because those are two very different lists and they need to be separated. And then we move on to evaluation. So evaluating, this is where you're going to look at the gap between where you are and where you're going. I want you to ask yourself, what is actually in the way? Not the symptoms, what are the causes? Is it that you don't have systems? Is it that you don't have support? Is it that your offers are built, you know, in a way that they can't scale? There's a lot of things. Maybe you need to train people because you haven't written anything down, so you can't actually train someone effectively. And this step requires honesty. Sometimes the thing in the way, it's structural. Sometimes the thing in the way is you. I know that can be hard to accept or say out loud. And the way you're holding on to decisions, the way you haven't let anyone else carry everything, it's all part of the story that you're telling yourself about why it has to be this way. So after you evaluate, you're going to align because you need to know the gap and what's in the way so that you can align your next move to close the gap. Not everything, just the next thing. You're not solving the whole business in one step. You're asking, given where I am and where I'm going, what is the one move that closes the most gap for me? And then you make that move and only that move, right? Because you'll do this all again as needed. And then the last step is the roadmap. You're going to write it down, you're going to put dates to things, people are going to own what is necessary. There's going to be checkpoints. This is not a dream, it is an actual plan. Something you can look at in two weeks and know whether you're still on the roadmap that you need to be on. This process, right? The whole clear process is what I started doing after I had that conversation. Once I had the clarity and I needed someone else's belief to give me that clarity, I needed something to catch it. I needed a way to take the thing that I could suddenly see and build it into something real. And that's what this framework does. So I want to tell you something that I have been sitting with lately, and that is that every single woman that I meet in business has had some version of the conversation I'm talking about. There was a moment where someone who saw them clearly, a mentor, a peer, a client who said something that maybe reframed everything for them. Sometimes it could even be a stranger. You never know. And maybe sometimes it's even just doing the work differently and able to see the results in a different way. So there's a lot of different ways that we arrive at this point. And for a lot of people out there, maybe you haven't had it yet. And some of you listening today haven't had it yet. So if that's the case, you're in that season that I was in. You're working, you're showing up, you're doing everything you know how to do, and you're still ending the week feeling a little bit behind, still feeling like the business runs on you and on you alone, still wondering when it's going to start feeling the way you thought it would feel when you started it. So I want you to hear this very clearly. All of that is not proof that you can't do this. What it is is proof that you haven't had anyone name what's actually happening yet. You do not have a discipline problem. You do not need to hustle harder, work better, work differently. You have a structure problem, and structure is solvable. Something else I want to really say to you is that if you are the person in someone's life who can be that mirror, please do it. Don't save it. Don't wait for the perfect moment. People are waiting for this. The most useful thing you can do for another woman is look at what she's building with clear eyes and tell her what you see. Not flattery, not hype, real, specific, honest reflection. That's what leadership really looks like. Okay, so here's what I want to leave you with today. That is you do not need more confidence before you can move. What you need is evidence, and sometimes that evidence has to come from outside yourself first. If this episode was that conversation for you, if something I said today named the thing that you've been carrying around, I want to go deeper with you. I have created the stop firefighting framework, and I am going to link it in the show notes. It is the same thing that I walk through with every woman I work with when we start together. It's built around the decision-making piece, specifically why you are constantly in reactive mode and how to get out of it. And the best part is it's totally free, so you can just grab it. And if you're someone who has been listening for a while and you know that it's time to stop doing this alone, you know where to find me. Solutionsforscale.com. Email me jen at solutionsforscale.com, find me on Instagram, solutions by Jen Cody. I am available to go through this, right? We will go do this together. Until then, I want you to take this information, go out there, create your day in the best way possible, create the business that you deserve. I want you to feel supported and grounded and happy. And until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you here next week.