The Conversation Club

6. No One Builds Anything Alone

• Kieryn Wang

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This episode is a love letter to community, collaboration, and the people who help shape us along the way. Because despite what hustle culture tries to sell us, no one builds anything alone.

In this episode, I’m talking about why I don’t believe in the idea of being “self-made,” how community has completely transformed my business and personal life, and the coaches, mentors, friends, and collaborators who have supported me through every stage of growth.

We’re diving into the power of asking for help, why I resisted hiring for so long, how group coaching changed my perspective on learning, and the difference between transactional networking versus genuine reciprocity and support.

This episode is for the founders, creatives, eldest daughters, recovering perfectionists, and anyone who’s been trying to carry it all alone. Because the truth is: community changes everything. 

In this episode, we talk about:

  •  Why I believe the idea of being “self-made” is a myth 
  •  The role community has played in growing my business 
  •  My fear of hiring and learning to ask for help 
  •  How coaching and mentorship transformed my mindset and business 
  •  The importance of reciprocity, referrals, and supporting others 
  •  How community inspired me to create The Conversion Club 


Here are the people and businesses I mentioned in this episode!

My amazing coaches: 


My team/business support:


Some other badasses in my network: 


Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsallmost/
Visit my website: https://www.itsallmost.com
Join The Conversion Club: https://itsallmost.com/the-conversion-club

SPEAKER_01

Hello, hello yappers! Welcome back to the Conversation Club. We are on episode six. How is that possible? I feel like I literally just recorded episode one yesterday. But here we are. Today we're talking about community and why it's important, why it is so valuable, and why no one builds anything alone. Because honestly, self-made is bullshit, right? Bullshit. No one is self-made. No one does anything all by themselves. That's not how humans were created to operate, right? I mean, we've got Nepo babies from their parents or family or friends or even us who aren't Nepo babies. We do not do anything alone. We don't come into this world alone. I mean, I guess we leave it up. I'm not trying to get dark here. What I'm trying to say is that when it comes to the term self-made, I just don't believe in it. I don't think it's true because we need our friends, we need our connections, we need our network, we need our family, we need people to support us. I mean, so many of you generously shared beautiful reviews of this podcast, rated this podcast before we even dropped an episode because my community is amazing and I love you all so much, and I really do appreciate every listen, every like, every share, every comment, everything that you do and we do for each other. And that's kind of what I want to talk about today. I recently did an episode with Cubicle to CEO about how to work less and earn more. And we didn't really have time to get into all the things that I really wanted to get into in that episode in regards to what beyond running a business does it take to work less and earn more? I'm definitely gonna do a full episode dedicated to that, so stay tuned for that one. But what I wanted to share is that beyond the systems, beyond running the business, what I really, really wanted to mention in that episode and dedicate some time to today is that I'm a one-woman team. I did just hire an operations assistant a few months ago, and we're gonna talk about that in a second as well. But I really just wanted to emphasize that in working less and earning more over the last eight years, I did it because I had friends, I had a network, I had a team, I had this community of people who didn't let me do it alone, who supported me every step of the way in every ask that I reached out to them about when I needed a connection to a contractor or a designer or a PR team or, you know, whoever, I had my community that supported me in all of that. And so what I really, really want to talk about today is that truly self-made is not real, and we never, never in the history of humanity have ever built anything alone. I know I still have a really hard time asking for help. You know me, I am a recovering eldest daughter, and especially a recovering eldest daughter of an immigrant family. So you know, eldest daughters rise up, shout out. I see you because I know it's really, really hard to do anything with help, right? To ask for help, to feel like, oh, what if I just have to like do it over again myself and da-da-da-da-da. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about that today. Something I realized, I for a very long time was afraid to hire. I was afraid to delegate in any kind of way because I knew that I was gonna do it the way that I like doing it and the way that I wanted. I don't know if I've mentioned on this podcast before, but your girl is diagnosed with OCPD, which essentially just means that I'm a perfectionist and I am parentified and I have been from a very young age. So I really had such a hard time hiring for so long and for so many reasons, but really because I just was really afraid to ask for help and I was afraid that it would take so long to train people and to make sure they were doing it to the quality that I wanted it done, and da-da-da-da-da. So, what I did realize was that I technically have always hired for things that I personally don't think I could do well on my own, or it would take a long time to learn, that kind of thing, right? Or just that I didn't want to do. A few years ago, I did hire some house cleaners because your girl hates to clean. I do not like to clean at all. That's the big reason I don't like to cook, is because I don't like to clean up after myself. So I did hire some house cleaners, and that really transformed my time. It gave me a lot more freedom, and they were doing it to a quality that I wasn't doing it to. So that really helped as well. I've always had a CPA that does my taxes. I've always hired like plumbers and electricians and people who specialized in things that I technically, yeah, could watch a YouTube video. I know my brother, he did a whole plumbing job from a YouTube video, and I'm just not that girl. I can't. I would much rather hire someone else who knows what they're doing to figure it out rather than me spend hours watching a video and like maybe doing it right. So I realized that I have always hired and I have always had support, and I was like, oh my gosh, I could do things I can hire for other things, right? I could do exactly this for things like coaches for things in my business. So what did I decide to hire once I came to that revelation? Well, I want to talk to you about some of the coaches that I really truly love. We're gonna do a little breakdown of my community and the people that made sure that I didn't build this alone. First and foremost, and this is not in any particular order, so like please nobody read into like, oh, she put this person in front of this person. Like, this is just it's more of a stream of thought than anything else. And also, if I don't shout you out, please know that I only have a certain amount of time on this on this podcast to go through all the things that I want to talk about in an episode. So if I don't include you, just know that it's more of a lack of time than anything else. I appreciate all of you and truly anybody who has helped me get through a really hard time in my business, or helped connect me in an intro email to someone else, or literally shared a post that I needed amplified, or gave me a hug virtually or in person. I appreciate all of you, and I really want to emphasize that this is not a comprehensive list by any means, but I did want to shout out some of the people that, especially in the last year, have really helped me transform this business and take it to the next level, which is how this podcast came to be too. So, first and foremost, the two true heroes of my team, my two amazing business coaches, Shay and Cassie. You guys have heard me mention them before. They are the bucketless bombshells, my amazing business coaches. I have been working with them for going on a year and a half, almost two years now. And Scale with Purpose has been such an amazing mastermind program. They've helped me with business growth, they've helped me with business development, with managing my business. Honestly, everything I do, I run through them. I feel like sometimes I can't even wipe my butt without being like, hey guys, do you think I should wipe my butt? I mean, honestly, there are so many things. I think even my assistant, Lizzie, if you're listening, love you too. She's like, Why do you need to ask them if you should do XYZ? Like, can't you just decide for yourself? She's never said this, but I feel like in my head, at least for me, when I'm like, oh, let me ask Shay and Cassie what they think. Truly, everything gets filtered through them. They are the most amazing coaches and guides and teachers, and they really have supported me through launching my second business, launching the conversion club membership, launching this podcast, hiring, like so many things. So, especially for all you business owners out there who are really solopreneurs, I highly recommend getting some business coaches that you trust because they will truly transform your journey for you and make you feel like you're not going through this alone, which is exactly how Shay and Cassie support me literally every day. So I love you both so, so much. Someone else, another coach that has really, really helped me, not even just in the last year, even in the last six months, Jillian of Quantum Wealth Academy. I have transformed my money mindset. I mean, I will say I have a long way to go. I think we have our entire lives to continue to improve. But I have made leaps and bounds, truly, in terms of progress with my wealth mindset and my worth and changing my frequency to align with what I'm asking from the universe. And I'm asking some pretty big things from the universe and trusting in myself and trusting in the universe that it's going to deliver it for me. I'm gonna talk in a later episode a little bit more about like the woo side of business. I think we should all embrace the woo a little bit more when it comes to business, and when it comes to manifestation and it comes to this work that I'm doing to level up my frequency, I mean, I think I could be doing a little better on that front. Your girl loves to be an asshole, so there's still that that I'm working on. But Jillian has really helped me through Quantum Wealth Academy to do so much of that internal work and to present me with all these amazing tools that I've been able to use, like EFT tapping, anchoring, the money thermostat tracker, and just shifting my giving and receiving sort of levels and capacity to not just give, which I feel like I love to give. I love give, give, give, giving, but I need to work on receiving, especially as an eldest star. So yeah, just working with Gillian through Quantum Wealth Academy has totally helped me with that journey, and I highly recommend working with her and joining that program because if you want to change your relationship with money, that is the place to start. A big, big, big coach person teacher that has actually transformed not just my business but like my confidence in almost every area of my life. Kristen Grace, I love you so much. You are such an incredible dance teacher. For those of you that are based in the Seattle Tacoma area, I highly recommend working with her in person. If you're not virtually, she's also amazing. She is just such an impactful teacher when it comes to dance, when it comes to exploring storytelling physically in your body and exploring your movement and what your defaults are and challenging those defaults. And she has honestly, in terms of like courage and creativity and expansion, I think Kristen has been one of the biggest people that has helped me with that in the last two years. Before I started working with her, I was terrified, terrified of freestyling, of doing anything in terms of dance that wasn't choreographed and wasn't taught to me, where someone told me exactly how to move, where to be, and when to be there. And Kristen has completely changed my mindset and my perspective on freestyling. She reframed it as her signature, what she likes to call movement exploration, because it really is. It is just an exploration of movement, right? And so, yeah, working with her has been so so helpful in terms of tapping into my creativity and tapping into my courage and trusting in myself and believing in myself and the choices that I make. So, anyway, if you are in ever in Seattle Tacoma area, definitely, definitely do what you can to take a class from her. Another amazing dance teacher who actually I have worked with in a dance capacity, but I want to talk about her coaching business, is Zara. By the way, I will be linking everybody's links and websites and things like that in the show notes so all of you can go check out whoever it is that resonates with you as I go through and talk about the coaches that I love. So, yeah, Zara, she is an amazing dance teacher as well. But I worked with her last summer on friendship coaching because I was moving to a new country and navigating a new community of people. And it was really, really wonderful to work with Zara on building new friendships and new places, as well as you know, learning how my friendships with my friends back in the States and long distance now were shifting and changing, and navigating those new sort of arenas that I was entering when it came to platonic intimacy and relationships with friends and things like that, and strengthening those and navigating things like emotional safety and communication and reciprocity and just a lot of those things that I think we in our heads know are involved in friendships and relationships, but obviously just having it all laid out in front of me. Her program is incredible. It's a 12-week program to start, and you go through this whole like friendship quiz, I guess is what you could call it. It's more of a thermostat as well on how you're feeling about these like different categories of friendship and relationships. And then she goes through and we look at the areas that need the most work and kind of go from there. But obviously, you can tailor it to, you know, if something comes up with some friends, you can change the sessions to cover those things versus going through the list as is. But anyway, when we work on friendships, we also work on all relationships: relationships with my family, relationships with my colleagues and clients and network and business partners and things like that. So yeah, and romantic relationships. Sorry, forget about those because that's not on my radar right now. But yes, Zara Harme Coaching, I will link that in the show notes. I highly recommend working with her. Someone that I just got out of their program, Sarah, Sarah Simpson of Sarah in Yellow. She hosts the Dream Girl Circle, which is a body confidence group coaching program. And I'm gonna talk about this in a completely separate episode about the like body journey that I've had, especially through the pandemic and my body changing and having you know a different relationship with it, and food noise and all those things, and oh GLP ones and all that shit. But yeah, Sarah, her program Dream Girl Circle, has really helped me work on my body neutrality. I don't know if I'm totally at positivity yet, but I'm working on neutrality at the very least, and staying curious, not only to how our bodies look, but also how we're feeling in the moment, our relationship to food, our relationship to movement, our relationship to energy levels, all those things, and staying curious rather than being judgmental of ourselves or of others. And so that has been some really wonderful work that I've done with Sarah through Dream Girl Circle, and yeah, she has taught me quite a bit about my relationship with my body and doing a little more exposure therapy as well. Quite literally exposure therapy of just like seeing my body and sitting in it and living in it and not hiding from it and all those things. So, again, I will link all these in the show notes. Back in, I want to say like the beginning, Q1, I was doing three programs at once, and I really liked doing them all together because I can't remember who pointed this out to me, but they said, Oh, it's very like mind-body spirit. So, mind-wise, I was doing Quantum Wealth Academy with Jillian, working on my money mindset and my wealth mindset and my abundance versus scarcity, all that good stuff. And then body, I was working with Sarah on my body confidence, my body neutrality, and Jordine, who I'm gonna talk about next. We were working on spirit and working on psychic abilities and intuition and things like that. So Jordine runs Healing to Grow, and she has a psychic alignment coaching program, which helps you tap into your psychic abilities and really learn about intuition and how to listen to it versus letting ego, letting ego or that like brain, that big, big loud brain take over and try to dictate how we should be moving through life, at least for me. So that program has honestly actually shifted so much for me in terms of identifying the difference between me and my voice and ego's voice. Because for a very long time, and especially someone who has OCPD, and especially who is someone who is an eldest daughter and is a perfectionist, ego and I I've confused our voices for a really long time. And I probably will do another episode specifically on how to identify ego as a voice and as an entity versus you as an entity and your gut and your intuition and what the difference is, because that is something that I have learned through Jordine is really just being able to separate these identities, ego and myself, and realizing that even though for a long time I thought ego was my own voice, it wasn't. And so, yeah, and then being able to use like divination tools and being able to tap into my own energetic signature and my own soul space, and it's just oh such an amazing program. Highly, highly recommend as well. Some of the other amazing coaches that I've been working with in the last year or so include Karina Summit mentality. She is such an amazing teacher in terms of your mindset, your performance mentality, how to run your business more efficiently. And she has taught so many tools in so many ways. My sales call structure is largely based on her program. She's taught a lot about like productivity and actually my current productivity tracking that I've been doing for the last, oh my gosh, almost like half a year, I think, is something that Karina helped me create. All of these coaches and the work that I've done in the last year has truly done so much for me in terms of I'm moving away from these like toxic cycles that I was having in terms of productivity. There's another episode topic for you. I'll write that in my notes after I finish recording. But I was really running on cortisol and adrenaline when it came to my productivity. So, like I would be building all this cortisol and getting brain fog and like not wanting to work and procrastinating, procrastinating forever and ever and ever. Let's say like two, three weeks, right? And then I would have a really extremely productive week because my adrenaline would be so high and I would be going up on deadlines and just so many things that these energy levels were just like peaking and crashing and peaking and crashing. And I really started that journey of fixing those really aggressive up and down waves with Karina. And then, in terms of coaches, last but not least is Nadia. She has through her activate your voice program really helped me claim my voice. And also, I think one of the most impactful things I learned in her program is that there's a difference between systemic accountability and personal accountability, and that you should never feel guilty for something that is a systemic problem and not an individual problem because of something you did. So her teaching me and all of us in the program how to never Navigate the difference between what is your individual personal accountability that you can own versus what is the fault of how systems are created and systems are run in our country and in our world that we don't really have that much control over, and not feeling guilty about those things and really owning our voice and stepping into spaces that we want to be in that we might not totally be comfortable in just yet. Her program is really great for that. So, again, I will be linking all of these in the show notes. I really highly recommend working with each one of these amazing coaches and developing your personal life and your business life the way that I have in the last year. And as you'll tell, group coaching and individual coaching, but small group coaching especially has changed my life. And I really used to think that one-on-one learning was a lot more valuable. Obviously, private lessons or one-on-one coaching, that kind of thing, because I was like, you're getting individual attention. You're getting the most bang for your buck. You're not having the teacher or the coach divide their attention with four other people or eight other people or whatever it is. But what I realized was that when you are in a small group setting and not sort of a one-on-one learning situation, you get to learn from the questions that other people have, the journeys they're going on and what they're working on, because chances are you're probably working on similar things. And chances are there are a lot of things that you never would have thought to bring up that you're actually getting a lot of value from because someone else is learning this. And realizing that in terms of a small group setting totally changed my perspective on my preferred coaching style. And anyone who will know me now knows that your girl loves a small group coaching situation over like a one-on-one learning situation. I also realized through small group coaching that you have this group of people to cheer you on. You have this group of people who are like rooting for you to win, and you're rooting for them to win, and having this like connection with them is impactful and it's pretty life-changing. And knowing that you're just not alone in this journey, you have your coaches, you have this community of peers to root for you and for you to root for them. And all of these things that I learned about group coaching, I really wanted to take and I wanted to implement it into the conversion club, my monthly email marketing membership, because I want to help other entrepreneurs do the same. I want them to feel like they are learning from other people's questions. I want them to feel like other people are cheering them on, other people are there to share feedback and to look at things from a different perspective and to be able to share their own insights and their own recommendations and to not go through things alone. That you have people to lift you up and you have people to mastermind with and to brainstorm with and all these things. And so that is a really big reason why I developed the conversion club the way that I did, and we'll talk about that a little bit towards the end of the episode. But I did want to do a little shout-out and a little run through of like the current team that I have that makes all of this possible. So this is a little bit of like a love letter episode to all of you. Lizzie, you have been truly the best case operations assistant that I could have come across. I was terrified for years and years and years of hiring, of bringing on an assistant because I thought it was gonna take so much training, it was going to be more of a hassle than a help. And that has been the opposite of my experience. I mean, Lizzie, you as an operations assistant have supported me in this phase of my business as we develop a new signature offer, as we develop our new signature method, as we develop the podcast and continue to grow the membership and all this stuff. You have been a true godsend, and I cannot thank you enough. My very first higher hire, and it's been a really wonderful experience. So thank you truly so much. My ladies at Coravy, PR, Lydia and Nicolette. For those of you who have like seen me in a lot of podcast interviews lately, I shouted out my cubicle to CEO episode earlier. I mean, if you've seen me on all these different podcasts, it's because of my PR team, Coravy. You have taken the hard work out of what I really wasn't enjoying doing, which is pitching. Your girl. Remember, I think in the first episode I said a lot of people told me when I was younger I should go into PR. Now that I know what PR is as an adult, I'm like, huh, no. I hate pitching. Pitching is so time consuming, it's not something I enjoy. And these ladies have helped me get on so many podcasts, and I thank you both so, so much. Haley from Espresso Podcast Production. Haley is the girl who is editing this very episode. All the episodes, everything that I've done. Her and her team have made it possible, and I wouldn't be here without y'all. None of you would be listening to any of these episodes if it weren't for Haley and her team. So please go shout out to her. If you are thinking of starting your own podcast and you need a podcast manager, she is your girl, okay? Go to her. She will help you every step of the way. One of the biggest parts of my team, as I've mentioned earlier, are my coaches, Cassie and Shay. They're my Brita filter, basically. Like everything runs through them. They've supported me in basically every decision I've made in the last year and a half, almost two years. They've helped me design my services, get clear on my service offerings and my structure. They've also really, really helped me with the entire hiring process that I mentioned earlier, in that they helped me put the application together. They helped me put the job description, filter all of the applications. I was so scared of hiring for so long because I thought I'd have to figure it out by myself. And they had all the templates, everything, interview questions, how to choose the best candidate, all of that stuff. They really, really helped me through and walked me through. They've helped me with my lead generation and helped me with my sales funnel. They also helped me build my website in terms of like all the base copy and the structure and everything like that. Shout out to Alicia and Claire who actually helped build the site and build the branding for Almost and for the Conversion Club. They were the ones who made it possible. And then Shay and Cassie helped with the brand identity, with the website, with just all of that. And so, oh my gosh, this team, this team of amazing women has made it possible for everything that you see on a front-facing level. I did want to also shout out some of the people in my network that I admire and that I think all of you should go check out as well because they all have amazing services and they all are just like badass bitches and just the best people you could have to call friends that you could have to call colleagues that you can have to just call in general. Love you, love you all. The first person I want to shout out is my girl Alicia. Alicia runs not only an amazing paid ad agency for CPG brands, she also runs the Founders Table. Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably heard me talk about the Founders Table. They were a really big part of my last year in Seattle. I am very sad. I really would like for there to be maybe some more events in Europe and Lisbon. Can I persuade y'all to come in this direction? But if you're in the States or you're in Canada, they are actually doing a lot of incredible dinners all over in so many cities. So definitely go check them out, the Founders Table. It is probably the best. I don't even have to say one of the best. I truly think I mean the best networking experience that I've ever had. So the Founders Table, they host mastermind dinners, speed networking events. She has oh totally changed my perspective on a networking event. You know your girl, I'm an introvert. I don't super love networking, not in the way that I used to when I was like first hustling and starting my business. And I really am so inspired by Alicia. She has grown so much in her agency and in her events business. And yeah, she's just a fucking badass. And she is awesome. And a woman of color. Shout out to all my women of color out there who are running businesses, doing the damn fucking thing. I am so proud of all of you. Another amazing woman in my network, Daria of the Cellwell Agency. I have personally been so inspired by her journey. She really understands her zone of genius. She helps people with their personal branding and with launches and specifically in the social media realm. And she, oh my gosh. I mean, what I will say is the new signature offer that I developed on the retreat that I went on, the scale with purpose retreat with my girls Shay and Cassie. What was it like a month and a half-ish ago? My current signature offer that I'm developing is very much inspired by Daria's signature offer journey and how she restructured her offers and her structures, and it has been so incredible to watch. I'm really inspired by you, Daria. So thank you so much for all your support. Another new friend that I've met here in Lisbon is my girl Kim of For Good Club. Kim helps brands with their Shopify growth and helping set up their funnels and just all of this amazing stuff. She is an incredible marketer. Like, truly, she is one of those marketers that like I look up to as inspiration, as her expertise and her zone of genius. She really knows what the fuck she's doing. So Kim, shout out to you. We met through like, oh god, that's a story for another time in terms of how we met. We met through like this scammer workshop that we went to, and it ended up being a whole like almost like an MLM situation. Not really, but anyway, love when internet friends connect in real life and actually live in the same city, which is incredible. But I also love you long distance girlies. I mean, you guys are the reason why I am here. Savannah, my girl at Never Been Camping, she has always supported me in my business, supported me in my life. She is an incredible designer, an incredible creative eye and creative director. I highly recommend working with her if you're looking for really high-quality design work. She has from day one shared referrals with me, shared opportunities with me, and I have tried to reciprocate as much as I can. But I just really love the way that we support each other and we root for each other in business and in life. And so, yeah, always, always have friends and people in your network like that. And speaking of day ones, one of my amazing, amazing day ones, Morgan of Stoned and Toned, she was one of my very first friends in business. She actually started her business before I did over eight years ago, which is crazy to say that we have known each other for a decade. I think maybe over a decade. I don't even know, but you are a real one, Morgan. When I was working at that toxic company that I mentioned in the first episode before I started my business, she was there for me. She lived in Seattle at the time, and I would almost every day after work drive to her house and cry. Like I literally would just go to her house and just cry after work almost every day. And then we would go get like burgers down the street, or we would order some food, and she would just listen to me cry and vent about work. And Morgan, you have always been there for me. Just everything you do, you are an incredible mother. You do such amazing work. I met her through the cannabis industry. She was doing photography and content creation and marketing. And I honestly, in terms of starting my business, Morgan, I think I don't know if I've ever told you this, but you were one of the like people that I really looked at and said, oh my gosh, she did that thing, and I'm inspired to do it too. So she is actually one of the reasons that I started this business and that I'm here today talking to all of you. So go give her some love, go give her some support because Morgan is amazing. I love you so so much. Another awesome person I met through the cannabis industry is my girl Geraldine of Art and Times of Chill. She is truly the expert. I would say probably the best person I know at Building Community. She has always said my name in rooms that I'm not in. She has always referred me to so many people. We actually we used to host a podcast together before podcasts blew up. This was pre-pandemic. We had a podcast about being Asian American and it was actually really fun. But I decided to leave the podcast game at that time. So this is actually my second podcast. Fun fact for those of you that don't know. But yeah, Geraldine is truly an expert in building community and fostering relationships and connecting people, and she is also a day one. I really appreciate so much of how you've helped me get here and how you've built this community with me. There are so many people I want to include that I want to continue and include, but we all just have to find other ways to shout out the rest of you on this podcast because there are so many of you. There are so many of you, and I will say primarily women, I would say like 98% women that have been on this journey with me, that have supported me, that I want to give all of you all your flowers because you all deserve it so so much. But I will say some communities are not for me, some communities are for everyone. I've had my experiences with those kind of like hustle, girl boss, like that kind of communities. I'm not a huge fan of. Like lean in, I've been to their Seattle chapter pre-pandemic, and you know, some communities just aren't for you. I had another community that I don't know, should I should I name names? Maybe, maybe someday I will. But they did this kind of thing where they wanted me to sign up for their membership, sign up to access their network, and not only pay the annual fee, but also, or like a one-time fee or something like that. But anyway, I had to like pay to essentially get access to referrals, and then also on top of paying for access to this network, every referral that they sent my way, I had to pay an exorbitant amount on every single invoice that I sent that client. So, for example, let's say they referred me to Patagonia, right? They refer me to Patagonia. I work with them for six months or a year. Every single month when I send an invoice, I would have to send this community. Oh, I want to name, should I just name it was entrepreneurs, which is why I haven't joined that community. I've heard great things about it, I know a lot of people like it, but I had sort of a bad experience early on, not bad experience, but just an experience that kind of like put a funky taste in my mouth about them. And so I don't know, it's just not for me, you know, and maybe someday I can come around and revisit them, but just the fact that they like wanted me to pay an upfront fee, and then in terms of referrals, every referral, every invoice, I had to send them like I want to say like 15% of that invoice to them, and I was just like, oh, like that is just not how I want to be in community with people and do business with people. I just I want this space where we're saying each other's names in rooms they're not in, we're not in, and that we're doing this like reciprocity, right? We're giving and we're receiving. And honestly, that's what I would rather be about. I would rather be about figuring out what we can do for each other, right? Like, I send clients your way. We make connections, we help each other look out for opportunities. This like whole referral fee thing, I think in some ways it's great. I do have a referral fee implemented for people who send clients my way, but it's not this like agent where they like take a cut of everything you do. I don't really think that's the way that I really want to be in community with people, the way that I want to be operating. And so not every program, not everyone is for me, and vice versa, I'm not for everyone either. I am still working on in terms of like human design, I'm a two-four generator, and for those of you that understand what that means, shout out to you. I'm still learning about really what that means as well. But essentially, in terms of my split, I'm a two-four split. So, meaning two is the hermit, it is what I thrive in, which ultimately means I love to hibernate, I love to do things by myself, I love to be alone. And that's my two. That two I am very, very familiar with. Now, the four is the community aspect, the being in community, working together, asking for help, the reciprocity. I'm still trying to figure out how community folds into this and how I want to embody that four in terms of my generator moving forward. And I'm still working on it, I'm still brainstorming. I think once I find the thing, and I know this podcast is part of that too, in building community and reaching out to all of you and starting this conversation with everyone. So I know that that folds into it, but I'm trying to figure out I was doing pre-pandemic, I was doing like quarterly events and things like that. I don't know if I want to get back in the events game. It is very exhausting. Shout out to all of you that do events, like that shit is not easy. And so the people that do it and do it well, I admire you because I think I could get really burnt out very quickly if I was doing events still. I don't think I want it to be like this virtual Zoom situation either. Not knocking that. I just personally, I'm not really sure how I want the almost community and my yappers here, all you yappers love y'all, to exist sort of in the fold of the almost universe. So we're still working on that. But ultimately, what I do know is that women supporting women in business is magic. As they always say, rising tide lifts all boats. Like it really does. I mean, and if you're not a woman and you're out there listening, specifically like cis men, I'm just like, sorry, but this this podcast wasn't really creative for you. If you're listening, great, I appreciate you, but it's my women, it's my femmes, it's my non-binary folks. Like when we support each other in business, it is pure magic. There's something energetically, I feel like that happens when we support each other and when we lift each other up that I just like, I'm like tearing up, like I'm getting emotional. But yeah, I do think that everyone has their own expertise, and I think that we need to all just be working in our zones of genius, right? And that we can tackle anything together when we work together. Oh my god, why am I crying? Like, I just I am so inspired by all of you, and I know my zone of genius. I know that I love email, I love marketing, I love building community as well. So I really hope that we can really own our expertise and our zones of genius and work together in our areas of expertise to all lift each other up. And that really is the energy of what I'm trying to bring to the conversion club. You guys have heard me talk about the conversion club, my email marketing membership, and this community of founders who honestly, we've had founders at different stages in their business who, for the most part, not everyone, but for the most part, are not as familiar with email marketing and the power of email marketing. But not only are we like learning in this space, we're learning about email marketing, how to implement it, how to use it. I'm teaching you the mechanisms that I use for my own clients that I use when I build out my clients' email engines. But it's also the space for everything I just talked about, for us to lift each other up, for us to own our expertise, for us to tell our stories, really founders to come together and to give each other feedback and to ask for help. My eldest daughters ask for help to amplify each other and to realize that you don't have to do this alone. Because truly, at the end of the day, no one, no one builds anything alone. And I really hope that all of you take that with you as we round out this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you so much to all of you who have been a part of this journey for over eight years. I am truly so grateful to all of you. And I really hope that you all go out there. Your homework for this week is to just go out there and send some love to someone in your community to connect someone, to amplify someone's post or whatever they're working on or promoting. Go out there and do that and start that give and receive relationship because that's what we're here for, right? Okay, I think I've cried enough and I've said I love you enough. I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I had so much fun just putting together this list of powerhouses that have just supported me over all the years. But yeah, I will see you all next time in the next episode, Yappers. I love you all so much, and I will see you all very soon.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, ciao ciao if this episode gave you something to think about, please take it and do something with it. If you want more of this or you want to see what my life actually looks like, follow me on Instagram at it's almost with two L's. We'll be sure to link it in the show notes. You can also follow me at almost consulting for some juicier, spicier takes. And if you're serious about getting your emails to convert, you can check out the Conversion Club, a monthly membership for founders ready to turn email into their most profitable and sustainable sales channel. With expert guidance, plug and play tools, and strategy you'll actually use. Check it out at the link in the show notes. I'll see you in the next episode, yappers!