The Esoteric Entrepreneur

UNLOCKED 🔐 The Five Best Things I've Ever Done For Myself As A Founder (from inside EE club)

• Jaz Borri

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Speaker 1:

I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the traditional owners of this land on which this podcast is being recorded today, the dark and young people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. It's an esoteric entrepreneur thing. Hey Hoddy, welcome back to the esoteric entrepreneur podcast. In case you didn't know, we're actually on sabbatical right now, gearing up for season three and making it as epic as it possibly can be. So whilst we're on this break, I thought I'd do something extra special for you by breaking out some content that is usually behind a paywall and uploading it here for you for free.

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The content that you're going to hear over the next couple of months is from inside the esoteric entrepreneurship club, which is our paid membership. The EE club is where spiritual founders and friends go to learn about sustainable success. It's a place where we don't just talk about it. We teach you how to do it. It's full of tutorials, mini courses, master classes and a whole lot of behind the scenes exclusives from me, as I run the esoteric entrepreneur. So, as a way to say thank you for listening and being a loyal consumer of the EE, here are our most beloved pieces by our members. You'll notice that this episode is very different from what we normally upload on our public podcast feed, so if you enjoy it, I want to invite you inside the club. It's so much more than just extra episodes. You get a lot of perks too. So go to the link down in the show notes, check it out for yourself and jump in on our seven day free trial. In the meantime, enjoy. I love you and I'm so excited for season three. Oh and by the way, if you have any topics that you'd like me to talk about in season three, send me a DM on Instagram, but don't send it to me personally at jazbori. Head over to the esoteric entrepreneur Instagram, the esoteric entrepreneur. Follow us if you're not already, and then just DM us what you want to hear. Whilst I don't want to give anything away too soon, just know that no topic will be off limits for season three. A final reminder to subscribe to the podcast if you're not already. Tell us what you thought of season two, and if you can't remember, you can always scroll back and re-listen. We have almost 200 episodes for you to devour, and whilst I know some of you have definitely listened to every single episode, I know there's still some of you that haven't, so fill your plates, heat it all up. And with that said, I'm your host, jazz Borey. This is the esoteric entrepreneur podcast, and enjoy this Club Exclusive episode. Hey, hotties.

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So today we're going to do a little top five moment. I wanted to do this because I was inspired by Gala Darling's recent podcast episode where she shared the best five things she's ever done for herself, and they were just so like simple and straight to the point, and I figured that me sharing my top five with you guys would be beneficial to get your wheels turning in your head about the things that really make a difference for you as a founder. I also was asked by a client the five things that are like non-negotiables for me. What are the things that, as a founder, I feel like I have to do in order to be successful? And it was interesting because when she asked me that question, I was like, honestly, there's so many and can I get back to you on that? And I wanted to share that with you guys as well, because I feel like the reason we care about these things is because, sure, we want the secrets and we want to know what makes a difference in other people's lives and gets them to where they want to go.

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But I think selfishly if we peel back the layer one more time. What we're really trying to understand is do these things feel true for me? Could this person share, help me understand and gain clarity around what's really important to me? And I think that if we don't know what's important to us as founders, it can be incredibly hard to make decisions, aligned decisions. So, as I share these today, I want you to take them and implement them into your life. These are my ride or dies. Some of them might sound stupidly obvious and others will definitely come as a surprise to you, but I want you to peel that layer back for yourself and allow yourself to be seen in today's episode. So this is the power of mentorship is having somebody to reflect back to you what works for them, so that you can agree, disagree and maybe even have a light shun on something that you never thought of. There's also the added benefit of me telling you something and you're like you know what? That's an absolute fuck no for me, and that's just as valuable.

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So, without further ado, let's jump into my top five best things that I did for myself as a founder. So the first one is going to a co-working space. Now, I mentioned this on Instagram the other day how I feel like I've hacked the main frame of sustainability when it comes to working because of this co-working space, and when I said that I fucking meant it. The reason this is so important, I believe, for founders, and has been one of the best things that I've ever done for myself, is because I have found myself to be so much more innovative and creative and expanded. Now, obviously, being around other people is always going to be great.

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I feel like, no matter how your energy works and what your human design environment is or whatever, being around other people is always going to be good for you as a founder, because isolation is your kryptonite, because when you're in isolation, you're not going to be stimulated creatively, and if you're not stimulated creatively, you're just probably going to be copying, and that's the worst thing that you can do is like compare and copy. You're losing innovation when you do that, and so any space that's going to basically stimulate your mind, stimulate your senses, is incredibly important for you to be putting yourself in. Now, I am so focused when I'm there, I will say like, from a productivity perspective, I am getting shit done. It means that when I come home, I am not thinking about work, which for me as a recovered workaholic, is something that is like nothing I've ever experienced before. But being able to shut my laptop and leave feels really nice and it's helping me create a lot of balance between my personal and my professional life, which is always really good. I feel like that is a very obvious one. Of course, going to a space and then leaving is gonna create some boundaries that are gonna be really healthy, but the biggest thing has been the expansion piece, and this is the one thing I didn't say on Instagram, which was like when I'm there, the people that are around me are all doing different things, and so when I talk to them and they share with me like what they do, I'm never sure what somebody is gonna say to me. We have people there who are like state managers of media companies. We have people there who are software engineers. We have other coaches. There's so many different people and founders and creatives there like it's insane and mine's not even that like poppin' there's max six or seven people in there every day. There's other co-working spaces I know in Sydney that are like packed with like probably a hundred people at least every single day.

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I have a friend who has been working in a co-working space for, I wanna say, almost 15 years. When I say friend, this is somebody I actually used to date and when we first got together, he was just starting his online business and this was well before anyone even knew like what the word like entrepreneur, really meant, especially in the tech space, which is what he was in and I remember he would go into this co-working space every single day and I was like why? And even when I started my own business, I was like why would you do that? Just go to a cafe, don't you want the freedom? It just basically feels like you're in a workplace and now I get it. Now I understand that the co-working space is a special type of magic. You are working with people who are really passionate about what they do. Most of the time, people are working for themselves. At my co-working space we do have some people who are working like corporate jobs from home, but most of the people are working for themselves.

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Like even just being around the founder of the co-working space is just really cool, and the more I talk to these people and the more I learn about who's coming in and out of these doors, it really just expands me as to what is possible. Like the guy sits next to me, he's a software engineer, but he also founded a company before he did that. And then now he like partnered up with this really famous photographer over in Europe and he's building this like photography software with him for him. They're founders together. Anyway, I was like, oh my God, cool. I would have never guessed that this guy was a fucking software engineer in photography. And then we had this incredible conversation about design thinking and we were talking about retreats. Because I told him I wanna do retreats one day and he was like, yeah, you should. And he was telling me this place that he took his old company employees to on a retreat and how he utilized this software to send to all of them afterwards so they could tap into the energy that they tapped into on the retreat. It was just like an amazing conversation.

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And I'm in like a small little town you know what I mean Like I'm not even in the big smoke. I was under the impression that everybody in my area was boring, old, straight and white. I'm not gonna lie to you and you know what Most of them are, but there are some cool ones and they're at the co-working space, I think. So my point here is if you're a founder and you're feeling isolated maybe you're just feeling really bored and it just feels like fucking Groundhog Day in your business go to a co-working space. Fuck the cafe, fuck the fucking beach, fuck like your office. Honestly, go to a co-working space, because it's just been the best thing that I have done. I can only imagine how stressed and overwhelmed I would have been coming back from the sabbatical if I hadn't made this decision to do the co-working space, and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm really going two days a week and this is how good it's making me feel. It's made the list and I've only been going for a couple of weeks. So take from that what you will.

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Number two is a Google Calendar. Now, I know this might sound stupidly obvious, but hear me out. One. If you don't have a Google Calendar, I'm gonna need you to get one. Babes, you're missing out on some of the finest joys in life. Not an iCal, not some diary that you have on your desk.

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Google Cal. Couple of reasons. Practically it's the best. It integrates with every scheduling app available online. It is really easy to like, share events and invite people into events, no matter what platform they use. It's just the fucking best okay From a tech standpoint. Secondly, scheduling your time as a founder is so fucking important. Time is your most valuable resource as a human, so when you're a founder, it is so important that you are allocating the right amount of time for each thing that you do. And I've played around with my schedule and experimented a lot to figure out what works best for me, and what I've found is that in different stages of my life, in different times of the year maybe I'm launching, maybe I'm concentrating on content Over one month. It allows me to shift and change things really easily and put new boundaries in with ease.

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I've always found it really hard to put boundaries in, especially with work, especially with my clients. When I work with people, I wanna give them everything, and if someone had told me, oh, I can't make this session, can you do next Tuesday? But I actually had a coffee with a friend at that time on the Tuesday I would probably just move the coffee with a friend, but because it's on the Google Calendar, something happens in my brain where I'm like, no, I can't do that time. I've allocated Fridays in the mornings for me to go and meet up with friends or go and have a massage or hang out with my fiance, like I literally block out time in my calendar to just be available for other things. I even block out, like Sundays on my calendar have always been off. So I've kept that blocked off, not just from a practical business perspective, but mentally. It tells me every single week I'm off. On Sundays I cannot be found.

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You guys probably notice that one day every weekend, ideally all weekend you don't hear from me on socials, you don't fucking see me, because I'm chilling, I'm with family, I'm with friends, that's what I'm doing. I'm not working either, and so it's these tiny little things that, as founders, really make a big difference. Because you love your business. Your business is your baby. You wanna give everything over to it, and I know for me, if I didn't have these things in a calendar literally sending me a notification every Sunday to rest, I probably wouldn't do it If I was still going off my paper diary which, by the way, I had for years and years and years and years and years I was still going off that I would just move shit around and make it happen and I'd probably be in toxic cycles. Not probably I would be, because I know myself.

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So look, scheduling, I honestly think, is such a personal thing. You know yourself better than anybody else when you need accountability, when you fuck up, when you don't keep the promises to yourself that you said that you were gonna keep. So using your Google Calendar can be so much more than just like scheduling meetings and it flowing from a tech perspective. It can be a way for you to hold boundaries with yourself, which is essentially honoring yourself, and it's just been the biggest godsend. I put like the most random shit, or people would probably come into my Google Calendar and be like what the fuck? You actually schedule your menstrual cycle. Yeah, you actually schedule driving to Sydney. Yes, because I don't want to ever be fucking rushed. So I don't want anyone to ever book an appointment right up to the line of when I need to drive to Sydney. I don't wanna be late to see my family. I don't wanna be doing none of that, and so this Google Calendar just helps me keep those promises to myself, as someone who struggles to do that, because I always would put my work first. If you're a founder who struggles with the exact same thing and you do that exact same behavior, get on it with your Google Calendar.

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Number three is starting a podcast. Now, obviously, starting a podcast is great for sales, it's great for content, it's great for business. I have said since day one you need to have a social media platform and a non-social media platform. You need to have short form content and you need to have long form content. Ideally, you wanna be taking as much real estate up as you possibly can. You wanna be across as many platforms as you possibly can, but what I will say is that the podcast piece is the most underrated content platform ever, specifically for founders, because one, it's a great way to drive sales. It's a great way for people to get to know you.

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There's a sense of intimacy with podcasting. People are with you for a long time. They're not just scrolling through Instagram and just seeing your quote or your TikTok or your reel. They're actually diving into concepts with you and they're understanding you as a person which just creates a relationship like none other with your potential clients. They're obviously shareable. It's a great way to network. I have done a lot of my networking and gotten basically every single one of my clients through the podcast. If you've worked with me one-on-one, you're a podcast listener. I think I could literally think of five people that I've worked with ever that have not come through the podcast or from a referral from someone who listens to the podcast.

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The podcast has been the best driver of sales for me hands down. Other than that, having a place where I can sit down and share what I know to be true, to come every single week and integrate my experiences and create some art, to be quite honest, has been so good for my soul, as much as we think very strategically about it, and I've hired a podcast coach in the past and I've put a lot of time and effort and money into making sure that it's a platform that allows me to monetize and grow my business. At the end of the day, even if that was not allowed if you were to tell me that I could never sell another thing ever again and I had to go and work for somebody else I would still have a podcast, I think. For me it just allows me to feel free and it helps me heal. I get to sit here and just talk through things and interview incredible people and have incredible conversations and learn and connect. It's just the fucking best. It's so good for my soul. If that resonates with you, I employ you to go and start your own podcast if you haven't already, or find a way to prioritize your podcast, if you have one, and really find the art and the joy and the creativity of it. If you know that maybe podcasting isn't for you and you wish that you had that same feeling, I would look into other forms of long-form content, looking into things like YouTube, into things like Substack. Maybe you could go really into email marketing and that's your way of expressing.

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I actually recently just played with that a little bit through the Simplicity Files, with the Recaps, and I actually really loved it. I loved writing, which I didn't think I liked doing. I liked the idea that someone was going to sit down and just be with this and I was going to take them on a journey through my words in this new way. I'm definitely not a writer, I'm not a blogger. I prefer to just chat and talk, but I surprised myself that I actually really enjoyed the experience and just the thought that somebody was going to read this thing and thinking about them sitting on their balcony with their morning coffee and reading through what I had written. It was just really beautiful and cathartic for me to take everything that I was channeling through the simplicity files and take the time to relisten and consolidate everything that I had said into a piece of writing and basically an essay is what I was sending through every single day. Play with it, find your art, find your thing that, as a founder, you get to express yourself through. For some of you, that will be in alignment with your business and for some of you it won't, but whatever it is that nourishes your soul, do that because that's really fucking important and it's honestly being the best thing that I've ever done for myself as a founder. And if you guys have been here for a while, you would know that the podcast was actually the very first thing that I launched. I launched the podcast before I even launched my business, a couple of weeks before, but before nonetheless. So it's just been this safe space for me. It's been this place I can always come back to and just get back into the roots of my why and that's been so important for me as a founder.

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Number four is, I stopped thinking that everybody else knew more than me and, more specifically, that I needed to be fixed. I went through this phase where I was investing in mentors and programs and education. Even that, I thought, was like expanding me, but what was really happening is that I was actually investing from this place of fear, in thinking that I need to know more in order to make more, in order to be more, and that's just simply not true. The thing about entrepreneurship is that it's all about your experience, and, whilst there are definitely avenues you can take where you can fast track that experience through mentorship and coaching and networking, you can't cut corners, though. That's the thing, and the minute that we start to cut corners is the minute that we start to invest in the quote unquote opportunities that are going to fill our knowledge gaps. Yeah, what if you didn't have any knowledge gaps? And even if you did, nobody else could fill them for you.

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Yeah, there's obviously expertise that people have, there's services that people provide, but the minute that you start to think that you need to go and work with someone because they know more than you, and you need to know what they know in order to be successful, you're going to end up abandoning yourself and sliding further and further away from what your soul came here to experience in your dumbic path. Plain and simple Entrepreneurship asks you to be open. It asks you to have a beginner as mindset, and so you always want to be in a position of the student as much as you possibly can. But you're not an idiot. You know what you're doing and I can tell you right now. You probably know more than what you give yourself credit for, and even if you don't, there is so much beauty and power in learning from your own experience.

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One of the best things that I did for myself was eliminating anybody who was in my network and my inner circle in my following list. That made me feel like they knew more than me and that if I didn't work with them, that they were missing out on something. I have lots of thoughts, feelings and emotions about marketing like that. That's a story for another time. Let me know if you want to hear more about that. I can run my mouth if you'd like, but this really, at the end of the day, was about coming back to my own power and relinquishing the idea that I needed anybody else to succeed, and that's not to say that getting to the top should be done on your own.

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Of course you need people. I was literally listening to Stephen Bartlett's new book, the 33 Laws of Success, and in the introduction he literally says he's never met a company that has done anything of merit that was done by a single founder on their own. It's always done by a team, and so of course you want people around you, but they're not there to fulfill your role as a founder. They're there to do the marketing, to do the podcasting, editing. They're there to do the assisting for you. You hire them for their expertise and you stay in your own lane for yours. Make sure that you are aligning with the right mentors that aren't going to tell you what to do, but are going to reflect back to you your truth, and so then you can go and do things your own way. It's very hard to find mentors like that right now. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing with my new esthetic entrepreneur.

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Private mentorship is because I'm coming back to the original assignment of what mentorship actually is. That's what I feel like my original assignment is. Even when I was little, I always used to get told by my teacher to go and help this girl and to mentor this girl and to be the leader and to help her practice and whatever Right. So I'm coming back to this original assignment. I was even saying to a babe today who I think is going to sign up for one-on-one mentorship. I said, if you want to help with your strategy, you can totally get that from me, but you post that piece of content and you see how it goes and if it doesn't perform the way that you wanted it to perform, then I'll take a look at it and I will tell you, with my sales expertise and my 15 years in the industry, what it is that might be missing, what I would have shifted and, more specifically, where were you playing small? Where were you not being authentic? Where were you not being you? Because that's probably why I didn't land. And that's just one facet of what we do in private mentorship. But that's a prime example of how your mentor should be mentoring you, keeping you in your power and never leading you to believe that you need them and their advice in order to be successful.

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Period and last but not least, number five, staying curious about myself. My number one priority is my relationship with myself and making it my number one priority has been the best thing that I have ever done for myself as a founder. Your business triggers the absolute shit out of you when you do not just what you love for a living, but what you feel like your soul came here to do your sole purpose. And so this curiosity about myself has not only allowed me to develop personally, it has kept me on the path of being open enough to receive more and more information about who I could be. The work that I do on myself, because I stay curious about myself, is what allows my highest potential to be accessible for me, and, as the leader and the founder of my business, that is the most important thing when it comes to acquiring success, achieving any goal. I know exactly what is in my way. I know what is stopping me, I know what is fueling me, and, as a constant in my life, I make sure that I am always in spaces and rooms that allow me to be constantly reflected back. What's in my way, that's it. But the only reason I've been able to be consistent with that is because I've stayed curious about myself. I've stayed in love with the process of understanding myself.

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I get so excited at the thought of the fact that I'm going to uncover something that has been hidden within me for 30 years and I've never even known. That excites me. It literally makes me like, gets my nervous system going like in a good way, and so I honestly feel like this is the best thing that I've ever done. What I see a lot of founders do, and just people do in general, is they do all this like shadow work and then they're like, okay, I've done the shadow work and then they stop and then they don't do anything for six months a year, two years, five years, 10 years, and then everything's fucked up again and it feels like you have to start back at the beginning.

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I don't have to go back to the beginning because I am in a constant relationship with uncovering who I am and what I want to do, and my desires and my flaws and everything. I'm in constant flow with it. So there's no ever going back to the beginning for me, and so I think that's why when I fail, I don't feel like I'm failing as hard, because I'm always just in this constant connection with uncovering more and more, and I know that there's so much to excavate and I know that I will probably die still not knowing certain parts of myself, and that's okay. I'm in love with that journey. I'm in love with that process and, as a founder, that has been my fucking thaws hammer. It's been my thing. That has given me so much strength and so much power and has allowed me to execute and succeed in ways that I had never thought possible.

Speaker 1:

With all this said, thank you so much for listening today. I hope and pray this has served you and I'd love to know if you could put down in the comments what are your top five best things that you've ever done for yourself as a founder? I would love to know. Reflect, think, let us know. Love you have an incredible week, thank you, bye.