Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share anti-rules business
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
anti-rules business
Rules are subjective. The only rules you have to follow in business are the rules you think you have to follow.
Everywhere you look, you will find someone with a rule that you have to follow. I still freaking catch myself, as an anti-rules business coach, find myself thinking that certain rules have to be true. It’s always interesting to catch myself and get curious about why I think it and if those rules could be broken. We are gonna talk about this a lot today, so I’ll pause for now.
What you need to know is that your brain is a powerful thing and it’s also a very compliant thing. What you tell it, it will believe. Including the rules that you have to follow to be taken seriously or to receive the success you want to receive. I am not a scientist or a psychologist or any of those guys - but with the quick flick of your fingers you can look up hundreds of studies that go in depth about this placebo effect. WHat you believe manifests before your eyes. Even the necessity of rules.
When I launched Unruly Business last week, there was a TON of feedback flooding to me about the idea of having a no rules approach to business or an anti-rules approach. There is always someone who says “well, there are SOME rules” or “there will ALWAYS be things in business you don’t like”. And they bring me fistfuls of evidence to back that up. And it’s true -- for them. The rules you’ve subscribed to will continue to be true until you unsubscribe from them.
You may be thinking something like this “It will take time for my highest priced package to become my best seller.” Or “I can’t hire help until I’m at X stage in my business.” or “Custom work is the only work people want from me. Even though it’s not sustainable.” - and you have SO much evidence that proves them to be true, right? Because you believe it’s true, it’s true. As soon as you decide it’s not, it no longer applies to you. Do you get it? Are you annoyed by this idea?
I’m not going to lie, the first time I heard this concept I was super flipping annoyed by it. There had to be *some* sort of absolute, right? I mean, being raised with a very religious background, the concept felt almost sinful to me. But still, I walked around confused as hell as to why I was carrying all these freaking rules I hated on my shoulders while others were succeeding left and right without them. And THAT was beyond annoying to me. Like, WHY was it so easy for them? Why did they have such a clear path to what they wanted? I looked closer and closer but the ONLY consistency between the variety of approaches I studied was this. They did what the heck they wanted and they were convinced it was the right way for them.
Happiness and alignment. That is key. Money is going to come to you. I’m certain of that. Money never ends and you’re going to make it in your business. What I care about is HOW you make the money you make in your business. You get to choose what rules you’re subscribed to and you can shake it up at any time. Literally.
What you have subscribed to before no longer matters. You don’t need to have ill feelings towards it. It served you and it got you to where you were now. You can keep it for as long as you want and discard it when it’s time to pick up a new belief that serves you better and motivates you more. I’ve seen it look so many ways - I’m convinced there is nothing you can bring me that cannot be worked out for you. From believing that day-of wedding planning was something she would never be able to get away from...to making $10,000 minimum for each gig, doing full planning only, -- my client realized that just because people wanted something, didn’t mean she had to sell it. And that the quickest way to stop doing services she didn’t love was to stop offering them. She is now fully booked 18 months in advance and has brought on additional team members to expand the capacity she has for clients. From believing that being political and advocating for marginalized groups *too* loudly might cost her the business she’d built in a very conservative state, to quadrupling her income with a VERY progressive brand voice and the ability to be and advocate for those she loves. My client learned that who you are is your biggest money maker and separating personal and business is SO 20th century. It is SAFE to be seen as you are. It is safe and necessary to fully express yourself as a business owner. From believing that the self-love work she offered was too vulnerable for group programs and that she would always be sentenced to working 1:1 with clients, never able to scale her business...to selling out her first ever group program in less than 24 hours. All because this girl has built a small (key word SMALL) but mighty following of folks who are obsessed with her approach to wellness. From believing that she had to do weddings to make a licable wage as a photographer, to redirecting to corporate events and headshots (putting her mental health first) and having more money in her bank account than she’s ever had before. (And hiring team members to take even more mental stress off of her in life and business). I could spend the next 2 hours reciting case study after case study of my clients alone who have stopped following rules they hated and started to pursue new possibilities - but I hope in these few examples you were able to see a bit of yourself. I hope it has your wheels turning as to what is possible for you and what rules you’re about to drop like a hot potato.
SO as we’ve been talking here, I’ve said over and over again how important it is for you to “unsubscribe” from the beliefs that you no longer want to be true for you. Or the rules you no longer want to have to follow to get what you want. It is most times easier said than done though. I honestly got so mad when I tried this. I remember being in my room thinking “I DID DECIDE!!! Why the F isn’t it here yet??” Like, I was *actually* angry at the notion that I chose to follow rules I hated. ...you may honestly be fuming at me for suggesting this too. The truth is, this concept is simple and hard. It’s simple in that you really only have to decide. That’s it. Fully believe in your new rule. It’s hard because...well, that’s freaking hard. Believing something new when alllllll the evidence you have goes against it - when everything you’ve ever KNOWN goes against it, can be really crazy hard. I will not lie. I’m going to put my best foot forward in helping this sink in for you today. Of course, feel free to hit me up and ask more questions outside of this episode if you wanna workshop it a little more. Most of the beliefs you hold the most resentment to are ones that have been hammered in for many years AND have a lot of evidence built up to support them (because you believed them). We talked about this.And I personally am not about toxic positivity in that you basically gaslight yourself by saying “It’s my fault things have been this way” and forcing yourself to think and repeat inauthentic thoughts until you’re blue in the face.
So for example: if you have a $3000 package, $5000 package, and a $10000 package and most clients buy your $3000 package, some splurge for 5… and you have YET to sign a client at the $10,000 level. You know this going into every consultation, so maybe you remind yourself of this subconsciously. You know you have a really good booking rate, it’s just a matter of if they choose the $3k or $5k package. But maybe after listening to this episode, you realize that you want the new rule to be that people mostly book your $10k package - even with no evidence of this ever happening before. Much less EVERY time. It probably won’t feel normal to say “I always sell my $10000 package” on day one of giving this a go. You can and I suggest that you definitely work your way up to that. But what you need to offer yourself FIRST is a toe-dip of curiosity. A flick of a light switch to help you see another reality you could possibly have - and feel into it first. Don’t sentence yourself to culture shock if that’s not something that feels right. Because if you do, your brain is going to shut that shit down immediately. She’s gonna be like “no. that has literally never happened” and it won’t. Maybe that looks like saying, “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” And what you’ll find by coming from that approach is a flood of new emotions - usually good feeling ones. Feel that! Let that be what takes the lead. Keep asking yourself that question over and over again. ““What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?”Let’s do another real life example. I’m going to use an actual case study from a client of mine who is a stylist and has an online and a storefront boutique. Before we worked together, she invested in a lot of social media managers and growth “experts” who has basically put their entire focus on growing her following number - not ever focusing on quality, engagement, or any of the metrics that indicate social media success. After years of having a following hovering between 30 and 40 thousand, and still only receiving 15-30 likes per post; and Instagram expert told her that her account was “dead” ( a term used when an Instagram account has too much algorithmic damage to make a comeback or grow ). His advice was to announce a new account and try to get as many followers to transfer over as possible. When I spoke with my client that evening, she told me she was sick. She did not want to lose the followers she had or the Instagram features that came with them, the vendor access she had because of her large following, etc. I could tell right away that she did not want to do it. So we dropped the idea right away. It was a no for her. And instead, we got curious about what other opinions she might have. One option was to make a duplicate account and keep the original for all the perks it had - simply mirroring the content and having two separate focuses on each account. The second option was to go back to her foundation which was building intentional connection with each person who did show up on her instagram, all the folks who DID engage with her content, and slowly stir that pot. Being the hard headed and super determined gal she is, she decided to take option two and prove this Insta guru wrong. Within two weeks she went from making MAYBE $100 a month on a random instagram sale. To make 60% of her 40 thousand dollar a month revenue from her Instagram.
What has been proven true time and time again, that dead instagram accounts cannot be revived, was proven incorrect for this gal. Why? Because she decided it was. NOw we joke about it all the time but I am so thankful for that experience for her. It just packed on more evidence that she gets to make the rules around here. And the same is true for you. What you decide is a rule, is a rule. And any rule you decide does not apply to you, doesn’t.
There are a lot of people out there with an opinion. Business coaches, self-proclaimed (even world renowned) gurus, friends, mentors, etc. who will try to get you to subscribe to their set of rules. They will come locked and loaded with backpacks FULL of evidence to prove it. And they WANT you to buy into it. Because you buying into it gives them the indication that maybe it is true. That this rule they hate. This rule they are chained to, IS , infact, a necessary evil. They don’t want to believe they could’ve got where they are without it. So the more people that believe in this rule, the more closure they get. One of my favorite quotes from Michelle Obama is rather fitting for this as we come to an end. She says, "I have been at probably every powerful table that you can think of, I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the U.N.: They are not that smart." The same is true for those around you who are “making rules”. They don’t *actually* get to do that for you.
When Michelle says this quote in an interview, she’s talking about the self-doubt that sneaks up on her and the reality check she’s given when she’s sitting in some of the most important places literally in the world. That those powerful folks around her really aren’t any more than she. The idea is this: we each have something sovereign inside of us. You are the guru for your life. You are the success mogul of your world. You write the rules for you. I write the rules for me. Michelle writes the rules for her and the man in the moon writes his own rules as well.
As a creative this might be equal parts freeing and terrifying. In this world you’re always being shouted at to conform! Conform! Conform! Or else… Often pitted against your own desires and who you truly are, you’ve likely come to the conclusion that being your whole self and surrendering to how you want to do things will inevitably mean that you’ll fudge it up or it just won’t work out for you. You’re stuck between doing it their way and hating it, or doing it your way and messing everything up. That is not the truth. I want to invite you to trust yourself today. Trust that your desires are actually literally there as small arrows pointing you on the path that is best for you. I’ve given lots of examples today of my own clients who have found this freedom. They’ve spent a year writing their own rulebook and building piles on top of piles of evidence that it works for them. They’ve spent 12 months allowing me to guide them back to themselves time and time again when things get loud or scary or new. If you are ready to dive into that journey and find out what kind of magic is waiting on the other side of you ditching the rule books and relinquishing your grip on trying to please every person under the sun with your business - let’s talk. Book your intro call with me at www.talktomak.com and we will find out if a 12 month, high touch, life changing mentorship is what you need! Talk soon.
View all episodes
By Makayla ErvinRules are subjective. The only rules you have to follow in business are the rules you think you have to follow.
Everywhere you look, you will find someone with a rule that you have to follow. I still freaking catch myself, as an anti-rules business coach, find myself thinking that certain rules have to be true. It’s always interesting to catch myself and get curious about why I think it and if those rules could be broken. We are gonna talk about this a lot today, so I’ll pause for now.
What you need to know is that your brain is a powerful thing and it’s also a very compliant thing. What you tell it, it will believe. Including the rules that you have to follow to be taken seriously or to receive the success you want to receive. I am not a scientist or a psychologist or any of those guys - but with the quick flick of your fingers you can look up hundreds of studies that go in depth about this placebo effect. WHat you believe manifests before your eyes. Even the necessity of rules.
When I launched Unruly Business last week, there was a TON of feedback flooding to me about the idea of having a no rules approach to business or an anti-rules approach. There is always someone who says “well, there are SOME rules” or “there will ALWAYS be things in business you don’t like”. And they bring me fistfuls of evidence to back that up. And it’s true -- for them. The rules you’ve subscribed to will continue to be true until you unsubscribe from them.
You may be thinking something like this “It will take time for my highest priced package to become my best seller.” Or “I can’t hire help until I’m at X stage in my business.” or “Custom work is the only work people want from me. Even though it’s not sustainable.” - and you have SO much evidence that proves them to be true, right? Because you believe it’s true, it’s true. As soon as you decide it’s not, it no longer applies to you. Do you get it? Are you annoyed by this idea?
I’m not going to lie, the first time I heard this concept I was super flipping annoyed by it. There had to be *some* sort of absolute, right? I mean, being raised with a very religious background, the concept felt almost sinful to me. But still, I walked around confused as hell as to why I was carrying all these freaking rules I hated on my shoulders while others were succeeding left and right without them. And THAT was beyond annoying to me. Like, WHY was it so easy for them? Why did they have such a clear path to what they wanted? I looked closer and closer but the ONLY consistency between the variety of approaches I studied was this. They did what the heck they wanted and they were convinced it was the right way for them.
Happiness and alignment. That is key. Money is going to come to you. I’m certain of that. Money never ends and you’re going to make it in your business. What I care about is HOW you make the money you make in your business. You get to choose what rules you’re subscribed to and you can shake it up at any time. Literally.
What you have subscribed to before no longer matters. You don’t need to have ill feelings towards it. It served you and it got you to where you were now. You can keep it for as long as you want and discard it when it’s time to pick up a new belief that serves you better and motivates you more. I’ve seen it look so many ways - I’m convinced there is nothing you can bring me that cannot be worked out for you. From believing that day-of wedding planning was something she would never be able to get away from...to making $10,000 minimum for each gig, doing full planning only, -- my client realized that just because people wanted something, didn’t mean she had to sell it. And that the quickest way to stop doing services she didn’t love was to stop offering them. She is now fully booked 18 months in advance and has brought on additional team members to expand the capacity she has for clients. From believing that being political and advocating for marginalized groups *too* loudly might cost her the business she’d built in a very conservative state, to quadrupling her income with a VERY progressive brand voice and the ability to be and advocate for those she loves. My client learned that who you are is your biggest money maker and separating personal and business is SO 20th century. It is SAFE to be seen as you are. It is safe and necessary to fully express yourself as a business owner. From believing that the self-love work she offered was too vulnerable for group programs and that she would always be sentenced to working 1:1 with clients, never able to scale her business...to selling out her first ever group program in less than 24 hours. All because this girl has built a small (key word SMALL) but mighty following of folks who are obsessed with her approach to wellness. From believing that she had to do weddings to make a licable wage as a photographer, to redirecting to corporate events and headshots (putting her mental health first) and having more money in her bank account than she’s ever had before. (And hiring team members to take even more mental stress off of her in life and business). I could spend the next 2 hours reciting case study after case study of my clients alone who have stopped following rules they hated and started to pursue new possibilities - but I hope in these few examples you were able to see a bit of yourself. I hope it has your wheels turning as to what is possible for you and what rules you’re about to drop like a hot potato.
SO as we’ve been talking here, I’ve said over and over again how important it is for you to “unsubscribe” from the beliefs that you no longer want to be true for you. Or the rules you no longer want to have to follow to get what you want. It is most times easier said than done though. I honestly got so mad when I tried this. I remember being in my room thinking “I DID DECIDE!!! Why the F isn’t it here yet??” Like, I was *actually* angry at the notion that I chose to follow rules I hated. ...you may honestly be fuming at me for suggesting this too. The truth is, this concept is simple and hard. It’s simple in that you really only have to decide. That’s it. Fully believe in your new rule. It’s hard because...well, that’s freaking hard. Believing something new when alllllll the evidence you have goes against it - when everything you’ve ever KNOWN goes against it, can be really crazy hard. I will not lie. I’m going to put my best foot forward in helping this sink in for you today. Of course, feel free to hit me up and ask more questions outside of this episode if you wanna workshop it a little more. Most of the beliefs you hold the most resentment to are ones that have been hammered in for many years AND have a lot of evidence built up to support them (because you believed them). We talked about this.And I personally am not about toxic positivity in that you basically gaslight yourself by saying “It’s my fault things have been this way” and forcing yourself to think and repeat inauthentic thoughts until you’re blue in the face.
So for example: if you have a $3000 package, $5000 package, and a $10000 package and most clients buy your $3000 package, some splurge for 5… and you have YET to sign a client at the $10,000 level. You know this going into every consultation, so maybe you remind yourself of this subconsciously. You know you have a really good booking rate, it’s just a matter of if they choose the $3k or $5k package. But maybe after listening to this episode, you realize that you want the new rule to be that people mostly book your $10k package - even with no evidence of this ever happening before. Much less EVERY time. It probably won’t feel normal to say “I always sell my $10000 package” on day one of giving this a go. You can and I suggest that you definitely work your way up to that. But what you need to offer yourself FIRST is a toe-dip of curiosity. A flick of a light switch to help you see another reality you could possibly have - and feel into it first. Don’t sentence yourself to culture shock if that’s not something that feels right. Because if you do, your brain is going to shut that shit down immediately. She’s gonna be like “no. that has literally never happened” and it won’t. Maybe that looks like saying, “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” And what you’ll find by coming from that approach is a flood of new emotions - usually good feeling ones. Feel that! Let that be what takes the lead. Keep asking yourself that question over and over again. ““What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?” “What if from now on people only bought my $10000 package?”Let’s do another real life example. I’m going to use an actual case study from a client of mine who is a stylist and has an online and a storefront boutique. Before we worked together, she invested in a lot of social media managers and growth “experts” who has basically put their entire focus on growing her following number - not ever focusing on quality, engagement, or any of the metrics that indicate social media success. After years of having a following hovering between 30 and 40 thousand, and still only receiving 15-30 likes per post; and Instagram expert told her that her account was “dead” ( a term used when an Instagram account has too much algorithmic damage to make a comeback or grow ). His advice was to announce a new account and try to get as many followers to transfer over as possible. When I spoke with my client that evening, she told me she was sick. She did not want to lose the followers she had or the Instagram features that came with them, the vendor access she had because of her large following, etc. I could tell right away that she did not want to do it. So we dropped the idea right away. It was a no for her. And instead, we got curious about what other opinions she might have. One option was to make a duplicate account and keep the original for all the perks it had - simply mirroring the content and having two separate focuses on each account. The second option was to go back to her foundation which was building intentional connection with each person who did show up on her instagram, all the folks who DID engage with her content, and slowly stir that pot. Being the hard headed and super determined gal she is, she decided to take option two and prove this Insta guru wrong. Within two weeks she went from making MAYBE $100 a month on a random instagram sale. To make 60% of her 40 thousand dollar a month revenue from her Instagram.
What has been proven true time and time again, that dead instagram accounts cannot be revived, was proven incorrect for this gal. Why? Because she decided it was. NOw we joke about it all the time but I am so thankful for that experience for her. It just packed on more evidence that she gets to make the rules around here. And the same is true for you. What you decide is a rule, is a rule. And any rule you decide does not apply to you, doesn’t.
There are a lot of people out there with an opinion. Business coaches, self-proclaimed (even world renowned) gurus, friends, mentors, etc. who will try to get you to subscribe to their set of rules. They will come locked and loaded with backpacks FULL of evidence to prove it. And they WANT you to buy into it. Because you buying into it gives them the indication that maybe it is true. That this rule they hate. This rule they are chained to, IS , infact, a necessary evil. They don’t want to believe they could’ve got where they are without it. So the more people that believe in this rule, the more closure they get. One of my favorite quotes from Michelle Obama is rather fitting for this as we come to an end. She says, "I have been at probably every powerful table that you can think of, I have worked at nonprofits, I have been at foundations, I have worked in corporations, served on corporate boards, I have been at G-summits, I have sat in at the U.N.: They are not that smart." The same is true for those around you who are “making rules”. They don’t *actually* get to do that for you.
When Michelle says this quote in an interview, she’s talking about the self-doubt that sneaks up on her and the reality check she’s given when she’s sitting in some of the most important places literally in the world. That those powerful folks around her really aren’t any more than she. The idea is this: we each have something sovereign inside of us. You are the guru for your life. You are the success mogul of your world. You write the rules for you. I write the rules for me. Michelle writes the rules for her and the man in the moon writes his own rules as well.
As a creative this might be equal parts freeing and terrifying. In this world you’re always being shouted at to conform! Conform! Conform! Or else… Often pitted against your own desires and who you truly are, you’ve likely come to the conclusion that being your whole self and surrendering to how you want to do things will inevitably mean that you’ll fudge it up or it just won’t work out for you. You’re stuck between doing it their way and hating it, or doing it your way and messing everything up. That is not the truth. I want to invite you to trust yourself today. Trust that your desires are actually literally there as small arrows pointing you on the path that is best for you. I’ve given lots of examples today of my own clients who have found this freedom. They’ve spent a year writing their own rulebook and building piles on top of piles of evidence that it works for them. They’ve spent 12 months allowing me to guide them back to themselves time and time again when things get loud or scary or new. If you are ready to dive into that journey and find out what kind of magic is waiting on the other side of you ditching the rule books and relinquishing your grip on trying to please every person under the sun with your business - let’s talk. Book your intro call with me at www.talktomak.com and we will find out if a 12 month, high touch, life changing mentorship is what you need! Talk soon.