The Wild Edges of Being Human

Are you hiding Is your invisibility holding you back?

Transcript from Live Video Recording: 

What’s up, people Allison Crow, your favorite life coach. 

$47,000, bitches. I want to tell you a story, and this is for you… This is about visibility. Let me fix my very sexy bangs with my new gray highlights. Here’s the deal. In all these years, all these years, one of the biggest issues my clients have is this visibility piece, especially on social media. We’re like, “Oh, my god. Somebody might see me.” Maybe you walk out of your house and go, “Oh, my god, somebody might see me,” but the reality is what is it about social media that we’re all getting this comparison thing?

I want to tell you a story way back from my early days of social media, and I want to give you some permission to quit sitting behind your doubt. “What if my Aunt Sally sees me What if somebody doesn’t agree with me What if somebody thinks I’m whatever#8221; The reality is when you sit and hold on to your doubt and you stop your visibility, you are taking away your gift that you have to give to other people.

A long time ago when social media first started, I was a very early adopter. I’m a big computer nerd, always have been. A long time ago, when I was leaving Keller Williams as a coach and starting my own coaching company for that summer, I sold real estate again for the last time. In three months, I sold a ton of real estate. What was funny was Facebook was new. Remember when Facebook, it was like “Allison is,” and so it’d say, “Allison is sitting in Garage Flantastic,” which is what we called our garage at our old house, “drinking a beer with her husband.” “Allison is….” I’d have pictures of dogs, and I would be all coachy, like the voice of the woman from 2008, ’09, ’10 that said these things – it is so weird. It’s out there if you look for it. But she would say these things, and she was inspiring, and she would do this, and she would do that.

At the time, there was only one other Keller Williams on social media. This is a company at the time of 95,000 agents, and there are two of us on social media. One of them I had never actually met in person, even though we were coaches for the same organization, but she and I connected on social media, this thing. I’m like, “Oh, here’s my margarita. Oh, here’s my coachy stuff. Oh, here’s my dogs.” I’m just being me. Just being me. 

This agent sent me a message, “Hey, I have a referral from you from an agent in my office.”

She lived in Nashville, Tennessee. A Nashville, Tennessee agent hooks me up with her referral, who is a family coming from South Africa. They are migrating their entire family, so the grandparents, kids, families, and grandchildren. They bought a bunch of houses in Nashville, but they bought three in Austin, Texas. I will never forget someone in those very early days in person saying to me, “Gee, you sure post a lot on social media,” and I just looked at them, and said, “$47,000, bitches,” being funny, obviously. I mean I’m not one to cuss somebody out anymore, but I was like, “$47,000, one month. Would you Would you#8221;

Here’s what’s funny. I wrote $47,000 worth of business this October. Collected 22,000 by showing up, by sharing my heart, by showing my work, by being willing to be, I know I’m a coke. Kook. I’m a coke. I do not do coke. I drink Diet Coke sometimes, but I don’t do coke. Never have. I know I’m a kook. I know I have typos. I am just being myself. Yourself is enough to come out from behind your doubt and share your heart and show your work.

Tracy Lee. Tracy Lee loves Halloween. She put her cute little Halloween feet up there. I don’t care what it is, but it’s so funny how I talked to so many people that are small business owners… so if… I mean, this is in the context of business, people can be so terrified of being visible, and yet, they want to build a business. They want to build a coaching business, they want to build a real estate business, they want to build an art business, but they want to do it from inside the closet.

I am so sorry. You do not get paid for being in the closet. You do not get paid… if you want to get paid for being behind the scenes, there are so many companies where you can be an employee behind the scenes, but if you’re a small independent business, you are front lines, baby. If you are on front lines and you are hiding, we have a massive problem. Well, I don’t because I show up every single day, so my bank account and how I feel when I lay my head on my pillow reflect that.

I joke with the “$47,000 bitches,” but in your mind, I want you to figure out what do you have to believe if, to you, somebody said, “Why are you online so much I can’t believe you talk about this. You’re weird. Are you doing all that coachy shit#8221; “Okay, you can make fun of me all you want. Did you write $47,000 in business being a one-man shop last month#8221; 

The other thing I want to tell you, I asked a client who’s working with some vulnerability stuff, and she’s been doing a lot of work for somebody else, and it’s time for her to do her thing, put her work out there and share. I know we are all connected to via social media. Exactly. Listen, my ego thinks my high school boyfriend might watch this and think, “Oh, my god, that’s Allison.” My high school boyfriend ain’t watching this shit, and the one that did was like, “I never asked you out, but I wanted to.”

Quit believing the worst stories. Do you know that Oprah has haters I asked my client who is somebody in leadership development that she looks up to and she would love to spend a weekend learning about life, business, anything that leader could teach them. Her answer was Martha Beck. I said, “Do you know that Martha Beck has haters Her whole first book is about that.” I think it’s her first book. It’s the book that Martha Beck wrote about leaving the Mormon church. Of course, she has haters. Oprah has haters.

Whoever you look up to do, you realize that you look up to them, you see them as amazing, you see them as human and whatever, they have haters. Are you willing to have haters for your own dream Here’s what’s funny. I think it’s Brené Brown that’s, maybe she said it in one of her books, but the people that are going to criticize you, even at your Thanksgiving dinner or your family thing, they’re not doing their thing.

Yes, when you do your thing, people going to say something. Big fucking deal. Who cares Stop caring. This is your life, your dream, your business, your personality. When you sit in your doubt, like, “I have all these things to say, but what if somebody sees it#8221; What if, by you hiding, you are hoarding the gift that you were here to give.

I am not saying that the fear ever goes away. Jump over the fear. We call it doubt-hopping, thanks to my former client, Rebecca. She calls it doubt hopping. Have a doubt Ah, what the fuck, let’s do it anyways.

I know that you know someone’s going to have a weird conversation at Thanksgiving because you did a live stream. Most of my family doesn’t even watch my lives. My mother does. If they want to say something about it, it’s fine. You know what I am here doing my thing, creating my life, serving my clients, loving on y’all, loving on myself, and running my business like a mofo. Anybody that’s… It was funny. I went to the Rolodex in my head because I have had my share of haters. I’ve had my share of weird snarky comments. I’ve had my share of quitters. I’ve been fired many times, and it’s all okay. It’s all okay. You’re resilient, but what’s not okay is to rot behind the scenes in unmet desires and dreams, to sit there waiting.

I realize you’re all like a little kid with its toes over the diving board, going to jump in the deep water, and then once you finally jump in the deep water, and you’re like “$47,000, bitches.

New friends! I met my bestie because of this stupid stuff.” I am running my business like a mofo. I’m doing it my weird, awkward way, and your way works. I don’t care what your way of being visible and loving on your people is, if you do it, it works. Be visible and love on your people. Frontward facing. You can have a dream in one of these books all day long, but if you don’t get visible, it ain’t never going to happen. Never going to happen.

I know that there is a lot of trauma around visibility. Y’all, there’s trauma around everything. There’s trauma around everything. You know how you get through it. All your things, but you don’t just get through it here. Last week, a couple of my clients kept… they didn’t even know they were doing it. They were like, “I’m all here.” (Hands framing the head signifying from the head-up). Get out of here and get into your body. You know what being visible is You know what taking a risk and going online or going in public or hitting the live button is Like Alyssa (live stream viewer), she does these YouTube things. I totally want to be on YouTube. Not to be a YouTube star, but my god, if I can give you permission, and I want to tell you, people are not paying for your perfection. That’s bullshit. Get visible. 

The last three people that hired me have all told me they hired me because of my bullshit. They did not say, “I’m hiring you because you’re the best or because you’re so perfectly professional.” One of them said, “I hired you because of your fucked up extra-extra.” They hired me because of my humanity, and so quit worrying that your humanity is going to offend somebody. Tell them to go fuck themselves. Seriously, you are laying in your bed with your head on your pillow going, “I want to, but… I want to, but… ” stop it. Stop it, please. How much fun can you have?

Do you know what’s so fun I’m really speaking to the growth and achievement phase people, and maybe brand new. I don’t know. When I was brand new, I was so excited. I was just running because I was fueled by the excitement. What happens after you lose your early excitement in your business, whatever your business is, you lose… once you’ve built the skill, there’s not that excitement in your body anymore. Once you build that, you lose this excitement, so it starts to feel like monotony because you forgot. If you’re working for yourself and you’re feeling flat, I want you to go to LinkedIn right now, and I want you to see what jobs you match for. I really want you to go and look at those jobs, and I want you to imagine yourself…

Bill and I did this a few years ago. We were living in Denton. I had a really, really big year, and I had a 40, again, another $47,000… 47 comes up a lot. I love $47,000. I had a $47,000 tax bill. I hadn’t saved for it. I was like, “I just had the best year, but I didn’t put away for taxes.” I sat down, and I was like, “How can I solve this problem Can I make the money#8221; Part of me was just so tired. I was sick at the time, and I was like, “Okay, maybe I just need to go get a job.” I started thinking that out, like I’ll fold the doors of the coaching business, and I’ll go get a job. What job would I get hired for really high money Sales. Sales. Whether it’s selling real estate or selling something for somebody else, I would get hired for sales.

Then I thought, “Well, here’s what happens in sales. They give me a quota, and they let me keep 40% of it if I’m lucky. They get to keep 60%, and they decide who, when, where.” I was like, “Oh, I’m in the sales business. Why would I settle for that#8221; It became so much more fun to get excited about the fact that I have autonomy, I can use social media, I can be myself. Do you know that at my old company, I’d make these jokes. I did not use my foul language like I use now, but I would make these jokes. I literally was in a dance party and got pulled out of a dance party by the bosses and my wrist physically slapped. “I can’t believe you told that joke. We didn’t think it was funny. Gary Keller won’t think it’s funny.”

I thought it was funny. The room laughed. I guarantee you got more business because of me being me instead of me being a douche bag that acts perfectly. None of you all are perfect. You’re human, and your service and your skill is rotting because you won’t put your humanness out in front of the world. Take a risk. It doesn’t mean anything because there’s a light. See, look, you can see the lights. Because there’s a light, because there’s a camera, and because there’s a microphone, why do we all of a sudden makeup that is has to be so perfect?

What’s funny is those of you who have spent time with me in person, this is exactly how I is, this is exactly how I is in person (incorrect grammar intentional). This is exactly how I am in person, and that’s all I’m asking you or encouraging you. I can’t ask you. I can’t ask you, but I want to encourage you to quit being invisible. Take a risk for yourself, for your dreams, for your life, for what you want to create, or go get a job.

There’s nothing wrong with having a job, but if you choose freedom, then choose freedom. Don’t just choose. Choose the freedom of being self-employed. Choose the freedom to be yourself. Make yourself unemployable. One of the reasons I keep cussing, A, it’s a bad habit, but B, I don’t want to be tempted to be employed.

I laughed yesterday. I got an email from, I think it was Refinery29. They do these articles in Austin, Texas. Refinery29 I think it is a coworking space, and they were like, “There was a 31-year-old girl,” they do these money journals, “This 31-year-old girl is making $98,000 a year.” I might never have worked for myself if I had a job that paid me $98,000 a year. She was talking about her budget because we all know that when we work for ourselves, the gross amount we make has nothing to do with what we keep, but when you work for somebody else, guess what That 98,000 is yours. If I only gross 98, dude, I’m not keeping hardly any of that.

It’s like, “Oh. Oh, I have this freedom.” Don’t waste your freedom by hiding. Don’t waste your freedom by overthinking. Get out into the world and share your heart, show your work, and love on your people. I am not selling anything today. I am just saying you cannot think your way to fulfilling your dreams. The more you sit around and worry about what Uncle Sally and Aunt Jim or your high school lover is going to say about you… I don’t know if Carolyn Robinson Stark is still here, but Carolyn Robinson Stark is my bonus kid’s grandmother. She’s so cute. She comes to my livestreams, and I could get all wigged out, but I think it’s so fun that Carolyn… I don’t know what Carolyn thinks about me. I’m a total kook, but I love being a kook.

I love who I am for me, I love who I am for my business, and I love who I am for my kids. I don’t have to be like everybody else in my family. I’m happy to be the one that is a nut job, but here’s the thing. It’s my nut job.  Don’t waste your freedom. If you took this to be free, then give yourself the freedom, and part of the freedom is not in the time or the money or having the, “Oh, I don’t have to go into an office.” Give yourself the freedom to be you, your freedom to be yourself. Trust it. Give yourself permission to screw up.

Honestly, my client, Carolina, literally a couple of weeks ago before I made my $47,000 this month, my website got hacked. I got blacklisted, and my assistant fired me. I was like, “What do you do when everything falls apart and you want to quit#8221; Carolina hired me not because I was saying, “I can help you make money, I can help you do all this stuff.” She hired me because I said, “I feel like quitting, and I’m not going to.” I have depression. I have anxiety. I’ve been divorced. I, yesterday, wrote that post about how cute I was, and then for nine straight hours, I was in a fight with my internet provider Suddenlink. It’s still not over. So what It’s all perfect. Quit hiding. Please be visible.

I need you to remember that Allison Crow has people that don’t resonate with her. That is so fine. Can I tell you, in all the years of clients I have offended or disappointed, I have one that breaks my heart that I wish I could make amends with her One. Everybody else, bye-bye. Don’t let the door kick you in the ass. God bless you. Of all the people who have criticized, none of them were doing the work. None of them were doing the work. Get out there with your bad self. Let them criticize you. You bring it on. You think Oprah lays in bed and is like, “Allison’s husband Bill Flanigin n does not like me. I better keep my mouth quiet.” Do you think whoever, the leader sits around, and worries about who isn’t enamored with their visibility?

Do you think the person that you look up to, do you realize the person you look up to actually has haters, and do you think they’re laying their bed on their pillow You Gary V.’s laying on his bed, on his pillow, worrying about somebody saying, “Oh, he says fuck too much. He’s not professional.” Click delete, bye. Go out there and be yourself.

I want you to turn on your light. I want you to be your freaky-deaky self. I want you to get out there. I want you to connect with your people. I want you to love on your people. I want you to share your heart. I want you to show your work. Get over your dang doubt and get to work. Do not take your freedom for granted. Don’t take your freedom for granted. Not everybody has clean laundry. Not everybody takes a poop in drinking water, and not everybody has permission and can make money giving their gift and being themselves. Go do it. I love you. Peace out, motherfuckers.

The post 47K Mofos: Stop Wasting Your Freedom with Invisibility appeared first on Allison Crow.

You may know by now that inside Soul-Full Success (my live coaching membership) we have fabulous weekly calls where we share all things life and biz. 

This week we talked about 3 big lessons I want to share with you.

These lessons are around: 

I dive into more of each of these lessons on the podcast to help you gain some of the insights my Soulies inside Soul-Full Success gained too. 

So enjoy this new episode and then let me know how these three lessons hit you… 

Love, Allison. 

Transcript:

Hey, hey. This is episode number 71. This is Alison Crow, your favorite life coach. And today, I have three lessons for you from a soulie business call that I want to share with you.

We had a fabulous call this morning. We have business calls on Mondays, and then we also have a growth achievement call twice a month. But today, we talked about three specific things I want to share with you.

The first one is Identity.

The second one is Soulies Know Their Three.

And the third one is Invest in Implementation Before You Buy Another Course.

The way that we checked in this morning, I brought a little context to the call. It was brought to me in my mind’s eye when I was brushing my teeth this morning getting ready for the day was about identity. I’m pretty sure I have a podcast that I will have to link up about identity. The question I posed to my clients and that I’ll pose to you here today is, does your identity match up as a business owner I guess you could parlay this into any other area of your life. But since it was a business call, does your identity as a business owner and match up with how you are believing, thinking, and doing?

So for example, are you seeing yourself as a struggling business owner where you tend to perpetuate that struggle because of your identity as a struggling business owner I love to pop forward into the identity of the woman that I am becoming and consider what problems she is solving. How is her brain thinking A lot of our identity is wrapped up in our beliefs, and our beliefs determine a lot of our behavior and actions, and our actions end up creating results in our businesses.

I can ask this question to my clients or on social media. If you were totally confident, what would you be doing And everybody can come up with something that they’re not doing because they’re not confident. What if confidence wasn’t a requirement and so you just did the thing But usually, confidence or insecurity is wrapped up in the beliefs around our identity.

So as my client, Farah, said in her checkout, align. I had said in the call, “Align that shit. Check-in.”

What is the identity of the person that you’re becoming

And are you living, walking, moving, and breathing in an old identity that does not serve you anymore

What is the identity of the woman or man that you’re becoming

What are the beliefs that run through their head

What are their I AMs

How do they move through the world?

This is so corny, but I used to have this identity of being a macaroni and cheese connoisseur, and I’ve only had it one time in the last 18 months. It’s no longer part of my identity. It makes it a lot easier to say no when it comes out at a gathering or restaurant.

Identity. Align your current identity with the identity of your dreams, your goals, your actions. Quit looking over your shoulder and dragging forward your current identity.

[bctt tweet=”Identity. Align your current identity with the identity of your dreams, your goals, your actions. Quit looking over your shoulder and dragging forward your current identity.” username=”allicrow”]

The second concept is Soulies Know Their Three. This is a concept that I have brought into form after seeing client, after client, after client be in the space of getting ready to get ready.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“What are my next steps#8221;

“I know I’m at the crux of this place in my business, but I don’t know where I need to go.”

“I need to buy another course that tells me what to do.”

I get it, man. I am not a machine. My brain works on inspiration. And in the past, when I wasn’t inspired, it would leave me being tired, which would lead me to doing nothing, which created the sense of feast and famine that many of you may know in business. I am no longer in feast and famine because I know how to manage energy instead of a task. And even when my energy is off or low, I know one of three things that I could do frontward-facing that will support me in the long run.

So if we are gardeners and not machines, I like to say we’re constantly gardening our garden. We plant the seeds. We treat the soil. We pull weeds. We prune plants. Different things bloom at different times a year. The concept of know are three is like every plant needs a little bit of light and a little bit of water, and really that’s … I’m not a horticulturist, but I know that the few plants that I have in my house they either need light or water. And I guess technically they’re all in a pot.

The basic, simple things that they need. Yes, I can get more complex. I can get food. I can get fertilizer. I can create a plan and a structure, and then I get overwhelmed. But when I go back to the basics and build from the basics, things begin to work. So I teach my clients this concept, and I want them to and know their three.

I once asked a client this, and she was like, “Oh, meditation is one of my three.” No, meditation is not one of your three. That might be a primary alignment tool or process that you use to get an alignment. It’s absolutely a vital part of your self-care and your practices. In this context, saying soulies know their three is knowing three front-facing connection business activities that love on your people, that keep you connected to the energy of your clients, your audience, and your business without having to produce a result but that usually do.

Often I see people, even this client I was talking about today … The question that she brought was about knowing that she’s in this pivot. She was considering hiring this coach for $27,000. And then she realized she knows what she needs to do. She just needs to do it. She doesn’t need to spend another $27,000 to do this. She just needs to do it.

What happens when we have a big dream, or we are about to make a pivot, or whether we’re creating our business, or growing our business, we get so overwhelmed with all the steps. And I want each of my clients to decide three steps, so that when they’re in confusion, they can take one of these steps that will keep the wheel gently moving so that we don’t go into flight or freeze. What we do instead is we tend to froth in our minds. We tend to froth in our journals.

I can write a plan all day long, but executing it is another thing. And a lot of us get overwhelmed in the execution. So for example, my three are … Now here’s the deal, there is no end to my three. It’s not a when I lead generate, I’ll get a client. That’s not what I’m talking about. My three are three reliable things that I can do when I’m feeling off that will keep the wheel gently moving in the energy of … It’s like proactive energy that I can trust will  help my creative energy come back.

My first three first one is to go LIVE. You all know half these podcasts are recorded from live video.  In the past, I haven’t done this recently, but in the past, LIVE I used to do card readings all the time. And especially if I felt not inspired or not clear about business, I would use the cards as a tool to have something to talk about to connect with my people. So for me, whether I’m pulling cards or whether I’m like, “Woo-hoo! I’m LIVE in my backyard drinking wine. What’s up, MOFOs#8221; or whether I have something to teach you, when I go LIVE and I’m interacting with my audience, I am connecting with my people, both live and in the moment and in the replay. Now, so that’s not me hiding completely behind my computer, or in my jammies in my bed, or behind Netflix. There are appropriate times and places for all those things. But I am doing something to connect and engage with my audience.

The second one is to get face to face or voice to voice. So even if I’m not feeling great … Now, I’m not talking when I’m sick and I need to be hibernating, but I’m talking when I’m in a mental state of confusion. I’m in my office … I don’t know what to do next. I’m overwhelmed. You’ve had that. You’ve had that before, right Then what I will do is I will pick up the phone and call somebody, or I will video call somebody, or I will leave a video message. So I actually either take a step to be face to face or voice to voice call somebody, connect with somebody, even if it’s last minute. And if I can’t find anybody, then I will put somebody on the calendar before the end of the week. I will set up a virtual coffee with somebody. I will call a friend and say, “Hey, do you have 15 minutes Can we talk today#8221; But I get frontward-facing voice to voice and face to face. That’s my number two.

And then number three, if I feel really brave, I will drag my ass out this house. I’ll drag my ass out of this house and I will go to a live event, a networking meeting, a class. So tomorrow I’m getting on a plane, and I am going to a class in California for four days. I scheduled this back in September and I looked at my calendar and I knew that by this time of the year I would be needing some literal face-to-face, not just technology, but I would need to be in the room with other people. Frankly, I didn’t even really pay attention to what the content in the room was. I just know that one of my frontward-facing three …

Now, I’m not going to try to get clients, but I’m going to be in a room where I’m going to learn something, I’m going to be in a room where I’m probably going to be inspired, and I’m going to meet new people, and I’m going to see a few colleagues and clients that I already know. So I’m going to be connecting in four different ways that support me and my business. I may not know directly how, but I guarantee you it’s like throwing out a boomerang. I’m going to toss it out there by doing this action and eventually it will come back around to serve me. So that’s my third one, is that I will actually get out of the house and go be with people face to face, and I have various forms of doing that.

Those are my three. What are your three

My soulies know their three. And why I want you to have your three is so that you don’t have to think about what to do. One, two, or three.

Soulies know their three.

Soulies knows what works even when their brain isn’t working. Because when our brains are in overwhelm, exhaustion, confusion, solving a problem from the place of confusion doesn’t fix it. But I have found that face-to-face and voice-to-voice connection actually does. So my request of my clients is, yes, obviously do your meditation, do your journaling, get an alignment. But then, for your business, what are your three frontward-facing actions Frontward-facing means you’re connecting with existing clients or existing audience members face to face or voice to voice. So what are three frontward-facing things that you could do, just one of them, and it will keep the gentle wheel of your business moving so that we do not rot I have found that doing one of these three usually sparks more creative energy again. This is especially helpful for work-at-home entrepreneurs or small business owners.

Okay, the third thing. This is one of the reasons I built Soulful Success, and it’s been fascinating to watch my business change as a result of following this. I have had a coach since the first day I became a REALTOR. I literally walked into the office with my new license, signed up, and the first thing they said was to hire a coach, and so I did. Within a week, I had to hire that coach. It was $500 a month. It was a Brian Buffini coach. I’ll never forget it. I actually also had Jean Grubb as my in-office coach. She was more like a mentor. She was happy to help me. But she’s the one that taught me the power of coaching. 

I have long loved and believed in coaching. And I have taken classes, and classes, and classes. I love education. I love education! I love education!!! Here and there I have actually gotten a little bit of help with admin. But here’s where I wish I had known something a little bit different sooner. So the same client that was talking about thinking she needed another class to decide what’s next when really she doesn’t, I guarantee you, as long as she does one of her three, she’ll know her next steps. She’ll get clear on it.

And I said to her, “But if you have money invest, may I make a recommendation about how you might move your business along that would be supportive Invest in implementation.” That’s the third lesson I want to share with you today. Invest in implementation. Implementation can look like a lot of different things so you’ve got to decide for you. But my best investments have been investing in frontward-client-facing activities that I do not have to do, which is different from admin. I like having admin. I actually could use some admin, since mine fired me a month ago. 🙂 I have some behind the scenes. One of the reasons my assistant quit was because it was just executing tasks- button pushing. Just getting tasks done is different from leveraging and investing in implementation.

My clients know that at Camp Star Heart this year- I declared, “I am becoming a woman who allows high-level help.” So part of my, go back to number one, identity, part of my identity, if I want to change certain elements in my life, and in my business, and in my income, I must allow high-level help.

In the past, I had an identity that only invested in coaching but everything else was hands-off in my business. I had to do it all. I had to do it all. For the past few years, I have been experimenting with high-level help. Some things have worked. Some things have worked sort of and I decided they weren’t for me. But letting go of the reins of some of my most important work has actually been not only emotional helpful but profitably helpful, and so … I keep saying and so, and so, and so, and so. God bless the transcriber and my podcast person who I’ve given permission to not take those things out.

Invest in implementation. At Camp Star Heart, one of my clients said to me, “Frank Sinatra doesn’t move pianos,” and it was really profound. It really hit home. I began envisioning and imagining what kind of support I would like. And sure enough, I ran across a guy last October at an event, and he had a buddy with him. Actually, it was an employee. He had an employee with him that was running around with a camera and an audio recorder. Or maybe it was a camcorder. Whatever. He was recording him. What I realized was this guy had paid support to capture the things he was saying. I think Gary V. does a version of this, where somebody is always following him around with the video camera and they create content out of that.

I don’t get paid for my time. I get paid for my brain, my heart, my soul, all this stuff. I get paid for my coaching, the ideas that I have, the insights that I share with people. So what I realized would be helpful for me, what is my version of moving pianos means I play the piano and somebody else records that and distributes it so that I didn’t have to be distributing seven days a week. Because many of you have told me that you get overwhelmed sharing your heart, showing your work, having to be on all the time. Well, of course! It can be overwhelming and overstimulating.

So this spring, I hired Uncommonly More and Stacey Harris. I also rehired Elise. Elise produces my podcast, and she works very closely with Uncommonly More and Stacey’s team to not only produce my podcast, but they, Uncommonly More, produce my brain. When I do show up from inspiration, they take it, repurpose it, and implement it in frontward-facing ways.

Two weeks ago, I went to the Soulie Weekend away, which is a private retreat for my members only clients. There’s no fee involved other than paying for your own room and food. What was so fun was before that I decided I wanted to sell a class, and so I said, “I’m going to sell the class. Here’s the class.” I did two or three live streams and a podcast about it, and my investment in implementation said, “Here are these recordings,” we got a transcript, and my team wrote the email sequence. I said, “I want three emails. I’m going out of town. These are the days that I want them.” It was so fun the first day of class. One of my clients said, “I hired you because of those emails you wrote.” What’s so beautiful about the emails that I “wrote” is everything in them is something that I said. I didn’t necessarily dictate them, but I have hired high-level help that knows how to turn my ramblings into effective communication.

I want to encourage you. This was one of the reasons I created Soulful Success, so that … I told my client today, I said, “Y’all, come and use me as much as you want. I’m here for you at $222 a month. Not only am I here for you, but there are 64 other people in the room that are resources both emotionally and tactically.”

Now, absolutely, some of my clients invest in … A couple of my clients are in James Wedmore’s program. I am all happy to not be the only resource for my clients. But I’m telling you right now if I spent $222 a month on coaching, and $1,800 a month, instead of on coaching, if I spent that on implementation, what could that do for my business I’m truly learning what leverage means. It’s very different from hiring somebody to do a task.

My client today said, “Oh my gosh. I spend like six hours managing my newsletter.” No! Stop it. Immediately hire somebody else to do that newsletter. I have another client that loves doing her newsletter. And though she loves doing her newsletter, all she has to do is take that newsletter and turn it into a live video or hire somebody to take that newsletter and turn it into bite-size pieces of marketing and content that shows up in the world, right?

These are some of the ways that we can actually support ourselves without actually having to do more. Now, on the front end, getting it set up does, but I want to tell you that having your identity aligned … And you may not even begin to imagine. That was my first client’s takeaway. She said, “Oh my gosh. There’s so much more possibility now about investing in implementation.” And even before we get off the call, she’d already gotten the ball rolling! Kickass, right?

She also knows her three. Her three include setting up phone chats. So she knows there’s nothing else she needs to do. If she can’t think of what to do, she knows to get somebody on the phone, set an appointment for a phone chat, face to face, voice to voice, set an appointment, right And then begin to invest in implementation before spending another $2,000 on a course.

Align your identity,

know your three front-facing actions,

and consider investing in implementation, high-level help for your marketing.

My team takes my music and puts my piano on the stage so that I can show up and sit down and play. I don’t know what your version looks like. And you may not be ready to do it, but why not put it on your goal list Why not begin to mull around in your mind What would it look like if I could have somebody produce and market my brain What if every time I opened my mouth, or talk to my clients, or wrote something that could be used in four other places or it could be used to write emails that sent exquisite invitations to join my client’s work Know your three, invest in implementation versus more courses, right That’s what’s wrong with the courses. We don’t implement what we learn!

I love my friend Tracy Lee. My friend Tracy lead took … My marketing gal, Stacey, she has a class. I just dive in the deep end and spend the big money out on the done-for-you stuff, but my friend Tracy Lee took her entry-level class and brought her assistant with her. I’m pretty sure Stacey’s program, her VIP program, is set up so you can bring your assistant so that your assistant can implement these things, right Because you guys are the CEOs. The CEO, a soulie CEO, I know, you think you’ve got to be rich before you get the implementation. So you go and hire a $20,000 coach to get your mindset better. Come coach with me for $220 a month and spend $800 a month on implementing. What could that do for you?

You don’t have to coach with me, but that’s part of the reason I set this up, to be a resource, and a mindset, and a heart coach for all the deep work + strategy, so that you can hire somebody else to implement the shit. Know your three, invest in implementation versus another class or another expensive coach, and align your identity with the soulie CEO that you are becoming, with the soulful mogul that you are becoming.

I use that phrase, soulful mogul, because I’m in the process of defining what my version of mogul is. I know what the dictionary says is a mogul. And I use that phrase soulie mogul and soulie CEO as an anchor for new thought, for new possibility. And boy will you know when it is aligned and when it clicks into place. You will know. You will know.

But it will never click into place unless I toss out … It’s like the inchworm. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But it’s like I reach out first and then I pull behind. I reach out forward, and I scoot myself. I meet my future self. I throw my stone forward, and then I drag my ass to meet it. I throw my stone forward, and then I drag my ass to meet it, because otherwise, I sit in overwhelming confusion.

Thank you. Let me know how these three hit you or if any one of them hit you. I want to invite you to get on the waitlist for Soulful Success.  

Right now, the doors are closed. Soulful Success is my live coaching membership group. We have life coaching, we have business coaching, and there is a whole archive of classes…there is also a lot of how-to in there.

My new client, Carolina, it’s so funny. She watched a replay in Facebook of one of the classes, or actually a live coaching session, and she texted me. She said, “I watched this replay twice, and then I went out and created $5,000 off of it.” That is super fun. Everything you need to succeed, if you align with the way that I speak and teach, is in there. If you don’t align, please do not get on the waitlist. It’s okay to go work with somebody else. 

I have another new client who is actually taking my class that I recently held and she said, “I’m kicking myself for not getting in Soulful Success.” She was making up a story about content to ingest. Is that in my program, yeah, I have a library of content, but it’s really about coming into the room, connecting with other human beings, and getting coaching whether you need it or not. So you can get direct coaching from me or, like today on our call, three people in the hot seat. And then at the end, I said, “How many of you got something for your life, for your business out of this call#8221; And every single person raised their hand and a few of them had implemented before we even got off the call. So you can do that.

You can get on the waitlist by going to  soulfullsuccess.info.

I will probably be opening the doors soon, let me know that you want to join before the end of the year. Let me know, and we’ll figure out how to make that work.

All right. Thanks for spending time with me. I will see you next week. Thanks for listening. As always, appreciate it. I appreciate your reviews and your shares. Peace out.

The post 3 Lessons from a Soulie Biz Coaching Session appeared first on Allison Crow.

Are you all work and no play I know I can get that way – and then Tracey Lee and Tiffany Scott send me an invite for girlfriend time – join us in this fun episode of girlfriends getting honest about the importance and impact of carving out girlfriend time. 

We are unedited, unfiltered, and real. 

This will be a powerful episode for all of you getting stuck in the cycle of work, business, and social media and struggling to find the time for the important relationships in your life. 

So I invite you into our Friday night happy hour, I hope our connection will help you feel connection in your own life.

Tracey Lee:  Self Love Master Coach,  Facebook, and Instagram

Tiffany Scott:  Founder of Sister Suppers, Facebook, and Instagram

The waitlist for Soul-Full Success is open! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join the waitlist for Soul-Full Success. This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join the waitlist at https://www.soulfullsuccess.info 

The post Girlfriend Time is Profitable appeared first on Allison Crow.

We’re going back to the heart of finding Soul-Full Success in your life and biz on the podcast today. 

By this I mean I am diving into this idea of life coaching, including life coaching for business owners. 

I’m giving you a little behind the scenes of the conversations we have in Soul-Full Success and a view of the topics we do coaching around. Some of the topics I’m touching on are: 

I’m sharing this because I’m proud of the conversations we have in Soul-Full Success. I’m proud of my amazing clients who do the work and take ownership for their life and business. 

And I want to share with you the magic that happens when we have these conversations. 

So enjoy this week’s podcast and all the fun topics I share and then I’d love to know which was your favorite, head on over to Instagram or Facebook to let me know!

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

PS- The waitlist for Soul-Full Success is open! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join the waitlist for Soul-Full Success. This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join the waitlist at https://www.soulfullsuccess.info

The post Life Coaching as a Path to Soul-Full Success appeared first on Allison Crow.

We all face difficult times, even as leaders. 

And in my work, I’ve been lucky to gather some insights and advice from leaders around me about how we can navigate these difficult times. 

Because I think we live in a culture that expresses that leaders should have their shit together. That we should hide our emotions, toughen up, have a stiff upper lip, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

But this isn’t how Soul-Full leaders navigate these difficult times. 

Today I’m sharing the insights I’ve learned about what Soul-Full leaders really do when they are facing something difficult and share some real stories to show you.

I hope this helps you notice some of the bullshit our society tells us leaders have to be and helps you see how you can be your own, perfectly imperfect version of a leader. 

And if this episode resonates with you, I’d love to know, head on over to Instagram or Facebook to tell me!

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

The waitlist for Soul-Full Success is open! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join the waitlist for Soul-Full Success. This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join the waitlist and learn more about the membership at https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/

The post How Soul-Full Leaders Navigate Difficult Times appeared first on Allison Crow.

Are you bumping into any of these problems my clients have?: 

If so, I want to share something I am formulating with you. 

This is something simple you might not have thought about to help with these problems. 

It’s a path that helps you map out your offerings and get aligned and I’m sharing the whole thing on the podcast now. 

Plus, I am giving you a super-secret tip at the end of describing the path. 

So take a listen and if this path is something you think you can use to help you as well I’d love to know, head on over to Instagram or Facebook to tell me!

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

PS- The waitlist for Soul-Full Success is open! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join the waitlist for Soul-Full Success. This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join the waitlist at https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/ 

The post A Heart Path to Creating More Right Aligned Clients appeared first on Allison Crow.

I’m honored to share my husband and his work with you as a bonus episode! Join Bill Flanigin, author,  and me, as we talk writing process, and his new novella Hollywood, Texas.  I’ve seen his process and practice from idea to published author – now of two books.  Grab a cold beer and listen in as we riff.  Hollywood, Texas: a Novella is a romance story never told before and it will leave you thinking days after you finish. Get your copy and let us know what you think! 

Hollywood, Texas; a novella – available on Amazon

The post Hollywood, Texas: a novella by Bill Flanigin appeared first on Allison Crow.

This is some good stuff today! Open your heart…tap in…perhaps grab a journal for a little lesson on releasing and then I pull oracle cards for us all.  I promise there is a message in here that will nurture and inspire you as we close out 2019 and cross over into 2020. 

What if what you want requires a completely different level of showing up?

As we move into a new year, I feel myself releasing and letting go of something, I’m not sure what it is…it might be another layer of a filter!

And I want you to think about what you are releasing this time of year too. 

What are you letting go of?nbsp;

Who is it that you are becoming?nbsp;

Who is it that you need to become to receive what you desire?nbsp;

These are some of the questions I ask you to think about in this week’s podcast. 

I also pull some cards and honestly, some of my new layer of unfilteredness comes through. 

You’ll definitely want to listen to this whole episode and then I’d love to know what you are releasing, head on over to Instagram or Facebook to tell me!

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

Cards pulled from the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck by Kim Karns. 

PS- The waitlist for Soul-Full Success is open! Enrollment opens Dec 22! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join the waitlist for Soul-Full Success. This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join the waitlist at https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/ 

The post Releasing What No Longer Serves You As You Go Into 2020 appeared first on Allison Crow.

The end of the year is often a time of reflection.  This episode covers the highs and lows of 2019 here at Soul-Full Living.  Straight from my journals… sharing my heart and lessons with you so that you might see a bit of your own journey as human and perfectly imperfect and progressing. I share so that you might reflect and give yourself credit for the amazing journey that was your own 2019.  

What were your major lessons and wins What struggles did you grow through?

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

PS- Soul-Full Success is NOW OPEN! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join us! This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join us while the doors are open at https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/

The post The Best Lessons of 2019 appeared first on Allison Crow.

“What got you here won’t get you there.” Wow – I have hated when my coaches have said this to me. 

And…. of course, I am seeing where this is true for me. 

As we come to year’s end, I’m reflecting on my journey, who I am becoming, and have come up with my “word” of the year:

Open Heart  –  Slow Tango  –  Big Profit

Okay, that’s more than a word, but this is the theme or essence for 2020.

Open-heart has been my word for the past few years and it’s truly opened up my life. Next year I felt the need to expand on this idea and I think the wisdom I’ve learned in this reflection will benefit you too.

That’s why this week on the podcast I want to share with you the meaning behind each of these themes- I think you may notice yourself in some of them and take away some of the insights I’ve had as well.

This is a really meaty episode, full of new wisdom I have to share with you, especially those of you that may be people pleasers or have fear of rejection.

I hope you enjoy this episode as you enter the new year, that it inspires you to reflect and learn from what was and declare what will be for 2020. If you have a word or theme for 2020, I’d love to hear it head on over to Instagram or Facebook to fill me in!

Love, 

Your favorite life coach 

?Allison

PS- Soul-Full Success is NOW OPEN! If you are loving what you are hearing and learning on the podcast and want in on being a Soulie, I invite you to join us! This is my live coaching membership group where you have unlimited access to me and our amazing Soulies for all you need from the mystic to the logistic. If this sounds like something you are interested in, join us while the doors are open at https://soulfullsuccess.live/purchase-life/

Transcript: 

Hey, hey. This is episode number 78 of the Better Life Better Work Show, and I’m your host, Allison Crow. We are recording this live on Facebook. So if you are a replay viewer or a podcast listener, hello. Just taking a moment to breathe into you, saying a prayer for you. As we close out this year, I have some good stuff to share with you today.

I want to give a shout-out and welcome to all my live viewers. If you’re here, say hello. And if you’re listening on the podcast, I want to give a shout-out to you. I can’t see your faces and name. So if you ever want to share the podcast or that you’re listening, tag me so I can say hi to you. So here’s what we’re going to talk about today. We are going to talk about open heart, slow tango, and big profit.

Have you ever heard that statement, what got you here won’t get you there As we come to the year’s end, I am reflecting on my life journey, my business journey, the journey of the woman that I’m becoming, and I have some really good, meaty stuff for you today to consider. So open heart, slow tango, and big profit is my word of the year. So I don’t just have one word for next year for 2020, I actually have this theme and this essence that I want to share. It’s more than a phrase to me.

Open heart has actually been my “word of the year” for the past four or five years. I want to tell you about where that comes from. I guarantee you as you listen or as you watch, you may notice yourself in some of these. And hopefully, you will be able to take away some of these insights and marinade on them and see how you can apply them, if they resonate, to yourself.

What I don’t mind telling you, and what I might not have realized even for myself, was that most of my life I’ve been a terrified human being, and a couple … Actually, episode number two of the podcast … We are now on episode number 78 in almost three years in. Episode number two was about the money sin we’re committing. That’s just kind of a tricky name to get you to listen to it, but it was about receiving. I remember reading the book by Amanda Owen, The Power of Receiving and seeing myself in one of the chapters that talked about people who gave, and gave, and gave and had this people-pleaser personality and that it came from an inability to receive. We would give, and give, and give and people-please so that we would not be rejected. I have written down here that fear of rejection has been a huge blessing in my life. It protected me for a long time. It created a rebel in me that was willing to do things. My fear of rejection and the way my nervous system would handle it was like I would give the double bird and say I’m out, right I would reject myself and pull myself out of a situation. Or on the other end of the spectrum, I would be really people-pleasy.

So that part of my personality, and recognizing that, and being able to work with that insight of what my deepest motives were, what were my deepest motives, I was so not conscious of that when I read that in that book. And holy cow it was amazing. So the other thing, being this person that was ultimately afraid of being rejected, very deep motivation. I was not aware of it on the outer surface. But, she was the one that took the risk. She was the one that said eff you to the company and left. She was the one that educated herself. That’s the risk-taker in me. This is interesting because the fear of rejection is manifesting as risk-taking.

But, I took those risks because inside my heart I was desperate to prove myself. To who I don’t know. Well, I do know now. I was actually desperate to prove myself to myself. My soul was calling me to be my true self. That was the other thing that called me. Not called me, but that inner need to be accepted, to accept myself, to avoid rejection was the thing that motivated me to take the risk to start my business, to always be learning, to do all kinds of things.

And what I’ve noticed in the last five or six years of asking spirit to help me open my heart … So the way my heart was closed is the doors were open outwardly. I would give, but my heart was … It’s like having the screen door open, but it was really shut because I was afraid of feeling pain. I was afraid of rejection. So, I absolutely love that … I don’t know. I guess 2014 was when my … Even though I’ve been doing coaching and personal development, I’ve been doing unofficial coaching … I mean, I was a camp counselor and then a counselor of the counselors. I went to school to be a therapist. I never finished that degree. Ended up being a teacher. I’ve been a baseball, basketball … Not a baseball coach, a basketball coach. Through all those things, I was leaning towards the positive to avoid the scary. And in 2014, the work that I did really led me to learn how to experience a range of emotions, not just the happy ones, to learn how to truly open my heart, not just to good experiences but open my heart to all that it needed to feel.

If any of y’all know the Enneagram, I’m … Right now, I’m really confused about where I am on the Enneagram because I’m not motivated by the things that I used to be motivated by. And that’s part of this journey that what was a blessing became a blah. So for all these years being an Enneagram seven, and wanting things to be fun, and wanting things to feel good, pushed me out of things that felt bad. But until I was willing to open my heart to a greater range …

So one of the examples that I give is actually my very personal religious journey. I was raised as a Christian. And somebody asked me the other day.  “What You’re not Christian You don’t believe in Jesus.” I was like, “I totally believe in Jesus.” And I feel like my belief in Jesus was like this, but my belief, including Jesus, is just so much more range. So opening my heart to listen to other people, opening my heart to other human beings, to other religious philosophies, opening my heart to experience all of life, both what was comfortable and familiar, and both … and what was uncomfortable, and unfamiliar, and actually even terrifying.

I mentioned this the other day, but I told my dad this weekend … I was at my … Not this weekend, but Friday or Thursday when baby Bowman was born. I was talking with my dad and was sharing about how he had … We were talking about the name Bowman, and my brother’s child is named Bowman. That’s the street we grew up on. That is actually a family name for us. I don’t want to share too much of Cameron’s story, but we were there with my dad, the three generations of Crows. My dad was kind of talking about how some things weren’t good. I said, “You know, Dad, for the past five years, I’ve had to allow myself. I’ve had to open my heart to what wasn’t good. But after surveying all that was good and all that was bad, and traumatic, and not good, there is definitely more good than bad.” It just felt like an honor to tell him. Whereas three years ago, I remember having to open my heart to literally hate my family. I hate that word, but to literally be so disappointed. What I have found is that opening my heart makes me a woman of range, and it is changing everything. It’s changing my relationship with my husband. It’s changing my relationship with my family and my business.

The other thing that opening my heart is doing is giving me sacred confidence. My confidence now is coming. Not coming from a place of ego, primarily. I mean, I certainly still got a little ego in here for sure, but my confidence is coming from this slow place. I’ll talk about slow tango in just a minute. But, my confidence is shifting. So before, it was false confidence that was big on the outside, but small on the inside.

The other day, my friend, Toku McCree, who is a coach and he trains coaches, was talking about what are some of the wild things that you have done with your clients. And I have done a lot of really wild things. I’ve taken clients to Mexico and made them get to a destination two hours away from where they didn’t know the language. I have skinny-dipped with clients. I have taken them to see wolves. I have done Equus coaching with them. I have done painting. I have done blindfold painting. I have done all sorts of crazy things with clients.

And I hadn’t taken the time to write this yet to Toku, but one of the things that is so interesting is because now I’m very boring with my clients. And I used to need the risk. I used to need to do all the big fancy things because it was easier to do the big fancy things all over the world than it was to just sit with a client in their discomfort. So now I’m enjoying the range of this different element. And who knows. Maybe all the wild, and the risk, and the flashy will come back, but there’s something sacred about the simplicity.

Open heart, I think I’m … I got to go back to see which year I first started it. But, I feel like open heart and open-hearted is going to be my word of the year every year. It is the basis from which I want to come. And it is in and out. Not just open-hearted to give, but open-hearted to experiencing all of life. And being open-hearted and willing to experience that has given me sacred confidence over ego confidence. And that equals peace.

Okay. So, number two is slow tango. My husband, since the day I met him, has been telling me to slow down. Slow down, Allison. Slow down, slow down, slow down. I’m a fast mover on the DiSC scale, I’m an ID, fast social, get shit done, fast, fast, fast. I make decisions fast. I think about things and then I make a decision. I don’t fear the consequence of anything, and so I began … Actually, it was interesting. The year I started, the year I discovered Rich Litvin, who was my coach for a while, I had been drawing pictures of Shavasana. I’ve been drawing yoga pictures. I was just drawing slow down, and I could feel my soul’s call to slow down. Then, Rich would always use the phrase slow down to speed up. And I began to practice slowing down. That was not easy for me. It still can be a challenge, although I’m much better.

So, I spent four or five years nurturing slow. Then one year, my friend and colleague, Christina Berkley, posted this video of her literally doing a dance in ballroom fashion. She was actually in a conference, and they circled all around her. And this gentleman who was her partner … And she did the tango, but it was a slow tango. The dance, a tango, is like something really fast. In my mind, I think of it really fast, and sexy, and sensual. She did this dance and shared this YouTube video on social media, and it went all the way into my bones and my being. And I knew that the idea of slow tango would transform what had worked for me and then hit a block.

In the past, being fast, all that risk-taking was natural to me. It was easy. And to develop myself, I began to teach myself to go slow. For me, slow tango means sustainable. Many, many of my clients are middle-aged men and women. I cannot speak to what it is like to be a middle-aged man, but I can speak to what it is like to have the body, hormones, and just the physical ability of a middle-aged woman, and that is not something that until recently I’d really considered the impact on business.

A few years ago, I went through burnout, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue. I was sleeping entirely too much. I literally couldn’t bear … Even though I loved my work, I physically couldn’t bear run my business the way I had been running my business. So sustainability, not just profitability, but sustainability became very important to me. One of the reasons it became important to me was because I don’t have retirement, so retiring was not an option. It’s not an option for my creativity, but it wasn’t also an option for finances. I began considering what could I do that was soulful, what could I do that was successful, and what could I do that had long-term emotional sustainability, financial sustainability, physical sustainability, right Began really taking in the mind-body, spirit. And this dance, this slow tango, it’s sustainable. It’s sexy. It’s simple.

Slow growth is solid. And we live in this day and age … Y’all, last night, I sat down at my computer. I had gone out to shop, and it was just a disaster. So I got the hair chop instead. Instead of shopping, and got my hair all chopped off. And I came home and sat down and ordered all my Christmas presents online. The thing is everything, and my new coffee maker, will all be here in the next two days. That is the life we are living, and so we’ve become really accustomed to this quick fix.

And what I know is that the first year I set the goal of having an open heart or I set the essence of feeling into open heart, it wasn’t complete. It’s a lifelong journey. And myself and my clients, I use the distinction of gardeners versus machines. There are a lot of machines out there, and I think that the people that have machine-type personality, and that’s the kind of business that they run, it’s like get the product out there, get the service out there, next, get the product, get the service, next, fantastic for them. That ain’t me. There is something in my soul that requires relationship in the middle of all these things, and so I call us gardeners. We’re still growing something. We are still selling our services, but there is a relational quality that is very, very valued for gardeners. If you’re a gardener, raise your hand and let me know you’re a gardener. If you’re a machine, you probably don’t have the tolerance to watch me, which is fine.

God bless the machines. They do their thing. The machines are getting me my Christmas presents in time for Christmas. And the people that I work with are gardeners. And what’s interesting about gardening is it’s a slow process. Yes, landscaping you can come in and wham, bam, thank you ma’am. But here’s the thing, those plants still had to slow grow before they’re able to be implemented into your garden.

Think about what slow tango could mean for you in your business. Slow doesn’t have to mean sloth, although they’re adorable. It doesn’t have to mean it’s never going to happen. Many of the people I talk to, especially in the past week, we get so wrapped up in the speed of our business and the speed of our success.

I talked with a client yesterday who was having a little bit of a confidence crisis because she feels like she’s been doing this for a long time and it hasn’t been getting traction. the fact is she hasn’t been doing it for a long time. A year, two years is not a long time. That is still baby. That is still launch phase. Y’all, three to five years to profit, three to five years to profit, and then 5 to 8, 9, 10 for growth. Maybe after that you’re in what we call achievement phase. So, think about what realizing … When I realize I want to be doing some form of this work, inspiration, coaching, teaching when I’m 70, 80 years old, why am I rushing right now And the more that I go slow, the more that I hear my own inner wisdom and everything I implement is gold versus rushing through without checking in.

Okay. So the last theme. The last theme is the business. I mean, a lot of it is the business aspect. But listen, I’m all about gardening. I’m all about open heart. I’m all about dancing. But mother effers, I’m also about big profit. Many of you know that money is one of my glorious vehicles for creation. I have a unique ancestry of money in both the Crow and Risinger sides of my family. My grandfather was a grand success as a developer. My dad had very up and down success, and I was imprinted at a young age with very up and down success.

Honestly, I never ever considered being in business for myself until I was 29 years old. I never ever thought about being in business for myself. I had wanted to be a stay-at-home wife and mom, and I wanted to marry a very rich man because that’s all I saw in my community. Remember what I said about range at the beginning Open heart, open your mind to other experiences. So my first year in real estate, I grossed 120-something thousand dollars. And I had gone from making $36,000 as a kindergarten and computer teacher to figuring out how to … to this income that I never had before and to this realization that I actually had a business strategy mindset.

So, talk about slow tango and slow journey has been my journey with money, and has been my journey with receiving, has been my journey with wisdom in my money. There are so many teachers about money, whether it’s the law of attraction to Dave Ramsey, and everybody’s got an opinion of how it’s done. And I am really learning how to create sustainable income. So sustainable, that recurring revenue, multiple streams of income.

The other thing about big profit for me is not just the money in my business, but am I providing for my future self Do I have the other elements So a lot of times when we’re talking about money, we just talk about income. But for me, big profit is not only am I profiting financially, but am I emotionally profiting Is my future profiting So one of the themes this year I’m really excited because I have been building, building, building. Many of you know that three years ago I tore down everything. And I didn’t tear down my history, but I tore down the current structure and rebuilt Soul-Full Living, LLC and my business around this membership program that I offer that you’re all invited to join. In rebuilding that, we downsized house. I downsized my income, and I upped my expenses. Insane. Taxes last year were not fun to look. This year they’re going to be fantastic to look at.

And in the last year … Y’all will hear me talk about this a lot. In the last year, I have learned to allow implementation help. So I’m going to be doing a podcast very soon on going pro, and there’s a lot of ways that I’m pro. I know that I am pro as a coach in my skills, but I have been going pro the last couple of years, especially last year and this year coming up, going pro as a business owner. I have a lot of friends that use that language of the CEO. I’ve been playing around with the phrase soulful mogul. What that means to me right now, mogul is not resonating but really going pro as a businesswoman.

So y’all realize, right If you’re out there and you have your skill, your skill is one element. But the other skill in growing a business, and in creating profit, and the way you manage and spend your money and resources in your business is a whole nother thing. I hadn’t had somebody look at my PnL and help me understand if my profit margins were decent or not the entire time I was running my business. So things like paying my taxes on time quarterly with cash, gently and slowly getting out of business credit card debt, and hiring this help that we can be a visionary and we can … so we can have the idea for the business and we can have the delivery of the business. And this implementation is where I see a lot of small business owners get stuck. So, big profit is an unfolding theme for me.

I’m also willing to declare publicly that money is important to me. It’s totally important to me. What I love about my business, creating money, is not just my lifestyle. Business creating money allows me to give. It allows me to … I have three, four, five, five people that work contract with me, and I get to pay them. I get to help fund their lives. I get to donate. There’s a lot that I can do with the income that I make that feels really soulful, more than just stuff.

Big profit through tending the garden of my skill, of my business skills, of my willingness to grow and expand, and so that’s another theme this year. Where my business happens to be is it happens to be at a place where actually a lot of the foundation that I never had when my heart was closed and all I was was a risk-taker. A risk-taker moves so fast she didn’t set up the foundation. So I’ve spent the last three years doing structure that I don’t do, but I found a way to learn how to work with other people to help me.

Even this morning as I went into my structure, this was fun. What I love about learning to work with somebody is that my team listens to me. They create a structure that they think will work. Then, I go in and if there’s an element of that structure that doesn’t fit … One of the things I told my team this morning was like, “I just need to trust myself not to blow past the structure, but if there’s a little piece, chuck the piece and switch it.” Right?

So what’s interesting … I know this is a little behind the scenes, but today’s episode was supposed to be about soulful mogul, and I’m just not feeling the soulful mogul vibe. So that kept me from recording this podcast. I found the resistance. Instead of trusting my inner when I go slow and I know that something’s not resonating, all I had to do today is sit down and said, “What is resonating#8221; You know what’s resonating Open heart, slow tango, big profit, bitches. That shit is fun.

Learning how to do the dance, right The slow tango is a dance. So when I learn how to do this dance with my team, with the people who contract and work for me allows me space and time to love on my people. And loving on my people is the number one way I create big profit. In the past, loving on my people became exhausting because I didn’t have any systems or structures to support me loving all my people. At the end of the year, it’ll be fascinating to look back and see what did big profit really mean to me. All I know is that I am going even deeper into looking at my expenses and not just from scarcity or see what I can chop. But really, what is profitable What is profitable on my PnL What is profitable in my heart What is profitable with my time How can I create a life that is in the green mind, body, spirit, finances, family?

Those three things, I didn’t always used to be that way. For many years, y’all, when I was making money, I’d make all this money and then I’d get a tax bill and I just get my debt paid off, and then I’d have to put 30 or $40,000 on credit cards. I saw my own family overspend. Earn a lot, but spend more than they made. So, big profit is about not just making more. It’s about spending wisely and making more because making more was never my problem. It was always about the allocation of it. Each of you has resources, not just financial resources, but emotional resources, intellectual. And I do believe they’re abundant. But a lot of times, the one who had a closed heart refused to think there was another way to do it, and so she didn’t want to feel the pain of doing without to create going forward.

One of the lessons I’ve learned in the last few years … So for the first time in my life, I have … Well, I’ve had disability insurance for the last 10 years. I’ve had a life insurance policy for the last 10 years, but I am investing in teaching myself to invest in the stock market. I have two IRA, Roth IRA, accounts that I’m actively putting a little bit here and there.. Last year, I maxed one out. We’ll see if I can max the other one out this year. Not quite sure. But, I am putting in the future. Then, I also have some things set up if I were to ever get sick, or if I were to have a disability, or if I were ever to get Alzheimer’s, which runs in my family. I have some things set up. And those are structures that I had never … I call it spending on my future self.

I was so resistant to saving and planning my future self was suffering. And the idea of a budget felt like it was depriving me of something. And my Enneagram seven personality did not want to be deprived of anything, and so she just busted through and created. But, I’d create on one end, and I was leaking out the other. So what’s happened over the last couple years as I’ve had that open heart, I’ve been able to face things that my nervous system and my emotional system were very uncomfortable facing. And what is happening is that the whole is being plugged. So I am learning that there is joy in providing for my future self. There’s not just joy in the big win now, but there’s joy in the sustainable journey. There’s joy in the slow tango, in the dance of this life.

And for the first time, I don’t feel … I feel a different kind of exhilaration. I feel an exhilaration of … It’s a different kind of fun. Sometimes I think maybe I’m so boring because I don’t want to go jump off of a mountain, or skydive, or do these things anymore, but I … There are certainly some outer world things that I want to create, and there is a different kind of joy in the isness of my life and business. I know that to a lot of you that may not be sexy. But to my clients, it is sexy.

I don’t want to be a big pusher of seven-figure promises and bullshit bullet points. I want to work with people who are on the long, slow tango journey, who want to have an open heart in life and in work, and who want to profit big not just in their business but in their emotion, in their relationships. This is the work I’ve come here to do. Open heart, slow tango, big profit. I just wanted to share that these three things, they’re relatively new for me. I am still in the launch phase of these three things, open heart, slow tango, big profit, and it is taking. I’m not necessarily leaving behind the risk-taking Allison, the wild and crazy Allison, the fast Allison, or the Allison that overspends every once in a while. She’s not left behind. She’s transformed, and she’s got so much more wisdom. And that’s what I want to help my clients see.

I see that on the Livestream Carolina just hopped in, and Caroline has been my client for three months. She’s done a couple of testimonials to tell me the impact of her business. She shared in our group the other day, I know she doesn’t mind me sharing this, that every Friday she’s taking off and that she’s adopted the mindset, and business practices and the business strategy that naps are profitable. Even her husband is helping her take naps for profitability. That was a concept that I had to give to myself, that naps are profitable, that space is profitable.

I could go on and talk about these things forever. I love them. I would love to hear both from the live audience and from my podcast. What does open heart mean to you What does slow tango … If it resonates with you, what would your version of slow tango be And what is big profit Where do you want to profit big in 2020 Where do you want to profit big in your business, in your life, in your heart What is big profit And where are you willing to realize that what got you here won’t get you where you want to go next What got you here is not what will propel the becoming of you that is the fullness of you.

And with that, I am going to hop off and spend time with my daughter for her birthday. So we have baby Bowman who was born on the 19th. We have Samantha whose birthday is today, the 21st. Winter solstice is the day of this recording. Then our son, his birthday is the 23rd. So, I’m just so grateful to each of you that take time to either watch, to pop by, or to listen on the podcast. I’m so grateful for the Soulies that are my clients, both the everyday show-er uppers and the occasional show-er uppers. I’m so grateful for our community. Soul-Full Success is the epitome, in my heart, of open-hearted, slow tango, big profit. So any of you that want to consider becoming a member, you can go to coachwithallison.com and find out more. And with that, I will see you on the next episode. Bye, Soulies.

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