Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode. I am so excited you are here.
We've done all the goal setting stuff. We've talked all about what we're going to
do in 2025, and I want to take a couple episodes to talk about actually getting
started when you don't know if it's going to work out, when you don't know if it's
going to fail, and how that can be worth it, even if it doesn't work out the way
that you want. And today's episode is more of just a throwback to my own story and
the lessons that I've learned and I'm going to tell you why I wanted to do this
episode.

I wasn't planning on doing this, but I got a notification from this online
journal that I used to write in apparently and it was just this notification that
says like, look what you wrote in this journal nine years ago, you know, take a
look back. And I get sometimes these notifications from things I've used a lot of
these tools over the years and I usually don't even look at them, but I was like,
oh, let me see what I wrote nine years ago. And this entry, it was just so
moving, emotional. I don't know what the word is for me when I read it, because I
knew exactly when I had written it, I knew exactly the mindset I was in.

And it's really fascinating to see where I've come over the nine years, over the past nine
years, and how much has changed. And there's a lot of lessons that I learned along
the way that I wish I knew at the time. And so I figured I would share them with
you and share, you know, hopefully my experience and my learning can help you on
your own journey. If you're thinking about starting something, if you're thinking
about putting that business out there, there's so many lessons from this one entry
that was two paragraphs from nine years ago for me. So that's what I want to talk
to you about the lessons from my past self. So here is the entry, Okay. The entry
is, it says it's titled, "Keep Moving." I'm just going to read it to you. And then
I'm going to work through. Actually, I'm going to read it to you in, I'm going to
separate the two paragraphs. Okay. So the first paragraph says, "So I went to a
meetup group for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts last night. Interesting experience. Me in a
room with a bunch of engineers. Let's just leave it at interesting.

Anyway, I was hoping to find someone to help me with my project, but it doesn't seem like it was
too fruitful. I met one guy that gave me his contact info and said he'd help me,
but I'm not sure it's anything more than just guiding me and I'm not really looking
for that. I'm sort of stuck as to how to find someone to put this thing together.
But I guess I just keep searching, keep it moving. Okay. I'm going to pause there
so I can tell you sort of what was going on in my life at the time. If you're
new here and you may not know, I used to have a photo booth business, okay? And
this was when this entry was written, I remembered distinctly, I was trying to get
this product made and I was trying to get it off the ground. Now this product at
the time was just like an iPad based photo booth. Now there's tons of them, but
nothing really existed at the time. And I really wanted to make something for my
son's birthday. And that kind of got me on this rabbit hole of like, well, maybe
it's something I can create and I can sell it. And I was very lost as to what I
wanted to do after I left the law, and I really wanted to have my own business,
but I didn't know what I wanted to sell or what I wanted to offer. And I didn't
think I really had any skills or any talents that I could sell.

And so I come upon this idea, and I had done this with other ideas too. So it
wasn't like this was the first idea, but I was sort of, you know, searching for a
problem to solve. And when I found this idea, I decided, Maybe I can make this and
That let me on this journey of like over a year of building this product now I do
not recommend my first lesson is maybe figure out Everything that goes into it
before you start because I think I bit off more than I could chew for my first
project I wanted to build the hardware. I wanted to build the software.

It was a lot, but What I remember so distinctly it was so the reason this journal entry came
about is I had found, um, I was going to build the hardware, which means like the
computer that drove the, um, tablet. I was going to not use an iPad and I was
going to try to like create my own basically like tablet based computer that just
runs this photo booth. And there is a board that's called a Raspberry Pi that is
cheap and can, you know, do things like this photo booth but obviously like I have
no background in engineering I have no idea how to create these things and so one
of the things I started doing was like going to a lot of meetup groups at the
time I was just finding people in my community to connect with because I wanted to
figure out more about manufacturing and I wanted to figure out more about software
and I wanted to figure out more about hardware and so I was like well I'm just
gonna go to these people and ask questions. I'm gonna go and figure out how you do
this, right? I'm gonna get them to tell me like where do I go next, right? And so
I would go to a lot of meetups where I very clearly did not belong.

I remember this meetup so clearly. What's so funny, the reason it made me laugh is
because I just seen it on, you know, like meetup .com. It was like a meetup for
raspberry by enthusiasts. And I was like, okay, great, I'll go check it out. It was
like a conference room of like 18 people sitting around a conference table. And so
I walk in, they're all men. They're all probably 40s and 50s, maybe a little bit older, some of them. I was like, at the time, I think 31, 32, I don't know, 32 around. I was this young Um, that very clearly did not belong. And I remember walking into that room and thinking, Oh, dear God, what have I gotten myself into? Like, and I really, for a split second was like, do I just turn around and walk back out, like not say anything to these people? And they all, what was so funny is when I walked in, it was like, you know, the record scratch on a, in a movie that you see, I swear it was like that. It was instantly silent. Like they were all talking all of a sudden
silent everybody turns to look at me And I'm just standing in this doorway this
conference room like And they're like are you lot they asked me are you lost and I was like no is
this the you know meet up for raspberry pi And they're like yeah, and I was like
okay And so I just like take a seat and they're all just staring at me because
they all know each other They literally meet up often, like once a month and they
talk about their projects and they all know Raspberry Pi and beyond the name of
what it was, like generally, like I have no idea what it is. But I was like, no,
I came here to learn. So that's what I'm gonna do. So I sat down and they were
very kind and very gracious and they asked me what I was doing and I was trying
to explain it and I was telling them that I'm looking for someone to help me kind
of develop this. Like I wanted to partner with to pay them to do this for me. And
like I said, I mean, they were kind. I sat through that whole meeting.

I didn't understand more than 80 % of what was said in that meeting. I was just sitting
there like nodding, acting as though I knew what was going on when I had no idea.
And some of them were very helpful in kind of guiding me, but ultimately like,
they were kind of working on their own projects. They weren't people, like they all
had jobs. They like, none of them were kind of wanting to do this. And so I
remember leaving and feeling really discouraged and feeling like, well, I don't know
where to find somebody to kind of help me with this project. But the first lesson
that I have taken from my own journey is that and I think that the difference I
see for so many people that want to start something and they stop themselves so
much or so many people that want to start that business and they never get it off
the ground. And I think the difference that I've seen in myself, not just with that
business, but with this business, when I wanted to be a lawyer, other things, I'm
not afraid to feel like, look foolish. I'm not afraid to not know something.

Like I've never been afraid to be the dumbest person in the room. I don't want to
be, I don't like to be judged. I don't want to feel foolish. Nobody likes feeling
embarrassed, but I'm willing to like I've always been willing to be like, okay I
don't know this and I need to know so I'm gonna raise my hand and ask the
question or I'm gonna ask this person To help me or I'm gonna seek out where I
can find this guidance and I now realize what an asset that has been I never
really sort of I just thought that you know, it's like, okay I need to I need to
solve this problem and someone else has the solution and so I need to You know get
that solution from them. It was always a means to an end But I didn't realize that
like just this quality of being willing to not know being willing to be a beginner
being willing to Not have the answers or not needing to put on an air that I'd
know everything that I'm You know super smart or that I'm the smartest like I think
that that has served me really well in starting new things because With each thing
you get better at kind of feeling that discomfort and being like, yeah, I don't
know. I'm here because I want to learn. I'm here because this is what you guys
advertise, right? Like this is for Raspberry Pi and I just want to learn about
Raspberry Pi. And I'm so grateful to my past self for doing that, for being willing
to sit in those meetings or go to these places, even though it was like, seemed
like a complete waste of time and it seemed really embarrassing because I clearly
did not belong. But it was each of those things that led to the next thing and
the next thing and the next thing that helped me build that product and start that
first business. It was my willingness to be uncomfortable, my willingness to not have
the answers and be willing to seek the answers from other people.

The amount of cold calls or the amount of people I reached out to, the amount of rejection I
faced, the amount of people that couldn't help me, the amount of things that
"weren't worth it," meaning I went and nothing came of that particular meeting was
the reason I was able to ultimately start that business right was the reason I was
able to get that off the ground because I was willing to keep going and to keep
finding and to keep asking and to keep getting help and to keep like putting it
out there and to keep looking dumb frankly and I think that a lot a lot of people
are willing to do that what I noticed for a lot of people when they're so
terrified of starting is this not just the idea of failing but the idea of failing
in front of other people like this idea of other people seeing you not be polished
or know all the answers or put together or you know expert in your field already
when you haven't even started stop so many people from even starting from even
learning and and the obviously like intellectually we understand that when you're
starting anything, of course you're going to be new at it. And I think for so many
people who want to switch careers, if you're going to start something and go into
something else, you're going to be new at it. You're not going to know everything.

And I think that that humility of sort of knowing like, okay, yeah, I don't know.
And I don't need to know. And I don't need to pretend like I'm anything, I'm not.
And I'm not the smartest. And thank God for that. Thank God, there's other experts.
There's other people that can help me, right? Like, I think my attitude has always
been that that like, not only, I don't want to be the smartest in the room because
I want to learn from other people, right? I want other people to help me kind of
fill the gaps in my own knowledge. And so I'm always seeking people that know more
than me, that have done more than me, that are kind of ahead of me. And instead
of making that mean something about me or instead of making that myself feel bad
about that, I look at that as like an opportunity, like how wonderful this person
has this knowledge or has built the business I want to build or has done this and
I can learn from them and I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

And so, I look at that, I remember that meeting so clearly and I'm really proud of myself for sitting through that. Not because anything came of that meeting, but simply because it helped
me build this muscle of like, I deserve to take up space, I deserve to be here,
right? I deserve to ask these questions. I deserve to, it was a public meetup group
and I came and I'm allowed just as much as anybody else even if I don't feel as
though I belong, you know? I will say the other thing too, and this is going to
be the subject of next week's topic on the podcast, but I think a lot of times we
look at things within a specific instance. It was it worth this thing, like was
this worth it? Going to this meetup, did something come of it, did the results I
want come from that? And I think so many of us get so caught up on like, well,
it's a waste of time. It wasn't worth it. I went and nothing came of it. So I'm
not going to do anything else. Like I applied to that job and I got rejected. It's
a waste of time to keep applying. And I think that we don't realize that like all
of these things are just cumulative. Like they just build on top of each other.

Right. I went to dozens of meetups and a lot of them nothing came from it.
Right. Like there was no tangible result. There was nothing like, Oh, I got this
contact or I met this person, but one, from some of them,
they did like a lower percentage. I met someone that put me in contact with someone
else. I found a designer to design my booth. I found a hardware expert to help me
build the hardware. I found a manufacturer. I found, and this was simply because
with each meetup, someone was like, oh, you should talk to this person or whatnot.
So from a small subset of them, something did come and you can't know know which
one that's gonna come from, right? I couldn't know. There's no way for me to like
sit at my home on meetup .com and be like, oh, this is gonna be the meetup where
I meet someone. It was like, you have to, you know, kiss a number of frogs before
you kiss the prince, like meet the prince or whatever the hell that saying is. And
so I think for me, it was really understanding like, this is just a numbers game.

It's like, how many people can't the more people I meet, the more likely it is
that I'm going to meet someone that's going to help me. And that was the same way,
even when I did cold outreach. I was like, obviously, the vast majority of people
are either going to reject me, or it's not going to get anywhere, or it's going to
be kind of a waste of time, quote unquote.
But there's no way for me to find the people that are going to really help me,
that are going to give me that insight. It's going to be the kernel that I need
to go to the next thing. It's going to be the connection that I need. And so I
just have to keep playing this game. And I think for more people if you sort of
realize that that like it's not is it worth it in this specific instance it's like
is this the the the thing that I have to keep doing over and over again until it
is worth it and also it is worth it because I'm building a skill like I was
building the skill of sitting in discomfort of not belonging somewhere right I was
building the skill of being able to ask even when I felt embarrassed even when I
didn't know anything. I was building the skill of being able to be in rooms where
I didn't normally think I deserved to take up space and still taking up that space.

Like each one of those things was worth it because it helped me the next time and
the next time and the next time. It helped me show up more and more and more. It
helped me do things that make me uncomfortable. And so when you're thinking about
like what you're doing in this instance and you're like, oh, well, I'm gonna put
all this time to build this website And
Looking back on that journey, I really felt that, like I really feel like all of
those things were so worth it because it helped me become the person that I am.

It helped me create the tenacity and the curiosity and the ability to be uncomfortable.
The other thing I will say though, too, is again, when we go back to this idea of
worth it, and I'm going to talk about this again more in depth next week, so many
people are so caught in not trying something because they don't like what if it's
not worth it meaning it doesn't work out and become a success and I look at this
photo booth business that I had and I am so so grateful to my past self for
starting that not because it became successful it didn't I mean I ended up shutting
it down it could have been successful I guess if I if I put in the effort to
keep growing it but because it led me to where I am right Everything I learned
from that photobooth business, from marketing to, like I said, like being
uncomfortable, learning how to deal with customers, learning the back end of business,
doing accounting, doing all of that stuff, helped me when I started this business,
right? I wasn't starting from scratch. I wasn't starting, it's like I started this
business miles ahead than when I had when I started that photobooth business because
I had learned over the years so much about marketing, about the internet, about
social media, all of this stuff that I didn't know.

And I brought that with me to this. And it also directly led me to it because as I was doing the photo booth stuff is when I started getting into mindset work because I was so confronted with
my own fear of failing and my own fear of people judging me and my own fear of
not being good enough and success and really trying to decouple my identity as a
lawyer and all of this stuff that I was like I need like it felt like I was going insane and so I started looking for mindset work and I found thought work and like that directly led me to this work right became my obsession I became like I wanted to be a certified coach I wanted to be a master certified coach I then like started this business like none of this would have happened had I not been out in the arena like if I was safe in my room not trying something I likely wouldn't
have been pushed as much as I was to need thought work because I wasn't so
uncomfortable, right? And so I look at all of these things as like stepping stones,
like these building blocks, like me building that first business. I have no doubt is
directly why I have the business I have today. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten
here. I would have likely gotten a job. Who knows where I would have been, right?
And so I think a lot of times, like when you're so focused on like, is this it
thing worth it only if it's a success, like the only way that I can think this is
worth it is if I end up doing something like spectacular with it. You miss out on
so much of like what this is building for you, right? Like what this is creating
in your life, what foundation it's building.

And so I think when I look back and I'm so glad I did spend those years building that business, even though I knew I wasn't passionate about photo booths, even though it wasn't like the thing I was gonna do for the rest of my life, it was something me that was like, Okay, I
don't know what I'm going to do. So at least let me get out there and just like,
try things and learn and iterate and figure, learn more about business and get that
education. And then I'll see what I'm going to do with it. And I utilize that to
create a business that I love that I've had for six years that has been really
successful that's given me the life and the impact that I want to have. Right. And
so I look back on that. And it's, you know, all of this from one post about a
raspberry pie meeting but I just look at how much I was willing to do when I
didn't know what I wanted to do when I felt like I don't know if this is the
thing for me and I don't know if I can even do it and I don't even know what
I'm doing really and yet so much came from that um the second paragraph though is
even better on this um post it's uh I'm gonna go back to read it it says the
only thing is that all I can think about is the podcast. That's all I want to
work on. I'm having a hard time moving back to focus on the photo booth. I don't
know if I should give myself some time to just focus on the podcast, but I think
I feel like that's just a slick way of trying to get out of the photo booth
project and just push it to the back. I'll keep pushing forward and try to squeeze
in time to do the podcast too.

What's so interesting is that so this was written in January of 2016 and I didn't start the podcast until July of 2018 so for another two and a half years I obsessed about this freaking podcast and I didn't put it out there okay so many lessons from just that it's fascinating for me to
see that I was so enthralled with this idea of this podcast from that early on and
how long I let myself push it off and a couple of lessons from that actually as I
look back like one is don't be like me. I think like when there's something that
lacks that you that much there's a reason right I look back and it's like this
podcast really did change my life and it changed my the trajectory of my life and
it changed obviously my business and everything and the only thing that can be back
with fear. The only thing that stopped me was who am I to do this? What are
people gonna think? This is embarrassing. I don't have anything to prove. I'm not
good enough. Like why would people listen to me? And so many of those things
obviously turned out to not be true in the sense that people did listen and it did
grow and people did need it. And I would have known that answer so much faster,
even if it didn't work. I would have known that instead of obsessing about it for
two and a half more years I would have had my answer in the first year maybe I
did it and it's like hey people aren't listening okay like if I wasn't so scared
of that failure or like what it would mean or what people would think I would have
started that and I know how much mental English and how much spinning I created for
myself by continuously thinking about something that I wanted to do and wasn't doing
so don't be like me that's the lesson there, I think, is like, if you have
something gnawing at you, if you've wanted to start that Instagram account, if you
want to be an influencer, whatever it is, like, just try it and see if it works.

Like, you'll get a better answer of quicker by doing it than you will spinning and
thinking about whether you should do it forever and ever. So that's the first
lesson. But the second lesson, which is also, I think, now in hindsight, become
clear to me is there's also like it's a kind of opposite of what I've just said I
do think you should just go for it but I also if you haven't if you've been
spinning about things one of the things that I really think about now is like we
have so much time like I know life is short and that is true 100 % but it's also
very long and there's also a lot of time to do the things that you want to do
and so I think a lot of us think like things have passed or time has passed or
it's too late now. And that's such a lie. It's such bullshit.
I look back and I'm like, I obsessed about that for two and a half years. And I
really thought every time somebody created a podcast that was similar, like my
stomach would drop. And I was like, oh, it's too late. All these people have
created it, blah, blah, blah. Two and a half years past, I still made it. And I've
now done the podcast for like seven years, right? I think about how much time that
is. Like even if I hadn't started for four years and I started in let's say 2020
or whatever, even if I started today, there's so much time to do it, right? There's
so much time in my life still to create something else.

And so I think a lot of times like we try to lie to ourselves because we think like, well, I had this idea five years ago or I was gonna do this 10 years ago before I started in this
career and now it's too late. It's not too late. It really isn't. you have a lot
of time and so I'm really like glad that I finally I mean I think I just obsessed
about it to the point where I was just got myself sick by Jill I remember in 2018
I was like I am so sick of myself I'm so sick of thinking about it I'm so sick
of like spinning about the same thing if I don't get this out of them like out of
my head and out into the world I'm going to like go crazy I don't recommend
waiting until that point but "Hey, we all need the push that we need." And I think
that for me, looking back now, I'm like, there was still so much more time.
None of it has to happen right now. You can do it at your own time whenever you
get to the point where you are sick of it and you just wanna get it out there or
it just means that much to you to get this work out into the world.

Do it, you still have time. Like, had I started five years later, I still could
build what I've built now. It doesn't matter how much social media changes, it
doesn't matter how many people are in the podcast space, none of that shit matters.
There are people out there that want what you have and you will learn and you will
adapt to whatever the times are, whatever tools you have access to. And so I think
this advice can work in two ways. If you can't do the thing right now, if maybe
you're in a season where your health is bad or you have young kids or you don't
have the time or whatever you're burned out. That's okay. Right. Work towards doing
it later. Like keep don't get rid of the dream. Keep the dream. Just know that
maybe you can't get to it right now and that's okay.

And if you can do it, I think if you are stopping yourself because you think that it's too
late or you think that it's over or you think that you've been thinking about it
for too long and like it's it's never gonna happen. I just want you to really
understand that like there's so much time in your life to grow all these things, to
do all these things and you know there's the the adage or the saying like the best
time to have planted a tree is 20 years ago the second best time is today right
it's like there's like yes could we have done things earlier sure but like this is
the youngest you're ever gonna be this is the earliest you can ever do it from now
So like just do it just start don't let yourself don't be like me and kick
yourself for two and a half years And by that point I'd already been thinking about
it So it's probably like three years of me obsessing over this freaking podcast idea
that clearly people wanted That clearly you know is an issue that other people have
so if there's something on your heart or your mind That has been nagging at you.
Maybe this is the sign you need That says like and golly struggled with this for
two and a half years and then she put it out there and then she built a multi
six -figure business from it and she grew it and she grew an audience and you know
she wrote into the sunset not really but you know it's not all rainbows and
butterflies but I'm just saying like I couldn't have imagined what happened with this
and I really wish I had just not tortured myself for so long so don't be like me
start it you have time you have time to build it and so yeah.

I wanted to do this because I was gonna post on social media about that post and I'm like there's so many things I want to talk about it's better to just be a podcast episode because
it's just fascinating. The other thing I will say I guess the last lesson is like
write these things down. I'm not as great as journaling at journaling anymore and I
think at the time like I didn't have thought work and I just really was like I
need to get this out of my head like I feel so overwhelmed. But one of the things
that I've noticed and I think with this online Journal is actually really helpful is
there's this concept of like there's a book called The Gap and The Gain and The
point of the book is that like when you're constantly looking at the gap from where
you are to where you want to be You're constantly gonna be upset.

You're constantly gonna feel like you're not there yet that you're you know That you wasted time that you should be further along that you're not whatever all of the things all the
shoulds You're gonna be because you're going to look at the amount that you still
have to go because all of us like we're just going to move the goalposts and
there's other things that we have to accomplish. But if you look at the gains from
where you were like where you started to where you are there's so much beauty and
pride and fulfillment in looking at how far you have come we're not really good at
that because we're not taught to do that and for a lot of us we don't even see
the progress right because it's very like kind of mundane everyday things.
It might be minuscule, so over time we kind of don't notice it. We don't know how
to measure it. And so for a lot of us we are constantly focused on what we're
lacking, where we're not, how far we are from what we want, and we're not looking
at like who I was and what I've done to get to where I am.

And I'm guilty of this too. It's not to say like I've learned a lot of these lessons but I still
constantly am thinking about like Well, I should be further along or I should have
grown it by this point or whatnot. And this entry was a really beautiful moment for
me to like sort of pause and reflect on where I was and where I am now and how
lost I felt. And like the reason I wanted to start this podcast and all of the
things that I kind of went through to try to build a business or learn how to be
an entrepreneur. And I look back and I'm like, in nine years of my life is
completely different. I am completely different. Like I, my brain is not the same
place that it was nine years ago. Like I'm so much kinder to myself. I'm so much
more loving. I have so much compassion. I am not a perfectionist. I'm still a
people pleaser, but we're working on that. We can't change everything. I have built
this business. I, I'm just so much happier in who I am not just in my life, but
in who I am and how I approach my life, not to mention like the business and all
that. And so I look at that and I'm like, God, I really have come a long way in
nine years. And so I would recommend like finding a way to look at that, those
gains for yourself, like finding a way to market somehow, whether that's journals,
journal entries, whether that's like yearly just doing, you know, kind of a recap of
where you are, where you're at, where you want to be, you know.

All that stuff so you can look back and see the growth that you've had because every one of you has had it. It's just a matter of like putting that attention on it. So those are my
lessons. And so if you're sort of in this place where you don't know what you want
to do, get out there and just do something. Just learn the lessons from doing
something.
It doesn't matter if it's not the thing you want to do for the rest of your life,
it doesn't matter if it's not even something you're passionate about. Stop wasting
the time being in your head and instead learn some skills, learn something new, push
yourself to be uncomfortable, like learn how to deal with certain feelings. You will
get so much more from that, from that action than you will sitting and thinking
about the perfect plan or the perfect thing that you need to do. So that's my
advice, my friends.

That's the lessons from my past self and I will be back next
week with another episode where we will go deeper into how you can know it's worth
it even if it's not going to work out. So I'll talk to you next week.