Ep #238: Building Community, Legacy, and Wealth with Dr. Hala Sabry

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 238. Today I have a really fun episode planned for you as always. But I feel any time I record an episode with my students who are so amazing I always feel like they’re a little extra special. So today we have Hala Sabry on the podcast. She’s one of our 200K students. She has been such an inspiration for me personally. And so I’m excited to have her on to talk about her journey and some of the stories that she’s shared with me that have felt so empowering and impactful and to share with you her journey in making money as a life coach.

Dr. turned life coach, so do you want to introduce yourself and tell everyone who you are.

Hala: Yeah, I am Dr. Hala Sabry and I actually still practice medicine a little bit and I save careers, that’s what I do for successful women. And so I coach high earning women, 1% earning women like me who have thought they’re doing it wrong or they want to quit. All because sometimes to maintain that level of success, we have to sacrifice the rest of our life and that’s just not sustainable. Which is so funny because that’s what brought me to you is I had a really successful life coaching business and it wasn’t sustainable, so I wanted to quit.

I was like a product of exactly what my clients do. And I was like, “I don’t know what to do right now.” And a friend of mine had introduced me. I knew who you were but I didn’t really know who you were really. And so she introduced me to one little video, it was probably a legal move showing me something in the vault. And it was a three minute video on PSPR and I was like, “Done. I’m paying $25,000 for this one video. That sounds ridiculous, but I need it.” And then my life has changed.

And I was telling you before we started. I was shocked that you even followed any of my story, not because any other reason besides I have been really head down in this last year. This is my second round. And I’ve just been really quiet and just my head down. So I’m just really thankful that you even have been monitoring anything that I was doing. So, thank you.

Stacey: Well, listen, I can give you a thought that you can take with you, which is I don’t have to say a lot to be super powerful.

Hala: That is very true. It is very true.

Stacey: Yeah. We haven’t had a ton of conversations, so each ones we have had, but I also feel I know you a little more because we did the before and after video with you. So I also got some of your story there too. And I am that person that if I hear it said directly to me or through a video or a podcast I just take it as you said it to me, so who knows.

Hala: That’s right, I totally forgot I did that and even looking back at those videos, I am such a different person. It’s almost a year and I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

Stacey: So interesting. Well, listen, my perspective being overseeing 200K from even the people I talk to within 200K is you may not be posting a lot and you might be head down and you might feel like you’re not, I don’t know what your words are about it. But people talk about you, you are very present. Yeah, I would take that thought as I don’t have to be in everybody’s face all of the time for them to take away the things I’m saying and for me to be super powerful.

Hala: I love it, especially for everybody listening, I think that there’s a big push, especially for anybody who has an online business that you always have to be in people’s faces and you have to be super top of mind. And this pressure to post on social media and all this other stuff, and so this is a testament that maybe less is more. So I don’t know. Play around with it. I’m not giving you advice in your business, but just play around with it, you never know.

Stacey: Yeah. I love it. So there’s so many pieces of your story that I’m hoping to pull out, but also I know whatever will come out is perfect. Do you want to back up and kind of talk about how you came into coaching? And I know that you are a master community builder, so I would also love to get some of that knowledge out of you and to help my audience selfishly and bring some value here in the episode. And then we can kind of talk about, I have a whole list, hopefully we have enough time. So can we start there?

Hala: Yes, okay. So basically the CliffNotes version is I became a doctor really to lead doctors. My dad was a doctor, he was really burnt out, but in the same breath he’s like, “What medical school are you going to?” I was like, “Why would you want this life for me that you are not happy with?” And he’s [inaudible] immigrant to the United States and I mean we had a good life and everything and he wanted that for me. So I go to medical school, but I do it differently.

I go to medical school and get my MBA at the same time because I’m like, “You know what? I want to run a hospital. I don’t want to just be the doctor. I want to run the hospital too.” So I do that. I’m on track. My CV is super full of everything, that’s going to take up the whole podcast. That’s not important. What is important is even though I am super impressive, I believe that the patriarchy said otherwise.

I had my first baby and on maternity leave I took five weeks off and on maternity leave after this much wanted baby with many years of IVF and losses an opening for the next leadership position opened up. And so the email went out saying, “We’re going to let you guys know in two days what’s going to happen, who’s going to take the spot.” So my thought was, oh my gosh, in two days my name’s going to be all over this email, so awesome.

Literally I’m the only person that wanted that position. And they did not give it to me. They gave it to a man who’s my junior. He’s awesome, I love him. I recruited him to the site. He was my medical student when I was in residency, so I was his teacher at some point. And so he’s awesome, he did a great job, but when I asked why they said, “Well, you just had a baby. Don’t you want to be a good mom?”

Now, the man who was saying this to me had a seven year old at the time. And the person who took that job had a 12 month old. So I said, “Yes, that is true, I want to be a good mom but does that mean that you guys have chosen to be horrible dads? Because if that is the choice then I’m happy with my choice.” Anyways, the relationship actually got really good after that, everything changed at my site, the culture changed.

Something else that changed privately is in my mind, even though things were changing at work, I was like things have to change as a movement. I’m not the only person that’s going through this. So I started a community that started out with 20 friends on Facebook, a Facebook group. And that community right now, it’s almost nine years old and it’s almost 130,000 people.

Anyways, so nine years ago, Facebook groups were kind of new. And they were a little broken, kind of like what they are now because for different reasons, but they were new at the time. At the time, there was a lot of Facebook executives that had family members in the group. So they reached out to me and they were like, “Hey, you’re running this group exactly how we wanted to run this group. How we wanted groups to run really. So can you come to Menlo Park in California?” I mean, I was living in California, “But can you fly up here, and let’s talk?”

And I met with all the executives and the head engineers and everybody. And one of the head executives, and I will never forget it, this is how I got into life coaching, he said. “How are you doing?” And I was like, “The truth?” And he goes, “Yeah.” And I said, “Honestly, I feel like I’m going to make the most fatal error every single day and it’s going to implode everything I built.” And he goes, “Yeah, sounds about right.” And he’s like, “But you’ve been doing it right.”

Stacey: I was literally just thinking that describes the CEO journey exactly.

Hala: Yeah, be like, “I have that thought too.”

Stacey: Couldn’t have said it better, I have that thought all the time. And sometimes you really do, do things that cause things to explode, implode, whatever. And you’re like, “Oh, fun, can’t wait to do that again.”

Hala: Yeah. And you know what, if you have that thought, if you’re listening, it’s not just me or Stacey, if you have that thought, I just want to share and offer a thought with you guys is that is a thought of a successful person. People who do not think that way have not built something big enough to be worried that they’re losing it. So just I want to give you some reassurance there. So anyways, he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, do you have any advice for me?” And he said, “Yeah, two pieces of advice. One, buy this book called The Accidental Leader.”

And then I was like, “Yeah, I’m a good student.” So I’m like, “I’ll read whatever. I’ll do whatever.” And then he’s like, “The second thing is hire a coach.” And I was like, “What the heck is a coach, man? I don’t even know what that is.” And then I went into the shame spiral that I didn’t know what coach was. And so anyways, that’s how I kind of heard about coaching, I knew it was a thing. But it took me years later, I felt like hiring a coach was the sign of basically I just wasn’t good enough. I had flaws.

And also in the medical community, I mean, and I think as women in general, if we go to therapy or if we get a coach which are different, therapy and coaching are different. Or if we go to a psychiatrist or anything like that, if we seek any help, even for weight loss or anything, we are flawed because women are expected in society to be perfect actually, more than perfect. To even just be equal to an average man. So I think for me, I just I went through the same spiral.

Anyways, I finally felt like I was going to break. I was like, “I have to give up something in my life, I either have to give up creating this movement in medicine that I literally went to medical school for or I have to quit being a doctor”, which I actually ended up loving working in the hospital and I still love it. Or I sacrifice my family that I work so hard for. And so whenever you give your brain the ultimatum, it will never have a good choice, ever. And you will always choose something that you’re going to grieve everything else.

And it’s just, it’s not great to live a life of sacrifice, that’s not okay. And I realized that every woman is living that life of sacrifice, especially successful women who have these amazing careers. So anyways I hired a coach, fast forward, fixed my life, loved everything about it. And then people started noticing, because I’m very public. So people started noticing the way I was showing up. The words I was using, the way I was dealing with problems, the hopefulness, everything about me was different.

And so people started noticing and asking, “What are you doing?” Almost like I lost all this weight, which I also did, I lost a lot of weight too. But it was like, what are you doing? They want to know all the things. And in the process, I became more open to a lot of the emails I was getting because I wasn’t so overwhelmed. And some of the emails I was getting was, “Hey, my company is looking to build a community, how do I do it?” So I actually got into consulting. So I didn’t become a coach at first, I became a consultant.

So I started consulting for large companies, helping them build community around their products and services so they don’t have to depend on ads, affiliates or cold leads, and so I started doing that. So think of, I mean, even though it’s not an either or like Peloton for example. I do not work for Peloton, I’m just using them as an example. But for Peloton, they have some ads, but really the community is what grows the community. So it’s like that referral base.

And so I started teaching companies how to do it. I had these amazing consulting gigs. And then one of my biggest consulting gigs in 2019, I was working for a TV show. And I was like, “Wow, there is a lot in here that this could be my next career.” And so in 2019 I decided that I wanted to go full-time consulting. So I was like, “Well, let me learn the coaching tools because I think what I’m really doing is coaching. That’s what I think I’m doing.”

And so that’s how I got into coaching and then it kind of melded into all these women asking me if I could hire them in my business. They were like, “Are you looking for a consultant?” My answer to them was, “Why would you want to work for me? I can teach you how to do this, so you could do it for yourself. “Because one of the things I really believe in is equity for women. And I’m like, “If I’m going to sell anything to women, I want it to be something that creates more independence for them and not just money.” I know that this podcast is a lot about money, obviously it’s in the title of the podcast.

But really equity, power, influence, there’s so much that goes into it. Money is not everything. And so I started coaching. I had a low key coaching practice and then all of a sudden I had more clients and more clients. And then I was making a little over $500,000. And then I realized I burnt out and I had an unsustainable business. And then that’s when my friend, I was at another point where she’s like, “How are you doing?” I felt like it was a rerun of [crosstalk] executive.

And I was like, “I think I’m going to quit.” And she was like, “No, look at this video.” And so then that’s how I found you. And so I think really for me it wasn’t about the money. I know that a lot of people hire you to learn how to make money. I mean, of course, that’s always nice. I’m all about making money, but I think also for me, I wanted to make it in a sustainable fashion. I knew I could make money. It’s just more of how do I do it in a sustainable fashion? And so for me, that’s what my ROI is in 200K.

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so interesting because I actually think that is the most important thing to me, too. I think sometimes people misunderstand and then they think it’s all about the money. But the conversations that my company and I have, especially with my top executives when it comes to our $30 million goal or even a bigger goal of $100 million.

I just sat down and I answered the question for myself, would I rather have $100 million business and the profit that would come with that and work five days a week or a smaller business working three days a week, whatever that number is? And I honestly would rather only make what I can do in three days. For me, I just can’t imagine not having that time with my child. If I were 10 years from now, might be different, 20 years from now, my kid has gone, that might be different.

But as a mom, there are things that money can’t buy. And so I’m like, “We have to, everything that we do, everything we build, it has to be built on sustainability and replacing me for the things I do. And putting me in the things I want to be doing.” I want to be coaching. I want to be selling. Those are really the only two things I ever want to be doing, but it really is important to me for things to be sustainable. And it’s one of the things I’m always challenging when I talk to successful people, they’re always challenging.

They’re like, “Well, I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve never seen it done.” And I think that you just need one person to say, “I did it.” And I’m like, “Well, my mentor did it. She got to 50 million in three days a week. Why can’t it be done?” No one ever thought to do it, and if there’s anyone that ever has to do it, it’s women because we’re holding so many different things that could it be possible? Let’s try, let’s do that. So I’m all about that. I love that.

Hala: I think it’s being done everywhere. I mean, even when I was researching coaching because for me I was like a really skeptical person. I was like, “Coaching, what is this? It sounds fraudulent.” And so when I was researching all this other stuff, I found the statistic. I don’t know where it’s from. But I read it that 40% of CEOs report that they have a coach because it makes their mind more productive.

And I was thinking about it and I was like, “Well, most CEOs are men.” So I do think that there are people doing it. It’s a well-kept secret. And my husband, he’s an executive in an aerospace company. He builds engines for human space flight and he works for Jeff Bezos. And one of the things when he got hired, they handed him a mentor and they handed him a coach. And I was like, “Oh my gosh.”

And then at Facebook, I ended up working for Facebook at some point. And they also offer coaching for all of their employees. And I was like, “This is a thing, just not in medicine.” This is a thing where everybody knows that coaching works and the rest of us are just a little bit behind.

Stacey: Can we just take a second with that thought for everyone listening? Everyone knows that coaching works and we are just the ones that are behind if we haven’t bought into that yet. And I think that so many if you look, the 2K community, it’s the opposite. We think we’re the early people who have bought into something unproven and without a track record, that’s a little bit outside of the norm of society. That’s how I think a lot of my clients feel.

So they’re like, “Is it fraudulent? Is it a cult? Is it dangerous?” They’re trying to overcome that, thinking I’m the innovator, I’m at the top. And I love the idea that, no, we’re the ones behind. If that’s how you’re thinking about it, we’re the ones behind the times, that the most successful people in the world, that is what they’re doing.

Hala: I mean, yeah, are there fraudulent people in successful real businesses? Yeah. Are there cults in that, too? Yeah, everywhere there is that. But most coaching, especially when it’s quality coaching is really effective and most of these industries are using it. And in fact, when I came into your offer into 200K, I didn’t realize I had so many offers because I was coaching businesses. And I was taking these consulting roles. And then I was trying to have one-on-one and then I was trying to move onto group. I was trying to do too many things at once.

And so one of the things I did, the most powerful move I did in 200K and also I kind of became an influencer at this point because I had this really large social media following, and I felt like crap. People would reach out to me and be like, “Hey, do you want to partner with me on selling this course or this product?” And I was like, “Yeah.” Because that’s what influencers should do. And for all of you guys, I see this a lot in 2K or even in 200K, I don’t have a social media following.

I’m going to tell you, I mean, I love my social media following, but at the same time, it’s not the end all. Please don’t think it’s going to be better just because you have 100,000 followers, it’s not. And what ended up happening is, I started getting into this, what should somebody that has a lot of followers on social media do? And I started doing those things and I felt like crap.

And so one of the things I did when I joined 200K is I started realizing the reason why I was feeling like crap is because I don’t want to sell bug spray. I don’t want to sell pants one day and people are like, “What the hell is she selling?” I want to sell independence. That’s what I want to sell. And so I retired before I left Orlando. Well, first of all, I didn’t even know if I wanted a business. So I showed up and I remember thinking, I may not even continue in 200K. I might just come for the live event and then just bounce.

And so I was like, “No, I’m going to stay and I’m going to retire all of my contracts. I’m going to retire all my consulting contracts. I’m going to retire all of my affiliate contracts. I’m going to retire anything that had to do with influencer work.” And I sent an email from my hotel room, and then I went to Disney World. But I sent an email from my hotel room and I said, “I’m retiring all my contracts. This is a 90 day notice. This is not how I’m going to be working in this capacity.”

I don’t know why I put that line there, but some people responded, going, “Oh my gosh, thank you. Good luck on your next journey.” Some people were like, “Well, what are you doing? How are you working with companies then?” And I remember one of the other mastermind, I made one friend because I was so head down into my head, I made one friend, her name is Nikki Kesh, she’s amazing. And we went to Disney World together. And I was like, “Yeah, I don’t know how I want to work with people.” And so we worked on that through every line of Disney World.

And I responded and I said, “I’m working in a capacity where I’ll do high level coaching on building community.” And they said, “Okay, sure, what’s your price?” And I said, “No, I’m going to do it for ownership of your company.” If I want to sell equity and independence to other women, I need to be a product of my work. So I said, “No, I have to own part of your company.” And so they were like, “Okay, how much?” And I was like, “Oh man.”

And so another line, I’m like, “Nikki, what do I say?” And so we’re talking about it. And so, yeah, so now I’m part owner of so many different companies.

Stacey: Can you tell us some of the companies? Would we know them? Just out of curiosity. You had one that I thought, I’m trying to remember what it was, that I was like, “Whoa, that’s cool.”

Hala: I have equity ownership, so I’m on the Advisory Board and I do community building strategy consulting with Fabletics is one of the biggest companies that I’m with.

Stacey: That’s it. That’s the one.

Hala: Yeah, some of the other companies [crosstalk].

Stacey: We have that in our mall, what’s happening, Hala?

Hala: Yeah. No, Fabletic is awesome, so a big plug for them, they’re amazing. And what I love about them, and I get to choose, I get to choose who I get to work with. It’s so beautiful. Their mission is to be a company that really serves everybody at every size and everybody really at every size. And so I’m like, “That’s so inclusive.” And that’s what I want to be. I want to be an inclusive person that empowers really and creates more independence and ownership over your life for everybody. And so I get to do that whether I’m working with Fabletics, which is an amazing company, and they have been so good to me.

There’s other companies I work with that none of you guys will probably know, but it’s okay, and then I get to coach. And so then in that same Orlando meeting I decided I wanted to make a community because all my clients were getting such amazing success. And then when they were getting enough success and they were out of their own head, they were like, “And now I’m lonely. Now there’s nobody else around me that is not just complaining about their job.” You know what I mean? So what do I do now?

And so I built a community called the 1% Women’s Club and really there aren’t any spaces for women that are successful to be like, it’s hard. It’s hard to maintain success. A lot of people think I just need to get successful. And then when you reach that level, whatever that may be, it’s 200K, 400K, a million. It doesn’t really matter what the number is. You think you could relax and what’s really true is that you’re like, “Oh, crap, I have to maintain everything I did to get here.” And you don’t realize you don’t have a break.

And so then you go back to the sustainability aspect and so now we’re in this full circle.

Stacey: That’s so interesting. I am starting to see that for the first time. I’ve had so many different types of business situations that have come through the 2K room, 200K room, Two Million Dollar Group room. But for the first time I’ve been thinking about this a lot, in the last, I don’t know, I would say it’s less than two years, maybe even the last 12 months. I have really started getting people who are maintaining what they made is the problem and that they’re sliding back in revenue for many different reasons. But I’ve been thinking about what are the reasons and I wonder if that’s one of them.

I think when the model isn’t sustainable, it has to break at some point. And typically that’s when you break, when you’re like, “I can’t take anymore.” So now we have to completely reinvent things. And I don’t even know that that’s a problem. It’s just something to solve for in business.

Hala: It’s a good problem to have. I mean, if you’re having that problem that just means you got to a level of success that now you just have to reinvent how you’re going to continue success. It doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong. And I think a lot of people think that there’s just a better way to do it. And I think that’s another thing I want to say and something that I’ve noticed with coaching is that when you get to that point, you’re almost looking for a mentor.

And I think it’s really important to know the difference between a mentor and a coach. And yeah, the same person can be both, I’m not saying that they can’t. But I think I’ve seen people, some personal friends of mine who, whether they’ve hired you or a different coach, they’re like, “I don’t want to work with them anymore because their advice sucked.” And I’m like, “Did you just hear what you said, it’s their advice.” Advice is not coaching. And so just because they would do it one way, whether they would scrap that off or charge this price.

You know how many people tell me to raise my price, I have no interest in raising my price, not because I don’t have the self-concept, not anything like that. But I really want it to be 1% or less of what they make for them to be in the 1% Women’s Club. For me, that’s really important. So for me, I love my reason. And so you know how many people tell me, “Raise your price, just raise your price. You want to make more money, raise your price.” I’m like, “That’s not how I want to make my money.”

Stacey: Yeah, that’s one way to do it, yeah.

Hala: Yeah, and that’s awesome for people who do it that way. I have no problem with that. But I think that’s really important is to not forget, no matter what space you’re in, whether it’s in 2K, 200K or whatever other coaching group you’re in and you’re listening to this, or if you have a consultant like me, it’s advice. At the end of the day, you know what’s right for your business and you just take this as all input.

And I think that’s really important. I think, I don’t know, I think because I came in, I have a thought that I came in a very different person than the typical Stacey Boehman track.

Stacey: That’s why I wanted to have you on though. I think it’s so interesting. I think we, just because it’s been one way, doesn’t have to be, we get all kinds of people and I find it so fascinating. For me, I teach one process that I know, that works the best for the people who come in typically. I think about my 2K people. And I’ve expanded my process as we’ve gotten more and more people. But I am so fascinated to learn all of the different things about business, I find the whole topic fascinating. I love all the different ways.

I don’t teach Facebook Ads but I use them and I’m very interested in learning them. And so I think there’s so many different things, but anyways continue.

Hala: I was going to say, I’ll give an example of this though. When I started 200K, you guys went over the launch. And you guys went over, “This is how many emails that you’re supposed to send?” And of course I go into student mode. For all successful women especially you have multiple degrees in education of some sort.

Stacey: Student mode is the place to be.

Hala: We go into consumption. Let me just consume all this information and then regurgitate it. And so I found myself doing that. I was like, “Okay, let me do this series.” And so I wrote all my emails. I did a webinar and I didn’t like it. And I was like, “But you know what? That’s Stacey’s way and it works for Stacey and it works for so many other people and that’s okay. But how can I make this work?” Of course it works. So how can I take the bones of this? How do I take the bones of this and then make it Hala?

And so then I did and I turned it into a community building launch. But that’s how people know me, because I not only created a community for doctors and I don’t just coach doctors, but I help lawyers do it and I help engineers do it and I help pharmacists do it. And so that’s how people know me in this space. And so I was like, “Why would my marketing all of a sudden be this foreign thing that’s not me, not my brand.” And so that’s what I’m offering all of you guys.

I think that there is a lot of thoughts about if you enter a mastermind all of a sudden you have to do it that way. Or you want to do it that way and then if it doesn’t work, you’re like, “What’s the next mastermind? Now I’m looking for another mastermind?” I’m like, “You can go to so many masterminds, it doesn’t matter where you’re going to go. At the same time you can’t just follow somebody else’s process, you can take it as a suggestion.”

Stacey: Yeah, it’s so good. I also think it’s important, this is my philosophy obviously, but I do think it’s important and it’s become more and more important for me when I’m coaching to tell people. I’ve been more diligent about the difference between when I’m coaching you versus when I’m offering my advice or my opinion.

I love to take it, especially for the business coaches listening, one step even further and say, “Here’s my mentorship advice. Here’s what I would say if you’re asking my opinion. And here’s why. Here’s the knowledge and the experience behind it or here’s the thinking behind it.” Typically my thoughts are always laced with thinking about the buyer and their experience being sold from my pitching days. I just had such visceral feedback from real humans in real time of I don’t like to be sold this way. I do like to be sold this way.

So now it’s ingrained in my head to think about that immediate feedback. And so it’s how I think about everything is what is the client or the buyer’s perspective, and how might they be experiencing this thing that you’re doing? But I do think it’s very different, in a coaching it’s more slowing the conversation down and helping someone examine their brain. And I think it’s, just for everyone listening, especially if you’re a business coach or if you’re someone who teaches, whether it’s weight loss and you teach a process.

There’s teaching the actions that someone does, they’re teaching the thoughts that will help them do the action. And then there is coaching their brain and I think it’s important for us to even know when we’re doing which and for our client to know when they’re doing which. I know for me, I think that’s super helpful is to know the difference.

Hala: Yeah, I think it’s important. I mean, a lot of people entering into the 1% Women’s Club, usually because they’ve seen a transformation I have made. I have lost a lot of weight. I have five kids. I have a career, I have multiple careers, all these things. And so they’re thinking that I’m going to tell them and also my life is perfect. That’s what they think too. Yeah, and so it’s interesting. So they’ll ask questions like, “Hala, how do you deal with family asking you for money or whatever it may be?”

And I was like, “It doesn’t matter how I deal with it. It matters how you want to deal with it.” And so really just changing the conversation and I mean, yeah, exactly, sharing like, “Well, this is what I’ve done.” But at the same time, I am an Egyptian American person that with different norms than I, support a lot of family members and that’s just normal for me. But some people might say like, “No, you have to have strict boundaries and don’t support anybody.”

And so I think it’s really important, and I’ve seen you do this also in the container, this is my advice but this is the coaching I want to give you and I really love that. And I’ve actually borrowed that for my container too because I felt so much pressure. And again, that’s the influencer mindset. You have to be perfect and you live in a fish bowl and then if you mess up, everyone’s going to tell you and really, honestly my niche should be really high profile people that are public.

That’s really what it should be, because I feel like that’s the life that I have been, but yeah, but I think it goes into coaching. And I think all of us, even if you don’t consider yourself high profile and really public, but I think you have that thought especially as life coaches that your life has to be together or else no one is going to have any faith or trust in you. And I feel that not only as an influencer, well, retired influencer, a coach, but also as a doctor. People want doctors to be perfect as well.

I remember before I lost weight, walking into patients’ rooms and being like, “You’re having a heart attack. It’s really important to focus on your health after this.” And I’m like, “Who am I to tell them? I am so many pounds overweight.” So I think your brain is always going to offer that to you and all you have to do is realize it’s not about you, it’s about them. And the more that you coach yourself on your thoughts, the more likely you are going to show up for other people. I don’t know. That was a little tangent, but I just want to say for anybody who really struggles with being seen or…

Stacey: Those are all the things, Hala, we’re very…

Hala: Mentorship and coaching, yeah, because I think when you think of yourself as a mentor, you think yourself you have to be so much further ahead. You have to be further ahead than somebody else and you have to be perfect and you have to have the right answers. And I think that that’s important to just realize that yeah, if you want to be a mentor, and if that’s how you want to mentor then adopt that. I’m not going to tell you not to.

But if you really want to be a coach, I think stop thinking about yourself and think about other people. And using your lived experience, nothing’s gone wrong, use your lived experience to connect with them on wherever they’re at, yeah.

Stacey: It’s so good. Okay, can you give us some tips or things that you know that we should know about community building since you’re such an expert? That’s probably a broad question but when Facebook said, “You’re doing it the way that we want them to run.” What did they mean?

Hala: So I mean I think what they meant by that, I mean because I went in to work with them and stuff like that, is really they wanted people to not only use the process, sign up, but they wanted them to actually use the group. So engagement is really key. So one of the things I want to say, when I talk about community I’m not talking about just Facebook groups. Yes, that’s my way that I did it. But your community could be your email list. Your community could be your following on social media.

Your community could be literally in your neighborhood. It doesn’t really matter. And so I think first step is define what your community is. And there’s no wrong answer.

Stacey: Can I just insert this really quick because I want them to absorb what you say? But I have a feeling they might have the thought, I don’t have a community. And so I think that that’s the same as saying, “I don’t have any clients”, and I’m always saying, “Treat the whole world, treat everyone you meet like they’re your client. If you really want to create clients, treat the whole world as if they already are. It’s the fastest way to get them.” I love what you said about it can be your neighborhood.

Literally it can be every immediate person around you. If you want a big community you’ve got to start seeing the community around you first. So if you have the thought, I have a community now let’s, so that everybody can hear what you’re about to say.

Hala: So yeah, and initially most communities were in person. So this online world is kind of a newer thing, in the last decade. So okay, one is define where is your community and where do you want it to be? Because some people also don’t like that, they’re like, “I’m online, but I don’t want to be online.” So don’t lead where you don’t want to lead. Don’t force yourself to do it. There’s so many ways to be successful. Don’t put that pressure on yourself. So one, define your community. Two, define how you want to build community.

Stacey: But can you tell us more about that? What do you mean by how do you want to build community? For example, are you meaning you didn’t want to be selling bug spray to your community, is that what you mean, how you want to be engaging with them?

Hala: No, even a step back from that, for example, some people are like, “The right way to do it is a Facebook group but I hate being on Facebook.” Or I really want a Facebook group, but you don’t have really good reasons as to why. You just have this idea that it’s going to be a magical unicorn money making machine or whatever it may be. So I think define how you really want to create it.

And really I would say make that decision based off of where you spend the time the most. What do you already like doing? Because then that’s a less of a barrier to actually build community there.

Stacey: Yeah. So I loved Facebook Lives, that was my thing. I never liked Facebook groups, but I was so good at Facebook Lives. It felt like I was just doing what I did in Walmart in the Facebook marketplace. It just felt so natural and easy to me. But I always tell my people, I think I went live the day that they launched it. So I was also at the top of that current technology. But I’m like, “Don’t just decide that’s the way, Stacey did Facebook Lives so I have to do Facebook Lives.”

I have a friend and a colleague who makes $30 million and she doesn’t have a podcast. She has no podcast. She doesn’t run ads. Those are the two major things that bring in my clients are ads and podcasts, but I really love to do my podcast. So I think that’s really good. That’s really good advice.

Hala: Yeah. So for example I cannot for the life of me get into Instagram, I just can’t. And every time I go on Instagram because somebody sends me a reel there or something like that.

Stacey: [Crosstalk] TikTok, I’m like what’s happening here.

Hala: I mean, I like to consume some information maybe on Instagram, but at the same time I don’t like being there. But then sometimes when I’m on there, I have a thought. I’m like, I should. I have, I don’t know, I have 6,000 followers on Instagram. I don’t even know how. But I will say then, I’m like, “You know what? That’s 6,000, that’s close to 20.” In my mind that’s math. And so I’m like, “I should just put some time here.”

And I’m like, “Who am I kidding? I don’t even like being on there myself, so why would I build my community there?” So yeah, so build a community where you want to be because the last thing you want to be is forcing yourself to go there and then I think really understand how you want to engage with people. And one of the things that you said in one of your live meetings, I think it was in Cabo, so this is my second round with Stacey. So I did Orlando and Cabo and you said something that was so powerful and it was just a really little sentence.

And you’re like, “Consistency creates safety for your people.” And so I was like, “You know what, that’s the same for community. Consistency creates safety.” So that does not mean you have to be posting every day, does not mean you need to buffer and be on social media or wherever you are for 30 minutes every single day. That does not mean. It means really what are you consistent with? And what I interpret that as is what are your values? And a lot of people don’t know what their values are. They’ll say things like, “My family, my career.” Those are not values.

Those are ways, those are avenues that you exercise your values. So for example my values are knowledge, innovation, love and inspiration. And so if I stay true to my values, who I am and how I make decisions at my core and I’m consistent with that, that is what creates safety for the people who are following me. I’m not randomly talking about, I don’t know, whatever, bug spray.

Stacey: Well, almost, it’s constraint and consistency. Constraint is staying consistent with your values and then consistency is, this was just so transformational to me because I know so many people who do it different. But Brooke told me once that she, this was a long time ago, but how she had never missed a single Thursday ever. Every, I don’t know if it’s 6:00am, but every Thursday at 6:00am, her podcast goes live, now 400 something episodes. And she’s like, “So people know on Thursday they have that consistency of they can come and they know I’m going to be there to meet them.”

And I remember hearing that and that’s something that I’ve gotten a lot of feedback with is my consistency on my podcast. And sometimes I have to be creative to be that consistent. I heard that, it stuck with me, but it’s not about, I don’t do that for sales. The decision is someone’s waiting for that episode to drop. People are waiting for that. They plan their, maybe their day around it. Maybe they’re like, “It’s Wednesday.” Ours come out on Wednesday.” It’s Wednesday, and I’m going, this is my listen to Stacey in the shower or listen to Stacey on the way to work or whatever.

And it’s always so fascinating because we post really early I think in the day snippet. And it’s fascinating to me when people have commented that they’ve already listened. And that says, they’re waiting. That’s maybe a thought that people can take is to just think they’re waiting and they’re expecting a message that aligns with what they’re typically hearing from you or that they think you’re about that are to listen for, which I think is even at the Two Million Dollar Group level, like I’m always telling them, “Don’t try that.”

Which is I think the same as when you think you need to be on Instagram a lot or all of the platforms. If I want to scale to $1 million, I’ve got to be on all the platforms everywhere. And then I’ve got to just be engaging people with all of the topics, especially the current trending ones. I’ve got to join every conversation happening in the social realms. And I’m like, “No, think about your person, think about them just waiting for you to show up whenever you decide, you get to make the rule. It can be every day or it can be once a week.

And then what do they typically expect to hear from you?” I think it would be, I share some things, my own personal things and struggles, but typically people expect to hear something in the realms of making money as a life coach when they tune in. And the further you go from that thing, the less safety they can experience or any version of that word, the less connection could be a different word.

That was the word that we used when I was pitching all the time was “Your only job was to connect to people at the end of the day, wherever store, whoever it was, find connection. And if you find that, that’s all you need.” So it’s whether it’s safety or connection, whatever word is tangible for everyone listening. That’s what you’re thinking about, is they’re waiting to connect and feel safe with you every single week and know you’re there for them. And that is so huge for them coming back week after week or day after day.

Hala: Yeah. And so it’s the cadence of how you show up or what you’re saying. And I’m not saying be boring and vanilla and say the same thing over and over again.

Stacey: Exactly. That’s also not what I’m saying, which is what people might hear.

Hala: Yeah, I’m not saying niche down on your content. I’m not saying that at all. I think be a dynamic person, show them your whole self. But also don’t be so shocking. For example, I don’t know why I keep saying bug spray, I have never sold bug spray. But that would not be checking off any of the boxes of my values. Bug spray is not inspiring, it’s not loving. I mean, I guess it could be loving for your body, but it doesn’t really check that off. So I just signed a contract to become an equity owner of a financial literacy company.

Stacey: Oh, so fun.

Hala: Yeah. So that makes sense. So that makes sense. I want women not only to be independent, but also to have more equity, more money and more power, because that’s what really makes the world go around is having this money. And so that makes sense. And so, but I’ve already developed my messaging. Everybody knows my values. I say this all the time. This is not a surprise to anybody. So when I say, when I announce, which hopefully by the time this podcast comes out, I’ll announce that I signed this contract with this company.

My people who follow my content are not going to be shocked. They’re going to be like, “That makes so much sense that Hala is doing that, Hala is in that space.” In fact, people think I’m in spaces I’m not. They’ve messaged me asking me to message really amazing people but because they think that I’m connected to them. In their brain I should be at that same level. So going back to my advice to all of you is decide really what do you want to be consistent with. That does not mean that there’s no variability. This is not like a restrictive diet of any sort. I don’t even believe in that.

But this is just about understanding what your core is. And that’s the work that you could do in coaching with your coach, whoever’s listening is who are you and connect to yourself first. You will be limited in how much you can connect with anybody else in your life, whether it’s online or not if you are not connected to yourself. You will not have the capacity for that. So connect with yourself, know who you are and then just show up as you are.

And then the last thing I will say is know the rules of the game, every platform and I mean I know algorithms very well. This is why I get paid a lot of money to do what I do for companies. But know the name of the game. In the beginning it’s going to be playing the game, for example, on Facebook there’s certain things that make your content be viewed a little bit faster and a little bit more, gain more following in the beginning.

Stacey: Like what, can you tell?

Hala: For example, I’m trying to think of what I can tell you guys. I’ve signed so many NDAs in my career. So I just want to make sure I’m not going to get in trouble.

Speaker: Well, you can tell us.

Hala: But I’ll give you an example, I’ll give you an example. So Facebook and most platforms, this is not a secret. The way that they make their money is by selling ads. And you’re more likely to see an ad if you are on the platform, especially if you’re on the platform for a long time.

Stacey: Oh, interesting, okay, that’s a good one.

Hala: So whatever is going to make people engage with your content longer is good for the platform because they are on there longer. So for example, the longer I am on TikTok, I spend a lot of time buffering on TikTok, I love it. It’s so funny, I started creating content there and I got, I don’t know, 35,000 followers just off a couple of videos. And I was like, “No, this is not where I want to be.” I became more of a consumer.

But I cannot tell you how much stuff I’ve bought on TikTok just because I’m on there a lot. The psychology works. If you’re on there a lot you’re more than willing to buy something.

Stacey: I bought a ton of stuff off Instagram. I don’t spend any time on Facebook, but Instagram to me feels like my personal shopping concierge.

Hala: Yeah. And they will keep showing you and they’re learning about you and they will manipulate that data to keep showing you more stuff.

Stacey: Yeah. But I love it, I love it. I’m like, “Yes, learn me more. Show me more things. This is saving me so much time.”

Hala: So yeah, you have to understand, it’s the rules, the algorithm of what works. And so for example, if you have content that they’re engaging with more, for example, let’s say a Facebook live then maybe the algorithm will reward you with more people seeing that. And so it’s really important to understand that and you could figure out the algorithm on your own. You guys are all so smart by playing around with it, what got engagement? And so also understand how to analyze engagement, I think that’s really important.

There’s a lot of people that are in this space that do engagement analytics. I mean I know how to do it. I don’t have a product to sell to anybody to do that, but I will say just play around. For example on Facebook groups, I’m just since I’m Facebook group centric. You can look at your analytics that they give you or you can always download some kind of widget that does it for you, whatever it may be. But they give it to you because they want you to create more content. You are helping them sell something on the internet, think about that.

And so you can look and see what your engagement is. So you can see how many people saw what you’re doing, how many people actually clicked on what you’re doing. If you’re on a Facebook Live, how many people watched it for how long and things like that. If you’re in a group, you can see how many members in your group are active. I get this a lot, a lot of people, especially in 200K I’ve helped some people go like, “I have a Facebook group, it’s not working. I’m going to shut it down.” And I’m like, “Wait. Let me just look at your analytics for a second.”

Stacey: I love that you guys do that, you and Claire, just this is to me the value of a mastermind. The coaching is great. All of the other things are great but what I want to be in a mastermind for I feel like is the people like this, this exact thing

Hala: I feel like Claire and I should have a business together of how to create a community through ads and not through ads. I really think that, that’s exactly, maybe I should pitch Claire that on the next time I see her.

Stacey: Do it.

Hala: But yeah, and so I’ll look at their analytics. I’m like, “You realize 80% of your people are engaging.” And then we talk about what does engagement mean and what are you expecting and what’s the feedback. And it’s a lot of coaching in that moment, literally this is the best news. If anybody is really good at this, there’s so many people who will hire you for it. I just now do it for $1 million companies plus, for equity and cash.

Stacey: Just on the side for equity cash, no big deal.

Hala: I mean, I had to learn, really where do I really want to thrive in that space? Do you know what I mean?

Stacey: Yeah.

Hala: But yeah, this is a really, really big industry. So I will say that it works. If you don’t think it works, think about all these big companies that are hiring people like me because they know it works, just like coaching works, internet works, community building in person works. And you know what? It’s not one way. I was just having this conversation actually with one of the companies I work with. And I was saying, “Hey, life is not all online, nobody just lives online. We’re dynamic people.”

And so I’m creating a campaign with them to do in person stuff too. That accents the things that they do online, and vice versa. And so just know, whatever way that you create community, there’s going to be multiple avenues to that, but just start with one and make it easy for yourself, build it. Look at the engagement, see what works.

Kind of like what you say, I’m going to totally mess up what your advice was. But in the beginning just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell and don’t build a process until you’ve coached so many people because you don’t even know what your process is. So same thing, you don’t even know what your engagement method is going to be. So just keep trying things whether it’s a Facebook Live, a picture, a video, whatever content, just try it all and see what happens and try it and give it time.

I also want to say, building community is a long game. I see this lot, people will be like, “I built a group of some sort or I have an email list and after three months, I haven’t signed a client.” And I’m like, “Yeah.” Every time I write a post, I think a thought that I’m creating my client in three years. And the reason why I think that is I had done this, when I signed up for 200K I watched the first video. I’m like a one video girl. I’ll watch one video and I’ll run with it.

It was like your onboarding video and it was, “Do not change a thing in your offer, just go make $25,000 back.” Because you want to secure that they’ve made their investment back. So I was like, “Okay, I could do that.” And so I went online and I don’t do free consults. I charge for my consults.

Stacey: Totally there with me, but yes.

Hala: So I decided to break my own rule because I was like, “I have to make $25,000 back because I need that gold star from Stacey.” And so student mindset. And mind you, I shut down my business. I shut down my business for a year. I wasn’t taking any new clients unless it was a referral or anything like that because I was so burnt out. And I also was going through some health stuff and some of that.

So anyways, I posted online and I had this thought that everybody forgot that I coach or I forgot that I coach, I don’t know, both of us, everybody forgot. And so I posted online saying something like, “Okay, I’m going to take new clients.” And I had posted something about whatever was going on in my life and I got 82 consults.

Stacey: What? Oh, my gosh.

Hala: 82 consults, and a friend of mine, I have another coach friend who has a multimillion dollar business. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I have 82 consults.” And she goes, “Cancel them, that’s so crazy.” I was like, “No, it’s a contract.” I said that I would do this for free. And I decided that I was going to sign five people because at that time I was doing one-on-one coaching for $5,000 for 12 sessions. I’m going to sign five people so I can make the $25,000 back and then I’m going to take the rest as a focus group.

And I’m going to take all the learning of all those other consults and create my 1% Women’s Club from that. And so there was ROI in every single meeting. I showed up for every single one and almost everybody showed up for their consult.

Stacey: [Crosstalk], that’s so great.

Hala: Yeah. I was like, “This is building community. I’m just going to meet a whole bunch of people and talk to them and hear their thoughts and share my thoughts and have fun with it.” And there’s no pressure. One thing I don’t do, and you’re probably going to think this is crazy, but I purposely do not coach on objections.

Stacey: I don’t think it’s crazy at all.

Hala: I do not convince people, if they say they don’t have the money, that’s fine. I’m going to live in their head. I’m just going to keep serving them. I’m going to live in their head and eventually when they’re ready, and if they’re not ready, that’s fine. It’s fine. I really want this low pressure business. We already have enough pressure in our life. The last thing we need is pressure on that consult. So for me, I don’t do it. I don’t do it because it’s pressure for me, pressure for them.

Honestly, my best clients are never from objections, it just never happens for me in my business, that’s unique to me.

Stacey: Yeah, I love that. Listen, I love that. The perspective I come from is that I was once someone who had objections. I had lots of money objections and I was so grateful when people fought for me.

Hala: Me too.

Stacey: And helped me see it differently, but I think you can get to a space in your mind in your life because I’m in that place now. I tell people, I said it on stage, I think last time. I’m like, “If you’re spending time coaching yourself about me in the room, don’t [crosstalk]. It’s not a good use of your time.” Not that you just should never coach yourself about me, but just check in with any coach you ever hire. Because I’ve been in that situation too where I thought like, I’ve got to stay, I have to stay. This is the only mentor I’ll ever have.

And it caused me to spend more of my time coaching myself on my mentor than on my business. And when I finally was like, “Wait, maybe something’s off here. We can just go find someone that doesn’t require that amount of energy.” For me, it was totally my thoughts. It wasn’t them at all, 100% I had some crazy thoughts. But it just didn’t serve me. It’s almost like when you punish yourself by relaunching or having to launch more than you planned because you didn’t hit your number. And then it’s like a punch, I have to work more.

It’s the same thing, I felt I had to keep coaching myself to get to this Zen place, enlightened place where I don’t have thoughts about my coach or it was almost like how you felt about hiring a coach in the first place. Where we think, I have these negative thoughts and I knew they were mine and it’s shameful and I’m wrong. And so I’ve got to just get, I’ve got to figure it out, I’ve got to get clean and then I was like, “Wait.”

Or this is another great example, if someone on social media is triggering you. Yes, you could coach yourself for weeks and months on this person that triggers you or you could just unfollow them. Of all the things you need to work on, manage the priorities of which one you’re going to do and definitely don’t let it be coaching yourself on thoughts. Anyways, that was a tangent but really boil down what are the more important things to focus on.

Hala: Yeah. And know it’s a long game. I mean, I used to be that person on social media when I thought influencers should do this is I would look for unethical people and people I didn’t like. And not really cancel them or call them out but almost create my content based off of opposite of what they’re doing. That’s so much wasted energy. Why do I even care? And I actually had a situation where I hired somebody for a mastermind before I was in this mastermind and I had a lot of thoughts.

There was something that she said to me and it didn’t sit well with me and man, I got coaching on that so much. And then I was triggered by everything that she was posting. And I was like, “It’s not her.” I mean, look, she’s awesome. She’s successful. A lot of people like her. I like her as a person, but I’m not going to spend my time building my business anti how she’s building it because I don’t like how she treated me or whatever. I didn’t like my experience. I’m just going to let it go.

And so I will say going back to what I was saying earlier is it’s a long game. And really, just focus on yourself, one of the things I tell my clients, whether it’s businesses or in my 1% Women’s Club, is when you look at horse races and I know that you recently went to the Derby. They put these eye shields on horses. And the reason why they do that in races is because of a couple of different reasons. One is they don’t want the horses looking at each other because it’s like a compare and despair, what are they doing? So if the other horse next to them is slowing down, they’re going to start slowing down.

Stacey: I did not know that. Interesting, okay.

Hala: I teach for the first five minutes of every single call and I find these amazing topics and this is one of the topics I said. So we were talking about horses and why they have their eyes covered. And so, yeah, so they’ll pace whoever is next to them. So you don’t want that. You want them to just have their eyes on the finish line.

The second thing that might happen is that they might see somebody in the audience and get distracted or get spooked. If that happens, if you’re sitting there posting and worrying about all the haters that might be there. There’s a difference between, I want to say this, this has been a really hot topic, but there’s a difference between haters and criticism, a huge difference.

Stacey: Yes. What do you think the difference is? I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’m curious what your thoughts are.

Hala: If you believe what they’re saying. Now, if you believe what they’re saying and you take their words. I’ll give an example. If someone said to me, “Hala, you really suck at basketball.” I would be like “Yeah, I do.” Because one, I don’t play basketball and I’m five one. And so I would have no attached thoughts and feelings to it. But if someone said, “Hala, you’re a bad doctor or you’re a bad mom or you’re a horrible coach”, whatever it may be.

Your brain is trying to triage how true that is, and you know what’s going to happen is your brain is going to offer you all the ways that it could be true.

Stacey: Let me just make sure I understand. So if you don’t believe them.

Hala: Well, if you don’t believe them you’re …

Stacey: If you believe them it’s criticism or is it the opposite?

Hala: I think it could be both. .So people could have criticism and be haters. It could be both. But it’s more of how you receive the content. It’s not about them.

Stacey: Wait, so let me just make sure I understand. So if you receive it as hate it’s that you agree or you don’t agree?

Hala: Well, you have to decide. You have to decide. We spend so much time labeling those people like they’re haters. Who cares, who cares how they show up? It does not matter because people in life are going to criticize you. And whatever their thoughts, feelings and actions are, they’re going to show up and they’re going to say words. It’s up to you to decide how you want to take those words.

So if someone says, for example, I’m giving these basic examples but say they say, “You’re horrible at basketball.” I’m like, “Yeah, I have no attachment to that statement.” I’m like, “Yeah, I am horrible.” But if they say something that really hits a nerve with me because I kind of believe it or maybe it was part of my story, for example, you’ve made mistakes as a doctor. Yeah, I have. And it’s going to hit me to my core and be like, “Oh, my God, does that make me a bad doctor and oh my gosh and this and that.”

And you go into the spiral, and then you get to choose how you show up. Do you show up being like, “Oh, they’re haters”, because you’re resisting, just owning the part that you feel is true? Or do you have to do a lot of coaching and be like, “Yeah, you know what? It’s okay that doctors make mistakes. Every doctor’s made a mistake.” It’s all the coaching on you and I see this a lot.

Stacey: Yeah, so good.

Hala: And I see this a lot in 200K, you’ll have, in my small group, people that don’t know, you have a big group and you have a small group. And so you meet with your small group every month. And there was somebody in our small group who I loved dearly and she was getting some negative feedback from some of her previous clients. And so I asked her, I was like, “Well, how is that true?”

Stacey: Did she not think it was true?

Hala: I don’t think she even gave herself that option. I think she was just in fight or flight, oh my God, people are saying things that are bad about me. And so she was like, “Yeah, I kind of messed up.” And I was like, “Then own your mistake, just own it and move on. And you know what? You get to choose, do you want to apologize to people? And don’t spend all your time just being in this repenting mode but do you really want to truly apologize and then just move on?”

And really, honestly, I think apology is an action. It’s not only what you say, but it’s what you do next. We’re all going to mess up. We are all going to freaking mess up. And as a community leader you are destined, you will mess up.

Stacey: So good. So this has come full circle to that feeling as a CEO. I don’t know how you said it, it was just perfect. It was exactly, at any given moment I feel like I could do something and everything will implode.

Hala: Yeah. And implode. Yeah.

Stacey: I do think that that is what keeps people from building community is the visibility, the fear that more people see them, the more people who will have opinions. And the more times, I call it stepping into shit. I’m very crude. But the more times that you’ll do stuff that will rile people up. And this is such a thing of being able to just still show up even regardless, regardless of if you make mistakes or people just don’t agree with you or they have different business values. Back to the coach that you had worked with that you disagreed with or whatever.

I mean, life is just literally we’re living a life of contrast. So there’s going to be so much of that on all the sides. So being able to just keep going and keep coming back to your vision and your truth and being there.

Hala: Yeah. And even if you don’t want to take it so personally, and even not use the coach examples. Even look at these big examples like the airline industry, when Southwest had the big mess up with their, I don’t know all about Southwest, I don’t fly them. But they had this thing where they canceled thousands and thousands of flights and everybody was pissed. And people were posting on TikTok, “I’m in the airport for 50 hours”, and all this sort of stuff, right. Think about that ultimate criticism and hate and all that stuff.

And the CEO came out and said, “Hey, yeah, we messed up. Let me tell you how this happened. And let me tell you what we’re going to do next.” And I think everybody just wants a plan and they want to know that everybody’s being held accountable and that you hear and see them. Now, I’m not saying that every person who gives you criticism, the platform that you see and hear them. I’m not saying that. But see and hear your own thoughts.

And so going back, community building, online, in person, whatever it may be, is a long game. And like I said before, every time I post, I think about who’s going to sign me in three years because when I was doing consults, every single person that signs with me, literally, I do not know why. They are like, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve been thinking about reaching out for three years.”

Stacey: I get that a lot, too. That’s so weird that you say that, it’s so good.

Hala: And I’m like, “People just need time.” It took me five years to hire a coach. And so I think that there’s no rush in coaching. I mean, yes, there’s urgency, but there’s not emergency. And my life is full of emergencies because that’s where I work in an emergency department. And so I always have to triage really, is this just urgency and let them sit with their emotions, let them get to a state where I can meet them where they’re at or is everything going to be super resistant? So be consistent with yourself, know it’s a long game.

It’s not going to be something you’re going to build something online and all of a sudden you’re going to make millions of dollars. It does not matter what someone’s selling you that that’s how it works. I’ve seen lots of coaches and Facebook group pop up things that are like, “Make this much money from zero. You don’t have anybody in your community, and we’re going to make sure that you have a 30K month.” And I’m like, “Really? Okay.”

Stacey: I always find always that interesting when I see a seven day challenge to make 100K. I think that’s being a little bit exaggerating. But I see a lot of them that are really short times and it’s really big amounts of money. And just from experience, I’m like, “I’m always interested in that, I should join one, one time just to see.”

Hala: I join them all the time. This is calculating.

Stacey: Are you not, are you delivering on that though, is that actually happening? I haven’t seen the miracle juice work like that ever for anyone. Does it not matter? Does it not matter that it doesn’t work? I don’t know. I’m always very interested in that.

Hala: I don’t know.

Stacey: But here’s what I will say. I do think it’s a long game for sure. And so I love the three year plan. For me I like to do everything long game. I like to think of everything. And I always tell people, “If I’m not on track, I just give myself more time.” I never feel in such a hurry, that it can’t be, I’m going to do this work now for three years from now. That’s our work is to be whatever we think we have to. No, but I have to have it now, Hala. No. You have to find sufficiency now.

Any time you think I have to have money now, what you really need to say to yourself is, “I have to be okay now. I have to find okay-ness now.” And that’s me saying that when I built my business with a negative bank account. Looking at my account, not having food to buy, to eat that day. Not having money to buy lunch and looking at a negative account and thinking how can I be okay right now? How can I find okay-ness? But I think it’s so important to be able to give yourself that extra time.

And I just want to say this caveat because I’m always thinking, what might people misunderstand or take in a really all or nothing way? And what Hala is not saying and what I’m not saying is that you won’t make any money along the way. You will make money as you go. But you’re going to make more money faster if you’re willing for it to take longer. If you’re understanding, there are going be so many people that you will meet, you’ll tell them who you are.

I remember my coach, the first coach I ever hired. I met her in a grocery store, but 30 minutes later I’m like, “How do I hire you?” So that does happen and also I cannot tell you how many times people have said, “I’ve been following you for three years and I’m just now buying.” So it’s so helpful to know that, to be willing to do the work. Imagine if your destination was in three years you wanted to have a community that fuels the business that will provide for the lifestyle that you want.

And are you willing to take enough actions now to realize that three years from now? Can you take enough consistent action now that will, without it needing to produce what you think will be three years right now? I think that’s what people do is they’re like, “If I want to make 100K three years from now, that 100K needs to be here now to prove to me that it’s working.”

Hala: Yeah. And the other thing I want to say is do not compare your community to other people’s communities. I see this a lot, especially in my world where say another physician wants to build a community and then they reach out to me and they’re like, “It’s not working. It’s not working.” You have so many people and you have so much engagement.” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve been at this for nine years.” And still, everything could implode any day. But I think, for example, the 1% Women’s Club that I have created is a new community.

And also I’m trying to make it diverse where it’s not just doctors. I mean, I love my doctors and so obviously join if you’re a doctor but I want it to be a diverse community because what I realized after I helped to build a community for so many different industries, that we all have the same thoughts. It’s just different circumstance of where we work. And so I’ve really been thinking about that and feeling the same struggles that I’m telling you guys about like, gosh, it’s not working fast enough. Is it really working at all and things like that.

And so two days ago I just got a text message from somebody who’s never hired me. She’s asked me for lots of advice and given her all the advice and I’ve been loving on her because she’s going to hire me in three years I think but it’s okay.

Stacey: So good.

Hala: And so she messaged me and she was like, “Hey, I was just talking to so and so who”, I don’t know this other person that she’s talking about, but I know that she’s a celebrity, I know her name. And she was like, “I was just talking with so and so and we were just commiserating on x, y, z. And I was telling her that she should hire you.” And mind you, I don’t know if this person is ever going to hire me. I don’t know if she’s going to come into my world. But I remember messaging another 200Ker that I’m friends with and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this just happened.”

I didn’t share the name of the celebrity, anything like that. And I said, “Look, she may never reach out to me or hire me and that’s okay but I’m in their head that I’m at that level that I coach these 1% women.” And so for me, I was like, “It’s working, the community I’m building, it’s working.” And so it’s not about the money. And I know that, I listen to your podcast and I know that a lot of people get on here and they talk about this huge transformation as far as money.

Before I came into Stacey’s world, I was making x number of dollars and now I’m making this much money. And I haven’t shared my money yet, and I will share because I believe in transparency. I think that’s a really big thing and it’s inspiring for everybody else, but I came in, before I shut down my business off of coaching I was making $542,000. That’s what I made. And it was not sustainable. And then I hired Stacey and in the last 12 months, I have made 440,000. So I can look at that as a loss of $100,000.

And I can look at that as, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that I hired Stacey and I lost all this money and I paid her $50,000. I could do that. But I want to say that I made that money and my business feels light, it feels fun, it feels sustainable. And as I’m building this new community, allows me to have the capacity to build the new community where my name is being floated in these celebrity circles. And so I look at all of the return on my investment, but it has to make sense for you.

It makes sense for me to invest x number of dollars. I was already making x number of dollars and I can make money quickly. I have no problem making money, it’s more of what do I do with it and what do I manage now? And I know I’ve only raised my hand one time in a year to get coached by you, and it was on this exact subject. Okay, now what do I do with all this money and how do I create more of it? How do I not blow it at this point? How do I not blow, not the money, but how do I not blow the process?

Because really it’s about constraint. It’s about consistency. Everything I’m telling you guys to do with your community, I am learning how to do it as a CEO. And so just know that we’re all in it together. And I think community, I don’t ever see a lot of podcasts on community. I didn’t know what we were going to focus on today, I had no idea.

Stacey: If you ever want to create one. I don’t know if you have one, but you should definitely do one on community.

Hala: I know. I don’t have a podcast yet. That was supposed to be my essential for this round, but I pushed it off.

Stacey: Well, maybe it’s the 1% community.

Hala: Yeah, the 1% community. We’ll see, yeah, when I have the capacity to be consistent with it and engage and know exactly how I want to do all the things I’m telling you guys.

Stacey: Yeah. Okay, listen, what you just said is so huge. This is how you create a sustainable business is you have the ability to see things you want to create in the future and you don’t pounce on them right away. You’re like, when I have capacity. I was going to say manpower, I was like, well, whenever I have the capacity, I’ll add that in. That’s such a good filter. That’s how I filter basically everything, I’m like, “Great idea. Do we have the capacity?” That’s what I love to filter.

You’re showing me a side of my 200K marketing that I feel is missing or could be better or more bigger because I do say all the time, “I don’t know in the industry, in the world, people don’t necessarily equate creating time freedom as much of an ROI as money freedom.” And I do think in 200K, we focus so much on the money, but I’m always telling my students. I had a couple of girls years ago, they were making $300,000 and $400,000, working 25 hours a week.

We got them into selling group programs and group offers and they were working two hours a week making the same amount of money. And they told themselves they were failures and it didn’t work and it was so terrible and blah, blah, blah. And it was so painful for them. And I was so baffled because I was like, “Wait a minute, you just got back 18 hours of your life and you’re making the same amount of money. That’s not just a little bit of growth. That’s monumental growth, that’s a monumental step.”

I know that you also know that, but for everybody listening I do think it’s interesting to think about what’s my time worth? And when you go into any mastermind, whether it’s 200K, Two Million Dollar Group or anybody else’s, you have to know, am I seeking a financial return? Are my business decisions within that container aligned with that or am I seeking time growth and then are my decisions aligned with that?

And it could be both, but just knowing that, am I seeking time or more money because there is a difference in the decisions you make and the strategy and the mindset, all of that matters to get you to that end result.

Hala: I think, at least for women, I mean, I’m very women centric, but I think that there is this thought that we’ve been socialized to believe because of the patriarchy. That for us to be valuable or to even celebrate our success it has to be very, very productive. And sometimes we think that productive equals time. There’s a difference between busy and being productive and I think also being productive is not just about money. And I love that you brought up talking about the non-monetary goals because that’s what I’m here for.

I don’t hire you, I don’t stay in the container for money goals. I mean, even though that’s a byproduct. I view that as a byproduct of all of the work I’m doing in a sustainable fashion. How am I showing up? Am I frazzled? Am I starting fights with my husband because I’m so nervous about my business or building community? I have five kids, am I going to their games? Am I stuck to my phone or am I able to actually be present with them? I didn’t work so hard to have these kids …

Stacey: Am I taking my laptop on vacation? That’s a big one. With the intention of working, I mean I still take it to have it, but am I going to have to, I remember being in a hotel on vacation with my husband and being like, “Sorry, I have to send two more emails out for this launch. I didn’t get it done.” I’ve been in that place and I do think there’s something to be said about freedom of not having to work or be launching while you’re on vacation.

Hala: Don’t get consumed by your business. And I mean, I think going full circle, that’s the 1% Women’s Club for you is not getting consumed by your career. And so it’s easy to get consumed by what makes money because ultimately money is what makes the world go round and you need money to live. But at the same time, it’s not worth it if you can’t actually live your life. If you can’t live your life making the money that you make, it doesn’t matter if it’s $30,000, it doesn’t matter if it’s $1 million. If you’re not living your life, then why are you even doing any of it? It’s not worth it.

Stacey: So good. Okay, I feel like you shared so much and I’m so, so grateful. I think everyone that listens is just going to get a lot out of this, so I appreciate your time. I just wanted to tell you that. It is mighty valuable, so I’m very grateful. What I want to ask you is if you think there’s just anything, I know you didn’t know what we might be talking about on the episode but is there anything that you think we’ve missed or that you wanted to share with my audience just to kind of be thinking about that? But the thing that I will say, everything you said was so valuable.

So something else around community that I think could be important is that your community might be silent before they’re engaged. So they might be like what you just said about the story about how people are thinking about you right now. That girl might not have reached out yet, but she might be thinking about you. So there’s so many people that are watching and they might watch for a while before they ever comment. And I do think once one person does and another person does, people engaging creates safety for more engagement, but it doesn’t mean that people aren’t engaging.

I always tell people, “Go look at my Instagram when we do a 200K launch.” You might see six or eight comments, but we make millions of dollars. So people are watching, they’re engaging, but they’re just not engaging in that platform. It’s not my top platform. It’s not where I spend the most time in my community, but even so, they’re silently engaging because it’s a lot, I don’t engage a lot on things I see and people I follow. We’re just successful women and men out there busy working so we see and we might not comment before we move on.

So it doesn’t have to mean that my income is dependent on my engagement, know as you are, especially, if you’re starting to build a community, they just might be silent for a while before they’re engaged. It doesn’t mean that they’re not following. I recommend the episode on signing clients out of nowhere, it seems like it’s out of nowhere, but it’s not. They’re silent engagers and you have way more than you know in any given moment.

Hala: Yeah. And I will say that almost every single client that I have or have had, has never engaged with my content.

Stacey: That’s so good.

Hala: I’m going to say it again. Every single person that has paid me dollars has not engaged with my content. So then why is engagement important? So I think engagement is important for the same reason that Facebook or any social media following or social media platform things, engagement is important, the more that someone sees your content, the more that it is shown to them the likelihood that they’re going to buy it. And so I love the engagement, whether it’s good or bad engagement. You have to think about that.

Even someone who’s hating on your content and I see a lot of people do this, they’ll delete comments on posts. And again, it’s a personal decision, you guys get to decide, especially if it’s on an ad that you have or a pitch that you have. For example, we wouldn’t have, if you went on a freeway and someone’s graffitiing an ad, we would just take it off and we’d put the new ad up.

Stacey: That’s so interesting. I have the opposite thoughts. I’ll have to think about that, for me, it’s totally fine to hate all my paid stuff, I have zero tolerance for my free stuff. That’s my give back space. So isn’t that so interesting? I’ll sit and mull that over but like people comment on my paid shit all the time and say the craziest stuff. I don’t care.

Hala: You get to decide.

Stacey: At this point I’m like, “It’s a business. I’m selling you something.” People get to heckle me at my shows, this is in my pitching. If people would heckle me in my show, no problem. But if you say something crazy to me on my free time, I’m going to clap back.

Hala: And those are the rules of engagement that work for you. And this is why community building isn’t a cookie cutter. This is why you can’t hire somebody that has a program that everyone’s going to be doing the same exact thing for community building because it doesn’t work. I mean, this is why these companies hire me. It’s because it’s like a concierge service of someone who really understands their values and their goals and the mindset of their clients and to bridge that gap through community.

And so I will say that everybody that’s in my group, I mean I just had somebody message me today. I just started a group this week, my new group this week, and she was like, “Hey, can I still join?” And I’m going to love on her. She was like, “I’m sorry, I was operating yesterday.” And so I was like, “It’s okay, that’s fine, we’re busy people.” But she’s never engaged with my content and I’m going to value her as much as somebody who boosts my content.

And so I think that that’s really important not to equate the two and again number of followers that does not equal clients. I know for me I do have a good number of followers and I do have a great business. I made a lot of money off my coaching business. But I will say that one of the certifications I have is LCS. I went on to have others, but in my small group there, one of the girls that was there had a really large following on Instagram, hundreds and thousands of followers and a blue check mark and all the other things.

And she was having a really hard time selling to her followers because they’re just so used to her free content and not coaching at all, just pictures that are beautiful and she’s amazing. She’s such a good coach but she had a really hard time engaging that community. And so she was even thinking, and we were talking about whether she should build a second community off of her offer as well. And that’s a whole another podcast, but yeah. And so, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about that and I’ve helped companies do that too.

So don’t look at somebody and be like, “Of course she’s successful. She has a blue check mark. She has x number of followers.” That’s not what creates success, you guys. I mean ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Your clients need to get results because at the end of the day, the community, how it’s going to grow is by word of mouth. And if your clients are getting results, for example, that’s how I knew you. I mean, she wasn’t in your container anymore, but she showed me and she was like, “Hey, I think that she’s where you are right now. This is where you need to be.”

And that’s why I hired you. And that’s why I stay. And so I can recommend it. And those people who have reached out to me saying, “Hey, you’re in 200K, do you think I should do it?” And I ask them a couple of questions and sometimes I’m like, “I don’t think it’s the right container for you yet.” I’m not trying to turn people off from your container, but I’ll be honest.

Stacey: No, that’s so interesting. I feel like I could talk to you for another hour. I’m like, “Wait. Tell me more because I’ve been thinking a lot.” And I’ve told you, so you’re inspiring me even more. I am really about to kind of drop some bombs in my business and change things because when you get to certain levels, at least for me, it’s so important that I love my business and I love every single thing about it because it’s that exchange with my family time. And just I don’t want to build something I don’t love.

So I’ve been thinking a lot, reevaluating a lot, thinking about how do I serve my clients even better. How do I make my containers more powerful and impactful and potent? And how do I want to solve problems? And what problems do I want to give my most energy to? And so I’ve been thinking about, because there’s such a range of people that qualify in the 200K room. It used to be so clear to say, “Here are our filters. Here are the things that you have to make 25K in”, blah, blah, blah, “Here are all of our things.”

Some of them I’m taking away now because I don’t think they’re relevant as much as they used to be or they were useful for me as the business owner. One of them is not being able to be a full-time coach. You can’t join unless you’re a full-time coach. I needed that for me. That was never about anybody else. It was about me focusing on creating content specifically and directed at people who were full-time coaches because that’s where I wanted them to be at 200K.

It was never about the people and now my content’s so solidified that there’s no reason for people to be kept out in that capacity. And I just ran a 25K group where everybody’s working full-time. What was so interesting is that no one ever brought it up. It was never a thing. We had one conversation in six months about it. It was everyone was focused on making money. And so for me, it was making sure the community conversation was constrained and for me to make sure my content was constrained. And now I know both of those are unlocked.

So I’m going to remove that filter. There’s no reason to have it because there are brilliant people like you, like Janessa, like so many people. There’s someone coming in next round, Michelle Rogers, who is making $300,000 helping moms with children who have autism. And she’s going to be transitioning out of her job. That’s the kind of work that women like us are doing.

And so anyways, one of the things I’ve been thinking about then is how do I communicate to someone beyond a revenue goal or beyond being a full-time coach or not a full-time coach, the thoughts, the mindset, the space they’re at in their business, that makes them a really great fit or not? So I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about that in a way that also isn’t exclusionary, which isn’t like you’re not good enough to play with us. You can’t sit at the table.

Because I’ve seen when I do change these filters, I’ve had people reach out and kind of have that attitude like, “Oh, you’re letting these people sit with us at the table now?” And I’m like, “Wait, hold on, hold on. That’s not at all what we’re doing here because it is about being inclusive.” So I’ve been thinking about that.

So anyways, separately you should send me, we won’t spend more time here, but you should send me a message and tell me. I’m so interested to the people from your perspective that aren’t ready now, who those people are because I would love to be telling them that. Giving that, here’s how you know when you’ve gotten to a place where you could be a good fit for the room, just to help people be more even, it’s not discretionary. Maybe it is discretionary about their investments. So anyways, it’s interesting.

I do actually, I think that that’s a good service. I think it’s good to tell people when it’s a good yes and it’s a good no. I think those are equally good sales tactics.

Hala: Yeah. And I mean, I do the same thing in my community, the 1% Women’s Club, I remember when I created the name. I had a coach reach out to me and go, “You should change the name.” And I said “Why?” And she’s like, “Because it’s going to intimidate people. What if people don’t think they’re the 1%?” And I said, “Well, that’s my job and my marketing to help them come to that.” And my community or my program rather, it has three levels of it and first it’s you have to own your success. There’s so many of us out there that don’t own the success that we do have.

And the reason why that’s really important is that if you don’t own your success it’s really, really hard to create more when you don’t have a stable foundation. So I help them own success first. And I’ve created almost like a curriculum, if anything of 12 things that are signs that we don’t own our success. And then you can create more on top of that stable foundation, while you’re still maintaining owning your success, you’re always going to be doing that.

And then after that and this is the part of the container, part of my three year plan that I haven’t built yet. And this is where I tried to start when I was making the $542,000 and I was still making the $542,000 off of this. But eventually when you start to create more success what women do and this has been studied is that they give 90% of their resources, whether that’s money, whatever it may be, influence, power, advice, mentorship, whatever it may be. They give 90% back to their family and their community. That’s actually a statistic. I’m not making that number up.

And the reason why my third thing is building legacy is because legacy is about building that long lasting impact. And where I want to get women to be is to a point where they’re continuing not only to create legacy but enjoying their legacy while they’re living. This is not something that just goes on after they’ve passed away, but it’s enjoying their legacy now. And I purely believe that if I can get women through that three stages. And I think that’s what you’re doing, you have 2K.

Stacey: 25K, 200K, two million.

Hala: 200K and then two million. I feel like it’s the same kind of thing. And so in my program one of the things I’m learning is also for legacy, first of all, just getting people to own their success. And then having a couple of 100 people go through the program so I can make sure that the whole maintenance aspect, which the second phase for me is called equity and growth, so doing that. And then getting to a point of legacy. And for legacy that’s where I started.

I actually created a program called Legacy Mindset and people signed up. It was a 100K launch, people signed up, but they weren’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready for it because I didn’t know how to really set, because people were like, “Well, I don’t know what my legacy is.” They were so stressed out that they didn’t know what their legacy is. And I’m like, “Your legacy is your everyday actions, it’s your everyday 1% actions that you do that create impact.”

And so yeah, so now I’m understanding it more and then learning how to speak to people of when they’re ready for legacy. I have one of my clients who’s building an orphanage. I have one of my clients who, I know they’re doing amazing things. I have one of my clients who is mentoring, well, she’s a previous client. She’s not in my current container, but she started a whole program to help women who were incarcerated to have not only life skills but also jobs so that way they could provide for their kids like.

This is what I want my legacy to be. I want my legacy to be creating independence and long lasting, sustainable lives for these women that they don’t have to depend on men or the patriarchy, that they can actually do it themselves. And it’s going to take the successful women to mentor these other women. And so eventually, I do want to have a container that helps women who make $50,000 to get over the $100,000 mark by really advocating for themselves and things like that.

So I don’t care, I’m going to tell you, I might be the oddball here in the 200K room, but I do not care. I know we do revenue reporting every month. I have no drama about it. Actually I’m glad that you do it because I’d never looked at my numbers like that. But that number for me, I think about the orphanage. I think about the women who are incarcerated. That’s what I think about it. That’s worth way more.

And I still work as a doctor. I make more than enough money as a doctor. This is all extra, this is all legacy money for me. And so I love that I live in this space and that you’ve helped me create such sustainability to be able to do this. And I just want to thank you because your ripple effect at helping me to help all these other people will help so many people down the line. So just thank you for all of that.

Stacey: You’re so welcome. I love that so much. I just feel that in my soul. You know I went through some bad publicity last year. And I remember feeling, because there is a time where I feel very similar to you. Now, listen, I really love money and I don’t have probably, I don’t know, I haven’t had as many years to make money maybe or as the education background. And I feel like I made money very, I don’t know how long you’ve been a doctor.

Hala: A long time.

Stacey: Yeah, I came into this game a little bit late, although that sounds crazy too because I’m just in my late 30s, but it feels a little late in the game. I would claim new money as my status right now, but you do. You get to a point where you can’t spend the money. It is legacy money. I think about passing money to Jackson. And we talk a lot about helping our family out in retirement and things like that. But what gets you through something extraordinarily painful, like trying to be canceled on the internet, going through that process?

There’s no like, oh, well, it was worth it for this money, you can’t do that. Your acceptance speech for your 200K award, that literally melted me in front of my clients in a way that never has in my entire life. But I remember thinking the whole time that I was going through this publicity, and my experience was just a true nightmare. I remember the whole time thinking, my number one thought was, why does it matter if people are just going to hate me, what’s it all for?

And what has kept me going, what kept me going then was every single time someone came across the stage, I remember truly believing, it doesn’t matter if they end up hating me. What matters is that they create this money now and how important I think it is for women to create money in the world and to create it on our own authority and to be our own bosses. And so I just think the legacy piece that you said. It’s so important.

And I do think it has to be, I don’t know, I think it has to be separate from the money because I think when you get to the point where money is no longer life or death or fight or flight when it’s really in abundance. There’s no amount of it that will get you to go through the hard stuff and to learn from the hard stuff and to grow from the hard stuff and keep going. There’s just, I literally, I’ve been through so much over the last 18 months that has been so deeply painful. And money could not be, there’s just no chance.

It has to be from thinking about the legacy of not just what you’re creating but the ripple effect of that legacy and who you’re helping and who will be touched and how the world will be changed. If you don’t have that you will quit your business. Even aside from all the negative stuff I feel like if I didn’t have that and I have my kid. I love my kids so much and I just fantasize about being a stay at home mom all the time.

Hala: Me too. Me too.

Stacey: It has to be a bigger thing than me that keeps me showing up even three days a week, my love for my kid is just so intense. So it’s the good stuff and the bad stuff. The only way to keep going, I think, past that money barrier is the work that is going to be left behind and the people that are going to be touched. And that is not a platitude, it probably came off as it, but it’s truly not, that’s it.

Hala: And you can have that abundant mindset not making millions of dollars. I mean, I don’t make, maybe collectively with everything I do, I make that. But I don’t have a $1 million coaching business. But I will say that you can have this abundant mindset at $30,000, you really can. It’s a mindset, it’s not a money thing. But I will say, Stacey, and for anybody else, I mean, I came into your world when you were having a lot of hate online. And I think you’ve continued to get that and that’s okay, I think that happens.

And I will say that the reason why I hired you, not only off of one video but I saw what was happening. And I remember people reaching out to me going, “Are you scared that you hired her and this happened?” And I said, “No. You know what? I don’t know exactly what happened, but people fuck up, people fuck up. And you know what? That’s the best time to hire them because they are in repair mode.” I mean that’s my thought. That’s like watching like a cop pull over somebody for speeding and you’re like, “Well, there’s probably not a cop around the corner, I could probably speed now.”

It’s the same idea, where you’re at and what’s your risk right now. And I think for me, first of all, investing $25,000, I want to be very, very transparent. $25,000, for me, is not a lot of money. So I know there’s people who are listening, they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, should I put it on credit card?” And I’m not here to tell you that you should or should not. I’m not saying that at all. But what I’m saying is that was not a situation for me. I wanted access to your brain.

And I know that especially during times that you’re being canceled, you were getting a lot of hate, that you’d just had a baby. I’d been in all these places. It freaking tears you down and even though that sucks, that’s where the scars are built. And scars are part of what makes you stronger. And for me, I was like, “This is the perfect time to join.” I mean, this is my thought and you could totally cut this out of any part of this interview. But I just want to say as from me to you as one public figure to another, I don’t view that as weakness at all.

I think if anything it’s going to be weakness if you or any of us don’t learn from that and come back stronger. Come back stronger meaning learn from yourself, learn if you messed up, where did you mess up and how are you going to make a sustainable business to not make that same mistake again? You are going to make other mistakes, but you are going to make so many mistakes. But how are you going to learn from that? How are you going to keep moving forward?

And so for me, I think that that’s the most important thing. And I wanted to be part of that journey, not only to support you but also to learn from you. I was like, “Well, I want to see how she does it.” And because I’ve done it. I have had so many mistakes and very public mistakes. And then I learn from it and I keep moving forward. And so it’s just more of really understanding that. And maybe I’m in a different mindset because I had been in that situation because I am very public.

But I think it’s easy when you’re not in that situation to point your finger and go like, “If I was in that position, I would do x, y, z.” I’m like, “Well, you’re not in that position and you don’t know.” But what you can do is, you could look at the actions behind it. And if you like how that person bounced back, you know what? Be in their world. And if you don’t like it then leave. But being in it just to complain about it is really not helpful to that person or you, it’s really not. And then just move forward.

So I think for me, I’m just thankful that you were very open with that and that people were open with their experience because I think that it does create the right people in this space. And not that they weren’t the right people. They were the right people at the time. And now I’m the right person at the time.

And I love that thought that you offered that when people are walking across the stage that you know that even if they turn out to be somebody who’s not in your space in the future, whether it’s voluntarily or they exit mad or whatever it may be. That you’re able to be present and celebrate them in that moment and in that foundation that they built for their business, moving forward.

Stacey: Yeah. Well, and listen, this is another thought that I had is my first coach, I had so many thoughts and I was in a place where I couldn’t coach myself out of it. And I just always, the one thing that I’m like, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but one thing I remember at that time was I said, “Do not ever talk about it publicly because one day you might think you’re wrong. And you might want to repair this situation.” Now, it wasn’t really a negative exit on my end. It’s a whole long story.

Someone used me to create this insane negativity around this coach that we only both found out five years later that I wasn’t actually a part of it at all. But we had this conversation and we’ve repaired our relationship. Now we talk almost every single day. So I also think about even the people that leave mad, it took me five years to see, it literally took, I had already repaired the relationship before what happened to me happened.

But then when it happened, it was the second round of profuse apologies of I can’t believe I even, I see now that it was all me. And it was not anything to do with you. And so I just know, people also get scared. And if they don’t understand something or they don’t have all the information, they will input things and whatever they input will probably be negative just because that’s the way our minds work. And I’m just working on having grace for, there’s always repair available as well.

But I have learned a lot, I think you made a good choice. I have learned a lot. I haven’t talked publicly as much about what I’ve learned just because it was so painful.

Hala: I think you should.

Stacey: Yeah, I will. I will.

Hala: I think you should.

Stacey: I have sat down to do it so many times. There’s still so much defensiveness that I don’t think I can lead on it.

Hala: Yeah, do it when you’re ready.

Stacey: And until I can lead on it, it could be heard the wrong way and I don’t want it to be heard the wrong way. So there’s the business and personal growth that I did 100% learn from, I still am. And then there’s the victim in me that really kind of was bullied online at a time where I actually had a mental health crisis and postpartum anxiety. And that part of me, it’s really hard to separate them in a way that I could speak publicly about it as a leader.

So I think I have to get a little bit further on the other side. So it’s more behind the scenes we are being changed and we are changing and doing things differently. There will be a time to tell the story. There’s still healing and actual therapy that might need to take place before I feel like I can speak about it in a way that I would be proud to speak about it, 10 years from now. Yeah, it’s definitely shaped me.

Hala: Yeah, and when you’re ready. And I mean, I’ve had a situation I’ve been thinking of that I don’t want to say messed up, but I will say that maybe my approach was not the greatest. I mean, I still stand true to what I said, but I think maybe I should have had a little bit more experience.

Stacey: Yeah, I’ve also done that recently. Yes, I’ve done that recently. I stay true to what I said, maybe my approach was not so great.

Hala: So part of me wants to make this public statement about what I learned and stuff like that. And I haven’t, because I think that there’s so many wounds that I created that I think that’s going to just hurt more people than help me. And it would be very self-serving for me. But I will say that I’ve showed up differently in that same subject matter of what I stood up for.

Stacey: I think that’s the most important part, honestly. I’ve been thinking about this a lot too, because some people have said, “You really should talk about it. If you don’t have anything to hide or if you really have grown, then you should talk about it.” I don’t think that as public personalities that we are required to talk about things, especially that are still extraordinarily painful for us. I don’t think it means that we’re not working on it. I don’t think it means that we haven’t learned from it. But I do think it’s like, I don’t know, maybe my thoughts are different than other people.

But I would only ever speak about it if it benefited other people. And I know I’m not in the mindset to do it yet, but I just don’t think we’re required to do that. I think we get to decide and the repercussions are just some people won’t engage with you then if they don’t feel they got something from that and you just have to know that. You have to know, but then some people that were engaging might be mad if you talk about it. So you have to just know, do I love my reasons? But I don’t think we’re required to at all.

Hala: Yeah. I don’t think that there’s one way to solve that problem. But I think, yeah, I think it’s just more what’s your ROI? I’m coming out and saying, “Okay, this is what happened.” And do you love that? Even if it doesn’t change anybody else’s opinion or thoughts or behavior or anything like that, I think do you love that? Do you love how you’re showing up? And for me the only thing for the situation I’m thinking about mentally is I know I hurt a lot of people I think in that process of what I did.

But personally I want to show them I’m different. And so for me to show them I’m different now I mean, I still stand true with what I said, but I’m different in how I delivered it. I just have to keep delivering it in a way that is how I am right now.

Stacey: Yeah. It’s like apology’s an action instead of a word.

Hala: I mean. I’ve had whole hate groups created for me, I mean I totally have. Believe me, I’ve gone through that. But I will say that for the people that actually cared, I mean, I’m thinking of one person that reached out to me and was like, “Hey, I was really hurt by this.” I got on the phone and I had a conversation with them, because they cared enough to reach out or those people that I actually really valued their opinion, I reached out.

I’m not saying that I don’t do it for other people. I’m just saying for the people I can. At some point you only have so much capacity to repair and to apologize or to, in my case, it wasn’t really an apology per se, but it was more of like, “Hey, look, we have a difference of opinion here. And maybe we’re going to agree to disagree, but I want to make sure that you know that I still love you through this all, even if you don’t love me.” And I didn’t say those words, those exact words, but I still just showed up that way.

And so yeah, so a lot of self-coaching on it. And I think, I just think, honestly, my niche should be public figures, it really should be but I just got through so much.

Stacey: Maybe it should be the 1% public figure, yeah, I mean I think it’s community being a public figure and managing your legacy.

Hala: That’s so lonely.

Stacey: Listen, we need to just adjourn this conversation to the next 200K room where we build your business, we burn it down again and create this next $1 million offer.

Hala: New offer.

Stacey: We have to figure out how to incorporate all of these things because they’re all so freaking brilliant, it’s so good. Everything, the experience you have, the knowledge, it’s so, so good.

Hala: Oh, you’re so sweet. Thank you so much for even inviting me.

Stacey: Yes. That’s not just a thing. I’m so honored to have you in my space. I just love when you have clients that they’re smarter than you, they’re more talented than you and you just feel honored to be any piece of their journey.

Hala: No. There’s no such thing as more. I think it’s a good synergistic relationship. And I’m just, I’m really happy to be in your space. I’ve just really loved everything that you’re doing. And I’m excited for Nashville.

Stacey: Me too.

Hala: I’m going on a really large vacation. I’m leaving on that Friday. I’m actually flying home and then flying to Paris and then I’m going to Egypt and then I’m going to Kenya. I’m doing this, I had a launch but I only enrolled three or four people, but I mean I think it happened on purpose because I just really want a light business right now while I go on vacation. Because I don’t know how to go on vacation and run a coaching program. I’m learning and things like that.

Stacey: I can’t wait to teach you. Let’s definitely, let’s work on that for sure because that’s my favorite. I’m going to Italy for two weeks after 200K, a couple of weeks after. And I’m so freaking excited. I’m bringing my son. My husband thinks I’m crazy. We were supposed to go to France. We’re not going to France anymore, we’re going to Italy. They just have some stuff going on that I already have anxiety traveling with my kid that I don’t need to incorporate. But I’m really freaking excited to go to Italy and spend two weeks with my family and create memories, so that’s super exciting.

Hala: You’re going to have so much fun.

Stacey: But yes, let’s do it. So okay, how do people reach out to you, get hold of you, find you? Because this will for sure not be the end of them wanting to have [crosstalk].

Hala: Yeah, if you’re still on this podcast. I don’t even know how you’re going to edit this but if you’re still on this podcast.

Stacey: We’re not. We’re just going to put it up there. It’s going to be great.

Hala: Yeah. A two hour podcast. It’s drhalasabry.com. And you can go to the contact me page and yeah, and if you get on my email list, I don’t do tons of email education, but I will definitely reach out and let you know about 1% topics and really are you 1%? I think that’s one thing that I really want people to own whether they never pay me a dollar and really look at how I define 1%.

I think it’s really important to really own that success whoever you’re working with or however you show up, because all of you listening, you are 1% in something in your life. Just hone it and then borrow that belief for all of the other parts that you aren’t 1% yet and this is how you legacy build, is when you own your success and you have so much of it in your brain because all those 1%s, they’re additive. And then you’re able to not be in scarcity, you’re able to give that away and help other people, yeah.

Stacey: So good. And we will also link all of that up in the podcast, so they’ll be able to find you easily. Thank you so much for coming on.

Hala: Awesome. Thank you for having me.

Stacey: Alright, I will see you in Nashville.

Hala: Okay, alright, I will talk to you later.

Stacey: Okay, bye.

Hala: Okay, bye.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2,000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.