Ep #190: 442% Growth in 6 Months and Just Getting Started with Marie McDonald

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, I‘m really excited to bring you a special series on the podcast over the next several months, where I will be featuring students from our first ever pre enrollment for the 200K mastermind. We ran a contest to see who could have the highest percentage of growth from each of our income categories. 25K, 50K, 100K and 200K+. We had students increasing their revenue 10K a month for 7 months straight.

We had 180% growth increases, 442% growth increases, the results were seriously more than we ever remotely anticipated. So I’ve asked them to come on the podcast and share with you how they did it. Their mindset that they approached the materials with and how they leverage the 200K process to make a lot of money in their business, before they even stepped foot into the room for our mastermind. They had this growth just with access to our member portal and our library of past events, calls, our 200K process and all of our bonus courses over 6 months between January and July of this year.

These conversations were so intriguing to me and inspiring for what can be possible when we get the 200K in the hands of more coaches quicker. There are so many mindset nuggets that await for you inside so let’s dive in.

Hey, coaches, welcome. I have a very special episode here planned for you. We are talking today to our – and I don’t know if she knows this yet, so she’s about to find out, our highest growth percentage student when we did pre enrollment in January of 2022 for our August class. So, every single person that pre enrolled you had the most growth out of everyone, millionaires, 200K earners, 100K earners, 50K earners, 25K earners, you had the highest amount of growth. So, did you know that?

Marie: I didn’t know that. And I got chills when you said it.

Stacey: That’s so fun. I had a feeling when I said that, that maybe you didn’t know. And I’m like, this is going to be super fun. So, everyone welcome to the episode with Marie McDonald. She’s our highest earner percentage of growth wise for the pre enrollment. And we’re going to talk to her today and find out all of her amazing thoughts that created this insane growth. So, the numbers that I have, I had my team send them to me, actually before we do that. Let me just have you introduce yourself.

Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how long you’ve been coaching. Give us all the goods first and then we’ll dive into the numbers.

Marie: Gladly. I’m Marie McDonald, I go by the Bloom Coach, the.bloom.coach on Instagram, so that’s where people can find me. And what I do is I help my clients love being who they are as they turn their ideas into real things in the world. So, I have been coaching for 15 years in the field of innovation, helping leaders turn ideas into real things. So, we work with the Stanford Design School to come up with a design thinking approach to help inventors, Silicon Valley thinkers turn ideas into real things.

So, what I do is I’ve been coaching in that industry for 15 years and helping to lead a company, a lot of what I did was coach the leaders and then also lead retreats, lead workshops, do public speaking and training which I love. And then I love coaching so much. It took me a long time to leave that role and start my own practice because I loved the organization and the impact we’re having in the world, but last year I did it. And so, I got certified and I started my business in the fall. I got certified in October and I started my business with a couple of months in the fall.

But then I really started launching big in January. And what I do is I weave in that design thinking, I use the model for coaching to help created that mindset to manage your thinking and your feeling. And then I use my experience with innovation, to help people with whatever they want in their lives to change, to turn an idea into something they could feel, and touch, and be, and experience in the world.

Stacey: That is so fun. On so many levels I really genuinely think the hardest thing we do as humans is turn an idea from our brain into something tangible in the world. I think that is the hardest thing to do. What I love is that you have done that yourself now. You have turned, that’s what we do as businessowners, we have this idea, we have a coaching skill. We have that but we have our own ideas of content, our own ideas of offers, we have those things and then we have to actually go out into the world and make them tangible things.

And I think coaching because it’s so intangible can really be difficult for people to take something intangible and make it tangible especially when they’re selling and when they’re making offers. And so, you’ve gone out and done that. You’ve actually mastered deeply what you teach other people to do in your own business. So, let’s talk about the numbers now because the numbers are such a measurement for that statement that I just made, which is when you applied for pre enrollment in January you had made, I think the number was 35,000, let me double check, unless you know offhand.

Marie: 35,000, I don’t know the dollars and cents but 35,000.

Stacey: Yeah, 35,000. And then since pre enrollment, so your 12 month revenue was 35,000. Your 12 month revenue now seven months later is $189,000.

Marie: Yes, girl.

Stacey: That’s insane. So, I want to know, how did you do it? I know all of them want to know, how did you do it? I mean that is a really high percentage of growth, it’s very fast growth. So, I’m curious how you did it, the action line of that, and I’m also curious the thoughts that propelled that forward.

Marie: Yeah. So, the action line is, so I had been leading in an organization for 15 years and I left that job and had made 35,000 in my coaching practice because I had started three months of last year. And so that 12 months was just in the two parts of the business that I was running, one is going into organizations and coaching leaders to turn their ideas into real things in terms of the type of leader they want to be, the way they want to scale their business, or how they want to support their people. And my one-on-one coaching which is whatever someone wants to turn into a real thing.

I started that then in the fall and then since then I have completely stopped that other work. I had a six month period where I left my other organization and I stopped that and put everything into just building this. And so just applying everything that I learned and putting my whole heart into building my own business has been where I got here. I think that the tools that are most helpful in what I teach and what I did is not having risk aversion in terms of failure.

So, I really truly feel like what you said in the beginning, where turning an idea into a real thing is one of the hardest things we do as people. That’s a skill I developed by working in design thinking for 15 years is literally it’s the opposite. Everything has to fail. Every time we fail we learn something that we can apply to the next round. So, in the beginning, Stacey, I was like just would go to a retreat and lead a workshop and write it the night before. And I would lead a group, I led a group for a couple of months.

And I tried everything. I just put myself out there in every way. And every time that I tried to lead a masterclass and two people showed up it was great because then I had some content I could use. And I just didn’t make it mean anything.

Stacey: Okay, so hold on, I have to stop you because everyone has to hear this. So, people get coaching on this all the time in 200K or in 2K. I did something and two people showed up. And your thought was, great, I have content to use moving forward.

Marie: I was like, “That was fun, I’ve done that now and now I have a picture to use and a video recording that I could use as a freebie.

Stacey: Yes. But you say it like it’s just so simple and duh, that’s what you do. But that is not what people do. They, I don’t even know what the word is but drown in their own failure and oh my God, only two people showed up. This is never going to work. I’m never going to make money. Why didn’t more people show up? What did I do wrong? Indulging in all of that, in the negative emotion of the fact that two people showed up. So, I’m just curious, is that just how you’ve always been or are you just like okay?

I don’t know. I just think it’s really fascinating to find someone so early on in business that doesn’t just go immediately to this is really awful, I’m terrible and I can’t handle the failure to, okay, well now I have this moving forward and I just keep going and I try something new. It’s a really great mindset to have.

Marie: I think there’s a couple of things. One of them is I am super passionate about people expressing themselves with the one voice and the one set of ideas that only they can have. So, we’re all happening one time with a set of lived experiences we’ve had, with the perceptions and ideas that we have. And I feel like me being an example of my coaching is to never question. Any time I question whether something that I have to say is going to be valuable, I’m not in integrity with what I’m asking all my clients to do.

I have to just keep putting it out there and trust that what I have to say is super valuable because I’m only living one time in this iteration of myself, whatever you believe spiritually. Right, these ideas, these experiences can say something, and see something, and create something whether that’s just in your own personal life or out in the world that no one else will ever be able to do again. So, if I don’t do it I’m kind of robbing the world of something that could make a difference in someone’s life.

Stacey: So, what I’m hearing is that – I’m trying to figure out what that thought process is because I think there’s some micro thoughts in between. And so, I just want to flush it out for everyone. I’m wondering if the thought really was some form of my job is to put the content out there in my iteration and to keep showing up until I find people to use it. Versus this content wasn’t enough, I’m terrible, I’m awful, no one’s ever going to want to hear what I have to say. I’m going to go eat cookies on the couch.

It’s like just my responsibility. We talk about in 200K Mastermind a lot what we can control. What we can control is students, ourselves. What we can control is coaches within the coaching relationship. And you’re focusing on what you can control, the value that you put out, your unique message and just being responsible for packaging it in different ways, getting out in different iterations and that’s what you focused on versus the people who didn’t show up.

Marie: And I think really to boil it down to a thought, it’s not about me.

Stacey: So good, yes.

Marie: [Crosstalk].

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so good. I think if everyone listening, if you could just take that one lesson from this episode is truly it’s never ever about you, ever. If no one shows up that’s just because not enough people knew about it. If you are having a party and you invite five people, three of those people might already have plans. It doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person, no one likes you and you’re never going to have a successful party. If you invite 1,000 people your chances are so much higher then at least 100 of those people could come, or 50 of those people, or 20 of those people.

So, it really is, I love this idea of that your job is to just offer your ideas in the world, value what you have to say and then you just have to keep getting out there and meeting people, telling them you’re a coach, making offers to help them. And the more people you do that the more chances are you’re going to find someone who’s going to want to engage in your work.

Marie: Yeah, absolutely.

Stacey: So good. Okay, so I’m curious what your thoughts were about joining pre enrollment, and then what you did. Did you use the content to help you make all that money? What were the things that were the most valuable? For anyone that would be considering joining a pre enrollment and going through the vaults of materials that are there, especially if they’re at $35,000 in their business.

Your brain is just, so I love where your thoughts are and at 35,000 I see a lot of people come in and not think, they’re biggest struggle is believing they belong in the room, believing that their business is far enough along. And feeling like they could self-direct. I can tell already you’re such a good self-director. You’re like, “I know exactly what I need to be doing.” Even I don’t know I know that I’m going to keep just taking actions until I figure it out. So, I’m curious what your just overall experience was like how you went through that process.

Marie: Okay, yeah. So, the first thing is that I want you to know that I applied to 200K last year and I didn’t get into it because I was still working, I was even [crosstalk] percent only in my other job. I said in my application, it’s normally a few hours. And I didn’t get into it because I was working part-time [inaudible] job.

Stacey: And you didn’t hate us, so that’s interesting.

Marie: [Crosstalk] anything. I was just like, “Alright, next round. She knows what she’s doing, this must be the right thing.” And so, then when I got in, in January, I felt like I’d won the lottery for pre enrollment because I had six months or whatever it was before the event to work on things. And I knew that I was going to, okay, so two things. Number one is that I really – and this is an answer too to a couple of the questions that you’ve asked. I think it’s so valuable in terms of not taking things personally and continuing to just try things until something works to remember to be where you are.

So, we so often are struggling against the moment that we’re in because we’re trying to get six months ahead. An example for me is I haven’t niched down really. I am teaching people to turn ideas into real things but I haven’t niched down in the way that I know I’m going to. And so, any time I started having insecurity come up, drama come up about not having a niche, I coached myself to be like, once you have a niche you’re going to look back on this time when you are so free?

And didn’t have a niche and we’re exploring, number one, just be in the process, it will get there but be where you are. So that is one thing that really helped me try things out because if I only have two people show up that’s this part. I know that in a year from now 100 people will be there, whatever, that’s one thing. And then the other thing with going through the content, Stacey, there are so many nuggets in everything, in every video. I worked through really slowly and then got a concept and started applying it. And didn’t try to do everything at once.

So, the first concept, I think two concepts have been most valuable to me. One is over-delivery. And it was so freeing to me to just focus on creating value and overdelivering. So, in all my content I’m not trying to win anyone over. I’m not trying to convince them. I’m trying to serve them. And that shift was so freeing and I think made higher quality content.

Stacey: So, I just have to say because this is so important, I am on that same wavelength with you because, and people would never, I think, suspect this. But I have two thoughts that are pretty prevalent, have been prevalent throughout my entire career. They still haven’t gone away at $10 million which is that I’m not good at marketing. Or I’m not the best at marketing. I don’t think I’m someone who comes up with catchy things all the time. I just wouldn’t say that’s my strong suit.

And I just struggle with in general thinking I’m a people person, that I’m kind of socially awkward. I’m very introverted. I’m always in my head saying, “Why did you say that? That was dumb.” Even when I’m coaching, I really have to – I did an episode about this on my podcast. I really do struggle with my inner monolog about me being weird. And I feel like I have some circumstantial evidence to back it up. My husband is always like, “Why are you so weird?”

But the thing that I have always focused on especially when those thoughts come up is I don’t have to be the best marketer and I don’t have to be the most popular person. I just have to create value. Or when I have a problem, I just did this on The Value Bank 2.0. If I have a problem and I don’t know how to get out of it or something bad happens in my business, I have a huge fail or whatever it is, I’m never going to survive this moment. I just focus on what value can I create.

And I always start with my current clients first, for me that just, whatever reason that really works for me to be like the people that have already paid me, how can I serve them at a higher level? Let me create something additional for them or let me think about a problem that I can solve even better for them. Let me focus on creating value with them first. Then I’ll think about, I’ll be so inspired from having created that value, that some idea will for sure form to go out and offer new value to other people which is the ‘marketing’.

That always, always, always serves me. And I think it’s just such a useful thought for everyone who would not think of themselves as winning the personality contest, or the beauty pageant, or the most liked in school. If you’re not that person, you don’t have to be in this industry. You just have to be really good at what you do. And I think that first step you get really good at that, what you said earlier in the episode is you’re just willing to put your work out there and believe that you’re happening this one time.

And the way you say it is, is going to be very compelling for other people. And then I will just add one additional thing about what you said about staying in your lane. That has also been my secret weapon. I never pay attention to what other people are doing. It could be so easy, especially at my size of business now to see what Brooke is doing. And be like, “I’ve got to do that because Brooke’s doing it. And I want to be where Brooke is, so I’ve got to do that.”

And then I always remind myself, no, no, but also Brooke makes four times more than I do. So, she’s at her level. I’m here, what is my work, let me not just jump, she’s on social media crazy right now. And I see my brain, I’m not on social media enough. And then I’m like, no, no, no, that’s where Brooke is, I’ve got other things that are way more important to work on than that. Or people that are my peers. So, I just don’t get lost in being other places faster.

And I always, always, always used to tell myself in the beginning of my business, I’ll never get the beginning of my business back, this is it.

Marie: Yeah, exactly.

Stacey: Never.

Marie: Yeah. And I think you know how we hold space as coaches? The actual coaching practice is the best experience to apply to building the business. The thought comes in about the person and you wipe it clean. The thought comes in about your business and you wipe it clean. You say, “No, thank you, I’m going to put that to the side.” And it’s not about me. It’s about the change I want to make in the world. So how can I be more effective? How can I iterate more to get to a more successful way of creating this change in the world that I’m going for?

Instead of making it about getting caught up in the human weirdness of what do they think about me. Because that weirdness is contagious too. I always tell my clients when they talk about the weirdness of going in and wondering what someone thinks of you and how their body language changes and their palms get sweaty. And I’m like, “Yeah, and then the other person’s picking up on that. So, let’s give confidence, let’s have contagious confidence instead. And we could do that with our businesses so we can impact other businesses in a positive way.

Stacey: Yeah. And I want to say for everyone listening, this is not something that you – having contagious confidence is not something that you can only have once you’ve had success in your business. I think a lot of times when we do take thing personal, and I love what Melissa Parsons, she just did a podcast for us and she talked about when you tie your self-concept to your offer. And how destructive that can be because when people say no you think that they’re saying no to you as a human.

And so, I think a lot of times we think we have to get other people buying in to tell us that we’re worthy of being a coach and to tell us that our coaching is valuable and worthy to be in the world and that our ideas matter. And so, we think once I have the success, once I have that then I’ll have the confidence. And I want to just tell a quick story because it’s so crazy.

I promise it will make sense but my nanny, her sister is pretty successful in the Amway network marketing business. And when I, before I got certified I knew that we were going to have to take on practice coaching clients. And the way that I think is I want to get a leg up always. I just want to dive in. So, I had asked a couple of my friends if I could practice coaching them. This is before I even got to the certification. And one of them had just started an Amway business. And this was in 2015.

And she has – so I was coaching her for free for six weeks and she invited me to go to an Amway meeting. And I went and I actually started an Amway business when I was 17 and just total failure. I had no idea what I was doing, no thought work whatsoever. But I always love network marketing meetings because the personal development, I’m just, I’m all in. So, I was like, “Yeah, I’ll go with you, let’s go.” And I’m sitting there listening to the meeting. And I was thinking about Tony Robbins and how he teaches the six fundamental human needs.

And so, I walk up to the leader of the meeting who’s huge in the Amway business. And I tell him, I was like, “One thing that you’ve got to tell people is how amazing this business model is. It meets all the fundamental human needs.” And he’s like, “What do you mean?” And so, I tell him the fundamental needs and he’s like, “Oh my God.” And he’s like, “You know what? I’ve never in the history of these meetings, ever had someone speak that isn’t in Amway.”

And he’s like, “But would you mind staying around for our personal development? And will you tell everyone what you told me?” And I don’t have a single paying client. I’ve not been certified. I grab a marker and the whiteboard and I just start whipping up the six fundamental human needs and telling them all about it.

So fast forward to how many years has it been? Seven years, and my nanny is telling me that her sister was at that meeting and remembers me to this day that all the women could not believe that I had schooled these men in this, because it’s usually the men who were talking. And they still talk about me. She was like, “I cannot believe you’re nannying for this girl. She was just so impressive. We can’t believe it.” And I was telling my nanny, I was like, “I didn’t have a single paying client.”

I just had confidence in the value of what coaching offers and the knowledge that I had. I just walked up with confidence. So, I want to just say what you said is so important. For everyone listening, this has nothing to do with how much money you’ve made. You can be that way just with your thoughts going back to what you said, that you have a unique message to offer. And it may not even be a unique message because mine was just Tony Robbins’ message.

But I was the deliverer of that message for that group of people and that is equally as important. So, if you’re just teaching the model for example, that’s the tool you have, that might be The Life Coach School’s intellectual property but you are the deliverer of that for these people who have no idea who Brooke is and the school is. That’s your value.

Marie: Yes. The first time I just volunteered it was in December I think, I was – twice, I think once in November and once in December. I’m comfortable in leading workshops and retreats but I had no idea what I was going to speak about. And I just presented the model and it was amazing and I got five clients from that, from those two events. And the thing that I always talk to my clients about is with any change you want to make there’s a before and an after to the change in your mind.

And what we have, we start to develop a vision for something that we want in our lives, whether that’s just a way we want to be different in relationship or in our skin, a business we want to create, a book we want to write, whatever. And we get excited and motivated by that after idea, the vision we have. But then our human brains start looking at the world now and talking to the people now to help them validate our idea and tell us it’s a good idea. But we’re in the before. It can’t reflect the after because we’re in the before.

So, the world all around us is going to be a reflection of the world of you before you’ve made the change. So, you have to believe hard enough in your idea and want it hard enough that that belief will be stronger than all the evidence that people will give you and that the world will give you that it’s not possible. And that’s right, that’s the way it should be. There’s nothing wrong there. Because people can’t understand your idea until it’s in the world.

Stacey: Yeah. That’s so great. My husband always used to say, I would be like, “I’m going to make a million dollars one day.” And this was before we were married and he’d be like, “Okay, Stacey, I mean I hope so for your sake. But you know that’s pro athlete money, right?” I’m like, “Hell yeah.” And we went on our babymoon, this was so good, we went on our babymoon to Amanyara which is this total bougee hotel chain. And we were there, it’s very small, they don’t have a ton of hotel rooms.

But we were there with five NBA players. And I was like, “That’s right, it’s that NBA player money, pro athlete money over here.” I never held him responsible for believing that. I knew that that goal, that dream, that vision, was so outlandish in what was happening in the physical world around. I was living in a 600 square foot apartment that had – we had to literally huddle in bed at night because there was no insulation in the winter. It was just such an old apartment.

So, I’m like, “I can understand why me making this statement would seem insane to you. I get it.” And I will also say I think that’s why it’s so important too, to go out and meet people who do not know your physical life, and your physical results, and your realm now. So that they can meet you as the person you want to be. And they will only believe that version of you because they don’t know any other version of you. So that is going to help strengthen your belief in that version of you as well.

I’m literally losing my voice as we are on this call. It’s the craziest thing. I now sound like an 80 year old smoker. I don’t know what happened.

Marie: [inaudible] husky.

Stacey: Everybody just ignore it, we’ll just keep going, I don’t know what’s going – I’ve been really sick. So, I don’t know if I’ve been talking a lot this week and my voice is like, it’s happening, you’re going. I’ll make sure to rest up before Orlando. Okay, so any other thoughts about that? I think I interrupted you at one point and you might have missed something else you were going to say, so I just want to make sure that we don’t blow past it because you have lots of genius coming out of you.

Marie: The second thing that was really helpful, so I talked a little bit about being your own product. But I think I used to hold that against myself which I think a lot of coaches do in a way that’s like, okay, yeah, I changed my life and made an idea real from last year. It’s like a different thing than trying and failing in the business. But it’s more in the person that I am, if I had any kind of conflict in a relationship or if I weighed more than I wanted to.

Or whatever the things are I think I was starting to be like, “How can I coach someone if I’m not where I want to be in this?” And I totally flipped that around in January or February. So, being an example my product, or of my coaching is not only to continue to value myself and put myself out there over and over again like we talked about and know that who I am is valuable in the world and will speak to someone that needs to hear it.

But also, that it’s in those moments when I’m having a conflict, that’s the most important time, or when I’m having a challenge of some type. That’s when I have to show up as a product of my coaching. By meeting myself with the same compassion that I really coach my people hard to meet themselves with. What business do I have doing that with my clients if I’m not doing it with myself?

Stacey: That’s so good. So, I want everybody to hear this because I haven’t had anyone ever bring this up on the podcast. I’ll try to get it out. I don’t know what’s happening with my voice. It’s the craziest thing. But I do think that people use the bigger parts of your product against themselves. And the way that you said it is basically let’s just say you’ve just failed, you’re in a fail, a low value cycle for example. In 200K we talk about low value cycles which is a thought cycle that doesn’t serve you, where you’re not in your action line creating your highest level of value.

And I talk about how we fall in and out of those all the time, it’s not a big deal, just get back in it. But we do use failure or being in a low value cycle, having thoughts that don’t serve us, we use that as saying, I am not an example of what’s possible. But what if that’s completely not true? It’s your willingness to go in them, even if you’re in it and you’re not able to coach yourself out of it, and it’s terrible, and it’s awful. And you have learned nothing, and you’re not evaluating, and you’re feeling resistance, and you think it’s all stupid, and you want to quit.

The fact that you put yourself in that situation, think about how many millions and millions of people are not willing to put themselves in that situation. They would never put themselves in a situation to fail. They would never allow themselves into a scenario where they would be experiencing that emotion and be going through that. So, you are an example of what’s possible, just allowing yourself to interact with failure in the world. That’s the only way I would ever use that.

I hate when people use things against themselves. And sometimes some of the coach things too I think are also just only sometimes useful one way versus the other. So, these are only to inspire yourself. For me when I think about it, I’m like, okay, if I just need my product to make money then the best money making activity I can do is coach myself on my brain, put myself out there, fail a lot, all the things you’re saying. That’s the best thing I can do.

And then when I’m doing that and I’m thinking of myself being a product of my product, when I would fail I would tell myself I’m a warrior. I would tell myself I’m in the arena like Brené Brown talks about, getting trampled by the bulls. I’m doing it. I’m getting messy. I’m getting muddy. Let’s go. I would use that in that way, not I’m not adding up. I’m not an example of what’s possible. Please, please, I love that you brought this up. Do not, if you’re listening, do not use that statement against yourself.

Marie: And sometimes we understand that failure, failing forward, iterating, we apply it to certain things and not others. But apply it to ourselves. It’s like a home versus away game. You get really good at applying a skill in your comfort zone and then you have a new challenge, or you get sick, or you, whatever it is. It’s natural and right to have yourself fail at applying the tools that you’re an expert in. And then have to apply them in a harder arena. You’re leveling up literally. And that makes you a better and better coach and makes you evolve as a human.

Stacey: Yeah. The reason I’m so good at selling is because of how many times I have failed at selling. I have learned some things. I’ve done webinars where I got off the webinar and bawled my eyes out because nobody bought. I have done launches, the launching course I think is one of the most valuable things we have in 200K. And the reason it’s so good is because I’ve failed at launching so many times. I was the person that would be crying on my bed and like, “I have to run another email.”

I’ve done all of the things. I remember one time I had a webinar where all of the Million Dollar mentoring people were going to be on and watch it, and critique it. Brooke had put it in her calendar. And then we didn’t have the settings right and she got locked out. So, imagine Brooke Castillo putting your webinar on her calendar and she can’t get in. I mean because you just were sloppy, sloppy work. Mortification. So, all of the things I’ve done them, I’ve had the failed launches. I’ve done all the things that’s why I’m so good.

But I really work very hard to keep myself out of fear of failing in front of people because I’m a business coach, or fear of something not selling properly. And Offer Week was the best example. I mean we still made a lot of money on Offer Week but we didn’t hit our goal even close, it was definitely not our expectation. It required me to sell it so much harder than I thought. And I just spent the whole time figuring out, I’ve missed something. I’m not explaining it in a way that people are compelled to sign up for it and I’ve just got to figure it out.

And I think you can’t have that mindset of I’ve just not set it the way people need to hear it and I’ve got to figure it out, you miss that when you’re like, I suck, and I’m terrible, and I’m not being a product of my products. And I’m not a good coach and all the things, you just miss all of that opportunity.

Marie: Absolutely, yeah. And I love that with – so is it self-concept, is it selling self-concept or maybe it’s intellectual property or positioning. In all of them they all tie together but these concepts. I love how you say it’s a journey. Whatever your positioning is, who you are as a coach, I think people get freaked out to post on social media or send an email.

Stacey: I’ve got to know exactly what it is right now. It’s got to be perfect.

Marie: [Crosstalk] that person, that’s who they will always be. But of course, life isn’t like that. You have to be, if you want to evolve, you’re going to be better today than you were yesterday. My husband is a musician and he talks about listening to – and a builder. He talks about seeing his old stuff that he designed and built, or listening to his old songs and be like, “Oh my gosh, now I have to play that in front of a crowd, those old words that I wrote when I was 22. Oh no.”

But that’s great because it is proof of your evolution that you’re going to fail and you know you’re going to look back on it in a year and appreciate where you’ve come and that’s what got you to where you are.

Stacey: Yes. And I also have to say, I bet there are a lot of people who listen to his old songs and love them.

Marie: For real.

Stacey: People listen to the Diva Business School podcast in 2K for 2K, we have it as a bonus. And there are some episodes on there, I’m like, “Hey, diva.” I’m mortified. Or people will look up my first – you have to make a video for certification and I was a relationship coach. And my hair was crazy curly, and weird, and just people will send it or it’ll pop up in the newsfeed. And be like, “Oh my God, Stacey Boehman’s first video.”

Marie: Are your 90’s brows drawn on?

Stacey: Yeah. I mean it was bad. It was bad. And it’s just people love it. They’re like, “Oh my God, that episode of Diva Business School is so helpful”, or whatever it is. They find it so useful, so valuable. The interrupt training in 2K for 2K, I’m no makeup, sweater in front of my Christmas tree in April teaching people how to interrupt their models and their self-concept.

Marie: Oh my God, that’s good.

Stacey: They still love it. They’re like, “This is the most valuable part of 2K.” And I’m like, “This is humiliating.”

Marie: Yeah. Well, it’s probably relatable and inspiring too for people to be able to see you, someone so polished and with their shit together, and prolific and someone who’s impacting so many people. You talk about how maybe it looks easy to us, the lifestyle that you have or the business that you have. But it’s so inspiring to see the scrappiness, the boot strappy part. So, I think there’s a value in keeping that up.

Stacey: Yeah, for sure. I mean, yes, all the things for that old piece of me. And I will also say for everyone listening because I talk about this a lot. When I started my business I was going through heartbreak. I had two spoons, selling slicers in Walmart, building my business up. And my marketing was not necessarily the most Positive Polly thing you would ever hear. I would post India Arie songs like Break the Shell and how I’m just going through this heartbreak. And I would post the lyrics.

And I was just not in this like be an example of what’s possible, let’s effing go. That’s not where I was. However, I attracted a lot of people in that time period who were also dealing with a lot of tough stuff at home, a lot of grief, having a lot of panic attacks, anxiety attacks, they were experiencing a lot of the negative 50/50 of life. And they felt connected to me. They were like, “She’s going through it and she’s learning from it and she’s growing so maybe she can teach me something too.”

So, it’s really important that you don’t discount your messy, early, imperfect stage where you don’t have any issue, and you don’t know what your positioning is. You of course want to work towards those things if you want to grow and as you grow but don’t discount that messiness because people will respond to it. There are people who have messiness that if they saw me they would be like, “She’s too perfect now. I don’t resonate with her.”

But if you’re a business coach and you’re out there talking about what you go through in business they might be like, “This person, she’s my person or he’s my person”, whatever.

Marie: I remember in my early 20s, right before I turned 20 and after I turned 20 I was anorexic. I had a big eating disorder back then because of past experiences that I had had. And there was a woman named Geneen Roth who wrote a bunch of books and did a whole bunch of work. And she was so transparent about what a hot mess she was when she started her work that that it really called to me. And it allowed me, I just scrapped everything and just focused for a year on healing myself.

And I completely healed myself at that time in my life. And then was able to move on into my career and become an executive, and having a family, and all the other reinventions that I’ve done since then. But I have that part of my story that’s like where I was then and that reinvention. And then the next one is reinvention starting a business. Wherever you are, it doesn’t mean you can’t be somewhere so dramatically different.

I’m married with two children that are so beautiful and wonderful. And my relationship with my husband is awesome and none of that would have happened if she hadn’t have been there.

Stacey: Yeah, exactly, that’s so perfect. I love that so much. I’m in that space too. Just I have a beautiful baby, an amazing husband and we’re just loving life so much. It’s so great. Okay, so I have another question for you just to kind of switch gears quickly is because a lot of people experience this, I’m not sensing that you probably did but I want to ask you about it. Is did you have any – I don’t know if this is the right way to describe it, but cognitive dissonance or success intolerance growing so quickly? Or was that just natural for you, of course I would grow this quickly?

Because some people, they come from very successful careers and so it just feels like, yeah, I should have a successful business, I’m a successful person. And some people if they go from 35K to 200K in a couple of months they’re going to be like, “Oh my God, what’s happening? This feels ridiculously scary.” So, I’m just curious what your experience has been like having such fast growth?

Marie: I think my success intolerance comes in the form of two things, the thoughts I have to coach myself around are imposter syndrome. To answer your question very directly I don’t think I was surprised because I had a successful career before that. And I’ve done a lot of – the skillset that I had in my old role is such a match for the skillset in coaching that I think I have.

Stacey: Yes, it really is.

Marie: Yeah, I think I have.

Stacey: I hear you, you feel grounded, you sound grounded, so good.

Marie: Yeah. So, I don’t have a lot of I can’t do this and I never struggled with telling people I was a coach. I had everyone in my coaching group that I got certified with, almost every single person or every single person really struggling with feeling like they were telling the truth if they said they were a coach, or that they had their own business. That isn’t something that I ever was challenged by. But in the growth I think the imposter syndrome in terms of not – it literally comes for me as not having a niche, or not having a specific message that I’m sending.

I have those moments where I’m going to send an email, or run a mastermind and I really am still in this space where I’m using a lot of the intellectual property that my gurus, my mentors have given to me about me. And I’m infusing it with my own things but I’m not standing on my own thought leader feet entirely yet. And I get a little imposter syndrome and impatience.

Stacey: I love that. I love that you shared that, that’s so good because that is another piece where a lot of people experience that. And I even experienced that very early on and I think most people go through this phase where you’re potentially leaning on other people’s content and material and you’re infusing it with your own. And listen, even if you’re not infusing it with your own, let me just say this for everyone listening. If you are just out there teaching the model exactly the way Brooke teaches it and saying all the things Brooke says, that’s fine. That’s okay.

Again, you are the deliverer, I tell people all the time in 2K, if you’re just sharing other people’s quotes, that’s still value. You’re just the deliverer, you’re the avenue. Not everyone is reading, some of those valuable episodes of The Life Coach School Podcast for me were the episodes that were about Byron Katie and Tony Robbins and all of her people, Steven Pressfield or whatever his last name was. But those episodes sent me to those books that I would have never known existed.

So that is value, so, know that. But I do think everybody goes through that. And I think you have to go through that to create your own intellectual property. I think you have to do that. That’s the way that you go through it is you’ve got to get yourself out there with something. But then the more you get out and speak it, even if it’s somebody else’s message, the more you do it, all of a sudden, a year or two years later you’ll realize, what happened. It’s not their message anymore, it’s mine.

It will just naturally evolve. You don’t even have to force it, it just happens if you go out there and you say things and you work with clients enough. For me I even had this experience with my company’s manual. We have a company manual and I did entrepreneurial management where Brooke gave everyone her manual. And I didn’t have a lot of business philosophies and values at the time that I bought it. And I swear I just borrowed hers. I was like, “This all sounds like a good idea. Let’s go.”

And then two years later we sat down to really, okay, and I think you had mentioned this earlier but one of the things that we did on our company manual is we really made sure that all of our company ideas, we only put in our manual the things we had actually brought to life. That if you came and joined the company you would see that in active use and play. And you would say, “And that was in the manual.”

And we decided, anything that we want to add to that manual someday, anything, any ideas we have or who we want to be in the future, let’s leave it out for now because it’s not where we’re at and let’s work towards that. But I remember looking at the original manual we had and I was like, “This isn’t us at all.” There was a line where she’s like, “We don’t think things through, we just go out and do and we learn from them.”

And I’m like, “No, no, we think everything through very thoroughly. We’re very well planned. We’re highly executed. We don’t do anything without having a lot of intention behind it.” But that’s okay, that’s just that’s where we started and we ended up somewhere completely different. So, if you’re a business coach listening, in 200K, you’re like, “I’m afraid to”, some people have said, “I’m afraid to do the process because then I’m going to want to teach the process and then I won’t develop my own process.”

And I’m like, “No. Do the process, even use the process if you need to use the process for your own coaching. Eventually you will say things so many times and work with your clients who will be very different than mine. It will come out different on the other end. You’ll be like, “This isn’t the 200K process at all, this is something completely different.”” And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Marie: Absolutely. And I just think the more you apply, you said earlier, you’re saying it with your own voice and it’s going to come across differently. Your people are drawn to you because you’re you. The message can come through so many different channels and people. But people need the message and some people are going to really resonate with you. The more people afraid from emotional pain and are free to be who they want to be in the world and do what they want to do the better so just it’s not about you.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. Okay, knowing that you were going to be on this episode, is there anything that you jotted down that you wanted to say that we haven’t covered yet?

Marie: I mean a bunch of things in terms of the things that I have appreciated about your content. So, I’m going to list them out really quickly. One of them is just writing to your best client was so helpful for me, instead of trying to convince other people, that just to know that someone’s out there listening that gets it and writing to your best client was amazing. One of the best things is slowing down because I am someone that I think fast and I have a lot of ideas.

Stacey: Me too, yeah.

Marie: Yeah, and I’m risk tolerant.

Stacey: Yes, me too.

Marie: And so, I catch things all the time and I’m not afraid to fail so I’m like bam, bam, bam. But your work on getting the backend of your business clean has been very helpful because I’m so itching to get my niche, and my process, and my videos recorded, and my podcast started. But it’s so helpful to have you telling me to pace myself.

Stacey: Yes, that’s so good. I love that, yes, yes, yes. I was actually just writing about this and I’ll just say something quickly about this. But I was just writing that you want to be really careful about having a messy backend. It’s not the end of the world but what I have found is if you have things that are weighing on your brain, things that you think about constantly like I really need to clean that up, or I really need to handle this, or I really want to, whatever it is. I can’t think of examples right now but there are always lots.

When you have those weighing on you it shows up. Anything in your business that you’re afraid if your clients knew this about you, if they knew this was happening behind the scenes you would be embarrassed, that’s the shit you’ve got to clean up. I talked about on the podcast recently, eight months ago, nine months ago I had an employee come to me and tell me the onboarding experience of our company was essentially terrible and they had so much stress. And it really made them not enjoy the job.

And they just really had a lot of criticism for our company. And I just listened to everything. I wrote every single thing they said down and I flew my COO out and I was like, “We’ve got to clean this up right now.” I said, “This is not the experience 200Kers have when they log into the member portal.” When they log in every single step is accounted for. They literally are like, “Wait, what, how is this so well put together.” And I’m like, “They would be shocked if they knew an employee thought this about us.”

Our training does not look like this, why is our training not a winning the lottery experience for our clients, we can no longer avoid this. This to me feels like it would be embarrassing if people, I’m open about it now but this is something I would not want my clients to know and I don’t feel proud about. So, let’s get it taken care of. And we focused on that for six months before doing anything. We didn’t do any 2K launches. That was our number one, we put a ton of money into it, ton of time into it.

And now I’m so proud of my team on what’s happening on the behind the scenes that I would be like, any of my clients could come into Slack for a day and look at what we’re doing and I would be so freaking proud. So, I do think that that is something that’s really important that we teach in 200K is that anything you would not be proud for your clients to know is happening behind the scenes with you or wherever, you’ve got to clean that up because it has nothing to do with them. It’s not going to keep them from getting results, obviously it didn’t mine but it weighs you down.

Marie: Yeah. And that idea of when your brain is hiding something, you don’t have a mind like water that’s going to respond in kind to whatever the thing asking for your attention is. You’re going to over-respond or under-respond if you’re distracting something you’re hiding.

Stacey: Yeah, under-respond or over-respond, so good. Okay, what are you most excited about coming into because we haven’t even met live, what are you most excited about?

Marie: So much because I’m excited to learn more that will allow me, I just feel like there’s so much that I don’t know about the business structure of a coaching business specifically at the point that I’m at. I do a lot of business coaching so I know business fundamentals. But there’s so much I don’t know about launching. There’s so much work, I’m a writer but I’m not a copywriter, so I’m so excited to learn about copy. And more than anything else, Stacey, I’m so excited about the PSPR.

I’ve done six versions of it and it’s still just not even close to there. And it’s just so fun to be in the exploration of it. And I know that after the event and throughout the process of working with you I’m going to get clearer and clearer. So, I’m just excited to be in each part of that.

Stacey: So, fun. You just have a lot of presence. I want everyone to take that away. The reason you’re doing so well and you’re being so successful is because you are just present. You said it earlier but you’re just so present with where you are. And if anyone is coming to 200K or thinking of joining, or whatever. If you get to PSPR and you’re like, “Holy crap, I’ve done six iterations and not even close.” You could feel terrible about that or you could borrow Marie’s thoughts and be really excited about it and be like, “This is a fun journey to be on. I’m excited to be on this journey.”

And no judgment if you’re not there because I have to take a journey myself down funnel lane and figure out. We’ve just ran the same funnel for years. We’ve made millions of dollars with it but it’s just not working anymore. And when I think about going down funnel lane I’m like, “This is awful. I have no motivation to do it. This is terrible.” So I won’t borrow your thoughts and work very diligently on loving where I am with funnels. But if you’re not there, that’s okay.

But just consider borrowing the idea, I’m going to take it from myself for funnels but just borrow the idea that it could be a journey, it could be really fun. You might look back and be like, “That was the time of my life where I grew the most or the time of my business that I was the most scrappy and the most resilient.” And you will be proud of that at some point. You will look back and you will have nostalgia over that. I sometimes have a nostalgia over just getting out and meeting people, and telling them I’m a coach.

God the excitement of landing in Dallas when I used to go for my masterminds. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since we’re meeting in Orlando. Just the excitement of I’m here and telling people in the cab, “I’m going to this coaching event.” I don’t get that same level anymore. And so, I miss that. I’m so excited for everybody that’s coming that has that. But one day you will not be that excited that you’re going to a coaching event.

It will just be I’m going to a coaching event, I promise, it will happen. It will just become this normal thing you do. So, you’ve got to just love that part of wherever you’re at.

Marie: Going to a coaching event where Stacey Boehman is going to speak, super pregnant like a badass and just with the most grace and poise, it’s so fun that you’re on the other side of that.

Stacey: Yes. I was really excited to go to that event but I did also have to coach myself for a week straight. There was a solid week where I was like, “Am I calling Brooke and telling her I’m not doing this? I’m so pregnant?

Marie: I love when you said about staying in your hotel room the whole first day.

Stacey: I was literally, I never got out of bed. We ordered Shake Shack in. My husband would go down and get me, people would be like, “Oh my God.” And Neil would be like, “What’s happening right now?” I missed all of the people I wanted to see speak. I was just so sick. And now I’m nursing, so we’re going to 200K and I’m like, what’s that going to be like? But my nanny, she’s coming with us and she assures me that she’s got it, we’re good.

Marie: One more thought, do we have time for one more?

Stacey: Yes, we do.

Marie: The other thing about that iteration and not getting things right, for me with my PSPR, the thought that I have is I don’t want it until it’s right because I want to get it so good for my people. I want to get it to the right place where it’s really going to call to them and I know this isn’t yet. So, it’s definitely not, I don’t even want it to be right yet because I’m [crosstalk]. And that’s the thing that I think as an entrepreneur was really valuable for me when I got so into just delivering value through whatever my posts were and also to my people.

In June I had a whole, eight people wrapping up and I had 100% of them sign back up with me because of the results they got, because I was just so focused on that group of people making it to what they wanted. And so that really focusing, it all comes back again to not making it about your own insecurity but how can you show up for them.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. I love that. I’m so excited for where you’re going to go. You’re going to totally just be a sponge in the room for sure. And yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited for your journey. I’m excited for your clients. It’s going to be so fun. And I also have to just offer you that I think you have a lot more intellectual property than you might be telling yourself. Everything you said on this episode, and of course it’s what you’ve already said. But you’ve just said similar things to I’ve said, other people have said, but you’ve said them in your way, in such a way that it lands differently.

I’ve been listening to my students who have done the guest podcast and their thoughts and the way they have offered things, and every single episode that I listen to I’m like, “They say something that I’ve said in some form or fashion at some point, or Brooke has, or I’ve heard in the industry.” But the way they said it hit me so hard that it sent me into this inspiration spiral of oh my gosh, we’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do that. It just landed, what did Olivia say? I wrote it in my notes.

It was something like, failure can never be something you do, it’s only ever something you think. I was like, “What? Stop it right now. What is going on? That’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard.” So, I just have to acknowledge you and tell you that you have a lot more I think that’s uniqueness that you’re giving yourself credit for. And I love your niche, I think it is so unique. It is your niche, you are niched out.

Marie: It is my niche. I’m niched out.

Stacey: I love it. I just think everyone in the world has a dream that they have in their head, they have a script, a book, they have something, a blog that they would start. They have something that they would create into the world if they knew how to do it and you’re their person.

Marie: I’m their person, I can’t wait to meet them.

Stacey: Yes, so good. I can’t wait to meet you.

Marie: Me too.

Stacey: Are you coming live?

Marie: Yes, definitely, I’m counting down the days.

Stacey: Alright, me too.

Marie: I haven’t broken it to my kids yet. I know you’re bringing the babe with you but I’ve still got to break the news to them that I’m going to be gone but I can do it.

Stacey: Bless them, yes, we are bringing the baby. I’ve got to bring the baby. It will be an interesting – this is going to be seriously my Everest, I know I’m going to rock it but I do think it’s going to be the most challenging for me event that I’ve ever done. Everything right now feels challenging, coming back to work with an infant. I’m sure you know but I’m also just – I’m down for it. Let’s do it. Let’s go. It’s going to be messy, it’s going to be crazy, it’s going to be hard, I’m for sure I’m going to cry. I’m a crier so that’s going to happen but let’s go, let’s do it.

Marie: I had this coworker, we had shared Google Calendars. And I opened up her Google Calendar to schedule a meeting with her and she had just come back from maternity leave. And three times a day, the word ‘pump it up’ was in her calendar.

Stacey: That’s so great.

Marie: That’s how girl friends stay so positive all day long. She takes pump it out breaks to get herself in the right mindset. And I told her, she’s like, “No, I’m pumping.”

Stacey: That’s so good. We just put Jackson’s nursing schedule in my calendar. I came back on Monday after being sick for two weeks. And I made it till 3:00pm. I had one of these podcast interviews, made it till 3:00pm and just bawled my eyes out. It was just pure awfulness. And one of the things I was really upset about was just my nursing schedule. And my team had unwittingly, they didn’t mean to but had scheduled so many things on my calendar. And there was no time for me to each lunch, no time for me to pump. I’m like, “We have to change this.”

And so, they went in and they put my nursing schedule in my phone, when my nanny’s here she pretty much keeps me on schedule. And I went in and looked at it and I was so astounded by that’s an actual full-time job. The space it takes on my calendar and I will say the thought I’m choosing right now for everyone listening, the thought I’m choosing is I’m going to have to be so meticulous with my time now in my business that I do think it’s going to require a whole new set of thoughts, a whole new set of emotions and behavior that for sure that’s laying the path for $20 million, 100%.

It’s going to be the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced and it’s going to help me teach my students time management on a whole another level as well. So, I’m like, it’s going to be hard but let’s do it. That’s what I keep telling myself.

Marie: You’re going to get all those little oxytocin hits in the middle of your day that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Stacey: That’s true.

Marie: [Crosstalk].

Stacey: I just have to get my mind to take the oxytocin hit and not go into the desperation of now my nanny’s going to go read my child a book instead of me. That’s where my brain goes. And I am aware of it so I’m like, you’ve got to stay in the joy, don’t go into the sadness. And I’m also choosing a lot of thoughts about I really do love what I do and right now I’m in this weird place where I don’t give myself a lot of me time because I just, I can’t stop soaking him up. It’s crazy. I just can’t, I’m so obsessed with him all day and all night. I know that’s going to fade.

Marie: No, it doesn’t. Well, for me it has not.

Stacey: Well, yeah, maybe it won’t, I don’t know but I get to the point sometimes where I’m like, okay, I have not had one second to my day and now it’s caught up in a bad way. So, I’m like this is just going to make me take that time for myself that I do actually enjoy. But yeah, it’s a working progress. So, everyone’s coming to 200K to have their transformation. I’m coming to have mine. We’re all in it together.

Marie: So excited.

Stacey: Well, thank you for coming on the podcast. This episode was so good. Congratulations, okay, it was 440 something hundred percent. I don’t even remember, it was something crazy. I think it was over 400%, 442.1% growth, just ridiculous, that was so good.

Marie: It was so fun how that dropped at the beginning of the episode. That was delightful.

Stacey: So exciting, I just think, what, it’s crazy. I love it. Well, everyone is very lucky to have you in the room and have all of your thoughts for peer coaching and all of the things. So, thanks for coming.

Marie: Thank you so much, Stacey.

Stacey: Alright, I’ll talk to you soon in Orlando.

Marie: Alright.

Stacey: 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 $2000, 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.