Ep #244: Powerful Pivots with Piper Watson

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 244. Today I have a guest speaker, a guest podcast interviewee from my 200K Mastermind, Piper Watson. And we are going to talk about some really fun stuff today. We’re going to talk about being decided. We’re going to talk about growing into your 200K self-concept. And before we do that we’re going to talk about some fun little things to know about you.

When you sent your pre-work in for this interview, I was like, “Wait, what? We have to talk about all of these things, they’re so interesting.” So before we dive in, why don’t you introduce yourself, tell everyone who you are, what you coach, how much money you’ve made, just anything that you think would be super inspiring for them to know about you.

Piper: Yeah. Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here. So my name is Piper Watson and I am a pivot coach. I help people with big life pivots in their career, their relationships, their lives or even just their geographical location. It’s hard to do new things. And I joined 2K actually a year ago. I applied to 200K last November. So this is the beginning of my second round. And I’m looking at the side here, because I keep track of all of these things. So year to date I am at 67,000, which is exactly what I made all of last year and it’s only August.

Stacey: That’s so great. You’re going to do double what you did last year. That’s so good. So I think this is really interesting is that you, I would say after reading some of your interesting things that we’ll talk about in just a second. After reading those, you must be, I think, even the pivot coach for high achievers or the pivot coach for highly successful people who want to do lots and lots of big things in their lives. That’s my guess anyway, because I was reading about you and I was like, “Wait a minute, what?”

So can we just talk about that? Can we talk about some of the extraordinary things that you have done?

Piper: Yes, absolutely. I mean well, one thing I will say about that, it’s really interesting and I got this coaching from you in the last round kind of towards the end. I was like, “Okay, hold up, I need coaching, [inaudible] drama.” And you were like, “What do you want?” And I was like, “I want to help people live a rad life.”

Stacey: It’s so fun.

Piper: That’s what I want. And I feel like we kind of get stuck in what we’re doing and this life that we’ve created that maybe we were really excited by for a while and then we’re not really excited about it anymore. And what happens and then we forget, adults forget how to dream and how to be adventurous. I think at some point in our lives, we’re adventurous people in our childhood, even if it was just in our imagination. And then we either never learn how to take action on it or stop taking action on it.

And that’s really what I want for people is, hey, let’s get over the hump of making changes and get you towards your rad life as quickly as possible. So yeah, I mean, well, what do you want to start with Stacey, what’s jumped out at you?

Stacey: Yeah. Okay, well, first I have to just say I think it’s so interesting that you said that I asked you that question. I don’t know if it was last 200K call or if it was a Two Million Dollar Group call. I don’t remember, but I feel like I do so much coaching now. But someone in one of my groups had said something and then I asked her, “What do you want?” And she was like, “Oh, interesting question.” And I just have to take a pause because I think it’s so interesting that we get into coaching. I think we all have a deep desire to create things that we want.

And then we, for whatever reason, once we flip the switch to entrepreneurship, we forget sometimes to ask what we want. It’s such an obvious question. Just even to identify that, to know that we’re moving in that direction, I just think that’s such an interesting thing. I also wonder, when you’re coaching people in a big pivot, if they are also asking themselves that question is, what do you want, if you could just choose, what would that be?

Piper: 100%, it is bananas to me how difficult that question is for a lot of people. It was like somewhere along the way we stopped giving ourselves permission to really dream and visualize and take a second to do that. And then we get so caught up in, well, what’s realistic and what’s impossible? I couldn’t possibly afford that.

I mean that’s one of the first things that I work on with people is really stripping away the layers and very similar, you had done this in a round prior to when I joined and I watched it in the replays in the 200K portal, of allowing people space to really dream about what they would do with the money that they created in their businesses and it does, it triggers a safety thing for people like I couldn’t possibly let myself dream anymore. And I’m like, “What is the point of living if we’re not living an interesting life really?”

Stacey: We’ve got to get back to that and I am a big proponent on teaching, especially in business, just because I’ve had so many hundreds of case studies come through, thousands in the 2K room, hundreds in the 200K room. So we start to see patterns of what works and what doesn’t. And I do like to make educated guesses even in my business of this is what I know to be true and make decisions that set me up for success. But when I think of my three year plan, I love to dream about what I want.

And if I have something that emerges that I feel, in combination, there’s my desire and then there’s all these things in the way to make that reasonably come true with the resources I currently have or the skill sets I currently have. I love to just say, “Okay, I’m going to put that in the plan.” And now I have three years to work towards it to make sure it’s a super success. But I think that sometimes people misunderstand what I teach, they take it as never do what you want, only do what people suggest is the best business moves.

And I’m like, “No. Identify what you want first and then figure out a plan to making that a winning scenario for yourself.” Figure out if it’s I want to do a membership. Okay, then I’ve got to start building an audience for that. I’ve got to just know that that’s what it’s going to require is getting lots of people and lots of eyeballs on my offer. Or if I want to move to group then okay, great, here are the skill sets I need to do, here’s the mindset I need to have and then now let me go forth.

So I just thought that was worthy, since you’re a pivot coach, worthy of bringing up is make sure your pivots and the things you’re doing, you factored in your deepest desires. And I also love using intentional thought creation. I’ve been doing that a lot in my business is this is what I want. If I could just choose, especially I think as I get bigger, I notice my brain start to tell me all the reasons why it wouldn’t work and I can’t do it or why my clients wouldn’t like it or my audience wouldn’t like it or the industry wouldn’t like, whatever.

It starts becoming this limiting thing and so I’m really working on, well, let’s just start with the desire. And then we can reverse engineer and get me to the place where once I believe it so deeply, the actions will start to come very inevitably from that place. And I think sometimes we forget to just factor that in, if I could have what I desire, if I could explore what I want, what would that even be?

I wonder if some of your clients come and do they know what pivot they want? They know that they want to pivot and they know what that looks like or is it that they feel one coming, but they’re not sure what that looks like and they need help discovering what that might look like or is it both?

Piper: It’s both, it’s 50/50. And I think, I’ve been toying with the idea of if, when I make it a group, calling it permission to pivot because I think there is some permission that needs to happen as well. That permission to dream, that permission to lean into desire to kind of unpack, what do I actually want? And as to your point, let the steps become clear as you give yourself the internal permission to allow it to be a possibility for yourself.

And then for people that already know what they want to do, it’s generally three things that get in the way, the biggest one being, oh my gosh, will I still be able to maintain the financial security that I’ve created myself with my boring job that I hate? Okay, we’ll work through that for sure.

Stacey: Yeah, I think that’s the biggest one even for entrepreneurs or for people who are coming from a corporate type job or a salaried job or an hourly job to entrepreneurship. That’s the biggest thing, if they want to become life coaches, they really want to be a life coach, but it’s so scary to leave what’s known and comfortable and dependable behind, especially if you have a family.

Piper: Absolutely. And then I’ve even seen that with some of the coaches that are in the 2K room, that are even making multiple six figures. And still afraid to leave the comfort and safety of their consistent paycheck to be a full-time coach, even though their coaching business is already making multiple six figures. I think that’s amazing and hilarious and amazing and I love those people. But yeah, it’s bridging the gap [crosstalk].

Stacey: I see that a lot with doctors and lawyers, that comes up a lot because it’s not just having to replace that income. It’s also having to replace that identity of who they’re being. I think pivoting identities is so challenging as well. I’ve been going through that myself with how I built my business and how I created success is not necessarily the way I want to take my business moving forward. I see a different path and a different vision.

I was so blessed, I always say this, but when I started my business I had been on commission for seven years, so if I didn’t sell a mop or a slicer I didn’t get paid. So I just understood that naturally about, I didn’t have that barrier. And I do think I used to moan and complain about my Walmart job. But at the end of the day, it made it so much easier for me to pivot. So I have so much compassion for the people who pivot, they have a lot more safety and security. I didn’t have a lot of money to gamble so it didn’t really seem like a far fall if it didn’t work.

There was so much more available for me if it worked out than it didn’t. So I do think that that’s interesting is the anchors that could keep people from making the pivot is how much safety they’ve created for themselves and comfort and organization and just routine. There’s so much safety in that routine for them to do something really big and outrageous can really actually be fight or flight for your whole body all of the time.

Piper: Definitely. And I think so much of your journey resonated with me because this is my fourth business. I’ve created my own job since I was 27. And so I just already have nothing to lose. I’ve never really experienced that kind of safety before and have also not felt unsafe. So taking time, and I think that’s one of the biggest things that I’ve learned in the 200K process is really taking time to mine my brain for the information of this feels like a no brainer to me.

How can I make this easily replicated, a process or easy to digest process for other people that it might be really foreign for? What is the mindset? What is the strategy? And I guide people.

Stacey: Yes, for the people who aren’t like you, that’s the hardest work is to find, I think our first iteration is always sharing the way that we think and the way that we approach things because that can be transformational. But then figuring out how to take someone who doesn’t have that baseline thinking and create a process for them to help them understand that. Yes, that’s where I think the success really blows up is when you create that ability to do that with everyone.

Piper: So I was listening to Megan Wing’s podcast episode a little bit this morning.

Stacey: Yeah, it came out today.

Piper: And I was kind of giggling because in my mind I had thought this particular interview was going to be totally different. And when you had said, “I’m just really curious for my own selfish purposes to invite people on that are doing different things, that are making me think differently about my life.” And your reference to if Brooke had been at the Kentucky Derby, it would have seemed like that’s where the party was at.

Stacey: If she were up at the top bleachers, yeah.

Piper: Maybe Stacey’s wanting to have a little more adventure in her life, exploring different parts of her own personal life, just what’s going on with you personally and pivoting in those directions. And I just thought that was a really interesting thing to think about. To your previous point, we only think about business most of the time when we’re entrepreneurs and we forget to also add those stretch ways of being just in our lives.

What might be different that we want to experience that we’ve never experienced before? What kind of person would we want to show up as that’s a little different than maybe what people are used to? And I think that’s a really fun thing to explore with people as well, especially when I work with entrepreneurs.

Stacey: Yeah. I just recorded a podcast before I met with you on identity urges. And I talk about how many ways I’ve shifted my identity and my personality in the years of personal development that I’ve had in growing. And I really do believe when I teach in 2K, the who, before, how. We talk a lot about that now in 200K and bringing back people back to once we get to a certain level, we just forget. We’re like, “No, it’s all the strategies, strategy, strategy, strategy, not first let me align my thinking.”

And I really want to lead by example to start showing people what does it look like for me to shift my thinking to a $30 million earner? And I think about that, not just in how I run my business, but who I’m going to become in every area of my life and how I will be interacting.

And one of the things, my friends, we joked the whole Derby, I had some of my closest friends there. And they were like, “Stacey is the person, when you do something with her, she’s going to make sure everyone’s well fed, well hydrated, comfortable, has everything they need. Everything’s well planned, every detail’s taken care of. The ride is coming from us at this time. This is the itinerary. She’s the ultimate mom.”

Which is so funny because I just had a baby and I really do think my whole life I was truly meant to be a mom, that was always my purpose. And then I’ve just developed this business persona on the side. I’m just always a mom. But because of that also the flipside of that is I’m always thinking about that and I’m always planning for that and everything has to be perfect and organized and put together. And then if it isn’t exactly the way that I imagined or what I thought, I experience a lot of anxiety or disappointment.

And so I’ve been really playing with the idea at 30 million, as a consumer in the industry, as a customer of all things, I love to spend money. One of the things that I think is also going to increase [inaudible] or open my mind with money is this idea that there’s nothing that I could ever spend my money on where I would be disappointed. To have an amazing time, I’m always going to create that no matter what.

My husband, we’re going to Italy Friday and he just saw the weather changed, increased by 11 or 12 degrees in heat. And he was like, “It’s going to be so hot.” But the wave is hitting America too, and I go, “Okay, well, we can be hot in Louisville or we can be hot in Italy, which one would you prefer? I’d rather be hot in Italy, let’s go.”

And we’re just working on, in the pandemic I flew private so much, we don’t fly private at all anymore. And one of the big things that I was always flying private, because I couldn’t manage my mind around flying in a highly controlled environment where if you dropped your mask to drink, someone might scream at you to put it back up. I couldn’t deal with that. And then I was like, “But how much money would I have saved if I could have, if I could have just adopted this?” So anyways, that’s my own personal thing.

I feel like at 30 million, not only am I making more, but I’m having more fun spending my money because there’s nothing I could spend it on, no investment I could make, no trip I could buy, nothing I could do that I wouldn’t trust myself to just have an amazing time no matter how it ended up, so that’s where that came from.

Piper: That’s such a powerful thought. And I think kind of circling back, you were asking me about these crazy things that I’ve done, this is that. So I went on a 3,000 mile bicycle trip from Turkey through Eastern Europe, kind of behind the Iron Curtain with zero prior experience. Literally maybe 10 spinning classes, towing a 60 pound trailer. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life up until that point. All the frozen bags of peas on my crotch every single night, it was so insane.

And I realized during that trip, the whole first two months I was a really negative person and then I had this identity of yeah, just being a really pessimistic person. And my trip partner had said it to me one day. I was taking forever to figure out where to pitch the tent. And he was like, “Piper, you spend so much time trying to figure out the perfect thing for everything when sometimes anything will do.

Stacey: Yeah. How much energy do you have? That’s what I think is where I will get my $30 million energy is not needing to do that. That’s such a great example. If I could pitch my tent anywhere, I will have so much more energy.

Piper: That was such a light bulb moment for me, I was like, “Oh my God, I’m living my whole life like this.” And that really, it’s come up in different ways throughout the years, you know where layers of the onion. I think I have it figured out and then I see a new version of it pop up. And it really came through in my first round of 200K, this last round is, I was just like, what are we waiting on? I’m trying to get my niche statement right. I’m trying to get this right. I’m trying to find the perfect thing and put a pretty bow on it.

And I’m being undecided and therefore I’m leaving money on the table. And there’s people that I’m not helping because of it. Why am I here then? What am I doing?

Stacey: Yeah, that’s so good.

Piper: Get myself out of it and so that kind of is where I came up with one of these topic ideas of being decided is because it’s so transformational when you just decide and you don’t look back, I am pitching the tent here.

Stacey: Yes. And then if you have decided you’re pitching the tent here and it really is a decision, meaning you don’t go back and forth about it then all there is left is making yourself happy with doing that.

Piper: Oh my gosh, yes, it’s a closed loop. You have so much more bandwidth to stop and smell the literal roses to just be in the experience that you’re in, to be creative in those experiences. I remember one time very specifically, I think about it all the time on that particular trip where my touring partner, he had done lots of bike tours, he was a super fit guy, I was not. And he would just zoom up these mountains. I would be miles and miles behind him, this was kind of pre cell phone days. I’m dating myself here.

So I had no idea when I was going to ever catch up to him by the end of the day. He could just keep biking and biking and I would be done four hours ago but still have to catch up to him to pitch the damn tent. So at one point, probably two and a half months into the trip, we were on this crazy hill in the Czech Republic that I didn’t even know that paved roads could be this steep. It was comical and I’m sitting at the bottom of it and he’s sitting next to me and he just looks so defeated and tired and worn out. And yet in my mind I was like, I’m going to see how fast I can do this.

It was like I had become a different person because I just gave up trying to make everything perfect and right and I just started enjoying the trip for what it was. And through that process I just became a lot stronger and a lot more confident in being able to do things. And I think that’s such an important lesson, especially for people that are in the 2K room, maybe transitioning to 25K or 200K. Just decide you’re not going to break anything, play with it, have fun with it, learn from it.

Change your mind in six months or a year, but really see it through and get what you came for in that decision and enjoy your business.

Stacey: I think too, you actually can sometimes, semi ‘break things’. I have broken some things recently, not in my business but some things in my personal life. And I was getting coaching on this actually where I made the best decision I could at the time.

And I was being guided by other people, people we had brought in, my husband and I, to guide us with some of our money. And assuming they were helping us make the best decision, that that was their role. And then it turns out that it really wasn’t decisions that were the best for us long term, and it created some, I can’t even describe it as mistakes, but it created a situation where we’re now, I have really been in the last, I don’t know, six months or so really educating myself on my money because we have so much of it.

And it’s really scary when you have so much of it just laying around and you don’t know what to do with it. And then you hear banks are failing and I’m like, “I need to be just a little more educated on it.” And so I’ve been doing that. And I was coaching with my coach because I realized I don’t love the decision I made, I don’t know, maybe a year and a half ago. And I wish I had made it differently and I was feeling a lot of shame around it, a ton of shame. And I don’t typically go to shame or regret, it’s just not common for me, but this really triggered me.

And I felt shame that I didn’t catch some things that they said to me that were kind of red flags or I didn’t catch areas where I wasn’t 100% educated and I’d asked them questions. And tried to understand the financial systems that they advised us to place our money in. And I would ask questions and then not really get the answer they gave me clearly. So I really did try but then I moved forward without really having it.

And so anyways, fast forward, I was talking to my coach and I was feeling really just a lot of shame. And one of the things that has been so freeing for me from that conversation is we talked about the sentence. I made the best decision I could with the information and the thoughts that I had at the time. And now I just have better thinking and better information. And so now I’m going to move forward with that.

And I do think I see a lot of people come in, especially the 200K room and they learn our process and it’s very different than what’s being taught in the industry. And they see the reason it would be so successful for them. But let’s just say they launched a membership and they have made enough money to get in the 200K room but not enough that once they see the way I teach they’re like, I don’t even know if this is the best example, but like, “Oh, I realize now I could be making so much more money and doing so much better if I had done x y z.”

Or they go through the irresistible offer protocol and they’re like, “Oh my God, I didn’t make my decisions based on thinking about my clients. I just made it based on someone told me to do this.” That’s probably a better example of what might happen in the 200K room. But then they kind of beat themselves up, and what happens is it makes them afraid to make decisions moving forward because they’re like, this could happen again so now I have to overly decide.

And I have to really take my time and I have to really drag my feet to make sure I’ve really thought of every possible thing that could go wrong versus in life and business and money and everything we’re going to make decisions with the best thoughts that were available to us at the time. And what we have to do if we want to be great decision makers is be willing to make that decision and then once you have new thoughts and new information, be willing to redesign again and pivot.

Piper: And pivot.

Stacey: And Pivot.

Piper: And decide again and pivot again, yes, over and over on repeat. I love that you shared that story and it really resonates with me because that was part of what got me a little hung up in the first round. And so I’ll share this in a very crazy, super public moment of vulnerability, in case anybody else has been feeling this. Investing the money in 200K is significant. It requires a significant leveling up in your self-concept and your belief in yourself.

And what had happened for my husband and I. So we had run a non-profit. I was a photographer for many years. And then he and I started a non-profit makerspace so people could learn how to use tools and fix their homes or build furniture or make a basket, so many things. And it still runs. I haven’t been at the helm of it for several years but it’s still an amazing place. But I had kind of gotten trapped in this non-profit mindset of lack and that was really new to me because I had never experienced that before.

And so when I kind of got burnt out, we decided to leave that work and we ended up building a campervan and traveling for almost three years to eight different countries. We took two of our not small dogs, thus, the van and still lived in lack. We got a lot done with very little money. It was crazy. Most people were like, “What, do you have a trust fund?” I’m like, “No, we just Airbnb’d our house and lived off beans and rice.” It can be done.

And so kind of perpetuating this not enough-ness feeling, well, then we sold our house during the pandemic and I made some very bad investments, very rushed, thought I was being educated, thought I was asking the right questions, got a lot of not great advice for us.

Stacey: So interesting.

Piper: And basically lost 75% of what we had made on our house, which was all of our life savings. So fast forward and I’m thinking about investing in 200K. And there was just so much fear around that and I could decide to stay in that fear and be undecided and be afraid to make decisions, which I was just a little bit. But then I realized I made the best decisions with the information that I had. And now I know better ways to invest and if I always invest in my brain, then I always have 100% control over my results.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. That’s so good. One of the things that I chose to think too that might be helpful for you too if you’re still kind of working through it. I feel like I’ll be working through it for a little bit, but one of the thoughts I had is I’m so glad that this happened and I found it now. I started reading Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins. And it just has really opened my eyes. I’ve had the book for many years and I was just never, it’s a 600 page book. It’s very financial language. I don’t know what the word is, but you know I always say coach speak? It’s very financial speak.

And so I feel like you have to have a very high drive if you don’t typically understand. My brain wants to glaze over when people start talking about index funds and all these things. And so I have to really get myself to focus, but if I hadn’t tackled this now this could have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and could have been a much bigger loss. And now we’re going to make so many more millions of dollars and we didn’t lose that much, it could be worse, but we did lose money.

And it’s so interesting, I’ve been coaching myself so much on this. It doesn’t even feel as much as losing money now as deciding I don’t want to put my money in certain places. And then there is loss if you take it out once you’ve decided you don’t want to put your money there. So anyways I was really thinking about now as I go to make even that $30 million self, who’s going to steward a lot more money, a lot more profit. Now that person is more educated than ever.

And I’ve even been working on there will be now even bigger amounts I’m sure in the future that will come up that will be decisions I would have made differently 20 years from now looking back on 10 years before. I’m going to be like, “That $30 million, Stacey, she was so silly. She didn’t have these thoughts.” Now, I have these different thoughts. And I do think that the financial people don’t talk about that. I was thinking about Warren Buffett, I’m sure he’s had a ton of mistakes he’s made along the way of learning to be such an incredible investor and to use it.

And even Tony Robbins talks about in the books how many mistakes that he actually made before he learned about money. And I was like, “Okay, well if Tony Robbins has made these mistakes it’s okay that I’ve made these mistakes too.” So yeah, I think it’s so important to just know there’s such an importance in being willing to decide with the best thoughts you have available to you now and then being willing to pivot when you have better thoughts and more information and more experience moving forward.

And one of the things I had read up on is this idea of sometimes we keep moving forward with decisions that aren’t the best for us because we’re thinking about, it’s like the sunk cost mentality. We have already invested so much and I see that so often with people in their offers where they’re like, “Well, but I’ve been selling this for two years.” I’m like, “Okay, but it’s not selling so let’s not get into the sunk time cost here. Let’s just move forward with better information.” And so I think that’s really important too.

Piper: I love the way that you describe that, the sunk time cost.

Stacey: It’s not my language. I just read about it somewhere online.

Piper: But I think it totally applies to pivots specifically, any time you pivot, you think, well, I don’t want to start from zero again in my knowledge or where I’m at or my resources. And that does keep people from having the courage to pivot and courage, useful emotion, doesn’t feel that great. We’re going to do it anyway if your results aren’t what you want them to be. And I think about, it’s interesting, this is a little bit tangential but your identity pivot into a $30 million earner and sort of recognizing where you want to have more education on personal finance, maybe company finance investment.

It’s not dissimilar from what I set for myself in my 200K self-concept. That was one of my essentials. I want to feel in my body what it would be like to be a $200K earner. And I realized the biggest place that I was running around with my hair on fire was around my money. I had lost so much confidence in my ability to invest wisely, air quotes here for listeners, that I decided to farm out the expertise.

So I got the bookkeeper and the accountant and the this person that all of a sudden, I had made these mistakes, so I am no longer an expert with my money and I can’t be trusted with it. And it was so incredibly disempowering and I got some really powerful coaching in the Facebook group and that I hated at first.

Stacey: Wait. What was the coaching that you hated?

Piper: I was asking for advice like, “Hey, has anyone run an S Corp before or is anyone’s business an S Corp?” And I had some questions. And Lauren Batiste, who’s in the 200K group now and used to be a CPA, chimed in. And she asked just some open-ended questions. It was basically, I’m summarizing here because I don’t remember word for word but it was basically like, “What would it look like if you took back control of your own money and figured it out?”

And I was like, “Oh, but that’s not what I’m asking right now. I don’t want to do that. I want someone else to be the expert and tell me.” And it was like, I’m resistant to this. This is what I need to play with and lean into.

It was like Facebook was listening to this, all of a sudden this woman popped into my DMs, which I never usually pay attention to. And she was like, “Hey, I noticed you’re a coach. I help coaches manage their own books without needing to hire a bookkeeper. Let me know if that’s something that’s helpful for you.” And I was like, “Oh, my God, yes.” And it just set me on this trajectory of personal finance. I love Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

How do you just think about what’s keeping me from the self-concept that I want to have? And then how can I overcome that? What is the support and the resources that I need not to farm it out but to know it for myself, build that confidence? So if in the future I do farm it out, I know exactly what I’m looking for, I know exactly the questions to ask.

Stacey: Yes, that’s so good. I teach that even with Facebook Ads I just created the Two Million Dollar Group content. We ended up turning this into a separate course because it became so needy. But calling it essentials to Facebook Ads for people who are like me, who would easily and happily delegate out all decisions to Facebook Ads, who are making enough money where they wouldn’t necessarily go over them on their own and they’re going to use ad agencies. How do you work with experts while not delegating out your own expertise?

And so I kind of just taught them, what are things that you can ask? What are conversations you can be having? How can you be thinking about your metrics? How can you be having a powerful conversation as a CEO, even if you are bringing in experts to advise you, as can you also be checking their thinking and knowing enough about the language to get started? And I think that that’s sufficient, if we’re just willing to know enough about the language.

Learn enough of the language to get started and then always just be thinking about, does this, so for example, someone in Two Million Dollar Group had said that their ad person had said a 3,000K program is kind of in between low ticket and high ticket and 5,000 is high ticket. And I was like, “Okay, well, do we know that measurably? Do we have statistics on that? Otherwise, it’s just their thought.” You need to decide if you want to adopt that or not, but what I might ask, I don’t know the answer to that. I can say this is my hunch or I don’t know.

But my best advice if we’re being CEOs would say, “Do you have measurements or statistics on that? Is that just a statement of your hunch and your thought or do you actually have numbers to back this up and where did those numbers come from?” Sometimes that’s super helpful. Now, sometimes we also want to just listen to someone’s experience. But I think when you’re actively engaging with whether it’s a bookkeeper or anything.

If you’re actively just deciding, I’m going to embody this higher level self-concept, whether it’s a 200K self-concept or the self-concept of someone who can run ads or who can manage or steward your money well, whatever it is. When you’re actively embodying that, you will ask better questions and you will think harder instead of just are you listening just to what they say or are you also listening to why they’re saying that and contributing to that conversation and thinking critically on your own?

And I still struggle with that, obviously. I think it’s at every level, I always think, where is the millionaire money group where you have people making tens of millions of dollars who are all new money and figuring out how to manage it? Where is that group? I need to be a part of it because there isn’t really anyone to do that. And the people who will advise you, all of the systems that are set up to advise you for their own profit, which means it’s not super neutral. So yeah, you have to be willing to go there and to embody this is who I am and I can have this conversation.

Piper: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it is really empowering, if you think about it, no one’s really 100% expert on anything because we are all constantly learning. And so when you’re able to approach any ‘expert’ on things like money or Facebook Ads or even teach me how to be a better entrepreneur, a better life coach. It gives you space for creativity and it gives you space to make decisions for yourself.

To not put all the power in the gurus’ hands, but to receive the information and then ask yourself, how does this check out for me in my particular situation? I think that’s one thing that I’ve really learned in this program is to not just be so cavalier with my thoughts and my actions, but to be more thoughtful. And I think you’re a really good role model for that. And I can see it, just even the changes that you’ve made to the program and to the business in the last year since I have been a part of it.

I’m always like, “Wow, Stacey is very thoughtful.” And it challenges me to slow down and be more thoughtful and be more intentional with the things that I’m saying, the things that I’m putting out into the world, the time that I’m taking to create those things and not be in such a hurry.

And I think the wheels fall off the bus when we’re trying to do it in a hurry. And I’ve got to hurry up and make this decision of the financial advisor I’m going to work with or this program that’s got to get out the door because everybody’s asking for it instead of just being like, “No. Slowly roll, really think about it. How can I do it once and do it ‘right’ and really think about it.”

Stacey: Yeah. I mean, the way I teach this, especially at the $1 million level because it becomes a little bit more eyes you have on you. It becomes a little more important that you’re not just, if you want to be super successful and dependable and you want to create safety with your audience because not everyone is doing this in the industry.

So I don’t want to say you have to do it, but if you want to create a lot of safety for your audience, you do want to make sure when you are putting something out there, especially if it’s a big change. That you’ve really thought it through and you’re really decided and you’re really prepared to, whether it’s a new offer, it could be a price change, whatever it is, you’re prepared to really put out that into the world in a powerful way and you have to slow down to do that.

I always tell people, “The more money you make the more you want to slow yourself down, stop yourself and ask yourself the question, if I were deciding this for always, what would I decide?” You’re not going to decide it for always. You’re going to pivot at some point. But you want to just think about for the three year plan, for example, if I were solving this for the entirety of my three year plan rather than just now, if I wanted this to be a repeatable solution, what would it be versus how do I quickly put out the fire?

That is typically how I like to make all of my decisions is there’s the convenient way to solve it now. I’m always trying to push my team to do that too. There’s the convenient way and then there’s the way we always want to do it that probably will take more time and how can we make more decisions that take more time and last longer? Because then you have to make less and less and less decisions. You talked about earlier, once you decide you’ve closed a cycle.

I actually have a podcast coming up about that too in a different way. I’m going to talk about the way I think about making decisions in general. That’s made me so powerful and knowing who I am, but the more that you keep decisions open, they’re just all those open cycles and they’re just all over the place. And the reason I have so much more energy to go towards my business is we make fewer decisions because we make them further ahead thinking of the three-year plan so that they last for all three years.

And then I’m making less and less decisions and putting out less and less fires. We’re going through that now a little on the back end. We’re having to redefine that. We’ve ended a three year plan and we’re like, “Okay, a lot of decisions need to be completely remade with a whole new three year plan.” That’s kind of what I feel like the whole year has been for my business. But I appreciate that you recognize that. That is something I teach and I really do live that on a daily basis. I don’t like to do anything quick.

Piper: Yeah. Well, and it’s funny, I was thinking, maybe Stacey’s going to have a three year plan 2.0. So, everything that you learn, re-make a lot of decisions, that’ll be an interesting space.

Stacey: Yeah, could be.

Piper: Yeah, for sure. It reminded me of when I first started my photography business. I worked for this wedding photographer who was hilarious and he had two pieces of really great advice. He’s like, “Any good business is only as strong as the systems that are in place, whether it’s the systems of how you function or the systems for how you plan for things like the three year plan.”

And I always think of the three year plan, thinking back to this moment where we were talking about camera equipment. And camera equipment is incredibly expensive. One lens could be $3,000 and a body could be $10,000. And you need a whole kit. You’ve got to be prepared, all the lenses, all the things, a backup camera, tripod, [inaudible]. And he was like, “Buy once, buy right even if it takes you months, years to save up for that one lens that would be perfect.

Work with what you have, do everything that you can with that one lens until you can afford the version that will be your forever lens. And it will teach you to be such a more adaptable photographer.” And I’ve applied that even now, and I think about that with the three year plan, what doesn’t need to change? What can I just ride out and squeeze every last drop out of [crosstalk] possible.” Because I’m going to learn something from it really valuable and it’s going to buy me time that I need.

One thing I have added to my three year plan is I make a brain dump parking lot, all the ideas, all the things, all the wishes, all the desires. And then for fun after I just do the essentials of my three year plan, I kind of drop them in on the timeline. If I were to write that trashy romance novel that I’ve been dreaming about, where on the timeline might that go? Or if I did start a podcast or whatever.

And it’s just kind of a fun space to be of making sure that I’m accounting for my desires, but also making sure that the essentials get done. And that I am seeing the whole timeline and I’m keeping it really tight, really simple. Take all the time that I need to do the things and do it in the right way that would make me feel really good.

Stacey: Yeah, so good. I’m curious how that plays into when you coach your clients on pivoting, if they haven’t pivoted yet and they know they’re going to make one, how you set them up for that? Because I do find, we’re examining a few different options for a few really big pivots in our business. There’s a couple on the table. And typically what I like to do, this is a very simplistic version. I want to hear what you have to say.

But it’s really, here are the things on the table. Now that we know they’re on the table we’re going to spend the next say six months or a year or a certain amount of sales cycles, monitoring, creating maybe data and analytics to support that now. Just having measurements for how will we know this is successful, exploring the opportunity. So it kind of sits on the table of being available to be a pivot for a while before we actually make it. And I typically make it once I really feel solid in my self-concept and I really feel good about the decision I’m making.

And then it goes into okay, now how will we actually do the pivot? What are the actual steps of it? And what do we need to arrange to make that seamless and frictionless for our clients? Then there’s the rollout and the public messaging. And then there is the actual living into it. I haven’t thought that through in any way, I’m just curious if is that a normal, typical way you work with clients or if there’s something even selfishly that I could glean from your expertise of making big pivots or even small ones? Mine that I have coming up feel like they’re going to be big.

Piper: Yeah. And one thing I would say with that because before I did pivot coaching, I have done a couple of different types of coaching. And I started with organizational development consulting, helping businesses create positive work culture basically. How could we all love being here? Because I’d run a non-profit where we had 40 weekly volunteers that would each come in for two to three hours for free. And they would not leave for years. Some are still there. We just celebrated 10 years.

And people were like, “How do you get people to come there for free every single week?” And I was like, “Yeah, how do we do that?” And so one thing I would say this to you specifically is with all of the options on the table an interesting place to start might be, what will be my company culture with each one of those decisions or options? Yeah, the numbers are important, how that could play out.

Stacey: Or even what the client culture is, because I feel like that’s what helped me make the decision to remove the 25K guarantee with 200K is I thought a lot about. I had gotten coaching on it, I don’t know, last October by two different people that had nothing to do with each other. One was outside of the coaching industry and one was in the coaching industry, which I found that so interesting, it would come up and I hadn’t brought it to the table and I was very defensive about it.

I just did an intentional thought creation one day of what would change about the culture in 200K if I removed this? Because I had only ever allowed myself to see it as a positive thing for the community. I had never let myself entertain any negative aspects of it for the client or the culture of the community. And once I asked myself the question, it felt like the floodgates opened up.

We’re in an enrollment now and it’s been so fascinating to see the level of people enrolling. And we have them answer the question, how will you guarantee your success now that we don’t offer a 25K guarantee? And the answers have been, Patrick, my CTO says that you should always hire people you would want to work for. And I was thinking about that with the people who have been enrolling, that I should accept people into the mastermind that I would want to be coached by, that I would be excited about.

Not that I haven’t in the past, I’ve always been so scrutinizing of our applications. But there’s just something about that considering, so the company culture, I love that and considering, I’ve never framed it as the client culture before. I always think about it as a container, but I really did make that decision from, I think that this will be a really powerful good move for the culture of the program. And so that’s really interesting to think about, okay, I love it.

Piper: Definitely, because I think for you, I think when you started this it was a different thing and I wasn’t there. I can’t really touch on that. But what I experienced at the last live event in Nashville a month ago was, this is a community. This is a movement. I belong here. And that is so much more of a different vibe. I really, really felt that. Not I didn’t feel like I belonged at the live event before that, but I think the decisions that you made really underscored that.

And so it makes perfect sense that you would now be thinking, what is the client culture? Because I am creating this community, because it’s just more fun to work in that way of be more in touch with the impact that you’re having. And so that’s a question I ask a lot of people is, of all of the decisions, of all the options on the table, who is affected and how are they affected? Not just us, not just who we think is directly affected, but who might indirectly be affected?

And does that feel in alignment with our personal values or our company values and mission, yes or no? Kind of check the box, process of elimination. And walk ourselves backwards. I love the three year plan so, so much. And I love to walk myself back to today from the end point. And I think that’s a large part of the pivot is giving people permission to dream, to kind of loosen up. Remember, yeah, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was five. Okay, well, maybe you’re 45 now and that’s actually not a possibility.

Stacey: But you could pay to go to space now.

Piper: You could pay to go to space. You could go to space camp. You could get your pilot’s license. There’s so many other things that might tap into those same emotions. And then allowing the space to dream, plopping it in a three year vision for your life and walking it backwards to what can I actually do today, move that needle. So it’s kind of a combination that’s how I work with people.

Stacey: I love it. So good. So. I have to acknowledge you/you probably don’t know this but tell this story because I think this could be really interesting. So I really love, when you had written in and you had said, “I’ve already made this year what I made all of last year.” And I remember being on a call with you. I don’t know if you remember this, but I had sent an email out and said, “Hey, do you have questions about 200K? Do you want to jump on a call?” And you had jumped on that call. And I talked to you.

Here’s what I think is so interesting, before we ended, share this message with my audience. You’ve been in 200K now, I’m sure you’ve heard me teach this where I say, “If a sales launch is not going the way you wanted or if you’re not selling the way you want. The number one thing, or even if you want to just be selling more, you’ve got to get your audience talking.” I’m always teaching that in 200K, in Two Million Dollar Group.

I’m like, “You’ve got to find out how they would say it in their words. You’ve got to hear it from them. You’ve got to get them opening up and talking to you in any way you can.” And my team last, I guess, November we did a launch. And that launch that you, I think, joined in was actually a massive fail, a big, big loss in our company. We have 100,000 people on our email list. Our emails went out, completely excluded all of our current customers, all of our waitlist people.

We knew there was a problem immediately. We normally get 40 or. 50 applications on day one and we got four on day one. And we were like, “There’s definitely a problem.” But it took so long to figure it out. It was such a technical, human error, it’s not even worth explaining, but we found it late in day three. But the whole time I was like what I teach in 200K. I was going through the launch troubleshooting process. I’m like, “I’m just going to take it as we haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m just going to assume it’s my selling or I’m going to assume it’s the launch in some way. And so I’m just going to give it my all.”

And in that I had said, “Okay, then I’ve just got to get them talking. I’ve got to figure it out.” And so I had set up a call, so I think day two morning of we sent out and said on day three, “There will be this call.” And you came and then you ended up signing up. And I just wanted to say that to everyone because it’s one thing to say it, be willing to troubleshoot your launch, be willing to get your clients talking, be willing to fight all the way through a launch.

It’s another, I was thinking before we got on this call to see the results of that because I was willing to do that, you got your questions answered. And now you’ve made in August what you made all of last year. I think that’s such an exciting thing and I wanted to tell you because I had a feeling you didn’t know that story.

Piper: But I actually want to add to that story, that you didn’t know this. And you are just going to laugh so hard when you hear this. I totally remember that. I was like. “Oh, there’s only six people in this room. Cool, I’m going to get coached by Stacey, this is awesome.” And I was like, “Yes, I am doing 200K.” And in the back of my mind I said, “Next July.”

Stacey: Interesting.

Piper: And then the next week you put out the emails like, “Hey, we did this thing, it was crazy, we’re going to launch again. And we’re also offering a creating demand workshop.” I think it literally was a week or two later. And I was like, “Oh, yes.” And on day one I was like, “Where do I sign up? I cannot get into this room fast enough.” And so I think it really is a testament to your process being simple enough to just go back to basics. What can I give? How can I get them talking?

And how can I just keep trying if something’s not working out and just pivot with whatever is coming at me and don’t stop trying. And it was that first day in that workshop that I was like, “Where is this application? I’ve got to fill it out.” I recorded a video of myself of, “I got in.” I was calling my husband, my parents, all these people. They’re like, “What are you even talking about?” And I was like, “I just spent 52:51] on myself.”

Stacey: That’s so crazy.

Piper: Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it all under control.

Stacey: That’s so great. I love that. Listen, I did not share that to toot my own horn in any way, but I feel like in just the last two rounds I’ve coached so many people on not giving up in their launches, being willing to troubleshoot it, getting their clients talking. But I just wanted to highlight, this is the reason why because that enabled you to join and create such success in your business. And now we’re here on this podcast, sharing and talking together. It’s so exciting.

And I will say the reason I created the creating demand training is I was thinking about, I told my team, I was like, “Listen, we tell them in advance when we’re going to be launching and they look forward to that. They anticipate that. It’s something went off the rails.” People were I think even posting on the page like, “Hey, I haven’t gotten any launch emails yet.” I think that was one of the things that started keying us in that there’s something wrong with the emails.

But I told them afterwards, I was like, “So we lost all of that excitement and that energy and that attention that we had. And so we need to think of a way to re-engage people that gives them value, is exciting, reactivates their desire and feels really purposeful for them. Let’s just get creative.” And that’s where that training came in. You don’t want to, sometimes when people relaunch or they extend the launch or whatever, they kind of take what feels a little bit like stale or dead energy and then just try to keep going with.

That was one of the options that my team had suggested is, “Let’s just keep it open a couple more days.” And I was like, “No, we don’t want to move forward with this energy. Close it out. And then we’re going to think very strategically about how we can re-excite people about joining and get them paying attention to us. And their time and their energy is valuable. So we want to make sure it’s really compelling and purposeful and there’s notice.”

And so I was like, “Let’s just take a couple of weeks to reassess.” And then creating demand emerged from that and it’s been one of my most successful and popular trainings. Anyways, I thought it was so cool that you were on that call. And then to just read about your success in 200K and to see how far you’ve come. And you’re such a contributor in the group that I just, this is why we take the effort, it can’t ever be from I’m failing.

It has to be from, no, I’m missing people who need to be in this room or I’m missing people who need my coaching. We’re in that place. We come up with ideas that create, I think, just chain reactions of magic.

Piper: Yes, absolutely. You nailed it. I mean, that’s really the heart of why I get so excited about helping people with pivots is to help them tap back into what makes them excited, what makes them want to get out of bed in the morning, that want to have an impact on their personal lives, on the world around them. Reconnecting with that magic to create magic. I think it’s so much fun and we don’t do enough of it, it gets so lost in the shuffle and that is such a good example of what can happen, what you can create by just reminding yourself to take a beat and tap back into it.

Stacey: Yes, so good. I know that you were like, “When I listened to Megan’s episode I was expecting it to be something different.” So I’m curious, if you were thinking about your episode, you probably also had expectations of what things we might talk about or things you would want to share with knowing that you’re going to be talking to a group of life coaches who want to make money or who maybe want to be where you are, want to be in the 200K room or they want to just be at your income level.

Is there anything that you think we’ve missed that we haven’t said that you want to say before we close this out?

Piper: Gosh, what a generous question. Well, I think the hardest thing for a lot of people, because I’ve seen some folks that have been camped out in 2K for a long time and not joined this room for whatever reason. Or maybe they’ve applied and it hasn’t worked out, I don’t know. But I think the thing that gets in most people’s way is investing in themselves. And that is another decision.

Decide that you’re just going to get everything out of it that you can with the information that you have available to your brain at the moment and just leave the rest and not beat yourself up over it. I could have spent a lot of time beating myself up over not taking so much action in my first round. My decision was to make the same amount of money that I made last year, which was a tough decision. People are in this room and they’re getting 300K and you’re just like, “I don’t even know if I have time to do a webinar.”

And instead I was just like, “No, I’m going to make the same amount as I did last year and I’m going to do it faster and I’m going to do it easier and I’m going to have more fun in my life.” And that’s what I did and I was actually really surprised that I did it because there were a few moments where I felt like I should be doing maybe a little bit more, but I don’t have a ton of extra time. Okay, well, we’re just going to ride this out, continue to get coached. And then my indecision was definitely a clog in that wheel for a little while but got that cleaned up.

And it was like the floodgates opened and I just, I can’t even believe that I’ve already made what I did in all of last year. It just kind of blows my mind. And so I think the thing I would offer for people is don’t get stuck in the indecision, especially if you’ve been contemplating being in the 200K room. I think I can sell this to anybody of what will you lose, really? You will become a different person. You will learn how to continue to become a different person.

You’ll learn how to fall in love with your business again and how to be a better coach. There’s so much value in that, why would you not do that?

Stacey: Yeah. I do think that. I don’t think there’s anyone that can come in and truly, that was another question I kind of explored is I don’t believe that anyone could just come in, if they pass all of our filters. I just don’t believe it’s possible other than of just being in a mindset of refusing to learn or take part. I know that some people can do that for many reasons.

But aside from that, just a block in your mind of willingness to participate, there’s no way someone couldn’t take 25K of value that will pay them more than that over and over and over and over for the rest of their career with how many things. Just the webinars course alone or the launching course alone, not even the rest of the 200K content, it’s just all so valuable. But I know it, it’s so scary. For me, my biggest fear in making an investment to get certified as a coach was, who do I think I am to do that?

To me, I didn’t have the money but on top of that, it was more of who am I to even consider this identity shift and this change for me? Something I decided when I walked in the room and I saw all these bougie, smart, successful women in their 40s who had life figured out. I scanned the room, all these Louis Vuitton bags. I was like, “Clearly I don’t belong.”

And I told myself this and I tell everyone in the 200K room this constantly. I’m sure you’ve heard me say it at least five times, which is, I remember thinking, I paid the same amount of money to be here as they did. So I’m getting what I think they deserve. I’m getting that same thing for myself. I’m taking that for myself.

And I always say that too, “If you’re going to pay 25K, show up and know that your questions are as important as the $500K earners in the room. Or they’re just as important as a fourth rounder and the coaching that they want and show up and decide to take ownership over that investment.” That was literally the greatest thing I ever did for myself is tell myself. Even if I didn’t feel like I belonged in that group of women, which now, what’s so crazy, is so many of them are my greatest friends to this day.

I [crosstalk] with Kara Loewentheil, Rachel Hart, Angela Kelly. These are all people who are still good friends of mine to this day and so it’s so wild. I mean, I just had lots of thoughts obviously of them being way better than me when I first joined the room. But now it’s so interesting to think about that. If I had walked in and not had that thought, if I had just thought, I don’t belong here or I can’t get out of this investment what they’re going to get out of it, unless someone’s made more money than me, it’s possible.

But I’m the second highest earner at the school because I was willing to think that thought about myself.

Piper: Well, and I think it’s so powerful because I had that thought, towards the end of the last round when I raised my hand to get coached, I think it was during the [inaudible]. Literally the last live coaching session of the round and I was just like, “I belong here, no question is a stupid one.” I think I even qualified my question when I raised my hand, I was like, “I know I shouldn’t be having this drama at this point, to be in this room. But I’m having this drama and I need coaching.”

And so many people sent me messages after that. I even got a client from that, which was crazy of just, “Oh, what you said resonated so much.” And I was so surprised. And so I just decided to go into the live event two weeks later, deciding I belong here and everyone else does too. Let’s go. We’re all rising together. And it really changed my experience to just feel that sense of community that I think not only have you been wanting but inadvertently you created for all of us. So I thank you for that.

Stacey: Yeah, I’m just going to keep creating it. I mean even if [crosstalk] myself, I will just keep creating it with me. I love it so much. Well, thank you so much for being on here today. How can people reach out to you, follow you, find you, connect with you? We’ll tag it all in the show notes, but if you want to tell them in case they’re never going to go to the show notes that would be super helpful.

Piper: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on Instagram mainly @thepiperwatson, also active on LinkedIn and a little bit on TikTok, I might do some wild stuff there. And that’s the best way to find me.

Stacey: So good. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. And we’ll see you later today.

Piper: I know. I know I’m so excited. Thanks so much, Stacey.

Stacey: Alright, bye.

Piper: Bye.

Hey, if you’re 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 using my simple 5 step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.