ο»ΏKathi
Hey, my friend what's up and welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big today is going to be an awesome episode because today I have a special guest with me here. My friend Jess is here with us today. And Jess and I connected years ago when we were both building our health and fitness businesses. And it's a really cool to see, just over the years, how we've kind of branched off and have gone our separate ways and done our own thing. So welcome to the show, Jess,
Jess
thank you so much. And first of all, I just have to say that I love the title of your podcast, it could not be more of my brand, the brand of my people as well. Right? It is probably the most important core value that we all align with, which is that we want a big life.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, yeah, exactly. Gonna play fillo in all areas of the life. There's no other way to be right.
Jess
I just heard someone say the other day that the way he likes to live his life is he likes to wake up excited and go to bed exhausted. Oh, it's like, Oh, I was he's a world qualifying Ironman. So like, I'm not quite at that level. But I would say maybe five out of seven days. I like to be like that. Oh my gosh, I like to feel rested.
Kathi
Oh my god. Exactly. It's kind of like when I'm doing a workout. I'm like if I don't feel like I'm going to die at least once in this workout. What is the point? Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to have you here. So why don't you go ahead and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself who you are and we'll dive in.
Jess
Yeah. So I am I love this. This it seems like such a basic question. But I think the way that we think about who we are, determines who we're becoming, it's like I like to think about who I am as, as a synonym for who I'm becoming. Whereas most of us were trained to define ourselves by who we've been up until now. So it's like, up until now I'll tell you the backstory people like to know right up until now I have been a mother of two I have been a I was previously a fitness coach. And I am currently a life and business coach for women entrepreneurs that are looking to master their time, their money and their CEO drama. I am bilingual in Spanish and English. I am a both a backyard and a world traveler. And I like to Do Life Big. And who I'm becoming is I'm becoming someone who can do a split this year that is on my list. I'm becoming someone who cares about their skin because up until now I have not been that person. I am becoming someone who is a million-dollar business owner. And I in my mind, I am a business a million-dollar business owner, right? Because that process is already kind of in the works. And I love to relax myself my being like, well, in the future. It's done. And so just so calming to know that like I've already created a million dollars in my business in the near future.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, no. I love that how you say that in the near future. Because that's how I operate with everything I do. I have this. It's like you said the sense of calmness. It's of this knowing that it's already been done. It's done. It's already done. It's going to happen. And it's going to happen the way it's meant to happen. And I just it makes it so much easier when you go through your days and you have different things that happen in life and in your business. Just knowing that it's already been done.
Jess
Yeah. Oh, it's like it's like, Wait, are you going to be a part of my program? Oh, it's not you. Okay? Are you going to be one of the people that gets their lives changed with you? Awesome. Okay, it's like you don't get to really know but you get to be more curious and have fun with it when you really believe that regardless of the how it's already done.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, I love that. Oh my gosh, that is right up my alley. I love it.
Jess
It's a little Woo. But like, I'm a math girl too. So I feel like I can get as little as I want. As long as I'm looking at the math.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, I've gotten really into that woo stuff. Like really into this woo stuff. And I'm loving it. I'm just like seeing like the same repetitive numbers everywhere. And I've always had that like little bit of psychic ability. Anyways, I'm taking an intuitive training right now and everything and I love it.
Jess
Cool. I still even want to dabble more like, to me, I always say I'm woo adjacent. It's like if the moon is at my advantage. I'm like, Yeah, hell yeah. If it's not, I'm like, No. Screw that. Screw that. Yeah, exactly. Because Mercury is in retrograde. I'm gonna make my decisions today.
Kathi
It's so true. When it's working for us, it's working for us. We believe in it when it's not. No, it's a bunch of BS.
Jess
Your circumstances are your advantage.
Kathi
Oh, my gosh, I love it. So can you tell us a little bit because I know that you were doing like I was doing before years ago, the health and fitness coaching and that was your business? What made you transition to go down this path? And how long ago? Did you decide that? How did that come about?
Jess
Yeah, I think that for some of us who got into the fitness coaching space, really, it was less about hearing so much about the specific workouts or a diet regimen or anything like that. And yes, again, like that was a part of the skill sets that we needed to maintain in order to get our clients results. But it was for a lot of us. I know it was for you, which is why I think life coaching and business coaching becomes a general like a very natural organic next step is it was always about people growing themselves, people seeing a future that felt impossible, and trying to help them change their mind in order to change their feelings, in order to change their actions. So they can create a different future.
Kathi
Yeah, it totally was.
Jess
And once I started doing my own work, really just growing myself behind the scenes as a as a person and my relationships. And you know, I think in the space that we were in, it was a requirement to be doing personal development all the time. And the danger in encouraging your team, your employees, your staff to do so much growth is that sometimes they just outgrow the position. They outgrow the role they maybe outgrow the industry. And I think that that's what happened. I was just like, Okay, this has been such an incredible stepping stone. And now I'm ready to help women in more than just their health and their like internal their morning routine. I want it to be on an impact level where the ripple effect is bigger.
And specifically one of my clients who was a fitness coaching client of mine, we were talking in a fitness coaching setting about her life, because that's what we always talked about. I was always doing life coaching, I just wasn't getting paid for that part. And exactly, I'm unsatisfied. You know, I'm an engineer, I have been, I trained my whole life to become an engineer. Her mother was a doctor, her father was a lawyer, it was like, couldn't be more stereotypical how you can find success, do one of these things really, really exceptionally well.
And especially as a woman, she really loved that identity. But it was more to prove to herself that she could do something hard. What she really wanted to do was be an artist of some kind. And she comes to me one day during our coaching sessions. She's like, Oh, my God, you're never gonna believe it. There's a flower shop for sale. And I was like, Okay, I was like, she never mentioned flowers to me at all. Now, she's a gardener. But it wasn't like this was a long-time passion, something she knew she wanted to do. And she was so lit up. And she was like, This is so crazy. Like, I don't have the capital to buy it. I don't know anything about taking out a loan. I don't know. She just kept saying I don't know.
And I was like, Okay, well come back to me next week and give me all of the missing pieces like filling the equation, what would you need to do? What are the steps to creating a loan? Do you qualify? Can you interview are they were like, Are you eligible? And what would have to happen? And she was like, okay, and I was like, don't tell anyone else. Because when we start to tell people, especially people that we love, have never done anything like this before. They are so scared and they are lovingly trying to protect us from failure. And as we know, it's like that's the opposite of the path to success. Failure is the path to success. And we've until like stumbled our way through it. So I was like, Alright, just keep it to ourselves until we have a little more ground under your feet for to back up you wanting to go with this opportunity. You don't have to do it, let's just do some of the behind-the-scenes math and work. And she did. And within two weeks, she had quit her engineering job and bought a flower shop. And she was like, I need you. I am going to hire you. Can I hire you as my, my coach as my coach to just keep my mind, right? And I was like, Yeah, and I was just like, Okay, I had just been hired by one other person to do general life coaching. And she knew it and I was like, alright, game on, and I had so much fun. I mean, the real-time effect of seeing someone have an idea, and then it turning into money is fun, especially for women.
Kathi
Oh my god, it's so awesome. I love that so much. It's, it's true. You know, when you go down these paths, you know, and we were health and fitness coaches or whatever. Yeah, it's almost like when you're in it. I never really saw it ending. You know, I was like, I'm just going to be doing this forever. You know, and it's so true. I had never done personal development up until I started that 10 years ago. And you just outgrow things sometimes. And it was it was a great stepping stone. It was a freaking phenomenal stepping stone.
Jess
Yes, I'm so grateful for it.
Kathi
So grateful for all the people, all the connections, everything I've learned just everything. And when you look back, like you said, we were doing that coaching anyways, all along. I was doing the mindset coaching all along, I was constantly helping people get their mind, right and uncover their true potential to work through these roadblocks. And so it's nice to be able to recognize that, okay, you can take this and you can go your own direction. And even better, that girl with her flower shop, that's incredible.
Jess
Yeah, how cool. She still owns it to this day. And that was back in 2016, that we had that conversation, right? So now I'm going on eight years of coaching my very first person in business. And since then, you know, she was doing this people were kind of blown away. They were like, how did you get the balls going based out. So it is balls to take this leap. And she was like, Well, my coach and people would be like, I need to meet this person.
And then so I would get referrals from her. And for a little while she lives in Colorado, I wouldn't say like the capital of my company was like in Colorado, because I had about four, five, or six clients that I was coaching in business from that community. I mean, it took off from there. But what I think is fascinating that what you just said is for your listeners, right? Let's say they're in a side hustle, they're doing something and it's not really lucrative, but you it lights you up, and you can tell like you're doing, you're doing the work. Like that's how I kind of felt about the fitness coaching phase or the way that I was doing it was a lot of work for what I felt was going to be the return that I wanted on the front end. And when I was first doing it, I didn't really care because I was just so personally fulfilled by it. It was helping me grow as a person, it was helping me become more healthy. So like, the finances were not the most important part of it in the beginning. And then it was like, Oh, this is cool. Oh, you can make more money.
And then so for those of you guys who are listening, and you're like, okay, like I know, I'm doing something I was just on a console yesterday with these girls, and they are coaches for runners not really like, like they help runners, a find community stay motivated in groups and whatnot. But it's their business models not very lucrative. And what blew my mind about going from fitness coaching to life coaching and seeing like, I tangibly doing this same thing in my day-to-day like my experience didn't change so much. Outwardly, it looked very different. What I was marketing, and what who I was attracting was a little bit different, obviously. But you can do that you can find out like, Where can I do the same things have the same career, but also, like, make a little tiny shift in my positioning in my niche in the way that I'm thinking about myself as a CEO and the value of my offer and change the business model so that I am making money.
Kathi
I know. It's unbelievable, isn't it? Yeah. And I love you know when you said the flower shop scenario, it's so so crazy because I helped somebody not too long ago who was in a very similar situation where she was a full-time teacher. And she also owned on the side of flower shop. But her flower shop wasn't producing the amount of income that she needed for her to be able to do that full time. And she felt so locked into her teaching career because you know, you get the pension and you work so many years. And it's just they really got you. Right. But she really wanted to just go all in on her flower shop, because that's what she loved. And she knew the potential of it. And I helped her out and she quit her teaching job. And she's been doing that full-time now, and she is freaking loving it, loving his game, you know? Go ahead.
Jess
It's a mindset shift, right? It's like, sometimes we're just so stuck in this like thought loop of like, but the pension but the health insurance, I get it like going from being a, you know, a corporate employee. And it's not even just a corporate employee, like going from believing what you've been sold in society for your entire life is the thing that will bring you safety and security and stability, especially the older we get, we crave that. But what's confusing to us is like, we can reverse engineer so many of those results. It doesn't have to come from taking this step, like the next step that we've been told. And also safety and security anyway, like she wasn't feeling safe and secure. She was feeling bored and burnt out, right? That's such a Yeah, safety, insecurity, our feelings, ultimately, that we have to create for ourselves, no matter what situation we're in.
Kathi
I know it's so true. And it's like, at the end of the day, I always try to tell myself, right, if you look back, are you going to be like, I really wish that I had just gone for it. Like I have this one life, you know, like, I was just talking to a really good friend of mine on the phone yesterday. And she's only 41 years old. And she has had such a horrific health scare the last seven months, that she's going to have to live with this for the rest of her life. It's absolutely horrible. She hasn't been able to work for seven months. And it's like when I hear these stories, it's just a reminder to Yep, lay full out. Yeah, Do Life Big.
Jess
Let's go. This is freaking another episode, right? Like, this is the moment when you get to just decide from here on out less. I'm going to bed exhausted and waking up excited. I'm going to bed exhausted, right? And I'm going to have balls. Balls. That's the message.
Kathi
It's funny you said that before we dive before we go into the part here that we want to talk about the most. It's funny I was I got together with a friend not too long ago here. And he's like, almost like a billionaire. Right? He's extremely successful entrepreneur. And he said that line to me. When we were out eating dinner one time, he said, You've got to have balls, you've got to have balls. And I'm like, Well, I freaking got that.
Jess
Yeah, you're like, Well, if I have anything, it's balls. Okay, what next? capital invested.
Kathi
I know, it's so true. Oh my gosh.
Jess
But it's one of those things you really can't give to them. And especially in coaching, it's so frustrating because they want the strategy to make them feel safe so that they can make decisions. And the truth is, the reverse is usually what creates the results that you want, which is having a little bit of strategy, but mostly having belief that it's gonna get done that you're gonna show up no matter what, until the result is what you want it to be. And then you just have balls. Oh, yeah. That's a great and I can't be like, give you the balls. It's like, get grow the balls yourself.
Kathi
This is why I love you so much. Because we both got balls. Listen, if you don't get balls, we don't want to be friends.
Jess
I know I'm sure there's like a more feminist word for balls. Like, yeah, like you have, you know, tape tests. I don't know where it is.
Kathi
Oh, my gosh, I love it. Well, so you were mentioning earlier, we were talking about this whole idea, which is really interesting about entrepreneurs. They want to be able to create income for themselves. However, you've been hearing or maybe working with people who are not necessarily even paying themselves a salary. So can you talk a little bit about that here?
Jess
Yes. So I think when we get started there, first of all, there's a lot of different opinions out there on how much you should pay yourself when you should pay yourself. In your first year. How much money should you be reinvesting back into the business? And for the purposes of our episode today, I don't really care whether you're reinvesting 100% of the profits or 50% of the profits back into the business. But I do think that there is a level of self-trust that needs to be built up in your business and not just in yourself like I can do it go go rah rah like I'm never gonna give up. But in the fact that this is a viable business, it's almost like making that shift into thinking of yourself as a solopreneur to how would I show up if I wanted to eventually sell my company?
Now, I don't think that most of us, especially women go into a business idea, thinking I want to sell the company, men do oftentimes. But I'm assuming most of your listeners are women. Yeah. And me too. And I think that, regardless of whether you actually want to sell it or not, I think this is a really useful skill that women don't talk about enough is to treat your business as if you're creating an asset that you would then go on to sell. And one of the most important things about this is how profitable is your company. But like, profit-wise, it's easy for us to like, look at, well, what's coming in, and we just say, well, the profit just is what's left over. And while that's true, it's not a useful way to generate consistency in your business.
Now, back when I'll use this analogy because Kathi totally gets it back. When we were fitness coaching, there was something called Success Club, in our industry. And I can just say, without a doubt, I know you were an all-star like Legend. Something Yes. Legend. Yeah, yes. Same, right? We were Success Club 10 legends, right? This means like 24 plus months of consistently hitting, helping, and selling essentially, five people, our products and services, and in a specific way, right? And what I saw was the difference between the people that would come and they were just like, oh, well, this month, I just didn't hit it. And like, oh, it just is some months. I'll hit it some months. I'm not. They weren't thinking of it as just a non-negotiable, consistent benchmark that had to happen. Yeah, when it what does it have to do with paying ourselves?
So I think that if you are waiting to see what's left over before you pay yourself, you are essentially trying to make money and run your business without a goal attached to it for how you want to end up. And so I recommend that people build up the self-trust of paying themselves in a consistent way. I don't care if you're paying yourself $10 to start. If you want, you can start this habit today. If you're one of the people listening and you've never paid yourself, first of all, we're going to take the shame right out of it. Who cares, okay, you haven't paid yourself up until now, this is not like a bashing of it. You don't know what you don't know. All right, now we're going to start paying yourself you probably what most people tell me when I asked them, Why haven't you paid yourself is that they're scared that if they pay themselves, they won't have any money left and their business will go bankrupt. And that's a real fear. So how do we start small and then build up to it?
Think of yourself the same way you would think of an employee, so I pay myself a salary. Now, I'm not an S corp. I'm just an LLC. So technically, it's not a salary. Technically, it's an auto transfer from one bank account, my business bank account to my personal bank account. So if you're, if currently, you have commingled accounts, we want to step out of that. It doesn't really matter, like whether or not I would you don't have to get a business checking. I don't want to go too deep. But you don't have to get a business checking that has a minimum, just have two separate accounts so that you can start to build up this habit. So you want to plan to have all of your business revenue, go into your business account, and then you are going to put on auto-pay a salary that you feel confident that you can pay yourself whether it's monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly. Now, do you pay yourself a consistent salary?
Kathi
Yes, yep.
Jess
Do you pay yourself weekly, biweekly, monthly?
Kathi
Weekly.
Jess
So I pay myself bi-weekly, I went from monthly to weekly and then to bi-weekly because I was like, Oh, this will be a challenge. It'll be fun to stretch myself. My husband was paid on like the first in the 15th. So it was like I'll pay myself on the seventh then the 21st. So we do have income coming into the account every week. But essentially that's how I did it. Now we're making this up. Don't overthink about when exactly you pay yourself but decide, make a decision and then decide on the amount.
So I decided what I wanted to pay myself as if I was deciding what I thought I could pay another employee because once you make a decision to pay an employee a certain amount, you're not going to be like, I gotta pay you a little bit less this month. So I was conservative. I was like, okay, yeah, I was like, I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna pay myself a conservative amount for three months. And I'm going to see whether I, I think it's time to give myself a raise or not. You can do that, right, you can give yourself a raise. But before I give myself a raise, so my goal in 2023, was to give myself a raise in June of $1,000. I was like, I didn't end up doing it. Because I got there. I looked at it. And I was like, hmm, there's more investments I want to make in q3 and q4 in the business, it's not the time to be giving a raise this, these are the types of high-level conversations you would be having with a board or with yourself if you were thinking about giving raises to your employees, right?
Yeah, the problem if you do or you don't give yourself a raise, it's a problem. If you're treating it like, oh, well, I'll just like transfer some money, because I want to buy a new couch. Yeah. I know, clients of mine who do that. They're just like transferring yourself, Oh, my credit card bill got a little high. So I'm just going to transfer myself what I need. This is sloppy money management. And it also just breaks down your trust with yourself, not just as a CEO, but as a spender at the person with money. It's so subtle, and it's so subconscious.
Kathi
But it must chip away and must chip away at like your belief a little bit in what you really are capable of doing when you have to do that.
Jess
Yes, imagine giving yourself a raise, which I have done before I didn't do this past year, but giving yourself a raise, and then being like, I earned a raise, I earned a raise, and I'm the CEO, but I earned that raise. I just think it's such a powerful way to show yourself what's possible for you. And of course, it should probably feel a bit uncomfortable. Now, if I really thought about it, could I have given myself a raise? I could have I would have made it work, I would have made it work. I for sure now that I didn't this past year, I'm I've set it as my goal again this year. So it's happening. Regardless, you should feel a little bit uncomfortable. But it really is about just making those clean and clear decisions, having your own back and then building up trust and consistency. Like what else do you know, that breaks down your belief and your self-trust when you don't do it?
Kathi
I know seriously. That's That's the worst. That's the whole thing. When you break the promises to yourself, it just reinforces the whole negative mindset of maybe I'm just not going to do it. I don't have what it takes. I'm not cut out for this, or why bother? Why bother getting organized with my money management skills in my business? Why bother doing XYZ? Because look what ended up happening, but doesn't have to be that way. You're saying?
Jess
Yeah, and you can do the same thing with their workouts, right? It's like, the way you show up in one thing is the way you show up in anything. And if you are telling yourself, you're gonna wake up in the morning, and then you're not consistently over and over again, like we don't want to dwell on the past. But we do want to look at if you when I wake up earlier than I, then my natural status to work out. And I do that three days in a row, the chances that I'm going to do it on the fourth day are so much higher. Yep. And if I had consistently broken that promise to myself, because your brain gets the memo, it's like, oh, okay, we don't really mean it.
Kathi
Oh, yeah, exactly. That sort of thing. And so you want to establish those healthier habits so that you can get the results that you really want in your business and in your life.
Jess
Yeah. It's not the whole point of this isn't to like bankrupt your business. Decide what makes sense for you and where your profits are at. Look at that, right? Like when people tell me like, oh, I pay myself what's leftover? I'm like, Okay, that's a start, at least you're paying yourself. Now we want to look at what have you what was leftover for the past couple of months. Is that consistent? If that is the case that you are you were consistent, then just decide to put that on auto-pay, so you're not thinking about it. So you're not wondering, and some people will be like, Oh, well, I like to go in and just transfer it and I'm telling you that that isn't an attachment to an amateur version of yourself. It's time to be in the big leagues where you are even if you're just paying yourself like I said, you start out just paying yourself $100 A week or $500 a week. Whatever makes sense for your business $1,000 a week instead of just putting everything on your credit card and paying off your personal credit card with your business credit card. It's gonna keep you in the vagueness of the solopreneur world. So you're gonna just have to watch out for what your habits are, are these the habits of something that of a CEO that could sell a company?
Kathi
Oh, my gosh, I know. And I love how you said that. I wrote that down at the beginning. I've never really thought of it that way. Treat your business how you would if you knew you were going to turn around and sell it. Yeah, that puts a whole new spin on things, doesn't it?
Jess
I actually just got the chills because there's a girl in my mastermind who like my coach who just sold her business. And I was like, how did you do that? And she was like, well, and when I looked at her actions, it was such subtle things that made her business viable. But I do think that she had really firm processes and policies and margins and goals. And if I would, looking at it from the top and thinking like, oh, I can so clearly see how I could come in and just slide myself right in here, pay for this slide myself into her role. And I know what I would make.
Kathi
Wow. Now what kind of business that you own?
Jess
She owns a breastfeeding center. Okay. Yeah. And another one that sold was like, had a practice for training nurse practitioners in a certain way. Right. So one was, I mean, they're both service-based, but one was a brick and mortar one was not a brick and mortar. Very interesting.
Kathi
That is really cool. Yeah, I wrote that quote, I wrote that down. Because that it does, it makes you show up different to your business every single day when you go in with that mentality, versus just like, Oh, it's just this little side gig I got going on. It's just a little hobby for me right now. It's like, Well, come on, if you knew that there were no limitations, and you wouldn't fail. Really? What would you want your business to look like? Right?
Jess
I mean, why are you listening to this podcast, if the word little, it's even in your vocabulary, right? Anything in the future, it's something that will go on to live outside of you. That is the point of creating big things. It's a point of creating a legacy so that it lives on in a bigger way outside of just your brain.
Kathi
Exactly. Oh, my God, I love that. Now, what would you say, though, to the entrepreneurs, because I've known quite a few people who say that they just don't have any income to pay themselves. They have to give the money to everything else. And there's literally nothing left over. What do you say to those entrepreneurs?
Jess
Yeah. So I would, it's so funny because we create new normals for ourselves at every level, it's like until you had the permanent bill of website hosting, and or the permanent monthly bill of Amazon Prime, or whatever you pay for a monthly, you had a different normal that was maybe $10, less, or $50, less, or whatever. It's less imagine it would be like someone telling me, Well, I just didn't have enough money to go and get food for my kids this week. It's like, well, then you probably completely mismanaged your money. All week, right? I don't really care. If you're only making a very little bit, then you probably have higher expenses. It's a simple math problem, right? Like, reduce your expenses so that you can pay yourself or earn more so that you can pay yourself.
But there's, I have yet to really find an entrepreneur that couldn't wiggle one or the other. Even if it came to you. Like it would be like with Success Club. For us. If we were at Success Club eight. And we just knew we were Success Club 10 and we're coming to the point at the end of the month, where it's the last day of the month. You're not just gonna be like, Well, I just don't have the money to pay myself. You're like, no, just, I gotta help one more person.
Kathi
Yeah, exactly. It was it was like you said at the beginning. Non-negotiable.
Jess
Non-negotiable? Yeah, if paying yourself is as non-negotiable as paying for your Canva subscription. Like, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't have to be an absurd amount of money, but you need to start the habit of paying yourself now. And if you're saying that you've never had money leftover, put the bill on auto-pay. You'll find a way to make sure that that money is there.
Kathi
Oh, you sure will, won't you?
Jess
Yeah, cuz you're not you're not gonna want to overdraft then you're looking, you're paying closer attention to the math. You're paying closer attention to your checking account to what's coming in to if you have a client that's outstanding that like, owes you money, and you know, you need to let's say you had an employee, right treat it as if you had an employee, you knew you had to pay your staff tomorrow. And you had three clients who just maybe paid a deposit, but they didn't pay the final or some that happens all the time. People are like, well, I don't have the money. And I'm like, Well, where is money? Like expected to come in? Well, this person, well, that person, I'm like, Have you followed up with them? They're like, No. And I'm like, what's happening? If you can't pay yourself, it's usually because you're loose on a boundary, or you're loose on showing up to the plan that's going to create the revenue that you need to pay your expenses. And one non-negotiable expense has to be your own salary.
Kathi
Oh, my gosh, 100%. And don't you think to revolve around this has probably a lot to do with as well, that entrepreneurs' belief around money, how they view money, maybe how they were brought up around money and their own household? Like, have you seen that play a role in any of this?
Jess
Yeah, I'm, I mean, at the end of the day, all of our actions come down to what we're thinking is driving what we're doing. So sometimes I see that it has to do with a childhood belief about money. Sometimes, it's more subtle in that, oh, well, I am a new business. And they've they've stayed labeling themselves in this zone where there's no accountability yet. And when I think I was fortunate, in that I did have my back up against the wall a little bit when I first started my business, because I will not when I first started it, but when I first started really taking it seriously and getting consistent revenue was I was getting a divorce. And I was a single mom and I didn't have a secondary income coming in.
Kathi
So this has started at the same time like you were going through a divorce while you were starting this new business that you've been currently running now.
Jess
Yes, yeah. Wild, wild. And you know, there was a point where I was like, I don't know, everyone was basically everyone who loved me, it was like, time to get a real job. Like this life coaching thing that you made up is cute but..
Kathi
how long did that go on for that whole? Like, oh, my gosh, I just think it's good to hear this. Because there are a lot of listeners who are at the very beginnings of this journey, where they're in this position, where it's like, oh, my gosh, I just started this, like, I so badly need this to work. Our family needs the income, we need to do it for XYZ. Yeah. How long did it take for you to start to get into the groove and actually start being like, Okay, this wasn't a bad idea to
Jess
Yeah. Into the groove. It's such a subjective, like thing, like things happened kind of like, one at a time. But I will say, I started I had got my very first client, I was saying it might have been, might have been beginning of 2017, beginning of 2017. I just had my son, and then my ex-husband and I separated at the end of 2018. So I was maybe two years little less than two years into working with like, I think at that time, I had like two and a half clients. Not weekly, she would sporadically come in pay me for some one-off coaching sessions. Again, I had loose offers, because I was in such scarcity that I was running the show from that place. So for those people, I would say, things really shifted when I instead of trying to make decisions from the feeling of scarcity, which was very real in my body, it felt real. And I would say most people around me would agree that I was in a scarce place. But that wasn't useful to me building the business.
So I had to say like, okay, for sure. This is just going to work. And I gave myself a deadline. I said, by 2019 I was still struggling. It was like I'd get a client I'd lose a client, I'd get another client I lose the client and Thanksgiving 2019 sitting around the fire with after Thanksgiving dinner with a lot of the men in my family. My dad, my grandfather, some uncles, handful of which had been divorced, all of them had kids, all of them loved me. And they were all really concerned about my financial situation. They were like, you have to be responsible. You need to you know, I had a fancy degree from Northwestern University. They were like, go get a high-paying job. You can table this or you can do it on the side and then you can get back you can like do it later when you're, you have a responsibility to your child, and I was, you know, devastated. And I was really on the verge of giving it up.
Because I didn't have the proof of concept of what I have now in the bank account, and I remember really viscerally how that feels to be in that place. And so if you're listening, and you're there, like I see you, and the advice that I would give is two things. Number one, to decide if you're willing to tune out everybody else, including the people you that love you, and that you love, not from a place of screw you guys, like I'm gonna prove you wrong. But from a place of, they're trying to just keep me safe. And I don't need safety right now, what I need is balls.
Kathi
Yeah, it all goes back to the balls.
Jess
Oh, goes back to the walls are tight, does whatever we're saying here. The Spanish word for it. I love it. So it's like, how can you a like, are you willing to do that, because then people just really aren't. And you got, you have to be able to if you're gonna get past that. And so part of that, for me was having one other person in my ear, who was staying focused with me and in full belief in my future. And for me, that was a coach, I didn't have the money for a coach. And I knew that I needed a coach. It's like the same thing. You don't have money for paying yourself, but you got to pay yourself, you just got it. Right. And I knew that that was it. I was like, if I want to make $1,000 This month, I need to pay $500 this month to my coach. And you know, I got to figure it out, right? So then I want to make $2,000 I and then set a deadline, like make it real set a deadline for when you're going to create what create what by when that makes it really tangible. And it also helps the people around you understand that you're not just like, like, yes, for however long it takes you're in it secretly. But on paper two, you need to also have really clear goals, and you need to be looking at the numbers, it needs to be real. So I did both of those things. I was like, okay, 2020 is the year for real that I make 100k. And I'd set that for years prior, what happened in 2020?
Kathi
Obviously, obviously, because you have balls.
Jess
Yeah, it's funny, well, 2020 COVID hit, I was like, I had just been like, oh, and I'm gonna get like Coach school certified, and I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna get rid of child support, I'm gonna be able to make enough so that don't have to receive child support anymore. I didn't like receiving it. And lo and behold, I was tested so many times extremely with COVID, half of my clients quit right at that point. I was like, I could be like, well, not this year, maybe next year, but instead, I was like, your circumstances don't create your results. Your thoughts do? Yes. Want to think about it. And I was like, I made COVID My advantage in my mind, right? I was just like, people need this more than ever. People. We need this. And that became the reality. People need me people need the help. That's what I marketed and I just have like, pounded the pavement for lack of a better word. And I also just loved myself through it. I was like, You are the best. I can't believe you're doing this. Like you're so impressive to me. I'm so proud of you. Because other people maybe weren't saying that to me. They were just in fear constantly. And I was like, I need to just remind myself of how amazing this is that we're going after this.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, that is so incredible. I love it. I love hearing. And I just think it's so important to for, you know, listeners to hear where you came from. Because we all have to go through that. And it is exceptionally hard. When you have like people closest to you family, really close friends who were like you said they're just trying to keep you safe because what you're doing is not something that they can't even comprehend it Yeah, you just don't understand it. You get it scaring is scary to them. Exactly. And so being able to kind of put on those blinders and be like, because I had that same thing happened to me as well. That doesn't matter. This is by journey. I have to fricking make this happen. Same thing as you back against the wall like it is happening. Yeah. And just kind of not like going into it knowing that no matter what happens, like I am not going to quit. I am not going to throw in the towel. It doesn't matter how hard life gets it does not matter what roadblock comes my way non-negotiable. Yes, is freaking taken off.
Jess
Sometimes it can feel gritty, but sometimes with paying myself it just feels neutral. It just feels like okay, it's just another bill like I'm not like I'm gonna pay my Canva Bill I mean, I'm just like, I have this bill, I pay it. It's just what I do. Right? And same thing with, with the salaries, right? So find ways Yes, to get greedy in the beginning, when you really feel like you need just extra energy to even convince yourself that this is gonna work. But then also just like, normalize that neutralize it. Okay? This is the math. All right, like when people tell me they want to invest in me, it's currently this is the last round that it will be 6k to come into my masterful CEO school. And people will be like, oh, like, I hope like, I'm gonna try. And I'm like, No, you just say, okay, the enrollment is in my role enrollment deadline is March, I will be creating and reverse engineering that and if I don't have all of it, I'll put it on a credit card until it's paid off. And I will pay it off. And I'm just gonna do whatever it takes. It's like, you can just stretch the amount of time that you have to create whatever you want. Yes. While you're thinking about it has to be creative.
Kathi
Oh, my God, I love that. And do you mind sharing a little bit about that program? Like, how do you open it up for enrollment only a couple times a year? What exactly does it entail?
Jess
Yes. So we run it twice a year from March to September, September to March. And the truth is, is that everything that I coached comes from what I learned in my own personal experience of creating my own results, and I'm not gonna lie, my results are pretty impressive. And so when I think about the things that I really have figured out, with some circumstances that were less than ideal, I think about time management and money management, I know how to manage money when you're making very little or you have unpredictable revenue. And I teach my clients how to do that. So that as they're growing, they can still a pay themselves. They know they feel in control with spending, they can continue to save and invest and not make those things like Oh, I hope I could, oh, maybe next year, we'll start building my wealth know, all of those things can be set now at any level. And then time management. So I was a single mom, and I had to build my business, while my son was at Spanish school from 9:30 till 12:30, Monday, Tuesday, Friday. And then at one point, he was at his dad's, you know, for all day, Thursdays, and Sundays, every other Sunday. So it was like, that's the equation? How do we reverse engineer the results that I want? And I was like, game on. And now I'm like, this is fun. I did it back then why can't I create a million dollars in three days a week of work? What would that look like? Now it means I gotta play hard on the days that I'm working. And I really need to be resting and off when I'm off. But you can work with any circumstances. So I love thinking about your successful business is simply a math problem minus your drama about it.
Kathi
Well, I didn't do too well in math growing up.
Jess
Simple math problem, right? It's just like, like, the X minus Y equals Z. Yeah. And so I teach all of that and reverse engineering goals for women in all industries. And yeah, the enrollment for Masterful CEO school is open currently, March 20. And yeah, it's kick-ass. It's really like I would say, it's a lot of helping to systemize like, once you're feeling like, Okay, I know, I'm good at what I do. Maybe I want to systemize my demand or systemize, my, my spending or my saving or my investing or just systemize my, my weeks in the way that I show up to my business, right?
Kathi
Oh, I really love that. So do you also have like a community that people get to become a part of and do How much time do they get with you? Is it like, once a couple times a month to like, work with them live or?
Jess
Yes, yes. Great question. So it is a six-month group coaching program. So it is 15 women. And I cap it at that. So it's sold out a handful of times. And we the fun thing is like it's such different industries, like Currently, we have a doctor, we have an accountant, we have a tent engineer, we have a dog training school, a farmer, a photographer, a children's school owner like it's just like very eclectic. And the truth is everyone thinks their problems are so unique, and they're just not everybody has the same human brain with the same just not functions. So we meet weekly, and we have bi-weekly focus calls on the time and money, and then in between they have access to a portal where they are tracking their metrics. so that we can stay on top of their goals, see if anything's off, and that they can journal in between those weeks when something comes up and they, they really need some individual coaching.
Kathi
Oh, wow, I really liked that. So you're going live with this group of women 15 Women every single week for this entire six months? So are you teaching the content live then every single week? There's no actually like, pre-recorded things or modules
Jess
there are modules so you get a workbook I'm like, do I have it have it right next thing you get a workbook right? So tangibly you get this for life. It's all of the worksheets and the tools that I use for goal setting for selling for budgeting for scheduling. And then there is a scheduling course that you get access to you get access to like all of the high-level tools that I have, in terms of thinking like a masterful CEO and acting like it and your time and your money management. And then we coach on the applying the application of it.
Kathi
Oh, wow, I love it. That's amazing. No, where can people go? If they want to find more information about this? Or connect with you? Do you have a certain website and we can put it in the show notes as well?
Jess
Yep, can find me at sincerelyfutureyou.com and also at the Sincerely Future You Podcast, we talk a lot, right? It's a woo-adjacent podcast, where we're making all of our decisions from the future version of you who's already done it. And it's a little bit different than thinking about your future. It's thinking and building from your future self. I love that. Yeah, yes. And so sincerelyfutureyou.com you can also just connect with me on Instagram, I hang out over there at Jess McKinley Uyeno. So that's J-e-s-s-M-c-K-i-n-l-e-y-U-y-e-n-o
Kathi
that is amazing. Oh, my gosh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on today. Do you have anything else that you wanted to leave the audience with any lasting words?
Jess
I think it's that whether you are just starting or whether you are scaling to a million dollars, this whole thing needs to feel fun. If we're not having fun. What are we even doing here? And I remember, it didn't not feeling so fun being broke. And so like I area for like the show, there's an outline right now, like it'll be more fun in the future. And yes, certain things do get more fun. But certain things also get more neutral and jaded. And I had so much fun celebrating my very first clients, like wins in a way that I almost can't access anymore, because it's so normalized my clients getting results on a daily basis. So Hindsight is 2020. But really try and find the fun in exactly the stage of business that you're at right now. Because similar to having kids, the older you get, you look back and you're like, oh, maybe I rushed through that part a little bit more and what I would give to just be able to hold my kid and I know holding stage right? That's how your business is too. So hold it. Hold it dear. Believing it. Love it. Love yourself and have some fun.
Kathi
Oh my gosh, I love it. Well, thank you so much, Jess, for being on the Do Life Big Podcast. You are incredible. I'm sure the listeners must have loved today's episode. Thanks for being here. You know, I love you. I think you're awesome. And I will see you the next time.
