[00:00:00] EMMA: I'm gonna talk about maybe the real reasons that you're not achieving what you want. You could also label this a little bit of tough love from Emma. everyone that works with me knows that I am the cheerleader who leads with love, but there's some things I need to get off my chest. If you are not achieving what you want in your business, it's rarely because you are not talented or capable or smart enough. It's usually because of the excuses that creep in and quietly run the show. You might not love everything I'm about to say. but I promise, I promise you'll walk away clearer, stronger, and ready to take ownership again. In this episode, here's what we're going to talk about. We're gonna talk about one, why the boring work is the work and why shiny new ideas keep derailing you. Two, why you're giving up too soon, especially on offers that could absolutely work. Number three, how compromising on your health is compromising on your [00:01:00] business. Number four, why you need to get out of the house and how COVID has changed more of our behaviors than we actually realize. Five something's happened to our grit and why resilience is now a real competitive advantage.
[00:01:17] Number six, how the people you surround yourself with influence your beliefs in what's possible. And finally, how to choose the energy that actually supports the life and the business you want. these are some of the real reasons.
[00:01:32] If you can't see me, I'm doing inverted commons. Talented women stay stuck, and we're gonna talk honestly through every single one of them. What I'd love you to do while you're listening to that is think about, is that me? Is that not me? And if that's not you, just let it float over. But if it is you, you might need to think about some ways that we need to do business differently.
[00:01:52] Number one, the boring work is the work. Let's start with the truth that no one wants to hear. sales [00:02:00] can be a bit boring. Business can be a bit boring. The business world has taught us that everything should feel exciting and creative and aligned and sparkly.
[00:02:11] But real business, real business is often repetitive and unglamorous. It's following up. It's tracking numbers, it's building relationships. It's sticking with the same message long after you're sick of hearing yourself. PS, try writing a book. Oh my goodness. I was so sick of my book. By the time I said it to my editor, I never wanted to see it again.
[00:02:33] Then I had to sell the stupid thing, not stupid. Love my book. That's the unsexy reality of success. But the problem, we are magpies We love new and shiny. The new idea, the new offer, the new brand refresh, the new platform, the new content, all the new things we jump to. The next thing before the thing we started [00:03:00] working on has had any chance to build any kind of momentum, and that's why so many women feel stuck.
[00:03:06] Not because the idea is wrong, but because the consistency never happened. I've watched brilliant women ditch perfectly good offers after talking to eight people. Eight. And when I ask, how many people have you spoken to about this offer, if the answer is less than 50, normally a hundred. 'cause I like to shock people and bring down to 50.
[00:03:33] I know the truth. The offer isn't broken. The effort is, and this isn't a criticism, it's just clarity. Once you know this, you can get back in the game instead of changing the whole board. Number two, we are compromising our health. Who don't I know this. this one is big. Too many women are running their businesses from a place of depletion.
[00:03:59] [00:04:00] Not enough sleep, not enough movement, too much stress food that barely fuels them. Let's not even talk about water intake. Guilty there as well. Then they wonder why decisions feel so hard,
[00:04:13] why motivation is low, and why confidence has taken a hit. I do not compromise my health. You have heard it here so many times.
[00:04:22] I'm sick of hearing it myself. I do 20,000 steps a day. I've just taught myself how to run again. I sleep well, naps included. I eat properly. I don't smoke, I don't drink. I'm an angel, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? I actually like feeling strong because it makes me match, fit for the work that I do and for the life that I love.
[00:04:43] Running a business is an endurance event. It is not a sprint. I wanna preface that with, we do things like the BD sprint, but the reason that it is a BD sprint is 'cause it's 10 days and then that's it. We are done. But business, you cannot do [00:05:00] business like that. You can't expect to think clearly, create deeply, or sell confidently if your body is running on empty.
[00:05:10] You deserve to feel good and your business performs better when you perform better. Number three, we need to get out more. COVID changed us much more than we realize before 2020. Getting out into the world, networking, chatting, connecting. It was all normal. It was all expected. Now. Now we stay home. we congratulate ourselves staying in our active wear all day.
[00:05:39] We work from the dining TA room table. We convince ourselves we are too busy to connect But business lives in the conversations. Opportunities are in the rooms. Creativity lies in the energy. You can't replicate the spark of real belly to belly conversation through a laptop. I wish you could, but you can't.
[00:05:59] Ladies, you [00:06:00] gotta get off your bottom. So if you want momentum, you have to step out into the world. Again, not occasionally, regularly. Women who get out more, grow more. Let me just say that for those of you in the back, women who get out more, grow more. Number four, I feel like this is not gonna be popular.
[00:06:21] We've lost some grit. This one's super delicate, but I think it's important somewhere along the line. Our resilience has thinned. Things that we used to push through now feel enormous. We crumble over things that once would've barely made us blink. And honestly, I think social media has a lot to answer for every day.
[00:06:42] We are fed a highlight reel of ease and glamor, and six figure mornings and perfectly lit desktops, and it tricks us into thinking that business should feel effortless. So when things start to get hard, like really hard, you are [00:07:00] grindy. We make it mean something about us that we are failing or that we are broken or we are not cut out for it.
[00:07:08] But that's just not true. We are just on the wrong side of a lot of hard work. And I recently had a client who said to me, I wanna do all these things, and she reeled them off. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, HIG. She kept going and I just lovingly said to her, yeah, you can do all those things, but you are on the wrong side of a whole lot of hard work.
[00:07:28] Are you ready to do that? Sometimes we don't need more inspiration, we need more grit.
[00:07:36] Number five, the people around us shape us. I've heard that you know, you are the fi, you are the, what are you, you're the sum of the five people that you spend the most time with, right? There's all that, right? This is not that. This is, well, I'll tell you, a few months ago I was at a networking event and I overheard this conversation.
[00:07:54] Okay? So you think about networking event uplifting. You go there to find clients, meet other [00:08:00] people, build relationships, all the things right? And I was eavesdropping. 'cause that's what I do best. Literally that's what I do best. and it started super in super innocently. So one of the ladies said to the other, how are you going?
[00:08:12] And then there was five women in this conversation. And one by one, it's spiraled into heaviness. This thing is hard, that thing is hard, this thing is hard. I'm not getting enough work, I'm dah, dah, dah, dah. And I sat there thinking to myself, man, if any of these other women wanna work with you, they will not now.
[00:08:31] Right. And by the time they all left, they all look so deflated. I just wanted to give them a group hug. And I walked away thinking to myself, if even one of them had shared a small win, a little piece of gratitude, would that have shifted the whole energy? And I have seen this happen with clients too. They say everything feels hard, but when we look at the facts, they're actually nailing it.
[00:08:55] The heaviness. Wasn't theirs. It was borrowed. It's borrowed [00:09:00] from the news. It's borrowed from friends. It's borrowed from family. It's borrowed from the general vibe of the world, depending on who you're listening to. One of my beautiful women stopped listening to the Doom and Gloom podcasts that she was listening to for a month.
[00:09:15] She avoided the news. She spent time with different people. She was a completely different person. It is up to us to protect our energy. Your inputs shape, your outlook. And speaking of inputs, tell a little story about myself. I watched the movie Damsel with my husband recently wouldn't recommend. the reason I wouldn't recommend it's a terrible idea for someone who had nightmares about ET and gremlins. And I dreamt about that stupid movie for a week, but it reminded me sometimes we know something isn't for us, and yet we push the boundary anyway. You have to [00:10:00] trust yourself. Your brain is trying to keep you safe in there.
[00:10:04] So here's the tough love summary. If you are not seeing the success you want, don't jump to change your whole business. Ask yourself, am I doing the boring unglamorous unsexy work every single day? Have I actually spoken to enough people? Am I looking after myself? Am I leaving the house? Am I building grit instead of waiting to be motivated?
[00:10:34] Am I surrounding myself with the right energy? Am I protecting my mind from negativity? You deserve success, but success requires truth telling. And when you stop letting excuses run the show, everything changes.
[00:10:53] I've given you tough love today because I need to hear it.
[00:10:56] as much as you need to hear it. This is what it feels like [00:11:00] working with Emma McQueen. We don't sugarcoat things. We do it with love and respect and honesty, and that is how we operate. So if you would love a little bit of that tough love and cheerleading, I might be you gal.
