Why You Need To Ditch The BackUp Plan For Your Biz

You’re listening to the Aligned and Unstoppable Podcast episode # 404. I’m your host, Emily Aarons, and I am so honored to be here. Warm welcome to all of our new listeners and shout out to some of the ones who have been here since the beginning a few years ago.

I want to start with a little bit of gratitude, which is I had some really beautiful podcast reviews come in recently on iTunes and I want to read one and it’s from Wood Mesa.
She gives me five stars and says, I recently discovered Emily’s podcast and I am loving it. I’m on a spiritual awakening journey and I’m learning so much about intuition, manifestation, energy, etc. Emily’s podcasts fit right in with all the things I’m learning and exploring binge-worthy.

So thank you so much for that review. I really appreciate it. I know a lot of you are just listening and enjoying that and you’re like, I don’t want to reach out to her. I don’t want to bother her. But you know what? You’re not bothering me. I love the DMS, I love the screenshots when I see that you’re listening. And I especially love when you reach out and give reviews like that. So other people know that this is an awesome place to hang out.

So today’s podcast was actually inspired by a conversation I had recently with a new friend. Now we met at a networking group and I was really instantly connected with her. She had great energy and quickly I learned that she was relatively new to entrepreneurship. She had left her corporate job about a year ago and started doing coaching work, and I loved her story and I was like, you know, tell me more. Why did you leave? What are you doing? What’s your mission here? And I really just resonated with her.

Well, fast forward a couple of months, and we end up booking a call just like a coffee chat. And we were talking recently about really just the energy of entrepreneurship.
And when you’re new, sometimes there’s this voice in your head that’s like, you got to have a fallback – a fallback plan, right? And this is what she was sharing with me is like she kind of has this, you know, a voice in the back of her head that says you should have a fallback plan if this business idea, this entrepreneur gig fails.

And I thought that was really interesting. So we talked about that and I wanted to bring it to you guys as my listeners. Because I know no matter what level of business you’re in at some point or maybe all day, every day, you have the same voice in your head that fills you with self-doubt and allows you to feel unworthy of success. It actually stops you from putting yourself out there because you know you don’t want to fail. And if fail, if you fail, that means you have to quit and go get a regular real job.

And you know, I loved this conversation because it allowed me to hold space for her to just be where she was and also just to reflect back on what longevity does. Because when you’re starting your business or you have a side hustle, you’re so close to it that you truly, it’s like you can’t get out of your own way. And when you constantly have the battle of you know, you have a surge of energy and then it fizzles out, and all the while in the back of your head, you’re like, don’t fail, don’t fail, don’t fail!

What do you think your energy is doing? Just for a moment, when you can think of this as somebody else and not yourself, it’s a whole lot easier. And I love the perspective that I could share with her as an entrepreneur who has been doing this for, you know, now decades. But truly, my online business has only been successful for six years, but that’s still six years. Right?

So we have to take a moment. And I asked her, you know, how do you show up when you believe that you have this fallback plan are you should have a fallback plan? She’s like, I really don’t show up that well at all. And I said, Are you having trouble booking clients, good enough clients getting the right people? She’s like, Yeah, mm-hmm. And I said, Okay, great.

Well, what would you do if you knew failure wasn’t even an option? Because, frankly, when you think about it, no matter what you’re doing in your life, we’re always going to be redirected.
You know, God has a bigger plan than we do. We always say, oh, we’re going to control this and I’m going to do that. But God’s plan is always, you know, divinely orchestrated.

And so I asked her if she knew failure wasn’t an option, like you’re going to get to point B or C at some point, you know, how would you show up differently? And she’s like, why go I double down? I’d go all in and I’d really show up and do better. And I said, okay.

So that’s really interesting and I feel like that has happened to all of us. I wanted to share some of the advice I gave her and my perspective on what has shifted in me. And I think it really comes down to, you know, Simon Sinek’s book, start with the why. We know that why you’re doing what you’re doing is critical. It’s critical for your own personal success and staying focused. It’s also critical for your customers that they know why you’re even doing this.

So, I traced it back for her and I said, Well, you left your job. Why did you do that? What made you say, I’m done with this and I want to do something else?  And I think this is a good opportunity to ask yourself the same question. Not just if you’re new, but like all the time. Because and I reassured her at the same time and I said, there are people who are at multiple six, multiple seven, eight figures who have the same doubts as you, it doesn’t just go away. It just shifts because at the multiple six and seven-figure level, you’ve actually achieved some success and you’ve done some things that have worked clearly. But there’s still that doubt because this is not easy and entrepreneurship is not for everybody.

But if you have that, why and it’s not just so that you can, you know, be a great leader, a great parent, show your family that you could do it, like proving yourself, like beyond that, like there’s something more. So take a moment, even pause this podcast and journal on it, meditate on it, connect with why in your soul are you doing this?

And I’ll just share personally for me. You know, I always knew from a very young age that I was meant to do something. I didn’t know what, didn’t know how. But as I got older and as I built my skill sets, it was really becoming clear to me that I wanted to be a healer. And while I followed the path of many healers, I followed the path of many healers. And I stayed in this broke healer path. And it didn’t jive. It didn’t work for me. I didn’t enjoy the feeling of helping so many people on this deep level, but having nothing to show for it. And that didn’t work for me. I didn’t like I didn’t like that.
And I feel like there’s way too many people who subscribe to that business model that, you know, are carrying on what the generations before them carried.

And for me, it was this wake-up call one day, when I heard my guides say lightworkers be the light. And it felt like a spirit dope slap, like, you know, you’re supposed to do more so like get on with it already. And I knew that I needed to do more. I just didn’t know how. And I didn’t know, like, what I was supposed to be doing exactly. But from that point forward, I made it my soul mission and my soul’s mission to serve at my highest level every single day, no matter what. I wanted to just focus on helping one person. So, that’s my first tip is focus on helping one person.

And sometimes we misconstrue what we’re here to do and we’re like, oh my God, I had to make a huge impact. I had to be an influencer and have to get a gazillion followers and all that other stuff. And those metrics are wonderful. But those metrics could also be false Gods. They can make you feel less than and make you feel like, oh, well, that person has 100,000 followers, I have only 100.

– Does that make you any less than? No.
– Does that make them better? No. It’s just a number.

And when we really look at it, what we can find is that a lot of times people are paying for followers. They have very little engagement. They have no money to show to those followers.
I actually had somebody reach out to me years ago who said she was doing a big event. She had 550,000 followers, more than half a million. And she wanted my Angel Card Decks and she wanted to promote them. And I said, awesome, this is a great opportunity! And I said I would be happy to give you, you know, our traditional 30% discount. That’s what I do for bulk rates. And she’s like, ooh, could I just get them for free? And I’m like, well, they’re physical products. It costs money to make them. So no, but I could also just give you a coupon. Like what if you instead of giving them the physical cards, I could give your customers a coupon if they wanted to. And it was like, I don’t know. So, I’m here to tell you that just because people have a huge following doesn’t mean anything about them.and their business. She shouldn’t have the money to pay for Oracle cards, that’s sad, right?

So, if you focus on serving just one person every day, you’re going to do that. You’re going to achieve that.

My other tip is to start keeping a gratitude journal and not just about the things that you’re thankful for, but like literally the compliments people give you that they are grateful for you. Because when we’re starting out, or even as we’ve been established, it’s really easy to overlook the compliments that come in on a regular, consistent basis. We brush them off, we don’t receive it.

And when somebody says, Oh my gosh, you know that podcast you made, it did something that changed my life. And I’ve been, you know, focus on being able to make more money ever since I heard those things that you share with me. And I’ve increased my rates. Like, okay? I could just go, oh, good, I’m glad you listened to it. Or I could be like, Wow, thank you, I receive that. Saying thank you I receive, that really allows you a chance to pause and truly receive.

So when you have a gratitude journal and you keep track of the things that you are grateful for, the one person who reached out to me today, who said something nice, the one client who I just started working with and the transformation they’re already having, the gratitude for being able to have the freedom. To do this work and to create a business out of nothing. You know, the gratitude for completing this week, because man, it was a rough one!

Keeping that journal is really going to be helpful to keep you on track and keep you focused on your soul’s mission. And, you know, with that soul mission, that’s what gets me out of bed every day. I know I’m here to serve. And even when I’m tired or stressed out, I know I’m here to lead. And so I, I love to share that in the world. And it used to be scary for me to share my truth, to share my work. I was terrified, in fact, terrified of the judgment of others, scared that people would not like me anymore.

I’d be, you know, kind of outcast. And I’m happy to say that just from my dedication and commitment to being of service to help one person, it literally helped me get over that. Like, I literally don’t care if somebody watches me meditate and they think that I’m totally nuts or weird, I don’t care. They can just stop watching me. But I used to not to say things like I call in the highest, most crystalline, pure white light filled with the highest healing vibrations. I used to just go right into my meditation. I was like, oh, that’s going to be too weird for people to hear. Yeah, but that’s what I do. That’s how I start my meditations.

And so, me cutting that part off is me not giving my full self. And when I give my full self, people get super into that. And I want you to give yourself permission to give your full self.
And so that’s why my third tip is to give your full self. I want you to be able to show up and just do you because you have to keep asking yourself these questions like, how would I show up if failure wasn’t an option? You have to show up anyways. So, how would I show up differently if I wasn’t afraid of failure?

How would I show up differently if I wasn’t afraid of judgment? And these are the things that you have to ask yourself because it takes you out of the self-centered focus, of just caring about yourself and what people think of you. And it puts you into being of service to others. Like someone’s out there suffering, and they need me right now.  And so when we get into those mindsets of What is this for? I should have a fallback plan. I would invite you to say no. I would invite you to say hell, no.

And a couple of years ago, when Rachel Rogers was selling We Should All Be Millionaires Book or promoting it, I caught a few minutes of one of her Instagram lives. And it was very inspiring in that when I caught this moment and this is all I needed to catch, I didn’t need to watch the whole thing, this moment she said:

“Hi there, you know if you’re just tuning in for the first time, I’m here to promote We Should All Be Millionaires, the book, if for whatever reason, you’re tired of hearing me on podcast and promoting and talking about it, you can just stop watching me because I’m going to be relentless in my pursuit to get this book into as many hands as possible.”

And it was that moment. It was the word relentless. And I sense that moment. I started borrowing that word and I share it with my clients and I want to share it with you today. Because being relentless to be of service is an act of God. It is completely selfless and completely plugged into the divine, plugged into your higher self. It’s completely focused on giving. And so when you can just focus on being relentless in your pursuit to serve. Good things will happen.

And I know that it takes a different type of person. And so you have to really look at yourself in the mirror and go, Can I be relentless to serve? Do I believe in my work enough? And I know like with my friend, she was new at coaching and so she didn’t have the confidence. But you know what? When you’re relentless and you can just serve, that means that you’re going to eat humble pie. That means you’re going to when you start out, you’re going to have discounted sessions. You’re going to do as many discounted sessions as you can handle until you realize I can’t do any more discounted sessions, my price has got to go up because my skill set has improved.

And after that time, then you can start to really dial that in. Going from 1 to 1 service to group service, shifting your business model that builds your confidence.
But I will hold space for you if you can be relentless. And so this is kind of like my final words. And this is what I said to my friend. I said, what if just for 90 days there was only a plan A? There was no plan B, there was no fallback. There was no what if I fail? There was no get a job. How would you show up for 90 days? If this was it. And what she had told me before was I would double down of go all in and I would really show up.

And so I don’t know who needs to hear this podcast today. And certainly, I would love for you to share with a friend if you feel like they’re on that precipice of quitting. That it’s not today, and the world is crazy and life is crazy and entrepreneurship is hard. It’s not for everybody. I’m not here to sugarcoat it and say, hey, here’s my three-step process to winning as an entrepreneur. That’s not it. I’m here to be honest with you and say, yeah, it’s hard and it sucks. But if you can do these things and you can have friends that you can lean on when you’re tired, just don’t stop. Take a break.

But I want to hear from you right now. Tell me, what are you going to do for the next 90 days? How are you going to focus so that you can be relentless with your mission to serve people? I want to know from you. I want to share it.

And you know what? Here’s another invitation, is that when you share this, you can take a screenshot of the podcast or you can just make a post and tag me and put it in your Instagram stories. I will share it. That’s me saying, listen, I’m going to put your face and your name on my platform. Guess what? Someone probably is going to see that and go, who’s that person? And go look you up and maybe you’ll get a new follower too. That’s the cool part. I would love to highlight you.

And so, you know, I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention this, is that I know you’re also here to learn about intuition and manifestation and energy.
And so think about the energy that you can put into this 90-day challenge for yourself to really go all in and notice how that energy shifts from having a plan and a plan B to only having one plan. Notice how that instantly shifts your energy? And I want you to see if you can write some things out to hold yourself accountable for doing this work.

And listen if you heard that offer to do 90 days and been relentless and focused and then you’re like oh I don’t know if I can do that, maybe you should get a job. Let’s just be honest with each other here. We’re all friends. If it’s too much, it’s too much. So just take it as a cue. If your body says, ah-ah, I don’t want to do this anymore, then don’t. No one’s forcing you. And you don’t want to put your energy out there in the world, like,uh, I don’t really want to do this and kind of doing it. Don’t have facets.

People are out there suffering and they need you. Not me. Not my friend who’s got 100 followers. Just you. So, you’re going to do it? Let me know. I want to hear about it. And I want to tell you that my intuition gets stronger the more I listen.

And so, coming up, I want you to save this date, okay? For those of you who are still here hanging on, save the date, September 1st through the 30th. Something very cool is coming. And it’s going to strengthen your intuition. It’s going to help you connect with your higher self. It’s going to connect you more with your true calling. And it’s going to be fun as hell. You might even get healthier doing it. I’m not going to spoil it just yet. You’ll have to tune in to the podcast for the details on the next episode. I promise you, I will share more in the next episode. But I want to kind of give you that little carrot. For those of you who take me up on the challenge and you say, I’m going to dedicate myself to doing this for the next 90 days, I want to go all in, tag me in your Instagram stories and I’ll spill the beans to you sooner than my next podcast. How’s that?

I am so glad that you are here with me. Thank you for listening!

Remember to focus on helping one person every day. Remember to have that gratitude journal keeping track of your transformation, other people’s testimonials, and what you’re really grateful for. And remember to go fall out. You got this.

I love you all. I’ll see you on the next episode.