#094 - How I'm Playing Bigger In My Business This Year
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[00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to 2024. This is the Heads Together podcast. I'm your host, Gill Moakes, and I am thrilled to be back here for a new year. I think I'm still sounding a little bit croaky. I had really bad dose of the old COVID just before Christmas. It knocked me off my feet. I'm not going to lie, which is why this podcast is now a little bit out of sync and is coming out to you, not on the usual Monday.
However, I'm back. I hope you miss me. Email me, tell me you noticed I was gone. Okay. Huh. I'm, I'm actually feeling really excited to be back and recording. And I had a burst of creativity between Christmas and the new year. I didn't do any work whatsoever, which was beautiful. It was such a lovely break. I took a real break.
Well, first of all, it was because I actually couldn't work, but then after that, it was more because I really wanted to [00:01:00] take a nice full time off over the festive period. And it was so good, but it did get my creative juices flowing. And I definitely captured a few notes in on my phone. I don't know if you do this, but every now and then I just have the notes open on my iPhone and I just quickly capture it. Sometimes it will be like words that I think, Oh, I must use that word more often. Or it will be phrases or it will be ideas for the podcast. It can be all sorts of things, but I tend to jot things down as they come to me. And I came back to work today with just a full page of various little scribblings of things that I'd noted down.
So lots of those are going to translate into podcast episodes, I'm sure. But this episode, I really want to talk to you about how I'm playing bigger in 2024. [00:02:00] It's a topic, so playing big or more specifically, not playing small is a topic that I coach around a lot, and so it seems only right that I. Really open up and share with you areas where perhaps I've been playing small and I'm ready to kind of lift the lid and go all in.
So, yeah, let's dive in.
Welcome, welcome to the Heads Together podcast. I'm Jill Mokes, and I am obsessed with cutting through the noise when it comes to growing your business. Each week, via intimate coaching conversations and inspirational stories, I share what it really takes to get the results you want, in a way that feels right to you.
I am all about attracting higher ticket opportunities, building authentic [00:03:00] relationships, and creating the abundant, full fat version of your dream business. I mean, how many of us have beavered away creating a light version of what we really want? The thing is, I honestly believe when you're outstanding at what you do, there is no limit to what you can achieve.
So, are you ready to put our heads together and make it happen? Let's go.
Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is how my Business is now incorporated. My business is going through a rebrand at the moment, but it's only recently that we actually incorporated the business. So it is now Unapologetic Business Limited. So that's very exciting, but it's also an [00:04:00] audacious name, right?
Unapologetic Business Limited. I cannot be playing small with a business name like that, and I have no intention of. So I'm going to run through with you a few things, a few kind of resolutions, if you like, that I've made for the business for this year. Things that are going to change this year. The first one is I am going to start saying no more.
I'm kind of a recovering people pleaser, but probably I'm always going to be a bit of a people pleaser. And I don't actually see that as a bad thing. When I was going through the notes on my phone for this, I found a note that I wrote ages ago, and it was about how to be the best. Okay. And these are the, I think there's about eight points that I wrote down of how to be the best.
Number one, people please. Number two, lower your boundaries. Number [00:05:00] three, over deliver. Number four, don't scale. Number five, be the bottleneck. Number six, stop outsourcing. And number seven, work hard, rest hard. Now, although these are quite tongue in cheek, because clearly a sustainable business would not have you doing all of those things, it's not a bad thing to people please sometimes to do things to please people.
It's part of being the best. It's not a bad thing to over deliver. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to lower your boundaries for your best clients. It's not a bad thing to sometimes be the bottleneck when you're intent on getting a, a really. Good. Uh, I don't know, piece of content or something out into the world, right?
Maybe it's not something to outsource. So whilst the list, clearly when I wrote it, I was in a bit of a, um. Combative state of mind, but I do think there is some truth to it. That said, [00:06:00] we all know that saying yes to everything when it comes to the people pleasing element, I mean, is an absolute surefire path to burnout, can sometimes send you on a path that is contrary to where you actually want to go.
Saying yes to everything means that you Sometimes work with clients who are not a good fit. It means that you will sometimes take on collaborations that really don't work for you. It means that you will sometimes spend your time doing things that really aren't aligned with your bigger mission. So this is something that I'm going to be very intentional with this year.
And that is saying no more, whether that is saying no to a client who I know I'm not going to be the best [00:07:00] coach for, or a client who I know is just not going to be coachable, right? Those are two examples. So only saying yes to the perfect fit clients. This is something that I would want you to Really take on board.
And if there's one thing you take from this episode, saying no to the wrong fit clients is one of the smartest things you will ever do in your business. Taking on clients for whom you are not a good fit and who aren't a good fit for you can be soul destroying. It can lead to resentment. It can lead to damaging your reputation.
It's just all round. Bad, bad news and there's never a need to do it. Don't let your money mindset, your scarcity mindset push you to say yes to a wrong fit client. [00:08:00] Unless it's a hundred percent good fit, it's a no in my book. And that's absolutely the path I'm going down this year. And I know that some of you are going to be saying, well, that's, but that's a privileged position to be in.
But honestly, I wish it's something that I had done more from the beginning. I'm so fortunate now that I only work with clients for whom I know I get great results. It's a non negotiable and I'm extending that this year. It's going to be a no for me when an event is simply not aligned with what I'm trying to achieve in my business.
I'm going to say, no, I'm not going to keep signing up to. Different webinars and things that have taken my interest for a fleeting moment. I'm going to start saying no to more of those things because the more you say no to, the more space you're carving out in your business to say yes to [00:09:00] the right things, which is just so important.
So being intentional about what you say yes to, and what you say no to, that is part of playing bigger. The second way I'm going to play bigger this year is that I am going to reach out to more of the people who I don't think will reply to me. One of the things we do when we're playing small is we kind of keep our network of people pretty Samey, we seem to have this habit, I think of entrepreneurs of almost deciding our level, and then we just go laterally from that level.
So we go side to side and we widen our network. Absolutely. But do we ever really start reaching out to people who we just kind of think they're not going to reply? Cause it's okay to think that, [00:10:00] but you know what? Sometimes they reply. There are some people that I interviewed on my podcast this year that I genuinely had assumed it would be a no, and they were a firm yes.
So that's something that is going to form part of me playing bigger. In 2024, I'm going to be way more daring and courageous when it comes out to reaching out to people that I want to be connected to. Okay. The third thing, third way I'm playing bigger, I'm going to start taking some more of my own.
Medicine. I talk all the time to my clients about setting these bigger goals and then breaking them down into the micro tasks that they just need to get their head down and do day after day to reach the bigger goal. And I know this is true. I know it's true. It works. Okay. [00:11:00] But sometimes as coaches, it's easy to talk about this kind of thing to our clients.
It's easy to do that. It's harder to lead by example and do that very thing in our own businesses. So this year is going to be my year of being very firm and committed with my goals and very disciplined about taking the micro steps to reach them. And yeah, I am using the word disciplined and I'm using it absolutely unapologetically.
One thing that I want. Everyone to understand in 2024 is that building a business, growing a business, scaling a business, it's not easy. It's never going to be easy. Don't go down the entrepreneurial route. If you're listening to this and you're still working a nine to [00:12:00] five, because I know that when I was still working nine to five, I would often listen to podcasts like this one and think about all the things I would do one day, if and when I.
Started my own business, which I did. But if you are one of those people listening to this and you have it in your head, that it will be easier than the job you're doing now, it won't be, it will be hard. Now that's not to say it won't be the best decision of your life. If you have entrepreneurship in your blood, in your veins, like I feel I do, it will be the best decision you'll ever make, but will it be easy?
Absolutely not. And. A lot of achieving what you want in business isn't glamorous, it's not sexy, it's doing the boring stuff and it's doing it consistently, it's showing up when you don't feel like showing up, it's It's not glamorous. It's not glamorous. It's not glamorous. [00:13:00] Getting your head down doing the work and not everyone wants to hear that most people want to hear that it's about following your dream and it's about you know, bringing your passion to your work and following your purpose and Yeah, it's partly all of those things Things, but it's also about bloody hard work, about being strategic, about deciding what you're actually going to bring to life.
And I mean, deciding, making a decision to be successful. That's a really important thing. And then it's about working backwards from that bigger picture and. Absolutely getting crystal clear on the micro steps that you need to take to get there and then doing them, taking the steps, walking the path. The fourth thing that I am going to do to play bigger [00:14:00] in 2024 is.
To be more visible. Now, this is something else that I coach around all the time. And isn't it just so easy from our privileged little seat as the coach on the coaching side of the screen to be very daring on someone else's behalf and tell them how visible they need to be. And isn't it easy to not carry it through ourselves as much.
So one of the ways that I will be absolutely playing bigger in 2024 is to be more visible. I have some big goals and I have some big milestones that I really want to achieve this coming year. One of them is to publish my book. One of them is to. Launch a new program, which I've been working on. I have goals around speaking that I want to bring to life.
And so I [00:15:00] know that all of those things demand from me to be more visible. So that is something I'm going to be embracing this year. So watch this space and I will share more with you about what that's going to look like for me. And then the last one about playing bigger, about not playing small is rewriting some of the stories that I've told myself about the way life is or the way businesses.
Okay, now we all have these, we all have stories that we have taken as truths. Some of you, it will be around what's available to you in terms of success. Some of you will absolutely limit the success that's available to you by simply having a story in your head of what the [00:16:00] most could look like for you.
Right. And I think we all have these in different ways. We very often tell ourselves stories about the most we could charge for our service. For example, now I'm not one of these people that thinks that you can absolutely, the sky's the limit to what you can charge. I don't think that's true at all. I think that what you charge should always equal the value you deliver.
So as long as you're comfortable that you are charging in line with the value you deliver, absolutely, but a lot of people really struggle with wonky stories around how much they can and can't charge. For me, some of the stories that I've. told myself are around my age and around my weight. So these are really weird ones.
These are like stories like, Oh, well, I've probably left it too late to do X, Y, Z. And that's a story. That [00:17:00] is a story. 55 is not ancient. I can do whatever I put my mind to, and on some level I know that, but there's definitely a story that goes on in my head sometimes that, you know, oh, well, you're 55 now, you know, in 10 years, you're gonna be 65.
Yeah, and it's absolute bullshit. It's rubbish. So that's something, and also around my weight. So this one and the visibility go hand in hand for me. So on the one hand, I'll be really unapologetic about who I am and the way I look and my opinions around things. And then on the other hand, there is still a part of me that's really uncomfortable being on video.
And other people say to me, Oh, but you're really natural on video. And I think that's because I don't really understand any other way to be. So it's not like I put on an act when I'm on video, but the [00:18:00] truth is I don't like seeing myself on video particularly. But this year, there are other things that I want to achieve that are way more important to me than holding myself back because of some story I've told myself around the way I look or because of my weight.
That's not a story I'm prepared to entertain anymore. So I want you to think, what stories do you tell yourself that are keeping you playing small? What are you denying yourself? What are you telling yourself is not available to you for whatever reason? And really look into that, really examine it and see if there's a way for you to flip the switch.
Rewrite the story. Give yourself another story. My story that I'm rewriting for myself and I'm working on this every day is I'm me, and I'm [00:19:00] very unapologetically myself. So I'm really, this year, focusing on being unapologetically myself. And that's what I want for you to be unapologetically you, rewrite the stories that don't serve you anymore.
Make 2024 the year that you absolutely bloody go for it. Don't let anything hold you back this year. And if something's come to your mind, as I've said that around what's holding you back, go and write it down, go and write about it or talk about it, dictate about it, get it out and look it in the face and then shut it away.
Because 2024 can be your year. It can be the year that you bring anything you want to achieve to life. If you want [00:20:00] some help from me. Via coaching, go to jillmokes. com forward slash. Apply and you can apply for a 60 minute free coaching session with me. Do that. I really encourage you to do that. Also go to jillmokes.
com and you can download my goal setting workbook bundle. Okay. I would urge you to do both of those things. Actually, go to jillmokes. com, download the vision and goal setting bundle, and then apply for a coaching session with me, because that's what's really going to set you up for this year. So just like I've shared with you all of the ways that I'm going to be playing bigger this year, why don't you book a session with me and we'll go through the ways that you can start playing bigger this year.
It's time. It's time to do it. Okay, have a fantastic week everybody and I will catch you again same time, same place next week. [00:21:00] Bye for now.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and that getting our heads together this week has filled your mind with what's possible. If you love the show, would you do me a massive favour please? Would you leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts? It would really help me put more heads together, reach more ears and expand more minds.
Until next week, bye for now.
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