What My Mentor Said that Drastically Shifted the Way I Look at My Business

INTRO: [00:00:00] After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host, Katherine Thompson takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place.

Be the sought after entrepreneur podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life.

Welcome to be the sought after entrepreneur podcast. And here's your host, Katherine Thompson.

Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, super stoked that you're tuning in to this week's episode and I cannot wait to dive in today's topic [00:01:00] because I'm going to be sharing with you something a mentor reflected back to me well over a year ago now that has shifted the way that I look at my business, has shifted the way that I look at what I create within my business, And it's given me a deeper understanding of what motivates me and doesn't motivate me.

And I want to share it with you because I think it's going to help a lot of you with this same perspective shift or understanding within yourself and your business and perhaps shed some light on maybe why you're feeling stuck in your business or feeling like you've lost the passion or creativity within your business.

And so I'm really excited. To share it with you. And it all really started on a call we were having where I shared that I feel like there's this creative body of work that wants to sort of come through beyond business, but I'm not quite sure what it is. I'm not quite sure how to allow it to sort of come through [00:02:00] and I don't really know what to do with it when it does.

And she was reflecting back to me, like, is it a business book? Is it a personal development book? Like, what type of book is it? And I said, well, that's a funny thing. I know for certain it's not a business book that's going to share steps and tricks and hacks and strategies. I know it's equally not a personal development book that's going to share my story or other people's stories with the same sort of strategies and tips and inspiration.

And there's nothing wrong with those books, absolutely nothing wrong with them. I just knew that that's not what was trying to come through, that there was this other fictional body of work that wanted to come through. And maybe it wasn't fictional, but it was creative in some way, shape, or form. And Her encouragement to me on the call was like, go away, you know, think about it, sit with it, don't force it, and then encourage me to look at [00:03:00] different writings, poetry, whatever it might be, and how to cultivate more creativity in my day to day life that potentially would encourage this creative body of work that wants to come through.

And for those of you that don't know, some of you may, I've already published A book self published a book back in 2014 in accompaniment to my master's research. I flew to the Philippines. I did research there. I came back and part of my research or part of graduation was writing a thesis. And so while I was writing this thesis, I got this hit to write a book that had tons of photos in it.

It's called Life Near the Blows. Tons of photos and telling the story from my perspective, not the academic research side of things. Now I didn't have to do that book as part of my You know, graduation or getting my master's, but it was something I [00:04:00] wanted to do and something I was really excited to do because I knew people were going to resonate with that book versus reading my thesis.

You know, my mom, my dad, my brothers, my friends, like they would probably never read my research paper, my thesis because they'd be reading and go, well, what the heck does this even mean? Whereas the book that I wrote was a story from my perspective, from my experience. Accompanied with some really beautiful photos that I had taken while I was there.

And I'm sharing this part because it's a spotlight into what I'm about to share with you. But at the time, I didn't know why. Because I wasn't really looking at it from that perspective. I was just like, I could do both, so I'm going to do both. And I will tell you that the book that I wrote with the pictures was a hell of a lot easier to write than the Master's Research paper.

That paper... Almost did me in like I remember sitting at this screen [00:05:00] looking at this blank screen going I don't even know how to write this And yet it was the thing I needed in order to graduate. It was the means to an end So to speak whereas this book I didn't really need to write it I could write it if I wanted to, but there was no pressure to write it.

But I also really loved the process of writing it because it helped me reminisce my story. It helped bring my story to life. It helped tell this story that nobody really knew. Because I was so out of contact with everybody, I couldn't update on Facebook what was going on, I couldn't update on Instagram, like I had no connection to the outside world and so nobody really knew my story.

I didn't even have cell service, you know? There were periods of time that I could, you know, text my husband, I'm alive, but that was about it, you know? There wasn't a lot of messages that went back and forth that could really share what my experience was and so. Um, it was something that I wanted [00:06:00] to do for myself to remember it to write, to have that story that I could go back and read.

But it was also something that I wanted my friends and family and other people to be able to read and go, wow, like I had no idea you did this or wow, I had no idea it was like this or wow, I feel like I was there with you. You know, these are, this is something that I really wanted to do. So I did it fast forward, you know, to 2022, 2022.

22 is when it happened when I had this conversation with my mentor and I'm sitting there on that, you know, call with her zoom call, scratching my head about like, you know, the next best step in my business would be to write a business book or write some personal development book that would help elevate my brand.

And yet I had zero internal motivation to write the business book or the personal development book, even though technically it would help elevate my brand, even though on paper it seemed like the next [00:07:00] best step to help elevate my brand and get my message out there. There was no internal fire in my gut that was like, go write the business book or go write the personal development book.

All that really felt like to me, if I was going to do it, was ticking off some checkbox of what you need to do in order to have a successful online brand, right? It felt like a blueprint that someone was shoving in my face going, these are the steps you need to take if you want to scale to a million or be widely visible or known or credible or all the things.

And none of that was motivating to me. It felt like if I was going to do it, I was just going through the motions. In order to get a means to an end, right? To meet some type of goal in the future. And a lot of mentors or coaches might look at you and say that you're self sabotaging, or you're procrastinating, or there's imposter syndrome coming [00:08:00] through.

And what's really beautiful about this mentor is that's completely not what she did, right? She didn't look at me and go, You're self sabotaging. This is a mindset thing we need to work through. It was like, let's understand first and foremost why you don't feel motivated to do that. Let's understand who you are and her encouragement to sort of go away and just play and be creative and not really even think about it, right, just to see what sort of comes through.

And in between our calls, which we would meet two times a month, In between our calls, I was in and out of sleep, which is often when a lot of ideas come through for me, or insight will drop, or if I'm walking or having a bath or cooking, basically just not thinking about it. And I was in and out of that sleep again, like wake and sleep, wake and sleep, and it dropped in.

That I have to enjoy the process, I have to enjoy the creative process of whatever it is that I'm creating. [00:09:00] And it was specifically around the book or books that are going to come through at some point. I still don't know what the books are, by the way. Um, but it was like you have to enjoy the process.

It doesn't matter about why you're doing it, so to speak. It's about the fact that you enjoy what you're doing. And when I shared that with her on the call, she looked at me and goes, You're a process person and I was like what I don't even know what you're talking about I've never even heard that before and she's like you're a process person You have to enjoy the creative process.

It doesn't really matter why you're doing it. You just have to enjoy the doing of it. If you're trying to do something to reach some goal in some future or tick a box off, you're not going to be fulfilled. You're gonna reach the mountaintop, the box ticking, the whatever, you're ticking off the list, and you're still gonna feel unfulfilled if you don't enjoy the process along the way.[00:10:00] 

And it was like a light bulb went off in my brain. I was like, what? Because I could then see so quickly why. Parts of my business felt hard. Parts of the things I was putting out into the world never really felt like I was fulfilled. Why I graduated at the top of my class in my master's degree and was and never really felt like, wow, like I made this big accomplishment.

I never, I never really reveled in that or celebrated in it because it was kind of like just another, you know, thing I had conquered and ticked off a box. But it also was because I wasn't doing my master's to become the top of my class. I wasn't doing my master's to win any awards, I knew I needed to enjoy the process of doing my master's, which is why I completely shifted seven, eight months before I graduated to fly to the Philippines and live in a remote village and document what I was doing [00:11:00] because I knew that the original topic I had chosen, I didn't really, didn't really light me up.

I wasn't really enjoying that. I had picked the topic because I had, was working at the place I was working at and was like, well, I could help in this perspective, but there wasn't really this light or this drive to want to do it. And so I was like, why not enjoy the process of doing my master's research, which is something my thesis advisor reflected back to me as well.

But at the time I didn't really, it didn't really sink in. And And he said to me, if there's any time ever to go and play an experiment, it's when you're doing your master's. Like, what do you have to lose at this point? Right. Just go and try and, and, and at least enjoy it, do something that's fun and that you're going to enjoy and look back on and go, that was a great experience.

But when he told me that, again, I had no clue, I just thought he was encouraging me to veer away from the topic I [00:12:00] had and go after the thing that I had presented to him, which is something he really loved and was excited for me to go do, you know? But when this mentor was reflecting this back to me and actually put words to it, that I'm a process person, Over that sort of like goal driven person, the one that wants to check the things off the list and accomplish all of the things and follow that like step by step process to get to the end goal.

That for me, it doesn't really matter about the end goal. It matters about what I'm doing to get to wherever I'm going, right? If there is a destination at all. Um, and that, was a game changer and has been a game changer for me. And so I wanted to share this with you because if you're listening to this right now, and you feel like sometimes that business can feel mundane or this, these step by steps, or there's gold driven, or this like, you know, mountain climbing to get to the.

hundred K months or the [00:13:00] million dollar business or writing the book or building the empire feels like blah to you. It doesn't mean that that is wrong. It doesn't mean that because there are people that are driven by that and that's what drives them. And this particular mentor reflecting this back to me actually said that's her and it doesn't make her goals or her the way that she moves through life and business.

Any less integral or not genuine or like that she's only cares about the goals. She takes off a list Like that's not at all what it's about. It's just that We're all wired differently and when we can acknowledge that and when we can understand how we're wired There's no pulling us off our center.

There's no pulling us away from who we are because we're like Well, this is who I am and this is why I don't fit myself probably into that box ticking, but I will say that there are many, many periods of my life that I just ticked the boxes because that's what everybody else told me to [00:14:00] do, right? Or that's what I thought I needed to do, and there's many, many times in my life where I was like, I got to a point where I was like, I've achieved great success.

I have this master's degree. I've spent 15 years in corporate doing amazing things. I opened a wine business, sold a wine business. And yet there was these points where I was like, but I still, still don't feel fulfilled. Like, I still don't feel like I'm fulfilled or I feel stuck because. I don't know which path to take now, right?

Do you write the business book to tick the thing off the box? Or do you lean into this idea that's trying to come through creatively? That's completely polar opposite than what you're talking about in the online space, right? I have this beautiful podcast. I've got this beautiful business where I help people with marketing, uh, copywriting.

And it was like, but there's this creative idea that I'm fighting because It's fictional, potentially, or, yeah, I think it's fictional. Again, I don't know what [00:15:00] these books are, but there's this creative body of work that wants to come through that's like, not, doesn't fit the business world that I'm in. And my coach looked at me at the time and said, well, who cares?

Why can't you do both? Why can't you have this creative work that you lean into and you write the books, whatever they are, but you also can do the business and you can also bring that creativity and that multifaceted, you know, perspective into business, which I think a lot of people are craving, right?

It's like, how can I have the business, but also pursue all of the other things I want to do that might not have any relation to the business at all? And I, and again, looked at that, looked at her and was like, yeah, you know, yeah, absolutely. And I also don't even need to have all the answers. And that's my, you know, invitation to you.

Like you don't need to have all the answers in the moment of how it's all going to work out. And that if you can just open [00:16:00] yourself up to putting out what we want in some capacity, right? I'm going, I feel these books, but I don't know what they are and I'm not going to force it. Because if I just force it, I'm going to spend all this energy trying to figure out in my mental brain what they are.

And I know that that's not how they're going to come through. And so the invitation is, is like, put it out there, sit with it, have the patience for it to come through, have the patience to not have it on a timeline, right, that you have to put it on some timeline, I've got to write the book by this date, which again, is so not who I am and not how I'm wired.

As a process person, right? I'm so not wired that way and yet people who operate opposite of me in a lot of ways, this particular mentor, there is this goal setting, this like levels in which we want to get to at a certain date and a certain time. Right? And I don't [00:17:00] operate that way. And even in life, if you actually look at my life, right?

I graduated uni in my early twenties. Yes. My, a lot of my friends turned around and got married and had kids and there was no part of me in my 20s that was like, I want to get married and have kids. And then I was like, what's wrong with me? You know, I remember going into my thirties, I was turned 30 and I remember friends looking at me like, well, don't you want to get like married or things like that?

And it was like, it hadn't even really dawned on me. And I was like, is there something wrong with me? Like. I just did not have this checklist. I just did not have this timeline to my life, right? That it was like, this thing has to happen by this time. I need to get married by the time I'm 30. I need to have kids by the time I'm 35, or I need to get married by 25.

And I need to have kids by the time I'm 30. Like I've never moved through life that way. And yet I was trying to sort of move through my business that way with these like hard and rigid goals and these milestones that I was trying to hit. And when people would ask me, even coaches and mentors, like, what's your [00:18:00] goal?

I'm like, I just want to enjoy what I'm doing. Like I really don't have a money goal. I really don't have, you know, these, you know, how many clients I want to attract. And my brain kept telling me, you're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong. You have to have these goals. You have to have a money goal. You have to have a client, how many clients you want to take on goal.

And none of that ever really drove me. And I always thought I was doing it wrong until this mentor literally reflected back in a big old fat mirror and was like, no, this is just how you're wired. And when you lean into how you're wired and you lean into the process and you really make sure you love the process and you love what you're doing and you love who you're doing it with, so to speak, it doesn't matter.

There's no linear timeframe in which it has to happen. Just let it happen. And that has shifted. literally so much in my business. And again, I think I was existing in my life that way. But it was trying to marry the two in business. Because again, I [00:19:00] can't remember what episode it was, but I shared how we take so much in business so seriously.

Right. And there's this rigid way of doing things and these, you know, very strategic, analytical, psychological, logical ways of building the business. Right. The ticking of the box in life, we do the same thing, right. It's like, again, getting married at a certain point, having kids by a certain point. And if you haven't reached those milestones, then.

Somehow you're a failure. You know, if you haven't reached 30 and married with your first child, it's like, then is it, are you a failure? No, not even remotely. And if you're wired that way, that you have these set parameters, then that's how you operate and you're wired. And that's totally okay as well, but that's not how I'm wired.

And that has, like I said, helped me rewrite and re script the way in which I look at business most of the time, right, is how I look at business because I was, like I said, operating my [00:20:00] life probably unconsciously this way. I didn't get married. I haven't technically ever gotten married. You know, Craig and I are, let's call ourselves husband and wife, but we never actually technically got married.

Didn't do the ceremony, didn't have a wedding. I don't know if I've ever shared that. At all, really, but that we just never did. And that's the way that we've chosen and it works for us. And lots of people look at us, think, why not? Why not get married? And it was just, we never really needed that in a lot of ways.

Um, and yet I've, and my brain has fought it because of cultural conditioning that this is just what you do. The next best step is to get married. And if I had done that in my twenties. Woosers, that would have wreaked a lot of havoc in my life because, wow, yeah, if that's the path I would have followed, I probably would have been married a few times, again, nothing wrong with that, but, uh, it just wasn't the path that I knew subconsciously [00:21:00] without knowing it, that that's the path I wanted to take, so, so, I really hope that this story has helped shed some light on maybe what motivates you and doesn't motivate you in your life and in business.

And maybe where you're feeling stuck or unfulfilled in your business and maybe even in your life is because you're trying to fit yourself into being a process person when you're actually not a process person or trying. Everything in your power to not be the process person that you are, the person that revels in the process, that really needs to love the process, that has to enjoy what they're doing, and that they will do anything in their capacity to do the things they love, regardless of what they're making or anything like that, which is why When somebody asks me, how did you find the courage to leave your 15 year corporate career?

I was like, I don't think I needed a lot of courage to leave it because I was miserable. And I would way rather be [00:22:00] happy and make a hell of a lot less in my life than Be absolutely frickin miserable and be going through the motions just to collect a paycheck like that was not the life that I could ever live, which is why I had multiple corporate jobs, right?

Because if I stopped enjoying the process and enjoying the place I worked at and the people I was working with. I moved on and I moved on quickly and it was something I just did, again, without really knowing or being able to put words to it. But as I've shared many, many times on this podcast, I, it's like I walked through a vortex in the online space and forgot kind of who I was in a lot of ways and fought myself every way I turned because I felt like there was a right way to build the online business.

Even though, up until that point in my life, I didn't really operate that way. And it was, like I said, a lot of it was unconscious. I didn't even realize I was just following what felt right. [00:23:00] So, I really hope this perspective shift that I've experienced, and then having this mentor reflect back to me in words, how I'm wired in a lot of ways, and that it's not wrong to be wired this way.

And that if... Going through the motions in your business and ticking off the boxes to get to some big future goal, the hundred K months, the million dollar business, the empire, the brand building, the credibility, all of that. If that doesn't light a fire for you. And again, nothing wrong with it. If it does, then my guess is, is that the process in which.

You're living your life and doing business and the work that you're doing has to be enjoyable and fulfilling, and if it's not, it won't matter how hard you try to make it work. It's going to feel hard, which is why I think in the online world, a lot of what I was doing in the early days felt hard, even though I was good [00:24:00] at it and could do it, it felt hard.

And by that, I mean, posting five, six times a week, having to show up in my stories consistently every single day, trying to sell every day, sending out two emails a week, like all of that felt hard because I wasn't, I didn't enjoy the process of it. There was nothing creative to me about showing up on social media in my stories and selling every day.

There's nothing creative to me about posting on social media, pointing out all the things that we do wrong. And by the way, I can show you how to do it right. And, um, here by my thing, like there's nothing creative there, but it also, I don't enjoy working that way. I had to shift that and shift out of that energy big time in order to start to see the success in my business, the way that feels good for me.

And that's an integrity to me. And again, if you want to show up every day on social and sell, and that's. Where you want to be, then by all means do that, like, there's nothing wrong with it. But it's [00:25:00] understanding who you are, at the core of who you are, and how you're wired, and how we're all wired differently.

And that if there is resistance, it's not always because you have some block, or you're self sabotaging, or you have imposter syndrome. Like, sometimes that resistance is just, this isn't the right path for me. This isn't the right direction. I just actually, at the core of who I am, just don't feel at all.

Like, this is the next best move for me, which is the book, right? I had a mentor basically telling me that's the next best move for you is to write this business book or personal development book and I can help you do that. And I was like, I don't want that. Like I actually don't want that. I know you're trying to sell me on that, but I don't want that.

That's the last thing I want to be doing. And it wasn't resistance or some mindset block or anything like that. I didn't need to go do reprogramming in my brain. It was none of that. It was just my heart was telling me straight [00:26:00] away. Like this is not the thing you're here to do. And then when this other mentor reflected to me that I was a process but I was like, that makes sense now.

Like I can actually now put words to it. and explain it in a way that reflects that, yeah, I'm not trying to self sabotage my business or I'm struggling with imposter, right? I can actually say, well, no, I'm just actually not wired that way. Like I have to enjoy the thing I'm writing. You know, I would have sat down and tried to write a business book or personal development book and it would have taken, well, I'd still be writing it.

I'd probably be on sentence one. Cause I'd be like, I don't even know. What I want to write about. It'd be like writing the thesis in a lot of ways, right? That took me, it almost did me in, because I just was in such a block, like such a block to write it. But it's because it was that natural expression wasn't coming through, like, writing in, like, academic voice and language and all of that is just not my natural expression, but also just didn't feel like the creative outlet [00:27:00] that I was.

Absolutely craving, which is why I did the book and the thesis simultaneously so that I could get through writing the thesis in a lot of ways, right? It helped me write the thesis because I had this outlet where I was telling my story. So, with that, I really hope that this episode has shined a light on maybe who you are and how you're wired or that it's maybe giving you permission to go, wow, I, I actually don't want to do the thing.

And I was trying to force myself to do it, whatever that might be, or it's helped give you some perspective of the way that you move through this world and that it's okay. To really do it your way and that the resistance that you feel a lot of the times can be this sign of not being in alignment or that it's not the right decision, or even though the noise can be really, really loud on the outside world, that's like, you've got to do this and this and this and this.

You need to have some type of [00:28:00] measurement of success in your business. You need to have the group program. You need to have, you know, this beautiful brand with beautiful colors and imagery. You've got to write the book. You've got to have a beautiful website. Like all of these things that they say you need, which is kind of similar to life, right?

In order to be deemed success, like you've got to get married by a certain age and have kids and have this white picket fence with a house. And right again, you look at the things that are said conditionally in our world as like You know, who, who defined that as success? You, at the end of the day, get to define what success looks like.

And if it goes against the norm of what we think success is. That's actually what takes courage, more than anything, right, is to go against the conformity of what the world is telling you you need to do and be in order to be successful. And when we can understand who we are, the core of who we are, then that noise...

It's almost become [00:29:00] silent because it won't matter. It doesn't matter what everybody else is saying. We won't get pulled off of that core, that anchor that's within us. So with that, I'm wishing you a fab day and I hope you found this super helpful and I cannot wait for you to listen to next week's episode.

So be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss it. Cheers.

OUTRO: Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at creatively owned and online at creativelyowned.com until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.