Transcript:

Angie
Welcome to no more Mondays, the podcast that helps you navigate career challenges through the wisdom of professionals who have been at the same crossroads. I’m your host, Angie Callen, and I welcome you to join me each week as I chat with leaders, entrepreneurs, and employees who are here to share their practical, tactical advice and some inspiration on how they arrived at career and life satisfaction. From job searching and career changes to going out on your own. We are breaking down barriers and providing actionable takeaways to help you take charge of your Mondays and ditch those Sunday blues. Welcome to no more Mondays. Hello, everyone, and welcome to no more Mondays. I am your host Angie Callen. Have you always dreamed of starting a business, but myths, assumptions, and fears keep you from taking the leap? What if starting a business could be simple and simplified? Well, you’re in luck because today, my friend Suzy Wraines is here to talk about exactly how to do just that. As a former corporate staffer in the healthcare and medical field, Suzy figured out how to make the very scary leap from the structure and seeming stability of working for established companies to make the shift into entrepreneurship. Y’all know how much I love chatting about business and startups and entrepreneurship. So I am very excited to get into all of this with Susie today, hear her story, get some inspiration for you to explore entrepreneurship, and maybe learn a thing or two myself. So I hope you will all help me welcome Suzy Wraines to know more Mondays, Suzy, welcome to the show.

Suzy
Thanks, Angie, for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Angie
I feel like this conversation has been like a long time in the making for various reasons. And also to fill you in. Susie and I met through a really large podcaster Facebook group. And it turns out that we live about like 20 minutes from each other. So we haven’t gotten meet to meet face to face yet. But it’s going to happen. And I just thought it was too small of a world not to not to make this happen. So I’m excited to get into that idea of kind of simplifying business because I know that something that you’re kind of really all about, and like breaking down some of those barriers of entry. But before we get into that, I think it would be great to give everybody some context about kind of how you started your career and even got to this point. So I guess what, how did your background lead you here?

Suzy
Yeah, so thank you for asking that question. And yes, I, us being so close to getting, like even just getting on the recording van. Like, they’re right down the road. And I’m, I’m on podcasts and have guests on my podcast that are like in Australia, and all over the world. And DJ down the street. Yeah, awesome. And you

Angie
also just don’t like, I mean, you all have heard me talk about the fact that I live in, you know, a resort town, mountain area of Colorado, there are not a lot of people who do what we do here. I mean, but also, we’re smart because we have businesses that allow us to live here. But that when you meet somebody who is kind of in this same, playing in the same ballpark, right down the street from your, you’re like, oh, immediate camaraderie.

Suzy
Yes, yes. It’s beautiful. So to get dive into my background, I started in business. So that was my first thing, corporate business. And after leaving business, I joined the Army. So this is this is a journey. And I share this on my podcast as well. But I joined the Army to be a medic. So shift, there was a shift there from corporate to medicine. I have always wanted to do veterinary medicine. But when I joined the army, they didn’t have an opening for the schooling for like a year out. And I really wanted to get started. I wanted to be in the army. It was right after 911. So I said, I’ll just do what you have open there. Like we have human Med, we have a medic, it was like, Okay, I’ll do that. Because I wanted to break into medicine anyway. So I did that for five years. And when I got out of the army, I went to my dream thing and did veterinary medicine. I was like, well, now I can do it. So I went back to school and did that. And during my time in the army and also in veterinary medicine, I had some challenges, mental and physical. I spent a year in Iraq, so I came home with some challenges. And I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I thought I needed to do something so that I have more control over my environment. I have more control over my time, flexibility, all these things where I could manage myself care. And I was thinking about it, and I thought I love medicine. And I was like, You know what, people keep talking about this health coaching thing. Let me look into it. And so, I got certified as a health and life coach, and I thought I could do this online. I worked online when I was in a busy corporate business way back when and I thought, you know, I can do this. So I dove into it without a plan. And I always tell people that sounds familiar. I delved right in, and I did it without a plan. And I know better. I have a business degree. I did business planning, and I got it. But I still didn’t do it. And what I like to tell people is that even though you have the knowledge, you have to have the reason it ended up simplified is I didn’t write a plan because I didn’t want investors. I wasn’t looking for money. I wasn’t looking for a bank loan. I wasn’t; I was just like, I’m just gonna start my business on my own. Why do I need a plan? And that’s how simplified business was born. Because I started without one. And, I didn’t continue because I didn’t have a plan. I like tried stuff. It didn’t work. I tried more, but it didn’t work. So I gave up, and I went back to work. And I was a health coach online for a company. And I was miserable. I’m like, This is not what I want to do. I’m an entrepreneur; I want to do my own thing. And that’s how business simplified started to evolve as I started to troubleshoot what happened to me. Like, why didn’t it work? And I thought back, and I’m like, I didn’t have a plan. So then, I made it my mission. And now it’s my mission. This is what I do. I simplified business planning for the solopreneur entrepreneur, the person that wants to jump out into the business world on their own. So funding, not getting alone, not going to investors to get the stuff on paper so that they know what they need to start with. And then they can grow from there.

Angie
There’s a lot of correlation; you and I have a lot of similarities in, I would say, our journey change points. And it’s interesting when you start in entrepreneurship, and as a coach, how you, I’m at that same point of like evolving into coaching coaches, coaching career services, professionals, and a lot of my perspective is, I fumbled around for four to six months when I started this business because I was trying to figure it all out. And if I had me, I would have cut off two to four months of hamster wheel scrambling and instead added another two to four months of kind of growth potential on the front end. And so I like this idea of, or even if you’re a solopreneur, who’s going to bootstrap your business and doesn’t want to go get funding. Okay, you don’t need what we know is that very onerous, extensive business plan. But it doesn’t mean you don’t need a plan for your business.

Suzy
Yes, exactly. And I like to tell people, I tell people this all the time. Don’t you want to know if your plan is viable? Because that’s what the bank wants to know. Like, when you go to make a business plan for a bank, you’re showing them everything you’re going to do to get the money back. So by doing it for yourself, you’re showing yourself, here’s how I’m gonna get my money.

Angie
Yeah, because you’re your own bank in these situations. So you might as well prove the concept to yourself, and I kind of almost want to get into some of the, well, we’re gonna get into advice and like, like some planning pieces, because I just can’t help myself. But before we do, I’m curious, you know, when I talked to a lot of people who, well, which thing do you want to talk about? And then you said something that, that I wanted to, I wanted to go back to that you started in entrepreneurship, tried to go back to being an employee, and it just didn’t work. And I would tell people, like once the entrepreneurial spirit hits you, no other professional endeavor or career stopping point will really satisfy and scratch the itch because it’s just once you realize it, it can almost can’t be contained. And there are tons of ways to fulfill it. And there are ways to, you know, transition. So you’re not totally cutting the cord and starting, but I think that’s really interesting that you kind of validated that very thing by trying to do it, go back, and then realize you just couldn’t. And then what I’m really getting into that I want I kind of want your thoughts on is I talk to a lot of people who know the entrepreneurial spirit has hit them, but they’re afraid, right? They have this dream of I’ve always wanted to do my own thing. But there’s these assumptions and fears around entrepreneurship that keep them from actually doing it. So I’m curious kind of what common things you hear in that space when people are either considering or really know they want to make this transition, but like won’t because of all these different self-limiting beliefs. What do you hear in that in that regard?

Suzy
Yeah, so the biggest thing, and this happened, I’m gonna use me as an example because it happened to me. I went back to work as a health coach. I didn’t want to be a health coach. I’ve had a business brain forever. I love business, and I love medicine. Don’t get me wrong. I love medicine. I love coming from it. And so what I did is I found my passion. My passion was business. And so while I was working, because I went back to work, I did it for almost three years. I started my business while I was working, but I had to figure out what the past genoise so the hiccup that people have is they don’t know what idea to follow through with. So they get nervous. It’s like, what if it’s not the right idea? Or what if it doesn’t work? Or what if it doesn’t make money? Or what if I can’t? What if, what if, what if, when really, once I found my passion, which was business planning, that was my that that was my thing. Now I have the drive behind it. And I started working on my business a year before I left my job to make sure that the passion was there and sustainable. So the first thing that I do with people is I have them visualize and come up with that one thing that they just cannot let go of that they wake up in the morning, and they could talk about all day, they could work with people all day, like, it’s the thing that never goes away in your brain, and you love it so much that you, you could do it all the time. Because I’ve talked to people I have clients, they like 3456 things that they’re thinking, Oh, I could do this. And where they get stuck is they’re like, Well, this one probably would make money easier. But they have a passion over here on the other side. And like go to the passion. Because the one that’s making money, you’re just building another job, a job with business ownership, which is way more than being an employee, you might as well just go.

Angie
You might, what’s that saying? I’d rather work 100 hours for myself than 40 hours for somebody else. It’s, in a way, what you’re doing. And it’s interesting that in our conversations are no more Mondays with people of like, whether they’re entrepreneurs or they still have followed an employment track. It really is the common theme of finding either something you are passionate about or feels purposeful around; I’ll use both of that kind interchangeably. For those of you that are going the passion things make you nervous, if you can find something that like your purpose or your passion, which I think are in some ways interchangeable, they’re a little bit different, but they invoke that same sort of motivation, what you it will push you through the roller coaster that is owning a business. There are always ups and downs. I call it the entrepreneur entrepreneurial mind can’t say that four-letter word on a podcast. Because if you ride it, if you ride that roller coaster, you’re either going to throw up or get off at the first stop. But if if it’s connected to something that you really feel purpose and passion behind, you can weather that storm. So it’s kind of like that first thing is like debunking the limiting beliefs that there’s a way to monetize the thing that your purpose or passion, right?

Suzy
Yes. And that’s something I actually work with my clients on. Because I have my coaching life coaching certification. And the specific people that I work with are women leaving the medical profession; I know where their heads up because I did it. And so coming from that structured, high-demand environment, that’s totally everything spelled out for you protocols. Like if this happens, do this; if this happens, do that. And you can’t veer from it like you are in a structure, and if you do something wrong, you can really hurt somebody. So coming from that, and then sitting down at your laptop and going now, what? What do I do today?

Angie
Yeah, yeah, well, it’s the blessing, and the curse is that nothing is dictated for you. Which is why it’s just so amazing for you to kind of curate how that’s gonna look. But at the same time, when you’re used to coming from that superstructure, you’re left to your own devices. And you’re like, holy, holy, wow, where do what do I? Yeah, where do I begin? So where do we begin?

Suzy
Yeah, so that question is what I had. I’m like, I want my own business. And I’m, again, a reminder to your listeners. I have a degree in Business Administration, and I’ve written business plans. I’ve done all the accounting, I’ve done like, I know what goes into a business worked in corporate, I still have that question. Where do I start? Because everything is on a high level, like a high corporate level, when you think about business for a solopreneur. It’s different. And so when I asked that question, that’s how I ended up writing my workbook, which is starting a business simplified guide. And it’s a step by step asking those questions starting with your vision, then we’re going to look at your marketing high level, we’re going to look at your operations, we’re going to look at your client experience, how you want to how do you want to work every day, we’re going to look at how much money you need to make and how do you forecast that like, all the things that go into a business plan, but on a level that is simplified, easy to understand, and you get to create it, you’re not writing it for somebody else, writing it for yourself. And I think a

Angie
lot of times, just breaking down the word overwhelming a lot of people throw out at us, right? Like, oh, I would love to do this, but not only Am I afraid I’ll never make money, and I’ll be basically a starving artist. It’s also very overwhelming to think about kind of all the things in this amorphous blob of nonchronological things that need to have, But so having that roadmap, I think ,is really key to just making it making it as simple as it really is. It’s just sometimes you got to get out of your own head and look at the decision tree and say, Okay, what do I need to do first, second, and third, instead of looking at what do I need to do a through z all an alphabet soup. And I love what you said about the idea of almost about the order that you look at the roadmap and coming back to this idea of purpose and purpose and passion is that you know, people will say, like, I want to start a business, and I want to be x, or I want to start a business, and I want to call it y. And I’m like, You got a whole lot of stuff to figure out before you can be x or before you call it why. And a lot of times, what I start with, and I think this is the connected piece to purpose and passion, is how do you want to help people? Yeah, what’s the result? Yeah, especially in a service-based environment. It’s like, what, how do I want to help them? And what problems do I want to solve? Because that’s a much stronger foundation to figure out how do I use my unique experience and skills in a way that can do that. Which is what you did?

Suzy
Yes. And it took me in. And that’s the thing, that question took me a long time to answer, even though I had an idea. So I had the business simplified business plan idea. But then what the roadblock I faced was, what result do people get? Because it’s a plan? Yeah, here’s, you’re gonna have a plan. Yay. But the result is I’m helping them transition. I’m helping them transition from where they’re coming from into starting their business. The plan is the how

Angie
did you do maybe a loaded question or a moment of introspection? Did you figure that out? In active process? Do you know what I mean? Like, did you figure that out? Once you started working with clients, right? You’re like, okay, I can provide this service. And in starting to provide that service, did you figure out that was kind of like the niche, the special sauce in the in the purpose? Or were you able to work through thinking that out beforehand?

Suzy
It was during the process, and I tell people this all the time, this, this is the business owners that I have on my podcast, and that I talked to, they all say the same thing. Change is what happens in business; it’s going to happen over and over and over; you don’t know what you don’t know. So what I knew was I wrote a workbook and people can buy it. And I tested it; I sent it out to people. And I asked them to fill it out and give me feedback. What came back to me was I need help filling this out. It was too much information. And so I said, Okay, so I created my one-on-one coaching. And I have clients coming through that, and they love it because they start to do the work. And they get, they get that limiting belief, they get that roadblock, and they reach out to me, we meet once a week. And we’re like, Okay, what’s going on here, and then I can coach them through what that is. And then they can move forward. So doing the workbook, and I recommend the workbook ahead of time anyway, just so people can see where they’re at. Because somebody that’s already ready to go could probably fill it. I mean, I fill out my I fill up my workbook all the time. I do it to re-pivot and things like that if I have an idea or something. But if you already know what you want to do, then the workbooks are great. You can get it out on paper and know what you’re doing. But if you’re one of those people that’s like, I’m not really sure. I do want to do this, but I kind of want to know if it’s viable and what’s going to happen and blah, blah, then the coaching piece is huge. Because it’s it’s diving in where you’re stuck because there’s so much into business. And you know this because you’re an entrepreneur; you may be doing something that’s really, really easy. Like maybe marketing is just easy and fun. And you’re like Yeah, I’m good at this. And then you hit bookkeeping, you go, Huh, numbers, no, this is where I want I put the brakes on, I don’t even want to look at it. So everybody’s different. And so I think that’s the key is finding where, where you’re finding where your purpose and your passion are. And then, as you work through it, awareness, recognizing where you’re getting stuck. And, as you said earlier, it took me almost six years to get to this point. I don’t want people to spend six years to figure out what they want to do.

Angie
I love that you just were very transparent and honest about how long it took you to really find the sweet spot, but because one, there’s somebody out there who went, wow. It puts it all in perspective, right? This this kind of stuff doesn’t happen overnight. And you’re actually maybe making me realize a very tangential point in my journey but which I mentioned a second. So it won’t happen overnight. But I also want to reinforce the fact that you didn’t wait until that point to do something and begin building a foundation and to start, which is where I think a lot of people get tripped up because they’re they want to have it all figured out. They want to have that perfect picture and perfect foundation for launch when really, there is no possible way to do that.

Suzy
No. And even as I just interviewed an entrepreneur, she’s had her business for 10 years, and she’s still shifting and still reevaluating, and things come up. And it’s like, oh, this is a great addition to what we’re doing, or oh, we’re going to drop this because it’s not really benefiting us anymore. So for those people that are listening and thinking, okay, it may take a while to get going. But once I get going, then it’s just smooth sailing. And that ain’t true either. It’s constantly shifting and changing roller coasters

Angie
never ending. Yeah, one of my little and I really believe this, there is, and this let me preface what I’m about to say with, I believe this is one of the reasons why sometimes you have to be doing the thing to figure out what the thing you should be doing is, and it’s because there is no better exploration into self-discovery than entrepreneurship. And that idea of getting started then helps you evolve as a person, which probably helps your purpose evolve, and your passions become either even stronger or more evident. And that’s why it takes a little bit of time in business; I would say to really hone in on what it’s all supposed to look like. But that also will continue to evolve for the exact same reasons.

Suzy
Yeah, and I want to touch on something you said earlier because it’s not either, and I have someone coming up on my podcast, who this is what she does, and she works in the medical realm. You don’t have to just be an employee or just be an entrepreneur; you can combine the two, and you can actually make your own. What do you want your income to be? How do you want to live your life? What do you want to do every day? And if you want to spend a little bit of time, I’m going to speak to the medical field because that’s what I know; if you want to do clinical care two days a week and be a contractor somewhere or even DW tube for two days a week part-time. But do your own thing the other part of the week; there’s nothing wrong with that. And I think society can put a stigma, it’s like, well, you’re either an employee or you’re a business owner. But you don’t, we can do. I mean, we’re five minutes or 20 minutes from each other. But typically, you can work I work with people around the world. You can do whatever you want to do. You design it,

Angie
you said something that I have to highlight, which is to figure out the life you want to have and then design your career to fit it because that is my, like those becoming my like byline in life. Because we just do it backward so much here. It’s like, oh, okay, I’ve got this, like, really stressful job that I work 12, I worked 12 hours a week, I guess I’ll have life in the hour and a half that’s leftover in the evenings, when, you know, society has shifted in the last like 1520 years to enable us and allow us the ability to get creative on how we curate our professional lives to enhance the rest of our lives versus taking away from the rest of our lives. And so I love that you brought up that idea that you don’t necessarily have to choose one or the other, especially at the beginning.

Suzy
Yeah, and, and that’s where I think when people I want to use an example. So you have worker X, they’re in a job, and they’re not satisfied, they’re not happy. They’re doing the job; they’re getting paid. They really want to be a business owner; they really want to do their own thing, make their own hours, all that good stuff. So they’re like, Okay, I’m going to start exploring that. But I’m going to keep working, get my income, but I’m going to be doing this on the side. If you don’t like the job you’re in. And I think you’re going to love this. Change the job while you still do the business thing. Because that was my experience. I did the health coaching job, and I started working on my business on the side. For a year, I stayed in that job for a year while doing my business. So we can be flexible; yes, it’s going to be a time thing. And you’re going to have but find a job that you like; you can leave the one you don’t,

Angie
or that you like enough to not suck the bandwidth and energy and life out of you to put your energy towards the other thing. And I also am trying really hard, and we need you, and I are going to have to brainstorm on the term that’s going to replace side hustle. I’ve started calling it a part-time job. You’re going to make your full-time career. Because I feel like that’s unfair in these scenarios where I want this to be a part-time job. It’s just my entrepreneurial endeavor, but a side hustle almost means you don’t give it as much attention or potential as it most likely has. So respect it even if it isn’t the thing you do 40 hours a week or even if it isn’t the thing that makes all of your money and pays your health insurance.

Suzy
Yeah, yeah, I’m thinking something came to me when you were saying that purpose. Our passion project.

Angie
There we go. It’s my purpose. Purpose, go submit the trademark right now before this episode airs. You get a passionate project; I’ll have a purpose project. And we’ll do all kinds of cool stuff together. We’re gonna take over the world, everyone, and you’re hearing it live for the first while kind of live for the first time.

Suzy
Yeah, first of all, and we run the mountains, from the mountains in Colorado mountains,

Angie
exactly where you will clearly be inspired by your surroundings. I love this. And I’m so this is okay, so I’m gonna go back to something you said earlier, it took us six years to figure it out. It’s really interesting that when you start to figure it out years and years and years of hindsight, we’ll come together. So and that’s happened at multiple trade multiple checkpoints, kind of in my journey, specifically with career benders where I finally realized, I’m gonna say two or three years in, I finally realized I had had an entrepreneurial I’ve had a side hustle, and I’m gonna call them side hustles, I have had some sort of entrepreneurial endeavor my entire adult life, whether it was literally selling like, stamping up or 31 bags or one of the other courier vendors is lucky number 13. And there was almost always the presence of that common theme. And what so I realized that I thought it was really interesting, which is really what told me the entrepreneurial spirit is just my thing. And then it’s I’m at five and a half years and career benders. And over the last, I’m going to say six months. So let’s say around the five-year checkpoint, five, six years seems to be a comment, like, and there seems to be something happened there. I’m now at that next phase of, let’s say, purpose and really realizing my passion. But I needed the five years before this to get to both that conclusion and the entrepreneurial experience to go out and and do it, which I would say you probably experienced, too, when you started realizing about six years in what everything should look like.

Suzy
Yeah, and I’m gonna go back even to when I was 19 because that’s when I first realized that I could do whatever I wanted. When it came, and again, it was, it was a side thing. It was an MLM. But I got the bug. I was like, Oh, I can do this myself. I can make up my own stuff. And what I did is, and I transitioned that to my actual working for people, I was one of those people, and people would come up to me, they’re like, how is it that you get every job that you want? I said, well, because I want it. So when I go to interview at a job, I picture myself working there. And if I can’t picture myself working there, then I don’t want the job. And so, I pretty much would handpick what jobs I wanted to do. It’s harder nowadays; I’m aging myself a little bit. It’s harder to do that now with the internet and a billion applications that go out there. That’s what you do is help people with things. Yeah, I always wanted to do my own thing. And when I would get into a job, I would make it my own. And that was my entrepreneurial spirit coming out; I would make things more efficient, and I would fix things that were wrong. And my bosses were always like, you’re always doing things to make this better. I’m like, well, because I have a vision. That’s a key thing. If you’re not sure if you’re an entrepreneur, if you are visioning things and wanting to make changes all the time in your current environment, you probably have that. But to go back to your length of time, the six years, I tried many things in those six years; my husband and I had a photography business, and we’d love to do it, but it just didn’t fit what we really wanted to be doing. We liked doing it more for a hobby than a business, figured that out. I did my health coaching. During that time, I shifted my health coaching, my coaching shifted many, many times to a point where I was like, I don’t even know what I want to do. And that’s when I stepped back, went back to work, and realized that I needed a plan. One thing I like to share with people, and it’s what I have a passion for; I’m going to use that word because it means something. Planning is really important to me. And I know it will help people. And so for those people that are listening are like, I don’t know what I want to do. Sit with a notebook and a pen. That’s all you need. It’s free. Well, the pen and paper costs something but start writing your ideas. What do you do with a pen and paper? Not? Pen and paper? Yeah, with a pen and paper that that manual writing is, there’s a connection from your brain that it’s totally different. And you’re gonna create what you want. It will come out of that. You can do your entire plan on a piece of paper.

Angie
Hey, there’s validity to that whole napkin thing that we all used to talk about, right the napkin business plan. Isn’t there a book about that? Yeah, it’s funny that I feel like you and I were maybe like our spa Have each other or like separated at birth, because one of my very first videos on career benders was me, sitting by the river, and talking about how you should get outside and consider your goals and like write them down. So it’s exactly the same thing. And we’re so, and I think now, as we age ourselves, we are so connected all the time that you almost need that complete reset and complete disconnection, to just stop and go, I’m allowed to think about what I want. And I am going to sit here and journal about it. And if you’re somebody who I am not really great at Blank, blank pages, but I am exceptional with a prompt. So you can find prompts out there to start, you know, thinking through different talking points or thinking points for yourself to, to get those to get that connection between your brain and the paper and start getting stuff out without judgment of yourself.

Suzy
Yes. And I actually created a journal that I sell on Amazon for that very thing. It’s a daily as a weekly summary for people that are starting out their business and gives them pointed things to be thinking about, like, what is your focus today? Let’s think about that. Just to get the creative juices flowing, because I understand I’m, I’m the same way when it comes to a blank page, I need to know I have to have a purpose, like what’s my purpose in writing on this piece of paper. And I think that’s why I ended up writing the workbook because the workbook is thought-provoking questions all the way through.

Angie
And I have a feeling you and I could probably ideate together on different products and offerings and things all day long. But then yeah, when you but then it’s like, okay, well, what do you want me to say about it, and I love. So I want to I want to go back to you; you’ve mentioned a bunch of awesome resources that you have. So what I want to do as two people who love entrepreneurship and like coaching others in business let’s go give everybody like some tactical steps to take because there’s some of it’s all in here; I love all of this. I want to know what, let’s say three things, your top three tips on what people out there can do to, like, lean in and explore this entrepreneurial spirit, if it’s, you know, trying to spark.

Suzy
Yeah, so what we just talked about, I highly recommend, and I, I do this with everybody that I interact with that wants to start a business is to set a timer and make a list of all your ideas. And do not edit yourself; set a timer. You can do three minutes, five minutes, whatever you feel that you’re going to be able to keep writing because I want you to write the entire time until the timer goes off, let your brain go beyond what’s just right there. Because it will start searching, and you’ll find stuff that you didn’t even know was there. So

Angie
and you’re handy to list but do it anyway. Yes, but it’s

Suzy
a list. So it’s not Paragraph Writing; I want you to list every idea that you possibly can think of without any conditions; your multimillionaire money does not matter. What do you want to do? So do that list. And then the second thing would be now you’re going to rank the top three. So once the timer goes off, and you’re going to step away, so do it on a different day, make the list, and then let your brain rest and just let yourself go back to whatever, come back another day, you’re going to set a timer, you’re going to go through the list, and you’re going to rank the top three. And then, from those top three, I want you to ask yourself these questions. When I wake up in the morning, am I excited? Or on a scale of one to 10? How excited Am I to get out of bed and do this? The second question is, could I talk all day long about this to anybody and everybody? And it doesn’t matter? I just love talking about it. So I’ll talk about it anyway. And the third thing is, if it’s a service, you’re going to visualize yourself doing that service for people over and over and over and over, and it’s never going to end. How do you feel about it? scale of one to 10? Are you excited? Are you scared? Are you excited? Or are you okay? I could do this for like a month, and then I would be sick of it. It’s it do that for the top three because it’s going to show you which one you really are excited about.

Angie
Yeah, and I will say just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should do it for that very reason just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s gonna keep you engaged forever. I’m also going to say that I love the idea of the brain dump, right? Let’s say prioritize the brain dump and then rank the priority. So that’s our three tips. Because you know also the one that’s that scares you on there is also probably the one that you should do. Right, like that’s that’s one of those cliche memes we see when we scroll on an Instagram, but there’s definitely some truth to it.

Suzy
Yeah, and I would say take the money out of it. My first question to people is if you had unlimited money, you know your Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, whoever, you have a ton of money. What are you going to do for your bill? This people get hung up on the money. They’re like, well, I want to do this, but it’s not going to make money. So I’m gonna go over here, or the I don’t know, if it’s gonna make money or if it does make money, I’m gonna have to do it all the time. You know, like money’s always attached to everything, like get rid of the money part, the money will come.

Angie
Very few good decisions are ever made largely on a financial decision decision making consideration. But you are, like, almost verbatim. Well, I can’t do that, and it won’t make me any money. And one of the most fun things to do is prove them wrong. Right, and show them conceptually if we go about this from the Okay, well, if you want to do that, how’s it going to solve people’s problems? How does that look from a monetization perspective? Oh, look, we just created a product that you could go sell, and here’s who you’d sell it to. And they’re like, Oh, I can’t do that and make money. So there’s always a way to debunk that kind of fear and self-limiting belief that I think just comes in and it creates a nonstarter. And if you’re able to push those aside and look at this without judgment, a lot of possibilities arrive. I love that. I like that three; I like that. Three-step three-step activity. And let’s, let’s give everybody else some more resources. So you mentioned quite a few. I know you have a podcast, but throw out some of the great things entrepreneurs out there can get through you and where they find you.

Suzy
Yeah, so I have my starting a business simplified guide. It’s a workbook, and it’s sold on Amazon. And as well, on my website, my website is starting a business, simplified.com. And yes, there’s all the SS in there. I always tell people like it is like, there are multiple as starting a business. simplified.com is less SS. Yeah, I think there’s three three in the middle there. But starting a business. simplified.com has everything. It has a link to my podcasts, it has a link to my workbook, it has a link to my coaching. I do one on one coaching. The other thing is that I mentioned the journal; I just created that recently and put it on Amazon. If you search Suze Raines, you’ll get a list of all the things that I have on Amazon as well.

Angie
We’re gonna link all of this in show notes. Because if you’re sick of hearing this broken record, just go listen to Suze because she’s saying the exact same stuff I was saying, and maybe you’ll hear it for her because I get super fired up. I was actually telling my mastermind group this the other night because I just we just started a new cycle. And I was like, I get super fired up about the like the power entrepreneurship has to change lives. And I mean that in two ways, both our lives as the entrepreneur. I mean, my business bought us our house; it was a 20-year dream. And I was able to realize it because of entrepreneurship, which is why I just get super fired up about it. But also, when you’re in the business of things like that, we do. And then, in this kind of service and coaching base space, we’re also able to empower others, to design their lives and careers the way they want. So now you’re changing their lives, and the impact becomes exponential. And while that might sound super woo-woo and cliche, it is totally true.

Suzy
It is true. It’s the ripples in a pond. I mean, I can say my mission. So this goes full circle; I’m glad that you said that. I was a health coach; I came from medicine. And then I did health coaching; I didn’t want to be a health coach, but I 1,000% believe in health coaching, nutrition, and taking care of it. Like I believe in what all of these coaches are doing. I don’t want to be one. But guess what? I now have a mission to pull people out of the health care system that wants to do holistic health, health coaching, nutrition, energy, healing, whatever they want to do; I can now empower them to go do it. And I’m reaching those communities doing health, the way that I want to do health without me doing the health if that makes any sense.

Angie
But you needed it makes a total sense because you needed that stop on your roadmap in order to have the empathy and understanding to coach those people and for them to feel you had the capacity to coach them. Which is 120% exactly why I needed to be a career coach and resume writer first because I’ve realized my purpose is to coach career services professionals, and I would never have been able to do it for two reasons. One, you build a successful entrepreneurial endeavor of some sort, which builds people’s confidence that you can coach them in an entrepreneurial endeavor. And then you create a business that is similar to what they want to do. And now that empathy and understanding and foundation are there. So you had to go through that part of the journey. Yes.

Suzy
And I always tell people, and it’s in my workbook, it’s in my coaching, you’re going to, you’re going to go back in time, and you’re going to write down everything that you’ve ever contributed in your lifetime. Not just in your job, not just in your relationships, but every interaction that you’ve had every this podcast interview is now in my toolbox of what I can do and how I’ve done it and who I’ve done it with, and it stays with me. Everybody has it.

Angie
It is entrepreneurship is a really great way to build the anthology, and you use the combination of all of your experiences because I really think that’s what provides the best and most successful client engagements when our actual real, hands-on own experience can come in. And even if you’re just a half step ahead of where the person that you’re mentoring wants to go, or is that understanding build that foundation of trust that creates such a successful engagement in our space?

Suzy
Yes, yes, that was so beautifully said; this is so fun.

Angie
All right. So I feel like we just are gonna have to wind things down. And I’m sad because I want to just hang out with you all day. So I’ll be over in 25 minutes. And as we do, wrap things up, let’s give everybody else one piece of it, one more piece of inspiration, kind of one more pearl of wisdom. What’s your number one piece of advice on what everybody out there can do to get one step closer to career and life satisfaction?

Suzy
This is my favorite one. Because it’s part of my journey. And I’m working on it through it and loving every minute of it. Be yourself and speak up.

Angie
No, no one has ever said that on this podcast. I don’t think anybody has ever said that is the answer to this question on this podcast.

Suzy
Be yourself because, guess what? You will be in line with what you’re supposed to be doing. When you’re yourself, when you’re your authentic self. And there’s only one Angie, there’s only one Suzy there’s so if even in a career, when you be yourself, the people who want to be around you and recognize you and be a part of who you are. They’re going to see you hear you, and know you without you doing too much. When we step outside of ourselves, we try to be something different or like other people to get to a place. It doesn’t work out. And then we wonder why nobody’s hearing us or seeing us if we’re not being us.

Angie
Yep. Yeah, you’re, well, I feel like I don’t even need to. That’s just other than thank god, there’s only one of us because I don’t think the world can handle another me. I couldn’t have summarized it better. Because I also often say that I started my business because I, I knew I could do it. I didn’t look at what anybody else was doing. I went to LinkedIn. And I just started authentically commenting on stuff, and it resonated. What you have to trust is it won’t resonate with everyone, but it’ll resonate with the right people. And that’s who you want to surround yourself with anyway, whether it’s a job or clients. And it’s a whole lot easier and less energy-sucking to just be yourself, everybody.

Suzy
And I’ll give you one more tip around that because I talked to my coach about it this week, it’s so it’s really fresh. For me. It’s none of our business what other people think, like drop; all we have to do is worry about ourselves.

Angie
Yeah. And I think that that is the message. And it felt like I’ll just bring all of this together now because that’s a great way to leave us off. That fact has been has never been truer and more needed than right now, where when comparison is easier than it’s ever been. Perfectionism is an all-time high, and we just constantly have this noise of what we should be versus who we know we are, who we want to be, who we were meant to be, who we were designed to be, and just leaning into how beautiful things happen. If you just drown out the noise and give to fewer shits, Am I allowed to say that right through the use of you drowned out the noise and just allowed yourself to lean into your purpose, your strengths and give those the people of the world the way you’re meant to? Amazing things happen.

Suzy
Yeah, and I want to say that it’s a journey because you have to know yourself. So when you say when I, say Be yourself; if you don’t know who you are, then you have to start asking yourself those questions. And that’s okay. That’s there’s nothing wrong with that. start being aware and just ask yourself, what do I want? Who am I? And let yourself tell yourself that.

Angie
There you have it, everybody. Now, you might get to know yourself. If you don’t like the answers, change them. And join us for the ride. Susie, thank you so much for being part of my journey. This has been a great conversation. I’m looking forward to many more. I am so glad you joined us here on the no more Mondays movement.

Suzy
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been so much fun.

Angie
This has been fantastic. One of my favorite things is yes to talk about business. That’s the thing I could do all day, every day. And I love talking to people who have kind of figured it out. They figured themselves out and have figured out how to navigate career crossroads changes to paths to success, and it’s a bonus when they’re helping others do the same. There’s some fantastic advice and awesome resources here. everybody, so head on over to no more Mondays dot info. Grab the links to all of Susie’s workbooks, her books on Amazon, and all the great stuff she has for you to start exploring your entrepreneurial spirit. And in the meantime, if you want to leave us guest suggestions, comments, feedback, grab or grab those show notes as I mentioned, head on over to no more Mondays dot info, and I will see you next week for another edition of no more Mondays podcast. Thanks for joining us for another episode of no more Mondays. Tune in next week as we bring you more insights and actions to help you improve your life and career. Don’t forget to visit us online at no more Mondays that info to get all the details show notes and recommendations from this episode. No more Mondays, we drop new episodes every Wednesday. No More Mondays is brought to you by career benders, Inc, in partnership with executive producer Jane Durkee. For more information about career coaching, resume writing, personal branding, recruiting, and entrepreneurship coaching services, visit us online at careerbenders.com