Ep 10 + Honoring Different Seasons in Your Business

 

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Everybody including myself, and every successful entrepreneur, has had at times felt confused and scared. it’s 100% normal. It’s just going to help propel you to the next step, which is once we have Getting a lil vulnerable with this episode as we talk about postpartum depression, things not working out in our business and when it all comes together. I’ve learned that the past 8 years of things that I thought weren’t working out in my favor were actually all leading to one amazing thing. So when you feel like things aren’t coming for you, listen to this episode.

 

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Full Episode Transcription: 

Hi, my name is CarliAnna, and you are listening to another episode of C-E-Over it. Hey guys, and welcome to this week’s episode. Today’s topic is something I can’t believe I haven’t talked about before. Because I feel like I’ve talked about it so much with my students. And if you’ve attended happy high ticket designer, you’ve heard me talk about this a lot. Now I’m going to go like even more into depth on this topic that we’re gonna be talking about today. In this episode, though, I’ve never talked about seasons in our business this much. The only time I feel like I sound like me, as I say that.
I don’t know if that’s actually totally true. Because I do remember in 10kgg, we did do an entire retreat around seasons inside of your business and respecting the different ebbs and flows that we go through as business owners. And that was really, really fun. But I don’t think I even presented, at least on this thing that I’ve been talking about today. yet. So that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today, we’re talking about the seasons of your business. And the reason why I’m talking about this today. And why I just randomly decided to bring it up is because I haven’t seen a lot of people struggling with it all of a sudden, the last month or two has been really, really slow for inquiries. And I feel like we’ve talked about what to do when you have to say no to people, or working with clients who have a smaller budget. But it’s kind of hard when you just don’t have anything coming in, it makes you feel a little bit powerless sometimes. And that’s where I feel like a lot of entrepreneur-like madness, it’s like creeping in and you just start to question and get impostor syndrome about everything.

So we’re going to be talking about all the different seasons that you go through as a business owner and how to respond to those slow seasons, how to respond to the quick seasons and earn growth seasons, and what those actually mean for your business and how to just not freak out about it. Because I know as me for our business owners, of course, we always want a complete season of reaping like that in our brains feels like what is ideal, but that’s just not how it goes in life, we have seasons of up and down and how can we actually use that to our advantage for growing our business and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. It’s not going to be like a super how to I kind of more just want to have a conversation of like, where you guys are right now with your business and feeling good about whether you’re at a high point or a low point respected now.

Before we get started, as always, we are going to be doing our snacks and tracks now I recorded last week’s episode right before this. So as for the track section, I should have saved some for this week. I do have some more that we could talk about so I have books that I have DNF that I haven’t talked about yet awesome. I’ve been reading a lot of business books.
But as far as snacks go, this is a very very, very boring snack. But I have been obsessed with ice for the foods that I always hyper-fixate on are either like random snacks or drinks. Or it is breakfast food. Like if I’m gonna hyper fixate on any meal. It’s going to be breakfast food 110% of the time like shakes and waffles. Right now it’s breakfast sandwiches. And you guys have heard me talk about the cut. You know again, I’m a little slow for Costco, but we’re not talking about the Costco breakfast sandwiches, not the Reds brand. Those are good. They just are so expensive. Now. I I feel a little bit like I am cutting off my left toe every time I eat one of those sandwiches. I mean, it’s not like wildly expensive but when you compare like going to eat out it’s still like $1.50 to $2 per sandwich. And I just think I can do better than that. And I have I have just been making homemade breakfast sandwiches now my first try out this was a total flop. It was disgusting. I tried to make the exact type of red sandwich thing like the way that they do it because basically the red sandwich breakfast sandwiches they don’t use like any Egg McMuffin Egg McMuffins egg, not egg muffins.

What’s the English they don’t use any English muffins or any type of bread. The bun is just like an egg patty. And then they have just a little turkey breakfast thing in the middle and a slice of cheese. And that’s pretty much it. It’s really um, it’s a lot of protein. But I just started making them at home with so basic guys, just the English muffins from Costco, Turkey breakfast patties from Walmart, the Walmart brand, and then I just mix up one egg and like three tablespoons of egg whites with some cheese in a pan and I mix it up and I just put it all on my egg McMuffin, and I eat it up and it’s so basic. I’m like embarrassed like describing what a breakfast sandwich is for you because I don’t know why I just was like holding off on it for so long. It’s so freakin good. I tried to make the little egg Patty things. And they just got so freakin watery and gross in my freezer because I tried to freeze them. And it’s hard to make those fresh all the time like little egg patties and like cut them out and stuff.
That just it wasn’t working. It wasn’t working. So I went off on a hiatus of breakfast sandwiches for a long time. And now I’m back and hence it’s so so freakin good. And the macros are good. It’s like low in fat high in protein, but also high in carbs because I have been trying to eat more carbs. Because I’ve been noticing when I’ve been waking up in the morning I just feel like dead and just like I’m so nauseous and that is a big sign that I’ve been I’m now I need to up my calories so
I put my calories and I felt so much better.

I feel like I should do a whole episode. Like anyways, anyways, on like, fit. I don’t know, I don’t want to but I’m like maybe I want to because I don’t want to be like a fitness you know fake influencer because I’m definitely not but I like I have been loving like the things that I’ve been learning about like macros. And just working out with my body. Like I just feel the healthiest I’ve ever felt before, which is crazy because like my body like when I look at my body in the mirror, it’s the most unrecognizable. And I have I feel like a little bit of body issues after having three kids and like four years, obviously. But I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt my gut feels the best it’s ever felt. So it’s kind of fun to go through my little health journey, if you will for the next for the next, but for the past like six months, year, I don’t know how long it’s been.

Okay, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, books, let’s get into et. Hmm Okay, here are a few other books that I have been reading. And I will say with self-help books, I’m gonna throw a lot at you because I just kind of read what I need out of them. I don’t ever like starting to finish a self-help book. I could probably name maybe five self-help books I have read from start to the beginning, especially because I feel like one self-help book. What is the deal with self-help books I’ve done a TED talk on this getting so long to the freaking point they would like, we’ll do a six-hour self-help audiobook, and literally the first two hours of the book is them just telling me about how important this self-help book is. Like, babes. I’m already here you have my intention. Just get to the point. Get to the point. It’s starting to feel like books are like the new webinar. It’s like the new freebie that you’re just like, telling me why it’s so important that I buy something else from you. And it’s so annoying that books are becoming this. I hate it. I mean, I will say I get that like at a point. That’s like a part of the educational teaching process that you have to talk about. Why are we learning this? Why is it so important? That is a critical, critical part of teaching somebody something but like two hours, like, I think we can tone it down a smidge. We’re being very, very annoying here. Okay. So anyways, mind in the making. That’s a book that my mom recommended to me for if anyone has neurodivergent kids, it’s been really, really good. She gets to go to all these really cool conferences and learn about the latest research with neurodivergent kids and kids with reading problems and all that stuff. And this is one of the books that one of the people who was doing the research recommended that every people, everybody with neurodivergent kids read and so I’m reading it, I’m only a little bit into it because it takes me a long time. But it’s really really good that mine to the Making by Ellen Galinsky kind of talks about just, I’m not going to get into it, but it’s really good.

A Clockwork is another book I’ve been reading. It’s okay. I don’t know if I have anything to say about clockwork. Like it’s I feel like it’s really basic like I like the idea of it but like, this is another world books are like you
He’s talking about such basic concepts in such an interesting way in a way that has been delivered to me over and over again, and I don’t really not really getting anything here. But like, I think if maybe, I don’t know, like, if you haven’t read any of these concepts on like, basic business stuff, then it’s a, it’s good, it’s a good basics book. Another book of Building a second brain I this is one book that I’m actually almost done with this is a self-help book. And it’s been really interesting, and I think is really good, especially for creatives. Because this whole book idea is about how do we take these ideas that are in our brain. And if you feel like your brain has chaos, and you just have so much potential going on up in your brain, but you don’t know how to organize it, you don’t know how to like call on facts when you need to how to utilize all this beautiful information that you have in your head. Because we are living in an age of where information is just everywhere, we have too much information, this book gives you a system to help you actually process and use your information, it has changed the game for me, I’m using notion in a totally different way. And it’s actually a really fun read. Like I feel like a book about giving a system about how to just use the knowledge in your brain instead of reaching for like Pinterest, or instead of reaching for tick tock or whatever, will be really dry. But it’s not, it’s really good. He puts a lot of information in research in it. And I really, really liked it.

Okay, and then here’s a book, a few books that I did after or I read all the way and I didn’t like Vicious by VE Schwab, this gets a ton of love on TikTok, I stopped it like an hour and a half into an asset because it wasn’t good. It just, it was a little bit depressing. And I just was not in the mood for a depressive book. I didn’t love the main characters, it just was depressing. It’s about basically, you’re taking like have two best friends. And they go through a traumatic event together and one that gets superpowers through that traumatic event and one becomes a villain because of it. And one becomes a superhuman or whatever, like the good guy from it. And it’s kind of from the villain’s perspective of it. And so it’s an interesting concept and is well written. But like, just is really depressing. I don’t like it. Once upon a broken heart, I was like two hours away from finishing this when I identified it. And then I just Googled how it ended. And I was so glad that I didn’t waste another two hours of my life listening to this book, I absolutely hated it. Which is so sad because the premise is so promising. It’s basically like this girl gets broken up with or whatever. And so she goes and she makes a deal with one of the fates that is like tied to heartbroken us or whatever to try and get anyways, I don’t know what it is, but then she ends up falling in love with that faith. It’s such a good idea and premise, but like, I can’t name one thing about this book that I like did not like it another one Sea of Tranquility I completely finished this. It’s a really, really quick read. This is the last book I’m gonna talk about and then we’re gonna get to it but four hours, like four hours. And I could not tell you the plot could not tell you if you like vibes. This is a good book for you.

The plot is it’s like again, it has it does have a plot it does have a plot so which is why I finished it. But like I read it and it immediately left me I don’t like I thought about it one day. I never was like dying to go back to it. It was just like,
Okay, that was an interesting concept. But like the delivery was like really wishy-washy, really wishy-washy, which is surprising because some people thought this was like their favorite book. It’s like this time-traveling type of concept and like, shows how time-traveling would like actually affect people. And it’s just like, so boring. Like, I just don’t care. So those are some other interesting books and reads that I have been going through and either loving or not loving. I feel like those are some books that we wouldn’t normally share on the podcast. So I’m glad to be able to share that with you guys.

Okay, I don’t really have a personal life update. I said I would on the last podcast but like, honestly, things are pretty chill. Like, we are selling our house. We have an offer. We’re working through that. And we are also buying the other house. We signed the seller disclosures yesterday. So things are moving well on that we have a puppy I just feel like things are really moving forward in an extremely positive way and I could not be happier with where we’re at. And it still just feels so surreal to me that we’re actually going to be living the life that is there for in like a month and a half, like, I’m not even gonna believe it until we’re there. So once we move, guys just be prepared to be sick of me because I am just so excited to have that it’s just I feel like it’s just going to be a whole lifestyle change journey. I mean, it feels more like, instead of just getting a new house, it really does feel like a whole lifestyle change that we’re going to be going through and I could not be more excited.

Okay, now that we’ve done our snacks and tracks and the little life update, let’s get into this week’s episode where we’re going to be going through the seasons of businesses. Now, the reason why I wanted to even be talking about the seasons that we go through in businesses is that there is a lot of pressure in our businesses to be performing constantly. And there’s a lot of the hustle culture and the nine-to-five culture that I think, obviously attributes to this. But there are things that we can do now to change this. And to take charge of it, we don’t feel like we don’t need to live in a world and live in a business where we have to be performing all the time at 100% cap capacity like I think we always see on Instagram. And we always think that once I started my business, it’s just gonna be like $100,000, month out month after month, month after month, like, all I have to do is blow up on tick tock or blow up an Instagram, and then I’m just going to always have a successful business after that. And that can happen. I’m not saying I mean, you see podcast interviews and stuff like that with other people where that happens. But in my experience, and with other people that I’ve talked to, that’s actually not a super awesome way to grow. One, it’s super debilitating, it is scary to go through that much growth in such a short amount of time. But it’s also really hard to catch up on it’s not like, Okay, I went from zero to 1 million in six months. And I can just adapt magically, and I have the skills for this already. Like, it takes a while to figure out how I’m going to handle $1 million worth of sales, how am I going to handle $1 million worth of customer emails, or customer whatever, you know like there are things that go with growth that you have to have systems for, and you have to have, you know, work experience to be able to successfully understand otherwise, you’re going to grow to $6 million really, really fast and easily.

But it’s going to be really hard to maintain that because you don’t already have the systems and stuff in place to be able to maintain that it’s just going to tank really fast, because all of a sudden, you’re gonna get those sales, and then you’re not able to deliver, because you’re on the systems in place, and people are gonna be Pesta units, you know, then your reputation sucks. So I think honestly, the better way to go when you’re with your growth and business is to have like a slower season of your business. And to do those ebbs and flows, it’s so much more sustainable, it’s so much easier on your anxiety and your mental awareness to have the ebbs and flows. That’s how we’re built to live. That’s how we grow naturally. And so you’re not going to have the season of growth all the time, I’m gonna kind of show you what I feel like I believe the seasons of our business look like. And if you guys want to see the vision that I’m talking about here because it is like a visual thing. There’s a whole chart for everything in happy high ticket, you can go buy the whole workshop for $30. The very last workshop in happy high ticket designer. At the very end, I kind of wrap everything up by showing you guys and talking more about what the seasons of our business look like and how we can apply all the skills that we learned in happy high ticket to the different seasons of our growth. So Season One again, I’m imagining this is a big circle season, I guess one of where you would start at is a season of stillness. And this is the season that I am hearing where a lot of people are at. So I’m curious if you’re at this season too. But a season of stillness this is kind of where you are just setting and you’re wondering Kay, like, what’s next? When are things gonna happen? The inquiries are low. You’re just kind of like, I don’t know what’s going on. But like I think something is coming. I just don’t know what or where it is. This is a really good season for future and past reflection. This can oftentimes seem like oh my gosh, and slow, everything’s crashing, everything’s burning. It’s I’m hopeless. No, this is like a good season to have the reflections that are going to propel you for the next growth season. This is where we want to sit down and say like, Okay, what is it that I want? Like? You have the time now to actually work on your business use it
Don’t use it.

Because trust me, like, in a few months, you’re going to be like wishing for the time to work on your business. That’s, I swear always how it works. And I see this time and time again and 10k girl gang where I see messages of people being like, oh my gosh, I need clients like yesterday, I don’t know where they are, I’m freaking out, oh my gosh, what is going on. And then literally two months later, they will send a message in 10k girl gang, same person, and I am so overwhelmed with the number of clients that I have. It’s so you know, there’s so many did, which is an awesome problem to have. But let’s use the seasons’ stillness that we have right now, to basically manifest and prepare for those clients. Like, to me manifestation is again, like putting action into words like what’s the first act like, Okay, I want clients to come and I don’t have them right now I’m gonna act like and prepare, they are actually coming. And so I’m going to create the system. So for when those clients come, I’m not feeling 110% overwhelmed. I’m going to do that action now. And this season of stillness is when you’re reflecting, what is that action? What do I need to do to get to that next step? What’s happening in my life right now that I can you don’t really grow from, this can oftentimes feel really confusing, and sometimes a little bit scary. And that’s totally okay. It’s okay, just know that as normal, it’s part of the season, it will go. But as part of the season, we all feel it, you’re nothing special for feeling scared, you’re nothing scared, like, hopeless, you’re nothing hopeless for feeling confused.

Everybody, including myself, and every successful entrepreneur has, at times felt confused and scared, it’s 100%. Normal, and it’s just gonna help you propel to the next step, which is, once we have that season of stillness, there’s not a lot going on, we don’t really know what to do you all of a sudden, you’re gonna be like, Oh, my gosh, to prepare for my season of reaping, I need to go through a season of figuring out what my client process is, I need to build that up a little bit better, or I need to work on my relationship building so that I can work on so that I can have people in my inquiries, like, I’m marketing to them, and maybe I’m not building relationships, how am I going to grow those relationships, this is where you start taking that plan that you developed in your season of stillness, and you’re putting it into a season of growth, you’re working on things behind the scenes, and it usually is going to require some kind of investment in the season of growth. This is gonna look like a mental sacrifice, a physical sacrifice, a monetary sacrifice. But usually, some kind of sacrifice has to be put into place before you see the reward at the end.

Something going behind the scenes, like you’re putting in a little bit extra time, into your systems into your marketing in you know, money-wise, whatever it would program, whatever it is, so that you can see that, that growth later. I’m oftentimes this season of growth, it feels really slow. And it feels really, really unending like this is never going to end. I’m just going to be burning the midnight oil forever. Like, is this even going to work? It feels very hustling sometimes. But I promise it comes to an end. It’s going to, of course, propel us to our next step, which is the season of reaping, this is the season that we always see on Instagram, it’s very noticeable. It’s like, oh my gosh, I hit a million dollars for sales, I had an awesome launch, we’re booked out all those types of awesome things. This is where the season of stillness and the season of growth come together to create the season of reaping. But just know the season of reaping could not happen and could not be possible without the season of stillness and without the season of growth behind the scenes. Otherwise, it’s all manufactured, and it’s just gonna die very, very quick. It is very much a getting lucky thing if someone had a season of reaping, without a season of service or a season of growth. And I think honestly, 9.99 times out of 10 There’s always a season of stillness and a season of growth behind people’s season of reaping that you’re just not seeing because that stuff is happening behind the scenes. But during this time, rest acknowledge that you’re going through a season of reaping, that’s a huge mistake that I go through. And I see a lot of other people go through is, oh my gosh, like, I’m just gonna move on to the next thing. And I’m gonna keep climbing the ladder. No sit back. Recognize that you worked freaking hard. You went through a lot of confusing times a lot of scary times slow and unending work to get here. Acknowledge it and sit in it for a minute that. It’s so much harder than it should be. But do that do something to celebrate.

And it often comes sooner than we think. I oftentimes, like to kind of trick the system, I guess. And I like to plan my seasons of stillness and growth and reaping. Even though it doesn’t always happen like that. I feel like there’s like, you know, I have years where I’m like, this is like a season of stillness here. Like, there’s not a lot happening this year. Even though I’m doing lots of cool, I have small reaping seasons, within that year of stillness, do you know what I mean? Um, but every quarter, I like to plan, okay, when is my reaping week or two going to be and that’s what I’m going to like launch something like I plan for it. It’s kind of like, again, taking that first step of manifestation into practice, like this is when I want to make a bunch of sales, I’m going to work my butt off, to get all the sales that I possibly can that week, and I’m going to go through a lot of reflection and a lot of work beforehand so that I can have that season of reaping. By then it doesn’t have to be every quarter, it could be like, twice a year, it could be once a month, if you really wanted to, I think once a quarter is like the perfect in between, it just kind of depends like what’s on your plate and what feels good for you, for you and your business.
But, yeah, those are the seasons. And again, like, I do that quarterly. But I also like, there are years where I’m like, this is a huge growth year, this is a huge stillness here, this is a huge, reaping year, and you’re gonna see like those patterns in your life where you’re just like, You know what, no matter what I’m doing, this is just a year that maybe I’m just doing a lot of behind the scenes work. And that’s okay, or I mean, trying to be okay with that. Nobody is immune to this. And I hope more than anything, it gives you guys like, an extra little pep in your step. Knowing that you too, I too, we all too are going through ups and downs, and our season. And if you’re having like slow inquiries, try to see that as a positive thing and see, okay, what can I learn from this to go through the season of growth and the season of reaping?

Another way that you can kind of hack the system to is by experimenting with a lot of things. So let’s say like, you want to go through this season everything really fast. Like we have trade, doing monthly seasons of reaping where we do monthly launches, or monthly pushes. And for a whole year, we just experimented with different types of selling and different types of
pushing out our products and stuff like that. And some worked really well and some didn’t. But we did learn a lot. And I honestly feel like the more you push yourself through this process, and the more times you go through it, the more you’re going to learn and the more skills that you’re going to have in your belt, to be able to have more season longer seasons of reaping, or more just stability with those seasons of reaping. It’s not so much like high end drastic ups and downs. But I just I love experimentation. And I think it’s like honestly one of the best things that you can do when you’re having those slow seasons. Like, what’s gonna get you out of it. I don’t know. But like, let’s try that. Let’s try that, see how it feels. And just take that first step forward.

Hmm, that was my whole spiel. Again, if you guys want the whole happy high ticket conference where this is just one slide out of four workshops in the happy high ticket workshop, it’s only like 30 bucks. So if you want here, we talk more about this and see how I kind of bring the seasons of growth, the seasons of stillness, all into themes of pricing and marketing and all that fun stuff. I’m gonna put it in the comments, but you can also go to just my website carlianna.co And you’re gonna see it right there. It’s always like a link to my bio, it’s super easy to find everywhere is happy high ticket designer. It’s like my baby this is honestly a course I would charge a lot of money for because I feel like I put a lot of value into it. But I want it to be really accessible for everybody and I want to help people who are trying to have more profitable design businesses get the things that you need now. So that is this week’s episode. I will see you guys next week. I love you all so much. Be safe and have fun.