Today we're celebrating the 100th episode by diving into the lessons I've learned (some hard, some easy, some funny, but all of them useful!)

We are at Episode 100 of the Stop the Hey Girl podcast. And I cannot believe not only are we at Episode 100, but we have been doing this for almost two years. It blows my mind. And to date, we have had over 

• 100,000 downloads of the podcast, 
• 1000s of listeners every single week. 

It’s so freaking cool. And with this special episode, I am going to be recapping some hard lessons that I've learned in 2021, mostly, but also, we'll just say over the past two years because of this podcast going on for nearly two years. And we're going to spill the tea because I'm going to share some juicy things that not a lot of people are talking about in this space. 

#1 Learning to differentiate between personal decisions versus business decisions and mix them up 

One of the hardest lessons I have had to learn in 2021, especially with opening a second business, is to differentiate between what decisions need to be personal decisions and what decisions need to be business decisions and to not mix up the two. because let me tell you, there have been times, even in 2021 alone, where my brain was like a giant mixing bowl, and I'm trying to pull from both sides to make decisions. And it has been really hard. Why? Because when emotion and feelings go into business decisions, that's when things get murky. And that's when I have found myself in the past few months of 2021 alone in some pretty dicey situations of my own making. So take away from that lesson is to make sure that you take emotion and feeling out of decisions that need to be based on business because most people don't do it.

The lesson that I learned is when you take feeling an emotion out, business decisions become easy and simple. When you have a growing business, you are not making decisions just for yourself, you're also making decisions that impact other people. And that is why again, emotion needs to be removed, and it needs to be based strictly on business. 

#2 Learning to Differentiate between friend time and business time. 

As a business owner, you have to differentiate between friend time and business time meaning if you have friendships with team members or clients. You need to differentiate whether the conversations that you’re having are about business and coaching or pure friendship conversation. And right now if you are in a spot where that line is very blurred what you're going to want to do is draw the line now. One of the best ways that I do that is when I am getting together with someone, let's say, we will either decide we're either going to include business and make a business, or it's going to be no business and only friends. 

I have had dinners and outings with friends. And this has been a challenge for us. Where we don't talk about business, we don't talk about launches, we don't talk about clients or money or anything like any of that stuff, we literally talk about anything else, which is really funny, where the conversations tend to go when we're not talking about business. But it's actually very difficult. Because if you've been in the online space, or you've been in the entrepreneurial space for a while, it seems like sometimes all we talk about is the shop, we just talk shop all the time. 

So if you have found that relationships are strained, this is something that's really important, where again, you draw a line of there's going to be no business in this conversation or no business during this outing. And this is something that actually really helps, too. If you feel like you are constantly talking about business with your partner, or with your kids or with your parents, it really helps to draw that line because your business is part of what you do, but it's not all you do. And it's not your only personality trait. So that has been one of the hardest lessons. 

#3 You cannot be upset that you are not seeing results from work that you are not doing.

Another hard lesson that I’ve learned and most of my clients have learned too is that you cannot be upset that you are not seeing results from work that you are not doing. Simply thinking about doing something is not doing it. Talking about doing something is not doing it if you are not taking action on it. 

Is that actually getting you closer to where you want to be?

You actually need to make sure that your actions are supporting what you say you want. And if your actions are not supporting what you say you want, you have a choice, you either get to change what you want, or you get to change your actions. Because I have found myself at a point where even with launches, I was hitting under my goals for that launch.  And once I got over my pity party, I would look back and be like, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, you didn't do this, and you didn't do this. And if you did those things, that definitely would have increased the likelihood of you hitting the marker. 

#4 Don’t be afraid to speak up 

But I also very recently had a very difficult lesson that I had to learn. And I was trying to look at my notes to see if I had already talked about it or if I'm already scheduled to talk about it. But even if I am, I have no problem bringing it up again. I have found myself in the past year due to things happening that were outside of my control. And with the fact that in 2021, I started a second company. And it challenged me in ways that I couldn't even put into words. To put it nicely. I was definitely knocked on my ass and humbled. Because here I was thinking, this is going to be easy in so many words. And it has been and is still far from that. 

I'm going to get into some different pieces about that throughout this so you're going to be able to see, but as a result of being knocked on my ass so many times I found myself questioning, am I actually good enough? Am I actually smart enough? And as a result, I ended up holding back to the point that if I had something that would help someone I wouldn't share. And I would come up with an excuse or try to rationalize, why wouldn't I be afraid to be bold. I ended up getting a little bit wishy-washy in my copy because I was afraid of being as direct and as bold and as polarizing. Even though I know in my heart of hearts, I am where I am because I'm not afraid to speak the truth of what I hold to be true for my company and what we teach. But due to the fear that came from just being knocked down so many times, I found myself getting wishy-washy. 

So as of late, I am being so conscious to make sure if I’m actually going all in or if I'm not doing something that I normally would do.

#5 Protect Yourself Legally 

Another lesson, protect yourself legally. Now might network marketers, you do not have to worry about this as much unless you are specifically creating original content that you want to legally protect. I learned lessons in 2021 about making sure and dotting your i's and crossing your T's about your intellectual property. And although I am not an expert, I do have a podcast episode with Allie, who you can look back at. Influencer Legal is her company. And she is someone who I highly recommend in the online space to make sure that you are protecting your stuff because you don't think you need it until you actually need it. And that has been a big lesson that I can take away from 2021.

#6 Not everyone will like you… and that’s ok. 

You are constantly trying to be liked by everyone who you work with and everyone on your team when what you should be doing is coaching them and mentoring them. And let me give you some background. Another lesson I found from one of my mentors who was watching some of my video content where I felt like it wasn't performing in the way that it should have. She told me “you are putting your foot on the gas and then backing up right away.” And we were able to dig into it. And what we found was that I have a hard time letting people sit in discomfort when working through hard things because I want them to like me. Pretty much anything that goes wrong always boils down to this deep-rooted trauma, if you will, of constantly needing to be liked, which is rooted in that. So how that manifests in my business is I won't allow people to sit in pain to work through things themselves. And I will constantly just give answers or change the subject and not let them really sit and work through things because I don't want them to be uncomfortable and I want them to like me. So one of the hardest things that I have been actively working through in this is recognizing that when you are mentoring someone, the goal is not for them to like you, the goal is for them to get the results that they want. 

#7 Charge your Worth 

Another fear right? Fear of pricing yourself and charging what you're worth. That has also been a lesson that I had worked through over the past two years, and it's been so rewarding. I have been told in the past that I'm too expensive. I have been questioned. Remember, when someone pays or invests, they're not just paying for what you know, they're paying for the container that you created, the energy that you hold the years and years of training, and the investments that you have made in yourself to better yourself and your container as a leader. They're investing into the whole package. And so that has been a really big lesson I learned in regards to pricing. 

#8 Stop Competing with Yourself 

Maybe you found yourself in this hole of constantly having to one-up yourself. 

For example:

 “Oh, I hit this dollar amount. Now each month has to be higher and higher.”

That's not realistic for any business. And so that was something else where I got knocked down pretty quickly of recognizing that it's not going to be that way. Because eventually at some point, we're human, we are going to hit a wall at some point. But most of the time, it's because we're just not ready to go to that next level yet, whether we don't have the knowledge, the infrastructure, the team, or the systems to do it. And so our minds were dreaming up of all these offers and this money, but if we don't have the team, the structure, the infrastructure, the mindset, and all of that, to sustain it, it's not going to happen. It's not just about pricing, a high ticket offer. 

#9 Stop making these decisions from who you are now, rather than the person that I was becoming

There are so many other factors that I definitely diminish the importance of, and then when things weren't working, I had to face the harsh truth, that there were a lot of things that I had to work on the back end and with myself to be able to sustain that growth. And that also goes back to outsourcing and hiring. I have had stages where I was in fear of making outsourcing and hiring decisions. And the problem was rooted in me making these decisions from who I was now, rather than the person that I was becoming. And so if you have found yourself making investment decisions rooted in fear and scarcity, that's one of the biggest things that's keeping you stuck, because you can't move to that next level version of who you are if you're making decisions based on who you are now. 

#10 It doesn’t matter how much money you make 

There has always been this trend about bragging about how much money you're making or sharing your PayPal deposits or your stripe deposits on stories. And, again, it ties back to the fact that people who you want to work with are not working with you based on how much money you make. That was a lesson that I had to learn, especially in my industry with whom I serve, how much money I make doesn't matter. So I really do not talk about money. We recently hit a big money milestone that I actually shared, kind of subtly, honestly. But I don't really talk about it, because it doesn't matter to my audience. So, really talking about it would have been self-serving rather than client serving in the season of business that I am in right now, that does not support my objective. 

Working less and making more money is just easy, it's simple, you just do it. That is also putting very unrealistic expectations on people that it doesn't have to be uncomfortable to make money. But it is work to make money. And it's not just that I work less, I'm only online, an hour a day, and I make, you know, $70,000 a month. But, what's important is that you're serving your people. And that's the most important piece, right? Because if you're making all this money, but you're not providing the container that people need the service and the solutions that people need, then that's not it. That's not integrity. 

#11 Hiring Employees is 1000 harder 

Another lesson that has been a 2021 doozy, doozy, and that is hiring employees is 1000 times harder than hiring contractors or mentors. And I have been hiring and working with contractors. I have a slew of contractors on my team on my coaching side. But when I opened my social media agency, at the beginning of this year, when we opened publicly, when I started working with employees, there are so many more things that go into hiring employees that again, ignorant Kayla didn't know. So I recommend looking into a contractor versus an employee. So that was also a big lesson as well as recognizing that you can create a great place to work beyond just compensation. We also have commission benefits and all kinds of things. And it's actually a very generous commission structure. And that was really important to me. Because in my company, I want to create a place where we have long-term growth, long-term opportunities, and a team that supports the mission. 

#12 In this space, people will outgrow you and you'll outgrow them.

Another big lesson I want to wrap up with, and is that, in this space, people will outgrow you and you'll outgrow them. One of the hardest things that I've had to go through as someone who always has this fear of not being liked, that's one of my biggest, deep-rooted childhood fears is fear of not being liked. And I have worked with people who then once we don't work together like they don't talk to me anymore. 

As an example, my first mentor, Meg Delaney, I love her to death. And I'll always talk about her because I wouldn't be where I am without her. And even though we're not working together, now, if anyone DM’s me asking about her, I'll sing her praises from the rooftops every single chance I get, because I love her not just as a mentor and as a friend, but as a human being. But there's going to be people who you will work with, who won't talk about you or to you or anything. And that has been something that I've had to learn and that sometimes, you know, you were meant to be friends or connected for a season, but not for life. I have been okay with knowing that sometimes it's just for a season and that they're not meant to be in your life forever. And that is for friendships that are in business, that's for mentors, clients. And sometimes this space can feel like it's pay-to-play. And I've said that a lot, mostly to friends and confidence where I feel like, I'm afraid sometimes that if I'm not paying someone, they won't like me anymore. And that's just not true. Your people who you are meant to connect with, are there for you, and they hear you and they see whether you're paying them or not. And that's something that's really important to me because I would never want someone to feel like they don't matter anymore if they're not paying me because it's never been about that. 

Some of my best connections in this business and friends and people who I talk to are people who've never paid me, who'd never bought a course, never did a program. And I value someone for being a part of the community just as much as if they pay me or not, it's not about that. So that's something to that. You will outgrow people and they will outgrow you and don't allow that fear to keep you from making connections with people in the online space. 

Listen to the FULL episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.