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BYOB (Being Your Own Boss)
132 Plays1 year ago
Happy 4th Birthday to Empower Counseling & Consulting!! In honor of 4 years of entrepreneurship, Julie is sharing 5 things she wants every woman considering going into business for herself to know.
Connect with me!
Instagram: @empower_counseling
www.empowercca.com
Values exercise:
https://www.taproot.com/live-your-core-values-exercise-to-increase-your-success/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Outside of Session' and Empower Counseling Anniversary
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to outside of session. I'm your host, licensed clinical social worker and therapist BFF, Julie Hilton. We're going to cover all the things here, whether it's mental health, entrepreneurship, relationships, trauma, or just life. Nothing is off limits. Hopefully you'll laugh a little and learn a lot, but most importantly, feel encouraged on your journey to live empowered.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode. I am so excited about today and the topic that we're going to be discussing today. But today is just a very special day and I'm really excited to share with you that today is the fourth birthday of Empower Counseling and Consulting.
00:00:51
Speaker
If you know me, you know that Empower is my baby, like the blood, the sweat, the tears that I have put into building this business and building my practice. It's just been such a journey and I am just so thankful and so excited that today is Empower's fourth birthday.
Insights on Entrepreneurship and Role Management
00:01:12
Speaker
So I thought that it would make a lot of sense to record an episode about entrepreneurship, because that's something that I actually talk with a lot of people about not just clients, but a lot of my fellow therapists who are also in private practice and trying to figure this thing out, like we're doing it together. But not just with therapy, like there are so many women I know that have started their own businesses and
00:01:35
Speaker
Y'all, it's a lot. There is so much that goes into it. So today I thought in honor of Empower Counseling, I thought that we would talk about all things entrepreneurship.
00:01:46
Speaker
And what I really wanted to talk about is five different things that I have learned along the way. Not necessarily tips or lessons or anything like that, but just five things that I thought of that maybe I wish I knew going into it. So maybe these are things that if you were thinking about starting a business or thinking about going down the entrepreneur path, here are just some things that I wish I had known when I first started.
00:02:17
Speaker
The first thing is that be prepared to wear all of the hats.
00:02:24
Speaker
I think coming into this, I knew that I wore the hat of the therapist really well, but I didn't really know what I was getting myself into on like the business side of things. And when I was first starting, I hired a business coach. And one of the things that I learned from her that was most helpful was how to separate out the different hats that you're going to have to wear as a business owner. And what I mean by that is that there are times that you're going to have to be the CEO
00:02:54
Speaker
There are times that you're going to have to be the CFO, the CMO, like you have to be your entire C-suite yourself. And why this was such a struggle for me at first was I only knew how to be a therapist. All my training, all of these years of practice and working in different organizations and trainings and degrees and all of that, that had me very well prepared to be a really good therapist. But I have no background in business.
00:03:23
Speaker
And so I had to do a lot of work to sit down and say, okay, so what is a CEO's responsibility within a business? And how do I, how do I be like the CEO of my own business? And so for me, that meant that I was responsible for the direction of the business for the vision of it for like laying down some of that foundation for what do I actually want my practice to look like? And it was very like,
00:03:49
Speaker
broad, high level, not getting into the weeds necessarily of how we're going to make it happen, but what do I even want this to look like? And so I spent a really long time putting that on paper and really defining for myself, what is my mission
Financial Challenges and Tech Skill Development
00:04:04
Speaker
statement? What is my vision? How do I want this to be different from any other organization that I've worked in before? And so it took me a really long time, but I had to learn how to like own that part of being a business woman.
00:04:17
Speaker
Then I also had to learn how to put on the CFO hat, right? Like I had to learn how to take control of the finances of my business, which was something that if we're being honest, I still struggle with today because as a provider of mental health services, you want it to be accessible for everyone and you want to like
00:04:38
Speaker
You want to help everybody, basically. But financially, that is not always a good thing. So I had to figure out what are the boundaries to put in place to where my family is still taken care of. This is still work, and this is still something that I have to do. This is my livelihood. So I had to figure out how to very clearly define that role of how to take charge of the finances of my business.
00:05:03
Speaker
And the same thing with marketing, like figuring out, I am my brand in a lot of ways. So figuring out how do I want to show up, whether it's online or networking, things like that, like figuring out what is the brand of my business? And that was something that I had absolutely, again, like no training in at all. So over the years, I have really had to learn how to wear these different hats and how to not let
00:05:30
Speaker
Part of me make a decision for the business that shouldn't be in charge in that moment, right? again, like The therapist can't make all of the decisions because a therapist is going to make a different decision than a CFO would And so that was one of the things that I did not anticipate starting this business having to learn all of this Oh another one is
00:05:52
Speaker
chief information officer. Like I have had to figure out, I have done my own website by myself, which you should go check it out. It's www.empowercca.com. That was one thing that I didn't want to outsource. And so I did it all myself. So I have learned how to code. I have learned how to link all of this stuff. Like even with the podcast, when I decided to do a podcast, I had to figure all of this stuff out by myself.
00:06:19
Speaker
And so there are some things that definitely got me out of my comfort zone with these different hats that I've had to wear. And I guess I just wish that I knew going into it that it's a lot, like when people say owning your own business is a lot of work, I think I expected a lot of volume of work, but I didn't expect it to be in areas that I feel like I had absolutely no training in. And maybe that was a little bit naive of me to not,
00:06:48
Speaker
see that coming but I really didn't. And so not only is that something that I wish I had known but it's something that I really want to encourage new business owners to think about is how to separate out every aspect of the job and make sure that especially when you were beginning and you were kind of like a one-man show that you aren't leaving out one of those pieces that later on you will realize like you needed to have a plan for it. The second thing
00:07:17
Speaker
that I wish I had known kind of piggybacks off of that first thing.
Navigating Entrepreneurial Growth and Vision Evolution
00:07:22
Speaker
And that is that you will constantly feel lost. I'm so sorry to tell you that. But being an entrepreneur is a lot of a feeling of I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And I remember when earlier this year when I was figuring out this podcast and I was figuring out
00:07:42
Speaker
I think I was deep in the weeds of trying to figure out how to link it to Spotify and iTunes and Google Podcasts. I was trying to figure out how to get it out into the universe. And I remember having this moment in my office where I was in literal tears because I could not figure out this one thing. And I remember saying to myself, I never feel like I know what I'm doing. I am in a perpetual state of feeling confused,
00:08:12
Speaker
lost. Like I don't know where to go to even get the answer that I'm looking for. And that is such a helpless feeling. Like that's that's all I remember is feeling so helpless. Like somebody please just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. But when you're the boss like there is no one to tell you like what to do. And I remember like I turned my computer off and I was getting ready to just say F it and go home. But I had this moment in my office where
00:08:41
Speaker
It really dawned on me that the reason why I'm always lost is because I am always asking myself to do something new. And that means I am always asking myself to get out of my comfort zone. And that is something that I very much value and admire in people. So I had that moment of myself of saying, I wouldn't feel lost if I kept doing the things that I know how to do.
00:09:09
Speaker
but that is not a life that I want to live. I don't want to wake up and just do what I know every day. I want to challenge myself. I want to grow professionally and personally, and I want my business to grow. And I want to have different things like this podcast that can reach more people for free, that is talking about mental health and advocating for people. And that doesn't come without like a cost. And the cost is these tears that I'm having to cry when I'm having to figure out something new.
00:09:39
Speaker
And ever since that day, every time I have felt frustration with that feeling of being helpless or lost, I remind myself, you only feel this way because this is the next thing that you're asking yourself to learn. And so that's something that I want to pass on and share, that if you are starting your own thing and you are feeling lost and overwhelmed,
00:10:04
Speaker
Count it as a victory and count it as a win because that is the only way that you'll grow. And there is no avoiding that feeling when you're starting something new. That is inevitable. And the only way to avoid that is to continue doing what you already know. And that's just not an option. If you are going to be an entrepreneur, it is not an option just to stay, complacent where you are, and to keep doing the things that you already know how to do.
00:10:31
Speaker
So be encouraged with that, that although that is a very hard feeling to feel and it's really like hard in the moment, it is actually a sign of really, really good things. The third thing that I want to share, again, kind of piggybacks off of the last thing, which is your vision will continue to change.
00:10:55
Speaker
And I kind of wish I had known that ahead of time because I was kind of like locked in on one thing and really inflexible in the beginning. And when I finally got to a place of realizing that certain things needed to be either redone or rethought, or it felt like things were like I was changing direction a little bit, I was really overwhelmed with like frustration.
00:11:22
Speaker
and almost feeling like a failure that the first way that I did it didn't work out.
00:11:30
Speaker
when really I just wasn't accounting for the fact that things were going to change along the way. And so if you have an idea for whether it's a counseling practice or some other any other business, the vision that you have for right now is not going to be the final product. And really and truly, there's probably never going to be a final product because even within within empower,
00:11:53
Speaker
I'm still changing and I'm still growing and I'm still figuring out, okay, this may have worked in the beginning, but maybe it's not working for me anymore. And that's not a sign that the way it is now is failing. It's just a sign that things are evolving.
00:12:12
Speaker
So whether it's small things like your logo and your like your color palette for your website and stuff like that, whether you're changing things like that or whether you're completely changing your business model, it's not a sign of failure just because you're having to change. It's just another sign of growth.
00:12:33
Speaker
And with that, I'll also say if there is a way to like document your journey, I would say definitely do it because I think it's really, really fun.
00:12:45
Speaker
to look back and and see some of those original ideas you had because it'll show you how much you've grown. It's almost like if you've ever gone back and read a journal from even a couple of years ago and when you're reading it you remember exactly what you felt like you remember what you were going through
00:13:04
Speaker
And being in a completely different place two years later, it helps you to see how much you've grown over the past couple of years because you're like, man, that's, that's something that I don't struggle with anymore. Or I'm so glad that I ended up leaving that relationship because I forgot how it made me feel constantly.
00:13:21
Speaker
it really can show you how much you've grown. And so sometimes I look back on some of the very first things that I was journaling or working through with my coach or even I had something pop up the other day that had my very first logo on it and it made me cringe because I was like, oh, that was not good. Not sure what I was thinking.
00:13:41
Speaker
But at the time, it felt really good just to have something with my name on it. But now I'm at a place where I've evolved so much that I'm like, wow, I have really been able to narrow down my target audience, the clients that I love to work with the most.
00:13:59
Speaker
Even things like I look back on my old schedule and when you're first starting out, you're pretty desperate for clients. And so you're kind of like, yeah, I'll see you whenever. So I can remember I was willing to see people from eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night, Monday through Saturday.
00:14:15
Speaker
And whatever time slot you wanted to book, I was there. And I think about like those very first clients that I have that some of them are still with me and they have watched me grow in my practice as well. And now my schedule doesn't look anything like that because I'm really protective of my time now and I don't want to get burned out. But in the beginning, like that, some of the grind and the hustle that you have to put into it at first.
00:14:40
Speaker
But as you grow, you're able to hone it in more and more on what you actually want your business to look like. And so, yeah, just to say like along the way, if you can write some things down and remember some of these steps, so many of these lessons you only have to learn one time. And after you learn them, there's so much freedom and so much like a realization of growth on the other side that as much as you can,
00:15:07
Speaker
Try to find a way to remember what it was like before you learned that lesson because you will have so much compassion for your younger self and so much like gratitude. Like I am so grateful for the hustler in me that put in so many hours to try to get this website up and to try to figure out everything from like business license to
00:15:27
Speaker
I mean the million things that you have to have to run a business, right? Like I have so much compassion for her because there were so many things that she didn't know, but I've learned the lesson and now I know it now. So all of that to say, just be reminded that as you learn what works and what doesn't work on the way, it is going to change your vision for your business. And it is completely okay if the next thing that you're working for doesn't look anything like the original thing that you were working for.
00:15:57
Speaker
It just means that you're figuring out your industry. The fourth thing that I think I knew from the very beginning, but it's one of those things that you really have to put into practice. And I hope every single entrepreneur is practicing this along the way.
Celebrating Achievements and Values Alignment
00:16:16
Speaker
And that is to celebrate everything. Celebrate every win, even the tiniest of wins.
00:16:27
Speaker
Because when you're moving in the right direction, you have to look at everything as a win. Because here's the thing. In this life of an entrepreneur, you are going to hit roadblock after roadblock. There are going to be things that fail along the way. Which I don't know if I want to use the word fail. There are going to be lessons that you learn of things that don't work out along the way.
00:16:52
Speaker
And those things hurt sometimes, right? Like that's where the tears come in of the blood, sweat and tears of when you're trying to make something happen and it's just not working. There's a lot of disappointment along the way there. There are just so many hard lessons that you learn from like trial and error. Like there is a lot of error along the way. And those things are going to add up and they're going to burn you out.
00:17:18
Speaker
if you're not also celebrating just as much as you are letting the the hard things shape you too. And so I have kind of like a rule for myself of everything is a win. My first podcast we celebrated that. Every time I get a new client like I do something for myself to say like yes I have I have another person that's going to trust me with their care. Every time
00:17:46
Speaker
Like every time I reach a financial goal, I celebrate that because I work really hard for it. Every time I, like that's what I'm saying is like finding ways to celebrate what you consider a win within your practice or your business is so important and nothing is too small.
00:18:05
Speaker
So sometimes, I'm not saying that I take myself on a vacation every time, but there are times when I just take myself out to Starbucks and I get a coffee. And I'm like, I wasn't sure how that was going to work out, but it worked out in my favor. So that's a really good thing. Every time I get a new referral source or I make a really good connection, then I know that it's going to help my business in a lot of ways. I celebrate that.
00:18:29
Speaker
If you're not celebrating along the way, then what are we doing this for? If you're not celebrating when you get a little bit more financial freedom, if you're not celebrating when you get a little bit more time freedom, a little more autonomy, a little more
00:18:46
Speaker
like a good, if something as small as a good Google review, like that makes a really big difference to a small business. That is something to celebrate when somebody takes the time to give you a shout out and say, they were worth my time, you know? So I think that that's also a thing that people
00:19:04
Speaker
miss out on is that they don't celebrate the teeny tiny markers are along the way and they tell themselves I'll only celebrate when I hit like a really big goal and that can be so far out that it can feel impossible and it can feel like everything is riding on that one thing so breaking it down to smaller goals smaller wins so that you can celebrate along the way
00:19:30
Speaker
Okay. I just think that that is so important. So if you are a business owner or an entrepreneur and you have not celebrated yourself and celebrated the accomplishments of your business, you need to pause and do that today. Like you need to find a way to treat yourself today. Okay. The last thing that I want to share is a tip slash a thought slash an activity.
00:19:57
Speaker
that I encourage all business owners to do. And really and surely I encourage everybody to do this whether whether you're a business owner or not because this is something that can really shape a lot of things in your life. It's called a values exercise and this is something that I do with my clients a lot as well. But if you just Google values exercise you will see a ton of these pop up
00:20:20
Speaker
And I will actually, the one that I use and the ones that I share with my clients, I'll put that in the show notes today so that you can find that one in particular, but they're all pretty much similar. But what a values exercise does is it helps you pinpoint what your most core values are as a human.
00:20:39
Speaker
And then it helps you narrow them down. So the way it looks is there will be like a list of like a hundred different values. And it can be everything from things like honesty, compassion, time freedom, financial freedom, health, family, relationships, love, respect, being ethical. Like a list of like a hundred different values
00:21:08
Speaker
And what you do is you go through and you circle every single one that's important to you. And you're going to circle a lot, like a lot of those things on that last list are going to be important to you. And then depending on which one you choose, but essentially what it has you do is it has you narrow them down. The one I like to do is I narrow it down to the top 20 that
00:21:32
Speaker
that I've circled. And that gives me my 20 most important values, like core values of who I am. And then after you narrow it down to the top 20, then I like to go through and categorize them and I put them into five categories. So things like if I circled friendship, family, and relationships, the three of those things could probably kind of go into a category together because those are just different types of relationships, right?
00:22:00
Speaker
And then in another category I might have like compassion, empathy, like those kind of values together. And then it could be another one that's like
00:22:15
Speaker
peace, joy, love, something like that. Like more of like an emotion, right? It doesn't matter how you organize it. I'm just trying to give like some context to it. But however you, however your brain makes sense of the 20 things that you have circled by putting them into five different categories.
00:22:32
Speaker
Then after you have your five categories, you circle one word in each of those categories that kind of represents the whole category. So if I had relationships, family, friends,
00:22:48
Speaker
romance like if those were in one together I might decide that the one that represents those all is relationships and so it doesn't really matter whether it's a friendship or family or romantic relationship I might my brain might say that that that relationship is a good word that encompasses all of those so you end up with these five words five core values that you've decided
00:23:18
Speaker
When you have to narrow it down, these are the five most important things for you. And so I encourage everybody to do that because then when you have those five, you ask yourself the question, am I able to live by my values at home? Am I able to live by my values at work? Am I able to live by my values with my friendships, right?
00:23:48
Speaker
And if you start to realize that there's conflict, like you're not able to live according to your values in your workplace, it gives you some context so that you're not just, you don't just have this gut feeling of I'm not happy at work. You can put more language to it to say I'm not happy at work because one of the things that is most important to me is family.
00:24:13
Speaker
And I'm not able to spend as much time with my family. And you might already have some awareness to that, but it solidifies it, right? Like you're looking at it, you're staring it in the face. Or one of the things that might be most important to you, like one of your five might end up being something like compassion. And you might realize that your workplace is so like cutthroat.
00:24:35
Speaker
that people don't have compassion for each other anymore. There is no compassion between colleagues or from your boss or whatever. And it really helps you to understand, well, this is why I'm having such a problem with it is because it's compromising one of my very core values. And once you realize what the problem is, then it helps you to figure out, okay, well, what is my solution going to be? How am I going to actually work on either increasing the capacity for compassion
00:25:06
Speaker
or challenging some of that, or is it something where that's like a big red flag and I need to consider like changing my job, right? But when it comes to entrepreneurship, one of the reasons why I like this so much is that helps guide my business. And so when I'm talking about wearing the hat of the CEO, the CEO is in charge of the vision and the mission for my business. And when you have a list of your core values, helping your CEO make decisions,
00:25:36
Speaker
it is a game changer because what I can realize is I need to be focused on what is most important to me in order for this business and this job that I'm in, in order for it to feel like a luxury and something that I'm insanely proud of and that I want to continue to do. Or is it something where I'm going to be in a few years where I'm burned out and I'm not taking really good care of myself and it turns out that this business has become
00:26:05
Speaker
like a burden to me. And I think that that has been like a huge game changer for me to stay invested in my business and to make sure that it's something that I enjoy and that I don't lose my passion for the work. It's because I make sure that all of my core values are honored and that they are what drive the way that I'm able to show up for my clients, but also show up for myself as kind of like an employee, you know?
00:26:35
Speaker
And I'll also say that I redo this activity, like one of these values exercises, I redo it about once a year. And the reason I redo it is not because my, it's not because like at the core who I am changes, but we change over time and our circumstances change over time. And so when I was first starting this practice, what was most important to me was growth and expansion, right?
00:27:03
Speaker
But now that I am where I am and I've gotten a few years under my belt, growth and expansion aren't as important to me, but balance, like work-life balance is much more important to me. So in the beginning when I was willing to work all day on Saturday, right? Like that was aligned with my values at the time because growth was really important to me.
00:27:26
Speaker
Now time freedom is much more important to me and having like a work life balance so that I can also take care of my family. That is way more important to me now. So as my, as different values become more important to me, I still ask myself like, okay, so if I'm changing, how does my business change in order to honor and support me? And so I suggest redoing this activity about once a year, even once every six months, if things are changing really quickly,
00:27:55
Speaker
or really anytime you're starting to feel resentful or burned out, you probably need to recenter yourself on this because I would imagine that somewhere along the way,
00:28:07
Speaker
that area of life has started to compromise some of your values and that's why you're feeling out of alignment with it. So it's something that is not like a one-time activity and if you've done it in the past and you think you know what your values are, I challenge you to go back and redo it just because it might have changed since then. And I think that that's another way of really just like taking ownership of the direction of the business. It's one of those things that can help guide you as you
00:28:34
Speaker
As you allow yourself to be flexible in what the vision for your business is, it can really help you to realize why you have to let go of some things that used to be really important to you, and it's so that you can make room for new things that are important to you.
Realities of Entrepreneurship: Challenges and Rewards
00:28:50
Speaker
So that's all I have today on entrepreneurship, being a business owner. I know every single person out there that has ever started a business is with me when I say there are so many ups and there are so many downs. But in the end, I think it is totally worth it because it gives you a sense of complete ownership over what you do day in and day out.
00:29:13
Speaker
And I'll also say that I realize that, especially in 2023, we're kind of glamorizing not having a nine to five. And I'm here to tell you that there is nothing wrong with having a nine to five. There are days that I would love the security of a 401K and PTO because PTO does not exist for me anymore. There can be TO, but there's never any P with the TO, if you know what I mean.
00:29:40
Speaker
And so if you are someone who is thriving in a nine to five, do not think it's more glamorous over here as a business owner. Like I just want to throw that out there. It is not for everybody. And that is, there is nothing wrong with that at all. But if you are thinking of starting a business, I absolutely would encourage you to talk to business owners, hear what their challenges have been so that you feel like you are really prepared for it. But at the end of the day, don't let fear make decisions for you.
00:30:09
Speaker
if you feel like this is something that you are passionate about and you want to give it a shot, go for it. Because I feel like on the other side, there's just so much reward.
00:30:20
Speaker
That's all I have for today. I hope everybody has a great day. Make sure you do me a favor and share this podcast with somebody that you know so that it can reach more people. The only way that it's going to grow is if you guys are sharing it. So I appreciate it every single time someone gives me a good review or they subscribe or they share, whether it's just with a friend or whether it's on your Instagram or whatever. I always appreciate that. I hope everyone has a good day and we'll talk to you later.
00:30:47
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Outside of Session. Remember, while I am a licensed therapist, this podcast is not a substitute for individual therapy. The contents of this episode are for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you are having a mental health emergency, please dial 911 for immediate assistance or dial 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline.