Episode Summary:
Have you ever had a tiny little experiment completely shift the way you see your business? Because apparently I have.
Today, I am following up on the conversation we started last week about what AI is saying about you. What started as a whim... asking a brand new AI window one simple question... turned into a full blown realization that I was unintentionally sabotaging the direction of my business.
We are also taking an up close and personal look into why the world is so obsessed with giving entrepreneurs a "pep talk" when things change and why I refuse to turn a business shift into a personal identity crisis. I am sharing my own journey through so called "risky" moves like starting a YouTube channel in 2012 and the 18 month struggle of trying to force an agency model that just didn't fit. This episode is an invitation to stop worrying about what others think and start seeing every experiment as valuable information rather than a failure.
What I hope you take away from today's episode...
- Allow yourself to explore, to pivot, to shift, and to change without stress, worry, or shame.
- Allow yourself to outgrow things without turning it into a personal identity crisis.
- You are absolutely allowed to make strategic changes without turning it into a story about failure.
- In fact, you don't even have to embrace the concept of failure at all... these are just opportunities to learn, to grow, and to gain clarity on what direction we actually want to go.
- Don't let anyone else tell you how you are supposed to feel... not the people in your life, not Google, and not your AI buddy.
- You are the only one who can truly tap into what you are feeling and you have a choice to feel good about the shifts in your life and business.
- You have the choice to see the steps you have taken as growth and that the path was a necessary one to lead you to where you are today.
Links to the cool stuff mentioned in this episode...
Episode 81: What is AI Saying About You?
Links to connect with me...
Book a Consult HERE! (https://caffeinecreative.io/consult/)
Email me HERE! theperfectblendcaffeinecreative.io
Show Transcripts
Have you ever had a tiny little experiment completely shift the way you see your business? Because apparently I have.
Welcome back to the Solo Grind, my friends. I am so excited you are here today. Today we are actually going to be following up on last week's episode where we asked... what is AI saying about you? I did a little experiment that turned into a full blown podcast episode and has actually shifted into some big changes in my business that are happening behind the scenes. I am not going to talk about those shifts just yet, but I am going to let them unfold naturally here on this podcast.
Just in case you missed the context, a few weeks ago I opened up a brand new AI chat window where it had zero context about me and I asked one simple question... what can you tell me about Teresa Schlup? The results were quite fascinating and for the most part, I was really happy with what came back. I liked the business it described and the person behind that business. It reassured me that the way I am showing up online is very much in alignment with who I really am and how I want the world to perceive me.
Realizing where I was unintentionally sabotaging my own business success
But buried inside that conversation were a few things that had me stop and go, huh, that is not what I expected to see. Essentially, I began to realize that there are a couple of areas in my business where I have been unintentionally sabotaging myself and the direction that I want my business to go. This sabotage isn't some big dramatic self-destruction that is going to burn my business to the ground... my business is actually doing quite well. I just simply discovered a few things that are no longer supporting the life and the business that I actually want to create.
I honestly think this happens to a lot of us. When you are in business, you are most likely someone who is full of ideas. We have ideas of what we want to do and how we want to show up. With these ideas, we begin to head down a path because it makes sense at the time. We say yes to opportunities and build offers until one day we realize... wait, this direction isn't actually taking me where I want to go anymore.
Why the constant internet pep talk was actually starting to annoy me
As I started researching how I wanted to pivot a few things behind the scenes, I kept running into a response over and over again that I didn't expect. Whether it was articles online or my AI brainstorming conversations, everything kept trying to give me a pep talk. And I mean constantly a pep talk. I was seeing things like, "I don't want you to feel like a failure" or "This isn't failure, it is growth, Teresa."
I gotta say, this constant pep talk really started to annoy me because I didn't feel bad at all about the decisions I have made. I wasn't sitting here feeling devastated or beating myself up or spiraling because I realized something needed to change. I just discovered something that isn't working anymore, thought, well that's fascinating, okay, let's fix it. For me, that is how I approach most things in life. If I realize something isn't working the way I hoped it would, I don't turn that into a personal identity crisis.
The danger of letting the world tell you how you are supposed to feel
I realize not everybody thinks the way I do. The Teresa of 20 years ago definitely would not have thought this way, and maybe even the Teresa five years ago would have turned this into a crisis. But that's not who I am today. It got me thinking about how much the world tells us how we are supposed to feel. This is what trips a lot of us up. When enough voices insist that we must be feeling disappointment or embarrassment about a choice that didn't work out... if we aren't careful, we start believing it.
I think that is incredibly dangerous as entrepreneurs because we have positioned ourselves to be very public. We are showing the world what we are about and people see our lives a little more intimately. We also have people in our lives who don't get what it is to be an entrepreneur. They see every experiment that doesn't work as proof that we are bad at business. They think every pivot is quitting or that every shift is a failure. They see every new idea we explore as risky. But what do we have to lose? Trying something and realizing it is not a good fit is not failure... it is information.
Every experiment is just information... not a sign of failure
A good example of one of those risky moves I took way back in 2012 was when I started making videos for my YouTube channel. People honestly told me it was a silly or dumb idea because live video wasn't really a thing yet. I will admit I was absolutely terrified and I worried about what people would think. But I finally pushed myself into doing it and it completely changed my business. In 2019, when I was trying to get my web design business to the next level, I did a campaign of videos twice a week and it launched my business in ways I never imagined.
Since doing those videos, I have done a lot of things that did not work out or turned out to be bad fits. In 2022, I completely rebranded into an agency model. I fought with that for 18 months and then I spent the last couple of years undoing that positioning. I have offered services that weren't a fit and attempted marketing techniques that didn't do what I thought they would. I don't regret any of them because every wrong turn gave me clarity on the direction I do want to go. Every experiment, whether it failed or succeeded, taught me something valuable.
Making big strategic moves behind the scenes and without permission
The older I get, the less interested I am in worrying about what other people think. I don't stress about my pivots or my decisions. I don't worry if someone thinks I am doing another "crazy" idea. In fact, for the shifts and changes I am making right now... like letting some things go... I haven't even announced them publicly yet. I told my best friend and my sister bestie because they are an extension of who I am, but publicly, I am just working behind the scenes.
The reason I am not announcing my shifts or ideas right now is because I don't need permission to make them. I just need to do what works best for me. I am sitting here taking time to evaluate what is working and what is no longer aligned with the direction I want to go. Will these decisions be the best? Time will tell. But if they aren't, I know how to make a new decision and shift in a new direction that supports me at that time.
