PP 233: Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

Transcript not yet cleaned up but thanks for checking it out!

Listeners today I’m going to be very transparent, very authentic and I’m going to share a lot of the struggles that we’ve been through, “We” meaning my husband and my family and I.

Over the past five to seven years — so that you begin, if you don’t already know, to understand why I’m so passionate about the Positive Productivity brand and why I do everything that I do. At the time of this recording, it’s early 2018. And this week, specifically, it has just blown up in my life in business in all the best possible ways, and not going to get into everything that’s going on around here right now, just because nothing is final, but please stay tuned to hear more.

However, if it gives you an idea of all the greatness that’s been going on, last night, my husband actually cried for me, although he just said his eyes were leaking. He cried just because he was so happy to see that all the hard work is finally appearing to pay off.

I’m not much of a crier, but let me tell you, with everything that’s been going on, I can’t figure out if I need to puke or to pee. And I’m sorry, I know that’s a lot of TMI, but that’s just how excited I am, that my message is finally being heard, and that I get a chance to share it at a larger scale.

Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

The past seven years, starting in 2011, have been a complete roller coaster of emotions, of finances of struggles. And if you get anything out of today’s episode, I just want you to know that if you’re going through anything similar to what we’ve gone through, that it’s important that you just keep moving forward. Our utilities have been shut off so many times in the last seven years, from our water to gas to our electric and even our internet has been shut off. Sometimes it was because we had forgotten to pay the bill but more often it was because we had to figure out if we were going to pay this or that and unfortunately that was often not paid and we had to pay for it in the end, due to the disconnect.

Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

There are so many days that I broke down crying just out of sheer frustration like why is this happening again? Why isn’t income coming in consistently enough that we can just pay our bills, and not only pay them but pay them on time, I just wanted to be able to set them up on AutoPay and know that it was going to be taken care of. But for so long, we didn’t reach that point. A few of those years, we weren’t at that point because I was chasing too many things. And so many of those things were just the wrong things altogether. I was chasing income. So I was saying yes to every single opportunity that came my way just because I was scared that if I said no to the opportunity that we would be broke and not be able to pay our bills.

Well, what ended up happening was that I was working with clients I didn’t like I was working on projects that bored the heck out of me and my quality of work was Just slipping. Because I was taking so much work, I wasn’t sleeping. And by July of 2016, I was in so much anxiety that I was considering killing myself.

Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

I know this is the Positive Productivity podcast, but the reason why I’m sharing all this is because I just want you know that if you are going through this, you are not alone. If you go back to some of the previous episodes, you’ll hear more about the story. But I want you to know that I had a big awakening and a major life change. And I began to realize that I needed to start saying no to people. I needed to start saying yes to myself. I had to sleep and I had to follow my passions. And as soon as I did that, my income quadrupled.

For so many years of the struggle, I was extremely jealous of people I was seeing on social media. I couldn’t understand why they were having these big launches. Quite honestly, I wasn’t impressed by some of their attitudes. I thought they were extremely snobby and boastful, and they really didn’t care about the community around them, except to get their money. But I wanted to know how I could get what they had. I thought that money was the most important thing, and fame and fortune were all that mattered. And, as a result, I started building products that were more like theirs and less like me.

There was one time when I was building four or five different products at the same time, and in the end, none of them got completed, because I just was not passionate about them at all. In the meantime, however, I had spent dozens if not hundreds of hours building out products I was not passionate about, and all that wasted time could have been money if I had been spending it on something I was truly passionate about.

Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

With this said, though, I want you to know that income is not the most important thing to me anymore, making an impact on my community and the people Listening here are reading my articles. That is what is important to me.

I want you to know that your business should not be creating severe anxiety.

You should not be stressed out all the time, you should not be dreading the next Skype or slack message that you get from a client.

You shouldn’t be scared to look at your email, and you should love waking up to go to your business every morning.

What was the point of getting into entrepreneurship, if you dread it? If you’re dreading going to your own small business every day, then you might as well go back to work for somebody else.

Succeeding Through the Tough Seasons

We all go through life seasons of hardships, and we all go through life seasons of tremendous celebrations. So whether you’re in a season of struggle or celebrations right now, I want you to remember that the best is yet to come. Dave and I had seven years of extreme hardship. And we liken it to the story in the Bible of Joseph where there were seven years of famine. Yes, those seven years followed seven years of feast. However, we would like to think that our seven years of famine are going to be followed by seven years of feast. And hopefully we will save some during that time to prepare for a next season of famine should it come. We’re starting to see the signs that our hard work during the season of famine is starting to pay off. But I want to remind you that everything you do today, you’re going to see the results of tomorrow or in 90 days or in a year. There are no such things as overnight successes. overnight success stories have often taken five 710 years to build up. So don’t get frustrated with where you are today. Keep your spirits high and know that tomorrow is going to be even better even if you don’t see it in your bank account. Now with all this said, Go forth and make it a positive and productive day.