238. Before You Burn It All Down [Spring Refresh Series]

Episode 1 of the Spring Refresh Series

Ever feel like blowing up your entire business? Same.

But before you start rewriting your offers, scrapping your website, or launching into a full rebrand, this episode is your gut check.

In the first episode of the Spring Refresh Series (happening the entire month of May), I’m walking you through one of the most common (and misunderstood) urges business owners face: the need to burn it all down. I’ll share why that urge shows up, what it might really be trying to tell you — and how to pause long enough to ask better questions.

You’ll hear:

• The difference between feelings and facts when something feels “off”
• How to avoid blowing up something that actually just needs a tweak
• The 5 business “seasons” I see clients navigating — and how to tell which one you’re in
• What to do when your business no longer fits, but you’re not sure what to change

Let’s rethink the impulse — and make sure your next move is the right one.

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Transcript

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Well, hey friend, welcome back to another episode of the Ramble Refinery. Let me start this episode by asking you a question. When was the last time you felt like burning down your entire business? And if the answer isn't all the freaking time, are you even like an entrepreneur? This is what we all ask the question all the time. Should we burn it all down?

What am I even doing? This episode is about exploring that question, normalizing that question, but more seriously, we're talking about making changes in our business. In fact, we're going to be digging into this the entire month of May, we're doing something a little different. Every Thursday in the month of May, we are doing what I'm deeming our Spring Refresh series. And consider these a special collection of episodes.

all about pivots, tweaks, and just the overall changes and transformation that we make as business owners when they realize that something needs to change. Whether it's a new offer or maybe redoing your website or brand evolution, or honestly, just like a mindset shift, or maybe you need to get your ass in shape for summer. So you want to get, I don't know, more physically active again. Maybe you want to stop yelling at your kids. Like, I don't know what it is, right? Like business life.

We all go through seasons where we really feel like we need to do something different. The series is going to be about the business changes, but I just, can't help but throw in if you're feeling some of these changes in life too, that's totally normal. But I want to pull back the curtain around what this actually looks like for business owners who make intentional strategic changes in their business. So we're going to pull back the curtain. We're going to have some conversations and I'm going to bring on some guests throughout the month of May. We're going to talk about how they have refined things.

in real time and share those conversations with you around not burning it all down but actually refining and growing as a business owner, which is really what this whole show is about. It's about refinement as we go, right? So today we're going to start with that like initial inkling that we've probably all had before. I would bet there's probably something on your mind right now that you're thinking about changing in your business. Like I said, whether it's an offer, maybe it's a part of your offer, maybe you're

Maybe you have a podcast and you're thinking about rebranding it like I have multiple times. Maybe you're thinking about, I don't know, doing something different with your marketing. Maybe you're thinking about changing things up with your launches. Maybe something is probably percolating in your head that you're thinking that it's time to change. So I'm really hoping that one this episode, but overall this series meets you exactly when you need it. And if you have conversations with some of your business friends around big changes, please send this.

episode to them because I think it would help us all feel a little less crazy town as we're having these conversations. Our partners and people in our real actual human lives don't necessarily understand these things so I hope this helps you feel a little more sane and a little more normal whatever that means in this process of entrepreneurship but the reason why I think this is really timely right now is spring is

the time where we all naturally start wanting to make changes. I mean, just think about the idea of spring cleaning, right? We've been like all pungering down all winter. The weather's getting nicer. It's nice to go outside just this last weekend. James and the kids were out doing all of the lawn work.

him obsessing over his immaculate lawn, getting it all ready. We were dusting off a wraparound porch, doing all like the pressure washing, the sweeping. I'm thinking about getting plants ready. I am changing the bedding from the winter bedding into the spring lighter stuff. Like we change our homes, we clean out the garage, we clean out our cars. I'm not really great about that last one, but you know, tis the season. Spring is about new birth, new life. Think about plants. And granted, if you live in our...

I'm in the United States, right? So right now we're in that season where freshness is starting to come out. Plants are starting to grow or bloom or I don't know, you know what I'm trying to say here, right? But spring is this birth of new life. So of course it stirs something within us to want to crave, to clean, to change, to evolve in our business too. So first and foremost, let's just normalize it. Also, let's just normalize that hilarious description.

conversation around, maybe I'll just quit and go work as a barista, or maybe I'm just going to burn it all down. We, I don't know about you, but I, with my entrepreneur friends, we make that joke at least, at least once a month. But what we need to start thinking about is how do we do this in a way that actually fuels us forward? And one of the reasons why I want to have this conversation right now, I'll be fully transparent with you. I've been working on some changes behind the scenes as I'm coming back.

I'm still, I still keep saying I'm coming back from maternity leave. y'all haven't a baby, if you've had a baby before or had someone close to you have a baby, it like takes, it like takes a while for you to get your mental and physical like person back. Like I'm still trying to be one with my own person here as I have a toddler clinging on me. But I really did not anticipate, even though I have two older children, I did not anticipate how

difficult the transition coming back into business was. I won't go down this rabbit hole because we have a whole episode around me transitioning back into business after baby leave. But there is a much, in my opinion, there is a significant difference going back to work when you work for someone else and coming back to work when you are the one running the show. And I've done both now. My maternity leave with both my older kids was I had an employer, but doing it for myself, there is just a different.

It's one, it's beautiful, right? I'm my own boss. have my own schedule. have full on flexibility in everything I do. Case in point, I'm recording this today during nap time. My husband is out of town. He had to go to Portland for the whole day to see clients in the Portland area. And he'll be back some point tonight to take the kids to baseball. But I'm like making it work. But what it also does, there's lot of pressure on us. And for us as entrepreneurs, I know we talk about this idea of having a business that

fuels our life, not overtakes our life. I'm big on this, I talk about this all the time, but I think what we have to be really careful of is sometimes we're feeling frustrated or like we're not moving fast enough or we're unhappy with the reality around us and I think sometimes we start blending that life and business together where maybe things feel off in our

personal lives or in our health or in our own mental wellness. And we then start saying, well, I can control the business because I own the business and I'm the boss in the business. I can make all the decisions. I can't control my spouse. can't control my kids. I can't control when the school wants me to buy another outfit for another spirit day. Like we have like a lack of control on a lot of things, right? Cause you can't control their people, but what you can control is this little business thing that we've created over here. And I say little as a joke, not because it's actually little, right? So

What we do is because we're feeling off somewhere, we have a tendency to want to over re-engineer, revamp, redo, repivot, because it gives us a sense of control. And I might've hit a little bit of a nerve there because if you're a little bit of a control freak and a perfectionist, I will raise my hand right beside you. I definitely like to control things. It is really frustrating when we can't control all the aspects of our lives because we want to.

And we all know we're delusional thinking that we could, right? Because we know we can't. But what we can control is what we do in our business. But that, by the way, is also a comical thing to think about because we can't control whether or not people buy. We can't control whether or not people engage in our content. We can't control whether or not our audience laughs at us or resonates with our message or rushes up to talk to us when we're done. We don't really have control over anyone except for our own.

actions and our own like feelings and thoughts around those actions. So all that to say, I wanna start the conversation today is, well, we're gonna talk about a couple of things. We're gonna talk about the season that you're in and I'm gonna share with you one of the biggest shifts that has helped me make smart decisions around whether or not I'm going to make a shift in my business and help determine how big of a shift I'm going to make.

Sometimes I'm like, I'm burn it all down and then I just make a little tweak and then I'm happy. Sometimes I'm gonna burn it all down and I just needed a nap or a day off, right? We need to figure out how do we actually discern what do we take action on versus what do we just not, right? What we don't give into because it's actually a feeling and not a fact. There's your clue. We're gonna get into that today. But let's get into a few things. So just to give like personal reframe, I don't know about you, I always really like what's happening.

in the brains of the people that I follow, I wanna know what's going on behind the scenes. So let me pop the hood of my brain for you for a moment, just in real time. Today I'm recording this on April 30th of 2025. It is 1.20 in the afternoon and this is gonna go air tomorrow morning first thing. Where I'm at right now is I, let's see, my little list is almost 18 months. There'll be 18 months in two weeks and...

I have been, as I mentioned at the top of this episode, I've been in this transition. But on a personal level, one of the things that I've really, really been frustrated with with myself is not being able to get my ass back into a health routine. It's not about making my ass fit in my jeans, although that would be nice too, but it was just the, I was feeling tired. I was feeling sluggish. I was feeling honestly bloated and I was feeling fat. Like I

I'll just say it, like I just was feeling really fluffy all the time. And the reality was is I was the heaviest I have been in a very long time. And a lot of it is because obviously postpartum, but also a lot of it was lifestyle. Like I wasn't being active. I wasn't getting out of the house. I, this is really embarrassing to admit, but there has been like seasons. I was looking at my Apple watch the other day with my, with one of my kids.

And I was looking at, there were periods of times where like, I barely made a dent on the red activity ring, which if you don't have an Apple watch, essentially your activity measures all of your activity in a day, right? You're like, just like your general output. It's not just your exercise. I like, I wasn't getting out of the house. I mean, my kids ride the bus to school, not every day we take them sometimes, right? But James is usually the runner to school. I like, unless I have an appointment, there really isn't a

reason for me to leave the house. I mean, this might be true for you too. I I'm an entrepreneur. I work from home. I don't really like go places. And part of that is trying to find a community here in Bend. But part of it is like, it just gets really comfortable and cozy to be at home in your sweatpants and not have to go anywhere. And you can create your own routines and have all the space in your calendar. But also it can really start creeping up. And then you look and you're like, crap, I don't fit in my pants. So

I won't like go down any farther, but like what I was feeling was I was feeling off. And what was interesting is that started to trickle into me not feeling confident in business, not feeling comfortable when I showed up on video. In fact, I'm still not doing video on the podcast right now because I, I am not really like getting ready. Like I'm not doing my hair or I'm not doing my makeup and I'm not actually getting like dressed in normal clothes. I'm still wearing gym clothes right now from going to the gym this morning. I.

Like I don't physically feel awesome being on video and being in front of all of you. Not that I would be embarrassed by it, but it's just, I've built this brand that's polished, but also really authentic. And I noticed if you actually go to my Instagram right now, I was looking at the other day, I'm like, I'm kind of cringey embarrassed because a lot of it is me totally makeup-free, totally messy in a messy house in like a...

log cabin, it doesn't really look on brand, like these are real things. I told you I was popping the hood on my brain, but just looking at it, I'm like, ⁓ man, I just like, it just starts looking a little like scrappy. And look, I'm all for scrappy, but it's like scrappy elevated, right? We're scrappy, but we're strategic. We're scrappy, but things are still beautiful. And I've really felt out of alignment with it. So, right? So I haven't been feeling great with my health. I hadn't really been great with my mindset.

making it work. I mean, I'm doing great on the parenting front. Like we got lots of really great things moving on, but my overall, there was this lingering, not good enough ish, not my best ish, like just these lingering pieces. And that was trickling off into the business. I had an idea every single week of wanting to make a change with a program or wanting to make a change for the podcast or wanting to rebrand this thing or needing the need change, change, change, change, change.

And what I was doing is I was chasing control to try to fix things, to try to fix me feeling off, me not feeling worthy, me not feeling good enough, me not feeling whatever. And what I actually needed to do was get my ass out of the house and take a walk.

I don't know if this is even resonating or if you're gonna think I'm like that shit crazy or like acting like a toddler. ⁓ But that's what I needed. So for me, I'm not one of those people who, you know the book Atomic Habits, like I love the book. I love the idea of like to make changes in your life. It's these, I'm gonna do a little voice, cause this is what it sounds like to me. Tiny incremental changes every single day that compound over time.

which in theory sounds awesome. And I understand, yeah, I mean, if I eat a Snickers bar every single day, that's gonna compound to me not feeling so great over time. Like I understand, like if I just drink a of water every single morning, that would probably lead to better decisions throughout the day. Like I understand, this is a really great lesson right here on messaging and just content in general.

I understand the theory, it makes sense. And I get that it works for a lot of people. But for me, the idea of tiny micro habits, therefore tiny small changes over time doesn't sound very motivating. so I did this, tried like, I'm just gonna go on a walk every day or I'm gonna try to eat.

more vegetables, I'm gonna do the whole thing where you add, not deprive. Thinking about all these things. And I'm gonna tell you from probably November until March, I was doing a variety of these things, but I still felt like crap. I still didn't fit in my clothes. I was still having to wear sweatpants pretty much every single day. And I was just like, nothing was bad, but I wasn't fired up. I wasn't excited about my business. I wasn't excited about the future. Something was off and I was still questioning.

just a lot of things, right? I was still nitpicking the crap out of myself, the people around me, particularly my husband, nitpicking my business, all those things. And I realized that one of the things about me is, well, this is not gonna surprise you, because I've talked about this before, but apparently I needed to be reminded of this, is I am one of those people who, if I'm gonna do something, I'm going to commit with my full ass. I'm gonna go all in. I'm gonna do the thing.

that the people say don't do. Because if you do it all like that, you're just gonna burn out in a couple weeks. Case in point, earlier this year, I started working out. I got hit up by some ads right around the first of the year, tis the season to get into shape. So I got targeted with these ads from, I don't know if you've heard of, Burn Bootcamp. I'd never heard of it before, but I got the ads and it's like a class, right? It's like a boot camp that you go in and there's like 40, 50, 60 people and it's primarily middle-aged.

women or moms after they drop the kids off at school and they're like, we're gonna get healthy. And it's like this class and you go around the room kind of like Orange Theory, but with weights and a little bit more hit and lift. anyways, it gets me because it's like free childcare. Drop your kid off in a little day room thingy and then go to class and then pick them up and be done. And I'm like, free childcare?

yes please, because I am going crazy here of not having childcare at home. So they got me with that ad. I started going to it and I made a couple mornings. I actually talked about it on my Instagram stories. One of the mornings I went, it was icy and I slipped and I totally fell, get out of my car and hit my head on the runner next to the car. It was horrible. Anyways, I remember after going for like a week, one of their coaches was like, hey, have you signed up for your private session yet? And I'm like, nah, I'm not really interested. ⁓

but she was just asking a little bit about me and I was telling her, was like, you know, the thing that's really worked for me in the past, I'm just trying to get back into it post-baby, but what's really worked for me in the past is doing something crazy like 75 heart. And she's like, oh, and what do you do after 75 heart? And I'm like, well, I'm fine. Like I like have that shift and I would ever get back into it. And what was interesting,

was she started trying to talk me out of why that was an unhealthy mentality. And it's funny, I don't know, if you don't know what 75 hard is, I'll link to the episode where I talked about it. I've done 75 hard multiple times. It's like this intense mental toughness challenge that yes, has a lot of physical elements. Do like two workouts a day. One of them has to be outside. You have to drink a gallon of water. You have to read 10 pages of a personal development book. You have to follow a strict diet.

You choose the diet, whatever that looks like, but you have to have a meal plan that you're following. And then the last thing is, ⁓ you take a photo of yourself every single day so you can see your progress. And the last thing is you can't have any alcohol or any kind of like desserts or cheats. Okay, so yeah, it's totally intense and you do it 75 days. If you skip any one of those items, you start back at day one. I've done this multiple times. I actually have two episodes where I talk about it.

one of which with my friend Franny, who's the person who had inspired me to do it for the first time back in 2021. But anyways, I'm talking about 75 Hard with this woman and this coach, and she's like talking me out about why that's not right, why it's unhealthy, why it's not sustainable. And I remember just like, huh, it's like, wouldn't you want anyone who has the desire to change like embrace their way, right? And it just, it reminded me.

You, let me make this about you for a minute. Have you ever had that moment where it's like you have an idea for a business strategy or you have an idea for a change you wanna make in your business and you share it with someone and they immediately apply their own opinions and filters to it and they start telling you why it's a bad idea or worse, they pretend to support you but start asking you really leading questions to try to get you to change your mind? That's the one I really hate is when people try to pretend like they're helpful but they're trying to persuade you.

to their way of seeing it. Side, like example of this, I see my 10 year old and my seven year old all the time where they're like arguing with each other, but they're unwilling to listen to each other, but they both wanna be right. And it just drives me freaking crazy. But back into it, like this was a moment for me, was like, WTF, like why is this person instead of supporting me, they're like trying to tell me my idea is wrong or my way of doing things previously is wrong. And side note, just.

I hate being told my idea is wrong. So I don't think any of us like that. So anyway, so fast forward, I like dabble in that burn boot camp in January and then pretty much decided that was not for me. Spoiler, the childcare that I signed up for, I took Brooks one time and he screamed the entire time. I didn't, and I didn't know, I went to pick him up and his face was like, poor, like red.

He like, it was the saddest little thing and like, here's the thing, I'm not one of those moms that won't let my kid cry. Like I'm totally okay with that. But like to have a baby, he was like one, like just turned one at the time. And to have a little baby in the room with like a bunch of three and four year olds, who's like crying the whole time. Like I wish they would just come got me, cause I would have just left. Like it was not, anyway, so we never went back. ⁓ But I found a new gym. I found a new gym at the end of February. It's like a boutique.

It's called Hit Logic and it's like a boutique, small, like CrossFit style, but without the, I don't know, without the intensity vibe, like it have the big barbells and stuff. It actually has dumbbells, kettlebells. Like it's a really great small local gym and I fricking love it. Fast forward, I finally make the decision of F it. If I'm gonna go all in on my health and actually make a change, I'm gonna go all in. So on March,

March 31st, it was like the Monday to kick off essentially the month of April. This was 31 days ago. I woke up, I went to my HIIT class. I did a walk that day. I made the intention of I'm gonna hit this many proteins and stick within this much calories. And I started like plugging through it. And halfway through the day, I realized I had done almost all of the items of 785 hard. So why not make that my day one? And...

Here I am, I'm on day 31 of 75, right, hard right now, and I feel so great. I feel so great physically. I mean, I'm sore, right? But I feel so great mentally, physically, energetically, and business-wise. There's a ripple effect within all of it. And I bring this up for you is because I was in a season where I was frustrated.

but I was unwilling to make a change about that frustration. And that leads me to what I wanna talk about for you is you have to understand what season you're in before you make the decision of changes. Because what I find is a lot of times we're trying to make changes, but we're really not in a season of life where we're ready and we're willing to commit to that change. Going back to my 75 hard example versus the atomic habits example.

One of the things we have to recognize is we have to know ourselves and how we operate. I'm the kind of person that if I'm going to do something, I'm not gonna do something small. I'm going to go all out, full ass on it. I'm gonna go, cause I want to experience being a new person or I want to see the change in my identity and in my surroundings and it has to be immediate and then I'm gonna maintain it. And maybe I slide back a little bit, but I'm still light years ahead of where I was versus,

I know me, if I just try to do a little bit here and there, I'm gonna get bored and indifferent and kind of annoyed by the lack of progress. I'm gonna give up. So I have to go super hard, right out of the gate, even if there's a little bit of burnout there and I backslide a bit, I'm still going to be further ahead. Now I know that about myself and my style and I think you have to understand yourself and how you operate and what works for you, but do not let anyone else tell you.

What's the right way to do it? What's the right way to change? What's the right way to pivot? What's the right way to do anything in your business in your life? They're not you, only you can make that change for yourself. But let's talk about what season you're in. So I wrote down, there's like, what just came to mind for me. This is not an official thing. I just like to view things ⁓ in some kind of framework to help me figure out where I'm at and where I wanna go. So.

I listed out, I see in your business, there's like five seasons that you could be in. So these can kind of blur again, don't try to make this like a scientific thing, but first you might be in a season of your business where you are building. You have your head down and you're creating something. So whether you're building a podcast or maybe you're writing and launching a book or you're building a new program, like you know what it's like to build. When you're in build mode, you're in like go mode. I'm cranking shit.

out, you're creating, right? You're not revamping, you're not whatever, thinking about burning everything down. Like you're in build mode, you have a clear vision of what you're creating and you're doing it. So season of building, it's head down, get it done. Another season that you might be in, you might be in the season of refining. A season of refining is the thing that you have is already built and now you're living in that world.

right, whether you're running that program or you're producing that podcast or whatever that thing is, but you're noticing where the cracks are, or you're noticing where the opportunities are, and you're refining. And note in the season of refining is you're not doing these like big giant overhauls, is you're noticing and paying attention to what's sticky. You're saying, how do I elevate? How do I grow? And what we wanna pay attention to, in my opinion, in the season of refinement is,

making sure that we're refining things that actually need to be refined versus getting distracted by things that are like fun for us to like exercise our creative abilities. So we'll come back to that here in a moment. But the refining phase are more of like small adjustments that we're making to elevate the experience or elevate the brand. Okay, refining. Another season is a season of visibility.

This is where you're like using your voice and you're getting out there. You're really making big progress on going beyond the boundaries of your business and getting in front of new people. Like you're getting seen, you're doing more marketing, you're really getting your voice out there, the season of visibility. Now where the idea of potentially burning it all down and second guessing comes in in this season is

you start becoming a little bit more vulnerable. You start becoming a little bit more aware of maybe I don't know how to talk about these things like I thought, or maybe you start second guessing your offers or things are not clicking and it's because we've put ourselves in a position of vulnerability. We're more visible, therefore more vulnerable and therefore depending on our own securities, insecurities, our own ⁓ mental health, physical health, what's going on beyond the boundaries of business.

we might be a little more impressionable on those vulnerabilities. So that really might put you in a season of wanting to make changes in pivots so that you start feeling more safe. Are you starting to see if you know what season you're in, you might be able to diagnose a little bit about why some of these angst or some of these changes that you're having might be coming in. There are, there's another season though that I think we don't talk about enough and it's a season of recovery. Whether you're post burnout or your post launch or your

Post something big that has happened and you need to give yourself space to recover. Maybe like me, you are post-baby or maybe like one of my clients, you're post-surgery because you had something going on with your health. Maybe you just made some big changes in your business and you need to let the dust settle. I think we need to honor and recognize that sometimes we need to be in a season of recovery or just being present or just stabilizing.

And there's nothing wrong with this season. It's actually necessary. It's just like the example of spring I talked about where spring was new birth, new life. Winter is really that season of hibernation, of cozy, warm and connection. Sometimes we need that recovery. We need to like restore and rejuvenate. How many other R words can I use here? Right? But sometimes we don't notice we're in that season. Have you ever had that moment where it's like,

You've been go, go, go, go, going and then you just get taken out with an illness. Your body is like, nope, I'm done. Like we need to have some recovery time. So it becomes forced recovery. I've had this happen both to me and my clients where you've been go, go, going. All of a sudden you lose your voice and you're like, crap. Your body is telling you, hold on, we need to take a pause. We need to be in a season of recovery. The last season I want to hit on is a season of realignment.

This is a season where you start really feeling that the strategies and what you've built is no longer fitting the future vision that you have for yourself. I'll say it again, your strategies or what you've built is no longer fitting the future vision or identity that you have for yourself. And this season of realignment, I think is really telling this is where it's the difference between, right? In a season of recovery, you might say, I wanna burn it all down.

but really you're tired. Really you're just pissed because you got a weird customer service email about somebody emailing you for the seventh time that they can't get into their course when they're the ones clicking the wrong link, right? Like it just happens. We gotta know when we're tired versus when we're just being insecure because maybe we're a little bit more visible, therefore we're feeling a little bit more vulnerable. Maybe we are, right? You see the differences in those other seasons, but in a season of realignment, you feel this deep sense of something is...

off. Something is off. You don't quite know what it is, but something needs to change. And maybe you sit in this season for a while. I'll tell you, I have been in and out of this season multiple times over the last five years, and I've talked about many of them publicly. I went through a season where I burned down the Heather Sager training brand and I rebuilt the Speaker Co. with a business partner. That was a season of absolute realignment.

And then within six months, I realized that was totally out of alignment and we went back and I took on the speaker co by other Sager solo and 2023 was all about getting re-in alignment of what does that look like? And I shed the speaker co brand and said, whoop, that wasn't aligned. Let me get back into it. I have podcast episodes where I break this down for you around pivoting. I talk about pivoting in public.

how I have made some big shifts publicly. Hell, I have rebranded this podcast. How many times? Let's go back. 2019, it launched as Finding Your It Factor. Ooh, summer of 2020, I got slapped with a cease and desist that somebody didn't like. I was using that name even though they didn't have it. It just kind of sounded a little bit of close that they wanted to be pissed about it. And so they slapped me with a cease and desist. So I pivoted and named it The Heather Sager Show. By the way, there's an episode about that back in 2020. You can listen to all about it. Let's see, then in, let's see, the...

Heather Sager's show, and then we went from Heather Sager's show in January of 2023, right in the peak of that business partnership right before we ended it. I decided I wanted the show to go in a bigger direction. So I renamed it Hint of Hustle. Then I decided Hint of Hustle was no longer serving me as this next phase of life that I'm in. So just last month we launched the Ramble refinery. Evolution, it's okay to evolve. A lot of people think like, it's a bad thing. I mean, do I wish I would have just had one name and stuck with it the whole time?

I mean, yeah, from a marketing perspective and hella tech perspective, that would have been a heck of a lot easier. But I think we need to be open to reimagine. One of the phrases I've said on the show multiple times and I say it almost every single call with my clients is when we're feeling angst around the progress we're making in business, we're feeling upset about the decisions we've made or where we are, right? Maybe we're not moving as fast as we want to be in business.

This is the phrase, it goes like this, you're exactly where you need to be to learn the lessons you must learn for what's coming in your next chapter. And I firmly believe this to be so true if you're sitting here in tension of like, needs to change. I want you to lean into it because whatever you're questioning right now, whatever experience that you're having, you're having this experience because it is preparing you for what's coming next. Sometimes the thing that you're experienced

is shining a mirror on you because your clients have that very same challenge. Maybe not the exact same scenario, but the feeling behind it, the angst behind it. They have their own version of that. And for you to be a more empathetic coach and leader, you need to feel it so that you can help them through it.

Sometimes we need to feel that ink. So I'm a big believer that if you are in a season of realignment, right, maybe you keep have a revisiting thing that something is feeling off. Okay, you need to listen to that. And then what we need to do is let me go to my second big point here is we need to start asking better questions before we start making sweeping changes. Okay, ask better questions before we start making sweeping changes. And I wanna categorize this under this idea of

we need to make decisions based off facts, not feelings. And this is, think, one of the biggest challenges for us as business owners, especially we're very creative in our businesses and it is marketing is a lot about feeling, but we need to make decisions based off facts. So this actually happened recently. I was working with one of my clients and she was expressing to me very much what we were talking about today that, hey, I really think I need to burn down my program. Things aren't working. ⁓

things have just been feeling off for quite a while. I know I need to repackage it. I know I need to redo it. Like there was just a lot of that. And so she was wanting to brainstorm different ideas. And for me, I'm a former VP of learning and development. That sounds really fancy, but I ran a training department for 10 years. Like I know how to create online programs, in-person programs. I know program design. Like I have a certificate around managing learning programs. I'm fancy in my education around how to create really

good trainings and really good programs. So she wanted to brainstorm about it. And I asked her if she was open to having a conversation first. Yeah, and I started asking some questions to clarify. And essentially through the clarifying questions where we ended up getting to is the fact that the program actually had great success. The clients who had gone through it were not only very happy, they were getting really great results.

Her angst, I keep using that word angst today, I don't even, it's not even a word I use normally. Isn't that funny how sometimes we use a word and then we just keep saying it over and over again? Side tangent. Words are interesting sometimes. Anyways, this client, what turns out is the program was pretty much fine. In her head, it'd become like the program is broken, but it wasn't the program, it was the selling of the program that wasn't working.

She had just had a launch which she thought was gonna be her biggest launch based off of the preliminary numbers, but it ended up not being a very large launch in comparison to her past ones. And as we started talking through it, it wasn't that the program was broken, it was that the way she was selling it and the messaging around it was broken. And it was one of those things where she was finding herself in a position to trying to have to convince.

and clarify for people about the program in order to make the sales. So as we started getting into it, we restructured the selling of it. We talked about the big objections and how she actually had elements of her program that addressed those objections, but she wasn't really talking about them in that way. So we went all back to positioning and designing the offer, which essentially is what you're selling to people. It's not really the program, it's how you talk.

how you position it to your audience. So we went through and we made some changes with that. We did definitely brainstorm some improvements, some tweaks, some more minor things. But what ended up happening was she didn't need a full ass overhaul. She needed some refinement, but she was feeling out of alignment. And so we needed to ask better questions. So what I want really to ask you is how could you start asking yourself higher?

quality questions so that you don't waste time and energy rebuilding things that don't need to be rebuilt. So for example, if you're feeling like, oh my gosh, like what's going on here? I think the first check-in I would do is like, am I actually burned out? Am I feeling tired? Am I embarrassed? Am I discouraged? Or is something actually out of alignment here? So first tap into the feeling. Like what are you feeling right now? Because

You might just be in that burnout phase where you need a recovery. You might be like, maybe personally things are going on. Maybe you got that weird customer service email or like you've gotten a couple of those recently. So it's just really just, ⁓ you know what I mean? So first get into the feeling, right? Is this a feeling or is something really going on here? That's the first question, right? Then the second question I would ask is, am I reacting to one launch or one comment?

or one email or one situation, or is this been a theme for a while? Is this a one-off or is this like a reoccurring condition? And I think it's really easy for us to get stuck in this one. Now, this is something that I actually hear a lot. Someone will bring me a question on one of my program calls and they'll be like, hey, somebody gave me this piece of feedback around whatever this thing was.

And someone actually recently told me on one of their talks, they got the feedback of like, ⁓ and she asked, how do I handle this? And it was someone had said, everything that you shared, like I didn't learn anything new. You already like knew all, I already knew all of this, which I just started laughing. I'm like, yeah, like I, first of all, I actually have a little line of my content where I address that right out of the gate. So I overcome that objection in the top of my trainings. So I know you want to steal that real quick. Let's get geeky. There's a quote.

by Will Rogers, Brennan Burchard says this all the time and has made his own version, but the original person was Will Rogers and it says, just because it's common sense doesn't mean it's common practice. And I embed this early in my, when I do trainings, like actual like workshops or courses or half day sessions, especially at companies, I'll use this quote and I'll embed it. So, right, it's not like an asshole change, like, or a statement, but I'll put it in with purpose, but essentially,

Calling out the elephant in the room is like you're all here to learn, which is going to require you to choose to learn. Because just because it's common sense doesn't mean it's common practice, right? You've probably heard a lot of these things before, but the question is, are you actually applying it? When was the last time you thought about these things? So as we go through this, you might hear a lot of things that you've heard before. I want to challenge you to how can you take it up a notch? How can you re-implement? How can you reignite blah, blah? You see where I'm going here. So that was like a little bonus lesson on language around managing expectations for your audience.

The point being with this one client is she got this one comment and so then she was spooling in her head of going, my gosh, how do I elevate my content? Like there are things in here that aren't common knowledge, but like I need to make this even more. And I came back to it, was like, this was one comment. All of the other comments show that it was an exceptional presentation they found a lot of value from.

So are we going to change the talk for one comment, honestly, of an egotistical asshole who probably says that every presentation because they are egotistical and want to fuel themselves and they gain a lot of confidence from their own knowledge, right? Like, no, we're not. So when you're thinking about, oh my gosh, I need to make a change, you need to validate that. Is this off of one person's comment or is this like, is everyone in your program saying, this is so hard, I'm getting lost, like case in point.

I like wanna update my stuff all the time and I've changed my program many times, but sometimes I'll have to go back and be like, one comment of one person getting stuck versus like 16 people getting stuck here. I'm gonna focus on the thing that 16 people are struggling with. How do I make it easier for the group, right? If one person's having a hard time, that just might be a different like learning style. We can send them a thing, we can do something to help it, but I'm not gonna rerecord the module because one person has a comment.

Right? Like, yes, you need to hear feedback from people, but you need to qualify that feedback and make choices as a leader of your company. Another question I would ask myself is have I ruled out tweaks before jumping to a total overhaul transformation? Now, remember how I used the example before around atomic habits versus like the full ass overhaul for me? ⁓ Here's the thing. I tried the tweaks on my health. I did.

I tried the tweaks, I started trying to things and I wasn't seeing progress and I still had that, here's the word, angst around my health and needed to make a change. So I knew I needed a total transformation. So I went full ass with 75 hard. Now in business, there are times when I do that too, but there are a lot of times where I have the like, I wanna do an overall haul and then I go on a walk or I take a nap or I step away and then I come back and ask the question, what's the like,

What's the smallest way I could get a result here but not have a lot of effort? And this is what's led to me, like great example. One of my bonus experiences, I am an affiliate for Business by Design, which by the way, that's coming up again. If you are looking to launch a digital product-based business and wanna learn how to create a launch model that you can consistently sell it on repeat with a sales machine, I have a training coming up for you that you're really going to love. But one of the things is I put together a custom bonus package for Business by Design every year.

And last year I was behind putting things together and one of the tasks on my list was I really needed to revamp the portal where people log in and the welcome videos and the whole onboarding for the new cohort coming through for Business by Design. And it was on my list forever and ever and I was like, I need to redo this, I need to redo this. And in my head it was this big project and finally 11th hour we needed to roll it out. My assistant's like, can you just write a message and we'll just do it text-based? And I'm like,

Hell yeah, that's much easier. So we literally just created a text lesson, right, as the welcome. And it's like essentially a welcome letter that essentially said all the things with the heart and everything that they needed to do. There's just not a video with it. And you know what? That was totally fine. Nobody's going, there's no video for Heather. They have a shit ton of videos. There's training that they get as part of the bonus experience. But like, I didn't need to bust my ass to create this big old welcome package and all these other things when a small little short text message.

text message like a letter was perfectly sufficient. So I think what we need to do is sometimes we have the big idea, but then we can talk ourselves down into maybe something smaller would help here. But the thing is like you're allowed to change, but what we need to come back and make sure that these changes are actually fueling your business forward. So let's go to the last kind of point I wanna make here with the feelings versus fact.

Back with that client I was mentioning before when we were talking about our program, the questions I was clarifying with her was actually going into the numbers. So I was asking about, how many people have actually gone through the program? What have been their results? Like, are they getting results? Okay, let's shift gears. Let's actually look at the numbers of your last launch. And we ran into a brief on it. And the numbers very clearly said that the people going through the program were happy and seeing results. But the numbers in the launch showed that people were seeing the launch messaging

but not buying. The facts, AKA the numbers, are what pointed out the difference between the program and the selling of the program. So I think a lot of times when we're thinking about making changes in their business, we go off of feeling, and feeling is great, right? Because the feeling is this energetic thing, and if we're not excited about something, it's really not gonna shine and take off, right? But we need to then validate.

it with fact. So you might have a hunch on something, you might have a feeling on something, but then you need to go and look at the facts. So if you do want to make changes to your program, go in and look, like have you talked to your students? Maybe the facts are you don't have numbers to actually show you like how many people are showing up to certain things. Like you probably have that, but you can go into qualitative facts. Those are perfectly fine. Like what's the feedback? What are people saying? Have conversations with people and their words. What are they seeing?

I've done this quite a few times with revisions of my program and it's always really refreshing because I'm thinking like, my gosh, I needed this really big thing. And what my students actually need is something very small. They're actually really happy with the majority of the program. So I want you to start saying, how can I validate with this fact? How can I tamper this idea now with fact? Now, all this is say, I'm gonna like pile it up in this ⁓ last thing here. Sometimes you can't explain it.

but you know something needs to change. There's something deep down that you just can't kick and you know that you have outgrown the stage that you're in and you need a serious level up. And as long as you've gone through these questions, right? Where you've gone through, what's the feeling behind it? Is there generally something misaligned and you've addressed those misalignments. Let's say you've addressed them and you've made some tweaks and you've adjusted some things and you're still feeling out of alignment.

Well, then it might be your time to make a shift. Maybe then it's your time to make a pivot. Maybe it's your time to make a bold move. Maybe it's your time to do something a little bit different, even if it's scary. And that's what I wanna walk you through over the next couple of weeks and some conversations I'm having with business owners. So the next three episodes, you're gonna hear interviews of me talking to...

Business owners who have made real pivots in their business, some of them were driven by life changes. Some of them were driven by a feeling that they then validated and decided to explore next direction. So I'll save the teasers around all of that as we come out of these episodes. I know you're going to love them. I, like I mentioned, I love hearing the behind the scenes of thinking. So my hope is to one, inspire you in the season of spring, as you're probably thinking about changes.

but also reinforce in today's episode, right? We don't have to change everything. You don't have to burn it down, but sometimes it is time for your next level up. So I hope that you enjoy these conversations over the next couple of weeks. We're gonna culminate the end of the series, the last episode of May. I'm gonna be coming back with you with my own evolution and updates, and I cannot wait to tell you all about them. My friend, it's a big one. All right, we'll also side note, that sounded a little dirty. It's a big one.

Okay, on that note, I'll just leave you to that random awkward ending. Okay. We'll talk to you on the next episode. Bye.