October 31, 2024 • 32 mins
Julie's Big Gorgeous Goals: Official Workbook is here! Order your copy today.
Join us on Figure Eight as we uncover the transformative journeys of women stepping into the entrepreneurial world from high-skilled professions. Our guest, Dr. Meghan Walker, a successful naturopath and business strategist, shares her unique insights on the challenges faced by "reluctant entrepreneurs," those who find themselves in business not by choice but through a calling to make a difference. We promise you'll gain a deeper understanding of overcoming mindset hurdles and the vital shift from professional expertise to entrepreneurial savvy.
Dr. Meghan Walker ND(inac), HBSc. Entrepologist, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Author. Meghan Walker is a former naturopathic doctor, health expert, entrepreneur and health systems innovator. Meghan is a sought-after speaker, having spoken on media outlets and stages around the world on subjects related to health innovation, entrepreneurship, women’s health and leadership.
Dr. Meghan Walker is a naturopathic doctor and Entrepologist (On-tre-pol-uh-gist), focusing on the health optimization of entrepreneurs and game changers. As an entrepreneur, Meghan started and sold her first business while in University and is now the Co-Founder and CEO of Health Hives and the Chief Cheerleader of Clinician Business Labs – a platform to assist clinicians scale and amplify their businesses and impact.
Meghan is the host of the IMPACT Podcast featuring guests such as Dr. Alan Christianson, Joy McCarthy and Dr. Vincent Pedre. Meghan is an award winning speaker, having spoken on international stages such as Mindshare Collaborative and the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians and through multiple media outlets such as Forbes, Canada AM, Elle Magazine and Global Morning.
Meghan speaks on topics related to women’s performance medicine, brain health and entrepreneurship, healthcare innovation and leadership. Meghan is the host and producer of the annual entrepreneurship conference Impact LIVEs and most importantly, the bedtime story reader to her three young girls.
Julie and Meghan discuss...
(00:00:04) Empowering Women in Entrepreneurship
(00:08:20) Learning From Imperfect Action in Entrepreneurship
(00:14:39) Lessons in Entrepreneurial Balance and Growth
(00:24:51) Embracing Failure for Growth
You can connect with Meghan by email at meghan@entrepologylabs.com
You can connect with Julie on LinkedIn or Instagram.
Find Julie's writing at her blog or by ordering her book Big Gorgeous Goals and the brand new official companion workbook!
What did you think of this conversation? We'd love if you'd rate or review our show!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julie (00:04):
Welcome to Figure Eight, where we feature inspiring
stories of women entrepreneurswho have grown their businesses
to seven and eight figuresrevenue.
If you're in the mix of growinga bigger business, these
stories are for you.
Join us as we explore where thetough spots are, how to
overcome them and how to prepareyourself for the next portion
(00:27):
of the climb.
I'm your host, ulie Ellis.
I'm an author, entrepreneur anda growth and leadership coach
who co-founded, grew and exitedan eight-figure business.
This led me to exploring whysome women achieve great things,
and that led to my book Big,gorgeous Goals.
(00:47):
Let's explore the systems,processes and people that help
us grow our businesses to newheights.
If you're interested in growingyour business, this podcast
will help.
Now let's get going.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of the Figure 8 Podcast.
(01:08):
I'm your host, Julie Ellis, andtoday I am extremely happy to
be talking with Dr.
Meghan Walker.
Meghan is a naturopath by trade.
However, she now today hasfounded multiple companies and
she helps a lot of women growbigger businesses, women who are
working as clinicians in allkinds of different medical
(01:32):
fields and really need to figureout how to grow their business
and how to make it intoeverything they want it to be.
She also speaks here and thereand she's been on TV a number of
times, so she has lots ofdifferent pieces to what she
does, but right now, as theco-founder and CEO of Health
(01:53):
Hives and the chief cheerleaderof Clinician Business Labs,
those are her sort of mainentrepreneurial ventures at the
moment.
Welcome, Meghan.
Meghan (02:02):
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Julie (02:05):
Thank you, I'm so glad you were able to join me today.
Well, I am looking forward tothis conversation.
I'm looking forward to it toobecause I think that you know,
thinking about growingbusinesses is obviously
something I'm very interested in, and I know, when we were
talking, just your work inhelping other women grow
businesses, who are very skilledand talented but may not be
(02:27):
entrepreneurial, is a reallyimportant place in the ecosystem
.
Meghan (02:33):
Yeah, you know it's funny because I think there's
just so many.
There's so many people who havea big vision of how they want
to contribute, and I think thisis going to be happening more
and more.
The vehicle in which thatcontribution can happen is
becoming so frequentlyentrepreneurship.
But we it is like the one thingwe're not taught in school, and
if we were fortunate enough tohave the conversations when we
(02:55):
were younger at home or grew upin a house where
entrepreneurship was like partof the vernacular and part of
the experience, then you knowall the power to you.
You have a massive advantage.
But for most people, that wasn'twhat they they saw growing up
and so, uh, I often joke that myaudience are reluctant
entrepreneurs.
It is not.
They are not entrepreneurs bychoice.
(03:15):
Uh, they are entrepreneursbecause it is the only vehicle
in which they can have thecontribution that they want.
So it's a really interesting.
It's an interesting take andversion of entrepreneurship,
maybe a little bit differentthan you know.
Those individuals out there whoare like I want to grow my
business, I'm excited to grow mybusiness.
These individuals are like darnyou for telling me I need to
have a business in order to havethe impact I want to have right
(03:36):
.
Julie (03:38):
And it's super interesting because you are
talking about highly talentedpeople, very, very bright people
, who are highly qualified todeliver the work that they're
doing and yet they struggle tofit into the entrepreneurship
mold, if there is such a thing.
Meghan (03:56):
Yeah, and you know it really underscores that.
I think that the skillsrequired to succeed in
entrepreneurship are notnecessarily the skills that we
are going to learn to besuccessful in other, in other
areas of our lives.
And, to be honest, I thinkthat's one of the things that my
audience finds particularlyfrustrating is they're like
listen, I went to school for 800years and wrote 4,000 board
(04:17):
exams and I am so ridiculouslyqualified, and then this person
over here went and did a weekendcourse on something and now
calls themselves an expert andthrows all their entrepreneurial
skills out and I can't catch up.
And so there's this realreckoning that has to happen
around the relationship betweentheir credentials and their,
their capacity in the realm ofentrepreneurship.
(04:39):
And it's it's challenging and Ithink maybe more so, maybe a
generalization, for for women,we move into this cycle and
whirlwind of self-doubt when weare highly competent, skilled
and educated in column A and wefeel like complete imposters in
column B.
And I can teach extremelyintelligent people the tactics
(05:01):
and strategies to run a business.
They can grasp those conceptsreally quickly.
But what I actually find isreally hard is that I now have
to overcome a huge mindsetdeficit that these highly
competent people are facingbecause they've actually never
been challenged like this before.
It's always, it's always been alittle bit easy for them, and
so they step into that arena andI go, like what do you mean?
This isn't simple, but butentrepreneurship is, I think, a
(05:23):
unique set of skills.
It's a different way ofthinking about a complex problem
.
It requires that we view theproblem from and with an element
of risk and we assess our ownrisk tolerance.
So there's it's.
I just find it the mostfascinating and enjoyable game.
I feel like I'm literally in areal life game.
Every day I step into sort ofthe entrepreneurial ring, and it
took a while for me, like I'mliterally in a real life game.
(05:44):
Every day I step into sort ofthe entrepreneurial ring, um,
and it took a while for me.
Like I kind of looked aroundand I went, oh, like this isn't,
people don't like this game,like this isn't a fun game for
everybody.
Um, and so that you know, thatis a part where I really have to
.
I have to slow down and spendtime and and you know the
(06:04):
mindset piece and thereconciliation that's required
for so many members of myaudience as they step into an
entirely new arena of challenge.
Julie (06:14):
It's so interesting we I was speaking with one of my
co-founders and we were doing apresentation together and we
talked about how, in our earlydays of entrepreneurship, we had
no shame and we feel like thatwas really part of what helped
us to be successful, as we, youknow, got our business off the
ground and started growing it.
(06:35):
And it's kind of interestingbecause that kind of behavior
doesn't necessarily fit withsomebody who you know their
achievement has been tied to.
You know a more academic andcredentialing kind of kind of
path.
Meghan (06:53):
That part has been fascinating for me to kind of
watch too, and I I talk aboutthis really openly with my
audience and I say to themlisten, the, the things that
have made you successful upuntil this point in life, which
is really succeeding in therealm of academia, where as
close as you can get toperfection, the better, and
that's the standard thateveryone is looking for, all the
(07:14):
skills that got you to thatpoint are actually going to need
to be dismantled for this othergame that we're playing over
here.
And I got into this I'm goingto say heated debate, but we'll
just say like it was a chargedconversation with my mom.
We were on a mother-daughtertrip to Italy and we were
sitting there and she, out ofleft field, she's like Meghan,
can I tell you something?
And I was like sure it was likeone of the we're sitting in the
(07:36):
Piazza drinking prosecco andshe's like I just I got to get
something off my chest.
And I was like sure she's likeI can't stand it when you have
spelling mistakes in yourInstagram posts.
I was like, oh, okay, I thoughtwe were going somewhere else,
but we're going to, we're goingto do this.
And she's like it, just like,how are you not spending more
time reading and proofreadingyour Instagram?
(07:58):
And I actually took backcontrol of my Instagram.
It's a hundred percent me andmy spelling mistakes.
And I said honestly, like I justI don't, actually I don't care
that much, like I just want tosay something and put it out
there and I, I'm, I'm fine with90% great, and half the time I
don't have my glasses on, Ican't see the words anyways, and
I'm just I just hit likepublish.
(08:18):
Anyway, we had this wholedebate and I said, listen, like
I want you to understand herbackground.
She was a school teacher and aprincipal.
And I said you taught a cohortof individuals how to be
successful in the context ofschool.
And I said, if I had myentrepreneurial women waiting
for perfection before they everhit publish, they wouldn't even
(08:41):
have a business, let alone beable to grow it.
That they wouldn't even have abusiness, let alone be able to
grow it.
So my whole, my whole businessis getting people to take
imperfect action over and overagain and then fighting the
patterns that are where they'rewinning and not waiting until
things are perfect.
We just I don't think we have,I don't think we have time for
that, and as we grow and as wehave more systems and as we have
(09:02):
more people, we can elevatethat standard in certain areas
and contexts.
But this, how we reconcile ourrelationship with perfection, is
a huge part of what we areneeding to do.
And I agree with you, like onthis whole idea of you know,
early on in the journey, youknow we had no shame, we tried
stuff, we called people, theyrejected us, we did whatever.
We're like.
Well, I guess this is the phaseof life where we get, uh, we
(09:24):
get rejected and it's almostlike, as we get deeper into the
journey, this self-awareness ofof all these different pieces
start to attract more meaning.
Um, and I you know, I too waslike that, I was more things.
I was way less concerned abouthow I was perceived early on in
my, in my journey, and I feellike I've kind of swung the
other way.
I think my 40s have been reallygood for me for that, where I'm
(09:46):
like what you think of me isnone of my business and I kind
of am back in the groove of I'mgoing to do what I want to do
again.
But that part's hard.
Like that there really is abalance and I think it's great.
Life lessons Like.
I don't think there are lessonsyou learn in entrepreneurship
where, at the end of the day,you go darn, I wish I had never
learned how to handle rejectionand I wish I had never
(10:08):
reconciled my relationship withperfections.
I'm like all the things you'regoing to learn in the arena of
entrepreneurship are going toserve you in your own personal
growth and development and andall of the above Um, and it's
not going to be easy like that.
That would just be such anunfair assessment.
But gosh, I miss the days wherewe could just innocently do
stuff and not actually reallyperceive the bigger picture.
(10:32):
Right, yeah.
Julie (10:34):
It does feel like you've got to find, like those
antidotes.
So you've got perfection andyou know, maybe the antidote I
know one of my antidotes for itis experimentation.
So what's supposed to happen inscience with an experiment?
They're supposed to fail.
So thinking of it as anexperiment oh okay, that one
failed, let's try it again thisway or that way, or tweak it or,
(10:54):
you know, move on altogetherHelps me to from leaning in too
hard to.
But it has to be perfect thefirst time and you know, because
you do, you catch yourself andyou're like I got to move on
this.
Meghan (11:08):
Yeah, and you know I've struggled with this a little bit
in that the nature of my myinitial businesses, like as a
naturopathic doctor people cameand they paid me for support
with their health, but paying meto develop a strategy and how
we're going to optimize theirhealth or mitigate their
condition didn't actuallyguarantee that we were going to
be successful and I always foundthat.
(11:29):
Really I found that reallychallenging and I found it
really challenging to do it inthe context of the Canadian
medical system because theyweren't used to paying anything.
So it was a big stretch toconvince people to actually pay
out of pocket and when they did,there was kind of this
expectation well, I paid you,now you're going to fix the
problem, and so you know, I wasconfronted with that piece
really early and I don't have aperfect solution for it, even
(11:51):
now where I'm working withindividuals to help them
strategize around their businessand really specifically, I
think of myself as a strategist,not as a coach, and in fact I
don't even think I'm a greatbusiness coach.
I enjoy the strategy side ofthings, but same thing, I have
to catch myself and manage theexpectations of my clients.
If you invest in the work thatwe're doing to help support your
clinic or your growth.
(12:12):
You need to be very aware thatthis is not going to guarantee
you're going to get the out likepaying me $10,000 isn't going
to deliver you a million dollarbusiness on the other side.
We're just going to lay thestrategy and you're going to get
to do the work, and it's we'regoing to do an experiment that
probably will get us closer toan outcome, but I love the use
of that word because it's stillan experiment.
That's the nature ofentrepreneurship.
Julie (12:39):
And I'm curious now you know you talk about how you
really aren't a business coach,but you're a strategist and
you're also, at this point, aserial entrepreneur, because I
know not only were you anaturopath but you sold your
first business way back when youwere in university, and so
that's.
You know.
You've been through the cycleon a number of occasions before
you got to being in thatstrategist role to help others.
(12:59):
And what's your journey beenlike?
What are your kind of keylearnings from your own
experience?
Meghan (13:06):
Oh gosh, there are.
So there are.
I wrote a whole book on this,on all my key, all my key
learnings and, frankly, all theplaces I kind of fell down and
where I had to get back up andwhat the tripping had.
Uh, the tripping had in commonthe easiest businesses I've ever
had.
Just serve people's needs andthat's like a no need.
(13:28):
And then I paired the no needwith an audience that wanted
access to that and that soundsso simple and so fundamental.
But I think my first businessis still my favorite business.
It's still the easiest businessI ever had.
And I was um 15 years old and uhwas fired from the summer job
that I had and I was made veryclear to me in no uncertain
terms that you would not besitting on the dock all summer
(13:49):
long, like you need to find ajob.
And I I just remember likeclear as day saying I'm going to
find a way to be able to sit onthe dock and satisfy your need
for me to be working at the sametime.
Just give me a hot second tofigure that out.
So I sat there and I looked atthe lake and I watched people go
back and forth between theislands and I went.
I bet people on the islandswould like their cottages clean
(14:10):
too, and so I made this littlepamphlet and I got in my little
tin boat and I drove out to thecottages and I put them in those
like plastic sheets and thenput a rock on top and left them
on people's docks and I Ideclared that I had a cleaning
service, because that, to me,was one service where I could
just, I could just announced my,my candidacy for the job and
and I'd get fired if I wasn'tgood at it.
There was no regulation, therewas no anyway.
(14:33):
Within two weeks I had a fullroster of clients and by the end
of that summer I had morepeople asking me if I would
clean for the next summer.
I hired 11 of my friends and Isat there smugly through summer.
Number two, and I looked at mydad and I was like, look at me
sitting on the dock while all myteam is out cleaning and
cleaning cottages.
But that was, that was a reallike core memory for me, not
(14:54):
being a smug teenager, butreally going.
One I don't think I can everwork for anybody else, ever
again.
And two, if you have a servicethat that helps people and you
align the service that helpspeople with people who can
afford to pay for what you'redoing.
I feel like that's sometimesthe elephant in the room.
Uh, when we've got, you know,people who want to help and
build a business, that that'shelpful, we don't talk about
(15:15):
who's going to actually pay forthat.
Um, and it was a no, it was ano brainer and frankly, I made
more money cleaning cottages insummer than I did in my first
three years after graduatingfrom medical school.
So it was, it was a greatlittle.
It was a great little businesswith very low risk, but I was
willing to get my hands dirtyand and um and do the work, and
(15:36):
so you know that was a big piece.
For me is like really being ableto see that lens.
Do I have a service or do Ihave a product that is actually
going to solve a meaningfulproblem and do I have a a
sufficiently large audience ofpeople who can pay for it?
Where the numbers actually work, it's litmus test number one,
litmus test number two for me.
And a second big learning is itis not difficult to build a
(16:00):
business, in particular,service-based business, where
you are willing to sell yoursoul to make it work.
And what I mean by that is ifyou're going to work 18 hours a
day and never come up for air,and you know, shift your prices
and put yourself out, that youcan.
You can fill your calendar, youcan hustle your way to a full
calendar, and then you're stuck.
You're stuck servicing theclients.
(16:22):
You're stuck with a fullcalendar.
You realize you're actuallycapped out on what you can earn.
You are an employee, you'relike an employee of one.
You work for yourself and youdon't have any of the freedom
that you thought you were, youwere going to look for.
And so that was the second pieceis I realized that when I build
something, I have to build itin the context of balancing an
equation, and the equation isalways like what two things do I
(16:44):
want to have be true at thesame time?
And so when I sold my firstclinic and I was going to open
what I called in my head a micropractice meaning I was going to
take my my high end clients whoare all high achievers down in
the core and I was going to workout of an office like a
co-working space and I was onlygoing to see patients for two
days a week.
And the challenge to myself washow do I work with these
(17:05):
patients for two days a week?
Because I wanted to start someother companies but double what
I was earning working five daysa week owning my own clinic.
Those were the two sides of theequation.
I want to earn this and I onlywant to be working that, what
has to be true in order for thisequation to balance.
And so I went about looking at,like, how I wanted to design it,
how I wanted to design myprograms, how I had to position
(17:26):
my pricing, who I had to goafter.
So these two things could be,could be true.
And you know, those are the.
Those are the two big lessonsfor me, build something people
want and will pay for.
And then, number two, don'tbuild something that doesn't
satisfy this lifestyle equation.
Decide what needs to be truebeforehand, or you're going to
really quickly be trapped.
Julie (17:49):
Because I've never thought of it this way, but it's
so true that you can fill yourcalendar with underpriced work
and basically it is almost likeworking for somebody else.
It isn't really why people, Ithink, dream of becoming an
entrepreneur and want to go andstart businesses, and so taking
that transition over to theequation makes a lot of sense.
Meghan (18:13):
Yeah, it was a big.
It was a big lesson for me,because I was burning out and I
had little kids and I was like,oh my gosh, I did this to myself
Like I had.
I had no one to blame for that,but at the same point, it's not
like I had mentorship aroundthat idea.
It's not like someone said tome here's the framework on how
to think about your business, oryou're quickly going to run
into that, that trap.
I was like I'm just going towork really, really hard and
(18:34):
we'll see what happens, which is, you know, an approach, and I'm
sure we've both.
We've both been there.
Um, but that was a hard.
That was a hard lesson to learn.
Julie (18:44):
And was that some of what inspired you to do what you're
doing now?
Sort of the lack of help thatyou saw in the landscape as you
were trying to grow your ownbusiness?
Meghan (18:53):
Yeah, I call this my accidental business.
So this was.
I did not have a vision forwanting to do this.
This wasn't one like when I'msailing off in the sunset, I
want to help other other youknow, younger practitioners or
newer practitioners set up theirtheir businesses.
Not that it's not meaningfulwork, but it wasn't.
That wasn't the vision.
What was the vision and what Iwas very clear on is that I had
(19:14):
this core belief and and I stilldo that when people have their
health, they can change theworld, and so I was very
interested in how do we putthese systems of medicine that
were having such incredibleimpact on people's lives into
more people's hands what has tobe true so more people can
access these systems of medicine?
This is the problem that I wasalways trying to solve, and it's
the problem I'm still trying tosolve and I'm evolving with,
(19:38):
and so one of the things Irealized, even within our own
clinic we had 11 people in ourteam is that the business side
of how they develop theirbusiness was actually a real
challenge for a lot of them, andso we started mentoring our own
team on how to develop theirbusiness.
It was a little bit easier forus.
I grew up in an entrepreneurialhouse, but also I had skin in
the game and so that's, you know, that's one of the fastest ways
(20:00):
to grow your business is foryou to have to.
And so we were just mentoringthe individuals in our clinic
and they were doing well and wetook that for granted.
We assumed that was happeningeverywhere.
And I had more and more friendsand colleagues who would reach
out and say, Meghan, like howare you guys doing this?
And so I literally just startedwith the first Thursday of
every month I'm going to run azoom call at 7 PM.
(20:20):
Anyone can come, it's totallyfree, and we're just going to
jam out on what's going on inyour business and see if we can
solve the problem.
Like it was so unsophisticatedand it was not with an intention
of, you know, feeding a list,it was, there was no strategy in
this whatsoever, it wasliterally I just couldn't do any
more.
May I pick your brain lunches?
So we just were like, come tozoom.
(20:42):
And so we did.
We started doing that, and theneveryone had the same 10
problems.
Like if you solve these 10things in order, you won't have
this big catastrophic situation.
And so it kind of formed thefoundation of our first program.
And then we realized as a whole, we just we just kept building
and writing programming to solvethe problem, um, at scale.
(21:02):
And I was okay doing it andsaid no to other things because
I really quickly realized thatwhen practitioners were building
strong, sustainable businesses,we were reaching more people
with these incredible systems ofmedicine.
We were having practitionerswho weren't burning out, we were
having practitioners who couldcontribute to the household
income of their family, and so Iwas like, oh, this checks the
(21:22):
box of it working in alignmentwith how I want to contribute.
And so we just kind of kept.
We kind of kept growing fromthere.
Julie (21:30):
Which is interesting because it's it's sort of like
you had a goal to you know,improve outcomes for people and
have more people know aboutthese modalities of medicine and
those kinds of things, but youprobably haven't gotten there
the way you thought you mighthave when you imagined this as a
goal.
Meghan (21:51):
Not at all and I started .
I started a software companyway back in the day.
I was sort of brought intosomething some people were
visioning out and we were.
We were really trying to createthis incredibly sophisticated
directory system to help findthese credentialed practitioners
.
It remains a bone of contentionfor me the number of people who,
who, who do not have anytraining and put themselves out
there as having training.
(22:11):
To me, this is a really uh,it's, it's just a dangerous,
it's a dangerous situation andit does um, the system of
medicine I study is significantdisservice.
And so we're like how do we,how do we create this directory
that is, people who arecredentialed, who are insured,
who have been to school, whohave written board exams, etc.
Anyways, total, miserablefailure, um, for a variety of of
(22:33):
reasons.
Um, but it also checked the boxof okay, this is a way of being
able to get that informationout, uh, quickly.
It's a way for us to be able todisseminate and distribute the
medicine.
And now there's you knowthere's so many different ways
we can do that at scale.
For me, really, it's about nowhaving the discipline to like be
very clear on what my skill setis and how I want to deploy
(22:56):
that for the next iteration.
So there's a few things in theworks on that.
That's exciting.
Julie (23:02):
Yeah, but I think that's part of is part of owning a
business is that you know youhave to keep on rolling, yeah
yeah and, I think, static anddon't like everything doesn't
happen.
Meghan (23:14):
The second you kind of remove this, it it all has to
work all the time and you'relike we're gonna, we're gonna
try this, but also we're gonnaunderstand when we're gonna back
out, like when we're going tounderstand, when we're going to
back out, like when we're goingto call it, that's that's super,
that's super valuable, like wecan still, but let's just go for
it.
It's that expectation piecethat I think is really um, is
(23:36):
really important, that we managethat component.
It's not a reflection of you oryour skill, or there's there's
lots of there's lots of factorsthat go into whether or not
something is going to besuccessful.
I have this friend in the Statesand he has big online business
and he was sharing with us thatI'm at a mastermind.
He's very well known in theindustry and he was talking
about this absolutelycatastrophic launch that they
(23:57):
had.
He's like we teach launches andwe had this absolutely
catastrophic launch.
It was set up to be like ourbest ever.
We had overextended ourselveson ads, we had more affiliates
than we ever had, we had moreopt-ins.
We had like every metricleading up to this launch
suggested this was going to bethe most Epic thing we'd ever
done.
So we kept putting more andmore money into the leads.
We were like we were.
We were so excited we're goingto kill it.
(24:18):
We're going to kill it.
It's going to be the best, andthe to 70% of your sales can
come in the last 24 hours, whichis a wild thing.
But, um, and what happened forhim was his cart closed on the
same day that Donald Trump beatHillary Clinton in election
round one.
Julie (24:39):
And so 70% was a no, all eyeballs were on him.
Meghan (24:43):
None, none whatsoever, and the cart closed.
He was like it was, it washorrible, it's catastrophic.
And I remember, I remember himtalking about that one.
I always make sure I check thecalendar now when we plan a
launch so that there is nomassive known news events.
There are no US elections,there are no holidays.
We're like totally in the clearUm.
But two there's, there's blackswan events that you, you just
(25:06):
don't see, uh, you don't seecoming, and so you know it's
okay to fail, like I thinkthat's at the.
At the end of the day, it isokay to fail and it doesn't mean
all the work you did over herewas for naught.
I think I'm at the stage oflife where, like things happen
and I actually can see thesilver lining and the
disappointment and it can all bein the same package.
Um, but it was.
(25:26):
It was great to hear themhaving that story and also just
this reminder you got to.
You got to just lay it all onthe on the table.
You can't control everything.
Julie (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, and I think those are some really great
takeaways from having a failureis that really nothing is in
isolation, no success or no orany failure.
They're not isolated incidents.
They're always in the biggercontext of who we are, what we
learn, how we go out into theworld, and I think that you can
(25:57):
let a failure drive you off thepath if you're not careful.
So figuring out how to kind ofrest a little and then come back
from it is important.
Meghan (26:08):
And how you debrief on a failure is, I think, really
critical too, and that, I think,is just maturing in life,
probably, and also in business.
I mean, if you're failing thesame way 10 times in a row, we
need to stop and we need toevaluate what the heck is going
on here.
Unless you have super deeppockets and you're just you
could just keep me busy, but, um, you know how we, how we
(26:31):
debrief and how we like pull thelessons from these things.
I think is really uh, is reallycritical and it's interesting.
Now, as a parent, I spend a lotof time when there's when
there's failures or thingsdidn't work out, I'm like this
is amazing.
So let's like what happenedhere.
This isn't even you know.
I've watched my daughter playsoccer and she plays high level
soccer.
When their coach goes nuts,when they lose a game, I'm I'm
(26:51):
going bananas on the other sideof the team or the other side of
the field Cause I'm like thisah, this is such an opportunity
to debrief with them whileemotions are high around what
went wrong, not to berate them,cause they're not going to risk,
they're not going to take riskagain, but to like, really like
you what happened, you, whathappened, like let's, let's not
forget.
So I, just I have a real softspot in my heart for for
(27:15):
learning from failure, becauseI'm good at it the failing part.
Julie (27:18):
It is interesting.
It's interesting too, though itmakes me think about, like at
Mabel's Labels, we had a reallystrong process around autopsy
after every launch that we didfor anything, and because even
when it went really well, it wasnever perfect.
And so, you know, doing thatevaluation of, oh, you know,
(27:39):
until you sit as a group, as aproject team, and write it all
down, what went well, we'd evenbetter if, and then we take our
lessons learned and you know,suddenly you're like, oh, five
times in a row the same thingwent wrong at lunch.
You know, if we could find away to fix that, everything
would be so much easier and lessstressful for everybody.
And and so it is interesting, Ithink, to have those reflection
(28:02):
points and really examinewithout blame and without you
know that you know so-and-sodropped the ball, like.
I don't think it's about that.
It's more about, like, how,what's happening in
communication?
Where's the breakdown?
What's happening in our systems?
Where's the breakdown?
Why are we struggling in thesame way over and over again?
Meghan (28:24):
I think we're past the phase of life.
I'm past the phase of lifewhere I'm like who, who's
getting in trouble for this?
Like I, we don't have a culturefor that at work.
I'm all again like in myforties.
I'm like I don't, I don't getit, I don't get in trouble
anymore.
Like I don't, that is not.
But I think we're stillconditioned around that Right,
we're like, we're conditionedneurologically to make sure that
(28:44):
the blame doesn't, doesn't fallon us and it.
It took me a long time as abusiness owner to be able to
debrief or autopsy effectivelyon the backside of any kind of
launch, because I felt like Iput my whole soul into it.
I'm like I got nothing left tohear the feedback.
I don't have cause.
I still hadn't transitioned toit being feedback.
I was still like, oh, the, theblame.
(29:05):
I have no room for blame.
I did my best.
I don't want to hear it.
And so there was.
You know, at least for me therewas a real evolution.
Like I had to, I had work to do, to be in a place where I was
open and then eager to get thepost-event feedback so that we
could get even better the nexttime.
(29:25):
And I think we forget once we'vemoved along at least, I
sometimes forget.
I have to remind myself,actually, how much of your soul
goes into your businesses.
At first, it is your reputation, it is your money.
It feels like it is everything,and so I'm also really I'm
empathetic and understandingwhen people are in a place where
(29:45):
they're not great at gettingfeedback.
I think that's actually part ofthe journey and you know, with
my background in health and myaudience was primarily
entrepreneurs when I was in, Iwas in practice, I recognize
that and I was like okay, weneed to treat that, we need to
like, we need to treat youradrenals, we need to, we need to
support your system.
You need more time and spaceand breaks so that you'll grow
(30:08):
faster when you can get thefeedback.
You'll grow faster when yourhealth is on point.
That's where the mental health,the physical health, all these
pieces come together to actuallymake you a stronger
entrepreneur.
But don't kid yourself, thereis work in this process.
There is personal developmentwork in the process and if you
don't like, the sooner yourealize that and really look
(30:32):
into that, the faster yourbusiness is going to grow no
matter what.
Julie (30:37):
It's true.
It's true, and I've alwaysbelieved, that leadership is
never static, that it's always awork in progress and it really
fits with with.
Yeah, who are we as people,mentally, physically, as leaders
, and how do we just keepgetting better?
How do we work on ourselves ina, in a thoughtful way?
Meghan (30:59):
yeah, and intentional yeah exactly absolutely good.
Julie (31:05):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been a really greatconversation and I wish you all
the best with growing yourbusinesses, and I look forward
to following your journey, thankyou, Julie.
Meghan (31:14):
This was great All right .
Julie (31:16):
Take care, my dear.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Please remember to hitsubscribe on your favorite
podcast platform so you won'tmiss any episodes.
Figure Eight isn't just apodcast.
It's a way of seeing the big,gorgeous goals of women
entrepreneurs coming to life.
If you're interested inlearning more, you can find my
(31:39):
book Big, gorgeous Goals onAmazon, anywhere you might live.
For more about my growth andleadership training programs,
visit www.
juliellis.
ca to see how we might worktogether.
Read my blog or sign up to getyour free diagnostic.
Are you ready for growth?
(32:01):
Once again, that's www.
julieellis.
ca.
When we work together, we allwin.
See you again soon for anotherepisode of Figure 8.
Welcome to Figure Eight, where we feature inspiring
stories of women entrepreneurswho have grown their businesses
to seven and eight figuresrevenue.
If you're in the mix of growinga bigger business, these
stories are for you.
Join us as we explore where thetough spots are, how to
overcome them and how to prepareyourself for the next portion
(00:27):
of the climb.
I'm your host, ulie Ellis.
I'm an author, entrepreneur anda growth and leadership coach
who co-founded, grew and exitedan eight-figure business.
This led me to exploring whysome women achieve great things,
and that led to my book Big,gorgeous Goals.
(00:47):
Let's explore the systems,processes and people that help
us grow our businesses to newheights.
If you're interested in growingyour business, this podcast
will help.
Now let's get going.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of the Figure 8 Podcast.
(01:08):
I'm your host, Julie Ellis, andtoday I am extremely happy to
be talking with Dr.
Meghan Walker.
Meghan is a naturopath by trade.
However, she now today hasfounded multiple companies and
she helps a lot of women growbigger businesses, women who are
working as clinicians in allkinds of different medical
(01:32):
fields and really need to figureout how to grow their business
and how to make it intoeverything they want it to be.
She also speaks here and thereand she's been on TV a number of
times, so she has lots ofdifferent pieces to what she
does, but right now, as theco-founder and CEO of Health
(01:53):
Hives and the chief cheerleaderof Clinician Business Labs,
those are her sort of mainentrepreneurial ventures at the
moment.
Welcome, Meghan.
Meghan (02:02):
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Julie (02:05):
Thank you, I'm so glad you were able to join me today.
Well, I am looking forward tothis conversation.
I'm looking forward to it toobecause I think that you know,
thinking about growingbusinesses is obviously
something I'm very interested in, and I know, when we were
talking, just your work inhelping other women grow
businesses, who are very skilledand talented but may not be
(02:27):
entrepreneurial, is a reallyimportant place in the ecosystem
.
Meghan (02:33):
Yeah, you know it's funny because I think there's
just so many.
There's so many people who havea big vision of how they want
to contribute, and I think thisis going to be happening more
and more.
The vehicle in which thatcontribution can happen is
becoming so frequentlyentrepreneurship.
But we it is like the one thingwe're not taught in school, and
if we were fortunate enough tohave the conversations when we
(02:55):
were younger at home or grew upin a house where
entrepreneurship was like partof the vernacular and part of
the experience, then you knowall the power to you.
You have a massive advantage.
But for most people, that wasn'twhat they they saw growing up
and so, uh, I often joke that myaudience are reluctant
entrepreneurs.
It is not.
They are not entrepreneurs bychoice.
(03:15):
Uh, they are entrepreneursbecause it is the only vehicle
in which they can have thecontribution that they want.
So it's a really interesting.
It's an interesting take andversion of entrepreneurship,
maybe a little bit differentthan you know.
Those individuals out there whoare like I want to grow my
business, I'm excited to grow mybusiness.
These individuals are like darnyou for telling me I need to
have a business in order to havethe impact I want to have right
(03:36):
.
Julie (03:38):
And it's super interesting because you are
talking about highly talentedpeople, very, very bright people
, who are highly qualified todeliver the work that they're
doing and yet they struggle tofit into the entrepreneurship
mold, if there is such a thing.
Meghan (03:56):
Yeah, and you know it really underscores that.
I think that the skillsrequired to succeed in
entrepreneurship are notnecessarily the skills that we
are going to learn to besuccessful in other, in other
areas of our lives.
And, to be honest, I thinkthat's one of the things that my
audience finds particularlyfrustrating is they're like
listen, I went to school for 800years and wrote 4,000 board
(04:17):
exams and I am so ridiculouslyqualified, and then this person
over here went and did a weekendcourse on something and now
calls themselves an expert andthrows all their entrepreneurial
skills out and I can't catch up.
And so there's this realreckoning that has to happen
around the relationship betweentheir credentials and their,
their capacity in the realm ofentrepreneurship.
(04:39):
And it's it's challenging and Ithink maybe more so, maybe a
generalization, for for women,we move into this cycle and
whirlwind of self-doubt when weare highly competent, skilled
and educated in column A and wefeel like complete imposters in
column B.
And I can teach extremelyintelligent people the tactics
(05:01):
and strategies to run a business.
They can grasp those conceptsreally quickly.
But what I actually find isreally hard is that I now have
to overcome a huge mindsetdeficit that these highly
competent people are facingbecause they've actually never
been challenged like this before.
It's always, it's always been alittle bit easy for them, and
so they step into that arena andI go, like what do you mean?
This isn't simple, but butentrepreneurship is, I think, a
(05:23):
unique set of skills.
It's a different way ofthinking about a complex problem
.
It requires that we view theproblem from and with an element
of risk and we assess our ownrisk tolerance.
So there's it's.
I just find it the mostfascinating and enjoyable game.
I feel like I'm literally in areal life game.
Every day I step into sort ofthe entrepreneurial ring, and it
took a while for me, like I'mliterally in a real life game.
(05:44):
Every day I step into sort ofthe entrepreneurial ring, um,
and it took a while for me.
Like I kind of looked aroundand I went, oh, like this isn't,
people don't like this game,like this isn't a fun game for
everybody.
Um, and so that you know, thatis a part where I really have to
.
I have to slow down and spendtime and and you know the
(06:04):
mindset piece and thereconciliation that's required
for so many members of myaudience as they step into an
entirely new arena of challenge.
Julie (06:14):
It's so interesting we I was speaking with one of my
co-founders and we were doing apresentation together and we
talked about how, in our earlydays of entrepreneurship, we had
no shame and we feel like thatwas really part of what helped
us to be successful, as we, youknow, got our business off the
ground and started growing it.
(06:35):
And it's kind of interestingbecause that kind of behavior
doesn't necessarily fit withsomebody who you know their
achievement has been tied to.
You know a more academic andcredentialing kind of kind of
path.
Meghan (06:53):
That part has been fascinating for me to kind of
watch too, and I I talk aboutthis really openly with my
audience and I say to themlisten, the, the things that
have made you successful upuntil this point in life, which
is really succeeding in therealm of academia, where as
close as you can get toperfection, the better, and
that's the standard thateveryone is looking for, all the
(07:14):
skills that got you to thatpoint are actually going to need
to be dismantled for this othergame that we're playing over
here.
And I got into this I'm goingto say heated debate, but we'll
just say like it was a chargedconversation with my mom.
We were on a mother-daughtertrip to Italy and we were
sitting there and she, out ofleft field, she's like Meghan,
can I tell you something?
And I was like sure it was likeone of the we're sitting in the
(07:36):
Piazza drinking prosecco andshe's like I just I got to get
something off my chest.
And I was like sure she's likeI can't stand it when you have
spelling mistakes in yourInstagram posts.
I was like, oh, okay, I thoughtwe were going somewhere else,
but we're going to, we're goingto do this.
And she's like it, just like,how are you not spending more
time reading and proofreadingyour Instagram?
(07:58):
And I actually took backcontrol of my Instagram.
It's a hundred percent me andmy spelling mistakes.
And I said honestly, like I justI don't, actually I don't care
that much, like I just want tosay something and put it out
there and I, I'm, I'm fine with90% great, and half the time I
don't have my glasses on, Ican't see the words anyways, and
I'm just I just hit likepublish.
(08:18):
Anyway, we had this wholedebate and I said, listen, like
I want you to understand herbackground.
She was a school teacher and aprincipal.
And I said you taught a cohortof individuals how to be
successful in the context ofschool.
And I said, if I had myentrepreneurial women waiting
for perfection before they everhit publish, they wouldn't even
(08:41):
have a business, let alone beable to grow it.
That they wouldn't even have abusiness, let alone be able to
grow it.
So my whole, my whole businessis getting people to take
imperfect action over and overagain and then fighting the
patterns that are where they'rewinning and not waiting until
things are perfect.
We just I don't think we have,I don't think we have time for
that, and as we grow and as wehave more systems and as we have
(09:02):
more people, we can elevatethat standard in certain areas
and contexts.
But this, how we reconcile ourrelationship with perfection, is
a huge part of what we areneeding to do.
And I agree with you, like onthis whole idea of you know,
early on in the journey, youknow we had no shame, we tried
stuff, we called people, theyrejected us, we did whatever.
We're like.
Well, I guess this is the phaseof life where we get, uh, we
(09:24):
get rejected and it's almostlike, as we get deeper into the
journey, this self-awareness ofof all these different pieces
start to attract more meaning.
Um, and I you know, I too waslike that, I was more things.
I was way less concerned abouthow I was perceived early on in
my, in my journey, and I feellike I've kind of swung the
other way.
I think my 40s have been reallygood for me for that, where I'm
(09:46):
like what you think of me isnone of my business and I kind
of am back in the groove of I'mgoing to do what I want to do
again.
But that part's hard.
Like that there really is abalance and I think it's great.
Life lessons Like.
I don't think there are lessonsyou learn in entrepreneurship
where, at the end of the day,you go darn, I wish I had never
learned how to handle rejectionand I wish I had never
(10:08):
reconciled my relationship withperfections.
I'm like all the things you'regoing to learn in the arena of
entrepreneurship are going toserve you in your own personal
growth and development and andall of the above Um, and it's
not going to be easy like that.
That would just be such anunfair assessment.
But gosh, I miss the days wherewe could just innocently do
stuff and not actually reallyperceive the bigger picture.
(10:32):
Right, yeah.
Julie (10:34):
It does feel like you've got to find, like those
antidotes.
So you've got perfection andyou know, maybe the antidote I
know one of my antidotes for itis experimentation.
So what's supposed to happen inscience with an experiment?
They're supposed to fail.
So thinking of it as anexperiment oh okay, that one
failed, let's try it again thisway or that way, or tweak it or,
(10:54):
you know, move on altogetherHelps me to from leaning in too
hard to.
But it has to be perfect thefirst time and you know, because
you do, you catch yourself andyou're like I got to move on
this.
Meghan (11:08):
Yeah, and you know I've struggled with this a little bit
in that the nature of my myinitial businesses, like as a
naturopathic doctor people cameand they paid me for support
with their health, but paying meto develop a strategy and how
we're going to optimize theirhealth or mitigate their
condition didn't actuallyguarantee that we were going to
be successful and I always foundthat.
(11:29):
Really I found that reallychallenging and I found it
really challenging to do it inthe context of the Canadian
medical system because theyweren't used to paying anything.
So it was a big stretch toconvince people to actually pay
out of pocket and when they did,there was kind of this
expectation well, I paid you,now you're going to fix the
problem, and so you know, I wasconfronted with that piece
really early and I don't have aperfect solution for it, even
(11:51):
now where I'm working withindividuals to help them
strategize around their businessand really specifically, I
think of myself as a strategist,not as a coach, and in fact I
don't even think I'm a greatbusiness coach.
I enjoy the strategy side ofthings, but same thing, I have
to catch myself and manage theexpectations of my clients.
If you invest in the work thatwe're doing to help support your
clinic or your growth.
(12:12):
You need to be very aware thatthis is not going to guarantee
you're going to get the out likepaying me $10,000 isn't going
to deliver you a million dollarbusiness on the other side.
We're just going to lay thestrategy and you're going to get
to do the work, and it's we'regoing to do an experiment that
probably will get us closer toan outcome, but I love the use
of that word because it's stillan experiment.
That's the nature ofentrepreneurship.
Julie (12:39):
And I'm curious now you know you talk about how you
really aren't a business coach,but you're a strategist and
you're also, at this point, aserial entrepreneur, because I
know not only were you anaturopath but you sold your
first business way back when youwere in university, and so
that's.
You know.
You've been through the cycleon a number of occasions before
you got to being in thatstrategist role to help others.
(12:59):
And what's your journey beenlike?
What are your kind of keylearnings from your own
experience?
Meghan (13:06):
Oh gosh, there are.
So there are.
I wrote a whole book on this,on all my key, all my key
learnings and, frankly, all theplaces I kind of fell down and
where I had to get back up andwhat the tripping had.
Uh, the tripping had in commonthe easiest businesses I've ever
had.
Just serve people's needs andthat's like a no need.
(13:28):
And then I paired the no needwith an audience that wanted
access to that and that soundsso simple and so fundamental.
But I think my first businessis still my favorite business.
It's still the easiest businessI ever had.
And I was um 15 years old and uhwas fired from the summer job
that I had and I was made veryclear to me in no uncertain
terms that you would not besitting on the dock all summer
(13:49):
long, like you need to find ajob.
And I I just remember likeclear as day saying I'm going to
find a way to be able to sit onthe dock and satisfy your need
for me to be working at the sametime.
Just give me a hot second tofigure that out.
So I sat there and I looked atthe lake and I watched people go
back and forth between theislands and I went.
I bet people on the islandswould like their cottages clean
(14:10):
too, and so I made this littlepamphlet and I got in my little
tin boat and I drove out to thecottages and I put them in those
like plastic sheets and thenput a rock on top and left them
on people's docks and I Ideclared that I had a cleaning
service, because that, to me,was one service where I could
just, I could just announced my,my candidacy for the job and
and I'd get fired if I wasn'tgood at it.
There was no regulation, therewas no anyway.
(14:33):
Within two weeks I had a fullroster of clients and by the end
of that summer I had morepeople asking me if I would
clean for the next summer.
I hired 11 of my friends and Isat there smugly through summer.
Number two, and I looked at mydad and I was like, look at me
sitting on the dock while all myteam is out cleaning and
cleaning cottages.
But that was, that was a reallike core memory for me, not
(14:54):
being a smug teenager, butreally going.
One I don't think I can everwork for anybody else, ever
again.
And two, if you have a servicethat that helps people and you
align the service that helpspeople with people who can
afford to pay for what you'redoing.
I feel like that's sometimesthe elephant in the room.
Uh, when we've got, you know,people who want to help and
build a business, that that'shelpful, we don't talk about
(15:15):
who's going to actually pay forthat.
Um, and it was a no, it was ano brainer and frankly, I made
more money cleaning cottages insummer than I did in my first
three years after graduatingfrom medical school.
So it was, it was a greatlittle.
It was a great little businesswith very low risk, but I was
willing to get my hands dirtyand and um and do the work, and
(15:36):
so you know that was a big piece.
For me is like really being ableto see that lens.
Do I have a service or do Ihave a product that is actually
going to solve a meaningfulproblem and do I have a a
sufficiently large audience ofpeople who can pay for it?
Where the numbers actually work, it's litmus test number one,
litmus test number two for me.
And a second big learning is itis not difficult to build a
(16:00):
business, in particular,service-based business, where
you are willing to sell yoursoul to make it work.
And what I mean by that is ifyou're going to work 18 hours a
day and never come up for air,and you know, shift your prices
and put yourself out, that youcan.
You can fill your calendar, youcan hustle your way to a full
calendar, and then you're stuck.
You're stuck servicing theclients.
(16:22):
You're stuck with a fullcalendar.
You realize you're actuallycapped out on what you can earn.
You are an employee, you'relike an employee of one.
You work for yourself and youdon't have any of the freedom
that you thought you were, youwere going to look for.
And so that was the second pieceis I realized that when I build
something, I have to build itin the context of balancing an
equation, and the equation isalways like what two things do I
(16:44):
want to have be true at thesame time?
And so when I sold my firstclinic and I was going to open
what I called in my head a micropractice meaning I was going to
take my my high end clients whoare all high achievers down in
the core and I was going to workout of an office like a
co-working space and I was onlygoing to see patients for two
days a week.
And the challenge to myself washow do I work with these
(17:05):
patients for two days a week?
Because I wanted to start someother companies but double what
I was earning working five daysa week owning my own clinic.
Those were the two sides of theequation.
I want to earn this and I onlywant to be working that, what
has to be true in order for thisequation to balance.
And so I went about looking at,like, how I wanted to design it,
how I wanted to design myprograms, how I had to position
(17:26):
my pricing, who I had to goafter.
So these two things could be,could be true.
And you know, those are the.
Those are the two big lessonsfor me, build something people
want and will pay for.
And then, number two, don'tbuild something that doesn't
satisfy this lifestyle equation.
Decide what needs to be truebeforehand, or you're going to
really quickly be trapped.
Julie (17:49):
Because I've never thought of it this way, but it's
so true that you can fill yourcalendar with underpriced work
and basically it is almost likeworking for somebody else.
It isn't really why people, Ithink, dream of becoming an
entrepreneur and want to go andstart businesses, and so taking
that transition over to theequation makes a lot of sense.
Meghan (18:13):
Yeah, it was a big.
It was a big lesson for me,because I was burning out and I
had little kids and I was like,oh my gosh, I did this to myself
Like I had.
I had no one to blame for that,but at the same point, it's not
like I had mentorship aroundthat idea.
It's not like someone said tome here's the framework on how
to think about your business, oryou're quickly going to run
into that, that trap.
I was like I'm just going towork really, really hard and
(18:34):
we'll see what happens, which is, you know, an approach, and I'm
sure we've both.
We've both been there.
Um, but that was a hard.
That was a hard lesson to learn.
Julie (18:44):
And was that some of what inspired you to do what you're
doing now?
Sort of the lack of help thatyou saw in the landscape as you
were trying to grow your ownbusiness?
Meghan (18:53):
Yeah, I call this my accidental business.
So this was.
I did not have a vision forwanting to do this.
This wasn't one like when I'msailing off in the sunset, I
want to help other other youknow, younger practitioners or
newer practitioners set up theirtheir businesses.
Not that it's not meaningfulwork, but it wasn't.
That wasn't the vision.
What was the vision and what Iwas very clear on is that I had
(19:14):
this core belief and and I stilldo that when people have their
health, they can change theworld, and so I was very
interested in how do we putthese systems of medicine that
were having such incredibleimpact on people's lives into
more people's hands what has tobe true so more people can
access these systems of medicine?
This is the problem that I wasalways trying to solve, and it's
the problem I'm still trying tosolve and I'm evolving with,
(19:38):
and so one of the things Irealized, even within our own
clinic we had 11 people in ourteam is that the business side
of how they develop theirbusiness was actually a real
challenge for a lot of them, andso we started mentoring our own
team on how to develop theirbusiness.
It was a little bit easier forus.
I grew up in an entrepreneurialhouse, but also I had skin in
the game and so that's, you know, that's one of the fastest ways
(20:00):
to grow your business is foryou to have to.
And so we were just mentoringthe individuals in our clinic
and they were doing well and wetook that for granted.
We assumed that was happeningeverywhere.
And I had more and more friendsand colleagues who would reach
out and say, Meghan, like howare you guys doing this?
And so I literally just startedwith the first Thursday of
every month I'm going to run azoom call at 7 PM.
(20:20):
Anyone can come, it's totallyfree, and we're just going to
jam out on what's going on inyour business and see if we can
solve the problem.
Like it was so unsophisticatedand it was not with an intention
of, you know, feeding a list,it was, there was no strategy in
this whatsoever, it wasliterally I just couldn't do any
more.
May I pick your brain lunches?
So we just were like, come tozoom.
(20:42):
And so we did.
We started doing that, and theneveryone had the same 10
problems.
Like if you solve these 10things in order, you won't have
this big catastrophic situation.
And so it kind of formed thefoundation of our first program.
And then we realized as a whole, we just we just kept building
and writing programming to solvethe problem, um, at scale.
(21:02):
And I was okay doing it andsaid no to other things because
I really quickly realized thatwhen practitioners were building
strong, sustainable businesses,we were reaching more people
with these incredible systems ofmedicine.
We were having practitionerswho weren't burning out, we were
having practitioners who couldcontribute to the household
income of their family, and so Iwas like, oh, this checks the
(21:22):
box of it working in alignmentwith how I want to contribute.
And so we just kind of kept.
We kind of kept growing fromthere.
Julie (21:30):
Which is interesting because it's it's sort of like
you had a goal to you know,improve outcomes for people and
have more people know aboutthese modalities of medicine and
those kinds of things, but youprobably haven't gotten there
the way you thought you mighthave when you imagined this as a
goal.
Meghan (21:51):
Not at all and I started .
I started a software companyway back in the day.
I was sort of brought intosomething some people were
visioning out and we were.
We were really trying to createthis incredibly sophisticated
directory system to help findthese credentialed practitioners
.
It remains a bone of contentionfor me the number of people who,
who, who do not have anytraining and put themselves out
there as having training.
(22:11):
To me, this is a really uh,it's, it's just a dangerous,
it's a dangerous situation andit does um, the system of
medicine I study is significantdisservice.
And so we're like how do we,how do we create this directory
that is, people who arecredentialed, who are insured,
who have been to school, whohave written board exams, etc.
Anyways, total, miserablefailure, um, for a variety of of
(22:33):
reasons.
Um, but it also checked the boxof okay, this is a way of being
able to get that informationout, uh, quickly.
It's a way for us to be able todisseminate and distribute the
medicine.
And now there's you knowthere's so many different ways
we can do that at scale.
For me, really, it's about nowhaving the discipline to like be
very clear on what my skill setis and how I want to deploy
(22:56):
that for the next iteration.
So there's a few things in theworks on that.
That's exciting.
Julie (23:02):
Yeah, but I think that's part of is part of owning a
business is that you know youhave to keep on rolling, yeah
yeah and, I think, static anddon't like everything doesn't
happen.
Meghan (23:14):
The second you kind of remove this, it it all has to
work all the time and you'relike we're gonna, we're gonna
try this, but also we're gonnaunderstand when we're gonna back
out, like when we're going tounderstand, when we're going to
back out, like when we're goingto call it, that's that's super,
that's super valuable, like wecan still, but let's just go for
it.
It's that expectation piecethat I think is really um, is
(23:36):
really important, that we managethat component.
It's not a reflection of you oryour skill, or there's there's
lots of there's lots of factorsthat go into whether or not
something is going to besuccessful.
I have this friend in the Statesand he has big online business
and he was sharing with us thatI'm at a mastermind.
He's very well known in theindustry and he was talking
about this absolutelycatastrophic launch that they
(23:57):
had.
He's like we teach launches andwe had this absolutely
catastrophic launch.
It was set up to be like ourbest ever.
We had overextended ourselveson ads, we had more affiliates
than we ever had, we had moreopt-ins.
We had like every metricleading up to this launch
suggested this was going to bethe most Epic thing we'd ever
done.
So we kept putting more andmore money into the leads.
We were like we were.
We were so excited we're goingto kill it.
(24:18):
We're going to kill it.
It's going to be the best, andthe to 70% of your sales can
come in the last 24 hours, whichis a wild thing.
But, um, and what happened forhim was his cart closed on the
same day that Donald Trump beatHillary Clinton in election
round one.
Julie (24:39):
And so 70% was a no, all eyeballs were on him.
Meghan (24:43):
None, none whatsoever, and the cart closed.
He was like it was, it washorrible, it's catastrophic.
And I remember, I remember himtalking about that one.
I always make sure I check thecalendar now when we plan a
launch so that there is nomassive known news events.
There are no US elections,there are no holidays.
We're like totally in the clearUm.
But two there's, there's blackswan events that you, you just
(25:06):
don't see, uh, you don't seecoming, and so you know it's
okay to fail, like I thinkthat's at the.
At the end of the day, it isokay to fail and it doesn't mean
all the work you did over herewas for naught.
I think I'm at the stage oflife where, like things happen
and I actually can see thesilver lining and the
disappointment and it can all bein the same package.
Um, but it was.
(25:26):
It was great to hear themhaving that story and also just
this reminder you got to.
You got to just lay it all onthe on the table.
You can't control everything.
Julie (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, and I think those are some really great
takeaways from having a failureis that really nothing is in
isolation, no success or no orany failure.
They're not isolated incidents.
They're always in the biggercontext of who we are, what we
learn, how we go out into theworld, and I think that you can
(25:57):
let a failure drive you off thepath if you're not careful.
So figuring out how to kind ofrest a little and then come back
from it is important.
Meghan (26:08):
And how you debrief on a failure is, I think, really
critical too, and that, I think,is just maturing in life,
probably, and also in business.
I mean, if you're failing thesame way 10 times in a row, we
need to stop and we need toevaluate what the heck is going
on here.
Unless you have super deeppockets and you're just you
could just keep me busy, but, um, you know how we, how we
(26:31):
debrief and how we like pull thelessons from these things.
I think is really uh, is reallycritical and it's interesting.
Now, as a parent, I spend a lotof time when there's when
there's failures or thingsdidn't work out, I'm like this
is amazing.
So let's like what happenedhere.
This isn't even you know.
I've watched my daughter playsoccer and she plays high level
soccer.
When their coach goes nuts,when they lose a game, I'm I'm
(26:51):
going bananas on the other sideof the team or the other side of
the field Cause I'm like thisah, this is such an opportunity
to debrief with them whileemotions are high around what
went wrong, not to berate them,cause they're not going to risk,
they're not going to take riskagain, but to like, really like
you what happened, you, whathappened, like let's, let's not
forget.
So I, just I have a real softspot in my heart for for
(27:15):
learning from failure, becauseI'm good at it the failing part.
Julie (27:18):
It is interesting.
It's interesting too, though itmakes me think about, like at
Mabel's Labels, we had a reallystrong process around autopsy
after every launch that we didfor anything, and because even
when it went really well, it wasnever perfect.
And so, you know, doing thatevaluation of, oh, you know,
(27:39):
until you sit as a group, as aproject team, and write it all
down, what went well, we'd evenbetter if, and then we take our
lessons learned and you know,suddenly you're like, oh, five
times in a row the same thingwent wrong at lunch.
You know, if we could find away to fix that, everything
would be so much easier and lessstressful for everybody.
And and so it is interesting, Ithink, to have those reflection
(28:02):
points and really examinewithout blame and without you
know that you know so-and-sodropped the ball, like.
I don't think it's about that.
It's more about, like, how,what's happening in
communication?
Where's the breakdown?
What's happening in our systems?
Where's the breakdown?
Why are we struggling in thesame way over and over again?
Meghan (28:24):
I think we're past the phase of life.
I'm past the phase of lifewhere I'm like who, who's
getting in trouble for this?
Like I, we don't have a culturefor that at work.
I'm all again like in myforties.
I'm like I don't, I don't getit, I don't get in trouble
anymore.
Like I don't, that is not.
But I think we're stillconditioned around that Right,
we're like, we're conditionedneurologically to make sure that
(28:44):
the blame doesn't, doesn't fallon us and it.
It took me a long time as abusiness owner to be able to
debrief or autopsy effectivelyon the backside of any kind of
launch, because I felt like Iput my whole soul into it.
I'm like I got nothing left tohear the feedback.
I don't have cause.
I still hadn't transitioned toit being feedback.
I was still like, oh, the, theblame.
(29:05):
I have no room for blame.
I did my best.
I don't want to hear it.
And so there was.
You know, at least for me therewas a real evolution.
Like I had to, I had work to do, to be in a place where I was
open and then eager to get thepost-event feedback so that we
could get even better the nexttime.
(29:25):
And I think we forget once we'vemoved along at least, I
sometimes forget.
I have to remind myself,actually, how much of your soul
goes into your businesses.
At first, it is your reputation, it is your money.
It feels like it is everything,and so I'm also really I'm
empathetic and understandingwhen people are in a place where
(29:45):
they're not great at gettingfeedback.
I think that's actually part ofthe journey and you know, with
my background in health and myaudience was primarily
entrepreneurs when I was in, Iwas in practice, I recognize
that and I was like okay, weneed to treat that, we need to
like, we need to treat youradrenals, we need to, we need to
support your system.
You need more time and spaceand breaks so that you'll grow
(30:08):
faster when you can get thefeedback.
You'll grow faster when yourhealth is on point.
That's where the mental health,the physical health, all these
pieces come together to actuallymake you a stronger
entrepreneur.
But don't kid yourself, thereis work in this process.
There is personal developmentwork in the process and if you
don't like, the sooner yourealize that and really look
(30:32):
into that, the faster yourbusiness is going to grow no
matter what.
Julie (30:37):
It's true.
It's true, and I've alwaysbelieved, that leadership is
never static, that it's always awork in progress and it really
fits with with.
Yeah, who are we as people,mentally, physically, as leaders
, and how do we just keepgetting better?
How do we work on ourselves ina, in a thoughtful way?
Meghan (30:59):
yeah, and intentional yeah exactly absolutely good.
Julie (31:05):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's been a really greatconversation and I wish you all
the best with growing yourbusinesses, and I look forward
to following your journey, thankyou, Julie.
Meghan (31:14):
This was great All right .
Julie (31:16):
Take care, my dear.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Please remember to hitsubscribe on your favorite
podcast platform so you won'tmiss any episodes.
Figure Eight isn't just apodcast.
It's a way of seeing the big,gorgeous goals of women
entrepreneurs coming to life.
If you're interested inlearning more, you can find my
(31:39):
book Big, gorgeous Goals onAmazon, anywhere you might live.
For more about my growth andleadership training programs,
visit www.
juliellis.
ca to see how we might worktogether.
Read my blog or sign up to getyour free diagnostic.
Are you ready for growth?
(32:01):
Once again, that's www.
julieellis.
ca.
When we work together, we allwin.
See you again soon for anotherepisode of Figure 8.
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