September 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Oh heyyyy, long time no talk! In this comeback episode of The Visionary Files, I’m chatting about what’s really been happening these past four months — the decisions I didn’t plan to make, the ones I had to make, and the one choice that catapulted Visionaries into the fastest growth I’ve ever experienced in business. This isn’t a tale of “I burned it all down and came back better” but rather a moment of recalibration, a glimpse inside the mess of success, and an honest reflection on the discomfort of watching everything grow faster than your systems can catch up.
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What’s inside this episode
- The single decision that triggered explosive growth — even though it didn’t feel that big at the time
- How I had a community that felt like a total flop — then how it grew 7x almost overnight
- Why I chose to stop making money right as the business was doing what I wanted it to do
- How the thing that made zero financial sense became the most pivotal decision of the year
- The most non-negotiable thing you can have as a business owner that I discovered in this season... BIG time
- What’s next for Visionaries (including the boldest, riskiest thing I've ever planned)
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Connect with Adriane and Visionaries!
- Let's be friends on the 'gram – @visionariesonline or @adrianegalea
- Connect on Linkedin – with Adriane or Visionaries
- Visit us on the web at visionaries.co
- Come network with us in The Visionaries Collective
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back.
(00:01):
It's been, it's been a long time.
It's been almost four months, I think so.
I think it was May.
So yeah, almost four months at the end ofMay, so almost four months since I last
posted an episode of the Visionary Files.
And so much has happened since then.
I had a really crazy spring.
(00:21):
I made a decision that it didn't feellike a big decision at the time, but
it completely changed the trajectoryof my business and is a, it's, it's
really allowed me to do a lot of thethings that I've been wanting to do
with visionaries and that one single,what seemed like, it seemed like an
insane decision, but it seemed like avery simple decision has led to in turn,
(00:44):
like an insane amount of growth in areally, really short amount of time.
And I'm gonna tell you all about it.
So.
We're gonna, we're gonna getinto all of it really quickly.
I do also want to let you know that sinceyou're here on the podcast, I actually
started a second podcast last week.
It's called Scale Your Vision, andit's because I wanted to have a
(01:06):
place to put these solo episodes,like these random solo episodes,
which are a lot of the last.
Few episodes that I had been posting.
They were all solo episodes and theyreally don't fit with what I was trying
to actually do with this podcast.
And this podcast has been through so manyiterations of so many different things.
But anyhow, I was like, thisreally, like I, this podcast is not
(01:29):
really doing what I want it to do.
And so I started a second podcast.
So that I have a place to put very,very strategic solo style episodes.
Uh, so starting this week, itwill definitely be this week.
I don't know when you're gonna hear this.
Depending on when this episodereleases, it will either be the day
after this episode or the day afterthat where guest episodes are going to
(01:52):
finally start re-releasing here on thevisionary files that are case study
ish, like the episodes that I have.
In the bank are, they were intendedto kind of be case studies, but I
also, they were like all, I justcouldn't find my footing of where
I really wanted to go with them.
But anyhow, guest episodes aregoing to continue and go from there.
(02:14):
I have like a whole, I have a hugebank of episodes to release, so
that's going to start again this week.
And then as the year goes on and weget through that bank of episodes,
I'm going to transition to.
Basically solely case study formatwith still like some like growth
journeys, um, along the way.
So anyhow, the episodes that I'mpublishing over at Scale, your
(02:37):
vision are basically like strategicmini business masterclasses is
kind of what I'm positioning at it.
It adds, which is like, that'sreally what it's turning into.
So if you wanna check that out,I will link it in the show notes.
And with that said, let's get to it.
So to rewind and recap, sort of what,I've had several episodes that are
(02:58):
like how I've gotten to this pointand how I've made big decisions.
I've made big, big pivots in thelast couple of years, and I've
said this before on this podcast,that I don't know how something
feels until I'm starting to do it.
And part of that feels really unfortunate.
Like, I feel like anytime I makea big pivot, it's because I had to
(03:19):
put something out into the worldthat I thought was gonna be like,
I didn't put it out into the world.
'cause I was like, I just wanna test this.
I mean, it was, I knew it was a test,but it was usually because I had a
good feeling about it and I just don'treally know what it's gonna do until I.
Actually get it out into the world.
Like I need a, I need a test group atsome point in the future or something.
I don't know.
But I've made a lot of different shiftsand I felt, the last couple years
(03:43):
I've felt really all over the place.
This last year, I have not feltall over the place, even though
I have once again made what hasturned out to be a big pivot.
But it wasn't done asan intentional pivot.
It just sort of happened and.
Yeah.
So anyhow, what got me to that point,I'm like, where do I wanna go with this?
(04:05):
I have bullet points writtendown, but I have so many different
things that I could say about this.
So, to sort of rewind, Istarted a business called Biz
and Bubbly at the end of 2020.
In like the second half of 2020, andI didn't really do anything with it.
I just knew that I wanted it to bea media and events company, but I
(04:26):
was also like I'm transitioning intocoaching, like I'm going to start
business coaching or business consulting,and I know that that's gonna be the
thing that's gonna make money faster.
And I don't really understandhow to start a media business.
I don't really understand how to.
Create a business that will generaterevenue solely through community.
(04:47):
And so like, that's gonnabe on the back burner.
And so it stayed on the back burner andeventually like it completely fizzled off.
And I like, it was alwaysthere in the back of my mind.
I'm gonna do something with this.
And I did here and there,kind of do things with it.
But then when I really started.
To go all in on it, which I'm sure Ihave a podcast episode around this.
(05:08):
It would've been like endof 2023 going into 2024.
Someone had already registeredthe trademark that it wasn't
exactly Biz and Bubbly.
It was really, really similar to it.
Again, if you go back and listen to theepisode, that's like a story of cease
and desist and how I lost my whole brand.
It's that.
It's that episode, and I'm like,well, I started Biz and Bubbly Back.
And then I lost the whole thing because Igot a cease and desist that I had to stop
(05:33):
using the name because they had alreadytrademarked it and it had been accepted.
Now had, I don't really want toget into all this, but like had I
discovered that this person had a.
I started the process ofregistering a trademark.
I could have objected to it because Iwas using it before this person was.
And in the United States, like mynon-legal understanding, my non-lawyer
(05:55):
understanding of the way trademark lawworks in the United States is that it's
first to use, not first to register.
So like there's all kinds of stuffthere, but ultimately I was like,
this is not a battle I want to fight.
Like this is, I just don't, I'm just not.
That invested in this.
I was really, I felt very sentimentalabout the name for a minute in the
(06:17):
big scheme of things, like when Ilook back on it, I'm like, oh no.
It was really just a minute.
I got over it very, very quickly.
Um, but I was just like, I reallydon't wanna fight on the, like, I've
had so many fights in the last coupleyears myself with other people.
I just don't, I don't, I just don't care.
It's fine.
Like there's, there's someone is cllike there's no one who is going to win.
There's going to clearly be a loserin this situation and it's fine.
(06:39):
So I just like walked away from it.
And then I started visionarieswith the same intention.
But I technically st you know, it wasa brand new business and visionaries
officially started on July 1st, 2024.
And that had the intention of beinga media and events company with.
The primary focus being on community,operational based education and funding.
(07:00):
And so when I went into this, I betalaunched a community, which I would
argue did not go well, did not go well.
And then I wound up having a hugefourth quarter, which I have lots of
podcast episodes talking about this.
If you, if you scroll back whereI talk about, like, I generated,
I dunno, it was like 1400 sales.
(07:21):
Within a month there waslike 2,500 sales within.
Um, a quarter.
I added all these email, like I've gotmultiple pod po case study style podcast
episodes on that, so I'm not gonna getinto it, but I had a huge quarter four
of 2024, and that led me to going backinto, I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna try to
(07:41):
finally get this community off the ground.
At the beginning of 2025, I was alsostarting to build funnels out and starting
to teach funnels because I had always.
Built funnels through my agency.
I was doing Done for you funnels, donefor you ads done for you launches.
And so I was like, thisnaturally makes sense.
I'm gonna, and funnels are like, it'sthe sales operations of your business.
(08:02):
When you systemize it and you putautomation behind it, that's part
of your operational infrastructurebecause it helps automate the, the
sales part and then the delivery piece.
Through onboarding and like there's,there's, without getting too much
into it, like there's a lot thatgoes into it, but to me, I think
about it as like sales operations.
And so it was all meeting this, you know,larger vision than I had of, I'm gonna
(08:26):
go in on the community and I'm going to.
Teach more on like the operational sideof things, and it makes the most sense
that I start with sales based operationsand how to automate some of this because
I've been building it for so many people.
I built million dollarsales systems for people.
Like I feel very, very at home hereand, and, and, and, um, and then
(08:49):
I also joined a mastermind at thebeginning of 2024, the end of 2024,
beginning of 2025 and everything,like I felt really good about it.
And everything seemedto be plugging along.
I had a goal at the beginning of 2025that I was going to make daily sales.
I was entering my hashtag daily salesera and it took me a little bit long.
(09:11):
I was like, I'm gonnado it by my birthday.
My birthday's January 25th,and that did not happen.
It took an extra month or so, but likeby the end of February, I was generating
sales every single day, mostly low ticketsales, and it started out being like.
Seven to $15 per dayevery day, seven to $15.
It was not, it was not alot of money by and large.
(09:32):
I was also still getting like myconsulting revenue and so like I had
other means of sustaining myself,but it was through visionaries, which
was technically a separate company.
Like I don't get consultingrevenue through visionaries, so.
Visionary started generating revenue everysingle day beyond, like it had generated
revenue in Q4, but then it was sustaining.
(09:56):
Evergreen revenue every single day.
Day in, day out, I was generatingjust small amounts of revenue
and then it started to grow.
It went from seven to $15 per day to20 to $30 per day to 40 to $50 per day.
To then it, you know, I had these spikesof like, oh, a hundred dollars in a day.
Oh, $200 in a day.
And so I'm gonna come back to thispoint later, but like it started
(10:17):
to do what I was wanting it to do.
It felt really slow,but I knew that it was.
Like it was going the waythat I wanted it to go.
It was going in the right direction.
At this point, I have hadn't evenstarted to put ads behind it, and
I really like to this day, I stillreally have not ever put ads behind it
because then everything went sideways.
So, gonna gonna, let's get into that.
(10:37):
I guess I was, I was gonna say,let's come back to that, but
No, let's just get into it.
Otherwise, this is gonna get reallylong because the thing that, well,
no, I, I wanna make one more pointbefore that, and that is that.
Yeah, even though things were likeon paper, looked like everything was
going in the right direction, I wasfeeling like I was starting to burn
(10:59):
out on things because people wouldbuy and then nothing was happening.
And now I didn't expect for people tobuy and then make another sale because
I had not properly set up all of my.
Backend systems to go fromlow ticket to high ticket.
That's a separate, like that's aseparate, it's a, it's a nurture
funnel that you have to build in therewithout getting too much into it.
(11:22):
Like I knew that my primary focus wasjust I was gonna do low ticket sales.
Like once I got that going, thenI was gonna figure out the sort of
the back end of things of where Iactually wanted to move people into.
But I was doing like small burstsof like very, very mini launches
of what I would call lazy launches.
They're my lazy style launcheswhere it was all email.
(11:44):
It was just, it was really small and itworked for what it was, um, which is what,
what the whole point of a lazy launch.
It's really, really low lift.
It's really simple to execute, and itwas generating higher ticket sales, like
a thousand to $2,000 off of the backend.
That was, they were relatively simple.
The problem that I was having with it.
(12:06):
Was, and I not, I've noticed this allthe way across the board, like I've
had people pay 10 grand for thingsand then never show up to use the
thing, which absolutely blows my mind.
But I know that in the one to $2,000range, there are going to be people who
buy it and then never show up to anything.
And that is what really started to happen.
And that's where I really startedto burn out, where I was like, I'm.
(12:30):
Doing the daily sales, like that's fun.
That for me was like an adrenalinerush to get, you've made a
sale, you've made another sale.
Woo.
You've made another sale.
Like there's the adrenaline and then onthe back end getting like ver very lazy.
Of higher priced sales, butthen no one was showing up
and that really bums me out.
And I was like, guys, I really wanna help.
(12:51):
Like I really wanna help you.
And I'm really trying to balancehandholding of showing up and like
pestering you about what can I do to help.
And just watching everyonenever ask for anything.
Never.
Saying, Hey, can you review this?
Hey, what are your thoughts on this?
(13:12):
Like, I'm here to help.
I know that a thousand or $2,000is not like I, I don't know.
I don't think that too many peopleare thinking that they're gonna have
this like really high touch coachinginvestment outta that, or high touch
consulting investment outta that,especially like a consulting investment.
But I like, please use me, please,U like please ask questions.
Please.
(13:32):
You know.
I have a, I have a vision where this isgonna get bigger and at some point I'm not
going to be as accessible, so ask me allthe questions while you can't, like why
is no one showing up and asking things?
It was really frustrating and.
You know, we could, like, we couldhave a whole separate episode on
things I could have done better andwhat that looked like and what, what,
what went where and all the things.
(13:53):
But what that led me to washaving a really insane spring.
So I'm not gonna get into the detailsof the crazy spring, because again, we'd
be here all day, but it was one thingafter another, after another, after
another, after another, after another.
There were like wild financial thingsthat were happening there were wild.
Family things that were happening.
(14:14):
There were wild business thingsthat were happening, like one thing
after another that essentially.
At the end of the day, allreminded me they were excellent
reminders of why and how.
I don't want to be known as an onlinecoach, like I've been saying this
for years, that the online coachingindustry is, while I love the people
(14:38):
who are in the online coaching industry.
So I'm not set, like, there'snothing wrong with coaches.
I work with, I work with a lot of coachesand I love the, like, I love coaches.
I love what coaches aretrying to do in the world.
But for me, like the coachingindustry in general is extremely
problematic for a lot of reasons.
(14:59):
It is wildly unregulated.
There are.
Like, I know so many people whoknow nothing about the coaching
industry other than it's scammy.
Like that's the only thing theyknow about it, and it's because
it has that sort of reputation.
So the long and short of it is Iwound up stopping everything that
I was doing around Memorial Day.
I stopped trying to selleverything that I was selling.
(15:22):
I stopped.
Publishing podcast episodes.
Here we are.
Four months later, I stopped basicallydoing all the collaborations that
I was doing in full transparency.
I was kicked out of a couple of them.
Like that contributes to the larger,bigger story that I'm not getting into.
Um.
We'd be here for like literally hours.
But basically I went to ground.
I could have continued to pushthrough, and I was like, no.
(15:44):
This is a clear sign oflike, just, just, just go.
Just be quiet for a second.
Just like listen to what.
What the situation is trying to tell,'cause I'm already getting such a clear,
the situation is trying to tell me things.
And so I just sat and I sat.
So to sort of interject, I workedwith someone a few years ago.
(16:07):
His name is Brandon Lucero and he's,he's, I've, I think I've talked about
him several times on the podcast andspecifically around this principle.
I learned so much from him.
I would say the biggest thingthat I learned from him.
Was, he says, I'm I, I don't knowthat I'm gonna get this exactly right.
But the gist of it is like sit in silence.
(16:29):
In fact, I have a mug from him.
He sent like this really nicewelcome kit and I, he sent a mug
and it says something about like.
If, if you need me, I'll be likesitting in silence or like I'm
somewhere off sitting in silence.
And the whole thing is like you haveto, you just have to sit quietly
sometimes with things to figure outwhat you're actually trying to do.
Anyhow, out of that silence.
(16:51):
Came his multimillion dollar per yearbusiness and so much of that resonated
with me and it has resonated atdifferent points for different reasons.
But this feels a little bit different.
Like this was really, I reallyhad to sit with very, very,
very uncomfortable situations.
Part of them my own doing, part of them.
(17:13):
Just sort of the circumstances of wherethings were, part of them, a deliberate
choice to walk away from things.
And this, none of this was like why Ireally feel like I'm burning things to
the ground because I've felt that severaltimes of like burn things to the ground.
This didn't feel like that.
This was just like, Ihave all the options.
I can come back and do anything I want.
(17:34):
Just, I really want tobe quiet for a minute.
And so I thought a lot aboutwhat really matters to me.
F first and foremost, Iam not money motivated.
I'm not money motivated, like at all.
I don't think I could have ran anonprofit for as long as I did,
founded a nonprofit and then rana nonprofit for as long as I did.
If I am a money motivated, if I was amoney motivated person, like I'm just not.
(17:56):
What motivates me is feelinglike I'm making a difference.
And getting that feedback and thatfeedback does not have to be direct.
That doesn't mean that people haveto come to me saying, oh, this was
so helpful, or, you did a reallygood job with this, or, wow, I really
got a lot of value out of that.
Indirect feedback shows me that too.
People who are showingup and using things.
People who I see out in the world getting,getting results from things, getting,
(18:20):
just reading people's body language inthe way that they're turning up, like
getting any kind of feedback that peopleare getting value from what I'm doing.
From that, that is where Ifind motivation, but it's
also where I find momentum.
And I just wanna point out for anyone who.
Anyone else who is outthere like, oh, me too.
I will also point out that there's a bigproblem with this and that is that you
(18:43):
can very easily start to look outsideof yourself to find the next thing and
to find to, like, you're constantlychasing that style of motivation.
You're constantly chasingthat feedback and chasing that
feeling of making a difference.
And I liken this to being aperformer who needs an audience.
The problem with that is that.
(19:07):
You can't always relyon an audience, right?
Like you have to practice.
You have to practice the way that youwanna show up in front of that audience
so that when the audience is there, youactually understand the assignment, you
understand what you're doing, and youcan feed off of the audience and the
energy of that audience to some extent.
But also there will be a part ofyou that can act with intention
(19:31):
and in a deliberate manner.
Right?
So it's that like, is it,is a, is business success
strategy or is it mindset?
It feels very similar to thatsort of debate where like,
no, actually it's, it's both.
It's like a both end.
And so this sense of like, I wantto feed off of people's energy of,
that's where I feel motivation.
Like when I feel like I'm making adifference where I feel like people are,
(19:53):
are, you know, they're getting somethingout of this, having that audience there.
You, it's the both end.
Like you have to be able toshow up for yourself first.
You have to put the, put thereps in so that you're ready
when there is the audience.
You know what I mean?
I also in like looking at what isreally important to me, what matters
to me through the lens of like, I'mnot really money motivated, I'm also.
(20:16):
I am coming back to,I'm a nonprofit founder.
I lived in the nonprofitworld for a really long time.
I understand funding, I understandhow to write for funding.
I've received a lot of funding.
I feel very at home in this world,and funding was literally one of the
foundational tenets of visionaries.
When I started visionaries, I said, Iwant other women founders to understand.
(20:37):
Funding.
I want them to understand profitand generating more profit and
having more robust and more healthyprofit margins and all that.
And also I want people tounderstand funding and be
able to make a, an intentionalchoice of how to engage with it.
So I allowed myself basically to makethe bare minimum over the summer.
(21:01):
I way reduced my income,which was a little scary and.
I wound up deciding to offer a grantbecause of this, and it made no sense.
It made the least amount ofsense of anything I think I
have ever done in my business.
In, I would say the last time somethingI did made less sense would've been
(21:23):
me starting a playwriting competition.
And the, the interesting thing about thatis the playwriting competition was the
thing that put my theater on the map.
Before that, I think the craziest thingthat I did was go from a home-based
business into signing my first commerciallease and going into a brick and mortar.
(21:43):
So like the things that I've donethat have made the least amount
of sense are the things that havehad the biggest payoff for me.
And they don't always work out that way.
Like there are lots of thingsthat I've done that didn't make
sense, that did not wind up workingout, but they didn't break me.
And the things that I did that I followed,that did not make any sense whatsoever.
(22:05):
Wound up being the things that ultimatelyI think gave me such extraordinary
momentum and put me on a trajectory that.
In a lot of what, like this soundsdramatic, but in a lot of ways completely
changed my life and my business becausethey're things that, like I said, they
kind of put me on the map and I didn't,I didn't correlate the two things at all.
(22:27):
I was not thinking about I'mgonna, I'm gonna start this
grant and it makes no sense.
And the last time I did something thatdidn't make any sense, it like wound
up really launching my entire business.
And I wound up getting, like, I hadnational press and I had like all of
these things started to happen and.
I wasn't equating the two things becausebetween then and now I did other things
(22:49):
that felt insane, that did not work out.
So it wasn't like, wow, I'm just, I'mfinally allowing myself to do this in
insane thing, but I allowed myself todo this insane thing and it, I will,
I will stand behind, behind this.
It has wildly, drasticallychanged my business, and I don't
(23:11):
think it's the grant itself.
Hmm.
It's not the visibility aroundthe grant that has done the
things that are moving my businessforward in the way that they are.
I think that it is partiallyresponsible, but I think it's more
what it's done to me, what I have seen.
It's that momentum.
It's that feeling like I'm helpingpeople piece that has reignited a
(23:37):
passion for the business in me that Ihave not felt in since I had my theater,
since I had my performing arts studio.
And that has sort of just spiraledinto things that I feel like I'm
capable of, that I haven't felt likeI'm capable of in a really long time.
And in a way that.
(23:58):
I dunno, I guess I haven't evensaid any of this stuff out loud.
I did say to my friend Maria,'cause this wound up leading into
where I was like, oh my gosh.
All of a sudden I'm very overwhelmed withall the things I'm, I'm I have to do.
This is something that I do want totalk about through this, but I'm gonna
kind of come back to that in a second.
To say that I wound uptalking to my friend Maria,
who is also an energy healer.
I said to her, oh man, I've been so busy.
(24:20):
And I'm like, everythingis just all over the place.
I've got so many things going onand it kind of feels problematic.
And I'm trying to remind myself,like, I'm not someone who talks about
prayer, but there's a saying thatyou're living an answered prayer.
And that's what I kept coming backlike I feel like in so many ways
I'm living an answered prayer.
Mm-hmm.
(24:40):
Even though that's the prayer word is notnecessarily something I resonate with.
I hope that makes sense.
That like, this is what I askedfor, this is what I've been wanting
to have this level of feedbackand momentum, like this is what I
thrive on because all of a sudden.
It was things were just shiftingvery, very, very, very quickly.
(25:02):
My email list has grown rapidly.
I've started inviting people intothe Visionaries Collective, which
I've said like it was, it felt likesuch a flop for so long of like,
this is just not going anywhere.
It's just not going anywhere.
I wound up changing the name.
I wound up changing the structure.
I wound up changing the things.
I felt very flaky around it, and finallywe landed at this place where I was
(25:23):
like, okay, the Visionaries Collective,and I started inviting people into it,
which is, it's a networking communityby the way, and I went from, mm-hmm.
Having like 20 ish, very unengagedpeople where like I'd show up to a
call and just hope that one person wasgonna show up to the, to a networking
quote unquote networking call.
(25:44):
And like basically overnight I woundup with 150 people and now there's,
on any given call, we've got like10 or 20 people who are there.
I wound up posting, um, a masterclassa couple, couple weeks ago that
I was genuinely like, I think I'mgonna have to upgrade my Zoom plan.
I don't like, I think I'm gonna run outof my 100 spots that you have on Zoom.
(26:05):
That didn't wind up happening,but there were still, I don't,
there were a lot of people there.
Like all of these things that I'vebeen wanting, they're happening.
And I want to note that allthis stuff is normal to have.
Like it's slow.
It's slow, it's slow, it's slow,it's slow, it's slow and slow.
And then it's not is normal.
It's also normal to onlyhave, you know, five or 10% of
your people engage with you.
(26:27):
Especially in a low ticket thing where,you know, like I said, oh, I had like 20
people and I was, you know, just crossingmy fingers that one person would show up.
Well that's 5% where, youknow, now I've got about 150.
But essentially like when I lookat things in the big picture, the
first 12 months of visionaries.
We did just over a hundredthousand dollars in revenue.
(26:48):
The next 12, I will put astake in the ground right now.
I bet it's gonna be morelike 400,000 in revenue.
In in cash received.
When you have extraordinarygrowth like that is fast.
That's faster than my performingarts studio moved, and it moved fast
when I, like, it took me years andyears to get to the point where I had
(27:08):
a hundred thousand dollars a year.
And then once I finally had my first, soI went from like, ah, I think I went from.
30, maybe $40,000 in a year.
The next year I finally did a hundredthousand, a little over a hundred.
That's pretty big growth.
That's like three x.
If it's, if I did 30 or 40,000, that'slike somewhere in the ballpark of
around three three XA 300% increase.
(27:31):
The year after that, Iwent from a hundred to 300.
I went from 300 to.
Five or 600 and from five or 600 to 800.
The LA the year before I closed, the lastyear we did about a hundred, uh, 880,000
in cash received the year had we finishedthe year based on what we were projecting.
Plus other funding that we were scheduledto get would've been one between 1.2
(27:54):
and 1.4
million.
And that is fast growth.
Like that's from one year to thenext, to the next, to the next.
That is fast, but in none of that.
There was nowhere where itfour Xed a 400% increase.
I'm thinking we're gonna 400% increasethis year with with visionaries.
That is insane.
(28:16):
Even 300% is insane.
That's fast.
And when you experiencethat fast of growth.
You, everything breaks.
I mean, there's no other way of saying it.
Everything breaks.
Like what?
What is happening?
What's going on?
Who am I?
Where am I?
What day is it?
What time?
What is going on?
I don't know what's going on.
And so suddenly I was spendingso much of my time on things that
(28:39):
I had never spent my time on.
And things that I had spent time on,but like now I was spending so much more
time on them where I was finding, I wasgetting inundated with email replies to
things of people who were thanking me, ofpeople who wanted to tell me their story.
If you are one of these people, I, pleaseknow, I definitely read your email.
And there were a couple of themwhere I was like, oh, like I, I, so.
(29:01):
So badly want to reply to this andI make a note that I'm gonna reply
and then like life just, it's been sobusy where I have to, I've had to put
boundaries on my time of, do I wantto work 80 or 100 hours a week again?
'cause that's how I was working whenI was in my performing art studio.
Basically like, I just, I, I just, Iwas like, what am I doing with my life?
(29:22):
I don't have time torespond to all these people.
There was just so much to do and suddenly.
I had all these otherthings that I needed to do.
My days were wildly different and it washard, like this is where I come back to.
It was kind like I had to keepreminding myself that I was living
in that like sort of answeredprayer because it was hard and.
(29:43):
Now on the other side of that, like Ican, I can very happily say that I've
started to find the balance or theword that I prefer to, that is harmony.
Started to find the harmony in thatI'm not quite there yet, but I am
finding like this is the way thatI can put boundaries behind it.
This is the way I mo, I canmove through this in a way
that feels like it has grace.
(30:04):
To my needs and is compassionate to thefact that I don't wanna spend all my time
and energy just working in my business.
I want to also have a richer life outsideof my business and like I get to have
the both end and I get to be present for.
All the things that I want.
You know, like all the thingsI, the thing the things we want.
Like I'm starting tofind the harmony in that.
(30:26):
Like I'm coming out of this reallyinsane season that happened and I don't
think it's going away anytime soon, butI'm coming out of the season around.
Just sort of how to, uh, the initialpoints of how to navigate it.
And I feel like I see the light ofunderstanding how to move forward.
And, you know, it was ultimatelya reminder for me that I
(30:46):
just needed better systems.
And I was really reminded of this becausealso in the middle of all this, I took
my dog in for a routine, just like hisregular checkup, and everything was fine.
Except everything was not fine andhe wound up getting diagnosed with,
with pancreatitis, which was really,really, really shocking and blindsiding
and difficult, like a totallydifferent kind of difficult, and all
(31:10):
of a sudden my, like I had a, I hada week where like it was this past
week where basically everything was.
It was just chaos because I hada complete lifestyle change.
All of a sudden I was like, I'm now andgoing to be for the rest of my dog's life,
cooking every single meal that he eats,or at least supplementing every single
(31:30):
meal that he eats with human, actualcooked food, and on a different meal
schedule and do just a lot of differences.
Right?
And so I was like, I need systems.
I'm busier than I everhave been and now, mm-hmm.
I've got the situationwhere like my dog needs me.
He's a service animal.
He detects when my bloodsugar gets too low.
And so like I want to take as good ofcare of him as he has always taken of me.
(31:54):
This is a non-negotiable for me.
I have to figure this outand I don't have a partner.
And so it is all me and my,my stepmom was quite helpful.
Like she did a lot of researchon things for me, but beyond
that, like it was all me.
And so like I basicallythrew my arms up in the air.
Then that week, like from Monday throughFriday, I wound up working like six hours
that week, and then I think I worked alittle bit more on the weekend, but it
(32:17):
was just like, I gotta do what I gotta do.
And so all of this was a reminder to methat like, you need systems for when.
Life happens for when your dog getssick or when your kid gets sick, or
when your parent gets sick, or whenwhenever life throws something your way.
And for when your business does inevitablyanswer the prayers that you've had for it.
When you experience growth on such amassive level and when you can see the
(32:41):
trajectory of, you're gonna continueto experience that growth on a massive
level, and you need better systems,like anywhere you feel frustration,
this is the hill that I will die on.
Anywhere that you feel frustration in yourbusiness is because you lack a system.
I would argue that anywhere youfeel frustration in your life
is because you lack a system.
Boundaries are part of a system.
Like where are you lacking?
(33:02):
Where are you feeling frustration,where are you lacking systems?
This is getting long, so I'm gonnaround this out here because the long and
short of this really is that you get todo things the way that you want to do
them and sometimes it takes a really.
Huge dramatic reminder.
In my case, at the end of theday, I'm glad that it happened
(33:22):
because it was a huge reminder of.
Like recalibration, itis time to recalibrate.
I didn't have to burn everything down.
I can come back toanything that I was doing.
I can do whatever I want.
I'm able to move forward and throughand out and around and back and forth
and whatever in any way that I choose.
But like it's time to recalibrate.
And anywhere that you're feeling anykind of off in your business, I would
(33:46):
greatly encourage you to sit in silence.
In the words of Brandon Lucero,just go sit in, go sit in silence.
Anyhow.
I think there's a bright future forvisionaries that I'm really excited about.
I'm gonna get other funnelsset up because I love funnels.
I love offering education.
I love.
Helping people in that way, but it'sgonna be a little bit different.
(34:07):
I'm gonna host my first event in 2026,potentially multiple, but like definitely
a big conference style event that I feelinsane that I'm even taking this on,
that I definitely feel like, wow, thiscould be, this could be really scary
because it's a huge financial risk.
Like there's so much that goes into it.
Um, speaker apps are going toopen soon for that, by the way.
(34:27):
More, more to come.
I wanna get more into media.
I already said I started a second podcast.
I'm gonna start a third podcast allaround funding that's coming here soon.
Mm-hmm.
And the big takeaway is.
You know, I'm gonna say it again.
If something does not feelright, go and sit in silence.
Figure out what works for you inunderstanding how to navigate that.
For me, the more I speak to theoutside world and take other input,
(34:50):
the more I'm likely to make adecision that is not right for me.
For me, I have to really go inwardand just listen to my own voice,
and that's where I find the answers.
What is that for you?
So.
Anyhow, I hope this was somehow insightfuland, uh, we'll be back soon with a, our
(35:11):
first guest episode in quite some time.
I would love if you have thoughts, I wouldlove to hear from you on social media.
Send me an email.
I get a lot of email.
I can't promise I'll respond to anemail, but I will do my best, I promise
I will read it and, um, yeah, I hopethings are going extremely well with you
and I will catch you in the next one.
Welcome back.
(00:01):
It's been, it's been a long time.
It's been almost four months, I think so.
I think it was May.
So yeah, almost four months at the end ofMay, so almost four months since I last
posted an episode of the Visionary Files.
And so much has happened since then.
I had a really crazy spring.
(00:21):
I made a decision that it didn't feellike a big decision at the time, but
it completely changed the trajectoryof my business and is a, it's, it's
really allowed me to do a lot of thethings that I've been wanting to do
with visionaries and that one single,what seemed like, it seemed like an
insane decision, but it seemed like avery simple decision has led to in turn,
(00:44):
like an insane amount of growth in areally, really short amount of time.
And I'm gonna tell you all about it.
So.
We're gonna, we're gonna getinto all of it really quickly.
I do also want to let you know that sinceyou're here on the podcast, I actually
started a second podcast last week.
It's called Scale Your Vision, andit's because I wanted to have a
(01:06):
place to put these solo episodes,like these random solo episodes,
which are a lot of the last.
Few episodes that I had been posting.
They were all solo episodes and theyreally don't fit with what I was trying
to actually do with this podcast.
And this podcast has been through so manyiterations of so many different things.
But anyhow, I was like, thisreally, like I, this podcast is not
(01:29):
really doing what I want it to do.
And so I started a second podcast.
So that I have a place to put very,very strategic solo style episodes.
Uh, so starting this week, itwill definitely be this week.
I don't know when you're gonna hear this.
Depending on when this episodereleases, it will either be the day
after this episode or the day afterthat where guest episodes are going to
(01:52):
finally start re-releasing here on thevisionary files that are case study
ish, like the episodes that I have.
In the bank are, they were intendedto kind of be case studies, but I
also, they were like all, I justcouldn't find my footing of where
I really wanted to go with them.
But anyhow, guest episodes aregoing to continue and go from there.
(02:14):
I have like a whole, I have a hugebank of episodes to release, so
that's going to start again this week.
And then as the year goes on and weget through that bank of episodes,
I'm going to transition to.
Basically solely case study formatwith still like some like growth
journeys, um, along the way.
So anyhow, the episodes that I'mpublishing over at Scale, your
(02:37):
vision are basically like strategicmini business masterclasses is
kind of what I'm positioning at it.
It adds, which is like, that'sreally what it's turning into.
So if you wanna check that out,I will link it in the show notes.
And with that said, let's get to it.
So to rewind and recap, sort of what,I've had several episodes that are
(02:58):
like how I've gotten to this pointand how I've made big decisions.
I've made big, big pivots in thelast couple of years, and I've
said this before on this podcast,that I don't know how something
feels until I'm starting to do it.
And part of that feels really unfortunate.
Like, I feel like anytime I makea big pivot, it's because I had to
(03:19):
put something out into the worldthat I thought was gonna be like,
I didn't put it out into the world.
'cause I was like, I just wanna test this.
I mean, it was, I knew it was a test,but it was usually because I had a
good feeling about it and I just don'treally know what it's gonna do until I.
Actually get it out into the world.
Like I need a, I need a test group atsome point in the future or something.
I don't know.
But I've made a lot of different shiftsand I felt, the last couple years
(03:43):
I've felt really all over the place.
This last year, I have not feltall over the place, even though
I have once again made what hasturned out to be a big pivot.
But it wasn't done asan intentional pivot.
It just sort of happened and.
Yeah.
So anyhow, what got me to that point,I'm like, where do I wanna go with this?
(04:05):
I have bullet points writtendown, but I have so many different
things that I could say about this.
So, to sort of rewind, Istarted a business called Biz
and Bubbly at the end of 2020.
In like the second half of 2020, andI didn't really do anything with it.
I just knew that I wanted it to bea media and events company, but I
(04:26):
was also like I'm transitioning intocoaching, like I'm going to start
business coaching or business consulting,and I know that that's gonna be the
thing that's gonna make money faster.
And I don't really understandhow to start a media business.
I don't really understand how to.
Create a business that will generaterevenue solely through community.
(04:47):
And so like, that's gonnabe on the back burner.
And so it stayed on the back burner andeventually like it completely fizzled off.
And I like, it was alwaysthere in the back of my mind.
I'm gonna do something with this.
And I did here and there,kind of do things with it.
But then when I really started.
To go all in on it, which I'm sure Ihave a podcast episode around this.
(05:08):
It would've been like endof 2023 going into 2024.
Someone had already registeredthe trademark that it wasn't
exactly Biz and Bubbly.
It was really, really similar to it.
Again, if you go back and listen to theepisode, that's like a story of cease
and desist and how I lost my whole brand.
It's that.
It's that episode, and I'm like,well, I started Biz and Bubbly Back.
And then I lost the whole thing because Igot a cease and desist that I had to stop
(05:33):
using the name because they had alreadytrademarked it and it had been accepted.
Now had, I don't really want toget into all this, but like had I
discovered that this person had a.
I started the process ofregistering a trademark.
I could have objected to it because Iwas using it before this person was.
And in the United States, like mynon-legal understanding, my non-lawyer
(05:55):
understanding of the way trademark lawworks in the United States is that it's
first to use, not first to register.
So like there's all kinds of stuffthere, but ultimately I was like,
this is not a battle I want to fight.
Like this is, I just don't, I'm just not.
That invested in this.
I was really, I felt very sentimentalabout the name for a minute in the
(06:17):
big scheme of things, like when Ilook back on it, I'm like, oh no.
It was really just a minute.
I got over it very, very quickly.
Um, but I was just like, I reallydon't wanna fight on the, like, I've
had so many fights in the last coupleyears myself with other people.
I just don't, I don't, I just don't care.
It's fine.
Like there's, there's someone is cllike there's no one who is going to win.
There's going to clearly be a loserin this situation and it's fine.
(06:39):
So I just like walked away from it.
And then I started visionarieswith the same intention.
But I technically st you know, it wasa brand new business and visionaries
officially started on July 1st, 2024.
And that had the intention of beinga media and events company with.
The primary focus being on community,operational based education and funding.
(07:00):
And so when I went into this, I betalaunched a community, which I would
argue did not go well, did not go well.
And then I wound up having a hugefourth quarter, which I have lots of
podcast episodes talking about this.
If you, if you scroll back whereI talk about, like, I generated,
I dunno, it was like 1400 sales.
(07:21):
Within a month there waslike 2,500 sales within.
Um, a quarter.
I added all these email, like I've gotmultiple pod po case study style podcast
episodes on that, so I'm not gonna getinto it, but I had a huge quarter four
of 2024, and that led me to going backinto, I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna try to
(07:41):
finally get this community off the ground.
At the beginning of 2025, I was alsostarting to build funnels out and starting
to teach funnels because I had always.
Built funnels through my agency.
I was doing Done for you funnels, donefor you ads done for you launches.
And so I was like, thisnaturally makes sense.
I'm gonna, and funnels are like, it'sthe sales operations of your business.
(08:02):
When you systemize it and you putautomation behind it, that's part
of your operational infrastructurebecause it helps automate the, the
sales part and then the delivery piece.
Through onboarding and like there's,there's, without getting too much
into it, like there's a lot thatgoes into it, but to me, I think
about it as like sales operations.
And so it was all meeting this, you know,larger vision than I had of, I'm gonna
(08:26):
go in on the community and I'm going to.
Teach more on like the operational sideof things, and it makes the most sense
that I start with sales based operationsand how to automate some of this because
I've been building it for so many people.
I built million dollarsales systems for people.
Like I feel very, very at home hereand, and, and, and, um, and then
(08:49):
I also joined a mastermind at thebeginning of 2024, the end of 2024,
beginning of 2025 and everything,like I felt really good about it.
And everything seemedto be plugging along.
I had a goal at the beginning of 2025that I was going to make daily sales.
I was entering my hashtag daily salesera and it took me a little bit long.
(09:11):
I was like, I'm gonnado it by my birthday.
My birthday's January 25th,and that did not happen.
It took an extra month or so, but likeby the end of February, I was generating
sales every single day, mostly low ticketsales, and it started out being like.
Seven to $15 per dayevery day, seven to $15.
It was not, it was not alot of money by and large.
(09:32):
I was also still getting like myconsulting revenue and so like I had
other means of sustaining myself,but it was through visionaries, which
was technically a separate company.
Like I don't get consultingrevenue through visionaries, so.
Visionary started generating revenue everysingle day beyond, like it had generated
revenue in Q4, but then it was sustaining.
(09:56):
Evergreen revenue every single day.
Day in, day out, I was generatingjust small amounts of revenue
and then it started to grow.
It went from seven to $15 per day to20 to $30 per day to 40 to $50 per day.
To then it, you know, I had these spikesof like, oh, a hundred dollars in a day.
Oh, $200 in a day.
And so I'm gonna come back to thispoint later, but like it started
(10:17):
to do what I was wanting it to do.
It felt really slow,but I knew that it was.
Like it was going the waythat I wanted it to go.
It was going in the right direction.
At this point, I have hadn't evenstarted to put ads behind it, and
I really like to this day, I stillreally have not ever put ads behind it
because then everything went sideways.
So, gonna gonna, let's get into that.
(10:37):
I guess I was, I was gonna say,let's come back to that, but
No, let's just get into it.
Otherwise, this is gonna get reallylong because the thing that, well,
no, I, I wanna make one more pointbefore that, and that is that.
Yeah, even though things were likeon paper, looked like everything was
going in the right direction, I wasfeeling like I was starting to burn
(10:59):
out on things because people wouldbuy and then nothing was happening.
And now I didn't expect for people tobuy and then make another sale because
I had not properly set up all of my.
Backend systems to go fromlow ticket to high ticket.
That's a separate, like that's aseparate, it's a, it's a nurture
funnel that you have to build in therewithout getting too much into it.
(11:22):
Like I knew that my primary focus wasjust I was gonna do low ticket sales.
Like once I got that going, thenI was gonna figure out the sort of
the back end of things of where Iactually wanted to move people into.
But I was doing like small burstsof like very, very mini launches
of what I would call lazy launches.
They're my lazy style launcheswhere it was all email.
(11:44):
It was just, it was really small and itworked for what it was, um, which is what,
what the whole point of a lazy launch.
It's really, really low lift.
It's really simple to execute, and itwas generating higher ticket sales, like
a thousand to $2,000 off of the backend.
That was, they were relatively simple.
The problem that I was having with it.
(12:06):
Was, and I not, I've noticed this allthe way across the board, like I've
had people pay 10 grand for thingsand then never show up to use the
thing, which absolutely blows my mind.
But I know that in the one to $2,000range, there are going to be people who
buy it and then never show up to anything.
And that is what really started to happen.
And that's where I really startedto burn out, where I was like, I'm.
(12:30):
Doing the daily sales, like that's fun.
That for me was like an adrenalinerush to get, you've made a
sale, you've made another sale.
Woo.
You've made another sale.
Like there's the adrenaline and then onthe back end getting like ver very lazy.
Of higher priced sales, butthen no one was showing up
and that really bums me out.
And I was like, guys, I really wanna help.
(12:51):
Like I really wanna help you.
And I'm really trying to balancehandholding of showing up and like
pestering you about what can I do to help.
And just watching everyonenever ask for anything.
Never.
Saying, Hey, can you review this?
Hey, what are your thoughts on this?
(13:12):
Like, I'm here to help.
I know that a thousand or $2,000is not like I, I don't know.
I don't think that too many peopleare thinking that they're gonna have
this like really high touch coachinginvestment outta that, or high touch
consulting investment outta that,especially like a consulting investment.
But I like, please use me, please,U like please ask questions.
Please.
(13:32):
You know.
I have a, I have a vision where this isgonna get bigger and at some point I'm not
going to be as accessible, so ask me allthe questions while you can't, like why
is no one showing up and asking things?
It was really frustrating and.
You know, we could, like, we couldhave a whole separate episode on
things I could have done better andwhat that looked like and what, what,
what went where and all the things.
(13:53):
But what that led me to washaving a really insane spring.
So I'm not gonna get into the detailsof the crazy spring, because again, we'd
be here all day, but it was one thingafter another, after another, after
another, after another, after another.
There were like wild financial thingsthat were happening there were wild.
Family things that were happening.
(14:14):
There were wild business thingsthat were happening, like one thing
after another that essentially.
At the end of the day, allreminded me they were excellent
reminders of why and how.
I don't want to be known as an onlinecoach, like I've been saying this
for years, that the online coachingindustry is, while I love the people
(14:38):
who are in the online coaching industry.
So I'm not set, like, there'snothing wrong with coaches.
I work with, I work with a lot of coachesand I love the, like, I love coaches.
I love what coaches aretrying to do in the world.
But for me, like the coachingindustry in general is extremely
problematic for a lot of reasons.
(14:59):
It is wildly unregulated.
There are.
Like, I know so many people whoknow nothing about the coaching
industry other than it's scammy.
Like that's the only thing theyknow about it, and it's because
it has that sort of reputation.
So the long and short of it is Iwound up stopping everything that
I was doing around Memorial Day.
I stopped trying to selleverything that I was selling.
(15:22):
I stopped.
Publishing podcast episodes.
Here we are.
Four months later, I stopped basicallydoing all the collaborations that
I was doing in full transparency.
I was kicked out of a couple of them.
Like that contributes to the larger,bigger story that I'm not getting into.
Um.
We'd be here for like literally hours.
But basically I went to ground.
I could have continued to pushthrough, and I was like, no.
(15:44):
This is a clear sign oflike, just, just, just go.
Just be quiet for a second.
Just like listen to what.
What the situation is trying to tell,'cause I'm already getting such a clear,
the situation is trying to tell me things.
And so I just sat and I sat.
So to sort of interject, I workedwith someone a few years ago.
(16:07):
His name is Brandon Lucero and he's,he's, I've, I think I've talked about
him several times on the podcast andspecifically around this principle.
I learned so much from him.
I would say the biggest thingthat I learned from him.
Was, he says, I'm I, I don't knowthat I'm gonna get this exactly right.
But the gist of it is like sit in silence.
(16:29):
In fact, I have a mug from him.
He sent like this really nicewelcome kit and I, he sent a mug
and it says something about like.
If, if you need me, I'll be likesitting in silence or like I'm
somewhere off sitting in silence.
And the whole thing is like you haveto, you just have to sit quietly
sometimes with things to figure outwhat you're actually trying to do.
Anyhow, out of that silence.
(16:51):
Came his multimillion dollar per yearbusiness and so much of that resonated
with me and it has resonated atdifferent points for different reasons.
But this feels a little bit different.
Like this was really, I reallyhad to sit with very, very,
very uncomfortable situations.
Part of them my own doing, part of them.
(17:13):
Just sort of the circumstances of wherethings were, part of them, a deliberate
choice to walk away from things.
And this, none of this was like why Ireally feel like I'm burning things to
the ground because I've felt that severaltimes of like burn things to the ground.
This didn't feel like that.
This was just like, Ihave all the options.
I can come back and do anything I want.
(17:34):
Just, I really want tobe quiet for a minute.
And so I thought a lot aboutwhat really matters to me.
F first and foremost, Iam not money motivated.
I'm not money motivated, like at all.
I don't think I could have ran anonprofit for as long as I did,
founded a nonprofit and then rana nonprofit for as long as I did.
If I am a money motivated, if I was amoney motivated person, like I'm just not.
(17:56):
What motivates me is feelinglike I'm making a difference.
And getting that feedback and thatfeedback does not have to be direct.
That doesn't mean that people haveto come to me saying, oh, this was
so helpful, or, you did a reallygood job with this, or, wow, I really
got a lot of value out of that.
Indirect feedback shows me that too.
People who are showingup and using things.
People who I see out in the world getting,getting results from things, getting,
(18:20):
just reading people's body language inthe way that they're turning up, like
getting any kind of feedback that peopleare getting value from what I'm doing.
From that, that is where Ifind motivation, but it's
also where I find momentum.
And I just wanna point out for anyone who.
Anyone else who is outthere like, oh, me too.
I will also point out that there's a bigproblem with this and that is that you
(18:43):
can very easily start to look outsideof yourself to find the next thing and
to find to, like, you're constantlychasing that style of motivation.
You're constantly chasingthat feedback and chasing that
feeling of making a difference.
And I liken this to being aperformer who needs an audience.
The problem with that is that.
(19:07):
You can't always relyon an audience, right?
Like you have to practice.
You have to practice the way that youwanna show up in front of that audience
so that when the audience is there, youactually understand the assignment, you
understand what you're doing, and youcan feed off of the audience and the
energy of that audience to some extent.
But also there will be a part ofyou that can act with intention
(19:31):
and in a deliberate manner.
Right?
So it's that like, is it,is a, is business success
strategy or is it mindset?
It feels very similar to thatsort of debate where like,
no, actually it's, it's both.
It's like a both end.
And so this sense of like, I wantto feed off of people's energy of,
that's where I feel motivation.
Like when I feel like I'm making adifference where I feel like people are,
(19:53):
are, you know, they're getting somethingout of this, having that audience there.
You, it's the both end.
Like you have to be able toshow up for yourself first.
You have to put the, put thereps in so that you're ready
when there is the audience.
You know what I mean?
I also in like looking at what isreally important to me, what matters
to me through the lens of like, I'mnot really money motivated, I'm also.
(20:16):
I am coming back to,I'm a nonprofit founder.
I lived in the nonprofitworld for a really long time.
I understand funding, I understandhow to write for funding.
I've received a lot of funding.
I feel very at home in this world,and funding was literally one of the
foundational tenets of visionaries.
When I started visionaries, I said, Iwant other women founders to understand.
(20:37):
Funding.
I want them to understand profitand generating more profit and
having more robust and more healthyprofit margins and all that.
And also I want people tounderstand funding and be
able to make a, an intentionalchoice of how to engage with it.
So I allowed myself basically to makethe bare minimum over the summer.
(21:01):
I way reduced my income,which was a little scary and.
I wound up deciding to offer a grantbecause of this, and it made no sense.
It made the least amount ofsense of anything I think I
have ever done in my business.
In, I would say the last time somethingI did made less sense would've been
(21:23):
me starting a playwriting competition.
And the, the interesting thing about thatis the playwriting competition was the
thing that put my theater on the map.
Before that, I think the craziest thingthat I did was go from a home-based
business into signing my first commerciallease and going into a brick and mortar.
(21:43):
So like the things that I've donethat have made the least amount
of sense are the things that havehad the biggest payoff for me.
And they don't always work out that way.
Like there are lots of thingsthat I've done that didn't make
sense, that did not wind up workingout, but they didn't break me.
And the things that I did that I followed,that did not make any sense whatsoever.
(22:05):
Wound up being the things that ultimatelyI think gave me such extraordinary
momentum and put me on a trajectory that.
In a lot of what, like this soundsdramatic, but in a lot of ways completely
changed my life and my business becausethey're things that, like I said, they
kind of put me on the map and I didn't,I didn't correlate the two things at all.
(22:27):
I was not thinking about I'mgonna, I'm gonna start this
grant and it makes no sense.
And the last time I did something thatdidn't make any sense, it like wound
up really launching my entire business.
And I wound up getting, like, I hadnational press and I had like all of
these things started to happen and.
I wasn't equating the two things becausebetween then and now I did other things
(22:49):
that felt insane, that did not work out.
So it wasn't like, wow, I'm just, I'mfinally allowing myself to do this in
insane thing, but I allowed myself todo this insane thing and it, I will,
I will stand behind, behind this.
It has wildly, drasticallychanged my business, and I don't
(23:11):
think it's the grant itself.
Hmm.
It's not the visibility aroundthe grant that has done the
things that are moving my businessforward in the way that they are.
I think that it is partiallyresponsible, but I think it's more
what it's done to me, what I have seen.
It's that momentum.
It's that feeling like I'm helpingpeople piece that has reignited a
(23:37):
passion for the business in me that Ihave not felt in since I had my theater,
since I had my performing arts studio.
And that has sort of just spiraledinto things that I feel like I'm
capable of, that I haven't felt likeI'm capable of in a really long time.
And in a way that.
(23:58):
I dunno, I guess I haven't evensaid any of this stuff out loud.
I did say to my friend Maria,'cause this wound up leading into
where I was like, oh my gosh.
All of a sudden I'm very overwhelmed withall the things I'm, I'm I have to do.
This is something that I do want totalk about through this, but I'm gonna
kind of come back to that in a second.
To say that I wound uptalking to my friend Maria,
who is also an energy healer.
I said to her, oh man, I've been so busy.
(24:20):
And I'm like, everythingis just all over the place.
I've got so many things going onand it kind of feels problematic.
And I'm trying to remind myself,like, I'm not someone who talks about
prayer, but there's a saying thatyou're living an answered prayer.
And that's what I kept coming backlike I feel like in so many ways
I'm living an answered prayer.
Mm-hmm.
(24:40):
Even though that's the prayer word is notnecessarily something I resonate with.
I hope that makes sense.
That like, this is what I askedfor, this is what I've been wanting
to have this level of feedbackand momentum, like this is what I
thrive on because all of a sudden.
It was things were just shiftingvery, very, very, very quickly.
(25:02):
My email list has grown rapidly.
I've started inviting people intothe Visionaries Collective, which
I've said like it was, it felt likesuch a flop for so long of like,
this is just not going anywhere.
It's just not going anywhere.
I wound up changing the name.
I wound up changing the structure.
I wound up changing the things.
I felt very flaky around it, and finallywe landed at this place where I was
(25:23):
like, okay, the Visionaries Collective,and I started inviting people into it,
which is, it's a networking communityby the way, and I went from, mm-hmm.
Having like 20 ish, very unengagedpeople where like I'd show up to a
call and just hope that one person wasgonna show up to the, to a networking
quote unquote networking call.
(25:44):
And like basically overnight I woundup with 150 people and now there's,
on any given call, we've got like10 or 20 people who are there.
I wound up posting, um, a masterclassa couple, couple weeks ago that
I was genuinely like, I think I'mgonna have to upgrade my Zoom plan.
I don't like, I think I'm gonna run outof my 100 spots that you have on Zoom.
(26:05):
That didn't wind up happening,but there were still, I don't,
there were a lot of people there.
Like all of these things that I'vebeen wanting, they're happening.
And I want to note that allthis stuff is normal to have.
Like it's slow.
It's slow, it's slow, it's slow,it's slow, it's slow and slow.
And then it's not is normal.
It's also normal to onlyhave, you know, five or 10% of
your people engage with you.
(26:27):
Especially in a low ticket thing where,you know, like I said, oh, I had like 20
people and I was, you know, just crossingmy fingers that one person would show up.
Well that's 5% where, youknow, now I've got about 150.
But essentially like when I lookat things in the big picture, the
first 12 months of visionaries.
We did just over a hundredthousand dollars in revenue.
(26:48):
The next 12, I will put astake in the ground right now.
I bet it's gonna be morelike 400,000 in revenue.
In in cash received.
When you have extraordinarygrowth like that is fast.
That's faster than my performingarts studio moved, and it moved fast
when I, like, it took me years andyears to get to the point where I had
(27:08):
a hundred thousand dollars a year.
And then once I finally had my first, soI went from like, ah, I think I went from.
30, maybe $40,000 in a year.
The next year I finally did a hundredthousand, a little over a hundred.
That's pretty big growth.
That's like three x.
If it's, if I did 30 or 40,000, that'slike somewhere in the ballpark of
around three three XA 300% increase.
(27:31):
The year after that, Iwent from a hundred to 300.
I went from 300 to.
Five or 600 and from five or 600 to 800.
The LA the year before I closed, the lastyear we did about a hundred, uh, 880,000
in cash received the year had we finishedthe year based on what we were projecting.
Plus other funding that we were scheduledto get would've been one between 1.2
(27:54):
and 1.4
million.
And that is fast growth.
Like that's from one year to thenext, to the next, to the next.
That is fast, but in none of that.
There was nowhere where itfour Xed a 400% increase.
I'm thinking we're gonna 400% increasethis year with with visionaries.
That is insane.
(28:16):
Even 300% is insane.
That's fast.
And when you experiencethat fast of growth.
You, everything breaks.
I mean, there's no other way of saying it.
Everything breaks.
Like what?
What is happening?
What's going on?
Who am I?
Where am I?
What day is it?
What time?
What is going on?
I don't know what's going on.
And so suddenly I was spendingso much of my time on things that
(28:39):
I had never spent my time on.
And things that I had spent time on,but like now I was spending so much more
time on them where I was finding, I wasgetting inundated with email replies to
things of people who were thanking me, ofpeople who wanted to tell me their story.
If you are one of these people, I, pleaseknow, I definitely read your email.
And there were a couple of themwhere I was like, oh, like I, I, so.
(29:01):
So badly want to reply to this andI make a note that I'm gonna reply
and then like life just, it's been sobusy where I have to, I've had to put
boundaries on my time of, do I wantto work 80 or 100 hours a week again?
'cause that's how I was working whenI was in my performing art studio.
Basically like, I just, I, I just, Iwas like, what am I doing with my life?
(29:22):
I don't have time torespond to all these people.
There was just so much to do and suddenly.
I had all these otherthings that I needed to do.
My days were wildly different and it washard, like this is where I come back to.
It was kind like I had to keepreminding myself that I was living
in that like sort of answeredprayer because it was hard and.
(29:43):
Now on the other side of that, like Ican, I can very happily say that I've
started to find the balance or theword that I prefer to, that is harmony.
Started to find the harmony in thatI'm not quite there yet, but I am
finding like this is the way thatI can put boundaries behind it.
This is the way I mo, I canmove through this in a way
that feels like it has grace.
(30:04):
To my needs and is compassionate to thefact that I don't wanna spend all my time
and energy just working in my business.
I want to also have a richer life outsideof my business and like I get to have
the both end and I get to be present for.
All the things that I want.
You know, like all the thingsI, the thing the things we want.
Like I'm starting tofind the harmony in that.
(30:26):
Like I'm coming out of this reallyinsane season that happened and I don't
think it's going away anytime soon, butI'm coming out of the season around.
Just sort of how to, uh, the initialpoints of how to navigate it.
And I feel like I see the light ofunderstanding how to move forward.
And, you know, it was ultimatelya reminder for me that I
(30:46):
just needed better systems.
And I was really reminded of this becausealso in the middle of all this, I took
my dog in for a routine, just like hisregular checkup, and everything was fine.
Except everything was not fine andhe wound up getting diagnosed with,
with pancreatitis, which was really,really, really shocking and blindsiding
and difficult, like a totallydifferent kind of difficult, and all
(31:10):
of a sudden my, like I had a, I hada week where like it was this past
week where basically everything was.
It was just chaos because I hada complete lifestyle change.
All of a sudden I was like, I'm now andgoing to be for the rest of my dog's life,
cooking every single meal that he eats,or at least supplementing every single
(31:30):
meal that he eats with human, actualcooked food, and on a different meal
schedule and do just a lot of differences.
Right?
And so I was like, I need systems.
I'm busier than I everhave been and now, mm-hmm.
I've got the situationwhere like my dog needs me.
He's a service animal.
He detects when my bloodsugar gets too low.
And so like I want to take as good ofcare of him as he has always taken of me.
(31:54):
This is a non-negotiable for me.
I have to figure this outand I don't have a partner.
And so it is all me and my,my stepmom was quite helpful.
Like she did a lot of researchon things for me, but beyond
that, like it was all me.
And so like I basicallythrew my arms up in the air.
Then that week, like from Monday throughFriday, I wound up working like six hours
that week, and then I think I worked alittle bit more on the weekend, but it
(32:17):
was just like, I gotta do what I gotta do.
And so all of this was a reminder to methat like, you need systems for when.
Life happens for when your dog getssick or when your kid gets sick, or
when your parent gets sick, or whenwhenever life throws something your way.
And for when your business does inevitablyanswer the prayers that you've had for it.
When you experience growth on such amassive level and when you can see the
(32:41):
trajectory of, you're gonna continueto experience that growth on a massive
level, and you need better systems,like anywhere you feel frustration,
this is the hill that I will die on.
Anywhere that you feel frustration in yourbusiness is because you lack a system.
I would argue that anywhere youfeel frustration in your life
is because you lack a system.
Boundaries are part of a system.
Like where are you lacking?
(33:02):
Where are you feeling frustration,where are you lacking systems?
This is getting long, so I'm gonnaround this out here because the long and
short of this really is that you get todo things the way that you want to do
them and sometimes it takes a really.
Huge dramatic reminder.
In my case, at the end of theday, I'm glad that it happened
(33:22):
because it was a huge reminder of.
Like recalibration, itis time to recalibrate.
I didn't have to burn everything down.
I can come back toanything that I was doing.
I can do whatever I want.
I'm able to move forward and throughand out and around and back and forth
and whatever in any way that I choose.
But like it's time to recalibrate.
And anywhere that you're feeling anykind of off in your business, I would
(33:46):
greatly encourage you to sit in silence.
In the words of Brandon Lucero,just go sit in, go sit in silence.
Anyhow.
I think there's a bright future forvisionaries that I'm really excited about.
I'm gonna get other funnelsset up because I love funnels.
I love offering education.
I love.
Helping people in that way, but it'sgonna be a little bit different.
(34:07):
I'm gonna host my first event in 2026,potentially multiple, but like definitely
a big conference style event that I feelinsane that I'm even taking this on,
that I definitely feel like, wow, thiscould be, this could be really scary
because it's a huge financial risk.
Like there's so much that goes into it.
Um, speaker apps are going toopen soon for that, by the way.
(34:27):
More, more to come.
I wanna get more into media.
I already said I started a second podcast.
I'm gonna start a third podcast allaround funding that's coming here soon.
Mm-hmm.
And the big takeaway is.
You know, I'm gonna say it again.
If something does not feelright, go and sit in silence.
Figure out what works for you inunderstanding how to navigate that.
For me, the more I speak to theoutside world and take other input,
(34:50):
the more I'm likely to make adecision that is not right for me.
For me, I have to really go inwardand just listen to my own voice,
and that's where I find the answers.
What is that for you?
So.
Anyhow, I hope this was somehow insightfuland, uh, we'll be back soon with a, our
(35:11):
first guest episode in quite some time.
I would love if you have thoughts, I wouldlove to hear from you on social media.
Send me an email.
I get a lot of email.
I can't promise I'll respond to anemail, but I will do my best, I promise
I will read it and, um, yeah, I hopethings are going extremely well with you
and I will catch you in the next one.
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