Rachel Rodgers: The Million Dollar Mindset

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24:51In something like a coaching business, you are simultaneously working in the business, creating the content as well as on the business. Yes. How do you balance the two? Well, it was challenging for sure. But I, because I had a team in my law practice, I always knew to hire. So I hired help as soon as I could. Pretty early on in my coaching business, I was hiring other coaches and training them to help me serve my customers. and then I also did things that were like scalable like I'd record the trainings once and then just have you know every new cohort would watch these same trainings that were recorded one time so always trying to find ways to like work smarter not harder and be strategic and that's like a lot of the intellectual property right like Beyonce she's gonna sing a song and she's gonna record it and then you get to hear it a million times a day right like however many streams right right but she's not singing it for us each time she's gonna lay it down once and then we can listen to it on demand and it's similar with courses or other educational content.

25:48I think really probably any service provider or even retail stores could have some aspect of their business where if there's something that you're constantly saying over and over again, just record it, right? Like how could you make it simpler for people to just receive that information at the right time and build a system or process so it's not always you. So I think those are the things that help to make it easier. But for sure, there were periods where I was like overworking and trying to do everything myself because I just was being a control freak. And also just, you know, nervous, not having, haven't figured out the system yet.

26:22Sometimes you just got to be in there to be like, Oh, actually, if I did it this way, that would be less work. So it takes time to figure that out. Now I do not work in my business that much. It's mostly my team who's delivering all of our services. We have a team of 25 full-time employees and my job is really to be a brand ambassador and let the world know about what we do. And then what I'm doing is honing our content and improving it and editing it, creating new books and new content. So that's kind of really my role now. And then just creating the vision for the future of the business at this point.

26:59So yeah, I don't actually have to work. I just really like to. On the subject of hiring. So that actually reminds me of something that you've written about, which is the difference between, and because we don't cuss on the show, I'm just going to say broke. Ah, now we can say it. Broke-ass decisions. Broke-ass decisions versus million-dollar decisions. So you lay down a distinction here. It involves hiring, but it goes beyond that. Yes. So a broke ass decision would be one would be not hiring help in your business, but another would be not hiring somebody to do your laundry. Yes. Tell us about that.

27:42So broadcast decisions are kind of the real reason why I created this is because in order to become wealthy, to become more abundant, to become a millionaire, you have to make million dollar decisions. So you have to be making decisions that lead you to that place. If you are making decisions from a place of like restriction and holding on to every dollar and that kind of thing, it usually doesn't lead to a lot of abundance, right? Massive abundance. And so broadcast decisions are ones that are very restrictive, that take away options that make you feel stuck. And million dollar decisions are things that make you feel more abundant, that allow you to take advantage of your ideas and creativity that help to move you into the next direction.

28:26And so an example would be like, oh, I want to, I need to buy a new couch. And so I could buy a cheap couch for 200 bucks and probably have to replace it in six months. Or I can buy a nice couch for a thousand dollars. And I mean, these are fake numbers because you probably can't get a nice couch. Yeah. You know, and then it's, it works for several years. So to me, that's the more abundant decision, you know, being like frugal is not always the most strategic option, you know? Right. So teaching people just how to take advantage of those opportunities to like choose the more abundant option. And that is what usually leads to becoming a millionaire.

29:05One example, you might be someone who says, okay, I'm going to spend a bunch of time trying to save money on some regular bills that I have. And so you call your phone company, you call your electric company and you call your credit card and you call these different companies to negotiate, renegotiate some things. And maybe you save like$78 a month going forward. And let's say you spent five hours doing that. Right. Or you could take that five hours and spend it learning a new skill or learning how to market the skills that you already have, learning how to make money. And then you make$785, right.

29:37Or$7 ,000 as a result of that. So it's like learning how to strategically spend your time on the things that are most profitable, right? Instead of the things that would save you a little bit of money, but it's diminishing returns. Right. How do you do that in cases where the value of a given hour that you spend in your business is not obvious? Yes, it's true. It's not always obvious, but I think it does require faith and some risk taking, right? It's kind of like, I'm going to value my time in this way. And if I'm going to do that, instead of spending, you know, eight hours on the weekend doing my laundry, I'm going to rest on the weekend.

30:14I'm going to do use a drop-off service. That's maybe cost me a hundred dollars, but I get eight hours back for a hundred bucks all day. I'd spend that. You know what I mean? Even if it was 200 bucks, take my money. You get that time back. You're rested. Now, Monday, you hit the ground running, you're energized and you're ready to tackle the problems that you have. You're ready to reach out to those clients, call them and say, Hey, do you want to hire us again? Right? Like then you're doing the money generating activities because you're not showing up to work on Monday exhausted. So that would be an example where, you know, you have faith that your time is more valuable.

30:46And how can you make sure that you get the value from that time instead of spending it doing things that exhaust you? And, you know, that excuse of I don't have enough time to work on my business. That's how you make time. Right. How do you even recognize the imposter syndrome that follows? Yes. Well, I think it really helps to have good friends. I think we all need a community of people around us who are also ambitious, who are also working towards similar things, who are cheering us on. And it could be like, maybe they're not an entrepreneur, but maybe they're an aspiring artist or author or whatever, or climbing the corporate ladder in their careers.

31:20And so you want to have a squad of people that are always cheering each other on as you move forward, because that's how I know. My squad will say to me, I feel like you are sabotaging yourself right now. Or I feel like you are letting fear take over instead of doing what I know you said you wanted to do for years. And so they encourage you in those right moments. They say the thing that's hard to say in those moments when you need that. And then of course, you are that for them as well. I think that makes a huge difference. And there's all kinds of different studies that I looked at, but one of them was students.

31:53There was two, there was one in Russia and there was one in the U S that looked at students, C students who hung out with A students, wound up getting better grades over a short period of time. Like their grades, all the C students, just from being friends with the A students, their grades went up, right? And there was a similar study in the US. And there's other examples of that. Like when we are spending time with people who are motivated, who are positive, we're moving in the same direction that we want to. It's like a rising tide lifts all boats. This doesn't mean like your unambitious friends, you can't hang out with them.

32:27I'm not saying that, but maybe you want to intentionally spend time with your ambitious friends and your friends who are also working towards careers and who get you and what you're trying to create in the world, you know, and who can encourage you and also point out when you're limiting yourself. In what ways does self-sabotage show up? Yeah. Well, an example would be, I have this opportunity and I make up excuses as to why I can't take advantage of it because I'm afraid. And I don't say I'm afraid. I might not even admit to myself that I'm afraid. It's just that, you know, it's like, I'll make up all of these reasons and we're really good because we're smart people.

33:03So we're really good. And I'm a lawyer. So of course I'm great at making a case for why I shouldn't do the thing that scares me. And that's why I need people around me, you know, cause I will absolutely convince myself. I think when you take risks on a regular basis and you challenge yourself to like go for the thing that you want, but you're a little bit afraid of and it works out and you're still here and you're not filing for bankruptcy, you know what I mean? Then it sort of encourages you like, okay, I've done it before. It's worked out. I'm going to do it again. Right. You know, so you kind of hone that skill to be able to take risks and challenge yourself and go for it.

33:40What are the things, so let's say someone starts, they've got a four figure business, right? They're regularly making a thousand dollars a month in this side hustle. And they want to scale from four figures to five figures, four figures a month to five figures a month. What are the ways in which they should be thinking differently to make that transition? Yes. The next most important thing at that level would be, first of all, just get clients. And so one of the things that I tell people to do is announce their business to everyone that they currently know. Because people usually run to, I need to build an audience.

34:15I'm going to start posting on social media. I'm like, that's great, but that's a long game. That's not going to start to give you results in five minutes. Like that's going to be two years. So, you know, so I'm like, how can we get there faster? And the way that we can speed that up is let's look at the people in your circle, who knows you, your professors, your coworkers, your neighbors, your friends, your family, all of them. I would announce to everyone that you've got this business, that this is the problem you can solve. Could they send you a client or would they like to hire you and just start to spread the word.

34:44And then of course, if you've had a couple of clients from that thousand dollars a month, I'd go to every single one of them and get a testimonial and say, what about working with me has been valuable for you and hear that. And then use all of that in your marketing, use those videos in your marketing and just be intentional about getting more clients. And I think once you get some more clients and you kind of pass that$25 ,000 or$2 ,000 a month, then the next step is, okay, now I need to start to build a list and build an audience. So maybe I get a mailing list going. Maybe I start doing a weekly content, like a newsletter or a podcast or something where I can reach people and show them my expertise.

35:19So I'm getting in front of more people. So that would be the next step that I would recommend. The other thing you could do is raise your prices because if you're a new entrepreneur, you probably are charging too little because that's just what we do in the beginning. And so like, if you double your price, now you're making$2 ,000 a month. you know? So that's also an option. And that's another form of imposter syndrome is charging too little. Exactly right. Exactly right. And it's so funny. I've been in so many rooms with entrepreneurs, you know, that have a hundred million dollar businesses and just, you know, huge companies.

35:50And it's so funny when they're interviewed or when they're talking and they're talking about like, what was an inflection point for them? What was the thing that helped them get to the next level? Half the time, maybe more than half, it's like we raised our prices. Literally, Literally, that's it. So I'm always passing that advice on to women entrepreneurs, to people of color entrepreneurs that I work with. And they're like, I can't raise my prices. People can't afford it. No one's going to pay that. It's all nonsense beliefs. But once you do it and somebody says yes, then you're like, oh, why was I playing myself all this time?

36:30you are right now you're interested in buying a business that's a completely different skill set yes than starting something from scratch can you tell us about that process yes well now we're an eight-figure business and so you know when we look at what are our growth opportunities I've built my team that I have now, which is an amazing team over years, right? Train them over years. And so when I think about like, okay, there's some aspect of the business, like if we want to add a department to our company, how could we buy maybe an agency that already has all that skillset within that company?

37:05We buy it. Those team members come, the systems and processes that make it all run come into the business. And now, you know, we spend some time integrating, but it's not going to take five years to build that team and to build those processes and systems, right? And it accelerates the growth. It's an acqui-hire. Exactly. Right. So that's one way to do it. And it could be like, if you look at your company and there might be a weakness within your company, like maybe lead gen is your problem. And so then you buy a business that has maybe a huge social media following of your ideal clients. You buy that business, the asset is that audience and the community and all of that.

37:40And now you've got lead gen for your business. Or it could be some aspect of our programming is is weak and we need more, I don't know, coaches. So maybe I'd buy a coaching business that has 25 amazing coaches on the team, as well as a bunch of intellectual property around training or something that maybe I'm weak at. And that would strengthen my business. So it's kind of like looking at what are the things, the problems that we're solving for now and how could buying another business and integrating it into our company solve that problem. Another thing that we do too is, it's not just that it's also, we have a lot of expenses, right?

38:17As you grow a bigger business. And so some of those line items could become profit centers instead. So how can we take something that is an expense and make it something that makes us money? Right. So it could be like, let's say I spend$50 ,000 a month on copywriting, right? So maybe I start a copywriting agency that is selling copywriting services to our same clientele who are all buying copywriting services anyway, so they could get it from us. And then we get the copywriting services for ourselves for free because we own the agency. So that would be another way to think about scaling at this level.

38:50Right. It almost goes back to when you were in college and you rented out a room in your home. Yes. Right. And so you took something that was an expense, which was your home. Right. Rented out a room in it. And so by virtue of doing that, you then got to live, if not for free, then at a reduced rate. So the business analog to that would be the copywriting example. It's something that's an expense, but then if you turn it into a revenue center, then you get it for either free or a reduced rate. Exactly right. And what you're pointing out is like these skills build on each other. Like building a business is actually not linear.

39:28It's like cyclical and you keep revisiting the same lessons again, but just at a higher level, more refined. Right. And so it's like your ideal client, right? You have to choose your ideal client in the beginning and you choose that. And then as you grow, it'll expand and things morph. And then you're like, wait, I feel like we've gotten away from our ideal client. Let's revisit this again. Or our ideal client has shifted, you know, or maybe we need to go a little bit broader because we're larger and we're serving a larger audience or we have capacity to serve a much larger audience. Right. Or we're in this vertical, but we could be hitting this other vertical.

39:59So So it's so interesting to see that in business, you're just having the same lessons over and over again, but at a higher level, a little bit more complex, a little bit more challenging at each level as you grow. And that's literally, we have something called the growth scale in my business, which is our coaching is custom to your revenue level in your business for this reason. And it's the same set of lessons, but it's like the version for the beginner. And then there's the version for like, I've just hit six figures. And then the version for, okay, I'm hiring my first employee. And then the version for, okay, now I need to build more systems and process.

40:31And now I can't deliver the services anymore. I got to have somebody else deliver it. And now I need to hire a leadership team, right? It's like, it's the same set of lessons, but it's a different version at each level. It's fascinating to me. It's so fun. It's like a science. It really is. We recently hired two full-time positions through Indeed.com, but they needed very different skill sets. So one of the positions was an executive assistant. The other was a customer support and operations assistant. Those are different skill sets, different job requirements, different types of experience. And so finding the right person with the right skills, that really matters.

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43:04We talked about going from four figures a month to five figures a month in terms of annual revenue. how is going from seven figures to eight figures? How is that different? Yes. It's fascinating because you have a lot more money, but you also have more expenses. And I feel like I've done it. And then I have clients that have done it as well. I almost feel like you have new money problems, right? Like you're like, okay, how can we solve this problem for less expense so that we can maintain our healthy profit margins? Right. Or we have a pipeline problem. Like we need more team to serve the amount of customers that are coming to us.

43:41But those team members are not readily available. So now we need an internal training program to create the employees that we need. Right. So, yeah, it just gets a little bit more complicated. And for us, it was fascinating. Like we got to eight figures in 2021 for the first time. And I feel like in 2023 is when we actually started to build systems and a team that was really an eight-figure team. It was like we had to grow up and grow into these new boots. You know what I mean? It's like you've got these boots on and they don't quite fit and you're flopping around and things are messy. And what happens is you outgrow everything.

44:17You outgrow some of the contractors and agencies that you've been working with for 5, 10 years. You might outgrow systems that used to work for you, but now they don't work at scale. like your team's gotten too big or your clientele, there's too many of them. So it's just like so many things need fixing and need to be like almost expanded to serve this. It's like you need an expanded foundation to serve this larger company. Right. So, and you don't think that in the beginning, you're just like, oh, we're at eight figures now. Great. You know, and then you learn a lot of messy lessons for like a year or two.

44:50And then you're like, no, actually now we were making the revenue of an eight figure company, but we really weren't an eight figure company yet internally. Right. And I think it took us about two years. And now I feel like, okay, now we've got the systems in the team. Now we can feel the momentum of spending that year or two, like sort of toiling and fixing things and expanding. Right. And replacing some contractors or agencies with contractors or agencies that can serve a business of our size. It's messy, but it's also fun. Right. Yeah. When the internal structure has to keep up with the growth that you've had.

45:26Exactly. When something like that happens, how do you know whether you should turn your attention towards just continuing to grow more, like get more revenue and have faith that the internal structure will fix itself over time? Yes. Versus like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We are bigger than we are ready to be. Yes. We need to just kind of pause on what we're doing and fix ourselves internally. Yeah. I think it's always all of these things are always happening at once. And we have different departments, right? Right. So like one department is working on shoring up internal functions and another department is working on getting new clients.

46:03Right. So it's kind of like you need to make money the whole time and make enough money to keep paying for all of these new systems that you have to build because the systems aren't free necessarily. Or the labor involved in creating those systems isn't free. So it's like you got to make the money to keep paying for it. And then you also have to be doing the work of building it. So it's almost like, you know, building a plane while you're flying it. It's really fun. And sometimes you're like, this is scary. Yeah. Sometimes the bolts come off and yeah. And you're like, somebody get out there with a drill real quick.

46:38Yeah. So, yes. But, but the beautiful thing is like when we have a larger team and we have a leadership team, everybody's got their areas of expertise. Like we have a systems director who's in charge of all the tech in the company. And so like, we actually have just moved over. We spent the last six months moving over from a membership site system and all of that. That was just not, it was like not handling the thousands of customers we had very well, but it was a mess and we knew it was a mess, but we couldn't fix it right away because we had to build a whole new thing in order to fix it. And that took six months.

47:09Right. So it's like customers are complaining and like, fix it now. You know, we hate this. Or some people even canceling because they don't have some of the functions that they want. And you're like, well, we really can't solve that problem today, but we can move towards it. And in six months it'll be solved. So one of the biggest things is like having entrepreneurial patience, you know, like you have to grow in your entrepreneurial maturity and your willingness to wait for solutions and your willingness to just, just deal with what you got to deal with while you wait for, you know, the real foundation.

47:42So, you know, that's something that like everybody on my team has been like, Oh my God, I mean, I have shame about our membership site, you know, And now finally, literally next week, we're launching the new version of our membership site. We have built a new app that is super slick and amazing. And so it's like we wouldn't be able to provide that solution if it had to be fast. Right. So you got to take your time to build over time. And yeah, you just don't get quick solutions like you used to. Right. Right. Yeah, no, I know that I have shame about my newsletter. Like there's so much I have to fix there.

48:16There's just there's so much. There's always like it's like a house. It's like buying an old house and, you know, it's like the bathroom needs a little update or like the cabinets are a little janky. You need to replace. There's just the door doesn't close quite right and you got to fight with it. There's always a project and a business is similar. Right, right. OK, this might be a very granular question, but as the team grows, how do you like on one hand, you've got to keep everybody in the loop on what's going on. But you don't want to drown them in emails and Slack messages. How do you hit that balance?

48:48Oh, my gosh. team communication is huge and this is a huge part of what helps you to scale from seven to eight figures and i mean we had team communication systems built for seven figures because once you have more than let's say i had someone tell me the analogy is once you have more people that can fit in a car like so like more than four or five people yeah it's like you told one person but you forgot to tell the other person yeah and then like the other person still thinks we're doing the old plan and the new person knows we're doing the new plan and we're going like this and we're to be going like this.

49:17So you have to build systems for that. And so the team communication, that's why we have an HR department, literally that's part of their job. So we have like a team newsletter. We have a team meeting every week where like these kinds of announcements are shared. There's departmental meetings every week. We have every single employee gets a one-on-one with their supervisor every other week. And then we, everybody does a weekly report at the end of the week. They'll say like, here's what I worked on. Here's how I'm feeling because we want to check in. How are you feeling about your work? And then also here's what I'm going to work on next week.

49:48And so that's like the supervisor can read that for their whole department and get a sense of what is everybody doing. And then the president of the company, she, and it used to be me, but now it's my president. She reads it for all of our leaders. So that's how you are able to like really quickly get a pulse of what's going on across the business without talking to all 25 people. So you have to build those systems and that architecture. It's annoying at first because people are like, why do I have to fill out a weekly report? I'm done for the day. On Friday, the last thing I want to do is fill out another thing.

50:17I want to be done and go enjoy my weekend. But we had to help them to understand why this is important, how this helps us to all stay on the same page. We are Notion people. So we have a whole intranet, right? For our team where every HR policy is in there. All of our systems for marketing are in there. All of our processes for operations are in there. And so that's where everything, it's like the source of truth for how hello seven runs, you know? And so that's where people have their Slack open, which is how we do team communication. And then they've got notion open, which has all of the templates and step-by-step processes for everything they need to do in their job.

50:55And that's how we get things done. It's a beast. And there are things that sometimes people are like, wait, I thought we were, sometimes we're moving quickly. And it's like, I thought we were doing this. Why are we doing this thing now? So we do still drop things from time to time, but we try to keep us all on the same page with all of these systems of communication. Yeah. It's a whole thing. How did you figure out, you decided to consciously, intentionally drop a few things and simultaneously you're also interested in adding on a few things. You're interested in some investments. How do you make those decisions around what to intentionally drop and what to invest in?

51:34Yes. At a certain point, you have more opportunity than you can actually take advantage of and be happy. You could take advantage of all of it and be miserable because you're tired and not having enough time with family or enough downtime, enough time to take care of yourself. And so sleep is very important to me. Movement is very important to me, you know, just mental rest. And of course, time with my family because I got a mess of kids. You have four kids, right? Yes. And I like spending time with them. So really it's like, okay, I've got this kind of time. I have certain boundaries in place naturally.

52:08So like Wednesdays, I don't work. That's where I have a therapy appointment and there's literally nothing else on my calendar on Wednesdays. Unless there's a special event every now and then, but for the most part on Wednesdays, it's blocked. And it's because I need to think I'm working on myself and therapy, you know, and I have to tell you as a CEO, you working on yourself, it has so much impact on the business. So that's really important, right? That's part of my job is to work on myself so that I can And make sure my limiting beliefs limits everybody on my team, right? Limits even our customers, right?

52:38It trickles down so much. And so working on my self-development is really important. So Wednesdays is for that. Fridays, I also take off just for like space. And I'll go on like daytime dates with my husband and that kind of thing. So I have some blocks in there. And when I find that those are being violated regularly, then I'm like, I need to cut something. You know, so it's like I have my parameters for when I work. I don't work on weekends. I don't work at night. And so it's like, what can I get done with these specific hours? And if it's, if it has to go beyond that, then something's got to get dropped.

53:11And it also happens like I go on retreats or I have like time where I'll just have a couple days off to myself or I'll go on retreats with some friends or go to a spa for a day. And with that thinking time, I can kind of check in with myself and see where I'm unbalanced. And sometimes it's amazing projects that I have to say no to. And it's hard. I used to not say now, but I know what that looks like. It looks like burnout and being miserable. So I'm like, not willing to do that again. So even if it's the most amazing thing ever, I'm probably going to say no. If like Oprah calls me and wants to do a project, then I will drop something else so I can do my Oprah project, but I'm not going to try to do that and everything else.

53:47But it was honed over time. I definitely had to get out of balance, you know, a few times to realize like, oh no, it's not worth it. It doesn't matter how fantastic it is, you know, to, to burn yourself out. Right. How do you know when you're burned out versus when you're just kind of tired? Yeah, there's a difference. There's a big difference. Because I think tired is like, I'm tired in the moment and rest will solve it. Going to sleep is not going to solve burnout because burnout is deep. It's actually quite scary. I've had that experience and it was years ago, but I literally couldn't get off the couch.

54:22I couldn't make a decision. It was like my brain function, just was not able to function at a high level like I normally can. So that's how I knew because I was like supposed to show up to work and I was like, I can't even have this conversation with this client. Like I, and I just was sobbing and I called my assistant. I'm like, I think I need you to cancel everything. And I had to get another attorney to one of my friends from law school to like cover for me for a month. And I just took a month off of work and laid on the couch for a month. This is when you had the law practice. Yes. Yes. Because I had just pushed myself so much because I thought I believed these old stories that making money is hard, that I have to work 80 hours a week.

55:00I believed all of that. And that's what it led to. And laying on that couch, I realized, oh, I need to spend some of the money that I have on hiring another lawyer because we have so much business. And if I'm not going to turn away this business, I need somebody else to help me do it. I hired another attorney. I made my part-time assistant full-time. And then we grew from there. That's why I teach these things because I don't want people to do what I did. And that's just like, some people live that way long-term. Right. I can't imagine it. I felt that way for a summer and I was like, never again, you know?

55:33Right. So learn those lessons and know that there's another way, you know? And I have to say, like, I've got more money than I've ever had in my life and I work less than I ever have in my life. So there's a different correlation that happens as you keep growing.

55:50and that scalability yes exactly exactly yeah and that allows me to look at what are the other opportunities for hello seven what are the other opportunities that are out there what are the other projects that i could do and other ways that i can contribute to the world so it's cool what are some of the things that you're most proud of i'm really proud of creating the hello seven foundation which is our non-profit and one of the things that we do is serve black mothers and babies because the infant mortality rate and the maternal mortality rate here in the U.S. is pretty terrible for black women.

56:23And it's something that really bothered me. I've birthed quite a few times and had my own traumatic experience and then also amazing experiences. And so I wanted more women to have access to that. And so we've raised a lot of money for that. We've been able to provide doulas for black women when they're giving birth and night nurses for them when they bring their babies home. And recently we had our event in Puerto Rico. And so we partnered with a nonprofit there and we gave them a$50 ,000 check, right? It was supposed to be 25. And I said at the last minute, let's double it. So we made it 50 ,000.

56:59They contact me a few months later and let me know that they built the first birthing center in Puerto Rico with that$50 ,000. It was like a dream that she always wanted, but she just didn't have the resources. And I didn't know that was her dream. I just wanted to fund her work because she was doing incredible work there, you know, taking care of mothers. And I mean, same stats, same troubles in Puerto Rico. And they built the first birthing center. So you could have like an assisted birth, you know, it's like you could have home birth or you could have hospital. There was no in between. And in hospitals, like 70 % of women were having C-sections because it's what's convenient for the doctors.

57:35They're not listening to the women. And so now women have an alternative choice, which is to have a midwife assisting them during birth in a beautiful, beautiful birthing center with like, they can do it in the tub. They have beds. It's a dignified way to give birth and honors women. And it's just like, that was amazing that I was just able to write a check that created something like that. So it just motivates me to go make more money so I can do more dope like that.

58:09Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Well, we're coming to the end of our time. Is there anything that I haven't asked about that you'd like to emphasize? Well, the one thing that I will share is for those who want to create a side hustle, I have a new audible book. It's an audible original called six figure side hustle, and they can listen to it. It's about like three, three to four hours. And it will teach you the step-by-step process for building your first six-figure side hustle. And the goal is to make six figures in 90 days. So we walk you through the process and there's so many examples from my clients in there too.

58:42So lots of motivation and inspiration and strategy for how to do that. Perfect. And you have other Audible originals as well. Yes. I have another one called plan your year like a millionaire. And then another one that's coming out soon called million dollar habits. So all designed around what are the things that we need to do? How do we need to change our planning process, our thinking process, our daily habits to move us towards the money we want to make? That's amazing. All right. And we will link to all of that in the show notes. Awesome. So thank you so much for spending this time with us.

59:11Thank you. What a great conversation. Absolutely. Thank you, Rachel. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, if you apply your brain towards the question of how do I make more money? And if you choose an ambitious but achievable amount, you will be surprised at what you come up with. So Rachel talked about her 10K in 10 Days challenge. Let's say that you needed to make$10 ,000 in the next 10 days. What would you do? How would you do it? 10K in 10 days, it's an interesting challenge because when you apply your brain towards that question, hey, I got to make 10 grand in the next 10 days, go.

59:52You'd be surprised at what you can come up with. we do this 10k in 10 days challenge in my membership community and so some of them have like cleaned out their garage and sold all the stuff in their garage and made five thousand dollars from like old skis that they're never going to use and other things like that that could be easy or it could be easy to say hey i know you ask me all the time about insert whatever area that you have some expertise on like it could be like you're really good at fashion and like finding really cute pieces and like putting together great outfits and your friends say oh oh, help me pick out an outfit for this event.

1:00:25What if you said, okay, I can help you do that. It's$500, right? And you start charging for that. Now, in this example, Rachel talks about somebody who made$5 ,000 just selling stuff that was laying around in their garage, you know, but that's one example. That's an example of monetizing your assets, right? When you're monetizing your assets, you could either be monetizing something that you own, or you could be monetizing your capital, right? You're putting your money to use so that your money makes more money. Like monetizing your assets is one way to make additional income. Another way to make additional income is to monetize your time, that time for money exchange.

1:01:02And another way to do so is by monetizing your skills, which is similar to monetizing your time, but more lucrative and also more fun. Now, Rachel makes a distinction between something like the 10K in 10 days challenge, right? That's a challenge that is aimed at getting you that initial win, right? 10K in the next 10 days. But there's a distinction between that initial win versus picking a way that you can make money in a manner that's ongoing, you know, something that you can sustain for years to come. And for something to be sustainable. It has to be at that intersection of what you're good at, what you enjoy, and what other people will pay you for.

1:01:49So I always encourage people, yes, I mean, look at the marketplace, see a need in the marketplace and match it with your natural skill sets, what you're drawn to, what you're interested in. I think if we try to force ourselves to do things that we hate, and you can start with something that you hate if you have to, but I think when you do that, you actually require so much discipline. And that's when making money is hard. It's because I hate this job. I hate doing this thing, but this is how I make money. So I have to force myself to do it. And it feels like hell, right? Yeah. Versus if it's something that you love and you do it for free anyway, you know what I mean?

1:02:22And you're lit up and excited to do it. Then that's a whole different thing. Then you're, when you get a job, you're like, yes, let's go. So you're doing it for money, but you're also doing it because you love it. And then it doesn't require so much discipline. you're going to get up and do it every day anyway because you just love it so much. Challenge yourself to make more money and do so in two ways. Number one, figure out how you can make more right away so that you get that small win. But number two, also think about what it is that you would do if you wanted to make more money in an ongoing sustainable manner.

1:02:52That is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, don't talk yourself out of it. So many people assume that something is out of reach. They assume the two worst words in the English language, I can't, right? People assume I can't and talk themselves out of a victory. And it turns out you're just getting in your own way. And they're like, I can't raise my prices. People can't afford it. No one's going to pay that. It's all nonsense beliefs. But once you do it and somebody says yes, then you're like, oh, why was I playing myself all this time? Beware of nonsense beliefs because those nonsense beliefs are how you hold yourself back.

1:03:35That is key takeaway number two. Finally, key takeaway number three. It's tempting to think that the process of running a business is linear. You make a mistake, you learn from it, you move on. You know, it's nice to think that it happens in this neat, orderly format. In fact, life hands you the same lessons over and over again. sometimes with more and more zeros at the end, right? With bigger orders of magnitude. That happens. That's life. That's okay. Building a business is actually not linear. It's like cyclical. And you keep revisiting the same lessons again, but just at a higher level, more refined, right?

1:04:15And so it's like your ideal client, right? You have to choose your ideal client in the beginning and you choose that. And then as you grow, it'll expand and things morph. And then you're like, wait, I feel like we've gotten away from our ideal client. Let's revisit this again. Or our ideal client has shifted, you know, or maybe we need to go a little bit broader because we're larger and we're serving a larger audience or we have capacity to serve a much larger audience, right? Or we're in this vertical, but we could be hitting this other vertical. So it's so interesting to see that in business, you're just having the same lessons over and over again, but at a higher level, a little bit more complex, a little bit more challenging at each level as you grow.

1:04:50So it isn't as though you're getting new lessons, but what's actually happening is you're getting the same lessons over and over and over, but you are getting more complex iterations of those problems. In the beginning, you get simplified versions. And as you progress, you get more complex, more detailed, more nuanced versions of these problems. Problems all the same, but you grow in sophistication over time. And that means your problem-solving abilities also grow in sophistication over time. And that is the third key takeaway from this conversation with Rachel Rogers. Thank you so much for tuning in.

1:05:33This is the Afford Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. Number one, share it with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing that you can do to spread the message of great financial health. Number two, please follow us on YouTube as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and any other favorite podcast player that you use. While you're there, you can leave up to a five-star review. Number three, subscribe to our newsletter, affordanything.com slash newsletter, where we share loads of information about the five pillars of financial success, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship.

1:06:14Fire with two I's. Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything Podcast, and I will meet you in the next episode.