The Fatal Flaw Women Make When They Leave Corporate for Entrepreneurship with Teresa Vozza: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation, JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by High Level, the all in one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down the fatal flaw women make when they leave corporate for entrepreneurship. To drop these vibe bombs, I brought to Teresa Vozza and EO Fire Studios. Teresa is a leadership expert, certified executive coach and NLP trainer who left corporate in 2022 to build a thriving purpose driven business. And today we talk about how women no longer want a seat at the table. They want to go beyond it. How being comes before doing.

0:33John Lee Dumas:How to build your business. Focus on what to do before how to do it. That's the key. And oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Teresa and our sponsors. Unify your financials, inventory, HR, CRM, and more into one source of truth with NetSuite, the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 companies. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, demystifyingai at nestsuite.com slash fire. The guide is free to you at nestsuite.com slash fire, nestsuite.com slash fire. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place.

1:13John Lee Dumas:And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Teresa, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:37Teresa Vozza:Well, hello, Fire Nation. I'm so excited to be here. And I am going to say, and this will perhaps make me unpopular, but I believe that when you are a new entrepreneur, you do not need to be visible everywhere, all the time, on all platforms. I am a big believer in one focus. And my model is built around one client, one problem and one solution. And I go hard on that. And that I believe is about being consistent. So that's my thing.

2:11John Lee Dumas:I think a lot of people are going to love you for that. I think people are tired and just exhausted about thinking they have to be everywhere at all times. And that's just not the case, Fire Nation. And today we are talking about that fatal flaw that women make when they leave corporate for entrepreneurship. And let's be honest, the great resignation is happening. And there are a lot of reasons that people are leaving corporate and people are leaving their dreaded nine to five or five to nine jobs to become entrepreneurs. So talk about some of the reasons corporate women are doing this.

2:45Teresa Vozza:Yeah, I am very passionate about this subject. And so let me make this really easy for Fire Nation. I'm a big believer in packaging things in threes because I believe that allows for everyone to just get this quickly and clearly. So let me start with number one. I believe that women are no longer interested in having a seat at the table. They want to move beyond the table. We all know by now and understand that the pay gap is a thing and that women earn 80 % of what male counterparts make and armed with the success that we have had in our corporate lives. Because let's face it, to be a high level executive, you need some business chops and you do need some serious sizzle.

3:33Teresa Vozza:So now I think women are just waking up and saying, I can push past that number easily as an entrepreneur. So that's number one. Number two, I think they desire much more flexibility and choice. We know, JLD, that the pandemic has been hard on everybody, but it's been very hard on women. Over 60 % of women are burnt out. And in my profession, it was over 90%. And I know this because I was one of those burnt out women. I was one of those women that had to be carried out in a stretcher due to an anxiety and a panic attack, just trying to keep up. So I think women now are realizing that they can control their schedule.

4:20Teresa Vozza:And this is highly appealing to them. I'll never forget the morning I woke up my first day being an entrepreneur, and I knew that I didn't have to clock into work. And just knowing that I was free of the tyranny of meetings was so freeing. And the third thing I'd say is you mentioned it to the great resignation. And the And I've heard it also be called the great pause. And there's been a huge boom in the personal growth industry, which has even gone even higher during the pandemic. And women are the biggest consumers of self-help, over 80%. And now we are all waking up to realizing that we want to be doing more.

5:04Teresa Vozza:And those are three of probably the biggest reasons I see.

5:07John Lee Dumas:I love all three of those reasons, Fire Nation. And I hope if you're listening, you can resonate with a lot of those, you know, even if you're not a female, because I mean, this can go across the board in some areas. And this kind of goes for the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is fear, because fear is part of being a human being. I mean, we are going to be anxious. We're going to be stressed out. We're going to have fear, doubt, the imposter syndrome. I mean, these are just all feelings that we'll have as human beings throughout our lives. It's just part of being that human being. But let's talk specifically about the most common fears that women have specifically.

5:39Teresa Vozza:The first one I hear a lot, and it's one that I used, is I'm not the entrepreneurial type. And they're afraid of the transition from being an executive to becoming an entrepreneur. So when I was, you know, at the C-suite, there was this stigma that the entrepreneur was always struggling to meet payroll or hustle for clients on a monthly basis. And look, I'm all about the grit and I'm all about the right kind of hustle. But when I hear corporate women say, I'm just not good at sales, or I'm not a natural, I always say to them, sales is about relationship. It's not about transactions. So we really work on banishing that limiting belief that women have that they're not the entrepreneurial type.

6:27Teresa Vozza:The second one I'd say is they lack confidence, right? This is another one I hear a lot of is, I'm too old, Teresa. I have too many responsibilities. you know, or I'm the main breadwinner, or I can't start over. So because I, my background is also in neurolinguistic programming, these are habitual ways of thinking that require new neural pathway creation. We know now that we can actively interrupt patterns to create new behaviors and new thoughts. So we work with our clients to help them create new modes of thinking, which require consistent and repeatable practice. And because I love threes, the third one hits right on the money of what you said, JLD, is I'm scared.

7:11Teresa Vozza:This is where one of the microcourses that I'll be offering Fire Nation will really help, is that when you decide to make this transition, you're going to have to become willing to embrace disaster. And you're going to have to have a rock-solid self-image. So we do a lot of work with women in actually identifying what kind of self-image is required for you to be a successful entrepreneur. And we actually have our clients create scripts and really read them on a daily basis to really strengthen that new neural pathway.

7:47John Lee Dumas:Now, even with people that are following this process and are listening to people like yourself and different things and consuming great content, there's still a lot of mistakes that people make when they take the plunge. And I want to speak right now to directly the most common of those mistakes that you see women make when they take this plunge into entrepreneurship?

8:06Teresa Vozza:If I had to pick one, JLD, is they give up before it actually gets going. One of the things that I see all the time is, you know, I'll give you an example from my own journey. Early in my entrepreneurial career, I made the decision at one point to run a$600 workshop for women who wanted to learn how to build resilience and use that as an advantage in their high-pressure roles. I marketed it on social. I had a nice blog. I used every mode available to me. Well, nobody registered. Nobody. And I was crushed. I mean, it almost broke me. I, you know, I came from a world where I was so used to success.

8:50Teresa Vozza:And here I am with zero attendees. So one of the things that I worked on with my coach at the time was that I needed to really spend a few days. Well, this is what I did. I spent a few days in a pity party, to be quite honest. And once I picked myself back up, I realized all I needed to do was change my strategy. So I learned about marketing. I created a better sales pitch. And guess what? You know, the next time I'd eight registrations and I kept growing from there. And that's what I call momentum. We need to wait for the momentum to really start building

9:26John Lee Dumas:That one word momentum fire nation. It is so hard to get but the beautiful thing about it is once you get it In some ways it's hard to stop. I mean, it's like that rock at the top of the hill Like it won't budge. It will not budge them at a hard you push it But when you finally get it tipped over that edge that snowball effect happens and boom you are going downhill that momentum That traction is happening don't let go and we're going to be talking about the fatal flaw fire nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors fire nation if you're growing fast your back end can't be stuck in slow motion bills flying in approvals getting bottlenecked vendors chasing updates that kind of busy work drains your energy and steals your focus that's where into it quickbooks bill pay steps in quickbooks bill pay helps you stay in your zone of genius by automating back end tasks I'm talking bills, vendors, payments, even 1099s.

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12:46John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Teresa, we're back and the fatal flaw. I mean, this is one of the keystones of our conversation today. This is the all caps fatal flaw that women make. So talk about this.

13:08Teresa Vozza:This is what the fatal flaw is. And I'm a big believer in this being precedes doing. So what I mean by that is if you are a woman in corporate leadership, and you are starting to seriously think about transitioning to being an entrepreneur, I believe that you have the benefit of learning about yourself before you actually take the plunge. And I was in a coaching relationship for nine months working on myself, my self-image, my beliefs, my core desires. And I knew that if I was going to take this plunge and this act of faith, then I needed to feel rock solid in my identity and I needed to allow for the expansive mindset to make room for failure.

14:02Teresa Vozza:And that's exactly what I did. Momentum grew, I grew, and my client list grew. That's how it works. And then you can get busy doing the things. And we all know what the things are, right? You know, logo, the website, the funnels, women who are focusing on that first are likely not going to hit the level of success that they can if they focus on who they are being and what they are believing before you start doing the things.

14:34John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, the fatal flaw, being, perceived, doing. I love that phrase that you talked about. I mean, that's just such a magical way to look at things. Now you work with women, Teresa. So how do you specifically prevent women from making the fatal flaw?

14:50Teresa Vozza:Great question. Well, the first thing I do is I encourage them before they even do anything to become a learner. So I will tell them to soak up that entrepreneurial energy. I will tell them to come listen to you entrepreneurs on fire because you provide tremendous value to your viewers. I will tell them to network like hell. And if you are in corporate, you do that now. So many women start to build their network once they leave their job. That's the wrong time. You want to be building relationships a few years before, even longer before you take any plunge. So I am a big believer that because you're so used to success, you're going to have to eat a little bit of humble pie and you are going to need to just allow yourself to be a learner, a follower, and be willing to screw up.

15:49Teresa Vozza:And we will help you in that journey and help you pick yourself back up with the right mindset strategy.

15:57John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, mindset is so key. When it comes down to it, like I look back at my mindset, it was not great back in 2012, but guess what? I hired a coach. I had a mentor, somebody who was currently where I wanted to be. And that person led me to the promised land. So let's end with the key to success for corporates turned executive. Break down that key.

16:19Teresa Vozza:Be a follower. Allow yourself to not be in the driver's seat, but instead to be in the passenger seat. This is the time where you are going to learn and grow the most. So allow yourself a good significant amount of time to really get super crisp on what you offer, what your value is, both as a person first and then as a business second, and you will soar.

16:49John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I love this message. I love the idea of you soaring. So I'm hoping you're listening. I'm hoping you're taking notes. I'm hoping you're taking in everything that Teresa is talking about. give us Teresa the one key takeaway what's one thing from everything we talked about here today the fatal flaw the fears the transition the common mistakes give us the one key takeaway you really want to make sure our listeners gets then share how we can connect with you I know you have a fantastic call to action for us and then we'll say goodbye focus on the what versus the how

17:23Teresa Vozza:the how is how you do things the websites the branding the logos the tools all fine and good You can hire a business coach to help you with all those things. But I would encourage you to focus on the what. What do you need to believe? What do you need to tell yourself? What mental habits are getting in the way? What lights you up? What do you need to let go of? Work on that first and you will set the right foundation for building the more tactical side of your business. and I have a great course that I'm offering for free for Fire Nation and it is the corporate turned entrepreneur mindset makeover.

18:05Teresa Vozza:It's a set of three shifts that I go through in depth. The three mindset shifts, the three behavior shifts and the three action shifts. And at the end of this micro workshop, I will provide a free 30-minute consult to debrief on your readiness results. And all of this can be found on my website, TeresaVoza.ca in the menu, Corporate Turned Entrepreneur Makeover.

18:32John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with TV and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com, type Teresa in the search bar. Her show notes page will pop up with everything that we've been talking about here today. Go directly, TeresaVoza.ca and that's V-O-Z-Z-A dot C-A. And one more time, Teresa, tell us what we're getting there.

18:59Teresa Vozza:You are getting a three-part video workshop from corporate to entrepreneur mindset makeover. And this is a workshop for corporate women who are thinking about transitioning to becoming a woman in business. You could be in a side hustle. You could not have gone over to the other side at all. But in these three-part videos, you will discover the three mindset shifts, behavior shifts, and action shifts.

19:26John Lee Dumas:Teresa, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

19:34Teresa Vozza:True pleasure. Thank you, JLD.

19:35John Lee Dumas:Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Teresa and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. Freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Unify your financials, inventory, HR, CRM, and more into one source of truth with NetSuite, the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43 ,000 companies. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get our free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash fire.

20:13John Lee Dumas:The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash fire. Netsuite.com slash fire. stop duct taping your business together High Level runs your website your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments and memberships all in one place and when you sign up at highlevelfire.com you get a 30 day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more visit highlevelfire.com highlevelfire.com