The #1 Question You Need To Ask Yourself

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You're listening to episode number 10 of Entrepreneurial Outlaws. I feel like I fell off the planet for the last couple of weeks. And if we are friends on Instagram or you happen to be on my email list and read my emails, you may have seen the reason why. I got really sick, really sick, and I had to make some hard decisions, like not recording this show. I mean, I physically couldn't record the show, but that broke my heart, especially because we were about to hit our 10th episode. So I'm back and I have a lot to say, have a lot of lessons to share with you because in the last couple of weeks, I have been forced to rest. I have been forced to slow down, only walk one to two hours a day. I have had to ask for help. I have actually been bored.

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I don't think I've been bored in years and I've actually been bored. But most importantly, the clarity and the evaluating I have been able to do for my own business and my own life has fed my soul. And it has allowed me to not only think about the kinds of opportunities there are in front of me, but also the kinds of opportunities there are in front of each of you and how I can start to talk about that and to share that with you on this show. So I am so happy to be sitting down with this microphone and talking with you. And I'm so glad that we get to do this again. So today's episode, I have a really, really important topic and question to work through with you. And I say work through, because this, this episode is kind of, it's born from a conversation with one of my clients and she and I have been doing some work together for a few weeks.

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Maybe even months now I kind of sent her a message one Friday saying, Hey, I have this idea. I want to do a mentoring program. Or I don't know something. I say, I don't know, because program doesn't feel like the right the right word, but I wanted to stop mentoring. I wanted to start mentoring, small business owners, creative business owners, people who don't fit in the entrepreneurial checkboxes. They don't fit in the box, the Outlaws. And I knew that this was something I was being called to do. And I absolutely adore this woman. And she happened to respond straight away and was like, I need this . Now let's go. And we started doing some work together. We've been working together for a series of weeks. I don't know. Very fast. Cool. I asked her a question, which I'm going to ask you and I didn't understand the importance I, or I should say it just felt like the right question.

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It didn't occur to me that it could be so powerful. And we've been speaking about this a lot. So I'm going to ask you the question I'm going to have you really think about this today. And we're going to talk about and unpack some of the surrounding this. So let's go.

You're listening to Entrepreneurial Outlaws, a podcast for creatives, introverts and paths and spiritual folks who want to grow a sustainable and impactful business on their own terms together. We are paving the way for a new normal in online marketing and business. One that allows you to lean into what makes you and your business unique. And I'm your host, Melanie Knights storyteller, Pinterest strategist visibility, coach and CEO of content are, can be marketing or non-traditional marketing agency for creative business owners who don't want to compromise the creative integrity to make money, get ready because each week we're having the messy, honest, and transparent conversations about entrepreneurship, the kind that's missing from the highlight rails of our social media feeds. And you'll learn how to create intention and connection behind your content marketing so that you can sell without selling out. We're uncovering the real stories behind what it takes to run a sustainable online business, the highs, the lows and everything in between, ready to break the rules and become an entrepreneurial outlook. Let's do this.

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Okay. So if you are listening to the, and you're not driving or walking, I want you to just take a moment to pause, close your eyes. Let me just kind of really like get into yourself. And I want you to just breathe. And I'm going to ask you the question of today's episode. What do you need? What do you need? This is a question that I asked my client on off fast. Cool. In fact, I asked her, well, what do you need from me? I didn't ask her what she wanted. I didn't show up with a list of products, offers rules or anything else or tools. I knew that in that moment, or I didn't know until afterwards, but what, what it was needed in that moment was about her. It wasn't about me. What did she need for me in that moment? And what unraveled over our coming sessions and conversations. And it's still happening now is, well, what do you need from me of all those skills and tools that you know, I possess, which ones do you need from me today? And I, I started to really think about how incredibly powerful that question is because so often we are told to ask ourselves, well, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want from your life? What do you want from your business?

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When in reality, what we wants is often really big and scary. And it's often something that we maybe don't know how to articulate. We didn't have to communicate or kind of scared to ask what we want. And especially if you're listening to this and you are a, a parents, whether it's ever of a human or a fair baby, oftentimes we are thinking about other people around us. What does someone else need? If for me, it's, you know, what does my son need? What does my husband need? What do my clients need? What do you need? Right. I'm often thinking, okay, what do, what am I audience need to hear from me today? How often are we stopping and asking ourselves, what do I need? What do I need today? What do I need this week? What do I need from my business? Not what do you want, but what do you need? What do you need your business to do for you? I know that so much of what we do in our business is not about us. It's about our audience. It's about our clients, but the people who are wanting to pay us who are willing and able to pay us for our work

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And that's, and I

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Get it. But is it not also important that as their business owners, the content creator, we also get what we need from our business, because what I have realized in the last few days and the last couple of weeks as I've been resting and recovering is that there are areas of my own business, where I'm not giving myself what I need. I'm going through the motions, spinning my wheels, feeling stuck because I'm not getting what I need from my business. So I really want you and encourage you to ask yourself today, this week, every week, journal on it. If that is your thing, meditates, ask yourself what you need.

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And I have this exercise that I have been using and sharing with people for years now, I first was introduced to this exercise is kind of a lifestyle a lifestyle coaching tool. And over the years I've developed and used it in various ways. Most recently, I share it with my students inside of my membership. It's part of our seasonal planner. And I might, I'm sharing this with you because I want you to take it and mold it into what it is that you need it to be. And I call it the half need, want to list. You may have heard of it before. You may have had a similar methods before, but the have need, want list essentially is three lists. And the original version was to look at what three things that you have to do, right? What are the three things that you have to do today?

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And then what are the three things that you need to do today? And the final list is three things that you want to do today. Now over the years, I have stripped that back. I actually encourage my students and anyone that I feel needs to focus on this. I asked them to think about one thing from each list per day. What's the one thing that you have to do today. What's the one thing that you need to do today. What's the one thing that you want to do today. And it's not to say that you're only going to do these three things and that's it. And the rest of the time, you're going to sit with your feet up. That's probably unrealistic what the purpose of this. And the reason I share it is because what it encourages you to do is think of Jack's heavily. How much time do we spend saying I have to do this. I have to do this. I need to do X, Y, and Z today.

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[Inaudible]

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If we can objectively look at our business, personal life, various areas of our lives. If we can look at it objectively and say, okay, today I have to do one thing. What is that one thing I have to do for myself? Right? Cause often I'm like, Oh, I have to feed my kid and get my kids to school. Well, that's going to happen no matter what. So what's the one thing that you have to do for yourself, right? What's the one thing that you have to do in your business today. What's the one thing that you need to do in your business today.

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And what's the one thing that you want to do in your business today. And the reason I'm the reason I'm sharing this is because if we spend our bit time in our businesses, just looking at those three things every day, I guarantee we would feel more joy. I guarantee we would feel more peace, ease. I also think that we would feel more aligned with our days. I mean, if I've let anything in this past couple of weeks, it is that I have been, I don't want to say wasting time, but I have no idea what I've been spending my time doing. I have felt busy for months. Now. I have struggled to get myself into a good schedule or good routine. I felt all over the place and being pulled in a thousand directions every day and I've been miserable. I've I really, really hated it because that's not how I want to or need to run my business and live my life. And what I know to be true is that when I mean pooled and all those different, all those different directions, when I feel all over the place, it's really hard for me to show up in the way that I want to. It's really hard for me to get excited about my work. It's hard for me to promote or market my business. And I'm also not the most pleasant person to be around.

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And I know that to be true for myself. And I, I wonder how many other people that's truthful. What's so important that I've what I've noticed that is so important over the last couple of weeks is how many check boxes I'm trying to fill each day, right? How many entrepreneurial check boxes I'm trying to tick off and check off every single day so that I can be a good entrepreneur or a successful, but when I'm really honest with myself, and I want you to be honest with yourself as well, how many of those checkbooks is fulfill me? How many of those things am I doing? Because they excite me because they make me happy because they are aligned with my bigger vision. And how many of those things am I doing? Because someone has told me I should. How many of those things am I doing? Because I think I should, or in placing some kind of expectation on myself first says, Oh, I really want to do this today.

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Now, if I'm being honest, there was a whole heap I shared with you a few weeks ago. One of the biggest blocks I was experiencing was around email marketing. Well, yesterday I sent my first email from flow desk and I wrote an email in probably 15 minutes. Did it follow all of the check? Did it fit the quota of entrepreneurial ways? Probably not. In fact, no, it didn't. I was honest. I shared my story. I talked about how I was feeling. I was honest about what I had experienced over the last couple of weeks. And I asked my subscribers to follow along.

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Did I teach anything massive? No, can I, of course, but what I did was showed up in a way that felt really aligned with where I'm heading in my business, the kind of email that I want to see from people. The only emails I read are the really genuine and honest emails. The emails I get excited about are the ones that are sharing that truth because we need to be less afraid. All the, how shrews. We need to be less afraid about visions, our goals and I'll truth. And I know sometimes that's easier said than done, but if not now, when, if not you then who, if you don't do it, who's going to do it.

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Now. I know that there are a lot of factors seasonally, the way the world is right now, there a lot of factors that's impacting our ability to do the big, scary things. However, I also know there, a lot of people still doing big, scary things, and there's no particular reason they're able to do those big, scary things compared to us, to some extent, it is a choice to take that outlaw move, to make the outlaw move and choose to do the big, scary thing to stop following the rules, to break the rules, to go against the grain, to be an outlaw and to step into your vision and your truth. And I feel so passionately about this right now, because we are heading into that season where we're going to start to see we're already seeing you set your goals and looking forward to 2021. Like if I'm honest, I'm not even looking forward to now. I haven't not lot. No that I'm not looking forward to next week, but I haven't planned out next week. And look, that's coming from someone who loves a plan, but this year haven't really had much of a plan.

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And you know, it's worked in my favor in some ways. It's also driven me crazy, but you already know the answers. You already know your truth. You know what you want to do. You know what that big scary thing is? I also know that it's really, really scary to put out into the world to say it out loud, to share it with even one person. Because look at the age old question of what if, what if it's wrong? What if I'm wrong? What if I get it wrong? Here's the thing you're going to get it wrong. You're going to make a mistake at some point.

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That's okay. Because when we make a mistake, when we get it wrong, it means that we're learning. It means that we're making those big moves. It means we're moving in the right direction because here's the thing. If you don't get it wrong, if you don't make a mistake, then you're not doing the thing in the first place. No one showed up decided to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner. And instantly made six figures out the door. It is not true. It is a fallacy. It is a lie. It is a myth. It is not normal. Those big name entrepreneurs that we see out there, they made mistakes. They screwed up. They pivoted, they burnt things down. They started again. That is what being an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur at that. Very cool is an outlaw. But over the years, somehow it's become shiny and sparkly and Rose gold and white backdrop flat lays.

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It's become a highlight reel. It's become, I only coached six figure business owners and I help women scale to seven figures that has become the narrative. But that is not what entrepreneurship is. I'm not turning down six figures. I don't think you are either. I'm not turning down a five figure a month or any of that stuff. What I'm saying is I would much rather be able to show up everyday in my business, walk with amazing people who are doing amazing things and feel fulfilled in every single part of my business and make less money. That's, that's how I feel. Can I do all those things and make a million dollars a year? Of course I can, but you know what? I truly believe it takes time. I don't believe that you can spend more of your energy and time on doing good and pouring yourself into the work that you love and also fast track your way to a million dollars a year. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong. Challenged me. I love a good challenge. I want to hear it. But what I really want you to think about is what you need, what you need today, what you need next week. What do you need from your business? What do you need from your goals next year? What do you need from 2021? Because like at some point we're going to be out of this show, right? We're going to look back and the pandemic will be over. We will be on the other side of that.

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Yes.

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And we have the opportunity to look back and say, I did what I needed in that moment. I did what was right for myself, for my clients, my business, for my customers, for my team, When we can slow down and ask ourselves, what do I need? We are able to host space for us selves. We're able to objectively look at what we want and need in that moment.

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And we're able to give ourselves permission to know that what we need today might not be the same tomorrow because you're allowed to change your mind in every area of your life. You can change your mind. You can make a decision and then you can say, Nope, I don't want to do that. And I don't know about you, but changing my mind has felt like the most terrifying thing. When I became an entrepreneur, when I stepped into that role, when I left the corporate world and started to run my own business, the idea of getting it wrong of changing my mind of choosing a different path of pivoting, I was terrified. And the reason I was terrified was not because it was not because I thought I would get it wrong was because what would other people think if I get this wrong, what would somebody else think if I get this wrong, if I change my mind, but what will other people think? And I still catch myself in that place. Instead of focusing on what I need, I sometimes worry about what other people expect of me. His wife lent

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By

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Showing up and say, Hey, I'm ill and I can't or pulled the recount record the podcast. And I'm taking a couple of weeks off Instagram. You know what happened? Nothing, nothing happened. My business did not crumble. I did not lose followers. I did not become insignificant. It was okay. I got exactly what I needed. And whilst I was resting and recuperating and getting what I needed in that moment, I was able to come back stronger. I was able to come back passionately and talk about the things that matter. I was able to sit down with no notes and record episodes, because apparently this is my thing. Now I've been joking with my team that we're just going to call every episode, no notes.

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[Inaudible].

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So if you've been listening and you haven't been able to stop and to close your eyes and get into yourself and ask yourself what you need. And when you take a moment, whenever you can today to do that, right, stop and ask yourself, what do I need? And I would love for you to come over to Instagram and send me a message, send me a DM, opens my DMS, and let's talk about what you need. Let's talk about that big, scary thing that you want to do, that you don't quite know what's next or how to deliver it. I want to hear about it. I want to hold a space for you. I want to cheer you on because that is what Outlaws do.

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And I also want to just take a moment to thank so many of you who have sent me messages and checked in with me over the last couple of weeks. I really appreciate it. It meant so much to me. And it was so hard for me to step back and take a break. And I am, I am working on that with my coach because I needed that rest. And it's kind of concerning how hot it was for me to back down. So thank you for showing up today. Thank you for listening in, and I will see you next week for another episode,

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Entrepreneurial Outlaws. [inaudible]

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Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of entrepreneurial outdoors. If you see yourself as an entrepreneurial outlaw and enjoyed this episode, but you do me a favor, it would mean the absolute world to me. If you could take a moment to subscribe to the show and leave a rating and review by leaving your review, you are helping me to grow out we'll community and together we can show other entrepreneurs that breaking the rules can actually be good for business. Don't forget. You can find the show notes for today's episode, along with any of the links that I mentioned on my website@melanienights.com forward slash podcast. And if we're not already virtual busters, you can come and hang out with me on Instagram. I am the one with the country music playing the lukewarm coffee in my hand, and I'm dishing the doubt on how we can make entrepreneurship more inclusive and transparent. Plus I'll probably send you some fun gifts. So until next time Outlaws