What No one Tells You About Starting a Business

Amy Evans: Hey everybody, welcome back to Women in Sales Leadership. I'm Amy Evans, I'm your host, and I'm a sales leadership coach and a founder coach for high performing leaders who want to get to the next level. I'm so glad you're here today and I really mean that. And if you find yourself listening to this episode and you think, you know what, I know somebody who really would benefit from this, I'm gonna ask you to send that person a gift.

forward this episode to them. It is how this podcast grows. It's how this episode gets in the hands of the people who most need it. And that's what I'm here for.

I want folks who need to hear this message to get it. And that's what you're gonna get today. It takes 10 seconds. And as a gift to you, for you, if you know you're ready, you want something more for your career.

and you're considering either starting a business or the next step in your career, I offer a free career planning call, a next step planning call if you will, on my website, amyevanscoaching.com forward slash work with me, sign up. I can hear you've been thinking about it. It's time to get into action, babe, just do it.

What we're talking about today, let's get to it. We are year one. into me formally launching this business and I want to take you inside the real journey. Not the highlight reel, not the wins, but what really started from day one and the hard things.

You're going to learn all of the stuff and how it overcame it. So much self-doubt, identity crisis along the way. I'm going to give you a tool that you can use coming out of this episode that will help you Get closer to clarity about what you might start to want for yourself. And it's a reflection thing.

So stick around, I'll give that to you at the end. And the last thing that you're gonna get from today is an opportunity if you want to take it, which is to start the process of letting go of things happen to be all perfect and beautiful and being willing to just get in the dirt and play, honey, because that's what we came to do. We came to play. And here's what I need you to stay for.

At some point in this episode, I'm going to tell you about the moment that I sat across from my coach, a woman as a woman. with more than 25 me, this was me I'm talking about, I'm sitting across from my coach with 25 years of corporate sales leadership experience. I've sold hundreds of millions of dollars for companies, big companies, startups, Fortune 500s, all of these places that should make me say, oh, I'm so capable, right? And I genuinely sat across from my coach and I said, who am I?

Who am I to do this, right? Stay with me. because what happened along the way is the thing I want all of you to learn from from me so that you can maybe fast forward through some of the muck that I went through and also get some perspective for where you are in your process and an understanding about it. Let's go to the beginning, which is the dream.

Once upon a time, I did not dream of being a VP of sales in corporate America. I had a different dream when I was 22, 23 years old, when my original dream was to be a rock star. And that didn't happen. So the next dream was I wanted to be a CEO.

And I didn't know what being a CEO meant, but in my little 23 year old brain, not that it was little, but you know, in my young, less experienced 23 year old brain, I believe that was me calling the shots, me finally having financial abundance, me being able to lead. Like I had this vision of leading. I knew that. I knew that's who I was.

I had to accept that. It took me a while to fully buy into that. That's a different episode. But it's really some of this stuff that goes into the things and the stories that we tell ourselves when we are young and then reality happens and we get into work.

best part about all of this was that there's a mostly happy ending. And the thing that I've learned is there's never an arrival. We don't just get there. So let's talk about what happens along the way and what really goes on underneath the hood of being a corporate executive who says, okay, I just lost my job.

I am going through a divorce. My life is in total upheaval. Who am I? Who am I without my work?

Who am I when I get a chance to take a step back and get off the treadmill for a little while and ask the question, what do I really want? What do I really want? So when I think about what I really wanted and I had that pause and that chance and it was a gift, right? I'm not gonna sit here and say like, ooh, it was the best thing that happened to me at the moment.

It felt awful, okay? It felt like shit, bona fide shit. But it was also the kind of crappy feeling where to keep with the poo poo talk, it was that kind of bad feeling where it's like, it felt deeply uncomfortable. It felt mildly scary.

and some little voice in me also thought. Maybe this is my chance. Maybe this is the chance that I've been waiting for. The chance to get off the treadmill, the chance to build something.

And what I always had holding me back, now I would, I'd sit there at the end of every quarter. I'd sit there at the end of every year after, you know, a hundred quarters that I'd closed after 25 years. of selling and leading sales teams and doing all the crap, all the stuff, all the insanity of that, I would sit there at the end of every quarter, especially Q4, and I'd like, am I really gonna do this again? And I would wonder, know, ⁓ God, right?

And I'd feel this stuckness, I'd feel this trappedness. These are words I'm creating, so you're welcome, ⁓ Urban Dictionary. I'd feel that, and then I would, kind of let myself feel that pain for a little while. And then I would just shut that little voice down of like, who are you?

You don't have some great business idea. You aren't terribly creative. You don't have a business idea. And that was like the resonant thought that that was the no, that was the voice.

was like, no, you can't do this. You don't have a good enough idea. So that was negative thought number one. And then add to that.

the real truth also, I was a sole provider of my family. How could I possibly step back, take a break, not have income, build something on, know, build something, right? In a job that required, at least the way that I worked it, required a solid 60 to 70 hours a week of work. and intense, intense work.

And if you're doing this work, babe, I see you. I understand, right? The amount of times that I had to like ⁓ squeeze in a bio break to get through the day because there were so many silly ass meetings that we were supposed to be in all the time, right? Forgetting to eat, not literally going to the bathroom.

Those are real things, right? So when you're running that hard and you're just getting through the day, just surviving, the thought of unplugging from that and the thought of, you know, could I really do something else was just, it was both exciting and frightening and I shut it down. I shut it down until I had a chance to think a different way. And the only way that I got access to thinking a different way, like revisiting that 23 year old me that was like, I am going to be a CEO and I'm going to run my own company and I'm going to, you know, rule the world, babe.

Right. ⁓ I had to get with an energy therapist who had me go through a visualization exercise where I started to visualize what did I want my life to be? Now that I was laid off. from this corporate job, now that I was untangling myself from this relationship that didn't serve anybody in it, right?

It ceased to be what a proper and healthy relationship should be for either one of us. I was untangling myself from all this stuff that I'd always known. And when you untangle yourself from things you've always known, you're starting, I started to get this perspective, I did. where I'm like stepping further and further away and more perspective, more perspective.

think about the Artemis crew and that amazing perspective that they had just like getting away from the earth and out orbiting the moon and looking down and seeing the earth. Now I would dream to go do that. I always wanted to ⁓ go up in space. And if I have that chance to be a true astronaut, like a NASA astronaut, like I would do it in a heartbeat.

⁓ I'm not going to do the ride up into the atmosphere situation. I want to like literally ride around the moon, but you know, likelihood of that is low. So what I'm going to do and say is talk to you about the perspective component when you get that distance away and having that perspective. It was like all of a sudden I allowed myself a chance to dream again.

I allowed myself a chance to create a possibility of a life, the possibility of a career, the possibility of something that I couldn't see yet, that wasn't real yet, that had 10,000 reasons to not happen, but I'd been longing for. for 25 years. And I laid there on the table of my energy therapist. It's kind of like being in a massage table except, your clothes are all on and it's all cool.

⁓ And she said, well, what do you envision for yourself in your life? Like what Amy, like what paths do you have? And this was super emotional for me. Like, wow, the thought that I had a choice in the matter.

Like I had a say in the matter of what I could want for my life. I'm laying there and I come up with like, ⁓ I'll get another job. Okay. or some other flavor of another job or a starter franchise.

I looked at doing that too. So if any of you were considering doing that and you want to get connected to some really great people that I worked with who I thought were high quality, I'm happy to give you referrals there. ⁓ But the third road was starting my own business. And when she asked me how I felt about all these, know, it was the my own business part was the one I wanted the most, but that was the one that scared me the most for all the reasons they just told you, right?

Yeah, freaky. So and I kept my my biggest objection was like, how am going to provide for my family? How am I going to provide for my family? Because it's me.

It's me and it's me. There's no one else but me, right? And if you're an only parent or you're the parent who's pulling the load or you're the only parent who's really bringing in money at all, I get it. That was me for the whole time ⁓ and still is.

And I'm cool with it, but it scared me. I went through this journey. I started, I interviewed with all these companies and I was just like, okay, I'm going to interview. And I started interviewing and they would put me through these long interview process.

And I was just like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I kept seeing things that they were great companies. There was one place I really did want to go, but it was like the universe shut it down for me.

⁓ Then I looked at franchises for about three months. I evaluated franchises and I decided I didn't want to do that. And so what was door number three? Door number three was doing my own company.

The scariest thing, but also the thing that I knew I really wanted to do. And what happened along that way, you know, so many emotions involved, like, ⁓ Part of the decision that I made was that part of my divorce was, and many divorces have this, where you say, okay, we're gonna sell the house, we're gonna sell the family home, we're gonna divvy up the proceeds from that sale, and everybody gets to go find their own new different living situation. And we did that, and I made this bold decision.

And I justified it at the time by telling myself, oh, the real estate market's really bad. I don't wanna have to, I don't wanna, There was not a lot for sale. I had this story around it, but the real truth was I wanted to have that money so that I could fund my business with it. You want to talk about gambling?

So all of a sudden I was putting myself in this position where I had a place to live. I was renting. I'm renting a place and I have this cash that I can use to fund my business. No longer was I freaked out.

that I wasn't going to provide for my family. If this is too much, maybe it's too much. And I'm not asking you to sell your house. You don't have to.

Just what happened in my world? But I feel like if you have to know the truth in order to understand how these things work and the kind of sacrifices that you choose to make when you see what you really, really want for yourself and your life and the kind of investment that you're willing to make for yourself and your life. And so, I've gambled big on myself before, but never this big, never this big. And one of the things I realized that I'd been really crummy at early in my career was getting help, getting coaching.

And so I found a coach. I found a business coach right away. And working with that coach was one of the best early decisions that I made. It was perfect.

I got so much stuff. I got suddenly this confidence. I got my ability to truly reflect and look back at my career and the value that I've created and the work that I've actually done and see that I do have value and that I've been delivering value and that just because I don't have some big corporate logo on my business card that I'm not worthy to deliver that value for somebody. I remember sitting there when I'd met this coach and I was deciding to hire her and you know, was an investment to hire her.

I mean, had the money, but it was a, I mean, it was a lot of, it was a good chunk of money. was the kind of money that you would spend on a really nice vacation for your family, like really nice. So do the math on whatever that amount is for you and that's how much it was. And I'm sitting there deciding if I'm going to hire her not.

And I was sick to my stomach. Not about the money. I was sick to my stomach because if I spent that money, then it meant that I was really doing this. so much of big jumps like starting your own business.

⁓ Every time I've made a big huge jump forward in my career, it is about identity. And when you embrace a new identity, you have to let go of the old one. And it can be really painful because that old identity is like a comfy pair of jammy pants that and I have a pair like this, we'll probably have a pair like this. It's like, these are the comfy pants and you probably have worn them for far too long.

They probably shouldn't be in your life anymore, but they make you feel safe when you put them on. You're like, ⁓ at least I've got my comfy pants on. I feel so good in them. I know what's going on in my comfy pants.

I know how they're gonna feel. They don't judge me. They know me. I know them.

The identity that we build in our lives around. who we are as a title, how much money that we make, whether we are an entrepreneur or a business executive, right? Those are identities. Those are identities.

And identity work, I've come to learn, like there's a name for it. This identity work is real and it's one of the most fundamental components that you have to work on before you can make a big, jump up. launch a business or what have you. So how do you do that?

How do you do it? Well, first off, there's no easy answer. You've got to go through the process of shedding that old identity. And inevitably, there's some pain to it.

Because when you let go of what's familiar, of our seven human needs that we have, one is familiarity. The other one is novelty, right? Familiarity. I know what I'm doing.

This is familiar to me. I've been here forever. I know all the people. know where all the bodies are buried.

Like I know how to do this job with my eyes closed versus novelty. I'm tired of just sleepwalking through my days. I could do this in my sleep. I'm not challenged anymore.

I'm not passionate. I'm not driven. I'm, you know, I'm making somebody else rich. Yes, I'm paid well, but I'm making someone else rich, right?

That's the kind of identity and like the letting go that I'm talking about. And so, you know, I sat there in front of this coach, I pulled the trigger harder, like I was sick to my stomach. I did not want to do this because it meant if I was doing it, that I was doing it. I had to like, accept that.

And so I'm sick to my stomach. you know, I, I, I, click the button, I spend the money and we start. And I spend three months, actually it was longer than that, ⁓ four months in a coaching engagement with her and a few other new entrepreneurs who I'm still friends with. And the things that I learned in that coaching engagement were a combination of tactical things that I really needed to lay the groundwork on my business.

And then also, some straight up identity coaching work that I needed to navigate the shedding of that old identity of who I used to be, the role I used to have. That's not me, it's just work that I did. It's not me, it's just work that I did. Work that I once did.

Valuable work. I sat across the table from that coach in our first call and I said, who am I to start a business coaching and consulting, like coaching sales leaders and consulting founders? Who am I? And she did 25 years of hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, teams as large as a hundred people.

I forgot everything that I'd done. And so this coach gave me something that I'm going to give you all today. And I'm going to give it to you here in a few minutes. This is the exercise I'm going to give you.

What's great about this? One is that you can do this just with a blank piece of paper and about 20 minutes set a timer on yourself. It might not take you 20 minutes. It could go faster.

Your goal in that 20 minutes is to remind yourself of the things that you've done. and the hard things that you've overcome. And this is what my coach told me to do. Write down the 50 things that you have overcome and accomplished in your life.

And I was like, 50? She said, yeah, 50. Once you get going, you're gonna hit 50. You'll hit, keep going until you hit 50.

And the idea is to write down both your personal and professional things that you've overcome and start at the beginning. Go as young as you want to go of the things that you've had to overcome in your life. and start writing it. And what happened was when I wrote that list, first of all, it was a very emotional experience for me.

I didn't expect that. Well, no, I didn't expect that. I had, you know, I'd gone from being emotionally dead inside to being someone who was very emotionally awake. And I've become somebody who cries easily at the beauty of life, ⁓ things inspire me, at things that generally it's when something's touching my heart, that's when I'm crying.

And so those can be happy tears or they can be tears of like profound ⁓ realization. and I had a lot of those profound realizations. So I started to make this list and the stuff on that list, I mean, was, I started with, for me, things that stand out on that list was, you know, putting myself through college after my parents had to declare a personal bankruptcy and there was no money to help me go to college and I was a first generation college student in my family. That was one thing on the list.

And then I have so many more, so many more, so many professional accomplishments. What you'll notice doing this is you've done so much and you've accomplished so much. So whatever you or running at whatever you are choosing to do next for yourself or considering or dreaming about, this is your list of evidence that you've been successful and you've overcome these things. For those of you who came to play and want to take this on, this is a 20-minute thing that you can do.

Amy, I don't have 20 minutes. Okay, fine. Don't take 20 minutes, see how far you can get with five minutes. Power is in writing it down though.

There is a legitimate connection, neural science connection between writing something down and having it like register cognitively for you. So that would be an invitation. You get to write on your things down. And once I did that for myself, it was one of the big moments of unlocking for me.

It was like, you know what? I've walked into ⁓ list of situations where I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I didn't know how to get from point A to point B. There was a starting point and there was an end point and I didn't know what the middle looked like.

I didn't know what the plan was going to be yet for how to do that. and I just figured it out. And this business was gonna be no different. No different.

And so I just started. I just started. I had to let go and accept that people are going to judge me. And here's the reality, they're already judging me and some of them Think I'm silly and ridiculous?

And some of them are like, yeah, girl, you got this. Do it. We love it. OK, fine.

If you don't like my stuff, cool, man. I get it. There's other people out there for you. I'm not your cup of tea.

For the people who's cup, if I'm your cup of tea, babe, I am doing this for you. I am here for you. I talked to a camera for 30 minutes and I know that my face isn't perfect. I know my hair isn't perfect.

Nothing's perfect because it never will be, never has been. All we have. is what we are choosing to do and embracing the fact that it's not going to be perfect and the plan is not fully baked because there's going to be stuff that happens along the way that you just can't anticipate. The only thing that always works and I know this, I know this and you do too because you're here because you've already achieved so much.

Action. Action is what works. And this is where the guys beat us every single time, ladies. Every single time.

They school us. We laugh at them. like, ⁓ they're just running around there with no plan. They're just going, doing stuff.

They're not even thinking about it. Yep. Yes, they are. They're going out there with no plan.

You're just running out there. Just doing stuff. And when we say, guess what? I can do stuff too.

I don't have to have it planned to hell and back. I don't have to have it be perfect. I just got to get out there and get going. And the plan's going to come together along the way.

Or I'm going to have a sketch of a plan. Doesn't have to be perfect. There's no perfect. exist.

Maybe in nature art exists the beauty of the. Creations of the world are beautiful and perfect. We are beautiful and perfect That machine that body you're running right now that brain that is beautiful and perfect Yeah, the work we do won't be can't be Not when you're learning. When we are at a point, we get so far, what I noticed, you get so accustomed, you're so experienced at doing the thing that you are familiar with, right?

⁓ And there's that comfort there, which is to really, what am I getting at? It's this letting go. of that comfort and saying, know what? I'm willing to be uncomfortable.

I'm willing to look silly. I'm willing to feel stupid. Because what happens when you look silly and you feel stupid and you're uncomfortable? That's the growth.

That's the growth, right? Yeah. And there has to be an element of I don't give a shit because I'm going to go for it. Because this is the only life I get.

The only time is now. It's right now. It's not six months from now. It's not two years from now.

It's right now, today. This is it. This is what we get, like it or not. And we're lucky to have this one, this one day, this one moment.

This moment we're in, all these other moments don't exist. Passes over doesn't exist. Future doesn't exist. Your reality is now.

And so the sooner you can say, I'm willing to trade. I'm going to make a trade. I'm going to make a trade called looking stupid. I'm going to make a trade called having other people judge me because they're doing it anyway.

And not caring, like letting go and trading up. Trading up for what you really want. You really want. And what you've probably wanted, not since you were, I was 23, but when I was eight, I wanted to be the rock star.

And I'm trying my damnedest to be a rock star in every single area of my life I can be. Sometimes I don't nail it. Other times, full on. That's why they call it the game.

We are playing the game. So this is something just I hope is giving you some insight about some of that journey of what it takes to do the thing that you're afraid of doing and how to give yourself some permission to say, what? I'm just gonna freaking go for it. I'm gonna go for it.

I The things that for today, if you're gonna play the game, go remind yourself of all the amazing stuff you've done, of all the hard things that you've overcome, go write down that list of 50 things. Do it, 50 things that I have overcome in my life, personal and professional. Go write it down. You will be amazed at the stuff that gets on that list.

It might move you, it might inspire you, it might awaken something in you. that's been sleeping for far too long, right? And if you're in the middle of a transition right now, if you're in the middle of growing your business, if you're in the middle of transitioning your career, come find me. My life's work and my mission is to help build amazing leaders who are making impact at a whole other level in the world with their amazing leadership.

And along with amazing leadership, usually goes a lot of career progression, a lot of balance in your life, and joy in the work. For founders, I'm helping, I just finished working with a founder, wrapping up an engagement, ⁓ to help that founder 5X the business and have a plan. to truly make that real. 5X the business.

Yeah. It only starts when you start to allow yourself to start dreaming again. And if you need help or want support in that path, I always offer a conversation with me. It's no cost.

You're welcome. It's my gift to you. Come find me at amyevanscoaching.com forward slash work with me and I'll see you.

next time. Until then, just go for it, baby. You got this.