Looking Back, Moving Forward: 5 Lessons from 50 Episodes

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Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue.
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If you're in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you.
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Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them, and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb.
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I'm your host, Julie Ellis.
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I'm an author, entrepreneur, and a growth and leadership coach who co-founded, grew, and exited an eight-figure business.
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This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things.
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And that led to my book, Big Gorgeous Goals.
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Let's explore the systems, processes, and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights.
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If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help.
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Now, let's get g oing.
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Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure 8.
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This is a very special episode today.
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I'm Julie Ellis, I'm your host, and we have reached 51 episodes.
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So I'm pretty, I can hardly believe we're here to start with.
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50 conversations, 50 stories, 50 opportunities to learn and grow together.
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And so today feels kind of special.
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I want to take a moment to reflect on what's shifted for me over these 50 episodes, what I have learned from these conversations, and where we're headed next.
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Most importantly, I want to coach you a little.
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I want to invite you to reflect, take stock, and to posture yourself for what is next.
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Whether you're new here or whether you've been with me since day one, thank you for being a part of this journey.
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Let's dive in.
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Let's start off with talking about the power of the pause.
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And I'm a big fan of pausing and reflecting on what's happening and why.
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And it isn't just about being nostalgic, it's about being strategic.
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When we pause and reflect and look back, it reminds us of where we were, who we were, and how far we've come, whether we're still aligned with our deepest, biggest, most gorgeous goals.
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It surfaces patterns and blind spots, shifts in our identity, and it helps us course correct before we drift too far off the path.
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Over the past 50 episodes, I've spoken to women doing transformational work, scaling, leaping, changing industries, navigating exits, growing teams, and redesigning their lives.
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Through their stories and my own, I've seen that success doesn't come from avoiding struggle.
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It comes from our ability to pause, to reflect, and to adapt.
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As I approach this milestone, I felt the pull to pause myself.
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Growth isn't just forward motion, it owes itself to look back and reflect as well.
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So today I'm going to share with you the five biggest lessons that have emerged from all these conversations.
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Two solo episodes, 48 interviews with amazing women entrepreneurs doing all kinds of things based on the needs they see in the world.
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And when I started to sit down and think about, you know, what I wanted to say on this milestone of all these interviews and all of these amazing entrepreneurs, you know, I reflected on the facts.
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And, you know, some of the stats aren't that great.
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So 2% of women's owned businesses, 2% of businesses started by women ever achieve a million dollars or more a year in revenue.
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In Canada, 4% of venture capital goes to women-founded ventures.
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In the US, it's about 2.5%.
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Um, angel money is a little bit better if you're getting angels to invest in your business.
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It's around 25%.
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But all of those reasons were the things that brought me to the idea that in my small corner of the world, I could tell the stories of women entrepreneurs who were building big, beautiful businesses, who were unapologetic in what they were chasing, and to, you know, show the way for women who are wishing, dreaming, and hoping to achieve that, to show them it's possible, to show them all of the different women from different backgrounds and and you know parts of the world who have who have done amazing things with their businesses.
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And so here, you know, on the 51st episode, I really wanted to look at those, you know, what are the lessons, what are the themes, what commonalities came out of the conversations that we have had until now?
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And they've been so interesting because I think they're the lessons that continue to shape how I show up, how I lead, and how I support women like you, my audience, who have been supporting me by listening to all these episodes.
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So, with that, let's talk about the lessons.
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So, the first lesson I want to bring to you is that leadership is learned through letting go.
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And, you know, when we start businesses, um, I do say quite often that none of us ever start businesses because we want 50 people reporting to us.
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And the journey of growing through being a solopreneur or having one or two people on your team to having a very large team of people is, you know, a journey of leadership as much as it is a journey of scaling and growing.
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And so you've got to figure out how to do less, you know, how to delegate more, how to delegate well.
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And you spend a lot of your time then managing.
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And, you know, whereas in the early days, you're you're a doer, you're you're doing everything.
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You're trying to create strategy, you're trying to act, you're doing all of the execution, and you're really hoping that things stick.
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And, you know, in the later um years, as the business gets more mature and gets bigger and you have a bigger team, you need to become the designer of your business.
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You are the strategist, you are the person who is, you know, setting the rhythm and moving the team forward and all of the pieces that come with that.
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And that is a very, very different feeling to, you know, the early days where it's like a really long to-do list.
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And in fact, I often think about, you know, when I have a really long to-do list and I'm executing on a lot of tasks, what am I ignoring?
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What strategy piece or really important part of the business that only I can make the difference in am I ignoring at that point in time?
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And so when I think through these things about, you know, leadership, I think about Hilary Parnell way back in the early days of the podcast.
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And, you know, she she has a really, really successful dance studio that has many programs that she's brought in-house, many different streams of revenue.
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And, you know, she talked about how, you know, for years she thought she was the only one who should be making the fall schedule for her business.
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And, you know, it consumed two weeks of her life.
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And and one day she kind of got to asking herself, like, why am I the best person to do this?
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Like, I don't possess any special amount of skill.
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You know, what if I hand this off and let someone on my team do it?
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What would that look like?
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Um, and it is that interesting place of, I think that I saw over and over again the thread or the theme or the echoing call from all these different women that I talked to was, you know, I need to hand things off because there are more important jobs for me to do.
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And, you know, Marla Coffin and I talked about, you know, she realized if she wanted her businesses to grow without her, she has to really, really figure out what only she can do and hand off everything else.
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And I think that's such a smart, smart way of looking at how you're going to scale up and scale yourself.
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And, you know, that's one great strategy is, you know, putting someone in to really run the day-to-day and you becoming that strategist, the overseer, the the setting of the pace and the goals and the and the rhythm that a business needs to keep in order to be successful.
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I think that that's a really important part.
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Um, and you know, I talk in the book and in the workbook about how there's a lot of skills that no one ever teaches us, right?
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You know, things nobody taught me as I became an entrepreneur.
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And one of the things was, you know, how to delegate really well and really effectively.
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And, you know, I dedicated part of the book and the workbook to tools for entrepreneurs because it just isn't, you know, you become this micromanager because you're just not letting go.
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And you're not letting the team, you're not setting the team up for success.
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And nor are you letting them be successful by the way that you're approaching this.
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And so I think that it really is important that you need to think about like we really need to step up as leaders when we start letting go of the reins of control and become account culture of accountability.
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And, you know, we have teams that are reaching for their big, gorgeous goals.
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It's not just about, it's not just about my big gorgeous goal, it's about how I cascade that down through the team and they all become invested in reaching for those bigger things.
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And you know, Erika and I, when I in Erika MacKay's episode, we talked about how, you know, stepping out of the doing zone can feel risky.
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Like, you know, what if, what if the team drops the ball?
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What if they don't do it as well as I did it?
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What if they don't understand?
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And it's where, you know, I feel like we're handing over with um checkpoints and with accountability of for the person who's taking the task to understand that, you know, that there's a high level of expectation, um, but that you also are setting the right checkpoints for check-ins, conversation, questions, clarifications, all of the things that happen along the way to, you know, teaching someone how to do these jobs.
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And, you know, Erika MacKay also said, you know, she felt like the only way she could scale in her mind was she needed to become the architect and not the operator of her business.
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And so I would say to you, if you're overwhelmed, um, you start asking yourself, you know, what am I doing that somebody else could do?
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What can I hand off?
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How can I hand it off?
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Where am I needed most in this business?
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What are the things that I am truly the only person who can do them?
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And that's where you can start to sort of divide.
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I mean, I think another potential way of looking at it is, you know, what are the tasks that I'm doing right now that I could pay somebody?
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Uh like I'm, you know, you're doing low-wage tasks.
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You need to do the $100 an hour tasks, not the $20 an hour tasks.
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So how do you start shedding those and lifting yourself up to do more valuable work for the business?
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Lesson number two.
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Reinvention is required even after big success.
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And it is the theory of, you know, what got you here won't get you there.
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The skills that you have that you've honed are constantly evolving.
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And and and we need to evolve as people in order for us to keep expanding.
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Um, this conversation came up over and over again.
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It's certainly part of my story.
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Um, when I left Mabel's Labels and I got really stuck, you know, I wasn't really thinking about reinventing myself.
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And certainly that's what it turned to over the course of time.
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And, you know, here I sit a decade out from selling the business just about.
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Um, in you know, six weeks from when this episode comes out.
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It will be 10 years since we sold our business.
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And, you know, it took me a good amount of time to figure out um that reinvention was required for me.
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Um, and I sort of didn't know how to begin.
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I hesitated a lot.
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I got really stuck.
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And I think it's this idea that you need to evolve to keep expanding and you need to add new things into your life sort of strategically.
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I mean, I think that, you know, when you exit your business, it really is um something that requires you to think about what you're going to replace it with and how you're going to want to work.
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Because I think I didn't have that.
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And, you know, I think in the episode where I interviewed Mandy Friend Gigliotti, we talked about how you have to add before you subtract.
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Because selling your business and walking out the front door forever, which I did six months after we sold, is a huge subtract.
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You know, you're you're missing part of your identity.
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The people that you worked with every day for, you know, in my case, over 13 years were, you know, busy with their heads down, still working on the business.
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And I was not uh in that space anymore.
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And so it was a really big subtract.
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And so when Mandy and I talked about that, I thought it was a really key um ingredient of how do you add before you subtract?
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What is it you're gonna add?
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And you need to be intentional about it because it, you know, it's you can't just wait for it to come.
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You have to actually be intentional about getting on the path to making it happen.
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When I had my conversation with Sara Michelle Boes, you know, she said she thought exiting her business would be the finish line, but instead it's the start of a new question, the next era, a new, a new race that you might be running.
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And so you really do need to think about it.
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Um, and and like me, you know, when the deal closed, I thought I had landed.
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Like I thought it was the beginning of a new era, but instead I found myself stuck on that plateau.
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And getting off of it was really hard.
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I had to ask, you know, who am I now and what do I really want?
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And so if you are facing reinvention, I would really encourage you to, you know, spend that time reflecting, get out into nature, um, do something inspiring, go and volunteer.
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Uh, there's so many places that need help in the world that, you know, we can make ourselves occupied while we gain new perspectives and really think about what we want next.
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And so I think this is this idea of like Anya Alev talking to me about like she needed to reinvent her identity as the owner, um, but as a leader.
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You know, it's not just enough to own the business and to be there and be in charge.
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You actually need to lead and you need to really step into that.
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And so I I feel like the the big takeaway here is, you know, you never really arrive somewhere.
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There's not a big arrival.
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You just you, you know, you're realigning and reinventing and and rolling forward into new things.
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Um, and I don't know that that ever ends.
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Um, I think it's something that will take all of us forward forever.
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Lesson number three is belief shifts precede business shifts.
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So if we are stuck in our beliefs, um we will struggle to shift our businesses and make the transformations that are necessary.
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Because a transformation always starts on the inside.
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It's our belief system, our confidence, our identity.
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Um, and then, you know, once the shift begins within, it becomes external, and then we can shift.
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And so, you know, I saw over and over again in my interviews in the podcast over time, you know, people who had internal belief shifts or major life moments that caused them to have the reflection that that then pushed them into business.
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You know, people like Aeryon Ashlie, she had a health transformation that fueled a business idea.
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And, you know, she already worked in wellness.
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And so it really fueled her to go out and start her own business and get something going that was really quite different than what she had done before.
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Um, you know, Lori Rogers talked about how she rewired her mindset through through using sticky notes and positive intentions and and what um what a real difference that makes.
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And, you know, thinking about um Mandy Friend Gigliotti, who I mentioned earlier, I mean, she said, you know, once once you get out of production and you know, whatever production looks like to you in your business, is it selling, is it doing, is it, you know, all the different pieces that go in?
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And and but once you get out of your value being added that way, then it's all about leadership.
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And when those skills are all you've got, you realize if you haven't built belief, you're not ready.
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So, how do we build belief in ourselves that will allow us to shift our leadership and make an impact in the businesses that we have?
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Um, and I think the takeaway there really is that your business can only grow as far as your mindset's gonna let it.
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And so if we are holding our business down, uh holding it back because of the way that we operate, we are going to continue to struggle.
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So I believe that we all need to reflect on, you know, how am I holding myself back?
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How am I holding my business back?
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And what do I need to consider and shift?
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Lesson number four.
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Visibility isn't vanity, it's a leadership tool.
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I think that, you know, showing up for yourself and talking about your business, it's not self-promotion.
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It is service and it's amplification.
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So I think about, you know, we're all in envy of people who show up uh very smooth and polished and really promote their business and and speak well about it.
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But um, that's not really been my comfortable place is to show up and do that sort of thing.
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And so I am encouraging you because it is service, it is amplification.
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Your business needs you.
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It's part of being the leader your business needs.
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And, you know, when I talked with Anna-Vija McClain, we talked about, she said, you know, when she shifted into that CEO role, she realized that visibility wasn't about her, it was about growth.
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She needed to be visible and out there in the world in order for her business to benefit.
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And I think that that is a really, really important point.
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You know, we need to step outside of our comfort zone a little bit if that's not, if that's not where it is.
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Um, you're gonna find you you have to step out of your comfort zone somewhere.
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So whether it's in the visibility area, whether it's in finance, whether it's in operations, you're going to have to push yourself on some level somewhere.
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Um, and if this is it, I think, you know, it's realizing, you know, like Tarra Stubbins, that you have a story to tell and that leaders need to be visible in order to lead.
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You know, they're they talk about the different kinds of leadership style.
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You know, if you lead from the front, you lead from the side, or you lead from the back.
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And there are times, you know, you may prefer to lead from the back, let put your team forward, lift them up, let them be the stars.
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But there are times when you have to come around to the front and you have to take charge.
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And that's really what we're talking about here.
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It's in that visibility piece.
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Leaders need to be visible.
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Denise Bedell and I talked about how when she stopped hiding behind her clients and started telling her own story, everything changed for her.
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Her business took off.
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She had so much more success, and she was leading from that place of visibility.
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In this area, you know, the takeaway really is be seen.
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Your story, it's a tool for you to help grow awareness, gain more following, and ultimately grow a bigger business.
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Lesson number five is that, you know, purpose-driven profit is the new power.
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I have spoken to so many of my guests who felt called to the business that they started.
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Um, impact and profit are not opposites.
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We see that women are bringing them together and and that purpose, having purpose-driven businesses gives us an edge.
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Um, and we should never discount that.
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And I think, you know, I've seen uh from the guests that I've had, I've seen, you know, Kristy Harold.
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She has culture and play as a business strategy.
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And, you know, she saw it as a path to a stronger community.
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It wasn't just about revenue.
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Um, you know, and yes, Jam Sports, they her business does, you know, runs like evening um soccer leagues and sports leagues in communities all over North America for people who want to have camaraderie, community, fitness, sport in their lives.
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:07.680
And it means, you know, if you can get people playing, it builds stronger community.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:14.799
And so Kristy was very driven by, you know, her big gorgeous goal of one million people playing.
00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:23.519
And that really has driven her business forward, uh, the purpose-driven, getting one million people playing.
00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:34.400
Um, I think it's an amazing example of how a big gorgeous goal can come together with purpose and help a business drive forward to bigger and bigger successes.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:55.039
I think also um, you know, Dionne Laslo-Baker, who came on and talked about making healthier snacks for kids and how she went about that and how she really pivoted her career as a scientist to making food that was healthy, delicious, organic.
00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:58.720
And, you know, the idea was a really simple one.
00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:01.519
The idea is if it's not good for kids, why sell it?
00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:05.359
And her whole business began on that foundational premise.
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:08.319
And now, you know, she has a really large business.
00:25:08.319 --> 00:25:09.680
She's all over North America.
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:11.519
Her products are delicious.
00:25:11.519 --> 00:25:21.599
And, you know, it's it all came from that purpose of healthier snacks for kids that taste delicious.
00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:24.640
Um, I also think about Dr.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:41.039
Joan Fallon with her um medication for children with autism and the bland diet that they eat, the beige diet, because they are missing an enzyme and they can't digest a lot of things.
00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:44.079
And so, you know, very purpose-driven.
00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:49.680
I don't think uh Joan Fallon would have told you she would ever be an entrepreneur in her life.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:01.759
And yet she felt so called with her discovery in science to build a business and get on what is a very long path to approval of the drug and all of the things that go with that.
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:11.279
Um, and so I think, you know, when I think about all of this, you know, purpose leads, profit follows, the things that these women have said.
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:27.599
And I think, you know, it's really important to think about how your values lead you forward and how we start businesses that align with our values and knowing what our values are, because they they don't need to hold us back.
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:29.279
They should not hold us back.
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.400
We need them to help us lead forward.
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:36.720
So, five lessons.
00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:40.000
Um it's so amazing to me.
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:42.319
So, and just to recap, right?
00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:47.279
So, our first lesson number one is you know, leadership is learned through letting go.
00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:52.319
And I think there's some great examples of that throughout the different episodes.
00:26:52.319 --> 00:27:02.720
Um, you know, with Hilary Parnell, Marla Coffin, Erika MacKay talking about how they let go to grow bigger businesses.
00:27:02.720 --> 00:27:07.920
Lesson number two, reinvention is required even after big success.
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:10.559
I am a living example of that.
00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:18.160
And I think Sara Michelle Boes and Anya Aliev are also um, you know, have some really great commentary about it.
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:22.000
Mandy Friend Gigliotti is another great episode for that one.
00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:30.319
Lesson three, our belief shifts in belief precede our shifts in business.
00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:32.079
So, so important.
00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:40.880
We have to find the belief within ourselves, the conviction in what we're doing, and then we will find the transformation that we are looking for.
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:49.119
And I think, you know, Aeryon Ashlie, Lori Rogers, Mandy Friend Gigliotti, we see great examples of that throughout the episodes.
00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:55.759
Lesson number four: visibility isn't vanity, it's a leadership tool.
00:27:55.759 --> 00:28:01.440
Tell the story of your business, get out there, make sure people know about you.
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:02.720
And, you know, more.
00:28:02.720 --> 00:28:11.359
If you want to learn more, listen to the episodes Anna-Vija McClain, Tarra Stubbins, or Denise Bedell, uh, among others.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:13.839
But, you know, those three be seen.
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:18.079
Your story is a tool for the success of your business.
00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:22.480
And lesson five: purpose-driven profit is the new power.
00:28:22.480 --> 00:28:25.359
Um, you know, those great ladies, Christy Harrell, Dr.
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:26.960
Dionne Laslo-Baker, and Dr.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:30.160
Joan Fallon are doing amazing things in this world.
00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:33.039
And I know that so many of us are.
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:44.960
And I think that, you know, leaning into our values to help us move forward and letting them guide where we go in the world is such a crucial, crucial thing.
00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:52.000
So after all of that, here is my invitation to you.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.519
What lesson do you need to integrate right now?
00:28:55.519 --> 00:29:00.000
What belief do you have that's ready to shift?
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.960
And what values are you going to lean on to guide your next big move?
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:13.519
If you want a space to explore those questions, download the figure eight reflection workbook.
00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:19.440
It's designed to help you pause, reflect, and recommit to your own growth.
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:25.920
You can grab it at julieellis.ca slash bookshop.
00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:29.599
Thank you for being a part of the first 50 episodes.
00:29:29.599 --> 00:29:33.039
I can't wait to walk with you into what's next.
00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:34.799
Until next time.
00:29:35.119 --> 00:29:38.160
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:45.200
Please remember to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you won't miss any episodes when they drop.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:54.240
Figure 8 isn't just a podcast, it's a way of seeing the big, gorgeous goals of women entrepreneurs coming to life.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:59.759
If you're interested in learning more, you can find my book, Big Gorgeous Goals, on my website.
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:05.359
At www.julieellis.ca slash bookshop.
00:30:05.359 --> 00:30:11.440
That is also a place you can find out more about my growth and leadership training programs.
00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:14.640
And I'd love to hear from you.
00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:21.279
I'm thinking about the next era of Figure 8 and where we can take this.
00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:29.039
I'd love to know what things you want to learn, what you like the most, and what changes you think I could make.
00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:34.400
I'm so excited to bring you a new season of Figure 8 in 2026.
00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:36.480
See you again soon.