From Hustle to Hell Yes

Brian Anderson of Fathering Together joins the podcast today, shining a light on the power of community and why community pairs so well with movement making and business building.

Tara captured my attention with her keen emphasis on repeatable processes, and the fact that she really knows how to frame negativity in a transformative way. Plus, she tells the best stories, you'll want to listen up especially when we start talking about how her multi level marketer friend wasn't selling candles after all, Dawn dish soap and what we can learn from it. And her meaningful unique hook pointers are solid gold - and more important than ever if you want to stand out online.

I've heard a lot of successful business owners talk about their “biz bestie” but they don't often share what that relationship looks like, how it started, and how they really help each other. Today I'm interviewing one of my business besties - the amazing Laura Russel of The Joyful Uprising. We'll be talking a bit about her business, self care strategies, and a whole lot about how we support each other in our weekly meetups, keeping us on track and pushing us both in the best of ways. I almost certainly would have quit my business if not for Laura - she's basically my invisible business partner and I'm really excited to share how this type of relationship works and how it can be a really powerful part of your web of support as a business owner.

Have you heard that old adage, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."? I'm here to tell you that as far as your business is concerned, it can be (and should be) both! Small business owners and entrepreneurs are known for forging their own path, and often solo (at least in the beginning). But, as one business owner I talked to put it, “My collaboration crew is crucial to my success & mental wellbeing." And yet another framed it this way: “In my experience, all of my business success has happened when my community has helped me make it happen.” It's no secret that having a web of support behind you and your business makes the journey less of a lonely struggle, but there are a lot more benefits beyond that AND some key ingredients to look for as you create your own small biz squad.

Purpose and Pleasure. To me, these are also the keys to being a resilient human, and building a resilient business. On today's episode of From Hustle to Hell Yes, we're going to focus on that last one: PLEASURE. You're inherently resilient - all humans are - but we all need reinforcements, you know what I'm saying?! Find this episode's show notes at https://www.changeagent.studio/podcast

Time. It's a tricky thing. And our relationship to it… well, it's complicated. “I'm so busy” is practically an anthem in our world. And sometimes I wonder… what are we so busy about? Let's take a look at our relationship to time and what that has to do with resilience. You can find the show notes and other resources here: https://www.changeagent.studio/blog/69607-episode-26-time-attention-liminal-space

Online business was a world I didn't know how to navigate AT ALL when I shifted to being completely online! Maybe you can relate - you see the sales copy and tactics seemingly successful business owners are using and you try them on, you try to mimic what you see other people doing… but something just feels… off. Enter Mia Francis-Poulin and Copy Haus, where I found the exact inspiration I needed to step fully into my integrity and create my own path: the Copy Haus Manifesto. In this interview, Mia shares her insights on: >>> Changing her entire business model >>> Ethical copywriting - what it is and how to know if you're doing it right >>> The core values that have helped her grow her business

It's estimated that around 70% of people will suffer through it at least once in their life. I've gone through it and so have some of my clients. Renowned author Maya Angelou has had it. Award winning actor Tom Hanks and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor have been there, done that. Perhaps you've experienced it yourself. So what is this insidious condition? Imposter syndrome. This week on From Hustle to Hell Yes, I'm putting imposter syndrome under the microscope. Join me as I dig into: >>> the *actual* definition of imposter syndrome >>> the brain science of what's happening >>> a quick 2-minute exercise to help you prevent it (prevention IS better than a cure!) or to help you begin healing it

Rachael Kay Albers is a creative director, business comedian, and brand strategist gone wild. Think of her as the court jester of online business. When she's not muckraking about marketing and the intersections of pop culture, branding, tech, and identity, Rachael runs RKA ink, a reinvention studio and branding agency for businesses that burn the rulebook. And today, we're going to talk about what RKA knows best - branding. This is NOT an intro to branding conversation we're about to have. We're busting myths and having real talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of brand strategy.

Whenever I hear an entrepreneur asked, "What do you attribute your success to?" I know what's coming next: "Hard work." Hard work is just one tool in your toolbox when you're building a business. Today, we talk about the other tools you can use to get the job done. Marisa Corcoran is an actor-turned-copywriting mentor who helps business owners write with creativity and real dazzle. She helped me re-energize my website when it needed a significant overhaul. I can literally look over my email analytics and tell which emails I sought her advice on - because the open rates and click through rates always go way up! Today we dig into: Inserting personality into your copy. (Are you the hooker with the heart of gold? Or maybe you're more of the nerdtastic leader?) Creating a profitable AND sustainable business model. A quick dip into what the heck is up with summits lately. Relationship building within business bulding A LOT of other stuff in between. It's a smorgasbord of insight! So buckle up, because this is gonna be a ride! Want the show notes? Head on over to www.changeagent.studio/podcast

What we're going to talk about in this episode is a little bit controversial. There are lots of people out there that will encourage you to work 24/7 on your business - to hustle harder now for bigger payouts later. Gary Vee, I'm side eyeing you. The truth is, you're a better business owner when you're operating from strong foundations. You're more creative, you're more efficient, and you're much more effective when the Four Relationships are supporting you fully.

If you've ever hit a wall in your business and thought, I just want someone to tell me what I need to do next. If you've ever been told that your problem is a "scarcity mindset," or if you've ever felt like something in your business is just not working the way you need or want it to, Deepshikha goes deep on this and a lot more in this conversation!

So much of how we experience running a business has to do with the season of life, the season of business, and what phase of the creative process we're in. One reason we experience "stuckness" is trying to put our attention on the wrong thing at the wrong time. In this episode, we dig into the creative cycle as a path to aligned action.

You cannot throw a rock in the online business world without finding someone talking about "stuckness" and "getting unstuck." But here's the thing: stuckness is real. And when you're feeling it, it's like getting an extra a bad case of the flu, all that matters is getting better. And when you're stuck, all that matters is getting unstuck. Most of us are capable of unsticking ourselves. In fact, in most cases, we aren't actually stuck. In this episode I'll dig into one cause of stuckness. If you've ever said something like, "I just wish I knew what to do next," then this episode can help unpack what's going on under the hood.

Can 15 minutes revolutionize your business? After years of working with entrepreneurs and business owners and noticing some very common tendencies that actually work against business owners... and I created a framework to help ensure business owners can focus on what's important for their business, and not just what's urgent. I'm going to get right to the point, there is one thing that you must be able to do in business, if you want to hit your goals. No matter what you're selling, or what tactics you want to use. It's the secret sauce that takes us beyond tactics and strategies, and gives us the ease enjoyment, and effectiveness that we really need in our business in order to sustain it for the long term to keep building on our success over time. So what's the secret sauce? Listen in and I'll tell you exactly what it is and how it works.

Yes, neuroscience is broad, deep, complex, mysterious and transformative. But learning about the mind and brain isn't only for scientists, doctors or academics.  And if you've learned about the mind and brain from people with little training in science or understanding of the complexities of research (and there are plenty of folks jumping in the neuroscience bandwagon marketing themselves as ‘brain gurus' and selling outdated, or even mythical “neuro-nonsense”), you're in the right place. Dr. McKay's writing, teaching and online training programs are created so you can easily access, understand and implement evidence-based neuroscience strategies into your everyday life and work.  I got to ask her: > What are some misleading or false neuroscience ideas that have been circulating lately? > How can we use what you know about neuroscience to better handle anxiety or uncertainty in our life and business? > What is going on with the brain fog folks are experiencing lately?

Ordinarily this podcast comes out with a new episode every other week, but it's that time of year when us business owners and entrepreneurs are in a mad dash to do ALL THE THINGS before Christmas or the New Year… And so to help you do that with grace, I'm sharing a podcast every week this month - with tips for self care, time and energy saving tricks that actually work, and business tactics to take the pressure off. My guest today is the QUEEN of systems! Jordan Gill, operations consultant and founder of Systems Saved Me, helps burned out service providers replace their monthly retainers to virtual VIP Days.    I got to ask Jordan about > how she thinks about the customer journey to create a really great one > what it really means to “stop trading dollars for hours” > and pointers for tapping into our purpose and pleasure as biz owners so we can stop chasing after money so hard. Jordan's program Done In a Day™ has supported hundreds of students in creating and selling their first VIP Days. She also has a podcast called Systems Saved Me with over 300 episodes all about how business owners navigate success with systems. Learn more about Jordan or VIP Days at www.systemssavedme.com or Instagram at www.instagram.com/systemssavedme 

Warning: we use some language in this episode, so put on those ear buds as needed. This week we unpack hustle culture as it relates to visibility in your business, marketing, sales, and how to do it without burning out.  Emmelie de la Cruz is our guest today. I asked her about: > the studies that have most impacted her perspective on mindset > how mindset impacts our ability to market our business effectively > the tips she has for doing marketing in an authentic way to get results And she asked me to share some tips on making our business practices our own, even when we're following someone else's template. Emmelie is an entrepreneur, author and trainer with one goal to rescue overworked founders from being held hostage by their marketing. After a decade in corporate America working for top tech and consumer brands. She developed her one day cmo intensive to train CEOs and their teams on building intentional marketing strategies and workflows, which we talked a lot about in our interview. And especially that not being held hostage part because it can be so hard to balance the day to day work with getting the word out about what it is that you actually do. Her unapologetic approach to life and business has earned her a highly engaged following on social media features across top publications like Forbes, and the opportunity to work with brands like Staples, Dropbox, Capital One Black Enterprise, and Coca Cola.  

I was so lucky to find Tara Pringle Jefferson last year when - like so many other business owners and entrepreneurs - I was juggling my business and a lot of other stuff that I hadn't expected to be responsible for - like homeschooling during a pandemic, for example - and I desperately needed to create a new baseline for how to work within my business AND how to recharge so I could really show up for my clients as well as my family. She helped put me on the path to better balance.  Tara Pringle Jefferson is a writer, speaker, and self-care coach with a lifelong passion for creating community. As founder of the Self Care Suite, she created a wellness community for Black women and other women of color to unlearn exhaustion as their default and develop self-care rituals to sustain themselves. When she's not working, she's making runs to Trader Joe's and trying to perfect her recipe for the perfect pound cake. Born and raised in the Midwest, she lives in Ohio with her husband and two children. If you've ever struggled to squeeze in time for yourself between work and other obligations, Tara has some great insights to help you prioritize filling up your cup. In this interview, Tara shares: > What self care actually is. (HINT: it's not all bath bombs and pedicures.) > The misconceptions we have about self care (especially the ones that prevent us from doing it to begin with - so we can move past them.) > How community has been key to her business growth and her own self care journey. PLUS, she shares the radical self care practice she does every year!  

Emma Schermer Tamir of Marketing By Emma joins me on From Hustle to Hell Yes to talk all things marketing! Emma shares EVERYTHING: -> How she made the leap to entrepreneurship -> Where real confidence comes from -> Communicating in a crisis -> How to break “blank page syndrome” when you're writing your copy. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!

In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown talks about applying biomimicry to her work - using the models, systems, and elements of nature to solve all kinds of complex problems. Creativity, whether in our businesses or elsewhere, has phases. In this podcast, we explore pawpaw trees, the phases of creating through the lens of biomimicry, and what creative blocks are really about.

Ellen Yin, founder and podcast host of Cubicle to CEO™ joins me this week on From Hustle to Hell Yes! Her journey from "Cubicle to CEO" began when she quit her corporate marketing job at the end of 2017...without a backup plan. Ellen is a self-described accidental entrepreneur: she landed her first client a month into the job search and decided she'd never submit another resume again. I'm so thrilled that she joined me to dish on all things marketing and more! Some highlights to listen for: [3:30] So let's get straight to one of the reasons I love what Ellen does: Marketing minimalism. What it is and the secret to mastering it. [9:00] Ellen's philosophy on being productive: Urgent + Important + her secret ingredient that takes your effort to next-level effectiveness. [12:15] Selling to a small audience and the opportunity you have as an entrepreneur to engage meaningfully with your audience and listen for the ways you can serve them as individuals. [21:54] What to do to engage your network when you don't have a network. [28:35] One of the reasons that I fell in love with what Ellen does is that she is so incredibly transparent about her numbers. (You can check out her financial latest report here). Not only does she give us a peek behind the curtain of her finances and how she takes stock of her business every quarter.   I'm hosting the Profit, Purpose, & Pleasure summit this fall. Our businesses are microcosms of the world we're building and that through them we can achieve personal freedom, AND we can also create real, lasting, impactful change on the most insidious problems the world is facing. Get on the waitlist and I'll let you know when it's time to create your blueprint for more money, influence, and time freedom! https://change-agent-studio.ck.page/49b5798ae3

This week the wisdom of Beatrice Dixon of the Honey Pot Co is on my mind! Listen up as Bea shares: -> How Honey Pot came to be -> Taking the right kind of risks in business -> Managing the rollercoaster journey of entrepreneurship AND a lot more. Whenever there's a hard decision I have to make about my business, when I'm feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, I think about this interview from the Ideal Paying Clients summit this past spring.  I hope YOU enjoy listening in on it as much I as I love revisiting it.

In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown talks about cultivating play and rest, which she equates to letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth. She says, "The same gremlins that tell us we're too busy to play and waste time fooling around are the ones that whisper... "Napping is for slackers." In this episode, we unpack opportunity cost AND I share a weekly practice that saves you hours of indecision or distraction every week!

This is the very FIRST interview I'm hosting here and I'm thrilled that it's with Cait Donovan. Cait is a burnout expert - and when I say expert, I mean that she is the #1 go to source for information on burnout and recovery from burnout. She's the author of The Bouncebackability Factor, host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, and highly sought-after speaker. Listen up as we dive RIGHT into identifying burnout, what brought Cait to this work on burnout recovery, and we explore how entrepreneurs are prone to burnout because of the situations that are SO PREVALENT in running a business But we don't stop there – this episode is so full of excellent information. You can't see me nodding, because this  is podcast, but I'm nodding my head in agreement so much during our conversation! 

Entrepreneurship is about building a business, but it's also about a LOT of other stuff too. It's also about re-defining our relationship to work and being really clear on our ethics. Because HOW we do business - the values and ethics behind our tactics and our marketing, is just as important as WHAT we're doing - whether we're a done-for-you service provider or selling doodads or digital products.

In this episode, we're talking about something that I learned the hard way - and I'm still a little embarrassed about it, but I think it's of the utmost  importance that I share this with you, because I want you know that you can screw up in a lot of different ways, and it's never really The End. The mistakes you make won't necessarily define your business, but how you handle mistakes in your business absolutely will.

When you hear the phrase “core values” do visions of posters with quotes in script-y font dance in your head? Do they seem a little… fake? There's a good reason you feel that way. Lots of companies talk good game about core values, but then we find out that there's really no trace of them anywhere when you dig just below the surface of their slick website, right?  That's unfortunate because if there is one thing that makes business easier, it's using what you stand for to simplify. Here are 6 problems you might be facing that what you stand for can help you solve.

One of the things that we learn growing up, that we're told again and again, is that hard work is the only path to success. Just work hard and all that effort will be rewarded with material success. You can't hardly high five an entrepreneur without hitting a speech on hard work and hustle and dedication, but there's a really important piece to hard work that we've been ignoring.

In this episode, I answer a question from my Facebook Group community. “With my day job, it was easy to feel like getting right to work. I had the structure of an office and coworkers to reinforce that. As an entrepreneur, I find myself procrastinating on what needs to be done, avoiding doing my client work until the last minute. How do I tame my procrastination and re-gain focus?” Let's talk about ways to jumpstart productivity when you just can't get going.

I believe that entrepreneurship is a tool for freedom and improving your life in a LOT of ways, but especially with: How we spend our Time, Energy, and Money.  Today's episode is a Q&A session I did in my last summit: Attract Your Ideal Paying Clients: How to captivate and convert customers with ease, enjoyment, and effectiveness. We dig into these questions and so much more: How do I manage my energy as it fluctuates throughout the month? How do I balance work and life?

This is the very first episode of From Hustle to Hell Yes - and I'm excited to dig into what we're talking about: making space. This is the number one thing that folks ask me: "How can I have better work life balance?" Work life balance is an idea that comes with a lot of baggage - so in this episode I unpack what's really going on under the hood and dig into how to *actually* have balance and harmony between the different areas of your life, while staying accountable in your business. 

This is From Hustle to Hell Yes, I'm your host Emily Carter of Change Agent Studio, and I'm so excited to bring you this podcast. I believe that entrepreneurship is a tool for personal freedom and improving your life, AND I believe our businesses are microcosms of the world we're creating.  In From Hustle to Hell Yes, I explore the foundations of running a business that no one is talking about.