Myo Life

Transcript

[TRANSCRIPT]

Hey, I'm Carmen and welcome to Myo Life. That's short for my Outrageous Life, which is exactly the kind of life I get to live since I found the courage to ditch dental hygiene and build a life I'm bonkers about as a myofunctional therapist and entrepreneur. Here you will find all the things Mayo business and how to build a life that you, too, are bonkers about. I'm very happy you're here. Shall we dive in.

Well, hello, friend, and welcome back to the Myo Life Podcast. I'm very glad you're here because, as you guessed it, we have another great topic today. But first, I do have to chuckle, because many of you guys know this, but my husband left the world of employment. I should say I make that sound like he is unemployed. He's not. He is my very hardworking husband. But I have to laugh because here it is podcast recording day. It's on my schedule, it has to be done and the man is outside pressure washing the house. So God love him. But hopefully it's not too loud because we got to roll with this. So I am I'm very glad that you're here. We have a video version of this on YouTube. We have the podcast version. So, depending on what you're watching or depending on how you're taking it in, you might see me here with my trusty flip chart, which really makes things easier for me, as I'm kind of putting my thoughts down.

I don't always like to script a podcast. Sometimes I like to just fly by the seat of my pants, if you will. So that's what we are doing today. So we're going to talk about eight lessons in eight years. Okay, so things that I wish I had known about starting my functional therapy business. So I started my business eight years ago and if I could go back and talk to her and speak to that scared, nervous, uncertain, perfectionistic, people-pleasing woman back then, I sure would have saved myself a lot of headaches. I've made mistakes, I have learned hard lessons. Made mistakes, I have learned hard lessons and I spent way too long trying to figure some of this stuff out. Okay, but you don't have to because I'm going to save you time. So today I'm handing you the eight lessons that I wish I had known from day one.

Okay, number one don't try to be everything to everyone. Okay, this is on so many levels, but the biggest thing that came to mind for me with this is that I thought that lowering my prices or doing whatever it took to make my services more accessible to everybody, I thought that there was times where I thought that was the answer. I thought that if I created programs for everybody, I would get more yeses. And, friend, I was wrong. Okay, when you try to please everybody, you help nobody, okay, and you end up burning time, resentful, and very often you end up broke. Okay, that didn't necessarily happen to me, but I have spent a lot of time trying to be everything to everyone. Okay.

What actually works is for you to get very clear on your who. Okay, your easy, yes, your easy peasy, dreamiest customer okay, and build your business for them. This is one thing I preach day in and day out in my grow coaching inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy, in the Mile Business Accelerator. You that is one thing you will know for from me is you have to know who your who is okay. That that is so important because you're going to build everything around them. You're going to create your offer around them. You're going to build your offer around them. You're going to build your marketing around them. It's going to help you constrain what you're creating on social media, all of that stuff.

So, lesson one don't try to be everything to everyone. Number two everything doesn't have to be for me. Everything doesn't have to be for me. Okay, everything doesn't have to be for you.

In the beginning no kidding I chased every shiny new strategy because somebody with a big platform said it was the right way. But here's the truth Just because it worked for them doesn't mean that it's for you. Okay, chew up the fish, spit out the bones, learn, don't copy. Build your business around, your strengths and your vision and kind of what like what. Your big goals are, not somebody else's blueprint. So this is a tough one, because it is not that, this information from people who are further along in the game. It's not that that's not for you, but the problem was is I would have one mentor that would say you absolutely, I swear by this, you have to do it this way. And I would be like, oh for the love of Pete, okay, I got to change what I'm doing, I have to do this strategy, and then I would switch to something else. So it was literally like shiny object, shiny squirrel syndrome.

And the problem was is I was just getting burnout, I was spending too much time. I was learning changing. I was learning changing, I was learning changing, and it was through that process that I really dialed in my decide and do process of making decisions, sticking with something until I had data to back it up. So if you know anything about me, it is that we make data-driven decisions, not just what our gut tells us or what our hormones that week are telling us and what our mood is telling us. Because if I went with that, let me tell you, last week I felt one thing and this week I feel something different. Okay, so, by taking ugly imperfect action, sticking with it, taking that action long enough to have data, I was able to really dial in my own decide and do process, and that was when I realized that these people are brilliant and I get something from them. But everything that they tell me to do does not have to be for me.

Okay, lesson number three slow down your yeses, practice constraints. So, early on, my default answer was yes, yes to everything, yes to projects, yes to collaborations, yes to coming on this podcast, yes to doing this, yes to talking to this study group, yes, yes, yes, yes to everything. The problem was is that I ended up breaking promises to myself. So constraint is where momentum lives, choosing fewer, better priorities. That is what creates results. So this is again something that I teach inside my programs now how to narrow your focus so that you are not drowning in busy work, because that busy work does not give you any money.

Okay, number four keep it simple, stupid. I love that because do you see this whiteboard? If you're watching me on YouTube, you see this, this flip chart. This is me keeping it simple. I used to spend more time scripting everything or creating PowerPoints or whatever, and I just I don't have the bandwidth for it anymore. So the pendulum in my business has kind of swung. I have talked before about you know how much money I have spent on software and technology and all of those things, all the tools, subscription software, fancy lighting. You know all of those things. And guess what? It wasn't all 100% necessary. Okay, you don't need super expensive tech stacks to run a profitable practice. You need two things really your myofunctional therapy education and the courage to tell humans out in the wild what you do and how you can help them. Okay, so simple, simple, scale. Simple is going to get you paid. So, lesson four keep it simple.

Lesson five burnout can still happen. So true, my friend, just because you're doing less hygiene, or maybe you've left hygiene, that does not mean that burnout disappears. If you build your life around your business, then you're going to burn out again. Okay, just in a different chair. I burn out in this chair all the time, I burn out in this office all the time. But if you build your business around your life, that is where freedom lives and that's really where I say my zone of genius really is, because one of the things that we work on from the very beginning when I onboard a new student and we go into that first coaching session, I am the one running the show. I'm asking all the questions because I want to know everything about what your goals are, what kind of your long-term vision, what you want to do. And nobody says, hey, I want to build life around my business. It's the other way around. That's why you invest with me.

So I find different seasons in my business. Yes, there will be seasons where I will be working harder, there will be seasons where I'm just really pouring in. But it's also those times where I can find that my attitude gets a little bit grumpy, I get frustrated or I just get kind of like, meh, whatever, I've made enough money, I don't need to make any more. So that's where I find that my consistency really gets challenged. But the other thing, when I am building or continuing to have this business around my life, I'm alive, I'm excited.

This very morning my husband got up to go to the bathroom at 4.30. I was awake, kind of watched the clock At quarter to five. I thought you know what? I could get up and I could go work and have some coffee and just have peace and quiet. So I love feeling alive about my business. Okay, so burnout can still happen. That's why it is so important for you to build your business around your life.

All right, lesson number six Build for the life and business that you want, not the one that you have. So back when I was not making a lot of money, I still made decisions like I was a six-figure business owner. Okay, I built my business for the future that I wanted, not the present hell that I was stuck in, and that mindset. It really helped me grow into the business that I have today. This is one of the shifts that we do inside the business the Mile Business Accelerator, acting like a CEO of the business that you're building, not the one that you're barely surviving.

So this is just something to think about, because many of you guys don't want to do, don't want to invest any money, which I get that you can totally bootstrap your business, but there are some things that starting a business isn't free. Yes, it's a low overhead business, but there are some things that I think it behooves you to invest in at the beginning. So you're setting your systems up. There are seven systems that I teach, teach you how to set up inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy. Those systems are what save your fanny when you are having a three $400,000 a year, like I've experienced. Okay, having that, those automations and those systems set up so that I can work smarter, not harder, and I can work smarter, not more hours. So, setting those things up from the beginning, investing in that business that you want to have, setting up your scheduling, setting up your auto emails when somebody books an exam appointment with me, I am not on the other end of the computer emailing this person. They get an automated email that says hey, here's your appointment details, here's the link you need to visit, here's what you need to prepare, here's where you're going to send it, all of that stuff. I built that out. Then, okay, the same for getting paid, all of those things. Oh, lesson seven this is a biggie, especially for dental hygienists.

The three Ps that kill progress. Okay, maybe you already know what they are, because if you've been with me for any amount of time perfectionism, people pleasing, procrastination Okay, these three almost kept me stuck, and they actually it's still. They still rear their head and still keep me stuck. At times, perfectionism told me that nothing was good enough to share. So there were some things where I just did not get it out into the world. Okay, perfectionism is alive and well.

For dental hygienists, perfectionism is also. You know, what's important to remember is that B plus work is what. What is good, okay Done is better than perfect. People pleasing made me say yes when I meant no. Where does that go back to? Well, lesson number three slow down your yeses, practice constraint. So that happens when we've got people pleasing going on and also when we have no boundaries. So that is one thing that I go over with students a lot is, you know, when they're frustrated about lack of progress and life has been happening to them, that life happening most of the time can be traced back to not practicing constraint and not setting boundaries, which is people pleasing at its finest. Procrastination is the other one. Okay, procrastination is perfectionism, just high-level fear. Okay, just wearing a fancier outfit.

The answer to this stuff, you guys, is action. Messy, imperfect, courageous action. You heard me mention my decide and do process. So we decide we're going to do something. We take ugly, imperfect action. We evaluate what's working, what's not working, what do I want to do differently. We take more ugly, imperfect action. We don't go back and re-decide. We don't get to do that until six months or a year, when we have data, this data that drives our decisions and we're not just following a gut feeling. So those three Ps raise their ugly head all the time Perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, all right. Lesson eight vanity metrics don't pay the bills. So I used to care way too much about vanity metrics likes follows all of those things.

But here's the truth. They do not build your retirement account. I don't care about being popular, I care about being profitable. And metrics that matter are things like conversions the number of consultations that you're having, the conversions from that free assessment to a paid exam, the conversion from a paid exam to a paid client. The reason these are important and they're going to get you further is because if you know that you have to do 10 exams to get one paying client, then if you want to earn a lot of money, you're going to have to do a lot of exams. And also, incidentally, if that is your scenario hey, I have to do 10 exams to get one paying customer, or I have to do 10 consultations to get one exam then there's a problem. But at least it's telling you hey, this is where you can go, improve it. Okay, most of my conversions are, I would say, 50% or greater. That means I'm talking to the right customer. I'm leading them through the process of learning about Mayo, bringing them closer to me, educating them. I'm offering a solution to their problem. I'm offering a solution to their pain point. I'm bringing them in, bringing them in, bringing them in and then, when they finally do some don't do it overnight, don't fool yourself there. Some of them take years to stop kicking the tires. But once they do, they tend to move pretty quickly from that free assessment to an exam, to a paying client. Okay, so those are the things.

I do not care about vanity metrics. I don't care how many likes, saves, shares, all of those things that a lot of you guys look at. I don't care about the number of followers. Yes, I want to see growth on my social media, but I have had periods of time where I didn't have significant growth in that area, but yet I had, you know, six figures of growth in my business, so that vanity metrics are not everything. Okay, so there you have it Eight years, eight lessons. Trust me, there's more lessons. These were just the ones that kind of came to the top of my mind when I started my business. You do not have to spend years circling, spinning out, like I did. Okay, that is exactly why I have created the programs that I have created so that you can skip the guesswork and you can start building a profitable business faster and smarter.

Okay, so I'm going to save you time. I'm going to save you lots of money. I'm going to save you a lot of frustration. So that's it. Here's what I would say. I would offer to you a challenge to find one of these that resonates with you. I'm guessing, if you're a dental hygienist watching this, that it's probably the three P's. See how that sits with you, see if that's the truth for you. I think that. Or number three okay, slowing down your yeses and practicing constraint. Those kind of go hand in hand. So that is all I have for you today, my friend Until I'm back to bring you some more mild business. Go build a life that you are bonkers about, and I will see you soon.