376. How James Wedmore Went From $2M To $10M In One Year With ONE PRODUCT + A Team of Just 8
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I believe we take a lot of what we learned in how to live in life

and apply that to business. But so much of that set us up to be a good, hardworking, permission seeking employee. And the moment you're in business, you are not an employee. And if you're operating your business like an employee, you're just working harder and longer and sitting there probably going, I've worked so hard for this. I deserve it. Well, of course you deserve it. But working harder doesn't cause or guarantee anything. And so we need to approach it a different way. Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast.

Today, we are bringing back one of our most popular episodes that we recorded with my good friend and mentor, James Wedmore. If you don't already know about James, he's incredible. I've learned so much from him over the past few years, and we've actually shared a lot about his business by design course, because we believe in the work he's doing so much.

In this episode, we go really deep into designing a life and business that creates true freedom for you. That means time, location, financial, and inner freedom. We also get into how to build a revenue engine in your business, attract a team of A players around you, and delegate so you can elevate your role. It's so, so good and truly a must listen to episode for any entrepreneur who wants to take their business to a whole new level minus the overwhelm and stress.

So with that said, let's get into the episode with James. James, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Natalie. I'm excited. I'm so excited. And I want to start with something that blows my mind and is what really inspired me and attracted me to your work is you have an eight-figure company with eight team members. To me, that is heavenly. Yes.

And when I have been listening to you speak and diving into your work, it really has shown me there's a better way of doing things. And I know myself and so many other women that I know have been in a place where it felt like the only way through was burnout and just like burning the candle at all ends and hiring team member after team member and building this company that feels quite bloated.

And when I listen to you speak, I'm like, wait, there's another way. Can you please tell me about that? Right. Yeah. And so how did all of this come about? How have you been able to build what you've been able to build? By making every single mistake possible. And that is something that I look back on my own journey and have the most gratitude for.

I struggled really badly for four and a half years before I saw anything. I'm saying like I had to move back in with my mom and dad. I got addicted to my sister's Adderall medication. I don't have ADHD and I was popping 20 milligrams a day. I got down to 140 pounds. I was working 16 hours a day in front of my laptop, losing money, like literally going into debt, asking my mom for money every couple of weeks to the point where she's like begging me, please, please,

You have to get this thing to work because I can't keep paying you and give you money and, and, and pay my bills. That's, that's heartbreaking. So I went through a lot of painful experiences and,

Look back to where I am today and I I inherited my dad's stubbornness and when I learned to use that stubbornness Correctly, it's benefited me way more and the way I look at things today is when things get hard and how you shared it with so many of your listeners where well I just doubled down or I effort my way or I hustle my way or it's either it becomes binary It's either money or my time. It's either I

pay for the solution or pay with it with my time and my effort. And I believe there can always be another way. And that stubbornness caused me to think more creatively and outside of the box. And I think it comes down at a bigger level to the fact that most people aren't even wired for entrepreneurship. And so they're not actually thinking or acting like an entrepreneur needs to be.

I always get in trouble because I kind of poo-poo like the public education system as it did a massive disservice for entrepreneurship. And so I believe we take a lot of what we learned in how to live in life

and apply that to business. But so much of that set us up to be a good, hardworking, permission seeking employee. And the moment you're in business, you are not an employee. And if you're operating your business like an employee, you're just working harder and longer and sitting there probably going, I've worked so hard for this. I deserve it. Well, of course you deserve it. But working harder doesn't cause or guarantee anything. And so we need to approach it a different way. And that's what I had to do through those painful experiences. I finally

surrendered and said, there's got, there's gotta be a better way. And there is, there's just different, it's just a different approach, you know, so we can unpack that as much as you want and go in any direction you want, but that's kind of the big, the big picture of how I see it. So when you were in a place where you were losing money, was that just the cost of the business were just way higher than what you were actually making? Yeah. So there was a, there was a point

This was 2014, I believe, where I got a phone call from my CPA. She says, I got good news and I got bad news for you. And it's never good news when they say they have both. So she goes, you've made the most money in January. It was this February of 2014. She says, you made the most money in January that you've ever made in a non-big promotion. Just like money coming in the door. She says, 70,000 dollars.

I'm like, "That's amazing. "What could possibly be bad?" And she goes, "Well, your expenses were 75." And I could tell you where I was standing when I heard that because I got tunnel vision and I dropped to my knees and I had a panic attack. And there was a voice in my head, it was my voice, that just went on loop and it said, "This was it, this is it, this is the end, it's over. "I hope you enjoyed it while it lasts, kid." And I think up until that point,

I had been doing what a lot of entrepreneurs do, which is when you see a little success, you start to think this must be, and I'm sure you went through this. Oh yes. This must, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is too good to be true. Maybe this was a fluke. And then when anything happens, you're like, that's the evidence. I knew it. And this is the end. And that was really scary. I had a hard time dealing with that because I remember going to like a restaurant and

And like looking at your server and being jealous because like, at least you get paid. I'm losing money. At least you, you do a job and you're done at 5 PM or whenever you get off work and you, you get money and then you can go play video games or go hang out with your friends or do whatever you want to do and see your family or whatever. And I don't, and I'm taking this with me 24 hours a day, even while asleep.

And obviously, I love that quote of entrepreneurs are willing to do what most others aren't so they can experience what most others can't. And that I had to remind myself of. So in that instance, Natalie, what was happening was I was being a really immature, irresponsible entrepreneur. And this is the phase. So business growth happens in stages. And this is what I want everyone to understand. Business growth happens in stages. There's a startup stage.

there's a stage where like something's working and now we need to double down on it there's a scaling stage and in this stage well i realize in every stage you you have there's a different strategy there's a different mindset there's a different way of being that you need to be in each of these stages and we don't adapt some are harder some we're like wow i kind of lean into this one but we kind of have this fixed mindset and this fixed approach for

for the totality and the timeline and growth of your business. I would imagine, you know, having a new, a new child, like how you parent your child now is going to differ based on when they're in high school and they become rebellious, right? So we have to adapt how we are with the business as it grows. And I was not doing that. And so I got to this place where I was making money. And this is what so many of us do once we make the money is we start being irresponsible with the money and we just start throwing money at

So when we have money, instead of throwing our time at it, we throw our money at it. Up until that point, I'd been throwing my time. Now I got money. Here, you figure it out. You fix it. You do it. And now all that did was it perpetuated the problem

and created a new one, which is you don't have money, you're losing money. And this is where the huge epiphany, the big, really big one really came through. I mentioned video games. I'm kind of a nerd, more like just a big kid. I like playing with toys like Legos. And that's what I do in my spare time is I build Legos. I think when we have a digital business and everything's intangible, I like to do something with my hands. And I remember just playing with Legos and realizing...

like an eight year old kid can build a 2000 piece complex thing on a box. And what I was dealing with were grown arse adults who couldn't build a fricking landing page. I'm like, come on. And I'm paying them like $40 an hour. I'm like, what is happening here? And, um, I, my brain either went to like, maybe I need to hire an eight year old kid that can build Legos or I need to build my business the same way that Lego creates their kits. Yeah.

And that was the huge, the first of many huge light bulb moments that completely changed the business. Because if you look at a Lego instruction manual, it's the step-by-steps, one, two, three, one piece at a time, one step at a time. And it's so simple that everyone, even the eight-year-old kid gets it right. And I said, I realize I haven't been doing that.

that I've been treating any team member that I hire, any person that I work with the same way that I treat myself, which is just figure it out. And I expect them to be a mind reader, right? I expect them to have my experience and my level of care. They should care as much as I do. That probably won't happen. So good luck with that. And so what I did is I did this thing where I just blocked everything off my calendar for two weeks.

And I sat down and I said, what's one thing that we do all the time that takes a lot of work? And at the time I was doing webinars very consistently, like once every two or three weeks. And I mapped out in a Google Doc, step by step,

how to do a webinar. And I'm talking like, log in at the time we used GoToWebinar. Log in to GoToWebinar, www.gotowebinar.com. Press the button in the upper right hand corner. I mean, painstaking detail. Things that entrepreneurs love doing, right? Details. I hated it. I hated doing it, but I said I had to. It's so funny. Entrepreneurs are terrible at details. Yes, we are big picture. And that's a good thing. That's stay big picture, stay visionary, but the business still needs it. Yeah. So it was a painful process for me to do it. And it took two weeks. Yeah.

And it ends up, I forget the exact number today, but it's like, I've asked people, I said, how many steps do you think are involved in creating a webinar? I don't know, it's like 15. I was like, no, it's 78.

Like we don't, we collapse it so much. We have, we don't even, we take for granted how awesome we are. We're juggling so many balls and hats all the time that we take for granted. Do you see what you just did? You just made this whole complex thing work. So I mapped it out step-by-step like a Lego instruction manual. And then I went on to a little website called onlinejobs.ph where you can hire a virtual assistants in different countries like the Philippines for very inexpensive. And I just have no training, nothing. I just handed it to them. And I said, let me know when it's done.

48 hours later, they said, okay. And they just give me a link and the link is to the registration page. So I tested it. The registration works. It works on mobile. Email sends me to a thank you page with a calendar reminder. All of a sudden I'm getting, I'm getting the email reminders. It's adding me to the go-to webinar. It's all, it's all set up. And what took me two weeks to build out as a process took someone 36 hours or, you know, two days of work to build out. And there wasn't a single mistake.

There wasn't anything wrong. And that's when I realized that how we approach business has to be different. That how you start as an entrepreneur must be different than how we run a business. And that the more structure and simplicity you put in the business, the more freedom you get back in your life. And that changed everything. I got obsessed and we created an instruction manual for everything. A standard operating procedure, a process for everything. Today we use that term, let's processize it.

And then recently, back in 2020, I was a little bored, like a lot of people were. They're in their homes for a while. And so I started another business and I started an Airbnb business. We've taken that to 750,000 a year with four properties. And I built a new team.

We process everything to how we have guests check in and check out and how we communicate them, process the whole thing, you know, have an A, it's one person and a cleaning crew that runs the whole thing. And it's like the streamlined clockwork machine. And that's what really gets me jazzed up today is,

Most entrepreneurs go on a personal development journey. I'm sure you've grown tremendously since the day you said, I want to start a business. And you realize that as you grow, you see that manifest in the business. I grow, the business grows. So that growth comes from the inside. You know who I'm becoming, what I'm letting go of, what I'm learning, how I'm rewiring and changing my thinking and what I say to myself and how I feel and that boom, I'm growing. I see that effect.

But as you look at your business, it has to happen the same way. That if growth occurs from the inside with us, growth needs to occur from within the business.

And that's not how people are approaching business. They're going, what's the latest cool tactic or strategy that the gurus are hiding in their secret vault? What do you need to do? What do you need to do? What is it I need to do? Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do. And it's like, don't get me wrong. We still need right strategies. You know, Tony Robbins always says you can head east all day long, but you're never going to watch a sunset. So we need the right strategy.

But so much of the growth that we've seen is because I took that concept of from the inside out growth and applied it at a macro level to a small little business. And when we did that, there's a couple other pieces that come to that in another story associated. But when we start putting that structure and I did it like a black Wednesday, I fired everybody and we started over. In fact, one of the people we started over with is here today. That was seven and a half, eight years ago and still with me.

And we took the business from two to 10 million in one year just by doing that. Because all of a sudden we could handle what we wanted. Does that make sense? That makes so much sense. And I, yes, all of this. And so, okay, let's just even go to you.

to put a lot of things into processes I'm sure you've seen there was a lot of busyness going on and is that why you then decided to fire your team it was kind of like because I know I've been in that situation before where sadly I've had to do something similar because I started to look at people's rhythms and rules and realize we don't need a lot of that stuff yeah but that's a really hard decision to make especially when you know you love your team and I think I

I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs kind of sitting there wishing they could be working from a blank slate right now because they've built these businesses with so much complexity and it feels like there's so much going on there's so much busyness they're kind of saying to themselves it would be so much easier if I could just start again and even as I'm saying it I know so many people that would be saying this when and how do you decide when is the right time to kind of make a bit of a

blank slate and say, okay, I'm going to take what I've learned and do things a little bit differently. Yeah. There's a, there's an old Zen saying leap and the net will appear. And someone interviewed me once and they said, what's the biggest leap you've ever taken? And I said, I said, that's really hard for me to answer. Actually, I don't think I've taken big leaps. I think they're calculated risks and steps in the right direction. So I always encourage entrepreneurs to not make brash, dramatic,

uh, emotional decisions. Like I'm shutting it all down tomorrow and I want the world to know. And I was like, I've never done that. And I think I'm a little bit more calculated. So my version of a, of a black Wednesday was I had two other freelancers and like a part-time person and like, yeah, within 30, 45 days, they were all, all gone. But it was like,

what really happened first was there was conversations. And so there's a quote that I love that I applied to business. Whenever the moment you're working with another team member, and I know there's probably people listening that are like, I'm not ready for a team and all that. So that's totally understandable. It's not like you need to go hire a team today and solve every problem. It starts with us. And the quote is when a flower doesn't bloom, you don't blame the flower.

You blame the environment in which it grows. And so the first thing I always go to first is what is the environment I've created that is either allowing or inhibiting this human being to flourish, to bloom, to thrive? And I...

Today, that's that was like that that Lego instruction manual was the line in the sand of my past versus my future of from here on out. My priority is to the environment first. It's the process over the person. So when you're describing those scenarios, a lot of times we're hiring a or creating a more person dependent business and we're looking for those unicorns.

And we want them to be like us, but not be us at the same time to do all the things, read our minds, do things that we even we can't do and do it better than us and wow us constantly. And I see so many people trying to do that. And I don't see actually a lot of people pulling that off. And I see a lot of people that have failed doing that. And I failed doing that. So I said, this is where there must be a better way.

So it starts with a conversation. If I can come and you're working for me and I say, hey, some things are not working and I'm starting to realize it's because maybe I haven't been giving you enough expectations and training and I haven't been clear in my communication of what I'm trying to create and what I'm looking at. And I own that. If I give you better training, maybe we put a standard operating procedure and we just do the same consistent thing. Do you think that we would see

increase in your performance working together and is that something you're willing to take on what's happening in this conversation is we're either coaching them up or we're coaching them out right now I coach and work with a lot of multiple seven-figure entrepreneurs looking to get to eight and I'd say this pretty you know declaratively that there's only a few exceptions where if you have to fire somebody you did something wrong

And I had a conversation about four weeks ago with somebody who was ready to fire someone. And I said, I just want you to know, I think you have failed somewhere first. And that's okay. And if you wanna let them go, let them go. But if we do this right, then what will happen is either you coach them up to the level of expectations that is mutually agreed upon, or they will decide on their own that they don't wanna go to that level and they will exit.

And the only exceptions are like, if you ever find someone do something really shady, nasty, like we've had that, someone who steals or lie. Those are the exceptions. So let me amend it and say, if you do this right, you should never have to fire someone for performance issues. It's about now I realize I'm in a business that

I need to have more structure, more expectations and more training. I need to create an environment where my people can thrive. And I hope that's not getting too like intimidating too much for your listeners. 'Cause I'm not saying go out and just hire a bunch of people today. And sometimes people misconstrue that. Your business growth happens in stages. There is the stage in which you are in and there is what that business needs from you.

And I wanna say that, and then I will shut up, I promise. I go on long tangents and I apologize. - I love it. - But wherever your business is right now, and wherever you wanna take it within the next 12, 18 months, it, just like in a relationship, you wanna be in a loving, thriving, committed, connected, just passionate relationship, well guess what? That partner of yours,

has needs. And if you don't assist in getting your partner's needs met, you're probably not going to get what you want. So take the same concept and superimpose it over your business and realize that you want a business that you love and gives you time off and freedom, all these things, which I'm here for it. But the problem is, is you don't understand that it has needs.

and it can't speak for itself. You actually have to be the advocate for your business because it cannot speak for itself. And so you have to be able to intuit, and that's what a business owner can do, what does this business need from me? And not necessarily from you, the business owner, but just need in general. What does it need? And if you're not giving it what it needs,

Number one, who else do you think is going to give it what it needs? You think a magical unicorn employee is going to come in and just know and ask those questions? No. And if you're not giving your business what it needs, how long before it starts to suffer, just like in a relationship? And that's what I realized the Lego story was my business needs more structure if it's going to continue growing. And that was the beginning of changing a lot. So-

And I really love going into the tactical too, because even if someone's listening and they're not in a place where they've hired their first employee, I really wish I was listening into these conversations before I hired my first team member. Because I definitely hired in the beginning with the idea that someone would come in and read my mind.

and they would do an amazing job. I still want that. Don't get me wrong. I would love that. So if you're out there and you're looking for work, but you know, that's like the exception, not the norm. And then what gets really scary is like, well, what if they do quit? And that was the thing I never wanted is I never wanted to felt that level of vulnerability in my business. Yeah. What if my entire business crumbles because that person leaves? Yeah. And I even loved the tactical way of showing how to have that conversation because I

Even when I got into business, I was so terrified of having like a conversation where I needed to coach someone up or let them know performance wasn't great. And I also didn't realize how much of that responsibility was on me as the business owner to get the most out of my team. And it's something you often only learn with experience, but I feel like if you can listen in on these conversations, it would have saved me a lot of time. Yeah. And even if it's like, I'm not ready yet, I like to make sure that

I can offer something that's applicable to every human being that's listening. And I will tell you this, that something that I've learned the hard way is your life works, your business works, and your relationships work.

to the degree that you are willing to have uncomfortable conversations. And so often in business, the moment you're working with another humanoid that has thoughts and feelings and beliefs and a particular cognitive lens through which they experience you, their work, the future, whatever,

talking to them, listening to them and saying the things that feel uncomfortable that you don't wanna ask or say, but doing it anyways, because that takes a ton of courage can solve so many problems and uncomplicate so many things, clarify so many things and will like give you so much catapulting of your own growth. And today,

Part of the reason why it's a team of eight is they're incredible people. This is what we call an A player. And here's the part that stings. Everyone wants that A player, but A players don't work for B leaders. And the A players in the room nodding their heads. They don't wanna work for a B player. And I'm not here to toot my own horn. I'm here to just offer what has worked for me. And my team will tell me, it's like,

We love your leadership style. And one of the number one things is, it's because I'm willing to talk about whatever we gotta talk about. And I just had to have a tough conversation with an employee yesterday about their performance. And it went from, I could have ignored it, I could have pretended it wasn't, I could have said, she needs to read my mind. Can't she tell that I'm being passive aggressive and avoiding her? She should ask me what's up and just change her behavior like that. Instead, I just said, we need to talk about your performance in this area.

And I know this is going to be a little uncomfortable for both of us, but, and this is the magic words, what the business needs is blank. And just like to go back to your original question, like when you have a team that you care about and you love, well, I have a love and respect for every, I want to for every human I interact with. So of course with my team,

But there's also an understanding of I have to advocate for my business. It's not, we're not doing it for me. It's not James, the dictator that, you know, I need, you know, my team came down today. It's not because I need an entourage of people with me. Not at all. It's like, you guys are here to assist if anything else is needed, if we want to capture any other content and they're doing it for a vision that I've casted and not for me. And, um,

At every level, when your number one question that drives your decision making and your actions is what does the business need? That will change everything, including those uncomfortable conversations. This is what, Natalie, this is just what the business needs right now. And I love you, but if you're telling me you're unwilling to give this, then I think I'm hearing you're choosing that you wanna exit the company. Is that correct?

So I'm not being a jerk and saying, get the F out of here. But I hope that offers something that makes sense. It does. Yeah. And I'm nodding. Everyone in the room's nodding. I feel like everyone listening is nodding. It's so funny because I remember, I mean, maybe it's sad, not funny, but I remember.

But when I started my business and I would hire people, I would feel bad asking them to do their job. - I know. - Even delegating, I would say things like, and maybe part of it's being, is it okay if you, I'm sorry if, don't worry if, and it's slow. I feel like the only way to get through that is just to do the things that are uncomfortable.

And then you realize, wait, that actually got done because I asked for it to get done and they really liked it. And you just get so much better at it. But you probably felt bad because you thought they were doing it for you. Yeah. And it's like, no, they're doing it for the company. They're doing it for the vision that they are being enrolled in. I got an idea.

We are gonna take this to be the number one business and reach hundreds of thousands of women and you're gonna be a part of that. And so what that vision needs, what that business needs from you is more of this and less of that. And I'm just, they know that about me. They know my team. They know that I'm just the, I'm like the interpreter of what the business needs. And they've seen it, you know? And

I've had to make tough calls on myself. Like, you're right. I can't be doing that or I should be doing that. And I'm not. And when they see that for me, like I'm willing to admit my mistakes, you know, and that's the pressure. We put so much pressure on ourselves from so many directions and it's understandably, but pressure is one of the biggest killers of performance at every level of business. So there's no point doing it.

Oh, I love this so much. Speaking my language. So going back to this 2 million to 10 million, you said you did this in one year. We have a CFO consultant who's retired. And so he just consults with us in a few small businesses for shits and giggles. But he was the CFO for freecreditreport.com when they were a startup and they took that to like a gajillion dollars and sold it, right? And he told me, he said, I've never seen a small business do this. And then he asked me, so how'd you do it?

And that's what everyone wants to know. And they hate the answer that I give. But we've already started to allude to the answer, but Tony Robbins says it, Richard Bandler, he got it from Richard Bandler. He's the founder of NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is a model technology based on behavioral therapy and family behavior therapy techniques and stuff like therapists like Virginia Satir and Milton Erickson, hypnotherapist. And he says, "The quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions that you ask."

And I so believe that today that we as entrepreneurs to be a true entrepreneurs, to create something that's never been created. And I believe the way to create through our mind to unlock creativity, that's what creativity is. And innovation and imagination is through our questions. You see all the stuff with the chat GPT stuff.

People that are getting good at ChatGPT are just asking ChatGPT better questions. Well, ask your own damn mind better questions because the infinite intelligence that you are already connected to is already bigger and greater than ChatGPT. We just don't see that within ourselves. We don't see what we're actually connected to. But we like the computer program. I get it. It's easier.

I get it. I totally get it. It's the simple, convenient, but I have a different philosophy about what is just simple and easy. I think shortcuts are the long way to get to where you want to go. But when you ask better questions, and I will get to this answer here because this is what's setting that up, you get better answers. The problem is we don't like not knowing the answer because school taught us that I don't know is bad.

But I don't know is a beautiful thing because it's having an answer that collapses and shuts down every other possibility. The moment you have the answer, nothing else could be the answer. So when you develop the patience and confidence to sit in that uncomfortable, uncertain feeling of I don't know to a great question,

That's when all the divine intuition and answers come flooding through. So the answer I told this very logical 3D business minded with 30 years of experience and a very impressive resume from corporate America, you know, startup companies, all that type of stuff was I just kept asking myself, what would an eight figure a year business do?

And that became the driving force. And you have to be very present to do that in your life. And obviously there's all these studies that say we're like 90% unconscious and on autopilot with the same thinking and the same, we're just going around merry-go-round every day. And then we wonder why our life isn't different. It's like, well, 'cause you've been thinking the same and you've been doing the same based on that thinking. And so I had to force myself to be more present. And when a decision would come across my desk,

I'd say, well, what would an eight figure your business do? And how would they do this? And how would they show up and how would they operate? And then one of my favorite questions was, what is the value of an eight figure CEO? Where does their value and time go? Because we all have a value. It's like your, I call your energon cubes is your

combination of your energy and time. There's so much time and energy you decide to dedicate to anything. So if we're working with this finite resource called the illusion of time, where in my eight-hour day, if I'm going to work eight hours, let's say, where am I putting that at an eight-figure level? I'm asking that at 2 million.

And little by little, the answer started to emerge. So we have to live in the whatever, wherever you want to go next. You have to live into that question. You have to be in that question. And when you're being in the question, you allow the receptivity of answers. Now, of course, it takes one more thing, which is to trust what you get. And a lot of us really suck at trusting ourselves or trusting what we receive. But the answer that started to come was to be the CEO coach and mentor to my team.

And where I put more and more time was supporting them to be the best in levels of performance, their skills, their management, and their leadership. And I noticed the more I put myself there, the more they grew, stood into their power, and just like,

home runs were just incredible. And that allowed us, it wasn't just me. And that's what happens when we start building teams. We think it's like the pressure's on me. It has to all be for me. I have to have all the answers. I have to be the best. Can't make a mistake. All eyes on me and I have to end up doing it all. And when I got people to be as good or better than me in a team of seven or eight at the time, it was like game over. And that was the answer at that level. But the question is the real answer is,

And wherever that next level of growth is, if every day in every way you can be present to asking that question and leaning in and then trusting whatever, whatever you start to get back, know that it's going to be different. Know that it's going to be so different than how you've been doing things. And we are so like...

it's kind of like a double, not an oxymoron, but I'm saying it twice, but it's like don't do a double negative, but it's a, we're so stuck in our fixed mindset that we have this stubbornness that is hurting us and unwilling to change. And I wrote a whole mini book on this called Hardwired for Entrepreneurship and it shows all the ways that all the successful entrepreneurs I know think so differently about things than the average person that isn't an entrepreneur. And if we are so stubborn

locked in and cemented our thinking and our perspectives on things and unwilling to change that, we know this, but we can't expect things to change. And we have a ton of BS, belief systems that are keeping us where we are. And I think if you understand that business growth happens at stages...

At what degree are you willing to change the way you look at things or change your thinking or change your behavior, change your routine at a different level of growth? Or you're just relying on I'll work harder and longer to grow it. That's great. And there are phases where you do that. But we all know that those are finite resources, which means at one point or another, you're going to hit an empty on the gas tank. But the growth is

money, sales, impact reach is not finite. So are we trying to reach an infinite potential with finite resources? And if so, something there is broken. - I love that so much. And I'm so curious when you were starting to ask those questions,

what were you realizing that you were doing as say a seven figure entrepreneur that you had to change to step into eight figures I love that you called out that we often think we need to do a lot more especially since so many of us are the faces of our business you think yeah I can't put my face on anything else my face is a couple

capacity. And then we often tell ourselves, okay, that's things our team can't do, which is just a story. There's so much more that can happen. What was shifting for you in that space? The 30,000 foot short view answer is, is, and you're kind of touching on it. It's like at every phase and every level, like from seven to eight, it is doing less. And there's a, I'll never forget this. Cause I learned this when I went to a marketing conference, um,

Someone said this on stage and I grabbed it and hooked onto it and I've said it for the past 15 years and it's been true ever since. The less I do, the more I make. The less you do, the more you make. But people that are reaching burnout and overwhelm and questioning is this even worth it?

are saying that because they're doing more, thinking that the more I do, the more I make. And this triggers the F out of people when I say it. And I'll tell you why. If it triggers anyone listening, that's okay. I don't mean to trigger people. I piss people off all the time and I'm not trying to.

I'm just saying the things that I wish someone would have told me a little sooner. - Our audience love directness, so I think everyone's listening being like, "Let's say it like it is, let's go." - But it's like directness, but it's also like, "That doesn't make sense, that's not true." 'Cause I've been taught my whole life that I'm valuable because of my effort. And I'm saying, "No, that's the fricking lie. You are not your accomplishments, you are not your effort. Your competitive advantage in the marketplace is not your willpower."

Because I can just drink more coffee than you and watch more Tony Robbins motivational videos. And now I'm better than you. That's it. That's all you've got to offer. So there, you know, that's where like, yes, think smarter. And it absolutely is. It's think more genius, divergent, creatively and intuitively. But.

The less you do, the more you make because you are not the technician of your business. You are not the doer of your business. You are the owner of your business. The Airbnb business that I own is one 30 minute check-in meeting. And that's all I do for that business. Where it gets really tricky is when you decided to start a personal brand business, whereas you said you are the face.

When you become the face, you are the marketing. You are the star. You are also the coach or teacher and delivery of it. And everything becomes wrapped around your identity and no one could ever do it as well as you could. But the reality is, is that there are all these other roles that exist in a business. And at every level,

I'm doing what I can to get myself out of them. So I want to offer a new meaning or interpretation for that common experience that every entrepreneur feels where all of a sudden they feel that feeling of I'm approaching burnout. When we're approaching burnout,

chances are we've been doing what we're doing and we're still doing it. We're doing more of it. And it no longer, the newness wears off of it, the novelty, the excitement of it. And now it's just like, it's killing my soul. But then we, it's a battle. We are in a constant battle between who we really are and who we think we are when we look in the mirror.

And the burnout is because I'll tell you this right now, who we really are, whatever, however you want to define that. But the you beyond you that you see in the 3D physical is always going to win. And so burnout is when, when you, the 3D version of you lost the battle because it's like a literal illness or killing off of the 3D of you. So burnout,

Isn't that interesting that something that we used to do was fun and exciting and now it's not. And now it's the thing that's taking us down. Before it was the thing that gave us reason to get up in the morning. The same damn thing I used to love. Why do I hate doing this now? Why is this just like killing my soul? And the way I interpreted it long ago is that

That is your soul or higher self or the larger aspect of you telling you it's time to take that off the plate. It's time to stop doing that. It's time to let that go. And the reason it is, is the moment you said, I want something more, like I have a newer goal. I want to grow the business. That more intelligent divine aspect of you is saying, great, then this has got to go. And the only way it knows how to tell you how to do that is to make it as painful as

fuck until you drop it the reason pain exists is so we'll pay attention when us when a stove is hot and you touch it it gets you to drop it and if we didn't have pain receptors you'd hold on to it until all the flesh melted off your skin i know that's very graphic so pain becomes a blessing so we don't do that we see something becomes painful

painful in many different ways. It's heavy. This feels exhausting. I just feel like I was only an hour, but I feel like I'm done for the day. That's a pain. That's like a soul level pain. And then what do we do? We go, but I got a power thrill because no pain, no gain. That's nonsense. Pain means let it go and let it go. We call it the dad it method. It's either delete it

automate it or delegate it. But when I train myself to means that's now below my pay grade and I need to get someone or something else to do that for me, people ask me, I went to, I had an event back in November. A person comes up to me and says, I've been following you for years and I follow a lot of other people. I'm going to be honest. Some people feel like when they're up there speaking or doing their thing, you can kind of tell they're over it and they're phoning it in. They said,

I know you're not. It was very nice. That was very nice. I said, what is it? Like, what's the secret? Because you've been doing this for 16 years. And what I just shared with you and your listeners is that's the secret. The moment something feels tiring or heavy or feels like I don't want to do this anymore, I let that go. But isn't it funny that coming down here and doing a podcast for 15 years in a row, or back then we were doing more videos and speaking on stages, that has never felt

heavy that has never led to burnout i could do a dozen of these and we're going to do a couple i'm like let's go and i was because that's the thing my soul is telling me you're here to do and there's a reason why you started a business and it's not to do your customer support it's not to build landing pages and it's not to do tech so you need to remind yourself of what those reasons are and you need to get everything that f off your plate and do that and i love those things they become all cliche things on instagram which is you're not facing burnout because you're

you're doing too much is because you're doing too little of what you love. And that is absolutely true. And I don't want to hear the excuses and the circumstances from, but, but I can't afford it. That it's like, yeah, you can't afford it because you haven't been doing it. You're not going to make money when you're burnt out and unhappy and you think money's going to make you happy, but it's being happy that makes you money. So you can't afford not to

hire that person or delegate and you know when you can get like be scrappy be resourceful you can you can get virtual assistants you can find people on fiverr to get things off your plate you can ask billy down the street you can ask friends and family obviously that's another conversation about the courage and vulnerability to ask and receive help but it's it's like what we were talking about before it's not helping you it's helping the vision of your business and

And we get to do that together, not just to serve me, serve me, serve me, serve them, serve your listeners, serve your customers. And I can't do this alone. Will you come with me? And we got to do that now because if you're trying to still prove it, I just wrote a post about this. If you're the gas in your tank right now is I'm trying to prove it, whether it's to you or to others, what the F do you think is going to happen to your business once you have?

It's like flying an airplane and the engine just drops out of the sky. Then what? I proved it. Now what? That's why you're doing it. That's, that's total ego. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. There's nothing to prove. If there's a, if there was that initial tug to start something, you need to find that again. You need to go back to what was really behind that tug. And I tell you what, it wasn't to make money.

Money is one of the lowest forms of motivation. Money is a tool so that we can do what we can do. We can have nice microphones. We can have amazing cameras and unbelievable people to help us get this out to a lot of people. And that's what money does. We're not doing it for money. Money is a means, not the destination. So go back to that. What was that pull?

And it was to do something that is of service guaranteed every single time that is bigger than you for beyond you call it a legacy, call it impact, whatever, whatever works for you, but it ain't about you. And then you went and made it about you or you made it be about all these other things that aren't important. And that's why you're burning out. That's why you're tired.

And it's because we let the body take over. We let the ego, the brain, whatever we call it, what we see when we look in the mirror take over. And we lost that guidance that was telling us to start in the first place. And I think if we switch that,

you're gonna you're gonna love what you do again and then of course you know james brings in all the you know he did he just go like weird and woo woo for a moment yeah and then he's gonna bring all his logical strategic business structure back in and that's that's kind of what i love to do is like mash the the right brain and the left brain and like the the feminine and the masculine and just mush it all together because it is both it is both you know and i i

Really think that when people listen to others say things like you've just said around being able to delegate the things that

you don't wanna be doing anymore or is that not serving your business as next level? Everyone wants to think they're the exception and they'll give you all the reasons why they have to keep doing what they're doing. - I've heard them all. - Yeah, and I've been that person too. I've been the person that's like, fight for your limitations and you get to keep them. I fought for them. I've tried to convince myself and my team I'm the exception. And it's funny because if you just keep pushing, pushing, pushing,

The universe, God, whatever is going to speak so loud and force you to take a real look at it. And I feel like for me, when I took my maternity leave, came back, had to leave again because I was like, I can't keep doing this. This doesn't work for me. And the only way for me out at that point was to just step back from the business, not keep trying to muddle my way through it. I stepped back and put myself first, my mental health first.

And what was really interesting was firstly, the business survived. Yeah. The business was fine. Of course. And secondly, I found myself gravitating towards the things that I knew I wanted to be doing because I didn't lose my ambition. I didn't lose the part of me that still wanted to work. Yes, I was doing other things. I was really in my, and I am in my season of

mothering but it didn't mean that I lost my ambition it looked different and I was no longer willing to just muddle through and okay if I don't get to the things I love I'll do them on the weekend I'll do them on the evening and when I stepped back completely I found myself gravitating back towards them and like you said it it really isn't about the money and for me I started leaning so much more into creating the content that I found fun and I wasn't even thinking is this profitable content is this

And what happened was it became it. And I had this idea for, I wanted to create a peer group of women, just like me, who were in early stages of motherhood and really struggling with their identity and bridging the ambition and motherhood. And I just thought about the idea and I blinked and the whole mastermind was full. And all of a sudden things just started happening. It was like the universe was saying, look, it gets to be light. It gets to be fun. It gets to be easy.

and all the other things that I'd been doing wading through mud like I thought just wasn't necessary and it fell away and I really love to have these conversations because I know so many people listening and they're saying Natalie James I'm the exception you don't know my business and I want them to hear I do I really do because I've been there and you do too and there is another way to do this yeah well and I think as I hear what what you just shared

is the moment you became a mother, you changed. And it's the hardest thing in the world for us to see our change 'cause we live our life every day. And the quickest way to notice your change, and I learned this the hard way, 'cause people would start saying to me, "You've changed." I love that meme of the caterpillar and the butterfly, and it's like, yeah, you're supposed to. And we are, we're here to evolve, we're here to grow. That's a huge aspect of why we're all here.

And whatever growth means and in whatever direction, but we're here to do that. But when we experience growth, we don't experience our own growth. We experience the things around us as changing. And so all of a sudden you come back to this thing and you're like, I don't want to do it this way anymore. It's because you're different. And we have to keep up with that. And you did that. And because you chose to do that,

then things continued working because the essence of you that makes things work, which we all have that, we can call that that manifestation, that power, that spirit that resides within you, you maintained that

Before, you know, becoming a mother and after, but how it manifested and how you approach things changed. And I think it's, oh, I forget the author. I think it's Kenneth Blanchard, but it's a phenomenal book. Have you ever read Who Moved My Cheese?

No. So this is like, what a silly name, right? Is it a kid's book or a novel book? No, it's not a kid's book. Like, do I need this for Noemi? But here's the thing is like, they kind of make a premise in the book that like humans are dumber than rats, which is hilarious. And again, it's been a few years, but I do my best to paraphrase the book. But when you put a cheese, the stereotypical cheese in the maze,

and you have the rats or the mice find the cheese and then you put them back in the entrance, they won't go through all the other dead ends and they'll go straight to the cheese and they do that 10 times. They memorize the maze. Then they take the cheese out and they put it somewhere else. The first thing the rats do is they go right back and they see it's not there. Then they will find where that cheese is again. Humans don't exactly do that. We just keep going back and

to where we thought the cheese was waiting for it to show up again. I don't get it. I'm doing all the things. I'm doing it right. I'm doing what I was told to do. Where's the cheese? The cheese is moved and we change. We grow. We have different seasons of our life. Just like your business has different seasons and it's a dance with your own changes and the changes of the business. And that's what makes it hard.

And you were, there was something within you to be able to honor what you were noticing was feeling heavy. Your soul is telling you, not this way anymore. And what people do instead is they get really scared and they go, no, it has to be. And they white knuckle their life.

And you said it yourself, but I love this little metaphor of maybe you've heard this at first, God throws a pebble. You're not listening to get the rock. And if you still don't wanna listen, you're gonna get the boulder. So you're gonna learn the lessons that you're here to learn. Do you just wanna learn them painfully or like in the most gentle way possible?

And I really choose and hope every day, like I pray to learn my lessons as pebbles and not big boulders, 'cause I've had a few of the boulders in my life. And they're extremely painful, but you definitely learn the lesson. And so there was something within you that was able to just like, wow, what like a faith to go, this is heavy, so I have to put it down versus this is heavy, so I have to put myself through more pain and torture.

And that's what most people do. Cause I did that for a long time. And I see that, see that in others. And then all of a sudden you go, wow, look, it's working even better. And I'm happier and, and, um, it's scarier, but that is the more effective way. Yeah. And like you said, those memes and quotes on Instagram, even the ones I'm guilty of sharing, you know, it makes, I think it makes growth seem glamorous and it's like, oh, if you are grow people, you are grow people. And it makes it feel like so light and fluffy and okay. Yeah.

And for me, it was a boulder and it was really challenging to realize that when I was putting myself back into the same businesses, the same friendships, the same relationships, the same places, rooms, situations,

I had changed and no one else was wrong. No, but it felt wrong to me. And it's so easy to, like you said, white knuckle it. But I feel like for me, I'm, I'm grateful that I got such a heavy boulder that it was like, you physically cannot continue like this because you're going to get sick. And I think also being able to step out of myself and see that it wasn't just for me that I needed

needed to change, but it was for my daughter. It was for my marriage. It was for my business, my team, my community. You know, it was for more than me. And when I could see it was for more than me, it's how I got to see that it actually was for me.

Because ultimately I know if I'm my best self, then, you know, my daughter has the best mom. My husband has the best wife. My, you know, my team has the best leader if I focus on me, but it can be hard as humans, right? To say, I'm going to put myself first. Again, we say self-care isn't selfish, but it feels it. It's got self in it though. It must be, right? It's cute.

Instagram but it feels it. You've heard the oxygen mask metaphor? Yeah. And it's easy to hear but putting it into practice is more challenging but sometimes when you can hear someone else talk about it you're like you know what it does make sense and when you do it for yourself game changer. Okay I want to close the loop on something that is really powerful like you said is we make more when we do less. Yes. And I had I've been listening to you a lot and I think I

you shared two of your products have made you close to $40 million, two products. And I think that's very surprising for a lot of people 'cause I know we've got so many-- - One was $97, so. - Okay, so we're definitely getting into this. We have so many women listening who are multi-passionate, which is a great thing, are still trying to find their footing and trying to find their thing. I was just on a call with someone yesterday who was telling me their offer and they had like 10 offers.

and you know they're at the six figure mark but i'm multi-passionate and i'm like okay we need to find a way to channel that into one thing and simplify and i love that you know that trying to find product market fit but at some point it's like greg mckeon has this amazing diagram of um energy a line going in one direction goes so much further than when it's split up into like 10 or 20 and that to me just it's very it's it's very visual products absolutely because i've noticed it myself it's

Can you talk about those two products? - I can talk about so many things about that because it is a really big deal. And it's like the multi-passionate thing I really wanna speak to too, 'cause again, I have a different philosophy. I'm very contrarian, not intentionally. It's just, I think differently. And I think that's why I have some different results. I'm very multi-passionate.

Yesterday I was building a drum stage in my home and learning to play guitar. The week before I'm rebuilding a go-kart for my nephew. The week before that I'm refurbishing furniture and building out my woodwork shop.

and then going mountain biking after that. Don't talk about multi-passionate. I am so passionate about everything I dive into. The last year and a half, I've been diving into learning about music theory and music and guitar, and it's just been an amazing journey. And I really see myself as passionate about everything I wanna get my hands onto, but I don't start 25 businesses at the same time and then call myself a multi-passionate entrepreneur. Because if you try to chase three rabbits at the same time, you end up catching none.

And there is a level of focus and consistency and discipline that is required to get you to that finish line. And we have a motto within our company that is do less, do it better. And the ironic thing is people then do this thing like, well, I don't want to limit myself. And it's like, that is so backwards. I'm so sorry, but it's so backwards because...

I understand where that's coming from. You are infinite potential. You can do anything. But you can do anything doesn't mean you need to do everything. And what's so funny is if you just did the one thing, then you can do anything and everything else. If I was trying to build our signature program and take that to multi-million dollar launches with business by design while building an Airbnb business...

That would be a lot harder and I don't know why I would be doing that, but I intentionally waited until I got it to a certain place where it was like, we've unlocked this, we've sustained it, we've proven it. It's like at a rinse and repeat phase of maturity. Now I can do the next thing and then I can come back and I can boom, boom, boom. And if I'm trying to do five things at once, I'm not going to do any of them.

And this is more relevant today than it even was when I first started talking about it, 'cause I talk about the bridge metaphor. We are where we are, which I call reality island, and then there's where we wanna get to, which I call desire or outcome island. And the way to get from where you are to where you wanna be is to build a bridge. So there's all these pieces to build a bridge, but you could get 99% of your bridge done. You're not on destination or outcome island.

Until the bridge is done. And if you're now building five bridges at the same time, 30%, 40% of the way, because I got an app I want to do. I'm writing a book and I'm creating a product and we're doing software and we're doing this and you're building 30, 20, 40%. You can even do 90% of all those bridges, but you didn't even get one to the completion line.

And so you're just staying busy in the doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, which is going back to the employee mindset. If I just do more, then I'll make more. It's backwards. So the less I do, the more I make is how do I get my bridge, one bridge to outcome Island,

As efficiently and effectively as possible. Once it's there and it's making money, then I can go build as many bridges as I want. But if you're trying to build five bridges at the same time, it's I mean, it's been proven you're going to take it's going to take longer. Then there's the whole phenomenon of context switching, which is every time you switch between bridges or projects, there's a waste of anywhere from like five to 15 percent in unproductive projects.

context switching where you're like, where did I leave off? And you're not in your flow state and like, oh, I forgot this and dah, dah, dah. So that singular focus is so important. There was another question in there that I didn't answer 'cause I wanted to talk about that. Do you remember what you asked? - What the products were and what that looked like. But on the bridge thing, before we even dive into that, I also feel like, yeah, you probably could build the five bridges at once, but they're gonna be smaller, less impressive bridges.

Like, wouldn't you rather have one fucking amazing bridge and be like, I did that. And look how effective it is. And look how many people get to walk across it versus like, there's a janky bridge. People are falling through the other bridge. Like that every time someone falls through it, it's stress. Like that's how we get into burnout. The insurance claims, it's

not worth it if people knew how much time we've spent working on our just within the products and the curriculum and the content to then the messaging the branding the the the training and all of that like oh i know because i just texted you like what i know that was so nice okay so you guys i'm gonna print that out it's going on the refrigerator

That was very kind. I've been just diving in. Me and my entire team have been in business by design. It is changing the way we do everything. And we were all on a call prepping for this podcast, all of us gushing about, oh my God, but I learned this and I did this and we're going to do more podcasts on it. But I texted you to say, this is the best course I have ever taken. It is phenomenal. And you can tell how much love and work has gone into that. I mean, the fact that you just click a button and a process unlocks. I mean, it's,

We'll get more into it because I know everyone wants to know, but you can tell. And what an amazing, you must be so proud to know that product is changing so many people's lives. And that didn't come about because you were doing five products at the same time.

Nope. You put the work in. It was that moment at the end of the poker game where they just go all in. And I just went all in on that with all the chips and fell in love with that. Something I said recently that is, you know, successful entrepreneurs are more committed and obsessed with solving their audience's problems while struggling entrepreneurs are more obsessed or committed with solving their own.

And that's why they're struggling for a lot. And so I took that whole journey of four and a half years of a lot of pain. Like my beautiful, amazing girlfriend who now works in the company is right outside and I've known her for 20 years and she was like my closest friend and she's a...

She's a trained psychic. So she's very scary intuitive. Oh, so you're not getting away with anything. But I called her 20 years ago, not 20 years ago, 15 years ago when I like two years into the struggle and said, that's it. I'm done. I quit. It's too hard. Can't do it. And, um, and she wouldn't let me, you know, like helped that she was intuitive. She's like, no, it's,

"Just give it time, but you're not giving up. "I will not let you." And she walked me off that ledge, but I was done. I was like, "This is too hard." And I look back and I have such a respect for that journey 'cause it really was hard for me. And I took all of that and I said, "Even if people are facing 10% of what I went through, "I'm gonna create the thing "that can solve all of that for them." And that's what it became was like, I started looking at all these things where I said,

you know, I know we need to niche down. I know that's really important. I teach that. I'm a huge advocate for that. But with the work I wanted to do, I knew that if I put it out there and it was only a piece, then it was incomplete. And so it's been a really hard thing because in one hand, I want it to like be the simple one thing you need. And it's like,

But then I would leave my people incomplete with something. Then they'd say, well, then how do I do this part? And how do I do that? And I actually undersell it when I talk about it because I don't want to overwhelm people. But I realized that part of the struggle with getting my business up was I was just missing pieces. I was like, oh, you're also supposed to do that? And I need that? And I didn't even know that. And I was like, I'm not going to not

provide all that but then i realized like as we've been talking about too is like you can't get into the doing you can't be doing all the doings yourself like you just you just can't and so if you can even just hire five hours a week a part-time like just get the there's all these freelance sites where you can get people overseas just do a job for you for so cheap 20 30 bucks

And you can give them one of these processes in BBD. That's the whole thing. It's like, give it to them, give them the landing page process, give them the survey process, give them the process of, of sending out the email or bill building your first sales page. It's all there. They can paint by numbers, follow it. And for 30, 40 bucks, they do it, but you just save 20, 30 hours of your life or however for the specific tasks that it would take. Sometimes it's one hour, sometimes it's more. And then you get to stay doing the thing that you love.

And, um, and that's where we like, you know, I like text, text you. I don't know if I said this when I texted you back, but it's like, I obviously, I really appreciate that what you said, but it's a great course because I don't see it as a course. And the way I see a course is you have to sit, learn, consume, identify what you need to do, and then go do it. And I said, I want to just skip that part.

Let me just give you what needs to get done and let's get someone else to do it. Yeah. And let's, let's get you back into, that's what we call that role, the role of the digital CEO. And so there's a, there's a phrase we use over and over again is that the results that you want in your business are determined by the role that you fill. And if you stay all day in the role of the doer and the technician, you're, you're going to see a lot less results than if you're in that high level role, whatever you want to call that.

You can call that the boss, you want to call it the CEO, you want to call it the entrepreneur, it doesn't matter. But you're at the top of your own little org chart, you're going to see more results. And that's why the less you do, the more you make is so true. It's because there is a very interesting phenomenon that higher value activities tend to require less time and effort.

Like I said before, those uncomfortable conversations are so hard and challenging to have, but they can be five minutes. Yeah. Whereas we will lovingly say, I'll avoid that five minute conversation because I got like 10 emails to write. Right. Five weeks. Exactly. So the higher level, what I call the 5% activities, 5% activities are directly responsible for 95% of your results. And we avoid those 5% activities, but they tend to be very little work.

Going live and selling your stuff. You could go on Instagram and make an offer right now. 10 minutes, done. We're scared to death of it. But we avoid that, but we're doing everything. I'm gonna get my new website out, my new branding, and do-do-do-do-do. All this other stuff that we actually hide behind the busyness. Whereas the simple things, scary, simple things, are the things that make us the most money. Do more of that. Let go of the rest so you're forced into the 5% and your business will grow.

I want to get into all of that. We're going to do a two-parter because there's too much here. I don't talk...

Concisely. I talk in large chunks. I apologize. I love it. So just to go back to the product. So then you had a $97 product. Yeah. So I went to film school. I went to one of the top 10 film schools in the country. It was awesome. I wanted to go into Hollywood. I also got a double major in marketing because I was like, maybe I want to do commercials and I want to have my own ad agency one day. And that was kind of the dream. And then I was like, no, nevermind. And

Long story short, I started making YouTube videos for small businesses in my hometown. Then I went to an event and someone was struggling to put up a YouTube video. It was a marketing event and I just helped them. I asked one of those million dollar questions. They were like amazed.

This is 2008, okay? You could put a video on here, this is amazing. They're using one of those little old flip cams. If anyone is, I'm like dating myself, that's scary to even say that. It was like before iPhones had video cameras in them. - We remember. - Okay. - We remember. - So some of these younger kids are like, what do you mean? What did you have before video cameras on your phone? And she was just so blown away. And I said, really? Like that was, 'cause we don't see our own value.

And I asked her that question, I said, "Would you pay for that?" Are you kidding me? Hell yes, I will pay for that. And so the little light bulb goes, pshh. And in 2000, it was in 2010 when I made the decision and in 2011, I launched a $97 product with my good buddy Lewis Howes called Video Traffic Academy. And it taught people how to make their first YouTube videos and put it on the internet.

And in the first 30 days with $97, it made $400,000 in sales. That product went on to do millions and millions of dollars in sales. And it put me on the map as the niche down as the YouTube video guy.

And what happened next was I had this fast forward to living in my hometown, Laguna Beach, three, three minute, 15 second walk from my front door to feet on the sand. That was important. I need to be able to walk to the beach and I would get up. I would do my little morning work and I'd go, I always had to time the swells properly, you know, you know, and then I go to the beach and I'd surf for two or three hours. I come back, do a little bit more work.

And sometimes I get a second surf session in and that was it. And I had a friend come and stay with me, 'cause it was a second unit. And she watched about a week of this. Now my business at the time was just over a million and she's at 200,000. And part of her is like, "You son of a bitch, "like what the hell are you doing?" And she was very, very inquisitive about that. And that's when I started to realize that I don't think my purpose here is to help people make a video, but maybe to show people how I did this.

And that's where the seeds were planted, which is always funny is like people come in your life to show you and reflect back to you the value that you're creating in the world. And I've had those moments where people were like, I just didn't think it was a big deal. Even you're like, you must be proud. I was like, I don't know, maybe I should be. But like, I'm just doing what I'm doing and it's just who I am, you know? And maybe I shouldn't take that for granted, but we have those moments. This person was just, I'm making 200,000. I'm working seven days a week.

And it's sun up to sun down. It's nonstop. What the hell are you doing? And I started coaching her and I showed her in one month, by the end of January, it was who started working at the end of the year. And we worked with one month and she made more money in that one month than she had the entire year. And then nine months later, she was at a million dollars. And that's when I was like, maybe I should be doing this. Like, I want to help people figure this out.

And that's when I actually launched the beta version of business by design. And today I teach people the same model, which is like, get out of your head, stop overthinking it and just put the first version out. And so I said, 500 bucks, I'm teaching 25 people. I don't know what we're teaching, but you're going to get on eight live calls with me. And I'm just going to answer questions and I'm going to start like telling you what I've done. And we'll, we'll see what comes from that.

And that was the first version of Business by Design. At the time, it was called James Woodmore Super Awesome Amazing Sexy Beta Program. And so names don't really matter. Was it actually called that? Yes, I'm dead serious. Oh my God, that's amazing. Okay, so listen, no excuses if you're listening and you don't have a name yet. Yeah, oh yeah. No excuses. You either have a great name, like there's a small bracket of like the best names on the planet. Yeah.

And then there's like bad names. And then there's this huge margin in the middle where it's like, good enough. Like good enough. Just go. Right. Yeah. And, um, are we saying your name was good enough? I've done James Wedmore, super awesome, amazing, sexy beta program would be good enough to get my beta in, but I knew I had to change it. Yeah. And, um, funny enough, how I came up with the name was after I sold the beta, um,

And I got my 25 members in. I started saying, I'm going to figure out what the outline is for this. I have to figure out what I knew. What is it I'm selling? Yeah, exactly. It's like I knew what what the end result was because it was what I was doing myself. But I said, I don't know how I'm going to deliver it in what order. So I started writing the outline. I said, well, I want the first call to be really about how to set up your business, like like design it your way. Like I want you to build your business by this.

"That's it, build business by design." And that was it. I registered the domain and we were off to the races and whatnot. And so that led me to another breakthrough in my life that people are waiting for clarity before they take action. It's the opposite. It's action creates clarity. And so when you just take that first step, the next step always appears. It takes courage and faith, but you just take that first step. I don't care that it's messy 'cause it's gonna get better.

And it did. And what it is today versus when it was started is completely different. Completely different. But the point is I got started. Yeah, and like they say, a room wasn't built in a day. And I think it can be really easy to look at what other people's, not finished product, but...

but product that's been tested so many times and created over such a long period of time and say, well, I can't launch mine until it's as good as that. And it's never going to be like that the first time around. And I really encourage people not to make their course or anything that they're creating that good first time around because probably people are going to come and tell you so many things are missing from it. You know what? I have to go re-record this because I missed it.

And so it's so much easier to start, like you said, just listening and finding product market fit as you go. Yes. And get that feedback, that real time feedback. You know, James, could you do a little bit more training about this? Could you answer this? I didn't see anything, but oh, that's good. Yeah, definitely add that.

And that's how we created it. It's like my first few rounds of customers is what created it what it is today. Here's an example of that. All those processes you're talking about, I only had a handful of them and they were buried on the second page of the portal. And then I was showing it to one of the customers in real life because we had a little like meetup workshop and they hadn't even noticed it. And then when they clicked on the second page, I was like, no, no, we'll go over here. And I saw their reaction. It's the same theme. And they're like,

"Oh my, what is this?" - That's what I was like. - "Why don't you bury this in the back?" And then I was like, "Oh, you think that's valuable? "Like you like that? "Okay, good to know." So how are we gonna make it perfect when we don't know

what perfect is because we haven't asked our audience. They haven't told us and they don't even know until they experience it. So feedback's important. - I know, and if anyone's listening like, wait, I need to get into this. Just wait, 'cause we're doing something really fun. We're doing Boss Babes Collaborating, okay? So just wait, there's gonna be more. James, I'm gonna give you a little break because I have about a thousand more questions for you. - Great, I'm here for it. - So we're gonna come back. - I love it. - But thank you so much. This has been incredible. - Okay, good, thank you. Were we recording this or was this practice? - No, this was practice. - Okay, good. - We're gonna start for real. - I'll do the good stuff later. - Yeah, yeah, it's coming.

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