Have you ever wondered what it looks like to become wildly successful in your business? We’re not talking about how many hours you need to work a week, or what type of content you should (or shouldn’t) be posting to your socials. We’re talking about what goes on inside your brain.
There’s a shift in thinking that needs to happen in order to grow your business to the million-dollar level. Because if you think true happiness comes once you reach a certain income threshold – Boy, are you going to be surprised!
In this episode, Kristen gets personal about her journey to becoming a seven-figure earner and the tiny (and some not so tiny) deaths she’s died along the way. Listen in as she talks about money, relationships, and having your own back.
Here’s a sneak peek:
- How to keep your focus on the future when others try to detract from your growth
- Why it’s necessary to create new self-concepts over and over along the way
- The amazing shrinking Instagram account and how persistence led to success
- Learning to applaud yourself instead of waiting for others
- Coming to the realization that you are responsible for building self-belief
- Finding joy in the journey and not just the destination
Not everyone’s journey to success will look the same, but one truth is constant. You will have to change how you show up at every step along the way. Having your own back and believing in yourself is crucial to success regardless of your goal.
It’s back and better than ever! Sustainable Success 2.0/22 is the virtual event of the year. Join Kristen LIVE for 3 days of intensive training, December 27th – 29th at Noon CT. This event is exactly what you need to start your New Year off right. Click HERE to register and download your free pre-workbook.
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Interested in Kristen’s exclusive mastermind for six-figure earners in the network marketing industry? Get all the details and join the waitlist here.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Transcript for Episode #83 1000 Deaths to a Million Dollars:
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industries. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way.
Kristen Boss (00:48): Hey bosses, I have an exciting announcement for you with the new year 2022, right around the corner. This is when most people are really looking to refocus their efforts, recommit to their business and reboot their commitment to their goals. And so with that in mind, we are kickstarting a brand new Goal Getter challenge inside the Social Selling Academy. So when you join between now and December 31st at midnight, so literally the stroke of the new year, when you join between now and then. December 27th is when it starts. You get the Goal Getter self-coaching journal included in your purchase when you join and you get to be a part of the momentum that happens inside the Academy with thousands of people committing to their business. We have a separate module inside the Academy, that is the Goal Getter challenge that is designed to help you become an incredibly consistent business owner.
Kristen Boss (01:46): Here’s the truth. It takes honestly less than 90 days for your results to truly start compounding because of consistent action you take in your day to day. But most people aren’t consistent. Most people quit 30 days, less than 30 days in. They start quitting on themselves. They might not throw in the towel completely, but they quit in small ways. If you’ve listened to my micro quitting episode, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Those micro quits are costing you. You cannot afford to keep the habit and the pattern of micro quitting. When things get hard on your business, when you feel like nothing’s, which is why I created the Goal Getter challenge, because it helps push you through the times when you aren’t feeling motivated. When it doesn’t feel fun, when it feels like things aren’t having happening fast enough for you, I’ve literally created this 90 day challenge to help you become the consistent business owner.
Kristen Boss (02:40): You’ve tried to be up until this point. I guarantee you in years past you have made all kinds of promises to yourself. I’m going to be consistent. You go and buy the planner. You buy a bunch of, you know, pencils and notebooks and all the things. And then 30 days later, the old stories come back. You’re busy. A kid gets sick. There’s something that happens in your personal life. Your family life feels crazy. Your business feels frustrating. It doesn’t feel fine. I know how it goes because I’ve coached thousands of people just like you. So I’ve created this this 90 day challenge to help you stay on track so that you can truly experience the magic of results. When they compare hound from your consistent daily action. We’re going to have an episode where you get to listen to a few of the students in the Academy and the amazing, extraordinary results they saw when they decided to apply the principles from the 90 day challenge. So don’t wait. When you join the Academy today, you get to be a part of a one on January, one for the new year’s 90 day goal getter challenge. You get the book mailed, printed and mailed to you. All right. It is available in the Academy at all times, but this is when you have it printed and mailed to you so that you can be a part of the 90 day challenge. Don’t wait, your results are waiting for you. We will see you inside.
Kristen Boss (04:01): Hey bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today’s episode I’m excited to give to you and a little nervous. I’m going to be honest. The title makes me itch a little bit. I’m like, oh, no one can know this but listen, I kind of talked about this in the last episode with people pleasing. And I talked about there being a season of life, where I was listening to podcast episodes about, you know, a million, a millionaire mindset, a million dollar mindset. And I remember telling my husband,uthat I wanted to make a million dollars. By the time I turned 40, that happened way earlier than what I thought and faster than at what I thought it would be. But I really wanted to share with you what it takes to get there and to be very honest and be very transparent and be very vulnerable with you so that you understand because I think there are a lot of stories you might about what it takes to get there.
Kristen Boss (05:03): You might be telling yourself, I don’t want to get there. I don’t need to get there. And that’s fine. Like maybe for you, you don’t want, that’s not your goal. You don’t want to make a million dollars. Maybe you have thoughts about a million dollars. But I also think there needs to be a conversation to remove the stigma, particularly with women talking about money and it not being wrong and it not being bad. If you haven’t listened to my episodes about money, mindset, healing, your money story, I encourage you to go listen. But this particular episode is going to be kind of talking about the personal growth journey to become somebody who created the value in the world, where it would come back in return of, you know, millions of dollars in revenue. And so I just remember thinking when I first thought about it, I was like, well, sounds nice.
Kristen Boss (05:59): And I remember even thinking that it was wrong, that it was wrong to have a goal of making a million dollars. I remember I had stories that it was greedy that maybe it was selfish that maybe I was wrong to want that. But I think in certain circles and who, depending on who you talk to, there are some people who have no thoughts about it. They’re like, great, wonderful. Why is that bad? Why is that wrong? You know, I think if you were to hear a man say, I’m going to make a million dollars. We might not question it as much, but if you hear it from a woman, it’s almost like there’s this context or this social picture we have of her. And we don’t hear it a often from women. So I, I think there is still people still kind of raise an eyebrow when they hear it and they don’t know what to do.
Kristen Boss (06:45): When a woman, you know, makes millions and is confident in that. And I would say, you know, that was a death. Like I had to that part of me had to die. The part of me that thought that it was unacceptable, that it wasn’t okay that maybe it was too ambitious that maybe it was wrong. That part of me, I had to kind of put to death. And so this is why I called it a thousand deaths to a million dollars, because I feel like I have had to die so many small deaths to get here. Like, my self-concept, how I see myself and how others see me, and how I interact with the world is considered a self-concept how you see yourself. And so I was working on my million dollar self-concept way before a million dollars ever showed up, you know, and I had to kind of slowly worked towards, I had to work towards, you know, my six figure self concept, and then my multi six figure self concept, and then my million dollar self-concept.
Kristen Boss (07:46): And so when people ask me, what has it been like? I’ve just been like hard, but not in the hard you think when we think of hard and the hard work to, you know, build a huge thriving business, we think of sweat equity. We think of the actual physical labor that is required to get there. We think of number of hours worked. We think of, you know, how many late nights we, we have a hustle narrative. And we assume that people who make that make, you know, millions, we assume that they got there with hustle and some people do, some people do, and they, but those are the stories we tend to pay the most attention to because I think it makes sense in our mind. Like it almost seems audacious to believe that you could make that income, it make that income make that impact and it not be done with hustle.
Kristen Boss (08:43): It almost feels uncomfortable because I want you to think of the narratives we have when someone achieves something great, or somebody celebrates something, we almost always tell the person you worked so hard, you deserve it. You worked so hard. So it’s almost like we’re reinforcing this hustle mentality in order to be worthy of the outcome. Of course you deserve this amazing paycheck. You S everything, blood, sweat, and tears, you worked so hard. And so we tend to embed this idea in our mind that we only can have those things. If we work really hard, if it costs us everything, if it costs us our sleep, our mental health, our emotional health time with our family, our hobbies, and that is not, that was not my path at all. It has been very fulfilling and very wonderful and very peaceful. Actually the years where I was most miser miserable were the years that I believed it had to look the way I just described it to you working 60 to 80 hours a week, having no boundaries, having no hobbies, only listening to personal development, podcasts, only reading business books only.
Kristen Boss (10:00): It was like such an extreme, it was an all or nothing mindset for sure. And all I did was burn myself out and become extremely resentful question. My decisions, question my life because I was in such a hurry to get there. And here’s, what’s fascinating. I was not in a hurry to get where I am, even though the results came extraordinarily fast. Well, actually I think that’s also a story that the results came really fast because I like to think I had 10 years of struggle and putting in the foundational work that led me to this place. There is no ever such thing as an overnight success or things happening for you overnight. And there were many things that went wrong. There were so many failures that got here. There were so many failures. I’m going to talk about that as well. Like the death of expectations and how I thought things would look.
Kristen Boss (10:55): But so, because I was, you know, you doing this 80 hour work week because I thought that would make me more deserving because I, I thought I would feel guilty if I made a lot of money and it didn’t come from 80 hour work weeks. And what’s so fascinating was, is when people ask me, you know, how, how often do you work? How many days a week do you work? How many hours a week do you work? And they, a lot of people assume that at the income with what my company brings in that I’m working 40, 50, 60 hours a week and I’m not, I work very smart. I outsource, I delegate. I have a team that helps me. I have a team of, I think now 12 people we’re hiring again because as my company has grown, I grew my team as well, because I didn’t want to be this battered, tired, exhausted, bitter resentful business owner who tried to do everything themselves.
Kristen Boss (11:52): And so it was important for me that I invested a lot early on. So when people hear like, or they think, you know, they look at my platform, they know the revenue I bring in and they assume I’m working 60, 70 hour weeks. I’m not, I’m working 20 to 30 hour 30 hour a week. Maybe, maybe I also have a huge team that helps me with the load that I pay so that I stay in my most value giving positions in the company. I work on the content. I coach my students. I’m always developing what needs to be, what we need to put out next. I’m thinking three years of time, I’m never looking at what’s happening. Presently in my business, I’m currently problem solving for the Academy. Like what if there were 10,000 social sellers in the Academy? What would we need to do to ensure that every single person has results?
Kristen Boss (12:45): What would we need to do to ensure that every single person has an amazing winning the lottery experience so that every single person who in roles in our program feels like a million dollars who feels like, wow, I can’t believe I only paid 2000 for this program. And it feels like I’m getting $10,000 worth of value. That is the standard we have in our company. So I’m always solving from that place. So it was kind of a bunny trail and today’s of conversational. I don’t really have a strong outline. So you’re going to have to bear with me a bit, but I want to talk about the most painful parts of me or the most painful lessons. What I’m going to call the death, the deaths I had to experience in order to get where I am today. And I think the first death I had to have was as the death of how I thought about debt and money.
Kristen Boss (13:40): And I used to think debt was so wrong. I used to think debt was a sign of being irresponsible. It was a sign of being a poor steward of my money. I used to think like you only pay things in cash and, and there are things that serve you when it comes to your personal finances, with, you know, giving your, and I always believed no matter what, with your business or your personal, you need to give your money a job. But in the personal I had personal money stories that I was bringing over into a business that kept me from making business decisions. So for example, I thought I have to have the cash readily on hand to in growing my business. But the problem is, is I didn’t have the skills and tools to acquire the cash in order to pay for the investment.
Kristen Boss (14:27): So I had very backwards thinking. I, I really took, like I viewed spending $5,000 on a credit with a payment plan and interest for a couch for your home. I viewed that debt the same as paying for a coach to help me acquire the skills I needed to get where I wanted to go. And they are not the same because a couch does not create an ROI for you, does it does not create a return on investment. It actually depletes in value over time. It depreciates. Whereas your brain investing in yourself, you are always, your brain is always appreciating in value. And when you increase the value in your brain, you increase the value. You are able to give others. And when you increase the value that you give others, you in turn, they pay you in order to acquire the value that you promise them, they pay you for that.
Kristen Boss (15:25): So again, investing in your brain allows you to become a more value asset in the marketplace. And when you are a valuable asset in the marketplace, people pay for your product, your service, they pay to work with you, right? So I first had to like heal some stories I had around investment and I invested $20,000 before I made my first $2,000. And I will tell you, I was so deeply uncomfortable. I had all these stories coming up of why it was wrong, why it was irresponsible, why I was a bad steward of my money. And I had borrowed money from my parents at the time that we hadn’t yet paid back. So I had a lot of stories of like, I’m just respecting my parents. If they were to find out, I should pay them back first, you don’t go into more debt when you owe debt to others.
Kristen Boss (16:20): And it’s so stories were just screaming in my mind about like, why this wasn’t a good idea. But also I knew. I was like, okay, well, I’m also going to invest this $2,000 and I’m going to learn how to turn it into 20,000. And then I’m going to learn how to turn 20,000 into a hundred thousand. And so of course, I’m going to be able to pay back all of my debt and I’m willing to, if I need to have interest for a little bit, is it worth me acquiring a little bit of interest while I acquire the skill to compound my future return on investment with appreciating my brain and value. And that I will tell you that old Kristen, the Kristen, that would’ve thought this isn’t okay, this isn’t responsible. She had to die in that moment. I had to put all those stories to death and be like, you cannot come with me on this journey.
Kristen Boss (17:10): You cannot take this story with you. That’s exactly what I did. And I got a return on my investment 10 times that paid every, I, I I’ll never forget. It was so fun. Writing my parents a check and being like, here you go. Here’s the entire amount. And they kind of looked at me like, what are you? Are you going to be okay? Yep. Going to be great. Thank you. I was able to pay that back, pay all my investments back. I’ve always been able to pay my back, but also I had to create that self concept about myself. Again, it’s this thought about me, of like, I always make my money back. I always pay my investments back. I’m always responsible with how I invest, but women, we are not taught this story. Women are not taught to invest. We are not taught to take risks that has exclusively been a conversation that has typically been for the men and with the men.
Kristen Boss (18:03): So when it’s, when we’re talking about business investments and strategic debt and risk and growing business is us women. We aren’t really culturally conditioned to think that way, because we’re taught to, you know, kind of nurture and support and care and make sure that we don’t rock the boat. We just have a lot of stories. So that part of me that was another death. This story of like, I don’t take risks. I can’t do that. I have to, I have, you know, a husband and two kids and I, and I was the primary earner at the time, you know? And so I just, there was that story too. The story of like, I can’t take risks and I had to become somebody who I was willing to take risks for my growth. And I was willing to, to look irresponsible when people found out I hired a coach, they thought it was crazy.
Kristen Boss (18:55): They’re like, you, you paid what you did. What, why? Okay, good luck with that. And in that moment too, I also noticed that I had an urge to explain my decisions to people in order to get them on board with the, with what I was doing. I wanted to get people on board. I wanted people to understand what I was doing. And that was another part of me that had to die feeling like people needed to understand what I was doing and the decisions I was making and feel like I had their support. Oh my goodness. I did not realize how much I craved support from people until I started doing something that people didn’t understand and did not support. The kind of thought was crazy. That kind of was like, okay, I mean, you do you. And I felt alone.
Kristen Boss (19:57): That was a death for me, willing to feel alone, willing to be responsible for all of my belief, not looking to other people, to give me my belief for my future. And I think a lot of us do that. We expect, you know, your spouse or your parents or your siblings or your friends. You expect them all to pour belief into you as you pursue your dreams. But that is not their job. It is your job to create your own belief, to have your own back, to form your own beliefs. I cannot stress that enough. It is nobody else’s job. No one is going to come around and applaud you for doing the hard things, but hear that. And I think we wait for it. We look around, we’re looking for who’s applauding for us. We’re looking to see who’s going to come alongside and pat us on the back.
Kristen Boss (20:57): I’m going to tell you something. This is another death, the death of looking to people, looking to the crowd to support you and the path to a million is you stop looking to the crowd. You don’t wait for somebody to come along and pat you on the back and to pick you up and get you going and poor belief in you. You have to do that for yourself. And so many people quit because they feel alone and they don’t know how to applaud themselves when no else is applauding. I had to applaud myself when my Instagram engagement sucked. That was another death. By the way, I had grown my engagement and this all ties in to like, you are responsible for your own belief and not to advocate that to anybody else. Not even your coach can do do that for you. Like I do build belief in my students, but I can, I can only do so much unless they’re willing to work on their own belief and to sit in that belief and not look to me to be that for them.
Kristen Boss (22:02): So one of the areas where I had to applaud myself was on my social media. I’ll never forget it was 2019. It was early 20, 19, almost three years ago where I’d grown my account. And I was kind of all over the place. I grew the account to pro I think like 15,000 followers. And I talked about mom stuff and health, and I was starting to talk about personal development. I knew coaching was where I wanted to go. And so it was time to shift my platform into speaking only personal development, growth mindset. And at that time I hadn’t even exclusively pivoted to network marketers. I just knew like, Nope, this is who I’m serving entrepreneurs. People are growing online businesses. I’m going to work on this mindset. That thing, I love this as personal development. And I literally watched my engagement tank. I watched 4,000 people leave my account almost overnight, almost overnight.
Kristen Boss (23:03): I like that’s why when people are like, oh no, a hundred people unfollowed me. I’m like try 4,000 to overnight and then come talk to me. But that is what happened. I let literally watched my account plummet. I watched my likes and my comments go from like 600 likes to, you know, I think 40 likes and it would’ve been so easy for me to think this is a bad idea. See, nobody wants this nobody’s interested, but I kept going. I had my own back. I applauded myself the entire way I was talking about anti-US before it was even a thing, because I saw where we were going as a society. I saw what was happening in online business circles. And I’m like, why is nobody talking about this? Oh, nobody’s talking about it. I’ll talk about it. And I’m willing to be alone talking about it.
Kristen Boss (23:57): I’m willing to stand by myself in this message until it finally gets across. I’m willing to applaud myself. And I did that for so long and my account kept shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And then eventually I think a year later it started to turn a year, a year of having my own back a year of applauding myself a year, trusting. I’m absolutely on the right path. This is a hundred percent where I’m going of people not getting it of people coming up to me and saying their opinions about what I was doing. Right? And so like that was another death. People not understanding me. I didn’t realize how much of my life I craved. People’s acceptance of my decisions, particularly feeling understood. I wanted to feel understood that people understood my decisions, that they, they didn’t even have to like support them and cheer them.
Kristen Boss (25:00): But I wanted them to understand because I wanted to feel validated. I wanted to feel like I was doing the right thing and learning to not look to anybody else. Oh my goodness. To not go and overexplain myself and justify and go into long-winded conversations to try and get them to see, try to open their eyes, try to help them understand why coaching’s the best thing ever. Like I ha that was a death. The part of me, the Kristen that wants to explain rationalize, justify, get people on board, make sure that they approve, make sure they accept cheer for me that had to die. And it was painful. It felt like a death. And then the next death was when with people, because as you grow, people will become uncomfortable with your growth. Your growth will show the areas that they are choosing to not grow and it gets uncomfortable for them.
Kristen Boss (26:07): And they will let you know, they might say things like you think you’re too good, or I don’t know this isn’t you they’ll say that they’ll they’ll watch you change. And they’ll think that the newer improved version of you, the more healed, whole happy, fulfilled version of you, they it’s the fake version of you. They’ll think that’s not you. I remember this you, and because they don’t know how to operate around the new, you they’ll remind you of the old you in hopes of getting you back because they understand that relationship. They understand the relationship that they had with the older version of you. And if they can’t figure out how to integrate with a newer version of you, they might try and bring you back or try and remind you. Like yeah. But no, but you’re this way. Yeah. But oh, you or they might say that the thing that cuts so deep you’ve changed.
Kristen Boss (27:07): And I used to want to justify that and explain it away or be like, oh no, but I’m still me. I’m still Kristen. And now I’m like, yeah, of course I’ve changed. I’ve changed a lot. I’m really proud of this change. I’ve worked really hard to change into a better version of me. Yeah. I’ve changed. Isn’t that great. I’ve invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of resources, a lot of coaching to, to be here. Thank you. Try saying that if someone says you’ve changed, say thank you. I’ve worked really hard to do this. Right. But I had to mourn the dynamics of some relationships in my life that changed. And it felt like death. It really did. I grieved, I was sad, really sad, but then I also had to decide, okay, am I open for new relationships in my life?
Kristen Boss (28:03): Am I open for it to meet new people? And I did. I’ve met amazing, amazing people who are committed to their growth as much as I am committed to mine. And it’s so amazing, you know, my best friend and I, Samantha, we joke that, you know, because we’re both business and life coaches, we say that it’s really hard for us to have, have small talk conversations with anybody because we’re so used to, with our students and with ourselves having very deep, very introspective conversations, we cut right through, you know, the fluff and we get right to the good stuff. We’re just like, yeah, yeah. But what’s the story you’re telling yourself and why are you feeling that way? What what’s going on there? Or let’s just get deeper and deeper and deeper. And so I joke, I, Samantha and I joke were like, we, man, it’s really hard to have, like, how do you have normal conversations with people?
Kristen Boss (28:58): Like when you’re used to just it being acceptable to just go right, right. To the root of it. Right. So I found, I found new, I found relationships. And then, and I will say there are some still some friends I have that have been wonderful. That message me and say, Hey, I’m so proud of you. It’s so exciting to watch you. And I always tell them, thank you. That is so kind. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for telling me you for thank you for saying that. Thank you for reaching out. It means a lot, right? So there, some relationships have stayed healthy and whole and great and some have not. And I had to be okay with that. I had to be okay with that changing.
Kristen Boss (29:45): I want to talk about another death that helped me kind of get where I wanted to go was also, I had to kind of still talking about money a little bit is I had to be okay with investing at levels. I had never invested at before I think to this date. And I remember when I, one of my first coaches, he told me he spent a hundred thousand dollars a year to be in Tony Robbins, like his top tier coaching circle. And I remember looking at him and thinking that is crazy. I would never spend that. And then I went into, and, but I also kept putting myself, myself in rooms where people were making so much more money than me. Like I put myself in rooms with millionaires before I had made my first multi six figures before I made 200 K I was in a room with millionaires and I listened to how they talk about money.
Kristen Boss (30:38): I listened to how they talk about business. I listened to how they talk about people and themselves. And I realized that I had to undo stories. I had about people that made a lot of money. Cause I think I had a little bit of a SCR MC McDuck picture in my mind, like people just, you know, hoarding their money in a vault. And then, you know, on their lunch break, diving into a pool of gold coins and saying haha you know, I’ve just taken so much from the world. I’ve I think I really had a picture of Scrooge McDuck but when I met people that served and loved so well and they were so generous with their time and their resources and their money and how they served and how they showed up in the world. It literally broke my brain. At first, I was like, wait, what? This isn’t how I understand the world.
Kristen Boss (31:25): I thought that it was, I thought these people were tycoons on wall street, taking advantage of people. And then I saw how kind in giving and generous these people were, I’m like, oh, this is different. That’s different. And I had to put to death that old SCR MC story as well, but I’ll remember that coach. He was like, yep. Spend a hundred K a year to be with Tony Robbins. I’m like a hundred K a year. That is insane. But then as I was surrounded by other multi multimillionaires, they were, they did the same thing. They were, they all invested. Like it wasn’t even a problem. And my, my, I, I, I just want to kind of go back to that version of me. And that version of me that was sitting in that room, just having had made her first a hundred K was thinking that wa wait, what, everyone in here invests at this level.
Kristen Boss (32:19): This is, this is crazy. But I realized they valued the rooms and the conversations, it put them around. And that is exactly what happened with my investment. It put me in rooms with people who thought differently, that acted differently, that invested differently. That thought about business differently. In ways I had never thought of, I went into rooms with New York times, bestselling authors with people that, you know, made money in amounts that I couldn’t even wrap my mind around and I was uncomfortable, but I was like the youngest and dumbest in the room. And I think that was the best piece of advice I was given was put yourself in rooms where you were the youngest and the dumbest where you have something to learn from everybody. And it was uncomfortable. And I remember feeling like really unworthy when I went into those rooms, I remember thinking my imposter syndrome was super high.
Kristen Boss (33:15): Who are you to be in here? And at the time, I don’t think I had a podcasting out was like, you don’t have a podcast. You don’t have a book. Who are you? Who are you to be here? Go home. Who are you trying to be? Like? My inner narrative was so mean. And I had to tell her to take a seat and she had something to learn. And as I was around, more and more of those rooms, as I paid to be in rooms, a conversations were different. I changed, I totally changed. And now, you know, years later I am the person who invests very heavily in my business, in my team, in myself in appreciate in helping my appreciate value, to be more valuable in the marketplace to serve my audience better, to always be uncomfortable. Here’s that listen to that. I’m never looking to arrive and be like, I’m so comfortable.
Kristen Boss (34:13): I’m always looking for ways to feel uncomfortable, to be just outside of my comfort zone, told hard things by my coach, right. And I pay more than a hundred thousand dollars a year in investment. And I think it’s important that, that you hear that so that you understand it’s normal. And I just had so many stories that I thought were true about people that I have those types of businesses, but they invest, they invest different. They play different, they think different. And because I was around those people, I thought different. And so I want to talk about one last one last I’m going to call it like death. I had where I felt like I had to fall on my sword. And by the way, there have like, like been so many, I’m going to call micro deaths that I’ve, that I’ve had, where it could have been someone sending me an email ripping me apart saying like, you’re this you’re terrible, blah, blah, blah.
Kristen Boss (35:12): And letting that person have that thought, letting my audience grow and grow and grow. And knowing that with equal amounts of people that like my philosophy, there will be equal amounts of, of people that think it is the most garbage philosophy on the world and the, in the world. And that I’m causing harm or whatever. Like letting that be understanding that there’s going to be both. I live in a, both and world as I grow in people that I, that feel thankful for this message. There are going to be those that deeply disagree with it. And I have to be okay with both. And there are just little decisions I’ve made in my business that have felt like I was dying that have felt like grief that have felt so hard, so hard.
Kristen Boss (35:55): So one of the, there was, and I think it was when I was halfway, halfway to a million dollars. I was around 400, 500 K actually. Now that I think about it was less, it was around 300 K and I remember there was a lot of money and I noticed I was like in a very scarce mindset around it. What you might find surprising because a lot of people think when I’m making that kind of money, I’m never going to feel lack again. I’m never going to experience that again. Nope. Just like if you lose the 10 pounds, all of your thoughts about your body, aren’t magically going to be, you know, better overnight because you still have a human brain. And so your brain is, it gets normalized. It gets conditioned around this new level of living. And then it, it goes back to what it knows lack.
Kristen Boss (36:47): And so there, I was making great money and I felt this I’m going to call it like this gobbling energy, where I was like wanting to hoard it and hide it and afraid so afraid to spend it so afraid because I remembered I was picturing and I, and I can remember it. So clearly I remember when we were struggling for so long and I was living in a survivalist mindset for so oh long, like waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for another car repair that would send us into financial turmoil or financial upheaval waiting for it. Like I felt like for seven years, I was constantly trying to scrape money together, get by hoping that there was no emergency hoping that we could get by. And there was that part of me that was so afraid to go back. I was like, I don’t want to experience that again.
Kristen Boss (37:49): I never want to go back to that again. And I remember thinking, wait, I had to coach myself and realizing I would be okay. I would be okay if it all went away, I be okay. I had to get there because I also realized if I go back to that, I won’t be the same. I’m not the same person. She will handle it differently. She will handle it better. She will not be in such lack. She will not be in such fear. But I remember I was kind of struggling with settling into being this person and feeling safe around money. It was there, but it didn’t feel safe. And no one talked about that. I was like, wait, why is no one talking about this? Why am I triggered? Why is this horrible? Why doesn’t this feel good or exciting? Why does this feel scary and unsafe?
Kristen Boss (38:35): To me, it’s amazing what the brain will do. And I, I found myself operating from that fear and I was so scared. And then I realized there was, I had to say goodbye to a part of me. And it was a, it was a colleague of mine. And she said, you know, have you ever have you thank the broke, struggling, scared, Kristen, for getting you here, have you done that? Have you thanked her? And have you told her that she can like rest, she needs to go away. Have you mourned her? Have you grieved her and said goodbye to her? And I’m like, oh no, I’ve been taking her with me. I’ve been taking this very scared, very scared, very terrified, struggling, surviving, Kristen, I’ve been taking her with me and I realized she couldn’t come anymore because her voice was so loud. Like, but what if it all falls apart?
Kristen Boss (39:29): What if it’s all terrible? And what if this? And what if this? And she was just constantly preparing me for disaster because that is, that was the reality. She lived in for seven years. Like, but it’s all about to go terribly and something’s going to go wrong. And I was like, oh, I can’t. Hmm. I can’t take her with me. I can’t take that part of me with me on this journey that has to change. I can’t, I can’t continue to grow and have that voice shouting me the entire time. So I’ll never forget it. Maybe this is maybe there’s something you need to do. But I wrote a eulogy for that, Kristen and I thanked her. I thanked her for all the hard, scary, brave, wonderful things. She did. I, I thanked her for working hard. I thanked her for putting $2,000 on a credit card to work with a coach with money. She did not have I thanked her for being brave. I thanked her for being resourceful. And I just had to like acknowledge her. And then I had to say, but you can’t, you can’t come. And I had to like grieve and say goodbye to that old ver of me like, oh, you don’t have to be that scared, terrified person anymore.
Kristen Boss (40:46): And what’s amazing is things drastically changed. After that drastically, I stopped being so afraid and I started, you know, being comfortable, putting money into my business, to hire a team, to hire a podcast producer and a VA, a graphics designer, and you know, a Facebook ad manager and all the, and continue investing in coaching. But it’s really hard to invest when you’re still operating from the scared, broke version of yourself, because you’re afraid that it’s all going to go away. And you’re kind of in your gobbling energy, in the cave and just clutching all the cash close because you’re so scared. That is a scarce mindset. Like you can feel deeply scarce and have a lot of money. People don’t know that, but I can promise you I’ve coached now. Hundreds of people that make insane amounts of money and they still feel scarce around the money because they haven’t changed the story. They haven’t let go of this broke, struggling, very scared of themselves. It’s still, it’s still kind of tucked away there and you have to trust, oh, but this is who I am now. And this is where we’re going. And this is why I can trust myself. And this is how we’re getting there.
Kristen Boss (42:06): But a thousand deaths has felt like a thousand versions of me that have evolved to get here. A thousand old stories that I have had to say goodbye to a thousand times when I have felt like I’m going to die because of the sting of rejection, the fear of what would happen. Someone thi someone saying something about me and spreading it to, you know, their entire network. It’s terrifying. My brain was like, we’re definitely going to a die. There have been multiple times where I’ve thought I should just blow it all up, burn it down and walk away and hide and go back to the safe life. I understand when I was just doing hair, that makes sense to me. And I have to just remind myself, oh no, but we’re safe. And we’re okay. And this is where we’re going. But it has felt like there have been so many versions of me that have evolved.
Kristen Boss (43:06): And I look back at the Kristen three years ago and I think, wow, a I’m proud of her, but B man, I’m a different, I’m a completely different person. And I’m okay. Okay with that. So today was a really raw conversation. It was kind of all over the place, maybe a different episode than what you’re used to hearing, but I’m telling you the things I wish somebody was honest enough to talk about the, of what it actually takes is that the 80 hours weeks, blood, sweat, tears, you know, running on no sleep, no, the hard work I’m talking about is the hard work of all the stories. I was just telling you the hard work of having your own back and applauding yourself when no one is getting out of bed each day to do, do the work before the results come up, believing in the vision before you have any evidence that it’s going to work.
Kristen Boss (44:09): Do you understand that believing in the vision and its possibility without having any evidence that it’s going to work? I had no evidence that I was going to create the program I have today. I had no evidence that my podcast would be where it is. I, I had no clue that I was going to, that I was going to get a book deal and no idea those things were coming, but I believed in them. I had no evidence. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And I didn’t wait on anybody to motivate me, to cheer for me to applaud for me to validate me. That felt like a thousand deaths in and of itself every day, waking up, not seeing the results and to still go each day was a death.
Kristen Boss (44:58): But do you know what makes it a lot more joyful is when you let go of the timeline, you let go of the expectations and you decide, but what if I can have fun? And what if it gets to be joyful? And what if it gets to be fulfilling? A and what if this, what if this is the best ride of my life? So many people won’t allow themselves joy until they arrive at the million dollars. But I’m going to tell you right now, the secret is finding the joy all the way there, figuring out how can I have fun on this ride there? How can I fulfill fulfilled and at peace and love people well and have, and make it about the ride. Not just about the destination, but so many people are so fixated on the destination that the ride becomes miserable. I’m picturing like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Disneyland.
Kristen Boss (45:47): Where it’s like, what is going on? And then they’re, you know, in the blazes of hell at the end, you’re like, wait, what just happened? What? But I think like, that’s how I picture some entrepreneur’s like journey is it becomes Mr. Toad’s wild ride. And it’s just hell. Instead of like, how can this be the best part? How can my journey there be the best part of making a million dollars, not the make of a million, but who I became and all the lessons I learned on my way there. And for you, maybe it’s not a million dollars. Not everybody wants to make that. And I get that, but I also want you to explore the story of why, why not? Why not? You, are you telling yourself that’s too much? It’s not okay. I would just want you to explore the stories, but maybe for you, it’s your first a hundred thousand dollars in your business, maybe for you, it’s matching your husband in income, maybe for you.
Kristen Boss (46:42): It’s just the $20,000 a year to alleviate financial burden in your family. Are you going to enjoy the ride? Are you willing to face a thousand deaths to get there? Are you willing to evolve over and over and over again are willing to have people misunderstand. You make judgements about you. No one will applaud you. Are you willing to believe for you when nobody else is believing for you? Are you willing to do that? If you are. I promised your results will become inevitable a hundred percent. That’s also why I have my program. Why I developed a Social Selling Academy to be that place for, for you to be that place where you have the tools you have, the support that I didn’t have. I built it with you in mind. I built it with like, what is everything. They need to love this journey to have all the tools, to stay on plan, to stay consistent, to get outta bed every day and to keep going, what do they need? And that’s what we developed. That’s why people see extraordinary results. It’s the end of the year I would ask you, are you willing to take the brave leap that I did? Are you willing to feel the death, maybe to feel like you are dying to say yes to your future self, where you will look back three years from now and thank yourself and say, I’m so proud of the brave, terrified version of you that decided to say yes today. I would encourage you to join. Otherwise, we’ll see you in the next episode. Have a great week.
Kristen Boss (48:18): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you are ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals. In the Academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
