013: Why No Action Will Leave Your Business Nowhere

Today it's all about why taking ‘No Action’ ultimately leads to no business. We know this to be true, and yet we fall into the traps time and time again. I'm going to be taking you through my personal journey to show you that when I took action, everything changed for me and for my business.

You wouldn't be listening to this episode now if you weren't also trying to build your dream. It can get so frustrating and can feel that the progress is so slow sometimes. We fall into this period of inaction and we just don't take that step forward. I've really learned my lessons, because the last 20-25 years or so have been a case study for me in the difference between taking action and not taking action. I'm going to take you through a few examples of when I failed to take action and the difference to when I really started to take massive action.

Back in the day, I took a job in advertising and it was a really good job. In fact, my first job we used to get on a boat that sped down the river Thames between offices. I was like 21 years old, and I thought I'd made it and indeed for the next few years, it was fantastic working within advertising. It was so much fun and I built my career and I truly believed that I would go all the way, but things changed for me. There are certain triggers that happen in our lives. Things change the way we feel, and for me, it was becoming a mum.

Can you relate? When you become a mum for the first time a lot of our values shift. Certainly when I looked at the industry I was working in and the hours people were working and how they prioritized their job over family, I started to feel that it wouldn't be for me. Not long term. Even while I was on maternity leave, I started to look around for something else that would be more suitable. In fact, I even had a day's work experience as a teacher. I learned that I wasn't cut out to spend my time in the classroom with kids. However, I did realize that I had to take some action if I wanted something to change, but I didn't.

After maternity leave ended, I went back to my previous job. Now for me, this was quite a big deal because when I gave birth to my first daughter and some of you may know this, I nearly died in childbirth. It was a really dramatic story, but having gone through a year of overcoming PTSD over that experience to be going back to the job that I had planned to leave felt really uncomfortable to me. It felt like I had failed. I had failed to pivot, a word we all use so easily now... a word I didn't use much then, but that's what it was.

I wanted to change, yet I hadn't been able to but I didn't really take the action. I don't beat myself up over that. I was, you know, recovering from quite a lot of trauma and certainly I wasn't in the right place in my life to really put the energy behind that change. But I do recognize that started me on a journey to think a lot more about taking action. In fact, when it came to my family life, I took massive action because over the next seven years.

I decided that despite being rendered infertile by my experience giving birth to my first daughter, I was going to complete my family. Although I didn't know anybody that had done surrogacy, I realized that that was the answer for me. I was like, yes I don't have any money. I don't have the resources. I don't know anyone that's done surrogacy, certainly in London back 15 years ago. It wasn't something that you would come across very frequently and indeed you still don't.

I didn't really have any connections. I thought, how could I do this? But that wasn't going to deter me. I put such a massive amount of action and energy behind that. I became obsessed. I literally researched everything there was. I spoke to everyone I could speak to. Until I got to a point where seven years later, my husband and I flew from London to California to meet our surrogate daughter twins. Which was obviously the most amazing experience and a journey that had so many ups and downs.

It really taught me that taking massive action can really get you to where you want to go.

One step at a time. You don't have to know all of the individual “hows” that are gonna happen along the way.

And certainly I did not. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and what I learned as well from that is that I really wanted to help others.

At the time I thought, you know what I really want to become is a surrogacy consultant. I want to help other moms and dads who know that they need surrogacy as a solution, but don't know how to go about it. Really, I was so inspired to help, but... and you knew that it was going to be a 'but' here, right? Otherwise I'd be having a podcast all about how to do surrogacy!

I just found it too hard. I had a couple of conversations with people and I remember saying to my husband, you know, it's impossible to monetize this idea. Does that sound familiar?

Have you ever thought that about your idea? How am I ever going to make money from this?

Who would pay me? How would I structure it? It all just felt too overwhelming. And in fact, that self defeatist attitude meant that I took no further action. Again, I went back to advertising. It just seems so easy just to go back to what I knew, because I wasn't willing to take the action that it would have involved. When I say take the action, I actually mean overcome the mindset blocks and barriers that I would have needed to overcome in order to take the action.

Then a few years later, I had another big idea. So at the time I was at home for a bit with my twins and my husband was going into the office every day and I was making him this fantastic packed lunch. We're getting into vegetarian food. I had this idea that we would use ancient grains and mix it with a different variety of vegetables every day and a protein. Every day he went to work and the people at work were like, “Oh my God, I want your lunch! How can I get your lunch? You know, we were spending five pounds a day on stuff. That's nowhere near as good as this.” So I was like, wow, maybe I could set up a business that delivers these fresh, wholesome lunches to office workers in London. I took a little bit of action. I started writing out some recipes, put a little spreadsheet together with the costs. Then my mindset blocks overcame me again. I started thinking, “Why would anyone want to buy this from me?”. I also thought, God, it seems so hard, I don't know the logistics of setting up a business like this, it all just feels a bit overwhelming. And I just stopped.

That was all the action I took. I went back to advertising again. By this point I was moving into my forties and I honestly felt enough is enough. Have you felt this? Are you at that point? Have you gone beyond that now? You just think... “I just can't do this anymore!” My work-life balance at my job got worse and worse.

I realized that there was a real value gap between the corporate world and who I was becoming as a person.

By this point I was deep into and still am into self-development. I had a wonderful experience at Tony Robbins UPW, which was just outstanding, when it was still live before everything had gone virtual. I just realized that I can't go on like this anymore. I remembered that my surrogacy journey was all about action, by taking that action and overcoming those blocks, I could succeed. I got it in my head that I could make what I deemed impossible possible. If I could just take the action.

Actually, the universe heard me. For those of you that believe in this, and I certainly do, the Universe went “You know what, you've been doing this for too long.” It gave me a big boot up the bum and laid me off-made me redundant, literally, at the beginning of COVID last year. I could have sunk into some sort of negative mindset about this. It was a blow and I certainly was very anxious about the loss of income. I realized that I'd been asking and praying for this for so long to be forced to just go. I felt like finally, I could run my own business and step into my purpose and do something that lights me up. That makes an impact on the world. I got really engaged in a community of like-minded new heart-centered entrepreneurs and just started to help people who were stuck. People who needed to implement but couldn't seem to overcome those mindset blocks. They needed to take action, but couldn't organize themselves to actually make sure it got done.

I realized that actually I had these natural strengths. This experience of taking action and changing my mindset, being organized and productive. It was just so helpful for people. And it's so true, that we can all launch businesses that tap into who we are, our natural resources and how we can help. As I did this,

I started to think “I can do this!” I started to think “Just one step at a time. I don't need to understand the how of all of this. I just need to take one more step, take another piece of action until step-by-step everything starts falling into place and clarity comes.”

As I started to feel that I can do this, my mindset just got stronger and stronger and my business grew and I got more and more obsessed with how the business itself works. How the online business works and how you grow your business.

I realized and literally, I had to kick myself that I hadn't even realized this before that 20 years working in advertising, where I'd been specializing in revenue generation for my clients in business growth, in marketing, was perfect for me to use in this new space helping entrepreneurs and helping myself grow this business. I couldn't believe I hadn't realized it before.

So many of us sit on these experiences and we think that they're so niche and only work in one place. When there are so many people out there in the world who would not only benefit from your services but thank you, and pay you to help them get where they need to go.

I started taking massive and consistent action things like launching this podcast consistently showing up on my social media. I started creating offers to help people build their businesses. I just got comfortable with being uncomfortable so I could give value. Every time I felt that I couldn't do it, I reminded myself that I can and I will. The more action I took, the more I wanted to take. It led me to a place, only a matter of months later, where I truly do feel like I'm living life on my terms. We all want to be able to make choices. For so many years that wasn't something that I ever thought could be possible for me. While I'm making my own choices, my business is growing rapidly and I can choose to be in the house with my kids. We're in the middle of lockdown now, so I'm having to make choices about the hours I work without being answerable to the corporate bosses or anybody else.

But ultimately I'm making income doing what lights me up and that is what makes me feel amazing about my choices. The fact that I keep taking the action.

And know this, the difference between building a successful business or not, is the actions you take, or you do not take.

Because, and I've said this before, no one pays you for what you know they pay you for what you do! So please don't sit there with all this knowledge and love and value sitting in your head when really it's the actions you need to take that will bring it into the world. We'll create your business, will help your clients and will light you up. So please do swap your limiting beliefs for empowering thoughts. Tell yourself that you can, and you will. And take action. Just one step at a time.