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Welcome to Amplify Your Authority, the podcast where innovative marketing meets heart-centered entrepreneurship. Join Marissa Shadrick, an award-winning international speaker, Ray Edwards certified copywriter, and personal brand expert. You'll gain insights into the external strategies for business growth and how to navigate the internal journey of entrepreneurship. Get ready to amplify your authority in a competitive digital world. And now is your host, Marissa Shadrick.

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Hello and welcome to Amplify Your Authority Podcast. I'm Marissa Shadrick, your host. I'm an online marketing strategist and certified copywriter. And today's recording is episode 100. Yes, I finally reached the 100 mark. So I'm excited to share this episode with you. And I really thought about the content that I would share, because this is a benchmark for me because I kind of struggled in the beginning with the podcast and what I was going to share and really the topic, like most of us do. But as you continue, you take action, you tweak. You can't change things unless you're in motion, right? And I finally dialed in the podcast and then it became fun. Then it became something I look forward to. And I mix it up with monologue and I bring on guests, and we talk all about marketing and amplifying your authority online. So it's been a journey. So reaching that hundred mark has really been uh something that I am celebrating. And today I want to talk to you as if you were just starting out, or if you're someone that was thinking about starting an online business and share a little bit, you might say it'll be a reflective podcast of some of the things that have worked and not worked, or some of the things that I've discovered along the way. And hopefully that will be an encouragement to you and will help you continue to move forward and look at the rest of the year or the coming year with new eyes, because we're gonna be talking about vision. And I think it's really, really important. So if I had to do it all over again, I would start with these tips that I'm gonna share today in the podcast. So I titled this overcoming the limitations of short-sighted goals. I think it's really important because so many people feel that, well, if you're gonna start a business, just start building a bunch of things and post all over social media and you'll be golden. But there's a lot. We are multidimensional people, so there's a lot involved in starting a business. So as entrepreneurs, our vision is like a compass, and it really helps us to know how to move forward. It kind of guides us through the challenges and the opportunities. And this is something that happens all the time. There are opportunities that are come up, and there's challenges that come up. There's tech challenges, there's growth challenges, there's no growth challenges, but there's also opportunities, and we have to align our decisions based on our vision because our vision is going to help us set our goals. And that way we stay on track and we're not here and there and everywhere and questioning ourselves. So vision is really, really important. I think for many who like to reflect and think about who they want to serve, this is probably something that's second nature to you. But I think for those of you that are real quick action takers, maybe you don't spend enough time thinking about vision, but I think it's an important thing to kind of revisit and look at it and see what your vision is for the coming months. So your vision for tomorrow, for the next six months, for the next year, what is that? What does it look like? So why is vision important? You have to clarify your vision because if it's a short-sighted vision, you're gonna make short-sided decisions, which will lead to short-sided goals. And oftentimes we want to play it safe and we only stay within a lane that we're familiar with and not really cast a vision, not really begin to dream. We don't want to rely on just what's in front of us. We want to look at the big picture and how everything that we're doing today is leading to the results that we want tomorrow. Or another thing that can happen is people get really busy on designing a logo, designing a website, and they spend a lot of time being really busy. I mean, spending a lot of hours, but they're not really spending the hours on the things that are going to propel their business forward. The logos, the website, all of those things are great and are important, but you really don't need to have that first if you're going to start a business. You really need to have the vision and clarity first as far as what you want for yourself. How big of a business do you want? What do you love talking about? Who is it that you want to serve? Before you even look at audience, what's your lifestyle like? What season of life are you in? Are you raising little kids? Do you have teenagers at home? Are you a grandparent? Are you retired? You know, what is the bandwidth that you have? Because there's a lot that you'll be doing. Because again, as I said, we're multidimensional beings. We're going to launch a business, but at the same time, we've got to find a balance to be able to continue to nurture ourselves so we can continue to serve others. Let me share something from an author and entrepreneur, Michael Gerber. And I know you've heard this before. He has popularized the phrase that says, work on your business, not just in your business. That's from the book Emith Revisited over, and he wrote that over 35 years ago, but it's really important to distinguish between the two. The phrase refers to the difference between working on a business to improve it for the future, or working in it to manage the day-to-day operations. You have to realize that when you're an entrepreneur, you are no longer an employee. You are the owner, the decision maker of your business. Now, in the beginning, you're going to be learning a lot of things. You're going to be probably reading a lot of books, joining masterminds, maybe you're going to be getting some courses, listening to podcasts. And it's always good to replicate before you innovate, see what experts are saying. But at some point, you've got to make those decisions of what works for your business because nothing is copy and paste. Nothing is just that cut and dry. There are a lot of variables involved depending on the type of business that you have and whether you're going to provide a service, whether you're going to be a coach and you offer intangible benefits, or you actually offer tangible benefits. All of that needs to be in consideration. But the very first thing is to realize the difference about working on your business as opposed to working in your business. You are no longer an employee, you are a business owner. Even though you will replicate before you innovate, you are still an owner. You got to make decisions that work for your business. Okay, so when we talk about vision, an easy way to look at this is your physical vision. Now, some of you wear glasses, some of you wear context like I do, but you have vision. And when your vision starts failing you, you could either be nearsighted or far-sighted. Nearsighted means that you can see things close up. And far-sighted means that you can see things at a distance. Well, it's very similar in business. We don't want to be so nearsighted that we only see what's in front of us. We're only worried about how we're going to get the next sale. That's very limiting. And we want to be far sighted in the sense that we want to see where we're headed toward a goal, but at the same time, see the immediate activity that we're doing to reach those goals. It's kind of like what they call lead measures and lag measures. You want to be able to make sure that the daily things that you're doing are compounding and are going to get you to the end result that you want in three months, six months, in a year. Now, the other caution is being too far-sighted, seeing too much in the future, right, of some of the things that we want, having these big lofty goals. And the problem with that, and sometimes visionaries have this because they're ready to start a new project, they see an opportunity and they're ready to jump on this, but you've got to pull back and you need to look at the mechanics or the structure or the systems or the operation that's needed day to day to make that happen. So we have to strike the right balance between the two. So vision is very, very important to start with vision because that's going to influence your decisions. Your decisions are going to help you set your goals to be able to achieve the business that you want. Now, once you have vision, you set some realistic goals. And that becomes your plumb line for your content creation, for your strategy, for your product suite, for everything, because it's aligned with your vision. Some people say it's the why, why you're doing something. I think it's just a little bit more than just the why. The vision is the big picture. And I think sometimes we need to look at the big picture, the macro view, and then look at the micro view of how that's going to happen. And then step back and look at the macro view and come back the micro view. So it's kind of this accordion play that we're doing, right? Back and forth looking to see, and we're looking at analytics and we're looking at activity to see how it's measuring up to that macro view. And then we change when we look at the micro view what we need to do from day to day. There's a quote, it's anonymous. I don't know who said this quote. They should have labeled it because it's a good one. Dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things, but the absence of vision, which I couldn't agree more. So why don't we have a big vision? Why are we afraid to dream of things that seem almost impossible? Maybe you don't have the skill sets yet, or maybe it's something you've never done before. And so you don't even put it on the table because you think, well, how is that possible? That's not possible. How can I do that? So I have a little saying around the house, and they tease me around the house. It's not can't, but how, because I always say that. It's not can't, but how. There is a way to do that. And so my granddaughter was visiting us um during the summer, and we were working on some projects, some crafts, and she was running out of some supplies. And she goes, Well, I can't do that. I go, it's not can't, but how? How can we do what the resources that we have? And so my husband was laughing and teasing me about that because I'm constantly doing that. But you find solutions that way. If you just have the mantra, it's not can't, but how you can find a solution. What happens is though, when we begin to have this vision of other things, say, for example, you have a vision and you think, well, someday I want to write a book and to promote it, I want to do a book tour, so I want to do some public speaking. Maybe I'll do a TEDx. And all of a sudden you're thinking, but I've never done any public speaking. I don't know how to get booked on TEDx. I have no idea what to do as far as writing a book. And all of a sudden, all of these things start popping up in your head and in your mind, and you just totally discount it and you take it off the table. So there's a lot of things that can creep up and cause you not to cast a wide, audacious vision. Uh, some of the things people will call it like limiting beliefs, or maybe it's lack of experience, or imposter syndrome. There's all these words, terminologies that we use for people not moving forward. And really the root of it, as I've looked at all of these in my own life and how to overcome a lot of these, the root of it is fear. People that struggle with imposter syndrome and all of that is fear. And I struggled with that. And when I discovered that a lot of these were symptoms and the root cause was fear, I was able to attack it and realize it for what it was, no longer with this disguise, but realizing that it was fear. Now I wasn't happy with that because who wants to admit they're fearful, right? But understanding what it was helped me to then realize that it was fear. It was generating this emotion. And I had to really look at the beliefs and the what I was thinking about was true and not true to be able to get over that, overcome that, and recognize it in my life. So it wouldn't get in the way of moving forward. So the thing about fear, and I've talked a lot about fear before in the past because that was something that plagued me for years. But I'll just summarize here that what you think about becomes your master. If all you think about is the fearful things in life, if all you think about is failure and you think about not succeeding and you think that you're inexperienced, and those thoughts will become your master and they will govern and you will have no decision-making skills because you won't go there. And so fear will become your master. But if you live by, maybe you're a person of faith, if you live by faith, or if you live by gratitude or positivity, or you see the opposite in life and you see that there is potential, then that is going to govern your life and that's gonna influence your decisions as well. So one of the key things that that I share when I talk about fear is that it will rob you of free will. You will no longer have free will to make those decisions. And so we have to recognize when we're casting a vision, are we not writing something down because of fear, or is it because we really don't want to do that? And these things that we write down are not in cement. These things are ideas that we want to pursue, and we're gonna sit and kind of think about this and see if it aligns with our values, with our lifestyle. And if it doesn't, it's okay to table it maybe for another time or next year. No guilt, no shame. That's the thing that just because you begin to cast a vision and make decisions and set goals, if it changes, it's totally fine. It's totally fine because you're growing, you're growing and you're learning and you're expanding your experience, and maybe that doesn't fit anymore, and you need to change it. And that's okay. You don't have to be married to something that is not going to work for you in your business. The other thing that I realized too when I was starting to grow my business. Now I took a real pivot shift right during COVID. I picked the perfect time. Um, fortunately, all that worked out, but really it wasn't until 2021 that I really started landing on the new brand. So it hasn't been that long, really. And it's so much better than before COVID, because I was kind of all over the place. I was doing a lot of copywriting, but I wasn't really focused on the future as much. See, I was guilty of that. Cash flow today, right? And so I was short-sighted and just looking at the immediate, not looking forward. When I started looking forward and looking ahead, that's when the coaching came in. I started doing more work through relationship marketing and partnering with other businesses and so forth. And things were starting to work out much better than just doing the copywriting alone. So, what I realized during that season of transition is that answers are not found in managing, but in surrendering. I had to just surrender everything, especially during COVID, because it was so crazy during that time. And I had to release it and realize, okay, what I thought I was gonna do, all this copywriting, now things are shifting and changing. You know, everything is locked down. People are holding on to their cash. Oh boy, what am I gonna do now? And I realized I was trying to manage, control everything. And at that point, I just let go. I surrendered, I let go, and I said, let's see a different way. Let's see what else is possible, let's cast a new vision. So sometimes we try to hold on so tight, so tight to something that we have that we have to step back and let go and see is it time to shift to something else? So that was something that was a huge milestone for me to surrender and let go and not be so concerned about it and begin to cast a new vision. Here's the thing, too, that I wrote in my journal during that time, because I was praying a lot during COVID and the whole because I had just pivoted my business and so forth. But our prayers, for those of you that are Christian, our prayers are often short-sighted. But God in his mercy, his answers are far-sighted because he sees a future. We don't. And often when we get answered prayer, it comes in such a different way than we expected. It comes with so much more opportunity than we expected because there's so much more that we can do. Sometimes we limit our own potential. We don't even realize some of the skills that we have because they've lied dormant in our lives. We've never really cultivated them. But when you put yourself out there and you begin to say yes and figure it out later, you begin to grow and you realize that you have skills that have been dormant in your life that you just haven't let given it an opportunity to flourish yet. So, and yes, it is scary. It is scary to do that. But when you do it enough times, you begin to recognize, oh, I see what this is. This is an opportunity for me to grow. I've never done this before, but it's an opportunity for me to learn and to grow and also to expand my reach. And that's why I used to say a lot to expand your reach, because it does allow you to do that. So that was one of the things that was comforting to me and also gave me a lot of peace to know that I may not see all the answers, and I might might not see how it all fits together in the future, but I know that God does. It's kind of like when you're driving and it's very, very foggy and you're on a road and you can't really see beyond what's in front of you when you're driving in the fog. You're on the road, you know you're on the right road, but you just can't see that destination. But you keep driving. Now, maybe you drive a little slower, right? Because you can't see ahead. You know you're headed to the right direction, you just can't see it. And it makes you a little nervous to drive on that road. But eventually the fog begins to lift, and eventually you see the destination, you see the horizon very clearly, and then you can pick up speed because you know it's okay to go move forward. And it's the same thing when we're facing challenging things in our business. It feels like we're driving in the fog, but we can move ahead. So that was something that I realized part of that surrendering to just take the next step and keep moving forward based on my vision, because my vision helped me set my goals, and then my goals helped me set the activity that I needed to track to reach those goals. I knew where I was headed, I just knew it would take time. This is not a sprint by any means, it's a marathon. And so remember that imperfect action is really, really messy, but it leads to milestones. And as you begin to see those milestones, you're gonna be encouraged. You're gonna see a little bit of the fog lift and a little bit of the sun start shining, and you're gonna see those milestones and you're gonna go, okay, this is gonna work. So some of the things that I reminded myself during this transition period was that a struggle means I'm not defeated. If you're defeated, there's no more struggle. If you're struggling, it just means you're not defeated. You are still in the race. The other thing is sometimes when I prayed and I felt like there was this challenge that felt like a mountain, sometimes God wouldn't move that mountain because he wanted to move my heart. And that was something that I learned that those mountains serve a purpose. And so sometimes when I hit against a wall, I start to reflect and I go, what is it about myself that I need to learn? Is it about trust? Is it about patience? And so I will look at that mountain, and that's a metaphor for some big challenge, and see what is it that I need to learn or what is it that I need to do? So sometimes God won't move because scripture says, you have faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains, but sometimes those mountains stay there because I feel in my own opinion. Opinion that um God wants to move our hearts more than those mountains because our hearts is what he's concerned about. And then also the the deficits in our lives, we are great at picking out all our deficits, right? I mean, you have gifts, you have talents, you have skills, you have experience, you have all of those things, but what do we focus on? Deficits. But those deficits can create a positive outcome as well. They can create a greater dependency on God or your values, whatever that is. And so that's not a bad thing. I don't want to be so solo driven that I don't hear that still small voice. And so that's why I have my morning time and I do my journaling and I do my Bible reading and things like that in the morning to anchor myself, to make sure I remember where I came from. I remember, and I have compassion and empathy. And I pray for that to have empathy for others and to remember those that have blessed my life in the last 24 hours, right? So a deficit in our lives can create a greater dependency on God, which is really helpful for me. So your beliefs and desires will sustain you, and there's nothing wrong with having desires. So when you have your beliefs and desires aligned, your beliefs and desires will sustain you. I was listening to John Acuff, and he said something that I thought was really interesting. He said that your desires is what creates the discipline that you need to see it through, which is really true. He was saying that you don't get discipline first and then fill your desires. It's the desire to do something that again equips you or empowers you to have the discipline to do it. For example, exercise. Maybe you love how it you feel after you exercise. The desire to feel that way or the desire to lose weight might be greater than the actual activity. So that desire will create the discipline that you need to do what you want to do. So desire is a good thing. And I thought that was pretty intuitive of him when he said that, because when I think back, it is true. It's something that I value that creates the discipline in me to do the thing that I want to do. So, and recently, you know, I just started a new workout routine because I got a new house in Tennessee, and I wanted to have a workout space down in the garage where everything was handy. And so I got an elliptical, I got a bench, I already had weights, I already had um, you know, a mat and all those other things. I had an extra TV. So I got it all set up there. The desire is what is creating the discipline for me to get up early and go downstairs because I don't have to drive anywhere. It makes it so easy. Go downstairs and I can have a one-hour workout and have my morning time and get ready for work and I'm I'm done. And so the desire was what created that activity for me to get the equipment that I needed. And then I just get up early, and so I make sure that I go to bed earlier because I have that desire to get back into a workout routine. So I thought that was very intuitive of him. And also when you inject faith into the picture, I think that's a great thing because faith is not passive. Faith is not passive. And so when you think about it, the great people that had great faith, they were active in their faith, they were doing things to better the world. And so faith is never passive. Faith is knowing that your future is greater than your past. And so you have that comfort of knowing that your future is better than your past. And also, this is really, really key because sometimes we don't feel like our faith is very strong, but the ebb and flow of your faith day to day is not indicative of the absence of faith. Sometimes your faith will ebb and flow, sometimes it'll be really, really strong. You have a lot of faith that everything is going to work out fine in other days. It's like, oh my gosh, God, where are you? Right. But know that those times, those highs and lows and highs and lows that you have, it's not the absence. It's just being human, right? So I guess the bottom line is I'm trying to say, don't guilt yourself into paralyzing yourself or moving forward. No guilt, no shame. Right? If you set goals and you didn't meet those goals for the day, that's okay. There's probably a reason. You probably had something else that you needed to do that was important. And so you did that instead. There's uh our mastermind group we met recently. We're talking about productivity and we're talking about goals. They're such a great group. They have all great ideas and great mastermind group. And productivity came up, and we kind of landed on that. You know, when you start a conversation, all of a sudden everybody starts chiming in, you get really deep into it, and everybody was sharing their productivity tips, and they talked about techniques and building habits and managing energy and accountability and protecting routines. But there was one thing that was said that I thought was so important because it it's all very personal on how you are productive, right? Right from the calendar to everything else, when you do things and so forth, personal life, business life. But one of the things that I think was across the board the same, regardless whether you're a morning person or an evening person, is that you had to remain flexible. Flexible without guilt, because there are weeks that you have to adjust based on family needs or business needs, you know, you have to adjust. Or if you're traveling or if you're doing some public speaking, or if you picked up a retainer client and you've got to do some initial work, your routine will get disrupted, but being flexible and knowing that this is temporary helps a lot. And I thought that was really interesting when it came to productivity. So for those of you that are in the early stages of your business, okay, vision, goals, way to track it. You've heard this before. I am such an advocate of journaling. I have talked about it before. And journaling, literally, I get ideas from journaling. Today I was journaling and I had a rough draft of a structure for a book that I want to do next year. I don't want to do it now, but the things that I was thinking about, I just jotted it down because I got to document it somewhere because I'll forget later. And that journal is full of ideas and quotes, my own quotes. Some of the things I shared just in this podcast came from journaling. And so that's my way of being able to reflect and think and have that time to myself. I think it's really, really important. And so vision, having your making decisions as an owner of your business, not an employee, and then having not only that, but your goals and then productivity, find when you're most productive. All of those things are going to help. And then one of the key things I think in business, in online business, is to build relationships. We hear a lot about nurturing our audience. We hear a lot about community and we hear a lot about engagement and we hear a lot about having conversations and we hear a lot about trust. But you got to realize when you break all of those down, and that's why I talk a lot about relationship marketing, you can do paid traffic, organic traffic, borrowed traffic, you could do all kinds of ways of bringing traffic to your content, but filter it with the thought of relationship marketing. Relationship marketing is just one, it isn't one separate thing. Weave it into whatever it is that you do because conversations, for example, builds relationships. Engagement builds relationships. Trust builds relationships. Community builds relationships. Nurturing builds relationships. The common thread is relationships. And that's what saved my bacon during COVID were the relationships I had already built. And I ended up with a bunch of retainer clients and so forth from other people that that reached out to me and needed some help. And so that helped me is through relationships. That's why I'm such an advocate about relationship marketing. Always thinking relationships, not burning any bridges, trying to lead in a way that's cordial, that's service-minded. You're good, it's gonna go a long way. Whatever communities you're in, it's gonna go a long way and opportunities will come up. And then you do all the other things that you need to do for your business. And one of the key things, you know, is to grow your email list. If you're gonna do anything, I would start there is make sure you grow an email list. Because if you want to sell products, you have to have an email list. Because with no email list, it's gonna be really hard to sell. Not impossible, but if you want clients, the best way is through an email list, which means you need a really great lead magnet. And it's not a one-and-done. You need various lead magnets, especially if you have multiple products, you need different lead magnets and you need to test them and you need to adjust them if they're not converting. You don't just have them, build them, and stick it on your website and forget about it, because that is a valuable, valuable asset. Lastly, what I'll say if you were starting a business is beyond vision and being able to, you know, set your goals and productivity, focusing on relationships and all of this. Um continue to fill your tank. Find ways daily, it doesn't have to be for a long time, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Find ways to fill your tank. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean you are giving out constantly as an entrepreneur. How are you replenishing that? What are you doing to replenish yourself, both body, mind, spirit? Because we are multidimensional. Now, some of the things I talked about are related to mindset, but I also talked about physical things like exercise, right? And spirit, you know, some of the things that I shared, you know, were from reflections that I had when I was journaling. You got to find a way to fill your tank. And so that could be through podcasts, that could be through reading books. There's different ways of filling your tank. You know, if you're a Bible reader, it's reading the Bible. You know, I listen to a Bible podcast, Daily Audio Bible, and you get through the Bible in a year. It's a great app. I love it. Old Testament, New Testament, a proverb, and then they also give you Psalms every day. Takes about 20 minutes or so, 30 minutes, and fill your tank. I also listen to podcasts, I also listen to audiobooks. You got to fill your tank or you will run dry. If you start feeling anxious, if you start feeling like, oh, this is never gonna work, probably your tank is going dry. You need to fill your tank. Being community, that's important too. But you've got to take responsibility for your own health of body, soul, and spirit and fill your tank. And if you fill your tank, you're gonna be working out of an overflow and you'll always have to give. Always have. And you you'll go through your emails, and who wants to go through emails, right? You'll go through your emails with grace, you'll go through any live streams that you do with grace because you filled up your tank. Really, really important. So I gave you some practical things because I think some people kind of say, Yeah, you need that, but they don't realize how important it really is. As imagine having your vision off and then your decisions are off and your goals are off, you're not going to find fulfillment. And a year can go by, two years can go by, and you're not reaching those goals that bring fulfillment, and you're wondering what happened. And it could be you have not expanded your vision because of limiting beliefs or other things. So hopefully that will help you because I know that really at the core, these basic things are so important to sustain us in business. So I wanted to share that in our hundredth episode to kind of reflect back and give you a few nuggets of things that have worked for me and maybe they'll work for you. So I do have a resource that talks about relationship marketing. And in that resource, there'll be a link in the resource inside the PDF to a training, a video training that talks more about relationship marketing. So you could take a look at that if you want. You just go to marissach.com relationships and you can download the PDF. And then whenever you feel like watching the video training, you can click the link on the PDF and it'll take you to the registration for the training, and you can pick a time that works for you. So hopefully that is helpful for you today. I wanted to celebrate the hundredth episode of my podcast, giving you a few thoughts, foundational thoughts for running a business because this will be key to help you thrive and continue to serve people in a way that only you can. So until next time, take care. Bye bye.