Episode 8: Balance, Support, and Embracing Change in Your Business

Michelle:  We are Modern CPA. Our purpose is to provide valuable information to small business owners on our podcast Profit Points. We discuss business how to give tax tips and dig in to real life experiences in the crazy world of running your own business. If you find this podcast helpful, then like, subscribe and follow us on social media. Hey, everyone. Welcome to profit points. We are a podcast that talks to professionals, industry experts and other small business owners about the world of business. And today we have Jenn and Mike Brango with us. And I am so anxious to hear about their journey being small business owners. And I welcome you, Jenn and Mike. Welcome.

Mike:  Thank you.

Jenn:  Thank you.

Michelle:  Awesome. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jenn:  Oh, so OK. So Michelle wants me to talk about my journey, and it’s been kind of an up like any other small business owner. I don’t think I ever really thought I wanted to go into business for myself. I just wanted to create something that other women wanted to experience. But I think a part of that there’s that know as you grow in your life, you find that things that are working well and a business for me is just an expression of me in my own journey. So I started out unknowingly to Mike. I quit my full time job and I’m going to be a personal trainer. And he was like, We’re in the middle of refinancing our home.

Michelle:  Maybe not the best time, right?

Jenn:  Right. So it was I took a big, huge risk and I got into my car and drove to people’s homes with my equipment. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I was driving around in my tiny little car with

Mike:  The tri county area.

Jenn:  Not just stability, but I would drive all the way down to southern Chester County, all the way up to Bucks County.

Michelle:  And we were talking Pennsylvania. Just people are aware because there’s other, yeah, people are in other states. But yes, you were all over the state of Pennsylvania, right?

Jenn:  Exactly. And it was just my determination that I just kept doing it because I felt like as I was growing, I wanted to help more people. And I felt like, as I, you know, you have the ups and downs. I was working for other companies and I was actually the one company I work for actually went out of business and I didn’t get paid for some of the work that I did. So I was like, Well, I think maybe I need to do this on my own. But then I was still scared. So I was like, I don’t want my own business. So I joined up with another business licensing and and he actually fed clients to me. And again, it was like it wasn’t a good fit and it was still me working for someone else and I was not growing as a person. So finally, I was introduced to Adventure Boot Camp as a, you know, as an option for me to have my own business. And I was like, Oh, that’s good because I don’t have to be tied to a brick and mortar, right? Because that was scary to me. So I had a business that was outside for women, and it really just kind of helped me grow. It helped me mature in business. It helped me learn, you know, like marketing at the time, you know, social media really didn’t exist. So I was like going from place to place.

Michelle:  Yeah, old school networking?

Jenn:  Yeah, just the whole like excitement. New, it’s mine. And just marketing going through the Westchester. You know, what was it? The recreation leauge….

Mike:  Getting hooked in with recreation departments.

Jenn:  Right? And so learning how to create relationships. And then I started like, Oh, you have to network, Oh, what’s that all about?

Michelle:  And so there was lots of building blocks that were happening like even, I guess, working with other people. It sounds like you were learning like, Oh, that’s not what I want, and I need to move on. And then once you’re on your own, you started finding building blocks and new things that were helping you grow the business and new ways of doing things.

Jenn:  Exactly. And I think that’s actually one of the networking, was where we met Shawn…ironically. So, you know, it’s like, that’s from there. We were like, Oh yeah, we kind of need an accountant and we’re like, Oh, Shawn, we know you!

Mike:  The last accountant did a disaster so yeah.

Jenn:  So, you know, it’s like, as you’re doing business, you’re like, Oh, I guess I need to do that. You know what you’re like because you still want to have a business and you’re realizing that there’s some responsibility with this business and all the things that it takes. And so learning that process and all the while just developing myself and how I evolved as an owner in my business itself.

Mike:  And so understanding that you couldn’t do it all yourself, and that’s where the accountant came in. You know, it’s like….

Michelle:  And other people as well. Other people that helped you along the way.

Mike:  Right? Well, I want to do a lot. I don’t want to do the books. We need to find somebody to do that. You know, that simple stuff. So understanding your limitations at the same time while you are growing? Right? So you can put your efforts into things that you felt mattered more.

Jenn:  Right. Exactly. Because I’m not an accountant. Like, I don’t want to be an accountant. Yeah. So I realized, you know, just finding the people. And then of course, I was growing with a venture boot camp, and Mike kind of jumped in. And he started he opened up a boot camp in Chester Springs for me. And we handled Phoenixville, so we had three different boot camps.

Mike:  So we evolved from one in West Goshen to three over the course of a year, year and a half.

Jenn:  Right.

Michelle:  And that must have been. Let’s talk about that for a second, because that must’ve been very stressful.

Mike:  Every morning for both of us, because, you know, I mean, yeah, it was it was stressful

Jenn:  In and of itself. It was the two of us and running the business itself, it was stressful. So getting up early, you know, obviously there were pieces to it that, you know, in the afternoon we took naps, you know.

Michelle:  You had to get up so early.

Jenn:  Exactly. So, you know, doing business and doing that kind of thing, it was just all the process of learning what works well for us. And we realized that as we were growing with the boot camps, there was something that was missing again. You know, there’s always that inkling you’re like, you know, it’s doing well, but there’s something that I’m not able to offer because I’m doing this. And so, you know, it’s just always that inkling. And ironically, we were….

Mike:  Don’t didn’t want a brick and mortar.

Jenn:  And we didn’t want a brick and mortar, but we led outdoor boot camps and we live in a four seasoned environment.

Mike:  We had to find somewhere to go in the winter to keep the people happy.

Jenn:  Right? The one boot camp I had was really funny in Westchester, which kind of really kind of said I need to find a solution was when we were outside and we had snow coming down on us and we were literally up to our knees by the end of boot camp. So I was like, Oh my God. And so at that point, it was kind of like that. I was like, Mike said, we don’t want to invest in a brick and mortar and all this and all of a sudden, you know, we were sitting out there and connection, connection, connection, you meet people. And this one of the one of the owners of some properties down to downtown Phenix. So he’s like, We have this empty space. Would you guys like to use it for your boot camp on the office when it’s not warm out? And we’re like, Sure, but what are you going to charge us? And we didn’t have to signl lease. He was like, You guys just use it until you feel.

Mike:  When we agree, we agreed like a very, very minimal, yeah, amount amount and you know, and kind

Michelle:  It kinda just fell into your lap in the sense. And it was like the perfect serendipity.

Mike:  Because at that time, that’s when the first from when Pheonix was starting to rise, the First Fridays were starting and all of that. So we had that go put a table out on Friday night. I mean, that is basically where the evolution of the brick and mortar came from, because the space itself was not great for what we were doing. No way.

Michelle:  Yeah. Well, maybe not ideal, but it was your start in the brick and mortar.

Jenn:  Yeah, exactly. And yeah. Also, so that’s really what got us into, potentially because I was doing personal training before, so people would ask me and I didn’t have the option when I had boot camp outside. I needed to have to go to their home, but now they could come to me. And so it was like kind of like this because driving to West Chester every single day, five days a week, 4:30 in the morning for five years was really taxing on me, and I was starting to say I’d like to stay closer to home. And so this option showed up and then we really liked the option, but we just didn’t like the space. So then we were introduced to Dave and Marion Moskowitz, and they gave us Franklin Commons. They basically said, OK, we have this space. Would you guys like to? And we were like, OK…

Mike:  Would you like to come down on Sunday? Jen was trainid them at their house.

Michelle:  So you were helping them with their fans and it kind of evolved into, Oh, well, we have this thing.

Mike:  You want to have tea and lunch and tea on Sunday. Come on down. We’ll talk nice. We left there with an agreement.

Jenn:  So, yeah, right? So that’s kind of how it snowballed.

Mike:  Yeah it snowballed.

Jenn:  About into that and that space we had we had for about a year.

Mike:  Yeah, about 14 months.

Jenn:  And we grew outgrew it and they had another building. And so we moved into that other space. We actually mortgaged it. We bought.

Mike:  And that’s the thing. It’s sometimes when you start small businesses, you’ve got to look for those pieces that are people who are in your corner, you know, helping you move forward. And we’re like, we’re like, We can’t buy it. We don’t know. We haven’t had this, this part of the business as long as we’ve had. So we don’t have the tax, all the taxes and stuff. We need it to be able to go to a bank and say, Hey, we own a small business and whatnot. And he’s like, Oh, I’ll take care of it. I’ll finance it for you.

Jenn:  Yeah, well…

Michelle:  That’s kind of nice that a lot of people get that kind of private financing or finding private financing. To get a leg up.

Mike:  I came telling them what the current interest rate were, look, OK, that works.

Jenn:  You know, it was so Michelle and Shawn, basically what it said to us is that people had faith in us to believe in us, that they would actually mortgage themselves and they bet on us. So at that point, leveraging other people’s money was really what we want is not a bad thing to do. When you open a business, you kind of need to look for support and money from other places. And banks, unfortunately, are not always the best place to go. It’s actually me and other people that are interested and really want to be a part of investing in small business.

Mike:  But it’s also, I mean, a big part of that was building the relationship.

Jenn:  Exactly. They trusted us and they knew and they believed that we had the heart and we wanted to be doing this. They believed enough in us that they knew we were going to make it a success. So that’s basically so we got into that second space and we were like, We’re outgrowing this. But we also felt like this space was limiting us because it wasn’t along the street, you know, really, it had it was interior foot traffic and stuff like that was difficult.

Mike:  Location wasn’t wasn’t ideal right now.

Jenn:  It wasn’t ideal. It was convenient for sure, but it wasn’t ideal. So we moved out of that space and moved into a shopping center, shopping center that had like frontage. There’s Windows, all this other stuff, and it gave us the capacity to grow even more. And with that, the whole time in the back of my mind, I was like, There’s still something missing. There’s still something I’m not doing, you know, doing the brick and mortar and doing the gym environment. I really loved it. But part of that is I couldn’t impact the clients on the day to day. I couldn’t impact them, right?

Mike:  We would get them. We would get them for 30 to 45 minutes a day, you know, and then then then they go on their way, right?

Jenn:  And a lot of times people would come in. They do our challenges and then they do the six weeks and they’d come back six weeks later and say, Jen, I’m back to where I was. And it felt like I’m not doing you a service. I need to figure this out. And that’s when I decided one of my clients introduced me to life coaching school and I was like, OK, here we go. Jen’s like,

Mike:  Here she goes again.

Jenn:  By the way, we’re getting a loan for this, this nine months of intense training. And he’s like, Well, how are we going? I’m like, We’re going to do it. He’s like, OK. And we’re like, So again, I got more training, and I did nine months of intense training, of becoming a life coach, as well as still running the business and in the meantime, as a small business owner.

Mike:  Burnout was happening.

Jenn:  Well, crap happens.

Michelle:  Well, burnout, because you’re burning at both ends, right? If you’re still having to run the business that it is this day and creating something new and a pet, but then COVID hit.

Jenn:  Yes. Well, I mean, what really kind of that year was …

Mike:  We were already talking about it.

Jenn:  Yeah, we were already talking about potentially moving out of the brick and mortar. It just it was kind of like that year, you know, a lot of things happen. Personal stuff happened. My mom got sick with with appendicitis at the beginning of the year. His mom died. My nephews died.

Michelle:  It’s a bunch of stuff that hit you guys.

Jenn:  It was like stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. We still had to get up. People were still relying on us. We still had bills to pay. I just got a ten thousand hour loan for this life coaching school. I had to finish life coaching school, so I had all this stuff that was happening. And in all honesty, as a health and fitness professional, a lot of my health suffered. And so it was a big learning experience for me as a small business owner, as a human being, as a human in a world of kind of chaos for me. And so I needed to learn how to pivot and learn how to be a balanced business owner.

Michelle:  That was just going to say that it sounded like it. From talking from experience, balance is like a huge thing. And as a small business owner, you kind of get wrapped up in all the things that you have to do, and you don’t take that time out for yourself. And when you’re not doing your business, you’re helping other people in your family or whatever it is.

Mike:  And but being a small business owner, being a small business owner, it’s 24-7, 365. It’s not. It doesn’t shut off. It doesn’t turn off. You have to you have to find it, like you said, the balance to manage those stresses and to be able to deal with, you know, with everything that’s happening, not just in your business, but personally.

Michelle:  One of the things that I would a point that I was told a long time ago is that balance doesn’t mean everything’s equal at all times. What it means is that you sometimes you have to give to one side more than another and then you give to the other side, sometimes more than the other. So whether it’s personal or your kids or your business or whatever you know it, it depends. It’s not always exactly equal all the time.

Mike:  It goes like that. It’s funny you say that because we were actually having a discussion with our business coaches yesterday, all that what the topic was about raising four different buckets. And it’s like, OK, which one? Which one are you willing to sacrifice for the time being to get to where you want?

Michelle:  I like that, though, but it’s the time being right. It’s not on going right, right?

Mike:  The lesson about small business.

Jenn:  That the pattern of habit. When you get into that and go, Yeah, I have to yeah, I feel like I have to keep sacrificing. And you know, that’s one thing I learned really significantly, and that’s one thing I teach to a lot of my clients is that you do not have to live in this environment of stress all the time. You might have stress, but learning stress resilience is one of the key factors of OK. So you know that at times your physical well-being is very important to you. But how can you baseline it? How can you do the minimal effective dose in order to keep things running and knowing that you’re not sacrificing this to get this the most active dose to me? Oftentimes the setting anchors for a lot of our clients because we talk about, you know, fitness, we talk about how eating healthily and you guys know with the tax season, you guys have to make decisions. You guys know that that a lot of, but it’s a short period of time that you have this kind of rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. But you know that that’s a season. And you know, when, when I’m in this season, these are the things that I know the one baseline and I know I’m still working and I’m still taking care of myself. And that’s really what you know, like. That’s what I had to learn myself. And I honestly will tell you that I use everything that I learned because of course, I am my test case. I am like everything that I think I know gets slapped in my face. I get thrown off the cliff and everything.

Michelle:  You’re still being tested all the time.

Jenn:  Oh my gosh. Like, seriously, universe, what is this like you needed to learn? Do.

Michelle:  You got it.

Jenn:  Are you going to back around to that? You? Right, exactly.

Mike:  So like when COVID happened, right, it was sort of like, OK, here’s another thing.

Jenn:  Here we go again. And we go, Yeah, so we had already, like we said, we were already. And for me personally, I don’t know of such for me, but inkling for me was to do an online program already. I was already kind of….

Michelle:  Positioning that and that was the direction.

Jenn:  Right. And you know, I created that online burnout to kick ass program because of my own experience. But that was the tone. That’s when I started revolving into that and I kind of stepped away from the gym. But COVID hit. And so, oh crap, we’ve got to let some people go. We still have some clients relying on us. We still have an income from the gym. What do we do here? We still had a lease with our landlords, and so we still had the brick and mortar. So what are we going to do? And we pivoted. We went online. Of course, we had to close down based on the local recommendations, and Jim really had a bad name at the time. Everyone was scared going to the gym and it was like frightening and we were just like we were trying to float at that time because a lot of people were scared. They’re like, I’m not getting my same gym membership. And so it was like, What do we do? And it was kind of a miracle that I honestly say, with the PPP, Shawn, help us walk through all of that paperwork, which we really appreciated because at the time, we just didn’t know what is our future, right?

Mike:  We didn’t have plan in place. Yet at that point.

Jenn:  We really didn’t. We knew that we wanted to go online, but were we ready?

Mike:  And I wasn’t selling real estate at that point either, because you couldn’t.

Michelle:  Yeah. So for those that don’t know, Mike also sold some real estate. He would sell real estate and that was kind of shut down as well until it opened up and then got crazy.

Jenn:  But then it got crazy, and at the time it was like Mike hadn’t been marketing himself as a real estate agent was kind of like, We’ve got all our eggs in this gym basket. And so we had to kind of go online. And of course, we lost quite a few clients. We sold our house. We moved into an apartment. We downsized. We said, OK, what are we going to do? We’re going to go online. And it was scary. It was, yeah, we are again. Oh my gosh.

Michelle:  Well, when you were facing that, you know, we’ve talked to other people about the same thing. And like when you were sitting there facing that, what were you feeling like looking? I know you were scared, but like, did you feel like the technology was overwhelming? Did you feel like you had a handle on that? But it was the other parts, like what other? How did that shake out for you guys?

Mike:  Um no technology was, I mean, fine.

Michelle:  You felt fine with that piece.

Mike:  Yeah, because that’s my I mean, I love it. So you know what? The big key to that, I think, was, OK, so we’ve been the face of fitness in in the marketplace. Now we’re going online where people don’t know us. And we’re pivoting from mainly fitness to the other 80 percent of life factors that contribute to your health, life. So it wasn’t just pivoting out of the brick and mortar, it was also a complete pivot of the messaging we were putting out and where we knew we needed. We know that needed to happen based off of it, based off. Fifteen years of experience with women and still continually beating themselves up. Because they’re not things aren’t changing the way they want them to change. Mm-Hmm. They weren’t taking care of the other 80 percent. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. You know, so that’s kind of where where it started too evolve a little bit more.

Jenn:  The biggest challenge for us was where do we where do we want to market? How do we market? And social media is one of the biggest things, and we knew from the gym that social media work. But it also didn’t work in the fact that people, you know, they’re like, Oh, you’re one of those, you know, that kind of feeling of, Oh, you’re one of those fitness influencer or whatever and or like, What are you? What’s the bill of sales or what results are you going to get me? So it was really kind of challenging for us mentally to walk through the the our own beliefs as well as walk through the the kind of the feeling of social media. Also, we were going through social media when social media was kind of antagonistic, if you think about it. Yeah. Everyone this that and the other thing. And so we were scared to death, but we’re like, OK, with that, we got to do it somewhere. And this is where we can focus as long as we’re keep. Just keep doing, keep doing it.

Mike:  As our business coach says, keep doing the boring work.

Jenn:  Right, keep doing the boring work and in general, people who are succeeding on social media. We just had a hard time seeing us doing that on a regular basis because social media can drag you in the bad habit of scrolling in. And we know people are like, I’m off the social media. And so you’re like, We’re losing our clients and how we we. You know, you’re like, Oh, you know, so you have been.

Shawn:  You know in your industry. There’s a lot of noise around a lot of different things in your industry, from health and from from fad diets, from the new exercise plan of the week. And so there’s there’s a lot of these other factors, not just not just, you know, the social media noise, but within your industry. There’s all kinds of stuff happening. So like so when you’re trying to to to to pivot, to do all this stuff, you have to you’re I’m sure you struggle trying to figure out what what’s the right message that you’re sending with, how you’re differentiating yourself against all of that other stuff?

Michelle:  Now, did you guys rely on other people to help you with any of that? Like, what did you who did you draw on for that?

Jenn:  So at that point, we obviously we hired another business coach and it was helpful for a little while. But the business coach, we didn’t. We weren’t in alignment with them. So it took us about six months with that business coach to realize is is great, but there it was not. It was not in alignment with us. So we found our current business coach through. I forget one of our other colleagues that we nutritional coaching.

Mike:  Through looking at nutritional coaching.

Jenn:  Nutritional coaching institute. And he’s like…

Mike:  Wasn’t going to renew the cert they had for six years, right? Because they changed all these things? Right. Searching for these guys, right? And I had heard about this guy for the past two or three years. I’ve had his stuff following me.

Michelle:  So he’s very industry specific then for. And so he has that expertize that could help you really hone in on what you needed to do.

Mike:  And the team behind them, you know, so that and that we can actually go to for specific things like sales, marketing. So in other words, you know, we may be a two person business. Well, three, really, because Renee is still with us. Yeah.

Michelle:  Renee’s one of your fitness instructors.

Mike:  And that’s a funny thing with COVID. She’s still actually training clients virtually, right, who were members of our gym? Yeah. You know, so we still kept our piece for those who want it right?

Jenn:  We did want it. We didn’t want to take it away completely. And we know some people really value that and they were willing to pay the price for it. And we’re like, OK, it’s paying her salary. It’s keeping her going. We don’t want to take that away. We’re still here in the health and fitness business. So to take that away completely, if they were willing to do it the way we provided it again, if no one wants wants, it will. You know, we don’t have to have that piece of it. But again, it’s about, you know, kind of pivoting again and understanding where our clients need or wants are, which is really helpful. Yeah. But our business coach we have now has again, they’re in the industry. One thing for me, it’s really a bigger struggle is that they’re in the fitness and diet and nutrition industry. So there’s a lot of conversations around how it needs to look. But I am a life coach as well. So my piece too that it was a struggle for me the past year because I was marketing towards the diet….

Mike:  Like Shawn has said, we didn’t want all the noise out there about right, about the diet and diet, marketing, extreme fitness and all of that where diet culture now and getting people, getting women to see it a different way. Right. And that’s and that’s what they’ve been very helpful with mass messaging without having to be in your face, you know? And that’s important for a small business to have to have a team or a team who is in who was kind of in your arena and understand what needs to be done. And I guess that’s why I don’t know. I guess that’s why people get pulled into franchises so easy as well, because it’s all just small business, because it’s set up. They have the they have the support.

Michelle:  Yeah, yeah,

Jenn:  Marketing all that people to go to and they have specific marketing. You don’t even have to come up.

Mike:  We were the black sheep where like, we don’t know what we’re doing. We’re just going to do it and we’re going to try to find somebody to help us.

Michelle:  Hit the ground running. Whatever it is, we’ll just figure it out as we go.

Jenn:  It’s kind of, yes, you’ve got it like matchstick it, sometimes because some, some conversations you have with your coaches, it kind of melds well and other conversations like, No, that’s not what I want and they hear you, they kind of walk you through, OK, what is it that you want? Let’s walk through. What’s what’s it going to look like creating content? What’s it going to look like? You provide content because there’s always that, Oh, well, here’s the cookie cutter. Like the diet. Here’s the cookie cutter. Let me fit myself into that where I know as an individualized coach, each person needs an individualized plan. And so our coach helps us create the individual thing that we’re trying to create, which is, you know, how we want to be seen, how we want to be heard. Some people, you know, doing podcast, some people like doing lives, some people like, you know, having the the LinkedIn, some some people love Instagram, something, you know, it’s like. So we needed to kind of define what it is we were going to focus in on and get good at that. And then if we want to add those other pieces which…

Michelle:  You can later or as you go,

Jenn:  Yeah.

Michelle:  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it’s so interesting. I think that is it’s fantastic you we’ve heard a lot about, you know, relying on other people and having coaches or mentors along the way, such a common theme.

Shawn:  Yeah, some some sort of support other people, other professionals, you know, adding to what you have because you don’t have unlimited resources to have all the stuff in-house. Like most small businesses, you have to seek outside of your business to to get those that help.

Mike:  So that’s another thing we learned early on in our in our journey in business. I mean, all the way back to the point when Jen started Adventure Boot Camp, you know, we went to somebody who had been doing this all over the country.

Jenn:  Teach me how to do it.

Mike:  Who basically had the system in place that she just had to implement. Right. And then who was there, though, for any questions and any type of additional coach? And then we went in a brick and mortar since since he wasn’t experience with brick and mortar, we then went and found those coaches who would help us build the business in brick and mortar. And that’s kind of how how we knew that we always needed to have somebody. If we were transitioning into the next phase of the business, we needed to find somebody to match that with, to match that could have in our help to help see your vision through. Exactly right.

Michelle:  Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, because a lot of times where we’re too close to it to know exactly what may need to happen and getting an outside perspective is really important. And big companies have other people to bounce these ideas off of and pull resources together. I mean, mental resources together to help figure out, you know, getting the right solutions in the right avenues. But as a small business owner, your kind of buy yourself, I mean, you guys have each other, you know? But you don’t have a lot, you know, there’s not a lot of people on your team that are so-called on your team, but you filled those roles by getting the right people involved.

Jenn:  Exactly. Well, when you own a has to be completely honest. When you own a small business, I know about you. But having a quote unquote gym business, everyone’s got advice. Oh, well, if you do that, you know, it’s like, Well, no, no, no, no. Because the number of times like..

Mike:  What if you did this? If you added this, if you did…

Jenn:  Thank you for the information but…

Mike:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michelle:  Thats not our model. Yeah, it’s not really what you want to have happen.

Jenn:  It’s awesome but it’s also it’s frustrating sometimes because people, you know, I’ve heard a lot of other small business owners that say, you know, they just don’t. A lot of our family, friends, they just don’t understand, like you said, Shawn, it is twenty four, seven, you know, you or, you know, if something goes down and you have like an online piece that people are looking, needing, wanting, you got to figure that out and you’re out. It’s on your back. It’s not like, let me call the tech team and I’m like, Let me call my tech guy, which is mike, you know,

Shawn:  That’s who I text, that’s my text. What I can’t get online here, right? Mike it’s not working.

Jenn:  Exactly. Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, sometimes, yeah. Well, obviously, we learned over the amount of time that we’ve been in this business that it’s kind of like, I think you build, like I say, we build resilience and we build the stamina and it’s like you build endurance and you understand what bucket in my focusing in on now, where do I need to kind of settle myself and ground myself into what decisions do we need to make now? How can we just settle the the craziness that goes in on our head because we have all that crazy crap that goes on our heads all the time?

Michelle:  Yeah, there’s so many things that can cool you in so many different directions.

Mike:  Right? Yeah, there’s times now. I mean, we’ve gotten a lot better at this where. So look at me and she’d be like, I just don’t have it today, I’m fine. You know, times look at her and be like, OK. And then I don’t have anything else, right? I need, I need. I need to get away from the screen. I need to go somewhere.

Michelle:  Well, yeah.

Jenn:  Well, you know. One thing that I have learned over the several years is that scheduling yourself is the most important thing you can do. You need to block out time for you. I mean, literally, I block out lunch and I say, eat food.

Michelle: I really think you must do this.

Jenn:  Yeah. So you need to eat a lot like I actually have for my breakfast. Eat a whole breakfast to like, eat a whole breakfast. Right, exactly. It’s like, well, you know, because you can convince yourself, Well, I’ll get to it. But then after a while, you’re like, I haven’t really eaten a full meal in five days and you’re like, Well, you know, the only time because if you have family or we have three dogs with or we take them out for a walk and then we come back in and then we go back to the work. And so it’s like, you really need to make sure that you do good work in the time that you provide, but then give yourself downtime, give yourself off time because all that work will be there tomorrow. It’ll be there. You’re not. It’s not going to. You’re not. Honestly, I’m not really saving lives right now. Yeah, right. You know, it’s like people are not relying me.

Michelle:  We think it is that important. We get that a lot.

Jenn:  Right, exactly.

Mike:  We would, you know, with the brick and mortar, we would go in five in the morning. You know, everybody will be gone by. 10:00. We do our workout. We’d come home and eat lunch. We take a nap. To go back in for 4:30. But there wasn’t a lot of other work done outside of being inside that facility. So now being online…

Michelle:  So very different, isn’t it.

Mike:  So different. Yeah, we’re we’re always there. Everything’s right there, so you have to find a way to lock out those time or you’re going to go.

Michelle:  We have one of the things that I learned was, and I probably I learned it from you, I think, is that you block the time, but it’s not going to feel very good in the beginning. You, I feel really uncomfortable and you’re going to fight it almost to take it because I know for me I would feel guilty. I would think about all the things that I should have been doing while I was doing stuff for myself. And you just kind of power through that, though I think that you really have the power through it.

Shawn:  And it becomes more and more comfortable after a while.

Mike:  Yeah, yeah. Just like anything new.

Michelle:  You get so ingained on just work, work, work or, you know, dropping everything when there’s something there has to get done instead of like stepping back and saying, OK, does this have to be done right now like it is? Is it really a life saving thing? We don’t have a lot of that in accounting, but yeah.

Jenn:  Yeah, I know sometimes we felt like that when we’re like Shawn

Michelle:  Yeah, there are instances where you’ve got to be available.

Shawn:  Yes, it’s important, but you know, it’s not life or death.

Jenn:  No, I think that I know that I talked to a lot of women, much like yourself, Michelle, that our moms, business owners or working for somebody and there and to be completely honest, nothing against these guys. But we’ve been taught as women that we’re supposed to have it all and do it all. And the problem is, is that we can’t get that out of our heads. And so I spent a lot of time having these conversations. Why you just like I have a client that she’s a physician’s assistant in an emergency room. And so she’s got really crazy hours. But she feels this need that the laundry has to be done. And I’m like but you’re exhausted. Get enough sleep. You’re not eating food,

Mike:  But the scale needs to move. So I’m going to do the half hour of cardio after my strength training.

Jenn:  Exactly. So it’s like, you know, it’s like, OK, do you understand what you’re doing to your metabolism? Because I’m a metabolic optimization coach and I’m like, Do you understand what you’re doing to your metabolism and what are you doing to your psychology at that point? You show up for your family and you’re yelling at them, you know, like because I got to do the laundry and it’s like, Just let it wait. I mean, like, do you have clean underwear. Cool. You’re good. So, yeah.

Mike:  I have three weeks worth.

Jenn:  Right, exactly. As small business owners. I think we forget that. I mean, as women, business owners, we are like, we’re doing all the marketing, we’re doing all the things and then we come home and we’re making dinner and working and cleaning the house. And we’re doing all the things and we’re like, Oh, we’re sexy mama. And I’ve got to like, lose the weight and be sexy in my outfit. Whoa. Whoa, whoa. So many things. Now there’s like, let’s get down to the real truth to this. You do not have to do it all. Let’s figure out how you can live a really balanced life. Like you said, Michelle, where are you putting your your energy now? And let’s pull back on those areas that are so what you have?

Michelle:  Not as important.

Jenn:  It doesn’t matter. And it’s that stress that a lot of women have. They come to me a lot of times and they’re like, Jenn, I can’t stand people in my life like, I can’t see my family like I want to kill, but I’m like, Well, OK, let’s talk this through. Let’s figure out, you know, like, like you, Michelle, I’m like, Go take some time for yourself, but I can’t. You know what it’s like? Yes. Well, we can just. It’s going to be feel really bad at first, and then I’ll start to get better with better.

Michelle:  But I think to tie it in to some of what Shawn and I are going to be helping small businesses with is being able to get clear on the things that they need to do, get organized and what they need to do. And then that starts to alleviate some of that stress that is like, Oh my gosh, I have that thing to do. And it’s just like hanging over you, you know? And so, you know, our hope is to be able to provide solutions for people in the small business world that are trying to do all of these things, know what questions to ask, be able to ask those questions and delegates to be able to delegate like you hired an accountant, you hired maybe a marketing person, the people that are experts in your field. But being savvy about those things as well so that not everything is stressful.

Mike:  That’s one of the biggest lessons we learned early on was to create your list and your list that basically says. These are things I like to do in the business, and these these are the things I dislike doing in the business, right? And anything on that dislike list, you try to find somebody to do it for you.

Jenn:  Because your waisting energy and you’re not making any more money. By putting all your eggs in all of the baskets, you can make more money when you diversify and get your talents where they’re supposed to be and really focusing on that, that’s really most important, I think. Michelle, what you’re talking about is like, you’re creating systems. People don’t realize they need systems and the systems are what systems. That’s the thing. It’s like James clear talks about the atomic habits and how you need to create personal systems. Then, because your systems are only as good as your day to day habits, I mean, it’s really like your goals. You can’t achieve your goals if your systems are incorrect.

Michelle:  Is all broken down.

Jenn:  Yeah, exactly. You’re only as good as your systems, as you say. And he says you can’t reach a goal. If you have this, you know, like, then it’s just a dream. You’re really not getting there. So you need to kind of sit down and get that stuff set in place structure. There’s there’s importance in structure. I so many people are like, Well, I want to be free. And as a business owner, I just want to fly by the seat of my pants. But they get nowhere. They make no money. And we have just like, it’s a dream. You’re really not going to or you’re not wealth and you’re leveraging your whole life on this thing. So if you would just get some systems in place, baselines like I say with my clients minimal effective dose, it doesn’t have to be like massive systems, but just just habits that you consistently do. And it’s like brushing your teeth or brushing your hair. You know you sleep every night, right? You brush your teeth you know, we got to drink water. It’s those kinds of things that in your business, if you can do the same thing, you create something that’s exponentially better and you can impact and serve the people that you want to and create the business and the dream and the life that you want. You get more freedom with that.

Michelle:  Absolutely. That’s really good.

Shawn:  Good information.

Michelle:  Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah. So now that you have pivoted. What? What do you want to do like you have like, I know you guys don’t ever sit still, so, you know, honing in on your life coaching and filling that 80 percent for people with helping to change that? Is that where you’re going and you see changes in that? Or what do you what is the name of your business anyway? Because I don’t want to give you the fitness business name.

Jenn:  So right now we’re Diamond Divas Metabolism Academy, that’s basically what we go by on Facebook. We’re also

Mike:  Only Results Coaching.

Jenn:  Only Results Coaching. So we kind of melded the two together because we were only at results fitness. We kind of moved to Only Results Coaching and now Diamond Divas Metabolism Academy is really what I focus in on a lot of the days.

Mike:  That’s where 90 percent of the focus is.

Jenn:  So what the ultimate goal? Obviously, I’m working still one on one with with each individual and more of a group environment with all the ladies that I work with.

Mike:  We’re hitting all the checking, all the boxes right from how to make modifications to lifestyle habits, you know, how to help them understand how their body responds to different foods better. You know that exercise, they don’t have to kill themselves with exercise, just just focusing on improving their movement throughout the day, right? You know, we’re mainly hitting women who are thirty five plus at this point because we figure at that point that’s where that’s where the I hate to say it this way. That’s where the frustration has set in, right? Because they want to see themselves as a 20 year old again and want…

Jenn:  And they’re marketed that way.

Mike:  Just helping them get more comfortable and just leave perfectionism at the door. That’s the big thing. You know, everybody thinks they get a diet plan. They’ve got to be perfect on the diet. I know that’s not. No, that’s not you’re not going to feel any better from when you start the diet plan to when you end,

Michelle:  You’re not really fixing it.

Mike:  And it’s not they already don’t appreciate themselves. Mm hmm. So to move them to OK, I lost 20 pounds. Well, how do you feel now? While my clothes were better? Yeah. Well, what else? Right, right. And usually it’s there.

Jenn:  Because creating the identity with it. So it’s it’s it’s a slower process than your six week challenge, for sure. Because a lot of women are taught and been fed to then they’ve gotten great results on a six week, 12 week. Whatever the problem is with that is that we know what it does to the metabolism. So what we’re doing is trying to help them repair the pieces that have been kind of like all over the place. Giving them some rhythm and harmony and starting to recognize what what it is they can do. Setting the baseline and then how they can improve satisfaction, fulfillment and engagement in their life where they don’t have it. So that’s where that life coaching comes in.

Mike:  And let go of the body shaming that guilt, shame spiral. That being on those roller coasters, actually. Yeah.

Jenn:  Yeah, it’s just it’s not. In all honesty, it makes me sad to talk to some women that have gone on so many different diets that they have no idea what, what their bodies doing or telling them because they’ve been told it’s OK. You’re not supposed to be hungry, you’re not supposed to do this. Oh, your hair fall out, you know, like I you know what I mean, like the crowd sourcing, sourcing and their friends. Like, I lost 20 pounds and I’m like, I didn’t. I gain weight and it’s like….

Mike:  So and then they go to their doctor and the doctor said, Well, this worked for me, but they don’t ask the doctor how much nutrition background they have, and then…

Michelle:  You’d be surprised at how much nutrition your doctors don’t know. The doctors don’t have enough. Yeah, for sure, especially.

Jenn:  But so, you know, our business is all about right now is working with the women that are looking to to quit dieting. They know they’ve done all the diets and they just feel lost. They feel like they’ve been left out hanging like, Mike said. Perceptible to all the 35 and older is really what a lot of the women are coming. They’re like, Yeah, I’ve tried Weight Watchers, I tried keto, I tried this, I tried that, I tried all of them, all of them. And it’s like, OK, how did it work for you? Great till I stop them because I couldn’t keep it up. So we’re like, it’s too hard.

Mike:  It didn’t fit into their lifestyle.

Jenn:  In all honesty, I don’t want clients for the rest of my life. I want to teach clients how to live a long term lifestyle and know that when stress is happening, OK, this is how I baseline it again. Oh, OK. This is how they need to pivot. I’ve pivoted so many tinmes.

Michelle:  Yeah, like teaching others how to do the same thing.

Jenn:  So it’s, you know, our ultimate goal is to get as many one on one clients, but then also get into the group environment. To be completely honest. I said this and my coach we had we had an amazing event in December and I was like, I want to impact a hundred thousand women, whether it’s the goal you have OK, God directly or two working with them, directly working in the group environment or just speaking and so and passing it down and passing it down, your mom, your daughter, you know?

Jenn:  So, yeah, that’s awesome. What a great goal.

Mike:  Well, basically what our coaches goal is, our coaches goal is the impact a billion people.

Michelle:  Yeah, OK, that’s the coach’s goal. But you have to be the one that sets that tone. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn:  Well, yeah, you’ll have a hundred thousand to his billion right or part about doing it right?

Michelle:  Right, right? Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. I think there is so much good information that you guys have shared with us, the business coach and the mentors having the balance, pivoting, being OK, pivoting, being OK in the fact that things change.

Shawn:  And I think your team. Yeah. You know, going outside of your comfort zone, you know, putting, you know, things that you want to do versus things you don’t want to do and and focusing on there is just the things that you want to do.

Mike:  And somebody is not if somebody doesn’t isn’t a resilient person and they want to open a small business. I would have them question it. It definitely takes resilience.

Jenn:  I think it’s either that or you kind of learn as you go and become resilient

Mike:  You kind of have to be you have to have that ability.

Jenn:  Definitely. And, you know, is working with your spouse, sometimes you need a therapist as well.

Michelle:  So I have a pretty good spouse that so yeah. All right. Well, yeah, thank you so much for joining us today, and we look forward to the next time that we can talk to you guys.

Jenn:  Awesome!

Mike:  Same here. Have a great day

Michelle:  Thanks. If you find this podcast helpful and like, subscribe and follow us on social media.

 

 

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