#293: Beat Self-Doubt: Charge More & Succeed!

Today, I’m welcoming guest, Andrea Liebross, business coach and host of the “Time to Level Up” podcast, onto the show. We discuss the challenges of building a business, overcoming self-doubt, and navigating the “messy middle” of entrepreneurship.

Andrea shares her method called “schedule-plan-do” and emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying issues. We also talk about the reality of business building, the concept of confidence, and the importance of seeking support.

We discuss staying consistent, pricing, and getting out of one’s own way.

Show Notes:

• MiloTreeCart
• Personality Quiz: What Digital Product Should I Create?
• MiloTree Pop-Up App
• Andrea Liebross
• Time to Level Up Podcast
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The Messy Middle of Entrepreneurship

In my conversation with Andrea, we discuss the challenges of how to overcome self-doubt and navigate the “messy middle” of entrepreneurship. Andrea shared her entrepreneurial journey, starting with her background in recruiting, hiring, and training new entrepreneurs.

She noticed that many entrepreneurs faced challenges and self-doubt when they reached the “messy middle” stage of their businesses.

Balancing Business Growth with Motherhood

Andrea and I also touch on the challenges of balancing business growth with motherhood. I share my experience of feeling overwhelmed when my daughter was younger, and how I couldn’t imagine being able to drop her off at a playdate and leave.

However, I did find that my daughter became more independent over time. Andrea related to this struggle and mentioned a client who is currently dealing with sleepless nights due to her children. We agree on the importance of having grace and understanding during these challenging stages of life.

The “Schedule-Plan-Do” Method

Andrea introduces her method called “Schedule Plan DDo” and explains how she helps her clients delegate tasks and create processes to make their businesses more efficient. She emphasizes the importance of addressing the underlying issues, such as exhaustion, rather than just focusing on the overwhelming to-do list.

Embracing Discomfort in Business Building

We both agree that the reality of business building is often messy, uncomfortable, and challenging, contrary to the glamorous image portrayed on social media. We discuss the importance of embracing discomfort and pushing through it to achieve success. We normalize the feeling of unease as a sign that one is moving in the right direction.

Confidence and Entrepreneurship

Andrea discusses the concept of confidence and how it is not about always feeling prepared or determined. She explains that confidence is simply the willingness to feel every feeling, including frustration, anxiety, and stress. She emphasizes the importance of embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, as they are inherent in entrepreneurship.

The Importance of Support and Positive Mindset

Andrea highlights the significance of seeking support from coaches, mentors, and communities. She mentions a study by Harvard Business Review that found businesses that sought support were more likely to succeed. We agree that reframing negative thoughts and focusing on the positive can make a significant difference in one’s mindset and overall success.

Overcoming Self-Doubt and Pricing Challenges

We discuss the importance of staying in the game and overcoming self-doubt in order to achieve success in business. Andrea mentions the antidotes to negative self-talk and catastrophizing, which include surrounding yourself with supportive people who can counter those thoughts. We also discuss the issue of pricing and how it is often tied to one’s self-worth. Andrea suggests that the price you charge reflects the transformation you provide to your clients.

Moving Beyond the Messy Middle

We highlight the need to think big and move beyond the messy middle, where many entrepreneurs get stuck. Andrea believes in offering her clients a runway to find their extraordinary potential in their business and themselves.

To find Andrea and learn more about her work, you can visit her website and listen to her podcast, “Time to Level Up.” She also invites you to download the introduction and first chapter of her upcoming book for valuable insights. You can schedule a call with her through her website or reach out to her on Instagram.

Stay tuned for more insightful conversations on the Blogger Genius podcast!

MiloTreeCart, the Best Tool for Non-Techies to Sell Digital Products

I also want to introduce you to the MiloTree Cart, a tool designed for non-techies to sell digital products easily. It comes with features like fill-in-the-blank sales pages, check-out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells, and customer support. MiloTreeCart is currently available for a lifetime deal of $349 or three easy installments of $116.33. Plus, there’s a limited-time offer of a one-hour free coaching call for those who purchase before the end of August.

Other related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes you’ll enjoy:

• Hosting Paid Workshops to Increase Your Income with Ashley Greenwood
• How Will AI Impact Blogging, Traffic, and Ad Revenue with John Clyman
• Writing an Ebook is Easier than You Think: Step-by-Step Guide – Solo Episode with Jillian Leslie

Transcript: “How to Conquer Self-Doubt and Succeed in Charging More”

Jillian Leslie (00:00:00) – My name is Jillian and I’m hosting the Blogger Genius podcast. Before we get into today’s interview, let me ask you a question. Are you wishing you could sell digital products like digital downloads or workshops, memberships, coaching mini courses, but you don’t know where to start? And are you tired of complicated tech and spending way too much money on monthly subscriptions? Well, you need a tool that makes all of this simple, and the answer is MiloTreeCart.

So this is the tool we built for non techies who want to tap into a new income stream with MiloTreeCart. You get fill in the blank sales pages, check out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells and support from people who seriously care. And right now, for a limited time, we are selling MiloTreeCart for a lifetime deal of 349 pay once or in three easy installments and enjoy it forever. Hit pause right now. Head to MiloTreeCart. We offer a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee so there is no risk.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:05) – And if you buy before the end of August as a bonus, I’m offering a one hour free coaching call with you, which I usually charge $300 for to make sure you are set up for digital product success. Again, head to military.com to sign up.

Announcer (00:01:28) – Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie (00:01:35) – Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Jillian Leslie, and I have a really good episode today all about mindset. I am interviewing a woman named Andrea Libras, and she’s a business coach. She takes a holistic approach to coaching and she coaches mostly women. She also has a podcast called Time to Level Up.

As you know, I like to share what I’m learning as I’ve been getting on so many calls with all of you military car customers. And the thing that I continue to see is how we tend to hold ourselves back, how we can’t let go of our perfectionist tendencies, how we can trip ourselves up with some of the stories we tell ourselves.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:25) – And Andrea and I talk about what it really takes to build a business, how it isn’t all glossy and peachy colors, how it is about facing the parts of yourself where you have self doubt or as she likes to call it, where you’re in the messy middle.

I thought that was a very interesting way of addressing those times when you’re not exactly sure what your next move is and how to continue to grow, not just a thriving business, but a thriving life. So without further delay, here is my interview with Andrea Libras.

Andrea, welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast. Thanks, Jolene, for having me. I’m so excited to be here. So I know nothing. I feel like we are best friends, and yet I know nothing about your background. So would you share your entrepreneurial journey and where you are today.

Andrea Liebross (00:03:26) – Sir? So, okay, I’m going to share with you one of my favorite sayings. First of all, is an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is a journey in personal development disguised as an entrepreneurial roller coaster.

Jillian Leslie (00:03:38) – Oh, I love that. And I totally agree. Like, the best way to work on yourself. Go start a business.

Andrea Liebross (00:03:44) – Go start a business. Right? Because it’s supposed to be an adventure, but it’s sometimes it’s adventurous, but you can’t withstand the adventure unless you’re working on yourself. So, um, I work with entrepreneurial women. 98% of my audience is women. And I’m a big believer in yes, we can all grow amazing businesses and I love doing that and helping them do that, But we also have a life. So I like to say I’m a business coach who takes a holistic approach, and that word holistic is definitely overused. But I never forget that we are humans, right? So sometimes when we get on, when I get on a coaching call and we’re all started off talking all about business, soon it turns into, But I’m not getting enough sleep because my four year old’s been up all night. So that’s all fair game. So I coach business, but I also coach life because I think that’s part of it, especially as women.

Andrea Liebross (00:04:43) – Especially as.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:44) – Women.

Andrea Liebross (00:04:45) – Yeah, yeah. It’s just it’s, it’s all fair game. And I got into this because for about ten years I worked as a guy. I was recruiting, hiring and training. That’s what they called it. But basically I was recruiting, hiring and training or coaching new entrepreneurs to work for more under a corporate umbrella as 1099. So they were all their own business owners. Um, they just sold a product that this corporate was producing. And so it’s kind of a weird business model, but that’s what it was. So what I found was I, you know, I found people who either wanted to do this as a side gig or some of them were like going all in and they were making six and seven figures and they got into their business. They had lots of excitement going in. They actually most of them, 99% of them were actually in there. I was successful. And then. All of a sudden I’m putting that in air quotes. All of a sudden it’s started to get hard.

Andrea Liebross (00:05:42) – It started to feel messy. They started to feel stuck in some way. So there’s there’s the stuckness either can come from, I say, confusion like I don’t know what to do next or it can come from success. Like, oh my goodness, I cannot believe that this is actually happening. And I now have 100 clients or I have sold 5000 pencils, even though none of my clients sell pencils. But you get my points. So they get to this place where they don’t know what to do. And I call that the messy middle, right? So they’re in the messy middle. It’s not day one and they’re not about to close their their door. They’re not at that place, but they’re in this messy middle. And I actually have written a book that’s coming out in September of 2023 called She Thinks Big. So we need to Be Thinking Big. The Entrepreneurial Woman’s Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and into the Extraordinary. And I found in that corporate role that I was in, that that’s where everybody was.

Andrea Liebross (00:06:45) – They were in that messy middle, but they knew like they had it in them, this little voice that said, Hey, I, I know I can do this. I am capable of so much more. But something was getting in their way. So I’d had enough after ten years of this corporate gig and I left them. And when I examined, kind of had a little retrospective moment, why did I stay so long? Like, there had to be something that I really loved. And it was that it was that place like coaching them past that place was really what got me going. So I decided to open my own business and do what I wanted to do in 2018. And I have been coaching entrepreneurial women ever since, and they’re in all industries. They are in all phases of their business. I have people that are I would say the majority are in that messy middle, though. They’re making multiple six figures. They’re pushing they’re almost at seven. Um, and they just need that support and guidance and they kind of need a Sherpa to be honest, like someone to carry the backpack.

Andrea Liebross (00:07:47) – So as they, as they go up the mountain.

Jillian Leslie (00:07:49) – I have a question as a Yeah. Yes. Is it possible to have it all?

Andrea Liebross (00:07:57) – It. It. Okay. How do we define Have it all.

Jillian Leslie (00:08:02) – Right my business. I want to have be a mom. I want to be like a wife or a partner. I want that life that I see on Instagram.

Andrea Liebross (00:08:14) – Yes, you can have it all. I think you can have it all. I think you have to create what I call your happiness set point. Okay. So your happiness set point is this is the best way to describe it. And I. I got this from another coach, so I appreciate her for sharing this with me. So movie Forrest Gump. Okay. Movie. Forrest Gump. We have Lieutenant Dan, and then we have Forrest Gump. And if you think about it, Lieutenant Dan thinks he’s just fine, right? Like he’s just going through his day. But I think from the outside, or at least the way the movie portrays it, he’s kind of a grumpy guy.

Andrea Liebross (00:08:53) – He looks at everything negatively. And then we have Forrest Gump, who maybe you could argue is like on the other side of, you know, la la land in a sense, right? Like he’s waving on the other side. And when we say, like, who do we want to be like, Would you rather be like more like Lieutenant Dan? Or would we rather be like Forrest Gump? I mean, what do you think, Jillian? Who do you want to be like?

Jillian Leslie (00:09:15) – I kind of want to be somewhere in the middle.

Andrea Liebross (00:09:18) – Yes. Okay. That’s what most people say, right? They want that happiness set point to be a place where they’re somewhat challenged in a sense, Right. Like they’re they’re pushing themselves to greater things. Right? It’s not all rainbows and daisies, right? If it were all rainbows and daisies like, life wouldn’t be interesting. Right? Right. But yet, like, they don’t want to be Lieutenant Dan and they don’t want to be Forrest Gump. They want to be somewhere in the middle.

Andrea Liebross (00:09:45) – And I think that is honestly what having it all is. Right. So that you’re continually pushing yourself into growth personally and professionally. And it’s not like everybody’s sitting at the pool drinking margaritas in the sunshine. I think we should totally have days where we’re doing that and then I think we should have days what we’re doing something that might be a little scary, but after you’ve done it, after you’ve put yourself out there, you’re like, Oh, I look at me. Go look at me. Go Like, look at that. And that’s just as energizing is sitting by the pool with the margarita.

Jillian Leslie (00:10:20) – When I think about my entrepreneurial journey. And yeah, I say that you can have it all, but not always at the same time. When I had my daughter and she was not my daughter was not a sleeper and it was super stressful for years I couldn’t do as much. And now that she’s 16, guess what? Like, I can send her off and I can do more. And so for the moms, let’s say, who are at the beginning of motherhood, that is rougher.

Jillian Leslie (00:10:54) – And and I remember saying to my mom like, it’s never going to be that I’m going to be able to drop my daughter off at a play date, you know, because this was the time when she was two and three and I was going to the playdate with the other mom, and we’re all dancing around like princesses and mermaids. Yes. And I’m going, never. Is she going to let me leave? And ultimately guess what she did? And then she started playing with her friends. And now she’s like this independent little woman. And so it is like stages. I feel like business growth is like stages. Life, especially for women, is stages and that it does come back. It’s just different. But to assume that you’re going to be as hard charging when your kid isn’t sleeping and you’re spending half your night dealing with that, like you’ve got to have grace to make it through.

Andrea Liebross (00:11:45) – I totally do. So I have a client who right now we’ve been talking about this. She has kids that aren’t sleeping through the night.

Andrea Liebross (00:11:53) – Okay, So she got kids that aren’t sleeping through the night. And we were on a coaching call and she was talking to me about how she she’s a super successful interior designer. And she was talking to me about how she feels like she just can’t keep up. There’s a thousand things on her to do list. And so we were going through I have this method I call schedule, plan do. So we were going through schedule plan two and we were kind of deciding what could she delegate, what could she not delegate? What was it like? Maybe just a no for now, not no forever and then, which is what I love doing in business because I’m kind of helping her get more systematized, create some more processes. Look at what she’s like. Does she have a business plan? Is she following it? We’re doing all that and then finally comes out and she’s like, You know what? I’m just really, really tired. And I said, What’s going on? Well, my kids, no one’s sleeping through the night.

Andrea Liebross (00:12:49) – I am up. I probably get two hours of sleep in a row and then I’m up and then I have to bring someone back to their room and mean. And I’ve been there like, I mean, I’m a mom. Like, we’ve all been there, right? We totally get it. So we just stopped talking about, like, business. And I said, How what are we going to do with the sleep problem? Like, what do we how are we going to solve it? Let’s solve it. And maybe it’s not totally solvable right now. Maybe this is just the season that you’re in, right? We all know, like they’re not going to not sleep through the night when they’re 17. They’re probably we can’t wake them up when they’re 17. So, you know, we get to like, what’s the real problem. So the real problem in that when I was talking, the real problem is that she’s exhausted. The real problem isn’t that her to do list seems overwhelming or that she can’t get things done or planned or whatever.

Andrea Liebross (00:13:39) – It’s just she’s exhausted. So I think you’re completely, completely right. And in business, the way I see this kind of also in business is I call I say that there’s and there’s an image of this in my book, a graphic where there’s kind of like upward spirals. Okay? So there’s like I say, there’s like three upward spirals usually in every the course of every business, each of the spirals, the messy middle is always there, but it gets the intensity is different. And what’s in what makes up the messy middle is different. So in the beginning you’ve got a belief like, Hey, I’m going to create this business. You you decide, okay, so there’s a decision, I’m going for it. You start to put things into action. That’s step four. And then you assess, okay, And somewhere in there and everybody’s places a little different. There’s a messy spot like you can’t get from the belief to the decision or you can’t from the decision to the action. But eventually it happens in the business starts and you start to make money or you start to be profitable or it starts to be successful, whatever that looks like.

Andrea Liebross (00:14:55) – Then then all of a sudden you’re like, Hmm, now what do I do? What’s next? Do I have to hire team members? Do I need contractors? Can I handle this all by myself? And then you go into the next spiral, right? And it’s the same thing. You believe that if if you grew a team, hey, this would get a lot easier, and then you decide I’m going to kind of make that happen. Then you put it into action and you figure out what that looks like, bringing people onto a team. And then you assess, Hey, are these the right team members or do I need more or less, or are they doing the right things? There’s a spot in there where it’s messy. Usually the messy part is right after you hired them and you’re trying to help them to figure out what to do, right? So that’s the messy middle and that’s like the stage you’re in, right? Then you get to the next spot. Okay, now I’ve got employees, maybe not even contractors, their employees.

Andrea Liebross (00:15:48) – And oh my gosh, now I have 4 or 5, six product offerings. And now I realize that I could be serving a worldwide audience. Okay, now what do I do then? So you go through the same thing. Belief, decide, action, assess. There’s always a messy middle. So it does very much it’s like life, right? Different stages, different beliefs at different like you didn’t believe you could get past the I’m never going to be able to drop her off. But you did.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:16) – Absolutely. One thing that I think we are very aligned in is this idea of I call it you call it what you called it, I call it puppies and rainbows. What did you just call it something.

Andrea Liebross (00:16:29) – Daisy Call it rainbows and Danes Rainbows and daisies.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:31) – But it’s the same idea. And I feel like my podcast, my intention in my podcast is to debunk the belief that business building looks like Instagram. And it’s all like, you know, the colors like peach and kind of gold and like I’m like hashtag girlboss.

Jillian Leslie (00:16:53) – Or I guess that’s not cool anymore. I’m hashtag CEO, not a CEO girl CEO. And like I just I’m wearing like a funky hat, like a kind of fedora. And I just happened to be in this, like, magical pose. And it’s as if $1 million, it’s just like flying in and I’m so freaking successful and I want to debunk that and I want to go. It looks like like real business building is messy. It’s uncomfortable. It is weird, it is challenging it. It’s all it’s going to trigger you in so many ways and totally. People who have success are the ones who get triggered, who feel uncomfortable, who hate their jobs from time to time, but who stick in it because there’s a larger goal. And so that I feel like you speak to in the messy middle, which is that discomfort, that kind of like I feel it is like subtle nausea, like, Oh, do I really have to do this? It’s like pushing that rock up the hill is like, Oh, it’s too hard.

Jillian Leslie (00:18:01) – And then you do it.

Andrea Liebross (00:18:02) – Yeah, Like, you know, sometimes when someone says, All right, Andrea, I’m in. Like, they join my mastermind, right? And it’s a it’s a it’s an investment of time. I say these are resources, time, money, brainpower and relationships like the people you want to be with. So I said, do you feel like you’re going to vomit? And I was like, kind of like, okay, good, perfect. I love it because that’s how you should feel.

Jillian Leslie (00:18:27) – Yeah. Like I want to normalize the vomit, like the nausea, Like I want nausea to be a good thing. Like meaning you’re in the right direction. Like, if you’re in the right direction, isn’t kind of making you feel a little, like, off balance. Not like, not in a drunk good way, but in a like, oh, I could really hurt myself here. Like, that’s when I think you’re there, you know, that’s when. Because it’s not all that.

Jillian Leslie (00:18:54) – I don’t want to say that there are major highs like you get sales and money’s coming in and you’re serving people and people are emailing you love letters, which always saved, by the way, in a folder called Love Letters. You know what I mean? Like, there are these high highs, but yes, there are also low lows and that is just part of it.

Andrea Liebross (00:19:14) – There’s so many lows. It’s I like to say also like that vomiting feeling.

Jillian Leslie (00:19:22) – If.

Andrea Liebross (00:19:22) – You’ve if you’ve moved. So like if you think about this in business and I’m guilty of this just like every. Else. There are things that I’m, I’ll call it interested in. Okay. Like I might be like for a while. I was interested in writing a book. Okay, then you switch to committed. Okay, I’m doing it. And usually when you make that shift from the interested to the committed is when you kind of get that feeling like I’m really gonna do this. And if you don’t have that feeling that you’re going to like, lose your breath or vomit, you probably are still in the interested right? Or on the other end of the spectrum, you might be in what I call attached.

Andrea Liebross (00:20:08) – Okay, so what attached looks like is that it must look like this. In order for me to do this, it must look like this. Like, let’s go back to the mom who has the like, infants or toddlers or people in playgroups. Okay? So they might say to themselves, if I’m going to grow this business, then I am going to I must have five hours of uninterrupted time every day where I can work on my business, where no one’s going to come and ask me for a snack, where I’m not going to get called to go to school to pick up a sick kid where the dog is quiet but by my feet all the time, not making a peep. Okay. And they’re attached to what the picture must look like. Okay. And those people are actually not not committed in a sense either because they’re waiting for that magical time when that’s all going to come into play. Okay. And I think you and I both know that. Yeah, that might be the scenario.

Andrea Liebross (00:21:10) – The scene we’ll call it the Hollywood script for a day or two, but it’s probably not going to be for the long period of time. So those those people that are attached. So if you’re like if you’re listening and you’re like, Yeah, that’s me, I think that working out must look like 30 minutes every day on the treadmill. And if I can’t get 30 minutes in, then forget it. You’re not there either. Right. You’ve got to just be committed to be to like to feel whatever it’s going to feel like. So sometimes people say to me, Hey, Andrea, what do you think confidence is? And I always say that confidence is just the willingness to feel every feeling.

Jillian Leslie (00:21:51) – Ooh, I like that. I like that. I like that. Yeah.

Andrea Liebross (00:21:54) – It’s just. That’s all it is. It’s not any. It’s not like you’re always feeling prepared or determined like you. Confidence can be frustrated. Confidence can be anxious. Confidence can be stressful. But if you’re willing to feel all of those things, then you’re confident.

Andrea Liebross (00:22:15) – If you’re not and you’re trying to avoid it, then we got something to work on.

Jillian Leslie (00:22:25) – I want to take a short break to say, yes, we are all feeling a level of anxiety in our businesses because of the explosion of AI. I believe the best way today to build a thriving business is to show up as a human. And one way you can monetize this is by selling human centric digital products to your audience. Now, you might go, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. No problem. I have a personality quiz and if you go to military quiz, you can get your copy and it will show you, based on your personality, what kind of digital product you should create first. So again, military.com/quiz. And then email me and tell me what kind of digital product creator you should be. And now back to the show. I think of it as weather patterns. When you can start to see these emotions and some of them can be really ugly and really uncomfortable. But it’s like weather.

Jillian Leslie (00:23:32) – I live in Texas and we have like crazy weather. I didn’t understand this until moving here, like the storms are real.

Andrea Liebross (00:23:39) – Like, yeah, they are real. And you can see them coming, right?

Jillian Leslie (00:23:42) – Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Like hail storms are real things. And it sounds as if like, like, oh, my God. So but it’s but then they pass. And I do think and it’s kind of very Buddhist to be able to and by the way, like they’re not comfortable. It’s not like this belief like I don’t want to paint this picture like I can, you know, Yeah, they’re just weather weather system. They’re bad when they’re here that you are going to get soaking wet like they can be dangerous but but they pass And so if you can stick in there I think that is 9/10 of it. And I do too, if you can notice. So, for example, I shared this actually we just recorded on your podcast and so now we’re back on on mine and I shared this on yours, which is, you know, we sell Milo Tree Cart to help people sell digital products.

Jillian Leslie (00:24:34) – Yeah. And I’m all about you’ve got to be creating lots of different things to test because then each one is not as precious. You’re not as attached to the result of that one product that you’ve worked so hard on and that somehow it’s tied up with your self-worth and self esteem. And if it doesn’t sell, you’re a loser, blah blah, blah. And instead take a lighter path, which is create a variety of things, test a variety of things, don’t go as don’t you know, create them quickly, get them out there so you don’t have that level of attachment. And that way you can be like, Oh, that didn’t work. Okay, what else can I try? So I think in my business journey, the lighter touch I can kind of put on to things, the better, the more I have the wisdom of I’ve had some serious successes and I’ve had serious failures and I’m still here. So even when it felt like either the highest of the high or the lowest of the low, ultimately you’re right.

Jillian Leslie (00:25:45) – I come back to my set point and I move on. So how can I touch things lightly rather than be all in and so invested so that then I can be disappointed if it doesn’t work the way I think it’s going to.

Andrea Liebross (00:26:02) – I think. Okay, so those are great. Like, how can I do that, right? How can I do that? So I think here’s two things that come to my mind. Number one is to really embrace ambiguity. Okay? So uncertainty is real, right? And uncertainty is a real and it’s a constant fear. Right. And uncertainty and ambiguity are inherent in entrepreneurship. Like that’s just what it is. And they never leave, right? You’ll always have the unknown, even though you just find out what works. Now, it might not work later. So and there’s even unknowns about the unknown. So recognizing that you’ll never have all the information, like you’re going to have a lot of information but don’t know what all the information is, you’re never going to have all the information recognizing that is important because like I call this in my book, I call it the blank spot of impending catastrophe.

Andrea Liebross (00:27:00) – Okay? It’s just like out there. It’s like impending catastrophe.

Jillian Leslie (00:27:04) – It’s like the other on the horizon. The other shoe is going to drop.

Andrea Liebross (00:27:07) – Yes, but the but it doesn’t have to be there, right? Our our like cavewoman brain loves catastrophizing. Okay. But just as available, equally as available is the thought of impending awesomeness or impending extraordinary ness. Okay. So, like, why not look forward to the unknown? Like, it would be really boring if we knew everything that was going to happen. Okay. None of like none of you. If we knew what everything was going to happen, like none of your gifts over the holidays or birthdays would be really a surprise. Right. You know, everything that everyone was going to do. So I just did this in my eye two times. I just did this once was in my retreat. So every six months I host an in-person retreat for all the people in my mastermind. And they always are asking like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And I never tell them and I say, it’s just going to be a surprise.

Andrea Liebross (00:28:11) – You just need to show up. They’re going to be here and you have to trust that over the next three days it’s going to be amazing. And I just did that. And at the end, I said, what did you think about that? That I wasn’t telling you everything. And guess what? They loved it. They sometimes like it’s so much more fun to go with the flow and not control everything. All right. So that’s kind of one example of really embracing ambiguity. Another thing that another example I have from today is I was working with a client this morning, and I was. Encouraging her strongly to raise her prices. Okay. It kind of was like almost I was like, do you think you’re charging enough? She’s like, no. I said, So why haven’t you raised your prices? Well, I’m afraid that people won’t buy. If I raise my price. And I said, okay, but guess what? You’re not giving equal airtime to what if people do buy? What if actually more people buy because they’re feeling like you’re more legit or there’s like more value in it? Whatever they’re thinking, you’re not giving that equal airtime.

Andrea Liebross (00:29:23) – And wouldn’t it be really fun to think about instead of 60% of people saying yes to you, 75% said yes to you and actually even at a higher price tag? Like what about that? You know, and she’s like, I never thought of it like that. So I think you’ve really got to embrace the ambiguity. And the second thing is you’ve got to seek support, right? Like as entrepreneurs who constantly battle the the fear of failure or, um, like coaches, mentors, communities, support networks, they can be vital sources of reassurance. And why not, like, why not put yourself in that container where you’re where things can become a lot easier, like your product, like you want to make tech easy, Like you don’t want this to be hard. You’re doing everything possible to make it super easy, so why not try to make everything easy? Why not give yourself the support you need or would or crave to make it easy? I joke around, I’m going to buy a big like, red easy button presses.

Andrea Liebross (00:30:34) – Yeah, right. I think like the number one. I mean, there’s research out there, like Harvard Business Review. Um, they recently did this study of from of entrepreneurs and asked how like the benefit of being in part of a community of peers with a with a support system and the research overwhelmingly showed that the number one reason or the number or the number one factor why some businesses succeeded and some don’t is because is aligned with or the reason is whether or not they’re seeking support or not, whether they’re being supported or not.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:13) – Um.

Andrea Liebross (00:31:14) – That’s big. So embrace the ambiguity and seek the support. That’s what.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:19) – I say. One thing that is super great about support, especially like having even if it’s just like one friend who could point out to you your special sauce. Like, what is it about you that’s different that you don’t see in yourself? Because to you it’s just the water you swim in. And two, who can track your growth because we all fall for this, which is, Oh, I will be happy when I make $1,000.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:49) – And then guess what you do make a thought. Nope, nope. No, no. I will be happy when I make $40,000. And then you do. And then you. Oh. Nope, nope, nope. I will be happy when. And it’s that thing where we kind of are constantly moving the goalpost. So to have somebody who could say, Do you remember when you said when you make that first thousand dollars way back? Yeah. And you go look where you are today? Because I feel like we don’t see our special sauce and we don’t see how far we’ve come. It’s only how much further we have to go. And just those reframing, like your reframing of opening the choice space to the positive side, you don’t know, to the positive side and the negative side. Like all of a sudden reminding yourself of these little things or having somebody who can help you go, Hey, maybe this guy isn’t falling. Maybe it’s going to be sunny tomorrow. It’s like just these things I think goes so far.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:53) – They really.

Andrea Liebross (00:32:54) – Go far.

Jillian Leslie (00:32:55) – In the game. And if and I always say this, if you can stay in the game, that’s like 9/10 of it. Like you are more apt then to run into luck. You know, everybody goes, well, you need luck or lucky or I got lucky or whatever. You know how you get lucky because you’re in it. Because luck can find you. Yes. It’s about, you know, being consistent, showing up, being there when it’s hard, when you have the stomach ache. And I think that the antidotes to that are exactly what you’re saying, which are people around you who can kind of counter your negative self-talk or your catastrophizing, those kinds of things, that those things are incredibly powerful.

Andrea Liebross (00:33:38) – Um, it’s, it’s interesting too, because I have a lot of times we’ll get on a coaching call and they’ll start telling me all the details of. What’s going on and all the things that have happened in the past. And I’m kind of notorious for cutting them short and saying, okay, so what’s the problem? Right.

Andrea Liebross (00:33:57) – And it’s kind of a showstopper because often they can’t answer the question like there is no problem. In the end. The real problem is usually fear that they don’t want to feel a negative feeling, right? Often that negative feeling is the worst thing that they can experience. Right. And the good news is good news is we can change that. Like we can learn how to embrace all of that. Uncomfortable, right? We can we can learn how to do that. This happens a lot when people talk about pricing, when people are trying to decide should they charge $20 for the download or should they charge 200. Right. Right.

Jillian Leslie (00:34:37) – Because it’s exactly.

Andrea Liebross (00:34:38) – It’s it’s and that’s really just like there’s no there’s I’m sure you could guide them into formulas and everything else but we don’t know. Right. It’s an exact science experiment. So I always say like think about it this way. What whatever you’re charging them. Okay. It’s really almost a reflection of the amount of transformation that you’re providing them, like the more you charge.

Andrea Liebross (00:35:07) – I have a podcast on this on my podcast, my podcast called Time to Level Up. So go look for the one on what you’re worth. But it’s it’s like I like to think about these doors you’re opening. So if you’re only charging $2, you’re only you’re opening like a $2 door. But if you’re charging $200, you’re opening a $200 door, like $200 worth of transformation in their brains. And you’re saving them. You’re serving them. Right. You’re saving them time and money and energy. And why not? So the problem isn’t really what to charge. The problem is you thinking about yourself and your own worth and your own. Like that’s a you problem. It’s not a them problem. It’s not What will they pay? It’s what? What are you feeling? What’s your own? How are you valuing yourself? Because really how you value yourself is a combination of the price tags made up of three things What you like, your service, your offering. Is it. Is it to someone need your service? Yes.

Andrea Liebross (00:36:14) – Do you think you know what you’re doing? Yes. And the third thing is do you believe in the emotional and financial maturity of your client? Do you think that they’re going to get that this is $200 worth of transformation? Not 99% of the time? They do. They do, but we just don’t trust it. So the real problem isn’t the price. It’s not them. It’s really it’s not about all the history of things that have you have sold and not. So it’s really about you believing in taking the action. The next step in offering, in putting your offer out there and creating transformation. Ooh.

Jillian Leslie (00:36:53) – So I really like that. And we’ve talked about this. We talked about this on your podcast, which is this idea of it’s not about you get out of the way, it’s not about you. Yeah. And and so you so nobody buys like, okay, like are you about what in are you lovely like are you not lovable Like go examine that and say huh, maybe this is just this product didn’t connect with this audience.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:20) – Okay, what else can I do? Like, shrink it down, shrink your self-worth down, shrink your ego down, shrink your feelings of unlovable down, like get yourself out of the way so that you can go serve other people.

Andrea Liebross (00:37:34) – Yeah. And and you have to think about all the things that are possible because just because one person also said no doesn’t mean someone else will say no to. Right. That kind of goes back to like thinking big and moving out of that messy middle, like you’re stuck in that messy middle, but you really could be extraordinary and you can offer extraordinary things, but you’ve got to allow yourself the runway to do that. And I think that’s part of what I love, like most about what I’m doing. I feel like I’m offering my clients that runway to find their extraordinary in their business and in themselves. And it’s just it’s.

Jillian Leslie (00:38:10) – I love that. All right, Andrea, if people want to find you, see what you do, find out about your book. Where should they go?

Andrea Liebross (00:38:20) – So they think these are the best places.

Andrea Liebross (00:38:23) – Number one, you can go listen to my podcast called Time to Level Up. You can find that on all your favorite podcast players. You can head right over to Andrea’s with an S links with an S, Andrea’s links. And there you’re going to find a link to the podcast. You’re going to find a link to my book and you can go right now and download even though it’s not. It’s being released at the end of September. So if you’re listening before go download that intro and first chapter. There’s going to be tremendous value in that and you can do that right on that link. And you can also it links to my website if we want to schedule a call, but direct message me on Instagram. That’s probably the best place. Um, because I love chatting, like I love helping.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:05) – You handle on something. How can they find you?

Andrea Liebross (00:39:08) – It’s Andrea dot Libros That’s a that’s a mouthful. Ly Bros. Dot coaching. Andrea Libra’s coaching. But the link to that even is on Andrea’s links dot com.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:21) – Awesome. Well, I have to say this has been, um, just very inspiring. I feel like just talking about these hard to talk about things that are kind of right in front of us that that can be uncomfortable I think is so valuable. So I just want to really thank you for doing this and.

Andrea Liebross (00:39:43) – You’re really.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:43) – Welcome. Thank you for coming on the show.

Andrea Liebross (00:39:46) – I love it. I think you know what every podcast is worth, like millions of dollars, right, when we have these conversations And. I mean, I think that that’s what makes the world go round, so. Thanks for having me.

Jillian Leslie (00:40:00) – I hope you guys like this episode. For me, the biggest takeaway is sometimes we can really get in our own way and muck things up and that if we could just believe in what we are offering and believe in our value, gosh, we are unstoppable. I also like the idea of the messy middle because I think that when I’m talking to people, they’re there and they don’t quite know what this is and why it’s happening to them.

Jillian Leslie (00:40:27) – I think that Andrea in this episode really shares that we all go through this. It’s normal. It’s part of business building. So if you feel like you’re in the messy middle of your business and you want some direction and you’re thinking about, Hey, maybe I could be selling new products and services to my audience, but gosh, that feels scary. I wouldn’t know where to start. Get on a call with me. Just head to military.com/meet and maybe I can help give you some clarity and we can talk about how to get out of that stuck place. So please again go to military.com/meet. I would love to meet you and I will see you here again next week.