How to Find Work-Life Balance While Growing Your Business

Transcription

Hey, guys, welcome back to the show. Yuri here, and we have another deep dive, another 20 to 25 minute little consult here. Hope you guys will enjoy this one. We’re here with Leah Marie. And as you guys know, I’ve got no previous knowledge of what we’re about to talk about, and I’m excited for this one because Leah is pretty fresh into the biz. So Leah, welcome to the show and just give our audience just a real quick rundown of who you are and what you’re looking to do with your business.

Introducing Leah Marie And The Clients She’s Looking to Serve

Leah Marie:                        Sure. My name is Leah Marie, and I’m a health and life coach, and primarily, I would like to work with busy professional women and couples that have maybe 30 or more pounds to lose. I’ve developed kind of a nice three phase… I haven’t fully named it yet, but I’m working with permanent weight loss mastery system. But it’s three phases where we work with foundational stuff, getting blood sugar balance, sleep, just all the really foundational things going in the first four to five weeks and then transition into getting more balance in the body, which is identifying food intolerances that might be affecting things, identifying all those things such as gut health, that you need to bring balance into your body. And then in the final phase is kind of refining, stabilizing, if somebody wants to work out the kinks and maybe try something even more hardcore, like say intermittent fasting in there, something like that.

Leah Marie:                        So basically just one-on-one to start walking people through that kind of handholding step by step. I’m excited about that, but yeah, I’m just getting started. So I’m developing my program, and there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat. And as soon as you start taking a health coaching program, I’m sure you’re all familiar, that Facebook just starts just blasting ads at you, so you’re like, “Who do I work with,” and dah, dah, dah, dah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Slightly overwhelming.

Leah Marie:                        Yeah. Overwhelmed, that’s a good word for it.

Getting Help On How To Find Work-Life Balance While Growing Your Business

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. So what can I help you specifically with today on this interview, with this conversation we’re about to have?

Leah Marie:                        What’s on my mind today is more on a personal level in the life balance area as one is starting a business. And I’m sure a lot of people get themselves in this situation where they don’t just have the opportunity to quit what they’re doing and start full time doing something else. They kind of have to transition to it over time. And what does self-care and managing relationships look like during that time?

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure. And when you say managing relationships, meaning relationships with close family friends as well as business acquaintances, pretty much all humans for the most part?

Leah Marie:                        Right. Right. So we’re excited about starting our businesses. We’re super, super pumped about getting out there and talking about the work that we do. But there’s also things like, “Hey, honey. I invited so-and-so over tonight to have dinner, and we’re all going to go out on the boat, and it’s going to be great. And you should be there. No pressure.” Which is lovely, and I love the people in my life.

Leah Marie:                        So I guess, I would love to hear other people’s experiences, your experience, how did you start, and what were those hurdles like for you, and do you have any tips for people to kind of get in that mindset where they’re able to build their business at a pace? I’m not a slouch. I know that I’m doing the steps every day, doing things. How do I take it down a notch and just relax and have fun for a night?

Yuri Elkaim:                         Sure. It’s a very good question and happy to discuss it here with you based on my experience and obviously what I would advise in similar situations. I’m just having a little technical issue trying to hook up my iPad because I wanted to draw something for you, which would make a lot of sense, and I can’t seem to do that right now. So what I’ll do is I’ll just verbally explain it. So the thing to remember is there are different stages in business, right?

Your Business Seasons

Yuri Elkaim:                         The thing is I don’t think a lot of entrepreneurs recognize that there are different stages in business, and those different stages require different activities or focus, right? So if you are, for instance, a farmer, there are times of the year where you are going to plant the seeds, plow the fields, tend to the crops, and nothing is going to happen. You’re going to see nothing happen, and you’re thinking to yourself… Well, I mean, most farmers know that you plant a seed, and it takes a little bit of time for those plants to grow, so they do what they have to do for several months, and then in the fall, they can start to reap their harvest.

Yuri Elkaim:                         I feel from my experience, especially online, a lot of entrepreneurs forget that, and they think, “I’m going to plant the seed today, and I want the result tonight.” And that’s almost unrealistic. I mean, obviously there are certain models that can give you faster results than others. But I think if we really approach business with a seasonality mindset, it really helps you because if you understand that there are going to be times where you have to plant the seeds, there are times where you have to wait, there are times where you’re going to reap your harvest, and there are times where it’s going to feel like winter where nothing’s happening, and instead of freaking out, just understand that that’s okay because what happens after winter? Spring, right?

Leah Marie:                        Spring.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And it’s, life, it happens every single year, the same seasons every single year. The sun goes up. The sun goes down every single day. And what I’ve recognized and what I love to do is look at what are analogies or similarities between nature and life and nature and business because there’s a lot of similarities. And I think that’s one of them, is approaching business with the mindset that it’s not always going to be harvest time. There’s going to be times where you have to plant the seeds.

The Coaching Success Ladder

Yuri Elkaim:                         So going back to your question with respect to relationships and work life balance, when you are starting your business, you’re in a, what I call… So I have the seven step process called the coaching success ladder. At the base, if we think of a pyramid, and again, this is what I wanted to draw out, but if we think of a pyramid, the base of the pyramid is the first level, and I call that the dream, right? So that’s where you’re dreaming up an idea for your business.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And at this point, this is kind of where you’re at. You’re kind of between this stage and the next stage, which is start. And this stage is usually characterized by, this is a side hustle. It’s something you’re doing on the side while you’re working in a nine to five for instance, right? So what happens is you’re putting in, it’s a part-time job initially or a part-time thing that you’re pursuing, and it has part-time effort. You’re putting in a couple hours at night, maybe in the morning, whenever you’ve got time. And that’s what you have to do unless you’re coming into a business with a huge boatload of cash, which most people aren’t. You kind of have to start your side thing, right? So far so good?

Leah Marie:                        Yeah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So stage one is the dream. Stage two is start. And that’s really where the conversation needs to be for today. And the thing to remember at this stage is there’s going to be a lot of planting without necessarily a lot of reaping the rewards depending on how you’re going about building your business. And this is where I see a lot of people make mistakes. And this is why, sadly, the average health coach makes under $37,000 a year, which is the poverty line, which is really, really saddening. I mean, that’s why we do what we do because our goal is to help people like yourself do things the right way, so you can actually earn money but also really help people in the process.

Build Your Income Before Your Influence

Yuri Elkaim:                         So the number one objective at this stage in your business is to sell. It’s to make money. And the only way you can make money is by helping people, okay? Now, this is really important to understand. A lot of people want to build their influence or their impacts before their income. And my suggestion, and this is very important, is to do the complete opposite, is to build your income first. Then worry about your influence.

Leah Marie:                        You just reminded me how I ended up here because I heard something that you were doing, and I heard you say that, and I said to myself, “That makes sense.” That made something click in my brain where I was like, “Oh, I can stop freaking out about the influence part of it.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         Totally.

Leah Marie:                        “That’s down the road.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         When I started in 2006 online, the mistake that I made, and I didn’t know any better, so in hindsight, it wasn’t a mistake. So I was coaching clients offline, and I was sick and tired of it because it actually burned me out. So I came online, and what I did was I said, “I’m going to become one of those online guys, and I’m going to create an e-book and put out tons of content, and that’s what I’m going to do.” Sadly, for three years, I made less than $37,000 a year probably combined. And that’s because I was focusing on a strategy that was very low price, 27, $47 e-books, and in order to make that work, to pay my rent, to pay my living expenses, I need a huge amount of volume to make sense of that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So knowing what I know now, what I would have done differently at the time is I would have come online, and I would have continued coaching clients virtually at a higher price points. Because if I wanted to make, let’s just even say $1,000 a month, which is again, really low, I would have had to sell, I don’t even know, let’s just say a hundred copies after… Well, maybe not a hundred copies, but 50 copies of a book for $50-ish. I don’t even know if that math is right. It’s probably not. But it’s a lot. There’s more that I have to sell of that than if I just enrolled one client who gave take me $1,000 a month. Does that make sense?

Leah Marie:                        Yeah, absolutely.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So when you’re selling low price type of things like that, it requires you to have more volume of traffic. And in order for that to happen, you have to become very, very good at converting that traffic. Otherwise, you can’t get the traffic from affiliates or partners or even Facebook ads or et cetera because it just doesn’t even make financial sense. So you have to become a master copywriter. You spend half of your time, what seems like more of your time, marketing than actually coaching clients. And that becomes very frustrating.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So instead, we want to think of, how can I just have a conversation with someone? It’s a lot easier to pick up the phone than it is to write a huge sales page selling a book, right? So the first thing to remember is that we have to build our income before our influence. And in order to build our income, the easiest way to do so is by working with a select few clients at a higher price point that doesn’t require you to become this amazing marketer to convert people. You simply have to offer something people want that solves a pain or problem that they’re experiencing and then have a conversation with them.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And even if you’re not even… I don’t even want to use the word “a good salesperson”, but if even if you’re not that comfortable on the phone, if you have the slightest idea of how to have a conversation with someone and offer them a solution, they’re like, “Yeah, this makes a lot of sense,” the likelihood of you succeeding with that is far greater than the alternative that I had mentioned previously. So does that make sense so far?

Leah Marie:                        Absolutely. Yeah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So when we’re starting out, the most important thing is we need to sell and make money because if you want to move out of your current job, and you want to pay for your desired lifestyle, you have to earn income. And the most important thing, and I think this is… I get a lot of heat for this because I think health professionals should be very highly paid, extremely. $37,000 a year is a kick in the ass, kick in the face for people in our space.

Leah Marie:                        I could use my teaching degree if I wanted to make that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, totally. You should be making $37,000 a day if you wanted to and feel no remorse for that because the thing to remember is that everything you earn is only a byproduct of the value you create in the marketplace or for other people. And there’s two ways to make money. Either you help more people, or you impact them at a deeper level.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And so what I’m suggesting is work with fewer people, impact them tremendously. Don’t just skim the surface. Here’s a book for 20 bucks. Really transform their lives, and they pay you accordingly. But here’s the cool part, is that when you have expertise that can help someone, let’s say you start off with one client, that one client engages with you, you work with them for whatever length of time it is, they get a great transformation, and now that transformation becomes your first point of social proof.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So as you continue doing this, you start to build your repertoire, if you will, of social proof that what you’re doing works. And now, you can start sharing that online. And what happens over time is people start to look at you as like, “Wow, I need to work with Leah because what she’s doing with these other women and couples is pretty amazing.” And then they’ll start dropping you messages, “Hey, I saw this on Facebook or on Instagram or wherever. What are you doing?” And that’s how it starts. And that’s how over time you build your influence, right? But it doesn’t start by posting quotes on Instagram that no one’s going to care about, no one’s going to see. So does that make sense so far?

Leah Marie:                        Yeah, it’s just more noise. Exactly.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. So the first thing is to focus on the main thing, which is to enroll clients. That’s the number one thing you need to do at the early stages in your business. Most of your focus needs to be on that until the point where you have enough revenue in your business where you can say to yourself, “You know what? Now I’m going to start to build out systems and a team around me that can give me more freedom back.”

Hard Work – Smart Work

Yuri Elkaim:                         So initially, it starts off with hard work, and then it evolves to smart work, and then ultimately, when you reach the top of the pyramid, it ends up being less work, right? So we start, hard work, smart work, less work. And what’s ironic is when people see successful people, they think they’re super busy. But the reality is that they’re not. They shouldn’t be. If they are, then there’s something wrong with their systems.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So when we look at work life balance, I think it’s totally achievable, but work life balance might not always be the same every single day, right? There might be days where you work a little bit harder, other days where you have a couple hours off. Maybe there’s a week where you take off. Maybe there’s a week where you work hard on something. But on average over time, it starts to balance out. But the key is that you have a very strong vision of the business you want to build to support your lifestyle as opposed to you being a slave to a job more or less that you’ve built for yourself. Does that make sense?

Leah Marie:                        Yeah. I think one of the things that happened to me, and this is probably a really common pitfall, is that I got really excited about the big picture really fast, really early on in my training. I just wished that I would’ve had somebody to say that to me right at the beginning, just focus on serving a few people really, really well, and it will grow from there. And don’t get your head wrapped up in all of the social media and all the things. So thank you. Yeah.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, you’re welcome.

Leah Marie:                        And it makes absolute sense to me to build a business out that way, working towards that so…

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. That’s great. Yeah, I’m fascinated by the genesis of things. I’m always thinking like, because we just had a baby two weeks ago, our fourth-

Leah Marie:                        Congratulations. Oh, wow.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Thank you. And I’m thinking to myself, who’s the first person ever to give birth, and what was that experience like? Like, “Oh, my God. There’s something coming out of me,” right? Or when the explorers from Europe came to the Caribbean for instance, and I remember being in Barbados, and in Barbados they have certain trees that are painted because their droppings are poisonous, who is the first person to recognize that, right? That sucks. And so I’m very fascinated by how things begin.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And that’s why having been in business for so long and being able to help others from start to growth is really rewarding because you can help them avoid a lot of mistakes, right, and really fast track their success by doing things the right way. Because I mean, basically, I took a lot of arrows in the back when I started because I had no clue what I was doing. And second, I thought I was too cool for school. And because I was smart, I said, “I’m going to figure this out on my own,” right. You’re a little bit smarter because you’ve obviously engaged with a couple coaches. Yeah. But that’s important to-

Leah Marie:                        Well, it took me a while to get there.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. But again, you’re still relatively new in business, so it’s not like you’ve been doing this for 10 years.

Leah Marie:                        Right, but that would absolutely be my advice is to any person that’s starting out is just, don’t try to do it just by yourself. Get help. Just get help. Podcasts, coaches, whatever you can get your hands on, get help and support. And don’t be afraid to talk to other people about how you’re feeling and how you’re failing, what they did about it. I’m really curious how you got started.

How I Got Started And My Big Mistake Starting Out

Yuri Elkaim:                         So I got started… So, I mean, funny that we’re talking about this. I hired a coach, and it was more on the mindset stuff. This is back when I’m 24, 25, and we worked together for probably six months. And I don’t even know how this conversation started. It was 2006 at this point. And I was talking about how I was getting burnt out by training clients because I was working with a lot of clients 7:00 AM until 7:00 PM at nights, five days a week. And it was too much. And I knew that I wanted to impact more people.

Yuri Elkaim:                         I also knew that when we started building a family, I didn’t want to live that life. I wanted to be with my kids and the whole bit. So he said, “Why don’t you start a website?” And I’m like, “Dude, I’ve got no clue what the internet is. I don’t even know… ” This is just when the internet is becoming a bit more of a thing. And so anyways, he had someone he knew. We set up a website. We didn’t really know what we were doing with the website. And then what I did, again, as opposed to engaging with clients in more of a virtual live fashion like this is I said, “I’m going to create a product that I’m going to sell because I don’t want to talk to anyone because I’m just sick and tired of people.”

Leah Marie:                        Tired of it.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And that was a mistake. I mean, but again, I only knew what I knew. So I created products that I thought people wanted, and I was like, “This is amazing.” And then the reality set in, which was, oh, I have to learn how to sell this because if I set up a website, it’s not like I open a clinic on the street, and people walk by it. You set up a website, it’s one of billions. And unless you already have a massive clouts or amount of clout and authority, no one’s seeing your website. That’s the reality. And that’s what happened to me. So I had to figure out ways to get the word out. And it took me a lot longer than I think it should have. But again, I didn’t get the right guidance from day one. So that’s how things started.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And then the real kick in the ass was, I was training clients and building the business very much like you are, right? So I was building my business online one hour during lunch, one hour at night for instance, and then I got to a point where I said, “You know what? I really have to commit to this.” And I think it was after about a year I told half of my clients, I said, “Listen, guys. I’m not working with you anymore. I need to build my dream.” That’s essentially what I said. And they supported it. And the challenge was that took a huge pay cut because now I wasn’t generating revenue for my business. And I took a huge cut from my clients in terms of revenue. But I said, “I need to make this sacrifice in order to build my bigger future.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         And things started to pick up a little bit. But again, still poverty line income for the next year and a half. End of 2009, I was sitting at Starbucks reviewing the year, and I’m thinking to myself, “Dude, what you’re doing is obviously not working. It’s time to really man up and do something different.” So I looked at what I was doing, and I said, “Well, I need to do something completely opposite to that,” and what I was doing was essentially hiding behind my computer. I didn’t want to engage with people because I was just so tired of that for so many years. And I said, “You need to find a coach, and you need to surround yourself with people who already have or have done what you want to do.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         So beginning of 2010, I said, “All right, I’m going to go to these three events,” and they were events in the online health fitness marketing space. Went to three events, again, more money than I… $2,000 a ticket, I’m like, “Whatever, I’m going to throw it on my credit card, and we’ll figure it out.” And those events changed my life because I met pretty much every major player in our space who to this day still remain good friends. And at one of the events, I met my eventual coach who really opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities of better systems and marketing. And that’s where it all started. But none of that would have happened had I played it safe and continued to be scared of getting out of my own way and playing safe.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So I invested $18,000 in a coaching program that I didn’t even have money for to pay. And I put it on my credit card, and I said to myself, “I will find a way to make this happen no matter what.” And I think it’s really important for people to… Entrepreneurs, we’re a different breed. You have to have that belief that you will find a way to make this work no matter what it is, no matter what coach you’re working with, no matter what program you’re using, no matter what model you’re following.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And this is the reason why there’s so many different ways to the pinnacle of the peak of the mountain is that a lot of different ways can work. Some ways are better for certain people more than others, but at the end of the day, it’s all about you, right? It’s all about you not giving up. It’s all about you persisting. It’s all about you taking responsibility for what you do and don’t do. And it’s not about pointing fingers and saying, “That didn’t work. He wasn’t a good coach.” It’s looking in the mirror and saying, “Dude, you suck. Pull up your pants, and let’s make this happen,” right?

Yuri Elkaim:                         And that was the big realization was, just taking responsibility and doing no matter, obviously whatever it took that was moral and ethical and so forth, and just never giving up. And that’s the only reason that I’ve had the success that I’ve had. And that success is literally this compared to massive amounts of mistakes and failures, right? But even the best baseball players strike out seven times out of 10.

Leah Marie:                        Right. That’s such a good thing to remember. Thank you for sharing your experience. It’s really heartening to hear people that are successful having gone through what I’m calling right now, the valley of the shadow of death. It’s scary. It’s really scary. I think that you said some key things there in that you have to believe in yourself, and you have to have those honest conversations with yourself and enough to say, “I’m not doing this very well on my own, and I can continue to struggle and bash my head against the wall for another three years and destroy my body and my relationships and everything. What’s it all for then even? Or I can hire somebody who’s done it and been there and can walk me through it.” And yeah, it’s scary to spend that money, but if it shaves two years off, won’t that be worth it in the end? Absolutely.

Leah Marie:                        So that was a big scary decision that I made twice two weeks ago. I hired two different coaches for different things, and I’m loving it, loving it. And to push myself over that edge actually gave me that extra kick that I needed that you’re talking about where I was able to look at myself in the mirror and be like, “This is happening. It’s happening, and it’s happening now, and it’s happening fast.” And it took this kind of emotion out of it. It put me in a financial situation where I’m able to take my emotions out of it a little bit more.

Leah Marie:                        So that’s going really well, where I’m looking at it now more like I look at my eight to five job where it’s just like, yeah, there’s some stuff I don’t want to do there, but I’m doing it. Not even questioning, there’s no conversation in my mind about like, “Well, maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t.” No, I go there, and I do that thing. So that’s helped. But it’s nice to talk to somebody who has been through that, is on the other side, and it helps you.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. Well, first of all, when you pay, you pay more attention. That’s a big lesson that people need to remember. And there’s a lot of free stuff on YouTube, right? There’s a lot of articles on Google, and you can spend the next decade of your life piecing things together, or you could fast track all of that with a coach. That’s essentially what a coach buys you, is speed and certainty. Does it cost money? 100%, but it’s an investment.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And I’ve had a lot of coaches and been part of a lot of coaching groups and masterminds, and even the ones that were maybe not as great as I had hoped still provided a massive amount of return for me because instead of crossing my arms and blaming, I said, “How do I extract the value out of this? How do I make the most of the situation,” and moving forward from that because everything’s happening for us, good or bad, right? There’s always learning. There’s always wisdom. And I think if you’re a growth oriented individual, you’ll find those nuggets, and you’ll make the most of it.

Having Bigger Problems Is A Good Thing

Yuri Elkaim:                         So that’s been a big thing. And you talked about being in the valley of the shadow of death. I’ll tell you that that never goes away. The problems never go away, but the goal as an entrepreneur is to have bigger problems because-

Leah Marie:                        Have bigger problems.

Yuri Elkaim:                         … it’s not about wishing things were easier. Jim Rohn talks about this. It’s about being better, right? Don’t wish for things to be easier. Wish to get better. I could have had an easier life by not having kids and not having dogs. I could’ve just been chilling with my wife. But it’s forced us to grow mentally, emotionally, systematically in ways that allow us to live the way we do because of those challenges, not challenges, but extra stuff.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So I think as you grow in business, what starts off as, oh, my God, how do I set up an opt in page, as your main problem for instance, then the problems become a lot bigger down the road. And that’s okay because the bigger the problems are, the bigger you’re growing, and the bigger your business is getting, right? I think the real big fear, the real big worry, is five years down the road, if you’re still having the same problems as you are now, that’s the big issue. It means you’re not growing. It means your business is the same as it is now.

Yuri Elkaim:                         So you want to look at five, 10 years down the road thinking of, all right, I’ve got this big $300 million merger, how is this going to happen, as an example, right? It doesn’t have to be that, but that’s a bigger problem that you want to have, and you’ll be able to figure out how to deal with that at that stage, whether it’s you yourself, or you can hire people or find people who are leaning to mentorship who can support you through that process and just being okay with the fact that it never gets easier. You just get better.

Yuri Elkaim:                         And that’s the one thing that I’ve recognized is you’re never on the other side. The only time you’re on the other side is when you die, right? I think if you enjoy the ride, that’s the most important piece. I love what I do, and I’ve built my business around my lifestyle where I get to walk my kids to school, pick them up. I probably spend more time with my kids than I do in my business. But that’s been very purposeful.

Yuri Elkaim:                         But if I had built a business where I barely saw my kids, that would be a problem. So I think if you build a business that you love, good and bad is going to happen. You’re just going to enjoy all of it because it’s all an opportunity to grow and get better. And on the flip side of those challenges is where the opportunity lies.

Leah Marie:                        I think that you really adeptly got to the heart of what I was getting at when we started this conversation, and that is to enjoy the ride. How do you develop that resiliency because yeah, you’re not going to be on the other side. You never arrive. So learning how to, yeah, take on those bigger and bigger challenges, I’m starting to get to that point after studying and doing this on the side for almost nine months now. I’m starting to get to that point where I’m enjoying that feeling of pressure or that feeling of… because it’s how I know that I’m about to grow into something bigger, a bigger version of myself, as somebody who is resilient enough to handle a bigger problem or a bigger challenge, not necessarily problem.

Leah Marie:                        And then starting to get that trust in myself that I’m going to learn a lot of really valuable lessons from that. And that’s an attitude. That’s a choice we can choose, like, “Okay, I have four kids now.” I’m sorry. “I’m going to learn from this. I’m going to be able to be a massively bigger person in the world and for my family just by growing from the situation,” so that’s, yeah. You got to it.

Leah Marie:                        It’s a little bit strange to try to figure out where socializing comes in, I guess. Because there’s a part of me that I had this conversation with myself where I was like, “Oh, I don’t feel like so and so really likes me anymore or blah, blah, blah,” the stupid stuff you do in your head where you’re like, “Well, they don’t call as much as they used to, and they don’t want to hang out like they used to.” And I flipped it, and I said, “I don’t want to hang out.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         You’ve outgrown them.

Leah Marie:                        And that’s more true. I’ve got different things that I want to do and just getting comfortable with that is, it’s a growth process.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah. I think entrepreneurship is one of the biggest spiritual journeys or growth endeavors you’ll ever go on other than parenting and stuff like that. And I mean, when I look at people that have the same friends in their forties as they did in high school, that says a lot about their lack of growth. And I’m not saying that you can’t have the same friends, but if all of your time is spent with the same people who you went to high school with, unless those people on the same wavelength as you, you haven’t grown.

Personal Growth

Yuri Elkaim:                         And the reality is that you’re going to outgrow people, right? Even in your business journey, you’re going to outgrow people initially that you did business with or friends with. And that’s just because either they served their purpose, you served their purpose with them, and you’ve grown and moved on. And I think a lot of people hold onto the past because it’s safe. It’s comfortable. But the reality is you don’t grow in that situation. And that’s not to say you have to obviously burn bridges and burn friendships, but you don’t need to spend most of your time with those people, right?

Yuri Elkaim:                         You need to spend time, and this is really important, this is one of the biggest lessons I would impart on anyone, is you need to spend time with people who are reminding you of your future more than your past, right? They’re doing big things, and they’re pulling you along for the ride. It’s that keeping up with the Joneses in a good way because they’re inspiring you. They’re showing what’s possible. They’re essentially borrowing, or they’re lending their belief and courage to you. You’re saying, “Oh, you did that? Okay, I can probably do that too.”

Yuri Elkaim:                         And that’s a lot better than hanging out with people who are still working in a nine to five job, very scarcity mindset, who are all risk averse, who are like, “Oh, don’t do this. It’s not safe. It’s whatever.” But the reality is, the least safe thing is building someone else’s dream. That’s the real, the whole flip on this. I’m like, “I would rather build my dream and have 100% control over my future,” because I’ve been in the meetings where I’m talking about people’s future with our company. And I could easily just pull the plug on someone, and they’re done. And I never want to be on the receiving end of that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         But again, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. As we’ve talked about, if you’re not willing to go through the ups and downs and enjoy that process, you’re better off working for someone, right? And there’s nothing wrong with that because thankfully, I’ve got people that work for me because if they didn’t, I’d probably jump off a bridge by now, right? Everyone has their role. But you have to be aware of that.

Yuri Elkaim:                         What is involved in being an entrepreneur? The entrepreneur takes the risk, right? That’s why the CEO is the most highly paid individual because they took the risk to start the company. They took the risk where if shit hits the fan, it all comes back on them. And if things go well, they give credit to everyone else. They should. And if you’re not willing to do that, again, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just being okay with not having to do your own thing, work for someone else where you can be an entrepreneur, help them grow the organization in a way that it’s a win-win for both. So anyways, so is that all helpful, Leah?

Leah Marie:                        It was very, very helpful. Yep. I feel like it was a pleasure to talk to you.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Likewise.

Leah Marie:                        Got a lot of insight and can’t wait to spend some time on the podcast.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Absolutely. Yeah, dive into the episodes. I mean, we’ve done over 200 at this point, so there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Yeah. Thanks for being on. This has been a different type of conversation, which is cool because I think all of our listeners and viewers will get a lot of value out of this because I think it’s just a really great conversation. So thank you for bringing this to the table.

Leah Marie:                        Yeah, you’re welcome. There will be surprises. That could be the takeaway. There will be surprises, challenges you did not anticipate, but it’s totally worth it. Even at the beginning, I feel like it’s going to be totally worth it. And it’s inspiring to talk to people that are doing great. Thank you so much.

Yuri Elkaim:                         You are welcome.

Leah Marie:                        Take care.

Yuri Elkaim:                         Yeah, likewise. Thanks so much, Leah, and for all you guys watching and listening, hope you’ve enjoyed this one. Hit us up inside the Facebook group, healthpreneurgroup.com/tribe. Let us know what you thought about this episode and love to hear from you. All right, guys. See you in the next episode.