In this episode of the One Small Change podcast, host Yvonne McCoy sits down with a dynamic serial entrepreneur and community builder, Summer Diya Selva, who shares her journey of transformation through small, consistent changes and a powerful morning routine. The conversation dives deep into how the simple act of gathering people and nurturing authentic connections online has sparked both personal and professional growth. They discuss launching impactful communities, the ins and outs of successful collaborations, and overcoming mindset blocks that hold entrepreneurs back. Listeners will walk away inspired to take meaningful action, build stronger networks, and implement the actionable steps shared in this conversation.

Guest Bio:

A passionate entrepreneur and natural community builder, Summer Diya Selva has a lifelong history of initiating projects and bringing people together, from starting a lemonade stand at age four to organizing thriving online communities. She is the founder of the Connections networking group and Fab Collabs community, as well as the creator of the Savvy Solopreneur magazine. Her mission centers on fostering authentic relationships, empowering solopreneurs, and encouraging collaborations that lead to collective growth and success.

Chapters:

00:00 "Life-Changing Impact of the 5am Club"

05:29 Unexpected Path to Business School

09:32 Embracing Change and Connection

12:07 Weekly Networking Hour

13:19 Networking: Building Collaborative Relationships

17:08 Unique Power: Connecting People Safely

22:27 Aligning Values in Collaboration

25:12 "Prepare Before the Crisis"

28:37 "Join Supportive Communities"

30:58 "Engage with Our Business Podcast"

33:15 Stay Curious

Quote from the Guest:

"Drop that syndrome. Get started."

Links

https://diyaselva.com/

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/diyaselva

Konnections: https://konnexions.ca

The Savvy Solopreneur: https://konnexions.ca/the-savvy-solopreneur

Welcome to the One Small Change podcast. I am absolutely

thrilled that you decided to spend some time with me again. And

I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I bring almost 30 years of entrepreneurial

experience. And I have a passion for discovering growth through

the power of seemingly small change. You may not expect it

or even recognize it when it happens, but when it

you see the results of it, you're amazed. So thank you again for

joining me. And this week we are talking with someone

I have enjoyed working with, Summer, Dia

sva. Summer. Yes. Do you

have other brothers and sisters? Winter, fall, Winter. You know,

they're not named after seasons. So I

am so glad that you're here. I'm glad you took time because I know you're

always doing summits, you're always busy doing things that connect

entrepreneurs and make life easier for those of us that are growing

our business. So my question is,

what is the. The seemingly small change that you

had that had an impact on what you're doing in the way you do it?

The seemingly small change? I think it happened around

2016 or 17. In one day,

I completed reading this book by Robin

Sharma. It's called the 5am Club. And the

5am Club totally changed my life.

I'm not gonna say like, I used to wake up at noon. No, I didn't.

Seven, eight would be my ideal time, and I would loiter around and do

nothing for a while and then finally sit down to work. But

the 5am Club, how it goes, is you wake

up at 5 and the first 30 minutes you move, and then you

meditate for 15 minutes, and then you journal for

15 minutes, and then you do something for personal development

for the next 15 minutes. So these four quarters are very,

very important. And they not only shape your

whole day, they shape your whole life. The routine that you

set every day, you're developing yourself

by 1%, becoming better by 1%.

So this was one supreme habit

that I started after reading the book, you. Know,

and, and I think this is really amazing

because one of the things I think that entrepreneurs

don't realize when they start their business is, one,

you have to continuously keep learning so that you stay relevant.

Absolutely. Two, you need to put

stuff in because you're constantly putting stuff out.

Right. And so you need people to rejuvenate yourself.

And three, if you don't put aside some time,

quiet time on a regular basis, you're never going to be able to be

in a creative space. Yes, I agree. And I

think that's one of the things that I have you Know really said to my

clients over and over again, when, when are you in your

creative space? And you know, someone

said to me once, that helped. You know, I'm like, I'm. I used to say

I'm not creative. No. Someone

said to me once, creativity is not

coming up with something totally new from nothing.

It's coming, it's using things that already exist and making them

better. I was like, I could do that.

Creativity is also having great thoughts. Initially, when I was

younger, I thought creativity meant doing crafts and

embroidery and painting or writing poetry.

No, just coming up with a great business plan and implementing step by step.

That's creativity too. We are all creative. If you're a solopreneur,

I think you're creative. Yes, absolutely. I absolutely agree.

And you've created many things over the years.

One of the, you know, how did

that, that mindset shift you in?

Explain what you do. Okay.

So people understand how that mindset came to work.

My dad was an entrepreneur. He was a serial entrepreneur.

And everybody that knows my dad knows that I am

exactly like him. I look like him, I think like him, I feel like him,

I act like him, I work like him. So I think

partially his brain has been

installed here. So I see something and something

business related comes up in my mind. So

I started my business when I was four years old. I

started a lemonade stand. And then

everything I did I think was like something like a business related.

I wouldn't call it making lots of money. That was never the point.

I started something like a handwritten book club where

my classmates in high school paid me to read that

handwritten book and then they paid me to write in

it. So it was a two way win win.

That's a mindset. If I can do something here that that'll help other people.

And I also make a little bit of money on the side. It's a win

win for everybody. So

that's really interesting because, you know, part of my

story is although I was, you know, I was like

the top seller of girl Scout cookies, that kind of thing,

I it didn't dawn on me until I was well

out of college that I should go into business. Nobody ever

said to me, go into business. And

I kept saying, I'm good with numbers, I'm good with numbers. And I originally went

to college, you know, as a math major. That was

not where my heart was. It's something that I could

do. And the thing that it turns out that I could do really

well, aside from the numbers, was

problem solve in a Creative way, I guess,

which is what got me to business school. But.

But I think that's true. I mean, I think that a lot of the things

that we do, you know, my dad was an

electrical engineer, but he always had a side hustle. Like, he was always, you

know, buying cars and fixing them and then reselling them. He was,

you know, that kind of stuff. So I think. I think

that, you know, again, that creative time for creative

stuff lets you take a look at what kind of options are

out there. Where are there possibilities? Where

is there a need for something that. That you can do?

You have so many things that you can talk about. I don't. I don't actually

don't know what to pick. So what I know from you

is someplace along the line, you move

from just being a serial entrepreneur

to, at least from what I know of you, is focusing on connecting

people. So how did that happen?

That actually was not a shift. That's something I have

been all my life. I've been a gatherer, Gatherer of people.

So I gathered people for my. Not online, my

handwritten book community. I gathered people into a blood

donation club. We had over 20,000 members.

And I'm, like, all about amassing people for some reason.

And when Covid hit, I gathered people and said, let's meet on

Zoom. Everybody was doing the same thing at that time. And I started

this beautiful community called Connections. It's

just Connections, but starts with a K and has an X because the domain

name for Connections was not available. So pick the spelling

that worked with it. And people flocked. People came in

the network. We had 80 people at least coming in

twice a week to network. Community grew,

loved it. And then I felt sick for a while. I took 21 months

of break. And when I was recovering from that,

I had a dream one night. It was very, very vivid.

And it said, summer, where are your people?

Gather your people. Your people are scattered. Where are your people? Gather your people.

Gather your people. Gather your people. And when I

woke up, I looked around and there was nobody. No body in the room.

My husband and my dog were nicely snoring away. It wasn't

them, but it was a powerful voice that said,

you are meant to gather your people. Where are they? And

then when I talked it over to friends, they said, connections, you stop

Connections, you need to gather them again. A lot of people had

moved on, but some old people,

I retained them, and some new people popped in. Now the

community is growing forever. I

have a baby community under Connections now. It's called Fab collabs.

Fabulous collaborations. I do lots and lots of projects under

this community name. We are on Facebook. We

are almost at a thousand members, and it

turns one year old on the 30th of July. So we're

11 months old. Yes. All right, so let me, let me see

if I can pull the pieces together a little bit.

So you made the small change of, you know, making sure that you were

moving and, you know, having creative time. And then when you,

you know, and you always were a collector of people. But I'm

thinking that after you, you know, got this message

in one of these mornings that you were together, it was like,

I need to, you know, I need to gather. Well, how can I do it?

And that going with connections and stuff.

I have to say, I went last week for the first time and it was

fabulous. Thank you. And. And that's going to be

in. You're going to see that in the. The show notes. So that's one

action you can take is definitely sign up for that.

And then you moved, you know, your brain kept going

and, you know, in that creative space, you went to fab collabs.

And you also have a magazine, right? Yes. The magazine

is called the Savvy Solopreneur. It's a lot of

people contributing to the magazine. They talk about real business

stuff, real life stuff, and how can you make your business better?

There are so many articles and so many

regular features in there. Like there's a book club. People

give book reviews. There's something for people that are

burning out. How not to burn out. And there are. There's a section

about tools. What new tools can you use to do what?

So this is free for anybody to read.

I will give you a link where people can take a look at the previous

editions. My next edition would be published

on the 15th of July. Okay. And it will be added to

the page. So I

normally don't talk about your free stuff. Free stuff, really. But

we're, we're hitting on it. When you go to the links, you're going to see

a link for connections, which everybody should do at

least once. There'll be a link for

fab collabs and there'll also be a link

for the magazine. Yes.

And so let's talk about the best ways

to maybe use that. So because I'm, I'm. I'm of the

mindset that people need to be proactive. If they don't,

this is how I'm going to use it. It just think is another

dust gather. You know, it's just that you're not using.

So let's go through them one by one. Let's talk about

connections first. Connections. Every Thursday morning at

11am Eastern for one hour, it's a networking breakout net

networking hour. And roughly 30,

35, 40 people come in and we go into breakout

rooms and we talk, whatever the. The agenda of the day is.

And people get to introduce themselves and talk about their business and ask

for referrals, ask for collab partners.

So people are simply growing their network. And

like you said, at least come in once if you love the vibe.

Stay consistent. Whenever you go to networking events, I would say

the same thing over and over again. When you go just once and then start

ghosting people, it never works. It's just a waste of time.

But when you consistently come in, you build. Build relationships.

Every single meeting I say the same thing. Build

relationships. Those relationships will turn around and build your

business. So a lot of people,

I think a lot of people go to networking for the wrong reason. They go

for a client. And I think you were always good. You're always going to come

away saying, this didn't work. Yes, if you heard that a lot.

You know, if you come in looking for a client, I think what you're

really looking for is other. Other

people that you can do collaborations with, other

who are going to be referral partners, oral partners.

And just like you said, one of the things I think

that's fabulous is when you go

consistently to a group, you start to

be. How can I say this? Well, you

become part of the group, obviously, so there's more of a connection, but

you get more out of it. I mean, I think, you know, I was at

something the other day and

I was really surprised because the host said, oh, Ivana is

a wonderful partner, you know, because we, you know, so people

get to know you and they feel com. I mean, asking

somebody to refer you, having only met you

for two minutes, asking somebody to marry you

that you just met, why would you do that? Why would

you put your reputation at stake? Why would you go out on a

limb, you know, but when you come on a

consistent basis, you start to really build a, you know, a

real relationship so people are comfortable

referring you and being an affiliate for you, so that. So that's. I don't

know if you want to add anything else about the connections, but

100% about that. I hear that all the time. I came to your group once.

It didn't work out for me. What did not work out? I didn't get a

client out of it. No, that's not how any networking group

would work. Not just mine. Come in there to build relationships

and nobody is going to wait there waiting for a new person to

come so that they can throw their money on you. People

need to win your like and trust. People need to

like you and trust you and see what you are about

before you they actually buy from you or refer you to somebody else.

Okay, so you, you, you, you had this thought process.

You're like I'm going to start networking but, but there needs to

be more. So how did that

thought process happen that get you to Fab

Collabs? That got me to fab Collabs. I took a

21 month break because I was recovering from a lot of

things. When that was happening, I

stopped promoting my business. But I was

randomly appearing at summits and podcasts and my

business was still growing because people discovered me, they loved my energy

and some old partners as well just went in and

recommended me. And I'm thinking, how's my business growing? This was also

another middle of the night kind of event. I think most of

my great thoughts come in the middle of the night at 2:30 p to 2:30am

I woke up thinking how's my business growing so fast? Because

I've not at all been promoting it. And then the thought

hit me. It's all because of the fabulous collaborations that are that

I'm a part of. And then I thought I should wake up in the

morning and start a group on Facebook called Fab

Collabs because it's fabulous collaborations and gather

people who want to do the same thing with me.

Which I did. That was 30th of July 2024.

I remember that because recently I went to the, went into the Facebook

group and looked at when was the first time I posted here? That was July

30, 2024. That was when I created the banner and stuff

like that. So we are going to be a year old soon.

That's how Fab Collapse was born. So the other thing that I want

to point out that I, that you know, that I'm known for is you don't

need to be fixed, you just need to be found. Yes. Is,

you know, what is your unique power? And obviously your unique

power is collecting people and giving them a safe

space to be together and explore and find other people

that they can connect with. I mean, yes, very

strongly and doing it in a way that's different

than other people. You know, one of the things that I say is there

are Certain principles or realities or whatever

that are unique, you know, and, you know,

you, you, you need to be able to change to get from one place to

the other. And so as a coach or whatever, we probably all teach

something about change, but or. And

differently from our perspective. And that's what for the people where it

lands, that's the way they need to hear it. And you're

collecting people in a different way than a lot of people who may have

started networking groups. Like, I'm going to networking group. I'm

going to do this, I'm going to do that. I'm going to spend a lot

of time presenting. You know, this is organization,

join and stuff like that. I mean, that was one of the things that I

enjoyed, is that there wasn't a lot of fluff in the hour.

Do you know. Okay, so tell me, tell

me where the magazine came into this.

That was another middle of the night id. I'm

glad I'm not your husband. Oh, I never

worry him at that time. I wait until it's midday, he's been

fed breakfast, and then I bring out my ideas.

So, no, I don't go screaming in the middle of the night. So

he's good with that. So tell me about the. Tell me about the

magazine. How does that kind of fit in your progression?

Where did that come in? Mostly my va. My BA Is called

Vika. And Vika has a flair for doing things on

Canva. I do workshops every now and then.

Workshops like workshop on LinkedIn, workshop on email marketing,

on Email list building. Every time I do that, she builds

beautiful workbooks on Canva.

So I asked her to create a small ebook for me. And the

thing that came out was like, wow. And a couple of

my colleagues said, can we get that done too? So I

outsourced her. And then I thought, how about we put this one's article,

that one's article, the other person's article, and my article together

and create a longer ebook. The idea simply

grew. And before we knew it, there were like 22 people, 24

people. It was. That's a paid collaboration because I

need to pay her for her time. Yeah.

So people contributed. People paid money to be in the magazine.

And each edition has one particular solopreneur

that's spotlighted. That's like on the COVID

picture.

Wait and see. Who is the fourth one? So far it's been Colleen Loeb,

Adrian Farrow, and Michael Whitehouse.

Okay, so. So part of my question, though is

let's. Let's talk about collaborations a little bit. I mean, the magazine is

actually a collaboration. It is. So what. What are

things that people, you know, if they've never done collaborations before,

what are things that they need to think about so that that collaboration

is successful? Audience.

You, as a solopreneur, have only this much of an audience.

Even if you grew your email list to that much, you have that much of

an audience. When you bring in another person's audience, you

expand your audience, and the other person also expands their

audience. So smaller,

smaller collaborations could be like podcast guesting. Like, I'm a

guest on your podcast right now, so people get to know me.

People that know you, get to know me now. And

slightly bigger would be four people get together and do a masterclass

on a niche topic, and each one of them brings their audience.

And a bigger one would be bundles.

Bundles are like you. Each solopreneur offers a lead

magnet, which they're using to build their email list,

and somebody collects them all together and

markets the whole thing. So everybody's

lead magnets get into a lot of people's inboxes.

So everybody grows their email lists. And there's always summits.

20 to 30 people speak on one summit. They all bring in their

audiences. Email lists would grow, audiences would

grow. Now I'm known by lot, many of. Many number of people.

I organized a couple of other people's summits. They loved it.

And the people that were in their summit, the audience,

they got to know about me. And one of the audience

people is now hiring me to run their summit in November.

So this is what I love about sharing audiences and growing your

audiences. Collaborations is one thing that you could do

to do that. I think one of the things that.

One of the things that I've learned, especially, you know, I think in the.

In. In the, you know, bigger summits and in,

like, the giveaways and that kind of stuff where

you're one to many, it's important

because of the people that you want to attract. But if you're working in a

smaller group of just one other person or three other

people, one of the things that I found was that you have

to share the same value system. And

that's like, before you even get into the creative part about ideas

and stuff like that. And this is my own personal

quirk is that right up front, I want

to know how much. How much time and energy, what's your

time frame for this collaboration? Because I'm one of these people

that when I get the idea, I go in, like, 150%. And

so me too I've already done my thing. And then on the next

phone call, they were like, oh, I didn't have time for it this week, you

know, blah, blah. So, you know, I had a situation

where we picked us, you know, a short

window to do something, and they neglected to say they were

going on vacation during that, that short period of time. And

so I found myself doing all the work. And, you

know, so that to me is a, is a red line that is like a

deal breaker is. That's a red line for me too. You know,

and so I think that's something when you're looking at collaborations,

you know, and my other thing is generally speaking. And again,

it's. It's not if you're going into a big giveaway or a summit

where there's a lot of organization that's going to take place, but you're doing

like more one on one or just a couple of people.

I think it's really important. I just

forgot what it was. It's that

important. So you forgot. I forgot it. Or either, either

that it was so painful that I don't.

But I think just, you know, the fact that you're going to put in the

same kind of energy that I'm putting in, you know, and that we're going to

get it done at the same time and that, you

know, that you, you know, when you're doing a collaboration, there needs to be some

flexibility. Absolutely. Yeah. I spoke with somebody and,

you know, we were talking about something and they were like, oh, I'm really good.

I'm going to do that. I'm like, okay. You know,

then they said, I'm going to do that. And finally it was like, there's nothing.

There's nothing for me to do. I mean, if you, if we have to do

everything your way, there's nothing.

And so this isn't what I was going to say,

but it's still a valuable lesson. And, and that is someone said to me,

practice your fire drill before the fire. So

putting the collaboration together, I think it's always really good to say, well, what if

this happens? How are we going to handle that? Or is this, you know,

whatever, how could be a possibility. How are we going to do

this that way, you know, ahead of time, what it's like to be

involved with that person before you invest a whole lot of time or, or

money and effort very much, you know.

Okay, so we have covered a lot of stuff.

We've covered. Definitely you will get ahead by being

yourself. So you are a people collector. So that's that

you're giving us three wonderful gifts. We're getting the, you know, the

link to come to connect, which everybody should do. We've got action

collabs, and we've got the. The magazine, which is.

Which is going to be great, too. Summit.

Summit. Summer also runs Summit, so if you get into

her universe, you will see those. I'm going to be in one of her summits

coming up. Let's see what else.

We talked about. Practical steps already.

All right, so let me ask you this. If you had

to do over again, you know, or if you were

talking to somebody that was starting out new in

entrepreneurship, what would be the piece of advice you would give them?

Drop your syndromes. That was one

advice that I wanted to give to myself long ago. I had

this huge book idea in my head in 2016. Okay,

2018. I. I did the layout for that.

I even created a Facebook page for that. And I

did not write. I did not write in 2018, 19,

2021. And by the end of 2021, I was so sick,

the doctors gave me three weeks to live. And I said, I can't

die now. I haven't written that book.

So drop that syndrome. The syndrome is like, you know, I'm not good

enough or I don't have the time or I don't have the

focus or a hundred other things. Who am I to

write a book? So, so what I say to.

What I say to that is you were perfect for the

client that you would get right now.

Right. Because they have decided to hire you. Well, also

because you were saying what they need to hear at this point. Point. Right.

There's always going to be, you know, an expert or a coach or

whatever who's further advanced than you are also going to

be somebody who's behind. And the one piece of

advice that I would give that'll help you get over those syndromes

is be in community. Because

for, you know, that was another reason I didn't network is it's like,

well, I'm not established enough. I have nothing to give. Exactly.

I'm not perfect enough. Right. And. And what I learned

when I went into. I started

networking and stuff was, you know what I said? There's some ahead of you,

there's some behind you. So it's great to be able to help the people that

are coming along. It's great to be able to learn from the people that

are ahead of you. But even the people that are ahead of you

can learn things from you because you have a unique Perspective.

Yes. So they can keep you from making

mistakes, you know, that you don't need to make, or they

can give you ideas. They can see things about you that you can't see about

yourself. So that would be the thing that I

would say is get into. Into community or

communities on. Because

we'll help provide you with a safety net, give you

resources. It will build your confidence.

You know, unless there's some really bad people there, you will come a little bit

better than when you started. Yes, absolutely.

See, in 2023, if I didn't tell myself to drop those syndromes,

I wouldn't be doing anything today. Like that one day I said,

drop your syndrome somewhere. You can do much better. And then I started the community

again. And then I started writing my book. Well, the writing the book just

happens on June 15, and I'm already at my 11th chapter.

But I started my YouTube channel because I didn't like my face. My face

is not good enough. My voice is not good enough. Drop that

syndrome. And then, then I started it. I started my own membership program

that's running very well right now. And I started writing this

book. Whatever I'm starting, it's growing very well.

So what was X syndrome about? It was unnecessary. So if that's

one advice I would give people, drop those syndromes. Get started.

I. I'm afraid to ask you, when was the last time you did something new

for the first time? Because you're always doing something new.

Yes, the starting the book was the big one. And

membership was like, it's been on my mind forever.

And my business coach kept pushing me in 20, 20, 21,

22 after the break. And then

finally I said, okay, let's sit down and do this.

And this took a lot of guts because it just

took a lot of guts. And I just went and

did something different, which was like, gathered people and asked

them to keep paying me money. That was a little hard,

but we got around doing it. I have 10 people right now,

and it's only been five weeks since the membership

launched, and a couple of people are still on the brink about

doing it. It's called Social Surge, and it's the love of my life.

There you go. I hate to do this, but we have run out of

time. We probably could keep talking about all

kinds of things for much, much longer than this podcast is. But

it's time for the commercial. So if you haven't done this yet, I want

you to subscribe and share and engage with the podcast on social

media. And the reason I Did the POD podcast was I

wanted to help you supercharge your business through connection. It's

my way of giving back to this community and

helping you get information from different kinds of people that

hopefully will help you grow and help you increase your impact.

And so I hope you will continue to join me for the one small change,

and let's continue on our journey of making those small

shifts that can kneel. Monumental transformation. And if you

haven't done it yet, be sure you listen to the first episode. And

I'm also doing the quarterly episodes to give you a boost into the next

quarter, the beginning of each quarter. And so I,

you know, want to make sure that you. The reality of it

is that I like to talk, and when I have a guest, I have to

hold myself back. So I gave myself permission to do four episodes where I

could myself. So I had to find a reason. So it's the

quarterly boost kind of thing. So, summer, give me

your last words of wisdom. What do you. What do you want people to. To

think about? Remember? Repeat.

Hmm. I think you said it when you. When you talked.

Not to interrupt you, but, you know, get over your syndromes and just do it.

It was. Was a pretty good. Yes, Stop taking too many courses.

Start implementing. Oh, absolutely. Your

participation doesn't. Whenever I run my workshops, at the end

I say to people, your participation meant nothing to me unless

it's participation.

That's good. That's good. All right, guys, we have

to come to an ending. And. And what I want you to remember, as always,

is change is simple, but it's not always easy. And it

requires courage, resilience, and a willingness to step out of your comfort

zone. Get over your syndromes. And so join me on the next one

small change as we embark on this journey, hopefully so you'll have a

bolder vision and have more innovative possibilities. Until

the next time, stay curious.