What if you were spending the same amount of time and energy ON your business as you're currently wasting just wondering and worrying about it?

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and sometimes that first step can seem impossible.

In this episode I'm going to help you put some of those newbie fears to rest (like, "will starting a business cause me to neglect my family?") and walk you through the 3 things you need to decide to get started on your dream. You get to (finally!) decide what you're going to do, why you're starting this business and the truth behind the "how".

Get the 30 day calendar here

Download the free business starter guide here

Schedule a free coaching call with Bonnie

friend.

Welcome back to burning brightly.

Today we have a little bit more of a logistical episode, which is probably

going to be exciting for those of you that just want to hit the ground running

and get started on this business.

You've been dreaming of.

But that doesn't mean we're not going to talk about mindset because that's

what I do is help you with the mindset pieces that are keeping you stuck.

Okay.

So you might be listening to this and thinking, yes.

Yes.

I have all these ideas.

Yes.

I have all these plans.

I want to get started on this business, but I just don't

know where to start or how.

Well, let me just start by saying good for you for finally realizing it's time

to get moving because for a lot of us.

We spend so much time ruminating and wondering what if we don't

realize that if we could spend even a portion of that ruminating time

on actually building our business.

would be making leaps and bounds on our dreams.

Every minute we waste thinking about it is a minute.

We are not spending on our dreams.

So think about that for a second.

If you are hesitant to get started.

I know, it seems like there's a million things that could go wrong.

A million things you can do wrong.

Um, I am going to make sure that you feel confident at the end of this episode

to get started, wherever that leads you on this journey of building a business.

So let's start by getting one thing straight.

Are you ready?

You might not like this, but I feel like it's a very important part to start with.

And that is the fact that there is no right.

Way to build the business.

Now if you're a mom of faith, I know what you're thinking.

No, but there is a right way.

I know it.

God's leading me in this direction.

And I know if he would just tell me what direction to go, I would

do it the right way, but you guys, there's just not a right way.

In fact, I've found in my many years of being on this earth,

That there is very rarely a right way.

I mean, when

I mean when it comes to keeping God's commandments.

Yeah.

I believe there's a right way and a wrong way.

But for most of the choices we make and most of the paths that our life

leads us down there isn't a right way.

There are just choices.

There are just paths.

And some, we go down and we think, Nope, this wasn't the one I wanted.

We backpedal some, we go down for a while and realize.

This is good, but I think there's something better, right?

It's just about choosing that path and heading down it.

Now as women of faith, very often, we lean very heavily on God's timing

and his plans for things, which is usually a good thing, right.

We to make sure that we are listening.

And, uh, being open to God's plans for things.

But sometimes it's an excuse.

Right.

we sit around thinking, well, I just haven't really felt good about anything.

I haven't really felt inspired in one way or another.

But if you find yourself saying over and over, I just don't know if it's the right

time or the right thing or the right move.

You may just be using this lack of heavenly confirmation as

an excuse to not move forward.

And I know that's some tough love, but please know that I love you.

And I'm giving you this tough love so that you can make progress on your dreams.

Stop saying you don't know what the right move is.

There is no right move.

Now for some of you, that truth may be very freeing.

You might think, yes.

Good.

Now I can go out and choose whatever I want.

But for most of you, it's probably even more terrifying thinking, well,

if there's no right thing, then how do we even know where to get started?

That's great news because it means you can get started.

Any where you choose.

Now just like there's no right way.

It also means that there is no wrong way.

I I love using the analogy of building a business as being

like a cross country road trip.

You know, your final destination, right?

You want to own a business and maybe you even know what kind of business it is,

but you have no idea how to get there.

You might not even know the vehicle you're driving yet.

You just know you're going to go roughly east or roughly west, or maybe you

don't even know what direction you're just going to get up there and build

a business in one way or another.

Right?

going to be full of scenic parts.

It's going to be full of gridlock.

And some you terms and some going the wrong direction and

some stopping for directions.

Well, I don't know.

Do you have to stop for directions when you have a GPS all the time?

I don't know.

Back in my day of.

Being a new driver was done for directions all the time.

The fact of the matter is it's not going to look how you expect, because it's just

going to be your very own unique pathway.

So just think about it as this adventure.

Going on this road trip that is going to teach you.

So much and is going to have you.

Rethinking choices all the time.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Unfortunately too many of us like to forget that instead of it being a

road trip, They think about building a business, like it being a roller coaster.

And there's a

There's a big difference between driving a car and riding a rollercoaster.

I already gave you a hint.

One is driving you're in control.

The other one is just writing, right?

Someone else is in control.

Uh, business is not something where you relinquish control and

you just go along for the ride.

I think a lot of, um, moms who have some very specific values, they want to hold

on to think, well, if I start a business,

This is going to happen, and this is going to happen.

This is going to happen.

You guys, it is not a rollercoaster that you, where you relinquished control, you

have control of every step of the way.

You can stop or restart the drive at any time.

That being said, can a business.

Get out of control, lose control a little bit and start asking of you

more than you're willing to give.

Sure, absolutely.

But then you get to choose, then you have a choice to make, do I want to

maybe at that point, you want to reevaluate because your business is

asking have too much of a time investment for you or it's too much of a risk.

For what you and your family are willing to give, but you get to decide.

Now, let me give you an example of when I was a younger mom, I had two small

children at the time, and I really, really wanted to start a clothing company.

I looked into it in a million different ways.

I thought about designing my own stuff.

I thought about doing a boutique where I would purchase things

wholesale and resell them.

And I looked into all these logistics and actually made quite a few large

steps going in that direction.

But I ended up deciding that I didn't think it was a good time

for me to invest in this business.

I wanted to give my family my full attention and I

knew we were going to have.

Have a large family and a bunch of babies running around soon.

So I chose not to pursue it at that time.

But I want you to think for a second.

What would have happened if I had gone ahead?

Now, if you don't already know my backstory, I have 10 children.

And my first six were all very young at the same time.

Right when I had my sixth child, my oldest was only seven.

Right.

Seven and a half.

So a lot of little babies that needed me.

Um, to take care of them.

I didn't have a lot of extra time to give.

If I had gone ahead with this business idea, one of two

things would have happened.

I just would've figured out the roadblocks.

I would have hired more help.

Or bootstraps and finances, right?

Because things were still tight at the, in our early years of marriage.

I would have maybe just kept things small so that I still

had time to be with my kids.

Or I would have just set it all aside when life got too crazy.

None of those choices are deal breakers.

Right?

I just gone down that path and chosen later on to set it aside or to shift

things in one way or another so that I could have spent more time with my family.

I'm saying that at that point in life, I felt like that was

the right decision for me.

But I also believe there wasn't a wrong decision.

I could have gone forward with the business and I would have made some

choices later on to make sure that I was still available for my family.

Does that make sense?

So what wouldn't have happened is I wouldn't have been this crazy out of

control business woman who just all of a sudden started neglecting her family.

How do I know that's true.

Because that's not in keeping with my values.

And as long as you're committed to staying in line with your values,

you will not become something.

That you don't want to become because you get to choose at every step of the way.

I have found that sometimes women of faith have little to

no confidence in themselves.

And their abilities in keeping what's important to them.

A top priority.

I know for a fact that having money will not make you selfish.

And building a business will not make you neglectful.

And if you have those tendencies, you might feel tempted to be a little

bit more selfish, a little bit more neglectful, but if you don't money in a

business will not change that about you.

And if it starts feeling like you're being pulled in a direction,

you don't like you get to pivot.

One of the amazing beauties of being an entrepreneur is that you get to shift your

business pivot, or even put on the brakes.

Anytime that it is not serving you.

Okay.

So let's talk for a minute about what you are most afraid of, if you

haven't yet made any progress on your entrepreneurial dreams, or if you've

made a few steps and you're just feeling kind of stuck near the beginning.

Most people in my experience get stuck on the, what.

The Y or the house.

So we're going to briefly describe each of these and how you might be getting stuck.

Why and how to move through it.

Okay.

The what meaning what am I going to build a business on hands down?

And I mentioned this in a previous episode, this is where most people get

stuck because it's before the very first step, I don't even know what I would do.

So I'm just going to sit here and think about it forever.

And never make any progress and always wonder what if, what if I had made.

forward on my business idea.

There's so much drama surrounding the what, but like

but like I mentioned before, there is no right thing.

Forward motion creates momentum.

Okay, let me say that again.

Forward motion creates momentum.

You have to take a step forward.

Even if it's in the quote unquote, wrong direction, I'm gonna stop

using right and wrong because I don't want to emphasize that.

Even if it's in a direction that you later on, don't like, I have

done this so many times you guys, people will see entrepreneurs and

think, well, it's easy for you.

It just went 1, 2, 3, and these steps just all kind of went in line.

And now you have this successful business.

No, that's not how it happens ever.

You start down one way and the next thing you know, oh, actually we need to

shift this, this isn't working so well.

Or actually, maybe we'll try it a little bit differently here.

And then five steps down the line, or a hundred steps down the line.

You look back and go.

I would've never expected.

My business will look like this, just like motherhood or life in general.

Sometimes I look around at my life and think, I can't believe that.

We have this many kids or this many animals, or we live in this place.

It's just one thing.

After another leads to the decisions you make to build the business of your dreams.

the right thing for your business is not chosen.

It is created.

You get to create that perfect business.

One step at a time.

Now it's important to remember that everything you learn along

the way to this perfect business.

We'll help you grow and expand and become a better business

owner and mom and all the things.

And that perfect business will not always be perfect, you will

build it and it will be amazing.

And then it will grow a little bit more, or it will shrink a little bit or your

life will change and you realize, Ooh, this isn't working so well anymore.

What can we change to get it back in line with how it best serves my life?

Uh, business.

I like to look at a business as more of a li living and breathing entity than just

this kind of unchangeable possession.

I just have a business and it sits there looking at me.

That's not it at all.

It is this.

Animal that lives and breathes and grows and shrinks.

And you get to decide what the next step looks like.

really easy way to do this is to set aside quarterly or even just yearly

breaks, where you stop and reflect you.

Look at your income, you look at your expenses, you look at the things

your business is doing for you.

The things it's not doing the time it's taking away.

Anything else that you need to reflect on to decide if that business is

still the, what that you want to do.

And at that point you can pivot and change anything you like.

It's also important to remember that a pivot is not a failure.

I never use the word failure in connection with my business.

Never.

People might think that this is naive, but I think that thinking of

something as a failure is a really disheartening way to think about it.

I simply think of it as an experiment.

I tried that one thing and I didn't like how it was panning out.

So I chose something else.

I mean, if you want to call it a failure.

Okay.

But that sounds kind of depressing.

I'd rather not.

I'd rather just think of it as an experiment that I tried and I chose not

to continue going down that direction.

that what you're doing is creating a business that is personalized to

you and serves you and your life.

Not the other way around, we're not building a business to run our lives.

We want the business to serve us.

So let's talk about the why behind our business.

This is something that I talk about a lot, because I think it's really

important that we have a reason behind building this business.

And it that many of us don't think about until the going gets tough.

And then we're pulling our hair out going, why did I even start this?

What am I doing?

Why is We tend to be high on excitement at the beginning.

And then all of a sudden the customers dry out or the clients don't come

and it's nothing but crickets.

And we think, well, this is harder than expected.

Now, what do I really want to keep doing this?

What's the why behind it.

So you get to choose right at the beginning.

What your, why is now first I recommend choosing the, what, what

your business is going to look like, but you can just have a rough idea.

And then choose your wife.

Now, let me just say, I personally am a big proponent of doing things

for yourself, making sure that the business you have serves you and that

you are happy and filled with joy when you're working on your business.

Even if other people disagree, however, having an unselfish reason, even if it's

just partially unselfish to build your business will keep you hanging in there

much longer than the selfish reasons.

Those reasons serve us best.

Why.

Because we are wonderful women of faith who want to serve and want to put.

Goodness into the world and make an impact.

When we do things purely for selfish reasons, it doesn't sit super

well with us, even though there's nothing wrong with doing things just

because you want to do them right.

So I personally have both selfish and unselfish reasons

for all of my businesses.

And I'll share one of them with you in a minute.

But when you, when things get hard, Continuing to work for just

extra vacation money or even to pay the bills becomes not enough.

Because building a business can be hard and there are a million other

ways to make money that are easier than building your own business.

So if it's just for the money, that might not be enough to see

you through the tough times.

Serving your target market.

So the people that you would like to serve with your business, that

tends to be a much deeper why.

Okay.

for example, when things get hard for me in my coaching business,

do you know what I think about.

I think about you.

I think about you and the struggles you are going through and the moms

who are feeling this nudge to create something, but are feeling terrified

or overwhelmed or full of insecurity.

I think.

What would I tell these women?

To them feel inspired and take steps forward on their dream.

So thanks for being my wife.

You're my wife.

That helps me so much more than thinking.

Well, I just really want to pay for a vacation for our family.

Now that's fun for sure, but it doesn't sustain him when the going gets tough.

I think to heck with the vacation, I want to shut it all down.

This is hard.

But I think about you and the people that I want to serve and

inspire to make their lives better.

That is what keeps me going.

So once you've chosen your what make sure you choose your why.

And that usually has to do with the people that you will be

serving are offering something to.

Finally, let's talk about the, how now this part you might not

like, but if you're wondering, how am I going to do all this?

Here's the answer.

You're not going to know.

It's so frustrating.

Especially if you're the type to plan, all the things and always be in control.

Like me.

This will drive you crazy.

But you're just not going to know until the time comes.

And even when the time comes, you're not going to know you're going to have

to go ahead and make choices on faith.

Okay.

gonna give you guys another example from my own business building experience.

Okay.

So one of my businesses is called novelly.

It's an online clothing boutique, and I have wanted for years to design and

manufacture my own clothing designs.

So when I first started thinking about it, I looked into lots of

different manufacturing options.

You can do it overseas.

You can do it domestically.

You can learn all the ins and outs, or you can just outsource the whole thing.

I found this one place that is very close to me.

It seemed amazing.

It had, um, educational model.

So it was actually teaching up and coming designers.

How to be designers and how to create this unique clothing product from start to end.

It looked so incredible.

I'm like the perfect opportunity.

It could teach me everything.

In fact, it even had a scholarship for the program to let in these budding designers.

And give them a leg up.

Right.

I applied to the scholarship.

I was one of the finalists and then I didn't get the scholarship

and I was devastated in my mind.

This place was the perfect fit.

And I kept thinking, why, why did this not work out?

What's going on?

This would have worked out so perfectly.

A year or two later, I kept looking and thinking and trying to make this work.

I found another place that literally seemed heaven scent

just the way it fell into my lap.

I thought, this is it.

This is it.

I'm gonna use this place to manufacturer.

And then that one didn't work out either, even though it checked all the boxes.

Again, I could have been tempted to just say, forget it.

None of these are working out.

It must not be meant to be.

But I kept looking and I kept thinking and I kept praying about it.

And finally, I did find a manufacturer and last year I used them to

create my first original product.

It's called the lady bra.

I'm so proud of it.

It was an amazing experience learning how to do that.

But the whole process was seamless and amazing.

They took over so much, so many things that I would have had to do.

gone with the other places.

It was way easier.

And it would have been had I used one of those other first few manufacturers.

what I'm trying to explain here is that you just never know

what's coming around the bend.

You just never know what options are out there.

So when one door closes, just keep going.

Don't use that as an excuse to quit.

Don't use it as an excuse to think.

Well, that was the how now what.

Maybe it was just a detour on your path to the ultimate solution for whatever

you're trying to build in your business.

Okay.

So just let go of that control.

Trust your own abilities and instincts, but mostly trust God that he is looking

out for you in your little business.

And he will lead you to the place where you want to be.

Be patient, but do not wait to take action.

One of my favorite quotes from a faith leader is the Lord loves effort.

Isn't that a great quote?

The Lord loves effort.

Just try something.

Just make a move show, God and yourself that you mean business pun intended.

I cannot wait to see you get started

In fact, if you'd like a guide to get you started, I'm so excited to

share with you guys a 30 day calendar.

I have created to guide you through every step you need to

set up your online presence as a content or service-based business.

Okay.

It's everything from creating a business plan to building a website,

to starting your email list, to creating a social media presence.

It has everything.

And even though it's a 30 day calendar, you can take as long as

you need to get all of these steps done, but it's a great place to start.

It's just $17 and I will include it in the link below.

I hope you love this episode.