Ten things I was afraid to share… until now
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For years, I’ve been too afraid to share some of the less perfect sides of my life and my business. And there were a few things that I just kinda never really talked about because of the fear of the reaction I might get.
Downside… it led me to coming across as this perfect person online 👸, which is defs not the case either!
Since I released my life updates video a coupla weeks ago, about why we really moved to London (spoiler alert - it wasn’t my love of the Crown) & a few of the spicey things about the last years in my Biz, people have been SO LOVELY about some of my BTS challenges, and that’s made me feel like I can share with ya these 10 things, which I was always too afraid to talk about in the past.
Buckle up friend - there are a few that are gonna make me squirm when I have to come clean!
Up first - I got seriously sick of talking about Squarespace for a while
There are only so many times you can talk about how to move a spacer block until you're just kind of getting bored… 😬
But the problem is when you built a business on that thing, you kind of have to keep talking about it - it’s why people are along for the ride after all! The other difficulty is when you build a personal brand you can’t even pass it off to a teamie, because people expect your face.
So there was a period of time in my business where I was very much so struggling to keep up with creating content cuz I just wanted to talk about something other than how to move a text block or the right size for an image.
This is gonna relate to one of my points later as well…
Number two, I'm afraid my business will crash and burn when I have children
Lemme start with this. I have built a business that allows for a lot of freedom and I always thought that having kids would be totally fine in relation to my Biz.
And then 2021 happened and all these things changed on the internet and it became very clear to me that had I not been there that year, my team wouldn't have had both the permission and the confidence to make major, major business change decisions without me.
And in that year of the business, major things had to change. We couldn't just keep doing things the way that they were before. it was not going to work, so I definitely have a fear around having children knowing that that would have me taken out of the business for a period of time, and also not able to focus on it as much as I do now…
For probably quite a few years…
I admittedly have not gotten through this fear, nor made a decision on children 👪, so any mothers, I’d love to hear your experiences!
The third thing, which I was afraid to tell you is that I struggle with sharing the “good life” and selling the “lifestyle”, which I'm living, which is kind of also a problem for my Biz…
Yes, people want to be website designers or have online businesses for the joy of doing the work, but they also want it a lot for the income and the lifestyle, and the freedom that that career choice gives them.
When you can demonstrate and showcase “look at my amazing life”, then that also gets other people excited about being a web designer because they buy into the lifestyle too.
So it would be very beneficial for my business if I shared more of the highlight reel, but at the same time, I also have a problem sharing it.
This business truly allows me to live my absolute dream, ⛷️🏔️🏝️ but I also feel kinda guilty sharing how freakin’ good my life is online because I know the issues with comparison that people deal with (happens to me too!). Lookin’ at people on the internet with this perfect life and this amazing lifestyle and all these things can also make you feel kinda down on yourself.
I don't want people to see me and then think, “oh, my life is so much worse” and feel terrible about themselves in comparison - we’re all on our own pathways, my friends!
But then as my mastermind friends, like to remind me again, I am running a lifestyle business. I’m (more and more as the Biz has evolved) selling a lifestyle. I’m not just selling a course - I’m selling how said course will impact your life, which then would make it very beneficial for me to share more of the highlight reel...
So one of the things that I wanna focus on in the next year is getting over this fear and truly doing the thing, which would be the best for the people and the business.
Item number four, this one's probably the one I'm the most afraid to share …breathe Paige! …I didn't create any of my own content for almost two years! 🤯
Let me explain how this happened and how we got here and where we are now! So a coupla years ago, Squarespace released a new version (That ol’ friend 7.1!), & it landed just a few weeks before we were launching Square Secrets (image the heart palpitations when that news dropped!!)
So clearly I couldn't run the launch without having the course updated.
So that left me two weeks to completely remake the entire course. (Which I got done - Kudos to me!), but obvs that meant that literally everything else on my to-do list was put on the back burner… I was like “don’t even talk to me” shut in a room recording like a crazy lady!
But given that by this point I’d been blogging consistently for a solid few years, I did not feel good about just not putting out posts for a fortnight (and let’s be real a week or so after the launch too when I needed to collapse in a heap!) And so I asked one of my team members…
“I was like, Hey, I need help 🙋♀️ ! Here are my ideas for content, which are supposed to be going out over the next coupla weeks. Could you try to put together a blog post and sound like me?”
And she absolutely NAILED IT! 💥
So then I was like, perfect… and a cunning plan started coming together…
Coming back to point number one, I was kind of getting sick about writing again, another blog post on how to blah blah blah on Squarespace, and so I decided we'll just change this up!
My team member took over content creation, and I took over doing everything else in the business, and that continued for quite a while…
In fact, it happened for preettyy much two years straight that someone else was the lead on the content!
Even when this YouTube channel started, I would get written scripts.
I would sit in front of the camera. I would read said script, but I hadn’t written it myself!
I think the challenge with this is that when you are a personal brand business, which I've now learned many lessons about, and I would not create a personal brand business again, everything has to come from you or that's the expectation, but at some point when your business grows, that becomes a really impossible expectation and there's a level of guilt, which went along with the fact that I wasn't creating my own stuff for quite a.
Now the other problem was that I genuinely love and enjoy content creation.
And so eventually when that team member had their plate filled up with other things, and then we managed to streamline some of the things that I was managing in the business, I finally got back to being able to be the one to create the content !
And that has felt like truly, again, such a joy to me, but also a joy to me because I'm talking not just about how to x, y, z on Squarespace - I still love the platform and creating content about it, but I just don't love having to create content around that, and that only, twice a week every week… having some variety (and having taken a break) has made me more creative and my content better in the long run!
Number five, my primary goal at the beginning of my business was not to change the world, it was to pay my rent 💵
I feel guilty about this because so many people talk about starting their business to change the world… they have a big vision and they’re out there to make an impact!
But… to be honest, my first thought process when I started my business was like, I need to pay rent abroad. How do I figure out doing that? so I always had this feeling of like, oh, I don't have a real “why” in my business. I don't have a real “purpose” in my business because it's not for the greater good.
So up until now, it’s been something that I’ve been too afraid to share coz I felt kinda selfish and bad about it.
Now though, that I've worked with quite a lot of students, I can tell you that I feel less guilty about it because I think that's actually the case for like 99% of the people who I work with! Their business starts from wanting to make a change in their life, like “I really hate my boss”, or “I really wanna be able to work from home” or “I really wanna pay my rent, make more money, have a side hustle… insert here!” so now with a bit of a different perspective, I think the change the world business ideas might be a bit more unusual!
Also… over time my why has become clear, and I know my Biz has genuinely empowered many women and changed many lives, which feels amazing, but truth talk, at the beginning I just needed the pay the bills!
Number Six. Not everything which I've launched in my business has turned to gold. I have also had programs flop.
I previously launched a program, which I realized once I launched it, no-one was ready for, and people in my audience just weren't at the stage of their business to be able to do and implement and make use of this program, which I wanted to offer. Whomp whomp…
But if you’re not winnin’ you’re learnin’ and made me realize two super useful things!
One - the importance of doing your market research before you go to launch something
Two - if you want to launch something with your audience isn’t ready for yet, it just means that you need to take time creating the content and building the audience that is!
It's not like those people don't exist, it's just they're not in your audience yet. And maybe before you go ahead and create whatever that thing is, it would be beneficial to build that audience beforehand.
Thing, I'm afraid to say Number Seven, we left Germany ✈️ because I had had it with the country.
I went into a full explanation of this, in the “Why we moved to London video”. But basically, in summary, I really didn't love living there and I really, really wanted to move for quite a while before we actually got around to picking up and moving to England.
I was always afraid to say that because I have people from Germany in my audience (I love ya, all the same, it’s just living there wasn’t for me!) and my own friends and family and I didn’t want to offend anyone… but it is the truth, so there, that’s said!
Number Eight. Last year was the hardest and most stressful year of my business EVER.
I was doing tasks in my business that I have no business doing, things that are just not my zone of genius, things which I'm genuinely awful at. I am totally okay to admit when something is not something that I'm good at, managing people, being one of ‘em!
I felt overwhelmed by how big of a team I had. I also felt more alone than ever when I was solving problems 😭. These issues came up in different people's roles and I suddenly had to go in to try to find the solution to them because they were problems that had no clear solution, and so, therefore, sometimes the person who runs the business has to just go in there and make a call.
There's a reason I did not write an annual recap of last year when I've written one for every past year of my business, and that's because by the end of the year I didn't wanna think about the year anymore...
I just wanted to like move forward and have a better year this year, which thankfully did happen.
We changed up a lot of the roles in my business. We also changed the number of hours that people were working as well. We were finding before that we had someone doing five hours here and 10 hours there and having some many people doing bits n bobs, just led to confusion and inefficiency which just totally killed the joy.
Luckily the business still functioned pretty well and from the outside, everything looked rosy, but the amount of coordination and backend of managing people and team and coordination was just … urgh.
Praise be to 2022 for having been TOTALLY different - and here’s to 2023 which I’ve set up soooo differently knowing what I know now!
Number Nine. I’ve made millions, and yet I still have money mindset issues.
When people talk about money mindset, it seems like they’re sayin’, you hit this limit, maybe six figures or something, and you cannot surpass that unless you fix your money mindset problems… sorry to all the money mindset people, but I found that it is not the case.
Believe me, I've gone on to make millions in sales 💰💰💰💰 and I still have money mindset problems. A common theme is summin’ like thinking “eek - I could never charge that much money” and then realizing I have to solve that money mindset problem before I can move on to the next level.
But I don't think it's as hard of a stop as most people think it is.
You can actually make million even if you have money mindset problems that you need to work through… and I am proof!
And Number 10. Money has created some strangeness in some relationships in my life.
Before I go into this one, I should say, most people I know are just thrilled about my success and are cheerleading me on. They see what I've done as proving what is possible, and it inspires them!
But other people have decided to make it a bit of an issue.
It’s made them feel like they're behind or that they're “less than”, and for some people apparently becomes “a problem”.
They’ll make comments to actually bring me back down, which is highly unenjoyable. And really … just … sad.
This specifically was something that I was afraid to tell you because I know that a lot of you also have a fear. A fear of success, of doing well, and of what will be different in your life when that happens.
And the truth is there are a few knock-on effects of that success that are not 100% pleasant.
My experience has been that there are a select few people who are just not thrilled for you and who make things feel weird, but I think of course that says a lot more about them than it does about you.
The experience I’ve had with this has definitely been one of the reasons why I'm a little more reserved than most at sharing successes online or posting my amazing life on Instagram.
But I also know that…
One - it's definitely holding my business back
And Two - it's definitely not serving you. And the 99.9% of people who are absolutely thrilled and excited and see me having success as just an example of what is possible for them.
So anyways, that's something I'm still working through… always a work in progress hey?!
So friend, that is it!
Those were the 10 things I was afraid to share with you…it feels good to get ‘em off my chest!
And if you want more real honesty in the video and life updates on what's been going on for us, more so in our personal life, with the whole move and everything and why that happened, definitely check out this video next! 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
