CARLY MEYERS: I'm 38 years old and if I could write a letter to my younger self, this is exactly what I'd say. So here's 24 harsh truths about entrepreneurship. Some of them are absolutely brutal, but they're going to save you years. So I've been an entrepreneur now for 12 years and I've coached hundreds of other people through the process that I'm going to talk you through today. I've spoken on stages with the likes of Jesse Itzler, Neil Patel. I've been a performer for years and I've learned things. that other entrepreneurs haven't been through. I've learned bits about discipline, rejection, moving through your comfort zone, which is a really unique angle. And that's what I want to share with you today. So one of the biggest lessons that I had to learn was being busy is not the same as making money. And if you are busy but you are always broke, then you are probably avoiding something bigger. Now I used to pride myself on being the busiest person in the room. I used to wear that badge like a badge of honor. My busy badge was my proudest thing. And whenever someone would come up to me they would say, how are doing? And I'd be like, I'm so busy. I'm just so busy. And I really felt pride in saying that. But what I actually realized was I was busy doing the wrong stuff and it's likely that you are too. If you are busy doing all the fun stuff like creating camo graphics and updating your website and doing all the things that feel good in that moment, I guarantee you are avoiding something bigger. And I know that you know what that thing is because every time you go to an event or you watch a YouTube video, if you hear someone say that thing and you get a moment in your gut and you think, ⁓ God, I know I need to do that thing. I've heard it again and again and again. So instead of asking yourself, what more can I do? Ask yourself, what have I been avoiding? You've probably been avoiding getting on camera. Maybe you've been avoiding looking at your finances. This was a big thing for me. I hated looking at my finances. So what I want you to do is I want you to sit down, write down the three things that scare you the most. When you hear people talk about it and they say, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, I want you to write those things down and circle the one that makes you feel most uncomfortable. and I want to challenge you to do something today, right now. I want you to get off this video and do it right now, which is gonna bring you closer to doing that exact thing that you've been avoiding. The next one is that you don't need a new idea, you need better execution. I am someone that always has ideas coming to me. My brain's going a million miles an hour and I could switch all the time. In the first few years of my business, I was constantly pivoting. But the truth of it is, if you just half-ass everything that you're doing and you give it a little go, see how you feel, but then when it gets uncomfortable, you just change and you pivot, you're never gonna get anything off the ground. So you need to have an idea and you need to commit to executing that thing. You need to go all the way with that thing to really understand whether this is right, whether it's gonna work or whether it's not. If you just half-ass everything, then you're gonna just be stood there with all these ideas that you just started and nothing will kill your self-belief more than a million things that you've started and not finished. So. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, but instead of trying new ideas all the time, if you really think that something isn't working, repackage it, don't recreate it. You can package the same business, the same offer in a completely different way, which will speak to a completely different ideal client, and you can price it completely differently. So get comfortable with wrapping things up differently, but sticking with that same idea. If you imagine that this is like you've got airplanes on a runway, and you are gonna give all the fuel to one airplane, that airplane needs all the fuel in order to get off the ground. If you keep chopping and changing and trying and dabbling a load of stuff, you are splitting a fuel tank between five different planes. None of those planes are going to get off the ground if you were just putting half of your fuel in all of them. So commit to executing. If you have an idea, decide that you're going to go all the way to fully decide whether this is going to work or not. So one of the hardest things when you're starting out is that you're to have a million ideas. And especially if you are someone who consumes a lot of YouTube content, you're going to hear someone over here saying they made a million pounds doing this strategy. Someone over here saying they did a million pounds doing this strategy and you're going to chop and change and think, ⁓ okay, well, that's the way to make it. The most important thing to think is how do I want to make that money and what business models or what opportunities match my skills and match who I am. Everything works. Everything can make you a million pounds if you really want to go for it if you're really going to execute it. But you have to ask yourself, what is it that suits me? What matches my skillset, my passion, the thing that I'm passionate about? Because if you are not passionate about this and you're only doing it because matey boy on the YouTube said that he made a loan of money from it, you're not going to go all the way with it. So first of all, this has to connect with you and has to be something that you are passionate about. but also just trust that anything that you go all the way with will be successful if you commit to it long enough. So don't get distracted by all these shiny objects around you. So the next one is that everything you say yes to means you have to say no to something else. So again, if you dilute your attention and you dilute your focus, you are then pulling away from that main thing that you're going to be driving in order to build your business. But as a people pleaser myself, I found myself in the early days saying yes to everything. Not only yes to all the opportunities that I could see, but also yes to everything that people wanted from me. So we all have demands in our lives. We have parents, we have partners, we have kids, we have grandparents, we have jobs, whatever it is. And everyone is going to want something from you. And if you say yes to those things because you are a people pleaser you don't want let them down, you don't want to disappoint people, you are saying no to something that is more important to you. So this actually leads me on to my next one which is that no is a full sentence. I used to over explain myself so much. So for a long time I said yes to everything. Everyone's priorities would come above mine and I would always say yes. And then finally I got to the point where I realized I need to start saying no to people and prioritizing myself and my goals and my dreams. That is really hard to do when you got in the pattern of always saying yes. So what I found myself doing was when I started to say no, I would then over explain it. So I would say, no, I can't do that thing because basically because, you know, I need to do this thing and someone's going to come here and you know, it's really important to me. And I would just go on this thing and I would talk myself out of this and the whole experience of saying no felt so uncomfortable. not only for me, but for them as well. And the best piece of advice I ever got is that no is a full sentence. When someone says to you, can you do this for me? If you just say no, I can't. And then you wait. And then there's a little bit of silence. But you don't say anything else. It is the most important thing. It is so uncomfortable at first, but it's such a powerful thing. When you start to say no, you are saying to people that I have a strict boundary. These are my boundaries. And what will happen is if you don't do that, people will push, people will push, people will push. And suddenly your boundaries are gonna get completely non-existent. So you have to think of this like children. If my kids come to me and they say they wanna pack a Haribo before bed, I'm gonna say no. I'm not gonna say no because it's gonna rot your teeth and blah, blah. That is a firm no for me. So you kinda wanna think of this in the same way and no is a false sentence. You are well within your rights to just say that and then shut up. The next one is that the most successful people that you see online that you admire have the exact same fears and doubts and insecurities that you do. This held me back for a long time. I always thought I can't be a public speaker because I've got a fear of public speaking. I thought I can't go on camera because every time I went on there, I would just break out in a sweat and I'd get all weird and say weird stuff. And I thought I'm never going to get there. And I used to look at these people online and think, well, it's fine for you. You're so confident on camera. You can do all of these things. But here's something I want to let you in on. I'm a massive introvert. I really don't like being around a lot of people. Getting on camera like this is not something that I find comfortable. But I realized when I started actually meeting these successful people that I'd looked up to and I admired and I spent some time with them, I realized that nine times out of 10, they are more insecure than I am. And actually that never goes away. And so learning to get comfortable with that feeling and moving anyway is the thing that's going to move you forward. Don't ever wait until the insecurity goes. you don't have that fear anymore. It just feels comfortable because you're gonna be waiting forever. That will never go and actually the more successful you become, sometimes the fear gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So don't think that anyone that you're watching online has anything that you don't have. All they have is the ability to do it anyway. Which leads me onto this, which is your weird quirks are your superpower. When I was younger, I used to think I was so weird. I really wanted to fit in with everyone else, but I was just a bit strange. I'd say some things that were inappropriate that I shouldn't have said. I had weird ways about me and I was always trying to change myself to fit in. And I found that when I first got into the world of entrepreneurship and I started learning from all these gurus online, I was trying to become a carbon copy of them. I would try and be exactly like them and speak like them. And I look back at some videos now and I'm like, why have you got an Australian accent? It's because I was watching Daniel Priestley and I was thinking, what is this accent you developed? But you need to understand that your weird quirks now, who you are, that special thing about you that no one else has is the reason why someone is gonna be so captivated to you. It's also the reason why some people are not gonna like you at all. That is a hard reality of it. Some people are gonna look at your content and look at what you're putting out and they're gonna think, she is not for me at all. There are many people who are very irritated by me and do not like my content, but there are some people that watch my content now and they're like, She is so me. I got a comment the other day from someone saying, Carly, I am totally drinking your Kool-Aid. You are exactly what I'm looking for. So there is someone out there right now that is looking for content and looking for someone to say what they've been needing to hear in a way that only you can say it. And you can only do that by being comfortable with who you are and being like, do you know what? I'm weird, I'm quirky. This is exactly who I am. And I know that I'm going to attract the right people by doing that. So don't hide yourself. Don't start playing small. Don't shrink yourself. to try and be a carbon copy of all the other people around you because that weird thing about you is the exact thing that's gonna catapult you to where you wanna get to. Which leads me onto this. Confidence comes from action, not thinking. There is nothing more powerful than doing the thing that you need to do in order to give you the confidence to do that thing. For ages I would just sit and I would think about what I need to do and how's this gonna go and I would just try and overthink it. But the most powerful thing you can do is actually just take action, any action. Whenever there is something that you need to do, whether it's getting on a video, whether it's speaking to someone, whether it's going up and having a conversation with someone that really makes you nervous, take an action. Take that first step. Set up the camera. For me, I hated getting on video and so I would book a studio. I booked a podcast studio because I knew that there was no friction there. I had to show up because I paid for it. So do something that is an action step towards that thing you need to do and you will be so surprised with how... you get the confidence to do it. Because once you've done something, you've done it. That's something you've ticked off and you can keep moving on. And gradually your skillset and your growth starts to expand because you're doing the thing and you're not just thinking about doing the thing. So the most important thing is to just take action, just move. Don't overthink it and just take that first step. Don't try and take what the big step is, the first step towards that thing. Which leads me onto my next one, which is messy action is better than no action at all. This has probably been the single thing that has created the success in my life. Once I learn how to take messy action, when I didn't know everything, when I didn't know what the next step looked like, when I didn't know all the answers to everything that I needed to do, that's the thing that's helped me move faster because I learned how to fail fast. Now, if I have an idea of something, I have done that thing and I probably failed five times before someone has even got out of the gate. And that learning and that failure is what has enabled me to then make a success of whatever it is that I'm trying to do. So I did this with my first SaaS company. I first came across GoHi Level, I learned about their SaaS program, and I thought this is something that I wanted to do. And instead of waiting until I knew everything about the platform and I'd researched and read all the books on building a SaaS, I decided to put out a wait list and set a launch date. I knew nothing about this platform, but I knew that I wanted to move. And so A, the first thing that I did was I took that inspired action and I made myself accountable to a goal. But secondly, I just took messy action. I did so much wrong. There were people that joined the SAS that had no idea what they were doing. I didn't onboard them properly. I had no idea how to actually move these people through a process and how to set them up. But guess what? Two weeks later, those people were being onboarded. They had a great experience and they were leaving me reviews. That's because in that two weeks, I had people moving through and I knew the process and I knew what I needed to do in able to support them. If I had have sat and done a whole notion board and written out all the points of how to onboard the best person, blah, blah, blah, it never would have worked. So messy action is honestly so powerful. Don't wait until you know anything, just move and your confidence and skills and knowledge will come as a result of that. So one of the biggest things that I had to overcome was shifting my identity. I now run a SaaS company. I'm about to launch another SaaS company. I now audit businesses and consult with businesses that are doing one to five million. And I'm sitting in boardrooms full of men and advising them on how to run their business. Now, as a backstory, if you don't know my story, I started out as a professional dancer doing musical theater. I cannot tell you the imposter syndrome that I had to go through in order to get from being a dancer, kicking my leg and dancing around a West End stage. to sitting in that boardroom and speaking to men and advising them on how to build their multi-million pound business. That has been a huge shift. So if you are looking at anything that I'm telling you today and thinking, yeah, but I can't do that. I'm not that type of person that does that. You will reinvent yourself so many times before you get to the point that you are actually running a SaaS company or running whatever it is that you want to do. You don't go from this point to this point with no growth in between. It's not quick jump over. And so what you need to get comfortable with is reinventing yourself. and shifting your identity every time and thinking, I'm not that person today, but this is the person that I need to be and these are the steps I need to take in order to get to that point. So the harshest thing about shifting your identity and becoming who you need to be is that you are gonna piss off a lot of people along the way. There are gonna be people around you that loved that small version of you. They loved when you grew up together and you talked about the things that you did together and you'd moan about the weather, you'd moan about not having any money, you'd moan about life together. There's a real comfort in that. And suddenly when you break out of that and you are looking for a bigger life, you shine a light on them and the fact that they're not making those moves. And that can be really uncomfortable and it can actually create a lot of resentment from them to you. It is a really tough process to go through. But what you have to understand is that, yes, you may be pissing off these people around you, but that's their choice not to move with you. You can't be held back by these people that don't have the discipline and the focus and the passion to grow themselves and be the best version of themselves. So you're going to piss people off around you. But you know what's even more disappointing? Pissing off yourself and disappointing yourself, but disappointing the people that mean the most to you. I know that by not becoming the version that I need to be in order to create the life that I want for me and my family, my kids will look at me and one day think, she didn't do anything, she stayed the same, she didn't become who she was meant to be or she was held back by fear, she was, she didn't do things that scared her or they're gonna look at me and they're gonna say my mum did anything, she was so fear, she broke through barriers, she did so much stuff that she was scared of and because of that I'm gonna be the exact same. So everything that you do is teaching a lesson to those people around you and if you have kids they are watching everything and you need to be an example to them. Now this is a big one that's helped me a lot. Life and business goes in seasons and you just have to roll with it. There are going to be times in your life where it feels like everything is crumbling. It feels like your life is stressful, the kids are stressed, your work is stressful and everything is just crumbling around you and life feels heavy. Your business feels heavy. It feels like nothing's working and you're just pushing a boulder upstream. But three months after that, it's going to feel like you're flying. And if you look at your year from last year, there will be moments where you felt like nothing was working, and there'll be moments where you felt like you were totally in flow and everything is coming to you. So if you are in a moment where it feels like everything is tough, don't make any reactive decisions in this moment. Don't do anything crazy and decide, I'm gonna give up my business, I'm not gonna do this anymore. Just trust that you are in a tough season right now, and then probably two months, three months later, you're gonna be in a season where things feel good again. So for example, if you're in one of these moments where it feels like everything is chaotic and everything is kind of feels really, really heavy, remind yourself of a time that you've gone through this before and then remind yourself of what happened after that. So it's likely that six months ago, a year ago, you were in a very similar position. You felt low, felt maybe you felt depressed, maybe you felt like things weren't going your way. And I want you to look at what happened two, three, four, five months after that. What period of time happened after that? Because if you can go back and look at the evidence and the patterns of your life, It's going to give you the confidence to know, I see what's going to happen here. I trust the process and I see that we're about to move into lighter times. So don't ignore the past. There's some things that you probably want to let go of and there's some things that you probably just want to think, ⁓ I'm going to close the door on that year. That was a rough year, but don't do that. You've lived through that for a reason and you've got experiences and lessons from that. Don't let those tough experiences not empower you in your future and don't let them be just a wasted experience. Go back, analyze the patterns, have a look at what happened over that year and remind yourself of what happened back then. Remind yourself of that crazy time in your life and what came out as a result of it. What did you learn? How did that enable you to grow? How did that shape you to be the person that you are now? Because there are so many lessons in the period of time that you're in right now and I guarantee you are going to look back on this moment right now and you're going to think, I'm so grateful that that happened. So the next lesson that I had to learn is that your instinct is eventually going to become much more powerful and smarter than any guru that you can see online. There is going to be a point where you are consuming so much content and you are watching loads of people, you're taking courses, you're joining masterminds and you are just consuming, consuming, consuming. There comes a point where you know everything you need to do. You just need to start trusting your instinct and allowing your instinct to then guide you. You become your own mentor. If you are always relying on someone else to tell you what to do and what decision to make and what's right or wrong for you, you are completely missing the point. The real skill is learning how to tune in to yourself and trust your gut. Now, this sounds much easier said than done. Many people will say, just trust your gut, just go with it. But a lot of the time you're thinking, I don't know what my gut is saying, I don't understand it. But what you can do is you can start to test it. One of the most powerful things you can do, by the way, is actually ask yourself the right questions. A lot of the time you have all the answers that you need inside you, you're just not asking yourself the right questions. So if ever you're feeling torn and you feel like you need someone else to make the decision for you, just sit with yourself. have a little bit of quiet and ask yourself, what do I think about this? If I was to do this, what would happen? And ask yourself these questions internally. And then, and then whatever comes up, whatever you think is your instinct, just test it. So when I was first trying to do this, obviously it's really hard to just tune into yourself. I'm not very woo woo, so I'm not very good at that. But what I actually did was I started journaling. So I would open up a book and I would just start writing. That writing makes no sense to anyone else and really no one is gonna read it. It's important to remind yourself that no one is going to read your journal, so just write, get stuff out, ask yourself these questions. These questions will naturally come up anyway when you're in that kind of introspective ⁓ state, but start journaling and see what comes up. If you can get into the practice of doing this, you're going to start to hear... your thoughts. A lot of the time what comes out in your journal is your subconscious thoughts, not always at the forefront of what you're thinking. So start journaling, have a look through those and just see what comes up. That's a really good practice and again it's going to start to really strengthen that muscle of your instinct but also tuning into what your subconscious is saying. Which leads me onto one which was actually really hard to hear but it's super powerful. If you have people around you right now who are not supporting you and they don't believe in your vision, ask yourself, have I really shown them why they should believe in me? In my first business, I was full of all the talk. I would tell everyone, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna make all this money, I'm gonna get this car, and I was all talk. But none of my actions matched up to any of that talk. And I was finding that the people around me would start rolling their eyes when I would talk about it. And they'd be like, mm-hmm, yeah. And they didn't believe in me. And when I said I wanted to invest in this thing or do something else, they would say, mm, I don't know if it's gonna be right for you. And I got a lot of doubt from people. The reason was that I didn't show them. Why should they believe in me? When I said I was going to do something in my business, when I said I was gonna start showing up on camera, and I didn't do it, why would they start believing in me? So sometimes the reason that people aren't believing in you is not because they're our souls, it's because you're actually just not showing them why they should. So ask yourself and really check in with yourself, is the action that I'm taking today proving to them why they should believe in me, why they should go on this journey with me and why they should put their trust and their faith in this process that I'm going on. So a lot of the time it's not actually that they don't believe in you, it's because you're not proving to them why they should. The next one is that motivation is fueled by recognition. Now I don't mean recognition from other people. If you are only motivated when you get recognition from people around you, when people are telling you that you're amazing, you are really going to struggle in this game. There was a time in Covid where obviously we were all locked down and I wasn't speaking on stages anymore and I wasn't doing these live events and I didn't have people around me telling me how amazing I was and kind of fangirling around me. And I realized that that actually had a big impact on my self-belief and my self-worth. If I wasn't getting this validation from other people, I really noticed that in myself. So I learned that I need to be the one that recognizes myself. And what I had done for such a long time is that I would set these big audacious goals and I would only celebrate once I got to that point. Now these would be two, three years away and when I actually finally reached that point of achieving it, I would do this celebration for like a day and then the next day I was on to the next thing and I was wondering why am I struggling with motivation like this feels so hard. So what I decided to do was instead of waiting for other people to show me recognition and to validate me, I started showing myself recognition for the tiny little things that I was doing and I did this through a celebration anchor. So for me, ⁓ When I did something that was good, so for example, if I said that I was gonna put four videos out and I did, or if I said I was gonna speak to this person, or if I said I was gonna sign this client, I decided to have a celebration anchor where I would go and sit in the hot tub with a glass of wine, and that was a moment of recognition for me that I was celebrating. It wasn't this big song and dance, but I was just celebrating myself and recognizing that I had done something and I'd achieved something. So think of what you can do to show recognition for these small things that you're doing all the time. Don't underestimate how much you should celebrate that first video that you put out or that first client that you sign or that first 10k that you make. These are big things and don't just wait until you're earning 100k and you've got 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. you start celebrating. So break down your goals into these tiny micro achievements and make sure that you celebrate every single one at every point with this celebration anchor. Now what is a celebration anchor? So essentially a celebration anchor is a habit that you start to get into where your body, your nervous system and your kind of body makeup starts to recognize that you've had a great day, you've achieved something good and this is how you choose to celebrate it. Now one of the hardest lessons that I've had to learn is that rest is more important than pushing through. Again I used to pride myself on being this in hustle mode. I was the busiest person, the hardest worker, I would, if I was literally dead on the floor at the end of the day with blood on my table, I'd be like, okay, good. I've earned, I've earned my rest. Rest should not be earned. This is not something that you only get once you have completely given everything. Rest is one of the most powerful things you can do in order to actually grow and move yourself forward. So you may think that rest is for lazy people. I have such an aversion to the word lazy. If anyone, it's the worst thing anyone could ever call me. If they say that I'm lazy, sometimes My husband will say it just to really piss me off and he knows that he's really hit a nerve with me. So the word lazy I find so uncomfortable and I always associated rest with being lazy. But rest is recovery. You know, if you are a sportsman, you need rest in order to repair your muscles and in order to go again. You would never expect a sportsman, an Olympic athlete to run a marathon and then just keep going and keep going and keep going. That's crazy. And without that rest... you are not going to be able to go again and you are eventually going to burn out. I have reached burnout more times than I'm proud of. One of the times which was the biggest wake up call for me was I went away on holiday for two weeks with my family. hadn't had a two week holiday with them for ages because I was far too busy for a two week holiday and I burnt out. And what that burnout looked like was 10 days in bed while my kids were off playing on the beach and they were out with their dad and they were having an amazing holiday without me. My body completely shut down because I hadn't chosen to rest leading up to that point. So don't think of rest as being lazy, think of rest as being refueling and you are not able to go to the levels that you want to get to without that rest. So you may be a little bit skeptical about this whole rest idea. Maybe you've been watching loads of Alex or Mosie videos and you are fully subscribed to that hustle culture. I totally get that. I've absolutely been there. And maybe you're thinking I'm just not going to get to where I want to get to if I rest. Rest is for losers. But I want to introduce you to the ideal day. Most of us will set our goals and we will design the ideal life. You have a big pinch and me it was moving to Ibiza, it was having this amazing car, it was this real fancy lifestyle. And so I was always building my business with this massive vision and this massive goal in my mind. But it's really hard to have that big goal in your mind and rest and sit there and think that you're not doing anything towards it. But what I want to help you do is actually bring that way back and focus on what does your ideal day look like? Not your ideal life, what does your ideal day look like? So if you already had all of those things that are on your I I realized I'd wake up in the morning, I would go and I would have a really nice healthy breakfast, I would go to the gym, spend two hours in the gym, have a nice sauna, spa, everything like that and then I would come back, I would still do my work, it would be nice and chilled, I'd be working on stuff that I really wanted to do, pick up my kids and do these things. I realized that my dream day was much simpler than what I was making out. So instead of trying to build towards my dream life, I decided to say how can I start to structure my day that prioritizes all those things that I've just listed out and that will completely change the game for you. The biggest thing that woke me up to this was remember that holiday that I told you about that two week holiday when I was on that holiday and I burn out and I realized that I can't do this anymore I realized that This was nothing that I wanted. None of it. The way I spent my day, the anxiety that I had at night time when I knew that I had to get up and I had a to-do list as long as my arm. I didn't want any of that. I didn't want to go away on holiday and not be able to turn my phone off. I don't want people contacting me all the time. So that was the biggest wake up call for me. And I actually came back from that holiday and I shut the agency down that I was working on at that time. We were earning more money at that time than I had ever earned. And we were closer than I had ever been to that big dream life of living in Ibiza and doing all of that. And I realized I didn't want any of it. So by bringing it back and focusing on what your idle day looks like you can start to make these changes. Okay, so these final two points, these are ones where I got a big slap in the face. when I realised these, was such a wake up call to myself, they called me out of all the bullshit that I've been saying up until that point and they were really hard to uncover. But this is exactly what I want to share them with you because I do not want you to go through years of your business without learning these two things. The first one is that your calendar will reveal your priorities, not your goals. For years, I would say to people, I'm doing this for my family, I'm doing this for my kids, I just want to be an example to my kids and everything I do is for them. No, when I looked at my calendar, nothing was for them. I decided as a colour code my calendar and do all the bits that were family life in yellow, fun stuff in pink, friends in blue and work was in red. My entire calendar was red. You cannot say when you look at that calendar that you are doing it for your family or your friends or your life or your health if none of those colours are in there and it was so... hard to realize that everything that I was doing was not for my family. And actually this was just a really nice Pinterest quote that I've been telling to everyone, but actually I wasn't living it. So in exactly the same way that I said to you before about curating that day, first of all, look at your calendar and see where your priorities lie because it is going to tell you exactly where they are. If you're saying that you are passionate about health, but there is no gym workouts in there. If you look at your online banking account and you're talking about how health is so important to you, but there's three trips to the McDonald's drive-through. Hello. So that is a wake up call that is not one of your priorities. So have a look at your calendar. First of all, see what is going on and then color code the things that are most important to you. It might be health, it might be family, it might be friends, it might be your parents, it might be work, whatever it is, get those color coded and get those in your calendar. And I don't subscribe to the whole balanced life thing. I don't think when a life and a business is balanced, it means that it's balanced equally. I'm not saying that it should be a complete equal rainbow in there, but all of those colors have to be in there at some point in some capacity. And if you are really doing this for your family, but you are neglecting them and you are not spending any quality time with them, you're not doing it for your family. Now that may have been a bit of a wake up call for you. That may be a little bit hard to hear, but if you don't get your priorities right now, It does not matter how much money you have, how big your business is, how many clients you have, how many team members you have, it all becomes completely irrelevant because you are going to get there and you're going to realize you've lost your family, you've lost all the things that are most important to you, you're fat, you're overweight, you're unhealthy and you're sick and you are not going to like the person that you are when you get there. So get your priorities in check now and you can do that by sorting out your calendar and making sure that all of those colors are in there. And lastly, This is probably the thing that is completely shaped the person that I am today and is the reason why the person who I was back when I was a dancer is completely different to the person I am today and the reason why I'm so I'm of the person I am today because they are miles apart. Self-worth and self-belief comes from keeping promises that you make to yourself. I told you that I was a dancer and when I got injured, I didn't know what to do with myself. I only knew myself as a dancer and I stopped dancing and I actually started to put on loads of weight and I was eating really bad. I wasn't working out anymore and I got to the point where I would look in the mirror and I think, I don't even recognize who I am anymore. And gradually I just started to talk really bad to myself. I'd look in the mirror and I'd say, look at the state of you. You look such a mess. decide in that moment Monday's gonna come around and I'm gonna sort myself out. I'm gonna start going to the gym. I'm gonna start getting healthy. This is it. Monday would come around. I'd have a really good day on Monday. But then by Wednesday, I'd sacked it all up again and I was doing back to my old ways. And what happens is that when you make these big bold statements, say I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna make 10k a month. I'm gonna build my business. I'm gonna be speaking on that stage. Your brain will go back and search through the archives of evidence in your head and it will say, you said you were gonna do that thing back then, but you didn't do it. So I don't believe you. You're not to do this. You said you're gonna lose that weight but you didn't do it. You're silly in a cheese fondue on a Wednesday so you're not gonna do it. And you start to gradually teach yourself that you don't stick to anything you say you're gonna do. And the only way to break out of this is to take action. I had this exact moment. My friends got so pissed off with me every time I was saying I'm gonna do it, it's Monday, I'm gonna get on it. And they would ask me a few days later and they say how are you getting on with it? And I'd be like nah, I've psyched it off. And then eventually I started saying this. That's just what I do though. I start things and I don't finish them. and I created an identity for myself in that moment. I became the type of person who starts things and doesn't finish them. So every time I said I was gonna do something, my brain went back and looked through the evidence and it said no, Carly starts things and she doesn't finish them. So I realized the only way to break out of this is to start saying I'm gonna do something and actually fucking doing it. It is so... easy when you think about it and it's so simple but you have to do the thing you say you're gonna do. So for me, being an all or nothing type of person, I decided that I would enroll in a bikini bodybuilding competition. I decided the only way to break out of this was to do some big bold action. I enrolled in this bikini competition. I trained for nine months. I worked out twice a day for nine months. All I ate was chicken and rice and peas and it was so dry and so boring but eventually I got to the point where I stepped on stage. I competed in that competition. I came second, I earned my pro card and the most powerful thing that happened in that moment was that I taught myself that I can do anything that I can set my mind to. So every time you break that promise to yourself, recognize that you are chipping away at your own self-belief. If you don't believe in yourself right now, it's because of your actions. It's not because of what someone said to you before, it's not because of what blah blah blah thinks about you, it's not because of the way that you are raised, it's because your behavior right now and your actions and habits are dictating how you feel about yourself and only you You can rebuild that and raise you up to where you need to be. Okay, so I've given you a lot to think about there and I know that some of these are really harsh but I don't want this to be a wasted video. So what I want you to do now is, in the link in my description, I've put an entire list of these. Go into the link and download it and I want you to highlight the one that you know you are at most risk of making. And I want you to highlight the one that gave you the most discomfort. The one that made you think, ⁓ god, that was harsh to hear because that's the exact one that you need to take action on first. So highlight that one, think about how you can change your behavior, your habits, and let's get to work on that one first. So if you struggle with the emotional side of what we've just spoken about, you are going to absolutely love my other video. I go through the entire comfort curve and how to break through your comfort zone and actually get to a point where you are chasing those uncomfortable situations. So if fear and being stuck in your comfort zone is something that you know is holding you back, definitely check out that video because it's exactly what you need.