#266: 6 Lessons Learned Growing a Business

6 Lessons Learned Growing a Business

Hello, how are you doing today? I am coming to you fresh off of guest hosting my coaches Mastermind call where I shared what I'm gonna share with you today. This episode is a bit more advanced when it comes to goal achievement, and this is the context I want you to be aware of for this episode.

We're gonna be talking about growing your practice, whether you are a solopreneur, you own a larger practice, or you're growing your book of business, and you're doing that in a way where you are creating value in the world. This episode is going to help you understand how you think and how those thought processes impact how you are building your business.

My coach asked me to share my learnings over the years when it came to growing my business, and I had a lot to say. I talk extensively in this episode about the mindset that it takes both internally and externally. Meaning internally, how we need to be talking to ourselves and externally, how we need to be thinking when we are talking to our clients, our best clients. And it is foundational mindset is foundational to building any business when you want to do it with ease instead of using pressure and feelings like dread and overwhelm, which in the legal profession are seen as really normal.

In order to start changing this paradigm, we need to start understanding it. This is not normal using dread and pressure. All of those kinds of emotions are not normal. They are a nervous system dysregulation. It's normal in the sense that those are normal human emotions and they aren't emotions we can deal with. But what the legal profession has done is made those emotions dominant based on the way that we are taught how to handle our caseloads.

Our profession has not provided us tools. It has not acknowledged that this is not normal. Coaching provides these tools, which is why I firmly believe that every single person needs a coach. Our society teaches us to work under pressure versus how to work from commitment.

And they are two very different experiences, my friend. One places us in fight or flight to get things done and leads to burnout. It feels horrible. The other allows us to plan with purpose and place importance on how we experience life. And if the latter appeals to you, book a strategy session with me and together we will plan your practice with purpose. You can book a strategy session with me at dina cataldo.com/strategy session, and we will start moving you in the direction you wanna go and start removing some of the nervous system dysregulation that has become so dominant in the legal profession.

All right, let us jump into this episode.

But before we get to the meat and potatoes of it, I want you to know the three foundational principles you must understand to get what you need, because this is a little bit more advanced.

Three Foundational Principles

If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you might be like, “yes, totally on board.” And if you are not, know that these foundational principles are principles that you can start learning and really start absorbing over and over again through this podcast. This may not be the first podcast you listen to <laugh>, maybe it's the fifth or the sixth. But know that these principles are going to be woven throughout any episode that you listen to.

Principle #1

Number one, our thoughts are optional. Even when thoughts seem a hundred percent true, thinking them is not always helpful.

Choose your thoughts wisely. And with intention, we are not taught this principle. So if this sounds foreign to you, you were not alone. When I first started learning this, it blew my mind. I thought work caused the feelings of overwhelm and anxiety. I had no idea that my brain was causing it and that my thoughts were optional.

Principle #2

Number two, our thoughts create our feelings. What we think makes us feel happy, sad, love, guilty, ashamed, joy. All the feelings, for example, your thoughts about your spouse change based on what you're thinking about them. This is probably the easiest way to notice this.

You may think that they make you angry because they don't help you more of the time. The truth is they can't actually make you angry. What I know, what what we're taught from little kids is that other people, like when we're little kids, people tell us, you know, you shouldn't say X, Y, Z, or you should be more considerate because you're gonna hurt their feelings.

We can't actually go in and make anybody feel a certain way. So we have to understand that other people can't make us feel feelings either. What creates anger is the thoughts you have about them when they don't do the things that you want them to do. Thoughts like, they don't appreciate me, they're inconsiderate. I do so much around here. The very least they could do is to take out the garbage.

When you see them do something that you like, something you, you're, you're so happy, right? “Oh my gosh, that's so sweet. They made me dinner. Oh, that's so sweet. They took the garbage out. I love them so much.” And then you feel love and you feel affection. So we're gonna use this same example in the next two foundational principles. Just know that our thoughts create our feelings.

Principle #3

Number three, our feelings determine how we behave. When we feel angry, we're more likely to do angry things. We're more likely to snap at someone, roll our eyes, huff and puff, make snappy responses and emails make snarky or passive aggressive comments. When we feel loving, we're so much more likely to behave in a loving way. We're more considerate. We wanna say nice things. We wanna offer affection. We wanna be with the person more.

Principle #4

Number four, how we behave determines our results. If we behave angrily, we create disconnection. We block ourselves from communicating clearly and honesty in a purposeful way. It's very reactive and it feels horrible. If we behave lovingly, we create connection.

We open ourselves up to being vulnerable and communicating honestly. It's purposeful. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable, but that discomfort is actually something that is moving us towards a goal versus away from a goal. When we're reactive, when we are blocking ourselves from communicating and creating disconnection, we're moving away from the direction we want to truly go.

All right, with those foundational principles in mind, let's dive into this training.

Intro to 6 Lessons Learned Growing a Business

So the theme of this training I did was internal and external messaging. And one of the things to really understand is that the way that we think is reflected in the way that we talk about ourselves, the way that we talk about our business, the way that we talk about our clients, and every time we say something out loud, that's a reflection of our thoughts, what we're really thinking. So when you say something like, “Ugh, my clients are so difficult,” or you think, “oh, I hate my business,” or, “Ugh, I hate all of this work.” Or, “you know, I suck at this.” You tell yourself these things, these are just reflections of the thoughts that you're having, and they can either be beneficial or they can be harmful to the direction you wanna take your practice.

And if you have a goal for your practice and you wanna make it easier on yourself, gaining awareness of these thoughts will help you. This is why having a coach is so helpful because we can't always see these thoughts. We'll just start talking in a a session. I know this happens with me.

Sometimes I'll just start talking in a session and the coach says, whoa, what was that? What did you just say? And I do that with my clients too, and they'll, and I'll start realizing, oh my gosh, I didn't realize I had all of these thoughts about how I was showing up in the world about, you know, whatever is going on in my life.

Having the awareness around what I'm gonna be talking to you about today will help you start shifting your perspective and help you start behaving differently towards yourself and towards your business and towards your clients in a way that will help you reach your goals faster and will also feel so much better.

Because what happens is, is when we, we tend to do the opposite of what I'm gonna share with you today. We start to avoid things, we tend to be angry and we tend to not make progress. We procrastinate, those kinds of things. So this is what I wanna share with you.

There's gonna be six, six areas I really wanna focus on today. Three of them are gonna be on internally messaging how you talk to yourself. And three are going to be how you really externally message how you connect with your clients, how you build your practice.

Business Lesson 1

The very first part of this I wanna share with you, number one, I had to take a hundred percent personal responsibility for everything I do, every result that my business is getting. And I needed to do it without judging or blaming myself. Let me repeat that last part. Without judging or blaming myself, this was a huge shift on my internal messaging, how I spoke to myself. Most of you would probably hearing this would be totally on board saying, yeah, I need to take a hundred percent responsibility of everything that I do, but notice how you talk to yourself and whether or not you just took out with without judging or blaming myself.

Because that is the key component on talking to yourself more kindly and to get the results that you want in your practice to grow without the stress. So to do this, I needed to bring total compassion to myself. I needed to recognize my accomplishments daily for six months.

Last year I actually kept a separate journal. And every single night before I went to bed, I wrote down 10 wins. What were 10 things? I was incredibly proud of myself for that I accomplished. And sometimes it was hard. Sometimes I just said, you know, I didn't even wanna do this list tonight. And I showed up and I did it anyway, that was what I did. And I was so committed to that list.

I just kept, I just kept doing it every single night.

There's something about keeping a list like that of what you're proud of, of what you've accomplished, and doing it right before you go to bed, that it really enters your subconscious and you start to really enter into dream time with that state of being proud and being accomplished and knowing that you are capable.

And I highly recommend that if you notice that you're beating yourself up a lot in your practice for doing or not doing things that you'd keep some sort of compassion journal like this one. Cuz it really changed how I thought about myself and how I showed up in my business. It improved my self-esteem because I was used to telling myself all my deficiencies, but I was not used to seeing everything I was accomplishing in my business and all the successes I was having in my business. And that focus made me feel like I was, you know, when I was focused on not having, on not being enough, on not doing enough, I was dragging.

I felt like a bag of rocks with me all day. And so when I showed up, you know, to write copy for my podcast or to write copy on my, my emails, whatever it was, it showed up when I was going on my walks. If my focus was that it, it didn't feel good. So I needed to change that focus.

Let me give you an example.

One of the thoughts I noticed that lawyers have people have in general when it comes to thinking about their business is, I don't know how to build my business. I don't know where to start.

I don't know this, I don't know that. And what I would do is I would go on to tell myself I should know how by now. And then I would shame myself of course when I felt shame that shut down my ability to problem solve.

Now, there are lawyers that I work with who come to me and what they do is they start off with, I don't know how. And then they push through the shame without feeling the shame or acknowledging it. And then they say, they'll just work harder. Just keep working. You can do this. And then they do do it.

But they're really exhausting the battery because pushing through the emotions like that, without acknowledging them and starting to talk to yourself in a way that's compassionate about those emotions will drain the battery faster. And so every single evening when you leave the office, you're gonna feel tired, you're gonna feel spent, and then you're gonna wonder why that you are so exhausted all week long.

It's because you're not acknowledging those emotions and then having a conversation with yourself like the one I'm about to share with you. So now when I notice my brain says something like, I don't know how, and I notice that feeling of shame in my body, I say, you know what? That's okay. You can figure it out. You have figured other stuff out. You can do this too. What's your best guess? Notice the difference. Notice how kind I am to myself when I say that to myself. It sounds like my best friend would talk to me. It sounds like I would talk to a child, right?

And a lot of the things that we are unlearning are things that we've learned as a child. And so we want to really talk to ourselves with so much compassion, just like a parent would have if they knew that this was what we needed most.

I changed the conversation in my head on purpose. And then I could do things like do a a, an evaluation of my quarter, right?

So if I didn't hit the goals that I wanted my, my revenue goals in the quarter, what I could do is I could actually look at why versus if I didn't do this work, I would beat myself up. I would see all the things that went wrong, I would feel horrible, and then I would set myself up for the next quarter working even harder, but not addressing the real issues that I had cuz I was avoiding them. And it's easier for me to take action during the day, even on tasks that I used to avoid. So even if I don't want to do them, because I just say, Hey look, I know you don't wanna do 'em, I know, but we're gonna do it anyway. I do it in a really kind way and then I just do it right. The way I talk to myself really matters. So take note of this one, if you are in the same boat.

Business Lesson 2

Number two, one of the big shifts I needed to make is I needed to make my mind get specific when I noticed I was “shoulding” myself or telling myself vague instructions. This is actually one of the skills that I teach my clients first off, is how to get really specific. Because our brain tends to keep things vague. When they're vague. We can't take action on them. So for me, I needed to see all the ways I was telling myself that I should be doing things differently. How I do that is by daily journaling.

If I don't journal, I don't know what's going on my head, in my head, I do it by getting coaching because if I don't talk to someone and let those thoughts out, nobody can hear them and start reflecting them back at me and helping me get perspective on them. So this is important.

You need some sort of practice to do this. We can't generally just see them in our head unless we've had a lot of practice of it over the years. Step one is having a journaling practice. So especially when I didn't feel like journaling, it was even more important because when I don't journal, I know I'm shaming myself for something because I avoid journaling when I feel bad.

So even when I feel bad, I write, even if I don't think I have anything to write down, I write when I don't journal. That is a big red flag for me that there is something going on in my brain and my brain needs supervision.

So if you have a regular journaling practice, this is such a great way to start getting yourself quicker and quicker on track. What that means is that you can get quicker and quicker back on track with your goals and you can make them happen faster, which is super fun.

This is what would happen when I would start pulling these thoughts outta my journal. Or when I am talking to a client and I'm pulling thoughts out of them, I'll hear things or I'll read thoughts like, I should be doing more. I'm not doing enough. You should be networking more. It's not working, right? All of these sentences that are in our brain, they're just words and they are just vague words.

We need to actively make our brain get specific.

We need to start asking it questions.

So what I do is I just start asking it, look, what does it actually mean to be working? Like does it mean a revenue amount? Does it mean a certain number of clients? Because it might be that it's working to the extent that I had my goal, but my brain is saying it's not working because something didn't happen in my business.

Like I didn't get, get enough signups on my email list, right? We just wanna know what does our brain think working means? And if it still says, you know, it's not working, why do you think it's not working? What exactly do you think needs to happen in order to make it work? And another thing that my brain says a lot is like, I should be doing more. That's one of my default thoughts. And so then I just ask it, what do you think you should be doing? And so it will give you a list. If you ask your brain a question like, what do you think I should be doing?

Your brain will give you a download. Download like you would not believe, right? You should be making more time to network. You should be reviewing your copy, you should be getting better at consults, you should be writing more posts, you should be recording more podcasts, you should be doing more masterclasses, <laugh>, like, my brain will tell me all the things I should be doing, and then I just say, okay, I see, I hear you.

Your brain has the answers.

This is the part where number one comes in so strong. That's great. I love it. I love that you have all of these ideas. So tell me, what do you think's like one or two big things you wanna implement right now and it'll tell me which ones it thinks that I need most right now, and then why do you think you're not making time for that? And I might actually have a legit reason. Like, you know, if I did those things, I wouldn't have a life. Or if I did those things, I wouldn't be able to go on vacation or right now isn't the time for that because I have other things planned. What would actually be a good idea is to take those tasks and put them on next quarters to do list.

Just know your brain has the answers. It's just a matter of if you can talk to yourself in a way where you can ask the right questions. Like that's what I'm doing with my clients is I'm asking those questions. I'm pulling those things out. You can do this in a self-coaching practice too, if it is strong, like, like asking yourself the questions that I'm posing to you right now.

Business Lesson 3

Okay, number three, I made it a requirement. I made it a non-negotiable that I am kind to myself. Hey, I already talked to you about the journaling practice that I recommend, but one of the things that I started doing when I felt uncomfortable or I felt scared or anything like that in my, in my business is I started just checking in with myself and asking myself, Hey, how are you doing? Right?

I would have my list of items on my calendar spread out and I would notice, oh, you know, you, you didn't do that thing that you said you were gonna do. And instead of saying like, ah, I should be doing more, I'm not working hard enough, I would just say, oh honey, hey, you didn't do that thing. Like, what, what's going on? Why didn't you do that? And it would just say something like, oh, you know, I, I didn't feel like it. And I say, okay, well, well not like, that's normal not to feel like it, but do why did you have that on your calendar? Oh, I had it to grow my business. Oh, okay. Well if you wanna grow your business, that's something that we're gonna have to do. So let's, let's stay a little later this afternoon and we're gonna, we're gonna work on that. Okay. All right. Or we're gonna make sure that it's done tomorrow. Got it. Okay, great.

Just like you were a parent <laugh>, right?

We have two voices in our head. We have the child who doesn't wanna do what's on the calendar, and then we have the adult that's like, “Hey, I hear you, you don't wanna do it, but it's really important, so let's get it done.”

Managing your mind like that compassionately. Like you, you're, you are your own best friend, like you are your own best parent is going to help you achieve your goals more easily, right?

Notice this and the calendar is such a great tool. I firmly believe using a calendar is such a great tool for us to start recognizing what's going on in our life, what we're thinking about, what we're avoiding. Because if we don't have it on our calendar, there's a reason for it. If we're putting it on the calendar and we're not doing it, there's a reason for it. And we can only do that when we check in and we ask ourselves, you might also have a legit reason for not doing it. Your kid might've had, might've been sick and you might've had to pick up your kid from school and it just didn't work out today. That's okay.

Acknowledge that and acknowledge yourself and know that you'll get it done without beating yourself up and telling yourself you should be working harder. So those are the top three shifts that I made in my business on my internal messaging.

Recap of Business Lessons 1-3

Number one, I took a hundred percent responsibility for everything without judging or blaming myself. Number two, I made my mind get specific when I noticed vague thoughts like I should be doing more or, you know, giving me vague instructions to be doing something. And number three, I made it a requirement that I'm nice to myself no matter what.

Business Lesson #4

All right, now let's talk about external messaging. So the first message I wanna give you about external messaging. Messaging talk, thinking about your clients and thinking about your business is number one, start identifying your current beliefs about your clients and potential clients, specifically your potential clients. In this example, because we're focusing on growing your business, one of the thoughts that so many of us have is that the only way we know that our business is working is if the clients are just like knocking down the door.

I want you to erase this notion from your head, because what that thought does is teach us that we need to have validation to show us that our efforts are working and marketing efforts do not yield immediate fruit <laugh>, okay?

We need to be so committed to creating value, to serving the people we want to bring into our business, that we are willing to feel uncomfortable and to self validate that we're doing the right thing without seeking validation. In terms of likes, comments, shares, and consults booked, we actually have to sit in the discomfort of that. And we have to believe ahead of time when we are seeking validation in terms of the likes, the clicks, the consults, we're seeking validation for our marketing efforts.

What our brain is really telling us, these are the thoughts that our brain has. “They don't want it,” “they're not listening.” “No one's reading my post,” “no one's booking a consult,” “I'm not doing enough.” “This isn't working.”

And all of those thoughts create the feelings of disappointment and shame and capability, inadequacy. And it will show up in the behavior that we do.

It will deaden our energy in our copywriting. It will deaden our energy in our videos. It'll deaden our energy in our consults, it leads us to hiding. We don't post, we don't make offers, we don't send emails, we give up at the end of the month on our goal versus going all out in a way that feels compelling to us. So instead, what you're gonna do is you're gonna be checking your email for consults.

You're gonna be checking your posts for likes, and none of that helps you make money. What I do is I, if I see myself in that orientation, if I see myself thinking those kinds of thoughts, I remind myself all of the ways I know that people are listening and that they want what I'm offering. Of course, they're listening. I have clients, obviously they're listening. You are listening to this podcast. I have consults on the books and I have so much evidence to show me that what I am doing is working people coming to masterclasses, people doing things, you know, like sharing things in my dms.

Belief comes before action.

Like these are the things that I know I can remind myself to show me that it's working, that it's all working. And if it wasn't working, then I wouldn't be here. So, so let me just remind you that the belief comes before the action, the belief in your clients that they are there, that they have the money to pay for you, that they are able to see the value, that you are able to show them the value of your services.

That belief needs to come before the action.

And when you have the belief and you are taking action in a way that shows the value of your services, that shows the value of what it is that you do and why they need your services, then the results are naturally gonna flow.

They are gonna naturally book the consult. So you don't have to focus your brain on that. You just focus your brain on service. You focus your brain on the fact that of course they want what you're selling. Of course they want it otherwise, like you're not gonna take any action. And we want you in action, massive action, moving towards creating the results you want in your law practice.

Business Lesson 5

Lesson 5

Number two, I needed to learn how to get into sufficiency before a masterclass or a consult or a speaking engagement or anything that I was doing where I was gonna be selling something. And the same thing goes for you. Like if you were gonna do a speaking engagement, if you were doing a presentation, a webinar. If you are, you know, sending out an email, if you are posting on social media, get into sufficiency first. And what I mean by sufficiency is that you have enough, you have everything you need right now that will keep you from being in graspy needy energy. Nobody likes that. It's not fun for anyone. And when you do that, you are gonna feel so much more comfortable sharing what it is you came to share with your audience in no matter what the format is when you're building your business.

How to use self-coaching and journaling.

Again, use coaching, use journaling to start stimulating this. Ask yourself, what are all of the things that I have right now? How, how do I know I already have a business that I love, that I don't need anything from the people at the speaking engagement, that I don't need anybody to book a consult from me.

Like all I have everything I need. Like that is where you wanna be. You don't even need to be in abundance, right? You just need to be sufficient. That right now you have everything you need. You have a roof over your head, you have all the food you could desire, you could go out, you could buy something, it's okay, have compassion for the people that you're talking to because they're having a difficult time. I mean, the, the times that people hire lawyers, they're having some sort of difficulty. So having compassion is such a great way to create the connection that you wanna create with people.

And then feel that love, gratitude for what you have and then serve, okay? All of the receiving of the consults and of the money into your business will come naturally when you are just serving from love and serving from total sufficiency. Now, I consciously create this orientation doesn't, you know, like this is practice, right?

So you don't have to be perfect at any of it. I'm definitely not perfect at it. But what I do is I consciously create my orientation between before every single masterclass that I do, before every single consult that I do. And I ask myself questions like, what are all the wins that my clients have had working with me? What are all my personal wins using the tools that I use with my clients?

I write this all down and I really spend time with this.

I let the feelings of pride and accomplishment and gratitude just wash over me because those emotions are what I want going into whatever situation that I am entering into.

So I give myself 30 minutes to an hour to really prep myself for those moments.

You don't have to spend that much time on this, but know that doing so, especially if you're not accustomed to this practice, will start to shift your brain more and more every time you do it. I feel so much gratitude that I get to do this. Like I really remind myself that I get to help somebody today, and that helps me be in the present moment and just serve, okay?

Because that's what you wanna do. The more you serve, the more value you create for people, and the more value that you create for people, the more you'll be able to build your business with ease.

Business Lesson 6

And number three, I started to get incredibly aware of the leading indicators that I'm in a funky place emotionally so I can address it. They show me when I'm not in gratitude, that I'm frustrated, or that I'm thinking things, that thinking things in my business aren't working, or anything hinky that is happening in my brain.

It shows these things to me. So these are my leading indicators. You will have your own, but these will give you some ideas of when your brain isn't in a place that you really need it to be, to be the most effective, to make the best decisions in your practice. And this is the time to reach out for coaching, to journal those kinds of things.

Examples of leading indicator that you need to either get coaching or do self-coaching:

So for me, my leading indicators are that I'm not journaling, that I'm not doing what's on my calendar. I'll notice that I might even totally ignore my calendar.

Like that is what my brain does. It'll just stop looking at it all together. So, so that's, that's how I know if I'm checking in with myself during the day, I'll be like, “whoa, I haven't looked at my calendar for a little while. I, I better go look at that.”

I notice myself wanting to snack more, so I walk to the fridge, so I catch myself there.

I notice that I might not be making time for me time, like walks and meditation or working out.

I notice if I'm snippy or I'm making a big deal of something that really wasn't a big deal, you know what I mean? Right?

Like, you just, you're like, that was a little bit of an overreaction. That's my opportunity to check in with myself and say, Hey, like, what is it that needs to be done? What, what needs to happen here? If I notice myself checking my email or my social media more than usual, that also tells me there's something going on in my brain that I want to address.

Are you trying to out-work your self-doubt?

These are also like subtle hints to me that my brain is out belief with my cap capabilities, and I'm trying to overwork, outwork my self doubt. So when I work hard without taking care of my human, I'm doubting myself when I have balance, I know I'm confident that my result is inevitable. And that's a feeling. We know when you have a goal, you really wanna get familiar with the difference. When you feel confident, you know that the, the result is inevitable. You, you feel amazing and it doesn't feel exciting. It just feels like, yeah, that's totally happening because you believe it.

But when you are hoping, and maybe it could happen and I think it could happen, you know, those kinds of thoughts are actually just reflections of self-doubt.

And that's okay. You just wanna recognize it, have a conversation with yourself about what's going on, or get some coaching so that you can reorient yourself and you can begin moving in the direction of really knowing that your goal is inevitable.

That of course you were taking the exact steps that you need to be taking that are going to make that result inevitable. I hope that these really got you thinking. I'm gonna run through these top three external messaging work that I've done to really think about my clients and think differently about how I approach my messaging and my marketing. Let me run through these.

Recap of Business Lessons 4-6

Number one, identify your current beliefs about your audience. Number two, consciously get into sufficiency before you do any of your marketing. And number three, get really crystal clear about the leading indicators, those little behaviors that you do that will show you that you're in a funky place emotionally. And then seek coaching, do some journaling. Start recognizing what's happening.

This episode was, like I said, a little more advanced. This is work that I do with my clients. We really take things deeper in our calls. If this kind of work really calls to you, if you feel deeply that you want to grow your practice, but do it in a way that feels incredibly good and not in a way that's fueled by dread or pressure, or overwhelm in a way that feels calm and certain and loving, then book a strategy session with me.

Go to https://dinacataldo.com/strategysession.

What we are gonna do is in our very first call, we're gonna start just talking about and getting clarity on what it is you want. So often, you know, we put things off, we tell ourselves, well, I'll do it later because, you know, I'm not really a hundred percent sure what I would be working on anyway, so, you know, maybe I should think about it some more. But the problem with that is, is that we're preventing us ourselves from getting clarity. We are blocking ourselves from taking action to get what, where we wanna go.

And you can't even find out where you wanna go until you get that clarity. And I'm gonna help you get that in the strategy session.

So go to https://dinacataldo.com/strategysession and we will help you get the clarity you want and help you move forward on your goals. All right, my friend. I will talk to you soon. Bye.