00:00

Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

00:44

Hello, I am Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert, and in today’s episode of Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. We are talking about call out culture, and yes, I am calling out the call out culture because I mean, this is so aligned with the very subject here about making money without selling your soul.

Sometimes I get the impression when I go onto Facebook or Instagram,  It’s a given on Twitter. Right. That’s the whole of Twitter essentially is call out culture platform. But you know, what I see in terms of people’s behavior is, oh, okay. So are, are they under the assumption that to be a thought leader, to stand out in their space and make more money that they need to sell their soul by being that person?

Okay. So yeah, here, I’m, I’m gonna be talking about a few points today about why I am not into call out culture, why you won’t see me calling out people except for in the nature of calling out, call out culture. And here are the reasons why I am just not into it. So I’ve already referenced the part. I mean, there’s, there’s a few points I’m making today.

There’s about five of them. So bear with, bear with, firstly, I’ve seen people. Kind of equate call out culture to being a thought leader. And I’m gonna share in a moment why I just do not believe don’t see how that can or is the case. You get to be a thought leader without trampling on other people’s behaviors, decisions, thoughts, beliefs.

That’s how I see it. Because what I believe to be the case is this nature of what to me, to be honest with you, after having , after being that child at school, that was always bullied. When I see this kind of behavior, and this is obviously very much my own personal experience I’m bringing to the table here, it makes me feel deeply uncomfortable because it brings back those wounds, those wounds of I’m not safe around other confident women because those other confident women are looking for an opportunity to gossip about me, tear me down.

Wait for me to make a mistake and laugh at me, which you know, is some of the horrible stuff that happens at school, right? , let’s not pretend that’s not the case. Or at least, you know, like I say, that was my experience. I know obviously they’re those who were that person themselves and that probably wasn’t their experience at school.

But you know, it was pretty unpleasant. So when I see people behaving this way, I kind of like, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is, are we not a bit too grown up for this now? Can we not take up space? and enjoy taking up that space. Can our focus not be on what we are bringing to the world rather than looking for opportunities to take jives at others who are just doing their best to do the same thing too, most of the time.

The other thing that I just really dislike about it all is essentially who doesn’t make mistakes, particularly when it comes to growing an online business. One of the things about growing an online business, Is that you are learning a lot of new skills. You are learning how to be your own PR person. You are learning how to be your own accountant.

You are learning how to be the marketer for your business. You are learning how to look after your client user experience. You know, make sure that they have a good onboarding experience, that you are, um, you know, taking, communicating adequately with them that you are setting your own boundaries. I mean, there’s no bigger.

Self-development experience, aside from becoming a parent, than growing your own online business, there are so many hoops to jump, and every time you feel like. Nailed that. Now. No more of those things to think about. There’s usually something else that comes, you know up. Because essentially that’s what growth is like, right?

It’s not, you get somewhere and you kind of dust off your clothes and go, right, that’s it. I’m done. I’m just gonna sit here happily. Growth generally tends to be something at once. We have a bit of it. We want more of it. And at every level, yes, there is another devil. So to imagine that we are not continuously making mistakes.

Is just the silliest thing to assume because we all do. You know, I, I know I, I read the other day that mistakes are a feature, not a bug of growth, and it’s really true. One of the examples I gave recently was of Elon Musk and Twitter. He did a tweet that, I’m not saying I’m all like following what Elon Musk is doing, but one thing he said that I wished wish more business owners gave themselves permission to say, Twitter’s gonna do a lot of stupid things over the next few months.

The good stuff we’re gonna keep, the bad stuff we’re gonna get rid of. And I love that because I feel like there’s a lot of people that come to me or that I see talking in the online business space with this assumption of if they hire the right business coach, if they do the right program, if they take on the right strategy.

There’s this certain kind of impression that if they, if they do that, then they can avoid making any mistakes. They’re hiring someone so that they don’t have to make mistakes. Now, of course, there’s an element of when you hire someone, you’re gonna make less mistakes. You know, in terms of, for example, if you’re working with me and I’m supporting you with your evergreen strategy, you can potentially avoid the mistake of burning yourself out live, launching all.

But there will be other mistakes that will come up for you. We are never immune from mistakes, you know? Um, I was out with my daughter the other day and she was learning to roller skate and it was so interesting watching how the same business coaching tools I used to support my clients came up in how I was supporting her.

She wanted to perpetually be holding onto me, and I recognized for her to really feel like she’d achieved anything. My main goal was to enable her to feel confident enough to be roller skating without me, and it’s very much the same for my clients. Similarly, it was watching her wobble, it was watching her fall, and it was watching how much she was able to laugh at the frustration of what was happening, get herself back up and carry on.

And know that she just recognized that, of course, if I’m ever gonna learn to roller skate, I’m gonna have to keep on doing this. And she could see every time she got back up again, she’d stay up for a bit longer. She would do things a bit better. And it’s exactly the same in online business. We are going to have various falls.

We are gonna try things on for size, they won’t always work. We may try a way to get around something to make it easier, and that thing might not. But every single stage there’s a learning. Now, what the risk is with this call out culture and this fear of making a mistake, this fear of being called out for doing something that wasn’t quite right is it prevents people from being experimental.

It prevents people from trying things on for size, and ultimately there is no rule book in the online business space that tells you exactly how you need to be. Thank God. Cuz that’s what makes it interesting, right? If everyone did the same thing, it would be so, so bland. So if you aren’t willing to be a bit vulnerable, if you aren’t willing to try something new.

And the thing is when it comes to online business is when you are trying something new, you won’t necessarily know if it’s uncomfortable because it’s new or if it’s uncomfortable because it doesn’t entirely align with your values. Sometimes those two stories can blur themselves with one another. We can say, oh, that just doesn’t feel good to me because I am this.

Kind of person when actually once you’ve tried it and it’s gone well, you’re like, actually no. When I look at it through a different lens of being, of service, of making the invitation, and this is me talking the context of sales, then suddenly it feels a lot better. Okay. You know, I’ll give you an example.

Like there was one thing I did earlier on in my business, not even that long ago, actually, I think it was not last August. August prior, I did a webinar called, I think it was along the lines of the three things I did to have my first 25 k. Now, would I do that? No. Because I don’t want to be incentivizing people into my world by highlighting my financial wins and positioning them within the context of, if I can do this, you can do this too.

And while I didn’t ever use that language around the actual masterclass, just by naming it that I was kind of implying. And I don’t really feel entirely comfortable about that because as we all know, it’s not as simple as boom, bum, bum, , otherwise everyone would be having 25 K months. It was a way to get people’s attention.

It was a way to get people into a masterclass with me, and in that context it worked, but at the same time, there was an element of it that didn’t feel good, and it was only later on. Through the benefit of surrounding myself with had like-minded ethical marketers that I started to recognize. That’s why it didn’t feel good, and this is how I get to do things different moving forward.

So that’s one example of one of my mistakes. Curious to know what yours are. If you wanna share with me, please do share on my Instagram account. There will be a link below, so please do drop in with any mistakes you’d be making because that was one that I am not hugely proud. So here’s the alternative, right?

You know, if, if instead of calling out things, how else you know, cuz I’ve, what I feel is important to express here is. By standing against call out culture. That’s not me saying you can’t have an opinion. I mean, it’s not my place to say that anyway, but I’m certainly not saying we should be in a world where we don’t have opinions, that we don’t believe that there’s a better way of doing things, that we don’t express that there’s a better way of doing things.

However, I do believe that there’s a way of going about it that is healthier . More feminists, more ethical than just calling people out. And here are the things I really believe in. I believe you should take a stand for what you do believe in. And one of the things I’ve recognized over the time of me coaching various different online entrepreneurs is that some people come to me and they don’t really know what they stand for, or they take for granted what they stand for.

They just kind of assume because they put themselves in an echo chamber in where they live with their friends and their family. That perhaps everybody else feels like that. You know, I live in Brighton, , I’m, I’m like one of the worst cases of that, you know, we are very liberal thinking down here. We’ve got the kind of, you know, like that there’s, it’s very inclusive.

And so I certainly have, I over assume how inclusive and liberal other people are because that is the kind of world I surround myself in. And I certainly know when I take myself outta Brighton, it’s usually a little bit of a culture. So it’s understanding, you know, what do you stand for? And, and being more free with sharing and expressing that, you know, and recognizing that, that those feelings, they get to evolve those feelings.

They get to contradict one another because the truth is various things can all be true at the same time. And ultimately, the truth that you are bringing to the table is a subjective one, it’s based on your experience and nobody can deny your experience because it is yours. And at the same time, it’s only your experie.

And what you feel now may be different in what you feel in two months time, three months time. And that is perfectly okay. How human is that? It’s so human. When we call people out for feeling differently three months ago to how they feel now you’re denying they’re human. Like why? Just, why allow people to be multifaceted, allow people to grow, allow people to feel different things at the same time.

And that’s where nuance lies. That’s where interest lies, and that’s where keeping an open mind, being curious. Is the case, you know, and, and I believe all of those things are immensely important. That’s certainly the case for myself. Secondly, if you’re not talking about it, be it, be the change. Be the change that you are looking for.

If you are seeing a lot of like murky things that you don’t appreciate about the online business world, don’t get me wrong, I see it too, and it makes me shutter, but do I want to spend all my time highlighting to everyone, all the gross practices that just make me want to kind of in my mouth? Because I don’t believe that’s good for me because I wouldn’t do that in any other context.

So why would I do that in my own online business? So instead, what I believe in is just doing things differently. When people say, what kind of coach are you? Are you inaccessible? Are you hard to get to? I’m like, no, I’m not that inaccessible coach. When you work with me, you will have a direct line to me, which you can tap into when you need me, because I know you will respect that, and I know that you.

Take a, you know, and, and I also know that I will respect my own boundaries. And if I choose not to speak to you at a time that doesn’t feel good, I will do that too. But am I inaccessible? No. Because that’s not how I like to do business. That’s not the kind of relationships I like to have. My clients are all coaches like that.

No, but this is my choice. This is my way of being. I’m not gonna spend my time like saying how, I don’t like working with coaches who make themselves inaccessible. Instead, I’m just gonna make sure the way I do business, the way I support my clients is. Thirdly, it’s about celebrating what you do love to see in the world.

And I obviously, I’m talking about online business here, but this can apply to in the holistic space, you know, if you see somebody else or any space, any business space, if you see somebody doing something and you’re always like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Do all of this, can I have more people in the world like you celebrate them, collaborate with them, you know, whatever it is that you wanna do, but.

Put them on your platform, whatever it is that you wanna be doing. But I find the more I collaborate and connect with the like-minded souls in the online business space, the richer my life feels, the more my curated echo chamber becomes one that really fills me with all the warm fuzzies and lights me up because I’m regularly connecting with people out truly, genuinely admire and who I feel really privileged to have close access to.

Third. Be compassionate with yourself. As I mentioned earlier, how human for your feelings to evolve, how human for you to occasionally contradict yourself. This is just all very usual. You know that there may be one way you see things one day and, and then perhaps another day you see it slightly different way.

It may be that one at one end of the spectrum you feel something very strongly and somewhere deeper into that spectrum it feels, it looks slightly different. That’s okay. That’s okay. Be compassionate to yourself and of course, be compassionate with others because this isn’t just about yourself, your journey, your, your business and your life.

It’s, it’s about just wellbeing and taking care of yourself. And finally, and I’ve kind of almost referenced this a bit, you know, but it’s, be mindful of the echo chamber that you are in. . If you are seeing a lot of things that rile you, that push you to the stage, that you feel resentful or dubious or scared or anxious, or any negative feeling around being in the online business space, I would also question, what are you choosing to consume?

What forums are you choosing to put yourself in? What content are you, you know, choosing to kind of. Scrolling through. I very carefully choose who I follow because I don’t want to be following stuff that just doesn’t, you know, I don’t wanna be feeling negative feelings about other people’s content, so instead I just don’t follow them.

It’s such a simple, simple hack that you can do today. I can’t tell you how cathartic it is to sit there with a coffee on a Sunday morning and just gradually delete anything that just doesn’t feel good to you. And that’s pretty much it. So just to kind. Summarize the main points I just shared with you in terms of what’s the alternative to call out culture and calling out the things that you don’t like seeing people doing in your industry or in the online business space.

It’s taking a stand for what you believe in. It’s being the change. It’s celebrating what you love to see. It’s being compassionate with yourself and others, and recognizing the humanness in our evolution and in our multifaceted sense of seeing the world. And finally, it’s being mindful of the content you’re consuming.

If you’re finding yourself regularly feeling rageful, do things like I have, like remove yourself from Twitter. I can’t tell you how much calmer and happier I feel because of it. And that’s it. There we have it. I hope you enjoyed the very first episode of Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul. I have so enjoyed sharing this with you, and if this landed, please.

Think about joining my free training that is happening at the end of January, January the 17th, on Thursday there is gonna be a link below this episode. This training is for coaches, consultants, online business owners who are either fully booked, one-to-one, or who have a high ticket group coaching program that they would like to scale without live launch.

And if you do not have a high ticket group program, this is still relevant for you. So if any of those things light you up, come along to my free training. How to scale your coaching business with a high ticket group coaching program without live launching. I’m gonna be dropping some seriously juicy nuggets.

I really hope to see you there. The link is below the episode. In next week’s episode of Make More Money Without Selling Your Soul, I will be talking about how as a coach, you can get out of the feast or famine cycle and have a truly profitable 2023. So tune in and speak to you soon.