Hey there, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I want to explore the things that you are attached to, and that you need to let go of in order to scale to seven figures. But first, a personal update to kick things off, we are getting a new puppy, his name was Oakley and he's a golden doodle. And by the time this episode airs, we will have him home with us. Until then, we've already been preparing for him and buying all the things that he'll need. Of course, one of those items is a leash. And there are a ton of options, more than I expected. It's kind of like, I feel like when I look at baby things, now, there's so many more things than were available when I had kids. And I'm sure my mom felt that way when I had kids compared to when she had me. But now it's like there's so many things for dogs and puppies and pets of any kind that are available. So we were trying to figure out what kind of leash and we're faced with all of these options, retractable or not, which length, what color, reflective or not, the size, the weight, all of it. And my husband and I were trying to figure out specifically, what length would be right for what we needed. So picture this, we're in the middle of the store, and I'm holding a retractable leash, and he holds the other end and he walks it out, just to see if 16 feet is long enough. So we're like stretching this whole thing out just to kind of get a feel for how long does this go, how much lead does this give. And while we decided that that should be good for our needs, right now, what I thought about is that no matter how short or long that leashes, it's going to keep Oakley away from some things he is going to really, really want, no matter how much he wants to sniff or run or chew, the leash is going to keep him attached to us. And we'll be able to prevent him from just running free. 

And of course, we know that this is important for safety reasons, because he isn't going to be trained right away, he's not going to know how to stay or to come to us when he's called. But I couldn't help but compare this to what we do to ourselves as entrepreneurs. So just bear with me with this analogy here. But we say that we want freedom, but then we attach ourselves to all kinds of things that make us feel safe. That keeps us from what we really want. We keep tugging, hoping to gain even just another inch of freedom. And it's like just imagine Oakley at the very end of his leash, just like with all of his mind trying to go further than the leash will let him and I think that that's what we're doing when we're hustling. That's what we're doing when we are so holding on to certain things, but then grasping for other things that we want. And what we really need to do is just detach from our leashes and take some calculated risks. Yes, we like the safety and security of what we're attached to. And we like the familiarity and the comfort as well. That's huge, of course. But as long as you're attached, then what you really want is going to be outside of your reach, and all of the tagging, and all of the polling is just gonna leave you exhausted. So what is it that you are attached to? What is it that you need to let go of, in order to scale, I have a list of some things that I've had to let go of and that my clients have had to let go of. That should give you some ideas here. And then you may have more. And what I want you to know is that these are things that we've had to consistently choose to let go of over and over again, so that we can continue to scale. And I'm not talking about just a little bit of growth here and there. But what I had to let go of in order to stop limiting my business from true scalability because the more I hold on to these things, the more I grasp them and grip them. The more that I'm holding myself back, the more that I'm holding my business back. And so here's a starter list for you to think about. And then I want you to really take some time and sit with it and think about what you are attached to, what you need to detach from what you need to let go of, in order to not just grow a little. But in order to truly scale, okay, first on the list for me is approval and affirmation. And this is all about worrying about what other people think and wondering if people are going to judge me and being the one connected to results and wanting that affirmation versus letting go and letting someone else get involved like handing off things to my team as an example, delegating things and allowing them to get the accolades for results. Instead of taking on that myself. That's huge for me personally, just because my love language is words of affirmation. So I love words of affirmation. And when I created, you know, different, let's say, resources that my clients could use, instead of me directly telling them what to do, then sometimes I missed out on hearing that affirmation, I missed out on getting that confirmation that what I'm doing is making a difference directly. And I had to get used to that  in order to scale. Again, that approval piece of it is really worrying about what everyone else thinks and a lot of that I had to deal with very early on. But of course, it continues to pop up at new levels, with every level, then there's just another layer of this to tackle next on the list is perfection. And that's certainly something I've had to let go of, because there was a time where I wanted everything to be as close to 100% as possible before moving forward before taking action, from the right strategy and the right content to the right offer, and making sure that all the KPIs are exactly where they needed to be before we took the next step. This ties right in with being right. And I used to think that everything had to be 100%, perfect, or everything needed to be right. And what I found is there's actually never one truly right way. Never, there's always multiple ways to get there. And I can tell you with regards to being right, a couple of more aspects to this is that oftentimes, because there are multiple ways, my clients, and especially my team sometimes want to do things differently than I would. And I've had to be okay with that. I've had to get used to not having things done exactly the way that I would want them to be, letting go of the fact that one way is the right way. 

I've also failed, quote unquote, more times than I can count. And the reality here is, I used to think that failing was a problem, I used to think that that should be avoided at all cost. And that that truly meant something was wrong. Now understand that holding on, and feeling attached to perfection and being right was holding me back, because now I know that the more that I fail, the more that I will succeed. Control is another aspect that I've had to let go of, again, so much of this is connected. But for me control is letting go of exactly how things are done, when things are done. Even knowing and being the loop on everything with my team and with my clients, the less and less that I have one on one clients, the less than I know every detail of what's going on in my clients, businesses, I'm helping them get results without knowing every step of the way that they're taking. And I think that that's great for them, it's actually better for them, they're in more control, they're more empowered, while I've just had to get used to, you know, not being in the loop. And in the know, with my team, I will tell you this is again been a huge thing, because I like to do things a certain way. And I've done them for so long. And I know that the way that I do it works. And I know that there are systems that are more efficient when you do it this way or that way. And so when my team comes in and they have their own ideas, or they just want to do something differently, I really try to empower them to make recommendations and make decisions. And at the same time, I would be lying if I didn't say that that was hard for me because there is an aspect of wanting to step in, evaluate, make every little decision and it's just not feasible. If I want to scale. It's just impossible. If I want to truly scale this business more and more over the years than I need to be making less and less of all of this small decisions. I still need to be making the high level decisions, but I have to empower my team and you do too. Another thing I've had to let go of that I was very attached to it was just comparison, watching other's journeys, seeing other coaches who were maybe at the same level as I was and watching the speed or the pace or just the strategies that they're using. And it's not just watching, it's making it mean something about what I'm doing. And that's the part you got to learn to let go of, because, again, there's no one right way to do things. There is no right speed. I don't know their goals that they're going after. And it doesn't help. It's just not something that serves me well. And comparison isn't something that even belongs in my day, my week, my month, like I just don't have time for it. If I'm going to scale, then I have other things that as a CEO, I need to be focused on. So those are a handful of things, approval and affirmation, perfection, being right, controlling, comparison. And again, I know there are so many other things. From a very practical standpoint, we get to even break all of these things down and look at the different departments. I talk a lot about scalability, and, and what that means. And in order to have true scalability, you need to be able to market and sell without that being dependent on you. Your business needs to be able to market and sell without dependence on you, your business needs to be able to bring in clients without any time from you. Your business needs to be able to serve your clients without dependence on your time. If your clients can't be served, when you're out of the business, if your business stops when you go on vacation, then that's a problem. So marketing sells needs to be able to keep going, serving your clients needs be able to keep going and operations just the back end of your business needs to be able to keep going, keep running smoothly and efficiently. And not just for a limited amount of time, like a short little vacation. But it needs to be able to keep going when you're not there. Again, all of the little decisions that go into each of those different categories, all of the tasks that are required day in and day out, can't be dependent on you. If you really want your business to scale, there's a difference between growing and scaling and scaling can't be limited by your time. By default scaling means that your business can continue to grow without any limiting factor. And time is always a limiting factor. So we can't have your time, be that barrier. If you're feeling attached to anything in your business, anything that I mentioned, or anything that I didn't, if you're having trouble letting go, if your business can't keep running when you step away, but if you want more, and it just seems out of reach, I can help. This is a skill that can be learned. It is a skill that I teach the CEOs that I work with. It's part of what you need to know to become an unstoppable CEO to go from an overwhelmed entrepreneur to an unstoppable CEO who can scale their business, whether that's to seven figures or well beyond, you have to look at the scalability.