Episode 125 transcript:

Hey everyone. Welcome back. Okay. So there was this thought that was swirling around and percolating into my field this morning. And it was kind of inspired by those quotes and memes and Instagram reels, or like, you know, small pieces of content that will say in a joking way. There's two different types of people, people that do this thing, like the us and people that do this thing like this, right? And there's lots of different examples of this. And what came up in my space in my field this morning was there are two different types of business owners. There's the serial entrepreneur and there's the accidental entrepreneur. So let me explain, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of information about both. So let art with the serial entrepreneur. This is me. Hi, I'm Nicole. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I come from two parents that are business owners.

My father has owned his tire shop since I was a little girl, a baby he's actually selling tomorrow as of the time that I'm recording this and I will keep you posted on what happens because it's a really, really big deal in our lives. But I digress. My mom has been a hairdresser forever, and she's also had multiple side businesses over the years. Um, I feel like we should probably do an episode just to talk about her side businesses, cuz it's really fascinating. It's everything from some paintball supplies and out of a different section of her salon like paintball, guns, paintballs and whatever, um, selling costumes for exotic dancers. Yes, yes. That is true. You heard that? Correct. She used to hand make costumes like pasty and bottoms and sell them to exotic dancers. Remember I live in Tampa and that is a huge industry here.

Oh gosh. Uh, what else has she done? Just everything. She has her hands and everything. So we'll talk about that again. At another point I am a serial entrepreneur because things that I've learned about myself is I like being in charge of my life. My, my joy, my passion, my schedule, that has been the biggest thing for me, particularly because I'm a projector at human design. And so if you follow human design, you know that you might follow why that is and being in charge of, and co-creating this expansion of my income potential beyond what a salary limit would be. I don't like the boxes. I don't like the salary cap in my head. I believe that there's more available to me. I've also been starting businesses since I was a little girl.

I started with selling handmade dream catchers to my mom's clients and her and getting tips for bringing people coffee. So the gals that were buying the custom made exotic dancing outfits would also come into the salon to get their hair extensions. At the time, this was like the eighties early nineties. My mom was like one of the only people in Tampa that knew how to do hair extensions, um, on Caucasian women particularly right. And they'd come 'em into the salon, get their hair done. And I would go down to the salon. At one point we lived upstairs in an apartment, so I'd make coffee and bring everybody coffee and I'd hope for tips. And then bring my collection of handmade dream catchers. I wish I had a photo of those because it was just priceless, but whatever I had that I was making, I would take down and offer it for sale.

I think sometimes they bought it just to, just to make me happy. Um, but then it went on to like, I started making rhinestone embellish, flip flops, like I would order in bulk these Hofsky crystals and I'd save up whatever cash I had to stock up on crystals. And I'd sit for hours and like glue these crystals onto these flip flops that you could not have out in the Florida sun direct sun for a long time. Cuz it blew would melt. But as long as you keep it out of the sun and did not leave it in the car, they were fine. So I sold those. So Leah Sophia jewelry, I don't know if you remember it was kind of like a network marketing company. Um, actually it was, but it was really incredible jewelry. Um, ah, such a good experience. I have so much to say, I actually still have some of their jewelry it's costume jewelry, but it is really good stuff.

They're no longer in business. Um, I also got into, I explored anyway, I didn't end up starting this business, but I explored sustainable fashion green. Like eco-friendly toys it. I could go on and on about that. Right. But it doesn't mean I wanna stop for a second and say that this doesn't mean that I've ever I've only ever had my own businesses. I've worked for others and worked for companies too. So in high school I had telemarketing jobs. I had receptionist jobs. I worked the front desk at a teaming salon on Sundays, 10 to six, open to clothes. Yeah. It's handing so long again. Tampa, Florida burning the heck out of our skin. I was a hostess at Bahama breeze for a couple years. It was 10 bucks an hour, which was really good for being a hostess long days, long nights, but good extra cash. I was a more broker in college. And then for a brief period, I did life insurance. I took my licensing. I can't remember the names of all the licensing, but I got into, um, a little bit of financial planning and life insurance. And then I took a corporate job and I got into corporate real estate finance.

So all of that to say, there's nothing wrong with the more traditional jobs and working for an employer and collecting a paycheck. There's nothing wrong with this at all. So please, I don't want you to think that I'm sharing this entrepreneur episode, um, shaming or throw any shade to regular jobs. There's nothing wrong with them at all. Sometimes they're the bridge. Sometimes those jobs are the bridge to help us get to the other side and what it is, whatever it is that we really desire. And so in my life post corporate dropout. So after I left the corporate world, you may have heard me talk about this. I was in fashion blogging for a short time and then I did birth doula work. And then I took my childbirth education training and I did virtual doula and virtual childbirth education. And then I started mentoring and coaching other birth professionals.

And then I moved into this ish business mentor space where I mentor now where I mentor other heart center business owners. So at my core, I am a serial entrepreneur. I have worked for other companies, but it always felt like a cage sitting at cubicles or holding the door open for people at Bahama breeze. I just, I felt trapped. The biggest thing for me has always been being in control of my schedule and not limiting myself feeling freedom. That was always kind of a really important thing to me, but it was missing the passion, the passion part didn't start to come in until I got older and I experienced them, um, events in my life that were major catalysts, right? Like birth of my children, the death of my brother. Like those things really pushed me into this space of like F everything else I have to do.

What's gonna make me happy. I have to, there is no other choice for me. So that's the first type of a business owner is the serial entrepreneur. 

The second is an accidental entrepreneur. So if you're like, what the are you talking about? This is the person that may have originally thought corporate jobs were safe and that felt comfortable, safe, satisfied in a more traditional salary job or hourly pay or the entrepreneur that was so rocked by an experience. So for example, birth, like giving birth that you decided that the only way for you to experience joy in your vocation of choice is by changing the world that you realize that it's too painful to feel trapped in your traditional hourly or salary job, because it's just not allowing you to express your purpose in the world. And it felt too heavy to keep doing that and too constricting.

And that you had this burning desire to change something, whatever that is, whatever the thing you is that you have a passion for. And that the only way for you to lift that painful feeling is to get in here and start being, start being a business owner, to start helping people. And so you kind of accidentally fell into entrepreneurship. It wasn't the original plan. It perhaps scheduling. Wasn't your thing that you really weren't too concerned with having complete control over your schedule, but that you felt so moved by purpose and passion, that there was no other choice. So now here you are, And you might not even have considered yourself an entrepreneur or a business owner before listening to this episode. But listen,

If you're hanging with me and you're, you're probably a business owner, you're probably an entrepreneur. And I was having a conversation with than another, uh, birth professional actually last week. And she brought that up too. And the way she described it with some of her clients, cuz she also works with other birth professionals was if at tax time, the IRS considers you a business owner, you are a business owner. And I was like, amen, amen to that. And it's true, right? If it feels uncomfortable, I encourage you to dig into that feeling like why does it feel uncomfortable to call yourself an entrepreneur? Why does it feel uncomfortable to call yourself a business owner and please let's drop the word, small business owner, small business. You don't have to be small business. You are a business owner. Small is relative And I don't wanna speak that word into my business anymore. I used to. And then I started to realize the power of our words And the energy of words and the vibration not available for small. If we're here to make impact big impact, we can't use words like that. We can't be afraid to call ourselves a business owner, an entrepreneur. We can claim it,

Try it on for size. Okay. And a little bit of unschooling as promised. I have an unschool thought for you today. If you have been Led to believe that you have to be a certain type of person or your business has to reach a certain income level or have a certain number of employees or a certain number of clients, or even make money at all to be considered a business. That's not true. That's not true If you haven't yet had paying clients, but you are doing the things, building your business, you are a business owner Having clients or reaching six figures or whatever it is. Those first goals that you have, that part is not required to be a business owner. The minute you decide That you're going to do something else and you have this other interest and you start to explore that and the idea of starting different steps into your energy field, you're a business owner. So something for you to sit with this week, a thought for you to sit with is where, when and what spaces in your life have you been or in your business. Have you been holding back from claiming entrepreneurship

And how can you allow yourself to embody more of your entrepreneur.