Episode 81 Transcript

 Hey everybody. And welcome back. So I've been thinking a lot about grade school and what we learned in school, what we were taught in the public education system in Florida. And as I process these thoughts about my experience, um, and I do that sometimes with my husband who had a completely different experience. He went to public school in Illinois, in Chicago. I was in Tampa and Florida. And so we compare notes sometimes and talk about the differences. And it's really interesting to me. Obviously we don't see things through the same lens, um, because our, our experiences were different. So I want to preface this episode with no, that this is not all going to apply to you, right. I've just been looking at this, what we'll get into through my lens. And so some of it might apply some might not. So as usual take what feels good and leave what doesn't apply at the door.

Right. Okay. Let's get started. So in regards

Words to academics, I learned algebra, geometry, science, and mostly whitewashed history, right

In sex ed,

Which was basically like one block out of my entire high school career. It was like, I want to say one day for a short, maybe video that they, I don't remember it. Wasn't long. I learned that that my period is dirty and it's gross. And that it's something that we need to cover up and hide. We use pads, tampons, Mital and chocolate, and we just cover it all up. And we're miserable when we lay in bed for several days, um, and hide and do all the things to conceal mask and forget about,

About it. I learned about condoms and birth control, uh, but not

The thing about how my body and reproductive organs work and nothing about the power

In our cycle

And nothing about the power in my reproductive organ, the power in a vagina that's, that's magical, right? That I've told you guys, I heard this, I read it in a book that you put something inside of it, like semen and outcomes, a human. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so cool. That's such a cool way to put it right. So I didn't learn about that. And then in terms of business and career,

We are, there was a huge empty space

And the public education system, right? We weren't taught how to manage our finances or apply for a loan or start a small business. I mean, I remember vaguely, there was this one class where we had to write checks and we did one project one time where we had to figure out what it will cost for us to live monthly. So we had to pick out an apartment using like the flyer to see what was available for rent. Back then the flyer was like this local distribution that came, I talked about it in another episode, but it was basically like a local little, you know, newspaper type magazine that would come out. Um, there were no pictures, it was just like newspaper, paper and text. Um, so we had to figure that out and pick a job just random job and find out what the salary would be estimate and figure out if we could afford or look for jobs and the flyer to see what kind of job we would get. So basically that, that was about the extent of it, which probably isn't much. Right. And I mean, there were a few exceptions like this, you know, but not many. There was generally this huge gap. And so when I think about how I was taught,

It was

To study and to memorize information, not necessarily to learn, absorb and integrate, right, but with a goal of getting high grades, you study so that you can get high grades, you memorize so that you pass and you get an a, and that way you qualify for a scholarship to go to college because going to college would prepare you for a good, safe job. And that good safe is in like finger quotes by the way.

Okay.

And the problem with this is that we were taught how to be good students, and we were trained how to make good employees one day. And I'm again, using the quotes around good, how to be a good girl that gets good grades and makes her parents happy and how to make a good employee. One day, it makes her boss happy and clocks in on time every single day of the year and gets her two weeks of PTO and is happy as a clam, right? We were not taught how to be a free thinker or a feeler, how to get out of our heads and into our hearts and actually feel things or leader you weren't taught how to lead. And I know that there are still a lot of

Education system schools,

Programs that still kind of lead like this. We weren't taught how to start our own businesses or how to build our dream businesses that never came up. When I was in grade school, never, it was like career day. You know, it was, it was always focused on getting the job, whatever the job was. And I mean, how do you know what you want to do for the rest of your entire life when you're like 12? And then even if you went on to college for business, raise his hand, pre online marketing and pre social media. Also raise his hand, showing my age here, I'm proudly going to be 38. Very, very soon. You likely didn't learn what you need to know to build a business in today's world will definitely not like pandemic world. Right? I went to college for business. I studied finance and I took marketing classes and there was there back then, there was no social media marketing. That was not a thing. You, you really did not get clients online. And we talked about this in a previous episode, you know, Renee and I went in and were basically Sinclair. And I were talking about this about, you know, the marketing of like the older days. It wasn't even that long ago, but it changes so quickly. You know, and today we have access to so many tools and resources that can help us really expand much, much bigger and do our work in a bigger way than we ever really thought was possible.

And so going back to the public education system, you know, there were significant shortfalls in the education system between what was available to us and like what we were taught and the desired result, even though the desired result was a moving target is a moving target, right? Because back then the desire was a good, safe job. And that's no longer the desire, especially coming out of last year. I think many people realized that those good, safe jobs aren't necessarily good, safe jobs. Some of them are great, but sometimes they're

Staple. And sometimes they make people very unhappy and miserable and it feels like it's sucking the life out of us every single day. When we clock in and sit in our cubicle, I know I've been there. So this desire is moving. You know, it's, it's now helping people. Many of us, especially birth workers have woken up to that because there's something about birth that just completely rocks your world, you know? Right. I mean, you know, even if you're not a birth doula, whether you're a postpartum or you work with pregnant people, there's something about the industry that just, it is very magnetic for us. And the desire isn't necessarily to make as much money as possible. I mean, yeah, money's great. You guys have you, if you've been hanging out with me for some time, you know, that I'm into and I teach the energy sometimes with my clients like energetics around money and how to make more money because money is an important thing.

And money allows us to be more of who we already are and expander is it expands us and allows us to help more. But money is not what we lead with. That's not the desire. That's not the thing that I lead with when I post a social media and say, let's say, for example, like right now a premier coaching center is opening for enrollment, right? So, but when I post a social media, it's not going to be, Hey, click here to join the premier coaching center and I'll teach you how to make $10,000 a month. That's not what I'm leading with. Does that happen? Yes, yes it can. And yes it does. Yes, it does. But that's not what I'm leading with. What we're leading with is the real desire underneath that because behind the real desire money follows, the real desire is helping people in the biggest way we can. And when we're doing that in the biggest way that we can, money is a natural byproduct. It's a natural byproduct.

Okay.

Okay. I got a little sidetracked talking about money for a second, but I'm going to go back to the education conversation. So as for college, I think the issue was that it was mostly a dating issue, like calendar dating with what was available for the time. You know, I had got, I started college in 2001 after graduation, like the summer after graduation. And I finished, I stayed in school for five years. I finished my four year finance degree. And then I stayed for an extra year to study accounting. Um, but I decided not to double major because after an extra year of accounting, I was like, I'm done. I need to get out and start working. This is, this is not that fun. Accounting is not that fun for me. But at the time, you know, in business school and taking marketing classes, like we, weren't learning about how to meet your potential clients online or how to help people that are in Australia when you're in Florida or how to help people in Germany or how to help people in England or in Canada and Mexico in, um, El Salvador, like helping people all over the world from your bedroom corner.

Like that wasn't, that was not part of what we learned. And again, that was mostly a dating thing. I'm I would imagine that the business programs now at college and especially the entrepreneurial programs probably have a little bit more current and pho there, maybe not the feminine energy version, like the intuitive marketing piece that I like to bring into this. It's probably more of the logistical and the strategy of how to do the things right. And I like both. And then in terms of your doula training and education, the focus is on the doula work, right? Like how to support your clients, what's ethical. Um, how to, you know, when is the right time to meet them in labor and how can you,

You

Know, help their labor progress. And one of the types of things you should, and shouldn't say that kind of thing, like the actual hands-on experience, because that is really important. And often in doula training, you are, you know, you're limited by time constraints, but it's not so much about how to build your birth

Business, especially

The online piece, right? And this is not bashing any doula trainings that don't have this. It's just that that's not usually the focus. The focus is to teach you if you take birth, birth doula training is really to teach you how to be a birth doula.

And so,

Right. And then you add in the online component, which up until March of 2020, most birth professionals had zero interest in. There were only a few of us out here in the space doing virtual or online stuff pre March of 2020.

So as an adult, I find myself

In this process of unlearning and relearning history,

Listening to audio

Books about the power of my menstrual cycle

And

Filling in the gaps in my own entrepreneurial journey.

I mean, we are creating our own school. We're customizing our education and learning for

Our version of the desired outcome,

Which probably wasn't to be isn't to be a good student and a good employee, but to be

The truest version of ourselves and moving our mission right

Forward in a big way,

It looks like for me, how I create my own school and building my business, right. Customizing my education to build the business that I dream of. I learned from a combination of things. One is self study. You know, I looked to, it started with looking at bloggers and looking at what bloggers, not in the birth space, but in efficacy, there really wasn't many birth blockers. Even like four years ago, three, it was like 2017, late 17. When I started researching this, there were not many birth bloggers. There were just a few that are popping up in my head right now, but there wasn't many. And so I was studying the ones that were out there. I had them all bookmarked in a folder and I was studying what they did. I was studying how they read on their blog and what kind of things they offered, if anything, and did they have social media?

And if they did, what, what kind of things were they posting? And I was looking at other bloggers as well. People who were monetizing blogs, not in the birth space, but other types, fashion bloggers, or influencers or travel bloggers. And I was looking at like, okay, what are they blogging about? How do they do this? Do they have a podcast? How are they monetizing their podcast? How do they make money online? Like how that happen? They have passive products, what are they selling and how do they do that? And so I would sign up for things just to look and see, you know, what their email funnels look like. I would get their emails. And many of you listening have probably done this with my stuff too. A lot of birth professionals join my freebie library for pregnant people just to kind of see, like, how are they doing this?

How is she doing that? And that's cool. Um, as long as, you know, as long as you're using the freebies appropriately, there's language in there, if you don't know. Um, but the first way was the self-study and just sitting for hours and hours sometimes after the kids went to bed or before they got home in the morning, just figure out like, how are they doing this? And, and learning from other bloggers through things like podcasts, you know, so some of them started monetizing just by teaching other, um, online influencers or bloggers how to do it. So I would listen to their podcasts. I would read their blogs on how to monetize blogs, right. The second way was testing things in my own business. So I would learn something from all this self study and then go test it and see like, okay, well let me try something like this and see how this lands.

And I would do it enough to have data, to look at and see like, okay, did this piece land well, did that land better? What works better? You know, and I tested and tried and tried and tried, and many of them were quote failures. Um, but it was me getting closer and closer to the desired outcome. The third way was mentorship. So working with mentors, other business owners, coaches that were, and are doing the things that I want to do. So I would, you know, learn from all of these mentors who were already doing it. And it's kind of like, um, yeah, I'm trying to think of the analogy that I want to use. The first analogy that popped into my head, which I don't know how appropriate it is for this, but it's like a personal trainer when I hired a personal trainer. The first, the only time I ever did, I was in college.

And, um, when I hired a personal trainer actually may have been fresh out of college. When I first got my job. I don't remember. Anyhow, even if I were to hire a trainer, now I would look for a trainer that is kind of living the lifestyle that I want to live. Are they exercising? Are they taking care of their body? Are they, you know, nourishing themselves to be stronger? Like I would look for that kind of trainer, somebody who's living the live in the desired body lifestyle that I want. You know, I would probably not hire the personal trainer. That's laid up on the sofa, um, all weekend, eating Doritos out of the bag and like not really, you know, taking good care of their vessel. Right? And so I apply that logic to hiring mentors or coaches in my business. I look to see what they're doing, because if something that they're doing is something I desire to do. I want to learn from

Them.

The fourth way is I take online courses. You know, you guys hear me talk at great length about the courses that I teach. Right. I have my two versions of my birth course. I have multiple online business courses for doulas. Um, now they're all housed in the premier coaching center, but I also take online courses to expand my own skills and my knowledge, you know, I do my research and I look for going back to number three, I look for the people who are doing the things I want to do. And in this case have courses on the things that I want to learn about in my own time. And by the way, I don't take all of these courses. They're not all for certifications. I know how much birth professionals love getting more certifications and you know, well you're nodding. When you hear me talking about this, it's not a bad thing. This is no judge sexually good thing. It just means that we're available for more and more knowledge and a lifetime of learning. So I'm here for it, but I don't really do this for certification

Number five. This is actually not a number five, but I do want to mention that this is actually the foundation, the things that I've done I've turned into. I knew that I needed it. And so I've turned it into a foundation in my own online business school, which is basically the premier coaching center, but it's, it's think birth professional business meets online business school. It has all of those components. It has the online courses. It has the self study, AKA, you know, taking the online courses in your own time. It has the mentorship, right? We meet every single month in a live stream Q and a private coaching group. And there is that mentorship. It has peer support. So the mentorship also through the peer support community, it has the opportunity for you to take these things that you're learning and test them in your own business and come back to get support and where to take it next. You know what worked well, unpack it, process it with a community of like-minded individuals. So I took a real hard look at what I was doing to learn, build, and grow, and really create my own school. Right. Customizing my own education for what I wanted in my business and put it in

To the point where approaching center membership. So,

Okay. Now homework, I have homework for you at the end of this episode. I want you to get a journal out when you have time. If you don't have time right now, that's okay. If you're driving, do not get a journal out, but you can always come back and listen to this last minute. Think about and journal on what is the desired outcome in terms of your dream business?

Yes.

Is the desired outcome in terms of your dream. And then what did you learn about how to do this? Whether in school or doula training college, various, you know, certifications or, or classes that you've taken and the last piece to this. So there's three questions. The last piece is how can you fill in the gap?

How can you fill in the gaps?

Okay. Per usual, head to the doulas, going digital Facebook community, and feel free to share your progress, your takeaways, what you thought of this episode. I look forward to hearing from you and I will see you soon.