026 Million Dollar Commitment: Thinking Like an Investor

So that first year that you’re out there, building your business, putting your message out there, creating your offer, talking to your ideal client, that’s the least that you’ll ever make. That’s the least impact that you’ll ever have. That’s the least joy that you’ll ever get from your work. That joy and that impact and that money will compound, as long as you continue to commit to that message and that ideal client and that offer.

Welcome to The Million Dollar Badass Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Rodgers, wife, mother to four children, lover of Beyoncé, coffee drinker, and afro wearer, and I just happen to be the CEO of a seven-figure business. I am on a mission to help every woman I meet become a millionaire. If you want to make more money, you are in the right place. Let's get it going.

Well hello, friends. I am back. And I know you never know I left, but I have been on vacation for the last two weeks. I went to Charleston, or right outside of Charleston. There is an island called Kiawah Island. And it’s a resort and just beautiful neighborhood, there’s a nature reserve, beaches, all of the things, lots of million and multi-million-dollar homes, golfing, and all kinds of stuff on this resort.

And so I spent the last two weeks there with my family, and something I’ve always wanted to do – well, first of all, I remember a time in my entrepreneurial journey where I could not afford a vacation period. So just thinking about that as I was enjoying this vacation and even prepping for this vacation was really exciting to think about having, you know, disposable income; not just making enough to get by, which is the status of most Americans and most people in the world are just getting by.

So to have disposable income is a luxury and something that most people don’t have and something that I’m very grateful for and, obviously, have worked strategically to create in my life. So that’s one thing. But the other thing was I always wanted to be able to provide an amazing vacation for not just myself but my extended family.

So what I decided to do this year was rent a beautiful house on Kiawah Island, much bigger than what I needed for just myself and my children, and so we had our whole family join us. So I had all four kids, including my oldest who lives in New York now and she came down for two weeks. And then I also had my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law there, my mom, my sister, my sister’s boyfriend, all the kids. So there was lots of cousin time and it was just, you know, just a house teeming with people. And we had so many adventures. It was a ton of fun.

So we went on a dolphin cruise and saw dolphins, and then we went kayaking. I shared about my kayaking adventure on my Instagram stories. I’m going to turn it into a highlight, so look for that on my Instagram, which is @rachrodgersesq.

So we went on a kayaking adventure with the kids and kayaked to the beach and we saw dolphins strand feeding, which is basically where a bunch of dolphins kind of like group these fish together against the beach and then they, like, jump into the air and eat the fish. It was absolutely incredible to see and right from the water, so I was in my kayak not that far away.

And it looks a little violent, to be honest, but it was fascinating to see these creatures. And it was like this whole mob of black people, like my family getting on these kayaks, and I was just so proud of us. We went on an amazing tour. Shout out to Gullah-Geechee Tours in Charleston. If you’ve never been on that tour, you should. It’s really about the African American history of Charleston and the history of slavery and really fascinating, so I highly recommend that. Shout out to Godfrey, who was amazing and we totally bonded and he was like a member of our family by the end of the tour.

And, of course, we went shopping and had lots of days by the beach and by the pool and it was just a delightful two weeks away. And there was a lot of growth that happened as well. I feel like I shored up my boundaries while I was away. There were some things that I figured out. And I think taking time away from your business and from your work is really important to have time to work on yourself.

It can be challenging to upgrade your mindset and work on all of your personal issues and those things that you can’t see when you’re in it every day. When you’re working in your business every day, there’s a lot of things that you can’t see. But you get to see them when you go on vacation and you have time and space just to kind of work on you, time and space to think.

And one of the things I love about Kiawah is that everybody bike rides. So we rented bikes for everybody for the week and we rode bikes all over the island. We rode to the beach, we rode to the pool, and it was just super fun to ride our bikes everywhere and we got a lot of exercise. I did yoga on the beach. So there’s lots of thinking time and downtime and I was able to prepare really good food for myself, which I never do. Honestly, my husband prepares most of my meals, and when he’s not preparing them, I’m often buying them. So it was really nice to take the time to make myself a beautiful salad and just enjoy the experience of, like, chopping up tomatoes and chopping up cucumbers and I made salads for everybody.

And it was just slow and lots of thinking time, lots of time to reflect and lots of time for fun and adventure with my children every day. And that was my goal. That was my mission was really spend amazing quality time and create amazing memories with my family, and most of all, my kids. And we definitely did that every single day.

There was one day where I took the kids out on a bike ride, including my one-year-old, Jet, who was in, like, we got this little buggy that attaches to the bike. And so he’s like riding in the buggy, you know, kind of trailing behind my bike. And I took all three kids out for a bike ride and that was fun and it was just great bonding time and the kayaking adventure was that too. I also had a spa day. It was just fantastic.

So, if you haven’t taken time off, you absolutely should. The summertime is a great time to do that. But really, do it regularly. And while we were on this trip, we were already planning the next one. So we already have a couples’ trip with my sister and her partner and we’re thinking about going to Amsterdam in the fall or early winter for my sister’s birthday. So that should be a lot of fun as well.

But I really encourage you to take downtime, even if you can’t afford a vacation or you can’t afford to rent a vacation house and take your whole family on vacation yet, just know that that is something that is possible for you. It’s something that you can work towards, just like I have been.

But also, take time off, just take a couple of days off even if it’s a staycation at home, even if you just drive to the nearest beach or body of water and just spend a day reflecting by this body of water. You don’t even have to get in it. Just spend a day doing something you normally wouldn’t do and have some time to really think and reflect on the year. And I love being able to do that in the summertime, July. We’re halfway through the year. What things do I need to shift? Where do I need to upgrade my mindset? What are some things that are holding me back?

There was all kinds of stuff that revealed itself to me while I was away and that was really amazing and I really feel like I left one way and came home a different person – and not necessarily a different person, but with an upgraded level. And that is extremely valuable and worth the cost of taking some time off or taking a vacation.

And the other beauty of it is then my team got to just run the show without me involved and everything went great. There really was no major issues. They just took care of everything. And pretty much, the reality is they’re doing that every day, it’s just sometimes I feel like I need to have my hands in everything. So it’s a really good practice to walk away from your business for two weeks then to come back and it’s like, oh we have amazing new clients and our clients are being really served at a high level, how delightful and incredible.

And I can’t tell you enough how much this is almost like a miracle to me because I remember those times when I thought that I would never find reliable people and I thought that I could never rely on anyone else and I thought that I could never afford the team that I really need to take my business to the next level. I want you to know that all of that is totally possible.

And another update – so there was an update on the book proposal front, so I did spend a little bit of time, really a small amount of time, doing a couple of edits that my agent wanted me to do for my book proposal. So we got those edits done. I sent those out to him. And now we’re ready to start sending it out to editors. So that’s really exciting and it’s book deal time.

So, send me love and prayers and all of those things as we work on finding the right editor and the right publisher to publish my book. And I’m really excited about it and, of course, I’ll be telling you more about that and definitely announcing it publicly once I do get a book deal.

My goal was to have a book deal by the end of this year, and so we’re making good progress. And I’ll probably be in New York in September meeting with some publishers as well. So, very, very exciting stuff, yay for that.

And now, I want to talk to you about million-dollar commitment. That is the topic of the day today. And I really want you to think about becoming an investor in your business, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you need to be an investor. And here’s something that investors are all obsessed with and something that I have become obsessed with as well, which is this concept of compound interest.

So, compound interest is interest calculated on the initial principal, which also includes all of the accumulated interest of the previous period of a deposit or loan. So, compound interest is essentially interest on interest.

So, for example, if you were to think about investing $10,000 into, let’s say, an investment fund of some kind, a mutual fund or a vanguard fund, whatever it is. So, let’s say you invest $10,000, right, that’s your opening balance in your first year of investing. And then there’s a 5% interest rate, okay. So you make 5% interest on your $10,000 principal so that by the end of that first year, your closing balance is your principal, which is $10,000, plus the interest you’ve made on the principal, which is another $500.

So you started out with $10,000, you end the year with $10,500. Here’s where it gets really sexy and exciting. Year two, your opening balance is now $10,500, that principal plus that interest that you earned in year one. Now you get interest not only on the initial principal again, that same 5%, but now you also get that same 5% interest on the same $500 that you earned in interest from year one, okay.

So now your opening balance is $10,500. If you have that same 5% interest, that 5% interest totals $525, and so you wind up with your closing balance at the end of year two as $11,025. So now again, we started with $10,000 at the beginning of year one. We ended year one with $10,500, now we’re ending year two with $11,025. So our investment has grown by $1025.

Now, year three starts with $11,025. We get that same 5% interest, not only on the principal from year one but also from the interest from year one and the interest from year two, and now we’re ending year three with $11,576. So our total interest over those three years is $1500 and so we keep gaining interest on the principal as well as on the interest that we’ve earned. Does that make sense?

I hope that that is relatable and understandable listening to those numbers. But the concept really is that interest on interest. You want to earn on your earnings, not just on the principal that you initially started with, but on the interest that you have earned in that first year.

And what does that take? What is the key to investing? It’s commitment. The key is that you have to stick with that balance, keep it there that first year, keep that principal, there, earn that interest, not pull that interest out, keep it in. And then year two, you’re earning again interest on that whole principal plus the interest, and then year three, right so you’ve got to stick with it.

And investors who stick with their investments over 20 years, 30 years, 40 years are seeing massive returns because they’re earning interest not just on the principal they started with, but on all of the interest that they’ve earned year over year, so interest on interest.

Now, I want to bring this concept into your business and I want you to think like an investor because being a business owner is being an investor. You’re not just working a job, you are investing in a business that is going to give you returns, like when you’re on vacation like I just was.

So I was away for two weeks and my business continued to earn money and have very successful financial weeks and my clients were served and new clients were brought in. All of that happened without me being there.

So being a business owner is being an investor as well, and so you really need to think like an investor, not like somebody who has a nine to five job. It’s a different way of thinking. You want to think like an investor.

And honestly too, this works even if you have a nine to five job really. The key to investing is commitment and the key to building a million-dollar business is also commitment. And you will also see compound interest – so this concept of interest on interest – in your business when you commit long-term.

So, let’s talk about the three areas where you need to commit. So, the three commitments to build a million-dollar business are, number one, commit to a message. Number two, commit to an ideal client. And number three, commit to an offer. Now, this is not rocket science. This is the key to having a successful business; having a message, having an ideal client, and having an offer. That’s all it takes.

However, we’ve all seen those people who change their businesses every five minutes and every year or every six months, they’re relaunching something new, they’re changing course, they’re changing their messaging, they’re serving a different ideal client, their services have changed and we can never refer them and we can never commit to them because they won’t commit. So if you, as a business owner, don’t commit to your clients, guess what, they’re not going to commit to you either.

So here’s the problem that most people have though with commitment; the fear that comes up around commitment is you think you have to find that perfect message and that perfect ideal client and that perfect offer. And so you’re kind of waiting to find that offer, or maybe you’re searching for that offer, you’re searching for that perfect ideal client, you’re searching for that message, and so you’re constantly changing it because you’re like, “Oh I’ve just had this new idea,” or, “Oh, I’ve just had this different experience, now I’m going to change it again,” and you’re constantly changing the message, the ideal client, and the offer, which means that you’re not committed.

And when you’re constantly changing, guess what happens – you can’t earn that compound interest. If I keep pulling my principal out of my investment fund and then I put it back in and I take it out again and I put it back in, well guess what, I can’t earn compound interest. I’m starting from scratch every single time and so I don’t get to earn interest on interest, okay. I hope you’re following me here.

Now, here’s the other part of commitment that I find a lot of women entrepreneurs struggle with, which is you think it’s external. You think, once I find that perfect message, I’ll be golden. But that is incorrect. The message, the ideal client, and the offer that you are willing to commit to is not something that you’re going to find externally. It’s not something that you’re going to find by just thinking about it a lot or doing a bunch of research or seeing what everybody else is doing. You don’t find it externally and it’s not something that is outside of you, okay.

Finding what you will commit to is internal. It’s likely something that you are already committed to. It’s likely something that you are already obsessed with. And so for example, think about Marie Kondo. She’s obsessed with keeping a tidy house and I’m sure she didn’t start out thinking about how a tidy house leads to a tidy mind and how a tidy house can affect everything in your life and really how you treat yourself with how you maintain your home has a lot to do with what’s going on in your head and how you’re feeling about your life, like all of these things that are so deep, these deep concepts, she probably didn’t start out knowing that already.

She probably just started out wanting a tidy home for herself and committing to that and then helping other people do it and committing to helping other people keep a tidy home and probably as she worked with people, she started to realize, like, once they get this concept and once they start to maintain a tidy home, that starts to change their life. Wow, this is amazing. And she probably did research and read studies and helped more and more people and helped different kinds of people and kept exploring this concept and the further that she committed to this message and to these ideal clients and to her main offer, the more money she made, the more purpose is revealed, the more impact she was able to have.

So that is where that compound interest comes in. so that first year that you’re out there building your business, putting your message out there, creating your offer, talking to your ideal client, that’s the least that you’ll ever make. That’s the least impact that you’ll ever have. That’s the least joy that you’ll ever get from your work. That joy and that impact and that money will compound, as long as you continue to commit to that message and that ideal client and that offer.

So your commitment basically comes first, you know. It’s not like, once I find this perfect thing, I will commit. No, you just have to choose to commit, then it will become the perfect thing. So you just have to choose to commit, and then the message and the ideal client and the offer will become the perfect thing for you.

So, what you commit to and your message, your ideal client, your offer, it shouldn’t be something that even has the potential to bore you because you are often already fired up about it. It’s something that you already talk about all the time. It’s something that you’re doing right now but not getting paid to do. It’s really a key part of your life probably already in some way and you just haven’t pulled it out and focused on it and committed to it.

And usually, the reason why we haven’t done that is fear. And a lot of what I do in my coaching with my clients is really I’m asking them questions and I’m diving deeper with them because I’m trying to get to that place where they say to me, What I really want to do is…” I’m always looking for those magic words and we always get there, to that point where they’re saying, “What I really want to do is… What I really want… What I’m really fired up about, what I’m really excited, who I really want to help…”

When they finish that sentence, I’m like, that is the thing. Stop wasting your time with all the other things and do the thing, the thing that means so much to you because that is something that you can commit to long-term because you’re already committed to it.

So, as I said, the key piece to this is that the more you commit, the more you get fired up, the more passion you feel, the more you want to pour into this message and these people and this work that you are doing. So in summary, commit to the message, commit to the people, and commit to the offer and the passion and purpose will come and it will multiply and you will see compound interest, you will get interest on interest to committing to this business and this message and these ideal clients and this offer and this way that you want to change the world.

And if you’ve committed to the wrong thing – because I know there are people listening who are feeling like, “I’ve committed to the wrong thing,” or, “What if I’ve committed to the wrong thing? I don’t want to make a mistake.” Well, first of all, there’s no world in which you become an investor and entrepreneur and become wealthy and don’t make mistakes. It’s just not an option, so let that go.

Mistakes are a part of the journey, let’s embrace them. Mistakes let you know that you’re out there doing something, okay. If you’re not making mistakes, you ain’t doing shit. You’re playing it safe, and therefore you’re going to stay exactly where you are, or even worse, start to decline.

But here’s the thing; if you’ve committed to the wrong thing, you will figure that out and you’ll be able to pivot, alright. So even if you commit to the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing will lead you to the right thing. And the perfect example is my own journey. I committed to women entrepreneurs many years ago as a lawyer and I committed to helping women entrepreneurs gain freedom by providing legal services to them.

Now, it was the right people, the freedom and building wealth off of your intellectual property, that was the right message, but it was the wrong work for me. I didn’t want to be doing the legal work and the legal work felt like a constraint. My message was bigger than that. And so that’s when I pivoted. But guess what, when I pivoted, it was not that hard to do. And part of the reason why is because I was already talking to those ideal clients and I was already saying intellectual property will help you build wealth, let’s focus on that, let’s make more money.

I already had this message and I already had these ideal clients. It was the work. It was the offer that needed to shift. And so when I shifted that offer, everything sort of grew rapidly. So my point that I’m making is it’s better to commit to something rather than nothing, even if it’s the wrong thing.

And another way to say that is it’s better to commit to the wrong thing than commit to nothing at all. So if you don’t have that ideal client or that offer or that message that you are clear and concise and committed to and speaking to all of the time in your business right now, you need to get it. You need to choose one. Choose it and it will choose you back and it’s all about commitment.

And just think about it, right, the more we commit in our relationships, the better those relationships get. Like, my relationship with my husband improves over time. It wasn’t the best it was ever going to be when we were dating. Now we’ve dated, we’ve been married, we’ve moved all over the country together, we’ve had children together, we’ve been broke together, we’ve been wealthy together. And so we’ve been through so much together and there’s just this deep level of trust and of knowing each other and there’s so much benefit to that.

There’s compound interest from building that relationship over time and committing to that relationship every day over many years. There’s compound interest from that. And it’s the same thing in whatever you’re doing.

So if you are doing something like if you have a job and you’re not committed to it – I recently had an employee on my team who is an amazing human being and great at what she does but she wasn’t committed to my business and this work anymore. And that’s okay. If you’re not committed to it then maybe that’s a sign that that’s not the thing and let that lead you to what the thing is.

And I think for her, she was committed to this work that’s he loves to do, she just wasn’t committed to doing it for my business. She wanted to do it for her own business. And that’s cool. That’s totally fine. That’s not a bad thing. So follow that internal guide, follow those things that you’re already obsessed with, and follow those things, even if you think, “This won’t make me a lot of money,” or, “This is not something that people are talking about a lot right now,” or, “This is not the type of thing that is going to give me a lot of status or that people respect in the world.”

Stop worrying about all of that external crap and just worry about, you know, those things that you feel passionate about, that you feel purpose with, even an inkling of it, because that passion and that purpose will deepen as you deepen your commitment.

So, the other reason why it’s better to commit to one thing than to commit to nothing at all is because action will lead you home. You’re very unlikely to think your way to clarity. Action is what’s going to lead you to clarity. So, if you want to have a million-dollar business, you need to commit. You need to commit to three things, right. The three commitments are commit to your message, what is that key message that you want to share?

And my message is we should all be millionaires. As women, as women of color, we should all be millionaires. That is my message. Number two, commit to your ideal client. My ideal clients, women entrepreneurs who are making 100K or more and want to scale to a million-plus. And commit to an offer. My offer that I’m committed to is Million Dollar Badass, my mastermind for women entrepreneurs.

I commit to it, I always look for ways to make it better, and I always tweak and pivot. And that is the thing, like, my message can pivot and shift a little bit, my ideal client can even shift a little bit, maybe I get even clearer on exactly what type of women entrepreneur – and I tend to serve women entrepreneurs in service businesses, so that is one way that I’ve narrowed it down. I serve women entrepreneurs who value diversity and are inclusive in their own lives and want to be a part of a community that is inclusive.

So those are ways that you sort of deepen that relationship with your ideal client. You get clear on who they are. You get clear on your message. You get clear on your offer. You get better at delivering your offer as you commit to it.

Compound interest, interest on interest, this is a concept that you should be obsessed with in every area of your life. And it’s true in fitness. It’s true in getting good sleep, like if you are bad at taking naps, guess what, practice taking naps. Try to take a nap every day. Maybe you’ll get a five-minute nap in. maybe you won’t fall asleep at all. But over time, there’ll be compound interest. You’ll get better at taking naps. You’ll be better at building it into your life. You’ll be better at waking up for the nap. You’ll turn it into a routine, you know what I mean? There is compound interest when you commit and commitment is a huge part of this. You don’t get to reap the rewards without any commitment. That’s what I want you to know and take away from this episode today.

Now, as always, I have homework for you. So, your homework, here’s some questions to think about, some things to think about, some things to journal on, some things to ponder. Number one, ask yourself, what am I already committed to? Real talk, be really honest and truthful with yourself; not what you think you should be committed to, not what the world says you should be committed to, but what are you actually really committed to right now? Just think about that, ponder that, and think about how that may lead you to that message and that ideal client and that offering that you want to commit to going forward.

Number two, how can I deepen my commitment to my message, my ideal clients, and my offer? Ask yourself, how can you deepen your commitment to your message, your ideal clients, and your offer. What’s one way to recommit to each of those things right now? What’s one thing that you can do to deepen your relationship to your message, to deepen your relationship to your ideal clients and to deepen your relationship and your commitment to your offer?

And notice I’m saying offer, not a million offers. Because when we do a million offers, it’s because we’re not committed to that one offer and that one message and that one ideal client.

So number three, the third question I want you to think about is what am I doing right now that is a distraction from my commitments and therefore diminishing my compound interest? You want to always be thinking about your time and your energy and where you’re investing as places where you can reap compound interest.

You don’t want to invest in frivolous relationships that don’t deliver a reward. You don’t want to invest in people on your team who aren’t all in and completely committed to your mission and your business’s purpose. You don’t want to invest in, you know, 17 different offers, none of which you are actually committed to delivering at a high level and over time.

So ask yourself, what am I doing right now that is a distraction from my commitments and therefore diminishing my compound interest? So remember that the key to investing is commitment. The key to being a million-dollar business owner is commitment. Go get that interest on interest. I will talk to you guys next time, bye.

If you would love some help earning interest, finding those places where you need to commit, finding those places where you need to cut and really taking things to the next level, if you could use some coaching to get some clarity and if you could use a community to boost you up and cheer you on and help you get to that million dollar goal, then you have to check out Million Dollar Badass.

It is my mastermind for women entrepreneurs. It is diverse. We have women of various backgrounds; professional backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds. It’s a place where your creative ideas will flourish. It’s a place where your big dreams will be encouraged. It’s a place where you will learn specific strategies to get more clients, to increase your income, to hire people and bring them onto your team, to take advantage of your valuable intellectual property, to create that authentic brand that has no competition.

These are just some of the things that we do in our mastermind and now is a great time to join. We have room for a few new clients. We also have a retreat coming up in September that is going to blow your freaking mind. So if you would like to be a part of our community, go to helloseven.co/apply, fill out a short application, book a call with my team, we’ll have an honest conversation with you about whether this is a good fit for you.

We only bring clients in that we know we can help you get results, okay. So, commit to this process; we will commit to you. Join us at helloseven.co/apply. That’s how you begin the process to become a Million Dollar Badass.