071 What Really Happened in 2020

And trying to find also gratitude for even the challenges that happened because sometimes that’s where the magic is, right? It’s the challenges that happen that change us and turn us into the person that can have the things that we say we want to have, right?

Welcome to the Hello Seven podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Rodgers. Wife, mother of four children, a 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.

Hello friends, it’s your girl Rachel Rodgers. And today we’re going to do something a little different on the podcast. This almost feels equivalent to getting on a mic when you’re drunk. It’s not that bad, I’m not drunk. I just drank coffee. But, I am going to do today an informal year-end review.

2020 has been a hell of a year, and I thought it would be fun to just kind of walk through what happened this year. And hopefully we’ll extract some lessons and it’ll be interesting. And if it sucks, well, you know what? You just wasted 30 minutes of your time. No big deal.

So, let’s do it. So, I am completely unprepared for this, and I’m just going to go stream of consciousness, okay? So I’m forewarning you, okay? So, if you find yourself at the end of the podcast and you’re mad at me don’t send me hate mail because I gave you a forewarning.

All right, so I want to start this year-end review at the end of last year. At the end of 2019. I ended 2019 with a book deal and really struggling to get myself started and get myself in a groove with writing my book and with feeling like I needed to grow. I felt like my business was meant to be bigger in some way but I couldn’t figure out exactly how.

So, I was getting to that place where I was feeling uncomfortable, you know? I had been running Hello Seven for, I guess, almost three years at that point. And it was just feeling like there was growth that needed to happen. Something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Right?

So that’s kind of where I was at the end of 2019. We had a two-million-dollar year, but I felt like we had to work really hard to make that two million. I was determined to reach two million, but I did feel like we had to really stretch ourselves and push to make that two million. And so, what I really wanted to do in 2020 was to make more than two million but also for it to feel easy. I didn’t want it to be so hard, right?

So, that’s kind of where I was December 2019. And so I decided to get an entrepreneurcast from Theresa Reed. So, Theresa is an astrologist and a Tarot reader. There are a lot of very successful people that work with her and that use her guidance to help them make business decisions and to kind of lay out their plans, right? And so I was really intrigued by her entrepreneurcast, it sells out every month because she only does like ten of them.

And so I finally snagged one in November and I was super excited. And so she laid it all out for what 2020 would look like for me. And I’ve had so many friends say to me, “Theresa is never wrong.” right? And I would agree with that. I think she’s never wrong. So shout out to Theresa.

So, I remember I was sitting in the nail salon when the entrepreneurcast finally came through. And I remember thinking and feeling like I really just want to spend more time with my family. And I really… I just was looking for more balance, more ease, and more focus on my home life is how I was feeling.

And I remember I was sitting in the nail salon getting a mani-pedi when the email came in with my entrepreneurcast. And in this entrepreneurcast Theresa really is just breaking down based on your birth year, and your time of birth, and looking at the way the planets will be moving throughout the year, she gives you some direction of what she feels is going to be happening when. And some ideas about what kind of year this is going to be for you.

And it’s a real breakdown, like it’s probably a 20-page document. And I have referenced it all year long. I find it to be so valuable and so helpful in just being a reminder for me. And so, I went through that and I remember I started to cry sitting there in the nail salon because one of the things that she said was, “This is going to be a very big year and you are going to work.” And she was saying that, “It’ll be a big year, you’re going to work hard, but after that you’re going to be in a great place to focus more on family life.” Right? It was sort of what it said. And I just wanted to cry because I was like, “No, I want that now.”

And mind you, I spend a lot of time with my kids every morning, and every evening, and every weekend. And it’s not like I don’t feel like I get enough time with my children. I guess I felt like I had given so much attention to my clients and my business for so long that I was looking for more balance and to not be in this place where…

I feel like we sort of get to a place where we have a lot of balance, we’re building the team, we’re building systems, we’re building process, and then something happens and I get pulled back in in a bigger way, right? And I want sustainable balance. Long term I think is what I was really looking for but I just didn’t have language around it.

So, that was basically the report. She also talked a lot about how some of my business relationships would shift this year. The word prolific was actually in the document. And it’s so funny because my word of the year for 2020 was going to be prolific. And then I was like, “That sounds like a lot of work, I’m just going to make it yes instead.” So, my word of the year is supposed to be, basically, about a year of yes, saying yes to myself, saying yes to what I want.

And so that sort of sets the stage for where I was at in December 2019 and kind of moving into January. I knew the book was going to be a top priority this year, that I needed to write that book. And that we would begin the promotion of that book. I didn’t even have the date of when it would come out yet, we just knew we we’re planning on 2021. And I didn’t know if it was going to be spring or fall 2021 when the book came out.

And I knew I wanted to shift some things, right? I felt like my mastermind offer… I kept making changes and tweaks, and improvements, and my clients were getting amazing results. But it just didn’t feel quite right for a number of reasons. And so I felt like there was a shift coming there. And so I just really started this year off in seeker mode, okay? So that’s kind of what I’m setting the stage for.

So, January was a pretty like, kind of, I wouldn’t say ho-hum month. I mean we really spent the month preparing for our first retreat of the year for our Million Dollar Badass Mastermind, which no longer exists at this time. But in January 2020 it did still exist. So we had that event in January, at the end of January. And so we spent most of January prepping for that.

And I spent a lot of January fretting over the fact that I didn’t feel like I was writing enough. And I would write things and I would be like, “This is garbage and I don’t know where I would put it in the book.” And I was doing research, and I just felt like I couldn’t get into a groove with the book and so I was sort of stressed about that.

And then we had this retreat in January. And the retreat did not really go as planned. I mean, I guess in some ways it did, but it was a real reminder that we needed to shift something, right? Because some of our clients were super happy with the retreat and thought it was amazing. Some of them did not think so. And there was a little bit of drama there and it was really painful as a business owner to feel like you’ve worked so hard, you put so much effort in, and then your clients give negative feedback, right? And of course, that feedback is very valuable and it’s important information.

And so that was January, right, which was a tough month. So, February comes along and it was a big exciting month with lots of travel. One of the biggest travel things was that I was flying to Hawaii to work with my friend Alex Franzen on my book for a week.

And so I flew to Hawaii and I spent a week with her getting my book started. And that is where I really started to get into a groove. I wrote the first four chapters of the book and the introduction in Hawaii. So, I got a lot done and was super proud and got some amazing feedback from Alex.

And what was incredible too, is as I was writing these chapters, like each day I would write a chapter and then hand them to her. And she would read it and give me feedback and tell me what I could do to improve it. And I could actually see her starting to apply some of the principals that I was talking about in my book to her life during that week.

So it was like having a real live case study, like every chapter I wrote and shared with her she was really impacted by. So that was so exciting, it let me know that I was on the right track and that this book would have the impact that it was meant to have and that I had hoped it would have. So it was so exciting.

So, we spent the week writing, and we did go to the beach a couple of times, and we did do some fun Hawaii things. But it was really mainly me in front of a laptop writing. And so I went on that trip, it was lovely. I came back and my team and I went to a retreat to work on our business. So, my program director, my marketing director, and my husband, who was the CFO, the four of us went to Texas to go to a retreat and work on our business and just kind of figure out what needs to shift.

And at that retreat we got massive clarity. We got just really clear on what’s not working, especially in the behind the scenes and the operations of the business. And at that retreat is where we figured out that my marketing director really was almost operating as our operations director and trying to do the job of the marketing director as well. So that was a massive aha.

And so we immediately moved her into the operations director role and that, oh my gosh, has changed everything. And if you haven’t listened to that podcast with Brittany, who is my operations director, you should absolutely listen to that. I recorded that quite a few episodes ago. But it is 100% worth your time.

So, we did that and then after that we went to San Francisco to work with another coach and this was to really look at the marketing, and the offers, and how we run our events because we wanted to improve, right? We had gotten some negative feedback from our clients and we wanted to improve and we wanted to see like, “How can we make this serve people at the highest level?”

And when I say that I want to improve, just to be clear, I don’t know that I have a client who has been in my mastermind who did not make more money. I’m pretty sure that every single client that was in my mastermind over the last three years increased their income. But there were just other things about the way we were delivering the offer and the experience that I wanted to improve. And so I went to San Francisco, again, with my team and this time our sales person joined us as well to work that out.

So really, I spent a lot of the first quarter just like soul searching and figuring out what is the next iteration of this business, and at the same time I was writing my book. And the book, right, you’re figuring out what do you actually want to say? What do people need to know? What is the end goal, right? So that’s its own form of soul searching. So that’s really what was going on in the first part of the year.

And so I went to San Francisco with the team, got massive ahas there about shifting our offer and I think we had like 80% clarity but we were still waiting for it to crystallize, right? It’s like, you ever have that feeling where you’re like, “I can see it, I’m starting to see the silhouette of it, but I haven’t fully made out the picture.” And that’s kind of where we were when we can back from San Francisco.

And literally, the talk about the Coronaviruswas happening while we were in San Francisco. I actually had a spring break trip planned with my kids to Hawaii and while we were in San Francisco I was asking myself like, “Should we still do this trip? Should I cancel it? I'm not sure, there's like all this wishy-washy info in the news.” And then we got back home. I got back to North Carolina and about a week later, that's when they declared that this was a pandemic. And as you guys know, the lock down followed shortly thereafter.

And you know what? I'm forgetting one really important thing that happened in February. At the very beginning of February, on February 4^th, I came to visit the Rodgers Ranch. Of course, it wasn't the Rodgers Ranch yet, right? I came to visit this 50-acre property that my husband and I had found out about and our Realtor brought us over to check it out. Because something just told us… I don't know, I was just led to it. I was just interested in it. And I was like, “Let me see. I've just got to see it for myself and see what happens.” Right?

And so I saw the property February 4^th. And before I went to Hawaii, we were having conversations, and I believe we actually had to sit down at that time with the sellers right before I left for Hawaii, to just talk about what would this deal look like? Because it's complicated. It's two pieces of land. And it's not an easy deal to do. And so we sat down with the sellers who are also business people, they're also entrepreneurs. And we had a conversation, we bonded, we cried during that meeting.

And in fact, one of the things that was said during that that meeting is one of the sellers told me that the reason she put the house on the market is because she had a dream that there was a woman who had three children who needed this property. And she woke up from that dream and told her husband, “Let's put it on the market.” And she told me that during this meeting. And so I cried, she cried, other people at the table cried. We were all misty eyed and moved. And it was like the most magical business meeting ever.

And so that's what was happening right before I went to Hawaii to work on my book. And so we had this deal. And I was like, I don't know if we're going to be able to do it, but I really hope so. And there were so many different elements and pieces that had to be sorted out and things that kind of got in the way. So we just didn't know. But, it was something we were interested and we had decided we wanted to pursue.

So that happens, we go off to… I go off to Hawaii work on my book, I come back and go to two different conferences with my team. And then March happens and coronavirus infects our lives. And it's a pandemic and no one knows what's going to happen.

So, it was a really interesting first quarter, to say the least, is really how I started off this year. And in March, you know, I canceled all my travel. We had planned to go on a retreat to France in May, and we really were torn about whether to cancel it. And so we waited a little while before we made that decision. There was just so many questions up in the air once that pandemic got declared. And we really, all of us as a collective society had to take this thing really seriously.

And I remember, it was like mid-March right after it had been declared a pandemic, but the kids were still in school. And they were supposed to go on a trip. My kids were supposed to go on a trip to a theater, and to sit in a theater and watch a play.

And I remember being stressed about that and thinking, “I feel like they shouldn't be going to sit in a theater, knowing that this pandemic is now here.” And I contacted my daughter's teacher and I said to her, “Hey, I don't know that we should be doing this. Like, I feel like this trip needs to be canceled.” And she said, “Well, the Department of Health has cleared us to go. So we're going to still go.” And I was like, “Okay, my children aren't going.” And from that day on I pulled them out of school.

And the following week was Spring Break anyway, which bought me some time. And then of course, Spring Break got extended. And then Spring Break turned into virtual school. And virtual school sucked, as you all know. And I’m sure virtual school sucks for you guys, too.

So anyway, that was March, I felt like we were committing to being on lockdown before… I shouldn't say I felt like, the reality was we committed to being on lockdown before it was declared by our state. And definitely before it was declared even in a major way around the country. And I also felt like I was kind of a crazy person and people sort of felt like I was crying wolf. But I just felt like, “This is what we need to do. We need to shut it down. And we need to stop taking risks.”

And so it was just us at home for probably six to eight weeks. It was quite a while that we were home and wouldn't let anybody in the house. We didn't go anywhere, unless absolutely necessary. We did very… Even our chef who works in our home typically, she was just doing drop offs of food instead, and dropping off groceries, which was really lovely and kind. And so we kind of just stayed home for a while. And we're grounded and we're just like, “Okay, let's see what happens.” And you know, it was really scary. I had a lot of anxiety during that time.

And then the other thing that happened is in March our revenue really took a dip, because if you remember as I'm talking about Q1, right, I didn't do a lot of marketing in Q1. I knew I wanted to shift things about my program, and rework it, and possibly shift it to a completely different program, I wasn't sure. And so we stopped selling it. And as a result, March did not go well. We spent January and February not really promoting the one thing that we sell, and therefore, in March we saw our revenue take a dip.

So, I have not had a non-profitable month in years in my business. And March 2020 was the first time in many, many years that my expenses were higher than my revenue. And so that was, of course, a wakeup call. And of course, coronavirus is going on. And so we really got focused as a team.

And I remember Grace, my amazing former salesperson saying to me, “Hey, there are so many people that want to work with us. But they can't afford this expensive mastermind that we're doing. There's got to be another model. There's got to be something that we can offer them. They love the podcast, they love what we teach, and they want to work with us. So, let's figure out how to serve them in a way that makes sense for our business model.”

And so, that's when the pivot began, right? And so we started surveying our audience, talking to them, asking them, “Hey, what do you guys want?” Right? Like, “What do you really want to learn from us? What are you really struggling with that you feel that we can help you with?”

And at that time, I just want you to know, my state of mind was basically this, “I know I have an incredible team. I know I have an incredible brand that we've built up over the last several years. And I know I have an incredible audience of entrepreneurs that I love to serve. So with those three ingredients, all I have to do is like put them together and start figuring out exactly what is the right offer to serve them.” Right?

And so that's where we were at. And so, I was trying to figure it out. And yes, there was some fear and some anxiety, but I really knew it would all work out. And we had saved a ton in 2019. And we really cleaned up how we manage the business finances and really raised the level of quality in terms of how we were managing our finances. And so, as a result, when the pandemic hit, we had a lot of runway.

And so I knew like, “Hey, we're not going to go out of business. But we have months and months, probably a good year before we'd have to lay people off and all of that.” However, right, it is definitely not something I want to make a habit out of, not having profitable months, right? That's still pretty scary. And I did cry a few times about it during that season, because it was just the anxiety was so high. Both in terms of safety and health for yourself and your family, and then on top of that business stress. And I know all of you guys can relate because you've all been there.

And so we decided to survey our audience, get more information. And one day when I was in the tub, I just had this realization like, “Oh, I know what we need to do.” And I knew it was create a membership. And it's so funny because I had gone to a retreat in France like three years before, where I wrote down an offer that really looks like We Should All Be Millionaires: The Club, and just never did it. Right?

Like, I wrote it down. I had a model for it. But for some reason, it didn't quite feel right, or I didn't know how to do it. I also, as a general rule, hated membership offers. Because I feel like a lot of people do them just because they want something cheap to sell instead of doing them based on like, what is actually going to be valuable to people.

And so that's when we created The Club. And so The Club was born, really in April, early April. And we were building it. We were building the membership site, and the infrastructure for it, and figuring out exactly what this offer would look like.

And early April we started selling it. And that's when we did the pony post, the infamous pony post. And if you're in my Hello Seven Facebook group this year, in the free Facebook group, then you saw the pony post and heard all about this offer where we were just making The Club available to people who were interested. And we sold over 100 spots before we even had a sales page, before we even had a name, any of it.

And the response was incredible. People were really excited about it. And so that's how we knew, “Oh, this is it. This is the thing that people actually want.” And so we put it out there, we did a big launch at the end of April, and wound up having 350 people join The Club, right there in the early days, which instantly made it a million dollar offer, right? One million a year, right, was where it was at, at that point.

And so we were super excited about it, just thrilled that we had so many people join, and kicked it off in early May. And it was beautiful. Like the community was beautiful. Everything was lovely. We did our MDB retreat, which was the very last one in May. And shortly thereafter, around that time is when we decided, “Oh so many people join The Club and there's such a response to it. I think this is our flagship offer.” And you guys know I'm all about not spreading yourself too thin focus on one offer or another. Don't pull yourself all around. And so, we decided to focus on The Club and that meant that we needed to shut down our mastermind.

And of course, we had to make that announcement to them and have a transition game plan. And that's always scary, right? When you are putting an offer to bed that people are getting value from, and that people appreciate, especially when it's a close-knit community. And so that's what happened.

So, in May we did a fantastic retreat. Again, during this whole time, I'm still making progress writing my book. Probably getting like a chapter a month done, maybe a little bit more than that. But making some progress, and it's slow and steady. And I hired my friend Alex to babysit me every week and make me write. So that's what's going on in the background as all of this is happening.

And then at the end of May George Floyd was murdered. And that absolutely radicalized me on a level that I had not been radicalized before. Obviously, every time a Black person is killed by the cops in this way it is devastating, and it's so harmful, and it's so enraging. But this one in particular enraged me on a completely different level.

And once that happened, right, the protests were happening, I was staying up all night, every night, just like being on Twitter and watching the news. And just finding out what was happening with protesters. And following journalists who were on the ground and just afraid, right? Of what was going to happen. And also, completely with them solidarity wise, right?

And then I started to see entrepreneurs posting things like, “Oh, this is terrible. Oh, donate to this place.” You know, it was just like the typical response. And it made me so angry. And it particularly made me angry when I saw a group of Black women talking about how a particular entrepreneur had decided to tell people in her community who had purchased her program, that they couldn't talk about what was happening.

That they couldn't talk about George Floyd. That they couldn't talk about the protests. That they couldn't talk about what was going on in the world and how they were experiencing it, and how it was hurting them in her Facebook group, right? Like, “Don't bring that to this community, because that's not what we're here to discuss. Leave that elsewhere, we're not going to be talking about politics here.”

And when I saw these Black women talking about it, and how it was affecting them, and how it was hurting them. And they were having a public conversation on someone's… It was actually Angie Jordan's Facebook page on her personal profile. And I was just getting more and more pissed off just watching this. And also seeing how this is happening and I want more attention on it. I want more people to notice. And I wanted to amplify the voices of these Black women who were angry.

And so, I decided that I was going to say something. And I did say something like, I posted a couple comments in some places on Facebook. And I went to bed that night. And then I woke up the next morning, and it was nagging me and nagging me. And I just felt like I couldn't even enjoy my Saturday. Like, I couldn't enjoy time with my family or the weekend because I was so angry about this that…

You know how that thing is nagging you and you know you have to be brave and say something and do something that you feel uncomfortable doing. Or you feel like who am I to do it. Or you have any number of impostor syndrome moments or just reasons why you don't want to and then you just realize that you have to, that this is what you have to do.

And so I set up my camera on my porch, and I went live on my personal Facebook page. And I talked about this good white liberal response to racism in America. And how that is really a huge part of why we continue to have systemic racism. And I really didn't have a plan. Like, I wrote a couple notes about what I wanted to say. And I just spoke from my heart.

And, I mean, the moment I started speaking, I started crying because this affects me. It affects the fear I have with my children going out into the world, right? Like, it is extremely scary to be a Black person in America. And to be a Black mother in America, to watch your Black husband go out the door and hope that he makes it back. And to just be constantly worried about these things.

And also, constantly experiencing microaggressions and racism in all these different ways in your life. And we all just sort of learn to cope with it and it makes you, on a certain level, numb. And everything about what happened with George Floyd just like brought all of those feelings to the forefront, right? Like they were no longer dormant, or they were no longer shoved down. They were just on the surface now.

And I fully expressed that rage and deep sadness in that video. And I was surprised by how many people joined, all of these folks who have large audiences joined. And what happened is they said, “Start sharing this.”  Like, I'm seeing it in the comments as I'm talking, they're all sharing it with their audiences. And so it wound up being this huge Facebook Live that I was not expecting. I just had to get out and say what I wanted to say.

Needless to say, long story short, that video warmed up going viral. Or what I would consider viral because all these people saw that I wasn't expecting. And as a result, our audience grew massively. All of these people started reaching out, and I started calling out more people. Right?  So there was a lot of different entrepreneurs that I saw their responses to the protests, and it enraged me and I called them out.

And the goal of calling people out, which I've said before but I will say again, is to call them in, okay? The goal of calling people out is to make them aware of their biases, and their racism, frankly. And help them to see that it's real and that they have to do the work to overcome it, right? We have a society that is built on white supremacy. We all are experiencing… You know, if you're a white person you are probably racist on some level. Even some people of color are racist against Black people.

And as Black people, we have internalized this oppression in a lot of ways. And we have to literally excavate it from our brains and from how we operate. And so I wanted that to be a public conversation. And as a result, we decided to do the town hall.

So, now we're in June, that video goes viral. We hosted a town hall with Erica Heinz, and Susan Hyatt and Robert Hartwell, and Nathan Barry. And it was a beautiful evening and experience. And Sonya Renee Taylor as well. And we got together and we talked about it, and we educated each other on it. And it was a really beautiful thing. And we asked people to sign the anti-racist small business pledge. And 1000’s of people signed it. And I hope that it created some positivity in the world and will continue to.

So, that was June. And as a result, actually of all of that happening, my audience and community demanded that we reopen The Club. They were like, “Open these doors and let us in. We are looking for a safe space because…” And, really, more I think a better phrase is a brave space where we can fully be ourselves, we can talk about what's happening in the world, and get the business education that we are looking for.

And so we reopened The Club. And when we did that 900 people joined this time. So, we are two months into this offer and we now have 1300 clients. And it was pretty incredible. And so we spent July serving our people, we did the 10k in 10 Days Challenge for the first time in July. July is also the time where I'm finishing my book and hitting it hard because I can see the finish line and I'm so close, but so far away.

So, I'm writing my book, and serving clients, and The Club, and doing a ton of press because all of a sudden all of this opportunity was in my lap. It's like drinking from a fire hose. And so that was July, right? We did the 10k in 10 Days Challenge. It was absolutely life changing for everybody who participated and even for people who didn't.

And what happened in July is that the group of people that participated, which was around 300 people, collectively made $2.3 million dollars in a 10-day period. And we were absolutely floored and flabbergasted by that. Like, I felt like it would be a great thing, I had no idea that it would impact the community this way, and really put that many dollars in the hands of women, and people of color, and queer people, and all of the marginalized people that hang out in The Club. And so that was a really beautiful month.

And then we roll on to August and it's like, it's serious business time with getting this book done. I'm now in final edits mode. I had to deliver the first draft. So, I got the book done. And then I had editing to do. So, August was pretty much a grind of working really hard to get the book done and to continue to serve our clients in The Club.

And so, all of this time there's lots of press happening, our audience continues to grow. And I feel like it was a pretty great summer too because we came off of lockdown. We had to wear masks. We had new protocols, but we were able to still get out of our houses to some extent and function, right?  And August was also a big month because that's when I went to New York to do the photo shoot for the cover of the book. And then we also filmed a trailer for the book and created this incredible image that now lives at the top of helloseven.co.

So, it was August, when that massive photo shoot happened. There were 30 plus people there, I was in New York for probably, I think, four or five days to get that done. And I really prioritized assembling a group of Black women to support me in that. So my stylist, my hair, makeup, were all Black women. And we assembled… A lot of my friends and family came to that shoot and participated as models. We also hired a Black-owned modeling agency, where a whole bunch of diverse models came to our shoot, and were a part of that photo.

So, that was a pretty magical and inspiring creative project that I really truly loved and enjoyed. And then when I came back, I immediately went to a local hotel nearby in my town in Greensboro, North Carolina to finish my book. And I locked myself in a hotel for three days, and edited the whole book in three days. So, that was August. It's been an exciting year y'all.

Oh my god, I'm exhausted and we're only in August. The other thing that happened in August is that we closed on the ranch. So, in addition to working on the book all this time, in addition to having everything that was happening in the business going on, I also was working on this ranch deal right, behind the scenes. Once the pandemic hit, we didn't know if we were going to move forward with it. And so we sort of put moving forward with the deal on hold. Banks weren’t even lending money, they weren't even talking to you then because we just didn't know what was going to happen as a society.

And then in May, we sort of picked back up and kept going with that conversation. And we finally closed in July. So July we closed right at… Sorry, no, we closed in August. In July is when we sort of were getting all the paperwork together and trying to get the deal done. And we knew it was going to happen. And then we closed, I believe it was August 13.

And shortly after that I wrote and shared about this experience. Like, I just bought a ranch. And I'm a Black person from Queens, New York. Like what is even happening? And so I shared that story with my audience, with all of you guys. And it wound up going viral as well, which was crazy.

So yeah. Gosh, you guys, this year was absolutely nuts. It was like equal parts amazing and like everything that I would have ever wanted. And equal parts absolutely fucking horrible. How will we explain 2020 to our children in the years to come? Right? Like how will we explain 2020 to the people who didn't live it? Like, to the next generation. I have no idea. But anyway, I'm glad we'll have this podcast episode, this time capsule, right, of this experience.

Okay, so that's August. We bought the ranch. We started renovations on it. We put our house on the market that we were living in. And September comes, we hosted a retreat and we're starting to get in our groove, right? Because what happened was, in June when we had 900 new people join The Club in a matter of 10 days. We were now at 1300 Club members. Our revenue went up significantly.

Oh my god you guys, I actually forgot about the million-dollar month. That’s how insane this year was, that I totally forgot we had a million-dollar month. In June we had a million-dollar month, y'all. Oh my god. When we reopened The Club, as I mentioned, 900 people joined. And it was like the last few days of the month of June and we were at like 650,000. And I was like, “Oh my god, I wonder if we could hit seven figures in a single month.”

And I talked to my team, they were like, “You're crazy.” I talked to my best friend Robert Hartwell, and he was like, “Bitch, you better go do that.” And so I sent out an email to our community. And I was like, “Hey, we want to see if we can hit the seven-figure mark. Like, I feel like this is a moment for all of us, right? Like, this is evidence that you can be a Black person that grew up low income and build a business that can make seven figures in a month. And not be venture backed and not have access to capital from banks.”

And it just felt like an important moment emotionally and for the community as well. And so I just put myself out there and said, “Hey, we want to see if we can make this happen. Will you help us? And help us in one of two ways. You could help us by joining The Club. And if you join and can do the annual, do the annual membership so that it'll go further to get us to that million-dollar mark. Or you could just help us spread the word. Either one we greatly appreciate.”

And so I put myself out there and y'all showed up. Listen, the way y'all showed up is incredible. Like, it blew my mind. I was floored. So, we made $350,000 in approximately a 24-hour period. And we had a seven-figure month in the month of June.

And really, here's the behind the scenes for that, that y'all don't know. So y'all know that that happened. Y'all know that you guys made that happen. Your incredible epic support. And it just goes to show like, this is what we can do for each other, we can show up for each other. And it is my goal and purpose to show up for y'all the way that you have showed up for us, always.

But here's the behind the scenes, we had that million-dollar month, and then we basically broke our business. Because, you know, we had all these clients, now we're making so much more money, we didn't know… Our monthly revenue had been like between 200 and 250,000 for the first half of the year. And then in June we had a seven-figure month. And then we didn't know, like what was our monthly revenue going forward? We had no idea, right? So there was a lot of things that we were like almost disoriented by all of the excitement, and action, and power that was happening.

And I just want to bring up Theresa Reed again, because she absolutely pointed out that all of these things would be happening. She didn't say it in exactly that way. She doesn't know exactly what's going to be happening. But she talks about in my entrepreneurcast what a big year this was going to be for me personally. And, you know, talking about some of the big shifts that would happen she pointed them out. And they happened. It's crazy.

So, any who, that was June. I almost glossed over that y'all. Can y'all believe I almost forgot about the million-dollar month? Okay, where was I? I was in September. All right. And I did tell y'all that this would be stream of consciousness, I have no notes. This is all from memory. So, if you feel all over the place, and you feel like this episode sucks, feel free to turn it off. Like, I don't blame you. But I do feel like this is where it starts to get really fun.

So, September, we’re doing renovations and managing the renovation project at the ranch. We’re selling our house and beginning to prepare ourselves for moving. We did a million-dollar focus retreat for The Club that was epic. And it was all about focusing in a year where it was incredibly hard to focus. There's so much going on in the world that matters, right? And of course, we all had election fever because we were all so desperate to get Donald Trump out of office.

And so, between the election, and protests, and conversation around racism, and diversity, and inclusion, and equity, and the Corona virus, right? Like between all of these things going on there is so much distraction. And so we did a retreat called million-dollar focus that was all about focusing. And it was really beautiful and magical to come together. We had well over 1000 people that participated in that retreat. And it was really beautiful.

I mean, we had started off the year in January, remember, I had a retreat that it went well, but it also didn't go well in some ways. And that was only for 40 people. And by September, we're running a retreat for 1000 people and they are loving it, and delighted, and super happy. Right? So, it just goes to show you can't fix everything overnight but you can fix it, right? Like, you can transition it and fix it.

And I should say too, I want to just remind… There was so much happening that I forgot this piece, that we did wrap up MDB. And so it ended in July, where we closed that program and we had to process big refunds for some people who had paid in advance. And some people continued to work with us in The Club. And so it was a complex thing, figuring out how to close that program. And it was scary. And it was really uncomfortable to go to my clients and say, “Hey, I'm ending this.”

But it was absolutely the right decision because it allowed my team to get 100% focused on The Club and serving our Club members, which is just such a luxury. And this is exactly why I talk all the time about not having 50,000 offers, because if you can just focus on one offer you can really make it amazing. You can continue to tweak, and iterate, and improve, and get to know your customers in an even deeper way. And continue to show up for them and continue to make it better.

And I just feel like excellence and mastery comes from focus, right? Like, if you will just allow yourself to focus on one main offer, you can make that one main offer world class and life changing, okay? And just think about it, right? If you have seven offers and they’re having an impact and getting results for your clients, imagine the impact and the results if you only had one, or even two, right? It would make a huge difference.

So, we did that retreat in September. September was also where we were also getting into the final stages of working on our new website and starting to get it ready to share with the world. We were doing a lot of behind the scenes work in hiring and just building the infrastructure that would allow our company to grow.

And the whole year my operations director has been building a ton of process in our business to allow us to be able to grow and to serve our clients at a really high level. So, just all of this magic happening. And so that’s September.

In October we finally move into the ranch, in early October. It was super exciting; we went on a vacation for a week while we hired a moving team and they packed us all up. And we came home to our new home at the ranch. And immediately ran out of gas and had no hot water for three days.

It has been a massive learning curve you guys, living on this beautiful property. We didn’t know where the wells were. We didn’t know how they… We have three different electric accounts with the utility company, we had to figure that out. I mean, we had to figure out where things were and how they worked.

This property is like somewhat off-grid, so we just didn’t understand it. And there’s like a whole utility room, actually there’s two of them, and we had to figure out how that works. We almost broke the pool cover, which is a $20,000, like one of those automatic pool covers that automatically rolls out. We almost broke that in the first month. We just did all the things wrong, okay, during the month of October.

It was also insanely busy. I had to do the final, final review… My book had been set where it starts to look more like book form. And I had to go through and do all of the citations and that sort of second round of more detailed editing. And I had a million media appearances and there was just so much going on in October.

And so that was October. October was really tough, I think, for us as a team. And we were really focused on hiring more people, getting more help, and really building the foundation so that this business could really scale going forward. And in the meantime, we’re having approximately $500,000 months.

October was also the month that we did the power offers webinar, where we had over 3,000 people attend, and it was awesome. So, that was really fantastic as well. Then we rolled into November and it was like, “Okay, we’re at the end of the year, let’s wrap these projects up. Let’s get this going.”

So, I probably spent most of November researching horses, which is a thing I do basically every day now. I read books about horses. I’m learning about horses and preparing myself for having horses. So, we did that in November. We got really depressed about not having anyone over for Thanksgiving in November. We finally got the website finished in November. We finally started to narrow down the book cover options. I don’t even remember November you guys, and it was literally just a month ago. It was just like a blur.

So, all of that, rolling into December we have a bigger team and we launched our new website. We dropped the trailer for the book. And we’ve sold 1,000 books in the last month, which is amazing because we’re really early on in pre-order status. So, that’s so incredibly exciting.

And we shipped all of our products that we needed to get out of the door before the end of the year. So that’s been really beautiful. And I feel like I’ve started to really move into that place where, remember at the beginning of this I said in December 2019 I was kind of feeling uneasy in my business and unclear. And I was also feeling like I wanted to focus more on my home life. And it’s like be careful what you ask for y’all. Did I want a pandemic? Absolutely not, but it definitely allowed me to spend more time at home because I have not been on a place since I came back from San Francisco in those first few days of March.

And so I have been home this whole time. And homeschooling and we decided to hire a tutor to school our children. They’re not going to a regular school anymore because it just felt like too much noise and too much complication and too much stress and risk. So they’ve been at home and they’ve been thriving.

And the ranch has been beautiful for our home life. I actually purchased a horse for the first time last Sunday. Her name is Cocoa, she is gorgeous. She’s a warm blood cross, which means nothing to non-horse people. But she comes home next Wednesday and I’m delighted. And so I look forward to spending the next six months riding horses and going on trail rides.

I’m also getting the Rodgers Ranch up and running and that is all in progress. So, we have a beautiful retreat house on the property that we are renovating right now. We’ve just started the renovations and it will hopefully be ready in March. So, I look forward to welcoming our first guests, hopefully by the end of March if not April.

Of course, we now have a vaccine that’s already been shipped. I feel like December is a really hopeful time this year. Like, 2020 has beat us up so bad, it has been so painful all year long. So much stress and anxiety, so much loss. So much just painful discussions and reality checks. And we’ve had to change as a people, I think. And now I feel like we’re moving into a place where there’s a lot of hope and we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Remember in March when it was declared a pandemic and we were like, “Okay, it’ll be a month or two but then we’ll be able to get back to real life.” We had no idea that it was going to be a full year minimum at that time. And I’m glad we didn’t, because I don’t think we could have handled that news then, right? But now we see the light at the end of the tunnel and I think by May of 2021 we’ll probably be able to get back to real life, whatever that new normal is.

So, I’m feeling really hopeful. I’m really loving living at the Rodgers Ranch even though we’ve had two plumbing issues. We lost power yesterday but that was just out – whole block lost power. I feel like we’ve had any number of crazy interruptions just learning how to manage the function of this property. And of course, that power outage wasn’t our fault but everything else was that has happened. I lost water last week, dear god.

So, It’s been a real adventure this year for sure, but I’m so grateful for everything that’s happened that has been good. And trying to find, also, gratitude for even the challenges that happened because sometimes that’s where the magic is, right? Like, it’s the challenges that happen that change us and turn us into the person that can have the things that we say we want to have, right?

So, 2021 my book will drop on May 4^th 2021, so very excited and looking forward to that. We’re creating a whole bunch of content for The Club next year, which I’m so excited about. We’re continuing to grow the team, and what else am I looking forward… I’m looking forward to traveling again. I hope by next summer I can take my children on that Hawaii trip that I had planned for them. I’ve been promising them that I would take them to Hawaii since Moana came out. And I need to make good on that promise with my children. So, I hope that I can do that in 2021.

We’ll also have the ranch opening. And I hope to be able to do events towards the end of 2021. And I am crossing my fingers that maybe we’ll be able to do a small event related to the book launch in May if things go well, we’ll see. And that’s really all I know. I have no idea what else 2021 will bring. Like, who could know? Right? Do you know? Because if you do tell me. But I am feeling really hopeful and excited about what’s ahead, you know?

And the thing that I’m most… Well, I shouldn’t say that I’m most excited about, but I am very excited about horses. So I’m just going to deep dive into becoming a horse woman, and that’s a big part of my goals for 2021.

And I do totally feel like this was like a huge foundational year, right? I started the year not really knowing if my offer needed to shift or how to shift it. And I’m ending the year with an offer that I’m absolutely in love with, that I think is having a huge impact on our clients and our community at large. And having stepped more into being vocal about racism and the things that plague me. And not keeping it inside and keeping it to myself, but being really public about it and talking about it and going ranty when shit pisses me off. I feel like all of that has almost been like a healing process. Writing a book has been therapy as well.

And I’ve also stepped up my self-care. I’m working out Monday through Friday with Pilates. I took up running over the summer because I just needed an excuse to go outside. Being indoors was driving me nuts. Now, I’m enjoying the steam room at the ranch and then I plan on spending lots of time with horses.

Listen, you guys, you got to map out your self-care for the year the same way you’re mapping out your goals, right? They go hand in hand. If your goals are getting bigger, your self-care better be getting bigger too. Because that’s what’s increasing your capacity to have more, is spending time by yourself, therapy, working out. Just ways that you can be silent, and quiet, and hear your own thoughts.

Sleeping, y’all let’s get more sleep in 2021. I do feel like I got a good amount of sleep in 2020 though, because I didn’t have to get my kids ready for school in the morning. So I could absolutely sleep in. And now we get up at eight o’clock. Some days I get up earlier but we don’t get up so early anymore. We’re not getting up and running around. Now we wake up and we have a slow easy morning. I feel like I definitely learned how to rest and how to take care of myself on a different level this year because I had to, for health reasons and for sanity reasons. And because I couldn’t leave my house.

So those are my thoughts y’all. And here’s what I want to leave y'all with. Nothing changes unless you do. So, when the calendar switches over from December 31^st over to January 1^st of a new year, it’s still going to be the same, right? Really nothing is going to be changed because it’s a new year. I feel like our society sort of sells this idea of new year’s resolutions and all of that crap and tries to convince us that it will all be changed. You can turn over a new leaf just create some crazy drastic goal on January 1^st and your life will be changed. And I don’t think that that’s true.

Upon reflection what I find to be true is that I often am spending Q1 of a new year figuring out what I want to do in that year, right? And starting to set those changes in motion. Starting to become this new level, right? Starting to reach this new level and take different action and shift my habits. And I think it’s really in Q2 that I start to see, “Oh, these shifts are happening, our money is different now, our life is different now.” Right? Like I’m starting to see the results of the effort that I put in in Q1.

But I just want you to know that nothing magical is going to change when the calendar switches over on New Year’s Eve. So, you have to choose to change. And you have to decide what are the habits that you’re going to shift. How are you going to show up differently? How are you going to take care of yourself on a different level, right?

Yes, absolutely have financial goals and plan for that as well. That’s important but don’t forget these other pieces too. We got to change how we show up every day. That’s actually What changes things over time. We always think it’s some extreme action, and there are times that call for quick, decisive action, absolutely. That’s what I had to do to turn things in March and pivot in my business, right?

Quick decisive action has a place, but quick decisive action isn’t really what creates the long term shifts every day. When you look out over the course of a year, if you have started to change your habits, your daily habits, that’s when you’re going to see a massive shift and a massive difference in your life overtime. Is it going to happen in seven days? No, but in three months you’re going to start to see the difference. And in six months you’ll see even more. And in a year, you’ll be floored by how different your results are because you decided to change how you’re showing up every day.

And incidentally in The Club, this was not supposed to be a pitch y’all, as I mentioned I’m not prepared. But it just so happens that it works. During the month of January in The Club we’re going to focus on million-dollar habits. And so we’re going to be talking about what specific habits actually set the stage for you to build a seven-figure business. What specific daily habits. And then we’re going to talk about how can you start incorporating those.  And we even have a fun little challenge to go with it. So I’m super excited about that, if you want to participate in that you should absolutely join The Club. Now is a great time to join, just go to helloseven.co/club to check it out.

And since I’m doing plugs let me do another plug for my book, We Should All be Millionaires. It comes out May ^4th 2021, but every pre-order means that more books will be in the bookstore, that my publisher will put more marketing dollars behind my book, that I’m more likely to get on big media outlets to talk about this book. So, the pre-orders really set the stage for the success of this book. And I want it to be super successful. I want it to be a New York Times best seller. I want a business book by a Black woman to be a New York Times best seller because I don’t know that I’ve seen that before.

So, I encourage you to check it out, I think it’s going to be life changing for you. This book is what I’ve put my heart and soul into this year. And if you order one book you can download The Daily Seven, which is my seven daily habits to help you become a million-dollar badass and build your million-dollar business and seven figure life.

And, if you buy four books you get to come to what we are lovingly calling behind the scenes PYLAM, it’s Plan You Year Like a Millionaire, okay, and the acronym is PYLAM. So, anyway, join us for Plan Your Year Like a Millionaire. It’s happening January 14^th. It’s a full day workshop, well it spans the day. A workshop where I’m going to be walking you through how to plan your year and look at your goals. We’re going to look at planning your time, we’re going to look at planning your money, and we’re going to look at planning your support. I’m super excited about it, we’ve been prepping for it for a couple months. It’s going to be delightful and delicious.

And you get to come for free and work with my in a full day for the cost of four books. I think it’s totally worth it. And then when you get those books you got one for yourself and a couple for your friends. So I hope that you’ll join us for that and all you got to do it pre-order four books then go to weshouldallbemillionaires.com to get all the details of how to send us your receipt and get your free ticket to PYLAM, AKA Plan Your Year Like a Millionaire.

All right you guys, I’ve kept you long enough. I hope this informal annual year-end review is valuable to you. I just talked about whatever nonsense, in a random order for an hour so I hope you found it worth your time. And if not, don’t worry, I don’t do this often.

So, have an amazing holiday season you guys, and I will see you in the new year my friends. Sending you all the love and wishing you all the peace and joy. Talk to you soon. Bye.