032 2020: How to Have a Year of Yes

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. I am so delighted to be here with you. We are now the Hello Seven Podcast, so you might've caught that name change. We are no longer the Million Dollar Badass Podcast, and that is for a variety of reasons that you can listen to in a previous episode that I recorded about the lessons that I've learned in my first year of podcasting, so if you want to hear all those details, you can check that out.

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.

Welcome back to the Hello Seven Podcast, my friends. It's officially season two. Who is excited? I hope you are. I am very excited, and I want to talk to you guys today about 2020. It's been an interesting season off, so I've had a couple of months where I have not been recording the podcast, and I've been busy hosting retreats, coaching clients, planning events, working on my book.

My We Should All Be Millionaires book is coming out in 2021, but first, I have to write it, so I have been ass in chair, trying to write this book, writing 10 pages, and then deciding that it's absolute trash and starting over, and then going to get the 10 pages out of the trash and saying, “Wait, let's try that again.” Writing a book can be a torturous time, but today, I want to talk to you guys about 2020 and having a year of yes, so let's talk about that. Originally, my plan for 2020 was to be prolific, right? That was my word for 2020, prolific. I want to create lots of content, I want to be everywhere, videos, podcasts, media opportunities, speaking on stages, writing this book.

I just want to let all of this genius pour out of me, right? That was my original plan. That was an interesting plan that didn't last very long. The reason why is because prolific sounds exhausting, doesn't it? Like as soon as I started to think about the word, I was all ready to get it stamped on a piece of jewelry, and wear it every day, and record all the videos, and write all the things, and then I remembered that I have four children, and one of them is a toddler.

I remembered that I have a team of 10 that requires management, and supervision, and assistance, right? I also remembered that like that sounds hard and like a lot of work, and I'm exhausted already, so I decided to switch it up and not be prolific, and not work hard. Hello, I've been working hard for the past 10 years on my business. This year, 2020 is my 10-year business anniversary, so September first, 2010 is when I originally became an entrepreneur and started my very first business, which was a law practice, and so September first, 2020 will be my 10-year anniversary. In my 10th year, I don't think I need to be prolific.

I think I have been prolific, right? I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for how much we have accomplished, and all of the work that we have done, and all of the accomplishments, all of the projects we've gotten done, right? The money that we've made, the work that we've put out into the world, we don't give ourselves enough credit and celebrate our successes, and so I decided that my 10th year in business should not be one of talking about all this hard work, right? My 10th year in business should be a lot more fun, so I decided that I was going to go with yes as my word of the year for 2020, and to have a year of yes. Some of you may have heard of Shonda Rhimes' book, called Year of Yes.

That was published a few years ago, and in it, she talks about how she always said no, right? She said no to all these opportunities that came her way, she said no to more fun, she said no to romantic relationships, she said no to working on her health. She just said no, and really threw herself into her work and taking care of her children. Does this sound familiar? I bet it does. I bet you do the same.

I know I've done it, and so she decided to have a year of yes where she was going to say yes to everything. In the book, she says she said, “Yes to everything that takes me out of my comfort zone, yes to everything that feels like it might be crazy, yes to everything that feels out of character, yes to everything that feels goofy, yes to everything. Everything. Say yes, yes.” Isn't that fabulous, and so that's what I decided. I decided that I'm going to have a year of yes, have a lot more fun and delight. One of my good friends, Susan Hyatt, tells me all the time, “The more fun you have, the more money you make,” and I'm always like, “Bullshit.”

I mean, actually, I do really believe her and I do actually incorporate a lot of fun and joy into my business and my life, but I could always use more. I could use a lot more actually, and I really wanted to try it. Like what if I just went ahead and did all the things that I really want to do this year and just followed my instincts, and my own intuition, and my own desire, right? Like desire is a creative energy. Desire leads you down a path to what you want.

Like just think about desire as a life-giving force. This is how we birth babies, this is how we continue the human race, is through desire, and so I want to follow my desires and say yes to my desires this year, and so that is what I'm going to do, and so what that means is there are some things that I'm saying yes to. For example, one of the things that I've been wanting to do for a few years now, actually probably almost five years, I think it was like four or five years ago that I went to Maui with a mastermind group, and it was absolutely fantastic, and I was blown away. I've never been a big island girl, right? Like I'm not somebody who's like,” Oh, I can't wait to get to an island.” Right?

Like my most exciting vacations are not necessarily on a beach, you know? I was like, “Okay. Well, we'll go into Maui. We'll experience it. Hawaii is really far, but okay, cool.” I went and it was a life-changing trip, and ever since then, I've been wanting to go back with my family, right?

Now, I run a $2 million business, and I pay myself pretty well, and I've been paying myself pretty well for quite a few years now. For whatever reason, I keep acting like I can't take my family to Hawaii, and I keep not prioritizing it. I keep not booking that trip, and so I finally decided in December, it was like right after Christmas, and I was just thinking about this idea of year of yes and following my desires. I was like, “You know what? I really want to take my family to Hawaii for spring break,” like I had always wanted to do for many years and just kept not doing it, and so I said, “I'm going to do it this year,” so I looked up the week in March that my kids have spring break and I booked the most fabulous hotel on all of Maui, and I booked flights, and we're going to Maui, and it's going to be dope.

That's going to happen in March and that sort of kicked off my year of yes, and so then, I was like, “Well, what else do I want to say yes to?” I talked a little bit about the book that I'm working on, and I have really struggled to incorporate writing into my daily life, and what I have now is I block off Wednesdays, and on Wednesdays, I write all day, but it's amazing how you can spend the whole day writing and still only have like five pages at the end of it. The reason is because there's a lot of research I'm doing. It's a process, choosing the right words, rejiggering things. Like, “Oh my gosh, there's so much finesse involved.”

In my daily life, I'm dealing with children, I'm taking care of my business, I'm taking care of my clients. There's a lot going on and it's really hard to write as well because you need quiet. You need focus in order to write, and there's not a lot of quiet and focus in my daily life, truth be told, like by design, so I decided that I was going to go on a writing vacation, right? Like just go away for a week and try to bang out half of this book, and so my friend, Alexandra Franzen invited me to come to Hilo, Hawaii in February for a week and work on my book, so that was like my second thing that I said yes to, even though I felt very afraid to leave and go as far as Hawaii by myself. I don't know why, even though I'm going to be there with a friend who happens to also obviously be a writing coach and is going to help me like pour out these words and get at least five or six chapters done in that one week, but I still felt a lot of fear.

Then also too, what I was dealing with is the fact that, let's be honest, like as mothers, we don't feel that we can go on solo vacations. Like, “Who the fuck do I think I am going on a solo vacation?” Right? Even as progressive as I can be, even as aware as I am of the fact that I live in the matrix, I still let that voice in the back of my head say, “You can't go away for a week. You have kids,” you know, but grandma is here, and she's going to be here during the month of February, and so she is going to be there to help out with the kids, and I'm going, so I'm going to Hawaii for a week to work on my book.

That is the second thing that I committed to. Then, a bunch of my friends decided that we were all going to go visit Alex again in April, so I now have three trips to Hawaii booked for this year, which is hilarious. This is what happens, you guys. If you wait too long to say yes to the things that you really want, you're going to do it times three, okay, so that's what I'm doing. I'm going to Hawaii in February by myself.

I'm going in March with my family, and taking the kids for spring break, and then again, in April with like my homies and my husband. Lots of Hawaii this year, which is delightful. Then, in May, I am going to France for the MADE retreat, which is my leadership retreat, and my mastermind clients are going. We have some very special guests and speakers attending, and 50 bad-ass, diverse women are about to descend upon this little village in Normandy, France, and it's going to be incredible. That is the first half of my year, is some pretty epic travel that I'm really excited about.

That's some of the stuff that I'm saying yes to. I'm also saying yes to like giving myself more space. I'm also saying yes to being CEO, and not having to show up to everything that is happening in my business. I'm saying yes to giving my employees who are very capable and very intelligent. More control, right?

Like empowering them to take the actions that they need to take in the business. In fact, what happens when you get to that million-dollar mark that so many of us are chasing, once you start to get there and above there, the biggest problem and the biggest thing getting in the way of growing your business is you. Well, first of all, it's always you at every stage, but it's definitely you once you have a team in place that is smart, and strategic, and capable. When you are still not empowering them to do the things they need to do without having to check with you on every single thing, then it's you. You're the problem, and what you need to do as CEO is go away and get out of the way, and let them do their jobs.

That is the biggest challenge, I think at this stage. I hit two million at the end of last year, which is something that we were hoping for. We actually set the goal of 1.5 million. We hit that in August, and so we decided, “Hey, let's see if we can hit two,” and we were just shy of two million. I think we're at like 1.96 or something like that, but two million for all intents and purposes.

I noticed that in the first month of this year, I had just major upper limiting issues. I really had all this fear of like, “Oh my God, how am I going to make two million again? Oh my God, is this sustainable? How are we going to grow to four million, or five million, or 10 million? What is our plan? I have no idea.”

“I'm not equipped. I'm not capable.” Right? All of these BS thoughts went into my head, and it's the same stuff that happens when you hit six figures, and you're like, “Oh my God, can I do it again?”, and then you hit 300,000, and you're like, “Oh my God, can I do it again?” Right?

We all have upper limiting problems, and if you're not familiar with the term, upper limiting, then you should check out The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, which is a fantastic book and one that I reread on a regular basis because it is that important and it really just helps you to see where you sabotage yourself, where you sabotage your own success, and I think not following our own desires is a form of sabotaging our success, right? Constantly living in fear, right? Like a fear of, “Oh, I can't spend money on taking my whole family to spring break in Maui. Like that's really expensive. It's the high season.”

“What if something goes wrong, and we wish we would've had that money in the savings or whatever?”, and it's all BS. The way that I know it's BS is that we have very substantial savings, and I'm still like, “Oh, can I spend this money on that?” You can tell how like your own fears and the way that you sort of lie to yourself, right? It's all like our childhood wounds that come up, and it's the same stuff we were struggling with as kids that come up now, right? I was running the Million Dollar Badass Retreat last week, and one of the things that we were talking about is how we're all just toddlers with bank accounts.

I think that is so true, so definitely read The Big Leap, and then also seriously consider therapy, especially if you are an entrepreneur or a CEO, but really everybody should be in therapy because we need to deal with those childhood wounds. We need to deal with those fears that are so real in our minds, but in reality, we can see that they're completely made up, and they're essentially stopping us from following our hearts, doing the things that we want to do, we are scared about resources, there's not enough time, there's not enough money, there's not enough energy. We have so much fear, and consistently, research shows that at the end of life, people are not like, “Oh, I should have taken less risks.” People are like, “Oh, I didn't take enough risks.” Right?

That's always the problem, so I encourage you to also have a year of yes, right? Do those things that might take you out of your comfort zone. Do those things that might be crazy. Do those things that feel a little bit out of character, right? Say yes to being goofy, right?

Say yes to everything that feels fun and delightful, even if it's a little bit scary, and even if you're afraid you're going to run out of money or time or energy, right? If you live a life in fear, you are going to grow your business very slowly or not at all, or you might plateau, and then see your business die because you're not actively growing it. You have to keep taking risks all the time. You have to keep putting yourself out there. That's what I'm going to be doing this year, and one of the things that I'm doing to sort of deal with my upper limiting is one, obviously, having a year of yes and really encouraging myself to say yes, and say yes to my desires and telling my team that, and telling all of you that.

All of that sort of helps me to hold myself accountable to the things that I want to do and to this idea of saying yes, and really putting myself out there, really being open and really following what feels fun and exciting, instead of having another year of hard work, okay, because we … Like let's be real. We all know we're going to work hard, right? We're entrepreneurs, of course. We've been working hard all this time.

We don't need to set a goal to work harder, right? Like if you think about it, that is completely ridiculous. What we need to do is set a goal of maybe working a little less hard, maybe taking a little more risk, maybe having a little bit more fun. That's what we need to focus on. That is one of the things I'm going to be doing, and then also to deal with my upper limiting issue of like hitting two million, and then having imposter syndrome, is I've hired two coaches, so coaching really works and I really believe in it.

Not only am I a business coach and do I employ a team of business coaches that work in my business, but I also hire coaches to help me get past my own limitations, right? I've hired two coaches that specifically specialize in working with CEOs and teams that are in their low seven figures and ready to scale to eight figures. That's what I'm working on. I'm really excited. I have two intensive events where I'm going to be working with coaches in February and March, so I'm really excited about that.

One of the things that I know we're going to be doing is a big event later this year, which I'm really, really excited about, so stay tuned for that. I am going to figure that out and be sort of unfolding those details with my coaches, and we're also going to be working on our team and just really all the places that I'm still holding onto parts of the business that I really need to let go, because once you are at that multi-million dollar mark, you really do have to let go of more. You can't do it alone, right? If you think about like an NFL team, you can't be an NFL team. You can't play every position by yourself, so you need a quarterback who might be running plays, but you also need to be coach, so you need to say, “Hey, guys. This is the plan.”

“This is what we're trying to do. Here's some plays. Go execute them.” Right? Then, you have to rely on them to run the plays and execute for you, and I think that is really, really hard for women to do and definitely hard for women of color to do because we're just so used to it all being dumped on us. We're so used to having to pick up all the pieces, having to hold all the things.

We're used to people not being reliable, right? We have a story in our head that if we don't do it, no one else is going to do it, and these are all the things that keep women from hiring help and because they're not hiring help, they're not growing their businesses, because again, you can't run the plays by yourself, right? You've got to have people on your team, and once you have them, you have to be able to rely on them. That, I know is a struggle for me as well. I have an amazing team.

I probably need to hire a few more people, and I probably need to let go of some things that I'm holding real close to the chest, so I'm going to be working with my coaches on that. That is my plans for 2020.

Now, another thing that I wanted to talk to you guys about that I think is a great source of inspiration if you are looking for some inspo as you kick off this new year, if you're looking for some inspiration to believe in the unbelievable, to believe in the impossible, to believe that you can achieve things that are unheard of, I want you to read this amazing book called Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills. Now, you probably saw me post about this on Instagram or Facebook if you guys follow me there. I have read this book at the end of last year and I've been telling everybody that I know.

I bought copies for my entire mastermind. I'm obsessed. We're going to actually be studying it next month in my mastermind, and I can't wait. This book, Black Fortunes, follows the stories of the first six African-Americans who survived slavery and became millionaires. It covers the period from like 1830 to about 1920 and when slaves were emancipated, and so it's covering former slaves or the children of slaves who became the first black millionaires in this country.

It is so mind-boggling and so incredibly inspiring, the things that these folks were dealing with, the racial and political challenges that they faced, the fact that there were zero resources really, for African-Americans. When slaves were emancipated, most slaves continued to work as sharecroppers for the families that they had previously worked for, for the slave owners, right? They continued to work for those slave owners because that's how little opportunity there was available for them.

There was very little upward mobility, but at the same time, when slaves were freed, it also was a huge entrepreneurial opportunity, because here is all of these people who now have rights, who now have freedom, who now need things. They need resources, they need housing, they need all kinds of services, and so that was a huge entrepreneurial opportunity as well, and that's really what gets showcased in this book.

There are parts that are going to make you cry. There are parts that are going to inspire you. You're going to repeat these stories that are told in this book to people that you hang out with, and anybody who will listen, and it really will help to challenge those fears and to challenge that part of you that says, “I can't do this,” or, “That's not possible for me. Oh, she did it over there. That's nice for her, but that's because she has a wealthy husband, or she got an inheritance, or she has a degree,” or whatever or, “She doesn't have kids,” or, “She doesn't have as many kids as mine,” or, “Her kids are more well-behaved.” Right?

Whatever nonsense you're making up in your head about why you can't be a millionaire, I want you to read this book and you will no longer believe that crap, okay, because if these folks can become millionaires with what they were facing, if they could put themselves out there, if they could take chances, if they could take risks, if they could go for it and believe in themselves, you certainly can too. The entrepreneurs that are profiled in Black Fortunes are Madam C. J. Walker, Annie Malone, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Hannah Elias, Robert Church, and O.W. Gurley, and there are a lot of other players that are also mentioned as well. There is so much fascinating history that is included in this. I love that so many of the millionaires that were profiled were women, right? Like four out of the six are women, who became millionaires during this time at the turn of the century, so really fantastic book.

You should read it. Get yourself inspired, and then shatter your own excuses. Shatter all of those reasons swirling around in your head that tell you that you can't make it happen, right? All of these reasons why, it's not possible for you to get the results that you want to get. It is absolutely possible, and you get to decide whether it's going to happen or not, so I encourage you to join me for a year of yes.

Here's your homework. What I want you to do is a couple of things. One, read Black Fortunes and be inspired, okay, and tell me what you loved about it once you start reading it. Two, if you haven't read Year of Yes, check that out. That's a great, inspiring book as well.

Then three, checkout The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks if you haven't read The Big Leap. It is so good and will really help you to see how you self-sabotage. We all have our ways of self-sabotaging, and once your eyes are open to how you do that, you can start to counteract that, okay, so check out those books. Then, the other thing that I really want you to do is just think about some of the desires that you have, right? Think about some of the things that you really want, whether it's a trip to Hawaii, or whether it's to live in a better neighborhood, or whether it's to upgrade your car.

Like what is one of those things that you really want that you've been thinking about for a while, but you keep dragging your feet on? I want to encourage you to follow that desire even if it seems stupid, or crazy, or whatever. Like whatever nonsense excuses in your head about why you shouldn't do it, I encourage you to do it anyway and see what happens, right? Just follow that desire. Write down some of those big desires that you have and see if there isn't a way that you can make it happen.

One of the best things that I have done is follow my desires, and so when I see, “Oh, there's a retreat to Italy and it costs $6,000, and I really want to go. Huh, what could I sell so that I can make an extra – on top of the money I'm already making that pays the bills – how can I make an extra $6,000 so that I can go to Italy?” Right? That desire gets the wheels turning, and then I start creating things, and I create things that make me that $6,000, and then I go to Italy and have a life-changing experience, right?

Your desires are pointing you in the direction you want to go so don't make excuses for why you can't do it. Find a way to do it. If there's not enough resources, go get them, right? If you don't have enough time, find some time, right? If you don't have enough money, find some money. If you don't have enough energy, find some energy, okay?

You can manufacture money, you can manufacture time, you can manufacture energy. It's all within your power, okay? That's the first thing. Then, the second thing that I want you to do is really start to ask yourself, “How can I bring more joy and fun into my life on a daily basis?” Start really pondering those things.

Think about, “What would make your work more delightful? What would make your work more enjoyable?” Right? What have you always wanted to do? Have you always wanted to have a retreat? Have you always wanted to create a membership community?”

“Have you always wanted to create a course? Have you always wanted to offer in-person trainings or a VIP day? Have you always wanted to take a particular training so that you can offer some new kind of thing to your clients?” Really spend some time pondering your desires. There are those things that are right there percolating that you know that you can think of in a moment, and then there's those things that are just sort of under the surface, just bubbling that you have not been paying attention to.

I encourage you to follow that, because your desire is really just your intuition. Now, there's no guarantee that when you follow your intuition, you're going to make a ton of money, or that you're going to get the exact result that you're looking for. Sometimes it has you meandering all over the place. Sometimes it has you taking a left turn and having what feels like a failure in the moment, but what really is a growth opportunity so that you can become the CEO or the person that you need to become, okay? There are no guarantees.

This is a bit of a risk, but I encourage you to follow that intuition, follow your desires, have more fun, and join me for a year of yes here in 2020. That's our episode. I will see you guys next week with more amazing interviews. I have some amazing seven-figure entrepreneurs on the podcast this season. We also have more Million Dollar Badass rising interviews and lots of solo episodes for you as well, so stay tuned.

Talk to you soon, guys. Bye. Are you ready for a revolution? Then download my free guide called Million Dollar Behavior. In it, you will learn the 10 behavior shifts you need to make to build wealth, claim power, and have an impact.

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