How to Find and Follow Your Inner Voice

Today’s guest is not only a smart entrepreneur, she is also part designer, part business strategist, and part coach.

A few years ago she would’ve told you that she wasn’t an entrepreneur, but this has changed.

She now runs her own successful business and helps other ladypreneurs gain the clarity and confidence they need to connect with their ideal clients and build their brand and business online.

Last year we had the pleasure of meeting at Chris Ducker’s Tropical Think Tank and I was blown away by her marketing strategies (which she calls it her super power) and her truly beautiful web design work, that has been the foundation of her business for years.

Now, let’s hack …

Jessica Rea.

In this 33-minute episode Jessica and I discuss:

• Understanding your clients and helping them achieve their goals
• Turning your insecurities into assets
• How to create opportunities for yourself
• Dealing with the loneliness of starting your own business
• Why Jessica starts her day the night before
• How to start your day to stay focused and productive
• Learning to hit publish (both literally and metaphorically)

[episode]

The Show Notes

• JessicaRea.me
• The Ladypreneur Community on Facebook
• World Domination Summit
• Deepak Chopra Guided Meditation
• Jessica on Twitter
• Jonny on Twitter

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[episode_transcript]

How to Find and Follow Your Inner Voice, with Jessica Rea

Voiceover: Welcome to Hack the Entrepreneur, the show that reveals the fears, habits, and inner battles behind big-name entrepreneurs and those on their way to joining them. Now, here is your host, Jon Nastor.

Jonny Nastor: Yes, this is Hack the Entrepreneur. I want to thank you so much for joining me. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun today. I am your host, Jon Nastor, but you can call me Jonny.

Today’s guest is not only a smart entrepreneur; she is also part designer, part business strategist, and part coach. A few years ago, she would have told you that she wasn’t an entrepreneur, but this has changed. She now runs her own successful business and helps other lady entrepreneurs gain the clarity and confidence they need to connect with their ideal clients, build their brands and businesses online, and look good doing it.

Last year, we had the pleasure of meeting at Chris Ducker’s Tropical Think Tank, and I was blown away by her marketing strategies, which she says are her superpower, and her truly beautiful web design work that has been the foundation of her business for years. Now, let’s hack Jessica Rea.

Before we get going, I want to take a minute to thank the awesome sponsor of Hack the Entrepreneur, FreshBooks, for making my life easier and for sponsoring the show. What is the one thing that I am not good at? I am absolutely horrible at staying on top of my bookkeeping and accounting for my business. I am just terrible at it.

FreshBooks is designed for small business owners like you and me. FreshBooks integrates directly with three things that I use every day in my business: PayPal, Stripe, and MailChimp.

It goes beyond that now. I can fully integrate it with my credit card and my bank accounts, so I don’t even have to worry about keeping track of my expenses; it does it all for me. Really, I think the only thing it doesn’t do for my business is actually make the money, but it keeps track of all the other side, which is amazing to me. To start your 30-day free trial today, go to Freshbooks.com/hack, and don’t forget to enter “Hack the Entrepreneur” in the “How did you hear about us?” section.

Welcome back to Hack the Entrepreneur. We have another amazing guest. Jessica, thank you for joining me.

Jessica Rea: I am so glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Understanding Your Clients and Helping Them Achieve Their Goals

Jonny Nastor: It’s absolutely my pleasure. Okay, let’s jump straight into this. Jessica, as an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do that you feel has been the biggest contributor to your success so far?

Jessica Rea: I think that there are a couple of things that I do. In my business as a graphic designer, one of the things that as made me really successful is that I am able to speak to my clients on their level. The reason for that is that I was never formally trained; I didn’t go to college to be a graphic designer. I was never really schooled in the proper terms and everything — that “industry jargon.” I don’t use that lingo when talking to my clients. I don’t think they care; really, truly, they don’t care what the proper names are for things.

Jonny Nastor: We don’t.

Jessica Rea: They don’t, yeah. They want to know that we’re talking about the same thing. I think one thing that’s been really successful is that I am a really good listener, and I’m able to get out of people what it is that they are really wanting to accomplish, not just in their design, but in their business, and come up with a solution that’s going to help them. I think that’s one thing that really sets me apart as a designer and as an entrepreneur.

Jonny Nastor: That’s cool.

Jessica Rea: It’s served me well.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, that’s really cool because you’re probably absolutely right. I’ve only worked with him for about a year, but my buddy Nick does WordPress development. It took me about a month to figure out why he was so good to work with. Then I realized that he’s not like every other coder I’ve ever dealt with, where there’s all this stuff, and I’m so lost about what he’s even talking about. Nick is just like, “No, we got to do this, this, this,” and then I’m like, “Oh, that makes perfect sense, right.” When I would come to him with an issue, he was just like, “Yeah, totally, let’s do that,” “that makes sense,” or “that doesn’t make sense.” That’s cool.

Were you aware of this when you did it, or was this like, “Why do my customers like me so much? My clients are so happy.” Or was it brought to your attention?

Turning Your Insecurities into Assets

Jessica Rea: Early on in my career, it was a huge source of insecurity for me. I really thought, “Who am I to be calling myself a graphic designer when I don’t even know what these things are?“ But really, my clients would come to me and just be like, “This is amazing, I’m so happy, I’m so pleased.” Early on, my customers had a lot more confidence in my ability than I did. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I need to go back to school. I need to learn this, and I need to read books.” I thought, “Oh my gosh, I just need to something to make myself legitimate here.”

As you grow up, and as you progress in your business and in life, you start to learn that these insecurities you have aren’t actually insecurity, but that they are actually assets. It went from being an insecurity, to being a real strength. I think it was just a process of viewing it differently. I couldn’t keep beating myself up about it, if that makes sense.

Jonny Nastor: It totally does, and I love it. I love turning the insecurity into a strength, because if you want to talk insecurities, I’ve been a podcaster for six months, and the things that are happening with it, I feel like, wow, it’s shocking. People are like, “Wow, you know so much about podcasting.” I was like, “Dude, I’ve been doing this for six months.” You know what I mean? I get where that’s coming from. I’m sure that especially not going to school for graphic design would probably affect you, but it seems like you’ve really got a cool grasp on it. I like it. I like the way you deal with it mentally.

Jessica Rea: Thanks. I just do what I do. People either like it or they don’t. That concept of, “I just do what I do,” doesn’t just apply to design, it applies to every entrepreneur. You have your own path and the way that you do things, and certain people are going to like it, and other people aren’t. When people don’t like it, it’s hard to take, but it’s actually a really good sign because it means that you’re narrowing in. If you’re turning people off, it means that you’re doing something right.

Jonny Nastor: Exactly, and that’s a hard thing to realize, but it’s absolutely true. Just going to your site, you can tell that you have some sort of innate knack for design. It’s cool, and it’s really, really, really good.

Jessica Rea: Thank you.

Jonny Nastor: I really like it. On your site, there’s this headline that says, “I was not born an entrepreneur.” There seems to be a time in every entrepreneur’s life when they realize one of two things: either they have a calling to make something bigger than themselves, or they simply can’t work for somebody else. Can you tell me which one of these two you are, Jessica?

How to Create Opportunities for Yourself

Jessica Rea: For me, it was just this realization that I was in this job where I was never going to be able to make the impact that I wanted to make. I was in an interesting position. In the job and the career that I left, I actually really liked the people that I was working for, and it was actually a pretty good gig. I just felt trapped. You hit that ceiling where it’s like you’re never going to be able to do what you want to do.

For me, going out on my own was really going to allow me to grow and discover all of my abilities, like, be the best me that I could. I guess that’s not a very eloquent way of saying it, but I really realized that the only way for me to get the opportunities that I wanted to have was to create them for myself.

Jonny Nastor: Nice. I think you said this was two years ago?

Jessica Rea: Yeah, not that long ago.

Jonny Nastor: Wow. It hasn’t been that long, two years; can you think back to and tell me about the feeling of walking out of your job that very last day, knowing that you do not have a paycheck next week and that you don’t have anybody making the decisions for you — it’s all on you?

Jessica Rea: Yeah. I think everybody remembers the day that they quit their job, right?

Jonny Nastor: They do.

Jessica Rea: It was a little weird, the way that it all happened, because the company that I was working for … I don’t think he really wanted me to leave. He said, “Okay, well, why don’t you take a ‘leave of absence,’ and we’ll revisit this, right?” I did. I went on a leave of absence. I wasn’t technically quitting, and I wasn’t leaving my job, so I didn’t get to say goodbye to anybody that I worked with. I didn’t get to say goodbye to any of the clients that I worked with. It was very weird to see people around town, because I live in a fairly small town. It would be like, “Oh, you’re not working there anymore?” and I was like, “No, I’m not. Here’s the story; here’s what I’m doing now.”

It was this very quiet exit that happened. I got home, and I wanted to celebrate, and I wanted to high-five and drink champagne, or something, but there was nobody around. Literally everybody else that I knew was not an entrepreneur. It wasn’t like I could call people up and be like, “Take the afternoon off; let’s go celebrate.” It was very lonely at the same time. I was feeling this huge range of emotions because I was super excited, but also this realization that I am now going this completely alone, which set in really quickly. That was my moment.

Jonny Nastor: It does, almost the next day when you wake up, and you’re just at a coffee shop working by yourself.

Dealing with the Loneliness of Starting Your Own Business

Jessica Rea: Yeah. That’s why it’s been so important to have connections with other entrepreneurs, and masterminds, and events, and all that — where you connect with other people who are doing what you’re doing.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, I think it’s super important. I met you at a conference, a conference I talk about way too much — the one in the Philippines — because it changed my life: the people I met there, and the people I stay in touch with still. How long did it take you after you left your job to come to the realization that you really did have to surround yourself, even virtually, with people who are into entrepreneurship and are into becoming a better version of themselves?

Jessica Rea: Gosh. Okay, so I left my job, and I think it was a couple of months before … well, I went to World Domination Summit before I ever even quit my job.

Jonny Nastor: Oh, nice.

Jessica Rea: I took time off from my job to go to that conference, and that was where I met a ton of people in the industry; it was complete dumb luck meeting all of them, because I didn’t actually meet them at the conference, I met them before the conference in that town. That really ended up setting the stage for everything, and that really gave me the bug for going to events and connecting in person with all these people that are sort of doing their thing online. It was before I even quit my job that I really got into that. Then it was MMX and TTT and all these others. I’m going to talk at Traffic and Conversion in a couple of weeks. Yeah, it’s all those events.

Jonny Nastor: Nice. So you got the bug early. It took me a while, but now that I’ve got it, it really makes sense to keep going to them because they’re amazing, and they really do help.

Now, away from traveling to conferences and stuff, let’s get to work, because you have full-time clients and you do business mentoring as well, and you do graphic design. Plus, I follow you on a lot of social media, and you spend a lot of time at the beach with your dog, which is awesome, but you’ve figured something out to be productive in the way that you need to. Today was a workday. Can you, say, walk us through the first 30 minutes of your day — what you do, your routine to set yourself up to do what you need to do and then get to go to the beach? You said already that you were at the beach today.

Why Jessica Starts Her Day the Night Before

Jessica Rea: Yeah, I did, almost every day, either that or the dog park. It’s part of my morning routine. The night before is actually when my day starts. I keep up my to-do list in Evernote, and so I look through Evernote, and I decide what is the one thing, the most important thing that I have to get done tomorrow, and I put that at the top of the list. Then I have two or three other things that need to get done that next day, and I put those on my “to-do tomorrow” list.

That really sets me up for being really productive the next morning. I don’t need to think about it as I’m waking up and being groggy, and that sort of thing. Then, the first thing I usually do — which I try not to, I’m trying to break myself of this habit — is grab my phone and check my email and my social media. I go to my email list and see how many people signed up.

Jonny Nastor: None of us do this; you’re the only one.

Jessica Rea: All those things feed your ego in the morning. Yeah, so I do that, and then I get up, and I meditate.

Jonny Nastor: Really? Nice. How long have you been meditating?

Jessica Rea: Gosh, a while. Six to eight months. I was doing it really inconsistently, and now I’ve been doing it really consistently, and it’s a huge help. I love it.

Jonny Nastor: Was there something you figured out to get it to be consistent, rather than inconsistent?

Jessica Rea: I scheduled it, and I did it first thing.

Jonny Nastor: Really. Nice.

How to Start Your Day to Stay Focused and Productive

Jessica Rea: Yeah, I just get up and I do it. I love guided meditations, and I’m absolutely a huge fan of Deepak Chopra. I have a couple of his guided meditation series on my phone, and I just turn one on. They’re all about 20 minutes. I do a little bit of yoga and stretching while he and Oprah are talking. Then I actually get into the actual meditation of it, the sitting in silence part.

Jonny Nastor: That’s awesome.

Jessica Rea: Yeah. Then I get up, and I write for 30 minutes; I commit to writing. With that, my content generation keeps going. Then after I do my writing, I get up and go for a walk with my dog, usually on the beach.

Jonny Nastor: That’s why I see it every single day.

Jessica Rea: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: Because it’s scheduled.

Jessica Rea: It is. It’s scheduled. Well, and he has to go, you know.

Jonny Nastor: He does, yeah.

Jessica Rea: I’m lucky enough that I make my own schedule that I can go. I listen to podcasts while I’m walking. It’s a time where I’m just I’m so grateful for that time every single morning. It really sets me up and when I get back, I jump into whatever I have to do that day.

Jonny Nastor: Excellent. I love it. At the beginning, you told us that you are really, really good at speaking to clients on their level. Jessica, can you now tell us something that you are really, really not good at?

Jessica Rea: I am terrible at failing.

Jonny Nastor: Cool.

Jessica Rea: I know I’m terrible at it, and because I’m a Virgo and I’m a perfectionist, I’m getting better at it, but one of my goals is to just fail better and faster every single time.

Jonny Nastor: Do you have a thought or a way that you’re going to progress in this? It’s so easy to say, fail fast, fail forward, all this stuff, right? But it’s hard.

Jessica Rea: All those buzzwords, yeah.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, exactly. That’s so easy to say, but also, when the failure comes in, it kind of wipes you out. It’s like, “Oh my God should I be doing this? Am I good enough? Am I smart enough?” Like that guy on SNL used to say.

Jessica Rea: Yeah, right.

Jonny Nastor: Do you have a plan for this? I don’t know what Virgo has to do with it, honestly, but you said it, so I’m assuming it has something to do with it.

Jessica Rea: Virgo is a total perfectionist; I definitely am, and it’s my meticulous nature that serves me but also holds me back. It’s that thing of “I can’t launch it until its perfect.” Writing and designs and everything – it’s like, “Oh no, I can’t let anybody see this until its perfect.” Quite honestly, one of the things that came out of going to Tropical Think Tank was really just having a bias for action and realizing that I had been consuming and learning and studying for a long, long time, but I hadn’t actually been putting myself out there.

That really got the ball rolling for me just starting to do my own thing and actually starting to hit the “publish” button and start doing things. I had a really recent failure, and I say failure, but it was just one of those things where I had to pull the plug on something and move in a different direction because I’d planned this live event, and deep down, it just wasn’t the right thing.

It wasn’t the right timing; it just wasn’t the right recipe for success. So I pulled the plug on it, and immediately it’s like, “Oh, God, it’s so embarrassing. Like I put this thing out there and now I’m not doing it and what are people going to think of me? That I don’t follow through or that I’m not capable of doing this?” or whatever.

It’s all these fears that set in, right? I was really set to just wallow in my sorrows all by myself with this failure, and it actually didn’t happen. I felt such a sense of relief that I had listened to myself and that I knew I had this gut feeling, this inner wisdom that had been there all the while, and I just chose to start listening to that voice. I think quite honestly, that the meditation that I do every morning kind of helps me connect to that inner voice and listen to that voice instead listening to that inner critic.

I think that for me, failing is all about awareness and realizing when you’re following, what are you following? Are you following your ego? Are you letting your inner critic guide you where you’re going, or are you following your inner wisdom? The faster that you can realize that, the better off you are.

Step one is awareness, of who am I following, what am I following. Then step two is what do I need to do to put this failure to bed, right? After a failure, we have to clean up the mess, right? What are the steps that I need to take to clean up this mess, and what do I need to do in order to go forward? And really, once you can put it to bed, then you can jump into the things that are going to make you successful in whatever takes that failure’s place, if that make sense.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, it does.

Jessica Rea: That’s my point.

Learning to Hit Publish (Both Literally and Metaphorically)

Jonny Nastor: It’s interesting. It’s awesome, and it’s interesting because you called that a failure — cancelling the live event — and it probably would’ve been a failure if you had gone through with it and gone against how you actually felt about it, right?

Jessica Rea: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: That’s amazing, and that’s super powerful to have that awareness beforehand. I’m sure it was super hard to do. I’m sure it was because I’ve done similar things — not like that, exactly — but it’s hard to do this. It’s hard to put yourself out there and then to have to pull back or change directions or something.

Jessica Rea: Yeah. I think that every entrepreneur goes through these stages in business, right? It’s really important to remember that when you start, it’s important to have these big, grand visions of where you want your business to go, right?

Ultimately, that’s what you want to do because those are the kinds of things that push you and drive you and get you excited to keep doing what you’re doing. At the same time, there’s this gap between what you know now and what you need to know in order to be successful at those big dreams. I experienced this in design; like, I want to create something. Now I do web design, which I’ve only been doing for a couple of years, whereas I started out at print design, which I’ve been doing for over 15 years. It’s like I wanted to create these things, but I didn’t know how, so there’s this gap — you want to create these beautiful things, but you don’t know how.

I think that every entrepreneur — doesn’t matter if you’re a designer or somebody else — you go through that stage of wanting to create this thing and you don’t know how, so you have to focus on okay, what’s the next step in getting there? Who do I need to be? What do I need to become? What do I need to learn in order to get there? I think that’s a hard thing to realize, but once you realize that it’s a lot easier to be where you are instead of always wishing you were at the end, wishing you already had the success, wishing you were already as big as you want to be someday.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah. It’s interesting that you call it the “gap” because I just had a really interesting conversation with somebody earlier this week, and he was talking about the entrepreneurial gap. There’s always where you want to be, but there’s always where you are, and you always really have to appreciate — like you say, I guess –the awareness of being where you are.

Jessica, look back on two years and where you’ve come; this is why I think sometimes we get stuck, always trying to look forward, always the next goal, the big giant things, and never actually stopping to say, “Well, today, I can’t believe I get to do what I get to do.” Three years ago, this was a dream to me, but it’s still a doubt that I’ll get stuck in today: “Oh, can we tell them?” Six months from now, it’s going to be amazing what I’m doing.

Jessica Rea: Yeah, and when you’re always trying to be in the future, you really rob yourself of being in the present. You rob yourself of the gut-wrenching experience that it is to be a budding entrepreneur. You know what I mean? Someday you’re going to look back on this, and if you were just not present at all for this and not feeling anything that you’re going through, you’d think, “Gosh, how tragic to not have this and have had this experience,” because as terrible as it is, it’s so great at the same time. Does that make sense?

Jonny Nastor: Yes, and to move even beyond entrepreneurship, just in life, right? To be so afraid of feeling the highs and lows that make out life, I think it’s wrong, and it’s something you really shouldn’t do. Don’t try and distract yourself with your phone when you start to get upset about something. You know what I mean? I think it’s a big part of just being alive in a really cool way. That’s part of being human. It’s like getting upset about things — like really, truly just knocked over by stuff — and then really elated by other things.

Jessica Rea: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: It’s true, though, in business because it’s never going to be a straight course. It’s going to be things knocking you from outside, but to me, it’s not any different in life. That’s kind of how life is; I mean, everything is going great and awesome, then something with health or somebody around you just gets sideswiped, where it seems like, “Oh my God, everything was so great.”

Jessica Rea: Yeah.

Jonny Nastor: You don’t have control over it, so just enjoy it. I mean, there’s nothing else you can do. It’s the same with business, right? It’s just how it is.

Jessica Rea: It is. I think sometimes entrepreneurs, we’re sort of cult-like in the sense that we want to hang out with one another, and we want to network with one another, and we want to share all these idealistic ideas about things that have been interesting because the one thing that brings that out is the one thing that we all have in common: the fact that entrepreneurship and starting your own business challenges you in so many ways.

Whatever weaknesses you have, are going to come out through you building your business. I think it’s the same thing for professional athletes or anybody who is trying to get to the top level of anything in any pursuit they have. It’s that pursuit of excellence that brings out all these little challenges or flaws that you have, and you have to overcome those issues in order to get to the next level. I think that it takes a certain personality to be an entrepreneur and to want to go through that and to want to overcome those things. It’s interesting to me — that whole process, being in that process.

Jonny Nastor: Yeah, me too. Let’s finish off by talking about being present, but also having places you want to get to and being aware of where you’ve come so far. That leads us to, say, success in the future. It’s fairly new into a New Year. I don’t know if you set goals based on the start of the New Year — not everybody does — but Jessica, as an entrepreneur and just professionally, is there something you want to attain in the next six months or the next year that would make you be able to look back on it and be like, “Yeah, I did that. That was awesome. I totally set out to do that.”

Jessica Rea: Yeah, my primary goal this year with my business is to focus on the girly community side. This design services side of my businesses is sort of clicking along, but I have this other side of my business, which is a dream of mine to really impact more people or to make a greater impact. I’m trying to grow my Ladypreneur Community and serve more people, whatever that looks like. I would like to be able to create some products and programs for people who can’t afford to work with me one-on-one. That’s what my next six months looks like; it’s building that out.

Jonny Nastor: Oh, I look forward to seeing that.

Jessica Rea: Thank you.

Jonny Nastor: Okay. We have talked just in passing about your business, and now this community you want to build; can you specifically tell the listeners where they can go find out more about you?

Jessica Rea: Sure. My website is jessicarea.me. That’s J-E-S-S-I-C-A-R-E-A.me; that’s my website. I also have a Facebook group, The Ladypreneur Community. You can search that on Facebook and find me there too.

Jonny Nastor: Awesome, The Ladypreneur Community and jessicarea.me. I’ll put links in the show notes for everyone so that it’s super-easy for you to go find out more about Jessica. I strongly suggest you do because she is up to some really awesome stuff. Jessica, thank you so much for stopping by and taking the time to chat with me; I really appreciate it, and I look forward to watching you keep doing awesome things in the future.

Jessica Rea: Thank you so much. It sounds great.

Jonny Nastor: Jessica, thank you so much for joining me on this show. I’ve been looking forward to this since we met last year at, as I mentioned, the Tropical Think Tank. If you are listening and you haven’t gone to any or a lot of conferences in the business space or marketing or even in the market that you happen to be working in, I strongly recommend it. I know that I mentioned Tropical Think Tank a lot on the show because it had such a massive impact on my life. I found my mastermind out of it. They helped me create this show.

I’ve had several guests on now that I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to because I met them there. The whole podcast itself was created out of masterminding and brainstorming at the Tropical Think Tank and people way smarter than me telling me that I need to start a podcast, and it happened. I’m not going back to Tropical Think Tank this year because it is in conflict with another conference that happens to be at the same time, and that is the Authority Rainmaker Conference put on by Copyblogger, which is going to be in May, in Denver, Colorado. It is going to be just amazing. I’m so looking forward to it and the amazing speakers and amazing people, and I didn’t make it to the inaugural one last year, but I’m looking forward to it so much this year.

If you can make it there, I would love to buy you a coffee and hang out and just talk to you and see what you’re up to. You should check it out if you get a chance, and if you’re looking for a conference to attend this year, I strongly recommend it. It is hacktheentrepreneur.com/authority. You will be able to find all the details there and see if it is a good fit for you.

Jessica said a lot of cool things. She has said a lot of smart things, but she said one thing, didn’t she? Did you get it? Did you hear? Let’s do it. Let’s find the hack.

Jessica Rea:Early on my customers had a lot more confidence in my ability than I did, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, I need to go back to school. I need to learn this. I need to read books.” I thought, “Oh my gosh, I just need to do something to make myself legitimate here.” And as you grow up and as you progress in your business, and in life, you start to learn that these insecurities that you have aren’t actually insecurities, they are actually assets.

Jonny Nastor: And that’s the hack. Jessica, beautifully said. Thank you so much for being so candid with that, admitting how you felt initially going into business, because it’s something that we all struggle with.

It’s being called, “impostor syndrome,” or whatever you want, but it’s the feeling that maybe we don’t have anything to give. Maybe, who I am to be telling somebody how to run their business? Who am I to be telling somebody how to create an ad on Facebook? Who am I to tell somebody how to create a podcast, when you cannot forget what you’ve done, you cannot forget the steps you’ve taken to get where you are, and the thought you put into it, and the hard work you put into it, and the mistakes that you’ve made and learned from.

I know that it is something that all of us struggle with. I think we struggle with it even, as Jessica says, now that she has gotten over it, and now she uses it as strength. I’m sure it still comes there once in a while, and I’m sure it still comes into play. It does for me, and it does for a lot of people, but it’s part of the game, part of what we have to do. We do have to step up and know the stuff that we know, know that we do have absolute true value to share with the world and to give and to help others to become better people and run better businesses, or to do whatever it is that you want to help people do.

We have to step up, and we have to admit it to ourselves, because our customers aren’t always going to prop us up the way Jessica’s have done, and that’s awesome that they did. And it’s hard. But I thank you, Jessica, for that because you said it beautifully, and I really think that it is a true value to understand and to prepare for, because that is coming in your journey through entrepreneurship. Trust me, it is coming. It makes it hard at times. You’ve just got to work through it, go around it, go over it, do whatever it is you have to do.

Thank you, Jessica, so much for everything again. I think, guys, this has been a lot of fun. Hacktheentrepreneur.com is the website. It is brand new, and it’s awesome. I think it’s pretty cool. Please see, go check it out, and you’ll see my face at the top with an email. Please put your email right beside it on the left. Drop your email, please. I would love to be able to return to you every Sunday afternoon and give you some of the best writing that I’m doing right now. I’m really enjoying it, and I’m getting a lot of great feedback for it.

Please drop your email in there, and we will be in contact. You can hit “reply” to any email, including the welcome one. Tell me what all is in your mind. Tell me what you need. Tell me what you’re struggling with. I’ll help you in any way that I possibly can, and I’d love to hear from you.

This has been a lot of fun, and I truly thank you for spending the time with me today. It does mean a lot to me that you do that, and I thank you truly. Until next time, please keep hacking the entrepreneur.

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