How to Attract Your Ideal Client and Build Your Personal Brand Like a Boss with Special Guest Alex Purnell of Essential Oil Style December 12, 2018 17:02 70 Comments

DRINKING GAME ALERT: Every time you hear me talk about one of my failures, on Hayley Hobson's The Whole You Podcast, take a shot! 😆 😆 What a fun time I had. We talked about the entrepreneurial mindset, branding and even "Dancing with the Stars"

I've included my entrepreneurial journey below, along with the Five "D's" that helped me finally succeed.

And BTW if you have been living under a rock and don't know who Hayley Hobson is; Hayley is an internationally known author, life coach and inspirational speaker. Hayley teaches that by consciously controlling our thoughts, we create results we desire in our personal and business lives. Check her out www.hayleyhobson.com

Having an Entrepreneur Dad

I grew up with an entrepreneur before I knew what the word “entrepreneur” even meant.

My father was a structural engineer for the city of Los Angeles but there was always some side gig. He was an investor in a nightclub; a hair salon. He starting a greeting card line; He had turned our garage into a training spot for boxers. As a kid I just thought he was bored. But it wasn’t until he had his first heart attack that he actually had the courage to quit his secure job at the Department of Water and Power and go “all in” on his a business. And just a footnote when parent goes all in on a business and that’s the family’s only source of income, EVERYONE gets involved whether they like it or not and let me tell you I did not like it!

My father decided that his new business would be cleaning parking lots for shopping centers and industrial & business parks. So he basically went from wearing a suit and tie to work to picking up trash at night in order to feed his family. Years later; he did share with me what a hard time he received from friends and family on this odd career decision.

The worse part of this new business for me was being drafted to go to work!! Everything from picking up trash with him on the weekends to doing bookkeeping and payroll when I got older, I envied every kid whose had a dad with a normal job.

Within a few short years he had expanded to Landscape Construction; a crew of employees, subcontractors and accounts all over Southern California.  Our lifestyle had drastically changed for the better. He really became an evangelical for owning your own business.

My short-lived acting career

Of course had no interest in owning my own business myself.

From a very early age I had a laser-like focus on becoming a successful working actor. I was so bound and determined that when I entered high school I refused to join the drama club because those kids weren’t serious about acting. So my mom was driving me to Hollywood every Saturday to train at a professional actor's workshop and I did that, all through high school. Theater Arts was my major in College and I was going to be the next Meryl Streep! There-was-no-Plan-B!

But I soon realized that the “business” of show business was way too hard on my overly-sensitive soul and quickly lost my drive to succeed in that environment. So when my agent dropped me because I wasn’t booking enough jobs, instead of scrambling and trying to find another agent, I just refocused my creative energy into writing. Took screenwriting classes and my husband and I moved to Orange County. We had a baby and I began a new chapter in my life. But here's where fate rears it's pretty little head...

My husband & I’s failed brick-n-mortar business

A month after having my daughter, My husband announces, it’s time that he follow his dream so he’s quitting his job to open up his own commercial photo lab and suddenly I’m finding myself working in ANOTHER family business; doing the books, handling customer service, running errands all while being a brand new mom. Of course I was going to support my husband **but** it was very difficult to work so hard in a business you are resonating with. In my mind, I’m screaming “Nooo This was never supposed to happen to me again!!!” Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) the business was not supporting us and we chose to close shop a year and a half later. Fast-forward a few years after that, and I’m still trying to make a living as a creative-slash-writer….

Shelving my dreams and entering the 9-5 world

I wrote a screenplay, it didn’t stick; I wrote a couple of children’s book; nothing stuck and now I’m trying to learn the art of copywriting and then boom my husband falls seriously ill. Like near death twice. He’s in and out of the hospital for a couple of months, out of work for 6 months; we went through out saving; we’re facing a mountain of bills. At the end of this dark chapter with my husband finally on the mend, I had to have an adult talk with myself...

“Stop your stupid dreaming, obviously you aren’t making money doing what you want to do, you better just suck it and get a normal job like everyone does in this world”

I made the decision to shelves all my dreams of making a living as an independent creative and go work for someone else in an office. That decision felt like the most colossal failure all. But I did it and did it for 4 years; 2 months 13 days. Looking back at that ill-fitting experience, it was the best thing that ever happen to me. Because out of my misery and depression grew such a FIRE IN MY BELLY which catapulted me to finally start MY own business; not my dad’s; not my husbands; not my boss’s, but my own!!

Fake it til you make it with my first business

So without any training or experience, I just decided that I’m going to start a graphic design company. I thought; “Hey it’s creative and I can work from home, why not?” So I did the whole fake it til you make it. Anytime someone would ask if I had done a website, trade show booth or animated gif, I just said “yes” and figured it out later! Every morning I would wake up with a pit in my stomach thinking this is the day someone will find out that I don’t know what I’m doing. But within 8 months, I had met my goal of replacing my income from the office job. Then I kept raising the goal with a higher number and kept hitting the goal and a few years later, even won some awards for my logo designs.

I felt so proud of myself. It was my first experience with any personal success, up until that point I felted that I had failed at everything I had ever tried.

After 10 years of running Artini Bar Design, and learning about branding and marketing, I started Essential Oil Style and achieved success in the eCommerce space.

Lessons learned and Takeaways

Hindsight is truly 20/20 and I can look back at all the different chapters of my life with more insight and wisdom and recognize where I failed myself and where the shift happened for me. I decoded it in steps that I call The 5 D’s

1. Desire: (Self-exploration Work) The word “desire” comes from two words “de” meaning “of” and  “sire” meaning the King or even further back into Old Latin sidus meaning the stars, constellations. So your desire is from the King; from the heavenlies. It was assigned to you. It’s who you are, how you were made. It’s not going away. So the quicker you can figure out how to aligned with your desire with a service, the faster you will be fulfilled and start blessing others.

2. Discovery: (Experiential Work) Let’s say that you know that your soul’s blueprint is a healer, or a teacher or a creative or a builder. All those archetypes can be expressed through a multitude of occupations. So the fleshing out of how you want your soul's work to manifest as a vocation or business can be a process and take some time. You may have to go through a few renditions of yourself before you find a home for your talents and gifts. But this is all part of your journey and just like Steve Job’s said “So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

3. Deserving:  (Shadow Work) The question of “deserving” comes up a lot for "givers" , for heart-centered people.  So DO THE WORK!  Start to uncover any hidden beliefs you have that you don't deserve to make money at doing what you love and then rewrite those scripts!  This isn't a one time process. You will have to revisit those beliefs every time you raise your goals.

4. Decision:  (Handshake agreement with yourself) Nothing big ever happens without a decision and yet a decision is a one time event. The decision to join a gym can be accomplished in a few minutes and at the same time absolutely nothing in your life can change. But it takes the number 5 D to change your life. 

5. Decree: (A royal order to yourself) A decree is giving yourself an order to go to the gym everyday NO MATTER WHAT. This is where the biggest shift came for me when I decided to start my own business. This was the difference between success and failure. I walked into my house after leaving the office for the last time and I had a Scarlett O’Hara moment in my kitchen. With my fist to the sky, I declared “As God as my witness I will never go through that again and I will make this new business work no matter what.” I was giving myself an authoritative order. It was an order from my highest self to my insecure wishy-washy lower self. It was an immediate mind/ energy shift that I had never felt before. I only saw my vision, my goals and nothing was going to stop me.

If any of my entrepreneurial sistas or brothas; have any comments or tips on mastering your mindset, I would love to hear!