Hey, welcome back to Abundant Heart, a place where I hope creators come to grow their quiet wealth in life and business. I'm excited for today. So I've been thinking a lot. You might hear it in my voice. I'm a little sick. My youngest daughter was sick. My oldest daughter isn't feeling well. I got sick. It's been quite the few weeks in our house. And like many of you, I use that time to reflect. And so as I've been reflecting, I've been thinking about this concept that I first started talking about years ago. It's called the Entrepreneur's Refiner's Fire.
And if you're interested, you can scroll back on this podcast. It's episode number 59. Get this. It came out in 2022, which is wild to me. I'm proud of myself back then, but I have learned so much since then. It's like I'm not even the same person. So I thought it would be fun to kind of revisit this concept of the Entrepreneur's Refiner's Fire. And what I share in that episode and what I'm going to share here is like there's this concept of Refiner's Fire. We get transformed through heat and flame. And most entrepreneurs, if you're like me at least, expect it to be easier than it is. Right when I got started, I didn't think it would be so hard.
And now I have the lens of gratitude for the challenges and the hard times because of who I became and who I'm becoming. I know it's not over. I still have a lot of growth I want to accomplish. And I know that the hard times have prepared me and molded me and really forged my mindset, my beliefs, my skills, my communication, my expectations and mostly like my mental fortitude. The tough times helped me become someone capable of creating great things. And another way of thinking about this is because this is called the abundant heart, right?
If you want abundance, a lot of times scarcity actually forges a stronger belief in abundance because you have to believe something new in order to create something different. And so many times on this podcast, I've talked about how tight finances were when I started my business and what a blessing it ended up being because it forced me to develop really strong abundance beliefs. The failed launches in my business helped me develop skills in launching mental strength for launching rock solid beliefs about client creation, cash flow, content, the pipeline of future clients, my strength in marketing and serving and being here until it works.
All of those came from hard times. And so I have this concept that I share with my clients and I say abundance is all there is. And so it might seem like I'm contradicting myself talking about these hard times, but when you zoom out and really see like, okay, abundance is all there is, what role does a hard time play in my belief that abundance is all there is? And that's the refiner's fire is for our growth, for our good things show up to help us develop into the person that we're capable of becoming, to help us strengthen the beliefs that we're capable of strengthening, to help us develop into the leaders and the coaches and the creators and the parents that we want to be.
And so I've been thinking about this a lot because I've walked through some hard times with my clients and some great times with my clients, right? I've been through hard times and great times in my own business. In fact, one particular client I've been thinking about a lot, she had a rough year last year and I say rough, you can't see this because this is a podcast, but I'm like putting quotations, my little air quotes. She had a tougher year last year than I think she expected. And I think she made less than she thought she could. There was challenging personal circumstances. She still did amazing things, but I think she's a high achiever, right? She's always looking for where she can improve and what she can do better.
And she was really hard on herself. And as we've been coaching, you know, one of the things that I saw her develop was a rock solid belief, like she's here until it works. Even the downside is a good thing. So the downsides of business are great things when you zoom out into the grand scheme of things. She developed grit. She developed perspective. Like she became a better coach. She believed bigger than she's ever believed. So many things. And then the compound effect of that is like this past few weeks, she's done $32,000 in sales and is like back on track to hit a lot of her goals, has new energy, new vibrancy. Like it's just been amazing to watch.
And that came on the other side of a refiner's fire. And I've been through plenty, and I'm going to share some in this podcast, but her experience and growth really, I guess, highlighted why I wanted to talk about the refiner's fire today. Because many of you, either you're currently in one or you will be, or you were, right? There is no avoiding the refiner's fire because we need it to shape us. It gives us the choice to choose what we believe. It strengthens our commitment or it breaks you. And this is where a lot of people quit is like, yeah, it gets hard.
And then if you don't develop the belief and the stamina, and the word that I like to use is like the spiritual grit, you end up quitting before you end up reaping the rewards of the refiner's fire. And so I mentioned that I've been sick. And so there's been some days that I just really didn't want to work on my business. And I was joking with my mastermind, actually, but like, yeah, I thought about burning it all down. Because that's what our brain offers us when we're not feeling well, or when we're trying to solve something that feels very hard to solve, or you had a bad day or whatever, right? Our brains are so funny that way, and it never stops.
And so as I've been working through my sickness and taking care of myself and taking care of my sick babies, it always gives me a chance to reflect on the lessons that I'm learning. And this is why I'm recording this podcast, for me to kind of note the lessons, but also to share in hopes that like, you don't quit too early. You also don't make yourself wrong for when you're having a hard time in business. I've never met or heard or read about an entrepreneur who didn't go through tough times to become the version of themselves that is capable of creating the great things that they created. And it makes them human, it makes me resonate.
I always joke like, you wouldn't want to go to a conference where it's like your favorite entrepreneur ever, and like they get on stage and they're like, yeah, you know, like, I just had a great time, I just kind of decided to have this business and everything worked out smoothly. And here I am making $500 million, like super easy. You know, you wouldn't respect that person. One, you would sniff out that they're probably lying. Two, they're not relatable. Three, that's not how the world works. Four, you want to hear the struggle. We actually as humans, like we want the story about other people, right? We don't want the story of the struggle when it comes to us.
And that's what I want to reframe is because what I'll get to in this episode at the end, I'm going to share some principles. I don't think you have to be in misery. I don't think you have to hate your life. I don't think you have to resent your business, your clients, yourself, your family. I don't think you have to have any self-loathing or like I said, misery or struggle bus where it's just like so hard on your nervous system and your soul that it's not worth it. That's not what I'm talking about with the Entrepreneur's Refiner's Fire. And so we're going to get there, but like there's a few different characteristics that I want to share because I think you can move from struggle to struggle, right? Basically how I would define that is like results that you don't want.
When you're experiencing results that you don't want, you don't have to experience it as this like awful misery. That's what I want to talk about today. And this is, I think, the place of mastery that I didn't have when I first recorded that episode about the Refiner's Fire because now I know you can move through failure in the spirit of abundance. And that is the biggest secret that I've learned. And that's why I wrote the book Quiet Wealth. It's why I teach what I teach, right? Because you can have a failure and really not have a lot of resistance to it. You could just be like, huh, wonder what I'll try next time. That's self-mastery. And so I want to share that.
This is my example, right? I shared my client's example. My example was I have like a graveyard of launches in my business. If you've been in business long enough, like you start to kind of rack up some wins, but also some scars, right? Some losses. And so I had a series of failed launches about different things, about a mastermind, about a group program. This was also a season in my life when I was launching the Matrix. What else did I launch during this season? Probably like a masterclass. Like there was like just a series of what I would call launches failed in that like I didn't hit the revenue that I was hoping to hit.
And as I was reflecting on those failed launches, like those failed launches helped me learn what works, what I like, what the marketplace responds to, how long it works for me to launch for, the energy that I bring to launches, the messaging that works for my clients, the style of launch, whether it's like a live launch or a three-day masterclass or just like a quick open cart. Like I got so much valuable data in that season of hard launches. It's not that I didn't make any money because I did. I did sign clients and it was still making me money, but I was not hitting my targets, not creating what I really wanted.
But all of those shortcomings, all of the frustration, right? Like why did that not work? Oh my gosh, I only got one person. Or it's like that only created two clients. Like all of those moments where I was like come on, I'm doing everything I know to do. Like as I reflected and really the word that I think of is cement. As I submitted to the process, entrepreneurs, refiners, spire, looking at the data, there were certain seasons where I felt like I was in misery. Like I was frustrated with myself, but one truth always stuck out, which is like I can come back to abundance. And every time I came back to that shift where like, okay, if abundance is all there is, how would I see this? I gleaned wisdom from every single launch.
And over time, every launch became abundant, even if I didn't hit the result because I learned something I could carry forward into the future. I learned a principle. I learned a tactic. I learned a perspective that would serve me in the future. And then now in my business, I have a fully booked mastermind. I have the lighthouse mentorship that's running. I have the art of impossible cohorts. Like I know how to launch pretty seamlessly because of everything that I've done up to this point, learning those lessons. And so the thing that I will share is even though I failed and I was frustrated, I was not frustrated for long.
The reason that I think, I'm not saying I'm perfect because there's definitely seasons where I was frustrated and felt stuck longer than I wanted to. But I think the biggest shift was like I started to see mistakes or failures as opportunities. That's the lightning bolt moment. It's an opportunity for me to learn either a skill, a belief, a character trait, a way of communicating that will serve me forever. And so for you, whether you're in the refiner's fire or out of it, you're like, holy crap, like I never want to do that again. If you see your failures and mistakes as opportunities, you see them more abundantly. I wish I had this early, early on.
So before I ever started an online business, I actually made a little list of all the things that I tried to do to make money before I was coaching. This was like before I ever even found coaching, but I had been transcribing things. There's like this website that you could transcribe videos and audio and you get paid like per word or something. I think I made like seven dollars for every hour of transcribing. It was crazy. I tried flipping things like I would find it in a store and then try to flip it on eBay. I did Fulfilled by Amazon, which I don't even know if they exist anymore, where it's like if I find something in the store and Amazon sells it more expensive, I could buy it in the store and then ship it through like Fulfilled by Amazon.
I also did these weird little tasks on Amazon. I was just trying to make money like as a sale. This is before even before my second baby was born. It was just really scrappy. After my second baby was born, I found a company called VIP Kid. I taught English to Chinese kids literally like they were in China. I would wake up at like 3 a.m., teach a 30-minute lesson, get paid 20 bucks an hour. That was probably like the most money I made was at VIP Kid. I tried an MLM. I tried blogging. All these failures. When I started writing them down, I'm like, oh my gosh. What's funny is I didn't really see any of it as, oh, I missed failure.
I honestly think it's just like I just saw new opportunities. I just kept looking for the next opportunity, the things that I could learn, the things that I could apply differently. Even hard times, and you can't see I'm putting quotes up, but quote, hard times can lead to some pretty amazing insights and ahas and skills. My favorite one is beliefs. Through all of that list of transcribing, blogging, flipping, Amazon FBA, MLM, VIP Kid, I started to see one of the strong beliefs that I still have is like, oh, there's a lot of ways to make money. Even though I wasn't making money, my belief that I took from all of those failed experiences, I still carry with me today. That was like such a huge aha.
If you were on the outside looking in, you would describe that phase of my life as like a series of failures. But the biggest win that was forged inside of me is like there are abundant ways to make money, a belief that I still have, a belief that I share with my clients, and it still serves me. And so even if I've, quote, failed in those opportunities, I won bigger. The belief that I adopted was like, oh, there's lots of ways to make money, and now I can move forward with possibility, with faith, with creativity that wasn't available to me before I tried all those things. So it is worth trying things and experimenting until something lands. And one of the things that I often share here on the podcast, you know, in my emails, on my posts, in my book, you have to be here until it works.
Because if you unlock enough failure, right, and failures are just opportunities, you will start to create what you want to create. The biggest aha for me was like you don't have to move from failure to failure with like a lot of resistance. And so this brings me to the next thing that I want to share with you, which are basically three ways of being, I would say, that make failure easier. I don't even think of failure as a bad word. It's like you just didn't create the result that you wanted, but how do you do that, right? Like how do you reframe failure into something useful? And so there's three aspects that I want to share, and the first one is non-resistance.
So non-resistance, how I would say it's like an openness, right? Like you are just open to the experience. Another way that you might think about this is like you just don't have thoughts about it. Okay, I'll give you an example. Let's say one of the failed launches that I had was I tried to launch a mastermind, this was years ago, and I got one client and I just basically converted her into a private client. But I definitely failed in launching that mastermind, right? And the reason that I didn't, I didn't really have any thoughts about it. Like I just was like, oh, like we'll move on.
It's because I didn't have the inner dialogue of like, oh, I only got one person on the launch. Like who am I to do this? I suck, right? Like I just didn't have that dialogue because I had non-resistance to what is. I see people make themselves sick because they have resistance to what is. And so one of my favorite books in this area is by Byron Cady. It's called Loving What Is, if you want to do a deep dive on non-resistance and changing the way that you think about basically your reality. The next piece, which is super related, is non-judgment. So non-resistance is like you don't have the inner tension to what's happening. Non-judgment is like, I accept this.
I'm curious about this, but I'm not judging it. So I think curiosity is a huge advantage for entrepreneurs. When you fail and you're curious, you become unstoppable. When you win and you're still curious, you start to become very skilled and your craft gets taken to the next level, right? If you're curious with human beings, the level of care and attention that you bring to them, they don't feel that very many places. And so I think curiosity is a huge advantage to creative entrepreneurs and creators and coaches. So we have non-resistance. We have non-judgment. And the third piece is humility.
And I wrote this, so I know it's entitled to nothing, but appreciating everything. I still feel like that's a huge aspect of what has allowed me to create the success that I have, is that I still genuinely feel entitled to nothing. I'm still grateful for every client, for every payment, for every student, for every download of this podcast, for every person who DMs me, right? Like the book sales that I have, I don't feel entitled to any of it. And that keeps me open to learning, to trying things, to seeing life as like something that is like a game, right? Like I'm still learning how to play it. And so I wanted to share those things because I think that's how you move through failure without inner struggle. You can experience results that you don't want, but you don't hate them. You're not like actively fighting against them.
You're experiencing non-resistance, non-judgment, and humility. So you just look at it different. You're curious. Like, huh, I launched a mastermind and only one person joined. Interesting. Well, do you want to be a private client? Yeah, that sounds great. Perfect. What did I learn from this? Where did my messaging fall short? How long was the cart open? Did I talk about it enough? Did people get an experience of working with me? I just asked different questions that I could get to the place where I have lots of launches under my belt and now I have lots of very successful launches under my belt.
And I'm not saying that to like toot my own horn, but it's like it came because I went through the entrepreneur's refiner's fire without a lot of resistance. It's just like, oh yeah, this is hard. I'm learning. I haven't learned this skill yet. I haven't done the things required to create that yet. I haven't become the person who will be able to create that yet. And that's not a problem. It's not a character flaw. It's not something wrong with me. It's just something that I'm working on. And that's why I really love this concept. And it's perfect, not complete. So like things can be perfect.
And this is quiet wealth to me. I can have this perfect feeling, not because like everything is actually perfect, but like a feeling of wholeness that nothing's missing just because my launch failed, just because I didn't hit that revenue, whatever, just because I didn't sign the client. I'm good and I'm not complete. That's expansion. And so there's an experience of life that is full of gratitude and awe and wonder and openness and curiosity and appreciation and gratitude that exists even if you're not hitting your goals yet.
It's a way of flowing through life until you hit your goals, which is funny because then you'll just pick new ones, right? But it's an experience of life that's full of peace and joy and like awe and curiosity and learning instead of like, oh, I hate this. Oh, I suck. Oh, everyone's going faster than me. This isn't working, right? Like this inner tension that doesn't work. You can move through the entrepreneur's refiner's fire peacefully, joyfully, happily. That's important to know so that you can enjoy your life and you can go on the walk without hating yourself.
You can wake up in the morning energized and ready for the day instead of honestly like weighed down by the judgment that you have for yourself. I don't think beating yourself up is required to get where you want to go. I think that's a skill worth developing. The next thing that I'll share, and this is more a little bit spicier, but I think it's useful. You either learn the lesson or the lesson will keep showing for you. And if you're too prideful to be able to see the lesson, right, if you keep resisting it or trying to skip it, the lesson will just keep showing up. And I've coached clients that I've been through that where it's like, I don't want to learn this lesson, right?
Like one of the lessons that I've been learning the past, I'd say, year or two has been about systems because my brain really likes intuitive, flexible, spontaneous. But I know the business that I want requires systems. And so I've learned lessons over and over again, sometimes painful, sometimes not what I want. And I do the inner work that we just talked about, humility, non-resistance, non-judgment, so that I can relax my shoulders, not judge myself for where I'm falling short, see the places that I can be better from a place of just love, not scarcity, not judgment, not belittling myself. It's just like, yeah, like I have room to grow here. This is expansion. I have more things that I want to do.
And that means I'm going to have to forge new beliefs and develop new skills to get there. And that's okay. I don't have to hate myself on the way there. I don't have to compare to other people and make myself wrong or bad for being where I am. And I have to take an honest look about what I need to develop, right, the skills and the beliefs and the character traits that I need to develop to get there. And so the lesson will keep showing up for you. That is the refiner's fire until you submit to the process. And I've shared those three perspectives, non-resistance, non-judgment and humility.
Those three things will allow you to learn and to develop the beliefs and to ask for help and to try things differently, to experiment with something new, to strengthen something, to try something until you create what you want, until it works. And I think the biggest thing I can share is you're not doing it wrong if you fail. Like literally, failure is how you grow yourself and your capacity to receive what you want if you're willing to see it this way. So I hope it helps. I hope this landed for you. And I will talk to you soon. Bye.
