Ep. 69: The Entrepreneurial Emotional Rollercoaster (Guest Sarah Walton from Game On Girlfriend Podcast)
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If you're a business owner, then you've probably experienced the emotional rollercoaster of entrepreneurship. . To discuss this topic we are joined by Sarah Walton who is a success coach and the host of the Game on Girlfriend Podcast. As an intuitive business mentor, she has helped hundreds of women start and grow businesses that they love.
We get into all kinds of juicy stuff like influence, imposter syndrome, money mindset, and the importance of using data to make conscious decisions, rather than letting emotions hijack success. We discuss ways to avoid having a business turn into a metaphorical crazy, out of control ride that flies off the tracks. Being an entrepreneur, these days comes with a whole host of challenges, many of which we address in this episode.
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From the Episode:
Heather: “Sarah Walton, thank you for being here at, Get the Balance Right podcast.”
Sarah Walton: “I am so excited to be here with you today, Heather. Really excited. I think we have some good stuff coming out.”
Heather: “For the people who know you, you have a great podcast I've been listening to. You're also a coach, a mentor. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your podcast.”
Sarah Walton: “My podcast is called the Game on Girlfriend podcast, because the game is on. This is not practice life. This is the actual game. And I talk about pretty much everything under the sun when it comes to our intuition, our motives, our ambition, our drive, what inspires us and then how we actually get those things done yes, I'm a business coach and I can teach all the things and do all this stuff, but you can look that up on Google. It's about why you're not doing what you know, you need to do. It's about filling the gap in between what you want and what you have and understanding that the only thing in between those two is that you are either doing something you don't know you should be doing, or you don't know something that you need to know.
And I always feel like it's my job to help you get in the game and figure out exactly what that gap is and how you close it. Do you just love doing the podcast that I love having the podcast, I think it's so much fun.”
Heather: “It's a lot of fun, part of it is a labor of love because it's a lot of work. People have no idea how much work goes into a podcast. it's not something that you can just wing it. You have to do research and find out about each person that you're going to be interviewing.
And then there's all the editing that's involved and social media. And it's a lot. That's why a lot of people have that, pod fade where they start a podcast and then they're like, oh, too much work.”
Sarah Walton: “It is hard. we're actually working on our hundredth episode. It's been a lot of fun, I think it's such a great medium, and I think it allows people to learn and consume kind of in their own way, which is really cool.”
Heather: “Yeah. And you've dove into a lot of really interesting topics on your show. And we'll talk more about your podcast later, but let's dive into the topic for today, which is getting off the emotional roller coaster of business. Now we both work with female entrepreneurs. is there something about this emotional rollercoaster that seems to happen more with women over men?
Or is this just something that just doesn't matter your gender…tell me about this emotional rollercoaster.”
Sarah Walton: “Oh, gosh, those were some loaded questions in there. I'm going to do my best to sum up on that. But those of us that have businesses we know like how many times you cried? How many times have you just look at your screen and you just stare at it? And you're like why do I do this?
Why? But then there's like the thought of not doing it is even more painful. There was a lot of emotion that goes into running, starting, maintaining your own business. I happen to believe physiologically speaking. Gender sort of matters in that physiologically between the two hemispheres of the brain.
You've got the right brain and the left-brain women have more connective tissue between the two, meaning the hemispheres of our brain are actually physiologically, wired to connect more often. And that can be both a really big burden and a really huge strength just like for men physiologically, I'm not like stereotyping like those guys.
Just physiologically speaking if have you have a brother or a spouse or even a colleague who's male and you say to them, hey listen, could you help me with X, Y, Z? And they'll be like, I'm doing something it's like the can't do both and it's not a dig.
But they focus on one thing at a time they get it done. And then when they do the next thing and we get pissed. Yeah, you do that, but then there's all this stuff over here. And when this needs to get done, and that needs to get done and I think it's our strength in that as women, we bring all that emotion, all that right brain, all that heart, all of that intuition, all that instinct into business. In a way that men, quite frankly, can't and again, not a dig, I'm just talking to, physiologically. It's a really interesting phenomenon. And what happens for those of us that are truly emotionally tied to the business, especially right now in the age of influencer, like we're all the faces of our brands, all that kind of stuff.
It gets personal and you get wrapped up and wild and crazy. And somebody has negative comment because they had a crappy day, like devastates you for, a day or when you get better at it five minutes. Right. But even then, it's still time out of your day that you're like, how could they say that? You get all worked up in that, but if we can flip that emotion around and couple it with data, instead of emotional response to this. You can make something incredibly strong that has all the pillars. It really needs because it's surrounded by the emotion and the heart and backed up by data and objectivity in a way that I think we can really start to hone in on to have women be even more successful in business.
I think we've really taken off, but I think there's more ground for us to cover. And I think it's really cool time to be a woman in business.”
Heather: “Yeah. So, first you blinded me with science, you brought some science in there, we got that going on. And then you actually just dove right into my second question, which was about data because I tell my clients that we need to collect data, to make a good decision. I used to work in market research.
It was all about the data, collect the data, and then you can make decisions. So that we can be. Making less emotional choices and our business is that the data piece. What is the data piece to you?”
Sarah Walton: “Yes, it's absolutely what the data piece is. But it's also when we get to the point in our business where we can lift that personal a little bit, we're a little bit more confident in our skillset. And I don't care if you're painting or making cupcakes or you're a coach, or you have some huge consulting's marketing firm.
It doesn't matter when you start out, you have that lower level of confidence just because you're terrified and it's all new. And you're trying to do everything at once and that rocks our confidence to start. And then as that confidence builds up, you can start to pull yourself apart from the business a little bit and look at it as what does the business need. And then what do I need as a person? And when that separation starts, that's when we can start looking at data and we can go, oh my God, that email campaign totally bombed. That YouTube video, not so much. That podcast episode, nobody cared. Right, or, oh my God, they loved, I can't believe they love that one.
Why do they love that one? I don't know, let's dig into it and find out. And this is where surveys become really helpful. This is where digging through comments on podcasts on videos online at all, anywhere you post, this is where that becomes so useful, these corporations spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the kind of data and feedback that we get real time every day, because we have access to social media and we have access to email campaigns and we can freaking ask people what they think and allowing that to come in and help us make the best decisions. Can alleviate that emotional stress piece on that almost like that personal response to it if you think about like Hershey or Coke, those executives don't go home and get upset when somebody says they hated the one with almonds. They don't take. Personally, they didn't go home and cry, right? They're like, all right, let's look at the data and figure it out. And that is an elevation to our perspectives on business that I think all of us want to run towards, to get to that point where it's if I said to you like, oh my God, Heather, you can make a million dollars in six months.
If you start doing this one thing, you'd probably start doing it or whatever your magic number is. That's what I mean by allowing yourself to be led by data. Does that make sense?”
Heather: “Yeah, of course. It totally makes sense. Now it's the barrier of getting to that place where you will pay attention to the data that you will actually collect data and all of that. do you think for female entrepreneurs that maybe there might be some sort of self-sabotaging going on before they get to it, like imposter syndrome or something like that?”
Sarah Walton: “Yeah, I actually call it upper limit problems, which is not my term that comes from Gay Hendricks book. It's called The Big Leap. There's something he talks about and he actually starts to use it as a verb he's like you’re upper-limiting yourself. He talks about it that way. It's a concept, I'm shocked, I don't see around more. And it's one of the pillars of what I work on with my clients. And my students, there's really four massive barriers to our upper limit. We're going along. We're having a great time.
And sometimes that's imposter syndrome. I actually think that for most women we've been taught not to trust our own instances. Not to actually act on our emotions when a lot of the times, that can be our strength and that can guide us in a really profound way. And we've been trained to shut that down. That to me is actually a lot more of the experience of imposter syndrome and that you're betraying yourself. You're making sure everybody else is comfortable the expense of your relationship with yourself and you shut yourself down. And in mind view, that's just the Sarah Walton perspective.
That's imposter syndrome because it feels like garbage. It makes you feel horrible. An upper limit problem is when you've grown and expanded and you've started to hit the upper limits of what you believe is possible.
It's like you have this thermostat in your house and if it's set at 76 and it gets too hot, the air kicks in and brings it back down. And if it's too cold to heat your kicks in and brings it right back up and it always stays there. And that's our upper limit, whatever your thermostat setting is. So, it could be a hundred thousand followers.
It could be. I made my first six figures. It could be, I had my first one person pay me. Each of us have our own. And it's our responsibility to look at that and make sure when things start going a little wonky that we're not hitting an upper limit problem. But that's really what I think happens is in order to get to that data piece that like, oh, this isn't about me. This is about a business that I'm providing.
This is about solving problems that I'm providing the marketplace. Oh my gosh. It came from me. I gave birth to it, but it's not me when get to that place. It's usually an upper limit problem that keeps us from getting there.
It's a really good book. It's a good one to have in your bookshelf just to go back and go, oh, I just upper limited myself. Fantastic.”
Heather: “I noticed you talk about influence. on your website also your podcasts can you explain a little bit about influence? I know people think influence, they think of social media, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean social media.
Can you explain what influence means to you?”
Sarah Walton: “Yes. I love, love, love this conversation. I'm so glad you brought that up as you're dealing with your upper limit problems and you're growing your business, looking at your data, if the data comes back that you're not influencing people, and that doesn't mean you're making them buy the latest gold watch or whatever the heck, that's not what we're talking about, but you're not influencing them to take the actions you would like them to take. That is so important. And I think what a lot of people miss, is influence is a skill. A lot of us have this idea that influence is like some gift. It's like some talent, but some mean God is doling out to some people are not giving to others.
It is like, no, it's actually a skill. And there are things you can practice daily to strengthen your skill of influence. I love to talk about charisma and that charisma is not, again, some gift. It's not this idea that oh, that person just has charisma.
My personal definition of charisma is someone who is unbelievably present. I don't know. Heather, have you ever had that experience where you like walk into a networking event or it could be someplace where somebody cools hanging out or something? And it's almost like when somebody walks in the room, and the molecules will shift and they could be behind you, but you're like, who is that?
That is someone who has what we call charisma, but that is someone who's unbelievably present. That every person they speak to is like, oh my, I felt like they looked to the back of my head. They were so with me that is part of influence is really practicing the art of being with the person who's in front of you.
And that can be a camera that could be your podcast mic. That can be the newsletter, especially now, because we're not all quite back together given the virus. But as we start to expand and get in person with people it's being with them without an agenda. And that's the part most people miss, because most people are present in order to get something they're present, because then people will like them, they're present because some book told them that they should be opposed to granting listening, but granting, listening, and full acceptance to the person in front of you. You're not trying to change them. You're not trying to hurry them up. You're not trying to get who's behind them in line, is more important than they are. All that stuff that happens to us where we feel gross after an interaction. When someone's truly influential, even if they look at you and say, this is so interesting, but I've got to get to the person behind you. I hope we get to pick this up sometimes that makes a big difference as opposed to aha. Yeah, you know, you don't have their attention. That person probably will never have influence over you again.
And it's just a fascinating scale to teach because it works on anything we really understand, obviously there's six more skills that come with influence, but presence being one, but it's everything from getting your kids to pick up their socks off the floor, or where are we going to go to dinner all the way through to, hey, yeah, let's talk about, my $15,000 solution to your problem that runs the gamut.
And when you understand what influences and how to use it responsibly, its absolutely life changing.”
Heather: “To have influence does that take time? Does it take repetitive interactions or, what you were describing almost seemed like the wow factor. Like somebody walks in the room and you're like, wow.
And they make you feel a certain way. You remember how they made you feel, that's something that comes up. Besides the charisma, can you just give us a snapshot of what are other things that we would need to have influence.”
Sarah Walton: “Yeah, absolutely. There are two others that I really liked. You've got to add value, and that gets thrown around way too easily, which I don't know about you. However, that drives me bananas. It's added value. It's, I don't know what the hell that means, when we say it that way.
But if you're actually having a conversation with someone and you leave them in a better place than when you found them that's valuable.
We do that with our friends all the time. But it's, it's actually making sure that your presence in the conversation moved it into a better direction. And really a lot of that is being present enough to listen, without trying to think. I have to sound smart. I got to do this. I got to make them like me. I got it.
That's not being present. The other thing I talk about a lot people are always watching. And that being influential is not as sometimes game. And when I first say that people are like, oh my God, I'm exhausted. You mean I have to be on all the time. I have to be like, I am on my Instagram lives. Like I am every day.
It's no, not at all. What that means is because you're human and you're going to make mistakes. You got to clean up your messes. We all make mistakes.
We got to address that immediately. And then we can talk about it and deal with it and move on. But if we try to act like. That didn't happen. It's never going to work and it's going to hook somebody.
Who's going to hear it and go, that's not what she said. It like takes them out of the conversation and now they're not even listening. So, they're gone. And that's what we really have to be responsible for is every single one of us is going to make mistakes and I'll raise my hand first.
Tell the truth about it and clean it up. And I think the part that people miss. As far as genuine influence there and being a person of influence somebody who go out in the world and cause really cool things to happen
It's hard. You guys being influential is a challenge, but it will make you the best version of the person you can be.
And then to answer your question, Heather, about how long does this take? The number one? I always talk about this as like the ribbon that ties all the skills together is. Consistency. I always joke around people think that, influence is something that, should just be granted to them, but I'm a good person.
Therefore, I should just have influence. No, it doesn't work that way. And that level of consistency for influential people is absolutely critical. And I think it's missed really often people like I did a great thing. I did a great episode. I did a great post. I should just have him lose forever. It's no, you have to show up like that every day or something like that every day.”
Heather: “One of the values of my show and my businesses to own up to your mistakes, we all learn from your mistakes and own up to them. And I think it actually makes a better relationship with a client. If you just own up to your mistakes.
Rather than trying to hide something. And it seems like that would contribute to this emotional rollercoaster of you're like constantly not being authentic. It would wear at you, besides that, where do you see this influential part in with the emotional rollercoaster?
Is there another tie between that?”
Sarah Walton: “I think so. I think it's the honesty with the emotions, right? I think what you just said is key people always know when we're hiding something or when we're like, oh my God. They're now cranking on that. Instead of doing what they need to do to live their best life or what their next best step is.
When we allow our emotions to take over those emotions are fear based. That's when we screw up. When you feel happy and full and excited and you're killing it in your business and you're well rested and you're taking care of yourself. You don't make mistakes the emotional piece comes in when you are taking care of yourself, when you're letting yourself be led by the data.
When you were on this rollercoaster and you're not allowing the data to lead you and a little bit more objective way you freak out.
And you do dumb stuff. Don't let the emotions run. You recognize that you have the emotion. I think emotions are wonderful. And I think they tell us so much about what's going on, but we have them.
And when they have us, we got a problem. Because it's out of whack and it's not quite going to work to the best of its ability, meaning our relationships, our business, our money, our growth, our level of authenticity, and our ability to be influential out there in the world.
But just to check in and go, whoa, is what I'm doing in the best interest of the business and is what I'm doing in the best interest of my personal growth.”
Heather: “On this show, we talk a lot about money mindset does that factor into this emotional rollercoaster as well?”
Sarah Walton: “Yeah, absolutely. God, it's a big one. Isn't it? It's so amazing how much money can affect our emotions. When you have it in the bank, everything's fine. When you don't, you're like I'm going to die tomorrow. It's so powerful. And I talk about money as the most powerful tool that we have access to right now.
We might decide to change our society in the future, and that may not be the case, but for right now, if we look around the world, it's the most powerful tool we have access to. And my motto was actually that I put more money in the hands of more women. And I do that because I'm looking at the state of the world and I always talk about how women wouldn't drop bombs on other people's children.
We might drop food and we need to start dealing with this. there's a problem. And I don't think it's accidental, there's a lot of systems in places we've all learned, that are systematically keeping money out of the hands of women. And how has that happened? Women are scared of money. We get scared that we don't know how to handle it, that we can't earn enough of it. That no one will pay us what we're really worth. That we're bad if we want it, that we should do what we do for free, just like I would say. Yeah, just like they just say to brain surgeons, someone's going to die.
If you don't do that surgery, you should do it for free. Nobody ever says that. And what we have to look at is that the quote unquote soft skills. The heart-centered businesses, the spiritual based businesses, the intuitive based businesses that are out there solving massive problems for people, the people running, those tend to be women, and they tend not to value those gifts financially.
And it causes big problems. Not because money is the answer to everything, but because it's not congruent, I view money as a source of love and people go, bless you. I go, I know I'm crazy, but just hang with me for a second. Okay. I know it sounds bananas. And the first time I heard it, I was like, I don't want to talk about this.
I don't want to be the money as love lady. I don't want to but it came to me, not as money is love, like romantic love, or it can take the place of love. Not at all. It's more that if you've ever studied the course in miracles or you know anything about that, it's what Marianne Williamson talks about a lot.
But the idea in that kind of what the secret was built on too, is that there's really only two emotions there's love and there's fear. And love's job is to bring up all the fear. So, the fear can actually be dealt with and healed and you can move on to the next level. And that kind of love energy is what I say money has. Money we'll show you exactly where you have not dealt with things. It will show you exactly where you haven't healed. And I always say to my clients if you want to tell me what's important to you, show me what your last 10 purchases were. And I will tell you what you value in life. And that's what I mean about money as love is it's got this incredible power to bring out in us, everything we haven't healed. When you're talking about money mindset, it's not just can I make a hundred thousand dollars? Yeah. That's part of it. But underneath that is what are you afraid of? And if money comes in, you're going to have to deal with what you were afraid of. It will always do that. And that is why people get rid of it. Like we always hear about that with the lottery, right? It's not because these people are stupid it's because it brings up too much stuff. Do my friends really love me?
Does my family really love me? I don't know what if I can't manage it. Like it brings up all the fears they've never dealt with when we're dealing with your money mindset, what we're actually looking at is. How much can you look at and go, I got this and mean it not the look, I'm an influencer.
I'm not that money. Nah, I'm talking about hold it and go, what do I do with this? There are people who don't have clean water. People don't have food. I don't know what the hell we're going to about this climate problem we're up against. Do I have enough for my kid’s college?
Are they even going to go to college? Do you see all of that stuff comes right at you once you start making it? It's not so much whether or not you can make it. Of course, you can. There are idiots out there making a boatload of money. Anybody can make money. They're making money. Things, not the problem.
It is for some people in the beginning but once that first step happens, it's are they paying you adequately? Is the amount of love and energy and healing and support and vitality that you are putting out in the world matched by what's in your bank account?
And if it's not, you're the only thing to look at. People spend money on everything. So, there's no reason that your business can't be making money or that you aren't charging what you're worth other than you don't believe it's worth it.
Now that's something to heal. So, then you start there and then you watch the money come in to that level. And then it's oh, I've got an upper limit. Again, let me go see what else I have to heal. And then you go through that. And that to me is the money mindset is understanding that the money, while it's the most powerful tool we have access to what it is to you is a relationship to everything you're afraid of.
And until you deal with those, you don't want it to come in. And that's where we get people going. I don't know. I just, I can't make. Great. What are you afraid of now? Let's talk now. Let's get you going now. Let's look at what's happening.”
Heather: “Working with people, the financial statements only tell you a part of the story. And then it's a matter of digging deeper to find out even more.
Finding out more about their money mindset can tell you so much about all their decisions that they make in their business. That's where I love to start with my clients or at least, work our way back there. And that's very interesting about the last 10 purchases that you made. I'm going to steal that one!”
Sarah Walton: “It's really cool.”
Heather: “That is very cool. Tell us how people can work with you. You've got a lot of programs. It looks like you even put on events.”
Sarah Walton: “I do love, love me some live events. We do Game on Girlfriend Live once a year. The podcast is the Game on Girlfriend podcast We'll probably be looking at January again. That's in the works. But as far as people working with me, I'd love to do one-on-one. Both business and life coaching. My coaching is very intuitive and it's very customized. Like I don't put people through a program and they're six months with me. It is what's going on in your life right now. Did you, or did you not take the actions we decided were in your best interest? Why or why not? And looking at that over and over six months, what happens is astounding.
And I love that and I'm really proud that I don't have a quote unquote, one size fits all program, but that's the one-on-one coaching. And then the other thing I'd love to do this is my favorite. I do quarterly sprint. They run on the fiscal quarter.
The next one starts January, February, March, and I have four every year and I put women in groups of five where they check in every Monday and Friday with each other. On their goals and what they're doing, but for the sprint itself, they meet with me one-on-one and we pick one goal, one goal for the quarter that they sprint towards as hard as they can.
It is so much fun and I love setting it up and I love the accountability piece. It's so much fun.”
Heather: “That's very awesome. You know, if you work on one goal and just knock that one out of the park, you can get so much more accomplished and then you feel so much better about yourself than trying to like work on so many little goals at the same time and you get nowhere, and then you have no real results and I think getting over this emotional rollercoaster really does help to work with a coach. Maybe you might need a therapist for part of it, but I think a coach, is a great way to get off of this emotional rollercoaster. I talk about the hamster wheel my business.
I just want to ask you, because I like to get into the insider stuff. The intro of your podcast includes your daughter. It's very adorable. And she's mentioned something about being an imperfect vegan.
Can you explain what that means exactly?”
Sarah Walton: “We had way too much fun recording that, by the way. Oh my gosh. Way too much fun. She was great. She was nine, at the time that she did that. She's a little older and I think she's a little bit embarrassed about it, but I don't think I can take it off because I love it so much.”
Heather: “It's very cute.”
Sarah Walton: “Oh my gosh. I would love to be a hundred percent vegan, that's really important to me. And mostly it's the way in what we're doing to produce the amount that we're producing.
I just don't think it's natural and I don't think it's kind and I don't think it's okay. And I think if most people really just took a second and I know we don't want to, I don't. But if we just take a second to dig in. To what's happening so that we can eat the quantity that we're eating.
I think most people would slow down and I'm one of those people that's listen, if you cut your consumption in half, could you imagine what that would do for animals and for farmers who are having to perform these acts that they're not really happy about either. So that was really the impetus of why I became vegan.
But I have two auto-immune disease. And what happens with those is I actually really have to eat fish, which was so hard for me. I can't even tell you. It was like what the blood work just kept coming back. And I was like, listen, my body's telling me something. So, I have to actually pay attention.
When the auto-immune diseases really kicked up I dropped gluten as well. And that helped immensely, but I did have to put fish back in. So that's why I'm an imperfect vegan.”
Heather: “Ah, okay. I'm a longtime vegan. And so, I wanted it to know what that meant. And to me, it's a personal decision of how vegan you are or how, plant-based or however you want to identify with it. I believe that if people at least, or even a part-time vegan, that it can make change in this world.”
Sarah Walton: “Yes.”
Heather: “Whatever, you're helping the earth. And that's just amazing.
Okay. Before we wrap up, I do want to ask you about in your LinkedIn bio, I saw that you worked for Lifetime movies or Lifetime.”
Sarah Walton: “Lifetime television.”
Heather: “Yeah, Lifetime television. Okay. So, a couple of things okay. I will just admit that one of my guilty pleasures is Lifetime movies. I love Lifetime movies.
I would seek them out. Like, I have paid for the app, for a while, just to watch the Lifetime movies. I just love them. What did you do there and was this in Astoria in New York, cause I know that they used to have…I thought that's where their location was.”
Sarah Walton: “Oh, my gosh. That was a great question. So, the studios are in Astoria, that is correct. But the corporate offices are in Manhattan. And I loved working there. I thought I had won the lottery. I was 23 years old. I was like…because I too had the guilty pleasure…come on.
I was raised in Sandy, Utah, and I remember all the moms talking about whoever on the last show. When did you see it? Loved it. When a recruiter called me and said, do you want to do this? I was like, are you freaking kidding me? And what I did, which actually really helps me now, it's so interesting.
And when I'm supporting my clients and stuff is I was what's called a technical integrator. And what I would do is I would take the graphic designs that our design team would make for the websites. Website were still… what do these do again? So, we would build the website, say for the Golden Girls or Designing Women and they would build the design.
And what they do is they just build a PDF that looks like a website. But it wasn't, it was just a PDF. And I was responsible for taking that image, cutting it up and programming it to actually work on the website properly. I loved it. I was absolutely one of my favorite jobs. I'm still in touch with, I would say more than half of the people I got to work with there. It was a fantastic company to work for. And we were number one in cable at the time. So that made it even more fun. We kept having to beat out that damn SpongeBob, but we had the best time. It was really great. But yeah, it was wonderful.”
Heather: “That's very cool. And I noticed that you were on the Today show, but I also noticed in your LinkedIn bio that you worked for NBC Universal, did that help you get on the Today's show or how did that work? Cause, today's show that's pretty cool.”
Sarah Walton: “Yeah, I wish I could say I called my friend Jane. I'm like, no, it wasn't. You know what you guys see? This is about taking action and upper limit. I swear to God, this is the true story is they were running an, almost like a contest, of we want your best story. And I was like, I've got a really good story.
I submitted the story and then I told everybody, and their uncle Bob and their mailman and their dog. I was like, please let them know that I wrote this and it wasn't necessarily a voting. But I did some digging and I looked at email addresses and I was like, I think this is the editor in charge of this segment and I was right. I had friends and family email that person, I know that was running a big risk because they might've been like, this Sarah Walton lady is a pain in the neck, but what happened was, they were like, we had so many people write in and say, you should share your story. That's what happened.”
Heather: “That is really cool.”
Sarah Walton: “Isn't that a cool story. Yeah. Thank you for asking not many people ask about that. We were on the Today show about a company that was running boutique luxury tours for women through Tuscany.
And it was like, you can start a business doing anything you love. And that business, I ended up selling it to my partner, but that business was the one where I was like, no, really anything. If there's something you love, you can turn it into a business. If you keep your head on and you don't get too emotional, but yeah, it was a very cool story.
Very cool story. Thanks for asking about that.”
Heather: “Wow. Awesome. Okay. So, we will have some links in the show notes. You have a download called, Freedom. What is that about?”
Sarah Walton: “Thank you for mentioning. I'm so excited. You guys, this is like hot off the presses. You guys are the first people to know about this and that is that I've created, what I call the Freedom Calculator. And this is where you figure out for your business. What is the number you actually need to hit in revenue?
So, you can breathe, you know, the one where like your shoulders drop and you stop freaking out and you're like, not only am I growing up, my business has grown up. I've got money set aside for savings. I've got money set aside for advertising. I can do this. the freedom calculator actually helps you figure out what your specific number is.
Some people get scared by that. And I'm like, listen, this is a goal. So, chunk it down, just like we do in our sprints. in the worksheet, you chunk it down by quarter and start to look at what do you need to sell? How are you going to make this happen? Who are you selling it to?
And you break it down. And then I talk about the different ways that you can distribute that throughout your business.”
Heather: “I love me some calculators and I love the idea of chunking things down. Because I think that's the best way to reach your goals is to set your goals and then make them into small bite sized pieces that you can actually achieve these goals.
Thank you so much, Sarah, for being on the show. This has been great.”
Sarah Walton: “This was such a joy. I love your stuff. By the way, I had so much fun digging through it. It was really cool. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure. I really appreciate it.”
