Brenda (00:00:01) - Hi, Frenchie.
Frenchie (00:00:03) - Hi. Thank you for having me here today.
Brenda (00:00:06) - Thank you for being here. I, I the first time I saw your name, I was like, who is this person? This is the most amazing name in the world. And then I got to meet you in person, and you're even more amazing than your name. Oh my gosh.
Frenchie (00:00:23) - Thank you. You're welcome.
Brenda (00:00:25) - So for our listeners, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do in the world? Yeah.
Frenchie (00:00:31) - Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Frenchie Frenzy,, and I'm a growth strategist and thought partner to small business owners, online business owners who are really looking to find ways to scale up, to grow their businesses without feeling like they are needing to work all the time and really find themselves bogged down in their like endless mountain of shoulds and to do's and could do's and all of that. So that's really my focus and the impact that I am here to have.
Brenda (00:01:02) - , and you're so good at it, so I will, I will just say that I am one of your clients, and I so appreciate the way that you can very calmly come in and say,, I think maybe you're doing too much like, let's simplify.
Frenchie (00:01:22) - That's my favorite thing to do. I'm like, just I'm like, clearing out the cobwebs. Yeah.
Brenda (00:01:28) - That's it. And for high performers, high achievers, oftentimes we think more is more and more is not necessarily more.
Frenchie (00:01:37) - That is true. That is true. And I, I think a lot about this idea that you talk about, right, with this idea of like the yes, filled life. And I think that sometimes there's this feeling of like, well, if you're really committed to your business, you need to say yes to everything, right? Rather than what you mean, which I think is the intentional. Yes. The yes. That is like from like the core and from the heart and from the soul. That's like, yes, I want that.
Brenda (00:02:02) - Exactly. That's that's it, that's it. Exactly. How did you find yourself coming into this very specific type of work, where you're helping people slim down and simplify and really learn to love their businesses again?
Frenchie (00:02:20) - Yeah, yeah.
Frenchie (00:02:22) - So from years of hating my work,, years of not loving,, I mean, kind of that's a very shortened version of it. But I used to work in startups. I worked at a most recently, I was at a startup called The Wing,, which was a women's membership club that started in New York, and I grew the wing from four locations to 11 locations, 3000 members to 12,000 members. And then that business kind of crashed and burned in 2020. And I had just. Realize at that point in time that I had spent the past ten years building these other people's businesses and pouring all of myself into them and identifying my whole sense of self and being and everything into my role at these companies. And that kind of meant that I lost myself along the way, right? I was so caught up in the busy work and in trying to prove myself and in trying to show that I was really good at my job and I was worthy of whatever money I was trying to make, whatever titles I was going for.
Frenchie (00:03:28) - And so. When I took a step back and I had a pretty kind of crazy, chaotic ending to my time at the wing, which I think was like a real wake up call moment. I was just like, what do I really want? Right? Like, what do I what do I really want? And also very pragmatically, because I can't help myself, what do I have the skill set for, right. Like I don't want to raise capital, so I don't want to be a founder in the traditional sense that's trying to raise money and doing all of that. But I now see that I've spent the past ten years growing and scaling startups and helping them reach new heights. And I also see that all the work that I did over the ten years, probably at least 60% of it, could have just been completely wiped away and would have not changed the results and impact that I had had on those businesses. And I was like. I don't feel like I wasted my time. But also, how much more could I have done if I had the guidance and mentorship? To do the right work at the right time when I was there.
Brenda (00:04:33) - Yeah, absolutely. So there's two things that I want to pull out of that. One is the right work at the right time, and how you could have done a lot less than what you did and had the same impact. And then the second thing that I really want to just pull out is I hear from women all the time that they can make money for other people. They can make money for other people's corporations, they can make money for their husbands or their partners. And then when it comes to being able to go off on their own, that's the sticking point for them. So I was that ever an issue for you or have you witnessed that in your clients?
Frenchie (00:05:09) - So absolutely, I've witnessed that. I absolutely witnessed that. And. I think. That it has been a thing for me, but not a sticking point, right? Like it's been a thought, but not one that has kind of got become an obstacle. And I have a personal theory aligned with my whole eff manifesting is that there's only four reasons that people actually do things right, like we have our big marketing wise, and then we have our personal wise and the the personal wise, in my opinion, typically come back to four things status, money, power or revenge.
Frenchie (00:05:51) - Okay, those are the four things that get you out of bed in the morning and are like, oh yeah, I'm gonna make that money, or like, I'm gonna do whatever. And post wing. I had so much revenge energy that I wanted and like that I needed to kind of like, let go of that. I think the reason I didn't get stuck in that was actually because I was so committed to proving to myself and to like the haters that I, I didn't need them, that it didn't get in my way. But I can see an alternate world in which it totally, totally would have.
Brenda (00:06:24) - . This is so funny to me because you know your signature talk is f manifesting and I teach manifesting.
Frenchie (00:06:34) - I know that's why. This is why. That's why we get along I.
Brenda (00:06:37) - Know and that this is so funny because it's just, it's delightful to think about the different ways we can approach something and how there's room and space for all of it., so thank you for answering that.
Brenda (00:06:49) - And then back to the other thing about you could have not done 60% of what you're doing and had the same results. What kind of things do you feel like either you did or do you see clients do that we think are important but don't actually move the needle?
Frenchie (00:07:08) - So that's such a good question. And my answer is my answers always are like, it depends on the client, it depends on the business. But I'll give some examples. I've seen a lot of people dive into low ticket course creation and investing all this time and energy on launches when they don't yet have. The audience size to actually generate any meaningful revenue through that. That's one example. I've seen people spread themselves thin across six different social media platforms, and do none of them well and get nothing out of any of them, rather than really going deep on a few of them., I see people. Obsess over the idea that they need to be like that. Something needs to be scalable, a system needs to be scalable, so on and so forth, which directionally I agree with when you are scaling.
Frenchie (00:08:00) - Right..
Brenda (00:08:01) - .
Frenchie (00:08:01) - But not when you are slowing down what should be like an early stage, very nimble business because something may or may not be scalable down the line. So I think that there's a lot of that. I think what I, I guess one of the kind of global themes that I can offer is like, are you solving problems you don't have yet? And if so.. But like what gives. What's going on. And is that the right. Is that where you're going to get the most bang for your buck on your time and your energy.
Brenda (00:08:33) - Yeah. And not only solving problems you don't have yet but like for example, if you're starting a business and you know you want to scale it, you still can't put the systems in place for scaling until you actually have the business. Correct? Yeah, I hear a lot of times I work with people who are, you know, looking to break free from the golden handcuffs, people who are looking for a change. And there's a lot of brand new business owners that I end up working with just through the somatic coaching work that I do, not necessarily business coaching, but like, let's just set the foundation.
Brenda (00:09:07) - And one of the things that I hear from them is I want this to be evergreen right now. And for those listeners that are like, I don't know what evergreen is. It's when you sell something all the time, it's always open. Yeah. And I would love to know what your thoughts are on evergreen before you're at. Actually, let's just stop there. What are your thoughts on evergreen?
Frenchie (00:09:31) - Yeah, that is a very good question. And. It depends., here's the thing. Is that the reason? Well, my belief is that the reason launching is so effective is because it gives you something to talk about, and it creates this burst of energy and momentum towards your sales. Evergreen sales don't have that same effect. Which is why if you look at any traditional business, right, like so many businesses are, are evergreen, right? Like Nike is evergreen, the supermarket is evergreen, like, the beauty store is evergreen, and they have to find alternate ways to build interest and drive viewers or visitors to their websites, physical locations and that sort of thing.
Frenchie (00:10:21) - So I don't necessarily have an opinion entirely yet about whether or not I think that one is better than the other. But if you want to have one thing that you are selling in a recurring way or one product category that you're selling in a recurring way, then what you need to do is find new ways to talk about it regularly. Right. And that's what your marketing campaign, if you're doing launches, what you're doing is you're spending time building your audience, and then you're bringing the people to the to the stage kind of. And then you're doing your announcement and they, you know, ultimately the goal is that they can have similar effects. But evergreen doesn't mean and will and doesn't mean for any business. I just put it on my website, right. And it starts to sell, which I think is what some people think when they're like, oh, just put it on my website., and that's then it'll be evergreen, but it's not quite that. So, you know, I have live launches.
Frenchie (00:11:22) - I have an evergreen program. My evergreen program is something that is like I can offer anytime I have a sales call, anytime I host an event, I can kind of drive people to that. So it gives me a way to always be selling, which I really like, but it is very proactive. It's not something that just like, sure, it lives on my website because there might be the person who comes through, but most of the time I'm still proactively finding ways to engage with my audience, tell them about it, and bring them in to that pipeline and to that program and journey.
Brenda (00:11:56) - , that you just said something really important that I know that I didn't get as a brand new business owner, which is that there always needs to be this engagement piece, like, how are you connecting with people? How are you talking about things? And I remember being very disappointed when I created this.
Frenchie (00:12:15) - Beautiful.
Brenda (00:12:16) - Website. And then I looked at the Google Analytics and like 300 people visited it in a month and no one bought anything.
Brenda (00:12:23) - And I was like, wait, what just happened? Yeah.
Frenchie (00:12:28) - Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Is that the. The direct website like Google to website funnel is like a whole other game because they're cold leads. You need so much volume to even start to get some traction in sales on that., anyways, sorry, I don't need to get into the the nitty gritty of that, but I think that that experience is really common, right? Like, I remember the first time, well, like when I started my business, I was like, doors open and I was just waiting for all the people to come flocking to me, you know, like, yeah, I'm here. I have ten years of experience offline. Can you believe it? Like, here I am. And then I was like, oh, shoot, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to find these people.
Brenda (00:13:13) - . Yeah. I had the same experience. And you know what? It turned out that my friends and family did not actually want what I was offering, especially as I morphed into healing and coaching because it's too close.
Brenda (00:13:25) - Like I don't typically work with my friends and family because it's too close. Yeah, but that's another, another story. As someone who's a business strategist, what do you find? I know that you've got your your presentations, but what do you find are some things that universally can be really supportive for the solopreneur or the the small business owner? What can they do?
Frenchie (00:13:51) - So. I think the first thing, and this is sounds so elementary, is setting a goal. But I don't just mean like an arbitrary goal, I mean a really specific time bound goal that begins to give you something to work towards. And what I see a lot is people being like, oh yeah, I want to have a seven figure business. It's like a throw away and it's like, okay, but like in what time frame and how are you going to get there? And what are you going to be. Right. Like it'll always lead to more questions for me., and so I think the first thing is just to get clear on what that goal is.
Frenchie (00:14:27) - And sometimes it's dollars. Honestly, for my first year in business, my goal was client count because I felt like the dot, like I knew that I was going to be playing around with different price points and different offers. But if I could have, I think ten clients was my goal the first year and I ended up having like 15 or so., and if I could get to that number, then I would have enough validation of what I was doing and how I was serving people to, like, keep moving forward. And so I would say, first things first, really, starting with that is key. Then with that, once you have that, that can anchor you in everything else that you do. So I talk about stay close to the money a lot, and that's just the idea of like really making sure that the work that you do is as close to possible to the outcome that you want. And so when I talk about staying close to the money, what I mean is keeping your goal in mind before you actually spend your time and energy on any course task, conversation, whatever it might be, really asking yourself, how is this in service of my goal, right? How does this actually support the work that I'm doing? Because it is so easy to just think that anything that is work adjacent is relevant.
Frenchie (00:15:42) - , and it can always sound like it makes sense. But the question is, does it make sense for my goal right now? So I think that's a really, really key piece.
Brenda (00:15:53) - , absolutely. And when you and I first started working together, you sent me this spreadsheet that we filled out together. And it literally blew my mind because, you know, if this is a business, which it is, then there needs to be goals that are tied to revenue in order to stay in business. And I knew that cognitively I knew that. But when you put the spreadsheet in front of me and then you tied my action to each goal for the month, it literally blew my mind. And after our first one on one session, I had this spreadsheet kind of dancing around in my mind, thinking, oh, this is my focus for the month. And then when other things came into my awareness, other invitations to do things that I recognized were not actually either joy filling or revenue producing, it became really easy to say, I can't do that.
Frenchie (00:16:51) - Yeah, yeah or right. The third option which can happen is. Really deciding it's a trade off and then and and mindfully making that trade off decision. My when I really think about my goal ultimately for my clients and anyone that I work with is that I never want them to get to the end of the week, the month, the year, feeling like, whoa, what just happened? And why am I still in the same place if they're still in the same place? Which can happen for so many different reasons. I want both of us to really mindfully know and be aware of what the journey was that kept us in the same place, in the same way that when my clients see exponential growth, I want them to know what the journey is that led to that growth so that they can replicate it and repeat it., but I think sometimes we live in this world where it feels like our business is happening to us, and we feel like we have no agency and no control over it.
Frenchie (00:17:49) - And sure, control, nobody really has much control. But like, business is actually like a pretty net neutral thing. And the more you can neutralize it and look at the data, the numbers, the information that you have to inform where you spend your time, the more likely you are to get yourself closer to those results that you want.
Brenda (00:18:08) - , I love this. And for somebody who's like, I don't. I haven't been diagnosed with ADHD, but I have all the coping mechanisms that somebody for ADHD would use. And, you know, there's ADHD that runs thick in my family. So I'm probably just, you know, slip through the cracks. But thinking about the goal and the outcome, it's it's so supportive for me because I can get as you well know, I can get really idea rich. Like let's do these 35 things this week.
Frenchie (00:18:40) - And and.
Brenda (00:18:41) - And when I think that's one of the things I appreciate most about working with you is that it helps me distill down the most important thing.
Frenchie (00:18:52) - Yeah. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you saying that. And I think. Listen, I mean, I'm certainly not anyone in a position to diagnose anyone, right? But I feel like entrepreneurs, whether they're diagnosed with ADHD or not, we are often finding ourselves in pursuit of novelty. Right. I mean, that is just like a necessary quality to start your own business. You need to be an ideas person. You need to be like, oh, what about this? You need to see like the kaleidoscope of options, which means that you that we need support more than other people too, because some people who are really looking to follow the the straight and narrow. Right. Like if we think about a lawyer. Right. There's a pretty clear path in legal. I'm sure any lawyer listening would be like friend, she's wrong about that. But just for the sake of conversation, I feel like it's a pretty straight path. That's one thing. But when your job is to come up with new ideas to show up in the world in a different way, it is very tempting to have all those ideas, because that's also a richness.
Frenchie (00:19:54) - That is what has allowed us to get this far. So why would we not like leap into that too? Right. And so it's about finding the right balance of like, we don't want to put out the flame. We just want to like keep the candle on the side sometimes when you need to.
Brenda (00:20:09) - Yeah, exactly. Just move it over to the side. We can come back to those ideas later.
Frenchie (00:20:13) - Exactly, I love that.
Brenda (00:20:15) - Have you always wanted to be in business?
Frenchie (00:20:19) - So I. Oh, so I actually always thought that I was going to be a founder, right? I having worked in startups and all that sort of thing, I quickly realized that I hated having bosses., I found myself, you know, I just felt like I would find myself really frustrated. And maybe it's because I'm a Sagittarius or some other kind of, like, more, you know, out of my control thing. But I always kind of had this, this instinct that I wanted to do something of my own.
Frenchie (00:20:50) - , but I thought that I would be a founder of some, you know, eventually billion dollar VC backed company. And. That I would be like the next, you know, on the cover of ink and all that stuff., and after working at the wing and kind of seeing how much power you lose when you are raising capital and when you have venture capitalists who are essentially your boss., I really changed the way that I felt about that. And I was like, no, that is not for me. I don't want to have to. Report to all these people whose only interest is to ten X their revenue and as little time as possible. It just started to feel like. And then I saw the impact that it had on everyone on the team when the founders had this pressure from their investors, and I didn't like any of it. I didn't like the way that it like the cultures that it fueled, the workplace experience that it created all of these things. And so that was really another key part in deciding to start this business was like, what do I have that doesn't require a lot of overhead to start, right? And it's like my experience, my intellectual property,, the businesses that I have helped build, the teams that I've managed, all of that is what really can help me and what I can start to package and productize and monetize.
Frenchie (00:22:14) - , so I also have like a parallel kind of personal dream around more like creative pursuits, like writing, like romance novels and things like that. But,, we'll get to that. So there's but there's always been this fascination with business and helping people generate their own, like, wealth and and me helping me generate my own wealth. Right.
Brenda (00:22:41) - .. Yeah. So you know I'm realizing that I might be misusing the term founder because as you described founder and venture capitalists and different things, I'm like oh that's so interesting because I know that that is truly a founder. But when you said I didn't want to be a founder, it it made me curious. And I thought, oh, I think I missed using that term.
Frenchie (00:23:05) - No, I don't think you are. I just think that there is like. There is like the the founders who like come like high profile founders. Right. Like the founders of Airbnb and like Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble. Right. There's these like the founders.
Frenchie (00:23:22) - Right. And I think part of that might just be jargon from my time working in startups, because we would be in meetings and be like, oh, well, the founders want this or the founders want that, which is like both like cool and also very creepy and cultish to be like the founders, you know, like, when are they God like she's like, what do you want?, so I think that you're like, technically all of us are founders, right? Like we are. You're a founder. I'm a founder. But when I think about capital F founder, I think more of the people who are behind these, like, startups that have raised tons and tons of money. Yeah.
Brenda (00:23:57) - Yeah. Okay. That's cool. So if we can come back to what you call stay close to the money. Yeah. The first time I heard you say that, I literally didn't know what you meant. Like, I was like, what does that mean? Stay close to the money.
Brenda (00:24:10) - And so I just got curious, and I started to. Yeah. Listen to you talk and work with you. And my definition now, of what that means is if you're going to do something that's not producing an income, then it should bring you joy and you should do it with the full awareness that it's not going to produce income. Otherwise, do the income producing things and then let some of the things that aren't producing income go. Does that feel like what you mean when you say stay close to the money?
Frenchie (00:24:41) - , I love to hear people's interpretations of it. So like, yes. And right, like I think that my goal with a phrase like that is actually that it can be internalized and personalized to you and how you think and how your brain works. It started because I would have a client who would be saying to me things like, let's just an example. I'm thinking of one person in particular. She's like, I'm going to spend some time making reels today, and it would take her like four hours to make a really funny, good reel, right? But just not know.
Frenchie (00:25:12) - Cool. And then she'd post the reel and then maybe it would get some traction. But aside from that, nothing really came of it. And I was like, you know, that's just really not as close to the money as what you want and need right now, because your goal right now is to make more revenue. So just to like, quite literally, I actually walk through the steps of how many steps away from potential revenue is something. Right. And so a real is you produce the real, you post the real. You hope someone likes it. Maybe that person reaches out to you. Maybe you get on a call, maybe you make a sale. So we're talking like seven steps away from a sale. Alternately, you could actually do like old school prospecting and connecting with people. And so you DM someone. Step one. Assuming all goes well, they respond. You get on a call, you make a sale. We're talking about four steps. So when I think about staying close to the money, I truly am thinking about how many, how distant am I? Am I from a potential sale? Or how close am I to a potential sale? And, you know, I mean, this is a podcast, so I can't really go into like five core functions and all that sort of thing.
Frenchie (00:26:22) - But what I also think is a really important thing to note is that over time, right. Let's just say if you're in your like first year, year and a half, I would just say, as a rule of thumb, you need to be talking to people, right? Like that's really the best use of your time. Sure, you're going to make some content and you're going to do all of that, but like having that relationship building time, that was moments where you're actually like in conversations with people is going to be the closest thing to the money. Over time, that can evolve and change, because you'll start to have more data to understand what's working and not working in your business. And I'll use myself as an example on this one. I have a very small email list, right? And I have a sub 1000 person email list, which is like kind of shocking because of the fact that I've made like over $300,000 on a sub 1000 person email list, which people are like fringy.
Frenchie (00:27:15) - How? I'm like, I actually just don't know. And I went, I guess I could teach a course on that. But no, I mean, I do know, right? I've nurtured really well. I build trust with my audience and they buy. But now I'm in a place where I know that I'm going to keep hitting a similar revenue ceiling unless I grow my audience. So what I know now because I have like the kind of the dots that I can connect on the back end, is that the closest thing to the money for me is building my audience, because I know that I have the strategy in place to nurture and convert those people. So even if that looks like me pitching podcasts, getting on podcasts,, having someone download my freebie, getting my emails, and then being part of like a launch funnel or something like that, it's a lot of it's more steps than what I've done historically, but I have the data to support that. Those steps will work.
Brenda (00:28:09) - Oh, that's so good.
Brenda (00:28:11) - I love this because it's really easy as a brand new business owner to think, oh, I'm going to do the shiny thing. I'm going to do all the Instagram Reels and spend all my time there. I was a Mary Kay sales director for a brief time in the like, like 2000, five, 2000. Somewhere in there. I love this.
Frenchie (00:28:31) - I love learning more about.
(00:28:32) - You.
Brenda (00:28:33) - And I. I loved what I did and when I was coaching consultants, I would always say something to the effect of, are you dusting off inventory or are you working with clients? And when I hear you talking about staying close to the money, it's similar in the sense that we want to actually be working with people. Yeah. And if we always stay in the back end of things, that's not working with people. Yeah.
Frenchie (00:28:59) - That was 1%. That was 1%.
Brenda (00:29:04) - Oh my gosh. So you're talking about email list size. And a lot of the people that are listening to the podcast either have just started an email list, don't know how to start an email list, or they might be thinking, I think I have an email list, but I don't know really how to grow it.
Brenda (00:29:22) - Do you have any any thoughts that you could offer to help somebody who's just figuring it out?
(00:29:28) - Yeah.
Frenchie (00:29:30) - , well, first of all, you know, take it from the lady with the teeny tiny email list., no, I my email has been powerful because I've been consistent with it. And I know that that is boring and annoying to hear because you want there to be, like, some secret magical thing that works. What has worked really well for me is storytelling. I write, I I've learned a lot from Laura Belger in terms of email writing, so I write my emails in a very text based way. They read like I'm writing to a friend. They are focused on stories from my day, my week, my youth, my work, whatever it might be. And I really focus on engaging people with the person behind the brand because ultimately, like my. Truest like kind of belief in this work is that I'm a, you know, there's a million of me in one way or another.
Frenchie (00:30:27) - Sure, I have my differentiators, but ultimately this is like not even to say there's a lot of competition or so on and so forth, but there's just a lot of people who do similar work to what I do. And the only reason that someone is going to try is going to choose to work with me over the other person is because they know, like, and trust me. And and to build that know like and trust is I don't believe that that comes from a place of showing your expertise or how I know more than this person or that person. It comes from showing my humanity and sharing that with people, and letting people know who the person is behind the brand that they're investing in.., so I'm a little bit quirky. I have a potty mouth. I'm kind of a goof. Like I have these different qualities and I try to let those come through because I believe that like one, I want people who sign up to work with me to know what they're like. You know, you're like, you're either going to like it or you're not.
Frenchie (00:31:26) - And so if you're not like, you might as well know upfront., and so, you know, I feel like saying be yourself is so trite and over said, but show people who you are, right? And there's this adage when people tell you who they are, listen,,, so try to tell people who you are. And I think sometimes, like, let your voice come through, even if you think you're not funny or witty enough or professional enough, let people know what they're actually getting right. I think the trust that I built isn't just because I've marketed well, it is also because there has been a parallel between the promises they make and the results people get right. How I deliver and how I show up is what they expected when they came in., and I think creating that through line is what builds trust, because especially in the online business world, the service based business world, you get a lot of big promises, delightful ideas in the marketing, and then the delivery.
(00:32:28) - Falls flat.
Frenchie (00:32:29) - And it leaves people feeling really burned and betrayed. So I really want to make sure that people who come into my world are having that consistent through line.
Brenda (00:32:38) - , I love that, and you do a great job delivering on that. Thank you. You're welcome. You know, as you made the switch from the wing into entrepreneurship, I'd love to talk more about this idea of showing up authentically, because I think when people move from corporate or education or healthcare and they move into their own thing, they're taking the remnants of that other career with them. And so, like in my case, I was in education for 26 years, and there was a lot of,, monitoring and like, not saying certain things because we could literally be fired. Like we had a morality clause in my first several schools that I taught in where they could deem something immoral and release me, you know, instantly. And so there was like this idea that I had to be perfect all the time, and it took me years and years to kind of get over that as I moved through my teaching career.
Brenda (00:33:38) - And that eventually faded out. But there was still remnants of it when I first became an entrepreneur, where I was kind of showing up as the teacher. And you may not want a teacher, you know, as your healer or your coach or whatever. And so I had to really get comfortable and do some of my own work around showing up as me and letting some of that perfectionism and performance go. Did you experience that when you were moving from the wing into entrepreneurship?
Frenchie (00:34:08) - 1,000%, and I actually believe it's one of the reasons why it's very hard for a business to take off in its first year. Right? Because like, there's so much untangling of threads of attachment to a different version of yourself that need to kind of come apart and just be like, let loose., I had a really hard time. So my ending at the wing was. I want. It was very traumatic and dramatic. I don't know which one exactly, but I ended up getting listed on a petition that demanded my termination, which led to me just having this, like, whole world, you know, just swirl of self-doubt.
Frenchie (00:34:49) - And so me even choosing to put myself out there was already a huge leap for me. And I was terrified about the fact that the haters, as I deemed them, would come for me once I started to put my voice out there. So it was incredibly difficult for me, and I actually didn't even talk about the fact that I worked at the wing for the first year and a half or so or more of running this business, because I was scared and I hadn't fully owned that story yet, and I hadn't fully. Like processed and digested and like gone through the process. And so. I think that the thing is, is that not putting your voice out is not the thing that you won't heal, and it won't get better by you staying quiet and waiting for it to go away. It only got better as I started to find my voice as I was using it. And that means that sometimes I look at my content and stuff from three years ago and I'm like, oh! But it's part of my journey, right? It's part of my story.
Frenchie (00:35:57) - I'm also a writer, and sometimes I read things that I wrote ten years ago and I'm like, that was terrible. I'm like such a better writer today, but I don't know that I would be a better writer today if I hadn't written that ten years ago. So yes, we will bring this stuff with us. But growth and evolution, right? I mean, you know this better than anyone. It's a journey and it's a process, but it doesn't happen without action. It doesn't like the journey only does not happen if you stay still.
Brenda (00:36:26) - Exactly. Yes. You can't you can't heal that unless you are actually taking action to heal it. And a lot of times, like you're saying, it is just practicing, putting it out there, writing it, putting your voice out there. And I also feel like my first live videos or my first reels or my first blogs even, they're ridiculous, they're cringe worthy, and they're still up there.
(00:36:51) - Right?
Frenchie (00:36:52) - Right. Because they're a part of it.
Frenchie (00:36:54) - Right. And so, yeah, I mean, it just takes time. It takes time to come into yourself. And also it takes time because it's weird to start sharing yourself with the world.
(00:37:06) - .
Frenchie (00:37:06) - And I want to be really clear, I don't share everything about myself with the world. Right. Like I, I keep some of it for myself. And so I think that there's an important distinction to be made of. Like once you are, once you start building a personal brand, it can feel like suddenly, you know, we all have to be influencers who are like doing selfie videos while we're sitting on the toilet or like showing everyone what we're eating and like, it's not, you know, it's not true. Like, I still go to the bathroom in private, you know, like there are certain things that are reserved for my life only., and so just know that there's like, you know, showing up authentically does not mean that you have to show every part of yourself and that you have to tell every single story and that you need to be, you know, overly transparent or anything like that.
Frenchie (00:37:51) - Showing up authentically to me means really bringing all of your values, all of your beliefs, like with you and your personality. But it doesn't mean that people need to know everything about you.
(00:38:03) - Oh, I.
Brenda (00:38:03) - Love that you said that and that hits. I feel that way too. Like there's a lot of things I don't. I don't share. If there's a public event or something, I might share that, but never without permission. And my friends that I meet for, you know, a Tuesday night, they're not going to end up on my social media feed, right? Because I just want to protect that.
(00:38:24) - Yeah.
Frenchie (00:38:25) - And maybe they don't want to be on your social media feed.
Brenda (00:38:27) - Maybe they don't.
Frenchie (00:38:28) - I always having this like challenge, right? I have young kids, I post about them, but I'm also always on the fence because I'm like, they're autonomous. Should I be, you know? Anyways, I find a way that I feel comfortable with. But the point is, is that like it's it's challenging.
Brenda (00:38:44) - . Yeah for sure. And it's nuanced and I think it's ever evolving.
(00:38:48) - Exactly.
Frenchie (00:38:49) - Ever evolving.
Brenda (00:38:51) - I love this. So as we kind of come to a close I have a question which is is there one thing that you did or didn't do that has ultimately led to your yes filled life. Oh.
Frenchie (00:39:08) - I mean, oh my gosh, this is such a great question. I just got the chills.. I think that. I decided not to long ago. Well, so I guess I didn't do this for a long time. For a long time, I did not trust my intuition. I assumed that my intuition was incorrect and it. That created a lot of problems for me. And as I have shifted away from that and I remember I had this light bulb moment this summer actually, where I was like. I need to trust my intuition more. Because when I've looked back at the archives of my life to date my intuition, me going against my intuition has steered me wrong far more than my intuition.
Frenchie (00:39:58) - Steer me wrong., and so now it's really been giving space to that voice and that inner voice and that inner intuition and. Trusting that even if it doesn't feel good in the moment, right? Whatever the choice or decision is, it is the best and right most right choice for me., so that to me now has been the thing that feels like the most, yes, filled and has gotten me out of that feeling of who am I going to disappoint? Who am I going to let down? What if this person knows that I don't actually like them because I don't.
(00:40:34) - Like.
Frenchie (00:40:34) - Whatever it is?, all of those what ifs feel quieter because I feel confidence and trust that it is the best and highest thing for me, at least for now.
Brenda (00:40:46) - , I love that. I love that. How can people find you and connect with you?
(00:40:51) - You can.
Frenchie (00:40:52) - Find me., you can find me on Instagram. I'm there a lot Frenchie frenzy. I also have a freebie, which I think you'll link, which is called Stay Close to the money.
Frenchie (00:41:01) - 37 Super Easy Ways to Supercharge Your Revenue., so I definitely recommend you download that one. Even if you're just starting, it'll give you some really quick and easy ways to, like I said, stay close to the money., so connect with me in all of those ways. Always feel free to DM me. I am always happy to respond. I feel like sometimes people are like, oh my gosh, this person probably thinks that like they're probably too big or whatever. I don't ever feel that way. I don't know that I'll ever feel that way. I love, love, love to connect with people, so never hesitate to reach out.
Brenda (00:41:31) - Oh, I love that. In fact, if you love this episode, why don't you share it and tag both Frenchie and I on your social media?
Frenchie (00:41:38) - Excellent idea.
(00:41:40) - Yeah, I love it.
Brenda (00:41:41) - Is there anything else that you want our listeners to know?
Frenchie (00:41:46) - I think the thing I always want people to know is. If you want to start your own business, do it.
Frenchie (00:41:54) - And if you have no interest in being an entrepreneur, that's also okay. I feel like sometimes there's this like sense that you have to like, want, you know, like you to be worth your salt. You need to, like, start your own business or whatever. And I'm just like, no. Like, live your live your life the way that you want to. And all the principles that I talk about when it comes to business apply to help you thrive more, whether you're running your own business, but you can also borrow them and use them in whatever work that you do so that your work life can just feel better.
(00:42:28) - .
Brenda (00:42:28) - That is pure gold. I love that. Frenchy, thank you so much for being here today.
Frenchie (00:42:34) - Thank you so much for having me. It's so nice chatting with you always.
(00:42:37) - I love it.
