Val Selby [00:00:06]:

Hey, this is Val Selby and after over 20 years online, I can track where my mindset has blocked me. If procrastination, impostor syndrome, and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz, then Val Full Volume is here to help you see choices you are making. Get ready to use your expertise to collaborate like a pro as you create the business of your dreams. Now is the time to make changes and live your best life. Let's get to it! Welcome. Welcome. I am so happy you are here for another episode with me of Val Full Volume.

Val Selby [00:00:47]:

And guess what we're talking about today. Now, I mean, obviously the title probably tells you, but if you were listening the last week, then you know that we're moving on to intermediate business owners today and comparisonitis. I have a secret. I have a secret. Okay. If you listen to the last episode, you know I asked you to associate what your mind told you of what you are in your business. So does your mind tell you that you're a newbie? Please check back in into last week's episode if your mind's telling you an intermediate, here you are. Hello.

Val Selby [00:01:30]:

Here we go today. I've been online since 2000 and a lot of learning curve from 2000 to 2004. I did have some businesses up, but very big learning curve. As things really changed into 2004, I stopped coding any of my sites anymore. So huge change secret. My mind tells me that I'm an intermediate business owner. So this is what I want to talk to you about.

Val Selby [00:02:02]:

It's not a matter of how many years we've been on and how much information we have. It's what our brains tell us. And I get that for the newbies because you know what? You might still consider yourself a newbie. I did sit down and actually think, is my brain telling me that I am a newbie? In certain areas, yes. But for the most part, no. Okay, I can go intermediate. And then I'm like, is my brain tell me that I'm advanced and that's like, oh, hell no. My brain is not telling me that I'm an advanced or a long time or any of that.

Val Selby [00:02:36]:

And isn't that silly? Isn't that silly? So I'm not going to analyze that today. Oh, wait, we kind of are going to analyze that today because I'm sure comparisonitis comes into play of why I still feel and my brain tells me that I'm an intermediate business owner. I'm sure it comes into play. So let's watch it or watch it. How about we listen to how it comes into play because I'm sure my brain is going to go, oh ping, oh ping. Here it is. So intermediate business owner, just like a beginner business owner, has nothing to do with your years that you are online, has nothing to do with your knowledge. I am not talking about any of that.

Val Selby [00:03:25]:

Not talking about your qualifications, your certifications, your education. There's a lot of ations. I am not talking about any of that. I'm not talking about anything paper or calendar. I am talking about does your brain consider yourself an intermediate entrepreneur? Intermediate, that's your level. I'm intermediate. I'm right there in the middle with everyone. Not up there with those big people that I look to, not up there with them.

Val Selby [00:04:00]:

I'm intermediate. And let's talk about that because believe me, I could talk about this one because I'm right in it. I'm in the middle of it. So I can share what my brain does. So let's go into a little bit of why my brain considers I'm intermediate. My brain looks at it and goes, you don't have your shit together. That's why you're intermediate. It's really that easy.

Val Selby [00:04:34]:

It's really that simple. My brain tells me you don't have everything in place, and that's why you're intermediate. If you had everything in place, then you'd be like, so and so, and you'd be like, so and so, and that's ridiculous. And I tell you that I understand it's ridiculous. I'm aware that that thought is ridiculous. I'm also telling you that that is the thought, that's the feelings and it doesn't matter that I know for a fact that it's ridiculous. Why do I know this for a fact? Because I deal and work with a lot of these high ticket big businesses. I work with a lot of them, and I've worked with a lot of them for many years now, and they don't have their shit together.

Val Selby [00:05:31]:

They are still having launches that fail. They're still at times throwing spaghetti at the wall. They are still human and still entrepreneurs working to continually figure out what their community wants. Now, granted, in my brain, it's because they have a certain list size or they're making a certain amount of money. And let's talk about that. The only thing about the making money is my assumption of what they are making. I have no idea what they are making. There's very few clients I've worked with that I've been in their shopping cart, and I know what they're making.

Val Selby [00:06:26]:

All the rest of them, which there's a lot, all of the rest of them, it's my assumption of what they are making. And yet I still have that in my brain of, well, I'm not making multiple six figures. I'm not making seven figures. So I'm intermediate, and I'm not talking myself out of it today. Today, I'm just going to share all of the thoughts, okay? We're just going to process. We're just going to sit in it and process. And I know for me, at times that keeps me small, at times it does. At other times, I go into full overwhelm.

Val Selby [00:07:12]:

And the full overwhelm is the hard part. And I know that the full overwhelm happens because of being a creative entrepreneur. So I know from working with so many of you out there that it's the same issue. It's wanting to do all of the things. And part of the wanting to do all of the things is comparing myself to some of these big names that I adore. Even if they don't even know me or know that I'm following them, I consider them a mentor, right? So I'm looking at everything that they have in place, and this is what we all do. This was even in the beginners that I was talking about, right? But as intermediate, even, I'm looking at what they've got in place, and it's not just comparisonitis. It's also a jealousy.

Val Selby [00:08:04]:

It's like, oh my God, if I just had all of that in place, that would be so amazing and everything would work. Bullshit. Bullshit. It's not always working for them, so it's not always going to work for me, and there's never going to be a point that I have everything in place exactly as I want it. And then you just get to keep it forever in the same spot. Nothing stays in the same spot. So intermediate, one of the biggest things when considering yourself as an intermediate is how much are you paying attention to what is working? Okay, so you are no longer considering yourself a newbie or a brand new entrepreneur, which means you've moved up a level. Congrats.

Val Selby [00:08:54]:

Yay. Your brain moved up. Awesome. We went up a stage. Celebrate the hell out of that, right? Let's celebrate that for a second. You don't think of yourself as a newbie anymore, which you might have thought that you would feel like forever. So did you celebrate that? And let's go beyond that. What's working in your business? And have you celebrated that? Have you celebrated the multiple things that are working in your business? Did you celebrate the fact that maybe go back and listen to last week's episode with the newbies, because thinking back to when you were a newbie, and you're like, oh, my God, none of this is ever going to get together, and I have nothing in place.

Val Selby [00:09:41]:

I don't even know where to start. And holy shit, it's so much. And two years down the road, you're like, damn, nothing's ever going to get together. And then all of a sudden, it did. And now you think that. Now you feel like you are an intermediate entrepreneur. Look back at what you created. Please.

Val Selby [00:10:05]:

Look back at what you have created to get you to right now. We as entrepreneurs horrible about paying attention to what we have done because there's a million zillion trillion quadrillion bajillion things still left to be accomplished, and there always will be. We are the worst at sitting down and paying attention to, oh, look at that. I have three opt ins now. Oh, look at that. One of my opt ins has an Upsell that's converting. Oh, look at that. I have a product that people are converting from my upsell to, holy shit, I have a funnel.

Val Selby [00:11:01]:

Holy shit. I have a funnel. And all of a sudden, you understand what a funnel is. It's just a flow. It's not a "this is my funnel, and it's forever." It's a flow from here to here to here to here. How do I want my community to go? Where do I want them to go? Where do you want them to go? And I bet now, feeling like you are an intermediate entrepreneur, you have a flow. You might not recognize it right now, which is why I want you to celebrate everything that you have done.

Val Selby [00:11:52]:

You might need to go and open up your files and take a look. You might need to go open up your workshop platform or your website. You might need to take inventory. I know I did a few years ago, I was stuck in the whole funnel thing. I was so anti funnel because I was sick of the word. I'm still kind of sick of the word, but people understand it, so I want to use words that we can all understand together. I was so anti, and I just wanted to fight it, and I was so pissed off and just stop with the funnel that I couldn't even see how much stuff I had. I had not - I was throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Val Selby [00:12:46]:

100%. Absolutely throwing spaghetti at the wall. I was going into events to grow my list, and they were not in my niche. They were not in anything. This is how bundle bash came to be, you guys. It was not in my niche. I was just trying to grow my list, and I did. I grew a really big list of people that didn't give a shit about me.

Val Selby [00:13:10]:

And every time, I'd be like, oh, I want to be in this event, and I'd create a new product. And it really didn't have anything. It didn't always connect with the people that I wanted to connect with, I should say. It was technically on target, technically on theme, but it wasn't going to connect with who I wanted to bring in. But the good thing that came out of all of that was all of a sudden, after a year of driving myself bonkers and creating products willy nilly, I sat down finally, and I took an inventory. I don't even remember why I did it. I took an inventory, and I went, Holy shit. I've got five things I could use for an opt in, and they almost all have a workshop that could be an upsell.

Val Selby [00:14:00]:

Mind exploded. I'm like what? Because I wasn't celebrating. I was so looking at what's the next thing I have to do? What's the next thing I have to do? What's the next thing I have to do? Oh, my God. I got to get this done. I need to get this done. I'm already behind on this one. The deadline was yesterday. That's what I was constantly looking at. So I was not looking at all of the stuff that I had already built.

Val Selby [00:14:29]:

Now, one of the main things is when you start looking at the things that you have already built, you can go and rework them, make them better, what worked, what didn't work. If you're constantly moving on to the next one, the second you've got it created or the second that that challenge closes, then you're not taking anything that you're learning from your community as they go through it. And you won't know what they want, what they need, because you're already looking ahead. You didn't listen to what was going on because in your brain, you're already five steps ahead going, okay, well, I'm already late on this one. I need to get it done. And the only reason that you're late on anything else is because you've set that up. You've put that in your head that you are late. We can't be late.

Val Selby [00:15:20]:

We don't have to do anything. It's our businesses. We are the owners. And typically the only reason we're looking at that is because we've got this idea in our head that, oh my God, so and so has all of this, like this, this I need to do it as well. Or I took this workshop and I have to build my funnel, and it says we have to do three workshops up above it and blah, blah, blah. And so now I'm behind because I have to get that shit in place. We don't. You don't. The only one telling you what, the only one you can listen to is you.

Val Selby [00:16:03]:

Other people can say what you should do, but that does not mean that it's going to work for you. And honestly, how many of those people actually did everything that they are teaching? How many? We have no idea. We have no idea. And one of the things with comparing ourselves to these people is they might have done it exactly the way that we are doing it. And that might be the hard way and there might be an easier way to do it, but that doesn't make it the way that would have worked for them if they went back and took their own courses. Now, I don't want you to take this as I am knocking all of the mentors or big people that I know out there, because this is how we teach. We do teach. We want you to do less steps, right? I mean, that's the part of hitting a new level is you can look back and go, oh my God, I could have done this in a different way.

Val Selby [00:17:09]:

I could have done this a little easier, a lot easier. Typically, it's what I look back on. Why do I always got to do everything the damn hard way? So I'm not knocking anyone that is teaching a different way from how they did it. I am not knocking that because there are plenty of people that did it a little bit different and especially if they're in a service industry and they've helped people do it in different ways. And so they have tweaked and worked through a system so that it works better. It might not be the way that they did it to start off, so I'm not knocking that whatsoever. But I want you to remember that we're only seeing the outside of what they want to show us and that is what we're comparing ourselves to. It's bullshit, right? That's also our human brains.

Val Selby [00:18:14]:

And it's going to happen and it's going to happen over and over and over again. But we just need to be aware that we're comparing ourselves to other people. And they've had different circumstances. They've come from different backgrounds, business backgrounds. They've come from different education. They could have come from the corporate world. They could have had multiple entrepreneurs in their family already that have taught them so much stuff. We don't know.

Val Selby [00:18:43]:

We don't know. And it's important that we figure out what our journey is in doing this because every single one of us is going to be screwing things up. And sometimes when you screw things up is when the magic happens. I'm waiting for some magic to happen. I've had some screw ups in the last few months that I'm like, why did I do this? So I think right there that's possibly one of the things that is keeping me thinking that I am an intermediate is at this point right now, I've just gone through a big few months of transition in my business. And this business is only gosh, I think we're 18 months old now, something like that. And I broke shit and I was pissed. And I'm hoping by the time you hear this that everything is fixed, but I don't know if it's going to get fixed.

Val Selby [00:19:46]:

And that's when I sit there and go, girl, you're not an intermediate. Because even at intermediate, I think I wouldn't be able to figure out stuff on my own. But I'm pulling myself back and reminding myself that I did all of this back before we had what I can consider now, easy buttons. God bless the easy buttons. I absolutely love that we do everything much easier than we did 23 years ago, right? 20 years ago. 15 years ago. However, I'm paying attention to the fact that, you know what, I did things old school. How about I bring some of that old school back when shit breaks, okay? I don't need all the bells and whistles.

Val Selby [00:20:34]:

How do I just make things more functional and easy for me so that I can move forward and get things done off of my list? So I think that's why I'm intermediate right now. But maybe I'm going to stay intermediate. Oh, that's a good question. I wonder I should go hit up some people and ask them. That's a really good question. I should go hit some of my mentors up and ask them. I've got three classifications. What do you label yourself as? To see how many of them would actually label themselves as advanced? That would be interesting, would it not? Because does anybody consider themselves advanced? I don't know.

Val Selby [00:21:18]:

Because as entrepreneurs, our businesses are never done. Our business is never perfect. Our website's never perfect. Shit, our lives are never perfect. Why would we consider that our businesses are going to be perfect? Life happens. Life happens in our biz. Ship breaks. It breaks for the big people, too. And sometimes that's even messier.

Val Selby [00:21:43]:

Because when it breaks for the big people, I mean, consider the mess that they have to clean up. Just consider it. I broke my site, I broke my shopping cart when I moved, and I lost a lot of members because of it. Because of breaking it. And it's deflating. So imagine that on a bigger scale, right? They've got a bigger mess to clean up. My mess was I'm in it as of recording right now. So my mess is every day, everyday mess.

Val Selby [00:22:18]:

And I'm constantly contacting people and trying to clean up. And they have to do that on a larger scale when they've gotten bigger. And I don't know where I was going with that except for sharing. So intermediate, what is your brain telling you as intermediate? Just pay attention. We don't even have to talk our brain out of it. It can just be the thing that, hey, we consider ourselves intermediate. Maybe that's all right, maybe it's not all right. You know the answer to that.

Val Selby [00:22:54]:

But celebrate, celebrate everything that you have done that leads you to thinking you are intermediate. Because I bet take that inventory, write everything down, start drawing lines to all of it to see how you connect it. And take a look at how your business can flow. Because you are an intermediate now and know that you've got people that are new, that are already looking at you, going, oh my God, she's already got her shit together. Look it, I'm not for going to have that happen. And see if you can be a mentor. See what you can pass down. Pay it forward.

Val Selby [00:23:39]:

That's probably pay it back. I don't know what that is. Share. We'll just use share. All right, thanks for being here and I appreciate you. I will chat at you next week. Adios.