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! 

Val Selby [00:00:38]:
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Hello. Oh, goodness gracious. Yeah. If you've been here a while, you probably know that this is like, oh, lordy, lordy, lordy, how is she starting this out? She's so bad. Yep. You're right.

Val Selby [00:00:56]:
You're totally right. The squirrels in my brain. Let's see if we can corral even one or two of them to make a focused podcast. I'm trying to be a very good podcaster and get these things done ahead of time and get them to my team ahead of time so that they're not doing last minute because I don't like being that girl. And then I'm sitting here going, what do I wanna talk about? Okay. I wanna talk about this and this and this and this and this and this and this. And four million things later, it's like, oh my gosh, it's been 30 minutes and you haven't focused on one thing and wow. So I know parts of why.

Val Selby [00:01:39]:
So a major part of why. For one, happy Fat Tuesday. This is going live on Fat Tuesday. I will a one day be in down there for Mardi Gras? It was technically supposed to be this year. But thanks to the NFL screened up my entire birthday this year, they added those extra games into the season. And so the Super Bowl was not on my birthday this year, and then that meant it was not gonna be in New Orleans because it got moved to Vegas and I had it planned years ago to go to New Orleans to the Super Bowl and have my friends meet me so that we could all be doing that and then stay for a long time and do the Mardi Gras. Damn NFL for fucking up my birthday. It's Fat Tuesday. And you might be saying, why is some girl up there in Washington give a crap about Mardi Gras.

Val Selby [00:02:35]:
She's never been bad. She's never even experienced it. Because for one, I love the colors. I love the parades. I love the idea. I love the idea of just freaking celebrating and celebrating for why not. Just freaking why not. It's always close to my birthday, so let's add another celebration to my birthday month.

Val Selby [00:02:56]:
That sad. That out of the way. Yes. As I've got my beads hanging from my pockets. Yeah. I actually had some friends that were down there that sent me beads a long, long time ago, so they're authentic beads from Mardi Gras. See, I told you freaking squirrels. But I know a big thing about the squirrels right now is the fact that it's my birthday.

Val Selby [00:03:17]:
I'm recording this, and my birthday's in 2 days, right? I don't know about you. The older I get, the more birthdays just end up being some kind of reflection. And the beautiful thing is it's not a reflection that's negative anymore. You know, previously, I'd be like, oh my god. This this this didn't happen, and this didn't happen, and you're never gonna amount to anything kinda thing. But now it's just like, I'm really working celebrating. Like, really working on celebrating.

Val Selby [00:03:43]:
And this year, you've been following along with me, my journey. 2023, a lot of stuff sucked, right? There was a lot of shitty stuff that happened in my life. So I'm sitting here, and I'm just like, wow. I am just, like, really paying attention to wow. I am paying attention to how much growth I've had since today a year ago. I am paying attention to how much I have survived and thrived through. And granted, not everything just happened to me, but I'm just going to reflect on me.

Val Selby [00:04:26]:
Okay? So losing my mother-in-law and all that super fast, switching up so that I'm running the business all by myself, PayPal just totally dumping me for absolutely no reason without a conversation, switching my LLC, all of this stuff has been so huge. And I'm looking at it going, wow. 1 year ago today, I was in Vegas because we were celebrating my 50th birthday. We were going to the Pro Bowl. We were there for a week, and we don't usually go there for that long. But I wanted to be there for a week. I just wanted to do everything and nothing all at once. And my husband secretly planned it with the kids, and all of the kids flew down as well.

Val Selby [00:05:14]:
So I'm looking back at last year's birthday and going, wow, I'm so glad I had that time with the family where we were just ridiculous and dumb the entire time we were there, alright? I mean, just well, we're usually that way when we're all together. That's why my family's amazing. I love them. But we just did anything we wanted, and it was perfect. And it's crazy to look back and go, wow.

Val Selby [00:05:44]:
That me didn't know what the fuck was happening in just 2 short months. Two, let's see. February, March, April, May, 3 months. She had an idea. Things were changing. Let me tell you. She had an idea. There was some gut feeling already starting by March.

Val Selby [00:05:59]:
By April, for sure, I had gut feelings going on of some changes, and we were going through things with my mother-in-law already at that point. She just hadn't been correctly diagnosed dead at that point. So all of that, and I'm looking at it going, how much can change and how much was thrown at me. Like, I mean, even today, I'm working on and I look forward to the point where we're gonna laugh about all this DKIM and DMARC and the SPF, I'm in hell right now trying to get things figured out with multiple programs for some reason because everybody seems with their own freaking codes put into my DNS that my host has to do for me. Yeah. Rant. Rant. Rant.

Val Selby [00:06:44]:
I look forward to the point where I can listen to this and just laugh because it'll be passed. Right? And it'll be done. See? The squirrels. So I really am sitting here and paying attention, and this is why the squirrels are going rampant because I've got one squirrel going over here. Holy shit. Your birthday. Can you remember when we did this and the other one's holy shit? You know, the 2 months you spent with your mother-in-law, as we knew, she was ill and holy shit, all of this that you did with the LLC and holy shit. And it's like every squirrel is just running all over the place, like, going my hands are just flying in the air right now of them.

Val Selby [00:07:20]:
I'm saying that. And I just I really want them to all come together, and let's just have a little campfire moment, and let's just pay attention and look at the things I survived and thrived. Right? Like, these are the things that happened and these were the things that I could have so easily sat here over the 9 months, and said, okay, now what? What the hell now, universe? I so could have easily gone into the huge pity party. I mean, just so many things. When I look at how much did happen in my life in the last year? It's like, holy hell, woman. And the beautiful thing that I'm looking back on and exactly what I just said, I just want that campfire moment with the squirrels. I'm not gonna roast them.

Val Selby [00:08:12]:
I just want them to all come and chill out and have s'mores with me or something. I just want them to chill out for a minute. I can look at it and go, k, because it wasn't all bad. It was just a damn roller coaster. There was never a moment where the roller coaster was just on an even keel. It was always extreme low and extreme high. And I'm not feeling like I'm quite off roller coaster yet, and I really want off the roller coaster. And I know I have that power.

Val Selby [00:08:45]:
I understand that, but I am still human. So I'm working on how to get off the roller coaster without just unbuckling my seat belt and jumping because I wanna thrive. So that leads me to really paying attention to the good things that had happened. You know? Like I mentioned, I had so much going on that at any given time, I absolutely could have stopped. I just could have stopped. I had plenty of legit reasons why I didn't need to do anything on any given day. And instead of taking it like I have in the past as this, okay, you know what? We're just gonna go do nothing.

Val Selby [00:09:33]:
It's okay. We deserve this. Yeah. Sure. I do deserve this. But you know what? I decided I deserved more. It was a thriving business that I love. I decided that my I loved my business more.

Val Selby [00:09:45]:
So it's been really tough at times to push through. And I share this because, I mean, I've got chronic health issues as well. There's just a never ending damn list. Like, if I wrote the whole list down, I'm like, and you still did stuff this year? Woman, you have, like, given up how many years, and you only had, like, a quarter of that shit going on in your life. So, again, that's why I wanna sit and I wanna pay attention and I want to celebrate the fact that all of this stuff was happening, all of this stuff was coming at me, and for once, I made a choice. I made a choice for me because this is what I want. I know. I don't care what all of this shit is coming at me.

Val Selby [00:10:30]:
I don't care. I am not gonna look at it as the sign. Let me I've been talking to clients about this because I could've taken this as the sign of, oh my god, one more thing in the business. Obviously, I'm not supposed to be doing this. I so could have taken that. And I've been working with clients on that because they're getting signs. And I'm like, you get to interpret the sign as you want.

Val Selby [00:10:56]:
If you're looking for the way out, then absolutely. You take that and you're like, okay, well, you know what? I want it out anyways, so I'm out. Or you take a look at it and you're like, you're being tested. You are being tested on how much do you want this. What are you going to do to get out of where you're at? Whatever is hitting you upside the head. What are you going to choose? Because it's all about the choices. The universe is throwing signs at us all the time, and it's how we interpret them. It's totally how we interpret them.

Val Selby [00:11:35]:
Like I said, if you are already looking for the way out, you will see the signs to get out. Instead for me, I wasn't looking for a way out. Instead for me, I was looking at it, oh, my gosh, really? Because no. I am a hell no. I want this and you can shut up and you can go away. Get out of my face.

Val Selby [00:11:57]:
You're not gonna work. That's fine. I'll find something else that will work. Total mindset change. So that's what I wanna make sure that I'm sitting and celebrating and paying attention to how much. I mean, I get to celebrate the fact that I have going through hell and back in so many different ways, and I grew from it. Yes. As you could tell.

Val Selby [00:12:23]:
I mean, it's birthdays. Right? Like I said, as I get older, I know every birthday, this is just coming up. And especially since this is 51 now. So we've got the I'm officially in the month fifties. Right? Officially in, not just at it. And it's a constant well, I don't wanna say constant because it's not, like, every second of every day. But I am continuing to look more often at okay, who do I want to be to hit my goals? Who do I need to be to hit my goals? And there have been days this year already.

Val Selby [00:13:01]:
I mean, we're barely in the 2024. Right? But there have been days already because of yuck going on and me working on getting more healthy that I will sit there and I'm like, okay, you have this goal for the end of the year. Who do you have to be today to get something done towards that goal. And often, it's just that question that I have to ask myself. Because it's a day where I'm feeling like crap, and I don't wanna do anything. Right? And then I'm sitting there going, uh-uh. No. Because I'm never gonna hit that goal.

Val Selby [00:13:37]:
And then at the end of the year, I'm gonna be like, oh my god. How come I didn't get any of this crap done? And then beat myself up. I don't wanna beat myself up this year. I refuse to beat myself up this year. I will be celebrating again at the end of next year, my next birthday, I will be celebrating how much I've gone through and how much I grew and what I've created. So it's yet again why I wanna be sitting there and and corral those scrolls just a little bit. And, honestly, I think what's gonna end up meet needing to happen is I will chill out with my husband, and we'll talk about how different today is then a year ago and just kinda hatched through it, and I'm gonna watch a bunch of chick flicks and make him watch chick flicks. He loves that.

Val Selby [00:14:27]:
He absolutely loves that. No. I'm sure he'll be on his YouTube, but he'll sit in the room with me. Anyways okay. Hopefully, I did an okay job of getting those squirrels corralled just a little bit. Yeah. It's technically not biz, but it really, really is because I know mindset owns our business. It totally owns our business.

Val Selby [00:14:52]:
And however we decide that we're gonna have our mindset flow and what direction it's gonna go and how we're going to make it improve is how your business is going to improve. I know this because I've had to do this. Had to watch it so many times. So alright. Let's let that go with that. Next week, I have a guest on, Emily, and she is great, of course, because every time I bring a guest in, it's just like the person that I need to be hearing from right now. So I'm excited to have a a new person to be collaborating on. And if you wanna be on on podcast, I would love for you to hit me up.

Val Selby [00:15:35]:
Let me know what you wanna chat about, and I look forward to collaborating with all of you. So see you later.