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 [00:00:36]:
Alright. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Val Full Volume. I'm so happy you are here. I'm Val, and oh, man. Oh, man. Okay. I had so many different ideas of what, this episode was gonna be, and then especially once I sat down. If you're watching the video, you can see behind me and see that I have gone super old school, and my closet doors behind me are full of post it notes in various colors.

Val Selby [00:01:15]:
I had to go old school. I had to get my focus streamlined. So I wanna talk about focus today. Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. I was feeling unfocused, and I am telling you this because I have a focus for my business.

Val Selby [00:01:39]:
Right? I've talked about this. It's like the first time ever I'm, like, working on one site. Okay. No more likes. I am working on one site. I know the direction for the site. I have, like, mission statement, whatever the hell we wanna call it. I have a focus and direction of where I want to take my company.

Val Selby [00:02:07]:
And yet, I was sitting here this week, and my brain was going, okay. This shit broke over here. We need to go fix that pocket. We're just gonna go to a whole another program. You know, that's just yeah. It's broken twice now. I'm out. This over here.

Val Selby [00:02:24]:
Okay. This needs to say this, and then I need to work on this and the - wow. Even with a focus, my brain was going crazy. It was going crazy of we need to do this. We need to do that. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's change everything.

Val Selby [00:02:41]:
Let's just change everything. Change it. And when that happens to me previously, I would have gone and worked on another website. So as I was talking to the members today, I was working it out because they didn't have anything that they needed to talk about specifically. And so I was working out, you know, what the hell is going on in my head? And it was coming up as this is a new flag for me. So previous flag, Val went and worked on one of her other sites, one of her other projects. Now, since I have been very, very good celebrate party, very good about not squirreling over to other projects, meaning other websites. Well, now I'm creating projects within my focus area to detract myself and take myself away from what I want to get done.

Val Selby [00:03:39]:
So I'm going in the right direction. And I think my post it notes are falling off, which is a sign. It's a sign. Get that stuff organized into paper today. But okay. So the focus aspect, let's go back to focus because I was writing an email and all of a sudden I wrote down the three things that I get told the most when people are coming into my community, whether they're coming in as, you know, a free member to my group or they're coming in as, you know, into my memberships. I often get the same three issues because I ask, you know, struggles in your business. Lack of focus is a main is a big one.

Val Selby [00:04:24]:
Totally get it. Totally hear you. Second one is I don't know what to work on. And the third one is I don't have enough time. And as I was writing this email out, I put it down as 123, just randomly. When I'm creating a list, I don't even usually you put the numbers. I usually just use the general list, but my brain, for some reason, I used the list mode in 123, and there it was. Number 1, lack of focus is an issue.

Val Selby [00:04:57]:
Number 2, I don't know what to work on is an issue. Number 3, I don't have enough time to get everything done. And my brain went, holy shit. 1 plus 2 equals 3. And so that's why I wanna tackle focus. Focus is the number 1. If you don't have focus, you're gonna have number 2, and you're gonna have number 3. So lack of focus is the first thing to tackle.

Val Selby [00:05:23]:
So let's tackle it a little bit today. What direction are you going? Where are you going? Do you know? If I ask you that question, what is your business? What do you do? You know, I'm gonna ask them separately. What is your business? Then I'm gonna ask you, what does your business do? Who does your business help? Do you know? See, this was part of my major problem when I was doing multiple websites was I would confuse the hell out of people because I would have to read into them. Oh, I wonder if they need entrepreneur information. I wonder if they need midlife women. Oh, that was a little more obvious. You know? You could tell if somebody's over 30, over 40. I wonder if they're a fire wave.

Val Selby [00:06:06]:
And so then I'd have this general thing for all 3 combining. I'm like, oh, well, I work online and I help, and I say it all. Meanwhile, they're glazed over and they're like, wow. I'm sorry I asked that question. And that was a first red flag for the focus. That was first what helped me was, okay. I'm only - when somebody asked me that question, I'm only gonna talk about one website. That helped me focus.

Val Selby [00:06:31]:
Now, like I said, I'm only working on the one website, but I have to work first on one aspect of the website. Well, for me, collaboration is everything. Right? So everything is leading towards collaboration. That's the big giant umbrella, but there's still a ton underneath that. Right? So figuring out, okay, what area of the umbrella do I wanna work on first? So for you, what's your umbrella? What is your umbrella? Write down. What is your umbrella? What do you do? Who do you help? Set that down first. If you're finding yourself immediately going, well, this website does this, and website does this, and when this website does that, pay attention to that. Okay? Just pay attention.

Val Selby [00:07:20]:
I'm not gonna tell you. Now might not be the time for you to realize that you need to work on 1, but you need to focus on 1. You do. That's where your magic will happen, is focusing on 1, building it up, getting things in place, getting it working, and then going on to 2, if you want. You might not even want 2 at that point, but getting 1. So go from where you are at and figure out, okay, who do you help? One umbrella. You don't get 2 umbrellas. You're not 2 people.

Val Selby [00:07:57]:
You just get 1 umbrella. You're one person. That's why it's important to get focused. You're one person. Even if you have a team, you're still one person working on that team, unless you're gonna have that team working on that other website and you're not even thinking about it, which is why we focus on one so we can go do the other. Because one of them might feel like more work and the other one seems like fun, but getting off track. They're all work. Businesses is work.

Val Selby [00:08:26]:
Websites are work. Fun work. Yes. Gratifying work. Yes. But work. So you've got your overall and you're gonna start thinking about that. Okay.

Val Selby [00:08:36]:
I've got my overall. Now I don't want you to think of niching down as this negative thing. Maybe niching down is not niching. I don't care how you say it. I say niching. Down is not the word that you can use because maybe your brain's just, like, instantly fires off. I ain't niching down, doing what I want. Fine.

Val Selby [00:08:57]:
Fine. Fine. Fine. Use the word focus. What is your focus going to be for the next 90 days? Do you have a launch coming up? Do you have a topic coming up? How can you go all in on that focus that's going to lead you to this overall umbrella up at the top and get you what you're looking for? Get you where you want with your business. It's all about that focus. I think I squirreled a few too many times. So focus.

Val Selby [00:09:29]:
Focus is telling the squirrels to stop, ignoring the squirrels, and being dedicated and committed to your road map forward. And your road map might only have one next stop. Okay? I don't want you to get caught up in the road map all the way to your goal. I don't want you to get caught up in that. I want the next step for you. I just want you to get focused on this is the direction you are going. These are the people that you wanna talk to. This is what you want to have them learn and help them with.

Val Selby [00:10:07]:
And this is the next step towards that end goal. Just the next step. That might help you focus a little bit. You're just next step. Okay? Focus on the next step. Because after these steps start piling up a little bit more, we're gonna end up learning so much and learning our community that right now on step 1, it's impossible to know what step 4 is. Because whatever you learn in step 1, 2, and 3 is going to influence how you go forward with step 4. Okay? So we can write out our plans all we want.

Val Selby [00:10:45]:
Make them gorgeous. Make them exactly what guru, whoever, said. I'm gonna follow exactly what she created because she said that this works for all of her clients. You know what? People say whatever they want anymore right now. So FTC is starting to crack down on that, but it's gonna take a while for them to catch up with everyone that's been telling us all this bullshit. Right? So that road map may work just fine. I just know that anytime I have done that, it has been me in desperation mode. I'm following steps that are not in line with me, my personality, my community, how I want to create things.

Val Selby [00:11:29]:
And, of course, it doesn't work then because that's their focus. No matter how that road map is, that was their focus because I took in their experience. So their step 1 might be to hit social media. My step 1 sure is shit. It ain't gonna be social media. Right? My step 1's not. It worked for them. I would pull that out before.

Val Selby [00:11:52]:
It's like, well, must be me. I'm an idiot. You know? This is the road map, and I'm of course, I'm half assing it because I didn't wanna be doing it. So I'm following this road map, and this road map leads to hell because it's not going in my focus and my experience and the way I want to reach my people. So this is why it's so tough at times. I can only give advice in a general aspect unless we're working 1 on 1 or unless we're working in a small group. A larger group, yes, we can even get you narrowed down as long as you're engaged. But getting specific for you means working closely with you and helping you figure it out.

Val Selby [00:12:38]:
Because I'm one of those horrible people that is here to tell you, you know what to do. And I know your brain might have said, I do not know what to do. I'm brand new to all of this. It's like, no. No. No. You do know what to do. You just are questioning it.

Val Selby [00:12:56]:
You just need the confidence to go forward in that focused direction that you know is the right way to go. You'll know it, but it's out of your comfort zone. Potentially, you've got people that are telling you all sorts of negative shit. I'm not even gonna go into all of that because, you know, thankfully, I haven't had a lot of that, but still, I've got enough of it in my own brain. I pretend. I have conversations of what I assume other people are saying about everything. I don't even need them to participate. My brain already fills it in of how everybody's judging me.

Val Selby [00:13:29]:
Right? Because I'm judging myself. I judge myself a lot less when I actually do follow my intuition, I'm finding. When I am focused and I try what I believe will work, I don't judge myself as much. It's when I'm trying things that I feel like I should do and I need to do that my brain is kinda going, well, why are you doing that? You know? And it should be. It should be because my brain's going, hey, girl, you didn't wanna do that, so why are you doing that? So it gets a little easier when you find that focus. And, again, if you're new to finding focus, don't worry about finding your 100% niche, that one person that you're talking to. Don't go there. Don't go there.

Val Selby [00:14:23]:
Just start at the top. Start working your way down and figuring out. The more you start talking about what you're focused on, even if it's a broader focus, the more you start talking about it, the more you will start narrowing it down. The more you will start talking to a more compact group of people, the more you're gonna find your community. And then the more that you're gonna figure out, oh, well, you know what? We're bonding over this topic that's, you know, much smaller topic within my big umbrella. We're bonding over this. I'm just gonna keep working that. That is working.

Val Selby [00:15:01]:
I'm just gonna keep working that. Instead of being focused on everything that's not getting done and then everything that needs to get done and everything that's not working. You can start narrow it down and just keep going with what is working because working on what's working is so much easier. It's already working. How can you tweak it to work even better? How can you blow up that positive? Okay. So, today was focus. If you need help with getting focused, reach out. This is all coming up because we're doing the Sprint to Cash.

Val Selby [00:15:38]:
Sprint to Cash starts on September 23rd, but the cart closes on September 20th. So if you want to join in the Sprint to Cash, you've only got a couple of days left. If you missed it, if it's later, if you didn't watch this live or actually within the week it came out, if you didn't listen to this, then go ahead and go to the Sprint to Cash. We'll have the link down there, and you can join the wait list for when the next one's coming out. As you can tell, I'm all in. If you're watching the video, the whole back wall behind me is full of colorful post it notes all over the place. It made me giggle yesterday doing that old school move of post it notes all over the place and moving them around, and I'm like, wow. Yep.

Val Selby [00:16:21]:
Back to basics. That's my motto this week or this year, and I have to stick to that, back to basics. So Sprint to Cash right now. There will be another one. I can guarantee it's not gonna be until 2025, but get on the wait list. So you know when it comes up, you'll get the information of it. But we will have a focus in there, and it'll be a little bit different than what is your business focused on. Your focus in the Sprint to Cash is making cash.

Val Selby [00:16:50]:
How are we gonna make cash? That's the focus. That's the end goal. Cash. We are working on putting money in. So it will help you get focused because that's everything a business is about. Cash. We are in business. We need cash to make. It's the one need.

Val Selby [00:17:10]:
We need cash to make our businesses a business. So I'd love to have you in there. If you are in need of a little booty moving to help your bank account, jump on in there. I'll be back next week with talking about let's see. This was focused. So next week, I will be talking about oh, crap. What's number 2? Focus. Focus, Val.

Val Selby [00:17:35]:
Focus. Number twos. Completely, I've lost my brain. Go every one day into the beginning. It'll be in the show notes below you. No. It's focus. It's "I don't know what to work on."

Val Selby [00:17:49]:
So next week, we'll talk about "I don't know what to work on" thing, which you would be surprised. It's not always just the newbies that are having that issue. It's all of us. It's a lack of focus. 1 plus 2 equals 3. Okay. I'll talk at you next week, but hit me up. Let's chat.

Val Selby [00:18:09]:
Let's get together. Let's make things work for you. Alright. Bye.