41. Finally, A Method To Being Brave. Overcome Fear with Heather Vickery

Burhaan Pattel: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of The Marketing Stack Podcast. And today I am very privileged and very honored to be speaking to Heather Vickery. We met on Twitter. Twitter has this random sort of algorithm that shows you very interesting people. And I found Heather's profile really, really interesting reach out on DM's. We'll talk a little bit about Twitter in the, in the episode, Heather is one of these people who have been hustling for 20 odd years. She calls herself an entrepreneur Being going at it for a long, long time. And she has expertise in so many different things which we will dig into. But she , coaches, individuals what's greater personal and professional fulfillment. Now fulfillment is a very interesting and very dear word to me because when it comes to living your life on purpose or with purpose fulfillment is the only thing that creates happiness for us. So Heather, welcome to the episode. Thank you so much for being on

Heather Vickery: 0:52

Thank you so much for having me. I do love the Twitter.

Burhaan Pattel: 0:58

Yeah. Let's dig into that. Why the twitter?

Heather Vickery: 1:01

And I say that to be silly. I know there's no thought in front of Twitter folks, but it just sounds silly to, it makes me feel joyful. And I just take my joy where I can get it. You know I have to be totally honest with you. I got into Twitter very late in the game. It was November of 2020, and I got into it because of American politics, because I could zero in on who I wanted to get information from. There were certain people in the front of the line. Trying to save democracy in America. And I wanted easy access to that information. And I found that all news outlets were cloudy and Facebook was cloudy. And so I got really into it. I had a lot of fun. In fact, last year, the end of last year, I did a. An advanced speaker training to teach us to be comedic when we speak. And my whole bit, I had to write a whole comedy bit and my whole bit was about being obsessed with Marc Elias on Twitter. It was very funny anyway since then, since I have no longer aggressively refreshing to find out what's happening in our, in our government I had just started playing and I found that it's easier for me to engage on Twitter. It feels honest and authentic because it's short, burst, quick thoughts. I'm not, it's not actually all about a sales pitch. Right. I don't have long form to make a sales pitch. So I'm really just trying to connect on a human level. And if I like what somebody's saying, or, or want to resonate with them feeling like they're having a tough day or whatever it is, I engage in. I don't. Yeah. I mean, I think you and I were connected from somebody else who posted something. It just is such a nice, easy way to sort of make new friends and I'm having a blast over there.

Burhaan Pattel: 2:52

Yeah. It requires a lot of engagement, though it requires a lot of paying attention and adding commentary. That's valuable. That's what I, what I found thoughtful, inspiring. And it's adding to the conversation. Which. Yes, it does happen to a certain extent on Facebook. I find in certain groups maybe, but yeah, it's iffy for sure. But I also recently started, started up my Twitter. Well, I've had my Twitter account for ages, but never really dug into it. And I've heard so many creators and so many very successful people talk about how great it is. And so I was like, let me just figure the fuck out of this thing because it's clearly something worthwhile. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's been, it's been really good so far,

Heather Vickery: 3:36

But I want to say, and I really believe this is an important, it does take a lot of engagement and you do want to add value, but the Twitter verse can tell if you're full of shit. So that whole, like, you know, Boom bomb drop Mike. Like they're going to call you out on that shit so fast. You, you really want to make sure that you're being honest and authentic as you approach on Twitter. Cause I, I really feel like at least the people that I've engaged with they're not looking for any of that BS. They want like real people,

Burhaan Pattel: 4:11

But then, you know, there's also this thing of like. having said that there might be people who are listening, who are fearful of that because that's very, trollie, it's kind of like, yeah, the trolls are over here kind of thing. And they're going to call you out on your BS. And so my approach has always been, say what you want to say in a way that is authentic. That's real. That's how you think or that's how you are. And if you do say something totally left field, or that's kind of maybe a bit too abstract people call you out on it and you always can apologize or you could adjust your strategy and go along.

Heather Vickery: 4:46

Absolutley. Learn from it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Burhaan Pattel: 4:48

There's no such thing as bad engagement.

Heather Vickery: 4:51

I agree with that. Mostly. I think anyone who is approaching it actually from a place of authenticity, you're going to be fine.

Burhaan Pattel: 5:00

Yeah.

Heather Vickery: 5:00

And if you're afraid of being authentic, well, that's what we're here to talk about today. So that's my whole business. Brave is my whole business and don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to be authentic. Just start small and go easy, but put yourself out there because. You, you will get a much better authentic reaction from everyone else when you put your true self out there.

. Burhaan Pattel: 5:25

And just speaking about that, it's, for me, I think it's one of those things where people think, oh, they just have to be naked in inverted commas, but it's a, it's a progressive thing. It's something like if you make yourself make a list of things that you are willing to share or that you can share. Then work your way up to the level of, okay, this is kind of be being in a bikini, for example, right?

Heather Vickery: 5:52

That is definitely a version of authenticity. You will not see me present. So I feel that,

Burhaan Pattel: 5:58

You know what I mean? So there's, there's different layers. There's different, different levels. And before we came on on the podcast, before you hit recorded record, you said you, we were talking about the zoom filter thing that makes you look better.

Heather Vickery: 6:10

Oh you're gonna out me? That's so not cool.

Burhaan Pattel: 6:14

I'm bringing it up purely because I recently discovered an app called beauty plus on iPhone, which completely enhances your appearance. You could look 10 years younger.

Heather Vickery: 6:23

Yeah, I'm not trying to do that.

Burhaan Pattel: 6:24

And it's kind of like, there's this there's this definite I'm real versus this is fake. Absolutely And you know, when being authentic there is, like you said earlier, it's like, there's this line that you just have know where it is and then figure out what you want to tread.

Heather Vickery: 6:43

Absolutely. You do not have to turn yourself inside out to be vulnerable and authentic. And vulnerability must come with boundaries. You have to self-impose boundaries on it. And I did click the touchup. But all, I think it does is fuzzy a little, like it doesn't add makeup or anything. Like I've put real makeup on to be here,

Burhaan Pattel: 7:04

You can. I can give you a mustach if you want. But yeah, I don't think that is appropriate.

Heather Vickery: 7:09

Yeah, no, I know those creepy filters. My kids play with those filters and and I did do an interview. With somebody wants where she said she puts a makeup filter on. She goes, I come on and I do the video interviews without makeup and I put a makeup filter on it. I'm like, wow. Like it's amazing to me, no judgment. Like really? I kind of think whatever makes you feel comfortable enough to put yourself out there should be okay without judgment. But that, you know, that's not my approach, even though I did soften my gaze a little, I think it's. Eases my camera up a little, these high Def cameras are no joke.

Burhaan Pattel: 7:43

Yeah. Definitely. So talk to me about your brave story.

Heather Vickery: 7:48

Yeah. So I have a really interesting brief story. I will say you were right. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and I learned very quickly out of college. I did have a couple of regular jobs, but I learned very quickly out of college that while I worked well with people, I do not work well for people. I don't know if you followed the Enneagram. Well eight on the Enneagram. And I do not like to be told what to do and I make my own rules. So I started my own business very quickly in my twenties. However, everything else I did followed the path that I thought was laid out in front of me societaly I knew I wanted to, one thing I've always known I wanted to do. And I will say that today as we're recording, it is my oldest child's, 17th birthday. I always knew I wanted to be a mother. And I thought, well, in order to be a mother, you marry someone of the opposite gender and you have kids. And I, I did that. I met a really nice man and we liked each other a lot. I don't know that we were ever in love. Well, I think we maybe thought we were, but in retrospect, probably not, but it seemed like a good enough pair. And we got married and I had four children and Noticed as I got further into my very perfect American life, right. We had the loveliest house on the block and he made a half a million dollars and we got to travel and whatever it is that we wanted to do, and I had these great kids and I hated my life. I had a thriving business too. I should say a really successful luxury event planning business. That I built from nothing. I created something made something that was invisible, visible with that business. And I hated my life. I felt smaller and smaller and smaller every day. Every decision I made was fear-based. And I had to get really honest with myself because it got to a point where it was hard to move in my life. And I needed to be honest about why. And the truth of the matter was I was married to the wrong gender.

Burhaan Pattel: 9:53

But there's also, wasn't, you're not talking about moving physically or talking about emotionally,

Heather Vickery: 9:58

Emotionally, correct? Yes. Emotional movement through my life. I was able to robotically routinely, do all of the things that I needed to do in my life. And, and what's fascinating about that is I wasn't ever actually like clinically depressed or anything. None of that happened. I knew that this felt bad. I didn't want this life. And I needed to be honest as to why. And I really, truly deeply did not know that I was a lesbian until I knew that I was a lesbian. And partly because I didn't know, I knew gay men. I didn't know gay women when I was younger. I always joke if I'd found the lesbians in college, maybe it'd be a different story, but I didn't. And so here we are, and I wouldn't change anything for any reason, A.,I would never trade my kids for anything in the world and B, I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing right now. If I hadn't experienced the journey that I've experienced, but there was a moment. Where I was sitting at the breakfast table with my daughters feeling so broken and so small. And I was aware that I was not out and not living an authentic life. And I thought, what would I tell them to do? If they came to me in that situation? What's the advice I would give them. And it wasn't well, suck it up. Like you made your bed now sleep in it It was baby girl, go out and own this world. The world deserves you to show up as yourself and play big. And I knew in that moment, if I wanted them to do it, I had to do it. And something switched in me. There was a whole mental flip. I went from fear-based to limitless possibility because of. Was doing it to show my four daughters, they could do anything. Then by God, I could do anything and I just broke it down. And what has now become, I call it The Brave Method. It's actually the book I wrote is about that. And I coach and teach and speak on it. I didn't, it didn't have that name in the beginning, but it was that it was. Getting really clear on if I don't want this, what do I want and what steps do I need to take boundaries and reassessment and reframing and get up and do it again and get help and right. Trust myself and self care and self compassion and self love and all of these things together. And all fairly in rapid succession, quite frankly, like within a year from that moment at the breakfast table, I had moved out, I'd got a divorce, I'd closed one business, I'd started another and for the first time in, in my adult life, as a parent was paying all the bills on my own. I bought my own car for the first time, without a spouse or a parent on the lease or the mortgage, not the more well how's to mortgage payment, all of that. I kept my kids in private school, which I paid for 100%. And, and you know, when it's that stressful, you just do the thing. But then a couple of years later I looked back and I'm like, holy shit, like, look what I did. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. So that's a very short version of a very long story, but

Burhaan Pattel: 13:03

I just want to say congratulations and yeah. You know, good for taking action on that and involving your family. As well, because I think, I think, and this doesn't only relate to marketing and involving your team, but you know, it's in your life. And for me, I always, I was explaining to my kids that my life and my work are one, I am one human being. And so I want to live my life authentically and happy and free and fulfilled throughout my day. Not have to separate and wear the makeup in one part or where the suit and tie in one part of the day and then, and then shed it later on. So you said you started the second business and so how do you go from all of that change, all of that sort of, if I can call it turmoil. Right. But also it's positive. Like all of these things are positive that were happening moving in the direction. And I think a lot of people are not sure on the direction that they want to go, not only in their business, but also in their personal life. So how, what advice can you give for, for them?

Heather Vickery: 14:12

That's a great question. First of all, I want to be really clear that yes, all of these things were positive. They were going in the right direction. This is where, you know, we, we delude ourselves sometimes and we think that if it's right, it's going to always feel great. And it doesn't, it's, it's sometimes very, very painful to do the things that, you know, are the right things for you. And it sometimes requires other people may be getting their feelings hurt in the process. One of my favorite lines and passages from Glennon Doyle is book Untamed. She's telling her daughter "Your job in life is to disappoint as many people as possible so that you do not disappoint yourself." And her daughter says "Even you mom?" and she says, "Especially me." And as a mother of teenagers, I'm telling you I resonate with that. So it, it just because it's right. Doesn't mean it's easy. And I use a system that I call dream scaping to get started. We can't get where we're going. If we don't know where it is. That doesn't mean you might not change direction. It doesn't mean you might not change your path or want something different, but we have to start at some point, we have to start dreams without action are just ideas. Right. And so I started to really think about, and when I say dreamscape and plan, I'm not saying I want this kind of job where I make this amount of money and I do these things all day. How do you want to feel in your life? Who do you want to be surrounded with? What's the energy you want to have? You know, when I help people think about new careers or new jobs, I'll say, what are the work hours? How do you feel when you go to work? How do you feel when you come home? Like really tap into that. And then we work our way backwards. All right. So if I want this, so for me, some of my big dreamscaping goals, As my kids get older, I want to have a home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico that we go to for long weekends. I want to live in Paris three months out of the year. I love travel. Like these are really beautiful long-term goals. I'm working aggressively towards creating them and feeling joyful in that process. Of course, there are a lot of other things between here and there. How do I make that happen? Right. So you break it down and then, and then it's in the small, tangible baby steps. Right? So you've got to dream big and then break it down into smaller things and then smaller things and then smaller things. And then just start with the easiest thing. Check that thing off the list. If. You want to build a network and you want to get to know folks on Twitter. You got to start by setting up a Twitter account. Right? Check. I've done that. All right. Now I want to just scroll around and get to know people and start comment on people's things. I'm going to do that for five minutes a day, write, check, whatever it is and those things, it's the compound effect. Those things build up and lots of reassessment reframing. I call that the three R's and the brave method. Re-assess what's working. What's not working? How does it make you feel? Reframe those learning opportunities, which you may call failures or mistakes? They're not because they help us grow. We cannot grow without failures and mistakes. It's impossible. And then resilience get up and try it again in a different way. And then start that process all over again. So. That's how I did it.

Burhaan Pattel: 17:45

Very, rvery cool. But you're still doing it.

Heather Vickery: 17:48

I'm always. You're never there.

Burhaan Pattel: 17:51

The list of things that you have got going on. I made a shortlist right now. You've got your podcast that you're publishing weekly. You've got a Facebook group at 605 people. You've got two gratitude journal, one for kids, one for adults. You've got a YouTube channel that you've recently started up. You've got a weekly newsletter. You're publishing workbooks and worksheets on your website all the time. It's like. One of the questions that I really, really wanted to ask on this podcast and the reason why I DM'd was, how the fuck do you keep it all together?

Heather Vickery: 18:22

Well, and I'm laughing. I do have all those things. I also have one-on-one clients. I have corporate clients. I have a group coaching program and speaking gigs and a book that is being released on October 28th, called "Fuck Fearless - Making The Brave Leap." I, we started right before we started recording. I said, I'm feeling a little tired right now. And I will say that I don't like the word hustle because it doesn't feel good to me. It doesn't feel honest. I believe that we can create a harmony and balance in our lives and in our businesses that feel connected and authentic and motivating. And sometimes I find for me that. It ebbs and flows. Now I always have a lot of things happening at once. I just think it's the nature of who I am, but I don't always have this many things exploding at once. And that was not by design, right? Like a lot of things. We're supposed to be happening months ago and they just got delayed. And so now here we are. And so many things are happening at once. I'm starting a second podcast. My book is coming out, my Create Brave Manifestation Cards, Kickstarter, all of these crazy things are happening right now. And, and I will do a lot of reassessing. Like how can I plan better in the future to sort of spread these things out? To answer your question though. I think it's about being honest about how it feels in the moment to be you doing the things that you're doing. And sometimes that means the bravest thing we can do is say, I'm not going to do this anymore today. Today, I'm going to shut it down and it's going to be okay. And I'm going to do what brings me joy and I'll come back to this tomorrow. And sometimes it means. I'm just going to fucking get this done, because I don't want to go to sleep tonight and have to worry about whether or not this is going to get done tomorrow and then, you know, release all of that. There are a lot of ways to do that. I'm a big fan of not keeping all of the things in your head, because then we're constantly afraid we're going to drop the ball. So keeping a list of what's in progress and what's happening and what needs to get done. I'm a, I'm a three commitment a day person, three hardcore commitments. These fucking things are getting done. Come hell or high water. And then if the other stuff doesn't get done, that's going to be okay. I'm going to be flexible with myself and give myself a lot of grace. Balance is such a buzzword. Yes. And a lot of people say that it doesn't exist. And I believe that it does, but I redefine what it is. Balance isn't the scales of justice. It isn't spend 50% of your time on your personal life and 50% of your professional life. That's bullshit. Balance is the way you feel at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year. And, and building in those reassessment systems to check on yourself at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year. And if you don't feel good, change something. Set a boundary. Ask for help. Say no. Say yes. Do something different. You can control that. There's a lot in life we can't control. Those are things you can control.

Burhaan Pattel: 21:32

So something practical I'd like to ask you is. You put out a tweet or you put out a YouTube video or something and you get zero views. Nobody likes nobody retweets. Nobody replies.

Heather Vickery: 21:44

All the time. Several times a day.

Burhaan Pattel: 21:46

And so, and so at the end of the day, you ask the question, how do I feel? And it's like this sucks Nobody's listening. Nobody's reading. How do you reassess without quitting?

Heather Vickery: 21:59

Yeah, that is a great question. And I just had that conversation. I was planning my book, launch party with a local establishment last night. And he described me to his employees as a visionary with a big social media following. And I had to laugh because I'm like, well, I'm really glad you see that because a lot of times I'm going, where are the people where the fuck are the people? And he reminded me and it was a lovely reassessment. He said, oh, you know, people see you. They know, you're there. You, they, people have to see you seven to 10 times before they're going to engage. Because they're busy because they're not thinking about you, they're doing their own thing. It's never personal, which is really true. And that's how you reframe that. And Twitter is a great, great example of this. Coz you've got a tweet like 15 times for people to respond or engage and you have to learn to surrender, which I've been doing a ton of work with in the last couple of years, we do the very best we can. We identify what we want to go. After we make commitments, we make plans, we start doing the thing and then the result must be surrendered. Because you can only control what you can do in that moment. You can't control the results of anything. But here's what I know. If I don't tweet on Twitter, no one will ever engage with me. And so instead of feeling bad, when no one engages, I feel great when people do. I go, oh, yay. That was fun. That one got a lot of response. And again, because I'm approaching this platform from a real place of authenticity and not from a sleazy sales position, I just roll with it.

Burhaan Pattel: 23:46

Yeah.

Heather Vickery: 23:46

There's a lot of surrender involved in being a balanced harmonious entrepreneur.

Burhaan Pattel: 23:52

So to get to dig into the word, surrender a little bit, it's, it's what you're saying is what's in our control we can manage. We can reassess. We can choose different actions. We can scale things up. We can scale things down, make decisions, make choices. And then the, the stuff outside is all the other. Yeah, probably all the other things that are going on that we don't, we may have an impact, but we may not have a say in what is happening.

Heather Vickery: 24:23

That's right. That's exactly right. My, what I tell my class all the time is change what you can and change your mindset about what you cannot change. And so that's still creating change. Right. Yes. And I tell folks, you have way more power than you think you do. If you're willing to change what you can and change your mindset about the things you cannot change.

Burhaan Pattel: 24:46

Right. And at the end of the day, it only, it, the change can only come from within. There was a coach that I worked with through my story of getting divorced and all the rest of it was my coach said change is the only constant. And so you can and, and just do your thing. That's not an exact quote. He said it differently, but

Heather Vickery: 25:07

I mean, change is the only constant. I say it all the time. I probably tweeted it last week.

Burhaan Pattel: 25:13

So tell me about the journals, the gratitude journals.

Heather Vickery: 25:16

Yeah. I have them both right here. This was the first one "Shift Your Focus" and the second one was "Grow Grateful" and I can tell you the journeys towards those. When I post to that moment, I told you about at the breakfast table with my daughters had to do a lot of deep internal work to figure out who I wanted to be in the world and how I wanted to feel being me. And one of the things that I tapped into was an extensive research on gratitude. And that led me to being certified in positive psychology. And now I want to be really clear, positive psychology is not toxic positivity. Positive psychology is actual science of the way our brains work neurologically and how that has a physiological effect on us. And gratitude is the only proven way to decrease stress, anxiety and depression while increasing joy, happiness, and overall wellbeing, because it is stimulates. It's not, I shouldn't say it's the only way. It's one of the most impactful ways. It stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. It creates community. It creates sense of self-awareness. It works almost instantly. And I started building it into my daily life. Into my client's daily lives. We close out all coaching sessions with tell me five things you're grateful for. And inevitably they start with like, oh, five things. That's so hard. I'm like, listen, if you can't come up with five things, you're grateful for, we got bigger problems than what you walked in the door with. Right. And then, so we start, I'm grateful for having a house. Yes you are, of course, lots of people don't, but then let's get more detailed. And when you learn to, to go, you know, in the moment, if I find myself really stressed and anxious, I'll say. What are five things I'm grateful for in this room that I can see touch, taste, smell, or hear. I'm grateful for the internet and grateful for the sun streaming through. I'm grateful for my plants, which give me oxygen. I'm grateful for my cup of coffee. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here with you, right? Like you learn to do that really naturally. And it instantly rewires your brain. It creates a shift. You feel your shoulders relax. You feel yourself, feel a little bit more confident and empowered. So this book was written for adults..And then adults were coming to me and saying, can I do this with my kids? And I said, you can, but it's really so there's I have Kind of a little beginning book in it, my journey towards gratitude, the science behind gratitude, different ways to use it. And then there are quotes all throughout the book by thought leaders and entrepreneurs. And so I said, well, people are asking for a kid's version. So I started doing some focus groups and asking parents to connect with their kids ages two to 18. What does it mean for you to be grateful, to express gratitude, to feel gratitude and It was incredible. One young, 11 year old girl who I just adore said, well, it's different, right? To feel gratitude and express gratitude are two different things. But yes they are. And they do two different things for us. So I rewrote the book and the quotes throughout are kids quotes. And I added the daily question because it's a guided book I added. "How did you express gratitude towards others today?" And, and both books have a 180 different unique prompts. "Who was your biggest fan today?" "Which holiday tradition do you most enjoy?" To connect you with gratitude in a way that you wouldn't think of to help you build those habits? And gratitude has changed my life. It's changed the lives of so many people. It's one of the easiest things you can start doing right now. To shift your mindset to have a healthier perspective. It doesn't mean you're happy all the time. It doesn't mean you don't get angry or sad or mad or feel any of those things. It's simply helps you move through those emotions a little bit quicker. And I find. It's on those difficult days, that it's the most important to list out five things you're grateful for and why. When you feel like you don't have anything to be grateful for and you can find it. That's when it really creates change.

Burhaan Pattel: 29:35

So to close the loop on the, on the Twitter-verse and nobody liking, or nobody re retreating or nobody watching YouTube videos. So like, I'm just grateful that I have these platforms that I can actually say stuff.

Heather Vickery: 29:46

Absolutely. Yeah, but you can have a voice. There are people who don't. Yeah.

Burhaan Pattel: 29:51

And there was a time when it was exceptionally difficult to do that.

Heather Vickery: 29:56

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great reframe. Love that.

Burhaan Pattel: 29:59

So one of the things that stuck out to me in that whole conversation, obviously this is The Marketing Stack Podcast. We haven't really spoken about marketing, but I wanted to touch on something that you mentioned there with, with the kids book. Is, you listened to the audience, you listened, you took feedback and recreated it instead of just changing the cover, changing the design of the pages and then publishing it. And I think that's a piece that, that people need advice on. So one is, have you been doing that or using that strategy all along all these 20 years? Or how did you come up with your formula for figuring out what people want and then making the thing that they want?

Heather Vickery: 30:40

Yeah, I do believe that in every iteration of my businesses I have listened to what works and what doesn't work and what people are looking for and tried to produce that within my own values and authenticity. I, from a marketing standpoint, like back when I was doing events and weddings, I would say, well, this event, this part of this event was a total shit show. How do we do this differently next time? And then I would use that in my marketing language with clients, right? So for example, I used to say, something's going to go wrong in your event because something goes wrong in every event. My job is either to fix it before you knew it happened, or to come up with a solutions, approach you and say, this is what's wrong. These are our options. Which one do you want? I implement it. We don't think about it again. And if I fix it without you knowing it happened, I will never tell you what happened because there's no reason to give you anything negative with what felt positive. There are a lot of wedding planners out there who will tell you all the things they fixed because they think they need to justify their, their payment,

Burhaan Pattel: 31:48

Their value,

Heather Vickery: 31:49

Yeah, their value. And my approach has always been, I am the most valuable if you think everything was great. Not because I solved a bunch of problems and put a bunch of fires out. And as a coach, I do that same thing. I, my Intentionally Brave Entrepreneurs Program is something I'm incredibly proud of. I launched it in March of 2020, and then a week later as we were starting the whole freaking globe shutdown and it didn't end up going the way we thought it would go, because how could it, we were started, we're starting to talk about pivots. It was a lot more of a, of a life coaching than a business coaching for a minute because everybody's lives were shaken up. And then it was, what do we need to pivot? Shit. We need to make money. What are we going to do? And it was really 2020. It was a great year for virtual entrepreneurs. Because everybody was there. Right? And then we built, I built this whole platform of workshops and launching new cohorts on this platform of everyone being home. And then this past summer that didn't work anymore because people weren't home all the time. They weren't captive audiences on their computers all the time. So I did a launch. That by all accounts was an absolute epic failure. It was supposed to be a six-figure launch. It had followed the formulas of all of my other really successful launches. And I had six people show up and made the decision not to open a cohort in my group and thought "what the hell just happened?" And then I listened and then I realized that I'd hit a ceiling. I had taken what was working so well, as far as it could go. And now things were shifting and changing. It was time to break open the ceiling and build a second floor. Right. But you can't do that if you're not listening.

Burhaan Pattel: 33:38

And I think ralso, I mean, sometimes it's hard to see, especially when you've got so many things going on, it's kind of like, just go, go, go

Heather Vickery: 33:46

don't do that. It is like that, but you have control over that. Don't allow it to be go, go, go. That's where that daily check-in weekly check-in reassessment is really crucial because if you just go, go, go, it's going to run away from you.

Burhaan Pattel: 33:59

And so the question I bwas gonna, I was going to bolt onto the end of that was how much do you rely on your team to give you that feedback? Or can people rely on a team? Cause sometimes you need a third person, somebody who's close to you, somebody who knows your business to not just ask you the hard questions, but also to say, Hey, like this needs to be fixed or this is not working or what to come up with a plan.

Heather Vickery: 34:25

I'm a big proponent of teams and delegation,.Just because you can't do it all doesn't mean you should do it all. And you want to have an empowered team and empowerment is an inside job. I can't empower people. I can inspire and motivate and connect. The empowerment comes from you showing up. And so I lead an empowered team of people by giving them a voice by allowing them to have a say, because their livelihoods depend on this also. Their income depends on my success. And so they, we need to have a shared vision and they need to have a space. We meet every week, they have a space to come to the table with their ideas, their concerns, their challenges. And as a really I believe in effective leader as a thoughtful, conscious leader. Sometimes I say, "I like that. Let's implement that." And sometimes I say, "That's not going to work. We're not going to do that. And here's why." Right. But they feel heard and they feel valued and you know I'm not just like pulling strings and pulling rank or anything like that. It's really important to do that. It's really important to have shared buy-in from the people supporting you. And this year has been the year of shift for me from a lot of different contractors to actually having a full team of people who are committed to doing this work with me specifically. And it's a whole different game. It's a whole different game. Because their level of commitment and investment is significantly higher. If they're part of my team and not just a contractor I've hired. And so then I'm a client, their quality of work is different.

Burhaan Pattel: 36:05

Better?

Heather Vickery: 36:06

Yes. And they're income potential is better, right? Like we grow together, we grow, we all grow. We learn, we all learn. I try to be a really warm and effective leader, but I'm not, I don't bullshit people. Like. and I can be very direct. But I try to use sandwich that, you know, compliment, corrective criticism, compliment. I do my best to try to sort of follow those general rules. But you will not be able to grow and scale your business if you do not have people helping you. it's literally impossible to do. I mean, you could do it to some degree, but not to a massive degree because we just can't do all things at all times. It's just not possible.

Burhaan Pattel: 36:54

Yeah. And, and that, that kind of, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, the theme has been being brave and being grateful and then now building team, but it's one of those things where yeah. People are scared to hire people, even, even just hiring somebody on Upwork as a freelancer, like to do the video editing or to do the audio editing or just to make a banner for something or make a, you know, like people are afraid.

Heather Vickery: 37:17

Hire, Hire, Hire They're afraid. Of spending money. They maybe don't have yet or losing money. They're afraid that it's harder. You know, it's a little bit like you have children teaching your kids to tie their shoes. Like it takes a long time to teach them to tie their shoes. And it's just so much quicker to do it yourself. But we don't want to tie their shoes when they're going to college. Eventually they're going to move out. Right. They need to know how to tie their shoes and I need to do something else. I know, I know you're right. And you know what, that's actually a really valid point because there are processes, there are systems. Technology is bad ass, right? You can put things in place that, that make everything run smoother and be smarter. And for God sakes have SOP's. Oh, my God entrepreneurs do not like to have SOPs, but write them out because then you really can delegate. You can say here's how this shit gets done. Go do it. Let them try it, work with them a little bit until they get it right. And, or hire somebody else, right? Like make a decision, lean into it. If it doesn't work, make a different decision. It's just a decision. You're not married to any of these choices. I have been in business a really long time and I find that I hit these ceilings and where I thought like, oh wow. I thought I was spending a lot of money getting support in this way, but it wasn't getting the results I wanted. And just this past summer, I made a huge terrifyingly, huge financial investment. Because I realized that I wasn't getting where I wanted to go because I was making what felt like small, large investments, but, you know, a thousand here, 2000 there with people who weren't producing, what I was trying to produce. And if I wanted to produce high six figures a month, I need to be hiring people who have done that. Yeah, and those people cost a lot more money. And so it meant committing to an investment that I had did not yet have the funds to pay for, but believing in the process and throwing myself all the way into it, trusting that I have done my research and hired the right person that, that, that money would come. And it is, but it's a serious period of suck. It's really hard work. It's a very stressful, but I see it working and you just. You got to, you got to trust it and you gotta go in.

Burhaan Pattel: 39:47

You see it because you're assessing

Heather Vickery: 39:49

Correct assessing and reassessing. I am looking at it. You have to pay attention. It's really dangerous to be a business owner who doesn't pay attention to what's happening in your business. Right. It's not going to work out well. Heather. Thank you so much for this conversation in the spirit of gratitude. I just, I always end with a thank you. The obvious question is where can people find you reach you? You've got so many things going on. I'm not sure where to point them. Obviously you've got the new book coming up. So if you want to talk about that I'm super easy to find actually I'm @Vickeryandco on all the social media platforms. So whatever one you prefer, you'll find me there. YouTube. I'm Heather Vickery, easy to find. I have a group that I would love to invite any of your people into it's called the Brave On Purpose Collective. And it is a group of people who are ready to step out of fear and into bravery and all of the ways, and, and believe that we are better and stronger together. We lean on one another, we refer one another, we support one another. It's really beautiful. So if you go to Vickeryandco.com/braveonpurpose, you'll find us there. It's free. It's fun. Come hang out. And my new book will officially be out on October 28th, but you can pre-order it right now. Visit Vickeryandco.com/ffearlessbook. The book is called "Fuck Fearless - Making The Brave Leap" y'all. I love bad words. I think it's really fun. The notion of that is we we've been sold this load of crap that we should try to be fearless. And that is not true. We are humans, humans have fear instead learn about it, explore it, reassess that fear. What is it trying to teach you? What is it trying to tell you? And then leverage that fear into intentional bravery. Because when we choose bravely on purpose, we choose bigger. We win bigger and it's contagious. And I teach The Brave Method in the book via memoir, stories, case studies and ways for you to get into action. It's really good y'all. I am Sue I've read it like 30 times and I, every time I read it, I, I smile. I would love for you to grab a copy. You should be able to pre-order now. And I would love to just connect with, with all of you, because clearly you're cool people. You're here listening to this podcast and we should be friends.

Burhaan Pattel: 42:01

Cool. And of course Twitter is a good place to hang out.

Heather Vickery: 42:05

Come play on Twitter with us.

Burhaan Pattel: 42:08

It's funny, just to close off the opening question about Twitter was, every time I mentioned Twitter in my YouTube videos my analytics drop it's like the YouTube audience does not like Twitter. It's interesting, Twitter is a great place. I recommend everybody to, to hang out there, make conversations. Heather, thank you so much. I really, really do appreciate you being on the podcast. Thank you for having me really was a lot of fun. Yeah, you're welcome.

‍