Have you ever found yourself frustrated when things don’t go as planned, wondering why all your hard work didn’t lead to the outcome you expected?

In today’s episode, I’m sharing a perspective shift that’s been hitting home for me lately: it’s not about avoiding setbacks or striving for perfection—it’s about how we respond to the challenges and learn from them.

Join me as I share why the journey, with all its twists and turns, is where the real growth happens and how we can stay present and find value in showing up, even when the path feels unpredictable.

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More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

Join Emily in Austin, TX for 3 days at this epic marketing event, Embodied Marketing LIVE. Grab your ticket and we’ll see you January 16-18th: https://go.embodiedmarketing.com/live 

Tired of inconsistent revenue & marketing strategies that leave you overwhelmed? Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale to multiple 7-figures, book a call with the Embodied Team to see how we can help: http://helpmystrategy.com

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello, my friends and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a great week and not going too crazy with the holiday chaos. I realized that this year, why it feels even more crazy timing wise is Thanksgiving was so late and we have like we were in December by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. So anyways, I am, I’m feeling very excited for 2025. I feel like there is this energy and I’m seeing a lot of people in my community also feeling it of so much excitement and clarity and hope for this new year. And just like things kind of at the end of the year coming together as we move into the new year, at least that’s what I’m experiencing. This week i I got sick though, which is not ideal. I think that I over-trained a little bit last week in CrossFit. I am trying to walk this line of training to my capacity ability and not over that to where I compromise my immune system or my nervous system. And physically I feel great. So I trained for 10 hours last week and that is definitely on the higher end of what I’ve ever done. And physically I feel really good. And my HRV, I track it on loop and it was like off the charts really good, which is an indication that my nervous system is doing well with it all. And I don’t know, but I.

I took Sunday off and then I went to train Monday and I did a big 90 minute session and the second I got home it was crazy. It was like within 10 minutes I just started sneezing and nose eyes and I was like oh my gosh it feels like I’m under attack so i got like a double bag iv drip vitamin d shot slept nine hours last night taking two full days out of the gym i’m like okay body i hear you so I get this thing every time I get a cold where my eyes water. It’s like a genetic thing and it is terrible. And when I was a kid, I used to go home from school when I had a cold because I was like, mom, I can’t be at school. I look like I’m absolutely bawling, crying all day and my face is all puffy. So I had to cancel a few meetings this week because I’m like I literally can’t be on video like my face is so swollen and puffy and my eyes water and I am teaching my live workshop tomorrow and Friday and I’m like if I’m not better by then I got to take a pharmaceutical drug I stay away from those I never take them but I did take Sudafed one time because of a webinar and I couldn’t look like I was crying the whole webinar so I took it Anyways, that’s my life update. I think I will be better by tomorrow. I’m feeling better today than I was yesterday. And my face is still puffy, but I think by tomorrow I’ll be good. So today’s episode is going to be a quick one. And I just felt inspired to talk about this because it’s come up as a theme for me and kind of a message for me a lot in the last week. And I think there’s a lot of carry over in different areas of your life and your business around this concept. um And so I wanted to speak to it.

So the other day I was i driving and a lot of times thoughts will drop in while I’m driving or messages. And I do think they are from God, from the universe, whatever you believe. And they’re always like, oh yeah, like something I needed to hear right now based on maybe something I meditated on, prayed on, something on my mind. And this thought was. You are forgetting that it’s not about having everything be perfect and nothing go wrong. It’s about how you respond to the imperfection. It’s about how you build the capacity to hold the things that quote go wrong.

And really like then another way that I could put this is it’s really about the journey and not the finish line. It’s about the experience and not the end result. And I do truly believe this. I believe this in business. I believe this in life. And that tied into something I’ve been thinking about in the last week, which is everything that we do in life, in business, I can tie this to for me, CrossFit and health and working out, even when you have kids, like everything you do.

Through that experience, you increase capacity to be able to move to a next level and to grow. And a lot of times the only way to increase that capacity is through actual experience. that tied in with I’m reading a book, the human levels of consciousness. And it talks about how us as humans and our ego, which our ego is a necessary thing. We actually need our ego to survive. It also can get in the way a lot because we are, we are wired for survival versus thriving, right? And so sometimes our survival brain will step in and get in the way of us being able to thrive and be a present conscious human being. Anyways, it was talking about how our ego is actually so driven and addicted to experiencing because it’s the only way it knows how to learn and it knows how to, like our body is wired for this survival and the only way we can survive is through experience and learning what not to do and what to do. And if we think about

You know, humans thousands of years ago, it makes total sense. Like we had to, in order to evolve, we had to learn, oh, don’t do that. That will get us killed or do that. We will be able to find more food if we do that. And if you look at like humans and evolution, it’s like we would try something new and that’s how we invented things, uncovered things. So all of this like into one concept is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, which is really focusing on being present to the journey of business. But again, this can be applied to different things and being present to whatever is thrown my way or if something doesn’t go how I’ve had it planned or I did all these things and this thing still went quote wrong and I say quote wrong because I think wrong is a judgment and it’s us saying I know better than this bigger plan that’s at play and this bigger thing that’s happening that I I can’t predict the future so how do you know that thing is wrong how do you know that wasn’t the exact right thing that needed to happen in order for something else in the future to happen so that’s why I say that All of these things, being about the journey, being about the experience and and being present to that versus so focused on your opinion, your version of what the future should be, of what the outcome should be.

So I’ll use this as a real like example for me and why this I think dropped in. There was something that happened internally that I was frustrated about a situation. And I caught myself being like, well, I did all this work and I’ve shown up and our team has done this and XYZ and this still happened. And I’m so mad about this and how tightly I was gripping this reality that I didn’t want that situation to happen, that I didn’t want something to go quote wrong. And then I took a step back and that’s when I got the message of you’re missing the point. It’s not about something never going wrong. It’s about how you respond to that thing. So now if I take a step back and I look at it from a different perspective, I can see, oh, well, that actually needed to happen because while it sucked, it led to this conversation, which led to this decision, which led to this shift, which led to this improvement, which now led to increased capacity for what we are able to do because we learned through experience.

And then I realized that’s what the entire game is about. That’s what this journey of entrepreneurship, of life, of growth is about. It is not about getting to a place where everything is smooth and everything is perfect and everything is going how you want because you’re showing up exactly how you think you should for that to happen. And I know this, I logically know this. You know, when I’m saying this out loud, I’m like, of course I know this. I know that everything is not going to be perfect. I know that things are going to go wrong, but then it’s like when those things happen and they go wrong, I’m still frustrated. So if I know this, I shouldn’t be frustrated, right? I should be more, not should again, but if I was accepting that there was a reason and I was being present to the journey versus the outcome, I wouldn’t have such a, frustration over not having control over something not going how I wanted it to go. Instead, I would have an appreciation for the way it went because of what that caused, the reaction that that caused. So when you look at things in business, and when I look at business owners, I know friends, I know clients, we see this all the time.

We see a launch goal that you don’t hit you see an offer not selling how you expected you see something not going as planned a team member leaving. Different scenarios happening where they don’t go either how you wanted them to how you thought they should how you thought they were. And it is the response to that that dictates the success, not that thing happening. When you miss a launch goal, when you have an offer not as successful as you want, when you have something quote, fail or not work out how you had it planned or don’t hit the goal that you wanted. Can we agree that that is a necessary thing to have happen to get to the point of success? And how you respond to that is either A, you’re pissed. You’re like, I can’t believe it. Who can I blame? I didn’t hit that goal. The offer didn’t sell XYZ. I’m gonna blame my team. I’m gonna blame a coach. I’m gonna blame this. That’s the easy choice. Because if it’s not your fault, then you’re not to blame, right? You can’t take accountability for it and now you can hide behind actually the ownership of you have this result because you’re in full control of the actions being taken. And we can have gratitude for the things not working out.

So A, you can have that response, or B, you can say, where’s the lessons? What can I do differently? What can I shift because of this? What am I going to change? And if we think about all the times that we fail, all the times that something doesn’t work, I actually, when I think about it, I have more appreciation for those times than I do the things that worked out easily, no problem, crushed the goal. Because those things are the only way I got myself to the point of something working. It’s how I got myself to something successful. Without them, I would not be where I am. So i can have gratitude for them and it’s easier to look back and have gratitude but in the moment if you can surrender to it and just say, okay i can’t see the reason of why this worked out like this but i’m gonna learn from it and i’m gonna move forward and it’s that commitment that unwavering commitment that resilience to keep on going even when you experience the disappointment, the frustration, the anger even over something not working how you wanted it to. It’s really like, who are we to say that’s how it should be? We have no idea the bigger thing at play and the other people and the future of what what can happen because of this thing.

So I think that was my big lesson is staying present doesn’t mean having to be happy about it all the time. I can still be frustrated, but I also trust it is for a bigger reason. And it’s how I respond to those things that don’t work out how I wanted. And no matter how much I know this, I still find myself coming back to a place where I’m like, it’s like a tight grip on a steering wheel. Like I want it to go this way. I’m doing the things I think I should do for it to go this way. And if it doesn’t go this way, I’m mad. And letting that go and coming back to trusting that it’s necessary that you have to pivot, you have to adjust. Like what happens when you don’t hit a goal? You typically, if you’re going to continue on with unwavering resilience, you adjust, you make new decisions, you take new actions, you continue on the path. That’s how you become successful. If I weave this into and another thought that I had on this, which is within, for me, CrossFit is a big part of my life. And thinking about all of the times that I show up every week, hours a week, working on a movement, working on an exercise, working on being able to master bar muscle-ups took me months.

If I didn’t try thousands of times to do that, if I didn’t put in that work, then I would not have be able to do that. Like I needed the failures. And when I look at my weeks of of the amount of time I put into training, all it is doing Yes, it’s making me stronger, but it’s really just increasing my capacity, my individual capacity. And the only way to do that is literally through putting in the time, putting in the experience. And it’s same with business. If you show up and you put in the time, whether that’s content creation, connecting with your audience, writing, copy, delivering, like if I go back and I look at even just myself as a podcaster six years ago compared to how I am today. I am a hundred times better, but the only way that I was able to get better is through the journey, through the experience. You can’t gain that from a book or a coach or a program. You can get support. You can get tips. You can shortcut it by learning from them, but you can’t hand it over, hand your growth over to somebody else. You have to experience it. You have to go through the ups and the downs. So my question for you to sit with today and the point of this episode is how can I be present to the journey?

How can I make the goal be the consistently showing up to the journey? And yes, have outcome goals. Like I think having those goals is great, but we all know when we get to those goals, it’s like, okay, what’s next? Cause it’s not about the goals. The goals are a scorecard. The goals give you a vision, but it’s not about if I don’t hit that goal, then I am a bad entrepreneur or I can’t do this. It’s okay, I wasn’t meant to hit that goal. And the only thing I can control is how I show up to the journey. How I stay present to the journey. Because as much as we want everything to be predictable, and as much as we want to have that control, the unknown is guaranteed. We we don’t have the control over how everything is going to work out. An unknown and a lack of predictability is guaranteed.

The more you can surrender to that, the more you can stay present to that. And the more you can be appreciative of the journey and understand that the purpose of this game, of this journey of life and this game of business is about the experience and where that’s going to lead you. And any entrepreneur that you go and talk to,

They are not like yep, I planned out every step all my steps from beginning to where I am today And I know exactly where I was going. That’s not how it works It’s I started doing this and then that led to this and then I met this person and then this opportunity came You could not plan that nor would you want to if our entire lives was a predictable? Step-by-step experience like how boring would that be? What’s the point? Any entrepreneur who’s gone on their journey, however long has had massive, unpredictable moments, but also opportunities and also frustrations and failures, all of it full spectrum. And there’s so much beauty in that because it actually creates opportunity and success that we can’t even imagine right now because it’s so foreign to us.

If I were to say on day one of starting my business, Oh, in nine years, I’m going to have a multi seven figure marketing agency. I would never have been able to even imagine that because it was too foreign. But the experience is led me there. All pieces to the experience. The point of the game is the journey, not the destination. All right, you guys. I hope you found something in this to think on and and think about. How can you appreciate and stay present to that journey more? How can you value showing up and gaining experience and seeing that that is the point more? I will talk to you guys next week.