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The bigger the business, the more the problems, the more the responsibility, and the more the pressure. So how do you stay grounded when something doesn’t work?

In this episode, I’m talking about what it actually takes to be resilient in business. Not to never feel fear, rejection, or overwhelm, but to feel those things and still take aligned, convicted action.

I’m sharing what I tell myself when cash flow gets scary, why I sometimes have to remind myself what a privilege it is to have these problems, and what happened when I told a client to “show the universe how bad you want it.”

Key Takeaways

• What I do when cash flow gets scary (to pull me out of the hole)
• The #1 skill you must develop to stay in the game of business
• How to balance being driven with the uncertainty of business

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

When you’ve hit a level of success, it’s almost like they have this experience of, will it stay? Like, is the rug gonna be pulled out from underneath me? How do you maintain confidence and, keep moving forward and keep taking action? I see this happen with a lot of entrepreneurs they launch something. Like, you pour effort into it and it doesn’t go exactly how you wanted it to go. And those voices that come into your head that are like Nothing’s gonna work I’m gonna be a failure. All that fear that comes in.

Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello, you guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a great week. I cannot actually believe that September is, like, almost over. I think it’s because my life has been so full in fun ways lately, but I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just blown away that conversations we’re having with clients and planning and strategies are, like, Black Friday and holidays and end of the year.

I mean, I just was on a VIP client call yesterday where we talked about their marketing plan through the end of the rest of this year and into even through, like, January. And I was like, “How? Are we planning 2027 right now?” Like, what even happened to this year? I don’t know. I feel like today, you guys want an inside look of my day-to-day.

I had all of this white space before having about an hour and a half of calls, and I’m sure this happens to you guys, but I have been building a bunch of stuff with AI. And so as I’m building it, like, I have to get it access to things and then, like, go in GitHub and just do things that are, like, way above my pay grade to be doing.

Like, I am not a coder. And I just feel like I got a lot done, but I also didn’t get a lot done because I went in loops with this thing today to get everything set up. But I think I’m good now, and it can, like, take it and do what I want it to do. But I seriously feel like I wasted, like, two hours, and I would literally go, like, “Okay, here’s my screen.

Screenshot. What do I do?” “Okay, here’s my screen. What do I click?” Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. And a few times I was like, “You need to say this in more clear language, ’cause I do not know what you’re saying.” I don’t know. I had to set up, like, GitHub to connect this thing I’m using with Claude Code, and it’s just, like, well beyond what I, what I even know what’s happening.

Like my depository or something on my computer. I don’t freaking know. But, yeah, you know, you know when you sit down to do something quick with AI, and you end up, like, two hours later, you’re, like, still going in loops with it? It’s gonna be good. I think it’s gonna all be worth it, but man. But I had an amazing coaching call today.

This week I’ve actually gotten to, onboard several of our new mastermind members. So we kicked off this round of Embodied CEO, a couple of weeks ago, and now everyone’s kind of going through and getting their one-on-one calls with me that they start the round with. And this group is so incredible. I love every group and every round of my mastermind, but this one is definitely really special.

There’s, there’s a handful of people in there that have been in my world for a long time. Like, I’ve known them for a long time, and they finally were able to jump in the mastermind and just have, like, such incredible businesses and so much potential, and I just feel so grateful to get to be the one to, like, get my hands on their business and guide them every single week.

So I did a lot of those one-on-one calls this week, and they’re all just so good. Like, I could do that every single day. Maybe not every single day. I could do it every single week. I need some white space days. But I just love getting on and, like, solving problems and, like, making decisions and getting things clear and building out a strategy and diving deep into different areas.

And, like, little tweaks, especially when you’ve found success, you’re making five, you’re making $10,000 a month, it’s like little tweaks you make at that point make such a big difference. Little decisions, little things and perspectives that you would have never thought about yourself make a huge difference.

So anyways, with that, I feel inspired in many different ways coming off of the call that I just came off of. But one theme that has come up in this round is kind of… I think, this never goes away in business. But especially when you’ve hit a level of success, it’s almost like they have this experience of, will it stay?

Like, is the rug gonna be pulled out from underneath me? And how do I stay regulated and grounded and focused and confident when something doesn’t work in my business? Or let’s say you start a month and you’re behind on sales, and how do you maintain confidence and, like, keep moving forward and keep taking action?

I see this happen with a lot of entrepreneurs where they launch something. They, they launch a new funnel or a new offer, maybe they have a live launch. And I get it. Like, you pour effort into it and it doesn’t go exactly how you wanted it to go. Or you have a lower sales month, and those voices that come into your head that are like Nothing’s gonna work and I’m gonna be a failure.

You know, all that fear that comes in. Entrepreneurs have to have such resilience in continuing to take action and continuing to show up even when something doesn’t work. Like, being an entrepreneur goes against so much like, how we’re wired, how our brain is wired, because there is naturally so much uncertainty, fear that can come up from it, you know, all the things.

Putting yourself out there, taking a vision that doesn’t exist and bringing it into a reality, working through the natural voices and the natural stories and the natural things that come up when you are facing uncertainty. You know, in so many stages, when you go to start a business, when you go to quit a job, when you go to do these things that to 99% of the world are crazy and scary and uncomfortable and not safe.

And as an entrepreneur, you have to basically build this capacity to still stay resilient even when you are facing something that is challenging, even when something didn’t work out, even when you can’t see the path. And like, how do you do that? And so I wanna talk about this because I just think it’s so important, you know, to first normalize.

Like, all the time in business are you gonna have things that don’t work. More often than not, the first time that you do something, it’s gonna not work, as well as it could at least. Or it’s not gonna be like, oh, we clicked launch and we clicked go and it was good to go and everything worked perfectly.

There’s always going to be opportunity for improvement, for optimization, for taking something that didn’t work and pivoting. And how, do you have the self-discipline and self-leadership to hold yourself accountable in that? And so I wanna share kind of how I coach on this, and also how I do this in my own business because, you know- People think once you make it to a certain, quote, “level” that it’s like you’re good, life’s good, and, and everything’s good.

And honestly, like the bigger the business, the more the problems. The more the responsibility and the more the pressure and like, you know, if we have a bad, let’s say, month of sales, I still have a huge payroll nut, right? And so that just grows. That just grows the pressure, and it doesn’t mean don’t do that.

It doesn’t mean don’t, build that type of a business. People are so afraid to build a business with team. It’s actually about having the capacity and the resiliency to trust that you’re gonna always figure it out. So let me back it up to how I’d coach on this when somebody has an experience.

A couple of, actually, the women that came into this round of the mastermind were experiencing before they even came into the mastermind, a dip in their business. And they’re like, “It’s freaking me out. It’s summer. It’s naturally slow. I know that, but it’s freaking me out. I feel like, what if I can’t be successful?

Like, what if the success that I found was not permanent or not gonna stick?” And, you know, all the fears around the pressure of like, “I have to make the money. How do I even go about building a team when like, what if I have low sales?” So the first thing is this: you can’t resist the feelings of fear. You have to actually allow yourself to feel them, and that’s something that took me a very long time to learn.

Because so much of what we do and how we operate is we try to avoid feelings that we don’t wanna feel. Because in our nervous system and in our body some, there are feelings, the quote, “negative emotions” of rejection and fear and, you know, sadness, grieving, all these, these emotions, we don’t wanna feel them.

And so we will do a lot to avoid feeling that. But that just builds, and that just gets louder. And so first of all, the goal is not to never experience fear or to never experience wondering if you’re gonna be successful , or never experience rejection or never experience overwhelm The goal is to experience those things and stay regulated, and to come back to center as fast as you can, because you will become dysregulated.

Like, we’re human. It’s to get dysregulated from something that happens, you know, a sale that falls through, a launch that doesn’t go well, something that happens that puts you into maybe a state of overwhelm, a state of fear, a state of shame, whatever it is, and to actually be able to sit in that and have the capacity for it and not let it impact your actions, and not let it be the driver of your life.

That’s the goal. So the first thing is, that I told them is, number one, it is completely normal for you to feel fear. Like, of course you do. Just, like, hold yourself in that for a second, because of course you do. Like, that is your brain doing its job, saying, “I don’t see how we’re gonna make this money, how we’re gonna do X, Y, Z.

And so therefore, I am gonna create feelings of stress and overwhelm in your body because I’m protecting you. I’m getting you to think about things that maybe aren’t gonna work or that we need to look out for.” The brain is constantly scanning. Constantly scanning, right? Like, if you’ve ever sat with your thoughts, you know it never stops.

It’s constantly scanning. What happened in the past? I don’t want those things to happen again. What’s gonna happen in the future? I need to predict. I need to protect myself. It’s very rarely in the present moment. That’s not the job of the brain. So first is you have to acknowledge that and not run from it, because what a lot of people do, and I am guilty of this too, is like, because I don’t want to experience the feelings of overwhelm- I’ll go in a loop or I see entrepreneurs go in a loop of convincing themselves why they shouldn’t feel that way and almost getting into a state of shame of like, “I know I shouldn’t feel this way and I don’t wanna feel this way and da, da, da.”

And that’s the first thing. So what you resist is just gonna get louder. And you can’t actually process and move forward from it if you don’t allow it first. So that’s the first like if we’re putting this in steps, step one. The next step is asking yourself what you need. And this is what I said to one of the women is, what do you need when you notice yourself slip into that state?

‘ Cause if you slip into, that state of overwhelm, that state of fear, what do you need in that moment that’s going to essentially bring you to the present moment? And this is like a two-minute thing. This is like you’re parenting yourself. You’re, you are taking self-leadership over your state.

So you notice that you slip into that state of overwhelm or fear. The thoughts start going. And you’re able to go, okay, you’re separate from that, right? You are not the fear. You are not the overwhelm. You’re just experiencing that. And then you’re able to go, “Okay, I’m experiencing fear. I’m experiencing overwhelm.

The stories are coming. The thoughts are coming.” What do you need? And usually it’s some sort of like as simple as step outside. Do some box breathing. Read yourself a line like that will help bring you back to center, bring you back to the, the present moment. Come up with something that’s like a couple of steps.

And when you get into that state, you’re like, “Okay, we’re doing these steps. We’re gonna bring ourselves back to regulation.” And then really the third thing is now getting in the driver’s seat and you dictating the actions. And you going, “Okay, what is it that I am gonna do with this?” And I’ve had many experiences with clients where I get them to see like When something doesn’t work out, there’s almost like a level of gratitude for it because I believe when you push it, or not push, when you pour all of your energy and effort into something and it doesn’t work out how you wanted it to work out, call me naive or whatever, but I believe it’s always for a reason.

And I think we often can’t see that reason, but I always go to, “Okay, what is this trying to teach me? What is this trying to show me?” And I can tell you some of the best decisions I’ve made in my business have come after the fact of something not working or after the fact of experiencing low stressful cash flow months, and then going, “We have to change something to get out of this state,” and that pushing us into a decision or into a pivot or into doing a launch or a promo or whatever.

And I would have never made those decisions had I not been put in that situation. Last round of the mastermind, there was one of the women had just really annoying experiences with their ad account. It was like their ad account was almost like, blacklisted or something. Like, they’d run webinar ads, and it just would have a sky-high cost per impression, and it was, like, really difficult.

But I said to her, “You know, you have stayed so resilient and so committed to figuring this out, and I truly believe that, number one, it is building up some sort of lived experience and capacity in you that you’re gonna be able to take into your content and help other people with. But number two, it is pushing you outside of where you would normally go to make sales and to build your business and to grow your business that I think you’re finding even bigger opportunities that now once the ads start working, like, your business is gonna grow way more than it would have because you are, you know, being pushed to doing things and make decisions that you wouldn’t make otherwise.”

So once you, you know, get to this, the place of you have awareness and you’re able to be in that driver’s seat, you know, what I always go to is, number one, what other option do I have? Like, I don’t give myself another option but to continue forward and to go, you know, “Where do I need to pivot?

What’s a new idea? How do I solve this problem? Like, where’s the opportunity here?” And the faster you can take yourself from a state of overwhelm and fear and allowing something externally to throw you off balance to back into you’re in the driver’s seat and you’re taking action, the faster you’re just gonna move forward, the faster you’re gonna get out of your own way So number one, it’s like what other option do you have?

And number two, it is what’s the worst that’s gonna happen? And I genuinely think an exercise that you can do is giving yourself the evidence of like, when have I not figured it out? You know, like, when have you ever not figured it out? Probably never. You always figure it out. Is it exactly how you want it to be?

No. Is it exactly how you planned? Never. But you always figure it out. And so why now do we think when these things come up, you know, this week or recent, that we think we’re gonna not figure it out? And who are we to say what the path is? What can we control? We can control how we show up. So last week, one of the women in the group, they had this cohort they were running, and basically it has an in-person component, and when they announced the dates of the in-person component, some of the people kind of wavered some of her sales.

And of course, her immediate reaction was to freak out and be like, “I had all these sales and now like half of them are potentially nos, and you know, maybe lose this revenue,” and like, You know, she was like, “What’s the message? What does this mean?” And I was like, “You know, I think it means that you’re being tested on how much do you want this.

And if you go in to this, the rest of this launch, and you embody and step into that passion that you know, like you are gonna change these people’s lives that already said yes to this. They already said yes to this for a reason. So you go, ‘What do I need to do to make it happen?

Do I need to adjust the dates? Do I need to add something for them?'” Like you go and you’re like, ‘I will go up until the start of this cohort going I did everything I possibly could to fill it, because that’s all that I can do,’ and then you trust. Like you have to have those two things. It’s like you can control the way that you show up.

You can control your energy. You can control your actions. You can control your beliefs and your thoughts and the way that you choose to show up and the actions you choose to take. You actually cannot control the outcome. You can try to persuade it, right? And allow those actions to make it happen, but you then have to trust, and it’s like this dance of not force, but resilient action taking and Persistent pursuit.

Like, I will do whatever it takes. You have to have that energy in business. I will not stop. I’ll do whatever it takes. Yes, it has to be aligned. I don’t believe in building a business from a place of force, of like I’m white-knuckling and I’m forcing this and it has to happen this way because this is how I think it should happen.

I think there’s a lot to be said for finding that alignment and ease, but not easy. Ease means you’re in your flow. Ease means you are in alignment with your purpose and your integrity and what you believe and know intuitively and in your heart is the right next steps. That’s what ease means. And then You gotta trust.

And you gotta say, “Whatever happens, I know that I did everything I possibly could, and so therefore I am gonna trust that whatever the outcome is is what it was meant to be.” So last week that was my advice to this individual, was like, “I want you to get off this call and I want you to show the universe how bad you want it.

I want you to channel that knowing you have in you on the fact that these people said yes to your cohort. They said yes already to the transformation. They need it in their lives. This will support them in XYZ ways. Your heart, your passion. And I want you to go attack this with a relentless pursuit.

And then I want you to surrender. Because then come the time of kick-starting this, you are going to know you did everything you could. And then you can’t be mad.” And then you go, “Okay, what is it teaching me?” Well, guess what? She did that, she got several of the people back in, and she was like, “Because they backed out, I reached out to all these other people and I started having sales conversations, and I might have two more people than I originally had from when it was gonna start.”

So that shows you, it’s like it’s all about how you choose to respond to it. It’s like such, so much of entrepreneurship is about self-discipline and self-leadership. And I don’t even love the word discipline because I feel like discipline is such a like masculine… And it’s fine, but it’s like a very, like I’m forcing this.

I like the, I like the word self-leadership more. Like you have to lead yourself because nobody else is gonna do it. And that is why you get in containers like a mastermind and you have a coach and you get support doing it when you struggle doing it. And I myself get in my own head, and I sometimes need…

I have friends, I have mentors, I have lots of coaches and people that I turn to where I’m like, “I need you to help me see what I’m not seeing, to hold me accountable for how I’m showing up.” Because what do we do? We get into the victim mindset. We get into fear. It is way easier to feel fear. It’s way easier to be a victim.

Of course it is. Because when we’re in that state, now it’s like, “Well, it’s out of my control When really it’s not. So that self-leadership is so much of entrepreneurship, going how quickly can you go from a moment where something doesn’t work out or a moment where you feel overwhelmed, frustrated, rejected, whatever that negative emotion is, how quickly can you go from that back to regulated and back in action?

And back going, “Okay, I’m acknowledging where I’m at. It’s legit. My brain’s trying to keep me protected.” The goal is to not not feel that. There’s nothing wrong with you that you feel that, but it is not in the driver’s seat. It doesn’t get to dictate the way you show up, your energy, and your actions. You do.

So okay, we acknowledge it, we feel it, and then what do we need to get back to reminding ourselves of the most important things, which is you get to do this. You chose to do this. What a privilege it is to feel overwhelmed or scared about whatever you’re facing that you probably would have paid anything to feel 10 years ago, five years ago, right?

What a privilege. I say that to myself all the time. I have a week where I’m overwhelmed or when, you know, something happens in the business frustrating, and I’m like, “What a privilege it is to be in this place, to have these problems.” And I mean that. And then you go, “Okay, what’s the actions? What is this calling for me to pivot, to adjust, to optimize, to make a different decision, to look at something differently?”

And never forgetting that you’ll always figure it out The only way you can not figure it out is if you didn’t take any action, is if you allowed a big challenge or adversity to put you into a state of freeze. Then you won’t figure it out ’cause nothing will move forward. Eventually, you’ll probably figure it out, but you will always figure it out.

And how many times have you figured it out, facing a challenge or facing a bad month in business? It is completely normal. And I said this today on the coaching call. I said the goal is not to not experience those things. The goal is not to never feel overwhelm. The goal is not to never have a bad month.

The goal is not to never have, you know, a challenge that’s so scary that you could realize you could lose it all. That’s gonna happen, and it’s gonna happen again and again. You know, not all the time. Like, there’s definitely very high highs in business as well, but that feeling of like, is it gonna last?

Is the rug gonna be pulled out from underneath you? No, the rug’s not gonna be pulled out from underneath you. But is it gonna last? No, you never hit a state where everything’s good all the time, 24/7, 365 days a year. If you’re in that state, your business is shut down. Your business is not growing. That, that doesn’t exist.

So the goal is not to never experience that. There’s not something wrong if you are experiencing that. The goal is to experience that and still take the actions, the aligned, convicted, within integrity, passionate, resilient actions. And to be able to regulate yourself and lead yourself that way no matter what.

And you get better at it. You get better and better at it, and I, think this is why, like, we can’t go out the gate and have a million-dollar business. You can’t. Not only do you have to build the business, the foundation, the offers, and all those things, you have to build yourself. A CEO who starts their business at zero is nowhere near the same CEO who’s at a million dollars.

Impossible. You have to become a different person. It’s why I love entrepreneurship, the greatest personal development journey you will ever go on. Because in order to keep growing, you have to become different people. The old you has to die. The new you is born over and over and over again. It never stops.

And that’s actually part of the fun of it, right? Like, it’s never boring And I think it’s easy to convince ourselves that there’s something wrong. Several of the women coming to my mastermind were like, “I wanna get out of this, like, emotional rollercoaster. I don’t wanna feel like this.” Well, you’re gonna feel like it.

Like, of course you do. You guys are, you know, a year in or whatever of building your business and building this success, like, of course your brain is going, ” It’s not real, and we need to look out for it.” That doesn’t mean that is the, what you operate from. You go, “Cool. That’s there, and I’m still gonna take action, and I’m still gonna show up, and I’m still going to believe that I can do it.”

And I think for me, like, you know, i’m a very resilient person. I am naturally extremely resilient. I can handle a lot of pressure. I can handle a lot of, stress, overwhelm. I can compartmentalize it, and I can handle a lot, and I do think that has for sure contributed to the business I’ve grown, the size it’s at, the problems I’m able to handle.

And when I think about how I handle that, it really comes down to I don’t usually feed into the emotions. And if I do, it’s for a short period of time, and I usually have a friend or a coach that I vent to, and then I pull myself back, and I snap out of it. And I’ve gotten better at acknowledging the emotions because for a while if you resist and run from them, they do just build.

But number two, I think that I have been almost fortunate, right? Like, I’ll share this with you guys. Sometimes I hate being the breadwinner. I will be honest. I sometimes I hate it. Sometimes get into a state where I make myself a victim. Like, ” Wouldn’t it be nice if I, you know, just could have my business for fun?

If I, you know, didn’t have to make sure that we made the certain amount of money to have our life, to have the trips, to have what I want. Like, wouldn’t that be nice?” And I do get into that state sometime. And then I think about it and I’m like, ” I don’t think I would’ve built this business if I was in that state,” because so many times did the fact that I had no other option.

Like, I don’t have a fallback. I don’t have a trust fund. I don’t have, you know, money to fall back on. I don’t have a rich husband that can, you know, make all the money and I don’t have to work. Great if that’s somebody’s story. That’s not my story. I started 20 years old as a new mom who had to make money to be able to live, to be able to put food on the table.

And instead of being a victim to that, I remind myself and I become grateful, ’cause I’m like, ” I would never have probably been pushed to grow the business to the level that it’s at had it not been I have no other option.” And so when I’m faced with any challenge, like, you know, there’s been definitely times in my business where, where cashflow gets scary because of the payroll, and it’s, hard to have a huge runway when your payroll is high.

And I, look at it as what other option do I have? Figure it out. You’ll figure it out. You will always figure it out. There’s always a way. And I think, especially the last several years, I have, leaned in more to trusting and, like, faith because whatever that is, God, the universe, you know, I say God, but I don’t call myself religious.

But whatever that is that’s bigger than me, it is very comforting to remember, and I do believe this, that we are held and we are supported by something bigger than us. And for me as an entrepreneur, that is very helpful and comforting because then it’s like, okay, when something isn’t working out and when something isn’t happening how I want it to, I can trust that there’s a reason.

And I don’t always need to know the reason, and I won’t always know the reason until maybe much later or if ever, but I always trust that. And I, and I do ask for support, and I do, consistently come back to myself, because I believe God’s within us for that guidance. So anyways, that’s what I have today.

For anyone who finds themself in that place of either you’re going through a challenge, your business is maybe not where you want it to be yet, or you experience that experience of, like, I’ve had some success, but it’s not consistent, and I constantly have this fear of what if it’s not gonna stay? What if the rug’s gonna be pulled out from underneath me?

And how do you build that capacity to not never feel that and experience that, but feel it and experience it and don’t let it be the driver of your actions and the driver of how you show up, you know? And I think there’s for sure a huge part of business that is about that resiliency, and it’s about how bad do you want it?

And that’s what I said to one of the women last week is like, “You gotta show the universe how bad you want it.” I really think that’s what needs to happen here. That’s what it’s asking of you, to remember that. Like, sometimes it’s not about force, but in, in a launch or in something that’s happening in your business, like, you are really putting in the work and, and really channeling that passion and that purpose and what you believe in, and you gotta be relentless.

You know, when I do my webinar training, I get people. Before I go into content, it’s like no one can have the all-in energy for you. And when you pair I am all in, like, success isn’t an option. It will happen. And when you have that belief and you accept nothing else, I know it sounds cheesy, but I’m telling you guys, like, it works.

And it is the one thing that separates successful entrepreneurs from not, you know? And, and nobody can give you that. We oftentimes look for that belief outside of us, like, “Let me get a coach or find someone who’s been successful so that I can tell myself I’ve been successful,” but if you don’t have that belief, that, like, embodied belief of, “I will be successful no matter what.

I don’t know exactly how long it will take,” because we don’t really have control over that, ” but I will make this dream happen,” whatever that is. And then you go take the actions, like, I have never been proven wrong that it doesn’t come to reality. So, alright, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I will talk to you next week