0:00:03 - Briar
Hello, welcome. I am Briar Harvey. This is the Neurodiversity Media Network, And we are here today with the fabulous Alice. Hello Alice,
0:00:18 - Alice
Hello Briar. And hello everyone. It's lovely to be here again.
0:00:22 - Briar
So today we are talking last episode in our momentum series And we're talking about myths.
0:00:32 - Alice
Yes, and these are important things to talk about because And I mean we've touched on it a little bit, i think, throughout a lot of what we've talked about, right, but I think it's really important because if you, if you believe in the myths, then one of the things that's going to happen is You're going to have these barriers, these mindset barriers, to actually getting to your momentum. And I think it's really important to you know, if you haven't started building momentum yet, that you want to start it off on more solid foundation than on myths.
0:01:15 - Briar
I agree, so let's talk about them. What are some really big and dangerous myths about momentum?
0:01:27 - Alice
Well, the biggest one, at least, i mean, it feels like it's the biggest one for me, right? I guess everybody's kind of maybe going to have a different perspective on what has the most impact on who they are and how they operate, but the biggest one for me is that momentum has to be fast. Right, that you have to build momentum and you have to do it fast. If you're not, that's a myth, because and we've talked about it before is, no matter what your pace is, you don't have to feel the pressure to go faster than what you're ready for. If you set the intention to at least be consistent, i don't care if that's once a month, once a week, whatever that consistency looks like for you that will actually help you start to build momentum.
If you think the only way to build momentum is to go 10 times a day and you are a once a month kind of person, then you're going to hold yourself back, you're never going to get started, you're never going to build momentum. And, on the other hand, you could be the kind of person that thinks, yeah, i have to do this 10 times a day, and so you're going to go at it hard and you're going to burn yourself out, you're going to start to find some of that momentum and success. You know that other side of it you don't do anything because you're frozen in. Oh God, i can't handle that. Or you go hard at it and then you burn yourself out and you lose the success that you gained Right, and then maybe never go back to it because you burnt yourself out, you know so. You have to find that middle way that works for you. To be consistent because that is a huge factor in building momentum is the consistency aspect.
0:03:17 - Briar
Right, not speed, consistency.
0:03:19 - Alice
Yes.
0:03:20 - Briar
And this is especially relevant for neurodivergent people, because we burn out faster.
0:03:29 - Alice
We sure do Much faster And we can get into those like. one of my struggles is the hyper focus right, and so I will hyper focus on something until I like literally pass out. That is not healthy. That is not. that is not a healthy way to build momentum.
0:03:51 - Briar
No, like I'll forget to pee. Yes, you can get so deep in that you forget everything else, and it's really important for us to create breaks, to create care, to make sure that we're actually doing the things that we need to do to maintain consistency.
0:04:16 - Alice
Yes, maintain consistency without burning ourselves out. And that can be a struggle, right? Because, from the neurodivergent point of view, if you do have that hyper focus, right, when there's something you're really interested in, you tend to put all of your focus and attention into it because it is interesting. Anything that's not interesting, you know, like that laundry over there, right there, i'm looking at you laundry.
0:04:42 - Briar
Don't call me out over here, don't call me out on a. Monday morning about the piles of laundry behind my curtains.
0:04:51 - Alice
Well, technically, what way is it? It's actually that it's over there, piles of laundry, okay, yes, you find that thing that you're interested in and you want to go full force at it because it excites you, it lights you up, and that's all fine and good until you crash and burn, you know. So, finding that place to take those breaks, whether that's setting an alarm for yourself, whether that's using post-it notes all over to remind you, whatever that looks like, right, i set alarm, i'm an alarm person. Briar loves note cards. She does note cards and post-its but I set alarm reminders like eat, eat lunch. You know, hey, take a shower today, girl, you stink, whatever those things look like, because Otherwise you go hard, you go fast, you hit the wall and you know the next thing. You know you're burnt out and you're not doing anything. So it's not, it's not worth it. If you really are interested in that thing and it's that valuable to you, then you want to nurture it and take it early.
0:06:13 - Briar
Okay, what else? Any other myths?
0:06:19 - Alice
That surround momentum is that once you have it, you're going to it, just you have it, you keep it. Like, once you got the momentum, it's all downhill from here, baby, like it's all good from here, right, like you just keep going. And that is not true either. I'm not going to talk about this on throughout the series as well, but you have to have systems and processes and plans in place to handle the momentum that you're going to build, because there is really no way and I don't care what anybody else is going to tell you, there is no way for you to know how quickly you'll build momentum once you get going, and sometimes momentum can sneak up on you and you're going to get a lot, and if you can't handle it, then it's going to fall apart. You're going to lose your momentum And for you it might take. you're building this momentum, but if you stop, if you're like, if you just go oh yeah, i've got momentum, i can just sit back and relax now Then it starts to slow down again, like you know, because there is this idea that like you roll the boulder downhill or whatever the snowball, and then it just takes on a life of its own and it's gone, except there's always going to be a landing somewhere. It's going to stop eventually. It's not going on forever. You know even that little thing. you know. you take it back and forth. you know like it's not, it's not forever. So you need to have plans to, yes, take care of yourself throughout the process, but also have those plans in place to handle the momentum. What will you do if a thousand people try to book with you tomorrow? What will you do? Like, how? what is your next step for that If that happens? right, because you need. like you need because there's like this, this double-edged sword. right, you have to have some of the momentum. You have to be building the momentum with your business. You have to be gaining some income. You've got to have some cash flow in order to do things like hire a VA or an online business manager, or hire someone to do your copywriting or whatever that thing is that you need for your business. You need the cash flow for that. But how much cash flow? This is a really good place to point out that our friend, marisa Lohan has a program called the Profit Plan, and that's a really good place to start to have to know when I get to this point, this is what I'm going to need. When I get to this point, this is what I'm going to need. And also, hey, where am I going to get this from Right, so that you can actually take that action without being in the moment, being overwhelmed and then trying to make a decision, because that never goes very well.
If you're in a clear headspace and you're thinking logically and not reacting out of overwhelm, then you're going to have much better results with the decisions you make, because you already have them on paper. You've already decided. these are the things I'm going to do when this and this and this happens. It's a lot easier to take that action than being in the middle of overwhelm and anxiety and anything else you have and then trying to make a decision. That never works out well either. I've done it to myself.
0:09:56 - Briar
And we've spoken in previous episodes about setting yourself milestones. This is what we're talking about. What is the ABC result? And that should be planned ahead of time so that, when it happens, you So. We've talked about speed, we've talked about sustainability What else?
0:10:34 - Alice
Speed, sustainability and scaling your momentum right, because momentum in and of itself starts to bring in the results for you. But momentum sustainability You have to build in that sustainability in order to then be able to scale. And you have to have those plans too, because the momentum itself isn't going to necessarily bring you everything you want. The momentum may actually highlight plenty of areas where you need improvement.
0:11:21 - Briar
Right, because what got you here isn't going to get you to the next step.
0:11:27 - Alice
Exactly.
0:11:29 - Briar
So you've got to try and plan ahead without knowing exactly what that's going to entail.
0:11:39 - Alice
Yeah, exactly. And the other thing is you have to be flexible, right, because you're going to have these ideas of what you want and what you see, and then things are going to be a little bit different in reality than they are in your actual plan, and I think that's I mean, actually that might even be the number one thing that's like the most dangerous is that, well, this isn't how I planned it to happen. Why is this? like, don't fight it, go with it, you know, don't be afraid. Right, like so you don't want to stop, you don't want to like crash and burn, you don't want to give up because you don't see things happening or whatever, like you don't want that inactivity to happen, but you also don't want to be so hyper focused on, well, this is what I do And this is what I that you don't take a minute to pause.
A pause is not the same as giving up or ending it or stopping your momentum, but a pause gives you that opportunity to evaluate and review, okay, what's working, what's not working, and eliminate what's working or what's not working. Don't eliminate what's working, eliminate what's not working or adjust it, tweak it Right, there are things that you can do to change that for yourself, right, and adjust for what's coming next and think about okay, that's what I wanted, do I really want it? And is there something else that I actually now am aware of that would actually be better for me? And then making that pivot, because just because you've gained that momentum right. So the scalability aspect of it, but then also then the longevity of it is this what you want to do long term, right.
And if it's not being able to adjust yourself so that you can change it up a bit And do something that's more in alignment with how you are, as long as you're not doing it out of fear, right, like you have to notice that within yourself. Am I wanting to pivot because I'm afraid, now that I have all this stuff coming, or am I legitimately like, oh, like, and you can tell the difference, because you'll know, oh, this, this, and now I see I did this, and now I know I was hoping this would happen, but instead I'm getting something I didn't really expect, and now I can see that if I do this, i'll get what I wanted. Right, like there's a clear path there for you, right? That's how you can tell the difference. Well, and we've talked about experimentation a lot.
0:14:30 - Briar
So if you are experimenting, you're not always going to get the results you expect. That just doesn't happen.
0:14:39 - Alice
It's true And it's okay, like not and okay another myth When you're in the you know sort of ideation phase of your business and you're testing things out, you don't have to worry about momentum at that point. You're just testing, right. So know where you are. You're not going to build momentum. If you're testing your messages, if you're testing your offers, if you're testing your ideal audience or your niche, those are not times when you're building momentum, you're validating. That's a whole different thing. Like, once you get the validation, like okay, this is the direction I'm going to go And I know it, now you can start building the momentum. But it's a completely different stage of your business to be validating and testing things. Now that doesn't mean that once you've got this core and you start to build your momentum and you start to build in consistency, that there aren't also things you're testing still, but you have that foundation and you're moving forward with it And you're going to test along the way of building momentum as well and evaluate which we've talked about in previous episodes to see what's working and what's not working. So that's going to be a process as well.
But don't expect that while you're testing, like because I've had this from clients before where? oh they? okay, we're testing out our ideal audience, right, we're testing out this ideal client and let's put out some of these feelers to see if people respond to it. And they'll be like, oh, nobody's responded, I'm, my business is never getting out. I'm like this is the testing phase. You don't even have an offer yet, you don't have an audience yet, like you're just putting feelers out there. It's okay, right, you can't expect this huge response because momentum doesn't happen instantaneously either, right, which I don't know, maybe that's a myth. I don't think that's a myth, but if you have the mindset that you're going to start putting out content and all of the sudden, the floodgates are going to open and you're going to have momentum, that's also not going to happen And you will feel very disappointed and very frustrated if you have that expectation that momentum is just going to.
0:17:04 - Briar
Right, as I've said, multiple times Automagically. Get a snack. You're going to need a snack. Momentum is not happening overnight.
0:17:14 - Alice
Yes, you're going to need a snack, maybe some caffeine. if you do caffeine, you know I've always got a cup or so. Eat it.
0:17:27 - Briar
So one that I came Come across all the time, but I came across again last night, which just drives me insane.
0:17:55 - Alice
I lost you for a second there, Briar.
0:17:57 - Briar
It's all right. The only way to momentum is my way.
0:18:04 - Alice
My way or the highway. Baby Right, I just love that.
0:18:11 - Briar
And I think that people succeed at something and it seems perfectly reasonable to them that that's going to work for everyone. But it does not.
0:18:23 - Alice
Although people have made millions on that premise.
0:18:25 - Briar
Yes, they have.
0:18:27 - Alice
But the people who gave the millions did not.
0:18:33 - Briar
Did not, did not.
0:18:38 - Alice
Yeah, i mean, which is why you test things, because you test things to see if your audience responds to it. You test things to see how you respond to it. How do you feel about it now that it's actually out there in the world? Because you might put it out there and go, oh I don't like how that feels at all, i need to go a different direction. But that can happen too. You learn your audience's responses and you learn your own by actually implementing stuff and putting it out there, and that's the natural way to do it. And if you're following someone else's path and it doesn't feel quite right, you can. You've asked yourself why it doesn't feel right. You're not going to be off about this for me, and is there a way that I can more easily maybe customize?
this process to be something that's better for me. And if you can't, if you can't find an easy way to customize that process for yourself that makes you feel comfortable and good about doing it, then move on to the next thing. Next, my favorite four-letter word. Next, let you just go My second favorite four-letter word, but just next. Just move on, Just do it, because you don't need to be stuck forcing yourself to try to find follow someone else's process because they say it works And they've made millions. And that's the rub, right, like because, well, this person made millions, why shouldn't we listen to them? I mean, that's great, but when did they make their millions? What did social media and the internet and SEO look like when they built their momentum and when they came up with this process?
0:20:26 - Briar
And if it was more than a year ago, it's a whole different internet.
0:20:33 - Alice
It's a whole ass new world. Okay, like, most definitely. And if it, you know, you've got people that have been around 10, 15 years, you know, since Al Gore invented the internet. Okay, like, you've got people around a long time and they've built momentum and they have an engaged audience. They did it on a different set of standards than what you have today, and so sometimes that standard just isn't going to work as quickly or as well today as it did back then, but they already have this engaged audience already making the money, and they have done what we've talked about. As soon as those things stopped working, they started to pivot a little change, adjust and do more things, but they still have this big audience that they could go through that with, which made it a much less painful process for them, whereas for you, if you don't have a huge audience and something's not working, it's a much more painful process to adjust and move on to something new. It can be more painful.
0:21:44 - Briar
And this is why we don't build our businesses off of other people's models.
0:21:49 - Alice
No.
0:21:50 - Briar
Okay, what else?
0:21:52 - Alice
We create the rules and we build them off of our own model. That works for us. Oh no, do you have any ideas on what's another myth? I think those are all the ones I really had.
0:22:06 - Briar
I really feel like we have covered the big ones, yeah, and I feel like we have really gotten into what the meat of the myths are, which is stop listening to other people.
0:22:26 - Alice
I mean honestly.
0:22:30 - Briar
It's okay to have a coach, it's okay to have a team. It's absolutely vital that those people who have their hands in your business can provide to you input. If they don't have their hands in your business, they should not be providing input. No.
0:22:56 - Alice
And do some research, like it's okay, there might be some business guru, influencer, person or whatever that you really like and you kind of like their vibe and you for whatever reason, and that is fantastic.
okay, i'm not saying you shouldn't like a certain person or any people, listen to what they have to say, but then go research what other people are saying too. Get a little bit more are a diversified perspective to see what else is out there, because you can even integrate a little bit of somebody else's good ideas into this other person's thing and then make it something more unique for you. But we fall into a lot of traps if we just follow one person and listen to only everything they say and we don't do a little bit of research to find out what other advice or whatever things are out there, so that we can start to think, okay, this person says this, but this person says this, why is it different? right? We wanna start thinking critically. I mean, you're talking about your business, you're talking about your livelihood and there is no one way to do that. There is no one way.
0:24:10 - Briar
Right, and there is a clear difference between learning what you do not know, filling in the gaps and allowing other people's processes to inform the choices that you are making. And the difference is one comes from a place of information, one comes from a place of fear. If you're allowing other people to make choices on your behalf for your business, that's fear.
0:24:41 - Alice
Absolutely, and we don't need that. And if you do find yourself going through that and feeling really connected to someone else's process, like that's the only thing for you to do, then you should ask yourself why you feel that way And also try to look at some other processes and look for what's good. Right, ask yourself questions, but ask yourself the right questions, right, you know, ask yourself how can I take ownership of the process, how can I find a way to make this process mine and feel good about it? right? So ask yourself the right questions.
0:25:33 - Briar
On my list of things to create for the network is a panel discussion about how to figure out what cult behavior is and is not and how to respond to it. But truly in the business world there are a lot of cults.
0:25:54 - Alice
A lot of cults, cult of, personality, at the very least right. Yes, Yes, that's what Marisa likes to say Culture create culture, not cults.
0:26:05 - Briar
Right.
0:26:06 - Alice
Yeah, yeah, cause that does happen And it's I mean, and if you've fallen into that, like you know, don't feel bad about it. I've done some stuff. I've fallen into things in my life that I know how was I so naive and just so like what You know, and it's almost embarrassing to even tell people about it. But then I look at that like I learned a lot from those experiences and I've grown, and so you know part of the thing that happens when you get sort of sucked into sort of cultish. You know communities like that, which there really are an entrepreneurship There's like there's some hardcore like if you find yourself being offended, if anybody says anything even remotely, you know even constructive criticism towards a particular thing and you find yourself like ready to go off, like you might be in a cult. Okay, you might.
You might be in a cult and it's okay, but you wanna, you know you don't want to feel the lack of anybody, feel worse, because then you get more defensive about it and we don't want that either. Right, you? just you need to be able to take a step back and look at things like even people that we love, like I love my kids. Nobody is more important to me than my kids But I still can look at them and say, here are, you know, some, some habits that I would really prefer they change, right? So there are things that you can look at, even with people that you really love.
So if you find yourself really getting defensive over any kind of criticism or constructive criticism of any kind over something, then you know, like you know, take a step back. It's not, it's not an insult to you personally, even though you like them. Like somebody is like, oh, your kid is annoying, and that's not like a personal insult to me. I'm like, yeah, he's annoying like that, like you know, that's him, right, it's not, and we just tend to take it so personally and if you're doing that, you want to examine the room.
0:28:29 - Briar
Yeah.
0:28:31 - Alice
Yeah, do a little checking.
0:28:43 - Briar
Well, this has been amazing, yeah, and we'll be back this fall With another series. I'll try again.
0:28:57 - Alice
There we go, there we go.
0:28:59 - Briar
We'll be back in August With another series on what did we just say?
0:29:09 - Alice
Integrating audience experiences.
0:29:11 - Briar
Yes, we'll make that sound fun, yeah.
0:29:18 - Alice
Well, yes, it will be fun. You want? integration is where it's at baby.
0:29:30 - Briar
All right y'all. Thank you for being here, thank you for watching this series. As always, this is what we're building here at the neurodiversity media network. We're creating depth. We are creating things of meaning. So if you would like to join us, you can find us at neurodiversitymedianetwork.com. If you would like to host your own series, you can reach out. That's briarharvey.com/partners And we will see you again in August, Alice. Have a great summer, my friend.
0:30:10 - Alice
Thank you so much, Briar Harvey. You have a great summer too, and bye for now y'all.
0:30:16 - Briar
Bye, bye.
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