Our Relationship With Imposter Syndrome (And Launching The Business You’ve Been Dreaming Of) with Christy Wright

70% of people do not have a single person that they can call in the middle of a crisis. Let's face it, we are relationally broke. And my mission is to make that percentage zero. But how? By building relational wealth, the embodiment of all your relationships with yourself with others and experiences that enrich your life. I promise you this podcast will help you build wealth in every way that money cannot. And it all starts by being accidentally intentional. Let's begin. What's up, guys, and welcome back to another accidentally intentional podcast episode when I say that I have been waiting years for this conversation. It is not an exaggeration. And I have someone that I have admired and respected for such a long time on the podcast today, because she is a best selling author and national speaker on some of the biggest stages in the world. She's a business coach, a speaking coach, the host of the get your hopes up podcast. She's a mom, a wife. Honestly, she does it all. And she never gets it wrong. Because it's Christie right. Welcome to the podcast. That was well done. Well done. Well done. Good to be here. I'm so pumped to have you on and Christy, you have had quite a season that you've been going through a wilderness season, as I've heard you call it on your podcast. And so to kind of tee up this conversation, I would love for you to share with the audience what's been going on in your world, the past 18 months. Yeah, so I think the last time we talked that we was at the influence event for Ramsey solutions in November of 21. And the reason I remember that is because that was one of the first times I got to speak on speaking. And I remember the event so distinctly because I was literally running around the lobby so jacked because I love teaching this content of helping people speak in front of others and craft their content and all that. But it was also the very last speaking event I did for Ramsey, even though I didn't know at the time, because quickly after that the Lord called me to leave, I'm a person of faith. So I use language like that. But basically, I felt like I was supposed to leave. And I attribute that to my relationship with God. And so that was a very difficult few months of understanding that discerning that communicating that to the team and the people that I loved a whole lot and still love. And just even wrapping my head around my life is not gonna be what I thought it was because I thought I was gonna be there forever. And it was very much a shock to my system. It was a massive change of plans. And then it was also terrifying, because that was all of my stability, my income, my work, Ramsey owns my work, it's their work with their company. And so it was just a really terrifying experience. But what's been really cool since then, is I went into a season of rest. And then and then as you described it, I went into a season of, of wilderness, which I really knew that was coming. I felt like I had a sense that that was going to be coming it was going to get hard. We we had some evaluations, my son Conley, and he was diagnosed with autism, and later ADHD, and we're still going through some stuff to figure out what's going on with the other son. And so that was an incredibly difficult year. And at the same time, I thought God knew that was coming. So I got to be the person at the appointments, the person filling out the paperwork, the person that was there, through all of that, versus having to be in an office and trying to, you know, keep my game face on will actually like my mom as hard as hurting. And I'm and I'm scared in a whole different way. And so, but what's been really cool is as we've as I've walked through that and really prioritize my family and rest and so on, God gave me new vision of what I was going to do next and three months to the day, which God told me three months to the day, he said, rest for three months, I'm gonna show you what you do. So three months at a day, he gave me the idea to train people in speaking and I have had the opportunity to speak on some of the biggest stages with some of the biggest names and I've really learned the craft of communicating in front of people by being thrown in the deep end. So I've had this incredible practice because I have been booked to speak at family reunions and colleges and high school cafeterias and big stages and arenas and small stages and like no one's listening and people are like two people show up. And so you really learn to be versatile and and craft messages for all different audiences and learn how to connect with people. It's not like you have one talk and that's your stick, you really learn how to connect with people and make an impact on on any stage on any message to any audience and and so God is using that has been using that experience now to teach other people how to look at the craft of putting together talk and organizing your content and speaking with confidence. And so I've spent the last year really building a business training speakers and so I've got courses on training speakers, I've got coaching that I do, I've got a mastermind to do one on one coaching and just helping people regardless of their industry, whether it's ministry and it's a preacher or this business and they're speaking to a team or it's a brand and influencer under speaking on a podcast or social media, helping people take their content and organize it for the most impact and then and then deliver that with confidence. And so it's been really fun to see how it goes God wastes nothing. And that last influencer bit when I was running around the lobby when you saw me and I was like jacked up way more excited than anybody else there. God was giving me a clue he was giving me a foreshadowing of what was coming, and I just didn't know it at the time. Wow. That is incredible. And I love reflecting being on the other side of that now hearing what was going on? Because, man, how cool is God for all of that? You know, I want to focus on the in between part of all of that, right? Because we hear the stories of like, God brought me out of this. And then he brought me into this, and you hear the book ends. But I want to focus on the moment when you left. And you actually had no idea what you were going to do next. And the first step you had to take like, was the first step for you, I have to start an LLC. How do you have the courage to take the first step into not knowing what you're going to be doing? Yeah, well, you don't want a very practical level, like super practical. In 2021, it was like my best year yet. So I had, I had the compounding effect of a lot of different books and products that had compounded and coaching and speaking and so I was a veteran at this company had been there longer than about anybody in terms of the the personalities. And I love that love the comfort of that. But the practical side of that is because I had a big year in work. And in my career, I had a big year financially, well, because I had a big year financially. And I worked for Dave Ramsey, which is the budget guy, I just saved a ton of money, I saved more money than I probably ever saved my life. And so I didn't know why I was saving it. But God knew I was saving it, because I was able to live on that practically in the year of 2022. And so my husband from an income standpoint, we were able to live on that savings that I had stored away in 21, not knowing what was coming. And so I had some time to rest, I had some time to be present for my son, I had some I didn't feel a rush to start a business I didn't even when God gave me the idea to train speakers. It was months before I launched that actual business. And so it really it really gave me time to like process. I've just walked away from everything, and not jump into the next thing out of panic or out of fear scarcity. I was able to, to rest in process and really discern what was next. And then in August of that year, we were just talking about August and back to school. In August of that year, when my kids got back in school, that's when I really started putting everything together. So I created a horse, and I put out coaching. And so it's kind of like, you know, I think people think people in business have like, a playbook. And it's like someone gives you permission on what to charge and someone tells you exactly what to do. And there's best practices and I've coached people for years. But the reality is, we decide what we want to do. We decide our worth, we decide what our offer is. And so I decided I was like, Okay, I'm going to offer coaching, and I'm gonna charge this much. And it's really expensive, because this is the kind of client I want to work with. And this is what I'm worth, and I want it to be a small amount of people. And I want it to be three months at a time, because I don't know what I'm going to be wanting to do in a year. I had commitment phobe after Ramsey, I was like, No, I just don't box me in three months. But someone else may think I want to do coaching and I want at least a year commitment from people cool. You can shape this however you want to. So I really took time to say what is right for me, I could build this business and help people speak a million different ways. What is right for me, what is the price I want to charge? What are the offers I want to offer? I'll give you a great example, in November of that year, so this would have been November of 22. I've had my business for several months now I had my signature speaking course which is called Stop winging it. I created another course called start getting booked. I did one on one coaching, I decided to start a mastermind. To me the mastermind was this in between the one on one coaching that started at 3000 a month and the you know, Academy level where it was like, you know, $200 for six months, I didn't want to do that anymore. I'm gonna do a mastermind and it's going to be $1,000 a month, it's gonna be small groups. Okay, so I thought through that I was like, what is what is this offer? Who is this for? So in November, I rolled that out, and I decided that's going to be a year and we're going to do monthly zooms. Well, every other mastermind I know of is built around monthly sessions. But they do live events all year. They do like weekend retreats all year, that is the model. So if I was to look around you in the world, Zoe and be like, how do you do a mastermind world? How's everybody doing this? What I would see is quarterly retreats. And I didn't want to do that. So I didn't want to do that I had come out of the event world. I had been on a treadmill for 12 years, and it was a great treadmill. I'm not complaining, but I was exhausted. I was like I need a minute. I want to do zooms from home. That's all I want to do. And so I created a mastermind where it's just zooms from home. We don't do retreats, we don't do quarterly. We don't do all this travel and event and one and done. We didn't do it because I just don't want to. And people have asked me do you want you know, are you going to do events on mine? I do love events. I just needed a break from them. And so I think for me, the fall of 22 was deciding what is right for me and having the confidence to build that and charge that and offer that and not feel like I need to compare myself to what everybody else is doing. because there's a lot of ways to win, and I wanted to win in a way that's right for me and right for the season that I was in and what my family and life goals were, which is flexibility and freedom and not commitment and being at home. And so I built it that way. And I think, I think it's good for people to remember that, that it's your business, you can build it any way you want to. Yeah, I mean, I think that's such a brilliant insight. So you actually said that it's about building up confidence. And I think that's an important piece right there. Because I hear a lot of people listening to this right now being like, well, I want to start courses, but I could never do that, which is where like this whole impostor syndrome portion comes into play. And I guess let's first talk about, have you dealt with imposter syndrome in your life? Yeah, I have, like most people, and I've actually done research on it. Because I've taught on this before I've, I incorporate some content on impostor syndrome, in my fear talks, dating back to 2015. And so the more that I studied it, the more I understood it, and the more it helped me deal with it. So I think part of it is just shining a light on understanding what this is, and how many people it affects. So you don't let it have a hold on you. And what I mean by that is, if you don't understand it, then it can kind of hold you hostage, where you actually believe those thoughts, and you don't act and you don't create the course and you don't do them because you think those thoughts are right. It's, it fears a bad sign. If I was supposed to do it, then I'd be so confident and fearless like everybody else seems to be, and you will be held hostage. And so I love the fact that we're talking about this, because I would love to just help shine a light on it for understanding where you can hear those thoughts go, Oh, I know what that is. Okay, I'm gonna do it anyway. Right? Like, it's like when you understand that it doesn't have to keep you stuck. Yeah. How would you define imposter syndrome? If someone isn't familiar with the term, the most basic way to describe it, I guess, would be the fear of being found out. So it's like you feel like a fraud. And you're scared people are going to find out that you're fraud, meaning everybody else has some something that you don't have everybody else that is winning in this space are doing what you want to do. They either have experience you don't have they have skills you don't have they have knowledge you don't have they have credential certifications, education that you don't have that qualifies them. And because you don't have it, you're unqualified, and everybody's gonna find out, and he's gonna be fine. Everyone's gonna find out that you don't actually know what you're doing. And the reality is, though, is no one in business knows that they're doing they're just making crap up every day. They're just trying stuff and sees you know, they're seeing what works. Now, does that lead to more failures and flops and setbacks? Absolutely. But they're also able to achieve success and wins and huge breakthroughs of impact and come up with cures for diseases and products that solve people's problems, because they're willing to try a bunch of stuff that doesn't work. So they get to the stuff that does. And so I think that first, just understanding that no one doesn't feel like a fraud. Sometimes everyone has self doubt sometimes, unless they're just very unselfish wearing khaki. Most people struggle with this. And so you are not alone. This is normal. Let's start with that. This is so normal. Yeah. No, I love that. And so when it comes to figuring out what are the lies were believing, what is your insight and wisdom for helping someone navigate that? Well, first, let's just let's just go to the science of it. So researchers when they coined this term impostor syndrome in the 70s, they identified that at that time, and I think they still say the the numbers have stayed about the same in terms of the effect on the population. Up to 70% of people suffer from it. But here's what's fascinating. The people that suffer from it the most are high achievers. So someone's sitting on their couch eating Cheetos binge watching Netflix, so they didn't really worried if they're enough, and they deserve a spot at the table. It's the people on the frontlines. It's the people that are moving and shaking and starting businesses, administrators, nonprofits, people making things happen. They're looking over their shoulder going, I don't know, I don't know if I'm allowed to do this is someone gonna like him, I'm gonna get my hand slapped, but gonna get in trouble. Like, we're just waiting for permission and when it never comes, because it never will, by the way, then we just struggle with this self doubt of deserving to be there. And so when we understand that it is a normal phenomenon that 70% of people struggle with usually high achievers and here's what really helped me. Even famous people, super successful people, super wealthy people super. You know, well known people suffer from it. So, Maya Angelou was quoted as saying, I have written 11 books, and each time I think, Oh, they're gonna find out now, I've run a game on everybody and they're gonna find me out. That's my Angelou. Kate Winslet Titanic award winning actress Kate Winslet, beautiful, perfect like can do no wrong. Like she's amazing. She's quoted as saying, Every morning I would wake up and go out, go off to a shoot and I would think to myself, I can't do this. I'm a fraud. Kate Winslet y'all. So what I learned that so and I was like, okay, Maya Angelou, Kate Winslet and me I'm in good company. These are people that feel this way. And they just do it anyway. They write the next book, they go to the next Shoot, they feel that feeling and they do it anyway. They truly like I've said for years, they do it scared. They don't wait until they're not scared to do the thing. They do it while they're scared. And that has become a motto. Because I've realized the fears never gone. Never. Even the word fearless kind of irritates me is like, are we ever fearless? I just feel the fear and just do it anyway. And I think that's really important. It's what sets the people that do things apart from those that don't. Everybody has fear. It's just some people choose to do it anyway. Yeah, I think that's awesome. And so I want to kind of hone in on let's say that you have a friend or family member who definitely is suffering from impostor syndrome. How can we support those people? Yeah. So I think the idea of doing something new or big is really intimidating. And so I love to break things down to really small simple steps. Because those are less intimidating. What happens is when you take small, simple baby steps, as you know, common is this is where people probably think of what happens is you create a momentum. And that momentum makes the second step easier. The third step easier with every step you're taking, you're building confidence, you're, you're combating the fear with action, where the fears torment you, you can't do this, you're like, but I'm doing it. Like I did those three things, I can do the fourth, I can do the fifth. So it's taking the big dream and boiling it down into something very small. So I'll give an example. I feel like that God is calling me into something in the, I don't even wanna say special needs, because it's not just specialties, especially that unseen struggle. So autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, like all of the unseen struggles, whether it's a disorder, or disability or a specialty, he's calling me to that space. And it's been a year of my own processing. My son's diagnosis, I think I probably have ADHD, I'm looking into it, but just it's been a year of processing. And now he's like, and now it's time to go. And we're gonna go create community and shine a light in the space. Well, I don't even know what the dream is yet. Honestly, I think it's a ministry. I think it's community. I think it's resources. I think it's bringing awareness and advocacy. I think there's a lot to it, but I don't totally see it. But here's how I'm gonna do today. Today, I'm going to form a nonprofit, I'm gonna begin to apply for tax exempt status, which that's a small step, let's just be honest, the government websites will make you want to crawl in the fetal position. But I'm going to look search a URL, I'm going to go to godaddy.com and search different names that I could name this to secure URL, I'm going to put something out on Instagram, even though I wasn't ready. And I create a very, very unfancied Google forum for people to sign up if they're interested in following on this journey. I have hundreds of people that have signed that Google form now that when I'm ready to launch this ministry to I have a launch team, that literally all I'm gonna do is import those email addresses into my email software. Because I was just willing to capture them by saying, Hey, I've got no makeup. I'm not ready. And I'm so nervous to tell you all this, but I think I have ADHD, my son has autism. I'm scared out of my mind. And I know God's gonna use me. So anyway, there's my big presentation, would you like to sign up? It's so unimpressive. But it's totally the step of faith in one leads to the next leads to the next next and someone says, Hey, I've got this connection over here, hey, I've got a therapist here, hey, if you need to connect with so and so hey, I've got to write like, and then it's just those baby steps create the momentum. And the thing that I tell people all the time is, the antidote to fear is action. Nothing will silence your fear of doing the thing, like doing the things. So go do the thing. But the thing could be a small thing. So go do a small thing. And with every small thing that you do, you're actually making progress towards the big thing, by the way, but you're also combating fear with action with proof and you're building your confidence. So, you know, 25 steps into this fear can't go, this is never gonna work. You can be like, Look, man, I got hundreds of people want to go. Like, I've got proof. Fear Fear can't whisper to me, before I go on a stage like it used to fear can't whisper you can't do this. They're gonna hate you. Like, dude, I've done this for 13 years. One person may hate me. There's one angry person, every crowd for everybody else. I'm here to serve them. You have that confidence that is built on lived experience. But you have to live that experience to have that proof and that authentic confidence to stand on in the meantime, you're just doing it scared, like we all are, by the way, you're not an imposter. You're not a fraud or a poser. You're doing what all successful people do, which is you're doing it despite your fear, one little unimpressive step at a time. Poof. If y'all caught that, the most important thing she said Is she did it even though it wasn't ready. And I think that's literally the main part of what's holding everybody back and the fact that you did it and and first off, I just want to say that Christie is one of my favorite people to follow online because she's so vulnerable and candid and authentic. And she will just show up no matter what time of day, no matter what she's looking like, and she's literally so legit. And but that's why people love you, because they're like, Oh, finally, there's somebody relatable who looks just like I do right now. And I think that's amazing. because you are actually leading the charge and leading by example of doing it scared. Thank you. So I think that's incredible. You spent the last 12 years prior having a huge team, push everything that you do to then leaving a huge team. And starting from potentially Ground Zero, correct me if I'm wrong. But what did that look like starting over? Well, again, practically, I did everything you could everything. I only in this last March, about six months ago hired a business manager who was my right hand girl at Ramsey for years. So she just like hit the ground running, which is such a good thing. I did everything myself, I outsourced three things. Like with contract employees, I just paid them on a project basis, my web design to Lindsay Beharry. And she is phenomenal. She still does work for me, it's just a little bit less now because it's kind of in maintenance mode. But she built every product, every lead magnet, every workbook, every core, she built all of it. And I just paid her on a contract basis on a project basis. She also did like customer service when someone couldn't log in, like she just did everything with the website. And then I outsourced to Christina, my email marketing for my course launches back in the fall of that first year. And then I also had Nicole Jones, who was my social media girl at Ramsey on a contract basis, do some social posts for me, like just create the design and stuff. But everything else I did myself. So every single piece now here's what's really cool that no one would ever know. So in 2015 2014 2014, I became a Ramzi personality officially in January of that year. And all of the 2014 projects for Ramsey were already determined meaning resources were allocated plans were slated on the calendar, there was nothing for me to do. Literally, there was nothing for me to do except, like get some professional photos to make me an official personality. And so what I did is I you know me, I'm a go getter, I'm not gonna sit on hands, I poured myself into research and researching women with small businesses, because I knew I was gonna go into that space, but we didn't know what we're gonna do yet. So I did 20 hour long phone interviews took crazy notes mapped out an entire path of what women go through when they start a business, the experience that we're talking about here, that became the blueprint for my book business boutique years later, I didn't know at the time, I'm just mapping out what I'm seeing in these phone interviews. Then I create a survey, I create a survey with this guy that helped me set it up. And I put all the questions in 30 questions or something on women and business to understand to really then quantify it on a larger scale from these 20 the theories that I had from the 20 interviews does it apply? We had more people take that survey at Ramsey than had ever taken any survey ever in the history of Ramsey 13,000 People took that survey, which was unheard of we only had like 1000 Gosh, so then I had all this data of here's my market, here's how they think here's how they feel. Here's the words that use here's here's the process that goes except. So then, as I'm building all the things, business boutique, and I'm building this brand, I didn't have a team at first. So in 2015, when we created that event, and then that event became a coaching group, and that became a podcast. And then that became, you know, a website and email capture and the Academy and podcasts all that we didn't have a team at first we built the team. If I'm remembering my dates correctly, we built the team in 2016. The book came out in 2017. So from for for two years, 1415 and part 16. I wrote every single word of every single thing that we built on this brand, which was unheard of for personalities, like personalities, did not write their own emails, they didn't write their own surveys, they didn't write landing page copy. I literally wrote every piece that was practiced. That was practice. So when I'm out here, I literally feel like the example I gave someone was like, I felt like I was on this massive cruise ship. And now I'm like in a little dinghy, like paddling so hard and it's big ocean. But I know what to do because I did it. I did it then. So when I'm out here, I'm like, How do I build a website? I know how to write website copy. I know sections. I know product descriptions, I know emails, I know lead magnets. I know how to do all of it. Because I did it. I didn't have a team do that for me at first. Eventually the team was built and they were doing it for me. But I've always stayed super involved. Partly some control freak. But also because it's like a trust in the audience. I wanted things to sound like me and what they do and I would always edit them. And and now I look back and go oh god wastes nothing. God wastes nothing. I every bit of that practice I got I was never scared. I was scared of a lot. I was never scared of my ability to do the things I had done before. Because again, proof. I had proof I had done it before I did it on rounds but didn't matter. I told my son. This was in August of that year. I told my son he we were going over to a pool and he was super scared to swim, he could swim. He was super scared, scared to swim in the deep end. And I said Carter, if you can swim in this challenge, you can swim in the deep end, you know how to stay on top of the water and the Lord said you do too. And he said Christie if you can swim in the shallow end when you have that safety net of Ramsey under you. You can swim in the deep end because you know how to stay on top of the water and I was like you Yes, sir. I do. That was all whole word right there. Wow. Christy, would you consider yourself a dreamer? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm much more in the creative camp of like I've got big Yeah, like, very creative the details is what's really hard, which is why hiring Christina has been so essential in the last six months. Well, yeah. So that's what I was going to ask is, how do you marry the tension of like having huge dreams with not necessarily knowing what the next step is? How can people like that find a person in their corner to help move the needle forward on said dream in their life? Okay, so I think one of the biggest holds up hold ups for me, is not necessarily execution or follow through details. Those are those are hard like Excel spreadsheets are not fun, Project management's not fun to me. So if you have a business partner, or if you can even buddy up with someone in business that has different strengths, and you where you guys help each other, like I've got, I've got friends that like we help each other in different aspects of business, or even a faith walk, or my husband, I'll refer to him like, hey, I need you to help me with with this thing that he's really good at. But here's what I think is important as a word to the dreamers. Because you can find those people to help you and it's gonna go better if you don't try to do it, because you will drop things because it's just not your strength and your if you're gonna be miserable, because it's not your strength. I did some things I had to do, from August until March when I got Christina. Because I had to do it. And it was miserable. When I got Christina was like, Oh, thank you, Jesus, because she's the detail person. She's got spreadsheets for days, she takes like this podcast, scheduling all the things, she takes care of it. But here's what I think is important for the dreamers to realize, if you've got a big dream, and a big vision, and you're very creative, and you can see it, man, I know what that's like you can see it. But you can see it as clear as if it's real today, you need to be willing to start with the v1 version of that, you need to start with this scrappy, ugly Google Form. Do you need to start with a bunch of sticky notes on a whiteboard, you need to understand that just because that dream doesn't happen overnight. And just because the first thing you put on the dream isn't the most impressive thing. Because you see, it's hard for us that are dreamers because you can see what its gonna be. But nobody else can see it, all they see is sticky notes or Google Drive, you've got to have the confidence to do the sticky notes, and the Google Drive and unimpressive steps and you have to believe enough in your dream and yourself and God's calling your life that even if no one else gets it, you're gonna keep taking those steps. Because a lot of times, we get so excited about the big dream that until we can make it the big perfect thing that's ready. We don't do anything. And my devotional that literally has led people to Jesus, that is a beautiful gift book like it's beautiful. It started with sticky notes. It literally was sticky notes on my wall. That turned into organized sticky notes with different categories and sections and chapters, which turned into a Microsoft Word document also unattractive, which over time turned into a beautiful devotional that people buy on a bookshelf. And so I think we have to be willing to do the unimpressive steps, put them out there and faith believing in even if nobody else does, because it will never become the big beautiful thing if we're not willing to start with the unimpressive things. Well, what if someone's listening to this? And they're like, Well, I wish I could, you know, do all these things. But quite honestly, I don't have any money to start pursuing this dream. Because I think people use not having money as an excuse. What would you say, to sell your knowledge and skills today with no money. You don't need any money to steal your knowledge and skills, you have knowledge that other people don't have, and you have skills that other people don't have. Now, I do want to go ahead and call out that what is easy for you, is easy to underestimate. Because you think it's easy for you. It's easy for someone else, like no one would buy that no one would pay me to organize their closet, no one would pay me to do their social media, no one would pay me to write their blogs, no one would pay me to fill in the blank, whatever it is. And yes, they would. Because what is easy for you as hard for someone else, or what's easy for you, someone doesn't have the time to do. And so your skills are marketable, your skills are valuable. You could start today, you could literally you person listening, you could post right now on your Facebook page to just family and friends and say, Hey, guys, I'm starting a service based business offering XYZ services. Here's the form to fill out. And it could be a Google form. It could be email me here, it could be, you can start so scrappy and simple. But that's what I mean. People want this perfect, beautiful, impressive presentation and you're missing out on being able to start small, start slow and get money in the door by the way, to be able to help more people. And so if you're just willing to humble yourself, and just serve people, which means solve their problems, you got a skill that they need help with or you've got knowledge. I've got business knowledge that's marketable. I can say join this mastermind or join a coaching group or join sign up for my course. And that is marketable. And by the way, I'll give you a great example. I pay $150 a month for a professional zoom membership, and I upgrade it to large meeting During the month that I have a course going, and if I want to be scrappy, which I love being scrappy anyway, because it's fast, you can be agile you can make, you can turn things quickly. But it also gives you an opportunity to do tests. So like before I go spend all this money on recording a course, and having a team edit it and then package it and then sell it with with graphics and music and all that, I just leave it live. So I have a course I don't know when this airs, but I have a course coming up this fall, it starts, it's open September 11, through the 14th. On the 18th, I will go live on Zoom. That's it, I go live on Zoom, I'm going to lead this course live, I'm gonna sell that course for $499 per student because it is work that is on creating content, and I'm gonna have people sign up, and they're gonna join live. That's no upfront cost. For me, it's my computer, which already have my home, which I already have, and a zoom membership. That's 150 bucks. So when people tell me they don't have the money, I don't I don't agree with that. Maybe you don't have the money for your dream business. That's a medical practice where you need lots of medical equipment. That's probably true. That does require money. But but don't tell me you can't start any business because of money. Because you you got people starting businesses right now with literally nothing. Do you get people starting stores that get pre orders for their products? And that money from the pre order funds the purchase of the product? There's some No, no money is not? No, no. Okay, I love this, I want to keep going. So I'm just gonna throw all these excuses at you. Christy, you have an audience, that's easy for you to say, I've posted one time already and nobody wanted what I had. Yeah, that's true. You start with family and friends. Think I'm multilevel marketing companies, they start with people that they know, everybody's got mixed feelings about multilevel marketing companies, which is fine. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying that right now, in your personal email, you have hundreds of contacts, here's what that looks like, you draft an email. Hey, family and friends, I want to tell you a little bit about what I've been learning what I've been sensing a little bit of your heart behind this business idea. So I've decided to start XYZ business, I'm going to be serving XYZ people doing XYZ results are whatever the thing is, if you or someone you know, would benefit from this, would you have them sign up here and it's a sign up on an email list or it's uh, you know, fill out a Google form or sign up or purchase the product or whatever, whatever the call to action is. And that goes out to every contact that you have. It is loving, it is authentic, it is heartfelt, it is not a big sales push. It is literally letting your family and friends know what you're doing, you're going to do the same thing on Facebook, you're going to same same thing on Instagram. And the only followers that you have at this point are just those people but your start with those people. And you're going to build a business with people that you know, and ask them to share it. And then as you get clients in the door, your very first client, your very first customer is the hardest to get. The second is the second hardest. But once you get one or two, you're gonna go, Oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. And then you begin to grow from there. And then word begins to spread. And then you get smarter. And then you start putting content out and you begin to get followers that grows your platform. And then it gets a little bit easier. But you're gonna start with what you have. And don't tell me you have nothing because you do have contacts. You are not an island. You have contacts right now your email list. You have fans, followers, friends, family, aunt, Martha and Nevada, I don't care send a thing, letting them know what you're doing and start with what you have. But what if my family and friends just want everything that I do for free? Oh my gosh, sure they do. You're gonna have a script, you're gonna have an answer for that. And that's something you need to have your whole time in business. By the way, you need to have a script in advance where you direct people to how they pay for it, how they sign up. So people asked me to go to coffee all the time to pick my brain. I do not do brain pickings, I do not have time for all the coffees, I will say hey, I do coaching as a line of business. But if you need help, here are some free resources on my site. I think if it's family, especially if it's close family now if it's like you know, the guy that was your boyfriend and third grade, you can be a little harsher with him. But if it's like literally like a cousin like like my personal boundary with giving things away for free, which I had to really think through when I left Ramsey because it's like people perceive me as this like, multi bazillionaire because my face has been robust. And I've been on The Today Show, and I've left everything and I'm living on my savings account. And so me decide like the expectation of what I can give away for free is probably not based on reality of what it actually can. So I had to really think through that. So I decided I decided when I left for NC there's my personal values everybody can decide for themselves. I decided I will never charge family and friends. Now I'm an I am at a place in my career, my finances where I can do that. I do not know what to say family. I don't mean a cousin I've never met I mean family like my actual people relatives that I know their name, okay that I see them. Family and my close friends, not acquaintances, my friends, I will never charge them. I'm not building my business on them. And so if they want to take my course I'd gladly gift it I gladly comment and that's true for for it's just someone I just feel led to if someone just comes to me and I'm like I just the Holy Spirit says you're gonna bless this person. Yes. Okay. Um, Like everyone else, I charge like a normal person because I have bills to pay like everybody else does. And so you decide who you give things away to free to and who not. But I think with family, you can say, hey, I totally get it, I'm building a business and part of my growth is respecting myself enough to charge and I can't in my good conscious charge one person and then give it away to another person for free. So starting out, I'm going to be charging everyone to maintain the integrity of my business, my value and what I'm building. And you can script it, you can script it to say, however you want to. Thanks so much. I understand if budgets are concerned, I've got free resources for you here. Thanks so much. I don't give away things for free. But you know, you script it. And the most important thing is not what you say, the most important thing is that you script it in advance. And the reason you do that is because it takes the getting put on the spot out of it, where you panic, and you say, Yes, I'll give you my whole life for free. And you didn't really mean to say that, and then you regret it later. And it's hard to do that back. script it so you're prepared, and then you have an answer for them. That's so good. And who can come back to that, like, nobody's gonna clap back, they're gonna be like, okay, she said that boundary, and we need to walk. And it's cool, because here's what's interesting. I've had people try to negotiate, and my mom has always told me this will her cake business, you'll people try to negotiate. And if you hold your boundary, amazingly, they just come up with the money. Amazingly, they're just all of a sudden willing to pay, they just wanted to try, they just wanted to test a little bit and see if they could get it for less or whatever. When you're like, No, this is the cost. I'm like, okay, and they sign up. Like, it's like, it's like, was it that easy to like, I don't know, respect myself and, and hold the boundary. But and the other thing is the people that are mean, hateful, don't sign up, you don't want them as a customer anyway, wish them well and clap them on out of here because you don't want them. So when I looked at these hate emails when I first launched my course, so I left your MC and publicly the announcement was in January, August is when I launched my course, August or September, and are all of my courses you have to keep in mind, though, all my courses at Ramsey, which they set the price, which is fine. We're like 19 at all dollars for a course, the course I rollout is 1499, or I guess it was it was 1299. In that first year, then it went up to a million for $1,499. Not 1489, like 15 bucks, 1400 INR, and I was competent. This price. This is the tier that I'm worth. This is the tier that I am in this is who I want to work with. This is my price. I'd rather work with less people at this price point than a bunch of people at a cheap price point. So it was a pivot, I would get hateful mail. Because my audience I knew I'd lose some people my audience was used to this price, but the desk is these exorbitant prices. And I just thought to myself, I'm not for them. I'm not for them. When you lose people over your price or overcharging, those are people you want to lose. Thank God that you lost them. Thank God that you lost them. That is a powerful statement right there. So let's say that I want to launch something, but I don't actually have a proof of concept in the sense that nobody's ever paid me for it before because I feel like that's an issue because people are like, how much should I price it like people will gawk at it? Because I've done this before for free for somebody, like just in conversations, what would you say for this scenario? You set your price, you set your price. Now here's what I would say. You want to over deliver on the promise. So let's go back to my speaking courses. An example. The speaking industry is a high ticket industry. speakers that are there's a wide range for sure. But you're talking average, for professional speakers, the average keynote budget would be somewhere between like, three and $10,000 for an hour keynote, for professionals, okay, for professionals. This is not like for starting out. And it's not nonprofit church world, it's a different budget for them. In the business world. Three to 10,000 is a perfectly reasonable for professional speaker keynote. So for me to charge$1,500 I'm like, I'm gonna help you rock it onstage, and not embarrass yourself and make the impact and get a standing ovation and grow your email list. You're getting, you know, 10 times ROI, like I don't feel bad about them. You know, if you were to charge $1,500 In an industry, that's a low ticket industry, that's a totally different market, that would not be appropriate. But I've earned the right to charge that in an industry that absolutely that is applicable. So but you set the price, the key is that you want to over deliver. So I know that when my students finished my course and I've gotten this from surveys, they've paid $15 and faith. They finished the course they tell me all the time, one lesson was worth that. So at the end, you just want people that they feel like they got more than that cost them. So whatever that price is if that price is$20 if that price is 200 if that price is 20,000 at the end of it you want people going oh, I would have paid way more than that because I got so much out of it. You went If you want to over deliver on value, what you don't want to do is I charge 1500. And people ended there, like I didn't really get very much. That's what you don't want to happen. Sure, but you set your price. So if you set your price you you survey your, there's a lot of different ways to do it. You know, if you're in a product base, it's different than service based product based, you've got your cost of goods, and then you mark it up from their service base, it's much more a wide range, you've got professional speakers that'll speak for free, all the way up to under $50,000 for an hour keynote. So it's big range. Usually, usually it is based on your experience. And the results that you offer, the your experience the results that you offer, if you're a newbie, but you can deliver really great results, you may have a little hard time just getting started. But if you can convince one person, then that's a testimonial for the second person, but you've got the results, the results are what what they're buying, then that works. But if you've been speaking for your you've, you've built your business, your service, whatever the thing is, and you get the result in the experience, you can charge a good amount of money for whatever you're doing, and you decide now, here's what I want people to think through. And this may sound cold, but I don't care. It's the reality. You need to decide who you want to work with. Because it's partly the value of what you're offering. But it's also who you want to work with. If you have a heart to help people that cannot afford XYZ, then you need to price of those people are able to access it or you fund it through grants or donors or fundraisers, whatever. But if you want to work with a certain high ticket or high tier client that has a high income, high lifestyle, whatever, then you need to price that way. Now here's what happens. People price cheap, and then they are shocked that they get the cheapos are saying these people are just asking for more and more and more. They want to pay less and less and less. They are wearing me out they call me every day. I've got 600 emails, they're so stinking cheap, they leave me bad reviews. You priced for them. You literally price for them, you price yourself as the bargain bin and you wonder why you got people digging through the bin. That's how you price this your bait. That's what you attracted that the fish you caught. If you want a different client that is typically wants to pay more money will leave you the heck alone most of the time. Just more independent, more self sufficient goes through your course at their own pace does not nickel and dime, you doesn't wear you out and take all your time. You need to price for them. Is it scary? Yes. Is it worth it? And will you be glad you did? Yes. So you need to you need to take responsibility for the price bait you're putting out because you are getting exactly what you're attracting. My favorite part is when people say people who want really cheap things go you get what you pay for. And I'm like then why did you pay for something cheap? Like why are you using that as your excuse to just treat people like this? Yeah, no, that's awesome. Christy. I feel like this has been a masterclass on impostor syndrome, but also believing in yourself and doing the dang thing. Yeah, even when you're scared. Yeah. Any final thoughts or things that you want to discuss that we didn't get to? Now, I really love how we just talked about those baby steps. I would say if someone is listening to this, and they're like, I'm not sure what is the first step. Here's what I would say, any step. You're waiting for this mysterious, perfect first step there isn't. The first step is the first step you take any step is a good step, because it's moving you in the direction of where you want to go. The order is less important that you just start and keep taking steps and then that momentum and confidence will continue to push you to stick through it. Brilliant. Where can people connect with you and find out more about everything that you're doing? Yeah, you can go to Christy wright.com. And I've got all types of free resources. I've actually gotten a ebook that may be encouraging to people if they are doing any type of social media or talking in front of people and that is top 10 mistakes all speakers make and how to avoid them. Because nobody wants to embarrass themselves when talking on a reel or in front of a group so they can go to Christy wright.com and get that or I have a podcast called get your hopes up. You can listen to that as well. Yes, the podcast is awesome. And I also downloaded that ebook and it's fabulous as well. All the content you create is incredible your gift to the world. Thank you so much for being on the show, Christy. Thanks for having me.