Intermediate Newbie: The Hidden Gift of the Messy Middle of Biz Growth
SUBSCRIBE HERE:
+ Everywhere else you listen to podcasts
Episode Summary:
The messy middle of business growth often feels like it’s the most challenging—and the least talked about. It’s that awkward in-between phase where you’re taking action but not where you want to be yet. Maybe you're going from a successful career to starting from scratch in your business, and it's taking longer than you'd like, and you're not QUITE a newbie but also not making near the amount of money you want to be making. Maybe you have a successful business but you're at a plateau or have had a setback or are launching something different or new, and now there are more people WATCHING you and it feels like pressure. The messy middle of STRETCHING to a new goal can feel super vulnerable.
Today, I’m breaking down why this stage feels so vulnerable, how childhood experiences might make it even trickier, and what you can do to move through it with more ease. Being a newbie/in growth mode is HARD but it’s also rewarding when you see that LIVING BRAVELY is part of what makes entrepreneurship fun.
Topics:
Navigating the messy middle phase, and why growth feels so uncomfortable before the breakthrough
Shifting from external validation to internal confidence and trusting yourself even when the success isn’t immediate
Why it can feel like a struggle when you’re “new” at something again, and how to embrace it without getting stuck in self-doubt
How to make the messy middle and being a newbie feel lighter
Shifts to support yourself and move through this phase faster
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | Stitcher
-
Anna (00:06):
Welcome to the Heart-Centered Entrepreneur podcast. I want you to be rich. Yes, I want abundant financial success for your business, but I don't just care about your business making money. I care about you too. I want you to be rich and happiness in the impact you make in your relationships, and in how you give back. I'm Anna. I built my six figure business as a side hustle while I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016. Now, I've helped dozens of women do the same. I'm here to help you build a profitable, heart-centered, fully book business with the latest tips on sales and visibility with proven mindset hacks and sneak peeks behind the scenes with what's working right now in the online space and in my business, ready to make more money with heart. Let's go.
Anna (00:49):
I did an Instagram story lately that talked about the only thing worse than being a newbie is being an advanced newbie <laugh>, or being in that like messy middle entrepreneurship season. And I wanna talk about this because I feel like it is so relevant to where so many of my clients are at. Maybe you are still working towards your very first six figures. Maybe you have past six figures that are just feeling out a plateau. And I think in some ways, in entrepreneurship, we are always doing something new, right? Once we really master our message, then we're like, okay, now I gotta get visible with that message. Once we're visible, then we're realizing, okay, now I have people and I need to sell them, right? Once we have people that we're selling to and they're signing with us, then we're like, okay, now I need to serve all these people and create more systems on the backend and really get over my fear of letting things go, and trust team and manage team, and right?
Anna (01:45):
And then you have a bigger team and you're like, okay, now it's time to refine my message and maybe create a new product and get visible again, <laugh>. So in some ways, we're always trying something new, right? Ideally we are risking and trying something new from some sort of place of stability. I'm a big fan of like, yes, you can. You know, for me, I really launched my business when my life was unstable. A lot of us do that because like, we're in a bad situation or bad season, and we're trying to start a business to create stability, right? But ideally, after you start your business, you're going from one stable thing to the, to the next, right? I don't think that you have to put yourself purposefully. Sometimes life chooses to bring us stressful things, but I don't think I, I also think we have just need to make sure that beyond that we're not putting ourself in stressful or survival seasons unnecessarily.
Anna (02:38):
I'll see my clients try to do this sometimes, not in a way of self-sabotaging, but in order to try to like bully themselves into taking action or like, oh, I'm not taking the action on this new thing, so I'm gonna like, you know, put myself into a corner or, you know, cut my parachute line so that I'm forced to fly, basically, which can work for some people that I find for like my most of my heart-centered entrepreneurs, they do best when they give themself permission to grow their business, to start their business from a place of peace, from a place of stability, from a place of abundance. In the greater picture, maybe 10% of the time you're like a little bit stressed or being brave and scare sighted, but ideally, like 80, 90% of the time you're feeling calm, you're feeling stable, and you're taking action from that place.
Anna (03:23):
Okay, so back I wanted to talk about is like when you're a newbie, right? It can be hard, obviously, to be brave and try something new. You're putting your ego on the line and you're like, I don't care who sees me. Like, I really had a big thing when I started my business about like my peers seeing me and like, you know, at the time I was like doing therapy, but I also had like a professor gig at the university. So I was like, what if like my fellow professors see me, or like other therapists, like, here we went to school and studied for hours and practice for hours, and I'm doing this like, fluffy coaching thing, or that's what I perceived it at at this time, right? And so I felt a lot of like my ego, right? Being visible, afraid of what people would say, afraid of, like being judged, like all of that stuff.
Anna (04:10):
And so, yes, when you're a newbie, like you're having to be willing to do this silly, brave, embarrassing thing. But I also feel like what I realized after being in business for a while is like, there's nowhere else I wanna be in life until I die, which is like having that growth edge, right? Like, yes, of course, like leaning into our strengths, but also like there's something thrilling about like being the worst person in the room, right? I think about this as I've learned to dance as an adult, definitely have been the worst person in the room, but there's something really like humbling and beautiful and vulnerable about that, right? Where it's like, you know, look at me like I could be just like all the other adults in the world and just doing the things that come easy for me and really just plateauing and coasting and never growing, right?
Anna (04:56):
Or in order to grow, I have to literally purposefully put myself in discomfort, right? For a prolonged period of time. Usually it takes about like 90 days to see a result on something. And it's just interesting that like, as entrepreneurs, like our job is to put ourself into that place of discomfort, into that place of vulnerability, into that place of growth, right? Okay. So, but I wanna talk a little bit to like the intermediate beginner. And what I say about this is like, there's also a little bit something buffering about being the newbie because you can be like, oh, but I'm new, or, oh, but I didn't know. Or, oh, this is my first Instagram live. Or like, I'm just teasing, right? Like, like there's something kind of nice about that we can kind of play like the, the newbie card. And so when you bus business for a while, right?
Anna (05:42):
And you're either still not getting the results you want, or maybe you had a setback and something happened and you have some debt, or maybe your programs aren't feeling like they used to, or you know, you've had minutes of like wanting to burn your business down, or like, you're like, I don't feel advanced in the sense of like, I'm not making the money that I wanna make and I'm not at the hours I wanna be, um, putting in, in my business. I'm not feeling as free as I want to be. I'm not feeling as happy or aligned, right? Like it can feel really crunchy because we don't have that newbie excuse anymore, but we're still having to do the same risk and ego shedding of being a newbie, right? Of like, okay, in some ways it gets more risky mentally because we're like, now more people are watching, right?
Anna (06:29):
But I just wanna completely normalize that even for my clients that are making multiple six figures a million dollars a year, they are still having to pep talk themselves into this courage, being willing to look silly, being willing to, being willing to make mistakes, right? Because that's how growth happens. Growth happens through, you know, temporary discomfort and doing new things and being willing to say like, no matter how successful I am, I'm willing to always do the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing, not the like miserable thing, or not the, like the, you know, disaligned torturous thing in some ways, but like, the thing that is going to help me grow is so, so, so important. Okay? So I have a few thoughts or reminders if you are an intermediate or advanced entrepreneur, but you're finding yourself in like a newbie state. Again, whether you're like launching a new income stream or again, like maybe things got stuck in your heaven to rebuild or something, right?
Anna (07:30):
Or if you're a newbie and you're like, yeah, I've been a newbie for like five years in business <laugh>, I'm just laughing because like, right? Like you're, you're not a newbie anymore, but sometimes it can feel hard to like shed that identity. I have some reminders for you, okay? Number one, that reminder that part of entrepreneurship is always learning. And you either have to learn to like it or you should probably stop picking entrepreneurship because you're just gonna be miserable, right? We have to love the, the play, the game, the challenge, the, like, the fact that it is up and down, the fact that it is risky, right? Makes it more rewarding and the end financially, but it is going to be more of a play. It is gonna be an experiment. It is gonna be like, oh, I tried that and it didn't work. I tried that and it did work.
Anna (08:17):
That is business. And if that isn't a fit for you, then get a day job. And I'm not saying that in a mean way, but like, don't make yourself miserable. And so my suggestion would be to learn to love it. Learn to enjoy that, and especially as a child, if it wasn't normalized for you to make mistakes. And I said on Instagram, you know, this morning where I was at my son's basketball game, and I mean, this is a whole story for another day, but maybe I should tell part of it <laugh>, but basically one of the, he, they're on a tournament and they played like eight different schools and one of the schools, the coach is just so aggressive and just like, not just like correcting the kids, but just like yelling at them again and again and like really berating them and like, not really giving them constructive feedback, but just making them feel super bad about themselves.
Anna (09:03):
And you know, it's just a bad situation, right? But it's just interesting, like if you were in that sort of environment growing up, even if it wasn't that egregious, but where you had to be perfect in order to get really accepted or approved of, or like things were like failure <laugh>. And when nothing less than perfect was accepted, it makes sense that it can feel like failure is a bad thing, right? Versus we know that like in entrepreneurship, like failure is normal. Failure gives us lessons. Like just because you micro fail, you're like, let's say you have five launches a year, and let's say one of the launches doesn't perform great, right? Doesn't mean you're still not gonna crush it financially that year, right? The micro, like let's say someone says no to you on a sales call, it doesn't mean you're gonna have a bad month, right?
Anna (09:45):
I think if you were in a situation where you had to have this perfect track record, entrepreneurship can be really hard because literally no one who's making a million dollars a year in their business is having a perfect year. They're having these micro mini losses of this worked and that didn't work. And right. So really learning to like that, like the game, like the lessons, like appreciate that. Oh my gosh, like I messed up, okay, now I know like, oh, that was a lesson, right? Like, let's try to prevent doing that again because that was an expensive lesson. And like, I'm not saying you can't be sad about it, but just like knowing that that's normal. Okay? The next one is just remembering that like life and business isn't linear. I see this a lot with my clients that are more advanced, that I've been in business for a while, and then something that'll happen that'll like set them back.
Anna (10:30):
Maybe it's like a personal life situation, like a really bad health thing or a thing with a relationship or financially something happens or maybe just in business, their industry really changes or something happens with team, or there's a, they have a a bad financial month or whatever that looks like, right? Like just remembering that life isn't linear. And I think sometimes when people feel like there's a setback in their life or business, they're like, oh, that's it, right? Like this whole year is gonna suck. Instead of like, oh, it was a bad month. It doesn't need even mean it has to be a bad quarter, right? Or, wow, this was a really hard year because I had this health thing, but like part of life isn't linear. So if I have this, it's almost like the stock market, right? If you have a little bit of a down, it's not the time to like pull out of the stock market.
Anna (11:15):
It's time to like hang tight. And so much of us in business are having a little wobble in life or business and we're like, I'm gonna burn it down and pull all my money outta the stock market. And then you just went broke, right? Instead of like, okay, my things went down a little bit, but I'm gonna hang tight. Oh my god, things doubled the next month, right? And often we'll have a contraction before an expansion. And so it's just remembering, yes, in a day job you're getting the same paycheck every month, right? And part of that feels really good. Part of that's bad because you basically make that same amount till you die <laugh>, right? In business, it's not linear month over month, right? Ideally our business is growing annually every single year. But even within that, you know, I've had some, some years where I've like kind of made the same of similar to what I made the year before and then I doubled it, right?
Anna (12:02):
And so I just think it's like not making yourself wrong, that life and business isn't linear. And again, we go into seasons of being a newbie or needing to learn or needing to revamp how we do our marketing or things like that. The next is avoiding comparison, comparing yourself to others, but also comparing yourself to you and other seasons of your life, right? As we grow and as our life changes, we are a different person. You know who you are in, who you were in your twenties versus who you are in your fifties is just a different woman with a different life. And I think so often we can be like, oh, I wish things were the way, you know, live in the past or live in the future. Instead of like, this is that deck of cards I've been thrown today and I'm gonna make the best of it.
Anna (12:50):
Um, next I wanna say really make sure you're looking at your data. I cannot tell you how many times I literally last month had two different clients basically come to me like freaking out, really? Because they were in an era of like learning a new skill, right? One of them was really remastering sales, one of them was really remastering team and figuring out team components. And both of them came to me like, oh my gosh, the sky is falling. Like everything is going wrong. And then when we actually looked at the data, they both had like better months financially than they ever had before, like record breaking months. And you're like, how could someone be literally making more money than ever and yet feel differently, feel like things are in upheaval? And that is because often when we're making a lot of money, we're doing hard stuff, we're doing edgy growthy stuff.
Anna (13:39):
And so just making sure you are in tune with your data and you are looking at like, okay, how much money am I making? Am I setting up myself up for success? We'll talk about this in a second, but having a savings account so that if there are micro ups and downs, it's not crushing me, right? But really looking at the data of like, what's the truth of how my business is doing? Right? Like, okay, maybe I made a little bit less this month, but in my brain, oh my God, this happened to me a few months ago where I had a bit a month that was like, you know, kind of a little bit level it, it was hoping for it to be a higher month and it wasn't. It was kind of like, just like a level month. And because I'm a single mama and I think like nine steps ahead, I was already almost thinking to like nine months down the road and I'm like, okay, if this launch didn't go as great as I wanted to, then what's that gonna mean for the next one and blah, blah blah.
Anna (14:27):
And then I came back to my numbers and I was like, actually, I'm doing fine. Like, I'm not doing as great as I want to. I didn't like double my income, but I'm making the amount I was making before, which is fine, it's just we always raise the bar on our goal, right? So sometimes when we don't meet our big goal, we're like, oh my God, I'm behind. And often it's like, no, I'm just at the same place, which is the place I once dreamed of being. And so, you know, again, making sure you're looking at your present situation, right? So I sat down, I looked at my numbers, I also, I had this little, um, tracker called my like net worth tracker that I have written down on a spreadsheet. Like now that, you know, I have a house and I have a car and I have like a lot more like purchase assets, you know, I have my high yield savings account for my personal and my business.
Anna (15:15):
And it's so nice on a spreadsheet to see I have these resources, I have these assets. Like everything is is fine because often I feel like what triggers our instability isn't often actually something in the business. It can be something in our life or something uncertain, right? So just making sure you're actually looking at the data of the truth of like, maybe I need another client or two, but it's not maybe what you're feeling, which is like, oh my god, I'm doomed. Okay, next one is kind of an interesting controversial one, but it's just remembering that you're not trapped, that you have the ability to choose. I think sometimes when things feel challenging in business we feel like, ugh, I have to do this, right? Like, and that's never a good place to do anything from, especially as an entrepreneur. Like, you did this because you want freedom <laugh>.
Anna (16:02):
And so anything that feels like you have to do something, like we're gonna rebel against it even if it's good for us. So something I love to do with my clients is just always telling them like, oh, you don't have to do that, right? Like, do you want to do that? Is that your choice? Right? This reminds me of like, a lot of people are like, oh, I don't wanna do, you know, oh, I have to do Instagram. I'm like, no, you don't. You can market in person, you can go on LinkedIn, you can do, like, you probably will pick Instagram because right now in our current era, it's like the easiest way to do things, but you don't have to, right? Like you get to choose that. Like you are not trapped, right? Like you can go get a day job, you can, I have several clients that have a done for you revenue stream and a coaching revenue stream.
Anna (16:44):
Like you can tap into a different revenue stream. You can decide to launch a different course. If you, the one that you're currently launching, you're not passionate about, right? If your clients aren't aligned, you can release them and sign new clients. Like we make so many ideas like, eh, man, like I'm trapped. Like I have to do this way in marketing. I have to serve these clients because like, I need the money or I need this, or blah blah. No, you don't, like, you're not trapped. You can change it and either change it or choose it. Okay? <laugh>. Otherwise, I just think it's like this weird thing where we start getting like resentful and bitter and nothing's performing anyways. Just reminding yourself like you're not trapped, right? If you wanna get a day job, great. There's nothing wrong about that. There's nothing morally better about entrepreneurship than a day job.
Anna (17:28):
There's nothing morally better that for coaching than done for you work. And I feel like our world does this weird hierarchy. I personally believe that women deserve to own a business because it is for, in my opinion, the most limitless way to make income on your terms with your morals, with your schedule, right? Like there's nothing like it. There's no job that you're gonna find that gives you the flexibility that a business does. That being said, you don't have to do that. It's your choice. You may decide for seasons that you want to change up your business. I've had several clients sell businesses, right? And they would never have done that if they didn't give themself permission of remembering that they're not trapped in any one business or revenue stream. Like you are an entrepreneur, you're a heart-centered entrepreneur, you are an unlimited money making machine, and you can make money any aligned way that serves you.
Anna (18:21):
And that may mean, um, iterating your business. I know I've had my business almost 10 years now, and so while I still love my business and I hope I still get to do heart-centered entrepreneur coaching till I'm 80, I have made shifts, I have changed my marketing, I have changed different things behind the scenes in my business. I have changed team members, right? Um, and so it's just always reminding yourself, I this, I get to choose this. I'm not trapped. Okay? Next one is building that stability. I talked about this a little bit before, but especially when you're doing things that are risky and unstable, like launching new products, putting yourself out there, spending more on Facebook ads, right? Hiring a new team member and investing in that. And we know a lot of investments, they don't make us money or save us time at first, right?
Anna (19:08):
You're hiring a team member in order to save you time, but initially you have to train them and create the SOPs and they're like costing you time, right? <laugh> at a time when you need more time, right? And it's reminding yourself that like when you are taking these calculated risk and investments is doing it, like, like I said, from a place of stability. For me, stability looks like having a business savings fund, a freedom fund, and a personal savings account, right? For me it means really having around the same amount of money that I pay myself every month so that there's that stability there. For me, it means investing heavily and maxing out my retirement account so that I know that like, you know, I do like, like I said, I do wanna coach till I'm 80, but in case I only wanna coach till I'm 50, like I can live off my retirement.
Anna (19:56):
Like I'm building a massive retirement, right? Like I invested in my house. And so like, yes, to making money in your business, but also beyond that, making sure that you are investing in other ways, whether that is real estate or the stock market or whatever it is, right? For you. And then finally, I just wanna say reminding yourself, I just told a client this this week that was feeling a little bit shaky about something and she's created a ton of success in her business, a ton of financial abundance. But it's so interesting because we think that, you know, once we get to a certain place financially, we'll never have a financial fear. But I find that for my clients that are making the most money, I often have to do the most money mindset work with them because sometimes it's the fear of like, yeah, I did all this, but what if it's a fluke, right?
Anna (20:40):
Like that imposter syndrome can still be there sometimes, right? And so my favorite thing to say to anyone is just reminding yourself that you can build from zero, right? Whether you're at zero right now or in debt or you're not, maybe you'll have a ton of money, but you have this feeling of like, oh my God, what if I can't sustain it? What if my business falls apart? What if something happens and I lose all my money? Right? Like, you can build it again. There's nothing bad about being the newbie. There's nothing bad about starting from zero, right? If for some reason, like you were at zero, you were $500,000 in debt, I have no doubt in my mind that you could crawl yourself back out in two years. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a pain in the a, it would, I'm not saying it would be fun, it probably wouldn't.
Anna (21:26):
I'm not saying it would be convenient. I'm not saying it wouldn't be work, but what I'm saying is you could do it. It's not that big of a deal. And when we have, this is one of my favorite things about my course getting coach is I think what's even more powerful than signing your first client, right? I think it's more powerful than making six figures on a three day work week, is knowing that you know how to do it and you can replicate it, right? Knowing that at any time I need to, I can make more money, I can create stability for myself. Lately, I've been, um, just for fun in just little Instagram channel doing like, um, daily money mindsets for March. I don't know if I'm gonna keep doing it, but I just like felt like it <laugh> didn't tell my team about it.
Anna (22:08):
Lauren, if you're listening to this, ignore this <laugh>. I try not to, I try not to start new projects, but you know what? I'm an Enneagram seven ENFP, so let me do what I'm gonna do, okay? But, uh, the affirmation that I put recently was I have the innate ability to create massive financial stability and abundance. Anytime I need it, it's within me. I can restart from zero or a hundred K in debt at any time and pull myself up, create wealth, abundance, stability. Life may go up and down, but I'll never lose my intuition, my resilience, my spunk, my spark, my true family, my friends, everything I need is within me. I'm calling in more abundance and financial resources with my own power knowing that the universe is working in my favor. She's supporting me too, right? So this message is just as pertinent to someone who is actually in a hundred K debt and someone that literally has $400,000 in the bank, right?
Anna (23:01):
I've had this conversation with both clients in the last month who have been in those scenarios. The conversation is the same. The conversation is self-trust, right? The conversation is that I can, I can build it, I can do it. It's less, less about like, yes, we need to create stability for ourself, but it's just also believing that we can always recreate that we have that magic, we have that intuition, we have that self-trust. We have the ability to make money, right? We have the ability to serve people. I remember at the start of my business, I told my coach like, okay, I don't, I was kind of considering some different business models. Some like I was thinking about doing more like done for you work. Um, because I had done like a lot of receptionist admin stuff in the past. I was obviously playing with coaching.
Anna (23:45):
Um, but I remember telling her like, I wanna make $76,000 a year from home. I don't know quite what it's gonna look like. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I know I'm gonna do it. I know I'm gonna be successful. I know I'm gonna figure it out. And I think that's what helped me be so successful because on the little way of micro failures, I didn't tell myself like, ugh, see there's a sign that I'm not gonna make it. I'm like, okay, well that didn't work. What else can I do to make $76,000? Right? And I think if we can have that like peace and determination and that self trust, it can go so far in seasons of advanced newbie ship, right? Or things where it's like, ugh, I'm not a newbie, but I'm definitely not where I wanna be, right? I'm like a beginner intermediate or I'm an advanced intermediate, or I'm a beginning advanced, right?
Anna (24:31):
And here's the thing, spoiler alert, in business, we're kind of always learning. We're always that newbie. We're always that intermediate newbie. We're always in the messy middle of growth. Um, and so I just wanna say you're in good company, heart-centered entrepreneur and just sending you a big hug, a fun resource too. I have a private podcast feed called Six Pillars for Six Figure Success with Soft <laugh>. So many ss Anna with soft heart-centered energy. And so I'm gonna link that you love it. It's kind of a little love note from me to you with like these same vibe of like messy middle entrepreneurship, really nailing six figures on a three day work week and kind of like the fundamental tenets I feel like are so key to that. So please make sure you check that out. Um, and just grateful for you. Please remember that I offer, um, 10 minute free strategy calls.
Anna (25:22):
These are not sales calls. These are actually coaching sessions where for 10 minutes I can give you massive breakthrough on one thing that's holding you back. Maybe that newbie feeling thing, right? Whether it's visibility and really getting more seed and growing your audience, whether it is, um, growing your team. Maybe you're already past six figures and you're really looking to scale. I love helping heart-centered entrepreneurs really sign their first clients go all the way to a million dollars. Like that is my favorite thing, is being with you on your journey for the long run. I'm kind of like a long haul coach <laugh> in that I really feel like deep business transformation happens in long-term support. And so that's why I love to offer that journey. Okay? Have a beautiful rest of your day and thank you as always for joining me. I cannot believe that we have produced this many episodes of the podcast and you're still here listening to me while you're walking your dog or doing the laundry. There's so many podcasts that you can listen to, so it means so much that you are listening. Thank you for all your positive reviews. I read every single one. Literally every single one makes my little heart sparkle. So thank you and have a beautiful rest of your day.
Anna (26:27):
Thanks for hanging out today. Please hit that subscribe button so you can make sure to stay updated anytime a new episode drops. And I would love for you to join me in my free Facebook community. It's called The Heart-Centered Entrepreneur. We discuss the podcast episodes. I regularly go live and do free trainings, and you may even meet your newest biz bestie, so you can join at https://heartcenteredcommunity.com/. It's absolutely free, and I cannot wait to see you in there.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.