Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the show. Leah here, excited to come to you with another episode that is really fresh, um, from my recent mastermind retreat and excited to kind of give you these insights from this. So if you have been following along with me on Instagram, then, you know, I recently hosted at my elite yearlong mastermind clients here in Manhattan for the final of our three retreats of the year. It was, uh, it was, I have no words for how incredible it was for so many reasons. It was so wonderful to be able to host them in New York. It’s no secret how I feel about New York city. It was amazing to watch where they are now versus where they were on during our first retreat at the beginning of the year in January, uh, which I can talk a little bit more about. It’s always amazing to see them all together.

And it’s really amazing to see the magic that we create. I swear these retreats probably pay for the price of the mastermind themselves because people are always just, you know, getting lots of sales, outreaches and making sales and getting new ideas. And there’s just kind of like a magic energy and it bottled up. And so, um, I’m still on a high from it. I am recording this episode pretty recently after it, just because I want everything to be fresh on my mind for you though. 

You will hear this in October, happy October. Oh, what a wonderful month. I know that it is no secret that I, I think it’s, isn’t it pretty universally agreed that October is the best month. DME of October is also your favorite month. It is one of my favorites because it is the best time of year in New York. I also got married in October and it just feels so good to be in the fall after a year in Miami.

But anyway, I digress. The point is I wanted to give you guys a behind the scenes, look at some of the smartest things I’m seeing from my masterminders right now, and hopefully help you by sharing these takeaways and these tips for whatever you are working on in your business. So my masterminders are all very successful. Um, you know, none of them are new entrepreneurs. At this point. They all have worked with several clients. Um, some of them have worked with over 50 clients at this point, which is crazy. Um, many of them are making multiple five figure months every single month. 

So they are people you want to learn from, you know, they really have great insights, especially because many of them a year ago were not in this position. Um, I’m just thinking of some of their examples. One of them a year ago, hadn’t even started her business at all. She actually joined scalar side hustle in September of last year, and she wanted to start a wedding planning business in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of a pandemic. And we went through scale, your side hustle. She really worked hard during the program and she just kept the faith that she could do this even though on paper and for all logical reasons, it didn’t make sense to start a wedding planning business in a pandemic when we weren’t even having weddings. 

She did it and she now, I think she worked three weddings this month alone. She has multiple clients. She’s made tens of thousands of dollars. She’s starting to hire out a team. I mean, her business really took off in just a year. Another one of my clients this time last year was making like two, $3,000 a month. And she in honor of her 29th birthday, this September made $29,000. So the success stories go on and on, and it’s because of what they’ve been able to do in a relatively short amount of time that I wanted to share some of the best insights I got from them and really think have pulled out why they are so successful, uh, so that you can kind of ignite that same transformation or that same momentum told toward your next goal.

And as always, if you are interested in joining our mastermind, we have a six month version and a 12 month version, both our application required and both will and are filling up. So if you’re interested, I encourage you to get on the waitlist that way. You’ll just find out more about the program. There is no strings attached to getting on the waitlist. It’s just how we can kind of reach you and give you first notification about the opportunity and the application before we open it up to the rest of our audience. Um, so there’s really no reason not to join. It’s a great opportunity to get your, um, to kind of raise your hand without having to commit to anything. So you can do that by going to my website, Leah jervais.com go to coaching and you will see the waitlist mastermind. It’s the same waitlist for both the six and 12 month.

And then depending on, um, kind of your application, we would see which one would be best for you. So you can, uh, you can get on the wait list for either one. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and dive into some of the biggest takeaways that I got from my own masterminders this retreat and the things that I think they’ve really done right after having the privilege to watch them over the past, what will now be nine months, but will be the entire year. 

So the first thing that all of these masterminders have done very well with, and that really stands out to me in comparison to other entrepreneurs who experience sort of more of a rollercoaster with entrepreneurship is that these masterminders really honor their commitments. So I am able to kind of share with you how far they’ve come in a year and their wins and their highlights.

And those are very real and they’re very celebratory, but because I worked with them for the course of the year, we, you know, I can, I know firsthand, and they would agree that not every day is a win. Not every month is a record breaking month. Not every sale goes through. There are hard days. There are busy chapters. There are times when life throws wrenches in your plans, whether that’s personal things that come up or something that doesn’t go your way and unexpected expense, something hurtful that happens to you in business. 

I’ve seen these types of things happen to all of them, and they happen to all of us. They happen to me all the time. They are part of life. The difference between the people who find that type of success and the type of transformation that my masterminders have is not that they are less susceptible to these challenges, it’s that they continue on and stick with the commitments they’ve made to themselves, to their business and to each other at this point, because they’re so close, even when those things happen.

And I can’t stress this enough, because if you take challenges that life throws you or unexpected events or unexpected expenses or costs or, uh, situations, and let them derail you, you are letting that unwanted uncalled for unnecessary event dictate your life even more than it already is. And you are sort of putting out into the universe and leading with something that you probably don’t want to receive back, which is not following through with things.

So I’ve really seen this group of women persevere through those hard days, through those hard chapters, through the doubts of others, through the unexpected challenges, the unexpected expenses, the nos, the rejection, the business confusion. They’ve continued to honor the commitment they’ve made to themselves, to their clients, to their business, to others. Um, you know, the, the commitments they made at the beginning of this year, that they were really going to up-level, whatever reason they joined the mastermind and that has paid off for them.

And not only has it paid off for them thus far as in, within the last nine months, but it’s built that muscle where they simply won’t give up. And that’s what makes entrepreneurship go round is having perseverance and having the decision made that you won’t throw in the towel when life gets in the way, because life will get in the way for everyone. And so I’m just so in awe of these women and they inspire me, they remind me at this point that no matter what happens, including getting pregnant or unexpected personal things that come up, or sometimes really stressful situations that, that taking those as, as signs that you shouldn’t continue with, the commitments you’ve made to yourself and others is not an option. So I really want to be transparent with you about that, because I think that with my mastermind, I talk a lot about their wins.

I talk a lot about how far they’ve come and those are all true. And they’re also exciting. And I love celebrating with them all, but it’s because they continued to honor their commitments. When those things weren’t always so evident. And so don’t allow yourself to throw in the towel when things get scary, when things get hard, when life gets in the way, when expenses come up, because you have way too many things to do in this world, you avoid too big of a mission and you have way too much, you know, that you want to continue receiving to kind of cut off the supply, so to speak. So that is the biggest thing that I really can say about these women and what is so cool about working with them for a whole year is I see that, I see firsthand where they were at in January.

I see clearly what they’ve gone through since then. And I’ve seen how that has paid off for them, how it’s made them great entrepreneurs and how it will continue to serve them because they no longer worry about this, not working out. It is just not an option. And they’ve all proven to themselves at this point that no matter what happens in life, there’s no turning back. Okay. The second takeaway from this retreat specifically, that I think is powerful and all entrepreneurs need to hear is the importance of diversifying your strategies. 

So one of the things, I’m not sure how this has become such a predominant theme in online entrepreneurship, but one of the things I’ve seen so much lately is this just complete misuse and misunderstanding of Instagram. I feel like a lot of online entrepreneurs put so much pressure on Instagram and put so much time and effort into Instagram puts so get so frustrated when they don’t get the kind of results that they want from Instagram.

And they end up just feeling like they are in this extremely unaligned place, where they’re giving, giving, giving their time, their energy, their resources, their creativity, to an app on their phone, and then not getting that back in terms of making sales more followers, more likes, more comments, whatever it is that they’re kind of looking for on this app. And so right now it’s Instagram. I think that this will happen with other platforms. 

Maybe it’s already happened with other platforms like you in the past, but the point is, don’t get too attached to a single strategy. Don’t get too attached to a single platform because then your business is on Instagram, your business isn’t yours. And my guess is that you are starting a business, or you want to start a business, or you quit your job because you want that flexibility. You want that autonomy, and you want that, you know, freedom to do things your way.

And if you are completely at the mercy of this app on your phone, then guess who’s your boss, Mark Zuckerberg who owns Instagram. And you’re at the mercy of how he does the algorithm. How many people, you know, he kind of, the algorithm allows to view your story. Um, the kind of reach that you have, whether or not you get shadow banned. I mean, all these things that just aren’t worth your time and energy to figure out one of the things I told one of my masterminders cause she said, I just feel like I don’t get as views on my reels or on my stories as I used to. And I don’t know why. And I said, you shouldn’t even know how many you’re getting and I’m not like not a numbers person. I liked numbers. I liked data. I’m not someone that like berries my head in the sand because I just hate, um, data.

I like it. I am not completely oblivious to it, but with something like that, where it is. So out of your control and out of your understanding why you’re getting a certain amount of views, why people like one thing and not the other, are you really going to spend your time and energy dissecting? Well, is it the time of day? Is it the tea? Is it the day of the week that I posted this? Is it the audience? Is it the message? Um, why isn’t this getting more views, more cons? Why didn’t no one comment who cares that cannot be the dictator of your success. 

So does this mean that I’m encouraging you to get off Instagram altogether? Not in, not if you like it, and if you find joy from it, but if you are relying on it heavily, especially to give you a lead generation and to have people find you on it, then I would highly recommend that you really examine it and really make sure that you are not overly relying on it to, um, you know, run your business for you and generate leads for you and have people find you from it and comment and DM and all the things that you kind of want to, uh, there should not be any single platform that you’re relying on to do all those things.

So it’s just worth examining kind of your strategies and making sure that you’re not overly relying on any certain thing. And it’s really important that you’re not feeling like you’re putting a ton of time and energy into something that you’re not equally getting back. And I think my masterminders are doing a great job of this because they have really they’ve found clients from places that they never would have even imagined random emails from people, friends, and family that I’ve referred them. People that they’ve met, you know, walking down the street, um, uh, friends of friends, um, people on Instagram, people on their email is people on Facebook. There’s so many different ways that you can find leads and what my masterminders are doing right. And why their businesses are scaling so much is because they’re not obsessed with or limiting themselves to, um, you know, a single platform, especially a toxic platform like Instagram, that leads to comparison that leads to, um, like the urge of control, you know, wanting to, to crack the code, all these things that we’re just really not going to be able to do, and really aren’t worth our time.

So be very careful that your whole strategy isn’t on a single platform, make sure that you’re not putting too much energy into one thing and definitely make sure that you aren’t giving more than you’re receiving and that you’re not falling into comparison mode. So that is super, super important. Okay. The third takeaway is that my masterminders have gotten very intimate with their own limits. I mean, this is a big part of the coaching that we do together in our mastermind, but they do not shy away from where they are blocking themselves. 

They get curious about it. They’re interested in it. They are, um, intimately aware of it. And they allow me to coach them through when things, when they are being blocked and when they are not kind of seeing their own limits. So I have to give them huge applause for this, because I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone, any group of people, um, just be so like aware of their own limits as, as I was with this mastermind during this retreat specifically, and that has become why they’ve all been able to propel past their limits so quickly.

So what can this look like for you? Well, this looks like getting clear. We, that we went through this whole workshop at the retreat that I’m not going to be able to explain it in a single episode, but we went through this workshop where essentially we establish their statements of philosophical truths. And we all have one whether or not we’ve actually taken time to look at it such as your identification with the belief in the universe or your belief in God, your belief in your own purpose, your belief in your own power as a human. 

Again, I have a whole exercise that I walk them through to get clear on that, but whatever the case may be, you can start with whatever your belief is for why we are here and why we are worthy of the things that we want. Um, and then look at why you believe you might not be able to do that, or why you might not be able to have that.

And this is a very oversimplified version of the entire workshop that we did. And I hope that you start to see some conflicts, some tensions, some things that don’t match up. Well, if I believe that I’m worthy of this, or if I believe that I should have this, and I also believe I can’t have it because that’s a limiting belief that right, there is something that is stopping you. 

And I feel like they have, especially in the past year, from the beginning, like compared to now, they’re able to spot their own limiting beliefs pretty much right away, um, right as they come out of their mouths or right as they set the goal or right, as they don’t think they can do something. Whereas in the beginning it was something that really took like reprogramming to go from something that was perceived as fact and something that really dictated what they were doing.

Um, you know, to actually being able to see it differently, to actually being able to believe at differently, to actually being able to act differently. It was very much a process. And now they are. So in tune with this, they are so connected to it that they can identify this really quickly and move past it really quickly, which is why they move so quickly and why they get results so quickly. And that’s what coaching is for. 

So if this feels like something that’s a bit foreign to you and that you haven’t really mastered the art of coaching yourself through, um, or even if you feel like you’ve gotten good at identifying it, if you still feel like it would be quicker for someone to kind of help you see what you can’t see, then the mastermind could be a really good fit for you because that’s, you know, probably the main thing that I do with them, but I give all the credit, I give all the credit to them for how much faster they’re able to them now and realize that whatever is stopping them.

Isn’t actually a hard stop metaphorically, but is something that can be moved in is something that is just a perception that can be changed. Okay. The fourth thing that these excuse me, ladies are doing really well is thinking from the perspective of their legacy. So this is something, again that I’ve seen really change in them over the past nine months, which is how they are much more frequently making decisions from a sort of wider view perspective and an overall perspective of what they want and what they want their legacy and their life to look like. 

So they’re much better about not getting stuck in the day to day rules, regulations, other people’s values, et cetera. Then I think a lot of us are by default. I think, you know, when I started my business, I didn’t realize how many times per day or per week or whatever I was making decisions from what I thought I should do, what other people thought I should do, what I thought was responsible and what essentially were other people’s values.

And it really does take some work to think why aren’t my decisions and my daily and my daily decisions and the way that I live my day, you know, really everything that I do as I move about the world based on what I think is going to be best for my life and fulfill my purpose and make me proud when I look back at my life one day and really be something I want to be known for. It’s not necessarily natural to make decisions that way, but if you’re not, if you’re making decisions based on what you think is best for you that day, or what you think you should be doing, or just sort of living on autopilot, you’re probably not pursuing the biggest, most epic version of your life. One of the examples we used of this is we, I mentioned a video that I saw from Elton John.

Who’s one of my, you know, everyone loves own John, how can you not? And I love watching live versions of videos, um, or live versions of songs. So I’m always listening to music on YouTube rather than like iTunes, because I liked the live versions of things. So this particular video was a live version of his famous song, your song, everyone, how can you not love that song? It’s gotta be one of the most beautiful songs ever written. And at the beginning of the video, before the song starts, he explains the songwriting process of that song. And he gives all the credit to his songwriting partner, Bernie, um, and just as he’s about to play it, he really just says that if it weren’t for this song, he would have not had the career he’s had the life he’s had. And he would not be sitting there today, playing it, uh, in front of these people in front of this audience, if it weren’t for this song.

And I think that this is such a good lens to kind of approach your own work and your own creativity with, because I think we all put so much pressure on the quality of our content and the quantity of our content and perfecting our messaging and perfecting our strategies. And it can just all get very messy weblike and almost never ending. And when you zoom out and think, okay, look at someone like Elton John, who’s probably written over 100 songs, probably far more, probably over two, 300 songs yet the majority of the world knows him for five, right?

Maybe 10, if you’re a true Elton John fan, you’ll you’ll know a lot more, but the much grander percentage of the world knows him for his, his head’s tiny dancer, your song, crocodile rock, et cetera. So the lesson here is to remember, where are you deciding and making actions and taking actions based on your legacy, based on how you’ll be able to look back one day and think, wow, I would not have had the career that I’ve had the life that I’ve had.

I would not be standing here in this position right now, had it not been for doing that. You know, that’s a much different way of looking at the world then just kind of trying to, for lack of a better phrase, survive day to day. And that is really different between my masterminders and, and newer entrepreneurs that I often work with. Um, you know, especially those that are starting out, something like scale your side hustle, and I’m not trying to be judgemental of those people. 

I was that person. And so were my masterminders, but at the beginning of your entrepreneurship journey, especially when you’re scared and especially when it’s new, a lot of the times you’re making the decisions based on what you think is the right thing for you to do right then, or what is responsible, what makes sense, what’s logical, what doesn’t feel risky, what your parents would want you to do, what your partner would want you to do.

And when you start really zooming out and making decisions from what do I want my life to look like? What is contributing to the masterpiece? That is my life right now. That’s when you go from the difference of maybe I’ll start my business when I have enough money, one day, if I can, if it’s safe, right? That’s the very, day-to-day clear line of thinking to how do I get my message in front of hundreds of thousands of people? How do I make hundreds of thousands of dollars? So I can impact that amount of people give back, change my family’s generational life and completely transform my reality.

How do I quit my job so that I work for myself and never worked for anyone else again, how do I break six figures? How do I become the first person in my family to ever earn a million dollars? Those are the types of questions that my masterminders ask themselves nowadays. And those are the type of results that they get. They are no longer concerned with the things in the day to day, the things that keep them safe, stuck, responsible. They know they’re here to live out a legacy and they make decisions based on that. 

That brings me to the fifth trait that I really want to pull out from them, which is that they, I can’t like make, I wish I could just say this over and over. Maybe I’ll make an audio of just this over and over. Um, they have, they understand that you decide what you want your reality to be and drop the drama from there. 

So this is forever a work in progress for, I think all of us, this is something I still work on, but it also is something I feel like I’ve made the most progress on, which is the power of simply deciding what you want things to be, and then not being available or holding space for anything but that, and this may sound a bit abstract and it kind of is, but it’s really just about working in connection with the laws of the universe, which is reminding yourself of how much power you have to decide either what you want, what you can be, what you can have remembering that no one else can decide these things for you and then allowing it to be done.

Now that you’ve decided it realizing you don’t have to continue second guessing it. You don’t have to continue worrying about it. You don’t have to continue, um, looking for other’s approval for it. You decide that it’s done. You take actions from the place of it being done, and it has no choice, but to manifest from there. So be more intentional with your decisions, because even if you don’t feel like you’re deciding to be successful, you’re deciding that you’re not, you’re still deciding that you’re not sure that you can be successful. 

Does that make sense? It’s like, you’re never not making a decision. So choose the decisions that you want. Well, um, same with thoughts. You never not thinking and thoughts become things. So think the good ones. Okay. You guys, I hope that this was helpful. I hope it was practical for you. I know some of it was a little bit, um, big picture, but again, that’s kind of where the power of coaching comes in is being able to apply these more abstract principles and bigger ways of thinking and planning to your life specifically. 

So if that feels like something that you are called to do, I hope you get on the waitlist for our mastermind. You can always reach out if you have any questions, but no matter what, I hope that this was, um, helpful and supportive to you. And in service to your biggest vision, I’ll talk to you guys soon.

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