Leah Gervais: I wanted to come on and talk to you guys about this kind of question that Oh, we ask ourselves a lot and then I’ve asked myself to and my experience with it. So let me go ahead and put it on an Instagram. It is this issue or not even this issue, but this question will, will this work for me? And I’ve asked myself this a lot. Um, and if you are an entrepreneur, I’m guessing that you have asked herself this as well. Yeah. And it usually comes up when you are trying to decide whether or not you want to go through with something, whether that’s starting your business. Um, buying an eCourse, buying a program, joining a program, things like that. You ask yourself, will this program work for me? We all know what it’s like to see these really beautiful sales pages or get a very persuasive email or something like that where a program or an opportunity or a method or whatever sounds so great and sounds so promising, but you just don’t know if it’ll actually work for you.

And sometimes they even have these great testimonials from people that they’ve worked for. And still you can ask yourself, well, this worked for them. Will it work for me? So I’d love to hear from you guys. Give me an emoji for those of you that are here live, what, uh, if you’ve ever felt this before, I’d love a thumbs up or something like that. Um, let me just make sure that this is working on Facebook. Yeah. So yeah, if you’ve ever had that moment of like, this seems really great, this seems awesome. Well, this worked for me and uh, I know that I have felt this a lot in the past and I kind of want to share a story of how I navigated that one time and my experience with it in case it helps you when you’re asking yourself that if you might be making a big decision.

So when I was first starting out, I joined an entrepreneurship program that ended up being a year long and it was exclusively to help me build out, you know, really higher level services within my business. That’s, that’s I knew what I wanted to do next, but I knew I couldn’t do it alone. And I had had my eye on this program for almost a year, honestly, before I decided to pull the plug and do it. I had, um, you know, known about it. I had heard lots of success stories about it. Um, and I had often thought maybe this would be a good program for me to join. However, it was a $7,000 program, I believe. So it was very expensive. And to me at the time, that was way more than I had ever spent on anything in my business. I was more than I had in my checking account.

I’ll just be honest. Um, so it was a huge decision and though it looked interesting, I did, it took me a year to actually believe that I could find the money to do that and that I could make the money back to invest in that and actually have it worked for me. So during that time when I was about to make the decision, I was obsessing over the sales page. I scoured the internet for reviews on this. Um, I was constantly, you know, reaching out to alumni of this program to try and get some feedback. I just really wanted to know everything I could about it before I spent what to me at the time was a huge investment on it. Um, and it had kind of all those same characteristics I mentioned before. It had lots of great sales page. The sales page was really beautiful.

Um, it had great success stories. There was lots of videos about how great it was and it, you know, on the surface it looked amazing. Like it looked like it would totally changed my life, but I still had that knowing question and it would, it actually work for me. And the more I started talking to some of the alum and the more I started even researching me alone, like I literally would go onto the business websites of the businesses that have come out of this program. Um, you know, not all of them were doing all that great. That’s just the truth. It’s not trying to put them down like happens things get in the way. Um, and I didn’t think I saw anyone that was doing poorly, but some of them were certainly doing better than others. So that really fueled the fire of my doubt and of my concern because it made me worry that there was no guarantee I would be one of the success stories.

There was only, you know, there was equally as good of a chance that this program wouldn’t be the right fit for me. I wouldn’t have it takes or whatever else would happen that would mean that I didn’t have the kind of successes that the most successful did. So I spent, um, weeks asking myself, will this work for me? I want to do it, but it’s a huge investment and I just don’t know if it will work for me. And the story goes that I did end up going through with it. And, uh, I had a great experience in it and my business really did take off, um, in the following year. Uh, and I, and I think a lot of that to that program and some of the other programs I was a part of as well. But I had kind of forgotten that I had been so obsessive over that question and that I had spent so long asking would this work for me, what this work for me until very recently.

So this was over two years ago when I made the decision to do this. And obviously my business is in a much bigger place at this point. But, uh, recently I was reading a book written by one of the owners of the business of the company I was in this program with. And, um, I was at the gym and I was listening to it on audible actually. And I was, you know, lifting some weights. I was doing some squats and I get to this part of the, of this book where they mentioned me and they mentioned me as one of the most successful clients they’ve ever had, period. So not even just in that program, but in, in that they’ve ever worked with at all. Um, they have this really very sweet and generous shout out that, um, you know, I had been one of the most successful clients that, that the company had ever seen.

And so I kind of like dropped my weight because I was so just excited about it and surprised and just felt really flattered to be shouted out in this book and especially to be shouted out as one the most successful clients that they’ve ever had. And so it really brought me back to the moment of thinking, will this work for me? And what if I’m not one of the success stories? What if this doesn’t work for me? All that mind chatter that I had going on. And so I thought I’d come on and why. I do think I am one of the most successful clients from that particular program. And I wanted to share this, especially at the beginning of a new year as many of us are probably thinking about what is in store for our business in 2020 we might be asking ourselves what type of things we want to invest in, whether it is a mastermind or, or a new eCourse or marketing or a team member. Um, and whenever we do something new like that, we can really ask ourselves, will this work for me? Well, I’d be one of the success stories. So I wanted to come on and share what I think I did to make myself one of the, of not only a successor but one of the most six asshole clients that they’ve ever had. So I have kind of five things I looked at back on and realize where, what really moved the needle. Let me just take a sip of water.

Okay. So these tips are going to be especially applicable if you are doing any sort of thing in a group setting, whether it’s a group program or a mastermind or a, an eCourse that has like a group component, like a Facebook group or something like that. Because that was my situation. Um, and I also just want to preface this by saying that, uh, you know, having been one of the most successful people in the program, having gone through it and looking back, um, it was [inaudible] it’s never about the program’s fault if the other, if others weren’t as successful. So, you know, I had that, sorry, going through my head two years ago when I was trying to make this decision, I thought, well, is this program really all it’s cracked up to be? If people can go through it and not have these great results and now having gone through it, it’s absolutely not the program’s fault.

If the program can work for one person, it can work. For many people it is because of the, the, the people in the program not putting in an equal amount of work to get what’s out of it. So I’m really grateful that I learned that early on because now I know with every investment that I have, um, I have the ability to get the most out of it. And by the way, just a little bit of a side note, you do put on any sort of group programs or you do put on any sort of, um, you know, group experiences within a course. Then I also hope that this can help you release any pressure you might be feeling to, um, be responsible for every single person’s success in the program because you’re not, you can’t make people care, you know, you can’t make them care about their own success more than, than you do.

So anyway, I cared very much and I think part of that was because it was such a big investment for me. I know it might sound counterintuitive. A lot of us are afraid to make big investments in our business, especially if it’s coming out of our personal and I’ll finance, which is the case for everyone. At first your business hasn’t made any money then you don’t have any money from your business to, to invest into it. Um, but it, so I know that it can be nerve wracking, but I really think, um, having stretched myself so much financially made me get into the mode of this has to be work, this has to work, this has to work. And it did. So here are some reasons that I think I am one of the most successful people from that program and some ways that if you are asking yourself, will this work for me?

Here’s some ways you might be able to ensure that a program would work for you. So, uh, first and foremost, very simple advice would be to be very, very active in whatever group component that you’re in. So whether you’re in a group where you have a private Slack channel or you have a private Facebook group or you have group calls or whatever the case may be, wherever, whatever platform is hosted, make a commitment and literally schedule in times where you can be as active within that group as possible. So, you know, I went so far as to chat pretty much everyone in the group and introduced myself and had some virtual coffee dates with some of them. I really wanted to get to know everyone and honestly I went into that group kind of intimidated because I thought that I was with people who were used to making $7,000 in their business.

So they must be a lot further ahead than me. And I like, I hadn’t made $7,000 in one month yet at that point. So I really wanted to learn from them and I really looked up to them and I think that having that attitude helped me very much because it got me really curious about everyone else in the group. And it got me motivated to learn from them and motivated to listen to them and motivated to go out of my way to to talk to them and learn about their business and learn about what was working for them. So a lot of times in my own programs I see people sort of posts on Facebook groups or in my Slack channel and they’ll ask questions, but they’re not always as active on other people’s content. I was at, my mastermind is not like this. And I think that that’s why my mastermind breeds such incredible lifelong relationships because everyone in it is extremely, is just as active about what other people are asking and doing and achieving as they are in whatever they’re doing and asking and achieving.

So if you are in any sort of group setting, even if it’s a free Facebook group, you guys ask yourself, how can I set aside 20 minutes a day to go and try to answer other people’s questions or to try to, um, review something for someone or even just to say, do you want to get on Skype and chat for 15 minutes? You can get to know you better and know what you’re about. Because the more you get to know people in these programs and you get to know other entrepreneurs, the more you have relationships with people who will start referring you for free to other people. But they can’t do that if they don’t know who that you are. They can’t do that if they don’t know what you do. And they probably won’t do that if they don’t trust you or know you well, which they won’t if your only interaction with them is them seeing you post things. And that’s pretty much it. So get very close and proactive and intentional about the relationships that you can build within any group so that you can learn from them so that you can have each other’s best interests at heart and be advocates for each other. Um, and so that you can learn things that you don’t even know you’re missing or that you don’t even know you need to know. Okay. Yeah. I’m sorry guys.

I’m very thirsty. Okay. Next tip that you can do to make sure that this will work for you. So this is really, if you’re going into something with a mindset of [inaudible], some people are successes from this, some are, I am going to be one of the successful, the second thing I did was obsessive. Lee listened to the recordings of every group coaching call. So I would down, even if I was there for the [inaudible] entire call, which I often wasn’t because I had a nine to five job at the time. But even if I was there for the whole call, so I had heard everything. I would still download the calls after the fact, after the replay was ready, put it on my phone and I would probably listen to the replay three or four times throughout that week. I listened to it on my way to work.

I listened to a walking around, I listened to it at the gym, I listened to it when I was on planes. I listened to it a lot on planes. And um, just really, really learned what it means is to get yourself into a good mindset. So a lot of business coaching and entrepreneurship is about your way of thinking and how you’re holding yourself back. So if you are in a good program, you’re probably going to have focus on mindset. So if you really saturate your mind and get on repeat, listening to how a successful entrepreneur helps entrepreneurs get out of their own way, helps them get out of ruts, helps them stay unstuck, helps them see themselves in a very successful light. You’re going to learn how to do that yourself. And so really in a sense when you’re part of these programs, if there’s any sort of coaching available and you guys, this doesn’t have to just be business coaching, like if you are, if you want to join the relationship coaching program because you want to find a love of your life in 2020 or if you want to join a health program because you really want to lose 15 pounds in 2020.

Um, and there is any sort of recording about the coaching going on there. Saturate your mind with that because all that’s just free repeats of how to get yourself out of sticky situations, how to get yourself out of a rut, how to get yourself out of your own way, how to, how to push yourself, how to challenge yourself because that’s most likely what the coach is going to do doing time and time again with everyone in the program. So I listened to almost nothing. Yeah, I’ll, but those call recordings, I listened to them whenever I was commuting and if it works and that was audio books. But I really made the most of that program by learning the techniques and learning the ways to get out of your own way on just obsessively. Okay. The third thing I did to make sure that this program for me, and for those of you that are just [inaudible] joining out, a little recap here is that I was kind of remembering how early on in my journey, I joined eight year long entrepreneurship program and it was $7,000, which was a very big investment for me at the time.

And I asked myself over and over before I joined, will this work for me? Will this work for me? And um, you know, it will work for some, will it work for me? I, I didn’t know the answer. So, uh, I obviously went forward with it. And now two years later, I recently read a book I, one of the founders of this company who had put this program on and they mentioned me as one of the most successful alumni they’ve ever had. So I forgot how worried I was about whether or not this program would work for me. Obviously it did. And I’m kind of sharing what I did to make it work so that if you’re interested in joining something or in doing something new and you’re asking yourself these same questions, here’s some ways you can assure that it does work for you.

The second anything that I did was, um, double down on the program itself. So I actually, even though I had very much financially stretched myself by investing $7,000 into the program when my business was only making a few hundred dollars a month at the time, not even necessarily, um, I think I had had a few months where I made around a thousand, but that wasn’t the norm. So simply put, I was very much financially stressing, stretching myself. And about a month into the program, one of the coaches from the company, uh, had shared that they were putting on an additional group coaching, uh, group that was just going to last for three or four months or something like that for people that wanted people in, like in their audience or on their email list that wanted a little bit more coaching during that time. So I also invested in that and now that wasn’t another $7,000 but I think it was like at least another thousand dollars a month and that was even scarier.

That was more money on a credit card that I would didn’t know I was going to be able to pay off on time. I took a lot of blind faith, but I knew that I had pretty much invested all of my hopes and dreams into this program, working into my business, taking off into the success that I could achieve from this. So I had no option to even dabble in it at all. I had to go all out, I had to invest, I had to put on all my eggs in this basket. Otherwise I was going to be doing this sort of half and half out only when it’s convenient for me. Only if I feel good about, you know, the timing, the money that whatever it is and I, and I couldn’t risk getting the results of that type of action reflects. So I extended myself even further.

I reached out and asked if I could join their group coaching for the next few months so that I would have even additional support and additional call per week, additional access to the coaches in it. Um, and I did that as well. So that was like, you know, I was having I think three calls with this group. Um, and, and these coaches per week, I was just saturating my mind with what they could tell me and I was implementing like crazy and I think doubling down helped both in the sense of the financial pressure kicking in and lighting the fire under my butt and also the double down of support and just, you know, that extra opportunity to, to talk to other people in a new group and to talk to the coaches even more frequently and all that kind of stuff. So you can ask yourself, I know it might sound scary, but if there’s a program that you have your eye on or a program that you are or course that you have your eye on and you’re wondering, will this work for me?

Consider the VIP option. You know, this is actually why we added a VIP option to my mastermind for 2020 because there are those people well that are just not willing to take the risk about whether something will work or not. And if there’s a VIP element, you’re probably going to be getting even more support. You’re probably going to feel even more pressure financially, which will light an even bigger fire under your butt. You’re going to get tailored support. It’s just a lot better insurance that this will work for you. So I did that too. I went all out and just kept, you know, making sure that I was doing everything I could to make this work for me.

Okay. The fourth thing I did, and this might seem very simple and it baffles me how often this happens. Even within my own programs, I did all the work. I prioritize this above all else. So I scheduled every call in every week and did not schedule anything else over the times. Now, during every single call, every single one during this, I was in my nine to five job. I want to be very clear about that. Even by the time the, um, actually there might’ve been like one month that they went on after I had left my nine to five job, but for the most part for like 11 months or whatever it is. Um, or maybe it wasn’t even that long for like eight months, all three of the weekly calls or during my nine to five job. So I don’t buy the excuse when people say that’s during my work hours.

Um, I got really creative. I would listen to the call as much as I could, uh, in, in real time. I would go to the bathroom to ask questions. Sometimes I would hide in this supply closet to ask questions. Um, and if I couldn’t attend the call because I was working, then I would submit questions beforehand and I would, uh, listen to the replay as soon as it was ready and listen to it several times over and over again. Um, and I did that with all of the calls. And w when I, when I did the additional support, when I did the one that was, um, you know, the additional coaching element that I did have a weekly meeting during that call. Um, it was on there. I was on Thursdays every week from I think 10 30 to 12 to 1130 and I had calls or I had a meeting at 11 every single Thursday, but I still did it and I still made sure that I was first on the call and I still made sure that I had my questions prepared and I raised my hand as quickly as I could.

And I communicated with the directors saying that I had this prior engagement. So I would really appreciate if they could try to have me and you know, sharing on the first half of the call and they did their best to do that. It didn’t work every week, but most weeks it did. And so I just really molded my life around this. And this is another thing that I see people do half on, half off sometimes is they’ll say things like, well, I can’t do that because I have, um, I have a nine to five job or because I need to watch my kids or because I, that’s the old, you know, I want to spend time with my husband or, um, that’s when I work out or whatever the case may be. And I’m not saying that these aren’t important priorities and that you shouldn’t get to do them in your life.

Obviously. Uh, you should, I believe in balance, but there can be chapters in your life and in your business where you need to put all hands on deck. And that means that might mean that you go into the bathroom at your nine to five job to ask a question because you can’t do it at your desk. Or that might mean that you hire a nanny for a call every week because you need, you can’t be watching your kids. Um, or that might mean that you hire a cleaning lady for six months, that you’re in a program so that you don’t have to clean your house every week and instead you spend that time if you feel like you’re totally strapped for time, you know, get something off your plate, outsource for a close amount of time. This isn’t forever. I don’t want anyone feeling like I’m saying that you should give up all your responsibilities or your commitments cause that’s not the case.

But there is an element of asking yourself, what is standing in my way of my dreams coming true of my business taking off and if the, or is my house not being dusted on time, you know, you’re robbing yourself of your future because you can’t get a cleaning lady for a few months just so that you can achieve the dream that you want. And in this way, um, or if you’re saying that your job, your nine to five job is keeping you from, from your business coming true, well that tells me that you might not be as dedicated because at some point you need to ask yourself, why am I putting a nine to five job that I want to leave ahead of my priorities for something that is actually my future? Same with your kids. You don’t want to be blaming your children. Children are a blessing.

You don’t want to be blaming them for why you aren’t making the progress that you want. So, uh, prioritize the work. Get there for the calls schedule and when you’re going to watch the modules, you know, make it happen, uh, and just be consistent. Okay. The final tip, and this is all encompassing of everything I already shared, but if you want to join a program or a course and you want to know that it works for you, you want that kind of assurance before you do it is to change your mindset into accepting that is working for you before it even begins. So I very much remember early on in the program, some of the people in the program would get on these calls with, with the coaches and say things like, this isn’t working. Why isn’t this working? It’s not working for me. And they very clearly said that you can’t talk like that.

And they weren’t like trying to be oppressive. They just were saying, you’re really hurting yourself by allowing yourself to believe that this isn’t working. This program is here to teach you how to do, you know what it takes to make it work. So focus on implementing. Focus on what is working, focusing on focus on where you’re, where you’re seeing growth. Don’t focus on the shortcomings because you’re going to get stuck there. You’re going to like get stuck because hamster wheel. And I remember saying, I will never ever, ever say that this isn’t working. And that, you know, I just made the declaration to myself. And that didn’t mean that there were nights when I cried because I felt frustrated or that didn’t mean that my feelings didn’t get hurt. When, um, people, you know, said mean things to me on social media or in my emails.

And that didn’t mean that my launches all went perfectly or that I made all the money that wanted every month. That wasn’t it at all. But I knew because I picked up on what they were saying, that if I wanted success in this program, I needed to see myself as successful in this program so that I was taking action toward that success. Uh, so change your mind. You said early on, decide that you are going to be a success story. Decide that you are going to be in this book about how you’re one of the best clients or customers that they ever had. Decide that you are going to be the highlight of the testimonial page because you are going to put in two times more work than everyone else and put yourself into a mindset of success and make it happen. You have more power than you can imagine and a lot of that power and nearly all of it comes from your mindset.

So I think that that would be the biggest tip that I would say from all of these is to switch your mindset early on to accept that you will be one of the most successful cases of whatever program you’re joining. Um, and don’t think of yourself in any other light because you will reflect or your, your circumstances will reflect how you view yourself. So to recap quickly, if you are looking at a new program or course or anything like that to join in 2020 and you’re asking yourself, will this work for me? Is this going to be the right fit for me? Here are five steps that I can share for you to ensure that the program will work for you and then you will be a success story. One, get very active with your colleagues within the program, the active in the Facebook group.

Be active in Slack, be active on the membership page in Kajabi, whatever it is in teachable. Um, get to know them. The other people there, ask them what they’ve loved about it. Ask them what their challenges are. Ask them if you can do anything to help them get to know them and and, and get to trust them and get them to trust you so that you guys can be each other’s advocates. Number two, listen to the coaching call recordings over and over. This is gold information. This is you hearing people, you’re hearing your coaches or your teachers, whatever program you’re considering joining, get their clients or students out of ruts, time and time again, so this is you being able to pick up ways to get yourself out of your own ruts over and over. You’ll be able to start coaching yourself. How to get out of these rats, how to keep going, how to think bigger, how to do better, how to be bigger.

A number three, double down on the support. Use the VIP options. Ask if there’s an additional way to get involved. I know that it might seem so counterintuitive, especially if you make a big investment to think like, how in the heck am I all of a sudden supposed to invest even more? But no, the value in going all in, no the value and no longer questioning any other way of doing this because you have given your all to this. That’s why things work because you give it your all. So if you join something but you’re still not totally all in, that’s when you see and consistent results. Okay? Tip number four is to prioritize the work and the calls. Schedule things around them. Don’t be afraid or ashamed or nervous to find creative ways to free up your schedule so that you have more time to do it.

Um, be prepared for the calls that you’re on. Ask questions. Be proactive and communicate with what you need from the people well that are running the calls. If you need to leave early, if you need to get there late, you know, help them, help you by being clear about what you need to have success. And then five, decide early on that you are going to be one of the most successful stories from this, that you are a success and live and make decisions in alignment with that. All right, you guys. I hope that this was helpful. This was way longer than I thought it was going to be, but I honestly care about this a lot and I hope that this helps you become the biggest success in whatever your next endeavor is. It’s going to be an amazing year. Have a great day.

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