--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to an eye-opening and incredibly empowering episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited for the conversation today. If you're new, my name is Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author. I am also one of the world's leading experts on motivation, behavior change, and habits.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I've been wanting to do this show for a while because I see in the news all these people getting laid off and the anxiety is starting to ramp up. I also know that almost every single human being in the past three years has had some kind of reset button hit. You've gotten very clear that maybe the way you've been doing life isn't really what you want anymore. You have values that aren't aligned with the kind of work you're doing or the way you spend your time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I am on a mission to open your eyes to a whole different reality. Whatever move you're going to make next, when it comes to your career, your finances, and your life, I want it to be the greatest move of your life. I believe that you have the ability to do that. We're going to focus today on your ability to truly be your own boss. You might not have ever thought about that because of how old you are or how young you are, or the fact that you have a really crappy mindset and you're constantly beating yourself down.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I wanted to give you a zero cost masterclass with a woman who has taught more than 50,000 people how to pivot, from as young as 19 to as old as somebody in her late 60s, how to think totally differently about what's possible for you. That's the invitation of this episode. By the end, you're going to think very differently about what you're capable of. You're going to think very differently about what your next move might be in your career and the next right steps to take to start walking toward it. I want to wake you up today and make you realize that you are one decision away from having that happen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: My guest today is a dear friend of mine. Her name is Amy Porterfield. She is an entrepreneur who is one of the world's leading experts in launching an online business. She has taught millions of people, more than 50,000 paying students. Normally to take one of her classes or to have one of her coaches coach you, we're talking more than $10,000. You're going to get this at zero cost thanks to our sponsors and thanks to Amy's generosity today. She is here. She has a brand new book called *Two Weeks Notice*. The book is really about the step-by-step blueprint for making a major pivot and creating freedom in your life. I'm so excited that you're here, Amy.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I am so thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're welcome. Here's where I want to start. Amy, you and I have reinvented ourselves.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: We have both gone from working for somebody else to figuring out how to launch our own business. I'm going to get to your story in a minute, but I want to put something into context for everybody. Guys, I first started making money online five years ago. Five years ago. That was like yesterday. And I was 49 years old, Amy.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I love to hear this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If this old dog can figure out how this internet thing works and how to learn this stuff, you can do this. Amy is living proof. She has taught 50,000 students, more than 50,000 students, how to take—even like you start with people who are like, "I have no idea what I want to do. Absolutely no idea."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And they figure it out and create incredible businesses. They blow their own minds. Without any business experience.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Absolutely.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What do you want the person listening right now—they're driving to a job that they hate or they've been laid off, they're beating themselves up—what do you want to tell them they are going to get out of this conversation today?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I want them to know that there's an entirely new world waiting for them. They don't even know what's possible yet for their future. It's not inside a cubicle or commuting to a nine-to-five job. There's a whole other world out there that you can take as your own. The reason I know that is because that is my own story 14 years ago. It was a new world to me and I ran with it. Now I help other people do the same.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You've got a world-class expert here. She has made $85 million in the past 14 years teaching people how to do this. You want to know why I'm saying that number? Because I'm damn proud of her. I also think if you put your head down and you listen to what Amy is about to tell you and you pick up her book and you read the blueprint, you can figure this out too. These 50,000 plus students that she has taught, they are no more smarter than you. They are no more qualified than you. They simply were in the position that you're in right now, where they bumped into this conversation and it had them experience a whole different possibility for their life.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. One of my students recently got laid off after 20 years of being in the job that she was in.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Tell me the story.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: She was in her 50s and working at this job for 20 years, doing a great job. Wakes up one morning and they lay her off. She was totally surprised by it, never thought it would happen to her. In that moment, she felt the shame and the embarrassment, and "What did I do?" But then the very next thought—and this is what's so powerful—she thought, "I didn't even like this job anyway. I have been staying in a job that I don't even like because it pays the bills. It is secure." I always remind people, there's no growth in security. That is not where you're going to shine when you're just always safe and secure. You have to get out of that in order to shake things up.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: She realized, "I need to shake things up." Her next thought wasn't, "Let me dust off my resume." A lot of people that are going to get laid off this year or something's going to happen, they think, "I have to go look for my next job." No. If they just took a beat, "What do you really want?" That's where I want to grab people right there and say, "Wait a second, what do you really want? Is it really to go back to a nine-to-five job? Or have you been dreaming about doing your own thing, but you're just too scared to take the leap?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. What do you really want? That's a huge question. I want you to contemplate that. What do you really want? Here's the secret: you start with the life you want. When I teach people how to go out and build their own business, I always say, first of all, let's talk about what lifestyle you want. I know that reinvention is a hot topic. Our project on Audible, *Reinvent Your Life with Mel Robbins*, is number one on Audible. Everybody is feeling this need to change something about their lives. When you take your career and your ability to make money into an entirely different level, it's extraordinary how that impacts your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Amy has been able to not only teach herself how to do that, but to teach so many other people how to do that—how to find financial freedom, get control of your time, how to create a life where you get to work when and where and with whomever you want to work. Do not tune this out. This is possible for you. That's why I wanted Amy to sit here and give you a zero cost masterclass in thinking bigger than perhaps you've ever thought before. So let's listen to Amy. Amy, what was your wake up call?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: 14 years ago, I was working for peak performance coach Tony Robbins. I was the director of content, traveling the world, working on the content that he did on stage. Here's what happened. Tony brought in a bunch of business owners to the San Diego office. They happened to be all men and they were making money online. We brought them into this office. It was this big oak table and I was called in to take notes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So first of all, were you annoyed by that?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Well, it was kind of common for the content department to take notes, but yeah, there's a little bit of me like, "I want to be in the action. I want to be doing the things." But yeah, I was on a side table.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, so you were not even at the big table with the boys. You were on the side taking the notes.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes. So here I came into this meeting, but thank God I did because here's what happened. I started to take notes and these guys started to talk about their businesses, what they do, what life looks like, what their lifestyle is, what their family life looks like. They were really talking about their whole experience as business owners. All of a sudden I realized, wait a second, they're working when they want, where they want, how they want. They're creating these amazing products. They're being as creative as they want to be. They're on their own time and on their own dime. I realized I've never been my own boss. I will always hit a glass ceiling. I will always have to ask for a raise, always have to ask if I could take vacation. I was not the boss of my own life or my business. In that moment, a light bulb went off and I thought, "I want it. I have no idea what they're doing. I don't know how to do any of it, but I want it." That was the moment for me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think this moment where you're sitting in a meeting and you experience something, this wake up call happens in your body. I've had a moment like that. I was sitting in an audience at an Oprah Winfrey "Live Your Best Life" tour. This would have been two decades ago. I was there because I was networking to try to get clients for my life coaching business. I had just started this on the side. I was working full time doing business development for an advertising agency in the big tech bubble that happened in the early 2000s. On the side, I was trying to build a business as a life coach.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I go to this Oprah Winfrey event. It was a one-day summit to live your best life. I'm sitting in the big audience and Oprah's on stage. Then she introduces this woman that I had never heard of. Her name was Martha Beck. Martha Beck walks out and I don't even remember what the hell she said. I had never heard of her. I had no clue what she did, but she started talking and there was something inside of me that was like, "I want that." It was the same thing you're talking about—this taste of freedom. There I was, I had lied to my employer. I had taken the day and I had told them I was somewhere else and I had gone to this for myself.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here I am completely out of integrity, getting paid by somebody else, prospecting for my side hustle that hasn't even launched yet. I realized when she walks on the stage, holy shit, that's what I want. I didn't even know what that meant. I just knew that I wanted the freedom that she seemed to have. She had written her first book. She was now talking about that first book on a stage. I didn't know what I would write about. I didn't know what I would speak about. I was scared to think about being on that stage. That is the moment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to hit pause and talk to you right now listening to us. I need you to start to pay attention to those moments. You don't have to have the answers to change your life. You have to have that moment where you go, "I want something more for myself." What I wanted was to be able to go to an event without lying to my boss. I wanted to be able to work when I wanted to work. But I did not know how the hell do you go from that moment to knowing what the right next step is? How did you go from "there's all these dudes sitting around the table, I'm basically the secretary" to being exposed to something that I'm not part of this club?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: The first thing that happened was this flood of doubt. I looked to my friend who was in the meeting with me and I said, "I have no skill where I could be my own boss. I know nothing that I could be in my own boss." Then I learned something a long time ago: if you're watching someone do something and you feel a little bit jealous, like look what they have, or angst around it, which I had—I wanted what they had even though I didn't totally get it—whenever you have a feeling of jealousy or angst or you want it, ask yourself, "What do they have that you want?" Get really clear. What is it about their life that you think is so attractive or you'd like to go through it? Because I had to get clear about what I wanted. In that moment, I thought, "They get to be their own boss. That's what they have that I have never had."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: When you are in a nine-to-five job that you no longer want, everything else seems to fall by the wayside. You're not living the life that you want. That was just one moment. I wanted to be home with my family. I wanted to actually make more money so I could invest in things that I wanted to invest in. There was so much that I didn't have that I wanted. You have to just ask yourself what kind of lifestyle you want, and then build your career around that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think a lot of people got a huge wake up call these past three years. If the pandemic did nothing else, it certainly made you reflect on your values. It made you reflect on where you wanted to live. It made you reflect on what was important to you. This mindless chasing of more, more, more became very clear for a lot of us that that is not the lifestyle that we want. You had a huge move. I had a huge move, all beginning with the question, "What do I actually want my life to look like?"
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You talk about that a lot. What do you want? Once I got clear on "I don't want a job anymore. I want to call the shots," then I had to start thinking, "What would I do?" Because I had no clue. For the next few months, I kind of went through this process that now I teach called The Sweet Spot, which is figuring out what might you want to do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. I want you to pause right there because we're going to take a word from our sponsors. When we come back, we're going to take questions from listeners and we're going to continue to hold your hand and walk you step by step through this process of starting to embrace the wake-up call and get freaking serious about your ability to make it happen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. I am here with Amy Porterfield, and we're asking the big questions today of you. What do you want your life to look like? How nice would it be if you were free to work when you wanted, where you wanted, that you took the time to design your life to work for you. Amy, I am so excited to go through this with you. I want to give the audience a real range of scenarios where you could have this wake up call. For those of you that are in your 20s and 30s that listen to this podcast, you're probably part of the demographic that looks at everybody that is an influencer or a YouTuber, or they are travel bloggers or starting their line of supplements, or they are doing exercise videos and you're now streaming exercise videos from somebody who's largely your age. You're like, "Wow, I'd really like to do that." What Amy and I are here to tell you is that is the power moment. That is the eye-opening moment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I still have these wake-up calls all the time. We just had one yesterday where we were talking about, "Wouldn't it be nice to be able to support other female entrepreneurs with investment money? Maybe we should step into starting an investment fund." We both looked at each other and we're like, "Well, I don't know how to do that." "I don't either." But we kind of feel interested. That's the moment we're talking about. That awakening is the only thing you need in order to pivot your life in a new direction. We are lucky enough—and Amy's going to talk about this—to live in a world where if you want to create an online exercise studio, if you want to take your catering business or your grandmother's tomato sauce that everybody compliments and start selling it, you can figure out how to do it. But you have to honor the wake-up call. That's takeaway number one. That wake up call is going to change your life if you're willing to look for it, and if you're willing to hit the pause button when it happens.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to back up a minute though. Can you tell the story of how you went from taking notes in the corner to figuring out what to do?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How did you do that?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: For me, what it looked like was I started to think, "Okay, what am I doing right now in my business that could maybe translate?" I was doing marketing and some social media and a little bit of online education kind of stuff. I started to look at that and I liked what I did. I didn't like the fact that I wasn't free, but I liked the work that I did. So I started to think maybe I could teach social media online. It wasn't my end all be all. You just need a starter idea. I just needed something to get me going.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Let's stop there. You just need a starter idea, everybody. For somebody who's unemployed right now listening, or they're a student about to graduate, what are you suggesting? Do you suggest they do this process while they're unemployed or while they're looking for a different job?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. This is something that no matter where you are in your journey, if you have that desire, that calling that there's got to be something better for me, something different, this is what you do. You start to think about what am I good at? What could be a starter idea? There are things that you do naturally. Maybe your house is super insanely clean and everybody constantly remarks about how clean it is and how good it smells. Maybe that's what you just do naturally. Maybe it's something you used to do a long time ago. But starting with, "What are you good at?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: So that was your process. You're still at your job.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Still at my job.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And then what did you do?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I started to look online on social media and started to go for total immersion around what kind of business I'd want to create. I wanted to teach social media or do social media. That's how I wanted to start. So I started to follow all of these accounts on social media that were doing what I wanted to do. These other women and men that had the businesses I wanted. The first step I did, I call it this process of unbossing, which is learning or believing that you could lead yourself and you don't need someone else to lead you. I thought, "I've got to unboss myself," which is I have to think like a boss.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Unbossing yourself is a tool that you can use to change the way that you think. Most of us grow up in households where we see our caregivers going to work for somebody else. You already have a mindset where you think safety comes from being somebody's employee. You already have a mindset where you believe that those benefits, that salary, that savings account, all that stuff that I saw my parents chip away and try to do—you think that that is the way to financial freedom. What if you had a different mindset? What if you started to think like somebody who has their own business? A boss means you take responsibility for what you're doing. A boss means you figure shit out instead of sitting around and licking your wounds and feeling sorry for yourself. This unbossing is a process that you have to go through in order to get yourself to think differently about how you're showing up. What are the components of unbossing your mindset and your actions?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I love what you said about no matter if you're planning on staying in your nine-to-five job or looking for another job if you get laid off or starting your own business, if you adopt the mentality of unbossing yourself and you actually start thinking like a business owner, you're going to show up so much better in every area of your life. Someone who is unbossed, they're not looking for everyone's approval. They're not asking everyone how to make a decision. They're not coming to the table and saying, "I'm stuck. What do I do?" It's changing your mindset and really stepping into more confidence that "I've got this. I'll figure this out. Watch me" kind of mentality.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to take a question real quick from one of our listeners.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Carrie in Scotland.
--:-- Carrie (Listener): [Audio clip] Hi, Mel. My name's Carrie and I'm from Edinburgh, Scotland. I recently got laid off from a job that I hated and I took it as a sign from the universe that I needed to find something else to do, a new career. It was a great idea at first, but now I have absolutely no idea how to go about finding the career that I love or finding my passion. Any tips on where to start?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, I love this question. Congratulations, Carrie. I know it's scary, but you're going to be just fine. Can you walk Carrie and everyone listening through your sweet spot exercise?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. She's just been laid off, no idea where to start. This is exactly what I did when I decided what I was going to do when I left my job. I built it into a formula. There's four quadrants. Here's how you look at it.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: The first quadrant is, what are you good at? What do people always ask you about? Where have you gotten results in your personal life, in your business life? You might want to take what you know in your business life and bring it into your own business. Or you might look at your personal life and think, "One year ago, I was lazy on the couch, watching Netflix, eating all my snacks, and I realized I want to run a marathon." What you did is for three months, you put together a plan to figure out how you're going to run an entire marathon from couch to marathon in three months. You put together a plan and you freaking did it. That's what you can sell. Other people want to know how you did it. They don't want to learn from the leading experts in the marathon industry. They want to learn from a girl that literally three months ago was sitting on the couch eating snacks.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because that looks like me.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Exactly. So where have you gotten results in your personal life and your business life? How can that translate into a business? That's number one.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Number two is think about who you might want as a customer. The reason why this is important is you want to start thinking about some things they're struggling with. Mel said it earlier, the easiest way to find who your customer might be is who were you five years ago and how can you help them get to wherever they want to get? That's one of the easiest ways to look at who might my customer be. Maybe it was you just a few years ago. Remember, you just need a 10% edge, 10% ahead of those you serve.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: The third thing is where are people spending money? What books are being sold on the topic you want? Are there courses being sold, one-on-one coaching? Meaning will people spend money to get what you're going to teach them or what you're going to sell? It's important to do a little market research.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So you want to look for people who are doing something similar.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Exactly. I want people to already be doing what you want to do. It's a plus.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Great.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Fourth quadrant, and it's the most important: what lights you up? Not what's your passion. You're going to go down a rabbit hole and never come back up. We don't need to find your passion right now. But what do you enjoy? What will make you excited to get out of bed in the morning? Because if you're going to create a business around something you love, if it lights you up and you're excited, you're going to figure it out. So what lights you up?
--:-- Mel Robbins: She's inviting you to create a life that you love instead of surviving the one that you can't stand. It does take courage. It really does. We have to hear a short word from our sponsors. Everybody, they are the support that we need to bring this to you at zero cost. Take a listen, stay with us. We'll be right back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's Mel. Today we're talking big themes: how to take control of your future. I am here with none other than Amy Porterfield, who is one of the world's leading experts in how you make a pivot by taking any business idea or side hustle online. For those of you that have never thought about this before, you always thought, "I just got to get a job. I got to get a job." We're unpacking a concept called unbossing yourself because I personally believe this is all mindset. It's all mindset. You've got two strategies to unboss yourself. But before we get to those, I want to go back to the story. You had this wake up call. You're like, "Whatever these dudes are doing to make money online, I'm figuring this out."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What did you do next?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: That's when I started to think, "What could I possibly do? How do I need to unboss myself? How do I need to think in order to step into what I want?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Got it.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I really did start with my mindset. This concept of unbossing, really understanding that you could lead yourself and you do not need anybody else to tell you what to do, make the decisions for you, or lead you. Once you start to think, "How can I lead myself?" I had to take some steps to get me there. The first thing was, again, I talked about what do I want? I went on social media and started following a bunch of people that had the kind of businesses that I wanted. Total immersion.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: You did an episode a while ago where you talked about when you got a new car and you started to see that car everywhere.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: It's the same concept. When I decided I wanted to start my own business, I started to see bosses everywhere doing what I wanted, but I was intentional about it. I cleaned up my social media.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Get serious about curating your social media right now so that you are immersed in the world that you want to step into. That is what a leader does. That's what you're going to do. We all have boards of advisors. We all call experts. I call Amy on speed dial when I need help with marketing. You're going to use social media in a very intentional way to start to create that community and that mindset around you. What's the second thing you can do to change your mindset and unboss yourself?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Start asking for advice. Find the people who are doing what you want and find out how they did it. I actually have a great story about this. When I was still at Tony Robbins, I knew I wanted to create courses and help people do their marketing and build businesses down the road. I wasn't ready for it yet, but I knew I wanted that kind of business. I went online and I found a bunch of people doing what I wanted. There was this one woman who absolutely had the kind of business I wanted. I did not know her at all, but I watched her online and I thought, "That's the kind of business I want." I went to her contact page on her website, wrote her a little email and said, "Listen, I know you don't offer this, but can I pay you for an hour of your time? I just want to ask you all about how you built your business. I'm new to all of this. I don't even know where to start. Will you share some insight with me if I pay you?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: And she said yes?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: You have to ask. You have to ask.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's another way you can do it. You're probably sitting there with an employee mindset. You're like, "But I don't have any money to pay." Amy's got money because she wears tiny red pants. No, no, no. That is not the mindset. You are not a loser. You're a winner. All of these people that you follow have likely done a podcast interview or a YouTube video, or they've written a blog post, and all the advice is in there. Another way that you can get people to respond to you is you can present them with some challenge that you're facing and say, "Could you give me some help making a decision? I'm facing this challenge. Here are two or three things that I'm thinking about doing. Which would you advise?" Because then you've done the work. You've thought like a boss. You haven't come to somebody to solve your problems. That's another way that even if you're working for somebody else, unbossing yourself is a mentality. Don't expect your boss to solve your problems.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So you stuck with this job and you started chipping away at learning things. What else did you do in order to step by step march toward building something you had no freaking skill or experience to do?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I had to get unreasonable. By the word unreasonable, I mean I had to start thinking in ways that I had never done before. With the call with that woman that said yes, I was still at my office. I had to crawl under my desk because the walls were thin. I didn't want anyone to hear me at my lunch hour. I'm whispering to her on the phone, "How did you build your business? What did you do?" She's whispering back to me. I'm sure she thinks that's weird that we're whispering, but I needed to make it happen. I had to start putting myself in places that I was way out of my element because I wanted something bigger than my life at the moment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How do you keep that present? We all want it. Who doesn't want to make a million dollars? Who doesn't want to figure out how to make money online? Who doesn't want to make money while they're sleeping?
--:-- Mel Robbins: But what separates those of us who do and anybody who doesn't is literally the action. That's it. That is it. If you're willing to go one step further than the person that just quit, there is no secret formula.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You have to stop listening to the bullshit that is stopping you from taking action. I mean, this woman is sitting under her desk. I'm at an event I'm not supposed to be at because we wanted something more for ourselves. What did you do to keep that front and center? Other than having your social media feeds reminding you that this is the world you wanted to step into? How the hell do you do this for yourself when it's about a side hustle or who you want to become? Because you're talking like recreate your whole damn life. Stop getting a job and get serious about what you want your life to look like.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: So I started to change my identity. I'm going to be a business owner. I'm going to be a boss. What do bosses do? They listen to podcasts about building businesses. They buy the books about how to change your mindset, how to start a business, how to get things going. They buy the digital courses. I never bought a digital course in my life. I bought my first digital course while I was still at my nine to five job. It was all about how to do video marketing. I had no idea how to make a video.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can I give everybody a pro tip?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: A lot of companies as a perk give a login to MasterClass and some of these other places. So you can use it.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There is so much free education: Khan Academy, YouTube. All this stuff is free, everybody. So you've got to be willing to look for it. If you've gotten laid off, the Harvard Extension School has free resume templates if you're willing to Google it. We have to get out of this mode of "damn that job" and "I'm embarrassed." Bullshit. That job was not a fit. You want to know why it wasn't a fit? Because you got fired, because you got laid off. And yes, it sucks, but you get to decide now what it means. Are you going to pivot? Are you going to take this as a wake-up call? Or are you going to sit there and feel sorry for yourself?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: It's so true. So yes, get resourceful. You don't have to pay for any of this. There's tons of free resources out there, even more so now than there were when I left. But I started to, again, total immersion, fuel my mind with the right things. But here's another thing I did. I started a side hustle. I think this is an important conversation for people right now. If you're afraid of getting fired, laid off, or you're just not making enough money, a lot of people listening think they're staying in their nine-to-five job, but they know they're not getting paid enough. They know they're undervalued. So the best next thing you can do is start your own thing in the mornings, nights, weekends to bring in a little extra money. Let me tell you about a student of mine who did this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Give me some examples.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: So this one is from my student, Tara. She was an accountant for 15 years in a very small town. She's a single mom. She said, "I need a raise. I'm not making enough money." She went to the company and said, "I'd like a raise." And they looked at her with blank stares. Like, that's not even in your future at all. She realized, "I've got to do something." So she was really good at making wreaths. She made these beautiful wreaths.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wreaths? Like the round things that we hang on our doors?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, so she's really good at wreaths. I want to go back to something. Remember how Amy said, you've got to go through the sweet spot exercise? By the way, tons of resources linked all in the show notes on every single platform. But I want you to hear this. This is a person who has been told by people forever that she does a good job making wreaths. I know what you're thinking, everybody. You're thinking, "Mel, I have a mortgage to pay. Mel, I have student debt. Mel, I am not starting a business making wreaths because I will not be able to pay my bills doing this." Here's what I want to tell you. You have no clue what you're capable of. But what you're capable of right now is shooting down every single idea. You're putting all your energy into coming up with reasons for why not, why it's stupid, why you can't. What if you put half the amount of energy into "why the fuck not?"
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yeah.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Why not make wreaths? Why not see where this goes? Instead of flopping down in front of Netflix tonight, why not invest that same time into creating a little bit of a side hustle, tasting a little bit of freedom, saying yes in a little way? Why not? Just a starter idea. That's all she had.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes. So she wasn't saying, "I'm going to quit my job tomorrow because I'm making wreaths." She just thought, "I got to bring in some extra money. I better get scrappy." So she started making these wreaths, selling them on Etsy, and she was doing really well, bringing in like a thousand dollars a month extra.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's pretty good.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Right? That's "take the kids to Disney" money.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's "pay the bills" money.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: She's feeling a little bit... That's another thing. You start to feel a little confident when you start to take some action and get some clarity, like this is actually working. So what happened was her friends started seeing her make money on Etsy. They were making crafts and they weren't making any money on Etsy. And they said, "Teach us how you're doing that."
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's what I want to know.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: And that's where it started to click for her. Her starter idea was not going to pay the bills. However, she took action, got some clarity, started to listen to what people were saying, and they said, "Teach us how you're doing that." So she created a little mini course teaching other people how to put their crafts online and make money with Etsy. $100,000 later, this woman never in a million years thought she'd make $100,000 teaching other women how to put their crafts on Etsy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want everybody to pay attention because I'm trying to open your eyes to the fact that your whole life can change because of one wake-up moment and the willingness to lean into something that you naturally do well or you're naturally interested in. This willingness to lean into what you're naturally good at, what other people compliment you on. I've never thought about it this way. It gives you a taste of freedom and it taps into this power and resourcefulness and moxie that is inside you. Because when you start feeling that, you'll start thinking even bigger. I'm going to offer up an example. I think about my daughter, Sawyer, who is constantly complimented for her interior decorating style and skills. No training. I keep thinking to myself, she could do a whole Instagram strategy of designing on a budget. She could do a whole thing about how you design a killer dorm room for X number of dollars or how you design your first apartment. I'm thinking about another kid. I have a neighbor whose son, senior year of high school, no joke, made almost $30,000. You want to know how?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: How?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'll tell you how. He saw one video of this business where you advertise a service of picking up people's stuff, like couches they don't want, and then you list it for sale on Facebook Marketplace and you deliver it to somebody else. Brilliant. And scrappy. I like scrappy ideas. I'm not suggesting you'll make millions. Maybe you will, because maybe you'll turn it into a junk removal business. Maybe you'll turn it into something else. But you are limiting what's possible because you won't even lean into something like the wreath idea or the idea of starting an Instagram account that is about decorating on a budget because you tell yourself it's not possible, you can't do it, somebody else has already done it. Do you have another example of somebody who was either really old or really young that did this?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes. I have a great story. One of my favorite students, her name is Anne. Anne worked in corporate at Gap and Old Navy. She was in her 50s at the time and she got laid off, which tends to be a theme we're hearing a lot. So she's laid off and she thinks, "Okay, I've been in this business for a while. I'm going to dust off my resume, get it back out there." So she did. Months and months and months, couldn't even get an interview.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I hate to say this, but I think it was her age.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Probably. People are hiring younger. So they're just looking over her and all of her experience. And so one day her husband said, "You've got all of these different crafts up in our attic. You love to do these. Why don't you just play around there for a while, see if it sparks anything?" She didn't have any other option at the time, so she started to kind of get in there. And she does this one thing really well: surface pattern design.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What the hell is that?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Right. I'm not crafty at all, so I really had to dig in to understand it. Basically, it's this idea of drawing your own doodles and different graphics through a software and turning those drawings into wallpaper, into wrapping paper, into mugs.
--:-- Mel Robbins: This is a business?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: And so she did this really well. And yet again, people started to say, "How are you doing that?" That's why when you think of the sweet spot formula, the first thing you do is pay attention to what people think you're good at, because it's just a natural thing. They're interested. And so she did it well. Other people wanted to know how she did it. So she started to teach them how she did it. Now, this woman went from literally not getting anyone that wanted to hire her, not even getting interviews, to doing launches of this new program she created, $100,000 launches over and over again.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But I want to point out she's in her 60s. Wait, you buried the lead, Amy. She's in her 60s. Didn't know how to run a business. Didn't know how to do technology. Didn't know how to put up a website. Didn't know how to do a webinar. She knew none of it. But what she did know is she wanted a different kind of life. And she got honest with herself. "I don't want to be begging for a job. They think I'm too old. Watch me."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Ooh, I love that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "Watch me." And that's what I want. "Watch me do this damn thing." I cannot wait to send this episode to my kids. Can you tell me about someone on the younger side that went from nothing, telling themselves, "No skills, too young, I can't do this, missed the boat, there's already too many interior designers, no room for me"?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I will. And I want to say, if you're looking around and you think, "I want to do this," and you see so many other people doing it, and they're doing it well, like podcasts with me.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: The first thought is, "There's no room for me. I can't do that. It's already been done." First of all, there's over 8 billion people in this world. There's definitely an audience you can reach. But the second thing is, if it's being done and it's being done well, that means there's money to be made there. It's a validation. Look at it and think, "Oh, great. Mel's a great example that I can make money doing this. Let me try it as well."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Did you hear that, everybody? It's important. It's really important because somebody else doing this is a validation that there is a business and money. And more importantly, people want this in their lives. I know that's what everybody's thinking right now: "It's already been done." Bullshit. You want to know why? It hasn't been done by you.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Amen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You have a unique take on things. The 60-year-old woman that you talked about that launched her first online course, do you know how empowering it is to see somebody teach you when you're in your 40s or 50s and they're older than you? Do you know how empowering it is when you see somebody that has your background, your religion, your skin color, your body type, your experience? You are most qualified to help the person you will most inspire: the person who sees themselves in you and your story. You have lived experiences that nobody else has, and you have stories and insights that you share that nobody else will. And you only need a sliver of the internet to pay attention. That's the wild thing here. You don't need 100,000 customers to make money. A sliver of the internet.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: You get 10 customers. Let's say this, Mel. When I teach people how to create side hustles, let's say you have a $100 program and just 10 people buy that. You've just made $1,000 that you did not have. 10 people, that's all you need. So when you start to think this is too big, I'm too overwhelmed, I don't know where to start, you start with your starter idea and you just get into action.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to give a huge shout out to my kid's guitar instructor, Dave Wade. Dave Wade has made a huge difference in our life. I was always barking about how he should do something more. He's a session musician, classical guitarist, plays on all these major stages. He started a music school in Boston in the basement of a church. It slowly grew. By paying attention to that wake-up call inside him—"There's something more I could be doing. I could be reaching more kids"—he figured out how to create an online course.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: He's done this simply as a side hustle to an existing business. Now he does nothing but virtual lessons with students all over the world and in person in Boston. It just changed his life. Why? It's not because he's smarter than you. It's not because he has more skills than you. It's because he did one thing you're not doing. He's saying, "What if it works out?"
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "What if I just take this kernel of an idea and I lean into it and I don't do it overnight, but I start chipping away at it?"
--:-- [Sound of a phone ringing or a notification]
--:-- Carrie (Listener): [Audio clip] Hey Mel, it's Lou from the UK. I have a question for you. I am no longer in my corporate career after 25 years, and I really want to use this time to do something that I'm really passionate about: coaching other people. I've got the qualifications. It's just the confidence that's stopping me. How can I get past the fear of judgment of others to really put myself out there and follow my passion rather than making myself go back to a corporate career that doesn't light me up? Thanks.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, it's your lucky day, man, because you got Amy Porterfield in the house. So how do you deal with the fear of rejection?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Okay. First of all, notice in that question, she said, "I'm qualified." And then she just brushed right over it. That's the thing. And then she said, "How do I find the confidence?" You don't. It does not start with confidence. You have to tap into courage first. This is a mindset shift right here.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You don't tap into confidence, everybody.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: No.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're not going to feel confident is what you're saying. It's never going to show up in the beginning.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Okay. So you've got to tap into courage.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So please explain what that means to Lou or anybody listening who's like, "Okay, I got my idea. I got the wreaths. I got the streaming online. I got the coaching business. Now I'm doubting myself."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes. Confidence comes from a proven track record of something you want to do. You've never done this. She doesn't want to do what she did in her nine to five job. She wants to start something new. That's uncharted territory. There's no confidence in that. So what she needs to do is first say, "I'm going to find the courage to do this." Courage is taking the leap of faith, knowing I've overcome all of my obstacles. I'm alive. I'm here. She has a proven track record of being resilient, of showing up, doing the work. She said, "I have the experience. I'm qualified." So we're going to tap into courage saying, "Well, then I'm going to create something new based on the fact that my track record is I can figure this out."
--:-- Mel Robbins: You know what I love about this? It's a way to basically just whack self-doubt away. Because what you're saying is, "All right, I don't know how to do this. I've never done this before. Not feeling that confident. Imposter syndrome is kind of coming up. I have the courage to try."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "I have the courage to keep going. I can tap into this thing inside me to say, I know I'm nervous, I know I'm this, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it."
--:-- Amy Porterfield: I'm gonna do it. Exactly. And so that part is so important. We're not gonna chase confidence anymore. The other thing is, when I left my nine to five job, I got home, I'm in my kitchen at my kitchen table, kind of typing away and freaked out thinking, "What did I do?" And I started to make videos. I would make these videos about marketing and funnels and all this stuff and publish them nowhere. My husband would say, "I see you making these videos, but you're doing nothing with them. Why not?" I said, "I'm so afraid what my old coworkers are going to think about me doing this. They're going to see these videos where I'm not good on video yet, so I look like a mess. They're going to think, 'Who is she? She looks like a fool. Who does she think she is? She doesn't know what she's doing.'" So I didn't move forward in this dream I had because I was afraid of what they were thinking. Here's the truth: they're not going after it. So they're going to tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't or why I am not going to make this work.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Here's two pieces that I would add to that. Lou, if you wouldn't trade your life with them, why the fuck would you listen to their advice? That's number one. Because people who have not done what you want to do have no clue what it takes to get there. So stop looking in the rear view mirror. You're not heading in that direction. Second thing I want to say: the second that you decide that you're going to pivot your life, your social media is not for your friends.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes, that's good.
--:-- Mel Robbins: If you could get this concept into your head: your social media is not for your friends. Your social media is for you and your dreams and your self-expression. It's meant to put something out in the world intentionally so that people who are looking for you and who need you can find you. That is what social media is for. The inbound of social media is your board of directors. It's your board of advisors. It's the way that you do total immersion, as Amy just said, into who you're becoming. Your outbound, what you post, is meant to be something like a beacon that draws in the kind of people that are interested in this. When you can get clear, it's not for your ex-co-workers. It's not for your relatives. It's not for your family. It is not for your friends. I think most of my long-term friends do not follow me because I post three times a day and it would choke their feed. If they want to catch up with me, they'll text me. They're not into what I do.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: They're not into personal development. So why would they follow me? I'm not putting it out there for anybody else but the people who find value in it. When you can wrap that around your brain, it'll change your life.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: That's a great example of unbossing. You have the courage to put out content that you know is no longer for your friends to see your kids or whatever, but you're going to put stuff out there that's going to attract people that you can serve.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You think the CEO of Coca-Cola worries about what their ex-colleagues think about their new marketing campaign?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Amen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No. Do you think Beyoncé or Oprah are sitting there thinking, "I don't know if I could do this. What are people going to think about me if I put it out there?" They're not thinking that way. And now she has the most Grammys of any recording artist ever to prove that if you just find the courage—forget about confidence, it'll come later—find the courage to try.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Do it because you will not regret it. Tell me the story about the 19-year-old.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Yes. One of my favorite students, 19, his name's Aiden, and he dropped out of college. It just wasn't for him. I can totally relate. College isn't for everyone. So he thought, "What am I going to do?" But he needed to make money really quickly. One thing he was really good at, because everyone said, "How do you do that?" was training his dogs. He's not a professional dog trainer. But talk about those dogs not jumping on the couch, not jumping on people when they walk through the door, not barking like crazy. He just had it down. He had two dogs and trained them well. So he thought, "I'm going to start making some videos. I'm going to start posting on social. I'm going to show people what I can do with these dogs." What happened was, this is the scrappy part: in his local neighborhood, people started to hire him one-on-one. "Teach my dogs. Come get my dogs. Teach them what you know." So that was the first action, the starter idea. Now it's ballooned into creating courses and memberships and teaching people all about dog training. But it started in his local community.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Don't focus on the million dollars tomorrow. Let's focus on the thousand dollars that you can make right away.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Did you guys just hear that? This is a practical application of making it smaller. How can you make a thousand dollars now doing something that you love? Because when you find the courage to do that and then post the photos of your wreaths or put up the little video of you teaching the neighbor's annoying yappy dog how to sit when you say "Sit," it doesn't matter what your friends think. You're starting to see yourself doing something instead of thinking about it. That's going to create confidence in you to do more and more and more. We are inviting you step by step by step. Amy walks you through this in her book, *Two Weeks Notice*. Think differently. Open your eyes up to a totally different possibility. Freedom, financial freedom, freedom with your time, the freedom and the power to create a life that really works for you. This is not just for some people. It's for everybody. It's for people that are willing to say, "You know what, I do want more for my life. I do want to feel in control. I can make money and I can learn how to pay for my benefits and my healthcare. I could take the power back if I'm willing to think differently." Amy, what are some final thoughts for people? Because I know what happens in an episode like this. Everyone's like, "Holy shit." First of all, don't quit your job just yet. What is the next right step for somebody to take? Is it to do the sweet spot exercise?
--:-- Amy Porterfield: Absolutely. I think doing the sweet spot exercise could be really helpful. And if you get stuck on "What am I good at?" ask your friends and family. I want you to send a text out to 10 people today and say, "If I were ever going to go out on my own and do my own thing, what am I good at? What do you think I should start?" Because your family and friends will have lots of ideas for you. So that's one thing you could do. A lot of people will say, "I don't know where to start." We just heard that one. "I want to do my own thing, but I have no idea where to start." I wrote the step-by-step guidebook to give you everything you need to know to start your own side hustle or start your own business. But here's what I want to say. You've been out there on TikTok saying "No one's coming to save you." It's actually a really popular TikTok that everyone is using. "No one's coming to save you." You're a TikTok sensation, for the record. And that is very true right now as well. Meaning you don't need anybody to save you. You do not need anybody to tell you how worthy you are. You do not need someone to approve how much money you can make or how you can spend your time. There's a world out there where you are literally designing your own life by calling the shots. Everybody is welcome to explore that. The only people who will take us up on this today are those that will say, "All right, I'll give it a shot. I don't know how this would work out. I don't know what this would look like. I'm at least going to explore the possibility that I could have a different life." That's all we're asking for people to do right now.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. You got to follow Amy Porterfield. Make sure you're subscribed to both of our YouTube channels. I want to congratulate you listening on one thing. You took the time to listen to this. You took the time to entertain it. If you feel something fluttering inside you, take the next step. Pick up Amy's book, *Two Weeks Notice*. We've linked to it in the contents. Also check out some of the free resources. We have linked to some of the videos that she has that are free that you can watch that are going to walk you through some of the next right steps. We're here to support you. But the main thing that I wanted to do today, this was my mission, was to give you a wake-up call and to make you go, "I don't have to do what I've always done." Because if I continue to do what I've always done, I'm going to have what I've always had. I deserve to be happier. I deserve to feel like I'm in control. I deserve to be doing something that makes me feel empowered. We are two living examples. We are examples that you can change your life any moment you decide to. It's never too late. You're never too early. For those of you who are just graduating, never too early to take control and to pivot and to do something entirely different just because you want to. Amy Porterfield, thank you, my friend.
--:-- Amy Porterfield: So happy to be here. Thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I just want to say that in case nobody else tells you, I love you. I know Amy does too. I love you. I believe in you and I believe in your ability to do this. Go create a side hustle. I want that for you. I know you want that for you too. All right, I'll talk to you in a few days.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.
