From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2021. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL’s in these archive episodes are still relevant.
Cait Scudder is a TEDx speaker, and success expert, her mission is to empower ten million driven, bold-hearted women to tap into their genius and create profitable, purpose-driven businesses.
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Resources
Cait’s Website – The Business Of Your Dreams Is At Your Fingertips. Now Is Your Time To Rise.
Cait’s Instagram – Follow and connect with Cait.
Born To Rise Podcast – Listen, learn more, and be inspired to rise!
3 Value Bombs
1) Valuing people over speed is essential in prioritizing your build relationships, particularly in the online space as an entrepreneur. Success is created by the impact that you are putting out in the world.
2) Optimize your schedule, time, and energy to be playing in your Zone of Genius. It will yield you the most financial and energetically return.
3) Start to cultivate a relationship with risk, find comfort in taking uncomfortable actions and learn to expand yourself by leaning into your edge.
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HubSpot: Grow better, faster with HubSpot’s all-in-one intuitive customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more!
Show Notes
**Click the time stamp to jump directly to that point in the episode.
Today’s Audio MASTERCLASS: How to Find Your Zone of Genius to Grow Your Impact and Income with Cait Scudder
[1:21]– Cait shares something that she believes about becoming successful that most people disagree with.
- She believes that valuing people over speed is essential in prioritizing your build relationships, particularly in the online space as an entrepreneur. Success is created by the impact that you are putting out in the world.
[3:29] – Cait shares her journey from being a high school teacher to becoming a 7-figure entrepreneur.
- She had her Masters in Teaching at the age of 23, and she was bred to fast track to success.
- Her first job was being a Spanish teacher. After two years, she had a moment wherein she felt the hunger to impact others.
- She felt that she was meant to do something else. She is a risk-taker, so she quit her job and went to Bali to have women leadership training.
- After the training, she met her husband and lived with him in Bali.
- In May 2017, she launched her business – an in-person mastermind.
- She scaled 6-figure profit on her first year and four years after she crossed the 7-figure mark.
- Her decision to leave the safety of having a full-time job to become an entrepreneur has cultivated her relationship with risk.
[8:31] – What is a Zone of Genius, and how does someone discover theirs?
- The Zone of Genius is your center point in business – your passion and natural skillsets intersect with a need of the world.
- If you are not working inside your Zone of Genius, it can be draining, depleting, and tiring.
- Make a list of all the tasks you need in your business, determine if you need an extra team member, and identify all the tasks on the list that absolutely requires your time and energy; everything else can be outsourced.
- Optimize your schedule, time, and energy to be playing in your Zone of Genius. It will yield you the most financial and energetically return.
[12:16] – What was your secret of having a $512K launch in the last month of your pregnancy?
- Cait had a lot of energy in the previous month of her pregnancy.
- She started her program early, had a big launch window and made the offer appealing and attractive.
- She focused on her Zone of Genius and had an ample timeline to cater to those ideal clients.
[16:65] – A timeout to thank our sponsor!
- HubSpot: Grow better, faster with HubSpot’s all-in-one intuitive customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more!
[19:31] – Cait shares some productivity hacks.
- Necessity is the mother of invention, and when your time is not yours anymore, you learn to prioritize.
- Accept support from others.
- Set your time limits.
- Set power hours on your calendar.
[24:16] – How do you stay productive and profitable while on the go?
- Having clear communication is essential in staying productive while being on the go.
- Be organized.
- Be proactive and prioritize.
[27:34] – How to nail your niche?
- Figure out the problem that you are most passionate about solving.
- Identify your “promise” to your clients.
- Identify your point of difference from the others.
[32:04] – Cait’s parting piece of guidance.
- Start to cultivate a relationship with risk, find comfort in taking uncomfortable actions and learn to expand yourself by leaning into your edge.
- Cait’s Website – The Business Of Your Dreams Is At Your Fingertips. Now Is Your Time To Rise.
- Cait’s Instagram – Follow and connect with Cait.
- Born To Rise Podcast – Listen, learn more, and be inspired to rise!
[33:25] – Thank you to our Sponsor!
- HubSpot: Grow better, faster with HubSpot’s all-in-one intuitive customer platform. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more!
Transcript
0 (2s):
Lights that spark Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like my first million today, we'll be focusing on how to find your zone of genius to grow your impact and income to drop these value bombs. I brought Cait Scudder and EOFire studios. Cait is a TEDx speaker and success experts. Her mission is to empower 10 million driven, bold hearted women to tap into their genius and create profitable purpose driven businesses. And today we'll talk about her journey to becoming a seven figure entrepreneur from a high school teacher, what his zone of genius is and how you can discover it. We'll talk about productivity hacks and how to nail your niche and so much more.
0 (46s):
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0 (1m 31s):
Cait say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.
1 (1m 40s):
What is up guys? First of all, John, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for having me on the show. I love this question. I think that the biggest, I hate even to say secret to success because I don't believe in secrets, but I think a very under sung hero when it comes to creating success is valuing people over speed and really, really prioritizing the quality of the relationships that you build. I think particularly in the online space as an entrepreneur, you know, it can feel very, very easy to fall down a rabbit hole of comparison and really needing to be sharp elbowed and like get that quickest win to brag about on Instagram really fast.
1 (2m 28s):
And what I think happens as a result of that is we throw away the focus and the priority on relationships. And I believe so much of success is created by the impact that you create, the legacy that you build, the way that you make other people feel the way that your brand really reverberates so much beyond whatever you're putting out there into the world. And so a very important piece in my mind is being so mindful and tending a lot to the way that you prioritize relationships.
0 (2m 59s):
This note Fire Nation, a lot of people are always just saying, how can I get new clients? How can I find more leads? How can I do this? Do that. What about developing closer intimate relationships with your current customers, with current people in your audience, like spending time with them, people who are already in a place where they consume your content, where they know like, and trust you, how about going deeper with them building real meaningful relationships. And I think this is really cool to use as a springboard into a conversation about your career, because you started as a high school teacher and now you've become this successful seven figure entrepreneur while being a mom or traveling the world.
0 (3m 41s):
Things we'll be getting to later in this interview, can you share that journey from teacher to seven figure entrepreneur? Absolutely.
1 (3m 48s):
So I come from kind of an academic background. I went to, you know, a fancy undergrad college. I had my masters at 23, so I was kind of very much bred in this fast track to success, ambitious achiever. I'm a three on the Enneagram. So I really have this kind of go-getting personality. And I found myself at 23 coming out of my master's program, which was a master's in teaching and this incredible job at a small high school opened up to teach Spanish. And so I took it straight away. I was getting paid $38,000 a year. I thought I was like the richest woman in the world because it was my first job. And, you know, it took me only two years to burn, like literally burn out to the bone.
1 (4m 33s):
I had six different classes that I had to prepare for. I had, you know, I was like the young, bright eyed bushy tailed teacher. And so I got lumped in with all this extracurricular duty that was of course unpaid. And I just, I had this moment of really realizing I had really bad anxiety actually at the time. And you know, so, so hungry to impact people's lives. I loved being in the front of the room. I loved impacting my students, but I just, I became very evident to me that number one, this is not sustainable for my body. This is not sustainable for my spirit. And number two, I am not meant to be teaching the subjunctive clause to high school students.
1 (5m 15s):
I am meant to be doing. And not that that's like bad or wrong. And I think anyone for whom that's their vocation, like all of the power to you, it just felt very clear to me that I was meant for something more. And, you know, I think it's in interviews like this. It's always easy to look at. Wow. Look at, she went from there and now she's here and it must've just happened overnight. And what I really want to emphasize John is that the journey for me has been one, a series of, and the reason that I'm in the position that I'm in today is because I have really normalized having a relationship with taking risks and betting on myself in a way that I think in a traditional nine to five or a traditional like seven to three and a teaching job, it's just not built in right.
1 (5m 56s):
You land the job, you show up. Sometimes you just do it begrudgingly and you don't actually love the work, but you're in and you, your paycheck is guaranteed becoming an entrepreneur means taking risks after risk after risk. And so the thing that catalyzed that journey for me, I quit my job, you know, two years into it. I actually traveled to Bali not to be an entrepreneur, although there's like a huge digital nomad scene there, which is where I actually started my business in 2017. But I, I went for a women's leadership training actually. And that after the training I met my now husband, which, you know, we were together at the time and that's what drew me back to live in Bali. And when I went back to live there, that's when I started to really notice this kind of laptop lifestyle, digital nomad scene.
1 (6m 42s):
And I saw so many incredible people for the first time who had built a personal brand using their gifts, kind of synthesizing all of these different skill sets that they'd acquired. And rather than trying to fit that inside of a box, we're actually using it to build a brand that was all their own. And so it took me really a year to a year and a half actually, from, from that moment to when I finally launched my business, it was may of 2017. I got myself in a mastermind and in-person mastermind that I had really been like sitting on my hands and being like, oh, who am I to put out content, you know, all that classic stuff. And I just got myself accountable and ripped off the band-aid started, you know, posting and through a website together.
1 (7m 25s):
And, you know, it was very successful within my first year. I scaled to six figures within my first year. And then last year when I was pregnant, we crossed the seven figure mark. And it's just been, it's been an incredible journey, but I would say that the thing that really has been consistent from that first decision to leave the safety of a full-time job to going all in on myself again and again, and again has been cultivating a relationship with risks.
0 (7m 53s):
And there's so much to take away from that. You know, one thing before I get too deep on my kind of 2 cents here is love that you're into the Enneagram. A three. I feel like I know so much about you now. And I'm in the crickets on the Enneagram myself. So I'm a challenger. I've always challenged everything. And that's just something that's so cool. And Fire Nation definitely love hearing what you are on the Enneagram. So make sure to reach out and give me a little Intel on that since I loved your part about betting on yourself. I mean, Fire Nation, you need to bet on yourself. You need to invest in yourself. What better use of your time of your effort of your finances than in yourself?
0 (8m 34s):
There will be time later after your bet on yourself comes to fruition. You can bet on other things, but for now bet on yourself. Now let's talk about the zone of genius and how Fire Nation can discover theirs to
1 (8m 50s):
Me. I think about your zone of genius being sort of like that center point. If you think of like an old school, middle school, English class, you know, graphic thinking about where your passion and what you love to do and could spend all of your time doing, just getting absorbed in where that passion and natural skillset intersects with a need of the world. That is your zone of genius in, in business. And I think that when you start to do some introspective work and I would say anybody who's listening, like a way to kind of muscle test, is this my zone of genius? Or is this not? Does it come easily to you? Does it come effortlessly to you?
1 (9m 31s):
So like taking this down to some brass tacks for our entrepreneurs who are listening to this, one of the things that I take my clients into, especially high-level entrepreneurs who are already at that like six, multiple six, even seven figure level is looking at, if you're not working inside of your zone of genius, that looks like tasks that feel draining to your energy tasks, that feel depleting tasks that you feel like you need to rest in order to recover from. One thing that I think is really powerful to do is to make a list if you're feeling. And if you're at the point in your business where you are needing to outsource and get some other team members into alleviate the time that you're spending and expedite, you know, efficiency in the business is make a list literally of all of the tasks that are happening inside of your business.
1 (10m 16s):
And if you are a solopreneur, or even if you're an entrepreneur needing to bring more team members into your existing team, list out what those tasks are, and then circle all of the things in the business, the only things that absolutely require your time and energy. So like for you, John, that's, you recording this podcast, that's you doing like live streams, things that need your face, your energy, your time, things that are just, you know, that content creation for those of us who work with clients, obviously being on those client calls and serving those clients, literally everything else can be delegated and can be outsourced. So if you're at that early stage, I would say, be in the inquiry of what lights me up more than anything, what am I so good at?
1 (10m 59s):
What do I love doing and what does the world need? And if you're a later stage entrepreneur trying to figure out how to bring more team members in to support your business, you know, a real place to, to look at and to investigate is what, what tasks in your business, what things in your business really require you, that's the zone that we want you playing. And in frankly, that your business needs you playing in and everything else. So like delivering client, delivering, you know, invoices and contracts, scheduling all of that kind of stuff that can be delegated. And I think that the real needle mover happens in business. When we can optimize our schedule, optimize our time and optimize our energy to be playing in our zone of genius.
1 (11m 44s):
That's ultimately, what's going to yield the most return financially and also the biggest return energy, right?
0 (11m 50s):
So many value bombs, Fire Nation throughout that, the one that I really want to zone back in on is the key words that Cait used for your zone of genius is your focus Fire Nation truly on a real need in this world. Is it on a real need, a specific, unique, real pain points? Think about that. Be honest with yourself and Cait going through some of the things that you've done. I mean, you had a huge year by pivoting your business really because of your pregnancy. So what was your secret, even though I know you don't like that word. So what was your sauce of having a $512,000 launch in the last month of your pregnant?
1 (12m 34s):
I actually love unpacking this launch for people because I think we hear a number like that. And we're like, how, how, how, how, first of all, I want to say for any women listening in there who are pregnant or who have been pregnant and they're like, girl, how did you do that? Every pregnancy is different. I am, and I know this is true for a lot of women. Several of my clients have shared this with me as well for some of us at the end of pregnancy, there's like a huge creative burst. And I don't think that's surprising. Like there's so much creative life force energy moving in you. And so for me, I actually had a lot of energy. I, so I didn't need to be like lying on the couch. I know that's, you know, the experience for some women. So number one, my body was in a place to really support that.
1 (13m 15s):
But honestly, John, I was working maybe like seven hours a week and I was not, and it actually builds so beautifully off of our conversation and zone of genius. I, so the program that I was launching started in January of this year, I actually started the launch in August of last year. So it was an incredibly spacious period. We had an early enrollment bonus window. I priced the offer. So the offer is for one of my masterminds when my high level masterminds. And I had an early enrollment discount that was like $5,000 off the program. Now I intentionally set the price to be such that receiving for that early enrollment.
1 (13m 59s):
You know, it wasn't like an afterthought. And then I was like, oh, I don't actually want to receive that money. It's too low. I priced it that the regular tuition such that I was happy about what the early enrollment bonus, you know, discount was. So there were definitely some strategic elements there, there was a bonus that was just too good to pass up that for people who opted in early. So I gave myself number one, a really spacious launch window, number two, I made it very, the offer, very, very appealing and attractive, and really incentivize those action takers, which is exactly who I was calling in for the mastermind. Very self-directed self-assured action taker on established entrepreneurs who knew and were already thinking in August about setting themselves up for the year ahead.
1 (14m 42s):
This was not for people who were like, oh, I got to figure my shit out. In December of 2020. This was really people who are thinking a lot ahead. The structure and the timeline of the launch really supported, supported me to then show up in my zone of genius. So the things that I was doing again, I was, even though I had a lot of energy, I was still pregnant. I was not available like just completely unavailable to grind. And so all I did was show up in the places that I knew my audience was most responsive to, and that really supported my energy, my teaching, my zone of genius to shine through. And for me, that is video audio. So I would do two, maybe three Facebook lives per week.
1 (15m 27s):
And my team would repurpose some of that for Instagram, for a podcast. But that was me that the, the, the thing that I was actually doing marketing wise was supporting me to show up in that full magnetic energy cell without stress, without pressure, without a really crunchy timeline. And then for this particular launch, I did sales calls. And so I held, you know, those sales calls. And that was literally all that I did. We're talking, you know, an hour and a half, maybe of live streams per week. And then, you know, a little bit of communicating with my team via slack, and then just getting on the phone, listening to people again, what I spoke about in the beginning, building those relationships really discerning a fit. I actually turned down, it could have been an even bigger launch, but I turned down several people for the mastermind who wanted in and were ready to pay, but weren't the right fit for it.
1 (16m 14s):
And I think all of these things together contributed to a huge launch that felt like the most spacious launch that I've ever had. And I think that was a real combination of me being so discerning and deliberate about only being in my zone of genius and giving myself and my team an ample timeline to have those ideal clients,
0 (16m 36s):
Fire Nation. I hope you're really absorbing everything that went into that $512,000 launch. I mean, it's not about nose to the grindstone from morning until midnight is about, do you have a coherent specific dialed in message? Do you have a team around you that can support you? And then can you just do and spend your time on what you should be doing and spending your time on, and that sort of be talking about next productivity, being profitable, nailing your niche. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, these days, too many businesses let their data exists in siloed solutions and personalized content, productive, prospecting, and exceptional customer service is so important when it comes to scaling and growing your business.
0 (17m 16s):
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0 (18m 0s):
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0 (18m 45s):
My favorite and I drink one every day is Organifi green juice. It contains 11 superfoods for resetting the body and helping you feel amazing throughout the day. Plus it's 100% USDA certified organic, and today you can get 20% off your order, just visit organifi.com/fire. That's organifi.com/fire and use code fire at checkout for 20% off your order. So Cait we're back and everybody whines about time, or of course their lack of time. So as a new mom, you've learned some pretty amazing productivity hacks. How the heck do you get it all done?
1 (19m 23s):
Such a good question. First of all, I made, I think it was like my first real that I ever made was about being productive and basically went the first time for all my new mamas who are listening to this. You will know this when you cross that threshold, but like the first time that your baby takes a day nap, I felt like I was super woman or like Bradley Cooper in limitless, like the amount of stuff that I got done in a 45 minute nap just astounded me. So I think, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. And when your time is not your own anymore, you really learn to prioritize the moments that you get. So there's a couple of things that I would say here. The first number one is accept support.
1 (20m 5s):
I will be so honest and transparent and say that I would not be pre the, at all the productive, as productive as I am without having support at home. So I have, you know, I'm very blessed to have a nanny who is here full-time and able to support ELA, even though I'm not working full time. She really enables me to drop into, again, that Workday, that zone of genius in the time that I have. But, you know, I want to spend time with my daughter. I want to be spending time with my husband and out in the garden and doing other things in my life. And so I think that productivity rather than really centering on these like three hacks and, and practices that you have to do, it actually starts in a much deeper place, a place of understanding your values and being very intentional about your biggest asset in life and in business, which is your time.
1 (20m 54s):
And so for me, I am very, very clear that I only want to be working 25 hours a week. I know that per week to anywhere from 10 to 12 hours of that is client work and then everything else. So like writing copy, recording podcasts, anything marketing related, anything high level strategy or planning related goes into that other, you know, 10 to 13, 15, 14, 15 hours. And so with that, I find that having limits and, and knowing why you have those limits, not just saying 25 hours as an arbitrary number, but 25 hours.
1 (21m 35s):
So that the rest of that time, I'm able to spend time pouring into the things that really matter to me. I find that that makes actually sticking to the productivity hacks themselves actually work. And so one of the things I do in a very like brass tax sort of a way is I map out in my calendar time that I have, and almost use like the Pomodoro method. So I have what I call like power hours that are in my calendar inside of those power hours. I'll say like review sales page copy, or, you know, go live or record a solo podcast episode, rather than just having like blank space in my calendar and a to-do list written on my desk. I actually plug it into my Google calendar, like what I'm doing, but the reason I didn't want to just share that John is because that I have many clients for whom that doesn't work for them and the place that we need to go, if that's not working is, well, why are you feeling like it's okay to just be really like bleeding out your energy and your time, why aren't we protecting your time?
1 (22m 33s):
And I think that is really where we have to look at and be super intentional with, if I'm not working outside of work outside of my identity as an entrepreneur, what do I value? And what, what time does that require? And do I desire to pour into that? And I find that that helps keep the container of your productive hours so much more efficient,
0 (22m 53s):
Lot of value there, Fire Nation. One thing that I want to circle back to is once you know, your limit of hours, that you are able and, or willing to work, you can fit in the most important things in your life within those hours. Believe me, you can, because you will get ruthless about cutting out the crap. You need to find ways to be ruthless about cutting out the crap. And Parkinson's law really comes in here. As the tasks will expand to the time allotted. If you give yourself all day to write a sales page, you will take all day to read a sales page. If you give yourself 45 minutes, you'll get it done in 45 minutes. And using that Pomodoro method, like really starting a timer and watching the first couple of seconds tick off of it, that mentally shifts shifts you into go mode.
0 (23m 38s):
Fire Nation needed to be in go mode. So you're not just a home body, Cait, which some people may just assume being a mother and, you know, just not really wanting to put in more than 25 hours a week right now with what you're doing, but you actually travel internationally and we're talking every other month. I'm sure some of that has changed and adjusted a little bit recently for different reasons, but how do you stay so productive and so profitable, even when you're traveling
1 (24m 7s):
Such a good question? Yes, COVID has definitely impacted that. But as I shared earlier, I started my business while living abroad in Bali. I actually lived in Bali for about three and a half years. My husband's Australian. So we go, well, pre COVID, we would go to Australia at least a couple of times a year, travel back to the states. Now in base state side, we actually took a three month trip to Australia earlier this year with our daughter. So this is interesting learning this new identity of being very on the go. Also having our daughter in tow and our two businesses. My husband is also an entrepreneur. And so there's a couple things that really support that. Staying productive while being on the go, especially as a mom, one of them is clear communication, clear communication with my team, clear communication with my husband.
1 (24m 57s):
I think especially when traveling and, you know, there are those of us who travel alone. There are those of us who travel with a partner with families when you are traveling your, and especially if you're running a company with team members, communication is just everything. I think communication is such a huge part of running a successful business. So letting your team know, Hey, I'm going to be in this new time zone, here are working hours. Here's what you can expect from me in terms of communication or, Hey, I'm on this trip and I'm going to be working normal hours these days, but these days I'm actually going to be out of office. So making sure that all of that is done productively and proactively on the other hand, and especially in partnership and in family, like communicating with my husband, Hey, these are the things that I've got going on in the business.
1 (25m 44s):
If there is like life admin stuff, which usually there is more of when traveling, whether it's like booking accommodation or organizing travel plans or events or dinners or whatever's happening, I'm having really clear time to communicate about those things. So my husband and I usually do that over breakfast for like the day, week ahead. That's our time to really drop in delegate any life tasks. So I think part of it is just like organization and communication and making sure that anyone who's impacted in the day-to-day flow of operating your, both your life and business, you are being proactive about communicating your needs, communicating what needs to happen. And then it's just dropping into, you know, the, the previous thing that I was talking about, being intentional about your working hours, and I think even more ruthless because usually if you're traveling, you have other like really important life experiences, maybe family, friend commitments that you want to honor.
1 (26m 39s):
The last thing you want to do is like show up late to a dinner because you couldn't like keep yourself organized with what had to happen. So set your working hours for the day, plug in there, the most important things that need to happen, make sure that you are communicating and delegating and getting as much off your plate to your team as possible and make sure you're looping in the other people in your life who are, who need to be looped in, in order for you to get everything
0 (27m 4s):
Done, nailing your niche. Or as I like to say, niche your face off Fire Nation. I mean, I personally believe in nailing your niche so much. I dedicated chapter two of my book to discovering your niche. So Cait, you talk a lot about how entrepreneurs must nail their niche. How do we do that?
1 (27m 25s):
Absolutely. So I actually have a whole program about niching and I say niche. I know some people say niche, but I think there's a couple things like very practically. The first thing is figuring out the problem that you are the most passionate about solving. I think that a big issue for a lot of new entrepreneurs is like, oh, well, I'm, you know, I'm an empowerment coach. I can help so many people in so many different ways, like specifically, what problem are you of all of the things that you can do that you enjoy doing? Like, what problem are you most devoted to helping your people solve? And then what is the promise? What's the desire? What is the, what's the kind of promised land on the other side of that problem that you support clients in achieving in a transformation.
1 (28m 11s):
And so I like to think of it as like the five PS problem promise. The third, I think is probably the most important ingredient to niching in, in my view. And that is point of difference. Understanding what makes you different. There may be a thousand other health coaches, business coaches, you know, podcasts agencies, what ha whatever you do, whatever service you offer, whatever problem you solve, there is no one else who does it in the way that you can do it. Who has the energy, who has the story, who has the unique, special sauce that only you have. And it's digging in to finding what that is inside of yourself that is going to make you absolutely magnetic to your ideal client.
1 (28m 55s):
And I think this is the most challenging part of niching for entrepreneurs, because there's this very like follow the leader trend that I feel is happening in the online industry, where, and, you know, we see this in visual branding, like it becomes very trendy, at least for like female entrepreneurs to be like all blush pink. And then it's very trendy to be like black and gold. And then it's very trendy to, you know, have this or that. And, and, and none of that's bad or wrong, right? I think trends emerge because there's like a collective consciousness that's in the process of evolving and that's how it's playing out. But to truly stand out, to truly radiate a presence and an authenticity that is unique, we need to understand what makes us different.
1 (29m 37s):
And so my biggest advice for those listening, who are really trying to into that point of difference is go back to your story, go back to the experiences that you have lived. Go back to every, whether it's formal training, experiential training, life training, work with clients, work in other industries, like what has formed you to be in the position that you're now in solving the problems that you now solve, what values really drive you. And rather than trying to mold those to fit into the industry, use those to allow you to shape a story that is unique and really stand out. It's only when we let ourselves be seen that we almost create a niche unto ourselves.
1 (30m 21s):
And so I think a really big key with niching and like the more traditional sense is like, understand, you know, who you really want to help understand how you help them. But the key I believe to truly standing out is being able to articulate in messaging and branding and energy. What makes you different? Why would someone hire you? I mean, it's all the other entrepreneurs doing similar work. That point of difference. That's your special sauce
0 (30m 47s):
By our nation until you become the number one solution to a real problem in this world, you're going to struggle. You will struggle. And the reality is if you can nail your niche, you will be able to become that number one solution, because you're going to find a niche that has weak competition or no competition. And then you can dominate, and this follow the leader, trend the case, talking about it's a losing proposition. Like Cait's kind of nice. I'm not that nice. I'm going to tell you how it is. It is a losing proposition. Nobody wants a week pale imitation of somebody else. They want the best of you. And you have something amazing. You are a snowflake, you are unique. You need to find that you need to find that niche and you need to nail it.
0 (31m 31s):
And then you can dominate and grow. And by the way, broaden out over time, if you so choose. So, Kay, you've given us a ton of value. Give us the one clear takeaway you want to make sure Fire Nation really gets from ever rethink that we talked about here today, which was a lot. This is a note taking a podcast Fire Nation. And of course, let us know how we can connect with you. Any call to action you have for our listeners. Then we'll say goodbye. Thank you so
1 (31m 56s):
Much for having me, John, the biggest takeaway. Yes, there are so many gems in here about playing in your zone of genius, being really meticulous and intentional with your time. But the biggest takeaway that I want you guys to think about and have is to cultivate a relationship with risk. Literally, every beautiful thing that I've built in my life, in my business, the success that we've seen, the expansion has been a result of going all in and truly finding comfort. And I know this might sound cliche, but it's just so true. Finding comfort in taking those uncomfortable actions that reflect the person, the entrepreneur, the version of yourself that you are growing into, not where you have been.
1 (32m 38s):
And it like the hallmark of the most successful entrepreneurs that we cultivate a relationship with risk. And we learn to expand ourselves by leaning into our edge. So that's the biggest takeaway I have for you. I would love to stay connected to any of you listening to this I'm you can find me on my website, which is Cait.com. C A I T.com. I'm on Instagram at Cait Scudder. And you can also check me out in my podcast. I have a podcast called born to rise. So you can just go, go to born, to rise, podcast.com and check everything out there. Thank you so much for having me, John born
0 (33m 13s):
To rise loved that name, gray branding and Fire Nation. You know, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with Cait and JLD today. So keep up that heat head on over to eofire.com type Cates, C a I T in the search bar. Her Shauna's page will pop right up and of course get on over to all those URLs and connections that Cait just gave to you and enjoy. And Cait, I just wanna say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today, for that we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much, John. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bound content was brought to you by Cait's in Fire Nation.
0 (33m 54s):
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