239: The Guilt-Free Art of Doing What You Want

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because of the hustle grind, repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It had it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure. Entrepreneur bestselling author, speaker, mom, and rule breaker. I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about.

The intentional advantage is doing life on our own terms. Define the status quo and seeing ourselves outside of the tie-dye definition. Society’s name for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your everydays and choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world. And it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted because we were told they were truths.

Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible. Let’s choose to be extraordinary. Hello, and welcome to the intentional advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 239. And today we’re going to do something a little bit different. Well, I guess it’s, you know, I feel like we’ve been saying we’re doing something different all the time lately.

And honestly, I think that is the thing that was really good for me prior to the season, I took a month off a little bit more than a month. It ended up being, I think like five weeks. I took some time away and it allowed me that space to really take a look at how I was running things in my business, on the podcast,

in my personal life. And it was incredibly beneficial. So doing things differently from time to time feels really good. And that’s actually what we’re going to be talking about today. This whole idea of doing what you want and doing it. Guilt-free so often we hold ourselves back from the life we really want. And when I say our life, I mean our personal life or even our business life,

because we feel like there’s a certain way that we should be doing things that we can’t take a break from the podcast. We can’t take a, you know, a shift or a pivot in our business. We, we have to do what everybody else is doing or else we’re doing it wrong. And I wish you could see me because I’m using air quotes here with that word wrong because it’s never wrong to do what feels right.

That’s what I really want to get into with today’s episode, the guilt free art of doing what you want last week on the show, when we had Allie Kasasa here, she and I talked about this whole idea of creating our own rules for how our house works well, that same concept, that same idea applies to every aspect of your world, every aspect of your life.

And interestingly enough, I recently had a one-on-one coaching session, just a quick short laser coaching session with DeAnn Ramaro wits, who is in my group. And we talked about how she was running her business and how she wants to run her business. And I felt like, even though we were talking about business here in this conversation, a lot of what we shared and a lot of what we talked about applies to all areas of our lives.

So I asked Diane if I could use her coaching clip to share with you guys, because I thought you would find it really insightful and really helpful in thinking about how this idea of doing what we want really applies to us. No matter if you run your own business or if you’re in a career in a corporation or you’re a stay at home mom, we have that ability to do things in our own way.

And we sometimes just have to separate ourselves from that noise that tells us, you know, this is what you have to be doing, or this is what you should be doing. So here’s what I want to do today. I am going to in just a second, I’m going to let you listen in on this coaching session between Dan and myself, and then I’m going to come back and we’re going to chat a little bit about what we discovered together through that little coaching session.

All right, sound good. Let’s go ahead and dive in. So the question is, and it’s, it’s sort of the opposite of Debs, interestingly enough. So my question was, do I have to use social media and email to market my business? And here’s the background? So every night, you know, I go through and I delete dozens,

if not hundreds of emails, you know, just in my own personal email box, marketing emails, emails from people that I follow. Maybe I got their opt in like two years ago. And you know, sometimes I read it and I’m just thinking, do I want to be, be part of this noise that people just delete me every day? You know?

And then with social media, it just feels like you’re shouting into a void half the time and not seeing like a lot of returns. So in the past, you know, man, I was doing the social media thing every day and doing my weekly newsletter and my blog and like everything was, I was doing what I was quote unquote, supposed to do.

And my business still came from a previous client would recommend me to someone up. So I feel like I was I’ve given it the good old college try. I’ll be it with a different business. And it felt like a lot of work for not a lot of returns. I’m wondering do I have to do social media and email marketing. And, but then that seems like the antithesis of scaling and really like building a big business.

So kind of where I’m stuck. And so consequently, I just feel like, well, it’s not going to matter anyways. So I do nothing. Okay. All right. So I think first of all, if you have to, if you say, do I have to, the answer is going to be no from me every time should I do this because everybody else is doing it.

I’m going to say no every time I’m going to say, what is it that works for you? Because quite frankly, what sounds like it’s working for you is referral marketing. And I have a very good friend. I’m I’m thinking about having her come in. Actually I was just talking to her the other day about having her possibly come and talk about her referral methodology.

She runs an eight figure business and she runs zero ads. She runs nothing on Facebook. She does not worry about social media. Everything is referral based. So the answer here is no. Let me just go ahead and say, hell no, you don’t have to do it. If you don’t want to, you run your business on your own terms,

you design your business. So it works for you. And quite frankly, if getting on social media makes you feel like, oh, then don’t do it because your time is much better spent nurturing those referrals. Because here’s the thing. If you’re tracking where your clients are, when we’re thinking about those soulmate clients of yours, maybe your soulmate clients really aren’t on social media,

or if they’re on social media, is there one platform where they are, and that’s the one platform that you spend time on. But even that I don’t feel like if you feel like you’re getting enough traffic sources for now for what you need without using social media, that they’re not really coming to you for social media, that’s a waste of your time.

I mean, I feel like I’m going to say the opposite of what everybody else is trying to Hawk out there. Like you gotta be on social media guys do Facebook ads. Here’s the truth is, you know, Facebook ads right now are a little bit of a, of a wild west nightmare because Facebook is shutting down ads left and right. We’ve had several conversations internally about how do we,

how do we continue to grow? And just no longer do Facebook ads at all? Because there’s up to me, don’t tell Facebook this, but I would never be on Facebook at all. Cause I don’t like Facebook. I don’t like how they run their business. I don’t like partnering with a company that I don’t align with their values. And I feel like they totally screw business owners over again.

And again and again. So I mean, we’re kind of in that, that the throws of that like really understanding how can we make it so that we are not advertising as much on there. So that’s my short answer is no. What I would tell you to do is double down on the referral marketing that you’re doing, because that’s bringing you traffic that time you’re spending where you’re like,

oh, I have to go and do social media. This feels like a nightmare. It feels like more noise. Let’s take that time instead and invest it where it’s really making a difference as you grow. And as you scale, if you want to, you can bring somebody on to help manage and maintain a lot of that social media presence. But that’s not where.

And I think that’s a mistake. A lot of businesses make is they think that everything has to happen on social media. If you’re not on social media, you’re dying. I know some insanely huge businesses, eight, nine figures that are not on social media at all. Like I have really good friends who do not do social media and they are able to scale to incredible numbers.

So it’s really, it’s all about preference, but it’s also about that ideal client that you’re working with that soulmate client. If she or he is not on social media, why are you over there? Because everybody else’s, you’re just playing the game and let’s stop playing the game. Let’s start doing things on your own terms. So double down on the referral marketing,

really making sure that are you offering, you know, some sort of referral bonus to your clients when they refer people over to, you know, but that, I love that idea though. People are incentivized by getting stuff for themselves. People love referral bonuses. We have a very robust referral business through inkWELL Press. Where when people refer somebody, their friend gets a discount and they get a $10 credit.

They get points at inkWELL Press. People will refer. I mean, we have people who have thousands and thousands of thousands of points because they go and they want to talk about it online. They share it with all these other people. And it brings a lot of traffic our way. And that essentially when you’re only paying for people who come in and purchase,

that’s the best marketing dollars fit because it’s, you know, you’re not throwing money into the wind. So really think about what your referral program looks like. If you’re seeing that that’s working for you, what are the bonuses? You can offer it to clients, you know, you can do a tiered scale, you can do something like, it’s just like a one-time bonus.

It doesn’t even have to be money. It could be something like, you know, especially if you’re doing more local things, it could be you partnering up with another luxury kind of offering. Maybe it’s like massages or something like that, where it’s like, you get this right. But then the whole thing is, is messaging it, messaging it and messaging it,

making sure it’s in your email footer, making sure it’s in your voicemail, making sure that it’s when you’re talking to your clients, oh, how is this going? Did you know, by the way that we do, I mean, there’s lots of ways you can weave that into the conversation. The thing is, is when you have happy clients, they’re hanging out with other clients that you really want to work with.

Right? So tapping into that is going to be a better use of your time. So I would say that if you’re not happy with social media, let that shit go. Quite frankly, let it go. And it’s okay. Are people going to question you are people going to be like, oh if you’re not on social media, maybe, but it’s not their business.

It’s your business. And it needs to be run in a way that feels good to you. And if being on social media is not it. And it’s not really attracting your clients. You’re only doing it because that’s what everybody else is doing. But I get that because we feel like if we’re not on social media, is that wrong or people going to make sure,

I will say with like your email marketing, I would encourage you to nurture your, your clients, you know, giving a tip, even if it’s only once a month, but keeping them in regular rotation. So that you’re always at the front of mind when they need more work done those kinds of things. So you’re saying you don’t like that to do that so much,

but would you like it more if you weren’t also doing the social media possibly. Yes. And you just helped me like link the two of those things together, like nurturing existing and past clients as opposed to selling, selling, selling, selling, selling. So we talk about this whole idea of returning clients versus loyal clients. What we want is we want those loyal clients because just to remind you guys returning clients or clients who come back again and again,

right. Loyal clients are the clients to come back again. And again, regardless of competition, regardless of price, because they are invested in you, there’s a loyalty there. So we want to really nurture those amazing clients that we love working with. Because first of all, that’s cheaper marketing. Second of all, you already know you like working with them.

So let’s work with them more. Right? But that also builds in that whole idea of them spreading right. And growing exponentially through more people. Because those people you love hanging out with other people that you’re also going to love Love. So if you start to look at that as nurturing them rather than selling, so there’s all kinds of things you could do that.

Just add value, tips, ideas, and then, you know what you put at the bottom of each one, Hey, did you know, we have a referral program. We love to reward our customers for sharing our name. Here’s what we offer. So it’s just at the bottom of each one. And like I said, start with doing one a month,

then move to two a month. I don’t want to do it every week. Eventually that would be great. But people do love to get those kinds of tips and just little things and little tidbits that are just there to help them for no other reason other than I’m just here to serve you. Yeah. But the whole time you’re in their head. And then when it’s time for them to need you,

they’re going to think of you right away, because you’ve been taking care of them all along and you’ve positioned yourself as an expert. Yeah. That feels much better. That, I mean, honestly, that’s the thing. I think, I think 99% of it is how does it feel? Does this feel better? And if it feels better, you’re going to be more likely to do it.

And you’re gonna do a better job of it because I will have asked some of that social media stuff just because I’m like, oh right. Versus the other things that I love. I’m so excited to do it. Like getting on the call with you guys. This is part of my zone of genius. I love doing this. Okay. All right.

They will better. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t know about you, but what I loved about this coaching session was just this idea. This permission to have the freedom, to create the life we want to create the business. We want create whatever it is that you’re wanting out of life, that we can go and do that. So let’s circle back.

And just a moment, let’s go ahead and have our mid episode break just for a second. And then we’ll hop back in and let’s chat about what we talked about in that coaching session. Extraordinary is a choice. I start the podcast each week with that phrase, but is that true? Have you listened to it and thought, no, that’s not true.

Or maybe it is for some people, but not for me. It took me a long time to see that for myself, that I could choose to make life work for me. Just like we’re talking about here on the podcast, this season is all about designing a life on your terms, the goals, the dreams, the aspirations, all of that was within reach.

Once I understood how it all works. And I want you to feel like you can do it too. I want you to see that if I could do it, you can do it. I want you to have the clarity. I want you to have a vision that is so clear. You can’t help, but to succeed at is absolutely what I want for you.

So I have created a transformational course called the extraordinary life blueprint, a paint by numbers system to set up your year for success. Then that sound great to set up your year for success. And it’s so easy to do. I run through my signature methodology so you can turn any dream or any goal into a reality. You’ll walk away with an action plan for the next 12 months.

So you always feel empowered to know and to take the next steps. Decision-making confidence is yours and here’s the best part, but you ready for this for a limited time, I’m giving you this course for free, for free. You have until the end of September to grab this deal. Because after that it’s full price. All you have to do is pre-order a hard copy of my new book on purpose.

So for the price of the book, you get the extraordinary life blueprint for free. Just head to Tanya dalton.com/e L B for details. Honestly, pre-ordering the book is one of the best ways you can support me and show me that you have found this podcast helpful. So it’s a win-win for both of us, then that sound good. You get the,

you get this brand new course, absolutely free. Just go to Tanya dalton.com/e L B and get yourself signed up. Okay. So let’s go back to that coaching session that I had with Diane, because I think a lot of what she shared this whole idea of, well, I think I should be doing things a certain way. And for her, it was doing social media.

She said she had done social media, like she was supposed to do. And she had this whole fear and this worry about being just part of the whole noise. And I think the big thing here is it didn’t reconcile. It didn’t really align with what she wanted, but it was what everybody else is doing. Right? You look around and this is what happens to us.

This is something that I talk about in the book and on purpose is this whole idea that we’re so busy, craning our necks, looking over the fence, looking at the other side, seeing what everybody else is doing. And we think we have to keep up that if we’re not doing all the things that everybody else is doing, we are somehow failing.

But what if we chose to redefine what success is? What if we chose to redefine failure? What if we chose to look at success as doing things that I love, like only doing things that I love? Well, I guess we can only do the things we love, but the majority of the things that I do are things that I love instead of feeling like we have to do the things to be successful.

Maybe it’s choosing what things you do. That’s what makes you successful? Are you tracking with me here? Do you understand what I’m saying here? What I’m saying is success is not defined by a metric or a finish line. It’s how you live your life. Are you living your life in a way that feels nurturing? That feels nourishing. That feels amazing.

I mean, one of the things that Dan talked about in that session, that coaching session was she’s like, I gave it the old college try, right? And I think this is what we do in life is we give it the old college try. And then we’re like, well, okay, got to keep doing it because now I started doing it.

Now I got to keep it up and it becomes this drudgery. It becomes this cycle of never-ending feeling like, okay, well, this is just how I have to do things because this is how everybody else is doing it. I’ve already started it. That builds into that whole sunk cost. Right. That we talked about. I think we talked about that earlier this season,

but we’ve definitely talked about it on the, on the show before, but we’ve already sunk in time, focus energy. So I got to just keep on doing it. And there’s this fear that if we don’t do what everybody else is doing, we’re not going to be successful. But if we choose to redefine success, if we choose to decide that success is how we’re living,

not getting to a finish line that changes everything. What would it look like if we stopped playing the game, what would it look like? If we decided we could create our own rules for what we do and what we don’t do for what we want and what we don’t want. And we can stop looking around at everybody else, you know, and it’s not about abandoning the goal.

That’s not what Deanna and I got to in that session either because really the goal for her was to deepen those relationships with her customers and her clients. And I never said in that session, like, well, forget that. Not going to do that anymore. What we did was we used a little bit of squirrel strategy to go back to our old friend,

Jomo, joy of missing out where I delve into that whole idea of squirrel strategy of approaching a problem from all different angles, just like a squirrel approaches, a bird feeder, right? A squirrel doesn’t approach, a bird feeder, and you know, not be able to reach it and say, well, forget it. No bird seed, right? A squirrel will go at it from all different angles.

So why don’t we apply squirrel strategy instead of saying, well, this is my goal. This is how everybody else is getting there. So I have to do that too. What if we say we can play outside of the box, we don’t have to play in a box at all. We can throw the box away as a matter of a fact.

And I think that’s the thing that I really want you to take away from this season of the podcast, from the book, because really that’s at the heart of everything I’m talking about in the podcast. This season in the book is this idea that life doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be difficult when we live in the way that we want.

When we live on purpose, that’s when life feels satisfying. I love that word satisfying, like after a pleasant dinner, how you just feel a little bit, ah, feel amazing, right? And think about how we ended that coaching call. Dan says at the end, that feels so much better. I think so often we discount our feelings. We feel like it has to be a slog when really all we have to do is choose to take some things off our plate or choose to do them in a different way,

choose to go against the status quo, what everybody else is doing to maybe swim upstream a little bit, because that’s what gets us to the life that we want. And ultimately that right there, that’s our goal. I want you to have that extraordinary life and you can have it. Absolutely. It is within reach. When we make decisions for ourselves.

When we stop looking around and deciding that this is how I have to do things and shift everything to this is how I choose to do things. Choosing is a choice and we sometimes forget that. That’s true. I want you to think about that a little bit. Right now you have a choice you can choose to grab that extraordinary life blueprint for free that program.

I’ve created that course 14 days to make the next 365 extraordinary. You can get that for free simply by pre-ordering the book. Now, the book comes out in just a few weeks, but this bonus that I’m offering, it ends on September 30th. So if you’re listening to this the day, it goes live just another day or two. Can you grab that free bonus?

And I don’t want you to miss out. There’s no joy and missing out on a free opportunity to grab that life. You want to choose how you want to live. And that’s ultimately what we do in that extraordinary life blueprint. And I’m going to be honest with you here, as I always am on this podcast, you pre-ordering, the book is incredibly helpful for me.

It really is because we talked about this on an earlier episode, when you pre-order the book, it supports me as an author, but it also shows the stores, Hey, this book is important. Put it at the front of the store, recommend it to other people. This is how we get the message out because it’s so important. I wanted to offer something to you to make sure that you wanted to do it as well.

So that’s why I’m offering this extraordinary life blueprint. Plus when you pre-order, you’re guaranteed to get the book on launch day. You’re guaranteed the lowest price that it’s available before the launch. And you’re guaranteed to make my day, if that counts for anything at all, because that’s why I’m here. I’m here to make your day. That’s why I do this podcast.

This is why I do it every week for free, because I want to see you succeed. So grab that extraordinary life blueprint, go to Tanya dalton.com/e L B for extraordinary life blueprint, Tanya dalton.com/e L B and seriously, don’t miss out on this opportunity to get this course. It’s like a $497 value for this course, and I’m giving it to you for free.

So go take care of that right now. And then I want you to think about things. I want you to think about what we talked about here on the show. And I want you to think about choices that you can start to make beyond getting the extraordinary life blueprint beyond pre-ordering the book, because when we make decisions based off of how we want to live,

when we make decisions based off of our own unique needs and wants and desires, that is when we have the intentional advantage. Thanks so much. It’s for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go, do you like prizes? When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional advantage podcast, you’ll be entered to win my life-changing course, multiplying your time.

Simply leave the review and then send me an email@helloatTanyadalton.com with a screenshot. I choose one winner at the end of every month. So go ahead. Do it right now. Just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not going to lie by stars is my favorite, but I’d love to hear what you think of the show.

And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course, I have to tell you the reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast. And me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it. So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now.

So go ahead and do it, send that screenshot my way, because I want to give you a free course. And thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday and I’ll plan to see you then.

 

This transcript was created for the Intentional Advantage using AI. The Intentional Advantage is considered one of the best productivity podcasts for women with a female host.

Tanya Dalton is one of the best female motivational speakers in the world on the topic of productivity, time management and goal setting. As a woman, she has a unique viewpoint on finding balance and growing a business.