Kristen (00:00)
Guess what? I'm still doing laundry. I'm still doing laundry from the last episode. So there will still be background noise and this is just an audio podcast. I will not be uploading this to YouTube. This is just for my audio subscribers, but hey, let's get into it. So I wanted to go deeper.
on some of the lessons I learned from my first business because nothing is wasted, right? And it can be really hard when you're going through like a grieving process or you're letting go of something that doesn't serve you. You know, the tendency is to feel like, man, that was a waste of time or I wish I knew this and I could have done that. And it's like, yeah, hindsight is 20-20 and we're able to see things clearly after the fact, but you can't go back.
and holding on to the past is one of the most toxic things we can ever do. So we have to look at, okay, well, what's the good in this? What's the good in the Greece? What's the good in the ending? And what can I learn from it? How can I distill this down into something that will serve the future place I wanna go to and the future heights of success I wanna reach? So I'm gonna do some of that for you, but I also just want to encourage you to do that for yourself if you're going through an ending.
If you're going through a rebirth process, do that for yourself because there's no positive benefit to feeling regret, guilt, or shame for something that you can't change anyway, which is the past, right? Like you can't change the past. You can think about it and feel guilty about it and feel ashamed of it and you can do that for the rest of your life if you want. I know plenty of people who have done that in their lives and they're absolutely miserable.
But I'm not about that life. I want to be happy. I want to have fun. I want to achieve bigger and better things every year. So that's the life I'm about. So what have I learned? What have I learned from this first business? Well, one of the most important things I learned that might be like wildly unpopular if you're still in the coaching industry, but it might also be something really important for you to hear because I know if someone had expressed this in a way that I could actually hear it.
earlier on in my journey, then I would probably have made different decisions, or I know I would have made different decisions. And that is that...
A lot of relationships in the coaching industry, I'm not going to say all, but a lot of them are very transactional. You are love bombed. And listen, before I knew better, I was doing this myself because it's what my coaches were doing. So I was like, okay, this is how we do things. And before I fully developed my brain and realized, okay, this is not actually how I want to operate in business or in life.
I did these things, so I'm not saying I'm some innocent person. I'm just pointing out things that occur. So a lot of these coaching relationships, they're very transactional. And you get love bombed when you become a new client. And it feels so good. You're like, my gosh, I feel so seen. I feel so loved.
cared for and it's a really good feeling. And man, I got addicted to that feeling. have, you know, I have a history, y'all know I have a history of love bombing in my past, not just in coaching relationships, but in actual relationships, like love relationships. So man, I fall for that or I fell for that every time and I got addicted to that feeling of being love bombed and, you know, feeling like I'm such an important person and such an important client and all of that.
and you feel like you've developed a new friend for life. And I can honestly say I have a few clients and we're still in contact and I do consider them friends. And maybe they don't consider me friends, I don't know. I don't know where we stand, but I know in my heart I consider them a friend. And there have been other clients where it wasn't quite a friendship.
And that's not to say that they were a bad person or I was a bad person or anything. like it was just it wasn't a fit for like that deeper relationship. And that's also OK. Right. Like in professional situations, you're not necessarily supposed to be besties with someone that you're paying. I mean, it can be a nice benefit. But basically what I mean by all of this is there's a lot of love bombing that goes on in the coaching industry.
And so from that, it creates this transactional relationship dynamic, right? Like you're getting love because you paid someone and it feels really, really good. And then, especially if you're in a mastermind, you feel like you're in this exclusive community, this club, and there's nothing wrong inherently with joining a mastermind or getting mentorship support. And I could see myself many years down the line hiring.
one of my favorite mentors and joining her mastermind, which is Amanda Francis. But she's probably the only person I can think of that I would actually pay to work with ever. Maybe her and like Shamina Taylor. And it's not that like any of the previous people I've hired have been like bad or wrong or anything. Some of them were better than others for sure. But I think I just, you know.
A lot of times I was hiring them to get that dopamine hit of the love bombing. And I didn't know this at the time, of course. How can you know that when you're in it? You can't, right? It's only with a higher perspective that you can actually see what is going on. So I just say that because if you're still in the coaching industry, that's something that think costs me a lot of money. It costs me a lot of money. I definitely learned that lesson the hard way. And guess what? When ...
the money stopped flowing to these people that had love on me, guess what ended? The relationship. And I know I've been that person too. Like again, I'm not saying I'm this innocent angel. Like I've learned and grown a lot since my time in the coaching industry. But it's a thing that occurs, right? And over the past two years, since I've really put my business on the back burner and now as I'm closing my business,
I am so not attracted to those types of transactional relationships. So like if I network with someone in real life, which I've been doing a lot more, and it's really cool to like actually have that, you know, in real life network for the first time ever because we've moved, Ralph and I have moved so many times, and this is our forever home. I sound like a dog owner, which I am. But it's like we were like these little lost puppies and we were going from pound to pound.
And we finally made it to our forever home two years ago. And so I've been able to start actually building a real network. And since I'm here for the long haul, the way I approach making relationships is so much different than how I approached making relationships in Miami, for example, which I was only there for a year. So I don't know if I even made any relationships while I was there. I was actually very isolated and mentally unwell in Miami.
So probably not, probably zero relationships. I guess my doorman, my doorman and women were a relationship I had, but I mean, it's a doorman, you know what I mean? You're not necessarily going out for drinks with them and for them, they have to be nice to you because they work in the building, right? So anyway, I just have lately become so much more focused on let me build lasting.
connections, let me build real connections with people, let me totally get out of this coaching mindset of the transactional relationship. And that's been so freaking healing for me. And one of my besties, she also escaped the cult of the coaching industry. She and I talk about this all the time where it's like, yeah, we have very few real true friendships that have lasted beyond our time in the coaching industry. And it's not even because we're out of the industry.
It's just because the very nature of how those relationships operated was you pay to be in the club and you pay for the friendship and you pay for the attention, right? And even someone that I paid a lot of money to, like a lot, a lot, a lot, lot, a lot, like so much money, like so much money, I paid so much money to this person, thought deep in my soul that this person was gonna be a lifelong friend for me.
And then of course like things went down. This was around the time when I was really mentally unstable and it just became very very clear through that experience that everything I thought that relationship was, it actually wasn't. And that was like a really hard thing to realize and my husband helped me realize that a lot about this person and I've grieved what I thought this relationship was for a while and I'm over it now.
I feel at peace with where things are and you know I feel like I've done all the work I can to create a sense of peace between me and this person although this person is like irrelevant to my life now.
But it was like really hard to realize that someone I really thought was like a deep personal friend and would be with me for life just wasn't. And that's something I never want to experience again. you know, it might happen again because life is long and people are fallible as am I. Like I won't, I don't want to like have a guard on my heart because
I've done that and that's no fun. You don't make any deep relationships. So, you know, it might happen to me again, but I think I'm a lot more discerning about how I start relationships and how quickly I give someone my heart, so to speak. And this is obviously not romantically give them my heart because obviously I'm married to Ralph and Ralph is the only one who truly has my heart. Ralph and my two puppies and eventually my children.
when I think about like friendships and the act of like letting someone in, that process is a lot more gradual for me now than it used to be when I was in the coaching industry. I used to like make fast friends in the coaching industry and that's kind of like the culture. You're like thrown into a mastermind and you're sharing your deepest, darkest fears and you're growing together. And I'm not saying that these are bad things. Like don't get me wrong, these are great things. And I know that there are
really powerful containers out there that change people in really positive ways and I'm not knocking the thing. I get it. I'm just saying like there is a dark side to even the best thing out there, right? Like there's a dark side to everything. And I really discovered that dark side. And so I'm really glad now because I have the clarity to see like, okay, if I'm like networking with someone and it feels very transactional, I'm just not gonna pour my heart and soul into that person.
I'm going to be more mindful about where I place my energy and not because I'm guarded, but just because, you know, I don't want those kinds of relationships in my life. I want true friendships. Like there are some clients, again, that I'm still in touch with of mine that it just, really does feel like a lifelong friendship. And are we like super close? Like, we call each other every day? No, but...
But there's a foundation there that is not transactional. And I think that is a really beautiful thing that I'm very grateful has come out of my old business. And then I also want to continue to cultivate. So that was one thing. Another thing I learned from my old business was this concept of like, good enough is good enough. And I talked a bit about this on the last episode.
But it bears repeating because I have, so in human design, I have the incarnation cross of refinement. And this, so if you're not aware of human design, if that's a new concept for you, all you need to know is like the incarnation cross is like your life path. It's like the path you walk out on earth, right? Basically, when you look back at your life, you're like, yeah, that's the path I walked. So for me, it's all about refinement.
And refinement can be a very good thing, right? Like think of refining your book, you know? I've written a book, The Queen Rises by Kristen Cipriano. Go to thequeenrises.com to buy it. And when I first wrote the book, it was great, but it got a thousand times better as I refined it. And each time I refined it, it got better and better and better and better.
So it's a beautiful thing, refining things, but there comes a point where you can't keep refining and you just need to release it. You need to let it go. You need to let people experience it and trust that even though it's gonna have proofreading errors, even after publishing, which mine does, and I try to fix them and I will continue to fix them. If you send me a screenshot, like if you're reading my book and you're like, ooh, I just found a proofreading error, just send me a screenshot. Don't report it to Amazon.
because that dings the author profile and then I might not be able to sell books anymore and that's just like not a good thing. It's not good karma if you're gonna do that. But I'm willing to fix any and all errors if you screenshot them and send them to me on Instagram. So feel free to do that if you're reading my book. So, yeah.
So what I learned was it's okay for things to still be a work in progress. Like my first book, it's published, it's out there. At most I can fix proofreading errors and add bonus chapters if I want to add bonus chapters for like a special edition. But for all intents and purposes, it's complete. It's done. I can't change it in a dramatic way without having to release a new edition and I don't plan to other than like I will probably do hard cover special editions when the series is fully written.
because that seems really fun and pretty and like it'll be a nice thing to give back to my reader community to give them this like really pretty special edition with artwork and everything. Anyway, the thing is done and it's still flawed. Like it will always be flawed, you know? And the next book I write, it'll be better, it'll be less flawed, but it will still be flawed because we're humans and our flaws and our imperfections are what make us beautiful and what makes art art.
And you know, there's this whole conversation, this is kind of a tangent, but roll with me on this. There's this whole conversation about AI and about like, what's gonna happen to authors with AI? And yeah, there's gonna be AI produce books or whatever. And no, I don't want AI to train on my books. want, if anything, if they're gonna do that, I wanna be paid.
actual royalties consistently from that, not even a one-time fee. You gotta pay me consistently if you're gonna use my work to train your AI software. I'm looking at you, meta. But there's this whole conversation and this whole fear response in the writing community about AI. And I to be honest with you, I am not afraid, not even a little bit. I am not afraid of AI. And if something happens, I just trust that I'm gonna be in the position to sue and win.
like a mother-fricking-boss. That is how unfazed and un-worried I am about AI, because I'm like, God has promised me my success. This is what I believe. God has promised me my success. So if something like AI gets in the way, then I'm just gonna sue, and I'm gonna win the lawsuit, and it's gonna be fine, and I'm gonna make a fuck-ton of money on the lawsuit. Whatever, it'll be fine. So I don't really...
have any fear about AI for that reason, but also for this reason, because perfect is boring. Perfect is bad, you know? Perfect is not human. And anything that's not human lacks a soul. All right? Anything that is not human lacks a soul. So, I don't want...
my books to be perfect because first of all, it's completely unattainable. Second of all, if it is perfect, like if it's, you know, like an AI produced situation where it becomes perfect, which it's not, I wrote every damn word by myself. But if it were, then it would lack a soul because the imperfections are what make it so magical. The imperfections are what give it the soul. The imperfections are what...
allow it to resonate with other humans. like attracts like. So that's why if you read an AI produced book, you're less attracted to it just naturally because it's not like you, right? You have a soul. And if you read a book that doesn't have a soul, it's like reading a freaking textbook. It's like reading an index. It's like so dry. It lacks the emotional and spiritual
Energy that it would have if a human wrote it so I'm I'm never worried about AI when it comes to it you know messing with my author career like it's a non-issue for me and The reason why I say all this I know it's kind of a tangent, but it's like a big thing I learned from my past business is my imperfections do not Take anything away from my work
They don't. If anything, they add to it. And one of my favorite mentors that I follow from a distance, I listen to her podcast, is Shamina Taylor. And she has an affirmation, messy makes me millions. And I think that is just freaking brilliant. And it's been so healing for me in this journey of writing and self-publishing my book because...
Yeah, there's going to be things that are not perfect in my first book. It's my first freaking book. That said, it's being reviewed very highly and even like professional authors have reviewed my book very highly. So, you know, it's an amazing read. It's wonderful. And also, no, it's not perfect, but I don't need it to be perfect. I don't want it to be perfect. And that is something I didn't feel in my first business. I wanted perfection.
in my first business, even though I knew it was unattainable, I still unconsciously was striving for it because I have that life path of refinement, right? So would keep refining things, but I would refine things from like a new foundation. would like start over when I could have just built up, right? So that's another big lesson that I learned from my first business is your foundation is good enough, keep building up.
Right? Now if you have a terrible foundation, then yeah, fix your foundation, but you don't have to start a new one. Right? Like fix what you have, double down on what's working, fix the things that aren't working, and then move from there. Right? Instead of creating something new, instead of having shiny object syndrome, instead of searching for that dopamine hit of the new mentor or the new program or the new offer or the new product or the new, even the new company. And I know like,
That's like crazy coming from someone who just closed her old company for the new company. But the new company is my legacy, right? The new company is also something I wanted to do my entire life. I always wanted to write books. And that's the other thing I learned from my past business. I didn't realize this when I started it. But when I started my business, deep down, I wanted to create passive income so I could write books because
here's the kicker, I didn't believe I could make money writing books. So was like, I need to make money this other way. I need to make it super passive so I have all this space and time and energy to write books. But then I can write books. But it's like, you know, if I wanted to write books my whole life, then maybe writing books is my destiny. And I just have to like share that because how many of you are doing
a business or a career and you're like, I have to do this to make money because I don't think I can make money doing this other thing. But this other thing has been your destiny, like your freaking passion, everything you could ever want in anything. Why are you doing that other thing to pay for this thing that you are so passionate about that is very clearly your destiny and has been since you were born? Right? That's what writing has been for me. Writing has been my destiny since I was born.
But I thought I had to create some other way of making money. Instead of, here's what I needed to do all along, and here's what you need to do if you're not working in your career that your destiny is. All I needed to do was work on my insecurities about writing and about making money writing. Once I fixed those, I could write. And I'm making money writing. I mean, I'm an independent author, and I've already sold more books.
in about a two month period than most indie authors sell in a whole freaking calendar year. And I'm only going to keep growing and expanding and blowing up and the book is going to experience like a huge exponential growth spike somehow some way. So like I'm making money writing books. All I had to do was work on those belief systems and then do the thing that always felt like my destiny instead of
building the business with the eventual goal of doing the thing I really felt was my destiny. So don't do the thing for a means to an end. Do the thing that is the end. Do the thing that is the end goal. If the end goal is to write books, then just write the freaking books. Work on your belief systems, of course, to trust and know that it'll be fruitful for you. I did a lot of that work. It took me about a year to do that work, but...
Do the thing that feels like your destiny, period. End of story. All right, one last thing that I want to share, and there might be a follow-up to this episode, but this is getting kind of long. I want to keep it short and sweet. One last thing I learned from my previous business is that marketing is a never-ending responsibility. So even if you have automations, income, whatever, marketing is a never-ending responsibility and...
In order to reach the success you want, it's gonna require more marketing than you likely want to do. Now, I also believe, let me clarify here, because this is really important. So I also believe that I get to do less marketing than everyone else, and I get to succeed more than everyone else. That is a belief I have. I look at the authors I look up to, I'm like, oh, I get to do way less marketing than them, and still reach their heights of success, and even surpass their heights. That's a belief I hold.
Okay, so you can have those beliefs, but also you still need to do the marketing, right? Let's be just really honest. You still need to do the marketing and go back to the basics with your marketing. Like I was looking at my old course, literally the first one I ever created on marketing when I was 25 years old and it was called Content That Sells and I was looking through the fundamentals that I created for that course and
It is like, it's really basic stuff, but if you lose sight of the basics when it comes to marketing, then you lose your audience. And I know that from experience, because there were times where I lost sight of the basics of marketing in my own business and I lost my audience. So what are the basics? Well, I'm not going to tell you all of them, but some of them are like, are you solving a problem? You know, are you solving a problem? And is it specific enough?
to where your ideal client or in my case, your soulmate reader will self-identify, right? And that specificity is so important. And also storytelling, like are you telling the story for why you created the thing? Like your brand story or your product story. And then there's other things. I don't have them all off the top of my head and this isn't content that sells 2.0. But the point is...
Marketing is really, really, really important. It might be the most important thing, other than delivering a good product or experience or service. Marketing might be the most important thing. And if you lose sight of marketing and the basics of marketing, guarantee you your business will fail. Not that mine failed. I mean, it ended profitably. But guarantee you, you will not reach the success you desire if you lose sight of the importance of marketing and the basics of marketing.
So if you have a business right now, go back to the freaking basics. Like go back and learn the things you learned when you first learned about marketing. Because those basic things, even though you're like, I already know this. And that's how I used to be. I used to be like, I already know that. Yeah, okay, but are you implementing it? Baby Kristen, are you implementing those things? I know you know them, but are you implementing those marketing basic fundamentals? Because if not, then...
You know, you're gonna lose your audience, right? So that's something to just keep in mind if you're an entrepreneur, or even if you're an author, like know who your audience is, know it very clearly, get very, very specific on it, and then execute marketing basics and do it over and over over over and over again. And yes, have the belief that you get to do less marketing than the top dogs but have more success. Of course, have that belief. That is a beautiful belief that will serve you. But also,
still know in the back of your mind that you need to do the marketing. Like there is no getting around it. And you know, for a while I followed people who were like, I don't do any marketing. And I just, you know, get people through the universe. And okay, yeah, I guess if you're like really freaking spiritually advanced, then you can do that. But I'm not spiritually advanced. And I don't desire to be honestly.
I'm at the point in my spiritual journey where Jesus is my savior and I pray to God and I let God do all the hard work. So like I don't need to be spiritually advanced to achieve the success I want, which when I had that realization, man, that was freedom. That was the biggest like surge of freedom I ever felt in my body was just knowing and accepting like, okay, I am who I am. Who I am is human and flawed and imperfect.
No, I'm not going to ascend and spiritually advance anymore, but I know that God loves me anyway and I am saved by Jesus. Because of all this, I get to just be myself and let God guide me and I'm going to get everything I want. that to me is a way easier way to achieve success, which means I have to do the marketing and you have to do the marketing too. So do the marketing. Okay. I want to go ahead and wrap this up. Check out my book, thequeenrises.com.
choose your preferred retailer. It doesn't matter where you buy your book from, just buy the book, read the book, enjoy the book, especially if you like romantic fantasy novels with a slow burn romance, with spicy scenes where they get down and dirty. There's also a good amount of humor in my book and of course darker emotional themes because that is me. And I think it's just like a really fun read. You won't be able to put it down. I hear this consistently from readers and it's a dang good time.
It's a damn good time. I guess I'll curse because this is just on the podcast. It's not on YouTube. But yeah, it's a damn good time. TheQueenRises.com to check it out and send me a message on Instagram if you listened all the way to the end of this podcast and let me know something you liked about it or better yet, write a review for the podcast, five-star review on Apple or on Spotify or on both. And I think on Spotify, you can comment below the specific episode. So if you're a Spotify podcast listener,
Leave me a comment below this episode and let me know what you thought. All right. I love you so much. Have a great rest of your day and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.