Ep. #1072 - Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Lauren Conaway 0:01
And we’re back. Thank you for joining us for yet another episode of the Startup Hustle podcast. I’m your host Lauren Conaway, founder and CEO of InnovateHer KC. And I gotta tell you about today’s episode sponsor friends. Today’s episode of Startup Hustle is powered by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult, but Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably. And they have the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Now, my friends, dear listeners, those of you who listened to Startup Hustle, and in particular, listen to my episodes, know that they’re there. I have some hot button, I have some trigger topics, things that I love talking about things that I get really passionate about. Y’all know this. Today, we happen to be talking with a leader who can speak to some of these really, really amazing things. We’re going to be talking about culture. And we’re going to be talking about how to become an activated confident leader and all kinds of amazing things. And I’m very, very, very grateful and privileged to have with us today. Laura Hearn, Laura is the founder of LH Consulting. And we’re gonna talk a lot about a lot of cool stuff. But first off, Laura, thank you so much for joining us today.

Laura Hearn 1:20
Thank you for having me today.

Lauren Conaway 1:23
Well, that is you know, that was very, it was very polite. Thank you very much. Let’s go ahead and kick it off. And I’m going to ask the perennial question, I’m going to ask you, Laura, tell us about your journey.

Laura Hearn 1:37
So, you know, it’s an open ended question that I love being asked like, it’s a love hate relationship with that question. Like,

Lauren Conaway 1:44
it can be very, like, overwhelming or intimidating, but but we’re all friends here,

Laura Hearn 1:49
right now. And what’s important, you know, you mentioned about like, culture and all these other limiting beliefs. It all starts many, many years ago, as my five year old likes to tell her. Her stories is like once upon a time many, many years ago. I was raised in a multicultural upbringing. Okay, I like that. That’s the key thing here. My mom’s a naturalized citizen from Central America. My dad’s a second generation American from Ukraine and hunger and hungry. So very interesting cultures. Well, and it flashed together.

Lauren Conaway 2:30
Do you think that that kind of informed your your work

today, I’m very curious about this, because I love the cultural backgrounds, you’re so multi dimensional.

Laura Hearn 2:45
It it did because, you know, like, my dad grew up in a, you know, in poverty, right? They were recent immigrants to the United States, they have like three families living in one house. And like the slums outside of Pittsburgh, like, rough upbringing. And my mom grew up in Central America and Panama. She was born in Nicaragua, Panama, all during like the Noriega crap. Oh, wow. So although, you know, she grew up with her dad working on the Canal Zone, and all of that they still, it’s second world country ish, you know. And they didn’t have this, like, wealth of knowledge about money in money management, and thoughts about money, it was very much so immigrant mindset of, you know, you show up, you do your job, you work. And you just try to do better for the next generation, the end

Lauren Conaway 3:45
will say, so financial wellness, or that kind of financial education and intentionality wasn’t a part of the culture. No, is that kind of what you’re talking about hearing alone? Okay. So you come from this very, very interesting background, what, tell us about that, tell us more about how that manifests for you.

Laura Hearn 4:06
So it makes me sound so like, clase? How does that mean it? No. It connects to this, you know, growing up, right? We, my dad served in the military and then became a government contractor, you know, government employee, so he did well, like we ended up in middle America. So I didn’t grow up in poverty or in terribly challenging times. They provided well, but there wasn’t like a college fund. There wasn’t any, you know, generational wealth or legacy planning or any of that type of stuff that led into, you know, me and the rest of my life and my early adulthood, especially coming of age during the 2008 crisis, and then graduating college and during the 2011 financial crisis and time Laughter time. These things that millennials we elder Millennials faced.

Lauren Conaway 5:06
Like To clarify, yeah, we don’t talk about that in pre show prep. But I am also an elder millennial like I see you, Laura, I see you

Laura Hearn 5:14
the longest. So like, I’m a very weird mix of like, my parents are boomers, my siblings are Gen X. And I’m a millennial. So it’s a very weird landscape. And like, I remember Sega, and Atari. I also know the internet. But that lack of money of confidence around money, that lack of padding, I guess, for lack of a better word, was something that led me to joining the financial services industry, like later on, and married a military service member. Because that’s something that happens when your dad was also in the military in the civilian lifestyle, you know. And that ended up, you know, just continuing to fuel me wanting to set us up for more success, like personal financial success, and led us to meeting with financial professionals and led me to wanting to be more in this realm. And how can I do more for others, so that they’re more prepared for life.

Lauren Conaway 6:31
It’s so interesting how those kinds of formative experience in the previous generations can influence you so strongly. So like my grandma. She grew up during the Great Depression, and she grew up in extreme poverty, like so many others. And she she liked hoarded food, you know, and the thing is, it’s like she never wanted for fear, like she had read, she had achieved financial stability. And like she, there was never a worry that she wasn’t going to have food. And yet, that scarcity mindset was kind of baked into her. And so it feels like your response to, you know, learning about your parents struggles and their experiences. Like it seems like you kind of internalized that a little bit and then you figured out a way to make the world better with it. Yeah, that accurate?

Laura Hearn 7:21
I think so. You mentioned about your grandmother, like my aunt who lives in Pittsburgh style. She’s had a phenomenal career. She’s retired, she, like, can do whatever she wants with life like her and her husband. Our setup, right there finite, financially phenomenal. Look at that little play. But like, if you go down to her basement to her cellar, it is docked, right? Because she was born during, you know, right after World War Two. Yeah. Right. So all of the victory guard, you know, all of that mindset of saving, everything was there. Because she was raised by individuals that grew up through the Great Depression, you know, like, so that is something that’s connected, you know, I laugh about it too, like in my regular life now. My husband loved him to death. He grew up in the LA area, right in Los Angeles and Orange County area. And his family did not have the same type of immigrant background, if you will, more of the upper middle class, Orange County, California lifestyle. When I eat my chicken wings, okay, this is a cultural thing, like just how we were raised. When I eat chicken wings, or anything like off the bone. I clean the bone. Not because I’ve ever I have not once ever in my life worried about where my next meal is ever going to come from. I have never had that issue. I was never necessarily told like you better clean your plate. But I know that I was told You better finish your meal because they’re starving kids in other countries. Yeah. My husband doesn’t clean the bones. Like he eats the meat. Like, clean it. And I’m like, it was like you’re such a waste. You wasted so much good food and meat and he’s like, okay, Scavenger.

Lauren Conaway 9:32
I appreciate the fact that like, you know, you notice things like that, though. And honestly, this actually, this conversation that we’re having. It’s so interesting because sometimes on the show, like we have conversations where I’m like, I don’t even know where that came from. And we’ve we’ve drilled down on a topic that I was not expecting, but that being said, it kind of sets us up beautifully for what’s to come. Because when we’re thinking about it these kinds of like ingrained behaviors and habits and culture We’re all touchstones that we come to. They’re all they can be limiting beliefs like this is a limiting belief like, I need to do X, I need to save all the food ever, even though there’s no practical reason for that to be the case, you know, but I have to do this, I am compelled to do this. So sorry, I’m interested. Well, first things first, tell us about what you do through what I do now. Okay. We’re gonna, we’re gonna track it back to all the things connected.

Laura Hearn 10:35
sounds feels a little disconnected as I promised.

Lauren Conaway 10:39
It’s an interesting conversation, but it’s just like, Hmm, we just talked about the Great Depression and food scarcity on an episode, I was not anticipating doing that.

Laura Hearn 10:48
Again, like you said, limiting beliefs. So I’ve worked in the personal finance space for nearly a decade now, which as a woman, is a very treacherous industry to try to make your own in. And that has led me to being really, really passionate about about women’s empowerment in that bridging that financial confidence gap. And it led me to really dig down this hole of what’s leading financial company, they can’t be literacy, because we have Google Now. Right? So I started really interviewing and talking to a lot of women, which is why I also have a podcast. But if

Lauren Conaway 11:28
you can tell us the name, shameless plugs are allowed

Laura Hearn 11:31
modern women, it’s on all streaming platforms. But I realized that it’s way less about literacy and more about confidence. And it’s more about the societal and cultural pressures that we as women face, and the glass ceiling, we have a habit of putting on ourselves. So I started LH consulting to help small business owners, women, business owners help understand their true purpose, and scale and grow their business authentically to themselves in a way that serves their true true purpose. Because that’s something that us as women typically struggle with, is, I don’t ever want to be a fraud. I don’t want to sound cringy or salesy or whatever. And I want to serve something bigger than myself, because that’s just how we are genetically programmed. So I help women do exactly that. Through sales training, through confidence in money, mindset activities, just really, the whole kit and caboodle when it comes to money mindset, and growing your business. So that’s what I do.

Lauren Conaway 12:50
So tell us, I’m really curious. And this is something that we’ve talked about on the show before, but that that financial peace, financial wellness, peace of mind, building generational wealth, like it’s relatively new in the scope of history, to women, for, you know, historically, we didn’t have to worry about that because men were the providers, we were the gatherers and the carers and nurturers. And so, so I’m curious, how do you see a woman’s ability or capacity or even confidence within the financial space? What do you see when you’re working with clients? What kind of barriers do you have to overcome?

Laura Hearn 13:29
So double edged question? So for me, as a woman in this industry, it is inherently a little bit harder, because most sales training are based on techniques from the 1980s 1990s geared towards men, and salespeople. Sure. And as a woman, in a service based industry, we’re inherently meaning sales. Because we’re all selling something at the end of the day. Those tactics don’t work for me, women, we use, you know, more emotional emotions in our buying decision making process. Yeah. And we like to have real, real, real relationships. And when you are forging a relationship, especially with personal finance, it needs to be a real relationship, not superficial. So I kind of had to pave my own way of how do I build my business and my clients and the way I do that is through authentic conversations and connections, and it’s a little bit longer sale process than my male counterparts. Short. It works and that’s why I coach other people because it’s been successful to me. I don’t want to keep it a secret. But one of the concerns that I see with a lot of my female clients, is this. Like being a little bit more apprehensive or less confident about asking for a raise is less likely to ask questions when it comes to benefit time. Because they don’t want to look stupid. Right, their annual benefits enrollments and these little things where we are fighting against each other competitively to stay relevant in the workplace. But then we aren’t asking the right questions to make sure we are self, you know, advocating for ourselves properly, we’re afraid to because we at least made it this far. Right? That’s the problem. When it comes to women successfully navigating financially, setting them, you know, the future generations up and the pay gap and all that a lot of it is self imposed.

Lauren Conaway 15:52
Yeah. Well, and I do want to, like, acknowledge and recognize I was actually thinking, as you were talking, I do want to acknowledge and recognize that sometimes, that that kind of uncertainty is is definitely externally imposed. You know, you mentioned, you mentioned the fact that sometimes women have difficulty speaking up for themselves. And sometimes that’s because it has been ingrained in us societally conditioned for us to be, you know, the quiet ones, and you can’t be too eagerly. But also, you know, when you’re talking about like these old style sales, trainings and things like that, the fact is, a behavior that might work for a man in the in a professional environment might not work for me, because they might look at him and say, Oh, well, he’s just a go getter. He’s just assertive, oh, they might look at me and say, Oh, well, she’s just a bitch. So sometimes it’s externally imposed. But

Laura Hearn 16:48
well, yeah, if you fold it’s twofold. There are external factors. 100%. And I feel like the majority of us know all of those. Sure, because we talk about the me too, we talk about the pay gap and gender discrepancy in representation in the workplace.

Lauren Conaway 17:08
Is harassment. Yeah.

Laura Hearn 17:13
All the time. Sure. What we don’t talk about is ways we can build our own path, we can internally figure out a way to pave our own way, right, so that we aren’t labeled as a bitch, and that we don’t feel like we are ruffling feathers, etc. Because that I know what it’s like to be in a room, where you are the only woman at your company at the table, like literally, it’s not a secretary or admin person. Trust me, that is my life, every firm I’ve ever worked at. And usually there’s like a 20 to 30 year age difference as well. Shares when I first came into the industry, and I was in my 20s I know

Lauren Conaway 18:03
it’s elder millennials, we’re gonna have to stop being used to that because it’s not going to happen anymore.

Laura Hearn 18:10
No, but I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t talk because I don’t want to piss the senior partners off and I don’t want to do this, that I just want to keep my head down. Do my job, keep my job because it pays decently. Well, that also sounds like a really toxic place to work. Yeah, for sure. And how can we rewrite that narrative? Right? That’s one of the reasons why during COVID So many women, not only do we leave the workplace because high societal cultural expectations that the kids are out of school.

Lauren Conaway 18:49
Yeah. Often being the those primary caregiver givers as as often as we are, and kind of shoots us in the face sometimes.

Laura Hearn 18:59
But also allowed for so many women startups that happen, for sure. So many women realized, I’m not putting up with this shit anymore. I can create my own company, my own startup, my own tech company, etc, whatever genre it is, and rewrite the narrative. And you see so many of them coming out of COVID from the COVID dark years, I guess, I don’t know what to call it. Yes, but you know, it’s not that COVID doesn’t exist anymore, but it was like, a dark time of it. With so much more momentum because of the human factor. That happened. Yeah.

Lauren Conaway 19:46
Well, so So tell me this, you know, well, actually, really quickly. I’m gonna break in and I’m gonna say, kudos to our episode sponsor, Full Scale, Full Scale with Full Scale, finding expert software developer doesn’t have to be difficult. When you visit full scale.io. You can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs, and then see what available developers, testers and leaders are ready to join your team. Visit full scale.io To learn more friends, we are here today with Laura Hearn, founder of LH consulting, and we’re talking about a lot of stuff. But I want to drill down a little bit on something that we just kind of touched on. So there are external limiting factors, but then there are internal limiting factors. And one of the things that we actually talk about around the innovator community, which is my company, Laura, you know, we’ve got about 6000 members, and one of the things that we talk about frequently is imposter syndrome. And you’ve served we’ve circled around it that I want to I want to drill down into it a little bit. And I just want to ask you, what are so you tell us about some of the clients that you’ve worked with, or, you know, maybe some stories that you’ve heard some kind of case studies, where you are able to help a woman who is experiencing that imposter syndrome come to confidence in their ability to financially plan and take control of their financial destiny?

Laura Hearn 21:11
It is every day.

Lauren Conaway 21:15
It’s like the whole deal, right?

Laura Hearn 21:17
So here’s the thing that I drill down with everybody, right? Because imposter syndrome isn’t just a woman’s thing. It’s an every human thing. Right? We all have that at some level. Sure. I just connect more better, right? With women because more better Yeah, yeah, I am one. But what happens a lot is we have the, these blocks, right, these limiting beliefs that seep into and cause imposter syndrome. So imposter syndrome is like, it’s not the root. It’s like a symptom. Yeah, having money blocks and minds limiting beliefs. So we talked at the beginning of the episode about kind of about scarcity, right? Poverty, consciousness, and hoarding food, cleaning the bones off your chicken wings. And if you suffer from poverty, consciousness, you have to really relate to Okay. What about it, right? I acknowledge that my parents upbringing seeped into how I was raised a little bit. And instead of kind of completely copying, that, I’ve decided to shake things up and change the narrative for my kids and for what I do for a living by not worrying so much about a money pie in the sky that I need to fight for, because there’s only so many limiting resources. And to overcome that. I often ask people to look around themselves and their community, right, wherever you locally are, like, how many successful businesses are there? Oh, well, there’s always other ones. I’m like, Okay, how many of them are actually in the same exact industry, but they’re all really successful? And they’re like, oh, a lot like I’m in a military town. So there’s a lot of government contractors. And we’re, I’m in a military town by an aviation base. So there’s a lot of aviation military contractors here. And they’re all really successful. So it’s not about limited resources. It’s about just you think there is that the right route for you? But there’s already so many coaches, there’s already so many advisors, there’s already so many podcasts. I’m not, where can I fit it? Right? Right. So working on poverty, consciousness, that scarcity mindset is key there. So that you can realize, show up, start showing up? Yeah. And then there’s this guilt that we like to feel about money. This is again connected to that. They’re starving kids in Africa. Money doesn’t

Lauren Conaway 24:14
talk about money. Hmm, I always heard it’s bougie to talk about money. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t believe that I

Laura Hearn 24:26
talk about this so you don’t have to. But that makes you feel bad, right? If you if someone tells you like, just be happy with what you have finished your food because they’re starving kids somewhere else in the world that makes you feel bad for habit. And that seeps into you not showing up right. There are so many people that do the same thing I do. And if I show up and then I feel bad charging my worth, and you know, there’s other people that deserve it more than me. Hate. This is all, building that imposter syndrome. Because you feel bad about charging for your quote unquote, hobby, charging to help people with things that you’re passionate about charging to share your knowledge, etc. Like, why do you feel bad? Let’s really think about this. Why shouldn’t you be paid your worth? What is it if you become wildly successful and step into your true abundance? What else are you going to be capable of doing? Yeah, what’s the impact?

Lauren Conaway 25:39
Well, so let’s, let’s get tactical for just a minute. What? How do you help your clients overcome these internal, very, very real limiting beliefs? I mean, if you if you believe something, it is really, really easy to get to become beholden to a belief. Yeah, talk to us about how you work with your clients to overcome to overcome their their I don’t know, insecurity, you know, whatever is in them,

Laura Hearn 26:11
right? All of these limiting beliefs built into imposter syndrome, right? They built into it. They’re the actual causes of imposter syndrome. So first, we have to identify all of these things. Are all these little? What your current belief systems are? What are you currently believing? Because our brains are confirmation seeking machines? Whatever we have adopted to be our belief systems today, like not necessarily religious, but like, what do you think about yourself what you think about your business, about being etc, whatever. We have to identify the problem beliefs first. Yeah. And figure out where they came from. Right? The root cause? Where did you hear it from? Sure. Is that a credible source or not? Alright, we go through all of that stuff. We also go through an exercise of identifying what beliefs you want to adopt, right? Like, where do you really want to be like, what’s your real goals, like, I have a whole process about identifying the belief systems you currently have, where you really want to be, and what we need to start doing, because it’s not an overnight thing, right? Like, you can’t just like snap your fingers. Everything’s magic magical. There is no overnight success on this. It’s constant work, to reprogram. Because if you’ve been told your whole life to think a certain way, your brain is going to constantly look for evidence for that, right? So you have to start feeding your brain evidence that that belief is not true. And start feeding it evidence for what you want to believe in.

Lauren Conaway 27:56
Well, so you said that you have a process for that. And I’m not going to ask you to give away all of your proprietary secrets in your special magic. But can you give us a couple, like maybe just one or two of the steps, like the very actionable steps that you take with your clients to help them identify what their real goals are?

Laura Hearn 28:15
I guess so.

Lauren Conaway 28:16
Not the whole thing.

I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you what, Hey, friends, listeners, if you feel that, you know, having some help and having a trusted, impartial, very practiced AI to help you think about these things and overcome these things. Definitely reach out to Laura at LH consulting, we’ll have links in the show notes there. Yes.

Laura Hearn 28:39
The link to the free e guide sets you up for that initial success of identifying the problem beliefs and identifying what you want. So I actually do give that away for free. I was trying to wait for

Lauren Conaway 29:00
certainly not gonna tell anybody, but we’ve got a bunch of listeners who might not feel the same.

Laura Hearn 29:06
But yeah, so basically, this E guide that I have is it, it’s tailored to women. So for male listener, sorry, not sorry. But you can use it as well. But it’s female founders made not born. So it’s all based on that principle that you have to do work. You have to work on yourself. It’s an evolution process. So the first thing is really identifying. Right, hang on. I want to make sure I do it in the right way. is really the discovery I do it all the time to like reiterate like Alright, I gotta do this in the right order, guys. Hey, girl, hey,

Lauren Conaway 29:49
take your time. Work is given us.

Laura Hearn 29:53
We work through poverty consciousness first, always first. So that’s where we do the in initial evidence search for abundance. So the questions that I typically ask clients and I’m going to ask you all today to think about is what circumstances do you currently have in your life? That show that you do have abundance? Hmm. Mike, do you have any water? Do you have a C central air? I’m currently staring at my indoor bike thing that I bought during COVID. And it’s not a peloton. But

Lauren Conaway 30:38
the important question is, though, have you been using it during COVID? Laura?

Laura Hearn 30:42
I did. But I’m,

Lauren Conaway 30:44
oh,

Laura Hearn 30:46
I haven’t valid excuse you do?

Lauren Conaway 30:50
Will certainly allow it.

Laura Hearn 30:54
Like, just look around, you know, this isn’t supposed to be like an activity again, to be like, Just be happy what you have, but just like, look like you do have stuff. Yeah, you do have it. Now let’s also go into what times in your life has money come easily. whether, you know, that people was like, What do you mean, come easily? Like, you ever have a nine to five job where you just got paid for showing up?

Lauren Conaway 31:18
Where do you find one of those?

Laura Hearn 31:21
Apparently, they used to exist back in 2019?

Lauren Conaway 31:29
Very good to know, man. I don’t I don’t know. All right.

Laura Hearn 31:32
But just think about times where, you know, you weren’t hustling so much. Or even when you’ve had a hustle a side hustle, where you were able to get a bunch a couple clients. You know, think about those times like money isn’t necessarily hard to get ethically. Ethically, I mean, sometimes you

Lauren Conaway 31:56
reach into a coat you haven’t worn since last season. And it’s right there in the pocket. You got a fiver just right there just comes

Laura Hearn 32:02
to you. And then also looking at around, you know, I talked about asking the question with how many successful businesses are in your community or in your county in your state? You know, how many millionaires how many, like there are a lot of millionaires and billionaires popping up left and right. Like there is in fact, you know, proof if there is enough to go around. And we work through what evidence have you had in your life, that there is in fact, no competition? Because each person’s right clients will find them? Right? We work through these types of questions to really start laying that evidence groundwork to start rewriting like, okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. And now, we’ll get into guilt and understanding why do you feel bad about charging your worth? Why do you feel bad showing up? Why, like, we have to get through these initial initial limiting beliefs, and start adding on top of that. Okay, well, what do you really want to do? What would be the ideal picture? Right? If you were in your abundance, and you were paid your worth, and you’re wildly successful? What would that actually look at look like? So we use visualization techniques to really get into that. Yeah. And then we start laying the groundwork of action items. How can we use everything that you really want in life, and everything you truly believe is good. And your business, to work together? to scale your business now. And by using that techniques, those techniques of understanding the limiting beliefs, understanding them beliefs you want, understanding the success you want, and the goals you want. And applying strategies that start giving you results immediately, it will start clicking off the box of providing the evidence to get to eradicate the limiting beliefs, of scarcity, mindset of guilt, about money about believing that money is the root of all evil, and all of that other crap that we’ve been talking about, by implementing customized action items to your business, to your business model, tweaking things, so that you can start seeing immediate results because the results will prove to you like oh, yeah, I can do this.

Lauren Conaway 34:51
Yeah. Well, and I think you said you’ve said a lot of powerful things, but you said something really powerful in there. And I just want to mention this because I think As entrepreneurs and founders by nature, we’re problem solvers. Right? We like to figure things out. And we like to, we’d like to overcome, you know that that’s 90% of what being an entrepreneur is. And so the interesting thing, well, one of the interesting things that you said, or that you mentioned is you kind of talked about retconning. Basically, like, envision the future that you want, and then track it back from there, like, what does it take? If this is the planned, the expected and the desired outcome, then what steps are going to be necessary in order to reach that goal? And I love approaching problems that way. Like sometimes, you know, when I’m planning an event for HKC, I’ll close my eyes. And I’ll just picture the event in my head, like, what kind of lighting? How many people? Where is it? What does the food tastes like? What does the air smell like? What music is playing? And that’s, that’s how I kind of approach my work. You know, I picture the outcome I want. And then I figure out what it’s going to take to get there. And it sounds like that’s part of the process of what you do with your clients. Let’s get really intentional about the goal. And then let’s figure out exactly what it’s going to take the milestones the steps along the way that it’s going to take to get there. Would you say that’s accurate?

Laura Hearn 36:22
Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially working with women entrepreneurs and women founders? Yeah. Because a lot of times, our businesses are very heart centered. Yeah, for sure. And we have a inner calling, right? We have that call to become an entrepreneur to solve a problem, right about something we care about. Typically, we start a business,

Lauren Conaway 36:46
entrepreneurs have personal experience with the problem that they’re trying to solve.

Laura Hearn 36:50
Exactly. And that makes us all inventors, right, because we invent our own way of handling business solving problems. And when you have that, aha moment of, I can fix this. You sometimes can get paralyzed because of imposter syndrome, because of that limiting belief. So you have to start feeding, you have to see what you really like that, Aha, I can solve it. Keep that alive, and work backwards. Like that’s absolutely necessary to keep you like, okay, hey, let’s keep on track. Because an often I see it all the time, we take two steps forward. And then all of a sudden, we take one step back, and another aspect that we didn’t expect, right, and I think that’s really, really important for entrepreneurs and female founders to understand is that sometimes, oftentimes, things don’t go to plan. And that doesn’t mean you quit or give up, right? You started your business for a reason. Because something called you there was a true purpose, a calling that you could not ignore, let’s make sure that you set yourself up for success, and surround yourself with people that help get you there. And in an effective, efficient manner, and it’s okay to hit troubled water every once in a while. That means you’re on the right path, you have to hit some rocky, rocky bumps in the road. Sure.

Lauren Conaway 38:24
Well, and sometimes the you know, as frustrating as the step back can be, and and honestly, like sometimes it’s really disheartening to see progress that you’ve made, it feels like it’s all swept away, and it’s all for naught. But I’m here, I’m just going to tell, hey, listeners, that’s bullshit. That’s a limiting belief. When you take the step back, sometimes it’s time that meat just means that it’s time for you to reevaluate and reiterate, you know, it’s that that development process that we all kind of go through, it’s just, it’s just a new piece of it. So keep going. And now I gotta I’m so excited for this. So I’m going to ask you the human question, and I’ve been waiting to ask you this.

Laura Hearn 39:05
She’s gonna ask me, she’s gonna ask me as

Lauren Conaway 39:07
well. And I’m gonna ask you a hard one, okay? Because you are a thoughtful person, clearly. And so I’m going to, I’m going to ask you ask you this. We’re talking about beliefs. And I love people who stand staunchly and strongly in their beliefs, the systems of thinking that help them figure out the world, the lenses through which they view things. And so I’m going to ask you to talk to us. Tell us about a belief that you have that has served as your north star and there you can have several of these I just want one. But you know, what is the belief that you hold that you live and die by it’s the hill, it’s the hill that you would die on and the line in the sand that you would never ever cross? Okay, well, I know it’s a tough one. I gave you a tough Why and I’m telling you right now.

Laura Hearn 40:04
What’s your favorite color type of questions. So my guiding mantra, so I don’t know if a belief is the right way to label it. But when shit hits the fan, and I feel stuck, alright, in my own business and my own personal life, I remember the idea of relentless forward motion and this is key. I talked about it. Frequently ish.

Lauren Conaway 40:41
Frequently ish. That’s a new word I’m going to try to use today.

Laura Hearn 40:45
I did the Marine Corps Marathon in 2020. During COVID. Yeah, I use my bike and ran on my treadmill that I bought, and ran a marathon. And that was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. But every step forward, right, whether it was a run, a jog, a walk a crawl, a limp because my hip flexor seized whatever, relentless Ford motion, keep going. Yeah.

Lauren Conaway 41:17
I love that. Keep going. Just just put one foot in front of the other. And sometimes it’s going to be a teeny, teeny tiny little step. Sometimes it’s going to be a giant stride, but just you can do anything mental. Yes. So that’s actually my mantra. You literally just said my exact mantra when I whenever I do something that makes me uncomfortable. The thing that I say to myself is you can do hard things, Lauren, so So I love that you just said that. I knew we had so much synergy I could feel

Laura Hearn 41:46
our names on the same 180s

Lauren Conaway 41:50
crazy. Well, I gotta tell you it, Laura. It has been a pleasure connecting with you and learning with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. And friends. Like I said, definitely check out Laura’s podcast. Can you give us the name again? Empowered modern women empowered modern women. I love the title. Definitely check the show notes for some links to learn more about LH consulting, and Laura Hearn, and friends. I’m gonna, I’m gonna tell you, finding expert software developers doesn’t have to be difficult. I know. We all think it’s super, super hard. But when you visit full scale.io You can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs and then see what available developers testers and leaders are ready to join your team. Visit full scale.io to learn more. And friends. I’m also going to remind you a friendly little reminder about founder Fridays we recently did a Startup Hustle series with Frank Keck. He is a actually a culture expert. That’s what he does. 100% of the time as his job. He interviewed all of the Startup Hustle hosts about culture setting and I am partial to my episode, of course, because Frank is an excellent interviewer. But definitely check out Matt DeCoursey Matt Watson Andrew, Andrew Morgans like it’s just a really great series and I love I love the way that we were able to explore culture with an expert and I invite you to take part in it. So give us a listen. Keep coming back. We are very, very grateful that you listened to us week after week so appreciative and we will catch you next time.