Ep. 363: Double Your Income (Without Doubling Your To-Do List) with Lani Jackson of the Brilliant Mompreneurs Podcast

Shannon Mattern: Welcome to episode 363 of Pep Talks for Side Hustlers. And I am so excited to introduce you guys to Lani Jackson today. Lani is a clarity and strategy coach for mom entrepreneurs, and she helps them double their income without doubling their to-do list. And Lani's mission is to help mompreneurs get out of survival mode, release the mom guilt and create a clear plan of action that will help them reach their dreams of 5k months and more. Lani, I am so excited to finally have you on the Pep Talks for Side Hustlers podcasts. Can you share a little bit more with our listeners about your journey to becoming a strategy coach for moms? I know it was like kind of a long and windy one.

Lani Jackson: You can say that, you can say that. I'm so excited to be on your podcast, by the way. I started my journey in the entrepreneurial world about 10 years, 12 years ago, something like that. I started out with a blog and then realized, oh, I could make some money on this. And then somebody asked me to write for them. And I became a VA. So blogger, VA, virtual assistant types of work. I then started doing PR and doing pitching. I had a brick and mortar business along the way for a few years there. Mostly mom lifestyle blog. But one of the things that I realized as I was building my business and growing my family, when I started first blog I had two children, I now have six. So a little bit of change in there with motherhood. I realized that one of the things that I was super passionate about is pouring into other people. So I would go to these blogger meet-ups or business women meetups and I would spend the whole time helping people figure out and problem solve and brainstorm their businesses. And one day I was like, I wish I could get paid to do this. And then I realized, oh, I could.

Lani Jackson: So that's how I got there. The very, very short version.

Shannon Mattern: And I love it. And for those of you who have been listening to this podcast for a while, and you hear me talk about the mastermind group that I'm in, of all of the Texas entrepreneurs that I met back in 2018, Lani has been kind of alongside me in my business journey since 2018. So I've gotten to witness some of her pivots and shifts as she's really kind of stepped into that role of coach, because we would go to these mastermind retreats and she would have these brilliant groundbreaking ideas for all of us. And we're just like where is coming from? This is amazing! And you just helped us have so many breakthroughs. And so I have experienced getting coached by you kind of. Not in a client coach relationship, but just in that experience. So, for a lot of people listening, they also kind of follow that same path. They get started because they want to blog, they want to monetize their blog they want to create that passive income. Can you share what your early blogging journey was like from making $0 to how you first started creating revenue with your blog?

Lani Jackson: It felt like a panic mode. I will tell you, I was consuming everything. Oh, there's a webinar, I got to sign up for it. Oh, there's something free, I need to do it. Oh, there's a blog about going to a blogging conference, I need to read this. And I was just kind of like in this constant, oh, I need to find it, I need to find the thing. I need to find the thing, and trying different things. And then my first paid blog campaign was with a photo studio and I got a hundred dollars for that first campaign. And I felt like I won the lottery. But the thing with blogging that I don't love, and that is hard when you're first starting out, is it's very inconsistent if you aren't consistent.

Lani Jackson: So, you know, I really never spent more than five-ish hours, maybe ten, on my blog every week. I didn't really have a good plan. I was just, oh, that sounds like a good idea. And then I would do it for a little bit. And then, oh, this sounds like a good idea. I did that for a little bit. And because I was constantly just like flipping to all kinds of new ideas and strategies, it definitely took me a lot longer to start to see the fruits of that labor. And not to mention, while I was doing that I was constantly taking on more work as a virtual assistant. So when I share my story, I was chasing a hundred dollars constantly. I was always like, Ooh, that's a hundred dollars. I could make a hundred dollars there. And I would just do that without thinking about, Hey, what about thousands? You know? So this is how I started my journey. And this was the first five years because it was just kind of a little bit of all over the place. It was great because it taught me a lot. But it also kept me from growing to where my potential truly was.

Shannon Mattern: Yeah. I can totally relate to that kind of thinking, back to my early days, everything I created for the Free 5-day Website Challenge and then getting that first affiliate commission. It was like $65. I just made $65! And it flips something in your brain where you're like, oh my gosh, this is possible. And that's an amazing feeling when you're like, oh my gosh, this is possible. I'm like, if I were ever a drug addict, I think this might be how it feels. I don't have any experience with drug addicts, but I'd be like, I will literally do anything to get that next hit of dopamine for that next notification in my inbox that I made the money. And you basically set aside any sense of patience, persistence, consistency, and strategy in the chase of the next hit.

Lani Jackson: Yes. Oh my gosh! That is the exact way to describe it. Because it is. It's exciting. And this is why I'm so passionate about working especially with mom entrepreneurs. I work with clients who are not moms. My passion is moms because we're mother-henning over here and trying to juggle our little ones and trying to figure out how can I pay for groceries this month? Or how could I pay for our vacation? And we have this number in our head and we're just like, Ooh, Ooh, it's close. Oh, I could get another one. And without thinking, we're just kind of chasing after that high, instead of saying, how can we sustain this? Because you crash hard after highs.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh. Yes. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on this podcast too. I know so many of my listeners are not just side hustlers. They're also parents. I am not a parent. I do not know what it's like to build a business and manage a family at the same time. And we were talking at our most recent mastermind. I'm like, wait, why haven't I had you on the podcast yet? You're like, I don't know. And I'm like, we gotta make this happen because it definitely is a missing voice on my show to talk about how do you create that consistent, sustainable income coming in when you have a family, when you have all the things that you have to do. And you have at times six, you know, as a mom of six kids. So I know that this is something that early on when we started getting to know each other in our mastermind that you really started developing these systems to create that consistency for you. So can you share a little bit more about how you kind of turned the corner from chasing every high to really kind of creating this consistent revenue coming in?

Lani Jackson: Yes. I will tell you this change that I'm going to describe, it was the pivot for my blog, number one, and going from making a couple hundred dollars a month to making a couple thousand dollars a month. But also just in general for my clients now, for myself, I still use all of these principles. I've just developed them and lean harder into them. The first thing was to work on my mindset. Because I realized I saying every day, I'm so overwhelmed. I have so much to do and not enough time to do it. I was saying it every day. So yes, I was staying up late at night and just feeling like defeated. I would get up from my laptop and be like, what did I just do? Did I get sucked into the rabbit hole again? I didn't accomplish anything because I had no plan of action.

Lani Jackson: I had no concept of what I wanted to accomplish. There was so many things I could do. I actually didn't choose to do any of them, or I put things off till the last minute due dates. So changing my mindset and saying what do I want to feel every day? I'm choosing to be a stay-at-home mom, work at home mom. I'm choosing to have a career at home and build a business. But then I'm mad at myself because I'm out of control with my time and with this feeling. And at that point, when I made this decision, I was like, I just need to go get a nine to five job and pay for daycare. And husband's like, no, that's not really what you want to do. And I'm glad he said that.

Lani Jackson: So I started what I now call the Mom Method. And it's mindset, operations, movement. And basically anything that comes up with your business or with your mom life, you can use this process, this system, to break it down, make it simple and easy, and repeatable and sustainable. Because if you can't sustain something, that constant dopamine high that we were just talking about, that's not sustainable. You're going to just burn out. So, I started with mindset. Then I started building operations, which is basically systems for myself, both for my business and for my family, so that it would work together. And then movement, that last M, is how am I going to move my business forward consistently? Instead of just like creating a system that's like buying a planner. You have great intentions;, I'm going to use this planner.

Lani Jackson: It's going to keep me so organized. But then it's sitting on my desk because it's bulky and heavy and I never use it. And so is it the planner's fault that I'm not organized? No. It's the fact that I didn't make it work. I didn't move it forward. I didn't allow it to help me make my business or my personal life structured. So this is where a lot of drop-off happens with moms. We're like, oh, I want to change my mindset. And I'm going to get a planner, open up Trello boards. And then we don't actually go back to those boards again and again, and again every day. We drop off and so it never moves us forward. So that's the big shift that happened when I was like, okay, I want to change. And it literally changed everything for me.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh. I love that. I love that you said that. Because we're like, Ooh, I'm going to get organized. I'm going to pull everything together. I'm going to buy the planner. You go through all of it and you make it all pretty. And you put your stickers in and you get your pens. And then you have the relief of feeling like you did something. But you actually didn't solve the problem that you intended to solve. Like you're like, ah, okay, I feel better. And then the next day starts all over again. So I love that you said that. Cause I don't know how many times just making a to-do list that I'm literally never going to look at it again makes me feel better, but does not help me accomplish anything.

Lani Jackson: Absolutely. And I used to be the mom that every time I took something off my to-do list, I put three more things back on and it was never ending. So that to-do-list just kept getting longer and longer. And it didn't matter how many things I took off of it. I put more on. And I realized that I was carrying around this long to-do-list of things that I didn't even have to do that day. But I was looking at it every day and feeling like I was never going to accomplish anything. So I was kind of unknowingly defeating my own self every day. So one of the first things I do with my new clients, I even have a free class on this, is helping moms take back their time and looking at their weeks and saying, this is what I want my week to look like. Now I'm going to make my week look like this. Because we oftentimes let our long, neverending to-do list, and the panic of making the next hundred dollars, dictate what our week looks like. And I'm sorry, it sucks living that way. You know? And I don't want to. I want to work 20, maybe 25 hours a week and take time off for my kids anytime I need to, or want to.

Shannon Mattern: I love that. And we will link up the Take Back Time class in the show notes so that you guys can all get your hands on it. And one of the things that you mentioned when talking about mindset is when you were talking about operations, you were talking about business and family together. Which so many of us, I'll raise my hand as being guilty, totally leave the family part out of it when we're talking about planning for our business and planning how we want our days to look. We're literally just looking at this part of time related to my business. If my family life is a freaking hot mess over here, that's not part of this course or program or coaching thing that I'm doing. And what I love about what you do is you take a holistic look at everything. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you help your clients with that?

Lani Jackson: Yes. This is so important to me. And this is one of the things that I lean hard into. No matter what size family you have or what your circumstances are, we don't separate ourselves as entrepreneurs. We always have a home and we always have things we have to take care of outside. But we're driven to focus on our business first. And then we try to fill in the gaps with mom stuff or house stuff or whatever comes up. So I really start with, what do you want your life to look like as an entrepreneur, especially as moms? What is the reason why you don't have a nine to five job in the first place? Oh yeah, you want to be able to be there for your kids. But then your nose is in the laptop every second of every moment that you can get away from the kids, and then you realize you don't have a plan for dinner and the laundry is out of control and suddenly a kid is sick and you don't know what to do with your day because they threw this monkey wrench in. And we're literally beating ourselves up and in this chaos mode and our original intention of being business owners and being our own boss so that we would be able to do that and have the freedom and the relaxation and the ability to just set what we want for our family.

Lani Jackson: But then we totally do the opposite 90% of the time .

Shannon Mattern: I can relate to that. And I don't even have kids.

Lani Jackson: Exactly. It doesn't matter what your circumstances.

Shannon Mattern: Yeah, exactly. It's just like, oh, I'll put business and making money and all of this first. And then the end of the day is here and, oh, I don't even have any groceries in the house. Let's go out and eat bad food. And then I'm going to complain that I'm tired and I don't feel good. And I feel out of control and all of this stuff, so I can totally relate!

Lani Jackson: And then your budget is shot because you just spent lot of money and you're gaining weight and you're like, I don't feel good. And it's a spiral. It's a spiral. So when we look at our life and we include our business in our life and not make our life work with our business, we can then say, Okay, what are the things that are happening? What is the chaos that's coming up? I often describe my back door as one of my first systems that I applied the MOM method to, because we we have eight people coming in our back door, plus a dog. And there's no mud room and it's Texas. So it's okay. You know, we don't have a ton of coats and stuff, but we got backpacks and mask and shoes and socks and jackets and footballs and football stuff and gymnastics stuff and water bottles.

Lani Jackson: I can't even tell you! You walk in the door and you're basically in my kitchen. And every day I was just losing my mind. What is happening? Why is all this stuff here? You know, I'm just like freaking out. And suddenly I was like, I just need to make a system that works for my family. Who cares what it looks like? Who cares if it's perfect? Who cares about anything else? But if it works for my family of eight, with three kids with special needs and a dog that doesn't listen to me half the time, you know, why can we not make this simple? So I tried a few different things until I found a system that works for my family and then we'd work the system. And, as long as everybody in the family commits to working the system,

Lani Jackson: it's not chaos anymore by our backdoor. I mean, it's not perfect by any means, cause they're children. But, you know, for the most part they can keep up with it. And it's just a simple concept to acknowledge that my mindset was, 'oh, I'm so mad all the time and frustrated' and I want to change it to, 'Hey, we all get home and it's okay and I'm not screaming at the kids'. Okay. What's the system that needs to work for us. Okay. We'll make that system, tweak it, continue to audit. I call it auditing. We audit our systems until they're working for us. And then we work it every day and when it gets out of control, I've realized we haven't been using the system. Let's all do a reset. And then we're back in order again. And it's the same principle with our businesses, whether it's your marketing strategy or your social media strategy or whatever your launch, the next think coming up, you can do the same thing. It's the same principle as the backdoor chaos.

Shannon Mattern: I love that. I love that so much because when you're looking at something that's a mess, you just don't even want to. That looks too overwhelming, let me just scroll Instagram. Or that looks too overwhelming,. let me, and this is me, obsess over my inbox. Because to me that is not overwhelming. I know it is to other people. But you just start doing things that really have no forward movement in your business when you have these piles of mess everywhere that you're like, okay, well I'll just procrasti-clean because I can't handle this right now.

Lani Jackson: Yeah. And it's oftentimes not that complicated to fix or to organize. And it won't take that much time if you're very focused. If you're saying, this is what I want, this is the freedom that I want, or this is the change that I want, or this is what I want to happen, we can work backwards and break it down. And our brains like to tell us things that are big and scary all the time. You know, with the backdoor chaos, I was like, we're never going to get this organized. I just need a house with a mudroom. That was my thought. I was just like, why didn't we buy a house with a mud room?

Lani Jackson: Like that would solve anything. Right? And oftentimes we're waiting for that magic pill of 'I can make you $10,000 in a month with this social media strategy'. And so we click and we download and then we wonder why it didn't work. Because there's no super secret magic structure or strategy. It's you choosing what you want to have in the end and what mindset shifts you need to make right now. And then taking action in small, tiny, little steps, as small as you need them to be. When my babies were little, I broke every task that I needed to do into 15 minute increments. So that no matter if I was interrupted or not, I felt like I got something done because I realized I could do a lot in 15 minutes and I just had to train my brain. Cause I used to feel like, well, I don't have an hour to do this, so I can't do it. Well, what if I took that task that takes an hour and broke it down into 15, 20 minute increments. I could definitely get that done. It's just those little shifts that we need to take that oftentimes we're just so close to the chaos, it's hard to see.

Shannon Mattern: Yeah, exactly. Like you don't know what you don't know, especially when you're in the thick of it. And that's why you need someone to hear the words that are coming out of your mouth and stop you and dissect it and help you break it down. And going it alone is really, really hard. And I love what you said earlier. There is no magic wand. Your husband building a mud room on the back of your house, you'd just walk into that mud room and be like, oh my God, this mud room is a mess. This is chaos, this is crazy. That was not ever going to fix the problem. And I love that you said that there's no magic wand. There is no magic course. If you don't have the right mindset, if you don't have all of this stuff in place, it does not matter what program you buy. If you don't have the skill to clean up your life to be able to implement it, you're going to struggle.

Lani Jackson: A lot of times, like I would say probably 50% of my calls with my clients, are working on motherhood and personal life. Because if we're feeling a hot mess in that area of our life, it is so intricately tangled with how we're going to be able to sustain what we're doing on our business side. And so if I feel like I'm neglecting my kids because this thing isn't done, or I have this task, I'm not going to get very far in my business because it's going to be weighing me down. And even the exhaustion factor, which a lot of moms are going through right now, especially after COVID and just the anxiety of it all, being able to acknowledge that and then working into our weeks rest and rejuvenation, giving ourselves permission for that, that is what has given many, many of my clients this year success. That is the number one strategy that has turned the tide for them to making more money is to build in the rest first so that when they do sit down to do their business strategy, they're like, okay, my brain is clear. I can do this. You know? And it's such a freedom. But it's hard to see that when you're right up there against the chaos.

Shannon Mattern: Yeah. And it's hard, when you're a person that's go, go, go all the time, to see rest as a business strategy. Right? That's definitely something that I have embraced the past few months to really shed the guilt of, my team is working, but I'm not. And that's okay, because your brain needs to rest so you can do the things you need to do to create the revenue to pay the team.

Lani Jackson: And we beat ourselves up because we're like, well, I should be able to handle this. Says who? Who, who, who are you comparing yourself to? What superhero are you? I mean, you're not Mary Poppins. I am sorry. I would love to channel her energy. But, I can't snap my fingers and make everything perfect. But we can get to practically perfect. You know what I mean? Let's just be realistic and give ourselves that permission and an open space. Because when we create open spaces, that's when the creativity and the ability to build a business is, I would say, 99.9% in every entrepreneur I meet. They can do it. It's just that we fill up with so much exhaustion and guilt and pressure and chaos that keeps us from being able to be that creative person.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh. Yes. So we have Mindset, we have Operations. Tell me more about Movement and what that looks like in action for your client?

Lani Jackson: Movement is really the powerful shift. So it's changing that mindset from what we originally thought to okay, I want to think this new thought. I want this to be the new reality that is repeating every day. Movement is taking the action. It's thinking the new thought when the negative keeps coming up. I will tell you, it's the magical thing that happens right now. And I call it magic. So this is where the magic maybe is coming in. But the really cool thing that happens now is whenever I start to think, oh, I'm so overwhelmed, without having to purposely do it I think, how am I going to break this down? And it doesn't matter what it is. Right now, the overwhelming thing that pops into my head is my bedroom closet.

Lani Jackson: My daughters have special needs, and I love them to death. They're a little bit mischievous is the word. I had put something in my closet. We have a very deep walk-in closet. They decided to climb the closet and tore like half of my closet down. It is one giant mess. I just close the door. But that's overwhelming to me right now. And so whenever it starts to be like, uh, I have this big project and I don't know how I'm going to do it, and I'm gonna have to take everything out, and while I'm in there, I might as well do this. And I can start making this long to-do list. I'm sure you all can imagine thinking, well, if I'm going to go clean my closet, I might as well empty out all my old clothes and purge out this and get some new systems.

Lani Jackson: And maybe we should redecorate while we're in the bedroom. And it just goes on and on, right? We turn this little thing into the mountain. Without even realizing it I'm shifting to how can I make this less overwhelming? All right, well, this is the operations I'm going to do. And because I'm continuing to move forward in all of these other areas, the movement pattern will happen into this trickle down effect. And the trickle down effect is everything gets to move forward. You know, I'm moving closer to my dream of having the income that I want. I'm moving closer towards the dream of working 20 hours a week. I'm moving closer towards all of them because I'm taking action on the operations. I'm taking action on the mindset and it affects every area. And that's the super secret sauce.

Shannon Mattern: I love that where you're like I'm not expecting myself to never think I'm so overwhelmed again. You're never expecting that to go away. You know that that's your instant go-to thought that just happens in your life and you've attached the solution right to the end of that thought. How can I break this down? And I think that that's brilliant because I think a lot of times we'd be like, I'm so overwhelmed. Oh, I should stop thinking that. I wish I didn't think that anymore. And then you just just totally deflate yourself and defeat yourself when you think you shouldn't think the crappy things you think.

Lani Jackson: Yeah, exactly. And again, this is not a perfect system where I'm like, oh, you have to change your mindset once and put these operations into place. The cool thing about movement is as you're moving forward, you're like, okay, I think I can go faster. Or I don't want to go faster. I want to slow down or I want to change this. And you're actually able to see what needs to change because you're doing the actions. My boys are in football. So I'm gonna use this analogy. Behind us on the stands last night, there was a dad who was like, they just need to do this, this and this and this and this, and really giving his opinion. But he's not out there on the field with the kids, moving the ball and taking the actions. Because it's easy when we're not moving to criticize and say, well, if I just did this and I did this and I had this. Nope. What if you just started taking action and just did the simplest next step.

Lani Jackson: Then you would know what the longterm next play could be. But if you never take the first step, you can't make the next play.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my God that is so good. That is brilliant. And I'm going to steal that. So anybody that's in my coaching program is going to hear me say that

Lani Jackson: [inaudible]

Shannon Mattern: Ohio State Buckeyes fan here. Lani Jackson, I will quote you on that. But yeah, and you also get the chance to collect small wins and prove to yourself over and over that you completed something. I had success or I got an outcome. Like you said, you hope the play goes a certain way. You hope you get the first down. But if you don't, now you have a new set of circumstances to try again, to keep going.

Lani Jackson: And I feel like a lot of times we even discount a first down, cause it wasn't a touchdown.

Shannon Mattern: Or are you even five yards closer to the first down? Right?

Lani Jackson: Yea! I mean, if you didn't get a client today, you failed. Like, I literally had some people who were like, I pitched somebody and they said no. Okay. So that's it? You suck? Your business is terrible? You need a new game plan? You need a new strategy? No! You would have to show up again and again and again, and just take that next step because a lot of the movement forward is not an obvious dollar amount, but it will result in multiple dollars instead of just $100. I'm making way more than that. And I can't describe the difference of relaxation and the not knowing, the anxiety. I mean, I still get a little high, don't get me wrong. I'm excited when I get a client. But I am also confident that if I didn't get a client today, I will, because the actions I take every week, it's just building my authority. It's building connections, it's creating relationships and that client will come because I am doing the actions I know convert. One yard at a time.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh, I love it. And can we shift to talk about money mindset? Because I know it's one of your favorite topics. It's also one of my favorite topics. Can you describe your money mindset journey and some of the biggest shifts that you've noticed happen in yourself along the way? Because I know when we started working back in 2018, we both had a busted money mindset. Now we have both been on this journey to really change the way we think about money. So I just want to hear your cliff notes version of your experience.

Lani Jackson: Yes. It's a big journey. It's such a big journey. I, again, like I told you at the beginning, I thought in hundreds and fifties. It was like, oh if I could just have $50 more dollars, $100 more dollars. A lot of it stems from my childhood. We grew up very modestly and everything felt like a burden to buy. And you know, my husband and I, when we first got started in our marriage we had a very tight budget and that does affect us. It does affect us. But one of the things that shifted for me was, I would say, two things. Two different thoughts. One, I am worth more than a hundred dollars. And my value can be beyond what I even thought for myself. Letting other people help me own my value was a big thing. Joining that mastermind where you guys were like,, you're charging what?

Lani Jackson: And I was like, yeah, that's a lot. And they're like, no, it's not enough. So having somebody else come in and kind of give me that permission and giving me the encouragement. And, you know, it did take that first win of asking for that new price. And it always is a shift when I raise my prices. I'm like, okay, all right, I have to own my value again. But I also take the moment to stop and think about, okay, what is the impact that happens when someone works with me? Okay, they quit their job, their nine to five job. They paid off their minivan in cash. They were featured in a national magazine. They were able to blow out their projected income for the year in October. I mean, just like what is happening here?

Lani Jackson: Okay. So yes, my value is there. And then the other shift that I made, and I don't remember what year it was, but it was a new mindset that I wanted to think. Instead of money is hard to make and I don't have enough of it, it was became money is fun and easy. That was my new thought. I wrote it down all the time. Whenever I would start to panic about my budget or our family budget or the business and what it was making, I would write it down in pen, money is fun and easy. Money is fun and easy. I can make more money and have fun while I'm doing it, and it's easy to do. Instead of feeling like it's so hard to get a contract, it's so hard to find the right client. That was what I was telling myself previously.

Lani Jackson: And it was hard to find a client. It was hard to get contracts. But when I changed it to money is fun and easy, I'm just having fun doing this, and it's easy to find clients when I'm having fun. So it was two shifts of permission to own my value and the change to money is fun and easy. Super big shift. And again, that's when I went from making a couple hundred dollars a month to making a couple thousand dollars a month. And now more and more and more with my coaching business. And just the last year with my coaching business I think I have 4X'd my income, if not 5x'd it. So yeah, it's this big shift.

Shannon Mattern: Oh. So I love that. That's huge. And you said, I went from making a couple hundred to making 4-5 times more. No. You stopped accepting less and you started accepting more. That's the truth. And I had this conversation with some of my Web Designer Academy students yesterday. Because I'm not going to lie, and I'm sure you can speak to this, there is fear that happens when you're like, I'm going to go from accepting hundreds or fifties or whatever because that goes in your grocery budget that goes towards your mortgage, that goes towards your car payment. It's not like this is Monopoly money that we don't care about, that doesn't have an impact in our life. That money serves the purpose for ourselves and our families. And to think, well, if I'm not willing to accept a hundred, what if nothing else is going to come?

Lani Jackson: It's absolutely that fear of if they offered me $50 I have to take it because there won't be another $50 anywhere else. And I will tell you, when we first met, I was like, if I could just make $4,000 a month, that would just blow my mind. And now I'm projecting a quarter of a million.

Shannon Mattern: I know, righ?.

Lani Jackson: In the near future. Right? So that's my strategy. Just being kind of open here, I mean, I blow my own mind right now with just the shift of what is possible.

Shannon Mattern: What did it take for you to not accept the hundred and trust that the thousand was on the way?

Lani Jackson: Really, it was continuing to make the offer until the first one said yes. And then do it again. And then do it again.

Shannon Mattern: So you believed that someone would say yes.

Lani Jackson: I had to, yeah. I just said, okay, somebody is going to. Somebody, who's going to say she's worth it. You know, when I first started out coaching, I think I was doing a guest coaching, and I think I got paid $50 an hour as a guest coach. And I was like, okay, well, somebody thinks I'm worth $50 an hour as the guest coach. And what if I charge $75 an hour? And I took baby steps along the way. Don't get me wrong, very, very baby steps. But I realized also now the more steps you take forward, even if they're tiny, the easier it is to take the next tiny step. It's just momentum. And now I'm taking leaps. And it's just like you're going downhill. You get that ball running. You feel like when you're first starting with this change, with all the mindset change and the processes you're building and the movement, you're like I'm pushing a boulder up the hill. I'm like, what is happening?

Lani Jackson: And you feel like it's going to fall on you. But soon you realize, Hey, the ball's already moving, I'm walking behind it. And if I want to, I could give a shove and we could go even faster. And that's really where I'm finding myself at now and where I'm seeing my clients do the same thing. When they first start, they're like, Lani, this isn't going to work. I don't know. I feel scared. But then they're like, oh my God, it worked! And I get these inbox messages and you wouldn't believe what they say! I should've asked for more.

Shannon Mattern: That's the one! That's the one! I should have asked for more. And it's like, I'm sure as a coach, and I experienced this too, I see the value in my students that they do not see. And I'm like, you could charge $10,000 for that. And they don't believe it. And what I get to do as their coach is understand that it's so scary for them and help them build baby steps in because they're not going to do the thing if they don't believe that it's possible.

Lani Jackson: Exactly. It's so amazing. And not just with setting our prices, but believing that you can accomplish and grow a business in 20 hours a week and not stay up til two in the morning. Believing that you can show up with purpose and then close down your laptop and walk away and not worry you're missing anything. I mean, it's the same thing. We're owning our value in money, owning our value in time, owning our value in sanity, and all of that. It's that does a trickle down effect. It permeates everything. And that makes me so excited when I see my clients say, oh man, if I could make more money, I could work less. And if I worked less, I could actually do what I attended to do in the first place when I started this business, which is be present for my family.

Shannon Mattern: Oh my gosh. I love it. Love it so much. So I want to ask you just a couple more questions that I ask everybody that comes on to this podcast. And the first one is what would you tell somebody who is in those beginning stages, they're chasing those hundreds. They're that version of us when we we're just starting. They were burnt out. They're hustling. Nothing seems to be working. And they're at that crossroads where they're like, I'm just going to get a nine to five. What would you tell that person?

Lani Jackson: I would ask them to go back to what they truly wanted in the first place and then break it down. Let's get simple. Start with how much time do you have, or want to spend in your business. And then get really clear on small actions and test that. Move that forward first. Because if you can shift that, it's going to change everything. If I can repeat, you know, going back to that first $50, $100 dollars that I made, I was so excited. I was like, oh, I got it. It's amazing. Now it's going to happen for me. No, I needed to do more of what I was doing. But I didn't know technically how I got to that hundred dollars. So it felt like, well, how did that happen? Go back and break it down. How did that happen? Can you do it again? Okay. Let's do it again. Every week. Show up and be consistent. It's a habit of taking action every day.

Shannon Mattern: Yes it is. And it's not just any action. It's the actions that create results too, right? And so I love how you're like, and this totally resonated with me, how did this happen? What led to this? Because then you go off into shiny object land, and you don't know how you created the results. You're just like, well, I need to be on Instagram and I need to be on Pinterest. And I need to do all the things to amplify this. Instead of repeat it. There's a difference between amplifying something and repeating something. So, I love that. And I think that that comes back to even the strategies that you teach in Take Back Time, which I'll ask you where we can go to find more about that in a second. But the final question that I ask everybody that comes on the show is what belief about yourself did you have to change to get where you are today?

Lani Jackson: I really do believe it was the 'I am worth it'. It was what I'm telling people and what I'm saying or what actions I'm doing, what I'm giving people in exchange for their time and money. My time is worth investing in. I probably could have started this coaching business four years ago, probably more than that, just being honest. But I didn't think that I knew enough. I didn't think I had enough experience. I didn't think I had enough success. I didn't think I had enough, I don't know, fill in the blank. And so until I owned my value, I definitely couldn't grow a business from it. And I was in the same spot with my blog. When I first started my blog, I was like, well, I haven't been around long enough.

Lani Jackson: I haven't worked with Google yet. Or I haven't worked with this brand. So I'm just a baby blogger. I'm not at 10,000 on Instagram. Or whatever the thing I was telling myself to say, oh, I can't work with this brand. No! You just gotta be creative, get out there and pitch. And I shocked the pants off myself when I finally said, you know what, it doesn't matter where I'm at. I am reaching women and I'm impacting people. I can work with any brand I want to. And that year, that shift, I worked with more brands and had more brands collaborate with me multiple times than I ever believed would happen before then.

Shannon Mattern: I love it. And I love this idea. And I tell my web designers all the time, too. Your ideas and your intellectual property can solve problems for people. And that's where the value is. It's literally not how long you've been doing it. It's not how many followers you have. It's not any of this. It's that you can create value for other people, whatever that means to them. Whether it's more money, more time, more love, more health, more whatever, your ideas are your intellectual property and they are valuable. And all of these other things that we make up about how much experience or all of these things, it's all ways we just hold ourselves back because we believe stuff that's not true. So it was just such a powerful shift for you to just decide that the ideas and how you help people has value. I've gotten massive value since meeting you at that first mastermind back in 2018. Life-changing moment for me to be in your world. So I can't thank you enough for all of the support you've given me over the years. And can you tell our listeners where they can go to connect with you and get in your world and find out more about you and the MOM Method and Take Back Time, and all the things?

Lani Jackson: Absolutely. And I love that we met and our paths crossed. Like I can't even... I'm going to gush. But you can come and join my community on Facebook. I have a really amazing Facebook community, The Brilliant Mompreneur Society on Facebook. I would love it if you're a mom entrepreneur, come and join us there, it's a collaborative, supportive community. And it's totally free. You can also get Take Back Time, the masterclass, where I teach you all the strategies with the MOM method on how to strategize your week and make the most out of the limited time you have. That's lanijackson.com/class. Super simple. And I sometimes hang out on Instagram at Lani J Jackson. But I'm mostly on Facebook in my Facebook group. You can email me and DM me anytime over there. I love hanging out on Facebook because I've given myself permission not to be on all the platforms at once.

Shannon Mattern: I love it. Lani, thank you so much for being here. You guys can go to shannonmattern.com/363 to get your hands on links to all of the things that Lani talks about. And thanks again, Lani.

Lani Jackson: Thank you, Shannon, for having me. I love talking to you.