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[00:00:00] Kathi Burns: Hi there. I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you, who wanna take better control of your business and move forward with less trust and more success. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Organized Energized Podcast is produced for your enjoyment and show notes are found at thepodcast.organizedandenergized.com. Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on Twitter at Organized Energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now, let's get into the show.

Hi everyone. Today we're going to talk about how to create a fun and profitable business with my girlfriend Cindy Holbrook. Cindy's the visibility whiz. She guides coaches, speakers, and authors to thrive as they go up the ladder from being the best kept secret to trusted and in demand expert. Cindy's been featured on Huffington Post Live, women's Speakers Association, everyday Women TV, eHarmony, Prevention, and a guest on numerous other podcasts and radio shows, and I'm really thrilled to have her here. We're going to jump right into it and learn how to increase your visibility and have more fun and make more money. So here we go. Let's meet Cindy.

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me. I am with my girlfriend, Cindy J, and we're going to talk about visibility. We're going to talk about how to make more money and have more fun. So welcome to the show, Cindy.

[00:01:34] Cindy Holbrook: Oh, thank you, kathi. It's a pleasure.

[00:01:37] Kathi Burns: Absolutely. So we've been around for, we've been going around and circling around each other and playing together for a long time now. So I know a little bit about you, but let's talk about your background and why you're doing what you're doing now. What was the, what was your progress towards being a wizard.

[00:01:55] Cindy Holbrook: I always like to say I was a born entrepreneur. My first business was when I was 10 years old, I used to go to the Los Angeles River bed. Collect golf balls, take them home and wash them, take them back to the golf course and sell them to the golfer. So I had money to spend at the park. And so my whole life I always knew that I wanted my own business and I probably sold everything you can think of Mary Kay, Avon, Tupperware. Prince's house, crystal, all those good old party days that they used to have all these parties for. I even sold life insurance. Didn't like that too much, but always trying to find something. So when the internet came out, I was like, Hey, this is it. There's something on the internet where I can really have my own successful business that I don't have to work a day job with. So I opened up my first business online on September 10th, 2001. It was a Yahoo store and I utilized a drop shipper. I was selling pewter figurines. And I kept that for quite a few years. The only reason I ever left it was because the drop shipper went out of business. And, but then I started really getting more into the online world with different ways you could make money online. And I started affiliate marketing with Google Ads. So I created a 200 plus website where I interviewed all the diets. Back in the early two thousands, there was tons of diets online. And I reviewed them all with affiliate links and I placed Google ads to draw people to my site, and I was actually earning about four to five K net a month, so I was really doing quite well with it.

Then in 2008, Google changed its algorithm and they call it the Google Slap, and it killed my business overnight. And that's when I found coaching. Now I had been working in social services, so I thought, wow, this is really cool. I get to be, I get to work with people who actually want to be helped versus being told they have to be helped. And coaching is definitely my forte. I fell in love with it when I first began coaching. Like many people, I did not wanna choose a niche. So my first year were made a whooping $500. And then I was talked into starting a niche, which I was, I started as a divorce coach and my second year I made 20 K, and then I just continued to grow it ever since. But that can be the power of actually choosing a niche and everybody kept telling me to get clients online. I had to go speak in person. I lived in a very remote area, so if I were to go somewhere to speak, it would be a minimum four hour round trip drive. So working 50 to 60 hours a week in social services. It just wasn't plausible to drive that long to speak, but I had a lot of knowledge based on my other businesses that I had ran online. So I started utilizing a lot of what I had learned to get visible online. What happened was people started coming up to me going, Cindy J how'd you get on eHarmony? How did you get on Huffington Post? How did you get on Prevention? How did you get on Fox? How did you get on AOL? Can you show me how? For a while I was coaching both entrepreneurs and divorced woman. And then in 2017 I dropped the divorce part and since 2017, been 100% focused on being the visibility with and helping entrepreneurs step into who they are with outrageous confidence for more visibility, influence, and profits.

[00:05:46] Kathi Burns: That's a fantastic story. Now, I know a lot about you, but I knew the golf ball story was fantastic. I started when I was little, I started birdie's cafe, and I would sell like food to my neighbors right out of the basement little restaurant that I had set up. So I think we're two peas in a pod, but I didn't realize all the other stuff that you had done. That's quite the quite the artillery for, knowing how to help people now, for sure. I love that backstory. Looking back on that, if you had to tell your 18 year old self something what advice would you give her?

[00:06:19] Cindy Holbrook: My 18 year old self, for lack of a better word, was broken. I was abused as a child. At 18 I got married to a man much like my father, minus his sexual abuse. So I was always told what to do, how to act, who to be. I really did not realize that my life was my choice and that I had choices in what happened. I didn't find that out till I was 35. When I was 35, it was actually my supervisor, but I call her my first coach. I was crying to her, telling her, Earl, Earl told me he's gonna leave me in the kid's penniless. How can I survive? How can I raise my kids whenever they're used to his income? And she looked at me and she goes, Cindy, do you know your life is your choice? And I thought, woman, you are nuts. Nobody, but nobody would choose the life I'm living right this minute. At that point in time in the previous two years prior to that day, I had eight people in my family die. My mother, my father, my grandmother Some aunts, some uncles, and even my brother-in-law got murdered, so there's like a lot of grief surrounding that. I was suicidal. I was depressed. Earl was hanging out with another woman and making everything miserable. I felt very lonely and didn't see that I had a place anywhere and my daughter was getting involved with gangs.

[00:07:45] Kathi Burns: Wow. Bless you.

[00:07:49] Cindy Holbrook: I don't know what happened there. So I thought nobody in the right mind would choose my life. What are you talking about? My life is my choice. But she took me under her wings and first thing she did was she bought me Tony Robbins tapes. And then she told me books to read. And not that I knew what she was doing at the time, but she would ask me, what would you do if Earl left you? Where would you live? How would you take care of your kids? What type of car would you drive? Who would fix your car? Who would fix your things that went out in your house? And I didn't realize she was getting me to visualize, but now I do. So I started really getting more momentum and it really dawned on me that my life was my choice. Even though I could not change all these circumstances, and I had more than my share of circumstances at that point in time, but I could change my perception about them and I could change the way that I thought of my past. You can never change your past, but you can rewrite it from another perspective. So that is, a lot. What I started doing was rewriting my past, really discovering who I am, and I wrote myself a little bill of rights. I have the right to be loved. I have the right to my own opinion. I have the right to be respected yet, all these rights that are, we all have them. But especially after you've been in an abusive situation, you feel like you have no choice. So this was huge for me. And then over time I thought my life is my choice also, my business is my choice. And so I always help my clients. I'm like, what is a business of your choice, what does it look like? What does a life of your choosing look like? Because so many people go into business without considering all these things and they wind up creating a business. So it, it was really maybe a long answer there, so for my 18 year old self, I really think that I might go back and tell her that her life was her choice.

[00:09:54] Kathi Burns: Yeah, no, I think that's a great answer. And as you were telling me this story, I was thinking life was opening up all the possibilities for you. Even though there was a lot of tragedy and a lot of death, it was opening up you for expansion. It was paving the way, for you to emerge less fettered, let's just say it that way. Not unfettered.

[00:10:15] Cindy Holbrook: I used to call those three years my hell years. And last year I wrote a book about my life and it really dawned on me, and I think it was even before I started writing the book, that actually they were my healing years. And even my husband, he tells, especially when we first started dating, he'd always go, I wish you didn't have to go through so much. And I told him I would not be me had I not gone through what I went through. I have no, it just is what it is. Like I have no feelings about it, good or bad, or indifferent. It's just this is everything that I've went through, good, bad, good, and bad, and evil have all brought me to where I am today.

[00:10:53] Kathi Burns: What an amazing coach you had too. That was such a brilliant thing for you to hire a coach at the time when you needed. I think a lot of people need to reach out, and hire someone if you feel like you just can't get there, definitely call upon someone to help you.

[00:11:08] Cindy Holbrook: And that's it. She really wasn't a coach. She was my supervisor. But I always call her my first coach, my first mentor. She really took me under her wings and, but this was, it was in 1994. I don't think coaching was around then, but she seen something in me that I just absolutely could not see. And she was not a liked person. And the, and where I've worked in social services, she was, like I said, my supervisor. We had over a hundred people that worked in that office and I'd say probably 80% of them hated her because she was very wealthy. She drove a Jag, she worked because she wanted to work. She didn't have to work. Her husband owned a car dealership. It's just, she was really well off and people always thought that she was a stuck up snob. But she was such a lovely, generous, sweet person and like I said, she took me under her wings and I always say, I am where I am today and I am who I am today because she did take me under her wings.

[00:12:11] Kathi Burns: And I think that's a good point to be made that, we all can be coaches to someone for something always. You're right, the coaching industry is so full right now, but to know, we, we do provide guidance to people all the time and we are coaching our friends. We're coaching our loved ones. We're coaching those around us because there's, that's what I love too about life is because all of us know something a little bit more than the other person knows about something. And that's, yeah. That's when coaching comes in.

[00:12:44] Cindy Holbrook: Just going back to that, with mentorship and even like with sometimes with therapy now, I had been seeing a therapist that didn't help me at all, that was really dragging me down more than helping me. Because all they ever wanted to do was keep me in the past like yeah, this is why you do that, because that happened. And I can't tell you how many times I've been said that because I was sexually abused as a child, man, I'm just totally messed up for life. That's what the psychiatric world did to me personally. But whenever she just cut across it. It's who do you wanna be? Where do you wanna go? What can you do to get there? And it was such a different focus, like in a different time period. She probably would've been the top coach because I just, who she was, but she did it because she loved me, like I said. But whenever you're talking about who we touch, we never know what lives we touch. Even in a roundabout way. So with everybody, I have helped to thousands of people. They've never heard of my supervisor, but actually I would not have been able to help them had she not helped me. And that's where it goes around like it's a wonderful life. I love that show. But if you start thinking about the trickle effect, do you help one person? They help one person. They help one person. How many lives are you really affecting. There's a saying out there that we cannot take alone. We cannot change the world. Put together. We can change the world one life at a time.

[00:14:15] Kathi Burns: Absolutely. It's a recurring theme. I was just speaking on a podcast last week with another gal. We were talking about the same thing, the ripple effect. The ripple effect. Everything that we do and everything that we say it's for reals. So that's a perfect segue into the question I was going to ask you is tell a story about one of your clients and what happened with their transformation? Where were they, what did they become? Tell me a little story.

[00:14:39] Cindy Holbrook: No problem. Karen, whenever Karen, she became a life coach and she knew that she wanted to, again, work with divorced women. Whoever coached her first told her she had to place Facebook ads, so she was placing Facebook ads to build her list and get clients. So she had spent $8,000 on Facebook ads. She added 500 people to her list. And she had zero clients, so she was really doubting herself, can I even do this? Did you know? Am I crazy? What happened? She's really doubting herself, really thinking she had wasted so much money and different stuff. So she came to me. The first thing I had her do was stop paying for ads. All of my visibility strategies that I teach are free. Like I have been in business like forever, but I've been coaching since 2009 and I have maybe spent $4,000 in ads, if that, right? I don't place ads. There's so many free ways to get out there. And so I, first of all, to even build your list, I'm like, I would never place ads just to build my list. Especially not gonna, you don't have a proven system. So we created a personalized plan for her based on her personal strengths, beliefs, and values. What would be the best visibility strategies that she would actually enjoy? Because there's too many people, as I said out there, training businesses they hate because they're using strategies that don't align with who they are. And so within three months she had added over 2000 people to her list for free, and she got three high-end clients totaling over $15,000. So I, I always loved her story because so many people think they have to place ads or they think they have to do that one thing to succeed and one of my quotes, I say this all the time, is every strategy will work for the right person at the right time with the right mindset. Because it's so true. But we hear these people talk and they go, you have to do, you have to be on Facebook, you have to be on Instagram. Hey, you have to be on threads now. It's all this stuff and we get lost and we're trying to do everything, so nothing's working. Instead of saying, what's the one thing that I really enjoy doing and how can I go deep and really make this work for me? So that's. The hugest thing that I really like helping people do is find the strategies that align with who they are so they don't create a business they hate.

[00:17:19] Kathi Burns: Yeah. Doing the stuff they want to do. I think many of us, and I've gone down the path of, following the guru to do exactly everything that they say, and then I'm like, I don't even like this. This is stressing me out. Not even my cup of tea. Like, why but they said that's the way to do it. I think a good tip from this podcast is. Listen to your gut when people are telling you what to do, when you're, when you've hired someone, we've all thrown, I don't know about you, but I've thrown tens of thousands of dollars to the wind trying to.

[00:17:49] Cindy Holbrook: Hundreds of thousands?

[00:17:50] Kathi Burns: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm like pushing a hundred myself of stuff that didn't gel, that wasn't me. And, just watch who you pay attention to. But I think the most important thing is watch how you feel. When they say, okay, now you're going to do step one, step two, step three, and you're like, oh my god. Step three and four I ain't even going there. Then you're have a half baked system anyhow.

[00:18:11] Cindy Holbrook: What happens too with that? So many people think, okay, I'm going to follow. Mr. Guru because he's got a seven figure business, so I'm going to follow his steps. Exactly. But I have to be like him. I have to write like him. I have to talk like him. I have to this and it doesn't work because you're not them. And so its, and I tell people all the time, I'm like, I know seven figure business owners that don't use social media at all. I know seven figure business owners that only use speaking. I know seven figure business owners that only use Twitter even today. They only use Twitter. And seven figure earners that only use Facebook or any of the other social media platforms. So it is, it's not saying you have to be everywhere, which is, I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to be everywhere. You want choose that strategy that lights you on fire. If it lights you on fire, then you want to nurse it and you want to get good at it, you should not go to a second visibility form until you've got that first one down pat. And it's just a rinse and repeat system that you're not having to constantly think or reinvent the wheel. That being said, as well, when you do, and I help my clients whenever they have content, it's repurposing the content. So if you're on multiple platforms and it's knowing the different platforms, but don't try to create separate content for each platform. Whenever you know what type of content each of the platforms wants, then you're creating it for the one that you love. And preferably you have a virtual assistant that can dig out the content and repurpose it another platforms. This is the best way to be different places. But the very, very best strategy to be visible and to be known as an expert is to align yourself with other experts.

[00:20:10] Kathi Burns: Yeah. Yep. Play together, play in the same ponds. I've been doing that for a while and it's, it works and find people that you're in alignment with, people that you would want to hang out with and go have a glass of wine or go have a dinner with. Those are the people you want to do business with because they're going to be of a similar similar mindset.

[00:20:30] Cindy Holbrook: And yeah, a lot of something I'm asked a lot, and I talked about you have to do it your way, but I'm asked a lot, how do I overcome objections? Okay. And I go, I don't like, I just don't. I'm a soft self, but if somebody says, Hey, I don't have the money. I'd love to do this. If I had the money, I might say, Hey, do you want me to help you figure out how you can earn the money? But I'm not really trying to overcome. I'm really asking them. So some of them say yes, some of them say no. But every time I have tried to overcome the objections, I have a miserable experience with a client. For instance, one of my first clients as a divorce coach, she was one of my very first clients. Every single time we spoke, she would yell at me. Because of the way that I pronounced things. I always say that I was a confused child. My mother was from New York, my dad was from the south. So I was inundated with these two very distinct accents, by family. And then I went to speech therapy through seventh grade. My brother, his name was Ray. I could not say Ray, I said Bubba way, like forever. And then I, so her yelling at me about the way I pronounce things was really getting to me. She did not like the way I pronounced woman versus woman. And so after every call I would cry. Because I had all this I still have a lot of crap from my past, from the way that I've pronounced things. And I do, I try to learn and sometimes I get things, sometimes I don't. But it just is who I am now. One of my coaches actually helped me, she was my coach at this time, but first of all, she told me, fire that client. Because I was like telling her like every, I hate this. I don't know if coaching's for me because this girl is really attacking like one of my vulnerabilities. Something that really hurts me and one of my coaches like fire, I go, really? I can fire her. But this coach really helped me except to me for who I was like, Hey, if you don't like the way I talk, don't listen to me. I do the best that I can. But if I sat there and was hyper-focused on every word I said, trying to make sure it was pronounced correctly, I would go nuts.

[00:22:57] Kathi Burns: Yeah, you wouldn't be your authentic self. I think that was such great advice. You know what something I learned during my career is, the most professional thing you can do is say no. No, I don't think we're quite a good fit, or no, I can't really do that. No. Give your, give everybody out their permission to say no. If you're listening and someone's asking you to do something, you do not have to say yes. Follow Cindy's lead and say, No, I don't think we're really that good of a fit or I don't think I can really meet that obligation or whatever it is.

[00:23:27] Cindy Holbrook: Yeah. And it was very mutual and she went on, she found a coach that helped her, so I was very happy for her, and it wasn't like we hated each other, but we definitely was not a fit. And what I understood too is she was so hung up on the way I pronounced things, wasn't helping her. There's no way I could help her because she was, because we weren't connecting. I always say, your business is your playground. You get to choose who you're playing with, both as your collaborative partners, other experts, and your clients, and who you want to learn from. It's 100% your playground. And so you created your way and with clients, when you start releasing clients that don't fit, you. So much magic opens up, for lack of a better word, because they really hold you down energetically even though you're not realizing it. I had this client, I had this client for many years and it was a male client and he, I hated every week talking to him and it was like I wouldn't plan anything after I talked to him, because he always drained my energy. And I had some of my coaches telling me, you need to let this guy go because you're not helping him. But he says, I am and he keeps paying me and blah, blah, blah. And I don't like conflict. I have a really hard time sometimes sending down the rules. And when I had Covid last year, I was in I C U for three and a half weeks and almost died. But the first couple days I was in I C U. This guy was messaging, texting me business questions and I, I sent a text to my daughter, like with his phone number and said, tell him to stop texting me like I'm not dead here, right? Like the hospital or the doctors are planning my family for me to die, right? So I was that close to death and this guy is texting me business questions like he was even in the right state of mind to answer us. But it really hit me how much he did not value me. Did not value me as a person. He just wanted what he wanted. And and I still, when I recovered from Covid, had a hard time dropping him, but I did drop him. But I could not even believe, like almost instantaneously how much better I felt energetically and I started getting like more perfect clients, my business. It's just, it's so interesting because when I had Covid, I lost most of my clients because I couldn't work for six months. But once I let him go and I started working again, a lot of opportunities opened up and a lot and I started attracting a lot better clients who really value me as a person, as well as what I'm coaching. So it's so important that you align with everybody you're playing with.

[00:26:18] Kathi Burns: Absolutely. And I give you kudos because at that point, to let someone go after you didn't have clients, that was scary thing. And that was like a big, bold move. But then, you add space and then the new people come in and fill it. Another thing, the takeaway that I had from your story is that, you've hired many coaches and I think that coaches hire coaches to do what we can't do. And the most successful people in the world will have helpers that know how to do a little bit more of what they're trying to get towards. That's what mastery is all about, is to have ongoing coaches all the time. So that's, yes.

[00:26:56] Cindy Holbrook: It is it's part of my per my ideal client avatar, it's definitely their continuous learner. Because you can always learn things more. What I noticed too, whenever you're first starting out, it's like you buy everything and you're like, oh, I gotta have this, gotta have this. This person says, I have to be on Facebook. This person says I have to be on LinkedIn. This person says I have to speak. This person says I have to do a course. This person says this, right? And you're like, Inated and you're not getting very far because you're trying to learn everything. It is like this crash course. But whenever you start settling down and you really know what it is you want to teach, I always say is first of all, you have to know what your core message of your business is. What's the core message that you want to share with the world that's laid on your heart? And then when all these other opportunities come up, whether they be working with somebody, Or I mean working, purchasing a program or accepting an invite to speak on a summit or a podcast, as you ask yourself, does this align with my core message? If it doesn't, don't do it. And also with these programs, is this something I need and will utilize right this minute? Because I can proudly say I have never purchased a course of any type for more than $500 that I did not play full out in. If I am purchasing a course, I'm playing full out in it. Yeah. And and a lot of people, you purchase courses, you feel behind, you don't do something, but you have to, if you make that commitment at the very beginning, I'm going to play full out in this course, you're going to find success. But if you buy 10 courses that you're trying to play full out at the same time, there's not enough hours in the day. I always tell my clients, for every one hour that you learn something, You need to implement four hours.

[00:28:51] Kathi Burns: I love that. Love. Great advice for sure. Yay. Okay, so you get a lot done girl. You are a doer and a tasker and you get so much done. I don't know how you do it all. Because I see you everywhere. What's your favorite organizing hack? What tactic do you use, or pro program or hack or whatever you use to keep yourself in alignment and cruising on down the road?

[00:29:18] Cindy Holbrook: What I did, I started this years ago, there's a lot of things that we do. And we might not have to do 'em once a month or once a year, but we forget how to do them. So if we don't remember how to do them and then you're trying to research it again, you're utilizing a lot of time and energy. So when I learned something, I have a Word document, it's a very long word document and I put it alphabetical, so it's After webinar, do step A, B, C, D, and I write it down like the directions, just like my recipe book. And this way I have one document. I don't have to try to remember which document I put, what task in, because it's all in one document. And I actually call it my systems. So it's my word document called My Systems. It has everything in there. All of my how-tos. And the beauty of it is once I started utilizing VAs, They have my systems. I give them my systems. So now it cuts down on the time that I need to train them because I have all these recipes. Naturally, there's always questions that come up. But it's definitely time saving and it's efficient and anytime my VAs do something that I don't do, like my one VA does everything regarding my podcast, like everything. So I record it and she does it. But she put it in her, in my systems, exactly what she does. So if something happens to her, I can have another VA do it, or I could do it if I needed to because I have them put their systems into my systems.

[00:30:56] Kathi Burns: Okay. I love that. I love having the one word doc. I haven't ever thought about that before. I was thinking of a couple other things. WorkFlowy is a cool little list too, where you only have to look at one thing at a time. You can toggle and see everything and you can toggle and turn it off. But I love having everything on in and standard operating procedures, SOPs, gang. We all have to have them. In fact I needed one from my phone. My phone keeps not working in my car and I figured out about six weeks ago how to fix it. Why did I not write that down? So I'm back to the same old thing, having to discover and it's some stupid little switch. Like, why didn't I write down how I figured out that thing? Yeah. So yeah, where it's at. Okay.

[00:31:36] Cindy Holbrook: It definitely helps in saves time makes your life a lot easier. And I think I started that because when I was worked in social services under the one supervisor that I called my first coach that was whenever I was an admin for social services before I became a worker. And so she had me do an SOP for every single admin position there was, and this started because my brother died. And something that I did gave people benefits and it had to be done on the last working day of the month for the people to get their benefits on the first. And my brother died the night before. And she could not find anybody that knew how to do that. So the day after my brother died, I went into work so I could get the benefits out because nobody else knew how to do it. But that was such a big light bulb moment for her that she had me sit with everybody and did this whole, it was like 3000 pages long of all the jobs, but I had to be so precise so anybody could pick them up and do it. But it was really good practice for me whenever I got my own business.

[00:32:50] Kathi Burns: Yeah, it's so smart and it's things that we don't, we often go just, we're doing this, we're doing that, we're doing that. The other, we're chasing squirrels. And then do we stop to pause and say, how did I figure that out? It's no, I figured it out. Yay. And then we're onto the next task and then we forget how we figured it out. If you're like me. Exactly. It's like, how did I figure that out? It's not like reboot, it's not reboot your phone. I don't know. Some stupid little, one little thing that's not normal. I want, my phone does not work, so Yeah, it's funny. But, okay let me ask you this, and this is my year for celebrations because I have spent my life not celebrating enough. I have a lot of fun, I have a lot of party and I have a lot of that. But I don't stop and smell the roses. I don't stop and give myself kudos. So what do you do, Cindy? To celebrate your success when you have them? Big or small?

[00:33:36] Cindy Holbrook: I don't persue that I actually do anything like that. There's a couple things with Covid. After being so sick, it definitely taught me how to put me first because I was so sick I had to. So every single day, I'm very grateful for every breath that I take. The whole time I was in I C U I said, I mean everybody, I kept going. I'm so thankful I quit smoking 20 years ago because I couldn't even imagine being in the condition I was in, what I smoked. But but at the end of every day I don't always do it, but I really try to make it a practice at the end of every day to write down what I did, because now I'm focusing on my wins instead of focusing on, oh, I should have done this and this and this. Because whenever you do that, you are devaluing everything you did. You're like, but focusing on your wins helps you see more wins. So that is one thing that I do. But after Covid, especially whenever I started working again, my husband was like, we are going to have a date day every Sunday. So every Sunday I don't work. And he really started this, so I didn't work on Sundays. But he but we always, we, I love wildlife, so we live within 10 miles of four lakes. My favorite lake is Goldwater Lake. It's up in the mountains. There's all the pine trees and the forest. But we go up there and we look for wildlife because I love seeing all the wildlife. So we see deer and javelina and and lots of squirrels, a few rabbits. But I even seen a bear once. Mike didn't see it because he was driving and by the time he turned around, the bear was gone. It's just, it's fun to me and it's relaxing, but it really helps me to rejuvenate for the next week because I, you take that one day a week where I'm not working and I'm just really, I'm enjoying my husband. It's deepened our relationship and it's just been a win-win, win all the way around.

[00:35:29] Kathi Burns: I love the idea of having a done list, like what did I do? This is my accomplishments for the day. That's a really good ritual, and I'm a big Sunday fun day, like I never work on Sunday. It's my Sunday's, Sunday, and I'm always trying to figure out something to do that I've never done before. So not only is it a fun day, it's an explorate day of exploration. I think that's fantastic.

[00:35:49] Cindy Holbrook: So I love that the fun days, like with whatever. And you said something you've never done before. It was in 2019, just before Covid, we went on a family cruise. And I'd always said one day, I'm going to try ziplining because zip lining sounded cool to me. So my daughter's we've had this one stop. She goes, mom, if I can put the zip line on my room card, will you go ziplining with me? I'm like, sure. Not thinking that naturally she could do that because the cruise line owned the island we were on. And and so then, so first, I went through all the training, got from point A to point B, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Then I went point B to point C, and from point C to point D, there was a 50 foot cargo net bridge that you had to walk up. But I'm standing there, I'm thinking, oh my God, I don't want to do this. And that was so scary. But I did, and it was fun because the guy at the next station, he was like really cheering me on you can do it. Because I struggled a whole lot with that thing. Both physically and just mentally looking down like everything. And then when I finally walked up at, then I went, then we ziplined to the last point. But I asked my daughter, I'm like, did you know that Cargo Net Bridge was there? And she's yeah. And I'd like to thank you because I never would've went on it had I known, but that was such an exhilarating experience, like of being so terrified of something and managing through it and having somebody cheer me on that I didn't even know through the process. So anytime I think you can do something that you're a little bit afraid of. And it is, it's like, celebrate yourself like you just said. But to this day, that was one of the most exhilarating moments because I would not have done it had I known that cargo net bridge was there. Like I'll still do zip lining any day of the week, but don't gimme cargo net bridge.

[00:37:45] Kathi Burns: Yeah there you go. But now you're an expert and you know how to do it and you did it already. So it's not even thing for you, you're, you've got it, girl. So I know you have a valuable free resource that people can download or can take from you or as your gift to them. What is it that you're going to offer? And we will put the link below in the podcast, by the way.

[00:38:05] Cindy Holbrook: Yeah, it is my talk, Money Making Activities, during, I should have been ready for this. Maybe we can cut this part out.

[00:38:16] Kathi Burns: We all need that. We all need how to figure out what our value added activities are, it's the most important thing. Like what can we do to move the needle? And actually that's what this podcast is about. And Cindy, it's a visibility wiz, so she knows what to tell us how to do. And again, the link will be below in the show notes, so you don't have to have the link. Perfect. But let's talk about it.

[00:38:39] Cindy Holbrook: What it is a little guide and there's seven moneymaking activities that you can do in there. But one of the big things is you can understand the difference between lead generating versus moneymaking activities, and even visibility really. It shows you one tweak for visibility versus lead generating versus moneymaking. And so many so many business owners go more for the visibility or the lead generating and don't understand that with one little tweak, they can make it a moneymaking activity. I have a list of a lot of activities inside this guide, and I suggest you do one a day, even if you can only do it for 15 minutes. Because once you start doing a moneymaking activity each day, you're going to start seeing more profits. Something else you're going to discover with the report is you're going to identify five things that provide 80% of your income. So whenever you focus on these five things, this is 80% of your income and it's easier for you to build it. A lot of times I have a formula. I always say visibility plus influence equals profits. And it's not necessarily income. You want to keep more money in your pocket, but first you need the visibility. You need to know how to get in front of your ideal audience. Stop trying to find clients and just get in front of them and let them find you. It's much easier that way. And then you need to, and then you need to know how to influence them. You need to know how to influence them to take action, that you need to influence them, to empower them. You're not trying to manipulate them, telling them, you know they have to do something. You're just actually guiding them and influencing them to take some sort of action, whether it's with you or not. Something I tell a lot of people, I can't even count how many times I have said this. If I'm not right for you before you do this, I really think you should find a coach to help you. And if it's not me, fine, I'm not. I know that I'm not the right coach for everybody, but I do believe there is a right coach out there for everybody, and you need to find that person that you align with, that you feel good with. Because otherwise, like me and my client that I was talking to earlier, that couldn't stand the way I've talked, we were not a good fit. So you want to let still by my openness and letting her go forward. The one thing I do know that I did good for her was that I empowered her to find the right coach for her. And so remember when influencing, you're not influencing them to buy your stuff, you're influencing them to empower them so they can change their lives. I always say this is will always be my favorite testimonial on Facebook. It was, I became the visibility whiz by that time, but somebody posted on Facebook. Thank you so much. I never could have managed my divorce and moved on to find, to create a, my own happy life after the divorce had it not been for you. And why I love this testimonial so much is I never once spoke to this person. Never once did I speak to her. She got all of that from my blog posts, from my emails, from everything. So whenever you're talking about influencing people, you want to influence them to take action. You don't want to influence them to purchase your product. There's a difference. And whenever you're influencing people, you're going to draw the right people. And so whenever you have the visibility plus the influence, you're going to start to see profits.

[00:42:22] Kathi Burns: Oh, very well spoken girl. That's very well spoken. You're such a professional. Yeah, I love that. We touch a lot of people without even knowing, love letters for people, it's like, how do they even know about me? Or, it's fantastic. So that's that's means you're visible, you visibility wiz. It's been a pleasure. We have to now break and say ado and bye-bye. And Tata for the week and gang, I'm going to see you next week. Make sure to download Cindy's free gift because you're going to learn a lot of stuff. You're going to get more clarity. And if you want to figure out how to Master Your Muck, you can also download a free copy of my book with the link below as well. And until then, we will see you next week. And thanks again, Cindy, for being a guest.

[00:43:07] Cindy Holbrook: Thank you, Kathi. It's been my pleasure.

[00:43:09] Kathi Burns: Absolutely.

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciate a good rating from you to me. Have a stellar day.