00:24 - Announcer: It's time to take your business to the next level—the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO Boss. Now, let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:44 - Anne (Host): Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with Lau Lapides in our Boss Superpower Series. Hey Lau, hey Anne.

00:54 - Lau (Guest): I'm so excited to be back. It's been a while, you know. It seems like it's been forever years. It hasn't been, it's been years, but it feels like that.

01:04 - Anne (Host): I'm going to say a lot has happened, and so I brought props to show you. So I have... actually, I love props. I care my props. I have actually leveled up, okay? So in many ways. So I have my three-pound weight and I have my five-pound weight. So in my Pilates class, I finally leveled up because when they say grab your light weights, I went from three pounds to five pounds.

01:26 - Lau (Guest): You're now a heavyweight.

01:28 - Anne (Host): Well... I don't know if it's heavyweight, but now, right, it's a change. I've leveled up, and while it may not seem like a lot over the long haul, guess what? It's going to mean a whole lot. And I thought it was such a great comparison for our businesses and how we can make simple little changes. And those simple little changes over time are going to make an amazing difference. And I even got like excited, and I wrote, "No sacrifice, no success." And then here's my little boot necklace to like kick myself in the butt to remind myself.

02:00 - Lau (Guest): We all need that, Annie, we all need that.

02:02 - Anne (Host): I love that, to do that, yeah. So I've taken some chances with my business, and I have done some things. I've made some changes, some not so small, but they've been coming for a while. In my head, they were small, and over time they evolved into a kind of, maybe, a bigger idea for a bigger vision for my company. And I thought it would be great to just talk about the process because it's not easy to level up.

02:27 - Lau (Guest): Oh, it's no, it's not the most challenging thing you can do. And it's funny how you have the thought, the imagination, the dream, which has nothing to do with the actual reality of doing it, right? So you're moving through that reality.

02:40 - Anne (Host): I consider the brain, right? My brain steps, my little steps over time, because I've been thinking about how am I evolving, how am I going to level up, how am I going to make these changes? And so in my head, I was making small changes, right? Until finally, I started implementing those small changes, and then kind of as a, I guess maybe a side effect or after effect of those small changes, then I needed to make bigger changes. And so now I have to say that through the process, it's been definitely a learning process, not only for... I like to say I have a clear direction of where I want to go, I know that, but also things have happened that have been, I guess, scary. They've been monumental, like growing challenges for me, but also moments where I've been... Oh, I get it now!

03:31 - Lau (Guest): Yes, let's hear, what are some of those aha discovery moments for you that caught you?

03:31 - Anne (Host): So the aha discovery, right? The aha discovery of evolving your business and always growing, and I'm always talking about that, right? I'm always talking about evolving, and I'm like, "Oh, I got an idea for this, I got an idea for that." I'm a little bit of a serial entrepreneur, but when it comes right down to it, I think that a big aha moment for me was in the process of doing this, is that I've learned a lot about myself, and I've learned where I myself get in my own way, right? I myself get in my own way, right? And I like to think that I don't, and that I'm all confident, and I'm... Yes, we can forge forward and be successful. But yet there's been some times where I'm like, "Well, am I doing the right thing?" And I second-guess myself, and then when I do that, I learn more about myself. Yes, and so it's really been a learning experience about myself and how there are ways in which I hold myself back, and how when it comes to growing your business, the team that you have in place can do a lot to support you.

04:33 - Lau (Guest): Now, before you go on, Annie, I want to know on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most terrorizing, before you made the move, because a lot of our clients and talent ask us about this, like, "How do I make these really serious and scary moves?" How scared, terrorized, were you at the thought of that kind of change, which is semi-radical, especially when you're working with people for quite a while? How scared were you?

04:59 - Anne (Host): Terrified, terrified. I mean, terrified. It was a 10. It was a 10. Stress level eating, do you know what I mean?

05:05 - Lau (Guest): Well, thank you for being honest, I would agree.

05:07 - Anne (Host): I think it's true. Headache, neck ache. It never gets easier. No, it never gets easier.

05:12 - Lau (Guest): It's always a risk, a huge risk.

05:15 - Anne (Host): And we've talked about this. It's not like uncommon that we've talked about like taking risks and stuff like that. And even before, I was like, "Yeah, we take risks, we're bosses." And this time I took a big risk, and I think that I really challenged myself to take a big risk. And is it completely successful? I don't know yet, you know what I mean? It's evolving.

05:34 - Lau (Guest): And that's the nature of risk. If you knew, it wouldn't be a risk.

05:37 - Anne (Host): Exactly. I mean, I'm evolving with it, I'm growing with it, and I have faith that I'm determined that it will evolve into something successful for me, and so that I have. But the terror along the way has been surprising.

05:53 - Lau (Guest): Yes, yes, because it never gets easier. It never gets better. No, right? It just gets more, higher stakes, and it's funny. The stakes get higher. Yeah, and it's funny, what were the stakes for you this time around? Can you like break it down for the listeners? How did that work?

06:07 - Anne (Host): I'm going to keep going back to here, like right. So we all know my health journey, right? And my health journey took about a year and a half, right? To kind of come to fruition and get the news that, you know, I was not well, healthy, and I needed to do something about it. And then get to work, right? Focus, get to work. And so I was driven. I had a goal. I was driven. I didn't stop until I got to that goal. And then all of a sudden, I got to the goal and I'm like, "Wait, I have more goals."

06:34 - Anne (Host): And so my three-pound weight was always my weight that when the Pilates instructor said, "Go grab your light weights," I said, "Okay, three pounds," right? Three pounds is what? Before it was like one pound, I'm not quite sure if it might've been two pounds. Then I said, "All right, I'm going to graduate to three." But then just this past week I went to a five, and I said, for whatever it was, I had been thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it. Similar to my business. Right? I was thinking about the moves, I was stressing, I was nervous, I was like debating, I was researching, I did all the things in my head to evolve, and then finally, I took the leap. And so this past Wednesday, I took the leap, and I went to five pounds. Isn't that great? And it wasn't horrible, and it wasn't horrible. And now I know that there will be days when I'm not going to want to do the five pounds, but I'm going to push myself to do the five pounds.

07:24 - Lau (Guest): You're going to push, but there was something inside of you.

07:26 - Announcer: This is something I think the listeners have to know this.

07:29 - Lau (Guest): There was something inside of you, this little voice, that somehow knew that you could take it on.

07:34 - Anne (Host): And today was the day you could handle it, even though you felt nervous, scared, and with weights, you actually can get hurt, physically hurt, right?

07:44 - Lau (Guest): So of course you're not lifting 150 pounds, but you can still hurt yourself, right? Exactly. Well, let's transfer that now to your business.

07:52 - Anne (Host)