Kat: Good Morning, this is a car chat with Kat. So it might not be morning for you whenever you listen to this. But it’s morning for me, I’m in the car, and I’m on my way to Guide Culture headquarters for one of our School of Sales sessions being taught live right now. And I was just thinking, five months postpartum right now and there’s just been a lot that has happened if you go back 10 to 20 episodes or so where this is going to be posted, we talked about burning on the business, things being reinvented, and during those times, if you go back and listen, there is just a lot of uncertainty, instability. I mean, I was having a baby for crying out loud and that is its own level of instability. And I guess what I want to say, coming on the other side of it, because we don’t typically share all the things that are hard, but it certainly was a hard season. And, gosh, being on the other side of it, I just want you to be encouraged that your business, your encouragement, the way that you feel, your motivation, your inspiration, it will ebb and flow. It will come in spurts where you feel sharp as a tack for one season, and you feel dull as a dud in another season. And maybe it’s because of pregnancy hormones or lack of sleep or something hard happens, someone disappoints you, you disappoint yourself, I mean, stuff happens in life, and especially in business. I was just saying to my husband, who had just started his own business, which is crazy, never in my dreams thought that would happen. And I was just telling him, you know, when you start to sell, meaning when you actually run your business, which means you have to sell to be in business, right? So when you have to sell something, it forces you to be the best version of yourself. Because if you want to do it with integrity, with joy, and enthusiasm, it has to bring out the best you have to focus on the next thing. So the reason I say that is because you won’t always feel your best, but it does force you to be the best for that season. And so my encouragement to you is to be stable in the things that you are doing and the person you are becoming, let that be your stability.

If you are a person of faith, no matter how you are feeling, no matter what motivation, you have to open your Bible, or to pray, or to journal. Do it. Like seriously do it. And trust and have hope that you are strengthening yourself for the future. If you are, you know, trying to do other things to grow yourself and you want to know like, hey, I might not feel motivated, I might feel like every piece of content I put out is trashed right now, but you know what I’m gonna read anyway, I want to take notes anyway, even when it’s like no one’s listening, and all that doubt that could be happening. Do it anyway. Because when you come out on the other side, when you get that little win, or a big win, you’re gonna be like, dang, I can keep going. And I know that I will survive, I can actually thrive on the other side of something that is hard. And I can’t be too specific right now, but we just had an amazing conversation with a huge company. And I just like I’m kind of staring at the wall without blinking, thinking like, oh my gosh, had Macy just crossed her arms and sat down and thought, well, Catherine had a baby, I guess I’m just not gonna do anything because it’s hard to be alone. If any of us had gotten so defeated that we stopped. You don’t know what’s on the other side of your discipline, your diligence. Intelligence means that you have discipline with excellence, that you want to do things day after day after day, with the hope and the belief that what’s coming for you is so good. And most importantly, when you do have that good thing come to you, maybe it’s a big company, a speaking opportunity, you get to train your companies, teams, or something, you’re featured on some Instagram account, you get offered to run ads for somebody, I know we have graduates who have gotten that opportunity. And I just think it’s so cool how luck truly is when opportunity meets preparation. Luck is an opportunity meets preparation. And so what this whole thing is, is, what I’m trying to say is the ebb and flows will happen. Stay prepared, stay in preparation, think about your soldier on a mission, you may not always be called in the combat, but the soldier is always prepared to be called, and that has an opportunity. The opportunity to be called meets the preparation, the strength, the strength of body, the strength of mind, the strength of soul, because the way that you can handle what’s coming for you is by being strong. And it reminds me so much of the Chinese bamboo tree, where the Chinese bamboo tree is planted into the ground and it has to be watered every single day. If it’s not watered every single day, it will die.

And it seems dramatic, but this is the way the plant works. So it has to be watered every single day. And in the first year, there’s no physical growth. In year two, it still does not break through the ground. In year three, there’s not a bud in sight. Literally no visible growth. Even in year three, I’m not saying day three, I’m saying year three, that is 365 days times three, and year four still nothing. Literally still nothing. This is watering a plant that is not visibly above ground for four years. I know people who if they started their business, and in one month, they don’t see results, if they sign up for a training and in the first session, they don’t feel inspired and 100% different then they’re pissed off. And I gotta say as your friend in business, that is not the attitude. It is not the attitude to wait for growth to come like it is owed to you. There is a watering that needs to take place every single day, despite what you can visibly see. Now with a bamboo tree in year five, about 1200 days later, I think it’s 12182 or something like that. Five years later, after being watered every single day, it finally started to grow above ground. And not only does it start to grow above ground, but it is the fastest growing plant recorded. World Record. It made it in the books everybody, because this thing can grow, I think it’s like an inch an hour, nd so it can grow up to 90 feet a month, something crazy. These things get so massively tall within just a matter of a month. But did it? Did it really grow in a month? Did it really grow 90 feet in a month? Because that sounds like an overnight success to me. Oh, one inch an hour. Oh, that’s good, that’s sexy. Who doesn’t want to grow an inch an hour, 90 feet in a month? The reality is that that seed was watered for five years. And what do you think was happening in order for that bamboo tree to get so tall so fast?

Sounds like some preparation work to me. It sounds like there were some dark underground, unseen work that put some freaking deep roots into the ground so that when that bamboo tree was tall, not even a storm could blow it away. Right? Not even the downtimes could blow it away, that doubt could blow it away. That’s exactly what I want for you, to have a year five mentality that says I will water every single day no matter what I feel is my above ground win. Whether or not I feel like I’m being recognized by the public, whether I feel like I’ve made huge strides. I promise you that when you water every single day through things like reading, reading the right materials, leadership materials, growing your spirit, growing your product knowledge on what you do, praying for crying out loud, journaling, getting your thoughts right, really correcting the way that you think about things, getting in the right communities: that’s watering. Getting training, growing your skills, whether you see the quote, ROI in the first month or the first year even, I promise you that when you water every single day, it is just nearly impossible to lose.

I personally think it’s impossible to lose. Because the only way to lose is to give up. The only way to fail is to give up, but when you water every single day because you know that whether or not you have your bamboo tree, your success above ground, there are roots going deeper and deeper and deeper every single day. And you can look at yourself and smile. You can smile to yourself, give yourself a little smirk, you can say you know what? My roots are deep baby, they are deep. And I have a year five mentality 12185 days or whatever it is. Whatever it takes to put roots down so that when I do grow an inch an hour, I can handle it. And the people around me will look to me as a strong leader. And that’s what it takes. Honestly, if you are waiting to see success, I put success in quotes, good, because that tells me that you are being prepared for something much bigger than you even knew. And that is exciting. It is something worth putting so much faith in that something in the future is worth you investing in now. In fact, the word investment, it really means short term costs. Short term costs is an investment in winners.

Winners look to the long term, the long game, because this is so much bigger. This is so much bigger than how you feel today, the results you see today. It’s about watering today, and that my friend, is how you have a year five mentality. See you next week.