278: Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Success: It’s More Than Just Money

by | Nov 19, 2018 | Business, Podcast Episode

278 Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Success: It's More Than Just Money

Today’s Guest

It’s another episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon! In this week’s episode, we talk about success, and why it’s about more than just money. We often get the concept of success tangled up in business success or financial success, when in reality it’s about so much more than that.

 

More About Joanna Hennon

Joanna is a #SoulSmart Success Mentor – she helps people to easily create more success  by using the wisdom and power we all have access to at soul level. Living life from a place of soul power, in tune with your higher self and your Guides, and using the Law of Attraction with intention will literally change your life! To get started, grab one of these free resources.

 

Listen to this episode

    

What You’ll Learn

  • Success: what is it? How we define success, and how that compares to the official dictionary definitions
  • Why success often gets tangled up with business/money
  • How to redefine success and what it means for YOU
  • The questions you need to ask yourself to help you redefine your personal definition of success
  • Why you need to give yourself permission to feel successful TODAY
  • Examples of some of the small things that make us feel successful
  • Why it’s so important to identify the small things that make you feel successful
  • How to avoid falling into the trap of not valuing personal success
  • How to take charge of your own success
  • Why a lot of our successes involve getting outside our comfort zone
  • Why it’s so important to feel successful in the moment
  • How you can acknowledge all your successes, big and small
  • Why it’s so important to identify who in your world you consider to be successful and why?
  • How to avoid comparing yourself to other people’s perceived success

Things We Discussed

 

Connect with Joanna

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 278. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. In this week’s episode we talk about success and about why it is more than just money. We often get the concept of success tangled up in business success, or financial success, when in reality it is about so much more than that. And yet, we get caught up in this trap and think that value of our success is related to money and business and not about the small things and I think when we make that shift to really valuing our smaller successes and feeling those successes it can be really life-changing and it can make us a lot more satisfied with our current lives, rather than always reaching to achieve something else so that we can feel that success. We can feel success every day as you will learn in this episode.

So success, what is it? You will learn how we define success, and how that compares to the official dictionary definitions. We will talk about why success often gets tangled up with business and money. We talk about how to redefine success and what it means for you and why it is so important to have your clarity on your special definition of success, rather than falling into the trap of trying to strive to achieve other people’s successes. We share the questions that you need to ask yourself to help you redefine your personal definition of success. We talk about why you need to give yourself permission to feel successful today. We give some examples of the small things that make us feel successful, because it is really important to tap into these little things as well as the big things. We discuss why it is so important to identify the small things that make us feel successful. We tell you how to avoid falling into the trap of not valuing personal success, because we often focus more on business and professional success. We give you tips on how you can take charge of your own success. We talk about why a lot of our successes involve getting outside of our comfort zone. We explore why it is so important to feel successful in the moment. We share how you can acknowledge all your successes, both big and small. We talk about why it is so important to identify who in your world you consider to be successful and why. And finally, we talk about how to avoid comparing yourself to other people’s perceived success. So, hope you find today’s episode interesting and useful.

And I wanted to give a quick thank you to new patron, Debbie, and mention that I would also love for you to join me on Patreon, if you head to http://patreon.com/hollyworton you can join me there. Membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to content and stuff that I don’t share anywhere else, including a monthly Q and A. So, without further ado, here is this week’s episode.

Holly: Hey Joanna!

Joanna: Hey Holly!

Holly: I am so excited that we have another episode together.

Joanna: Yay, we are doing it again, it is awesome.

Holly: {laughing} I put something in my Patreon the other day that both you and Jo Casey are coming back to the podcast and a couple of minutes after I put that in, one of the listeners popped in and said: Yay!

Joanna: That’s good to know. I met someone recently in a program that I bought who said: ah, it is nice to put a face to your name, I know you from Holly’s podcast, I thought: wow! that’s cool, people listen to us. {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} They do! So today we are talking about success, tricky subject for I think a lot of people, it can bring up a lot of mind crap and icky-ness.

Joanna: Yeah, because it is something that everybody wants, right? Everyone wants to be successful, it is just it is such a personal thing what success actually is, and we tend to subscribe more to what society thinks success is, and then we get all wonky, because we don’t really want what society thinks we should want, but then we don’t know what we want because we haven’t taken the time to define for ourselves, and there is a bunch of stuff and I think it just produces a lot of misery and feelings of being kind of. lost and…

Holly: And also if you don’t want what society says you should want, often we don’t have enough role models of the other options. As someone who has been child-free since I was a teenager, and I have always known that I didn’t want kids, I didn’t have any friends that didn’t have kids until I hit my forties, and kind of looked around and realised a lot of my friends don’t have kids. I felt like there was something wrong with me, I felt there was something weird about me, because I didn’t want this very important thing that most people want.

Joanna: Yeah, that’s a big thing, certainly becoming a mother was a very, very, big part of the journey for me. I am not sure if it was linked to success or more like an emotional need, but it was certainly part of what one should do and then for a while, in my twenties, I considered not having children at all, and that brought up a lot of stuff from my family and all sorts of people had opinions about this, and how I was making a mistake. And then I myself, not based on them, changed my mind, and I am very glad I did, obviously, I love my little boy. But, yes, it is kind of linked to the path that is laid out for us, I suppose. You are supposed to go to college, and get a nice job, and buy a nice house, and have a nice child {laughing}.

Holly: Climb the corporate ladder.

Joanna: Climb the corporate ladder, earn more and more to save for retirement and then die. {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} Sounds like fun! One cat, one dog.

Joanna: Yeah, right, 2.4 children.

Holly: So, if you don’t want some of those elements it can be really confusing, and it can be hard to find examples of different people doing things differently who are successful.

Joanna: So, let’s talk about it, what do you define success as Holly?

Holly: Before we do that should we talk about the dictionary definition of success, because I think that differs from our personal.

Joanna: Sure.

Holly: So, we googled this, and we got a couple of different things:

“Success is the achievement of a high position in a particular field for example in business or politics. Nearly all of the young people interviewed [I don’t know where] believe that work was the key to success.”

And then another dictionary said:

“Success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.”

Joanna: Interesting, right? I love that they are so different. There is so much to be said about both of them, I don’t know how we are going to fit everything into this episode. The first one is obviously, it is all linked to status, and working hard, and all that stuff. So that’s the society one. The second one, the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, I find that’s interesting because it starts with you knowing what you want. That’s actually problematic for a lot of people.

Holly: Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t know what they want, they just know what they don’t want.

Joanna: Yeah, exactly, so if you take success as being the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, if you don’t take the time to set that aim or purpose, or if you set an aim or purpose that’s wrong for you, then you will never, ever, feel successful, that’s a shame.

Holly: And also this definition of the accomplishment of an aim or purpose is like achieving a goal, but goal setting isn’t something we learn in school and a lot of people don’t learn about goal setting until further on in life.

Joanna: So, we have these two definitions…

Holly: So, success what is it according to us? {laughing}

Joanna: You first Holly.

Holly: So, to me, success is, I think it does have a sense of goal-achievement, so a lot of my work with myself, and with other people, has been about getting clear about what you do want, rather than what you don’t want, and then working to achieve that. And when I do achieve those things, I feel a sense of success. I feel like I have achieved something, I feel that sense of satisfaction, I feel like I have grown. So success is like a bundle of feelings wrapped in one word. So it is I think being proud of myself, being satisfied with the results, being happy with what I have got, feeling that sense of joy, even. How would you, what would you?

Joanna: I love the way that you describe it actually as “a bundle of different feelings in one word”, because I think that’s exactly what it is. For me, the same, when I feel successful, I feel like I am contributing to something, or I have contributed to something. I feel successful when I create something that I can be proud of, and that can be something small like a blog post, or this podcast episode, right? I feel successful when I touch others. So, success, for me, I think is really linked to contribution. And so when I see that my being influences others, or is appreciated by others, or helps others, or inspires others, then I feel successful and fulfilled. It is feeling satisfied with what you are spending your time on and with your life and fulfilled choosing the things that fulfil you, that isn’t just busy-work. And you mentioned an important with the feeling proud of yourself as well, I think. It is a bundle of feelings isn’t it!

Holly: Yeah, it is, a whole bundle of good stuff. {laughing}

Joanna: And let’s notice that we both naturally…so, we’ve just been talking about success for how long, five, six, seven minutes, and just naturally, so this wasn’t planned at all, but none of us, in any of these definitions, of how we perceive success, neither Holly nor I mentioned the m-word — money — which I think is actually really interesting, because it is really tangled up in that, I am actually quite surprised that neither of us mentioned money.

Holly: I think it is because we had a little chat before we started the podcast, where we were fleshing out kind of the bullet points, where we specifically wanted to talk about the deeper levels of success, but I absolutely have had my sense of success tangled up with business success, or money success, for many, many years. And it has been hard for me to disentangle money from success, because I look at my bank account, I look at the money coming in and that to me: ugh for a long time has defined my feeling of success. And I have used that sometimes to feel successful or to feel bad about myself.

Joanna: Yeah, totally. And let’s be honest, money is important, so we are not going to pretend that success doesn’t include money, or that it can’t include money, or that money is not important, none of those things, because it is important, and it helps you live the life that you would like to live, ideally. So, that’s all good, right?

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: But I also have found that my feeling of success has really depended on money for a large portion of my life, and now, as I talk to you Holly, I realise that it is not even money, it is not money that defines success, it is my ability to bring in money all the time. So, it wasn’t even dependent on how much money I had, but about how much money was coming in. So, I could have a totally full bank account, totally, totally, overflowing bank account, but if I didn’t have a PayPal notification that day I felt like a failure. I had associated it with my ability to keep bringing in money, which now that I talk about it is so dumb, because it just sets me up for failure, because it is like nothing will ever be enough.

Holly: Yeah, because once you start bringing in that consistent money every day and you are getting those PayPal pings every single day, then you are going to be upping, well, I can’t just have any payment coming in, I want at least x amount of money.

Joanna: Yes, it is like I have set myself up to never win. So this was my situation, certainly until a couple of years ago when I kind of took it in hand, that was really scary. I noticed myself being, this is kind of embarrassing, I can’t believe that I am going to admit this on a podcast, but I found that I was kinder to my son when somebody paid me that day.

Holly: Well, of course, because you were happier.

Joanna: Yeah, but I really noticed it in relation to him, and I remember that being a key moment in me kind of taking the reigns, and taking control back, because I was like: that’s ridiculous; and we are talking about small payments, so it is not like I was basing whether I was happy or not that day on payments of thousands of dollars, we are talking about small $30/$40/$50 payments, so I was nicer to my kid when somebody gave me thirty bucks! {laughing} That’s not good!

Holly: But it is understandable.

Joanna: It had reached that stage, so I remember noticing that’s when I was kind of: no, this is not okay, success, I have to redefine this. I have to take control of it, because I don’t want to live the rest of my life in this way.

Holly: So what did you do to redefine success?

Joanna: I just did a simple exercise, I just decided to take money out of the equation because I was too focussed on it, honestly. I decided to, every morning, and I did this for about three weeks I think, every morning, and then I did it every few days after that, I asked myself: what can I do today to feel successful? So, it was almost like a permission to feel successful now, rather than deferring success. You know: I could only feel good and successful about my life when I did this or this, when money was coming in, when I have earned this much, when I have hit my income goal, when I have had a full client roster, whatever those things were at the time. Then I was like: no, I want to feel successful now. My life is pretty good anyway, you know, with or without that, I am basing this on something that I have made up, arbitrarily, attached to success, so I am going to decide to let myself feel successful today.

Holly: Okay that’s really interesting, because that’s a lot like the gratitude work that some of us do. So it is like rather than basing your happiness on the stuff that you want, it is being grateful for what you have already got, so it is feeling the success that you are already experiencing.

Joanna: It was that plus, so it was that plus making sure that I am doing things that make me feel successful. Staring at my PayPal account at that time, or to keep checking my PayPal account was not making me feel successful, so I was choosing to do things in my day that would make me feel successful. And so, I started every day with the question: what can I do today that will make me, that will help me feel successful? So imagining that at the end of the day I could say: okay I did these three things, and so I am allowed to feel successful. It was kind of like that playing with allowing. So I was allowed to feel successful because I did these things, and sometimes those things were checking off a to-do list of things that I had been procrastinating on, and sometimes it was creating a blog post, and sometimes it was taking the day off. It didn’t really matter, the thing, but I tuned into that energy of success every morning, and really listed out what that meant, today, not in ten years when hopefully I have a super-successful business earning gazillions, today.

Holly: Okay and I think the important thing that you also mentioned is that you were feeling success in small things, because I think a lot of us only give ourselves to feel successful when we achieve the big milestones or the big goals. But we can absolutely rewire our brains to pay attention to, and feel success, in the smaller things.

Joanna: It is true, I started this a couple of years ago now so I am pretty good at it now, now I feel super-successful when I allow myself the time, ten minutes, to decorate my bullet journal, and I take out my stickers and I make it all pretty with the stickers and the washi tape and every time I do that I feel so good and successful, that I have the time, that I have the stickers, I feel this abundance of joy when I do that and that’s super small, that’s a super small thing, obviously.

Holly: yeah it is but it is also taking the time, to really tap in and feel it, rather than just going: oh yeah that was nice I did my washi tape on my bullet journal.

Joanna: No, I really immerse myself in it. It is like sinking into this moment, right? And I think that asking the questions of yourself: what would make you feel successful, today? opens it up, because that is something that you have talked about before about your personal successes?

Holly: Absolutely, so I have often not valued my personal successes, because I have been so focussed on achieving business success. And I think this came up in a conversation that we had a while back about how I had stepped out of my comfort zone and done a bunch of things this year that really made me feel proud of you myself. I did a wild camping course in June, where I ended up being the only woman on the course and I was so afraid that I was going to be the least fit person and I was going to hold them back and, yeah, I was the slowest going up the hill, it doesn’t matter…but it was good. I didn’t hold the group back, we just had to take a couple of breather stops and it was good. And I just came back from North Yorkshire, I was on an advanced navigation course, again, I was the only woman there. And it was great, I had such a good time, I suspected in advance that I might be the only woman and that kind of made me nervous again about not being good enough, not being able to be up there with the men, but it was great, I had such a good time and I really enjoyed it. And then kickboxing, I went to my kickboxing advanced summer course, and I was really scared about that, because it was 13 hours of intense fitness over two days and I didn’t think I was up to it, but I did it and I survived and I actually enjoyed it; and that to me was a great feeling of success, because when I signed up for that, and I turned up for it, my only intention was to just get through it but I didn’t just get through it, I enjoyed it, and I was not expecting to enjoy it. So there were all these little personal things, all kind of related to fitness, and that kind of thing, but I do feel successful about those, because I put myself out of my comfort zone and did really well with stuff.

Joanna: I think that’s so important, those little personal things, as you call them Holly, they make up our whole life.

Holly: I know, but for so long, I was only valuing business success and not valuing my personal success.

Joanna: And I think we talk a lot about, in the business side of things, entrepreneurial side of things, or even anything to do with a big project, on the author side of things, we talk a lot about putting yourself out of your comfort zone and stretching yourself, and growing, and I think we could really apply that more to our personal lives as well, and make sure that we are doing things that stretch us and stuff. As you were talking, I remembered something that I haven’t thought of in so many years, that I am really, really, proud of, and it was a similar thing, it was something that I wanted to do but was really scary for me, but I can’t say that I play this instrument, I have this instrument and I would like to play it, lets put it that way. I have a hurdy-gurdy, which is a medieval instrument, it is beautiful, it was built for me, I had it actually commissioned it was built for me, I really, really, love it but I don’t know how to play it. And many years ago, I found that there is this hurdy-gurdy festival in the UK, I can’t even remember where it was, it was near Manchester or something. So, I, who don’t even play this instrument, took my hurdy-gurdy and went to the UK and travelled on the plane and on the train, because it was in the middle of nowhere somewhere, and travelled to this hurdy-gurdy festival without knowing anybody. I mean, can you imagine? This is like all my fears in one place, without knowing anybody, and I just took some workshops and hung out with actual proper hurdy-gurdy players and had a really nice time, and that was such a success for me. I went on my own, I explored a hobby that intrigued me, and didn’t let the fact that I sucked at it stop me. It felt like such a big thing, even now when I talk about, I am like: I am so proud of myself for doing that. Now I have that experience to cherish forever, and it doesn’t even matter that it didn’t really help me to play the hurdy-gurdy, because it is a complicated thing. It didn’t matter I had stepped outside of my comfort zone. I think that is such an important point that you brought up, really, and I would encourage anybody who is listening to really think about that, in your daily life, what would you love to do but maybe you are a little bit afraid?

Holly: Yeah and what steps could you take outside of your comfort zone? Not just in business, not just in your career, but in your personal life? Like what things do you want to do, but you are kind of scared to do? I was scared to go on that wild camping course, I was also scared to go on my Lowland Leader Assessment, where I was also the only woman, but you know, it was so worth it!

Joanna: The word that is coming to me now is enriching. Success is entwined, or should be, it should be disentangled from making money, and kind of more entangled with words like satisfying, and fulfilling, and enriching, what would enrich your life? That’s success, allowing yourself to do those things that enrich, right?

Holly: Yeah, yeah. I feel like we need to give more examples because success is so entwined with business and money and career, and that kind of stuff, what other things have you done in the last few years of your life, or whatever, that have made you feel successful, that are maybe small things, or personal things?

Joanna: Small things aren’t coming to me right now, but I recently did something that’s really scary for me, and that’s to sign up for a course that will help me understand wealth, not how to make more money in your business, but how money actually works and how investing works, and how the stock market works, and how property markets works and all that kind of thing. I haven’t started yet, but I made a commitment to make this a priority for 2019, it is something that I will be studying the whole year, and that feels like a big success for me, to take charge of something where I have always felt lesser. Where I have always felt insecure and the one who is bad with money, and the one who doesn’t know anything about financial markets. I went to a conference on this topic recently and I have actually, every single day, the way I described myself to people when I met them was: financially illiterate.

Holly: Wow!

Joanna: How terrible is that!

Holly: And obviously you are not, because you have been paying the bills and covering your expenses for your entire life, so you are clearly not financially illiterate, but that’s how you perceived yourself.

Joanna: Yes, because something like the financial world is something that I have always really wanted to understand, and I have always thought that I couldn’t. I still have a little bit of that even now to be perfect honest: am I smart enough to get it? Yeah, because it is just so complicated, I think, maybe how I perceive it, and can my little brain actually comprehend all this big financial stuff, where all these big important people are doing stuff all over the world and can I really understand what they are doing? That’s a big success for me, to kind of take charge of something where I have felt insecure, and start understanding it. So that’s something. It doesn’t have to be a big commitment like this, because I remember that I had the same feeling when I took an economics class, a couple of years ago, a long time after college and in college I didn’t understand economics at all, and a couple of years ago I took an economics class and I loved it because this woman, who later became one of my friends, she explained it in a way that I understood and that made me feel successful, I took all her courses. I was just like: I love economics, because I got it finally. So, allowing myself to learn something new, and really understand it, that felt like success for me. How about you, do you have an example?

Holly: Well, I think for me it has mostly been like physical fitness stuff this year. I have really stepped outside my comfort zone in a lot of my outdoorsy stuff that I have done this year and I have just signed up for something else early next year, and I have got a whole list of things I haven’t signed up for yet, that I really want to do in terms of navigation. And navigation is a big thing for me, because it is not something that comes easy to me, at this advanced level you are looking at contours and this last one was navigating at night. One day we were out from 9am to 8.30pm, and the last four hours were in the dark. We hiked up to the top of a mountain and hiked down in the dark, and that was really scary for me because that was a massive step outside of my comfort zone, because I had a lot of fear around walking downhill. Going uphill of course is physically challenging but I have so many fears about where to put my feet when I am going downhill, and in the dark you don’t see as many nuances of the terrain, and there was one point where we had to go down this rocky ravine. And I had to go first, because I had the best lamp, but there was all this loose rock and this…oh god! So that class had a lot of different steps outside of my comfort zone and for me it has been a lot of the outdoorsy stuff, and the navigation stuff. But, also, I think every time I go outdoors alone that’s a step outside of my comfort zone, because I do it a lot, I spend long hours out in the woods on my own, and I have always had a lot of fears around personal safety, so I think every time I do that it is kind of reaffirming the fact that yes I can be safe in the outdoors, alone.

Joanna: Okay, so I am going to bring it back a little bit, because I don’t want to give the people the impression that success would only be stuff that takes you outside of your comfort zone, and that you need to be afraid of something and conquer something. I think our examples so far have been like that. Let’s take it back to examples of success as allowing yourself to experience the things that you really enjoy. When I was doing that exercise of asking myself every day: what would make me feel really successful today? The answer to that question by the way and why it is important to do it everyday in the moment and not just decide in advance, what would make you feel successful today, the answers were so different. Sometimes, it was literally just taking the day off, and doing nothing, because that’s what successful people do. If they want to take a day off they take a day off. They don’t push through, in my version, in my personal version of success.

Holly: Okay, that’s a great, great, thing to say, for me, one of my things like that, I have a very extensive morning routine, it doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen most days, and it is from 8am, when I get up,, until 11am when I start working. I read, I do my Druid work, I do some journalling, I do some mindset work, but I have a big chunk of time every morning to allow myself to do personal stuff that makes me feel super-nourished and successful but I hadn’t necessarily thought of it as something like that. But, of course, that is something that is a symbol of success, I have successfully engineered my life-style, so that I can have those three hours with myself.

Joanna: And I learned that from you, I started by having half-an-hour, and now I sometimes have half-an-hour, sometimes an hour, I don’t do it everyday, I am really, really, flexible with it, and some days I clean the kitchen instead, because that’s what needs to be done and that’s okay. I have to say, for me, it goes back to taking charge of things, taking charge of my own success, and success is like being able to do the things that fulfil me and make space for my dreams and goals. And it is not necessarily even achievement, although achievement is also nice, but even making space for your dreams and goals. So when I did learn this from you Holly, to make that space in the morning for that, more consistently, and it has become really a cornerstone of what I teach in the SoulSpace as well, to start your day with something, it doesn’t even have to be in the morning to be honest, some people prefer to do it in the afternoon, and that’s fine, but to make space for yourself, that’s definitely success.

Holly: And it is giving yourself permission to do that stuff.

Joanna: For sure. So there is an element of stretching, and growing, to feeling successful. There is an element of fulfilment, and enrichment, to being successful; and yeah an element of allowing yourself space for yourself, and the things that bring you joy. And, I think that the next thing that we need to say, really. is that it is not just about doing these things, it is about noticing and letting yourself feel successful in the moment, because you might do these things and still defer success to a time when you are making a certain amount of money, or a time when you have certain things in place. So, it is really that practice of having that successful energy kind of envelop you.

Holly: And really feeling it. So it is like, when you do the gratitude work, really feeling the gratitude and not just saying: I am so grateful for…

Joanna: This is why gratitude work never worked for me, I can’t stand gratitude work.

Holly: {laughing} I know a lot of people don’t, and it is something that I don’t do on a regular basis, I kind of dip in and out of it. It is all about allowing yourself to feel the gratitude, or feel the success in the moment and really acknowledging it.

Joanna: Yes really acknowledging it, really if anyone who is listening is struggling with this then I would really encourage you to do what I did, and start every morning with that question: what can I do today to feel successful? Then see what comes up, that’s when you will learn what makes you feel successful, writing blogposts, and creating courses and materials for the SoulSpace, that makes me feel really successful, and I wouldn’t have made time for those things, if I hadn’t committed to allowing myself to feel successful now.

Holly: So, maybe another thing that people could do at the end of the day, journal about what things you did that made you feel successful, how did you feel successful, because that trains your brain to pay attention to that stuff.

Joanna: I agree, if you can manage that, that’s a great addition, I personally never manage  anything that is supposed to happen at the end of the day.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: The end of the day is so hectic so that I just don’t do it.

Holly: Or you can do in the morning, before you write out: what can I do today to feel successful, you could write out: what did I do yesterday that made me feel successful, because it gets you thinking about it.

Joanna: Indeed, it is a focus, right?

Holly: Absolutely.

Joanna: So you do have any examples, one of the things that I like to do with people is ask them: who do you consider successful, and why? Because I think it gives you a lot of insight into the things that you personally value as part of success. Do you have any examples of people you find successful?

Holly: Yes, absolutely, so interestingly, my mind went straight to people I know from the online world, because it is so easy to see people that we might perceive as successful, because the online world can be so kind of flash and look at me…

Joanna: {joking} Here is my perfect life!

Holly: Here’s my perfect life, which is so accurate! But, there is one person that I have been following for years, she has been a guest on my podcast, Joanna Penn. So, she is an expert in self-publishing, she is a writer who knows a lot about writing, and publishing, and she is making a good living from her writing. Interestingly, I mentioned money, but from what I can see from what she talks about in her podcast, and what she blogs about, she has also got a fantastic lifestyle. She travels a lot, not just as research for her books, but just for pleasure. She has managed to get her husband to quit his job, and to come and work with her, so that gives them both the freedom to travel together. She has created a lifestyle that, from what I can see from the outside, is consciously created into the lifestyle she wants. And she is living the life that she wants to be living, and she is doing the work that she wants to be doing, and doing it really well, so, to me, that is success it is having the lifestyle you want, and I am going to say it, having the money you want.

Joanna: I think the key, for you there, Holly, is the writing, it is not the lifestyle you want, or the money that you want, it is that she has created this based on writing.

Holly: Absolutely.

Joanna: It is not like best-selling Liz Gilbert writing, but on various kinds of bits, that are maybe smaller scale?

Holly: But she has got a lot of pieces that, together, create a big source of income.

Joanna: Yeah, so it seems do-able, right? I think that’s the thing, it seems do-able, what she did is totally something that you could do.

Holly: Absolutely, yeah, definitely, or anyone else that wants to make a living from their writing, follow her, and learn from her, she is a fantastic example. She has got the lifestyle she wants, and she is making the money she wants, in the way that she wants.

Joanna: So it is interesting, I think this is an interesting exercise for anybody, write out three people who you think are successful, and three people who you think are unsuccessful, and why; and that will give you so much insight, because already now Holly you see that part of your success has to be writing.

Holly: Oh, absolutely.

Joanna: And we know that already about you, so it’s not like it is a big revelation, but it is confirmation that it is part of your success, so any time spent writing is valuable and makes you feel successful, so that you can do more of it, right? It is that kind of trail of thought.

Holly: So what about you, who in your world, or in your environment, do you insider to be successful?

Joanna: Actually, there are two ladies, in my physical environment, where I live, who a couple of years ago started a café. And I just love the way they did it, and I just love their whole model and their passion for what they are doing. And I love that they have set it up in a way that really works for them. So the café is a natural food cafe, one of them does all the cooking, and one of them does all the baking, now they have hired another person, but they set it up so that for the first few years they didn’t have to hire another person. So, for example, there is no table service, and when you are done you have to put your dishes in a certain place, already stack them to be washed; and it is not a big deal for me to do that, but it is a huge deal for them as business owners. So I thought that the idea was so, so, amazing. The food is great, the service is great, the place is lovely and really, really, importantly it opens after the school run, and closes before school pick up. I think each of them have three children, so they have a lot of stuff obviously going on around that, the children are now old enough that they can do stuff in the day, and nobody is getting sick every other day. But they have really, they have set up this awesome thing, within the constraints of their personal life, without kind of thinking: ah, it is only going to be a success if we are open for dinner, or it is only going to be a success if we’re serving breakfast at seven, without taking any of that crap on, they have done it their way, just followed their dream, their passion, and they are doing it in a way that totally, totally, works for them. So, for me, that’s just the embodiment of success. Every time I go there it is really embarrassing because I tell them this, I can’t help but gush! It all comes out every time I go there {laughing} I am like: you guys are so awesome, and it is probably inappropriate.

Holly: No, but I think they need to hear that, I think that is really good, it reinforces the good stuff that you have got, they are doing things, they are breaking all the rules of having a restaurant business, they have set their own boundaries, and they are doing it their way.

Joanna: Yeah, they are very successful, they have very good food, so the product is good, the prices are pricey, and that’s okay, and they are super successful, because it works. They have done it from that really, really, great place, so that really shows me that those boundaries are really important, in my version of success, that I always want to be there for my son, so that has to come first, and so anything I do has to have my family life at the centre. And that gives me a really big insight into my version of success.

Holly: Absolutely, and I think that’s acknowledging getting clear on what your priorities are, and acknowledging that when you actually put those priorities first, that’s a success too.

Joanna: Yes, indeed, and that’s a choice and when I think about the opposite now, I am not going to name any names, or give any specific examples, but when I think of people who I think of people who are not successful, it always boils down to working too hard, people who hustle. I don’t consider hustle as success, {Holly: Me neither} And therefore, for me, I have to be really careful not to go into that hustle energy, because I do tend to, but that’s also a really valuable insight.

Holly: For me success if all about lifestyle. I do get triggered by other people’s money, but I can also think of people who have had great financial success, but have not had the lifestyle they wanted, and I have always been clear that that’s not what I want, for me lifestyle comes first. Because I have had a financially successful business, my first business for ten years, we made tons of money, but I was so stressed out, that was not the life that I wanted.

Joanna: So, at the end of the day, it boils down to making sure that you feel good and happy and joyful every day, and just allowing yourself to do those things that are pleasant for you. Maybe not just pleasant in terms of keeping you where you are, but also that are fulfilling and growth that is fulfilling. So making sure you are paying attention, reading the books that make you grow, and looking at things in a different way, having conversations, stuff like that.

Holly: And I think the key thing there is: what makes you feel successful, what makes you grow, what makes you feel satisfied, because success is going to mean something very, very, different to every single person, and the important thing is, not comparing yourself to other people’s perceived success, not comparing yourself to what you think other people have achieved, but what do you want for your life, and your lifestyle? And I think a lot of us an fall into that comparison trap, of looking at other people and thinking: she is so successful and I am just crap. So I think it is very useful to have those, to make a list of three people who you consider to be successful, but also don’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to them. Learn from them, but don’t use that as an excuse to make yourself feel bad.

Joanna: Yeah, for sure, comparison is always a bad game to play, we were saying in the conversation we had before we recorded this podcast, I was sharing that yesterday. I was thinking that the book I am writing is super boring, and I was comparing it to a book I was reading, and I was like: this book is so awesome, and my book is really sucky, and I was going through that whole thing. And somebody said to me: don’t compare your first draft to someone else’s finished product, and I really needed to hear that yesterday, and I have heard something similar before: don’t compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle or end. So when you are looking at people that you consider successful and you can learn from, or not even learn from, but be inspired by, I suppose, who show you that your kind of success is possible. As Holly said it is not even to compare yourself because you are at a different place, and they also started where you are by the way, so everybody starts with that first draft, right? There is no other way to do it, is there another way to do it, because if there is I want to know.

Holly: {Laughing} When I find it I will let you know! So I feel like we have exhausted this topic for today, I think we have given people a lot to think about. So let us know what you thought about today’s topic, let us know what makes you feel successful.

Joanna: Yeah I would love to know what you learned from considering who you consider successful, and who you don’t, what you learn about what success means to you from that so if you want to share that with us, then you can email us. You can email me at [email protected] and you can email Holly at:

Holly: [email protected] or you can find us online and get in touch there.

Joanna: I am happy to answer PMs or any communication on this, I think let’s have the conversation and redefine success for ourselves, so that we are not buying into all this crap from society that is kind of outdated and one size fits all.

Holly: And before we sign off I wanted to bring up the topic that success is something that you have covered in the SoulSpace, correct?

Joanna: Yeah, so that’s kind of my big thing, to help people create more success with more ease, and, of course, that doesn’t mean to create more money, as you know form this episode, although money can be part of it. What we do in the SoulSpace is get you really, really, super clear on what you want, so setting those intentions, and we take you through the whole process, from intention to reality. That sounds really, really, quick and easy, and it is not, it is a process, but if you are a committed to that process then it totally, totally works and it will get you feeling a lot more successful, a lot more confident and a lot happier in your life.

Holly: Yeah absolutely and we will put a link to the SoulSpace in the show notes, and you can click through there and check it out, if you want to do some deeper work on success.

Joanna: And if you want to ask any questions then of course let me know.

Holly: Alright, thank you so much for this talk about success.

Joanna: This was really awesome Holly.

Holly: Yes I liked it. Thank you and have a great day.

Thank you so much for listening, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode, you can email me at [email protected] or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and get in touch. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe wherever it is that you listen to podcast, whether it is Apple podcasts or somewhere else, and thanks for tuning it.

Next week I will back with a solo episode and then, after that, we have got another episode with the fabulous Jo Casey who is returning after a long summer hiatus, I am so excited to have her back on the show!

That’s all for now, so remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/278 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you so much.

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