You can listen to the podcast and read the show notes here.
In this episode, I spoke with Mandi Ellefson.
Mandi Ellefson: Hello, Michael.
Michael Light: I know you mentioned in our online forum that you had created a new Scale to Freedom kit for your business and you use your intuition to help with that. I'd love to hear more about that.
Mandi Ellefson: Yes. I asked myself the question and something that I … I had your taken advice on the question of what would it take. I took it further than just thinking about it and actually started journaling about it because, for me, I'm visual and hearing it, imagining it in my mind doesn't work nearly as well as sitting down with a pen and paper and just writing it out because all sorts of ideas come to my mind that otherwise wouldn't come. I wrote this question down and so I looked at it and writing it so it really got me in touch with all the senses. I think, what really made the difference. I asked what would it take to joyfully and profitably fill my Scale to Freedom program in January.
Michael Light: What came to you?
Mandi Ellefson: What came to me was to let go of some of the things that I knew would probably work but would really be stressful like the Facebook ads in the past. They've been successful. I've been able to make them work but it's been very stressful because the people don't quite have … They don't have the relationship with me so it's more stressed to be having these interactions and I found that a much higher percentage dropped out before the program started in the past. Really, it ended up causing a lot of problems for me versus clients that I found for connections or through … who had been on my list for a while or through a joint venture or something like that, those kinds of clients like virtually no one dropped off.
I knew that there were something that was also … Anyway, I really let go of that even though I had so many of my very intelligent, smart colleagues say this is what you're going to do, you need to do this. I just was able to let go of that and say that I need to take a different approach. That's not to say I'm never going to do Facebook ads again but I'm going to definitely do it differently. Anyway, I know it's what I need to do right now. What came to my mind was to put together something that I had been thinking about doing which was putting together round tables which the whole objective was to put together a number of people in a room, six-figure businesses that people who have successful businesses, who have the same kind of problem that they want to come and talk about it.
It's going to do a few things for me, gives me market research, referrals, so people who want to come to this group. If I have clients, it's a really good way to engage with clients that maybe I haven't talked to for the past six months. They can come and show up and then it's an opportunity for them to give me referrals to other people who might want to join. It's a great way for me to just reach out to someone and in a way that I'm just giving. All I'm doing is giving and they're getting an opportunity to have … to get a glimpse of what would be like to work with me and what's possible in their business and it's a leverage way.
Anyway, I wasn't sure what to do with that. The intuition had taken me a little bit. It helped me develop that idea a little bit and helped me connect with the right people who helped me refine that idea, who had more experience with it than I did.
Michael Light: When you said intuition helped you connect with those people, how exactly was that experience? Do you hear voices? Do you just get a knowing? How were you getting that information?
Mandi Ellefson: How it was happening is … and one thing I found that makes intuition work a whole lot better is taking action. If I'm not taking action, I can just pretty much … it's like shutting off the tap completely. That's something that I've learned and when I'm taking action then what happens it seems like I get … the next opportunity opens up and then the next opportunity opens up and they're just in line with the direction I want to go. I'm really feeling that direction and then an experience happened. I don't remember telling you about this actually that I just got a really sick feeling about this other opportunity. It looked like a really great opportunity but it just didn't feel right. I mean, I physically felt ill about it.
It was something that should have been a really great opportunity but it just didn't feel right at all. It helped me make the decision faster and, in the past, I might have gone through with it just letting my mind [crosstalk 00:37:37].
Michael Light: So this other opportunity on paper and rationally look like a great opportunity and your body felt physically ill contemplating it and you took that as a message or your intuition that, no, this is not right at this time.
Mandi Ellefson: Exactly. Exactly.
Michael Light: In the past, you would have done it and something. It wouldn't have worked out the way you wanted it to or you had trouble with it.
Mandi Ellefson: Right.
Michael Light: It would have been a struggle.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. There's been times in the past too where I felt that way about it. Intellectually, it looked like a really great win and then afterward … and I went with what my intuition said. Don't go with this. Then, afterwards, my mind was able to piece together things that I didn't see before and I realized why it wasn't a good fit. I have-
Michael Light: That's very … I think, that's a key thing for people listening to get because I'm imagining that many people listening, their business probably does run as a bit of a struggle and maybe they are getting the same messages you get perhaps in a more subtle way. Just like how you … I had the same experience too, Mandi, that I would do things that seem to make sense on paper but then they were a lot of work to do, a lot of struggle. It didn't work out easily. Being able to hear your intuition saying, hey, just go in this direction, in this direction. It's a very subtle message sometimes. It's like the little GPS volume has been turned down in your car and saying, wrong way, turn, a new direction require … You got the music turned up in the car. You don't hear the message.
Mandi Ellefson: Exactly. I think, that that is a good point you make about all the other … You had to turn down the volume on everything else and that's where listening to your intuition of what to say no to, I think, is really important because as I've done that, I don't find that it's a really small voice anymore. It's bigger guiding power the more I've used it. It seems like even in just the past few weeks, the muscle has gone stronger and stronger to the point where I was putting together that Scale to Freedom kit that I was putting together to give as like a gift and as an opportunity for people who are really interested in working with me to get a lot more understanding about what the program is and it really filled in all the gaps where … what was missing in my sales process before where I just didn't feel as authentic about it and I didn't feel it was delivering as much value as it could.
It added a tangible element that was missing before and also connected all of the … where I can shine the best. I used to be a designer and I'm also a 3D artist. For me, creating a tactile experience for my clients is right in line with what I'm about. That's important to me and that's been something that has been left by the wayside in my business. I'm really excited for that to become part of what I do now.
Michael Light: I want to look back. You said when you take action on the intuitions you get, that makes the voice of intuition become louder or you get clearer messages because that seems important too because it's so easy to hear this kind of thing but then not take action. You're saying it's important. When you get an intuitive message, go with it.
Mandi Ellefson: And I'm just learning to trust this more now and I think, for me, it solidifies that when I'm writing it down. Then I can go through and check things off as I'm doing them. That's been a real challenge for me too. It's just like knowing … like getting intuitive messages and not acting on them and then not really implementing them to the effect and it's just really easy to get … so I could be in the middle of this project and you want to keep moving and forward but at the same time, you have all these other things you need to be doing. How to prioritize that to be able to keep things going is almost like, in some ways, I wondered like, oh, I mean, maybe I need to turn this tap down a little just because I can't implement it all at the moment.
Michael Light: Right.
Mandi Ellefson: I guess, what I'm experiencing is that there's an abundance of clear messaging for you when you're open to it and as open [crosstalk 00:42:08].
Michael Light: Absolutely. It's there all the time. I mean, your intuition loves you and wants you to succeed and she's there ready to give you these messages but only if you want to take action and listen is that's when … I mean, it's just like if you were mentoring someone, right? You pay far more attention to them if they took action and listen to you instead of tuning you out and ignoring what you said. It just makes sense.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Where this has been … It's something that has really solidified this for me earlier on this year and maybe this is why I'm so receptive at this time and just really jumping and giving it all I can with this approach is that earlier on in the spring, I was running things in my business and things were going pretty well and I had a good amount of clients at the time and I was looking at starting another program and it just like everything I was trying, it just wasn't really working out and it just didn't really have a good reason and I had this … and part of it was that there was something underlining that was just eating at me that I needed to step back.
I felt like, really. I'm like, no, no. I don't know if I could do this. It was such a conflict of interest that I wanted to continue on because I said that I was going to do it. To myself, I wanted to hold myself to the integrity that I said I was going to do it so I'm going to do it. Also, there was this thing that I just knew that I needed to step away and I didn't really know why. I knew that I needed to spend more time with my kids for the summer. No, I needed to be there for my family this summer but I didn't really understand why I needed it so much, why it was so important but I listened to it.
Michael Light: Wow. Great.
Mandi Ellefson: What I decided … I listened to it. What was really happening was that this feeling I was getting was actually getting to the point where it was making the work that I was doing not very joyful. When I was working directly with clients, that was where I enjoy it but everything else about my business, I was just … it was wearing me down and there wasn't a very good reason for it just other than this general feeling that I knew that I needed to step back and I didn't really want to which was hard. I made the decision and I stepped away. I was fortunate that I had some clients … the engagements that were all ending at the same time and I ended a little bit earlier because it was in both of our best interest to end it earlier.
What I had is this big, open space over the summer where I did very little work except for maybe just a little bit of writing here and there. What came I didn't realize was coming so I had moved houses which was a much bigger deal than I thought it was going to be and it turned out to be a very stressful situation for a number of reasons. I couldn't have foreseen that. I also had … We had a new member of our family come. My niece came to live with us so we become her guardian now and that she's a teenager and we didn't know that this was going to happen. Had I been continuing on with the path that I was going, I wouldn't have had bandwidth to move. I wouldn't have bandwidth to be there with my kids. I wouldn't have bandwidth to really be there for my niece in a way she needed it when she first came.
Michael Light: You didn't know any of this when you decide-
Mandi Ellefson: I didn't know any of this. I had no idea. I just knew that there was this itching feeling that I needed to step away and I had no idea why. My life was just so chaotic over the summer and I had no idea. I almost broke … My grandfather died too, by the way. That was another thing.
Michael Light: Wow.
Mandi Ellefson: That was like in the same week that my niece was supposed to come and then we just moved. All these things happened at once and, I mean, I was at a point of breaking already because there was just so much happening at one time that was just kind of out of my hands. It was really great. All these things were really great things. I mean, even my grandfather passing on. He was old. It was time for him to go. It was a lot to manage and had I been managing all of the business on top of that, it would not have been good for me. It would not have been good for my clients. It would not have been good for my family.
Michael Light: Wow.
Mandi Ellefson: I averted a major, major crisis in my life and in my business by listening to my intuition.
Michael Light: That is amazing.
Mandi Ellefson: Right.
Michael Light: I love how you trusted it even though you didn't understand why you were supposed to take off the summer. You went with it and you created that space and you only understood later why it was so important this year.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. I also knew that there was something … I knew that there needed to be some changes too and I didn't know what it was going to be so I approached things with an open mind or how it was going to be happening. What's been fantastic is that I have come back renewed to my business and it's just so much more exciting and I'm loving it and I have a whole new level of energy. It's been great too because I've added art back into the mix which I hadn't been … I haven't been doing art for a number of years. I do ceramics. It's just been really fantastic to add that in and I know that … I knew that I needed to add that in and I just signed up for class. I have no idea how it's going to make this work with my business, with my family, with all the responsibilities I have but I have made it work extremely and I has added so much to my creativity and I feel like I have more space in my life even with more stuff that I'm doing, if that makes sense.
Michael Light: Right and so that was another benefit you got from taking this time off that you didn't know you're going to get.
Mandi Ellefson: Yes. I've said that I've been doing that for … that I would be doing that for a while. Doing ceramics is not one of the things you can just do for an hour or two here. It's a whole process where you have to either do it or not. For me, just to go in and say I'm doing this and everything else is just going to come around this, I'm doing this. I've been wanting to do this for years, get back into it for years and I … but I knew I needed to do that. I think that intuition really was driving that, that I knew that it was time. I knew it was time for me to reconnect. My long art sabbatical was done over with.
Michael Light: Right. It sounds like you're an expert to trusting your intuition at this point in your life, in business. Whereas, in the past, you didn't really trust those intuitive messages. I'm curious how you … I'm sure all people listening would love to be able to get intuitive messages to help them live their life or run their business with these like that but they're not quite sure how to get from where they are now. They sort of know these intuitive messages coming in but they're not … They'd be a little nervous to trust it so I wonder if we can [crosstalk 00:49:58] for that.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. I definitely have this problem. I don't think I would say I'm an expert at it at all. I think, I have a lot of room to grow but, I think, that out in this conversation with you though, it's confirming that I am better at it than I thought. One of the things that's been hard for me is that … is where this fits in with my overall spirituality and within my religion and how that all works.
Michael Light: Tell us more about that.
Mandi Ellefson: I think that it's been hard for me to have some of the same feelings of spirituality that I would relate to my relationship with God and my maker to how I run my business. It's just like … I know it's all connected. I know everything is all connected, right, and the source comes from one place. That's what I believe but, at the same time, the disconnect, just like how does this apply to business and it just didn't really make a lot of sense so, I think, that I was holding myself back for that reason. I'm not sure I could trust it so that's just been … That's just been a barrier that I've had.
Michael Light: I mean, my view is this. Spiritual God or universal, whatever you want to call it, is in everything and everything does include your business. My view on it is that this energy or whatever you … The problem with using the God word is it's a loaded term for a lot of people so that's why sometimes you can use different words. People put different meanings on it. My view is it's in everything and it wants to create and expand through everything and experience itself through different people, different animals, plants, businesses, everything. Your business is just a valid expression of the divine spirit as a or your child or anything else.
Mandi Ellefson: That's a great way to look at it.
Michael Light: Yeah. It's just as spiritual to have a business and have money. Money is also a spiritual expression. That's something I had to work on in the past is that I used to have that misconception. I'm now going to give the misquote from the Bible, money is the root of all evil. You probably know the correct quote on that.
Mandi Ellefson: The love of money is the root of all evil, right?
Michael Light: Yeah. There's a big difference between saying money is the root of evil, right, which makes all money nasty and you shouldn't touch it versus love of money which I would interpret to mean greed, right, and going into money at the expense of everything else as the root of evil. I think, a lot of people get confused on that and then that gets mixed up in business and we think, oh, working in business is somehow not spiritual and yet it can be parity in spiritual and satisfying.
Mandi Ellefson: I think, you're right on that and I feel like I'm moving closer to that in my business by removing a lot of crap that has not … that has not been adding joy to my life even … The biggest enemy, I think, are all of these really … all these experts out there saying you should do this, you should do that and, you know what, for some people, they really should. It will be great for them but it's hard because I'm going after that … I go after things that like, all right, this is a proven process system. It should work. You do X, Y, Z and it'll give this but it doesn't always work that way. It doesn't really make sense sometimes why it doesn't. I'm really into systems in making things work that way but, I think, it's really important to understand if the system is right for you, right for your life and right for your business.
Michael Light: Absolutely.
Mandi Ellefson: That's something I try to …
Michael Light: I think, that it's great to have systems in your business and it's good to look at systems other people have. Often, they need tweaking or adjusting to fit you.
Mandi Ellefson: Yes.
Michael Light: There's a similar concept I used which the phrase is if she can do it, I can do it. In other words, if someone else is in business and they're succeeding at marketing or sales or getting their accounts done easily or whatever the thing is, I can copy what they do to do it and then I may need to tweak the steps to work for me in my business. It's not enough to just copy what someone else's success does but you adjust it to fit yourself. Just like … we need to come back to earlier in the conversation and you said you were using Facebook ads but they weren't working for you at that time because the leads you got, you didn't have a strong connection with. That's something other people used for their businesses successfully but you, you realized, no, this doesn't quite work for me now. If I'm going to get that to work, I have to tweak with it.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. It has worked. I mean, I have had really good clients from it. It's just the amount of stress that's required to do the screening was not adding joy to me. Like you said, it needs to be done in a different way and in a different time and I'm very clear right now that time is not this quarter.
Michael Light: Great. Coming back to … we mentioned marketing and sales and you said you've been using your intuition to help you with that. I'm curious what you've done there, how you've used what would it take or other intuitive tools.
Mandi Ellefson: One of the biggest things that I was mentioning was just the … The Scale to Freedom kit that I was mentioning, that is an interview that's going to be an integral part of my sales process that was missing before. When you're looking at the sales process, taking a look at where the breakdowns are, where are you losing people, for me, it's quite sad when I lose someone. Not because I really got attached to them being in the program or not but there's some people who, you know, they weren't able to get that past that fear. It's too bad because the work that I do is so transformative that it really changes people's lives.
I was just talking to a past client of mine that I worked with before and I just heard from him that his wife is now staying at home and they have a new baby in their family. That's their third child and they would not have been able to do that in the same way if we wouldn't have worked together. He would have been continuing to work until two o'clock in the morning, sometimes through the night really stressed out and it causing some rifts in his relationship. I really feel terrible when … maybe that's even a strong word to use but I really feel sad when there's someone I know that I could help and that really should be in the program and they want to but they just weren't able to … they weren't able to make that leap.
If it's because there was a step missing in my sales process that helps them really visualize it for themselves, they're not something that I can do about it and that's something that I feel intuition has helped me fill in a way that it really adds joy to the whole process of me doing sales and marketing so it's not drudgery. It's something that I can look forward to and be excited about.
Michael Light: You mentioned an example where you using in marketing the Facebook ads and you just got … knew something different right now. Do you have some examples the other where you got inspiration to do things that worked for you or …
Mandi Ellefson: One of the things that has worked for me really well was that … I'm just going to look through my book real quick to see what was … I wrote a question down of what would it to put together a … Actually, this was … no. I wrote out this question several weeks ago now that I … and it has taken three weeks for the whole thing to come together where I flushed out the simple marketing plan that I was working on. I wanted to have a simple marketing plan that I could take action on, feel excited about and feel joyful with and it's profitable. I know that's a whole lot to say in one sentence. That was really what I was looking for and I put that intention out.
It's been something that's been developing for a few weeks, right? Just the other night, I wrote up this whole marketing plan and it was the most succinct, detailed plan that I ever written but it was detailed in the right areas and it was … just the right key performance indicators came to me and so I knew exactly what needed to go down there. I knew exactly how I needed to be tracking it so that I would be able to take action on it. It helped me realized, okay, I need to … if I want to have 10 people in this program and then I need I need to be sending out 30 of these kits. To send out 30 kits, I need to have 50 conversations or need some live conversations with people that could be a group format. To have that, I needed to be talking to 200 people live in some kind of-
Michael Light: Wow. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a great plan but what's really great is how it came to you easily and it was clear that this was the right thing to do right now.
Mandi Ellefson: That's exactly it. Breaking down those-
Michael Light: What I'm curious about is how … going to more of how this came to you. If someone was like, wow, I really wish my marketing came to me that easily. What are some things they could do that would help their intuition to tell them what would work for them?
Mandi Ellefson: For me, I was really clear on that I wanted a marketing plan that was simple and that I wanted to know exactly what actions I needed to take to get the result that I wanted. The funny this is that-
Michael Light: Let's emphasize that point. You got real clear what you were asking your intuition for.
Mandi Ellefson: Yes.
Michael Light: I think, that's a really important point. It's like if you want your car's GPS to take you to a destination, you need to put in an accurate address that you want to go to. Otherwise, it'll be giving you messages but it'll be vague directions, turn left here, turn right there. It isn't going to get you anywhere you want to go. The same with intuition.
Mandi Ellefson: Exactly. Part of this has been patience too and just taking the next action, the next action, the next action and writing out some of the low points where I was feeling discouraged. What this has really led to me since I asked that initial question was help from a number of my colleagues who are really smart, brilliant people. Some of them I couldn't pay them for this information that they gave me because they just don't work with … because I was out able to add value, because the relationships that I have, they just have fallen in place and helped me fill in the gaps. Really, what I'm realizing was that there was a certain amount of information that had to be gathered and asking that.
The intuition led me to know these are the people I need to talk to even if I didn't make the plan out ahead of time. It was just … It didn't all come at once. It came step by step by step and then all at once, the plan came out where I knew exactly what I needed to … what actions I needed to take to get the results that I want. I'm extremely confident with this and what happened is I put this plan together and I printed it up and I have an action step of every single day. I'm writing … showing where my tracking is for … I'm tracking these key performance indicators on paper. It's right on my desk. That works for me.
I knew how close I am to my goals. I know that if I keep on writing this, I have X number of event planned. I have X number of events actually done so I know that the number of participants in my program are going to be growing if I do those things. I don't have to stressed about it, I just do those actions. The funny thing is that I know how to do this. I train people how to do this but it's been difficult for me to really put the details in myself and clear away all of the extra stuff and get crystal clear on exactly what I needed to do.
When I asked this intuitive question it'll be like, what would it take for me to know exactly what I needed to be working on tomorrow? That's where this whole plan came out. It came out within just like about 20 minutes, maybe now even not long but that's been … that's a lot faster.
Michael Light: That's a very powerful application of what would it take. Can you say what would it take again so people can hear it?
Mandi Ellefson: What would it take for me to know exactly what I needed to be working on tomorrow to move this forward as quickly as possible?
Michael Light: I love that.
Mandi Ellefson: Maybe it wasn't as quickly as possible because what was happening is I was getting bogged down with all the actions I was taking. I knew I was led intuitively to be taking action on putting together this kit but, man, like so many things that have to be done from the writing and the editing and laying it out and knowing what I need to be focusing on. So now I'm just like, all right, I'm breaking this down. I know I need to focus on this. This means that I'm not doing the design. I'm not doing this. Of course, I know I should be doing these things but sometimes it's easy to get caught up with things that you know how to do and it forces me to get an editor to edit it instead of like be sitting there trying to figure out where my errors are.
I know better than to do that but still hear … You get caught up with it but with this clarity, it's not allowing me to get as caught up because I know the things I need to focus on and it's helping me implement the rest, if that makes sense.
Michael Light: It does. I just want to point out to people listening to this that you not just ask what would it take to get this task done but you added qualifiers in. What will it take for it to be easy and fast? Or, whatever exactly you added in to it and that's a great technique because that filters down the information you get from your intuition just be things … but your intuition could probably tell you a million different ways you could get that task done, right?
Mandi Ellefson: Right.
Michael Light: But you're kind of like … It's like when you're searching on Google, right? You could search for something really generic like food or you could say I want Chinese food or I want Chinese food in this part of town, right? You've narrowed down the search, you get clearer results. By qualifying what would it take with the qualities you want of the things you're creating, you get … your intuition can help you out more with that. That is a great method.
Mandi Ellefson: Absolutely. Yeah, I will-
Michael Light: I also love how you're not just got what you wanted but you got to create it with ease because that's something that's so important that our businesses run easily and joyfully or is to me.
Mandi Ellefson: I've really been embracing this probably in the past month. This is something I've been embracing for a long time. You and I have had conversations about this and I've taken the what would it take question and I've had my clients integrated into what they're doing and that's how I … part of how I coach now. It's something that I integrate into it just because it's such an effective tool to help people understand what it is that they needed to be doing themselves. They're using intuition and don't even realized it.
What I really notice though is since I've done this, the amount of ease has increased tenfold. I've gone from trying to figure things out and it's been quite … I don't want to say stressful but it's time intensive and there's a lot of questioning to being able to very efficiently make decisions and feel more confident about them.
Michael Light: Can you talk more about the being more confident about?
Mandi Ellefson: Yes. I think, that what it's really help … what's helped me with being more confident about it is something I'm really familiar with because I teach people to do this but this is just a clearer process on how to get there. What that is is by eliminating. One of the fastest path to ease and creating more freedom in your business is to eliminate things, to get crystal clear on what outcome you want to create and eliminate a lot of things that are not contributing to that goal. It's just incredible what that will do but this is helping me know what to eliminate faster. When you do that then you have … it creates a clearing where you have more space for the things that do matter that you're more committed to. It's just sharpening that for me. I don't know if I answered your question. Maybe I got a little off-track there. I do that sometimes.
Michael Light: That's okay. I thought it was interesting. Using intuition as a tool to help you clarify your business, eliminate things that aren't bringing you joy faster.
Mandi Ellefson: Right.
Michael Light: I think of intuition as a tool. It's not some mystic thing. I mean, we don't have to understand it to be able to use it. It's not like every business owner and entrepreneur understands how spreadsheets actually work at a code level, right? You just know you put the numbers in. They come out. It's a tool to help you run your business, right?
Mandi Ellefson: Absolutely.
Michael Light: Same thing with what will it take an intuition … you just have to understand how to use it and know that it will help you run your business easier.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Absolutely.
Michael Light: My dream is in the world that, in the future, if you said to someone who have a business in the future, “Oh, do you use intuition in your business?” They're like, “Oh, no. That's too confusing. I couldn't do that.” It will be like someone today saying, “Oh, no. We don't use spreadsheets in our business. I don't allow them. It's just too wacky.”
Mandi Ellefson: Right. That's quite a vision. That's quite a vision, yes.
Michael Light: Yeah. I think, it's an important vision because my feeling is that businesses have got more confusing and more information is coming in, the technology is changing quicker. It's just not possible to do things the old-fashion way anymore. You can't just do stuffs through logic and rational decisions. It just doesn't get you quick enough the way you want to go.
Mandi Ellefson: This shift, it could be a really good thing because the best way to get people to change is a really big force that forces them to change, that really makes them change. Humans aren't so good at just deciding to make a change without some kind of pressure.
Michael Light: I would say that is often true and what would it take for each of the people listening to be able to make a change in their business without having a crazy crisis pressure of life?
Mandi Ellefson: I think, that's a great question to ask and I love that. I don't necessarily think that it's not possible. The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who can let go of that that need to be pushed in that direction and just choose to do it, choose to make the best decisions for their business and be led in the direction that it is really supportive of the life that they want to create instead of saying, “Well, I have to do it because this is how it's done. This is what my clients expect of me. This is what my employees expect of me.” Just throwing it out the window and saying, “This is what I want to create and what are the actions I needed to take to get there?” I think that intuition is a great tool to help you know what it's going to take to get there.
Michael Light: Yeah, and to let you know quickly and to give you really good shortcuts to create ease in your business, create more money and create more success so you can reach more people. Because, I think, most people who have businesses, really, they're there to … They want their business to help other people solve their problems. If we [crosstalk 01:13:10] small and don't expand using our intuition, we're really not helping out everyone else who could be helped.
Mandi Ellefson: I think, you're spot on there, Michael.
Michael Light: Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap this up, Mandi?
Mandi Ellefson: No. I think, that about covers it. It has been a very eye-opening even for me to see how far I've developed in this even in the past little while.
Michael Light: It's amazing. I felt guided in what we were talking about so, I think, in some ways … I'm writing a book right now on business intuition and it sometimes feels like the book is writing me and not me writing the book. I don't know if you ever had that experience. Something just seems to want to come-
Mandi Ellefson: No, I haven't.
Michael Light: Something just seems to want … I think, that marketing kit you created, it wanted to come out and you let-
Mandi Ellefson: Yes. I actually did feel that way. That's exactly what had happened. I think, you're right on that, yeah.
Michael Light: On a larger scale, when we're aligned with our business and listening to our intuition, our business wants to come out and flow through us. It's not that we have to force it to come into the world. It's like the business was just waiting there ready to come and we are the right person and we have the right team together to help bring it into the world.
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. That's a great thought.
Michael Light: Yeah, which I'm going to leave people with another concept here related to that. If you can accept that perhaps your business or your marketing kit or your book or whatever it is is out there already and you're the conduit to bring it into the world, what about if you ask your business, what does it need you to do today to help it come into the world a little bit more? That's kind of similar to what we were doing earlier with what would it take but you can connect with the energy of whatever creation you're bringing in and ask it for advice. Ask what does it want to do today.
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. That's really an interesting question to ask.
Michael Light: Yeah. It might give you a different perspective. You can decide what you're going to do in your life and your business. You don't have to obey your marketing kit in your business but ask it for opinion. It probably knows what's coming better than we do. Just an interesting perspective. If people wanted to find you, Mandi. How would they find your business and you?
Mandi Ellefson: My business, you can go to handsoffceo.com. If you go to handsoffceo.com/powerhour, then there's a great resource for a simple strategy to … when I was talking about eliminating and that it goes a little bit further and how to find 20 to 40 extra hours per month that you can use to get your life back as you're scaling up your company. I think that there's some strategies there that go right in line with what we're talking about with creating more ease in your life and in your business.
Michael Light: Fabulous. Thanks so much for sharing that with everyone and thanks so much for being on the show.
Mandi Ellefson: You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me, Michael.
Michael Light: All right. Thanks, Mandi. That was wonderful. You do so well in interviews.
Mandi Ellefson: Thank you.
Michael Light: Yes, so do I. I kind of turned on my interview voice.
Mandi Ellefson: I did notice that but that's fine. My pillow supported me.
Michael Light: Yes. Your pillow supported you. I love it. The sound is really good too, by the way, just for future reference.
Mandi Ellefson: I'm using that again. I'm totally using it. It looks ridiculous but it works. We'll see how it comes back but, yeah, I'm glad. That was a very fantastic tip, Michael.
Michael Light: Yey. Yeah, I learned it from other podcasters. I went to some podcasting meet-up at DCBKK and I haven't seen you at DCBKK. I don't think because maybe that's not your thing. I don't know.
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. For me to fly across the world, I have to be presenting. That's what I have to do. And I have [crosstalk 01:18:05].
Michael Light: What would it take for you to present?
Mandi Ellefson: An invitation. That's what it would take for me to present. I will [crosstalk 01:18:12].
Michael Light: What would it take for you to get an invitation?
Mandi Ellefson: I need to ask some influential people to give me a good word, I guess.
Michael Light: Yes.
Mandi Ellefson: Oh, God, Michael. Yeah, but I'd love to do and I love speaking and delivering stuff. I mean, I could-
Michael Light: That is very easy. I'm managing to present … I just … They're very lax about letting people give me talks. They're just as effective as anything else you do there.
Mandi Ellefson: Actually, that might be a better way to doing like a keynote because it might … because what I have to offer isn't necessarily going to be the right for everyone there so doing meet-up might be better, more intimate and within the feel of what I do like my group.
Michael Light: The other thing I get that you could consider is what if you offered a webinar on the DC which, I think, you may have done in the past. I forget. Just so that people can see, yeah, she's skilled at doing this and you get good feedback and then it makes it easier to maybe asked to present to an event.
Mandi Ellefson: So offering a webinar like …
Michael Light: A value pack webinar. It's not a sales webinar. It's like you're giving time of tips and how to do this or case study. I know what you do but I'm sure you can imagine this kind of thing.
Mandi Ellefson: I have something in my mind I could do.
Michael Light: Peter Shankman did some of those this year, right? I know Tim has done them as well.
Mandi Ellefson: Is this like DC-wide thing or you just proposed and doing-
Michael Light: Yeah [crosstalk 01:19:55] DC saying, “Hey, I'm inspired to do a webinar on this subject. Reply in the comments if you want to attend. If you have things you want me to cover in the webinar, put them in the comments.” At least, you have … you probably know this trick but the way DC post work is every time someone comments, it bubbles right up to the top of the posts again and the more comments you get, the better. You use that to your advantage. It also makes people more engage.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. No, I think, that's a good idea.
Michael Light: Also, you hit up your friends privately in the DC and say, “Hey, please, do reply to my post.”
Mandi Ellefson: I mean, it's one of the reasons why I think I haven't done the webinar thing was because I got Sam Carpenter to agree to do a webinar for the DC and I reached out to Dan, I reached out to a number of people and like nobody was interested in coming. Nobody commented on it. I mean, there's just one or two and I'm like, “What?” I can get Sam Carpenter who worked the system to come to a private like session with us and we can't … so that's why I'm just like so probably I didn't execute it the way you were talking about.
Michael Light: Yeah. I'm very good at promoting so I'm happy to help you. I wrote … composed about two or three years ago called How to Pimp your Post and it might be worth looking at that because it had a lot of … it had some spiritual techniques in there too, by the way.
Mandi Ellefson: I'm just going to look that up and, actually, one of the intuitive exercises that I did, it outlined the entire post that I should put in the DC and then I've got the impression that I should also submitted the forms.
Michael Light: Yes. You got the forms, right? You've been-
Mandi Ellefson: Not yet but I … No, I haven't but I just got the impression that it would be good for forms, that I've never written for forms but I'd like to.
Michael Light: Yes. What would it take?
Mandi Ellefson: I think, flushing out that post but, see, that's hard because that was for me that that's like one thing I wanted to do but that's going to take me probably five hours to do that and it's going to detract me from all these other things. What I saw was that I was going to use that post as a way to get some more awareness because I don't really toss a lot in the DC and, I think … No, I don't, at all. I've gotten clients from the DC and, still, there's so much goodwill that has happened and people talk me up even though I've never met them.
Michael Light: Wow.
Mandi Ellefson: I mean, I've gotten … I have some good results from being in that group but … Anyway, I was going to do a post and I'm like I'm going to do an offer because I thought I could get an awareness build up around me and then I'd do an offer for like $95 assessment and that went actually. I think, I bought like 9 of 10 sales last time when I did that.
Michael Light: Wow.
Mandi Ellefson: Maybe it wasn't that. It was quite a few. There was quite a few. I was impressed with how many. It was something that I typically would charge like $3,000 for for like … It's a small piece of that but I took a sliver of it. Anyway, those are some ideas. I'm not sure what is the right one to do because I can only implement so many of them.
Michael Light: Sure.
Mandi Ellefson: That's where one of the issues is like the abundance. You get abundance of ideas but some quite just close enough to tap because it could just be too much to implement all.
Michael Light: I'm was going to … That's something we didn't dig into anything and, I think, that would be good for me to write or talk about in the future like because when you-
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah.
Michael Light: That's a fear people have, right? Oh, if I really connect to my intuition and then just going to be flooded with stuff and I can't … I feel like I can't do it all. Say that thing [crosstalk 01:24:08]. I want you to say the sentence again that you said. You said you didn't want your … you're concerned about it and you said it would become too much, right?
Mandi Ellefson: It would … I know the … I guess, yes. What I was saying was that there's an abundance and it's free flowing but it's almost like do I need to turn the tap off because it gives me more than I can implement. Even as I'm saying that, I'm realizing more than I can implement during the way … doing what I'm doing but what would it take me to implement all of that without working more out, right?
Michael Light: And that is possible.
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. I know. I teach this.
Michael Light: Yes.
Mandi Ellefson: It was just like … Anyway, maybe I do the post but I just need to have a … I need to pay someone to help me write … to actually write it.
Michael Light: Exactly.
Mandi Ellefson: Like lay it out and someone else to write it. That could be a good use of my time. I guess, the issue has just always been like hesitant to invest money in something that is untried and not knowing if I'm going to get the money back on it.
Michael Light: What would it take to know you would get the investment back?
Mandi Ellefson: I guess, just knowing that making a prediction about how many people I need to hit to get … Like how many people I need to have within that sphere of influence to be able to then put out an offer and if I'm able to get one more person who buys the offer like $95 offer, that would pay for some writing probably.
Michael Light: Right; expensive to get.
Mandi Ellefson: Do you have any good writers that you like to work with?
Michael Light: I have … I'm working on hiring a writer right now but I worked with someone in the DC who's … He has an interview process so I'm experimenting with that. His name is Kamel Kaminsky I think, his name is or something like that. I haven't seen produced yet but he had a, whatever, in-depth process. Then I know Dustin Overbeck . He works … He has some writer stuff he uses. He has a thing where he just gives them bullet points and then they produce the thing. That's where I am right now but I am in the process of hiring an amazing writer so I will probably know about [crosstalk 01:27:03]. I do have someone on Fiverr who is great at editing. He's Canadian and I gave him an article to edit and he really improved it English-wise.
Mandi Ellefson: Oh, could I have that contact? Would you be willing to share that with me?
Michael Light: Absolutely. Of course, I would.
Mandi Ellefson: Oh, that would be great.
Michael Light: Yeah. Let me find.
Mandi Ellefson: Is that just five bucks like he'll do … Is it more than $5?
Michael Light: I think, it's five bucks a thousand words and you can pay more … You can either have him just improve the English and grammar or you can have him improve the style and I paid an extra five bucks. So I paid him $15 plus the $1 to Fivver fee to do 2,000 word, clean up the English and improve the style.
Mandi Ellefson: That's great. I need to do … Actually, that was … This is a perfect example of like I just had set the intention that from now on I'm going to have someone else to edit. My is in my e-mails but I didn't know how I was going to be able to do that cost effectively and this is an example of how putting it out there, it comes back. You just shared this person on Fivver.
Michael Light: Yeah. I'll just put it into the thing.
Mandi Ellefson: Oh, my gosh. Thank you.
Michael Light: Yeah. It's all right, is good. I mean, I've also worked with Lisa Dushete if that sound her right name, if I'm pronouncing it right. She does good work too as an editor. I think, she makes more sense if you have a bigger thing but she will do any size thing. It costs more but I worked with her on something and I'm planning to give her a book to edit as well.
Mandi Ellefson: Fantastic then. This is good.
Michael Light: Yes. I do want you to be able to come to Barcelona event or the Bangkok event because, I think. It'd be nice to see you there. Mainly, because you would get so much.
Mandi Ellefson: When is the Barcelona event?
Michael Light: This is in June-
Mandi Ellefson: Sorry, I interrupted you.
Michael Light: That's okay. I don't know if dates have been announced but last year it was in June and that was really good. That was a smaller event. It was 150 people maybe. It would be very easy to give a meet-up of that.
Mandi Ellefson: I might be in Spain in June.
Michael Light: Wow. Perfect.
Mandi Ellefson: I know. That would be awesome. A good reason to go to Barcelona.
Michael Light: It's not that hard to. You phrased it as I have to fly across the world but it's like … Where are you? San Francisco? You're in West Coast, right?
Mandi Ellefson: Yeah. I'm a little … in between San Francisco and LA.
Michael Light: Okay. I mean, that's an easy. It's only like 15-hour flight to Bangkok or whatever it is. It isn't that hard and you probably would get yourself a nice ticket. If you chose to, you could do some writing or something else on the plane. It's not like it's lost time.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. No, it's not even that. It's just that it's quite a production for me to be gone because my husband has to get certain time off and if I'm going to be going across the world, I want to go with him. I want to go with my kids.
Michael Light: Yeah, bring them too. Several people do that.
Mandi Ellefson: Maybe I should.
Michael Light: Several people did that and who else did that? Several people brought their families. It's nice for them to see a new place and they get to enjoy it and then they don't … They're not away for a long time.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Yeah. I might definitely. I have to be speaking there to make it worth my time to fly across the world but, I mean, I'd love to go there and everything. I like to go to Bangkok so maybe I'll have to make that this part of me part of the thing to do.
Michael Light: I'm just … I don't know. I mean, you phrase it however you want and when you say fly across the world, it doesn't make it sound so much harder to do.
Mandi Ellefson: Yes. I am putting that very. I guess, I don't need to do it if it's something I'm committed to do.
Michael Light: Yeah.
Mandi Ellefson: It hasn't been something I'm committed to do until now so, I guess, I'm more opened to it.
Michael Light: Yeah. If you're going to be in Spain anyway, I'll definitely go makes sense because you're already there and then you can decide if you want to go to the other one or not.
Mandi Ellefson: Right. Yeah. That's cool. Thanks for mentioning that. I hope I was helpful for your interview.
Michael Light: You were very helpful.