7 Business Lessons from the Brave Enough Elevate Summit with Dr. Sasha Shillcutt

This is a special episode because we welcome back our very first guest on the EntreMD Podcast, Dr. Sasha Shillcutt!

Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD, MS, FASE is a Tenured Professor and the Vice-Chair of Strategy and Innovation in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). She is also the founder of Brave Enough, an organization through which she leads more than 10,000 women. Her life mission is to share the life lessons she’s learned when she fell and got back up, as well as all she’s gleaned from the women who’ve gone before her. More of that in her book, Between Grit and Grace, a must-read for every professional woman.

In the episode, we discuss seven powerful business lessons I gleaned from watching her execute the Brave Enough Elevate Summit.

The seven lessons are:

#1  Hard work

#2  Vision casting 

#3   Persistence

#4   Collaboration

#5   Delegation

#6  Belief

#7  Excellence 

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Links mentioned in this episode:

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hi guys, welcome to the entreamity podcast, where it is all about helping amazing physicians just like you embrace entrepreneurship so you can have the freedom to live life and practice medicine in your time. I'm your host, Dr. Illi. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the EntreMD Podcast. At the time of this recording, it is the week of Thanksgiving, and I am excited. I'm at home. I've had a lot of great things happen in the entream D community. You you know I celebrate every one of you. The podcast is now a year old with 72 episodes, which is so cool. And so we just celebrated, you know, the EntreMD podcast's birthday, and we had the EntreMD Business School Expo where we had 21 of the students from the EntreMD Business School come rock the stage. It was an event that left me in tears to watch a number of doctors share their stories as entrepreneurs. It gave me so much hope and so much faith that we are going to change the landscape of medicine. We are going to change the story of physician entrepreneurs. Yes, this may be a challenging time and it may look different and it may look weird and we may be devalued in the medical community and all of that. Such beauty. So that left me in tears, excited. I recommitted, not like I went anywhere, but I recommitted to my goal, my mission of helping 80,000 doctors learn to build profitable businesses so we can have the financial freedom we deserve. So that happened. And then I welcomed some new students, a new cohort of On-Tram D business school students. We had our first call a few days ago, a kickoff call, and I am so excited for the group. So excited. It's such, I mean, the On-Tram D Business School is such a rich community. Okay. So this is a group of doctors who are not just thinking about entrepreneurship or cruising in entrepreneurship. These are doctors who've decided, I'm gonna do this like I mean this. I'm gonna become the best version of myself. I'm gonna stretch and help as many people as I can help. I'm gonna dare my fears and get it done. And so, you know, they support each other and they they open doors for each other and they just inspire each other by being, you know. You watch somebody else doing great things, you know they're scared, but they're doing it. It's so inspiring. I get inspired. So, I mean, the doors are not open for enrollment at this time, but I want you to go and get on the wait list. So it's entreamd.com forward slash business. Go get on the wait list. So when the doors open, you will be the first to know. But I cannot tell you how powerful the business school is, how powerful the group is. I mean, people told story after story after story about how they are completely different, how they're doing things they never thought they would do, how they're completely changed. It's it's amazing. Okay, so get on the wait list, all right? Now, today I have a really fun episode for you. I am going to be sharing a podcast interview I did with my really good friend, Dr. Sasha Shilcutt. She is the founder of Brave Enough, and she's an anesthesiologist. And she hosted the Brave Enough Summit, Elevate Summit, in September. And I've shared with you guys in the past how I approach events, right? I don't just go to events to hear the content. I don't do that. I recognize that there are three things you should be looking out for when you go for an event. And one of those three things is you should be looking at the growth of the host of the event, right? So maybe you've seen an event they've done before and you see that they've grown it by 10%, 50%, 100%. Maybe you saw they had challenges, or maybe you saw how hard they sold it. Or you need to watch that piece as well because you know, someday you might have an event. And even if you don't, you're gonna learn very valuable business lessons just from watching them pull off the event. So I did exactly that for the Brave Enough Elevate Summit. And I, at the end of it, sat down and pulled up seven powerful business lessons I learned from watching Dr. Shilcut pull off the Brave Enough Elevate Summit. So this is my interview with Dr. Shilcutt. You are going to enjoy it. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

We want to really empower you today to think about your own limiting beliefs around growing a business, especially in 2020. And so when you were reflecting after the Brave Enough Summit, can you kind of give a little snippet of how you came up with this idea of these seven principles?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Well, so one of the things I learned a few years ago is that going to a conference just for the content limits how much you can get out of the conference. So there are three things you should get out of every every conference. One is the content, right? And like the Brave Enough Summit, there's, I mean, there's so much great content, such great speakers and all of that. So that's the first thing, but it's one of three. The second thing you need to get out of it is you watch the people organizing the conference. You watch how they've grown the conference over time, watch how they were how they were able to execute it, right? Because in doing that, you learn so many lessons. And then the third thing is networking, right? Because your network is your network, period. So I went to that conference with that mindset. So the content was great, but watching the execution of the conference was just so mind-blowing. And as the conference went along, even before it started, I started documenting, at least thinking about the lessons that I gleaned from that. So that's where those seven steps came from.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I love this. And you, I mean, I, you know, one thing to know about Dr. Una is that she is constantly learning. And that's why she's constantly pivoting and succeeding, is because, you know, you really have a growth mindset. And you know that when I had to cancel the Brave Enough Conference, I was so low. Like I and I was really resistant, like in my brain, I was like, I am not doing anything online. I am so sick of doing online stuff. I am tired of the pandemic. I am so angry at at the world right now because they canceled the one thing that I love looking forward to every September. And I'm so angry, I am not gonna do this. And I really fought with myself for about a month. And you know this because we've talked, but like I had to, I had to just deal with my fixed mindset around it and get over myself. Like I literally had to, I was limiting moving forward. And once I worked through that in my brain, to be honest with you, I learned more doing the Brave Enough Elevate Summit virtually, more life lessons than anything that I probably would have learned at the Brave Enough conference, because I I really learned a lot about business and how and and really how to grow and how to pivot in life when you feel like you watch your dreams crumble or you watch a project get denied or you watch a publication get rejected, whatever it is in your life, right? Or a relationship fall apart. Like all of us are having to build back things and deal with disappointment in 2020. So I want to go through these seven principles that you wrote because I think they're so wise. So the first one you talked about was these are seven principles for you to grow and thrive in whatever challenge that you're facing right now, primarily in our business practices in 2020. The first one, hard work. And you wrote, having a goal is not enough. You have to commit to the painful hard work it takes to make it a reality. Dreams don't work, I do. I love that. Can you talk to us about where this comes from? Just dreams don't work, I do.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Well, okay, so all of these lessons, now, and this is for the audience, all of these lessons I learned from watching Sasha pull the Draven of Summit, um, Elevate Summit, um, pull it off. And this started from way before you know the the summit was September, and then you made the announcement for it in June, right? Yes. So to my shock, you started from June, and you posted about that summit every single day until September. Every single day. There was either most days there was a video. I think almost every day there was a video, and there was a post. And I'm like, she's not joking about this stuff. Like, she's serious. And this is me watching from the outside because I wasn't even part of the team organizing or anything like that. I'm like, she won't go away. I wanted you to go away, but you know what I mean, right? Like the sheer amount of hard work, and this is not even putting the conference on. This is not behind the scenes, setting up the platform. This is not behind writing all the emails. This is just me watching you every single day, showing up to say, the Brave Enough Elevate Summit is coming. You need to attend it. This is where you go to get your tickets. This, I mean, like it was every day. So I need to think of every day from June, and this is early June, right? From June all the way to September, nonstop. It takes hard work. I could feel your hard work just watching.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Well, thank you. You know, it leads right into our second point, which you created on vision casting and keeping the vision in front of people. And I can tell you that your vision has to be totally in sync with your mission. And I'm telling you, there were days where I woke up and I was like, I don't want to post today. I'm not feeling it. People are sick of me. People are so tired of it. I'm gonna lose like people's, you know, attention. But I kept, I always go back to the mission. Like, do I believe in it? Yes, of course I believe in women coming together and empowering one another. And of course I believe in uplifting, uplifting voices. So that's the mission. So does it really, does it really matter? I don't feel like posting. No, that doesn't matter. Like it doesn't matter that I don't feel like doing the work or sending these emails or making these calls for the hundredth time to sponsors. No, it's about the mission. And so talk to me about vision casting. You wrote constantly keeping the vision in front of people.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah, because you know, I think everybody wants a preferred future, right? Like, but a lot of times we don't know it's there. But as business owners, as people who are leading specific efforts, as a parent, like whatever it is that you do, many people will not see what you see. And it's your job to keep telling them, this is possible, we can go here. This is possible, we can go here. In the beginning, they may not get it, they may not respond to it, but if we're relentless, they'll catch up with it. So all through, you know, the the three months when you were showing up to talk about the braveness, you keep brave enough elevate something, you kept you kept saying things like, Are you overwhelmed? Do you need encouragement? Are you tired? There's a community for you, there's a place for you, there's this event that is just for you to encourage you, to give you the inspiration that you need, to give you the confidence you need to help you thrive in spite of what is going on. And because you had the hard work there and you were relentless in putting that out, people caught on, right? In the beginning, maybe we're like, yeah, whatever, you know, we're just gonna wipe away 2020 and pretend like it didn't happen. You know, right, right. You kept coming like this could happen. And you would use stories like I had this challenge, right, and I overcame it. And this is why I stand for women, and this is why I stand against bias, and this is why I created the summit. It's for you. Yes, but you were relentless in painting the picture of a preferred future. So many people maybe didn't believe it in the beginning. But I mean, you wouldn't hear it every day for 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, nine at some point, you know what I mean? Right, yes, they're like maybe this can be my reality, maybe that could be my reality. Well, so that was beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Oh, well, thank you. Well, it's interesting because you know, I've done now four uh conferences, and after every conference, so in the middle, the the immediate post-conference, I get all the people that attend the conference go, oh my gosh, I have to do this every year because the benefit of it was so tangible, right? It's like it's like when you, you know, go on a vacation and you're like, why don't I do this more? Or you go on a date with your spouse and you go, why don't we do this more? But then people le lose that vision as they go back to their hard lives and work and families and responsibilities and they feel like they don't have time for it. And then every time you have to, I keep you have to keep the vision of what you're doing in front of people because you want that vision for them. Because I will I believe in this. Like I believe in women coming together. So as a leader, I think, or as a creator of a business or project or team, you have to constantly be creating that vision. And if people can't don't know what it is, if they can't say it in a sentence, what your company is about or what your vision is about, then you haven't done a good job in your messaging. So that kind of goes into point three, which is to thrive in 2020, persistence. You know, I had a goal, I wanted 500 women. I set the goal high. I didn't think I've ever I'd get 500 women, to be honest, that would attend a virtual conference. I really didn't. So it blew me away. I almost got to 700. I mean, I think I had 700, 680 some. So if you know, you commented about that. And it's true, I was relentless, but I was persistent. And I always say, like, I'm not the smartest person in the room. I I that is not me. I am not that smart, but I am persistent. And I I don't give up on things. Sometimes to my demise, actually, I probably should quit sooner. I have to be convinced sometimes to quit things that are failing because I'm so like dig my heels in. But can you talk about persistence and how you see persistence in 2020?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

So I'm I'm gonna borrow something you just said and throw that out just in case anybody missed it. Like, I may not be the smartest person in the room, but I'm persistent. A lot of times people think smarts and success are equivalent, and they're not. Victory goes to the person who won't go away, who's persistent, who won't take no for an answer, who believe for in their dream and keep showing up and showing up and showing up, even in the face of doubt, even when you don't feel like, because we don't always feel like doing what we should do. Sometimes, as mommies, as mommies who really love our kids, sometimes we just want to be left alone. But we'll talk about that on a different podcast episode. So I pulled up the definition of persistence just so people don't mistake this with hard work. Okay, so persistence is a firm and obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. And that continuance, I watched you do that. Like you literally showed up and sold every day. Now, of course, not sold like in a sleazy used car salesman way, but you constantly gave people the opportunity to sign up for the conference. This is the this is a summit, this is why you must sign up for it. This is the link to go sign up for it, right? People post in comments how I'm thinking about it, but I wonder you would respond to that. And you're like, Yes, you're wondering about this, this is the answer, this is why you should sign up, this is the link to sign up. And you did that day in and day out and day in and day out, and that's the reason why, even though you truthfully didn't believe you could put 500 in there, you put 600 in. It's the persistence. So for every one of us, whether you know you're launching a business, it's showing up no matter what. Showing up every day, no matter what. Some days you won't feel like it. Some day the naysayers will come hurt you real bad that you feel like I'm scrap that, I'm not doing it anymore. Some days you'll get bad news, you're like, I'm not doing that anymore. Someday you have challenges, oh, I'm not doing that anymore. No, you continue going in spite of difficulties, and you'll end up getting results that are bigger than what you even planned for. That's persistence.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

I love that. I love it. I love it. I love that this is like a little sermon on persistence, which is what we all need because so many of us right now feel like giving up. Like I've just even heard people at work say, you know, I'm not even trying to publish anything, or I'm not even trying to, I'm just surviving. And I think that's a real feeling. And I think it's so easy to lose sight or put on hold our dreams. But I think we have to persist. And that can be anything. That can be creating boundaries. You know, you have to persist to create boundaries in the life you want. And or it can be a business, or it can be a promotion, or, you know, closing that gap. I mean, whatever it is. So I love that, which goes right into something that you and I both believe in very strongly collaboration. And you wrote, you know, nothing gets big gets done by one person. And that is so true. There were so many people that helped pull off the summit and so many people who gave me space to do that. So I think that I think that we often underestimate collaboration. And sometimes you don't have to be best friends with someone to partner with them, and you don't have to be best friends with someone to learn from them. So, and to give them space on your on your platform or in your lap world. So, talk about collaboration in 2020.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

So, collaboration is it is is is may not be everything, but it's really high up there, close to everything. You know, I watched you because you had you had over 30 speakers, but you're a smart, brilliant person who's spoken on many stages. You could have decided to do the whole thing by yourself. But that you pulled in that number of people, you had the kickoff party, and rather than throw the kickoff party, you got a whole team of people to host breakout sessions, which made it a much richer experience than if it was just you, right? And there's nothing wrong with it, you're amazing, but it's the power of collaboration, it's reaching out. I know you got the the CMEs and all of that stuff when maybe in the beginning you didn't think you could, but you reached out to some person in your tribe who helped pull that off. And you had all these amazing speakers, you know, who are not just doctors, but other speakers leveraging all of that just made it a huge, rich experience. Really, huge, really rich. You had the QA's, you could have answered all those questions, but you chose to do multiple panels with different groups of people. So it's all about working with people. The more people you can work with, the bigger your impact can be. And it really is just that simple. And so that was one of one of the things that I look back in my life. I'm like, if I could fix something, and I don't do regrets, this is just me analyzing so I can tell people who are younger and say, don't do what I did, you know? But yeah, but one of the things, yeah, and one of the things I look back at, I'm like, if I could change one thing, is I would start doing people. I would have started doing people much earlier. I was a very shy, introverted, socially awkward person. And I would have overcome, I would have done anything to overcome that sooner, and then just start working with people. People make your life so rich, but this is a kicker though. So let me just throw this out there because I know someone is gonna be thinking, nope, people hurt me, I'm done with that. I don't do people. People are like antibiotics, they will fix the ear infection, but they may give you diarrhea. They may, and it's okay. Okay, do you want your ear fixed or not? Right? It's an acceptable side effect.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

So, yes, spoken by a pediatrician. I know. Oh my gosh, I love this. I love that quote. I'm going to steal it and I will give you total props every time I use it. Oh my gosh, that is like life-changing. It is so true. And it's so interesting because, you know, I have like, I have, I think in 2020, there's so many people saying, I hate people. I hate people. I just can't stand people right now. I gotta get off social media. Well, okay, you have to understand you are people. Like we are all part of that. And so I have to, I have to agree with you. I think if I would go back and learn something, I would number one, I would ask more people that I was afraid of or intimidated by for help sooner. Because I think that intimidation really keeps us in, you know, boxes that are invisible. And we think we just stay in this invisible box because we're intimidated by someone else and we're afraid to ask for help or ask them a question or ask them to collaborate. Because We look at the number of their followers or their rank in academia or their, you know, success and we measure it against our own and we go, oh no, I can't. I can't, I can't ask that person to collaborate. Or, or we look at someone who is doing similar things and we look at them as competition. But once, you know, you, I mean, I had, I've realized in the last five years that the women who are doing what I'm doing and doing it better in areas, I learn from them. I want to partner and collaborate with them. I don't want to compete with them. That's all in my brain. That's a limiting belief. But you're right. I mean, every single person that you come in contact with, you can benefit from, but you also are part of you're going to give them things that they need, but you also may rub them the wrong way. That's called life, right? Like that's just, we have to get over that in 2020, I think. The next step that you talk about is delegation. And let me tell you, I delegated a lot in the Brave Enough Summit. I learned after the first conference that my controlled freak tendencies were limiting me and hurting me and made me less successful. And I've learned that if someone else can do the work and do an 80% job. And in my brain, I think, well, I must do it because I can do it 100%. Maybe that's true, but if they can do 80% of the work as good as me, it is worth my sanity and it is worth growth for my company to delegate that.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I agree 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

So how so how can you talk about delegation? Because I think this is hard for especially women to trust other people to do the work.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

I mean, it's a challenge, and that's one of the things that I'm doing, but I'm learning because it's not my natural bent at all. Like at all, because I can do it. Okay. I can I can do it. I don't need you to do it. But this is the thing. Now, watching you, I saw how many emails came from Chantel. I saw, I saw you go, like, wait a minute, I was trying to log on to the site, you know, to tweet something about the purse, and I found I couldn't get in because I didn't have the sign-in information for the site. I was like, this is fantastic, right? Like, this is amazing. So watching you, and it's not that you were delegated because you weren't doing the work, you were doing your work, but then you had people behind you doing their work.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

A lot of work that you could have said, no, I'm gonna do this myself. And there's a few things that we need to look at here. Now, one is that you are the most expensive person on your team for most doctors, right? I need to think about a doctor saying, Oh, I'm not gonna downplay this graphic, I'm gonna sit in Canva and I'm gonna do this flyer by myself. And it took you two hours. And you're like, no, biggie, I struggled. It took me two hours. Well, if your hourly rate is $350, you just produce a $700 flyer.

unknown 25:04

I know.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

It's I'm only laughing because it's so true. Because I've been in Canva for two hours and then gone, why am I doing this? Like, that's why I'm laughing because I totally get it. It's yes, keep preaching. Tell us more.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

It's a very expensive flyer, and you shouldn't do it. Yes, especially if it's not your area of strength, like you're not doing it for relaxation, you shouldn't do it. You know what I mean? And so, and we say things like, well, this is a very common saying about doctors, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. You are put in a position to have wonderful earning power so you can literally buy time. Yes, because if I get somebody on my team and they work for me for only 10 hours a week, guess what? I have an extra 10 hours every week. If I can get them to work a 40-hour week for me, I just bought 40 extra hours, and they can do things that I can train them to do, and I can do things that only I can do. Yes, this is something that in 2020 needs to be your goal. So when I set my plan for the week, I'd map it out. I literally go through the items one by one, and I'm like, what is on here that I'm only doing because I'm submitting to the limiting belief that I can't delegate these things. Yes, I literally go through it and then take things off. Like, I don't need to do this. The only reason why I haven't done it is because I don't want to be bothered with talking to my VA to delegate. Stop it. Yeah, send it off.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yes, or training someone. I hear this all the time from women who have the means to hire help. And they're like, Well, I just can't get to that because I had to do laundry and then I had to do that. And I'm like, why are you doing laundry? You've told me you want to do X and that you don't want to do laundry, that you want to do this thing that's gonna take two or three hours a week. So why are you doing laundry? And the well, I'd have to try to find somebody. Yes, take an hour or two to find a neighbor person who needs a teenager who needs cash. Have her come or him come twice a week and do your laundry. You just opened up that time. But because you won't take an hour to find that person, you're stuck in this limiting belief. And uh let me tell you, I could not brave enough would not exist without my assistant Chantel. Like it just wouldn't. The book I wrote would not exist without Chantel because that freed up time for me to write. So I had this shift last year. I read the book by Michael Hyatt about vision strategy. I can't think of what it's the title, but I read it and I realized, like, oh my gosh, I am in the weeds. I need to be visionary and mission driven, and I am in the weeds making Canva, you know, like you said, I mean, this like was like a wake-up call for me. So I love that you're right. You and I think so alike in these areas. Okay, belief, number six belief. You reminded me that I believed I was gonna pull this off and I could see success when no one else did. And let me tell you, there were times where I could not see success. But I, you know, I always tend to be more positive in the morning. I don't know about you, but mornings are my my jam. And I always tell myself, like when I wake up and I don't believe in the mission or vision anymore, it's time to exit stage left. And there are times when you, you know, at three, you're gonna have three AMs where you don't believe in yourself or you don't believe in the mission. Wait until morning because in the morning, when the sun rises, you know, you and I both share a very strong faith. And we know that the sun rises every morning to remind us that he is faithful and God is faithful. And you don't have to be spiritual to get on board with this, but it's just a good reminder, the sun, that today's a new day to start again and believe in yourself. And so there were times where I'd wake up at three in the morning and go, what am I doing? This is gonna be a bomb. Nobody's gonna be on want to get online, everybody's burned out. This is the dumbest idea I've ever had. And then three hours later, I wake up and all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pour some coffee and believe in myself today and keep on trucking. So I want you to talk about doubt a little bit because I think doubt stops us from even voicing the dream.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Yes, yes, and doubt is the enemy. Like it literally is. But I love that you said for me, I I have the most belief in the morning. When I wake up in the morning, it's a reminder. I'm reminded that he's faithful, right? And that's you fighting for your belief. Because sometimes we think belief is just this feeling we have that everything's gonna work out just fine and it doesn't go away. Like it's never contested. We're we're always in that state and we're not. But especially in challenging times, if you're gonna fight, the first thing is that you're gonna have to believe, and sometimes belief is not a feeling, it's a decision. Like at the beginning, you made a decision. I'm gonna put 500 people in here, right? And then you're working on your belief, and sometimes you doubt, but you work on your belief, you've made a commitment, you you're like, this is what we're gonna do. Sometimes I don't feel bad, I just don't, you know, throw everything in the toilet while I feel that way. I just wait, give it three hours, wake up, and I'm good again. And when the pandemic first hit, I run a private practice. It's one of my businesses, and you you know what happened with that, with the shutdowns and all that stuff. So many private practices shut down. And I was like, okay, what are we gonna do? What I did sounds like belief, but it was a decision. I was like, I'm not, I'm not going down and I'm not gonna survive. I'm gonna thrive. How am I gonna do that? I don't know, right? Same way with with the summit. How am I gonna put 500 people? I do not know, but I've made a decision, I'm gonna put 500 women in a row. Sometimes it's a decision that you own, and then you work on the belief piece of it because you have to kind of hold that, right? Like, belief is belief. You're not standing on something concrete, you're not standing, you know what I'm saying? Like you're not there's no data to show that you can pull off this. Like, I've done this before, I could pull. There's no data. That's just you holding on to a decision. Yes, like I'm gonna put 500 people here. How are you gonna do it? I don't know. One step in front of the other. I have hard work, I have persistence, I have collaboration, I have delegation. We'll figure this out, but we're gonna do it. I love it after you say, Wow, I did it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yes, yes, I love it. So it's a decision. Belief is a decision, it's and it's standing on that decision, and it's not standing on data because if otherwise you're gonna be stuck forever because there is no data for your future, right? Like what you want to create or what you want to do, you have to stick to that, that decision, that belief. And and I think that that is so important that people see someone like you who is so successful and that you still have these thoughts and you still go, okay, wait a minute, how am I gonna do this? I don't know. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna figure it out, but I'm gonna believe I can and I'm gonna set the tone in my mind that I'm gonna, that's really open and growth-minded. And I think that's that's so hard right now because we look around on La News or on social or anywhere, and we just see all this shaming and negativity and the pain and the grief and the loss. And so it two things can be true at once. You can look at all that and go, this is devastating, and I'm grieving for this loss that I've had, but I'm also accepting in the other hand, growth. Like those two things can be in both hands. And I think right now that's not what's being projected towards us. It's one or the other. If you are accepting growth, then you're not recognizing grief. But you can have a hand in grief and a hand in growth at the same time. And then the last thing that I we want to talk about is excellence, which was so kind of you to tell me that the summit was excellent and the work that I did was excellent. You know, I tried, I tried so hard to it. It was funny because the breakout session night was like, to me, like an epic failure because those of you that participated, we got great feedback. But as Dr. Una knows, we were like teleported, the moderators. We would be in one group and then we would be suddenly in another group. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is how this started off, and everybody's gonna think it was terrible and it's gonna be blasted all over social media. But women loved it. They're like, oh my gosh. And it just shows you how flexible we are, right? As professional women in 2020, we've had to be nothing but flexible. But I think it's true, you know, what you have said the quote, which everyone loved at the summit, and I've seen it retweeted and posted everywhere. Strive for excellence, not perfection. And that was your quote of the summit, and everyone loved that. And you know, we often think excellence is perfection, but you kind of blew us all away when you said, no, no, no, that's not the same thing. So end us on this amazing note of excellence, not perfection.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

So sometimes we don't take pride in our work because it's not perfect. Sometimes we don't want to put things out there because it's not perfect. Um, Sasha, they may actually be someone who wants who has the capacity to put on a huge Sonic, even bigger and better than the brave enough elevate summit, but it hasn't happened because the plan is not perfect. Perfection is like the literal enemy crypto of the entrepreneur or someone who wants to go somewhere. Now, what if instead of waiting for perfection to be proud, you could be proud of excellence, which means doing the best with what you have. That's what excellence is. You don't need it to be perfect, you need to do the absolute best that you can do with the resources, with the information, with the gifts, with the skills you have at the time. Now, if you can be proud of excellent work, you can put out work relentlessly because you may not be able to do something perfectly, but it is within your power to do it excellently. And the Brave Enough Elevate Summit was excellent. And I'm not saying that you know me, so you know this is not flattery, you know this is not me patronizing, but you had a short time to pull off a summit that didn't exist, it wasn't part of the plan for this year at all. It just didn't exist, but you're able to pivot, you're able to do a summit, you're able to get great quality speakers, you use a beautiful platform, ran consistent, and in the same event, you launched the table, you gave us the Brave Bag, which guys go check it out, okay, which is an excellent bag. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, your emails were done excellent. The announcements went out when they were supposed to. So, yes, there were some tech glitches, but guess what? I've attended some of the conferences put on by the most prominent entrepreneurs and speakers and event planners in the world. I guarantee you, they all had tech glitches. We're talking, they all, like 5,000 people in events, they had tech glitches. Okay, so the fact that tech glitches means it wasn't perfect, but it was excellent. And there's nobody talking about you remember the first day how you know we were in a we were in a breakout room and we got out of break. That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about the impact that it had, which is what you set out to do anyway, right? So we need to divorce perfection, like divorce it and embrace the fact that we can be excellent. I would just put it out there. Let me leave with this. Every mom, every mom is proud of their baby, and that baby is not perfect, the baby poops on them, burps on them, spits up on them, looks cross-eyed, may not have any hair, right? But the mom is proud, the baby's excellent, and the baby is quote unquote perfect because they're all they can be at that stage. And when they go to kindergarten, they will do more. And when they go to high school, they will do more. When they graduate from Harvard, they will do more. The mom doesn't wait for the baby to graduate from Harvard before she's proud. We should stop waiting for perfection before we're proud to put stuff out there. We do excellence and we put it out there proudly.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Proudly. Okay, how wonderful is she? She is such a truth giver. You know, there are people that have knowledge and wisdom, and there are people that have knowledge and wisdom and know how to express it. And every time you talk, you bring me to tears. I just got tears because I'm needing this message today more than more than you know. And I'm sure people that are listening need that. So I want to just repeat something that she said. We need to divorce excellence from perfection. How would our life look differently when we did that? Think of the person you love the most that she told us to do. Maybe it's your child, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your best friend, a parent. They're not perfect and you think they're excellent. And that is such a good lesson for us to end the show with. And I'm so thankful for you and I am thankful for your courage to speak your voice in the world. We you we need more of you. We all need you every day in our lives because your wisdom is so powerful and it is what allows us to move towards change. So thank you, my friend, for hanging out with me for an hour. Everybody, I want you to know that I told her when we before we started that this was my therapy session today. Y'all just got to hear it. Y'all just got to sit in on therapy. So I adore you. And I can't wait till we get together and do this again.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Well, thank you so much for having me. And thank you so much for owning who you are and putting it out there and putting your best effort out there. Your brand has been such a huge blessing. Huge, huge, huge blessing. Um, and I can't wait to see what comes next. Just keep saying yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

I love it too. Well, welcome back. I'm sure you got a lot out of that episode. I'm super excited I got to share it with you. So, this is the deal. I want you to do what some of the super learners do, which is I want you to teach what you've learned. Because when you do that, you remember it. So I want you to go on social media, I want you to take a screenshot of this episode, and I want you to share the business lesson that stuck out to you the most. And you can share two or three, and then tag me on it, hashtag onfam D, and I'll be happy to shout you out and reshare and all of that stuff. I'll be looking out for it. So share that, and I want you to go apply it in your own business. And I cannot wait to hear your success story. So thank you so much for listening. I'll see you on the very next episode of the OnTif. If you love this podcast, please take a moment to subscribe, share, and review it on iTunes. As you go about your week, remember you're not just an MD, you're an entre MD. Don't forget to tune in next week for another great episode. Until next time.