Guard Your Greatness

How are you liking these May Moment episodes? This month we are recounting some of your favorite episodes of the show because there are so many of you that have just discovered the podcast and because this is a group party, I want us all to be caught up!

Whether it’s your first time hearing these or your second or third, I know you’ll get something great out of them and this one is a GOOD one.

In this episode I share how I almost sold me business a few years back. Before releasing this episode, I had not told this story anywhere! I was NERVOUS to tell it but my goal is to always share my truth so that you can discover yours.

Thank you for hanging out with me today – I love our weekly chats and hearing how they are hitting you. Don’t forget to DM me, tweet me, or email me, I love making this a two-way conversation. Talk soon friend!

Hey friend, you’re listening to The Nicole Walters Podcast. I’m a former six-figure corporate executive who woke up every morning feeling stuck in the life that I built for myself but using my corporate skills I took to the Internet and built a multi-seven-figure business, showing others how they can build a life they love. Now on this podcast, I share stories of being an entrepreneur, a mom to my three amazing girls and a wife to my crazy, cooky dancing hubbin. I’ve had a couple of viral videos too. So you know there’s going to be a lot of laughs here. So whether you’ve seen me on my viral vids or on the Today Show or read about me in Forbes, this is the place where we can meet, share stories, share laughs, and share fun. I’m your best friend in your head. So sit back, listen close, and let’s get started.

Hey friend. So it’s not easy to come to you every single week and spend time having conversations about some of the toughest things that I’ve had to learn and some of the most difficult moments that I had to overcome. But in sharing my truth, I know that I can help you realize yours, which is why I want to tell a story today, one that I haven’t told anywhere else. Only a few people actually know the story and I’m not going to lie to you right now. I’ve got pit stains. I’m nervous about telling this one. It was a story where I had to check in with the husband and I said, is it okay if I share this? But it’s important because I promised you that I would tell you what was going on behind the scenes as you were watching things happen on social media as you were seeing me, grace certain stages, I wanted you to understand that there’s so much more happening in order to make these moments happen and in knowing that truth, I hope again that’ll help you realize yours.

The thing I’m going to talk about today is that just 18 months ago, I almost signed over my entire business to Dave Ramsey. That’s right. You heard correctly. The business that I built, this multi seven figure business. I almost hung up my entire hat, signed everything over- the rights, my name, everything I’ve created. My wildly popular course, 1K1DAY, and my million dollar membership group, Yacht Club, over to THE Dave Ramsey and his entire organization. It’s hard to think now, today, that that was something I was going to do and I’ll tell you why in just one moment. Now, the reason why this episode comes after the last one where we talked about how balance is just totally bogus is because that was part of why I almost sold my business. I wanted to be home more. I wanted more structure. I wanted to make sure I was in a position where I’d be able to be a mom.

I missed vacation time and PTO and I just wanted to feel like I was doing this right. Why did I feel that way? Because of the thing that I want to talk about in this episode. I wasn’t guarding my greatness. I’ll get back to the story of how I almost sold my business, but first let’s talk about this. How much time do you spend on social media, watching TV, scrolling through Instagram, looking, consuming, living other people’s lives? Honestly, this podcast is kind of like that. If it wasn’t just two friends chatting in a car or in the kitchen, it’d be a different story. But there’s so much noise out there. Am I right? I feel like there’s a million places telling us a million different ways how we need to change, alter, modify, and just be something else. And if they’re not in the business of telling us that we need to be something different.

I feel like they’re telling us that they’re already fancy or that they already have it together. Like I don’t know if it’s just me, but it’s like I’ll go through Instagram and I don’t follow a lot of people and we’ll talk about why that is, but I don’t follow a lot of people, but I’m scrolling through and it just always feels like on some sides I feel like I’m being challenged, right? Like man, they’re really doing it and I hope I grow, but on some sides I’m like, man, am I getting this together? I can’t help but examine myself. Like is it all put together? Cause it seems like people have no flaws. One of my good friends, Jen puts it best when she says we need to choose real life. R E A L over reel life. R E E L. That’s right. The highlight reel. And that’s what social media is.

We’re only ever seeing bits and pieces of reality and honestly, half of the stuff we’re seeing is garbage, right? It’s filtered, curated lies that really are just there to get you to open your wallet. How many people do you see selling flat tummy tea? How many of them do you think are actually got flat tummies from this tea? I mean, the reality is people are in the business of selling you an altered reality. And in sharing my truth, which is something I take very seriously, it’s why I manage my social. It’s why you guys see the good and the bad. It’s why I’m not afraid to cry in front of you or film in my bathtub because in sharing my truth, I hope it helps, but I also make no promises to be a cure all. I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t sit here and tell you, look, I don’t have all the answers.

All I can do is tell you what I’ve done, how I did it and what I’ve learned from it and be honest and transparent in that process. But at the end of the day, you have to decide that you want it. You have to filter through what works and what doesn’t and apply it best. But what I can also say about all this is that I take our friendship really seriously. You chose to listen to me and I thank you for that and I take it all so seriously that you’re always going to get the real from me. And since you’ve taken the time to really put thought into whether or not we’re going to hang out, I also want to encourage you to examine who else you listen to because guarding your greatness is important. You are great. And in my journey I’ve been blessed with a lot of mentors, people who’ve come out of the woodwork to support me to the point where I almost sold my business to one.

And I want to take you back to that story. So in late 2016 I’d started pitching to get on bigger stages. It was so important to me to be able to build my business and to take it places in spaces with people I admired to help grow. And so it was at that time that I started the process of pitching THE Dave Ramsey. If you don’t know who he is, he’s a really big deal. And I want to tell you something that I can tell you only because I’ve spent time with him and I spent time with his team and I’ve spent time with his organization. I don’t care what you’ve heard from anyone else. He’s a good man. They are good people. They run a business that is driven behind helping people genuinely. That is their intention to serve, and it is their desire to deliver hope and every single day.

And I can say that with complete truth, knowing the people behind those walls. That said, when I started pitching them, it was with the desire to add to that dream, learn from their mission and to hopefully build something that looked even even just a fraction of a bit like what Dave has spent his entire life building. I wanted to help people and it was amazing when they told me no. The very first time I picked them guys, they said, yeah, we’re good. We don’t know who you are and we don’t just throw anybody up on our stages. And you know what? They were right to do that. But I kept pitching because when I hear no, all I’m hearing is not now. And when I hear no, I’m hearing, oh well y’all, you guys just didn’t quite understand. I’m Nicole Walters. I’m the girl with the great eyebrows and I kept being persistent and after about eight months they went ahead and they gave me the yes.

They invited me to come speak at a new event that they were curating called business boutique. And it was my joy. I was beside myself. I couldn’t believe that God had orchestrated things perfectly for me to get on stage next to THE Dave Ramsey. I mean this guy is a bajillion air who’s been in the business of helping transform people’s finances in the biggest way and I couldn’t believe that I would get little on me regular Nicole, who just a year ago was filming from her bathtub and working in a corporate cube would be on stage speaking next to this guy. It was unbelievable. I knew I had to show up and show out, which is exactly what I talked to you guys about in episode three. I had to do the work and boy did I. I slayed that stage. I crushed it and I made sure that when I showed up that everybody there knew how passionate I was about their mission and how I was willing to make it my own That I cared about serving people authentically and then I really knew that there was alignment between our organizations. And I must’ve done a really good job because soon thereafter we started talking about what could be, could there be a place for me for Nicole Walters as part of Team Ramsey? Could I possibly be gracing the stage, helping Dave with his mission, building a brand with their organization, getting out there and spreading the good word of freedom and debt free lifestyles and building a business that you love and chasing your passion?

What does that look like? And we started kind of building what that would be- talking about the different pieces, talking about all the nuances and going over contracts. While we were having these talks in the board room and then come home and I talked to my husband about it. I’m not going to lie to you, he wasn’t all the way on board. He was excited about the opportunity because what it would mean for our family is regular hours. It would mean going from just a team of two at the time, just me and my admin, to a full office of over 600 people that do nothing but help push the mission forward. It would mean having a mentor like Dave Ramsey help guide and drive the business and taking a lot of pressure off my shoulders of being CEO. It would mean being able to feel more in balance, right?

Because I don’t have to run the business. I can just be the business. Everything seemed right at the time. Well, these talks took a while, about eight months. Any big corporate merger alignment decision does take a long time. It also took a lot of prayer. I can’t tell you how much time I spent calling out to God and saying to myself, is this the right thing to do? I know that you told me that I’m supposed to build my own business. I know that you’ve aligned things in a certain way to make certain things happen, but who says no to Dave Ramsey? Is this the big thing that you brought for me? Is this the way that you plan on carrying my message across platforms? How do I know if what you’re bringing in front of me is what I need or what I don’t need?

So it’s then that I started talking to more of my mentors, seeking opinions, asking others, going to resources and doing research, reading and doing everything I could to get to the bottom answer. And it wasn’t until I spoke to one of my dear friends, Adia Rogers, who said to me, Nicole, you’re looking everywhere for an answer. You’re consuming all of the things. What you need to do is get quiet. There’s only one person you need to listen to. And in taking that time, getting quiet and truly listening, it was there that I got my answer. I needed to say no. It didn’t make sense for me to sign up for this. It didn’t make sense for me to sign everything that I was building over. I know what God has for me. So for me to sign it over, no matter how much that doesn’t seem to make sense, it was the right thing to do.

You may have never heard this before, but God is not the author of confusion and if you find yourself in confusion, so going to a certain situation, not quite knowing how to figure out going back and forth over whether or not that decision makes sense and and just feeling very twisted around and not sure of what to do. If a situation doesn’t make sense to you and you are bending over backwards to make it work, guess what? You always have another alternative. Go the other way. No is a complete sentence and you are allowed to choose it. And that’s what I did. I realized that on one hand I was confused about how I was going to make this work and sign over everything I’ve built. But then on the other hand, I knew that I was just scared to step up and be in charge.

I knew that I was just scared that I wasn’t good enough. I was just scared. At one point during our talks about turning over the business, I sat down with Dave and we had a really long chat. I think it was like four hours and I respect this man so, so much still do to this day, especially because of these words. I looked at Dave and I said, Dave, my biggest concern is that if I don’t sign with your business, I’m not going to make it. That everything and I built will never come to fruition and that I will never, ever, ever, ever get where I’m supposed to be. And God bless this man. He looked right at me and he said, Nicole, I know what you are. You’re just like me. Whether or not you decide to sign with my business, you will make it.

The question is how quickly will you get there? When I walked away from that moment, I knew that I had to be okay getting there in God’s time and maybe not my own and if I was willing to do that, well guess what? Anything can happen. I want to tell you right now that if there is nothing else that you take from this particular time that we spent together, it’s that only you can decide who you allow to influence your mindset. Don’t give that power to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. That includes social media. You are a product of what you consume. Surround yourself with people who will be there to support you, challenge you and speak truth that you need to hear when you need to hear it. So that means lay off the cat videos, turn down the reality TV. Remember you are what you consume, but that’s not all of it. There is another piece. There’s something that can have you completely paralyzed if you don’t let it go. We all have it inside of us and this thing can stop you dead in your tracks. You’re in the process of building something huge. You’re in the process of releasing your greatness to the world and before you know it, this shows up and it keeps you from moving forward. I’ve dealt with it, you deal with it and I’m going to tell you exactly how to unpack it, in our next chat. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening, and of course I would love to work with you. I believe that a side hustle is something that everyone needs. A little extra cash can change your life, and it’s my joy to work with everyday entrepreneurs and my signature program, 1K1DAY Academy. You can start now by heading over to 1K1day.com and joining the community. I cannot wait to work with you. Let’s get started.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How I almost sold my business a few years ago,
What advice I received that led me to making my decision to not sell,
How I make large decisions like this, and
Why I believe we need to guard our greatness

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or email me at [email protected]!
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More about The Nicole Walters Podcast:

The Nicole Walters Podcast is for the everyday entrepreneur that wants to increase their income but doesn’t know where to start. If that’s you, you’re in the right place!

Nicole Walters is a wife, mom, income strategist, entrepreneur, and the founder of The Monetized Life™. Join Nicole each week for a new episode packed with what you need to know to gain clarity, grow your network and monetize your life using the proven corporate strategies she mastered in 10 years as a Fortune 500 executive.

Whether you’re just starting out and don’t know your next step, or you’re multi-passionate and don’t know the right next step, Nicole is here to break it down for you! Richfriend, let’s add some commas to your bank account!

Listen each week. Do. The. Work, and success WILL come!