Episode 67: Step into your power with Dani Scottt

In this episode of The Community Strategy Podcast, Dani Traci shares her journey to founding DTS Marketing Agency, a personalized digital marketing business specializing in SEO for medical spa owners.

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After starting several female-driven film production companies that crumbled during COVID along with walking out on her retail service job at the same time (where sexual harassment was considered ‘normal’ behavior) Dani knew this was the time to throw everything in the online business building pot.

She overcame judgments from friends and family while struggling to build her marketing agency. 

Dani’s determination to help women step into their power with confidence and passion has led her to bring women together inside an online community to help them discover their full potential, become successful online digital entrepreneurs, and offer a space to be surrounded by fellow female leaders. 

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In partnership with the Community Leaders Insitute, Deb Schell, Creator of Find Calm Here LLC and Community Strategist,  is thrilled to announce an exclusive special discount on their upcoming CLI Expo (CLIX) which will take place in Memphis, on April 4-5 2022 at the Renasant Convention Center in Memphis, TN. 

If you register for the event and book a ticket, you will receive $200 OFF of your ticket by entering code Deb200 at checkout! Click HERE to learn more register!

Deb Schell is the Creator of Find Calm Here LLC — As a community strategist, she helps female entrepreneurs and executives find calm in building, launching, and growing their paid online communities.

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Transcript

Welcome to the community strategy podcast. I'm your host. Deb Schell on this podcast. I share conversations with leaders of purpose-driven, private paid online communities that bring together like-minded members for transformation to better their life, career relationships and well being. As a community strategist, I help entrepreneurs build launch and grow online page communities on mighty networks and to learn more about working with me. Please visit my website, find calm here dot com. That's F I N D C A L M E H E R E dot com. I help entrepreneurs find calm in the process of launching an online community. So check that out please, uh in partnership with the Community Leaders Institute, I'm thrilled to announce an exclusive special discount on their upcoming clicks uh event, which is going to take place in Memphis on April 4th through the fifth at the resident convention center in Memphis Tennessee.

If you register for the event and book a ticket, You'll receive $200 off your ticket by entering code Deb DB 200 200 at checkout. And you can go to clicks event CLIX event dot com or look at the show notes and there will be a link there for you to click and sign up for clicks. That's really cool. I want to ask you, do you have a strategy question that you are struggling with something, A challenge? Uh if you do, I want to start answering some questions uh through uh the podcast, That's a new thing I want to try. So please shoot me an email at Deb at find calm here dot com and I will review any questions I get in the next episode. I will add an answer section for any questions that I do get once I get some.

Send an email to Deb at fine calm here dot com and I hope you enjoy this episode. I'm excited to introduce today's guest Danny Tracy.

She's the founder of D. T. S. Marketing agency, a personalized digital marketing business specialized in sc oh for medical spot owners after starting uh several female-driven film production companies that crumbled sadly during Covid along with um walking out on her retail service job at the same time where she was sexually harassed and considered and that was considered normal behavior. 

Danny knew that this was the time to throw everything into her online business building. She overcame judgments from friends and family while struggling to build her marketing agency. She was determined to help women step into their power and confidence and passion have led her to bring together women inside an online community to help them discover their full potential, become successful online digital entrepreneurs and offer a space to be surrounded by female founders and leaders. Welcome Danny to the fine, come here podcast.

Thank you so much. Deb, I'm so happy to be here with you. Oh I'm happy to be here with you. Where are you calling from today? Just just shouted out there calling from California. Good old Los Angeles L. A. I was in L. A. Back in 2020. I had a major trip, a road trip that we did. A two-week road trip that I had so much fun and spend a couple of days and stayed at this cute little Airbnb right near Venice beach. So I had a nice time out in California and I'm missing the sunshine right now because in Pennsylvania it's a little cold and there's snow on the ground. I know it's so funny little jelly. I don't understand. I have family on the east coast and they're sending me all these snow pictures and I'm like it's 70° here.

Like it's just so weird to be in winter without snow. That's funny too. And I was in Florida over the holiday between um December. The Christmas and New Years' holidays. I was spent over in ST Petersburg Florida and over there they have trees that are like lights on them and they have Christmas decorations but there's no snow and it's not cold if people are walking around with like shorts and t-shirts and I'm like this must be what it feels like to live here all the time in California.

Actually exactly, people where you are probably just like man, I wonder what it's like to actually have some. Yeah. No, actually I found out people actually drive two hours to see snow. Do they take their families? And they go up two hours north to see snow. And I'm like, that is just so funny if you're on the east coast, it's, it's a very bizarre thing to experience, but it's like normal over here for them I'm sure. Yeah. Well anyway, so glad to have you here excited to chat with you today. Um I read a little bit of your story and your journey, but like share a little bit about more about what, what brought you really um to doing what you're doing today and then tell us a little bit about what you are doing with the community inside. Yeah, thank you so much. So I started out um always wanting to be an entrepreneur. I think I knew from a pretty young age that the 9-5 grind, which is not for me and I think a lot of people feel that way. Um but you know, I went through the motions, went to school, I kind of saw my life going down that path of getting that 9-5 um kind of freaked out and decided to stay in my retail job instead knowing that I could have a little bit more flexibility to try and hustle and build a side business.

But that's tough to do. It's really tough to juggle um any type of job, the retail or 9-5 while starting to build a business. So I started out, Oh my gosh, I did everything in the online space. You can imagine drop shipping MLM like when I started affiliate marketing like years ago and it just kept, you know, up and down huge learning curves, but you know, eventually I hit this point where I think a lot of people hit where you're just so burnt out, especially after, you know, everything that happened with Covid, a lot of people walked out on their jobs, they just had enough, they weren't feeling valued, they weren't feeling safe. They kind of were starting to see like, you know how their value really wasn't being met in their workspace, that kind of felt stuck and then the cycle and that's exactly how I felt. So when I left, I had this time now to really buckle into my business and hone in on it and for that, I am very grateful. It's kind of like a blessing in disguise. Um but what's great now is that I was able to build up a digital marketing agency that's successful and earning me a great living.

I have a lot of friends coming to me and new acquaintances asking how do you do it? You know, because it's a bumpy road. It's hard. There's not a lot of people out there that are gathering these kinds of communities together and saying it's okay, you're feeling this way, it's normal, You know, everyone's kind of conditioned to go into the 9-5 work force, so they don't, there isn't a lot of tools, especially for females, um because there's obviously, I don't know if anyone knows, this there's a vast majority of entrepreneurs are males, so to have females in the space that have a similar mindspace is really important, so that's where I kind of started to build this community up, it's still in the groundlings stage of it, which is really exciting because we all can um use the tools and resources, I have to help them grow and, you know, kind of hone everyone in to say, hey, we're on this journey together and it's been really exciting, and I've already met a lot of incredible women who are determined to be financially independent with their online business, so it's exciting, but the journey that is, and I think I experience, I can relate so well to um the pandemic for me being a really, really needed an important shift for me, and it allowed and opened up the space for me to be able to then not have to go get a job because my Um ideas for like, my initial quitting, my I worked really hard to figure out how to quit my 9-5 job, left my corporate sales job in 2019.

I wanted to be a travel writer in 2020 was, was pitching stories and like all this stuff and at the same time, was doing this remote sales job, and then all of that fell apart, and then I was like, well, what am I going to do? And I luckily, I mean, you know, I'm going to credit the government to offering up this this support basically that offered me, it sounds like you and a lot of other people. Um I don't know that they saw this coming around like this, but it gave us the opportunity to say, hey, going wait a minute, I don't need to run out and go find a job. I can take a minute breathe maybe for the first time in my life. Because I know I've worked in retail. I've worked it as a waitress. I've worked at cleaning hotels and cleaning houses. I've done a lot of like labor jobs and like hard jobs and stressful jobs. And I can tell you that that Probably 15 years of my life I was just surviving.

I was just one thing that I got sick of a job or I got fed up and then I just jumped to the next job and jump to the next job. And there was no pause. There was no, let's figure out what I actually want to do or no, it was just like, okay, I can't quit this job until I get another job. So now I have to go like on five interviews and figure out like how to get hired somewhere. And then it's like this cycle exactly what you're talking about I can certainly relate to. But it turned out during the pandemic. that because restaurants shut down for the purpose of social issues that we have with the pandemic, we couldn't go to work. So they said, all right, well the economy is going to crash and burn unless we support these people because the restaurant can't open because of this crazy catastrophe that then allowed people to say, all right, what do I want to do with my life now that I have a minute to breathe, So I love what you've done and how you've pivoted and you've tried so many things, right? It's amazing. Yes, and thank you for sharing that because, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to this pandemic kind of throwing them into this kind of moment where a lot of people start really reflecting on what they want in their jobs and in their careers, especially in their personal life.

Like they started to realize, I mean I don't know about you, but now I think about it and I'm like, I don't know how I did it. I truly don't know how I mentally and physically was able to get up every day, go to my job hustle, come home if lido whatever and take care of myself have a social life, it was so much and I, I think a lot of people unfortunately are still, they still feel obligated to that rhythm because it was personally, really hard for me to not jump back into it, you know, because I've been so conditioned to say, okay this is what I need to do to make a living, I need to find another job, like you like let's go, we gotta apply, get in there as opposed to just stepping back and being like, you know what, let's take the resources that are being handed to us right now and use that to build something that's going to be my my thing, my own money, my own hours, my own passion and it makes such a difference mentally, physically it's really a whole turnaround when that when that happens. Yeah, it's it's it's it's amazing because not only can you take time to maybe start something of your own like you and I did, we started around companies within the, during the pandemic, but you could also then learn something new, maybe I want to become a pilot or maybe I actually always wanted to be this or that or whatever it is now I have the time to learn because the other thing is like trying to do the side hustle life and the hustle life that's just exhausting and working a full time job.

I know you know wing and I was in corporate life, Trying to do, I had workshop weekend and I'm not married and I don't have kids, so I had some time in my 30s to like do this stuff, right? So I spent like the first, the last five years before the pandemic of my life was like, getting out of that, getting out of like retail that grind and I got a corporate job. So I was then I was like instead of having two or three jobs to survive, then I had one full time job, but then that was really stressful, right? So I did that for almost five years and I was like, I hate this, I don't want to do this, this isn't what I envisioned my life to be. And so then I found a way to like, and honestly, I didn't even have a lot of, I didn't even have a lot saved up. I had some money saved up and I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but then that, you know that idea was like, I hope this all works out. And honestly the last month when I was I was applying to jobs and applying to jobs and applying to jobs and then finally The last in December of 2019, I was like, I can't do this anymore.

I was crying at my desk every single day, I was miserable, I was so depressed and miserable and I was like, I can't, this is just not it, this is I can't. So I just, I basically gave my two weeks notice before I like went and killed somebody or like went crazy, I was like, I can't you're breaking this is just too much, right? It was like, it was, it was just too much. So um I can, I can really relate to that, sorry, I'm like, talking way too much about me now because that's unrelated because truly, like, I don't know, I'm sure you can also relate to this as well, because we both did have that time, like we were so blessed to have that time to sit down and really say, okay, we're gonna figure this out, right? Like we both now know these steps and these processes that we took that I can now take and give to this community that I'm building and say, listen, this is what works for me, this is how I kind of figured it out. It's a more streamlined process rather than just kind of blindly going in, like I did trying a million things, what's gonna stick, I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing and it was a lot of stumbling and figuring things out and now I kind of have a bit of a system in place.

So when people come to me with questions or they have, you know, a type of business they want to start that's similar to mine, I can say, well, great, this is what I did, this is, you know, the obstacles that I overcame, Oh, you're having a problem with this totally normal, this is how you overcome it. So it kind of gave me the time to really sit down. So people who are still working, who are still doing that 9-5 and they're looking to get out of it can do a side side hustle or started to build their online business with a more streamlined approach and the community around them to say what you're going through is normal. Oh, I'm having an issue with this, oh, I solved it by doing this, it just really helps to have that solid core of fundamentals and community to help you through that initial of like the beginning of if you will, because the beginning is always the hardest part now that things are kind of in place. I feel like, oh, okay, I kind of have a daily system, I know how things work, I have my tools and my resources, but getting to that point is the toughest part, so it's important, especially in the beginning to have that community and have those questions answered and to feel like what you're going through, even mentally starting a business is totally normal and it's okay and you know, there are resources to help you through that, you know, you're not alone essentially, right?

I know entrepreneurs, we feel like we're doing it all by ourselves and like solo entrepreneurs, you know, and at the end of the day, we just honestly are like, I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling like, okay, I'm exhausted, I don't want to do this alone, I don't want to do it by myself and you're, you're creating this space. So how did you kind of get from, you know, like being in this space and like then having the time and then you said you tried a lot of things. So how did it all come together to be in a community? Cause I'm guessing you didn't start with the community, right? No, I'm very solo. Yes. I felt very solo in the beginning and I was, you know, My family, they're very supportive but they also have the 9-5 mentality because that's what they were, you know, raised on and that's what they do. So I didn't really have anybody around me that understood my mental process of wanting to start a business and how I saw how lucrative it could be and you know, as I'm building my business and doing my thing, there was this part of me that was truly missing because I felt very like you were saying alone in it like a solo preserved.

Like nobody understands what I'm going through and it's hard to find information online because a lot of things are kind of gate gate gate gate keeping going on. Like a lot of people don't share their pricing or like, you know, there's kind of like a lot of things going on where you really don't know where to get information. I had no idea what to charge when I first started out because everything was so in the range of like you know anywhere from like example like $5 to $5000 and like what, I have no idea who to turn to for any type of guidance or resources so I decided, you know what, I can't possibly be the only person in this position. Um I started to do a little bit of research and I found that You know, female entrepreneur growth has grown over 141% like in the past few years alone, so now females are really entering the space as entrepreneurs saying, Hey here I am, I'm ready to start my own business, but I really don't know where to start, especially in the online space. Um a lot of people think it's super over saturated and it is, it's a saturated, very saturated market, but a lot of people don't understand what they can bring to the table and the opportunities that are presented to them in the space.

So I knew when I created this community that was going to be a very lucrative place to start as far as filling that hole for myself, like truly like I wanted other women to connect with, but I also knew that other women would be in the beginner position and also want that support as well because it's very discouraging in the beginning, it's hard to keep moving forward, which is why I kept you know going back to the retail job and why you know, I kept switching what I was doing because I just wasn't sure what the heck I was doing? I had no idea and I had no one to turn to. So that's kind of how that all kind of came together now because you do you do some SEO work right clients And that's kind of something that that that's a part of your offerings. Like the the group is more entrepreneurial focus but you're consulting or you're you're offering your SEO expertise is is focused specifically in Spa Medical Spot owners. Yeah. Which is um which is a really obviously growing market especially since a lot of people are into social media influencing now.

So um I mean the only things that I really focus on when it comes to helping women start their online business because you can literally do a million things online. Like it's so overwhelming right? Like that was my problem. I was like I don't know where I fit in this space. You could do social media marketing, you could do facebook ads, you can do S. C. O. You could do google, it's like a lot. So in the group I focus solely on affiliate marketing and building a digital agency because that's what I do best. So if anyone is interested in either of those um kind of facets of the online industry that's kind of where they gravitate towards because it becomes very straightforward you're not getting all the other fluff of like, oh, what about social media marketing? So what about, you know, hashtag research, it's like we're just focusing on these two things and if they align with you and that you feel good about it and it's something that you're passionate about. Great, this is definitely the space for you because that's the kind of resources and tools that I built um in the group for them to use to start their business and launch their business.

Because when you have too much going on, too much stuff, people get really overwhelmed and then they start to switch like, oh wait, no, but I want to do this, you know, But it's like just focus on one or two things and if you find out that, you know, affiliate marketing and digital agency isn't for you, that's okay, that's completely fine. But there's always a good place to start. Like MLS is where I started, which was a whole to do. But eventually, you know, you kind of make your way through and you find what feels good to you, what's going to align best with you and your interests and your passions mm Kind of it feels good. Do you know Adrian Adrienne Yoga with Adrienne? Yes, I do. Yes. She always says that. Find what feels good. I love that. You know what, That's probably subconsciously where I got it from because I love that. I think it's so important because, you know, when you are working, you know, and balancing that side, hustle building your business, you want to do it from a place that feels good. You don't really, it's obviously it's a lot of work, but you wanted to feel like it's contributing to a part of you, a part of something that's fueling you.

So that's really, really important. And I highly encourage anybody who's thinking about doing online business to really think about what's going to feel good and align with me and my passions and interests. Yeah, there was another thought I had lost bummer. It will, I was just thinking about how you, um, share these different expertise is the riches is in the niches is something that I've heard many people say, I forget who it's attributed to, but you're talking about like, you know, narrowing down what you want to do. And let's say you decide that, you know, affiliate marketing isn't for you. Well, great, now you've eliminated that. Now you don't have to worry about every time you see something that talks about affiliate marketing, you can be like, that's not for me. And it's it's the best thing about not like deciding this isn't for me is that you can now ignore everything that that's about, you can be like, okay, now I don't have to learn about affiliate marketing because I've already decided it's not for me. Exactly, No, that's so, so true. I'm so glad you mentioned that because yes, there is like a lot of reward and kind of figuring out like that's not really feeling great to me getting rid of that thing.

Okay, now on to the next thing, you know, and there is a difference between affiliate marketing and digital agency and I think what holds a lot of women up or even people in general, but females up is they kind of get really hesitant to put that out there on social media, you know, and saying like, oh, I started a business or oh, you know, that's why MLS were super IQ to me because they're like message your friends and family and I'm like, that doesn't feel right. So with affiliate marketing, um, the way I kind of look at it is like you're building, um, yourself as a brand and then whatever you line within the affiliate space, whether it be amazon affiliate or you find, you know, best buy, there's a lot of affiliate programs out there that people probably don't even know exist that they use every day. It's not about just copying a link and spamming it. I see that a lot and I think that's a horrible way to run any type of business because that's a little unethical. In my opinion, you're promoting a product that you have never used. So if you're interested in affiliate marketing, it is a little bit more personally aligned with you because it is an extension of you and you are representing a product or service.

But digital agency is great for people who maybe want to not hide behind the scenes a little bit, but they're a little bit more like, okay, I'm going to take a step back and run a team and have this company in front of me. Um that's kind of something that someone who might be a little bit more behind the scenes, I would encourage more towards a digital agency. Um, but affiliate is a little bit more, you know, hey, this is me and I really like this product, this is something I use, so it's a little bit different in that sense. So it kind of caters to both of those online personalities, introverted and extroverted if you will. So it's a great way to explain them. Yes, it's a great way to explain them and I can tell um and it's shifting right, It keeps changing. Um like you you stated about like, female entrepreneurs are really like showing up there wanting, you know, starting businesses, lots of women are starting businesses now, do they want to be affiliates to tell somebody about else about the challenge of with affiliate marketing that I see now is that because everybody's starting their own thing, they don't want to promote somebody else's thing.

They want to promote their own thing. And so the challenge with affiliate marketing is um, you know, if you're, it's a big brand, you know, like, you know, amazon is a big brand, right? You know, but there's also a lot of space trying to do amazon affiliate marketing. So there's competitors within that those that own market case. But if you're creating your own digital marketing agency, which I really like that concept and I'm actually, I would consider what I'm doing now starting to build out an agency because I'm starting to hire a team and be able to offer a full solution instead of just this is Deb just does this Well, no, well Deb does this, but she also has a person that does this thing and combined, we can actually present this whole solution. And that's what I think is really interesting about agencies, just just the idea of agencies and it really brings together the idea of collaboration. I don't think you'd be the expert or the master of everything because guess what?

I've got a team of people and they are experts of different things. Absolutely, yes. That's so it's so great when you surround yourself with people who have different things to bring to the table. I'm not an expert on everything either. And in fact I look forward to continuing to learn from the women that are in my community to share things with me that I had no idea. Um you know, it's all about showing up for yourself, but you'd be surprised at what you bring to the table that other people are gonna look too and vice versa and I think that's something especially in um female centered communities is so natural, but also so important or not there to be competitive were there? Because it truly is a matter of, okay, you maybe have really good um speaking skills, oh, you are really great copywriter. Okay, let's kind of exchange and connect and see how we can both help each other learn and develop these skills or outsource them to each other. It's a really incredible and beautiful thing when that happens, especially when you're building a business because you find such support and encouragement in your own skills and what you can bring.

But then also recognizing the talents and skills of the other person as well, it's really great. It's incredible. Can you give me an example some conversations that you've seen that really blossomed inside your community and you have a community is on facebook, right? You have a group of facebook group? Yes, I have a facebook group and honestly it's, it's really great when I see people who maybe come in and I, I used to do facebook ads, like I still do facebook ads for clients and a lot of times when you're starting out it's a very confusing thing. So when I see people come in who are confused about facebook ads, it's really great for me to be able to get in there and help them. But what's really awesome is when I see people come in who um are just starting out, but they have like, and then could this happen the other day, an incredible eye for design, right? Like some people come in and they're like, oh I put together this logo, they're like, oh I put together this um piece of um advertising for like, you know, to kind of launch my business and I'm thinking to myself, do you understand how amazing this is? Like people come in with these skills that they've developed either in their 9 to 5, like if you use like adobe illustrator or Photoshop and they come in being like, oh yeah, this is what I have, but they don't realize how incredible that is when you are launching and like that's a huge skill set, that's a huge asset or people who are really good with numbers come in, you know, if they're like, they've been, you know, in accounting or whatever, they come in and they're really helping people out as far as like determining pricing and profit and revenue and all these things.

It's, it's really great to see because you can see them light up, like they start to realize like, oh my gosh, I have this incredible skill that I thought was just a part of my everyday, right? Like we, I do it every day. It's something I personally thought was incredible, but I see other people responding to it and how it's really affecting them and how it's really helping them with their business but also it's something that you know I'm really good at like who would have thought everyone likes to hear that right? And know that about themselves. So it's really great to see that that confidence especially in the beginning because it's so hard and it's so hard to break through the online space but knowing you have a little spark of something extra and seeing that light is so great, you're like you know what your set girl, you got it, you got getting getting the validation, the absolute biggest the biggest thing that I found that a lot of my clients you know really desire and and that people inside find calm here need is I just need to know that I'm kind of on the right path or on the same page or like like is this a good like does this make sense even you know?

Gosh yes absolutely absolutely coming in and sharing them, Even sharing those vulnerabilities is so important because you would be so surprised at how many people can say you know what I totally relate, I completely understand and that again really really helps and and an entrepreneur space like I was saying it's really hard to find people who have that mindset you know and who really see the value in being an entrepreneur especially being a female because we're so we're such we're still a minority in the space and I mean honestly imagine though how cool it's going to be down the line when more women step into the entrepreneurial space and they become C. E. O. S. And they become you know owners of the massive company. How much that would so impact you know the way that women are represented in the workforce in the workspace? It's just like a really cool thing to kind of spin and think about. I mean yeah we're talking about online businesses but that's a huge shift that's been happening. Everybody's online, every businesses online, a lot of e commerce is online.

So it's a don't undervalue it like starting an online business. You can make quite the impact being a female entrepreneur. Yeah I was gonna say give some listeners some tips about um some things that have helped you. Is there anything that you could point to say like this thing helped me or like just um maybe it wouldn't be just something specific that you could think of that was really pivotal to to you succeeding in your business. Honestly I am a big believer in um this visualization, meditative talk to yourself, speak it out the universe. Like truly that's a big thing for me, put yourself in the mindset that you're already there, you're already there, you're already successful, you're already the boss, you already make millions of dollars in your business whether as an affiliate or in your agency, put yourself there mentally and if you have trouble to get in this mind space, I highly recommend reading books, I'm reading this really good one right now called Rich's F.

U. C. K. Um and it's I highly recommend you read it if you haven't because books like that are really going to put you in the mental framework to get those visualizations really vivid to really get yourself there because I'm telling you that is a massive massive mood elevator and it really really helps me and my times of doubt and in my times of um like the road bumps that happened I said you know it's just a road bump because I'm speaking it out there and it's it's going to happen, it's going to come back and it works. Yeah. Yeah and it continues to, I I know that sounds like so cliche you know people are sick of your like meditative visualization exercises but the reason why you hear it all the time is because it truly it works. You know, I agree with you, I did it too, I'm like this is dumb you know But I did it and I did it and then like in 2020 I you know about Two years ago I was in um in March of 2020 when the first couple weeks of the pandemic I was in on a call with some entrepreneurs um predominantly men.

Um but my my thought was um about like trying to pivot and what am I doing and how can I do this. And you know, this guy was was leading this meditation. He said, you know, picture where you want to be in three years and I said, well I want to be working for myself, I want to be and it just came like leading a community, speaking to people, hey, right, you have a consulting business. I'm leading a community and I'm speaking to people on podcasts. Amazing, Amazing. Yeah, it's so true. And honestly some people, you know, if it helps as well, um journaling if you like to write maybe break out a journal and journal your visualization or you know, if you are a dancer dance move exercise, paint, draw anything to kind of get your mind to where it needs to be because everyone is different. Maybe that meditative exercise won't work for you. But I mean personally for me, I like the shower, that's where I, that's where I like to kind of have my deep thoughts with myself.

But you know, everyone's different. You have to find something that works for you because you and I are proof, you know, and you hear it everywhere. It's, it's very true and it'll keep you motivated when your, you know, your 9 to 5 or you know you're tired and you're a mom and you're like, I don't know if I can do this, that that journaling that painting, that meditation, whatever you need to do to mentally condition yourself to be in that lifestyle that you dream is going to be so vital, so vital. I encourage everyone, everyone listening to do that today at some point. Like truly it's it's going to be the best part of your day. I promise you. Yeah, taking two minutes in the morning to journal every day that I've been doing um has helped me get unstuck from so many things taking a walk, you know, just saying, all right, I don't know, I'm stuck. I'm going to go outside and like when I come back, I have got the idea like I have it like I'd be like, okay and that's going to work out. And this is how it's amazing when you quiet your mind how things just come to you or just change your environment, stepping away, you know, stepping back, you know, like giving yourself a break.

I mean some of the things I was just working through a course and one of the things he says is okay, you've done a lot. Now take a break. I'm like, what it means to like Courtney is being like, all right, next thing, next thing, next thing he made this point to be like, stop, close the computer, walk somewhere else. I don't care if you go outside and walk. I don't care if he goes shopping. He goes, but do not keep going today, Take a break, come with fresh eyes tomorrow. And I thought that's the best advice I've ever heard from somebody who's doing a digital course, an online course. Yes, that is, that's a very rare thing, especially in our society, right? Because we're always like, go, go, go go. I highly encourage brakes days off lazy days. I mean obviously don't make it like I have it, but it's really important to rest your mind and body and I think that's something that's so lost on a lot of people now, especially, you know, you and I working, working, going, going, going to have that break. We were like, oh, shoot this, I want to do something else.

So I highly encourage, do you, how do you take care of yourself? How do you implement self care? Since we're on that topic? I love bubble baths, I try and take a bath once a week, I make sure that I eat healthy foods. I always try and keep something like a snack, a healthy snack in my fridge. I also love walks being outside, even opening a window on days that might are maybe a particularly hard day, just open a window, splash some cool water on your face, even the little things tidy up your space, you know, we were saying like, oh, you can see my bed bed is made, it's like, yeah, oh yeah, just little tidy things around your space to mentally take care of yourself. You know, you don't need to like do a massive like workout or something, even if it's something small to just kind of take that moment that breather is really important, but it's hard sometimes, right? Because we're so conditioned. I remember when I first, you know, left my job, I didn't know how to relax, I was like, what do I do?

I have no idea how to fill my time, because my time was always filled with work. So it was really important for me to kind of take those deep breaths and start baby steps, trying to figure out how to quiet my mind, how to quiet my body to think about what I really wanted and how I was going to tackle it and being intentional, the intentional, it's hard to be intentional, like, I had reminders on my phones, I have like notes that I write myself. Um I have affirmation cards, I it's it's a lot of things that I and I didn't do it all at once, so like people who are like, I don't, I can't do all those things. Um it's okay, you start where you are at, you start where you're at and you just do one thing, I always recommend The Miracle Morning by L. L. Rod, which is a great book, if you're just trying to figure out like, if you're working like a 9 to 5, you know, and trying to figure out, well how do I even make time in my day to learn something new or even just, maybe I want to like, you know, watch this video to learn if I even want to do, um, affiliate marketing, I like, I want to research like what that even is and do I want to do that?

But I don't even have time to like figure it out if I want to do it or not. Um, that morning routine, he talks about the miracle morning in there. Kind of helps you break down and implement, um, steps in your day and within like you wake up like an hour early and then he implements like, okay, well 10 minutes if you wanted to like start a meditation routine or do yoga or take a walk. Okay. So you just wake up an hour early and then you say, okay for 10 minutes I'm going to do a meditation, five minutes, two minutes, one minute. I'm gonna do a one minute meditation. I'm gonna read a quick quote in a little tiny book for one minute to inspire me. I'm gonna journal for one minute. So that's three minutes and I'm gonna, I'm going to go stretch. I'm gonna just stretch for a minute, that's four minutes and then I'm just gonna like sit and be like, okay, how do I feel now? Now I have time to like, now I feel a little bit better now that took five minutes.

So if you have, you might, if you have five minutes, you might have five more minutes. And then you can say, okay for the next five minutes, I'm gonna set a timer and I'm just going to go look at the website. I'll research websites and I'll bookmark them so that when I have time the next time. So the next time I have five minutes I will go to the link that I just saved so that I can look at it and it's just those baby steps. So like, okay, today, I'm not going to accomplish the world. I'm not going to do everything, but I can like find a link, click on it and save it into a google doc with some notes and say, Deb wants to research this website the next time she has time. So then I know, okay, I've got five minutes. Oh, I can open up that google doc and like just like look at this website really quick. Yes. Yes. I love the idea of setting a timer. I think that's really effective. That's a really good idea. I should probably, that's a good idea for me. I have like an app on my phone. This really great app. It's similar. Like if you set a timer for like, you know, I'm not going to look at me because I get sucked into my phone.

I get sucked into like instagram tiktok. Like I get sucked into that whole, so I will have to put my phone literally aside at this time and this apple, like grow a tree and like that time. So it's kind of like this fun little thing and I think the app actually, I paid for it. They like plant a tree for every, you know, tree you complete by like not looking at your phone, I forgot the name of that. I should check it. I should like, you know, put it in here somewhere. But yeah, I will, I will find it. We'll have it in the show notes, People listening, I'll have it. Yeah, no, it's so great because you're kind of like, you know, you know, not to your function like, oh no, I want to complete the tree. So that gets, you know, it's like, you know, a little mental thing that kind of helps you stay focused, right? I mean I do a meditation app. I've used the 10% happier app for, I don't know, since it started in like 20 18, 29 28. I've been meditating almost daily now last year I kind of had a lot of mental wellness issues happening. I had a lot of stuff going on in my life personally. So it kind of deviated my habits and things like that and now I'm working um, to get back to those building those, you know, routine habits, but their app has um, you know, it measures when like how many days in a row.

So I'll give you like a high five, like three days in a row, like high five to you. It'll be like, congratulations 15 days. And it'll give you like every step of the way it would be like, wow, you're on a streak. 30 days you're doing. Yes. So those kind of like little things that make me like, I don't want to break the streak. Yeah. Yeah. I get really Frustrated when I'm like at 30 days or like 45 days in a row and then all of a sudden I like busy day and I like don't make time for It back to Square one but it creates this amazing habit then. And um, and I know the one thing that I think is hard to is, um, I'm in a wellness program and it's like a year long program and there's videos and there's, you know, some things to do in there and I haven't been prioritizing it honestly. But, but I am prioritizing showing up on the live call and I'm prioritizing like on his coaching call and prioritizing.

I actually lied on account of he calls account of buddy group inside his community and I did the counter buddy group. I said, hey, I'll coco facilitate this because I want to show up for me because I know I need to prioritize this and if I know that I'm like gonna be on the zoom call with like other people then I show up because for some reason, it's really hard for me to show up for myself. But if I know I'm showing up for somebody else, it's very much easier. It's like the setting of the appointment with somebody else is a lot easier than setting up your appointment with yourself, you know? Oh, it's so true. That is such a good point. Especially when, you know, you have obligations and things going on. And that's the other thing too, you want to focus on like how you're showing up in a positive way. Yeah, it can be hard, you know, to get um sidetracked. I mean, I I also, the first year of the pandemic, my mental health was in the garbage. Um it was really hard for me to like get back to my routines and things like that. Don't like the thing is is that that's that's okay, don't beat yourself up, show up for yourself when you can in a healthy and positive way and I think, you know, when you do have a community, it becomes a lot easier.

You know, I am going to host live trainings every week in the facebook group and that's gonna be a great way for people to come in to check in to make an obligation to something every single week to show up to kind of help with that accountability and that small wind, small wins, but they're big ones long term. So yeah, that's what I was gonna, I was gonna ask what you're doing inside the community like specifically. So what is this again? Is it called? I'm gonna be live weekly trainings every week. I'm going to host a live training that's going to help, you know, with business building and the affiliate or digital agency space and in the group, it's going to be very interactive with the members right now. I'm looking for a lot of, you know, I wanted to be when I first started the type of person that I wanted to have for myself when I first started my business, so anybody can go in there and ask questions or what they want to see in the live trainings that would be beneficial to them. Please let me know because those are your time to really take advantage of the things that I have to offer um resources and tools to really get yourself motivated and to start your business with confidence and like we were mentioning that aligns with with, with you, so that's kind of what goes on in the group um and you just started this or how long has that been going on?

Oh my gosh, it's still in the, in the Groundlings stage, I have a facebook page that's been growing, but the group is way more um dedicated, like if you're ready to go, if you're ready to dive in and make a commitment to yourself. Um the facebook group is where all the live trainings happen, where, you know, a lot of mindset trainings happen, Those kinds of things are in the facebook group, very like determined, dedicated honed in, we're doing this, we're doing this girl's like, it's happening purpose and intention around community together, doing things together is, is a super great way to not only give yourself some support and get ideas and feedback going, but mentor and mentee relationships can really benefit each other because even if somebody is listening who's may be experienced as an entrepreneur, you could, you could join communities that, that have, you know, people that are just entering or just starting as an entrepreneur and they can give you ideas that you didn't think about because a lot of times when you're like a long time entrepreneurs, they might be like, well I've tried everything, I've done everything that, you know, I've done everything there is to do.

Well maybe you haven't, so maybe there's something new out there that like the new entrepreneurs, like, hey, did you know about this thing? Because there's like a million things, right? So sometimes it's good to just refresh. Um so I just want to point that out to some people who might be like, well I'm not a new entrepreneurs, so this doesn't really pertain to me, I'm like, well exactly, yeah, that's a very good point, thank you for putting that out. Yeah, it's always open, you know, if you have, if you don't have time to be hanging out on facebook groups, I get that too. So you got business to do. Exactly, no, it's true and there's gonna be, I mean obviously I'll save them so they will be replaced and everything like that. But yeah, it's it's so true. It's always good to have like multiple things I follow like so many different female entrepreneurs and like it's always good to have, you know, your hands kind of kind of grabbing in all directions because you take something away from here, you take something away from here, you no good to have that open mind. But then you find where what I like about that though is you know, there's a lot of facebook groups and I I mean I built my my community on mighty networks and I just had a podcast that came out a cup that will be coming out that by the time this comes out it will have already aired that talks about moving a facebook group.

So Money network. So you might want to listen to the episode but you know, intentionally deciding I'm going to spend my time in these communities because of this reason, like having a specific intention behind, I think that's what's happened and I'll wrap up here just by saying, I think another great thing that came out of the pandemic was that people like really decided where they're spending their time and how they're spending their time and so they weren't just like jumping on zoom calls. So when you're building a, you know, an online business or community and you think, well I'll just have zoom calls, well a lot of people are like, well what am I getting out of the zoom call? So you've got to think also the other perspective and and you are coming from that place with your community about I'm giving and how can I give, how can I give to them? Um and you know, you're not charging for your facebook or I don't believe this is all about community. Yeah, so there's a lot of things that you're giving away and I feel like social media is a great place to do that, and then when you're ready to like shift to a paid online community, you know, when you're ready to get to that place, then you can create even more um connection and deeper dive.

We talk about social media being wide where community is deep, so you can get a lot deeper. That's exactly, yep. Exactly, well thank you so much, thank you so much Danny, Is there anything else that you'd like to share or tell people how they can connect with you if you're interested in learning more about you? Yeah, if you want to learn more about me, um feel free to go to my website, it's Danny Tracey my name dot com. Um But also if you're ready to jump into some online business building, feel free to check out my page, it's just Danny Tracy or at online female entrepreneurs and you can find the group in there as well if you're ready to dive in, you know, dip your toe in and make that commitment. Um Well we'll be waiting for you in there and I look forward to connecting with everybody and um I encourage everyone today to take that five minutes, do a visualization exercise for yourself, get out and get some fresh air and start, you know, planning your dream life Yeah, yeah, if you're not doing your the life that you feel like is your best life or that's something that's lighting you up um it's today is always a good day to say, you know what, what does really light me up today just asking the question.

Absolutely, yes, thank you so much. Thank you. Glad to have you shout out to po'd match, so thank you uh pO'd match for connecting us, I wanted to just mention that um I'm starting to to go back over, I was not doing PO'd match for a while, but now Alex, I'm in Alex's community, so if you're if you're opposed match person or that he has a mighty network called Po'd pros and his money Network is all about either helping guests, people who want to be a guest on a podcast or people who want to help, you know there are hosting a podcast flying great guests and it connects people and it's a free thing um they have like a upgraded version, but the free thing gives you the ability to connect with people um to either get on as I have as a guest were or to be a guest on somebody else's podcasting and that's just a great tool, so I want to shout them out and Alex is doing a lot of great things with podcasting in the world, so shout out to them for bringing us together today so that I could meet you and now we're like best friends and I can't wait to see what else you do in 2022.

Um for anybody who's listening, make sure you check out the show notes, we'll have some links to things we talked about. Uh there's lots of episodes, a lot of it, I just booked a lot of speakers in the last couple of weeks, so as we're speaking now it's january, uh we'll have lots of rolling episodes, so please subscribe share this with anything anybody that you think could benefit, please share this episode like and subscribe all that good stuff because we, I really appreciate that. For sure. If you need help, like I said, reach out, reach out to me at fine calm here dot com until the next time. I hope you're finding calm in this day, evening, morning, afternoon Tuesday at three or whatever time it is, wherever you are, find calm until the next time, Take care and have a great day. Bye.