A mini-seminar on how to get out of a funk.

Episode Transcription

 

Den Lennie (2s):
Good day, guys. It’s Den here with the pre-Christmas episode of the, How to Scale a Video business podcast. We are on episode 244, the 23rd of December, 2021. Now I’m going to do something slightly different today because we are heading into that Christmas period. And no matter how your business has gone this year, it’s the one opportunity in the year where you have to just detach yourself from everything, spend some time doing things that bring you joy, because if you’ve had a great year, then you got lost to celebrate.

Den Lennie (49s):
And if you’ve got a having year, that’s maybe not so great, then it’s a time to reflect, but either way, there’s not much you can do between Christmas and new year. So I strongly encourage you to chill, if you can. Take some time out. It’s very easy to become overwhelmed for a whole host of reasons. And we talk a fair bit about mental health on this podcast. And, I had a rough week last week, just a bit overwhelming for many, many different reasons, lots of things hitting me at the same time. And, I just had to kind of take myself out of the loop for a while.

Den Lennie (1m 30s):
And then on Sunday I just spent the whole day just chilling and that’s really important. Two things, one is I watched an incredible micro-documentary about four women who roared across the Atlantic and she was recalling and recounting the story. And they were rolling three hours on, 90 minutes off, three hours on, 90 minutes off in a repeat cycle. And she said she got to day 39. And she just had enough. It’s just like that. The repetition was just too much. And she just curled up in a bowl in one end of the boat and just went up, I can’t do it anymore.

Den Lennie (2m 12s):
And then she started reflecting on the whole purpose of the journey was to push herself. And so she was in a bit of a funk and the funk lasted three days. And she said, when she was rolling, she’d just put headphones on and just do the job. And on day four, it just changed. And she recognized that whatever you’re feeling, whenever you’re feeling it and I’m someone who can definitely feel a bit of kind of Christmas lethargy, maybe Christmas mood downer. It’s not my favorite time of year, but the key to this message was that she decided then that this will pass and any negative feelings you might have will pass, and then another kind of mantra was just getting on with it.

Den Lennie (3m 6s):
Just get on with it, do your time, do the strokes. And, they made it and they actually won the race, but she said, she’d brought those two things very much into our daily life, which was whenever you feel like you’re in a bit of a funk because we’re all human, it will pass. Just be kind to yourself. It will pass and just do it anyway. Just do the work to do. I just thought I’d share that with you as a bit of an intro to the episode today. I mean, look, I don’t want to be a downer. I mean, it’s a great time of year for just having a few days off regardless, but I know that from my 45 years living in the UK and the last six in Australia, Christmas feels very different.

Den Lennie (3m 52s):
And so if you’re in the UK, in the Northern hemisphere where it could be a bit cold and damp and wet and, and not necessarily the happiest time of year. Just here to say, look after yourself, give yourself some time, give you some space. For those of us living in the Southern hemisphere, it’s summer holiday time. So it’s a very different vibe. And I’m grateful that I get to do that with the perspective that I have. But I want to take sort of kickoff today and also talk about if you are going into Christmas, a bit of trepidation, if you’re thinking back to the year, ask yourself, how’s it been the year you thought it would be?

Den Lennie (4m 36s):
I know Covid has had a massive part to play in people’s numbers, in some cases because I also have many success stories of people who have literally bust their business schools this year. I had one client who just shared with me, they’ve just broken seven figures, that’s over a million pounds in revenue. And when they started with me 18 months ago, they were doing about three 50k. So, even in a pandemic, there is room for video businesses to grow. And I have another client who’s literally four X this business in the last year during a pandemic living in a small rural tome.

Den Lennie (5m 18s):
So, I share this with you not to brag. Although I am very proud of the successes of my clients, more to highlight that success is more of a mindset than anything else. I was actually watching tremendous and podcasts with Jimmy Carr, a UK comedian. And he was talking about when we’re growing up, we get to 21, 22, 25. And we think, well, we learn everything we need to learn. Now we are this person. And somehow our personalities are locked in place and we can be like, oh yeah, I’m not that kind of person. I didn’t come from that background. Therefore I can’t achieve this level of success.

Den Lennie (6m 0s):
And he said that’s something that’s very alien in terms of concepts. He said, well, why can’t you just reinvent yourself? And that’s what he did. He decided to become a comedian at 25. And he said it was about purpose. It’s about having a clear purpose. And he asked this question of himself. He said, who am I? And how am I perceived? I wrote those two questions down. And it was really interesting actually, cause I was just like, oh, that’s really got me thinking. Who am I? And how am I perceived? And to add to that, when you look around, I think it was a very famous quote that was something like, comparison is a thief of knowledge of all joy.

Den Lennie (6m 50s):
I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt. Comparison is a thief of all joy. And, and so the other question that Jimmy brought up was who do I like, and why do I like them? And I thought those three questions were very revealing. So who am I? How am I perceived? And who do I like? And why do I like them? And I thought it was a fascinating insight into really digging into why you are, who you are, and who do you want to be? And because I believe you can, you can choose to do that.

Den Lennie (7m 32s):
And I think, in a small way, I can reflect on our journey to come to Australia. There were a lot of very well-meaning. People who were like, oh, I’m not sure I could do that. I’m not sure I could move to Australia. What about family. What about leaving everyone behind. Unsure. That is a fact. There’s a fact that when you move to places 10 and a half thousand miles away, you do leave people in and out on another timezone. However, how you communicate, how you connect with each other, just changes. That’s all, it just changes.

Den Lennie (8m 13s):
And I think, when you make a move like that, I mean, it’s expensive. It’s complex. There’s a lot of risks. There’s a lot of paperwork and it’s quite stressful, but then you come to a new country and no one really cares who you are. You don’t get any special treatment because you’ve come from another country. But I’ve got to say, people were very, very friendly towards us here in Australia. It’s known for its kind of mateship and giving people a fair goal, but you are on your own. And so you get established and set up and then we’ve moved states and we’ve moved cities a few times and we’re now established where we are on the sunshine coast and we’ve got this amazing community and it all just takes time and much like a business.

Den Lennie (8m 59s):
It just takes time to figure out where you feel comfortable. And for us, some wanted to move to a city. Part of our visa requirement was that we were in Sydney. So we moved to Sydney. Had an amazing time in Sydney and lived in a brilliant city, a beautiful, beautiful city. Then we moved about 12, 1300 kilometers north to a place called Noosa and a beautiful kind of beachside quality town. We went there for two years and we just moved about 40 kilometers south to the bok beach where we are now. And we bought a house here. We’re 400 meters from the beach and it’s stunning. I was just sharing with one of my clients, Sammy this morning, how he was asking what I was doing for Christmas.

Den Lennie (9m 40s):
And I said, I’ll probably just go on the beach and hang out and it’d be great to live by the beach. I said, this was my vision board in 2013, I sent it to him. And this is where I live now and saw from 2013 to 2021 and 2020, we bought the house so seven years to realize a life-changing dream. And I think if you get really clear on your purpose. Our purpose was all about helping people. But also I wanted to live a different lifestyle. I wanted to live in a warm climate, a tropical climate. I wanted to be near the beach.

Den Lennie (10m 19s):
I wanted to enjoy the outdoors and all of that came true. So what I’m trying to get at is wherever you are, these things start with an idea, but the hard work is actually implementing the idea because you’re going to come up against lots and lots of barriers and hurdles, self-doubt, naysayers, and you have to just kind of zone out. And it’s exactly the same if you want to grow your business, if you want to scale your business and have everything you’ve ever wanted, it’s not going to happen quickly. But I have evidence of two separate businesses who’ve done it in about 18 months?

Den Lennie (11m 4s):
And one has tripled their income from three 50k to over a million. One has quadrupled from 10k a month to 40, 50k a month. It is possible. And what’s interesting is it’s not that hard, but it’s a big mental game to overcome because you have to invest in yourself. And we’re not talking about crazy amounts of money, either. Not relative to the gains, but the biggest cost is in you letting go of your own limiting beliefs and enabling yourself to be part of a community that will help you get there.

Den Lennie (11m 46s):
And that is the VBA. I mean, that is exactly what we do. We have a community of incredible businesses who are on a journey together, and it’s not about getting to a specific destination. It’s about being on a journey with other people who are going to share that journey with you and guide you and share what’s worked for them and what’s not worth for them so that you can accelerate the process of getting to your destination faster than if you were to try and do it alone. And that is really what we’ve set out to achieve. And I’m very proud. We’re coming into the third year of the VBA in January, and it is an incredible environment.

Den Lennie (12m 29s):
And we’re just about we’re in the process of building our own app. And, there’ll be an element of that app that will be available to you as a subscriber of this podcast, if you would choose to download it and we’ll have a resource and discussion forum there. We’re going to come off Facebook altogether. I just feel Facebook’s become a bit of a assess pet. It’s just so easy to be distracted away from what you first set out to do. And so Facebook groups, I feel just get you hooked into that algorithm and you end up watching 20 minutes of crap before you actually remember why you were there in the first place. So we’re taking that out of the equation.

Den Lennie (13m 9s):
We’re investing quite a significant amount and building an app and moving content across to a new platform. So it’s all going to be a single sign-on for our members and we’re going to be offering a free discussion forum for subscribers of this podcast, where you can post questions. We’ll pick a few questions each month and we’ll do a live. And what kind of answer those questions just to give you a bit of a dip a toe in the water, if you like, of what support looks like, and it’s going to be no cost and no charge for that. It’s just going to be a kind of a bonus for being a podcast subscriber and all true transparency. The reason we do that is that we give you a chance to kind of have come a little bit closer into the circle, to experience a little more of what’s going on.

Den Lennie (13m 55s):
We’ll tease them with content that we use as a membership. So you can try that and have a look at it with a view that some of you might feel like, oh, this is actually feeling like a good fit. Maybe I’ll have a chat with Den because we’re planning some quite aggressive growth plans next year, in terms of bringing more of the right kind of businesses into this environment, because we’re seeing incredible results using our system. And we’ve been quite low-key about that. I mean, I talk about it a lot on this podcast, but we are going to be opening up some spots and there are probably about 10 spots available in the VBA in total.

Den Lennie (14m 37s):
So it’s not tons. It’s not the kind of group we’re going to make huge. The foundation program has a bit more scope. If you’re doing a 2 to 5k a month and you want to try and get up to 10k a month, then the foundation program, that’s really where we’re at with that. But the VBA itself. And there’s probably about 10 available spots and for next year and the truth is people tend not to leave. And, there’s a reason for that. And there’s no contract tying them in that they stay because they get results and, and those results come from discipline. They come from consistency. They come from a very supportive environment and they come from the high of mentality, the mastermind mentality, and the mastermind is a hive.

Den Lennie (15m 25s):
It’s a group of your peers who help you achieve your results quicker than if you were just to try and do it alone. So as I leave you to go and enjoy Christmas, just have a little think about that. Have a think about how your businesses fair this year. Has it in fact, reached the goals you planned it to? Has it done better than you imagined, and if it has, where else could you go? If that’s been the case, or if it’s not gone as well as you’d hoped? Why not? What is it about what you’re doing alone that’s not getting you the results? Because I’ve seen multiple businesses during the pandemic have their biggest years ever.

Den Lennie (16m 8s):
And that’s because they focus on the right things and they have the right kind of support. So if that’s something that you feel is missing in your business, then please have a dig around the website at denlennie.com. Read the customer stories, read the reviews, and reach out if you have any questions because we’re gonna be launching a brand new marketing campaign, come January. The app will be going live and there’s a lot going on, but until then, we’re gonna take some time out. We’re going to take some time out on the 10th of January. There’ll be a couple of podcasts in between. So we don’t lose our momentum.

Den Lennie (16m 48s):
And also I want to keep my commitment to you, maintaining this weekly connection. There won’t be any shorties over Christmas, new year, but there will be some episodes of the podcast. And I want you to have a really restful Christmas if you can. I know there are some challenges around the world with different restrictions, not least of all here in Australia, but this will pass. This will pass and just do it. Or as we said in the book, just effin do it. It’s just about showing up and taking the next step.

Den Lennie (17m 30s):
Merry Christmas folks. Ask yourself this. Has owning your own video business, been everything you dreamed it would be when you first got started? It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you’re genuinely achieving everything you set out to when you made that decision to grab the camera and go it alone. Are you really working less? Are you really earning more? And are you really in control? Chances are you’re bloody good at what you do, but you’re having to work like a dog 70 plus hours a week, whether it’s filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss of your own video company. When you’re managing projects constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cash flow, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress.

Den Lennie (18m 14s):
Let’s face it. That stress is the last thing you need when you’re trying to run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about. Truth is a business that provides financial professional and personal freedom really is achievable, but maybe you’ve got that nagging feeling that you’re overworked, lacking stability, and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now. It could be that you just don’t know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the video business accelerator coaching programs to really supercharge your video business. With these unique coaching programs, you’ll learn all the tools you need to get complete confidence in the success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business that doesn’t control your life.

Den Lennie (18m 57s):
Let me show you how. Head over to denlennie.com and click on accelerator.