How I turned mistakes into millions (failure to FORBES!!)

Friend, I’m freaking out right now because the last 24 hours have been big. And that inner perfectionist in me, which if you know me by now, you know it’s real, it’s screaming. Because yesterday morning, a feature came out, a Forbes feature came out and the title is These Four Mistakes Helped One Woman Build A Multimillion-Dollar Online Business. I am that woman and these are my mistakes. Now, I have never shied away from sharing my mistakes and my failures. And I think it’s a big part of the journey, but you also know that it’s been a journey for me to get here. Entrepreneurship is not perfect. It’s not meant to be. And I really wanted to take you deep behind the scenes on how I’m feeling right now, but also share that this is not a me moment, this is a we moment. Because this is part of the culture and the community that we’ve built here to embrace mistakes.

So let’s get into how your mistakes are your greatest asset. Okay, so the first line is, “With videos that have been viewed more than 27 million times, Sunny Lenarduzzi is by all accounts and YouTube success story. But the social media consultant and course creator whose company brought in eight figures over the past four years admits that her very first YouTube video was an epic failure.” So I was interviewed for this piece and I knew it was coming. But at the same time, the imposter syndrome started to kick in that feeling of am I even worthy of this, started to kick in and it’s forced me into a lot of reflection. And I think something that I wanted to relay to you is that I talk a lot about zero to hero transformation. And that your best business idea and for me, particularly, I help people build online courses and online programs, signature online programs that create really deep transformation.

I talk about how really that comes from creating a zero to hero story and a zero to hero transformation. And it’s often most aligned with your own transformation that you’ve been through and the mistakes and the things that you’ve been through. That’s still true. But what I wanted to say is that growth is not linear and this article definitely proves it. My journey as an entrepreneur has not been like this, it has been like this. And most people’s are. Every single failure that I’ve had and every single mistake that I’ve had has ultimately kicked me down and knocked me out. But also at the same time, it’s created this resilience in me that I don’t stay down for long anymore. And if you think that I still don’t make mistakes or that I’m perfect in how I operate my business and behind the scenes, I’m not. I make mistakes all the time.

I make mistakes daily and weekly. And I think that I’ve learned to adopt the mindset though, that’s just feedback. Failure is just feedback. Mistakes are really just opportunities in disguise. They’re meant to happen. I think that they are ultimately guiding you where you’re about to go. But understand that just because I’ve gone through a bunch of ups and downs in my business, which are documented in this article and I’ve gone through something like burnout, it doesn’t make me perfect or mean that I never go through it. And the best teachers, the people who are able to truly create an impact are the people who are lifelong learners. And that’s what I consider myself. I don’t pretend to be perfect. Last week, I had a day where I just started crying at my desk because I was overwhelmed and I have a lot on my plate right now.

And I’m in a season where, there’s just a lot going on and I’m responsible for a lot of things and a lot of people. It gets to me from time to time. So to say that, okay, I went through burnout once and I’m never going to do it again. And I haven’t gone back there. That’s just not true. But what it does is going through that experience makes me really empathetic to the people that I work with, the entrepreneurs in my community, because I know what it feels like. And I know the warning signs. I don’t operate when I work with people from a place of hustle until you get it done. I operate from a place of, you need to take a day off that’s just as productive. I think that’s led me ultimately to being a better leader and a better teacher.

And for you in your transformation, or in your journey, in your story, I think the biggest clue for what your business is meant to be. It’s something that you ultimately are passionate about and want to fix for other people or something that you’ve already fixed for yourself or an obstacle that you’ve overcome. I work with people, there’s a gentleman who always struggled with relationships. He made his entire program around helping men save their marriages. And he’s on track to do a million dollars at this course this year, no ads spent. And I’ve told stories of, Michelle who was a baker and she had a passion for baking her whole life and is now helping people create home bakery businesses all around the world, using YouTube and an online program. So creating a business from the external is a really hard thing to do because you have to live with this business for the rest of your life.

So I know that in all the people I’ve worked with, in all the mentors that I have in entrepreneurship, the growth comes from internal and your best business idea comes from internal. And I think right now we’re very caught in a cycle of there’s so much activity on social media. There’s so much content, there’s so much noise that it’s really easy to get caught up in looking at what other people are doing and thinking that you need to be the next copy of them or that if you follow in their footsteps, you’re going to have just as much success. Everyone’s journey is unique and everyone’s journey is full of mistakes and failure and slips and falls. And that’s just a part of the game. But the more failure you experience, the more resilient you become. And I think that entrepreneurship is one of the best practices in self-awareness and in resilience, it creates this inner confidence within you that anything can be thrown your way and you’ll overcome it.

And for me, that has transitioned into not just my business, but in my life. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my personal life. I’ve allowed being exhausted and burnt out, let me be vulnerable to making really poor choices. And it’s led to so things that have had a deep impact on me, losing relationships, losing friendships, just saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, that has a lasting impact. But the reverse of that is that every single mistake I’ve made and everything that I’ve done on my journey has also led me to truly being on an equal playing field with anyone that I work with. And I think that’s a big piece of it. And I talked about this in last week’s video about my journey and the value of being a beginner, is that sharing from a place of actually going through something is, I think more valuable than sharing from up here and talking to people down here.

I want to talk to you from a place of I’m in this with you. Sure, I might be further along on the journey than some people, but there’s people that are farther along than me. Just know that whatever I’m telling you is coming from a place of actual experience and experience really is the best teacher. So as someone who is a recovering perfectionist, the word mistakes still makes me feel uncomfortable. And this article had a really interesting effect on me where I actually feel kind of nauseous because it feels like… Not being exposed because I knew it was coming out. But it’s like, it makes me feel vulnerable because it’s putting me out there, even though I’m out there with you every week. And even though I’ve been out there with my business for years, it feels like this sort of big announcement to the world.

And I guess I’m trying to embrace that and lean into it and share with you that being honest, being transparent and coming from a place of this is who I am and where I’m currently at, is more valuable than trying to be something that you’re not. So has my journey been perfect? Absolutely not. Has my growth been completely linear? Absolutely not. And it’s not meant to be. Your hero journey and your zero to hero is not meant to end, you’re constantly going to be on it. There’s no perfect bow that I’m going to tie my journey in and be like, okay, we’re done. I’m perfect, moving on. That’s just not how it works. Like I said, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Some of the mistakes in the article is I quit YouTube when I first started it because I frustrated me so much. I spent eight hours filming my first video and it was the most awful experience.

And I just gave up. I had too many businesses. I focused on all of the wrong things in my businesses. I focused too much on the external. I focused on the vanity metrics. I focused on all of the things that people get caught up in and that make zero revenue for you and zero cents to your actual business. And I burnt out. And I hate calling that a mistake, but it was because I totally tuned out of my body to a point where I just completely burnt out. So whatever your mess is, and you’ll hear people say this, your mess is your message. And it’s okay if it’s still messy and that’s what you should be showing up on YouTube talking about because nobody else can do that in the world. It makes you on copyable. The truth is people don’t pay for tactics.

People pay for transformation, which I’ve said before. And that’s what I’ve always aimed to do with my courses. So to grow to eight figures in four years. That’s come from a place of creating programs that truly transform people’s lives. And you’ve seen a lot of those case studies on this channel. And for me, it’s the most humbling and crazy experience to watch that happen because it all started with a window, a webcam and me not knowing what the hell I’m doing. And I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing but… Why do I always cry. This morning when I woke up and I decided to do this, one person was on my mind. So actually one of you created this for me. It’s one of my most prized possessions. I’m Sam Welty. So thank you so much, you drew this for me. This is Mindy and me. Mindy is my friend, if you’ve watched this video, you know the story of what happened, but Mindy passed away tragically a few years ago. I know she’d be so proud. She would be so pumped on the title of this article.

Her life’s motto was, “Your dopest life begins with the decision to try.” So I talk a lot about test, fail, learn, grow, repeat. Yes, the post-it, yes, of course is right next to me on my computer because it’s a constant reminder to me to not be perfect. I thought of her this morning because I’m trying. And I feel like I’m trying every day and for her, she didn’t want to have a life of regret. And I can honestly say that she lived more in her short time here on earth than most people will in their entire life. And she treated even the craziest things and the most scary experiences as an adventure and an opportunity. For me, that’s something I try to embrace every day. And it’s part of how I want to honor her legacy.

I really got to stop crying. And it’s part of why I’m so passionate about what I do, because I really do think like Mindy had this book that she created and she wrote before she passed away and I read it often. And that’s the biggest theme promote is that your dopest life begins with the decision to try. And it’s what’s helped me embrace failure, embrace mistakes, embrace adventure and praise obstacles, and look at them as opportunities because I know that it’ll always work out. I know that you have a story and if you have a story, you have an idea for a business. If you look at any big business in the world, in any big founder or CEO, generally the business idea came from within them.

And it came from something that they struggled with or problem that they wanted to solve, that they were really passionate about and the transformation that they wanted to create for other people. And that’s your legacy and that’s what will live on long after you’re gone. And that was Mindy’s legacy. And that’s something that I try to live by every single day and try and instill with all of you whenever I show up here. So this video is far from perfect, very on theme but I just wanted to share that on a personal note. And say again, this is not a me win this. Isn’t like, hey, look at me, look what I did. This is, I hope you can look at this. I hope you read the article linked below and know that every single misstep that you’re having is leading you somewhere better. And every setback, sets you up for your next comeback.

I don’t remember where that quote was from, but it’s a goodie and I love it. One of my other favorite ones is that, “Everything works out in the end. And if it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s not the end.” So no matter where you are on your journey, this is a big moment for me. But I also know that it’s just beginning. It’s very surreal. I hope that what you take from this is that the growth and the process of this is not meant to be easy. If it was everyone would do it. Entrepreneurship is not easy. It’s one of the hardest things to tackle. It’s hard to believe for me that I’ve been doing it for over a decade and I haven’t stumbled so far where I actually quit. So I can give you, you just keep going. Your success is inevitable. Just know that nobody’s perfect, no matter how many followers or subscribers or likes or vanity metrics they have, it doesn’t mean anything.

The behind the scenes is very different story generally than what you see. So I hope this gives you a little glimpse into the behind the scenes and gives you some light at the end of the tunnel, that it will work out and that your story matters and your voice matters. And I’ve created, and I’ve talked to this a few times, I created the secret group really at the start of kind of showing up on my channel a lot more as me and really like truly authentically and talking about the things that I really care about. And it’s become so much more than a group, it’s become like this crazy little family where everyone’s committed to showing up as themselves and being imperfect and slowly but surely getting themselves out there in a safe space. And so I’ll link to that below as well. So you can be a part of it, it’s a really magical place. And it really has become the place where I go behind the scenes. It’s the things that nobody else sees. I share them in this group and it is a family.

Let me know no in the comments below what you took from this.

Thank you so much for watching. Are you with me?