195. The power of imperfect action
"Don't wait to be ready to take action, take action to be ready."
I love this quote from Jensen Siaw and it captures the theme of this episode with online business superstar Steph Taylor.
Steph explains the power of taking imperfect action, as well as how to -
- Build a business that gives you time, location and financial freedom.
- Show up on social media and on stage, even if you're an introvert.
- Deal with negative comments online.
- Learn to love your voice.
Transcript
Don't wait to be ready to take action. Take action to be ready. This is one of my favorite quotes. It's on my website that's from a guy called Jensen Sior, who's a motivational speaker. And it frames the theme of today's episode, which is the power of Imperfect Action. And I can't think of anyone better to give us the K up the a we need on this. Then my beautiful friend and incredible businesswoman, Steph Taylor. Her podcast is actually called Imperfect Action. Steph has built a very successful online business, and if you sell digital products or services, you have to follow Steph. She's the best at helping you get these out in front of your ideal audience. And something Steph and I bond over is our love of travel and points hacking. And she's been able to build a business where she can go hiking in the Outback or skiing in Europe for a month. And the business not only ticks over while she's gone, it thrives. But that does not mean she's not showing up and using her voice as a self-titled Introvert, Steph shares some golden advice in this episode about showing up, landing speaking gigs, learning to love your voice, dealing with negative comments, and it all comes down to getting started, taking imperfect action.
Sally:
Steph Taylor, welcome to That Voice Podcast. So excited to have you on the show and can't believe it's taken so long.
Steph:
Yay, Sal. I'm so excited to be here. I was about to say, I'm sure I've been on here before, but no, I've interviewed you on my podcast. I've never been on yours. I can't believe it.
Sally:
I know I had to look back through my list and I couldn't believe it hadn't happened. But here we are today, you fairly fresh off a big trip overseas, which looked amazing and something that I love about the way that you run your life and your business is, it really is. So you could enjoy that freedom and lifestyle. Tell us a little bit about the type of business you've set up and how you've managed to get it to this point.
Steph:
Yeah, so when I left my corporate job, the one thing, it was kind of like the north star that I had in mind the whole time was I want something that's gonna give me more freedom outside of four weeks of annual leave every year. Like I love to travel so much, and I found that, you know, once you have two weeks off over office closure over Christmas and New Year's, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time for travel. And that was the one thing that guided me from the very first business that I started back in 2016, the year that I quit my job through to working with clients. When I started building out an agency model and realized that actually it wasn't giving me as much freedom as I thought I would have from working with clients through to then reiterating my business, redesigning it all to a business that's mainly now online courses and other digital products that gives me that ability to work with clients in a one to many format.
Steph:
That means that I can run my business from anywhere my team can support me, and I don't have to be working massive hours when I'm overseas. Like in the past when I was working with a lot of one-on-one clients, when I was building out a business towards an agency, I was overseas, I had remote, I had location freedom, but I didn't have the time freedom at the same time in that I would be standing in front of the Eiffel Tower replying to client emails, or I'd be squirreled away in my Airbnb all day catching up on client work because I'd taken the day off previously to go and explore.
Sally:
Sight see. Yeah.
Steph:
So I didn't have the, I didn't have the full like location freedom, financial freedom, time freedom, and the mental freedom of not having to think about my business when I wasn't at my desk.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm. So I think a big myth, and I'm keen to hear your thoughts on this, is that one of the great things about setting up a business like you have where you don't have to be on all the time, like lots of it is systems, then that means I've heard this from a client, then that means, great, I don't have to show up. I don't have to go show up on social media, I don't have to speak anywhere. I can just live my introverted best life. Would you say that's true?
Steph:
No, unfortunately not. And I'm an introvert, so for me, showing up isn't something that comes naturally. I'm quite a private person. I don't like to show a lot of my life on social media. I'm not one of those people. But at the same time,
Sally:
Not one of those people like me
Steph:
Yeah. I'm not one of, I'm not a talent, but at the same time, showing up is one of my most important roles in the business. There's a great book called Clockwork by Mike Malowitz, and I forget who the co-author is
Sally:
It's on my bedside table!
Steph:
Excellent. And they talk about the queen bee role in your business. That's the one role that your aim in your business should be working towards. Your only doing that role and everybody else in your team supports you to do all of the other roles in your business. One of my two queen bee roles in my business is showing up, sharing content, consistently speaking, podcasting, being a guest on people's podcasts. That is something that nobody else can do for me. And it's something that I know if I do that consistently, if I show up consistently, that is where I reach new people. That is where I nurture them, where they start to build trust with me where they like me enough to then come and buy from me. And that's something that you can't systemize. You can't automate, you can't replace that human element, unfortunately, no matter how introverted you are.
Sally:
Yes, yes. I love this. So how did you work through it? So you mentioned that it didn't come naturally to you. So you've done so many podcasts, you show up speaking on social media and you've also spoken at some pretty big international events on stage as well. So how did you move through it?
Steph:
Baby steps, honestly, baby steps. I didn't go from being terrified to show up to speaking on stage straight away. It was, oh, I started the podcast and I didn't instantly have all of the downloads that I have now and all of the episodes that I have now. I had to start with episode one and right now, 700 episodes later, I wouldn't want to go back and listen to episode one because I know it would just be terrible. I hated my voice back then. And by doing episode one, then I did episode two and then I did three and then it got to 700 a few years later. But through the process of showing up consistently of hitting record on the days when I didn't wanna hit record of sometimes switching my camera on and putting my face on a camera of teaching a live webinar for the first time when I was terrified and hoping nobody would show up.
Steph:
And then the second time and then the third time through the process of doing them over and over and over again and doing them really badly the first few times, that's how I got good at it. And now I have done so many webinars that when I hit go live on the webinar, I'm so excited. I'm like, I hope hundreds of people show up. And only maybe five or six years ago I was hoping that nobody would show up. So I didn't have to teach this thing to anybody, right? Same with speaking on stage in an, at an event. When I first started speaking, I was hoping there'd be maybe 10 people in the audience. Now I'm like, oh, I hope there's loads of people there because the more people that are there in the audience, the more people that I can help with this one talk or this one webinar or this one podcast episode that I'm sharing. So I think the only way that I've really overcome that fear was through exposure therapy. There was no, there was no magic secret. It was just doing it, accepting that, you know, I wasn't ever gonna get to this point where the fear wasn't there unless I did it. And then, yeah, doing it terrified.
Sally:
And this is what I love about your ethos around imperfect action, dropping that expectation that things have to be perfect and that in order to speak well, for example, I hear this a lot, I need to have no nerves, no fear, but it's like, well no, there's no such thing as a perfect webinar even, or a perfect speech. It's just about stepping forward and doing it.
Steph:
Oh, absolutely. And it's funny because now I, pretty much every time I teach a live webinar, some little glitch happens. So last year, one of the webinars that I taught at the end, when I was doing my little sales pitch spiel, the checkout link on our sales page had timed out. It had expired for some reason. And you know, like, so on the live webinar, I'm sitting there in the back end fixing the tech thing that's gone wrong in a workshop that I taught on Tuesday. I'm getting over a cold at the moment in a workshop that I taught on Tuesday. I had a very solid 32nd coughing fit. And, but you know, people understand because you're human and things go wrong. And every time I've had something go wrong, I've had people in the chat say, oh, like this is so refreshing that you have things go wrong as well. And same with, you know, when you're on stage and you forget your lines, like, that's okay, I've had that happen to me. I'm sure you've had that happen to you, Sal, or maybe not 'cause you're so good at what you do.
Sally:
No, no, plenty of times. And I've had not so long ago, it was the first live class of a free challenge. And I share that because that's when you really wanna make a good impression because there's lots of people who are brand new to your world, right? It's not, it's a lot easier to make mistakes when people know you and love you and all the rest of it. So it's the first call and I've got quite a fancy setup here, and it just went kaput. Like it just died. And I thought, oh my God. So I just picked up my iPhone quickly, joined the meeting for my iPhone, and then held my iPhone and, and continued. I didn't lose as many people as I thought. And it was a really good list. I always have my phone now in the meeting just in case it happens again. And I was so proud of myself because in the early stages of business, if that had have happened, I would have been beside myself. Like my, my heart would've been in my throat, I would've been crying probably. I think that the more that we do things and the more situations we put ourselves in, the more adaptable we are.
Steph:
The more that you get used to things going wrong and prepared for things to go wrong, the greater the comfort zone expands. So it's not, you're suddenly not derailed when something goes wrong because it's like, okay, well I kind of expect that something's gonna go wrong every now and then, and how can we cope with that? It's like, I remember one of the things that you taught me, Sal was not a what if, it's a when I, so instead of what I, what if I forget what I wanna say, it's when I forget what I wanna say, I'm going to do that thing.
Sally:
Yeah. I love that! Instead of, what if I forget my words? It's like, well, if I forget my words, I'm going to have a drink of water, go to the next slide, go pick up my notes or whatever it is. Yeah. It's taking that control back.
Sally:
This is a great spot to remind you. It doesn't matter what you say or to who you say it to, if you are not connected to your voice, people can feel it. This is why you need the Magnetic voice formula. If you're a Soul Speaker, it's in the portal. If not link is in the show notes.
Sally:
But one of my favorite quotes is that there's no comfort in the growth zone. And no growth in the comfort zone.
Steph:
Oh, I love that.
Sally:
I'm sure you've experienced this as well is when things are sort of not going as in your control as you would like. It's like, well, I'm growing, I'm growing, I'm stretching the zone here.
Steph:
Oh, absolutely. And I think it's James Wedmore who says that your business will only grow to the level of problems you're willing to handle. It's so true. And I look at the problems that I have to handle on like a daily, weekly, monthly basis in my business now compared with a few years ago. And it's like, oh, well of course my business wasn't growing then because there's no way that I would've been able to handle the kinds of problems that I'm handling now. And I think that applies to, you know, anything where you are showing up speaking. Yeah. Maybe the reason you're not getting those big speaking gigs with a thousand people in the audience is because you're not quite able to hand or you're not prepared to handle all of the, the new nerves that that that's gonna throw at you. And maybe you still need to get comfortable speaking to 50 people before you get, start getting invites to those biggest speaking events.
Sally:
Yeah, absolutely. Like there's a lot of energy that comes even with a video going viral.
Steph:
Yeah.
Sally:
And I remember when I first had a video go viral, it was really quite stressful. Like I was freaking out about it, I was thinking about it all the time, second guessing. Whereas now when I have something go viral, it's just like normal. And it's not saying that I go viral all the time because I've really kind of plateaued, but I'm so grateful for those early experiences because it enables me to, as you say, like take on greater challenges because it's something that you've already faced.
Steph:
Absolutely. And it's funny because so many people sit there and they're like, why won't my content go viral? Why won't my content go viral? Without really thinking about what that would actually mean and whether they're able to handle the comments, the criticism, the trolls that inevitably comes with when you go viral, even if your content's fantastic, you're still gonna attract people who are just there because they are trolls. And you've had I'm sure your fair share of those, Sal.
Sally:
Absolutely. And you might be thinking of Taylor Swift or Are you ready for it? People say, Oh, I know. I don't know if I'm ready for all of this, but this is the theme, isn't it? You are never going to be ready or feel ready, so you've gotta just go for it.
Steph:
I don't know if it's like you're never gonna feel more ready, but you need to accept that it's gonna be something different to what you're used to. It's gonna require that discomfort. So yeah, maybe you're not ready to show up and open yourself up to criticism, but you're not gonna become ready by sitting there and waiting to feel ready. The way that you're gonna become ready is by putting it out there and maybe having that first negative comment come through.
Sally:
Yeah. Have you had, have you had any negative comments? I know you have.
Steph:
Ah, nothing terrible. I mean, I haven't really had any too bad. I did a couple of years ago, I did have a few trolls. You know, I had one guy that called me a skid mark, I think he said another skid mark on the internet trying to make a buck or something like that. And I mean, I can only laugh at that because that's somebody who's never gonna buy from me. They're probably never gonna listen to my podcast. They don't know who I am. They're never gonna even remember my name. So I don't let that kind of thing get to me. But it's, the more personal stuff I can imagine would be really difficult to deal with. In reality though, it doesn't happen as much as you think it's going to happen. I know certainly with my podcast listeners, my email subscribers, when they talk to me about the fears that they have about starting to show up and be, you know, whether it's podcasting or going live or teaching a webinar, one of the big fears is what are people gonna say? What's the criticism I'm gonna get? And there's never really as many negative critics as you think there are gonna be.
Sally:
Mm-Hmm.
Steph:
Right? So it's like, it's not enough to really justify not showing up. It's not enough to justify not helping the people that you can help by showing up and by sharing what you need to share just because you're afraid of the minority who are like maybe one person out there, three people out there who might have something bad to say about you.
Sally:
Yeah. And it's, you know, it's not, what are they gonna think of me? It's really like, what are you gonna think of you?
Steph:
Mm, exactly.
Sally:
And the biggest critic you're gonna have is the inner critic. When you become friends with that inner voice that it becomes so much easier. So Steph, what would you say to anybody who is, we're gonna go through a few different levels. So the first level is they're feeling really nervous to even put content out online at all, right? To make that first video or maybe record that first podcast. Are there any strategies that you've used to make it happen?
Steph:
Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is you've gotta make it more important to put the content out there and to help the people that you can help than your nerves. So it's like, it's more important for you to help somebody than it is for you to feel safe and comfortable and not judged and not afraid. And you know, it's like we are almost putting our own ego ahead of the people that we can help when we say, I'm too afraid somebody's gonna judge me. Whereas you can help a lot of people with their content. So if you make it about the people that you are helping and not about yourself, that's where I would start. And I would stop worrying about it being perfect. 'cause It's not gonna be perfect. The first 10 episodes you put out in your podcast, the first time you go live, the first piece of content you put out there, it's never gonna be perfect.
Steph:
And the only way that you're gonna get it perfect is by getting it out there, by listening to the feedback, by seeing what lands, what doesn't land, and then going back to the drawing board and releasing the next piece of content and listening and seeing what happens and then doing it again. That's the only way you get it to be perfect. You can't make it perfect in this beautiful little echo chamber of yourself, of your brain. It's gotta actually have that, the real humans out there to consume it and to see what resonates and what doesn't.
Sally:
Such great advice. So what if you are already out there, you're putting lots of content online, you might have a podcast or guests on podcasts and you are thinking, I wanna get up to some bigger stages. Have you got any advice? Because you've spoken at some pretty big conferences. Are they things that you've pitched for or that you've been approached for or a mix of both?
Steph:
So the two major ones that I spoke at in the last, I guess year and a half, two years, has been both through people I've known through my own network partnerships, that kind of thing. They're both from the same partnership that when I reached out to build that partnership, I thought, this is way beyond like, they're not gonna want to partner with me. What can I like, what can I give them? And it brought up a lot of my own Imposter Syndrome and my own insecurities around that because it was like, Oh, like what? They're a real company. I'm not, I'm just me in my little home office. I, it was a lot of reaching out and having those conversations. It wasn't cold pitching, it wasn't applying, it wasn't that they necessarily reached out to me, but it was through that partnership that we had together.
Steph:
So I would say if you are wanting to get on those bigger stages, identifying who are those people, which are the stages that you wanna speak on, and who are the people in charge of putting people onto those stages and how can you build a relationship with them so that you're not just one of the millions of pitches landing in their pile on their desk. Because both of the events that I spoke at are, if I was pitching to speak at them, it's really hard to actually get accepted. There's so many other people pitching, but through those relationships it's a lot easier.
Sally:
Yeah. Great advice. So you mentioned that your first few episodes of the podcast, you really didn't like your voice. You don't wanna go back and listen. Would you say now that you love your voice?
Steph:
I, yeah, I actually genuinely do. It's taken, you know, 700 podcast episodes, a lot of stage time, a lot of just talking, talking, talking, talking. I do so much of it now as part of my business and I actually genuinely do. But when I first started my podcast, so for context, I have lived in a lot of different countries, I spent almost a third of my life in South Africa, almost a third of my life in New Zealand and almost a third of my life here in Australia. And because of that, I have, or I had, when I first started my podcast seven years ago, I had quite a blended accent. And I'd never liked it. I'd always been the person who spoke funny. When I moved from South Africa to New Zealand, I got bullied for being the kid who spoke funny. When I moved from New Zealand to Australia, people made fun of my Kiwi accent because that's what they do here.
Steph:
So naturally, like I didn't really love speaking and when I first started my podcast, I just did not have any confidence in my own voice. But through recording and in the early stages, I was editing my episodes, I learned what sounded good. I learned, oh, if I articulate that word better, then people can actually understand what I'm saying. So I learned all of those things through the process of recording the podcasts, listening back to them, as painful as that was. And then, yeah, and then I worked with you for a bit, Sal, when I was gonna be speaking at an event and you helped. So it's been, it's been a process. It wasn't something that happened instantly. And it wasn't like I already loved my voice before I started podcasting. It wasn't like I was, oh, I'm gonna be a podcaster. I'm destined to be a podcaster 'cause I'm a good speaker. That was definitely not the case. It was more of a case of, I know I have great content to share. It takes me way too long to read a blog post. My ideal clients are listening to podcasts. They're not really reading blog posts. So how can I learn how to be good at podcasting? How can I learn how to talk into a microphone and articulate what I need to say in a way that's gonna get them the most value? And that's how I fell into it.
Sally:
Oh, amazing. Steph, was there anything else you'd like to add?
Steph:
Oh, I wanna add, like, if there's only one thing you take from this episode, let it be the power of taking imperfect action. Because you can sit there and you can get all of your ducks lined up in a beautiful little row, and you can make everything all perfect and you can try and get it to a hundred percent perfect, but you're never gonna get it past 80% Perfect. Because you know the myth of a hundred percent perfect. It's, it's never gonna be a hundred percent perfect. You've gotta do it imperfectly because that is the only way that you will ever get it out of your head and into real life is if you just do it imperfectly, except that it's gonna suck at the start. And that your audience isn't gonna think that it sucks as much as you do. You're probably gonna be your worst critic. And then once it's out there, then you have something you can work with, then you have something you can iterate, you can refine it, you can make it better, but you can't make it better until you have something out there.
Sally:
So well said. You express yourself so beautifully. And if you are listening and you are in business and any component of it is online and you are not already following Steph Taylor, then make sure you jump on over to the podcast, which is called Imperfect Action. And where else can they find you, Steph?
Steph:
Yes, you can come connect with me on Instagram. I'm there @stephtaylor.co. That's probably the best place to find me other than the podcast.
Sally:
Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show!