How I Built My Small Business
Welcome to 'How I Built My Small Business,' where we dive deep into conversations with guests who've carved out their own path to success. But, we're not only about the creation of businesses. Alongside entrepreneurs, I also chat with experts offering perspectives that'll benefit anyone striving to lead, learn, or improve.
This podcast is both a creative outlet and a platform to share knowledge from incredible people. My guests open up about the raw, heartwarming details of their journeys, offering expertise, simplifying business know-how, sharing money-making ideas, and imparting life wisdom—all through the power of storytelling.
By listening to these interviews and stories, my hope is that you find even one little takeaway that sparks or inspires your path.
While most of my guests make $1 million to $20 million net profit a year, some make more and some make less, but there is a lesson worth learning in each one. I also bring in special guests from brokering and mergers, mindset and meditation, entertainment and marketing, among others. So, the line-up is diverse in niche, experience and perspective - and so, so fun.
Special episodes include:
No College, No Problem
Big business founders with a focus on helpful small business topics
Expertise in hyper-niche fields
The connecting piece is that every one of my guests has started their own business at some point in their journey.
Thank you for listening.
Season 2 drops January 21, 2025. Follow the show so you don't miss out!
My Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemcginty/
Behind-The-Scenes: https://www.instagram.com/annemcgintyhost
How I Built My Small Business
Bite-Sized Life Wisdom: 3 of 4
Welcome to How I Built My Small Business: Bite-Sized! I’m Anne McGinty, host of the show. While full-length guest episodes are on hold for the holidays, I’ve prepared a collection of short, impactful episodes to keep you inspired until Season 2.
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Website: https://www.annemcginty.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemcginty
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annemcgintyhost
Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. I'm Anne McGinty, host of the show. While full-length guest episodes are on hold for the holidays, I've prepared a collection of short, impactful episodes to keep you inspired until Season 2. Let's dive in. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Don't necessarily squeeze yourself as a square peg into a round hole. It's really about finding what you love and also not pressuring yourself. I didn't start this photography business till I was 36 years old.
Speaker 3:You have to know who you are. You have to believe in yourself, because if you don't believe in your own message, then how will the people that you would like to visit you schedule with you? How would they believe you too? How would they see what you're doing as worthwhile?
Speaker 4:Go for it and be confident and everything will work out, because I feel like a lot of my holding back on things was a result of just like having fear or anxiety.
Speaker 5:Whatever fear you have about your worthiness in a room, no one else is concerned about you. Actually, no one else is in their minds going she's not enough or she's not worthy. Really, people are too busy. It's not that they don't care about you, it's just that all the voices in your head that are negative self-talk just know that nobody else is thinking in that way about you, in the capacity that you are, to the extent that you are, that this is mostly all you, if not all you. So you need to again turn inward and quiet the sound and go in there and show up and do the work, and I just wish I had had more of an understanding of actually how people think. And the truth is most people don't care as much about whatever's going on in your head as you are, so just deal with it. It's not something that can be resolved externally.
Speaker 6:I was and you said it, it was. You're right. I was so lucky that I did get cancer Like I. That journey for me just changed everything. Like I was about to go work for Billabong, a surf company. Try and climb the corporate ladder, move to Auckland in the middle of a city that doesn't you know, because that's what everybody did when they retired. They went into the surf industry and then I had that journey with cancer and my health and I just realized like no, that's not what I want, that's not what I'm passionate about. So don't conform, don't feel like you have to do what everybody else is doing and start something you're passionate about.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it's actually not coming from outside that matters, it's not what comes from, it's not the praise that's going to come from the world that's going to matter. And you're going to chase it for a while and think that's what's going to matter, but when you get it, you're going to realize that it's empty and have to go find it all over again on the inside. So if you could circumnavigate that and just start right now loving yourself and just accepting yourself as you are imperfect and all, and you have to rewire that. What is success? What does it look like? Who am I proving anything to? No, no, no. Over and over, I have to go back. Nope, this is about you and this is about your purpose and what brings you joy. This really doesn't about anyone else. Over and over again, what we do is we hide and we hide and we hide it until we like realize no one is listening. Why is no one listening? Because you're not telling the true story, you're not telling what's true, and so I would have them practice that vulnerability.
Speaker 1:I'd never really understood how to understand who I was in relation to who I thought I should be. It's okay to not always be so strong you can. You can be weak and vulnerable, and that's beautiful too.
Speaker 2:I think the most important thing is learn, learn, learn and keep taking actions. Practice doesn't make things perfect. It's perfect practice. And imagine you're in the wilderness and you have a river running. You're on this side of the river and then on the other side of the river is your life goals. Okay, how do you get to the other side? You got to build a bridge, right, so knowledge is going to be that bridge where you can cross over and get to your goals. So if you try to start something without knowledge, it would be like you walking into the river and then you're just going to get carried away with the river.
Speaker 8:Just believe in yourself. I didn't think that I was capable of having my own business when I decided that I wanted to stay in coffee. I figured that I would be an A plus employee. You know, I'll do whatever you want. I'll be the cheerleader for the company wherever I go and whatever it was with Amy and I and whatever she saw in me. Like I'm so grateful for that, because sometimes you can't recognize it in yourself. But now that I'm older, I really see it in so many young people, so many people who work for me, who are so talented and want to pursue other things and, like I just want them to believe in themselves and believe that they're capable. You can go out there and do it. You can start the business. You can fail at it, and that's okay too. Like just go out there and try it and do it.
Speaker 9:I think when you're young you do not have to know what you want to do. I think it is better to just do stuff and at the very least start checking out things you don't want to do. You're like I did sales, didn't want to do it, flirted with law school, didn't do it. So I didn't really find the path and that can feel kind of unnerving for people. So I always just tell people like look for three things a big brand, valuable skill building, like sales and great mentorship. If you can get two of the three, that's a good opportunity. And if you can't figure out exactly what you want to do, just try something and then, if you don't want to do it, move on and check that off when we make a mistake, and it doesn't matter who is the cause of the mistake.
Speaker 10:When a mistake happens, we're dealing with it as a team. We're thinking about solutions and how to overcome it as a team, because everybody is going to make a mistake along their job sometime, somewhere, right. And it doesn't help when you just keep pointing, oh why didn't you do this, why didn't you do that? It doesn't help. I've made my plenty share of mistakes, but it's that feeling of hey, if I make that mistake, I know my team has my back, I know we're going to overcome this together. So then, that way, when we're in the front line, we're trying to grow the business, we're trying to try different methods. We're not always going to feel like, oh no, I'm going to have bullets in my head if I make a small mistake. Who wants to go out there and try?
Speaker 11:I knew I have always wanted to do something on my own. When I got an accident, there were a lot of things that I was hurt on, that I didn't know how were going to play, affect my life and if I was going to really survive or live or how it's going to be, but for sure, in that moment it really gave me the vision to see how's this going to end up and if this was the end. This is all I did. So, yes, I think it's one of the biggest things you know. You never know when things can go and you want to feel good when they do. You want to feel what you accomplished and how you accomplished and where things end up yeah, like it's better better to try and fail than not yeah, exactly, and if anything, the failures create good stories take more risks earlier on.
Speaker 12:Career wise, you should do the risky stuff and the travel when you're young, without the ties to hold you back. Because the travel when you're young without the ties to hold you back, because that's when you can enjoy it the most and by saying yes to things you develop your confidence, your contacts, your network, everything.
Speaker 2:It's okay to fail. What do you learn? Fail forward, fail fast. What's the learning experience in the failure?
Speaker 4:I wish that I would have focused some energy on understanding finance and to put away you know money to start my own retirement fund, because that information isn't really something that's talked about, at least in the creative small business field. Everybody's talking about marketing and how to do Instagram and how to do this and all of that, but truly pay attention to your money and respect it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this bite sized episode of how I built my small business. If you enjoyed it, share it with someone who might find it helpful, and don't forget to subscribe so you're ready when season two drops. As always, have a great day.
