Inspiration

About the episode

Hello friends, at the time of the recording of this episode things are feeling really up in the air as we wait on the results of the election in the US. Please know that I see you, I hear you, and I stand with you.

In today’s episode I want to focus on where we are looking for inspiration in our professional and personal lives so that we can get clearer on creating a business that reflects our values and how we want to live our lives. So often we lose ourselves (and our joy) in our business. But now, personally, that’s now how I want to live anymore. I’ve been forced to ask who am I without my business? Without my Instagram? Without my email marketing?

It’s time for us to reclaim the joy, ease, and power back from our businesses. We do this by defining the differences between motivation and inspiration, leaning. on the latter, and never forgetting the impact of human experience.

Topics discussed in episode #9

Inspiration

Topics Discussed:

  • My thoughts on what’s happening currently in the world and why my values are stronger than ever
  • Focusing on where we are looking for motivation and inspiration (plus the difference between the two) in our personal and professional lives
  • Getting clear on creating a business that reflects our values
  • How to reclaim the power back from our businesses and find our identities again
  • Why Melanie thinks you should be searching for more inspiration rather than motivation
  • Why you can’t see inspiration and how to fix this
  • Why human experience has to be a part of your business and content

Episode Resources:

Connect with Melanie here:

Inspiration

Transcription:

(00:00):

Hey friends. Welcome to episode number nine of Entrepreneurial Outlaws. I'm taking a big breath right now because at the time of recording this, I want to acknowledge that I still don't know what is going on in the world right now. I know by the time this is, we, I really hope we have some more idea. And often I, I know that I'm thousands of miles away from many of you in the us. I feel like I'm kind of watching in I'm an outsider, but I want to acknowledge not just how you may be feeling right now. I want to acknowledge how you've probably felt for the last four years and, and longer. I want to stop and take a collective pause just to, just to tell you that I'm with you, that I stand with you. I, four years ago, I remember I should probably say I'm from the UK in case you don't know that I'm based in the UK. And I remember four years ago.

(01:16):

Just realizing how naive I had been. I was very, very naive to the outcome of the election in 2016. And I, we had been through Brexit here in the UK and I was, I was devastated and I was surprised how I fell. I didn't expect to feel so, so hurt. And couldn't believe that this was where the world was going, where this country was going. That I, I love so much. And I remember expressing how I felt on my Facebook, personal Facebook page and a number of people asking me why I cared or what the hell it had to do with me because I'm English and I pay attention, right? I pay attention to the world and as empaths, that's what we do. It's one of the reasons we have spent most of this year ripped apart and with emotional hangovers, because It is hard to exist in this world as an empath. When so much of what we see goes against our core values, it goes against our beliefs goes against just the basic human decency of right and wrong. And

(02:47):

Yeah,

(02:50):

I want to acknowledge that with each of you right now. And I want to take a moment just to say, I see you. I stand with you. I'm here with you. And I hope that every time you tune into this podcast or consume a piece of my content, wherever it may be, that my values a strong and my values are clear and loud because honestly, four years ago, they weren't four years ago. I was not as clear with where I stood in this world. And that's hard to admit. It's hard to realize though. I felt like I had to hide my beliefs, my values, my belief that black lives matter, The LGBTQ community really matters those things. I didn't, I didn't say it. I was silent.

(03:58):

Okay.

(04:00):

But now I'm not silent. And now I am underlining and unpacking like maybe many of you and realizing where my blind spots are. Today's episode, we're not talking about marketing. We're not going to talk about Instagram or content. I want to talk about you. I want to speak to you. I want to have an outlook conversation. Again. I really want to focus on where we are looking for motivation in our lives, not just our professional lives, but our personal lives, where we are looking for motility, sorry, inspiration in our personal and professional lives and where we may be looking in the wrong places and how we can get clearer on creating a business that reflects our values And how we want to live our lives. Because

(05:22):

So

(05:22):

Often we lose ourselves in our businesses and it's, I feel like it's an entrepreneur or Rite of passage, right? I feel like it is. I will. I will admit that we, we kind of, you know, there's the hustle phase. There's the do everything on your own phase or the DIY or phase, but there's also this phase where we lose ourselves, we become so consumed with what we do, that we lose those little parts of our joy. We lose our joy. We lose who we are because we don't have, because we're so busy because we're so focused on our businesses. And like my hand is raised. That has pretty much been my 20, 20. It's very easy this year to be a workaholic.

(06:09):

But personally, I'm at the point now where that's not good enough. It's not how I want to live. My life. This year has made me question those things. It's made me take a step back and ask who I am without my business. Who am I without my Instagram account, without my email marketing, without my website, who am I? And last week I shared with you my outlook moment. And it was all around email marketing, the rules, all the things I had been doing following blindly for so long. And one of the reasons I was able to get to that point, it was because of this podcast, this podcast has been like rocket fuel for me this year. It has spurred me into action. It has allowed me to say, where am I? Where am I following the rules? Where am I doing things? Just because the rules exist and how can I leverage more of this outlaw power?

(07:24):

How can I be more like the person that I talk about each week? Because like, I'm not perfect. I, I get wrong too. But being an Entrepreneurial Outlaw is a journey. I think it's a never ending journey. I think we have the values. And then it's about reclaiming our joy, ease, reclaiming our power back from our businesses. I love, I love my business. I absolutely love my business. It is enjoyable and I love the work I do, but I also know they have an identity outside of business or not. Right. We talk a lot about this. If you're a parent, if you're a mother or a parent, we, we talk a lot about this in relation to motherhood, right? You become a mother and like all of a sudden, that's your name? Right? My son's six. And already I've said to him a number of times and changing my name from mummy to something else. And we lose our identities in a number of ways. And entrepreneurship is another one. So today let's talk about motivation and inspiration. Let's talk about what you need and where you may be looking in the wrong places. Maybe you looking for the wrong one and how can we use these to help us feel more connected to ourselves, to our values, to what we believe in about the world and how we want to see the world change the impact and change we want to make.

(09:08):

So stick around, I'm gonna walk you through this. We're going to explore this together in today's episode and make sure you come over to Instagram and check out my latest post, all about what would Outlaws do or talking about what would Outlaws do when it comes to enjoying the process. So when you to come over there and check out that post and let me know what it is that you need to, what you want to change from a, I have to, to I want to,

(09:46):

You're listening to Entrepreneurial Outlaws, a podcast for creatives, introverts, and paths, and spiritual folks who want to grow a sustainable and impactful business on their own terms

(10:01):

Together. We are paving the way for a new normal in online marketing and business. One that allows you to lean into what makes you and your business unique. And I'm your host, Melanie Knights storyteller, Pinterest strategist visibility, coach and CEO of content are, can be marketing or non-traditional marketing agency for creative business owners who don't want to compromise the creative integrity to make money, get ready because each week we're having the messy, honest, and transparent conversations about entrepreneurship, the kind that's missing from the highlight rails of our social media feeds. And you'll learn how to create intention and connection behind your content marketing so that you can sell without selling out. We're uncovering the real stories behind what it takes to run a sustainable online business, the highs, the lows and everything in between, ready to break the rules and become an entrepreneurial outlaw. Let's do this

(11:01):

[Inaudible]

(11:02):

Okay. So let's talk about motivation and inspiration because there is a big difference between the two. And I touched on this a little bit. In last week's episode, I talked about motivation and willpower being like a battery, that there is a finite source. You have to actually charge them up. And the difference really is how we, how we channel those two things. So if you, if you search motivation, right, it's the description of a motivate of motivation is a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way. And motivation very much is a push action, right? Motivation pushes us into taking action. So a really great example of this that I chatted through with a client just last week is that we can be motivated through anger. We can be motivated by our inner critic. We can be motivated by negativity within our lives.

(12:19):

I think of it as the I'll show you mindset, right? You know, there's that affirmation that that says when they question your ability to achieve something, just show them or the responses I'll show you that's really a motivator, right? It doesn't come from a place of, of positivity. It's, it's kind of, it's negativity disguised as positivity. And it's a very much a push, right? You're being pushed usually by yourself. You're being pushed into motivation and how you may see this appear in your life and in your business is that when you feel the need to be more motivated, it comes from a place of structure. It comes from a place where your inner critic is loud. You are perhaps telling yourself that you are lazy or that you are disorganized, or you are really rubbish at keeping time, or perhaps you're shaming yourself because your inbox has 36,000 emails, or because you made a mistake. Often we shame ourselves into motivation.

(13:45):

Think about it in relation to if you've ever been on a diet sure as hell, have never been inspired to start a diet. You've never been inspired to say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to stop myself. That sounds like a whole little fun. We motivate ourselves to do it. We do it from a, we push ourselves into the act. We do it from a place where often it's negative and we're feeling some kind of frustration or anger ourselves or others. The difference with motivation, inspiration, inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative is a really important word in that description. And that's feel right. The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. So inspiration is actually quite different to motivation. Inspiration pulls us. It pulls us towards the things we want to do. It comes from joy and light and love and alignment. It comes from being expansive and it comes from within ourselves. So whilst motivation is often an external an external factor, right? We're motivated by something. We can be motivated by our own our in shame, but often that's a story, right? That we're telling ourselves that we're not good enough because of X, Y, or Z. Reason inspiration comes from within. It comes from alignment. It comes from the things that we value, the things that we want to do, the things that we enjoy.

(15:46):

So the difference there is the inspiration is always available. It comes from us living our own human experience.

(16:00):

And the reason I want to discuss this with you and it kind of explore it is because so often we think we need to be more motivated. If you're an entrepreneur, you have plenty of bones. You have plenty of motivation. You are motivated. You chose to do something which quite often leaves us not knowing what the hell we're doing. We wear a thousand hats. There's a lot of unknown. There is no guarantee of anything. And most people see entrepreneurship as a risk, right? So you don't need to be motivated, but I guarantee that we could all do with a little bit more inspiration in our lives and our businesses. We could all do with being pulled towards the things that we want to do in our lives instead of willing and shaming ourselves, to be more motivated.

(17:04):

Think about it. In relation to marketing, we often hear about push and pull marketing. We often hear about this in relation to sales, something that many of us at one time or another have found very, very uncomfortable. And we hear about how push marketing is where we're pushing ourselves onto other people. It's often cold calling or those cold DMS, which I keep seeing at the moment is obviously it's obviously rife on Instagram right now. It's where we have been taught to show up in someone's DMS or inbox. And without really getting to know them or connecting with them, we want to sell our product.

(17:58):

Whereas pull marketing comes from you. It comes from being yourself. It comes from human connection. It comes from human experience. It comes from being existing in a place of value. It comes in, in case, in existing, in a place where your values are showing. It comes from a place where you are being true to yourself and aligned with how you want your business to look. So there's a big difference between the two. And as I said, often, when looking for motivation, when what we actually need is more inspiration. So motivation, willpower, those things need charging. Those things require us to slow down to rest to the crafter ourselves.

(19:09):

We don't need motivation to be inspired. Inspiration is available. So why can't we say it, right? I'm going to, I'm just going to assume that that's what you're asking right now, but Melanie, why can't I feel inspired? Why do we have those times when we sit down and we don't feel inspired? Well, that can be a lot of external factors, right? We all go through an ebb and flow of how inspired we feel. But when we spend our time, even a little bit of time, every day, doing the things that bring us light, love, joy, doing things in a way that are aligned with ourselves, without valleys, with the impacts we want to make in the world, that kind of fills up our inspiration bucket. If you were let's imagine that we spend all of our time doing things that leave us uncomfortable, that leave us frustrated that we find hot.

(20:24):

Well, that means we're not living in a place where we feel aligned or of value where we living this, this life or this working in this business, that feels completely misaligned. It feels, it doesn't feel like us, right? When we do things in our that take us away from who we are. Then each time we move farther away, we feel less inspired. Maybe you've seen this in your own business. Maybe you've joined a course or program, or even works with a coach where they have taught you how to follow a certain strategy or series of tactics. And the more you learn, the harder you find it, the more you learn, the less willing you are to show up. I think that's a really good sign for us to check in with ourselves and to see where is the disconnection? Why are we feeling so uninspired and inspiration looks different on each of us,

(21:42):

For some

(21:42):

Of my clients, inspiration is about joy. The, some of my clients it's about

(21:50):

Ease

(21:54):

For me. It's creativity, hands down. That is it. And that's not, I like drawing, but it's not just drawing. It could be writing. It could be playing in CAMBA. It might be playing music or breaking songs.

(22:15):

Playing guitar

(22:18):

Inspiration comes from creativity. So when I get so, so busy in my business, I forget who I am. And I don't take the time to embrace my hobbies or be creative Inspiration. I can't find it. I can't see it. It's there. I know it has to be there, but I can't get to it because there's all this stuff in my way, there's all this stuff I have to sort through and figure out fast. The rules, the roadblocks, the unpacking of all the rules and the strategies and the coaching that I've had over time. And often I find that to feel inspired within my business. It comes from doing the things that inspire me outside of my business, right? To be inspired within my business. I need to do the things that inspire me outside of my business, Taking the time to inspire myself because in those moments, it's when I have the biggest breakthroughs like cause podcast Like the mentorship, those things came from this inspiration, leaning into the things that bring me joy, light, love, and alignment, and make me feel expensive.

(23:56):

So I want to encourage you to spend more time looking for pockets of inspiration in your life and in your business, instead of willing and shaming yourself to be more motivated. I guarantee here that you don't need more motivation. You probably already know all the things you need to know right now. You probably know too much, right? You probably know too much instead think about how you can embrace the parts of you that are inspiring. Embrace the parts of your life and your business, the pieces that you really enjoy, right? The things that you want to do, the things that you get to do versus that list of haves and needs. Because I know that there is this like invisible entrepreneurial checklist that we all try to check off every day, right? It's like we check it off of Oh, Burke entrepreneur, because we did all the things we showed up on stories. We sent the email, we, whatever it is for you, but you don't have to check all the boxes today. You don't have to check all the boxes every day. You're still enough. You're still inspired. You'll still you.

(25:35):

And that is human experience. That's the piece of us that has to go into our business and has to go into our content. Because when we don't create from a place of human experience from expansiveness, from alignment, that is when the noise gets really loud. That's when the inner critic steps in that is often when we start to doubt ourselves, we find ourselves going to these safety mechanisms. You procrastinate. I don't know about you, but I know when I procrastinate, I often go back to these really safe things. I mean, it's usually Netflix, that's really safe.

(26:27):

I would love to know where you see this coming up in your own business. Maybe it's in your personal life where you see yourself constantly battling and thinking. I need to be more motivated just recently. I have felt this a lot with my I've been trying to motivate myself into creating this like perfect schedule because everything felt all over the place. And I didn't like that. And like feeling disconnected. I didn't like feeling busy. I didn't feel like I didn't like feeling like things were never ending. I'd get to Friday and nothing was really done. And it was all going to start again on Monday. I hated that feeling. I spent ages trying to motivate myself. I spent ages trying to figure out what was going to be the best schedule for me.

(27:17):

But what I really had to do was sit down with myself and figure out where was I misaligned? Where was I doubting myself? Where was I stopping myself from doing the things I want to do? The things they get to do? Where was I holding myself back? And it's not always that simple. And I get it and it's not always easy. We have a long way to go. But if we can start measuring our success from a place of enjoyment, from a place of alignment, if we can start measuring our success, how much fun we're having versus wrapping it all up in a six-figure bow or a five figure launch or a five figure month. Money's great. Wealth is wonderful. Allows me to have an incredible team, allows me to do all these things I want to be doing in my business. I would say life, but we're locked down again. So then we go, but yes, wealth is wonderful. It allows me to make more impact in the world, but that impacts comes replacements. Operation. The impact comes from place of value and it's just the same for you.

(28:41):

Okay.

(28:41):

So I encourage you to kind of take a breath and have a look at your days and see where you're feeling unmotivated. And is it because you're actually uninspired right now? Is it because you need to feel more inspired? Is it because you want to be pulled towards something else? And this often is a big battle for us. We're being pulled towards something that inspires us, boom, trying to motivate ourselves to do something else. And look, sometimes we have to just get all my , right? Sometimes we have to just sit down, buckle up and get on with the things that we need to do in our businesses. I get that, but don't ignore those pools. Don't ignore those times when something is pulling you, because it may just be the perfect thing. It may just be the right thing. It may be your next best move. And you are allowed to explore that. You're allowed to take the time to look at it, try it out, try it out, try, emphasize, and see if it fits.

(29:49):

I hope today's episode has been supportive and helpful. I feel like when I sat down to Recode, I wasn't really sure what to say. I wasn't really sure how to have this conversation with you. Because as I said, as I record this, I have no idea what's going on in the world right now. I am hopeful. I am optimistic. I believe that good wins. But I also know that for many of you, there is this feeling of uncertainty and it's this feeling of how, no matter what happens, how do I move forward through this? And if I can give you even the slight has been a support in today's episode, I hope that I have achieved that. And I hope that you are able to look at your own motivation, inspiration, and see how you can really lean into that late into your intuition, pull towards the things that you want to do and feel more aligned with your business. You'll pass it on professional lives. So I wanna thank you for showing up today. Thank you for listening into this episode. Ah, take a deep breath and make sure you come on over to Instagram, say hello. And I will see you in next week's episode.

(31:37):

Take a deep breath

(31:41):

And come over to Instagram, say hello. And I will see you next week for another episode of entrepreneur. Bye guys.

(31:56):

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of entrepreneurial Outlaws. If you see yourself as an entrepreneurial outlaw and enjoyed this episode, but you do me a favor, it would mean the absolute world to me. If you could take a moment to subscribe to the show and leave a rating and review by leaving your review, you are helping me to grow out we'll community and together we can show other entrepreneurs that breaking the rules can actually be good for business. Don't forget. You can find the show notes for today's episode, along with any of the links that I mentioned on my website@melanienights.com forward slash podcast. And if we're not already virtual, you can come and hang out with me on Instagram. I am the one with the country music playing the lukewarm coffee in my hand, and I'm dishing the down how we can make entrepreneurship more inclusive and transparent. Plus I'll probably send you some fun gifts. So until next time Outlaws