#124 – November 2024 Income Report

Shannon Mattern (00:01.998)

Hello and welcome back to the Profitable Web Designer podcast where today I'm bringing you my monthly income report for November 2024 where I share what happened behind the scenes of the Web Designer Academy, how much money we brought in, how much went out, and all of the money and business lessons I learned along the way.

I always say this at the top of every income report, but if you're new to the show, the reason I write income reports, even though I retired from one-on-one web design services back in 2019 to go all in on teaching the business side of running a web design business is because the way we think about money affects all areas of our business. Our thoughts create feelings which drive our actions, which create results. And so our thoughts about money will make us feel some type of way, which will make us act some type of way.

which will create either a wanted result or an unwanted result. And if you start paying

thoughts and your core beliefs about money drive certain decisions in your web design business that maybe on the face of things don't seem money related at all. So inside our group coaching program for women web designers, the Web Designer Academy, we teach marketing and sales strategy, right? And the strategies are pretty methodical. They have specific steps. There are specific reasons why each step is there.

and we tell you the exact order in which to do the steps and we even give people the word-for-word scripts for exactly what to say and when and how to do everything. But it's our thoughts about the steps, the reasons, the words that will determine whether we do it or don't do it, whether we change it because we felt uncomfortable instead of noticing we felt uncomfortable and questioning the underlying belief that made us uncomfortable.

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and objectively looking at that core belief and asking ourselves, is that core belief leading me to wanted results or unwanted results? And if it's leading to unwanted results, do I want to keep believing that or do I want to try on something new? And marketing is a perfect example of this. You might not think that your core beliefs and thoughts about money would have anything to do with your marketing, but they have everything to do with your marketing.

whether you're marketing or not marketing, how you market, what you say in your marketing. So for example, let's say that you operate from an expense minded paradigm. And I talk all about pricing paradigms and what they are and how we accommodate them and leverage them in our marketing and sales and other podcast episodes. And also I talk deeply about them in my free pricing strategy course for web designers, which you can get at webdesigneracademy.com forward slash free course.

if you're anything like me for like the first 40 years of my life, you were raised with an expense-minded paradigm and you believe that when you receive money from someone, they now have less and you have more and that them having less money by giving it to you somehow harms them. And when you think about money, the words budget and afford and affordable come to mind.

and you're willing to spend lots of small amounts of money that actually add up to big amounts of money, but spending big amounts of money in one fell swoop feels unsafe. And there's always this underlying current of lack, a fear of losing money, a fear of never getting any more money in the future. So if you feel that way about money, then marketing becomes a harmful activity. Because if your marketing results in someone giving you money, now you've harmed them.

if you're committed to not harming people, then your subconscious is going to do everything in its power to protect you from harming people. So what do you do? You don't put any time or effort into actively marketing your business, but you'll put tons of time and effort into passively marketing your business. And so what's the difference between actively marketing your business and passively marketing your business? Well, passive marketing looks like content creation, social media, SEO optimization.

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Posting, creating reels and TikToks, choosing a niche, writing copy for that niche, branding and rebranding and redesigning your website. Lots and lots of time and effort. Actively marketing your web design business looks like reaching out to that friend of yours who's super extroverted and knows everyone and saying, hey, you're awesome and you know everyone and I'm doing this thing where I am researching these.

types of business owners about XYZ and I'm looking to connect with these types of business owners or hey, I'm a web designer and I have openings for new clients and these are the types of people that I'm looking to connect with. Do you know anyone who? That's just one very simple, simple way that you can actively market your web design business. We have so many strategies and scripts to help people actively and authentically connect.

with people who might be their ideal clients, might know their ideal clients by providing value first and asking and building relationships, that is actively marketing your web design business. One way is putting in a whole, whole lot of work and time and effort and energy so that maybe possibly people find you and approach you and ask you. And the other is putting in barely any work to find people and approach them and ask them and add value to them.

And so if you believed at your core that when people gave you money, you would both ultimately end up with more money, you wouldn't hesitate to actively market your web design business. You would want to help as many people as you had the capacity to help with that. And that's what's called an investment mindset. And I talk about that in the free course as well. And so our thoughts, which stem from our core beliefs, create feelings, which drive our actions.

which create wanted or unwanted results. And so you get to peel back the layers of the onion and look at what you're thinking about what you're doing or not doing that is creating the results that you have. money is in that onion somewhere. I can promise you it is in that onion somewhere. And so that's why I write these income reports.

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because personally it forces me to look at my numbers and when I do I'll inevitably have money thoughts and this is a space for me to examine my money thoughts and look at how they're creating wanted or unwanted results for me and if they're creating unwanted results then I get to examine those thoughts and decide if I want to upgrade my thoughts and sometimes even my core beliefs and doing it out loud helps me immensely and I do it so that

you can examine and question your own thoughts about money and spotlight the places where you might have some opportunities to make some shifts. And you know a simple thing that I see holding so many web design business owners back is simply like the act of investing in themselves and in their own web design businesses. It's like it shows that you

shows what you think about your value, right? So I'm not sitting here saying that like you have to go invest thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in your business so that you can raise your prices. I don't believe that at all. I believe that you can raise your prices now if you believed in your own value now. And sometimes it takes the act of deciding that you're worth it to decide that you're worth it.

right? And so that's just one small way. It's like people say, I don't want to invest in my own business because I'm not sure if it will work for me. You're projecting those same thoughts onto your pricing and putting those same vibes out there to clients who are like considering working with you. If you don't think you're worth it, how are you ever going to convince someone else that you're worth it? You can't, you have to sell yourself first.

And so that's just one other way that I see, you know, our thoughts about money and our value getting in the way of having you having the web design business that you deserve to have. And so that's why I talk about money on this podcast, like I'm going first, right? So let's just kick straight off with November 2024 numbers. So I always talk about what our inflow was, what our outflow was.

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and everything that happened to create that. And so our inflow in November was $10,289. Our outflow in November was $19,433, which means I used $8,604 from our cash reserves. And so I always talk about on this podcast how our minimum baseline revenue, typically the amount of money that the business needs to bring in each month to cover our

typical outflow that goes out in terms of salaries for myself and our client success coordinator, Erica, all of the tools that we need to run the business and market the business and deliver our programs to our students and our marketing expenses, hiring subcontractors, things like that. We have budgeted $15,000 a month and our goal is to have monthly recurring revenue of at least 15,000 to cover that. And when that doesn't happen,

we cover the gap with our cash reserves. And so I call it inflow, outflow, using our reserves, and overflow if I'm adding to my reserves. Like it's, it's as simple as that. And so if you are a long time listener of the podcast, you know, I historically used to freak out any time my outflow was greater than my inflow or my inflow was lower than 15,000.

and I talked about this in my September income report episode 113. Now I just do not stress out about it. It is like no big deal. That is what the cash reserves are for and you know there are months that I add to the cash reserves and the cash reserves are there for the months when I am using them. They're there to be used.

And so another metric I track is our rolling six month average. I averaged our average, like I take the past six months of our inflow and I average it out and I'm looking to make sure that that is at our minimum baseline. I'm also averaging our outflow to make sure that that is not exceeding our minimum baseline. And if it is like

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what decisions am I making? Where am I spending that money? Where do I need to make some adjustments? Do I need to do more things to create more inflow to cover the outflow? Do I need to make some adjustments to our outflow to get it matching up with our inflow? And I always want to have at least two months of our minimum baseline revenue in reserves. That's how I roll in the business. And so

Yes, and I would love to have at least three months in reserves and be hitting our minimum baseline every single month, adding to our overflow every single month, and that is my goal. My intention is to create overflow every month to add to that reserve, to not necessarily pull from it, and like I said, since that is my intention, I get to look at what's going on in the months that it doesn't happen that way, excuse me, and look at it objectively and being willing

to examine my thoughts at the time, what was going on at the time, my thoughts after the fact, and see what opportunities there are to make changes to create more overflow or to have less outflow. But what I am most proud of, and that's all tactical strategic money management stuff, but what I am most proud of is that I have grown so much beyond freaking out and panicking.

making changes that create short-term relief in my mind that make me feel like I'm actually doing something, like I'm in control, but don't actually solve anything and oftentimes can cause our results to be delayed even further. The results that I'm intending to create to be delayed when I act and make changes to create relief. So our inflow in

November was about 5,000 less than our minimum baseline. I'll talk about that in a second. Our outflow was about 4,500 more than our typical outflow, most of which was on our in-person next level retreat. That was November 6 through 10. That was all of our food for the week, the other half of the deposit for our photographer, the supplies and swag for the weekend, our team's travel, rental car, stuff like that. Some of that 4,500 was like just logistical.

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October invoices hitting in November, things like that. So all of that was accounted for, none of it was unexpected, none of that is something that's going to be needed to account it, be needed to like take it into account for the future. On the inflow side, all of the inflow came from recurring revenue from Web Designer Academy and Next Level Mastermind payment plans because I didn't do any dedicated promotions or offers

in November because it was jam-packed with other stuff and as I was writing out this podcast episode I was like, huh, I see a pattern here that I'm going to explore in this episode because it's fascinating and eye-opening and that's why I am so glad I take the time to write these income reports and record them and listen to them afterwards even because it gives me the chance to spot patterns in myself just like I'm able to spot them in our Web Designer Academy students.

and be able to offer like, hey I'm noticing this pattern, what's underneath that, and what could we do differently to like create those, create the results that you really want. So I noticed this in myself and it's really interesting. So like I said, November was jam-packed with other stuff. I had just gotten back from our annual Friendscation that I talked about in my October Income Report. We got back on November 2nd

I turned right around and hopped on a flight to Dustin, Florida for our next level in-person mastermind retreat November 6th through 10th, got home on the like that day and then immediately started working on our year-end application-only profitable web design business roadmap training, which I'll talk about more in my December income report. And then before I knew it, it was my 45th birthday, then Thanksgiving, and then suddenly I woke up and it was December.

and so November flew by. Lots of things going on and I'll come back to that pattern that I noticed while I was writing this income report but first I want to talk about like the most important thing that happened in November was our in-person next level mastermind retreat in Destin, Florida. So to give you a little bit of background we offer two different business coaching programs for women web designers. First we have the Web Designer Academy.

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which is for experienced web designers who are undercharging and over delivering. They're typically averaging anywhere from 2000 to 10,000 a month on average, sometimes like somewhere in that range. It's a big range, but somewhere in that range. And they ultimately want to be making at least 10,000 a month consistently, right? And if they're already at that 10,000, sometimes they're like, I want to be at 15 or 20.

And that program teaches all of the marketing, sales, pricing, all of those strategies, project management strategies, dealing with difficult clients and the underlying like mindset underlying all of it, just like I talk about this in this podcast, that most web designers are missing because rightly so they have not been spending most of their time honing the business of running a web design business. They've been spending their time honing the scale of web design.

So their inner imposter or inner people pleaser or inner employee is still running the show and they're undercharging, over delivering, overworking. And they just feel like the solution to making more money is like getting better at web design. And the solution to making more money as a web designer is not getting better at web design. It's getting better at the business side of running your web design business.

because there's just so much time and money on the table waiting there for you to pick it up when you have like the business strategies that we teach inside the Web Designer Academy in place in your business, right? So that's like the first type of person that we work with. And then we have the next level mastermind. And next level is for web designers who, to put it more bluntly, feel trapped by their success. Like they have

they've like cracked the code on getting clients. That's not usually their problem, except for those times where we all have a little crisis of confidence and we forget who we are. And we have like a little drought of drought of clients. And we're like, my God, see, I knew it was going to end someday. But for the most part, the women who come to work with us in the next level mastermind have reached that stage in their web design business, where they're experiencing what I call marketing momentum, whether intentionally or unintentionally, they've like

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planted all the seeds and nurtured enough seeds over time. They've been doing this for a long time, you know, usually, usually like at least three years, but most of them are like, yeah, I've been doing this for like 10 years, if not longer. There's no necessarily like time constraint on how long you've been in business to work with us in the next level mastermind. It's basically about like where you are in the business journey.

Sometimes that is determined by a time frame, sometimes it's not, but typically getting clients is not the problem of women in the next level mastermind. They are experiencing marketing momentum, but they have what we call next level problems. So typically they're making their minimum baseline revenue. Generally, that's not a problem either, but they know they're made for more. They're ready for more.

They know what they do is worth more, but they feel stuck. They're at capacity. Maybe they don't want to be the one pushing all the buttons anymore, so to speak. Maybe they want to like untie their time from the money that they're making. Maybe they want to work with clients long-term in a really deep way or at a higher level or at a way higher amount than before. Maybe they just want more freedom and not necessarily more money. Maybe they are happy with the money they're making, but they want to be working less.

and sometimes they just want more connection. Like they are such powerhouses, such trailblazers. They've created all this success in their business on their own and they feel super lonely, super disconnected, and they crave connection with other women who get it and who are not like judging them for their success.

and they've usually built some really great systems that work for them and they're not looking for new systems. They're not looking for... they don't feel like they have strategies missing, right? But something is missing. They feel stuck, they feel unfulfilled, something keeps getting in the way of their next level. They're not entirely sure what their next level is. They're just like, is this it? Is this why I went into business for myself? Something is missing. And so typically with next level

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mastermind members, some of our web designer academy strategies are going to fill some of their gaps, free up some of their time, help them make more money, but typically they're really picking a few strategies out of that toolbox. Generally strategy isn't their problem, right? So that's the second type of person that we work with. The first person is really like very skilled at web design but

like has a lot to learn about what it looks like to run a web design business, stop undercharging, stop over delivering, stop overworking, really like step into their value, learn how to manage clients, just a lot of logistical, strategic, tactical things underlined by a mindset shift, right? Of like you are allowed to do all of this, right? Shifting out of people pleasing, imposter syndrome,

employee mindset. Next Level Mastermind, they have done that to an extent. Like there's always work to be done there. They've done that to an extent but new level, new level same devils as they say. There's something at their core that is keeping them from creating the business and the life that they really want. And by the way if I'm describing you,

in either of those. You can go to Web Designer Academy.com. If next level, if when I'm talking about the next level mastermind you're like my gosh that's me like I just I don't need to rebuild all my systems. There's something else I need help with. Just go to Web Designer Academy.com forward slash next level. Fill out the application. I'll review it and if I'm like yeah like I see exactly what like how we how the next level framework can help you.

I will invite you to learn more about what that looks like to work with us. If Web Designer Academy feels like the gap that is missing for you, you can just go to webdesigneracademy.com forward slash apply. Fill out the Web Designer Academy application in both situations. Zero obligation. I'm not pushy. I will like give you feedback. I will let you know if I think our strategies can help you or not. If yes, I'll tell you more about what that looks like.

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if no I'll be like hey we're not the right fit for you here are some other options that can meet you where you're at today and that's it. It's so chill like so super chill so anyway if you're interested in learning more webdesigneracademy.com and you can check it out and apply there. So in our next level mastermind

way that it works when you join us is like we lead you through this methodical process called the next level framework to help you really get clear on your vision for your life and your business to identify where those are in conflict with each other to figure out what you should like what you need to keep doing start doing stop doing or change to work towards that vision and of all the things that you could do what's the one thing that if you put all of your focus on it would make all the other things on the list happen faster?

we call that a domino, right? Because if you think of a line of dominoes, all you have to do is put energy into knocking over the first one, the rest of them fall over on their own, right? And then we take it one step further to identify, okay, well, what's in the way of you knocking the first domino over, right? What is keeping you from doing that? Because you would have already done it if you didn't have something holding you back from doing it. So

where do you have your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time? So you're putting all this you know mental thought like an energy into this thing maybe you're or maybe you don't even know what the thing is so you're putting all this mental energy into feeling stuck or just maintaining the status quo which you don't even like and then also you're like stopping yourself so you have your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time and it is a lot of energy to floor the accelerator and slam your foot on the gas so

next level what we do instead of giving you more gas, like more strategies, more systems, more processes, like Web Designer Academy we're gonna give you some gas, right? And you're gonna get to the point in Web Designer Academy even where you have like, you have the accelerator down as far as you can go but then something is going to have you put your foot on the brake and that's when you come into the next level and we help you take your foot off the brake, right? So

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in next level instead of giving you more gas, instead of giving you more strategies, more systems, more processes that require a lot of time, energy, and resources that a next level business owner typically does not have. That's what keeps them stuck. They're already at capacity, right? We help them work on taking their foot off the brake, which requires much, much less energy, time, and capacity, but much more courage, tenacity, and support. And so

That's what we do at our in-person next level retreat. We work on that together for three straight days. So 15 women web designers together in a giant beach house, fully themselves, come as you are, having a blast, laughing together, cooking together, hanging out, laughing so hard our faces hurt, crying so hard we have no tears left, and just going through this process together of figuring out

what we want our life to look like, just having the time and space away from it all to think about that, and then breaking through to our next level while reminding each other how powerful and amazing we all are in case we forget. And so you can show up having never met a single person in the room like one of our newest Mastermind members, Michelle, did who literally joined right before the retreat, joined us

little bit late because she had another commitment but really wanted to be there and walked into a room of 15 other women she had never met before who all like opened their arms to her, accepted her, and made her feel like they had that they had known her always and instantly accepted her for who she is and that's what that is like and so for me that experience is like a renewing experience every single

year that we have done it so far because I'm like, I always go to that thinking like how is this my life? How is this my life? Like I've truly created my dream life and when I get to spend those three days in person at the next level retreat with all of these women who have like trusted me to lead them through all of the work that we do together, I'm in awe of it.

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truly. I'm just like, I am truly in awe of it. And so at the end of the three days, you walk away from the retreat with your vision, you walk away with your domino, the one thing that you're going to be working on for at least the next quarter, that will make all of the rest of your goals happen faster and easier. You'll know exactly how you get in your own way. And you'll have a plan to like notice that when it starts happening because it's sneaky and counteract it.

when you get in your own way and everyone else in the room will know your things so that when we're all back home and we're back on our weekly mastermind calls where everyone shares a win and a challenge and we coach people who collectively who need coaching or we have a group discussion strategizing how to help someone with their domino or just talking about ways we get in our own way, we can point out to each other when they're putting on the break.

Even when on the surface, it might not seem like that's what's going on and someone else will like, someone will be, here's what I need support with today. Here's the problem, you know, and someone else will be like, could that be what we call, it's called a big assumption, could that be your big assumption at play? And lo and behold, problem solved. It shortcuts results, having that many super smart brains working together on your problems. And all of those women web designers are

like they've been in their shoes. They're not in different industries. They're not running different types of businesses. They all are running some type of web design or web design adjacent business. They've been in your shoes and they get it. They understand what you're talking about. You don't have to explain what you do. Everybody knows. Everybody knows what you do even if they don't have that specialty and so the best part for me is that I'm leading the retreat. Yes,

I'm also doing the work right alongside everybody else because I totally have ways I get in my own way. And in the next level mastermind, yes I'm a coach and yes I'm like the leader of the group, I'm the facilitator, but that doesn't mean I'm like more enlightened than anyone else in the room. I still have my ways that I get in my way and they're not that different from the rest of the group and we all learn from each other and my job is not to be ahead of everybody else. My job is to develop the framework to teach it.

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hold the space for people to walk through it and create a place for people to support each other and to kind of be like the gatekeeper is not the right word but to be like the person that invites people in who I know are going to maintain the safe space that we have created so that people can

show up to a house of 15 people that they've never met and know truly that they are going to fit right in. And so like I said, I'm like every, this is the third year that we've done it. I'm like, A, how is this my life? I've truly created my dream life. And I'm so driven by wanting as many women, women web designers right now, but like I have a bigger vision.

as many women as possible to experience what this feels like. And yes, I have my moments of doubt just like anyone, but there are fewer and farther between than ever before and I see them for what they are now instead of believing in. It's just like my ego grasping to control something and the sooner I see that, the sooner I can detach from it and just just move forward. So it's been really, really fascinating and every time I host

next level mastermind retreat I'm like I want to do more of these. I want to have more in-person events like I spend a lot of time on zoom with our students in zoom meetings but there is something magical about having all of the people in the room and so I don't know what that looks like but I want to do more of that in the future not just for next level mastermind but for web designer academy too but

digress. I'm going to share my personal next level retreat experience because that is the most important thing that happened in November. It was very powerful for me and I'm really interested to see how it will carry through my income reports in 2025. So to back up a little bit, at our retreat one year ago in 2023 at the same beach house in Destin, Florida,

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What came up for me, and I've talked about this on the podcast before, how I was getting in my own way, where I was putting on the brake and slowing down, slowing myself down was negative self-talk. And so my domino became the thing that I was focused on that...

that I was working on undoing that would make all of my other goals happen faster and easier was ending that, was stopping the negative voice in my head. Not a strategy, not a system, not a process, but a fundamental intentional shift in the tone of my inner voice. And so for the past year, the way I've worked on that was through writing these income reports again. I started writing those again after the next level retreat last year, which helped me to notice my thoughts again.

and I continued therapy. I read and listened to a ton of books on mindset. I read or listened to over 50 books in 2024 and 25 of them were specifically related to my one thing of reducing negative self-talk so I'll list out a few of them but I have all 25 of them listed in this income report at webdesigneracademy.org.

If you want to go read all of the books that I've read to make over my mindset when it comes to my inner voice. But I read like old books that have been around for a while, new books, but I think like the few that I'll mention are The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, The Upward Spiral, Chatter,

Psycho-Cybernetics, The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, I read that one again. The Corporate Mystic 2.0, which is by Gay Hendrix, who wrote The Big Leap. What else? So many other ones. And I also read Kathy Heller's Abundance Ever After. I read that in December, actually. Really, really good. Highly recommend.

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and so just so many books helping me to not only understand like not only just fundamentally change the way I think about myself but understand how negative self-talk can actually like create depression and anxiety like it's not necessarily it doesn't necessarily stem from depression and anxiety although it can

can actually create depression and anxiety too. So it's like this vicious cycle and Chatter and The Upward Spiral were two books that really helped me understand like I am harming my brain by continuing to perpetuate this cycle of negative self-talk which is really really interesting. Excuse me and so as you've heard me talk about on the podcast over the past few months what's been the result of all of that?

all of these things that I've been doing. Well, I feel like a different person. Like my anxiety is practically gone. Like it did pop back up in December. I'll talk more about that in my December income report in 2024 year in review. But it was a few weeks instead of, I don't know, a few years. And I could see it for what it was. I didn't believe it even though I still felt it. So huge difference. But before that,

months of not feeling anxious at all. I don't constantly berate myself in my head anymore and I didn't even know that's what that was. I did not know that the way I talked to myself was negative. It was just normal for me and it took other people pointing it out to me at the next level retreat for me to be like, yeah, I could see that. I would never say the things to anyone else in my life.

my students, my family, my friends, my anyone that I would say to myself. And I was like, that's not normal. So I don't constantly berate myself in my head anymore saying things like, you shouldn't have done that. You should know better than that. You're smarter than that. You should be doing it this way. Why aren't you doing that? If you wouldn't have done that, XYZ wouldn't have happened. You did this to yourself. Like, I don't think things like that anymore.

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I don't wake up at 3am with a dread loop going through my brain. I sleep so much better. And if I do wake up at 3am, which I do often because I go to bed at like 8 or 9 and 3am is like a good amount of sleep, when I do wake up, I fall right back asleep. And so because our thoughts create our feelings, drive our actions, create our results, my actions in 2023 were being driven by fear, worry, and anxiety.

which usually creates unwanted results.

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you

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Ahem. Ahem.

So.

So intentionally unwinding that in 2024 as my domino meant that my actions now needed to be driven by wonder, curiosity, openness, willingness, commitment, and patience, which created an entirely different experience for me so that by the time I got to the 2024 Next Level retreat just a few weeks ago in November, and the women there were sharing how they found

Web Designer Academy and their experience and why they joined the Next Level Mastermind and what it meant to them and sharing how they've been able to change their lives as a result of the containers that I created to hold that transformation to them, like for them. Because I changed the way I, my inner self-talk, I was able to finally accept my part.

Ahem.

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Because I changed my inner self talk, I was able to finally accept my part in all of it and receive their gratitude and not deflect their gratitude away because I felt like I wasn't good enough or didn't deserve it. I was able to finally say, yes, I created this and I'm really proud of it and I'm honored that you're here and grateful that you trusted me to help you create this amazing web design business and life.

that you trust me to guide you through to your next level because before I couldn't accept it. My negative self-talk wouldn't let me. I would feel so uncomfortable listening to everybody share like all of the amazing things that they were able to create as a result of the containers that I created. I would not accept responsibility for my part in their story. So

I came into the 2024 retreat feeling whole and worthy and ready to like able to receive that which felt so different and ready for whatever my next level domino would reveal itself to be because even though you might think you know what it is and you have a vision and you have a goal and you have things you want to create because anybody coming into next level mastermind they typically aren't like yeah I don't know I don't know what I

typically have a pretty good idea of what they want. But as most of us in the next level mastermind can attest to what we walk away with our next level domino, the thing that we're going to work on, it's usually not what we think it is. It's not what we our brain, it's not that like goal that our brain thinks we're going to work on when we get there. Because usually the goal we bring into the next level mastermind

is an outcome that we want to create as a result of the domino that we figure out at the retreat and it's usually so much simpler than we think. In fact, the common thing that most next level mastermind members say after uncovering their domino is it can't be that easy, can it? Like their brain is fighting it because it is so simple and yeah it can be that easy. What's not easy

Shannon Mattern (41:23.31)

trying to figure it all out on your own. So at the 2024 retreat we all arrive on Wednesday throughout the day. Staggered people are getting there all day and it's like a super low-key fun getting to know you kind of day and the people who already know each other are so awesome about making sure all the new people feel included right away and then the next day Thursday morning we kick off with everyone sharing what we call their winventory.

which is when every person lists off all the wins they have created in the past year that they're proud of. And so we define wins as actions you have taken that you're proud of, results of those actions that you're proud of, and brag on yourself as much as possible. And it's so fun to see who you're in the room with and how amazing and incredible and powerful they are and what they've created.

and inevitably everyone in the room is like in awe of everyone else and saying things like, my gosh, I want to be like so and so when I grow up. And she's right there in the room with you she's like, okay, cool, pick my brain. I'm an open book. I'll tell you everything I know about like about this topic. And everyone in the room has something unique to offer everyone else. And that's how we kick it off. And then we work through the next level framework together over the next two days. And some people are doing it for the first time.

others for the third or fourth time because there's always a next level. Next level. There's always another layer of the onion to peel back. The work never ends. You've never arrived. It evolves with you. And so we did that work on Thursday and Friday. By the end of the day on Friday, we had all keyed in on our domino. The one thing that will help us create our big vision faster and easier and our break.

which is how we get in our way and slow ourselves down. It's usually core belief about the way the world works that causes us to like get in our own way and then a counteracting mantra to remind ourselves when we notice that we're putting on the break or when our peers in the mastermind notice that we're putting on the break that we get to remind ourselves of like the truth of the way the world works or the truth of who we really are or give us permission to do a certain thing.

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The really cool thing about this mastermind, the 2024 one, is that on Saturday, our first session of the morning, we had hypnotherapist Lauren Best come and do a hypnotherapy session, which she has been on the podcast before and she did a hypnotherapy session with me live on the podcast, which was incredible. Then she came back on the show to like debrief what happened to me.

And so she, after that, I was like, this needs to happen in next level, come to our mastermind. And so she did a virtual session with us. And it was basically designed to help make our subconscious, make our nervous system feel even safer to take our foot off the brake, which was almost like a little shortcut fast track for all of us. And she called it our permission slip. And so

I think of it as like editing that place in our subconscious mind that automatically puts the brake on to make us feel like we have control. And so I feel like that session was a little bit like, let's like reshape that neural pathway so that we don't automatically put our foot on the brake, but we take a second and we decide, like, do we need to put our foot on the brake or not?

so we did that on Saturday. And then Saturday afternoon, we had a photographer come in and she did a little photo shoot for every person that was there. The house was beautiful. So everyone got beautiful photos. Some people got photos on the beach. Some people got group shots. It was so fun, especially for those of us who are like, hate having my picture taken. You had like

other people there making you laugh in the background and we just truly we got the photos back and I'm like these are the best pictures of everyone I've like of all of us like we all looked so natural and authentic and it was really cool and so we had a photographer there because that's what everybody wanted. They asked for that so we did that so we'll do different things every year we won't always have a photographer but it just depends on what the mastermind members want so

Shannon Mattern (46:02.246)

All of that is to say it was a magical, magical experience. I feel like delightfully selfish that I like get to do that for my job quote unquote my job. And what came up for me at the next level mastermind because I do the work too and this ties back to what I said earlier about how my revenue was lower in November because I didn't do any dedicated promotions or offers because it was too jam-packed with other stuff, my next level vision.

the same thing I've talked about on this podcast. Like my day-to-day life, I'm living the dream life that I dreamed up 10 years ago when I wanted to quit my day job. Like I created that. Like I am, I sit and I think back to that version of myself that's like, is this it? This can't be it. Like I can't work this day job for the rest of my life. I want freedom to

do all of these things and I set, I created a list of goals and I literally have met or exceeded every single one of the those things that I dreamt of 10 years ago. So my day to day life, I just feel in so much gratitude for what I have created. My next level vision is creating more inflow into this business and I've talked about it before, 40k revenue months, just like as a rule.

which means I'm helping way more people wake up every day and also say, how is this my life? That is my goal. And I think it's a pretty modest vision in the grand scheme of things. That's about a half a million dollar business. There are businesses out there that make way, way more money than that. And I've created that in the past. It's totally doable. And I just sit and I think about $40,000 in inflow every single month. What?

an impact that would allow us to create in the business. How many more people would that give me the capacity to help? And it's totally doable and my long-term vision is becoming more clear and it's way bigger than that and I'll talk more about that in my 2024 year in review but out of that vision came my 2024 next level domino. The one thing that when I commit to it will bring my vision to fruition

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faster and easier, like for me, is to just be willing to ask for help and be willing to pay for help, to invest in help. So if I allowed for help, if the way I planned projects and was like, if the way I planned projects was from the perspective of there are going to be people helping me with this, instead of planning them from the perspective of I'm going to be doing this all of my all by myself.

then I, 1000%, could have promoted something in November and ran the retreat and gotten ready for our December year in promotion and celebrated my 45th birthday. Like that didn't take any time at all. We just went out to dinner. But and Thanksgiving, you know, and my husband's birthday and all my other friends birthdays, because we all, I don't know, have November birthdays for some reason. And, and, and. And so, like, and getting all of my December podcast episodes right, like there's just so many things.

that happen to keep the business running and I run it from a me-centric place where all of the projects I plan are determined solely by my capacity to see them through. And so why do I do that? And like don't get me wrong like I am a like I like to work. I love what I do. It doesn't feel like work. I'm pretty like

organized, I'm pretty powerful, I can get a lot done. Like, I can get in the zone and get a lot done. I don't have kids. So there's that, there's that right there. Like, I have a lot of time to get a lot of things done, but it's all being done just in time, not ahead of time. And other things that only I can do get backburnered for all of these other things. And so like, what I discovered

I think I've known this in some way for a while but I've never really explored it in a deep way that I did at the Next Level Retreat. I have my foot on the break in a big big way and what we uncovered for me at the Next Level Retreat is that I do as much as I can possibly do myself because deep deep down I have a core belief that says if I rely on someone else I will lose my choices and lose my autonomy.

Shannon Mattern (50:49.14)

If I rely on myself, I will lose my choices and lose my autonomy. And it is the core reason why I have never successfully filled an operations role on my team. It's had many, many names, many versions, many position descriptions, several different people on it over the years. And absolutely, external factors have affected the role, like just our no good, very bad 2023 revenue year.

But what the next level framework process revealed to me is that if I didn't have a core belief that if I rely on other people, I could lose my autonomy, I would have allowed all of the, the person, the people in that role to do their job well. And well before we got into financial trouble in 2023, and things could have looked different, that role could have very likely weathered the storm with me had I allowed

that role in its various forms over the years to operate the way logically I wanted it to operate but I had I have a big assumption in the way I have my foot on the brake and so uncovering your break also known as your big assumption this work comes from my friend Alicia St. Germain of the Conscious Edge she hosts the Conscious Edge podcast definitely go listen to it

The work that she does and facilitates and teaches is called immunity to change. It was developed by Harvard University professors and so it's like a science backed, research backed methodology that helps you figure out where you get in your way when you set goals. And so it's not just not just something that like I made up.

right? It's like legit and that's why that's why we have it as part of our our next level framework process because it's legit and so like uncovering your big assumption and seeing how it gets in the way of your goals it's fascinating it's a fascinating process if you are willing to look at it if you're looking willing to look at where you get in your own way and I love seeing my blind spots.

Shannon Mattern (53:15.782)

I love seeing where I'm getting in my own way. Sometimes I'm not ready to see it. People have been telling me this in one way or another for a long time and I haven't been ready to see it. And going through this process, like you can't not face it when you go through this this process that we do in the Next Level Framework. And so finally willing to see.

other people have been trying to tell me for a long time and now it is so so clear to me how that core belief of if I rely on someone else I'll lose my choices and autonomy has gotten in my way over the years. I know exactly where it comes from in my past. It is so clear and so obvious and so almost it's almost laughable like and I and the gift of hindsight. I love hindsight.

because like being able to look back with hindsight helps you move forward with clarity. I see how it plays out in my business, in my life, in my relationships. I see how it keeps me gripping so tightly to the illusion of control which keeps me small and closed off and not open to the magic, the alchemy of what happens when you meet new people, have more smart brains in the room and more rich experiences in the room when you

meet someone and get connected with them and their network and people who are just like you and genuinely want to help. It is so hard for me to allow other people to help me. It is hard for me to receive because the scared part of my brain tells me that there will be strings attached or that the rug will be pulled out from under me when I least expect it and that belief has me doing so many things.

It has me stockpiling resources for the day the rug gets pulled instead of investing in people in relationships that are just as excited about the vision as I am and not trying to control them and just letting them be who they are and if they decide to leave cool, that's fine. It has me closed off to receiving anything for fear that there'll be a quid pro quo and I'll lose autonomy instead of just being open and willing and generous.

Shannon Mattern (55:35.954)

And the funny thing about seeing where you put on the brakes is like you see how it pops up in all areas of your life. like my husband said to me when I was talking to him about like my next level goal and like the domino and all of the things, he was like, yeah, he was like very early on in our relationship. You made it very clear that you would not accept my help with anything. And I'm like, yeah.

can totally see that. because it doesn't feel safe to fully trust, to fully receive, to fully allow, to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak, I'll keep everyone and everything at arm's length and do it all myself and then also try to control and manage how they think and how they feel about me so that I can stay safe. And so what that looks like is that like take our client success coordinator Erica for example. I trust her a thousand percent.

she is an amazing human. I'm totally cool with her having full autonomy over the client success part of her job but then I'll tell myself well I can't ask her for help with this because it's not in her job description or I don't want to ask her for too much because I don't want her to think I'm taking advantage of her. I don't want her to feel overwhelmed. So how does that play into like me losing autonomy or my choices? Like on the face of it it just sounds like I'm being nice right?

Well, how that plays out is like, well, if Erica like no longer likes me or respects me, then I could lose her as a team member and I no longer have the choice of having her on the team. So I'm trying to like control by like not asking for help. Does that make sense? So another way it plays out is like, like if

I'll think if I rely on this person and then I give them some of my resources for them to help me, then I now have less resources for the inevitable day when the rug will be pulled out from under me, it will be all on me and I'll need the resources, all the resources I need that I can stockpile to get through it. And so I know it sounds bananas and logically it makes no sense and logically it sounds nice that I'd be like, yeah, I don't want to like burden my team member.

Shannon Mattern (57:58.28)

but that's not what's really going on, right? And so it's not something I've been consciously aware of until the next level framework process at the retreat brought it to my conscious awareness. And now I'm just noticing it all over the place. what came out of, so, know, my goal, like my next level goal is to just ask, right? And my permission slip.

came out of the hypnotherapy session with Lauren is to just ask and allow other people to be adults and say yes or no and it's to just receive and think the best intentions of the person who is giving instead of being worried about some hidden ulterior motive that I'm worried will come back to bite me someday and like just receive and then if the person does ask for something I have full autonomy to decide what I'm going how I'm going to respond to.

It's to allow things to go however they're going to go and trust that I'm resilient and stop trying to prevent hard things from happening because with all of that control to prevent the hard things from happening, I'm preventing the good things too. The good things that I could never have dream, dreamt up on my own, right? So, because the truth is like when I remind myself of the truth, every hard thing I've ever gone through, I got through. My husband said that to me, like,

recently in the past six months he reminded me every hard thing you've ever gone through you got through and I didn't get through any of it alone other people helped me through every single one of the hard things I've gotten through so I get to be willing to part with my resources strategically like I talked about back in episode 107 about how to make financial decisions in your business with confidence but to ask just ask to ask for help

to ask for connections, to ask for introductions, to ask people who I would think would never come on my podcast to come on my podcast and not care what like happens after the ask, right? To not make the answer mean something. To not care if the rug does get pulled out from under me, if the basket with all my eggs disappears. There's always a floor under the rug.

Shannon Mattern (01:00:16.308)

There's always more eggs on the way and there are always so many people willing to help me get back up. And so my 2025 domino is to just ask, to be willing to part with my resources, to receive help, to let other people be adults and make their own decisions and not make that mean anything about me, to not try to...

be nice or whatever to try to like get the response that I want or to try to like keep myself from experiencing rejection or something hard or someone's answer making me feel some type of way and to just ask and to trust and so that's my next level for 2025.

and you will hear me talk about it a lot going forward starting with my December income report because I took action on it immediately when I got home. There was something that had been bothering me that made me feel out of alignment in a way and that was giving Erica a salary increase. She's a W2 employee of my company. She'll have been on the team for three years, March of 2025, and after

we had a financially challenging 2023 where I had to lay off another team member and assume like all of their responsibilities. I didn't do a salary increase in March of 2024 so I hadn't given her a salary increase since March of 2023 and that felt terrible to me and I think that was one of the reasons why I was like also holding back on asking for the help that I needed

because I just didn't feel like I was in integrity, like asking for more without compensating for it. So I just felt like that move, like coming back and doing that immediately really started to open up the door for me and now I'm noticing what I'm noticing now every time I want to ask for help I'll think something like, but I don't want them to think that, but I like, so I'll think about, you know,

Shannon Mattern (01:02:39.76)

asking like delegating something to Erica. When I say delegating meaning like do you have the capacity to take this on with all of the rest of the things that I've given you? So when I think about it I'm like but I don't want her to think that or asking a friend for an introduction but I don't want them to think that or reaching out to pitch someone to be on my podcast but I don't want them to think and then I catch myself and I'm like nope you do not get to control what other people think. Just ask

them think whatever they want and decide whatever they want and that is it. You know you're in integrity. You know you're not like with fixing my negative self-talk. I know that I'm not a bad person and that I'm not trying to like harm anyone and so I get to just ask. So 2025 will be the year of just asking.

and deconstructing my big assumption that relying on others gives me less autonomy and I cannot wait to see what I create and it's not just asking for help but asking for collaborations, sponsorships, partnerships, new students. It's a proactive thing and it's also really vulnerable. So the next level retreat was the big thing that happened in November.

And by the way, if you're like, I don't want to, I want to join next level, I don't want to have to wait all the way till November of 2025 to go through that. We take you through that, through the next level framework and finding your domino and your break and all of those things, like the moment you join. And then you get to just do it again at the retreat. So don't let something like that hold you back from learning more about working with us in next level. So just go to webdesigneratacademy.com forward slash next level to learn more about that.

Let's see, the other thing that happened in November that was really big, aside from me turning 45, that's a big deal. Um oh yeah, so the the other thing that I want to tell you about. I was having coffee with Josh Hall in October and I asked him what his vision was for his business in five years because we were like talking, I was like oh my god I'm turning 45 this month. I'm like in five years I'll be 50. Like that sounds crazy.

Shannon Mattern (01:05:00.084)

I still feel like I'm 25. I'm like, what do you, I was like, I have no idea what the Web Designer Academy, what all this will look like in five years. Like, what do you think, what's your vision, you know, Josh, for your business in five years? And he's like, just keep growing pro, which is his Web Designer Pro membership. And so his vision is like, stay the course, just keep growing pro, keep adding members.

keep serving them at a super high level, which I have no doubt Josh will like blow his current vision out of the water because he's such a good human and he's building like a community that I feel like is just as essential to any web design, web designers business as I don't know, like a laptop. Like the community he is building over at Web Designer Pro is incredible. I hear it from

people that are in Pro. My team member Erica Nash has helped Josh with some things. I talk to Josh every month. I know how much he cares and how hard he works for that. So the Pro membership is like just another incredible tool to have in your toolbox. People always ask me like, is it different from the Web Designer Academy? There are two very different programs. It's not an either or, it's a both and. If...

you're like trying to decide like it's definitely a both and but so we're talking and he's like my vision for five years just keep growing pro I'm like that's amazing and I'm like man in five years I'm gonna be 50 like it's hard to imagine being 50 I still feel like I'm 25 and then I was like thinking I'm like am I even gonna be relevant at 50 is any of this gonna be relevant at 50?

then we're at the hypnosis session at the next level retreat and part of this hypnosis session was like our future self coming to tell us what we needed to know or something like that and in that session I saw myself and I was at least 50. I was probably closer to 60 and I looked so elegant and so classy.

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and I looked older for sure and I could tell from that vision that I had like definitely grown into like a different more wise version of myself and I loved seeing that because like a lot right now at age 45 just like a lot of women my age are doing so many things to like look young and no shade like you do you I get botox here and there I love to wear makeup I like to take care of my skin

I wasn't such a baby about needles and pain maybe I'd even get the courage someday to like you know bring back my upper lip that's disappeared in the past 10 years. Who knows? But like I'm not super into that type of thing and this older version of me was not like an aesthetically enhanced filtered version of me. She was like a legit beautiful older woman who was aging naturally.

it felt like she was a force and like she was nowhere near done and thinking about her now I get the sense that like she traveled a lot, she spoke on stages, she was a published author, and like what made me even think about this now is that the day before I wrote this income report I was like reading this article about Mel Robbins who just came out with a new book called Let Them which I haven't read yet but I'm sure before my December income report I will have read it and

course I know she who she is, everybody knows who she is and I've listened to her podcast here and there but I haven't read any of her books yet. I'm sure by the next income report I'll be like yeah I've read them all. But A, she's 55 and I'm like okay that's what this could look like for me in 10 years. Like I could create a lot in 10 years and B, she has a team of 17 people. Seventeen people which means

I'm guessing she lets people help her. I'm guessing she just asks. And so that made me think like, okay, I'm starting to see like the next version of like what this could be. And I don't even have to know what it could look like. But what I do know is that I have to just ask and let people help me. So anyway, that's what I've been thinking about.

Shannon Mattern (01:09:33.886)

That's going to be my theme for 2025 is Just Ask and I will keep you updated via our monthly income reports and all of the things because how you do money is how you do everything and it's all tied together. that's all I got for you. So thank you so, much for listening and I'll see you back here next week. Bye.