Defining YOUR Flow Business

What if you could create a business that not only brought you financial success but also joy and fulfillment? Welcome back to another episode of the Flow Business Podcast, where we’ll show you how you can create a business that complements your life, rather than complicates it. We’ll be unraveling the secrets behind a thriving flow business, and how understanding your unique personality type can pave the way towards a business that feels good, fun, and wonderfully flowy. Get ready to take notes, ask yourself some tough questions, and begin crafting your very own flow business. 

In the first half of this episode, we delve into the specifics of your flow business vision. We’ll be asking questions about where you’ll work, what you’ll do, who you’ll work with, and even what kind of content you’ll create. The aim is to give you a vivid image of your future business, something tangible that you can strive for. And then, we’ll explore the concept of “flow dials” – elements in your business that bring joy and create an attractive energy. I’ll be sharing my own flow dials and how they’ve helped shape my business into the success it is today.

As we wrap up this episode, prepare to take a quick and insightful quiz that will reveal your flow business personality type. Understanding your unique type is crucial in helping you prioritize your activities and ensures that you are operating in areas that you truly love. This is not just another podcast episode to listen to, but rather a session to actively engage with. So, grab your journal and join me on this exciting journey of crafting a flow business that is as unique and amazing as you are!

Niche Confident Course – shawnmynar.com/niche

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hey, hey there, friends, Welcome back to the Flow Business Podcast. I’m Shawn, your host, and this is your place to create a business that complements your life, not complicates it, that feels good and fun and juicy and flowy. That’s what we’re doing over here Now. In the last episode, i introduced you to the concept of a flow business. I kind of explained why this was the next era for this show and where we’re moving things. And now the next step and what we’re going to do today is to help you figure out what your own flow business looks and feels like, what that means to you and how you can use that to understand what you should and shouldn’t be doing in your business, for your business, to grow your business, what will work, what won’t, just simply based on what you want, what you desire, what feels good to you. So that’s what’s coming up in this episode. One quick announcement I want to share with you, a really big one, a really fun one. I gosh back probably six to eight months ago. Everything kind of is rolling into one long stretch, but a while ago I created a course called Niche Confident, and it is all about my entire process, this kind of five step process for figuring out and defining your niche, or niche or dream client or ideal customer whatever you want to call it which, as I think we all know or can guess, that is the very first step to building your business. You’ve got to know who you want to work with, who specifically you want to help, and that’s also a big sticking point for a lot of people and something that really keeps them from potentially ever getting started or ever really making any big moves in their business is because they’re just stuck on who that dream client is, who that person is, who they want to help, who they feel comfortable helping and getting all of that defined and figured out for themselves. So I created a course called Niche Confident to help you do that. Well, guess what? This week only, which if you’re listening to this, when it airs it is mid July 2023. This week only, it is free. I have been selling it for the past six, seven, eight months for $97. Right now it is free and you can head to it, shawnmynar.com, slash niche and ICHE to grab your free access to the niche confident course. I’m also going to be offering free reviews of your niche so you can send your dream client statement to me. I will review it, give you some suggestions, some tweaks, let you know what I think in terms of it being specific enough, relatable enough, if it’s where we really want to be with your niche statement, and I will do that for you for free, for the next week as well. So this week only coming up that we are coming into mid July 2023. This is your chance to figure out and finally get confident in your niche for free. So head over to shawnmynar.com, slash niche and ICHE to get your free access into that course. All right, let’s talk about your flow business. This episode is very much an action oriented episode. This is a training for you. Think of it that way. This is something that you are going to need to do real work around. You can’t just well, you can please do listen to this episode while you’re on a walk or working out or in the car, making dinner or whatever, but then also know that you will probably have to go back and listen to this again when you have some time in front of your computer or at your desk or in your bed with your journal, to where you can do more of what we’re trying to do here, where you can really take action with this, because there are some questions you need to ask yourself and you do have some real good, solid, well thought out answers to, and then those answers are what will create your flow business. So, like really important stuff here, good, solid work to be done, really well used time, i would say, for you to actually take this seriously and go back and listen to this episode. Listen to it once, just through. I think that would be helpful too, because then you can know the steps and the process ahead of you. But then go back and really answer those questions as they come up and that will create your flow business. Okay, so first a little backstory on this. So I don’t know if you all are familiar with Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. My wife has been following him for a long time and always wanted to get me into his work. Now, as you may know, if you’ve been here on this show for a while, and if not, then I’m going to tell you right now I very much live from an abundance mindset. I have worked through a lot of money blocks in my life that have shaped a lot of my decisions in the past and really worked through that and spent a lot of time on that and now really focus and really create my life from this abundance mindset. Now, all of that being said, i’m a pretty aggressive saver and investor. I don’t spend a lot of money. That’s just not something. I just like. Things that cost a lot of money generally don’t provide a whole lot of happiness for me. I’m more of an experienced type person instead of like a things person, so I don’t spend a bunch of money unless it’s on like a vacation or you know something like that. But at the same time, I really don’t like a budget. I think budgets are very restrictive. They come from a place of lack and scarcity and that’s not how I live my life and that’s not the mindset that I’ve now created for myself, after spending basically my whole life in a lack mindset up until now. And so when my wife comes to me and we are now married and we’re combining finances and all that stuff, and she points me to Ramit Sethi She’s followed him for 10 years and she says we got to, you know, create this, create our budgets or whatever And I’m like nope, not doing it, like totally closed off. But then he happens to come out with a Netflix show called How to Get Rich, and this was a couple months ago, and so I started watching it with my wife and I’m like totally drawn to it. I love him, i love it, i love his coaching, i love the concept, i love it all. Like it totally changed my thoughts around. Like money coaching, i guess you could say And you know it’s not, he doesn’t believe in budgets either. He’s more so about creating your rich life and figuring out what that means for you. Everyone’s rich life is different And being able to spend your money on those things that mean something to you And don’t spend your money on those things that don’t. And figuring out, kind of, where you’re spending and where you’re saving and what you could allocate differently to truly live your rich life. So I’m kind of giving him a little bit of a commercial here, which he totally deserves. It’s great And you should all go check it out. So watch that Netflix show. Got really into his philosophy. And then you know, we sat down and thought about our rich life and what that means and what that looks like for us. We created our conscious spending plan, which is his version of budgets, but in your rich life way, and which in all of this, just made me feel so differently about money and budgets and just really feeling like I could live this abundant life while also still having these things that I’m working towards and saving and being responsible and not spending money on things I don’t actually care about but then really spending a lot on things I do care about. And it just changed my relationship with, like money, coaching and budgeting and that kind of thing. All these things I had kind of stories around in my head from my previous life of lack and restriction and all that stuff when it comes to money. But then at the same time, while I’m going through all this, i’m really realizing how similar it is to what I do in business, what I believe about business, what I teach about business, and how similar our philosophies are just in different areas of life His with money, mine with business, and so really all of this to say I’m going to kind of piggyback off of Remiit’s rich life theory and use it to discuss your flow business. So if you do go and check out Remiit’s work and you see how he has everything set up and you’re like, oh, Shawn’s talking about this very similarly Yes, i am, i’m just this is my disclaimer right here, right now. I’m not copying, i’m just using this to piggyback off of and use that philosophy to kind of shift it into your business. You can use it for money, you can use it for business, you can probably use it for like every area of your life. So I just want to put that disclaimer out there now and give you the backstory. So today we are going to define your flow business, we are going to figure out your flow dials And then we’re going to link those two together to discover your flow focuses. Okay, so three big steps here. When I ask people why they want a business or why they want to start a business, the answers are usually pretty similar And very much of it revolves around one thing, and that is freedom, the big F word that we all want out of our business. Time freedom, financial freedom, schedule freedom, location freedom all of that sounds so great. So it sounds like I want more time for my kids, for myself, for my family, for my hobbies. I want to make my own schedule. I want to work for myself. I don’t want a boss telling me what to do anymore. I want to make more money than I could at my job. I want to be able to work from anywhere so I can travel while I work, and I want to make money doing something I love. Any of those ring true for you, probably, and that’s okay. These are all great and true and good and wonderful. But for your flow business, we got to go deeper. This is still way too broad, and when things like this aren’t specific enough or real enough, it’s not enough to keep driving you forward, it’s not enough to keep you flowing down that river, especially when things get inevitably hard or uncomfortable or scary. See, it’s not enough because it’s still too big, and when it’s that big or that out there, it seems far away, it might even seem, in the back of your mind, too good to be true, and so the drive to make it happen doesn’t last because of the vagueness or the vagueness or the lack of specificity. So, for your flow business, the very first step is to define it like, really truly envision it and get specific with it to the point where you can almost feel it like it’s right there. So it’s time to find out what is really important to you, like really important, And what isn’t important to you. There might be things that you think your business needs to do for you that you actually don’t really care about that much. And what is that? What do you really want And what don’t you care about? Why do you really want it And what does that really look like for you? And what doesn’t it look like? And this is where it becomes your flow business, which is going to be totally different than anyone else’s. It’s not going to be like my flow business or your best friend’s flow business or those people you’re following on Instagram’s flow business. It is yours and yours alone, and it’s really fulfilling and refreshing when you realize that your business doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s and it’s not going to and it’s not meant to. And if you don’t really care about things that people are telling you you quote unquote should care about, then cool, don’t care about them and build a business around what you do care about, which is likely something totally different. So, for example, your flow business could mean meeting with clients one on one every day, monday through Friday, until that 3pm time marker hits, when your kids get home from school, and then you don’t touch your computer or think about your business until the next morning. It could mean traveling the country in a van while running your group program every quarter. It could be building an eight figure empire and managing a full team of 20 to make that empire happen. It could be creating a side hustle for some extra cash while keeping your full time job that you love. It’s all about what that looks like for you. So the first step today is to create your flow business vision. I want you to get that vision of you living out your dream business where everything is flowing and feels good and it’s fun and you’re really thoroughly enjoying it. Everything you want is coming together The income, the impact, the audience, the platforms Everything that you’ve been wanting your business to do is working. Get that vision in your head now in vivid detail, not just general. We’re not going general with this. We’re getting specific, because specificity drives you forward. It will keep you going with the flow instead of stopping or turning around and going against the current. So this is what will drive us creating your flow business vision. So what does that look like in as clear and specific language as possible? So where are you working? Are you working from a coffee shop? Are you on a beach with your laptop? Are you in your cozy home office? Are you traveling around the world or traveling in a van around the country? Where are you working And what are you doing when you are working? Are you on a computer? Are you in person, face to face, with your clients? Are you traveling around to different potential clients? What are you doing in that time that you are working? Maybe you’re creating content, maybe you’re recording a podcast, maybe you’re hosting a workshop, or maybe you’re hosting a group coaching call. What are you doing? Who are you working with? Are you working by yourself? Are you working with your life partner, because you have built this business together? Are you working with a team? Do you have an assistant? Who are you working with? How many clients do you have? So, are you working with a handful of clients? Do you have hundreds of clients? Do you have thousands of clients? What does it look like? the work that you are doing with the people that you want to help? How many of them are there And what are you working on with them? How are you working with them? Get clear on all of that. How many people are in your audience? And, just for reference, as a reminder, i consider audience people on your email list in your social media channels, listening to your podcast, reading your blog posts on your YouTube channel, whatever it is. How many people are in your audience in your community? Is it hundreds, thousands, millions? get as specific as you feel comfortable getting here. Just pick a number. Pick a number that feels good, like you would feel like oh, my business is humming along. I have this many people in my audience in my community, and how are you connecting with those people? What do you do to connect with them? Do you have a podcast with you? Connect with them? Do you have a podcast? Do you send out emails? How often do you send out emails? What kind of response do you get to these kinds of platforms that you’re using to connect with your audience? Do you get DMs about what you’re putting out? Do you get replies to your emails? Do you get reviews of your podcast? You know? really get specific on what’s coming in in response to how you’re connecting with your people. What kind of content do you create? What topics do you talk about in your content? How do you get that content out into the world? What’s your schedule like? That’s a big one. When do you work? How often do you work? And another biggie what do you do when you’re not working? What do you now have time for because you’ve built this flow business that works perfectly with your desires? What do you now get to do because you have time for it? Get specific in that area, too. Ok, so this is going to be the part that you can come back to when you have time and you have pen and paper or you have a document in front of you on your computer that you can really truly answer all of these questions. So this isn’t just about kind of casually thinking about it as I’m talking and as you’re doing something else, i’m sure, while listening to this episode. This is about really taking this step in your business to do this work. So getting that vision in your head, that really vivid, clear vision of your flow business, and then also writing it down. The second piece of writing it down is just as important as creating that vision in your mind. So writing it down And then, ideally, you’re putting that somewhere close by on your desk or in your office or somewhere that you can go back and reference that when things start to get hard which they will when things start to feel scary which they will when you get overwhelmed or when you come up against a roadblock or something’s not going the way that you hoped it would, you come back to that because this is your flow business. This is why you’re doing what you’re doing Now. The next step is to discover your flow dials, and I don’t know if I mentioned this when I was talking about Ramit Sethi’s work and how it kind of inspired this conversation, but he has money dials where you figure out what you love to spend money on and then you work to be able to turn the dial up in those areas of your life where you love spending money on things and it really means something to you and it helps with you living your rich life. So we’re going to do the same thing here, but with your business and your flow dials. So your flow dials are things you love doing, ways you love spending your time and energy in your business that bring positive results to your business. Now, that last bit I had to put it in there because it’s important. It is not like creating content that I never share with anyone or spending all day designing my logo in Canva. Yeah, those things are fun. Maybe you enjoy spending a lot of time in Canva and doing all that stuff. But those aren’t part of a flow business because they aren’t keeping the business moving. They are characteristics of a still or stuck business, which we are no longer a part of, right? So what do you love doing in your business that also has a positive outcome for your business? So, like what sounds fun? When do you lose track of time? Like you’re working on something and you spend like hours and it feels like it’s been minutes. You just totally got lost in what you were doing. What would you spend more time on if you could, if you had more time, if you had more resources, if you had more clients, if you had a bigger audience, whatever it is, what would you like to spend more time on? And so, in that vision of your flow business, what are you doing? What do you see yourself happily spending time on? These are your flow dials and these are the things that you’re going to want to turn up in your business. Turn that dial up. You want to prioritize them. Spend more time and energy on them, because when you do that will have a greater impact on your business, because it’s something that you love, and just even energetically, how you infuse the things that you love doing, the energy that’s infused in that is a positive, attractive energy. So just that alone is really important. But also, when you’re doing something that you love, the quality of the work is so much better too. I mean, i think we can all agree that when you’re doing something because you feel like you have to, or you’re supposed to, or you should, it is not, it doesn’t come across as well as when you have just gotten in the flow and really created something that felt good and fun and right. It’s just, it’s different, right. I think we can all agree with that. So that’s what we want to spend more time doing, and again, that is going to look different for everyone. So here are some examples just general examples of what some of your flow dials could be Working with clients, posting on social media, showing up on Instagram stories, podcasting, creating videos, writing emails, blogging, coaching and or teaching, speaking engagements, networking, connecting with your community, creating courses or paid content, hosting workshops. So those are just a few examples of some things that you could enjoy doing for your business and in your business. Some of my flow dials, just to give you some more examples in my business personally teaching, both live and recorded. I love to teach, i love to share what I have learned, and so that is something I highly prioritize in my business. I also love podcasting, which is why I’m here right now with you. I like writing the notes, i like doing the research, i like thinking about the topics that I’m going to share and getting all of that kind of figured out and worked out, and then I also love recording the episodes. Now, i don’t love really anything after that. I don’t love show notes, i don’t love editing, i don’t love any of that. So that is something I actually have someone help me with. Chris, who is probably listening to this right now, is helping me with that part of my podcast, because that’s something I don’t enjoy and isn’t a good use of my time, and he does. Another one of my flow dials is writing weekly emails, letting myself just write in my voice as it comes out and just letting that all flow based on what I’m feeling, what I’m vibing, what comes up for me that week, what’s important that week. And just chatting with you all via email is also something I really enjoy and something I turn up in my business. Connecting with my community. I love having a private group. I love having office hours with my bundle members. I love connecting in DMs and via email. I just love chatting with you all one-on-one, and I would love to do more of that. So hit me up, just send me a message. I really do want to hear from you and we’ll absolutely get back to you. So feel free to connect with me. And then my last flow dial that I have written here that’s important is organic social media. Now, this was something I had to really shift my perspective in over the years, especially those moments when it feels forced and whatever. That’s, when I’m like, nope, not doing this, because it can start feeling that way, i think for all of us. But I really have embraced this idea of just showing up on social media when it feels good, not forcing it when it doesn’t feel right or good or I feel like I’m trying to force something to say or force something to post, and also not relying on it for my business. And as soon as I could get away from the idea that what I do on social media or don’t do on social media and the amount of followers I get and likes I have and all that stuff matters to my business, as soon as I was able to cut that cord. Then I had this really great relationship with it and it became a flow dial of mine, because I do enjoy posting on social media when it’s organic, when it feels good and is fun and not forced. So that is now a flow dial of mine that I turn up in my business. So you can see that your flow dials may be nothing like mine, they may be the complete opposite of mine, and that is okay too. But it’s important for you to figure out what those are. What are the things you wanna turn up your time and energy on in your business? spending more time and energy on those things because they’re fun, they feel good, they let you up, they have a positive impact on your business. So you figure those out and if you are in the stage where you haven’t done some of this stuff or a lot of this stuff before, so you don’t really know well, then The answer is to try, try them. Think about the things that you think might sound fun or most fun, most appealing to you, and give it a try. Try recording a podcast, see how it goes. Try writing a blog post, see how it goes And feel into them, and that helps you define how you want to be spending your time. But just trying to go by what everyone’s telling you to do or what you think you should do is probably not going to get you there. You have to experiment for yourself and try different things. And hey, guess what? You can record a podcast episode and never put it out into the world. If you do it and it doesn’t feel fun, you don’t like it. And same thing goes for a blog post or a video for YouTube or whatever. Just go through the process of actually doing it, as if you have that in your business, and see how it feels. See how it goes. Now, of course, it’s not going to be like smooth sailing if your first ever podcast recording or YouTube video recording, it’s not going to be smooth sailing, but can you see yourself enjoying that process on a regular basis and continuing to do that? And then, if so, then that is a flow dial that you are going to be turning up and turning on in your business, and if you don’t, then you don’t move on to the next thing and find some things that you do enjoy. Now the last step is to connect these two. So now you have that vision of how you want your business to look when it truly is your flow business. And now you have these dials of the things that you enjoy doing, that feel good doing, that bring a positive impact to your business. Now we connect the dots between those two and those become your focuses or really like your action steps or your to-do list for your flow business. So, as an example, let’s say one of your flow dials is teaching and coaching And your flow business vision is to work while traveling the world and taking weeks off at a time. So then how can you use that dial to create that vision? So that’s really what we’re doing and that’s what I mean when I say you’re connecting the dots. How can you use those dials that you just figured out to create that vision that you now have? So your flow business focus might be something like serving my clients through online programs and courses, because you know that with online programs and courses, you are teaching and coaching, but you still have that flexibility and the time off to travel the world and take weeks off at a time. So that is the connector. That is how it’s all going to come together to be your flow business. So another example if you love creating videos and your business vision has you connecting with your 10,000 person engaged Instagram followers. Then how can you use your love of video to do that? And the answer, or your flow business focus, is to create engaging, educational video content on Instagram to grow your audience. So you love creating videos and part of your flow business vision was to have this engaged, loyal Instagram following. Well, then, you can use your love of video to get there to create that vision. Another example let’s say you love podcasting and your flow business vision has you connecting with people through DMs or emails and really just having these nice juicy conversations with people one on one. Then how can you use your podcast to connect deeper with people? Well, maybe it’s being my real raw self on my podcast episodes to encourage connection from my audience. So that is going to be your focus. So now you can see you have these action steps that connect everything you love to do with this business that you love, so you can have the whole flow set up and now you know what to spend your time on. That will still feel really good to you. So that is your third step in this process And, as you can see, it is something you’re going to have to spend time on. It is something for you to get out a piece of paper and really do this whole process And especially this part where you’re trying to connect the dots and figure out how you should really be spending your time in your business. Like that’s a huge deal. So take this seriously And, like I said, go back and listen to these portions of the episode. If you need more time and you want to be able to do this, when you have some paper in front of you totally understandable, but these are just starting to get your juices flowing and then you can go back and actually do it at another time. So, as an example in my business, for my focuses, one of them is to create step by step digital programs, courses and workshops that my clients can get access to at any time to work on when it’s best for them. And I can work on when it’s best for me because part of my flow business vision is this really flexible schedule with free time when I want it or need it, and so this allows me to do it. But also a big part of my vision is to create really simplified systems to help my clients get their results. I really love simplifying everything. I guess it’s a dial to really something I love doing. So, then, creating these step by step digital programs allows me to do that. All of that at once. Another example I can share with you of mine bring my best real self to the podcast and put out the most valuable free content I can to as many people as possible, encouraging a deeper connection with me and my work. So, obviously, podcasting is something that I love to do, as I mentioned, and a big part of my vision is to reach a large number of people, as many people as possible, in a very real, authentic way and have a real, authentic connection with as many of those people as possible hopefully all of them And the podcast is a way to help me do that. So that is my driver, that is my focus and my way to make that flow business a reality. Okay, so I hope that makes sense. Seeing all of these different kinds of examples will hopefully get you thinking about it in that way, and then, really, the last step to this is just to start living it now. Your flow business isn’t a far off destination that maybe you’ll get to after you’ve gotten a certain number of clients or made a specific amount of money or have a certain number of followers. It is happening right, this very moment, and you get to and need to live it now. So those focuses that we now created for your business, those are your action steps to get you there, starting right now, not later, not next year, not once some magical marker happens. Right now. Your flow. Business is happening now, whether you want it or not, whether you are ready for it or not. This is your chance to embrace it and to make it happen, instead of continuing to push it away or to stall or to stop in the middle of that river and try to move against the current or try to stay still against the current. Just go with the current. It is the easiest path, right, it is the most fun path, the path of least resistance, and you get to live that now. So just get started, do this work, figure this out, take some time out of your day, get out a piece of paper or your journal and write all of this down really specifically and start doing it, start living it now. All right, my friends, i will leave you with that and just one last reminder that this is your one chance to get the NITCH Component course absolutely free. Zero dollars okay, normally goes for 97. Over on my website I’m marking it down to free this week only. Head to www.shawnmynar.com slash NITCH to grab that and send me a message over on Instagram at ShawnMynar, just send me a message. Let me know what’s up. Let me know what you’re working on. Let me know what your flow business is. Let me know what you’re struggling with. Just let’s check. I’m here for it and I would love to get to know you. So, ShawnMynar, over on Instagram, send me a DM and until next time, take care, hey, wait up before you go. Do you wanna know the biggest reason why your business may not flow? Because it’s not in alignment with your personality type. Building the right business for you means knowing your strengths, weaknesses, energetic expression and what’s most important to you, so you can build your business accordingly. Before you spend one more minute working on your business, let’s make sure it’s the right business for you. I’ve created a fun two minute quiz to discover your flow business personality type. With the results of this quiz, you’ll know exactly what to prioritize in your business so you can feel confident, knowing you’re building a business you love. Head over to shawnmynar.com/quiz right now to find out your flow business personality type And once you find that out, hop over to Instagram and let me know what you discover. Again, that’s shawnmynar.com/quiz. As always, the link is in the show notes, take care.