Authentic Achievements with Special Guest Elizabeth Henson
From Bestselling author currently writing the forthcoming book Authentic Achievements – The 7 Secrets to Building Brave Belief, Unstoppable Sales, and Turning Your Leaders Into Talent Magnets for Guaranteed Sustainable Growth, this show features interviews with industry leaders and shares advice, stories and inspiration to help you achieve exponential growth personally and for your business.
In this episode, I am delighted to be joined by Elizabeth Henson. Elizabeth is a podcaster, photographer, passionate coach and consultant for online business owners. Elizabeth helps business owners step into leadership and build communities. She specializes in helping six, and seven-figure CEOs get control of their needy audiences.
Elizabeth believes in the power of relationships and finding our own version of success. Her Community Management Agency and online course are built around a unique 5 step framework that masters community and lead generation strategy.
Find out more about Elizabeth at https://www.elizabethhenson.co
Grab her amazing free guide to 2X your Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/TheCommunityBuilder
Or connect with her on insta at https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth.henson/
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Full Transcript:
Authentic Achievements with Elizabeth Henson
Hello and welcome to this episode of Authentic Achievements where I’m delighted to be joined by the fabulous Elizabeth Henson. Elizabeth is a podcaster, photographer and a passionate coach and consultant for online business owners. Elizabeth helps business owners step into leadership and build communities. She specializes in helping six and seven figure CEOs get control of their needy audiences. Elizabeth believes in the power of relationships and finding our own version of success, her community management agency, an online course a built around a unique five step framework that master community and a lead generation strategy. And I love that. Cause community is so important, isn’t it? We want to be as human beings we’re so we’re social animals want to be connected, don’t we? So thank you Elizabeth, so much for joining us.
Oh, I’m so excited to be here, Kim. Thanks for having me.
It’s a delight. I can’t wait to learn more because this is one of the things that I think really challenges us, doesn’t it? As we go into building our businesses and all of a sudden we’ve now got to create that community around us, particularly since we moved through the pandemic, when I think it became even more important, didn’t it, to get that connectivity going to feel like we belonged. So could you start by sharing a little bit of your story with us please?
Yeah, so you know, community marketing is community. And it’s funny because you know, when I was trying to figure out what I wanna be when I grow up, I still kind of am, right? And you go around and you ask everybody like, what are you, what, what am I good at? Like what do you think of Elizabeth Henson? What do you think of? And everybody would say community, bringing people together, networking, leadership. And I’m like, how do you, how do you monetize that? Like, I love that you guys know me for these things, but how do I turn that into a job? Right? And you know, I don’t really consider myself to be amazing at marketing. I always am, like I do community based marketing, but I’ve been reading a lot lately about everything. Marketing is essentially community. I mean, if you think of Nike, if you think of Apple, if you think of these big companies, they are successful in their marketing because they’re reaching this audience that feels, you know, like they’re seen and heard and you know, valid when they are in the presence of this brand.
So yeah, I just wanted to kick off with that little golden nugget. But as far as my journey, I’m still on it. It’s very twisty, it’s very turny. I went from graphic design to teaching art to wedding photography and that’s when I really got my taste of being an entrepreneur and being my own boss. And then quickly decided that I loved teaching other, not only photographers but other business owners, you know, what’s possible and how to start their own businesses. And I’ve been, been slowly pivoting out of photography and into this more community based marketing and consulting space. So yeah, it’s a very messy journey like most entrepreneurs.
I think it’s, It’s so true, isn’t it? And I don’t think we ever have a smooth journey because it, as entrepreneurs we have to take risks. We have to, we have to go and try the unknown, don’t we? And therefore sometimes, you know, you kind of look at your journey moving forward and go, okay, that just looks crazy. But when you look at it go going backwards, you can see how each one of those steps brought you a different skill. Yeah. Enable you to learn something else that got you ready. But for the journey you on, I often say that life only makes sense in the rear view mirror. Cuz when you’re in it, it’s just, it’s just a little bit too messy, isn’t it?
Yeah. But that, I mean, that’s such a great point because once you master that, that concept and that mindset of taking each thing as a lesson and not a failure and not a mistake, you know, I, in my business we don’t even use terms like right, wrong, good, bad, because it’s all just learning opportunities. And once your brain really learns how to process through each learning opportunity, you start to see success and progress in a different way.
I love that. That’s so true. I mean, they say don’t they, that success is always one step after failure because actually we’re never really failing. We’re just iterating. We’re just learning and looking at it and saying, okay, what, what bits of that didn’t work and what bits of it did work? It’s never completely wrong. It’s always parts where you can go, Okay, well let me take the bit that works and let me try something different on the bit that, that kind of, that didn’t work. So I love that that’s the ethos that you’ve got for your organization and for your communities because I think right, when we can change that mindset, everything else becomes so much easier. So what would you say has been the, your proudest achievement so far?
Well, you know, the easy answer to that of course is like, I have three amazing, you know, tiny humans. And of course, you know, I want them to be my legacy in a way, but I really like to, to separate motherhood and business. But I feel like I wouldn’t be doing my, my job as a mom justice if I didn’t say that. But as far as business goes, I really truly think my, my biggest achievement is just to continue to explore and to be the scientist of this experiment. And I’ve been really leaning into growing a team. We have about six now, and I love that part of being a business owner and it’s really pushing me and challenging me to be the best, you know, leader that I can be. But you know, I want my business to be something that can run without my energy. And you know, we’re not there yet, but I know that that is, that is the biggest achievement that I have, but that I’m also working towards so that I have something that I can sell or pass down to my kids one day. You know, our business is worth nothing if we’re a solo entrepreneur and we’re the only ones that can run it.
Oh, that is so true. And it’s, it’s one of the questions that I ask clients that I’m working with you, what’s your exit plan? And very often they’ll sit there and go, haven’t got an exit plan yet, and say, Well you’re not immoral, so you do need one. Because if your business only works with you in it, then it doesn’t survive you. You don’t get to pass it on to your children or you don’t get to sell it to somebody because it doesn’t. So I think no, the fact that you know that and you’re already thinking about how do I make sure that the business doesn’t just survive but thrive without me in it, then that’s a, you know, it’s a great way of creating that legacy, isn’t it? Making sure that it survives you in the way that you want it to survive you.
Yeah, it, it’s an interesting pivot because you know, as a photographer and then a solo porn, it’s like, oh my, my business can’t be successful without me. You know, like I’m, what makes my business successful? And it’s there, there’s kind of an ego shift that happens when you really start leaning into team building and like, gosh, my team, my business is so much more successful when I surround myself with amazing people. And you know, I, I think about these little nuances with my client where I’m rushing through a task, right? Doing a community management task and I’m spending about 15 minutes on it and I’m like, if I have my assistant do that, but she spends 30 minutes on it because that’s her responsibility and she’s not rushing because she has to be, you know, on an interview or doing all these things that I have to do as the ceo. The client’s actually getting better service, they’re getting better service because they’re getting more time and attention and care with someone that’s going through that process. And that was all just really eye opening for me that that it isn’t about I have to be the best and I have to do everything, but I can provide a better service when I have other people, you know, around me.
I love that it really is about helping people to play to their strengths as well, isn’t it? Because you know what really should be about the output, you know, what the client’s getting, the service that they’re providing and you know, it takes a shift though, doesn’t it, to move from that being in control of everything going, how do it all to, to trusting but actually somebody else can do it just as well as you if not better, even if it takes them slightly longer, but it’s because you earlier couldn’t report it is their responsibility so they’re not having to wear 50 other hats and that makes it so much easier, doesn’t it? So that’s, yeah. What would you say has been your biggest learning in kind of moving from that space of being a solo printer into that, how you created that first team and what were some of the things that you wish you’d known earlier to make that transition smoother?
Yeah, so I think my, one of the biggest things I learned was probably right before I really started building a team, and it’s gonna sound kind of like woo woo, but just that I have everything I need. I made a really big in business investment and I was having a meltdown about, you know, finances and money like we all do. And I was working with my coach at the time and you know, I was like, I just need more money. Like I’m about to go on maternity leave, I don’t have maternity leave saved up, you know, And I just was like, I need, I need, I need. And, and she had to really help me work through like I don’t actually need anything. Like our business is about service and you can take my house, you can take everything from me, but I can go out in the the street and help people, right?
Like that’s what it’s really about. And that that can’t be taken away. And once you really realize, you know, that we have everything we need and we stop chasing and we really get in the present, like everything kind of changed, you know, my whole like mindset and my ability to, to show up for my business when things are hard or scary, just reminding myself that I have everything you know, that I need. And then as I started leaning into the team building, I would say one of my biggest lessons is just been really learning how to systematize and figure out what is repeatable and how can I take, you know, what’s in my brain and turn it into some kind of process or methodology like you mentioned in the intro, my five step methodology to community building. Like a year ago I would’ve said, I don’t know why I’m so good at community building, I’m just intuitive, right? Like I just know what to do. But building out that five step process was me saying, okay, what is intuitive? What makes this my superpower? And how can I get that outta my head and onto paper and really learning how to systematize everything so that somebody else in my business can do it.
That’s such a great lesson. And it’s true, isn’t it? We’re all born with a natural talent and that feels very egotistical to admit that we’ve got a natural talent, but it’s just something that comes natural to words. It might not be, you know, I realized many years ago, my natural talent is I can talk to anybody, someone really very talented, you know, anybody can talk to anybody until you see the people that can’t. Until you see the people that really struggle with it. And I think, you know, the fact that you’ve gone dug into yours and gone, okay, it’s not just that I’m intuitive, I know how to do certain things in a certain way and that’s teachable, That’s passable knowledge that you can share with others. And to your point, you can serve.
It’s,It’s got to be such a great gift. And I think the lesson that you had around we have got what we need and even if, even if everything else material were taken away from us, we you’ll survive. You know, we’ve still got those parts, but I think there’s a moment isn’t there, mostly in all, all of our journeys where we have to come to that crossroad, we have to go, okay, actually I would, I would still be able to go out and help. I’d still be able to bring up my amazing little humans and I’d still be able to create that legacy. It suddenly becomes so much more freeing, doesn’t it?
Yeah, yeah. When we’re not so attached to the outcome or you know, making money or accolades, you know, equal our success, it’s like no, we get to create our own version, version of success. And you know, it’s just when you’re chasing something you can’t really get there, right? Like it’s goals are important and we want goals to be, you know, specific and measurable in all those things. But it’s a different feeling. You know, our thoughts drive our reality. And if we’re constantly thinking I need more, I need more, then you’ll never really have enough. It’s like, if I can have enough right now, even if it’s with nothing, then I’ll still have enough no matter what my situation is, right? It’s learning how to, to say I, I have enough. I don’t need x y amount of dollars to achieve something. I have what I need right now.
I love that. That’s so, so true, isn’t it? We, when we get really present to the present and realize that’s actually all we’ve got. Cause the past now underneath us and the future isn’t promised, so we may as well just be in the moment.
Yeah. And you know, it’s funny how everything in our life mirrors. So I kind of had this like rock bottom meltdown, but then a year later I was actually talking with my therapist and you know, I was like, I just feel like there’s something missing in like my marriage and my relationship and I just feel like there’s a void, right? And she said, The only reason you feel a void is because you are desiring something that you don’t have. And it was like that exact same thing that I went through in my business. Like the only reason I felt like something was missing was because I was desiring something that I didn’t have. And it was almost like that same realization of like being present, like knowing that what you have is all you need, you know? So I think sometimes that’s just all this proof that our thoughts kind of dictate our reality. And if we can curb our thoughts into thoughts that serve us, then our reality starts to change.
I love that. I was saying something the other day, our thoughts are just like our actions, you know, Einstein said this theory of relativity, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And the same’s true of our thoughts, everything we believe to be true, the exact opposite could also be true. It’s about how we view it, isn’t it? Yeah. And what has we learned to view it from what we want from the positive view than funnily enough, the world seems to be a much better place. We feel much happier and much safer in our skin. So what would you say has been your greatest lesson so far?
Yeah, I mean I, I think really just that learning that, you know, I have everything I need and really learning how to control my thoughts and you know, you start to, and I’ve had a lot, I’ve had a lot of training around this. Like I didn’t just wake up one morning and like learn how to, you know, create my thoughts. I trained under James Wedmore, I don’t know if anybody listening is familiar with him. He’s like amazing at mindset and it’s a slow thing. It doesn’t just change overnight, but you start to really recognize it and so many other areas of your life, like, you know, when you have a friend that is like struggling with something, you’re like, oh man. Like, you know, if you just chose some different thoughts and that’s like, it’s really hard to tell somebody, but like from the outside looking in, like gosh, you just, you really free yourself of so many constraints and so many limitations when you know, you allow the, the negative thoughts or the thoughts that don’t serve you, you know, to really create that reality.
So I mean, I think overarching, like that’s just been my biggest lesson is just learning how to operate from, you know, who I wanna become and that best version of myself and when I’m not and when we have bad days, cuz we all do, just understanding that, you know, it’s something that I’m in control of and that I can can change and make better. But there’s business lessons like, you know, every single day I’ve learned how to, you know, master my schedule better and budget my time better. I used to be so time poor, like I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough time and now I feel like I have an abundance of time and I have the exact same amount, amount of hours in a day. You know?
That’s amazing. It’s true isn’t it? When we, when we change it and I had somebody say to me the other day, Do you just have more hours in your day than anybody else? And I was like, No, but I start my day with, I’ve got everything I need and I’ve got, I’ve got all the time that I need to get these things done. And when I think of it like that, then I end up getting it done if I just convince myself and therefore, you know, make it happen. But, but you kind of look at it and go, well if I start from a position, if I don’t have enough time, I won’t have enough time. Cuz I’ll waste hours of thinking, time worrying that I don’t have the time.
Oh my gosh, yes, yes. Like that, that word overwhelm, right? Like, oh my God, I used to be the queen of like, I’m overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed. And then I learned like overwhelmed isn’t really real. Like you can’t take overwhelmed and you know, put it in a jar. So where does it come from? Like it just comes from our thoughts and we’re wasting so much time just saying I’m overwhelmed. Whereas if we just say like, what’s my next action step? Like, you know, it changes productivity like across the board. Now if I could figure out how to go to yoga five days a week now, then we’d really be there, right? Like I haven’t made it, I’m not perfect. I’m still like man, like there’s this one thing that I really wanna fit into my life. And it’s always like this little puzzle piece where I’m trying different ways to fit it into my schedule, but it’ll never be perfect. But just knowing that it’s a work in progress and you know that, that I’m not a victim of not having enough time. I need to figure out how to put this puzzle together.
I love that. It’s just changing that, that way of thinking, isn’t it? My nan used to say, you know, every day’s a school day and I think it is every day, you know, we have to learn. And it’s, I think it’s finding that self-compassion as well, isn’t it? When you didn’t find a way to make the puzzle work today doesn’t mean, so you weren’t find a way to make it work tomorrow. And celebrating those small wins when you make it to yoga goes away. I got that. I can do it once, I can do it again. Cuz all of that helps us, doesn’t it? To, to kind of keep progressing, keep moving forward.
Yep, yep. Absolutely. I love it. I I just like you said in the beginning, like knowing that everything is a lesson I think is truly like one of the most important things that every time something feels hard or difficult or heavy, like what’s the lesson here? What can I gain from this experience?
I love that because then you’re looking for being able to take something away from it that you want to take. Whether it, instead of just being left with, with the pain. Because I think often, you know, we don’t talk about what’s happening. We talk about what we’ve made it mean and we’ve turned it into us something cause, but actually this happened. We’ve made it mean we’re not good enough. We’re never gonna be successful. We, we get these massive like emotional labels they there and be like, but that is what happened.
Yes, yes.
This, this happened and we’ve gone over here. We’ve created some, some story.
Yeah, that’s so true. That’s so true. I mean, we put meanings on everything. I I love that and I always, I always forget that piece, right? We, we make like, oh my business, like I didn’t make enough money so I’m failing. Like no, you can put a different meaning on that. Oh I didn’t make x, y, z amount of money. So the lesson I learned is like we get to choose which thought process we have, which meaningly attach. So why not choose something that serves us, right? Like you’re not losing anything by just trying a different meaning.
That’s, that’s such a great point because you know, if we think about it, the only thing greater than fear is hope. And yet both of them are imagined by the same brain. So we have to imagine what we’re fearful of cause it hasn’t happened. And we have to imagine what we’re hopeful for. So neither one is more likely than the other cuz we imagined both of them. So you can’t trust one source or not the other. It’s the same source. But we don’t think a it like that do we? So we’re like, so we, we see naturally drawn to our fear, to the fear that we are not gonna get there, that it’s not going to be enough. And I know that that’s obviously our brains were designed to go to fear first because people that things were up to weakness, but we’re not there anymore, are we? We’re not prehistoric unless we get a chance to change that thinking.
Yeah, I read something really interesting recently too about like that feeling of anxiety or anxiousness. And there’s two things that I think are super interesting cuz I don’t, I’m not like diagnosed with anxiety or anything, but I have thoughts of like, I feel anxious right now, right? Like, what is that feeling? And I read once that when you feel anxious it’s because you’re not truly in your highest good or like doing your gifts. And this is why a lot of people that you know are in jobs that they don’t like are anxious or unhappy or depressed because they’re not really using the, that superpower that we talked about a few minutes ago. And if you think about every time you’re in that superpower, that gift that you have, that happy place, that that passion, whatever you wanna call it, like, there’s no anxiety. Like if you’re on stage, there might be like a nervousness energy, right?
But like, there’s none of that like negative feeling. It’s all euphoric, it’s all good because you know, you’re kind of doing the thing that you love. And I just thought that was so interesting, like when you see anxious people that they’re not using their, their gifts. And then I also read that, you know, anxiety is people that live in the future, so they’re fearing that something may happen, so they’re focused on the future. And then depression, you’re focused on the past. So again, we kind of have this recurring theme totally by accident on this episode of like being in that, that present can help with some of those feelings.
That’s amazing. I’ve, I’ve not, I’d heard that about anxiety, hadn’t heard that about depression, but it makes such sense, doesn’t it? And I guess you have poor souls that are feeling both, you know, they’re, they’re kind of missing out the present, aren’t they? They’re they’re remembering the past and projecting it into their future. And that’s gotta be such a hard place. You know, I’ve like, you’ve had those times where you feel a bit anxious and, and you’re right, it’s always been when I’ve been misaligned to the things that bring me joy, the things that, and it feels awful, doesn’t it, to go actively to seek things that bring us joy because we’re supposed to work hard and we’re supposed to do all of these bits. And when you’re doing something that brings you joy, even if it’s, even if it is working, it doesn’t feel like it doesn’t, it doesn’t feel like this is effort or work. So I think there’s a, a mindset shift as well to get yourself into the place that’s going. You can enjoy it and that’s okay. It’s okay to happy in what you do. It’s okay for it to be fun. Amazing. So if you could go back and tell your younger self some advice, what would it be?
Hmm. I think there’s so many, but really just to continue, you know, to pursue, I don’t know that I would do anything differently, but I think just to, to slow down and to continue to pursue the journey. I will say I’m like the queen of like conquering something and moving on and I have a lot of thoughts of like, if I would’ve just stuck with that one thing I did this mastermind like four years ago that was super successful, but then like once it got hard to sell it, like I gave up, right? I was like onto the next thing I’ll sell, I’m gonna sell my same audience, whatever they want. And I’m just like, you know, I’m a manifesting generator so I’m like, here’s the new offer, here’s the new author. And I’m always like, man, if I would’ve just figured out how to systematize, like no then what I know now and how to create one offer that’s really good and then power through that difficult stage of like building the machine to sell it.
I feel like I could have a lot of different outcomes, right? Cause I was just, to me that was easy. Like these people will buy anything so I’m just gonna continue to make new stuff. But you kind of exhaust yourself when you could build out a revenue stream that’s more, you know, sustainable. So I would probably say that’s, that’s the one I would, if I could go back as my younger self, I would say like really like power through those, those hard moments because that’s when you learn and you know, while it’s fun to create new offers, I wasn’t learning the same lessons that I, that I could have learned.
That’s such a great lesson because we see that so often. I remember working for big organizations that did the same thing. Like we’ve got this base that we can sell anything to. We just create something new for them. It’s like, but you’re not bringing in any new customers
Right
From point, if you don’t bring in new customers, you business is going, is gonna come to a natural end because unfortunately all of us come to a natural end. So those customers will, will eventually not be in business themselves and will not need what it is that you’re doing. But I see so many organizations that get themselves stuck in that space of going, because you’re right, it gets to a point, isn’t it? That tipping point where you need a system, you need it to be repeatable and not just repeatable by you, which you’ve eloquently shared with us today in moving to that building a team, those bits of saying actually how do I get what I do out of my head and be able to give it to the team so that the team can then make it their own, bring their own unique talent to it. But at least it will be an iteration, it’ll be the next version of kind of what we’ve already proven works.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And just, yeah, like conquering the cold traffic and finding new customers is exactly it. Like that felt, that felt really hard for me. So I would just say, okay, cool, well I know they’ll, they’ll buy this thing, they’ll buy this thing cuz they just already knew like, and trust me. But I really had trouble pushing through that barrier of how do I stick with one thing.
Yeah, yeah. But that’s such a, that’s such a great lesson and a huge growth opportunity because that in itself is scary, isn’t it? Taking the choice and saying, I’m gonna stick with this even if it’s tough, even if it, even if it feels uncomfortable, even if it, it feels like I always wanna go for here and recreate cuz I like it over there is to, I’ve gotta be able to, I’ve gotta be able to do both.
Yeah, and you can, you know, I, I totally am an advocate for being multi passionate, right? Like I think we should all diversify our revenue streams, but that’s not really what I mean, right? Like, I mean like, oh like I just gave up cuz it was hard, right? And having a team allows me to still be creative, to come up with new offers, to have different ideas, but they’re gonna help me maintain the selling machine of this other thing, right? Like, we all like to make a course and then it’s hard to sell the course, but since I have a team, they’re like keeping me on track of like, no, we have to focus on getting, you know, course sales every month or we have to focus on getting leads for the agency every month. And it’s, it’s really the accountability. And you know, going back to lessons learned, one of my first like aha moments of having a team was like, man, I’m being more efficient because this person’s waiting on my deliverable.
And I noticed that I was getting more done because somebody needed that from me. So I was like, not only am I investing in the time and work that they’re putting in, but I felt like I was investing in myself because that accountability piece was like changing the game. And I, that that was the point where I never looked back. Cause I did have a couple like trying to hire people and it didn’t really work and that was all me, not them, right? But then once I was like, man, like this is a great investment. Even if they give me no output, they’re keeping me on the ball because I will do anything for somebody else. It’s when it’s me by myself alone that I’m like, I don’t need to do that today.
I love that. It’s so true that we can, we can passionately procrastinate go if it’s just for me, like, well if we don’t get it done today, it’s, but it’s fine. Whereas if it’s for somebody else, we find the space, we find the time, don’t we? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Even if I’m gonna vastly like eat time that I was gonna spend doing something that was just for me. I think that that accountability, that drive to help people to, you know, to make sure that you’re not holding them back. And when you’ve got a team, you can be the one holding them back on you if they’re, they’re sat waiting for you.
Yes. Like I refuse. I will not be the bottleneck in my business. I will not like, I’m like, y’all have to tell me if you’re ever waiting on something from me.
I love it. That’s amazing. I could chat to you all day, but I that we running out time. So could you tell us how people can get in touch with you, you and who you help?
Yeah, so I’m on Instagram at Elizabeth dot Henson. I don’t know what platforms you guys love. I have a love hate relationship with Instagram. I have a Facebook community. So if you’re interested in Facebook groups or community building, it’s called the community builder. You can just search Facebook groups, the community builder, you can join us. It’s totally free. And I share all kinds of tips and trip tricks on how to double your engagement in your Facebook groups, which is essentially how I help people. I help people build communities that lands me most of the time focused on Facebook groups. But I really help people tackle the skills that they need and who they need to become to build the community that will essentially be their community based marketing. Because it’s all about our way of being. Our way of being is going to attract that community to us. And of course there are actual systems and steps and methodologies and processes, but at the end of the day, that way of being is the most important piece.
Amazing. Elizabeth, thank you so much. I will make sure that all of that information is in the notes below. And thank you for coming on and sharing all your insights with us. I really appreciate it.
Oh, this was awesome, Kim. Thanks for having me.
Pleasure, and thanks everybody for watching and listening. Until next time, take care.