Heather Legge- What Two Business Coaches Learned Comparing Notes

What happens when two business coaches who met as competitors sit down and realize they were never really competing at all? Heather Legge and host Paul Pape faced off on opposite sides of a pitch competition before discovering they'd been drawing the same map from different angles the whole time.

In this episode of Gamify Business Tavern Tales, Paul sits down with Heather, a Pathfinder who has spent nearly two decades guiding people, primarily women leaders, through business landscapes they find confusing or invisible to themselves. She founded Envision Success in 2006 and wrote Lead With Moxie, built from interviews with over 100 women running businesses, yet she remains remarkably hard to find online for someone with her experience. Tonight isn't a typical Tavern Tale. It's two Sages naming a shared curse called the Lone Map, the risk every guide faces when the terrain they've personally walked starts to feel like the whole mountain.

This conversation explores what a hundred women's interviews revealed that Heather didn't already know from her own experience, whether staying quiet online is wisdom or a gap worth closing, and what it looks like to find another cartographer mapping the same terrain from a different side. If you've been drawing your map alone for a while, this episode is for you.

🍺 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
 [Insert links from Tavern Treatment — no URLs were provided. Recommend adding links for Envision Success and Lead With Moxie.]

🎮 CONNECT WITH GAMIFY BUSINESS:
 Website: https://gamifybusiness.com
Take the Quiz: https://gamifybusiness.com/quiz
Book a Call: https://oncehub.com/GamifyBusiness60MinCall

📚 PAUL'S BOOKS:
 The Creative Player's Handbook to Business- https://gamifybusiness.com/handbook
The Creative Player's Workbook- https://gamifybusiness.com/workbook
The Game Master's Guide to Business- https://gamifybusiness.com/game-masters-guide
Quit Selling Your Shit!- https://gamifybusiness.com/quit-selling
The Bard's Guide to Storycraft- https://gamifybusiness.com/storycraft

Business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome, fellow adventurer, to Gamify Business Tavern Tales, a place to discover the roads less traveled on your creative journey. Welcome back to the tavern, fellow adventurers. I'm Paul Pape, your barkeep and game master. So I'm gonna be honest with you tonight. I don't know everything about this guest, and I think that's exactly why this conversation is going to be interesting. Heather Legg and I met as competitors, two business coaches on opposite sides of a pitch competition, each making the case for our approach. What I realized when we finally sat down together was that we weren't really competing at all. We were pitching the same thing, just from for different people, from different angles with different maps. And that's the curse I want to name tonight. Not a monster or a trap, but something quieter, the lone map. Every guide eventually faces it. You build your methodology, you walk your terrain, you draw your map from the ground you've personally covered, and it's a good map. It's a real one. But a map drawn from a single vantage point only shows one side of the mountain. And the longer you work alone, the more the map you drew becomes the only map you think exists. But the antidote isn't more clients or better marketing. It's finding another sage who's been mapping the same mountain from a different angle. Heather has spent nearly two decades doing what I do, guiding people through the business landscape they find confusing, intimidating, or simply invisible to themselves. She works primarily with women leaders, though that doesn't that work doesn't stop there. She's coached hundreds, possibly thousands, and she's written the book, Literally Lead with Moxie, built from interviews with over 100 women running businesses. She founded Envision Success Inc. in 2006 and has been quietly building ever since. Quietly being the operative word here, because here's what I find genuinely interesting about Heather. For someone who's been doing this work for nearly 20 years, she's remarkably hard to find online. And I haven't decided yet whether that's wisdom or a gap. So I'm going to ask her about it. So tonight isn't a typical tavern tale. It's two sages comparing maps. I'm curious how she draws hers, and I suspect that you'll find the comparison useful. Heather, welcome again to the tavern. How does a pathfinder who's been guiding people for 20 years end up across the table from the barkeep?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Well, thank you, Paul. Thanks for uh thanks for inviting me on. I mean, other than the pitch competition, how did I end up here? Um well, I don't know, where do you want me to start?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Well, I'm just curious about your about your your path. So, like most times when people end up here in the bar, they've they've they're out adventuring, they're doing their work to you know live the adventurous life that they want. And then we found ourselves, I would say standing opposite. We were literally standing next to each other on this competition on this game show talking about pitches, elevator pitches. And um what I found interesting is that they paired two people who do the same thing against each other. And I will concede, I lost. I lost. I I won on a technicality. Heather definitely blew me out of the water on this one. So um, but I'm just curious, like um, as far as like your adventuring goes, you know, typically um, I don't know how many how many times you find you're in your room with a lot of other coaches, but typically typically it's there's not a lot of room for that because we're all looking for the same people. So we usually go to when we go to social events or anything like that, it's typically to find people that we can help as opposed to you know being comrades with all the people who are doing the same thing. So I'm just curious as to how you ended up here to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Uh yeah, you well, you're right. And especially now that the word coach is wildly overused and is almost a stigma. I don't even I don't even like calling myself a coach anymore, which is funny because the first three plus years in business, I had to explain what the heck a coach was. People are like soccer coach. I'm like, uh no, a little different. But yeah, now here we are, you know, 20 years later, and it's a it's a very different landscape. I, you know, I worked in a giant multinational corporation, and it was it was challenging, just kind of fun. Um, you know, I knew thousands of people across uh 90,000 employee company and across many countries, and I got to travel with that, I got to do a lot of stuff. I was in a more of an IT role at the time, and I just uh I was I got my MBA during that time. I was traveling a ton. I was studying, I was working too much, and I, you know, something had to change. So that was a really a big turning point for me in my character development and what I learned to value. I also saw around me uh how people were acting in business and the challenges that they they seemed stuck with. And I don't know, I got, you know, I got done with my MBA, I was 35 years old. I was like, okay, now what? What do I want to do? I was like, wow, I really, you know, I was asking all these questions. What do you do in your job? What do you like about your job? I want more challenges. And I was just searching for something more meaningful. Landed on coaching, got my first certification, never looked back. So that was 2006. Um, I went full-time in 2008. My my first clients were people that I had worked with and they were curious about the entrepreneurship journey. And I'm, you know, it's it's the great unknown. So I was out there guiding people and and with an MBA, but not any real. I mean, I had a lot of business experience, but not business ownership experience. And now at least I can say I've got two decades of that. But um, you know, it's really it's it's about the mission. It's about the mission. It's about helping people navigate their journey on their own terms and um helping them find their North Star. Because if you don't know that, you don't know what your core values are, your your guiding light, what I don't know what what terms. I like to mix my metaphors just to keep people on their toes. Uh perfect. No one we get along so well. Um, you know, it's like so I ask people, you know, all the men and women that I've worked with over the years, what's the legacy that you're creating? What do you want your life to stand for? What do what's the point of this business? If it's just to make you money, uh when you know, when things get tough, that's for 99.9% of people, that is not enough of a motivator to keep things going. I mean, for a few it is money, money, money, but it's what does the money get you, right? So we have these more a little bit more existential conversations about what is really driving them to do that kind of work. And I just I found it so rewarding to have those type of conversations with people before I ever even started the business, before I ever, I didn't even know what coaching was. And I'm like, oh, there's a thing for that. This is me. You know, I'm the one my group of friends calls and they need advice. So the people come camp out in my office or my cube, you know, this happened, or how do we get on that project? Or and I would just ask questions, and then they would feel better and they had their next step. And I was like, wow, I can get paid for that. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So um, I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah, it did. It totally did. I love that um like being curious is like the like 85-90% of being a good coach or consultant is asking them because everybody has the answers. It's like I can't walk into a business I know nothing about and then act like I know about it. What I have to do is I have to go in with a curious mind and ask them questions so that I can learn more about it and give them perspective, but I'll never be the expert that they are. And I assume you're in the same boat. And so it's that having that genuine curiosity and and wanting to know the answer, not just wanting to ask questions, but actually wanting to know the answers that makes you an efficient and good coach or consultant. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Absolutely. Well, and it's interesting because the first, I don't know, 10 years in my business, I felt like people expected me to know their industry and their business better than they did. I'm like, no, no, no, you're the expert in your business. You're I I I'm industry agnostic. It does not matter what how many years in business, your industry, your client, none of that matters. It's what you want to get out of it and how you're gonna get there. So I'm just walking that path with you for a period of time to help you get what you want out of life. Like, I don't need, I don't need to be the expert in your business.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Right. Absolutely. And I think that's a that's a big misconception that a lot of people have when they're when you approach them, it's like, hey, are you looking for a coach or consultant? They're like, I don't want to have to, you know, do in like what you don't understand is I'm I'm not working, I may work with your business, but it's really with the individuals, with the people within it, that I'm truly helping. The machine itself, you guys know what you're doing there. I'm just kind of helping, giving you clarity and that kind of stuff. And so yeah, I agree. And it's it's interesting when people, when I'm approaching people and I say, you know, I'm not, you know, I want to coach or I want to consult them, but I don't want to take over what they're doing. It's like you're you literally said it. You're like, I want to come in, I want to do the thing and get the hell out. That's the point. Um, and leave them in a better place than when you came. And that's the whole point of having a coach and consult. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

My my opinion, that's the whole point of life. Right? It's like to leave to leave the world a better place and all the growth that happens on that quest.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we did meet as competitors, two coaches making their case on opposite sides of a pitch. When you look across at what I was building, the weird gaming frameworks, the creative entrepreneur angle. What did you actually think? And when did you realize that we weren't really competing at all? We were just having some fun.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Pretty quickly, I was like, oh, what a what a genius idea. Hey, that is what I thought. Um and I I felt absolutely high-fire right there. Um I felt an affinity that I I mean, you could have said you were doing anything, but I felt we had some some affinity. We just, I don't know, we had good energy. So I don't know if it's two stages or if it's just whatever. But you know, we were supposed to be there at that time. I I believe that happens, and it's always in hindsight where you go, that's interesting. That's so cool that happened. But yeah, I think it was pretty quickly on when you when you described your business and you described who you help. I thought, oh gosh, that's rarely am I working with creator. I mean, we're all creative. Like I'm actually a very creative person, but from the outside, my business model, you wouldn't necessarily, I mean, I don't think anyone would assume that. Um, so I don't I don't work with as many creators, and they're typically not in the same age range as what you had described. And then obviously a very different approach. I mean, who your best buyer avatar and my best buyer avatar could be friends, but they're probably not hanging out on Friday nights together. Not getting beers.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

I don't, you know, like yeah, the game, the game stuff is uh is not something I'm as familiar with. And I probably maybe put myself in a little bit of a um minority there, but no, I don't think I don't think so because what I so I'm gonna counter that a little bit with everything is a game.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Everything is a game. Oh, I agree. Businesses, you know, and so we may not sit down and play a tabletop role-playing game. You're not maybe not in the dungeons and dragons, but we're all in the game.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I mean, I know there's funky die and um and it's had a resurgence, but other than that, about DD, I don't know much.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah, and believe it or not, I don't even use the funky die. We we use sliding scales, so it's it doesn't even work here. Um, but what I find interesting is that from a gaming point of view, is that if you view the the world through that lens, everybody's got a game. And so my quest in all of this is to find out what are the rules that you're supposed to be playing by and can we tweak them and push on them rather than coming in and say, This is, you know, I I hate places that just drop a manual in front of you and go, this is what we do. Because I'm like, well, that's boring stiff, and that's why you're not being as successful as you want to be. So I'm like, just give me the gist. Like, what's the rules? And then what can we do with them? And I find that a lot of people get into a place and when they're stuck to the point where they need a coach or a consultant, they're at a point where they're like, I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing. And I'm like, that's because you've forgotten the rules. And so that's really what the gamify part of it is. Um, I just like to put it out and out in front there and be a little bit loud and proud about it. But you you play by the same rules.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

It's great branding, and it's a genius idea because, well, it's also a trending um concept in in our society as well. So you landed on something pretty great there. But you know, I one of my clients, I don't know, I don't know when, let's say it was roughly 10 years ago, um, told me about the book Super Better. Are you familiar with yeah?

SPEAKER_00 13:15

That's something that I haven't read it though.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah. That was the first time I thought, oh, you can gamify really anything. And and we all do, you're right, gamify a little bit. We have like I'm constantly uh making agreement with myself or giving myself a deal or a challenge. And then, you know, I never thought of it as a quest or a game, but it's it it it is, but it was like then you get then you get the win, you get the celebration when you, you know, you you go through the steps and you hit the milestones or you you achieve the thing. So yeah, I mean, if I look back at my conversations with clients over the years about, okay, what do you, what are your rewards when you, you know, is it an intrinsic reward? Is it something you've been wanting to do for yourself when you hit a certain milestone to business? Or um is it there are so many things that we find rewarding. Um and but yeah, so super better was like the first time I thought, oh, that's interesting. You can you can you can intentionally gamify your life, your whatever qu whatever quest, anything.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

So I don't want to make this about me. I was just curious about that answer, but you've been doing this work since 2006, so that's nearly 20 years of coaching, training, and guiding. So I'm genuinely curious how do you do it? Not the framework and not the methodology, but how do you actually work with someone who can't see their own ceiling? And what's the thing that you do that you can't quite put in a brochure?

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Wow, that's a tough question. Um I've become incredibly intuitive. And I've I think probably we all are, whether we just we don't use the muscle at all, or we we don't know how, or but then you know, you we start kind of dipping a toe and it gives you so much confidence and so much clarity, and then you have wins. So I'll give you an example. Uh so I've done a lot of speaking engagements over my um over my yeah, August will be 20 years, so we're we're close. Um yeah, so lots of speaking engagements, and I would prepare, I had to prepare so much to give myself the confidence to to show up, you know, comfortable at first, especially. There's a whole story with that, I'll overcocktail someday. But uh I realized, I don't know, it was interesting. I had these these moments where I would share things with the audience that I was not planning to say. I was like, oh my god, I'd get off, you know, get off the stage or wrap up. And the times when I just went with the story or I told people things that I wasn't planning on telling, those were the things that resonated the most with the audience. And I'd have, you know, a flock of people around me at the end and they wanted to talk or they would follow up, they'd send me a thank you card, and like, that's interesting. I'm I was terrified in the moment, like I probably shouldn't have, I shouldn't have shared that. Like, why did I share that? You know, and it's not like it was super personal or just it wasn't like a planned, perfectly orchestrated. It was just more from the heart or the gut or just being real. And those were the presentations that really affected people more. And I thought, oh gosh, that's interesting. So I started listening to those little prompts more and found that um I can float when I feel like I'm in alignment with you know with the mission or the universe, whatever you believe. I I'll just inherit, I'll just say whatever. Like I didn't prepare for this at all. I like, you know what? I I'm here I am, I'm gonna be me, and then that's how it's supposed to be. Even if it's a total disaster, that's probably what was supposed to happen because that's how it goes, right? Like, I'm not gonna overthink it. I am prone, my innate operating system, to overthinking everything and perfecting everything. And as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you can't get very far if you give into those um tendencies. So this has helped me a ton. So I'm very intuitive when I sit across with somebody, and I don't know if I've just gotten better at reading them or if or the questions or whatever. It's just some kind of intuitive process, and they feel heard, they feel seen immediately. Um I mean, you're probably the same. People tell you all kinds of things, they're like, wow, why do random strangers just start opening up to me? Which I think was one of your questions, right? I was like, oh yeah, that is definitely me. Like, I don't know. Um, and I don't, you know, I'm a plane, I'm like, I got my headphones in, don't talk to me. But then if there's a conversation that happens, it's like, whoa, deep, deep connection immediately. It's just, it's such a cool thing. So that that helps me see, understand things, and then I'll help them see what I'm seeing in them. I'll ask them, you know, I'll help paint a picture. Once I've got some clarity on what they want, why it's important to them. I'm like, okay, what's stopping you? Right? Questions like that. And then we uncover fears, we we knock down the obstacles, we talk about whatever's front of mind in their business. So at this point, it's predominantly it's a lot of men and women with teams. So it's leadership specific. So I'm really, I don't know, I would say I'm calling myself more of a leadership advisor at this point. Um and, you know, these are very successful by anyone's standards. They're people they don't necessarily want others to know they don't have it all together. But fortunately, there's some trends in business where figuring out how to be at least somewhat vulnerable is, you know, people know that that's important at this point. Emotional intelligence, like connecting with your people, showing you care. So, you know, they're trying to figure out how to do that without, you know, being vulnerable is not sharing, it's not oversharing. It's not right, you know, it's it's uh it's just being real to a point, but you still have to be a confident leader. So it's a it's a tricky balance, right? So it's a lot of fun helping people through through that. There's some what I call, you know, it's kind of a rite of passage or a uh you oh, you now you had to fire your first person. Now you've graduated. Now, you know, now you know you've learned some things, right? So the next time it won't be as painful. You probably won't procrastinate it for two years. You know, maybe you can take care of it a little quicker. So I don't know. I don't know if that answered your question, but that's what came to mind.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

It totally did. And I what I think is interesting is talking about maps and looking at the same mountain but from different perspectives, is that for the creatives, it's it's about wrangling in that emotional overshare. Because creatives are very much emotions on their sleeves, and then if something doesn't go right, it's a personal affront and it doesn't have that separation of business that a lot of business people have. But so what creatives typically do is they hide behind their work. And so they're the emotion is still there because they can't take the criticism. But what happens then is they basically are trying to sell things that people have no backstory for. And so what I have to do is I have to encourage them to show the messy middle to a degree, as you're talking about here, because obviously oversharing is can ruin businesses, but being able to share a little bit of that. And so I think it's interesting that you're like you're we're we're attacking the same beast, but from opposite ends to kind of meet in the middle so that we can all kind of all get along here. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, and it's all about connecting with other humans, right? That's the right so much magic happens when we allow ourselves that real connection. And in business, the people part is I mean, I from my perspective, that's absolutely the hardest part of business. Like you can you can work the math, you can set the numbers, but from a creative's perspective, putting yourself out there, you know, not not letting that fear, uh, that that deep human fear of not being accepted you know stop you from being yourself and expressing yourself. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

It's it's different. It's different. It's a lot of fun, which is why this is a great conversation. So you've interviewed over a hundred women running businesses to write lead with Moxie. Now, that's an extraordinary amount of listening before you wrote a single prescription. So, what were you actually looking for? And what did the research show you that you didn't already know from your own experiences?

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Oh my. And that was such a wild ride. So it started with the idea. So, you know, I didn't set out to only help women, uh, not at all. But I but um I I noticed I was in a group called B I, Business Network International. That's a, I don't know, they're kind of like your sales team. You you show up every week and you you talk about who these are the the referrals that I'm looking for. And so it teaches you how to talk about your business, it teaches you how to ask for what you're looking for, and it's like a a priceless experience. Uh I was in that for seven years actually. And um I I don't know. Okay, what was the question again? Because I want to make sure I don't get too far off track.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

No, you're fine. So I was just curious as uh did any of the what did the research show you that you didn't already know from your own experiences and what are you actually looking for?

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Thank you. Okay. So you know, there were times where you had to get really specific. The more specific you are, it's like you Google, um, you Google something, the more, you know, words you put in there, the more D, the more specific results you're gonna get back. So I was doing a little experiment, like, okay, I work with women leaders, you know, XYZ. And then I thought, oh, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a marketing campaign. I'm just gonna test this out. So I decided to start with 10 calls. And these were to women I already knew that were really successful business owners already. And I asked them a short series of the exact same questions. You know, what uh what two skills would you need personally in business? Uh, or would you need personally to two skills you would need to do better in to be more successful in business? What number one behavior would you personally need to change in order to be more successful in business? And then a couple of other, you know, what advice do you give for other women and a couple other hints? What happens when you get stuck? The exact same question. So I actually wrote a survey because I was I'm a total data nerd. I like to hide it, but really I am. Um I thought, well, I need to keep that cons, I need to keep that data consistent. So just had these conversations and they were really interesting. And they said, Oh, you should talk to so-and-so, and you should talk to so-and-so. And so then, gosh, I had about 30 calls in, and I'm like, whoa. 13 themes were emerging from the data. So I realized I was sitting on this gold mine of you know, the skills and behaviors of 13 kind of group categories or broad topics, and I thought, well, I should go for 50 because then I can say I have like a body of work.

unknown 24:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It's a nice broad number. So 50, and then I, oh my gosh, just kept going. So when for about three and a half years, I was having these conversations and sit on the back burner for a little bit, and then I'd feel guilty because I'm like, oh, this is so great. I need to bring this to the world somehow. And I would, you know, I'd get back, I'd have a couple of more interviews trickle in, and then I got to a hundred. And I had a couple more that we had been trying to schedule it. I got to 111. I'm like, that's it. It's a very auspicious number. We're done. Right. So 111. Yeah, crazy, right? Uh then I wasn't, I was trying to, I was writing blogs and I was sharing in speaking scenarios, and somebody said, Oh, you should write a book. I'm like, Yeah, I should. My whole life I've been a voracious reader, and I thought, oh, one of these days I'm gonna write someday I'm gonna write a book. Someday I'm gonna write a book. How many of us have said that? Well, holy crap, I got I got it right here. You know what? That was that was hard. Um it was easy on some level, but because this is where I can relate, probably with with these creatives, is I I approached it from a very academic perspective, right? Having gone through a lot of school in my life. Um, and no one would have wanted to read it. It was, it would have been terrible. It was it was too dry, it was too whatever. So I hired a book coach and I worked with her for 18 months. She helped me find my voice. Nice, you know, my voice. How I want to be, how I wanted to share this information. That was a priceless experience. And I was still, you know, a little scared to publish it. But we had been, you know, perfecting, perfecting, perfecting. She's like, how great would it feel to publish your book um this summer? You know, and that was 2019. I said, I'd feel pretty damn good. I'm kind of like, this needs to be, this needs to be done. And I don't care if anyone reads it, but I'm now I'm like, this just needs to be done. I, you know, it had kind of taken over my life and I had backburdened my business a little bit for for chunks of time. And so I self-published because I didn't want the agony of trying to go through publishers at that point. And you know, I figured, oh, I'll get a million rejections before I get yes, and I can't prolong this any longer. So that really worked in my favor. And then I published it. I was it was like, oh, I'm so proud of that book. I really am. And so I'm actually, I've been working on the the next iteration, which is for men and women, how to lead with Moxie. For men and women in a post-pandemic world, chalk full of AI.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

That's actually a brilliant question. Yeah. Um yeah, get on that. Because I want to read that one. That sounds really good.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Okay, perfect. Um, thank you. I need the I need the extra motivation. So excellent. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

So I'm gonna ask you this directly because I find it genuinely fascinating. So you've been building in Vision Success Inc. for nearly 20 years. You've coached hundreds of leaders, thousands, you've written a book, and you're remarkably quiet online. Not from a business point of view. I can find everything I need to know about how many talks you've given and where you've given them. I see the places that you've worked, but there's not a lot of heather online. So is that a choice or is it a gap? Something that you're wrestling with? I'm asking one stage to another because I think the question says something about interesting about how we both think about visibility.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

I oh man, that's weird. As much as I am such an open book on many things, and I'll, you know, I'll tell you the truth. I'll I I don't I don't know. I don't feel like I need to go like blasting all these things that have happened to me in my life. And I feel like there is a lot of me online out there. You know, I share, actually share a lot of stories in the book and in my blog posts. There's there's bits and pieces, there's stories of me, so some of my travels. I don't mind sharing, but I don't want the business to be about me. It's not all about me. Like I don't mind me, I'd rather be the wizard behind the curtain than the one on stage, but I get on stage because I feel like that's the best way to achieve the mission.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Right. So it's a weird, it's a weird approach. See, for me, it's like I'm I'm because I switched gears. I went from like you did too, you know, you went from working very corporate, um, the analytical job to the coaching consulting one. And I did the same thing. I just waited 20 years and then it was like, okay, now I'm gonna consult people because uh uh I'm I'm you know, I want to get over this this one hump and then do something different. But what I found was that I had the reputation and the authority of the creative, but I didn't have the authority of the coach or the consultant. Even though people would, for as long as I can remember, has been asking me, you know, what would you do with this? You know, and my business was about problem solving, but not a direct person to person. It was more product, you know, person to product type of situation. And so for me, I spent a lot of time online putting out authority and then you know, switching that over to being the person that is okay, so so you know, um, to the person who's actually running the business and like asking for the clients and that kind of stuff. But what I found was interesting is that people and I toy list all my creatives is you need to put yourself out there, you need to be more visible, because I found with my regular business that being invisible capped my my earning, my my income. And so once I put myself out there, I was able to actually be like, okay, no, now you're now you're hiring the expert, you're hiring Paul, as opposed to Paul Paper Designs, which is the company. And that actually allowed me to add a zero to it. And so that's one of the approaches that I have for it. But I also understand, like, not to not that this isn't the end all be all, but you know, being a female inside of on the internet or putting yourself out there from that perspective, there's a lot more um there's a there's a bigger magnifying glass on that situation. My wife is in the same boat, and I'm like, you should be out there more, you know, let people and she's like, no, because then people attack you. They and they don't attack you on anything that you're good at, they attack you on all the both the BS that's out there, like what you're wearing, what your hair looks like. And it's like has nothing to do with it. So curious, I can understand.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

What shade of lipstick is that? What is she thinking?

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Okay, it's so so it's so weird. Yeah, and so uh so I was just curious, is it is it that because you've obviously got the authority, you're not worried about that aspect. And you've got clients because you're still continuing to work, but you're not using social media much. Well, because I was looking at your LinkedIn. You had like a post last month or like recently, and then it was like a month before that, and then it was like a month and a half before that. And I'm like, well, damn, she's doing really well, and she doesn't even have to tell people she needs work. So like I just I was genuinely curious here.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Okay, so I think it is a couple of a couple of things you touched on. Some of that is a function of uh I I'm at a point where I'm I'm busy enough that I don't have time. Like, but I should, I should, and I want to do more. So I have there have been chunks of time where I'm very visible. I mean, I was uh I'm in a well, I don't I'm hosting a study group, a business leaders accountability group, and we're we're all working on like getting better at speaking, even though we're all speakers, you know, the continuous growth uh model. And so I was telling them because they're like, wow, you're so comfortable online on video. And I'm like, well, that's because I forced myself to get over the hump. Like I was not comfortable. I got interviewed. I mean, it was probably like a good 10 year 10, 12 years ago now, and I was like, oh wow, I was so nervous. It was it was crazy because I don't really get nervous on stage. I don't get nervous for well, now I don't even get nervous for video. I'm like, what else? And I hated video editing because it's such a time suck. I mean, I'm like, oh, I can't, I don't have time for this. So I gotta get better. I gotta get better at I need to get it done on the first take. Or well, actually, what I what I gave myself was a challenge. I'm I need to get better faster at this video editing, more comfortable on camera. So for 31 days, January of 2016, I'm pretty sure that's the year. So it's yeah, it's been 10 years. I made myself record and publish a video every single day for those 31 days. And I had some travel in there, and there was just, I mean, most half the time I didn't have the the makeup and the hair and all of it perfect. I was like, I don't have time. I gotta just I gotta check this box today because I don't want to, you know, be a liar. And right, I just posted it out there and you so they're on there on YouTube. Like it's they're not pretty. I don't really care. They're still out there. So there is there is plenty out there of me just doing some random experiments, and I've left it all out there. Like I don't really delete anything, it's like it doesn't matter. Um, so I could feel a should. Um I don't even mind. I'm like, I'm actually a very expressive person, so I enjoy helping people. I actually just recorded a video this morning, but a lot of those are inside my lead with Moxie community on the circle platform. So yeah, so I did a Moxie Minute is what I call it. So there are a few out there on YouTube. I was trying to put those behind a uh a paywall, but I don't, you know, more it's just about helping people. So I probably I could do better with the social media and a little more strategic.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

It was a genuine curiosity.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Creating the content. Yeah, it's been uh kind of dried up a little over the past couple of years. It's a very slow trickle instead of uh a steady river.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

I mean, I have a VA for a reason because I hate doing social media myself, and so I was very much the once a month, if at all, type of poster. But now I have a VA and she's constantly putting stuff out there for me because she enjoys doing that. I don't.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

I need yeah, I I that's exactly what I need uh to get back to at this point. I have an intern right now, and he is uh splicing and dicing and editing a bunch of uh podcast lead with moxie interviews um that are related to the next iteration of the book that's coming out. So uh, you know, there's there's gonna be some more content online.

unknown 34:42

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

All right. So uh here's what I've been thinking about since we started comparing notes. Every guide draws their map from the terrain that they've personally walked. The longer you work alone, the more that map becomes the whole picture. What has talking to other coaches, or in this case sitting next to one during a competition, shown you about the edges of your own map? What terrain did you think you'd covered that someone else drew differently?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I you know, that's kind of a tricky question because I have never once felt like my map was complete.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

I mean, I don't I'm constantly exploring and considering how I need to adjust. Maybe it's the tools, maybe it's the sherpa, maybe it's the sounds like clearly it sounds like I need a sherpa. Or someone an alpaca, someone to carry out of the load. So uh yeah, I don't know. I never felt like my my map was complete or that I had there are there aren't boundaries. There aren't necessarily boundaries. I am oh I'm open to if I can serve and I can add value, I'll explore that path. If I don't think I'm the one that can add value the appropriate amount of value, or if I can't be of service, if I can't make something better, that path isn't for me. So that's that's kind of how so hearing what other people are doing or seeing what other people are doing, you know, I don't kind of like not posting on social media. I don't spend a whole lot of time comparing myself to what my competitors are doing. I've realized that I'm going to resonate with a person that that resonates with me. So however they find out about me, most of that's referrals they they got.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Um, you know, I I don't know. I just don't really worry about it. But I do enjoy meeting people that I that I respect, whether they're a type of coach or some, you know, we're all kind of doing our own thing, but I draw inspiration and ideas to explore from every single conversation or article that I've that I you know read to the end, um, story, uh songs, TV shows. Like I'm just I'm full of ideas all the time. Um, so I'm inspired by other people uh frequently, whether they're coaches or not. So sometimes I'll I'll see coaches doing something like, ooh, that's pretty cool. But I'm not gonna ever try to emulate what somebody else is doing because if it's not my thing, it's not gonna, it's not gonna come off right. It's not gonna have the right flavor for the people that I'm I'm meant to work with.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I think that's a level of, I mean, you you pulled sage for a reason. That's a level of confidence in yourself and how how you like where you're at in your life. I mean, it's it there there comes a point where you're like let them have their lane. I think I was talking to somebody one uh not too long ago, and he is probably almost almost 60 years old. He's still doing lighting design or sound sound design. He's sound designer, and he goes to all these places and he's like, Yeah, I keep taking these like $50 gigs. And I'm like, why? He's like, Well, you know, I just don't want to leave the company in a lurch. I'm like, but you've got to leave room for new people to come in. It's like you've gained this authority that's at this level that you should one be charging more than 50 bucks to do anything, but then like you're not leaving room for anyone else. It's like we have to come to a point where we're confident enough in ourselves that we can let some things go and not have that feast or famine kind of mentality. And I just love that you're just comfortable enough that you're like, yeah, that's it's cool. Not for me, but it's cool. And I I just think that's a really it's a genuine approach. And it's and that was an actual genuine answer that I that I don't think people give. I think everybody's you know always looking for the next thing. They're always scheming, they're always doing something, and you're like, no, I know my lane. I'm very comfortable in my lane and in hell or high water. I love to learn, but I'm gonna stay in my lane. Nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Well, I've le thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. I do love to learn. I do shift. Um I love learning new things and playing with new tools and trying to up my game, but it doesn't change it doesn't change how I'm helping people as much as gives me a little spark.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

Sure. Right. Yeah. Well, you gotta enrich yourself because I think you know, what did the Einstein says? The day you stop learning is the day you start dying. So, and as a person who's a consultant or coach, you've you've got to have that constant, you know, like learn you've gotta want to learn because then you if you don't, then when you walk into a new business, you don't want to ask questions. Like, I already know everything. And that's not gonna help you at all as a coach or a consultant. So uh yeah, it's it's it's interesting. From from my business, I've got to play every video game that comes out there. Now, fortunately, I've got three kids and they love video games, so I can just ask them questions and they can play them because I don't have the time. But like I have to stay on top of all this pop culture stuff. I'm like, I, you know, like something I don't care about a lot of it, but I have to know about it because my clientele are like really into it, and I gotta be able to have a conversation. And if I didn't have that level of curiosity, I'd be I'd be stuck. And I think you're kind of in the same boat.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I think that's awesome because it's helping keep you more youthful than a lot. I think we we uh discuss that we're in about approximately the same age group. I think I'm older than you, but uh yeah, you know, I mean, and there are times when I'm like, oh gosh, I don't understand some of the pop culture references. I mean, I'm I'm now that's like, oh, those meddling kids, like, oh god, don't let me be that person. Because yes, that was a Scooby-Doo reference, and that pretty much tells you my age.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

So Scooby-Doo is timeless. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Scooby-Doo is timeless and amazing. Not Scrappy.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Scrappy was never cool, but no, he needed to go away when he was made. That was fine. We're all okay with that. So, all right, so last question. So you took the the tavern personality quiz before sitting down tonight, and you came back as the sage guide, the wisdom keeper who draws from lived experience to guide others. When you read that result, what did it confirm? And what, if anything, surprised you?

SPEAKER_01 41:11

I don't know that there was any surprise, but I it feels like it fits. I mean, I it yeah, it does feel like it fits. The questions were tricky because what what it what I was reflecting on since I completed the quiz, a great job on that, by the way. I'm impressed. Um, is how pretty much every time I take an assessment like this, I find I'm reminded how extremely adaptable and contextual I am. So I was really in the mode of, okay, I have to get things done, but I'm always guided by the mission. I can easily fall into the trap of, oh, this has to be perfect. I'm like perfecting, perfecting, working, working, working, and I have to be 100% confident about this, or I can't share it with the world. I mean, I have those, you know, in insecurities as well. They, you know, they drive me more than I would like to admit. Um, but I I was, yeah, I don't know. I was like, okay, this is good. That's that does feel accurate for me. But I was reminded of a story I had a manager one time, and he had asked some simple questions of the whole team, like uh things like what's your favorite food? What do you, whatever, what would you do if you had two extra hours? Stuff that everyone else on the team, 12, 13 people had answered. And I was sitting in his office and he's like, Okay, I you're the last one. Like, what are your answers? I'm just gonna write them down. And I'm like, oh, well, I didn't get back to you because I'm thinking I'm I'm I'm mulling on it. He's like, he's like, what the back? Well, okay, well, what's your what's your favorite food? I'm like, well, it depends. And he just busted out laughing. He's like, oh my God, I knew you were gonna make this difficult. He's like, why can't you just pick? I'm like, no, because it really depends. Like, I I can't I I'm very contextual, which I think is we all are to a point. But um, no, I don't know if you know much about the disc assessment, but I'm in this really strange, rare uh zone there where I cross the divide. I'm like two strong different personalities. So no, I don't have a split of personality, but it makes me very adaptable. I can be very strategic and outgoing and and ID, ideator, you know, innovative. And then I can be very down in the weeds, very technical, very critical. And so I I can I can go back and forth, which I realize first I thought it was a character flaw. Then I realized, oh, this makes me uniquely valuable to my clients because I can I can. Look at the cloud view with them. I can be down in the weeds with them. And I can help them come up or go down as appropriate to what they need. And so I'm grateful for that. I don't know. I suppose the stage guide uh feels like it fits, but I could be the warrior tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Here's the thing about it. I've given this quiz over 1200 times. And what yeah, it gets a nice little review. And when we go to trade shows, my wife loves to do this because she'll tell everyone to take the quiz and she's she'll hand him a card, and the card has whatever they they hold on it. And she's like, Don't tell the barkeep what you like shown the card, but don't tell me anything about you. He'll tell he'll read you just by the card that you drew. Now, what's interesting is I'm going to do a little bit of that with you right here because what you've described is very much the sage. The sage is actually a leveling, is a leveled up character, and that character that you come from is actually the artificer. So the artificer is one of those people who is like really, really good at their work, but they would rather be locked in a room, locked in a building, away from all the people. They want to do their work and like really lean into it. But then at some point they level up, and this is either on purpose or forced into it to be more forward-facing, more people-friendly. And so what happens is you're elevated out of it. But what that does is it forces you to be one of those people who took all that attention that you had in your in your original work, and now you're going to put that same attention into being forward-facing, but you still remember being the artificer. And so when you have to do that divide, when you have to go get down and dirty with it, you can jump right back into that role again. But also when you're working with those people, you understand their limitations. You understand that throwing, like rocking the boat or throwing a wrench into the work is going to disrupt astronomically. And so you don't want to do that. And so you're when you are so you act as a shield, you act as a stage, you take all the information in and then you present it in a way that will not rock the boat to the people who are who are the artificers, the ones who are not yet leveled up to where you're at. And so that's the assessment that I would give as a sage. And so the sage can actually work with other people, but they really know the artificer well because that's where they came from. They leveled out of that. So when you're talking about this, I was like, yeah, you're 100%. So it's very interesting. Okay. All right. So, Heather, for adventurers listening who want to read lead with Moxie, work with Envision Success Success Inc., I'll try that again. Work with Envision Success Inc. Or simply just find you. Where should they go?

SPEAKER_01 46:39

The quickest one is envisionsuccessinc.com. So Envision with an E, like Envision with your Success. Um, or you can Google Lead with Moxie or Heather Leg L E G G E. I mean, I feel like I'm all over the internet. So I don't think I'm not hard to find.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

All right, so perfect. I'll have all of Heather's links in the show notes. So if you've been drawing your map alone for a while, tonight might be a good reminder that there are other cartographers out there worth comparing notes with. I want to thank Heather for pulling up a chair tonight and for being willing to sit across from the competition and compare maps. That takes a particular kind of confidence, the kind that comes from knowing your terrain well enough to not be threatened by someone else's. So here's what I want you to take away from tonight. The loan map is real. Every guide, every coach, every creative entrepreneur who builds a methodology and trusts it eventually risks mistaking their map for the whole mountain. The antidote isn't starting over. It's finding someone who's been walking adjacent terrain and asking what they found. Heather and I were pitching the same thing from different angles to different people. Her clients don't look like mine, mine don't look like hers, but the fight is the same. Helping people see clearly what they can no longer see about themselves, their worth, their ceiling, their permission, their map. It's two stages, same mountain, different sides. If Heather's approach resonated with you, check out Lead with Moxie and Envision Success. I cannot say that. And Envision Success Inc., I'll have the links in the show notes. And if tonight's conversation had you wondering what kind of adventurer you are, what class you'd pull in the tavern, head over to gamifybusiness.com forward slash quiz and take the tavern personality quiz. Heather took it and she came back as the sage guide. What are you? You'll get a free 11-page deep dive into your business personality at no cost, no cash, just clarity about the adventure you already are. Until next time, remember, business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC. Thanks, and thank you, Heather.