30: Finding and Living Your Worthy Hell Yeah! (WHY)

Jaz  0:01  

Welcome to The Business Animal podcast. Saddle up for a gallop to the top of the animal industry, where you’ll learn how to tame your wild business beast, with tips, techniques, and tools that will take overwhelm to obedience school, and have you wagging your tail with joy. And now your hosts, Kim Beer, and Cara Taylor Swift.

 

Kimberly Beer  0:23  

Hey there business animals. It’s Kim with Be More Business

 

Cara Taylor Swift  0:26  

and Cara with Fast Horse Photography,

 

Kimberly Beer  0:29  

and welcome to another episode of The Business Animal. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about finding and living your worthy Hell yeah, or your why. So I had to come up Cara with an acronym for why. R for words to make why an acronym.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  0:48  

Oh, is that what that is? Yeah, hell yeah. Hell yeah.

 

Kimberly Beer  0:57  

Yeah, sometimes, 

 

Cara Taylor Swift  0:58  

Well that makes more sense. Now.

 

Kimberly Beer  1:03  

You didn’t catch on to that,

 

Cara Taylor Swift  1:04  

I just thought you were like.

 

Kimberly Beer  1:09  

So um, part of what I’ve done in my own business is I’ve created my own little manifesto for sustainable entrepreneurship because I feel so connected to being sustainable as an entrepreneur, I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever intend to retire. This is this is my life moving forward for ever, until I just literally cannot do it anymore. So I created these tenants. And there’s eight of them that are part of being a sustainable entrepreneur. And if you get interested in it, and you’re listening to this, you can go to my website at BeMoreBusiness.Com And you can find a blog post, it’s like really prominent on there that talks about all eight of the tenants. But the first one is to really know and live your why it’s that important. It’s number one on that list. And it’s number one for a reason. So I’m going to read what I wrote about the practice of what your why is. So your y is your go juice. It’s your mantra, it’s the reason you get up in the morning. It’s the engine that powers your ambition and courage. It’s the thing that makes you move forward when life gets hella hard and weighs you down. When you connect with your why with your mission and your life, you make things happen. When you have a clear connection to your wife, you’re in doubt, don’t steal your time in progress. So write down your why on paper and announce it daily, live your why out loud, I wanted something a little bit more than why. So that’s where the worthy hellyeah came from. I do believe it’s really important to live your why to know it and to experience it every single day. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  2:51  

Yeah, when I was thinking about this topic, I came across the book, find your why by Simon Sinek. I probably didn’t pronounce that correctly. But one of the things that he says those words may inspire, but only action creates change. And I love this because it says when you live your why you’re consistently making decisions with your why at the front and center. And your why is a compass that provides the direction and focus for you to live your life with purpose and on purpose. And when I think about this, I think about my why. And the reason that I made the change to a creative life. And that was because I was working a nine to five and then some and I was traveling four days a week and I was never home and my Why yes, it still live a creative life. But it’s also so that I can be an active and engaged member of my family. And I can be a good mom and a better spouse. And it gives me the freedom to be home and it gives me the mindset to be present. That’s where my why came. And part of the reason that I moved into a creative life. So I love that both of these Give me the chills.

 

Kimberly Beer  3:49  

Yeah, I know it doesn’t it. So you shared your why I’ll share mine, my big why is to make a difference. That’s actually my number one value and your values in your why are very deeply connected to each other in my opinion. So my why is to make a difference in my own and other’s lives through creativity and knowledge. I love to share my creativity, I love to share my knowledge. And when it makes a difference for somebody else, it either picks them up and inspires them to go Be creative themselves, or it helps them in their business or it gives them the knowledge or piece of information that they need to know to be able to complete a task, whether that’s something technical or something they found out about themselves. That just makes me feel like I’m living my purpose on this planet and it’s much bigger and much more woo woo than just oh yay, go girl. Get it done. It’s Wow. That’s why I’m here. That’s That’s what I’m meant to be doing. That’s why that’s my why. So, with all of that said, I do think this is a really important topic for people to do some good thinking about So our big three for this episode are related to that. So the first one is clarify your why really get to know it, hone it down to exactly what it is that you’re doing your why you’re doing it, and then to write some rules around that so that you really can stay the course in staying focused on your why. And then finally, the third one is share your why because if other people know it, and you stated and I know I’m gonna get woowoo here again, which I love to do, but, you know, you tell the universe and all the universe will conspire to help you be able to achieve that. 

 

Cara Taylor Swift  5:42  

Oh, boy, here we go. 

 

Kimberly Beer  5:43  

Yes, I know I’m barking over into the land of fairies and magic wands, but

 

Cara Taylor Swift  5:49  

I was gonna say your, your Muse just flew by she did it. So I mean, in all jokes, I laugh about it and make jest but you’re, I’m feeling you there.

 

Kimberly Beer  6:03  

Yeah, it’s just all the universe will conspire to help you. The problem is, is if you’re not clear on it, though, you don’t know what you want. And it’s really hard for that to happen for anybody to help you be able to live your Why?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  6:16  

Well, knowing your why provides that clarity on where you’re going, you know, it provides those next steps and it gives you that reason to get your butt out of bed every day and get to work, you know, to get moving forward. It keeps you focused, there’s like so many things there. I don’t know, I was looking at this and I even saw a study that said having your why and your purpose can actually help you live longer. They’re like they’ve they’ve done studies with the elderly, and if they have a job, like if they’re charged with caring for a grandchild, because their parents have to work or they have a reason to like get up and go do something in the morning that they actually live longer. You know, they’re they have a why they have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, they have a passion, something that they care about. I feel like living that, you know, my husband talks to my son about grit all the time, you know, and having grit to, to work through things and you know, it gives you a reason to overcome obstacles and setbacks. So if you’re you know, if you’re thinking about your business and you’re thinking about moving forward with your why and your goals, like having an impassioned reason behind your why, when you experience setbacks in your business, you’re going to be more likely to persevere and to like work through those things than you would if it wasn’t connected to your why.

 

Kimberly Beer  7:24  

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Perseverance is important, especially for entrepreneurship and especially when you’re working with animals, it gets hard out here I know on our ranch, it gets really hard and speaking of that the ranch that we were just photographing at I don’t have it in front of me but Jesse wrote yesterday a lot about I love that was just so touching she wrote about how ranching is is hard it can get very difficult there’s a lot of loss there’s a lot of hard get early it can get ugly, I always say live in here on this ranch is is dirty at ages you I just say we’re living in the blood and guts of life because there’s days around here that it just it literally is blood and guts of life you have to have a good connection with your why to carry you through those days. And I think for her at the end of that her Why was being able to spend that time with her family and to be to have that close connection with them and to look out over the beauty of nature and the land. So it is a big big deal and I don’t think enough people spend enough time giving this credence in their mind and in their schedule to really get to know what their purposes their what their Why is and I do believe it can get you to live longer I know a great number of horsewomen that live extended lives because they have this connection and part of their Why is associated with those big beautiful animals out in their pasture and I also know a number of people who are have just as tight a connection with dogs or another species of animal so I think in many ways probably our listeners out there a good chunk of your why may have an association with four paws or four hooves and it probably or maybe two chicken feet

 

Cara Taylor Swift  9:29  

Yeah, there’s some chicken people out there. Chickens are the why.

 

Kimberly Beer  9:34  

I do love my chickens. I don’t know if they’re a big part of my why but I do love my chicken. So first of all, I guess the the thing that we probably want to talk about first and clarifying your why. One thing I want to clarify before we clarify the why is that I think you can have different whys for different parts of your life. There may be this kind of overarching why and purpose for you but I think sometimes you have a personal why and then you have a professional once you have one that that’s more associated with your business. And I would wager that the two are probably pretty tied together, my personal one probably has more to do with the creativity where my professional one has more to do with the making a difference part. So in my own experience, also, when starting to get to know your why, again, I’m gonna reiterate it gets closely defined into your values. So what is it that you truly value and you yourself value not values that were handed to you by your parents or handed to you by your culture and and Cara and I talked a little bit about this, my parents and her parents both shared a common value, which was money, they were very, very tied into the the value and oftentimes it’s not the value in and of itself. It’s what the value brings you. The money brought security for my family, it was security, they live both of them. Both my parents lived somewhat risky childhoods, I mean, they weren’t always super secure. And money was a way for them to buy security, they liked that secure feeling of knowing that there were those dollars in their bank account that they could rely on if they needed it. But that focus was really tied directly around that. And I carried that forward into my adult life where money really doesn’t mean as much to me as it did to them. Not that I don’t like it universe, but but it doesn’t have the same wealth, meaning

 

Cara Taylor Swift  11:38  

my parents really instilled in us this work ethic, you know, that you work hard to get the things that you want and need, and you work hard, you work, multiple jobs. And that came sometimes before everything else, if that makes sense. And I don’t think that was always intentional. I mean, I don’t want it to sound like I wasn’t loved or anything. But, you know, our families had to work really, really hard. And my parents had multiple jobs. And that came at the cost of less time, I think, you know, as a family. And so for me, I know why my Why is connected to that, because I worked a career for a long time, that was very demanding. And my work came first and it defined me before everything else in my life. So having to step back and reevaluate my own values and things that are important to me and make some changes around that, you know, was huge for me,

 

Kimberly Beer  12:29  

all of that is that wonderful personal journey of life that that we’re all on. It’s all a discovery process. And in learning these things about ourselves Cara, I thought you came up with a really nice list here that I think you should share with people about some ways to get started and finding your why cuz they’re, they’re really interesting. And they’re all very true to help you be able to kind of narrow that large number of things in your life that you value or that you feel very purposeful for down into the one that that matters the most. 

 

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Cara Taylor Swift  13:43  

Yeah, absolutely. So you know, we can talk all day long about the importance of having your why you know why you need that for your animal based business. But I wanted to give you guys a few tips to kind of help you get started thinking about what your why might be how it’s connected to your life, and potentially your animal based business. So I would encourage you guys, first of all, to think about the times in your life that you were doing something and you just kind of forgot about time, the passage of time, you know, it just time just got away from you. Because you were wrapped up in what you were doing. That whole time flies when you’re having fun mentality comes into play there. So thinking about those things that make you come alive, that you get kind of lost in and you just lose time like that might be a place to start looking for your why. The second thing is think back to what you enjoyed as a young person or college student, for example, a lot of times I think as adults, we have these things as children that we were passionate about and that we loved. But then, you know, the societal expectations pushed us into I don’t know getting a business degree or a public administration degree like I have, you know, when really there was something you loved as a child, but you had to say goodbye to that for some reason. I mean, that’s how I ended up becoming an equine photographer. I went back to what I enjoyed in my heart as a child as a young person. And that’s where that came from, think about how you would spend your time, if you only had six months to live a year to live five years to live, if you could do anything you wanted in that time and didn’t need to worry about a paycheck, you know, this would be the sentence that people remember you for, you know, what would that be? Have you ever thought of that before? I’ve not thought of that. But But I think that’s something that we all could be thinking about. Okay, number four, are there things in your life that you are willing to put in the work for go the extra mile, and will even go out of the way to complete to accomplish or to enjoy? These are sometimes the things that maybe you’re being paid to do them, but you would probably do them even if you weren’t getting paid? You know? So think about those types of things, something that you really like, number five, what have you always been good at? Are there things that you’re really good at that you also enjoy? Because remember, just because you’re really good at it, if you hate doing it, it’s probably not going to be your why. And that kind of flows into this last one that I have here. You know, what do people tend to come to you for all the time for help with or advice around? You know, that might be your little superpower that might be your why if it’s But once again, if it’s something that you absolutely can’t stand or hate doing that maybe it’s not sure why. So these are just six things that you guys can think about to get you going in the right direction to figure out your why for your personal life, but also for your animal based business.

 

Kimberly Beer  16:23  

Absolutely. I do have a couple of comments in there. The last one that you said I I often now what I do, and I think this is going to flow right into our next which is write the rules for your why I’m really good with computers and technology, that’s a very money making career. I mean, it’s it definitely provides the income. It’s just not often a very creative career. So I guess it can be in some instances, but it’s not the kind of creativity that I particularly personally want to be doing. So it took me a really long time to realize that just because I’m really good at it doesn’t mean that I have to or that I’m compelled or even that I should be doing it. Thankfully, life has sort of pushed me maybe it was my my personal guides or my angels, whatever you want to call those things that helped me through my life. But whatever it was, I kind of tripped and fell past the being tied down into a really technical career, which is what I was started out as in corporate America, I just got downsized out of my company, and then a whole Odyssey of things. And that happened very early when I was in my early 20s. So ending up being an entrepreneur probably wasn’t on my list of things to do when I was a kid. I also want to remind people back to that statement that Cara made about what did you enjoy as a as a kid or when you were younger? If you walk into a kindergarten classroom, and you ask them who here is a painter, everybody raises their hand or Who here is a writer, you know, we were all those things when we were young and before culture said you have to do it to this level of expectation. And it’s not that that may lead you to your why but it definitely might give you an inclination as to what you value and where where that path will lead will lead you directly to your why. So I think this is a good place to jump off into our tip number two or second of the big three, which is write your rules for your why. And here’s where I came up with this. So my good friend Melisa Pierce, who has been on the show with us, she has a in a training program that I went through with her you write things using your move to and move away from regarding your values. And I kind of modified that for you guys to to do for writing your rules for your wife that I want to I want to give props back to Melisa for that education because it made a huge difference in my life to understand my values, and then to also understand how they relate to my why. And again, I took that exercise and made it into this one. Before I get into the rules though. There’s one other place that I want to send you back to listen to in The Business Animal archives, and that’s the one that will will keep you from doing any of these things including writing the rules is to get off your butt. And I don’t mean the one you’re sitting on I mean that but the the whiny but the I’ve got to have my ducks in a row. But we had a very fun and enlightening episode around that in season one. And if you haven’t listened to that episode, episode eight, please go back and listen to it. It’s entertaining on top of everything else because we do talk a lot about buts. But in a fun punny way.

 

Cara Taylor Swift  19:56  

Lots of but jokes.

 

Kimberly Beer  19:57  

We have but jokes and go back and listen to Because what happens when you go to write your rules for your y is that you’re going to get stymied by your but, your but is gonna get in the way because you’re going to go up and I can’t do it because of this or but I can’t I can’t live that why but but but but but so get off your butt First, the two rules that I want you to come up with. And I’d like you to actually write at least three or four for each one of these statements finishing these sentences. I live my why when I so for me, one of those statements reads like this, I live my why when I am teaching and instructing people because that makes a huge difference in people’s lives. I live my why when I’m doing this podcast, that’s a big part of it. I live my why when I’m getting ready to go on this retreat that Cara and I are both leaving them or going back out west to photograph. But I live my why when I’m helping the photographers at that retreat, or when I’m setting up what their vision is. All of those things roll back to making that difference through using my creativity and my knowledge and my my god given gifts. So that’s a really important piece. So Cara, how do you complete at least that sentence on one occasion, I live my why when I

 

Cara Taylor Swift  21:24  

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I live my why when I stick to my to do list, and I don’t get distracted by other things so that I can leave at the end of the day and go and be present with my family and my animals and do things outside of the office. I know that sounds super cheesy, but a hard part of my life has been putting work down and being present in the moment. And so I’m really living my why when I do that.

 

Kimberly Beer  22:35  

So I live my why when I stay in the present moment with my family. Yeah, so you’ve got, you have rules, you have rules. So use that sentence and write your rules for I live my why when I and it’s really easy when you have it written down for you to be able to say okay, I have a reminder now and although our next one is to share your why these rules are important, I would write them down and put them on the wall where you look at them. So they are reminded about them. This second set of rules that I want you to write are I move away from my why when I I move away from my whyy when if so for me, I move away from my why when I get bogged down in highly detailed non creative projects. And remember that statement I made just a few minutes ago, I’m good with technology, I’m good with computers and my corporate job, I actually built computers and wrote the training manuals to send off to the FDA to review drugs. So I was part of a project where it was one of the very first organizations to actually put technology so that drug reviewers could review drug applications on a computer versus on a paper project. And again, I’ve really dated myself with what’s a long time ago, but it was highly technical. And it was very cutting edge at the time. And it was also very highly detailed. And it didn’t have a ton of creativity to it because writing user manuals is pretty much and then you press enter. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve typed that sentence in my life, but it just was not. It was not me living my purpose. It was a wonderful thing to maybe make a difference for the FDA reviewers. But for me, it was not my happy space. And honestly, I was in a funk in a depression for my 20s getting away from that energy and moving into entrepreneurship, which was a little bit of a rocky start for me. So it was just not a good space. And if I’d had the wherewithal to know that my why was making that creative difference for people then I would have been more cognizant of why I was so different breast and why I was not happy. It’s a big deal. So do you have one of those Cara I move away from my why when I

 

Cara Taylor Swift  25:07  

yeah, I move away from my why in terms of my professional side of things, when I take jobs that are not really in my niche, I maybe I feel desperate, like I just haven’t had enough work lately to make me feel comfortable or, you know, and then I end up feeling resentful, because it’s not work that I enjoy, it’s not work that really fits my niche. And then I bring that home with me, I’m anxious, I’m resentful. And then I, you know, it’s really hard for me to kind of drop all that and walk into my family. So, you know, my professional why is very much connected to my personal why, in that regard,

 

Kimberly Beer  25:39  

I think for most people, they are pretty tightly connected, if not almost exactly the same. So again, the exercise here is for you to take those two sentences when completing them, I live my why when I and I move away from my y when I and just complete them for four or five, six, how many ever sentences until you’ve kind of run out of and then if you feel yourself really being joyful in your day, and really feeling like you’re kind of on task and on target and just being there living your purpose. If it’s not that first sentence, if you haven’t written that one down, go at it to your rules. And if you find yourself being really resentful, and unhappy and feeling like I just don’t want to do this, this is not what I’m supposed to be doing, then go add that to your rules to move away from. And it gives you a really nice guideline. And I know it sounds absolutely silly, simple, but it does work, it definitely helps you stay more on task. And if you’re having a bad day, or you’re feeling like that entrepreneurial blues that happens to all of us, go look at the I live my why when I list and pick something off of it and do it. Because it will lift your day right on back up. And you will maybe not get completely out of the blues. But you will definitely be a lot further along in that in that regard. The final one of the big three for this is to share your why. So we’ve talked about writing it down and about keeping it visible. But I also encourage you to share it with people that you trust and that you love your family, your significant others your friends, your your colleagues, people in nature in business with because the more that you put it out there to the world again, the more everyone including the universe will conspire to help you live that why curity you share your why with your family?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  27:41  

Definitely, definitely it comes back to that a lot. So I definitely share it with my family. I wouldn’t say that I have it like written down hanging anywhere in the studio. But I do share it and I share it often. And I come back to it over and over and over again. And I remind myself even to my family, you know why I’m taking a certain job or not taking a certain job and you know that I’m going to do everything I can to be present that sort of thing. So I don’t know if there’s anyone out there that has struggled with that like me, but if you have it’s a constant thing, but knowing your why and your reasoning behind it really has helped me you know, move forward with it and make choices for my family but also from my business, you know, because it keeps you from being so distracted all those reasons in the beginning. You know why you need to find your Why are there 

 

Kimberly Beer  28:25  

absolutely that hungry entrepreneurship sometimes gets in the way of us living our why for darn sure. I see people do that all the time, especially with being able to define their target market, which hit hit is an upcoming episode. That’s right, because they’ll be worried oh my gosh, I don’t want to exclude anybody and the problem is is that they do need to exclude them because they need to be doing exactly what we talked about in this episode, which is living your wife so thank you guys for tuning in. Cara Do you want to review the big three before we close out?

 

Cara Taylor Swift  29:01  

That’s right So the big three for today on finding and living your worthy Hell yeah. Why are clarifying your why and we’ve talked about some ways you guys can start that process. Having you write the rules for your why, you know I live my why when I and I move away from my why when I start thinking about those rules. And then finally share your why write it down, keep it visible and share it often. We’d love to hear from you guys. We’d love to hear what you thought about this episode. We also you know if you guys want to pop into the comments and tell us about your why we’d love to hear it. Are they similar to Kim’s and mine? Or do you have something completely different that you’re working towards? So we’d love to hear from you guys. That’s it for us on this episode.

 

Jaz  29:43  

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Business Animal. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you learn something today, leave us a review. To learn more, find us at TheBusinessanimal.com we’d love to hear from you. Until next time, peace Your business well trained with The Business Animal.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai