Laura Kåmark
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Be bold make waves podcast, a show bringing you inspiring stories of women who are growing and scaling their business. I’m your host, Laura Kåmark, a website and tech integration specialist who works with online business owners who love their work and not their website. Join me as we have incredible conversations about business mindset, productivity, and, of course, the website and tech behind the business. Let’s go ahead and dive in to this week’s episode. Hello, and welcome to this week’s show. I’m so excited for you all to be here. And for those of you who don’t already know me, my name is Laura Kåmark. I’m a website and tech integration specialist for women who love their work, but not their website. My guest today is Goli Kalkhoran. She is a lawyer turned entrepreneur, which is a fancy way of saying she quit law tried a bunch of things and happened upon an idea that she turned into a business. She is the host of the lessons from a quitter podcast, where she uses her platform to destigmatize winning and provide resources and inspiration to individuals looking to pivot in their established careers. She challenges people to exceed their own expectations and guide them through the initial steps of starting over in order to build a more intentional fulfilling life. goalie, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about how you got started? And all of this?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Um, yeah, like I said, I mean, in that bio, that you read it, I was like most, I think people I followed the traditional path that I was told to follow. And I was good in school. And so I ended up going to law school, became a lawyer. And I was working as a lawyer for a number of years, and I was just deeply unhappy. And I think like a lot of people for a long time, I just thought, well, this is it, like you get a good job. And you, you know, work and work isn’t supposed to be fun and all those things that you hear. And so I did it until I really got to a place where I was burnt out. And I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I quit and really didn’t know what I was going to do. And it was last for a number of years was kind of fumbling my way through trying different things, applying for different jobs, thinking about all the things I could do. And then I ended up happening upon. I started going to meetups, this was back in 2014, I started going to meetups in my local area to kind of see what other people did for work, just because I wanted more ideas of like what I could possibly do. And I ended up going to a like tech startup meetup you know, it was very Shark Tank, like a people would come pitch their businesses. So it was a lot of product based businesses like physical, actually, I guess it was more software and stuff too. But um, anyways, it was there where I like started. I didn’t even realize it sort of like falling in love with the idea of starting a business. And it just seems so exciting. And so that sort of started me on this journey. I had another business, I started a photobooth company back in 2016. And I did that for a number of years. And then in 2018, I really wanted to just have this conversation about quitting and starting over. And I had so many friends who were lawyers that were you know, in the same field that I was, and they were just as unhappy, but none of them were leaving. And so many people I would meet would tell me how, you know, they thought I was lucky and they wish they could quit and I kept, you know, getting really curious like, Well, why can’t you Why can’t you find something else? Why can’t you try something else? And so it really started from that idea. I just started a podcast without really any idea what I was going to turn it into. And then that podcast kind of grew into coaching and I became a certified life coach and then a master certified life coach. And then yeah, I haven’t looked back now I have a membership and I love it. I help people kind of figure out make a decision, like what do they want to do and get on the road to that life that they want.

Laura Kåmark
I love that so much. I was someone who was in the corporate setting and I dabbled in web design. as sort of a side hustle, I was trying to figure it out. It was before. I had like the support that I have now in the online space. And it was just you know, trying to figure it out. I started back in like 2008 2009 2010 and all that stuff. And then for me I actually got laid off when I was pregnant and it was very unexpected and I’d been with the company for a number of years and it just like completely out of left field and throw just a huge curveball in a my husband and I were kind of going towards yeah and so for me it was a very it wasn’t like planned out to believe it was just totally you know that phone call at 8am have like your positions been eliminated. You have till noon. And so because I was pregnant we were like well, no, there’s no point in going and getting another job I just lost all my Flm A which is here in the states where we get family leave medical act, I lost all that I lost all my health insurance basically, and any like sick time. And so we said, well, let’s see if I can just stay home and make a go of this online business thing. And so for me, it was kind of this juggle of having being pregnant and then having a newborn, and then also figuring out how to create an online business.

Goli Kalkhoran
Totally. And it’s funny that you say that I am. The first year, year and a half of my podcast, I only did interviews, and I interviewed a lot of people that had quit and started over. But I can’t tell you how many interviews I had of people that have the same similar or very similar stories, where it was like a blindsided layoff. And it was like when they were pregnant, or when they were, you know, 65, but they still weren’t ready to retire. And it was like, I can’t go back and get another job. And so a lot of people sort of got nudged into entrepreneurship. And that’s the thing is, I think a lot of times, we like to believe that corporate America is safe and secure. But it’s an illusion, because it’s safe until it’s not, you know, and I think a lot of times, what I try to get people to understand is like, if you can do it on your own terms, where like, you might be able to build something on the side. And yes, it’s hard. And yes, it’s more work. But at least you’re kind of doing it when you have the question of your job, but so many of us, and I’m not, there’s no blame, like, there’s so much to be done. We’re also busy. And it’s I’m not saying everyone needs to start a side hustle, but it does sometimes, like end up where we’re sort of forced, our hand is forced, and we get laid off and we weren’t expecting it. And now we have to kind of maybe scramble to kind of figure out how to build this business. And and so it does happen way more often than I think even right now, you know, we’re in a time when there’s mass layoffs again, and there’s a recession, and it’s just happening again, it’s cyclical, and it constantly happens. But I do find it funny that so many people don’t want to leave because they think it’s quote unquote, safe. And it is until it’s not

Laura Kåmark
exactly 100%. And that was the thing, I always thought I had the super secure corporate job. And then exactly, it turned into something that wasn’t what we work with, when you’re working with clients. How do you work with like that mindset around having this career change? And going from this, you know, again, quote, unquote, secure corporate position to going out on their own?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, that’s a great question. Basically, my whole program is mindset. So I would say that, like, what I do kind of different than a lot of the career coaches is like, in my membership, and if you listen to the podcast, what I focus on, almost entirely is your own mindset. And so it’s not about like resume building and finding the job, because all of those are great, and they’re great tools to have. And I think a lot of times, people don’t work on the mindset. And so you know, you can go out and job jump from job to job. But if you don’t really know what’s making you unhappy, or you don’t know why you’re, you know, what it is that you actually want, you likely are missing the mark. And so this is what I see with a lot of people too, is like they go from job to job, and they still are unhappy, or they still don’t have the thing that they want. And so we work a lot on like figuring out what your own beliefs are about yourself and what you should be able to do. And so many of us, obviously, we’ve all been conditioned in society to believe that like, you get one job and you stick to it. And you know, we all but for whatever reason, love to believe that we’re behind everybody else. And we shouldn’t be further along. And so we put all this pressure. And so a lot of what we work on is like finding those thoughts and replacing those thoughts. Like truly, like really going into your own subconscious and figuring out what your limiting beliefs are, and why you’re telling yourself these stories and the narratives that you are, which are all made up. And it’s like, you just change it. I had the same stories, right? I thought I was a quote unquote, success. I was a lawyer, and how was I ever going to leave this and go, You know what I was going to tell people, I’m a coach now. And I had all of the baggage that comes with that and what you thought was prestigious, but all of those, it’s just like a narrative. It’s just a story like, Okay, do I want to be miserable and be successful and call myself a lawyer? Or do I want to do something I love and you know, not worrying so much about what other people care. So it’s just like, figuring out where that rub is for you and working on those specific beliefs. And it’s amazing how possible it is to change that story.

Laura Kåmark
I love that so much. And I think the mindset work is just so incredibly important, especially as entrepreneurs, that’s the piece. People don’t always talk about that, like entrepreneurship really is like doing all the mindset work totally in pass because like talking about imposter syndrome, that’s all something that I don’t feel ever came into play when I worked corporate. I don’t know if you have had a similar experience. But that was something like as an entrepreneur, like, comes up time and time again. And the other thing I find with mindset work, it’s it’s never ending. It’s an ongoing, it’s ongoing. We do this all day long.

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, if you have a brain, you’re gonna need to learn how to manage it every day. And no, you’re absolutely right. I think that entrepreneurship has a way of bringing everything to the surface very quickly. So you have to deal with it, right? It’s like sometimes in corporate, you can get away with not dealing with it. You can kind of do what people tell you and you can kind of push through. But in entrepreneurship, there’s just you’re not gonna put yourself out there you’re not gonna sell if you’re constantly like butting up against these limiting beliefs, I mean, you will, but it’s just gonna be a lot much more painful. And so it definitely has a way of bringing it up. And I think you’re right that we sort of do a disservice that we don’t talk about it more. And what I started realizing to it, when I started becoming an entrepreneur is I would take a lot of these programs, or I would go into these courses where they would give you the tactics or they’d give you the strategy. So they would teach you how to sell or how to market or how you know how to put up funnels or whatnot. But the problem is, is like if you don’t work on people’s mindsets, like if, if I have the belief, like, I don’t know what I’m talking about, or I shouldn’t be selling this, or you know, people are gonna call me a fraud, then you can teach me every funnel, but I’m not going to put it up because I’m gonna feel, you know, I’m gonna have so much resistance, like, I can’t put my face on Instagram, and I can’t have people think, you know, and so I started seeing like, all these courses where people would pay for the stuff but then wouldn’t implement or wouldn’t do it. And it’s because like, there’s so much resistance that they don’t really understand why they’re so resistant in the you would see so much frustration like and shame like, why can’t I just do it? I know what I’m supposed to do. Why don’t you know, and it’s when you work on letting go of the resistance, the rest of it is actually not as hard. It’s like, oh, let me try a bunch of things. I’ll try a webinar, and then I’ll try you know this, and I’ll put up a website and it’s fine. But for so many of us, like we don’t deal with that foundational part, which is like, what are my thoughts about selling, like, so many just have so much thought so many thoughts about money, and selling and how sleazy it is? And it’s like, if you have those thoughts from childhood that like selling is sleazy, then it’s gonna be really hard for you to sell a product, right? Like you’re gonna have to kind of work on that before you can get yourself to really like back your own business.

Laura Kåmark
Yes, I love that so much. And I agree. It’s, I know, I’ve had so many mindset hurdles that I’ve had to overcome to get where I am today. And I still again, come up against him all the time. What would you say are like three of the mindset hurdles that you find mostly with your students coming in that they are butting up against?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, the I would say the biggest mindset hurdles that people have is their fear of what other people are gonna think about them, like the judgment that fant friends and family and whatnot. They’re their fear of uncertainty. What if this doesn’t work out? What if I regret it? What if everything, you know, I ended up losing everything and I end up homeless, I mean, just like very dramatic catastrophizing, fears. And the other one is like, ultimately, this one doesn’t come up on the surface, but it’s pretty much the root of everything is like, what if I’m not good enough? Like people are very scared to try things because they’re afraid to like, prove to themselves this, like deep seated insecurity that maybe I’m not smart enough? Maybe I’m not, you know, organized enough, maybe I’m not persistent enough, whatever the enoughness is that we all feel is like, for somebody who’s like taking that risk, it feels so much scarier than it actually is. Because we’re afraid that maybe I’ll, you know, try it and fail, and then I’ll find out that I was right. And I just wasn’t good enough for this.

Laura Kåmark
Absolutely. What would you say to our listeners who maybe are feeling either some of those things or all that? What’s the advice you would give them of some actions they could take like today to start working through those mindset hurdles? Yeah,

Goli Kalkhoran
well, I think that part of one of the biggest things that you can do, like anybody is, is really understand that like, the story that you concocted from your life, the story that like you have created is such a small, like, view of what has happened in your life. So what we do is like, we’ll do something one time or a couple of something will happen one time, and then we will, you know, make that into a whole story about how we are so let’s say you get laid off one time, and then it’s like, oh, I’m unreliable, and I can never keep a job, right? Like, we create this like, meaning that like, this just means this about me. And it’s, we ignore so much evidence, typically, for every story we have, I’ll give you a quick example. I had one of my predominant stories my whole life is that I’m lazy. And it was like the joke in my family. And it was like, you know, it was just constant. And to me, it was there was there was no truer fact in the world than that I am lazy. It was just like, No, this is the way you know, like, the sun comes up. And I’m lazy. And it was because like, I love taking naps. I love doing nothing. I love like laying around. I’m not a super like active person. I don’t love like, going out and doing a lot of like, physically, like I’m not into sports. I’m just not that person. So my whole life I was like a couch potato. I love watch TV. I love doing them. And so I just like created this story that I was lazy. And that has been the driving force and it’s been a lot of my resistance to try new things. I’m like I’m too lazy to do that or I can’t like I had this and when I started doing this work and I started looking for the evidence of like how is it true that I’m not lazy? Like what are the all of the things and it was so mind blowing because like when I say like I was like, you know, quintessential kind of type A person I was a straight A student through college I went to it Top 10 law school I used to work 80 hour weeks as a lawyer. I mean, it was, you know you like your I was I had to laugh at myself. I was like, Wait, how did I come up with this story? How is it that my only story is that I’m lazy. And not that I’m like a completely like capable, persistent, hardworking human being that has done accomplished so many things in our life, right? So I started changing my story. And it was amazing how it was like, oh, all of these resistance, or all of these things I felt about myself was around this story. And so I would say for your listeners, find the evidence of the opposite of what you’re telling yourself. Like, if you’re telling yourself you’re not organized, or you’re not consistent, I want you to go back to your life. And I want you to find every example that you’ve been consistent, like everything you’ve fallen through with, or everything that you’ve been organized with, right? Find things to show yourself that like, Oh, my brain is focusing on one thing, right? We have this thing called an attention spotlight. And so everybody, I’m sure you experienced this when, let’s say like, you want to buy a car, all of a sudden, you see that car everywhere, right? That car didn’t just like magically appear, your brain was filtering out before it didn’t care. It wasn’t important to you. So your brain only gives you information that’s important. So when you tell yourself, I’m lazy, your brains like oh, that’s an important piece of information. I’m going to point out every time you’re being lazy, I’m going to show you your right, here you go. So you have to start actively showing your brain when you’re not lazy, you have to start looking for it, you have to start telling yourself like, Oh, I’m a really hard working like, energetic act, whatever the thing is story you want to create, I promise you that evidence is there, you just have to look for it. So I would say like, you can even go back into your past and start looking at like, How is this not true throughout my whole life? Like, why did I come up with this story? What was the other side of the story? I wasn’t looking at it. And when you can start seeing like it does two things. One, it just shows you that like you have all these other abilities that you’re telling yourself you do. But it really just shows you the power of your mind, you start seeing like, oh my god, I created the story here. Where else have I created stories that likely aren’t the whole truth?

Laura Kåmark
Oh, that’s so good. So good. I love that advice. Because it’s also like the idea of taking like all the positive testimonials you get, and keeping those in a folder on your desktop. And then when you get that one piece of like negative something or another from a client go and look at all the amazing things about you because it’s there. And there’s proof right there. And that’s

Goli Kalkhoran
Oh, I love that that’s just like such an example of the same thing is like we can get 10 compliments or 10 Amazing testimonials. But we’ll get one bad one. And then we’ll be like, well, this just means I’m a terrible coach. And I can’t do that, or I’m terrible at my job. And I can’t do this. And it’s like, our brain just loves to like generalize. And so you have to like really work on bringing like, know, okay, this was one person’s experience. And there’s this other evidence that shows that other people have a different experience.

Laura Kåmark
Exactly. Oh, my gosh, I love it so much. I was listening to your podcast the other day, and you were talking about this idea of doing one thing. And as entrepreneurs like you were saying, like we take all these courses, we do all this stuff, and we get overloaded. Also, as like, I know I have, I’m very much a written down to do list person I have, you know, I’ll start my week and brain dump all the things I need to get done. Can you talk to our audience a little bit about this idea of doing one thing?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, that’s more like an overarching like, I think in the podcast that we’re talking about, I was talking about having one goal. But I am really a stickler on this. I’m like picking one thing to focus on that you want to work on. And I mean, not like small tasks every day. But really like, what’s my focus right now for this month for this quarter for this year? What is it that I want to focus on and the thing that happens is that for a lot of us, you know, there’s that phrase, we underestimate what we can do in a decade, we overestimate what could do in a year we undress, mate, what we could do in a decade, and every one of us is like in such a rush. And we think we have to change everything. And we think we have to do everything. And the reality of that is like it just does the opposite. When you overwhelm yourself, you end up doing nothing, you procrastinate. You bury your head in the sand, you get frustrated, you quit, you do all these things that don’t actually move the needle forward at all right? But when you can slow down, it’s like, everything doesn’t have to happen right now. Like there is time I know, we have this thing of like, life is short, it is short, but it’s also very long. So like everything in your business doesn’t have to get done this quarter or this month, right? And so when you can slow down and think about like, what is the one thing I want to work on? Right? Like if this year, let’s say might be a year where you want revenue growth and you’re gonna work more like fine you know that that’s your goal. And you need to work more on like marketing and sales. Great then like when your brain is going to come and be like, Oh, the backend systems are terrible. We need to redo this like you have to have something with which to like filter your decision. So it’s like Hey, am I gonna take a bunch of time to figure out all these systems in the back end? Or are we going to spend that time on marketing and sales like if our goal is to make more money then we need to market and sale right? Then like an even the opposite. so that you can’t also do other things. It’s just that those aren’t your goals. That’s not your main priority. And so I really have all my clients, like they’re only allowed one goal, because it’s like we’re not, I know what happens, I see it over and over again, like when even if you pick two, you start getting frustrated you don’t you there’s so much more confusion, like, what should I focus on? What should I be working on? And when you pick one, it just like takes away a lot of that overwhelm, and confusion and frustration and the spinning. And it’s like, okay, this is what we’re gonna work on. And then we’ll change it right next year or next six months, next quarter, whenever you want to change, it can change, but like, what can I put my energy and focus on so I can actually make some headway?

Laura Kåmark
I love that so much. I think that’s so important, because I’m a person who definitely gets overwhelmed. Yeah, I know, I oftentimes I feel like I’ve been doing this online business, and I’m in this like hamster wheel. And I’m like, why am I not further than I want to be. And I have to stop myself sometimes and look back and be like, but look how far you’ve come.

Goli Kalkhoran
Totally. That’s such a key thing to be able to do to think in, especially in this online field. I mean, anywhere, it’s so easy to kind of compare to other people and constantly look at like what other people are doing. And then to think that you’re behind, you’re not doing it good enough. And honestly, like, if you can look back at like, what instead of, you know, there’s a book called the gap and the gain and it’s like, instead of looking at like the gap of where you are to where you want to be, which like looking at that will constantly just create feelings of like despair and inferiority and like helplessness and all this like negative emotion. If you focus on your gain, like where have you gained from where have you started? And where are you now it can give you the motivation to continue, because like there is progress, and it is happening. It’s just that we all want everything to happen right now. And we want it to happen fast. And if it doesn’t happen, then we think something’s gone wrong.

Laura Kåmark
Yes, we 100% think that. And I think it’s interesting, too, because again, like in the online space, people talk so much about like the success and you don’t always hear people talking about Yeah, well, how long did it really take? And what were the failures, totally, all those little pieces in between that, if more people talked about, we would maybe feel a little more seen and heard and feel like we’re understanding that we are exactly where we’re supposed to be. And everyone goes through these, like, the other thing that I’m finding that people are not talking about always is it’s like, entrepreneurship is not this like straight arrow, you know, this diagonal going up? It is this roller coaster that goes up and down and up and down. And that’s just that’s the way it’s like waves.

Goli Kalkhoran
Absolutely. I mean, there’s just life, right? There’s no, like linear growth in anything. It’s not supposed to be like that. And here’s the thing, I will also say is like, I also, it’s amazing, because I don’t know, if we actually realized, like, how terrible it would probably feel to get what we wanted, right? I think a lot of us think we want like huge, fast growth. And huge, fast growth is extremely painful a lot of times, right, because you’re not ready for it. And you’re not, you don’t have the systems prepared. And then you get overwhelmed with that. And then it’s like, you have a bunch of customer complaints. And you have people that you know, things are gonna fall through the cracks. And, and so yes, like, obviously, we all want to feel successful, and we want to make money and we want to have all, that’s all great. But some a lot of what I think about for me that’s helped me is like I just asked the question of myself, like, what if this is exactly where I was supposed to be on my journey? Like, right? Because so much of my pain is from like, it shouldn’t be like this, it should have been faster, it should have been better. Like, that’s just made up, right? And it’s arguing with reality, because it’s not faster. It’s not this is where we are right? So like, what if like, if I look back and 20 years, and I’m like, Oh, that was exactly what I needed to learn whatever lesson it was, I needed that time. Maybe I needed to learn how to put systems maybe I needed to learn how to hire, maybe I needed to learn marketing and sales. Like if that’s what’s going to set me up, like, how would I experienced this moment differently. And it always helps me like calm down a little bit and be like, what if we are exactly where we’re supposed to be. And this is what we’re supposed to learn. Like, we might as well learn it instead of spending all this time beating ourselves up about how we should have been further along.

Laura Kåmark
Exactly, oh my gosh, I tried to tell clients to when we’re getting all the tech setup for like a launch of a new program. And I tell them, I’m like just remember the purpose of that first launch is really getting like all the technical kinks squared away, and getting, you know all your systems in the backend in place. And so there’s still gonna be stuff that are gonna break. It’s never a launch without tech failures. Like that’s just the reality of life and technology. So that’s something I try you know, and then you rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, absolutely. And you just learned that’s the thing is like, you I think like there’s a I don’t know who actually has said this. I’ve heard so many people say it but like I know James Wedmore says like, either get the result you wanted or the lesson you needed. And it’s like if you can really look at it as okay, like maybe I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, but like yeah, maybe in this I learned like how to use this tech stuff. Like there’s no way to learn it until you actually go through with it, you know, and like try to use it and so that’s how, that’s how you learn and then the next time it’ll be easier.

Laura Kåmark
I love that in talking about Uh, because I am a tech and website person, I would love to talk a little bit about the tech you use to run the back end of your business business. What is your website platform?

Goli Kalkhoran
My websites on WordPress, but then I use Kajabi for like my landing pages and all my signup pages and basically everything else like the product and you know, my membership, things like that.

Laura Kåmark
And then were you always on WordPress and Kajabi? Or was that was there again, some growth and changes?

Goli Kalkhoran
For me, I was always on there I will. I’m trying to think of where when I originally Yeah, I think when I originally started, it was just what WordPress because I wasn’t selling anything, I didn’t have any products and how many landing pages. So I just had a WordPress website put up where I had like the podcast, my podcast every week, and then I would do some blog posts. And then and then quickly after that, I went to Kajabi. And I’ve just been on those two, I have like gone back and forth. Now it’s like as it grows, and now that we’re doing a membership, like we did Kajabi. But then we have the membership, like the community on circle. And then we have the private podcast on Halo audio. And there’s constantly like conversation about like, because getting all those three to speak to each other and getting people on onboarding and onboarding. You know, it’s like, do we go out onto Kajabi? Is there another service that we can have it all in one place? So there’s constantly those conversations, like how do we make this more of a seamless experience? How do we make this work better? But, you know, we’re a creature of habit. And so it’s hard for me to like decide to leave a platform at this point.

Laura Kåmark
Really? Absolutely. Is there any sort of like tech hiccup that you’ve had that kind of has stood out? I again, feel like that’s something that’s not necessarily always talked about when I launched my DIY Website Launch Kit. It’s like a one click Install website for people who are kind of just starting out. I launched it last year. And when I send out those emails of like, you know, I pre emails like, get ready, it’s coming. It’s coming in, then I sent out but it’s here. And I immediately got an email back. It’s almost like there’s no link anywhere in this entire email. I

Goli Kalkhoran
was like, What’s, oh, yeah, I’ve done that a million times. I wasn’t even a tech lead. I mess up links. It’s like, and this is the thing. This is why mindset work is so important, my friends. Part of my brand is that I’m not perfect. Like, a lot of what I talk about is how much I mess up. And I talk about it intentionally. And I constantly talk about like, I love it, you were like, people don’t talk, you know, we don’t hear this. And I’m like you will if you’re in my space, because I tell you, all of my mess ups. I do like a urine review. And I talk about everything that went wrong the year before and everything that went right. And I usually like you know, but I do it intentionally for a couple of reasons. One, because I want people to see like you can be successful, and not have to be perfect and like, and to I truly don’t care anymore. Like I’ve worked so much on my thoughts. And I’m like, if a link being broken is gonna, like get you to not buy from me, that’s cool, then like, you don’t want to be in my membership because there’s gonna be other hiccups because I’m a human who’s running this and like, that’s just all there is to it. And I don’t make it mean that I’m not not cut out to do this, or I’m not you know, what do I wish I didn’t make mistakes? Of course I do. And I tried to like put more safeguards. But I can’t tell you how many times I have sent emails that were broken, like with broken links, or the link wasn’t in there or and I’ll be like, I’ll just send another like oops, here’s the corrected link. And the worst one that we did, which like wasn’t on me, but I’m not gonna say it wasn’t bad it was the person that was doing my website wasn’t her fault. I mean, I guess maybe I don’t know who cares whose fault it was but she had scheduled the so the sales page was like a waitlist page like it was the buttons were like you know, sign you sign up for the waitlist. And then it was supposed to change. To sign up to like, like doors were going to open to the membership. And it was like the first time I was opening doors. And they were supposed to open like that morning but we’re I’m on the west coast. So we had it set to open at like 4am My time was like 7am Eastern time. And I had really seated the membership I changed my whole container from like a group program to that. And it was supposed to go live and I had sent out an email basically saying it’s live now like you can joint doors are open join us. And I was asleep. And then I woke up to like 20 emails being like, it’s not There’s no door there’s no way it says the waitlist, like and I was like, Oh, I just remember like the drop in my heart like, and then the girl was on on vacation. So that was I was like, Oh my God, how do I open these doors? So anyways, that was like the most panic that I got. But even within like two hours, I figured that out and I opened the doors and I sent an email. I was like, Oops, sorry about that. Now they’re open. So you know, it’s not, hey, what else even lives over here? It’s not life or death. If a link is not broken, I think it’s gonna happen. Everyone’s gonna be fine. They’ll get it in the next email. And you just move on Do you learn? Yes,

Laura Kåmark
I think that’s such an important lesson. But again, that’s exactly where I was hoping that you were gonna go there, because that’s the thing I want my listeners to hear the most because it’s just a broken link. Totally. My husband was on my email list for a while, accidentally, and he emailed me, are you like Rebecca on time? He’s like, Hey, you have a typo in here. And like any I don’t care. Yeah, water like, already been sent, there’s nothing I can do about it, too. I didn’t realize you’re on my list, I’m gonna read Yeah. I don’t need you to hear all these stories. I

Goli Kalkhoran
get that sometimes from people on social media. Because like, again, I mean, it’s so funny to because I was such a perfectionist, like, as a lawyer, it’s just like part of your job, you have to, like, make sure every period and and now I’ve gone so far that they just like could not care less, and I get so and so i’ll post things on social media. And I post like very wordy. It’s like multiple slides. And then people will be like, you know, like, some grammatical mistake or some thing and I might or like some spelling mistake, and I’m like, You clearly don’t know me, I don’t care at all. Thanks for letting me know, move on. Like, if that’s gonna bother you, I’m not your girl, you can find someone that is very a stickler for that, because it’s on me.

Laura Kåmark
And that’s something I know, I’ve tried to be clear in my marketing is that that’s something with me. But if you care that much about because I had someone who came to who unsubscribed from my list and was like, you have a typo here. And this isn’t clear. I’m like, Fine, you’re not, I’m not the person for you. And that’s totally.

Goli Kalkhoran
So I think that now like that’s gonna be a worse client for you. And then, you know, somebody reading your email, oh, my God, thank God, they let themselves out. So we don’t deal with that.

Laura Kåmark
Exactly. I have friends who I remember one of them was in the process of recording a training video. And she was like, Oh, I kept messing up and like, keep the message sent. And I’m like, I know, for me, I feel it’s more relatable. If someone was like, Oops, click the wrong place here when they’re doing something, because it makes it not perfect and more relatable. Absolutely. Oh, I love that so much. So can we talk about some of the fears and doubts you had? When you first were starting out in your business? Can you talk a little bit about how you overcame those?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, I mean, I had all the fears, I had the fears, like my biggest was just that it wasn’t going to work. And that I would have to like crawl back to being a lawyer. Getting a job. Like that was like my biggest fear is like, don’t make me go back there. I had my a lot of my peers around what people would judge me like people would what they would think of me. And then I had, you know, I think we all have the fears, like on social media, it’s like, if I’m gonna say something wrong, and I’m gonna get canceled, or people are gonna hate me, or they’re gonna come after me. So I had a lot of those fears when I was first putting myself out. I mean, I saw those fears. I’m not when I first like, it’s still like, it’s just part of, I think, being like a public face putting things out there. But I really, I mean, the reason I do this work is because I found this mindset work. So the reason I the way I got over this, like, when I was putting out this podcast, I really first just wanted to have this conversation to talk about, like how other people did it. And the more I started learning thought work, and it started, like, figuring out like, what’s my thought that’s creating this for me this fear, like, where’s this fear coming from? And then working on those thoughts. And I saw the magic of like, changing them. That’s when I was like, Oh, my God, people need to know how to do this, like this is going to change their lives changed my life. And so the way I got over, it was truly just doing that work. Like I really just slowed myself down and really got to like, where are these thoughts coming from? Like, what is this thought? What do I want to think about this? What are other ways to think about this? And when I started, like, giving that airtime to my brain, where it was like really focusing on the people I was helping, and the things I loved about it, and the fact that I wanted so many other people to just not be in their corporate jobs hating their lives, and it started helping me like it didn’t get rid of it. It’s not like you’re not, you’re always scared. There’s always uncertainty, right? There’s always that fear. It’s just that the other stuff kind of outweighed it. Oh, I love that.

Laura Kåmark
I think that’s so important to touch on. Because again, like it never goes away. Yeah, it just you learn how to kind of manage it better, and recognize it. And then, you know, go up against that story and say, let me show you all the proof that this isn’t true. So what would you say are some of the things that you’re doing that’s different than other coaches in the industry? How are you being bold?

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah, I would say that, like, the biggest way that I’m being bold, like I just talked about is I don’t, um, I don’t try to be perfect. Like, my coaching isn’t based on like, I’m this aspirational. You should try to be like me, like, my life. You know, I’m so organized and I get up at 5am and I have this morning routine, and I journal every day. And I it’s like, I’m very much like, I’m a hot mess, just like everybody else. Not really, I mean, I’m not a mess in the sense that nobody else really is. But it’s like I’m a messy human. And I yell at my kids as sometimes and I feel bad about it. And I you know, don’t know what I’m doing in this business. And I’m extremely unorganized. And if I can do this than the you can too. Because like, I’ve just learned to like have a lot of self compassion. I’ve learned how to deal with my limiting beliefs. And I really, I think, come to coaching from a place of just like, I’m a couple steps ahead of you, I learned this stuff, it changed my life and I want to change your life. I want you to have this thing, I don’t want you to suffer as much. But I don’t in any way pretend to be a guru. I don’t pretend to like know more than other people. I don’t pretend that like this is the only way to do it. There’s there aren’t other modalities. This is like what everybody needs. And I think that approach resonates with people like with my audience, I think that they really love the fact that like, they feel like they know me and that they like they are like me and that I’m not like it’s it’s attainable. It’s not something that’s like, you know, I’m I don’t know, I’ve had all this experience in business. And so then I put up my business and it like, all of a sudden skyrocketed. I think sometimes, like, that’s really hard to be like, Oh, well, that’s great. You did it. You got a million dollars in a year. Like that might be inspirational, that it’s possible, but it also feels like Oh, that’s too far fetched for me. So, I don’t know, I think that’s kind of what makes me stand out a little bit in my marketing.

Laura Kåmark
I love that. I love the imperfection like that to me, me too,

Goli Kalkhoran
so much easier. Yeah, like, it’s so hard to try to be perfect. But I look at the gym, like, are you guys tired? Like, you could just like, be yourself, and people actually like it, you know?

Laura Kåmark
It’s so true. Um, this might kind of bleed over into what we were just talking about. But what would you say you’re most proud of when you come to your, when it comes to your business, I’m a big fan of like, celebrating our wins and all that so that you like looking back, either something recent or could be, you know, just in the time of your business that you really would like to celebrate yourself.

Goli Kalkhoran
I think I am most so proud of my, in my business. Like I’m just honestly, my, my clients transformations and wins is just the coolest thing. It’s like the biggest honor of my life to watch people change their lives in such substantial ways. And finally, feel free from so much of the like self imposed constraints they put on themselves. That is the really like, the pride of my life is like watching this and seeing so many people transform. I think for myself when I look at myself, and the reason I’m so proud of myself is because it was so hard, right? Like I think like the thing is, is that we want these feelings of accomplishment and pride. But we just want it to be easy. And and the reality is like, if it’s easy, then you don’t feel that stuff on the other side of it. Right? Like you don’t feel super pride, like proud when you pour a cup of coffee in the morning because you know how to do that. Like it’s like not something you think about. And I think we think like, oh, we should just be able to do this. But now looking back, I do look at myself. And I’m like, wow, you had a lot of gumption to like, get a lot of guts to like, put yourself out there and do this, like, talk about the stuff when you have no idea what you’re talking about before you had any idea about coaching or certifications or any of that stuff. And like, when like my whole world was lawyers and like, quote, unquote, professionals and all these people from that world. And they were gonna see me on Instagram. And I don’t know, I have a lot of pride for that past version of myself that was just like, You know what, we’re gonna go for this and see what happens. And like now it’s easy to see because it worked out and I have like a successful business. But I know at the time, like I didn’t know it could have crashed and burned and they still did it. So I’m really proud of that. That’s amazing. I

Laura Kåmark
love that. Do you ever have moments still where you’re just like, I want to burn it all down?

Goli Kalkhoran
Literally every week. I think every week. I’m just like, I’m done. I’m done. I have a pity party. And then my husband’s like, all right, wrap it up. Let’s get on to next week, because I’m just like, it’s hard. It’s hard. Like you said, it’s like a roller coaster. And it’s not easy, and it doesn’t get easier. And I mean, it gets easier in some ways. But then you have other problems like as it grows, like you have new you know, new levels, new devils with that saying it’s like you just have a new set of problems. And so a lot of times I’m like, just so much easier to get a job. Like it would just be easier for someone else would just tell me what to do. I could clock in clock out. And so I definitely have times where I’m just like, this is a lot of work. And not like an hours of work, just the the mental kind of toll that it takes. So I definitely have those days. And then I just like I said, I let myself feel it. I have a lot of compassion for that. Because I it is a lot of work. And I acknowledge it and I don’t try to like talk myself out of it. Like, it’s not that bad. You should just be grateful. Like yeah, it is. And we love doing it. And like here’s all the other reasons why we’ve chosen to do it. And I feel like I my wife is really strong. So I tend to be able to bounce back faster. But yeah, I don’t think you’ll ever get out of this thing of like, can they just do something easier, especially because like going back to what we talked about, like, entrepreneurship just brings up so much of your own. Like so much personal work needs to happen. I think sometimes I just get exhausted about that. I’m like, I’m so tired of working on myself. Like, I just want to not think about myself and my thoughts and my brain for like a day. So I think that’s what exhausts me. But, you know, I have those moments, and then I push through them and get up the other side and then feel super inspired. And then we just keep going on this rollercoaster.

Laura Kåmark
I feel like when I am able to just completely disconnect, unplug, go away. Yeah. And take that downtime, that’s when I get re energized for orderliness.

Goli Kalkhoran
Totally. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s the thing. That’s like a big thing, and I’m learning it over and over again, is that for so many of us, like, we’re so conditioned with like the employee mindset and just hustle culture, that it’s really easy when you start a business, especially if it’s a business you love to, like, get really caught in overworking or to having really bad boundaries, and like, kind of just working at night and working on the weekends here and there. And, and part of that is great to have, like the freedom if like, you don’t have to work during the week, but as much. But I was seeing that it was like bleeding into all areas of my life. And like all I was doing was thinking about my business. And this year, it’s actually like, you know, one of my focuses is to very much like take more conservative time away from my business and force myself to because I want I love working on it and love doing the coaching and stuff. And part of realizing that like I do get the energy and the you know, excitement back when I when I’m away from it. So I definitely have more plans are taking more time off this year.

Laura Kåmark
I think that’s an excellent plan. I think we all should be taking more away. I agree. Yeah, I’ve been very intentional. This year, I actually set a CEO week. That’s the first like Monday through Friday of every month. So I love that in any and the space. I mean, we’re only you know, a couple months into the year, but the space opened up, has just really felt so amazing. And the idea is to not schedule any calls that week and just have time to work on my business. And oh my god, I love that. Oh, it’s been so transformational. And then we have cleaners that come every other week. And for some reason I never have thought to like block that time off. And so I end up with calls and then I’m trying to I’m like stressing off that morning because I need to get the house tidy before they come. And I’m like why don’t I just block this off on my no one schedules anything. So I just implemented that as well. But I’m very excited to have kind of that space.

Goli Kalkhoran
Yeah. That’s a genius idea. I love that.

Laura Kåmark
It’s been great. For sure. Well, goalie, I have one more question. I asked everyone who comes on the podcast. And that is what is one piece of advice you would give to someone when they’re first starting out that would help them be bolder, be louder and make waves in their business.

Goli Kalkhoran
Question. My piece of advice is to truly like, think about how I’m trying to think of a what like how to word this in the best way. I think for so many of us, when we come into business, we can get lost in the noise of how like everyone else’s business and what everybody else is doing and what you know. And truly your edge is being yourself. And so part of it being the boldest version of yourself is checking in and really thinking about like, what is it that I want to say? What not what am I supposed to say for marketing purposes? What am I supposed to say? You know, it’s like, if I had a message to give to my people, what is that message, I would lean into that as much as possible, I get really clear on you know, even if it’s not completely tied to your niche, or if it’s not, you know, the I don’t know that we have all these marketing roles. I feel like the more you can reject those and the more you can kind of think about like, what makes me me, right. And that’s what people want. I promise you, that’s what people want. They’re like whatever you teach come secondary, like people get drawn to like who you are, and they want to be around you and they want to learn from you. So tap into that what makes you you and put that out in the world like that is what the world needs more

Laura Kåmark
of. Oh, I love that so much. I think that’s such great advice. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I could seriously sit and talk to you all day. This has been such a fun conversation.

Goli Kalkhoran
Thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful. Can

Laura Kåmark
you let our listeners know where they can find more about you come hang out with you get in your world?

Goli Kalkhoran
Of course. Yes, you can find me pretty much anywhere at lessons from a quitter. So the podcast on Instagram as well. Mostly where I hang out, you can come and send me a DM and say hi, I would love to hear from you. And if you’re interested in doing this mindset work, I have a membership called the quitter club so you can go to lessons from quitter.com/quitterclub.

Laura Kåmark
Wonderful. I will link all that up in the show notes. Goli, thank you so much for being here today. This was so much fun.

Goli Kalkhoran
Thank you. It’s super fun.

Laura Kåmark
Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. Be sure to check out the show notes at laurakamark.com/podcast. And if you’re ready to turn your website into a marketing machine, get more sales, save time and simplify the back into your business. Grab my free resource power integrations for your websites. Head on over to Laurakamark.com/power. If you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure subscribe. And also, I’ll just love you forever if you leave me a review. It helps get this podcast in front of other people that it can help inspire. Thanks so much for listening. I’ll see you next week. Bye now!