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Transcription:

Dawn McGruer

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, where we talk all things millionaire mindset and scaling strategy so you can think, feel, and scale like the top 1%. I’m Dawn McGruer, the business growth coach, Forbes mentor, and serial entrepreneur.

Each week, we’ll ditch the fluff, dive into the neuroscience of success, and share the good, the bad, and the ugly of building wealth, impact, and freedom. If you’re ready to play bigger and rewrite the rules of business, you’re in the right place. Let’s go.

So welcome back to Dawn of a New Era, the place where we merge millionaire mindset, neuroscience and scaling strategy. So in this episode, we’re going to be talking about something deeply personal. To me, it’s all about scaling after loss.

And when you lose someone who you love, the whole world literally changes. And we.

When you lose more than one person in a very short space of time, like I did, it’s almost like your old identity is burnt away, and what’s left is this kind of honest truth, this raw uncomfortableness about what really matters and how long have you got left and what does matter to you now, what we do know, and this is something I have learned from grief, is that it really does strip away the noise.

And what I mean by that is that the turning point for me was that after losing, like, six people, you know, friends, family, and people who had really shaped my life, it felt like the air had been sucked out of the raiment. And all things that sort of once felt urgent and all the things that, you know, really felt like they mattered before suddenly didn’t.

And it shows this sort of brutality of what actually matters and. And really what doesn’t in life. So I started really asking myself, you know, what was the next phase for me?

And when I think about it, it was all around sort of the clarity of what my next phase was going to be. So I began saying no to anything that didn’t really sort of, you know, light me up or move the needle in my business or align to my.

My true, true passion. And I think the thing is, is that I started to realize that every skill that. That a CEO needs, I started to really hone through grief.

And it’s a weird thing, because what happened was I started to really scale with urgency, and I took more risks, obviously, because things have changed.

You know, the landscape that I once felt was safe and certain now was this kind of future of I didn’t know what was coming next, and I didn’t know how long I had left to enjoy it or. Or possibly who wasn’t going to be around to enjoy it with me.

So when I talk about scanning with urgency, I started to think about this kind of now, not later mentality.

My whole mindset shift shifted and, you know, it’s almost like it created an illusion of time and this whole sort of world that I once knew had dramatically changed. So if we think about it paradoxically, that urgency can be really powerful.

And it became incredibly powerful for me and my journey in scaling because instead of, you know, leaning into overthinking or looking at, you know, a new offer and, and thinking about it for weeks or months, I launched it in weeks.

You know, I grabbed the opportunity and I really lent into it because instead of sitting on a new idea, like for instance, my book, I just suddenly actioned it. And the crazy thing was is I just started my business at 21, so I had a huge amount of things going on.

I had new offices, I had obviously new clients to attract. And, you know, it was tough. But I actually started to create my first book.

And the thing that was interesting here is, yeah, yes, it was probably a diversion and a distraction to everything that had been going on. But I started to take action on ideas much quicker. So I started to write it and then I started to appeal to other authors.

And in the end I had 37 authors who then were involved in character building. And Character Building is a really special book for me because at that age I didn’t know what to do with grief and loss.

But I started to see how I was channeling it into my life. And this book became kind of me overcoming grief to a degree and talking about it and managing it and seeing what it.

What it felt like to me and what it meant for my future. Now, crazily, this book, yes, it was, it was hard and it was probably the worst timing ever to do it. But what I learned was that I could do anything.

And it really felt like I had this whole superpower, this whole new energy of that whatever I turn my hand to, I was going to try it.

Because the worst that was going to happen, the absolute worst, was it was failing, you know, and if I look at other aspects of my life right then that was never as bad as what had just happened to me. So I started to do things like for events, booking the venues, and I just making it happen. And I got everything into flow really quickly.

So I published my book, I raised money for cancer research campaign. I left a legacy in the British Library for these other authors. And sadly, some of these authors didn’t survive until the book publication.

It was actually endorsed by Sir Nigel Hawthorne, who was battling his own cancer journey at that time. And there were other celebrities who shared the story. And it was all about overcoming adversity and finding a silver lining in every cloud.

And I think the special part was, is it brought other people together who shared a commonality with me. And it just gave me this new light, this new energy that I still had my life to go. And grief reminded me that, you know, one day isn’t a date on a.

On a calendar. It’s. It’s this story that we tell ourselves, you know, to. To feel safe.

So if you want to scale and you want to do things in your life, you know, urgency, you know, can’t just come from, like, this whole market trends and competition. It has to come from you.

And things that I’d sat on or procrastinated on, I just, you know, suddenly started to put into action, you know, micro actions on a daily level, but from knowing that, you know, your vision deserves to be out in the world. One piece of advice I would absolutely give from this experience of mine is that don’t do it when you feel ready, because that time will never come.

And, you know, we don’t have a finite time left on this planet. You know, we have a certain amount of time that is available and we.

And we need to use it well and live every 24 hours in a way that is congruent to what your mission and vision is and start to lean into some of the challenges that you’ve had in life.

And this is kind of my message here, that we can’t just be a victim, and we can’t let the trauma or challenges of our past define who we are and the destiny of our future. So when you’re grieving, your.

Your whole sort of capacity changes, and you don’t have the same sort of mental bandwidth, so it starts to force you into kind of getting really, really clear on exactly where your energy is going to go.

So what I mean by this is you can start to use it as a catalyst and you, like, cut out toxic clients, and you start to get really savvy around what your truth is and what your passion is. And I started to delegate more. I stopped chasing opportunities that, you know, didn’t feel like they aligned.

And the simple truth for me was that scaling doesn’t mean necessarily doing more. It meant saying no more. And it means doing more of what matters and what really, really lights you up.

The thing here is, is that when you shift your priorities to legacy work. And you start to set boundaries that, you know, like your life depends on it. I guess you start to change your whole perspective.

And you know, what I found was that scaling started to become inevitable on my journey because I was taking such aligned action. I was so true to my mission and vision and I started to see the future differently. I had a more expansive way of thinking, less linear.

I, I wasn’t tied or attached to to do lists. And I really started to see how things would change if you had this you only live once kind of attitude.

And you know, instead of worrying about what would happen, I just took the risk, you know, And I almost felt like if I wasn’t getting a series of series of no’s in every week or every month, I wasn’t doing enough. And it started to really, really bring in this whole new lift of where my business was going.

My trajectory changed a lot and I was no longer leaking energy into things that, you know, didn’t return value or emotionally or financially or spiritually. I mean, in terms of value, not just revenue. I was doing things differently.

And I remember really thinking about doing the things that people wouldn’t do. And one key point that I live by even now is that I run my business and I work with my clients in this way.

And it’s a message I share pretty much every day is to do what 80% of business owners won’t. And this is where things get quite magical because you start to think differently and behave differently.

You lean into the things that are not generic. You start to move away from the vanilla.

You start to carve out something that is really special and something that is so purpose driven, so passion fueled and yes, it gets to be profitable as well. So if you are navigating loss right now, and you know, this is a really hard topic for me to talk about, it’s still very emotional to get over it.

I don’t know what advice I would have about that. I think it’s more about managing it. And you can scale in the middle of grief. You know, I, I absolutely did, I think didn’t have to stop for me.

I needed some sort of place to put my energy and a way to work through some of my emotion and my anger so you can honor the people that you know, you, you’ve lost by creating this amazing business and living a life that is truly enriched with experience and happiness. Because in business, the things that we have to have in equal measure. And this really, really is honestly the biggest takeaway I can give you.

Is that our health and our wealth and our happiness, they all need to be in equal measure. And I don’t believe that there’s such a thing as, you know, work, life, balance.

But I do believe, as a CEO, as a founder, that we need to bring the energy and our actions into those three pillars. So, you know, sometimes the.

The most powerful growth that we have kind of comes in in spite of pain, and it’s because of it, you know, that these things have changed.

So if anything in this episode resonated with you, you know, share it with another founder, share it with somebody who is maybe going through that pain or has not dealt with that pain. And, you know, if you’re ready to really kind of scale and you think that maybe it’s not the right time, there never will be.

You just have to know in your heart of hearts that everything that you do and the way that you show up every day has to be congruent, has to be aligned to your true passion and purpose. And at the end of the day, we all set up businesses for one purpose. We wanted more freedom, we wanted more fun.

And, you know, sadly, life and business comes with challenges and it will never be plain sailing. So I urge you to really start thinking differently about how you show up, the things that you’re going to do today.

And if you have had, you know, any form of trauma in your previous life or business, try and detach from it. And don’t make it your daily living. Don’t make it a focus that, you know, kind of limits your success.

Use it in a way that fuels you that, you know, despite of this, I’ve managed to do X, Y and Z. So I’m really pleased to share this episode with you. It’s something that is honestly still a very emotional thing, even like 20 years on.

And it’s something I will never forget.

But it’s something that when I look back on these people and remember, I see them as the fuel to my journey and the magic to have had them in my life, you know, is very special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and join me on the next episode.

And again, please come and, you know, let me know in social media if any of these points touched you.

I just, I love to hear what listeners have to say and at the end, end of the day, this is, you know, the podcast is about you and obviously, you know, leaning into the experiences that you’ve had as much as me.