10 Secrets to a Successful Life and Business

Welcome to episode 97. Just three more episodes until we hit that 100 milestone of Dawn Avenue Era podcast. Now, we're still climbing in the rankings, which is amazing to see. And, you know, to think that I started this podcast in, like, 2018 it was, and we've grown so much.

We've got thousands and thousands of downloads, and we're growing subscribers each and every day. And this goes out to every single person who has supported me on my journey. Now, my journey started at 21, and I'm 44 now, and none of this, none of this would be possible without you. So thank you.

Now, this podcast, the episode is going to be about Ten steps to lead a more successful and abundant life. This is something that I want to talk about because my podcast, as you know, covers all things marketing, motivation, and mindset. And my name is Dawn McGruer, for anyone who is a brand new listener, and I am the business growth coach. I help CEOs, businesses grow their businesses.

But amongst all of that, yes, we talk about, you know, the models, the marketing, the money, the whole sort of foundations and strategy around the business. But a big part of it is motivation and mindset, and having this growth mindset, being able to position yourself and set yourself up so that you will cause waves and ripples of success, not just in your own life, but around you. We're going to cover these ten steps. These are things that I feel have really helped me move forward, even in challenging or difficult times.

Because let's be honest, being an entrepreneur is not all plain sailing. And anyone who tells you that setting up a business, starting it, growing and scaling it is simple, it's not, because there are a lot of things to learn along the way. And success barriers often are one of our biggest causes of halting that speed of success. It could even be detrimental to how your business grows because number one on my list is about taking risks, yes.

And this may feel uncomfortable to some of you, but many of my ventures in life have never been guaranteed. There was no sort of 100% seal that came with it when I started. I had no idea necessarily where things would go, what the direction would be, if it would actually succeed or indeed fail. I've had lots of fails, epic ones along the way, things that have really rocked me to the core.

But this has built a resilience whereby I know that these fails have been the biggest growth for me ever, because once I have tried something, it unlocks and unleashes so many learnings along the way. It's incredible, because then I can build a better, mightier, stronger business and life along the way. And there's pretty much nothing I haven't experienced in business. So why is this good?

Well, it makes me an absolutely amazing business person in terms of my knowledge and expertise, because I've done it all. I've had the successes and the failures. I've walked the walk. So when I'm working with clients, they have a belief in me because they know that regardless what we hit along the way, we know how to get out of it.

And this whole risk-taking aspect is important because be it in your business or your life, you can't spend all day daydreaming. You have to implement and take action. And I see this a lot in lifelong learners. Now, I'm a lifelong learner, but I'm also a lifelong implementer.

I see people just doing course after course after course. And I even put on my landing pages that I do not want someone just to take another course. I only want someone who is going to take the course, work with me, who is going to do the implementation, who is going to take action, because there is no way unless you actually take that learning, take that knowledge out of your head and do something with it, that it will change your life or business. And this is something that if you have lots of courses, lots of things just sitting there, or you're just looking for someone to save you and you're maybe in victim mode, which we've all been there before, step out of it.

And just move one step forward. And this is the change. So if you feel that life is giving you a bit of a hard time, that's fine. But maybe change today's positioning and think, what could I do to change that?

Now this takes me on to step two. Successful people will be very kind of sure of themselves, and this is all about having an unwavering self-belief. So when I meet people, people say, I just know that you're going to do it. I just have this belief in you.

And I was on a retreat in Barbados a few months ago, actually in December, and someone said to me, just on the first meet, like literally meeting me, I have no idea what you do, Dawn, but I would have full faith and I would absolutely invest in you because I know that you would guarantee my success. And it was just such a strange thing to say, but it's because I do have an unwavering self-belief that everything I do, I will achieve. It might go wrong along the way, but ultimately I will get to my goal. And this is not something I've had all of my life.

I would say I've had a large chunk of that. I've definitely had sort of a growth mindset along the way, but I've had wobbles. And I think the thing is, is the strength comes from an inner foundation of just thinking about what is the worst that can happen. And half of this came from me writing my first book when I was 21.

This is scary. I don't even know how I started a business at 21 and decided in what stratosphere was the right idea to actually create a book. It's not advice I would give to anyone else because at that time I was starting my business, I needed clients, I needed cash flow, but oh yeah, started to write a book. I gathered 37 authors together and we wrote a collation of stories all about overcoming adversity to raise money for cancer research.

It was an amazing project, and I learned so much along the way. I met some incredible people. So Nigel Hawthorne endorsed my book. We had people like Philip Schofield who wrote for it.

There was all sorts of different celebrities. And above all of that, I was the only author. And bear in mind, I was 21 publishing a book that had managed to get Rudyard Kipling's. If poem published in my book, the only person I know ever to be able to feature that poem in their book.

These things all came from having this unwavering belief. I just knew I would do it. I decided I was going to write a book. Everyone thought I was crazy.

The book came from me actually losing six people in six months, and it was a really tough time because I was in sort of my late teens, early twenties. I hadn't experienced anything like this, and to have this ripple through of close friends who were my age, right the way through to sort of other friends and family, it was a real shake, and it really made me think differently. So it definitely made me take more risks because I thought life is short, but it gave me this unwavering self-belief, like what's the worst that can happen? I can do this.

Look what's happened to these other people if I don't do it now. So I just thought if I don't do this, my talent is wasted. I knew that I could achieve it, and the book was actually called Character Building, and I had an amazing book launch, invited these people to it, and everyone said, Why did you call it Character Building? And I said, Well, it's basically what my dad used to say to me.

I'd ring up, and, you know, when I've started my business and I'd say it's a bit tough and I'd have a bit of a moan, and my dad said, You've still got your health, you've still got your friends, your family and everything like that. It's all character building, and it kind of was. And I don't want to say that that kind of set the scene, but it changed the way that I started thinking because instead of thinking, well, you know, you have to work really hard and you have to do all of these things, it's character building, I actually thought the opposite. I thought there's got to be a better way of doing this.

So everything that I applied in life, things got slightly easier because I wasn't thinking that I had to just work myself to the bone. I was thinking about working and having this work-life balance and actually not just draining myself, but actually really living for the moment. Number three, this is a great one, and this is about not caring what others think. And recently I was in our sort of local village having a drink, and someone said to me, Oh yeah, I love Dawn's videos.

Oh, especially the serious ones, you know, and it was kind of like a bit of a dig, a bit of a jibe, and you think, well, you're following my business Instagram and you don't work. And then I thought, well, I could be quite triggered by this because, you know, we put ourselves out there. It's quite vulnerable, isn't it, when we do a video or we put a post. We're thinking, Oh my goodness, what do our friends and family think?

And I used to care. Now I don't. I really don't because— They don't pay my bills. They did not make me mortgage free at 33.

At the end of the day, you've triggered something in them, and for them to actually be watching, I think is very interesting in itself. So this is not being arrogant or self-important. It's just being really kind of focused and believing in yourself, and just thinking, well, look, I'm out there doing this. What are you doing?

It's judging somebody based on the fact that someone's gone out there and done something. There's maybe an element of jealousy out there. There's maybe an element of just thumb-poking. It doesn't really matter.

But at the end of the day, rise above it, walk tall, and just do your own thing. And yes, it might feel a little bit uncomfortable. I know that when I stepped out of corporate, it was really hard to put my face as the brand. But once I did it a few times and realized I hadn't died, it wasn't that bad.

You got—

The thing, at the end of the day, who cares? This is your life, your journey, your dreams. Go out and get them and sod what anyone else thinks, because they don't matter. They're not part of that journey.

And anyone who's not supporting you along the way, leave them by the side, okay? Number four, this is a great one. It's all about kind of thinking outside the box and zigging when everyone else is zagging. So don't just accept the way things are.

People go, Oh, this doesn't work. And I used to remember, like, when I'd hire team members and they'd say to me, Well, I've done this, but this doesn't work. I'd go, Well, did you try this, or did you think about that? No.

I used to really try and kind of invigorate in my team this kind of vision of, Well, look, there's always a way. Let's find it. Let's think outside the box. Let's not be afraid to go against the grain.

Let's go and find a way, and it's about determination. And if something doesn't work, or if you're not resonating with people online, I see a lot of people posting at the moment where they say, I'm posting on social media, I'm putting on my effort in, and I'm just not getting any clients. Well, this is it. You know, think outside the box.

What got you your last client? Was it X, Y and Z? Is there a way that you could really just carve out a different way of communicating with them instead of posting to your audience, go and message one person. Think outside the box.

Number five, we're halfway through. Being optimistic and having this growth mindset, that's huge because you could start your day with a whole kind of like doldrum attitude of, Oh my goodness, it's so busy, I've got so much on today. That is just going to set your mind into the whole problem-based, really kind of dull phase. Think about it like, I've got a really busy morning, but once I've kind of done this, I'm going to treat myself to that, that and that, or I'm going to have a little break, or once I've done, I'm going to go for dinner.

So just try and think about the positives and think about what the forecast of the day could be. Could it be bright and sunny, or could it just be like bleak and rainy? So switch it up. If you hit an emotion and you feel it, then think about what that actually feels like and then move past it.

So think about good situations and attitudes and create a strong mental buffer because there's always going to be negativity. Even when you're at your happiest, things will hit you, and this is something that you just have to accept, that it's always going to be a little bit of a turbulent ride, but we're striving for the majority of it to feel contented and happy. And if there's a little ripple along the way, that's just life. Number six.

Not being afraid of failure. This is a big one. This kind of links in with the first one about taking risks. So failure is part of the puzzle of actually allowing you to achieve success, and it's a really weird one because the more you fail, the more you learn.

And if you don't do anything, nothing changes. So the exciting thing is, and the way to position this in your mind is if I try this, the worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work. Does that even matter? No, it doesn't.

It builds resilience. You will learn from it. If you do nothing, you learn nothing. You will never, ever get past where you are at now.

If you do something, it could cause an opportunity. So many things that have not gone the way I thought have created opportunities I could never have thought of, and they've ended up being better because I've gone at it again. I've reworked it, optimized it, pushed it out there. Number seven, looking at your sort of whole attitude to things and being enthusiastic because There are fixers, obviously, in life who just want to kind of make sure everything is there, and this is something that I definitely, definitely am part of.

But if you think about your perspective of life and what the benefits of things are, having this can-do attitude means you can solve everything and not just kind of get caught up on the hedonistic treadmill. There's a series on Netflix at the moment, and it's all about not giving a fuck. And the interesting aspect here is that it's all about the subtle art of not giving a fuck. And when you think about it, a lot of what he says is quite true because we get caught up on thinking about all the negatives, or we can't do that, or that person's really super successful.

They're way further along in their journey than us, and we get this when we look at social media a lot, and we're only seeing that human showreel of what they are putting out. That's not necessarily reality. So your can-do attitude is positioning against things that are only a snapshot of the success. You have to kind of weigh that up and think, well, I can do this.

I can win. I can move forward. And, you know, being on this hedonistic treadmill is where we are constantly striving the next thing. We need to kind of absorb and embrace the journey along the way.

It's a journey, and we need to make sure that we're mindful and present of every action in that journey. So this will help in terms of switching your focus, because think back to everything that you have achieved, right, and just write that down. When you start to understand everything you have done, you think, oh my goodness, that was massive. Like if I think back and I think I've written two books already, I'm on my third.

Did I think I could sit down and write a 400-page digital marketing book in a month? No. But when Wiley gave me my contract, that was a big incentive to do so, and I did it. So.

You've got to think about, can you do it? Is it possible? And how does that work? Because if you go into something thinking you can't do it, most likely you will fail.

If you think about everything you've done in the past, that gives you a better foundation to kind of, like, springboard off to think, well, I did that, so I can do this. Number eight is all about taking responsibility. I hear so many people just kind of falling into the victim mode. We've talked about this before.

We've all probably been there quite a few times, let's be honest. Life's just being really unfair on us, and I just can't do this, and everything's stacked against me. It isn't, right? It really isn't.

That's not truth. It just isn't. Everyone has the ability to change the position. Yes, there will be hardship in it.

You can obviously not step past it, but you can get through it, okay? So you have to think about if you had a bad upbringing or whatever, that's not indicative of where things can go forward. You can draw a line, and you can step past that in terms of moving into your own direction. I'm not saying forget it, but I'm saying that you can't necessarily change the past.

You can't change what happened, and this is your opportunity. And the exciting thing is, is that every 24 hours has newlys of life, a new set of rules, a new set of exciting things that can happen. So just because something happened to you, and it could be that something happened in your personal life, or a relationship broke down, or a business didn't work, or you launched and it didn't come out the way you wanted, you have to think, well, look, there'll be something along the way, maybe in the launch, that you could change in the future. You can't change necessarily how people act towards you.

So these are the things that you can just have to kind of accept, that humans and their behaviour are outside your control. So blaming. And being a victim is not the best place to be. You have to kind of sit down and think, well, where am I now?

What's one thing that could make it better? What's one thing that could change what I feel right now? And take it in steps, because small steady steps, daily actions, build to big momentum. Number nine, being self-aware.

This is a huge, huge aspect of being successful, because once you really understand where you are and what your weaknesses and strengths are. So this is great if you have a to-do list, let's say, and you struggle to get things done, and I have this all the time. If something has been on my to-do list for over three weeks, which is quite often, I delegate and declutter, because clearly I'm not going to do it. It's something that's not lighting the fire within for making me do it.

It's something I'm procrastinating over. So empower yourself with being self-aware in the knowledge that you're not good at everything and you don't want to do everything. So give those things to the people who love doing it and get rid of them, okay? And feel lighter.

You will feel so good, and it's a very cathartic feeling when you get rid of the things you know you're never going to do. Last but not least, giving back. When you start to kind of give out to the world what you want back, and really just changing kind of your whole perspective, giving the emotions like you've never been hurt, having fun like you've never failed, and going forth like you have this belief. So it's one of those things that energetically, that if we wake up in the morning and we're like super positive, you know what it's like.

You walk into the coffee shop, you're like, Hi, chat, chat, chat. Everything feels lighter. Everything feels freer. The day that something happens to you when you're really in a bad thing, like you get a flat tire, the world is, Oh my goodness, everything is just going wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So give back, kind of put the energy back into the world and give the light back, and this will shine brighter back on you. And this is a real thing that, honestly, positivity is powerful. And when you're feeling empowered with the help from someone else. This is great.

So you can start to be your own energy generator, and then that ripples out to others, and then it ripples back to you, and it's kind of like this self-fulfilling kind of eco cycle. So I hope you enjoyed this podcast. It has been a really big one for me to do, and possibly one of the most important podcasts that I've ever done, because having success and abundance is down to you. And this is great because I—

to feel excited by listening to this, because these 10 ways could change everything for you forever, and it could change the way and the direction that your route goes. So don't forget to rate, leave us a review. I'd love you to come and reach out. Follow me at Dawn McGruer on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever your favorite channel is, TikTok.

I've just started Instagram and TikTok in February, and they're growing. LinkedIn has always been my biggest platform with around about 60,000 followers. And this year is exciting because I will be following these 10 habits too. So come and join the journey, share with me along the way what you're up to, and obviously, if there's any help that you need in terms of your marketing, motivation, mindset, there are lots of resources on DawnMcGruer.

com. So have an amazing day and week and year and rest of life using these principles, and just remember that every day has a new set of opportunities. Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast, and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit and success, and join our community, go to DawnMcGruer.com.