EPISODE 133 INTERVIEW WITH JOANNA INGRAM: ALIGN YOUR MESSAGING AND DRAW IN YOUR PEOPLE

Erin Marcus:

Hi! I’m Erin Marcus, former corporate executive turned entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Conquer Your Business. Welcome to the Ready Yet?! Podcast. We’re excited to bring you more than a hundred episodes of interviews and insights designed to help entrepreneurs get the financial and emotional freedom they need in order to build a business and a life they’re proud of.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet?! podcast. I can’t wait to record this conversation because we were going on and on and on before we hit record. I’m excited for my guest today, not only because we align so much in our stories and what we do for a living, but her 11-year-old twins are experiencing snowfall in London. Did you say London or England? 

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah, London. 

Erin Marcus:

Yeah. So, coming here from Chicago, that’s like our normal, so we totally understand. All things come to a halt. We have to go play out in the snow. So, thank you for coming inside for a few minutes and having a work conversation with me. But before we get into that, why don’t you give everyone a little bit more formal introduction to who you are and what you do.

Joanna Ingram:

Oh, thank you so much, Erin. And you’re right, a snow day in London is super exciting. We’ve already been out sledging at like 8:00 AM this morning. Actually, it’s a nice reason to be in right now and getting to thaw out my little fingers.

I’m Joanna and I’m an ex-advertising agency director turned business coach and brand messaging strategist. So, back at the beginning of the pandemic, I took the leap leaving behind a 20-year career to make my mark in a way that’s just more heart-led, purpose driven, and doing something running my own business and being my own boss, which is something that majority of us just know how important that is. But so many people, coaches who are both new and established, aren’t able to differentiate themselves. And to most importantly, come into alignment with what they’re really meant to do and that message they’re meant to deliver, that thing that lights them up as well as attracts and transforms their ideal client. So, that’s where I specialize working with high achieving, visionary female coaches to help them make that leap between burnout and lack of clarity into true alignment. Being able to take the message forward and create that change impact and of course, income in the world that they’re here to create.

Erin Marcus:

Awesome. So, I have questions. I’m sure you’re surprised, right? So, a couple things that came to mind as I’m listening to you. Because we work in such similar spaces, what do you find is the biggest obstacle for these thought leaders? Because it sounds like you work with really driven people and yet something’s missing. Like what is the gap between what they’re trying to do and where they’re getting stuck?

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah, that’s a great question. And for me, it’s always these two things, usually in combination, which is clarity and courage. So, when we come from a messaging perspective, most people will show up and say, “I just don’t have the clarity.” But a lot of times the symptom behind that is they’re not showing up visibly. They’re not really sharing from a place of authority. They’re not sharing from a place of alignment or authenticity. And they’re like, ‘Why is it that others can just seemingly do this effortlessly? And yet for me, I’m hiding. I’m a really reluctant person even though I’ve got the expertise, even though I’m making money, even though I’ve created lots of client transformation.’ 

So, this mindset piece is always very important. But the way that I tackle this, my approach is to get the messaging clarity piece dialed in first. And to go, well, what is it that you are meant to say? Because I’ve often found that when that piece has been dialed in, in a place of alignment, so they’re like feeling it, “Yes. This is my message. Yes,” then the courage becomes the next step because now you are clear, ‘This is what I’m here to express. I know how to articulate it. I’m ready to express it.’ And now, it’s the courage piece of identifying where you are most aligned to actually show up visibly and to get into that next step of doing the visible, the showing up, the expression. 

We’ve talked about this, Erin, if you’re not doing the things and the people aren’t going to hear you, you are always going to stay hidden. And whether that’s hidden behind a six-figure business that’s teaching something that you leap out of corporate and just started teaching because you got the skills but isn’t what lights you up anymore, or whether that’s hidden as someone who’s struggling to get clients because you’re not showing up both equally ready and deserving to express yourself in a new way and starts calling those new people.

Erin Marcus:

Yeah. You are one of the few people I’ve ever heard who describes it the same way I do. Because to me, the catchy phrase I use is magnetic messaging makes you brave. I know for me, there was the whole piece of being fearful, of being bold. So, there’s the courage piece, how bold can you be? But the other thing is, if you don’t have messaging around what you do, that lights you up, you’re not going to say it. So, I love those moments when I’m working with clients and you come up with messaging that they finally feel heard, they finally feel it. It just resonates with them and then they can’t wait to scream it from the rooftops when previously what held us back was, we didn’t want to sound like an idiot.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. We didn’t understand where our piece in the market is. It’s so cluttered. There are so many people out there: another business coach, another life coach, another wellness coach. It’s like, there’s so many, why should somebody work with me? 

Erin Marcus:

There’s so many people waiting to tell you what to do. Right?

Joanna Ingram:

Exactly. Most of the people I work with, and I suspect it’s pretty similar for you too, Erin, are not unlike me. They are driven, high achieving, visionary, often have illustrious corporate careers behind them.

Erin Marcus:

Right. There’s success there.

Joanna Ingram:

Yes. And what’s happening is they want to work with people who are equally as motivated, driven, inspiring, but they’ll often find themselves, and this was the case for me in that first 6 to 12 months through my messaging or more appropriately my misaligned messaging, I found myself working with really beautiful humans who just weren’t my special people. Yes, we were doing great work, but I was finding that their energy didn’t match mine. It took a long time for me to really understand this and articulate it, but now I understand that it’s a de-energized client problem that comes from a struggling messaging panel.

Now, of course, we know that when you elevate your messaging and call to their desires and you support their vision and you give them the clarity in which to be able to articulate and work towards it, it’s a different client to the ones who are like, “I can’t do it,” which often, often translates into, I will do a lot of this for you, which will give you a short-term hit in what you need. It’s that old teacher mentor fish kind of analogy.

Erin Marcus:

Right. It’s not going to solve their problem because the messaging that I’m willing to say is so much stronger than the messaging that that clientele would be willing to say. So, 100%. Absolutely. And the clarity in my messaging as I’ve grown, it just makes your life so much easier. You draw your ideal client to you, your sales calls are not even sales calls because you already know so much about each other just by having that energy and connecting. And it sells so much of just the entire client journey business building situation.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah, a 100%. I feel really, really strongly about this. I mean, the idea of having a mission is something that I now understand. I’ve done it for myself and I teach my clients, is a mission isn’t like a corporate company statement at the bottom. And I was taught this by one of my business coaches to begin with that I needed to write a mission and I came out with, “I want to help a thousand women by 2023.” Don’t get me wrong, for many this works. But for those people that need to be in deep alignment and find a passion in order to express their messaging, mission is actually an opportunity for you to go deep within. Find out what your real mission is. Because when we talk about visibility and showing up and courage, when your mission goes beyond, how do I find my next paying client? And your mission is an umbrella statement above every aspect of your business, whether you are showing up to share on a podcast or whether you are enrolling your next 30 clients into your mega group program, the mission stays the same. And no one has to worry about how to be authentic when you’re sharing your authentic mission.

What you said, Erin, just now about showing up on a sales call, a discovery call and it not even being high pressure. For me, that mission piece just transcends it because we don’t have to think about icky sales when we’ve got a powerful mission that we can articulate powerfully and passionately.

Erin Marcus:

So, I totally understand why some people aren’t able to come up with their own words, right? Like words are kind of my genius zone as opposed to bookkeeping or tech which is not my genius zone. Right? So, I totally get that part, but what are you seeing is the reason that holds people from stepping into this? What is holding them back? 

I think part of it is knowledge, part of it is, especially for those of us who come out of corporate, the way it works as an entrepreneur needing the alignment, needing the courage is so different than a corporate job that we just don’t anticipate that being a deal. But what’s the reason? What do you see is the reason that holds people back from being able to really stand firm and strong in an authentic line in the sand message?

Joanna Ingram:

Okay. So, from the people I work with, it’s really, really clear. This is a combination of fear of judgment and being given permission, which is the strangest thing, right? I mean, I experienced it myself. We think we’re women in positions of leadership in corporate, but it’s a really different beast running our own business even after a few years. We believe that we could only express a specific message. So, I remember feeling very, very strongly that if I couldn’t stand up in my old boardroom and present to the board in a confident way, then I couldn’t do it. At the time, I was moving towards a position of much more spirituality within my business. First of all, I’d have to get the guts to say I’m a business coach. How dare I? Business coach? Who do you think are? I’d done all of that. And then I’d gone through a place where I’d gone through burnout and I’d realized that the accountability productivity, CEO strategizing, positioning that I’d carved out for myself on the basis of 20 years working in advertising agencies just wasn’t me. It was an aspect of me, but it wasn’t what lit me up the most and it wasn’t my vision for my joyful sustainable business. 

At the time, I’d certified as a product healer really into breath work. I became a facilitator and I realized that that was more me. As I call myself a law of attraction devotee, I just love that stuff and I found it was really helping me in becoming a lot more conscious of the universe and unattachment and on all of this stuff. It was at that point I thought, ‘Well, that’s lovely, but you’ve got to now go and talk about that not just one-on-one with that client who enjoys it too, but use it in your marketing, use it in your messaging because that’s who you are.’

Erin Marcus:

And use it on LinkedIn where all your friends from your corporate job are going to see it.

Joanna Ingram:

I’ve got to admit, I de-connected from quite a few people. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

Erin Marcus:

I didn’t de-connect, I just procrastinated for a really long time. You’ll love this. So, for me, you’ll totally understand this. It almost happened by accident. I never had a big problem with permission. I don’t know why. I’ve always just felt I was allowed to do whatever I want to do. But I was stuck with my stories of what it was supposed to look like. Coming out of corporate, what does a professional look like as opposed to now? Which clearly, I no longer physically fit the bill for what a corporate professional is supposed to look like. So, that took a while, but the permission problem wasn’t there. 

And then what happened was I was working with someone to redo my website and it was my first step into a stronger brand, changed the name to Conquer Your Business, which is a pretty powerful statement, had the tagline, be in charge, take action. We were making this a more powerful thing and I was just procrastinating so much. But then what happened is I got busy and I got distracted and I forgot to procrastinate. And the team that created the website hit the publish button almost when I wasn’t looking. Like it was on the calendar to go live on such and such date so they just did it. 

I was so freaked out because that was going to be seen by my LinkedIn friends from corporate, my high school friends from Chicago and all these things. And then I was flooded with, ‘Oh my god, this looks so great.’ I was flooded with such a positive response. So, thank God I wasn’t in charge at the time. 

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. I had a really similar experience because I procrastinated for four months after I left corporate and became a business coach. My LinkedIn hadn’t even changed. I was like busy over there on Instagram and LinkedIn, all the reasons. I don’t need to explain why. I didn’t want to change on LinkedIn until I was with a group of like-minded friends/business besties and they’re like, “Right. This is the day. You’re not getting off a call until you’ve been onto LinkedIn. You just change it.” And exactly like your experience, when I did that change and that inspired me to write a long post on Facebook about my fears and why I hadn’t explained and to be really authentic and vulnerable, I got a flood of supportive messages saying, “You go for it. This is amazing.” And then a few messages in private from people saying, “Oh, I wish I had the courage to do that.” 

Erin Marcus:

That amazed me. I had several people in very, very high positions reached out to me. Here’s the thing, I loved my job. I don’t come from the miserable story of mistreatment. I had a great job with great people. I had just reached a point where I knew I needed to do something else, do something more. It was like my own version of a corporate midlife crisis. I didn’t leave a bad environment. 

So, I worked with a lot of other people who also loved their jobs and also were very proud of their accomplishment and really liked each other. I was amazed at who from my corporate world reached out to me with private messages saying, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’d never be brave enough to do it.” There were people like, “I’ve always wanted to do something like this. And I never have.” And they were people in some pretty impressive positions that to me, it looked like they lived for what it was that they were doing.

Joanna Ingram:

That’s so, so true. Those moments of feeling so proud of ourselves and busting through those barriers and then we realized we have to consistently do that. 

Erin Marcus:

We have to keep doing it. 

Joanna Ingram:

That was just one thing. Six months later, suddenly, I’ve got this messaging about the universe and what I truly believe about alignment and energetics as a really important piece about how we show up in our businesses if we want to be joyful and sustainable and that was another push. I was like, right. Now, it’s time. By this point, I have much deeper understanding of what was required in messaging. I knew that once I had that clarity come in, now it’s the courage time. It’s time to just to do that post that just breaks the cycle. 

Erin Marcus:

It’s one of the things I ask myself as part of my morning routine every day is, ‘Where can I be 1% braver?’

Joanna Ingram:

I love that.

Erin Marcus:

Like every day. I think it’s a muscle like any other muscle. You do it a few times, you realize you didn’t die. You didn’t die, and so you get a little bit braver and a little bit braver. And now, not that it never happens, but I’m very excited to be on the other side of that where procrastination now usually is my subconscious way of saying, this is not a good idea. There’s a reason I didn’t do the thing and it’s because subconsciously I knew it was stupid idea where it used to be a fear-based response.

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Joanna Ingram:

Yeah, I totally get that. That’s the thing about this industry is that when we really know who we are and what we are here to share, it’s about then getting the courage and go ahead and get visible and start sharing. 

One of the big pieces that I dialed in in my program, because I know that it was so important to me is finding where it is you are supposed to be brave because the industry tells us things like, “Oh, well, you are supposed to be dancing on reels, or you are supposed to be having a big dancing group.” There are so many conflicting messages about where you’re supposed to show up. I realized from my own experience that the piece that had been missing for me was being able to confidently express my authority in a way that made me really comfortable.

I realized that for me, like podcast guesting, like this is super aligned with the way I like to show up and add value and have that credibility to help people make that transition. Although occasionally, I’m inspired and I like a little bit of a lip sync reel, that isn’t my alignment place. Likewise, I publish articles online and I like to write and I realized more and more that the clients that were coming to work with me had those same problems. They’re like, ‘I really do want to get visible.’ That isn’t the thing. And I’ve got the clarity now and yes, I’m getting the courage, but at the same time, it doesn’t mean I want to go dancing on TikTok. So, where’s that? So, for me, that that authority alignment piece has become very central. 

It’s an energetics thing, isn’t it? It’s like if we feel energized by working in a particular space, we’re going to show up, we’re going to add value. And yes, if you’re into the law of attraction, you’re probably going to get results a lot easier than if you are struggling to do what some other social content media coaches told you to do.

Erin Marcus:

It’s got to be aligned. Again, it goes back for me, between fear-based and is there a different reason? One of the best pieces of advice I got was if fear is the only reason we’re not doing something, it’s not a good enough reason not to do it. So, I do look like, ‘Okay. Am I scared of doing that and that’s why I’m not doing it?’ That’s not okay. But if it’s just not me, because if it’s just not you, you’ll never energetically get behind it enough for it to work. 

Joanna Ingram:

Yes. It’s got to be you. You’re right. It’s like it’s got to be you and if I feel like I don’t want to do it, it’s really important. And I know that you do this with your clients, as do I with mine. It’s like we have to explore the reasons. What are the good reasons? When you get to a point where, ‘Yes, it’s aligned. I want to write articles and be published. I really do.’ Great. We know your messaging now. We’ve been through this. We know what you do and what you specialize in. We get to a point where it’s like now, and they’re like, “There is no good reason now. Now, it’s just breaking the cherry, doing it until it’s not a big deal.” 

Erin Marcus:

Until it doesn’t bother you anymore. So, let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about more about your personal experiences because I’m curious. I have my own stories about this and I love hearing this from other people, especially people who come out of corporate in one way or another. What was your biggest surprise about being an entrepreneur? What did you just not see coming?

Joanna Ingram:

Okay. I think one of the biggest surprises was the depth of personal development that was going to be part of the journey. 

Erin Marcus:

Did you think that because it just didn’t occur to you or did you think you were like me, I thought I was pretty okay. I had this misguided assessment of myself that I was actually okay. 

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. I think that resonates actually. Now, you’re putting it out there like that. I’d been on a little journey over a couple of years prior. In 2019, Tony Robbins came to London and I was walking on hot calls and it was like, ‘Yeah, do it, do it, do it,’ kind of thing about self-development. 

Erin Marcus:

Little did we know. 

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. And I was like, ‘Yeah, I can do it. I’m all set,’ basically.

Erin Marcus:

I’m good, I’m great.

Joanna Ingram:

I’m good. I’m going to do this. But I think my interpretation at the time was simply that if I’m motivated enough, if I get up at 5:00 a.m., if I fill in the spreadsheet with my goals and complete my visioning exercise, it’s done. This is self-development.

Erin Marcus:

I checked the boxes. It’s self-development. It should work. 

Joanna Ingram:

No problem. Which is why six to eight months into my business, I was on the kitchen floor ugly crying to my husband that I’d made a big mistake, that this wasn’t what I’d visioned. I was completely burned out because in my mind I was like, ‘Okay. In order to do this, I’ve just got to hit some random and arbitrary number in the first year. I need to do everything, all the things in order to achieve it.’ This is why I talk about joyful and sustainable because that was the antithesis of what I had was initially creating

Erin Marcus:

Miserable and I can’t.

Joanna Ingram:

Miserable, exhausted, unsustainable. That’s when I realized that actually stepping into our new levels and evolving and elevating was part of the journey. Luckily, I was always there for it, because I was already into energetics mindset. It was a deep passion. What I hadn’t realized was that I actually had to bring that into my business. I thought that I could have that as a little side hobby.

Erin Marcus:

That was the thing you did on your own in order to do your business. Not as part of your business. 

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. That was one of the most joyful things that happened for me and personally and is now something that I love to teach because people resonate with this so often is that actually mindset and energetics are things that us who are doing the work and are seeing the results are made to incorporate it and teach it into our otherwise strategic businesses. 

I know from our chat, it’s exactly your path. What you did was bring the mindset and the strategy together and I love that. 

Erin Marcus:

Again, I had a job. If you didn’t know how to do something, you took a class. I got my MBA. I got certifications and other things. Like if something wasn’t working, you got more education, more how-to education and then you did the thing again. Much like you, the personal development piece was a surprise to me not because I didn’t like working. I was probably not as far along as you were, but I was reading books. But I never in a million years thought that what I was thinking in the back of my mind was why it wasn’t working. That it wasn’t necessarily about what I was or was not doing. 

Truthfully, like we’ve been talking about what you’re doing gets better and better and better as you improve your thinking. Yeah, never saw that coming. 

Joanna Ingram:

Likewise. I realized because I started attending breathwork sessions as an opportunity, as a highly driven female entrepreneur who’s not always present in the moment. And I was like, right. I’m always looking to the next goal and this has been my achievement wound. Even that language, achievement wound, I wouldn’t have known to say a word like that. If you don’t know what it means, I think you can guess. It’s like being really damaged by needing to achieve all of the time. And it ruining any enjoyment of anything that you ever achieve because you’re always looking to the next thing and not seeing yourself as worthy unless you’re achieving, achieving, achieving. 

So, going into these breathwork sessions, for me, was an opportunity for me to allow my mind to quieten and allow insight and intuition to drop in, which was helping me with my business instead of getting stuck in the shoulds, ‘I should, should, should,’ I was saying, ‘Well, what’s aligned for me? What do I feel called to do?’ I could work for eight hours today or I could make one call that actually achieves what it is I’m supposed to. I put out one post. I could share one thing on a podcast that actually moves my business forward in a much deeper way than spending eight hours doing whatever it’s I think I’m supposed to do.

Erin Marcus:

The other piece of that is to me, the ongoing interesting thing that I’ve had to shift my mindset around was when I started to be like, ‘Okay. That’s the thing. This is the thing that I have to focus on. The mindset work, success mindset work, the universal law. This is the thing that’s going to help me.’ When I first started that journey, I did that with the thought, ‘I can’t wait till I’m fixed,’ and then I don’t have to do that anymore.’ 

What’s amazing to me even now is I’m very diligent about those concepts. It’s just like scope creep when you have a project that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. This stuff slips if you are not vigilant. I have what I call my litmus test, and I use that term for a lot of things, like, does this move me closer? Does this move me further? And I apply it to everything. This is not something that gets fixed. This is just how it works.

Joanna Ingram:

Yes. I love that. I say very, very similar, which I don’t say I’m cured. Now, I’ve brought breathwork into my own teachings. I’m now a facilitator and I’m around business groups where breathwork is a part of what we do because it’s time to, the same way that I learned, to stop the overthinking and trying to do it in a certain way and coming back to ourselves. What I love about all of that is that when it comes to being vigilant and everything you’ve just described, it’s an opportunity for us to be ourselves and stop overworking, overproving, over efforting because that isn’t going to be our business that we are going to love in 5 years or 10 years. It’s going to be another burnout statistics of someone that goes back to their previous work or simply doesn’t love what they do, which is exactly what happened in the past, which is why we left. 

Erin Marcus:

Isn’t it crazy that the work that we do from a mindset side is to make sure we’re keeping it easy? Like it’s not work we do so that we can increase our capacity and make it harder and handle more complex things. The mindset work is to keep us from doing all of that instead of making you be able to do that.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. I mean, there’s very few people who we would view as successes within this industry that haven’t dialed in mindset energetics, a piece like that because you can’t do it. It’s like saying quit smoking on willpower or get healthy on willpower. It can take you so far, which is exactly what I find. Women jump out of corporate and they’ll jump into making their six figures. And it will take them so far being pushing and pushing and proving. But they will always come a point where they’re like, ‘I’m out of alignment. I’m miserable. I’m exhausted. I’m frustrated. I’m not expressed.’

Erin Marcus:

And what they forget, and I include myself in that, they until I figured it out and got guidance, was a six- figure business as an entrepreneur equates to an entry level salary by the time you have all your expenses. So, this six-figure mark sounds great, but for most people, a six-figure business does not replace a six-figure salary because it’s not like you’re working for clients 40 hours a week and take home all that. The math is different.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah, absolutely. But also the number isn’t as important as the creation of the fun and the ease. For some people making 50 or 80K actually gives them all of that. For other people, it doesn’t matter if they’re making 500K because they’re not feeling any of that and they’re not being themselves in their business. Working with somebody who had a thriving LinkedIn positioning where they were really helping people, but what they really wanted to do was help them with mindset. They couldn’t blend both, but they didn’t have the confidence to take the leap and to change their messaging and be brave because they didn’t want to break, they didn’t want to fix something that wasn’t broken. What they didn’t realize was, was that there are different ways for something to be broken and the numbers is only one part of it because it’s your business. 

Erin Marcus:

I talk to so many people. My big question always is what do you want? It’s amazing to me once I can have a real conversation with people and they tell me what they want. And then when we talk about what they’re doing, it’s nothing close to what they want. Like I want to create this business that does XYZ. So, I’m over here doing ABC and 4 instead and we don’t see it for ourselves.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. I took this on board myself only recently. I was like, what is it that I really want? I want to make more impact. I want to make more income. As my mission is, I want to help more women be fully expressive and individualized in their business because I couldn’t be that for many, many years. I didn’t even know who I was literally. I hit my 40s still not quite sure who I was in the world. It was only through this experience in entrepreneurship that I’m like showing up. I’m like, ‘No. I know who I am and I don’t have to be out there in that way or that way. I just have to be me and express myself.’ That’s what I want for every woman in business, to just be herself. 

So, my mission is easy because I’m living it right now. But the point that we are kind of going into here, and I’ve completely lost my train of thought. Remind me, Erin. I got so excited. I’m like, ‘No. I don’t know where I’m going.’

Erin Marcus:

Why do people say they want one thing and then do something completely unrelated?

Joanna Ingram:

Right. So, my big change last month in order to expand my impact and income was to take Wednesday mornings off and sign up for a pottery class. It’s like, I’m like, right. What’s happening here as I’m starting to get that anxiety building that we all get when we’re like, ‘Oh, I need to elevate my results right now.’ And for me, and many women I work with, and many women I know will say, ‘When I get that feeling, I do more.’ What is it I’m not doing? How much harder can I work? Could I do an each couple of hours? Could I write more content? Could I create a new program? What’s my new offer? And you get into this spiral, and my solution for that was right from now on, you’re taking Wednesday mornings off. You’re going to learn to spin a pot. It’s been amazing. I love spinning on the wheel. It’s been fabulous.

Erin Marcus:

The answer to where am I not getting the results that I want? The answer to getting them is almost never work harder for the people that we’re talking about. There’s a whole lot of people who need to step up and do more work. There’s a whole lot of people who don’t put in the effort. But for those who are driven and are already really doing so many things, the answer is almost never do more things.

Joanna Ingram:

Now, we’re talking to the over efforters, over approvers out there, of which we number two in this community so far. And yet, it’s always, how can I get more in alignment with the joy and the fun that I want to create, that I think is my goal? Live it now. I’m so fed up with being somebody who thinks at some point in the future when XYZ happens, then I’ll have more time with my kids, then I’ll take a vacation, then I’ll not work evenings, then fill in the gap for your own circumstance.

Erin Marcus:

Humans have this such a weird relationship with time where day-to-day-to-day we’re so busy, we’re so busy, we’re so busy. And yet, overall, we live our lives as if we have forever to get to the point where we want to be. It’s just extremely incongruent in the moment but it seems to be the default for most people.

Joanna Ingram:

Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s what we’re taught. We don’t come through our schooling. We don’t come through our corporate careers being taught about alignment or being taught about over efforting. We’re just taught to do more, strive more, work harder, prove yourself more. Many of us embrace that. We get attached to the praise. We get attached to the achievement. Our parents encourage that. I’m the oldest child, the first one in my family to ever go to college. And you start taking, yeah, you too, right? Surprise. Surprise. And you get this whole picture of who you are in the world and you think to yourself, ‘Oh, if only I can achieve the next thing, then I’ll be worthy. I’ll be happy with myself. 

Erin Marcus:

Then it’ll all be okay. All right. So, we could go on forever, but I have an idea. If people want to continue this conversation with you, what is the best way? I highly, highly recommend people reach out, learn more about how you help people, learn more about how you run your business, all of the things. What’s the best way for people to reach you?

Joanna Ingram:

Absolutely. So, you can find me on all social media channels, but the one that I’m often chatting on is Instagram. You can find me @Iamjo.ingram. And I literally, last week presented the Magnetic Messaging Masterclass, which taught how to find alignment, how to find the messaging piece so you can attract your sole clients. And I have that replay available for anyone that wants to see that training for free. So, send me a DM over on Instagram, just type ‘Magnetic messaging’ or ‘Hi,’ and I’ll be really happy to share the link with you.

Erin Marcus:

And give us your Instagram handle again.

Joanna Ingram:

It’s IamJo, J-O. Ingram, I-N-G-R-A-M. 

Erin Marcus:

Also, we’ll make sure we have the links in the notes. Thank you for sharing your time with me when you could be out burying yourself in the snow with your kids. I’ve been there, done that. Seriously, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge and your story.

Joanna Ingram:

Oh, my pleasure. It’s been so much fun, Erin. Thank you.

Erin Marcus:

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Ready Yet?! Podcast. I truly enjoy bringing these stories of success and inspiration to you. Please join us in our mission to empower entrepreneurs to be in charge of their businesses and in charge of their lives by sharing this with anyone you know who would benefit from our tactical and motivating advice, leaving us a review and letting us know if there are any particular topics you would really appreciate hearing about. See you next time.