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Whenever you are doing something new, different, or unusual in the world, there will be people judging you. And that’s not your business. Whether it’s about what you’re doing on social media, or with your actual products or services, a negative judgment will eventually come your way.
For so many modern, driven women, life is about being more than one thing. We’re multidimensional—and so are our conversations. We carry multiple identities; we can be both mother and artist; both attorney and entrepreneur. Both clinician and CEO. Both humble and proud. Life for women like us is about both. About…all of the above. It’s about the “and”...
00:00.00
heymarvelous
Hi everyone welcome to the an she spoke podcast hi Sandy hey so in this episode we are going to talk about how to process the fact that sometimes your clients.
00:04.37
sandy
Hey Jenny.
00:16.88
heymarvelous
Or your audience is disappointed in you or it is expressing some kind of negativity towards either what you're doing when you show up visibly on social or what you're doing with your programs products and services.
00:32.14
sandy
Um, why are we talking about this right now. Jetty and.
00:35.60
heymarvelous
Well, you know we've had. We had a tumultuous week every time we as Tech co-founders Release New features. Um, it's we always kind of steel ourselves because we experience negative feedback and it's.. It's like always the vast minority of our clients that Express um Anger or frustration. But it's just something that we've had to get thick skin about over the years because I think it's part of running the kind of business that we run and I know that other people also hear negative feedback or criticism. With their offerings and I and I think it would be helpful to kind of talk through how we handle it. We're certainly not perfect and then also kind of some strategies for how to to deal with that when it comes up because it's really a matter of time if you're growing a business.. It's really a matter of time before you start to get this kind of negative feedback. Um. Even if you have a really small offering like say you have a mastermind or something with a small group of people that you know you don't get negativity from those people you're still going to get negativity from people who say you're charging too much or your program is too exclusive or whatever like everything.
01:42.22
sandy
Yeah.
01:45.29
heymarvelous
Every kind of offering once your audience is big enough and you're showing up and launching often. You're going to get it. Oh man they come out so they are there and and it's interesting because I wouldn't I would never I'm not the kind of person that would show up in someone's inbox or message them.
01:51.86
sandy
The opinions come out the opinions come out. Um, yeah.
02:01.12
sandy
And demand and and associated.
02:04.36
heymarvelous
On social and demand anything ever and so it's so interesting to me that there's just kind of this layer of person who who does that and so that's no judgment. Although that's hard. Um I think that we just kind of want to talk about it because you know we I don't.
02:09.55
sandy
Person. So yeah I know it.
02:19.10
sandy
Because you know we pirates sit.
02:23.26
heymarvelous
I don't think over the years we've like been the kind of people that kind of show the highlight real I hope we haven't been but I think in this season that we're going into with this kind of new iteration of our podcast. We really want to be honest about the struggles and obviously that was really apparent in our first episode back after six months and I think we just want to continue to have really honest conversations about what we're working through because it it doesn't matter how successful you get like you're still going to be battling demons.
02:51.34
sandy
Yeah I think the previous version of the podcast was very guarded right? and I do think it is like peeling opening the car the curtains and kind of exposing some of the more difficult.
02:57.48
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah.
03:06.60
sandy
Negative challenging times and I think those conversations are equally important as the how to in the the celebration. So let's do it.
03:13.74
heymarvelous
Yeah, and I'll just say this because I don't want to forget? So my last career this is kind of what pushed me out of my career and so was negative feedback or me interacting with or having to Confront the negative judgment of others. And so I just want to put that out there that this was this is really hard for me. It's still really hard for me. It made me leave a body of work and kind of a life's work that I loved and felt extremely devoted to since I was a small child and I think now I would behave differently with that kind of interaction. But.
03:35.65
sandy
And.
03:52.70
heymarvelous
Um I received you know, not like the vast majority just like in this case now with our company but the vast majority of the feedback I I got about my climate justice work was very positive. You're such an inspiration. This work is so helpful. Can you come to Xyz place around the world and give a talk like. But inevitably. There was someone heckling in an audience inevitably the judgment would come because oh I got an airplane to go give a talk about something and so how could I be such a hypocrite right? All these things and um little white girl. How are you doing like who do you think you are talking to people about climate justice.
04:19.41
sandy
Right? ah.
04:29.10
heymarvelous
Like all of those things it got to the point for me where I was so just terrified to be honest and I didn't know how to process that kind of information effectively and it just kind of made me like back step out of that career and I don't think I realized that at the time. But that certainly happened and so I Just don't want that to happen now and it's not happening now. But I want to make sure that those of you who are listening to our show realize that this is kind of whenever you're doing something new in the world or something different or unusual like you're going to get people judging you and sharing those judgments. So anyway, we're here. To say it happens and it doesn't need to bring you down.
05:07.19
sandy
Um, except for just like a few minutes and then you can come back up. That's what yeah so we have a story that's right and I'm more dei. Um.
05:12.12
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's why we have friends to process those things with.
05:23.31
sandy
So we have a story that we wanted to share about this week as you said it was very tumultuous. Um, and then we're going to jump into some sort of how we handled it in sort of some thoughts and tips on how you can handle it if and when it happens to you not if when.
05:25.47
heymarvelous
Um.
05:34.43
heymarvelous
Yeah, okay, okay so I.
05:38.40
sandy
Go I Want you to start the story because I was kind of on the peripheral sort of like tailing behind as it was happening. So I think it should come from you.
05:43.94
heymarvelous
Well, the story is that we released our we released some our mobile marvelous which is something that has been in process for really almost three years and so it is by far our most requested feature on the platform is to have some sort of mobile experience. That's like specifically mobile. Um, it's something that we have spent a lot of time and money and r and d investment in and we knew releasing this version of mobile marvelous like we knew releasing anything mobile any big feature. We always get blowback always because. It's not exactly implemented the way someone else would have wanted it to be. You know we are trying to please like a huge group of people so it's compromises right? because what's perfect for 1 person's situation or business is not perfect for another's and another person's situation or business and so we are in the business. Business of like trying to create a universal tool or system that applies to as many people as possible. So by definition. There are people who are unhappy so we knew we knew it was going to happen and what's actually. Really surprising to me is that like the blowback wasn't at all about the things that we expected so that in a way it was like this huge victory because there were certain things like that tradeoffs technology wise that we made in order to release the the platform in the way that we did.
07:03.54
sandy
Ah.
07:15.11
heymarvelous
And so I expected some pretty intense blowback based on those technology decisions that that didn't happen nothing and so that was like such an amazing gift. So I just want to say like that was a victory like no other. So that's awesome.
07:22.69
sandy
Um, none.
07:33.81
heymarvelous
That means like we did a good job balancing those needs and wants and desires and costs and timelines. Okay, so with that said here's what happened we our team um released a tutorial a small screenshot. Driven tutorial on how folks can install the like the mobile icon on their on their phones and in that tutorial our um Dev team used our studio Sandy our and she studio which is you know, just.
08:06.11
sandy
And.
08:10.38
heymarvelous
It was it was like not anything intentional. Our brand like the anche branding was on there and it's our site and we are the heaviest we are such heavy users of our own platform right? like we have this great partnership between our 2 companies and we are super heavy users.
08:14.37
sandy
And she.
08:29.35
heymarvelous
The platform like we teach almost every day on our platform we offer lots of courses we offer memberships. We do one-on-one coaching like we use it kind of for all of the use cases in in the tech world that's called dog foododing. It. So that's just part of our business model like that's how we've we make a lot of features that we need. And we're like kind of the perfect customer in a lot of ways. So anyway, our Dev team unbeknownence to like there was no I didn't even know they were doing this to be honest, but I wouldn't have had a problem with it. They were using our studio in the screenshots to show people how to download the the mobile device the mobile um program. And like I actually when I saw that and noticed that they did that when we released into beta I thought well that's like really smart because we're not competitive to any of our customers most of our customers at this point in time are in the wellness industry. We're business coaches and so. In a way. It was like oh this is great because no one's going to feel have hurt feelings or think they're being you know, um, like I don't know swept under the rug and sabotaged in favor of another client studio. We like we're not showing 1 big yoga studios. You know.
09:39.31
sandy
Sabotaged somehow.
09:47.53
heymarvelous
Home so home screen and trying to draw clients to them. You know like we don't care. We want everyone to be successful. So anyway the blowback came because of this and we had many not many but like multiple less than 10 less than 10
10:01.84
sandy
Handful.
10:04.29
heymarvelous
Um, clients So still, not very many at all in the Grand scheme of the people using our platform reach out and sit and and with some degree of frustration varying degrees of frustration and accusation kind of like hinting at or downright accusing Us. Of being unethical in some way in marketing our business coaching to their students or their audience. So. That's what happened and so how did that feel sandy.
10:28.79
sandy
Um, well I first couldn't understand it. Um, like I'm like what are they have like I could not understand what they were upset about that our logo.
10:33.17
heymarvelous
Um, yeah.
10:42.87
sandy
And you know a few sentences of our company for an she was ah displayed in a tutorial that their students would see I couldn't understand the problem like we're not but are you do you teach business. No online. But no, you don't like I just I really could understand it and then when you explained it to me I just felt.
10:48.94
heymarvelous
Yep.
11:00.88
sandy
Deeply like I was almost on the point of tears feeling like whatever we do. It's never enough. There's always something that they will find a complaint about and I feel like giving up like I don't know what else we can do We just released a free fing app for all of you.
11:16.32
heymarvelous
Um, if it.
11:19.30
sandy
And you're upset about the screenshots in the tutorial like I don't understand like art is there nothing else that you need to do in your business more important than like complaining to us about this free thing that we just gave you So my reaction was sadness.
11:22.44
heymarvelous
Okay, of me.
11:32.47
heymarvelous
Um.
11:36.47
heymarvelous
I think.
11:37.96
sandy
Like to the edge of tears sadness like I don't know what I just I but hands up I don't I don't know what to do or reaction. Yeah, full on.
11:42.90
heymarvelous
Yeah, my reaction was rage rage because I definitely have first of all I spend a lot more time in the product team and I wrestle with all of this like more than you do so that's part of it is like deeply personal. It's also.
11:56.10
sandy
Um, yeah.
12:01.61
heymarvelous
Like this has become in many ways my life's work right? and so for almost a decade and I I I resent the shit out of it to be honest that people it's never enough and so I don't go to sadness I go to kind of who are you like I want to see you do this. All of you like all of you that are criticizing right now I Want to see you try to do this So. That's my reaction and I'm really like this is what I said to you Sandy I'm like hold my beer like let's go right? like I'm like I'm ready I'm like ready to have the world's biggest argument on the internet and so I have to like go and.
12:19.19
sandy
I.
12:28.82
sandy
Ah.
12:34.86
sandy
Oh my god.
12:38.00
heymarvelous
Remove myself from the situation and calm down and not interact at all with these people. Um because they're lovely people I'm sure and so and I think that you know part of this is just people don't understand how the world works not that I understand everything but until you've built something like what we've built.
12:43.56
sandy
Um, if.
12:56.29
heymarvelous
You have no freaking idea what's involved in doing it and so I just like I just resent it and like I know we've talked about this this kind of tension between humility and like leadership and getting what you want in life.
13:02.22
sandy
Yeah.
13:14.18
heymarvelous
But I feel like when people do not have any um, kind of space for humility or like before you send off an angry note to someone I just would like please like just have a second and think about. Like what might be happening. That's not what you think is happening like what other things could be happening or what other causes could have like led to this experience rather than accusing someone of bad will um because I don't do that like I would never do that and so um.
13:44.53
sandy
Um, and aha ahead.
13:48.40
heymarvelous
Just don't relate to it and it makes me furious. So then I have to just like do the internal work right to like process this and try to put myself in their shoes and recognize that not everyone has the same experiences or has has like lived the same things or has the same kinds of education or whatever.
13:49.40
sandy
Yeah.
14:08.50
heymarvelous
I don't I'm I'm I'm going to get myself in trouble here. But that's it like that's how I felt.
14:12.70
sandy
Yeah, yeah, it was a couple of days for you for sure and um and because there was 1 particular conversation that just she just kept coming and coming incuent accusations and the word you used.
14:16.70
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah.
14:22.51
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:28.37
sandy
Was you felt like there was such contempt for us from her contempt.
14:29.49
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, contempt that's it and that's like so I don't know if if you Sandy or any of our listeners have have like read John Gottman's work like he's him and his wife Julie are marriage therapists and. Um, I went to a training early on in my marriage in Seattle with them and they they basically they talk about like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse like in a relationship and 1 of them is contempt and I think that that goes like outside. It's like outside of relationships too like it goes.
14:56.40
sandy
Um, and yeah.
15:00.94
sandy
Right.
15:03.53
heymarvelous
In any context in life when someone is expressing contempt it basically like the relationship is dead in the water. So for me if someone comes into our business and expresses contempt for either us or our team in any way like it's kind of the relationship is dead to me. And so that's like my natural reaction because I think as human beings like that's an unsafe place for everyone to be and I also I think you said this sandy I have like a Mama bear energy about our company and about our team and so if our team like our employees are. And any way being attacked like the fire rises up like I just sort of like come out like a I don't know like the loch ness monster out of the lake like blazing and furious and like breaching the surface because.
15:53.97
sandy
I.
15:57.80
heymarvelous
I feel this like deep sense of protection for the people that we bring into the context of the situation.
16:04.31
sandy
Yeah, and I I I want to add a little bit more to the story. Um, in that this one particular client. Basically I'm going to use the word threatened to come on 1 of our live public calls to discuss this situation.
16:17.98
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, at least I think that's what was happening. Yeah yeah.
16:21.34
sandy
And that was like that was not like that is not okay, right? We heard you we made the change and now you can back down like just back down. Um, and so it wasn't just like a single email like oh I'm not happy. It was like oh like you know multiple? yeah.
16:30.81
heymarvelous
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, over and over. yeah yeah I think all of the other all of the other people like it was like 1 little note.
16:41.10
sandy
Yeah.
16:45.30
sandy
Yeah, right.
16:45.96
heymarvelous
Like a small note. It still didn't feel good but it was like hey this doesn't seem cool like oh ok well I didn't think of that like we didn't even consider because we just it doesn't even cross our minds that anyone's students on our platform are going to come and buy our business coaching like it's not.
16:52.81
sandy
No, no, no I have a theory.
17:03.91
sandy
Um, no, yeah, yeah, you know.
17:04.20
heymarvelous
It's like so irrelevant like it's just not for them right? So like that's it's like this it doesn't even cross our minds that someone would think that because I would be much more concerned if it was if we were actually doing some sort of wellness practice. Where we work competitive like then I would feel like oh we shouldn't market to your clients because we saw the same thing as you but that's not the case.
17:25.34
sandy
Yeah, we wouldn't We wouldn't write. Yeah or we could have chosen to do like when ah a giant yoga yoga Studio that's on our platform we could have used them as the example, right? but we did it. So.
17:34.61
heymarvelous
Yeah, know. Yeah yeah, yes, Sandy share your theory.
17:39.90
sandy
But can I share my theory about this. So once I stopped being sad I was like what is her problem like what is like what it was just so. Over the top like what is going on here that would make her that angry that um, mean and the words that she used were that we were sneaky. We were sneaky about this. It was like okay so first of all, we absolutely just.
18:05.70
heymarvelous
A.
18:12.82
sandy
Again to reiterate. We did not purposely choose to use our company as an example in that tutorial we thought it was a safe you know neutral thing to to screenshot so we didn't actually do that but she thought we did and I think my theory.
18:24.62
heymarvelous
Are.
18:29.40
sandy
Untested but this is my hypothesis is that all of us are socialized in this Western society to believe that women should behave in a certain Way. We should be the good Girls. We should do things as Expected. We shouldn't disappoint people. We need to take care of everybody. We need to make sure that everyone's needs are met that everyone's fine and okay and doing well and then we can take care of ourselves right? I think we've you know, talked about this point in Nauseam but it also comes into business and I think that we are a business to business company right.
19:01.69
heymarvelous
Um.
19:05.46
sandy
Female to mostly female on our platform and so when someone sees us doing something that is for our own now again we didn't purposely do this but in her eyes she saw us promoting our business to her audience. She saw us.
19:15.14
heymarvelous
And.
19:21.43
sandy
Like sneaking in there and getting some screenshots for some free advertising it was us doing something for us and I think that that's like this this internalized but like hey they're not This is like a moral like that is bad behavior for women and again that this these sentences don't run through.
19:26.96
heymarvelous
M.
19:41.22
sandy
Their minds I'm pretty sure. But I think this is the internalized part that like they're behaving in a way that is not acceptable to me I expect as other women that they should behave this. They should put my company first and think about the screenshots and think does this is this going to. Um. You know sabotage my business in any way and I also wonder in a parallel universe if we could have a mail run marvelous company that the same situation happened and they did put their company on purpose in front of others. Nobody would say anything because it's expected.
20:17.43
heymarvelous
A.
20:19.59
sandy
The men who market the men who are online the men who are um, you know of course like that's what they do they they promote themselves without hesitation but women don't and the moment that we do. We're called out for it.
20:33.48
heymarvelous
Yeah, that's exactly what happened and it's I think that what is so troubling for me is that there's nothing wrong with that like if we had decided to do it like there wouldn't have been anything wrong with it and so the fact that we didn't try and.
20:44.76
sandy
No, right? ah half.
20:52.38
heymarvelous
Even if we did try. It doesn't even matter like what and it's not just one person I think that's the other thing it wasn't just one person. It wasn't like oh this is an outli I mean that's it's still an outlier like in terms of general probability and like the number of clients that we have but it wasn't.
20:53.68
sandy
Um, yeah I.
21:08.43
heymarvelous
1 person it was multiple people who had the same reaction. All women, all women clients who were like wow Jenny and Sandy are kind of taking some you know some like leeway here to to put their themselves out in front of our people or like you know what? the hell.
21:15.44
sandy
Um.
21:18.65
sandy
Um, yeah.
21:26.73
sandy
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we stood feature our own.
21:27.70
heymarvelous
Wrong with ah us featuring ourselves as the tutorial we have built this company from the ground up like we have invested millions of dollars to make this thing we go so far above and beyond to serve people. Um and we have an amazing team that is like. Like the most humane soulful software company like it's just it's like we try. We really believe in service. We really believe in um, and being a true resource for people particularly women, starting businesses and growing businesses online right? So we like we stand by that. But at the same time. If we can't put our faces on the thing that we're making within a tutorial of how to use it like what is that saying what does that say about our culture. What does that say about the wellness industry. What does that say about our audience like what like this is to me a huge problem.
22:11.22
sandy
Um, yeah, yeah.
22:21.55
sandy
Yeah, our Cto was going to write an apology and I was like do not effing right? and you did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong right? And that's like part of me this sort of sinister part of me is like oh my god that's a great idea. Thank you so much like let's.
22:29.97
heymarvelous
Yeah.
22:40.23
sandy
We are. That's great. We should put ourselves in front of your clients and more like there is nothing wrong with us promoting our business in fetter business. No.
22:41.55
heymarvelous
No I mean it's this yeah in the help docs like of our yeah like I mean I think we don't advertise like just to be clear to everyone listening. We do not advertise in any way we do not send send emails other than the transactional emails. Are created within the platform for event reminders like we do literally nothing to market to our customers customers like nothing that's part of our ethos. Um, and so it's just it's just interesting to me that in this little tiny context where so. Like inadvertently our names and our brands show up in ah in a part of a screenshot of something that it causes that kind of uproar and I think for me, it makes me want to do this work on the anshy side a thousand times more sandy because we're obviously here about like.
23:29.81
sandy
More? Yeah, so yeah.
23:34.24
heymarvelous
Breaking these systems down and that's what this company is about like our software company is about serving and we're going to continue to do that and like within um, an hour of that being released of of mobile marvelous being released like within that same morning. Those screenshots were taken out and so. Our team responded instantly to it. But then um, there's some caching that goes on and so I think that there was this like sense that we hadn't done anything about it. Um, anyway, the whole thing is is really wild and it's been. You know, not like this is just a normal week for us in our business like this just stuff happens all the time and I.
24:07.41
sandy
Are.
24:11.93
heymarvelous
I Know we have some clients particularly in inner circle who are like we allude to these things sometimes on call when we're coaching like oh this is part of it and I think people are curious about what that means and so like I think we also just want to kind of peel back the onion a little and show like. This is the kind of stuff we mean like we get we get this kind of feedback constantly. Not this exact thing but like just constantly um and yeah, it's just yeah.
24:34.23
sandy
Yeah. Or or Jeny What always gets me is the demanding like okay, this mobile is great except yeah, can you please add this button for me on the bottom I need this button and it's not.
24:50.84
heymarvelous
Yeah.
24:52.67
sandy
The wording is very like I I'm just wondering I'll make a such. It's like can you do this like no actually we can this is where everyone is's not for you. They don't all have you know like that that just that like I don't write to Nathan Barry from convert kit and say hey I really need this to be moved I don't like where this.
24:57.70
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:11.48
sandy
Button is can you please move it Nathan like that's what it like I I but there's also perception that I think that this stuff is really easy. It's a quick fix or I love the ones that are so are like um.
25:11.84
heymarvelous
I Need you to add my font into your font library. Yeah yeah.
25:27.55
sandy
Yeah, my my boyfriend is a software developer and he said this should be really easy for you. So can you just go and do this this this for me. Thanks so much like what using? yeah.
25:34.50
heymarvelous
Oh we get that a lot my husband my partner. My boyfriend is a developer and he said this is this is really simple like all the time like that's probably like a monthly cadence at least one of those messages comes in so that's also really interesting like we don't hear from.
25:45.81
sandy
Yeah.
25:52.59
heymarvelous
The developer themselves like we don't hear from the women saying oh I'm a I'm an engineer and like you have you guys thought about doing this? No It's always like my like fill in the blink man in my life. My dad my boyfriend. My husband said this should be really easy for you and so anyway, the whole thing is nuts. Like I just I think that there are so many things happening here. There's so much kind of internalized sexism like so much internalized patriarchy going on. There's also just this big disconnect around technology in how technology should. Um, be able to do whatever you want whenever you want without you having to contribute anything to that like I think that's another thing I think that a lot of the way. The tech industry has been built over the last ten or fifteen years is that like we're relying on things to be free. Like the lot of the tools we spend our time in all day every day are are like seemingly free to us and I know Sandy we've talked about this a bazillion terms and we will continue to talk about it. Your Google search is not free. It's not free. The price is your data. The price is your identity on the internet right? like. Your Facebook account is not free. None of it is free. It's all being like the money that go they the like many billions of dollars that go into creating the tools that you use every day. It's not free. It's not There's a cost like.
27:19.28
heymarvelous
The emperor has no clothes and so we don't run a business like that like it's a very transactional business like the money that comes into our company facilitates and funds the outcome the product, the team. The resources right? and so it's just a different relationship to tech. Then most people have which is like oh well this thing is like this doesn't cost. This shouldn't cost me anything to have what I want. Yeah yeah, Oh my God Let's let's like try to identify how many.
27:42.30
sandy
or or google calendar can do that so why can't your calendar do that. That's my favorite 1
27:54.30
heymarvelous
How many engineers and how much money has been spent developing and maintaining and improving Google calendar like that's the kind of thing like like I want someone to actually do that research and then and then ask you know a company like ours. So anyway, this is sounding a little bit like a complaint fest but I really I Really think that like this there's some.
28:03.71
sandy
Yeah.
28:13.83
heymarvelous
Stuff that's relevant because we're tech founders and some of this is relevant just in general to everyone in business where you know you're just always going to get requests or for accommodations like there's always going to be these sort of this like chatter whether they're from your paying clients or from. You know people who are in your audience or who come across your brand and your offerings like there's always going to be people who have some kind of point of view and I think part of the lesson here as a founder as an entrepreneur as a Ceo is to figure out like what can I take from this that will serve me. You know how can I respond to this in a responsible way. Maybe that doesn't that means in some cases not responding, especially if it's on social media. Um, and then what? yeah like how can I use this to my advantage to better myself and to better my business and in in lots of cases. You know the best thing you can do is just to like. Listen and then let it go.
29:08.89
sandy
But I also think like I think for me, the steps are always like why? Why are they? How did they come to that opinion like why? what? what is like sort of from their side right? stepping to their shoes and seeing what what's happened.
29:22.00
heymarvelous
Yeah.
29:26.37
sandy
And then I think of really important questions like how are they right? Like how are they actually right like make because sometimes the more anger that comes up. It's like because you know that you also kind of agree with them So like how are they right? and then maybe how are they wrong and right and wrong or very objective are subjective. Um.
29:31.26
heymarvelous
Yeah I think.
29:44.48
sandy
And then you always get to make a decision about that that request so we had somebody request a refund for something that they took that was us talking over. Um, whatever and and we didn't have our little pictures in the corner and they wanted a refund. Because it was very um, cold or something they they wanted to see the person teaching they wanted to see the person's face right? and I sat there and thought about it and like yeah I'm not willing to do that right? So It's my decision and we lost we lost a client because of that. But so it's it's not like they get to Sometimes it feels like.
30:15.70
heymarvelous
Nothing.
30:22.76
sandy
You're kind of bouncing around to like people please everyone so that everyone's happy and as an entrepreneur you just got to like ground yourself and be like got it feedback taken I agree with this I Don't agree with this and here's what I'm willing to do and here's what I'm not willing to do. And that decision is always based in your values like what do you value my time I am not going to get all I'm not going to do video for our teachings. Nope not gonna happen. Ah then it's totally fine and also the other part is like when someone gives you negative feedback like what.
30:51.58
heymarvelous
Me.
30:58.61
sandy
Like for you Jenny when you're just so angry like what are you making it mean about you and when you use the word like this is my life's work. That's like so any criticism is like you. There's something wrong with you Jenny clearly your life's work is terrible.
31:03.96
heymarvelous
Um, oh yeah, yeah.
31:14.93
heymarvelous
Yeah, yeah, and so absolutely I think part of that part of this is a separate conversation. We should have about thinking about our business like a child but like a part of what allows me to show up.
31:16.63
sandy
Or whatever.
31:31.89
heymarvelous
This many years day in and day out and work this hard and care this much is that I take it very seriously right that I want like that I have um, a great deal of energy put into. Designing and executing and making something that I believe in and it obviously is always tradeoffs like none of us have ah have limitless resources right? So there's always tradeoffs and there's not perfection. But I really believe in it I and I think I have. Because of my life and my past and my socialization I don't jump I actually don't jump to there's something wrong with me I I'm like much more critical of other people and judgmental and I go naturally to well they don't know the same things that I know. They have. They don't know as much as me now I don't want to say as much but like the same thing about as much about the same things as me, right? if you were in my shoes and you had my life and my team and my budget and my resources and my agenda and like the fact that I'm trying to serve really through our platform. Hundreds of thousands of people every day like maybe you would think twice and I think that like again it just for me goes back to they just literally don't understand and they they're lacking in that moment in time the humility to like self-reflect.
32:56.75
heymarvelous
Enough to think of like oh well, what if there's something about this situation that I don't understand and I just I find that like I just have a personal problem when people behave that way. So for me, it's not like I'm judging myself and because it's my life's work I'm a bad person. It's more just like Wow like. That's a lot of audacity to like think that you know more than you know about something or to think you understand something that you clearly don't and I Just that's a trait that whenever it shows up in anyone in my life I feel like very disappointed in them for their lack of humility. You know like that's just my.. That's my baggage that I bring to it or or my framework for seeing the world.
33:37.74
sandy
All right.
33:40.45
heymarvelous
All right? and it's okay and so I think like I just want our audience to know though like you will get negative criticism about your business if you haven't already like as long as you stay in long enough. It will happen and it will happen the more you grow. The more you will get it again like we have this happen on a very regular basis not quite Nothing gets me like this has gotten me more angry than than like most of it like most of it I can kind of brush off um and a lot of it is Sandy. You have that thing that you say that's like if someone's criticizing me for blue.
34:15.20
sandy
Um, what do I see? Yeah right right.
34:16.83
heymarvelous
Hair and I don't have blue hair like I don't care so right? So when somebody tells us that we ruined their marriage or whatever ruined their life like we had all the all right like all the things like over the last decade like I just I'm like ah that doesn't mean anything to me because I can't like I know that's not true like I know a hundred percent in my core being like I had nothing to do with destroying your marriage. Wow if you listen to our podcast and your marriage ended like there is not a direct line between those 2 things and I'm not going to I'm not going to pretend that I think that there is 1.
34:33.13
sandy
Right? right.
34:49.38
heymarvelous
And if it helps you to vent at someone and blame them then that's fine. Um, so like those are the kinds of things where it's like yeah a lot of it's just like it's not about you. Um, and as you grow your audience you're going to have like more people paying attention to what you're doing and just human nature. Some people will blame you for things.
34:49.71
sandy
Um.
35:08.25
heymarvelous
But I guess I want our audience to understand that when you're building a business if you're doing it Effectively. You're both solving a problem in a market and you're bringing your own unique vision and genius to that work and you get to decide if the criticism is not about. The pain that you're solving in the market if it's extra to that like if it's just sort of off to the side of that like you don't have to listen to everything. Everyone says it's not like your business will fail because you're not listening to your audience if their criticism or their point of view is not about the core thing the core problem you're trying to Solve. It's just like an extra piece of information. It's like a neutral fact floating out on the side of what you're doing outside of the scope and you don't have to internalize it. You don't have to make it mean that your business isn't doing its job or that your offering is not right for your people like it's really unrelated to that.
36:03.52
sandy
Yeah, it's the entrepreneurial emotional maturity to observe and then decide how you're going to react to it but like I said sometimes just initially you're just like why anger right? And then it's like wait.
36:08.60
heymarvelous
Yeah.
36:14.95
heymarvelous
Um, yep, oh yeah, we're human, yeah sure sure doesn't and it's it certainly helps to have friends to talk to to process your.
36:21.24
sandy
What is happening here and that we choose right and it doesn't have to ruin our day so to hold your beer.
36:30.78
heymarvelous
Initial emotions to yes, exactly to hold your tissues or your beer depending on how you tend to react to situations like this all right? Sandy let's go into the joy and hustle. Um can I do the hustle first. Ok so.
36:37.39
sandy
Yes, okay.
36:46.71
sandy
Um, yeah, they're both yours I'm just going to sit here and listen yeah, it's actually cool. Yeah I know.
36:50.25
heymarvelous
Right? Well I'm more excited about the hustle. The joy is really kind of a kind of a poke at you. So the hustle is called listen box and I had like a brief moment in the last couple weeks where I thought I came up with this idea and I thought I had like the next billion dollar idea and then I found someone was already doing it. And you know there's always this moment of sadness when that happens for me when I'm like all like deflated balloon because I really thought I thought of something clever, but um, it's fine I don't have any more bandwidth to execute on another thing. So so listen box is this amazing tool that lets you turn basically. Any Youtube channel any public Youtube channel and to a podcast feed. Oh my goodness gracious. This thing is incredible for those of you who are also like Youtube fanatics like I watch a lot of Youtube I follow like certain channels pretty religiously and. I also spend a lot of my time all day in meetings on Zoom and so like the idea of staring at my screen is troubling to me any extra time. So unless it's something that's like really visually important like I watch a lot of travel Youtube channels where I want to see what's on the screen. But for other things where it's like business business Youtube channels or um, true crime Youtube channels or something like that where you can often just listen this app is fantastic. So just like basically turns it into a podcast and you can just listen on the go and it just functions as if.
38:20.53
heymarvelous
The Youtube show is a podcast.
38:21.80
sandy
Yeah, that's amazing. So it's just a little app you get on your phone.
38:24.78
heymarvelous
But yep, it's on your phone and there is um I am on the free tier like I so the first 50 episodes are included from a channel on the free tier and then I think that there's a limit of um, there's some other limits. Like channels and playlists are not updated. So like you have to like refresh it I think if you want new episodes. But then there's like a $4 and ¢20 a month planner for 99 if you pay monthly that up that updates like like a podcast app. So I just if if you're also a Youtube fan I just recommend it because it's.
38:45.21
sandy
And right.
39:02.97
heymarvelous
It's ah it's a really smart service I can't believe I never googled it before to try to see if anyone was doing this because you know when you try to watch Youtube on your phone if your screen goes off, you're like you have your phone I'll go on a walk and I'll have like my phone in my pocket and like. You know my rear end will turn the phone the screen off and then the the the Youtube video just stops. So um, it's really great I love it.
39:24.60
sandy
Um, yeah, that's very cool. All right, Let's go let's hear it the joy.
39:31.63
heymarvelous
All right Well because in a recent episode where I was talking about my love of barjello which is not crossitch. You made fun of me Sandy and so then I was like I don't cross stitch I do barjello I do lots of things but barjello is like my quick and easy. Um favorite. Everyday crafting activity these days and so I then I thought about it I was like well maybe I would like cross stitching if I found the right kind of cross stitching like that's not a bad idea. So then I started doing I went over to Google and I did my little 1000 Google search about cross stitching. And I found this company called junebu and darlin.com I think they're out of the Uk if I'm not mistaken, but you can still get shipped to North America and it's like modern cross stitch and they have like feminists and smash the patriarchy cross stitch patterns and kits and all kinds of stuff like that. So then. I realize like when I've exhausted all of my bargello kits I have a new thing I can turn to.
40:32.62
sandy
Um, it's not 1820
40:34.42
heymarvelous
You know what? Sandy I think you need to hold your judgment miss beekeeper about people's hobbies and interests because beekevine is also a weirdo very very old timey hobby and it's very cool I don't judge you for it I think it's very cool.
40:42.31
sandy
Um.
40:47.86
sandy
Um, yeah, but.
40:53.56
heymarvelous
But also maybe some of these like old school crafty things are cool too. No judgment here. No judgment.
40:58.92
sandy
Yeah I Just ah I think of cross stitch as like women trapped in homes not allowed to do anything like there's a very negative connotation to that like you can.
41:15.82
sandy
Garden and read a book and play Piano Piano Forte or whatever's called and crossed it. So I just think it's feels like ah I don't I don't visually light crossed it I think it's not like I would like.
41:24.95
heymarvelous
I Don't visual I don't visually like it either. That's the truth I don't like it either I do like barjello like I really do like the way it looks and I know I'm weird but I love it and cross stitch does. It's like not aesthetically pleasing for me either. So I have not ordered a kit.
41:39.65
sandy
Yeah.
41:43.11
heymarvelous
Because of that exact reason and it's also the stitches are really really small and Barellallo is not small and so I get like the instant gratification of finishing a project I'm not really into something that's going to take me a long time but I just wanted to share it with our listeners because I imagine that we have people that might like cross stitching and I did find these cool feminists.
41:54.16
sandy
But there's cool crossridge over there.
42:02.46
heymarvelous
Cross stitching kits so you know you're going to be listening to this in the new year it's January Twenty Twenty three and the holidays have passed but hey people's birthdays are coming up. Valentine's day is coming up now you have a gift idea. You're welcome.
42:16.12
sandy
Um, ah, that's funny. That's great. That's a good find. Okay, got it all. Thanks so much.
42:21.67
heymarvelous
All right? Yep, Thank you see you next time.