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Rooted & Relentless is the business strategy podcast for entrepreneurs building service-based businesses designed to grow, adapt, and last. Business strategist Steph Rubio shares practical guidance on a range of topics meant to help you sell, scale, and stabilize.
Think sustainable business growth, revenue strategy, systems, capacity, client experience, and the founder leadership required to turn your skills into a successful, sustainable company.
Ep 54 I Cried Negotiating A Contract
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[00:00:00] the funny part is it got that wrong because I wasn't working for years to direct o- opposition to it. I am now. You better believe I'm coming for you now. But for years, I worked for my own survival mode. I grew up poor as dirt. Talk about this frequently.
Had nada, not two pennies to rub together, if you will. There was a time where me and people in my family, even parents, it was absolutely normal to put like two dollars and eighty-seven cents in your, like in cash, in your gas tank just to get home because you didn't have money. You weren't paid yet.
I'm Steph Rubio, your go-to for honest, nuanced conversations about growing a business and building a life that you actually freaking love. Around here, we're rooted in who we are, even if we're still learning to love her, getting clear on where we want to go, and we're relentless in our pursuit to get there.
We talk about what it actually takes to build and lead a business that can sustain growth, weather market shifts, and support the life you actually want, from [00:01:00] strategy, sales, and systems to relationships, reputation, and the self-leadership required to navigate all the messy decisions in between.
If you're ready to think deeper, lead better, laugh a lot, and possibly cry a little, maybe laugh until we cry, if we're lucky, then hit subscribe and let's get into it. This is Rooted and Relentless. Grab your notebook and hold on to your tits. This one's for you.
Boy, do I have a good one today. I am going to share Some deeply personal components. ~Um, I am also... ~It's just a moment that hit me over the head recently. ~That's what I should really say. Um, I don't know how else to describe it. ~Like, you just have that moment where you're like, "Holy smokes." For me, that was like, whoa, what I'm doing here goes way deeper than I think I'd even let myself imagine.
Maybe people do. Maybe people future cast so hard that, you know, and vision cast so hard, ~um, ~that they can see the impact that they actually want to have and chase. But I hadn't, I guess, really, at this point. ~Um, ~a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to [00:02:00] someone who is going to come lead a session at the Rooted Reset, which is an annual business planning and wellness retreat mashup I'm doing.
~Uh, ~and the first one ever is in October. And well, I'm just blown away by always when I create something and the vision starts to come to life. But anyways, in that moment, ~um, ~I realized that the impact I'm having on lives and women's lives in particular goes well beyond just the people I'm serving, like, as clients, right?
I create it for that, to change their businesses and lives, use their businesses as vessels to have the lives they want. And I know where that work starts is deeply personal in a way that a lot of women have never even let themselves believe. And so it's designed for that, right? All of the programs and the things I create, the Rooted Reset is going to be a culmination of all of that over four days, ~you know, ~in the desert.
Anyways, and so I'm aware of that. I have been deeply passionate for just a couple of years as I've shifted into this and started to use my collective knowledge instead of doing things for [00:03:00] people, but giving them the power through that knowledge to learn and grow and do it themselves. So convicted and so passionate and watching that transforms lives over the last year alone has been something that I'm still settling into and get deeply emotional about.
It's, it's just hard to articulate. So maybe in another year I'll be able to do that. But this is about the moment I realized that it goes beyond even those women, because by them paying me, you know, to attend my events, to have access to that knowledge and develop this way of doing things, now I also have the capital, if you will, from a business standpoint, to pay people, women of the same demographic group who are also chasing a life building, not even chasing, right?
Because we already have it,~ to... ~And using their business as a vessel and pouring their heart into it and their passion into it. And so there's this leg, of course, of the people I want to do that with. And then now that I'm creating experiences and events where I want to have other people where it's not my area of expertise, [00:04:00] right?
And in looking for people, of course, I'm looking for values aligned always, like values aligned with my community and understanding that and the type of people that will show up and also hearing their stories and seeing why they do what they do and their passion. And then me basically paying someone else like that for the first time to come create this event.
I was like, oh, my God, it's more like it's a whole community, if you will, which I call it that. But I think the impact and the spread of that really hit me in a way it never had before. And in almost the same thought, I realized the irony of that because ~Um, ~like just of how I grew up and things I used to hear about women and how, you know, it was almost indoctrinated that there wasn't disparities between women when I a- and, and men, right?
When I actively grew up hearing things like that and, ~um, ~it's been something hard for me to sit with for years and, ~um, ~you know, knowing the direct connection to my family. Anyways, [00:05:00] I think one of the best ways for me to tell you this is as I was preparing, I was like, "I know I wanna talk to this.
This is important for people to hear and understand and know." And, ~um, ~I put my thoughts into chat, right? I open ChatGPT, and I'm like, "Dump it." "Here's a story. I wanna tell it, like turn it into a podcast." And then I outline all of my podcasts, like for the next six weeks to sit down and batch, which is what I'm doing right now.
And I wanna tell you the purpose that ChatGPT put out based on me dumping this story because it starts to say it better than I can.
~Um, ~explore what becomes possible when a woman finally has access to the tools, support, money, and self-trust required to build a life beyond what she inherited. That's what we're doing today, the purpose of this episode. Weave together the story of growing up hearing absolute trash about women. That's my story.
Working for years to build a life in direct opposition to it, and the funny part is it got that wrong because I wasn't working for years to direct o- opposition to it. I am now. You better believe I'm coming for you now. But for years, I worked for my own survival mode. I grew up poor as [00:06:00] dirt. Talk about this frequently.
Had nada, not two pennies to rub together, if you will. There was a time where me and people in my family, even parents, it was absolutely normal to put like two dollars and eighty-seven cents in your, like in cash, in your gas tank just to get home because you didn't have money. You weren't paid yet. You don't wanna overdraft the account to get it, like...
And I still, for years since becoming my own adult and having two jobs, I'm talking to you about hustle, okay? Your girl's not afraid of the hustle. At nineteen, I worked two jobs for no other reason than to have money and be secure. And since I've been an adult and gotten myself out of that level of poverty, I feel my gas tank up every time, every single time.
It is a symbol to me. I also don't obsess over the price of gas. I know I need it. I'm not going to that gas station over a cent less. I will not live in that scarcity, and I've worked my butt off to get here, right? But it was for me and to get out of that poverty. It wasn't for other women. It was not even me thinking that there were these disparities.
You know, I've always had a job. [00:07:00] I was always gender rolled, right? The admin in that job or something. Anyway, so now it's in direct opposition to it because I realize how harmful hearing things like what I heard growing up were and how much they held me back from my own belief in myself. And now knowing like literally this week and recording this, I've been on my Instagram talking about a story about how a former mastermind member made me cry when she spoke up in a room and was like, that's not what Stephanie does.
Let me tell you what she does and proceeded to tell me about how I helped her believe what was possible, what she would never even let herself believe was possible and just pen and paper that and go after what she wanted for the first time by starting to even figure out what that was, you know, life-changing stuff.
And so I know now from my own work over the past couple of years, the belief is typically the freaking problem. The how we will figure out there is no short of a tactics on the internet ever at all for things you can try and do and what you should do to grow your business. And , I give those, you will never have a shortage of those, but what you [00:08:00] will have a shortage of is believing in yourself and even figuring it out what it is you want, you know?
And so I know from doing that myself, but I know now I didn't do that for years because I was grateful for the bare minimum because I had enough because I heard crap growing up. So anyways, I'm about to tell you what that was. Weave together the story of growing up, hearing absolute trash about women, working for years to build a life in direct opposition to it, and suddenly realizing in the middle of negotiating a contract with another woman that your work is no longer only changing your own life.
You now have the power to hire women, pay women, create opportunities for women and share knowledge that helps other women build economic independence and lives on their own terms. And I cannot understate how much I've realized the power in this. I have freaking chill colds now.
Yeah, I'm getting emotional. I knew I would.~ Um ~There's so much depth here for me, and it matters so much to me that women have these things. One, 60-plus years ago, like bro, our grandmas couldn't even get bank accounts in [00:09:00] their own names. The system was designed to keep women trapped and dependent on men, and what a freaking shame.
And now that we don't have those limitations, those limitations and pay disparities absolutely still exist, which is why so many women are going into entrepreneurship, I believe, and trying to make their own money. ~Um, ~that didn't exist, so part of me feels like we owe it to the women that came before us who didn't have this to go hard after exactly what we want and making a way to make that happen because they didn't have those opportunities, right?
And that was even also a hard thing for me to get to because I don't have strong connection to women in my matriarchal line, ~uh, ~women in my patriarchal line , like those things don't exist. ~Uh, ~my mother was not around. I didn't have those things, you know, and my relationship with my grandmother fractured over time, and all these things, but I still care.
I still care, and I have empathy, ~um, ~that, you know, like forgiving someone but also [00:10:00] choosing not to have a relationship with them are two different things. So That I've done. I can still have empathy for what they went through and women like them went through and maybe why some of the issues they had and struggles were because of that.
Limitations they had that they didn't have control over, but we do. And I think more women need that. They need that, be empowered to step into that power. And that's kind of the crux of what I do. I use the business knowledge absolutely to help you do that, but that is a vessel. And so I realized then sitting there getting ready to pay another woman for the first time, you know, so I'm having pay coming in.
I am now paying out to that same community and those same women and helping them reach now this... I'm a part of their how. I'm helping people with their why and their how, and now by paying someone else and helping their business grow and keeping it in the community, I'm a part of their how. [00:11:00] And that irony hit me because I grew up hearing things like, um, "The first mistake we made was chase women down and shave them, and the second one we ever made was letting them vote."
And it was a hoo and a ha, and it was a funny story that you told around a campfire, and I felt like never bothered me or affected me. And of course it was from a person I trust, and I'm still working through some of that. But I realized in the past few years that it absolutely is detrimental. It's indoctrination in a way, especially when you're young and your mind is absolutely still immature and you're a child and you hear those things.
It just becomes part of your norm. And now it's hilarious with like voting rights. It's not hilarious, but with voting rights like under attack is just wild. And I told this story on a podcast this week, but sitting in that moment where I realized that my impact was like veins spreading beyond what I even imagined, spreading beyond what maybe I even feel like I directly touched for a while, ~um, ~was one piece, and then this hitting me over the head with like, "Wow, how did you even get [00:12:00] here given that?"
You know what I mean? But having this belief now and knowing that women
Sorry, I hear a noise Oh. I, if you're on video, I'm gonna come over here. Here's a blooper. Will it reach? Okay, see that skull on the back of my chair? If you're listening, there's a glittery skull from, like, Halloween last year, and for funsies, I put it on the back of my computer chair, which is not the chair I'm sitting in.
And I'm sitting here, and I keep hearing noises from over there. I'm like, "Is this freaking skeleton mask moving? What is happening?" And it's not. I have a big notepad paper where I wrote down, like, my months and my big fish the rest of the year. Oh my God. Okay. The skeleton is not moving. We're safe. ~Um, ~that's really the story.
~I mean, I don't have anything else that I wanna weave in, but I think that it's important~
It's important for me to really, like, shed back the depth of what I do and why, and the impact it has on people, and, ~um, ~even my own journey is a part of that. And now, like, I think I just become more and more relentless, ~um, ~as every freaking day, month, and year go on now in helping more women by [00:13:00] giving the knowledge, right?
But, ~uh, ~had this realization that what I do, The Rooted Reset, which is this in-person event that I was even hiring this person for, it's not only about helping women build better businesses. That's what comes through in my copy and what I talk about, you know? It's not only about helping women build better businesses, though.
That is a vessel. That is how we're going to do everything else we want. It's really about what women are able to change when they have the strategy and the resources and the relationships and the agency to build lives on their own terms, regardless of what they've been through and what's happened to them and what they've heard and what they believed
And I'm gonna help them freaking do it
Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Rooted and Relentless. If it made you think deeper, maybe scribble a little something down, or lovingly call yourself out, hit [00:14:00] me with the SSR, subscribe, share, and review, as in leave a review. I'll be eternally grateful. Then come find me on Instagram @virtually_stephrubio and tell me what landed, what you're doing differently, or maybe what you vehemently disagree with.
I like those conversations, too. Until next time, keep building, keep leading, and keep doing it on your own fucking terms. Bye.