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The Dreamfuel Show is a research expedition to uncover and unpack the mindsets of impactful tech founders and executives. On this show, we’re going to get real and talk about what was actually going on in their hearts and minds during the harrowing journeys that forged them and their companies! We’ll also speak with performance experts who will share the latest tips, tools, and tricks that can help us realize our own dreams, too.
As we like to say at Dreamfuel, every quarter is a hero’s journey. So be sure to hit follow to join us along the way.
Emma Stratton [00:00:00]:
I think a lot of us have dreams that our subconscious programming kind of are at odds with and so we don't do them for many years. But you have that voice that keeps kind of reminding you. And I think eventually there comes a point where the voice is louder than the fear and you finally go for it.
Kevin Bailey [00:00:19]:
I'm Kevin Bailey, CEO of Dreamfuel and this show honors founders who are stepping through fire on their quests to realize their dreams. We dive into their failures and successes and the mental performance skills they're using to achieve their goals in less time and with less frustration. Enjoy the Dream People Show.
Kevin Bailey [00:00:41]:
Welcome to the Dreamfuel show, everyone. I'm here with an awesome guest, Emma Stratton. She founded Punchy nine years ago. Punchy is a consulting and training firm that helps fast growing B2B tech. Companies like some of the ones that you own win by positioning and messaging better. Punchy's been growing and doing really well. Emma's also the author of the book Make It Punchy. It's a practical guide to writing awesome copy for B2B Tech.
Kevin Bailey [00:01:03]:
And before this she was copy director at Shutterfly, which is a highly successful Silicon Valley startup. So welcome to the show, Emma.
Emma Stratton [00:01:10]:
Thank you so much, Kevin. It's awesome to be here with you.
Kevin Bailey [00:01:13]:
It's amazing to have you on Emma and I talked about a month ago. She is actually working with Share Your Genius, which is the company that produces our show. And we just had a great conversation, particularly about a topic. We haven't dove in too much in the Dreamfield show yet, which is abundance and scarcity mindsets around money. And she's got a great story to share about her own journey, using messaging for herself rather than companies to help her build an abundance mindset. And it's been reflected really well at Punchy as she's grown psychologically around building an abundance mindset. So Emma, I'd love to just dive right into this. So you talked to me in our interview or a pre-show interview that you grew up as an immigrant and sort of developed a scarcity or poverty mindset when you were a kid.
Kevin Bailey [00:02:05]:
So let's start off by like what is a scarcity or poverty mindset?
Emma Stratton [00:02:10]:
Yeah, it's funny because I didn't discover what that actually was until five years ago, but I had been living with it my entire life, so it was a real aha moment when I figured out what it actually was. So the thing about your beliefs around money or your mindset is a lot of your beliefs are set in your subconscious by the time you're seven, which is wild when you think about your attitudes towards things like money are actually solidified when you're seven years old. I have a seven year old daughter. Okay. And that's just a scary thought, right? She believes everything around her. You can tell her a lie, she will take it as a mantra. So anyway, we pick up our truths around money, around us when we're seven. And the main way we do that is through our family, right through our parents and our parents belief.
Emma Stratton [00:02:58]:
And so in many cases our beliefs about money are actually our parents beliefs. So we moved to the States when I was one. My dad is English, my mom is Indian from Malaysia and she grew up in poverty. Her dad died when she was young and he made the money. And there was a big family and they were at a point where they had to get food from the local church. And it was a real struggle. And so she had a poverty mindset which was never enough. That's how I would characterize it.
Emma Stratton [00:03:28]:
Fear of there never being enough, never enough money. What have I run out of money? Fear of not having enough money. And so I remember growing up watching her have that fear, watching how hard it was for her to part with money, how she talked about things being too expensive, et cetera. And so this idea that your parents grew up in poverty, their mindset around money is shaped by poverty. They pass that on to you. And so you're walking around in life thinking that you grew up in poverty. When I didn't, we were middle class, maybe slightly lower middle class. When I was younger, we were in poverty, we had food, we had shelter, I had a great school, all that stuff.
Emma Stratton [00:04:10]:
But I was still walking around thinking we don't have enough, what if we don't have enough money? And that was actually a mindset that dictated just so many choices I made as a young adult, as an early adult. And it really wasn't until I started my own business that poverty mindset became really problematic. And I noticed it was a problem. And I was like, I think I have a problem. I think I need to figure out how to fix it.
Kevin Bailey [00:04:36]:
That's amazing. Yeah. It is so fascinating that these mindsets or beliefs that we develop as children sort of echo in our heads throughout adulthood. And the reason why they're so important to address and work on is that those beliefs dictate all the decisions you make for your company and yourself. I wanted to real quick you had mentioned this, I want to kind of get a little bit of the science out there, you had said that, you know, we develop most of our beliefs by the time we're seven. And this is true. And the reason is, is that children exhibit more theta brain waves. So theta brainwaves are the kind of the brainwave of hypnosis.
Kevin Bailey [00:05:19]:
So the reason why kids can be so playful and imaginative is they are in the imaginative brainwave. And it is the brainwave where we basically just download the world around us. And we obviously have to do that to learn how to be functional adults. So they're just kind of soaking everything in. They're basically in a state of hypnosis. So anything that you say to them, they're just going to take it as truth and download it into their, into the. You can think of it as the operating system for them. And it's very strange.
Kevin Bailey [00:05:47]:
About 95% of our thoughts are pre rehearsed programs that we learned when we were younger. And they just sort of play back to us. These are obviously neural networks in the brain as electrochemical energy flows through them. It plays the song, so to speak, or the belief. I'm curious, do you remember some of the beliefs or some of the phrasing that maybe your parents used around you about money that echoed in your mind when you were starting punchy?
Emma Stratton [00:06:15]:
I think that's too expensive would probably be one of the phrases, right? This fear of parting with money and frivolous spending. I remember I used to think that buying flowers was frivolous. It's going to die in a few days, so why would you waste money on flowers? So that's too expensive, I think was definitely a big one. Make sure you save your money. So hoarding anything you make and saving it out of fear, not like, oh, I want to buy something, I'm going to save up. And as a positive thing, but as a fearful thing, like there's nothing enough, so court it, you better save your money. And I think the other one was, we're not rich. So this like, oh, they're, they're rich, we're not rich, we'll never be rich.
Emma Stratton [00:07:00]:
That was something that was said, oh, we'll never be rich. So those were phrases that I remember hearing. But then a lot of it was also just the attitude and vibe that my mom would exude as well around her career. She worked really hard and didn't really get paid much for it. And so I also internalized this belief that like you gotta work really hard to make not enough money. So I don't know if that was actually a mantra that I had articulated, but that was absolutely the belief that I had around work and earning money. It was like, one day, you know, when it's time, you're gonna work hard and you're not gonna make much. I mean, I got my first job at 14, and I worked my ass off and made like 20 bucks.
Emma Stratton [00:07:44]:
And so right away, my first job, I'm like, playing out that tape, right? Work hard, don't make enough money. So those are kind of the things I remember.
Kevin Bailey [00:07:54]:
It's so fascinating. And it is basically like computer code. Like when you said the belief will never be rich, that belief right there, I mean, that's just computer code in the brain and it is telling the subconscious, it is informing it that it will never be rich. Don't try, you know, it's not going to happen.
Emma Stratton [00:08:12]:
Don't even go there. We're not going to be rich.
Kevin Bailey [00:08:14]:
Carol Dweck has done some great research into this computer code and her developing of the theory of the growth mindset. And she likes to kind of append yet onto things. So it'd be like if your mom was maybe a little more conscious about her money mindset, she might have said something like, hey, we're not rich yet.
Emma Stratton [00:08:32]:
I love.
Kevin Bailey [00:08:33]:
And that would at least allow the subconscious mind to open to the possibility. Whereas you were literally programmed from a child to put a hard block on that, to not even venture. Which would mean, theoretically, you wouldn't make decisions that could ever make you rich.
Emma Stratton [00:08:50]:
Like, right.
Kevin Bailey [00:08:50]:
You would make decisions that would play small, that would kind of hoard, that would keep stuff close to you. When you decided to go from being creative director at Shutterfly and go off to making punchy, you, you obviously did made a decision that went counter to pretty much all of your programming. So I would imagine that that that lit up a lot of negativity. Fear, doubt, concern, fud in your brain. Tell me about how you even had the guts and courage to found a company with all of that scarcity programming.
Emma Stratton [00:09:21]:
I think a lot of us have dreams that our subconscious programming kind of are at odds with, and. And so we don't do them for many years. But you have that voice that keeps kind of reminding you. And I think eventually there comes a point where the voice is louder than the fear and you finally go for it. And so I finally hit that point, and it was a job that wasn't serving me that really helped give the final push. And I was kind of like, you know what? I'm sick of hearing myself say, I want to do this one Day, I think it was New Year's Eve, and I kind of stood up in front of my husband and best friend and I'm like, I'm going to do this finally. I'm going to do it this year. And I made the full switch in September of that year.
Emma Stratton [00:10:00]:
So I had done it safely. I had started it as a side hustle, and I had, I did it very responsibly because I was afraid of having no money. So I got a couple clients and I said, when I have X amount in the bank, I will take the jump. Very responsible. So I did. And the moment I made the jump and I was no longer fully employed and I wasn't going to receive a paycheck, I freaked out. I felt complete terror. And I remember emailing this other entrepreneur who I'd met, and I was like, what do I do? I remember saying to her, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster at the top of a hill.
Emma Stratton [00:10:36]:
And like, the seatbelt just came off. Like, that was the image. That was how scared I was. I thought I was gonna die. And she was like, I know it's scary, like, it'll be fine. And it was really funny because I said to myself back then, I was like, if I can just make $4,000 a month, that's all I need, I'll be good. And I made $4,000. It was crazy.
Emma Stratton [00:11:00]:
It was like, whatever I said I would do, but I would only allow myself $4,000. Right. And so I started, but it was like, it was hard, right? It was like fearful. It was not expansive. Right. There was a lot of fear. And I went that way for a couple years. And the wild thing was I replaced my full time salary the first year.
Emma Stratton [00:11:23]:
And then the second year I got pregnant and I only worked half of the year, I still made the same amount. And then the next year, I worked all year, I still made the same amount. I could not go over this number. And that's what I finally addressed. When I finally was like.
Kevin Bailey [00:11:42]:
So you said like this artificial earnings ceiling that was there?
Emma Stratton [00:11:45]:
Yes, I had, my mindset had set a ceiling very low at this level. And it was wild because no matter what my actions were, I was getting this exact same result. And that was really weird. That helped wake me up though, that there was like an issue. And that's when I got into mindset work and actually hired a coach to, to work on it. And I realized that was a big problem.
Kevin Bailey [00:12:09]:
Okay, so you, you had identified there's this weird pattern. I can't seem to make any more money than this. I don't understand it. I know there's a lot of fear going on. I know I was raised with maybe a little bit of negativity until you identified me, the coach. So we just defined what a poverty mindset is. What is an abundance mindset? What's the opposite? What does that look like?
Emma Stratton [00:12:32]:
I love an abundance mindset. I didn't even know what it was, right. Until I realized I had a scarcity mindset. So scarcity is defined by not enough. Right. Limited. We all got to fight for a little sliver of the pie, zero sum game. Whereas abundance is infinite.
Emma Stratton [00:12:46]:
Right. Enough for everyone. Right. There's always enough infinite possibilities. What I receive does not take away from others. Right. That there's just infinite for all of us. And it feels where scarcity feels tight when it's like you're tight and you're hoarding and you're small.
Emma Stratton [00:13:08]:
Abundance is expansive. It's giving freely, it's receiving freely. There's a freedom and an openness with an abundance mindset. And it's knowing that there's plenty for you, for everyone, and that a lot is possible. It's a happier way to live. And it's not just money, right? Abundance, it goes with love. Right. There's enough love for everyone.
Emma Stratton [00:13:31]:
It's health, it's money. It's. It's a rich life. It's all the things that matter. So it's the opposite. And it's funny. I was living abundance in a few areas of my life. Like, I was doing it in with relationships, and I was doing it with giving myself, like, experiences.
Emma Stratton [00:13:51]:
So there were. There were places. I think I'm. I think we're all wired for abundance. Right. I think the story that always gets me and I think it was Marissa Pier, you know, Merced Pierre's work? Yeah, yeah. She talks about, like, when we're babies, when we're born, we are naturally born with abundance mindset. A baby doesn't think, oh, I shouldn't cry.
Emma Stratton [00:14:09]:
I've already asked for milk five minutes ago. Right. A baby just. It says, like, meet my needs. I want love, I want cuddles, I want milk. Babies don't question whether they deserve all the things, and that's how we come into this world. But then as we grow up and we absorb messages from around us, we start to think, maybe there's not enough. Maybe I shouldn't take so much.
Emma Stratton [00:14:34]:
Maybe I don't deserve all of that. So I think abundance really is a return to how we're supposed to be what we're meant to be. And it's a real gift. If you've been living in scarcity like I was, and you can kind of move into that opposite mindset space, it just makes life a lot more peaceful.
Kevin Bailey [00:14:52]:
Yeah, unquestionably an abundance mindset is a better place to live. So tell me, when you started working with this coach, what. What did this coach have you do to start to retread these networks and start to build a more abundant mindset? Like what, what kind of tools and techniques were you working on?
Emma Stratton [00:15:12]:
Yeah, so she did neuro-linguistic programming. So NLP, that was. She did that with me. And also some self hypnosis. So a mixture of those two things. So there were a couple things that she did that were really interesting. I think one was exploring all those negative statements. Right.
Emma Stratton [00:15:32]:
So I. She had me go into like a hypnotic state and drew out a lot of statements from my subconscious that I shared, and a lot of them were very negative. And so she took a lot of those and then reframed them into positives. Right. And I had this long list of all of these kind of statements. There were affirmations, but they were really these statements that were meant to specifically rewire a lot of the negative thoughts in my subconscious. And so I would read them in front of the mirror every day. And I forget I had to like, look at one of my eyeballs.
Emma Stratton [00:16:08]:
I can't remember. It was like, do you know what I'm talking about? You look in the mirror.
Kevin Bailey [00:16:11]:
Left, left eye.
Emma Stratton [00:16:12]:
Yeah, the left eye. Right. I remember you look at your left eye. And I would read these through a couple times. She also put me in. In hypnosis and helped me go back in time to some of those. What was this the word she had for them? It's almost like the. This wasn't the word she used, but like the trigger moment.
Emma Stratton [00:16:32]:
Like, what was that first moment? Going back. And I went back to like when I was a newborn. I could even remember, like being a baby and having things happen, which was wild. So going back and healing, almost the original experience that lodged that belief and what we found was also, it started from this feeling of I'm not enough. Like, I am not enough. And she said to me, my coach at the time said, this is sort of the core belief that many of us are operating with that is dictating a lot of things, including scarcity mindset, which is like, I'm not enough. I don't deserve this. So that I am not enough.
Emma Stratton [00:17:13]:
Was almost like the very beginning belief. No.
Kevin Bailey [00:17:18]:
Since you're talking so much about hypnotherapy, I wanted to mention a lot of people have a lot of, I guess, maladaptive beliefs about hypnotherapy. So I think it's a good thing for us to talk about for a minute. Hypnotherapy. There's at least 10,000 peer reviewed studies on hypnotherapy and academia, neuroscientists. The founder of Reverie, which is a hypnotherapy app, was on Huberman Show. So there's a ton of research and science around it, but people still sometimes get a little, little weirded out by it. And I think, you know, if you have a scarcity mindset, you might have a little, little reticence doing it. So tell me, like when you first started doing hypnosis, how did that feel to you? Were you nervous, scared? Were you able to trust that this person could go in and work on your brain like that? Tell me about some of your, your experience with hypnotherapy.
Emma Stratton [00:18:05]:
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. So I first got into hypnotherapy when I did it for birthing for like prenatal hypnobirthing. And then that wasn't scary. I was like, sure, I want a painless birth. So I had already done the scripts and everything.
Kevin Bailey [00:18:19]:
That was a nice entry point. My wife did that as well.
Emma Stratton [00:18:21]:
Oh, did I kind of warmed you.
Kevin Bailey [00:18:23]:
It warmed you up to it before you did the real surgery?
Emma Stratton [00:18:25]:
It warmed me up to it and so I wasn't weirded out. And also to me, hypnosis is really about just being in a really deeply receptive and relaxed state. You are completely still there. No one's going to make you bark like a dog and all those things. So it's really about being in a very relaxed, receptive place. And I used to enjoy just doing scripts for sleep or relaxation because it's just really rejuvenating when you have a busy day. So I wasn't afraid of it.
Emma Stratton [00:18:57]:
It feels nice, you feel good after. And so I found it as a really great tool to relax but also work on your mindset. So it didn't freak me out. Would you say some people are more receptive than others and some people are more open to suggestion? Because I think I'm maybe a person who's less open to suggestion.
Kevin Bailey [00:19:18]:
Yeah, there's certainly a range people as like how receptive they are to hypnotherapy.
Emma Stratton [00:19:24]:
Right. So I think I may be on that end as well. But I've met a lot of people who've had great results with hypnotherapy, conquering all types of, like, phobias and fears and things. And so I love it.
Kevin Bailey [00:19:37]:
It's a pretty amazing tool. Do you remember where. Because you said that this hypnotherapist brought you back to an inception moment where you learned that you weren't enough. Do you remember, like, what that experience was or.
Emma Stratton [00:19:50]:
I mean, the only thing I do remember was I had a remembrance of sort of being rejected as a baby by my mom. Like, I think I was screaming and sort of just, I don't know, like a shoving away, like a rejection. Isn't that wild to remember that? You know, I was definitely a baby crying. I think there must have been something around that sort of rejection, screaming, calling for a mother, and being pushed away. I think that's probably the start of it. But you know what? It could have even started when I was in utero. That's the other wild thing that my mindset coach said. Like, it could have even been before.
Kevin Bailey [00:20:36]:
Hey, it's Kevin, and I hope you're enjoying the show. I know it's tough out there right now for tech leaders, and we appreciate you taking the time to focus on your mental performance and well being. Speaking of time, did you know that 76% of tech leaders lose 20 or more hours of productivity a week due to stress, fatigue, and feeling overwhelmed. To win these hours back, leaders need to learn the mental performance skills that keep you in the zone, where research shows that executives are five times more productive. And that's where we come in. Dreamfuel's Octane Cohort is our flagship mental performance program built for tech leaders under pressure who want to achieve their most ambitious goals in less time and with less frustration. To learn more, go to dreamfuel.com octane or just click the link in the description to see if you qualify.
Kevin Bailey [00:21:20]:
All right, back to the show. The interesting part about beliefs is epigenetics. So we actually pass some of our mindsets and beliefs down genetically. Phobias, fears. They've proven this in mice. Mice can go back mice. The way they did it is they had a type of cheese, a very distinct type of cheese. It smells a certain way, and they would have mice eat the cheese.
Kevin Bailey [00:21:47]:
And then at a certain point, they started having. They started shocking the mice when they would eat this cheese. So there's certain smell, certain type of cheese that shocked the feet. And that generation of mice that Phobia was passed for three generations. So the, the children of those mice and the children's children of those mice would not eat that cheese. They would avoid that cheese like their life depended on it. And so these types of beliefs, phobias, mindsets passed down. So yeah, it could have been implanted obviously in utero.
Kevin Bailey [00:22:20]:
That's amazing. I love the fact that you, that you were open minded enough to use hypnotherapy to work on some of these beliefs. So let's talk about as you were developing this abundance mindset. I think you had told me in our interviews some practical ways that you worked on abundance in your day to day life. For example, like tipping and stuff like that. What are some of the things that you do to prove to your subconscious mind to prove to yourself that you are abundant and that you have plenty and that there is plenty for everyone. What are some of the day to day tactics you use?
Emma Stratton [00:22:51]:
Yeah, I mean in the beginning, treating myself to something that felt indulgent, back in the day that could have been a tub of organic raspberries. I wore this like grubby old fleece because it still worked. And I bought myself like a nice Patagonia one that felt like whoa, you know. So it started with upgrading things that I had that were old and grubby and I didn't want to spend money. So there was that. And then on a daily it was, I would do affirmations. Just whenever I remembered when I was driving, I'd be like, money flows, you know, freely to me and around me. One that really helped me was like, I make more money so I can be more of me.
Emma Stratton [00:23:35]:
Which felt really good. So it was affirmations that felt good to me around. Not like I'm going to get a private jet and a million dollars. It was really just more about money comes to me easily. It flows. Money is my friend. So when I would remember like in the car, I would just say these types of things to myself over and over again. And then another is tipping.
Emma Stratton [00:23:55]:
So I used to hoard like save everything. So acts of generosity felt really good. That's kind of going at odds, that's giving the finger to the hoarder. So tipping well. Whenever I'm at a register and it asks me to donate to something, I always, always will do it. And because that just opens up the flow, right? You give, it comes back to you. It's really important to just keep circulating money. It's not good to just kind of hoard it.
Emma Stratton [00:24:27]:
So even that, that felt like really like, whoa to me. So tipping and affirmations and treating myself to things, treating other people here and there, like picking up the bill. These were things that I just didn't do or if I did them, it would pain me. Like, it would give me like visible campaign and then also relaxing my hold on budgeting. Like I sort of stopped nickel and diming everything and just being like hyper focused on everything and having like a more looser way of kind of budgeting. It's almost like I'm a recovering scarcity person. So rigid budgets and not allowing things kind of almost remind me of how I used to be. And it's just, it's not good for me.
Emma Stratton [00:25:16]:
So I even sort of changed the way I manage my money to just be a more looser, freer way. So those are the things that I do now and it is gone. Right? The all that I have healed all of those things. Of course there's another level. And then we talked about this in our talk. My business is in a really good place and I'm very happy about it. I could make more. And I don't think my mindset, I think I hit my like upgraded mindset.
Kevin Bailey [00:25:45]:
So let's, let's talk about it real quick and we'll talk about what's next for you. But so rewinding back real quick. So process here because there is a process. Your coach brought you through a process.
Emma Stratton [00:25:55]:
Yes.
Kevin Bailey [00:25:55]:
So the first thing is identifying that you have a poverty mindset, identifying you have a scarcity mindset. And then the coach is like, okay, we got these weeds in your mind, so to speak. We want it to be a, a pasture of, of beautiful flowers. But you got all these weeds all over the place, these poverty beliefs. So your coach had the skill to actually go in and uproot those weeds with hypnosis. So they identified these beliefs together. You started working on what the abundance mindsets were like. There were some that were so stuck they had to go and put you into trance and then rip these things out.
Kevin Bailey [00:26:29]:
So that happened. And then after that you got this kind of like a clear feel. There's no flowers, but there's no weeds. It's kind of blank. And then you're like, all right, my mom taught me these beliefs growing up that were the weeds. And now I'm going to take my fate into my own hands and plant my own flowers. These affirmations you were talking about that you would say to yourself while looking into your left eye or whatever, though, the stuff always feels so weird. But I Mean, the left eye is just, you know, obviously connected to the right hemisphere of the brain, which is where a lot of these.
Kevin Bailey [00:27:01]:
These beliefs are housed. Anyway, so. So you started to kind of plant these new ones. I do like to say you think about fate and free will.
Emma Stratton [00:27:09]:
Yeah.
Kevin Bailey [00:27:09]:
Like, by doing this, you actually took your fate into your own hands in a big way. If you think about it, like, our subconscious minds empower 95% of our thoughts. We have free will or conscious control of 5%. You use those 5% to reprogram the 95%.
Emma Stratton [00:27:25]:
So actually.
Kevin Bailey [00:27:27]:
Yeah, so you actually, like, took your fate into your own hands. You're not running on autopilot. You chose to change the direction of your life with this stuff, which is amazing. So you did use the affirmations, you did things like tipping and whatnot to start to implant these new beliefs. And then I think probably everybody's all curious, like, what happened with your business? You went, like, three years making the same amount of money or four years, and then you started working on your mindset. Was this all just pixie dust and magic that never panned into anything, or did it actually start to change your business's growth trajectory? I'd like to hear about that.
Emma Stratton [00:27:59]:
Yeah, it was like magic. So the first thing it did was it made me more confident and being more visible in my own marketing and in my business. So I. I had been sort of dabbling on social media, but I was. I had, like, fear of visibility, a lot of fear, like, and I got over that, and I started showing up online, which was marketing my business in more than I ever had, and the contracts just started coming in, and bigger contracts. So suddenly larger contracts were coming in. It was like, I was able to allow larger contracts come in, which, of course means you start making more. But it was almost like.
Emma Stratton [00:28:40]:
Like that. Like, I'm not kidding. It was like a month after I started doing this work, like, things just started shifting. It's like, oh, why am I suddenly getting buyers who are, you know, willing to pay three times what I've been charging right after I do mindset work? It was almost like magic. It was, like, spooky. And then after I did that mindset work, you know, it got me into other personal development work as well. But essentially, year on year, I doubled revenue for, like, three years or Amazing.
Kevin Bailey [00:29:10]:
So you went from making the same amount every year to doubling, doubling and doubling, which is kind of like the. The.
Emma Stratton [00:29:15]:
Yes.
Kevin Bailey [00:29:15]:
The classic growth trajectory you want in business with the early stages. That's. That's fantastic. And obviously you said, and I've experienced this and I think a lot of people who do this work experience, it does kind of feel like magic. But I think at a very, a very practical level, you were making decisions. Now you're making different decisions because you had a different program or operating system running in your brain. You had one of abundance. So that allowed you to start to make decisions to get yourself out there better to market, better to use the messaging skills that you know for yourself.
Kevin Bailey [00:29:46]:
And so yes, can, I mean, obviously the concept of law of attraction and stuff, it can feel just magic. But I think it also is worth stating that you were making practical decisions that were different than the ones you were making before.
Emma Stratton [00:30:01]:
Exactly. I think you show up in the world differently, right. With a different mindset, which you see things differently and then, yeah, you attract things. You're receptive. Law of attraction is whatever you put out is basically what you attract. And so if you're putting out the ooh, like I only want to make, you know, if I can make 4,000 a month and like that type of client is going to come to you. And believe me, the first client I had to fire was like my first client. And it was like, that's what I attracted because that's where my head was at.
Emma Stratton [00:30:32]:
And so you're right. When you are in this different, more expansive space, you're, you make different decisions and you resonate with a different level client.
Kevin Bailey [00:30:43]:
You're gonna push the, the big buyers away. By the way that you carry yourself when you're in a scarcity place. And that's through, that's through a concept called, or a theory called mirror neurons, which is basically a neuroscience term that we reflect each other's non verbals, we reflect each other's, we can feel and sense each other's the way that we behave. And if, if you're putting off signs of scarcity, that big buyer who wants to make a ton of money is not going to want to work with somebody who, that they can sense subconsciously has a scarcity mindset. They're going to be naturally have affinity towards somebody with an abundance mindset. Because you obviously your business is messaging to grow your company like right for you. It's really important to have that, that mindset. But they're going to sense that and pick it up through mirror neurons.
Kevin Bailey [00:31:26]:
Yeah, it's, it is, it is amazing. I, you know, we coach a lot of salespeople as well as founders and for the salespeople that mirror neurons think super important where it's like when you put the price down, you better put that price down. With an abundance mindset, you better put that price down. Like it, like it's nothing. Like, if it's a big number that might scare you, you better work on being able to put that price down with all the confidence in the world. When you say. And again, a lot of it is unconscious and I think tools like tipping, so it's like you gotta, I always find it where you find that point where you clinch. So it's like on a tip, you know, it's like, oh, you know, 25% like all of a sudden I feel my body start to shrink and contract.
Kevin Bailey [00:32:05]:
Well, that's your clinch point. That's where you got to push beyond that. You got to tip 30, 35, 40% to start to feel what it's like to like relax into making a big money decision going beyond, you know, the points where you start to get a lot of head trash coming in. So I think it's great to use tools like that. I love that you've been able to expand, but you did just say that you're starting to hit a new ceiling. So, yeah, tell me about where you're at right now with the business. From a mindset standpoint, from an earnings standpoint, where you want to go and maybe what you think you might need to do to get to the next level.
Emma Stratton [00:32:39]:
Where I am now is beyond my wildest dreams to me years ago. So if you had told me 10 years, 15 years ago that I'd be here, I'd be like, no way. That's insane. So that's amazing, right? My 5% won and I've gone beyond anything I could ever think of. But now I'm at the point where it's like, I actually can't picture beyond this, but I do want to go beyond this. And I'm not motivated by revenue anymore because I was before and it was a very important lesson to me. And yes, I want to still be comfortable and all that, but I think what I'm motivated by now is impact and having more impact and that is growth. That is more people are listening to you.
Emma Stratton [00:33:25]:
That's. It's growth on a level that's much bigger, bigger than where I am today. And to be quite honest, I don't know what that looks like or how that's like next level. So here I am at the same place again. Now this set point isn't as uncomfortable as it was 10 years ago when I was freaking out and in scarcity mindset. But I do recognize that there's more growth, and I don't really know how to get there. And you know what? I probably will turn to mindset. I've enjoyed.
Emma Stratton [00:33:54]:
I've learned so much kind of things you've been talking about. And to be honest, I did mindset, and then I kind of moved into other work. So it's sort of been a while since I addressed that scarcity. That's the last time I've done intensive mindset work. So maybe it's time to do some visioning and then perhaps some targeted using some of these mindset techniques to start focusing on the next steps.
Kevin Bailey [00:34:20]:
Honestly, one thing that might be good for you is guided visualization. That's something that we do, a complimentary guided visualization our coaches do with people in our community. So getting that expanded vision to kind of see what might be next for you, I would say guided visualization be a great tool. Whether we do it or you do with another coach or something like that, that's always what we use to get people to the next level. It's like you've uprooted the weeds. You've got the nice field of flowers, like, okay, what is that expanded field? What does that look like? And that's normally just prying it open further and just kind of changing the aperture a little bit. So I would say that would be a. Be a great tool.
Kevin Bailey [00:34:55]:
But it's exciting, you know, and it is. We've been through this with a lot of founders. You know, it's like getting to their ceiling, building the next ceiling, the next ceiling, and you can take that all the way to, you know, whatever, nine, ten figures.
Emma Stratton [00:35:08]:
Yeah, no, it's awesome. Yeah, it's fun. I find this fascinating. And thank you for that 95.5%. I don't think I ever heard it broken down by that. And that really does show. Show how amazing it is for folks who do this work, are able to work on themselves and fight that 95% with that. With that passionate 5%.
Kevin Bailey [00:35:32]:
Yeah, the averages are. So 95% of your thoughts are subconscious automatic thoughts, and then 70% of those are. 95% are gnats or negative automatic thoughts affects cognitive models. So it's like the average person, 70%, you know, I guess 0.7 times 0.95, you know, 70% of their.95% of their thoughts are negative. So it's like, it's. The vast majority of your thinking is disempowering, holding you back, limiting you. And we just live like that and try and do our best when we're fighting ourselves the entire time. Some samurai.
Kevin Bailey [00:36:04]:
I think the most successful Japanese samurai is like the first sword fight you have to win is the one with yourself and the rest.
Emma Stratton [00:36:11]:
You must have a great mindset, though.
Kevin Bailey [00:36:14]:
Hey, that's a great rhetorical question. I would like to venture to say that I started off with not the best mindset. I don't think anyone in our industry started off with a great mindset or had like, the perfect epigenetics, you know, their parents installed the perfect beliefs. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this field. Nobody who naturally is gifted with a wonderful mindset through their parents and through epigenetics would be in this field. The people who get into this field have had to fight their way through this. And yes, I mean, I would say I have a great mindset now. I've built it from square one, you know, like.
Kevin Bailey [00:36:50]:
Like you have just taken it probably a little bit further. But yeah, I'm obsessed with the science of it. I find it incredibly fascinating. I. I do think it is the ticket to free will. Like, we are fated to live the programming that's installed in us before we're eight years old. If we learn this stuff, we can take it into our own hands. We can build whatever life we want.
Kevin Bailey [00:37:07]:
We can pursue our dreams, we can achieve our dreams. We can get through the incredible hero's journey and trials and tribulations of our life with much more ease. So I love it. But, yeah, do I naturally have a great mindset? No. Do I have one now? I'm still always working on it, but I would say, yeah, it's 100 times better than it was when I was getting started.
Emma Stratton [00:37:26]:
Yeah. Awesome. So cool.
Kevin Bailey [00:37:29]:
Well, cool. Now I know we're going to do me on your podcast, so I'm excited about that. For those who are listening to this that want to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to get to know you? And I'd love you to give a little pitch for. For Punchy to talk about the messaging that you guys do for B2B tech.
Emma Stratton [00:37:44]:
Yeah, so the best place to find me is really on LinkedIn. You can just search for me. Emma Stratton, founder of Punchy. I also have a newsletter that's Punchy if you can sign up through LinkedIn. So that's the best place to find me. And yeah, I would say check out my book. That's another thing. If you are at all interested in messaging, if you're in marketing, even sales want to write better messaging that's human, that connects with people.
Emma Stratton [00:38:08]:
That's simple. For your tech, get my book, Make It Punchy. It's on Amazon and all other online booksellers as well. That's definitely the best place to start. And yeah, it's been a pleasure chatting with you, Kevin. I've loved it.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:22]:
Yeah, it's been amazing. Thank you for your time, Emma, and we'll see you on the next DreamFie Show.
Emma Stratton [00:38:27]:
Sounds good.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:32]:
Hey everyone.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:33]:
Hope you enjoyed the Dreamfuel Show. If you'd like to continue listening to more episodes, subscribe to Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:41]:
We'll be here every other week.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:42]:
And if you want to learn more about Dreamfuel's Octane program for tech leaders, go to dreamfuel.com octane or just click the link in the description.