You’re ambitious, a dedicated friend, family member, boss, a dreamer who knows they’re destined to live a life they love and do work in the world that, well, doesn’t even feel like work.
But the *how* piece of that equation can make some days feel like you’re working your buns off, but for what?
As my guest on this episode of Spa Marketing Made Easy explains, leaning into your North Star of your vision, mission and values to create a dream life you love doesn’t happen by accident.
It happens on purpose.
Joining me in this conversation is Tanya Dalton, a best-selling author, speaker, sought after business coach for women entrepreneurs, and nationally recognized productivity expert.
In addition to her work as an author being featured in the world’s leading publications including Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Fast Company, and Real Simple, Tanya is also the Founder + CEO of inkWELL Press Productivity Co., a multi-million dollar company that provides tools to help women do less while achieving more.
Whether you’re brand new to being a business owner or you’re a well-seasoned spa owner, I just know you’re going to love Tanya’s nuggets of wisdom and genius insights surrounding how to dial in your vision to craft a game plan so you can do more of what lights you up in life and with your work.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why it is absolutely critical to figure out what you want out of your life, relationships, and your work so you can build a company that supports your vision and fuels it
- The purpose of casting a 5, 10, and 20 year vision and the pieces and steps that go into crafting it and getting clear on what that vision is
- Reverse engineering your vision into realistic goals and how to devise a plan to meet them
- Why everything you do in making progress toward your goals and vision needs to be rooted in purpose
References Mentioned in Episode #237: Mastering Your CEO Mindset and Goals with Tanya Dalton
- Learn more about Tanya’s work, books, and programs via her website and listen to her podcast, The Intentional Advantage
- Read Tanya’s book, The Joy of Missing Out and pre-order her upcoming title, On Purpose
- Connect with Tanya via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
- To keep the conversation going, ask questions, and connect with other like-minded aestheticians building thriving careers, click here to join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast community.
As a thank you for being a loyal listener to the Spa Marketing Made Easy podcast and for helping us to reach more aestheticians working on growing their businesses and creating a life they love, we have created a free resource portal just for you!
It’s totally free to join, and for every 25 reviews we get on iTunes, we’ll add a new training video, PDF, tracker, or other high-value resource to help you grow your aesthetic business!
If you have yet to leave a review, click here to leave one on iTunes, and click here to access the free resources already unlocked!
Episode Transcript
00:00
You’re listening to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast where we share simple, proven strategies just for spa industry professionals to help you get more clients in the door so that you can create a life you love. I’m your host, Daniela Woerner licensed aesthetician and spa marketing strategist.
00:22
Hello my dears, Daniela here and welcome to another episode of the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast. Now I just finished an interview with an incredible woman, I think she might be a new business bestie she and I were just aligned on so many topics. That was incredible. And her name. My guest today is Tanya Dalton. So we had an incredible conversation about the journey of the business owner. So we start out as a solopreneurs, solo aesthetician, we move into the entrepreneur role. And then we step into the role of the CEO. We talk about that as the spa CEO. Alright, but more importantly, how do we move through that journey with intention? So that you’re actually creating the life that you want to live? Are you looking for time freedom, financial freedom, lifestyle freedom, right? You’ve got to know what it is that you want to create, in order to create it and we talk about all of that today.
01:22
Okay, so let me do a quick read of Tanya’s bio and then we will jump right into that interview. So, Tanya Dalton is a nationally recognized productivity expert, best selling author and speaker. Tanya serves as a growth strategist for female leaders in corporate and entrepreneurial sectors. In addition to having her book being named one of the top 10 business books of 2019 by Fortune Magazine, Tanya’s podcast the “Intentional Advantage” is ranked among the top 50 in the self improvement category on iTunes. She’s also a featured expert on several networks, including NBC and Fox, and as a VIP contributor for entrepreneur.com. Tanya has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications, including Forbes, Fast Company, and Real Simple. She has been awarded the Elite Enterprising Women Award and has been named the female entrepreneur to watch in the state of North Carolina. Tanya is also the founder and CEO of Inkwell press productivity company, a multimillion dollar company providing tools that work as a catalyst in helping women do less while achieving maximum success. Okay, incredible woman, great interview. Let’s go ahead and jump right in. And be sure if you have any further questions to head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. Alright, enjoy.
02:42
Alright, Tanya, welcome to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast, super excited to have you here. Something that we were talking about a little bit before the show was that transition that happens from solopreneur, to entrepreneur, to CEO and, and they really are three very different distinctions. And I see spa owners going through that so frequently, in you know, they start out as an aesthetician they want to become, you know, they’re going to be solo because they they want the freedom and the flexibility and the financial growth and all of these things. And they’re like, what the heck, it’s just mean, I’m wearing all these hats, I actually create a prison cell for myself, instead of what I actually wanted. So I’m so excited to get into this conversation with you today.
03:35
Yes, I am to because it really is a progression. Because a lot of times you start your business with what you are excited about what you’re passionate about, and you are doing everything you love the idea of you’re not taking orders from somebody else, right, you’re your own boss, but your hands are in everything, which makes it almost impossible to feel like you can step away that you can have the freedoms that you’re really looking for. Because you’re so in the thick of it, you’re in the weeds of it. And so then you move into entrepreneurship, when you start to bring on some team or you start to see how you could expand, whether that’s big, you want to be really large, you can be an Amazon or whether you want to be just you know, a $500,000 spa, or you want to be a million dollar spa. And so then, as you move into CEO ship, that’s really when you get those systems in place. That’s really when you start delegating more, that’s when you are able to truly start to unplug from your business. And that’s when I say you really do get the freedom. You can have the time freedom because you can step out of your business because it’s designed to run without you that’s what being a CEO is it’s really stepping into the visionary role even more so that maybe you’re not working directly with clients or if you are it’s at very high level, very select clients that you’re hands on with. Most of your time is being spent on the visionary work on where is it you want to go. Really leaning into what I like to call your Northstar, your mission, your vision, your core values, where it is you want that business to go long term, to create that lifestyle for yourself. And so it is every time you get to these those levels, there’s a mindset shift that has to happen as well.
05:15
So let’s, let’s talk about this a little bit. Because, you know, how do you figure out what you want? And I know that that seems like, what kind of What do you mean, but when I find when I’m talking with spa owners, and I’m trying to get them to imagine like, how much do you want to pay yourself? How many hours do you want to work? Do you want to go on vacation once a year, twice a year or half the year? Like, what do you want for yourself? People will get to this place where they they can tell you? Well, I know I don’t want that. And I don’t want that. But they don’t actually do the work to figure out what makes them happy? Do they care more about time freedom? Do they care more about financial freedom? Like? How do you start that process of figuring out what the heck that you want? So you can build a company that supports that?
06:07
Yes, I love that question. Because you do want to know what the vision is? Do you want to be a giant company? Do you want to be a smaller, medium sized company, there’s no right or wrong? whatever size that works for you is really what you want. But how do you know what you want? So I like to say you have to look backwards?
06:26
Go ahead.
06:27
I was gonna say doesn’t it come down to first, like, if you figure out what you want, you have to figure out how much you’re going to pay yourself to support that lifestyle, which in turn would figure out the size of your company? Right?
06:40
Yeah, I do this, I do this exercise with a lot of the women that I work with where we we talk about redefining success, because I think the problem is a lot of times success is defined by society, by other people by what things look like. And really when we stop, and we look at who we are. And I don’t just mean who we are as the business owner, but who we are, you know, with our our lives in all different aspects, what is it that we want, with our relationships with our finances, with where we live, and, and all of those pieces of ourselves. So if we don’t take time to really think about what we want that to look like, it’s hard to work backwards. So we actually go through this exercise where we, we look at where we are today. And we write that down. Okay, this is where I am, this is what things are like, for me, these are the things I want to do. Here’s where I’m living. This is what my relationships are like, these are the things I want my money to do for me. Because I think so often too, when we talk about money, we think of it just as money in the bank, but money is the vehicle, right? It’s the vehicle to get you whatever it is you want. Are you wanting to save up money so your kids can go to college? Are you wanting to save up so you can live on a sailboat? For five years? Are you wanting to save up money? Because you want to be able to buy houses for your children? when they when they grow up? What What is it you’re wanting your money to do? What does that look like right now? What is your money doing for you right now? What is your life look like? Then let’s just go forward just a year? Because that’s manageable? Well, what does it look like there? What do you what do you dream your life could look like? Then we work on the finances last, right? What does it look like? What kinds of things Am I wanting to experience? What kinds of relationships Am I going to be in with my kids, especially that’s a big driver with where your kids are thinking about their ages and the things that have been going on in their lives? And then figuring out okay, what is my money need to look like? So I can have that lifestyle? Then we move five years, then we move 10 years, and then we even stretch over to 20 years. And that makes it where it’s like these little incremental steps. And we think about how we want our lifestyle to look, is it really the time freedom? Is it the location freedom? Is it the financial freedom, which of those freedoms are really showing up in those dreams? And I like to tell people, if you’re feeling really stuck, like you’re saying, I just have no idea. Start with regret. Because we move away from pain so much faster than we move towards pleasure. It’s true, right? You think about.
09:10
Yeah…
09:10
We don’t decide to lose weight until your pants get too tight, or you know, we don’t decide to quit working so hard until you realize that your kids haven’t seen you for three weekends in a row, that we have that pain, and that moves us to where we want to go. So when we go and we look at our past, if you look backwards, that tells you where you want to move forward. Start with what you do regret. What are the things that you wish were different? Don’t spend time in Oh, this is terrible. Think about what life could look like the opposite of regret is resilience. So let’s choose the opposite of that as you’re visioning and you’re thinking about what that future looks like, what is the opposite of what you didn’t like, look like for you? 1 year, 5 years, 10 years down the road, and then we figure out the finances.
09:54
I love that and a couple of reasons. One, I think that women in general have so many blocks around money, that when you tell the.. yeah, the stories, the blocks what it means that it ended up, right. But when you put a tangible thing behind it, then it’s it makes it easier, I need this much money. This is the tool that’s going to provide me with this, it’s easier to visualize, it’s easy to easier to comprehend. It’s a, it’s a goal to work towards. So I love that aspect of it. And I love the aspect of moving away from pain. Something else I wanted to kind of add to that is if you are someone who has such a blessed life, that you don’t have a tremendous amount of pain, then I think another beautiful thing to do is look at other people and see, oh, I would love to have a life like that. That looks interesting. How can I do that? You know, that was actually how I found the coach that I work with. Now one of the reasons I started working with her is because of her lifestyle. I said, She’s got two kids, she works from nine to three. That’s what I want, right? How did she do that? If she can do it, I can do it too. And trying to figure that out. So I think that’s another great tool that you can use if you can’t figure out what you want. But look at other people and realize if they can do it, you can do it.
11:28
Yes, it really mining those. Those qualities that you admire in those people. What is it I admire? Because we don’t get caught up in comparisonism. Right? Because that’s easy to do. I love that though. Looking at other people and and figuring out, what is it in their lifestyle that I really admire? What is it that they are doing that looks exciting to me? What what draws me to them? What attracts me to whatever they’re doing, and start pulling from that. That’s a great idea. I love that.
11:56
Okay, so we’re figuring out what we want. We’re creating these, we’ve got these plans, the 1, the 5, the 20. You know, I think there was a 10 in there also. So then when we’re creating our action, right, it’s not just okay, this is what I want to do in a year. Well, now we get into the reverse engineering, right, like, so how do we actually take the the steps and do the work to make that happen? Oh, well, I, I love…
12:29
And can you answer that in three minutes, please?
12:33
Well, it’s funny is I actually answered this question in like 63,000 words, because this is actually the topic of my next book that’s coming out in October with Harper Collins. It’s called “On Purpose”, the busy Woman’s Guide to an extraordinary life of meaning and success, because we don’t know what we want. And we we set these goals arbitrarily. And we do it because we look around and we think Well, everybody else is doing these things. So I should do them. But if we choose instead to look at the long term at that 5, 10, 15, 20 year vision of where we want to go and start backing it up to decide, okay, if this is what I want, in 20 years, what do I think that’s what’s what’s your potential is? What do I think is possible? So you start with what’s your potential? What is possible in three to five years? what’s possible then? And if I back that up even more, well, if that’s what’s possible, what is practical, in 12 to 18 months. And that’s what’s practical, right in 12 to 18 months, then if we back that up even more, and break that down into maybe like three or six month periods, what do I want to prioritize? Those are really your goals. So we start with that long vision, and we almost work backwards. Like it’s a map, instead of saying, this is where the map is taking us. How do I work backwards from where I want to go back to where I am today? And that’s how we choose what our goals want to be or what would they I hate to say should look like because I don’t like shooting on ourselves because I think women do that far too much. But this is this gives you an idea of, of the direction you want to go in. And I think that’s really when our when our lives, when our businesses become more meaningful, because we’re making progress towards that big vision, what we’re what our potential is. And the thing is, is so often we set goals, and then they happen and then we think now what there’s this goal setting paradox of what do I do now I’ve already gotten to this goal, where do I go and you start looking around for something else. If you continually make progress by setting goals, one after the next that are aligned to that 20 year vision, that’s when they begin to have a lot more meaning that’s when the goals become part of the fun of living every day with that unhurried purpose.
14:46
Okay, so tell me the story of how this book came to be because there’s got to be something behind it. What happened in your life, what happened in your business that prompted you to write 63,000 words. On honest because I mean, it’s it’s a question that, you know, gets asked, I think by business owners that gets asked by busy moms that gets, you know, just women in general. So what was the thing that triggered this or the catalyst that kind of brought this book to life?
15:20
Well, I feel like I hear from a lot of women that they don’t understand their choices. In my first book, “The joy of missing out”, really is about how we make meaning in every single day. And so how do you prioritize? How do you understand how to create a life that feels good every day? And people were asking me, Well, what does it look like bigger than that? How does it look like, you know, if I look even further than just this today, or this week, and for me, I knew that I started my first business back in 2008. Because while I started with $50, it was supposed to be this little side business that I was just doing, because it was something fun, I was a stay at home mom, I thought this will be great gives me something to do. And my husband travels or he did travel. He was doing international marketing. So he would leave our home in Dallas, Texas and you buy an around the world ticket, that was the name of the ticket, he would fly and he would touch every continent, he’d be gone for like three or four weeks. And I had a conversation with him on one of these trips, where he’s on the other side of the planet, where I’m telling him all the things that kids are doing. And I’m excited. You know, this is what Kate saying today, and this is what’s happening here. And he got really quiet. And he said, I’m missing everything. I’m missing the moments, I’m missing the milestones, I’m missing seeing the kids. And I was like, No, no, no, you’re not. You know, they love you. It’s good. But I hope the phone that night, and I realized that my husband was not satisfied with what he was doing. He was he wanted to be more of a hands on dad. And I stood in my kitchen. And I thought you know what, I’m going to grow this business to absorb his MBA income. So he can come and work alongside of me. And I’m going to make this happen that became this giant vision for me if this is what I really want to do. I want to create a lifestyle for ourselves. I wanted the lifestyle freedom so that he could come work alongside of me.
17:09
And this business that you have right now…
17:14
Okay, this is something different. Yes. And, you know, I had no business experience zero. So what an audacious crazy thing to even think to yourself. But I sat down, I mapped out what this could look like. I had a husband who traveled for three or four weeks at a time I had two tiny children playing at my feet. But within about a year, I made that goal happen. He started working with me, we’ve been working together since 2009. We sit across the desk from each other, where I like to say work together like 28 hours a day. But it works for us. And so I created that life for myself, which then we chose to move we had location freedom. Well, we can live anywhere. Why don’t we move to Asheville, North Carolina, we have location freedom. And then I looked at my husband and I said, I’m not really fulfilled by what we creates, like I love you, I love working with you. But the business itself wasn’t what I wanted. And he was like, we have the freedom to do what we want to do. So that’s when I shifted into owning Inkwell press and doing the coaching. And for me, that purpose of creating that lifestyle for my family where my husband could be the one who makes lunches, who drives carpool, who’s here every day. And that was really my purpose. And people have always asked me like, how do you make that happen? How do you make that work? And I’m like, I am nothing special. You can do it if I can do it. It’s just really knowing where you want to go. So taking that big vision backing it up and deciding what those goals were. That’s what’s led me to where I am today. You know, multiple seven figure business owner with two companies and and loving what I do with my husband by my side.
18:54
So that’s really…
18:55
Its reminding me, um, we interviewed Jamie Curran Lima on the podcast, when her book “Believe it” came out. I don’t know if you’ve read that book, but it’s an incredible book.
19:06
I have it on my list.
19:08
Yeah, so she is the founder of It Cosmetics. She built it from her living room and then sold it to L’Oreal for 1.2 billion within 10 years incredible woman and it was very similar. It was it was her main point was through all the ups and downs all the behind the scenes, all the crazy things. She believed that she could. And so often I think women say like, oh, who am I to do that? How could I could never build a seven figure business. I could never, you know in spa. So often we’re hearing like, you know that first big milestone is when you hit 100,000. And everyone’s like, I want $100,000 business. I’m like, do you because what are you paying yourself if you’re if you have 100,000 business, you need much more than that. You want to pay yourself If 100,000 or more, right?
20:01
Yes, so there’s a big difference.
20:03
But that is a very much a mindset piece I think that so many entrepreneurs and specifically female business owners struggle with is what is possible for me? What do I believe I can actually do and it sounds like you have a healthy confidence, which is great, right? Like going into business, like knowing your strengths, knowing who you are, and what’s possible for you. And I think also, knowing what the end goal was, was, I want to retire my husband, right? or retire him from this job, so he can work with me. That I think is a bigger motivator, then I want to make seven figures. Right?
20:48
Absolutely.
20:48
It goes into I have this family, I have my kids, etc. So I think that what I’m taking away from this, for the spa owners that are listening is, again, what do you want? What’s the end goal? What motivates you every single day? To get out of bed? Is it having your spouse be able to, you know, to retire your spouse is at that lifestyle freedom, right? And, and you guys, just because you have a brick and mortar spa, does not mean that you can’t have that lifestyle freedom, when you step into that role of CEO, and you are truly an owner and not an operator? You go wherever the heck you want. Right? So it’s not …, there are no limits on what is possible. There’s really not you’ve got to believe in yourself, you’ve got to do the work, right? I’m sure like for you building to seven figure companies or multi seven figure companies. I’m sure you weren’t just like eating bonbons on your couch every day, you know, like…
21:58
Yeah, that sounds really nice…
22:01
No, you’re right…
22:02
But it’s still like you do it with that bigger vision of this is more important. And this is going to push me out of the fear of going live on Facebook or push me out of the fear of negotiating the terms of my lease or whatever the thing is that needs to happen to take your business to that next level.
22:32
Yes, absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s the limiting beliefs. We are the ones who put limits on ourselves, there are no limits, other than the ones that we place upon ourselves. And we can look at obstacles, we can look at stumbling blocks, and we can say these are in our way. Or we can say these are opportunities for me to be innovative. And for me to be creative. And for me to find ways around it. I like to say when I see an obstacle in my mind’s eye, I see it as a wall. And my choices are, I can go around it, I can I can climb over it, I can tunnel underneath it, or I can just burn it to the ground. All of those are options, but they’re all opportunities to do something on your own terms. And you’re right, having that six figure goal sounds like oh, that’s gonna motivate me. Is that really what’s gonna motivate you? Or is it what that six figure lifestyle gets you? Whatever that is. That’s why it’s so important to really redefine success on your own terms. This is, you know, when I go through businesses, we do a three step system of simplify, and then scale and then strategize that simplify is really important. What is it that you want? How can we really focus in. Let’s stop offering everything to everyone and choose instead to narrow in and decide what it is I want to offer to what I call your soulmate clients? What is it that I feel on fire for? And let’s do more of that, because we tend to undervalue joy. We tend to undervalue happiness. we’re so busy looking at that bottom line, what does the P&L statement say? That we need to make sure that we’re really taking care of ourselves with with how we feel with our own well being that needs …
24:18
The craziest thing is that when you do, your numbers actually go up.
24:23
Oh, when you…
24:26
Personal growth leads to professional growth, which leads to more personal growth, which leads to more professional growth. When you get to those new levels and you take care of yourself. And you really look at your mindset to make the shifts and the adjustments needed. That’s how you achieve the next level every time you’re ready to uplevel in your business. The first thing you want to do is take a look at your mindset. What are the lies that I tell myself about what’s possible and what’s impossible? What are the things I tell myself that I don’t know how to do when I all I have to do is figure out how to do them right or Who not how it right figure out who can help me do that instead of me figuring out how to do it. So there’s lots of ways we can look at these obstacles as opportunities. And that is 100%, a mindset shift.
25:13
I love that. Okay, so in wrapping up, what advice would you give to a solopreneur? Or spa owner? Right? Who’s wanting to get to that CEO role? What’s the one thing they can do today just to get that even if it’s just an inch closer?
25:34
Yeah, I would say really, really look at delegation, not as decision making, understanding that when you get that art of delegation, under control, and you’re able to delegate and have other people step in, that’s when you start to get that first taste of freedom. That’s when you begin to understand that not everything has to be done by you. So starting with delegation is a really good place to really begin your journey into up leveling to that next because you can’t get there on your own. That’s almost impossible to get there by yourself. Not without wearing yourself out. So take a step towards delegation and understand it means taking you out of the decision making process sometimes and giving them some ownership. That’s what I think is the next best step.
26:19
I love that. Okay, so where can people find you follow you stay in touch with you learn about your books, all the things?
26:27
Yes, well, the best place to find me is at TanyaDalton.com. You can find links to my podcast, the Intentional Advantage there you can find links to my books, and even to my products, I planners and those types of things and my coaching programs. So TanyaDalton.com.
26:42
Perfect, we’ll include that link. Thank you. So so much so informative. I feel like we’re so aligned in so many different ways. I love that. And for those of you listening, if you want to keep the conversation going, please head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group, tag me, let me know your questions, and I will catch you on the next episode.
27:02
As always, if you want to keep the conversation going, I want you to head on over to the Spa Marketing Made Easy Facebook group. The number one free resource out there for aestheticians focused on business building. We’ve got weekly marketing tips, a monthly goal setting and planning session, monthly aesthetician business book club, plus a community of thousands of aestheticians committed to business building in the spa industry. I’ll see you there.