Today, I want to talk about the missing piece in your business strategy that nobody talks about.
If you’ve been trying to get your business up and running, you’ve been trying to grow, you feel like you’re doing everything, you’re following the strategy, you’re modelling what other people are doing, you’re doing what you’re told every day and every week by your coach, and things aren’t working, that’s what this episode is about. Because it’s probably not the strategy you’re doing, that’s the problem. It’s probably not the piece of content. It’s probably not how hard you’re working. It’s something else.
So I’m excited to dive deep into this because it’s such an important topic to me as I see that this one quality that I’m going to speak into separates the really, really successful coaches from those who just really struggle to get things off the ground no matter how much they say they want something. Because it’s one thing to say it and to want it, and it’s another to really embody that and do it.
But before I get into it, let me share a bit of a life update as I haven’t done that in a while. So right now, we are midway through 2025. I cannot believe that. I feel like this year has gone so quickly. I’ve blinked and we’re halfway through the year. This is probably one of my favourite years to date. I mean, I’ve said that every year, I swear, over the last five years.
I feel like I went through a lot of challenges in my teen years and early, early 20s. And I feel like I’ve been there and done that. Not to say I’ll never go through something majorly challenging again, but I feel like I really went through some dark times then. And I feel like now the last five years has just gotten better and better and better each year. And it’s something I do not take for granted. I’m so grateful for. And I also know that I’ve created this reality, but I do tend to say every year gets better. But I really believe it is.
Our business is in such a good place. I’ve actually just been feeling all day like I’m on the verge of this really massive up level and breakthrough. I don’t know why I’m feeling this today. I just am. I guess I’ve just been listening to the right podcasts, watching the right trainings and from my mentors. And I don’t know, I’ve just got these creative juices flowing and I’m just so excited. And I just feel like, yeah, something big is about to unfold.
So I’m super excited for what’s to come. That’s in the works right now for myself and my own business, but also for my clients, because when I up level, so do they. And that’s always very exciting. And they typically get very, very lucky because it’s typically when I go through these up levels that I give even more and I unpack even more. And yeah, they just come on the journey with me, which is so exciting. So that’s feeling really good.
As for my relationship with Geordie, I’m not going to lie. I meant to be picking him up in 10 minutes. This episode is definitely going to be longer than 10 minutes, but he’s on the plane, right? It always takes a while to get off the plane, get your suitcase, all of that. But if you hear me talking fast, that might be why I’m so excited to see him as it’s been a week apart. And whilst we’re used to that, because we both travel a lot, it’s always so good to see him.
So I’ve just gotten ready and we’re going to go on a cute date tonight. So I’m really excited. And my health is also the best it’s been in years. I’ve been working really intentionally on my health these last few months, and I’m just feeling better and better. I’ve been working out a lot, but really from a place of joy, right? I have a lot of free time in my weeks because of the way I’ve structured my business. Again, something I’m super grateful for.
And because of all of that free time, I’ve started to run again. And I’ve been going to some extra Pilates classes because I’m just trying to fill time, which I know is such a first world problem. And it’s such a great problem to have that I can imagine some people listening to would like, but that’s also the business model that I teach my clients, right? So it’s not just a only me thing. I also do recognise my stage of life though. I don’t have a dog. I don’t have children and all of these things, which obviously gives me more time.
But I even really believe even in those situations, you know, when you can outsource and delegate so much within your business and structure things in such great ways and have really healthy boundaries that, you know, you can have it all. You can really have it all. But of course, we’re all going to have different seasons. And some are much more, you know, time consuming and or challenging than others, of course. But yeah, my health is just going really well. So it’s something I’m grateful for. And yeah, so things are going really great.
I really just feel like I’m on the verge of like transformation in a lot of areas of my life. So that’s something I’m grateful for. Now let’s dive into this episode because this episode was actually something I decided to create based off a post that I intuitively felt called to write the other day.
And it was a post around, you know, targeted towards the coach that feels like they’re doing everything right. You know, they’ve got the strategy, they’re doing the mindset work, they’re showing up, and their business just isn’t taking off as fast as they would have liked it to. And I’m hearing this more and more as the years go by.
I feel like with things like AI, saturation in the market, all of these things, you know, it can be in some ways more challenging to stand out than ever before. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible because in some ways it’s easier than ever before. Like it’s easier than ever before to create content and to automate things and do all these things, right? But if you don’t know how to stay on top of things and, you know, you don’t know how to build a really strong personal brand and stand out, then yeah, it can be really, really challenging.
And so I wanted to talk about this because I’ve now coached over 200 coaches and I’m in programmes, you know, with thousands of different coaches. And so I really have learned over the years, the difference between those that succeed and those that don’t. And it’s rarely because of their content plan or how much they are posting or, you know, those sorts of things.
It’s not about having this secret strategy. There is plenty of people that have access to amazing strategies and resources and don’t have the results that they would like. And so it always has led me to think, well, then what is the quote unquote secret? What is it that you’re missing? What is it that people need in order to really succeed? Because, you know, I help a lot of new coaches. I’ve got, you know, an amazing programme for new coaches and it’s so interesting witnessing their questions and their struggles and, you know, things like that.
And it often takes me back to reflecting on what was it like when I first started my business? And when I first started my business, it was, you know, the very end of 2019. But really, I would say I really got started properly in 2020. You know, I had no idea what I was doing. I was 22 years old. I had no university or college degree, no certifications. I was so young. And yeah, a global pandemic had just hit, you know, there was no circumstances that were aligning for me. And yet, you know, I managed to grow under all of those circumstances and sign clients within a few months and get to multiple six figures within a couple of years and get to a million dollars organically without touching paid ads in under four years.
And, you know, now we’ve done over two million dollars in over five years. And so it’s like, you know, what was it that I had that I’m not seeing some people that have been trying to start for the same time or maybe two or three years or even more recently that just are really struggling to get that momentum? Like, what is the difference? And honestly, I could bring it down to a few things, I’m sure. But one of the missing pieces that really comes up for me strongly is grit.
It’s grit. It’s determination. It’s resilience. It’s really that personality trait. And, you know, you hear a lot of people say that entrepreneurship is not for everyone and not everyone’s made to be an entrepreneur. And I definitely agree with that. And it’s not because necessarily of capability or work ethic or whatever. It’s really just comes down to those personality traits. You have to have that fire within you that just really, really, really, really wants something and your actions, you know, reflect that accordingly.
You want it more than you don’t. And I think that grit is an essential personality trait or trait that is required to grow your business because the reality is that, all seasons of business are hard, but in particular, the beginning of business where everything is new, everything is unknown, everything is different, everything is uncertain. You really need a rock solid mindset, but not just, oh, I feel confident about myself and I believe in myself. You need that fire. You need that grit within you to be able to push through the hard times.
Because what I see happen with the coaches that don’t really have that, they don’t have that activated, is they start and they’re trying to get some momentum. They do what they’re told, you know, they post the five times a week and they do all the things, but then they don’t get the results. And then instead of leaning in even more, they stop, they pause, they shut down, they get really upset, and then they have to start again. They get back up again with, you know, a lot of encouragement and motivation and whatever else.
And then they get going and they follow the steps and then it’s not working instantly. So they stop again, they stop and start and stop and start. And it becomes really difficult for them to grow.
And this is such a big mistake that I see, because what happens is that every time you stop, you hit the reset button, and then it takes even longer to get out of that phase. And so really, because it’s such an uncomfortable phase, you want to kind of get out of that start phase as quickly as possible. And not from a place of like urgency or scarcity, but just you want to lean in because the more you stop and start and you shut down every time, you know, or this need for instant gratification, the harder it becomes and the longer it takes.
But when people have grit, I notice that they don’t stop and start. They keep going. Sure, they’ll have bumps along the way, they’ll cry themselves to sleep, they’ll have breakdowns. I know I certainly did. I think for like the first year in my business, I cried myself to sleep like at least once a week, like I was an emotional rollercoaster. But you best believe, despite crying myself to sleep some weeks, I never didn’t show up.
I have shown up every single day on social media since I started. And I’m not saying that the answer is show up on social media every day. My point is, I didn’t stop and start. I kept leaning in no matter what, because I had grit.
So yes, clarity matters. Yes, strategy matters. Yes, confidence matters. Those things matter, of course. But none of that really means anything if you don’t have that resilience to keep showing up when things aren’t working. Because the reality is, is that things will not always work. Things will not work in the beginning. You will not get that instant gratification that today’s society demands and is used to.
That’s not how business works for most people most of the time. Okay? It’s going to be slow. It’s going to be quiet. It’s going to feel like no one is watching and there will be seasons where no one is watching, where no one is buying, and nothing’s landing. But you need to move through that phase instead of stop or make your coach wrong or make yourself wrong and like complain. You need to double down in that period, not just keep on doing the same thing over and over again like a broken record.
Yes, there’s power and consistency and, you know, being repetitive, but you’ve got to get better and you’ve got to do more in the beginning. Most people underestimate how much creativity, how much initiative, how much pure grit is like actually required to grow a business, especially in those early days or in the seasons where growth just feels painfully slow. You’ll see it in all successful entrepreneurs and coaches, but not many people talk about it.
They’ll talk about mindset and things like that. Some do anyways and some don’t. But you’ll see that this is a quality that is naturally within these people. And a situation in their life would have activated that, but they have that quality of grit and resilience. You will see that they are all incredibly hard workers. They do not get in their own way like some other people do.
And if you get in your own way, please just know that’s okay and normal. I got in my own way and I kept going. That’s the difference. It’s not that you can’t get in your own way. You can’t have tough moments and, you know, really struggle. You can and you will. The difference is how you navigate that.
Do you stop completely? Do you blame? Do you become a victim? Do you not move forwards? Or do you get creative and go, what else can I do? How else could I lean in? Right? This is like something that I really want you to think about.
Because sometimes it’s not about finding this magical secret. Like a lot of coaches are looking for the magical secret. They’re looking for the magical programme that’s just going to solve all their problems. Guys, I’ve thought that about every programme I’ve ever invested in. This is it. This is where I’m going to catapult. And I don’t.
I like, you know, I have a transformation from the investment and I’ve, you know, always learned so much with every investment. But it’s not like I magically change as a human being and someone else that I’m now paying just completely transform my business. No, I have to watch the modules. I have to implement the modules. I have to ask questions. I have to show up to the calls. I have to do all of those things. That is such an important part of mentorship actually working.
So many people like, oh, this is going to be the secret. Let me invest in this. Oh, I’ve done this for two weeks. Why isn’t it working? And they complain and they give up. Right? Whereas the really, really successful coaches, I understand the word success is like a really vague term, but I hope you have the discernment here.
The successful coaches you see, they, yes, invest. Yes, they struggle. Yes, things are slow at times, but they lean in during that period because of grit.
So I really want to share with you right now quickly some of the things that I did in the beginning of my business that no one told me to do. No one suggested I did. I just did it because of grit. Yes, I’ve always, I’ve had a business coach at least one every single day I’ve been in business. So I always had support and always was being told, you know, what strategies to follow and I would do them and I would get results from those things, but not instantly.
And sometimes I also wouldn’t get results from the things because quite frankly, I just sucked and I was learning, but I also did a whole bunch of other things because I wanted to, not because I just had so much magical energy or because, you know, whatever it’s like, I just wanted to because of that grit. And it’s this personality trait that I think brings everything together and makes it all work.
So here’s some of the things I did when I had no money, no clients, no audience or very minimal. And I just had a really big dream and I didn’t even have certainty that these things would work. So at one point I had printed off a whole bunch of flyers that probably took me too much time to make. And I would put them in rich people’s houses letter boxes because I thought, oh, rich people will have the money to pay me. So I would go on these rich streets, put the pamphlets in and it was like bucketing down with rain, I remember. And like my partner was just like checking on me and whatever. And I was just like spending my evening putting flyers in letter boxes. That’s what I would do. No one ever responded to that. That didn’t work, but I had grit and I did that.
I also used to work at a cafe where I’d make coffees for a living or one of my five jobs. And I, one day, you know, the cafe wasn’t open on Sundays. And I asked my boss at the time if I could run a free workshop in her cafe as the location, because it was just going to be closed on that day. And she said, yes, because I was really close with her. And so I ran an in-person goal-setting workshop and I think maybe 10 people showed up and I ran it all for free, printed out workbooks for them. And I just spent several hours of my life taking them through this process and everyone really loved it. Did I sign any clients from it? No, but it didn’t matter. Like I loved it so much. And my partner, literally, he’s so cute. He was there and he like was taking photos and videos of the event. And it was so nice.
I also would spend like entire weekends, like filming three-day challenges or five-day video series, or all these sorts of videos thinking this video series is going to change the game. And some things I would post, some I would just like never even post. I don’t even know why. But I would nonetheless spend so much time like scripting and creating things and filming things and trying to have the background perfect and trying to look perfect and do all these things to get my business up and running.
I would email schools and offer to speak at schools to help motivate, you know, teenagers to find their purpose. None of the schools replied, not even the one that I went to myself.
One day I was watching, I followed this girl on YouTube. She was like a money coach, not even a money coach, like a financial advisor. And she would film these amazing YouTube videos, and I’d been following her for ages. And I think in one of her videos one day, she said, you know, if anything I’ve ever done has like supported you at one point, if you could, like, I would love to hear, like, please email me your story and whatever.
And I thought, fuck it, I’m going to do that. I emailed her and I just told her like how I had a really, you know, bad relationship with money. And from following some of her processes or whatever, I now have a really good relationship with money and I managed to save $50,000 as a 21-year-old. And this was like, this was money that I’d made not for my business. This was just from, like, yeah, my casual jobs and so forth.
She actually got back to me and she said, this is so inspiring. I loved reading this. I even showed this to my partner and he loved it. I would love to interview you. Would you be willing to fly to Sydney so I can do so?
And that was really scary for me. I lived in Adelaide at the time. And I said, yes, I flew to Sydney just for the day. So it was like a really quick trip. She interviewed me, then I interviewed her on my YouTube channel. And because she had a large, somewhat large following, the Daily Mail picked up on that interview and they wrote an article about me about how this 21-year-old, you know, saved $50,000 from casual jobs.
And then I one day got a call from Channel 7. So Channel 7 had found me through the Daily Mail. And all of a sudden, I had the Channel 7 coming over to my house and they interviewed me, right? And that all stemmed from me having the initiative to send an email thanking someone for helping me. That’s it. And then saying yes to the opportunity that presented itself.
I also hosted a retreat at my partner’s country town. Like his mom, you know, worked with the retreat centre that’s there. And I ran a retreat with two other girls and, you know, did a lot of promoting to get people to show up there. I also would manually email hundreds of people that had commented on my posts, you know, in other Facebook groups around a free resource I’d created. And I didn’t know that you could automate that or have fancy links and landing pages. So I’d manually sit there for hours and hours and hours emailing all of these people that probably didn’t even open the email, let’s be honest.
I would run free challenges and online events every single month. And to be honest, I still do that. But that’s something I did in the beginning, even if I didn’t know it was going to work. And I originally got that idea, I think I just felt called to do it, but I had definitely seen, you know, someone that I looked up to at the time. Like, you know, she was running a free challenge. I’m like, oh, that’s a good idea. I should do that, you know.
And I also one day got Jordi to help me film this like one minute promotional video that I thought would just be so professional and amazing. But I was obviously on a budget. So we filmed it ourself and we spent the whole day filming it. And it’s with the funniest bloopers and the best memory. But I don’t even think I really think I maybe shared it once on social media and then it’s on my YouTube channel and whatever. But, you know, I put in all of this effort for such little things.
And here’s the thing I want you to know is that most of these things actually didn’t bring in clients. They didn’t actually generate instant results. They weren’t part of some polished launch plan. And no one told me to do them. But every single one of those actions shaped me and the business that I have today.
It was me doing the reps, getting good at speaking, getting good at putting myself out there, getting good at making mistakes, getting good at testing things. It was proof that I was willing to create opportunities instead of solely waiting for them. And that’s the big difference that I see between coaches that stay stuck versus coaches that thrive and succeed. Some will post and then they wait, whereas others create and lean in. And that’s it.
There’s a huge difference between the two. That is what grit is. Grit isn’t about hustling endlessly. It’s not about grinding yourself into burnout. And it’s not about expecting yourself to be perfect either. It’s just about showing up even when it’s hard. Trying even if it might not work. Creating when no one’s asking you to. Doing the thing because you care enough to try.
Sure, follow the strategy from your coach, of course. Double down on that. Master that. Strategy is essential. Yes, have support every step of the way. No one successful doesn’t have support. Invest in mentorship. Refine your messaging. Lean into those things. But know this, that grit is also a part of this and no one can give this to you.
And when you find it and when you lean into it, that’s when things will really start to move. So if you’re in a tough season right now, I want you to know that this might be like not a fun, but it also might be the thing that shapes everything. Okay?
So that is a conversation I wanted to have today. It’s just about grit because you can have the strategy. You can even have the mindset. You can have the desire. You can want this so bad. But if you don’t have that grit of being willing to go above and beyond, above average, so you can get above average results and stand out because that’s how much you want it instead of just wishing, feeling, thinking and feeling and whatever, then you are made for big things because that is a trait that I see in entrepreneurs that makes them go so, so far.
So I just wanted to share that from my heart to yours in case you needed this today. And the good thing is, is that I do believe that everyone can activate this. If there is enough pain of staying the same and there’s enough pleasure and desire of getting to a specific place and you want that enough and you can activate that drive, then you can have grit too.
So that’s the positive message here is that I believe everyone can activate this, but you have to tap into that. There has to be pain to where you are now and there has to be massive desire to where you want to be and you have to leverage that. So thank you so much for listening. I hope this has been helpful. If it has, come message me on Instagram. I’m at Sophia Rose Bernardi. I would love to connect and I will see you in next week’s episode. Bye.
