TCC Podcast #347: Finding Your Why with Linda Perry

On the 347th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Linda Perry makes her FOURTH appearance on the show. This episode acts as a friendly reminder to take care of your mindset especially in times of financial uncertainty and business (and life) plateaus. Linda shares how we can continue to grow our mindset toolbelt, so we can stop getting in our own way. Here’s how the episode goes: How Linda’s work has changed over the last few years.  Her dream of moving to Europe and how she made it happen.  What’s the challenge with selling something like mindset? The real reason you keep coming back to your mindset struggles.  How finding your why will help you craft messaging and communicate better.  What tools should copywriters add to their business?  Here’s the real problem with continually purchasing courses and programs.  The 5 traps keeping you from business confidence.  What’s the difference between worth base and value base? Are we telling ourselves a story that keeps us stuck? How to focus on what we can control. Can you be the solution AND the problem in your business?  Why Linda paused her podcast and grew her client roster. The importance of having a sounding board.  The simple shift that’ll help you save time and energy in your business.  Why you shouldn’t be afraid to do something because someone else is doing it.  How defining success will keep you from feelings of shame.  Is the Think Tank the right program for you? Tune into the episode by hitting play or reading the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the  show: The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Linda's website  The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM AI for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Longtime listeners to this podcast will recognize a recurring topic that we revisit from time to time, and that's mindset. Your mindset as a copywriter, as a business owner, as a problem solver impacts everything that you do in your work. It often determines whether you land that client that you've been dreaming of or hit the goals that you've set. And when it comes to mindset, our go-to expert is Linda Perry. She's the guest for this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Linda is a mindset coach who has helped hundreds of copywriters deal with the head trash that gets in the way of all of our success. She's a coach inside the Copywriter Think Tank, and we invited her to talk with us about the challenges facing copywriters, content writers, and other marketers today. Kira Hug:  But first, this podcast episode is sponsored by the Copywriter Think Tank. And I'm not going to share a whole lot about the Think Tank because we talk about it with Linda in depth and we talk about a lot of the struggles and wins Copywriter Think Tank members have experienced. Linda is a Think Tank alumni member. So we dive pretty deep into what's possible with the Think Tank in this episode. So stay tuned and if you like what you're hearing about the Think Tank and what's possible, you can learn more at copywriterthinktank.com and jump in there with us. Okay, let's get into our episode with Linda. All right, so let's just catch up real quick because you've had some big life changes that we were just chatting about. I'm very jealous of these life changes that you've made and excited for you. So why don't we just start with how your life and business has changed over the last year. Linda Perry:  Yeah, I could actually just listen to your podcast to track all my changes in life. This would be great. So in the last year, I decided somewhere along the way to pick up and move and leave the States. We now are living in Portugal. I think I've expanded my business as well in terms of who I work with. I still really work with copywriters. I work with a lot of marketers. I've expanded to work with agencies actually to help them really in some of their team building leadership communications aspects and helping them all play a better role. So that's been kind of fun. I also do another sort of assessment with people that's been really fun to do. Lately, as you know, I work on the Enneagram, but I also have been doing this Why Certification that I got, this Why assessment that helps people really understand their why and how they show up and what they do. It's been really cool because it can be validating. It can show me where people's blocks are going to be, but it also gives them a really cool marketing message right away. For example, my why is better ways, so I'm always looking for a better way to do things. If you've hung out with me, you know that's probably true. And how I do that is challenging the system. And what I do is build trusting relationships. And so I've been working with people on that and it just opens up their mind to think about what their strengths are. I think there's such a shortage of our ability to see strengths. So it's been kind of fun because I get to focus a little bit more on how do we create something practical out of mindset, which we know I really like adding that practical aspect. Rob Marsh:  So I'm coming back to the why thing for sure. But before we move on from Portugal and moving over, let's just talk just a little bit more about the mindset around that because it's a big move. You pretty much boxed up everything that you had in the States, it's in a storage unit somewhere and a couple of suitcases and that's it. And now you're in Portugal for a couple of years. Just tell us about the thought process, why you decided that kind of a change, what you're hoping to get personally, maybe even with your business. Linda Perry:  Sure. Rob Marsh:  Yeah, with all of that. Linda Perry:  I also don't want to forget that the other change I made is as I started working with Think Tank. Kira Hug:  Oh, we're going to talk. Rob Marsh:  We'll definitely get to that, yeah. Kira Hug:  Don't worry. Linda Perry:  I don't want to forget that because that's kind of important. Okay, so the mindset around that is, I'll be honest Rob, this is the example of don't let your dreams go. I think when I was 20 I wanted to actually move to Italy. It just sort of was in the back of my head. And then you have children and then you have... I was a lawyer and so all these things happened. And then last summer we went to Croatia as a family. My husband looked at me, he is like, "I could do this." And I was like, "Wait, are you serious? Because I can make this happen," within minutes. I was ready for a change. I missed living in a city. I've always wanted to experience Europe, you know I am. But I always say culturally liminal. There's that big part of me that's so American, but that part of me that's also pretty European. And so what this originally started as is like, "We'll just rent out our house. We'll just start off." And then we started to think, "Well, why? Why rent it out? That's a lot to manage from overseas." So we put our house in the market. We ended up having a lot of headaches around selling our house, but we did it. We were going to go to Portugal, Spain, and Croatia. And then we realized we want to have some routes somewhere and we want to have the ability to travel on weekends and really live that dream life, like Kira you always talk about how I walk my walk. I wanted some place where I could work Monday through Thursday, which I do. And they're a little bit longer hours even here. Friday, I don't touch the computer. I don't look at a computer. We head out somewhere, we do something. When we looked at Portugal, it was weather, it was people. We hadn't stepped foot in it. And we said, "Well..." And I think this is a lot building a business or doing anything, it's like, "Well, I'm going to try it. And if it doesn't work, I can shift." 'I think so much of what I've learned from growing a business, from being an entrepreneur is if it doesn't work, I'll find a different route. And so we just kind of decided. And we had our children's blessing. I mean that was really key. My kids are old enough, they're like, "Can we come with you?" "No, y'all have to work in your own lives." But we had their blessing essentially. And Lisbon isn't that far to come back to the US. So that's the whole mindset. Kira Hug:  So how do you think about your business as you were preparing to make this move? Were there any changes you've had to make to the way you're running the business? Linda Perry:  Yeah, for sure. I mean, I had to go overcome my resistance to working at 8:00 PM at night sometimes, which I do once a week that I teach something at 8:00 at night. There's a lot of resistance to that. I had to think about how do I expand my business in the sense that now I'm in Europe and if I want to work with companies or agencies, I have to start to think about how do I network here and how do I start to really get a foothold into the door of American companies even here to start to work on mindset or entrepreneurs here. The funny thing is I've gotten a bunch of new clients and they're all Europe based. I'm like, "Have y'all been waiting for me to show?" And it's been really nice. So I think I just had to start to expand thinking about how I was going to do it and am I going to fly back to the US, like how am I juggling some of that and realized it would all figure itself out. But I definitely had some resistance around working late, but I get my mornings. Kira Hug:  Well, can you just speak to how you got your clients, your European clients? I mean, it sounds like it kind of magically happened. You moved and you found these new clients, but- Rob Marsh:  No effort whatsoever on your part, I'm sure, yeah. Kira Hug:  Right.