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Today, we're talking about pressure in business and why it's actually something that you want to embrace on your business building journey. My name is Robin Clark, and I'm obsessed with all things business and marketing. I'm a jewelry designer who left the corporate world and grew a successful jewelry business.

And now I help women just like you from around the world do the same. I'm the founder and CEO of the Jewelry Business Academy, the host of the Jewelry Business Academy podcast, and I'm here to help you scale your jewelry business to six figures and beyond without burning out. Through my coaching program and podcast, I help you navigate the challenging seasons of business, as well as teach you the secrets to building a sustainable business that makes you feel good.

So grab a cup of tea and your notebook, get cozy and let's dive in. Hello, guys, and welcome back. It's so good to have you here with me today.

I've just been for a very fresh walk outside. We had like lots of snow yesterday, and honestly, I find it so refreshing and so energizing. And so now I'm back in my studio here to record this episode for you.

And I generally have pretty like good plans for a lot of these episodes, but today I'm feeling called to just talk about something that I actually had a conversation with another business owner about recently. And we were talking about, you know, how diamonds are not made unless there's pressure. And it's very, very similar in business, you know? It's very similar with successful business owners.

That pressure that you feel in business enables you to grow. It enables you to grow into that successful business owner, but in the moment, it can feel like something's wrong. And so I'm gonna be talking about that today and how to really embrace the pressure that you feel in business, how to change your perspective on that pressure, how to kind of chase that pressure in a good way, and why it's not something that you want to avoid, which is what happens with a lot of newer business owners when they start feeling that pressure, they start feeling that discomfort, they're like, oh, I don't like it, doesn't feel good, I'm out.

And they avoid all that growth that comes along with that. So, you know, we are gonna start right at the very beginning, I think, when it comes to diamonds and when it comes to being a successful business owner, both require pressure to really reach their full potential. It's just part of the process.

You can't have a diamond that was created without going through that pressure process. Same with business owners. I actually don't know any business owner who's very successful, who hasn't gone through challenges and obstacles and pressure to get to where they are.

It's part of the process. And honestly, this is why I love business so much, because to me, it's a pressure cooker for growth. That pressure and those challenges and those obstacles enable you to grow as an individual.

And to me, that's the best part of building a business. That person that you become on the journey. And I have another whole episode diving into that.

So, I won't cover that too much today, but I just wanna remind you, you know, in business, it's inevitable. You are going to face challenges. And actually, in life, you're gonna face challenges.

There is no way out of that. And often, people will try and make their life as comfortable and as easy as possible, because we're wired to do that. We want a comfy, soft life.

And we actively go and try and create that environment where everything is easy and everything is, like, just goes with the flow. And, you know, to a certain degree, there's a lot of value in that, but it can also be very detrimental to you as an individual. It can cause you to feel stuck.

It can cause you to feel unfulfilled. It can cause you to feel like you're a bit stagnant in life. And when you're not overcoming challenges, when you're not overcoming obstacles, when you're not solving problems in life, it's hard to grow.

And that doesn't mean to say, like, somebody listening to this who's like, oh, well, I'm not building business. So, you're saying, I can't grow. I'm definitely not saying that.

You know, if you look at different examples in life, for example, let's take mothers. Like, motherhood is not easy. Raising children is not easy.

It's one of the hardest things that you can possibly do. And it's so, it requires so much energy. It requires so much problem solving.

It requires so much work. And at the same time, most mothers, if you ask them, they'll say it's one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things that they have ever done. And so, when you're looking at the things that you're wanting in life, and the challenges, essentially, that you're wanting to solve, it's gonna be different for everyone.

But I'm assuming if you're listening to this episode, your problems are that you are building your jewelry business, and you're just dealing with the inevitable challenges that come along on that journey, and those problems that you are choosing to solve, and those obstacles you are choosing to navigate through. And, you know, when I look back on my journey, I've been in entrepreneur for many, many years now, when I got started, I thought I would be a success in the first, like, three months, to be honest with you. I had no idea what I was in for.

I thought it was so straightforward. Build your website, get gorgeous products, get nice photos, and you're done. Like, I thought that was how simple it was gonna be, post some pictures to social media, send some emails, like, I thought it was so straightforward, and I was blown away by how hard that first two years were, actually, but the first year was really, really rough.

And part of me just wanted to be successful right off the bat. I just wanted to, like, hit the ground running. I didn't want to go through the obstacles I was going through.

And when I look back, I'm so grateful for everything that I went through because it helped me step into the person that I am today. And I had to go through those challenges, but I will say I did a lot of challenges that I wish I hadn't had to navigate in terms of, you know, there's different levels of challenges. There's different levels of obstacles.

I could have skipped the whole first year of challenges and gone straight to the second year, and I still would have grown so much as an individual if I'd had, like, that support that we give out clients in the Jory Business Academy. So it's really, when you look back, and maybe somebody listening to this is in the throes of, like, the challenging seasons where it's really hard to get perspective, but when you are a couple of years ahead and you look back, you'll generally look back with so much gratitude for those challenges that you did have to navigate because it really helps you grow into that person that you become. And so it's really important to have a growth mindset when you are building a business and you want to change how you see challenges in business.

You wanna see challenges, opportunities for growth. You wanna see them as opportunities for personal development, and you wanna see them as opportunities for growth in your business as well. And I would also reframe challenges as practice for bigger challenges.

So one thing that's coming to mind, one example right now is one of my dear clients, I'm just gonna change the time frame so we don't give anything away here, but one of my dear clients had to have a very tough conversation with her employees, and it was something she was putting off for a very long time because it's uncomfortable, it's serious, there was a lot on the line doing this. And instead of putting those type of conversations, all those obstacles, all those challenges off for a really long time, the longer you put it off, the bigger it becomes in your mind. Instead, if you can reframe and say, okay, wow, this is an incredible opportunity for growth.

This is an incredible opportunity for me to practice having difficult conversations or navigating whatever challenges you're having. This is an incredible opportunity for me to, maybe in your situation, it's embrace being seen, embrace taking up space. It's very hard for some people to work through that and it requires practice.

So instead of seeing when you actually start dealing with those obstacles as this is a one-soul thing, I have one chance to do it right and that's it, no, you actually have multiple chances. Ideally, you would do your best the first time around, but sometimes you wanna see it as practice for the bigger challenges that are coming ahead as you scale because as you scale your business, your problems are going to get bigger, which is another reason it's actually really beneficial not to grow overnight into this multi-million dollar company because your problems will be problems that multi-million dollar companies deal with. And if you don't have that experience, if you haven't built that resilience, if you haven't navigated smaller challenges, you won't be able to navigate those big challenges.

So it's actually really beneficial to embrace all these challenges and obstacles and see them as like, oh, this is great practice for when I'm bigger and I'm gonna see how I can navigate this. So I know down the line that I can navigate even bigger challenges that come my way. So you really wanna look at like, what can I learn from this? How could you can look back on certain challenges that you have navigated and say to yourself, well, how could I have done that better? What did I learn from that? What is one thing I wanna take from that moving forward to maybe refine a little bit, what worked really well in how I handled that challenge? And when you do this, something wonderful happens.

You take the focus off the goals in your business. Now, goals are really important, but goals are pretty irrelevant in terms of actually hitting your goals. Your goals, it's good to know where you're going, but what's more important than that is actually consistently showing up and doing what's required to get there.

And so if you shift navigating these challenges and obstacles and pressure in your business as like, wow, I'm growing into the person, I need to be to hit those goals and to hit bigger goals, you're going to feel excited when you're navigating challenges. Like you're gonna feel that adrenaline rush, it gets to feel fun, it gets to feel exciting, no matter what the challenges. And I can tell you this is somebody who used to have full on panic attacks when things went wrong, that literally would leave me debilitated in bed for days.

I ended up in hospital multiple times from this. And it was not a fun time. I now deal with problems that are a million times bigger, fires all the time.

And I'm not affected by them in that way at all. I find them enjoyable to some certain extent, obviously not everything is enjoyable, but I see it as opportunities for growth. I'm like, okay, let's see how well I can navigate this, let's see how calm I can be navigating this, let's see how little impact it can have on my nervous system, let's see how I can practice going through these obstacles and challenges because I'm committed to growing as a business and as an, I can't even speak, and as an individual.

And because of that, I'm seeing this as practice for when I'm dealing with problems that are a hundred times bigger than what I'm dealing with now. And so it really changes how you show up in business, it changes how you show up each day. You know, when there are fires, when there are obstacles, when there are challenges, that's inevitable.

That's part of business, it's part of entrepreneurship. And I love it, you know, and you can reframe how you see it. You can reframe business as a game.

And you can start looking forward to those challenges, looking forward to navigating, looking forward to how you grow as an individual through those, how you become closer to yourself, how you are able to step into your more authentic self, how you are able to navigate really difficult situations with ease and with grace. And it impacts your life as well. You know, what the lessons that you learn in business through navigating through these obstacles is going to impact your personal life.

It's gonna impact your relationships. It's gonna impact how you communicate. It is only going to positively impact the rest of your life when you learn to shift how you view challenges and learn to shift how you view problems in your business and how you navigate through those.

So I wanna really encourage you to embrace the journey of building your jewelry business and acknowledge, like I want you to expect challenges in your business. Now there are challenges that you could be bypassing. And to be honest, if I can bypass a problem, I will because there's always gonna be problems and I'd rather be dealing with bigger problems.

So, you know, if I have a coach or I have somebody who can be like, hey, I made this mistake, I'm just gonna say, don't do this, like let's go this route. You can sure bet I'm gonna take that route because I'd rather fast track my growth and then deal with the other challenges that come at those higher levels. But see the obstacles, see the challenges as an integral part of the process of building your jewelry business and learn to embrace them because they are literally the parts that add meaning to your business.

And I know sometimes it may be hard to see that, but challenges give us fulfillment. Solving problems gives us fulfillment. It's kind of like going on a hike.

I mean, hiking a mountain is hard. Like let's say a four hour hike up a mountain in like 30 degree heat. That's not an easy thing even for somebody who's like relatively fit.

But why do we do it? Oh, well, I'm assuming some people listening to this hike. Maybe you don't hike, maybe you can find it something else. But why do we do it? Because it's so fulfilling the challenge of like walking up and actually achieving that hike and getting to the top and seeing the view.

That is so rewarding. Alternatively, if you had somebody who's like, oh, hey, I'll just drive you up by car and you can see the view. I mean, you can do that, but is that is fulfilling? No, not at all.

It doesn't even compare. It doesn't give you the stories that you had on the way going up. Even if you got scratched by thorns and like chased by wild dogs, I don't know.

Those challenges, those problems make it so much more interesting and you feel so much better after that. So, you know, just learn to embrace the challenges on your journey and building your jewelry business and they're gonna start small and they're gonna scale as you scale. So your business is gonna scale to the level of problems and challenges that you can handle and that you can navigate.

So you wanna get really good at this. You wanna just embrace it, look forward to it, get excited about it and embrace the personal transformation and the personal growth that comes along with this. I am so grateful for the person that I am becoming and have become through building businesses.

There is nothing else in my life that it has been more of a pressure cooker for growth than building businesses. And it's like one of those things, if somebody came to me and they're like, you know, I don't really feel fulfilled in life. I'm really feeling a little bit lost.

Like I'm happy-ish, but like something's missing and I'm not too sure who I am. I'm not too sure what I should be doing. I would encourage them if they are entrepreneurial minded, if that's something that is gonna fulfill their way.

I'd encourage them to start a business because you learn so much through starting a business. You grow so much through starting a business. The income and impact and all of that, the time freedom, the flexibility that you get as a reward for building a successful jewelry business is incredible.

But the person that you become along the way is to me, one of the most valuable parts of it. So when it comes to navigating challenges, it's all very well for me to say, hey, like embrace the challenges and like go all in and see them as growth. But when you're in the thick of it, and maybe when you're going through it for the first few times and when you don't have a support system, little things can feel like the end of the world.

Things like customers returning pieces and saying, oh, I don't like the quality that's broke. For a new business owner, that can have a huge impact if you haven't been prepared for that. And knowing that that happens to the best of companies, the best of designers will help you and getting used to, hey, this is gonna happen, but here's what we can do to prevent this from happening too often.

Here's what we can change in terms of the design. Here's what we can change in terms of the materials. Here's what we can change in terms of the marketing emails post-purchase to increase the customer's likelihood of looking after their jewelry better.

Here's how we can navigate when they do reach out to us and they need that repair and so that they feel good about it and they come back and buy again. There are things that you can be doing for that and you want to make sure that you have a support system or somebody who is on your team who can help you, number one, get perspective when you're navigating those challenges. And then number two, actually like help guide you in the right direction so that you can learn and move forward and build momentum rather than try and solve it and sometimes potentially like literally head to burnout and kind of cycle down into a bit of a spiral.

So make sure you have a support system who is helping you build that resilience, who's helping you build that adaptability and guiding you along the way. And if you're somebody who like me many years ago didn't have that support system, if you don't have that support system, if your family haunts on dropping yours in the jewelry industry, if you don't have business owners who are really open with what they're doing and really open to helping you and you're kind of on your own and on this jewelry business journey, then I'd love to invite you to come join me in the jewelry business academy. It is one of the most expansive programs for jewelry business owners wanting to accelerate their growth in their business.

And honestly, I am so proud of this program because it's specifically been developed to support the implementation of what you are learning. So we don't just hand you all this information and be like, oh, if you go sunshine, you're on your own. We have a 90 day jewelry business blueprint which requires about three hours of work from you a day to show up and do what's required in your business and we break it all down for you.

So you are actually going to be seeing results and moving your business forward within those first 90 days and then from there, we're gonna move you into our accelerator blueprint where we are ramping things up. And so if that's something that feels exciting, if you'd like to hop on group calls with me every single week and you'd like my eyes on your business diving into these challenges, giving you personalized feedback based on your situation, helping you navigate the challenges, helping you actually build momentum and start seeing more results in your business. If you are ready to scale and build your team, then come and join me in the jewelry business academy.

You can head to jewelrybusinessacademy.ca to learn more and you can book in one of your, a free call with one of our elite coaches as well. So head to jewelrybusinessacademy.

ca, book in your free call with one of our elite coaches. And if you're a good fit for the program, I will see you on the other side. And I wanna end with like a quote that I remind myself of almost daily.

And it's something that maybe for people who have been burnt by the corporate world, who are kind of, what I found in my journey is I was so intense in the corporate world that when I went into the jewelry industry, I went so intensely into the slow living movement that I did not build momentum in my business quick enough. And that spiraled me into depression and anxiety and panic attacks. And if I could go back and make one shift, it would see pressure as a privilege.

See busyness, not busyness, but see that pressure of building a successful business as a privilege. And see those challenges and obstacles as a privilege, not as problems. It really makes such a big difference, especially when you're transitioning from the corporate world.

I think sometimes people yo-yo in the completely opposite direction and then they get frustrated that they're not seeing results. Now, I'm a massive fan of the slow living movement. I actually incorporate so many elements of it into my day-to-day life, but there's a season in business in your first year or so.

If it's important for you to financially be making good money in your first year, the slow living movement will need to be navigated really carefully if you are wanting to build momentum. And that's something that we help our clients do as well. That's why our program only requires three hours a day.

We're taking that into account and helping you actually do what's required to see results. But I want to encourage you, if you take nothing else from this, I want to encourage you to see pressure in business, in life as a privilege and see it as an opportunity for growth, an opportunity for expansion and for learning. So, yeah, I'd love to know if you guys resonate with this.

If you have gone through any challenges in your business or any challenges or obstacles that you can look back on where you're like, oh, yeah, you know what? I'm so grateful I went through that because I learned this, this, this. I'd love to hear that. Send me a message, tag me on Instagram, it's Robin Clark Coaching.

I'd love to hear your personal stories. And if anyone has a really, really good story, I may just invite you onto the podcast as well. So please reach out, let me know.

And I just want to remind you, the whole point of building your jewelry business is to really grow into your highest self, that version of you that you become along the way. So enjoy the journey and I'm looking forward to connecting with you. And I have some pretty epic guests coming soon, so stay tuned for those.

Thank you for being here and thank you for tuning in every single week to our podcast. Honestly, I'm so grateful to be able to support you guys on your business building journeys through our podcast and through our Instagram content. And we don't run ads on this podcast.

And so it would mean the world to me if you took one minute to leave me a five-star review for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, if you are finding these episodes inspiring and motivating and encouraging. And if you haven't got a plan for 2024, I want to invite you to join me in the jewelry business academy. Let's make 2024 the best year yet.

Let's get you into a community of jewelry business owners, all doing the same thing as you, all building and scaling their business. Let's get you feeling connected on this journey because hey, I know how lonely entrepreneurship can feel and I don't want you to feel that way. Let's get you feeling connected.

Let's get you feeling supported and let's get the right strategies and systems in place in your business and teach you how to implement and execute them properly so you can actually see your results because at the end of the day, that's how you're gonna drive sales. And if you're driving sales, you're actually able to build a profitable business which does fulfill your why. So if that feels exciting, head to jewelrybusinessacademy.

ca and I will see you on the other side.