Hi there, I’m Kristine Oller and this is Creating Cashflow episode one. Whether you’re listening because you are excited about generating new streams of income or you’re listening because circumstances have got you thinking that it might be time to learn how to employ yourself – either way, this podcast is here to help you fund the life you want to live.

So, welcome to our blanket fort. That’s how I’m picturing us right now. I’m recording this in July of 2020. Times are weird and tough and changing rapidly daily so I’ve gathered some pillows and blankets and made us a little cozy space on the internet where we can hang out and talk candidly about where you’re at right now, and I can offer some guidance that will help you develop a stronger set of business muscles so you can make some money.

Today we’re going to talk about starting.

And I decided to start with starting because I’ve been walking around the house the last couple of days wondering where I should start with this podcast because there is so much that I want to share with you and I was genuinely having a difficult time deciding what our first conversation should be. And then, finally, I realized that, yeah, starting — starting is sometimes really daunting. I’ve been a bit intimidated, actually. And sometimes it’s confusing. And sometimes, for some folks, it’s paralyzing. Sometimes so much so that they never actually begin. They are forever preparing to start.

But I want you to leave our blanket fort today and start creating some cashflow (or creating more cashflow) so I’m going to share with you my top three pieces of guidance about starting. And, just so you know, I am the type of gal who would never talk to you about something I haven’t actually walked myself.

So my first piece of guidance is: To start. To actually start. To take a step forward in the direction of creating cashflow. From right where you are. Even before you feel ready. I know you want to start when you feel ready because you don’t want it to be messy because messy is uncomfortable. But it’s going to be messy. Starting anything NEW is messy because you’ve never done it before. And NOW — now we’re in the middle of a pandemic and political, economic, and cultural upheaval… no one has been confronted with ALL OF THIS ALL AT ONCE before. So the good news is everything is messy right now so your little creating cashflow mess over here won’t even be noticed.

But I can hear you saying… “I will notice my messy start, I will feel it and I will judge it.”

Yeah, you will probably feel the discomfort that comes with taking a leap and betting on yourself. And it’s okay to feel it. Let yourself feel it. I’m feeling it. But it’s also good to remind yourself that while you are feeling it, that you will not die from it. You will not die from discomfort.

But you judging your messiness, you faulting yourself or blaming or shaming yourself for your messiness… that’s where you go right off the rails. Because you are judging your messiness in relation to other people’s neat and tidy income generating businesses that are already up and running. But the truth is you didn’t see their messy.

Did you just whisper under your breath… “well that’s easy for you to say – you’ve got this podcast and a course and a pretty website and a community…”

It’s true. I have those things. But this is not where Creating Cashflow started. In fact, this is not even where this podcast started. Unless you were one of the very first people who bought my course, you didn’t really see my messy. So let me take you on a little tour.

I started this project back in January of 2018 with the intention that the course and the podcast and the community would be up and running by that fall. Little did I know. Cuz when I started I thought that this was just gonna be a little update (a little expansion) on a course that I taught way back in 2007 called Your Little Side Biz – back then I was an actor – I wasn’t teaching or coaching in any capacity – but I had started my little organizing business and several of my acting friends wanted to know how to start a little side hustle side of their own. So I made a little class, I recorded the class and I started selling the recording. But after several years, I stopped selling that recording because I realized I had learned so much more and I would teach this material so very differently… so the project of updating and re-launching that course just sat on my to-do list for years.

Fast forward to January 2018, my colleague Miata Edoga started sharing plans that she had to expand her business, which is dedicated to helping creative folks shift their relationship with money and get their financial lives in order, and manage their income. So she’s expanding her business. I thought it might be a smart move to have something available for her clients that could teach them the income generation part of the financial stability equation. So I was like, great, I’ll update my course, I’ll call it Cashflow for Creatives, I’ll have a way for folks to get group coaching from me after they take the course and I’ll have a podcast. Which I’ll also call Cashflow For Creatives. Here’s a little secret: that podcast is still up on iTunes, so you can check out those episodes if you want. They’re great. I will eventually be bringing them over into this podcast feed under the new branding as bonus episodes. Am I happy those episodes are hanging out over there under different branding? No. Did I want to bring them over here and re-edit them before I started this podcast? Yes. All of that feels very messy. Am I letting those facts and feelings and messiness delay me from starting this conversation with you at the very time when it feels like it’s most important for us to be talking about this subject matter? No. And that’s my point. I didn’t let the messiness stop me from starting. In fact, my purpose for the original podcast was to show what starting a new biz actually looks like. I wanted to show the normal messiness that comes with starting something because I wanted you to see that awkwardness doesn’t necessarily prevent progress and success. For that podcast, I invited 4 people – with diversity of genders, and ethnicities, and sexual orientations and biz ideas – I invited them to coach with me one-on-one for five months for free and in return they would let me share their sessions on my podcast.

So all of this is back in 2018. For a few reasons, I wanted that podcast to debut before the end of May 2018 and I wanted the course to be ready once the podcast began to air. But the course turned out to be a much larger project than just a little update – turns out I had learned quite a lot in ten years of helping folks create additional streams of income – so it was pretty much written brand new from the ground up.

So for five months, I wrote, refined, recorded and edited the course as I simultaneously coached my podcast participants, edited their sessions and created my podcast, which was messy in and of itself because I had never created a podcast before. I’m not telling you this so that you will be amazed. I mean, it is an accomplishment that I’m proud of but I’m telling you this to let you know that my life was very messy during this period of intense productivity. Other things in my life were just squeezed in the cracks or just not attended to at all, kind of like, fell off the cliff. And I wasn’t earning as much income from my coaching business because I was devoting so much time and energy to this project. And, then, in August of 2018, I ran out of steam. It was time to turn my attention back to the other areas of my life and business, including marketing Cashflow for Creatives so that folks could actually find out that the podcast and the course existed. And 6 episodes of the original podcast have yet to be edited and posted. Aagh! That is messy and I hate it. I hate that that project isn’t actually complete. Then, after hearing a few episodes, one of my most trusted business buddies said that the way I was ending the episodes was not as helpful and powerful as it could be and she gave me a suggestion on how to improve it and when I heard her suggestion, I knew, I knew she was right. I did NOT want that to be true. Because that meant going back and rewriting, and re-recording and re-editing the ends of the 14 episodes that I had already finished. Which I did.

So the podcast episodes were there, and the course was available for sale but I wasn’t able to start the live coaching sessions for the course until March of 2019. Messy. And then, when I started, I would do coaching sessions for a few weeks and then I’d have to stop them for a few weeks because I needed the time to work on building the infrastructure of the Cashflow Library and figure out how to automate the membership site, which I had never done before. I’d never done a membership site before. New territory. Very messy. And not being able to be consistent with the Cashflow coaching sessions drove me crazy. I was embarrassed and I was worried that this little group of members would start to dismiss me as a flake. Bless their hearts, they hung in there with me and I’m so grateful because I was constantly making little adjustments so that I could find the rhythm and the flow that I have now.

So, March 2019… I started the coaching sessions and then, in the fall of 2019 – last fall – a colleague whom I had hired to work with me on marketing and publicity for the podcast and course sat me down and asked me to consider rebranding the whole enchilada so that it would serve a wider audience. Again, not an idea I wanted to hear, but one that felt exactly right once I heard it. Cashflow for Creatives became Creating Cashflow. Which entailed slight rewriting, re-recording, re-editing of the course and changing the branding on all the materials. Which happened during the fall of 2019. I mean, how messy is that? Hi, that thing I’ve been telling you about for over a year – well, it now has a brand new name! That no longer matches the podcast that exists! YAY!

But if I hadn’t started and if I had let the discomfort of all that disjointedness and messiness stop me, I wouldn’t have this course and community and podcast right here, right now, ready and able to help so many more people when they most need it.

So, my first piece of guidance about starting is: To start.

My second piece of guidance is: To start with a sense of hopefulness and playful curiosity.

You are the first person who has to believe that there is at least a teeny tiny chance that you can shift your financial situation by creating some cash. And that part of you that feels hopeful needs to be nurtured and encouraged and given support, so it can grow. Especially when your lizard brain crawls out of its cave and tries its best to convince you that you really shouldn’t bother cuz it’s not gonna work. Your lizard brain wants you to crawl back into your comfort zone so that you can both feel safe.

If you really want to squash your hope, start tormenting yourself with horrible questions like: “How is this gonna work?” That is a horrible question because it’s a BIG question and it demands that the whole plan be delivered into your brain all at once. Which is impossible because there are so many variables to how your adventure is going to unfold. And when you ask, “How is this gonna work?” your lizard brain usually just hollers back, “It won’t.”

But the more realistic answer is “I don’t know.” You don’t know how all of this is gonna work – how could you? You’ve never done it before!

And, it is your choice – and it is a choice – to greet this acknowledgement that “you don’t know how this is gonna work” with either worry or playful curiosity.

Doubts and worries are going to crop up whenever you move into new, uncharted territory. But an effective way to dissolve them, to dissolve the doubts and worries, is with playful curiosity. Decide to practice shifting your thoughts from “Will anyone actually hire me?” to “I wonder who my first customer will be?” Shifting from “Is this even gonna work?” to “I’m excited to find out how this new little venture will come together.” “What can I do this week that will move the needle on my biz? I’m curious to see how fast I will reach my first $1,000.”

So, yes, it is important to start. But if you’re starting with an attitude of doom and gloom, then you’re sabotaging your chances right out of the gate.

So, if you’re going to start, start with a sense of hopefulness and playful curiosity.

Did I just hear you ask… “How do you sustain a feeling of hopefulness and playful curiosity after the excitement of starting has worn off and once the going gets rough?”

That’s a really good question. Because it does get exhausting if you’re doing this alone – if you’re attempting to be your own source of support, accountability and inspiration.

We all need support, accountability and inspiration – but we need these elements to come from sources outside of ourselves – to fill up our energy tanks.

That is why my third piece of guidance is: Start by selecting a boat to travel in.

Before this year so many of us were cruising along on some sort of ship – we had plans, we had activities, and then the wave of 2020 came along and we were thrown overboard, right into the ocean. And if you are out there, holding on to a life preserver or two and treading water, it is now time for you to pick a boat. A boat that will offer you guidance, support, accountability and inspiration throughout the next few months or years of your rebuilding journey.

There are several very good boats available for you to choose from – pick one. Pick one that has a captain who seems like a good match for you and who knows how to sail in stormy weather. I am the captain of the Creating Cashflow boat and I’ve been sailing the self-employment seas for more than twenty years. I’m 49 and this is not the first time life has crashed into my life. And over the past two decades I have helped hundreds of folks start and grow streams of income – both big and small. Our Creating Cashflow boat is warm and welcoming and we have a community of open minds and open hearts that is diverse in every way.

This year, almost every single person on Earth is starting a new chapter in their lives – whether they planned it or not. 2020 will mark the collective and personal endings of many things, and the collective and personal beginnings of many things. It’s natural to feel unmoored and thrown off balance, and scared, and sad and angry about all of this. I know how uncomfortable it feels to be forced to change course when you weren’t expecting to, or didn’t want to, or weren’t ready to.

But by coming on board a boat of your choosing, you can also start to feel more hopeful and empowered, and clear and purposeful about what is possible for you. And if you pick a fun boat, you’ll be around a bunch of fun, smart, proactive, positive-about-their-future people.

So that is your mission this week when you leave this blanket fort – to go out, do some research, and find a coach or a program that can be your guide through the process of learning how to increase your income and employ yourself. I love that you’re listening to podcasts about this subject and gathering ideas and educating yourself. But application and action are what create cashflow.

So start – with a sense of hopefulness and curiosity – start by picking a boat… and enjoy the ride as much as you possibly can.

That’s what I’m doing right now — starting! For the second time! And I’m so glad you were here to witness it, in all of its messy glory!

I really appreciate that you spent this time with me and I wish you the very best.

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Creating Cashflow is a podcast, a course and a community that exists to guide and support you through the process of generating supplemental streams of income to help fund the life you want to live. We welcome those of you who are just starting out and we welcome those of you who have a biz but now want to make it as streamlined and profitable as possible. Three times every month I roll up my sleeves and do deep dive group coaching sessions with the Cashflow members to help them apply the info in the course to their specific circumstances.

A great place for you to start is with my free online workshop – Creating Cash When Times Are Tough. You can watch the video, listen to the audio or read the transcript. When you access this workshop you will also access a page where you can buy the entire course at a very special price. That’s at KristineOller.com/cashflow.

The show notes for this episode are at KristineOller.com/podcast.

And if you feel inspired to share this episode with someone special, follow through on that inspired action!