Episode 165: Entrepreneurial Outlaws with Melanie Knights
It's about high time we talk about doing things your way in your business. Join me and special guest Melanie Knights as we dive into a lovely conversation around what it means to be an entrepreneurial outlaw.
Melanie is a self published author, business mentor and host of the podcast Entrepreneurial Outlaws. She describes her work as the entrepreneurial intersection of strategy, spirituality and self inquiry where she supports creative folks in building successful, aligned and soul fulfilling online businesses while breaking the rules. Melanie is an advocate for building businesses that serve your lifestyle, encouraging you to develop and nurture strategies which allow you to mold your business around your life, rather than trying to fit yourself into a box. Her deep love for the storytelling found in Country, Americana and Folk music continues to inspire her work and has paved new and exciting paths for her business as she continues to break molds and challenge the status quo of online business.
Resources & Links from Melanie:
Follow her on Instagram @entrepreneurial_outlaws
Transcript:
Sarah Steckler: You are listening to episode 165 of The Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler. And today I get to welcome an amazing guest to the show. Joining me today is Melanie Knights of the Entrepreneurial Outlaws Podcasts. And oh, man, do we talk about what it means to be an entrepreneurial outlaw, to do things your way to step into business and living your life in a way that means you're deciding what you you do. You're not just following a bunch of online gurus and blindly having faith that they know what success means for you.
I cannot wait for you to hear this conversation. I cannot wait to introduce you to Melanie and have you get to know her? She is a true delight. And let's go ahead and jump into today's podcast so you can see it for yourself.
Podcast Intro:
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily Kos and to calm and start your days with intentions, then get ready to join me. As we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity, it's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.
Sarah Steckler: I hope you've got your favorite cozy cup of tea because we are about to dive into this amazing conversation. I don't know about you, but when I first heard the term entrepreneurial outlaw, they resonated with me so much. I was like, oh, yes, this is totally for me, because over the years, I really have grown tired of the hustle culture, the push to always do more. And I have to admit that I was also part of that. And although we do have seasons in our lives where maybe we work harder, we do more.
I realized, and I did some soul searching over the past year, and I really come to see how much of that stuff is ingrained in how I view myself and my self worth. And this is why this conversation today with Melanie is so important and so powerful because we really start to explore what it means to do business your way, what it means to do business where you're not constantly stressing out your nervous system. What does it mean to create content and do things the outlaw way with your marketing so that you really feel aligned and connected to your business and to all of the people supporting you?
There's so much we cover in here, and I want to go ahead and dive in. But before we do, I want to go ahead and give Melanie a formal introduction. So Melanie Knife is a self published author, business mentor and host of the podcast Entrepreneurial Outlaws. She describes her work as the entrepreneurial intersection of strategy, spirituality, and self inquiry, where she supports creative folks in building successful, aligned and Sol fulfilling online businesses. While breaking the rules, Melanie is an advocate for building businesses that serve your lifestyle, encouraging you to develop and nurture strategies which allow you to mold your business around your life rather than trying to fit yourself into a box.
Her deep love for storytelling found in country, Americana and folk music, continues to inspire her work and has paved new and exciting paths for her business as she continues to break molds and challenge the status quo of online business.
Yes, I cannot wait.
Let's go ahead and get started. And you can hear all of this from Melanie herself.
Melanie, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here.
Melanie Knights: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here to you before we get started.
Sarah Steckler: Would you mind telling us a little bit more about yourself and the work that you're doing?
Melanie Knights: Yeah, of course. My name is Melanie. I live in the UK and my business. I had a business for around five and a half years now. I think been in the online space kind of. I started off as a health and fitness coach, which feels like a million years ago, and over the last five and a half years, I probably burned down what I was doing and pivoted and restarted three times because what I realized is that this was a really long day. I feel like every time I feel like this is it, I was like, oh, no, this is just a plot twist in the story.
And a couple of years ago, I came out of a lot of business coaching experiences and a lot of relying on other people to tell me what to do. I was looking outside of myself a lot. And what I discovered was that I was terrified because I didn't know how to do this business thing on my own. But I also along way, learned that I needed to figure out who I was and in that process of figuring out who I am as a business owner and who I am outside of my business, I started to recognize lots of different areas of online business that I found to be really problematic things.
So I had been taught that I've discovered deeply rooted into the way I was doing business. Yeah, I never really agreed with them. And about 18 months ago, I started right around the time we went into lockdown here, I think I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start telling people what I think about online business because why not now seems to be a great time to just be really, really transparent. And I discussed I wasn't alone. And so that's kind of formed the last 18 months of my business ended up creating my podcast, Entrepreneurial Outlaws, which you helped me do.
You challenged me when I came to you with my first idea, and you're like, I think you could do something. Maybe different. And Entrepreneur Outlaws was born last October. Well, that was. And since then I have gone on to create a Journal, a membership I call the Outlook Collective. And the work we're doing right now is really focusing on challenging the status quo of online business. I consider myself to be more of an anti pro marketing mentor than anything else, but it's a bit of a mouthful.
Sarah Steckler:
I love this. And I'm like, Where do we even start? Right? Because there's so many things that you do that are so helpful and also wanted to touch really quick on the fact that I think it's really common to pivot a lot in the beginning of starting a business or to step into the role of entrepreneur. I'm looking back at, like, before I even started a business like gosh over ten years ago. I remember I had blog like food blogs in fitness blogs, similar kind of stuff.
And then I pivoted a lot, too. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs feel like they're failing if they do that or that something's wrong. Or you see all these people online, and it looks like they're starting their first business for the first time, right out of the gate when really most people I feel like, have done a few things before they kind of hit the ground running. And that's what I see that you've done with Entrepreneur Outlaws, too, is you had time to experiment and play and give yourself that opportunity to do that.
And because of that, you are able to really tap into what you need. And it's really cool to see.
Melanie Knights:
Thank you. And I agree. One of the things that came up to me a lot last year was it's almost as if we don't give ourselves pushing to change our minds. I think a lot of the narratives in online business, and I know you've touched on this in an episode before is like one thing, like, there should be one thing. And so for the longest time, because I didn't know enough, I hadn't done enough personal development work for myself. I didn't know that one thing, one marketing plan, one product.
It wasn't going to be enough for me. I don't think I ever really understood that my creative personality than I am a creative and realizing that you can be a creative no matter what your business or your job title is. And I've always been cool to that. But it was, like, just really confused because I started off as a coach. That was, like, all I knew. And then I became a service provider. And that was all I knew. And those things were great. But they never really touched on the fact that actually, I need to be creating and I need to be creating in a way that's really in line with my personality and gives me choice because I get bored really easily.
And so for a long time, I felt I was really hard on myself because I thought that I'm flaky and I shouldn't be doing this. And you're right. Over the last five and a half years, I've met so many people in online business who I still know now and actually down there, like, third or fourth or maybe fifth or even more iteration of what they're doing, or they've gone back to corporate and come back again. So I think it's such a permission slip to realize that most of us don't just do one thing that for sure.
Sarah Steckler:
And I think it's easy. I think for some business owners to teach that model, if it works for you to do one thing, I can see how that can build momentum. Right? You're marketing one thing. You're only talking about one thing. That's awesome. But for those of us that have this more right brained, I always get confused with left and right brain. But you know what I'm saying? The creative brain side of ourselves, it feels more like a hindrance. I don't know if you felt this way, but I cannot tell you how many times in the first three years of building my business, I would be staring at a Google Doc going back and forth between my computer and my husband being like, okay, here's my elevator pitch.
No, that's not it.
Okay.
Wait. What's my niche?
I help women between the ages of 25 and 26 do this one thing in this specific place in the country, and I remember just spending so much time trying to figure that out. And guess what? I wasn't making any sales in my business, right. And I thought it was because I wasn't niching down, and I've only found that the more I allow my creativity to be a part of who I am and what I do that it's possible to make money in endless ways.
Melanie Knights:
Yup. I have felt that way. I talk about that a lot, because how many client avatar worksheets and experiences or whatever you want to call it? I have done. And everyone that was like, you have to niche down. You have to pick a niche and I'd pick a niche. And I'd be like, I'd be there for, like, five minutes I feel or I would launch and I have 15 people, and they were all from different backgrounds. And I was like, Well, okay, that's not helpful. It was so confusing.
Sarah Steckler:
Exactly. And one of the things that kind of leads me into the first thing I wanted to talk about with you is I love that in your content around this. You're not afraid to be yourself. You know how to be afraid to be different, to be yourself, to be an outlaw, and which really leads us to just that what is entrepreneurial outlaws and what does it mean to be one? And could you maybe speak on, like, the road that got you to that place into identifying like, this is really what I want to do.
Yeah.
Melanie Knights:
I love this question. I think that was the fast as your question about what is entrepreneur outlaws Fest. Of all, I feel like it can be whatever we need it to be. If you identify as an entrepreneur outlaw, that's like, enough for me personally. When I talk about it, the back story of entrepreneur outlaws is actually ruin a passion of mine, which is country music, Americana music, folk music. There was a movement in country music back in the 60s, where in Nashville, they wanted artists to kind of sit into this very Dolly.
I love Dolan, but it was a very Dolan way of putting your artistry out there. They wanted a certain voice. And if you were slightly more rock and roll, you would not really welcome. So there was a group of artists who really wanted to be country music artists, but they didn't want to wear sequence or glitter. They wanted to just wear jeans. And as they wanted to just play their music, and they wanted to have control over their creative integrity. And so they left. They left Nashville, and they actually went to Austin in Texas.
And what happened was they went out there and started playing as long as they had. When they started playing the music they had written. And these people who didn't feel like they fit into country music. And it was a really diverse group of people who didn't identify with country music as it was at the time, really found themselves identifying with their stories, their songs, their lyrics. And they formed an audience. And they formed a really big audience. And it was really you have people from bikers to hear these like, it was this really vast audience.
And what happened was the Nashville wanted them. They were like, Well, we want you to come back. And when they came back, they said, Well, we're not going to let go of our creative integrity. We want to demand that we have control over a few plays in our band. We want to have control over what song, as we put out how the album feels and looks. And they definitely have problems. But they ended up being called outlaws. They ended up it was Wetland Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jesse Carter, and another guy whose name I can never remember.
But they ended up forming this outlaw country movement. And it's been known as that. And I was from myself as a hobby of listening to country music and listening to music and doing research. I really sat with this kind of in 2019, and I was like, I really identified with this feeling of not fitting in, not fitting in with online business, the ways in which people were telling me I had to do things, whether it was I had to launch in a certain way, or I had to use a certain number, or I have to create that number of posts per week for Instagram or whatever it was, there are so many rules.
And I'm somebody who naturally follows the rules. But I'm also I challenge thing. I question it. And so I felt very, very conflicted by this. And it was in 2020. I was planning to start a podcast, and I had come to you with an idea. You said to me, I think, I don't know. I think you could do something that represents what you talk about. And I was on the cool with my coach, and I said to her, you know, I just feel like an entrepreneurial outlaw, and we just looked to each other.
I was like, that's it that's it. And I just ran with it. And now entrepreneur outlaws. It's really about challenging the status quo of online business. So for me, the status quo of online business is really rooted in bro marketing. And bro marketing is not a recent phenomenon. I mean, if we look back at marketing, we've likely all experienced or heard of bro marketing in the form of car sales people or doortodoor salespeople or cold callers who phone us trying to sell us something. And it's not that it's suddenly started to happen.
It's that it's been around for decades. It's been taught through corporations and sales teams. But we saw it in the rise of online business, and we naturally started to see a car here. And the thing that's really important to recognize about broad marketing is that it's not gender specific. I mean, these marketing tactics are used by various genders. But if we go back to the very beginning of online marketing and business, it seems to start with a small group of people who happen to identify as male and they continue to dominate their industry.
And they tend to dominate the industry, though I'm working within. So although I don't consider myself to be a business coach, I try to avoid that later as much as possible. I kind of feel like entrepreneur outlaws is like the anti business coach I know you're having into you. Yeah.
Sarah Steckler:
Well, I think thank you so much for telling the back story of this, because I haven't heard you say that before in this way. And it was like, I really resonated with a lot. I'm sure a lot of people listening do, too. And it's also what I hear you saying is there's a bigger, expansive way to invite people into what we're offering or what we're selling. And these pro marketing strategies or old Boys club or whatever you want to call them kind of strategies they don't touch on.
They feel very restrictive in a lot of ways. One like as a marketer, they feel they've always felt, you know, and again, I don't want to cast a wide net and say that like, this is what bro marketing is. And like, if you do any of these things like, it's bad, I think there's nuances to it. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But I think what I'm really hearing is just like the outlaw that the outlaws that started with country music is that there's more people out there that want to be invited to things in different ways.
And it's refreshing to do things in different ways. And what you're saying is, hey, we don't have to keep doing it this way. We can actually do it in a fun way that feels good as a marketer, as an entrepreneur, and it can feel different and more expensive to the people on the other end receiving it, too.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah. 100%. I mean, I've done more recently. I've been doing a lot of research because, like you just touched on, there are nuances to it. And sometimes I truth be told us, think that I'm like at one end of the scale and in any of this is bro marketing, and I'm not doing any of it, but I'm able to stop and say, okay, that's how I feel. And do I really feel about and I would look at try to look at it from an objective point of view of, like, okay, I can still trust somebody just because they use this certain thing that I wouldn't use.
And I looked for definitions of foreign marketing, and there is no hard definition, which is great, because I've been thinking about what my definition is, and I think you have to define it in kind of two ways. I feel like there's two sections to it. It's calculated in a manipulative marketing that prays on people's insecurities and uses their trauma and fears to scare them into buying something. But it's also scripted sales tactics that often encourage someone to get into debt to make a payment promising unrealistic and privileged results that don't take into account someone's unique circumstances.
And I feel like, so good.
Sarah Steckler:
I love that.
Melanie Knights:
I feel like that's a big enough cattle, right? It's like it's not saying you can't use a timer you shouldn't use. This funnel is like, if you're doing this, then you're doing bro-marketing.
Sarah Steckler:
Like, what I hear you saying, too. Is it's a lack of trans transparency, because that's how I feel if I go to someone's page and there's a countdown timer, that's not necessarily a turn off if they tell me about it, right. For example, sometimes I use countdown timers in my business and I tell them why this is what this is. Or I'll let people know. I don't think I currently have any evergreen funnels going on in my business now, but I know in the past when I have I'll let people know, hey, this is what's happening or you sign up at this time.
So here's how this is working. And I think I think there's nuances to it. I think it's going to feel different for everybody on both ends. But for me, it's really just tell me what you're doing. If I landed on a page the other day, I can remember what the offer was for. But I clicked on it, and immediately I had less than five minutes to make a decision to save $50. And then I refreshed the page and guess what? Refreshed the countdown timer. And I was like, okay, you know what I mean?
It's it's that kind of stuff that I'm like, really, really creating transparency around it, I think is important. And also, I think people are just smarter now, right? We know that the things aren't going to end, or I'll tell people like, this offer is ending or we're starting on this date. But I'll also tell people, like, if you email me, like, the next day or the next week, I'm not going to be like, well, you know, I don't know, I'm going on a tangent, but I think you get what I'm saying.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah, I do. And I agree. I think that you have to really tap into your intuition. You're right. We are savvier than ever. It's the same way. Like even three, four years ago, we were not giving our email addresses away for nothing. Like we wanted a freebie or a lead magnet. Now we're becoming savvier around launches. And whether it's an Evergreen or a live funnel, and whether people are actually telling us the truth about you, is this door actually going to close or if I join your funnel again, are you going to open it again tomorrow for me?
Right.
And again, that's up to them, like, they can decide. But I think is consumers because we are all consumers as well. Within this industry, we're learning from each other and from other people. I think it's just really important that we understand our own terms, our own business terms, how we want to run our business, where we kind of draw a line in the sand. And that's why I say the entrepreneur outlaws is really whatever we want it to be, as long as if we identify as that.
And we know that we don't haven't always felt like we fit in. Then it's really about a journey of understanding what it means to be an entrepreneur to ourselves. You know, what is my version of success look like? And those are the kinds of conversations I'm having because I think we lose so much of that in the process.
Sarah Steckler:
Yeah. You actually actually wanted I'm bringing this up on your Instagram right now because you had a post recently that really resonated with me. It was about money mindset, and like, what you used to think of it as actually laughed out loud, because here I'm going to read it right now. We'll post this in the show notes, but it says what we've been told money manifestation is, and then most of it is dreaming, wishing meditating, good vibes, only positive thoughts, believing it's already yours. And then there's a good chunk of it that's reading a Gen in Zero book and left so hard, because that's so true.
That's definitely what I used to think of it as and then you have your next slide and you have it broken down, like what it actually is, setting objectives that feel good. You working towards your goals, checking in with yourself, your spiritual routine, knowing what you want. And I think that this whole second slide is just such a good job of basically explaining what it means to be an outline in a lot of ways, too. It sounds like, yeah.
Melanie Knights:
I mean, I noticed that I found my Gen and Sarah book the other day and had so many poster notes in there, and I was just like, oh, my God, I was so my hand is raised. I read that book from cover to cover, and I was just like, okay, is this it is all I have to do. But that's the thing. When that book came out, it was like it was hot, and it was the thing that every business coach was prescribing. And this, again, is one of the reasons why I do what I do because I came from business coaching experiences where I was being told that I just needed to Journal about it.
Now I love a Journal. I created a whole Journal, but you can't rely on that. And it felt like it was a prescription. You read this book? Well, again, it doesn't take into consideration personal circumstance or how I'm living my life or whether I'm privileged or I'm not privileged or my education. There are so many different things impact our ability to, in this case, manifest things. It's really difficult to just prescribe one thing. And this is where I think a lot of tapping into who we are as business owners and understanding what we need.
Like that graphic says, knowing what you need. And that really, to me, something that keeps coming up time and time again, if there were an outlaw framework, which at the moment, there is not. But that would be the first thing identifying what you need from every single phase of your business. What do you need from social media? What do you need from your marketing? What do you need from your launch is, what do you need financially? We don't ask ourselves that. We kind of we get told you should want this or you want six figures.
And if you don't, then you're not welcome here. But really, what do we need? Do we need six figures? We can want it. And that's great. And I want everyone to dream as big as they can. But I also think that sometimes the math doesn't quite work out. And we need to remember where we're at in business. And I think it comes back to a lot of transparency and a lot of just understanding that it is a long game. You know, it's not this. We don't suddenly wake up and we've made six figures overnight.
That example is not the norm. It's a handful of people that have made those big numbers, and they tend to still dominate the industry. And so we look to them, Frances, and that's kind of my work is challenging that and saying, okay, that's great. But is that you do you have a team? Do you have these things? Do you have the energy and capacity to run that kind of launch? Because I don't. Yeah, I do not have the capacity to do that.
Sarah Steckler:
I love the two you're empowering people to not just trust themselves, but it's okay to find success. Define your version of success. And that's one thing I really realized in the past year. In the past year, I moved away from one on one, coaching completely. And now I'm a completely course business model business. And I remember feeling for so long that I had to coach one on one. That was what I had to do one at school for that. That's what I invested my money in. And what I'm really hearing, too, is like being an outlaw at the core of it really just means trusting in yourself.
And I think there's a lot of things in the industry, unfortunately, or online that we see that you start a business, and it's almost like the first thing you're taught is, don't trust yourself because you have no idea what you're doing. Don't trust yourself, don't do multiple things. And I get the advice, and I get where it's coming from because we've all made mistakes and we see how things work. But I wish that that was shift. And that's what I see with you doing this. You know, I've always thought about starting an online business and what kind of confidence you have to almost rebuild.
And I don't know if this will resonate with you. But I remember when I started my business. At one point, I told my husband I said I feel like I'm 14 again, and I'm like trying to find a boyfriend because what I mean is I remember being that age and literally looking up online like these really weird articles, like how to tell if a boy likes her, how to know if your hair is the right way. So what this means or whatever. And we didn't even have text.
I think at that point it was like phone calls. But I remember so desperately trying to figure out what boys might be thinking about me, that I didn't spend time really trusting in myself and doing things that mattered to me. I put all the effort and energy outside of myself, and I noticed myself doing that again when I started a business. What do other people think I should do? Or let me put out endless surveys to audiences that I may or may not want to work with and ask them what they think I should do?
And ultimately, what changed was when I put all that aside and just listen to myself and ask myself the very questions that you just asked.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah, I definitely. I definitely felt like I felt like I was back in high school. I felt like I was trying to fit in. And for me, real high school, it was not the most enjoyable. My parents lied to me. It was not the best time in my life. And it was like when I came into the online business space felt so vulnerable already. And, like, now I had to be more vulnerable. And I don't know about you. One of the first things, very fair things I was taught on my business was the no like and trust, you know, that's what we're doing.
We're building no like and trust with our audience. And in the last year, it was like, I kind of feel like that's dead now. Like, I get this sentiment. But I feel like we have to really understand ourselves. We have to know, like and trust ourselves before we can. I even start to really get our audience to understand what we're selling. You said about putting out tons of surveys for people that you don't even know. That's the thing half the time. I feel like we do work and we follow these kind of laid out structures of what to do.
But it's still a guess.
We get the answers and we're still not really sure. And we're still feel like we're guessing. And I think if somebody had told me five years ago that I could be doing what I'm doing now or to just go with your intuition, and I do not know what that is. Just give me a roadmap, because again, it came back to a lot for me, a lot of societal constructs of, like, you needed to work hard. You had to work harder than everybody else. And when I came into online business, I discovered that nobody was going to pay me more for working harder.
Like that didn't matter. And I had to learn how to both be a business owner and play all these different parts in my business, graphic designer and a content creator. And I don't think I fully understood that until I was in it. And at the beginning, it was super and everything was new. But it very quickly was like, oh, this is a lot. And this is a lot of different things. And we started to see new platforms come out, and it was just it became very overwhelming very quickly.
And I kind of lost myself in that process. And it was only as I said a couple of years ago when I came out of online business coaching and I didn't hire a coach. And I was terrified because I didn't think I could do it on my own. How was I going to do it without being told what to do? But I really quickly realized that being told what to do all of the time by, in my case, the wrong people wasn't actually gain me anywhere.
And that by learning what I needed and tapping into my intuition, I was able to really identify what I was willing to do and then also have to unpack all of the stuff that I was, like, deeply rooted in my business I no longer wanted to be doing.
Sarah Steckler:
Yeah. And what I heard is that self validation. I started validating myself. That was something that I really, really stepped into as well as no one else is really going to validate me. Even if some business person I've been following for a long time, like my Instagram post or send me a DM and says, You're doing a good job. Is that what I'm really after?
No.
It's that feeling of trusting in your intuition and trusting in yourself, which really brings me to something I wanted to touch on with, which is I'm sure for a lot of people listening, they're like, yeah, I love this. Or maybe they're in the beginning stages of their business. I love to trust myself more, but like you said in the beginning, it's like, well, I can't even imagine that. So what would you tell someone? Where would you tell them to start if they're like, okay. I really like the idea of tapping into my intuition and doing what I really want in my life in business, but I don't know where to begin.
Melanie Knights:
That's a really good question. And I think that it really starts. Okay. So the first thing I would say is, we need to be compassionate with ourselves, because if you've not been for me, I didn't even know I was like, I don't even know what this is. It's super uncomfortable, like, for me, if we're going to talk about, like, feminine and masculine energies, I was very much data driven. That was, although my personality is not like that, that was where I had kind of found myself. And that was what I was looking to all the time.
So for me, trying to tap into my feelings, what I needed, that felt very painful. It felt very uncomfortable. And it was a really long process. But for me, that tapping into my intuition started off by identifying what I needed, and I didn't necessarily know that's what I was doing. But it was about understanding what I need through self inquiry. So being really curious about what I was feeling, why I'm feeling I still do this now, anything I'm experiencing, and then where I want to move to.
So it's kind of what am I experiencing right now? What is this tension or this fear, anxiety or frustration in my business? Why am I feeling jealous of this person? Or why do I suddenly feel like I'm not worthy of success and practicing that self awareness understanding that whenever my inner critic shows up, it's trying to protect me. It's trying to keep me safe. And the voice that comes up when my Ana critic is speaking to me is very binary. It's like you're either brilliant or your rubbish, like there's no in between.
So for me, self inquiry is really about being compassionate. It's not about being forceful with those questions. It's about saying, okay, I wonder why I do this. I wonder why I go on to Instagram, for example, and very quickly I'm distracted or why I'm very quickly feeling like my work is not valuable or I should change my prices, or I should change my branding. And there's so many instances in our day where we could be very subtly distracted by something, whether it's social media or anything else.
And all of a sudden we don't see our war. And so for me, this kind of took the form of self inquiry through journaling, but specifically business channeling. And again, I touched on this earlier about this kind of prescriptions I used to get from coaches, but again, sitting down to write about how I felt, it felt like I was go to your point. It felt like I was in high school again, like writing did or today I kissed a boy like, I don't know what to write.
And when I started to allow my journaling to just be focused on business, I really was able to uncover so much about the kind of business owner I wanted to be. Conversations I may have had to have with one of my team or somebody I was working with or collaborator. It was kind of this private and personal space where I could be curious, and I could come to some conclusions about how I was feeling without having to kind of blast it on the internet because, you know, our personal life and our self care kind of like hot commodity now.
And for me, this is a private, personal place where I could uncover the kind of business owner I wanted to be before I went out into the world and said, hey, this is the kind of business owner I am, and I think it's not that this is hope area of channeling, especially the business owners, is missing because we're not we can use these. If you're already a journalist, you can tap into your business journaling as well. And if you're completely new to journaling or been very resistant to it and have a lot of blank journals that you haven't filled, this is a really wonderful way of just buying small and being really compassionate with yourself about how you feel about your business.
Sarah Steckler:
I love the idea, too, of doing this kind of journaling for business because I think I'm used to journaling for self care, and sometimes it's hard to get myself to actually Journal and do the thing, but to give yourself a space to specifically Journal about what you want in your business, off of social media, too, because I think a lot of times we feel like we're renting or getting things out by sharing things online when really we're still holding ourselves back. So having a Journal to do that changes everything.
And I'd love for you to tell everyone more about your outlaw Journal and how that really plays a role in this process.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah. So I created with the auto Geno because, well, honestly, I was I felt like I needed it. So this really goes against a lot of what we're taught in online business because we're taught to create what our audience is asking us for. And at the end of last year, I was like, I really need a Journal with prompts that help me. You know, I'd gone back over my own journals, and I had these days and days of writing about my business and thoughts and feelings. And this is something that really helped me uncover how I felt about online business.
But it really helped me in 2020 as well, because my business took so many tons, and it I really have to lean into my self inquiry and spiritual work. So I knew that I wanted an outlaw Journal, and I created it, and it was a really interesting experience because nobody was asking me for it. But what I realized is that nobody knew they needed it. That was the first thing. So sometimes we can create things that people aren't asking for. But if we are really passionate about it, and we knew that it needs to exist and we know that it will help people, I think that's really important, and I would encourage anybody to really look at that, because sometimes we can be so overwhelmed with what should I do?
And should it be the right thing? And trust me, I was there many times during this process, but I just kept coming back to the fact that I knew I already knew what needed to go into it. And so when I created The Outlaw Journal, I broke it down into really what I consider to be the anatomy of an entrepreneurial outlaw. Preface by saying, Whatever an entrepreneur outlaw means to you, but these are the kind of six characteristics that I've identified as the work I've been doing as entrepreneur outlaws.
And I broke the Journal down into these six journaling sections. So the first thing is that we have this really clear vision, I think, is entrepreneur outlaws. We have a really clear vision about what we want in our business. We have this unconditional success, this thing that we believe in, and maybe it doesn't look like the business over there on Instagram or the perfectly curated feed. Maybe other people don't understand why, for me, at least pre pandemic. One of the reasons I had an online bill, wanted to run an online business was to have the freedom to be able to go to concerts, and I wanted to be able to pay for those concerts and be able to stay in hotel.
So I didn't have to come home who I am. That was one of the reasons for me having my own business and being able to pay for that. Now everybody's going to have the same goals. So having that really clear vision and understanding what it is that we want from that is really powerful. Identifying what you need. I've already talked about that a little bit, but identifying what ou needed as an entrepreneur outlet in your business helps you to make faster business decisions. It helps you to say no.
It helps you to experience the self doubt because you know exactly what your terms are. You get curious. You're asking questions and typically with driven Byte, creativity and passion. So again, we identify as creative, even if we're not designing or an artist or a singer songwriter, even if we're not a nice kind of typical creative passions, we still are driven by creativity. Whatever we're doing in our business, we are being creative. And I think on Trepan as typically are very creative beings. And it's about tapping into your own intuition in the wisdom as well.
So again, really asking yourself as questions, being curious so that you can understand what you are feeling and how you want to move from here to there, understanding why you do certain things. And it's all anchored in our core values. Again, as entrepreneur outlaws, what I typically see is that we are running businesses that are doing fast and inclusive we are working towards and so racist businesses we want to to ensure that we are really speaking up and using our platforms for good, and that the wealth that we build is also being used for good.
And so when we look at being an entrepreneurial outlaw and the outlaw Journal in itself, it kind of encompasses all six of these areas, and it's Journal prompts to challenge you. And sometimes it's not comfortable, even some of the ones I've got to. And I'm like, Why did I write this? This is horrible. I don't want to answer this, but it's a Journal where you can either go from one page, one to the end, or you can just pick pages or pick sections that you feel in that moment.
But the idea is that it's expensive. It gives you it's really simple, and it's the idea is to give you the clarity you need in your business, about time. And it's really business journaling is about the feelings of your business. So we're not talking about how to launch or how to do XYZ in your business. It's about how do I feel about this?
Sarah Steckler:
Yeah. And this stuff is so powerful, and I think I know for me it's not always the sexiest stuff. I know it's hard to get myself to sit down and do the mindset work, so to speak or really tap into what I need and what I want because because in my mind, right. And a lot of people feel this way. It's like I'm not going to make money immediately from this, or I'm not going to get more followers for doing this or whatever the things that you feel sometimes pressure to accomplish in a certain amount of time.
But I can't tell you just from speaking from experience, and I still need to get a copy of your Journal. By the way, every time I hear you talk about it like, oh, my gosh, I need these prompts in my life, but to take time to really sit down and answer these questions on an ongoing basis, and it doesn't sound like you need to do it like, it's not like you're asking people to sit down for hours every day, right? Like, just pick one every couple of days and and give yourself time to free, right?
Having that confidence, having the ability to trust in yourself, that's worth so much because you're going to hit points in your business where it doesn't matter who you pay or what you try to seek out the only person that's going to be able to make the best decision for your business and your clients, your students or whatever is you. And if you're not prepared to ask yourself tough questions in the moment when you run into tough business decisions, it's going to be even worse.
Right.
I've been there. I've definitely had those moments, and I probably feel will or you're like, I don't know. I don't know how to trust myself in this moment. And so creating this practice of really embodying what it means to be an outlaw is going to come back ten fold in terms of value in your business.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah. And to just add to that, I think the reason this is also so powerful is because most of the time we do already know, we don't know. But we do know I saw this wonderful quote just recently which said, when we say, I don't know what we actually mean, as I do know, but I'm scared, and I catch myself talking about parts of my business, and I'll be like, I'm not sure I don't know what it looks like. And I'm now at the point where I see it and I hear it and I'm like, no, I do know.
I just not. And yet I do know. And I know somewhere deep inside me I know what it will look like, but I'm just not there yet. And maybe I'll never be there. And that's the other thing to kind of come to cycle. We're allowed to change our mind. That's a huge part of the outlaw experience, like permission to change our mind. Permission to do what feels right. Yeah. I feel like it's been a really interesting journey, and people have got from it so many different things, but it feels it's so expensive, and it feels like it's going to go in so many different places.
And you're right. It's not the sexy wag. And that's that's challenging sometimes because I'm like, people come to me once I've tried everything else and they're fed up and I try not to take that pass away. It's fine. But it's just not the sexiest work to be doing. No.
Sarah Steckler:
And I get it. And along the same lines, you also posted a quote recently that really resonated. And it said you can't plan and batch the human experience because first you have to live it. And I think sometimes we forget that we're humans. First, we want to just live in through our business as if we don't have to tap into what we need as humans. And I know you also talked more about this. I was listening to your podcast specifically on episode 31, and you said we evolve.
You said this idea that whatever business we start to start with is the business will end up with is really unrealistic. Can we talk about that for a second? Because I was nodding my head so hard during that whole episode.
Melanie Knights:
Yeah. Well, I think it comes back to something you had mentioned earlier about when you start your business. We'll do market research. We'll send out surveys, we'll ask questions. And really what happens is we learn how we learn how to start a business. So we learn the kind of fundamentals those foundational pieces of business you need to bring people into your business. You need to talk about what you're doing. You need to decide that you're going to sell whatever it is you're selling, you need to price it.
There's all these things that the course still makes sense. And then there's lots of variations of how we do those things. But typically, what happens is we are told. And I think this is what I was referring to in that episode. We are told to price our product, for example, and always Holter price our coaching or to to create an hourly rate. And there's always this idea. And I don't think that anyone, at least not my situation, anyone else that he said to me, this is it.
You're going to do this for the rest of your life. But nobody ever told me I didn't have to either was never I'm a rule follower. So you tell me that this is my hourly rate? Well, this is my hourly rate. This is what I'm charging now, this is the price. This is the way I do things. Really what I see as business owners, I feel like entrepreneurship is the biggest personal development journey we go on. I mean, I didn't do any personal on the work before I became a business owner.
I don't think I even use the word mindset, and now it's a huge part of my business and a huge part of my day. And as we go through that journey, and as we tap into whatever our personal balance looks like for ourselves, whatever our self inquiry practice is, we evolve. We naturally evolve. It's the same way our comfort zones evolve. We welcome in new people or new things into our comfort zones. We also let go and release certain people, relationships, situations, language or anything that we now don't feel comfortable with.
We release that. And we also welcome new things in. And so as we evolve, our businesses evolve. And that's okay. Firstly, and what we can find is that again, we've touched on a little bit today, our audience can change our quote, idle audience might evolve with us, or we might find that we're speaking to a whole new group of people, and we might find that we're speaking to multiple groups of people. And I think as business owners, we need to understand that sometimes we can't plan and batch for those things.
We can't plan and batch for everything. Like, I love a good framework, but I can't do anything now that feels really rigid. I think also that speaks to the last twelve months. You know, everything that I did pre pandemic suddenly stopped working, and it was because I was a different person and my situation was different and my life looked different and I didn't really know what was coming or what was not happening. And so I kind of learn to go with the flow, which is very uncomfortable for me.
But now I lean into that and it's like, well, we have to live it. Sometimes we have to be inspired by the things that we're going through. We have to allow for that space and the expansiveness, because sometimes inspiration is just not going to show up at 09:00 in the morning on Monday because we put it in our diary because we put it in our Google calendar and said, I'm going to write content. It doesn't mean that you're going to be inspired to write content and giving ourselves that space to breathe, to be creative, to feel inspired, to do the things that allow us to do that really helps us to, I think, be better business owners, be better content creators as well.
Sarah Steckler:
What a beautiful permission slip to not only let yourself evolve as a business owner, but I'm thinking I was listening off all these things in my head when you were talking like, I'm really thinking, too, about what my schedule looks like on a daily basis, and that's shifting a lot lately and how I used to work better, like late at night. And now I really like working in the morning more. And it's just really understanding that you're not feeling or doing things right or wrong because you're shifting and evolving, like you're honoring your creative process.
And I think that shift so much all the time. And like you said, our audience does, too, or all fluid human beings in so many different ways. And I think when we honor that, I think it's felt to from our audience, even as someone that follows you and has watched your journey. I've been like, on the edge of my feet the whole time because the more you discover and share, the more I'm like, oh, my gosh. She's going on this journey and I'm getting so much out of it.
I'm learning so much from you as you share these things that are coming up as you talk about mindset is you talk about doing things differently and it's really resonating with people. So I think what you're really saying or what I really want to hit home here for anyone listening is that as you shift and adapt, you're giving people gift more than you think. Sharing how you're changing is really beneficial to people and not to be afraid of it for sure. Yeah, I have enjoyed this conversation so much.
I feel like we could talk another hour about so much. Thank you so much for being here. It was so much fun. But before I let you go, can you let everyone know where to find you, where your podcast is and where they can find your Journal?
Melanie Knights:
Yes, the podcast is Entrepreneurial Outlaws. You can find it on Apple Spotify, Google anywhere where you download your favorite podcast. We are there. And you can also find a full transcription on my website. My website is Melanieknights.com.
And if you go to Melonie. Com podcast, we have the latest episodes on there with the full transcription show notes, links, all that kind of good stuff. Instagram is probably the place where I share the most of my content and that I have two accounts the podcast content. So the podcast account is Entrepreneurial underscore Outlaws. This is everybody finds out they can't spell entrepreneurial because I miss all the time. And then my personal account is Melanie Underscore Night 87. Perfect.
Sarah Steckler:
Thank you so much. And we will have all of those linked in the show notes as well. But again, none. Thank you so much for being here, and it was really fun talking about all of this with you today.
Melanie Knights:
Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.
Sarah Steckler:
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of The Mindful Productivity Podcast.
If you enjoy the show, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And hey, we'd love to keep the conversation going. Come on over to Instagram. Tagne. Melanie, I am at Mindful Productivity Blog. We would love to hear your thoughts on what you took away from our conversation today. To find more resources, planners, and information on how to self publish your own Journal or planner, make sure you head on over to Mindful Productivity blog. Com, where you will find everything you need there.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'll be back here next Monday with a brand new episode.
