Leaping Towards Success: Insights & Strategies from Colleen Biggs, a Seasoned Business Strategist

Do you ever wonder how successful women entrepreneurs, like Colleen Biggs, owner of B You B Strong, stay motivated and keep pushing forward?

Join us on "Friends from Wild Places" as we delve into the journey of this seasoned business strategist and her techniques for expanding influence, building her networks, and maintaining personal growth. In this riveting episode, Colleen generously shares her experiences and insights, highlighting the impact of daily affirmations and motivational videos on her journey to business success. Get an insider's look into the psyche of a driven business professional, and discover the power of leaping towards your own success.

Colleen Biggs

• Website: https://colleenbiggs.net/
• Email: colleen@colleenbiggs.net
• Tel: +1 480-648-5524
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleen-biggs/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colleenbiggs/

This episode is not only a dive into entrepreneurship but also an exploration of leadership and the significant role that continuous learning plays. We uncover our personal experiences highlighting the underappreciated virtues of humility and respect, along with the importance of adopting a growth mindset, irrespective of one's social standing.

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As the holiday season approaches, we gift you practical advice on time management for entrepreneurs, sharing our strategies for planning and scheduling time off, and staying organized amidst the holiday chaos. Tune in as we discuss the joy of a family-filled Christmas and the critical balance between work and personal life. Don't miss out on this enriching episode, filled with inspiring stories and practical advice.

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Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha: 0:38

Welcome back, Shireen here. I am your virtual boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks advisor. You know that feeling when you're out in nature and you breathe in that crisp night sky or that fresh morning sweetness of the sun rising, that moment of peace. How would you like to feel that way, knowing your business financial records are all up to date and accurate at any point in time? Well, that's what my clients say about how I make them feel, knowing that I'm in their corner. My superpower is bookkeeping. What is yours? If you want to know more, go check me out at www. shireensbookkeeping. com and allow me to keep your books clean so you don't have too. Shireen's Bookkeeping Services, your bookkeeper for the future. Welcome, welcome back, listeners. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places with myself, Shireen Botha, and my multi-talented co-host, professor Tanya Scotece. Tanya, what is news from Miami at this point?

Tanya Scotece: 1:45

Well, good morning everyone. It is morning here in Miami and lots of exciting things happening at the college, senior placement, funeral homes doing bad things. So I do expert witness, so just kind of keeping busy with all of the multitasking that I do. And this morning we have a fabulous guest with us. We'd like to introduce to our listeners Colleen Biggs, calling in from Arizona. So good morning Colleen.

Shireen Botha: 2:17

Good morning, Colleen. Colleen Biggs is the owner of B You B Strong. Colleen Biggs is a 22-year business strategist who empowers business leaders to expand their influences to attract the right clients and drive more profits. She has launched over 340 businesses. She is a keynote speaker, author to seven number one international bestsellers, with the latest being Step Into the Spotlight to expand your influence. The CEO and founder of the LEAP community, and was awarded the most inspirational leaders in business and entrepreneurs of the year in 2023. Colleen provides women with a community of entrepreneurs who take the leap daily and realize that their network is their net worth. Welcome, Colleen.

Colleen Biggs: 3:15

Thank you, Shireen, thank you, Tanya. It's wonderful to be here and I'm coming from Arizona today, so the weather in Arizona is actually really nice and cool. This morning it's like 55 degrees, so it's beautiful. It's why I have a sweater on. You know we don't normally get to wear a lot of sweaters in Arizona, living in the desert, but it's a beautiful place to live all year round. We do have all seasons, so I think it's hot and it is in the summer.

Shireen Botha: 3:47

I love that because I absolutely would love to live in an area where you see the different seasons my favorite season being winter where you get to dress up all cuddlies and, you know, have blankets by the fire. So Tanya knows that about me, so I love the fact that it's you know, getting us in Chile there and you get to see snow and the different seasons.

Colleen Biggs: 4:11

So yeah, yeah, it really is. It really is great, and I think it's underappreciated because everyone just says, oh, arizona, it's so hot and it can be if you just stay in the valley, but most of us go up north and spend weekends up in the mountains because it's just beautiful yeah.

Shireen Botha: 4:31

Definitely on the bucket list, all right, so we do have a quote of the day, which is selected by our very own Colleen. So the quote goes like this if learning is beneath you, then leadership is beyond you. So, first up, let me ask you Colleen, who quoted this, and I couldn't.

Colleen Biggs: 4:57

I think I read some type of version or heard. I think I heard some type of version to that quote and I kind of rearranged it and made it my own based on what I had heard, and so I couldn't tell you originally where I heard it, but I'm pretty sure it might have been a YouTube video that I was listening to back in corporate America many, many, many years ago. It got to the point where I was like knowing that I needed to leave and I was on my way out so I would listen to YouTube videos every morning. I'd put my headphones on and I had like these big blue can headphones and I would just go into my office and put them on and connect them to my computer and I would listen to motivational YouTube. And I had a glass front to my office and we didn't have any doors, so I would get a sharpie or a marker like a whiteboard marker and I would write like three words of just motivational words, like positivity, on the front of my glass of my office every morning while I was listening to these videos. And then it kind of became this viral thing in the office where people would come to my office every day to see what the words of the day were. It's just something I started.

Colleen Biggs: 6:18

I do believe that when we surround ourselves with people that are positive and are learning, that we do become great leaders. And someone that says I know, I know, if you ever talked to anyone and they're like, yeah, I know, you're like, oh well, there's really no need for me to say anything, because they know, you know. And it's probably the worst thing for someone to say is I know, I know. It's almost like they've just stopped learning. They know everything, so there's nothing you can educate them on, when really they probably know not very much, and so I really feel like that learning piece is huge for all of us. So I would say it's a combination of somebody out there that probably said something extremely similar to that and I just took it and made it you know my own, which I do with everything. That's just kind of how my life is. I make it my own. It's very unique. I do it really just because I like to have things different, if that makes sense. I don't know why that is.

Shireen Botha: 7:22

No, I love that. I think the next question about the quote that I wanted to ask you is what does it mean to you For the listeners? Again, the quote goes if learning is beneath you, then leadership is beyond you. What do you mean by that and what does it mean to you?

Colleen Biggs: 7:40

What I mean by that is we don't need to be going back to school consistently to be getting masters and doctorates and PhDs and I'm not saying life learning, of spending your entire time in college. You know and I've known a lot of people that just learn, learn, learn, but they never really take any of that information and put it into play or activate it. So those that have decided that they have learned what they can learn and they're not willing to be humble and kind and learn from other people, even if they might have a similar career, a similar business, they've decided I'm better than that person or I've been doing this longer than you. I literally had a gentleman say to me a couple of weeks ago I was floored and it was a good thing it was in an email because I didn't respond and I kind of was seething mad because he was way off on his years and everything. And I was telling him how, as a business owner, if you decide to give a specific price point to somebody, you stick to that price point based on you're the one that offered it to them, right? Like you said, I will do this service for you for this amount of money. And then I said you can't put it on the other person like, oh, I'm doing all this work for nothing or you know, I originally charged this much. You should be thanking me for how little you paid. Like that's just rude to do to someone, because I didn't even know what you charged, because you only charged me what you told me you were going to charge me. So how was I supposed to know? So I said, as business owners, it's our responsibility to make sure that we're fine with that number, that we don't make other people feel guilty. Which was when I was finding out that apparently he charged more for some service. I was getting that I didn't know. And he fired back at me and he said I've been an entrepreneur for 20. You've been an entrepreneur for three. I think I know more than you do. And I was like, first of all, I've been an entrepreneur a lot longer than three years. I've been doing what I've been doing for 22 years.

Colleen Biggs: 9:44

And right away that one comment that he had in that email and I'm sure other people have maybe felt this I just immediately thought to myself this is an individual who is not looking to learn. He wasn't looking to learn from me in that moment where I said, hey, I feel like as a business owner, our responsibility I was. It was kind of a teaching moment, I think, or at least you could have taken it as anything, but he didn't. He didn't take it at all, it just became a blame game and he came back at me and you know, right in that moment that quote if learning is beneath you, then leadership is beyond you. He is not a leader in many people's eyes because of the way he does business or because of the way he treats people, and I've had numerous individuals come back to me after working with him or hiring him and having the same experience that I've had. So this is a person that is not a leader because they are not willing to take advice from someone as simple as that, like, hey, don't treat people that way. You know, that was simple.

Colleen Biggs: 10:50

That's probably the best story I could use, and that's really what it means to me is. I'm a lifelong learner. I never feel like I know everything ever, and I'm going to be learning until literally the day I die. I will probably be learning about my body and about my breath and about a lot of things. Maybe I'm going to learn about my children or my grandchildren or something you know in my last hours, who knows? But that's what it means to me. I believe that if you truly want to be a leader, people are looking towards those that have a vision of good, that have a vision that is enrolling for them, because it's a mission for them as well, it's something that they desire, and that's really how I see a true leader, and that person is willing to take advice and learn from anyone along that path. Sure, so.

Shireen Botha: 11:47

I love that and just choose to be a good human. Yeah, I mean, that's a choice. You can choose to be a good human, whether you've been in business for three years or been in business for 20, you can still choose to treat another human with respect and dignity and I think we should never, ever lose that, ever. Sorry, Tanya, to interrupt you there.

Tanya Scotece: 12:10

No, that was awesome. That was awesome, colleen. And I think sometimes it's like, as you said, expectations right, like what we expect from other people, both on the giving and receiving side, right. So I see, sometimes like that word expectation and I think I had a quote the other week, it was like something like expectation is like the root of all demise and it's true, you know, when we have expectations on either side.

Shireen Botha: 12:33

Right yeah yeah. So for the listeners, you're gonna be listening to this at the December season, the silly season, the fun season. So as business owners, I know that that time can be very distracting in a good way. It's family time, it's all the fun activities. So, colleen, being a business strategist, I wanna ask you what are some ways for us business owners to stay focused through this time of year when it comes to our businesses?

Colleen Biggs: 13:13

You know I might give an answer that isn't expected With my clients. I tell them at the beginning of the year or whenever we're working together, to look about a year out on their calendar and mark off any holidays, any celebrations, birthdays, any Fridays or weekends they might wanna take off for traveling, any vacations, any time off. And I say, go onto your calendar right now and block those off, because the beauty of being an entrepreneur is creating your own schedule and many entrepreneurs, believe it or not, create a job. So they come out of corporate America, they come into becoming an entrepreneur and then they create a job and they work Monday through Friday, which is what a job would be, and then they take Saturday and Sunday off. Well, I take every Friday off. Nobody can book on my schedule on Fridays and I don't mind working Saturday mornings or doing emails or working on projects, because that's a day where I can just kind of get up. I don't have to be on video, because I'm on video every single day, whether it's an interview or I'm hosting an event. So my makeup's done, my hair is done, I'm dressed so on a Saturday to just be in my pajamas and chill out at the dining room table and get some projects done to me seems so relaxing and easy. So I think we have to structure our lives the way that works for us and, as an entrepreneur, I need to know that I have Fridays off where I don't have to be on video, I don't have to talk to anyone and I can meet with people for business advising. I can get appointments done it might be nails, it might be hair. I might need to just go to the grocery store. We're talking simple things.

Colleen Biggs: 15:01

Because Sundays are down days, my husband and I unplug 100%. We do one day a week where we completely unplug and we have two offices at our house and so we both are entrepreneurs and we do not work, walk in those offices to work and we spend time with each other, spend time with God. That's Sunday for us. So when we get into the holidays, a lot of people are very scattered and they have a lot to do. I mean I'm no exception when I say I have a lot to do, meaning I have 12 grandkids. My husband, I have seven kids, so that's a lot of gifts, it's a lot of planning for Christmas. I'm even doing family photos this year and I planned it three months ago.

Colleen Biggs: 15:48

So I would say, as an entrepreneur, plan things way ahead of time. Plan your time off, plan your vacations. Plan when you need to start planning for the holiday, Like, do you have to put it on your calendar that you need to start working on your Christmas cards for that year or your holiday cards for that year? Do you need to put it on your calendar that you need to start working on gifts or holiday gifts, or maybe it's a menu, because you're hosting this year? I know that I just got the call the other day that I have eight family members coming in town and I'm gonna find a house for all of us to rent, to be together and we're gonna do Thanksgiving together. Normally I don't do really Thanksgiving much. I go to a family member's house or something, but this year it's us hosting. So again, I have it on my schedule planned to plan all that, if that makes sense.

Colleen Biggs: 16:47

I know it's crazy to say put it on the schedule to plan it, to plan it, but when I do that then it's off my shoulders, it's out of my brain.

Colleen Biggs: 16:57

I'm not stressing over it, there's no energy going towards it and I can just do what I need to do in the moment and be here with the two of you right now and not be worried about or thinking about or trying to navigate through my emails feeling like, oh, I'm behind, I've gotta do things to catch up. I'm a big time management contributor champion, you name it Because if you can manage your time, you can be successful. You've got to learn how to manage your time and I would prefer to work longer hours during the week. You know, my grandkids are at school, my kids are working whatever, and then take that weekend and be extremely flexible with what I can do Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then to work all through the weekends. When I hear ladies are working on Sundays, I just think that's insane. They work seven days a week. They have zero time off, so they're actually working more hours in the job they created for themselves than they would be if they were going to a job and getting a W-2. It's crazy, it's insane.

Tanya Scotece: 18:07

I'm still amazed at the seven children and 12 grandchildren. I'm still processing that. I'm like that's a big family. Wow, amazing Colleen, that's a lot.

Colleen Biggs: 18:17

Very big family and we love it so much, and because the holidays are so crowded, about 12 years ago we had made the decision to celebrate Christmas, not on Christmas, because we celebrate Christmas in our family, that's our holiday and with both my husband and our divorce, you know, we combined our family many, many years ago when the kids were still little. So because of that, and now spouses and their own kids, they wanna be able to spend time with their family and their little ones on Christmas day and they have spouses that have parents that want them to come see them on Christmas day. So the Saturday before Christmas or it could be the Sunday before it, just depends on when Christmas falls we have a full day holiday celebration. So we get together and we do breakfast, we do games, we do lunch, we open gifts, we just play together and have a blast all day. And then no one's stressed out because it's a week before Christmas, it's never a big worry, or maybe it's four days before Christmas.

Colleen Biggs: 19:22

And then on Christmas day we're like if we see you, we see you, maybe some of the kids might invite us over to. Oh, the kids want you to come over and show them your gifts. Great, we'll drive over to go see them, but there's no pressure. There's no, any of that. We've already done our Christmas with them. So if we get invitations, great. If we don't, nobody's butt hurt, no one's worried, no one's feeling left out.

Colleen Biggs: 19:45

And I feel like that takes the pressure off of us and the kids to really enjoy the holiday. And there are other people in their lives that might be more pressure, filled on expectations that you come see them on a holiday. We don't have that. So these are the tricks that you can use, especially if you're in a blended family like ours. These are tricks that you can use where you take control of it. You design it the way you wanna see it, and I always envisioned having the family all together, and that can't happen on Christmas day or Christmas Eve. So what other day can I make that happen? So I don't think it lessens the celebration. We just do it on a different day.

Tanya Scotece: 20:28

And it expands it more, right, so you can celebrate, for example, like the whole month.

Tanya Scotece: 20:33

So it's funny, even when I send somebody like birthday greeting or a text or a card or whatever, it's always kind of referenced like wishing you a happy birthday all month, through, year through, because it's true, it's like it doesn't have to be. But sometimes again, we put that expectation on that one day, as opposed to having the whole month celebration and getting together with friends and you can relax on the actual day if you choose to. But you also feel that you've had the chance to celebrate with people you wanna celebrate with 1000% agree, yeah.

Shireen Botha: 21:05

And listen, not everyone has large families. Some of us have very small families, maximum of five people. And if that is you, then in the same breath, if you are someone that's going to be working over the holidays to pick one or two things that you need to achieve or a maximum amount of hours that you're going to spend like for me it'll be one or two hours get two things done, whatever comes first. If I achieve that, I close my laptop, put it aside and go and be very present with my parents and my sister, because we're really small little units. So, and that's you know, if that's your situation, more on the smaller side, you can definitely keep yourself. You know time management is also very important, but, yeah, just do a little bit every day and still be present with your family. So, before we continue with any more questions for Colleen, I just want to hit a little Buzzsprout ad.

Shireen Botha: 22:16

Buzzsprouting isn't hard when you have the right partners and the team at Buzzsprout is passionate about helping you succeed. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. When I started this podcast, I didn't know where to begin and was quite overwhelmed, but using Buzzsprout makes it super easy and straightforward To start your own podcast and get a $20 Amazon gift card. Follow the link in the show notes. This lets Buzzsprout know we sent you and it really does help support our show, buzzsprout. Let's create something great together.

Tanya Scotece: 22:55

Tune in next week for part two from Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover: 23:01

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.