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From Perfectionist To Progress: An EPIC Journey To Success With Wendy Gunn
I am honored to be joined by Wendy Gunn. Wendy, welcome. Tell my audience a little about who you are.
Thank you. I’m very excited to be here and I am Wendy Gunn. I am an entrepreneur and have been in the online world since about 2009. I have learned how to achieve goals because back in the day, many years ago, I wasn’t being who God had created me to be I was comparing, competing, and coveting other people’s lives and was extremely, obese then one day I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. That changed my life and my story forever. I began to want to get healthier and that led me to lose 50 pounds the next year. That was the first domino that fell and I felt like, “If I can do that, I can do anything.” I began to set big goals, began in over the years, learned to get rid of perfectionism, and procrastinating, make progress, and have achieved many big goals since then. I’m excited to talk about EPIC, “One begins with one step forward,” because I believe in that.
I’m excited to have you here because you fit right in with the whole idea of EPIC. So that you know, and I’ll share with the audience, they probably heard this before, but I love to share it that for me, we all have epic things that we dream of achieving in our life. We talk about it all the time, “I wish someday I want to do this. I wish I could do this,” or whatever. I found in my own life that even though there were things that seemed impossible, I was like, “I’m going to go ahead and try it.” I am the author of three books. Two of them are Amazon bestsellers.
Overcoming Self-Sabotage
If you told me in college I was going to author a book, I tell you that you were drunk or you took something and were hallucinating because I hate writing. I’m a talker, not a typer. I found a way to do it because I had stories I wanted to share. Many have already achieved epic things in our lives, but we discount it. That makes me curious as to why we self-sabotage. Based on what you said in your introduction, how were you self-sabotaging?
I thought that I didn’t have a story. I didn’t have anything nearly as great as all the people around me. I was self-sabotaging. Our mindset is important. I said only one of the big goals that I achieved. After that, I began to realize, “I can achieve this.” I had people asking me, “How did you do that?” People look at you differently when you have achieved something, but you have to step forward like you said. I did that then later, and after the age of 60, which I hope I’m an inspiration to people because a lot of people tell themselves, “I’m too old. I can’t go after that goal. I’ve missed my opportunity.” I want to say no, you have not. There are many famous stories about people who accomplished great things older than I am.
After 60, I started my online business, and when I lost another 50 pounds. I’m almost 100 less than I was at one time. After 60 I started working out with a trainer now I haven’t continued that as well as I should, but I did the first time after 60 and then I built an email list. I grew my email list from 0 to 12,000 in over 2 years with a 37% open rate. That is what I now share. It is all about, you have to take the first step. You are not going to be perfect when you start. Nobody is. You just have to go forward.
You have to take the first step. You are not going to be perfect when you start. Nobody is.
All too often when we’re on these, epic journeys are big, they are bold and audacious goals. The fact of the matter is, and I talk about it in my book, it’s what I call the pizza analogy, when you have a pizza in front of you, you eat it one bite or slice at a time. You’re not eating the whole pizza at once. You could try, but you probably wouldn’t be successful. I know that in some of the big things that I’ve accomplished, there were steps. I think people think about these big goals. Maybe it’s to write a book, run a marathon, or travel somewhere. Everything has steps. If we say, “I’m taking one step forward,” a funny thing happens. I’m sure you discovered this, that first step is not nearly as hard as you thought it would be.
All of a sudden you go, “That wasn’t so bad.” Maybe it’s something as simple as “I want to make sure that I drink half my body weight in water every day.” You’re not going to drink, let’s say, 80 ounces of water all at once. You could, but you probably wouldn’t feel too good. If you sit there and say, “I’m going to take my water bottle. I’m going to sip from it, have it at my desk, and have it with me.” The next thing you know, you drank your 80, 100, or however many ounces of water. Well gee, that wasn’t too hard.
I want to add to that the whole idea of smart goals that you break down into small steps. One of the things you asked about self-sabotaging, one of the things that I did when I wasn’t achieving these goals was I would bite off too much at once. I would set impossible goals and I would be like, “I’m going to change everything this week, “ I would get discouraged. What I’ve learned over the years is that even if I don’t say, “I want to drink water,” I’m a big water drinker, I’ve got mine sitting right here, but even if you don’t achieve the top goal right away, you are still vastly further ahead than you were before.
If we take the 80 ounces and you only got 50 ounces of, you got 50 ounces of watering.
You don’t just write the book. I have a book, it’s in me and I have begun. Here’s the deal. You figure out how you work you had said, “I’m a talker, not a typer.” I have learned to dictate into Google Docs. You figure out, “Who am I and what works?” One of the things that I do is help people figure out who they are. That’s at the foundation of getting an email list and knowing who you are and accepting, “Who am I? What’s the passion that lights me up?” I could talk all day about it. I have a goal that at the end of the year I hope to have a book out, but I’m writing a little here. When I have goals, I’ve broken it down and a little bit here and there, these big goals don’t happen overnight. With losing weight, if you start and you lose and then you gain some of it back, you don’t go, “Oh, well.” no, you try again. You try this method, you try again, you keep going. I had to do that until I finally lost the weight.
Not Yet And The 97-3
That touches in and I’m like, “This and this.” I’ll talk about your book because for me there are two words that are important for entrepreneurs, “Not yet.” It is so powerful, “Wendy, have you completed your book?” “Not yet.” Because if you go, “No,” then it makes it sound like it is such a hard stop. Writing a book is a, “Not yet.” I like to say for people who are like, “I don’t want to write a book. I have no idea,” and stuff, I like to use another analogy. I love analogies. If you talk to someone who just entered university and they’re a freshman and you go, “Do you have your degree?” “Not yet.” We accept that they don’t have their degree yet because they’re freshmen.
Yet in entrepreneurship and life, “No, I haven’t done that.” Not yet should be your companion because it leaves open the door, at least in my opinion, of, “I’m working on it. I’m not losing weight. I know I’ve been on my own weight loss journey.” It does take a lot of time there are days when it’s frustrating because you are like, “How am I up 2 pounds? I’ve done everything I should be doing. I’m drinking my water. I’m exercising. I’m watching what I’m eating.” We are unique machines. What works for you may not work for me, but when I find what works for me, stick to it. Detours happen.
I also love to point out to people what I call my 97/3 Rule, 97% of your day is I believe good at, and up to 3% isn’t good. Why do we focus on that 3% and ignore the 97%? There are many things that we’re doing right. We woke up this morning. We get to do a show. These are going right. Things don’t go right. Some days your 3% is bigger and something bad happens. In general, there are many things that go right in our day yet we, human nature, focus on all the things, “How was your day?” I didn’t drink all my water. I didn’t get my chapter,” but there are many other things you got right.
As entrepreneurs, as people in life, I think sometimes we focus on that and I’m like, “Why?” That’s self-defeating. I know I’m on a mission to help people go, “No, pay attention.” I’m a licensed professional clinical counselor. When I was doing my internship, I was doing school-based, middle school and high school. This whole 97/3 rule I came up with because a lot of my students had academic challenges. I’m going to ask you, “What was your least favorite subject in school?”
I am good at Math. I like Math. I didn’t like Science. I’m not a Science-based person. The school, the academic part, I didn’t realize that I quit school, I graduated and didn’t go straight to college. When I went back to college, I found out I love learning. It was all the trappings that were around school by being boxed in, labeled, the cliques, and all of that, that I hated about school. My worst subject was probably well BSED in Science.
We’ll take Science. Putting yourself in the way back machine. Did you take Chemistry?
I don’t think I did.
How about Biology?
Yes.
If you got a 97 on a bio test, how would you feel?
That’d be amazing.
It’d be great. Would you be complaining about the three points you didn’t get? No. I’d say that to my clients. I go, “Least favorite subject?” A lot of them said Math or Science. I’m like, “What if you got a 97?” Just like you, “I’d be excited.” I’d say, “Are you going to complain about the three points you didn’t get?” “No. My parents would be proud. I’d be proud.” “Why are you focusing on the 3% of your day that isn’t going right And ignoring how awesome the rest of your day is?” As entrepreneurs of course it’s not to ignore what’s going wrong because there’s a lot to learn of, “That’s not the way to do that particular but I also accept that I’m going to make mistakes.”
We don’t give ourselves grace. I’m an encourager. You are too. Oftentimes, we encourage other people, but we’re hard on ourselves.
We are the meanest person in our own life, and I don’t know why.
It’s that perfectionistic. Maybe we grew up with an example or people around us telling us the shortcoming, “You did this, good,” but they think they’re encouraging you to get better, but it teaches you to focus on, “I’m not there.” I believe in the entrepreneurial world for sure, you have to have blinders about what everybody else is doing. In life, there are always going to be people who are better in some areas than you are, and worse in some areas than you are. I believe that you have a story that you are uniquely created. You have a story that the world needs to hear like you were saying, “When you had to get past, I’m not a writer,” because the world needs the story that you have within you. That’s important. It takes continuing on day after day when things aren’t going well, when you are discouraged or you aren’t feeling at your best or whatever, to keep showing up. Keep going.
You are saying, “I’m dictating my book.” Honestly, that’s what I did because I sat down to write my first book. I’m like, “This isn’t going well.” I had that epiphany, which is, “There isn’t just one way to write a book. I need to get the words on the page, then I have something to work with and I can then formulate it. I love talking.” The best class I took in university was I had to give a two-hour lecture and that was my senior year. I’m like, “I’ve been able to do my exams as an oral exam. I would’ve had a 4.0 because I knew this stuff. I just hate writing and want to get it over.” I wouldn’t necessarily demonstrate all that I knew.
We homeschooled. One of my successes is that we homeschool from start to finish. A lot of people start but don’t. One of the things that homeschooling allows you to do, and I think of this immediately is when we were in the younger ages, a lot of kids did not have the skill. You have to learn the skill of test taking. One of the opportunities that we had with homeschooling was you could do an oral exam. A lot of kids are like what you described, where they know the stuff backward and forwards. If you just talk to them, they can narrate, they could tell you the whole story of the book. They could tell you the whole thing or whatever the answer.
You would know as a teacher that they’ve grasped the concept, they get the concepts. They know the facts.
What you said was important. There’s not just one way to do pretty much anything. That was what people would say, “Tell me exactly how you lost the weight.” One of the things I want each person to know is that I did it in a couple of different ways. I’ve done it several different ways. In my earlier days, I didn’t know and I didn’t find out till I was about 46 or 47 that I am sensitive to MSG and Salicylates. Salicylates are present. They’re high in a lot of healthy foods, all berries and a lot of different things. I don’t know who’s going to read this, but this might be the thing that they go, “This is tied to ADHD in children. It displays as that .”
In my 30s, I didn’t know why I had a lot of trouble with my emotions and I’d get fly off the hand. I’d get intense and angry. I was feeling lousy about myself and that led me to weight loss and different things. I found out in my 40s, “There is a reason. When I eat these foods and the bucket theory when the bucket gets full, one grape, berry, or green pepper and I have major symptoms.” These are all what we call healthy foods. I want to tell people, “You have to find out who you are and what works for you. You’re not a bad person if what worked for them didn’t work for you.”
There are multiple ways to do things. I have two daughters. When they were in elementary school, one of my older daughters asked me for help doing some long division. It’s been a while, but I knew how to do long division. However, the way I knew how to help her get the answer was not 1 of the 3 ways that she’d been taught the new Math, I’m like, “I can help you get the answer, but I was taught one way. I have no idea how to fill in blocks and do all of this. I’m not to go off on the education thing.
It was frustrating as a dad because I was like, “I can’t help you because I don’t understand the ways you are being taught to do it. However, what I could appreciate is there isn’t just one way. Within the same realm of age, “We were taught one way. Here’s how to do multiplication, division, and all of that.” I talk all the time about, “I dictated my books.” Luckily there’s, your Microsoft Word and Google Docs comes with it. You used to have to use dragon naturally speaking, which you had to train and it never got everything right. Even now, it doesn’t always get it right.
There are options now that weren’t available. You were talking about the 97/3, I believe I have to apply these same things as you do. You know them. We have to practice them. That’s always, “I do that all the time.” No, we have to go back and go, “I am struggling. Why am I struggling? I’ve forgotten to do this.” Our mindset and our thoughts are so important that we can be surrounded by negativity for instance and all of a sudden we’re like, “Why am I discouraged? Maybe I need to distance myself from this.”
You need to have cheerleaders.
Also, journaling, old school, pen and paper. There’s something that happens. I am a believer in that, in maybe dictating it too, but in writing down what you did and what went well last week because we’re forgetful. We forget, then as you said, “We focus on the negative.” It influences our thinking so much. Our thinking impacts our actions. We have to get it right up here where we’re saying, “Try again. That didn’t work. I always think of Ed Thomas Edison who said, “I found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.”
The truth is everyone fails. Failure is part of the journey. I know I’m going to try stuff. I’m going to fail. As an entrepreneur, I have sadly spent thousands of dollars on different tools that help me. They aren’t bad tools. They just weren’t the tool for me, but I wouldn’t know it if I did try it and sometimes you’re like, “Where’s this tool been my whole life? This is great.” Other times you’re like, “It’s okay, but honestly I’m not using that tool.”
Also, coaching. That’s why also there’s a place for you and me online because we’re going to attract our people. There are going to be people who will say, “Where are you all my life? I found out about you,” and others will go, “It’s not my cup of tea,” and that’s fine.
Think about the podcasts that people listen to. You have the ones you like and the ones that you’re not as “It’s not about bad podcasts. It just isn’t interesting,” TV shows, movies, or whatever. We all have, “I like this kind of movie.” Someone else was like, “I like them, okay, but I love this.” I totally get that. We should be our number one cheerleader because frankly, if I don’t believe in myself and I don’t believe in what I’m doing, how can I expect anyone else to believe in it?
I think the world is lacking in encouragement and hope. We’re on the same page with this. If I can bring encouragement to one person, if I can bring hope, life can get better to keep trying and keep on in my business, life, coaching, and whatever, I hope that I can help someone to keep on trying and not give up because if you keep on pressing towards that goal, you will eventually reach it. Even if you don’t get whatever you think of as perfection, think how much better your life will be.
We haven’t even talked about confidence, but the confidence that achieving goals and stepping forward and EPIc, I love the word epic that whole title, whole name and what were you called? The God of Enthusiasm? I love that because EPIC is exactly, we aren’t called to live ordinary lives. I’m not going to look at the same as you. You are not going to look the same as somebody else. We have a special secret sauce to bring to the world. we have to embrace who we are. We have to be willing to say, “I don’t enjoy that or like that,” but I love this and to be able to be ourselves and be okay with that.
We aren’t called to live ordinary lives.
EPIC Journey
To share with you, for me the words EPIC is an acronym. I mean it is its own word, but it’s also when I thought about, “What does EPIC mean to me?” Every Pilgrimage Includes Commitment. I think that when we’re on our epic journey, we are on a pilgrimage to write a book, run a marathon, and travel somewhere. There is absolutely no commitment to get there. I can tell you I’ve been fortunate and it’s been a while, but I finished four full marathons and you talked about bite-size or chunks and stuff. I had to break that 26.2 miles up into mentally achievable things. My first goal was a half marathon, 13.1 because now I’ve got less to run than I’ve already run. Then it was mile 17 because now I’ve got 9 miles and I’ve got single digits left.
It was mile 20 and I was like, “Now I just have a 10K left. I only have 6.2 miles,” then I got to count down the miles. Mentally, that was so much better than, “I’ve got 24 more miles.” It does get in your head, but you got to squash that out along the way the miles that were hard, but you keep moving forward. Even knowing that crossing that finish line was my goal, a funny thing happened. You get there. You’ve had this epic journey of training and running the race. It is absolutely incredible to cross that finish line. In talking with other people who run marathons, you cross it and, and then you’re like, “Now what?”
I had this huge goal. That’s important for entrepreneurs. We have a goal of, “I’d liked it. I want to achieve this. I’m going to here,” but realize that it doesn’t end when you get there. It’s great. We all have to have those things on weight loss journeys, “Let me have some benchmarks along the way. When I’ve lost 10 pounds, I will go do this. When I’ve lost 20 pounds, I will go buy that dress set I couldn’t buy before,” or whatever and celebrate. Once you get to your goal, are you like, “That’s it.” You congratulate yourself, but then you’re like, “Now what?” It goes along with the, “Not yet.” You are appreciating your goal, but, “Now there’s more I can do.”
I hope to be setting big goals until the day I die. I’ve gotten to the point where I feel as though, oh my goodness, “I don’t have time to do all the things that I still want to do, but that’s okay.”
There may be the things that are on our, “Not yet,” list and maybe we won’t achieve it, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t still hold onto the hope that, “I want to try and get to do this.”
That’s what gets you up in the morning. That’s what makes you excited for a new day. You are an inspiration. I hope I’m an inspiration to others that, “What’s your next goal? What are you excited about right now?” Instead of saying, “How are you? What’s going on?” even in your conversations, “What are you excited about right now?” To encourage people to focus on that 97% and to be going after the next thing.
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine having 12,000 on my email list but that’s not like you said, “Now, what?” The next goal and the next. It’s exciting to make progress forward and not perfection. I’ve come to believe that thinking that you can even identify perfection is prideful because who am I to say what perfect is? You got to hear that you thought that was perfect, no progress forward. I love your acronym. I love words. I love acronyms. Pilgrimage is a great word. I love that. I’m a traveler. I love traveling. Some of the things that I want to do still are traveling to a lot of different places. One of the reasons is I love meeting new people.
Getting to meet people around the world, and this is fabulous to be able to talk to you and your audience. When we talk about these things, we get energized. We get more excited about our own goals and we realize, “What else is possible?” I am totally on board with all of that. I’m saying I haven’t written my first book published out there book yet, but that’s going to be the first of many. It’s not published and that’s it. As far as speaking, I have goals that are big goals. You don’t achieve overnight. There’s no overnight success. That’s a myth. breaking it down, eating the elephant one bite at a time, and continuing to tell yourself, “You just haven’t done it yet. Maybe that didn’t work,” or you’re whatever. Keep the commitment, “I’m going to keep on.”
That’s a commitment to yourself as much. A lot of people do not want to let other people down. I think you first are needing to be committed to becoming all you’re supposed to be and growing as a person and becoming who you are created to be it’s a commitment to yourself, first and foremost. Not worrying about what they think so much.
Don’t be the meanest person in your own life. Pay attention to when you start to say those mean things because I’m a firm believer that if your best friend said one thing that we all say to ourselves every day, we’d be devastated. When I ask people, “What are the mean things you say about yourself?” I’m like, “I am astounded at how mean people are.” I’m like, “Don’t be mean.”
Another thing that I had to learn many years ago, I would have a situation or a conversation and the next day I’d be rehashing it in my brain over and over. What we tend to do is we tend to think about the negative things. The negative, “I said that. I shouldn’t have said that.” The thing I’ve realized over the years is first of all, we don’t remember accurately that conversation or how it went at all and then we tend to remember only the negative things and then beat ourselves up. Women do this maybe more than men, but you can correct me if I’m wrong, we beat ourselves up with shoulds.
Woulda, coulda, and shoulda.
“Should have done that. Should have said that.”
“Would’ve done this.” That’s a dog chasing its tail. Catch yourself. When I do it, I go to stop out of this because you are wasting energy if you didn’t, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t.
It is such a waste of time and energy. Take the thoughts in the Bible that says, “To take your thoughts captive.” I’m going to put them in this box and lock them up. I heard somebody say, “Use the word swap.” I loved that idea of it. That’s what I’m doing. Swapping out some positive thoughts for the negative ones that were controlling me. We have to become pros at that. We have to become pros at, “I’m not going to think that. I got on that bus or train to get off right now,” and to be able to recognize before it takes you on a ride.
Take your thoughts captive.
I want to thank you so much. We are clearly having a great time together because the time has flown by. I’m like, “Look at that. We’ve been just talking and it’s been awesome.” How can people get ahold of you?
I would love for anyone who wants to learn about launching an email list, the fast way to join my next masterclass for free. You can go to YourHomeForGod.com/LYLL/mc/2. That stands for Launch Your List Live and sign up for my next masterclass.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. This has been great. It’s very fun.
I want to remind everyone that if you want to step into your epic, you go to EpicBegins.com. If you go to the courses and you put in the code, EPICBEGIN, you’ll get a $50 discount on either of my courses. Wendy, thank you so much. I want to remind my audience that epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
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About Wendy Gunn
Wendy Gunn is a Christian entrepreneur and ovarian cancer survivor who, when diagnosed, realized her story had changed forever and she was uniquely created by God. She stopped comparing herself and began setting Big goals such as losing 50 lbs, getting organized, and Homeschooling her children from start to finish. She achieved some of her most important goals over the age of 60, losing another 50 lbs., taking her whole family, including grown children, on a dream trip to Italy, starting her online business, and growing her email list from zero to 12K in just over 2 years, with a 37% open rate.