190 - Embracing the Slight Edge: Leading by Example and the Impact of Consistent Actions

Just when you think you've got everything under control, life throws a curveball—like having to re-record an entire podcast episode thanks to a technical glitch. But it's in these moments of frustration where the true test of perseverance shines through. I, Rebecca Sonuga, host of Starts With Heart, encountered just such a moment, and it became the perfect catalyst to discuss the importance of sticking to our core actions even as leaders in our fields. My recent heart-to-heart with a fellow travel business leader revealed that both of us had strayed from the very practices that got us here. It’s a candid reminder that to inspire our teams, we must recommit to the basics—more live sessions, daily social media engagement—and lead by example.

The power of simple, consistent actions can't be overstated. Our conversation today circles around the transformative nature of the 'Slight Edge' philosophy: how even the smallest steps forward can prevent backsliding into old habits. The development and maintenance of a morning routine exemplify how foundational habits can exponentially build towards significant achievements. By returning to these basics, I've personally witnessed a resurgence in productivity and a boost in team morale, proving that sometimes the simplest changes have the most profound effects.

In every challenge lies an opportunity to rewrite your story, and that's precisely what we explore in this episode. I share the compelling journeys of individuals who embraced their circumstances, no matter how daunting, and marched towards their long-term vision with unwavering commitment. Their stories are a testament to the idea that success isn't about immediate gratification but about consistent effort and unshakeable resolve. So, as we wrap up, I invite you to reflect on your commitment to your ambitions and consider the weight of personal accountability in shaping your path to victory. Let's face those challenges head-on and hold ourselves to the promise of our own potential.

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Lots of love!
Rebecca xx

Chapters

• 0:00 Creating Accountability for Business Growth
• 10:51 Keys to Achieving Your Goals
• 18:59 Overcoming Challenges
• 25:44 Commitment and Accountability in Achieving Goals

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:35

Hello. My name is Rebecca Shenuga, and you are through to the Starts With Heart podcast. This episode is all about getting it done. Funny that I am doing an episode on this today because this is the second time recording this podcast episode. I recorded the first one on a different platform just not thinking. I'm god knows what was going through my head. I used to use a different platform to recover podcasts on my phone. And all of a sudden, it just stopped working, it stopped saving my podcasts, and I could never access the recordings. So then I found a new platform, And I started using that. But every now and then, you know, sometimes, like, say, for example, you you move house and you've lived at you new house for, like, three years. And then randomly one day, you go and take a different route home when you drive towards your old house. Don't know if anyone could relate to that. I've done that before, and that's what I did today. And I was like, no. I've just recorded a thirty minute episode and it's not saved. So now we're recording it again. I'm back to back today, but I had this little slot where I blocked it out for my lunch and to have a bit of a break in you know what? I'm just gonna eat my lunch a little bit faster, and I'm gonna record this podcast episode. Also, when I recorded it earlier, my little cohost Winnie was asleep. Now she's awake crawling around so you can probably hear her in the background. That's absolutely fine. That's how we roll this podcast. It's all about showing up and getting it done, regardless. And funny again that we're talking about this, because I feel like it can relate to so many people. I actually had a call with one of my leaders yesterday. One of the leaders who I work with in the travel business I have helped her create a life of time freedom. She's created a willable residual income for her family and she also now has a team of hundreds of people. She's insane. She's so passionate. She's so hard working. She's really like, I'm I'm really blessed to be working with her. And we do a lot of things together with our teams. We sort of have the same brain, We have the same mindset. And the things that I'm really good at, like she utilizes in she's really good at things that I utilize, and we do a lot of things together with our organizations. And we caught up yesterday and was like, how can we create a little bit of fire into our businesses. I feel like everyone's got the tools, everyone knows what they're doing, but there just seems to lack that little bit of spark. And then we was like, what are we actually doing? What are we creating that fire hour with the fire? We always want people to be staying close to the fire, but we have to be that fire as leaders. And when we looked at it and we broke it down and dissected what we're doing day to day, I thought Jill, we're not actually doing the things daily that got us to where we are now. Like, where's our like, we're getting up early, but why we're not getting on the calls that we used to get on at six AM? Why are we not doing the basics every day? Worry we're just letting the day run with us and we're so busy helping our team that we forget to build our own individual businesses and doing the basics that got us to where we are in the first place. Where's our lives? I go live a lot. To be fair, I go live. At least once a week, or I was like, where are our lives? We could be doing more. There's so many things that we could be doing. And that we were doing for so long, and then it's like we got to a certain goal and thought oh, we've made it. Well, we can just kick back and enjoy it. But in reality, we've got a responsibility. It's all for those hundreds of people that we help and they're looking at all soon. If they're seeing that, we're doing a little bit behind the scenes and we're not really showing up every day. In in the best way that we could do in a sense of where it's visible and they can see what we're doing in and being inspired by it. How are we expecting them to do any anything that we're doing? I always believe that your team do a fraction of what you do, effort wise, apart from the yard anomaly, who my outrank there, replying on something but charity of people here she is. It was only a matter of time. Apart from the anomaly, most people will do a fraction of what their leaders do. So I was like, we're working really hard, but we're not working smart and we're not showcasing the the real life behind the scenes. The team need to know what it takes to get to where we are. So we thought about ways that we could hold each other accountable. And I was like, right, let's go back to doing our lives. We need to commit to a minimum of three lives a week. We need to commit to reaching out and making this number of new connections on social media every single day and getting information in front of this many people every day and that's what we set for ourselves and was like, should we include our leaders? Should we get our leaders? Do it so obviously. They're around the fire, and then they're creating the fire for their team. And then we're just like, no, actually. Let's do it for everyone. Let's do it. Let's open it up to everyone a little bit of an accountability and not everyone's motivated by accountability, especially in the business that we're a part of. There's no targets or anything like that. People jive for their own zones, people have their own capacity, their own goals. And, ultimately, their own things that they want to do with the opportunity. But you do get that that number of people as well within that who are really ambitious, have massive goals, want to create time and financial freedom and they're just like, show me show me how, like, where's the fire? I mean, I need to be around this fire. So with all, let's tap back into these. Let's tap back in and create the fire. So we opened it up. We opened up the accountability. And now we've got an accountability group. Every single day, we've got a template where we post our stats. So by our stats is basically our daily income producing activities, like what are we actually doing each day to build our businesses. That's our stats that we post. And to stay in the chat, you have to post it in the chat. If you're not contributing, you just don't you don't stay in it, but you're not at the end of the day, you're not not saying that you're not gonna get results in your business, Some people don't wanna be in the accountability. That's absolutely fine, and they'll still build big organizations. But for those who are motivated by it, that's gonna keep you going because you don't wanna get formal. Someone actually messaged me as well and she was like, oh, I can't I I can't join me. I got this going on in my corporate job and this going on and this going on, I'm like, so overwhelmed, blah blah blah blah. And I was so busy. I didn't see the message for hours And by the time I'd open the message, I realized that she was already in the group chat, and I was like, oh, I've just seen this message, but I've just realized that you're in the group chat. I just thought I'd love bid. And I was like, someone's got a bit of f alone. So yeah, that's what happens. It creates that little bit of urgency in the business and it's like, yeah, you know what? I've got big goals. And yeah, I do need someone to hold me a bit accountable and to keep me at the bottom a little bit. So let's go. So we're starting off with that. And then it was like, right, we're bringing about these six AM calls. Like, obviously, you don't have to look at six AM. It's not part of the accountability. You're not gonna get kicked out for it. Obviously, we know that some people, it's really not convenient for them to get on a call at six AM. They might be having a commute to work. They might have a baby that gets up at that time or whatever. But we said, you know what? If you can, even if it's a little bit uncomfortable, commit to getting on these calls. This is what mean Jill did. To build our businesses. So we got on the call at six. We did some personal developments together. And then we spent forty minutes building our businesses. And the thought process behind that is so that we get all of our income producing activities done by seven AM. So no matter what happens then the rest of the day, we've done our minimums. We've done our minimums. No matter what, and we are building our businesses. No matter what. So and then that will see you for the rest of the day doing whatever you might have. You kids still get ready for school, you might have a job, you whatever whatever it is you might wanna go to the gym, and it just helps people get off on the right foot. And it's just about doing the little things, doing the basic things every single day to get to the big results. And that's again what myself and Jill had done for so long. Doing a little tiny habit that compounded every day into getting the results that we got in our businesses. And we've got a lot of this from books like the compound effects the slight edge that I read more recently, atomic habits. They all talk about similar things, implementing the small daily habits that are gonna compound into big results. And it made me think about this episode and how I can help people put the learnings of this stuff into practice. This. Like, it's not just about business. It can be anything. It can be finances. It might be your health. It might be your relationships. Whatever goal you've set yourself to achieve, there are steps that need to be done in order for you to accomplish. That goal or those goals. So what is it that you need to be doing day to day to hit those goals? And then actually doing them and actually achieving them is the next step that comes from doing it. So I've wrote down actually wrote out notes for this episode for once. And it's like goodness. Because shall I remember a half an hour episode that recorded earlier this morning would not have been cool. But I've ruled out eight things, and I'm gonna go through them with you now. And if you have got the opportunity to take some notes, whether you tag them in the notes any phone, or whether you are making physical notes in a notebook, whatever. Write these down if you can. If you're in the car or something, just come back to it later. And listen again and maybe write some of these notes down because, ultimately, this is what it takes. For you to hit your goals, these are the steps that you want to be taken to put everything that you're learning are that you need to be doing into practice. So the first one is starting. So most people say, I'm just laughing because everywhere I'm going, when you said she'll follow me everywhere, I'm trying to avoid her bubbling and her laughing and her raspberries, and she's literally following me everywhere when I'm recording this, which is hilarious. So The first one is just start. Now most people, they say it starts with the decision. It starts with the decision to change your life. And I do agree but you already made the decision by listening to this podcast. You already made the decision and matched that in the business. You already made the decision by having the goal in the first place you've made the decision that you want to change something. So what next? So next comes with starting. Not procrastinating. Starting. Not delaying. Starting. Starting is so important. So so so important because so many people have so many amazing goals, so many things that they would love to achieve, and they just never die. And I might wow, you have so much potential and you're just not even starting because they overthink it, they're getting past the syndrome, or they that self sabotaging or they're thinking, oh, that will never happen for me or it seems like a lot of work or they doubt themselves for whatever reason. And they don't actually start the thing. For you to get the wheels in motion in the right direction, you have to start. So a concept that I understood from the slight edge which is different to the other books. That of a similar nature in terms of compounded and habits. He talks about everything being in motion and everything being in motion for you or against you. There's no such thing as like just stay stay still and and not move in. So some people think, oh, if I just have a day off, or if I leave it or I delay it, I'm just stagnant. I'm not going far with our backwards, but it's actually not the case. Actually moving backwards every single time you have the day off or you stay stagnant, you don't do anything. So the first thing you started, getting the wheels in motion, and getting that needle moving forward to your goals. The next thing is start small and build it up over time. So it's like if you've never ever done a morning routine, you've never done a morning routine in your life, you've never woken up before seven AM, And then all of a sudden, you read the book the Miracle Morning, and then you've got ten things that you wanna do in the morning, and you're gonna get up at five AM. And then you're like, you do it for one day and you feel amazing. Then you get up the next day and you're a little bit tired. And then you get up stay again. You're a little bit tired again. Then you get up the next day again. You're like, oh, no. Just another ten minutes. So I'll shorten this a bit. I'll miss this a bit out. And then you don't do as much as what you was doing before because you're knackered and you're like, you've not built that sustainability, you've not developed those habit over time, you just try to throw everything in at once. It is not normal for people to be able to implement so many different things at once and drastically change everything at once like that. It just does it happen. The most efficient way to do it is for you to start small. So if you are that person who's never got up before seven AM, you've never done a morning routine. It might start off for you at first. Literally, just waking up fifteen minutes earlier. I'll wake you up half an hour earlier. Or implementing one thing, getting your body moving for five to ten minutes. And then when you get you into that habit and it's you've you know, like, you sustain it and you feel good from doing it, then you might be like, right. Okay. Let me get up a little bit earlier. I'll let me increase my work. I'll let me add in. Some meditation or whatever that looks like. Bit by bit, that's how you build the consistency, the discipline, and how you make it sustainable long term. There's no pine in implementing something for a week, two weeks, even two or three months. And they're not doing anything for months or years after. Because how is that gonna compound into anything? It's just not. So that's the third tip. Sorry. That's the second tip. The third tip, stick to the basics. Now this is something that me and Jill had to go back to yesterday when we had our conversation because we was literally thinking, oh, we need to be We just made we didn't even make things complicated, but we were thinking too much outside the box. So the team will love this, they'll utilize this. This is going to be amazing. You can give people all the tools and the systems and literally spoon feed people as much as you want. If they're not gonna actually turn up and actually do the work, they're not gonna get the results. So we needed people to go back to the basics. Yeah. You've got all of the tools and everything in place, but are you actually going to shop to your business? Are you going to actually get on these calls in the morning and do the work that most people don't do in order for you to progress and hit your goals. So we looked at what are the basics. And the basics were just a set of five or six things that we wrote down thought these are the basics that we were doing every single day, and this is what we're gonna continue to do and we're gonna encourage our teams to do. So day one was today and it was incredible. We had such an amazing morning, really, really productive. And the thing is as well, because everyone was posting on social media about it and everyone feels so good about it. That's going to rub off now as well. Another people are gonna wanna get up at that time and jump on them calls and be inspired by that personal development and also get the business built ahead of the when the day starts. So sticking to the basics is real, God. And then it's all so simple. It's simple just to do that every single day. The fourth thing is doing it even when you don't feel like it. And this one's k. There's so many days that you're gonna get up and you're gonna think, I'm just tired or life's life in or I'm not feeling it today or I'll just skip the morning, but I've got I now work out this afternoon, so I'll spit it in this afternoon or whatever when you start. A slack if you start to let yourself off. The thing is if you do that, you are the the wheels are always in motion like I said before, so they're actually going in the reverse direction, so what you want them to go in. So do it even when you don't feel like it? You're not going to feel motivated all the time. In fact, you're not gonna feel motivated most of the time. It's discipline, it's hunger, it's goals, it's aspirations, it's inspiration, all of these things that are going to drive you forward collectively is what's gonna help you. But the pure thing is the the the determination, the discipline, the desire to hit your goals, knowing that it's not always gonna be glamorous, oral sunshine, and rainbows. It's going to be a challenge. That's the whole pie. Why not everyone hits the goals because they just don't do it consistently. You need to be consistent as consistent as possible If you're in doubt, do it anyway. If you can never ever ever be pushed back or set back from actually taking the action. The only way that you can never push yourself back is by not taking the action. Number five, x SKU sees Winging playing victim comparison game is all killers. All of that is the killer. So there's nothing worse than, oh, it's all about for them. They got into it first. So it's all about for them. They've got a big network or it's all about for them. They've got this. They've got that. And then just looking at your situation, like, oh, little old me. And at the end of the day, let's be frank. You cannot change the cards you were dealt with. You can't change the family that you was brought in, so you can't change your upbringing, you can't change the experiences that have happened in your life so far. But you can decide what hands you play with. You can shuffle those cards as much as you want. You sometimes even have to shuffle them. You can actually pick your own cards. That's the amazing thing. You can actually pick your own cards and deal any harm that you want. Even the people who was literally born by silver spoon in the mouth don't always have it amazing. They still have things that they need to work through to get them to where they want to be as well. They have their own demons, their own challenges. So instead of looking at yourself and thinking, oh, I wish it was like them. If it was like them, it would be so much easier. Look, that to choose is not gonna get you to where you wanna be. Completely being honest with you. The more that you are playing the victim, and if you triggered by this, it's because I'm speaking to you, And you feel in any type of ways when speaking to you, but I'm seeing it from my heart and because I want to help you, excuses, when you're playing the victim is not gonna help you. Comparing yourself to others and you're like, oh, it's okay for them because of this is not gonna help you. You gain envious, are jealous of someone else's results and you feeling how done by is not going to get you where you want to be. What's going to get you to where you want to be is identity find where you are versus your goals, identifying what you need to do to bridge that gap and doing the work. Doing the work. Work ethic outweighs everything. Every single time. You've not got a network. Build them. If you're not got the skill set, build it. If you're not got the knowledge, get some books. Do the learning, do the work, and it's going to pay off for you. Number six is keep going even when you do not see the results. This one's massive. When people join me in business after three months, I feel a bit deflated. It's not going anywhere. At least into a podcast episode, recently, the other day. And it was the founder of represent who has been interviewed he did not pay himself from his business for seven years. I'm sure that's what he said. Seven years he did not take income from his business because it wasn't doing well enough for him to pay himself. But he believed in his business and he was in it for the long haul. Now it's turning over millions and millions and millions hundreds of millions, I believe, a year to back in the day, obviously, it wasn't doing that. He said his own challenges And then, like I said, he didn't pay himself for seven years. I'm sure it was seven years like he said in that podcast episode. There was someone else, the person who had the biggest impact in McDonald's success who built all, who scaled the business to a global business, made a a multibillion dollar company out of McDonald's he did not pay himself for years. He was so busy investing into the business, investing into people, and he had the long term vision get someone doesn't make back the two hundred dollars that they've put into something straight away and they wanna quit the business. And I'm like, are you for real? Like, for one to even have a business for two hundred dollars is crazy. Like, who can set up a company? A business for two hundred dollars and that has so much potential like, how could anyone wanna give that up and well, how would you wanna pass on that opportunity anyway? And then to complain, like, you've not made it profitable in three months when bearing in mind, many people do make it profitable straightaway. It's not hard to take the money back in the business whatsoever. We give you a blueprint with teacher how to do it. But the point I'm making is It's it really it's like a it's a four to five year plan. I always say to people, look at it as a four to five year plan because even if you didn't make any money about straightaway, that's not gonna be your goal. I got to have a goal to make two hundred dollars and that's it. Like, what's the rest of your goals? Do you wanna create time freedom, financial freedom? Do you wanna create a residual willable income that's gonna pay for the rest of your life and pay family for the rest of theirs as well. It's crazy. So you gotta keep going even you don't see the results. If she gym workouts, she'll have to go to the gym once and go, oh, I gave up and I've got a six pack. I've done an hour workout today. I looked in the mirror and I've still got a six pack and done. No. You would never say that because it's just not realistic. You have to go to the gym for weeks and months, years even to get to the ideal body that you really really want to be able to endure what you want it to endure and for it to perform the way that you want it to perform. So you gotta put the work in, you gotta keep go in even when you don't see the results because like I said, it's all compounding. Everything is in motion. And the number seven is gradually increase the capacity So I did say for that small, that simple, but you will still wanna be challenging yourself. You still wanna be stretching yourself, continuous growth, continuous improvement. People say to me like, oh, you're always on it. How are you doing so much? How are you doing so well? How are you fitting so much in today? Didn't just wake up one day and I could do this. I was the biggest hot mess express ever. I was so unorganized. I literally used to thrive of Matadula I had fifty things on it every day. And I just used to love being a busy idiot. I was late for everything. I was fuzzled. I was overwhelmed. I was not doing anything productive. I was just doing work that made me feel busy. So I felt like I was being productive. And I had to really learn how to manage my time properly and that it was a massive development area of man. So what did I do? I bought loads of time management books and productivity books and I'll learn how to become productive. And I gradually decided to increase my capacity and just get better at the small things that I was doing in order to increase the output, the results on the other side of it. So continue to push yourself once you've implemented a habit and you're doing it consistently. Where else can you improve? What else can you be doing? And it's not just about the things that you bring into your life. It's what you need to, like, go from your life as well. What things do you need to let go in order to let the new habits come in? And then note number eight, The final one which is, oh by the way, did I say keep going? So yeah, that's the final tip. If you didn't get the message before you gotta keep going. You can not just do something for a few weeks or a few months then just stop. Like, that just doesn't even make sense. It's just so disappointing well when you see it. And obviously, you can't want it more for the people and some people just aren't caught for having like, certain achievements. Obviously, if everyone's supposed to achieve everything in life, the world just wouldn't go around. But it's just so frustrating when you know someone has something that they want to do whilst something that they want to achieve and they have everything going in their favor. They just don't see that vision long term and they stop all life happens, an inconvenience, and it's just like, come on. Like, how is your circumstances gonna change if you stop? Life happens to everyone. Life happens to the most successful people in the world. Life happens all the time. People are gonna pass away. People are gonna be rude to you. You're gonna feel tired. You you might have days when you feel awful, you feel sick. Stick, sick, you might have mental health challenges, you might damage your car, your house, might get broken into it. Like, there's so many things I'm just pulling out random things out of my hat there. But these things are gonna happen regardless. And without trying to sound insensitive, every single time you start when something happens like this, you setting yourself back. And, you know, the magic method in the madness, you might be okay with that. And if you're okay with that, fine. But then don't moan and complain when you've not hit your goals because you can't blame not hitting your goals and anything else. You are deciding to be where you are regardless of what's happening in your life, regardless of your circumstances, you are deciding everything. So it is so, so so important that you understand that. And if you do decide to take your foot off the grass, That's fine. That's your prerogative. But at the same time, you cannot blame a decision on anyone else because you have a choice in everything. So I hope that helps. I hope you've got some value from that. If you have to make sure you share in this, screenshot it, tag me tag your friends in it. Let me know what your biggest takeaway was from this episode, and I will see you very, very soon.