Topics: entrepreneur mistakes to avoid, tips for solopreneurs , business lessons for women entrepreneurs, mistakes I made as an entrepreneur

 

Entrepreneur Mistakes to Avoid (and some growth lessons too)…

 

I’m officially 12 years into this wild entrepreneurial ride. (If I had a baby when I started, it would be a pre-teen — let that sink in).

To mark the moment — and honestly, to save you from a few of my hard-earned mistakes — I’m sharing the 12 biggest lessons I wish I’d known sooner. These are the ones I had to learn the long way, so you don’t have to.

This isn’t a list of quick fixes or surface-level advice. This is about the lessons that change how you think, how you build, and how you lead.

 

Inside this episode, I’m opening up about:

• 🧩 The messy truth about your first clients — and how I went from zero sign-ups to 200 in one weekend (without a fancy website or audience).
• 💸 Why cheaper offers aren’t always the easier sell (This one still surprises me — and I’ll tell you exactly why it happens.)
• 🤝 The real reason “doing it alone” slows you down — and how collaborations boosted my growth.

 

It’s an honest, unpolished chat — full of stories, lessons, and the things I wish someone had told me back in year one. If you’re building, pivoting, or just need a reminder that it doesn’t have to be perfect, this one’s for you.

 

🎧 Listen and then come tell me which lesson you feel the the most — I want to hear your stories too!

 

 

 

LISTEN TO NEXT:
Kill Your Darlings

 

RESOURCES
Instagram: @chardetryel
Join Podcast Alchemy 

 

More about this entrepreneurship podcast episode

“If I had waited to have everything in place, none this would have happened.”- Chardét Ryel, podcaster & visibility mentor

 

• What if my family and friends don’t support my business
• How do I know when to quit a business idea
• Which are the ways to find BALANCE and not burnout?
• What’s the best organic way to grow my business?

 

Entrepreneurship Mistakes to Avoid…and the lessons (12 of them!)

Have you ever wondered what 12 years of entrepreneurship really teaches you — beyond the Instagram highlights and flashy “six-figure launch” claims?

It’s not just a journey of wins. It’s also a collection of hard lessons, uncomfortable pivots, and quiet moments when you seriously consider packing it all in and doing something safer. And yet, for many of us, it’s those exact moments that hold the most power. The messy middle is where the growth actually happens.

Over the past decade-plus, I’ve built businesses in different industries, across different countries, and through plenty of personal reinventions. And let me tell you, there is no better teacher than experience (preferably someone else’s, so you don’t have to pay the same price). That’s why I recorded an entire episode of Her First Three Years pulling back the curtain on the real business lessons for women entrepreneurs like you — especially the ones I wish I’d learned a little sooner.

This isn’t a list of quick fixes or surface-level advice. This is about the lessons that change how you think, how you build, and how you lead. If you’re in the thick of building your dream, this is your reminder: you are not alone in the trial and error. And you are certainly not alone in making a few face-palm-worthy choices along the way.

 

Why Waiting for “Perfect” Will Hold You Back – a BIG business lesson

There’s a special kind of paralysis that comes from believing everything needs to be perfect before you start. It feels responsible at first, but really? It’s just fear in disguise.

“If I had waited to have everything in place, none of that would have happened.”

One of the biggest mistakes I made as an entrepreneur was thinking I needed all my ducks in a row before pitching my first big opportunity. In reality, momentum comes from messy action. Most of the wins I’ve had started long before I felt “ready.”

If you’re looking for entrepreneur mistakes to avoid, make this one your priority: don’t wait until you feel fully prepared. Start scrappy. Start now.

 

Validate First, Build Second (a secret of successful entrepreneurs)

Let’s be honest: we’ve all been there, pouring time and energy into something we’re convinced people will love — only to hear crickets.

“It’s not about creating more stuff — it’s about creating what people actually want.”

One of the clearest business lessons for women entrepreneurs is this: your excitement for an idea isn’t enough. You’ve got to test the market early. Get the offer out there. See if people are willing to pay for it before you invest months into building it. Trust me, this one lesson alone could save you years of frustration.

 

Higher Prices Can Actually Mean Easier Sales – a pricing strategy to think about

Yes, it sounds backwards. But one of the most surprising mistakes I made as an entrepreneur was assuming lower prices would make selling easier. Spoiler: it doesn’t work that way.

“People want more attention, they want more value, they want more direction — and they’re willing to pay for it.”

The truth is, premium offers often attract more committed buyers. People value depth, care, and transformation — and they expect to invest accordingly. Pricing boldly doesn’t just benefit your bank account; it also attracts the right people into your world.

 

You Were Never Meant to Do This Alone (find other women entrepreneurs!)

Entrepreneurship can feel isolating, especially if you pride yourself on being independent. But connection isn’t just nice to have — it’s essential for growth.

“No one is doing this alone. Growth always comes from collaboration in some way.”

Whether it’s partnerships, podcast guest swaps, or honest conversations with fellow founders, leaning on others accelerates your growth in ways hustle never could. If you’re making a list of entrepreneur mistakes to avoid, write this one in bold: trying to build in a vacuum.

 

Your First Business Won’t Be Your Last so it’s ok to focus now

Here’s a comforting reminder for every woman feeling trapped in her current business model: you are allowed to evolve.

“Your first idea isn’t your final destination.”

It took me years to understand that my business could grow as I grew. Some of the best business lessons for women entrepreneurs come from permission — permission to pivot, to outgrow old ideas, and to step into something that feels more aligned. Quitting isn’t failure. Sometimes, it’s the most strategic move you can make.

“I thought if I worked hard enough, I could make it work — but sometimes, it’s okay to let go.”

 

Your Journey Deserves the Full Entrepreneurship Story

What I know for sure is this: we don’t talk enough about the mistakes. And yet, these mistakes I made as an entrepreneur have been my greatest teachers.

If you’re reading this and seeing your own story in these words, know that you are exactly where you need to be. Growth isn’t linear, and your journey isn’t meant to look like anyone else’s. But you can learn from those of us a little further down the path — and you can build a business that feels like yours, not what the internet says it should be.

This blog barely scratches the surface of the real, raw, behind-the-scenes lessons. In the latest episode of Her First Three Years, I share even more stories, reflections, and truths I wish I’d known earlier.

 

🎧 Want More? Listen to the Full Episode

 

✨ And if you need a nudge toward your next move?

Download the free guide: 17 Ideas to Get Clients Without Ads or Instagram

 

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS ENTREPRENEURSHIP PODCAST EPISODE

Chardet Ryel (00:00.181)
This month, I’m celebrating 12 years as an entrepreneur, which sounds unreal. If I had a baby, it would be a preteen. it’s a really interesting time. And I wanted to kind of celebrate by sharing some of the biggest lessons, biggest mistakes over this time, because I think I have started three different kinds of businesses. I’ve had multiple projects.

I’ve tried to do this in different countries. There’s just been a lot of lessons and a lot of things that I really wish I would have known sooner. So I’m going to be sharing them with you and I know that at least one of them, no matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, is going to help you.

Chardet Ryel (00:49.066)
Welcome to her first 3 years. From breakdowns to blunders, learn what worked and what didn’t. I’m your host Charday and whether you’re a new entrepreneur or you’re just starting something new, this is your space to learn and feel little less alone. I’ll see you inside.

These are in no particular order of importance. They’re all important, but just the way that they came to my mind. So the first one that I think about is the idea of make it as you fake it. And I did say that the way I said it for a reason, because when you first start out, you see that

you kind of have to improvise and you have to get resourceful and sometimes you have to commit to do something before you know how the hell you’re going to do it. And that was definitely my very first lesson that

Initially, I felt bad doing it. felt like, no, no, everything’s got to be perfect first before I launch. And I think that’s what stopped me from becoming an entrepreneur because I knew from the time I was 21, I did a business class in entrepreneurship. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t actually start my first business until I was 27 when I was kind of, well, let’s say I was unemployed first for eight months and was kind of, that was the option.

But when I think about it, when I first started, one of the things I did that I feel very proud about and I wish I would have done more is I had started this boot camp in Central Park. That was my very first business and I had it be Brazilian themed and I was so excited about it. I went and got my personal training certification. I went and scouted the areas. I went to all the competition making notes, you know, afterwards, this is how they’re doing lunches. And I created the website from scratch. No tech experience.

Chardet Ryel (02:39.476)
If you were to see that website now, it was pretty bad, but you know, we start. And I even had a friend create the logo. When it came time to launch, I was really excited. We had a pre-launch event, lots of friends came. It was really successful. But then when the first official day came to book a class, no one signed up. And that continued for about two weeks. And so I’m sitting there thinking, this is really, how am I, you know, this is bad.

This is my future. What am I going to do? And I came up with this idea. This was the time when Groupon and Living Social, if you remember, were just really starting to get big. And those were where they offered deals on different things from fitness classes to restaurants and around especially the New York area where I was. And so I called up Groupon and I said, look, I’ve got this really great concept. It’s going to be the next big thing. Will you feature me on your platform?

And they said, we got to think about it. We’ll come back to you. Again, faking it a little bit, right? I don’t have anything working. And then I went to Living Social and I did the same thing. They were competitors. And I said, you know, I’m thinking about going to Groupon because I feel like they have a bigger base. And I remember this conversation with this lady. She’s going to laugh if she listens to this. Where I said to her, I think it’s going to be so popular on Groupon. It’s going to be one of their top 10. Do you want me to be on your platform?

So we got into this discussion and she ended up saying okay Yeah We want you on here and not only are we going to put you on our platform and send you to all of our distribution lists But we are also going to put you at the top of our newsletter list So we are gonna feature you to everyone but keep in mind. She’s probably thinking like this is a Super established person. She’s got this really interesting concept. We’re just gonna be you know benefiting from it a little bit and then she

made it live at this point again I have zero clients and once that went live in one weekend I had I think 200 some people buy packages so one month unlimited packages to my bootcamp and from there that continued to grow. If I had waited to have created the concept, if I had waited to say no I’m not ready to go to these platforms, if I had portrayed myself as just like a newbie startup none of that would have happened.

Chardet Ryel (05:01.292)
and I wouldn’t have formed the base of the business. So I really encourage you that if you’re worried it’s too early or you’re worried that you don’t have everything in place, just go, you know, just do it because it will always be something that you feel proud of, whether it works out or not, and it won’t be something that you regret. So do that. That is biggest lesson from my year one and something that honestly I wish I would have done a little bit more of.

Lesson two, and I think this is one that I took a long time to learn. For people who are online entrepreneurs, you learn this early. For those of us who come from the in-person world, which is what I was, I was an in-person entrepreneur, coach, instructor until 2020. I learned this late. And it’s the idea of monetize first. So anything you create, make sure there is not only demand, but that you have paying customers before you go and do it.

because you’re gonna spend a lot of time creating otherwise something that people might not even want. And that is exactly what I did. When I first went into online world during COVID, I had joined a program just before COVID actually, because I already was thinking I wanna be online. And I’ve talked about this on the podcast, how I spent 10K to do this program to create a course that was 360 holistic nutrition, fitness.

and I spent six months building it. And when it came time to launch it, no one bought it. No one wanted it. No one got this. I’d spent six months of my entrepreneurial life focusing just on this one product that no one even wanted. Now I was able to repurpose a lot of that program into something else that did work. But at the time it was really kind of a big slap in the face of, okay, maybe you should have validated this first.

Because as entrepreneurs, we get really big ideas. I still do this today. And then we don’t actually see if people want them. And I think that’s the hardest thing in the world is to realize that you have this amazing idea, but people don’t want it or they don’t want it the way you’re presenting it. Now, I do think as you get more established, as you get more of a following and more of a community, you have more leeway to create stuff and innovate because you are recognized as, but in the beginning,

Chardet Ryel (07:18.784)
especially if you’re changing businesses or you’re changing countries where you operate, you’re changing industries, stick with how can I sell this first? And so one of the big things I have been doing, experimenting with is seeing, because now I’m in the podcasting world and teaching people this, and I really want to bring it to the group level, not just one to one, which is what I’ve done historically. And so I’ve played with different ways of how do people want to be on podcasts? Like, do they want to be a guest?

Do they want to have their own show? Do they want to grow their show? And each time I’m learning what do people want, but always making sure to sell first. And the biggest lesson you learn is if no one’s buying it, to change it around. Lesson number three. This one is kind of mind boggling when you think about it. And many people might disagree with me, but I have seen this again and again over 12 years. It is easier to sell expensive stuff.

It is easier for you to sell something that is really expensive than to sell something that is really cheap. And there’s a few reasons for this. The biggest being that people, especially now and in the online world, are very skeptical of the value that you’re bringing because they’ve been scammed so many times. They’ve gotten the course, they’ve gotten the program, they’ve paid the whatever it is, even when they’re paying $12 and it hasn’t

really worked for them or they realized that actually I need something more. And so people understand that they get more attention, they get more value, usually not always, the more they pay. And what had always fascinated me is that I had these retreats, fitness retreats that I ran and they started at $1,000 a piece and then they grew to be 3K a piece and those were easier to sell. I would sell those

within a couple months of the date of actually running the retreat. Those were easier for me to sell than a fitness membership I had, which at the time was $25 a month. Now it’s $10. It was still easier to sell those retreats. That is wild to me that that’s the case. But you see it again and again that people want more attention.

Chardet Ryel (09:27.31)
They want more value. They want more direction. And so I would really encourage you to, even if you have a low cost product and I understand it’s more scalable, I understand long-term it’s more passive income, but especially now in the beginning, or if you’re figuring things out, is there something super high value that you can create? And I always think of James Wedmore, the business coach, when I think of his saying that create it and make it 10 times more valuable than what you’re charging.

think that’s a good way to feel comfortable in charging more for something is if you know that it is even more valuable than what you’re asking for it. Lesson number four, you cannot, and I repeat, not do this alone. Anyone who’s been successful in entrepreneurship,

they had support in some way. And I really wanted to be the one who was like the independent woman and created everything on her own and never had help from anybody. And she was going to be featured in all these stories for doing it. But the more people I have met in this journey, the more that I have really gone to different networking events that I’ve interviewed different entrepreneurs who are super successful, you see no one’s doing it alone. And a lot of times that first big growth spurt and continued growth

comes from collaborations with other people in your industry or related to your industry or it could be with brands but it is always in collaboration with someone else in some way. It is never on your own. So really think about how can you grow in collaboration with others. I will say again and again that I really believe in podcasting specifically because it’s naturally a collaboration and it doesn’t require a lot.

of investment of time or capital etc to get someone to agree to collaborate with you, right? You share audiences. So I think that has been such a learning and I do want to say that it probably took me a few years to do it. And I know that if I had done it from year one, I would be in a very different place actually much sooner. So I really encourage that. Lesson number five, do not seek external validation. This is

Chardet Ryel (11:42.502)
really hard because when we go into entrepreneurship, we’re already going outside of society’s norms. We want to be able to prove to our friends, our family, even strangers that we were successful, that we didn’t just give up all this secure cushy life to fail. And that is exactly what you’re doing.

We don’t want to feel that, right? Our ego really gets involved and the ego is the biggest obstacle you will face in your business. Something that has taken me years to get over. And this idea of looking for other people to validate what I’m doing. You know, being personally upset when people unsubscribe who I know or friends who didn’t really care what I was doing in my business or didn’t ask questions. But what you learn is this, people don’t care. Most people don’t care.

what you’re doing with your business and they won’t remember the time they didn’t support you. So it’s pointless to focus on it. And I had found this really hard. I found this to be very difficult, especially because sometimes the people that you most want the support from will not give it to you because they don’t understand. And so you can’t say, well, if I had support from this person, then I could do well. Or if this person approved of me, then I would know I’m doing well. You gotta let it go.

Let it go, seek support from people who are actually in your industry, who are entrepreneurs because they are the only ones who will truly, really understand. The last thing I’m going to say about this because I think it will bring it home is your business or businesses are like your babies. And if you think about your friends who have babies, we know that a lot of times, you know, you see the photos, you like it, but

Do you really get invested in that kid’s journey unless you’re super close to the friend and even then? So it’s the same thing when they see your business stuff. They’re like, it’s great, but it’s your baby. It’s not theirs. When you frame it that way, you can see it’s not really personal. It’s just the way that life goes. We live in our bubbles. Lesson six. The business you have now is not the one that you need to have forever.

Chardet Ryel (13:52.17)
I found this really hard because there’s certain things I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to be known as that person. So I didn’t want to niche down, for example. I didn’t want to choose an area to focus on too much because I didn’t want to be stuck and known for my whole career in that area. And this is a really outdated way of thinking that comes from the corporate world that you build your experience in one segment, get really good, get paid well.

get successful. But the world has changed even in that world where we are continually moving, getting different skills, starting different businesses. I told you I’ve done at least three in many different projects related to them. But for the longest time, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. I didn’t want to be the fitness person. I didn’t want to be the nutrition person. I didn’t want to be just the podcaster. These felt very limiting.

And when you have a very creative personality, as many of you do if you’re listening to this, it’s hard to accept that you are going to focus on mostly one area of your creativity. But what really helps is to recognize it’s not forever. It can always change. What I’m doing now, 12 years into my journey, is so different from year one when I was screaming in Central Park with a group of women talking about how we are going to burn our booties.

Like it’s totally different, right? Not even comparable. And I wish that I would have sooner accepted this because I think that I could have leaned more into those things and not felt so trapped. So remember, you can always change your business. You can always change your focus. Lesson number seven, know the customer journey before you start. I feel like I did this by accident.

And it worked out for me in the fitness world, but I was a lot more mindful of it now having switched into podcasting and visibility coaching. And it’s that you want to walk into what you’re doing.

Chardet Ryel (15:50.696)
understanding the different stages of where your customer is at because then you can create for them at different stages. It also allows you to have a recurring customer because they enter at the first stage of working with you or one of your products and then they ascend and keep going and then maybe come back around. That’s something that I didn’t truly understand so I was

thinking that people have one problem and I’m gonna solve it. So for example, with the boot camp, was people wanna exercise, they want it to be fun, I’ll create that. What have been really good to think about is, okay, well, once people are exercising and having fun and they wanna get more focused, what’s the next step? Or if people don’t wanna go outside and they want to still train while they’re at home or vacationing, what’s the step there? Or if they wanna go deeper into health and not just focus on fitness, but nutrition.

what’s the step there? And it doesn’t mean you create all of this stuff at once. I’ve made that mistake. It just means that you’re aware of it from the very beginning. And so when I did this by accident, it was, had this fitness program where I was getting people, I think it was called, say, Santa challenge, 60 days to really focus on your health. And I had after that a bonus program to keep you going and help you really learn how to train on your own.

figure out your meals on your own. And that was by accident rather than design, so it probably didn’t work as well as it could have, but it was smart. Because I also then had people who were like, well, I don’t need these 60 days to focus on training because I already do, but I’m really interested in making this more a part of my life. Also, when I created the fitness membership, it was another side of it.

of online training of, I don’t want to train with someone in person all the time, but I can work with you in this capacity. So thinking about the journey, if you haven’t already, where do your people start and what are related things they can do at the same time? So in the case of my online home training, compliments in-person training, whether I’m the one delivering it or they’re working with someone else, that would be an example. What I’m creating now with the podcasting side is I’ve created

Chardet Ryel (17:56.396)
the starting journey of you’re interested in this world, you want to be a thought leader, go be a guest. That’s pod boost. The next one is podcast alchemy. You’re ready to start a show, but you want help. The next journey after that is going to be a podcast growth membership. You have a show, but you need it to grow.

And so I might get someone who starts as a guest and then moves through that cycle, but I also might get someone who’s never worked with me before and they say, I actually have a show. Can I come in at the growth part? Now, all of these ideas are things that are constantly being experimented, getting feedback. Yes, there have been failed launches. Yes, there had been things that have not worked, but understanding this and slowly creating each step of the way is really powerful for you to do. Lesson number eight, revenue does not mean profit.

And you probably understand this, but I’m really emphasizing it, not just for your own business where you think I’m making all this money, but where is it? It’s also when you’re evaluating who you’re going to get help from because something that is a huge pet peeve for me is all of these coaches who talk about having six figure launches, seven figure, you know, income.

and then they don’t talk about how they’re actually losing money because their expenses are so high. Their ad costs are so significant. They have a supporting team with salaries. To me, that is not sustainable.

Okay, maybe for a year or two, of course, you’re growing. We see this all the time in the startup world. You need to do that. Maybe also you have some years where you lose money, of course. But the idea of saying and championing your success as a seven-figure entrepreneur when you are not taking home even six figures, let’s say, that is so dishonest and inauthentic. And I think you really want to be mindful of that. And also thinking about it from your own point that I’ve learned again and again.

Chardet Ryel (19:44.0)
It doesn’t matter if you’re able to sell something at a super high ticket, if you’re not able to manage your expenses. And I really know that what got me for probably the first several years is not managing my expenses. It’s not having a sense of this is what these things cost. So be mindful of it. I’m not saying to not invest in your business or yourself. I’m constantly doing that too, or to take a loss, but to think about

This is important, right? Like, in a balance sheet, the expenses are important, not just how much you’re making. Lesson number nine, one I wish I learned sooner. Quitting is not always giving up. Sometimes it is an evolution. So when I look back, and there’s an episode you should listen to this next called Killing Your Darlings, where I talk about this concept from…

amazing entrepreneur and friend, Carla Beesinger, who says, sometimes the thing you love the most in your business is not working and you need to get rid of it or pivot it. And one of the hardest things to do is accept that if I quit this thing, it’s not actually that I’m failing or giving up. It’s just that I am moving on to the next stage. That was very hard for me and it led me to continue with things that were not working for a really long time.

And it meant losing money, it meant not growing, it meant being extremely frustrated because I could not let go of things for fear of, then I’m giving up. No, I should make this work. If I work hard enough, I can make this work. And sometimes that’s true, but sometimes it’s okay to just say, this is not for me, I’ve tried and keep moving. And I’ve done that a lot more in recent years to keep rejiggering and reconfiguring how things are going to look.

A big example, for example, is I had this pod boost program, is how to be a podcast guest. So getting on shows, getting clients from shows without having to have your own podcast. And in the beginning, I envisioned that as a higher ticket thing with lots of one-to-one support.

Chardet Ryel (21:42.159)
And what I realized moving through is that this is not actually the product for that level of interaction. It’s better for this to either be a supporting thing to starting your show or to be financially really accessible to people and they kind of do it at their own pace. It was hard for me to give up on the idea of what I had though, but I’ve learned to do that. And so I did do that and it created space for me to

Create Podcast Alchemy, which is starting your own show and then this next one of growing your show. Had I been wed just to the one thing, had I been afraid still that that meant failing or quitting or giving up, then I wouldn’t have done that. So it’s okay if something you’re thinking about is not really working and you want to let it go, but you feel like you’re going to disappoint yourself or someone else. Lesson 10. You are not

your business. Again, something that I heard probably seven years into my journey and didn’t really accept until maybe nine years in, which is that you and your business are not the same thing. Your business’s success does not reflect on your worthiness or your intelligence or anything like that. Your business’s failure doesn’t either. How people view your business is not necessarily how they view you.

People can care about you as a person and not give a crap about your business. Back to the thing I said about people’s babies, okay? We can love our friend the most possible and be there for them, but we don’t always feel, you know, super attached to their kids. Sometimes you do, of course. That’s okay. And it’s the same with your business. When this really hit home for me was, you know when someone says something to you and it makes you so angry because you feel emotionally triggered by it.

and then you look back on what they said and you realize that it was true. And that’s why you got so upset. So for me, that moment was, I remember speaking to a friend and she might be listening and she was saying how a lot of people in, I had this meetup group, which was a Brazilian Portuguese meetup group in London, grew it from zero people to over a thousand. And I remember her saying to me that,

Chardet Ryel (23:51.471)
When I had stopped doing the meetup because of COVID, she said, you know, I remember a lot of people told me to not really get to know you or be friends with you because all you cared about was your business and that you would just try to sell it to me and make me a customer.

This was before I had become friends with her, of course. And I got very upset about that because I felt like I put so much energy into these free events. I was never paid for them. And I just wanted to connect with people and create community. But if I look back now, I can also be honest and say, yeah, like I did want to sell my services and products. I did talk to people a lot about that. The big thing from that is don’t connect with people, especially in real life, always expecting a sale.

because I did that and people see through it. And you need to separate. I did that because my identity was so attached to the business. And it’s very shameful to say this because it’s a very close-minded way to think. It’s not how I think now. It’s a lesson I really wish I would have learned sooner. So make sure you separate your identity. You meet people, especially in real life, without always expecting a sale from them.

You meet them as they are, as a relationship, as a possible friend, interested in their lives. If it aligns for you to help them with your business, then go for it. But nobody likes the person who’s always walking into the room. We think of like the greasy salesman, right? Don’t be that person. You will find that when you stop doing this, you actually connect to more people. And even if people don’t buy from you, they’re often sharing your stuff.

your posts, your blog, your podcast, they want to help you because you connect with them in a very real way. So if you think you are one of these people who is only relating to others on a transactional level, reevaluate that. Lesson 11, you don’t have to niche down, but you do have to get more focused. I told you before, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed, and that led me to doing tons of different stuff that wasn’t related and pouring my energy always into creating.

Chardet Ryel (25:56.025)
launching and then never refining, never growing, never taking feedback back on stuff. A big part of that was is that I didn’t want to focus. If you can accept that for a short amount of time at least, I am going to focus on this area. You can have your umbrella piece, which is this is my wider identity. So I’m doing this work now with a coach. The big thing for me is this broader piece of raising your voice.

finding the confidence to share your story, to really get yourself out there is my umbrella piece. And within that,

is podcasting that I’m focusing on right now, but it is not the only thing that will be within that. So thinking about what is your focus? Because what I did before, my big mistake was I had at one point in time, I was doing nutrition coaching, one-to-one personal training in person and online. I was also running retreats. I was doing fitness events and I was working at studios and gyms.

at the same time as one person. What kind of growth could I possibly have when I’m spread so thin? So really focus at least for the short term. Very last one, number 12. Kind of related to what I said a bit earlier, know and check the morals of someone you are buying from. So I’m talking about specifically that you’re gonna work with to develop a skill or to develop your business. It’s not…

okay to just go with someone because they have results. And you’ll see this because it really does have like a karmic effect on you. You feel unaligned and people can perceive that. And the biggest example I have of this is during 2020, I bought from a coach in the fitness space, very well known, super bro-y. I knew that his values didn’t align with mine. You he didn’t really care about what people’s…

Chardet Ryel (27:45.703)
health journey was or sustainable results. It was about selling, but I wanted to learn how to sell in the way that he was. And so I thought I’m just going to buy this course, whatever I’ll buy it. It really kind of ripped at me every time to see some of his videos where he would share screen shares and be talking of

private messages he had with women especially but also men talking about how insecure they felt in their bodies and seeing him talk about how he would just feed that insecurity and pressure them into a call. Those are horrific morals. This is someone who has done extremely well but at what cost? Not only the fact that he was doing this but that he was sharing this and suggesting that other people do it. It’s just not worth it to you to go to someone just because of the results that they have. Really look at

who are they as a person, because not only are you fueling and funding them, you are also saying that I am this kind of person. Because if you’re part of their community, whether you admit it or not, you are buying into their ideas. Make sure that you really think about, do I value what they value? Do I value how they come across? That’s really important. Just like you wouldn’t go on a date with someone just because of how they look if they don’t have other.

features or at least you’d walk away. So that is the end of these 12 lessons that I wish I would have learned sooner from 12 years as an entrepreneur. Let me know on Instagram, you can find me Sharday Royale, which one resonates with you the most, one through 12. And if you’ve got your own lesson, please share it with me there too. If you find that there’s something that you really wish you…

that had known earlier that people need to know, write a review about this episode on Apple or Spotify and include to what you wish you would have known. Because I think with reviews, like it’s great for you to say, enjoy this show, thank you for doing that. I also like people to learn from each other. So thank you so much for being here. Remember, Kill Your Darlings is an episode to listen to next. If you want even more on how to really grow into your business and your next stage. And I will see you in the next one.

Chardet Ryel (29:54.809)
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