Tiffany Han is a life coach who doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to living authentically. She’s authentic and genuine, and now that’s what she does for a living, helping other people as a life coach. This is an amazing story of how she started from a passion project blog to making a really good income while working for herself.
Tiffany’s Website: https://www.tiffanyhan.com/
Episode Transcript
Josh Haynam:
Hi, everyone. This week, we’re here with Tiffany Han. She is a life coach who has been coaching full time since 2013, which means … I’m terrible at math, seven years.
Tiffany Han:
Seven years.
Josh Haynam:
Yep, seven years. And she is now making seven and a half times more than her previous job’s salary, which is very impressive. But I’m sure there are lots of steps along the way. So, give us the scoop. How did you get started in this? And how did you get to where you are now?
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. So, I think the steps even go earlier than 2013 when I started coaching full-time. I started actually blogging back in 2008, when blogging was in its heyday. And I think that was the beginning for me, of this idea of oh, I could do something differently. I don’t have to go down the path that I thought I needed to go down, which was go to college, get a good job and be in that job for however many years. And eventually retire, and get a watch, and be happy then for the rest of my life. So, for me, blogging was really the first step into that, into that kind of scrappy entrepreneurial world. Then I started coaching in 2011.
Tiffany Han:
So, it also, for me, was a couple of years of coaching before I was able to take it full-time. So, I was doing part-time coaching for a couple of years, and really throwing so much spaghetti at the wall to try to see what would work, and then also trying to figure out ways to pay the bills. What was the thing that I’m going to do to pay the bills while I get this other stuff going? And I really looked out for that. I ended up going back to my old non-profit job working part-time. And one thing I hear from people a lot is well, I’m going to take the easiest job that I can find, and often that easiest job they can find is something that doesn’t pay very well.
Tiffany Han:
My advice is always take the best paying opportunity that you can find, that if you are able to have boundaries around, that’s great. Because what I was able to do in going back to my non-profit job part-time, was that covered all my bills. So, I wasn’t having to make business choices from a place of desperation. I was able to really look at what’s going to help move me forward in a way that feels like it’s in alignment, and I also just acknowledge that it’s a complete privilege to have been able to do that, that that opportunity isn’t available to everybody. And so, I feel incredibly lucky that that was a choice that I was able to make.
Josh Haynam:
So, I wanted to dive in a little on the very first part. So, it’s 2008, where were you working at that point?
Tiffany Han:
So, in 2008 I was working at a non-profit in San Francisco. And my job was fine, it was fine. It was great. It looked good on paper, all of that and I was just really miserable. I was not happy, and it was not the job’s fault, but I was feeling this malaise of what am I doing? Where’s the magic in this life? And that was when I started blogging, and my early blog was not good. It was fine. It was not good, but slowly over time … Sometimes people say, “What helped you become successful when you launched your coaching in 2011?” And part of trying answer is I started creating content … I was already creating content. I had already started building … Back then I didn’t call it an audience, but I had readers for my blog, I had people that I knew, I had this community. And so, I already had people to talk to when I launched my business, and that’s something that I always encourage people to do.
Tiffany Han:
People will want to launch a business, and they’ll work so hard on their first online class. And yes, great, but then when they go to market it they don’t have anyone to sell it to. And so, I always think get, as much as possible, get out there and start … If you’re going to have a content marketing strategy, start building up some content. Because also the beginning of the content’s probably not going to be great. And it’s best to do that when no one’s paying attention.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. We just had somebody go back through our blog and remove a bunch of old content, and I think they removed like 250 articles that I wrote in the early days. They were just so bad, looking back. So, I want to hear more about that, I don’t know what to call it, boredom?
Tiffany Han:
Malaise.
Josh Haynam:
Un-fulfillment, malaise, I’m not sure what that actually means. What does that mean?
Tiffany Han:
Just I think like a low-level sadness, dissatisfaction. And I don’t want to blasé about the word depression. But it is this way of being depressed. It’s this low, just like … Kind of blah-ness about things.
Josh Haynam:
Did you feel like you had more to offer? And it wasn’t being met?
Tiffany Han:
For me, it was a lot of looking at what I did, from the outside looking in it was great. And for me, one of the big turning points was I had actually decided to get an MBA. I decided to go to business school. Everybody in my life thought it was a good idea. My employer thought it was a good idea, my family thought it was a good idea, all my friends … From the outside looking in, it made perfect sense. And when I started filling out business school applications, and they all were asking the very appropriate question, “Why do you want an MBA?” I couldn’t answer it. I couldn’t answer it, and I realized all of the things that I was “good at”, anybody could be good at them.
Tiffany Han:
Anybody with the right amount of training and a certain personality set could do my non-profit job that I was good at. And it really, for me, started looking at … And I didn’t know the terminology sort of genius, back then, now I’m familiar with that idea. But for me, it was really about what is my unique contribution to make in people’s lives? And how can I do that in a way that I’m not spending my entire day sending emails, and responding to emails, and being in meetings.
Josh Haynam:
And what was that thing?
Tiffany Han:
I mean, I think I’m still figuring it out. I think that I’m still in it, and so I also think that’s a really useful reminder for me and for everybody, is you may never arrive at the point of knowing all the things. For me and my business, and I’m a coach, but I am a podcaster and a writer, and a speaker, and I do a whole lot of things. For me and my business, I have three big goals. And those are read a lot of books, write a lot of books, and have as many interesting conversations as possible. And so, I really look at everything that I’m doing through the lens of those three goals, and want to make sure that at least for right now the choices I’m making are going to help push me into one of those three channels.
Josh Haynam:
Curious, what was your very first blog post?
Tiffany Han:
Oh, gosh. So, my blog was called Live Happy, and it’s actually really funny where when I go back and read the archives … It’s still up, my old blog is still up. I kept it up because it’s just fun for me to show my clients and be like, “Look at where I was then.” I think that it was about this idea of how to live an inspired life, which is so interesting because I’m still talking about a lot of those same concepts, just with … In completely different ways. And with a lot more experience and knowledge, and understanding, and training under my belt.
Josh Haynam:
How did you know what to start writing about?
Tiffany Han:
Oh gosh, I mean, I think I just … That was when I remember I read a lot of blogs, that was in the Google Reader days, where we’re all reading all the blogs all the time. And this has been something that I’ve always done, is I’ve always seen other people do things and thought to myself, “I can do that. I think I can do that.” And rather than just saying, “I can do that,” and having it be like an ego thing, it has always driven me into action. Like, “Oh, I think I could do that,” and then I do it. That’s how I started my podcast, that’s how I started doing speaking. And with blogging, I was reading a lot of blogs, and I thought, “I think I could do that.” And so, I just started writing. I remember it really was, for me, a way of finding the people who wanted to have the conversations that I wanted to have.
Tiffany Han:
Because there were a lot of people in my real life who I would try to have these conversations with, and they would look at me a little bit like I was crazy. So, I was like, “Well, fine. If you guys don’t want to have the conversations with me here, I’m going to find my people who will.” And I did. And I would say that most of those people, we’re not friends anymore. And it’s not that we broke up, but you’ve got your work friends, and we’ve all moved on in our lives. They say create what you want to exist in the world. And I think yes, I also think that at times that can be a really tall order. And so, I think though, start having the conversations that you want to be having, and trust that the people to have them with will arrive.
Tiffany Han:
Get on your soapbox before the audience shows up.
Josh Haynam:
All right. So, did you just start writing, and then eventually those people came to you? What happened?
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. I mean, and again, this advice I think would be challenging for someone to try to replicate today exactly. But this was in the day where you commented on people’s blog posts, and you left a link to your … Then they click through, and then they commented on your post. And it really was a whole lot of that. I was on Twitter a lot, the political landscape of Twitter was not what it is now, then. I don’t know that any of these specific things would happen the way that they will now. I shared stuff on Facebook, I was in Facebook groups with people, and we all shared things and left comments. That was when I guess Pinterest … I wasn’t getting into Pinterest for a few more years.
Tiffany Han:
That was when Instagram was really different, when people were posting terrible photos of their lives, and it was fun, and everything was great. So, it was a lot of doing a little bit very consistently. I mean, I would blog three to five times a week. And just, you keep going. But even now, I will say its been … That’s 12 years later, I’ve got a lot of different moving parts in my business, and all of that. But I’m still focused on what are the conversations I want to be having, and how can I make eye contact with people?
Josh Haynam:
So, was that really why you were doing it in the first place, was just I want to talk to people that I can connect with, and this is how I can do that?
Tiffany Han:
I think that was it, and I think it was also that I wasn’t hearing the conversations that I wanted to hear. There were things that were lighting me up that I couldn’t find a place to talk about them. And that has been something, for me in my work, that’s been a really common thread. And it’s what’s allowed me to evolve my business, and my message, and keep going deeper is always the thing that I see that’s like oh my God, we need to be talking about this more, why is nobody talking about this? And you assume that everybody knows about it, and you get really excited. And then you’re like, “Oh. Nobody knows this yet.” Or some people know it, of course. I’m not saying I discovered the next thing. But people aren’t talking about it in this way, they’re not putting the pieces together in this way.
Tiffany Han:
Or, one of the things I love to do on my podcast is find people that I’m really jazzed about to get them in front of my listeners. To be like, “You need to know about this person. They’re doing amazing things.” So, I think part of my job is to help connect those dots for people.
Josh Haynam:
And in the progression of the story, I think the next big hurdle is how do I actually make money off of this? What did that look like? So, it sounds like you started to have conversations, you started to kind of grow this network of people that wanted to have these kind of conversations. How did you start making money?
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. So, I started my coaching training, I did a year long coach training program in 2011. And I had a background, I had a degree in psychology, undergrad. So, I already had a little bit of a background in that, and a lot of interest in that. And I mean, really, it started with me literally emailing everyone I knew. Literally it was an email where 150 people were Bcc’d, saying, “I’m doing this thing. Are you interested? Do you know anyone who’s interested?” For my certification program that I did for my coach training, we had to have five paying clients. And they did that on purpose, they were like, “Because we are training professional coaches, so you have to figure out how to get five paying clients.” And this was before everybody on the internet was a marketing expert.
Tiffany Han:
So, it was super scrappy, and I just kept asking people. And then I asked more people, and then I got a couple people, and then during the time … It’s really interesting. So, I was getting my coach training, doing my certification, working with my clients. I was working part-time in my non-profit job, so I lived in the East Bay so I drove into San Francisco every morning, and I worked there from 8:30 to 12:30. Drove back across the bridge to the East Bay, which was its own thing. And I also, during that time, was co-running a business that was an in-person art studio and workshop space with two friends. And we brought in instructors to teach workshops, teach creative workshops. It was a lot. I will say that. I look back at my calendars from that time, I always save calendars, and I feel the anxiety. I feel the juggle, it was kind of non-stop. It was really relentless, I was bouncing around all over the place.
Tiffany Han:
And that art studio business ended up … We did it for two years, and it never ended up being profitable. So, it had to close, and it really pulled a lot of my energy away from my coaching. But that was another thing that got me in front of big groups of brand new people. And that was something that was great. And then when I started my podcast a year later, I was able to build off of the relationships that I made with different instructors, invite them on, interview them. So, I know it sounds really eye roll-y when people say it’s all about relationships, but it’s all about relationships. It’s all about building trust with people, building connections, it is.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. I mean, I 100% resonate with that. Every good thing that happens comes out of a conversation where you understand somebody that you’re trying to help. Were you afraid of what people would say when you emailed people being like, “Hey, I do this thing now. Do you want to pay for it?”
Tiffany Han:
Yes. I mean, there have been so many points where I should probably plot this out, do a timeline, where there have been so many points where I’ve thought to myself, “I can’t do this. This is crazy. This is crazy, I can’t do this.” Yes, I was afraid then, yes, I was afraid of bothering people. I was afraid when I started my podcast. I started my podcast in 2014 when I had five-month-old twins at home. Was I afraid that … Yes. That didn’t make any sense? Was I afraid when I decided to quit drinking in 2017 and made a big public declaration that I don’t have a good relationship with alcohol, and I’m sober, and I’m in recovery? Yes. Yeah. All of it. Was I afraid to drop business coach from my title? Was I afraid to drop branding strategist from my title? Because those were things that were very tangible.
Tiffany Han:
And everyone says your niche is everything, and they were very tangible, and people could very easily see how I could help them. And to then go back into life coaching in a way that I believe in 100% and that’s why I’m here, but it just … The truth is it’s a little bit harder to sell. It’s harder to promise people actual results when the results are you might feel radically different when you wake up in the morning, and nothing else in your life may change. Which is actually going to be the thing that changes everything. It’s more of a conversation, it’s not an elevator pitch. When people are like, “What’s your elevator pitch?” I always say, “How many floors do we have?” Because it’s more of a paragraph than a statement.
Tiffany Han:
I know that my fear doesn’t know what’s best for me. It thinks it has my best interest at heart, but I also know that my fear can never be pleased. So, where my fear will be like, “Don’t do that, stop that”, then I don’t do it and then the fear comes in and is like, “Well, why didn’t you do that? You should’ve done that. Now that you didn’t do that, that means you don’t have the chops.” And I go to do it, and then fear is like, “You can’t do that.” So, once we know that fear … You will never appease the fear. And if you listen to fear, then the thing you’re most afraid of happening actually comes true. It’s self-fulfilling prophecy. Being able to intellectualize that, it doesn’t make taking action in the moment feel any easier, but it makes it possible. Then, for me, it gives me that 1% more courage that I need to take a deep breath and do the hard thing.
Josh Haynam:
Yep. I have, I don’t know what to call him, life coach, executive coach, all the above, and I have come to the same conclusion where if I operate out of my fear, then the thing that I fear will come true.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
100% of the time. And it’s also true that it doesn’t go away just knowing that. It’s still scary. The same things are still scary. Why did you do it the first time?
Tiffany Han:
It’s interesting. It almost feels like there’s a little … I was a little bit naïve about it. And in hindsight you’re like, “What?” But also, one of the things that I really believe in is that I trust the people that I’ve let into my life. I trust that the people who I’m going to email everyone I know and ask them for this, I trust that they believe in me. I trust that they love me. I trust that they want me to succeed. My podcast listeners, I trust that if I want to come to them with something that feels weird or wacky, or like they may not understand, I trust that they’re going to stay an episode to hear the conversation. To hear me out. I trust my students that if I take a left turn with them, and I’m like, “You guys, this is important. Here is why.” I trust them to be able to hold that path.
Tiffany Han:
And so, I think that’s a really big piece.
Josh Haynam:
I feel like trust is a big one for me, too. Learning to let go of things, and seeing how, for me at least, that’s a path towards both freedom and, in the business world, more success. How did you overcome the fears of people not being trustworthy?
Tiffany Han:
I mean, I didn’t overcome the fears. So, instead what I did was I shifted my focus. So, I think that when our attention has been on overcoming the fears, that what a lot of times you end up doing is just giving the fear more power. A lot of times people will be like, “You’re going to kick fear in the face.” And then you’re just giving it that energy. And often exhausting yourself in the process. So, what I do instead is, and I’ll do this sometimes in my journal, I’ll write out a list of what am I most afraid of? And I’ll literally write it out. And for a lot of us, when we actually write it out, when we get it out of our heads, and get our bodies moving, we realize that’s probably not going to happen. It’s okay. Then what I will do is be like, “So, what do I have faith in? What do I have faith in, and can I scrounge up enough faith to do the next thing? To take that next step?”
Tiffany Han:
I don’t need to take the next 100 steps, I don’t need to have it all figured out. I am a big believer in figuring things out as you go, I think that that’s not a gimmick, it’s how humans have evolved. It’s how we live, it is the fact of life. Can you find enough faith to just do one thing? And really, in business, we’re always just doing the next thing. I mean, we may have a plan, but I don’t know about you, I change my mind all the time. And that’s part of what’s made me successful. So, if I’m forcing myself to figure out the next five year plan, that doesn’t work for me, trying to plan out the next five years. Because I know that five years ago, in 2015, when I had one-year-old twins, when I had this brand new podcast, when I was still blogging and I was still doing all the things, and before algorithms happened. And all of this stuff. Had you said, “Where do you want to be five years from now?” I would’ve painted a completely different picture. For my business and my work.
Josh Haynam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, shout out to twins, I have twin brothers.
Tiffany Han:
Yay.
Josh Haynam:
It’s the best. They’re also 10 years younger than me, so I can sort of resonate with how difficult that might’ve been.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah, it was a lot. I mean, they’re six now so they’re great, and the best. And they’ve always been the best. Obviously. But it was a lot. I mean, I look back and I’m like, “What were you thinking? What were you doing?” But it’s this way of I call it the crazy faith. It’s the faith in the thing that doesn’t make sense, but we all have that knowing inside of us that we’re like, “I don’t know, I just have to do it.” And here we are.
Josh Haynam:
Yep. Yep. There’s this book that I really like, The Second Mountain. And the author is like, “When you can’t not do something, that’s when you know it’s the right thing.”
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
I want to dive into that piece, because I resonate with that a lot. Focusing on the fear, you can’t fix the fear by focusing on it. You have to shift the focus to something else. And my other coach, I have many coaches, was telling me last week that you can’t have a good thought and a bad thought at the same time. And so it makes a ton of sense, of you shift the focus. What do you do, and I’m sure you help tons of people with this, but how do you begin to make that shift?
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. A little bit at a time. A lot of my work has to do with how are you grounding yourself? And what can you do when fear isn’t present in order to better prepare yourself for the scary moments, for those … And when I say scary moments, I don’t mean like nebulous scary moments of one day I’m going to do a thing. I mean when you’re sitting at your computer about to hit send on a really scary podcast ask. I’m talking about in those moments. So, we talk a lot about how are you taking care of your body? Are you getting enough sleep? What are your core values, what are the things that matter most to you? What’s most important to you? How are the points of your life reflective of that? Because what I find is that if we are connected to what we are doing in a really deep intuitive way, it makes the scary things …
Tiffany Han:
It takes the fear out of the conversation. Sure, they’re scary, but I have to do them. Because this is about meaning, it’s about purpose, it’s about connection. So, that’s a big piece of it. We also look at how do you do the thing in the moment when it’s so scary? And a lot of that comes back to getting out of your head, getting into your body. And there are two, really two breaths that I teach people to pay attention to. The first one is the breath you take in that moment right before you do the thing, that gets you out of your head, that gets you out of the anxiety of it into your body, back into your agency. And then, the second breath is the one that you take right after you do the thing that proves to you that you survived it. Because if you are breathing, you are living.
Tiffany Han:
And we think so much our fear can convince us that whatever it is that we’re doing is not survivable. And unless your business is like leading treks to Everest, for most things in my life the things I’m doing in my business, it’s not a matter of this is going to be the thing to end me. But our fear can convince us that it is.
Josh Haynam:
Yep. That’s pretty much how it goes. If this happens, then I’m going to die.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
One thing that I have come to realize is that it doesn’t necessarily mean to be a physical threat, it can be an emotional threat, it can be a relational threat too. And so, it makes sense then that if the fear is if I send this email then everyone I know is going to hate me, then it actually does feel like you could die.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. Well, because in our brains haven’t caught up to the scope of earth. And so, our brains can’t differentiate different kinds of fear. So, to our brain fear is danger, danger. And our brains are wired to look out for danger. That’s how we’ve survived however many millions of thousand … Whatever. Whatever millions of years. It’s how we’ve gotten to where we are. And so, if you can be like, “Okay, my body thinks this is fear, but I’m not going to believe that because there’s not a wooly mammoth outside my cave.” And then when you can be like, “But it’s just an email …” Yeah, it’s a scary email, get it, scary. You’re right. And it’s an email. I like to always bring humor into it, where I’m like, “Tiffany, you’re being scared of an email. Let’s just send the email.”
Josh Haynam:
But the thing that I think you’re talking about, this is how its been described to me, is it’s like your fight or flight response is what immediately comes into play. You see something, it’s scary. You see danger, and you’re either going to run away or you’re going to fight. And then there’s this other part of your brain that is like the command center where you can actually think about it in context, and do what you just said of okay, this is an email, no one’s going to care. Even if it does slightly make everyone angry, they’re not going to stop being my friend. But that movement, and I like what you said about the breath practice because I do something similar, of just practicing getting into the command center part of your brain instead of the fight or flight part of your brain that’s telling you if you do this you’re going to die. But it’s so hard.
Tiffany Han:
It is, and it’s a practice. And that’s why it’s important to be having conversations like this when we’re not in fight or flight. Because when you’re in fight or flight, your only job is to calm your nervous system. And this is why how much sleep you’re getting matters so much more. I mean, there’s this sort of common entrepreneurial trope of sleep when you’re dead, sleep when you’re a millionaire, whatever. And the more burnt out we are, the less able we are to make good clear decisions for ourselves. I look back a few years ago, and I was just living in fight or flight. My whole life was fight or flight. And so, and then it becomes normal, and then we think about cortisol, and all of that and what it’s doing to our bodies. And so, the idea of how do we get in our body, how do we create energetic reserves in order to then be in these situations that we know are going to scary?
Tiffany Han:
How do we create that energy? And people are like, “I’m exhausted but I don’t know why. I’ve only been working on my business all day.” And I’m like, “Your brain, all the energy is going to your brain.” And so, all of that.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. I like what you said about the entrepreneurial mantra, whatever, of sleep when you die. And the answer is no. You can, but then you end up … I was in the same place of you describe of constant fight or flight, and I look back at just the trail of mess, and broken relationships, and just manic stuff that was happening in the business. And the toll on my body. I used to get crazy migraines all the time. And now it happens occasionally, but it’s so much lessened because I don’t feel like I’m jumping around all the time. And it messes with you in every way.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. And when you go look back, we can probably see how everything you were doing was based on a foundation of fear.
Josh Haynam:
Right.
Tiffany Han:
I’m afraid not to.
Josh Haynam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tiffany Han:
And what I always like to say is, getting into action that’s more based on, again, our values, our core values, based in love. And when I say love, I don’t mean like love everybody. But in this way of a deep commitment to service, a deep resonance, a deep knowing. And for so many people, and this is where when you get into the entrepreneurial space, and the business coaching space when people are like, “Tell me this tactics. Tell me the strategies.” And I’m like, “Well, we need to talk about your core values. And we need to talk about your intuition, and we need to talk about how are you connecting and how are you going deeper?” Nobody wants to hear that. Because it’s annoying because it means you have to slow down for a minute and trust that you’re going to be able to pick back up speed.
Tiffany Han:
And I think about it like a slingshot. A slingshot is only powerful if you pull it back first. And I think that’s what I know we have to do also to be successful in our businesses, but even if you’re not entrepreneurial just in whatever it is that you’re doing. And the frantic pace of the world we live in makes that hugely inconvenient.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. I guess this is just a present thought, but why there’s such a perception that the way to be successful and to make things happen is to be just constantly living in fear, and running away from things rather than running towards things. Which is kind of what you were describing of I don’t want this bad thing to happen, and that’s why I’m working, versus here’s what I want to see in the world and I’m going to make that happen. And that’s my motivation, instead of running away from something. And it totally changes how you feel about things, and your energy, and your ability to take breaks.
Tiffany Han:
And it may not change what you do. It may not change at all what you do, the end results you might still get that newsletter saying … You might still make your quotas, you might still write your autoresponder sequence, all of that. It may not change that at all. I use the example of reading to my kids at night before bed. So, we do story time every night after dinner before they go to bed. And I could do that out of fear because I’m afraid if I don’t read to them I’ll be a bad parent, I’m afraid they won’t get into a good college, I’m afraid that they’ll be behind in their whole lives, and oh my gosh, you don’t read to your kids? What are you talking about? Or I can do it because I love books, because I love to read, because I love getting to introduce them to new stories, because I love the time that we get to spend together.
Tiffany Han:
Same outcome, very different feelings fueling you.
Josh Haynam:
Yep. Yep. Yeah. I have so many similar stories. I mean, the entire company of Interact had a shift like that in terms of why I was doing it a few years ago, and it went from fearing not being enough, to I really like solving problems and helping people who have valuable stuff come into the internet. And that’s basically what the whole company’s for. So, it does completely change why you’re doing it. And it gives you more grace, or more patience with yourself of I don’t feel like reading tonight, I’m too tired. That’s okay.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. And sometimes I’ll say, “Do you guys want to have a dance party instead of reading?” Or they’ll say, “Can we shoot our rockets in the living room?” They’re air-powered rockets. “Can we shoot our rockets in the living room?” And I can very easily say, “Sure, but then we’re not going to have time to read a story.” And my brain isn’t then berating me for being a bad parent. Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s just that self acceptance and patience with yourself, and being like, “Yeah, this is okay.” And that’s, for me at least, something that can only happen when I’m not operating out of fear. Because if it’s out of fear then I still have to do the thing. I mean, this applies to everything, because it’s like it’s Tuesday, I’m tired, I’m just going to not work the rest of the day. But then I’ll get back to it Wednesday. But if you’re operating out of fear, never do that. And then you don’t sleep enough, and it’s just this vicious cycle.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. Yeah. And thinking about even Interact, let’s say that somebody, they read on an article that having a quiz is a good lead magnet. Sure. I think it is. I have one. I love it. But then they think, “Well, I don’t want to miss out.” And so, they do it out of fear, and then they force themselves to write a quiz, and they force themselves to do a thing. Guess what? If you don’t like the stuff you’re doing, if you’re not behind what you’re working on, it’s not going to work. I mean, when I created my quiz, it was based on … Really it started with the results. I started with there are these five types of people that I’ve worked with for eight years, and I have information that will help each type, that will help make their life easier. So, I need to make something that gets this into their hands.
Tiffany Han:
And it’s same result, there’s a quiz out in the world, that you’re using as a lead magnet, same result. Very different energy.
Josh Haynam:
Very different. And when it doesn’t work, it’s because you’re trying to achieve a certain outcome because you don’t want to not be successful. And then it goes all the way back to what you said at the beginning which is, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you’re trying to run away from something, the harder you run away from something the more you’re running towards it.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah.
Josh Haynam:
And if you’re coming at it from the perspective of, I really liked what you said, of just wanting to be deeply helpful to people, then you end up getting the thing that you wanted, but it’s almost like you have to give up wanting it and then you go do the thing that is important to you.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. I call it an active surrender. So, it’s not that you throw your goals in the garbage, so you have the sense of here is what I’m willing to do to get here, here’s what I want, here is what this looks like, and I trust that if this … It’s an act of surrender, and also just patience. Because it takes time for these things to work. It takes time to develop them. Like you’re planting seeds, and a seed … They say if you put a seed in the ground, and then you immediately look up to the sky to try to harvest the apples, you are going to be disappointed. You’re going to be so disappointed. And then you’re going to think that seed you planted in the ground is stupid. But a quiz only works as well as people know about the quiz.
Tiffany Han:
So, you can have the quiz, and then what are you going to do to tell people about it? What are you going to do to promote it? What are you going to do, to do all the things? And I think that the idea of passive income, it has been fed to so many people as the holy grail of live on the beach and ever work a day in your life. And I don’t know about you, but I am constantly promoting all the things. So much of my energy, every day, goes into marketing. And when people coming in they’re like, “I want to have a business but I hate marketing, tell me how to do it.” I’m like, “Well, we got to figure out how to get you to like marketing, or get you making enough money to pay someone to do it for you with the level of enthusiasm that this requires.” But people are always like, “Can you tell me how to grow my Instagram? I hate Instagram. How do I grow it?” And I’m like, “That’s not how we do it.”
Tiffany Han:
Because if you’re trying to grow something you hate, there’s that disconnect. And we can see when people are doing that. You can follow someone online and see when they’ve lost their mojo. And you see it, and then they start complaining about the algorithm. And I’m always like, “Is it the algorithm, or is it that I know you don’t care?” I can tell.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. Speaking from my own times that I’ve done this, it’s so obvious when my motive is literally just to grow my business, or to make more money, or become successful, or not be a failure. And it’s also obvious when I actually think I could be helpful and I’m just trying to be helpful with some things that have made a big difference in my own experience. And so, I’m sharing it. And it’s just very, very different.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. Leading, for me, what’s made a huge difference in my business, is just leading from the goal of I want to make eye contact with other humans. And a lot of that is virtual eye contact, but it’s not about … So, the bulk of my business right now is a year-long class that I teach to 150 people. And there is always in the back of my head, like, “How are you going to scale? How are you going to grow? How are going to da-da-da-da-da?” But 150 people, and every year I know that is my goal, is to say the thing that’s not going to get thousands of likes, or thousands of retweets. If that happens, great. But my goal is to say to those 150 people what they need to hear to trust me enough to come and do this work for me for a year, and let me help them change their lives. That is my goal.
Tiffany Han:
And so, if I post something on Instagram and it only gets four likes, if the four people who tapped like are four of those 150 people, I’ve done my job. Well done. And so, for me, that way of thinking, it’s so easy to get stuck in the numbers, and comparison, and the growth, and the things, and thinking about things in terms of thousands of people. Or for some people hundreds of thousands of people. And for me, that’s when all my magic gets lost.
Josh Haynam:
Yeah. And the thing that’s … Ironic’s not the right word. But once you find that thing, that you actually … Is actually driving you. So, for you, I want to connect with people. I want to make eye contact with people. And I’m sure that inevitably leads to being helpful. And when you stick to that, then the people come.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah. Right. Right, because that example with the four people liking an Instagram post, if I’m creating the content that resonates with the right people, it will bring in more of those right people. But it’s faith, and our brain tells us we’re not doing enough in the moment, so then we start churning on the hamster wheel. But that churn doesn’t get us anywhere.
Josh Haynam:
Yep. Yep. That’s literally it.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah, I know.
Josh Haynam:
Well, we are-
Tiffany Han:
Sorry.
Josh Haynam:
… almost out of time.
Tiffany Han:
Spaghetti.
Josh Haynam:
But this was just riveting conversation. So, thank you for sharing, and diving into that piece of things. For anybody listening that wants to learn more and kind of see what this all looks like for you these days, where can they check out your offerings?
Tiffany Han:
So, my website is just tiffanyhan.com, it’s spelled H-A-N. Han like Solo. My podcast is called Raise Your Hand, Say Yes. And I’ve been doing it for six years, 330 some-odd episodes. You can find that wherever you’re listening to this podcast. And I’m over at Instagram, is kind of where my social media energy goes, and I’m The Tiffany Han over there. And I have a great quiz that I built with Interact on my website, if anyone wants to check it out to find out their agency archetype, then you can get that at tiffanyhan.com, too.
Josh Haynam:
Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on, Tiffany. I really appreciate it.
Tiffany Han:
Yeah, thanks for having me.