Centering on Your Values and Charting Your Own Entrepreneurial Path with Tanya Alvarez

This is to be helpful podcast where conversations with budding entrepreneurs prepare you for a wild journey of building a business or side hustle. Alright, today I get to sit down with Tanya Alvarez. She started an ad agency which grew to over a million dollars. Now she's leading a company called Owners Up, which she founded to support solo entrepreneurs and small business owners grow their respected businesses. Tanya, how's it going? Thank you for being on. I'm excited because in our prep call it kind of turned into this therapy type session for myself. So I'm excited about the natural flow of our conversation. But then also in what you're doing with Owners Up, I'm really fascinated about the art or science of setting goals, accountability and then also just learning more about your entrepreneurial journey. So I'm just really excited to have you on and learn your perspective. But first, as every guest, what did you want to be growing up? A toy inventor, I want to own a toy store, but before that, this is actually an interesting one. I grew up in Florida and there's a Miami-C aquarium and I loved killer whales. So I remember telling my mother, who was a single mom, immigrated from Columbia, I was like, "I want to be a killer whale trainer, an orc a trainer." And she said, "Oh, that's great." But have you ever thought about owning it? And I was like, "Money," and she said, "Yeah, then you can go any time you want and even play with more than the fish, like the killer whales." And I was like, "Oh, I want to do that." But it's not interesting that she didn't say, "Oh, that's great." Or she was like, "Oh my God, this is all she wants to be a trainer." She was like, "Have you dreamy been bigger?" Which was awesome. Like that is growth mindset, like another level. That is incredible. I love that response of, no, you should just own it. That is pretty freaking cool. I'm definitely going to use that with my son, for sure. Right? Instead of being like, "Oh, right now, I think when my son was two years old, he was like, "I want to be a garbage man." Instead of being like, "Oh, yeah, if you're a garbage man, who cares?" Like, "Hey, that's awesome. Imagine owning all of them across the United States." Oh, you know, and just changing perspective. Absolutely. No, I freaking love that. So, it sounded like at an early age, you've got the seeds of entrepreneurship, but ultimately, what motivated you to start your own company at the age of 25, or if you started a business before that? Well, I guess everyone starts one, right? Everyone has a lemonade stand, everyone has all those little things. So maybe I was early on entrepreneur. I just, I loved creating stuff, and when you're young, you just think of being an inventor or creator, and then I realized, like, right around high school, I wanted to work for Nike. And at that time, Nike was the only one that was really changing the game, and really changing the game for women's sports. Yeah. And, well, I got this amazing internship by Nike, and I remember the guy who's like, the head of basketball, I was doing the, I was in Spain, in Germany for him, but then the global one, the head guy, he's like, you don't want to work for Nike right now. You'll have to go through all of these steps to get where you're at. Why don't you just jump and do what you want, and you can make a bigger impact. Yeah. And it was like, wow, like, he, they offered me a job, and now I'm the guy, the mean guy, that I'd probably like, I don't know, 20 or 100 below, was telling me this. Yeah. And so I took it on, you know, then all of a sudden, my dream of like working for Nike ended up being like, I want to be an entrepreneur. So I graduated around 2000, that's also when the internet blessed happened, you know, in college. And so I was like, who shoot? I still want to go this route, but I worked for a number of companies, startups and I did every role you can imagine. I was like, oh, I'm signing for sales, okay, I'm going to learn marketing, I'm going to know operations, learn everything. Then at 20, I'm like, I think I'm putting in enough, you know, enough hours I've paid my dues, but I was still hesitant, I have to say. And I remember asking my mom, and I was like, hey, I'm going to start this thing, but I'm not sure if I should, and she's like, why wouldn't you do it? Go, well, what happens if I fail? She goes, well, you'll be exactly where you are now, working for somebody. It's like, okay, well, what happens if nobody wants to hire me? And she goes, well, you wouldn't want to work for a culture like that. And I was like, all right, so I did it. I had no real goal or anything to like land on like, this was it. So I went for it and that's how my entrepreneurship started at 25. I love it. No, that's an awesome story, but I'm curious. I often ask what's what was your first action, but I want to combine that with what was your first action and what was the emotion around it when you started off, right? You got this great mentorship, you got this great support from your mom, like what was the first thing you did, and how did you feel before and after? Well, immediately, I just started calling up people and closing sales. I was like, I got a couple of deals to make this happen. So that's the first thing I did, and then, you know, coming from a place where like nothing was really given to me, it was all hard work. I just put it in and I was like, all right, well, I'm going to have a certain amount of time to pull this off, and there's only so much credit card debt I can get into. That's what I did, and you know, so that's it, and I just hustled, and the feeling was like, since I put in so many reps and hours, I was kind of like confident, but still nervous and scared. And everything I've ever done, I think you've heard that same excitement and fears on the same coin, right? Or something like that, and how it goes, so I always remind myself that, like, I'm excited and I'm freaking scared, but I'm going to do it anyways. Yeah, usually, usually the scary thing is the right thing to do, right? Okay, so okay. Part of the corner is up, which is my fifth company. So this is like absolute passion of mine, it's like something I've always wanted to do, and I just had so many opportunities and derailed me. I was nervous, because now I have a bunch of credentials behind me, and I'm like, I've shown up a certain way, so I was hesitating to start, that I needed my own accountability and push. I was like, oh, I, I do think, excuse like a lot of entrepreneurs do, I was like, I need a website. So there was a designer who goes, here's a website, I was like, oh, shoot, it's game time, right? But by the way, you don't need a website, all you need to do is email your contacts and get started. Right. Yeah, there's, it's so fun, you say that I feel as though that there's so many obstacles we put in front of ourselves to delay the thing that we actually really want to do. And I think in this day and age with the many people would say, over dependence on technology, it's easy to say, oh, well, I've got to start the social media page, oh, I've got to start this, oh, I've got to start that when you're right, honestly, you just need to start with your interconnections and your inner circle and go from there. Yeah, it's a first thing, just send emails to your network. And people, some people are like, well, my network is like, I don't know, consultants, bankers or whatever. I'm like, they're very to people, they have partners, they have friends. Yeah. And then they're going to vouch for you and introduce you. Yeah, absolutely. And it's no matter what you do, honestly, seriously. Okay, so let's talk about your world, and I'm very passionate about this topic because I'm one that lives very, I shouldn't say that. I'm very passionate about my goals and the things that I aim to achieve. And so setting goals is really, really big for me every single year. Kind of I lay it out. This is what I want to achieve. And somehow, some way through the year, I get so caught up with my head in the sand that I'm just executing, I don't realize that I either already achieve the goal or I'm so far away, the goal's completely changed. So I'm curious like with your experience and what you do with owners up, how do you look at goal setting for our small business owners, entrepreneurs, so on. So I think it's some people always say, I'll do 10 years, but like, it's really hard for me to imagine 10 years. So right now I have a four year old and a two year old. 10 years from now, I didn't even know I could have one. I dreamed about it, I didn't know how to go about it. So I think there's like this vision of like, hey, this is how it is, but in reality, when you first start, like start going 90 days, because in those 90 days, so many things change us. And then once you go from 90 days, break it down to monthly. And then from there, weekly, and then the most crucial part is a lot, one and a half hours to working on that goal every single day, like protect it, like it's a non-negotiable. Because it was interesting, I was doing a webinar and somebody was like, only one and a half hours and I go, well, most entrepreneurs, they're working in their business. they're not working on it and they're like really it's like yes most of you are not working on your business and doing the goals are actually gonna move your business forward. So if you a lot that one and a half hours and plan it and like guard it then you're gonna move quicker than most other people and first you go for one and a half hours you build that muscle you start getting that integrity like yes I'm a person who can actually a lot one and a half hours then after you do it I would say two or three weeks now you know yourself as a person like that so then you expand it to three hours I would say cap it at three hours because as a business owner things are gonna happen when you first start growing right you're always gonna be some sort of like fire or something and maybe you're not but you're still gonna be building and thinking so one and a half hours to start building integrity muscle then go to three hours. I really like that framework but I'm very curious to pick your brain on this how do you distinguish between you know working in your business and on your business because in many ways that could blur very quickly. Yeah so pick up all the tasks that only you can do I think that's the biggest problem that most people have is that you can do almost everything okay for example we have a member who is a CEO and they pay her like VCs all them call her up for expertise but she's like it's all my time on client calls and doing this stuff and I was like okay well think of this task and now break up that task to really what do you really need to get done because a lot of this could be like the research like there's so many things that don't need it that it only really needs 10% of your time. So if she just aligns all the other stuff and just focus on that 10% she would be leveraging your time so much and actually be able to serve more and more clients. Right. Right. So that that part even though she's serving clean she's still working in her business now she systemizes that she's actually working on her business because now she's scaling her time. Yeah yeah know that that makes a lot of sense a lot of the things that and I'm pretty obsessive about my day-to-day productivity and how I you know manage my time. One thing that's been super helpful for me is time blocking right so I'll go through and say okay this is my hour hour and a half to exercise because that has to get done. This is my hour and hour and a half to research something for my business or every single day I'll just look at my to-do list and say you know what this is the day where I'm gonna work on it and I try my hardest to protect that time with everything I can because it's very easy to again take a client call and that extends and the client after something and you're like oh I can do that today when you've already allocated the time for it so so no that's really good perspective. I think a lot of people that have challenges with time blocks they're like well I don't know it's a new task how long how long do you think I'm gonna take it well break it down to even like you only had 20 minutes look at the to-do list and break it down that one task into 20 minutes so when you start constraining when it's an hour and a half like if I saw an hour and a half I would just put a task in there but the kids usually take so long it's kind of like the hello fresher like all those things that are like you're gonna do something it's like it's only 20 minutes to make and no it's not like you have to go get the groceries or order it then you have to heat up like the oven or whatever it is it's never 20 minutes and I think that's what people don't think about like how long the task actually takes if you don't know then you start actually logging like hmm I think writing's gonna only take me an hour BS it took me three hours like yeah and we start getting better and better so it's not one that's fixed as you like let's say month three I keep writing the same thing I'm gonna get better at it so it's only gonna take me an hour but if you don't know that no matter how much you time block you you have to track them yeah absolutely absolutely and you and and like you said you start realizing not only how long it takes for you to do the task but you innately become better at estimating how long things take oh yeah I do tend to run and grab a cup of coffee any every every two hours or I I need to do XYZ or I need a break and I want to take a walk you can incorporate that in so that it's just built into your talent but I don't think many people do and sometimes I will miss I kind of slip a man I'm like oh it's gonna take me an hour oh shoot I did not research this they should have taken me more than I'm like hmm then I calendar surf and then when I see myself calendar surfing I actually have a note section where I'm like the calendar search this is this a belief is it a knowledge gap or is it something that I'm not I'm dreading to do and when I start thinking about that I start seeing patterns and such and I can change my behavior because sometimes it's a belief everybody has belief issues and you just got to get them wear them and attack it yeah no that's you're absolutely right so another thing that I'm curious about is with your community and in the entrepreneurs that you work with how do you manage distractions and how do you recognize whether things are good or bad distractions because as you at least in my experience the moment I started a business everything on earth was connected to my business I heard about blockchain oh my business could do that too oh my business could do that too and you just keep going and now you have just all these ideas and and tons of things to do how do you stay focused but also recognize that might be a good distraction we might need to lean into that yeah so we have a framework and then we call it goal prioritization framework and so one thing you want to do is first get it out of your header you're going to continue thinking about it so you have to have one place where you put all your thoughts in there and what we do is we have it where the goal is what do you think that outcome is how many hours what is it impact and how easy is it for you to get done and then based off that score it'll prioritize in and you can start looking does this still resonate with me but one crucial thing that most people don't do is know their values because you can achieve there's so many successful people who are not happy why because they're doing things that they don't value or when against their value it was like I think that gray area yeah and so when you look at everything you have to get it done you have to be like is this aligned with my values I think that's a big one yeah yeah no I think I think you're absolutely right it's it's I feel very blessed to have this podcast because like a lot of things we're talking about and the conversations I've had in the past kind of forced me to ask myself those questions about my values and forced me to ask some of those questions and you're right in the moments where I get super excited or or I'll call it very distracted on a given thing everything that brings me back to center is to say hey what's the core principle what's what's the value that I'm focused on right now I'm focused on you know not feeling like every burner on the stove is high okay perfect that's what I need to focus on right now what is the top priority this is the type of priority this cannot this always has to be on high heat so that's what I'm focused on and and no that's a really good perspective it's the hard one though because like sometimes most businesses think that everything needs to be on like the first two burners right yeah yeah and and and I also think that we generally is a culture um promote this idea of sleep when you die like you can go go go go go um and and in reality um it's not true it's it's it's the one and a half hours every day that actually makes you successful not the burst of eight hours eight hours and then you're burnt out and you don't do anything for four weeks or like why are we really doing all this yeah right everyone's like oh I'm doing it for my family well I think in the day if you're never there I don't know yeah I think there's like countless and countless movies of like the the well-off person and then they're all low on their family and just I don't know I think you really need to figure out like why are you doing this is this ego okay if it's ego time just a minute go with it but know that there's always a cost to it and let's just talk to somebody about this like um there is a cost of being Elon Musk there's a cost of being a celebrity right there's that there's a huge cost everybody wants it but they don't realize the cost right I think I saw one of his um somebody said I think it was his ex-wife or something that said like the man of stress that he goes through most people would be like crippled by the amount of stress right because of all the decisions and risk but everybody's like oh this is great to be him and even Olympians like I um I didn't turn out the US Olympic committee back in the day and I got to see Olympians and what they do every day is incredible and the cost of like maybe missing out on like having a party opportunities just to be the best so I think everybody needs to really figure out what are you doing this for and now what costs and once you're true to that then game on go for it yeah no I 100% agree one of the things that I'm Really, I love sports, I grew up playing. sports and I love sports podcasts because part of the thing that's fascinating to me is the amount of work that it takes to be so elite out of craft. I'm very passionate about just people that are just experts at what they do and there's a cost to everything right there's a cost to fighting through the pain there's a cost to having to miss that that recital there's a cost to not going outside with your friends right yeah not making that trip so there's you know I'm no professional athlete but I do find myself oftentimes saying what's the true cost of saying yes to this what's the true cost of saying no to this right and I'm am I okay with that I think you're well I think you're right I think you're you're very right on that and I think it's a hard one to kind of analyze what is the cost of that and like there's one where like I'll tell you a story in a sense of like in high school I wanted to be an athlete to stand out to get into the top colleges because academically like now at this level is if you have a really good GPA you have great test scores you're in the same level what could it make you stand out right so it's really important for me to be a top runner and everything so now I'm in college and got scholarships everything on that but I'm like what's the next level right am I okay be number one on my team or just top five on my team because number one I'm sacrificing having a college life because academically I went to a hard academic school so there's only so much I can do and then I was like I'm actually okay being the top five on my team right because after this like that's it so that's what I chose to have a life to do well in school be on the varsity team go captain of like the cross country team and be okay with that right but there is its tension of like oh but I could be better I'm like yeah but I'll be missing out of these amazing four years of being a college student so I just think about that as an entrepreneurship too it's like when I started my first business at 25 I was like I do want to grow this business but I also want to travel right so like how can I do both and that's how I pulled it off like then I wasn't as a Latina I was not home in Christmas that was a big one and I had to have a family conversation like I'm traveling during this time but every other holiday you can have me so you just have to make it work and then also figure out the cost yeah that is so it made me think about competition and the drive to be number one and you said there was a conscious decision in your head it's like I'm okay with being top five on my team like I'm okay with that because of the flexibility that that provides me to actually enjoy my my college experience have you had to talk through or just coach up entrepreneurs on the idea that they don't have to be the biggest the best the number one and everything that they do to be successful and achieve their goals because I think it's very easy to fall into that trap of oh I want to start this business but there are three other companies in my space so how am I gonna take market share from now right how do you coach people on that how I just say have you ever been to New York City they're like yeah how many pizza places or coffee places are there there's tons okay why do you go to this one instead of Starbucks because there's Starbucks everywhere it should be convenient they're like oh because of like the coffee the person that says hi exactly there's room for everybody so that's usually it now being number one in the space you could be number one in the space but what I really get my members clear on before you even ask more of their businesses what do you want your life to be what do you really like if you had time and I and I do this like morbid question where it's like if you knew you had like I don't know three six months to live what would you be doing after you traveled and that gets them really clear what's really important and then from there we build the business yeah no I like that it is the semi morbid question but I do like the question the spirit of it for sure okay so we talked about setting goals let's talk about accountability um how do you define accountability so it's actually doing something you committed to and I think that people assume accountability is something for people who don't have like integrity or not doing things actually no I actually coach mostly overachievers and what overachievers happen is they take on too much they say yes to too many things and it's not that they don't do it it's that life gets in their way because they're achieving so much and they need to have boundaries to kind of protect it so for example I am about to do a century ride this year now this is after having two kids see sections big kids like nine half pounds and now I'm about to do a century I haven't done the century I've been working now and everything but it's really hard to get that in the schedule right and because I really want to be present with my kids and I don't want to do a win train when they're there so that's a challenge but I'm like game on so publicly I said it then I enrolled others to do it with me and now I'm figuring out how I'm gonna make this happen and I always enroll people as a group to do it because I'm just much more motivated I'll show up for others sometimes more than I show up for myself I always show up for myself but let's be honest there's sometimes where it's like oh I only have five I just saved the kid who's crying who knows like whatever maybe you're out like having a dinner and like alcohol you had one glass of wine and it affects you totally different and now you're just like oh I'm gonna go fried for two hours like maybe not you know maybe I can wait 30 minutes at least I trained so that conversation happens but it stops because I have other people I'm training with and reporting to right so it's not like my that conversation goes away right it's still there yeah yeah it's and thanks for sharing that like one of the things that I actively try to work on is like self accountability because you're right there's you can always explain I don't even want to say excuses justify you can justify exactly you can justify why things didn't happen a certain way and you know at times entrepreneurship can be very lonely right you cannot have a community early on unless you actively seek one out or build one but having that internal dialogue and saying hey I wanted to be able to look in the mirror and not feel disappointed that I didn't keep promises to myself right and I think that along this journey it is very very easy to justify or make excuses for why something hasn't worked or something is not working out so I say all that to say I'm very appreciative of what you're doing with owners up and creating those communities of accountability because it is very hard to do on your own and I think it is actually probably one of the most important skill sets in being a successful not even entrepreneur but just a successful person all together yeah it's can you do it alone it's harder it's tougher you better have like a mindset like what's that guy the Navy Seal guy David Goggins yes like that's another level like if you're in there that's awesome but I feel like if you test in him he might have like I don't know some sort of gene or something that's really I know his pain threshold is amazing but that's a whole another level and I would say most things that people look at me and they're like oh you're super disciplined you always do everything I'm like no I created a system so I would never fail that's it yeah and like when people look at my achievements they're like whoa you defied the odds all this stuff I was like no I created people to support me to help me out because there are times when I'm like I don't know if I can do this like and they are like right there reminding you who I am and what I'm capable of so that's one thing and then I also have I don't know if you have this but I have it on my phone and it's called I'm possible which is impossible so I write down all the moments that I thought were like impossible and I write them when you're like raw and then I write when I achieved in how I felt and then when I'm up to something that I think is impossible I look at that and I'm like I did all this I can do this and that's how I set up my mindset I like that and it's funny throughout my career every work computer I've ever had and my personal computer up until I had to do the latest update where they just defaulted me to the same background it was the Nike ad that said it's only crazy until you do it and that is literally my mindset it is only crazy until you actually do it and that's true yeah so yeah that is is that is like a life model of mine. But yeah, hey, we're doing it. - Absolutely. - So, okay, before we get to like our concluding kind of quick header questions, I'm curious, you can't predict the future, obviously. But if you could design or talk me through your ideal day, let's call it Tuesday, five years from now, what would you want that day to look like? - It's funny, I actually know exactly how I want it. - Oh, let's get into it, I love it. - Yeah, I created it. So my kids would be nine and seven, and let's just call it a summertime. I literally want to have my summers where I'm with them on a beach house, and that is it. I am not working, and if I am working, it's hour of like doing impact work, and that is it. And so I look at, and like I'm doing something, I like to normalize discomfort. So I know that being uncomfortable is my greatest strength. And like anytime that I'm kind of like, I plateaued in life, or my definition of plateau, it's basically I haven't challenged myself. So I'm always figuring out how to challenge and learn. So I'm probably doing something along those lines. And that's how it is. But like if I look at my values back to my values, it's like me, it's fitness health, right? Because everyone's like, oh, health is like their fifth. Like guess what? If you don't have your health together, there's nothing that's gonna help you, right? Look at Steve Jobs, unfortunately, you know? Like he had everything, and we don't have him right now. So I think it's something that people say, oh, don't worry, I'll get a fixture. Nope, you can't. Once it happens, like you better work really hard on that one. Next thing is family, like that's my legacy. Like everyone thinks about these companies or whatever it is. No, your legacy really is whoever your family is. Those are the people who are gonna continue your memory, your name, everything along those lines. And then from here, it's like the impact. What am I doing? So like if something happened, okay? We're going morbid. If something happens, what are like, people are gonna say, oh, Tony, achieve this company now. They're gonna remember the moments they were with me, right? How do you make them feel? So that's how I value and I look and I look at my days. How can I be at the best of service to others? And how can I make it where it's like memories that I'm just gonna be like, yes. Like it's not about the achievement 'cause I went, I will say that in my, I don't know, I guess high school, 20s and all that. I had like a whole ego, like I was ready to prove. It was a chip on the shoulder. I'm gonna prove everybody. And then as I was achieving, it was like I achieved big goals and I was like, oh, this isn't enough. And it was never enough. I was just chasing this thing of like proving, proving who? I don't know. (laughs) Yeah. So there's one tip I would give any entrepreneur, even if you feel like you're successful or not always work on like your mindset. Invest in personal development. 'Cause there's so many things that if you're not achieving or if you're still achieving and you're unhappy, there's something there, beliefs, unconscious, something there that you need to happen to. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so some quick hit or questions, but you're welcome to elaborate as much as you want. What misconceptions did you have about entrepreneurship before you started? Huh, I've been in a while, so now it's like, what is it lately? I started off with, I need to work harder than anybody else. 'Cause before I was an entrepreneur, that's what I did to achieve. And I realized in their studies, if you work more than like 40 hours, you're actually not that productive and effective. So now I learn to rest and like go on vacation so I can be re-energized and ready to go. And sometimes when you're the most like, when you're totally not working, is when you become more creative. Yeah, yeah, I think the, I'm trying to master the art of energy management. Oh, yeah, it's never-time management. Energy management, yes. Okay, what books, excuse me, what books would you recommend to other entrepreneurs? Right now I love hidden potential rent by Adam Grant. Another one about mindset would be bending reality. It's a really good one. Right now those are my two. Got it, okay. What question should I ask the next guest? (sighs) What was your biggest failure? And why? And what did they learn from it? I think that there's more stories than you're gonna ask me that. My biggest failure. Yeah, of course. So there was so many. I love my whole thing is about fail. If I'm not failing then I'm not pushing myself. And I think it's just kind of like one of my kids. At this point, I'm always reminding them. I'm like, get out the door. I'm like, be curious, be brave, be kind. And when they get to a point where they're in kindergarten, I'm gonna start asking them, what did you fail at? Yeah. And I want that to normalize. Like I want them to be okay as long as they're learning and moving forward. So one of the big ones is a company owed me in my first business, $100,000. And I didn't know any better. So if I asked like my friends and family, and of course they're just based in, based in on what they see on the news or like, people, TV shows, they're like, you should sue. And I was like, okay, then I asked a forum of like, who knows what type of entrepreneurs? Every forum has like these range of entrepreneurs. And they're like, sue, sue, sue. So I sued. Guess what? Worst of ice ever. Even if it's $100,000, right? Because now you're investing lawyers, now you're investing energy, you're investing time. All that time, I probably think I got like, maybe after all the costs said and done 30% back. - Yeah. - I kind of just like, write it off. Like just write it off as the fun mistake that I should have like had them pay up front or once they said this, turn everything off. You know, like not serve them anymore. But instead I went the other route. So what I learned, those three things I've learned, I learned one, always write it off as a like a learning experience, don't invest energy in it. Second, make sure you have the right people you're asking. Like understand like, are they in business? And sometimes you might ask really successful people who have like a attorney like a in-house and that's a totally different scenario, right? It's not costing them anything. And so you want to make sure even if they have no experience or you have too much experience and they don't understand where you're at, like what is that advice? And then the third one is like, all these agreements and documents are great. But don't like, unless you're willing to enforce it, don't spend hours and hours on it. And I think a lot of people are like, oh, I got to have all this legal, I got to have this. Well, do you have everything to enforce it? - Right. - And you want to. And that brings me back to being building communities 'cause I felt like when I was starting my first business, I was kind of all alone and I had friends, but they weren't at the same level and like they were either corporate and they didn't understand. And it is like a very lonely path. And you want people to bounce ideas off of and you want people to understand like when you're going down, it feels like you're hitting rock bottom. Like go really fast. But really, and I've seen this with my members is, you're kind of going up and down, but you're going in this direction. And if you don't want to meet other people's up and down as they're going through this direction, this down is gonna feel really down and you actually might manifest that down 'cause you might be spiraling. - Right. - So it's really important to have like a squat that's in, doesn't have to be the same business, but understands and is that your level or higher? - Yeah, no, I absolutely love it. Okay, so my last question is, how can people connect with you? How can people learn more about owners up and build that community? - Yeah, so you can reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn. It's Tanya Alvarez or on Instagram. Tanya C Alvarez or the letter C, and just DM me, tell me that you heard me from this podcast and I'm gonna send you this focus booster. It helped me really be more productive and very intentional with my time, so I can have it all and not sacrifice my personal life. And it's called RAP, R-A-P, you can do it three minutes every day. - I love it. Tanya, this is great. Thank you so much. - Thank you for having me. This is awesome. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Visit behelpfulpodcast.com for more content, tools and resources that will help you along your entrepreneurial journey. Thanks for listening and see you next time.