Tiffany Han: Hey, Hey, welcome to The Tiffany Han Show, a podcast that teaches highly ambitious people how to have lives that feel as good on the inside as they look on the outside. If you are ready to dive into discovering delight in your life, starting today, be sure to check out my free five-day Radical Delight Kickstart over at tiffanyhan.com. And, while you're there, you can also find extended episode archives, show notes, and more. Thanks for being here. Now, onto the show.

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Tiffany Han: Hey everyone. It's Tiffany. Welcome back to the Tiffany Han Show or my show, as I like to think about it. This week, I'm going to be talking to you all about my Year of No; and specifically, how my Year of No is impacting my business. What's coming up? What are some of the things that I'm trying, and thinking about trying, and trying to work into everything I'm doing.

And, before I dive into my planned episode, I want to let you know that next week is the early-bird application period for my Grown-Up Gap Year course. Now, what is Grown-Up Gap Year, you might be wondering? Grown-Up Gap Year is my year-long coaching teaching experience, we could call it a program, that allows you to take your own grown-up version of a Gap Year so that you can experience a year of living differently.

This will be your chance to put your striving on the shelf, take a year off from being driven forward by your ambition to really reconnect with yourself, get to know what lights you up, find new purpose and meaning and connection.

Find new deep senses of peace and enthusiasm, the kind of enthusiasm that doesn't just create chaos, and really learn how to embody that Radical Self-Belief that is so powerful, that is such a powerful force in our lives. Now, the Grown-Up Gap Year program, it starts October 1st, but I am doing an early-bird application period.

Like I said, it's going to be starting June 21st, which will, number one, give you a chance to save your spot because there are only 100 spots available. Number two, it will also give you an exclusive early-bird, a cash discount. And, number three is one of the-- I guess I could just tell you, one of the things that you get when you register for the course is a coaching session with me that can be used anytime throughout the year.
But/and if you come in during the early-bird period, and let's say that you want to use that coaching session sooner, rather than later, you actually could use that coaching session as soon as you register, it's going to be great.

The other thing that you get when you come in during the early-bird period, is you get immediate access to my Core Values Masterclass, and that gives you some time to work through and play with your values before Grown-Up Gap Year starts in October.

Now, if you are listening to this and you're like, ‘wait, what? I want to-- I want to-- I want to do this. I'm really interested. Yes. Can we-- Can we please, because everything feels like kind of boring and kind of fine, I guess, but there's a little voice inside of me that says, is this it?’ If that is you, then Grown-Up Gap Year is exactly what you need.

Now, the only way though that you're going to find out about what's happening during the early-bird application period, is by getting on the early-bird registration list. This, [laughs] you'll hear me talk about this a little bit later, but this early-bird launch is like a secret behind the scenes Hush! Hush! Launch.

And so, if you want to see how I do the launch, if you want to get a little taste of what Grown-Up Gap Year is like, I'm going to be doing a special mini event, open-house kind of thing. If you want to see how it all goes, and if you want first dibs on those applications, click on the link in the show notes to get on that early-bird list.

Otherwise, you'll be hearing all about Grown-Up Gap Year when the regular registration and application period happens in September, as long as there's still spots available.

That is how everything is going down. All right. Enough of that. Enough housekeeping. Let's talk about Year of No Business Update. And really, I'm thinking about how my Year of No is affecting my business.

It's something that I haven't gone into a lot of detail about here, mostly because as I've navigated my Year of No, so many of the things have been both personal and business, right? Because for me, quitting social media for the year was something that definitely affects my business, but it was also deeply, deeply personal.

The other reason that I haven't talked about it much is that I haven't had a lot of clarity on how I'm working with my Year of No, through my business, short of not approaching things with strategy, not doing things out of obligation, which has led to a lot of like, ‘huh, just wait and see what happens,’ rather than, ‘okay, here's a plan and here's what we're going to do,’ because I'm not making a plan.

I'm not making plans. I'm not having everything figured out in advance. So, just sharing that has felt kind of boring. I've also just been in the process of being in the work, right? Teaching my current Grown-Up Gap Year students, being on those calls, doing my conversational interviews with people, working on some writing projects, like just being in it.

And, there hasn't yet been anything to share, and I'm ready to start sharing things. So, number one, when it comes to my Year of No, what I said at the beginning of the year was that part of how I was applying my Year of No to my business was that I was giving myself permission to let go of “being strategic”.

And, we're going to get to that in a little bit, the way that trying to play the game of being strategic, for me, I know that it often tends to wipe out all of my energy. It just takes any magic I'm feeling and like throws it out the window. And then, I think there's something wrong with me because, why can't I just follow a strategy?

And then, I follow the strategy, but all my energy has gone out the window. And then, the strategy “doesn't work” in the way that I want it to. I might not quite hit my goals, all of that. And, everything just feels like a great big old like Wamp! Wamp!, like that. So, if I'm having a Year of No, why not try things differently? Why not say no to that big old Wamp! Wamp!, and try it differently?

That's what I'm doing. Now, the good news when it comes to my business is that I haven't had to say no to very many things, because there aren't many things in my business that I don't really enjoy, that I don't love, that I don't get lit up by. Yeah, sometimes you've got to like, look at bookkeeping, taxes, stuff, right? And, I would say that I don't, that's not my favorite. And, it doesn't cause misery.

Part of the reason that I'm able to say that now, in 2022, is that I have done a lot of work through the years to pivot and tweak and shift or radically change the things that I was working on so that I could match my energy. So that I could meet my energy where I was rather than having to stay in things that don't feel like magic, that don't light me up.

I've been able to say, ‘okay, well, I think that if I make this shift, I think if I make this shift, I think if I change this it will get back into the direction of lighting me up.’ So, that's actually great news. I also want to point out that while I have made some big changes in my business through the years, in the 11-plus years that I've been doing this, most of those changes and those shifts have come a little bit at a time over time.

So, sometimes we think that the answer is like radically, you know, ‘flip the table, radically rampant everything.’ And like, ‘yes, if that is what you need, then do it.’ And, baby steps taken in accordance with your intuition and your intentions and how you want to feel, trusting yourself, trusting what you know, trusting your expertise.

Baby steps can often lead to what eventually will look like flipping the table or something really, really different, radically different without like the potential to pull a muscle by trying to flip a really heavy table. And then, uh, right? So, give yourself permission to like tweak, edit.

And, for anyone listening to this who doesn't have a business, all of this can also be applied to your life. So, is there anything that you're feeling, kind of, meh,about, anything that you're not excited or looking forward to? Is there a way that you can tweak it or shift it?

Is there a way that you can like shift how you're moving through it or shift a couple of the parameters? Now, I know that we all don't have complete control over everything we do. I totally understand that. And, don't tell yourself that you have no control and let that make you believe that you can't like find those little places where you can affect some sort of change.

So, don't get stuck in that all-or-nothing thinking about, ‘well, I can't do anything,’ because there might actually be some places to play, even if it's only one, right? Even if it's only one, one is more than zero, give it a shot. See what happens. Make that baby step. Even though the voice in your head is going to be like, ‘it's not big enough, you should do something bigger,’ just try it. Right? Let it be easy.

Try it, try it the easy way, and let's see what happens. Give it a go. Now, even though I said that there hasn't been much for me to look at changing because I love everything. This upcoming Grown-Up Gap Year early-bird launch that's happening next week, actually is a really, really great opportunity for me to play with shifts, to play with saying, no, to play with changing my energy in how I show up, and to try some different things, to try some experiments.

And, there have been so many times, as I've been doing some work to get ready for the launch that I keep asking myself like, ‘can I really do this? Is this nuts?’ And then, I keep saying, ‘well, there's no better time than the Year of No, to try it. And, let's see what happens.’ And, that's part of why I gave up social media for the year, right?

Is because I had felt for so long, every time I thought about it, ‘I can't, I can't, I can't. No, I couldn't. I couldn't possibly do that. No way, I couldn't.’ And then, it was like, really? Maybe we can interrogate that. Maybe we can ask the question of that and say, is that actually true?

Or is it just something that we think, or is it just something that we've been taught to think? Because the way of moving through the world, social media, the business, the rules have all become super habituated, but they're not actually the way things have to be done.

So, before I tell you about what I'm doing next week for the launch, how I'm approaching it, I want to just share a little bit of background about how launches historically have been for me. And, for those of y'all who aren't in the online business space, a launch refers to anytime that you're selling something, anytime that you're selling something that isn't for sale all the time, it might be a limited time offer.

Usually, there's like a long sales page and lots of emails; and all the reason you've got to like promote, promote, promote. And yeah, y'all, it's not always the most fun time. And, you know, there's a lot that could be said for like, what is your mindset around selling? And, do you believe in the value and blah, blah, blah, blah?

And, I feel like I've got a good mindset around selling. I feel like I definitely believe in the value of what I'm offering. I definitely believe in the offer. I definitely believe that it's worth it. I definitely believe that it is aligned with the people who need it the most. I see it working. I see it changing people's lives. I see how much also fun people are having.

So, I definitely believe in the offer. And also, the way that we have been taught to just go and go and go and sell and sell and sell, like we are some, you know, television station, infomercial, used-car salesman. ‘Hey, wait, there's more. Wait, there's more,’ you know, all of that, y'all, the way that we have been taught to do that does not align with my energy.

And, I also want to say that if somebody doesn't enjoy the way that that makes them feel, and then people are like, ‘oh, it's definitely been a mindset problem.’ It's not always a mindset problem. Sometimes it's like, ‘yeah, I just don't want to do it that way. I don't want to follow these rules.’
My mindset says, this is not for me. [laughs] Okay. So, launches. Now, when I was preparing for this episode, I was trying to think back to, when was the last launch that I actually had fun with? And y'all, it was 2018.

So, it's been a minute, right? It's been a minute. It was Fall 2018, that was when I was teaching my Raise Your Hand Say Yes Inner Circle: A year-long offer, I no longer teach that. And, the launch went so well, hit my goals. Everybody was amazing. It was like, oh my God, ‘there are only five spots left. Oh my God, two voices just came out.’ It was like-- It was amazing. It was so fun.

I felt really in the flow, and it was really hard. We had just moved into our house, and I was preparing to essentially launch a program that, you know, when you teach year-long classes, I have two launches for that, an Early Bird and a Regular Bird. So, we had just moved into our house that was in a whole other state. We had been living in our friend's basement for four months.

My children were four. I had two four-year-olds. Everything felt like a lot. My ADHD had not been diagnosed. Thank goodness, I had quit drinking. And, I was on social media all the time. And, I was so authentic and like all of that. And, I was trying to teach my classes. I was trying to sell this new class. I was trying to keep it all going, keep it all going, keep all the balls in the air.

And, I remember like I hit my goals and it also felt very, very hard. It took longer than I wanted it to, to hit those goals. So, it like drives-- It was like this three-and-a-half week-long launch that was like, ‘oh my God, can I please be done talking about this now? Why do I have to keep talking about this?’ So, it was great in that a lot of things were aligned.

It was not great in that, you know, my anxiety was like out of control. I was definitely working beyond my capacity and pushing myself really hard. If we just look at the results, everything was great, and I hit my goal and that was amazing. And, there's definitely some stuff going on, right? There were some challenges also, and that was like the best-feeling launch that I can remember having.

Now, this is partially, I'm doing my Year of No, is because sometimes we just get in these ruts and then we're afraid to try something different. We're afraid to take the time to try something different, because like, ‘what if I lose steam? What if I quit social media for a year and I can't go back?’ Well, I know that'd be okay too, right? [laughs] What if I try something new and then everything just crumbles?

And, part of what I get to do as I approach this Year of No and these decisions I'm making, is really trust the foundation that I built for this business. That it's not something that can like crumble quickly. I mean, I'm sure it could, but it's not something that's going to crumble quickly based on me trusting my intuition and taking some risks. So, 2018 was my last fun feeling yet anxiety-tinged launch.

And after that, I feel like launches got harder. Things didn't go as well in terms of results, which is also, let's just, an aside, point out that that's fine. My business is still here. Sometimes we think like not hitting our goals means that, ‘then I'm doomed.’ I'm still here. We're still doing this, you know, four or five years later, still making these podcasts and selling my classes.

So, just because my goals haven't been reached doesn't mean that things are failing. There's a difference between failing miserably and not hitting a goal, and then things being okay, right? Let's also be really clear about that. Again, watch out for that all-or-nothing thinking, but things started to feel a little bit hard. So, what did I do when things started to feel hard?

I did what everyone says to do, and I got help. Now, worked with a few copywriters. They're amazing. Let me-- Let me be very clear. As I get into this, nothing that I say here is a problem with copywriters. I love copywriters, and I love the copywriters that I have gotten to work with.
And, what happens when you work with a copywriter for a big launch project, is that they do all this information gathering and you talk to them and they get all your thoughts and they listen, listen, and ooh, yeah. And, they absorb things. And, they'll like, talk to clients or talk to people who you want to be your clients.

And, they'll do all of this like sleuthing. And, let's put all these pieces together. And then, they write and write and write and write and write. And then, they deliver to me typically, like y'all, I don't know, 50, 70 pages of copy, like a long sales page.
And then, all the emails and the emails are like, this email - three ways. And, this email - four ways. And, this email is going to like this teeny-tiny segment of people. And then, this one is going to these da, da, da. Okay. Again, I am not faulting the strategy here. Very smart. You can make things.

And also, like a reminder that you can make things as complex or as simple as you need. But sometimes when you're paying someone to like, do the thing, do the strategy, they do the strategy. You get in there in the nitty-gritty, nitty-gritty.

Now, once we've realized that Tiffany Han has ADHD, we can see that Tiffany Han being handed an 80-Page Google Doc, that's just like sales emails, probably doesn't send her into her happy place. Right? Can you see that? The other thing that I always have to remind myself is that I actually really like writing. I love writing.

I think it's really fun. When I don't love writing is when there is like deep pressure attached to the writing to like make the sale, which is why I thought the answer was to outsource it. So, outsource it, pay the money. Somebody else does the writing, which is the part I like. And then, I have to go through and edit fine-tooth comb 80 pages of the Google Doc. [laughs]

Oh, that was not fun. Not my favorite part. Really didn't like that part. And then, you're just supposed to like copy and paste everything into your emails and into your sales page. And then, it all goes perfectly. And then, you never touch it again. And, everything is amazing. And, you hit your goals and all of that. Yes. That's what's supposed to happen.

What typically actually happens, if you are me, because I can't keep my fingers out of the pie, what typically happens is you get all that ready; you start, things don't quite go the way you want.

And then, you want to like change things or tweak things, or play with them, or get in there and get your fingers in the pie. And, you're like, ‘but I can't because I'm going to mess all this up, and this is the plan and this is the strategy.’

And so, then I would have these like inner dialogues of like, I don't know, ‘trust the process,’ but my intuition would be like, ‘yeah, but something here isn't like clicking and da, da.’ And then, I would be having these like battles with myself, but I need to trust the thing, and all of that, but I don't know.

And so, typically where we landed was that something wasn't working, but also, we need to just trust and let the data come and see what happens and all of that. And, remember y'all, I do like two launches a year. And so, it gets really hard to like, just trust it and then we'll see what happens, and collect data,’ when you might be, you know, ‘this might be the revenue for the entire year.’ Right?

So, long story short, with all of my inner turmoil that y'all just got to have a listen to, what I've come to realize with launches is that the thing that is more important than anything else, it's not about the strategy. It's not about making sure that this email is segmented to this thing, and all of that.
The most important part of a launch is my energy, is, how am I feeling in the moment? Because when I'm feeling like a deflated balloon, Ooh, you know, or one of those, like, you know, the things that hang out at the car dealership, the red things. Like just what I imagine it must be when you turn the air off, and it just is like roar, when I'm feeling like that, everything feels hard and like a slog.

And I get disconnected from the offer, and I get disconnected from my work, and I get disconnected from the whole magic of why I'm doing this, which is to help you have a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.

Yes, yes, yes. All of that. And, my energy is the driver of all of it. Now, am I saying that if I just keep my energy high, that I'll like manifest this? No, y'all, I’m not saying that either. Right? Like, you need to be able to explain the offer. You need to be able to talk about the value.

You need to be able to connect with people who might want it and have these conversations, whether they're spoken or written or email or podcast or whatever. So, I'm not saying that I'm going to magically manifest this. And, I'm saying that my business, my energy counts a lot; and my energy counts more than--

Okay. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this, we'll see if lightning strikes. My energy counts more than the strategy that I apply. All right, y'all, the sky is still standing. [laughs] No, like Broker Printers came and took away my internet business ability. So, that's good. My energy counts more than strategy. And, that is what-- That's what I'm banking on and playing with for the Year of No.

I'm playing with, what can I do to say no to deflation? Right? What can I do to say, no, to feeling like I'm in a slog; feeling like, ‘oh my God, I just want this to be over? This is-- I’m so tired.

Now, y'all to know like anyone who's come and joined my program, when y'all come in, even if I'm feeling like the launch is hard, I am so in love and enamored with every single person who I get to work with. I get so overjoyed when people come in, that that is not where the slog is. The slog is not in applications.

It is not in welcoming people in, it is not in preparing the kits and the course content and the materials and all of that. The slog isn't like going through the motions and then you're like, ‘oh, this feels hard. Why? Oh.’ And then, you send it and you're like, I don't know. And then, you feel like you're sending so many emails and it just feels like a lot.

And, when you're in that, you're not present in the moment, right? You're not in this, like, what's the energy of the email responses I'm getting? What do I feel like people really, really want to hear or really need to hear? Or, what do I feel like is the thing that nobody else is telling these people that could be the thing to like change everything?

You can throw your to-do list out the window. Maybe, maybe, I mean, you can, and maybe that was what you needed to hear, right? Be in the moment, y'all, is the opposite of what we've been taught, which is all about the templates and the formulas, and the lock and the load.

This is also, by the way, the same as being in the moment with yourself, really navigating; how do you want to feel, and aligning yourself with that energy rather than following the formulas of what a good life looks like or a successful life looks like, or your best life ever looks like or what self-care looks like or what a life, what a life well-lived looks like.

The part of what we get to do here is to find that for ourselves. And, not only do we get to, I actually think that we have to, I think it's necessary as we figure out who we want to be in the world. So, to start with, what I've been asking, and I've been asking this for weeks around this launch, as I've been approaching it is, what needs to happen for my energy to stay high?

What's going to keep my energy the highest? Because my goal, y'all, I will report back and let you know how this goes, but my goal is that during Launch Week, next week, early-bird launch, during Launch Week is that every day at the end of my workday, I actually have more energy than when I started.

And then, I can walk away and be like, ‘oh my God, I wish this launch would just keep going. This is so fun. I am living my dream, so fun. It's amazing.’ And y'all, I don't honestly-- I mean, number one, I know that a lot of people don't feel that way about launching things.

And, number two, I don’t know, that I've ever felt that about launching. I've definitely felt that about other things that other people consider hard, but when it comes to launching, I'm usually pretty ready to like wrap things up in a bow, and stick them under the tree. So yeah. What can I do to keep my energy the highest? Even saying this here, it feels like, am I allowed to say that?

Yeah. Okay. Let's see it. Let's see what happens, right? Let's see what happens. It could be-- I don't know. I don't even know, like, let's see what happens. It just, it feels very, I'm so curious, y'all, so curious. So, what specifically am I saying, no, to this year, for this launch?

The first thing that I'm saying, no, to, and this was one that I really, I had to like simmer and think about, and go back and forth, and be like, ‘can I do this? Can I, can I really do this? Am I allowed to do this?’ The first thing that I'm saying no to is a long sales page. You know, the one--

I mean my sales page last year for Grown-Up Gap Year, it was a good sales page. It was thorough. It was crisp. It was beautiful. It was crystal-clear, and it was a long-ass sales page. It was so long. And, here's why I'm saying no to it this year. There's nothing wrong with it, right? There's nothing wrong with the sales page.

And, I know that the people that Grown-Up Gap Year is perfect for, are not excited to like sit and read a really long sales page. It's like, all the information's there. And actually, it's going to take you on a great little journey. And, I know myself and my own tendencies.

And, for me, when I have been feeling disconnected, and out of sorts, and not bored, but like antsy, like Ugh, and numbing out, and ‘I don't know,’ you know, just really like that listlessness, I could see a long sales page like that and I could skim the first and then be like, ‘oh my God, I can’t. It's too much,’ and click out.

So, as I started thinking about the launch and thinking about the sales page and thinking about how I wanted to approach it, I kept coming back to, what if I didn't have a sales page? And, even saying that, it feels like, ‘wait, Again, can I do that?’ Here's a little secret, y'all, for me, and you might want to try this one on too. See if it works for you.

Anytime I have an idea, and then I go, huh? Like I gasp a little, and then I follow it up with, ‘can I do that,’ that's when you know you're onto something. That's when I know I'm onto something. That's when it's like, ‘oh, let's pay attention to whatever is inducing this reaction,’ probably something to pay attention to. Am I allowed to just not have a sales page?

Now, what I know-- I mean, there are people who sell things without a sales page, of course. And, for a lot of programs that are like mine, like Grown-Up Gap Year, I don't know that I've ever seen someone just not have a sales page. Right? And the place where I've played is like, ‘well, is that because no one's tried it or is it because it is a terrible mistake that I'm going to red?’

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, y'all. Let's see what happens, right? And, this is where I keep coming back to, well, the Year of No is the perfect time to do it. Like I've already, I'm already in this deep. Let's just keep digging. I don't think it's going to be a terrible failure.
I think it will be fine. So, instead of like the long sales page, what I've done, y’all, I'm so excited is I've created a magazine, a magazine, what? Yeah. Like a document.

So, of course, as I was planning all of this, I even thought to myself, ‘I wonder if I could get a real hard copy set of physical magazines that I could mail people who were interested in Grown-Up Gap Year and do this whole Pen Pal thing. Calm down, Tiffany. I still love that idea, by the way. I still think it is a fun, awesome, again: fresh, interesting, delightful, different idea.

And, the fun, the interesting, the delightful, the different, like that is what I want Grown-Up Gap Year to be. Right? And so, for me, it's like, how can I take this program, the energy of the program and build it into the actual launch instead of like long sales page? And, if you get to the bottom, I think you're going to know that it's really great for you, but good luck.

Instead of that, I kept asking, ‘what feels fun to me? What feels exciting to me? How can I do this differently? How can I take the traditional way of doing things and flip it on its head?’ So, we made a magazine, y'all. And, let me tell you, I love it. I love it so much. It has been so fun to work with, to work with, to work on, to put together, to get out into the world.

It's also been really hard work, like really hard work. And, it has stretched my brain in ways that my brain is not used to stretching. It has definitely been highly inefficient. It has taken me, y'all--

I mean, I have spent so many hours working on this and like, to the point that I'm like, ‘what? I didn't even play Wordle today. What has happened to me?’ And, in these moments where I giggle with the light, it's been so fun, so fun.

But I think that this is also a really useful reminder when we think about aligning our energy with the things we want, with how we want to feel. That doesn't always mean that it's going to be effortless or easy-breezy or smooth, or that things are going to like, come together.

This project has hit some road bumps, and my energy stayed high. And honestly, y'all, that is one of the most exciting things that I can have for myself. And, what I want for you is that you get to still be who you are, even if speed bumps happen, even if roadblocks happen, even if road closures and hold detours happen, even if the whole thing goes just off a cliff, that you still get to be yourself.

You still get to be who you are as you move through your life with that feeling of peace and integrity and intention and Radical Self-Belief that, that's what we're after with a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside. Grown-Up Gap Year, early-bird applications next week, Woo-hoo! So, this has also allowed me to say no to being efficient or to requiring efficiency from myself.

This has been a long and winding, winding, winding road, but it's been so fun to be on. And, I'm really trusting that the energy is going to be there in the end, right? If I can like infuse every step with my joy and delight while still taking it very seriously that like, it's going to “work”. I think it's going to work, y'all.

Now, if you want to see the magazine and you're like, what is she talking about? Get on that early-bird wait list, because that's the only way you're going to see it, until probably September. And honestly, y'all, the other thing is that if it doesn't “work” and we want to go back to like the long sales page, we can, this is just early-bird. It's just an experiment. Let's see what happens.

So, I'm saying No to the long sales page. I'm also saying No to being efficient. The next thing that I'm saying no to is I'm saying No to like just handing it all off and being like, I can't. Please, just do it to get it done, please, please. I've got my hands in the pot, y'all.

I am very, very curious to see, is it true that I don't like writing launch emails or is it true that I don't like writing launch emails that feel like they have to follow some cookie-cutter template? Uh-huh. Sometimes, we can just get stuck in the habit of saying things and thinking things and believing things and like, ‘Ugh, launch emails. I hate writing launch emails.’ Do you? Why? Right?

Like, let's stop and ask, why? ‘Ugh. I can't believe I have to do that again. I hate doing this.’ What about it do you hate? What if-- What if you could say No to parts of it? What if you could say No, not to the thing, but how you move through the thing or how you are supposed to move through the thing? What if you could say, “I'm not doing it that way.”

I remember once, slight aside, y'all, my friend, Tanya Geisler, who has been on that podcast twice to talk about the Imposter Complex. I remember talking to her when my daughters were two, and Tanya is daughter is about 10 years older than my girls. So, I was talking to Tanya, my girls were two, and I was saying to her like, “Oh, I guess the terrible twos are coming.”

And, she said to me, “What if they don't?” And, I was like, “I'm sorry, what? Excuse me? She was like, “Well, what if the terrible twos don't come? What if the teenager phase doesn't come? Like, what if, what if they don't?” She said, you know, “When my daughter was little, we never hit those phases.” And, I was like, oh, can I-- Can I believe something different? Can I do this differently?”

It was so eye-opening to me. I'll say, I don't know that we ever hit the terrible twos and the teenager. Now, that is not to say that my children were always like the little angelic, amazing listeners, and that they never got upset or said no, or threw food on the ground. Or like, I mean, we could have this conversation forever.

Those things still happened, but it wasn't like, oh, terrible twos. It was like, ‘oh, look, this kid’s just being a two-year-old.’ Yeah. It's something that I've been able to now apply to so many different things, which is like, well, what if it's not awful? What if it's not that, what if it's something different? Right? What if it-- What if it is new and fresh and fun? What if?

And, as we think about how we want to live our lives too, that again, is that energy that I'm trying to bring to the table because yes, I want a life that feels as good on the inside as the looks on the outside. And, that might require some discomfort; and discomfort is hard. And, what if it is like hard, but also amazing and eye-opening and awesome and easier than you thought in a lot of ways.

And then, the hard parts still come, but the easy parts also come and then you look back and you're like, ‘whoa, I didn't realize I made so much progress. What if, right? What if? Part of what I'm saying No to is taking myself out of the equation, passing it off.

I'm saying like, yes, I'm staying in this equation that I'm trusting that I will be able to come up with the emails that I need to come up with and that the timing will work. And again, work, right? What do I mean by ‘work’? Do I mean that I'm going to sell out my program within two days, and then we're done and we can wrap it up and move along? I mean, I don't mind.

So, if you're listening to this and you're like, ‘yeah, do that.’ Great. I don't mind if that happens, that'd be fine. And, I'm not like-- I'm not holding onto this one specific result as a success, and then everything else is boo, a failure.

What I am measuring as the thing that is going to make this a success, again, y’all, is my energy, is, do I walk away at the end of the day being like, ‘wow, what a fun day? Oh my God, that was amazing. This was like my favorite day.’ If I could have that, honestly, if I can have that every day, that would be amazing. If I can have that during the launch, yes, please.

The next thing I'm saying No to is playing by the rules. So, I have taken so many notes about the launch strategy sequence, and the email, and the first email and the second email, and how you're supposed to do it. And then, you have this, and then you do this, and then you want to make sure that you say this and hit these points and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I've taken so many notes, y'all, on the right way to do it. I don't want to do it that way right now. I really don't, because when I think about going, I'm finding the notes and like plan to doing the mapping out and all of that, what happens is I deflate, ‘oh, someone turned my air off.’ I can read my energy on that.

But when I am like doing the dishes and I think something, and I'm like, ah, that, this is how you want to write in the email. This is what you want to say. This is what you want to make sure people know, this is how you want to meet people. That feels great. And, it doesn't require the checklist of the way that the people, whoever the people are say that you have to do things.

Now, I know that for me, this is what keeps my energy high. Other people really like following formulas. Other people really like being like, ‘oh, you want me to hit this? You want to do this script? Great. I'm going to do it.’ That doesn't-- The way that my energy works, doesn't make those people wrong. And, part of this is about you knowing for yourself what you need, where you are comfortable, where you thrive.

And, if that is having a script for something that you don't want to do or handing it off and letting someone else do it and it feels great, awesome. Keep doing that. I am not saying that formulas and best practices and the way things are done, right? The rules exist for a reason. Let's be clear.
My life would be easier if I could make the rules work for me, but they don't. And, that's okay. I mean, they work well enough. And again, we want it to be better, right? We want to go beyond just fine and be like, what is delicious? What is like the Caramelly Cream Puff, Cream Puff’s deliciousness available here?

So, for me, that's letting go of the rules, letting go of the formula, is letting go of, ‘da, da, da, this is how it has to be done.’ for you, it might mean letting go of trying to reinvent the wheel every time, and diving into a formula and a structure. That's okay, too. The next thing that I'm saying No to for the early-bird launch is pushing, pushing, pushing the sales super hard.

Now, when you're launching things, especially if there's a limited time and especially because we all are inundated with emails all the time, you might need to send out a couple extra emails. Sure, that is fine.

But/and what I'm wanting to make sure of for this launch specifically, is that rather than feeling like I'm, ‘sell, sell, selling,’ that I feel like I'm offering an invitation to an experience, that I'm really approaching it as if like I am writing a love letter to someone that I really care about and being like, ‘I would love it if you would join me here.’

And, the energy of that feels so good and so right, and so, like, the opposite of like, ‘oh, you're going to miss out. You're going to miss out.’ Really like driving that FOMO hard. I don't want to do that. Instead, I want to paint a picture of what's possible, what's available, what we could co-create and building from there. Right?

Again, keeping that energy high, staying in that like eye contact, lovey-dovey, connected place. It feels really good. It also feels like a little cheesy to say, [laughs] but y'all know, I tell you the truth. I tell you the truth, even later when I roll my eyes at myself, but right now I'm in the zone. So, let's stay in the zone.

The next thing that I'm saying No to is following a master plan, I'm going to kind of improv. And, I'm not saying like improv in that, I'm not going to have any ideas of things I want to say. But my plan y'all is to like write the emails the day before they go out, to trust my ability to write emails and to, you know, again, see what the energy is, what are the things people are asking me?

What are the things people are saying? What are the things that I'm noticing? How can I incorporate that into an invitation for an experience? And, I don't know, and I can't presuppose that, and I don't want to guess. I really don't. I want to be surprised. I'm curious.

And, if I try to guess, all my curiosity dissipates, because then I'm attached to the guess, but like, I want to be wildly open and like, ‘oh, let's see. Oh, interesting. What is that email going to say?’ So, I don't have a master plan, but it feels fun. And, it feels, you know, kind of rebellious, a little bit mischievous, a little bit like; again, ‘can I do this? Am I allowed to do this?’

Yeah. Yeah, you are. You are. Now, even though I have a master plan, I do have some things planned. Like I said, I'm going to be doing an open-house mini teaching event to give y'all a little taste of what Grown-Up Gap Year is like.

I've also got a really fun surprise happening for the people on the wait-list that is going to be like a, I don't want to tell you, but it's going to be a fun thing where there will be prizes. I love it. I'm so excited. So, some things are penciled in on the calendar. But again, this is only going to be going out to people on the waitlist. So, if you are like, ‘tell me more,’ make sure you get on the waitlist.

Now, all of these things I'm saying No to, as I've been mapping this list out in my head and thinking about it and thinking about this episode and making it real; I like to simmer on things for a while. It's one of the great things about going to every other week for episodes is like longer simmer time, and that's been really fun.

What I realized a couple nights ago is that everything I'm describing here about how I'm approaching my launch is actually this beautiful metaphor for Grown-Up Gap Year and for the changes that are possible when you take a Grown-Up Gap Year, because everything I've talked about with my launches, everything's been working like, okay, right? Like, it's been working fine. I've been following the rules.

It's not been tragic or like a massive failure from the outside looking in. None of y'all probably even knew that I was like, ‘oh, launch, I'm so tired.’ Maybe you're like, oh, news to me. And, this is how it can feel when we're in our lives, but we're not feeling that sense of peace. We're not feeling connected.

We're not feeling lit up by anything, right? It's not that things are bad, but it is this way of like, the tedium, the boredom, the what I like to call ‘Existential Ennui’, the like, ‘Eh, I don't know,’ right? And, as super achievers, as ambitious people, we just keep going. We just keep going. And often, when we feel that like, eh, what we often do, the way we often try to fix it is by actually achieving more, right?

By like committing to a new project, or a new thing, or trying harder, or going more all in on something. Or we try to like work our way to the breakthrough, right? Like, ‘I'm just going to do the self-care bootcamp, but I'm going to do all of-- I'm going to, Like, I'm going to just keep working.’

And, I could do that too with my launch. I could be like, “I am doing more strategy and I'm doing more-- I'm doing the ads and the things and the things and all the things. And, I'm going to just keep going down that ‘try harder’ route.” And, for people who come into Grown-Up Gap Year, they've tried that.

And, the problem is that that often just creates more work to keep up with, which creates more of that disconnection, which leaves us feeling less at peace. Even as the outside from the outside looking in, things might even get better looking.

And often, we don't even let ourselves feel that discontent because there's a lot of really hard things going on in the world, and a lot of people have it worse than we do. And so, we feel like we're not even allowed to feel what we feel about our own lives. ‘Well, who am I to want something different? I just need to suck it up.’

And, even other people, if you tell them that you're feeling discontent, they might be like, ‘what are you talking about? You've got it so good. Everything is working.’ And, you're like, ‘yeah, what am I talking about?’

And, I believe in gratitude, y'all. I believe in holding things close to our hearts, and treasuring them. I fully believe in that. But I also believe that gratitude doesn't mean that you have to stay still, that gratitude doesn't mean that you have to be complacent to a life that does not feel good on the inside; that that is not why you're here. That's not why any of us are here.

That there's something deeper, bigger, more beautiful, more expansive, more peaceful, more connected, more delightful, more joyful, more real, more divine, available to all of us. So, if you're like, ‘yes, Grown-Up Gap Year, check it out.’ And, for me, this is my own Year of No thing too is saying like, ‘how good could it feel? How good could it feel?’

Does that mean that I'm like, have blinders on to all the hard things that are going on in the world? No. [laughs] No. Sometimes I wish I could. Like, I'm there. I got my contacts in. I can see clearly. And, I know that like not valuing my own energy, doesn't make anything else better in the world.
And also, when I can show up in full energy, I am like a lot more effective and efficient and productive and focused just in all of the other things that I want to do in my world and my community, my family, with myself, all of that. And, that's what I want for all of us. So, that is my Year of No business lens with that big old Grown-Up Gap Year metaphor. I promise I did not plan that, y'all.

It just all came together. And, I was like, ‘all right, energy, let's follow that.’ The other thing that I'm playing with in my business during my Year of No, is taking a couple of months off. Can I do that? I say off. I'll still teach my class. I'll still be teaching Grown-Up Gap Year that starts in October, right?

But like, could I take November and December off from all content creation and only check email once a week? Is that possible? I think it's possible. And, I think I'm going to do it. And, that also feels like, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've taken podcast breaks before, but it feels like, ‘Ooh, that feels fun.’ And then, my brain says, what are you going to do during that time?

And, I'm like, I have no idea. Ah, ah, it's going to be great. It's going to be great. So, that's the other thing, y'all, that I'm simmering on? Do I know if I'll go back to social media in January? I have no idea. [laughs] I know nothing and that's okay because it's only, you know, in the middle of June, I've got time.

Other insight is going to let itself be known. I am certain of that. All right, y'all, thank you for listening. More soon. Grown-Up Gap Year early-bird launch is happening next week you'll get to watch all of this play out if you're on that early-bird list, as well as get first tips on the applications and access to that early-bird cash discount.

So, click on the link in the show notes to get on that list, if you are at all intrigued with the magazine. And, thank you for being here, and I will see you in a couple of weeks.

Thank you for listening. And, if you liked what you heard, please be sure to tell a friend or spread the word about the show. In addition to that, ratings and reviews make a huge difference in helping me get my work into the ears of other people. So, thank you for everybody who has done that.

And, thank you for everyone who is about to do that right now; wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Also, don't forget about my free five-day Radical Delight Kickstart, my private five-day podcast that is designed to help you infuse your days with delight as quickly and easily as possible.
The Tiffany Han Show is a production of Say Yes Creative LLC with editing and sound mixing from Podcast Edition; and post-production and ongoing support from Jaz Zepatos, Her Podcast Club. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next week.

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