Michelle Jacobik grew up in a family of penny pinchers. When she moved out, she knew she didn’t want to live like that, spent far more than she was making, and dove headfirst into entrepreneurship to help dig her way out of credit card debt and payday loans.
Now, at Envision + Thrive Academy, she helps her fellow entrepreneurs connect their visions, cash flow, and growth. She gives them the training they need to keep their businesses fiscally healthy, build viable plans, and achieve success without creating dozens of spreadsheets.
Today, Michelle joins the podcast to share the story of how entrepreneurship became her lifeline when she needed it most, how she grew a business from $600,000 in revenue to over $12 million in sales within a year, and how to take the first step as you launch a membership of your own.
Key Takeaways
- How maxed out credit cards, payday loans, and mounting debt led Michelle directly into the world of entrepreneurship.
- Why so many entrepreneurs struggle to build viable businesses despite how hard they work – and the lessons Michelle learned that helped inform her membership.
- Why Michelle sets a weekly appointment to speak with her voice of doubt to conquer her fears and lean in to her intuition.
- How Michelle pivoted to a membership when COVID hit and her books became slammed.
- The power of working with a great mentor as you take the first step and prepare to launch a membership.
Free Give
FREE Guide – Launch & Grow a Profitable Membership Site
Ready to reclaim your time and attract more monthly paying customers? Our step-by-step guide will show you how to build a membership site that turns your passion into recurring profit. Click here to download!
Memorable Quote
- “Having a plan, not just a dream, was really a big part of the formula to success.” – Michelle Jacobik
- “Don’t let blind people proofread your vision.” – Michelle Jacobik
Episode Resources
Transcript
Read The TranscriptShelli Varela: Michelle Jacobik, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing podcast. How are you?
Michelle Jacobik: I am super jazzed to be here today, Shelli.
Shelli Varela: Well, that’s awesome. We are super jazzed to have you. Can you start with who you are, what you do, and who you serve?
Michelle Jacobik: Sure. As you said, my name is Michelle Jacobik, and I am a business profitability strategist. And I work with emerging and advancing entrepreneurs at helping them win at this game of entrepreneurship.
Shelli Varela: Brilliant. And when you started out long before you were the genius that you are now, serving the people that you are serving at such a high level, what is the beginning of the story? Where does this route go back to?
Michelle Jacobik: So, the beginning of a story for me really goes back to my early childhood years. I had a very modest upbringing. Both of my parents worked for a municipality, my dad as a laborer in the Public Works Department, my mom in the finance department as an admin. And I remember at 10, her handing me a checkbook register and teaching me how to balance the checkbook, which was something that you did monthly because there was no online banking, and it was weird. I thought this is really going to be one of my monthly chores, like dusting and balancing the checkbook. And I remember thinking more math, too, like I didn’t even like math.
And little did I know then how important that task was going to be for me in the years to come. I remember just thinking, watching my grandmother and my mother plan every dollar, couponing, breaking dollars up. They had a vacation club, they had a Christmas club, they had layaways at Christmas. And I felt for me, this deep sense of we can’t afford things, I felt like I was witnessing penny pinching in my child mind and wondering why they had to do that. And I also watched them saving for a rainy day, like putting dollars away for that rainy day. And I thought, I don’t want to be like this, like I just don’t want to be like this.
And fast forward, I moved out at 19 years old. I had just finished my two years’ associate’s degree in business management, which gave me a huge sense of adult confidence. I was fueled by that sense of adult confidence, that honestly had enough fuel to power a private jet. And I had the private jet on my vision board because I believed in dreaming big. And for me, I think, dreaming came from this place of… I just don’t want to be like that, right? I wanted more, and I didn’t even know what more was at 19. I just knew that it needed to be different, it needed to be bigger. And I remember always having big dreams, big thoughts, big things that I wanted and being told even if you dream too big, get your head out of the clouds, come and work for the municipality, get your health insurance benefits. This was three decades ago when health insurance ended at 18 years old, and that was the safety, right? And I did not want to live within the safety and non-risk taking life steps that I saw.
And so, I left out, I dreamt big. Visa and MasterCards became my first business partners, quite honestly, and payday loans were a big thing back then, where checks showed up in my mailbox with Michelle Kalin written on them. And I thought, thank you, universe. You know exactly what I’m trying to do. And all of that left me feeling like I had my own team of angel investors. And the truth was I was making $11 an hour when I took that leap out of my house, but I was spending as though I was making $75. I was chasing all the shiny objects, everything materialistic that you could imagine. And quite honestly, it seemed like the right thing at the time, but the fog lifted, and I realized three years later, I had buried myself in an amount of debt. I had the new waterbed, the new car, the vacations when I was stressed out, everything that I needed or wanted could go on a credit card. And when the APR game ran out, and the consolidation game ran out, when it was game over, there were no more innings, there was no more room on a card, there was nowhere else to grab. I found myself literally waking up at a blind eye being open, and my mantra “fake it till you can make it” being ripped out from under me.
And I had to figure it out. And the way I had to figure it out because there was no other way to figure it out, was to go back to my grandmother’s and my mother’s way of saving and figuring it out, out of the chains of guilt, out of the shame that I had been wearing, just opening up my eyes to figuring out how to master money. And luckily for me, I was working for a financial services firm and learning about money at the same time that I was train wrecking. So, it took me three years and three jobs to talk about entrepreneurship. That was my leap into entrepreneurship, having to dig my way out.
And like many people today, when they start a business, I wasn’t in business, but I was learning my entrepreneurial skills by having to figure it out. And I think for me, it took me three years. It took me a lot of grind, three jobs, learning about money, doing taxes, selling life insurance, all of these things that I knew if I could just make another dollar and tell it where to go, I could figure out my problem. And with more mature eyes, I actually learned some really strong financial lessons at that beginning stage of adulthood that I’ve been able to take with me for years now.
I learned that financial consistency is actually what leads to financial stability. I learned that I could replace my desire for certainty with the desire for clarity, that I could figure problems out if I just got clear and started asking the right questions, like what else is possible? What do I need to learn? I didn’t fail. I had a first attempt that didn’t go well. And what can I learn from this? And I learned that having a plan, not just a dream, was really a big part of the formula to success. And I learned that also by working on my mindset, I had a lot of scarcity stuff going on as that 19-year-old that if I continue to work on my mindset issues, my prosperity blocks that were really attached to me pretty deeply there as I leapt into adulthood, that I could actually have bigger leaps in my life. And that’s what happened.
I began to master my vision, my mindset, my money, and I transformed my life as a 23-year-old young woman drowning in debt to a businesswoman who, with a partner, bought the company that I worked for right before I turned 30, and we grew that client base from $600,000 to over $12 million in sales a year. And so, today, I get to use that experience and help other entrepreneurs level up in these three areas, their vision, their cash flow, the ability to grow by sharing my experience.
Shelli Varela: I love how you casually say we took the company from 600 to 12 million just like that.
Michelle Jacobik: Well, that was a 17-year journey, but I think, again, it comes back to through 17 years of growing a company and working a company. I mean, there are times where you’re not taking a paycheck. There’s a lot of responsibility, when you buy a company, you’ve got the bank that you’re responsible to pay. You’ve got payroll. We had a lot of responsibility, and there was a lot of knowing. And I think what I loved early on, and I was in insurance, by the way, and I did taxes and you can’t memorize the tax code and you can’t represent insurance company and know every single one of their guidelines. You get really good at looking for answers and knowing who to ask. And you know, there’s this sense of humility and this sense of curiosity because you can’t have it all figured out as an entrepreneur.
Shelli Varela: Absolutely. I loved what you said and how you juxtaposed your beginnings to leaving and just trying to figure it out and having that fire in your belly and saying, “Okay, I’m going to do this.” And I was sharing with you in the pre-char that I’ve seen this graphic, and it’s beautiful because it’s so simple, and all it says is not this.
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah.
Shelli Varela: And so, for those people who are listening, who are sitting on an idea, on a dream, who maybe have had an experience just like yours, where you’ve tried and you failed and you have to claw your way out of it, sometimes, you don’t need to know what it is, you just need to start with what it isn’t.
Michelle Jacobik: Yes, I 100% agree. I think that, sometimes we start out, and in this chapter of my life, this is a whole new chapter for me, 26 years in insurance, and I had no idea what the next thing was going to be. And I think that just like at the age of 18, 19, 20 years old, people go to school, they come out educated, and they realize that what they thought life was going to be are the things that interested them then, that there’s this inner knowing, these guidance systems that if they can tap into it, and they feel a nudge towards something new or towards something that just seems more attractive, that it’s okay to explore it. It’s that growing your intuition and starting to have some self-trust about what it is you want. So, if there’s that little spark of, I think this would be a great idea being around people that can actually help light your way and really, like your spark.
Having this sense of learning, like having a desire to learn, stepping in, even if it’s this idea that somebody else has already done and you have this platform where you can step in and volunteer or learn more about the field so that you can then take your vision for what that looks like to life, I think the biggest thing is what do you do when you have that idea and the people around you don’t think the way that you think. And one of my favorite things to say to people, one of my favorite mantras, is don’t let blind people proofread your vision.
Don’t let blind people proofread your vision, because some people just aren’t going to understand, and they don’t need to. We want them to, we do want our closest circle and friends and family, I mean, even for me, like, I’ve always wanted them to do business with me, but the reality is you may want them to, but they may not understand. And it’s why it’s so important to put yourself around people that are on that entrepreneurial journey that are ahead of you, that are an example and who are willing to be transparent about the journey, not just you looking through the lens of where they are and thinking that you’re failing if you’re at the beginning and they’re in the middle.
Shelli Varela: Yeah, totally. You talked earlier about clarity, and I think that’s such a beautiful point. And as I’m listening to you tell your story, the clarity that I’ve watched unfold for you is also an inner knowing. And we were talking earlier about society as you journey through life, there’s these millions of grains of sand about you’re big enough, brave enough. Be more, you’re not enough, you’re too much, all of those things. And also, too, what life should look like, you should go to school, you should get a job that you do for 30 years, and then you should retire and then you should start enjoying life.
For those people who are in that, because you witnessed that from a very young age as well, how do you tell what your inner knowing is, saying if it’s a yes or if it’s a no, because there’s always fear and doubt in there somewhere in terms of is this my voice, and who am I to dare to dream it?
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah, that is such a great question. So, I wholeheartedly believe that our destiny and our doubt live on the same plane. The safety piece is that fear that says don’t take that chance because you’re going to get hurt or you’re going to fail, or it may not look the way that you think it’s going to look. And I think the first thing is understanding that those two parallels are always going to exist, they’re always going to, because the unknown is where you want to go. We’ve never been there before. Yes, it’s risky. And I think that first is understanding that they both are going to always exist. There’s always going to be that voice and that self-doubt and that shitty itty bitty thinking committee who is going to be talking to you, is you’re thinking bigger as you’re planting your dreams?
And I think for me, I’ve learned, I actually have a date on my calendar every Friday at 4:10 with my voice of doubt. So, when it creeps in on Tuesday, and I’m trying to stay in motion and stay on vision, I’m not kidding, like literally Fridays at 4:10 for the last three years, it’s on my calendar, because even birthing this new business, this new chapter in my life, there’s been a whole lot of, well, you’ve never been a speaker, and you’ve never been an author. And I wrote a book. And so, there’s this knowing that says, yes, you’re supposed to do these things, but then there’s that you’ve never done it. What makes you think you should? Or somebody else has already done it or is doing it better.
And so, I have to have a place in my calendar, so that on Tuesday at 10 o’clock in the morning, when it wants to take me out and bring fear into my mind rather than just addressing it and let it take up two days, I’d say, it’s okay, you can come back Friday at 4:10, and I keep moving. And then Friday comes, and my alarm goes off. And there are some Fridays where it needs to be heard, I have to listen to it. Sometimes there’s things for me to learn, and listening to that voice, there’s more things for me to work on because there’s always things for us to work on. And other times, I get to Friday at 4:10, and the things that were bothering me on Tuesday, they’re gone. I’ve already dispelled them because my action helped me bring to fruition that it was okay to move forward, and not get stuck.
And so, I think that’s the biggest thing, is trying to find tools that let you lean into your intuition. And it’s progress that we’re always working on. I don’t think we just, all of a sudden, have this enlightened moment. Even the best masters, successful people, masters, gurus, they’re always working on self-awareness.
Shelli Varela: Totally. Absolutely. So, we have you up to this point in your journey. Can you tell us how you transitioned to making this a membership site, which you call EnVision and Thrive Academy?
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah, so here’s what happened, COVID hit, and people needed help, they needed direction, they needed answers, and I started doing daily videos and emails to help guide entrepreneurs whose stores were literally closed, they were closed. I was in South Carolina. I had flown out the day before. I’m in Connecticut. The day before the doors got closed here in Connecticut, I flew myself to South Carolina. I was having my first grandchild, I wanted to be there. And that first 72 hours was so critical in my mind because entrepreneurs had never been told, other than a fire, which I was in insurance. So, I dealt with businesses that had floods and fires and thefts, but in this case, it was this incredible landscape of businesses, stores just being closed. And I knew in that first 72 hours how critical it was going to be for them to get guidance.
And I just started doing videos and emails and guiding people and communities and jumping in and telling them to call their vendor, stop automatic payments, apply for the EIDL grants, get the PPP money, just stand in front of your business, and don’t just be paralyzed. Take steps in the first 72 hours. And people needed guidance, they were scared. I knew that they were going to have to pivot and figure things out, or they were going to be out of business, many of them, because they didn’t have cash flow to sustain 30 days, 60 days.
I had no room for one-on-one clients. My Mastermind was full. It wasn’t reopening until December. I had no room in my calendar for clients to take on and help, but I felt, part of my mission is to help more entrepreneurs when in entrepreneurship, I had to step up, but the truth was, I had no room. I had no room to step up. It was either more hours, more days, seven days a week. And quite honestly, that’s not what I wanted in this chapter, but I did it. I did it in that first six or eight weeks because they needed it.
At the same time, Stu McLaren had put up TRIBE Live 2020, and I had enrolled. And on my vision board, I had a membership site in line for 2021. I was not ready. I was not going to do it. And the first week in TRIBE Live, Stu said, “You’re going to have a founding member launch.” And I was like, I’m just here to learn, I’m good. I did the whole thing, and he was like, no, no, no, you’re going to do it right away. No sales page, no funnels, you’re just going to put out some emails. And I thought, huh, there’s a reason why I’m here, and there’s a reason why I can’t have my event in May, and I can’t even go to a hotel and have my clients come that week that we were supposed to be there. I’m going to do a founding member launch, I guess, because Stu says so.
And I embraced it because I knew that the people that needed me needed more, and I knew that I could leverage my time. So, the founding member launch, when I put it out on following that model, I ended up in three days, I only opened it for three days, 27 members, and the EnVision and Thrive Academy was born.
Shelli Varela: Amazing, because you said yes.
Michelle Jacobik: I said yes. And I could have given myself all of the reasons to say, no, I’m not ready, it’s not ready, I’ll build it my way. I remember actually going like, no, no, no, I’ll just do it my way. You’re talking to everybody else. And then I just kept thinking about the people that I serve and how I needed to help. And I could not do that if I was going to wait. And so, it was validation to take that leap. And luckily for me, I had a TRIBE around me that was going through it, who was cheering me on. And I was hearing Stu say, “One member at a time, membership’s a long game, not a short game.” And I just kept thinking, if the worst thing that happens is for people to show up, and they become a founding member, it’s validation that more than one person showed up or at least one person showed up.
And then I did my full launch in July, and I ended up with, I think, 61 members. And then I opened the doors again in December, and today, I have 91. So, I’m still a baby, like I’m literally in the crawling infant stages of this membership thing, but it really was birthed from a desire to really serve more people, and not be giving from an empty cup all the time, which is what happens in business, right?
Shelli Varela: So, this is an incredibly inspiring story, your full circle moment coming back and then just paying it forward. So, I’m interested, for everybody listening, because they’re going to want to know this from you specifically. So, last question, if people are tuning into this and seeing themselves in your story, they’re hearing your story, but they’re feeling theirs, and they are standing on the precipice of being interested in starting a membership site, but having the same thoughts you did. When you heard Stu say, just do it, just gripping and ripping, do it before you’re ready, just jump, and then the parachute in freefall. Given that you can’t steer a parked car and you did jump and you did do the thing and you did get momentum, what advice would you give those people who are where you were last year?
Michelle Jacobik: What I would say is this, somebody said it to me, TRIBE works, TRIBE works, TRIBE works. And this is not a plug for TRIBE, I know that’s not what this podcast is about, but it is so true. I am a firm believer that when you have a vision for something, I’ve always had coaches in the 26 years that I was in insurance, I had business consultants and coaches, I have had support through this business, and the reality is that when you have a vision for something, I know for me, I want to shorten the timeline. I don’t want it to take three years. And so, the way that I’m able to do that is I can lean into my intuition, but I can have somebody who’s mentoring me. And again, this is like all of the pistols are fired if you’re stepping into a community.
And so, for me, take the first step. The first step is to align yourself with somebody who has a proven track record, who is cheering you on every step of the way, with a community built with people who are just amazing. I mean, like what I love the most, I think, is the culture of celebration. It’s the culture of let’s keep moving. And I think that if you’re in a place where you’re not sure, but you’re interested in membership, if you’re overwhelmed with the amount of hours that you’re working in the business, if you’re not leveraging cash, if you’re working so hard and you’re still not paying yourself, or the investments you’ve made in your business are now in debt, take the chance. Take the chance and explore this membership thing. It’s beautiful. And we forget that Amazon were memberships, like I think that was the other thing for me, Shelli, was thinking of how many places in my life I was already in a membership with people.
And when I got that, I’m like, this is really no different. It’s just a different way that you bring your service or products to other people. And I’ve seen some incredible things. I’ve been the recipient of people in the TRIBE membership, like somebody just trying to generate cash flow, and they put up a pizza workshop. And I was like, I’m doing that. And to see people showing up, like to cook pizza, come on, like, if you have an idea, test it out.
Shelli Varela: Yeah, well, because every great thing that ever started, started with somebody not knowing. And I heard you talking about this earlier, and it made me think of this. There was a day when Oprah didn’t know how to turn on a microphone.
Michelle Jacobik: Wow. See?
Shelli Varela: So, let’s all just marinate in that for a moment.
Michelle Jacobik: I love that.
Shelli Varela: Thank you so much for sharing your story. This has been absolutely epic. And if people are looking to reach you online, where is the best place they can connect?
Michelle Jacobik: The best place to connect is my website, MichelleJacobik.com.
Shelli Varela: And can you spell that for us?
Michelle Jacobik: Yep. M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E J-A-C like Charlie, O, B like boy, I-K.
Shelli Varela: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming by, sharing your heart.
Michelle Jacobik: Thank you. It was great.
[END]
Shelli Varela: Michelle Jacobik, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing podcast. How are you?
Michelle Jacobik: I am super jazzed to be here today, Shelli.
Shelli Varela: Well, that’s awesome. We are super jazzed to have you. Can you start with who you are, what you do, and who you serve?
Michelle Jacobik: Sure. As you said, my name is Michelle Jacobik, and I am a business profitability strategist. And I work with emerging and advancing entrepreneurs at helping them win at this game of entrepreneurship.
Shelli Varela: Brilliant. And when you started out long before you were the genius that you are now, serving the people that you are serving at such a high level, what is the beginning of the story? Where does this route go back to?
Michelle Jacobik: So, the beginning of a story for me really goes back to my early childhood years. I had a very modest upbringing. Both of my parents worked for a municipality, my dad as a laborer in the Public Works Department, my mom in the finance department as an admin. And I remember at 10, her handing me a checkbook register and teaching me how to balance the checkbook, which was something that you did monthly because there was no online banking, and it was weird. I thought this is really going to be one of my monthly chores, like dusting and balancing the checkbook. And I remember thinking more math, too, like I didn’t even like math.
And little did I know then how important that task was going to be for me in the years to come. I remember just thinking, watching my grandmother and my mother plan every dollar, couponing, breaking dollars up. They had a vacation club, they had a Christmas club, they had layaways at Christmas. And I felt for me, this deep sense of we can’t afford things, I felt like I was witnessing penny pinching in my child mind and wondering why they had to do that. And I also watched them saving for a rainy day, like putting dollars away for that rainy day. And I thought, I don’t want to be like this, like I just don’t want to be like this.
And fast forward, I moved out at 19 years old. I had just finished my two years’ associate’s degree in business management, which gave me a huge sense of adult confidence. I was fueled by that sense of adult confidence, that honestly had enough fuel to power a private jet. And I had the private jet on my vision board because I believed in dreaming big. And for me, I think, dreaming came from this place of… I just don’t want to be like that, right? I wanted more, and I didn’t even know what more was at 19. I just knew that it needed to be different, it needed to be bigger. And I remember always having big dreams, big thoughts, big things that I wanted and being told even if you dream too big, get your head out of the clouds, come and work for the municipality, get your health insurance benefits. This was three decades ago when health insurance ended at 18 years old, and that was the safety, right? And I did not want to live within the safety and non-risk taking life steps that I saw.
And so, I left out, I dreamt big. Visa and MasterCards became my first business partners, quite honestly, and payday loans were a big thing back then, where checks showed up in my mailbox with Michelle Kalin written on them. And I thought, thank you, universe. You know exactly what I’m trying to do. And all of that left me feeling like I had my own team of angel investors. And the truth was I was making $11 an hour when I took that leap out of my house, but I was spending as though I was making $75. I was chasing all the shiny objects, everything materialistic that you could imagine. And quite honestly, it seemed like the right thing at the time, but the fog lifted, and I realized three years later, I had buried myself in an amount of debt. I had the new waterbed, the new car, the vacations when I was stressed out, everything that I needed or wanted could go on a credit card. And when the APR game ran out, and the consolidation game ran out, when it was game over, there were no more innings, there was no more room on a card, there was nowhere else to grab. I found myself literally waking up at a blind eye being open, and my mantra “fake it till you can make it” being ripped out from under me.
And I had to figure it out. And the way I had to figure it out because there was no other way to figure it out, was to go back to my grandmother’s and my mother’s way of saving and figuring it out, out of the chains of guilt, out of the shame that I had been wearing, just opening up my eyes to figuring out how to master money. And luckily for me, I was working for a financial services firm and learning about money at the same time that I was train wrecking. So, it took me three years and three jobs to talk about entrepreneurship. That was my leap into entrepreneurship, having to dig my way out.
And like many people today, when they start a business, I wasn’t in business, but I was learning my entrepreneurial skills by having to figure it out. And I think for me, it took me three years. It took me a lot of grind, three jobs, learning about money, doing taxes, selling life insurance, all of these things that I knew if I could just make another dollar and tell it where to go, I could figure out my problem. And with more mature eyes, I actually learned some really strong financial lessons at that beginning stage of adulthood that I’ve been able to take with me for years now.
I learned that financial consistency is actually what leads to financial stability. I learned that I could replace my desire for certainty with the desire for clarity, that I could figure problems out if I just got clear and started asking the right questions, like what else is possible? What do I need to learn? I didn’t fail. I had a first attempt that didn’t go well. And what can I learn from this? And I learned that having a plan, not just a dream, was really a big part of the formula to success. And I learned that also by working on my mindset, I had a lot of scarcity stuff going on as that 19-year-old that if I continue to work on my mindset issues, my prosperity blocks that were really attached to me pretty deeply there as I leapt into adulthood, that I could actually have bigger leaps in my life. And that’s what happened.
I began to master my vision, my mindset, my money, and I transformed my life as a 23-year-old young woman drowning in debt to a businesswoman who, with a partner, bought the company that I worked for right before I turned 30, and we grew that client base from $600,000 to over $12 million in sales a year. And so, today, I get to use that experience and help other entrepreneurs level up in these three areas, their vision, their cash flow, the ability to grow by sharing my experience.
Shelli Varela: I love how you casually say we took the company from 600 to 12 million just like that.
Michelle Jacobik: Well, that was a 17-year journey, but I think, again, it comes back to through 17 years of growing a company and working a company. I mean, there are times where you’re not taking a paycheck. There’s a lot of responsibility, when you buy a company, you’ve got the bank that you’re responsible to pay. You’ve got payroll. We had a lot of responsibility, and there was a lot of knowing. And I think what I loved early on, and I was in insurance, by the way, and I did taxes and you can’t memorize the tax code and you can’t represent insurance company and know every single one of their guidelines. You get really good at looking for answers and knowing who to ask. And you know, there’s this sense of humility and this sense of curiosity because you can’t have it all figured out as an entrepreneur.
Shelli Varela: Absolutely. I loved what you said and how you juxtaposed your beginnings to leaving and just trying to figure it out and having that fire in your belly and saying, “Okay, I’m going to do this.” And I was sharing with you in the pre-char that I’ve seen this graphic, and it’s beautiful because it’s so simple, and all it says is not this.
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah.
Shelli Varela: And so, for those people who are listening, who are sitting on an idea, on a dream, who maybe have had an experience just like yours, where you’ve tried and you failed and you have to claw your way out of it, sometimes, you don’t need to know what it is, you just need to start with what it isn’t.
Michelle Jacobik: Yes, I 100% agree. I think that, sometimes we start out, and in this chapter of my life, this is a whole new chapter for me, 26 years in insurance, and I had no idea what the next thing was going to be. And I think that just like at the age of 18, 19, 20 years old, people go to school, they come out educated, and they realize that what they thought life was going to be are the things that interested them then, that there’s this inner knowing, these guidance systems that if they can tap into it, and they feel a nudge towards something new or towards something that just seems more attractive, that it’s okay to explore it. It’s that growing your intuition and starting to have some self-trust about what it is you want. So, if there’s that little spark of, I think this would be a great idea being around people that can actually help light your way and really, like your spark.
Having this sense of learning, like having a desire to learn, stepping in, even if it’s this idea that somebody else has already done and you have this platform where you can step in and volunteer or learn more about the field so that you can then take your vision for what that looks like to life, I think the biggest thing is what do you do when you have that idea and the people around you don’t think the way that you think. And one of my favorite things to say to people, one of my favorite mantras, is don’t let blind people proofread your vision.
Don’t let blind people proofread your vision, because some people just aren’t going to understand, and they don’t need to. We want them to, we do want our closest circle and friends and family, I mean, even for me, like, I’ve always wanted them to do business with me, but the reality is you may want them to, but they may not understand. And it’s why it’s so important to put yourself around people that are on that entrepreneurial journey that are ahead of you, that are an example and who are willing to be transparent about the journey, not just you looking through the lens of where they are and thinking that you’re failing if you’re at the beginning and they’re in the middle.
Shelli Varela: Yeah, totally. You talked earlier about clarity, and I think that’s such a beautiful point. And as I’m listening to you tell your story, the clarity that I’ve watched unfold for you is also an inner knowing. And we were talking earlier about society as you journey through life, there’s these millions of grains of sand about you’re big enough, brave enough. Be more, you’re not enough, you’re too much, all of those things. And also, too, what life should look like, you should go to school, you should get a job that you do for 30 years, and then you should retire and then you should start enjoying life.
For those people who are in that, because you witnessed that from a very young age as well, how do you tell what your inner knowing is, saying if it’s a yes or if it’s a no, because there’s always fear and doubt in there somewhere in terms of is this my voice, and who am I to dare to dream it?
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah, that is such a great question. So, I wholeheartedly believe that our destiny and our doubt live on the same plane. The safety piece is that fear that says don’t take that chance because you’re going to get hurt or you’re going to fail, or it may not look the way that you think it’s going to look. And I think the first thing is understanding that those two parallels are always going to exist, they’re always going to, because the unknown is where you want to go. We’ve never been there before. Yes, it’s risky. And I think that first is understanding that they both are going to always exist. There’s always going to be that voice and that self-doubt and that shitty itty bitty thinking committee who is going to be talking to you, is you’re thinking bigger as you’re planting your dreams?
And I think for me, I’ve learned, I actually have a date on my calendar every Friday at 4:10 with my voice of doubt. So, when it creeps in on Tuesday, and I’m trying to stay in motion and stay on vision, I’m not kidding, like literally Fridays at 4:10 for the last three years, it’s on my calendar, because even birthing this new business, this new chapter in my life, there’s been a whole lot of, well, you’ve never been a speaker, and you’ve never been an author. And I wrote a book. And so, there’s this knowing that says, yes, you’re supposed to do these things, but then there’s that you’ve never done it. What makes you think you should? Or somebody else has already done it or is doing it better.
And so, I have to have a place in my calendar, so that on Tuesday at 10 o’clock in the morning, when it wants to take me out and bring fear into my mind rather than just addressing it and let it take up two days, I’d say, it’s okay, you can come back Friday at 4:10, and I keep moving. And then Friday comes, and my alarm goes off. And there are some Fridays where it needs to be heard, I have to listen to it. Sometimes there’s things for me to learn, and listening to that voice, there’s more things for me to work on because there’s always things for us to work on. And other times, I get to Friday at 4:10, and the things that were bothering me on Tuesday, they’re gone. I’ve already dispelled them because my action helped me bring to fruition that it was okay to move forward, and not get stuck.
And so, I think that’s the biggest thing, is trying to find tools that let you lean into your intuition. And it’s progress that we’re always working on. I don’t think we just, all of a sudden, have this enlightened moment. Even the best masters, successful people, masters, gurus, they’re always working on self-awareness.
Shelli Varela: Totally. Absolutely. So, we have you up to this point in your journey. Can you tell us how you transitioned to making this a membership site, which you call EnVision and Thrive Academy?
Michelle Jacobik: Yeah, so here’s what happened, COVID hit, and people needed help, they needed direction, they needed answers, and I started doing daily videos and emails to help guide entrepreneurs whose stores were literally closed, they were closed. I was in South Carolina. I had flown out the day before. I’m in Connecticut. The day before the doors got closed here in Connecticut, I flew myself to South Carolina. I was having my first grandchild, I wanted to be there. And that first 72 hours was so critical in my mind because entrepreneurs had never been told, other than a fire, which I was in insurance. So, I dealt with businesses that had floods and fires and thefts, but in this case, it was this incredible landscape of businesses, stores just being closed. And I knew in that first 72 hours how critical it was going to be for them to get guidance.
And I just started doing videos and emails and guiding people and communities and jumping in and telling them to call their vendor, stop automatic payments, apply for the EIDL grants, get the PPP money, just stand in front of your business, and don’t just be paralyzed. Take steps in the first 72 hours. And people needed guidance, they were scared. I knew that they were going to have to pivot and figure things out, or they were going to be out of business, many of them, because they didn’t have cash flow to sustain 30 days, 60 days.
I had no room for one-on-one clients. My Mastermind was full. It wasn’t reopening until December. I had no room in my calendar for clients to take on and help, but I felt, part of my mission is to help more entrepreneurs when in entrepreneurship, I had to step up, but the truth was, I had no room. I had no room to step up. It was either more hours, more days, seven days a week. And quite honestly, that’s not what I wanted in this chapter, but I did it. I did it in that first six or eight weeks because they needed it.
At the same time, Stu McLaren had put up TRIBE Live 2020, and I had enrolled. And on my vision board, I had a membership site in line for 2021. I was not ready. I was not going to do it. And the first week in TRIBE Live, Stu said, “You’re going to have a founding member launch.” And I was like, I’m just here to learn, I’m good. I did the whole thing, and he was like, no, no, no, you’re going to do it right away. No sales page, no funnels, you’re just going to put out some emails. And I thought, huh, there’s a reason why I’m here, and there’s a reason why I can’t have my event in May, and I can’t even go to a hotel and have my clients come that week that we were supposed to be there. I’m going to do a founding member launch, I guess, because Stu says so.
And I embraced it because I knew that the people that needed me needed more, and I knew that I could leverage my time. So, the founding member launch, when I put it out on following that model, I ended up in three days, I only opened it for three days, 27 members, and the EnVision and Thrive Academy was born.
Shelli Varela: Amazing, because you said yes.
Michelle Jacobik: I said yes. And I could have given myself all of the reasons to say, no, I’m not ready, it’s not ready, I’ll build it my way. I remember actually going like, no, no, no, I’ll just do it my way. You’re talking to everybody else. And then I just kept thinking about the people that I serve and how I needed to help. And I could not do that if I was going to wait. And so, it was validation to take that leap. And luckily for me, I had a TRIBE around me that was going through it, who was cheering me on. And I was hearing Stu say, “One member at a time, membership’s a long game, not a short game.” And I just kept thinking, if the worst thing that happens is for people to show up, and they become a founding member, it’s validation that more than one person showed up or at least one person showed up.
And then I did my full launch in July, and I ended up with, I think, 61 members. And then I opened the doors again in December, and today, I have 91. So, I’m still a baby, like I’m literally in the crawling infant stages of this membership thing, but it really was birthed from a desire to really serve more people, and not be giving from an empty cup all the time, which is what happens in business, right?
Shelli Varela: So, this is an incredibly inspiring story, your full circle moment coming back and then just paying it forward. So, I’m interested, for everybody listening, because they’re going to want to know this from you specifically. So, last question, if people are tuning into this and seeing themselves in your story, they’re hearing your story, but they’re feeling theirs, and they are standing on the precipice of being interested in starting a membership site, but having the same thoughts you did. When you heard Stu say, just do it, just gripping and ripping, do it before you’re ready, just jump, and then the parachute in freefall. Given that you can’t steer a parked car and you did jump and you did do the thing and you did get momentum, what advice would you give those people who are where you were last year?
Michelle Jacobik: What I would say is this, somebody said it to me, TRIBE works, TRIBE works, TRIBE works. And this is not a plug for TRIBE, I know that’s not what this podcast is about, but it is so true. I am a firm believer that when you have a vision for something, I’ve always had coaches in the 26 years that I was in insurance, I had business consultants and coaches, I have had support through this business, and the reality is that when you have a vision for something, I know for me, I want to shorten the timeline. I don’t want it to take three years. And so, the way that I’m able to do that is I can lean into my intuition, but I can have somebody who’s mentoring me. And again, this is like all of the pistols are fired if you’re stepping into a community.
And so, for me, take the first step. The first step is to align yourself with somebody who has a proven track record, who is cheering you on every step of the way, with a community built with people who are just amazing. I mean, like what I love the most, I think, is the culture of celebration. It’s the culture of let’s keep moving. And I think that if you’re in a place where you’re not sure, but you’re interested in membership, if you’re overwhelmed with the amount of hours that you’re working in the business, if you’re not leveraging cash, if you’re working so hard and you’re still not paying yourself, or the investments you’ve made in your business are now in debt, take the chance. Take the chance and explore this membership thing. It’s beautiful. And we forget that Amazon were memberships, like I think that was the other thing for me, Shelli, was thinking of how many places in my life I was already in a membership with people.
And when I got that, I’m like, this is really no different. It’s just a different way that you bring your service or products to other people. And I’ve seen some incredible things. I’ve been the recipient of people in the TRIBE membership, like somebody just trying to generate cash flow, and they put up a pizza workshop. And I was like, I’m doing that. And to see people showing up, like to cook pizza, come on, like, if you have an idea, test it out.
Shelli Varela: Yeah, well, because every great thing that ever started, started with somebody not knowing. And I heard you talking about this earlier, and it made me think of this. There was a day when Oprah didn’t know how to turn on a microphone.
Michelle Jacobik: Wow. See?
Shelli Varela: So, let’s all just marinate in that for a moment.
Michelle Jacobik: I love that.
Shelli Varela: Thank you so much for sharing your story. This has been absolutely epic. And if people are looking to reach you online, where is the best place they can connect?
Michelle Jacobik: The best place to connect is my website, MichelleJacobik.com.
Shelli Varela: And can you spell that for us?
Michelle Jacobik: Yep. M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E J-A-C like Charlie, O, B like boy, I-K.
Shelli Varela: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming by, sharing your heart.
Michelle Jacobik: Thank you. It was great.
[END]
To learn more and get access to all episodes, visit our podcast page!
