Meet Maya Mansour: A Diverse Career Journey
Maya Mansour is no stranger to the winding paths of entrepreneurship. With a career journey that spans corporate life, photography, real estate, and authorship, she brings a wealth of experience to the table. Her book, “The Photographer’s Focus: Do What You Love, Tell Your Client’s Story through Images,” documents her entrepreneurial story, showing how she turned her passions into a thriving business.
Tapping into Your Inner Dreamer
Maya emphasizes the importance of connecting with what you love and envisioning a life without limitations. Declaring dominion over your dreams and shifting your mindset towards your passions can be a game-changer. Maya’s journey is a testament to the power of following your inner dreamer.
Finding Your Sacred Purpose
Discovering your sacred purpose in business and life is crucial. Contentment, joy, and meaningful connections are essential components of a fulfilling life. Maya shares her insights into how finding and pursuing your purpose can lead to lasting happiness and satisfaction.
Identifying the Right Problem to Solve
Maya highlights the significance of solving problems that align with your passion and values. Many successful entrepreneurs, including Maya herself, have started by addressing problems they personally experienced. This personal connection to the problem can drive motivation and innovation.
Crafting a Solid Plan of Action
A well-structured plan of action is essential for any business venture. Maya emphasizes the importance of determining when, where, and how you’ll solve the identified problem. She also encourages entrepreneurs to prioritize their values and family when crafting their business plans.
The Impact of Your Choices
Maya’s entrepreneurial journey had a profound impact on her life and loved ones. By embracing her passions and creating a meaningful business, she not only found success but also enriched her family’s life. Her story serves as a reminder of the ripple effect of our choices.
Connect with Maya Mansour
Visit Maya’s website at Small Business Path.
Get a free copy of her book, “Finding Your Sacred Purpose: How to Do What You Love and Earn Your Dream Life,” at Find My Sacred Purpose.
Helpful Links:
Mastering Online Marketing for Entrepreneurs
Double Your Income with a Marketing VA, even on a tight budget
Transcript
Hello.
Speaker:Hello, everyone.
Speaker:It's Tuesday, our favorite day of the week.
Speaker:We like to bring you ideas and information about marketing and
Speaker:growing and building businesses.
Speaker:So are you ready to get started, Jeannie?
Speaker:Ready?
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So I'm Kirsten and that's my business partner, Jeannie, with
Speaker:Six Figure Business Coaching.
Speaker:We help our clients leverage video marketing using a trained
Speaker:marketing virtual assistant.
Speaker:So Jeannie, introduce us to our guest today.
Speaker:Yes, we're so excited.
Speaker:We have Maya Mansour from The Small Business Path and she has
Speaker:had such amazing experience.
Speaker:She was 20 years in corporate or not 20 years in corporate.
Speaker:Corporate was the first part of your life.
Speaker:And she called herself a well balanced nerd.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And her gift to the business world has always been building a bridge between
Speaker:business and software developers.
Speaker:So 20 years ago, she kind of thought, what could I do differently so that I
Speaker:can earn a living and have my dream life?
Speaker:I wanted to, she wanted to spend more time with her teenage daughters and
Speaker:help people in a meaningful way with something you're passionate about.
Speaker:So she has had careers spanning from photography to real estate.
Speaker:And now she has a book called The Photographer's Focus.
Speaker:Do what you love, tell your client's story through images, and
Speaker:have the business of your dreams, where she documented her story.
Speaker:So we are so thrilled to have you today, Maya.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:Yeah, it's always fun to see how many, like we're all like cats,
Speaker:like we've had nine lives, right?
Speaker:Like, you know, and I think that's what's so wonderful about living in our time, is
Speaker:that You know, you do have the opportunity to work for corporate or to be self
Speaker:employed, or to bounce back and forth from time to time, because we evolve.
Speaker:Yeah, my journey has been a long and winding path.
Speaker:And I have had many years in corporate.
Speaker:I started my own business.
Speaker:My first business was the photography, wedding photography business
Speaker:that I wrote about in my book.
Speaker:About five years into that business, I helped a family relative with
Speaker:a problem they were having to needing to sell their home.
Speaker:And I accidentally created a whole business doing home staging because
Speaker:I, it's a serious problem that.
Speaker:Home sellers and realtors have it was something that I really enjoyed the
Speaker:process of doing and I was able to come up with a plan of action that.
Speaker:The realtor was thrilled to then take to her other clients.
Speaker:So, you know, along the way, I've had all of this business experience and
Speaker:have been helping friends, family, people I networked with, helping
Speaker:them with their small businesses.
Speaker:And it's really just grown into something that I love when people find that thing
Speaker:that they are just so passionate about and they figure out that they can do
Speaker:what they love and earn their dream life.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:There's nothing more exciting than starting a business.
Speaker:Well, maybe having kids.
Speaker:I don't know about that.
Speaker:But anyway, for me, there's nothing more exciting than
Speaker:starting and building a business.
Speaker:So you really get to work with people who are just maybe at that point where
Speaker:they're thinking, I want to travel this road of being an entrepreneur.
Speaker:I'm ready to just step out on my own.
Speaker:So what is the first piece of advice that you give to them?
Speaker:You know, it's actually interesting.
Speaker:I find that I help two different groups of people that have the same problem.
Speaker:One group are the people who want to figure out how to do what they love.
Speaker:The other is small business owners that are struggling with their business.
Speaker:And regardless of who they are, we always start with tapping into their
Speaker:inner dreamer so that they can really connect with what it is that they love.
Speaker:Even the people who have started a business and they're struggling with
Speaker:their message or they're struggling to find clients or they're struggling
Speaker:to keep clients biggest issue is they, because they're struggling, they're
Speaker:trying to become everything to everybody.
Speaker:And that doesn't work because you need to really know what is that part
Speaker:of my business I'm really passionate about or what is that thing in life?
Speaker:I'm really passionate about.
Speaker:And if you start by tapping into your inner dreamer that you can imagine a
Speaker:life where you could be doing this.
Speaker:And step number two is always give yourself permission to do it.
Speaker:I call it declaring dominion.
Speaker:I declare dominion over being able to follow this path.
Speaker:And that really shifts the mindset into being focused on doing what you love.
Speaker:And that's important because I think like Jeannie, when you left corporate
Speaker:America, you didn't really have any friends or family that were self employed.
Speaker:So you almost, and so people wouldn't understand why would you
Speaker:leave a perfectly good job, right?
Speaker:To, to try something on your own.
Speaker:And I love the fact that you talk about declaring dominion.
Speaker:So being able to say, I have the right to pursue this and I'm smart and I work
Speaker:hard and I know I can make this happen.
Speaker:So that, I think that's so important and I love the inner dreamer.
Speaker:Jeannie and I have a process called dream catcher journaling, where we just, you
Speaker:know, it's kind of like that, like using your subconscious mind to just randomly
Speaker:journal, like your hopes and your dreams and your goals and the ideal clients.
Speaker:And it just puts you in this great energy, this great space of realizing that you
Speaker:do have so much to offer the world and you do have the right to dream about it.
Speaker:So I love that of tapping into your inner dreamer.
Speaker:I have people write a letter to their inner, you know, it's one thing to
Speaker:think and to dream and as you know, it's another to write, but to write a
Speaker:letter to your inner dreamer to say, I want a life without limitations.
Speaker:Like, if I had a life without limitations, what would that be?
Speaker:Because even when we dream, we all have those.
Speaker:Limitations that we have put in our head or other people have put in our head.
Speaker:So we're always like, remove the limitations, remove
Speaker:the physical aspects of it.
Speaker:Because to really dream and to really do what you love, it's
Speaker:all about, it's emotionally, it's physically, it's spiritually.
Speaker:What is aligned with my sacred purpose?
Speaker:Because I believe we each have a sacred purpose that we came here to live.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I feel like when we're not in that direction, we often have so many
Speaker:stumbling blocks or, you know, we're fighting against something instead
Speaker:of being in the flow with that.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:You know, I find that in my own life, you know, life happens
Speaker:and things get in the way.
Speaker:And in my own life, I had two very successful businesses and then my daughter
Speaker:passed away and I had to take time out.
Speaker:So there are big stumbling blocks.
Speaker:And yet, when I got far enough along in processing my grief, I was immediately
Speaker:back to helping people and helping people do what they love and helping,
Speaker:you know, focusing myself on what is, what is it that I really want to do?
Speaker:And so even though, you know, life happens and you have these stumbling
Speaker:blocks, if you've given yourself permission to follow your dream and you
Speaker:know that your soul is not going to be satisfied till you get there, it makes
Speaker:it so much easier to continue the path and continue to figure out the process.
Speaker:That is like, that's so brilliant because I think we live in a world
Speaker:where everyone's chasing happiness.
Speaker:And I think happiness, if we replaced it with fulfillment and contentment,
Speaker:so if you're living a fulfilling life where you're doing what you love
Speaker:and you're helping other people and you're content in who you are in that
Speaker:journey, I think that's happiness.
Speaker:And I think sometimes we use this word happiness without
Speaker:having a definition for it.
Speaker:Well, you know, after my daughter passed, I was desperate to know peace.
Speaker:I just wanted to be at peace.
Speaker:And of course, at that point, it was unrecognizable.
Speaker:How can you have peace after something so traumatic happens?
Speaker:And I've come to define peace as the state of being when you can find contentment,
Speaker:joy and meaningful connection, regardless of your circumstances.
Speaker:And so contentment, and I teach this as part of having your business.
Speaker:Do you make enough money?
Speaker:Do you have enough time to do your work?
Speaker:Do you have enough time to be with the people that you love?
Speaker:Do you have enough time for yourself?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:If you don't, you're not going to create a business that's sustainable.
Speaker:Do you have joy in what you do?
Speaker:Because if you are not joyful, your soul is just going to continue to
Speaker:put obstacles in your place until you find a way to bring that joy.
Speaker:And then the third part of it is the meaningful connection.
Speaker:When you have meaningful connection with the people you work with, the
Speaker:people you serve in your business.
Speaker:Then you have peace in how you earn your living.
Speaker:And when you have peace in how you earn your living, then you can build
Speaker:peace in the rest of your life.
Speaker:That is amazing.
Speaker:I know when we first spoke about your daughter, you were really at a place
Speaker:where you were like, why am I here?
Speaker:Cause she's not.
Speaker:So it took a while to go through that grief and get to this place.
Speaker:But I think it's astonishing that you are now helping other
Speaker:people get to this place.
Speaker:You know, I feel like this is my sacred purpose, is to be able to show people,
Speaker:help people, so that when they do go through the hard stuff, they still
Speaker:have a way that's meaningful that they can have impact in this world.
Speaker:So when someone wants to start a business, so you help them kind of get in alignment
Speaker:with who they are and the joy and the peace, and then helping them figure
Speaker:out what business to start, what would you say the first step for that is?
Speaker:It's actually pretty easy.
Speaker:The first step in any business is figuring out what problem you're
Speaker:solving and who you're helping.
Speaker:And specific to the problem, it needs to be a human need that someone
Speaker:else is willing to pay you to solve.
Speaker:You know, if I love gardening, not everybody's going to pay me,
Speaker:but maybe there's specific people under specific circumstances.
Speaker:So what is the problem Am I solving the right problem?
Speaker:And who is it that I want to help?
Speaker:If you're not helping a group of the population that you are
Speaker:really meaningfully connected to, then it's not the right people.
Speaker:Yeah, because if you don't have that meaningful connection with them,
Speaker:then it's just selling to make money.
Speaker:And I think that's not, most people don't want to see themselves as a sales
Speaker:person that just sells to make money.
Speaker:But if you have a meaningful connection with them and the problem that they have.
Speaker:And the transformation that, you know, you can help them get, then that's a lasting
Speaker:relationship with that person in some way.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I think for me, it is definitely not about how much money I make.
Speaker:It's how much value can I add to someone's life.
Speaker:And when you can add value to someone's life.
Speaker:The money will follow.
Speaker:Yeah, if your business isn't making money, you often don't have a money problem.
Speaker:You have a value problem or you have a problem stating your value, right?
Speaker:Your value proposition.
Speaker:So sometimes you may have the value, but you're not able to get the words down.
Speaker:So yeah, I think that's so true.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I mean, entrepreneurship is not an easy, it's not an easy life per se.
Speaker:So you have to, you know, be willing to go in every which
Speaker:way you need to go to get there.
Speaker:You know, it's just ongoing and you know, and that's great for some
Speaker:people and not so great for others.
Speaker:I mean, we love it and we can't get enough of learning and
Speaker:growing and helping our clients.
Speaker:Um, but, you know, not everyone wants that.
Speaker:Some people just want to do the nine to five and go home and forget about it.
Speaker:That's fine too.
Speaker:That kind of leads into your second point though, doesn't it?
Speaker:It does.
Speaker:That's what I was just going to say.
Speaker:You know, this, the second point of any business is your passion for it.
Speaker:And that's the why, the why of, Why am I doing this?
Speaker:Why am I solving this problem?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You want to pick something.
Speaker:You want to solve a problem where you have so much joy around it.
Speaker:And something that Jeannie said is like, I want to spend my, I want to spend the
Speaker:rest of my life learning how to help people find what they love to do for work.
Speaker:And not everybody that I help is going to have it.
Speaker:Go through exactly the same steps, like everyone is unique,
Speaker:everyone's path is unique.
Speaker:So part of my joy is spending the rest of my life figuring out how
Speaker:to help people do this in all of the different ways and all of the
Speaker:pieces of information that they need.
Speaker:If you don't have that passion to learn as much as you can and help
Speaker:in different ways and just to get joy out of doing it, then this isn't
Speaker:the right problem for you to solve.
Speaker:There may be a different problem where you have more passion.
Speaker:And how many people do you think the problem they end up solving
Speaker:for other people is a problem they solve for themselves?
Speaker:Because I feel like that was part of our journey with outsourcing, you
Speaker:know, when Jeannie had her agency and I said, I've read about outsourcing
Speaker:overseas, would you want to try it?
Speaker:And she's like, sure.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:And so we went down this journey and we learned a lot the hard way and we
Speaker:made a million mistakes But we saw the value in having a team built overseas
Speaker:and building a business with the support of having virtual assistants.
Speaker:So do you feel like a lot of people end up solving a problem for other people that
Speaker:they've already solved for themselves?
Speaker:I think that's probably the best kind of problem to solve for
Speaker:someone else for two reasons.
Speaker:One is if you haven't been through it, you don't know when you have a problem
Speaker:that you have to solve for yourself.
Speaker:You already know the why other people are going to need this.
Speaker:You already know it's a problem that's waiting to happen, you know, and for
Speaker:me, part of the why I'm doing this is I did the corporate thing and I did
Speaker:the corporate thing for about 20 years.
Speaker:And then I made the leap and started my 1st business and I was, I almost felt
Speaker:backed into a corner in some respects of.
Speaker:The point in my life where I just had so much driving me to drop the great
Speaker:corporate job with the corner office and the great salary and all the employees.
Speaker:What I didn't know at that point was how easy it actually was to start your own
Speaker:business and how many people out there that are willing to help you on that path.
Speaker:And I would agree to some degree.
Speaker:I'm, I'm addicted to creating new businesses.
Speaker:You know, I started the photography business.
Speaker:Because it was my passion and I picked wedding photography because I had just
Speaker:photographed two family weddings and I knew there was a market and I, there was
Speaker:a lot of information I could go research.
Speaker:I accidentally started the real estate, the home staging business
Speaker:by solving a problem for someone I love and having the realtor reach out
Speaker:about two weeks later and say, hey, can you do that for my other clients?
Speaker:And being a small business person, I said, yes, I can and then had
Speaker:to figure out how to go do that.
Speaker:I actually started a third business that would have become very laborsome,
Speaker:so it didn't last very long, but I had a friend who was gluten free.
Speaker:In the day, early days when there wasn't much available, so she and I
Speaker:researched all kinds of recipes and flour mixtures and started baking for family.
Speaker:And then we had cafes come out and say, Hey, we really liked that.
Speaker:We tried that as house.
Speaker:Can you sell that?
Speaker:Can we sell your products at our cafes?
Speaker:I want to show people that when you find that problem that you know how
Speaker:to solve, it's not hard to take the leap and then make that a business.
Speaker:It's Absolutely.
Speaker:Especially the passion.
Speaker:They give the passion for it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I thought you were, you are a serial entrepreneur.
Speaker:Yes, I am.
Speaker:You know, you just see that problem and you can solve it and then you decide
Speaker:which one you want to stick with or not.
Speaker:My ideal is like helping other people get it, get their stuff off the ground.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:So once they have the problem that they can solve, and they know that they
Speaker:have people willing to pay for it, and they have the passion for helping those
Speaker:people, what would you say the next step is for them after problem and passion?
Speaker:Plan of action.
Speaker:So once you know that there's a problem to be solved, and there's people out there
Speaker:willing to pay, and you are passionate about doing it, the plan of action is
Speaker:like the where, the when, and the how.
Speaker:When do you work?
Speaker:When do your customers need you to work?
Speaker:Is it a 9 to 5 thing?
Speaker:Is it an after hours and weekends thing?
Speaker:Does that work with your schedule?
Speaker:So you need a solid when.
Speaker:Then you need a solid where.
Speaker:You know, is this something that you needed a space for?
Speaker:Is it something that you're going to go to somebody else's space for?
Speaker:You know, like where are you physically going to do this work?
Speaker:And then the last part is how are you going to solve this problem?
Speaker:You need to be able to tell customers, you know, here's my framework.
Speaker:I normally do steps 1 through 7, and I'm going to talk to
Speaker:you about your circumstance.
Speaker:And maybe you need all of it.
Speaker:Maybe you need part of it, or maybe you need something different and
Speaker:I need to customize a little bit.
Speaker:But that solid plan of action is how you communicate to others.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:What it is that you do and how you're going to help them.
Speaker:Process of working with you.
Speaker:And it's interesting when you're talking about the hours, obviously
Speaker:if you wanna work Monday through Friday, you're not gonna be a wedding
Speaker:photographer, right, . Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And I think these people don't always think about like, so
Speaker:what are, what are your values?
Speaker:And like, 'cause again, if your weekends are super important because your spouse
Speaker:works Monday through Friday and your kids are in school, And you don't want
Speaker:to be away from them when they're at home, then that might be a business
Speaker:you could pursue later in life when the kids are off the college or graduated.
Speaker:And this is right now you need to find something else to do.
Speaker:That could be Monday through Friday.
Speaker:And also even like, not only when do your clients want to meet with you and
Speaker:when are you actually front facing with them, but when are you going to do all
Speaker:of that paperwork, the bookkeeping, the, you know, everything else about the
Speaker:business, you know, if you're a mom and want to work, you know, school hours.
Speaker:Maybe you have those hours and then you have after the kids go
Speaker:to bed hours, or, you know, it's like what works for your family.
Speaker:It's not about the business.
Speaker:It's not about your life fitting into the business.
Speaker:It's how does this business fit into your life and making priority of
Speaker:time, you know, especially I started my small business path when my
Speaker:girls were 12 and 14, and I did it.
Speaker:So I could be.
Speaker:With them more lost my older daughter nine years later, and I can tell you
Speaker:there is not a day that goes by where I am not just humbly eternally grateful
Speaker:that I changed my lifestyle so that I could be with them because I think back
Speaker:and think about what I would have missed.
Speaker:And I just can't even imagine what that life would be.
Speaker:So I really encourage people to be like, Your family is so important.
Speaker:You need to make sure you have time with them.
Speaker:You'll never get that time back.
Speaker:So important.
Speaker:So very important.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And like you said, looking back, you realize, you know, when you made that
Speaker:choice, you didn't know this, you didn't know what was coming your way.
Speaker:But you stepped out in faith and you made it work because
Speaker:the priority was your girls.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Well, and not only that, but like, I didn't know when I
Speaker:started my passion project that it would become theirs as well.
Speaker:Both of my girls came into the business as they got a little older.
Speaker:My oldest daughter, by the time she passed away, she was my business partner.
Speaker:She was photographing weddings with me and on her own.
Speaker:We had this entire life.
Speaker:Beyond being mother and daughter that we had, because I had started this
Speaker:business, she studied small business and entrepreneurship in college.
Speaker:Both of my girls, their lives, how they live their lives is totally
Speaker:different than it would have been had I not taken this leap.
Speaker:And that's also part of my passion, why I want to do this for others.
Speaker:Yeah, your passion definitely shines through.
Speaker:Well, Maya, if people want to get in touch with you, how would
Speaker:they get in touch with you?
Speaker:You certainly could go to the small business website, path.
Speaker:com, but if they would like to get a free copy of a book called finding
Speaker:your sacred purpose, how to do what I love and earn my dream life, they
Speaker:could go to find my sacred purpose.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:And there's a, an offering for free book, and there's also a 5 a month
Speaker:subscription course and community that they could join that will walk them
Speaker:through finding their sacred purpose.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Thank you so much for being here and sharing all this with us today.
Speaker:It was absolutely lovely.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:Thank you, Maya, so much for being here.
Speaker:We really appreciate it.
Speaker:And Maya, we appreciate you talking about such personal issues and your passion.
Speaker:It really comes through and we're excited to hopefully help you find those people
Speaker:that you're looking for here in our group or people in our group might know people.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Thank you so much, everyone.
Speaker:Bye.
