Becoming Your Future Self

You're listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast with Debbie Sassen, Episode 161. 

Welcome to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Sassen. I went from being a financial adviser, author and chronic under earner to building my business to six figures as a financial planner and money mindset coach. And then, on to multiple six figures as a fulltime money and business coach. 

I help entrepreneurs create money making businesses and build wealth using sales and money mindset strategies in alignment with authentic Jewish values. Now, let's dive into today's show.

Hello my friends, and welcome back to the podcast. To all of my listeners who are listening on time, I want to wish you a very happy Hanukkah because that is our beautiful season at the moment. We are celebrating this absolutely wonderful, joyous season.

I have been mentioning it the last few weeks on the podcast, how fantastic it is that we are celebrating this miraculous period that we have seen living in the state of Israel, in Eretz Israel, the “land of Israel”. And it is so reminiscent of the victory that we had over the Greeks, back in the times of when Hanukkah actually happened. 

It's the miracles of the few over the mighty. It is the miracles of righteousness over really just so many of the dark, dark, and evil and mean things that we've been seeing going on in the world right now. It has just been such a wonderful holiday, and I'm so happy that you are here to share it with me this year. 

Before I jump into the podcast, I just want to remind you that I have been sharing some amazing new offers in my business this past week. And if you want to blow up your business in 2025, then you definitely want to get on my email list, DebbieSassen.com/newsletter, and really listen into what I am sharing with my people this year.

Because all of these offers are for you. If you want to double your income in 2025. If you know that it is your year to scale your business — you want to have a team. You want to bring some contracted workers or maybe W-2 workers onto your team. You want to elevate your place in your business. You want to be more of a CEO and less hands on. You want to grow. 

You want to have a bigger impact. You want to make more money. You want to have less time, of your own personal time, in the business. You want to get some of your time back. You want to make sure that your profit is increasing and you have money that you can put into investments to build long-term wealth — 2025 is the year to do that.

And you should definitely come into my world because that's what I'm doing with all of my clients this year. So come on in, DebbieSassen.com/newsletter, and get on my email list. You will not regret it.

So here we are. It's actually the 1st of January, which is crazy to even think about it. How did this happen, that we are already in 2025? And so this is a very apropro time to be discussing you becoming your future self. 

We start the year. We're motivated. We're on fire. We're going to create new things. We're going to create new businesses. We're going to do absolutely mind-boggling changes in our business. And then what happens, is that there's something that's actually called “Quitter's Day”. 

Strava, which is a fitness app, has actually monitored this over very long periods of time. People are like, “I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to run a marathon,” whatever it is. And they notice, by looking at the statistics on their app… whether it's January 13th or January 19^th, whatever it is… But people lose their motivation and they quit on their goals very, very quickly. 

So my recommendation to you is that you spend time with your future self. Don't just believe that you can do it and look for motivation. We talked about motivation last week. And we talked about not needing to have motivation to keep going, and definitely not motivating your clients. 

But think about yourself. Do you need to be inspired? Do you need to be motivated? Or do you need to keep putting one foot in front of the other? What I think is the most inspiring is you spending time with your future self. 

So if, for example, you are thinking of growing your first $100,000 year, your first million-dollar year, the best way for you to become your future self, the best way for you to become that person that you want to be on December 31st, 2025, is to spend time with her and spend time with her on a regular basis.

How does she show up in the morning? Does she need motivation? Or is she running a business and she knows that she has tasks on her list. She has strategy to implement. She has systems and processes that need to happen. She has invoices that need to be filled out. She needs to send them to her clients. She needs to manage her cashflow. She needs to have a marketing strategy and a sales strategy. 

Spend time with your future self. The best way to become your future self is actually to spend time with her, know what she's thinking, and what she's doing in her business on a regular basis. And do those things. 

For example, this year I'm implementing an entire new system and process for managing the content for my business. I produce a ton of content. You know, I show up and I record my podcast every single week. I coach my clients. 

I want to make my system for sharing content much more efficient so I don't have to keep racking my brain every day anew. What should I talk about with my clients? How should I say this? What did I say last week? I wonder what's important. What do my clients want to hear? I want to have a system put in place. 

It's going to save me time. I'm going to spend less time thinking about my content. I'm also going to use AI, and I will be able to save content, reuse it, and repurpose. Because I know that my future self, she has a system already in place for her content. 

She doesn't spend a lot of time coming up with new ideas. And when something strikes, the muse strikes, she can of course share content, something that comes up with her, but she actually has a system in place.

If we think about large companies, they have marketing plans, they have sales plans, they have strategies. And I know that that's where my business is going, so I'm becoming my future self quickly. 

A couple of years ago, I also put in place a payment system that was much more sophisticated than the sort of backwards way I was doing it manually, so that I knew exactly what I needed to produce for my accountant every single month. I created a checklist and a way that I could follow up much more easily and efficiently to get my expenses to my accountant. 

It takes me way less time than it used to. And now I also have data in my computer system so that I can actually look back and notice what's happening in my system. Data is what drives your business, so I knew that I needed to get this financial system in place.

But that's what I want to offer you; that if you do have a vision of where your business is going this year, 2025, you really do need to spend time with your future self. And you need to know how she's thinking, what is she doing, how does she take action, where is she courageous? 

Your future self, by the way, is already confident. She's already done the work. She's already raised her prices. She's already up-leveled the caliber of the clients she's speaking with and working with. She's already dealing with higher quality clients who pay their bills on time, who don't need motivation, who respect boundaries that you have created, who honor agreements.

Think about your future self and become her. The more quickly you can become your future self, that's how you collapse time. You actually act like her, think like her, do like her, and you become her very quickly. So let's talk about some of the reasons why you might not become your future self as quickly as you want to. 

Number one, is that you are afraid of leaving people behind. I've seen this many times with my clients; that if they're thinking about doubling their business, they're worried about all of the clients whom they're serving right now. And they're like, “But if I grow, if I raise my prices, I won't be able to work with everybody.”  And that's true.

You have to be willing to let go of who you're working with today in order to be working with your future clients tomorrow. You might be able to, at some future point, create some sort of system or program so that you can also work with the people who are maybe paying you lower prices, for example — today's rate versus your December 31st, 2025 rate. 

But not everybody is going to continue with you all along the journey. It is just a fact of life. And I'm going to be maybe just a little bit black and white and a little bit blunt about it, but that's truly what happens all of our lives. We go into elementary school and we make friends, and we feel like those people are going to be our best friends forever. And by the time you get to high school, you have an entirely new set of friends.

It is uncomfortable for a while, but we leave people behind all the time in our lives. We move from one city to the next. I grew up in Los Angeles. I went to the College of Massachusetts. Then I worked in New York. I worked in London. I moved to Israel. I left friends behind.

Now I know some people are great. They're good as pen pals. Nowadays, we have WhatsApp and we have emails and things like that that I didn't have back in the day. 

But even with my friends that I kept in touch with when I moved from where I used to live in Jerusalem to where I now live in Beit Shemesh … if you know Israel … there are times that those relationships just fizzle out unless there's something really, really strong keeping us together — We have a lot of common interests. We have a lot of time, where we go and schedule that we're going to have a coffee date once a month or once every other month. — Relationships do fizzle out in our personal life. 

We have to be willing to let relationships fizzle out in our business life. You might be able to, as I said, create something for your past clients. But mostly, I want you to look forward. I want you to look ahead and look at where you're going. Who are the clients that you want to be working with in the future? Become the person who works with those clients now. 

So that's number one; not wanting to leave people behind. And it's just a fact of life that all along our journey, we do leave people behind.

Number two, the second reason why you might resist becoming your future self, is because you're worried about what people are going to say about you. It's not just that you're leaving people behind. But let's say, for example, you are doubling your prices … and I've had clients come to work with me and we have immediately doubled their prices. One of my clients increased her prices by 80% the moment she started working with me.

And yeah, people are not going to be able to afford that price. Or some people will be like, “I really want to work with you. These are your higher prices. I'm ready to go ahead and pay your prices.” But a lot of times, people will resist raising their prices because they'll be like, “Oh, what are people going to say about me? How dare she? Who does she think she is? I can't believe she raised her prices. Wow, I can't believe people pay her that much money.”

We have these lies, really, in our head that people are going to be talking bad about us. People are going to be talking down. People are going to be judging us and maybe even rejecting us. We're not going to be in their circles anymore because our prices are not what they can pay anymore. Or they think we've gone too far. Or they think we're money hungry. 

One of my clients said that to me recently, “I don't want people to think I'm money hungry.” But here's the thing, you have very valuable services. You want to share those services with your people who are going to respect you so much for what you're offering. When you raise your prices, you get to serve a higher caliber client, and you can work less for the same money. Or you can hire people and you can serve more people.

But if you're always worried about what other people are going to say about you for raising your prices, for changing your niche, for doing something different in your business, you're letting other people hold you back. You're not letting yourself become your future self because you're worried about what other people are going to say about you. But you have to think about all of your future clients who are waiting for you to step up and serve them at a higher level. 

Can you imagine, for example, that there is a surgeon in the world, a heart surgeon, who does open heart surgery. And when that surgeon learns more, becomes more refined, has a better skill set and doubles his price, some people might not be able to pay for that service, especially if their insurance company isn't going to cover it.

But there's somebody else out there who needs that service, who actually needs that higher level, higher caliber surgery. So that surgeon shouldn't become the best version of themselves because some people might not like it? No, there are always going to be new people coming up the ranks.

Always, people, when you leave a space behind you, you let newer service providers fill that empty slot and you just get to keep moving forward. And some people are going to come with you and some people are not going to come with you. But don't let your fear of what they're going to say about you be your guiding light. You be the guiding light. 

And the third reason that people don't grow into being their future self quickly, is because they're afraid of failure. Fear of failure stops so many people. And you know what? It's true. You probably will fail on the road to becoming who you are becoming.

I've had so many failures in my business. I've had launches that didn't go the way I wanted them to. I've had clients who've asked for refunds. I've had things that I've wanted to put out into the world; maybe it was an email and I got five or 10 people unsubscribing because I was sending too many or whatever. I've been rejected. I've had all of the failures in the world in my business. 

But you know what? Failure is just another stepping stone on your road to success. If you let fear drive the bus, you are always going to keep yourself back. You're always going to keep yourself small. You're always going to water yourself down. You're always going to dilute your message because you're afraid of failing. You're afraid it's not going to go right. 

But I'm encouraging you, it's 2025, be courageous. Say the thing. Up-level yourself. Become that future version of yourself, who is bolder, who is more courageous, who is serving a different clientele, clients that you love to work with, who has a bigger skillset. 

Become her more quickly. Collapse time by stepping into her shoes today. You don't need to wait six months. You don't need to wait nine months. You just need to become your future you as soon as possible.

All right, my friends, I'm wishing you a very healthy, happy 2025. A very successful year for you, for your business, and for your clients. 

And hey, if you want to double your income this year, if you want to quantum leap and quadruple your business this year, I have one-on-one spaces and group coaching spaces available. Reach out to me, debbie@debbiesassassen.com, and let's get you really turning your business on fire. Let's just throw gasoline on the fire. And let's blow it up in 2025. 

I look forward to seeing you next week on The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. Bye-bye, for now. 

Thanks for listening to The Jewish Entrepreneur Podcast. If you want to stop underselling and underearning and close more sales, you need to clear the limiting money beliefs that are sabotaging your business growth. 

Head on over to DebbieSassen.com/mindset and download my free Money Mindset Workbook. Uncover and dissolve money blocks, like hundreds of other entrepreneurs who are now building six-, multi-six-, and seven-figure businesses and creating true financial freedom.