Heather Picken

I am. Thank you so much.

Heather Picken

Yeah.

Heather Picken

It all started when I was four years old. I wore metal braces on my legs, and I’m thinking, “Okay, I’m a little bit different.” Then come fourth grade, I knew I was different when I was taken out of my classroom in front of my peers with “Special tutoring.” I was diagnosed with dyslexia at that time. In that moment, I was labeling myself as stupid.

I struggled through high school, and when I was in college, that’s when things started to change because I got this amazing opportunity to experience art and film.

Heather Picken

I was introduced to a film maker Federico Fellini, and he created this film. One of his films he created was called La Dolce Vita, and that means a sweet life. When I was introduced to that genre of film, it totally changed my world.

I had the opportunity to live over in Italy, and I wanted to study the greats like Leonardo Da Vinci, and I was on a quest to be smarter because I felt very stupid. I had this void of not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy.

My business and brand has evolved over time. I got real focused and said, “What is it I love to do?” What is it that I can empower, particularly female entrepreneurs? I set on my path and I started to create it.

Heather Picken

Now, here’s where the story gets interesting because I started to attract all the wrong relationships, and anytime you’re unbalanced in one area of life, you tend to attract all those things. This was like the last relationship that had crushed my spirit and my business. I was feeling miserably

I remember at that time when I was in this bad relationship, my aunt was dying of stage-four breast cancer, and her boyfriend at that time was in the room, and he was going to propose to her.

Her boyfriend had already bought an engagement ring like a couple of months ago. He was there, and she was lying unconscious. He slipped the engagement ring on her finger, and it didn’t fit because she was full of fluid at that time. My mom was telling me this story.

All this chaos was going on in my life with a boyfriend. She’s telling me that story and I was crying. Not so much for my aunt because I knew she was going to die but for myself.

Heather Picken

A couple of days later, she passed away, and I made it my mission that I was never going to settle for anything less than myself, and just value myself.

I started to go on a journey. I got rid of that guy, and I said, “I want to be true to myself.” So I started learning from some of the greatest philosophers, and learning how we value ourselves, especially women. Women have a lot of issues when it comes to being in bad relationships, and it does impact their relationships.

Heather Picken

Yeah.

Heather Picken

Yeah. It kind of ties into the story I was talking about.

Heather Picken

As I was studying all these great philosophers, it goes back to the Greeks. They talk about knowing yourself and knowing who you are, and telling everyone that, “We live by a set of priorities that are important to us. If you don’t know who you are and your business, you’re going to attract someone or something to make you authentic.”

Heather Picken

You have to identify who you are, and we all live by what our top three highest values or priorities. It’s what we’re taking action on, and it’s not like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to do this.” It’s what your actions are demonstrating.

I want people to know that.

Heather Picken

When I’m working with clients, one of the first things I do is a values assessment to determine what that is, because when we determine what is most important to you, then we can birth your brand.

In my case, I loved Italy and fashion. I wanted to be this unique expression of myself that was truly me. That’s one of the first steps I teach my clients to create a sweet life.

Heather Picken

Let’s get the essence of who you are and so, we start off with your values, and then we go deeper into that because what you don’t want to do is kind of sound like everyone else. I find a lot of people make those mistakes.

That’s number one; knowing who you are.

Here’s the thing.

Heather Picken

When you know who you are and you set goals that are aligned with your highest values, then you set bigger goals.

You jump to a new level of awareness in your mind. I see it all the time. You’d never want to set up fantasy goals. I see people do that all the time.

Heather Picken

Yes, the first one is to know what your values are and being able to get clear on what I call your fabulous statement of inspiration. It’s like “What do you want to do?”

You want to start creating that in a way where do you see yourself speaking on stages? Do you see yourself putting your courses and programs online? What does that look like?

Heather Picken

You have to be clear because any details left out of your vision. Again, you’re going to find someone or something creating like a loop hole. I like to say it’s like a loop hole.

It’s as if you’re ordering in a restaurant, and when you’re not clear, and you say, “Okay, I want some food,” the waiter brings back snails, and you don’t like snails. That’s what you’re going to encounter.

I just want to give you a quick example.

I was working with a client who came to me and she said, “Heather, I’ve been having a hard time attracting success in my business. I’ve been creating multiple seven-figure businesses for everyone else except for myself. Can you help me?” and I said, “Absolutely.”

Heather Picken

One of the first things we did, is we started writing this together. We took a full day of getting clear. What is it you want to have for the rest of your life? What does that look like?

We want to get clear. We started creating that, and what was happening is the partners she had in her business were no longer matching her vision. I said, “You’ve got fire those people.” She fired them.’

As soon as she let those people go, she started to materialize the kinds of contracts and elite clients that she wanted to have in her business.

Heather Picken

And so, I make it a practice for people, every single day, you’ve got read that statement. Every single day, I open up my phone, I read it, and then I ask myself, “Do I need to change anything?”

It’s critical. It’s like affirmations on steroids because affirmations in and of themselves don’t work. This is the blueprint to connect what you’re doing, your mission statement, and it’s aligned with your values and who you are.

Again, we’re not creating any kind of fantasy goal.

Heather Picken

Yeah, absolutely, and this is the number one thing.

Heather Picken

After interviewing CEOs and very successful people all over the world, and we’re talking billionaires, what I have found that there is a reoccurring theme that everyone does, and I call it my La Dolce Vita Rituals for Success. You’ve got to be able to plan out. That’s number one. It’s having your vision, mission, and purpose for the rest of your life. Then, what you want to do is break down your goals into the year.

What I do is I have this whole planning template. I call it a dashboard where we look at, “Okay, what is it realistically you want to accomplish for the year?” and that includes revenue goals.

Heather Picken

Then, what we do is we break it down into quarters. Since there are four quarters in a year, we break down “What are the quarterly goals?”

Because there’s three months in a quarter, what are those goals for each month, and what are the actions steps we need to take? And then, what are we doing every week? And then, what are we doing every day?

You want to focus on the highest priorities that are going to get you to the end result that you have in the second step of your fabulous statement of inspiration.

Heather Picken

When people do that, they surprise themselves. Having that accountability is key.

If you read the book, The ONE Thing by Gary Keller, he has an interesting statistics. It’s something like 76.7% of people that get someone like a mentor to hold them accountable are more likely to reach their goals. Yet, more people plan for their vacations. Isn’t that interesting?