The Real Bottom Line

Wendy: Hello, and welcome to the real bottom line, the podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs looking to grow and scale their business. Today, we are super lucky. We have a guest by the name of Dr. Angela Marooney, and she has been there, done that, got a few t shirts and you wouldn't know to look at her cause she's so young.

But anyway,

Angela: welcome Angela. Thank you. I'm not that young. I'm 43. I'm not, I'm not a baby. Can I just clarify that? Is that okay?

Wendy: Oh, sorry. Anyone under 15 now is a baby. That's my new rule. Okay.

Angela: Super excited to have

Wendy: you because yes, you have been there. You've gone kind of on a rollercoaster ride when it comes to your entrepreneurship journey.

So maybe we can start because You started out as a dentist. Now, tell us that story. How did that happen that you moved from dentistry into the online and the other businesses that you built?

Angela: Oh, it's been a journey. So it was originally dentistry was my love since I was two. I love playing with teeth. So when I graduated at 24.

I was like, Oh my gosh, dream come true. And it was like playtime. Every time I got to go into the practice, I built an amazing practice. I built an amazing brand in my area. And just as everything was aligned, perfectly had a great team. I was doing the kind of dentistry I wanted. I had the kind of practice I wanted.

My hands started to malfunction and I just thought it was muscle fatigue. You know, I was doing a lot of surgeries. I was doing IV stations. So sometimes I had really long appointments with my patients. And so we tried to work through it and then suddenly my hand stopped working in the middle of a surgery, which was awesome.

And it was one of those moments, like I was scared until that moment happened because I was in so much pain and we couldn't figure out what was going on. And then when that happened, I knew my world just went... And had shifted and everyone was trying to tell me to maintain hope and everything else and I was like this has changed my world just changed this is my my world isn't going back to what it was so it took about six months of figuring out what the heck had happened to my hand and it's actually a central nervous system problem so it's in my brain and It's called focal dystonia and it's not something that can be fixed and it ended my career what seemed like overnight, but when we look back on it, it was about five years.

So that's how I got booted out of clinical dentistry.

Wendy: Wow. And that, that's such a hard stop, right? Like it wasn't like you were like, Oh, I think I might try something else. Let me start dabbling in it. It was like, boom, you're done. That must have been devastating at some level.

Angela: It was when it first happened but by the time they diagnosed me six months later and I was on bankruptcy's doorstep, I was actually just relieved to know what the heck was happening with my body so I could actually make some decisions because that six months of limbo of everyone telling me to maintain hope and you know not wondering if they were correct, or if my feeling when it first happened was correct being stuck between those two situations was really hard.

And then when they said, no, this is where you're going, you're done that allowed me to actually start moving forward and make some better decisions with my future.

Wendy: Interesting. So from a technical perspective, that meant you did not have enough long term disability insurance to help cover all your day to day.

Is that correct?

Angela: Correct. I thought it was invincible. So you were in your

Wendy: twenties. So we all do that at that age, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Now, what process did you go through? Like, how did you figure out where you were going to play? Like, what were you going to do next? Like

Angela: how, what was the process?

Well, my next year after that happened, well, I kept my practice for two and a half years and everyone told me, you know, you've built this amazing brand. You are known in the community. You have services that people are referring you to referring. To you for, so I was advised to just keep the practice going and I tried, it seemed like a great idea, but honestly my heart was so broken because that was a 30 year dream I had to let go of.

So I kept it for two and a half years and then in 2015 the economy went because I was in Calgary oil crisis hit and I could see it happening so much faster than when I bought the practice, which was during the global financial crisis. And so I made the decision that. You know, I'm out before this sinks itself and Calgary was in a slump for about five years.

So my instinct was correct to get out and I fire sold it. I sold it for half of its value because I just wanted to cut my losses and let my, let this go, pass the torch to someone else and just release myself. And so what I released myself to was my dance company, which was called Unleashed Dance Company named after being unleashed from my career unexpectedly.

And so I took a year away from dentistry completely after I sold the practice and just built my dance company and became the second largest adult based Latin company in my city in six months and just poured myself into that and didn't talk to anyone from dentistry, didn't go to conferences because anytime I ran into anyone that I knew from dentistry, there was like, I feel so bad for what happened.

I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. Like I, I just want to cry when anyone says that. So I, I just, you know, buried myself in the dance world. And then a year after that had started, then I decided, you know, all these things I'd been through with dentistry. I could use to help other people because I had been through worst case scenario and everything from the owner dying halfway through the deal, his son trying to sell the practice out from underneath me, even though we had a deal on the table, I got sued by my team.

And that got settled for 0 after two and a half years. And then I lost my ability to practice. So, you know, it's like, there's some lessons in here that I could probably help other people to avoid so that they can have an easier time and also find their passion in dentistry. So I decided to build Unleashing Dentistry's Potential a coaching company that was meant to help dentists to find their passion and niche into that so that they could have an amazing career.

Wendy: That's interesting. I love the fact that you've been through everything. I always look at it. Everything that's gone wrong in my past, if I can save one person from having to go through that, then that it's, it's like, I love how you called it a lesson. Because it wasn't a failure. It wasn't a bad thing.

You know what I mean? Like, it was a lesson. And if we can, if we reframe these things as lessons, I think it, it drags us down

Angela: less. And trust me, I just sat in the corner and cried about it enough times. But, you know, eventually the clouds clear and you're like, Oh, there's a silver lining around that cloud.

So I can actually do something with it. And now I can see

Wendy: it. Because Yeah, we need to put our, we need to bury in for a little while and then we can go out and look and find, find the true lesson, you know, and the true reason this all happened. So you did the

Angela: dance. Did you sell that as well? I sold that during the pandemic actually.

So that went on and was happening simultaneous to Unleashing Dead Tree's Potential. So as I built Unleashing Dead Tree's Potential, I took to LinkedIn. And just started talking about what I knew about dentistry, what I knew about passion and niching. And in a year I went from 1, 200 to, no, I went from 200 to 12, 000 industry followers.

Oh my gosh. And so I got a lot of attention. A lot of people started asking me like, how did you do that? And I was like, eh, go away. And then when I started getting called during the pandemic From the heads of some of the big dental companies. And they're like, what are we like? What is your suggestion that we do to help the dental people?

I was like, okay, so my presence really did make a difference. So before the pandemic hit about six months before I was getting hounded enough by people about how I had done what I had done on LinkedIn. And so I decided, okay, I'm going to see if I'm unicorn or I'm going to see if this is replicable. And started testing on a few different colleagues profiles.

They were outside of that industry and just wanted to see if I could replicate what I'd done for myself or if it was just something that was unique to me. And I was able to replicate it. So I did that for about six months. January 17th, 2020, I launched Unleashing Influence as an official company, hired two and a half full time people.

Two months later, the pandemic shut down the world exactly to the day. And my team came to me and said, you know, everyone else is getting laid off. Like if you have to lay us off to save yourself, do what you need to do. And I said, I, I think we should buckle in and take this thing to the moon. So by 10 months into the pandemic, we were at 14 full time team members and we just exploded because.

People couldn't go out for coffee. People weren't able to go and speak at conferences and speak from the stage. And so people needed to learn these skills of how to actually deliver on camera was a big part of it, but also create content that brought eyes in and got them hired for different kinds of services than what they could be doing on stage.

So it was a really interesting progression from the dance company. Then I layered on the dental company and then I layered on the social media agency.

Wendy: Wow. I mean, that is one of those lemons to lemonade type of stories, right? And talk about timing that you had done all this work, figured it out before the pandemic really hit.

So you, you had a process,

Angela: which is great. You weren't starting from

Wendy: scratch, helping people get to the level you were

Angela: at that point.

Wendy: You feel, it feels you're so like, you're very scientific about your approach,

Angela: right? Like there's the science in you

Wendy: coming out, right? Because if you think about it, I always say there's an art and the science to so many things.

And so the science

Angela: part of this, you're, you're, you're constantly testing

Wendy: things. So tell me, what did you test that? How do you know if it's successful? Like, do you set those parameters ahead of the test? You know, and in marketing, when we're building a business and trying to scale and go bigger, marketing and sales is such a big component of that.

How do you test on a scientific basis that those kind of, those kind of

Angela: You know, a skill sets. So at first, you kind of have to develop a hypothesis, make your best guess based on who you think your ideal client is, what kind of content they want to consume, and you go for it. Then you compete content against each other and see which wins, get rid of the stuff that didn't work, and then you try and elevate the stuff that did work.

But in the end, you know, after three months, after six months, I want to see dollar bills coming in. I don't care about your engagement. I don't care how much your audience has grown. I want to see that you got sales and that people have gotten on calls and said, Hey, that piece of content about blah, blah, blah, is what touched me and got me onto this call.

So we get really, I think when people are building personal brands, they get really caught up in the. You know, wave of admiration that happens and they get caught in the matrix. Exactly. The vanity matrix for sure. And what happens is they forget that the reason they're putting all this effort in is that they're supposed to be a reward and the reward isn't popularity.

The reward has to be growing your business. It has to be getting more sales. It has to be making a difference for me when I'm getting cells. I better be making a difference in those people's lives. So I'm elevating people and creating a ripple effect in the world with what I'm doing. And it can be hard to get people out of that.

A lot of times I have people I spoke to and then they're like, Oh, I can't afford you. I'm like, okay. And a year later they come back and they're like, Oh, I built all these amazing things. You know, I've got all these programs and I'm asked them. The hard questions. Cause that's just me. So how many phone calls have you had about your programs?

And they're like three. How many sales have you got? Zero. I'm like, so how much have you spent? Maybe not even dollar bills, but like time building these programs and you have zero sales. And they get so enamored the fact that.

This is a hobby.

Wendy: Yeah an expensive

Angela: one a very expensive one And they've stopped everything else and they're just building and building and building it and it's like well if we had worked together Over this last year. We would have made you at least six figures by now with what you've built out But they still can't wrap their head around that they need to be hunting.

They need to be filling their pipeline. They need to be getting on sales calls in order to sell this product that they're so in love with. You just

Wendy: brought to mind the Kevin Costner movie. You cannot build it and they will come.

Angela: Yeah, you need to build a path to them. You need to find them then.

Give them the roadmap to get to the baseball field to actually get involved. Why

Wendy: do you think so many entrepreneurs avoid that part?

Angela: It is really easy, especially if you're a first time entrepreneur to fall in love with your idea. We see this in dentistry too. Like my first year of dentistry, I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing.

I have so much energy. I can do all these things. I can work a hundred hours a week. I can go, go, go, go, go. And then you hit a wall and you're like, Oh my gosh, what have I done? I've created a monster. I'm. I'm so tired, and I don't know how well this is actually going, and if I keep going on this path, I'm going to go bankrupt.

So, yeah, it's really, we get these massive rose colored glasses on, and we've fallen in love with the idea. Which is part of what has to happen. Don't get me wrong. You have to to believe. You do have to believe, but you also have to have reality backing you up. To get to that belief becoming a reality.

Wendy: Yeah, especially if you're trying to get other people to hop on the train with you.

For sure. Oh, interesting. Now you also sold your social media empire as well. Yes. When did you do that?

Angela: So, And why? And why? Well, that's a, that's a story in itself. So, Right. A year after, a year after unleashing influence, became Unleashing Influence. I made the decision, I'd made the decision before that, but I actually bought a one way ticket to Nicaragua.

So Nicaragua, Central America, right above Costa Rica, and made this decision. I didn't want to see snowflakes anymore. I'd already sold my house. I'd sold everything I owned. I had sold my dance company by that point as well. So this was January, 2021. And I just didn't want to be cold anymore. It made my body hurt with the dystonia.

It makes my body really, really hurt in the cold. So I was like, I'm going to change my life. I do things differently, and so I started burning things down. So I booked this one way ticket to Nicaragua five days after I arrived. Canada canceled spring break. Do you remember when they canceled all the tropical flights because they didn't want people traveling?

Yeah, so I got canceled and, or there was no possibility to get back. So five days after I arrived, I'm like, oh crap, I'm stuck. And I wasn't the same as

Wendy: burning the bridge behind you or the phone behind you

Angela: only someone else did it for you. Someone the universe just like slaps me out of the sky and is like, oh, you think you have a great idea?

I'm going to do something else. So I got stuck here and. I was like, well, it's fine. I'm going to make the most of it way worse places to be stuck during a pandemic. So I made my life here and all my, my two companies that remained were all online. So I made sure I had good internet and went with it.

But about three months into being here. I started waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, you know, worrying that something had gone wrong with the team. Someone had missed something or they'd done something nefarious. And I started to realize this isn't working for me. Like having 14 full time team members is dumb.

I don't like this. So I started making decisions as to how I could move myself out of this. And what I really wanted to figure out was, you know, how can I get down to one company? Because running three companies is not smart. It makes you look like a badass, but it's not smart. The second thing is I want things.

Yeah. One company, one offer. So I want to have one lane of genius that I could put out there in the world and create massive change. And I want to take the company to a million dollars. So it meant burning away what I had. So I was like, okay, the social media agency thing, I don't really like it because it's hard to measure.

And it was hard to measure the dollars because they weren't always being tracked to where the social media content came from. So I was like, I don't like that. So I'm going to get rid of the social media agency. So I sold it to one of my team members and she took the the clients with her. Then I decided, you know, The coaching company for dentists is like ripping a scab off my heart.

And so it hurts every time I talk to a dentist who is not fully engaged with their practice, who does not love dentistry at the level that I do. So I was like, I got to get rid of this. So my underling who was, she was, she was doing a lot of the consulting. I was like, do you want to take this over? So she took that company off my hands.

And then three months after that, I. I was waiting kind of going like, did I make, did I just screw myself over? Cause now I have no official way of making a living and I knew what I wanted to do. I want to help people pivot to profitable entrepreneurship. I wanted to take the best of everything I had. So as a dancer, I had presence, so I could teach people how to have presence on content and how to deliver things well.

So that was one thing that I could bring to the table from my business coaching company for dentists. I could teach people how to run a business and from pivoting so many times, I could teach people how to do it properly because I've screwed it up many times. Then I also had the social media background to be able to help people to build super effective personal brands.

So I decided, okay, I'm going to. Put those all together and help people to do things that I do best. So it took about three months and then what happened was I opened my bank account. It was in January of 2022. It's really interesting. I hadn't noticed the like one year marks on this, but it was January 2022.

I opened my bank account and what had just landed was a payment from a new client. An ideal client, a high caliber client that I've been dreaming of working with, and she had just paid me for multiple months of coaching, and that deposit was more than I would've made working full-time as a dentist. Oh my goodness.

So I was like, wow, this is gonna work out . You know, sometimes you just need that first one. Rock to start rolling. And then you're like, okay, I'm going to get momentum on this and it's going to work out. So I was doing all this stuff one on one, the coaching, and again, I reached a point of burnout actually about three months into the endeavor again.

And started realizing, you know, if I keep going down this path, I'm going to end up exactly where I was. Either building another company or working 100 hours a week or being addicted to serial entrepreneurship. And I was like, that has to stop. Like the reason I burned everything down now is it has to stop.

So I decided to take a step back and look at what was happening with my clients. And I'm like, there has to be commonalities between these and there's gotta be a way to figure out how to be more efficient. So what I realized was I was saying the same thing to multiple clients during the week. So there was foundational information that I didn't need to say one on one.

What I also noticed was they did not have a community that was supporting them. Their family members were thinking they were insane for becoming entrepreneurs. Their colleagues thought they were insane for leaving corporate. And so they were not having, you know, a community around them that was going through the same thing.

And the third thing was these people were freaking brilliant. Like most of the people I work with have 30 plus years of industry experience. And so they had knowledge that they could bring to the table. That went beyond my knowledge. Like I had my narrow scope of genius that I was staying in my lane, but they had other things that they could bring to the table.

So what I decided was I needed to bring these people together. And you know what I've been coaching. for a long time. I've been coaching since 2017. And what I realized was when I brought people together and I built what is called the 90 Day Pivot Accelerator, what we got done in 90 days was about equivalent to two years worth of work, one on one.

And I was like, okay, this is magic. And my first accelerator, I was able to six times my Hourly income, and now it's at 17 times what it originally was. So by pulling people together, doing these groups, getting really clear on what I was delivering, keeping people on a curriculum in 90 days, and then they're launched into the world.

I was able to severely increase my impact, free up my time and increase my finances.

Wendy: That is beautiful. I'd like to go back up to 30, 000 feet for just a second because I feel like part of your process was, was figuring out what is my ideal day and or your ideal life. And I feel like that as entrepreneurs, we are in touch with that at certain points and then we lose it again.

And then we have to get back in touch with it again. What, what, why is that important? Why do you think people need to do that? Defining what ideal is from their time perspective and what they're

Angela: doing. Because it's really easy to get, let things snowball. And because you feel like you're in your passion, you're doing something that's so amazing.

You can spend a ton of time. And you know this law, the Parkinson's law, you know, the amount of time you give yourself to do something is the amount of time it's going to take. So if you give yourself way too much time, you're going to take way too much time. Give yourself a little bit of time, you're going to be able to get it done in a little bit of time.

So that's why the ideal day part of it is important. And one of the things that We go through is we go through the 12 different parts of your life and figure out like, what do you actually want from these parts? So that you can design your day to allow that to happen because if you don't know where you're going You're not gonna build something that is efficient and intentional to where you're gonna go You're just gonna build something and you're probably gonna look at and go This, this is a monster I don't like, right?

So it's important to know what you want and then build things like go backwards and build from the beginning how you're going to get to that end product that you want.

Wendy: The other thing I think you brought up, which is key is understanding your zone of genius, like unlocking all those components. It's like you tried this and this is the part you took from that.

And this is the thing I did here and it went really well, but I like this part the best in it. And then you repackaged so that you spent all your time in your zone of genius.

Angela: Yes.

Wendy: How, how do people do that? Like, is there one trick that they can start with on that?

Angela: Yes. Can I tell you how I came up with the idea?

Yes, please. Okay. So, you know, when I'm in this, this moment of like, Oh my gosh, I'm drowning in my own ambition. Like I got to look at what I need to do to get to this one company and this one offer. So I decided to take, actually I have sticky notes here. I decided to take, I had green ones and I had pink ones.

And I was like, I'm just going to write down on it. Each sticky note, one skill that I had, and I had a lot of skills, right? I was a dentist. I was a dancer. I was a business coach. I was a social media agency runner, said a lot of things. So by the time I finished filling out all my little notes and put them on my.

Whiteboard. It was just a mess of fluorescent colors. And I looked at it and went, oh my gosh. I don't even know where to start. This seems more confusing than ever. So, I decided to go for a run. Went to bed that night. Woke up and my whiteboard was in my room. Which is probably not the best idea. I wake up and see all these things staring at me.

I'm like, there has to be a reason I was inspired to do this. And there's gotta be... There's a puzzle here that I can solve. So I started ordering things and I was like, okay, the stuff that I hate is going to go into this corner. The skills that I love the most are going to go into the top corner. And so once I had the loved ones, then I put them in order of what I love best.

And what came out was I love cracking people open. I love.

So I love helping people to burn down what's standing in their way. So with those three things that I am uniquely talented at, I guess it comes from my own experience of burning things down and having to do what I did. But I was like, this allows me to do exactly what I want to do, which is help people to pivot to profitable entrepreneurship.

So I took those three skills and those are the three big things that I spend my time in. I put those three things on my sticky board, got rid of all the other ones, and those were the only things I was allowed to say yes to for the near future. So anything that didn't involve cracking people open, helping them find their genius, or helping them burn things down, I had to refer out.

And that's an exercise I really like people to do. And really, the sticky notes... Is much better than just writing a list, because you can put them in different orders. So, write out your top skills. You don't have to write all your skills out, just write your top ones. The ones that you actually like doing, and, I'll promise you, anything that you like doing, you can get yourself paid for.

So, don't judge it as, well, I can't get paid for that. Write it down anyway. If you really want to do it, write it down. Then order them. And then pick out your top three. Yeah,

Wendy: that's awesome. And what you just said reminded me of that Disney Walt Disney story about on one day he he came up with ideas. The next day he'd go in and critique them, but he never did each of those things on the same day because you didn't want to stop the flow and be all judgy on yourself for that period of time.

Okay.

Angela: So you're in Nicaragua now. I can't

Wendy: say it as pretty as you can.

Angela: The, okay. It feels

Wendy: like you have the time ideal date mastered, right? How was that

Angela: pretty close? It's not always perfect, but it's pretty close. Yeah. And

Wendy: I think that what we will. I think you're an example of that. It is possible, right?

You can build something that works for you. And I feel like when we, a lot of us entrepreneurs, when we start, we build a business and our life is this thing around it versus build a life and build a business around our life. Right? So that's kind of one of the first things I tell people thinking about going off on their own is know what your life.

You want it to be so if you're a regular entrepreneur, there are shiny blingy things in squirrels that are going to appear all the time. How do you stay true? How do you say or evaluate which ones are valid and should be considered versus the ones that shoo away destruction?

Angela: Your three things that you're allowed to say yes to, like seriously, it is so hard, but if you have those.

On a board wherever you're working and you know that those are the only things you can say yes to as you're having conversations You're like, oh, it doesn't fit. Oh, no doesn't fit that one either. Oh, no. Okay. I can't work with you And it's super scary because you're gonna feel like you're leaving so much money on the table But if you can get discipline to only do those three top skills Then you can hone yourself into a narrow and deep genius that is going to get you far more Success.

Far more impact, far more financial reward than trying to be broad. One of the,

Wendy: one of the challenges I find when it comes to implementing where we're, you know, we've designed our ideal day, we've unlocked our genius, and now... Now, now the gremlins come out and they're like, no, you're the only one that can do this.

No, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Oh, you have to do that too. And or you've tried that before and there is nobody that you can hire and it takes longer to do it. Tell somebody about it, then do it yourself.

Angela: All those gremlins come out. How have you conquered them? So, first of all, Oh, I, I feel like I've pretty conquered them.

I've named my gremlin Sara. So when Sada starts talking, I'm like, S, shut up. Zip it. I don't wanna hear it. Because what happens is when those gremlins come out, we can circle for quite a long time. And now you realize we're circling it. Yeah. And by naming it as something that is outside yourself, I'm like, yeah, this is kind of like a shadow part of me, but I know where I wanna go.

So if I can get Sada to shut up, then I can actually get to where I wanna go. So naming your gremlin, which sounds super ridiculous, actually helps time and time again. Okay. Name and talk to him. Name

Wendy: and talk to No, Sarah's a girl. Sarah's a girl. Yeah. Yeah.

Angela: Okay. So that is one of the things. And also learning to say no.

And learning to trust yourself. Like if you are tuning into your gut. And, you know, you say yes to one of the things that you should not be saying yes to. You actually don't, don't you? You totally do. And you may not, you're like, Oh, it's okay. And you just push it down. And then three months later, you're like, that's why my gut went off is because that was a terrible situation that I knew was going to turn out badly, but I panicked.

And so I went for it anyway. And so it was learning to quell that panic. And start getting into contentment and peace. And if you can be doing things every day that make you feel at peace, they can give you energy but not like high highs, a steady flow of energy, then you know you're in the right place.

Wendy: Perfect. Angela, how do people get in touch with you? Or is there something I didn't ask you first, first, something I didn't ask you that I should have about this topic of living your ideal life.

Angela: One of the things I do suggest about your ideal life is actually schedule it. Because if you don't schedule it, you know you're not going to do it. So, I actually have a spreadsheet that you've seen and lots of people have seen that is like literally my day scheduled out that I try very, very hard to stick to so that I have ideal days.

So, write it out, stick it on the wall, put timers in your phone so you know when you're supposed to be doing something and that will start to program you and train you into your ideal day. That would be my advice about that. That's

Wendy: awesome. And my question, how do people get a hold of

Angela: you? So the best way is to find me on LinkedIn.

It's under Dr. Angela Mulrooney and I do run challenges every month which help you to reset your mindset. So if you're interested to participate in something to really start moving yourself forward to profitability, I'd highly suggest you join one of those.

Wendy: Excellent. Thank you so much, Angela. We learned so much.

I suspect I could talk to you for hours about all these things. But You know, the real bottom line is getting in touch with your genius can

Angela: be very profitable. Very true. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome.