Episode 8: Building Resilience: Staying Strong and Motivated as a Creative Entrepreneur With Josi Dumont

  📍 📍 Welcome to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast. The ultimate podcast for creative entrepreneurs blending creativity with financial savvy. Hosted by a seasoned bookkeeper passionate about helping creatives thrive, this show covers the basics of bookkeeping, delivering tips, tricks, and insights to keep your finances in check and your creative spirit free. Tune in to transform your creative passions into a prosperous business without sacrificing your artistic vision.

You’re listening to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast. Today, I’m so excited to welcome our special guest, Josi Dumont. Josi is a certified and accredited leadership and mindset coach for highly capable women worldwide, helping them to be leaders who have deep self trust and take bold action to build a business their own way.

She is also a published author, podcast host, and cat mom extraordinaire. Josi, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast.

Likewise. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Absolutely amazing. So what led you to become a leadership and mindset coach?

Basically a complete storm in my life that hit me in 2021, starting in 2020. I went through burnout, I went through divorce, and then I was facing redundancy as well in my former, corporate job as a senior finance professional. And I actually voluntarily chose then redundancy to get into coaching. But it was all of those challenges that I was facing that really opened up my eyes to do really want to continue living this way, or is this now my chance to really rebuild my life up from literally the rubble as because everything as I’ve known it for like so long was just. Crumbling. It was gone. And that was very, very scary, but at the same time, it was such a great opportunity for me to get to know myself and to get to know my values and get to know what I truly enjoyed doing. And that wasn’t finance. It was not finance. It was not arguing with people about like accruals and their strategies and why they can’t hire another person because it’s just not in the budget. I wanted to create something different. I wanted to have true impact. On the person themselves, like not just number crunching.

I wanted to have an impact on people. And I actually got first in touch with coaching myself because I was being coached. So I kind of firsthand experienced the power it had. And I was like, This is life changing, like, why is this not like widely known? Why are there not enough people like doing this?

Why is this the first time at being 29, I think at the time or 30 that I experienced this? This is amazing. And when I described my coach, what I wanted to do, she was like, Josi, you should try coaching. why don’t you try coaching? It sounds like that would be something for you. And I was like, yeah, maybe you’re right. And that’s how I got into it. I started the training and I got hooked from like the first second. I was just like, yes, this is incredible. I love what I’m learning. I’m loving seeing those transformations that are possible in this work. And with everything that went down, it was just for me, so eyeopening and such a relief as well to have found this calling. That I was like, okay, I’m all in, I’m going to dive straight into this. And as said, took my redundancy package and was like, bye, I’m out of here. I’m creating my own business, knowing nothing about anything and only about coaching. And that’s how I started my coaching journey. And ever since I have been working with people around the globe, helping them really build self trust, confidence, create more self awareness, get to know themselves on a different level. And it has been life changing for them in one way or the other. And that’s the impact I was craving so hard in my corporate job. And now it’s finally possible.

That’s amazing. I love that you say that you got into coaching because of , being already with a coach. Cause I actually have a similar story where I’m going into coaching and it was because of a coach. So I feel that’s so impactful. When you really have a good experience and you have someone that’s working with you really well, it can lead you down this path that’s just so exciting.

It really is.

Yes. So what advice do you have for entrepreneurs who struggle with self doubt and imposter syndrome?

So imposter syndrome, but also self doubt it really comes down to like a very, very well trained set of limiting beliefs and thought patterns. So it’s a habit. We are in a habit of thinking we are not good enough. how dare we try this? We will be found out there’s already so many great people out there.

We can’t compete with them. Our ideas are not good enough. So all of these thoughts come from years and years of training as any, limiting beliefs come from, but especially also with imposter syndrome and self doubt. And what I found with entrepreneurs specifically, and also myself, I have to hold my own hand up here.

I was like thinking, what am I doing? I know nothing. How does this work? I am not good enough. Nothing is working. And I think the biggest challenge is really thinking that you have to have it all figured out before you even start.

Yes.

That’s for every entrepreneur. One of the biggest challenges we feel , especially if we have imposter syndrome, we feel like we have to have it already figured out before we even try. And then we start trying, but we’re like, Oh, but this is not how I envision it. Or , I don’t know how this works, but. This is so overwhelming. It’s stressful. And that then can kick us off into a spiral, almost of even more limiting beliefs that make it almost unbearable to continue and hold us back.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So how can entrepreneurs like effectively prioritize their tasks and goals without feeling that kind of overwhelm?

The best, way to do that is to first just get clear on what you can take off your to do list.

As an entrepreneur, you can do, and I’m sure you can relate, there’s so much you can do. You could work 24 seven. You could never stop working if you were up to it, right? You could just do it all the time. And you could think about your business all the time, but that’s not sustainable.

And I’ve done that in the corporate space. So I, know. How that was, if you were working all the time, I got up at 3am and everything. So what is really important here to do is first to just reduce that workload and I know that’s hard because I know there’s so much you could be doing, but focusing really on what is truly important. What are those need and moving tasks in the business? Is it that you once again, spend 10 minutes here and there, Inspiration scrolling on Instagram, or is it that you prepare content for in four weeks that creating is great and stuff, but is that right now, really the most important thing you’re doing, if you, for example, have a launch coming up next week.

It’s so easy to distract yourself with so many different tasks. So it’s so important to first take things off your plate. And I always recommend the four D’s of time management. I don’t think the time management name actually really fits because it’s just prioritization. It’s a prioritization tool where you delete, delete is so important, delegate.

So what can you give to someone else? What can you delay? What can you think about later? Like what is, what is Samantha’s, future Samantha’s problem? What is future josi’s problem? And what do you need to do right now? So those are the four things that you always got to take into account. And then also write down how you can refuel your energy, like how, write down how you can recharge or schedule that in, schedule your life first, schedule first what brings your cup into overflow so you can show up as your best to do the work that you’re supposed to do. Because the better you feel about it, the less stressed you are, the better quality work you do, the faster you get it done, and the more fun you have, even with the most mundane tasks. If you’re stressed and drained, you will just drag and force yourself through it, and it will just be like an ordeal to even get it done.

Yes, yes, I totally agree. And I think that a lot of times entrepreneurs can really get, caught up in everything that they’re doing, that they forget that there are other options out there for outsourcing and everything. Especially if you’re in a stage where like as a bookkeeper, I’ve seen people who have no expenses almost, but they’re doing everything themselves.

And I’m like, if you hate doing your marketing, it’s a good idea to outsource it. It’s not a fact that you’re weak. It’s not that you’re, you can’t rely on yourself. It’s just a thing where you’re like, I don’t like doing it. I’m going to give it to someone else and I’m going to prioritize what matters to me as a business owner.

How important is it for entrepreneurs to set realistic goals and how can they do this effectively?

I know some people will now say , this is so outdated, but setting smart goals is actually one of the easiest way to do it. It’s not that outdated. It works. Why? Do we need to say smart goals are dead, private coaching is dead. If I open threads, I see all the time, these person, I’m like, it’s not dead. It works. why do we need to kill it? It does not make sense. Smart goals are not dead. So really set a specific goal. Be as specific as possible. Make it measurable if possible. Is there something that you can Maybe your confidence level in, maybe it’s okay right now. I really don’t feel as confident going live or going on podcast interviews in three months time from now on, I want to be live for five minutes without maybe stumbling upon my words or to go live every single day, a week, something where you can increase or measure. Somehow your progress, it could also just be right now from a scale from one to 10, I feel like I’m at a five, I want to be at a seven or an eight in three months time, then make it achievable. Don’t go overboard and say, okay, right now I have zero YouTube subscribers in one month. I want to have 1000.

I mean, it could be possible, but let’s make it a bit more achievable. Go into the statistics. What are other people experiencing? How long did it take them to build maybe such a big audience and then create an, a goal that’s achievable. That’s really possible. That’s manageable. And it doesn’t seem . Too far fetched. Yes. We want you to dream big. Eventually we’ll have 1000. Eventually we’ll have 1 million. If you keep going, of course you will dream that big, but if you’re time bound, that’s obviously the T and smart as well, it’s just a couple of months or a year, make it achievable. So you want to be actually smart yet.

You don’t want to go crazy in your goals. And then obviously you also want it to be relevant. And that’s actually one of the most important parts in it. Relevant really means that you have a strong, why you’re doing it. Why do you want to achieve this goal? What does it mean to you? What changes for you, when you achieve it, or how are you changing when you achieve it?

Or what does the journey getting towards working towards that goal mean to you? How, who are you becoming?

Yes.

go into your values as well is so important in this one to know okay, one of my values is freedom or authenticity or impact. Does this align? Can I really create something that’s fulfilling all of these kinds of like elements feed into your why? And that’s the R of smart. So smart goals are not. Outdated.

I totally agree. Why would you not set, measurable goals or, things that actually make sense? I totally agree. Someone could say that I want to gain a thousand followers on YouTube in a month, but is that realistic and can you actually do that? and I think that’s where a lot of people struggle because they do set those goals that are slightly unrealistic.

And then. When they don’t reach it, they’re like, well, what did I do wrong? But it’s not a matter of what did you do wrong? It’s a matter of your goal was just so high that it wasn’t actually achievable.

Exactly.

So can you share some techniques for maintaining focus and like avoiding distractions in a busy entrepreneurial life?

Okay.

let me share my couple. I don’t know how many it will be. Let me share a couple of my favorites. One of my favorites that I literally use every single day is I block my phone with the Forest app. And I love the forest app because it just blocks your phone. You cannot access it because you’re growing like a little tree in your phone. And if you open your phone and go to a different app, your tree dies and you cannot build like a nice forest. And then I obviously use it with Pomodoro techniques. So for me, especially because I have ADHD as well, it helps a lot to stay focused over a short period of time. Then I have my five minutes where I can get distracted and then I can come back to it and do another round. And that really helps me to get stuff done efficiently and quickly enough. So I don’t spend too long pondering on it. And another one is also to just actually give myself tighter Not to stress myself out, but because I know if I give myself more time, I will spend more time on it. Time that I actually could spend on going to the gym, going to meet a friend, going for a coffee, just being bored at home, which is also something nice to do. And I feel like we don’t do it enough. And the other part is really, batching. So to make it easy for your brain to obviously digest what you’re doing right now, don’t jump from one task to the next, try to do multitasking, all the things at once. But if you’re, for example, content creating, right, then maybe do all the hooks first for the one next week or the, for two weeks, not too long.

I personally don’t prefer doing it too long in advance because I will forget what I wanted to actually talk about in the content. If I do that. And then, for example, you can do all the graphics or you do all the captions or you do all the videos that you’re creating when you’re podcast interviewing, maybe try doing all of the interviews in one day or several in one day because you’re in the flow because your microphone is already set up. Anything that makes it easier for your brain to just focus on this, like one topic or one task. So that’s batching or also it can be around themes. So giving your days and your week themes. So, okay, this is my marketing day. This is my finance day. This is my client day. This is my offer development day, my cEO day. So those are like my favorite ones.

Yeah, those are so powerful. I do that myself where I have Mondays and Fridays just for like CEO work and I don’t like do any client work during those days and I feel it’s so important because sometimes it can feel like you’re too overwhelmed during the week to do that CEO work so setting that day aside is just like this is what I’m gonna do that work.

And it makes it so much easier

It does. It does. So how can entrepreneurs really build self trust and confidence in their decision making?

by practicing, by making a decision and sticking with it, and then continuously putting work towards that. So if you, for example, This is now my niche, or this is now my offer. I’m going to sell, then stick with that and work towards that. don’t go off and, Oh no, maybe I should talk about this now. Or no, actually I don’t want to do this anymore. Like really stick with it and create some momentum this way. Like your brain in terms of to build self trust, but also confidence, your brain wants to. See you doing the thing. So

also if you want to build more confidence in podcast interviews, I’ll go on podcast interviews, go live, talk to people, pitch yourself and do that consistently.

So your brain sees you in action and can learn, Oh, Hey, she is actually capable of doing this. So next time we will make it easier, because next time we know maybe, oh, we can say this instead, or this might be a better way to say this, or maybe we can talk slightly slower, because for example, I’m someone, I can talk , really fast, so for me to improve my skills in like an interview as well as to speak a little bit slower, maybe have some breaks instead of , Saying like as well all the time.

That’s something I’m noticing a lot, what I’m working on or , I can just take a break and have a little thing and take a breather. So to just go out and practice and continuously improve the tiny little things as you go, that will build self trust because again, your brain sees that you’re actually doing the thing, but also to just basically debunk That limiting belief that you had at first.

So if you keep, if you kept saying to yourself, I’m not good enough, you can say, I’m not good enough yet, or I haven’t been good enough until now. So changing your language can be very powerful as you go in that as well, because it will change your belief. Then you see yourself doing the thing.

You’re like, hang on, actually, this is not that hard. Actually, I can do hard things like, wow, who would have known? And then. You’re more confident, you have more self trust.

Yes, I love that. I love that so much because I feel like a lot of the times the story in our heads is the one that we tell ourselves the most. So just saying, I’m not there yet can help so much. And that’s so powerful, even just to say yet, even though , you’re not telling yourself, Oh, I’m the best person, but just working on that every day can help so, so

Exactly.

what role does self awareness play in an entrepreneur’s journey and how can they cultivate it?

Oh, I think, okay, I’m biased in this one, but I always say it, it always starts from within self awareness is the first step in anything you do, like in any change you want to, achieve in your life. If you’re an entrepreneur as well, self awareness is literally key to create a successful business. If you don’t know what you’re good at, if you don’t know your zone of genius, if you don’t know where you might be lacking some skills to get then support from someone else like you with bookkeeping.

Right. So if someone doesn’t know that they might run themselves crazy because they’re like, Oh, but I need to , be a master of all of this. But we are not. So self awareness is Absolutely. Absolutely crucial. And in terms of how to cultivate it, observe yourself, ask yourself those questions. Who am I right now? How am I dealing with these situations right now? Do I like who I am in these situations? Do I like how I am dealing with things? What do I want to be different? Also, If I compare myself to maybe my best self, how do I envision my best self to be? What would she be doing differently? What is the gap? What do I need to maybe practice more to get there? To be maybe be more confident or to be able to drop that lone wove mentality, to be more self trusting, to be more self-empowered to stop the self-sabotaging. And a really, really good question that you can ask yourself right now as well. Is to just who am I in this very moment and does this version of me have everything that I need to achieve my goals?

Yes.

the thing is, I would say yes, but you don’t know yet, but with this question, you might shed light on the skills that you might need to embrace more or practice more. You already have everything that you need. But you need to , shine some light on it in order for you to know.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. I love that. And I love how passionate and like powerful this all is, and really digging into that mindset. Can you discuss the importance of resilience and how entrepreneurs can develop this trait?

Ooh. Resilience, I feel, is key in this because you might have heard already of the saying that this is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. A marathon requires a lot of resilience. For some people, it might even look impossible because it is a long term game. It’s a long run. It’s not something that you do in, three months and you’re done.

You never touch it again. no, building your business and maintaining your business is a year long thing. It takes time. So resilience is absolutely crucial. And you also obviously need a hard skin there’s so many things that are new in this space. So you’re learning so many new systems.

You’re learning so much about yourself that you maybe didn’t know before and maybe you’re also learning things about yourself that you didn’t like. And now you maybe want to change them. If you meet new people, things might go wrong. Things might not go as expected. Things might go really well and you can’t deal with it as well. There will be so much crashing onto you in entrepreneurship. And it came to me as a surprise as well. When I looked back at some point, it was like within one year, I learned to use like 20 different systems. I would never have learned these systems in my 10 years at corporate ever. So it is a lot.

And that takes also quite a tough skin and obviously a lot of resilience. And how to cultivate that as well is to continuously, and even though it doesn’t sound nice, but it just is the hard truth to continuously put yourself out into the zone of discomfort. We don’t want to go into the panic zone.

We don’t want you to freak out, but we want to get you out of your comfort zone so you can expand and be more comfortable and more confident around what is new, what is unknown, what is uncertain. And that’s how you build resilience because again, you learn to trust yourself in these new situations and you build that self trust, the resilience and the thick skin that you need in this long term game.

Yes. I love how all of these traits tie together to, to create this like bigger picture of you as an entrepreneur and how you can succeed as an entrepreneur by using a lot of these traits. So how can entrepreneurs create a fulfilling and enjoyable journey while growing their business?

That kind of goes back to what I briefly mentioned in the beginning. If you Do everything according to your values.

Yes.

literally leads to in general, a live and business without regret. And for me personally, that’s something super important. I don’t want to regret anything in my life. I just, I want to die at the end of my time.

Be like, I’ve lived my life exactly how I wanted. I do not regret one thing. Yes, I made mistakes. I learned my lessons from them because I made a conscious choice with intention, but also integrity to my values that I wanted to do this thing. So really getting clear on what you want to stand for, what is really important to you, what matters to you and living according to that is definitely key in that one. And I forgot the second part of your question. I have to admit. Yeah,

and enjoyable journey while growing their business?

the other part was that I wanted to mention was definitely around well being. So well being has to be a priority. I mean, again, as I mentioned the beginning, I schedule my life first before work. And that can already help you to just have enough energy to really enjoy the journey.

And again, not like drag you, through all of that, that you don’t want to do, or you’re just like, do I do I need to work again? Like, I don’t want, I don’t like it. We don’t want that. If you want to enjoy it, you got to get, you got to have the energy. So really focusing on your wellbeing and making that a priority will help you to have more enjoyment as you go through that as well.

absolutely. And I think that’s something a lot of business owners forget is they do plan work first. They don’t take time to give themselves self care or take time to plan like breakfast or lunch or dinner. They just work and then it gets to the end of the day and they’re burnt out. But if they just took that little bit of time to plan for some time for them, it would make such an impact on their day.

Oh, yes.

Well, Josi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing a little bit about what you do, but also some tangible tips for my listeners to walk away with. Before we go, what is one thing my listeners can do today to start working really hard on their mindset?

Become more aware of how you’re talking to yourself. So again, it goes back to self awareness is the first step. And just by watching your language of how you’re talking to yourself, and it could even be, you ask a friend, like, How do I talk to myself? Because you might notice them saying like, Oh gosh, you say, for example, like a lot, I hate this about myself. Or how could I do this wrong again? Like, ah, this is so stupid of me. Those things are harshly self critical. Noticing that can already give you like such a great hint towards, well, you’re self sabotaging through being super critical. How can you maybe. change that to one, be a bit nicer to yourself because you deserve to be treated nicely as well, but also to create again, like more of that enjoyment and fulfillment as you go.

So watch your language to yourself.

I love that. So where can my listeners find you or connect with you?

So you can find me anywhere and everywhere, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube threads with my name, Josi Dumont. That’s really the easiest way you could just put it into Google or I guess through the description box. I’m mostly on threads and Instagram. So if you want an informal chat, just reach out over there. I also have a website that you can check out. That’s just josidumont. com.

Perfect. Thank you again, Josi. It’s been amazing having you on the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

And that wraps up another episode of the creative mind smart money podcast. We’ve had the pleasure of diving into leadership and mindset coaching with the incredible Josee Dumont. Her journey from burnout and corporate finance to empowering women worldwide as a coach is truly motivating. Josi’s insight on overcoming self-doubt setting realistic goals and cultivating resilience.

Offer valuable guidance for entrepreneurs. Striving to build businesses their own way. To connect with Josi and gain more wisdom from her. Follow her on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and threads at, at Josi Dumont. Visit her website For more information on her coaching services. Anti-access her wealth of resources.

Thank you for tuning in today.

We hope Josi’s story has inspired you to take bold actions and develop deep self-trust on your entrepreneurial journey. Remember success starts from within and with the right mindset, you can achieve greatness until next time. Farewell fellow travelers.