Stepping from limiting beliefs into a growth mindset with Tracey Mylecharane

Here’s the thing about mindset. Often, we don’t even know that we have subconscious stories that are holding us back in today’s episode. I chat to Tracy Mylecharane, who is in my Mastermind about the stories that she had, that she wasn’t even aware of that were holding her back and how through doing the work she has been able to leap into a whole new level in her business. This episode is packed with practical examples and inspiration. So make sure you check it out.

Hello and welcome to The Clare Wood Podcast, where myself and incredible guests share about mindset, financial successes, and how to manage your money in a fun and practical way to create wealth and abundance in both your business and your life. I’m your host, Clare Wood. I’m a business coach and a money mentor. I strongly believe that money has the power to positively change the world. I can’t wait to help you transform your mindset around money, create a love of numbers and build the business of your dreams, so you can live a life of financial freedom, giving, and global impact.

CLARE:

Today’s episode of The Clare Wood Podcast is brought to you by my free 3 day training, 6 Figures, Now What? This is 3 hours of live training with me, teaching you how to break through an income plateau and start to scale. If you would like to find out more about this training, make sure you check it out via the link in the show notes for today’s episode.

A big warm welcome to the podcast for a second time, Tracey Mylecharane. I might let you introduce yourself to the listeners if that’s alright, Tracey.

TRACEY:

Absolutely. Hi Clare. Thank you so much for having me back again. I love your podcast and I am so delighted to be making my second appearance.

For those that don’t know me, I am a business lawyer and a business owner. A wife and a mom to two little people, five and seven. So the juggle is real. And I have my podcast as well, which is the Rise Up In Business podcast, which I love. And I’m proud to say, well, excited to say that as of a few months ago, my husband, after much persuasion and even a little bit of manipulation on my part, agreed to become a house husband, to help support me in the business at home. So the juggle’s real, but my gosh, it’s taken on a different level. It’s taken on many levels, actually, some of those I want to talk about here, but that’s me in a nutshell, doing all the things its sometimes a bit of a hot mess, but most of the time we’ve got it together.

CLARE:

Well, it’s an honor having you back on the podcast. So maybe let’s start back at the beginning of our journey together, if you don’t mind sharing that story.

How Tracey started on her mindset journey with Clare

TRACEY:

I would love to. I, for context, so I very much love the law and more than anything, I love helping people. So my driver in my business is to enrich lives and to help people in their businesses in terms of legal. So my mission is to empower every business owner I meet to back themselves legally. When I started working with you, I had very clear boundaries in my business, but they were really limiting beliefs, I know now, in relation to this business model. So this is not my first rodeo. I’ve worked in larger law firms. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I ran the last law firm that I was working with. And I was crystal clear, I thought that my business model being virtual because my clients are all across the country, but that I was restricted, I suppose, in that it was me.

So because I’d done it all before I genuinely thought I had everything figured out, no one knew better than me, and this is how it was going to be done. It would be just me and I would just do what I can do. When I started working with you I reached out, I had actually been stalking you for about 12 months on Instagram, to be honest, before I reached out. But when I reached out, it was because I just thought perhaps it might be of value to get the input and the insight of somebody with your expertise on my business. I didn’t really expect that you would be able to offer me much value because I genuinely thought I had it all figured out. Oh my gosh, what a game changer that was and how wrong was I? I not only was I narrow minded, I had limiting beliefs. I was telling myself a whole heap of stories about why growth wasn’t for my business. You know, it’s just little old me and I’ve got it figured, I’ve done it before and know what to do. When we started working together and one of the things I love about you Clare, is that you’re so honest, and I think that’s what, one of the reasons we connected so well, because I am known amongst everyone who knows me, particularly my family and friends to be very blunt. I’m a realist. I am an eternal optimist, but I am very blunt and I’m very direct. They know I just don’t see the point with beating about the bush, particularly with clients. They don’t pay me for that. But I connected with you on that level. And you were so honest with me at the beginning and because I had the greatest respect for you before working with you, every time you said something, I thought, oh my gosh. And it was like breaking down a barrier. I just imagine if you would like smashing through a brick wall, it was just another one, another one. And it was like, oh my gosh, the amount of beliefs and limitations that you have smashed down for me. And then I just saw my business through a completely different lens.

And what I realised through that process with you was whilst I do everything that I possibly can to help my clients, I wasn’t extending that to myself. So what that meant was I was doing myself a disservice by being stuck in what was a limiting belief and even a scarcity mindset, which I didn’t realise I had, starting out, business was doing well, it was doing all the things, but I still had, and I didn’t know it at the time, that scarcity mindset about what if no more clients come, what if the work dries up? And I don’t think that that’s rational on any level. I know now that it’s common, but there was a lot of work to be done and you and I did a lot of that together and it changed the absolute direction of my business, which I will be eternally grateful for.

Then after you and I did some private work together, I jumped into the first round of your Mastermind, your brilliant Mastermind. I’m now in the second round. Because I loved it so much, I didn’t want to leave, so I’m now in the second round, because what I realised in working through this with you is that the mindset work is not set and forget. So we don’t work through a hurdle or break down a barrier and then say, “Fantastic, I’m right now, I’m set.” I don’t think we’re ever set in business, particularly when we’re growing. And we are doing things. When we’re doing well, I don’t think the mindset work is going to be finished, which means that container you’ve created in the Mastermind is where I go to do the work. And having it regularly in my calendar is something I look forward to and that’s where the work happens. With your guidance, with the support of the other Masterminders, I’m able to continue doing the work. And the biggest thing for me has been growing my team. So you’ll remember Clare that when we started working together and you’d floated the idea of growing my team, I just dismissed you out of hand. “No, that’s not me, Clare. My business can’t go like that, Clare, you just don’t understand my business.” I think I said it to you, “You just don’t understand.”

Breaking through the story of not wanting to grow a team

CLARE:

And again, like all these things, this is come from a story, right? So what was the story that had sat behind why you didn’t want to bring people into your team?

TRACEY:

It was very much, “I’ve done this before. I know what I’m doing. No one can do this as well as me. My clients want me.” And that extended to all parts of running my business because I had run law firms before. So in relation to trust accounting, bookkeeping, the admin, the matter management, the conflict checks, and then the client work. So before we even got to the lawyer/client work, I had stories around the support in my business. And that was it. It was, “No one can do this as well as me. And it’ll be easier just to do it myself rather than having to bring someone in because then I’ll have to train them.”

And then when I actually dug deeper than that, it was scarcity. “Well, that’s a salary I have to pay, or that’s another invoice I have to pay and what if the work dries up?” And once we worked through that and I realised it was a story and it took a long time, I started growing my business. I now have a team of six and that’s a combination of employees and contractors because that’s a mix that works for my business. And just recently in recent weeks, I’ve brought on a Senior Solicitor into my business, and I had worked on that for one year, one year to the month, I looked back and I’ve been working on that. So I have an amazing VA, a bookkeeper who is way more than a bookkeeper, I have two solicitors, I have a copywriter who does all my things. My copywriter being a part of my team is so brilliant because now I just email her and say, I’ve come up with this idea for a course I want to create. And she can just dive straight in and do the copy because she’s with me so often. And those were the sorts of things that I genuinely thought I can’t outsource. It’s cheaper just to do it myself. It’s quicker and easier just to do it myself.

In relation to my new solicitor, she’s a Senior Solicitor. So it took me a long time to reach the point where I thought this is actually going to help grow my business. And it’s going to be a better service for my clients. She’s actually better than me. I think she is anyway, she’s just beautiful and her approach and we are so aligned. So she was worth the wait, but I genuinely think the universe delivered her to me when I was ready and I wasn’t ready up until the last couple of months. I genuinely believe that. And now introduce her to my clients and integrating her into the business has been a game changer. And I can honestly say every single day for the last three weeks, I say to myself, “Gosh, I’m in love with my business” even more than I was before. And I could never have gotten to that point, if I didn’t do the work on the mindset, it has been a game changer that is not understating it.

Why the mindset work isn’t easy, but so important

CLARE:

Yeah. And you know, I know that on this podcast, we talk about mindset a lot and I wanted to share your story because I love how you have been really transparent about how this work isn’t easy as well. And you know, people go, “What’s so hard? Why don’t you just go and hire someone?” So do you want to maybe explain, like when we talk about mindset and we talk about, if someone’s assuming they go, why didn’t you just go and hire them? Why didn’t you just go and hire her 12 months ago? When the thought first came up?

TRACEY:

When the thought first came up and you put it to me, I just dismissed it on the basis that my business doesn’t work like that. That’s not for my business. I was very narrow minded and my beliefs were limiting, but I thought, “No, I’ve set this business up myself. I’m the one providing the legal services. I’m the one with the background knowledge. I’m the one with the 12 years of litigation experiences. Clients want me to come in and strategise for them. I can’t teach that.”

Then I would look at the figures I’d look at the figures and think, “Well, if this is the work that I’m doing now, I’m comfortable here. If I take on another salary, holy moly, that means I…” And I did cash projections. I did the numbers. I did the budgets. I’d given myself migraines over this and I’d satisfied myself it wasn’t possible for my business because my business was different and it relied on me, but it’s the mindset work about working through and you would challenge it, but I didn’t realise I needed it. So it was by dumb luck, I suppose, that I did connect with you when I did. And that’s the point that I really needed it. So I’m a bit woo woo. So I believe that the universe connected us right when I needed it the most. So working through the mindset around, “Why do I say that it can’t work for me?” And really drilling down on that? And why do I say, “No one can do it better?” That’s ego talking. Because of course someone can do it better. That was ego.

CLARE:

I don’t know. I think you’re pretty good.

TRACEY:

Thank you. I think so too. I love the value I offer and I am confident with it. It’s tried and tested. I do know that I deliver value, but now that I connected with somebody who has such a similar mindset to me in my business, and it’s the right person too. It’s not just get another lawyer. Because my business model and the very unique edge that I have in approaching the client work the way that I do it’s different. So it’s got to be the right person. My belief is that the law should be used as a tool to educate in power. So does my new hire. And we’ve connected paths previously, it was again, the universe that connected us this time when I realised she’s just crossed my path again, and, and this is the person I need because we have the same belief too. And then I realised actually she can complement me, and we can actually up level together in my business with my other team members. I have another solicitor, a junior solicitor who I’m teaching and she’s, so she tells me every day, eternally grateful for the opportunity to work in this business model, where we value ourselves and each other, as well as our clients.

But through the mindset work, it’s not something that you realise that you need to work on. “Oh, this is where my business is at. I’m very stressed. I’m very time poor. I’m doing all the things gee, I better work on mindset.” It doesn’t happen like that. It takes somebody else. It takes being open to another person’s view, which is when I brought you in, and for somebody to say, “That’s a story.” And for you to be able to let your ego go enough to say, “Well, is it?” And explore it. But again, that’s got to be the right coach because I’m a fairly direct and robust person. So it takes a certain sort of person to be able to look me in the eyes and say, “That’s a story, Tracey, that’s BS,” which is exactly what you did. And it’s got to be the right person, because if I didn’t respect you, and if you weren’t direct that wouldn’t have resonated for me. So, it’s all the pieces aligning to work it through in business.

CLARE:

There’s another big transformation that I’ve witnessed you. And I love that you’re sharing that a lot of this growth happened through the Mastermind, through working with me as a coach. But, the truth is, is that you did the work, you put in the hard yards that a lot of people simply aren’t willing to do. Which is to question things, to challenge things, to do things differently. And it is, it’s really hard when we’re accustomed to doing things a certain.

So, first of all, I really want to honor you and the work that you’ve done in this space, but there is a really cool other shift that I’ve witnessed in you, aside from the courage, which you’ve grown your team, which can be really scary. I know it still feels scary for me when I’m bringing new people into the team. So, I do feel, I do know how challenging that can be.

How Tracey created an un/availability boundary 

Another transformation that I witnessed in you was around your availability. And I’d love to dive into that if that’s OK. So let’s talk about what Tracey was like when we first started working together in terms of your service that you provided to your clients.

TRACEY:

I had such guilt, because I created my business to fit around the lifestyle I wanted with my little ones. I created a business, which was flexible. So I was very crystal clear that I wanted to be able to do school drop off and pick up without the stress, because I do the, I see all the stressed moms and dads that pick up and drop off. And they’re also stressed and the kids get out of the car and off they go, and they’ve got a rush to work. I reject that, didn’t want it, would not have a bar of it. So I created this business to provide me with that flexibility, but I had guilt around it because I thought, “Gosh, if I’m not on the tools by 9:30am clients expect me to be available from 8am, because that’s when they want to call me, gosh, I feel really guilty.” And then when I’d go and do pickup, it’d take a little while to do pickup because I had the two and they finished at different times and all sorts of things, but that’d be a couple of hours out of my afternoon, every afternoon. My husband was working then. So I had guilt. So I thought, “Oh, I feel guilty for taking that time. So I must be available until 9pm at night.” So here I am trying to cook dinner, answering client calls, the kids trying, oh my gosh, witching hour. It was real, but I felt guilty. So I was available at all sorts of ridiculous hours. And then the weekend, because I thought, well, clients expect me to be working 60 hour, weeks or more. So I therefore need to be available on the weekend and I was, around the clock. So every moment that I wasn’t doing something with my kids, I’m answering phone calls. I thought I must respond to new inquiries immediately. I don’t want people to feel like I don’t care because I care a lot. I really give a shit. And somebody said to me recently, “That’s your point of difference, Tracey, you actually give a shit.” And I do. But I did think that in order for me to be able to convey that and for people to know it, my clients to know it, I needed to be there for them around the clock.

Well, I was wrong. I was wrong. And what I’ve discovered and in growing my business and my clients, and they tell me because we always have very frank and open discussions is that they love how well I look after them. They don’t care whether or not I may get on the tools until 9:30am or 10am in the morning. They expect me to finish at a normal finishing time and they do not expect to hear from me on the weekends. But it took a long time for me to work through the guilt. As a working mom and a business owner it took a long time to work through that guilt and prioritize myself. And this is the thing doing the work is hard. Yes, you’re right. But jumping into work with you and jumping into Mastermind is backing myself and investing in myself. It felt very indulgent to invest in a coach and to invest in a Mastermind because I had to then say to myself, “I matter too.” Then the boundaries came and I worked through this with the Mastermind. This is something that one of the first things I worked through was availability and putting some boundaries around my time. That’s respecting myself, that’s prioritizing me. And the concept of, I matter too in this business was something that was very new to me. It’s not something that’s rife in the legal profession. Certainly wasn’t rife in my previous law firms, but I matter too. My time matters to. So now I have, well, I don’t do a four day work week, but I do a very structured week.

My Mondays is my creative day. It’s my Master Monday, my podcast day planning, planning my resources for my resources page on my website, being creative, working with my VA on all of those ideas because I get lots of them now. And she laughs when I send her another message with some other idea that I’ve come up with. Monday’s my creative thinking day. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I’m on the tools. I’m heavily on the tools. Not until after school drop off. My husband does all the pickups. So I’ve got more time there, but there is an end to my working day and Fridays is my business admin day. I don’t take calls or respond to emails on Fridays. And I actually have an out of office that I set on my email now, every Thursday afternoon, just letting everyone know, “Hey guys, I won’t be in my inbox on Friday or the weekend. So I’ll get back to you on Monday.” That was huge for me. I was so nervous about doing that. People love it. Clients love it.

CLARE:

I love it. I constantly tell people, look at this amazing boundary that Tracey has put in place. And do you know what? It’s so interesting, my mom had this saying when I was growing up, which is, “People treat you how you let them treat you.” And it’s something that’s so true and no offense to the legal profession. But I’ve noticed that when I’m dealing with a lot of, I am looking to buy a house and I can email her at 10:30 at night and she’ll reply to me within 10 minutes. And I think “What the hell?” So I know that I can contact her any time of night or day. And so what do I do? I do contact her and say, “Hey, can we turn this around quickly?” Because, I know that she will. Whereas when I’ve worked with other professionals and they say, “I respond to emails Tuesdays to Thursdays or whatever,” I go, “Oh yeah, cool. No worries. I’ll wait till next week then.” And so the fact that you have drawn that boundary around your time is actually inspiring, so many business owners around you. So not only are you protecting your time, but you’re actually inspiring other people to start to create boundaries around their time and availability as well. And I know that you’ve witnessed other people who are still working through their own stories and you’re looking from the outside and you go, “You don’t need to do that. It’s OK. Your clients will still like you. They will still love you. They will still respect you, even if you’re not available for them 24/7.” So it’s been wonderful to witness.

TRACEY:

That’s right, and they don’t want me available 24/7, that’s the other thing. That said, I am committed to doing everything that I can do to help my clients. My clients very rarely work with me as a one off. And that’s just been organic and I’m so grateful for that. And it’s almost like I become a part of their team. So when they are in crisis or only a couple of weeks ago, we settled on a purchase of a business for one of my clients. And it didn’t go to plan, which meant we did it on a Friday. Of course, I jumped in on Friday and did it. And I’ve had clients who have come to me in crisis mode because something’s gone wrong. Of course, I’ll dive in on the weekend and do it for you. You’re my client. I’ve got your back. So of course I will do it then, but the boundaries are there now.

And my family have noticed the difference and I’ve noticed the difference, but the big thing was learning to value myself and respect myself. So when I try to say to my clients, “You need to back yourself as a business owner and invest in getting your legals done properly.” I realized I to back myself as a business owner and invest in myself too. And that meant growing my team and putting boundaries around. And now my team members, I offer them the same flexibility, my newest team member. She doesn’t work on Fridays either. And to her, this is mind blowing. She doesn’t know to do with herself. She’s beautiful. And I just love and feel so privileged that I can offer that to somebody else as well. It’s amazing.

CLARE:

Oh, I think you’d be such a great boss to work for. You know, one of the things that you spoke to about with me when you were looking to hire was about your values and how you wanted to provide a work environment that was supportive and all of those things that you you haven’t experienced in, in workplaces in the past. So absolutely been amazing to witness.

I’ve referred so many clients to you over the years, and I hear the most incredible raving reviews about you. And I think the big thing I know your ethos is law done differently. And that’s definitely the feedback that I receive is that you are kind, you’re caring, but you also call a spade, a spade and you know your stuff. So, I’ve worked with you as well and had an incredible experience. So I do highly recommend Tracey, thank you so much for coming on today, sharing your story, sharing your message. If people want to connect with you, Tracey, how can they do so?

TRACEY:

So I’m on Instagram. My handle is @tmsolicitor, or my website for all things that you need, which is tmsolicitor.com.au

CLARE:

Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story and look forward to chatting to you soon.

TRACEY:

Thank you, Clare. Thank you so much for having me.

CLARE:

Thanks so much for listening. If you love this episode, please share it with your audience. And don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @clare_wood_coach and also make sure you hit subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Have an abundant week and I look forward to talking to you again next week.