Suzanne Sarsfield Scarano - Edited

Are you fed up with the corporate bullshit holding you back? Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. The ultimate launchpad for entrepreneurs ready to seize control and unleash their creative genius. Hosted by Phil Better, the podcast mogul. Each week he's breaking the chains of conventional work with bold strategies, raw insights, and inspiring success stories from the digital entrepreneurs who took the risk and invested in themselves. This is your call to arms. Invest in yourself, break free from someone else's rules, and build the empire you deserve. Now let's dive head first into today's explosive episode.

Welcome back to another amazing episode of Invest In Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Podcast. I'm, of course, your host with the most feel better. And today's guest is someone who truly embodies creativity, vision, and business acumen all in one. If you ever wondered how to break free from the traditional mold of marketing and build something unique and forward thinking, then you're in for a real treat because our guest today is the president and founder of Forethought, an innovative marketing agency that does one does things differently. Their approach isn't your typical one size fits all marketing firm. Instead, they they customize their process for each and every client, bringing in expert team members as needed, meaning you only pay for what you truly require. Her vision for forethought is rooted in the future with all her employees working virtually as anonymous partners.

Autonomous partners part not anonymous, autonomous partners reflecting her ink their increasingly global worldwide reach. Beyond her impressive three decades marketing career, our guest is an adventurer at heart, a marathoner, an art supporter, and a businesswoman who is likely to be sliding down rocks in Asheville as she's dancing to YouTube in Las Vegas. Her creativity, spirit, and boundless ideas combined with her dedication and business savvy make her a true powerhouse in the industry. So I am thrilled and super excited to have our guest today. So please welcome Suzanne Scarno. I just messed up the last name. I'm sorry, Suzanne. I I

right. So funny.

I know beforehand I asked, and I was like, yes. I got it. And then I I put my foot in my mouth, Scaran. Right, Skerano?

Thank you, Skerano. Yes. And that is what a wonderful introduction. My gosh. Can we meet weekly? I love that.

For sure. I I will be glad to you just call me and be like, Phil, I need that intro, and I'll read it to you, pump you up. That's my job here in on Investing Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I invest my energy into you so that you can bring us the gold, and I'll hype you up until the day is done. So, Suzanne, let's just start right away. First, thank you for being here. I'm excited as you could tell by the intro, but why? Why did you decide to flip the script and become an entrepreneur? What was it about entrepreneurs that just galvanized your soul into doing it?

Thank you for having me, and I always love that question. I worked at an advertising agency that was traditional. It was a while ago, more than fifteen years ago. I started there, twenty nine years ago. And I was there for fourteen years because I loved what I did. I absolutely loved meeting with clients, understanding what their challenges were and bringing them solutions. I just felt there was a better way to do it. And the company that I worked for at the time was owned by a single, you know, private ownership.

And I'll never forget the owner and I went to a meeting one day and geographically, my apartment was only about a mile from where the meeting was, and our office was about five miles. So it wasn't really that far, but we left a meeting at 04:00 in the afternoon on a Thursday. And he says, I'll see you back at the office. And I thought, my god. There must be a better way. It's a beautiful day in South Florida. I could go to the beach. I could find a yoga class.

I could, you know, really back at the office at 04:00 to do what? Not to say that there weren't days that we had a lot of work and, you know, you roll up our sleeves and do it. I just felt that with the technology and the digital world that we lived in, we could work from home. We could work from anywhere. And frankly, a great idea doesn't always come from an office chair. It comes it come from a beach chair or, you know, the greatest meetings don't necessarily have to happen in a boardroom. They can happen in a family room, quite literally. So in 02/2009, I thought about what I wanted my life to look like and what I wanted to do and how my career that I loved could be a part of it, not rule it. And I couldn't find it, so I created it.

I never really had the passion or dreams of being an entrepreneur. It was the situation that I was in telling me, Suzanne, you're still young. You're still single. What's going on? You need to prioritize your life and not just your career. So, yeah, I decided at that very moment when I got in my little Miata and I was like, what the what am I doing going back to an office? I don't I gotta figure out something. I spent the next six months burning the candle at both ends. So, you know, I was very I have a lot of integrity when I was at work. I worked, but at home I wrote my business plan.

I figured out what it would look like, what platforms I could use for project management, how I would hire people to work remotely if and when we needed to meet, where would we meet? And I created a business. And about six months after that meeting, I said, see you later. I'm gonna go start my own gig. That's

I personally, I couldn't understand why he would wanna go back 04:00. Come on. Alright. We're good. We'll go back. What? We're gonna write one meeting one line from the meeting, and then it's 05:00PM, and it's like, I'm out of here? Nah. Or or probably the traffic, just the traffic at that time. By the time you get there, it's 5PM, and you're like, oh, okay.

I have to go now. Like, ah, God. Yeah. I I I would be with you. Like, what is this? But I I love how a small little situation like that propped up your idea about, let's move into the future. We're working in the nineteen fifties style. We have to go back to the office. We're in the twenty first century here.

We have technology. And it decided to just get you going. My question is, what was your first big hurdle that you faced when you finally just did decide to kick off and go, I'm creating was forethought, like, was that forethought at the beginning? I'm jumping like 84,000 questions. I'm sorry. I'm just so excited. So we're gonna do this. Was forethought, birthed during those six months, or was this something that was forethought something that came later?

Oh, no. Forethought that that happened. I I literally sat in my car. I said there has to be a better way. And I don't know what that looks like, but I'm going to create a way of doing what I love in a life that I am loving. We are, you know, I believe that we're human beings. We're not human doings. We're here to be an ex an experience, the things that bring us tremendous joy.

And it's not to say that my career doesn't bring me joy. I love what I do, but when it rules your life and you are confined by times and days of the week and, you know, just meetings. It doesn't it doesn't feel good. So how can I make it feel good? So it was birthed at that very moment. Not quite the name. The name took me a minute to think through. And the six months was really me looking at what do I need to start a business. Right? What how much what would the budget look like? What expenses will I have? How much salary do I actually need? What do I have in savings to float me through if this doesn't work? And just have a plan.

I wanted a plan and I actually have another funny story about that. So I took the six months and I was a business major, so I had all the templates I needed and all the tools to create this really awesome, who's my target audience and, you know, what is the the, accounting look like? And I put all of this on paper. And after I left, I had a dear friend who introduced me to, a colleague at a university and he was a dean of a business school. So he agreed to meet me for breakfast. And I said, oh, I'm so excited to meet with you. I wanna share with you what I've done. I put together this business plan. I'd love some feedback.

I started telling him, he says, yeah, let me see this business plan. He ripped it right in front of my face. And I I I had him open like Jesus, Murphy. I'm like, I just spent six months doing that. What's wrong with you? You didn't even open it. And you know what he said to me? I'll never forget these words. He said, Suzanne, the reason why you do that is to go through the discipline of having having the knowledge that you can do it. But the reality is you're gonna just go with the flow.

Whatever happens happens. If your clients if the services that you came up with don't fit their needs, you're gonna shift and provide them the services that do. Be authentic. Be your true self. Do what's right for them. Go with the flow. Forget about the business plan. I'm proud of you that you did it, but you don't need that.

You just need the drive that you've always had. And I was like, okay, I got it.

I love I love that Dean. That dude, that person is a genius because old school, if you're gonna build a brick and mortar, yeah, business plan is needed because you're gonna get that loan and this and that and the building, but we're we're in the twenty first century. Our brick and mortar is our laptop most of the time or our computer. Once you have that, you're pretty much set because the Internet is free real estate or it's very cheap real estate.

Yep. Mhmm. You also have to have the drive.

Yes. The drive is very much important. If you don't have the drive, you can do it.

And and that's pretty much what he was telling me. He was saying, listen. It's great that you did this, but what you need to do is believe in yourself, go out there, and make it happen. That that's the key here. And I feel like, especially, I know we have a lot of folks that have either just started an a business or on their way to the next level. And sometimes you hit these obstacles that you're like, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna do this? But as soon as you remember, this was my idea, and I am gonna bet on myself. That's the best horse you're ever gonna put in the race. Right? Nobody you know better than anyone else that you're gonna make it happen.

So that that kind of came full circle for me with, with that gentleman giving me that. I was like, oh.

That is a a slap to the face, but a good one to wake you out of the dream because sometimes a lot of people just hardcore focus on, okay, I need to have the business plan. I need to know this. I need to know that when in reality, just do it. Just like Nike says, just do it, go for it, see what happens. And then people who will help you will come into your life and will be able to guide you down safely down the rapids that is entrepreneurship. Because if anything, there's a lot of rapids and a lot of bumps in this. And I wanna talk to you about that. Like, what was your after being seeing the guy rip up your business plan, I'm pretty sure that was a big bump.

But when it came to your clients, like, what was the biggest bump or the first bump you hit on your journey down the road of entrepreneurship?

Let's see. We were I I was very lucky because I had been at the other place for fourteen years. I always networked. I was always out there. People knew who I was. They knew the integrity of what I did, the quality of what I did. It was pretty easy at the beginning. And, it it you know, it's funny now it's coming to me when you ask the question, I say, gosh, I don't know, but this is really what happened.

02/2009, I launched. In 02/2011, I was doing really well. I was making some pretty good money. You know, the first year, it was there was probably just run of the mill getting things set up, and I didn't I never lost any money, but it was just sales were good. They were decent. By year three, I'm like kicking butt. I was like, wow. I am making so much money.

This is exciting. And you start to see these numbers. And I got a little wrapped up in the success and the money, and I started to become a workaholic. And I'm like, look at me here working for my apartment 247 because it's always in my face. Right? I I always had the ability to just go to the desk of work. Whereas before I'd go to the office and there was that little bit of separation. So it was a wake up call, that my beloved and one of my cousins who was almost like a brother to me, sadly passed away unexpectedly at a very young age. And the gift that he gave me was mean realizing, what are you doing, Suzanne? You literally created this business to be free from the confines of corporate and organizational.

And now here you are working at nine, ten o'clock at night. That's that wasn't the plan. Life is too precious. You only have this one chance. This isn't a dress rehearsal. Stop it. And I made a very conscious, alright. You know what? This is not what I planned for.

I plan to have an amazing life and have my career be a part of it. It's not about the money. It's about the ability to go to that yoga class or to just take a day off and go to the movies if I want Or, come up with something new, a new project, you know, maybe do a puzzle, anything. It's not about the work and it's not about watching those numbers roll up in the bank. It really isn't. So the biggest hurdle for me was once I got that success, being able to separate and say, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, what are my priorities here? And my priorities were a good quality life. It wasn't about the money. So I did lease an office space.

I said, you know what? I wanna create a little bit of separation. It's not to say that I'm not gonna take my laptop and do things. And I don't go to the office every day. I don't, I, I don't like coming here every day. Right? I come a couple of times a week for a zoom for, but it was, it helped separate a little bit. It helped get the desk out of being in front of my face, basically. And, yeah. So the obstacle was getting caught up in that.

This is exciting. I'm making a lot of money and saying, what did I really do here? I really wanted it to be about quality of life. So let's let's keep the eye on the prize. And that was that's what we did.

I love that. I love that. You were keeping yourself reminded of why you started this business, not to just drive five miles to go to the office at 04:00 after a meeting. No. We wanted to, you know, just drive that mile, get home, put our sandals on, go to the beach in Florida. Of course, you're gonna go to the beach and enjoy yourself, you know. With everything you've done, how how did you decide that you wanted to work with the the experts, but only hire them when you need? Like, that is completely unconventional, which I love because I love unconventional businesses because entrepreneurs think so, so amazingly. What made you decide, like, hey, you may not need a press writer right now, but we have them on staff.

So when you need it, we'll hire them. What made you decide to go down that route and not just go like the old school? We do everything and you pay for everything.

Thank you. I I love that question because it really helps me explain the forethought model even more. Right? So first of all, it was 02/2009. The South Florida real estate bubble had burst. I had so many friends that had lost their jobs. So many people who, you know, left right and center graphic designers, copywriters, account managers who were being let go, agencies that were closing or downsizing. And and part of my part of my passion besides creating a better life for myself, my my why, the why purpose of Suzanne on this earth is to create a space where we can all live our best lives. So there was a desire for me to support other people in seeing there is a better way.

Like, let's all ban against this big machine and do things differently. I wanted to provide re I wanted to offer people jobs that I had a lot of friends. So instead of just saying one person, I wanted to have different people disposable to me. And I thought about the client. I said, if the client, you know, doesn't mean something, why would we sell it to them? So if we structure this differently and they say, hey. What exactly are your communication gaps? How do we fill them? One client might need graphic design and web building, etcetera, and another one might just need media buying. So if we tailor the team specifically around their needs, they're going to save money. I get to have different people.

I can share the wealth with and have availability, you know, depending on what's going on, I can move shift around. It just made us more nimble. Right? Instead of saying, okay, I've got this huge overhead. I've got all these people. I've got this office. I've gotta pay insurance, parking, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That's why you have to charge people a lot of money. But if everybody's working from home and there's this fluidity, as long as you're really strong on internal communication, right? So we always have weekly meetings within departments to make sure that we're communicating, everybody's uber clear on what needs to get done.

We have project management and processes. You need to have processes in place that everybody's following. There's no reason why it can't work, which was interesting because then fast forward eleven years later, I'm sitting there in 2020 like, wow. Did we have a crystal ball or what?

Really did have forethought.

Thank you. Thank you for setting that up for me. I mean, we we didn't have to pivot. We already had everything on the cloud. We had secure server. You know, we we knew. And and the industries that we focused on were always healthcare, education, and financial services, all essential. We didn't have a blip.

It wasn't a growth year, but we just stayed totally steady. We didn't have to let anybody go. We had different people that could jump in. You know, some people had, oh my gosh, my kids. I'm trying to help them on their classes on Zoom. I'm home alone. I don't have any support with dinner and laundry and da da da da. And then other people who are like, hey.

I can jump in and do this because I've got nothing going on. I'm stuck at home. So it was easy to move the pieces around. We didn't have to give it. We were already there. We're like, welcome to the party world.

You're like, we've been here for eleven years. What well, where were you?

What were you doing?

Oh my god. I I love that. Like, I I first of all, I love the fact that the name of your company is forethought. You already had the forethought to think of, hey, staying remote, being nimble, being able to be pitching left and right, and having teammates that are willing to help because that's what you built. You built the culture of helping and knowing that everybody's equal on the team and everybody's getting the work that they need. That is a that's a testament to you for the culture that you built inside your business. And that that is impressive because not a lot of businesses build that that helping culture. They have good cultures, but they don't have the forethought again, but I'm I'm gonna I think that's gonna be the theme of this episode, just forethought.

But you built it so that everybody knows they're equal inside and they work together and you have those processes so that if one team member needs to jump over on another project, they have the process to help them, which I think is brilliant. Again, forethought. Amazing.

And I'm gonna add something on there if I may. I'm I'm glad you brought that up. You know, we're I said before, we're human or human beings. And a lot of times you have someone who says, my daughter has a field trip on Thursday and I'd really like to be the chaperone at the field trip. So I've had so many people say, we've got to do this for Alicia because we know Alicia is going to be on that field trip and we want her to have fun and we don't want to bother her. Or my mom is sick and she needs to go to the doctor. Can I take her to the doctor on Tuesday? Everybody jumps in and says, hey, let's not bother Madeline. Cause she, you know, and that to me is such a testament to the type of we want everybody to excel in the virtual space, in the space of we're not going to an office.

We never wanna go to an office. We never wanna have to go to an office. The the other funny part of it is we do have several meetings a year. Right? So we'll have what we call forethought day where we all get together. It's kind of like a mini retreat. We do some housekeeping, operational stuff, have a fun lunch, and then have a speaker come in and just have some real interesting topic that would light us up and get us engaged for the future. We have quarterly meetings, so we do get together. So, and then we have fun.

We'll go to like Putt Shack or, you know, Top Golf and have a fun holiday party. So and and at the last one, I actually when we raised our glasses, I said, I wanna toast to being virtual every day and being together today. When we are together, everybody shows up because they want to, right? Because they want to be with each other and have a good meal time, fun. And that's the beauty of it. The culture is such that we support each other because we all want us to live our best lives. We want you to go on that field trip. Why you to help your mom. You gotta take your dog to the vet, go to your yoga class, self care, and then, you know, get the job done.

I love it because it's looking at the the way our parents had to work and miss out on all the activities that we had because they had to go on a business trip or they had a business supper or something like that, or they had to stay at the office late. You're building the future here with being virtual or semi virtual with once or twice a a year, you know, meeting up and, you know, and I'm sorry. The best parts of working in office were when we were able to go out and have dinner together as a as a group. That was the best part. I love that part when I was working in corporate world. But, yeah, I love that you took some of the best parts of corporate world and said, we're gonna keep this, but we're gonna get rid of all the daily necessaries of going into an office, which listen. No one likes traveling into an office and being in that sterile environment. I'd rather be in my, you know, my boxer shorts sitting at a desk, you know, if I have to.

I wanna know where do you see foresight going in the next ten years? Like, you've been doing this for quite some time since 02/2009. You're gonna be hitting two decades soon in a few years. What what what do you look like when you're in in three decades in? What are we doing, Susan?

Oh, that's that's a really tough question. I like it. I, you've challenged me here, Phil. We do have a ten year vision that we're about three years into at this point in time. We always have said we will be true to ourselves, and there is no world where we ever are required to go to an office. What we do is we provide communication solutions to encourage progress. Right? So our clients are organizations who probably have some communication gaps and they're seeking to grow or to implement a new program or to launch a new product and they need help with communication. So we come in and we provide them with that support.

That's an ever evolving industry. Right? I obviously, the the buzz term that I have to use is AI. So we do have someone one one on our team, we have a strategist. She's future thinking. She's always looking ahead, what are trends, what's going on. She is seeking opportunities not only for forethought, but for our clients in that AI space. So number one, in the next ten years, we're looking at what are other products and services that we can offer our clients to support them in their communication solutions. Right? That's first and foremost, our clients.

As far as forethought, we do have a growth plan, and we have been on a growth trajectory for the last couple of years pretty significantly. So we have growth plans as far as how many more team members do we wanna bring on, how many number of clients do we wanna have, what does that look like. We've actually toyed around. One of our one of our signature services is our magic sessions.

Mhmm.

Magic sessions are usually in person and sometimes can be virtual. They're basically workshops that we come in with clients and the number one important goal is to align their team. Oftentimes, what we see is with a marketing or an advertising agency, there's one or two liaisons that speak from the client side to the client to the agency. And yet when you come and present what the strategy and what the creative is, there's this room of like five or six other people that we never met. At forethought, we require that everybody, any decision maker is in the room at the very beginning. And we uncover any potential misalignment to say, wait a second. You think it's the doctor and you think it's the patient. Why? Alright.

Let's figure this out. And oftentimes it's both and we just have to prioritize. They they usually don't have those conversations. Right? At organizations, major organizations, everybody has their role, their accountability, their department, and we forget it's human nature. We forget to do this. Right? We're we're going up and down. They're silos. They're individual silos.

Mhmm. And I have my up my, KPIs and I have my, you know, tasks or to dos and objectives. But if I sit across the table and I understand what yours are, it's like, wait a second. There's an overlap there. Why are we wasting time if we can tap into your resources or if we can help you guys? So what we do is we bring all these people to the table at once, and we align them while listening to what they have to say so that we can come back and grand slam it every single time. Right? Our, our presentations are, we heard you coupled with research. Here's what needs to happen. Here's why.

And you know, we we literally have never left a room where somebody said, you're totally off base. That's not what we need to do. So we're we currently have seven, eight, actually, eight different magic session outlines. Right? So depending on the deliverables, whether you need to maybe you need a sales process. Sometimes people come in. They're like, oh, we want more leads. We want more leads. I'm like, show me your sales process.

You don't have a sales process? Okay. Let's do that first, and then we'll talk about the leads. Right? So we have a sales process. We have a branding process. We have a strategy process. We've got eight outlined and we tailor them depending on what a client's needs are. We foresee developing more magic sessions or different types of magic sessions and, an easier way to do them virtually, we can do them. There is a there are a couple that are much easier and we have different props that we'll send ahead of time.

But there's something about being together in a room that is is especially for alignment. Right? It really helps a lot. But as I said, with today's technology, whether we're using mural or different tools, we we definitely can make them happen magically, virtually as well.

I love it. Oh my god. With with the time that you spent with forethought and prior, how do you keep yourself the best version of yourself? What do you do to invest in yourself as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a human being to make sure that you're you're functioning at the closest level of perfection, because we know people can't be perfect, but closest to that level, like, doing better than just good. You know? What do you do to invest in yourself?

Thank you. And you're right. Nobody's perfect. I I feel like so many of us being joyful and happy is what's gonna make us be more or closer to perfect and really good. And to do that, the number one non negotiable I have in my life is meditation. I really feel like when I meditate, I'm able to connect to a higher self, a higher power. It grounds me. It keeps me peaceful.

It keeps me connected to my authenticity and my true self. So number one, I meditate every single day. Obviously, keeping our our our vehicles healthy. Right? So walking, exercising, I, I do enjoy my chocolate. We try to eat healthy.

Listen. I'm not gonna blame anybody for saying they don't they love chocolate because I'm a I'm a sweet tooth at heart. So you you you had me on the same page there. You said chocolate. I'm like, okay. We're best friends now.

And one of our one of our core values at forethought is have fun every day, And that's what I live by. Like and listen. I love I've said it before. I love what I do. My career has been a tremendous passion of mine. There are days that are harder than others. Right? You have bad days that maybe there was information that was not provided accurately. Someone else on the table, you know, at the table had a difficult day or has something going on in their personal life.

They took it out on you, whatever it might be. There things go wrong. Things don't get delivered on time. Right? Things out of our control happen On those days that don't I don't have as much fun as talking to you today. Like, the fun is not Thanks. On those days, I say what I love to orchid. I'm a gardener. So I'll orchid.

I'll dance, but I or I'll color with my daughter or do a puzzle with her or, you know, so it's make sure that if you had a little bit of a challenge in your day, wasn't going as joyfully as you wanted to have fun. Create the fun. We all have the power to do it. There's no reason not to.

I think that's the best piece of advice. I can end the episode right here. Have fun. Boom. The forethought is to have fun. We are coming to the like, I hate that the episodes go by so quickly. They just fly by and I'm like, ah, I have so many more questions. So I'm gonna I I have two questions.

I'm gonna hit you with two questions because I I'm very interested. What are some of the most surprising lessons you've learned from the diversity of your clientele, and how has that influenced, sorry, your approach to, the strategy and the communication that you provide at forethought?

Okay. Let me make sure I have the question. So what have I learned from the diversity of my clientele?

Yeah. So it's, what have you learned from the diversity of your clientele and how has it influenced your approach to strategy and communication

at Okay. Excellent. So the interesting thing about the diversity, as different as we are, people were all the same. Like, a lot of us just want the same basic needs in life. Right? We wanna be heard. We wanna be seen. We wanna be loved. And communication, 50% of communication is listening.

So number one is respect, listening, organizing. Now what's interesting though, is clients. What sets them mostly apart is their target audience. What do you, right? We're all for the most part, we're seeking to either provide a service or a product to someone. So understanding a client's target audience is the number one key. We create these key personas. So we have an actual visual of does this person look like? What makes them tick? How are we gonna get them to respond? And how is this message gonna resonate most with them? When we see how diverse it is, it's it's kind of cool. And the strategy is like, wow, the world is a beautiful place.

And that makes us go go around is how how different interests we have. Right? We're all very similar in what we want, but at the end of the day, everybody has different interests. So with the strategies, once you understand the persona of who you're trying to seek, it's what message is going to resonate with them. And, you know, everybody talks about storytelling and, but it really is about emotionally, where do we get that connection and how will this person feel valued and heard as opposed to being told you need to buy this or you should you need to do this. It's like, no, here's some really good information about what we do or what product we have and how it can fit in your life aspirationally. Let's let you make the decision being respectful and honor. Did that answer your question?

That certainly did. I love it because, some people may know I may not know, but I have two tattoos on me that say honor and

respect. Wow.

Yeah. So that just, like, hit me because I I I truly believe, like, you need to listen and respect someone's, opinion. You gotta honor people as well and honor their their differences because that's what make this world go round. So I I really, really do appreciate that. And that's, like, the first time I've ever told anybody that I have those tattoos. Oh, no. So you just you just stole that right out of here. So, Suzanne, we're gonna hit the last question.

Okay. It's, it's it's a big one. I have your 10 year old self right beside me, and, she is a spitfire. She's so much fun. We've been laughing. We've been coloring. It's been a lot of fun, but I wanna know what's one piece of advice you would love to be able to hand back to your 10 year old self?

Have more fun. Have even more fun. So here's the funny part. Right? And I I I'm gonna say this, especially for those newer entrepreneurs or, you know, I'm an entrepreneur now for fifteen years and there's a moment in time in your career where you get really serious. Right? I'm older now. I know I'm much older than you, Phil, but I don't know when that magic happens that you get past this hump and you suddenly don't really not that you don't care. Clearly, I think from the passion in my podcast today, you could see how much I care.

I think you care just a smidge, just a smidge. There's a bit of scaring in there.

There, but you just don't take yourself as seriously. Right? There's a point in life where you realize what is truly valuable and having that conversation with a grandparent who might not be here tomorrow or playing throwing the football with that nephew who, you know, you don't spend as much time with because you're too busy working. You know, you said it before. The the generations of old didn't have the gift that we have. I don't know when it happened for me, but I remember as a 10 year old, I had certain dreams and certain aspirations. And maybe in college, I started getting like, oh, I gotta be successful and I have to do this. And I have to take, what is that? Who says? What does success mean? How do we define our success? So define your success before you drive towards something that is not yours, but someone else's and someone else defined for you. So my 10 year old self had a little, you know, the paths are are curvy.

So we went one direction and luckily we came back and here we are. And that that's why I share that with with others because if they're in that space and they can hear that right now, it would be a great gift if they can shift turn that wheel a little bit in the direction of what they define as success, not someone else's definition of success.

Freaking love it. My god. I love it because it is. It's reminiscent of what Gary v says and others. It's like we have to redefine what success is for us. It's not having multibillion dollars in the bank and, you know, stressed out and gray hair and looking 85 years old when you're only in your forties. You know, we don't want that anymore because that's not fun. I love fun is needed more in life, and I I love it.

I can see it on your smile. And if you guys are watching the video, you can see how much Suzanne has smiled this whole thing. Her laugh is infectious, I must say. And if you're listening to this, you can't if you don't hear the fun in her voice, you guys are missing out. And just relisten to this episode at least four more times so I get more downloads. You know? But, Suzanne, I wanna thank you so much for being here. I'm gonna jump off stage. I want you to let my audience know where they can connect with you if they have the forethought, hey, to, hire you or even connect with you to see if there's something they can work with you.

So the the floor again is yours.

Thank you so much. Congratulations on being an entrepreneur or if you're thinking about it, jump. It's so much fun. It's better to, take the risk and learn or succeed. You can reach me at forethoughtmarketing.com, and I would love to converse, share more stories, give you some guidance, and really pep you up. Have a great day.

Suzanne, great. I love it. Straight to the point. Again, thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure chatting with you.

It was lovely to meet you, Phil. Thank you for having me. I loved your questions.

To my audience, check out the show notes down below to connect with Suzanne and forethought me, marketing so that you can take your marketing to the next level and your communication to that level where you will be able to connect with your audience. I wanna thank you for listening. Thank you again, Suzanne, for being here. And as always, audience, remember to invest in yourself.

Thanks for joining us on Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. The podcast mogul reminds you that your journey to freedom and success starts with one powerful move, investing in yourself. If today's episode sparked your fire, hit that follow button on Spotify and drop us a comment. Comment. Share your wins, your challenges, and what drives you to break free from the corporate grind. Remember, you're your best investment. Always invest in yourself because your potential is limitless. Until next time, keep hustling and take control of your

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