Tina Tower [00:00:00]:
Today I have for you my wonderful friend, Amber McHugh. Amber and I first met a few years ago. We were in. We are in a mastermind together based in the US and she was one of those people. I walked in and instantly was attracted to her magnetic energy. You will hear in this episode. She's just so enthusiastic, so kind, so thoughtful and so passionate about what she does.

Main Episode

Tina Tower [00:00:30]:
So Amber is, is an incredible entrepreneur. She's a strategist, she's a founder of ember mchugh.com and she's so inspiring. She became a Single mom at 18 and then went to owning three different companies, allowing her to work from anywhere in the world from Ethiopia to Chicago to California. Absolutely incredible. She has a background in corporate consulting, an MBA in organizational development from Johns Hopkins, and combines that big business strategy strategy with real world entrepreneurial experience for women who are wanting to be the CEO of their business, their life and have that freedom and flexibility that we get. So she's talking about in this episode how she grew from zero to several multimillion dollar companies, how she purchased her first online education company, and how she's right now running the modern CEO method, which is a framework for building businesses that are scalable, sustainable, and importantly, don't require you to be always on. So we're talking about how you actually get that freedom and flexibility instead of just dreaming about it, what things you can delegate, what mindset shifts we need to get over and how Amber has done that for such a long time in her life. So inspiring, so incredible.

Tina Tower [00:01:54]:
I know you're gonna love this conversation. Let's go. Alrighty, gorgeous. Amber, welcome to her Empire Builder show.

Amber McCue [00:02:00]:
Oh, thank you so much. I'm so happy to see you and be here.

Tina Tower [00:02:04]:
Oh, I'm happy to see you too. It's been like a while, like six months since I've seen your face.

Amber McCue [00:02:10]:
Yeah. At least.

Tina Tower [00:02:11]:
Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while. So I am very excited to have you on because the first time I met you and, you know, so we met in a mastermind, which I've talked a little bit about in your, in your intro. But when I walk into the room and you know, you walk into a mastermind room and you're kind of sussing everyone out. You're like, you know, am I going to be friends with this person and am I not going to be friends with this person? And you were this loud, wonderful American and then started going, you've just flown over from Africa where you're doing this and you're doing that and you were jet setting around the world. And I'm like, I think we're friends now.

Amber McCue [00:02:46]:
I love it. Mine was a different experience. I was connecting with you and stalking you on Instagram. First it was like, all right, who are we gonna meet? Who are we gonna meet? And that is where I felt your incredible energy. And that would have been the smarter thing to do.

Tina Tower [00:03:03]:
Yeah, I could have known already. So you are in a place, how do you say, the place that you're. You're in right now?

Amber McCue [00:03:12]:
I am currently in Abidjan. Cote d' Aubar.

Tina Tower [00:03:15]:
I think it's called Aubergine. Like the American version of an eggplant.

Amber McCue [00:03:20]:
Yeah, that works.

Tina Tower [00:03:22]:
I'm like, no, it's not aubergine. That's an eggplant, Tina.

Amber McCue [00:03:27]:
I hear everything. My family, we've lived here for almost a full three years now. And everybody's got like a slightly different way of saying it. It's all right, I'm okay with it. Others may. Okay.

Tina Tower [00:03:38]:
So usually I would say, like, how did your business start? But I want to first ask, how did you end up in the place that's not called Aubergine? How did you end up in Africa?

Amber McCue [00:03:48]:
I love it. Well, actually, this is the second location we've lived in Africa. We went to Ethiopia first, then we popped back to Chicago during the COVID window, and now we're back in Abidjan. And it's all for my husband's job. So we knew, actually when I was setting up businesses that we wanted to design them in a way that would allow us to work from anywhere. And we didn't know what exactly it was going to be for my husband at the time, or what would take us abroad, but that was a goal of ours. And so when he decided he wanted to change career paths, like, well, this is perfect. Let's go.

Amber McCue [00:04:27]:
And it worked out well.

Tina Tower [00:04:29]:
And so he's not in Africa.

Amber McCue [00:04:31]:
He's not right now. He is working in another country and left us here for the year, which I'm so grateful that that all worked out because the idea of moving to the States just for one year while he works in this location that we're not. Families are not able to accompany him.

Tina Tower [00:04:51]:
So I love how diplomatic you are about it. He is in another country. Families cannot go. We can work out what he does.

Amber McCue [00:05:05]:
I love it. Yeah. And it's a.

Tina Tower [00:05:08]:
He's.

Amber McCue [00:05:08]:
He's in the foreign service in the State Department. And so, yes. Yeah, there you go.

Tina Tower [00:05:14]:
So you are left there. And but for you, I think it's like you could be anywhere in the world and you've, you've chosen Africa, which I know for a lot of your business, like you're working in the online space, which you can serve people around the world. But how does it go with timelines, time zones?

Amber McCue [00:05:32]:
Oh, yeah, okay. That is the biggest struggle. So aan, I've been so lucky. It's four hours from the US east coast.

Tina Tower [00:05:40]:
Yeah, perfect.

Amber McCue [00:05:40]:
Five, you know, so I can do this. Or when time zone shift, it's five hours, that's not so bad. But in Ethiopia and then where we're going next, Croatia, it is going to be seven hours. And I'm like, oh, this gets a little bit hard. Tina. The upside is that I enjoy a whole day now. I have like about four to five hours to myself. I work out, I have beautiful conversations with people, I have coffee with friends, I volunteer, I hang out in the pool, I do my thing and then I get to work.

Amber McCue [00:06:16]:
But that seven hour time difference, I mean, you know, when you start to like get it, it pushes it a little bit. So I'm not too keen on starting my days at like, I don't know what that is. Even 3:00pm, 5:00pm and then working, you know, and I don't work full eight hour days, so I've made adjustments to my schedule that way. But still.

Tina Tower [00:06:40]:
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's tricky, but I mean, that's the benefit. And I like the same thing. Like when I'm traveling in America, I always, like, I wake up in the morning and most people I work with are still asleep. So you like this beautiful freedom where you can email people and people aren't emailing back. It's just like so nice and lovely. And then you can condense all your work into the one like couple hour window, which is perfect.

Amber McCue [00:07:02]:
Yeah, it's.

Tina Tower [00:07:03]:
Yeah.

Amber McCue [00:07:04]:
Well, that's the thing. I find I was, I realized that my hours and my time was kind of all over and I started to sit down and think, no, you want a block of time for whatever.

Tina Tower [00:07:15]:
Yeah, you've got to be more disciplined with it. Otherwise your workday, instead of being condensed, will just extend and be like a 15 hour day.

Amber McCue [00:07:21]:
Exactly. And so I decided, like, I'm not working more than 20 to 24 hours a week. Usually it's actually even less than that because when you compress it, you're like, this is what I need to do. Sit down, do it. Step away. So 24 or less hour work week.

Tina Tower [00:07:38]:
Yeah, that's perfect. We're going to Talk more about that after. But before we go there, how did you choose Croatia as your next destination? Because I love. I just love the whole theory behind it.

Amber McCue [00:07:49]:
Oh, my gosh. It's a total negotiating process, basically, with my husband. So how this works is he receives a list of potential places he puts in his name, and there's discussions with people. It's like a whole new interview process each time, each location. So he brings me a list, and I look at the list, and first of all, for the kids, I. The first thing I do is double check school sizes because there's some, you.

Tina Tower [00:08:22]:
Know, how old are your kids now?

Amber McCue [00:08:24]:
The. I have three girls. One is 26, so she's taken care of, but the other two are 14 and 11. So I check schools and I give them the clear or no clear, and then go, no go. And then we sort of. Okay. Then we look at life like, where would we want to live? I have some, like, I really don't want to be in a school. Super cold location.

Tina Tower [00:08:48]:
Yes.

Amber McCue [00:08:49]:
Definitely need the Internet to work consistently, which, you know, that's been a thing in Ethiopia, and even here, I'm. I'm at a better location in Abidjan, but in Ethiopia, I had three, three or four levels of backup for Internet. So we find our way. It doesn't have to be perfect Internet because, you know, there are solutions, but those. And then he. Then he officially puts in his name.

Tina Tower [00:09:14]:
Amazing. Well, Croatia is one of my favorite countries in the world, so I'm going to be very jealous, and I'm going to be looking at every picture, and I'm just going to keep asking you to send me a photo of the water because we were talking about this before we hit record, but Croatia blue is my favorite color. I have so many photos of the water there where I would just look over the side and go look at that color and just take a photo of the water.

Amber McCue [00:09:39]:
I can't.

Tina Tower [00:09:40]:
So dreamy.

Amber McCue [00:09:42]:
Everybody I've talked to has. Nobody has said, oh, you're going to be. Oh, why Croatia? Everybody's like, it's amazing.

Tina Tower [00:09:48]:
It's amazing.

Amber McCue [00:09:49]:
It's amazing. Yeah.

Tina Tower [00:09:50]:
Yeah. It's so dreamy. So for you, with, like, where did entrepreneurship come for you? Did you decide, I want to be an entrepreneur and you would have done that anyway, or did that come out of knowing that your husband was going to be moving around and going, I need something adaptable. Maybe this will be the path.

Amber McCue [00:10:05]:
That's so funny. So I always wanted to do something, start something of my own, build, create ideas. Were always flowing. But it really came about actually two interesting ways. I was working in corporate and the online world started to really pick up online consulting courses, online education. And I was looking at what I was doing in corporate and I was like, I think I can build something around this simultaneously in an MBA program, realizing, wow, I love this, but I think I wanted to go the life path. And then I was like, but I really love business. So I was teetering on that front.

Amber McCue [00:10:49]:
While I'm in the MBA program, still working in corporate. I started picking up a camera again. Like started. So I did photography in high school. I'm like, you know, I really enjoyed that. Let me grab a creative outlet that turned into a photography company and that grew beautifully as a side hustle that it became a full time thing, you know, full time within the 24 hour a week thing. And then you're so the type of.

Tina Tower [00:11:18]:
Person to go, whoop, that escalated quickly.

Amber McCue [00:11:20]:
That exactly. It was so fun and surprising and like, not the path. And so often business, like, you want something, but it's not gonna be the path you necessarily expect. Much like that. And then I was sitting talking to a friend, so I still had like, I love business coaching, consulting, something. And I was talking to a friend, building photography company, MBA program, full time job. And a friend said, don't you ever just wish you could clone yourself? I was like, I know how to do this. This is the only way that I'm able to do all the things I am doing.

Amber McCue [00:11:57]:
And the first online education group experience I built for business owners was how to clone yourself, which is all about teams training. So all of these things are kind of coming together. And in that process, that's when Matt and I were having conversations about what do we want in life? And we're like, you know, we don't really want to live in this place forever. Maybe we want to live abroad. I lived abroad as a kid. I lived in Saudi Arabia with my family for, oh wow, five, four years. And so I'm like, yeah, that was a great experience. And Matt was like, yes, let's figure this out.

Amber McCue [00:12:33]:
That's when he decided to change career paths. So I'm building, thinking we're having conversation, thinking, maybe we want to take this somewhere else. So that's when I got super intentional about how to clone yourself and not being the one in the weeds. And also, Tina, there was a very distinct moment in our photography company when I was taking the photos, my business partner was coaching our client through the shoot. And I realized, oh my gosh, I'm going to be miserable if this. Because it became so systematized and I was seeing every step in my head and I'm like, oh no, I don't need to be in this moment anymore. This is not my zone of genius. If I stay here, my energy is going to deplete complete.

Amber McCue [00:13:21]:
I need to create the system so we can serve more people and have this again. Cloning myself, replicating this, this impact. And so I had a really heart to heart with my business partner at that time too. So all of these things are kind of unfolding that led us to being able to work from.

Tina Tower [00:13:40]:
And when was that? What year was that that that all happened?

Amber McCue [00:13:43]:
Okay, so the photography company started in 2009. Ish. Really 2010 and it was probably 2012, so about three years in.

Tina Tower [00:13:55]:
You've been running online programs for a long time?

Amber McCue [00:13:59]:
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Tina Tower [00:14:02]:
That's like pre Instagram, right?

Amber McCue [00:14:04]:
Yeah. And so yeah, the first how to clone yourself was 2011. And before that I did like when I was thinking, okay, is this life? I did run a small group like this test life thing. Like not yet. It's. It's more business didn't know what it was. Yeah.

Tina Tower [00:14:21]:
Because I got onto online 2017 and I feel like I was still early enough. Like I feel like, you know, it still hadn't quite taken off yet. So you, you were like pioneer days.

Amber McCue [00:14:34]:
Wow, that's so weird to think about.

Tina Tower [00:14:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. So how has it morphed since then for you? What do you think now is harder and what do you think is easier in the online space now than when you started?

Amber McCue [00:14:48]:
Yeah, when I. Well, now there's so much more of.

Tina Tower [00:14:54]:
Everything which has its positive than negatives.

Amber McCue [00:14:57]:
Exactly, exactly. So there's more familiarity with it. Like the first, the second business program I launched was called CEO School and at the time the language like CEO. Wait, I don't, I don't think of myself as a leader in my business yet. It was more solopreneur more. So there were some things where I was sort of in between. From a messaging perspective, the noise is more. But I think instead.

Amber McCue [00:15:25]:
So now if you've got a breakthrough noise, then you were sort of breaking through like what is this? What are we doing in creating businesses and online consulting and remote. Or like it was all. Yeah, so differences there. But you know what I liked, I don't know if this is that I liked more, but something that. And this could have to do with location, anything. But I took it from approach the entire business model approach of like Personal connection. And of course, I launched. I used strategies and techniques that you still see today that have just slightly been adjusted.

Amber McCue [00:16:05]:
But I really liked the intimacy. That is probably what I liked.

Tina Tower [00:16:10]:
Yeah, Yeah. I was saying that to someone the other day actually about, like, the difference between, like, because they just launched their membership and they had 10 people and they were like, I thought I'd have so much more than that. Like, I'm really gutted. I'm like, I had six. I had six in my first cohort. And I miss that sometimes because I knew them so well.

Amber McCue [00:16:31]:
Yeah.

Tina Tower [00:16:31]:
And I just, I loved the connection and the intimacy of that. That when you get bigger, you. You lose that a little bit because you can't space for as many people in such an intense way. And I'm like, don't feel like those people are getting ripped off, that there's not many people there. They're getting the best of you. Like, this is awesome.

Amber McCue [00:16:48]:
I could not agree more. It's such a beautiful thing to be in intimate spaces with people. And Tina, it's interesting as you think about, like, scaling things up in the bigger there is, the research supports that one human can only manage about 150 people. A group of 100, like, you can only know 150 people. You can only stay connected to about 150 people. So, yeah, like now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tina Tower [00:17:16]:
It's a good size. Okay, so you did that. What was what was like the biggest shift for you? Because you said, you know, you didn't think of yourself as the CEO and now you're running modern CEO method. So what was the shift for that, for you to own that and do you see that people are really stepping into that more and going, you know what? I am the modern CEO.

Amber McCue [00:17:38]:
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. So previous to the modern CEO, I did something called CEO school. And I didn't feel it yet, but I was like, oh, but this is it. Like, you are leading sometimes you are the chief everything officer of your company. And okay, how do we really elevate in our company? So it was a bit like, no, this is how we need to think. Yes, we're running small companies, but how can we think about how we operate differently so that it creates the freedom and the flexibility that so many people in my world and in my communities were looking for? And so it was a bit of a challenge to myself to elevate. And also it really aligned with how I operated my businesses, which made everything easier.

Amber McCue [00:18:27]:
So inspiration, aspiration for myself and, like, the reality of no this actually helps. Cause Tina, when I first started my business side hustle, still at corporate, I was like, I don't want my business to feel like that. I don't want structure. I just want to flow with it. I just started flowing with it. I was like, okay, you need a new plan, Makhue. So let's take what works. Let's adapt for smaller businesses.

Amber McCue [00:18:56]:
And then the modern CEO method. I was like, okay, it's not just. It's not actually CEO, like, because the whole mindset is that we're not doing it like corporate. We're not in a corner office. We're not looking down on, you know, concrete and small people walking by on the sidewalk. We have that connection, we have that intimacy. We have, you know, freedom, flexibility. I have.

Amber McCue [00:19:18]:
My kids might walk in while we're recording. Like, there are a whole slew of other things.

Tina Tower [00:19:23]:
I honestly don't know how women raise a family and not have a business. Like, for people that have. I. Most of my friends are entrepreneurs. I live in a very insular bubble where I'm not surrounded by normal people very often. And when I am, I'm like, how do you do that? Because I don't know how someone would go to work. It's not even nine to five, you know, you go at eight, you come home at six, seven o' clock, like, and maintain a family and do all of the things, I think constantly. Like, the answer for women is to be self employed is to create that freedom and flexibility and have this and that, not this or that.

Tina Tower [00:20:03]:
Like, it's just. I don't know how people do it otherwise.

Amber McCue [00:20:06]:
Tina. I know quite a few families who are, for example, Evorian Canadian and Evorian American, and they lived in Canada and they're like, we gotta go back. Because the way that we work is so different, of course, around the world. But the support structures here, for example, are so much better. Are so much better in terms of, like, community help. Community help. It's natural that you would have someone in your home helping. And the.

Amber McCue [00:20:38]:
And. And so it's a very different model entirely. But I think, like, man, a little worried. I mean, I am able to volunteer. I'm able to do extra things here because I do have much more support than we do in, you know, in the States, for example, likely in Australia.

Tina Tower [00:20:56]:
I'm pretty sure Australia is less than the States. Yeah, there's no. No housekeepers in Australia. No one has a gardener. Like, it's very different.

Amber McCue [00:21:06]:
Yes. Yeah. So at least in the States, like, house clean A few times a month. Yeah. The gardener, my husband tried to cut the lawn, but he didn't have time for that either.

Tina Tower [00:21:16]:
That didn't work out for us. So well. So talk to me about your 20 hours a week of work, because I know that especially for a lot of women that I work with, I'm sure very similar in terms of the number one reason women start businesses is freedom and flexibility. And I will hear often that, yeah, it's flexible, but the freedom is not gone. So if they need to juck out for the middle of the day, they can do that. If they need to pick the kids up from school, they can do that. But what I see is they're working late into the night. That freedom is kind of gone because there's, there's always more to do.

Tina Tower [00:21:48]:
Never at the end of that to do list of which I don't think I will ever in my life be at the end of my to do list. But how do you keep your discipline going to go. I know you well enough to know you have 50 million ideas that you could fill 100 hours a week of work easily. How do you keep the discipline around? You know what? That's enough. I've done enough for now.

Amber McCue [00:22:12]:
Yeah, I. It's funny. So it's probably helpful to know in this that I don't get distracted by laundry. I don't get distracted by dishes. A friend when I was in corporate and working from home periodically, someone's like, don't you. Do you actually work or do you get distracted by laundry? I'm like, uh, I do not have that problem. So full disclosure. But also I do have ideas.

Amber McCue [00:22:41]:
I do have things like post it notes all over the idea, idea, idea. But I organize them like, no, we've got to prioritize. You truly cannot do all the things at once. So what is most important and what is most important in alignment with the goals that we have right now? So I've got like a couple of books I'd like to write, but you know, what are my priorities right now? And honestly, some of. I've got 15,000 words there. I've got 80% done there. So I am spending that time getting, creating. But to truly launch that or take that to people and publish it in a way that I want, that's not a now thing.

Amber McCue [00:23:18]:
So I look at what are my priorities Now. It's working 24 hours or less per week. So my husband's gone. I want that flexibility to take care of kids exactly as you described. So what I realized when I sat down and said, okay, I really need to work like this, whatever that is for me. These are the hours I want to work. I need to be off. So I'm not working all night.

Amber McCue [00:23:43]:
My husband's not home. I need to be there with the kids. Right? I don't want to start until this time because otherwise I'll be working, you know. So I put some constraints in place for myself and then I looked pen and paper, how am I going to fit what I need to get done? Does it fit? And I did the math and I negotiated with myself, like, what are your priorities? What fits? What doesn't fit based on the life that you are living and want to live right now. And then I thought back, because this thing comes up, Tina, I wonder if you've heard this before where people say, if you're saying like, don't hustle. People will sometimes react and say, but you had to hustle when you were starting out. You had to work more than 20 hours a week. You had to just do more when you were starting.

Amber McCue [00:24:29]:
And I looked back, I'm like, actually photography business started when I still had a full time job and I was in an MBA program and I was brewing this coaching thing. So as I looked at it, I'm like, wait, you've never dedicated more than 20 hours to any one thing?

Tina Tower [00:24:48]:
Wow, that's incredible. I definitely have.

Amber McCue [00:24:52]:
Yeah, right. So but as I was processing and thinking like, what allowed that? The structure. And so then I was like, okay, wait, you can just compress your day. No, you don't start work until noon, but you will work six hours then and the occasional thing will pop up like we are talking right now. And I started at 6:30. Very occasional. I don't do one AMS anymore. There was a time when I did.

Amber McCue [00:25:20]:
Sorry about that.

Tina Tower [00:25:22]:
But it's, it's the, it's the discipline too in going. Because for me, like I could have put the structure in and done what I did, but I always, like, I battled with the more I want to be able to do more. And so I would go, all right, well, I could take the afternoon off or take the morning to go bush walking for a few hours, which my soul wanted so badly. But then I'd go. But then if I did an extra three hours of coaching, that would make more money in the business and be able to, to produce more. We could get our home loan paid off faster. We could do that. Like, of course I want to choose that.

Tina Tower [00:25:53]:
And that took me a really long time to let go of yeah, that I.

Amber McCue [00:26:00]:
In that. That window, actually, when we were preparing to move to Ethiopia, I had a lesson of practicing, number one, patience, and number two, surrender. And that is probably, for me, when that journey of, like, okay, letting go of more started and. But also a lesson, because sometimes even though I'm working in this constraint or I'm not working 24, I would still feel, like, that urgency. Yeah. Yeah. And that took me a little bit longer, or even guilt. Like, I remember the first time.

Amber McCue [00:26:38]:
This was maybe like, 2018, summer 2019, and I was in Florida. We were on a family vacation back from Ethiopia, and I was sitting on the beach. Gorgeous blue waters. Sitting on the beach. Actually, not on the beach. I was. Our condo that we were staying at was on the beach. So I was at the condo, typing, working, but looking out at the beach.

Amber McCue [00:27:01]:
And I felt guilty. And I was like, you need to stop this. You have created. This is what you've wanted. There are people living and working in all sorts of different ways. You can sit on the beach and work. And then, okay, so that was also an unraveling of, like, yes, this is what you wanted. This is what you created.

Amber McCue [00:27:23]:
Don't feel guilty because you see memes or you hear people saying, like, people don't really work on the beach. I do.

Tina Tower [00:27:31]:
I think so.

Amber McCue [00:27:32]:
I work in my pool now.

Tina Tower [00:27:34]:
Yeah, I've seen that. Yes. So much of what we do as business owners is like, business. Running a business, starting a business especially, is such a lesson in personal development. Like, nothing will expose your. Your own mental blocks more than doing that, because it's like, you feel guilty for working. I feel guilty for not working. Like, the opposite.

Tina Tower [00:27:56]:
The opposite issues going there, and they all stem from different things and conditioning that we've had. And I think that for each of us, it's like, I love that you say, you know, define what it is that you want that to look like. Maybe it is 20 hours a week, maybe it's 10, maybe it's 50. But the important thing is defining what does success look like for you right now in your chapter? And then making that work.

Amber McCue [00:28:19]:
Yes. Yeah. And releasing if you feel guilt, if you feel judgment, like, practicing, like, whoa. And there are still areas that I don't talk about as much or I don't share as much, because I'm like, oh, I can, like, hear something, not anyone in particular saying anything, but I can hear, like, oh, people might say this. I'm like. So I have layers of that I need to shed, too. And personal development.

Tina Tower [00:28:46]:
So with, like, what people Might say, what is your advice to women who have going into this for the first time are still in that self discovery before they've kind of. I know after a few years of being in business, you've like got the confidence to go, you know what, get on board or get off kind of thing. But at the start, you're worried about the judgment from others. Especially in online business, where we're going online and we know that extended family members are going to be watching you and maybe you've never sold online before and you're feeling exposed with that. What is your advice to women about that fear of judgment and putting yourself out there?

Amber McCue [00:29:22]:
Mm. My kids can account for this. I would practice. I practiced everything, everything before going live before you know this, so that I any. Nothing could shake me. So I would like check it, test myself or visualization, like run through it in my head a few times first so that if that comment comes up or if that family member says something, I was like, no, I've already been there. I've already done this in my head. I know how I'm gonna respond.

Amber McCue [00:29:59]:
And it may be like, no, just no, thanks. Sometimes I'll just say, oh, no, thank you. Not even gonna talk about it. No, literally. Which gets a weird reaction, but it works for me. No, thank you. And then other times, like, you're wrong, you know, so I'll just try. I call it, try it on visualization.

Amber McCue [00:30:25]:
So that. That path you want to walk down, you think you want to walk down, right? How does it feel? No, I still want to walk down that path, but just not like that. So I'll adjust it and I'll try it on in my head first. And I've sorted it all out and then still things come up. Like my dad, for example, he's like, are you sure this is what you want to do? He's like, you could make XYZ money and this is what your life could look like. Look at this person, look at that person. This is what they do. I was like, yeah, no.

Tina Tower [00:30:54]:
Does he know how much money you make and how much fun you have?

Amber McCue [00:30:57]:
He totally knows. He's like. And he has said now he's like, I get it, I get it. I see it. So people, you see something that other people just haven't thought about yet. They haven't wrapped their head around. Maybe it hasn't even occurred to them. Or maybe they are making fun of the people working on the beach.

Amber McCue [00:31:15]:
Okay, we've gotta shift our mindset around that and do the work.

Tina Tower [00:31:20]:
Yeah. How do you feel with failure, do you think that it's a necessary part of business? And what is your advice to people that are scared shitless about failing publicly?

Amber McCue [00:31:32]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, I. The number of times and the one thing I think we can 100% guarantee will happen as we're growing our businesses is that we will make a mistake. Like, something will not work 100%. And so I think that actually was also a big release for me. Like, I am human and I am going to make a mistake. And when even team members would come to me and they were like, I want you to guarantee this mistake will never happen again, I'm like, I can't. No, thank you.

Amber McCue [00:32:14]:
I was like, I would like to guarantee that too, but not gonna. It's just not gonna happen. And I can't guarantee that someone else won't make a mistake. And this is. We're human, so I'm gonna have compassion for people when they do that. But that's when you also start to see values alignment, right? I'm like, oh, if that's what you need from me, we are not the right team. We are not the right place. Like, we can work together for a bit, but it's not gonna work long term.

Amber McCue [00:32:40]:
And so just because I can't meet those expectations. So 100% will happen. Get comfortable with it. But then again, I try it on visualization. Like, if this thing happens. Actually, Tina, for almost every significant thing I do in the business, I do a couple of minutes scenario planning and I'll just map out, okay, if this goes this way, what do I do? If this goes this way, what do I do? If the Facebook ads don't work? If I want 30 people in this program, but 10, I welcome 10 in, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna feel about that? So I just run through it all real quickly. So if that thing happens. Actually, in his book the Antidote, Oliver Berkman breaks down the psychology on this in the research.

Amber McCue [00:33:29]:
It's a good one. I like that. That's my favorite book of his. And the research shows that if you have this thing that you're worried about happening, that maybe it'll happen, and you take yourself to the place, okay, if this thing happens, this is what I'll feel. This is what I'll do. And you feel those emotions, you feel that moment. The research shows that when the thing. If the thing actually happens, and chances are it won't.

Amber McCue [00:33:55]:
But if it happens, you've already processed it, so the hit isn't as hard I'm like, wow, okay, that's a flip. So, so I, I had always embraced that. And then when I knew there was a psychological bent, I'm like, oh, good.

Tina Tower [00:34:12]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, have you seen Tim Ferriss TED Talk on fear setting? It's that same theory in. He does like, like goal setting and fear setting and mapping out every fear that he has and then how he'll overcome it. It's the same thing. And I think it's so necessary because so often if I see people that haven't progressed in their business the way that they wanted to, a lot of the time it's because they're too scared to fail. They're too scared to go for it and take that leap. And I can't even, you know, I was in a pod. I was interviewed for a podcast a few weeks ago, and they were like, what's your biggest failure? I can't even count how many they are plentiful.

Tina Tower [00:34:50]:
And the good thing is, though, most people wouldn't know. People don't see your failures. Or if they do, they don't really care. Or it makes it. I know, especially in launches, if I send the wrong email or I'm missing a link, it kind of makes you a little bit endearing because it's like, well, you're a human too. It's not so bad.

Amber McCue [00:35:09]:
It's so true.

Tina Tower [00:35:11]:
Yeah, yeah, it's not so bad. So when you're talking about clone yourself, and I love that that was your first thing because, I mean, I think and go, oh, gosh, I'd love to clone myself. Like, imagine. I mean, I don't know what would happen to the world if there were multiple Tinas in it, but, you know, it would be very handy for the amount of work that we're able. Able to do. What do you see the most people hang on to for the longest that they shouldn't? Like, in terms of, what do you see people doing that they should automate or delegate or delete off their task list altogether? Is there something that you see again and again that you're like, why are so many people still doing this in their business?

Amber McCue [00:35:49]:
It's a long list, actually. And if we were to categorize it, it's a lot of the admin because, you know, as we prioritize and look at client work, you may stay in that longer. And that makes. Makes sense.

Tina Tower [00:36:06]:
Yeah.

Amber McCue [00:36:06]:
That you would stay in that. But everything under that. Right. So across the board. I talked to a business owner recently. She was still Running payroll. Like, oh, wow, your multimillion dollar company. What if you spent your time on those revenue generating activities? So it's a big bucket.

Amber McCue [00:36:26]:
I wish, I so wish there was like that one thing I could point to for me. I book my own travel still because it gets complicated and that's probably something I could get some help with. One of the more recent, like, my.

Tina Tower [00:36:40]:
Husband and I are going on honeymoon in September. So we're getting, we. We're getting married again. But it's our 20 year wedding anniversary. We get married every 10 years and take a honeymoon. So we're doing that and I thought this exact thing. I was like, I always book the travel. I was like, I'm gonna get a travel agent.

Tina Tower [00:36:55]:
It's time to do it. Anyway, I gave the whole brief. They came back, but they came back with like these bougie AF places that were like $3,000 a night. I'm like, I don't know who you think I am, but this is not it.

Amber McCue [00:37:08]:
Like, this is crazy.

Tina Tower [00:37:10]:
But I was saying like waterfront. Like, anyway, I was going, that's not it. So I went on and, you know, did my couple of hours search and found like these little fishermen shacks in the, in the middle of Mallorca and like on the coast and different things that look beautiful and that's what I want. So there is some things that I think as entrepreneurs, it's really hard for other people to know the particular thing that we want.

Amber McCue [00:37:36]:
You know, and as you said that, I realized I kind of just told a false truth. But I didn't mean to. I have, I have worked with travel agents and for our South. No, no, no, not South Africa. For our Tanzania safari. And for my recent Morocco trip, and my first Morocco trip, I worked with a travel agent. Okay, so take it back. But you're Morocco.

Tina Tower [00:38:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is something you're still doing that, you know you can delegate?

Amber McCue [00:38:08]:
Still doing? I know I can delegate. Oh, oh. Ah. Like, I just got rid of updating my calendar. That was this year. All of the years the kids school calendar would come, I would spend a good bit of time lining everything up. I just got rid of that one. Shared it.

Amber McCue [00:38:30]:
Yeah, got some help. That was probably the longest lasting one. Now my, my business partner and teammate Joanna said last night, yeah, ask Amber how much she has fired herself from. Because it's a long list, which is goals. It's goals. And the beauty is actually another resource that really inspired me on this because I was doing it anyway. I was like, no, I Need to stay in my zone of genius if I'm going to be able to make these things work and focus on revenue generating activity and the book business. Brilliant.

Amber McCue [00:39:08]:
Louis Schiff. I love a little research, Tina, to back like, okay, I think theory, practice, what am I seeing? And then the research, I'm like, yes, okay, it's all over. And Louis Schiff researched the difference between self made millionaires and billionaires and those people who stayed in the middle class. And one of the key differences is that people who stay middle class, diy, diy, diy it versus those people who shift from middle class to self made. I mean we know and the stat says it. Well, if there's something they think someone else could do better than them, they pull that person in nine out of ten times. So when I heard that as I was building how to clone yourself, I got connected to Lewis. I'm like, okay, this is like solidifying.

Tina Tower [00:39:57]:
I love that. Where do you. I was like gonna ask you my last question, but I'm like, no, no, I'm gonna slot this one in here. Where do you kind of go? What's your advice for people that are going, I need to delegate because I want to be able to do more and clone myself, but I'm not yet making enough money to hire that person or it feels like a big leap to hire the person. Where is that balance in going? All right, I'm ready to get someone. What advice do you give to people with that so that they don't go broke in the process?

Amber McCue [00:40:25]:
So good, because we want to be good stewards of our business financials always. And I think as I was watching your hands balance there, I'm like, that's exactly it. So you might be at a point where you're generating a little bit of revenue or you have some money to invest in your business. And I wouldn't hire exponentially above that. I would hire in line with that. So. And that like just feels good to my nervous system. And it's good business that we're not overextending ourselves.

Amber McCue [00:40:59]:
So I would say start with the smallest thing that will get you to revenue generating activities that supports your revenue generating activities. The first thing I got off my plate was blog posting, sending an email, follow up with it, then posting it and sharing it on social media. Because I had those mindset things coming up. I don't want to share this. Should I share this? What are people going to say? And then I was tinkering in WordPress forever. I was like, no, I need to create the message and the content. I don't need to distribute it. So I worked with a va.

Amber McCue [00:41:35]:
My first VA was from the Philippines. And what did I do with that? About eight hours a week I was spending on that. I was like, this is silly. You've got revenue generating activities. I flipped into a sales mode and I started taking one on one clients. Like, best investment.

Tina Tower [00:41:51]:
Much a better use of your time of eight hours.

Amber McCue [00:41:54]:
Yeah, yeah. So that was first and then later. This will be an example of something that may come later is I loved bookkeeping. Counting money makes people happy. That is not a sentence you hear often.

Tina Tower [00:42:08]:
I love bookcasing.

Amber McCue [00:42:12]:
That moment on Friday night. Right. So my 20 hours in my first business were after hours because I still had a full time job. And it was. That was Friday night, date night. And my. My husband would do something else. I'm like, well, I just want to count some money.

Amber McCue [00:42:29]:
So I would go through bookkeeping. But then, Tina, there became a point where other activities were more important. Revenue generating. I needed to focus on clients. So I started. I was dropping the ball. That was my job and I wasn't doing it. So I fired myself.

Amber McCue [00:42:46]:
But that was further along. That was like six years into the business.

Tina Tower [00:42:50]:
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, yeah.

Amber McCue [00:42:52]:
But I enjoyed it.

Tina Tower [00:42:52]:
I was the same. I started with like 10 hours a week of an assistant. Then I got full time. Then I got VAs. Like, it, it grows. Yeah. Sometimes I'll see people come in and they go, okay, I need to get three VAs. I need a marketing person.

Tina Tower [00:43:05]:
I need this person. I'm like, whoa, one at a time. Like one at a time. And then use, when you do it slowly, you can use that time so well, like you did, to go, all right, if I buy myself back 10 hours, how can I use that 10 hours to earn 10 times the amount that I'm paying that person for? Like, it's such a good way to do it.

Amber McCue [00:43:22]:
And the reality is, if you're spending 10 hours, someone who's not as worried about it or who's actually experienced in it will take less time.

Tina Tower [00:43:32]:
Yeah, yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, now is my final question. So looking ahead, what is the legacy that you're hoping to leave not just through your business, but through like the modern CEO movement and everything that you're creating and doing for women?

Amber McCue [00:43:48]:
Tina, thank you for this question. That was a beautiful little reflection that happened in my head. And when the entirety of why I wanted to build a business and why I get so excited about helping other people in their businesses is because it can create a better life. So I hope that through all of what I am building, if it helps people love and live and enjoy their lives just a little bit more, that would feel really good to me.

Tina Tower [00:44:25]:
Right? Yay to that. Cheers to that. And that is it. I think the ripple effect, like, I work with women also, and I think the ripple effect in people's lives and communities when women are empowered, when women hold more wealth, is exponential.

Amber McCue [00:44:41]:
Exponential. Yeah.

Tina Tower [00:44:43]:
Yeah. So I am looking so much forward to all of your Croatia Blue photos and watching along your travels. I will link to all your things in the bottom so that people can follow along with that as well. And you have a Plan A thon coming up towards. Like, you do it every year, right? So you do it around October every year.

Amber McCue [00:45:01]:
Yes, exactly.

Tina Tower [00:45:02]:
What is that?

Amber McCue [00:45:03]:
What is the Plan A thon? Okay. The Plan A thon is the planning event of the year for entrepreneurs and small business owners. We come together for a week. We plan. It is fun. We're celebrating and we're getting set up for the year ahead in business. And so plan now and then you'll celebrate all year long. So it would be so fun to plan again, people.

Tina Tower [00:45:27]:
Nice. Well, I'll put all the details for it in the show notes so that they can see you there. Emma, thank you so much. And I can't wait to see you so, so soon. You soon, Tina.

Amber McCue [00:45:36]:
Thank you. Bye, everyone.