For Everyone Who’s Been Burned by a Mastermind Before [Ep 232]

We’re talking about what happens when your business is being run from a clenched fist and why real growth, clarity, and momentum only come when you soften your grip and lead with intention instead of pressure.

 If you’ve felt like “just another number” after investing deeply… or if your business feels heavier than it should right now -

This episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why overworking often comes before burnout
•  How being “loyal” to the wrong container can quietly stall your growth
•  The difference between effort and expansion and why pressure isn’t the answer
•  What a clenched fist vs an open hand looks like in business leadership
•  How to rebuild trust with yourself after a disappointing investment
•  Why safety, compassion, and integrity matter more than hype in long-term growth

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https://kyliekelly.com/event

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I don't think most women in business need another strategy. I think they need to loosen their grip on timelines, on expectations, on proving that the last investment that they made wasn't a mistake. Today I'm gonna be talking to every woman that has been burnt by a mastermind and kept going. Anyway, I'm also gonna share a really personal story of my own mastermind drama that I've never brought to the podcast.

[00:00:22] So buckle in. Let's get started.

[00:00:25] Are you a female business owner frustrated with battling the algorithm and looking for growth strategies that don't involve awkwardly pointing or dancing online or throwing cash at paid ads? Welcome to the email growth show. I'm your host, Kylie Kelly, visibility and email marketing strategist. I grew my email list from zero to almost 10,000 subscribers in less than two years, and the same is possible for YouTube.

[00:00:49] Are you ready to build your email list and start making more money in your online business? Let's head into today's episode.

[00:00:56] Hey. Hey, welcome back to the email growth show. I am so [00:01:00] excited that you're here. So this episode is for the woman who's invested before she's shown up before, she has trusted a room, a mentor, a promise, and walked away tighter and not lighter. It's also for the woman who isn't burnt out, but is definitely overworking.

[00:01:16] Let's talk about both here is what I'm noticing. A lot of smart, capable business owners are working really hard. Really hard, not falling apart. They're not chaotic. They're just constantly gripping. Gripping the plan, gripping the data, gripping the strategy, gripping the outcome, and when things don't move fast enough.

[00:01:40] The instinct is to grip tighter, right? To invest again, to push harder, to stay longer, to prove something, especially if you've been burnt before. That's why this idea of a clenched fist hit me so deeply because a clenched fist can work, but it can't receive. And I realized [00:02:00] honestly, that I do this too. I hold tightly to my timelines, my expectations, my definition of success, the numbers, the metrics, the proof when sometimes what the business actually needs is just for me to breathe, to slow down, to open that clenched fist and actually receive, not to stop caring, but to stop forcing. A lot of us have been disappointed. A lot of us have been burnt by masterminds or group coaching or coaches or investments before. If you've learned the hard way that not every shiny room is safe, your nervous system learns to protect you.

[00:02:37] So gripping harder feels responsible. It feels smart, it feels like you're in control, but over time, it also makes growth heavier than it needs to be. Now I wanna share a little context here because this didn't come from nowhere for me. My very first mastermind experience was back in 2021. It was with someone who was very Instagram famous in the online space at the [00:03:00] time.

[00:03:00] I listened to her podcast and I joined full of trust, full of belief, full of excitement. I stayed for over a year, and I even renewed after that and became alumni, and over that time. Oh, fuck. I got burnt bad, not in a like dramatic public way, but in a really quiet, painful way. Ideas that I'd shared were taken and passed off as her own.

[00:03:24] The boundary between friend and client became blurred, and when my personal life went through a genuinely hard financial season, there was no softness. There was no compassion, no empathy. There was just the contract, and look, I signed it. I wasn't asking for special treatment, but what broke something in me was that realization that I wasn't actually valued as a person in her space.

[00:03:45] I was a number, I was a transaction, I was a seat. And for somebody that feels things deeply, which I am, I'm a total empath, that really hurt me, especially because I'd been led to believe that we were friends. So the deeper lesson here is [00:04:00] that that experience changed how I show up in business.

[00:04:03] It taught me that proximity doesn't equal care. It taught me that access doesn't equal safety. And also that success doesn't mean somebody has integrity. When you have been burned like that, when you've been hurt deeply by somebody like that, you do grip harder.

[00:04:18] Next time you watch more closely, you protect yourself. You stay longer than you should. You tell yourself, I just need to make this work. And that's not weakness, like that's self protection.

[00:04:29] And that's what our nervous system is wired to do. That is a good thing. so this week I just wrapped up my third empire expansion event. It was amazing. The women inside that room were incredible. We had some great connection, some great conversation, and it honestly filled me up.

[00:04:46] At the end of day two, I said to my husband like, oh my gosh, this is what I was made to do. Like I loved it so much, but it was interesting 'cause there was a theme that came out of day one especially, and. Not that anybody that came to the event was burnt [00:05:00] out. They were definitely functioning. They're capable, they're ambitious, but they were overworking so incredibly much.

[00:05:08] and a lot of it in invisible ways. There was a lot of overthinking. There was over efforting, there was overhold, and that clenched fist energy slowly teaches our body that growth needs strain, right? That growth requires that overworking when actually. It doesn't, and when we are used to that, when we're wired for that,

[00:05:28] , when our past experience, whether that's the past six months, two years, or whatever, when our past experience has told us that that is what we need to do when opportunities show up, when support is available, receiving feels unsafe. So I wanted to speak to any of the women listening that have been burnt by a mentor, a mastermind, a coach, anyone in the online space specifically before, I just want you to hear this.

[00:05:54] Just because you were burnt doesn't mean you were bad at choosing, right? It just means that you were more discerning now, which is a [00:06:00] fantastic thing. At a certain level of business, you don't need louder height, more content, or bigger rooms. You need safety. You need clarity. You need collaboration and relationships, and you need leadership that doesn't disappear when things get human or when life starts to life because it is bound to happen, right?

[00:06:20] That is not being difficult, that is just being experienced. So I wanna wrap this conversation up with this thought, and this is a thought that I keep coming back to. Growth, actually doesn't respond to pressure. It responds to clarity. And clarity often comes when you loosen your grip.

[00:06:40] When you open your hand, right, when you stop forcing timelines, when you stop proving, when you stop staying out of obligation. An open hand doesn't mean giving up. It means that you're trusting that you don't have to strangle your business to make it grow. So this is also why I've built my work the way I have.

[00:06:59] I have [00:07:00] smaller rooms now. I have clearer expectations. I have real conversations. Human support, not keep up or fall behind, not performance, not pretending we're friends when the money is the only thing holding us together. And that's an episode all for its own, I think. But I never want someone in my world to feel like a number.

[00:07:20] I actually had one of our celebration calls, which is like the wrap up calls I do with every attendee after the empire expansion events. I actually had one of them yesterday. It was the first one out of the group that I'd had and. The attendee said something so beautiful to me. Towards the end of the call, she said, you were the first coach.

[00:07:37] You were the first mentor that I've actually felt safe with, that my nervous system has actually felt safe with, and I got emotional. Like I could have started crying on the call because that is exactly the type of feeling. That I want people to know they can have with me. I want the women that I'm working with to feel safe with me, to know that they're safe with me, to be able [00:08:00] to breathe and relax and loosen their grip and open their hand, and then we work together and they get to receive.

[00:08:06] Like that is the experience that I'm going for. And to hear that mirrored back from somebody that was at the event Was everything that little testimonial or mention in that conversation meant more to me than. the flashy income claims, right? Like I've got those two. Like, yes, my clients have three times their revenue, have hit milestone months have grown their email list by 300%. Like whatever. Like, I've got all of those, but to me it's more about how do they feel?

[00:08:33] And if somebody can feel safe, then fuck yeah, we can go after all of those business goals and we can get them, But how they feel is everything. I never want somebody in my world to feel like a number. So in closing, if you've ever been burnt before, if you're listening to this, please don't harden.

[00:08:47] Please don't close. Please don't grip so tightly that nothing you can reach you. And if you are working really hard right now, if you know that you are exhausted in your bones and you are pushing whatever you can uphill, you're not falling apart, but you're [00:09:00] holding everything And your knuckles are turning white.

[00:09:03] This is your permission to soften the grip this year. This is your permission to open your palm to breathe, to let support land instead of forcing it progress. Trust me my love. You do not need to push harder. You might just need to receive a little bit differently. Alright, that is all for me this week.

[00:09:20] Thank you so much for trusting me with this conversation and thank you for being the kind of woman who's willing to lead with both wisdom and heart. I love you so much. I'm so grateful that you are here, and I will see you next week. Alright, bye for now.

[00:09:34] Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Email Growth Show. I hope you found valuable insights into the next steps you can take to grow your email list and boost your business without relying on social media or paid ads. If you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show and share it with others.

[00:09:51] Your feedback helps me reach more female entrepreneurs just like you, who are ready to say goodbye to social media and leverage email marketing to grow their [00:10:00] business and make a bigger impact. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.

[00:10:07]