Episode 458:

Hello, and welcome to Unshakable with Human Design. I’m your host, Nicole Laino, and you and I are just here together today, just the two of us having a little business conversation. So obviously on this show, part of our mission here is to help equip you with the information, the cosmic weather, the things that are coming on, how to lead yourself through difficult times. So we’ve talked a lot on the show about the 2027 change and the changes to leadership that are happening, both the leaders that we choose, what type of leaders people will need. And remember, because you listen to this show, you’re kind of privy to end shows like this. 

I don’t want to mean make it sound like I’m the only one who talks about this stuff, but because you’re tuned into some of these cosmic things, there are astrologers out there that are like, you know, I’ve been calling this, you know, all the things that we’re seeing that everybody’s shocked by, they’re like, I’ve been calling this for years. You know, when Pluto moved into Aquarius, this was going to be a big deal. We were going to see all of these things happen. So if you listen to this show or shows like it where you’re being prepared for what’s coming, then you can start to make those shifts. And you’re probably already making them internally now, which is a good thing. 

And on this show, we are really kind of putting a little bit of a business context, a success context around it, because, well, we live in the material world, and some of us are growing businesses and, you know, want to provide for our families and live a free life and being able to run a business that feels in alignment with ourselves and also provides for us. That’s at the core of what my mission is on this Earth, to do for myself and to do for other people. So not everybody is weathering storms very well right now and what they are doing. And this is why those transit episodes that I do every month with Christina Luna, I know so many of you listen to those episodes. We prepare you for the weather. 

We need to recognize there are a lot of entrepreneurs that have no idea there’s a storm. They’re just like, why am I Getting wet, what’s going on? I don’t understand. Why is it flooding and you don’t have that. You know why things are happening or you’re starting to. And that is power. Because then you don’t freak out. When we know what’s happening, when we understand the energy of things, we can understand how to adapt our energy to that. How we can stand strong or allow it to be there and not get swept away by it doesn’t mean we’re not affected. It just means that we don’t get caught up in a head trip about it. That’s all you can do. 

And you can learn through these things so that you’re actually learning them lessons and coming out on the other side of every one of these difficult or challenging transits. Better for it, right? So I was having a conversation closer to the start of the year with one of my mentors and she was asking me how 2025 went for us. And it actually went very well. And what she was saying was that she was seeing across the board. Now, my mentor is. I’m one of the lower tier people that she works with. She works with mainly seven and eight figure entrepreneurs, and they have other programs and things where they serve people more in my realm. But I was sitting down one to one with her and she was saying, it’s rough out there. 

2025 was a really bad year for almost everybody in our portfolio. There are a few people, few outliers, but for the most part, it’s kind of a bloodbath that entrepreneurs who are making $3 million a year made 1 million. And I think I shared this story a little bit on the show. We’re going to go deeper into this today. You know, we might be happy if you were making 1 million a year, but not if you were making 3. That is a significant change that shifts whether you can operate the same way. You have to fire people if you go down that much, you know, depending on what your margins are. But usually a $3 million business, a lot of times, and I hear this so often because we get really swept up in those numbers too. 

People say, like, oh, I’m a seven figure business owner, first of all, a lot of them talk about what they’ve made ever and not what they make per year. Those are two very different things. When I talk about how much money I make in my business, I talk about it for the year because that’s a run rate. Just because I’ve made a million dollars in my business, I don’t ever say that because that’s not transparent. So there’s a lot of that. But then there’s also a lot of people. And I have seen people talk on stage and in podcasts and things like that after the fact where they’ve said, you know, I was the seven figure business owner, I had it all on the outside, but I made zero. 

Prof. Usually their profit margins, unless they’re very good business owners, which not all of them are, their profit margins are slim to none. So if you go down in revenue from 3 million to 1 million, you lose 2 thirds of your revenue. Your profit margin just disappeared. And that’s a big problem. So she was sharing with me the panic that’s out there. She was sharing with me how so many entrepreneurs and business owners are grasping now to try to figure out what to do. How do they recoup? What does business even look like? Some of them are shutting their business and they’re saying, I gotta start from scratch. And I don’t even know what that looks like yet. I need to just back away. Others are shifting to randomly selling offers just to try to bring in more cash. 

And I shared with her what we did in 2025, and I’m really proud of the fact that we have such a different story. Not only did we not go down in 2025, we increased our revenue by 50% and we’ve increased our profit by 70%. That’s huge. We did over $300,000 in revenue last year. I’ll share that with you, and I am incredibly proud of that number. Not because of the number, because of the way that we did it, because it wasn’t because I discovered some brilliant new marketing tactic. It happened because of how I lead myself and how I’ve chosen to build my business. So in this episode, what we’re going to do, I’m going to break down four of the core concepts, practices and principles I used to make this happen. How I did this. 

I’m going to break it down and kind of brought it into like four pieces that really made this all work and what really is underneath all of that. Plus, I’m going to share with you a myth, a wrong thing that I keep hearing. I still hear really old school entrepreneurs peddling this as a strategy that is not working in today’s market. And it also does not work for a lot of feminine leaders, which I know many of you are. And I want to save you from getting caught up in thinking that this is how you have to do things, because they’re still saying it. It drives Me crazy. Every time I hear them, I’m like, that’s not what you’re doing. I know that’s what you did, but that was 10 years ago, and that is not the same thing. 

You should not be telling people that this is what they have to do because you’re hurting them. So I’m going to share that with you. That’ll be at the end. Okay, so if this episode interests you, if you tuned in and you’re like, I want to know about this. I want to know what Nicole did to get the results that she got. I’m going to share it with you here. But if you want to go really deep. You asked, we’ve answered. Many of you have asked whether were going to bring the Authority Accelerator Masterclass back. The answer is no. We retired it, but I created a brand new one. It’s called the Expanded Leader Masterclass. It’s a five day masterclass. It is free. This is the first thing we have done free since fall of 2025. So we’re really excited about this. 

It’s been months. It is new content. I rebuilt it from the ground up. It is all new stuff. It is all about, you know, behind the scenes. Look at how I dissected what we did in 2025 and I broke it down and now I paired it with what is coming in 2026 and beyond that, with the cross of planning, ending all of these things, I have combined all of it into this really cool masterclass. I’m super excited about it and I can’t wait to share it with you if you want to join us. DM me the word masterclass on Instagram. I’m @nicolelainoofficial or go to nicolelaino.com/masterclass and we will register you right there on the website. So let me break this down for you and give you the highlights. Right. Of what went through. 

To register for Nicole’s brand new FREE Masterclass – The Expanded Leader: How spiritually intelligent entrepreneurs become trusted voices, build platforms, and monetize their wisdom in the Authority Economy, go to nicolelaino.com/masterclass or DM Nicole “Masterclass” on Instagram

So first of all, the first thing, the first core concept is that I realized that the way that I’ve built my business and the way that I teach entrepreneurs how to build their business, why human design is such a huge part of what I do, the approach is CEO first. It is a CEO first approach. We don’t start with tactics. I’m not a launcher, I’m not a marketer. I’m a CEO. And that means that in order to really step into your potential, you have to like, this is your instrument, the person that you are, the CEO running the business. You are the most valuable asset to your business. Everything you put into yourself, you Will get back. So where I started in my business, I want to just acknowledge where some people might be. 

I spent a lot of years very plateaued where I just. It was like the same thing. I made more, I either spent more or I didn’t make more. And we cut expenses, but I always ended up at the same number. I was really plateaued at six figures for a while and I could not break through. And yes, there were strategies and things that we did to, you know, strategically in the business, but every approach from before that time was I realized I was not yet the CEO who could make the money and run the business that I dreamt of. The vision I had, I was not yet the person who could achieve that. And so I made growing me, elevating me, clearing my nervous system, expanding my nervous system so that I could make and hold more. I made that top priority. 

It is always you. So this is the nervous system work. So when I started out, you know, and I see a lot of people, even in business by design, I certainly see people in the Human Design Authority lab and I see people in our aligned brand builder all the time. All of our programs that we run, where I have connection with people, I see this. There’s a tough time with consistency. And I think that there’s, you know, that’s a loaded word. I don’t see it as showing up and doing the same thing every day. And, you know, consistency, people will often confuse that with like, I need to post more, need to be more consistent on Instagram. That is not where I approach things. It’s a consistency in your energy. 

I did not have that when I started and I did not have that for a long time. And I just committed myself to getting better at it. It. So I worked with myself and I gave myself grace and I said, if I can’t work strategically today, then I will work energetically. I will dig into myself, I will really feel my feelings, I will give my nervous system top priority today. That’s what it is. It’s like what gear feels necessary today. That’s the headspace that I want people in, being so in tune. Because what this does is this leads you to be able to have an intuitive business. And the intuitive business is going to win out on the strategic tactical business every day. Now, 10 years ago, that was not the case. 

You needed this stuff, but you didn’t need it as much because strategies were just so effective and everybody was so in line, right? Not in alignment, but they were in line. They would follow, right? You say the right words they’re right behind you. That’s not where we are anymore. The other thing that I did within this CEO first kind of category is I worked on my money mindset and I realigned it. And this is both from an energetic standpoint and a belief standpoint. So when I started, I really didn’t get the money mindset stuff. I felt like I was very much going through the motions. I felt like I was doing the same work over and over again and not necessarily getting anywhere. That was when I discovered tapping. 

Then I started to get somewhere, then I discovered breathwork, Then I really started to get somewhere and then it really started to come out. But I stuck with it. I did. I didn’t say, I know that already. Nothing will kill your business faster than those little words, I know that already. You’re dead in the water. Beginner’s mind is so important. But the money blocks don’t just sit on the surface, they are in your cells. So even when you feel like it’s not working, it’s working. So I committed to all of this work. I deeply believed that I was meant for this. And I continued to work on myself until I became the type of person who could have the business that I had today. 

And now I’m working on myself first to become the type of person who can have the business that I envision next where I’m going. The other thing I did in this CEO first category, I stopped looking at coaches as people who could rescue me. I took responsibility for everything in my business. I definitely had that feeling, oh, well, if I pay them, then they’re going to have the answer. No, that was not what I found. Coaches offer resources and what I did with those resources was up to me. I had to take full responsibility for that. That is what it really means to be self led is to really just intentionally use the things that you invest in. I couldn’t come to a coach and be like, fix me. Because there was no chance that I was gonna get that. 

Most of the coaches that I had, I’d never even talked to, they had such big giant programs that I never ever spoke to them directly. I talked to an, you know, an accountability coach who had less experience than me and was not a coach. So I ended up not really getting, you know, what I needed out of those relationships. So I was like, okay, well, I gotta do what I can with the resources that I’m given here in this program. That’s my responsibility. And it’s my responsibility to invest in the things that I think will really move me forward. So I had to take that on myself. I had to move myself forward. I had to lead myself and become that new version of myself through the tools that I’ve created. 

And now that’s what I pass on to my people because it is the most important piece. This is what it’s all about to be self led. And this is where human design comes in. That’s why, you know, when I look at those coaches and I stopped needing them to rescue me, it was really human design that did that because I stopped looking outside for the answers. I started to look inside. I started to really realize that every answer that I needed was in me or it would present itself when the time was right. I built so much self trust through human design. I will never stop being grateful for it. 

So human design and obviously it’s strategy and authority, it’s all the things with human design we could go so deep into how human design can lead you, but from the very basics of just understanding who you are and understanding that you can find the answers within yourself and it gives you a framework to be able to do that. That is where human design is just bar none, the best leadership tool for self leadership. Now the second piece, the second thing that I did, the second kind of concept within this framework that got me the results that I got in 2025 that allowed us to add, you know, 50% in revenue and 70% in profit in one year, is thought leadership. I made thought leadership my main priority as far as what I built my business around. 

It isn’t on tactics, it isn’t on little strategies. It is around thought leadership. That is what makes me somebody that people seek out versus just being another player in the field. Your business is not built from funnels. It is built on ideas and perspective. That is where you become the one that people are looking for. So thought leadership is not something that I’m always thinking about. What you’re listening to right now is thought leadership. I’m thinking about what are the bigger concepts here? What are the things that are really going to move people forward? What is a different way that I think about this or that I’d experience this that I can share. You have this too. It just takes some time to start to train yourself to think this way and to share this way. 

And while your human design can help you with that and help you step into what your style of thought leadership is, your actual thought leadership is going to come from you honing this skill. But that is what I did. I’ve Built my business around thought, leadership and the way that I think about human design. I’m not just another human design person. People come to me because they’re like, you’re different. And you know, and I’m not for everybody because I’m different. I am not a one size fits all. And that’s on purpose because the people who are attracted to me and who do listen to me and who are, you know, loyal to my work, those are the people that are like, I’m gonna work with her someday. And they do. Why? Because I’m different. 

Because I have given them a new way of thinking about the things that they are trying to do, achieve or use in their life. That is the most important thing. Rather than a, you know, Instagram post that goes away. You know, this short form content that everybody has been so obsessed with. What a distraction. And I have an Instagram following and I do fine over there. That is not the focus of my business. So let me move to the third thing because it’s tied to the second. The third thing is authority platforms. I don’t put my focus or my energy into growing on short form platforms. Instagram, I’m there because I tend to connect with people there. People I meet at networking events and stuff like that. We exchange Instagrams, they follow me, I follow them. 

I stay in touch with people, I send DMs, they send the background, all of that stuff, and we make money off of Instagram. I’m not going to say that I don’t, but my goal is to drive them. In my podcast, my goal is to drive them to long form content. Why? Because that’s where you can go deep. That’s where people can binge Binging is how you get them to buy fast. And that is what we’re looking for. How do we shorten the period between somebody finding you and somebody buying something from you? I don’t look at things tactically. That’s really what the main message is here. I’m not looking at it being like, should I be on Instagram, Should I be on substack? Should I be on this? Should I be on that? That’s not what I’m asking. 

I’m asking myself if this fits the model. Does this grow me in the way that I want to grow? And that takes intention and that takes grounding. Because it’s so easy to get swept up in what everybody else is doing and you have to be willing to play the long game. This is where vision comes in. I have a vision for my business is one where I don’t post every day and I’m not on Instagram constantly. And I’m not relying on, you know, filming shorts for my stories. Stories, you know, and reels and stuff like that while I’m on vacation with my family. I’m not interested in it. I really don’t like it and I don’t like the conversation over there, so. And it’s getting worse. So while I do go over to Instagram, my main focus is the podcast and long form content. 

Podcast, our YouTube channel, which we are focused on growing. That’s where our efforts are going. YouTube and substack. Where can we grow our authority? Because authority is currency in the land where we’re going, right? In this new world that we are being ushered into, real authority. Remember, you can’t be an authority to others until you are an authority to yourself. So having a podcast and really being able to show up, it will help you step into. It helped me step into my authority. It helped me work through my thought leadership. Because in order to show up here at the standard that I’ve set for myself for this show, I had to hone my thought leadership. I had to be like, we’re well over 400 episodes, we’re pushing 500 now. I gotta come up with new ways to talk about things, right? 

I have to come up with new ideas. I have to come up with new thoughts. Because y’ all are gonna go someplace else if I start to just repeat myself over and over again, right? And I see that as a challenge that serves me because it serves the next piece that I’m talking about, which the fourth piece is the offer ecosystem. I built my offer ecosystem from my signature framework, which is what I kind of operate off of in the background and what I teach my clients to do. And that stems from my thought leadership. As my thought leadership grows, as I get new perspectives, as I shift things, then suddenly offers that are aligned with my overall business start to just present themselves. Just the idea comes and I put it out, I test it and I put it out. 

But they’re all connected through a signature framework. Why? Because in order to sell offers, then the things that you talk about, the thought leadership that you have, must tie to those offers, because that’s the thing that people are attracted to. If I’m talking to you about parenting by human design, I don’t sell that. I don’t have that. Maybe you’ll buy a reading, but that’s one time, and I’m not really interested in that. I Love doing readings and I don’t mean to make it like I don’t. I love doing readings and that’s why I still do them. But my main goal, you don’t hear me promote them very often because my main goal is to get people in things where I work more deeply with them, because I know that a reading is amazing, it tells you so much. 

And my readings are super impactful because I really actually tell you what to do with your design. But ultimately, the way to have real growth with human design or growing your business is to be in some sort of longer term relationship where I’m helping to guide you in either your embodiment, your business growth, or both. Right. So all of these things are very intentional. All of the offers that I choose and everything that we do, we added a membership this year. The reason for that is because it aligned with what we teach, with our thought leadership. So I will actually be sharing the behind the scenes of the offer suite changes that we made and how we’re approaching expanding our offers, our platforms and everything that we discussed in this episode in the new Masterclass. 

So again, if you’re interested in this, if you’re like, I want to know more, I would like to know, like, what are the offers that you’re choosing? What are you doing and doing all of this for free? So just DM me masterclass on Instagram @nicolelainoofficial and you can just do you right there in the DM or nicolelaino.com/masterclass and you can register on the website. Okay, so all of these things lead up to it’s you at the center as the CEO. CEO. First, every bit of growth is going to come from you or be hindered by you. So you need to take ownership of that. Then you have to think about, like, what is it that you think differently than everybody else? What do you have to say? What I love about this, why this is so great? 

To register for Nicole’s brand new FREE Masterclass – The Expanded Leader: How spiritually intelligent entrepreneurs become trusted voices, build platforms, and monetize their wisdom in the Authority Economy, go to nicolelaino.com/masterclass or DM Nicole “Masterclass” on Instagram

This is so great because I’ve watched so many talented, amazing, deep people not get seen. Because the Instagram algorithm does not reward depth, it rewards entertainment. It rewards like just a quick, you know, giggle or something. Something so fast there is no depth. And that’s why it’s become such a shallow place. But now, as things shift, there’s not only a place for you, there is an opportunity for you to become a true thought leader and leader in this market. That’s emerging, that’s exciting. I’m excited for it, which is why we’re doubling down on all of this stuff for the coming year. Now, the myth that I was going to share with you, the myth that I hear so many coaches still peddling and telling people this strategy is how people should envision their business, what they should be working towards. 

That drives me crazy, which is that you should have one offer until you make a million dollars, and then you can’t offer anything else until you hit the million dollar mark. Well, guess what? I would be nowhere if I listened to that. I was told that too, when I started my business. And that was when things were easier for something like that to work. I couldn’t make that work. And I see some of those same coaches, they are not following that now. They have diversified their offer suite, and this is why this is so important right now. So those coaches, those people that are saying that they built their business 15 years ago and then they rode the wave of that business all the way today, they have no idea what it takes to build something from scratch right now. 

They have no idea what it’s like to work with fewer and fewer resources than they have. They have no idea what it’s like to have Facebook ads cost what they cost now versus what they used to cost. Well, they do, because they’re not making as much money as they used to because their ads aren’t performing as well. Well, for the same dollar amount. Right. That cut into their profit. But they’re still saying the same things. They’re going on each other’s podcasts and they’re saying the same thing. You know, one offer until you make a million dollars. It’s bullshit. I’m not saying that it can’t work for some types of products, but there is nobody that I know that’s currently building a business that’s doing well that is following that. 

And there’s nobody that I know that could have hit that if they listened like this. It’s the signature program thing is part of your strategy going forward. It’s not the only strategy. And I understand it was about getting things in front of people over and over again, and I understand the value of that. It’s just most people, there’s more audience testing. And unless you were running ads to something where you were able to get new people in constantly, you’d burn through your list talking about the same thing over and over again. So there are limitations to that theory. And yeah, it busts my butt a little bit that they keep saying that like it’s the only way. They’re like, this is the one thing and nobody’s doing it. 

And it’s like, you know, you go, try to do it right now, do it with integrity, by the way, because that might be a little bit harder. So the entrepreneurs who struggle the most in uncertain markets, like the ones that we are entering into, you know, those are the ones whose businesses are built on tactics, who are built on rules like that, maybe that works for you and that feels good for you and you feel all in on that. I’m not saying it can’t work. I’m just saying that giving your power away to rules like that doesn’t work anymore. That’s not being self led. That is being a sheep and sheep’s, as far as I know, the best CEOs. So when the tactics stop working for those people, the business stops working. And that is what many people are seeing right now. 

That is what they saw in 2025. And that’s why they’re freaking out about moving forward, because they’re like, what’s the thing that’s going to save me? No thing is going to save you. You are either going to save you or you’re going to sink. So things are changing. You feel that, right? You see it. I understand 2027 is coming and leadership and who the leaders are going forward will look very different than it has in the past. And I’m actually very excited for it. I’m not saying that things are going to be comfortable or easy. There are many things I am not looking forward to and I’m very worried about. But this thing in particular around what it means for business. 

I’m excited because I think that the amateurs are going to fall away and there’s going to be real space for experts who have a way of delivering their thought leadership to the people who will buy from them, who will benefit, who will see value in their work. I think the tables are going to turn and that’s a very exciting thing. So we’re going to discuss all of this in the masterclass. This is what I’m going to dive totally into. This is going to be crazy. I can’t believe I’m doing it for free because some of the things that we’re putting in here, but I just keep getting ideas and it keeps getting better and I’m so excited to bring it to you. 

So all you have to do again to register is go to Instagram, I’m icoleno official DM ME masterclass and you’ll get a little note asking you if you want to come to the expanded leader masterclass and it’ll register you right there in the DMs or go to nicolelaino.com/masterclass and we will register you there on the website. Thanks so much. So good to see you. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And remember, in order to have an unshakable business, you must first become an unshakable human. So thanks for letting us help you become unshakable with Human Design. We will see you next time. 

To register for Nicole’s brand new FREE Masterclass – The Expanded Leader: How spiritually intelligent entrepreneurs become trusted voices, build platforms, and monetize their wisdom in the Authority Economy, go to nicolelaino.com/masterclass or DM Nicole “Masterclass” on Instagram

If you love this episode and you’re a fan of the show, please show us the love on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you’re listening to the show and leave us a review. And if you’d like to connect with other entrepreneurs on their human design journey, join our free Facebook community, Human Design for Entrepreneurs. Go to nicolelaino.com/podcastlinks to join the group. Book a human design reading with me or access our free human design resources. 

We’ll see you there.