ERICA LEARY - The Leap into Action Expert

Hi, I'm Tammy Gross, the Scriptprenuer. Welcome to Reel Life Stories where difference makers come to share their Hollywood worthy transformation stories. I love interviewing people who faced a mountain, overcome it the hard way, and figured out a solution to help the rest of us conquer that same mountain. Because when we share our stories, we change lives.

Okay, so we have a very special guest. Her name is Erica Leary. And for right now, we're calling her the lead into action expert, because we're trying to find her moniker. But for right now, I'll just tell you a little bit about her. Erica is the founder of Operation leap, where business owners learn, engage, act and persist together through ongoing training and accountability, to create a profitable business that can be scaled. And who doesn't need that who's in business, right? We all need that. So I just want to say welcome, Erica, to the show.

Thank you so much, Tammy, I love that we are doing this together. And I'm very excited to be here.

And I love your shirt, by the way I'm in I'm in the mouse's town. And that's the mouse's girlfriends. So you're, you're, you're wearing the right attire for this, I gotta tell you for at least me, okay, so what I want to do is kind of get into the background of how you got to be doing this, we're going to, we're going to have something that that the listeners can take away from this. And then you can like benefit from all the things that you've learned and that you're teaching over the years, and you're helping people do over the years. But I'm very curious as to how you got to where you are now, where you're where you are helping people, I know that you had some intention early on, and, and that you were doing some pretty cool things. But I know that, you know, we all start out with great intentions, and they don't always go the way we want. So let's go back as far as you want to where you first knew that you wanted to help people and that you had a way to help them financially, where the data will start.

So back to like the Booker. Alright, so So

anywhere you want go to college, I don't care.

All right, I'm gonna explain really quickly how it started. So I did in college, studying marketing, I loved it. I thought it was so cool. I was like, fascinated McDonald's, I just think is, you know, why do I eat the Big Mac, even though intellectually I know, it's probably not the best thing that fascinates me. And I have always been fascinated with it. But looking for a job right out of college, it was like, you can be in sales for advertising or nothing else. And I was like, not for me, I couldn't figure it out. So dropped it. Fast forward a bazillion years, and I'm on a plane. And I buy a book at the airport, The Four Hour Workweek. And I read it. And if you haven't read it, it's a lot about how to leverage other people like not do everything yourself and how to like leverage. So I read the book, it totally snapped, I got it. And I started from that book, a digital marketing agency. And I just fell in love with it. This was back in 2007 2010 Probably was when it really got going. And it was fun. I could help a lot of people, not a lot of people knew what they were doing online. I was geeky about it. I thought it was fun. And so it was, you know, digital was very hot. And whatever I got into it, I loved it. And it was fun. But fast forward a bunch of years. And I started very recently operation leap. And this goes back to a lot of reasons. But for me personally in my life, I realized, you know, several years into it that I could have been so much bigger at that point than where I was. Because I was just kind of playing rather than I didn't. Exactly I didn't need you know, I didn't need a lot of money. I wasn't thinking big. I was just, you know, doing what I needed to do to get the money in and enjoying it and having fun, and it never really crossed my mind that I could still enjoy it and have fun and make a crapload of money doing it. So I didn't equate the two. And for lack of a better idea. I would play I would I'm into education a lot. So I would learn I would buy the courses, I would never really take much action. And I just wasn't taking action a lot. Yeah. So going through. You know, over the years, I've met a lot of entrepreneurs and people trying to start and I don't mean like the people who go out and get investors and start I mean people who just decide they want to start a side business or a business at home and they don't make like a formal plan. You know, that kind of thing. Like what I did, probably what you did, I don't know. But a lot of times they don't Move, like they get stuck in that very initial stage. Or they'll get stuck in, you know, a couple 1000 A month stage, and they just stay there. And so for me, it was like, I didn't necessarily know, it was a huge problem, because I was just having fun until it clicked in my head, like, what am I doing? And then I realized that for a lot of other people, it is a problem, you know, they don't want to be there, and they don't need to be there. And it just comes down to, you know, moving forward taking that action. And so that's where I came up with Operation leap, is to help people just start moving, you know, doing it. Yeah, that of thinking about it, instead of taking another course, instead of procrastinating one of my favorite habits. You know, there's a lot of things that we can do, instead of doing the money making activities.

Exactly, you know, I, I may be kind of a typical person that you've worked with, I'm not sure because a little of my story that listeners may or may not know, is that I have. So funny that you mentioned McDonald's, because my story kind of starts with Ray Kroc, who was, you know, the creator of McDonald's and the CEO, he actually offered my dad before I was born a job to be his entertainment director, my dad was a musician. And Ray Kroc hired him for all these things in Chicago, but he just loved my dad. But anyhow, my dad really agonized over that. But he said no to him for two reasons, one, because he didn't want to be under the thumb of a man like Ray Kroc. With that, all that power that he has, and he had a family, he had a growing family, I might have either been on the way or I was a twinkle in the eye, I don't really remember. But my, my sister was already born. And he had a growing family, and he didn't want to be tied to this travel thing. Like, you know, totally ruin everything for the family. And so I always admired that. But it also always kind of gave me this, this idea that, Oh, you do things always on such a moral level that you that you can't think that I don't know, I gave myself some kind of a limitation. Nobody gave it to me, I gave it to myself. And so when I started my own business, it was after my dad had actually died. And I started doing music for, for people, I, I just needed enough money to live, I just needed that 2000 a month. Landau, I didn't even need that much. I didn't need very much money, I just needed enough to be okay. But you know, that doesn't allow for a lot of things. Like unexpected things that happen in life, it did happen in life with, uh, with, you know, getting sick and things like that. But also, it's just like, it kept me in such a limit. And so I had to get a bigger mentality, I had to start thinking bigger, and everything. And then having the issues of procrastination and not knowing what to do not having somebody like you, that was kind of guiding me, and helping me know what the next steps were, and everything. So I would imagine, I mean, you can tell me if I'm wrong, that I'm probably similar to a lot of people that you've worked with, who just you know, don't have a big, a big thinking about their business, they just want to do what they can to help other people. And to make it, they're comfortable. And that's all they want. It's being comfortable. Yeah, so. So

that is like not thinking bigger is is kind of a, you know, one of the issues, but there are studies that say that a lot of people, like if you made, you know, 80,000 a year in your job, you will start a business that makes 80,000 a year there are studies that say that people do that. And so I think that people, it's not that you're like, I don't know, you're doing yourself a disservice. You know what I mean? Like, you're definitely doing yourself a disservice. Even if you're not consciously being like, Oh my God, why am I doing this myself? Like, even if you don't consciously think that you are probably, you know, by staying small.

Oh, it is so true. You know, I am about to do a summit later on today, where I'll be talking about thinking big. So it's like, this has got me like, this has got me right into that into that thinking zone, and everything but, but that is something I hadn't even thought about. But that is something I did. I was making a certain amount of money and I just cared that I made the same amount of money. I didn't make any more. Strive to make more. Yeah, is my fact it's almost like I took a vow of poverty in a way. So that it's like yeah, and a lot of us do that. But now you're able to help people and I love you have this actually just something that that you want to give to people. That is pretty substantial is basically a book it's a full book you I wouldn't even call it an ebook. I mean, it's it's almost 45 pages long, which is so cool. Because what is it called again? It's called

45k 45. It's basically

five minutes. Yeah, I love it. It's basically

that I do with my established clients, I do something called Power profit formula. So it just walks you through all of the stages of business, basically. And so it's a really nice overview of how you can really start and then explode a business.

Oh, that's excellent. That's Erica weary.com. And that's something, we'll make sure that we put that in the show notes. But I had already downloaded it, just to make sure you know, I always make sure that the link works. But also I was going through it, and it's very extensive. It's, it's it, I definitely want everybody to get that. And, and I love the power profit formula. So that's something that you work with people when you're working with them? Do you normally work them in a one on one sort of way? Or do you do a group kind of coaching? Or how do you normally work with people?

So operationally is group and it's very, it's very interactive. But the 45 and 45 power profit formula is for much more established businesses. And maybe, typically, I work with, like health practitioners, something like that. So I go in and and do an a profit audit of their entire business, figure out where the gaps are in their business, and how I can make them more money or how they can make more money. So I will go, whether that's by hiring people, you know, everybody wants more money more time, you know, how can I help you get there? And that's what I do I just go in. And that's typically one on one because it's very specific and high level.

I, I think that is amazing. And no matter where somebody is at, though, I definitely want them to go and get that downloadable because that I think it'll be an eye opener to people I know, it was to me. And here's an eye opener for you that maybe you know, I didn't warn you about what the question was, I usually give people warning, but we were like kind of running late. So I'm kind of glad that I get to spring it on you a little bit just to see what you're thinking. But in light of everything, you you may have a totally different answer. There has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. I don't know. But if money were no issue at all, in your life, how would you live out your legacy now, so that you can leave a legacy behind later. Um,

So believe it or not, I absolutely love, love, love what I do. So I would definitely help as many people as possible doing exactly what I do. But I would probably train more people to do it, I would probably try to take a little bit of a step back so that I could have more people doing it with me, and this is kind of a long term goal of mine. But I just think that the more people that I'm a big believer and entrepreneurship, I think that you know, each of us has our not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, don't get me wrong. But But those people who do, there's no reason to not make a lot of money. So I would definitely have a lot of free kind of, or very inexpensive, they'll the operation leap is my first kind of start in this direction, the prices are so so low, to be able to be affordable for everybody that wants to be able to do it. Because a lot of people don't have dreams and goals of you know, being a multimillion dollar business. A lot of people just want to be able to, you know, pay the electric bill. But once you're paying the electric bill, there's no you know, nothing holding you back. So I would do a lot of free kind of teaching, I think with my time and train a lot of other people to do a lot of the paid training.

That's actually a great idea. And I have feeling that it might be because you are somebody who is kind of like already living out your legacy, which is so cool. And and now it's just it's a matter of making it bigger and better and keeping it going. Next directions. Yeah, I think that's really cool. Well, one thing I'd love to do is just kind of give it to you to say the last word, you can say whatever you want anything that maybe you didn't feel like that said or if you have like a mantra or something. Whatever words you want to leave us with today,

I have a mantra I'm going with mantra, no regrets, never looked back. I have regrets, I think is a great way to live your life. I admire

and that just and that sounds like exactly who you are. So thank you so much. And I just I think this was great. And it was it was like kind of last minute and it was just so much fun. And I'm taking away your last word. So no regrets no regrets. I thank you so much for being here. This was great.

Thank you, Tammy. It was awesome.