Episode 4 Transcript

Heather:
Okay, picture this. I'm sitting there high up in an apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour. It's a beautiful day. We have the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, everything. I can see it all really clearly in front of me. I'm with my girlfriend Ellie and we're sitting at her table. She has the best apartment by the way with the best views which is why I go there a lot. And we're eating with some guacamole because you know why not and then she says to me hey you know what we should do something else how about we have a little sip on some honey whiskey and I was like yeah so she got some honey whiskey put a bit you know on the rocks we sipped on some honey whiskey and I'm like hey we should do something else and we put French music on our Spotify and why because it's different I tend to not listen to French music, but it felt right. So we put on the French music and then she's like, hey, you should do something else. So we went down the road. She has a ferry that's not too far from in front of her apartment. And we hopped on a ferry and within 10 minutes, we were across the harbor in the city in Sydney. And we went down to the rocks, which is like a What a day, right? Now granted, this was on a weekend, but it could have been a weekday. And the reason why I'm telling you that story is because my life used to be chaos. And the thought of even stepping away from work on a weekend made me cringe with stress. I used to miss meetings because I didn't have a good system in place for my calendar. I remember. potential client traveled all the way across town to meet me in the CBD of Sydney and I forgot about the appointment. It was horrible. And she was so kind and lovely about it and we were able to reschedule but I didn't even register with me. I remember I had trouble catching my breath like literally trying to breathe properly because I was walking around with so much stress. I had heart palpitations. I shouldn't laugh. I was like, I'm gonna go because they're really serious. And yeah, I was so stressed at night, like I would, my heart, I couldn't get it to slow down, I'd wake up and have heart palpitations. I know it was from the stress. And the worst thing of all is that I used to make my clients results my own. I don't know if any of you guys can relate to that, but I used to actually think by just building them a website or by doing a Facebook ad campaign or by coaching or consulting them or their team. that, you know, they couldn't sell the amount that they wanted to was my fault when there's a whole sales process and a whole sales team and so many other factors included in that. So I used to live in this constant state of a bit of chaos and it was making me sick, to be honest. I mean, physically, mentally drained. And yeah, I'm not saying that I don't have these moments like that still in high, in moments where I'm doing a lot, right? a lot, but I handle it way more differently. So just so you guys know, just to give you context, I manage a team of 10 in my business website, Love. I fit in workouts. So I go to Pilates four times a week. Sometimes I'll squeeze in a fifth day of something else as well. It's in my diary, it's in my calendar. It doesn't move unless it's an absolute emergency. But even then it has to be pretty big emergency. I fit in time for speaking gigs. So I just was an MC a week ago at this really amazing cyber security event, an MC at that. I was like, wow, this is a cool opportunity. Why not take it? I speak in speaking gigs. Do you know, I train, I'm a digital marketing teacher at the Center for Continuing Education at the University of Sydney. I do that sometimes online, sometimes in person at the campus. I now do this podcast. So yes, I've taken on more responsibility, by the way. I'm planning a live event this year in two cities in Australia because I really miss doing live events in the past. I used to do them all the time so I'm looking forward to that. I play pool every Sunday. Yes, the pool game with my partner. So we go out every Sunday, I get a nice glass of white wine, he gets a beer and we play pool. I travel for at least six weeks every year. Why am I telling you all this? Like I'm hoping is like, oh, you're lucky or whatever, you know, the idea is I'm giving you a contrast. Like I'm, I'm, I want you to understand, like I lived in this terrible existence for so long as a business owner. And it was making me sick. I was so anxious. I was triggered by certain emails from certain clients. Like I couldn't read them for a day because I was scared that they might have something mean in them. Like I literally was in this really weird state of living. And I think for me, like that, that sort of corn chip French music playing, honey whiskey moment was just another reminder of the fact that you are in control of your time. So speaking of my friend, Ellie, she is, I've known her for a very long time actually for almost 20 years, which is when I moved to Sydney from California. I met her a couple of weeks in when I moved here. And she said to me, not too long ago, she said, you know, Heather or H, She said, if you don't choose what you fill your time with, it will get filled for you. In our friendship circles, she's known as somebody that, like she said in the past, I squeeze the joy out of life, but I know some people can take that as sort of like a negative thing, squeezing, squeezing the joy, but she does. She like literally seizes every moment and it's just amazing how she lives. She, you know, she's produced huge events. She is a business owner as well, a freelancer and does like, gosh, just so much. But she also has learned how to live in this way. So we sort of were talking about this and going, well, what is it that she does and what is it that I've learned how to do recently to live more joyfully? And so we actually put together this program called At Ease. And we essentially, it's both of our philosophy combined to get more done and to enjoy doing it as well as you go. And what I wanted to do with you guys in this episode is just share. I guess the key components of that, of what this sort of philosophy is, in the hopes that maybe if you are struggling right now and anything that I said to you relates about how I was living my life before, maybe some of these points can just help you get started on a new, slightly new direction or new path. So basically what At-Ease is, it's a way of controlling your to-do list need to of course have a to-do list as well because part of how I was living life is I kind of had a half to-do list so I had paper everywhere. I didn't even know what I was doing, right? So yeah, again, it's like living in that way where you manage your to-do list in a whole different way. So that was sort of the basis of this program. Now, in order to do that, what Ellie and I both do is we do like a brain dump for life and business everything, life and work on paper. So for me, that actually, it's funny, I actually do that more normally in a Google doc because I live on my computer with what I do in my business and I will just be able to copy things across from there. But you can do it in a journal, wherever, right? So you just have something there. It's your go-to source where you're able to cross things off, change things because you and I both know that in life and business, shift and things change, especially if you sort of set a goal and approach the goal or you're working towards something you might realize that's not what you want. So this is sort of like the brain dump document or place where you put the things that you need to do all in one just dump out of your head. That's the first step. Then you filter it by yes, no, maybe, yes, no, maybe. So you are able to look at this document and go, okay, out of all this stuff. Do I need to do they're important to me which things absolutely not now looking at I'm like why did I even write that down? Why did I what is the purpose of that? That's a no it could be a no in the next month year or maybe just completely No, I'm not doing it So you can get rid of that whether that's crossing it out moving it into new Google Doc whatever it is and then maybe Maybe is something where you look at it and you might feel Overwhelmed or you're not quite ready for it. You know you want to do it You don't know where it's gonna fit in And it's like, it's just, it's a maybe, right? So you sort the things like that. Now sometimes, you know, you could do this once a week, once a month, I tend to do like a big one once a year. And then I'll sort of do them once every couple of weeks. I'll just revisit the document to make sure I'm on track. So yes, no, or maybe then part of that is you want to have a good solid morning routine. So this morning routine is something where you are controlling your day. She tends to be funnily enough, I like to just go into my calendar and remind myself, what do I have coming up for the day? And I'll even do yes, no, maybe in that moment as well to the point where I'm like, well, sounded good yesterday, but actually no, I am going to move that as a maybe or move that to next week or whatever it is. So for me, that's kind of my routine. I know Ellie, I think she still does this, she'll do some meditation. So she'll sit overlooking her beautiful view and she'll do very quick, I think she uses head space. an app or a comm and she just every day it gives you like a five minute exercise and she just does that. It's like a breathing exercise. That's one of the things she does. She also does normally I think a morning walk as well. So she has her routine there too. But you want to come up with something which allows you to kind of control your environment where instead of having you know you first straight away look at emails and you're seeing what people are sending you and you start your whole day reactive on that. So you have a morning routine. Next, you want to get it into your calendar. So making sure that you map out that morning routine, and that's in there first, so you know how you're going to start your days. Then you look at your brain dump, right? Your yeses. Your yeses knows and maybe lists. So you take all of your yeses, and you need to put it into your calendar, whatever it looks like. I use Google Calendar, and I color code things. So I have my Pilates classes are one color. My phone calls are another color. different types of projects are different colors. So I color code them so I can see visually what's going on. And to a point where if you want to do this, you can say like yellow's health and you know self-care and greens exercise and this is this family time or whatever. So you can actually see visually are you balancing your week based on the things that are important to you and not just all work. So you map it out into your calendar and then from there the last thing is to continually So take a moment if you're presented with something where you normally would just say, yes, sure. Maybe say no, maybe think on it for a day, maybe get back to the person and say, I need a couple of hours to think about that. One thing for me lately is, because I will tend to say yes to a lot of projects that are not necessarily the best project for our business, because maybe they're not the right fit or I can't get the client the best results. So I've been lately, you know, working with my, our business coach and sales guy, making sure that more things flow through him. So I just have a second sounding board on is this something that we should be working on and should be delivering on. So however you're going to watch your boundaries, whether that's bringing in a team member, whether that's bringing in a process, whether that's just literally noticing a trigger. I was talking to somebody the other day, I think she was one of my clients. Yes, she was. And she's like, oh gosh, I just keep saying yes to everything. And so she does a lot of very hands-on work with mums. And so she has to have her cup filled up and has to have good energy management. But she keeps saying yes to the clients with crisis. And then it knocks her out emotionally and physically for a long time to the point where she can't look after herself very well and her other clients. So she knows she does this. And I said to her, you know, what's this like moment where you always say yes? Like, is there something that comes up for you? And she goes, yeah. talk and it's like I tell myself stop, don't do that. And I'm like cool well now that you know that try your best when that little voice comes up to take a moment and just say to that person I'll have to get back to you in an hour. Just start to give yourself an extra hour, you know, to take a moment to think is that something I should say yes to. So that's a bit of the flow for AtEase and this is actually a program that we have so if you're interested we're going to be you through each of these steps through examples and how to actually do this. And some of the business owners that have gone through it so far just in our sort of beta and original founding members group loved it. And they said, I can't believe how simple something can be to have such a profound effect on my life. So what you need to do is you need to go to hustlerebellion.com. There's a button there at the top of the page to sign up for email alerts, you'll get access to, episodes, but also I will give my podcast listeners special early bird access to this program with additional bonuses as well. So if you sign up for the podcast alert list, I will email you when at ease opens again. So there's a quick little recap on that. Just remember, as Ellie says, if you don't choose what to fill your time with, it will get filled for you. And without ease, just do a brain dump. What's in your brain? Get it out on paper. through it, what's a yes, what's a no, what's a maybe, set yourself up with a morning routine that you can stick to to get you going and more of a proactive state of mind on your day versus a reactive of all the stuff that's coming in. Get it on your calendar, get those yeses on your calendar, color code them so you know that you are having enough time for yourself for your family for the things that matter in addition to your work and watch those boundaries. So you guys, Thanks as always for tuning in. It's always really fun having these little chats with you. And we have a lot more to come. So please come on over and let me know what you think of this episode. You can find us on YouTube. Just leave me a comment. Let me know if anything here sort of speaks to you. And obviously on all the Apple Podcasts Spotify rate review us, it just helps us to get the message out there to more people. And in the meantime, hopefully your week is filled with nice moments. ease and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!