017 | Don't Start the Year Hustling in Business: Business Strategy For Female Leaders

The beginning of a new year is often a time of reflection and goal setting and planning. Maybe a little bit in December, but with all of the holiday shenanigans, sometimes it's hard to do. January can also be an incredibly busy time for getting back into the swing of things after a holiday break.

You might feel like you have to hit the ground running and come in hot to make up for lost time or to get ahead of the game.  But let's also be real when you own and run your own thing. The opportunity to pull over to the side of the road and be thoughtful and intentional about how you want to change things up is tough. 

What if you took a different approach? What if instead of rushing headlong into the year, you started off slow and steady?  This is what happened to me at the beginning of this year. And I'm going to share with you what happened. And what I did and what's making things so easy, breezy. 

In this episode, you will learn:

• Instead of rushing into the new year, try starting slow and steady
• If you’re not setting intentions, you’re wasting time
• Reflection is the foundation of being strategic with your time and energy
• Why going slow does not = being unproductive

This episode at a glance:

[03:42] That space between holiday celebrations and getting back to work. It's really small and the window for reflection and taking a breath.  It closes really quickly most of the time

[09:38] When you start a business on your own, especially if you bootstrap a business on your own, there isn't a lot of intentional planning, to begin with. 

[13:30]  Taking a moment to reflect has made it clear to me that the reason I'm not enjoying myself in my business is because I haven't been thoughtful in planning what I want to be doing. I'm flying blind and fear is making most of my choices

[19:45] Sometimes taking action is a great way out of a difficult or uncomfortable spot, sometimes you just got to try things and see what happens and then iterate and make it better. 

[22:03] Starting slow doesn't mean being unproductive. It means being intentional about how we choose our actions in order to make long lasting progress and impact towards our ambitions.

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode:

• Free Range Thinking
• Primed to Launch
• Social Sales Stars
• Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache
• Schedule A Call 

You might also like:

• Annual Business Goals Workbook
• 3 Ways To Set Focused Goals For Intentional, Sustainable Business Growth
• Why Female Leaders Supporting Each Other Is The Future

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Transcript

My Good Woman
Ep. 17 | Don't Start the Year Hustling in Business. Go Slower, It's Better

Dawn Andrews:

Welcome to another episode of my good woman. I am your host, Dawn Andrews and today I am giving you a sneak peek behind the scenes I don't know if it's a sneak peek. Like, imagine me just kind of, opening my front door and letting you come into my house. I'm just going to be real real with you and share a little bit about, what's going on behind the scenes, in my business in hopes that it will help you lead and enjoy being in your business. 

 Just to set the scene, I am chillin in my UGG Boots and my hair is a meeeeessss. I am in my comfy lounge pants. And then a little zip-up hoodie. I have my Brittney mug filled with hot lemon water, next to me. It matches my husband's Justin mug, back from the Brittney Spears, Justin Timberlake era. A little bit of pop culture for you.

Sitting at the microphone, it is raining outside, which is fantastic. I am in California. We have been in a horrible drought. Rain is coming down in a biblical way. And unfortunately, most of it is probably running off into the ocean. 

That's another sidebar conversation, but I just want to give you guys an idea of the environment that I'm in right now. Kind a low light, that kind of thing. 

 The start of this year has been a little interesting. First of all, happy new year. I feel like this year has started off really slowly. Some of that is by design, things that I've chosen to do or not do. And ways that I've chosen to slow down. Some of it is because the year just has started off more slowly. People have taken more time off. Maybe the kids' schedules have been different I'm not entirely sure but are you experiencing that? Are you feeling that where you are?

Starting slow has made me really contemplative. 

I've been thinking about how we start our year as business owners. And how our years play out based on how we started them. Now of course, at any time during a year, we can change directions. We can pivot, we can change how we're being, who we're being to our business. We have the opportunity to intervene and change plans and do something in a new way at any point. 

The beginning of a new year is often a time of reflection and goal setting and planning maybe a little bit in December, but with all of the holiday shenanigans, sometimes it's hard to do. But January can also be an incredibly busy time of getting back into the swing of things after a holiday break. It is easy to get caught up in the momentum of everybody getting back into action. And you might feel like you have to hit the ground running and come in hot to make up for lost time or to get ahead of the game. Like these are phrases that I have literally said out loud to myself, which is ridiculous. 

 I'm a star wars fan and it makes me think of that movie. In SOLO: A Star Wars Story starring Woody Harrelson, and a few other people, Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, et cetera. Oh, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge you know, all those people. 

It makes me think of that moment in the movie. When they are all jumping on zip lines to catch up to a speeding bullet train before it goes through a tunnel. That's how the beginning of most years feel to me. But let's also be real when you own and run your own thing. The opportunity to pull over to the side of the road and be thoughtful and intentional about how you want to change things up is tough. 

 That space between holiday celebrations and getting back to work. It's really small and the window for reflection and taking a breath. It closes really quickly most of the time it's taken up by sleeping off the year you've had or catching up with people you haven't had a chance to connect with.

 But what if you took a different approach? What if instead of rushing headlong into the year, you started off slow and steady? This is what happened for me at the beginning of this year. And I'm going to share with you what happened. And what I did and what's making things so easy, breezy. 

And why easy breezy and taking things slow can be so magical. 

But before I do that. Let me take you back to the beginning of last year. And then share with you why this year is so different 

 Last year started off like I was being shot out of a cannon. I felt like a Cirque du Soleil performer on opening night with a packed house.

I had more incoming calls on that opening day of the new year than I could possibly handle. And I say this not to brag. It just was what it was and I had to hustle. I immediately staffed up. I was doing five to 10 proposals a week for new business and servicing that business and training new people that were joining me. The projects were big and fun and complex with great companies. Great people. I was loving it. I ended up making my financial goal for the year in the first four months of the year. 

It was unprecedented. And I share that from a place of gratitude. But I also want to own fully the 20 plus years of 3:00 AM. Wake ups. Working through times I wanted to hang out with my family. Constantly living, breathing and thinking about this business and giving everything I had to building and cultivating relationships with people who could refer me business. 

Decades of working like that had left me just skirting the edge of burnout as the year began. And that was even after taking time off for the holidays. 

 Imagine running a marathon at a four minute mile pace, getting almost to the finish line. And then somebody tacking on another 26.2 miles. That was how I felt. It was simultaneously amazing because all the ships came in at the same time. Ooh. It was a blessing and girls it was a curse.

 For those of you that haven't met me yet. I'm the founder and CEO of Free Range Thinking, a boutique business consultancy that helps creatives and executives in the entertainment industry and beyond with business strategy and leadership training. We help our clients lead their businesses with confidence to ensure future growth, big profits, and happy clients. 

Which means that the majority of my business is me talking to people -talking to people on the phone, talking to people on zoom, talking to people in person. Doing the sales calls, leading workshops, speaking. It's me. The building of the business and the delivery of the service hangs on my shoulders. And truth be told over the years, I've done a little bit of work, a little bit of adjusting in the operation of my business to be able to scale. So that it's not just about me delivering the service alone. 

Which is why it's so exciting to have such a windfall of business at the beginning of the year. It's the service business owner's dream. I'm like a kid in a candy store. I get to do just the part that is the most fun to me. I get to serve people instead of having to go hunt for people to serve. It was very exciting

 This is why I mentioned the part about it being a curse. 

 It sounds overly dramatic in retrospect, sharing it with you now. But at the time it was no joke. The Bonanza of business at the start of last year was ah, ma zing. But it also meant that the systems that I had built to handle the size and kind of business I was previously running were breaking left and right just breaking down.

And it also meant that I was being pushed to my limit when I had been operating at my limit previously. 

There was a moment about six months into the year, last year, where I just wanted to cocoon in my comfy pants, pull the blankie up over my head, put on my noise-canceling headphones, and not talk to anybody for a month. I was so tired. I was so tired of running at such a fast pace.

And then surprisingly, the second half of the year got quiet. A few client projects wrapped up. It gave me time, time that I had not had in my business ever, I don't think, to pull over to the side and be reflective. To be thoughtful and intentional. To think about what I really wanted. To look at what was working and what wasn't, and to thoughtfully design how I wanted the business to operate. 

For most business owners, the only time that happens is in the very beginning when you're concepting what your business will be. That break in the action, that quiet moment away from clients knowing that I had already made my financial goal for the entire year, was the most beautiful gift that I could possibly receive. 

Last year was like a condensed experiment. I worked like crazy for the first half of the year, then recovered and reflected on what it was like to work like crazy during the second half of the year.

The insights I gained from having that time to reflect are so valuable that I wanted to make sure I shared them with you because I know you're in the trenches, just like I am trying to make your business, grow your business, maintain your business, create an exit from your business. 

And these takeaways, I think will make that a lot easier for you. Sometimes, I feel like running a business is like being the captain of a submarine. There are times when you surface and you come up for air and you look around and you see where you are. But then you submerge again and you pretty much are just using the radar, all of your instruments to be able to guide you, which is your intentions, your plans, your numbers, et cetera. 

It's rare that you get to lift your head up, come out of the water and survey the landscape to see if you're actually on track and going in the direction that you intended. 

And I'm not surprised this happens. When you start a business on your own, especially if you bootstrap a business on your own, there isn't a lot of intentional planning to begin with. You may have an idea of what your expertise is, who you want to sell it to, and then you go out and you just start selling it. If it aligns with the market, if it aligns with what people want, then you have a business and you keep growing and adding and going for the next round of clients. Then you're caught up in the cycle of finding clients, serving clients, finding clients, serving clients, and you don't take the time to step back and reflect on whether the business is running in a way that works for you, whether you like being in your business. 

It's only after you've crossed that threshold of being burned out or ready to quit that you take the time that probably would have been helpful a lot earlier, because it might have completely changed the game of your experience of owning and being in your business. So why do we do that to ourselves? And what if we took just a little bit of time in January to start slower and reflect?

 This was the gift I got at the tail end of last year, and I'm going to share with you the epiphanys I had and the questions I asked myself to set myself up so that I don't start the year like my hair is on fire. 

So the difference between last year and this year -- Last year, started the year shot out of a cannon. This year, started the year really slow. Last year started incredibly busy and then had time to myself. This year, I consciously and intentionally took time for myself to plan and reflect. I realize now that what I thought was a luxury is a necessity.

 Large corporate organizations don't consider planning a luxury and reflecting a luxury. It's a requirement. So why are we not treating ourselves with that same care when we own smaller businesses. 

 We deserve that level of attention and the benefits that come with it. 

It took a moment for me to get the hang of this, but moving forward in the future, it doesn't take that much time. So for all of you action-oriented people like myself, if you consider yourself a ready fire aim person, just take a breath. Everything's okay. The action part is coming. 

 And imagine being able to take action, to create that content, to make that sales call, to serve that client, knowing that what you're spending your time doing is strategically and thoughtfully aligned to bring in the cash using the least amount of your time and energy. How cool does that sound? 'Cause I don't know about y'all, but I am not about that hustle and grind lifestyle and I am not about burning out. I am about serving as many people in the best way possible as I can and making a great living that supports me and my family doing it. 

 I also want to give a shout out to Ashlyn Carter and her Primed To Launch program and to the lovely Molly Mahoney, and her Social Sales Stars program. Ashlyn and Molly are both extraordinary online entrepreneurs. 

Being a part of their programs was foundational to generating not only these epiphanys that I'm going to share with you, but also everything that came out of them. So take a look at their work. I'm sure it will be helpful for you and I'll put it in the show notes for you to check out later.

Okay, here we go. And this is especially for people who find it difficult to plan or to slow down and reflect and think things through. But know that their lives will be better for it. If they do. 

Just know that I see you and I feel you. 

Slow January epiphany number one. You get to take time to align your actions with who you want to be. 

Is it wrong for me to want to really enjoy myself when I am running my business every day? 

This is a true confessions moment for me. I have been known, on occasion, to kill the fun in my business. Just to kill it. To focus so strongly on just getting the next thing done and the next thing done, and the next thing done to not really enjoy the ride. And starting slow and steady in this new year has given me the chance to align what I'm doing with who I want to be and how I want to experience being a business owner.

 Taking a moment to reflect has made it clear to me that the reason I'm not enjoying myself in my business is because I haven't been thoughtful in planning what I want to be doing. I'm flying blind and fear is making most of my choices. And when I'm in that place, I say yes to things that I don't want to say yes to, I take on more projects or clients that are not the right fit for the business and not the right alignment for me. Because I've done that, I then become over-scheduled and once I'm over-scheduled, I just want to get it done. I want to honor my commitments. I want to deliver good service to the people that I've committed to. 

I just want to cross things off the list and get onto the next thing. And I'm not actually experiencing fully being in the moment and getting to experience the pleasure of engaging with that client. 

I know there are times that are going to be busier my business. And that the to-do list never gets to done, but this is a different experience, when you realize that you've added to your own to-do list because you haven't been thoughtful about what matters most. That one smarted a little bit when I realized it. But it's amazing what comes up when you slow down and let your thoughts catch up to you. 

I believe that starting off slow, gives me the chance to think about the kind of leader I want to become. I'm asking myself, who do I want to be? How do I want to show up in this business every day? And having answers to those simple questions helps guide how I spend my time throughout the year. 

If I find that I'm being a beeetch in my business chances are I'm doing things below my pay grade, I'm not interested, they're not challenging to me, or they're not connected to a bigger purpose for me. And without reflection I don't know if there's a way to hand that off, to eliminate it entirely, or if I just need to shift my perspective. 

But in taking that time to reflect in December and this slow January, I have the chance to think that through. 

So, for example, if one of your goals is to build more meaningful relationships with potential clients and with your existing clients (and this is a goal of mine). 

I mean, truly, I want to be a powerful resource, guide and mentor to my clients. It's significant to me. That's where I make my impact. My difference made in the world is through what happens with my clients. I help them and they do big things in the world. 

Through reflecting it gave me that clarity of purpose.

Then instead of just cranking out emails and content and Instagram posts and whatever else it is that you're doing take some extra time to think through the challenges that your people are going through.

If I'm the kind of person that wants to enjoy being in my business and I want that for my clients, what are my challenges and, or their challenges. And how can I help with that? And what actions do I need to take that support that?

 Which leads to slow January epiphany, number two, Using time wisely and strategically. 

Again, true confessions. Most of the years of operation in my business, I didn't really have a big plan. I roughly knew how many clients I needed to have each year to hit my financial goal and that was it. I didn't really overthink it. 

This past year, things came in so hot and heavy, and there were requests for so many different kinds of services for me to provide from speaking to teaching, I did complete overhauls of people's businesses and rebuilt them from the ground up. It made me clear that I needed to be thoughtful about where my time and energy were going and who I was spending my time with. 

In addition, because I'd taken that time for reflection my vision for what was possible in my business and possible in the world got so much bigger. I was filled with purpose and I needed to make sure I was aligning my time with that purpose.

There were some goals that I set for myself at the beginning of last year, there were goals that I had near the tail end of last year. And then once I took some time away over the holidays, I was able to revisit them starting slow in January, just to double check, like a gut check with myself. Is this really what I want to do. After creating this ambitious plan for this year and then stepping away for a minute, I was able to come back to it with fresh eyes and determine whether it was something I was truly aligned with something I was really excited about, and it was a direction I wanted to go in or not. 

And it's not just being aligned with the bigger picture that's nice when you take things slow at the beginning of the year, I literally looked at every single time block in my schedule to see if those time blocks matched up to the goals. And then to look at my client lists and to see if those kinds of clients were the kinds of clients I wanted to serve. I broke everything down and just checked to make sure, using that submarine analogy, that I had charted a course for my business that actually was going to land where I wanted it to. Giving myself that breath and that space makes me feel optimistic and positive and excited and ready for action and fun because it's an ambitious plan, but I feel like everything is aligned to help make it happen. 

So when you go slow, you get to be thoughtful about how you use your time because 80% of the results are coming from 20% of the time, and the rest is just busy work. So if we can reduce that, Amen to that.

 And here is slow January epiphany number three. Slow does not mean unproductive

In these moments of self-reflection I realized that I'm a bit of a paradox. I like to move fast. I like to talk fast. I like to get a lot of things done. I love action and results. And conversely, when I slow down, I like to slow down. I mean, seriously, sit and binge watch some TV. And over the last year I got addicted to Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache murder mystery books. There are 18 of them. And I have read them all. And they are excellent please check them out.

 The reason I'm bringing it up is because her main character, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who is French Canadian from Quebec, spends a lot of time thinking. And only acts when it's time to act. It was such an interesting thing to have a book character model behavior that was so foreign to me. I feel like I got training from the Chief Inspector to help me be a better business person. Because I realized that sometimes in a panic, when I am really concerned that something isn't going well or I'm unsure and feeling insecure about something in my business, I'll take action. 

And sometimes taking action is a great way out of a difficult or uncomfortable spot, sometimes you just got to try things and see what happens and then iterate and make it better. But I'm at a place in my business and in my life right now, where if I do that a lot, I can find myself so far off course and spending way too much time on things that really don't matter, that I have to remind myself that it is okay to be slow. It is okay to be thoughtful. Taking things slow doesn't mean that you're being unproductive. Being thoughtful, sitting, planning, thinking things through doesn't mean you're being unproductive. And taking this slow time, some extra time at the beginning of your year let's you plan ahead so that when things start picking up speed later in the year, everything runs like clockwork with minimal effort from you. 

I've already seen the value of this in the first few days of this year, we're barely a week into it and we've had scheduling and travel conflicts with things I need to do for the business and things we need to do for our life, with our kids. Had I not taken the time to think through and plan in advance what this first quarter and or first half of our year looks like we'd have shown up 20 minutes before we needed plane tickets, our suitcases packed with eight t-shirts, one pair of underwear and one shoe, completely unprepared. And I'm not even kidding versions of that have happened. 

It would be another hair on fire moment and I would be super stressed out trying to handle too many activities and things that needed to get done. 

 Because I took a breath and had a chance to make some plans before the end of last year and then review them and check that they were aligned at the beginning of this year, we were able to plan in advance to spend time with the people that matter most to us. And honestly, that is the biggest gift of owning a business is that you have some freedom or at least you have the potential to have some freedom to spend your time, the way you want to spend it with the people you want to spend it with. And if I'm not doing that, then why am I working so hard? 

 So you've got lots of time left in this month. Don't let yourself get caught up in all the momentum. Take some extra time at the beginning of this year. To think through your plans, your goals, the people you want to spend time with, who you want to be as a leader, what matters to you most? 

Take some time and space now, while things are still quiet and reflect on these things. How do you get to use your precious life? 

Starting slow doesn't mean being unproductive. It means being intentional about how we choose our actions in order to make long lasting progress and impact towards our ambitions. And besides it's what all the best leaders are doing. Right? Seriously. 

 And there is the added benefit of being prepared so that everything runs like clockwork with minimal effort from you when things start picking up speed later on in the year. And girl, we all know they will. 

And that sounds amazing to me. I want that for you.

 If you need someone to give you a little permission to take that time and take a breath. Here's your permission.

If you want somebody to hold your hand and ask you these questions and help you through the process, hold a space for that process. Schedule a call with us. We've got a few openings left in January and I'd love for you to be in one of them. Because this is a necessity, not a luxury. 

You'll find a link to schedule a call in the show notes. So don't wait. 

And a final bonus epiphany. It was abundantly clear to me that nothing happens outside of community. There's a certain amount that I can muster the force of will to get done, but it is incredible. What happens when I play with other people. 

So if this episode has moved you, if you feel like there's somebody in your life who could benefit from it, consider sharing it with them. We'd appreciate it. And I think they would too. 

Thanks for hanging out My Good Woman. We'll talk soon. 

 Thank you for joining me this week. To view the complete show notes and all the links mentioned in today's episode, visit MyGoodWoman.com. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe to the podcast so you can receive fresh episodes when they drop. And if you're enjoying My Good Woman, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews are one of the major ways that Apple ranks their pods, so even though it takes only a few seconds, it really does make a difference and helps our show grow. This episode was produced by me and Julissa Ramirez. Thank you again for joining me, Dawn Andrews in this episode of My Good Woman.