Episode 15 – Should you shut everything down to clean up the mess behind the scenes of your business?

Ep 15 - Should you shut everything down and pause to clean up the mess behind-the-scenes of your business?

Welcome to the self employed nerd, a mindset and marketing podcast to help budding entrepreneurs just like you, stay focused, productive, and profitable as you navigate this crazy roller coaster lifestyle of being a self employed. I'm your host, Michelle Sanchez. Let's get started. In this episode, I'll be sharing the following.

Number one: the brilliant thought that helped me decide to call episodes one through 15 season one and to take a two month break.

The second thing is the weird transition between what I'm doing to what I actually want to be doing now that I'm brave enough to admit to myself and to everyone else.

And number three, realizing I was wrong about a goal I set for myself.  And that I actively pursued in 2019 which was panel discussions and speaking at conferences. So I dive into that a little bit.

But before I get into it, here is a quick invitation to spend some time with me inside our Self-Employed Nerd community during this brief two month hiatus in the podcast

if you'd like to keep in touch and even be possibly involved in the production of season two, please join us!

Go to theselfemployednerd.com and you'll see a link to join the community.

I'll be letting you in on a lot of the things I'm working on personally, and we'll be doing some fun coworking together so you can actually get things done in your business and the lots of fun things like that.

So come join us theselfemployednerd.com and I'll see you there.

Hey everybody, it's Rochelle and I'm here to share a little bit of behind the scenes stuff. Because I know that things have been quiet around here and. I'm not going to apologize for that because I know that I've just been taking it easy on myself, so I'm actually not sorry that things have been quiet, but at the same time, I do want to like kind of let you in on what's going on with me and my life and my business and  to see if any of it kind of applies to your own plans.

So I know that we are focusing still on being focused and focusing on what actually matters in your own business for the entire Q1. Right? So if you're following along, this is where, like midway through February, so we're kind of halfway through quarter one and what I hope for you is that the words that you picked for your 2020 year and all your vision boards and all that stuff is kind of coming together and you're starting to see how it can actually apply to your life and the way that you want to use your time.

Right? How do you want to use your time and your existence on this planet?

And how do you want to serve people? Right?

So I'm just going to share some of this stuff that's been going on behind the scenes for me because I've made some decisions. It's nothing really drastic cause I know that whenever anyone says "I've made some decisions!" Then it's kind of like they're planning an entire rebrand or they're shutting it down or they're moving, you know, to another country or something like that.

And so it's nothing that drastic, for my part.

But it's still important.

And so I thought that it might be helpful to you to hear what it's like on my end of things. Because maybe you're going through this stuff too. So, humor me for a few minutes while I talk about myself, which is actually kind of hard for me to do because.

Um, I'd rather spend all of my time helping other people and hearing about other people's problems and then like helping them work through it. And so having to do it for myself and then also kind of declare it to the world is something a little different for me.

So I've decided to pause my podcast. My podcast, The Self-Employed Nerd is on its...  I just did episode 14 a couple of weeks ago, and then I just decided.

 And it's funny because I have all the content written out. You can write all the con-, you know, all the plans and all the content ideas and all that stuff, all you want.

And I'm guilty of this, right? Where we sit down and we're like, okay, I'm going to write about this, and then I'm going to talk about this and this is going to be so relevant to my audience.

And then while you're in the middle of, you know, producing all of it. Then it starts to lose steam and it starts to feel like something like, okay, I guess I better do that because so-and-so said that you need to put out content. And I just wanted to catch myself in that frame of thought because it's not really helpful.

Right?

Like if I want to teach people and if I want people's lives to be better because they've chosen a career path that feels good because they're making a difference in their community and in the, you know, social and environmental and political movements that they really care about as coaches, then I had better do that for myself.

So I'm actually taking a break from podcasting, giving myself eight weeks. So in April-ish, I'm going to be doing it again and under a different kind of format because I thought... I came up with an idea.

You know how you just have those, those moments where you're like, "Oh, that's brilliant. That's a really good idea! I should do that.'

 And then you don't go for them, for whatever reason. I've decided not to do that to myself this time.

So I have some new ideas for how to make a podcast better and how to make it feel like it's not just me  talking to myself.

And I know that that's the idea behind this podcast is that it's, it's a form of expression, right?

Where you're allowed to speak your mind and produce something, and it's not dictated by any external force or anything like that, but for some reason it's  I just decided that I wanted to change the format up a little bit and instead of expecting myself to switch it up and do all of the things within a week of, you know, between one episode and the next, I decided, "That'll be it for season one."

Season one is done, apparently. And I'm just gonna change the format and say, "Welcome back to season two!" After a couple of months of taking a break and recording pre-recording stuff. So I'll share with that more of that later on, probably while I'm doing it, because to be honest, it's all kind of just a plan that I haven't implemented yet.

So I'll, I'll let you in on how that's coming along when it's... When appropriate.  I'm trying to do the thing where you don't overshare or share what you're doing before you actually do it, so that you--

Because I actually believe in that,  it's like the idea that if you have a goal, whether, whether it's better to share it with people or to not share it with people.

And I feel like to some degree it is true that if you share your idea or your dream with someone immediately, then it actually kind of backfires because then the other person gets excited and you get excited and then your desire for it, it kind of like dies down because you've already satisfied that the excitement.

So anyway, I'm trying to apply that to the new podcast format and I'll see how it goes. But I'll let you in on what's happening.

So I decided, you know, to pump brakes on that. And, um, to stop doing mediocre work when it comes to my podcast because it's, I mean, I don't want to shame it or anything because I have been working hard on it.

And it is a lot of work to put together your own podcasts and actually do it versus people who say that they're going to do it and don't.

But at the same time, I don't want to keep doing my mediocre work, especially if it doesn't really. Pumped me up and me me feel super fulfilled. You know what I mean?

So pausing the podcast for two reasons: to stop doing mediocre work and then also just to allow myself to rest.,

Because I think that I've been listening a little too much to like gurus and influencers and people who don't really matter that much, but I make them matter a lot.

And I've decided that what they say, what the internet says I should be doing as business owner is more important than what I actually want to do, which is not true. So I'm allowing myself to rest and to take some time off and get those creative juices flowing. So all that jazz. I finally went ahead and gave myself permission.

I approved that request from my one employee, which is me.

Okay, so pausing the podcast and then, let's see, what else?

So this year in 2020 when I talk to people and I've been doing a lot of like in person networking. And talking to people one on one and just trying to convince myself that there are people out there like me who, you know, want to keep doing this even though, boy, this, this career is challenging, isn't it?

To be self employed?

But what I've noticed with myself is that I really like sharing what my goals are for the year.

And I think that's because it's still the beginning of the year. So I feel like I have plenty of time, but also just because it, it's nice to have the opportunity to tell other people, other living, breathing, passionate people that I am officially leaning more toward teaching.

Right?

I want to do workshops.

I want to do small group sessions.

And I've done a little bit of it. I've, I tried a couple, Oh, a few times in 2019, uh, doing panel discussions, which I thought was, you know, going to be like kind of the, the career trajectory for me where I wanted to be at conferences and be part of panel discussions.

And then I noticed that there were certain things about being on a panel discussion in front of all the big group of people that I didn't really like, and so I'll give you the scoop on that eventually. But the short answer is I didn't really like it and I was like, "Okay, maybe I don't like being on a panel discussion."

I know that I'm comfortable in smaller groups, especially when I have coffee chats with people who are like, let's all get together and just talk. Like I'm, I really feel good after those sessions, so I'm going to try that format and try getting more involved, like locally in local coworking spaces, with the library, things like that.

And like, just the idea, just saying that feels a lot better than, "Ugh, everything else that I could possibly do."

So that's a good sign right. I'm shifting into teaching more. Instead of doing everything.

Because I'm really good at what I do. I'm a really good project manager. I am an excellent VA. I have all these testimonials.

Like on a good day, I can admit that to myself that I am incredibly valuable and I'm really good at what I do.

But at the same time, being a project manager or doing virtual assistant work, even for people that I love and whose businesses I love and like I'm just totally on board with the movements that they're starting and what their underlying message is.

It's like a day job that I like, but I still want to quit eventually. Right?

And I'm not worried about it because I know that with all of my one on one clients, I know that the ones that I stick with are the ones that are, that I'm sure that I can bring someone else on board to entrain them, to replace me.

So it's not like I'm, I'm hoping to be like, "Suprise!I quit everything!"

Uh, I wanna I want to build my own business. On the side of my current business, if that makes sense.

So it's, it's a weird transition from doing what I've been doing since 2016 and saying, "Okay, I'm good at that. Got it. We're doing great."

And then leaning into the actual thing that I want to do and that in two years I would love to be like, "This is ALL I do."

So more teaching, more group coaching, business coaching, and just leaning into that side of my business.

So it's been taking quite a bit of me to just admit that. And even right now, like I can feel my, my throat kinda like closing up and something weird is going on in my gut right now because I'm like, "Oh, I'm telling people!"

But you know, that's, that's kind of. Part of it, right?

So dealing with all of the things.

And I think that an important lesson I've learned recently, the biggest lesson that I've learned recently is that I have to allow people to ask for my help.

Because I've been dealing with these feelings of like, what does it mean when other people don't need me?

When they don't need my help. And it's really hard, right? When you're in like a service based business and you're like, I keep putting out all this content. I keep being willing to help people. What kind of help do you need? What help do you need? And no one's really asking, but then you also hear them talk about how hard things are.

And I'm like, you know, I need to be okay with everyone being on their own journey with everyone taking care of their own stuff and just follow what I want to do. And then allow that nice, like, you know how it just, it happens where things just work out and when you let go of things, then you know that things are going to be okay.

I know that I said the word things a lot, just not just now, but that's where I am right now. I'm like, it's. It doesn't have to be all planned out in advance. And I think that I've experienced enough miracles in my time as a business owner to know that they can happen anytime and that you don't have to force them, you don't have to plan strategically for them.

And really the miracle is in connecting with people and making a difference. And we can do that whether or not we have a plan. So I'm shifting things around. Being okay with people not needing me, but also fulfilling my own desire to keep being helpful because that's what I like. And then just seeing how that pans out versus trying to paint myself as like the go-to person.

I mean, I'm still gonna do that because that's like copywriting stuff where you just have to, you have to spell it out for people. So I'll be doing it too to some degree, but at the same time I'm like, well. At least I can take some pressure off of myself.

So that's what's up with me. I hope that that makes sense and is helpful for you because chances are you have a very messy back end too, where things are going on behind the scenes and you're like,

"I don't know! I'll figure it out."

"I don't know. Maybe!"

"I have no idea what I'm doing."

And I gotta tell you that's, that's how most businesses are behind the scenes.

And I would know.

I'm behind the scenes in a lot of businesses and all of them are very messy. Okay?

And all of them have smaller lists than you think they do.

All of them are making it up as they go.

And so I just want to encourage you, if you feel like you don't know what you're doing, well, you're doing it right because all of us are kind of figuring it out.

Now, that doesn't mean that you just keep like treading water and never ask for help and never get any guidance.

But, it does mean that you can stop beating yourself up for the way things are and just embrace what it feels like.

Embrace the challenge and be open to what it might mean instead of what you hoped it would be. Okay?

So thanks for listening. I hope that this is helpful for you and, um, I hope that you'll keep in touch with me during this little hiatus.

OK. and, and on top of like my podcast hiatus I'm doing, I'm also not. Uh, I uninstalled all of my social media apps. Like, you know what, I'm just going to have to be that person who disappeared from Instagram for a little bit. And it's, it's a little bit of a bummer because I like following along with people and I'm like, Oh, I'm missing out on what's, what's happening with so-and-so.

But, it's ultimately better for me. So a little bit of a detox. Also getting a lot of rest, and I hope that you'll do the same. Thanks everybody.

Rochelle Sanchez: Thank you again for listening. And of course that's a wrap for season one. So if you want to hang out over the next two months that I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break from this show, come and join us! You can join our online community over at theselfemployednerd.com and you'll see a link there to sign up and join us.

And then we can hang out and talk about all of the great things that you have planned for 2020. And of course you can also be involved in some of the stuff I'm doing behind behind the scenes. So I hope to see you there. The self employed nerd.com see you later.