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32. Time for Business Stress to Take a Hike with Lauren Hostetler
8 Plays6 months ago
“Any growth is still growth.” Mother Nature certainly agrees.
We're joined by Lauren Hostetler, a full-time nurse and part-time wilderness guide helping women summit their struggles in wide open places. She explains (quite convincingly) why entrepreneurs who spend time outside create more space, joy, and focus in their businesses.
Even science agrees spending time in nature does wonders for weary souls. Just a few minutes of bird song triggers parasympathetic zen. Fresh air and inspiring views decrease muscle tension and stress hormones. Basically, the great outdoors is a balm for busy brains.
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
- Generate fresh ideas and solutions without even trying.
- Remove pressure to better balance business growth and life priorities.
- Work smarter so you, too, can be #donebydinner.
- Create a business journal of all you've already solved.
- Use online tools to create and follow your own "Master Plan."
For more inspiration, subscribe to Unbound Turnarounds on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!
LINKS:
- Connect with Nicole
- Connect with Mallory
- Connect with Lauren: https://www.instagram.com/moemountains/?hl=en
- Get The Master Plan: https://www.thedaringdaughters.com/MASTERPLAN
- Hear Lauren on The Daring Daughters: https://directory.libsyn.com/episod
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Transcript
Introduction to Unbound Turnarounds
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Unbound Turnarounds, a podcast all about the challenges women business owners think about constantly, but rarely voice.
Mission: Honest Conversations in Business
00:00:11
Speaker
We're Nicole and Mallory, entrepreneurs, friends, and co-founders of Business Unbound. Our mission is simple, make business feel better. And that starts with honest conversations about the ups, downs, and turnarounds of entrepreneurship.
00:00:26
Speaker
So whether you're just starting out or you've been your own boss for years, tune in for stories, insights, and strategies that actually make work work for life.
Season Focus: Time Management
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome back to Unbound Turnarounds and to season three. So as a reminder our season three is about our most precious commodity and that would be time.
Guest Introduction: Lauren Hosteller
00:00:51
Speaker
Today we're going to be talking to a woman who works a traditional full-time job while running a passion project as her side hustle and Nicole you are going to let us know who we have today.
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, so today we are chatting with Lauren Hosteller and she is a full-time nurse and the owner and founder of Mo Mountains. And it's a business that takes women on backtracking trips. So she is super passionate about getting women together, getting them outside and getting them connected to whatever they need to flourish.
00:01:20
Speaker
She lives with her husband Kirby and their two puppers Willow and Titus in beautiful Montana. Lauren is happiest when she is outside and she loves empowering other women to enjoy the incredible nature and the health that we've been given. Welcome to the show. We are really excited to chat with you. Thanks so much for having me, Mallory and Nicole. I can't wait to chat with you guys.
00:01:44
Speaker
Well, we're excited because we already know some of the things that we're going to talk about, but let's set the stage.
Mo Mountains: Vision and Challenges
00:01:50
Speaker
Now, when you started Mo Mountains, how did you actually envision spending your time versus how did you initially find yourself spending your time? Yes. Well,
00:02:02
Speaker
I'm a nurse full-time, so I really have no business background. I've never started a business before, and so I kind of had envisioned doing more fun projects as in connecting with women to come on these backpacking trips and creating cute little Canva images for how I'm gonna market around town and just doing
00:02:31
Speaker
fun projects. And I did not realize how hard it was or how much time it would take to market and to get in front of a lot of people. I'm continuously saying I need to be in front of more eyeballs. And it was like, that's a huge task that I didn't really account for.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. And it's weird that when you say all the fun projects you wanted to do, like I'm not hearing stuff like taxes, like I'm not hearing stuff like invoicing, those things were not like front of your mind. No, that wasn't even on the radar. I mean, that's that later, later problems.
00:03:17
Speaker
So it's like when I think about what you're doing on the side,
Nature's Impact on Creativity and Health
00:03:22
Speaker
right? Infusing time with greater joy is one of the reasons that women choose to spend time in nature. But what about everyone who says they're just too busy, right? So there's people who want this, but it's so easy for entrepreneurs to just get caught up in the day-to-day and be like, I don't have time to go
00:03:43
Speaker
on a walk, much less on a vacation. Yes. No, that is a real challenge. And even for myself, I mean, I love being out in nature. And that's literally what my business is built around. And even I will find that time in nature will get squeezed out by my forever long to-do list. And so I've had to just really
00:04:09
Speaker
educate myself on what are the benefits of me making this a priority. Instead of just looking at it as I'm just taking a walk in the woods, what is that walk in the woods doing for me? I mean, science has proven that it
00:04:24
Speaker
enlivens your brain, like they call it a bomb for your brain. And I can tell you, when I come away from my walk in the woods, I have so many ideas for my business. Like my brain is just alive with like, oh, what if I do this or make that connection? Or like, oh, we could do this. And it's almost like time is like a time warp. And I just shoot ahead in my business because I've given, I've stepped away,
00:04:51
Speaker
I've given my body just time to rest and kind of recharge in a really healthy way. And it really benefits my business. It benefits my mental health. It calms stress. When you're out in nature, it's shown that you don't produce those stress hormones when you're walking in nature and walking in the woods. And so when your body is able to just relax more,
00:05:17
Speaker
benefits you on every level and so it's really been something that I've had to change my mindset about and just say like I I can't not afford to do this I have to do this well and it seems like because of your science background so as a full-time nurse you probably see a lot of
00:05:38
Speaker
just both physical and mental health issues that possibly are stress-related, I'm just guessing. You have this science background, and it sounds like what you're saying is that science really supports the way that nature and taking space and taking time is beneficial for your actual health. What have you found on that front? Yeah, it absolutely supports
00:06:05
Speaker
your health, your physical health. And so I did some research because you're right, I love science since I'm a nurse. So I did some research and I found some research articles that just show the effect that nature has on our bodies. So it has shown that when you're outside, your blood pressure reduces like automatically, which I know that's a huge issue for
00:06:34
Speaker
our country is high blood pressure. It decreases your heart rate. Your muscles relax. I mean, how many of us are just like, oh, I got this knot and like, oh, you're just tense all the time. At least one of us. It's me. It's me, you guys. Yeah. And I thought this was really cool. One study showed that when you hear birds singing,
00:06:59
Speaker
In six minutes, if you've heard birds singing within that six minute timeframe, then your anxiety significantly reduces. And your entire body and your brain shifts into a parasympathetic state, which is, you know, that's the opposite of the fight or flight. That is the relaxation, just your calm. And it's just, it's so cool. Like, that's amazing. Yeah, it has such an effect.
00:07:27
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Wow. I'm turning on bird soundtracks. I was just going to say forever. That's literally all I'm doing. I'm just going to YouTube immediately when we're done recording. I will be finding bird soundtracks. I don't know. She didn't say recording of birds. It might have to be the real thing. You might have to just get some birds.
00:07:45
Speaker
Okay, but this is interesting, though, because so all those benefits. Now, if you partner that with any specific mindfulness exercises or practices that then you do in nature, does that increase which I'm assuming it would the benefits that you're saying? And then are there any tactics or, you know, exercises or practices you like to do in nature when you're with your your groups?
Journaling in Nature for Entrepreneurs
00:08:11
Speaker
Well, I love journaling. I've always journaled since I was like a kid, and it's obviously matured a little bit. You know, I used to do your diary, but now it's different. And actually, when I started my business, I started a business journal because I really wanted there to be a way for me to remember
00:08:35
Speaker
all the things that I had to overcome, all the challenges, all the frustrations. And I wanted to see a way that just see on paper just my growth. And so journaling in nature is one of my favorite things to do. You know, I love just bringing it along, putting it in the backpack, and then finding a really peaceful,
00:08:58
Speaker
place next to especially water. I don't know why I just love journaling next to water and just writing out even like writing out your frustrations or some wins from from this week or you know vision that you have for your business goals whatever. Like I said your brain is so alive in nature that I think pairing that with journaling is that is money. I mean it's it's really powerful.
00:09:26
Speaker
So I don't hear you saying bring your laptop or bring your iPad or journal on your phone. So I'm guessing part of the benefits of nature, you're thinking of it as stop looking at all your screens, right? And use this time to get away from that, like pick up an actual pencil, pick up actual paper.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yes, yes, no, no screens. That is one of my favorite things about being in nature is losing self-perception. I love that. I love just the peace that that brings. And it's like, even if stuff is going on, I don't know. I don't know.
00:10:03
Speaker
But the only thing I will say that I use my phone for is sometimes on backpacking trips, especially when I'm coming home, I notice this, I'll just get a ton of ideas. And you know, it's after a weekend of sleeping on the ground and being really rested. And so sometimes I'm like, Oh, that's a really good idea. So I will take out my phone and on my notes section, I will write a note really fast.
00:10:28
Speaker
You know, so that's the only time that I like have my, you know, I imagine too, we didn't talk about this, but another benefit is because you're going in groups.
00:10:39
Speaker
So there's probably a community, like some communal energy of being in nature that comes into play too. Have you seen that as well? Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, the conversation with, and my groups are women only. And so with women, there is never silence in the best way. Like we're always talking about something. We're always having, you know, and so I get ideas from the women on the trips, just good, you know, energy and encouragement and,
00:11:09
Speaker
It's it's amazing and then I can bounce other ideas off of people it's and then something to that I think is very valuable is we are laughing the entire weekend and you know those those hormones and those chemicals that laughing releases again makes your brain just so alive and so healthy and so just even
00:11:34
Speaker
If we were not to even talk about business or any strategy, anything, just the laughing alone with women is so valuable. It's so healthy.
00:11:44
Speaker
Very healing. Yes, I agree. So I'm curious, when you have women come on these trips, I'm guessing a lot of them are people who don't commonly take time for themselves. And so do you find yourself having to kind of give them a little bit of coaching on how to actually relax and enjoy the experience and stay present? And how do you help them do that?
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, so it's interesting because I kind of try to see what each woman, what her motivation is for coming on these trips because some need to just connect with other women. And so they want to know that they're not alone and they have community and some need to unplug and just have quiet.
00:12:31
Speaker
I have a sort of interview process so that I can get a good idea of like, what do you need when we come on these trips? And so basing that my suggestions off of their answers. So for example, one of the ladies just wanted to de-stress and disconnect and she liked fishing. And so I was like, okay, why don't you bring your fishing pole? Because there's going to be a lake there.
00:12:56
Speaker
and you can go fish till your heart is content you don't have to you know worry about oh i feel rude i'm not with a group like that is your time and then some ways i always suggest you know bring a book because sometimes it rains and we're stuck in our tents and so i always tell them bring a tent activity that you know you will enjoy doing and so yeah just giving them little examples of like bring a book you know if we have
00:13:23
Speaker
we're going to go on a day hike and so if you want to go on a day hike then you know just be prepared for that or if you want to stay at camp and and lay in the hammock then
00:13:33
Speaker
Bring your AirPods technology. I have told women, bring your AirPods if you would like to listen to music while resting or while we're at a hard spot in the mountain climbing up the trail. If you need to listen to some M&M or whatever while you're going up the trail and doing it.
00:13:55
Speaker
So yeah, I think it's, you know, it's personal, right? And I also think that what we're saying here is this time away is actually recharging. So I liked what you said, and I just want to bring it back before we switch topics here to say we're reframing and saying this isn't time, you know, like a negative away from time working on business or time doing something else that we perceive productive in quotes, right? This actually is making us more productive.
00:14:23
Speaker
because it is recharging us and rejuvenating us so that when we get back to, again, in quotes, doing the productive things, we are doing it with more vigor, with more energy, with more insight, creativity, because we took the time, right? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Love what you're hearing? Go from big idea to business owner in five days with our free Be Your Own Boss Bootcamp email course.
00:14:51
Speaker
Or learn how to implement the insights from this show in your existing business with our complimentary guide, Five Ways to Make Business Feel Better. Packed with practical tools and solutions, these resources draw from our collective 15 plus years of entrepreneurship and work with more than 100 clients.
Balancing Full-time Work with Business
00:15:11
Speaker
Visit unboundboss.com to grab your freebies. It's time to make work work for life.
00:15:21
Speaker
Mallory said this a little bit, but we also want to talk about kind of the other side of the coin, which is how you're managing this business while working full time, which is a feat and something a lot of listeners have experienced too. We've all done multiple things at once. And so it sounds like you have some tools that help you stay organized and move your vision forward for the business. So what comes to mind as kind of some of your favorite tools?
00:15:52
Speaker
No, there is. When you're working alongside, even part-time alongside growing a business, you have to be so intentional with where your time goes. And so the first thing I did was hire a business coach. And so having that outside, and that was an investment. It was very expensive. But
00:16:15
Speaker
That was one way for me to be like, just aim and shoot, and it's going to hit the mark because I have a counselor there and a coach. So not spinning my wheels and spending a ton of time Googling and YouTubing things myself, going to my coach and being like, what do I need to do next? So investing in help and in a professional who can take you to where you want to go is, I think, really important.
00:16:43
Speaker
But then also using different business tools, one of my favorite is actually it was developed by my business coach and it's called the master plan. And it is just that it is a master plan that touches on important
00:17:02
Speaker
important action items to help move the needle forward in your business so that you're not spending time on meaningless tasks, busy work. You're doing those things that are critical and that will help you focus and go in the direction that you want.
00:17:21
Speaker
That's one of the main tools that I use still to this day. What format is this master plan? Yes, it's pretty simple. It's on Google Sheets. It's a big Google Sheet. There's little tabs and each tab has a different topic. I open that up daily and I check in with that. It's just provided just a workflow for me to be able to like, okay,
00:17:51
Speaker
We can, and we can, I know we can go through. Yeah, let's talk about it. I mean, because I'm now curious. I'm like, well, what is in this magical document that I need to like hone in on, you know, what areas of focus. So you said there are different tabs and different areas of focus on each one. Do you want to just give us an overview of kind of just what it is if you're allowed to?
00:18:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah, no, I'm allowed to for sure. And she has this and this was something that she developed. And it's a digital download anybody can get and put a link for it. I'm not associated with this plan at all. So I don't get paid for it or anything. I just it is the best. It's $97 the best $97 I've ever spent on my business.
00:18:32
Speaker
It starts off first of just declarations. And these can be anything, like declarations for your business. It's more of like a exercise to just kind of get you in the right mindset of being like, this is what I see for my business. This is what I know to be true. For me, it's just
00:18:55
Speaker
a mix of my mission statement and just the direction that I want to see it going. And so you just start off the day with things that are true about your business and even goals that you have. And then the next tab is a progress tracker.
00:19:12
Speaker
And this is so valuable because I can't tell you how many times I've started a task and then I forget about it and it gets lost in the weeds, it gets lost in the lists, but this progress tracker, you can look at it and I can follow up really easily with a lot of important tasks that I need to do.
00:19:32
Speaker
The third tab is a focus area. So focus for your year. So what's important to you for this year? And this is can not even be business related like family vacation. I really want to take a really nice family vacation this summer. You know, I want less anxiety this year. I want to develop habits X, Y and Z. So what is your focus? What is important to you this year? And then it has quarterly planning so you can look at your entire year
00:20:02
Speaker
quarter by quarter and say, OK, this is where I'm going to work on in this month. For me personally, I have grafted in two months this year and I know exactly where they are, where I will rest. I will take the entire month off. And I already know and I've planned it. And then when those months come, I don't have as much anxiety as like, I'm not getting stuff done. No, this was planned. And it works perfectly with my year.
00:20:28
Speaker
There's a marketing and sales tab, which is so important.
Master Plan for Task Prioritization
00:20:32
Speaker
There's a really simple funnel that she has you walk through of just thinking like, how will my customers meet me? How will I get their information? She just walks you through really simply those really important steps of having a good funnel. And then she has a tab so that you can do your own bookkeeping.
00:20:52
Speaker
And for some businesses, I know this might be a little, a little complicated, but for smaller businesses, I really like to know what my numbers are, what's going out, what's coming in. And it helps me to know, okay, is this product even worth keeping around when I can see the math?
00:21:08
Speaker
It helps me feel like I know what's going on and it helps me feel just more in control of things. She also has a sales pipeline, which is so valuable as well. These are all the people that I've touched base with and she has different ways of putting them into certain funnels of like, okay, this is a product that would be good for them. But again, just a really good tool to keep
00:21:31
Speaker
organized of like, this is who I need to follow up with. And then our last one is putting all your products that you have. And again, just seeing if it's worth keeping a product around, and you can just kind of track your income on a certain product. So in talking about our theme with time, you know, there's some products that you might have and you might be spending time with that you're like, if you can see it on your paper, like this isn't even bringing me in any income.
00:22:01
Speaker
Well, then get that out of there and free up some of that time. It's really powerful to see everything on paper. It probably makes you feel like, okay, I'm not going to go down a bunch of rabbit holes and spend six months on things that maybe are not moving the needle. It is an investment in time. Coaching is an investment in time. Actually using the tools takes time. That could be hard to be like,
00:22:31
Speaker
I got to go in and update the progress tracker. But also, it's probably saving you from an hour later wondering if you followed up with that person or Mallory's episode of workflows and automations. It's like that's what those things you're supposed to do is save you time.
00:22:50
Speaker
just retract the time that you would have spent on something that isn't going to help you get where you want to go, which ties back to that first tab of decorations. Why are you here? Why are you doing this? I think it's a good use of time and a good investment. How have you found that it has benefited you in other ways to keep track of things this way or to not spend time on some of those different paths and stay focused? Has that been a benefit that you've already seen?
00:23:19
Speaker
Yes, I would say the main benefit that I've gotten is it's given me laser focus on the tasks that are most important. I open up a spreadsheet and then I'm like, oh, I forgot to do this. And then I go over and do that. And oh, I got to create that Canva thing. And then I go over it. It keeps me laser focused. And I've noticed that I
00:23:41
Speaker
I end up finishing my tasks for the day way earlier than I used to. So I have this whole massive to-do list and typically I would be working, you know,
00:23:53
Speaker
seven, eight, nine o'clock at night trying to finish all this. But recently I have finished before dinner, which is so valuable for me because then I come downstairs and my husband's like, are you done already? And I'm like, yeah, I got everything done. And we can have dinner together. And then we take the dogs. I could be present during dinner. Yeah. And then we could go outside. Right. Perfect. Let's go to the birds.
00:24:18
Speaker
For six minutes. Yeah, the six minutes, yeah. I've just noticed it's just giving me laser focus and it's skyrocketed my productivity because I'm not getting so distracted. And it's helping me focus on the things that are most important. So I love it. Yes. And what you're describing too is the common
00:24:41
Speaker
You know, path that we all go down is the multitasking and we think it's going to somehow save us time to be doing in things in Canva while we're also posting here or while we're also checking in with this person. And what we found in past episodes like bonus episode the end of last season was getting into a flow state and really mono tasking.
00:25:03
Speaker
That's the bread butter of success. If we could just do one thing at a time, focus on it, get it done, like you said, you could be done by dinner. Done by dinner. The hashtag done by dinner is so true. It's counterintuitive. When I think about it, I'm like, oh, it feels like multitasking is so much more productive, but it's really not. It does. It feels that way.
00:25:29
Speaker
it's not. Well, and it's draining your energy more and then you run out. Yeah, there's there's lots and we've talked about it in a couple episodes. I would like to get your take on do you find or do you feel that time management kind of intersects with decision making? How do you think those two things play against or with each other? Like how long it takes to you decide or like
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Or even, you know, it just seems like as entrepreneurs, right, we have to we have where the buck ends with us, we make the decision on every and everything, right? So how do you think it time management, whether good or bad affects our abilities to be able to be making these decisions?
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it has a huge effect on it because kind of like what you're talking about what you mentioned Mallory is like energy leaking. And so if we don't manage our time well, that is leaking energy. And it's exhausting us so that when important decisions are in front of us,
00:26:31
Speaker
We're like, okay, we'll just do this or do that or whatever. Maybe we're not making the most informed decision or the most energized decision because we're a wreck with our time and we're just flying by the seat of our pants. I think it has a huge effect on it and it's a really important skill to hone.
00:26:55
Speaker
For sure. It feels like what we're also saying is another thing that sounds counterintuitive, but that adding time and taking more time and taking more space may actually save us time in the long run when it comes to some of those tough decisions or when it comes to brainstorming where we want to go with our businesses. When you talk about being out in nature and
00:27:17
Speaker
Hiking a backpack and then it really lights up your brain on your actual business it seems like that's maybe a better use of time if you go hike for an hour. And you just allow your brain to kind of marinate on whatever is going on in your business that may be a better use of time than you sitting in your office for thirty minutes.
00:27:38
Speaker
just staring at a computer screen being like, please solve yourself. I don't know what to do, but my muscles are tightening, my blood pressure is rising. So counterintuitively, I think what we're saying is also there are instances where actually taking more time is better. It's not always about taking less time, right?
00:28:04
Speaker
No, well, I was just gonna say there's a quote and I'm probably gonna butcher it, but it's like something about slowing down to speed up. Oh my God, I was gonna say the same thing.
00:28:17
Speaker
We're on the same wavelength, unbelievable. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Is that where we're going? Similar. I was going to say go slow to go fast. Yes. I think a lot of the time when we have this conversation, it's about saving time and being more productive and doing more with less. I am very guilty of that. Lately, I've been really trying to go the other way and just be like,
00:28:45
Speaker
more time. Just take more time. Take more space with every decision. Like you're talking about this intersection of decision making and time management. I'm like,
00:28:56
Speaker
Do that the other way and just see how that feels, right? If you're someone who's constantly like, I'm going to get this done in less time so that I could rush over here and do this other thing, like come over to my new side and add space to that and add some time. And like you said, your brain will kind of just work on it on its own if you give it some space.
00:29:18
Speaker
I mean, it makes sense, right? How many times are you rushing and then you drop something or you stub your toe or I mean, I'm thinking around the house, right? But same thing in business and you're sending off emails and then you send the wrong thing or you send to the wrong person or you have all these typos.
Decision-making and Productivity
00:29:34
Speaker
So there is something to be said about that quote of going slower to actually be faster in the long run. You're not then cleaning up mistakes. It makes sense if you really think about it.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yes, you're not going back. Yes.
00:29:53
Speaker
You're someone with a full-time job, which I know I keep coming back to you because I think it's very, very hard to do. I did it for a year when I was starting out too, and it's tough. It's tough to do both. If you're thinking about women who maybe employed full-time and they're considering starting a side hustle because either they maybe want to make some additional income or they have a topic that's unrelated to their job that really lights them up,
00:30:21
Speaker
What kind of advice would you give to them based on your experience when it comes to getting started and kind of juggling all the things without losing your joy in starting something new?
00:30:36
Speaker
Remove pressure from yourself. I think I had so much pressure on myself because I think a lot of entrepreneurs are high achievers, high performers.
00:30:51
Speaker
Okay, I got to work full time and I got to do really good at that and then I got to keep my marriage together and then I got to hang out with all my friends and I got to be a good dog mom and you know have my hobbies and it's just remove some of that some of that pressure and for me that looked like not growing my business as fast as I wanted to.
00:31:13
Speaker
For example, I wanted to double my trips this year. I wanted to take twice as many as I took last summer. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to do it. But that was so much pressure. And it was pulling down. It was affecting my marriage. And it was affecting my sleep because I had to work till 10 p.m. at night to get everything. And so when I was like, wait a minute.
00:31:38
Speaker
Who says I have to double my trips? Any amount of growth is growth. Like if I have one more trip this year, or if I have three more clients this year, that is growth and giving yourself credit for that and just being like looking at that and valuing the balance of your life more than being the top achiever, top, you know, whatever.
00:32:06
Speaker
So I would just really encourage women to just remove pressure from yourself.
00:32:12
Speaker
really get clear on like kind of in that master plan, like what is the focus? What do you want to focus on? Like I picked three things this year that I want to focus on and like one of them is my marriage. And so it helps me when I'm starting to like tip over into that like too much work, then I'm like, wait a minute, it's hurting my marriage. Like I need to like refocus here and recalibrate.
00:32:39
Speaker
That would probably be one of my top things that I would say. How do you do that? How do you release that pressure that usually is coming from yourself, in my experience anyway? Well, people do encourage you to grow. That's definitely a thing that happens. But how have you found that you can convince your inner brain to be like,
00:33:03
Speaker
You know what? That's not the goal. Like you said, any growth is growth, and that means personal growth. That means financial. That means time. So how were you able to get yourself
00:33:17
Speaker
kind of pivoted away from like, growth means this, and I will do this this year, whatever it takes.
Reducing Pressure and Focusing on Growth
00:33:24
Speaker
I think having, like I said, having a business coach and having somebody in my ear to recognize things, right, like having an outside person looking in, because
00:33:35
Speaker
She was someone who identified and then like Lauren you have done this and this and this and some of it was like oh I forgot you know I forgot this track of what you're which you've accomplished and what you've done and that's in part why I started a business journal and so having outside help and that doesn't even have to be a coach that can be a friend who's in business to just
00:33:59
Speaker
reminding you where you came from and then just really realizing that you know those clients aren't going away if I don't reach out to them today because I've left it for tomorrow and it's still over and I'm like oh okay okay like time time doesn't go as fast sometimes as I think it does you know I'm like gotta get this done done done done done but then
00:34:27
Speaker
Actually, you have longer than you think to to reach out to somebody or to you know, everybody's so busy It's just really like kind of having to tell your brain Calm down. This is not the end of the world. It will be this work will be there and you know, just just again focusing and really
00:34:48
Speaker
having those focus areas of like, my marriage is more important than my business. And I need to set this work down and do it. So I don't know. I mean, the first year I didn't do a very good job of that, which is why now my marriage is my main focus is. But I had some good people in my corner that just encouraged me in the healthy things.
00:35:14
Speaker
kind of to rebalance my life. My favorite piece of that, I think, for at least this time in entrepreneurs' lives is the acknowledgments of everything that you've already solved. That's where that business journal comes in to remind you that it's not all forward-looking. It's actually worth your time to be going back and saying,
00:35:37
Speaker
Look at all this stuff that I have already figured out. Look at everything I've already done. Look at every trip I've already taken. Look back at these quotes from people who've been in the woods with me and it changed their lives. This is something that I'm also trying to do a better job of.
00:35:56
Speaker
is taking the time to actually reflect on everything that you've already solved. Because so often, the focus, 90%, is everything that needs to be solved. And it feels very urgent. But if you could just look backwards instead and say, you know what, actually, this is probably okay because I've already solved a million and a half things to get here. So calm down. Go outside.
00:36:25
Speaker
Please go outside. I think a couple themes of that came to me, words that popped into my head when you were speaking is trust and abundance. So it's almost like not having to freak out because you didn't send an email and then you're going to lose a client.
00:36:41
Speaker
And so trusting that you are honoring where your energy is for the day and giving yourself grace when you just don't have it or things come up. So kind of that's where the trust comes in. And also then like having the abundance mindset that they will still be there. There will be enough. These clients will come. I will attract the right people versus the scarcity side. Like if I don't do this today, then I'm not going to fill the trips or you know, I'm not going to have the clients. I'm not going to have enough money. I'm not going to hit the goals which are
00:37:09
Speaker
arbitrary goals that we've all made up for ourselves, right? So just remembering if we can have trust and then have an abundant mindset. It's a little bit, it gives back to taking the pressure off, I think a little bit.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, no, it is. That's a really good... I love how you summarized that, Mallory. That's exactly what it is. Just trust and having that abundance mindset of there's plenty. There's more than I could even handle. There's however many billion people on this planet and I can't help all of them, there will be a ton for me to help.
Embracing an Abundance Mindset
00:37:46
Speaker
And reframing how we think about spending that time, when you guys talk about the abundance, that even goes as granular as saying, I have enough time to do this task right now. It can feel like if you have a call at 3 and it's 1, you're like, well, what is even the point of starting something? 12 hours from now, I have to do this thing. So there isn't even any point.
00:38:10
Speaker
I do that all the time. I'm like, well, four hours really isn't going to be enough for anything. Four hours is enough time for lots of stuff. If you go back to what is important and what you're really trying to invest in those focus areas,
00:38:26
Speaker
chances are you could find one thing within those focus areas that can get done in four hours, you know, and just change your mindset to be not there isn't enough time, but like, oh, there actually is enough time all the time to do something that makes me feel better, that makes business feel better. Like there's enough time for that.
00:38:49
Speaker
And something else I thought of is trying to, again, in that theme of removing pressure, being okay with it not being perfect. I think for me, my social media, I'm super consistent with my social media, but man, I can just get down a black hole of being like, oh, I need to move this this way.
00:39:11
Speaker
Nobody knows. Nobody's looking at it. Be okay with not posting something that's aesthetically perfect or you have the perfect caption. People half the time don't even read captions. And so removing that pressure of having it to be perfect, to being like, this is good. This will get my point across. Let's move on. Yeah, it's a good reminder.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah, save the perfection for things that are the most, most important. And everything else can, you know, if there be tasks, they don't have to hit that level, right? Okay, so for our fun closer, before we wrap up today, if you had more time to focus on one thing in your business, what would it be?
00:39:56
Speaker
Oh man, well kind of what we talked about in the beginning, marketing is so important. So I was just telling my husband like, marketing is a full-time job. And that's why it's a full-time job because it takes so much time. So I think, not that I love marketing, but it is so important. And so if I had more time to focus on something, I think marketing would be it.
00:40:24
Speaker
I heard something recently that if you're kind of in the developmental stage of your business, that you should be doing developmental tasks, which I count as marketing, like 80% of your day. And that blew my mind. And I don't know if I really fully, I mean, A, I don't know if people really can hit that goal and B, I don't know 100% if I agree with it. But what I think I agree with is
00:40:48
Speaker
We actually need to be spending more time on it in business development and marketing than we think, unless we're completely maxed out in where we want to
The Role of Marketing in Business Development
00:40:56
Speaker
be. If we're trying to be in a growth stage, we should be spending more time on it than we usually do. It's like a back burner thing. If I get all this done, then I'll do more marketing. It should be the other way around.
00:41:07
Speaker
Well, and I know, at least for me, it's not fun. I was going to say, it's not usually the thing that's your zone of genius, right? It's not why you got in business. You're like, I'm super good at hiking, you guys. But running sales funnels, not really why I got into this. So it's a lot easier to spend your time doing 12 things related to hiking and never quite getting to the point of telling people about your trips.
00:41:35
Speaker
I'd rather be at REI buying gear than at home, you know, being on the phone or emailing back and forth. Okay, I think we've come at this from a few different directions that I really like which is
00:41:53
Speaker
thinking about what it gives both our own health and our businesses to be taking time for ourselves to be getting outside. And that's a big piece of why you started your side hustle. And then the flip side is also how are we spending time within our business?
00:42:10
Speaker
Are we really focused on the right things? Are they things that are getting us closer to the goals that we've set or is it just busy work? I like that we were able to have the two sides of that conversation about time. I think it gave people a lot to think about. Thank you so much for chatting with us and sharing your wisdom. Hopefully, people will go hiking with you in beautiful Montana because they should.
00:42:37
Speaker
Oh, it's the most fun. It is such a good weekend with women and beautiful nature, and it's the most fun. You had Mallory at connection, connection and conversation, and she was like, where do I sign up? But the hiking up the mountain was where I was like, I can hike around it. Do I have to go up? She's like, could we go just around a lake maybe? Yes, that I can do.
00:43:02
Speaker
Well, maybe one day we're going to have like horses or something that will take you up the mountain. Oh, now you have my attention. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now you're speaking my language. Yeah. All right. Well, I think the most we can do is remind ourselves of everything that we've already solved and not grow any faster than it feels right. And just realize that there is enough time. There's enough time for the things that we actually have to get done. So
00:43:28
Speaker
Loved that conversation. Thank you so much. Everyone, we will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Visit UnboundBoss.com to download free resources, browse our courses, or leave us a voice memo for the podcast. If you like the show, please subscribe, leave us an Apple review, and share your favorite episodes with other women entrepreneurs. Talk to you soon.