Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 34. It's the new year, I'm recording this on the fourth of January 2021. going live on the fifth. So you can see how close I am cutting this. I am not feeling refreshed from the end of the year. I know we talked about how we want to spend our time last time and how I wasn't taking enough time off at the end of the year. And I tried my best to kind of fit that in. But I don't feel refreshed. So let's say that. And I'm feeling like what I'm hearing from all my friends and colleagues and peers is the same kind of thing. Even the people that did take time away from their business this year is just been so overwhelming, even in the ways we didn't realize at first that when you just stop for a minute, you're just exhausted. So I just wanted to start out with acknowledging that because this new year, it's already a doozy. So let's get into this today, some of that exhaustion that we're feeling as small business owners comes from trying to do all the things, keeping all the plates spinning, right. I mean, I know it is for me, I want to do all the things and I always tend to fill any time I have with something else. So you know, if I have some time to rest, I'm probably going to find a new hobby, or, or a good thing to learn or something do. I like to be going going going. But there's a point where you get exhausted, keeping up on the client work, my own business paperwork, planning for the new year working on new offers, getting things built out all of these things, and then actually going through a bathroom renovation, getting presents, christmas, all of that kind of stuff, everything kind of everywhere, which is taxing, and then like an overwhelm of like, holy crap, it's cold. Outside, we're all in this house together. And then you know, I want to see my family. So all of those things that a lot of things I just listed that I feel like I have to keep doing all the time and doing it well. And when one of those plates falls, one of those things gets dropped. I feel like a huge failure. But I am going to tell you something shocking. And something that I tend to forget very often. And my husband Brian has to remind me of constantly. Everything is not supposed to be perfect. And things are supposed to break. In fact, if everything is working so perfectly, you're probably not doing very much. Or you're not doing enough things that will help you grow. You may be doing a lot of things. Don't get me wrong. But when you are doing them and everything is working out perfectly, that probably means you're not trying anything new, you're not stretching yourself at all. So to create new things, you need to figure things out. You need to try things and fail at things. I would like to be perfect at everything The first time I tried. That's just how my brain works. When I started ballroom dance lessons, I wanted to know everything my first lesson, the instructor actually, like said it to me. And I laughed because I know that's me, I want to know how to do everything immediately. I want to be great at it. I'm gonna be great at everything. Which is ridiculous. hearing myself say that it's ridiculous. Of course it is. But that's how my brain works. And I think a lot of you are going to feel like that. We want to know all the things, we want to do it well. And we don't want to look like a fool. We don't want to fail. But that's ridiculous. You have to fail. Because you can't try everything new and be perfect every time. Like there's no way. You can't take up ice skating and do Olympic level ice skating the same week, you got to fall on your touch a bunch of times, so that you learn how to do it. And that's exact same thing that happens anywhere, right? Like anything in our business, we have to learn how to do it. 

The first time we do a Facebook Live, and we try to get out there and get some visibility. It's terrifying. And we're probably gonna suck in the beginning. And then later on after we get really good at it because we've learned how to do the thing. We're gonna look back and be like, holy crap, those first couple of times were a little wonky. Who cares? You have to do the things that are wonky first before you can learn how to do them really well. And this all seems really logical but I have such a hard time getting in my head sometimes. And I think a lot of us do. So I wanted to remind you all, everything is not supposed to be perfect things are supposed to break. That is how we figure things out. Being afraid to try new things and fail keeps you right where you are forever. And I have to think that if you are a business owner, and you have that entrepreneurial mindset, that I want to go and make my own way in the world, you're willing to go out there and try new things. You don't want to just be stuck having someone tell you what to do every day. But then you want to do it perfectly, which doesn't make any sense. I know. I know how you feel. So we we can't, we can't do all the things at the same time well, and telling yourself that you should be able to do all the things well, at the same time, is setting yourself up for failure, you're gonna just feel awful. That's such an incredible standard to set. Like it's not even realistic. And I want you to think about it. Because I don't think that you want it to be realistic. That's kind of crazy. Don't you want to go out there and learn crazy things. And then that feeling of accomplishment when you have finally reached that goal when you finally learned how to ballroom dance, or to cook or anything that's even the software for your business. Right like going in. And finally mastering how to do something, getting your drive set up where you know where all your stuff is, so that you can file your taxes. That's exciting. Like knowing where your stuff is, is great. And that sense of accomplishment like you, you kind of have to not know what you're talking about for a while to get that when I am resisting change because I'm scared. Right? Things are scary. being visible, scary, growing, my team is scary. All the things that can be scary, right? There's all these things that could go wrong. And it's that fear holding you back from going oh, I don't know if I can do it. And I'm finding that called the universe, call it whatever you want to do. 

When everything gets overwhelming, it kind of forces me into the change. So I built my team because I was so overwhelmed with work that I needed help. I kept taking on work because I wanted to grow, right, like, Oh, sure, I'll take that on. And then I was to the point where I was crazy. I was working all the time, I was real cranky. And I needed help. And I started to build my team. The first couple of hires, I've told you guys this. I was sucked at it. I didn't know what questions to ask. I didn't know how to hire people. I didn't know any of it. And I didn't know how to manage people. So I had these ridiculous expectations. No one was ever happy. I wasn't they weren't. And it didn't go well. And I thought, Oh, well, having a team might not be for me. I might just be bad at being a manager. But that feeling, I think it's just normal like you that feeling comes to you. And you have to push past and be like, well, that's ridiculous. Of course, I'm not good at it yet. I haven't done it yet. And then I studied up on these things. I wanted to be good at it. That led me to hiring better people for the job. Those people in the beginning may just not be matched for the job. Maybe I was a crappy manager, who knows. It was not the right setup. And now I have the best team ever. I love them. They've been with me, I love them. They're great. That's a huge change. But I had to go through the yucky part first I had to learn what I was doing wrong. So I knew what to do, right. And that led me to have more capacity to bring on more clients, fearing all of those things and stopping myself when I couldn't grow. And when I was pushed to the breaking point, because I was scared to do it myself. I was scared to go out and be like, Okay, I'm gonna go hire 15 people or whatever. I let it go and I let it go. And I took on more and I took on more. And then I was so overwhelmed that I needed the help. And then they came in and I have more capacity, and then I could grow more. And of course, I did it all over again. Right, I let myself go until I was overwhelmed again. And then I brought on someone else to help. 

Now you would think that I would think ahead next time. And I will give this caveat. There was an enormous amount of influx in August and September that I was not expecting. So I was planning on hiring someone and being the person who was overwhelmed for once but this has been a crazy year. My point is if I didn't move forward into that crazy uncomfortable place, of hiring another person or growing a team of giving work away from that I did for years to someone else. All of those things are scary. But if I didn't do it, I wouldn't grow. And I have doubled my business in two years, less than two years. So those are the things that need to happen, you need to break, it needs to get crazy for a little bit. You think, alright, I'm a planner, right? Like, why would I have planned all this out? A lot of that is mindset. And a lot of that is it was 2020. And I wasn't going to go bringing on more people when I wasn't sure what was going to happen. And in hindsight, of course, I should just hire someone. But you don't always know what's going to happen. And those fears of failure, keep you down. And that's a constant fight, I think, as a new business person, or any business person is that constant fight between fearing what could go wrong, and planning for it at the same time while having these crazy goals and marching through everything. But I also want to say like, I am trying to get out of that fear mentality of waiting to be put in an overwhelming position before I go and get help. I'm trying to not let the universe dictate me. And to be more proactive. So 2021, for me is going to be much more about being proactive and saying, okay, I want to go here, and being brave enough to keep going, instead of having everything forced my hand. The other thing I'm finding is that sometimes when things slip, and you drop something, and don't get it done, it's because you don't really want to do it. Right, we avoid those kinds of things, we avoid cleaning the house or whatever the thing is you don't like to do. And sometimes No matter how much time you have, you say, Oh, I don't have time to do these things. But then you're home for two weeks, and it still doesn't get done. You realize you just don't want to do it. Right? I feel like a failure because I have 10 things on my to-do list that never seems to get done. But yeah, I don't want to do them. So instead of me feeling like a failure, and keeping them on my list for the rest of my life, I could then decide if it really has to be done at all. Maybe it doesn't need to be done. If it does have to be done. Do I have to do it? Or can I delegate this out? And this goes for anything. This is like I used to get groceries delivered before the apocalypse. And I got a lot of weird looks at me like oh, you can't even go to the grocery store yourself. But taking a kid to the grocery store is like a two-hour extravaganza that I just it was it took so much out of me. So I stopped doing it. the greatest thing ever. So there are so many little things that I've just said, You know what, I don't need to do this anymore. I don't need to do it. I'm giving myself permission to just stop doing it. And then there's those other things that maybe your brain is telling you that you don't like keeping your bucks up. You don't like doing it? Right? And we all know we have to do it. We should know our numbers, right? I preach this all the time. You should know your numbers. But Oh, right. Where do you want to go to sit down to do it? You're like, Oh, I don't want to look at these numbers. So if you don't want to do it, but you know what needs to be done, get someone else to do it. Virtual bookkeepers can come in, especially with our businesses. If you don't have like 1000 transactions a day. It's pretty simple. Get those things in the bank feed, they put everything in, they categorize it, they ask you for the questions and your books are done. We have a fantastic bookkeeper on our team. She takes care of all this. And it's fantastic. So instead of me feeling like a failure because I've dropped this 

Again, I can get someone else to do it for me. And then I feel awesome because then I know my numbers and didn't have to do any of it. Pushing yourself is so messy sometimes. It's messy, trying new things is scary. And you're probably going to mess up. delegating things out, they're gonna mess up. Nothing's gonna be perfect. It's gonna be messy. And that is okay. What's not okay, is being so scared that you're gonna fail. That you never try anything fun. You never push yourself. You never grow. I think you have this dream of building your huge business. But you're so scared to actually do any of the things you need to do. Pushing yourself is messy but it's great. It's how I built my business. constantly trying new things constantly learning and it's scary and you're going to be great at it. 

Go out there people, fail at something and then learn how to do it better next time. That's how we're going to build great, great businesses in 2021. I'll see you all next week. Thanks for joining me this week on the Sink Handle podcast. I can't wait to do all of this again next week. Make sure to visit us and Reynoldsobm.com for the show notes on anything we talked about today. If you love or you mostly like the show, please subscribe and rate us on iTunes so we can help more people avoid the Sink Handle.