I have been
listening to the Bizchix podcast a lot.
The latest
and trigger for driving this letter was Episode 310. It was na On Air Coaching
call with Amber Hawley, an inspired woman with multiple ideas and clearly out
of breath in talking about what she wants to do. It resonated with me -
outside the intense family life, the charity - working on vs in the business, the startups,
the coaching, the teaching, the writing, the board seat and oh, the day job, my
current career. So different but yet so similar, especially in that I don't own
a business but then I really do. I run 2 charities with 6 figure turnovers. The
reason it appealed to me, is that Natalie was a star about putting the anxiety
of ‘oh my god what will I do next’ in perspective. There are at least another
40 years of career ahead of me. I don't need to do all my ideas in the next 5
years. Or 10 even. As new ideas will certainly emerge and take the place of the
not so good ones. But there is always an urgency of ‘if not now when’ that we
inevitably put to ourselves. FOMO really.
I have been
listening consistently to the podcast and I have gotten a few realizations out
of it. Every time, it seems that someone is speaking to me and that line could
be directed at me. Funny enough I only started listening to podcasts over a month ago, and I started with BixChix through the power of luck.
This Episode310, was about the importance of stabilizing the ‘current’ business before
launching into new things. I have been putting a lot of effort into stabilizing
the charity, but hiring has really not been successful over the last 6 months.
It is however my top priority to map processes and procedures and consistently
reduce the reliance on the individual hours I put in and allow me to have hours
to put ‘on’, as well as hours for other things, other passions. Sleeping continues to be over-rated for me.
Another
coaching call that stuck with me was Episode 305 with Lorena Kingel. Nothing to
do with the content I must admit. But there was a point when Natalie asks
Lorena about really why she wants to move from large Corporates to working with
small businesses. She explained the importance of reaching more people, plus
the fact that people value and implement advice more in smaller places given
opportunity cost of spending the money on consulting. I has been debating with
B’s question on whether an accelerator/ consultant for SMEs role was really
what I wanted, given, according to him, it contradicted what I have been saying for years that I wanted to "do" something. That explained it. For me
that is doing. And doing it at a larger scale, as I would never the ability to
touch so many businesses if I was doing it on my own. I even played that piece
for my B. Lightbulb moment! And sigh of relief that I was not that much
in the wrong when having those plans.
Finally or
actually shall I say firstly, listening to Natalie has brought my passion much
more to the surface and has actually led me to verbalize it for the first time
(in my last blog). The passion for working with small business owners, work
through their business, see them flourish and progress, bring best practices. I
had never seen myself as a coach (at least as a personal coach) but the
business coaching and really the business challenging, reconstructing,
prioritizing is something I have gravitated towards in the last 5 years. I have
just done it in a large corporation.
With all the blocks it brings, but also the paycheck that comes along.
Listening to these calls has made it much clearer to me that I am certain I
will evolve in this direction - to help small businesses, to help
entrepreneurs, to help drive amazing businesses and ideas. And yes, to drive
women.
Thank you
Natalie
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