Habits, Solopreneurship, and Collaboration

Val:

Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello? Oh my gosh. So much going on. There's so much going on. It's spring. I'm let's see. This is episode 97. Can you believe it? 97. So close to 100.

Val:

I really I really probably. Really? Probably. Yeah. Really? Probably. I need to look ahead and see what in the world am I gonna do for 100, But not today. Not today. Today, I have things flowing through my brain because there has been so much going on. There's so much growth.

Val:

There's so much change. My my mind is going, this and this and this, and I've got people working on this and this and this. And how come I can't get instant stuff back to me when I've got these amazing designers doing stuff for me? I'm like, I but I want it yesterday. I want it yesterday. So I'm really working on chill. I have not been been very good. I'm gonna fess up. I have not been very good at not working on the weekends.

Val:

I'm going to be paying attention to that because I know I will burn out. I also know that I only have a few weeks left before my husband and I run away to Mexico for our 30th anniversary. So a lot of this stuff doesn't need to get done. Right? And I'm going to not do anything in Mexico. So this is this is me rationalizing working on the weekends. It's like, well, you're gonna have all that time off, so it's okay right now. It's like, but that's how my bad habits start. That is how my poor habits start of, oh, well, it's okay.

Val:

's what I was doing before in: 2020

Val:

And, you know, I was I replied to somebody's email today, marketing email. By the way, that's collaboration number 1. Start right there. If somebody sends you a marketing email and you feel called to answer the question that they're asking, do it. It's the easiest way to connect with people and start collaborating. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel.

Val:

Squirrel. Anyways, she was also talking about that she was talking right to me, honestly, because she's just like, okay. So I have this personality where if you tell me that I need to do this or read that or all of that, I don't want to. I replied, same. Same. I'm like, ick. My brain, irrationally, just instantly wants to do whatever the opposite is. Not in a, like, if you tell me not to clean my room, I'm going to clean my room.

Val:

Not in that way. Not in that positive way whatsoever. But if you tell me that this is the way I have to do something or this is the only way or, you know, I think it's the absolute, especially, my brain instantly goes fuck you, and I'm going to do the opposite of whatever you just said. And it doesn't even matter if it's to a detriment. It's my brain just goes, nope. I refuse. Nope. You know? Luckily, I am learning to just like, okay.

Val:

Trigger. Stop. Opposite might not be the right thing to do or even consider doing. How about we play adult? And we think about this before we just let our instant emotion go. No, You suck. It's wrong. You're telling me I have to do it that way, and that is always gonna be wrong if you tell me I have to do something. I'm aware.

Val:

I'm aware, and I do work on it, but it is also a huge part of my personality for good. I'm now at this point of recognizing using it for the good because there was so many decades where I made attention to this coach, this mentor, this, that. And, I mean, late you you are listening here. You know I've been uncoaching all of the decades of BS, and that is definitely why I do it. My brain is just like, you're telling me that this is the only way to do it. I call bullshit. My brain is now telling me I call bullshit. There's probably going to be another 100 different ways to do this.

Val:

And why do I have to believe that yours is the only way? So, you know, rebel, I guess. I don't know. Spoiled brat. I'm not a spoiled brat for sure. But, I mean, I've always been this way, always. My family said I was born bossy. Okay? So it's it's just a thing. And there's been so many times where it hasn't been a good thing.

Val:

It's been an extreme thing, right, where I had I had to have full control because if because if I didn't have full control, then I just I mean, honestly, if I sit here right now thinking, think, think, think, I had to have full control because if I didn't have full control of all of the outside stuff, then I had to start dealing with the inside stuff. Right? So as I started dealing with the inside stuff, I didn't have to have so much control. And we are going to freaking squirrel now. I can feel it. I mean, we already have, but, this all started because of habits. So I'm reading the Atomic Habits book, and it's just it's leading me down this, pathway of thought about entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, all of this that we do for ourselves. And it's making me think back to well, I mean, it it's making me think back because, of course, you know, I've been I've been online for over 20 years now. I've been working online over 20 years.

Val:

And solopreneur for a really long time, it didn't it wasn't negative. It was just like we were proud. We were proud. We're solopreneurs. We're doing it. We're creating things. I mean, there was we were doing stuff without systems, without online organization. I mean, 20 years ago, these these are the people that I came into the internets with, and they are the ones that created so much of that stuff that we use because we needed it, because we didn't have it.

Val:

So those people were creating that stuff. I didn't create apps and stuff like that, so I can go in there, obviously. Obviously, I didn't. But it it's become solopreneur, so I really wanna focus on solopreneur, and how it how it it, like, hit in my head when I was reading Atomic Habits, or Atomic Habits is being read to me. I I really like the audiobooks. I'm really digging that. So let's go with the Merriam Webster's dictionary of what solopreneur is. It's not a negative whatsoever.

Val:

It's one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise without the help of a partner. It's a solopreneur. You're not in a partnership. And so many of us are that way. Right? We don't have a partner. We are running as a solopreneur. Totally. That's not a negative.

Val:

There's nothing negative about it. In my opinion, solopreneur has taken on this, like, badge of bullshit, like side hustle and the word hustle. It's taken on this whole, I can do it myself, and I will, which is fine when you need to. I mean, there's plenty of times that we can't afford a freelancer or or people to bring in. And and I'm open to having employees, but I realize that that is like a whole new ballgame of bringing on employees. Right? But I'm open to that. But there's that grabbing a hold. Okay.

Val:

So let me tell you how it was for me. Grabbing a hold of solopreneur meant I had to have complete control of everything at all times. I couldn't even unclench to work with anyone. And I mean work with anyone as in to bring in somebody for social media, as in to bring in this, because I was so clenched into I have to have control of every aspect. And when you feel that way because you're the solopreneur, you are solely responsible for your business, and you aren't willing to have conversations and bring other people in, then you're you're really stifling your growth. Right? You are for 1, you're not gonna grow internally whatsoever because you can if you're doing every single task and way more tasks than you need to be doing because you've been told that this is how I gotta do it, and so this is the way I will do it. You're adding so much to your plate that you don't have time to work on a lot most anything. Right? You're you're, like, internally, you're just going through every single day exactly the same.

Val:

d me to burnout at the end of: 2020

Val:

So I got caught in my bad habits. 100% caught in my bad habits. And like I said, I'm I'm aware that that habit is showing up right now, and this is exactly why I was obviously led to click play on atomic habits because I can feel that my some of my poor habits are popping back in, and I don't want them to. So I I'm looking for the the, the outside guidance. Oh, okay. So I do know all of these no. I do know a lot of these things. I'm aware of these triggers that I'm having.

Val:

How can I how can I maybe attack it different? How can I look at it differently? And that's totally different. Usually, I'm just like, oh, I have to do this all by myself. I have to do this, and I will figure this out. And don't don't anybody. You don't know. You don't know me. So the the one thing that was popping up for solopreneur for me now, like I said, it's it's just feeling like this badge of. It feels like a huge weight now.

Val:

Like peep people are using solopreneur as a excuse for they can't get people to help them in their business, I think, as an excuse to have that super tight grip on every single aspect. And when James Clear was talking, he mentioned that, you know, of course, think about it. We are pack animals. You might think that you're a solopreneur and doing everything on your own, but you're not. We're humans. We're humans. And if you are working online, you are in a country that luckily has that technology. You're not in charge of your technology.

Val:

You're not in charge of your platforms. I mean, just even shipping. If you're shipping stuff, every step of our business has something else in there. So I want you to think of that. So you're saying if if you're stuck in this, if you are, like, holding on to the solopreneur badge as I can do everything with my damn self, Pay attention to the fact that you're not. You already are not doing everything yourself. You know? You're not hand coding your website. Hell, even when I was hand coding my my website, I still had hosting.

Val:

Somebody else was in control of my hosting. I still had a platform that I was coding in. You know? I wasn't, like, on DOS. Somebody's brain just fire flew out of their brain. She said DOS. I did, and I'm instantly picturing the whole, not quite black and orange. Squirrels. Pay attention, and I am going to, like okay.

Val:

Let's even talk about the fact that, you know, we've got business doesn't succeed without others. Nobody's does. So let's take it, like, super simple analogy. We have for a long time, we've had farmers. Farmers are too busy farming to mill the wheat, so we have millers. Millers are too busy milling the wheat to be bakers. So we have bakers. They can't bake the bread, so we have bakers.

Val:

Bakers are too busy baking to do deliveries to get their products out there to even more people. So we have delivery companies, and we have grocery stores. We always need somebody to collaborate with in our business. Always. Always. Always. Always. We need to pay attention to the fact that as humans, we collaborate.

Val:

We collaborate on everything without a thought. But it seems like so many, and I will put myself back in there, past past me. So many of us are taking a look at it, and we're like, we're gonna do it ourselves. We're gonna go figure this out, which is why one big reason why I have bundle bash because it's what I've been doing for so long of talking to other people and working with other people and finding out their expertise and and not even knowing that that was not normal. And now I want to make sure and bring it around for it to be normal. Absolutely normal. There's no such thing as competition. You have no competition.

Val:

You don't. You can have 2 products named exactly the same with similar information in there, you know, 2 workshops. But if you put your voice in your workshop, there's no way that it can be the same as that other person's workshop. There's just no way because you bring your expertise in. You bring your voice. You bring your past experiences in there. It's always going to be different. It's competition.

Val:

Those are probably the best ones to bring in. Honestly, I have connected with other event coordinators. And as I've done that, those have been the best collaborations because there's so many there's so many themes and top but I probably know somebody who will. So when I have my clients, I have my members, and they are specifically looking for something, if I can't fulfill that event for them, I know somebody who will, or I know somebody I could reach out to and say, hey. Have you heard anything? We're not in competition. You know? So so think of think of letting go. What does the word solopreneur do when you say it to your body? What's your brain do? You know, like I said, it's changed. The word has changed over the years, and I feel like it's that that side hustle and hustle.

Val:

I feel like it's that hustle badge is is attached to solopreneur now, and I don't like it. I'm actually I I don't think I'm even writing. I don't think I'm even talking about myself for a little bit. Habit? I don't know. I don't think I really care about analyzing it, really, honestly. Because, yes, I am a solopreneur. I I run the company at the top level by myself. I don't I no longer feel like I need to do every single aspect.

Val:

In fact, it easily hit the point immediately that I knew I could not. I knew I could not hit my goals at all if I was trying to for years because I wasn't hitting my goals. So pay attention. Pay attention to what the word solopreneur is making you feel, like, shoulders up? Or you're like, yeah. I'm a solopreneur. That's cool. Don't worry about the word, Doug. But if the word solopreneur makes you just, like, clutch, take a look.

Val:

Sit down. Write out why what you're feeling is, what it made your body do when when you thought of the word solopreneur. Say the word out loud even and be like, oh god. You know? Is it triggering something? Is it what's the thought that immediately comes into my head? You know, pay attention. Pay attention to how you're feeling about it. And then, hopefully, just turn it into the right word. Turn it back into what it is. It's you owning your own business that you don't have to do everything because there's no possible way to do that.

Val:

So I super squirreled. I'm super squirreled. Okay. So solopreneur, pay attention to how that is making you feel, but also go remember that you need to collaborate. I don't care if you're running your business as the top on your own. I am as well. I am highly aware. I'm not gonna do my business by myself.

Val:

And that's not even talking about freelancers. That's talking about me communicating with other people on the nets. Me connecting with other people on the nets. That is me daily daily doing that, and not just because of my business, not just because that's what I do at Bundle Bash. Doing that even for, well, I I even just reached out to somebody that I've taken some programs, and I was looking through her about page. And, she has a couple of certifications, so I just even reached out to her because I was I'm feeling the need to go get a new certification. I haven't gotten one in a year and a half, I don't think. I think it's been a year and a half.

Val:

Mean, I've I've done a lot of self work and gone through a ton of stuff, but, I just want I want a new certification. No rhyme or reason, really. Just I do. My last certification was for, collaboration project management. Not project management, but, you know, collaboration. I'm certified. I'm a serve certified collaborator. That was the last one, and that was a really long time ago.

Val:

So I'm feeling the need to do that. So I'm reaching out to people who are technically technically competition because they're doing that. Right? It's like, that's okay. That's okay. Because they're gonna do everything no matter what certification. I'm gonna do it different, especially with that whole thing in my head of, don't tell me what to do. I just I'm gonna always do it different. Period.

Val:

The end. That's a positive. Okay. Won't take a deep breath. Hopefully, I didn't talk way too fast on this one today. I have a feeling I did. I already told you. Just feel it.

Val:

Just feel it. How are you feeling at the end of this? You know, what's what's flowing through your head? You can always reach out. Okay? Always reach out. You can find me on you can find me all over on the Internet, but, you know, reach out. Send me a line. What are you doing? How are you feeling? How'd this episode make you feel? And if you're so inclined, please go and leave a review over on one of the platforms for me. Thanks. I will chat at you next week.