Episode 140
Navigating Stress and Building a Healthy Business Mindset
In this episode, Val dives into the concept of simplifying your business and the self-imposed expectations that many entrepreneurs face. She challenges the common misconception that successful entrepreneurs manage everything perfectly, highlighting that the reality is often quite different.
Val emphasizes the importance of focusing on core strategies rather than attempting to be the best at every platform or task. By scaling down, she has discovered improvements in both her business outcomes and personal well-being, stressing the importance of prioritizing health alongside professional success.
She also shares her experience in restructuring her business by adopting pillars and focusing on must-do items over an exhaustive to-do list. She outlines practical steps to streamline systems with an emphasis on strategy, simplifying, and empowerment while exploring the value of collaboration and leveraging partnerships.
Through her own experiences, Val demonstrates the benefits of having a clear focus and the courage to discard non-essential tasks, allowing for a more fulfilled and balanced life. Additionally, she touches on the importance of accountability and seeing your list through a critical lens for better productivity and growth.
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Transcript
Hey. It's time to crank up the truth. I'm Val Silvey, and over the
Speaker:decades of working online, I've learned a most important lesson.
Speaker:Mindset owns your business. Procrastination,
Speaker:imposter syndrome, and a lack of focus have been blocking your biz, then I'm
Speaker:here with valuable volume, ready to help you see the choices that
Speaker:you're making. Get ready to own your personality and use
Speaker:your expertise to create the business of your dreams. Now is
Speaker:the time to make changes and live your
Speaker:best life. So let's get to it.
Speaker:Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Alright. We
Speaker:are going to dig in some more to all this
Speaker:whole simplifying that's been at the top of my brain
Speaker:for months, months, months, months, months, months.
Speaker:So I wanna talk about simplifying your
Speaker:business, and this has a lot to do with the BS that's rolling
Speaker:through our head because we've got this idea that
Speaker:we've got this idea that all of these
Speaker:women that we follow, that, you know, big
Speaker:business women, entrepreneurs, they are doing
Speaker:every single thing, and they are fabulous at every single
Speaker:thing. And it's ridiculous that we are telling
Speaker:ourselves this because we know it cannot be true.
Speaker:They don't have more time than we do.
Speaker:Nobody's nobody's making more time. The only way they're making more time is
Speaker:they're hiring out. Right? But that's
Speaker:not how you start out. You
Speaker:don't usually start out with a giant budget that
Speaker:you can set up and, you know, bring in an OBM,
Speaker:online business manager, office business manager.
Speaker:You're not usually coming in with a giant
Speaker:boatload of money that you can set up a full team from the
Speaker:beginning. And then they just beautifully create
Speaker:everything, and you're everywhere. That's
Speaker:not the way it happens. Right? So why are
Speaker:we expecting that we can
Speaker:go through and be the best at Instagram, the best at
Speaker:Facebook, the best at Pinterest, the best at YouTube,
Speaker:that we can be the best course creator, the
Speaker:best one to one coach, the best group coaching coach.
Speaker:Why are we expecting that we can do every
Speaker:single one of those aspects to a
Speaker:% and have it work for us.
Speaker:And and when I say work for us, I mean, because because
Speaker:we're feeling good. Why are we putting that expectation on
Speaker:ourselves when it is complete bullshit? There is
Speaker:no possible way. And I'm getting totally amped
Speaker:up just even thinking of it because I do it too. I
Speaker:absolutely do it as well because I'm like, okay. This is a
Speaker:downtime. Oh my god. I need to do more of the things, and that's why
Speaker:I need to do more of the things. And the crazy thing is that the
Speaker:less I have been doing, the more I have been
Speaker:scaling down, the better everything's been going. The the
Speaker:better for when? I'm gonna go with number one. The better
Speaker:I feel, which is been a super
Speaker:duper duper duper top priority for me because with all of the shit
Speaker:that I've had going on over the last
Speaker:two years, and, you know, even before then,
Speaker:putting my health as a top priority has not been a
Speaker:thing. So I'm I'm unhealthy. I'm
Speaker:my my body is hurting. And
Speaker:and adding more things to my
Speaker:business, to my day just compounds
Speaker:that. Just makes it even worse. Just makes
Speaker:my body just scream to stop. And
Speaker:now I'm listening to it. I'm totally
Speaker:listening to it. I'm healing healing all
Speaker:this garbage that I've I've created within myself with all
Speaker:of the stress. And and it has led
Speaker:to having to simplify
Speaker:things. And it has led to me
Speaker:looking at things in a different light of for automation
Speaker:purposes. Okay? So how many times have we
Speaker:heard the whole okay. If you're doing something three
Speaker:times, then you can probably automate it. You know, I think I opened an email
Speaker:today actually that said that. You can automate it.
Speaker:So, yes, I understand. And that also works for outsourcing,
Speaker:automation and outsourcing. So I understand
Speaker:this in in the
Speaker:back of my brain. I I can understand that. However,
Speaker:my brain wants to put the block up of okay. But
Speaker:I have to go set up the automation, and I've never done that before. So
Speaker:it's just much quicker to just do the thing. And so then I'm constantly
Speaker:doing the thing. I'm doing the thing. I'm doing the thing. I'm doing the thing.
Speaker:I'm doing the thing. And it's
Speaker:it's it it can sometimes
Speaker:be very simple things that,
Speaker:yes, it might only take you five minutes to do,
Speaker:technically, but your brain pulled away from another project. Your
Speaker:brain had to go and open the tabs or find the freaking
Speaker:tabs. 290 tabs you've got open. You know,
Speaker:you had to do all of that. A five minute project never
Speaker:ever ever takes five minutes. That is total
Speaker:BS that we tell ourselves. So
Speaker:one of the top priorities and for myself,
Speaker:I have to check-in. That's why I have an accountability buddy
Speaker:because she could take a look at my list. We share our
Speaker:lists every single day.
Speaker:And and we can take a look. And the act
Speaker:of typing out my list to my buddy is
Speaker:enough usually for me to take a look at it and go, oh,
Speaker:yeah. And and I don't I don't edit it
Speaker:right then and there. I own it. So I make sure
Speaker:that she sees it. And I will usually put something down at the bottom
Speaker:or at the top. I go, okay. This is freaking ridiculous.
Speaker:And I know that it is ridiculous, but here's what my
Speaker:brain told me I was going to do today. And and I check
Speaker:into that, because because a lot of the time, if
Speaker:I change it, then it doesn't really
Speaker:compound into my head of how ridiculous I'm getting on my list.
Speaker:And and, you know, it's happening
Speaker:right now. So, you know, this episode's
Speaker:going out. If you go to the website, the website's not showing
Speaker:right now. And that is why my to do list is
Speaker:monster monster right now is because
Speaker:I'm moving the website, and I've been in WordPress
Speaker:for twenty years. It was it was twenty years
Speaker:in December. It was you know? So exactly
Speaker:twenty years. And I'm moving into
Speaker:Systeme.io, and, I love it. I
Speaker:do love it. It's a different way
Speaker:of managing and maneuvering stuff. So my my brain
Speaker:I've had to tell my brain to chill out and stop freaking out that
Speaker:this will be easy. It's just different,
Speaker:and old dogs can't learn new tricks. But if you want
Speaker:to switch to Systeme.io, let me know. Sign up
Speaker:through my affiliate link. I will put the information in there, but I do have
Speaker:templates that will help you look gorgeous when
Speaker:you switch over. Okay? So the the big
Speaker:thing is, though, everything has to be recreated.
Speaker:So it doesn't matter that I had the WordPress, and I had all of those
Speaker:pages. And, damn, it feels good for those
Speaker:pages to be gone. There's a 47 pages in there, you guys, with because
Speaker:of all the events and everything. So
Speaker:not every page, obviously, was ever going to move over because it didn't need
Speaker:to. But I have gone over, and I'm creating
Speaker:every single page from scratch with in a template, but, you know,
Speaker:copy from scratch, brand new. And that
Speaker:feels amazing. But every time I come up against a page, all
Speaker:of a sudden, I'm like, oh my god. Because there's three or four more pages.
Speaker:Right? There's like, oh, okay. This page originally linked
Speaker:linked to this, and then it linked to that. And my brain is just like,
Speaker:what did you do? What did you do to yourself?
Speaker:And so I have to sit, and I have to just calm down. And I'm
Speaker:like, alright. What are the things that must
Speaker:get moved? What are the must dos? Not
Speaker:the to dos. We can create
Speaker:the most we love to stack
Speaker:our to dos. Right? We can, like, put everything on there, and
Speaker:we'll, like, hopefully wanna do this within ten years. So we'll put that on the
Speaker:list. I am really focusing on
Speaker:the must dos. And
Speaker:believe me, my body, like, brain,
Speaker:body, full block. Right? Because I'm looking at this going, but
Speaker:you had everything, and it was all and it was all connected. And
Speaker:it should all be connected again when you relaunch. And I was like, nope.
Speaker:Nope. It's not going to be. It's just not going to
Speaker:be. It will be very, very basic.
Speaker:And then and this is where I'm we're amping myself up.
Speaker:Then I get to add more to it, and I get to
Speaker:start fresh. This is a fresh start for me,
Speaker:with bundle bash. Starting fresh, and I will
Speaker:have new data because I will know that I went
Speaker:100% into one
Speaker:thing. Say we're look at me circling back around.
Speaker:I'm circling back around till we're sticking to
Speaker:something. And the reason we want to stick to something
Speaker:is because we need data. So if
Speaker:if we're putting bits and pieces all over the place, it's really tough to get
Speaker:data because you know that you didn't go all in on
Speaker:one thing, on giving one thing a try.
Speaker:So one of the one of the reasons why I can help
Speaker:others with their through accountability is because
Speaker:I'm constantly testing myself with my own
Speaker:rules. Doing air quotes, rules. I'm I'm
Speaker:constantly having to look at my list and go, okay,
Speaker:ding dong. It's not gonna take you're not gonna be able to
Speaker:do three sales pages in one day. My brain tells me
Speaker:I should be able to. I've been doing this a really long time. Why the
Speaker:hell can't I? And I was like, no. I cannot
Speaker:create three sales pages, like full sales pages I'm talking
Speaker:about. Not talking about just little opt in page. I'm like, there
Speaker:are times where that's on there, and that is a wish list.
Speaker:That is not a must do list.
Speaker:So I love to work
Speaker:with entrepreneurs and help them get their
Speaker:list under control. You know, this is one of the
Speaker:things that hasn't moved over. But if you are interested in accountability
Speaker:coaching, I do it over email. It's a
Speaker:everyday email. You put your list in there. I am not judging
Speaker:your list at all because I teach you to judge your list.
Speaker:By the end of thirty days, you will be able to look at your list,
Speaker:and you will have so much stuff figured out that
Speaker:that then all of a sudden you're creating your list and you know. You're like,
Speaker:that's that was ridiculous. And you can just pay attention to the flags
Speaker:as well. You'll start knowing what your flags are for
Speaker:your red flags are for your own list. So I love, love,
Speaker:love doing the accountability. It's just
Speaker:it's just it's quick. It's emails. We're all in our emails. So it's email in
Speaker:the morning, email at night. Anyways okay. So must dos.
Speaker:Bringing that to do list back down to a
Speaker:must do. And
Speaker:paying attention to what strategy are you going to
Speaker:use and really, really use it. Now for
Speaker:example, I'm really
Speaker:focused on branching out with the podcast.
Speaker:And how can I use it for the reach, which is
Speaker:the reason I created this? You know? Well okay. Second reason. First reason was
Speaker:I was gonna explode if I didn't start talking again on a podcast. Second reason
Speaker:was I wanted to use this for marketing reasons. Well,
Speaker:I didn't have enough of a
Speaker:marketing plan in place. And I didn't have,
Speaker:well, I didn't have my awesome designer at that time either who goes in
Speaker:and creates the most gorgeous stuff and
Speaker:the coolest, like, reels and stories. You guys,
Speaker:if you see that stuff on my in on my Instagram or the
Speaker:Facebook, just know Kathleen did it. It was
Speaker:not me. Doesn't she do amazing stuff for me? She makes me
Speaker:look so good. I love it. I love it. But I didn't have that until
Speaker:recently. Right? And that's what I'm talking about. We need
Speaker:other people to help us to do everything
Speaker:when when we're trying to focus on too many things. So so I'm focused on
Speaker:the podcast. I want to grow the reach with the podcast
Speaker:and get the podcast focused, which
Speaker:in turn, I also wanna combine with
Speaker:the YouTube because I'm putting the stuff on. I'm putting
Speaker:videos on YouTube when it's in. So that
Speaker:means if I'm doing that, yes,
Speaker:Instagram and Facebook are getting posts
Speaker:because I'm I'm putting the podcast stuff on
Speaker:there. But I'm not going into Instagram
Speaker:going, okay. I need to grow my Instagram. I need
Speaker:to go and reach more people with my Instagram. I am not doing
Speaker:that. Instagram is not my focus.
Speaker:My podcast is the focus. I'm just going to be using
Speaker:the social media to bring people to the podcast.
Speaker:Hopefully, that makes just a little bit of a sense.
Speaker:You know, and and I think that that's that is a big reason why we
Speaker:end up going down the rabbit hole of we have to do all of the
Speaker:things is because it's like, oh, but if I'm over here at
Speaker:Instagram, then I may as well just, like, put up some more posts, and then
Speaker:the rabbit hole just goes.
Speaker:Right? Because now all of a sudden, you're not working on what you should be
Speaker:doing because now you are off creating five
Speaker:new posts for Instagram that are gonna go up there.
Speaker:Well, CRUD. Those may as well go to a blog post. So now I've gotta
Speaker:do a blog post. Make any sense? Is this what you've done
Speaker:to yourself every any once in a while?
Speaker:At all? Just me? Just me and my squirrel brain.
Speaker:So I'm being very intentional, and I'm really working
Speaker:on sticking to a strategy, which I have
Speaker:sat down with ChatGPT and worked out strategies
Speaker:to try and help me stay
Speaker:in line. Because if I'm working if I'm working
Speaker:with Chatty, then it's so much easier for me to
Speaker:just start narrowing things down. And then I look at it, and then I'm like,
Speaker:okay. Val, you created this. Yes. You had help, but
Speaker:you created this, and you are going to stick to it.
Speaker:We're gonna ride this out for a little bit, and everything needs
Speaker:to focus on this. And if other stuff come in
Speaker:comes in, it needs to be a not right now. You know, I just
Speaker:had a I just had a a not right now happen
Speaker:right before I got on recording because I looked at my emails, and somebody wanted
Speaker:to come in and and have a a conversation. You know, they're a a
Speaker:joint venture manager. And my brain instantly is just
Speaker:like, oh my god. Yes. We haven't caught up in forever. Who are you working
Speaker:with? You know, I need to get I need. I need. I need. And I
Speaker:I sat there, and I was like, okay. Now
Speaker:is the worst time because anything that I would set up, I don't have time
Speaker:to follow through on. So I would look like an idiot not being able to
Speaker:follow through on stuff. So I just was honest. So I said, hey. I'm
Speaker:moving the website, and I've got a big launch coming up. You know? Can you
Speaker:hit me up again in April? And, of course, she's just like, yeah. Let's do
Speaker:it, you know, kinda thing. And I'm like, okay. That felt
Speaker:good, but I wanted to jump in on it. Right? I wanted to do it
Speaker:right then and there. So I am totally getting off
Speaker:topic. Let me go back to my notes. Yes. I do have notes for this
Speaker:one. So I've been
Speaker:working with I know I'm a little late to the the pillar party, I
Speaker:guess. I guess pillars are not even a thing anymore, but I just
Speaker:leaned into them recently. So I'm doing pillars in
Speaker:my business because all of a sudden, it made sense,
Speaker:and it's helping me stick to this is
Speaker:what we're doing, Val. This is our direction,
Speaker:Val. It's when I took my my simple acronym,
Speaker:and now that is and I I don't have it I don't have it
Speaker:written down. Let me see if I can get it on my head. Strategy, simple,
Speaker:implement, mindfulness, p
Speaker:is productive, l is leverage, and e
Speaker:is empower. Okay. I think I nailed it.
Speaker:It's only the I that I'm not so sure about.
Speaker:But I started really looking at that, and it's like, okay. I'm gonna
Speaker:pay attention to those six, and I'm gonna call them pillars. Maybe we
Speaker:can just name them something else. I don't know, but why. Let's just call them
Speaker:pillars. I don't care if it's I don't care if it's out of date. Who
Speaker:cares? So I've got those, and then I'm like, okay. How can I condense
Speaker:it so it's even even simpler?
Speaker:So I've got, the collaborate and grow. I've
Speaker:got three, and I don't have them here in front of me, but I have
Speaker:three pillars that we're gonna stick
Speaker:to for that. And that's gonna help me
Speaker:really focus on, okay, these are the three this is this is a
Speaker:natural progression that I want to help the members through. So
Speaker:the reason I'm saying this and talking about pillars is
Speaker:because it is helping me mark mark
Speaker:out road map out what
Speaker:I want to lead my members
Speaker:and my community to. And this is
Speaker:important because you have users. You have you have
Speaker:clients. You have, a community,
Speaker:and they don't know what they don't know.
Speaker:So if you can come up with some pillars of your
Speaker:own that you are going to naturally lead them
Speaker:through with within your
Speaker:expertise, of course. This is going to set you up. These
Speaker:are the people that we're usually attracted to for coaches. Right? Because all of
Speaker:a sudden you've got, oh, this is this is the plan.
Speaker:Okay. I like it. You just spelled it out. You know,
Speaker:it's it's what we're attracted to because we're attracted to the simplifying, you
Speaker:know, idea. So
Speaker:some of the the three big things are for me are, you know,
Speaker:strategic income, knowing where my income's going
Speaker:to come from and what I'm focused on,
Speaker:streamlined systems. You know? So so running a
Speaker:business that's going to support me, going to
Speaker:support you running that business so it is
Speaker:streamlined. And when I say support you again,
Speaker:right back to that when I started off with at the beginning, I wanted to
Speaker:support you monetarily
Speaker:and mindfully. I want your health to
Speaker:be supported as well. And I say that
Speaker:specifically because I have ran my body into the ground
Speaker:because all in the I'm working on my business. It's
Speaker:like, no. The stress of never ever turning it
Speaker:off. You know, I've I've got I've
Speaker:got my watch now. My watch tells me, okay. Guess what?
Speaker:Yesterday sucked. Your heart rate was horrible and and
Speaker:and horrible for me. Just it it it was elevated. It was not in
Speaker:my ideal spot that I was supposed to be in. And
Speaker:not that it wasn't in the ideal spot, but it was out of the ideal
Speaker:spot a lot, you know, give or take a little bit. Of
Speaker:course. That's stressors. It's we're human. We're human. We got
Speaker:stressors. But if it's out a lot and it's, like,
Speaker:giving me the notice the next day of, hey. You need to work on
Speaker:this. Then I have to pay attention. Okay. What
Speaker:was I doing and not doing? How was I not taking care of myself? How
Speaker:many days has it been since I've gone for a walk? A lot of
Speaker:days right now. So, yes, I'm talking from experience right now.
Speaker:I have to keep up on my health. When I keep up on my health,
Speaker:when my systems are more streamlined,
Speaker:so I know things are working better and
Speaker:smoother, then I am
Speaker:more apt to get my ass out of this chair and
Speaker:go for a walk and take care of my health or, you know,
Speaker:do any any other things or set my time
Speaker:so that I sit and do a meditation.
Speaker:All of those things. If I'm feeling like I have to
Speaker:do all of the things and they all have to be done right
Speaker:now, I will not set time for that because my my
Speaker:brain will tell me we don't have time for this. So
Speaker:another reason why getting systems in place
Speaker:one by one is so
Speaker:key to being happier and happier in your business.
Speaker:And then, of course, of course, of course, collaborative growth is always
Speaker:gonna be a big thing. So leveraging those partnerships instead of going it
Speaker:alone because we're not ever going it alone ever.
Speaker:Never ever ever.
Speaker:Never. Did you hear? You have never ever worked in your
Speaker:business alone. And and I
Speaker:I like to harp on that lately because
Speaker:we've we've just held on to that solopreneur
Speaker:badge of honor for so freaking long
Speaker:that it's hurt
Speaker:us. And there's never
Speaker:been a time that we were
Speaker:only working by ourselves. Not a single
Speaker:time. You know? I was talking about this. I was talking about this in a
Speaker:community yesterday. It was like, there's never
Speaker:a time that any business is ever working
Speaker:alone because we have platforms that
Speaker:we use, and those platforms have
Speaker:customer service that we can reach out to. Those are
Speaker:people that help us not work alone. We
Speaker:have graphics programs that
Speaker:we need use to use. We are following people. We
Speaker:are even if it's free in communities, we are
Speaker:reaching out in communities. We are not doing
Speaker:things alone. But the moment that we
Speaker:start thinking that we're doing things alone is when a lot of the
Speaker:shutdown happens. So just pay attention when
Speaker:it pops into your head, solopreneur, doing it
Speaker:alone, just pay attention to why did that
Speaker:pop into my head? What is it what is it all about?
Speaker:Am I holding it onto a ridiculous badge for some reason?
Speaker:Do I feel like I have to do it alone? That
Speaker:could be another thing. Do I feel like I have to do it alone? There's
Speaker:been a lot of times where I've gotten so wrapped up into things that that
Speaker:I didn't reach out, and it would have been so much easier to reach out,
Speaker:or I'd reach out to the wrong places. How many times have have you? I
Speaker:know I have done it way too many times. I'm having a problem within
Speaker:a certain a certain platform, and I reach out
Speaker:to my business group people instead of reaching out to the
Speaker:platform itself. You know how fast customer service can
Speaker:help you in a certain platform that that's all they do
Speaker:when you have an issue? It's like lightning fast. It's
Speaker:ridiculous. It's ridiculous that it was not my go to for
Speaker:way too long. It was, yeah. Weird.
Speaker:Weird. Weird. Weird. I I own it. It was weird. So
Speaker:leveraging partnerships and paying attention to when you think of it, you
Speaker:are doing it alone. Just look for it as a as a red flag.
Speaker:You know? And we're gonna be taking so I'm bringing this
Speaker:up because we're gonna be taking all of this stuff.
Speaker:And, this is what the optimize and align
Speaker:sprint is going to be about. It's coming up here in
Speaker:a couple of weeks. This is this is going out. This
Speaker:is the fourth. So, yeah, it's coming out in a couple of weeks. And we're
Speaker:gonna go through, and we're gonna sit together as a
Speaker:group, have workshops. It's basically a two
Speaker:day retreat. And we are gonna go through in piece by
Speaker:piece, work through, and update things,
Speaker:make them beautiful for you, make them a little
Speaker:bit more beautiful for you depending how you are on graphics. But we're
Speaker:going to go through all of the pieces, the major pieces of
Speaker:business. And we're going to sit there and figure out, okay,
Speaker:what is something that could just, like, go sit over here for a little while?
Speaker:What is something that could that needs to be a top priority,
Speaker:and let's go all in on it. Let's make that a freaking funnel
Speaker:that is just, like, blowing our minds so that
Speaker:we are marketing the heck out of it.
Speaker:I'm getting too excited about stuff.
Speaker:Actually, I'm gonna have to come back to this. Damn it.
Speaker:Stop.
