Quarantine Slump? Time to Reflect, Renew & Realign!

Get ready, because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right on Time life. And you are listening to the Right on Time podcast with Amber McHugh. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Right on Time Podcast. I'm your host, Amber McHugh, and we are going to be digging in today to the current state. What is the current state? A little bit of productivity, a little bit of getting clear on where it is that we want to be going and some insights and some recommendations and some lessons learned I have to share with you about that. And then a little bit of what this means for me and some ahas that I have recently had too. So some behind the scenes. It has been a minute since I have sat down with you and there is a reason for that. In fact, it was Monday of this week that I realized my productivity was terrible. I had lost all gains in any productivity I had had. And I went into our quarantine situation. Actually, when we returned from Ethiopia in mid March, I went into quarantine and I was like, I was born for this. I was so crazy productive. And I looked at my personality type like, yeah, you can thrive in quarantine. Then about four months in, I realized my productivity was plummeting. It was going down, down, down, down, down. As I sat down on Monday, I had to ask myself, what has happened here? What has happened? I was unbelievably productive. I was doing a lot of work. I was getting a lot of good work done under very challenging circumstances that we have all experienced and, and gone through in what is the year of 2020. And I realized that ever since we moved into our sixth and final house of 2020, we are in the place where we are going to be for the rest of this year and likely longer, but the place that we're at least going to be through the end of this year. And I had been working from the kitchen table. And ever since we moved into this location, because we don't have furniture, we moved out of Ethiopia a bit quickly and a bit unexpectedly. And all of our stuff is still sitting in our house in Ethiopia waiting to be packed, waiting to be moved, waiting for all of those arrangements to be made. And as you can expect, things are moving a little bit slow with everything that's going on. And that's perfectly fine. We borrowed a couple of beds from my mom. We got some furniture from the owners of this house. They left a couple of things for us and we now have. We moved ourselves in. But I didn't have a desk yet. I didn't have a dedicated space to work and I can work from anywhere. If you are watching a part of this episode right now, you can see that I am sitting on the floor in a bedroom and my mic is propped up on the bed and I make it work. However, I need to have a door with a lock because the children know, they just know who to ask. Apparently they know who to come to when they need things. And I realized that for the last month I have been sitting and trying to do my work at the kitchen table and then I'd move to the island and. And then I might move to the living room space when they were using the kitchen and I needed some quiet space in the living room. But I was rotating and engaging and interacting for the entire month like we were in each other's space, the children and I. And I realized on Monday as I was looking back and asking myself what happened? What was working so well and why have things shifted to so dramatically and what am I going to do to get back to that place of productivity now? Sometimes it's not as easy as locking the door and having a conversation with my husband about me needing to lock the door. Sometimes it's not that clear. For example, we just found out that the location that we're in is going back to school, remote, 100% remote for the first bit of the 20, 20, 20, 21 school year. I'm not going to lie. I'm terrified. My husband will likely be back in the office at some point. He will be going back into an office for work versus working at home as well. And I will be at home alone trying to be productive with children. So I am now practicing and looking at what worked, what worked for me. What do we need to do to make this work on a go forward basis? Because we still got a couple of weeks, few weeks until school starts. So I have got a few weeks here to get some good work done. So I feel really good going into this school season, but also to practice a little bit, to practice and experiment a little bit about how I'm going to keep my productivity up even when I'm working at home with the kids. I'll keep you posted on that because clearly I do not have all the answers to this yet. We're operating and we're living in such a new space that we've got to give ourselves grace. We've got to give ourselves grace as we are navigating these completely uncharted territories, as we're trying to do new things in a completely new environment where we are all going through something new and something different as a global community. So gift yourself grace as we move through this together. As I was reflecting on this and I was thinking about this, I also brought myself to think about how I want to show up for my team, how I want to show up for my clients, how I want to run my business and how I want to operate, and how I want to show up in marketing. And what am I doing that's not effective? What am I committing to that I'm not really committed to? So it's not getting done. And when I think about this, I oftentimes and I have this conversation with my clients and freshly implemented this week, I go back to three things. I look at my to do list. I look at those things that I'm trying to do. I look at those things that I'm trying to accomplish. I've actually mentioned these things on the podcast before, so you may have heard these things before, but I too come back to them to remind myself and to ground myself in what matters. What do I need to be focused on now? And what do I not need to be focused on now? And I look at what is getting my attention. It doesn't matter if I'm actually doing it or not. Because even if I'm not doing something, I may still be giving energy to it. I may still be giving attention to this thing that I'm not actually doing because I can't get to it because the kids keep coming in because there's this other thing, but it's still important. Or maybe not. So I evaluate those things that may be on my list and I identify. Do I just need to do it? That's the first D. There are three Ds I look at when things keep hanging out on that to do list, do I just need to do it? This is that important. It is that time sensitive. It needs to be done. Amber, do it. Or number two, is this something that I need to delegate? Is this something that I could share this work with someone and it will get done better, it will get done faster, it will help our whole team move ahead because it is something I am holding onto, but it is not necessarily something I need to do. And maybe it's not even something that is in my area of roles and responsibilities. I just put it on my list. For some reason I came up with it And I just haven't had the time to talk to someone on the team about it yet. So it's just hanging out on my list and hanging out in the back of my head. But I really need to delegate it or the 3rd D delete. Are there things hanging out on your to do list that you can delete because they're not a priority right now? Maybe you'll delete them and move them not into the forever garbage. You know when you throw things away on your computer and they will be gone forever. Maybe you're putting them into your some day list. Maybe you're putting them into what I call your million dollar parking lot. Maybe you're putting them in a placeholder for another day. But you do not need to worry about those things right now. Those are the things I want you to delete from taking up space in your brain right now. Or I want you to delete from your to do list that you keep forwarding and moving over day after day, week after week. Because they are not the priority right now. Keep the priority and keep the focus on your most important things and your $100 bills. In addition, as I was going through this reflection and I often look at what's happening in in my life, what's happening in my business, how might I want to redesign things? Or if I'm building another area of my business, how do I want to build it in a way that aligns with how I want to be showing up and how I can be serving and in the best of ways at any given time. And this I oftentimes look back to what would I have done differently if I were starting my business from scratch? What would I have done differently? And I like to put that lens on it because that really helps me get clear and identify oh yeah, you need to change some things or no, this is going good. Keep on keeping on with that thing over there because that is good. However, one of the things that comes to mind and sort of a lens that I put on is if I were to build truly what I want right from if I were to start from scratch right now, if I were to start from scratch, one of the things I love and that I'd be so curious to learn about would be E Commerce. I'd be curious to learn about more automation. I stay it is my natural innate go to to stay very hands on and to stay very connected and have a lot of personal connection with my clients, with my team and. And I love that. But I'd be so curious to explore another aspect that we could weave into the business. So that comes to mind and I want to share with you if you are starting from scratch and you're thinking, yeah, I want that too, right? If you have income coming in, if you have a foundation and things are good for you right now, that gives you a baseline to build upon to build what you really want, whether you've got savings, whether you've got an inheritance, love it if you do. I did not have, right, an inheritance or something. I was working, I was working a full time job when I started my business and I built what was natural to me, right? I built my go to and I might have experimented and played in some other different ways. First, because I had the foundational income coming in through my full time job, right? I did have foundational income. And so I want to invite you to consider looking at your startup business. If that's the phase that you are in, what do you really want to do? And if you've got that income coming in, build and learn and dive in to growing that thing that you are so passionate about right now, like I said, it may evolve because now I built something that like is totally aligned with who I am and how I like to show up and how I naturally show up. And I'm going to keep showing up that way forever and ever. But now I've got a next interest level right now. Let's say on the other side, you don't have an inheritance, you don't have a savings, you don't have a full time job or a solid contractor, something solid that is giving you income on a regular basis. And you're in the space where you're saying I need cash now, then I want to encourage you to step into a space that is natural, that is innate, that you can build a bridge quickly to what you really want. That you can build a bridge quickly that will serve as the bridge to you getting what you really want, right? So oftentimes when I was coming up in the entrepreneurial world, the story was and how I was coached, some of the coaching I received was if you don't quit your day job and go all in on this, you don't want it bad enough. I want to invite you to think about this differently, right? I wanted it. I wanted it so bad. I knew it was in me and I knew it was for me and I knew it was coming no matter what. The pace did not matter because at the time I had some income coming in. However, if you need cash now, right, the pace does matter and that's when you want to flip to that space of what can I grow quickly and what can I do that is already innate, that I already have skill around and oftentimes one to one is a very great place to go to build up quickly. Right? Because it's easier to market to someone you can offer a very specific thing to. Right. I can solve that very specific problem for you versus growing and learning. Like I'm talking about, I'm saying, oh, I want to learn a little bit more about automations and I want to learn a little bit more about E commerce. Right? That's going to take me a little bit more time and I'm going to have to reach many more people on some of these things because it's a volume based business model. I talk about this a lot in my programs and with my clients because I think it's so important that we not only think about what is the type of business that we want to build, but also what is the situation that we're in right now and how long is it going to take us to build that. Because it's also okay if like me at the time, you couldn't walk away from a full time job, you couldn't walk away from income because you have to pay a mortgage, because you have to pay rent, because you have a family that you have to support as well. And it's okay to build a bridge to where you really want to be going. But whether you're starting out or you are building the bridge, or you have built the bridge and you're now ready to transition back into that thing that you really want or that new thing that you're just starting to learn about that you're excited to step into. I want you to always hold on to your vision. I want you to always come back to that vision that you have for where you are and where you want to be going. Like the African proverb that I learned from our safari guide, Simon said, you know where you are and you know where you're going. Everything in between, eh? And Simon literally said with the shoulder shrug, right? And I read that as everything in between is just details. As long as you show up, you continue to show up and you stay in action. Even if we have an unproductive month like I just had, eh? It's just details, right? I'm going to get back on track. I'm going to take time as a modern CEO and leader to reflect and assess, assess and check in with my mentors and check in with the masterminds. And the communities that I'm in to assess. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why is this not going quite right? Like, what's off here? What am I not seeing? What am I missing, right, that I just can't see right now because I am so in it. You will continue to reflect and you will continue to assess. And even if you too have had a month or two or three where you have felt a little bit off this year, it's okay. Because you know where you are right now and you know where you are going and everything in between, it's just details. Keep showing up, keep taking action, keep reflecting on where you are and where you are going and you will get there. You will get there. I would bet on you any day of the week. Now the question is, will you bet on you? Will you bet on you? Because I sure will. When you show up, when you have vision, when you have heart, even when things go a little bit funky, even when things are off for a period of time, you still have it in you. And that's why it is so important that you continue to. To show up. Even if some days it's not going our way, right? Even if some days showing up means I gotta rest today, right? Keep your eye on where you are headed and we will get there. In this reflection, in this season that I am also going through, reflection and reminders to continue to show up, enjoy and appreciate and be present for all of this, even the ebbs and flows, it's been important for me to remind myself of these things because sometimes it's easy to lose sight, like when I'm getting really frustrated that I didn't get what I wanted to get done as much as I wanted to get done over the course of the last month. But now that I've reset and I've refocused, it is clear and we can keep on that way forward and in between, Gift yourself, grace. In this time and in this reflection, the other thing that I realized is that I haven't been completely real about how I want to show up. So a little bit of real talk, little bit of real talk, and I can't. I didn't tell you this before because I didn't even realize it before. So it is newly revealed to me as well. But I love adventure. Adventure is a core value of ours as a family. That is why we decided to live in Africa. That is why we are moving all around on a regular basis and we are enjoying every bit of the adventure that we are on as a family. Even with the challenges that it can come with, even with the challenges that it comes with outside of an extraordinarily challenging year like we are experiencing right now. Now. And with that in mind, I realized I go through seasons when we move, when I moved from Maryland to California, California to Maryland, Maryland to Ethiopia, Ethiopia to Chicago, all within about the last four years. Every time we move, I have motivation, I have energy, I have enthusiasm, I have excitement. And I can sit down like I shared at the beginning of this episode, and I can get right back to it from the floor, from a desk, from a table, from the bed. It doesn't matter. I will just dive in. Just make sure I have Internet and we are good to go. But after a little while of being in the space, I need to get settled. And I also want to make sure I have time to accept, explore. Because when we are experiencing as a family new things and new areas and new cultures and new environments, I want to really be able to enjoy them and be present in them. And that is something I know about myself. And maybe you know something like this about yourself, but you are going against it. You're operating and you're showing up or you're trying to show up in a different way. Let me explain a little bit more. I know that when we make these moves, I have this energy, I have this enthusiasm, I'm committed. I show up, I plug in, I get back to it. I'm on the ground, we're good. I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. Even when we would travel, when we were living in Ethiopia, we'd travel, pop down. Like, I could be working anywhere, it didn't matter. Come back to the States for a little break. Ok, cool. Yeah, work it. Always able to flow with it. But then when we really get grounded, I also want to be able to experience it. And I cannot experience it all and be present. If I'm constantly showing up on social, if I'm constantly showing up to create and market and manufacture something to share about the experience that I'm going through. I need time to experience it and be present for myself with my family first. And then I can prepare and share a little bit better. And so, and there are some things, of course, I'm like, oh, check this out. Oh, this is exciting. Like, and it's quick and it's easy and it's engaging and it flows. And then there are other things. I'm like, I am just awestruck. I am just taking this in and I don't even have words yet. I have nothing to go with this yet and I'm not ready to put it out there. But I was trying and I realized now that I was going against the flow of what was natural and what was innate for me. And yes, we can do things that don't come naturally to us by practice and learning. Just like I shared that I want to continually be learning more about automations and continually be learning more about e commerce. Right? So yes, you can share and you can build upon these things that are natural. But I've also realized there are some things that I am not ready to shift or change yet. I love it when I go to a new location or when I move to a new place or when I am traveling somewhere and I am not trying to do anything with the situation. I am just trying to experience it and be present in that moment and let whatever unfolds, unfold right on time, just as it may be. So my realization, as it aligns to marketing, as it aligns to this podcast, as it aligns to the emails that you may get from me if you're part of our community on email@ambermchugh.com that there will be seasons where I am quiet and sometimes that means I might be going through a hard season, and other times it means I am going through a really incredible season and I want to be present and I want to enjoy it. And do I wish you were there in person with me? Absolutely. Do I wish you were on our daily calls in my community with me so I could see you and freshly implemented? Absolutely. So between all of this, one thing that is consistent is the way I show up in my client communities. There are scheduled activities, there are things I've been doing since 2013 every single week that just continue to happen. No matter where, no matter what, no matter anything. Those things continue to happen. But from a marketing perspective, podcasts, emails, social, there are times when I will step away as the Amber McHugh business and as the Amber McHugh who is showing up as a person. And I'm sharing that with you in case you have ever felt the need for a break as well, or you've ever felt the need to not continue to publish content and distribute. And I've heard people say that in this day and age, we are all content producers. Right. We are all marketers. Absolutely. And at the same time, I am still just Amber. And I've got kids who say my name a million times a day and I've got an adventurous life that I want to be enjoying and I want to continue to enjoy because that adventure, that freedom, is what I was going after when I started this business. And I want to make sure that I'm showing up in integrity and being present in my life as well as being present for my clients. So with that, I realized we sort of run the Right on Time podcast in seasons anyway. I've shared that before. I've kind of referred to it before, but I've never fully declared that the Right on Time podcast will be seasonal. So welcome back to the next season of the Right on Time podcast where we keep it real. There might be breaks, but we love connecting with you. And I want to encourage you to keep showing up in whatever way feels right and aligned and authentic for you, because you know where you are, you know where you're going, and if you keep showing up and you keep going down that path, you will get there. I will bet on you every day of the week. You're right on time. Catch you next time.