#13: Stuck in the Daily Scramble + Exploding Star Concept

You are an exploding star. And if you have done this before, if you've ever put anything out in the world that you created from something, from nothing, and you put it out to the world to let everybody look at it and judge it and buy it or admire it, then you know what that's like. Because at the end of that explosion, you can't just go back to work like it's a Monday. You need to piece yourself back together.

I'm Bonnie Christine. And this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast. Hello everyone. Welcome to our episode. Today we're on episode number 13 and I'm here with our very first guest of all time. Are you ready to meet her? Ms. Lisa Jacobs.

I can't believe it. I get to be the first guest. What an honor. Thank you so much for having me today, Bonnie. And thank you everybody. Who's listening?

Lisa? I'm beyond excited about what we're talking about. And for those who don't know, there's so much history between the two of us that I want to just catch everybody up to for a minute because today you are my integrator. But our history goes way, way far back. And so you came into my world in 2012.

Correct. And at this time you have no idea who I am. You're a blogger and I am following you. I had an Etsy shop, so I was just following along, looking for people of inspiration in the creative world. I found your blog and when you first opened opened your membership program, I was one of the First, I think 25 signups because I got a signed art print from you. And you shipped it and you shipped it all the way without even knowing it. I was stationed in New Zealand at the time. You shipped it all the way to New Zealand. And I'll never forget Receiving this art print from you, signed, and I was going to take a picture of it and show you the backdrop of New Zealand with your art there reaching me on the other side of the world. But you didn't know me yet. And so I thought, no, I won't send her this photo. But I always think of that because you didn't know I existed and I hadn't even introduced myself yet, but I was one of your first membership members.

That blows my mind. And little did we know what the world had in store for us, because since then, we've taught a women's retreat together. You launched a book that changed my life. I've already told everybody about it. Back in episode one called you'd best year by Lisa. And then a little over two years ago, you came on full time on my team as integrator, which just means that I get you in my ear every day, which is my favorite thing.

I know. And I love being here too. I love the way that it has evolved. And I also love that the topic that we're talking about today is really going to feed into both of our journeys as a creative entrepreneur. And then what kind of led me out of mine and onto your team? Because the fact that you're here calling me an integrator just speaks to the different strengths that we have in business. Whenever I left my business and went into the corporate world, I was working for a company. And I did this exercise in a handbook about better team building and team leadership and what makes a leader. And one of the questions in that handbook was, what is an example of a great leader? And Bonnie, you were one of the people that I had written down in my book. And at that time, we had worked together on projects like you said. We did the retreat where we just came along side by side and we worked really beautifully together. It was one of my favorite working relationships or experiences of all time. And then my boss at the time when we shared who we would follow or who would be a great leader, and I shared, you said, what is it? You know, he was trying to figure me out, like, what can I do to get you behind me? And he said, what is it about her? And I said, you know, she is just so, like, solid in her values, in her beliefs. There is so much integrity there. I would follow her to the end of the earth. I just would get behind her on wherever she's leading. I can believe in it because she believes in it so strongly. And that had come up in that exercise. One of the things that I'VE always admired about your ability to run a company is your visionary status, the way that you're able to be 30,000 foot above the business and watch the landscape and watch the industry for what's needed and what voices are needed and and encouraging others to bring their voice and bring their talent and bring their art to the scene. And I've always loved that. And at the same time, what I've. Where my career has led me, I have enjoyed the 30,000 foot view of business. I have never stopped. But I like looking straight down at the company itself. I love watching the operations of it. I love watching the energy and the flow of it all. And I love realizing ways to make the machine operate and work better. And so I love that after our history and the story of how we came to know each other, I love that it's led us to this point where we're able to operate visionary to integrator, side by side, and then be bringing those strengths. I love how this story has played out and what has come to fruition.

Me too. And that kind of tees us up into where I wanted to take this because this is the first of two parts that we get with you this week, today and again on Thursday in our episode. And today we're going to be talking about two concepts, one called the Daily Scramble, the second one called the Exploding Star. And then on Thursday we're going to be talking about a concept called Ocean. And what I love about this conversation is that what you kind of bring to the table is clarity on seeing things exactly how they are. And I think that's so interesting as a creative entrepreneur to have someone be able to come in and see things clearly. Which this is going to kind of spawn us off into this conversation about the Daily Scramble. But it is so incredible that you have the creative entrepreneurship in you and also this strategic foresight into how we're doing things. And it's like every creative entrepreneur needs someone to come alongside them as an integrator. That relationship is called the VI relationship, meaning it's the visionary us, the creative entrepreneur and the integrator, which kind of actually just makes sense of all of it. A wonder that without that counterpart that any of us really accomplish much on our own. So without further ado, tell us about this concept of the Daily Scramble. The first time I heard it was from you in 2017 and everything kind of just fell into place for me. It made so much sense right off the bat. I think everyone is going to know exactly what you mean.

Okay, so in My own journey. I had been a creative entrepreneur for about nine years. Solely, that was, it started out as a side business and it turned into a full blown thing. And while I started with an Etsy storefront, it then evolved to a blog and services. And as I grew into the business, it was sort of shaping me and molding me as I went. I didn't, I didn't have a clear vision setting out and I didn't know. Similar to your own path where you became this surface pattern designer and then education and teaching was calling you. The same thing was happening to me. I loved talking shop. So while I had a successful storefront on Etsy, that wasn't the thing that I was doing in the background the most. The thing I was doing in the background the most was learning and obsessing over marketing and devouring the business side of things. So it sort of took shape on its own. All that to say that with a lack of a clear vision, every day was a reset. And this is where the daily scramble was developed. It's when I realized a few years down the road that I woke up today and asked myself, today, what was I going to do to make the business do better? Should I post on Facebook? Should I listen to five more items in my shop? Should I, you know, renew my listings, whatever. But I was waking up each day and wondering what I should do to make something happen. Now, over the course of that time, I realized the delay of your activities to the return. And so at one point I started talking about the 90 day rule, which states that what you're doing today typically pays off about 90 days later. And so when I'm realizing all this, I'm doing the daily scramble. I'm waking up today, I'm wondering what I'm going to do today to make something happen. And then I'm waiting for some sort of instant gratification. I want results now. And that was a roller coaster ride. And again, because a lot of the results that I was seeing wasn't because of what I was doing today. It was because of something that I did three months or more ago. You know, it's all a culmination of your efforts. And when I realized all of that, I realized I needed a bigger plan, I needed a more strategic plan. I couldn't be operating day by day. And you'll know this feeling. It happens to us all. And in fact, even when we know better, we'll come back to it because we're hardwired to circle. But you'll know this feeling if you're feeling restless, intense, all at once you feel that productivity tension, like you want to do more but not enough is happening for you. You'll feel nothing's going your way. You're talking and nobody's listening. You're putting things out there, but nothing's connecting. You'll feel stalled and stuck. You'll get into a deep procrastination mode where the last thing you want to do is work. And then you'll start to feel drained. You'll feel like this business that is that sometimes so fun is a chore and a grind that never gives back. And you'll go from a place of abundance and gratitude to a place of scarcity and lack. And it's just not a good place to be. And honestly, it's that daily scramble that makes us prone to procrastination. It's that daily scramble that builds on that frustration and it can be really difficult if you don't know how to identify it.

You know, all I'm doing is nodding my head and I, if you, if you caught yourself nodding your head while listening to this, I want you to just laugh for a second because we all feel this, like it's almost comfortable feeling this because we function in this scramble so much. And so for me, when I learned this, it was, yeah, it was 2017, 2018. And for me how it showed up was feeling like, how am I going to move the business forward today? But there was also this intense layer of pressure because I had bills to pay, I needed to meet my mortgage like this month, you know, or this week. And the scramble for me led to complete inconsistency or a real like reliable income stream. I would have one or two months that went really well and then I would go into this dry season and I would feel like I don't have enough time to go up and make a strategic plan. I'm in the daily scramble. I need money now. But any idea I have, I haven't built in a 90 day leeway for that was like put all of this with a healthy layer of pressure on top of it because your family is relying on you or you need something and it's not a fun place to be. And I think we all hang out there quite a lot. And so for me, the biggest turning point was when I stopped the daily scramble, which I'm sure we'll talk about.

Yes. And I love that. And you know it. I'm going to talk to you share a study that I love to share from one of our favorite business books. Clockwork. I'm sure you've mentioned it before. I know it's my favorite business book as well. But we're hardwired on so many levels to get stuck in the daily scramble itself. The way that we operate is from instinctual thinking, which is to keep ourselves stuck, small, safe, and with the group. And so anything that we do in business has to be really intentional, because as we'll talk about in the Exploding Star, we're doing the opposite of staying small, safe with the group. We are going against the grain of that very nature in order to expand in life, to be more, to get more, to do more, and to reach more people. And so you have a saying that you always say, nobody saved money by accident. Have you? I haven't. You know, and I love. Whenever I haven't. It's actually. It takes a lot of effort. But I. I love that because it's just. It's a. It's a very general and easily relatable example of we're not necessarily wired to think like that. We have to go against the grain of our own human nature. We have to reprogram that hardwiring in order to make it work. And so let me just. While I'm here, I'll share that study. You've heard it dozens of times. Because I will repeat it every single chance I get. And the reason I repeat this study out of Clockwork is because I need the reminder constantly, myself. I am just as human as everybody else, as is Bonnie. And it's just the type of thinking that we all get so stuck in. And every time I hear it, it gives me chills because it reminds me. But without further ado, in Clockwork, the author shares a 2009 study by Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics. So I always just like to stop right there, because 2009 is a relatively recent study and Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics these are smart people. I trust this study, if that's what they're doing. So this study confirmed that people trying to find their way through a forest or desert devoid of landmarks or the sun as a beacon, tend to walk in circles as tight as 66ft. Your brain is hardwired to circle things. That is a human condition happening to us all. So much so that blindfolded, you would never make it across the short side of the football field. So walking in circles as tight as 66ft. I have to explain what this means if you were blindfolded, and I've tested this on myself and, and actually filmed It. But if you were blindfolded and you were placed on the short side of the football field, that's bench to bench or coach to coach. That's not goal to goal. That's the long side. But if you were standing on one side of the width of the football field, blindfolded, devoid of any landmark or sun as a beacon, and you try to walk across to where the other bench or coach would be, you would never make it to the other side. You would circle yourself off the field altogether. And what this study concludes is that without measures of distance and direction and devoid of a landmark, human beings, all of us, each one of us, make a continuous stream of micro adjustments as to what we think is straight. But these adjustments are biased to one side. And so if that doesn't explain the daily scramble, I don't know what would, because what we're always thinking we're going straight toward our goals, but we're making micro adjustments. And the only way to overcome your human inclination to spin, toil, scramble, and hope it all pays off is to set a distinct landmark and constantly measure your distance to the mark. In other words, you must know where you're going.

You must know where you're going. And that doesn't come. It's kind of like saving money. You don't just accidentally know where you're going. It takes some real intentional thoughts thinking to sit down and map all of this out. And when you do, you've created landmarks for yourself.

Yes. And Bonnie, at this point, I always like to point out the org chart exercise because this is, this is for, for regular people, regular people with one job to do that wake up to do that job every day and just that still think in circles. We all do. But as a creative entrepreneur, this is entirely different. You don't just wake up and do one job. You have to think of the many hats that you wear. You are the creator, the innovator, you are the marketer. You are the CEO. You're likely also your CEO. You're your virtual assistant in many cases when you're starting out as a company one. And even as you're building, you are likely doing way more than just one role. And so not only are you susceptible to circling like the rest of the normal world who has one job, but all day long you switch the hat you're wearing and you try to, you try to walk a straight line in each one of those hats. So I typically like to recommend that even if you're a company of one, you make an org chart of what positions live in your company. Let's say say you have a CEO role and it's a visionary role like Bonnie. And then you have a marketing department and that's one column underneath your CEO role. And then you have a customer service or support department and that's another column under there. And then you have a sales department. So let's just keep it simple. You have marketing, sales, customer support and you're the business owner. I like to recommend that you actually make this org chart for who's doing what in your company so you can remember that you're putting a new hat on when you go to start promoting and sharing and trying to connect and writing emails. Know that you're wearing a hat that has a specific goal. And then when it's time to envision what the business needs and how you're going to strategize the next year, know that you're going to change that hat to keep yourself in another straight line by putting on the CEO hat and realizing what the responsibilities are to the day. Because just think of that, how, how challenging is it to keep away from the daily scramble when you're also scrambling your positions in and out of the day all day long, right?

So I think there are three things that everyone should do whether you are a company of one or if you have a team. See if you agree with this, Lisa. This episode is sponsored by my very own guide called Start simple in Surface Pattern Design. Have you ever wanted to see your artwork on products or work for yourself and use your creativity to build a career that you love? If so, I made this guide just for you. I created it as a way to help creatives take the overwhelm out of getting started in Surface Pattern Design and begin learning how to design their own fabric and wallpaper, gift wrap and stationery. Inside this 44 page guide, you'll learn how to gather inspiration and create collections. How to promote your work and pitch like a pro, how to create income from your artwork and get a behind the scenes look at what it takes to design a fabric collection. Whether you want to add an extra income stream from licensing or craft an entire breathtaking career, the Start simple and Surface Pattern Design Guide has you covered and it's entirely free. So hop over to bonniecristine.comguide to download your copy today. Again, that's bonniechristine.comguide. i'll meet you there. Number one on the org chart and exactly how you envisioned it. Your name may be in every single slot, but to your point, it allows you to understand that you're doing 10 different jobs, 10 different people's jobs, and it will give you more clarity about when you're. When you're switching hats. The second thing is that that is kind of the internal, like the landmarks for the internal workings of your business. And I know that so many of you are also working towards kind of external big goals. So I'm going to take you back to your path to success and mapping that out. And that was an earlier episode that we'll link in the show notes. But what it does is give you milestones and the big rocks and the little rocks that you'll have to do in order to take your concept to actually accomplishing that goal. And again, that's really all this is doing, is giving you landmarks in which to really mark your progress on so that you know where you're going so that you don't have to feel like you don't know every single day. And then the third thing was the thing that really got me out of the Daily Scramble, Lisa, and that's annual planning. And we're not talking about it today, but you and I already have on the books our next session to cover annual planning. We're going to have that in probably at the very beginning of 2023. And this was the most revolutionary way for me to come out of the Daily Scramble and make a annual long strategic plan on what we were doing and when we were doing it, why we were doing it.

Yes, that is an excellent next action list. Wonderful suggestions.

Okay, the Daily Scramble. Love it or hate it, we all experience it. The next thing that we want to talk about is a concept called Exploding Star. And Lisa, I would love to hear when this came to you. Lisa is the queen of analogies. Like, she'll take something that just doesn't make sense, and then all of a sudden put it to an analogy and it makes perfect sense. And you shared this with us in a team meeting recently. And I can't wait to share more about what it meant to me as a creative entrepreneur. But I again, think that this is going to be something that everyone resonates with so. Well.

Yes, I love it, too. And the thing that I love the most about it is that it all, all of both of these concepts really play into creative energy. The spend and the burn of it all. And it's an extremely intense energy to burn. It is compared to the gasoline that goes into your car, it's like rocket fuel. Creative entrepreneurs spend a different type of energy. They have a turn of production, like no other. And I didn't realize all of this until I was able to switch what I knew from creative entrepreneurship into a corporate career. All I knew when I was just in my creative business was that it was hard, it was challenging. And like you said, an annual strategy, annual planning was a great relief to some of that, to understand the seasons and the busyness. But I didn't really understand my. Myself. I didn't understand what was going on. And so what had happened was I went from an entrepreneur mentality to an employee mentality. And typically that happens in the reverse. But I took everything that I had learned from my creative entrepreneurship, and I'd authored books and I taught classes and what have you, and I went into a corporate career. And so that in itself is a. Is a transition that you don't hear about as often as you might hear somebody left their job to start a business. But it taught me all kinds of things about myself, and it showed me that I didn't know what I didn't know about business, about larger corporations, about how everything functions. So through my entire life, I had had an extremely creative career next to my husband, who has an extremely traditional career. His name is Jay, and he's been with the federal government for nearly 20 years at this point. He is a organizational machine. He has. He was in the military before he went to federal government. And so he understands the machine. He understands the chain of command. He understands everything that's happening in that world. He has his, you know, retirement plan. It is pension, it's all lined up, and it's truly as traditional and reliable as it gets. And I've admired that about him this entire time. And then I've also admired the stability and consistency of his career against my own and creative entrepreneurship. And all the while, all the time that I'm building a business, I watched my husband go to work. And he just did it every Monday through Friday. He was never late. If anything, he stayed late. He just could do it like nine to five, whatever it took. He was always there for it. And here I was building a business and really trying to operate on his hours. I would, you know, burn out on Wednesday and need Thursday. I'd spend Thursday on the floor in a puddle, and I'd wonder, what is wrong with me? Why don't I have the mental toughness? Why can't I do this? And he always told me that it was different, but I didn't have anything to compare it to. I had had small jobs before my business, but my business really took off and Became ever present. It kind of, it kind of ate up my whole world. And so when I was running it full time, I was trying to keep up with his standard hours of operation and his consistency. And then when I went to a corporate career, it was mainly because, like I'm saying, Bonnie is a visionary and I love her visionary ness. But I was not feeling it. I had never set out to be a CEO and my, my business was calling me to be a larger company and I couldn't get behind it because I have that. I, I love business, yours, mine and theirs. But I did not have that same desire. I don't think the way that Bonnie thinks. I look at everything differently. So I just, I just gassed out at the end of the day. And when I went to the corporate stuff side of things, I just went for my sweet spot which at the time I thought was marketing, which is hilarious because I do not like or enjoy marketing for any other companies. Marketing is part of the mission. Like marketing makes the business go round. So it's a joy to do for my own business. But I'm not great at it if I'm marketing for anybody else. And so I went into marketing, but I'm in this larger. I'm in this actually started with a small company and then it was like finance, the financial industry. So it was like small fish getting eaten by bigger fish. My company started with 30 people, which looked a lot to me like what our businesses would become in 15 or 20 years. 30 people was. It was a really solid but really tight knit company that got eaten by a company that was 300 people. And so then I got that medium size. And then before I ever left that career that got eaten by a company that was 5,000 people. And so in one career stint I got all of those experiences. About six months into my job I was preparing my weekly report, I was double booked on my calendar, I was running doctor's hours, I swear I had client meetings and closings and consultations and strategy sessions from the time I walked into the time that I left each day. And then the company was wanting me on strategy sessions and different business things. So they were literally trying to double book me the whole time. And six months into this career I'm spent. I'm at burnout's door and I was talking to my husband about it and then I said to him, you know Jay, I don't know what I'm going to do. This is worse than running a business. I am double booked. Everybody needs time for me. What is going on and in front of me, I had the report of my weekly report, something that I would send to my superiors. And it was everything that I had done closed and taken care of that week. I had a team of four people. And so this list was a mile long. And he took one look at it and he said, lisa, workers don't work like this. He said, you are running your team and yourself into the ground. You are operating inside of this company as though you're the entrepreneur, entrepreneur. And we don't burn that level of energy. This is not the fuel we spend. And so what he had been telling me all these years while I'm comparing myself to him finally clicked. And it clicked for the first time. And that is where the exploding star analogy came from. Because when you are a creative entrepreneur, you have to work and build, and you have to have the courage and the confidence to believe that the creation or the art or the product or the book, whatever it is you're building, will see the light of day, will find an audience. And not only that, but you have to connect it to the audience. So you take all your vulnerable creation, you make something up from scratch. You turn it into a tangible thing that everybody can see, touch, reject if they want to, buy if they want to, whatever they need. And then you promote it. You have to shout it from the rooftops. You can't do this timidly. So you take all of that energy to build something from nothing, create something out of scratch, and then release it into the world, promote it as though you. It belongs there and people need it. And then that is an exploding star. That's not something you can do Monday through Friday. That's why employees, if you have a team or build a team, they can't work like you work. They have to pace themselves. They have meetings, they methodically plug away so that they can support that experience. Explosion. But that is the exploding star. You are an exploding star. And if you have done this before, if you've ever put anything out in the world that you created from something from nothing, and you put it out to the world to let everybody look at it and judge it and buy it or admire it, then you know what that's like. Because at the end of that explosion, you can't just go back to work like it's a Monday. You need to piece yourself back together.

I this just explains so much to me. And it's one of those things where I'm like, why didn't I see this? Why couldn't I see this before? And So I want to talk about a couple of ways that this is translated for me and for us on our team, because the team is fairly new. I have shared with everyone that I was a solopreneur for, like, 10 years. And we slowly went from just me to two to three to six, to who? We have eight now. And one thing that we really celebrate on our team is this concept of intrapreneurship, because everyone on the team either has entrepreneurship experience or they still do have their own businesses. And so everyone kind of showed up to work in my business as an entrepreneur. And very early on, we started having people who were doing too much. They couldn't stop thinking about my business, and they were checking in, you know, while they were putting their kids to sleep or on the weekend. And at first, as an entrepreneur, you're like, yeah, we're doing it, doing it together. Look at all of us, like, just pouring ourselves in there. And to be clear, that wasn't an expectation that I had set on the team. It was just that we were all used to working this way because we all do have our own businesses. And about a year, maybe a year and a half ago, we really realized, oh, no, no, no, we can't have the team members exploding like this. That we really need to train on boundaries and balance and the expectation to not check in after certain hours and things like that. So that was the first lesson, I think. You have anything to add to that before I move on?

Yes, I just. Because I think that the most interesting thing is because you would wonder, you know, I've hired, when I was just a creative entrepreneur, I've hired to have somebody in my business. And if you've ever done this, you can relate because you're sort of like, what are they doing? Look at all these things I have to do. And they are just coming to work. They're just going to work. They love working for your company, but they're not necessarily. It's not their business. But you're right. We've had so many team members join that have had businesses of their own that haven't learned this lesson before, like I have. And so it's almost a constant battle to say, or a constant reminder. It's not. It's no battle, but it's a constant reminder to say, it's okay to take your time, it's okay to take. Do this at your pace. It's okay to find whatever rhythm works in here for you, because you're in the support role of the exploding star. When we have team Members exploding left or right and burning out. We can't afford to lose them for a week or two weeks. When. When you're an exploding star and you release something so huge, you really can't come back until you can come back. We don't. I'm on Bonnie's team, and we don't even want her back until she's ready to come back. She needs to. To take her time. And by the way, when you're piecing yourself together, it's some of the most inspirational, insightful, quiet vacuum time that you can possibly create or carve out for yourself. It is just a beautiful thing, and it should be honored. And so when we have team members, you know, exploding left and right and then burning out and all the other things, we. It's time to reset ourselves, to say, wait a second. We can work inside of a rhythm. We can work inside of a routine. We're here to support. And it is. It. It is a challenge to say you own everything that you do here as an intrapreneur, but be careful that you're not running away with it and going home to bed with it and sleeping with it like an entrepreneur, because that. Those are two different roles.

Only one person is allowed to explode. That's me.

Yes.

The other reason that this really hit home to me, and this is going to be helpful for those who are listening, whether you have a team or not. I'm going talk about it from a team perspective, is that I actually think the first time you might have shared this with us was when I came to the team and shared that I was actually feeling, like, a bit of guilt. I have to take time off. And it's the weirdest feeling as a creative entrepreneur to have other people doing things for you. It takes some getting used to because you're so used to pushing all the buttons and doing all of the things that all of a sudden you have people helping you. And for me, it almost felt like I have all of these people doing me favors or, you know, I'm taking a week off and really unplugging while my whole team is still working. And I had some significant guilt around it, and I was transparent with you all about that. And I think that's when this concept came up and it was like this warm hug, really, because you were not only giving me permission, but telling me, no, no, we expected you to explode and have to go put yourself back together. And oh, my goodness, for the first time, I realized how important it is to surround yourself with people who are not Exploding. I think everyone who's listening understands it. You launch the big thing, you release the big thing. There's a whole layer of vulnerability. Say, say you release a new artwork collection for the time, like you're announcing it, and then you're waiting for feedback. And there's just so much that goes into it. And so as you piece yourself back together, it's actually really important. The people who are supporting you and surrounding you are more consistent and leveled. And so I think this is an important concept, whether you have a team or it's maybe your family or your friends that are supporting you, because there's something inside of, I think, a creative entrepreneur that almost is like, well, why aren't you exploding? Like, I'm doing all of this stuff. Why aren't you there with me, staying up late and waking up early and. And doing all that with me? And this is why. Because it's actually really important that everyone else maintain their energy and maintain their levelness so that they can come alongside you and support you.

That's right. It's completely natural to look around and say, why isn't everybody else spending energy the way that I am? And it's just because they're all playing different roles. But it's completely natural and you'll do that. And you probably, you know, if you. If you have a partner or other people that you live with or significant others and you're going through that, you'll probably even bring that into your household a little bit. You'll be like, what is everybody? Does everybody not know there's a launch coming? It's very easy to kind of get started swept away in that energy. It's. It's intense.

It's intense. And so really, if nothing else, this is permission to really watch this and see it happen in yourself, and then permission for those around you to. To be consistent and for you to take time to piece it all back together, take a week, if you can, or however long that it needs to really recover from the big release, whatever it is that you put out into the world and know that that's expected. You can't just do the big, big thing and show up the next day at work like nothing big happened.

That's right. And in episode 14, we're going to talk about the cure for this. A very simple cure for this. But it. But really, I. I liken it to. If you were going to climb Mount Everest, do you know how much training you would have to do, how much planning, how much preparation you would need for that trip? You would have to plan that for weeks, train forever to get that, to get that, tackle that beast. And then you would climb Mount Everest itself. And what happens a lot of time in entrepreneurship is while you're at that top of Mount Everest, you're like, why don't I just jump to the next peak? I see it, I can see it. I'll just jump from here to the next peak. And the problem with that is that there's only so many peaks you can jump before or you're just in danger and you're gonna fall and crash hard. And so, like in mountain climbing, the most dangerous part is the descent. That is the same for us. We need to make sure that we're also descending down the mountain and we're giving it enough time for rest, recuperation, safety, all the same things that you need. You've launched something, you're exploding star, you have to piece that back together. But at the end of the day, not only that, but you really need a recovery time before you go climbing any other mountains, before you go up the next hill. And so what typically happens because of the daily scramble and because of the exploding star syndrome and because of the fact that we have such a different energy spend here, is that you can end up with a lot on your plate. And. And real quick, it adds up real quick. And so in episode 14, we'll be talking about how to sort through that, how to filter it, how to calm it down, how to look at what actually needs prioritizing right now, today. And I love that we're talking about these things before annual planning because it's going to make such a more impactful year ahead.

Lisa, before we wrap up this episode, there are some people who have nodded their heads this entire episode. They're going to want some more of you. So can you tell them where you're hanging out online and about your book, you best year?

Absolutely. It is. This is my favorite season of the whole year. I love quarter four. No matter what time that you're hearing this either. It is just. I love planning. And so the best way to really get familiar with my work is to go find your best year final draft. I have two editions of it. It's Business or Life. It's available on Amazon and I sell it directly on Etsy as well. And it is just all of these things broken down into workbook style. And it will really give you a head start and some really strategic things to think about for whatever you're going to go do next.

Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Professional Creative. We'll be back in your ear in just a few days in episode number 14 with our OCN method, which is going to change your life. We'll see you then.