Ep 9: The reality of running your own business!

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Have it all podcast brought to you by me, Emma Naylor, Life Purpose and Career Coach. This podcast is for the ambitious and motivated individuals who are ready to take the next step in their life and turn their dreams into their everyday reality. To guide them to live a life of fulfillment within their career, purpose and beyond, and to show them that you really can have it all.

Hello and welcome back to the you can have it all podcast with me, Emma Nayla. I am so excited to be coming back with a new episode. I have not recorded a podcast episode since the start of the year. Now, I wanted to share a little bit about why and when I was thinking about what I wanted this episode to be about. I really wanted to share the realities of running your own business and the realities that many, many people don't actually share or talk about. It's not the sexy, fun stuff. It's not the inspiring motivational stuff. It's the stuff that is behind the scenes, the stuff that is hard, the nitty gritty, the. The roller coaster of emotions, of clients, of all of these things. Running a team, managing people, outsourcing, understanding all of the needs that the business has, plus your own needs. So I really, really wanted to start by just really sharing kind of where I'm at at the moment and just to kind of see if this resonates with anyone now. Of course, I started this year off, you know, very, very hopeful, knowing that 2022 would be the most incredible year. And the first few months were amazing. Month three in March. There was so much going on in my personal life that it did take a toll on my business. Now, before this all happened, I was very much in the mindset if I could continue working, I could continue moving through it. But fundamentally what happened was my life had to take priority. One of the reasons I started my own business was so that I didn't have to answer to anyone. So that if things did go wrong in my personal life or I needed some time off or I needed some space away, I didn't have to answer to anyone. Now, for me, I was so thankful that during this really difficult period of time, I was able to take a step back from my business. I was able to rearrange with a lot of my clients, I was able to change some of my commitments, and I built such a good community and network around me that I was able just to say, you know what? I really, really do need two or three weeks off, which is what I took off. Now that we're going into Q2, I am trying to Pick up again and really continue building. Now, is it hard? Absolutely, it's hard. It's hard when you've taken the period of time off. But I have to keep reminding myself, I've set up this business, I've built this business. There's no wrong and right way. And I know that a lot of the time that's my corporate head telling me things should be done a certain way. Why am I not doing it this way? I should be doing this now. As I said, the reason I wanted to do this podcast is I really wanted to share the reality of running your own business. The good, the bad, the ugly, and sort of everything in between. So let's start with the good. So the beauty of running your own business, I mean, it's pretty obvious you run your own schedule. You pick who you work with, how you work, where you work from. You get to decide the offerings and everything that you do. Now, all of that is amazing to me. I'm so thankful that every day I get to pick up, you know, what I want to do, I get to drop what I don't want to do, and I really get to decide how my life looks, not just today, but really, really building it for the future. And again, I'm so thankful that in the middle of the day I can get up and go on a walk or go see a friend for lunch or grab a coffee with my mum, or take the dog on a walk or whatever it is that I want to do. In the middle of the day. I can. I don't work a normal nine to five working hours. I'm not sitting at a desk in someone else's office. It is really, really what they say it is of building your own dream life. Now, all of the things that we want, of course, also have to mean that there's areas that we're probably going to have to pick up that we don't love. Now, one of the things that I really struggled with, and I've got a lot of clients at the moment, especially with my new employee to entrepreneur mastermind that's starting in May. Something that people are really, really struggling with is, and this is something I struggle with, is when I do have those days where I don't feel motivated and I don't feel like I want to do anything, it's being able to switch off and say, okay, listen, if I don't do this today, it's not the end of the world. I work for myself. I don't have to do it. I can shut my laptop and say, Today is a day that I'm not going to work or one thing I massively miss is having that community and that support and those people around me to pick me up and say, hey listen, you can do it, carry on going, but also being able to say to me, hey listen, I feel like there's something going on. Do you want to talk about it? What's happening? Let me see if I can support you. And something that I've really worked on since becoming my own boss and running my own business, it's surrounding myself with women who are in this industry who understand the day to day struggles that happen. So for me, I think one of the big things and one, one element of running your own business that I don't really think people speak about enough is that element of loneliness that you can have if you aren't actively making an effort to go out and meet people and network and have women around you and set up accountability calls and, and set up group networks and meetings and lunches and whatever they are. It's so important and I don't think it is spoken about enough. And it's absolutely something that I'm so passionate about that when I'm building the groups, when I'm building this mastermind, one of the really big things I want to do is create a space with women who can come and share and lift each other up and make each other feel great and empowered. I had a client the other day that I was talking to and we were discussing that in the corporate world it's very much about competition and in this world, you know, the women working in their own business and the coaching world and the wellness world, it is all about collaboration over competition. And that for me is such a big pillar. When I'm building something, I want to create this element of collaboration. If there's someone I can introduce you to, I would absolutely do that. If there's someone who I want to bring into the mastermind, you know, I've got my social media manager coming in. I believe that she could be an asset to all of these other women. I don't see it as if she's working with them and working with me. It's competition. I want to collaborate and for me I don't think it's spoken about enough. I think the other thing that we really, really don't see speak about enough. And again, I'm really lifting the lid on the things about the reality of what it is like running your own business is those days of self doubt. Now I would be lying and this is me being 100% vulnerable, 100% honest. I would be lying if I said that. Some days I open my laptop and think, what am I doing? There are genuinely some days where I think, how did I leave a secure, salaried role, Knowing what my paycheck was going to come, knowing the bonuses I was going to get, knowing I had, and I say an inverted commas stability to take a leap of faith a year ago and become a coach. Now I have the proof that I can do this. I have the testimonials from clients, I have the invoices from clients. I have the money in my bank account to prove. However, my brain often tells me and will try and convince me I don't know what I'm doing. You're never going to make money again. You're never going to sign a client again. And I'm in the space now where I can tap into those tools that I've been given to say, emma, you know why you're here, you know what's going on. I have my rituals, I have my practices in place. I can ground myself again and I can come out the other end knowing that this is exactly what I meant to do. But as I said, I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that. Those thoughts come into my head. But the amazing thing about where I am now is I'm able to deal with them head on because I have the tools and the strategies and the tips from having invested in myself, from having coaches around me, from doing the work on myself and knowing that actually this is exactly what I'm meant to be doing. But I don't again, think it's spoken enough about running your own business and the struggles that come up and the battle, whatever industry that you're in, the battle that comes up in our own heads sometimes. But as I said, it's about having the tools and having creating this toolbox for yourself and knowing how to get yourself out of that kind of funk and back into your genius and what you're doing. And that really leads me on to talking about transparency now. When you're running your own business, it's so easy to become overwhelmed with the competition, with what everyone else is doing, with the social media buzzwords, with the reels, the stories, the Instagram, you know, sold out coach or, you know, I've run out of stock on my E. Commerce site and it's so easy to get into that again, that energy of comparison. And again, when I first started coaching, I was comparing myself to Every other business owner and every other coach and I was comparing my day one to their day 600. Now, even if you have both been coaching or both been owning your own company for the same amount of time, we have to remember that we're on different journeys. But again, it's so easy with social media to get trapped in this energy of I need to compare myself, I need to copy what they're doing, I need to see what they're doing. And actually, the thing that makes you different is you. Whether you're a wellness practitioner, whether you create your own clothes, whatever it is that you do, you are the differentiator to that other brand and that's what's unique to you. Now, if we were all doing the same thing, there would be nothing unique about anything that we're offering. How, however, it's still so easy to fall back into that trap. So those for me are the main things that, again, I don't think are spoken enough about in the industry. I really, really do feel like there's a lot of sharing about all of the wins that we have and all of the great things that we have. And again, that comes with that comparison. And I was having a conversation with a potential client the other day and she was looking at signing up to my, as I said, my mastermind that starting in May, the employee, I can't even speak employee to entrepreneur. And she was saying, well, what can you guarantee? Are you going to guarantee that I'm going to make this money? Are you going to guarantee that I'm going to sell this much and have this many views to my website now? There are so many coaches and teachers and practitioners and mentors out there talking about, I will get you 5, 10, 20, 30, 40k months, whatever it is. And actually for me, the way that I really, really work and the way that I've really, I felt kind of kept my head screwed on and been able to actually grow month for month is not by having tips and tricks, you know, selling the tips and tricks that we can do in the sales strategy. Mine has been more on the overall strategy and that's what I continue to do on month, on month. Yes. Have I hit 10k months? Yeah, I did. I hit a 10k month in January and I absolutely loved it. But it wasn't the defining moment in my career for me. I think the defining moment in my career was when I signed my first paying client and then I got my second one and my third one and testimonials. And those for me are so much more Important. So I really invite you to think about, you know, what is it that you're comparing yourself to? Are you setting yourself up to grow a sustainable big business, or are you setting yourself up to have those quick wins but in the long run aren't actually going to work for you? Now, the reason I want to share that again is the, is the transparency when running your own business. We can all get so consumed with 10k months, buzzwords, get sold out, all of these words that us as business owners want. When you take that leap to go and run your own business, if someone could give you a magic potion that would say, right here, take this, you're going to hit X, Y and Z in your business, we would do it. But I'm going to be really honest, there's no easy way and there's no easy shortcuts. Now, everyone's businesses that we see are at different stages. We're a completely different journey. There could be someone that's been running their business same amount of time as usual, but they started the inner work three years earlier. They're not in the same place as you. They're in a different place. And one thing that's so important to me, and I'm sure you can hear how passionate I am about this, is not just going for the quick wins, going for the buzzwords and going for those instant hits. It's about really pulling it back and understanding, yes, 10k months are great, but actually, why am I here? Why am I running this business? I. Let's say, for example, I'm a pt. The reason I'm running this business is because of my experience in the wellness industry. It's all focused on physical transformation. And my journey shows that that's not what's important. I want to teach other women how the physical element is not the most important. And it's all about the inner work. That's my passion, that's my driver. When we're focused on what it is that we came here to do, the money will come. And I often have to remind myself of this as well. If I go a few days, a few weeks without a clarity call, without signing a client, I can often revert back to I want those quick wins. I just want to sign clients left, right and center and get the money in. And actually I trust and know that the right clients will come to me. I don't have to implement these quick and easy sales tactics. I want to build and a sustainable business that's going to be here for the next however many years, not burn through it and hit those instant months without a plan and a strategy to grow. So I want to share my top five tips on how I stay in control of that because I'm sure there are so many of you listening to this right now who are going, I'm so glad I heard that because I thought it was just me that struggled. I thought it was just me that had those intrusive thoughts about the fact that I'm not running a good business. I thought it was just me that kept doing that comparison. So the first thing is having a really, really simple ritual that can bring you back down. So whether that is eft tapping, whether that's breath work, whether it's meditation, whether it's doing something that I call a brain dump where I literally get a pen and paper and I write everything down that's making me feel anxious, throw it all on paper, go out for a 10 minute walk, reset and then come back in. So the first one is having that instant ritual that you can literally do straight away when you're feeling a little bit anxious. The second thing is surrounding yourself with people who are like minded and on a similar journey to you. So I have a catch up on a Monday morning with a fellow coach. We speak for about 45 minutes to an hour and we basically chat about all the things that are coming up for us, all the goals that we've got set that week and then we will kind of voice note throughout the week, check in with each other and see where we're at. I also have a few other accountability groups, a few girls that I'm always in conversation with who also run their own businesses. And it really allows me to feel less lonely and actually speak to other women who are having the same things that are coming up. The third thing is setting non negotiables for myself. So really setting those boundaries of when I'm happy to work, when I'm not happy to work, if a client wants to book a session, you know, I'm really, really clear on when I work, when I don't work, if it works for me, and having those non negotiables, and again, they're not set in stone, they can change and evolve as your business changes and evolves. If you go from working full time to part time, your availability changes. But setting those non negotiables is fundamentally the most important thing. Number four is looking after my mental and physical well being. It's really easy when you are running your own business for everything else to go on the back burner. It's really easy to cut out going to the gym, cut out journaling, cut out mindfulness. All of these things that we feel are replaceable. And I will hold my hands up and say those are the first things that go. When I'm super busy in my business, I can say, I don't need the gym today, I can skip the gym. I and again, it's not about the physical, it's about the movement. It's about loving myself, it's about looking after my body and putting myself first. So that for me is again a non negotiable the physical and mental well being. The final one, and this is something that it took me a really, really long time to realize is if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. Now, so many of us in our businesses see people doing certain ways, you know, masterminds or one to one coaching, group coaching, podcasts, Instagram lives, whatever it is, if something doesn't feel good, do not do it because it's not going to be aligned with how your audience are going to receive it. And that actually links on really well to why I hadn't done a podcast episode. I did a podcast episode at the start of the year and then I felt so, so disconnected from it. I knew that every time I went to record, it didn't feel right, it didn't feel aligned, it didn't feel natural, it didn't feel organic, it felt forced and pushed. And when I went to record this podcast episode, I was thinking, I have to do a big thing about it. I've got to make sure everyone knows there's a new episode, I need to relaunch it again. And actually that's not what it's about. It's about doing things that feel really good. Because I promise you, it will land in the hands of the right person. Whether you put things on Instagram that you think you should be doing or sending out newsletters that you think your audience want, you have to do things that are aligned to you because I promise you, they will land in the right hands. And that's when you're going to start building those relationships with people. Whatever it is that you're doing, you have to make sure that you're loving it and enjoying it. Because it's very, very clear and obvious when someone isn't loving what they're doing anymore and then they're trying to deliver it to their ideal audience. And none of it's landing because it's not genuine, it's not heartfelt, it's not coming From a place of passion, it's coming from a place of lack and it's coming from a place of I think I should be doing this when I don't really want to do it. I actually don't believe in what I'm saying right now that I don't believe that what I'm saying is going to resonate and land with people. No one cares. You know, all of these things. It's really easy to spiral. It has to come from that place of love, that place from passion. And you'd much rather have it land with 10 people and 10 people like it and 10 people engage with it, then a hundred people liking it. But it not landing with anyone or hundreds of people listening to your podcast. But it's actually not relevant for anyone, but it will be relevant for specific people. As I said, the reason I wanted to do this episode, and it's something that I get asked a lot in my DMs by fellow coaches or also practitioners or people who are kind of on the, on the service based business online, is what did you do? And actually, as much as I love sharing the things that I did do, I also want to lift the lid on the things that we don't need to do. I want to lift on the, I want to lift the lid on the things that seem hard and difficult to and make people aware that this is real. You know, there is real struggles of running your own business. But for me, the positives of running my own business massively outweigh the struggles because the struggles I can work through and I can get through and I can continue building and doing that work on myself. And that's where it's so important. We're constantly growing, we're constantly working and the biggest thing that we can do is keep going. It's when we give up, that's when it's over and that's when we go, I can't do this anymore. But it's about continuing to grow. It's about being honest and being vulnerable with yourself. And remember my one big thing that I just finished of if it doesn't feel good, don't do it. I really, really hope that this solo episode has resonated with some of you. As I said, I'm going to be lifting it a little bit more on running your own business. The struggles that I've come up with and I really, really want to get vulnerable. And I will be inviting guests on the podcast to talk about their journey of running their own business. But as usual, I just want to finish and remind you that. Remember, you can have everything you want. You truly can have it all. We just have to be willing to be patient, put in the work, and finally, truly, truly believe that we really are worthy of having it all. I'm wishing you a beautiful rest of your week wherever you are, and and I will be bringing another podcast episode to you very, very soon.

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