How to Leave Your Business for 3 Months (Without the Guilt) with Candy Messer

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're gonna be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous Podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, and I'm also known as the Geeky Girl. I have Candy Messer here, and she's a profitability advisor and fractional CEO working with entrepreneurs to help them to have time and financial freedom. Experienced in bookkeeping since 1998, Candy understands the stresses business owners face and offers customized services to meet their varying needs. She also teaches operational efficiency to allow entrepreneurs to step away from their business and have them run efficiently and effectively without their oversight. Candy is a co-author of Business Success with Ease: Navigating Entrepreneurship, Maintaining a Solid Mental Health, and Yes, God, and is the host of Biz Help for You podcast, which can be found on YouTube as well as multiple podcast channels. Candy has been married since 1992 to her husband Garth, and they have a son, daughter, son-in-law, and 4 grandsons. When not running her company, Candy enjoys reading, crocheting, baking sourdough bread, and spending time with friends and family. I love the fact that you and I have a lot of things in common. I got married in '93. I have 2 daughters. I absolutely love crocheting. Oh, I love it. It's one of the things that really helped me in my healing after my car accident. Well, yeah.

Nice. Yeah, I love it too. It's just I don't get to do it as much maybe now as I used to, but I just loved making things to give away.

Fair. Yes, I know. I'm in the middle of making something for my nephew right now. It says, when your birthday coming up?

So I'm excited.

Okay. It is, it is. Uh, and 4— you said 4 grandsons? Yes, I think. Wow, that must be very busy.

And they're all from the same child of mine. So she definitely has her hands full with 4 boys from 7, just turned 7, down to 7 months old. Wow.

Okay. Yeah, that's, that's a handful. Yeah. I mean, I only raised girls, but my girlfriend had boys. And so we would bounce each other off, right? Like, what's this like for you as a mom of boys? What's this like for you as a mom of girls? And it was so drastically different, the things that we went through.

For sure. Well, and I had one of each, but But I think when there's the multiple boys, they like to wrestle and, you know, just run around and have all that anxious, like, energy that they want to go out and burn off. So, yeah.

Fair enough, yes. I know that, you know, we were talking pre-recording about my car accident and how I was so grateful that my team was there and how amazing they are. And I know that you help people with that. And in the beginning, you said when you first started helping people with this, you're like, oh, what if you want to take time off, right? But you had a personal experience too, You know, it was important for you to have a solid team with your back, right?

I did. So like you said, I originally was prepping my business so that I could have some downtime because as entrepreneurs, we work a lot of hours, right? And when we go on vacation, we're often taking the laptop and checking emails and calling people, whether it's our team or clients. So we're really just working in a different location. So that's why I started originally was if I needed to have a little bit of downtime and then knowing that, you know, I had aging parents, my daughter was having children, sometimes needed help And I wanted to be able to step away if needed. But in November of 2025, I got that call, you know, from family that says, you know, your dad's been diagnosed with cancer. So I immediately hopped in the car the next day and drove there to be with them so I could go to the doctor's appointment, learn all of the things. And I stayed there for 3 months while I was helping my dad. He, you know, was not able to go up the stairs on his own, and I was helping him, you know, go up and down and, you know, just let him rest while I was preparing some things. And unfortunately, he did pass away in February, but I was able to be there for the whole time and I was not worried about work. You know, when we got the diagnosis, I told my team, I'm, you know, driving. It was a 9 or 10 hour drive. I'm not going to be on today. I'm going to be, you know, driving there and I'll be hit and miss, you know, until I know what's going on.

Yeah.

And, and so they were able to step in and thankfully, same thing, we had prepared. I'd been, you know, preparing my team for a couple of years and we'd been testing the business. So I would take like a week away Come back, you know, were there any issues? Like, okay, let's work that out. Then I took two weeks, and then I took three, and then I took four. So over a period of a year, I had been out for ten weeks total while we tested it. And so I'm very thankful that I did that because then I didn't feel guilty having that time with my parents and you know not necessarily working as much. And I still worked periodically, but it just wasn't my consistent every single day, all day on the clock type of thing. So I'm very thankful. That we did have that vision ahead of time to prepare, and I was able to then do that and be with my dad when he needed me.

Well, and you mentioned guilt. Like, I talk about them as like guilt monsters, right? They just, they get in our way and they stop us from, from really being present, whether we're being present in our work or with our family or with ourselves or whatever, whatever portion of our lives, right? To be able to have something in place that mitigates that guilt, I think, is the most powerful thing that we possibly do as business owners.

Because I think too, as entrepreneurs, we feel guilt a lot. Like, we feel guilty that we're not spending enough time with our family because our business is calling us. But then if we're stepping away and we're doing something with family, then we're feeling guilty that we're dropping the ball, you know, in our own company and things aren't getting done. And, you know, we're the bottleneck basically. And we really need to step out of that position, you know, and empower our team to be able to make decisions. Give them the instructions, right? So they can do it effectively. And Because I think that's one of the mindsets people have is, well, no one's going to do it like me, or no one's going to care about it as much as me. Hey, you know, but none of us were born with all the knowledge that we have. We had to learn how to do things and run our company. And we've made tons of mistakes along the way too. So we definitely can teach and empower our team.

Well, and I gotta say that when you do have the right team members working with you, and you have the right company culture, you got to put those 2 things together. Your team might not do it the same way you do, and I'm sorry to tell you, but they might do it better than you.

Exactly.

I know, I know my team will come to me, they're like, hey, how about we do it this way? I'm like, that is not what I was expecting, but okay, let me learn more. And then sometimes it's like, well, girl, you— that's better. Yeah, let's go that way.

Well, that's what delegation is about too. It's not micromanaging and saying you have to do everything my way. If you're saying this is the outcome we need, as long as they can get to that outcome, it might be a different, you know, way that they get to it, but they still achieve the same outcome. And a lot of times, we're just doing it the same way all the time and don't think of something that might be more efficient, you know, it might be more effective. And so I actually tell my team too, if you see a process, and you think there's a better way to do it, like, let's test it out. And if it works, great, you know, and if I'm not there, and you're testing it out, and it's working, you know, and you've made that decision, that's fine.

Right.

You know, empowering your team to make decisions and you can give them guardrails too. Like maybe they can go up to a certain point, but anything over that, then of course you're giving your feedback, stepping in, making that decision. So it's not like they have complete power over everything, right?

Right.

Yeah. But they do over the things that is part of the tasks that they can be doing to help you. And we don't need to be doing all of the things. There's too many things we're doing that are just a waste of time that if you delegate and you tell them the outcome again that you want to see, Then they're able to do it.

Well, and a lot of times when I'm talking to entrepreneurs, and of course I work a lot with neurodivergent entrepreneurs, one of the things that pops up in relation to the— this whole concept of building the team and whatnot is, I can't find people who care enough, or I can't find people who are going to do the job right because I keep hiring people who I spend tons of money on them and they don't actually do the things that I need them to do. Have you come across that?

So I think what the problem with that is a lot of times is it's the owner's own mindset that, well, I'm not going to find anybody who's really going to be able to do all the things. One other problem though is a lot of times we're trying to fit one person into this big job description. Like maybe it's an administrative assistant and you're expecting them to do the customer service and to do the paperwork and to do all these things. And they might have skills in one aspect of that, but maybe they're not so great in other parts of that. And so you could split the job. They don't have to do all the things, and then they're not so great at some of these other things, and then you're disappointed with them. So looking at all the things that you need done and the characteristics that are needed to be able to do that well, then you can make those successful hires. And even if you have a team already, maybe you shuffle things around a little bit so that someone who just loves to talk all the time is one of the customer service people, and someone who's a shy introvert who really has a hard time, maybe they're better at some of the, like, Excel spreadsheets or something, you know? And looking at their strengths and how to use them well.

Well, and one of the things that we do, I think, really well here at Geeky Girl is that I check in with my team. I say, A, how are you doing, right? B, do you still like what you're doing? Like, the things that you're doing for the company, do you still like those things? Then it's, well, okay, so out of the things you're doing, if, if I could take anything off your plate that you hate or you don't want to do, what would it be? And is there anything else in the company you'd rather be doing, or is there something else that you'd like to add to your plate? It helps to make— because again, like attracts like. I mean, I have a lot of neurodivergent people on my team, and sometimes we need to switch things up. It's not always I have to do the same things over and over again.

Mm-hmm.

It has become such a rhythm in the business that I literally will have a team member come to me and go, I'm— without my prompting now, and they'll say, hey, you know what, I'm really enjoying this part of my business, but— or of my work, but like this part I'm really kind of not liking so much anymore. Those kinds of things.

The open communication has been really, really valuable Well, it's definitely important to ask them, you know, how they're doing, and you want someone to still have some type of challenge, you know, not necessarily have just conquered it all and they know everything, because at some point that brings boredom as well. So what can you do that's going to, you know, give them maybe something new to learn? And could be in the same similar type of thing, or maybe it's something completely different, but giving them that opportunity and for us, we actually have every day, there is like a quick little check-in that they just fill out a little form. And they're saying, this is what I did, this is a challenge I'm facing, this is what I need help on. Is there anything else, you know, that you would like us to go over and talk about, you know, and that's where they could also talk about with if there's a challenge that they're just having a hard time overcoming, or maybe there's an opportunity that they see that they want to do something different.

Right.

And then my operations person once a week, also meets with them and has a one-on-one. And that is an in-person, well, as much as in-person by Zoom or something.

Right.

Yeah. But, you know, it's live and having that conversation to check in. And then we have a weekly team meeting as well. And I ask like, are there any challenges or what's going on? Like, I want to hear like from you too. And so we can talk about important things we have to accomplish because in my business we do bookkeeping and payroll and all the compliance things too. So deadlines. You know, but it gives them the opportunity to also share or give ideas. We just had someone this week say, hey, what if we change this slightly to be this person did this aspect of it? And so giving them the freedom to share those thoughts and opinions, and doesn't mean you have to always change things if they have an opinion, but you're hearing what they're having to say and you're considering it. So I think that's important.

Well, and there's sometimes where, you know, they know they can't have this piece removed off their plate, they just, but they just want Say, hey, you know, this part really kind of sucks. And it's like, I understand what you're saying and I appreciate it. I got some pieces of that of myself. I'm sorry, I can't move that piece, right? But it's at least we are explaining, like we share those things with each other so that they can at least say, this is the one thing, right? And then it's— then the conversation, like you said, can be, well, is there a problem? Is there a roadblock? Is there something stuck? Is there a reason why this is particularly difficult for you?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, is it boredom, right? Or, or is— has it changed some way? Has it evolved since you started it? And maybe we need to revisit how the job is done.

One thing that we do periodically too is a time tracking, and they'll write down all the different things that they're doing during the week, whether, you know, checking emails, customer calls, doing the actual work. And then they'll actually say, I think this could be trash because no one needs to do it anymore. It's just something we're continuing to do. It's just been done, you know, but maybe we don't even need it anymore. Or Maybe there's a way we can do it a little more efficiently. And so we spend less time on it. Maybe it's something that someone else could be doing, or it's something I absolutely love and I want to make sure I continue doing it. And so everyone will do that too. And we can look at it and see. And if someone is saying, I really think that this could be transferred to someone else, well, who might be the right person for that too? And so that's helpful as a company as well, periodically to look at that.

Exactly. And I mean, I think that it's really important to check in with our people. Like you said, we aren't all necessarily working in the same building. So it's not like you could just sort of, you know, pass by and say, hey, how you doing? To have scheduled time or to have the ability for somebody to actually reach out to another human being to support each other. And, you know, I've managed large teams as well where I've said, hey, you may not have direct ability to get to the person you're looking for, but who else on your team can you, can you rely on? Or who else can you talk to on the team?

It's—

we've gone away from that, you know, working in the same building where you can just walk by somebody or you're going to grab your cup of coffee and somebody else is there and you're like, hey, have you dealt with blah, blah, blah recently? So having those lines of communications, what do they look like in your business? And that could be different for everybody. Some people might use Zoom meetings, some people might use chats, right? You could use them in— we use ClickUp inside our business for our project management and I help other businesses with that. So inside there, there's multiple different ways to communicate inside there, but some people use Slack. Whatever it is inside your business, I think it's really important that you put that as part of the company culture. How is it that we're going to communicate as a company and what are those avenues and which ones are open, right?

Exactly, and we have multiple ways to do that too. So we have a board, we also have project management. So we have a board that's just staff questions, so they can put a question on there if it's not urgent and someone else can look at it and answer, or if a team member hasn't, I can answer that. I also have on my calendar specific times, a couple times a week, where I just open it up. It's like office hours, right? And if someone has a question, they can come and say, this is a challenge I'm facing, I'm not sure how to do this. They can share their screen, you know, I can see what they're doing. And then of course we have chat. So if there is a quick question that pops up, my team, they also have a chat that doesn't include me, it's just coworkers. And they could say, hey, I'm not sure about how to do this. So they ask each other first. And then if they don't know, then they can come to me and then ask, but then they know that they're empowered to actually help each other. And they don't have to come to me first, because I am trying to have them try to find a solution, right? And not just have to say, well, I'm not sure what to do, I'm just going to go ask Candy. Exactly.

I think that's one of the hardest things as a business owner to figure out. How do I get my team to rely on my team? As opposed to everybody always coming to you because then you become this bottleneck and everybody thinks like they always have to ask you. What a great idea to have them have their own chat channel without you in it. It's a great place for them to also feel empowered to say what they want to say without having to worry about, well, what does the boss think, right?

Right, exactly, exactly. And not everyone has like the best day all the time. There's going to be some frustration sometimes too, and so if there's a place that they can vent and just say, I'm really having a hard time with this today. Someone can step in. We actually have that in our full team chat too, where someone would say, you know, like even yesterday someone's like, oh great, like a lawnmower just like ate up our, uh, our wires for the internet. So my internet's gonna be down until tomorrow afternoon, right? Frustration that happened.

Yes.

And that's not a major serious thing too, but it's something that we could share. Or, you know, a big storm has come through and we just lost power, we're going to be off for a little bit. Or, you know, someone is not feeling well today, I'm not going to be working my full-time hours, I'll be, you know, working hit and miss. Or, you know, things like that where they could just put out those quick little messages and we could just support each other. Or even when it's the happy times, like, oh, someone just had a birthday, here's a picture, you know, or things like that where you could have a little bit of the fun in there too, but then still focused on the work as well.

Yes, that's awesome. And I do think it's a good idea that the team finds a way to have fun, right? Like, like you said, with the good times, to be able to communicate with each other on those things as well. And like, we typically have a, we have a chat channel, it's called Random Fun, and sometimes it'll be pictures of people's kids or it'll be like a goofy meme we just thought was really funny to share with the team. It's a place where we can still engage and have fun with people, but it's separate from the business so that if you're focused on business and you don't want to be distracted, you don't have to look at it till later kind of thing. But I think it's important to bring that levity and fun to the whole process too.

Especially if you're in something that can be just overwhelming or just there's so much— like we're in compliance again, so we have to make sure like every single thing is right and everything is done by deadline, and a lot of things hit in the same period of time. So month after quarter end It's always a bit busier. And then January is always the worst because you have year-end documents, you have quarterly documents, you have all these things. So there could be some of that stressor going on. But at the same time, having just a fun little meme or something like you said that just makes you smile. Or if you see someone, you know, in October when we're doing, you know, third quarter reporting, someone will show like their kids' Halloween costumes or something, you know, and it's just fun to see.

Right.

And it does just give you a little bit of that quick break, and then you can just get back to doing the things that you need to do.

So, if you had somebody come to you today, or if somebody happened to be chatting with you, and they're like, I really love what you've had to say on the podcast, and thought, you know what, I wish— I wish, that word, right? I wish I could believe that this is possible, but I feel like I'm drowning in everything, and everything's on top of me right now. How do I even begin to move to a place where I could take a day off, never mind 4 weeks?

So I definitely would say doing that time tracking for themselves first, just to look at all of the things that they're doing. And they don't have to necessarily do it for a week, but if they do like 1 to 3 days even, and start looking at that. And I do have a template, so if somebody is interested in doing that, they could reach out to me. I could give them a template so they don't have to create their own. But that's one place to start because you can identify some things in your daily work that can be offloaded or completely trashed. And you can get time back very quickly by just looking at what you're doing. For instance, you might say, I'm going to Facebook because I need to create a business post. And then next thing you know, you're scrolling other people's things and you just find out that you wasted 20 minutes.

Right.

If you actually are documenting that and you see it, you're like, wow, I didn't realize that. You can set a timer for yourself. You know, if you need to do it, make sure you set a timer, get 15 minutes back from that. And then maybe you've got emails and there's so many things in there that are taking your time. Like, Identifying those, that is the first step to actually get some time back. And then seeing which of those tasks someone else can do, or maybe you do it a little more efficiently, or again, you completely eliminate them. I think that's the first step to doing that. And if someone needs help with all of that too, of course we can also guide them. And so if anyone's interested in that, you can reach out to me too. Our email is contact@abandp.com. I'd be happy to get you that template.

That's awesome. And I think, you know, you're right, people don't realize the time that they spend doing things. One of the things that I help people with a lot is time, and based on my personal experience, the story that makes the most sense and easy to tell is that I was tracking my time, like you said, like, where is my time going, right? And I had to write a blog post, and I sat down in the afternoon to write this blog post. I gave myself an hour, I figured that would be enough time. Like, I don't know, it was more than 2 hours later. I was exhausted. It wasn't done yet. And I'm like, why does this take so long? And then I— okay, I'll try it another day. But I had tried it in the morning and I was done in like 30 minutes. And I'm like, oh, wait a second, there's a cue. If I do it in the morning, I'm probably gonna get it done faster than if I did it in the afternoon.

Mm-hmm.

So those time pieces really, really matter where your brain's at, especially with us, with our neurodivergent brains, you know. Sometimes morning works better than afternoon. Sometimes dead of the night is a better time for you to work depending on, you know, how your brain works.

That's so true. And there's a lot of times where people do try to put things into a time slot that's not necessarily ideal. So if you know your rhythms and you know in the morning I can just really focus for 2 hours, then you want to put those more difficult tasks there where you can get them done. And then something that is easier and Maybe you don't have quite as much energy, but it only takes 10 minutes to do, then you're able to accomplish it much easier than trying to do that real difficult task that takes a lot of brainpower in the afternoon when you're just kind of crashing. So identifying that is really important.

Yeah, I call them brain dead tasks, things I can do when I'm just sort of like on the edge of holding on to the day. And so I always have a list of those. They're still important tasks. They're still things that are important to the business or to getting towards the goal, those kinds of things. But they're tasks that don't require a whole lot of focus or spoons in my case. How much energy do I need to put towards that?

Yeah. Exactly.

So when you started doing this process for yourself and you were like, I need to get to a point where I can take some time off, did you start with the time tracking thing for yourself or did you do something else and then land on the time the thing I should be doing? Or how did that work for you?

It did start with the time tracking. So I read the book by Mike Michalowicz called Clockwork. That's how I kind of first found out about this, where he's saying the whole premise of the book is you want to take a 4-week vacation, but not for you, it's for the business so that it can learn to run without you. And I was like, oh, I need to be able to do this. And that's where it started talking about planning for a week, then 2, then 3, then 4. But it talks about start with your time tracking and really figure out what are you doing because we think we know and we think we know how long things take but then when you put it in black and white on a document, then you can really analyze it and see where some of your time is going and that's when I first decided like I need to figure out what I can delegate and start really teaching one thing at a time. At that point, I had someone I moved into operations who would then start to take some of the things off my plate And some of those things were actually running my payroll, running the questionnaire calls for our prospects. You know, we have someone fill out some information and then we have a call with them to learn more about their business. I was like, well, I don't have to do all of those calls. I don't have to create all the proposals, right? But all those things take time to be able to teach how to properly do all the things. You know, payroll is a very important thing, you know. And so I created a system and And I first did it myself. I recorded how to do it. I had that turned into notes too with a little checklist. We have to make sure this is done and this is done. And, you know, we have to submit this and this is how you do all the things. And the second time I had her running it and I was watching and I was answering questions as she needed, you know, and guiding her and giving her, you know, this is where you go next. Make sure you click this, you do this. And the third time I didn't say anything unless she had a specific question. And then after that, again, if she had anything, she could reach out to me if needed. She had the video, she had the instructions, but she's like, oh, I'm good, right? You know, and it was the same thing with our proposals. This is what I have. This is how I determine what is the scope. And I would let her then prepare it, and then I would make notes saying, well, this is what I changed and why. So not just I changed it, but why, giving them your thought process. is extremely important for them to be able to be successful.

That's awesome. And I love, I love the fact that you said, I recorded it, and then you got it put into notes. People say all the time, oh geez, SOPs are so hard, it's, uh, oh, they're all stuck in my head. You won't believe how many multi-million dollar companies, billion dollar companies, who have people with things stuck in their head rather than writing the processes down. It floors me every time I come across it, but it's not It's not—it's simple, but it takes some practice. Right now, we've got so many great tools out we didn't have ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. But you know, to be able to record yourself, whether you open a Zoom room or have another piece of software that you currently use, and you just record yourself, literally share your screen. Click, click. I click here. I click here. I click here because explain yourself as you're walking through it. And then of course the transcriptions, you can take those and, uh, you can have AI help you to write up some great, uh, things. Then the litmus, the litmus test, like you said, is get somebody else to do it, right? Right. So the way you did it, the way you explained it, it makes sense to you because you've done it 5,000 times. So you give it to somebody else. Do you have it right? Or did they go, I got stuck, stuck on section 3 here. What do you do? Where, where do you click this? I don't see this on the screen. Because maybe you were clicking on a different screen, it didn't capture it or something, right?

Well, and that's why I try to say video is really important to start with because if you're going to sit and you're going to write down the steps, you might miss something because you're so used to doing things, you're not thinking about it. But if you record yourself doing it and explaining what you're doing, then you have to make sure you click on this certain button or, you know, you go to this certain page or you upload this certain thing, you know. And so it shows all the steps. But we also like to take that, like I said, take the transcription, turn it into notes, but then we like to take screenshots. So maybe you don't always want to go back to the video and find where it is in the video to do that one thing. So if we're able to take those notes and actually put some screenshots of here's where the button is, you know.

Yes.

Then that's important. And then for us, what we do, software changes a lot. So then you have to update it. So if you can first just take a new like little snapshot and say, well, here's where the button is now. And then when you need to, you can go back and re-record if needed, but you can quickly update something that's in the written form by just grabbing one more screenshot if needed so that if someone is doing it. And then we also say if that is handed off to someone else, they are now responsible for updating it.

Right. Yes. Perfect. I love that you pass that responsibility, right? That this is now, this is now your document. This is your responsibility. I really believe that everyone on the team should be responsible for their entire corner, whatever you want to call it, their entire spoke, right?

Right.

Because if, if one person is responsible for everything, then something's gonna get missed. But if you're responsible for your own corner, then it's easier for one person to manage this as opposed to one person managing all this.

And the one thing I always tell my staff too is imagine you are going into this position and you don't know what to do and you need to have the instructions. That's what I want you to think about when you're creating the instructions as well, that you're giving somebody all the tools that they're going to have so that they could be successful by doing this task when it's handed off to them.

No kidding. You have had some amazing tips and I love the fact that you were able to walk through and make those changes so you could take the time off yourself and I'm sure you're grateful That because you did that, you were able to take the time to spend with your father. Those times are so precious. Regardless of why we need to take time, when we are doing it for family, it's so amazing that you're able to actually be present and not also worrying about everything else. I can imagine that that was freeing for you.

Mm-hmm. Definitely. I was so glad that I could be there as much as needed for my dad and that my team was able to support me when I needed them as well.

That's awesome. I appreciated talking to you today, and of course we're going to put all the show notes below for anybody who wants to get connected with you and get the information from you.

Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for the time. I really enjoyed our conversation.

It was awesome. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.