114: “Failure is the Frame, Not the Picture”

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This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello Free Timers. Happy Friday. We have a bit of a grab bag for you today. I'm going to share an image that I just cannot get out of my mind. I love it so much. I wanted to share it with you. And then we have two listener submissions on my favorite time saving strategy. I would love to hear from you. What is your favorite time saving system, strategy tip or tool that you have been geeking out on that's saving you time that you just cannot wait to share it with fellow free timers so that they can release some kind of burden that they have in their life or their business too? Leave me a voice message@itsfreetime.com Ask or record a voice memo on your phone and send it via email as an attachment to hitime.com that's itsfreetime.com Ask or send your attachment to hitime.com.

Item number one in this week's grab bag is an image that I can't forget. It's from a site called visualizevalue.com the design is by Jack Butcher. The caption is Failure is the frame, not the picture. And there's this chart. It's going up and down. And there's this moment of the chart that's hitting rock bottom. And he has the frame around that part only of the chart. So the frame around this, what looks like a stock chart, any kind of ticker, is of a dramatic decline into the abyss. But what's outside of the frame is that the graph goes back up again. The graph continues. It goes up and to the right so what looks like a rocky mountain range, the frame itself is around this moment of the dip, the decline. What could be dubbed as a failure. But the failure is the frame, not the picture. The picture keeps moving. If any of you have been feeling the pinch this year because of all this talk of recession, if it's hitting your industry, if it's impacting you and your business, as I know it has been for me, now we're a couple years in, I feel like I'm going through as big of a business transition as when the pandemic first hit in March of 2020. And I have so many thoughts of feeling like a failure of my gremlin, as I shared last week that I don't have a business, I have a hobby. Over and over this word failure is just ringing in my mind and I know it's not rational. I know there's so much to be proud of. I know that we're going through collectively really strange times. Even as I sit here recording this, I'm in a beautiful, light filled podcast recording studio that I worked hard to research and find where to go outside of my own home here in New York City. There is an incredible PODC production team, One Stone Creative that's powering the magic that happens after I stop recording this. There's so much that is working, but sometimes it's hard not to focus on the failure and it's hard not to freeze frame a moment of feeling down or months of feeling down or a down year in the business and not take that personally and not feel like a failure. So I keep reminding myself failure is the frame, not the picture. Just keep moving. How do you stay in business? You just stay in business. You do whatever it takes to survive, to keep going, to navigate these dips. And I always take business on a kind of spiritual level, that when the financial tides recede, that's what's meant to happen, that there's all those goodies, the treasures that wash up on the shore when the tides roll out. You can go hunting and see what shells and treasures and trinkets you find on the shore. So there's a lot of insight to be mined when things slow down a little bit.

We'll be right back just after this.

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The second item in today's grab bag is a listener submission from Karen. Karen has possibly the most soothing voice I've ever heard. Karen, thank you for reading the Time well Spent newsletter and for submitting this gem of a permission slip for fellow free timers and business owners who want to stop grinding and create more of a calm company. I don't want to give away the juice of what Karen shared, so without further ado, here's Karen and I'll see you on the other side.

Hi Jenny, you asked in your email what is one thing we could do this week to start to free up some time or to turn our inner time blueprint to calm? I chose recently to spend the full third quarter on nurturing my current clients rather than trying to acquire new ones and it feels so expansive. Most of my work is spread by word of mouth, despite my active presence on social media and my active presence updating my website. So it's really important to me to spend time with my current clients making sure they're happy because I'm sure since most of the work is word of mouth that it could also go in the opposite direction. Also, it just feels more expansive and generative and it leaves me feeling full of gratitude for my current clients. Thank you. I'm such a fan. Keep it up.

Thank you Karen, and right back at you. I know we haven't officially met, but we're meeting through time and space here on the pod. Thank you for this beautiful submission. And again, you just have the best, most soothing voice for giving us all a permission slip. Funnily enough, I am doing the same thing this quarter in Q3 of leaning into what is typically a very slow season in my business. And now when you lay around the pandemic onto the summer season, there is really nothing getting scheduled for me. It's the first time in 11 years of full time solopreneurship that I don't have a paid speaking engagement scheduled. It's so bizarre. But I love what you said Karen. I love how you're leaning into this season, you're giving yourself permission not to try to get any new clients and also doubling down on the fact that word of mouth is such a positive and strong client generator for you. And so I love this idea of nurturing the clients you have and hearing your shift that is helping you be even more grateful to the clients you currently have. That in itself is going to create a virtuous circle that the more you nurture and are grateful for your current clients, the happier they are, the more they spread the word. It's just so beautiful how you've described that and listeners. If you want to check out Karen's work, I'll put some link love in the show notes. Her website is Karen Lepage L E P A G E Me and I love Karen. Your mission on the professional side, Karen helps designers and brands looking for pattern making and a whole lot more related to sewing and production. And on the personal side, she helps humans seeking to know themselves better and heal their hearts through making. That is just so exquisite. Thanks again Karen for being here, listening, for doing the work that you do, and for sharing your favorite time saving strategy.

We'll be right back just after this.

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The third and final goodie for you from today's grab bag comes from listener Lauren and it even ties in to our bag theme. Lauren, over to you.

I put the roll of trash bags inside of the trash can so when I take out a trash bag that's full, just lean back in and replace it with a new trash bag that's already in the trash can. I love that and I do the same thing. This goes Back to episode 104 Save Somebody the next steps, including yourself. What I love about this is that we could really take this trash bag hack as a metaphor for making things easy to find in your business. The trash bag is full. It needs to be taken out. Is it clear where the trash bags live? Why do the trash bags need to go live in some faraway place instead of right there? Saving Steps, Saving Time in geeky systems terminology this is known as retrievability. We talked about this in episode 95 with Nick Sonnenberg. From scavenger hunts to speedy retrievability. So how easy is it for people on your team to search your manager manual to find things in your business to have what you need always at your fingertips? I just love this trash bag hack too, because then sometimes there's one person in the house who knows where everything is and they become the all seeing question answer honey, where are the trash bags? You know, but if the trash bags are just sitting there at the bottom of the can, then whether it's a cleaning person, whether it's someone else in the home, they're right there. No one even needs to ask you. So as the owner in our trash bag metaphor, you can make things easy for somebody to find so that they don't even have to ask you in the first place where something is. Lauren thanks again for sharing this tip. And listeners, I want to hear from you. What is your favorite time saving system or strategy? It can be on the home front or something in your business. I even love hearing about geeky zapier automations like what have you automated lately in your business? Share with us we can crowdsource wisdom from fellow free timers here and I would love to provide a vehicle to share your hard bought gems of wisdom out with everybody else. Submit that@itsfreetime.com ask or you can record a voice memo on your phone and email it to hiitsfreetime.com.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star. Thank you.

Word of mouth is the most joyful way we can grow this show and it helps us land interviews with the luminaries and insightful guests that you would most love to hear from. Please send this episode to a friend who might find it helpful and for show notes and related links from this episode, visit itsfreetime.com while you're there, make sure you're subscribed to the Time well Spent newsletter. You'll get instant access to my Tech Toolkit, a continually updated list of all the software I use along with the total monthly spend. To run my business where no one works full time even me, visit itsfreetime.com join remember, you are running the show. It's time for radical reimagining and everything is up for grabs. Let it be easy, let it be fun and build with love.