206: 🦊 Celebrate the Small Fixes, aka Your Business Rose 🌹

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In 2021, I paid nearly $1,000 to hire a plumber to fix something that wasn't absolutely necessary and that no one would ever see. Why did I do that? And what on earth does it have to do with running your business? More on that in a moment.

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.

A little story about a little tiny thorn in my shoe. Not my side, my shoe. This morning I was walking Ryder at the park in what else? My Crocs. And all of a sudden I have this sharp shooting pain in my front toe. I kept taking off my croc. Yes, Croc, singular. And shaking it out, looking for a piece of glass. Because there's often broken shards of glass on at least the hill we climbed on today. Nothing. All of a sudden I'd be walking, I'd get another 10ft. Bam. Sharp shooting pain. What is that? I look in the shoe, there's nothing there. Shake it out. Nothing there. Okay, so we're walking home and once again, sharp shooting pain. I don't know, something about me, masochistic. I just would rather have this sharp shooting pain, of course, than walk barefoot through the streets of New York City. So this time I take my shoe off and I kind of run my finger through the inside. Where is this piece of glass? I couldn't find it. Okay, maybe I'm just making this up. Maybe it's in my actual toe. I don't know. After I get home, I get dressed, I head back out to the podcast studio wearing embarrassingly what else? My Crocs. I'm even doing a video podcast today and I brought some really fancy, nice looking shirts with crocs on the bottom. Yet again, I'm in the podcast studio and bam. There's that Sharp shooting bane. So finally I think to turn the croc over and I look at the bottom of the sole of the shoe rather than the inside. There's this tiny brown dot. So I start pulling on this tiny brown dot. What is it? Turns out to be a 3 centimeter long ultra sharp thorn. There was a literal thorn in my shoe. It was almost imperceptible to see and it wouldn't show when I was looking at the inside of the shoe. However, I knew it was there because bam, out of nowhere, I would just keep getting poked. And it really hurt. But if I wasn't putting pressure on the shoes, it seemed invisible. I didn't even have this story in mind or my story pocket when I was planning this episode. But I love a good serendipity story. And it just seemed like perfect timing and the perfect metaphor to tie into today's topic. Being proud of all the small fixes that you've made in your business, even the ones that nobody can see.

So let's get back to my handyman story. There was a time where our sink was not draining. We don't have garbage disposal. It's New York City. We're just abundantly lucky to even have a dishwasher, which I did not have for the first seven years of living in the city. And while the plumber is there snaking the kitchen sink, you know, that was a little under $500. And this is a plumber that we really like. They're really honest, above board, they always do a great job. And they said to us, listen, your kitchen sink pipes are a mess. When I looked. And of course, who's not going to try to upsell some kind of fix? I mean, I would too. But to be fair, the building that we live in was first built in 1886. Who knows when these kitchen pipes were put in? To be honest, he was right. When I looked under the hood, AKA under the sink, I saw this hodgepodge of dirty pipes. They're kind of arranged in their own maze. They didn't even look like they were from the same era. Maybe it was three different sets of pipes and different fixes that had put in over the years. And I just decided he didn't try to push it. He said, think about it. But if you ever want to fix the pipes under the sink, we can definitely get the obstructions gone and the pipes and the drainage to flow much more smoothly. So I thought about it, and a couple weeks later, I actually invited them back to fix the pipes, even though nobody would see them even though the drain was now fixed. There was something about what he said where I thought, let's just do this so that we have more flow in the future. Now, of course, my business was at more of a place where I was willing to spend a thousand dollars in my personal life to fix pipes that nobody would ever see. Now, that's not always going to be the case, but at this moment in time, it was. And I decided why not buy some new fancy faucet for above the sink at the same time. So me being the CTO of the house, as my husband calls me, I one where you just wave your hand in front of it if your hands are dirty, you don't even have to touch the handle of the sink faucet, and boom, water will flow. You wave your hand again, and just like magic, the water will stop. When I looked under the sink again to see what the new pipes looked like, you can't even imagine. I was over the moon. Something about my love of order from chaos and creating smoother, smarter systems. It was so cool to see it made manifest in something that I had no expertise in. But all of a sudden, we have this gorgeous gold chrome pipe. The pipes were much bigger, so they could allow much more water to flow through, and the whole design of the pipe structure was completely simplified. I'll even put a before and after picture linked in the show notes if you care to check out this random detail of my house and my life. But truly, I figured no one would ever see it. Although now maybe you will. The point is that I did fork over some money to make this happen, and I feel so proud. And in that moment, I thought, what are all the things that we do in our homes, in our businesses, in our life that we do invest time and resources into to fix that nobody will ever celebrate. It's not a big launch. I didn't write a book. I didn't launch a podcast. In that moment, I fixed something that nobody would see. And I want to acknowledge you today for all the tiny fixes in your business that no one will ever see, but that you know are there. Charles Eames, the renowned American furniture designer and architect, said, the details are not the details, they make the design. And he also said, innovate. As a last resort, more horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other. Now, you may be familiar with his Eames lounge chair and ottoman. It's this famous piece of furniture that will run you up to about 8k, not including taxes. But I just love these bits of advice. The details are not the details. They make the design and innovate as the last resort. More horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other. That's why these small fixes matter, because there is a lot to be said for the details. And sometimes when you're not landing a lot of new business or you're not launching some big new thing, there are these small things that you can celebrate. And you don't need to always go for the biggest, big, massive innovation. Sometimes it's the small things that add up over time that end up transforming your business the most. Something that my brother often says when we're talking about business. He's running his own real estate company and they invest in properties. But sometimes that can be feast or famine, because they'll go a long time without finding a good deal. Or the process of making that deal happen can even be hit or miss, especially in markets as choppy as the ones we've had recently. So he always asks himself and his team, are we getting 1% better every day? Even short of a big deal happening, even if a big deal falls through, he and his team stay focused on are we getting 1% better every day? This is something that James Clear writes about in his mega bestselling book, Atomic Habits. He cites the coach who came in to the British cycling team in 2003, Dave Brailsford. He was the new performance director. Brailsford said the principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything that you could think of that goes into riding a bike and then improve it by 1%, you'll get a significant increase when you put them all together. So that's the analogy. That's the parallel that James Clear is making toward incremental compound interest of self improvement. Clear says the same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. They seem to make little difference on any given day, and yet the impact they deliver over the months and years can be enormous. It's only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones become strikingly apparent. I also love the analogy that James Clear weaves in about the ice cube. And this gives me hope when I'm feeling down or I feel like I'm not making progress, he says. Imagine that you have an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. The room is cold and you can see your breath. It is currently 25 degrees. Ever so slowly, the room begins to heat up 26 degrees 27, 28. The ice cube still sitting on the table in front of you. 29 degrees 30. 31. Still nothing has happened. Then 32 degrees. The ice begins to melt. A one degree shift seemingly no different from the temperature increases before it has unlocked a huge change. Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions which build up the potential required to unleash a major change. I just love that. So consider all these tiny improvements that you're making in your business part of that incremental change. We are the room. We can turn up the temperature little by little by little. And our business, our beautiful business, or whatever creative projects you're working on are like that ice cube. Sometimes nobody can see the progress, including you. But that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You know I'm not going to leave you with a solo episode without a list, so here are 12 examples of small fixes. And by the way, while I was brainstorming, there was a typo to Foxes which will become relevant at the end of this episode, so stay tuned.

Number one, maybe you create a new notion database for your clients, or a stream of income, or even a delightful new automation adding people to that database when they purchase one of your products. Number two, finally delegating something you've had on your plate for far too long. It could even be delegating to software, like setting up a special calendly link for prospective clients. Number three, you actually block off one day a week and stick to it without letting any new meetings creep back in. Number four, maybe you say no to a client for the first time. Perhaps someone who's unknowingly blowing past newly established boundaries. Number five A one on one client sends you a beautiful thank you note, profusely thanking you behind the scenes, even if their note doesn't make it to official testimonial page or publicly posted review. Number six Hitting publish on something edgy where you almost didn't post at all. Maybe your readers and listeners don't know that you were nervous or that you have a vulnerability hangover the next day, but you know that you put something new out there that you're proud of. Number seven Sending a newsletter on a day where you felt really down or discouraged. Heck, maybe even paying your taxes on time after even setting aside the right amount. What a miracle that would be. Number 8 Restructuring a workflow in your business for onboarding clients or team members, for example, creating a welcome autoresponder series or even better and tinier, fixing typos or broken links in an existing one. Number nine Revamping a sales page, AKA what I call an invitation letter. Or maybe you're starting or shutting down a new income stream altogether. Number 10 updating your invoicing and contract terms. Maybe you add in a 20% late fee for invoices that are past 30 days of the due date and then you actually send an updated invoice with the increased amount for a client who is paying you absurdly late. As my friend Joey Coleman says, I am not a bank and I am not interested in becoming one. I really want to have him on the podcast to talk about that exact mantra. So subscribe if you're not already. Number 11 learning a new software service despite your initial frustration or overwhelm sticking with it until you actually get over that first part of the learning curve. Finally, number 12 staying in business at all through thick and thin. This episode happens to go live the week of my 12 year biziversary, and I really want to thank you all for being here. Just staying in the game is something to be proud of.

Speaking of which, if you're here, you're now toward the end of the podcast club, as my friend Neil calls it. And so I want to give you a little tiny sneak peek of a secret project that I'm working on and an invitation to further support this work. If you enjoy what I do, visit itsfreetime.comsecret to get a clue of what I'm up to. That's itsfreetime.com secret. I want to close with a story and a quote. The story comes from my beloved husband Michael, whose favorite book is the Little Prince. You've probably heard me quote it before and I certainly cite it at the end of Free Time in the acknowledgments as I thanked Michael early on in our dating, he told me the story of the Little Prince and the rose and why that rose was so special. Pretty sure he was telling me this story in response to my own insecurities. And I have this deep fear of being replaced or traded in, which is one of those classic storylines in American movies about the guy that trades in the wife for the younger woman. In any case, Michael reminded me about this beautiful story from the Little Prince, and it just so happens to go with my thorn instance from earlier this morning. Let me read you an excerpt.

The Little Prince went away to look again at the roses. You are not at all like my rose, he said. As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox. When I first knew him, he was only a fox, like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world. And the roses were very much embarrassed. You are beautiful, but you are empty, he went on. One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked too just like you. The rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses. Because it is she that I have watered. Because it is she that I have put under the glass globe. Because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen. Because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars, except for the two or three that we saved to become butterflies. Because it is she that I have listened to when she grumbled or boasted or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose. And he went back to meet the fox. Goodbye, he said. Goodbye, said the fox. And now here is my secret. A very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye, the Fox continued. It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

And so free. Timers, my dearest listeners, I want to say to you. It is the time you have spent, invested, and even wasted on your beautiful, brilliant business that makes it special, that makes it your business, that makes it your calling and your life's work. I'll close this out with another quote from Charles Eames, who said, art resides in the quality of doing. Process is not magic. You hereby have permission to celebrate even as you sweat the small stuff and I want to encourage you to make a list of 10 tiny improvements that you have already made to your business this year to that nobody would be able to see from the outside. Thank you so much for being here listening. Have a beautiful rest of your day.

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