Make Room for Passion

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Hello and good evening and happy Friday, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Coming to you live on the Facebook, on LinkedIn, and on YouTube. We're not dealing with Instagram today. I didn't feel like managing two screens anyway. Welcome. You know, I've been thinking a lot about rest lately, especially being on a 30 day challenge where I'm going live every single day, because that is work that, like, this is 100% work. I have to think of what to say, I have to make sure I look somewhat presentable, I have to show up on camera and I have to talk at you for a certain amount of time. Not something that we want to do every day forever. Right? When we think about rest, though, especially as entrepreneurs, especially as business owners who are scrappy and hustle y and like, are ready to just give it our all because we want this to work, we tend to only remember, like, physical rest, which is obviously sleep and like resting your body and like laying and, you know, having your eyes closed. That's not the only kind of rest that's important though. All right. For you to have a fully rested and rejuvenated body and mind and spirit, you actually have to do six kinds of rest in addition to that. And it's really important to do this. And I, I'm not saying this being, like, cool, now you have a gazillion other things on your to do list to do. No, no, no, no. A lot of these can be combined into like, one kind. Right? And I'll point out the ones that can be combined. But this makes sure that a, you are not burning yourself out, right? Going live every single day here, that's a lot of creativity that's required coming up with ideas, right? I can't do that if I'm not also, like, spending time on creative endeavors. If I'm not also appreciating art, if I'm not reading or listening to music or looking at art. I wouldn't have a whole lot to talk about if I didn't also go out and socialize and have stories about, like, my friends and family and, and things that happen to me out in the world. It's the same for you. All right, so I'm going to go through the, the six kinds that you need to invest your time in for rest in addition to physical. I'll tell you, like, what are the options to combine? So you can kill two birds or three birds with one stone? And I'd love to hear from you. What kinds of ways do you. You make sure that you get these kinds of rest? All right, so first and foremost, we have mental rest. All right, so mental rest is exactly what it sounds like. It's taking a break from doing mental work. Right? One of the things that is top of the list in mental rest is meditation. All right? Meditation is one of the best ways you can give yourself that mental rest. I almost just threw my pen at myself. And it. It can be. You can double that up because, like, mental rest and sensory rest are very similar. Sensory rest is like you're looking at screens all day long. You have noises. You give yourself sensory rest when you're meditating as well. There's also spiritual rest. So if you don't pray, if you're not religious, and meditation is how you fulfill your spiritual needs. Like, you've just. You've just killed three. Three different kinds of rest with one. One little sit down for 10 minutes. Not the metaphor that works as well as killing birds with stones. Anyway, so mental rest is really important. It's especially important for those of us with adhd, right, because our brains are working a gazillion miles a minute, and they tend to get tired. Tired, you know, and. And they just stop working, right? They just stop working. We get into executive dysfunction, and then because we're in executive dysfunction, we feel like we're falling behind. We feel lazy and all stuff, and then we start punishing ourselves. And then it doesn't matter if we're resting because we're actually not. We're just punishing ourselves in our own brains. Okay? So mental rest is incredibly important to give yourself, and it really is setting the expectation that this time, whatever time, you are giving yourself to rest from all the things, you are not expecting yourself to figure anything out. You're not expecting yourself to come up with ideas for content or this or that or the other thing. It's really meant for you to just shut off. I will say mental rest for someone with ADHD can look a lot like watching tv, right? Because one of the only times that our minds will turn, turn off is when we're listening to stories, when we're watching stories. Stories are one of the most beautiful ways for us to turn off our working brain and get tuned into something else. And so I offer that as a way to give yourself mental rest, emotional rest. So emotional Rest. This is one that a lot of us get really uncomfortable about because it involves talking about our fears, feelings. And let me just tell you, talking about your feelings, I know it feels. Feels cringe. And a lot of us, especially if you're like an elder millennial, Gen X or boomer, like, it's just a lot. It's just a lot. And. And you're not. I'm sure you're having this feeling of like, well, I don't think anyone wants to hear about my feelings. And it's not that you have to have particularly interesting feelings to have it be a relevant conversation either. You know, to get emotional rest, there are a bunch of different options. You could work with a therapist. You could have a girls or boys or friends night where you all just kind of like, decompress from the week. You could write in a journal. I know my friend Amanda Stern teaches people how to journal. That's an incredible way to give yourself that emotional rest and to really process through. Through anything that's happened. I know personally, I had kind of an emotional week. I saw something really violent and awful on Sunday last week, and I'm still processing through it. And I have to say, like, journaling and talking with friends and talking with my therapist have been really critical for me to do that. But it's not just like the big things. It could just be that you hadn't accepted exciting week. And you need to be able to process the feelings of excitement. That's all valid, but you do need to give your emotional self that time, that air time. Next. Sensory. Sensory rest is one of the hardest ones, I think, for us to get in the here and now, because we have just, you know, devices. Devices galore. Like, I have. Let me just pull out all of my devices here. I think I have another iPad. I do. I have my very first iPad. We have devices all over the place, and they all make noise and they all light up, and they all have fun things on them. And we have TVs and we go out in public and they have music playing, and it's all just so much. And you know what? It is incredibly important for your brain to remove yourself from that kind of stimulation. Now, different ways you can remove yourself from that stimulation. You can go for a walk in nature. You can go to a body of water like the beach or a lake, and you can just sit there and watch the water that's really peaceful. I live on Cape Cod, and let me tell you, it's one of my favorite things to do. You know, again, Again, sensory. Sensory rest. You could meditate. That is absolutely one of the situations where you could kill two birds with one stone. And honestly, I'm just a big fan and I do this a lot when I'm in executive dysfunction, when I'm. You're just kind of like completely. What is the term. I'm forgetting the word disassociated. When I'm. That was a disassociation moment. You saw it live. When I'm disassociated and I'm just kind of like staring off into space and my brain just isn't connecting. I find just going and sitting in my room without the TV on, without my phone near me, and I just sit there and I let myself just stare off into space and not think about anything. And I do that honestly, until I get bored. And it's. It's amazing. When I give myself sensory rest. You think that you just get bored immediately, but it's fascinating. I've had. I've had times where I've sat there easily for 45 minutes. Right. Because it's just like I'm so. I have such sensory overload. And I didn't realize it that my. My brain actually just really loves how having that break in that time. So highly recommend giving yourself that sensory break. All right, the next one I really love. If you can't see my thin little book list, pile of books over here. I'm a big reader and I have to tell you, since I took reading back up, because I didn't. I didn't really make time for reading for a very long time because I was starting a business and I was too busy for that. When I started reading again, I started like being more successful in my business. Justin, welcome. Finally had a chance to catch one of these live. I've been. Well, how are you? Great to see you talking all about rest. It's a very sexy topic. I know. But honestly, like, if. But we're talking about creative rest specifically right now. But honestly, if you want to be successful in your business, if you want to be able to generate ideas, if you want to feel at all inspired, you actually do have to invest time in creative endeavors, you know, so reading, reading books, writing, doing art, looking at art, making music, listening to music, whatever it is that's. That feeds you creatively is going to be so instrumental in you being successful in your business and also just being like an interesting ass human, you know, no one wants to hang out with a person who all they have to talk about is work, you know? Yeah. So we don't. We don't need to do that. We get to. We get to be interesting and creative as well. I honestly, I used to be able to do this. So I taught knitting once a week when I was in San Francisco, and every single week I would get to that night and I'd be like, just don't have energy for this. I'm so tired, so tired. And I don't want to teach people how to knit. And I just like. And then I get there and then set up the class, and then my students would arrive and they were all, like, older ladies, except for the occasional person who is my age. And I'd start class and I'd teach them how to do it, and then I'd, like, get to teach them in different ways, because everyone learns in a different way. And then they'd ask, like, questions about future projects. And then we'd get creative and, like, we'd go through the shop and I'd be able to recommend, oh, you should try this and this and this and this and this. And I swear to God, it was like doing drugs. It really was. I. After a two or three hour class, I would be on such a high after finishing that it would take me hours to wind down. It even got to the point where I actually had to, like, stop teaching because it would keep me up too late at night. Was that the Deathly Hallows tattoo? I also got creative burnout with Facebook reels. Just started feeling like a massive chore to do one video that takes five minutes. To answer your question, you. You won. You won. This is my nerd badge, and you have now been identified as a nerd in my circle. So thank you. Thank you for realizing what it was. And a hundred percent, I felt the same way about Tick Tock reels or Tick Tock videos. I was on a kick. I was doing them, like, every day for 100 days, and I kind of fell off the wagon. I got back on it, and it's just. It's exhausting. It really is. It's exhausting. And it's just that, like, we can't pour out of an empty cup. And it's funny how we expect ourselves to, like, constantly be creative in a way that's going to be generative for our businesses, but also, like, we're not feeding that creativity in any way. That's not realistic. You have to feed the creativity. Okay, so are you sold on creative rest? I hope so. You know, getting tattoos could also be creative rest, but you run out of space fairly quickly. Anyway, the next one. I hope we're all getting this time. But honestly, social rest, spending time with loved ones and friends and positive humans. And this is the key. They have to be positive. They have to be good for you. I'm sure many of you have had relationships which you have outgrown that are no longer positive for your mental health. We're not talking about those fuckers, okay? They are not part of your. Your social rest regime. They will not help you here. Social rest can be anything from spending time with really, really good friends. I've personally, this is. This is honestly one of the hardest things for me because I work from home, I live in a place where I'm not sure I want to live long term. So I'm a little touch and go, like, going out and making a whole bunch of friends, because what if I'm not here forever, you know? But I've recently just signed up for tennis lessons, and I'm gonna sound like, like, the, like, most fancy person. Tennis lessons and French lessons. The French lessons are in a group. They. They're virtual. They actually start tomorrow. I'm so excited. But, yeah, like, I wanted to be around people who were, like, interested in the same thing because I love that kind of environment. I love learning with people. In my tennis lesson, I have two people who are at my level who are, like, all playing together, and it's this older Mary, a couple named Donald and Harriet. And I just adore them. They're so cute. But honestly, like, social. Social rest, it doesn't necessarily have to be super deep relationships, like going and spending time with people. Like, if you like Dungeons and Dragons, go and do that. If you want to be part of a writing group, go and do that. If you want to take up knitting or some kind of creative thing, go and do that. Do that. Around people who are all interested in the same thing. It really does change your life. And I know it sounds dramatic, but I watched it happen. I watched it happen. When I taught knitting. I watched these women who. And I'm saying these women because it was all women. There was no. There were no dudes in my classes. Not that they weren't invited, but honestly, like, I watched them really find something they were passionate about and, like, be passionate around other people who are also learning that passion as well. And there's something in that. There's something just like that magical. Magical, like, zing. That really does lift you up. Let me see. Ixnay on the Debbie Downer relationships. I just ordered the social battery pin for sure. Oh, I've seen the social battery where, like, you can toggle it so it's like full and empty. I love that. Especially for introverts who are out there. I'm an extrovert, so it's really hard to run down my social battery. My social battery actually really only gets run down if I'm around Debbie Downers. If I'm having a hard time drumming up conversation, which you can imagine, it's kind of hard to, hard for me to even get there anyway, so social rest is really important. I hope I'm stressing this. Lastly, spiritual rest. I'm not a religious person. I'm a spiritual person. I'm not a religious person. So if you find, if you find your spirituality in religion, go for it. Spend time, devote time. If you're simply spiritual, find a practice that works for you. You know, something I love to do is I love to do tarot cards. I like to, like, write letters with my spirit guides. Like, you can do whatever it is that makes you feel connected. This is another one of those things that can also be doubled down on like mental rest and sensory rest, right? Because if you meditate, that is also, you know, something that you can do for your spiritual health. If you, you know, are doing tarot cards, like, that is also something that helps you kind of like do sensory stimulation rest and mental rest, right? You need. Oh, hold on, Justin. Or mandatory fun, AKA meetings. That should have been an email. Oh, my God. This is one of the reasons why I no longer work for companies. All like, happy hours, like come, come to dinner. And then you just end up talking about work the whole time and watching people get inappropriately wasted when you know it's a work function function. So much fun. Anyway, I hope I've sold you on a whole bunch of rest. I hope you don't feel overwhelmed by all these new things that you need to make time for, for genuinely make time for them. If you have to dial back five hours of work a week to make time for this kind of stuff, do has, it has major ripple effects with your health, with your mental health, and with the success of your business. All right? So go, go and rest my people and have fun while you do it. And Justin, thank you for being here. I was so glad you made it. That's all for me today. I'm gonna go and do follow my own advice and rest this evening. I, I, what was my, where was my brain going? Oh, my God, this is such an ADHD moment. I got a text from a client and a couple other things just happened to my computer. And then I lost track of what I was gonna say. Anyway, Today is day 2122 of me going live. Every single day. No, it's something. I've lost track of the days. And I will be going live for the full 30. So if you have anything you want me to go live on, I'm always down for ideas. That helps me with my work. And so just DM me if you want me to touch upon a certain topic. Otherwise, I will see you live tomorrow. All right, thanks again, Justin, and have a great night. Bye.