#005 How To Deal With The Unforeseen

Oh my goodness. What a day. What a day. Okay. So many things have not gone right today, but I'm committed to doing Personal Brand Breakthrough like I've told you for the last month and a half or so, every Thursday at 2:00 PM. So today, and this is so interesting, I'm actually in the car for good reason. I'm going to explain everything in a moment. My name is Sheryl Plouffe, and if you would drop down in the comments where you're watching from. Would love whether you're watching live or watching the replay. Let me know in the comments where you're watching from. So big story. Hi, Lisa. Nice to see you. How to deal with the unforeseen is what we're going to be talking. Supreeti, nice to see you. How to deal with the unforeseen. And the reason why I'm doing that, as you can probably well tell, is that I have had to deal with the unforeseen today. And I like to use experiences that happened to me in my real life and share what we— Hi, Phil! Oh my God, how are you? Phil's watching, Brode. That's cool. Hey, Jim. Phil what? Phil Chart. Say hi. Wave to him. Okay. So anyway, I'm in the car right now. And the reason why I want to talk about how to deal with the unforeseen is because I have had to deal with it. And there's so much that we can all learn from this. And that's really what I want to share with you today. Normally when I do the show, I use a specific tool on my smartphone and it's called Switcher Studio. And with it, I'm, I'm able to bring up lower thirds and I'm able to bring up— hi Harvey— I'm able to bring up a lot of different titles and things on the screen from a branding perspective. You know, I can play my, my video intro, my show intro and things like that. I can't do it right now because literally 2 minutes ago, before I hit live on this broadcast, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't connect. So what I'm going to talk about today is even more relevant to, to you. And I really want you to take some lessons from what I'm going to teach you today with you in the process of creating your own content and dealing with the unforeseen. So here's the backstory. You need to know a little bit of the backstory. I'm not going to go into it for too long, but basically my two guys, one sleeping and one is on my laptop in the back, have been away for a week. Watching Fortnite. You're watching Fortnite. Have been away for a week. And the plan was I was going to drive to pick them up at the airport late last night, but the unforeseen happened. The weather or whatever the reason was, one of the flights got canceled. And anyway, these guys ended up coming into the airport this morning rather than last night. Well, if you ever see my schedule, you know that everything is planned out like hour to hour. I'm very busy. So that meant that all of a sudden I had to start rearranging everything, which is fine. Of course, I'm going to go pick them up. I had to rearrange everything. And again, it was an unforeseen change. And that's fine, change things in the schedule. But, but what it forced me to do was to think about, especially as it relates to this show, how am I, how am I going to do the show? Because normally I do it from home, I have time in the morning to prepare my, you know, various different resources or different images or videos even, or other things that I may want to share with you on a specific topic. But today I couldn't do that. The reason I bring this all up is because these types of unforeseen things happen to all of us in entrepreneurship. They happen all the time. I'm using this example and this show as an example of, of, of a real life scenario and how I'm dealing with it so that you can learn from it. Let me know in the comments if you've ever dealt with something unforeseen and what you did about it, or just let me know if you've ever dealt with something unforeseen. But I think it's a common experience. So here I am, I pick up the boys and now we're in the car and we're driving back. But of course now I'm looking at the watch and I'm going, how am I going to— we're going to be driving on the road at 2 o'clock when I'm intending to do the show. So we have to pull over. I'm in a parking lot right now. I don't even know. I'm like feet away from the, from Lake Ontario. I'm in a parking lot. This was the best that I could do in the moment. Can you relate? Sometimes you have to be resourceful, which is the first point that I want to make, that when the unforeseen happens, you have to really, it's like you have to think quick. You have to— thank you. Who can relate to this? Let me know with a show of thumbs, thumbs up, if you can relate to this. When the unforeseen happens, it forces us to get resourceful. It forces us to say, okay, I need to find a solution to this problem right now. What am I going to do? Look around and figure out what is available to me right now. How can I make the best of this situation that is not ideal? So dealing with, so dealing with the unforeseen means being resourceful. I'm making notes. I literally made these notes, like, while I was driving to the airport. I had my phone on the cradle and I was voice dictating while I drove to the airport, voice dictating into the phone the points that I wanted to make on this video today. Talk about being resourceful, right? I was driving, so I couldn't— I didn't have the time to sit down and do the notes like I normally do and how I normally prepare. So I made the best of what I had, which was, okay, I have a phone and it does take voice dictation. So I'm going to voice my thoughts into the phone so that later I can sit down and just write them out on a pad of paper. I did have the foresight again, which leads me to my next point, which is anticipate. I had the foresight to bring a pad of paper with me because I knew that this situation may arise. Anticipate is point number 2. Anticipate that you're gonna need to write some notes so that you can do the broadcast. Do you see where I'm going with this? Hi, Harp, nice to see you. So when the unforeseen happens, A, you have to— or I'll use numbers. 1, you have to be resourceful. In this case, I'm gonna use my phone and I'm gonna be in a parking lot and I'm gonna do the show when I— when and wherever I am, I'm going to do the show from there. Number 2, anticipate. So I brought a pad of paper so that I could write some notes at one point before I do the broadcast. I used my phone to voice dictate the notes as I was driving to the airport this morning. Okay, be creative, right? Be creative. A few minutes before I started this broadcast, I wanted to use a specific tool. It wasn't working. I'm like, okay, so I'm going to have to be creative here. I'm going to have to find a solution. Right? So be creative when you are dealing with the unforeseen. You've got to just really dig deep and start getting creative. And which leads me to my next point, let go of perfectionism. I, doing this personal brand breakthrough today, would have preferred for this to be more thought out. Hi Sebastian. I would have preferred for there to have been, you know, I would have liked to have probably done this from not my car, but That's not the situation I'm in. I'm letting go of perfectionism so that I can commit, stay true to my commitment, which was to do this show every Thursday at 2:00 PM. How this relates to your personal brand, by the way, if you're kind of scratching your head and going, okay, this is great, except how does this relate to my personal brand? It relates entirely to your personal brand because your personal— thanks Sebastian. Your personal brand is a representation of what people say about you when you're not there in the room. So I can only do what I can do. You're going to make an impression. You're going to have an impression of me. And I don't have— I mean, I can try to manipulate it as much as possible, but I can't control what someone else thinks about me. They're going to make an impression about me whether or not I like it or not. But what I'm hoping is that by demonstrating that I go to any length, even sitting in a parking lot 100 feet away from the lake right now to do this broadcast, hopefully says to you that I'm a person who, who sticks to their commitments, who, you know, again, deals with the unforeseen, finds solutions. Those are all on brand for me, right? So that's how it relates to your brand. Start thinking about how something like that, something unforeseen that happens to you, how does that How can you better deal with that situation that's in line with your brand? So for me, I made a commitment that I was going to do this every, you know, Thursday at 2:00 PM. And here I am doing it anyway. Thankfully, technologically it's working, right? So, I mean, it could have gone worse, but, but that's how it relates because when you make a commitment, whether it's, and again, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, it's about making a commitment to creating content, let's say, you have to stick to it as best as you can. I mean, the only thing that could have gone worse, I think, today was if for whatever reason there was absolutely no signal here. And that leads me to the next point, um, finding— again, finding solutions, right? Let me show you something, and this is something kind of neat that I think you might enjoy to see. Last summer we were up at the lake and I was again talking about dealing with the unforeseen. I was up at the lake last year in the summer, my first summer as a full-time entrepreneur. And I of course need to use my laptop, which he's using in the backseat right now. Need to use my laptop and say hi. And because we were at the lake, we did not have the best signal. We didn't have a very good reception. I was trying to do live videos, I was trying to do all this stuff, and sometimes it was cutting in and out, and it just was not ideal. Well, in my line of business, I really need to have internet. So what did I do? I started to research solutions, and one of the solutions I came up with is this. It's really cool. And again, depending on where you're watching from, you may be able to get something that's similar to this. This is a— what they call a MyFi box. It's Wi-Fi but portable. So I can take this with me. Again, talking about building solutions or finding solutions. I did some research and found that this existed. And I'm like, wow, that's great. Maybe this is a solution for me to again, deal with this unforeseen issue of not having Wi-Fi at the lake. Maybe I could use this. Sure enough, I contact who I need to contact, I get it set up. This thing has basically saved my life many times from a content creation standpoint. It's saving my life today because I'm using this MiFi box to broadcast from the car in this parking lot right now. So let's review the points that I want to make for today, which is dealing with the unforeseen. Okay. And I hope I get this in order here. Number 1, be resourceful. I'm in a parking lot right now. When you're dealing with the next thing that's unforeseen for you, what can you do to be resourceful? Daddy is sleeping. Yes. So number 1 is going to put numbers here. Number 1 is be resourceful. Number 2 is— I can't remember what order I did. Let's just say number 2, I said, is be creative. Okay, be creative. Number 3 is let go of perfectionism. So you know what, in an unforeseen situation, done is better than perfect, my husband likes to say. Sleeping. My husband likes to say that make it good, then make it great. So sometimes when the unforeseen happens, you're just— it's— you have to let go of perfectionism and just get it done. Thank you. You relate. Okay. Number 4, find solutions. Again, back to the story about the lake last year, I found this as a solution. Boy, this has really saved me a lot of times. I had to do a bit of research to figure out what a solution was for that problem. And lo and behold, it's coming through for me again. So number 5, again, research, right? Research and solutions kind of go together. And number 6 is anticipate. So today, when I knew that I was going to the airport to pick them up, I brought this along with me because I was anticipating that I would probably need to use this because I'm probably going to be in a situation where the show is not going to go as I planned. And that, my friends, is that. Brody's laughing in the back. This guy's so bad. Oh, you're laughing at the video. He was laughing at me. Okay, so can I get a show of thumbs if you— if this is resonating with you? Please let me know in the comments what is an example of something that has happened for you unforeseen in the last month or two, something that, that you were doing or something that didn't go as smoothly as you'd wished. Let me know if there's something that has happened to you, if you can relate to what it is that I'm talking about, because how this relates to your personal brand— and thank you for watching, by the way, I appreciate when you, if you share this out as well— how this relates to your personal brand is that when you make a commitment especially as an entrepreneur who's trying to build their personal brand, content is probably one of those things. When you make a commitment to do something, you have to follow through no matter what, even if it's unper— even if it's imperfect, even if it's not ideal, even if, you know, you don't feel prepared, even if you feel like it might totally suck, it's better to do it and stick with the commitment than it is to not do it at all. I could— it's snowing right now, by the way. Wow. Okay. Just take a look at this. Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. It's April. Sometimes it snows in April. But I could have said, you know what? I can't do the show today. You know, I just can't do it because I'm going to be driving. And I could have found excuses. I could have had— Tons of excuses I could have used today. I could have, but I didn't because I feel like it's more important to find— kind of challenge myself to find solutions, to be creative, to let go of perfectionism, to be, you know, to research and anticipate the scenario and be resourceful in order to be on brand for what my belief system is. Like, I really believe in sticking to commitments when you make them? Who can relate to that? Let me know. How are you doing back there? Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm seeing that hearts. Okay, so you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? It's, it's totally on brand for you to stick to your commitments when it— when— if that's an important value if that's an important— if it's important to you as a value— let's see, other word for that. Your— yeah, I think that's the best word I can think of right now. If you value commitment and it's something that you want to be representative of your personal brand, then you've got to find a way. And it doesn't just relate to a scenario like mine today where I'm doing this show. It relates to anything that you're doing in your business, right? Anything that you're doing in your business. If things go wrong, unforeseen things happen that are beyond your control, like the weather. Okay, what are you going to do? You know, what are you going to do? Are you going to let that stop you, or are you going to be resourceful and find a way and anticipate and let go of perfectionism? That's my question to you today. So if this resonates with you, I would love for you to leave me some— a comment. If you think I'm off my rocker, leave me a comment. If you like what I'm saying, give me a thumbs up or a heart. Appreciate that. And if you really love this message and you think it could resonate to someone who is Hey, Catherine, is, you know, struggling with overwhelm or trying to do everything and is trying to make everything perfect. You know, someone who is looking to build a business and this message may resonate with them as an example of a real life example of again, making lemonade from lemons. Right. And I would appreciate if you shared this out to your network. That would be very helpful to me because it gets my message out to more people. My name is Sheryl Plouffe. I'm a video marketing strategist. For those of you who are watching who have never seen me before, appreciate your time today. It's a shorter show, but it's definitely an important message. It's a simple message. Yes, please watch the replay, Catherine. I think that if you're an entrepreneur, this is important to, to see, you know, a real-life example of, again, just pushing through The, the parts that are unforeseen, the hard parts, the parts that don't go perfectly well, whether that's doing a show like this or doing a video or creating a PDF or whatever, whatever that thing is in your business, it isn't always gonna go smoothly. And you do have to find ways to, to barrel through. And that's ultimately what will dictate your success is if you do those things and really find solutions. To problems. Enough said. Thank you so much for watching today. I really appreciate it. I'm gonna call— hash— or sorry, hashtag car show is what we're gonna call it. Today's personal brand breakthrough is brought to you by the car. Have a great day, you guys. Please share this if this resonated with you, and I'll go back on the comments. I'd love for you to comment with something unforeseen that has happened to you and how you dealt with it. Because I think it's helpful for the rest of us watching this broadcast to know that we're not alone, that everyone deals with unforeseen things. Everyone has challenges. Sometimes I think when we see examples of that, it can be beneficial because then we go, okay, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one who feels like everything goes bad. I'm not the only one who feels like everything is not going smoothly. And that message alone is really important. Brody, would you like to say goodbye? Bye. Okay, can you wave? Okay, bye everyone. Thank you so much for watching. Appreciate it.