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INTRO: After generating over a million dollars in sales and selling one of her businesses with a single email, your host, Kathryn Thompson, takes an unconventional approach to marketing and sales. So if you're ready to tap into a more powerful way to be seen, heard, and a sought after entrepreneur in your industry without having to spend endless hours marketing your business and chasing clients, you're in the right place. Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast is here to help you ditch the cookie cutter, one size fits all approach to marketing and use your unique energy to effortlessly attract the most aligned clients. When you do this, you can spend less time marketing your business and more time doing your soul work and enjoying the richness of your life. Welcome to Be The Sought After Entrepreneur Podcast. And here's your host, Kathryn Thompson.
Kathryn Thompson: Hey, hey, super so that you're tuning in this week's episode, and I cannot [00:01:00] wait to dive into today's topic because I want to talk about something really important. And that has to do with the way in which we show up in our business. But more than that, the way in which we take care of ourselves. in our business, so to speak.
Um, and if you've been in my world for a while, you probably know that I spent many, many, many, many years of my life grinding really hard to create success, both in corporate and in my brick and mortar business. I think my brick and mortar business nearly killed me in a lot of ways, and I'm actually probably still recovering from that experience, because when you hit a level of burnout, you no longer carry that stamina.
forward in life. And so I don't have the same same stamina as I did when I ran that brick and mortar business. I also think as you age and you get older and priority shift in your life and whatnot, and you learn and grow and evolve, you start to realize in a lot of ways [00:02:00] that the hustle, the grind, the And the never ending go, go, go, go, go without any rest definitely does impact you in the long run.
And it ultimately isn't sustainable. And the reason I'm sharing this is because I've had a lot of conversations lately with clients of mine, uh, people that aren't clients of mine. I spoke at an in person event a week or two ago now, and there is this sort of collective energy that I'm seeing, and maybe you're feeling it as well.
Particularly in April, but I think people have been feeling it this year a lot. And that is this, I don't want to say exhaustion or burnout, but this deep, deep need to like slow down and to really rest. And I've had clients come to me recently that are in spellbound that are like, you know what, I just need a hot minute to like, take a break.
And it's one thing that I really encourage my clients to do. And I know it can be difficult when you're running a business as a business owner and you're running a program, let's just say, and it's six months or [00:03:00] a year, whatever it might be, whatever length of time it is. And you have people committing to that three, six, 12 month period.
Maybe it's a couple of weeks, whatever the framework is, you've got these people committing to a certain period of time. But what I've always sort of struggled with when it comes to programs that are very rigid in the time frame, you've got to do this in three months, you've got to do this in six months, you've got to do this in 12 months, is that none of the programs that I've been in who have structured their programs on this sort of timeline have given people the time to integrate, have given people the time to navigate shit that hits the fan.
Alongside them building and growing their business. And there isn't an entrepreneur that I have met. There isn't a client that I have met that has come into my world that hasn't experienced something in the time that we've worked together, whether it's loss, whether it's family [00:04:00] stuff going on, whether it's health stuff with them, whether it's health stuff with their children, everybody that has come into my world has navigated some type of life situation.
And one thing that I know that I do differently, and I know that I do it differently because I've been in a bunch of different containers, I've been coached by a bunch of different people is, is allowing my clients to take a break. And when I talk about congruency, and the congruency in the way in which we show up, and the congruency in our message, and the congruency in all of it, what I often find interesting is, is that if we are people who are selling freedom, so to speak, right?
Most business coaches, most online business owners, Most business owners in general went into business [00:05:00] for the freedom and autonomy to do work that they love, to not have to be cooped up in a nine to five. And if freedom is the underlying thing that most of us are after, then how can we as business owners, coaches, healers, practitioners, entrepreneurs, how can we expect our clients to show up consistently 3, 6, 12 months.
If we know for certain that life is very unpredictable, that the only constant in our life is change, and that As we try to navigate change, how can we expect our clients to never take a rest or never take a break? If somebody commits to a 3 or 6 or 12 month experience with you, are you building in time for integration?
Are you creating [00:06:00] space for flexibility if something happens to them in their world? They're faced with adversity in some way, shape, or form. How can we expect them to power through? In the face of adversity, without taking a rest, without taking a break, and I'm sharing this because collectively, as I talk to more people, more and more people are feeling the weight of the energy, whether that be in their business, many, many people are contemplating what they're doing, why they're doing it.
Whether or not they want to keep going and doing the thing that they've created. Lots of people are contemplating, is this it? What's next? Do I want to do something different or change the way I'm doing things? Many people are navigating adversity in their personal lives. And they're wondering, how do I juggle my personal life plus my business, plus this business coaching container I'm in, or this, you know, other commitment that I signed up for, whether it's some type of healing or [00:07:00] whatnot.
And I'm sharing this with you because for two reasons, I think. Number one is, it's really, really, really difficult to create a sustainable business if you don't build in time for rest. And that might seem like, duh, Kathryn, I get it. But it's rare and far between that I see people really taking the rest that they need.
And If they do, it almost feels like I need to take a break. I feel like I do. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that I, that I have to take a break from this, or I'm sorry I have to step away. It's this apology that they have to take care of themselves. Pause. whatnot. And I was reading a post recently about, you know, slowing down to speed up and whatnot.
And what I found really interesting and funny about that is, is that so much of our world is around getting [00:08:00] fast results, doing things really quickly. You know, if we don't create the fast results, then somehow, you know, we're not as successful as the other people that got to that milestone quicker. And we're on this perpetual treadmill of go, go, go, go, go.
We live by some type of to do list. And that to me is creating a lot of overwhelm. And there's lots of reasons why this is happening. But what I kind of sort of laughed about internally for myself was not everything that happens fast is better than, right? In business, creating fast results, creating quick results, um, growing extremely fast, hiring team really fast.
Like not all lows have. And I shared a story I think a while ago about a company that I knew that that scaled really quickly. They were creating a product and the product kind of blew up and they weren't able to fulfill their [00:09:00] orders. People were waiting, you know, 6, 8, 12 months to get a product from them.
And it was a lot of bad backlash for their company because they hadn't prepared themselves for that fast growth. I'm sharing this with you because I think sometimes we put fast on a pedestal, and I think when we put fast on a pedestal, we have a really hard time slowing down. We have a really hard time stepping back and resting, because that means we're maybe moving slower than the next person, or we're not able to achieve the things we want quick enough, or we feel like that in order to create the success that we've got to move at this pace all the time.
And that is just one example of how fast isn't always better. And I know for myself over the last year and a half, as I've really started to scale my business, hire team, all of those sorts of things, you know, I was contemplating and looking back on the year and a half here where I, where I hired [00:10:00] most of my team now.
And I remember thinking to myself, if I had grown any quicker, like if I, when I started this in 2018, if I had grown any quicker, I think it would have absolutely fried my nervous system. But I also knew that I didn't have the capacity to do that because of coming off the back end of the brick and mortar where I was completely burnt out.
And so for me, scaling slow was my only option because I didn't have the stamina and I had spent four years not integrating rest into my life at all. And eventually that caught up with me. And so I knew I wanted to do the online business differently in that I couldn't push and grind and hustle to the capacity that I once could.
I'm sharing this with you because, like I said, I feel this collective energy that's like heavy and the conversations I've been having with a lot of women have been [00:11:00] around this whole idea of Feeling tired or feeling exhausted or kind of overwhelmed with what to do, but also feeling this deep, deep, deep pressure to keep pushing forward, regardless of what's going on around them.
And I want to just invite you, whether it's something that you might be rolling your eyes at me at right now as you're listening to this, is that, integrating rest. And I'm not talking about like binging Netflix or closing your computer at five and pouring yourself a bottle of wine. Like, that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about deep rest, whether that's like really good sleep. You know, a lot of women I've been talking to lately are struggling to sleep. They're having, they're waking up in the middle of the night, their brain is sort of racing. They've got this, a lot of pressure on themselves to create the success that they want and oftentimes feel like they're running out of time at the same time.
So they're like running on this treadmill of like, I got to do, do, do, [00:12:00] do. But I also feel like I'm running out of time. You know, I'm not doing it kind of quick enough. And so, I want to come back to that post I was talking about because I was sharing with you that post that, you know, it was like, you have to slow down to speed up.
You've probably heard that saying, and I was kind of laughing because I imagined these memes, right? I was like, not everything great is fast, getting fast results. doesn't mean it's going to be sustainable. Growing your business really quickly and, you know, onboarding 20 people, let's just say into a program, might be a capacity that you can't hold energetically.
Like nervous system wise, it's like fries your system. Or, you know, like you're like that company that had a product that went absolutely wild and all of a sudden, you know, they couldn't sustain the orders. And then they've got a brand out there that people are pissed about. I was laughing because I imagined these memes like me thinking to myself, you know, fast isn't always better.
In [00:13:00] fact, slow is pretty amazing too. And I was thinking of like my slow mornings, right? Like I really love getting up and having a slow morning or, you know, going for like long walks. Um, on the beach at the ocean and watching the waves crash, like just sitting there in that moment and just watching the waves crash with like no place to be or, you know, slowly cooking supper.
I love to cook. You might not, might be thinking, wow, that sucks. I don't like to cook, but I love to cook. And I don't like being rushed through the cooking process. I love to methodically just sort of sit in the kitchen and I don't really follow recipes. I just kind of put stuff together. My husband always laughs cause he's always like, you don't follow her recipe.
How much have you gone off recipe tonight? He'll often say they always turn out pretty good, but I just love to methodically be in the kitchen slowly chopping things. I don't like to feel rushed in the kitchen. Um, you know, there's, there's lots of things in life. You can probably think [00:14:00] like, all things in your world, like what are things that you love slow?
I love to take long baths. I love to read a really good book and get stuck into a really good book and not want it to end, and therefore I'll read it slower, but also sometimes read it fast. But I love reading it slow, knowing that I just don't want it to end. So I'm sharing these things with you because there's always sort of two sides to every conversation.
story, there's always two sides to everything. Not fast and fast isn't always better and slow isn't always better, right? And so if you're feeling this pressure right now in your business, this pressure to succeed, this pressure to get shit done all the time, this pressure to just tick things off a to do list and every day you wake up and you're like, you're, you're running by that to do list and you never quite feel caught up.
I want to invite you to start to [00:15:00] integrate some rest into your world, but also integrate time to actually not be in your business. And the reason I say that is by, by experience is I know this from experience that At some point, depending on your resilience, depending on your life and all of that, at some point that's going to come to a head and maybe it's coming to one right now you're feeling it or you're in this perpetual cycle of being on burnout and then go and then burnout and then go.
I know for myself, like I said, after the brick and mortar, I couldn't sustain the level of pace that I had gone in that business. I just don't have it. And My life and business looks quite a bit different now, uh, in terms of what I do on a day to day basis. And I'm sharing this again with you because like I said, I've been having so many conversations with women about just feeling tired and burnt and like they've, they're juggling all the [00:16:00] balls and they're trying to balance all the plates and they're starting to slowly fall down.
I want to invite you that it's okay to take a rest. And like I said, when my clients come to me and they go, you know, I just need a couple of weeks, Kathryn, or I need a month and they're in containers with me, or they're in one to one with me. I'm like, yeah, go take a rest. Go take a break. Please, um, go do it.
And, and then we just resume back, right? So if they're in spellbound, for example, like, and they want to take a month to go relax and rest, I'm like, absolutely do that. Because like I said, back at the beginning, how can I? Be somebody who's about creating freedom in life, but also being someone who's beyond the business, right?
When I was in corporate, that was probably one of my biggest struggles. I was always like, there's more to life than just going to a nine to five and working, right? There's more to life. Life to me is meant to be lived. And if. We're so bogged down in the business and we're not actually [00:17:00] enjoying life because we're anxious about what needs to get done.
We're worried about whether or not we're going to grow, where the next client is going to come from. We're running on this treadmill that we can't seem to get off. We're not actually living. And so if that is sort of who I am, at the core of who I am, I'm like, your family comes first and foremost, your well being comes first and foremost, in my opinion.
And so if I'm somebody who lives and breathes that, not only for myself, but for my team, for my clients, Then I have to, my offers and how I show up in my business has to reflect that and if I'm not reflecting that in everything that I do, then there's incongruency and I'm out of integrity with my message and this is why I preach so much about integrity and congruency with your message.
These are things you cannot fake and when you start to onboard team into your company, [00:18:00] they're going to start seeing it from the inside. Right? They're going to start to see it from the inside. I had a, I had a, um, one of my team members say to me, I can see under the hood now. Like, and she was somebody that was in my world.
She was somebody that was in my world that is now working for me. Absolutely adore her. And that she was like, what you preach and what you say on the outside is exactly what we need. You get on the inside, I can see under the hood, you know what I mean? And that is probably one of the biggest compliments because I've been in many companies in corporate where they've got this outward facing message that does not reflect how the business is being run on the inside.
And the inside to me is, is how you deliver your offers. If you're a course creator, if you're a coach, a healer, a practitioner, and you've got offers where you're working with clients very personally, and part of your message is freedom, part of your message is integrity, like if these are your core values, then you've got to have that going in and out of your business.
Now, I am going to preface that we are all [00:19:00] human, because I think when we can say things like this, what I'm sharing right now, it's easy to then start to go, well, I must not be in integrity and I must not be very good and all these sorts of things because you know, I forgot to do this, or I said I was going to do that, and I didn't do that.
Like, we're all human as well. And I think that's the other big piece I want to bring to this. I think sometimes our exhaustion can come from the inner critic that's running a mile amok in our brain. Um, and also this sort of self perpetuating beating down of like, Oh, I got that wrong. Or, Oh shit, I forgot to get that back to that person.
Or, Oh my gosh, I put that out and that wasn't that great. Or. You know, what if somebody says something this and we, we start to run amok in our brain and that can also equally create exhaustion. And I want to come back to sort of the very beginning of the episode here, because I think it's twofold. If there's a message to kind of walk away with, if you're, [00:20:00] if you're feeling right now, what I've been sort of experiencing in the collective with the people that I'm connecting with, if you're feeling this overwhelm, this, exhaustion, like I can't quite keep up, or if, or this deep, deep pressure to create success in your business, to get it right, to, you know, make sure that it works.
Um, I want to invite you to not take your foot off the gas per se, but I want to invite you to like, relieve the pressure. And I think there are some really beautiful ways that you can do that. Um, really sort of simple ways, like I said, that are beyond scrolling, beyond binging Netflix. I'm talking about like deep somatic work in a lot of ways.
It could be breath work, it could be meditation, it could be yoga, it could be tapping. I mean, there's so many different ways that you can integrate that into your world and do it in a really, Simple sort of way. Sometimes I'll run a [00:21:00] bath and I'll go sit in the bath for an hour. And for the first 20 minutes, I'll just do a meditation, right?
So that I can just like calm myself or I'll do box breathing. Lots of times when I'm getting ready to go to bed, if anything, my brain starts to run in the evening. Um, and usually it's a to do list for what needs to happen. Uh, if I've got a lot on my plate, I'll start to do some box breathing, right? Just to reconnect and get back into my body.
And start to calm my nervous system, to like regulate it, to ground myself. I'll go out for a walk. I'm really, really, really, um, committed to going to the gym, even though there's days where I'm like, I do not want to go. My body is tired. It is tired, but I can still show up and move my body. Um, so, um, Again, I want to invite you, there's nothing wrong with taking a rest.
There's nothing wrong with taking a break. There's nothing wrong with, you know, releasing the pressure that you're putting on yourself, uh, to get shit done all the time. Sometimes, some things just gotta, gotta let go. [00:22:00] Or, you know what's really beautiful? I absolutely love and really honor people that, Ask for an extension or ask for a break, right?
So when clients come to me and they're like, Kathryn, I just need a couple weeks here. I need to take a month just to take a breather. I'm like, you know what? This is really showing me one, your own level of self awareness that, you know, that it's time to just take a breather and take a rest. But the other thing is, is I find that to be so empowering when somebody knows what they want and what they need and they ask for it.
There's something really beautiful about that. And there's also something really beautiful about people being in integrity, right? Being able to communicate, Hey, this is where I'm at, and this is what I need. And what are your thoughts about that? And I think as a business owner, entrepreneur, specifically, if you are in the service based world, is being able to give yourself and your people that freedom and flexibility, right?
Um, because if somebody [00:23:00] can show up and ask for what they want and what they need in a, Emotionally intelligent way. Like they're not just taking the piss out of you, right? That they're asking for that because they want to rest. They need a break. Maybe they're not feeling well. You know, I remember going to one of my EFT tapping sessions and I remember showing up and I was like physically exhausted, right?
And when you're in those emotional, um, you're doing EFT tapping and there's somebody sitting in front of you prompting you. I mean, it's an emotional, um, session, right? And I just remember showing up and the first thing I said to her, I was like, I am so tired. I am exhausted. And she just looked at me and she said, do you want to like go for a walk instead or something?
And I said, you know, honestly, I think that probably would be better because for me to sit here, to try and, you know, dig deep into any emotional stuff and do the tapping and all of that, like, I'm already so wiped. And she said, well, why don't we just reschedule? And I said, Thank you. I appreciate that. And I, and I went for a walk instead and we rescheduled.[00:24:00]
That to me is just such a beautiful way to provide services. Um, and I think sometimes, like I said, we can make meaning out of that from people. Like we can make meaning like, Oh man, they're not committed or they're not showing up the way that I want them to or whatnot. And in reality, You know, I often will say, and this is, you know, so cliche in some ways, is like, treat others how you want to be treated, you know, if I'm exhausted and not able to show up as my best self today, and it was unpredictable, and I, it came out of nowhere, maybe I woke up with a migraine, you know, that we give people the grace and the freedom.
to come back to the table or come back to work with us when they feel better or really encouraging people, in my opinion, to ask for what they want and what they need and do that in a respectful way to me shows a lot [00:25:00] of self awareness, but also shows a lot of integrity. And that is key to me. And so I started this episode.
you know, speaking to the collective energy that I'm feeling, like I said, with the women that I talked to, and just being in a room with a bunch of other business owners, that feeling of overwhelm, you know, all of the things that have to be done in a business and all of the things that we need to do on a daily basis, not only to sustain the business, but also to sustain our lives in a lot of ways.
And five time, and if, You know, if you've got kids, the different things, and there's all these different responsibilities and commitments, and I just want to encourage you, one, that not everything has to be done in a day, not everything has to be done in a week, and that you can ask for an extension, you can ask for a break, you can ask for a breather, you can ask for all those things.
And it doesn't make you any less weak or any less strong. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you not a good or successful person. It doesn't make you not [00:26:00] committed, doesn't make you not responsible. Like these are, these are stories that we've told ourself for many, many, many, many years that if we don't show up perfectly every single day, then we're somehow not as committed as other people or we're somehow weak or we're somehow, you know, not as strong.
Not a real entrepreneur because most entrepreneurs just push through and grind through, you know, I was listening to a story a while ago and it was a message that I, I was just like, we can't keep perpetuating this. And it was a message about this individual who had gone through pretty deep tragedy in their life and they still showed up and spoke on stage and they still showed up and did their launch and they still showed up and they did the thing and I'm like, but what are we actually teaching people with that message that we can push through the tragedy and not navigate it, right?
I think that's why, I mean this is a deeper conversation, but I think that is part of the problem in a lot of ways is that many of us [00:27:00] suppress a lot of our feelings and our emotions and as a result we never quite never deal with them. And then as a result, it starts to manifest in different ways in our lives, whether that's physically, whether that's, um, through, through our physical body, whether that's emotionally, you name it, right?
Things start to come out because we never quite dealt with that thing that happened because we just kept going on. And what I want you to kind of walk away from this episode with is, is that like, we aren't machines. Specifically as women, we are not machines, right? And we are not. People that wake up every single day with the same consistent energy and the same consistent drive, right?
We, we are not that, we're not wired that way. And so why does that have to be the standard? That's the question I continue to ask myself. Why is that the standard that is set? Why is that the standard that we, you know, live by? And [00:28:00] what does your standard look like? And What, how do you want to live your life?
And what do you value? Because to me, like I said, my standards have changed over the years for sure. And they've changed because of my lived experience. And so what my standard is may be something totally different than yours. And that's totally okay. But I think the beauty is, is that we get to show up in this world and we get to Live the way that we want to live and we get to, and we have the right to ask for what we need and ask for the support that we need.
You know, when I started to hire my team for the first time in a really long time, I felt so supported in my business. And when I was at this event last week, that's what happened. One of the women said like, what do you need? That was one of the questions that we got to like brainstorm about what do you need right now in your business?
And you and I sat there for a moment and I just said, you know what? I'm so grateful. 'cause for the first time in my life I feel really supported. [00:29:00] I feel like I've got this really beautiful team around me that's supporting me and. It's so amazing because I also know there were many times in my business that I didn't feel like that.
And I didn't feel like I was supported by some of the people I had hired. I didn't feel supported by partners. You know, I just didn't feel supported. And so, um, I just want you to know that you can ask for the support and you can also take a deep breather and that your business is going to be here tomorrow.
You know, it's going to be here the next day. I think sometimes we've got this, there's the pressure comes from need, believing that we need to get the shit done. Like today, yesterday, we need it done by the week. But if you actually look at the grand scheme of things, I mean, it really doesn't. I mean, there's, there's so many times where I'm like, Oh, I can get to that tomorrow.
That's not a priority today. Whereas, like I said before, I'd be trying to doing it all right. I'd be saying yes to everything and trying to get it all done. And I think asking for, you know, [00:30:00] extensions or asking for space or whatnot is, is really, really vital. It was interesting too, because I was just yesterday, one of my team members said to me, can you give me an update on this?
And I can send that out for you. And I said, you know, I would love to give you that update today, but I can't. I can do it tomorrow, and I completely forgot it's Friday, um, and Friday's her day off, and so I just said to her, you know, I will give it to you tomorrow, thinking it was Thursday, um, and I just said, if that's cool, and, She's a long week question mark and I said, I'm feeling it, right?
I'm feeling tired this week. And, um, it was funny because then I remember it was Friday and I said, you know what? I can just, I'll send it out tomorrow. No worries about it. Um, but it's, it's those sorts of things that like we can say, like, it's, it's. I can't get to that today, or I'd love to give you this so that you could take this off my plate, but I just don't have it in me today.
You know? Um, and those are things that I [00:31:00] think take time to sort of start to be able to do and all of that. And so I really hope this episode has either, you know, giving you some insight on how to you know, that there is this collective energy that I'm feeling. I think people are feeling, lots of people are contemplating like their, their life, their business.
If they want to keep doing the thing that they're doing, there's lots of sort of overwhelm about what needs to be done. There's lots of overwhelm with hiring team. I know a lot of the women at that live event, there was, there's lots of stuff like that. And so, um, I want you to kind of walk away with not permission or anything like that, but just to know that there is this feeling kind of going around the ethers and maybe you're feeling it too in your business.
And then the other piece of it is, is that asking for help, stepping away, pausing is totally kosher. And that if you are creating a service business [00:32:00] or you have a service business to kind of think about and contemplate those things about, am I living my values, but am I also living my message? And that.
Also looks like how I deliver my services. So if I am expecting somebody to show up and be perfect all the time, then what is that really saying about me? That means that I need to show up and be perfect all the time. A couple years ago, I had somebody say to me, they were running their business. They're like, you know, people are always late.
they don't show up on time or they always want to change their appointments. And it was starting to kind of annoy this particular person. And I said, cool, but I said, can we kind of look at your business? And when we actually started to dive into her business, that's how she was showing up. She was constantly changing appointments with clients and she had set the precedent with them, right?
She was constantly changing her meeting times with them. She'd be like, oh, can we do it this 15 minutes late or whatever. And I was like, well, you've set that precedent, right? So when you set the precedent, Whatever you're [00:33:00] setting, that's what you're gonna sort of get back in return. And so if there's things in your business that you particularly aren't enjoying or you're feeling overwhelmed by, or you're feeling triggered by or whatever, I'm not saying to blame blame you solely, but I'm just saying, can we look at was a precedent set and.
Is that starting to sort of come up in my, in my world, but long story short is that if you're feeling the overwhelm, feeling the pressure, feeling the exhaustion, then taking a break, take a rest, look around and ask yourself how you're integrating that into your world. Are you getting good sleep? Um, and if not, then how do you support yourself to get a better night's sleep?
Any hoodles. With that, I'm going to leave you. Uh, I meant to have this be a shorter episode, but it can never be that way. I seem to be able to talk for 30 odd minutes. So anyways, I hope you are having a fab day, fab week, wherever, whenever you're listening to this. And, um, if you are over on Insta, come say hi.
Cheers. [00:34:00] Thanks for listening. We'll see you right back here next time. You can also find us on social media at Creatively Owned and online at creativelyowned. com. Until next time, keep showing up as your authentic self.
