Episode 21 - 6 Powerful Strategies For Resilience

Step into a world of resilience and self-empowerment with today's episode of The Do Divorce Right podcast! Listen in as we dive deep into six powerful techniques that can help you make it through any tough situation.

From small business owners to entrepreneurs, this micro training session is sure to uncover valuable tips from the realm of divorce or separation - no matter what your circumstances may be.

Audio Transcript

Becca 

Welcome to the Do Divorce Right podcast. I'm your host, Becca Maxwell. And I'm here to help you transition through your divorce with ease and integrity, to not only survive the challenges of your divorce, but to thrive as you come out the other side of it with a much better life than you ever hoped possible. On this show, we talk about many different aspects of divorce, interview women who have their own incredible divorce stories, or those who can offer some great advice as you go through yours. The focus here is to help you find the strength and support to help you feel lighter, happier, more positive, and in a better frame of mind to face the inevitable challenges of your current journey.

Becca 

Today's episode of The Do Divorce Right right podcast is actually a recording of a micro training that I have conducted with In Sync business connections. In Sync business connections is a networking and collaboration space for Australian small business owners and entrepreneurs. So I ran this session on six, powerful resilience techniques that are actually useful in any part of life. So obviously business, going through divorce going through separation, any stressful period of life. So, I'm going to share this with you and I hope you enjoy we'd love to hear your key takeaways.

Becca

So thank you, everybody, for coming along today. It's really lovely. To see you all. And happy new year. Can you believe it's the 18th of January already? It's my mom's birthday today. It's always special, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it is. And like the year is flying already. I just, it's beyond. Anyway. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Sandra Buckley. I run in sync business connections. And I help small business owners connect, collaborate and gain the knowledge they need to build a successful business. So today, it's my absolute pleasure to introduce you to Becca Maxwell. She is the founder of do not do divorce. Right. I wish I'd known you when I was going through my divorce. She she has a relational intelligence consultant now trying to say that three times really quickly, and it's both coach and today she's going to talk about pocket resilience and six powerful strategies for staying in control. So I'm super excited. So thank you, pika. Thanks,

Becca

Sandra. I'm gonna share my screen. I go into this screen. Can you see that? Okay, so can Beautiful. Okay, so I'm very, very pleased that you're here. It looks like we're all grown ups and there's no little children walking around, but I might swear every now and again. So if you do have kids that walk into the room, maybe put some air buds on I'm not a prolific swear, but just a beautiful morning. So thanks for coming along. A little bit about my journey. So Sandra, you'd mentioned that I'm a relational intelligence consultant, and most people are like, but what does that mean? It means that I work with them. So I have a job as a consultant. I work with the leaders, CEOs and very senior leadership teams about having great client relationships. So my background was I came from country Victoria, I grew up there, moved to the big bad smoke. 17 years old and started a career in advertising. And I started as a secretary, and worked my way up and was able to use that career to travel all around the world. I've lived in England, Scotland, Greece, Amsterdam and Singapore. And along the way, I worked my way up from being a secretary. To to an immediate planet buyer to being the chief operations officer of a digital media agency across Southeast Asia. Most of my roles before going into that leadership position was always Client Servicing right so account management was immediate plan of buyer but I was managing teams and managing client relationships. So I became a global account director, the Client Servicing director for a big, big team. And then five years ago, I pivoted from that, being in the advertising world to being a consultant to the advertising world and really teaching them the frameworks the tools and techniques on how do you have, you know, enduring profitable, fabulous client relationships so that there's great work, highly motivated teams, you know, good money being made. And so I've been doing that for five years all across Asia. So I was living in Singapore for a very long time and and that's my pet, right? I know, Japan, China, India, all across Asia. So I still do that role now. But because of COVID, it became quite difficult to stay living in Singapore and our family moved to Perth, which is the same timezone as Singapore and we've never been here before. Just thought, let's give this a go. And, and being here has been awesome. But I also decided I was after something a little bit more and I decided to set up my own business. And that business is being a divorce coach. So I set up do divorce rate last year, and I use so much of the frameworks that I use in my corporate consulting, and coaching that I do in the corporate world into, you know, people who are going through pretty traumatic to offices, which of course I have experienced in that as well. So that's a little bit about my journey. My goal for today's session is to give you some really powerful, but practical and simple techniques to help you build resilience as a business owner and entrepreneur. Because so much of what we do requires us to do it for ourselves. You know, you don't have a manager to provide some advice you don't necessarily have you know, a colleague to bounce ideas off, you're going to have to find those resilience or those coping mechanisms yourself. And, you know, I'm learning for Mike for the first time I guess, building a business is tough. This is the first time I've had to do it. So I've only got a year of experience but I've worked with business owners course. And this is relevant to you. If you've been getting through but you sometimes struggle. I am confident that you will take something out of today that you'll be able to use immediately. If not today, then certainly in the next couple of weeks. It'll be useful for you if you sometimes feel like your to do list is out of control center. We were just talking about that a moment ago. It's like there's just so much you know, it's the 18th of January already and we're supposed to have gotten things done by now. So you know, let's let's find some calm in that. I'll give you some techniques. And tools around around that. If you are ever familiar with that feeling of overwhelmed, there's just too much to do. There's something for you to take away and it's this one's Christmas coin like really quite interesting and you sometimes find yourself getting annoyed or short tempered and that's out of character. For you. That's often a sign that you are feeling out of control. You're feeling overwhelmed. So you need to bring it back look after yourself and apply some of these learnings. So what I want from you is to go from crazy to calm and control and in in in control of everything. The truth is in moments of high stress, and that's you know the people that I work with in the divorce space, I emotional regulation can take time and practice. It's not a one and done. But what I'm going to share with you these six powerful techniques, you can use them straight away. If you're feeling triggered, overwhelmed, swamped or whatever. And perhaps you already have some techniques and perhaps you already know one or two of these. I have a colleague who puts on headphones and just blasts EDM music and you know just powers out his to do list because that's his go to I have a girlfriend when she's feeling overwhelmed. She will take off her shoes, go outside and walk in grass even on gravels it doesn't matter. She just needs to connect to the earth again and find a way to re literally ground herself. That's her go to. We all have go twos but it never hurts to build your arsenal of tools that work. So let's jump straight in any questions about who I am my background? Why I'm here before I kick straight into these techniques. Noticing heads shaking great okay. This first one you might have heard already, my client my coaching clients find this as a really great go to because it can be done anywhere. Even a divorce court. It's super discreet. Navy SEALs even use this technique to come themselves in really highly stressful situations. And yes, that is me kind of comparing a nasty ex husband with a terrorist attack. Or, you know, dealing with your worst client. Maybe they're your terrorist attack, but, you know, let's move on from that analogy. Box breathing is like I say super simple. It works by distracting your mind from its natural fight or flight mode, right it helps you move from a reactive state something is happening and I need to react to it to an active state something is happening and I can choose my response to it. So it helps you really take control and bring that back. It calms your nervous system immediately and literally decreases stress in your body. You know the stress symptoms of talking too quickly, which is me right now. Sweating or you know, palpitations, all of those physical stress symptoms can be calmed with this phenomenally simple technique. So let me walk you through it in case you haven't used this before. We're going to imagine this box in our mind if you're if you're not able to look at my screen when you're doing it. We're walking up from the bottom of the left hand and square of the box. We're going to inhale and count to four. We're going to hold as we go across, hold our breath and count to four. Then we're going to go down and count for four exhale. And then we're going to go across and hold our breath. So just starting at the bottom, we'll go in 234 hold two, three, or down, exhale, 234 across hold to three. It's as simple as that. So you're counting as you take your breath in for four seconds. You're holding your breath for four seconds. you're exhaling for four seconds. You're holding your breath for four seconds. If ever you find yourself emotionally hijacked, you know you've got a refund request from a client who you've been arguing with or, you know, a difficult collaborator is calling you on the phone and you know, you have to take this call and it's a difficult conversation. It's 16 seconds to just bring your body back to a calm place. So try this breathing technique before you take any kind of stressful response. You can do it before responding to an incendiary email. You can do it before meeting with a tricky client or standing up in front of an audience to speak or even entering a networking event. That can be quite stressful. So just calm your body right the fluff back down. And another reason another way in which this is very useful is if you're struggling to get to sleep, or if you're struggling to stay asleep you know that whole that idea of counting sheep, this is essentially counting sheep. But counting your breath up, across, down across, so reducing anxiety when it comes to reducing anxiety. Don't underestimate the power of simplicity. Okay, so that's our first technique box breathing, super powerful navy seals use it like if that's not a testimonial, I don't know what is. The second technique is perhaps even simpler. Right? So this is just about I'll give you the tool is the technique itself. But the reason this is so powerful is because sometimes we assume that something outside of us needs to change before change can occur. Either. We need to be on holiday. Or you know we need to be sitting on this lovely spot middle calm outside or the noise outside the house needs to stop or the children need to have a better attitude towards something. Something out there needs to change before we can find the piece that we need. You know, if only the stresses of every day were gone or we'd be able to cope if we weren't being so triggered by the situation or the person or our to do list. I had a very high conflict divorce. And this was one of the techniques that I would use when I had to go into the court. I had to represent myself in court because financially it was just impossible to manage all of the lawyers bill. So I'd go through the security system downstairs and even just thinking about it. Now I've got this tension in my tummy reminding me of how freaking awful it was. But it goes through the security system downstairs and I'd be calming myself coming myself. Just pretending I'm super confident. You know, I've got my shoulders back. I've got this and I walked to the elevators from the ground floor up to where the courts were. And while I was in the elevator, it didn't matter if there was anyone else around me or not. I was able to use this technique and take some control and that is really simple again, your son will go like touch on each of the fingers like this. So your thumb to the first finger, pointer finger it's just Peace begins with ME. Peace begins with ME. I don't need anything else to be different. I can't control the outcome of today's situation, but I can control how I approach it. I can control my mindset. It's empowering. In fact, it reminds our brains that we do have the ability to change something. I'm changing my attitude. I'm changing my mindset, I can control my behaviors and my reactions. I can't control the fact that I have to be here. I can't be on holiday looking at this beautiful big beautiful peaceful lake but I can bring the peace into me. Peace begins with ME. so powerful, so empowering. Super simple and lovely. It's also one that I give to my children. You know, they've got their first day at a new school coming up. They are nervous as they, you know, don't even want to tell me how nervous they are. But I've you know just given they don't even have to say it out loud just to be doing this and thinking it through. Nobody knows they're taking control of their situation. So taking control and having control. This leads beautifully into my next framework, which is a little bit more in depth for building resilience quickly. Some of you may have heard of this already, but it doesn't hurt to revisit, and I talk about it in a little bit more depth in Episode One of my podcast, switches to divorce right on all the podcasting places. So I spend a bit more time going into the detail if you wanted to revisit this one in particular, but it comes from Stephen Covey who wrote the bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Now it's it's such an old book that when I'm talking to young people, now I'm like, perhaps one of your mentors or your parent has passed it down to you, you know, perhaps you've got a dusty, you know, copy somewhere in the library of your parents home, but it's such a classic and it's so worth revisiting. And this particular technique I use all the time in corporate worlds like it comes up more often than anything else, I think. It's called the circle of influence. And I'm going to draw your attention to these two circles here. So we've got this big one on the outside. And the smaller one here think of it like an egg yolk where it would put the egg white and we've got the egg yolk I'm focusing on these two circles. The first circle is the circle of concern the largest circle, right. Stephen Covey, the author, he posits that we unintentionally focus a lot of our attention here. It's the things that we actually can't control or effect. These are concerns that are outside outside of our immediate influence, such as you know, what if the global economy goes into full blown recession What if the real estate market reaches a new low? Worse? What if interest rates continue to rise as they have every month in the last six? Right? What if clients start asking for refunds? What if I don't see business growth this year? They're all legitimate concerns. Right? You can usually see a structure in the narrative that you're telling yourself when when you're operating in the circle of concern the structure is what if insert the anxiety What if we don't reverse global climate change? Let you know if this happens. I'll never be able to feel confident about the children that I'm bringing into this world and you know, the choices that we're making, and you predict a negative future. focusing here on this circle of concern actually doesn't serve us. We feel stressed, disempowered, anxious, and ultimately nothing changes because we can't ultimately control any of these things. As an individual. I can't change the global economy. As an individual I can't affect you know, global change or high impact change in recycling, you know, or ocean microplastics or any of these huge concerns. I'm not saying I'm not worthy of thinking about I'm just saying let's put them into our circle of concern. By consciously choosing then to focus elsewhere, which is on the things that we can readily affect an influence, we can begin to feel empowered in control and confident. So let's choose to focus on our circle of influence. It might not feel it at times, but we can control our mindset, which is how we view the world. We can control our attitude, such as being respectful or, you know, being kind. We can choose our response. We can choose our behaviors, we can choose our actions. These are all within our control. For example, I can't control whether my latest reel goes viral and brings in 1000s of viewers and potential clients to my sphere. But I can be consistent, I can be authentic, I can work hard to provide value to people who might see the content that I create. All right. So I can control smaller and not control I can have influence in a much smaller way. what's powerful about focusing on what what can influence is that when you focus on what you can influence your influence grows. You start having an impact which increases your ability to have even more impact and even more impact. So let's think about the concern of the environment. For example. I don't have any connections on any you know, global scale that can affect positive change, but I can influence my home. I can choose to make purchases, I could choose my recycling, I can choose to reduce, reuse, recycle. I could choose to teach my children about our impact on the planet and minimize that as much as they can at home. Once I've done that I might be able to influence my neighbor, bird or the school community. Let me let me give you a great example. She's a bit divisive, so not everybody loves this, but Greta Thunberg did not go from being a Swedish High School. Or a Swedish Primary School student or whatever. She was a single student to the United Nations overnight, right. She influenced her classroom. She focused on what she could influence, then that influence in her classroom affected the school, which then affected the schools in the community and then that country and she was having such a big impact that her influence grew grew grew to the point that she is now a global ambassador. She is someone that we all recognize is having an impact. So if she was just focusing on her concern, she would never have affected the change that she's affected. She focused on what she could influence and her influence group. So I've, you know, when I talk to my divorce coaching clients, they're often in a bit of a disaster space, right? What if he takes all the money What if he takes up my children? These are concerns and I have to bring them back. Okay, let's list out all of these concerns. And yes, they're legitimate concerns, but let's not focus on those. Let's focus on what you can influence. Let's focus on how you can behave. You know, let's focus on your attitude, your mindset. So super powerful. Moving on to technique for any questions about the circle of control and influence, I mean, I can take q&a at the end. So maybe just we can we can spend some time having a chat through the fourth technique. Again, this is really useful. I call this 10 minutes and 10 minutes a day. This is particularly useful if one of those concerns is something you just can't take your mind off. Again, you know, I work in the divorce space. So let me give you an idea from there. You It is super stressful. And sometimes you just can't stop thinking the what ifs what if that? What if this happens? And I went to a therapist because I wasn't coping and I said to her, I'm exercising, I'm meditating. I'm eating. Well, I'm spending time with girlfriends. I'm taking long baths. I'm working I'm being the best mom I can be. I'm doing all the things but I can't cope. I can't cope. Like I was just I'm struggling so hard. And she said a couple of things that will be really useful one. Sometimes the only way out is through, right guy. I'm going to have to go through this before I get to the other side. And so I was doing all the right things and No, they weren't changing anything. But they were putting me in the best possible place to be able to get through that. The second thing she said was, I want you to deal with this issue in 10. minutes a day. It's like, you know, I'm thinking about this all the time I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm distracted from client calls. I am thinking about it all the time. She said that's, that's fine. Tell yourself like block in your calendar 10 minutes when you're going to deal with those thoughts that are coming through so at eight o'clock at night, I'll sit outside with a gin and tonic and my fabulous partner and we will talk about the stresses of the day or the the ideas that had come out about you know he's done this or what's going to happen if that. Sometimes the 10 minutes would turn into 30 or 40 minutes and he'd say we're done like are we done? No. But it meant that as these thoughts came in to try to hijack me, as I was going about my day, I could say it's alright, I'll deal with that at eight o'clock. Every single hijack, it's okay, I'm gonna deal with that later. And that took all of the pressure of having to deal with it now to knowing it's not going away. It will get dealt with but it will get dealt with in the time that I've allotted. And that's extremely helpful. Because telling yourself, don't think about it doesn't help you to not think about it. Telling yourself I will deal with this at a time that it's useful. allows your mind to clear yourself clear itself from that stress. So I will deal with this in those 10 minutes. Perhaps you can think of a business example something that's been stressing you out that you can't quite get your mind off and allow yourself 10 minutes a day, I will come back to it. I'll deal with that at 10 o'clock tomorrow. I'll deal with that at 10 o'clock tomorrow and deal with that at 10 o'clock tomorrow. You know you might want to write it down to make sure that you don't forget that particular thought but it's done you will be dealing with it. Okay, this that this one is kind of a borrowing a little bit of that it's where we're taking these techniques and applying them moving forward. This one is less about resilience and a much more practical solution to overwhelm so this is more of an organizational hacks answer I think you'll like this one. But definitely has the same end result the same benefit of reducing overwhelm. It's the 40s Okay, so every Monday, I review my to do list and my calendar and my to do and I have a project management software and I have notepads and I have notes on my phone. Today, we all have to do lists coming out of our years right. But Monday mornings, even before before my day starts so typically happens about seven o'clock in the morning I sit down, I need to estimate the amount of time each of my tasks is going to take and I need to plot it into my calendar. Usually it doesn't fit. Right usually I have more to do than I have time to do it. So I need to look at the four DS. The first day is delete what is on your list. That doesn't really need to get done. doesn't really need to get done. Perhaps perhaps you're carrying over a task from last week or from last year. That's actually inconsequential. You know, perhaps it's I'd like to clean my study. Sure. Take it off the To Do lists like come to it when it's more important to you just take it off your to do list it's not helping. So review your task list. Will it really propel me forward towards my goal? Does it actually add value to my clients? Or am I procrastinating? am I adding shit to my list that I don't need? To do just because it feels good to have a longer to do list. I don't know if anyone is a bit like me who writes a to do list to be able to strike them off because then you'll feel more productive. Sometimes I put on tasks that I've already finished so that I can strike it off and a lady gave me points I got stuff done. You know an example of something that might be on your to do list that you could delete would be you want to watch a YouTube video tutorial about something you'd like to learn. Does it need to be done? Does it really need to be done? It's the kind of thing you can come back to another time take it off your to do list unless you absolutely need that skill right here right now. The second day. This is one of my favorites, delegate. I don't have a team of people. So I am a consultant across all of Asia for all of these advertising agencies. I'm busy as fluff. I've you know got my side hustle. My double was coaching. I'm busy. I don't you know, we've all got spinning plates. And as most of us are women, we tend to want to spin those plates. We kind of feel like we're the only person who can sort it out. Well. I call bullshit. We are not the only person who can sort it out. I happily delegate to my gorgeous partner, my very capable children, my virtual assistant who is a godsend. But even to my mum, my mum's retired she's 75 years old. She's now a widow widow and this morning, like literally half an hour before this call. It's only 830 Where I am so 730 This morning, I reached out to my mom and asked her if she would mind reviewing pet insurance options because my pet insurance is coming up and I'd like another option like I could do that I could get on the phone and do the internet. Like researching it. I really don't want to and my mum loves the idea of feeling helpful. So she's sure I can do that. It's raining here today so I can't do what I was going to do. I'll make the phone calls for you. She's grateful to feel needle needed. I'm grateful because I don't have to do that what a horrible job. And my children they can cycle to the store to get groceries for me. And they don't mind they happily do it. Sometimes I'll reward them like pick yourself up and ice cream while you're there or you know just get out of your room go cycling do the thing that needs to be done. My partner can hang laundry. Don't be an asshole about it, obviously. But it's quite okay to ask for help. And you're often helping the other person too. I'm asking my mum to review pet insurance is taking a shitty job off my to do list. But she's also getting something out of it. Isn't it lovely that you know she feels needed and helpful. So I'm a big fan of the delegate. Find ways in which you can delegate what's on your to do list. Big smaller otherwise.

Becca  

Big, smaller otherwise. A lot of what's on our to do list is a bit of a wish list. Right? I wish I could achieve so much in a working week. It is Wednesday already. That freaks me out. I've put things in my calendar that I haven't gotten around to yet, because I wish I'd been able to achieve all of the things. So if you're struggling with overwhelm, it's really important to find focus and work on what is most important. So ask yourself, this Monday morning, you're flooding out your calendar, what can wait until next week or later, you're suffering from overwhelm. This is a great question to ask yourself, what can be done on the weekend rather than now? How do I find space for this plot in your calendar. So you know, the task isn't just disappearing. Remember I said about the 10 minutes a day this is this is pushing the intellectual load to a time when you know you can deal with it. The task isn't disappearing, you have time allocated to it, it will get done. It's just not in your highest interest right now. So we've deleted we've delegated, we've delayed the final D, I'm afraid is just do it. So a business girlfriend checked in with me yesterday. And she asked about my progress on the book that I'm writing. And it's not going as well as I would have liked you know, it was supposed to be completed on holiday. Does anyone else set themselves unrealistic holiday expectations? Right? I always take maybe four or five books with me on holiday as if it is if I become a super reader overnight, I don't I carry the four or five books home and they get back onto my bedside table. Anyhow, so this business bestie, she asked me how my book was going and I said look, I'm trying to be a bit gentle with myself. And I'm hoping inspiration will come knocking. Her response was gentle is good. But in my experience, inspiration doesn't come knocking. You know, I she said literally I usually give myself time to breathe, then I force myself to get into gear, then after a little bit of productivity, the motivation comes. And she's bright. She's it's not what I wanted to hear. But she's right, I just need to get on and do it no more progressive cleaning. Today, I don't know if you've all got your procrastinator things progressed to delegating, or progress to cleaning is one of mine. So none of that today, I just need to do it. So there you are, for the four days, on a Monday morning, if you're if you're suffering from overwhelm, look at your to do list and sort it out. So your calendar out. So moving on to the final strategy. And this is something that I coach my corporate clients on regularly when I hear them having a crisis of confidence. And it's something I believe we are all meeting more in the small business world than we are in the corporate world. Because like I said, we don't have a manager to go to we don't have a colleague to bounce ideas off. We all suffer from impostor syndrome, or we hit our upper limit, which is Who am I to deserve this success? Who am I to have an easier life that is filled with ease and abundance? So surely someone's going to come knocking and take it all away. And then we self sabotage ourselves. Right? So we're enjoying business success when we're enjoying life, then we have a bit of a crisis of confidence. And we think but I can't do that I can I need a bit of a pep talk. Yes, we've got business buddies. But this is even better than that. I want us all to have a pitch folder. Now this isn't I'm pitching to somebody else. This is an pitching to me. I want you to collect all of the evidence that you're backing fabulous. testimonials from your clients, compliments from your friends, what is your what are your friends say about you? My mum is my biggest fan. So if ever I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence, I think what would my mum say? Speak to me, I'm this and this and this. But you know, whenever you've been in the news, whenever, like money that you've made awards that you might have made everything just a big long list of I'm fucking fabulous. I am remarkable. Some people put the testimonials on the wall or computer near where they work. So they're reminded of why do I do what I do? I do what I do because it makes a difference. But more than that, it it builds up your confidence to keep going keep going you are having making a difference you are making an impact. In the corporate world, I tell people to create an email folder. So any thank you from a client any compliment that comes through, it goes into a private pitch folder. So if ever they're having a shitty day or just think wow, what am I doing? Like I'm butting my head against a wall. This is rubbish. They open that out and they read through all the thank yous, all the compliments, all there are got. So appreciate that you went above and beyond blah, blah, blah. So what does that look like for you, you might want to put some of those compliments on a vision board, you might want to stick them near near where you work, you might want it to be like literally a folder that you go to and open up to RE inspire you and reinvigorate you. But please have one don't forget all of the news capture them, you know, your, the more you pay attention to them, the more you will see, it's a bit like money tracking, and you know, abundance collecting, if you notice that abundance is coming your way more of it will come. So notice those compliments, hold yourself hold how fabulous you are. So those six techniques that I've talked you through just to remind the box breathing, the Peace begins with ME. The circle of concern and the circle of influence 10 minutes a day, so giving yourself 10 minutes a day to to think about and rumor, rumor, right? Whatever that word is on the issue that's, that's distracting you and, you know, hijacking you that wonderful organizational hack around, delete, delegate, delay and do and then finally having a pitch folder. My final word before I have a q&a is a fine, friendly reminder that you're running a business. And it's perfectly acceptable that people can't always get an immediate response from you have boundaries, be aware of what is unacceptable, normalize saying no. Do what is best for you. And know that it's not your responsibility to sacrifice yourself to others. When I moved from the agency world to being a consultant, I really had to retrain my behavior here, I had to remind myself that what I do is not life and death. Nobody needs to hear from me immediately. I'm a consultant now, right? They'll hear from me and my own precious time. So wonderful. But the same is true as a divorce coach, right? My clients are often in a state of high tension, and they're going through a trauma. So I want to respond, I want to give them the reassurance that they need. I wanted, like talk them off the ledge, but I'm a coach, not a surgeon, I can support and guide them, but I can't take their pain away. And I have to remind myself that immediate access to me doesn't actually change their pain, it doesn't change their experience. Another in case you're in, you know the space where you're dealing with people who feel like they need access to you immediately, it might be helpful to remind yourself that when people are at their worst, or at the lowest point is when they learn the most. And somebody said to me a few years ago, don't rob them of that low. Because if you you know someone's pulling, pulling, pulling that you've got, they've got to hit rock bottom before you really learn and change and affect change. If you're stopping that person from hitting rock bottom and bringing them back up again, they're going to pull bringing the backup bring him back up, you're not allowing them to hit rock bottom to have that fundamental change. So don't rob someone off it, you can provide guidance, you can provide your support, but you don't need to be, you know, stopping people from from learning from themselves for themselves. I know that felt a little bit deeper, a little bit lengthy, but it's true in business as well. Right? If you're not around, or they figure it out for themselves, maybe give them some time, you know, don't don't rob them of that opportunity to figure it out for themselves. Thank you, I'm gonna stop sharing my screen. And if we've got any thoughts or questions, I'm open to hearing them.

Alpha  

That was really, really awesome. Thank you that I really like some of the things I'd heard before. But you explained it in a different way, which made it sort of, I don't know it easier to connect with. So that's, that's lovely. What I often and I'm interested in your perspective on this, because I get quite a lot. My clients are like, well, I don't know, like it's overwhelming. What's the what's my first step? Like a lot of people get caught up in the how, how do I do this? And some of these things will help with that as well with the grounding and helping them but then in terms of what how do you approach people when they say, Well, how do I do this? Or how do I take what's there and how do I know what to do next?

Becca  

Yeah, I think as a coach, often we're trying to help them figure out the answer for themselves, aren't we like as a consultant? I can tell them as a mentor, I want to guide them through that but yeah, yeah. As a coach, I try and ask them a lot of questions about what do you think needs to be done first? What what would make you feel better? What? What's one step that you think would help you in the direction you need to go? And just ask them questions around that to make them feel about themselves? Not not because you don't want to help them not. But usually we don't know what the answer is. For them. There's no one step solution. So alpha, for those of you who don't know, alpha, she's a guide in money, right? So people come to our offer to learn about how to unravel their alpha, you can explain what you do, but she's a coach in the money space. So people might be coming to you are feeling really overwhelmed about trying to create some wealth. And, you know, they'll come to you with debt, and not knowing what the next step is. Often, they really do know what the first step should be.

Alpha  

Yeah. Well, this is what I love, because this is why we connected so well, as well, because it's very much about self empowerment. And a lot of the time, people just don't trust they know exactly what they need to do. They've just never learned to trust it. Yeah, exactly. Like you were saying that with the delegation, allowing someone to you show kind of trust in them, which kind of gives them permission to trust themselves that you trust them. And then also saying, you know, with the boundaries, too, you know, you can you don't have to do everything for people, or you don't have to be there. Because to be honest, I've done this with my my dad used to call me almost daily with a problem. And now I wait, by the time I call you back the next day, it's like, oh, I figured it out. I was like, Yeah, see, there you go. So much better. Now you resolved your problem. And I can do that with my daughter a little bit as well. But yeah, so no, that's yeah, love it. Thank you.

Becca  

Panayiota. So did you have a question?

Panayiota  

No, I didn't have a question. It was really disagreeing with alpha. Because when, particularly when she used the word empowerment, that's my objective with my clients is to give them information and go, Okay, what are you going to do with this now? So that they can gain that self confidence, as it doesn't happen? Otherwise?

Becca  

That's right. And otherwise, and it's a muscle to be exercised, isn't it?

Panayiota  

Actually, I think I like what you just said, a muscle that needs to be exercised, I think most people would certainly relate to that.

Alpha  

When you think about our world is so so much information, so many rules, so many things that are given to us, that we just we just follow without really thinking about it. So we lose the ability to either listen to and then trust our intuition. And not even just intuition, like just like logical things and logical steps that we can take to do things. And we question ourselves, because someone else hasn't validated it, we don't need someone else to validate it. Yeah, it's, a lot of the time when it's in a work sometimes with other things, you know, you're like, Okay, you need some genuine investment advice. If you don't have the knowledge to go with it, then you can't make the decisions. But for a lot of the time, at least, you know, the directional kind of things and what feels right, even once you have the knowledge, because just because you know, it doesn't necessarily mean it is right for you.

Becca  

It's like dieting, we know that the chocolate bars not going to help having ice cream at the end of the day, that's not gonna help we, we know. We know more than we think we know. So you did you have a question or comment? I know that you've just come on,

Lea  

I just want to say thank you. That was That was great. When I read the title about having control, I thought, we have control over nothing in the way of external. So I was thinking, He's going to teach us about controlling the external things around us, because that's almost impossible. So it was nice that it was the internal control, which I you know, I practice meditation, breathing things for lots of years. And yes, it's I mean, life's a challenge. So we need all of those tools, which is great. And it was just nice to have it in that little system. I've just written everything down. And it's just nice to have a go to when those things crop up. Yeah, and I'm learning I've only been in business for a year and a half. I was working for corporate companies in the city, mainly doctors and lawyers. So now I'm primarily teaching people how to do bookkeeping, or I'm doing their books. So I'm delegating my work to doing tutorials to teach micro businesses how to look after their own books, especially what the ones that you know, they can't afford a bookkeeper straight up. So that that's, you know, I'm delegating that out to to teach them from the start and I can overview things for them. Yeah, so it's been a learning curve going into my own business and seeing what's out there. Books. It's pretty tragic actually. Sometimes Yeah, yeah, but know that they it's great to have that and sometimes overwhelmed comes sometimes you've got, but I've delegated all my life in, in in business and I love training people. Some people like to hold their work and they've got more control because they know that nobody else knows it on the opposite, learn, learn, learn. And then of course, you can have a holiday. Yeah. So

Becca  

to me, I find even a lot of really high powered business women tend to hold on to a lot of home stuff because we're programmed to believe we're supposed to be doing it. No. I don't need to know if my children can load and unload a dishwasher. They can do loads eat like they can clean stuff. I don't need to be doing any of that. I pay the bills, like Mama's. But the important things.

Lea  

Yeah. Yeah, that that delegation is really good and important. And, yeah, there was just lots of really good things. So now I don't really have any questions. So

Sandra  

great. No, that's fine. That was useful. I was gonna say, I think with the with delegating to children, it also helps them become more responsible adults and more self sufficient adults, you know, the ones that tend to be babied, and spoiled as children have a much harder time when they go into our own. What do you mean, I have to go and buy groceries? Groceries? Yeah, I thought they just magically appeared.

Becca  

The pantry isn't full, ma'am. Where are you?

Sandra  

I'm gonna stop the recording in a sec. But I wanted to say thank you so much for that. That was absolutely awesome. You know, and I've written down lots of nights. And I love this piece begins with the pitch folder, I think is awesome. I really liked that. I used to have an email folder at work, we would put things mostly so that you could bring it up at your performance review review. Exactly. See how good I am. But yeah, I hadn't thought about it from a small business perspective. And the 10 minutes a day, I love that one as well. Because, you know, you've constantly got those ideas going on in your head. And I know I do. And I'm like, I could be doing this. And I'm and then it stops the focus from what I'm working on, which is actually the really important stuff. You know that because I'm forward thinking and for we're being hijacked. Yeah. hijacked. So yeah. Thank you so much. Do you want this on the recording and Panayiota? Yeah, yeah.

Panayiota  

Reason being, it reminded me, Becca, you suggested when we were talking about the 10 minutes, or when you were explaining it, that you would use those 10 minutes. And the example was a PM, every night and you would have a chat with your partner. But what do you suggest for people who don't have anyone in their living space or workspace? Like if you're working from home, and you live alone? I can talk to my cat, but likelihood of

Becca  

what the point is not to talk it out loud with anybody. That's that's kind of not the point. But But for us, it was a shared experience, right. But the point is that you are stopping the hijack from whatever stressing you and saying, It's okay, I've got you, I'm going to talk about you, I'm going to address you at 5pm. So rather than you haven't looked into that flight refund, you haven't looked into that flight refund, that thing that you need to do that thing. It's okay. I've put it in my diary. 5pm I'm gonna deal with that. And then you don't get hijacked by that thought anymore. So it's not about a conversation necessarily. It's about Yeah,

Panayiota  

yes. I think the brain away from that thought, exactly.

Sandra  

And if you don't have someone to talk to something through, I suppose you could always use journaling, or you're writing things down, which can get it out of your head because I think that's where we have a lot of our stuff inside of our head. And then once you start to say it and someone will write it, like it just brings it more into perspective.

Becca  

Yeah, absolutely.

Lea  

Lost last bit to Becker about not having to get back to someone immediately. I'm a little bit OCD with that getting back to people straightaway and, you know, yeah, having that. Let's see, I'll have everyone else's concerns as well. So just you know, and allowing people to have their own lessons. That was that was a really good point. You know, like not trying to say people, you know, just To try and learn

Becca  

more from our mistakes than our successes, right? It's quite okay that they make a mistake every now and again. I have to train myself on that a lot, you know, dealing with people who are in the middle of what feels traumatic, it is a trauma. And I want to stop that Mike. I'm a Enneagram number two, I'm a helper. I want to nurture people through it and I have to stop and just give them some space. Yeah, I have to work on it. Yeah, plugs are good.

Lea  

If you need to, you know, allow them to go through things, but there's a hunt there.