Wake Up Calls

Is it just me or has this year flown by faster than any other year to date? Whew! It seems like I was barely getting my arms around 2020 and now here we are again about to close out another year. What I couldn’t have imagined twelve months ago is what a year of change this would be professionally. My business opened up tremendously with the erasure of borders that a virtual world enabled, and with travel back in the picture I was able to see clients in person again. So it was a #hybrid environment that I think will set the standard for years to come.

While my business was on fire this year in the best possible sense, it was taking a physical toll on me. In August it caught up with me and I ended up in the emergency room. That was definitely a wake up call. My dear friend and colleague Lisa Cummings says that the universe speaks to us in either feathers or hammers. If we don’t listen to the feathers then we get the hammers. The ER was most certainly a hammer. As I tell my clients, if we want different results then we need to do things differently. For me that meant I had to stop doing everything myself. Big shocker right? This happens to a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners - you get to a point where you become the bottleneck. And giving up control is not as easy as it sounds. But I found some amazing help through a genius executive assistant Miriam Rieck (via Stephanie Loayza at Exec Wranglers), social media manager Kyra Stevens, operations manager Briana Tucker (She/Her) at Browning Business Consulting, and web guru Amy Martin at Effin Creative. This team of ladies is amazing and allows me to stay focused on what I do best, which is training, speaking and coaching.

And get this, because of their brilliance, I am TAKING DECEMBER OFF! In my entire life I have never taken off more than a week and I am absolutely giddy with excitement. I’ve got fun lunches planned with friends, a vacation planned to Las Vegas, a spa day, some completely EMPTY days, time with family and my wonderful husband Thomas Osborn and a very relaxing Christmas and New Year’s to look forward to. I can’t wait, and can’t wait to come back in January feeling rejuvenated and ready to kick some ass in 2022.

So thinking about yourself, don’t wait for a trip to the ER before you do this kind of reflection. Stop right now and ask yourself what kind of support do you need? What do you need to take off your plate so that you can get back in your zone of excellence? Think you can’t afford it? Believe me, you can’t NOT afford it. You are too valuable to let your gifts sit idle or have your talents lie latent. The world needs what only you have. Have the courage to say no to some things so that you can say yes to the things that matter.

#burnout #selfcare #team #strengths