Episode 268: 22 Lessons from 2022
When you feel in alignment with your values, beliefs, and the work that you do, it genuinely doesn't feel like work. In today's episode, Fiona shares 22 beautiful lessons she gained from 2022. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Sidestep The Hustle Group Coaching
Fiona's health issue
Letting go of perfection
Making things easier
Trust the energy
Saying No
Prioritizing You
Marketing can be fun
Turning down work
Trusting those you have invested in
Letting go of what other people think is a big lesson
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
It's my own path. I feel like that has taken a while to be, "should I be doing this?" Other people are doing this, "should I be appearing like this?" Other people are doing this, and being like, "no, this is what I want to do." This feels good to me. This feels like I'm really aligned with my values and beliefs, and I'm just going to put my little blinders on, and focus on who I need to help rather than what everyone else in my industry might be doing or not doing.
Welcome to episode 268 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. This is the last coaching episode for the year and the last episode for 2022. It is a great one night. It's so much fun thinking about this episode, and I've pulled together a couple of notes, and I know it's going to be really enjoyable for me to deliver this. But also I think it's really going to be one for you to reflect on your own year and what you have learned and what you've gained from this year. Before we get stuck into that, of course, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which I spent this year. And that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
I also pay my respects to any other indigenous peoples who might be joining in either from Australia, being First Nations, Torres Strait Islanders, or anywhere else around the world. Welcome. The other thing I want to say is that Group Coaching is open. I'm loving seeing all the applications come in. I'm loving having a bit of stalk of who these people are, and what kind of businesses they run, and I just know this is going to be a fantastic group when it kicks off in March. If you are wanting to make 2023 the year that you finally feel like you get it in business and you feel like you have a supportive group around you for an entire year together, then check out everything over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/groupcoaching. That's where you're going to apply. But you can also see all of the things that are included in group coaching.
It is a huge program, not just in terms of the amount of value that you get from it, but also just in terms of growth. I have seen people shift their mindset, financially and all sorts of other massive shifts in their business from doing this program. It is one of my favorite things that I get to do in this business. I'd love to have you apply for that if you think it's the right program for you. Again, you can find all the information over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/groupcoaching. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
We pull together the ideas for this podcast and sometimes months in advance, we have a system. It's one that we work with a lot of our clients on for kind of batch-creating content, coming up with content ideas, and really understanding what's going to resonate with your audience. When I wrote in a podcast tracker, the topic for today's podcast, I thought that's months away. That's I can come up with it down the track. Today, when I sat down to think about what I wanted to say in this episode, it actually was so much easier than I thought. Obviously, if you've looked at the episode title, it is 22 lessons from 2022. And I thought, "can I think of 22?" Is that going to be a bit of a hard stretch or is it going to take me ages maybe I'll think of 10 and then it will take forever to think of the rest.
I have to say, I literally wrote out 22 things so quickly. I feel like this year has been a huge one of lessons for me, and for many of my clients as well, I would say. And just for many of my friends, I think the twenties have been incredibly full of learning opportunities. I don't know if you've seen that meme, but there's a meme going around and I've sent it to a few friends being like, “this is so us.” It's of a man on a phone. It says something like, “I'm just calling God to check that I'm not on the Warriors list for 2023,” because that is how 2022 has felt for a lot of people that we are just battling lesson if you want to call it that after lesson after lesson. I have to say, for myself personally, this year has been full of incredible things, but it has also been probably one of the hardest that I have gone through since losing my mom and dad.
My mom in particular in 2017. It has been an incredibly hard year, and whilst it has also had so many great things, not that I'm glad to see the back of it, but I guess I am somebody who loves the novelty of a new year and the idea of a fresh start and everything else. I think though, in hard times, it's often where you learn the most. Probably that is also why it took pretty much no time to think of 22 lessons from this year that I want to share with you. Now, many of these are related to business, but a lot of them are also just related to life. Whether you have got a business, whether you are scaling your business, or whether you have just got a business idea and you're listening to this podcast for inspiration, I really feel like a lot of these will resonate with you.
I'd love to know which ones really hit home for you. Which ones are the lessons that you feel like, “I was in that classroom as well this year, Fiona.” I would love to know. Feel free to send me a DM. You can do that @mydailybusinesscoach, or you can email us anytime at Hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com. These are in no particular order, although I'm looking at number one. Number one, that's the first biggest thing that I learned this year, and I feel like I've learned this many times. But it really came at home this year, but the rest of them are pretty much in no particular order. Here we go, the 22 biggest lessons that I have learned in 2022. Number one, health comes first.
If you have listened to this podcast, you'll know potentially that I had a really huge health issue this year. I got up from my desk one day and my leg felt really weird, and then suddenly I couldn't feel my leg, and then I couldn't feel the other leg. And ended up going to many types of doctors and specialists over the next couple of months. Basically, I have three herniated bulging discs in my spine. I was told by my neurosurgeon that absolutely I would need surgery. I was told by all sorts of people, all sorts of ways forward. I have to say, out of all the things that I've ever put on Instagram, putting information in about my back issues led to the most DMS, the most emails, and the most conversations we have ever had about anything. Literally hundreds of DMS in a very short amount of time.
I feel like for some people, I had conversations and I don't even know where those conversations went because there would just be more and more DMS. I did not know that this is such a huge problem. I mean, you hear about it all the time that chronic pain is a massive issue, literally an epidemic. But I had no idea just how many people, how many clients I have who are battling this every single day and have been for years on end. For me, I was incredibly fortunate that here I am, six months later, six months to the day. Ricky and I can walk and I'm back out doing my walk. That is a recent thing. And for months I had gone from walking four or five times a week by myself.
That's my time out of the house with the dogs I live in North Warrandyte. It's a beautiful area and it really was how I started my day most days. Then to go from that to not doing any walks at all for about, I couldn't actually walk for about eight weeks, and then slowly, it was literally 10-minute walks on flat surfaces, which if you live in North Warrandyte or you've ever been there, there is nowhere flat around here. I had to walk on an oval and it was just really boring and frustrating. But I guess that whole process really taught me that without your health, you have nothing. I've been taught that many times. I witnessed my father passing away, and he had very bad health at the end of his life, which meant he couldn't drive, and couldn't walk very much.
I've seen it firsthand and yet I feel like the universe really needed to remind me of that. The other thing that came up in that was a lot of mind-body connections and things that I had been doing previously, like meditation and other kinds of self-care tools that I had sort of let slide also, I'd been doing exercises, mind exercises, but also physical exercises that I'd also let slide. Number one, health comes first. The massive lesson this year. And through that very tough, hard time, I have since changed a lot of the ways that I work. Even things like standing desks and other such things that are, that are really helping. Number one, health comes first. Please, if you have not had a health issue, do what you can to prevent having one because you don't want to have to learn that lesson. Believe me.
Number two, and this kind of goes to number one as well, was letting go of perfection. Now, years ago I met with a psychologist who said to me, “I believe that you're a perfectionist.” And I was like, “no, I think you got the wrong person.” And she was like, “yeah, you are.” And I said, “no.” And she's like, “Why don't you think you are?” And I was like, “because a perfectionist is like perfectly perfect hair, perfect nails, the house is always spotless, like all these things that I don't have.” She was like, “no, that's not it at all. A perfectionist is somebody who has such high expectations of themselves that even if they meet them they will then move the goalpost and move the goalpost and basically you'll never achieve it.” And that was years ago.
Obviously, I've worked on lots of things since then, but I think this year really drummed at home that I had to let go of a lot of things. I had to let go of the way that I do certain things because I had to let somebody else do that. I had to let go of my business of feeling like, I'm able to do this or that because I wasn't, that health issue really meant that everything literally stopped overnight because if you can't move and I couldn't move, I literally could not move any part of my body. Even going to the toilet was excruciatingly painful, and I just had to let go of everything having to be a certain way. That was a big one. And in my business as well letting go of maybe expectations of clients or letting go of expectations of myself in certain situations and just saying, “you know what, I can't do that right now.”
What I'm going to have to do is this plan B, which may not be perfect, but it is still going to work. That's number two. Number three, massive lesson. I've learned this every single year that I've been in business, but this year, in particular, was that I just have the world's best clients. Honestly, I have the world's best clients. I had people messaging me, I had people sending gifts, I had people saying telling me all the ways that they could help. I had people offering, “Hey, this is a really great sports person to get you back and strong.” I had another person who is in the kind of hospital surgery space and was like if you need anything if you are going to go into surgery, let me know. I had so much help from my clients and that was incredibly humbling because I am I'm the one that they're paying for help and that they've chosen to work with to help them.
Having that come back to me was just beautiful and their understanding wasn't just my back. My children have been repeatedly sick this year. I have been sick, my husband has had covid, and we've all had covid. I got really hit with covid badly. I just feel like they have been incredibly understanding and just the warmest, most wonderful, creative, and curious people. I'm just incredibly thankful. If you are listening and you are a client, please know that I'm sending you a giant hug and just, and I'm so appreciative to be working with people like you. Number four, this is something that a friend and I Marre who lives in Amsterdam and she runs a business called Smit Club and Web Club. She and I have talked and she was like, “I feel like we need a mantra that just says, how can I make this easier?”
That was something we talked about probably midway through this year. And then obviously with my back and other things that just became a mantra for me, how can I make this easier? Could that be repurposing content? I did a lot of this year and I do generally, but I did a lot this year. Could it be clawing back some of the time that I have? Could it be automated systems, or paying for software that's going to help all of these things? How can this be easier? Has been a lesson that I have learned and I'm continuing to learn it is a mantra that I swear I'm going to live by in business forever. How can this be easier? Big lesson to learn. Because I get to work with so many small business owners and I know for myself as well, we tend to make things more complex and harder than they need to be.
I have seen it so many times with clients, particularly when it comes to marketing or content plans or hiring people, we make it a lot more complex and hard than it needs to be. Sometimes it's because we think that the simple one is, isn't that too simple? Isn't that too easy? And sometimes that's actually the direction that we need to go in. Number five, this is a big one, this is a lesson I feel like I learn every year, but that is to trust the energy. I know that sounds a bit weird for people depending on where you sit in that kind of spectrum. But I really believe, and I mean it's scientifically proven that we are made up of energy and there's lots of energy around us and we can all feel the energy.
If you go into a certain room and you know there's been tension, you feel that immediately, no one needs to say anything to you. You feel it. Likewise, if you go into a room, and it's full of fun and everyone's excited and you feel that you get off on that energy as well. Like you, it's contagious and I think in business. I had felt this sort of weird voice almost saying, slow down. Even though I felt like I wasn't going that fast, to be honest, I work three days a week, I don't work nights, and I don't work weekends. I had felt like, "I'm pretty slow, I'm pretty chill as it is." But if I had listened to that voice and listened to that kind of energy that had been sort of saying, "Hey, you might be taking on a bit too much right now."
Maybe I might have prevented my back, maybe I wouldn't have. But I really feel like if I had sat with that energy and had time to sit with that energy, which is a big one, then I may have made better choices in my life and in my business prior to kind of my back going out. That has also come up in business before, not this year, but in previous years where I have just felt crappy energy or just weird energy with certain people and I've then taken them on as clients and not had the greatest experience. I mean they've still had a great experience. We've still helped them, but I haven't necessarily enjoyed that process as much as maybe I could have with another person. I think and there's only been a couple of instances of that in seven years, I'm very lucky.
But I do think that sometimes we override what we are feeling in energetically with our mind. I'll take them on because we need that money to come in or I'll do this because of X, Y, Z. That's very rational rather than tapping into that energy. That was number five, trust the energy. Number six, and I say this a lot to clients as well, and I know it sounds cheesy and cliche, but it's absolutely true. If you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. If I say yes to taking on clients on a certain day that I don't usually work, then I have to say no to hanging out with my son because that's the time that's, that's allocated to be a parent full-time on that day. Similarly, if I say yes to an event that maybe means I can't do another event that's on the same day, or if we say yes to something, we say no to something else.
Again, I felt like particularly with the health stuff this year, I kept saying yes to stuff, and then I was almost putting exercise and looking after myself on the back burner because these other things were deemed more important. That's not just business stuff, it was anyone that's parents will tell you that you often put your children before everything else. And yes, quite rightly you should in lots of cases, but other times we need to carve out time for ourselves before we are forced to kind of take that time. Number seven, I love this one and I'm smiling because it has been a lifelong lesson, but I feel like I'm finally coming into just owning it and I love it. I have to say I love it.
I am 42 and I would say it wasn't until my forties that I fully owned who I am. I know that sounds very deep, and you might be like, “what does this have to do with business?” Everything has everything to do with business. I've been in my business, this is my seventh year and for the first couple of years, I have to say that I felt very much on the outer of certain kinds of business coaching groups in Australia. I've talked about that previously and I got over myself, but I also have always just gone from that point onwards. I remember having a conversation with somebody and they just said, you do you, and like you know that you do good work and you don't need to be in little cliques or anything else, you just do you and I have.
I've been like, "this is who I am, this is how I show up, this is the kind of crap that I talk about and this is the good stuff I talk about." But also this is me being real in my Sunday email, which was kept quite personal. This is the stuff that I think on Instagram, these are the kinds of things that I'll do in group coaching and it's my own path. I feel like that has taken a while to be, “should I be doing this?” Other people are doing this, “should I be appearing like this?” Other people are doing this and just being like, “no, this is what I want to do.” This feels good to me. This feels like I'm really aligned with my values and beliefs and I'm just going to put my little blinders on, and focus on who I need to help rather than what everyone else in my industry might be doing or not doing.
I feel like since I've done that a couple of years ago, I've been working on it bit by bit, but I feel like probably the last three years at least, I have just done my thing and just turned the behind itself and not it's not that I'm blind to see what other people are doing, but I'm not focused on it. I'm just genuinely not. I honestly feel like there's so much work out there. I work with business coaches, I help some incredible business coaches to become better coaches. I feel like I've finally just gone, “you know what I'm doing me and the right people who feel like I'm the right fit will find me and other people won't and it's all good.” I love that I'm in that space and if anyone's listening who's not in that space yet, know that with work and time, you'll get there and you'll feel a hundred percent confident in what you are doing.
No need to look at what anyone else is doing in your space. Number eight, prioritize you. I know that if people are listening to this particular if you are in retail listening to this, you may well be thinking, well that is bloody hard to do and it is really hard to do, but if we don't do it, who's going to do it for us? No one else is going to prioritize you the way that you need to prioritize yourself. What could that look like? It could look like coming into work 40 minutes later if you have a team and the second you get to work, everyone is on you, maybe you go home a couple of hours early on a certain day and you just go for a walk or go to a cafe.
I have had one client recently who is doing a lot of work in a beautiful part of the world. When she has to do a site visit or anything else, she's taking 45 minutes before that site visit and just wanders around the beach and getting a coffee and just taking that time for herself in her day and the business that she has set up to prioritize herself. Likewise, it could be earlier this year I enrolled in a class at Clay Space, which is amazing if you're in Melbourne and you want to do ceramics or wheel throwing, that is run by Daisy Cooper and it is just wonderful. I enrolled myself in a class and that is something that I wouldn't usually do because I'd be like, "I don't have that much time with my family anyway and it's the night and it's every week for a certain amount of time."
I did it even though I do have lots of time with my family. By that, I meant time with my husband because the kids are asleep at the time that I'm going out. The other thing I did was a great cupcake decorating course I have to say by My Pantry Door in Melbourne. It was a Sunday afternoon and as a parent, I think you can often get into this trap of thinking, “the weekends are for the family.” I can't be selfish and do that. I just loved it. I totally prioritized myself. Another thing I started doing was going to flotation tanks at Beyond Rest in Collingwood. Such a great place. Shout out to Beyond Rest, if anyone has not tried floating tanks, they're amazing. You are literally forced to switch off you.
You can't see, you can't hear, you can't feel anything because you're literally floating. It is amazing. I thought I might be claustrophobic, but I was not. These are the things, and they might sound really small to other people, but I don't think I have done these things for years. I work and I definitely have a work-life balance. I look after my children a lot and love that and have a great relationship with my husband. I've got good friends, but I wasn't necessarily taking that time out just for myself and that was really important. Number eight, prioritize you. Maybe in the new year, you may be thinking, there's that class I've really wanted to do, I'm going to go, I'm going to sign up for it. It might not even be a paid class, maybe it's something online that you find.
I also did a couple of classes on Domestika. You'll probably get all the ads now that you're listening to this, but it's an online platform for classes. I also did a masterclass with the masterclass platform. I feel like I really did prioritize myself way more than I ever have this year. And that is something that I'm going to keep doing. Number nine, marketing can be fun. I tell this to people all the time and obviously, I'm a marketer and I've been in marketing for 22 years plus. I've always known that marketing is fun, but I think again, we can get sort of trapped particularly the longer that you're in business kind of doing the same thing over and over. It doesn't necessarily feel that fun all the time.
This year I did a few different things in my marketing and it felt really fun. I have to say some of them didn't feel as fun as others, but I mean I find this podcast such a fun thing to do. I'm literally just riffing. I feel like I'm talking to a friend. This year I did reels I had a bit of fun testing a couple of other things, which are coming next year. I just found myself enjoying a lot of marketing again, I pretty much mostly enjoy marketing. Probably 70 to 80% I should say. But there is a bit like everyone else where it just can become tedious or overwhelming. I just love that. If you're listening to this and you're thinking, I certainly don't feel like my marketing's fun, I would urge you to just take a bit of time and think about what would make it fun.
Is it research? Is it going on some research trips? Is it testing some new camera equipment? What will make it fun for you? Because marketing is fun, it's experimenting. We are like scientists and that is fun to see what works if I do this, if I shift here maybe I could try this, maybe I've seen something fun happen on TikTok and I'm going to have a go at that. It's fun. It can be really fun if we let it be. That's number nine. Marketing can be fun. Number 10, another massive one. I thought about not putting this one in, but I think it's so important is the idea of really appreciating what you have this year. If we think about all the things that have happened this year, there is an incredible amount of inequity and inequality for First Nations people.
This year we just saw so much of that in terms of racist attacks, murders, the justice system, really not bringing justice so much of that, their war in Ukraine. I remember watching people that were bunking down with their kids and women who had just had babies in these basements trying to breastfeed and it was just horrific. It's still going. That's the sad thing. It is still going. And yet we sort of become sensationalized to seeing this. Also, just in terms of incredible the amount of people that are absolutely struggling right now to pay their bills that are having to choose between food and rent or food and petrol. This year has been a huge one for just even if things feel really crap, to count your blessings and not to think, "I'm not as bad as them, but to think what do I like?"
I have to be thankful for it. I'm literally looking out onto this beautiful bushland in North Warrandyte. This view from my office always makes me smile. There're roses, there are little rabbits running around often there's a cooker bar, there are lots of cockatoos that come, and there are lizards if it's hot. It's just beautiful to look at and that alone doesn't cost anything, but it's also bringing so much joy. I think so many times in life we don't focus on those small things that do bring joy. Even the other night I was lying with my son while he fell asleep and we had toilet training. At the moment, it is not fun at all. I have to say it's awful. Literally going to break me. But I was lying with him and just listening to his little body breathing and falling asleep and I thought, this is perfection, this is so beautiful and it brings you down to earth.
There are moments like that for all of us throughout our days. That was just number 10. Just count your blessings. That was a huge lesson for me. Actually, when I went for my first walk, my first proper hilly walk in the North Warrandyte, which was only a few weeks ago, I cried. I was gushing, but I had at least one tear come down. So often, particularly as women, we berate our bodies. We are not thankful for them. We just look at like what's wrong with them all the time or what we perceive to be wrong with them. And to think, "my body has healed." I still have lots of healing to do, but it has got to a point where I can go back on these walks. Like it was just incredible.
Something that I'd taken for granted just walking out the door and going for this beautiful walk in the morning. I hadn't been able to do that for months. And to be able to do it and to be like, "I have gone from this particular place to be able to do this was just so beautiful." That is a moment that I will remember literally forever. Those are the moments that sometimes we can get so busy and worried about these things that we perceive are so horrible happening to us, and yet not focus on some of the good things that are happening to us all the time. Just in front of our faces. Number 11, a big one as well, is to keep coming back to your values and beliefs as a business owner. A big part of my year this year was to reevaluate where is this business going.
I've talked about the rebrand. It is happening. Again, letting go of perfection. I was like, "it has to be done by the end of this year." Absolutely has to be done. I don't think it's going to be done by the end of this year but that's okay. It'll happen. But one of the things when I was looking at the rebrand and where is this business going. We've been doing this for seven years now and where I want to be in another seven years was to come back to my values and beliefs as a business owner and the values of the business itself.
What does it really mean to live up to that value of freedom and live up to alignment, curiosity, creativity, education, and kindness? What does it mean to live up to those values and what does that mean for our products, for hiring, and for onboarding clients? Like all of these things, we are changing so many of our systems next year and I'm just excited about it and I'm here for it. And I love that lesson of whenever you are worried about something in business or confused or uncertain, come back to your values and beliefs because they will guide you every single time. We're at the halfway mark. To recap number one, health comes first. Number two, let go of perfection. Number three, I just have the best clients in the world. Number four, looking at how can I make this easier. Number five, trust the energy.
Number six, saying yes equals saying no. If you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. Number seven, you just do you put the blinders on you just do you and get confident in owning who you are. Number eight, prioritize you. Put yourself as a priority. Number nine, marketing can be fun. Number 10, count your blessings. And number 11, your values and beliefs will always guide you. Number 12, I came back to the importance of money mapping. Now I say this to every single client. I work through money mapping with every single client because it is so important to understand where is my money coming from. Where is it going? Where are the profitable revenue streams? Where are the recurrent revenue streams? And how am I going to reverse engineer my marketing to hit those goals? Now, if this is something you've never done, we actually have a course which is called Money Mapping, and you can find it at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop.
We'll link to it in the show notes. That course has literally helped hundreds of people. Now my clients go through that course, but we have a lot of people who just buy that course as a standalone product and they will email and be like, "I've never done this." I've been 15 years in business and I've never sat down and done this. It is so simple and so effective. For me, looking at the rebrand, looking at my health, all these things, I had to come back and I do money mapping pretty much twice a year. But this year I actually did it four times and looked at where I wanted to go. What kind of direction do I want to have? Which other revenue streams do I not want to bring in, which are working really well? Which ones need to be tweaked?
Super important. Number 13, I think this year really taught me the compound impact of marketing. Now I'm very aware of that. If you think about compound interest, it is one that a lot of people are familiar with. You put money in the bank or you put money in shares and it grows not every time we share and not every time in the bank. But in terms of marketing, I think so often people look for the new and the next and the new and the next rather than being consistent and staying and doing something consistently. This podcast has been going since, gosh, July, I think 2020. It has done wonders for this business, but I'm seeing more and more just this compound impact of this podcast from people all over the world who are contacting us, people who are coming to group coaching, people who are booking in for coaching, people who are shouting about us on their own podcast, like as in shouting us out, not shouting, not like negatively shouting.
People that are mentioning us, people that are reading the book for the first time. I mean the book, we have seen so many people, the compound impact of that book. The compound impact of the marketing channels that we have worked on this podcast, my Sunday email, and the book, none of those is social media. I know people think I hate social media, but I don't think social media is an incredible tool. We use it, but it is not a marketing strategy. And you should always focus on the marketing channels you own and that you can control and then utilize those other channels for amplifying that and connecting with more people. I really felt the compound impact of Sunday email, which has been going on for years and years now. If you're not on that, you can get onto the Sunday email over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/subscribe.
This podcast and then my book, Passion Purpose Profit. If you have not read that, go out and read it. It's a really good one. You can find that at your local library or you can just search online for Passion Purpose Profit. If you have a bookshop or a small business gift shop near you, please try and support them because a lot of them carry the book as well. That is number 13, understanding the compound impact of marketing. The other thing, number 14, which kind of goes to this as well, is just the compound impact of being consistent. Consistency, I always say consistency is key. Whenever you are choosing your marketing, you want to think about at what frequency can I truly be consistent. Don't choose something because somebody else is doing it or don't choose something because you think, the algorithm's going to like me more if I do this.
You want to be consistently giving value to people and doing so at a frequency that works for you and for them. With my Sunday email that has been consistently coming out every single Sunday, no matter what else is happening in my world, that comes out. I think that consistency also really helped this year, particularly when things almost when things were going wrong, it helped even more so with my back, I was able to still put that Sunday email out and tell people what was going on. I really felt that that consistency drove connection because people understood you're a real person and this is what's happened. I had so much feedback, as I said before, hundreds of emails, hundreds of DMS. I wish I could compile them all into a report on chronic pain in Australia and all over the world. I just felt that compound consistency also had a massive impact on the business as well.
Number 15, don't be afraid to turn down work. This year at the start of the year, I was asked to speak at two events on the same day. One was the Finders Keepers Summit in Brisbane and one was the Women in Business event in Nillumbik. Now one is in Brisbane and I'm in Melbourne, which required flying. The other one was literally around the corner from me. I'm really excited, I think I'm working with Finders Keepers on their next business summit in Melbourne, which is very exciting. We'll be talking about that closer to the date. But I had to say, I'm going to lose out on this work because I'm choosing this other work because right now Nillumbik came to me first.
But also this is okay that these situations and these opportunities will come up again. I think sometimes to trust in that. Now that's one example. I actually wanted to do both of those really badly and I was like, “of course, they're on the same day.” But the other thing that sort of was a lesson in this as well as I actually turned down quite a few clients this year and for some of them, it was easy that we just did not have a value alignment. For other people, it was harder because I felt that potentially from their side we were aligned, but there were certain things that trust the energy that sort of showed up on a conversation or through email or the way they talk to my staff, not knowing that I also see those emails.
Don't be afraid of turning it down. I know that can be easy for someone like me to say where people have had this perception that you're doing so well and all these other things and we are, we are doing well. But it's not to say we are doing a massive renovation on our house that is going to cost a palm. We are going into a recession like everybody else. We have a child that is coming up to high school in the next couple of years, which we want to save a lot of money for, and so on. Turning down work for anyone I think can be a bit of a scary thing. But if you know that that work is just going to cause a whole lot more stress in your life or is not in alignment with your values or is just not the right fit right now, don't be afraid to do that because so often, I've learned this lesson again and again when you say no to that, you are opening up a space for something else, even better to come along.
It's like I said at the start, if you say yes to something, you say no to something else. It's the same in reverse. If you say no to something, quite often you're opening that space to say yes to something in the future. That is number 15. Don't be afraid to turn down work. Number 16, the pitch does not always need to be huge. I work with people quite often on their pitch. Pitching whether it's a partnership, sponsorship, pitching to get on a podcast, pitching editorial, like a whole bunch of things. I'm not a PR person, but PR sometimes does come into marketing and I will work with people on their pitch. I don't do the pitching for them. But one of the things that come up is also that if you see a great opportunity and it feels right, it doesn't need to be this big elaborate proposal every single time.
For myself this year I saw an email that just went out from my local council about business and I just replied and said, “Hey, I'm in the area. If ever you want someone to want to a rec workshop or anything else like that, I'm available.” I live in North Warrandyte and literally just was like, here's more about me. That was my website. It was a very casual email I almost did not expect a reply from. And not only did I get a reply, but that led to the Women in Business event, which was for a hundred women in my area which is fantastic to do. I got to curate a panel and everyone got a copy of my book and it was really well paid. And then I also worked with them again on a business program.
I did a business mentor program where I worked with, I think it was 15 small business owners. Again, the council pays you for your time and then those people apply and get and they're not paying for it. It's like a grant kind of thing. I worked with some incredible small business owners and many of whom I'm still in connection with at the moment and some of whom who've actually become clients as well. From that one email that was very casual, it was not this big elaborate pitch, I almost wasn't thinking when I sent it. That actually resulted in quite a substantial amount of work plus a lot of connections in my local community. That is number 16. The pitch doesn't always have to be huge and big. Again, it goes back to that idea of letting go of perfection.
Number 17, and this is a big one. I work with clients as well, trust those you have invested in. Now for me, this was a big one with my physio, I have to shout out Grant Freckleton, I think that's his surname. He's one of the directors at Fisca, which is a physio location, a physio space firm, and a physio space near me. Grant was my mother's physio and he has worked with my husband, he's worked with me before. When my back went out I went to see him and the first few times that I saw him and I was seeing him sometimes twice a week if not more, I was not in a great mindset.
At first, I thought this is going to be fixed in a couple of weeks. It certainly was not. And Grant being a professional has seen this many times and kept saying, this is a process, this is a process. It's long, it's slow, but if, if you do the work and you trust in the process 83%, I think he said 83% of people will feel better after three or six months. He is like let's see if you're in that other 17%, but until you've done all the work until you've trusted the process, then we just don't know. It was very much playing in that uncertainty, I was incredibly uncertain. Anyone that's had chronic pain will tell you that it feels like it'll never leave. And so it got to the point of probably a month in and I thought, “this is not just going away like something else.”
The neurosurgeon was saying, you absolutely need surgery and there's nothing wrong with the surgery, I have to say, but I didn't want to go down that path until I exhausted every other possibility. I had to really trust in him and in him knowing what he was doing. I'm sure I probably annoyed him quite a bit cause I was like, “I've read this book on Mind-Body Connection and I'm watching this documentary and I'm doing this” and he was always incredibly respectful of anything that I brought in like that. I just have to say that I really had to trust you know what you're doing and I'm going to trust this process. Likewise, in business, so often I see people that hire particularly senior staff members who have had extensive experience, and sometimes there's a, a want to want to micromanage or to oversee everything rather than potentially letting that person come in and help guide because that's their experience and that's what they're coming in.
Of course, that doesn't work every single time. Some people are just not the right fit, but a lot of the time we invest in things and then don't want to kind of really trust the process and trust the person in whom we've invested. That was a big one for me to really trust that my physio would help me in whatever way that he could get to the point of feeling better. And 10000% he has. He watched me go through just coming in crying a lot of the time, everything hurting, every tiny touch that he made me being like, "you look like you're stabbing my back through to me being able to bend, and every time that I was able to do something and he must see hundreds of clients a week."
He truly looked like he was celebrating it with me. Like, “look at how you can bend, look how you can do this.” Even last time I was in, I see him still, he was like, yeah, your legs getting stronger, you couldn't do that last time. Like, he is there for the progress and he is obviously very caring and very good at what he does, but it's also me coming to that table and saying, I trust you, I'm investing in this and I'm going to trust you. That was a big one, trust in those you invest in. Number 18, be your own parent. Now, this is something that Mel Robbins is one of the first people, I kind of heard this and she talks a lot about no one's coming to save you. You have to kind of do the work yourself this year with everything going on.
It wasn't just my back, we also lost my father-in-law, which was incredibly heartbreaking and still is. And other things that came up in our personal lives and in my business as well that I really wanted my parents around. I really wanted them around. My parents have both passed away. They both passed away while I was in my thirties. And it's times when things do go wrong, that when you want somebody to take the reins. Like you want someone to comfort you, you want someone to make time for you. You want someone to be like, it's all going to be okay. I have to say that in those times when you are technically an orphan and you don't have parents, I don't have any other family in Australia besides my siblings. We don't have aunts and uncles and other people like that.
We were the only people to come out from Europe when we did. I don't have that kind of older person network, which I really miss. But I had to think, what would my parents have said? What would my mom have done? And can I do those things for myself? Can I comfort myself? Can I make time for myself? Can I make some of my favorite dishes that my mom used to make? Can I maybe listen to an audiobook that my mom would've loved? Can I listen to some Irish music? Can I bring that energy in? Sometimes we do need to be our own parents. You never really grow up, you really do not want your parents to be there for you. But at some point inevitably with the natural progression of life, they won't be.
As sad as that is for people to listen to, particularly if your parents, you're lucky and you still have your parents, there will come a day when they're not there, but they will still live on inside you. It's about tapping into that, but also being your own parent and feeling like, what am I missing right now? What am I feeling? What am I wanting? And how can I cultivate that for myself? Whether it's in your business where you're like, my dad would've really given me some great business advice right now, sitting and thinking, what would he have said if I had brought this to him? Because if you've had a particularly close relationship with a parent and they are no longer there, quite often that knowledge is in you. You know what they would've said the advice that they would've given you.
It's about tapping into being your own parent now on a similar but different path. Number 19, be your own influencer and have to credit this to one of my beautiful clients, Anna from Bungalow Trading, who I had on the podcast. She said you have to be your own influencer. When it comes to your business and talking about your business, getting your business out there, be your own influencer. Rather than thinking, I'm going to go to this random influencer who's going to change my business, be thinking, what would I want that influencer to do? And could I do that myself? Anna is definitely not this really big like I'm just saying, it's, it's not something that maybe was so easy for her to just do. She is someone who also had to work at that and putting herself out there, getting herself out there, being her own influencer and now she owns it and I love, love it.
I think that was such a great lesson that she gave away on this podcast in Episode 230. That was from August this year. Be your own influencer. I've actually even used that in talking events. Always crediting Anna. Anna Chisholm from Bungalow Trading, be your Own Influencer. That was a big lesson to learn and it's something that I'm working on now with the rebrand and you know, certain products that we'll be selling next year to just think about how can I be my own influencer. Thank you Anna for that great lesson number 20, and this is another big one that I think people don't know. I mean maybe we do know it but we don't sort of focus on it, is no one really cares as much as you care about stuff. For instance, my website, I know that a lot of you have messaged us saying when's a new website coming.
I know you want to do it by the end of the year. And that is lovely. I don't think it's going to get done by the end of this year. I have to be realistic about this. I'm literally recording this. Well, my son has got a throat infection, my husband has got a throat infection, and my other son with toilet training. It's just been a time. The priority again, has to be on health first and that means that some of the other stuff might be shifted, it'll come, it'll definitely come in the new year, but I'm not going to berate myself about that because technically whether I launched it right now or whether I launch it in January, February, no one's really going to care. I'm going to care. But no one out there is like, I am totally changing my ideas about Fiona and My Daily Business Coach because their website was not ready on this date.
We let go of perfection. We have these ideas sometimes and we put these abstract rules in place and then if we don't achieve them, we think that everyone is out there judging. No one's out there judging, no one's out there judging. Believe me, I have worked with so many clients on website launches on new things and it is so exciting for you and definitely for, you're doing a lot of marketing then a lot of people will notice and care, but a lot of the time these things happen sort of as slow soft launch and then a big hard launch later down the track when something else is happening. And there's nothing wrong with that. People do sound harsh sometimes, but I think sometimes we need to be reminded that you are not the center of everyone else's universe and while something might be super important to you, some people will not care whether that happens or not.
It doesn't really change their opinion of you. Letting go of what other people think is a big lesson. Number 21, love this. I feel like I learned this again and again. It really goes back to I think owning who I am and also have the best clients. I feel like I am working with people now where it doesn't feel like work a lot of the time. It just feels so aligned. I genuinely look forward to working with all of my clients. I light up when I see them really make a shift in their thinking, I feel like a proud parent. Like it's just like, “you're doing it.” Just like I said, the physio being like, “yeah, this is happening” and I see that progress and it is just wonderful.
I really feel like the best work is when you feel in alignment with your values and beliefs and the work that you do, it genuinely doesn't feel like work. It just feels like this amazing thing that you get to do. I love it. Of course, there are tedious parts of my work that definitely feel like work, but I would have to say that the work that I feel like I've put in for this brand and to build up the business over the last six, seven years has now led to just every client being so aligned. It's just been wonderful. I feel like I'm making genuine connections with people like friendships. It's, it's wonderful. I just love who I work with and I love the work that I do. That's been a big thing this year to be like, this is what I want to do.
When I sat and thought about the rebrand and where do I want to go it was a very small rebrand because I love what I do. I genuinely love what I do. There are certain tweaks we want to make, but I love it. That was a really fun thing to come into and own and be like, this is what I'm doing and I love it. It's number 21. And then the number 22, is always important. But particularly this year, I really learned the power of having close people in your corner. I learned the power of having incredible friendships that I've cultivated as much as those people have cultivated them with me as well. That includes my wonderful partner, Jerome Rivero who has been literally with me through one of the toughest years. I have to say one of the toughest years for him as well, losing his dad.
We are still a team. I think that that backbone of having a really strong partner, having some really incredible friends, that have helped me through some really dark moments this year and hard times and challenging situations that are a lesson of just the importance of making time for those people and cultivating those friendships and not, I always think of the Dolly Parton quote, now I'm thinking of it, I won't get the words right, but it's something like, “don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life,” without those friends and that great partner who's also a friend Jerome, and without my kids and a whole bunch of other people like this year was tough enough.
I can't even imagine what it must have, would it would've been like if I had not had that support network. Another lesson, if you are working to the bone and you're never seeing your friends or family, consider how you can change things next year. Because believe me, when things go wrong, those are the people that are going to get you back up and running and being your best self. That is it. The 22 lessons I've learned from 2022, just going through the last half. Number 12, the importance of money mapping. Number 13, the compound impact of marketing. Number 14, the compound impact of consistency. Number 15, don't be afraid to turn down work. Number 16, your pitch does not always need to be big and perfect. Number 17, trust in those you invest in. Number 18, be your own parent. Number 19, be your own influencer.
Number 20, no one cares as much as you think that they do. I feel like that's quite harsh people might take it the wrong way, but hopefully, you get what I mean by that. Number 21, the best work doesn't feel like work. And number 22, cultivate your friendships and your support network. Thank you so much for listening. I genuinely wish you an incredible end to 2022. Thank you for listening to this. Thank you for being in my support corner. I literally could start crying now. The amount of beautiful DMS that we get about this podcast, about your own lives, and how this has helped, it's just an absolute joy and a privilege to be on your business journey with you. Thank you for being online with me. If you wanted to go through these lessons, you can find the show notes over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/268 and we'll link to that in the show notes as well. If you enjoyed this, I would love it so much. If you could take two seconds and leave a review on Apple or Spotify, it just really helps other small business owners find this. Perhaps one of these lessons is something they really need to learn as well. As I mentioned at the start, group coaching is open. If you'd like to join that, you can find all the information and apply over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/groupcoaching. Thank you so much. I'll see you next year. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
