Episode 360: 5 things to help in uncertain times
In this episode, Fiona shares 5 things about uncertainty to help your business. She also discusses how to overcome mental stress, financial mapping, time management, health management, open communication and the power of giving back. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of reaching out for help
The importance of money mapping
Embracing health management for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being
Addressing the mental headspace of uncertainty
Structuring your week with time blocking
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
There are so many things that you can do that are outside the box to generate more buzz, more traffic, foot traffic into your store and hopefully more sales. Those are the things that can only come when you know your numbers. You can come up with all these ideas, but if your physical store is performing well, there's no, not no point, it may be better your effort to go into getting the online store up and running than to pour more money into the physical store. Not always, but without knowing those figures, it's hard to know where your effort needs to go.
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Welcome to episode 360 of the My Daily Business podcast. Today it's a coaching episode and this one is particularly useful if you are feeling a little uncertain at the moment about everything to do with your business. Before we get stuck into that, I'm going to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on the land on which I record and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that it is a really difficult period in history. I know that a lot of people are in grief and pain. We are seeing immense suffering all over the world. I just want to make sure that you are looking after yourself and if you need help at the moment, please reach out to help.
If you're in Australia, Beyond Blue offers six free mental health coaching sessions. That is with a mental health coach and you can find all about that on the link in our show notes. You can just Google Beyond Blue New Access business owners, anyone with an Australian business number can access that. If you're reading from outside of Australia, I would urge you to look at mental health resources in your own area, but also just reach out to friends. It's the people that we think are doing the best, that actually need some help. That may well be you. It might be you as a business owner who looks like everything is sorted and you are the one that somebody needs to reach out and help. Just don't be afraid to reach out, tell somebody I need a bit of help. If you have absolutely nobody to tell, you can always email us at hello@mydailybusiness.com, send us a DM @mydailybusiness_ or on TikTok my @mydailybusiness, and we'll be happy to chat. Let's get into today's coaching episode.
As I said at the start, there's a lot of uncertainty and I've been working with small business owners for about eight years now in my own business. But I also previously worked in retail roles as head of marketing for major companies both here in Australia and in the UK. I know that this time of year is a really difficult one, particularly for retail businesses where they may be looking at making 50% or more of their annual revenue literally in the next couple of months. It's also the period where with those same businesses they have spent a huge amount of money on stock and inventory and haven't yet sold that through. I haven't seen the benefit and the return on investment of that. This can be a very uncertain time, but I also know, because I've worked with many service businesses that service-based businesses can feel a little uneasy at this time of year as well because they're coming up to a break.
Here in Australia and in the southern hemisphere, we tend to have a bigger break of the year over this period. A lot of offices will shut down for a certain two week period if not more. A lot of businesses who may have used your services such as photography or writing copy may well not necessarily need or require those services for the next couple of months and people have sort of switched off. I've got clients all over the world and whether I'm talking to somebody in the US or Europe or here in Australia, there's a tendency around this time to start thinking, I've kind of switched off for the year. That can have a flow-on effect on service-based businesses that are acquiring that new business to come in. Today I want to talk to both sides, whether you are e-commerce, whether you are service, whether you're a physical shop, or whether you are an online education hub, everyone goes through uncertainty and a lot of people, particularly at this point of the calendar year where we have so much external factors going on as well. Which are really causing people anguish and pain.
What can you do when you are in this time of the calendar year but also in this mental headspace? I thought today I'd go through five things that I would advise clients to look at if they come to me and they are in a state of uncertainty. I have to say that the majority of clients when they do start working with me reach out to other business coaches because there is a level of uncertainty around what they're about to do. That could be taking on clients, it could be firing people, it could be restructuring the business, it could be getting the business ready to sell, it could be starting the business or moving the business into new territory, or creating a new collection. We are inundated with uncertainty as business owners, but I know that at this time of year, people can feel particularly uncertain about their business.
I'm going to go through five areas that I would focus on sort of five activities that I would suggest. If you want to go through these in text format, you can find the show notes for this over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/360. The first one should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has ever worked with me or listened to this podcast for some time. That is to map your money. A large part of the stress comes from an understanding or maybe a lack of understanding around your cash flow. Particularly at this time of year, retail businesses may have spent huge amounts of money on stock and inventory for the busiest period of the year and they are not reaping the rewards of that. They may be worried that people won't actually buy it at full price therefore their profit margin is going down and there's so much pressure as well at this time of year to take part in all sorts of sales.
I was just talking to my husband last night about something and he said, “Have they really started? I thought those sales wouldn't start until the end of November.” I was like, people are moving them earlier until probably we're going to be in the sale period in September basically the whole way through till January. I know it's not really that funny for retail businesses, but the first thing that I would do is to map your money. What does that look like if you have never done this before, there are two numbers that you absolutely want to be clear on. If somebody asked you off the top of your head at any given time of the day on any day of the week, you would be able to answer them.
The first is your survive rate. That is literally the amount of money you need to survive. For example, that may be staff that are absolutely essential in the business. That also will be things like subscriptions to different technology and platforms. If you're an online store, you may run through Shopify and you'll have certain costs that are associated with that. If you're another type of business, you may have Squarespace, Wix or anything else. You have the website costs. Part of your survival rate is because you absolutely need those to function as a business. There will be other things that are less essential. When you go through your technology stack or your subscriptions, you may decide that those things are not part of your survive rate because we could still function without them.
Yes, it might be a little harder but we could still function. You have all of the costs associated with just running the business. In my business, part of my survive rate will include all the costs for the equipment that I use such as this microphone if I have to update it. I have various Apple products and subscriptions to Zoom, and I have subscriptions to the hosting platform for this podcast. This podcast is very much a part of this core business. I would say it's the biggest marketing channel that we have outside of our Sunday email. If you're not on the Sunday email, get on it. You can subscribe at My Daily Business. Those costs are imperative to running the business as is the cost of staff that work for me in the business because I have had those staff or somebody in that role for at least six years.
It would be a huge change and hinder the business if I were to lose those staff members. That is the survive rate for the business. Then within that is the survive rate for me or you as the business owner and how much you need to take into your home life to survive. You may be a solo operator in life and in business you understand all the costs that come with your life. You may have rent or mortgage, you may have pet fees and vets and pet food and all sorts of things. You may have a gym subscription, psychology. They are in your survive rate. You have the survive figure for the business and then you need to know how much you need to pay yourself from the business in order to survive in your home life.
For other people who may not be solo operators or in life and business, you may contribute a certain percentage to the household bills, mortgage, rent, insurances, children, and elderly parents that you look after. All sorts of things need to come into that survive rate. That survive rate is the businesses that survive figure all the platforms, tools, inventory, and commercial rent. Then you have the number that you need to pay yourself from the business. If you are also in Australia, I would urge you to pay yourself super and superannuation should be part of your survive rate. It is not a luxury for most people, it is absolutely essential. You should be putting that to one side, even if it's a self-managed super fund or something else. That is your survive rate.
That is the first number that you want to know when it comes to your money mapping because you need to know that your revenues are actually dipping and we were supposed to hit this number. As long as you know that your survive rate is being hit, it gives you a sense of calm. Obviously you don't want to just be aiming for that figure. I know that my bills will be covered, and I know that we can still pay people in the business. I know that I can still cover what I need to cover in my household and in my life outside of business. That is your survive rate, that's the first number and important for you to know. The second number is more exciting and you really need to focus on it.
That is your thrived figure. That is your survive rate plus the things that you really want to get done in you know, the next 6 to 12 months. That may be hiring somebody else to come in, maybe if you have a physical store you might say we actually really need to put in the wages for somebody else to be in this store so that I'm not working seven days a week. You may also have in there things like new uniforms, and a studio space, maybe you need a larger studio space to expand the business. All sorts of things will come into it. We want to do a rebrand, we want to do a refresh. I want to work with a business coach. I have to say yes, business coaches are amazing, and I work as one. However, they are not absolutely essential and I know that's probably shooting myself in the foot but a business coach is a luxury as is any kind of mastermind or any group that you're in.
They can be absolutely instrumental and transformational for your business, but when it comes to your survive rate, that is literally what the business needs to survive. There may be other ways that you can get that information, but in your thrive figure you might decide I want to be at a mastermind, I want to go to this conference, I want to be part of this membership model, I want to have a business coach, I want to work with a business coach the whole year. All of those extra things have to be added to your survive rate to come up with your thrive figure. Once you have those two numbers, then the money mapping actually happens, which is you need to understand what your revenue streams are and how much each revenue stream is bringing in. You want to have some sort of way of tracking this.
It can be a basic Excel sheet that literally lists out here my revenue streams and here's the goal attached to each revenue stream and then here's how much that means per month for example, that we're bringing in. You may have things that are seasonal, it may not be per month, it might be per quarter or however, you decide. But you want to know, this is my thrive figure, how am I going to achieve it using these different revenue streams? If you're a product-based business, you may have your online store, you might have your physical store and then you may also have things like subscriptions or some sort of recurrent revenue. If you're a service-based business you may have retainer clients. That's your recurring revenue. You may have one-on-one kind of coaching or one-on-one services that you provide.
Then you may have group stuff that you do. If you're service-based, be selling things like online courses or books or some other kind of programs. Then once you have your thrive figure understanding, these are the revenue streams and this is how much each revenue stream needs to bring in order for us to hit that thrive figure. Let's say right now you're sitting there and you're feeling a little uncertain about money, you sell products and you have a shop and an e-commerce component. You have an online store and a physical store, you may be looking at your revenue streams and going, but the online store is really underperforming. What is it about what we've done in our marketing in the past or what we are not doing at the moment that is leading to that decline?
Maybe it could also be that you've updated your website recently and people can not actually find things. Maybe you have slowed down on your email marketing you're not driving any kind of repeat purchases or money coming in from people who have already bought from you before. Maybe you are not thinking outside the box in terms of the marketing that you're doing. If you are a physical store selling products, you may well be like, let's say it was reversed and your online store is performing well, but your physical location is down in terms of where it should be against your thrive figure and that goal that you had for that revenue stream, that is your physical store. You might think what are we doing with local area marketing? That will be things like looking at the local area and figuring out how we can collaborate, how we can do shopping nights or anything that's going to drive people in-store.
Let's say you're a homewares business, you might decide, you know what coming up towards the end of the year we are going to look at how to put on an incredible feast for your family or whoever it is that you're celebrating. You may actually have a stylist who comes in for an evening and you have a special shopping night. You may have another shopping expedition where you drive people who have an Airbnb around your area. You might be like if you have an Airbnb in this area, we're going to have a special night, we're going to have a stylist who shows us how to style the bathroom. Also, you could even have a chef, let's say you sell kitchen products, you might have a chef coming in to show people how to cook, how to whip up really easy entrees and can pay type food for entertaining at this time of year.
There are many things that you can do that are outside the box to generate more buzz, more traffic, literally foot traffic into your store and hopefully more sales. Those are the kinds of things that can only come when you know your numbers, you can come up with all these ideas. If your physical store is performing really well your effort is getting the online store up and running rather than pouring more money into the physical store. Not always, but without knowing those figures, it's hard to know where your effort needs to go. When you are uncertain about money, it can be easy to panic and start doing all this like scattergun, I would say ad hoc marketing is not strategic and is really like pressing a panic button and you're not actually thinking, this revenue stream is not performing well and let's think about when it has been performing well, what will we do?
What have we stopped doing? Often I work with clients who are 10 or 15 years into a business and when we bring these sorts of things up they'll be like, we used to do that, we used to do that when I first opened. We used to have those and we just stopped doing them but they were really good when we did them. It's just bringing all those ideas to the fore again and looking at your networks, your connections, your collaborations, potential partnerships, all of those things that can help. If you're a service-based business and you're looking at a revenue stream, let's say for example you are a photographer you have campaign shoots that you do, but you used to do staff photos and you used to do going into kind of corporates and offices and doing the behind the scenes or who are we or the team photos.
It could be something that you used to do with certain companies and then you kind of just forgot to get in touch with them. Maybe during the pandemic, they shut down their office for a while. There wasn't actually staff there and there wasn't really the need to do it. It's about looking at that and going, you know what those retainer clients or those clients that were booking us at least four times a year have kind of fallen away and we are not really marketing to them. It's going back to thinking, “How do we market?”. Is it as simple as emailing more and getting in touch more? Is it offering some new package for them that they sign up for the next year? Especially if they're a bigger company where staff are often being, I was going to say replenished is the wrong word, but where new staff are coming in and that brand wants to create a consistent tone with the images that they have on their website or in store or in presentations or proposals.
In both cases, whether your product or service or both, sometimes we can get complacent with our marketing and it's only when we get to this time of year that you start looking at your revenue streams and looking at where are we not performing and then how can we reverse engineer our marketing to hit those goals and to see that performance rise. That's the first thing, money mapping My Daily Business. If you want to go into this in more detail, we have a course that is on this, it's a short self-paced course, you can find it at Courses — My Daily Business and that is just the money mapping course. We've had hundreds of people do that. Many people have said this has transformed the way I look at my finances and just a caveat, we are not ACFO, I'm not an accountant but I've worked with thousands of businesses now and understand the really important things that people need to get clear on.
Just to recap with money mapping, you want to know your survival figure, your thrive figure, your revenue streams and how each of those is performing. Once you have that knowledge, often that can be enough to alleviate some of the uncertainty. Even if those numbers that come up aren't great, at least you have a starting point as opposed to just going, it's all crap, it's not working. At least you know, this part isn't working. What are we doing to rectify things? That's the first thing out of the five things that I think can help with uncertain times. The first is money mapping. The second is to look at your health. I know this can seem a little like, I don't even have time to look at my health, but I trust the people who are saying that or thinking that need to look at it the most.
What can this look like? It can look like how you are making time for your health. With uncertainty can come stress. Stress has a major impact on our physical, mental, and emotional health. If we are being proactive about our health, chances are we are in a better position physically, and mentally to cope with stress and uncertainty when it arises. It's about being proactive and not only looking after your health when things force you into looking after your health. There is this great, I think it's an Arabian proverb that says “ He who has health has hope and he who has hope has everything.” I feel like so often we only look after our health because something is hurting or we only look after our mental health when we are almost at a breaking point. You want to be proactive about your health and for some people that will look like going to the gym a certain amount of times.
For others, it might be a daily walk for other people. Maybe you're not in the position to walk. You might be doing something on YouTube or doing some stretches or yoga or whatever way that you can really look after your physical health so that you actually have the strength to deal with things. That could be physical strength if you are in the product-based business. But it could also be just that resilience of I feel strong, I feel healthy at the moment. Then with your mental health, I mean there are many ways to look after your mental health proactively of course if you need it I would be reaching out to your GP and going to see a professional. But there are also mental health coaches out there. I know that I think I mentioned at the start, if you are in Australia, the new access program by Beyond Blue offers six free mental health coaching sessions for small business owners.
If you're not a small business owner and you don't have an ABN, I think they have another program for that. But there are also other things like meditation, and prayer if you may be somebody who wants to go to synagogue, temple, mosque or church. Maybe that's something that part of looking after your health is looking after your spiritual health. It may be journaling, it could be spending some time with friends, it could be small things like watching comedy or listening to comedy. I was looking at some podcast rankings recently and the most popular, I think it was the most popular podcast in Australia are comedies from comedians. I thought that's a really interesting thing and I wonder if that goes up and down depending on what is going on globally. I would imagine that it goes up because people really need to seek out that joy and that happiness somewhere when things feel really dark and hopeless.
I would be looking at your health and how much effort are you actually putting into that versus how much you're putting into things like growing your Instagram. I would look at, every week at the start of the week, what am I doing to look after my health. For me, I go for daily walks or I go for probably a long walk with the dogs five times a week. I also do some journaling. I recently bought a really nice little gratitude journal from Clever Fox. I have mentioned Clever Fox before. I have their budgeting journal and their gratitude journal is pretty, pretty nice and it's just a very simple thing. You kind of fill it in in the morning and you fill it in the evening. We will of course link to that in the show notes.
But looking after your health that you're not forced into looking after it, you are looking after it proactively. Again, at the start of the week figuring out, for me, I figure out when I'm going to go for my walks. It's usually the same day every week. I have recently done a podcast on how I actually get out in the morning. We'll link to that in the show notes. But looking at that, I also look at my amazing assistant. We look at my calendar and she will sometimes send me a WhatsApp and be like, “Hey, it looks like you're quite busy on this day. Do you want me to move something so that you've got enough time to have lunch or just have a breather between sessions?” The other thing that I'll do is at the start of pretty much every session I do a one-minute meditation with whoever I'm in a session with.
Whether that's a one-on-one client or group coaching, or if I'm just coming in and doing a master class for somebody else's programs, I will often do a one minute meditation at the start. Just some deep breathing to relax everything myself. I also try to go a couple of times a quarter. It's not always a float tank. I just went to one on the weekend. I often use beyond rest in Collingwood. That's not an ad, they're just really great. That is also something like resetting the system because you are without any of your sensors for anyone who's never done it. It is just really amazing. I know some people find it claustrophobic or they feel a bit nauseous. I haven't had those issues myself, but it's just figuring out how I am looking after my health at the start of each week and then at the start of each quarter. What am I doing and how can I increase that over time?
I was just talking to my husband recently about this with my walks. We've recently moved house. My walk has gone from about 45 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes, but I have recently cut that down to an hour and 10 minutes and I'm trying to get it to less than an hour. That is increasing my strength in order to, it's a very hilly walk to be able to get through that in that space of time. I've got these little kinds of markers of increasing my health over time. But health is also about connection. If you're working for yourself, sometimes you're a solo operator or like me, I work from home, sometimes you can have this feeling that like, I'm being social, I'm on Zoom or I'm talking to suppliers or manufacturers or whoever, but I'm actually not getting out and being social with friends or things like that.
This was something that came up for me during the pandemic where I realized that I had stopped being as social as I used to be. I created a book club. I've made some really good friends out of that book club that I see more regularly. Then I've got other friends that I've been like, you know what, I am going to set a date every quarter and we are catching up, we're going for dinner or we're going to their people's house for lunch. That social element is really important to your health as well. I don't know if any of this is making sense, but when it comes to your health, which is a second point of the five that I'm going to talk about with facing uncertainty, looking after your health is being proactive.
What do you need for physical health? What do you need for mental health and what do you need for your spiritual health? Making sure that you put the effort in to be proactive about that stuff and not letting it slide because it doesn't matter how much money you earn from your business or how successful in you know quotes, it is if you don't have your health, you really don't have anything. I've seen that, I've seen it with clients where their mental health is not at a great point and their business is amazing from the outset they don't feel fulfilled or I've seen people, I've been in there firsthand where last year when my back went out I just literally couldn't do anything and everything came to a crashing halt. I'm super proactive about looking after my back.
You don't want to be in that space. The other thing with health is to look at whether there are any changes you can make in your work environment. I recently bought a walking pad, which is kind of like a treadmill. When I'm doing sort of tedious things, not when I'm talking to clients, but when I'm doing, I don't know, admin or other things that need to get done, I'll put on the treadmill pretty low setting, but I'll just get some extra steps in and it's really good for my back, especially when I've got my standing desk up. Really looking at your environment, are there things that could help you? I also listen to a chill sounds playlist to you know, bring stress down and other such things. There's so much you can do for your health and it doesn't have to be big, oh I'm going to run a marathon.
It can just be small changes that you make in say, for example, getting a standing desk and that can do wonders for your health over the long term. That's the second point, health looks after it because that will help you be able to deal with uncertainty and stress. The third point of these five things that can help in uncertain times is time blocking. I know I talk about this all the time, but when you are constantly moving from task to task and different things, you are switching different parts of your brain around and it can take 20 to 40 minutes to get back into doing what you were originally doing. If you're constantly getting interrupted or if you are not time blocking you're working on this thing and then suddenly you get sidetracked and now you're working on this thing and then you're going to go to this part of the business and then you know, later after lunch you're going to do this thing.
It can be difficult to feel like you're actually focusing and getting the best use out of yourself and potentially out of your staff as well. Time blocking has been absolutely game-changing for me. I also feel like when it comes to uncertainty and stress, having a little structure I know can help a lot of people. I know there are lots of creative people who think that somehow structure doesn't work for creative people. I would say that it works even more for creative people because it gives you a sense of almost like in a good way restricting. I once met this guy years ago, he was talking at an event I was at and I remember him saying that creativity works best where it is kind of aligned to a fire and just let it run, it'll kind of go all over.
If you let a fire run but it's in a contained environment, it is incredible how it can burn and the strength and everything else that can come from that. When it comes to creativity, I do think that sometimes putting a bit of a structure around it can actually help you to be more creative. With time blocking, that is an incredible structure. When I started my business, I was writing for different publications. I was doing coaching, I was turning up and running master classes for different people's membership and groups and masterminds. I was doing speaking gigs, I was doing all sorts of things, ghostwriting, doing people's social media, all sorts of stuff. I was just going from task to task and I just felt confused every day honestly. I was like, I don't even know what I need to work on today.
Since time blocking it has been game-changing. This looks like I only see clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have one client I see on Mondays because it works really well for them and they're amazing. I see one client every so often on a Monday, and the rest of my Monday is admin, marketing, recording this podcast included in that marketing, and writing my Sunday email, that's the sort of stuff that has to get done on Monday. Getting back to key things, meeting with my staff. Then Tuesday I mainly do group programs. I do group coaching usually on a Tuesday. If you're thinking about coming into the next group, which we'll start in March 2024, you can find all that info in mydailybusiness.com/groupcoaching. If I do any master classes, it's usually on a Tuesday and usually the morning marketing for your small business is the group.
The course in coaching is always on a Tuesday. Then in the afternoon, I might do master classes for other people speaking gigs. Wednesday I have the day off with my son. Thursday is one-on-one coaching calls. Tuesday and Thursday that's when I talk to people. The rest of the week I am either being a mom full-time or doing my marketing and admin. Things have to get done. I don't come into my office on a Tuesday and I'm like, what am I doing today? Because things have been structured that way. I'm not flicking my brain from my marketing mind and batching content to turn up into a masterclass. When I have my one-on-ones, I usually do them not directly after each other but on that particular day.
I'm in that head space of what I need to be doing. On Tuesdays, I'm in my Headspace with groups and we have a WhatsApp group and getting back to things. Then on Friday is either a day with my son or more recently he was in childcare while I got my second book written. Everything is time blocked and it also means that I can switch off. Instead of stressing about marketing on a Wednesday, it's like cool, I can put my notes together, I can send myself something. But I know that I'll deal with that on Monday because that's my marketing day. Time blocking has been amazing for dealing with uncertainty. It's even within revenue stream mapping, I can work with people on Tuesdays and Thursdays, how many sessions could I do?
For example, one-on-one coaching, and then what does that look like for the year? Then what's my goal if all of those sessions were filled? It can be hugely beneficial. Plus once you time block, you can then add in automation or tools. We use Calendly for example so my clients can only book when I'm actually free. Likewise, if somebody is booking in to come onto the podcast, they can only do that at two particular times on a Monday. It's helping me so much. Instead of being this frenetic, I don't know what I'm doing each day, I know exactly what I'm doing, which can really help me stay calm. Also if there is uncertainty, I know when in the week I can deal with that, which is not usually on a Tuesday or Thursday because IMC clients. That is the third point of the five things that I would suggest.
If you're feeling a little uncertain, first, money mapping, second health, third time blocking. The fourth I would say is really taking the time to share how you're feeling with somebody else. I know this can sound kind of but it can sound a little lighthearted sometimes. It can help when we feel that we are less alone and that we are not the only people going through this. I know that I am in the privileged position of talking to small business owners all of the time. I'm seeing the same things come up over and over. I'll reiterate that and be like, you know what? I had somebody just this morning who was going through the exact same thing. I think that can give people a sense of feeling that it's not just them that's kind of failing or not understanding or not getting this or feeling that it's all too much, that they are not sitting in some sort of cocoon outside of the rest of the world.
That they are part of a group of people who feel very similar. Whether that is talking in terms of you may have a structured approach to meeting other business owners like a group coaching program, an accountability circle, a mastermind or something like that. Or you may have a more casual approach, maybe you've got some friends that are in business and it's just a case of catching up with them and being like, “Hey, how are you going with that?” Or did you want to get a coffee because this is how I'm kind of feeling? I don't know if you are feeling like that and that can be really vulnerable to put yourself out there and do that. But trust me, I would say that 95% of the time other people would really welcome the chance to talk about their own issues and things that they've got going on and not feel like they're the only person that's doing it.
I recently interviewed Odette from Hack Your Own PR and that interview will be up very shortly, I think next week. She was talking about this group. Eight business owners who meet regularly at a restaurant. It's a really lovely way to physically meet up with people and to be able to share your business wins and challenges. I think particularly when you're feeling uncertain, we can tend to pull into ourselves and pull away from that help that can come when we talk and share. What can that look like? It could literally just be a text with somebody. It could be asking maybe an Instagram friend. Hey, would you love to get on Zoom?
Maybe we could just do a half hour call. It doesn't have to be a long thing. As long as it's a win-win and you're both sharing and you are there to listen as well as talk, it can be incredibly helpful. If you are in a group coaching program or mastermind or some sort of accountability group, then the Group Coaching program runs every two weeks, but in that time we also put people together as buddies so they can catch up. We also have a WhatsApp chat group. There are ways to connect and we've definitely had people in the WhatsApp group be like, Hey guys, this is how I'm feeling right now. They're vulnerable and they're brave by putting that out. But every single time there will be many people replying like, that's exactly how I feel too.
You get this sense of comradery and just a real sense that you are not alone in handling all of this. I also think sometimes when you talk and share what they say, a problem shared is a problem halved or something, you can often get some incredible feedback from people where they're like, “Oh really? I don't think that's not how I see it.” Or this is what I think you could do, or I think you're amazing. I think we can be our worst, harshest critic. When we can talk and share, quite often, it's almost like the lens gets pulled away from us and we see reality and we see what's possible. I know that whenever I've shared how I'm feeling with some of my good friends who are business owners, I just instantly feel this sense of relaxation.
I can deal with this. I've got somebody on my side. We can do this together. It's just wonderful. I think the older you get, and particularly if you are like me, I don't have my parents anymore unfortunately. Or maybe you don't have a relationship like that with your parents who are, who are living. Sometimes we can get that sense of just this unconditional support from friends that maybe we could have got from parents or family and for whatever reason we don't have that. It can be a wonderful thing to have that. I think the older you get, the more you realize good friends and good people in your life are important. If you are feeling uncertain about something right now, I would urge you to reach out to somebody. It could be a friend, it could be another business owner, it could be just somebody on Instagram that you're friends with.
Get into the DMs and just have a chat. I'm sure that they would love to support you and also talk to you about what they need and what their challenges are. Many people are going through uncertainty right now. That's number four. The last point is taking action and giving back to others. I've talked before about how I grew up volunteering. My parents were volunteers all their life. We volunteered and then I volunteered as a young adult and then volunteered overseas, worked at a homeless center, volunteered at a homeless center, I should say for a while when I was in the UK and have done various volunteer stints since getting back. I know that whenever I've done that I just feel appreciative of everything that you have and grateful, but also you get a real perspective shift of what people are actually going through.
It's not to compare suffering to suffering because you know your suffering is just the same as somebody else's suffering, maybe to different degrees. I think sometimes volunteering forces us to give and rather than be thinking what do I need? We are thinking about what other people need. Now that could be volunteering, it could also just be mentoring, it could be maybe answering some questions on Instagram and be like, Hey, I'm around for the next 20 minutes. What questions do you have? Just giving back to your community and strengthening those relationships. It could also look like donating. Maybe you're going to do some sort of event or have something for sale at the moment and a percentage of that goes to a cause or a charity or something that you're really passionate about.
It could be looking at how you give back to your local area or community. My son goes to primary school here and they're often having fundraisers. There are other community events, refugee groups and certain places where you might say, Hey, how could I help? I don't know what you need, but I'm putting my hand up to help. It could be in many different ways that you give back often that can just make us feel incredible. You're also doing something good and you're getting outside your head. This uncertainty that we are feeling can be just spiraling inside our heads and snowball. Sometimes all it takes is asking people like, how are you doing? What can I do for you right now? How can I help you with something that gets us outside of that mindset and really helps us?
There are many other things that you can do in times of uncertainty, but I hope that these five money mapping, looking after your health time, blocking, talking and sharing and then taking action and helping others can really help when it comes to alleviating a bit of that uncertainty and knowing where you're going, why you're doing it, but also knowing that you're not alone. I think that one of the biggest things that comes out of times of uncertainty is feeling that we are the only ones who are not getting it, or we are the only ones who are not coping, or we are the only ones who are being challenged. I mean, look around at the world right now, that is absolutely not the case, but it's also about thinking how can I find a way out of this? Uncertainty is part of life, it is going to come sometimes in much stronger doses than others, but it's how can I manage this and how can I move through it in a way that is in alignment with your values, but also helps in terms of your business and the way that you view yourself in the world.
That is it for today's coaching episode, looking at things that can help you when you're feeling uncertain. Believe me, you are not the only one. I talk to small business owners all day long, whether they're clients or people just in the DMS and everyone is feeling this real sense of uncertainty at the moment. I'll leave it with you to go through those and figure out which ones you want to take on board, and which ones you might leave behind. I really hope that there's some helpful stuff in there for you. As I said at the start, all of this will be shown in the show notes, which you can find for this episode at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/360. If you want to get into money mapping and really sort out your revenue streams and understand your money for next year, then definitely go and check out the Money Mapping Course My Daily Business. It's really short, I think it's about an hour and it can do wonders for your business. You can find that at mydailybusiness.com/courses. I'll leave it there. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next time and just know you are not alone.
